Lecture Notes (8 page)

“When are you going to seduce him, Beth?” a
sks Dearbhla conversationally. “Do you think he’d be up for a ménage à quatre?”

“Depends if you could cater to his…tastes,” I say mysteriously, cocking my eyebrows at them.

“What do you mean?” they demand in stereo. Fuck! Why did I say that? Apart from because I’m drunk, obviously.

“Nothi
ng. ‘M joking. Have you seen his CD collection. Ish quite good.”

We shake more cocktails, forgetting to add the mixers and olives and whatnot this time, and rifle through his music, si
nging along, dancing, swaying. At some point Emily and I start using some weird ornamental bowl thing as an ashtray. We have another cocktail. Is it really half past two? Dearbhla has passed out on the sofa and Emily and I are crooning in two-part harmony to a Jacques Brel CD when….OOOOH SHIT! A key turns in the lock.

But he
said he was staying overnight! He wasn’t going to be back until morning! Fuck x 1,000,000.

“Beth!” Hi
s voice, laden with suspicion. “Why can I smell….” He opens the door and catches me in the act of scooping up glasses, ashtrays and other detritus while Dearbhla sweetly snores on in the corner. “…Cigarette smoke?”  he finishes with heartstopping menace.

I fr
eeze in mid-damage-limitation. “I…you didn’t say I couldn’t….I thought it would be….all right,” I almost whisper.

He shakes his head. “No,” is all he says.
Then, “Wake her up and get the pair of them out of here.” Charming. A chastened Emily stirs Dearbhla from her groggy repose and they leave, heads hanging low and feet all over the place.

I wait
for nuclear meltdown, but he just says, “Go to bed, Beth. We’ll deal with this in the morning.”

“I’m sorry,” I squeak.

“Bed. Now.”

Chapter Five

Ooooh God, what time is it?
I open one eye against the fierce kettledrumming in my head and check the digital alarm clock. 10:46, though whether that’s a.m. or p.m….

Light drifts in through the curtain, giving me my first hint.
I need to get a glass of water, but I’m not sure I can  move without disturbing the limpid puddle of nausea in my brain and stomach. I need to hold it…very….still…. I need to shut my eyes again. But with the relief of darkness comes a burst of memory so vividly unwelcome I almost throw up regardless.

SINCLAIR IS GOING TO KILL ME!

Lying silently, hidden beneath the duvet, I listen for sounds to convey his presence. The flat appears to be empty. No running water, footsteps, hum of computer, music. Just eerie mid-morning stillness. I am motionlessly supine for ten minutes or more before I can summon the courage to stick one foot out from beneath the covers. With calculated slowness and stealth, I bring out another, place them on the floor and bring my sick head up until I am vertical. Oh my Lord. I sway gently, unwelcome reminders of last night’s cocktails surging up through the centre of my torso.

This is it.
I clamp a hand to my mouth and bolt for the bathroom. Several redecorations of the toilet bowl later, I crawl into the kitchen, needing water, water, water, like the stereotypical guy in the desert. I slide gratefully into one of the wooden chairs, tipping the water down my throat with abandon, but my gut lurches once more when I notice a card propped against the salt cellar with my name inscribed in elegant Sinclairian script.

“
Beth

I have to be out most of today, and suspect you will be indisposed at any rate.

I will expect you to report to me tomorrow afternoon at 5 p.m. sharp to address the outstanding matters of last night.

Prof. E.L. Sinclair
.”

Despite the creepy, knotty sensation in my stomach, I snicker slight
ly at his pompous signing-off. ‘Prof. E. L. Sinclair’. What a knob.

I can’t believe the psychological t
orture he is subjecting me to. More than twenty four hours to get wound up into a state of holy terror; I’m sure it is totally intentional. On the other hand, even the mildest tap would probably finish me off today, so it’s probably just as well.

I drain another pint of cold, clear stuff and write him a little note on the back.

“
Dear Professor

I am staying overnight with Emily.

A bientôt,

Beth xx
.”  I giggle at the kisses, wondering what he will make of them, if anything. Then I get dressed, pack my tote and haul my sorry arse over to Cliveden Hall, to spend the weekend moaning and languishing with my fellow-sufferers.

*

I am distracted throughout the Sunday afternoon
Pinafore
rehearsal, forgetting my lines about eight times, until Seb tells me to sort my life out, dearie, or get the hell out of Dodge.

I trot swiftly back to the flat, wondering if I will get any credit for being early, my jaw set, fingers crossed, every cell on high alert, though my bottom appears to be throbbing presciently in anticipation of the festivities to come.

I quell the urge to cry ‘Hi, honey, I’m home,’ as I slip through the front door, and instead listen out for any readable sign of Sinclair’s intentions for me.

It is quiet
.

I enter the living room timidly; he looks up from the table, where he is poring over some pap
ers, and checks his watch. I am five minutes early.

“Take a seat,” he directs me.
I perch uncertainly on the sofa and he returns to his calm scrutinising. I feel as if I am waiting for a job interview and by the time he takes off his reading glasses and puts the papers aside, I swear I have developed a twitch.

“Come and stand here please,” he says, indicating a spot opp
osite him across the table. Impossible to stand there like that in the glare of his disapproving attention without finding my head starting to droop in classic contrite fashion. He steeples his fingers and straightens his spine, in full intimidating effect. “Well, then, Miss Newland, we have a catalogue of misdemeanours to address today, don’t we?”

“Yes, s
ir,” I mumble.

“Stand up straight, Miss Newland, and speak clearly, if you please.”

I jolt into military stiffness and bark, “Yes, sir.”

“I don’t expect to arrive in my own home and find it colonised by semi-conscious girls, helping themselves to my liquor, polluting the air with cigarette smoke and damaging my property in t
he early hours of the morning. Do you consider that to be an appropriate payment for my hospitality?”

“No, s
ir.”

“Then wh
y did you do it, Miss Newland? I require an explanation.”

“I…er….don’t know really. We were drunk.”
I shrug awkwardly, palms upward in supplication, hoping this interrogation will not be lengthy. I am beginning to cower.

“You were drunk,” he says, laying on the appalle
d hush of his tone very thick. “That is your entire rationale behind this litany of disrespectful behaviour?”

“Yes.
Sir.” My eyes are back on the floor.

“So then,” he says, back to robust full vo
ice. “How shall I deal with you, Miss Newland? What would be a suitable disincentive to repeat this behaviour, do you think?”

He’s asking
me?

“Oh…I won
’t do it again,” I assure him. “Honestly, never, ever.”

“You’ll forgive me if I’m not entirely convinc
ed by your claim. I’m starting to wonder if you are, in fact, incorrigible, and as such, beyond correction.”

“Oh no, I’m not,” I bleat.
“I’m not beyond correction.”

“Let’s see, shall we?”
He rises from his chair and my heart starts to thump sincerely. “Follow me.”

He sweeps pas
t me and out towards the hall. Where…are we going? We leave the flat and then the building, walking swiftly down the gravel drive and taking a sharp left up towards the Downs.

“Where are we going?” I ask breathlessly, breaking into a light canter in my efforts to keep up with his long-legged pace.

“You’ll find out in due course,” he says tersely, taking my wrist as we cross the road over to a patch of verdant new-spring growth on the edge of the urban oasis of green. Walking into the dense darkness of the grove, I am curiouser and curiouser, until Sinclair stops in a quiet spot and hands me a Stanley knife. I am totally confused now. Does he want me to stab myself? I don’t think what I did was
that
bad… I flick my eyes blankly between the professor and the blade.

“Erm..?” I say queryingly.

“New growth,” says Sinclair mysteriously, waving his hand at the surrounding woodland. “The saplings are sprouting. Soon their branches will be coarse and woody, but just now, they are at their most flexible.”

“I, er, see,” I say, not processing this botanical lesson on the level that he seems to intend.

“Their most
whippy
,” he clarifies, and I literally jump.

“OH!” I squeak.
“You mean…?”

“I will need yo
u cut me about…eight…branches. Six young striplings and a couple of more robust examples to give the bundle a little backbone. Well, what are you waiting for?”

He indicates
the birch trees in front of us. Oh God. He is actually going to birch me. My cheeks are tingling in the late March, early evening chill as much from humiliation as from cold as I set to work sawing off the young green rods and imagining them applied to my backside later on. Sinclair supervises, vetoing specimens that seem too weedy, until finally I have a bunch of eight. He tests each individually, swishing it through the air to assess its level of stinginess, even bending me over and whacking my rear end with a couple, making me thank God for corduroy. At least it is late enough in the day that passers-by are unlikely, though not impossible. When he is satisfied that my labours have borne fruit, he makes me carry the bundle home. It is, to say the least, an uncomfortable walk back. I wonder if the people we encounter in the street think anything of my peculiar burden – is it an obvious conclusion that they are bound for my bum, or will it be assumed they are for decorative or craft purposes? I hope the latter, though I imagine my shifty, tormented expression might tend a knowing observer towards the former.

Back at the flat, he sits me down at the table and instructs me to trim the rods of any rough edges.

“I don’t want to draw blood,” he says, reassuringly. Is that reassuring? I’m not sure. Then he hands me some twine, which is to be wrapped securely around the ends of the bundle to a length of about six inches, forming a handle. A ribbon – how sweet – is tied around the spot where the twine ends and the whippy rods flare out. The weapon is ready. It looks meaner than Cruella de Vil with PMT.

“Good work, Miss Newland,” says Sinclair, picking it up and caressing the strands lovingly; a good workman who does not want anything to blame his tools for.
“This will certainly get my point across effectively, I trust.” Gulp. “Now I must ask you to remove your lower garments and bend over your chair, if you please, keeping a tight hold of the sides.”

The formality and dispassion of his tone is frightening and yet, at th
e same time, rather a turn on. Sinclair is horribly strict, but that is a big part of what makes him so sexy. I cannot deny that, as I drift into sleep each night, I hear his voice in my head telling me to place myself over his knee…lower my knickers…slap!...need to be taught a lesson, Miss Newland…slap!...and then he would touch me…ooooh yes, he would touch me there….and I fall asleep satisfied, and yet so very unsatisfied, so full of longing and need. Oh Sinclair.

But there is no time for fantasy now – this is real, and it is going to be real pain I feel.
Once I have unwillingly uncovered myself from the waist down, I droop forwards over the chair seat and grip the sides, as instructed. My arse thrust up and out while my spine slopes down, I am hideously aware that my masterful mentor can have a good long look at my womanly parts from this position. I hear him walking around behind me, shaking out the bundle of birch twigs in a manner that makes my heart stop, continuing this process for what seems like a very long time.

“Now then,” he says in a low, authoritative voice, once he has tired of the
psychological terror tactics. “You will receive ten strokes of the birch, each one of which you will count for me. Should you move out of place or attempt to protect the target area, please be in no doubt that additional strokes will be added to the total until your behaviour indicates obedience and suitable contrition. Have I made myself clear, Miss Newland?”

“Yes, s
ir,” I say fearfully, my backside twitching.

“Then I shall begin.”
He lays the birch rods against my behind; I feel their harsh texture and coldness and I cringe. When he removes them, I tighten my grip on the chair and my jaw clenches. They fall through the air with a swoosh and a slight rattle and then land on my bottom like a swarm of angry bees, stinging me in long lines across the startled flesh so that I gasp and utter a weak cry, only just preventing myself from jumping up. This is serious punishment. “One, Sir,” I say unevenly, but now he is raising his arm again and I don’t think I can… oooh, noooo. Another stinging slash of pain overtakes my every nerve ending; I sway dangerously, almost bringing the chair over and bite down on the cushioned seat. “Two, Sir,” I say, and my broken voice betrays my fear that I will not be able to take eight more of these without trying to elude the lash.

Indeed, after the fourth stroke I have to admit defeat; I leap up and clutch at my raging bum with a forlorn appeal to my disciplinarian to please let me take any other punishme
nt, anything but more of this… His face dashes my hopes and he gently admonishes me that he must add another stroke to the total to make it eleven. Twelve unless I resume my position immediately.

With a deep sigh, I bend back over the chair, tears in
my eyes and dread in my soul. “Four, Sir,” I whisper.

The rods fall another seven times, each occasioning wild rocking of the chair and much under-the-breath moaning and oohing and aahing
while the tears stream. Suddenly I understand the full implications of ‘unapologetic sadist’. He gets off on this. Perhaps he will be thinking about this later, alone in his bed… In fact, he most definitely will. Somehow, the idea that my pain is fuelling his sexual release makes the last few swingeing strokes bearable. I swim into the fierce burn, imagining the look of glazed lust in his eyes, and I maintain position as obediently as I can until I count the final “Eleven, Sir,” and let out a shuddering half-sob of breath.

“Well, then, Miss Newland,” he says, and I detect just the faintest tremor of uncontrolled vibration in his voice, “I trust we can conclude that there will be no repeat of Friday’s disgraceful behaviour?”