‘I just thought…’ I gasped, but actually I didn’t just think anything. Everything was pure feeling with not an ounce of brain input involved. Embarrassment, shame, frustration and sheer, throat-parching horniness.
Once we made the first landing, we ran the rest of the way, taking the stairs at a headlong gallop until we arrived, laughing and sweating and panting, outside the door of our little attic eyrie.
‘After you,’ said Tom, sliding the key card into its slot so that the door clicked open.
‘Wow!’
Despite being one of the smaller, cheaper rooms, it was still stunning, with a four-poster bed and everything swagged. It felt like one of Marie Antoinette’s antechambers, crossed with a Victorian brothel. It was heavenly.
I had barely had time to look away from the bed before Tom slammed the door behind him, grabbed me by the hips and shoved me forward until I stumbled and fell over a padded ottoman beneath the sash window.
‘Hey,’ I protested, trying to restore a semblance of dignity as I stood back up, but he simply got hold of the ottoman and pulled it out into the centre of the room before replacing me across it, this time with my skirt flipped over my bum.
‘What are you…?’ I spluttered, but I knew the answer to the question before it was framed.
‘So, then,’ he said, and I heard the unmistakable sound of belt unbuckling and parting company with jean loops. ‘You think you can abuse me in a public bar? Think again.’
‘Oh, my God, are you serious?’ I muttered, but I made no move to avoid my predicament. The only move I made was the clamping together of my thighs in a pathetic attempt to preserve modesty.
‘Yeah, I’m serious,’ he replied, and I heard him slap the leather into his palm. ‘So serious I think we ought to discuss a safeword.’
‘Oh…yes,’ I said, twisting my head to look at him.
What a vision. His ever-present attractions were amplified a hundredfold by the way he tapped his doubled belt in his hand with that piercingly intent expression.
‘What do you think?’ he said. ‘What’s your safe word?’
‘Oh…Mia Culpa,’ I said, off the top of my head.
‘Good one!’ he said, with a brief but dazzling smile. Then the piercingly intent stuff started all over again. ‘Remember it.’
I cringed as the loopy end of the leather gave my bare thighs a cold caress. He stroked them from stocking tops to knicker edges until I was squirming with the kinky ticklishness of it.
‘Just one thing…’ he murmured, withdrawing the belt and moving to the window. From my prostrate position over the ottoman, I could see only the outline of the building opposite through the thick net curtain, but Tom pulled it aside so that the tall Georgian town house across the way was clearly visible, its own attic windows facing our room.
I panicked for a second, then remembered that this house belonged to the university – one of the more obscure departments was housed there – and as such would undoubtedly be unoccupied on a Saturday evening. Or would it? Was there some harried, overworked graduate student in there, making the finishing touches to a research project? No, no, no. It would be locked. They would have to use the bloody library.
But no matter how many times I told myself this, I couldn’t help feeling watched. Which was exactly why Tom had done it.
‘It’s all right,’ he said, turning to me. ‘There won’t be anybody in there. But let’s pretend there is. Let’s pretend they’re all crowded round the window, watching us, jostling for the best position to see what’s going to happen to you.’
‘Tom, you’re freaking me out,’ I complained.
‘This is good practice,’ he said. ‘For our date with the Dungeon Mistress. Who knows how that might turn out?’
‘You think she’ll want to…do stuff…to us?’
‘I think it might end up in some form of practical demonstration, yes. Anyway, you aren’t getting a choice today. The curtains are staying open. Remind me of your safeword?’
I duly reminded him.
‘Are we bending comfortably?’ he asked archly, moving back behind me. ‘Then we’ll begin.’
And we did. Goodness, a leather belt was a whole different proposition. Where his hand had been warm and firm and conferred a pain that sank into my flesh, this was lithe and snappy. The sting was more concentrated, but it soon faded, until Tom found his rhythm and began to lay them on faster and harder. I gripped the edge of the ottoman, my lower half performing a St Vitus dance of discomfort, but through the mist of increasing heat and pain I remained in position. As for my safeword, I had no desire to use it. I wanted to take as much as I could of this interesting sensation. I wanted to make him proud.
‘You’re doing so well,’ he said, after about thirty strokes. ‘You’re made of strong stuff.’
I was gasping too much to answer, and besides, I was in a kind of trance. The imagi