Kinky (3 page)

‘How long have you two been playing together?’ asks Mal suddenly, and I dry up. We are going to be found out and kicked down the stairs by his rather sexy steel-capped boots. Or O’s gorgeous pointy stilettos. Either way.

But Dimitri saves the ball, apparently having presence of mind among his other skills. ‘Not long. Maybe six weeks,’ he says. ‘We are learning. She don’t have kinky lover before, but I do. Lots of kinky lovers for me.’

‘What a wonderful time you will have here,’ says O with a rather flirtatious smile. She fancies him! ‘I think you’re going to be valuable additions to our merry little band.’

‘And now,’ says Mal, leaning back to perch on his vast desk, ‘for your initiation. What do you want to show us?’

Dimitri looks down at me, awaiting my pleasure.

‘Um.’ I can’t hedge, I have to look confident, as if this is something I do all the time. ‘Maybe just a little spanking.’

‘Just a little one?’ He curls his lip and winks at me. I have to catch my breath. ‘OK.’ He takes off his battered leather jacket to reveal heavily tattooed arms. I try not to look too surprised at the colourful display but it’s hard not to stare.

‘Gorgeous work,’ purrs O. ‘I presume you had these done in Russia?’

‘Uh-huh,’ he says, throwing the jacket into the corner of the room with a fluid motion of his sinewy arm. ‘Can I get a chair, please?’

Mal obliges, pushing a plain wooden chair into the centre of the room.

‘Do you need any implements?’ he asks politely, then, registering Dimitri’s frown, he explains, ‘Straps, whips, you know.’

I put my hand on Dimitri’s forearm and grip it fearfully.

‘Oh, uh-huh. Well, maybe tonight Rosie is a little shy so I just use my hand, right? That’s OK?’

‘That’s fine,’ says O. ‘I love the intimacy of an old-fashioned hand spanking.’

Intimacy. I look down at what I’m wearing. A thick tweedy skirt for the autumn weather, diamond-patterned opaque tights over cotton boy shorts. Kinky it ain’t, unless you hanker after that librarian look. Will I have to … bare anything?

I can leave. I can just walk away. No consequences, no risks. I know what this place is now; my curiosity is sated.

Except it isn’t. In its place are a dozen new curiosities about Dimitri, about S&M, about how it could feel, how it could be to have fantasies made flesh.

I watch him take his place on the chair, then he sweeps his hand in a broad gesture that starts out pointing at me and ends up slapping his thigh.

It’s unequivocal enough, and so terribly sexy my cotton boy shorts flood. I shuffle over and stand by his knees, wondering if there’s a graceful way to put myself across them.

His face is set and intense. He takes my arm and manoeuvres me down until my stomach presses against his strong thighs and my view is of the floor. I’m going to have to keep my eyes shut for this, I think, though I’d love to see what we look like from a third person’s perspective. Perhaps Mal or O will take a photograph.

‘OK, OK,’ he mutters, quite gently, positioning my legs so that they are straight, tiptoes touching the floor, then he elevates his thighs a little, having an unmistakable knock-on effect on my bottom, and rubs my spine.

‘This is comfortable for you?’ he whispers and I nod. Actually, it really is. It feels so safe and held – it’s almost as if I’ve come to him for protection rather than punishment.

The word ‘punishment’ starts my juices flowing again. My heart thunders. I’m really doing this, really putting myself across a strange man’s lap to get spanked in front of witnesses. My breath hitches.

He puts his hand on my thigh, just below my skirt hem, and traces the diamond pattern with an idle finger.

‘You know, Rosie, I can’t have this skirt this way. It’s too thick. I push it up, right?’

Oh God. I’m quivering so much from the way his finger strokes the back of my thighs that I can’t speak. I just lie there while he pushes the heavy tweed up and up, over the curve of my bum, taking it unbearably slowly until I feel his palm flat on my buttocks, protected only by tights and knickers now.

‘And these things,’ he says, moving his palm in a circular motion over the target area while I try really, really hard not to buck and press my groin into his leg. ‘What you call them? Hoses?’

‘Tights,’ I gasp with a giggle.

‘Too tights,’ he quips, and before my brain catches up with his fingers I am feeling cool air on bare flesh.

The boy shorts are cut high and a good portion of my bottom swells out from beneath their edges – more, really, than they cover. I kick out in panic, but it’s hard to kick when your knees are hobbled by tights and Dimitri places a cautionary hand on the scoops of flesh he has just exposed. My rebellious nerves are quelled at once by the caress of his warm palm, moulding itself to my natural curves. It feels ridiculously good.

‘OK, Rosie?’ he whispers, leaning down so that only I can hear him for a moment.

‘I didn’t know you were going to do that.’

‘No, me either. It seems right.’

‘Don’t take my knickers down or I’ll kill you.’

‘OK. Not tonight.’

He unwinds his spine and I feel him tensing, preparing. I picture him putting his shoulders back, flexing his muscular forearms. Speaking of muscular forearms, how hard is this going to be? How much is it going to hurt?

A flash of fear plunges to my stomach as I hear him – courtesy of his multitude of bangly things – raise his hand.

‘You have anything to say to me before I start?’

His voice has changed. It’s gruff and menacing. My insides coil, my clit fattens.

‘I’m sorry,’ I say. What the hell I’m sorry for, I don’t know. I’ve been transported to another headspace.

‘Who you are apologise to? To me?’

‘Uh, yeah.’ I catch my breath, realising what he means. ‘Oh, sorry,
sir.
’

‘You must learn,’ he says. ‘This is not respectful. I teach you respectful.’

I teach you English grammar. What would happen if I said it? I daren’t imagine.

The speculation flies from my mind at the first sharp contact of his hand with my arse. It’s loud and shocking and I actually laugh, as if I can’t distinguish slap from tickle.

‘What?’ He pantomimes horror. ‘You are laughing at me? I don’t stand it. She is nervous.’ This last presumably addressed to our audience, who chuckle understandingly. ‘I get serious.’

His hand falls again, hard enough to sting, not so hard as to really hurt. I get the sense that he is holding a lot back, but what he gives is plenty. The surreality of the situation masks some of the pain – a big part of my head is engaged in establishing the fact that this is happening at all, and then trying to work out whether it’s good or bad. I’m slightly detached from it, trying to capture each sensation individually rather than letting the experience take me over.

The sound of it is so satisfying, and the pain is little more than discomfort. I focus on the humiliation of my position. That’s the element I want to sink into, to inhabit and explore from every angle. That’s what’s going to get me off tonight, after all this is done and I’m back in my bed. Think of where I am, think of what’s happening to me. It’s happening to me! It can’t be real. Yes, it’s real, I thought we’d established that.

These thoughts in a loop prevent me from getting into the mindset I thought I’d be in if and when I ever got spanked by an attractive man. I need to switch off and, as if he knows this, Dimitri suddenly ups the ante, smacking harder, lower, on the vulnerable area around the tops of my thighs, and all my thoughts are instantly diverted to the corridor marked ‘Ouch’.

No room for over thinking now. Perhaps this is the antidote I have always needed. I begin to squirm and jolt. I reach back and claw at his leg, my tiny fake squeals graduating into proper yelps.

‘You know I am serious,’ he growls, lighting up the crease underneath the curve of my arse. ‘I will make you to obey me.’

‘I will, sir,’ I moan, kicking pathetically. How long is this going to go on for? I curl my fingers up in the rough denim of his jeans and cling.

He speeds up and my yelps turn into a continuous keen, the peppery sting becomes a burn, searing itself tissue deep. I can’t take much more – except I probably could, if I knew how many more, how much longer. It’s the uncertainty, the unpredictability that is distressing me.

‘Please, sir,’ I cry, and he holds fire.

‘Yes?’

‘Are you nearly finished?’

‘Are you nearly sorry?’

‘Yes, sir. Very, very nearly sorry.’

‘OK. Then I am nearly finished.’

I trust him, a realisation that knocks me for six. The man is a complete stranger who has somehow lured me into a fetish club so he can perform humiliating acts on me in front of other strangers, but I trust him. Either I’m profoundly stupid or I’m on to something with this guy.

My fingers unclench and I drop my legs again. I offer my heated arse to him to treat as he sees fit. I know he won’t give more than I can take. I am safe with him.

My instincts prove correct. He finishes with a volley of sweet, light slaps, the stinging icing on the burning cake, then he rests one hand on the sore area and rubs my back with the other.

‘You learn your lesson, right?’ he says.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘OK. You can get up.’

I can’t face Mal and O, and I turn away from them as soon as I am up, hiking up the tights and wrenching down the skirt with immoderate haste.

‘Nicely done,’ says Mal. ‘She needs a bit of practice. She’s a bit skittish.’

‘Inexperienced,’ says O, and there’s a weight of worldly knowledge in her tone. ‘She just needs to be brought on a bit. You seem well capable of the task. Anyway, welcome to Kinky Cupcake. We’re very happy to have you.’

Dimitri rises from his chair and I watch him, from the corner of my eye, stride over to Mal and shake his hand with too much vigour for a man who has been using that arm to whack my behind for the last five minutes.

‘Take a look around the place,’ says Mal. ‘You’ll get a lot out of being a member, I’m sure. Anything you want to know, any ideas you have for making tweaks or improvements – we’re always here. Just pop into the office. Cheers.’

‘Rosie.’ Dimitri’s voice is no less stern than it was while I was over his knee. I almost jump to attention, wheeling around to face him with my eyes wide. ‘This is good manners? Say thank you to our hosts.’

I mutter thank yous without catching their eyes and follow Dimitri back out to the landing as fast as my feet will shuffle.

He takes my hand and leads me through another door, into a capacious space that could very easily be mistaken for a regular café or bar. Blond wood floor, high spot lit ceilings, a long maple counter with large glass domes housing pretty pyramids of cupcakes and Jenga-structures of flapjacks – it’s like a giant branch of Prêt.

There are differences, of course. Prêt wouldn’t have quite the same prints on the walls, for instance, nor would the clientele be quite so skewed towards the rubber clad. All the same, I feel my headspace veer from submissive to ‘normal’ again as I breathe in the aroma of coffee.

‘I’ll get us a coffee,’ I tell Dimitri. ‘Do you want a cupcake? Do you suppose the cupcakes are actually kinky?’ Reaching the counter, I frown down at the frosting of the cakes in the nearest display case. Black and red liquorice whips decorate it, formed into a very elaborate flogger design. ‘Wow, that’s so cool. They are.’

The handsome barista in a black silk shirt, leather pants and Zorro mask completes our order with a flourish and we take ourselves to a cream sofa in the corner, from which all things are visible.

‘This is nice,’ I say vaguely, sipping at my coffee and watching gorgeous exotically dressed people flit to and fro.

‘You can sit OK?’ Dimitri puts a hand on my spine, fingers crawling down towards my coccyx.

I flush with recollection, not wanting to talk about it. ‘Fine. This sofa’s very soft.’

‘I don’t hurt you too much?’

‘No, no. It’s cool.’

‘Cool?’ He tilts my chin up with a lone finger and makes my head swivel to face him. I drop my eyes, but he tuts and I lift them again. ‘What’s that? Cool? But did you like it?’

‘Like it?’

He tips his head to one side, watching me intently. He will have his answer. Hedging is going to be futile, I can tell.

‘It was … different.’

‘No, Rosie. You liked it. I could tell.’

‘How?’

He drops his neck low and sniffs with a dramatic flourish.

I raise a hand as if to slap him, but he catches my wrist and lowers it, chuckling. ‘What? It’s true. This is your thing, this spanking. This submission. Why pretend not?’

‘I don’t even know you.’

‘You know what you need to know.’

‘And what’s that?’

‘I like spanking and you like to be spanked. What else you need to know but that?’ His grin, almost broader than his face, gleams in my eye line.

Put like that, it does sound beautifully simple. Two halves that click into a piece. It really can’t be that simple, though, can it?

‘Ha, well, there you go,’ I say lamely, once my cheeks have reached the critical mass of blush. ‘So you like this place? You think you’ll, uh, come here often?’

His laugh is dirty. ‘Yeah. I will come here very often. And I hope you will too. Drink that, we’ll look around.’

He picks up a card from the sheaf tucked inside the menu.

‘This week,’ he reads in portentous tones, ‘at Kinky Cupcake. Second of October – that’s today, right? – in the dungeon at eleven p.m. – How to Use the St Andrew’s Cross. In the schoolroom at eight p.m. – Lessons With Mr Strict. Hey, that was what we saw, you think? In the boudoir at midnight – Share a Slave.’ He puts the card down, raising his eyebrows at me.

‘It sounds like a kind of college of kink,’ I muse. ‘Lessons and activities. If I’d known all this was here, perhaps I’d have tried to get in sooner.’

‘You think is allowed to watch any of this? Or only to join in?’

‘I don’t know. I feel I’d like to take a look, but I don’t think I’m ready to, er, throw myself into the fray quite yet.’

‘We find out.’ He puts down the coffee cup, wipes his moustache with the back of his hand and pulls me to my feet.