“No, sir! I understand!” I yelp, falling into the fiery pit he is working so hard to keep aflame, my head swimming, conscious of nothing but pain, pain, pain.
After a while…I don’t know how long really…I hit the bottom of the abyss and find I can no longer fight him. The writhing stills, the tension floats out of my body, I find I am still whimpering but in a curious, quasi-meditative kind of way.
“That’s good, Beth, very good. You know this is what you need,” he says, his voice low and gentle, but belied by the searing smacks he is still applying to my rear.
“Ooooooooh,” I reply. It has been a good quarter of an hour; surely he is going to let up soon? He stops soon afterwards, resting his hand on my pulsing rump, then brushing the sore skin with his thumb, causing me to clench my teeth and hiss. He admires his handiwork for a moment or two, then, in a strange, thick voice, instructs me to go and look at it in the mirror. I wince in sympathy with myself when I see the dark shade of crimson he has turned my punished arse, like the worst sunburn you could imagine. He tells me I have to stand in the corner with my hands clasped behind my neck for half an hour before being sent straight to bed.
All the time I am standing there, I know he is looking at my backside, and it is oddly, creepily exciting. He pretends to be reading – the rustle of paper is too ostentatious to be genuine – but I swear he is drinking in the view. I long for him to come over, to put his arms around me from the back and kiss me, to speak tender words to me and carry me to bed.
But after half an hour has passed, he simply turns a page of his book and says, “Time for bed, Beth.”
I turn to him and say, in a shy, crackly voice, “Goodnight, Sir.” He nods, twitches the corner of a lip.
“Goodnight, Beth.”
*
Two weeks pass and my life falls into a routine. I have never worked harder academically; Sinclair’s remedial course is so stringent I am rarely out of the library by day, and if we are both free in the evening we invariably end up falling into lengthy discussions of pre- and post-Revolutionary French culture and history, usually involving some form of oral examination. And usually involving a sore bottom if my performance on said examination falls under par. The spankings become normal, routine, to the point where I am almost desensitised to the actual weirdness of the set-up and sometimes fear I might accidentally blurt something injudicious out to Dearbhla or Emily in the Union at lunchtime.
On a couple of occasions – incidents of minor rule-breaking – he goes further than his trusty palm and brings his belt out to play on my bum. I hope the walls in his apartment are thick, because the feel of that wide strap of leather biting into my sensitive skin induced the production of higher notes than even my soprano role in Pinafore requires of me. Afterwards he always makes me stand in the corner while he checks out my derriere covertly. Every time, it seems that he is within an ace of…taking things further. But he never does.
James Winthrop has made a couple more half-hearted attempts to engage me for a second date, but I have tactfully declined and I suppose he has thrown in the towel. Makes the hero/heroine dynamic in H.M.S. Pinafore slightly awkward, though the first act bits where he has to be lovelorn and I have to spurn him now have a certain verité.
On the Friday night three weeks after that first fateful foray into Sinclair’s abode, he has been called away to London to take part in Newsnight Review (to his considerable excitement, judging by the officious, self-important vibe he has been projecting all week). Much as I’d love to stay in and watch him get into a fistfight with Tony Parsons, my Gogol Bordello tickets take priority and I find myself heading off down to the Bierkeller with Dearbhla and Emily in fine fettle.
Unfortunately, it is close enough to the end of term that all three of us are now struggling for funds and as the raucous, rumbustious, rowdy event draws to a close, we find ourselves unable to finance further plastic pints of manky cider.
“Awww, I feel like partying all night now,” complains Emily as we straggle dispiritedly up Park Street.
“Me too,” wails Dearbhla. “It’s like leaving things half-finished.”
“Hey!” I exclaim, having had enough of the apple-based toxin to make this seem like a great idea. “Sinclair’s drinks cabinet is full. And he’s staying overnight in London. What do you say, girls?”
“No! He’d kill you!” demurs Dearbhla, though her eyes are shining with excitement all the same.
“He’s never forbidden me to have friends round,” I say, which is true. Though I don’t think he thought I’d dare…
“Oh my freaking God, we have to!” shrieks Emily. “Come on!” She links our arms and drags us up at a run while we laugh and sing snatches of songs all the way to leafy Oaklands Road.
“Oh wow. This is niiiice,” approves Emily as we creep up the stairs, or rather stumble as quietly as we can.
“He’s got a bob or two,” comments Dearbhla as our feet sink into the deep pile of his hall carpet. They squeal and exclaim over everything for about ten minutes, before remembering to raid the drinks cabinet.
“Cocktails, girls!” cries Emily, inspecting the contents with a semi-professional eye. “Make mine a Manhattan.”
“Could you do a Bellini?” wonders Dearbhla.
“No, no,” says Emily, almost asphyxiating with pleasure at her own joke, “I want a Sloe Comfortable Screw! With Sinclair!” She falls about laughing. The soul of wit, that girl.
“Yeah,” snickers Dearbhla, joining in with the (90% proof) spirit. “Or Sex on the Beach!”
They both cry, “Screaming Orgasm!” at the same time and collapse with mirth. I swear to God, I’ve never thought of myself as sophisticated, but compared to these sub-Carry On chicks…
We organise drinks and loll on his tasteful leather sofas watching Newsnight Review on Sky Plus.
“Oh my God, I just love him,” slurs Emily as he verbally demolishes whatever it was Tony Parsons just said. “I want his babies.”
“When are you go