Seven Scarlet Tales (21 page)

‘Are you seeing her?’ asked Kalaya, always one of the sharper tools in the box.

‘No,’ said Rob, but he couldn’t help musing on the term ‘seeing’. Yes, he was seeing Ruth. He was noticing her. He was getting close to her. Was that the same thing?

‘She seems very cheerful for someone with boyfriend trouble,’ said Lulu.

Rob shrugged.

‘Perhaps she likes trouble,’ he said.

It turned out he was right about that.

At one minute to nine the next morning, he found himself knocking on her bedroom door.

‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,’ he called. ‘Did you forget to set your alarm?’

Incoherent sounds filtered through the door.

‘It’s nine o’clock. Thought you were walking down the hill with me? I’ve got to leave in five minutes.’

More muttering.

He waited in the hall, jacket and scarf on. Lulu emerged from the kitchen in her dressing gown, cup of tea in hand.

‘Ruthie won’t be up before noon,’ she said.

‘She has been the last two days,’ Rob contradicted her. ‘You just didn’t see it happen.’

‘Bloody hell, she really is turning over a new leaf.’

Lulu shuffled back up the stairs, but there was no sign of Ruth.

He shouted, ‘I’m going now!’ No reply.

He left the house, mildly frustrated.

Two days, and already Ruth was on the slide. If she wasn’t going to take this seriously, then why should he bother?

He was crotchety and pissed off all morning, then he went back to the house to work from home for the afternoon.

Ruth was in the living room, watching
Loose Women
in her dressing gown.

Rob dropped his bag on the floor, strode over and switched off the telly.

‘Shit, you’re back early.’

Ruth put down the yogurt she’d been eating, in dismay.

‘You aren’t taking this seriously, Ruth,’ Rob said. ‘You aren’t taking
me
seriously.’

‘I am,’ she said. ‘Just feeling a bit off today, that’s all.’

‘Should I call the doctor?’

‘No, just a bit of a headache.’

‘Headache, yeah, right. I’ve heard it all before, Ruth. You had a permanent headache for an entire bloody term. Don’t lie to me. Why didn’t you go in this morning?’

She looked genuinely intimidated. He fought the impulse to soften, to be gentler, to offer her a weasel way out.

She wants help. She needs it. Don’t bottle out.

‘I just felt tired.’

‘Felt like festering in bed till midday. Am I right?’

Her shoulders dropped and she nodded.

‘It’s not good enough, is it?’

She shook her head.

‘Sorry. I’ve let you down.’

‘No, you’ve let yourself down. And I’ve let you down, too. I should’ve gone in there and made you get up.’

She looked up, and Rob thought he saw awe in her expression.

‘You should’ve,’ she breathed.

‘You made a good start, and you
can
do this, but you need more motivation. I need to take stronger measures.’

‘Do you?’ She crossed her legs. He saw her squeeze her thighs together. His mouth went dry.

‘Well, don’t you think so?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, what do you suggest?’

Ruth’s face tightened with alarm. He could see that she didn’t want to take responsibility for this, but that was tough luck, because she would be made to. She was going to be the author of her own discipline.

He folded his arms and glowered down at her.

‘What do you think?’ she stuttered. ‘If I don’t … You should … There should be a consequence.’

It was very hard not to smile, but he managed it somehow.

‘A consequence,’ he repeated. ‘Yes.’

She flinched, but held his eye.

‘What sort of consequence?’ she asked.

‘Well,’ said Rob. ‘Not a pat on the back, obviously. What would work for you, Ruth? What would keep you on the straight and narrow? My disapproval doesn’t seem to be quite enough.’

‘I don’t like being in trouble with you,’ she said.

‘But you still won’t do as you’re told. Come on. I want suggestions.’

‘I can’t say it.’

Now it was going to be easy. Now all he had to do was apply the pressure. Already the first stirrings of a victory celebration tickled his loins. She was that kind of girl. Just that kind of girl he’d always dreamt of running across.

‘You can say it. You will say it.’

He moved close to her, in front of her, and crouched at her eye level.

‘Come on, Ruthie. What should I do with you?’

She shifted and looked at the ceiling. Her fluffy dressing gown brushed against his knees. What was she wearing underneath? Pyjamas, loose and a bit faded, perfect lazingwear.

‘I don’t know, maybe …’

‘Maybe …?’

‘You could …’

‘I could?’

‘I can’t!’

‘Ruthie.’

He took her hands in his. ‘Look at me.’

Reluctant as she was, she couldn’t disobey him and she turned perturbed eyes to him. He could see she was chewing the inside of her cheek. He drank in the signs of delicious conflict, her desires struggling with her pride, and then let them settle before turning the screw again.

‘Tell me what you need,’ he whispered.

‘I want you to tell me,’ she said with a pout.

He shook his head.

‘Has to come from you. Otherwise you can say I forced it on you and you didn’t mean it, didn’t really want it. I’m not laying myself open to that. Do you understand? Much as I’d like to just …’ He squeezed her fingers, and a smile flickered uncertainly on her lips.

‘Would you?’

‘God, yes.’

‘I hope you’re thinking what I’m thinking because otherwise I’m going to have quit uni, leave this town, leave the country, but here goes.’

She screwed up her face in anguish and Rob put her fingers to his lips; the suspense was almost unbearable.

‘Would you spank me?’

The words came out in a rush, almost a blur, so that Rob wasn’t quite sure he’d heard what she said, or just what he wanted her to say.

She tugged at her fingers, trying to get them out of his hands, obviously desperate to run and hide, now the unspeakable was spoken.

‘Still, keep still,’ he said, smiling broadly now. ‘It’s OK. You haven’t shocked me. I think you’ve been very brave. Well done, Ruthie. I’m proud of you.’

She gathered her breath. ‘You are?’

‘That must have been hard for you to say.’

‘It was.’

‘Did you mean it?’

She nodded.

‘I want to be better. I think it’ll help me.’

‘I think so, too. So, look, are the others out all afternoon, do you know?’

She clenched her fists in Rob’s hands, her fingernails digging into him.

‘Now?’ she mewled.

‘I think we should start as we mean to go on, don’t you? But I don’t want to be disturbed. So, do you know what they’re doing?’

‘Lulu’s spending the night at Rick’s. Don’t know about Kalaya, but she did say something about working tonight.’

‘At Sainsbury’s?’

‘I guess.’

‘OK, well, I think that leaves us pretty clear.’

Ruth gave an alluring little shiver and shut her eyes.

Rob stood, pulling her up with him and held her hands close to his chest.

‘If you’d gone to the library,’ he said to the crown of her head, ‘you wouldn’t be in this situation, would you?’

‘No.’ She shook her head, which she’d hung low, gazing at the threadbare carpet.

‘You’re going to learn what happens when you slack off. Take off your dressing gown.’

He dropped her hands and watched them go to the belt of her robe, fumbling with the knot before shrugging the garment off. When she stood in just slippers and faded pyjamas with a picture of a yawning owl on the top half, he made her wait for his next move. This was partly to increase her nervousness, and partly because he wasn’t sure what it should be. He settled on an introductory lecture.

‘So, Ruth, I want you to tell me again why you’re here.’

‘I didn’t go to the library.’

‘You didn’t do what you should have done.’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because, um, I didn’t feel like it.’

‘You couldn’t be bothered.’

‘No.’

‘You’re going to be bothered now. Very bothered. Hot and bothered. You understand what’s going to happen to you now?’

She looked up, her mouth in a twist.

‘Sort of,’ she offered.

‘Sort of? What does that mean? What do you think I’m going to do to you?’

‘You said you’d—’

‘I didn’t say I’d do anything. You asked me to do something to you, and I’m going to do it. Don’t you remember?’

This was too good to be true, a script from a masturbation fantasy. He’d never thought he’d find himself here like this, saying these words, to a willing girl with the decency to play reluctant.

‘I do,’ she admitted. ‘Are you going to?’

‘When you’ve asked me nicely.’

‘Oh God, Rob,’ she wailed. ‘You’re horrible.’

He took her chin in his hand and made her look at him again while he said the magic words. ‘It’s for your own good. Isn’t it?’

‘Yeah,’ she said sulkily. ‘I suppose.’

‘I’m waiting. What do you deserve?’

She stamped her slippered feet and tried to yank her head away from his grip, but in the end she had to say it.

‘A spanking.’

‘That’s right. So ask me for it, nicely.’

‘You aren’t going to give up on this, are you?’

‘No.’

She sighed.

‘Oh, for God’s sake. Go on then. Spank me. Do your worst. I’m ready for it.’

‘You call that asking nicely?’

‘Yes, as a matter of fact, I do.’

‘Ooh, you’re brave, madam. Very brave. Very reckless. You seem to have challenged me. Well, I was going to go easy on you this first time, but I think I might just have changed my mind.’

He sat down on the sofa and patted his thighs.

‘Come on then. Let’s be having you.’

She hesitated and he put out a hand.

‘Don’t make me have to put you here myself.’

That seemed to do the trick and she folded herself gingerly and with a hint of a giggle over his jean-clad lap.

‘Is something funny?’

‘No, just, this is weird. Surreal. I can’t believe I’m doing this.’

Rob had to concur, though he didn’t voice the thought.

He concentrated, instead, on what it was like to have a young woman put herself over his knee. She couldn’t quite anchor herself at first and her weight was all on one side until he put his hand on the small of her back and eased her gently into the right position. She knelt on the sofa with her bottom up high and her face against a cushion. Her stomach pressed into his thighs, and she would undoubtedly be aware of the hardening that was taking place inside his jeans. But that couldn’t be helped.

The loosely elasticated waist of her pyjamas slid to the very top of her bottom, just barely above the start of her cleft. The thin cotton left little to the imagination: the full curves with their central split were well exposed to his eye. The material was white with pale pink polka dots. He wondered if he would be able to see anything of the colour of her skin through it. He would certainly feel the heat.

He put one palm on the most rounded part of her cheeks and rubbed at them, holding her around her waist with his other arm. Would she kick? Would she struggle? Would she cry? What if she cried? What the hell would he do then?

‘Are you ready?’ he asked, patting her bottom.

‘No,’ she said rudely, and the pats turned into a resounding smack.

Oh, the sound of it, and the way she jolted forwards as if he’d shot her.

‘What was that?’

‘Yes,’ she admitted, meekly. ‘Ready.’

‘Good. Now this is for lazing in your bed all morning. I hope it was worth it.’

He began to lay on the strokes, taking it easy at first, anxious about really hurting her. She barely moved and made no sound, letting the room fill with the crisp reports until a low sigh came out of her.

‘Does that hurt?’ asked Rob, genuinely unsure.

‘Not really,’ she said. ‘But it feels lovely.’

That wasn’t the idea! He needed to make her feel this, make it count.

‘Thank you for your honesty,’ he said, and put a lot more into the next smack, which made her gasp and kick a little. This was more like it.

After a few more of these, exclamations of sincere discomfort began to pour from her and she squirmed mightily beneath his firm hold, never quite able to escape.

‘Oh, it hurts,’ she cried, perhaps twenty strokes in.

‘Good,’ he said, carrying on, moving his hand down her quivering arc, settling into a pattern that started at the high point of her bottom and ended at mid-thigh, then climbed back up again.

At fortyish, she tried to slip a hand of her own between his palm and the target, but he caught it and tucked it out of harm’s way, spanking on while she cursed and hissed and kicked a cushion on to the floor.

‘It’s meant to hurt, Ruth,’ he said. ‘That’s what makes it a deterrent.’

‘I didn’t know it would hurt this much,’ she wailed. ‘Please!’

He had spanked her about sixty times now. One minute. It didn’t seem very long. Was it enough?

He paused and placed his palm on her cheeks. Warmth radiated through the cotton, but he couldn’t be sure if it came from his own hand which, when he held it to his face again, was deep pink in colour and stinging mildly.

He let her huff and puff and settle herself while he considered his next move.

‘Are you learning your lesson, Ruth?’

‘I’ve learned it, honestly, I won’t slack off again.’

‘I’m not sure.’

‘I mean it.’ She wriggled in a way that rubbed tantalisingly against his erection. ‘I really do.’

Minx, he thought. Is this really an elaborate seduction? Is she playing me for a mug? Not that I wouldn’t like that.

‘I need to see what I’ve done,’ he said, the words coming out almost from nowhere, because his head felt as light as a bubble. ‘I need to pull down your pyjamas.’

She made no protest, but lifted her bum higher as if in invitation.

Oh, you dirty little angel, I can do what I want with you, can I?

‘I see,’ he said, and he drew the light fabric over her luscious bottom. It was an all-over pale rose shade, nothing like the fiercely stained backsides he sometimes looked at on the internet. Call this a spanking? And she was doing this subtle hip-writhing thing that made his cock throb. She was doing it on purpose. She parted her thighs just a tiny, tiny bit, but it was enough to give her away.