In the study he shut the door behind him and said, ‘Take a seat.’
‘I don’t know as I can, vicar,’ she said, all doe eyes and pouting. ‘My bum’s so sore today. I know I shouldn’t be such a bad girl, but I can’t help it somehow. I’m always getting spanked by someone or other. Do you think I deserve it?’
In an agony of desire, he managed to cough out the word, ‘Yes.’
‘If I was thinking straight, I’d have put on a nice loose dress today, but somehow I wanted to wear these instead. Pulling ’em up over my bum was agony, though! And now I’ve got tight, rough denim rubbing over those marks, making ’em sting all the more. It feels so hot and uncomfortable.’
She put her hands on her buttocks and stroked them slowly up and down while Adam watched transfixed.
‘Tell you what, vicar, have you got any cream? E45 or similar? Just I’m not going to be able to concentrate with this burn behind.’
‘Right. I’ll have a look.’
He darted out, relieved to be away from her, and went to check the bathroom cabinet. When he returned with the tube of salve, he waited outside the study door for a moment, gathering himself, imagining a giant obscene orchid standing in the middle of the room, radiating toxic scent that would overpower and knock him out. That’s what Evie was. A beautiful flower with monstrous properties. He needed to be on his guard.
He opened the door and held the tube out to her, but she shook her head, hair hanging over her eye coquettishly.
‘Oh, vicar, I was hoping you might do the honours. Can’t really reach down myself, or see where the marks are. Would you mind?’
Already she was unbuttoning, then she turned her back to him and eased the shorts with infinite care and gentleness over her rounded bottom, revealing her thong and the angry reddening welts the denim had aggravated back into full throb.
‘It’s not … I can’t. I’ll leave you to it.’
‘Please.’
Her heartfelt purr undid him. He uncapped the tube and smeared some of the pale cream on to his fingers, then moved towards where Evie had bent herself over his desk, soft globes presented, perfect legs pressed together.
‘Look, Evie …’
‘Oh, it’s so sore, please put some on me.’
As if his fingers were magnets heading for the field of attraction, he placed his fingertips at the end of one particularly cruel-looking criss-cross of marks and pressed the cream in. It felt so hot. The cream evaporated instantly, turning to colourless grease that made the red patches shine.
‘Oh yes, that’s nice, more please.’
He began to treat her welts in earnest, gently circling her buttocks with cream-tipped fingers, waiting for each treatment to soak in before applying more.
Fatal weakness travelled from his fingers through his wrists and up his arms as if her allure had entered his bloodstream. He caressed each raised red line with infinite care, wishing beyond everything that he had been the man to inflict them, that he was performing this act of tenderness after beating the devil from her, and that she was bent over now sobbing with remorse and eager to make amends for her sin.
How magnanimous he would be, how protective and nurturing of her newly minted virtue. She would accept his proposal and become the model vicar’s wife, baking Victoria sponges in a floaty dress with flowers in her hair.
They could be happy. God would show them how to be happy.
Evie coughed and looked over her shoulder.
‘Hello? Vicar? Are you with us?’
He came to with a start, realising that he had paused in his ministrations and his hands rested on Evie’s bottom, as if warming themselves on a radiator.
‘Oh! Yes. I, er, had an idea for my sermon. Sorry.’
He removed his hands and rubbed the shining grease into his palms.
‘That was lovely,’ said Evie. ‘Real lovely. You’ve got such a nice touch. Wasted on the church, it is. You should be a masseur or something.’
Or your husband.
‘I’m not sure God has called me to the massage parlour,’ said Adam dryly, then, ‘For heaven’s sake, pull those shorts up.’