"Welcome! So glad you could go on short note." The woman in the olive shirt and the deep black, pencil skirt who opened was almost as tall as Louise and had a warm smile. "I'm Elizabeth, call me Liz, and you're Mr and Mrs Gilmour, is it? The people who live here inherited the place twenty years ago. I'm sort of acquainted with the Rocheforts so I was asked to see if there's a chance of selling the place" She flashed a smile again; if the house was not run down, already from the outside Doug knew it would fetch a million bucks or more.

As they entered the big hall he could see how well-lit and spacious it was. the kitchen was a dream too, big and overlooking a spacious rear garden.
“This place does have a sense of style” he whispered to Louise as they looked at the nice woodwork cupboards and the windows onto the luscious garden. Big pear and walnut trees loomed across the lawn, and to the left stood lines of roses.

Louise was getting more interested by the minute and she could tell Doug was warming to this house as well. They returned through the living-room and then into the wardrobe.
Suddenly Louise spotted an inauspicious grey door beyond a coatstand.
-Oh, even more bedrooms? she quipped.
-Not really, it takes you down a staircase into the, we might say…clubroom
-What kind of club would it be, asked Doug, smoking a cigar.
-Why don’t we go down and have a look? Liz replied in a cheerful voice.

They descended and realized they were now in a deep part of the basement, the nether door had to be least twenty-five feet below street level, Doug thought.
Liz held in her step a bit before opening. “The people who own this house were very liberal and like to challenge themselves and have fun. They were also into.. - she halted just a second – bondage and sado-masochism.
Louise whistled and laughed aloud, “I gotta see this!”
Liz pushed open the door and turnd the light switch. Before them was an amazing scenery: a wooden bench strewn with straps, a few whips on the wall, forks and hooks in the brickwork, quite a few chains also hanging around, and inset shorter chains, connected to iron rings from the wooden plank floor.

A large wooden stock, like straight out of a medieval witches movie, stood to the side – Louise imagined with a shudder being stuck with head and arms in it - and from the roof twelve feet up loomed heavy iron chains which would certainly be fit to haul a guy aloft.
-Amazing, a real dungeon, Doug offered. I guess this equipment is all legal?
-Sure it is, Liz replied. They bought it from licenced fetish shops around the country and some of it also secondhand and then Mr Rochefort fitted it up. He liked to take his wife and some friends down here for special sessions.
In the amber-like light, it looked like a baroque painting.
Louise hesitated, cleared her throat and then summoned up her courage: “Can we try something? Just for fun...”
“Of course you can”, Liz said with a knowing smile cruising her lips.