‘I know you’ve only taken six before, but I’m losing patience with you, boy. You’re really trying me. So I’m going to try you. You know what to do. Missed counts will mean repeated strokes. Now keep still and keep that bum up high for me.’
I tried to picture Shona. What would she be wearing? I could see her in a shiny PVC bustier with matching pencil skirt. Soaring stilettoes, fishnets, a jaunty little peaked cap on her hair, which would be pulled back in a severe bun.
What was in her hand? I guessed it had to be an old-school cane, since that was the standard fantasy. Maybe a riding crop. Perhaps I’d be able to tell from the sound it made.
There was a thin whooshing sound, then a quiet sort of ‘snick’, then a howl of pain.
Definitely sounded like the cane. The riding crop would be splattier, I decided.
‘One, ma’am. Thank you, ma’am.’
But he didn’t sound very grateful.
His protests grew with every additional stroke. I pictured him, grabbing his ankles for dear life, shuddering and jolting forwards every time the rod swiped across his offered cheeks. And the strokes, visible red lines, criss-crossing his well-exercised bottom, turning it into a kind of geometric pattern. I could visualise those all right.
I visualised them so vividly that, together with the swishes and grunts and agonised votes of thanks, they led me to shove my hand down the waistband of my jeans and seek out the ever wetter spot between my thighs.
I rubbed and panted through the dozen smart strokes, imagining them done to him, but also done to me, or even by me, or … I don’t know, but the feat of imagination was fervid and contained multiple images, spilling through my brain like photographic flashes. As the eleventh and twelfth were soundly laid, I thrust out my bottom, feeling the denim tighten and strain across my own unmarked cheeks, offering myself for the same treatment.
My orgasm coincided with the final stroke. It was sudden and strong, and I couldn’t restrain a gasp, putting my palm against the door to prevent myself tumbling forwards. To my horror it made a knocking noise, as the catch rattled in its hole.
Sobering immediately, even as the last fizzlings of my climax leaked out, I tried to straighten my wobbly legs. But I was too late.
‘What have we here?’
Shona, twice as tall and three times as intimidating, looked down at me.
‘Sorry, Shona,’ I muttered. ‘Wrong … door …’
I’ll remember that scene for the rest of my life. The man standing upright and covering his striped bum with his hands as he glared indignantly over his shoulder. Shona, cane still in hand, clad not as I’d imagined but in a business suit, silky nylon gown and fancy-dress mortarboard, eyes wide, lips slightly parted, waiting for my explanation. An explanation that was a long time coming.
I was still sheepish in the extreme the next morning. I crept into the kitchen to make coffee, hoping to get in and out without seeing Shona. After the debacle, I’d run straight into the shower, got rapidly dressed and run out to meet my friends, arriving at the bar half an hour early. By the time I got home, Shona was in bed.
But my plans were scuppered when she came into the kitchen as the kettle was boiling. I couldn’t look at her, but she came and stood right next to me, leaning back on the work surface with her hands gripping the edge.
‘I shouldn’t have gone off at you like that,’ she said.
I was able to look at her then. She sounded genuinely apologetic.
‘I’m really sorry too,’ I said. ‘I shouldn’t have been earwigging.’
‘No, it’s OK,’ she said. She looked down, biting her lip, then met my eye. ‘Actually, it’s more than OK.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The thing is, Sam … that’s my client … it turned out he was actually … how can I put this? After the initial shock wore off, he was really excited by the idea that someone had been watching us.’
‘Not watching, listening, really,’ I corrected automatically, but a little flare of illicit interest shot through my lower belly.
‘And he was wondering if … I mean, he’d pay double, and you wouldn’t have to do anything, just be in the room …’
‘Oh, my God, you mean he wants me to watch properly?’
‘Of course, say no if the idea repulses you, but it’d be an easy couple of hundred quid for you.’
‘Two hundred pounds? Just for hanging around in your bedroom for an hour?’
‘Yes. You don’t have to make up your mind now. It’ll be a month or so before I see him again – he needs a bit of time to save up the cash.’ She winked at me, and I grinned back.