Sarah's Education (27 page)

‘Yes, Veronica. Understood.’ Sarah was also mesmerised by the lethal-looking instrument.

Craig grinned at the girls. ‘Right then, who’s first?’

‘Not the crop, please, I can’t stand it –’

‘Stop snivelling, Nancy. It’s the only way I know to get through to you,’ said Veronica. ‘You’ve only yourself to blame.’

‘I’ll go first,’ said Sarah.

Craig lifted his hands from his knees and gestured, inviting her to lie in his lap. Sarah complied. Her limbs felt heavy, as if she were moving through water. Her mind was fogging up. Probably a good thing. Did she have nice panties on? Yes. Always flimsy bikinis or thongs, now that she was a call girl. Pretty, but no protection from the crop.

Craig lifted her skirt and tucked the hem into the waistband. He placed his palm on her bum. She flinched instinctively. He
laughed
. Sarah chuckled too but the sound caught in her throat as he delivered half a dozen firm slaps to her ass.

It hurt! She wriggled in a pointless attempt to escape his hand. Craig slung one leg over her thighs, trapping her with her bum up and helplessly exposed. He raised the crop and brought it down across the fullness of her cheeks.

God! It stung! It stung horribly. Wriggle as she might, there was nothing she could do to escape it. Again, and it stung just as bad, worse even. She had to protect herself somehow.

Sarah tried to cover her bum with her hands but Craig simply grabbed both of her wrists with his free hand. Helpless, totally helpless, she willed herself to relax and receive. Impossible! The terrible crop sang its terrible song repeatedly, whistling through the air to a staccato stop, one bar, one beat at a time.

She’d been clenching her teeth but as the punishment continued Sarah’s mouth fell open. Inarticulate pleas for mercy mixed with groans and sobs. Tears coursed down her cheeks. Would it never, ever end? What would happen if she shouted ‘red’, or at least, God help her, ‘yellow’? But she did not. This was punishment, real punishment. It frightened her, though whether that was because of the pain or because of the deep yearning that pain sparked within her, she didn’t know.

Suddenly she was riding the pain, with it and then above it, like a surfer struggling for position on a board in a storm-tossed sea. Up, up, and yes! Free! And then the inevitable tumble, submerged in an ocean of agony.

‘Stop!’ Sarah screamed. ‘Stop! I’ll be good!’

Craig ignored her. The crop bit into her for what seemed the hundredth time.

‘Enough,’ said Veronica.

Craig stood. Sarah tumbled to the floor. Next,’ Craig said cheerfully.

Nancy burst into tears.

That night, Sarah was trying to study in bed, an icepack to her bum, when her intercom buzzed. In response to her hello,
Christopher’s
cheery voice greeted her. Ah, Chris, her balm for all things weird and scary. She let him into the building and a moment later, into her room.

‘Your study partner’s here!’ Christopher spoke loudly in case Donna was listening at her door. Sarah had told her sister that she tutored him on Wednesdays, which he’d found hilarious, as his marks were every bit as high as hers. He dumped his knapsack by the door and jumped onto her bed. ‘What’s tonight’s topic?’

‘Donna’s not home,’ said Sarah. She closed the door and locked it.

‘She get a job?’

‘Not yet.’

Christopher picked up each text on the bed, considered its title with a mock-quizzical frown, and dropped it on the floor. ‘Autism? Socrates? Zen? What? You think old Socs was autistic? Or the Buddha?’

‘Maybe both,’ she replied enigmatically. Sarah stretched out on the bed beside him and rucked up her nightie. ‘Eat me, baby, I want to feel those cold cheeks between my burning thighs.’

‘Say no more, mistress.’

‘Mmm,’ Sarah moaned with delight. Christopher’s mouth on her mound was a godsend. Just what she needed. She wriggled and moaned again. She was already on the cusp of a climax that’d been hovering since she’d been cropped hours ago. ‘Ouch.’ He’d cupped her ass in his hands and although his cool touch was welcome on the hot cheeks, pressure was not. ‘Careful.’

‘Holy shit. Who did this to you?’

‘Behave. No questions. Just be careful.’

‘Are you kidding? Is this – did you – are you?’

‘It’s OK, I did, I am. C’mon, Christopher, I need to come.’

‘You’re a strange one, Sarah.’

‘I know, baby,’ she whispered. She pushed his head down between her legs. ‘I know.’

21

VERONICA ASKED, ‘CAN
you smoke, Sarah?’

‘Smoke? No, I don’t smoke.’ Sarah crossed her ankles and tucked her knees to one side. As Sarah watched Veronica’s appraising eye follow the line she’d created – from the top of her straight-cut highlighted chestnut hair down past her wide blue eyes and scarlet lips to the tip of her jaw to a hint of cleavage to her tightly belted waist to her curvy hip and down her legs to the slender, crossed ankles and so off the tips of her black stilettos, she congratulated herself. She’d gone for sexy and sophisticated with a clear but understated hint of kink. Gorgeous and depraved. Eager. Open. Fun. Experienced but unsullied. Unique.

It was the first time she’d talked to Veronica since their meeting with Nancy and Craig. Happily, neither were present and Veronica made no mention of the New Year’s fiasco. If the cropping from Craig had truly been her punishment, it seemed to have released everyone, including her, from dwelling on the past. In which case it had been well worth it.

‘That wasn’t what I asked. I asked, “
Can
you smoke?” Have you ever tried it? If you did, did you choke or throw up?’

‘I tried it once, Veronica, back when I was a kid. My sister and I swiped half a pack a visitor had left at our folks’. We snuck out behind the house and lit up.’

‘And? How was it?’

‘As I remember, she smoked three and I smoked two. We threw the pack away after that.’ Sarah peered at her boss. ‘Why do you ask?’

‘It didn’t make you sick or anything?’

‘No.’

Veronica pulled her desk drawer open and took out a plain cedar box. ‘Our client has these custom made in Vietnam.’ She lifted the lid to show that it was full of incredibly long, perhaps ten-inch, ivory cigarettes with golden filter tips. ‘He’s a smoking fetishist.’

‘A what?’

‘Women smoking turns him on.’

‘That’s weird.’

Veronica’s eyes narrowed. ‘Perhaps, but we don’t judge, do we, Sarah?’

‘No, of course not, sorry.’

‘He pays double.’

‘Oh? That’s interesting.’

‘Yes, isn’t it?’

‘He’ll pay double just to watch a girl smoke?’

‘Not “just”. He wants sex as well, but with cigarettes as important accessories.’

‘I’m not sure I follow. Does he want the girl to masturbate with a cigarette?’

‘Very likely. Sarah, the smoking fetish, like most fetishes, is very structured. There are looks, styles and so on that go with it. There are smoking fetishists who prefer the woman to smoke cigars, for instance.’

‘You mean there are lots of these – “gentlemen”?’

‘Thousands. Tens of thousands. There are websites devoted to their kink, and magazines. There are even smoking porno flicks with the girls fully clothed, just puffing away, nothing else.’

‘You’re joking.’

Veronica shook her head. ‘No I’m not. This is about money, and I never joke about money.’

Sarah took one of the cigarettes from its box and sniffed it. ‘Just tobacco? These don’t contain any illegal substances, do they? I’d hate to wake up in a Vietnamese brothel.’

‘They’re safe, as safe as cigarettes can be. I’m not suggesting you take up the habit. This’d be for the date, nothing more.’

‘Tell me more, please.’

‘When it comes to fetishes, a girl has to understand the nuances. With smoking fetish, the fetishists are very particular. It’s not just the smoking that they want, but the style of smoking, what they smoke, what they wear, how they act and so on.’

‘Poor devils.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘If a guy wants someone who smokes, and smokes a particular brand, and she has to dress and look and act … What’re his chances of bumping into the right, and willing, girl?’

Veronica smiled the smile of a predator. ‘Exactly. That’s why the rich ones will pay handsomely for dates with their impossible dreams. Do you think you could play the part, Sarah?’

‘Double pay? Give me time to research the kink, and I’m sure I can.’ Sarah paused for thought. ‘Veronica, if I’m going to spend time on research, and if the date is so obsessed, why don’t you tell him that for three times our usual rates we promise him the smoking sex experience of his life?’

‘You think you could deliver on that guarantee?’

‘I bet I can.’

Veronica pulled half a dozen magazines and a couple of DVDs from her desk drawer. ‘Very well, here’s a start to your research. The magazines are his. He wants them back. He’s marked the pictures that turn him on the most. That should help you.’ She pushed the box of cigarettes towards Sarah. ‘These are what he’ll want you to smoke. A warning, though.’

‘What?’

‘If you research online, have your virus filters and so on in place and up-to-date. Some smoking fetish sites are contaminated.’

‘I’ll be careful, I promise.’

That night, Sarah pulled her little desk over to one of her two small windows, opened it wide, slid a DVD into her laptop, lit one of the long cigarettes and picked up her pen. There was a
yellow
pad beside the stack of magazines. She was prepared for total immersion in her research. By the end of the week, she’d decided, she was going to be the smoking fetishist’s ideal woman. For the very first time, she was being chosen for a date for her sophistication, not for her innocence. That was very satisfying.

Two days later, she spent eight solid hours in front of her mirror, practising. Three days after that, she scoured the better hotels, looking for exactly the right setting. At the end of the week she delivered a typed sheet of paper to Veronica.

‘Tell him that he has to follow these instructions, to the letter.’

Veronica scanned the page. ‘You think he’ll play along?’

‘He’s a fetishist. He won’t be able to resist. His cock won’t let him.’

‘I like your attitude, Sarah. Anything else I can do to help?’

‘Costume is important. So is hair and make-up. May I borrow from wardrobe?’

‘Craig will take care of you there. I’ll book you with Carlo for the make-up and hair.’

‘I’ll need a wig, a long straight blonde one.’

‘Carlo has wigs. Anything else?’

‘You’ll bill the client for the hotel room?’

‘Of course.’

An hour before her date was due, Sarah let herself into the room she’d booked. It had no bed. There were two oversized leather club chairs and a matching four-seater sofa, each with its own side table. Sarah drew on her stagecraft to arrange the furniture and lighting.

In the en suite bathroom, she checked her appearance. Her hair glistened halfway down to her waist. Her eyes were theatrical, with heavy silver lids, impossibly long artificial lashes and tip-tilted corners. Her lips were wet and scarlet. Carlo had exaggerated her cheekbones for her while leaving her face very pale. She looked wicked.

The bodice of her smoke-grey silk dress was an ‘M’ held up
by
spaghetti straps. The points of the ‘M’ just, only just, covered her nipples. The skirt of her dress was slit to her waist but rendered barely decent by press studs from the top of her thigh to her hip. She kicked her loafers off and stepped into pumps that had impossible heels.

Setting the scene so elaborately, in a way that was designed to delight a man, was fun. What sort of scene would Jon have liked? It was a shame that she didn’t know. The schoolgirl thing hadn’t been his idea, so she had no clues as to his secret fantasies, except that they included bondage and corporal punishment.

Sarah set what was left of her box of cigarettes on the sofa’s side table, in easy reach, with two books of matches and an oversized ashtray. One cigarette she held, with a third matchbook. She arranged herself carefully, back arched over the sofa’s rounded arm, one leg extended along the seat, the other foot dangling over the edge, with its shoe hanging from her toes. That’s what he’d see first, when he entered the almost dark room, an elegant ankle and foot with a hanging stiletto pump, carefully positioned so as to show ‘toe cleavage’. By the pictures he’d marked, foot fetish, including heels and hose, was his secondary kink.

There was a diffident knock at the door. Sarah said nothing. His instructions were to let himself in. She ignored a second knock. The lock clicked. Her client slipped into the room, opening the door just wide enough to pass through. All Sarah saw of him was his silhouette, tall and slim, in the light that leaked in before the door closed. His shadowy shape settled into the armchair opposite her and ten feet away. She hadn’t put an ashtray on his side table. Like many smoking fetishists, he didn’t smoke. It was sinful, which made it exciting.

Sarah gave him a minute to admire her ankle, foot and dangling pump. She put her cigarette between her lips and struck a match. The client sucked in a deep breath. For him, the sight of a woman lighting a cigarette was the equivalent of one baring a breast to a tit freak. Sarah had learnt a lot in the course of surfing fetish sites. Slowly, she closed the distance
between
the flame and the end of her cigarette. Nonchalantly, she reached out to the chain of the standard lamp and pulled it. Now her face was spotlit – the face, to him, of an excitingly depraved woman.

She drew deeply, held the smoke in her lungs, then let it trickle from between her lips to be sucked back in through her nostrils – the classic French inhale. Sarah was rewarded by a dramatic sigh. As far as she could see, without letting it show that she was looking, he had his hand in his lap already.

She dropped her head back, took another drag, and exhaled a long plume of smoke. The wall behind her was dark. The way she’d arranged the lamps, her smoke would be backlit, pale grey.

Yes, he definitely had his hand in his lap, and his cock in it.