Lecture Notes (7 page)

“Perfect.”
He beams touchingly, and I pack up my tote and hightail it off to Sinclair’s office.

Just as I am slipping the envelope – the right one this time! – into Sinclair’s in-tray at five to five, the man himself emerges from isolation to say something or other to his secretary.

“Ah,” he says, spotting me. “So you can meet deadlines. Bravo.” He picks up the envelope and weighs it consideringly in his fair hands. “Perhaps we can discuss this later.”

“Oh.
I’m going out for dinner tonight,” I tell him guilelessly.

There is a silence.
“Really, Beth? And presumably you are singing for your supper, since you don’t have the wherewithal to pay?”

I don’t like t
he tenor of this conversation. “A friend is treating me,” I tell him, blushing. Why would he care if I was seeing someone? 

“A friend?
” Menacing eye contact.

“Yeah.
Look, I should go; he’s waiting…”

“A male friend?
No such thing as a free lunch, Beth.”

“You aren’t charging me rent,” I point out. 

“I’m not a hormone-driven teenager,” he snaps, clearly incredibly put-out by the whole thing.

“It’s just a pizza,” I wring my hands, desperate to escape this uncomfortable exchange.

“Back by ten, Beth.”

“Ten?
You can’t put me under curfew.”

“I can.
Ten o’clock; no later.”

I make a furious face, but can’t
be bothered to argue with him. It would ruin my evening.

James and I have a pleasant evening, first at Pi
zza Express then in the Caledonian Vaults, talking the usual kind of shite talk you do on first dates. We discuss
Dr Who
, our schooldays, favourite bands, whether it’s true that Princess Diana was murdered and other philosophical questions of that nature. James keeps gazing into my eyes and forgetting what he was saying, which is…a bit alarming really. He's so nice. I should go for it. But he isn’t Sinclair…
Oh god of love and god of reason say/ Which of you twain shall my poor heart obey?
As the song says.

At
quarter to ten, I take a deep breath and say, “I’m really sorry, James, I have to be back by ten.”

“Why?” he frowns, disappointed.

“Stupid house rules,” I shrug. “No rhyme or reason. But would you argue with the Prof?”

“I suppose not,” he concedes.
“I’ll walk you home then.”

“Cheers,” I say.
He takes my arm and we stroll back through the cold, hard starlit night.

At the entrance to the drive, I say, “Well, thanks for a really nice night; I enjoyed it.”

He does not let go of my arm, but instead dithers for a second or two before ducking sharply forward and depositing an awkward kiss on my lips. I don’t know why, but I am taken aback, so do not respond until he tries again immediately afterwards. I play along gamely but the lip contact is too floppy, a bit drippy, not really hitting the spot.

I draw back again.
“Goodnight, James,” I whisper fondly.

“I’ll see you…soon,” he calls hopefully after me as I crunch up the gravel.

“Oh, no doubt,” I throw back, feeling hot and annoyed with myself. Mistake. Bad mistake.

Really
bad mistake.

When I enter the living room, Sinclair is standing at the picture window, eyeing the mad March night hostilely.

“You’re late,” he says without turning around.

“Only five min
utes,” I say breathlessly. Did he see that…with James? Oh God. I bet he did.

“Still late. Get carried away, did we? Lose all track of time?”
He turns and he is wearing The Face of Utmost Severity. I get to see this face all too often these days.

“Well…you know…it’s only five minutes,” I whimper nervously.

“You have broken the rules of the house,” he says unyieldingly. “You must be punished.”

“What?
This is about…you were watching me…” I accuse in a very unaccusatory tone, not wanting to call any more trouble on my head.

He narrows his eyes.
“Beth, you did not obey my command that you arrive home by ten o’clock. Therefore you must be punished. There is nothing more to it than that.”

My eye! But I don’t say it.
He moves swiftly over to me, takes my wrist and leads me over to the sofa. My behind has just about recovered from his spatula attack and now I’m going to be presenting it for yet more chastisement. No fair. But my heart is pounding and I cannot deny I am excited, especially by the premise. He is going to spank me because he is JEALOUS! My blood is singing a victory chant even as it freezes with dread at the prospect of the pain.

I am guided roughly over his lap again, gasping as he flips up my skirt then yanks down my tights and…oh GOD
…my KNICKERS! He pulls them down just as far as the top of my thighs and I cringe as he spends a minute or two examining my nude bottom, running the hand that isn’t tight at the back of my neck over the quivering expectant globes. He seems to be giving them a scholarly assessment, working out how hard he can strike, how long it will take to achieve his desired effect. His palm feels caressing and I begin to slide into a melting abyss of desire, wanting him to stroke and feather the tingling skin, move down into the restricted zone with his slow, sure touch, open me up to him…oh! OUCH!

His first slap rings in my ears and I am surprised at how much more pain
ful it is on an unclothed bum. The sting is hot and immediate; I can almost see the redness begin to bloom on my defenceless cheek, then he lays in with another, just as hard, and I really start to worry about my tolerance level.

“You will learn, Beth,” he lectures from on high, “
that I always mean what I say. And when I say…”  SMACK! “…you are to be home at a certain time…” SMACK! “…that is exactly what I mean.” SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! I begin to squirm. He is not holding back at all tonight, raising his arm high and putting his full weight behind each scorcher.

The lecture on rules and regulations continues but I am scarcely taking any of it in, wriggling violently and thrashing in my efforts to shield my derriere from his pitiless regime.

“Oh, I don’t think so, Beth,” he says calmly, twisting my wrists up in his vice-like grip while he continues his relentless reddening of my posterior. “You need to learn and learn well, my girl. If I have to repeat this lesson, it will be with my belt, not just my hand. Do you understand?”

Could it
possibly be any more painful? Already I am jerking and bucking under the slamming burn of his palm, and I know he is going to keep this up for a good while longer, if past form is anything to go by.

“Well? Do you?
Do you need a demonstration?”

“No, sir! I understand!”
I yelp, falling into the fiery pit he is working so hard to keep aflame, my head swimming, conscious of nothing but pain, pain, pain.

After a while…I don’t know how long really…I hit the bottom of the abyss and find I c
an no longer fight him. The writhing stills, the tension floats out of my body, I find I am still whimpering but in a curious, quasi-meditative kind of way.

“That’s good, Beth, very good.
You know this is what you need,” he says, his voice low and gentle, but belied by the searing smacks he is still applying to my rear.

“Ooooooooh,” I repl
y. It has been a good quarter of an hour; surely he is going to let up soon? He stops soon afterwards, resting his hand on my pulsing rump, then brushing the sore skin with his thumb, causing me to clench my teeth and hiss. He admires his handiwork for a moment or two, then, in a strange, thick voice, instructs me to go and look at it in the mirror. I wince in sympathy with myself when I see the dark shade of crimson he has turned my punished arse, like the worst sunburn you could imagine. He tells me I have to stand in the corner with my hands clasped behind my neck for half an hour before being sent straight to bed.

All the time I am standing there, I know he is looking at my backside, and i
t is oddly, creepily exciting. He pretends to be reading – the rustle of paper is too ostentatious to be genuine – but I swear he is drinking in the view. I long for him to come over, to put his arms around me from the back and kiss me, to speak tender words to me and carry me to bed.

But after half an hour has passed, he simply turns a page of his book and says, “Time for bed, Beth.”

I turn to him and say, in a shy, crackly voice, “Goodnight, Sir.” He nods, twitches the corner of a lip. 

“Goodnight, Beth.”

*

Two weeks pass and my life falls into a routine.
I have never worked harder academically; Sinclair’s remedial course is so stringent I am rarely out of the library by day, and if we are both free in the evening we invariably end up falling into lengthy discussions of pre- and post-Revolutionary French culture and history, usually involving some form of oral examination. And usually involving a sore bottom if my performance on said examination falls under par. The spankings become normal, routine, to the point where I am almost desensitised to the actual weirdness of the set-up and sometimes fear I might accidentally blurt something injudicious out to Dearbhla or Emily in the Union at lunchtime.

On a couple of occasions – incidents of minor rule-breaking – he goes further than his trusty palm and brings h
is belt out to play on my bum. I hope the walls in his apartment are thick, because the feel of that wide strap of leather biting into my sensitive skin induced the production of higher notes than even my soprano role in
Pinafore
requires of me. Afterwards he always makes me stand in the corner while he checks out my derriere covertly. Every time, it seems that he is within an ace of…taking things further. But he never does.

James Winthrop has made a couple more half-hearted attempts to engage me for a second date, but I have tactfully declined and I suppo
se he has thrown in the towel. Makes the hero/heroine dynamic in
H.M.S. Pinafore
slightly awkward, though the first act bits where he has to be lovelorn and I have to spurn him now have a certain verité.

On the Friday night three weeks after that first fateful foray into Sinclair’s abode, he has been called away to
London to take part in
Newsnight Review
(to his considerable excitement, judging by the officious, self-important vibe he has been projecting all week).  Much as I’d love to stay in and watch him get into a fistfight with Tony Parsons, my Gogol Bordello tickets take priority and I find myself heading off down to the Bierkeller with Dearbhla and Emily in fine fettle.

Unfortunately, it is close enough to the end of term that all three of us are now struggling for funds and as the raucous, rumbustious, rowdy event draws to a close, we find ourselves unable to finance further plastic pints of manky cider.

“Awww, I feel like partying all night now,” complains Emily as we straggle dispiritedly up Park Street.

“Me too,” wails Dearbhla.
“It’s like leaving things half-finished.”

“Hey!” I exclaim, having had enough of the apple-based toxin to mak
e this seem like a great idea. “Sinclair’s drinks cabinet is full. And he’s staying overnight in London. What do you say, girls?”

“No!
He’d kill you!” demurs Dearbhla, though her eyes are shining with excitement all the same.

“He’s never forbidden me to have friends
round,” I say, which is true. Though I don’t think he thought I’d dare…

“Oh my freaking Go
d, we have to!” shrieks Emily. “Come on!” She links our arms and drags us up at a run while we laugh and sing snatches of songs all the way to leafy Oaklands Road.

“Oh wow.
This is niiiice,” approves Emily as we creep up the stairs, or rather stumble as quietly as we can.

“He’s got a bob or two,” comments Dearbhla as our feet sink into the
deep pile of his hall carpet. They squeal and exclaim over everything for about ten minutes, before remembering to raid the drinks cabinet.

“Cocktails, girls!” cries Emily, inspecting the contents
with a semi-professional eye. “Make mine a Manhattan.”

“Could you do a Bellini?” wonders Dearbhla.

“No, no,” says Emily, almost asphyxiating with pleasure at her own joke, “I want a Sloe Comfortable Screw! With Sinclair!” She falls about laughing. The soul of wit, that girl.

“Yeah,” snickers Dearbhla, joining i
n with the (90% proof) spirit. “Or Sex on the Beach!”

They both cry, “Screaming Orgasm!” at the same time and collap
se with mirth. I swear to God, I’ve never thought of myself as sophisticated, but compared to these sub-Carry On chicks…

We organise drinks and loll on his t
asteful leather sofas watching
Newsnight Review
on Sky Plus.

“Oh my God, I just love him,” slurs Emily as he verbally demolishes whatever
it was Tony Parsons just said. “I want his babies.”