The Gift of Girls (6 page)

I must have delayed a moment too long because he snapped his fingers and I hastily stretched my arms up my back to unhook my bra. I lowered the straps from my shoulders and, with false modesty, kept my breasts hidden until the last possible moment. I placed my bra on the pile and realised to my horror that my nipples had grown erect; gorged in raging blood, they were painful and pointing at him as if in accusation or alarm.

It was as if I’d just finished a gymnastics routine, a cartwheel, a handspring, a somersault. My body was clammy. My underarms were dripping. I was panting for breath. I couldn’t control it. There was no air in the room. The shades were drawn and in the diffused light the feeling I’d had the first time I had been in that office came back to me, that sense that Simon Roche had been probing my hidden desires and secrets.

Did I want to be standing there taking my clothes off for him? Was that my secret desire? I thought I knew myself but standing there half-naked I realised I didn’t know myself at all. A month ago I’d been playing hockey at school and talking about boys with their dirty minds and groping fingers.

So much had happened and so fast. I had taken a job as a casino waitress where my boobs and my bum were the only assets that mattered and had done so because it was daring, because I knew deep down that Melissa, for all her talk, would never have had the courage. I had slept with an older man –
and enjoyed every moment of it
. I had stolen £3,100 from the Roche-Marshall account and lost it playing online blackjack. Even Sister Benedict wouldn’t have believed it.

Was this me? Was this the real me? In just four weeks I had gone from convent school to the edge of the abyss. A sigh left me and my shoulders sagged. I looked into Simon Roche’s eyes and he just furrowed his brow and flicked his finger in a downward motion.

There was no escape. No way to double my bet. No way to put the stolen money back in the account. I hadn’t beaten the system. The system had beaten me. I hooked my thumbs into the thin band of elastic, eased forward to lower the ivory silk over my bottom and, as elegantly as I could, I ran my knickers down my legs and over my shoes. As I was about to place them on the pile of clothes, he held out his hand and I felt utterly disgraced and wretched as I dropped my knickers in his palm. He studied the gusset and I’m sure it was stained and smelly.

‘And your shoes, if you please.’

As I removed my shoes, he took a green and gold box from the plastic bag on his desk. He gave me the bag and told me to put my shoes and clothes inside. I did so and, the moment my clothes had gone, I felt bereft, as if with my clothes my very person had been folded away inside that bag.

He opened the green and gold box and removed a pair of black high-heel shoes which he stood on the desk.

He said nothing.

I stared at the shoes and back into his eyes. My lips began to tremble. My knees were giving away beneath me.

By the way, what size shoes do you take?

A narrow six
.

That day at the first interview his probing eyes had looked into me and he must have foreseen the future. He had given me access to the passwords and codes. He had led me on to the path of temptation and I was standing at the end of the path barefoot, naked as a child, my breasts throbbing with the beat of my heart. Tears swam into my eyes and my hands were shaking as I reached for the shoes.

They were gorgeous shoes, shoes a girl covets, stylish but elegant. They fitted snugly and must have cost a fortune. The leather was so soft, the supports so solid, the heels so sleek and graceful. The moment I pushed my toes
into
those shoes, my spine curved forward in a faint bow which made my sagging shoulders straighter, my breasts poised and, as I looked back at Simon Roche across the desk, he seemed to wear a look of approval and for that I was grateful.

In those high-heel shoes I was taller, my waist stretched and flat, my bottom clenched, my breasts tingling and alive, the black triangle of my pubic hair glossy and damp. I was at my physical prime, and in that situation it was some small solace and gave me confidence; stupidly, pathetically, at the far edge of my embarrassment was a touch of conceit. These two emotions had no place together except perhaps for a girl standing naked before a man who could do anything he wanted to her.

He stood. He walked around the desk, gazed down at the shoes, then approached the long leather sofa below the window. He didn’t look at my naked body. He looked into my eyes.

‘Magdalena, you are going to bend over this sofa, you are going to spread your legs, and I am going to spank you.’

He paused to let the words sink in. It seemed astonishing, unbelievable. He was going to spank me? Were people allowed to do such things? I’d read Anaïs Nin. I had read about girls being spanked. But wasn’t that all fantasy? Did such things really happen?

‘Do I make myself clear?’ he added.

‘I think so.’

‘Have you been spanked before?’

‘Just at school …’

‘It hurts and it is humiliating. That is the point. I am going to spank you twelve times. You must not make a single sound except to count each stroke after you receive it. You can refuse to accept the beating and get dressed. If you do so, I shall put through a call to the police and report the theft of more than £3,000 from the company account.’

I took a deep breath. I was trembling. My breasts were still outrageously pert, betraying me. I could do this, I thought. To save myself I could take the pain and humiliation of being spanked. I’d stripped off my clothes without a murmur of resistance. What did a dozen smacks on my backside matter?

I gave a little shrug.

‘That’s not all, Magdalena. That is just the beginning,’ he continued. ‘I told you, I can have any whore in Soho for £100. Your debt is …’ He paused, waiting for me to answer.

‘£3,100,’ I said.

‘If you can accept the spanking, you will have earned the right to be taught the true meaning of the word discipline.’

His words hung in the air like black clouds on a sunny day. I swallowed. The feeling of fantasy was growing inside me. What could he possibly mean? What was he going to do? I really had no idea, no idea at all. Hadn’t I been taken on a
trip around the world
with Sandy Cunningham? What more was there? I bit my lip, I shrugged, and I nodded.

‘OK,’ I said.

‘I want you to be very sure of this.’

I swallowed again. ‘I don’t really have a choice.’

‘Did I have a choice when you stole my money?

I lowered my eyes and shook my head.

‘You make your own decisions. That’s the definition of being free.’

Free, I thought. I was stark naked and about to get a thrashing. How free is that? ‘What will I have to do?’ I asked.

He took a long breath through his nose. ‘Anything. Isn’t that the word you used?’ he replied. ‘A whore can be purchased for £100. Your debt is?’ He was rubbing it in, making sure I understood the enormity of what I had done and the enormity of what I must do.

‘£3,100,’ I said meekly.

‘So, Magdalena Wallace, beginning this weekend at my house in the country, you will spend the next thirty-one days at my disposal. You will do everything that is asked of you. You will be spanked and cropped, caned and humiliated, you will be penetrated and violated, as I have been violated.’

On more than one occasion I’d had my bottom caned at school and knew how much it hurt. ‘Caned?’ I said.

‘Painfully so, Magdalena. That bottom you keep pushing out so arrogantly will be chastised by me and by others associated with me. You will be like a concubine in a harem. You will perform any service asked of you and you will perform that service immediately and without question. If you hesitate, you will be severely punished.’

There was a shooting pain in my stomach as if someone had taken my intestines in their fist and was squeezing tighter and tighter.
A concubine in a harem … perform any service … severely punished
. How did it all come to this?

‘For thirty-one days?’ I asked.

‘Is the punishment out of balance with the crime?’ he asked in return.

‘Yes, I think,’ I replied.

‘That is the nature of discipline. When those thirty-one days have passed, you will be the most honest – and the most disciplined – girl in the country. You will be ready for that sparkling future you imagined you had.’

I nodded my head as I thought about that. Perhaps he was right. I had never done anything dishonest before and I certainly wouldn’t again. I looked up as he continued.

‘You will perform this task according to my will,’ he said. ‘How well you perform that task will be your choice.’

If I had a choice it was no choice at all. Did I really push my bottom out so arrogantly? I remembered that
night
studying my breasts at the casino and feeling so pleased they looked so pretty. I had brought this on myself. The alternative was to call the police. I’d have a record. My life would be in ruins.

I was pressing my nails into my palms, clenching my bottom. My breasts were prickling. I wanted to touch them. I wanted them to be touched. It was strange standing there stark naked, but not as strange as it would have been had I not allowed Sandy Cunningham to strip off my clothes and bore into the very heart of my being. I’d been compromised, embarrassed, and it was all my own fault. I deserved to be punished and, in some shocking and shameful way, there may even have been a small anonymous part of me that wanted to be a concubine in a harem. Had I not fought tooth and nail for the part of Sally Bowles in
Cabaret
? Did I not enjoy flaunting my body on the concourse at Rebels Casino? Simon Roche must have seen something in me that I didn’t know was there and that was terrifying.

The sun must have come out from behind the clouds, lighting the room in golden bars, and again I had the feeling that I was a bird in a cage. I had been flying high and was about to have my wings clipped.

‘Now, girl, bend over the sofa, spread your legs and don’t make a sound.’

I did as I was told, leaning right over, my ribs cushioned on the thick arm of the sofa, my breasts hanging below me, my feet slightly splayed, my legs stretched to keep balance. I took a deep breath and waited.

When the first spank hit my bottom it wasn’t like being spanked by the soap star at Rebels, or spanked playfully by Sandy Cunningham while I lay naked on top of him. Simon Roche’s big hand caught the plump curve of my right cheek and a stab of fire shot through my body.

‘I didn’t hear you?’ he said.

I had been trying so hard not to make a sound I hadn’t said anything at all. ‘One,’ I whispered.

‘Louder, please.’

‘One,’ I said.

Before the word left me, his big right hand had swatted my left cheek in the same position. I bit my tongue and gritted my teeth.

‘Two,’ I said.

The third stroke bridged the crack in my bottom and joined the other two, spreading the pain across the whole lower half of my poor bottom.

‘Three.’

And again, his aim picking out a fresh spot to inflame and humiliate.

I spread my legs and braced my shoulders. ‘Four,’ I said, and waited for number five with equanimity.

I had stolen £3,100. It was a terrible thing to do. I deserved to be disciplined. I deserved a spanking. I was lucky not to be receiving a worse punishment and felt a certain comfort from the slow tide of pain spreading down my thighs and over the small of my back. He hit me again, much harder.

‘Five,’ I said, my voice stronger, more confident.

The thought of being spanked was far worse than the actual beating. I needed this. I would be all the better for it. Simon Roche was a scientist resetting my DNA, a novelist reshaping my character. I couldn’t imagine what had been in my mind when I transferred the money from the company account to the online casino. I had been confused. I had tricked myself into thinking that I could beat the system. I had grown too full of myself.

The next spank took me to the halfway mark. ‘Six,’ I said, and the pain was intense but sustainable.

I wriggled my bottom to try to take the sting out of the burning flesh, and I’m sure all that wriggling must have made the target more appealing. I was provocative and arrogant, and I was lucky to get the chance to have that arrogance spanked out of me. I had been disobedient; worse, I had been dishonest, a wayward girl, an unruly
child
. I deserved to be punished and wanted to be punished so that Simon Roche would appreciate me again.

He paused for a few moments and out of the corner of my eye I noticed him swinging his arm, building himself up for the second half of the beating.

When his hand came down again the pain shot through me like a fire in the forest. Every inch of my soft flesh was aflame. My body was dripping wet, steaming like a pony after a hard ride. Tears flowed involuntarily down my cheeks, snot ran out of my nose. My throat was dry, but I didn’t cry out. I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth.

‘Seven.’

And then came number eight, harder still, the sound reverberating around the room and ringing in my ears. I had the same odd sensation that I’d had when I was playing blackjack. That time was suspended. There was no past. The future was unknown. There was just this moment. Me bent over the arm of a leather sofa, my dear little bottom raised to meet Mr Roche’s big hand as it came down again, searing into my flesh, cleansing me of my debt, of my sins. When it was over, I would be a better person.

‘Eight.’

I squirmed into a new position, pushed my head lower and pushed my bottom up further. It was strange but I felt comfortable like this, my body angled, my posterior perfectly poised as if in anticipation of pleasure rather than pain. When you force yourself to forget about the pain, there is a certain pleasure in being in someone else’s hands, completely submissive, you don’t have to make any decisions, you only have to remember to count the next spank.

‘Nine.’

I pressed my eyes shut and the sting didn’t seem quite so bad. It was like diving into cold water: the moment passes. Like anal sex, being spanked, I realised, could
transform
mysteriously from pain to an inexplicable feeling of contentment. The only obstruction to this rare state is in the mind, in the rules and conventions programmed into us at school, at home, by society, by forces outside ourselves. If we look deeper into the dark recesses of our minds we find new treasures, new pleasures, a hunger for new experiences. When you overcome a barrier in your mind like a hurdle on the athletics track it feels as if you are flying and the emotion is lit by an aura of excitement.