Sarah's Education (12 page)

‘Yes.’ Sarah blushed. ‘I ejaculated,’ she blurted.

‘Did you like it?’

‘I didn’t even know at the time. But I was incredibly sensitive for a few hours afterwards. It was … interesting. But I want dates where the guy actually talks to me. I don’t know much about politics or literature but I am familiar with philosophy and drama. The rest I can learn.’

‘And so you shall. Look, if you really want a public gig where all you need do is look pretty, no physical contact required, I’ve got just the thing coming up.’

‘What sort of gig?’

‘The Exotic Auto Show starts in a few weeks. I could get you a job as a model. All you’d have to do is pose prettily next to
cars
and have your picture taken. The pay isn’t what you’re used to and the hours are longer, but it’s easy work and you’d get to meet all sorts of interesting people.’

‘Pay?’

‘Eight hundred a day, and no tips. It’s from ten in the morning till ten at night, but with lots of breaks. There’d be two of you spelling each other, so you’d actually only work about six hours.’ She paused. ‘And one other advantage; this’d be work you could tell your friends about. It’d help explain why you have so much more money to spend these days.’

Sarah considered. Her grades were fine. She could afford to skip lectures for two days, one before and one after the weekend. And it had been difficult, pretending to still be dirt poor when her bank account was fat and she was carrying more cash in her purse each day than she’d spent in an entire semester last year. Every so often, she and her housemates had pooled their resources to get a pizza and a bottle of wine and she’d just tossed in small change to pretend that she was still poor. It made her feel guilty. If she had a legitimate source of income, she could treat the others once in a while.

‘I’ll do it,’ Sarah said.

‘Excellent!’ Veronica went to the door. ‘You’ll be working with Nancy.’ She called the girl’s name.

Nancy came in. Sarah’s heart dropped. She’d recognise that straw-coloured hair, snub nose and wide thin-lipped mouth anywhere. She was the girl Sarah had misdirected.

Before Nancy could speak, Sarah blurted, ‘I’m so sorry about the mix-up that day. What an idiot I was! I had no idea about the new hotel.’

‘Yeah, silly you, so silly you stole my date, “by accident”.’

‘It really was an honest mistake,’ Sarah protested.

Veronica put in, ‘That’s all in the past, girls. Kiss and make up. Sarah’s going to be working the Auto Show with you, Nancy, so you two had better get along.’

Sarah made a tentative move in the girl’s direction. Nancy’s face relaxed into a smile that Sarah hoped was sincere and reached out for Sarah. Each kissed the air beside the other’s cheek.

Veronica said, ‘That’s better. Now, Sarah, you’ll be working in costume, so I need your shoe size and your measurements.’

‘A six shoe, and “small”.’

‘“Small” isn’t very exact. Run along to the wardrobe room. Craig will take your measurements.’

‘Craig’ turned out to be the older gentleman who’d spanked Nancy. The memory of that scene brought another ghost of a tingle to Sarah’s clit. It was strange, now that Sarah was so much more practised in sexual matters than she’d been back then, that the mental image of a bare bottom and a hard hand coming together still affected her so strongly. She’d have to think about that.

‘You’re the other Auto Show girl?’ he asked.

‘Yes …’ She paused. ‘Sir.’ Now why had she called him ‘sir’?

‘Strip off then and I’ll measure you. It’s for a bikini, by the way.’

How odd that she should feel nervous about undressing in front of this man, when so many others had seen her naked. ‘I already have a bikini, sir.’

‘A magenta one?’

She raised her eyebrows.

‘The car you’ll be working with is a new Italian model, called, the “Magenta”. Your bikini and your go-go boots will be in that colour. You’ll match the car.’

‘Oh.’ She waited.

‘Now? Please?’

‘Oh, right.’ Sarah unzipped her bomber and laid it aside. She pulled her cashmere sweater over her head and turned her back to him to take her bra off. Silly! He was going to measure her, for goodness sake! As matter-of-factly as she could, she stripped down to her plain ‘off-duty’ panties.

Craig gave her an amused look but said nothing. He picked up a tape measure and passed it around her chest. The backs of his hands brushed her breasts but he didn’t seem the least affected by the contact. Was he gay?

‘You get to keep the outfits, two of them,’ he told her as he noted the measurement of her waist.

‘That’s nice.’

‘The boots are very good, Italian kid leather, very supple.’

So he
was
gay. A straight man wouldn’t have known that.

He continued, ‘Can you manage four-inch heels OK, for a longish period?’

‘That’s a bit higher than I’m used to, but I’ll cope.’

‘Be sure that you do. Classique has a reputation to uphold. We don’t want you looking awkward.’

‘No, sir.’ Gay or not, there had been steel in his voice as he’d said that. Once more, Sarah had a flashback to him spanking Nancy.

The tape was around her hips. Just testing, she gave a little wriggle.

‘Be still.’

Any straight man would have given her bum a little slap, at least.

He noted her last measurement in his book, and said, ‘And no, I’m not gay. No offence, Sarah, but you’re too young for me to be interested in you thatway, and you’re an employee, so off-limits.’

Pouting, she said, ‘I saw you and Nancy, and she’s not much older than me.’

‘Me spanking her? Silly girl, that wasn’t sexual. She hates to be spanked. That was just a matter of discipline. You, if I’m not mistaken, would enjoy it, but I’m not going to give you that pleasure.’

‘Enjoy being beaten, me? No way.’

Craig shrugged. ‘Before the show, get a bikini wax.’ He closed his notebook with a snap.

‘Wax?’

‘Best make it a Brazilian. Your bikinis will be skimpy. Off with you then.’

Driving home, Sarah thought about what Craig had said. What was it about her that had given him the impression that she’d enjoy being spanked? She replayed the scene she’d spied on in her mind. What if it had been her across his knee? What if Veronica sent her on a date where the man wanted to do that to her? What if …

Unlike the $5 tickets to the regular Toledo Auto Show, entrance to the Exotic Auto Show was either by invitation or at $150 a ticket, to keep the public out. That price, Sarah was sure, was steep enough to keep anyone she knew from attending. She’d decided not to announce the gig to her pals. If some of them showed up to tease her she’d die.

Craig had driven Nancy and her to the show and had promised to pick them both up after it closed at ten. As he’d dropped them off, he’d handed them a suitcase each, with their costumes. ‘FedEx didn’t deliver them until last night,’ he explained. ‘Don’t worry. They’ll fit just fine.’

The autos on show were mainly ‘concept’ cars out of Detroit but with a dozen or so production models from abroad, all ‘high end’, priced in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Magenta was a new model from the Albina Automobile Company in Milan. Sarah and Nancy reported to Signor Aldo Fulvio, a florid little man in a suit that looked as if it’d been sewn directly onto his body piece by immaculate piece. His title was long and impressive but Sarah could never remember it, let alone pronounce it.

Nancy could though. To Sarah’s annoyance, it turned out that Nancy spoke Italian fluently. From the moment the girl greeted Signor Fulvio in his own language, he only spoke to her, leaving Nancy to pass his instructions on to Sarah.

‘He says he’s sorry that we don’t have our own private room but there’s a cot for us in the storage room behind his office and it can be locked from inside. Anything we need, he says, just ask. All he requires is that there should be at least one of us on the stand at all times, with the car, posing prettily and drawing lots of attention from the visitors and the journalists. We start at ten and it’s nine-thirty already, so would we please go and get changed
pronto
.’

The storage room wasn’t as small as Sarah had feared. Apart from cartons of brochures, all it held was the cot, a dressing table with a mirror, a small fridge and a table with an elaborate coffee machine that was already burbling, some good china and assorted snacks.

‘Espresso and cappuccino,’ Nancy said. ‘My favourites.’

Nancy matter-of-factly stripped down to her panties and sat at the dressing table. Sarah undressed more slowly. As she stripped, she surreptitiously checked out the girl she thought of as her rival. Nancy was less rounded than Sarah, with wide-apart cupcake breasts that actually tilted upwards, like her tiny nose. The cherries on those cupcakes were very pale, too pale, in Sarah’s opinion.

The kits they’d been given included magenta wraps, plus some make-up: magenta eye gloss and lipstick. Nancy smeared some onto her nipples, which certainly needed colour, but what for? No one was going to see them. Perhaps tinting her nipples gave the girl confidence.

Their bikinis were even more daring than Sarah had imagined. The bottom halves were tiny and diamond-shaped, with tapes that passed between their thighs and up through the creases of their bums and three more tapes from each side that stretched up to the tapes that circled their hips.

Thank goodness she’d taken Craig’s advice and been waxed bald. It’d been a painful process, but justified. She’d have hated to have little curls poking out.

The bras were similar to the bottoms: pairs of diamonds that barely covered their nipples, held in place by tapes that ran around their backs and up to form halters.

And they were to appear in public dressed like that! Thank goodness her folks lived far away.

Sarah returned to the dressing table to apply more make-up – enough, she hoped, to make her unrecognisable. Much as she hated to disturb the hairdo that Carlo had lavished time on, she took a brush and gave herself bangs and flip-ups. The look was a bit old-fashioned, but so were the go-go boots. Maybe they’d play some disco?

Nancy, ready first, left the room with a steaming mug of espresso and a biscotti on a little plate. When Sarah followed, Aldo Fulvio had the coffee and the crispy biscuit on his desk. Nancy was already draped across the Magenta’s hood. The little suck-up!

The platform was made to revolve and was elevated by about a foot. The car was long, sleek and sexy. Parked, it looked like it was speeding.

Aldo motioned to Sarah to join Nancy. He tapped his watch. It was a full minute after ten. A stream of visitors was pouring in through the doors but hadn’t reached the Albina stand yet. As Sarah stepped up, a little uncertain in four-inch heels, the stand began to turn. She stumbled. Nancy giggled. Signor Fulvio scowled.

As quickly as she could, being careful not to scratch it with her boots, Sarah hitched up onto the car’s trunk to sit leaning back on straight arms, shoulders slightly turned in. She’d practised her poses in front of a mirror. Apart from kneeling on all fours, that was the one that showed her breasts off best.

Let Nancy’s puny cupcakes compete with these plump puppies!

The crowd reached their stand, photographers first. Cameras flashed. Perhaps it was Sarah’s imagination, but after the first few revolutions, it seemed like there were more pictures being taken of the trunk, with Sarah, than of the hood, with Nancy.

Sarah rolled onto her tummy and lifted herself up on her arms again to deepen her cleavage. The flashes began to strobe, with definitely more pics being taken of her than of Nancy. Sarah knelt up and into her best pose, on her hands and knees, back deeply hollowed. From the directions the flashes came, it seemed as many photographers were focusing on her bottom as on her chest. Well, in that minute bikini, her bum was as good as bare.

Someone touched her shoulder. Sarah blinked the glare away. It was Signor Fulvio. He was signalling for her to go to the hood to replace Nancy. That made sense. He’d want more shots of the car’s hood than its trunk to appear in the magazines, and she was the model who was attracting the lenses.

As the girls passed each other, Nancy swung a hip-check at Sarah. Sarah was ready for it and simply swayed out of range.

On the hood, and encouraged by shouts from the bystanders, Sarah moved from sexy pose to sexier pose, almost hoping for a ‘wardrobe malfunction’. The applause, mainly from men but with the occasional whoop or ‘You go, girl,’ from a woman, was intoxicating. So this was what motivated Daphne and James to pay for an audience.

Sarah smiled and licked her lips seductively. She wriggled her bottom and swayed her breasts. The more her audience reacted, the sexier she felt. Hell, a girl could get off on this!

She lay on her back, legs spread wide to either side, and let herself slither into a perilous backbend over the car’s snarling grille, hooking her fingers through it to hold herself in position. A photographer knelt up on the edge of the moving platform to snap half a dozen close-up shots before a behemoth in a Magenta Security T-shirt tapped his shoulder and invited him to dismount, ‘For his own safety’s sake.’

There was a Brazilian car on show on the other side of the aisle. It had three girls, in even briefer bikinis than Sarah’s, but she was the one who was getting the most attention.

Nancy took the first lunch break. When it was Sarah’s turn, she found there was prosciutto and Provolone in soft buns and individual salads waiting. As she ate, she browsed the Magenta’s brochure. When she was done eating, though she was entitled to more time, she went back to work. Being ogled was fun.

There was another man at the sales desk with Signor Fulvio – a younger and better-looking one. The newcomer had a stubble-shadowed lantern jaw, broad shoulders and a narrow waist. He introduced himself in pretty good English as Luigi Volpone, sales manager, and insisted on giving Sarah a hand up onto the revolving platform.

Nancy had taken up residence on the hood, so Sarah perched on the trunk and blew kisses at every man who passed by.

After a while, Nancy came back to where Sarah was. ‘Signor Fulvio wants us to demonstrate how roomy the trunk is,’ she said. ‘You’re to lie down in it.’