Read Taming the Beast Online

Authors: Emily Maguire

Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Erotica

Taming the Beast (4 page)

BOOK: Taming the Beast
2.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

‘I don’t see why we can’t meet on the weekends. I’m sure I could–’

He stopped kissing his way up her shin. ‘I’m sure you could, Sarah, but I could not. I live in the grown-up world and grown-ups have responsibilities. Obligations to other people. I can’t just turn my back on my family because you’re having
urges
.’

Sarah bit her lip. She hated it when he used his teacher’s voice on her. More than that, she hated it when he talked about his family. She knew they were out there – sleeping in his bed, eating at his table, laughing at his sticking up hair first thing in the morning – but it made her chest hurt to think about them. She wished she’d never brought up the damn weekend.

‘I’m sorry.’ She reached for his face and ran her palm over his smooth forehead, then the invisible, scratchy hairs on his cheek and jaw. ‘I forget there are other people who need you. When I’m with you, I forget that there’s anything else in the world. Please don’t stop kissing my leg. I like that so much.’


She is all States, and all Princes, I. Nothing else is
.’ He smiled without teeth and lowered his head. His lips touched down on her knee for the briefest moment and then he looked up again. ‘Source?’

‘Donne. Um,
Sunne Rising
?’

‘Good girl.’ He began to lick the inside of her thighs, pushing her skirt up little by little. He moved slowly. Unbearably so. She was almost in tears by the time he reached the top. He groaned into her crotch, pressing his face into her underwear for a moment, before pulling back.

‘Take your pants off. And your skirt.’

She stood and did as he asked, while he sat below her looking up between her legs.

‘Now lie on the bench. On your back with your–’ He pushed at the inside of her knees. ‘A leg on either side. Yes. Good girl.’

The steel was cold beneath her, but she didn’t complain. In a few minutes he would be inside her and she could be lying on broken glass for all she’d care.

He knelt at her left side and took her hands. ‘I’m going to show you something, Sarah, and I want you to pay attention. When you’re feeling lonely–’ He took her left hand and placed it firmly between her legs. ‘When you’re missing me–’ He took up her right hand and positioned it over her clitoris. ‘This is what I want you to do.’

Sarah closed her eyes and let him move her. It was her hands, her fingers, but it was Mr Carr making her moan and shake. He kept control, nudging her to go further, move faster, make smaller circles. ‘You’re nearly there, darling,’ he told her and she started to
tell him she wasn’t, but he shushed her. ‘I want you to clench your muscles really tight. Try and squash your fingers.’ Almost right away, she was coming, the clenching bringing on the waves, which made her muscles contract, which brought on more waves.

She sat up, and the blood returning to her head made the room spin. She closed her eyes until the dizziness stopped. When she opened them, she saw that Mr Carr was looking up at her with a toothless smile.

‘Well, I’d say that was a success.’

She touched his lips with her fingers. ‘What?’

‘You did a fine job. You don’t need me anymore.’

‘No.’ She rubbed her hands over his face and lips. She slid to the floor, kissed his lips and tasted herself. ‘I do need you. I need you. I need you.’

‘You managed pretty well with your own–’

‘Shut up! You think you’re so smart, but I know what you’re trying to do. It won’t work.’ Sarah was kissing him, wrestling with his trousers, pulling off her own sweaty shirt. ‘You can’t make me not miss you. Having a stupid orgasm is nothing. Okay? Nothing. God, you’re so stupid! I’m always, always on my own. I could have a thousand stupid orgasms a day if I wanted. But it would just make me more alone. Can’t you understand that? If I touch myself it reminds me that I’m not touching you. I don’t want to touch or be touched by anyone else. I need you. You! Okay, do you get it, you stupid old man?’

There was so much blood pounding in her head it was clouding her vision. She couldn’t see the expression on his face when he knocked her over, but the sound he made as he drove into her was frightening. Then there was no question of them not needing each other; they couldn’t seem to disentangle, couldn’t stop clutching and clawing, couldn’t not be one. By the time Mr Carr rolled off
her, panting and gasping so badly that Sarah’s own heart began to flutter in fear for his, it was dark inside and out.

Sarah’s mother was in the front room when Sarah got home. ‘Where have you been?’ she asked, without looking up from her book.

‘Jamie’s.’

‘Don’t lie to me, Sarah. Jamie called for you over an hour ago.’

Sarah’s legs and back ached. She needed a hot shower and a soft bed. She leant against the wall, as far away from her mother’s chair as she could get without leaving the room. ‘I was just hanging out with some friends. I lost track of the time. I’m sorry.’

‘Your sister tells me you’ve been coming home late for weeks.’

Sarah closed her eyes. Why the hell did her mother suddenly care what she was doing? Sarah would have killed for this much attention a year ago, but now she wanted to melt into the wall. She wanted to be invisible to everyone except
him
.

‘I’m sorry, Mum, but I don’t have anything else to tell you. I was with friends and I lost track of time. It won’t happen again.’

Her mother put down her book. ‘I know what’s happening here. You’re fourteen; you’re trying to assert your independence. You’re testing the limits of your personhood. That’s a perfectly healthy, natural impulse for someone in your age group.’

‘I’m not an age group, Mum.’

‘Of course you’re not. You’re Sarah Jane Clark. An individual. I see you.’ She smiled. ‘You’re an individual who needs to know where her boundaries are. So, let’s negotiate.’

She wished her mother could be normal, just yell for a couple of minutes and cut off her pocket money or something. Instead everything had to be done according to how The Research said it had to be done. Every parenting decision was made in line with Expert Opinion. The book her mother was reading was probably
called ‘Professional Parenting.’ It probably instructed her to
Empower your child by Negotiating rather than Demanding. Allow your child to
own
his or her behaviour
.

It would go faster if she played along. ‘Okay, I would like to be allowed out until nine on week nights and twelve on weekends.’

A laugh. ‘The first rule of negotiating: Always ask for more than you expect. Right, I refuse that offer and propose that you come straight home from school every day. Weekends will be negotiated on a case by case basis depending on where you are going and with whom.’

‘I can’t come straight home every day. My English teacher is tutoring me after class.’

‘Why?’

‘I’m struggling a bit. I only got a B for my last assignment.’

Her mother nodded. ‘Fine. Study with your teacher, but be home by six-thirty.’

‘Can I go to bed now?’

‘In a minute. We need to decide on your punishment. Something commensurate. What’s fair, do you think?’

‘I thought negotiating boundaries
was
my punishment.’

‘How droll.’ She sighed. ‘Fine, I’ll decide. You’re grounded for a month. You’ll go to school and you’ll come home. For one month. Okay?’

‘Marvellous. I don’t want to go anywhere but school anyway.’

‘Yes, Sarah, I’m sure. Good night.’

Sarah began to move away, taking care to walk normally and to stay to the shadows. If her mother noticed her limping or, worse, the scratches on her throat, her life would be over. When she got to the doorway she snuck a peak at her mother, just to make sure she hadn’t noticed anything. She needn’t have worried; her mother was already reabsorbed in her book.

6

Sarah smiled when Mr Carr walked into the classroom. He hadn’t shaved this morning, and the tiny hairs she often felt on his face at the end of the day were visible. She might ask if she could pluck a hair out with her teeth, or maybe he would let her shave him.

She wasn’t only smiling at the stubble; his whole appearance was funny today. Usually he wore his hair spiked up with a little gel, but today it lay flat against his skull. His nose was red, as though he’d spent the previous day at the beach, and there were dark circles under his eyes. He looked old and like he would smell of cough medicine and mothballs if you got up close. She could hardly wait to tease him about looking like a bum. He would tease her back, because she too looked like hell. Their mutual raggedness was a consequence of what took place in the boy’s locker room last night, and knowing that made her hot all over. She was busting with joy just from looking at how changed he was. Look at what my love has done to him, she thought. My love is so strong you can see it.

She made herself look away from him, gazing down at her book so it would appear she was smiling at something written there. Not that anyone would be watching her, except Jamie who would know who her smile was for anyway. She glanced up again, looking straight into Mr Carr’s eyes. Oh! How could eyes be so green? She had seen every inch of his body and been surprised and delighted by what certain parts of it could do, but his eyes were far and away her favourite part. His eyes stripped her completely; under his gaze she was naked in a way that had nothing to do with lacking clothes.

He cleared his throat. ‘Before we start, I have an announcement to make.’

Oh, she loved his voice, too. Maybe even more than she loved his eyes. It was so hard to look at him and not be able to touch him. She clenched her thighs and stared at the top of her desk.

‘As I’m sure you’re all aware, we have just under three weeks left of this term.’ He waited for the cheers to die down before continuing. ‘Which means you only have to put up with me for another fourteen periods.’

Sarah looked at him. He was looking at the back wall, not smiling.

‘When you get back from the break you’ll have a new teacher, who I know will enjoy teaching this class as much as I have.’

Sarah willed him to look at her. She needed to know what this meant. She had to see his eyes.

‘Did you get sacked?’ Jerry Gleason called out. Everybody laughed, except Sarah who was now certain that this was exactly what had happened.

‘Incredibly, enough, no.’ He smiled, but it wasn’t real. ‘I’m transferring to Brisbane.’

Still he wouldn’t look at her. Brisbane? It couldn’t be true. She tried to take a deep breath but there was no air. A hand closed over her arm. ‘You okay?’ Jamie whispered. She shook her head no.

‘Why the sudden move?’ Jamie asked.

‘It’s not sudden at all.’ Mr Carr addressed his answer to the back wall. ‘My wife’s family is in Brisbane. We’ve been planning the move for some time. I confirmed my new position with the department this morning.’

Sarah’s stomach contracted, and her throat filled with bile. Covering her mouth with her hand, she pushed her chair back and ran from the room. She heard Jamie say her name, then Mr Carr said ‘What’s the mat–’ Then Jamie said, ‘You fucking creep.’ She made it to the garbage bin in the hallway just before her breakfast
came up. When she finished vomiting, she found that Jamie was standing beside her and the classroom door was closed.

‘Fucking creep,’ Jamie repeated.

‘Go fuck yourself, Jamie.’ Sarah wiped her mouth and headed back to Mr Carr’s classroom.

One day, for pleasure simply, we were reading

Of Lancelot, and how love overpowered him;

Alone we were, and free from all suspicions
.

Often that reading caused our eyes to meet
,

And often the colour from our faces went
,

But it was a single passage that overcame us:

When we read how the desired smile was

Kissed by one so true a lover, then this one
,

Who from me never will be taken
,

Kissed me, his body all trembling, on the mouth
.


And no more did we read that day
.

Sarah handed the slip of paper back to him. ‘What the fuck is this?’

‘Dante Alighieri. It’s from
Inferno
, Sarah. You haven’t read it yet, I know, but you will. You’ll read it after I’m gone and you’ll think of me. You see Francesca and Paolo–’

‘I won’t read it.’ She tore the paper from his hand, ripped it in two, then in four. ‘I can’t believe you’re doing this.’

‘Sarah, last night was insanity. You know that don’t you?’

‘I thought it was… I was happy.’

He stood up and ran his hands through his hair. ‘Try and understand… I walk in the door at nine-thirty when my family
have been expecting me since six. My shirt is ripped. I have bite marks on my chest. I have blasted scratches all over my back. My wife starts crying and I can’t get her to stop. Then my…’ He took three deep breaths. ‘The girls were still awake. They were crying too. It was…’ Mr Carr pressed his forehead against the blackboard. ‘I had to make a choice, Sarah.’

‘What about me? Do I get a choice?’

He was quiet for too long.

‘So that’s it?’ Panic was rising in her. Her mind scrambled for something – anything – that would change his mind. ‘All that–everything you, we, did and all those things you said to me. I don’t believe you didn’t mean it. I know you did. Our souls are joined! I know they are. I feel it every time we, God, I don’t even know what to call it. But we are one in it. You know this is true.’

Mr Carr knelt at her feet. He buried his face in her lap. She wanted to hurt him, to knee him in the jaw, punch him in the face, kick his disgusting balls. No, she wanted to
want
that. She wished she could hate him.

‘What can I do to make you stay?’

His words were muffled by her skirt, but clear enough. ‘Nothing. I’m sorry.’

She could not believe him. He was upset by the scene with his stupid family. He would calm down, if she helped him. She stroked his greasy hair, wishing she could wash it for him. ‘How long do we have then?’

He looked up at her. ‘You still want to be with me?’

BOOK: Taming the Beast
2.16Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

Other books

Tales From the Tower of London by Donnelly, Mark P.
Out of the Dark by David Weber
Wait for Me by Elisabeth Naughton
Strike Dog by Joseph Heywood
Etiquette With The Devil by Rebecca Paula
Witches of East End by Melissa de La Cruz
Bad Habit by JD Faver