Subculture (18 page)

 

My God, she was actively betraying him. Michael stared at Lisa as she thrust down upon the blonde youth's cock. Her breasts were hanging pendulously forward, the nipples enlarged with pinkening pleasure. Both facial cheeks were hot and flushed. She lifted her head and her pupil's bore into his. Michael took a small step backwards. Was she staring with shock, like him, or was her gaze one of confrontation or rage?

His mind searched for words of anguish or disbelief, mere verbal hints at the outrage and shock that were racing through his system. No phrases were forthcoming, and after glaring at them both for another few seconds, he let the door swing shut.

How could she? Why should she? They'd been so close before he left... When the pain came it was so intense that it felt wholly physical, and when Carmen hurried up behind him and touched his shoulder he moved his right arm backwards as if swatting away a fly.

‘Dr Landers, the whole salmon I ordered hasn't been delivered,' she said with urgency.

He turned to face her. ‘Am I supposed to be losing sleep?' Couldn't quite remember walking away from her or moving along the corridor but found himself a few moments later in his sunlit bedroom.

Michael reached for his phone, intending to ask Jamilla to bring him up a single glass and a bottle of five star brandy. Then he hesitated - drinking to oblivion had never been his way. Only weaklings and cowards tried to hide from reality in a haze of numbing drugs and alcohol. His work had taught him how to heal bodies, not to destroy his own.

Still fighting an urge to crash his fist into a wall - or into that blonde boy - Michael shed all his travelling clothes and stepped under the somewhat soothing shower. Then he put on a new lightweight suit and went down to his consultation rooms to catch up with his letters, faxes and electronic mail. He'd deal with Lisa after dinner in a way that would wipe the slate clean of her misdemeanours. Deal with her adulterous little arse...

Dinner was at eight. He was there at ten minutes to the hour. He used his right hand to pour wine for Bakar, Ria, Jamilla, was aware that he wanted to use that same right palm to thoroughly warm Lisa's soft backside. Not that a spanking would be enough this time; she'd have to take the more focused pain of his ferula. That little rubber punisher could turn a girl's pale canvas to a squirming red.

The doctor looked at his pocket watch. Would she dare to show her face? Maybe she'd been drunk when she'd taken that youth to her room and rashly excited him. By now she'd have fully sobered up and had time to feel repentant and ashamed.

Michael nodded as Dania took her seat at the table. He'd let Lisa show her contrition by taking his manhood between her velvety lips. That would be after he'd whipped her soundly. His groin tautened at the image, though it did little to ease the ongoing ache in his heart.

‘This is my third glass of wine already,' Ria the Sex Therapist said as she hurried to the dining table and he poured her her first glass of the evening. ‘I had two in Sliema,' she continued. ‘Needed the sugar lift - I'd virtually shopped till I dropped.' She held out her shapely left hand. ‘I bought myself this ring and a matching bracelet in this little jewellers near the arcade.'

‘Very attractive,' Michael said. He was amazed that his voice sounded the same as usual. It wanted to shout its rage.

‘And I also found this backless dress...' Ria enthused. Michael looked over as Marie-Rose and Lisa entered the dining room. Ria turned to smile at them. ‘I was just telling Michael that I'll show him the new clothes I bought after we eat.'

‘I have some business to attend to with Lisa then,' Michael said, staring at the herbalist intently.

‘Sorry doc, I'm off duty till tomorrow morning,' she replied. He stared hungrily at her face, looking for a flicker of deliberate confrontation. Surely she was just doing this to earn herself a thrashing? Just finding out how much insolence and mental cruelty he would take?

‘I'll expect you in my consultation suite after we've eaten,' he continued determinedly.

‘I'm digesting my meal for an hour then going swimming,' the twenty-eight year old replied.

Michael's fingers tightened involuntarily on his fork. He forced his hands to relax, thanked Jamilla for the melon starter she set down before him. Lisa might be trying to tempt him to the pool. He could chasten her thoroughly after she left the water. A wet bare bum hurt more than one which was dry.

‘I may join you there,' he said tautly.

‘I've had a tiring day,' Lisa demurred, staring at him with the coldest gaze he'd ever seen in a woman. ‘I'd rather swim alone.'

Michael looked around the long linen-clothed table at his staff. Ria was smirking. Marie-Rose was glaring at the herbalist. Dania was nibbling her bottom lip and raking her fork awkwardly across a melon crescent. Bakar was staring at Lisa's displayed full breasts. They were wonderfully round and firm, the doctor thought, gazing at the tanned smooth globes which beckoned from the deep slashed V of her neckline. He adored the dark secret hollow which disappeared into her dress. He wanted to slide his fingers between the warm spheres then circle them round and round till she moaned with pleasure. His main eroticism would always be focused on the female bottom, but he could still appreciate Lisa's cuppable breasts.

And she could appreciate his appreciation. He looked up quickly and saw the pride and pleasure in her eyes, the small joy that a woman feels when she sees that a man desires her. So she still wanted him to admire her lightly-clad contours. Did she want him to chasten her soft flesh with equal zeal?

As soon as the main course ended, Lisa stood up to leave.

‘Don't you want coffee in the drawing room?' he murmured softly.

‘No, I've had enough stimulus for today already,' she answered coolly, and her gaze was as sharp and grey and emotionless as flint.

God, she was being brutal. Michael knew all about the stimulus she meant, relived the moments when he'd seen her pushing down upon her new young lover. Oil had glistened on her pubis. Lust had brought its long-lasting heat to her pre-orgasmic face.

She walked quickly from the room.

‘Please go and have your coffee,' Michael said to the others. ‘I've some business to attend to.' Ria got up and made a move towards him. ‘Go with the others,' he said.

‘But I wanted to...' she started.

‘It can wait.' This can't, he thought, knowing that he had to re-establish his relationship with Lisa. He wanted her over his knee, then on his shaft, then in his arms. She'd elated his libido and awakened his mind more than any other woman. She could continue to revolutionise his life.

He caught up with her as she reached the stairwell.

‘Ms Steen. You've been rude and uncooperative today. I'll have to lift your skirt and...'

Lisa put her foot on the first step then looked back at him. ‘If you touch me I'll call for the police.' There was no daring note in her voice. Her gaze was equally serious. She wasn't angling for a birching - she was telling him to keep away.

Michael stayed his ground. He had to get this sorted out now. ‘If I've offended you in some way, please tell me,' he said stiffly.

‘You've... I just want a professional relationship. Alright?'

‘But at the casino we... I felt so close to you,' he continued, staring into her grey eyes even more intently.

‘You're close to all your staff,' Lisa said.

‘If you want me to stop correcting them...' He trailed off. It would be strange if he could no longer punish the other staff members. Would they stay with him out of loyalty and just find their masochistic and orgasmic kicks elsewhere? He'd have to think things through and talk to them before he could make Lisa the ultimate promise. Would have to know if they'd be willing to continue working at Vitality and living-in.

Lisa moved up another two steps. She talked as she walked. He stared at her haunches, outlined in the azure silk, and knew that he wanted to thrash them till they trembled.

‘Do what you want with the other women,' she said over her shoulder. ‘Just leave me alone.'

‘And if I don't?' he countered, still hoping that she'd egg him on, that deep down she wanted correcting.

‘If you don't I'll take the next plane back to England,' she warned.

Michael stood watching till she moved out of sight. He'd never felt this bereft before, this cuckolded. Damn her for igniting his love then ignoring it!

He looked at his fingers, remembering how they'd felt being gripped deep inside her. She'd been so deliciously silken and whimperingly wet. He'd wanted to make love to her then even more than he had the first time he'd seen her. Wanted her more than he wanted any other woman in the world. And she still desired him, that was the thing - he could feel the sexual attraction sparking between them. He ached for her. Her body had cleaved to his. So what had changed?

Still musing, Michael walked to his surgery to deal with the remaining faxes. Then he looked at his receptionist's hastily scribbled notes. Why had Lisa been given one of Ria's patients? He phoned through to the drawing room, and Jamilla answered, sounding anxious or slightly scared. They were obviously aware that he'd had an unresolved confrontation with Lisa, that he felt pain and rage.

‘Ask Marie-Rose to come and see me when she's finished her coffee,' he said. Jamilla promised to pass on the brief instruction. Either the receptionist was a quick drinker or she wanted to get the encounter over with, for four minutes later he heard a timid knock at the door.

‘Enter.' He always used few words when he was readying a girl to taste the whip. He found that the guilty party then talked overtime and usually fully implicated their luckless selves.

‘Have I done something wrong sir?' the forty year old murmured as she sauntered into the room. Her dark eyes sparkled with sexual hunger. Her lips were already parting with desire.

‘You seem to have sent this patient to the wrong therapist,' Michael said. ‘I demand an explanation.' He held out Don Muscat's slender file.

‘Oh, that,' she said eventually.

‘Yes, that, Marie-Rose.' He played with the wooden ruler upon his desk.

‘Well, Ria was out shopping and the man was desperate,' she muttered, shrugging.

‘Are you qualified to recognise despair, then?' the doctor said.

‘Well,' her hands made flapping movements, ‘he was a bit down and...'

Michael was quick to grasp the advantage. ‘Ah, so we're not talking potential suicide here.'

‘No, doctor, it's just... Though he didn't have an appointment he'd turned up in person so I figured...' The receptionist toed the ground.

‘You figured wrong. He could have gone away and come back to see his usual therapist tomorrow. That way he'd have continued the treatment he's paid for so far.'

‘I guess so.' Marie-Rose looked round the immaculate consultation rooms as if they held the answer. ‘But Lisa wasn't doing anything so I decided to give her a ring.'

Michael stared at her from the crown of her dark head to her black patent shod feet. Watched the rise and fall of her ample blouse-clad chest and increasingly jutting nipples.

‘And now I've decided to bare your bum and punish it for such unethical behaviour,' he said.

He watched as Marie-Rose flushed. ‘I thought that I was showing initiative,' she muttered, moving from foot to foot as she gazed at the carpet. She'd never been one to submit to a thrashing without a fight.

‘Showing initiative by sending a sexually-confused youth to a trainee herbalist? Showing a complete lack of sensitivity and forethought, I think.' He opened the drawer and withdrew the two-tailed tawse, then slapped it against his thigh with heavy promise. ‘Didn't you consider the quandary that you were putting Ms Steen into? Didn't you realise what the man would desire?'

‘I didn't think about it like that,' the Maltese woman admitted. He watched as her dark eyes widened.

‘Then we must impress the lesson onto your sensitive extremities,' he said.

He looked around the medical room he was seated in, then looked through the partitioning door to his second medical room. He often punished Jamilla and Carmen here for work-related misdemeanours, but now he felt bored at the prospect of having Marie-Rose stretch out along the chaise longue in the familiar supine way. He was equally tired of bending his submissive partners across the examination suite or over the wooden desk.

Restlessly Michael glanced through the large glass portal. There was a low mellow brick wall just a few feet away from Lisa's window. She might hear the older woman's cries and see...

‘As you just get into mischief when you're in here I'm going to chasten you outside,' he said, reaching for a plump square cushion.

‘Outside? You can't - young Bakar might be gardening,' the receptionist said in a high strained voice.

‘He'll get to look at more than the lupins then, won't he?' the doctor snapped. He wasn't really angry, just determined. Determined to punish a female bum today. Still seated, he waited for the forty year old's next objection - there was bound to be one. As one of his longest serving staff Marie-Rose liked to spar for a rear-protecting while.