On the Bare (11 page)

In private we’re a far more interesting story – the one no one gets to read. We laugh about how ‘good for me’ the
press
think he is, as he handcuffs me to the bed and slowly unbuckles his belt. I hiss with pain as he tugs ruthlessly on the chain connecting my nipple clamps. And I scream with pleasure as his tireless cock fills me again and again and again.

We’re both aware of a distinct chill coming from the direction of Switzerland.

‘Look!’ I grab Will’s hand, dragging him towards the display window of a designer boutique. Insectoid mannequins pose for us in unlikely contortions, draped in overpriced clothes.

‘No,’ Will says firmly, steering me away.

‘But I want the pink skirt,’ I whine.

He pulls me into a fierce kiss, as though trying to distract me from my need for retail therapy.

I smile sappily when he pulls away, pretending not to notice the photographer with the telephoto lens in the taxi up ahead.
OFF DUTY
, the sign says.

Will and I stroll on, past a handful of other pricey shops.

‘Shoes!’ I shriek suddenly, charging another window. This one features a display of those witchy pointy-toed jobs everyone’s wearing these days.

Will holds me back. ‘No,’ he says even more firmly. His bedroom voice.

‘I
have
to have those!’ I insist with all the conviction of a dictator declaring war.

‘You have enough shoes.’

‘There’s no such thing as enough shoes!’ I stamp my foot for emphasis. The ones of hers I’m wearing now cost more than my sister’s wedding.

He says something about kids in Cambodian sweatshops and I simply wail that I don’t care. ‘I want those shoooes!’

‘That guy at
Cosmo
was right,’ Will says darkly, loudly. ‘You’re nothing but a spoilt brat.’

My eyes flash as I whirl to confront him, hands on hips. ‘How dare you!’

I swear I can hear cameras clicking from every corner of the street – from behind parked cars and lampposts and newspapers.

‘A spoilt little brat who desperately needs taking down a peg.’ He looks me up and down, considering. ‘I think a good hard spanking would do you a world of good.’

I gape at him, my skin prickling with wild exhilaration. Several people have stopped to stare at us. Most know who we are too, though they wouldn’t dream of approaching us to ask for autographs just now.

Will takes a step towards me and I glare at him. ‘If you so much as fucking
touch
me …’

‘And such language,’ he scolds. ‘Would you like your mouth washed out with soap as well?’

In one fluid movement he seizes my wrist and drags me to the off-duty taxi. He leans back against the bonnet and hauls me across his lap.

‘What you deserve – and what you’re going to get – is a hard bare-bottom spanking.’

I howl with outrage as he yanks up my skirt. My right hand flails impotently behind me, as though trying to preserve my modesty. He catches it easily, pinning it in the small of my back. My tarty little red thong offers me no protection as he brings his hand down on my cheeks with a ringing slap.

I cry out wildly, kicking my feet as a second slap connects with my other cheek. One expensive shoe goes flying and out of the corner of my eye I see someone grab it. Celebrity souvenir.

‘This is long overdue,’ Will says sternly, increasing the tempo as he rains heavy smacks down onto my defenceless bottom.

A crowd has gathered and – surprise, surprise – not a single person tries to stop him. My face blazes with embarrassment at the appreciative murmur from an elderly lady somewhere behind me.

‘About time, too,’ another lady chimes in. ‘That little girl needed stitches, you know.’

A man with a Yorkshire accent declares, ‘Aye, it’s all that money. Goes to their heads, it does. Makes ’em think they’re better than t’ rest of us.’

‘Always thought her songs were crap anyway.’

‘Not so glamorous now, is she?’

Their approval almost makes me forget the pain. But Will lays it on smartly and I kick my feet in desperation, yelping pitifully as he paints my bottom with scorching handprints.

I can’t disagree with a single word they’re saying and the humiliation is almost worse than the pain. I’m dying to tell them it’s not really me, that I’m not really
her
.

Will has a heavy hand and normally I enjoy being over his knee. But today isn’t about pleasure; today is about payback. I’m willing to suffer any amount of shame or pain for my revenge.

‘Please – please – please,’ I babble, writhing under the merciless barrage of smacks. I can almost see my flesh turning from ivory to pink to bright red.

‘No,’ he says curtly, his fingers curling into the crease below my cheeks as he aims lower. ‘I’m not going to stop until you’re sorry for being such an insufferable little madam.’

I squirm at his authoritarian tone, my sex moistening in spite of the pain.

‘OK, I’m sorry!’

Will ignores my insincere apology, his palm striking me even harder and eliciting wilder cries and yelps. The other shoe goes flying. On my right I see a teenager filming us with his mobile phone. We’ll be on YouTube within the hour.

I squeal in delirious pain and humiliation as Will spanks me for the delectation of the whole world. Literally. It’s agony – far beyond the naughty pleasure he usually gives me. But I’m doing my job and so is he. Repairing her image, just like we said. The tabloids will forgive her all her sins by the time Will’s finished with me. Though I have a hard time imagining she’ll be remotely grateful.

It’s an eternity before I finally surrender and begin to cry. Now my pleas are genuine and no one could mistake the true contrition in my voice.

‘I’m really sorry,’ I blubber, ‘really – I mean it, I swear!’

Will rests his hand on my flaming backside, giving each cheek a cruel squeeze. ‘Are you going to be a good girl?’

‘Yes,’ I sniffle.

‘Have you learnt your lesson?’

‘Yes.’

‘Going to behave yourself from now on? No more tantrums? No more bad behaviour?’

His words are making me melt and I hope my shameless arousal isn’t obvious to anyone else. ‘No,’ I promise meekly. ‘Please …’

‘The next time you act like a spoilt little girl, you’ll be treated like a spoilt little girl. I don’t care if we’re on stage performing for the Queen. I will turn you over my knee then and there and smack your naughty little bottom until you can’t sit down. Do you understand?’

The colour of my face must match the colour of my bottom. ‘Yes,’ I moan.

He lets me up and I throw my arms around him, my back hitching with huge dramatic sobs as I apologise for being such a bitch. I press myself against his erection, clutching my burning posterior as the crowd begins to shuffle away. The show’s over. For them anyway. Will and I are just getting started.

Didn’t I say I had the coolest job in the world?

Six of the Best

‘
YES
WHAT
?’

We all have our trigger words and hot buttons. Our little turn-ons. I think for me the seed was planted at the age of sixteen by Mr Sheridan, my eleventh grade English teacher. He was the only Brit in my Boston high school and he was accustomed to more discipline than American students are used to. He had the most exacting standards and was merciless with his grades. Everyone hated him.

He was old-fashioned and out of place. But he was also young and devastatingly cute. It was his first year of teaching in the States. We all thought he’d have to learn to lighten up to survive, but he never showed any sign of wavering.

He delighted in telling us about the superior disciplinary regime in English schools of the past. Uniforms and six of the best. A good dose of the cane, he claimed, would cure us all of our incorrigible behaviour. As if.

They used the paddle in American schools, but Mr Sheridan would never have deigned to touch it. Instead he tortured us with diabolical assignments in detention, like copying out entire pages of the OED or writing interminable lines.

I am the quintessential product of the American school system. I never had to wear a uniform. I had no clue how to tie a tie. With the exception of Mr Sheridan, I never called my teachers ‘sir’ or ‘miss’. The very idea would have been archaic and offensive. I wore whatever I wanted,
usually
something carefully devised to shock, alienate and offend parents and teachers alike. I was used to doing my own thing, making my own rules and pretty much running the show.

But one day Mr Sheridan kept me after class, just the two of us, to accuse me of handing in work that was ‘beneath my abilities’. Beneath my priorities, maybe; I had more important things going on in my teenage life. I told him so.

He shook his head and called me a spoiled ex-colonial. His favourite term. Well, I just couldn’t keep my big mouth shut. Americans hate formality. We hate titles and class consciousness and etiquette and all the pretension that has made English culture the butt of so many jokes. We don’t like being told what to do. Hence the American Revolution. I told him that too. Then I told him where he could stick his split infinitives.

It was my first real act of teen rebellion and it felt so good I didn’t want the moment to end. I was terrified and I knew I’d regret it, but for those few exhilarating seconds I was the leader of my own little revolution. It felt
so
good.

Mr Sheridan was unperturbed, and my elation didn’t last long. I remember the dressing-down that followed like it was yesterday.

‘You have a good deal to learn about respect, young lady,’ he said in his clipped British accent. ‘And your attitude needs smartening up.’

I lifted my chin, trying not to let my fear show.

He narrowed his eyes, meeting my stubborn glare. And when he spoke his voice was low and chillingly calm. ‘What you deserve, Jenny, is a caning. Six parallel lines. Right where you sit. It would be a lesson you’d never forget.’

His words conjured up images in my mind, memories of films I’d seen and stories I’d read. Images of strict English schoolmasters brandishing swishy canes and terrified schoolboys touching their toes. Was that how it really was? Were English girls subjected to the same treatment?

I just stood there, blinking. My courage had evaporated.

He looked so serious, so resolute, that when he turned and opened his desk drawer I flinched, expecting him to take out the cane. No doubt that was exactly what he wanted me to think because the corners of his mouth turned up slightly.

But all he took out was a form and he sat down at the desk to fill it out. Detention every afternoon for a week. I groaned.

He handed me the slip of paper and his expression was unreadable. ‘I have high standards for you,’ he said. ‘And I expect you to live up to your potential.’

‘Uh-huh,’ I mumbled, still a little startled. ‘I mean yes.’

‘Yes
what
?’

‘Yes, sir.’

My first revolutionary act. And over so soon.

I spent my week of detention writing lines:
I will learn to apply myself and live up to my potential. I will not submit work that is beneath my abilities
. Five hundred times. And each time I paused to shake the cramps out of my hand I stole a glance at Mr Sheridan. I couldn’t get his words out of my head.
Six parallel lines. Right where you sit
. And I couldn’t keep from wondering …

Five years later, a strange twist of fate led me across the Atlantic, to take the third year of my literature degree at the University of Durham. It was like something straight out of the period novels I loved. The dark majestic cathedral was breathtaking. Ominously beautiful, with the kind of ancient formality you never find in the States. But the university had a musty intimidating air that made me feel like an impostor. A slacker among the scholars. I didn’t quite fit in.

Oh, I was diligent at first, but it wasn’t long before my old habits began to return. I was bored. Restless. Craving adventure. Besides, once the initial charm wore off, I was finding England cold and dismal. It got dark obscenely early and it never seemed to stop raining.

My love life was just as dismal and after one particularly catastrophic date, I just couldn’t face doing any work. So
I
skipped my first tutorial in Victorian literature, only to discover afterwards that the tutor had assigned an essay. It was the next week before I found out about it. That meant I had to go see him with some excuse for not being there. I wasn’t looking forward to that, but I noted with a chuckle that his name was Sheridan as I read the timetable to find his office room number.

It was early and the halls were deserted, making my footsteps echo unpleasantly. It was as though the university itself was scolding me for my indolence.

When I reached his office I knocked and a voice told me to enter. After I closed the door behind me, I turned back to face him and froze. It was my old tormentor!

The years had distinguished him. He sat behind the desk, a darkly handsome older man with a somewhat gloomy countenance, like Jeremy Irons. He was also wearing glasses, something I’ve always found appealing.

I must have been gaping because he raised his eyebrows and asked me if something was wrong.

‘Oh,’ I began, not sure what to say. I stood there stupidly for a small eternity, but he made no attempt to help me. When the awkwardness became too much I finally blurted out, ‘Do you remember me?’

He just peered at me over the rims of his glasses, inscrutable. ‘Should I?’

I giggled like the nervous schoolgirl I’d reverted to. Of course he wouldn’t remember me. He had only aged a few years; I had grown up.

‘It’s Jenny,’ I said with a flirtatious smile.

But whatever he’d been doing since I last saw him hadn’t shaken his imperturbable nature. I had thought to embarrass him and make him feel uncomfortable for forgetting someone he ought to know.

My smile faded. ‘Jenny Adams?’

Still no reaction.

Then he glanced down at a sheet of paper on his vast expanse of a desk. ‘Ah, yes,’ he said at last, apparently finding my name there. ‘You were absent from your first tutorial.’