Sarah's Education (3 page)

Sarah hollowed her back, blatantly presenting her sex like a vixen inviting the attentions of a dog fox. She watched over
her
shoulder as he slid a fresh condom onto his erection. The few spanks he’d heated her bum with had obviously turned him on, too. Interesting. She looked forward to thinking about everything that was transpiring, later. But right now …

Jack’s big hands took her hips once more. She spread her knees further apart and braced herself. He entered her, the position affording him a deeper penetration. Sarah’s thoughts scattered like tossed Scrabble tiles. She was free.

2

A SHARP, MOST
unwelcome, rat-a-tatting yanked Sarah from a deep, dreamless sleep. She moaned into her pillow. She had a splitting headache, the kind any nascent drinker would experience when she drank, not a split of champagne, but almost a magnum. Oh God. Was that awful noise merely the sound of her pulse pounding at her temples? No. There it was again. Probably Bill and company trying to move in on them again. But why wasn’t Jack telling them to get lost? Oh God. Bill. Jack. Those girls. She opened her eyes.

Where Jack’s head had lain the previous night there was an envelope with her name on it. She was alone. ‘Jack?’ Her voice was hoarse and no wonder. Her mouth was dry, as if she’d eaten sand the night before, and not the marvellous midnight meal the two of them had enjoyed.

A glass of water and two Tylenol sat on the bedside table. She gratefully sipped the water, popped the tablets into her mouth and sipped again. ‘Oh God.’ It was all coming back to her now.

The knocking had blessedly stopped. The doorknob to the room turned. She hoped it was Jack, coming back to her, but no, it was a rather large woman with an unmistakably disapproving look on her face.

‘Housekeeping.’ Her voice was flat. Her eyes took in the messy bedroom, the rumpled sheets, the empty bottle, the girl alone in the big bed.

‘Have you seen my friends?’

‘They go. You go too.’

‘Fine. Two minutes.’

The big woman closed the door. Sarah heard a vacuum start up. Ouch.

She got up. Got dressed. Grabbed the envelope from the pillow. Left the bedroom.

The living room was a terrible mess, even worse than the bedroom. No wonder the housekeeper was disgusted. Still, weren’t they supposed to be polite to guests? Everyone had been so nice the night before, serving and bowing with professional flair.

Sarah brushed a few half-eaten crab legs off her knapsack, pretending not to see that one ragged shell had fallen inside it. She hoisted the knapsack to her shoulder. The housekeeper was ignoring her. Good.

It was all so difficult: the ride down the elevator; the eyes of tourists checking in and out all seemed to be checking her out, as if they’d never seen a dishevelled girl in a rumpled kilt before.

Coffee. Desperate for coffee. But not here. Sarah was in danger of swelling to twice her normal size – not literally, but it might just as well be. When she was supremely uncomfortable in her surroundings she sometimes felt huge, clumsy, uncoordinated. It was a trick of her mind, she knew, but knowing neither kept it from happening nor made it bearable. Best to get out of this elegant hotel and find a greasy spoon somewhere, a place where she wouldn’t stand out like a huge sore thumb on an exquisitely manicured hand.

Outside, brutal sunlight punished her skull. Oh God. Oh God. ‘I’ll never drink again,’ she muttered. Half prayer, half oath. It was horrible to feel like this. Horrible to be so ruined after such a magical night. Her legs creaked.

Her bum hurt when she plopped into a banquette in the first café she encountered. She knew why her legs hurt, and her crotch, but her bum? Right. He’d spanked her a little, once, and then a little more. Gripped her cheeks tight when he took her from behind. God. She felt like she’d spent the day before on a day-long ride, bareback on a stallion too big for her.

She dreaded the long walk back to her house. She could take
a
bus but she’d probably throw up if she did. Oh God. If only she could take a cab. Sarah cursed her luck. She should never have bought that ancient Volvo. What good was a car when it was always in the shop? The mechanics had refused her any more credit, so, although her car was repaired now, it was as good as gone, except for the payments she was still making on it. David should never have co-signed that car loan. David. Oh God.

It wasn’t until she’d finished her second cup of coffee that she remembered the envelope Jack had left behind. She fished it from her knapsack, confident that it contained his contact information. She was quite sure she was in love with him, and last night she’d have bet any amount that he felt the same.

There was no note. Just bills, a lot of them. She started to count. Two thousand five hundred dollars.

The penny dropped.

Four girls, three of them sexy and sophisticated, and her, but there’d only been two men. Sex from the moment the six of them were alone. Three of the girls willing to share one of the men.

Damn!

She’d been taken for a whore – a high-class one but still a whore. Her very first fuck and she’d been paid for it. If only she’d known; if only she’d understood. But that was Sarah’s curse. IQ tests and her grades said she was smart – smart enough to have skipped grade eight – but socially, she was always a step and a half behind everyone else. Often, when other people seemed to understand the undercurrents in conversations, she’d just smile and nod while her brain squirrelled around, trying to catch up. It had got her into trouble often – like the first time she’d joined in a heavy-petting make-out party and been bewildered by the spinning bottle. Even before, when she’d agreed to play Post Office and had been pleasantly shocked when a boy kissed her – her first real kiss. And now, her first fuck, also the result of her lack of understanding.

But it hadn’t been ‘just a fuck’. It’d meant much more to her,
and
to Jack, she was sure. He hadn’t treated her like a prostitute. He’d been kind, and gentle, except for the whacks on her bum, which had been playful, at least. Boy, did she have some explaining to do the next time she saw him. Maybe, years into the future, they’d look back on the misunderstanding that had brought them together and laugh. Yes, she was sure they would.

Poor David! He’d blown his chance with her and pretty well pushed her into Jack’s arms.

Newly and exhilaratingly rich, she called a cab and had it take her to the Volvo dealership, where she paid her bill and filled up the tank. On the drive home she successfully resisted the desire to stop and shop a half-dozen times before finally succumbing. For the first time, she visited a sexy lingerie shop. Sarah chose a couple of daring pale-blue thongs, delicate as smoke caught in cobwebs, and a matching half-cup bra. The next time Jack reached up under her skirt, he wasn’t going to find plain old white cotton panties.

Unless that was what he preferred? Hmm! Being sexually active was more complicated than she’d thought.

Sarah drove home to the big old house on Maple that she shared with five other students.

The front hallway was cluttered with suitcases and carry-on bags. She stared at them for a moment, her mouth open. Sarah recognised that blue duffel as her dad’s. Her folks were here from St Paul? But where? She called David’s number on the hall payphone that the student residents shared.

He answered with, ‘Where the hell were you last night?’

‘I – um – Andrea’s? My friend – you don’t know her. We had some drinks. I – um – slept over?’ Why was she explaining and apologising when it was all David’s fault? Her voice changed. ‘Where was I supposed to be? You thought I’d stay in and mope after you forgot my damn birthday?’

‘Oh!’ It was his turn to be apologetic, or halfway apologetic, anyway. ‘Did you really think I’d forget your special day? It was supposed to be a surprise. Your parents flew in. We were going to make a big night of it. I made reservations. When you didn’t show, they went to their hotel.’

‘Their luggage is here.’

‘Most of the stuff at your place is presents. For you.’

‘You should have told me.’

‘
You
should have trusted me.’

That was hard to argue with. Still, he knew she’d planned to go all the way with him for the first time on her birthday. Why complicate it by bringing her folks in? Maybe he wasn’t as hot for her as she’d thought.

Keeping her voice cool, she told David, ‘Well, you really screwed up this time. If you think you know me, how come you didn’t know I’d take you literally when you pretended to forget my birthday?’ She hung up quickly while she still had the moral high ground.

In her bedroom, Sarah succumbed to the blues that beckoned to her from her bed. She fell face down, muffling her sobs so none of her housemates would interrupt the flow of her thoughts, and her tears.

‘Jack,’ she whispered into her pillow, pounding it with her fists, ‘come back, come back for me.’ And so on, and on, until she fell asleep.

That evening, David took Sarah and her parents to a Thai restaurant for her favourite food. She wore a short black skirt with a matching turtleneck. Now that Jack had released her womanhood, it seemed right to dress in a more sophisticated style. Even so, she went bare-legged.

The meal likely strained David’s budget, especially the champagne, even if it was domestic and vastly inferior to the Dom that Jack had bought for her. With her new wealth she could have offered to pay part of the bill, at least, but that would have raised questions she wasn’t prepared to answer. Anyway, he deserved the hit on his pocket.

It was uncomfortable, taking that first sip of bubbly and declaring it delightful, when it was too sweet and just about the last thing in the world she wanted in her mouth after last night. Sarah hated lying and she was lousy at it, or, at least, she’d always considered herself lousy at it. But everyone
seemed
to buy her lies, so perhaps it was just something that required a little effort, or perhaps it was because, for the first time, the truth she was protecting was worthwhile.

‘Did you open your gifts yet?’ Sarah’s mom was smiling but her bright blue eyes weren’t. ‘It wasn’t easy getting them here but as we were only invited for the weekend, I knew there’d be no time to shop.’

‘I haven’t opened them. You’re welcome to stay longer if you like.’ Sarah should be placating her parents after last night’s no-show, but she wasn’t in the mood.

‘We can’t. We dare not leave Donna for more than a day.’

Mr Meadows jumped in. ‘She’s probably already turned the place into a flophouse.’ He turned his palms up on the table in a gesture of helplessness.

‘What’s her latest illness?’ Sarah glanced at David. ‘Donna’s a cyberchondriac.’

‘What’s that?’ Mr Meadows looked from Sarah to David.

‘A hypochondriac who searches the web for diseases,’ said David. Sarah was relieved that he didn’t mention that he knew this because that’s what she sometimes called him.

‘She thinks she has Alzheimer’s,’ said Mrs Meadows.

‘Surely not! She must know she’s too young –’

‘Not Alzheimer’s,’ said Mr Meadows. ‘Asperger’s syndrome.’

‘Right,’ said Mrs Meadows. ‘Well, they both start with an “A”. What difference does it make? It’s not like she really has it, any more than she had chronic fatigue or Fibromyalgia or any of the other syndromes
de jour
she finds online.’

‘Is Donna working?’

‘She’s filling the house with junk for “found art”,’ said Mr Meadows. He laughed. His cheeks were flushed, likely from the wine.

‘Some of that sort of stuff does get into the art galleries,’ said David.

‘You’re very sweet,’ said Mrs Meadows. She covered David’s hand with her bony ones. ‘A keeper.’ She gave Sarah a meaningful look.

Sarah bit back sharp words. Mrs Meadows, after spending
most
of her life an ardent feminist, had become, overnight it seemed, a proponent of tradition. She, who’d once said, ‘Never marry, never have children,’ to her little girls, now sought new roles to play – specifically, Mother of the Bride and Grandmother.

‘Oh, I’m not going anywhere,’ said David.

David and Sarah’s dads were alike, both dedicated to keeping things pleasant. Why had she never seen it before?

Her dad came through with a birthday cheque for $200. This, on top of the gifts her mother had likely chosen and the air fare and hotel bill, made their visit to Toledo an expensive attempt to make her happy. She pasted a happy smile on her face and ate a big piece of cake, choking it down with more of the dreadful wine.

The trip to the airport took for ever. Sarah was in the back seat of David’s Astra, beside her mother, so her dad could sit in the front and point out places he recognised.

Mrs Meadows fanned her face as she flushed beet red, the metamorphosis as startling for the speed in which it took place as it was for the depth of its hue.

‘David, please –’

David glanced back at Sarah. ‘What?’

‘She needs air.’ Mr Meadows cranked up the air conditioning to maximum. ‘Menopause,’ he added.

Mrs Meadows said, ‘I just have to speak up. I’m proud of you, sweetheart. I am. But when you graduate in the spring, well, a degree in philosophy isn’t going to get you much of a job, is it? Look at the economy. Look at –’

‘The big picture. I will, I promise.’

‘Just make sure to cover your bases, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t squander the opportunities so many women paid so dearly for. For the first time ever, a girl like you really
can
have it all.’ She glanced meaningfully at the back of David’s head.

‘I know. I’m grateful, I really am.’ Sarah kept her voice carefully sarcasm free. ‘I’ll try.’

Sarah considered the mass of contradictions that was her mother. One minute burning her bra, the next stuffing her
breasts
into a push-up to please her man. That thought led to another – the way she’d compressed her breasts with her hands to push them up to Jack. Christ. She felt her own cheeks start to flush. What would her mom have to say about that?

‘You could use a little make-up,’ said Mrs Meadows. She was patting powder on her face and now she dabbed Sarah’s nose with her orange-streaked puff. ‘Maybe buy some with your birthday money.’