‘You can’t drive – you’ve been drinking!’ I wailed, disappointed in the extreme.
‘My driver hasn’t,’ he said.
‘But can’t you stay … just for a while?’
‘No, I can’t. And I know what you want, Keris, but you can’t have it. Not tonight. Not until you arrive at my house after Christmas.’
I pouted, but I didn’t realise the enormity of what he was asking until he spelled it out a moment later.
‘And I don’t just mean sex, Keris. I mean you are not to have an orgasm until then.’
‘What? Are you serious?’
‘Absolutely. Hands off. Nobody is going to touch you until I do.’
‘But …’
‘That’s my condition. Take it or leave it.’
I took it.
Chapter Nine
I’VE DONE SOME difficult things in my life.
I’ve stood up in front of bottom set Year Nine and asked them to discuss their emotional response to excerpts from the Peer Gyntsuite.
I’ve made a perfect soufflé.
I’ve walked away from a boy I adored and yearned for because I knew he wouldn’t be faithful to me when I went to university.
But those three wank-free weeks were one of the greatest challenges of my life. I know SecretSadist had given me a taste – a few days was one thing. Three weeks though … And not just any old three weeks either.
Three weeks of Christmas build-up. Tension, panic-buying, chaos in the classroom, too much chocolate in the staffroom, tinsel and mistletoe and – the end of term party.
Our usual demob-happy slouch to a nearby pub, followed by a curry with paper crowns on our heads, had been officially ditched by Mr Marks in favour of a proper turkey dinner and festive dance in the garishly over-decorated school hall.
Year Eleven had been let loose on that final afternoon with tinsel, baubles and crepe paper and had transformed our usually dour and whiffy dining hall into a winter wonderland, if you like your winter wonderlands hallucinogenic and a bit frightening. At least it smelled of chemical snow-spray instead of vinegar, probably adding to the hallucinogenic effect.
Lou set off the snow-machine as soon as we were all assembled, making us shriek and flick blobs of polystyrene-like matter off our trusty teaching-issue corduroy. Gareth and a few of the laddish-lad PE crew slid on their tracksuited knees into the maw of the machine, belly laughing as their hair was quickly replaced by fake snow. Was this what Superhead had had in mind when he planned his sophisticated soirée? I doubted it.
By the time he made his appearance, flustered after fending off an angry parent, most of us were thrashing around beneath a steady shower of flakes to the usual Christmas classics.
He signalled to the DJ to put a stop to Slade and took the mike.
‘I’d like to thank you all for your efforts this term,’ he said, before treating us to ten minutes of propaganda about how great we all were and how the school was moving to a position of strength, including the inevitable “refloating the sinking ship” metaphor. When we were invited to take our places at the rather soggy table, he made a slick move in my direction, cutting in front of Jane the Textiles teacher to bag the seat next to me.
‘Cherry,’ he said, panting slightly. ‘Friday night with no rehearsal, eh? Makes a change.’
‘They wouldn’t have been good for much today,’ I said, warm inside at the implication that he couldn’t bear a Friday evening without me.
‘I’m sure you’re right. But things are coming together, aren’t they? By March, we’ll be on top form, ready to knock ’em dead.’
‘Yeah, I think so.’
He pulled my chair out for me. I knew every single eye in the place was upon us as I took my seat. On one hand, I longed for an intimate tête-à-tête, but on the other, I had no wish to be the talking point of the staffroom. So I made an effort to talk to others at the table and join in the general conversation, even when they made pathetic jokes about pulling crackers and parson’s noses.
Once the brandy butter was safely on the Christmas pudding, though, I judged that the time might be right to excuse myself from the surrounding jollity and focus on the sex god with a tinsel buttonhole to my left.