CHAPTER ONE

 

Jacquie was poor.

It was hardly her fault, but there it was. Her father had only a manual job and, with four children, there simply wasn't much money for any of them.

Jacquie accepted it as a fact of life, but she had no intention of staying poor for the rest of her life. With grit and determination she had fought her way through A levels, despite having to do a substantial part-time job at the same time and now she was off to a prestigious university. She had scraped enough money together to pay the fees and accommodation and had enough for food as long as she ate simply and cheaply. Well, she would get by; she always had.

Within hours of her arrival she had met the five other students in her residential block and had quickly come to hate them all, despite being a gentle, easy-going sort of girl. They were all from the same upper class private school in the Thames valley. They had immediately spotted her as a state schoolgirl and thus beneath contempt. They mocked her accent, her ordinary, well-worn clothes and her obvious lack of money. Four of the five were boys: Simon, Daniel, William and Jasper were all vile, but the fifth, Celia, irked her particularly. Celia was, Jacquie had to admit, an extremely classy and attractive brunette, although her looks were helped by what seemed to be an infinite amount of quality clothes, very regular visits to a top class hair stylist, lovely jewellery and all the other expensive little things that made her irresistible to the boys. Jacquie would have liked to be friendly with Celia, but the girl was even more cutting than the boys and Jacquie distinctly heard the phrase "cheap blonde" when Celia thought she was out of earshot.

All right, Celia was attractive, but Jacquie was inherently lovelier still. She had a superb figure and a naturally pretty face; but she only had three or four outfits, none of them new or even nearly new, Her blonde hair was neatly shaped but lacked the stylishness of a really expensive hairdo and she couldn't afford more than very basic makeup, simple and (rather too evidently) unostentatious. In short, the boys looked at her, admired her and then moved on to try to chat up Celia. The brunette revelled in it and delighted in rubbing Jacquie's nose in it. Truthfully, Jacquie wanted to spend more time studying than with the boys, but the odd fling would have been nice. Celia, however, quickly homed in on anybody who showed an interest in Jacquie and the brunette was quite happy to go all the way in order to get anybody she wanted - which Jacquie wasn't.

What was annoying Jacquie at one particular moment was that it was lunchtime, she was trying to study in a social area and Celia was holding court with the four boys, telling them very loudly how she had spent last weekend at a wild party at Lord Faversham's mansion, whoever he was, being screwed by Sir somebody or other and another man who was a distant relative of royalty. The whoops of laughter from her audience - who all seemed to know this Lord, to add to Jacquie's feeling of exclusion - distracted Jacquie, but that wasn't the only thing annoying her. She might as well admit it, she was jealous. The only two boys she'd been intimate with to date had come from the same council estate as she and didn't even own a car so they could make out in the back seat. The bushes in the local park were private enough, but they made sex a very seasonal thing.

"God, that girl's got a shriek like a fishwife," came a female voice from behind her.

Jacquie looked up to see a girl she'd seen in classes once or twice, but never spoken to, although she knew the name to be Sandra. "It doesn't seem to put her followers off," Jacquie replied bitterly.

"What, those four chinless wonders? Who cares?" said Sandra dismissively.

That was the start of a friendship for Jacquie. The only thing she and Sandra had in common was their working class backgrounds, but at least it was something. Sandra was reasonably pretty, blonde like Jacquie although rather more tarty, but at least she didn't treat Jacquie like something she'd scraped off her shoe. Even so, Jacquie kept mostly to herself. You can't socialise much as a student when you have absolutely no money. Sandra wasn't well off either, but she bummed drinks off the boys and got by.

 

One day, Sandra came to Jacquie's room. She clearly wanted to talk about something, but wasn't quite sure how to start. Eventually she asked if Jacquie had much money.

"You've got to be joking," Jacquie replied. "About two hundred quid in the bank to last me the term in food and essentials." It would barely be enough.

"Can you get an overdraft?"

"Only if I want to go next term without eating as well. Why?"

"Would you like to earn a load of dosh?"

"Huh! There are loads of students around here and very few part-time jobs. Everything I've tried for had hundreds of applicants and barely paid enough to cover costs of travelling to work anyway."

"This would earn two thousand pounds for a weekend."

Jacquie smothered her surprise. "I'm not robbing a bank," she said.

"It isn't illegal." Sandra hesitated. "Are you a virgin, Jac?"

Jacquie's eyebrows raised still further. "No, but I'm not going on the game either," she said frostily.

"It isn't that - exactly. You ever heard of the Hellfire Club?"

"Vaguely. Wasn't it some Victorian group of lunatics who used to blow their brains out playing Russian Roulette?"

"Maybe; I don't know. But there's a modern group who go for safer but x-rated stuff. I found them on the Internet - I won't tell you what I was looking at when I came across the link. Anyway, they're loaded and horny, they hold occasional weekends of bizarre fun and games and they're looking for good looking girls to help them out."

"An orgy, in other words?"

"Not exactly. Here, have a look."

She handed Jacquie a printout. 'Wanted,' it ran, 'attractive young girls aged 18-21 to provide entertainment for Hellfire Club weekends. The successful candidate will be prepared to wear daring and revealing outfits and tolerate adult fun and games. To be precise, she must be prepared to submit at all times to whatever foul and depraved desires may enter our noble gentlemen's minds. Strict discipline will be maintained including frequent corporal punishment. Full obedience expected. Exceptional rate of pay - £2000 for the weekend plus travel expenses - but candidates should be aware that every penny will be earned.'

"What do you think?" Sandra asked.

"Not something I'd like to do, personally," Jacquie replied, handing the paper back.

"Nor me, but that's a lot of money. Just think how we could get our own back on Celia and her Hooray Henries. Get ourselves some decent outfits, a makeover and we'd soon have the boys chasing us and not her."

Jacquie took the piece of paper from her and read it again. 'Every penny will be earned,' it said. She didn't mind that. Punishment? She wasn't a sissy, she could take a whacking if she had to. Adult fun and games? Not her scene, but she wasn't a baby. Two thousand pounds would transform her current purgatory: she could eat better, have some decent clothes, go out from time to time and yes, it would shut up Celia and her gang. Jacquie realised that she was being tempted.

"Nobody here would know." Sandra cut across her thoughts. "They don't give an exact address, but it's in Yorkshire. We're in Manchester, so no danger of meeting anybody we know. One bad weekend and then we'd be a lot better off."

"Are you going, then?"

"I wouldn't have the guts to go on my own; but I would if I had someone I know to go with. It'd be a lot easier if there were two of us."

"Assuming we both got in." But Sandra was pretty enough, she had a good figure and Jacquie didn't feel she looked too bad herself.

"We won't know unless we try."

Jacquie didn't reply. Sandra added, "did you read the bit about the deposit?"

Jacquie looked lower down the sheet. 'In order to discourage half-hearted girls and to avoid a situation where a carefully arranged weekend is ruined by last minute withdrawals through cold feet, successful candidates are required to lodge a deposit of £500 each against early giving up. The deposit will be returned on completion of the weekend.'

"We'd have to be totally committed to it," Sandra said.

Jacquie nodded. "I'll think about it."