Seven Scarlet Tales (22 page)

‘You’re not very red,’ he managed to say.

‘But it’s so sore,’ she purred, rolling her hips more blatantly now. ‘You’re so hard on me.’ She giggled.

‘Ruth, are you trying to get me to fuck you?’ he asked. ‘Because, because, I’d like to, actually, if you want to know the truth, but this is meant to be a punishment. It’s meant to make you think about your responsibilities.’

She stopped writhing and flopped back over his thighs, burying her head in the cushion.

He took one long, deep breath, tried to ignore his
insistently stiffening cock, and smacked her bare bottom. She made a muffled squeal into the cushion but there was no attempt at resistance. He watched her bottom turn a glowing bright scarlet under the incessant fall of his hand, never letting up until it burned and her expression of cushion-stifled woe had become a continuous wail.

‘Right,’ he said. ‘Nearly done now. Hold tight because this is really going to sting.’

He reached down for one of her slippers, which she had kicked right off her foot in the course of her labours. The sole was of a knobbly material, a kind of rubbery plastic that Rob couldn’t identify. But it looked as if it might hurt, and that was the main thing.

‘Ten strokes with the slipper,’ he said. ‘And then it’s over. For today.’

The first stroke made her scream and arch her back and kick like fury.

Aha, this was worth remembering.

He laid six and then she begged for mercy, which he thought he ought to give, remembering too late something he had read on the internet about safewords. They should really have sorted that out beforehand. But then, perhaps she would have assumed that this was a sexual thing.

But it was a sexual thing, wasn’t it?

But it wasn’t meant to be?

Oh God, he was past trying to analyse it.

He put the slipper down and rubbed her beautifully hot bottom.

‘Oh, is that it?’ she panted, pushing against his palm.

‘Um, well, you did say …’

‘And you said ten.’

‘I know I did, but …’

‘You’re going to let me off? Let me get away with it?’

The mildly goading tone of her voice had him snatching up the slipper again.

‘You aren’t getting away with anything while I’m in charge,’ he vowed.

She seemed to regret her self-sabotaging backchat when he smacked the slipper back down on her helpless behind.

‘Oh no!’ she shrieked.

‘Don’t,’ he advised through gritted teeth, ‘try to play me, Ruth.’

The last three strokes were full-bodied and burning with righteous indignation.

Ruth made a sobbing noise but she wasn’t actually crying; no tears dampened the cushion.

He wondered, turning the slipper over in his hands, how much she could actually take. How much more? What would be her real limit? And, above all, would he ever find out?

He admired the crimson stain of her cheeks, brushing his hand over them. Ruth had gone limp over his lap, as if all her bad habits had drained out of her, leaving only a shell.

‘Are you OK?’ he asked after a minute or so of silent stroking and shoulder rubbing.

She snuffled and nodded against the cushion.

‘Talk to me, Ruth. I need to know you really are OK.’

‘I’m fine. Oh God. I don’t know. I don’t know how I am.’

Rob thought perhaps he ought to pull her pyjamas back up for her, but he didn’t want to lose sight of the glorious results of his labours so soon. If he helped her off his lap, his erection would be quite uncomfortably visible too. But doing nothing didn’t seem to be an option, so he put his arm around her waist and nudged her up into a kneeling position beside him on the sofa.

He kept his arm around her waist and let her rest her head in the hollow of his shoulder.

‘Is this penitence?’ he whispered. ‘Or have I gone too far?’

‘No, oh, Rob, you’re so sweet.’

‘Sweet? After what I just did to you?’ He was almost offended.

‘You did it because you care,’ she said. She nuzzled her head against him.

What should he do? Was he still supposed to be disappointed in her or was the punishment now over and the air clear for, well, for other things?

‘Yes, I did it because I care,’ he said. ‘Because I want you to be happy with who you are. Do you think it might work? Was it what you thought it would be?’

‘I didn’t expect it to hurt so bloody much.’

He laughed.

‘I think it’s meant to,’ he said.

He put a hand up to her hair and stroked it.

‘I did it because I care,’ he said hesitantly. ‘A lot.’

She looked up at him, still blushing at the eye contact. He noticed that she had made no attempt to pull up her pyjamas, and her sore bottom rested on her heels.

‘Do you?’ she said.

‘I should probably make you get your books out now and get to work.’

‘But you aren’t going to?’

‘I’d rather … Do you think it would be completely wrong if, if we—’

The sentence remained unfinished or, if it was finished, it was done by the pressure of lips upon each other rather than the use of speech.

Ruth climbed on to his lap again, straddling him this time,
pushing against his erection so that he couldn’t control himself and the kiss became heavy and rough, reflecting his desires. Both his hands gripped her buttocks, fingers dimpling the hot flesh, kneading it while he thrust his tongue into Ruth’s soft, pliant mouth, warning her what she could expect. Somehow, during the course of this intense kissing, Ruth’s pyjamas made an inexorable progress downwards, ending on the floor.

Rob moved one hand up her top to grab and caress her breasts. Her nipples were hard and resistant to his pinching fingers. He groaned into her mouth and broke the kiss in order to nip and suck at her neck.

‘Let’s go to bed, Rob,’ she urged. ‘What if the others come back?’

It was a sound suggestion. Rob and Ruth spent the rest of the afternoon in Ruth’s made bed in her tidy room, fucking as if it might go out of fashion. They pitched and tossed and plunged and thrust until dusk fell, then they ate something, then they went back to bed.

Ruth couldn’t seem to get enough of him; she recovered from one bout only to scoot down the bed and take his detumescent cock in her mouth to revive it for another. He seemed to empty himself only to refill again immediately, ready for more. He had her underneath him, above him, beside him, on all fours, in every imaginable configuration of limbs. He had her until her skin shone like pearls and her hair was slick at the roots. He had her until her stubble burn threatened to bleed, as much on her thighs as her face. He made her come five times, or it might have been six, and every time she thanked him sweetly, which made him feel like a king.

The last time, her cries of ecstatic torment coincided with a ring of the doorbell.

‘Oh God,’ he muttered, lying entangled in Ruth, kissing
her all around her mouth while it sighed out its last few seconds of bliss.

‘Leave it.’ The words were hard won, as all her breath seemed spent.

He left it. But the ringing became more insistent, accompanied by knocking. Rob wished he hadn’t left the bedroom light on.

Eventually the letterbox was raised and a familiar voice boomed around the downstairs hall.

‘Ruthie, it’s me. I know you’re there. Let us in, eh?’

‘Shit. Dave!’ She sat straight up, looking wildly around for clothes, hairbrushes, anything.

‘Stay there,’ said Rob, putting one leg out of bed, making calculations at a rapid pace.

‘Don’t let him in! He’ll know!’

‘Well, shouldn’t he?’ Rob, on his feet now, ran a hand through drenched hair and gave Ruth a penetrating stare.

‘Are you going to tell him?’

‘I think you should. Don’t you?’

‘Oh God, I don’t want to.’

‘Ruth, you can’t string him along. I’m not going to lie either.’

‘I don’t want to string him along, just, bloody hell, I’m knackered and I want to go to sleep.’

Rob pulled the duvet off the bed and threw on his jeans and top.

‘You can’t shirk your responsibilities,’ he said severely. ‘I thought we’d dealt with that?’

Ruth drew in a sharp breath and bit her lip, instantly chastened.

Rob smiled at the effect he had on her, then went to get the door.

‘Oh, you’re in,’ said Dave, eyeing him up and down with undisguised suspicion.

Rob supposed he must look very much like a man who had spent the last few hours shagging. Perhaps this would be enough for Dave to put two and two together.

‘Ruth’s upstairs,’ he said.

Dave had nothing more to say to him, and he charged up the stairs, calling Ruth’s name.

Rob, bracing himself for impact, wandered into the kitchen to put the kettle on. The lino was cold on his bare feet and all the sweat was cooling, making him shiver. Tea, then bath, he thought. Then bed. He shut his eyes and leant back on the counter, thinking of all the pleasures of the afternoon and evening.

Above his head, the thunder of footsteps. He didn’t think Dave had ever shown a tendency to violence, but perhaps he should go and check.

By the time he’d made his tea, raised voices filtered down the stairs. It must be pretty obvious what Ruth had been up to all day. The rumpled sheets, the binned condoms, the smell of sex in the air.

He wandered upstairs, choice phrases whistling past his ears.

‘… couldn’t keep your knickers on for five minutes …’

‘… on a break, Dave!’

‘… took advantage of you …’

‘… more of a man than you’ll ever be …’

Oh, that last one was good. He felt a certain welling in his chest.

He knocked and opened the door.

‘Are you OK?’

Dave made the opening moves of a launch in his direction, but seemed to think better of it and held his ground.

‘You bastard,’ he snarled instead. ‘You fucked my girl.’

‘She’s not your girl,’ said Rob. ‘Are you, Ruthie?’

Ruthie shook her head, lips pressed together, looking cautiously from one man to the other.

‘So that’s sorted,’ continued Rob. ‘There’s not much point your hanging around, is there? Perhaps you should go now.’

‘Who the fuck are you to tell me what to do?’ Dave was enraged, but Rob had been accurate in his assessment of the other man’s tendency towards violence. After a furious standing of ground for a few moments, Dave stomped out.

Rob followed him to the door.

‘Look, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you thought you and Ruth were still on.’

‘We weren’t.’ Dave shrugged and almost smiled. ‘I came here to finish it for good. Just something about seeing her so obviously, you know …’

‘Yeah, I know. It’s for the best though.’

Dave snorted and made his exit.

‘And that’s the story of how you came out as kinky?’

Allyson sat back and crossed her legs.

‘You always remember your first time,’ said Rob, with a smile.

‘It’s a nice story,’ conceded Allyson. ‘You didn’t live happily ever after, though?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Well, you and Ruth. You ain’t still together, I presume, unless she’s very relaxed about you seeing other people.’

‘No, we split about two years ago. She got a place at an American university. Ivy League, as it goes.’

‘So you did her a world of good, then. She stuck at the studies.’

‘Oh, yes, she certainly did. It was hard going at first
though. I made things worse rather than better by, uh, getting together with her. All she wanted to do was go to bed with me and, rather unhelpfully, that was all I wanted to do, too.’

‘Oh dearie me,’ said Allyson, with a yawn and a glance at the clock.

‘I was pretty strong-willed, though, and I didn’t let it throw our careers off course. She needed a lot of chivvying along though. A lot of quite painful chivvying along.’

‘You were the chivvier-in-chief.’

‘Yes. I like a bit of chivvying, actually. Especially when it involves the striking of female bottoms. But you knew that.’

‘I think I did, Robert, yes. So Ruthie goes to the States and leaves you all on your lonesome. That must have been a wrench. You didn’t think of coming to my club for a bit of solace?’

‘I didn’t know about your club. I made a profile for one of those kinky dating sites. Met up with a few girls, had a bit of fun but no real connection, until Lucy. And now you see me here, all up to date and ready to play.’

‘Baptism of fire,’ said Allyson. ‘You and Richard seem to get along all right.’

Richard looked up from his phone, on which he seemed to be surfing the internet.

‘Why wouldn’t we?’ he said. ‘Like-minded souls and all that.’

‘Sorry, Richard, are we boring you?’ Allyson looked pointedly at the phone.

He had the good grace to look embarrassed as he put it away.

‘Broadband speed’s awful here, anyway,’ he muttered.

‘What about you, Rich?’ she asked, leaning forward. ‘I mean, I know you quite well, but I bet Blake and Rob don’t
know how you got into all this. Care to give us a bedtime story?’

‘You’d probably tell it better than I would,’ said Richard modestly, trying to deflect attention by going to the kitchen for another bottle of wine.

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ said Allyson, once he was back in the room. ‘I don’t think so at all.’

‘I’d be very interested to hear it,’ said Blake, and Rob nodded agreement.

Richard yawned and looked at the stairs for a moment, but he knew there was no escape.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘It was like this.’

It was getting on for ten years ago now.

I was heading for forty, my marriage had just ended because of the hours I was working, and those same hours meant I wasn’t meeting anyone new, unless they worked at the bank. And the women at the bank work just as hard as I do, so …

Anyway. I had a holiday coming up and I took the full two weeks. Couldn’t wait to get out of London, to be honest. In August it’s like a sealed vacuum flask full of exhaust fumes and dust, as I’m sure you all well know.

I’d had an invitation from my cousin to spend some time at his country house. Not a giant Downton Abbey kind of place but a modest, Georgian, six-bedroomed former vicarage with a bit of land attached, in a nice village in Dorset. It sounded like just the literal breath of fresh air I needed.