Notebooks of the Young Wife (20 page)

I edged forward carefully, scuffing the stone flags uneven under my feet. As long as I had a line of sight to the target I should be all right. Before very long there was a change of atmosphere and I brushed against something to the side. And then I realised I could
see
. Very dimly, almost more by intuition than vision, there were walls to the left and right. I was back in a passage and it was leading directly to where I wanted to go. The door opened with the turn of a knob and at the end of a short corridor was another with a high glass panel. I caught the sound of voices beyond it: a quick interchange I couldn’t make out, and a giggle. There was nothing threatening, in fact it sounded more like play, and it was followed by a sharp noise and a laughing yelp. A repeat left me pretty sure of what was going on so I moved up to the small window and cautiously raised my head to it.

I was looking down from the head of a short set of steps into a kitchen area with a large stove to the left and sinks to the right. In front of me was a counter, and splayed across it was the
garçon
I had briefly met, trousers down round his thighs. On the bare bum the red splodges amply confirmed what I’d guessed and I watched, a little dazed, as the boy –
my
boy – lifted a wooden spatula and cracked it down again. The spanks soon fell into a rhythm with the shrill little gasps belied by the way the lad pushed out his backside for the next. As if to remove all doubt of the nature of the game between the two, the ‘punisher’ crooked an arm round the throat of the ‘victim’, pulled him upright and put a hand to the erection that sprang into view. Then it was back over the top, and when the boy’s trousers came down too it was plain what was coming. I almost gasped out loud with the stab of arousal that hit me as he parted the red cheeks and pushed his hard cock at the hole between them. That cock – the one that had subjected me to a sweet orgy of penetration – was in the process of spearing what I assumed to be its default target.

I felt no jealousy, rather a strange kind of relief. But most of all I shook with an intense voyeuristic lust that had the fingers stuffed into my cunt awash. On our first meeting the boy jerked off unashamedly beside me while we watched a behind being made tender; now I was wanking at the sight of his cock spearing one. While a detached corner of my mind registered the thought that there was something poetic about it all, the climax broke over me in concert with the raised voices crying out below.

That night I was out for the count. The boy must have come back at some point for his bed had been slept in, but when I woke in the morning he was nowhere to be seen. I’d just decided to begin collecting things together for our journey when Annabelle came in carrying a breakfast tray. She put it down and glanced over at the rumpled sheets, then turned to me a little anxiously.

‘He has
le rendez-vous, tu sais
?
Avec Madame
. She comes to me in the evening with
le rotin
. Er...’ She looked to me for help and I began to see where this was heading.

‘Rattan is what we call it, if you mean a cane.’

‘
Oui
. It is special to her, like the black one.
I must make it
en trempe, toute la nuit
.
Comme une marinade, mais dans le vinaigre
.’

‘She wanted it soaked in vinegar?’

‘
C’est ça
. She says it will be
un chauffe-derrière pour le garçon
.
The boy’s request. Your boy.’ If my French was not leading me astray, the key phrase translated as ‘bottom-warmer’. It was no doubt Madame Mariselle’s idea of a little joke, for a supple length of wet rattan was likely to be up in the same league as the vicious black rod. And yet it seemed the boy had, quite literally, asked for it.

I was still digesting the implications of this when the door opened. We gawped as the subject of our conversation entered, closed it carefully behind him and came forward. His movements were visibly stiff and he was very pale, but appeared quite in control of himself.

‘Knew she wanted to. So I thought why not. Kind of parting gift.’ At this we rather fell on him, I’m afraid, one each side to lower the trousers as gently as we could manage. Not only was there no objection to our blatant curiosity, the boy’s face was acquiring a distinct smirk. As the beaten buttocks came into view, Annabelle sucked in her breath.

‘
Dieu qu’il était sévère
– Madame was not easy with him.’ I wasn’t going to disagree. By repute, hard judicial canings produce the effects before us, as indeed did my own, though I was not then in the position or condition to give the damage detached scrutiny. There were only six marks that had been executed in unrelenting parallels, but what marks they were! Coloured somewhere between purple and black and the thickness of a forefinger, they stood out in hoops that ran from flank to flank: vivid testimony to the rule of aiming each stroke six inches
below
the target. But more shocking still – to one who was acquainted with the body in question – was the crimsoned swelling of the whole hindquarters from waist to the upper half of the thighs.

The pain at infliction had been certainly formidable, and when we straightened up I looked at the boy with a new respect. While I too had suffered Madame’s rigours, I’d been trained up for the part; he was just a lad, an
ingénue
in these matters. Now, however, in the space of our rapt study, there appeared a sizeable erection and Annabelle grinned at it.

‘Jane, I would love to assist you.
Mais après l’épreuve
should come the time for two,
n’est-ce pas
?’

When she’d gone I bent him over and worked a small bead of lubricating jelly into the tight hole. Then I found a slim dildo in the goody-bag that always travels with me, and eased it in to the hilt. He grunted and stood up. I wagged a firm finger under his nose.

‘Boy, when those bruises have quite gone, I am going to give you the spanking of your life, for being so foolhardy as to offer yourself to that woman. Right?’

‘Yes, Miss.’ The colour returned to the face under the shock of hair, but I thought I saw something deeper in the eyes than before. I took hold of the stiff penis and drew him on top of me on the bed, sliding down until I could reach the hot welts with my fingers and close my mouth on the erection. Rash though he may have been, he had earned his pleasure and I was going to devote myself to it.

Our trip back was essentially uneventful. Thanks to the smoothness of the TGV the boy was able not only to sit, if gingerly at first, but to fall asleep in the corner seat. Changing stations in Paris went without a hitch, though it was not made easier by the awkwardly long package we had acquired. Not content with the leaving present of a beating, Madame decided at the last minute that the boy should take with him as a memento the instrument itself.

Back across the Channel, the rail travel was rather more of a trial to one with a tender behind, and by the time the train pulled into the stop for Ardingley End it was late. Although I’d left a message on her mobile, there was no sign of Tamsin’s Porsche at the station, so I was reduced to pleading with a part-time cab driver to take us the last few miles. As the vehicle at last drew up at the imposing entrance, Mrs Jencks came running out.

‘Dr Greene, quickly please! She’s in the library...’ She waved an agitated arm at the lit mullioned windows to the right and I shoved my wallet in the boy’s hand for the fare and took off. The outer reading space was empty, but a cry came from the interior room where the collection had been housed. I hurried through the half-open door and stopped in my tracks. My PA was on her feet with miniskirt up round her waist, clutching her bum. Between her fingers I could see the flesh glowing red, and standing over her, holding the polished dark wood of a hefty paddle in both hands, was a tall man with a thatch of white hair. He had to be the new Master of the House and it looked as though he’d started as he meant to go on.

‘Jesus fuck.’

‘Language, young lady. And I am not finished with you yet.’ The Texan vowels, gently chiding, carried the weight of authority. I took a breath and stuck my oar in. For all it achieved I needn’t have bothered.

‘Excuse me, I am Tamsin’s employer. If you have a quarrel with her perhaps you should take it up with me.’

‘Jane, it’s all right. Really. Let’s just get this over with. Two more, sir, I believe you were saying.’ He nodded without so much as a glance in my direction and Tamsin went back across the desk with an odd little sigh. Wielded with energy, each impact of the weapon spread and lifted the buttock cheeks most impressively. When he was done she hauled the skirt down and rubbed through it, breathing hard. Then the patriarch turned to me for the first time.

‘And now, ma’am, you are...?’

‘Jane Barrett-Greene, of the British Library.’

‘The Librarian. Am I to understand that you are the one responsible for this?’ He indicated the shelves around us that stood mostly empty.

‘Er, I arranged for the removal of the collection, yes.’

‘Very well.’ He looked down at the paddle and slapped it on his palm, then fixed me with clear blue eyes. ‘You will join me for breakfast at eight-thirty sharp. I will hear then your proposal for rectifying the situation.’

‘I’ll consider the invitation, if you’d be good enough to tell me whom I’m addressing.’ I was fuming but no doubt managed to sound merely petulant. He simply drew himself up and turned to go.

‘“Sir” will suffice for the present.’ And that was it, unless I was going to lose it badly enough to shout at the departing back. I’m glad to say I didn’t, and then Mrs Jencks hurried in.

‘You will go, won’t you Dr Greene? I couldn’t help overhearing. It’s been a nerve-wracking time since he came but he is set on the place and would keep on all the staff. There is only the one difficulty of the books. It seems Sir Montague’s reputation was such that the new Master – well, so he’ll be if only he stays – anticipated a collection to match his own, er, special tastes. We’re depending on you to explain and talk him round.’

‘Hmm. Is that what Tamsin was trying to do?’

‘He was very angry...’ the PA was still holding her bottom, though without the earlier distress, ‘...and it did calm him down quite a bit.’

‘Tell you what,’ I waited until they both had expectant eyes on me, ‘there’s one thing I don’t fancy and that’s that plank of wood for my breakfast.’

‘Oh no,’ said Mrs Jencks quickly, ‘he wouldn’t. Not to you. And I heard him discussing hash browns, I believe they’re called, with Mrs Beaton. Very amicable they were. It’s only his manner sometimes, really.’

‘Right, I’ll do it.’ I decided it was time to bite the bullet. What the story was going to be I had no idea, but there were several hours before the morning.

‘I don’t know about just his manner being the issue.’ Tamsin pouted at the Housekeeper, who took her arm.

‘Yes, dear, you’re sore. We’ll have to see what we can do about that.’ She led the girl away and I’d cooled down enough to flash her a wink. The odd couple were seemingly still on. As for me, I needed to do some thinking.

Back in my room I found the bottle of Bowmore, liberated for me by Mrs Beaton from the stock downstairs, as a remedy should insomnia strike. Unused for that purpose, it could perhaps be deployed to stimulate thought. I poured a solid dram with just a spot of water, took a good slow swig and lounged on the bed. It seemed our ‘astute’ lawyer had overlooked the possibility of the buyer being a man with s/m leanings who was aware of the Everett line’s long history of such predilections. Any one who did would be expecting there to be such books; this one was demanding them. Well, he couldn’t have them: not the ones the Library had acquired, nor those that had gone to the Nemesis Archive, given the financial arrangement reached with Samantha James.

My musing had reached the third glass when I heard the latch of the door. The boy’s head appeared, then the rest of him with Molly close behind.

‘Jane, I know it’s late and I don’t want to disturb you, but I saw those bruises and they could really do with some of my oil. So I thought – we thought – er...’ it started with a rush and then dried up. The idea of a threesome made me prickle for a moment, then it occurred to me perhaps I wasn’t actually being invited. Maybe my blessing was being sought for them to go off
à deux
, and Molly was having trouble spitting out the request.

‘Hi guys,’ I remember saying, ‘good of you to call. But I’m a tad tied up, y’see. Important meeting in the morning and all. So if you could manage without me, I’d appreciate it.’ Looking back, the atypical and whisky-induced warmth must have been blatant. I only hope the words weren’t slurred. Whatever they thought, the pair disappeared with a haste that confirmed my suspicion. I chuckled to myself: Molly would soon discover the boy had developed some new inclinations, if indeed she was to be favoured with them. What the hell. I drained my glass, taken with an idea that might grow into a plan. The bottle had hardly been touched really, and another good splash of malt might just bring it all into focus.

When my travelling alarm went off at eight it felt like being pulled out of another world that was deeper and more true than the one I was being forced to reoccupy. The feeling stayed with me as I showered lazily, though my head was quite clear. Annabelle had seen to our laundry before we left the Order, so I was able to put on a crisp white shirt and a pair of pressed black trousers. Freshly washed, the hair was brushed easily back into unobtrusive neatness and then the merest dab of an astringent perfume behind the ears finished the preparations. The creation of an impression entirely out of superficial items is not my favoured style, but I wasn’t normally called upon to sweet-talk an unbending paterfamilias whose world view was likely to be found at the opposite end of the universe from mine. And there was a lot at stake.