‘It’s Monday. How come you’re not at school?’
‘It’s half term, mum.’
‘Saw in the bin you had another takeaway last night. Where they all coming from? Your boyfriend Sarah again is it?’
‘No, no, I use vouchers. 50% off! I heard Darren at the door earlier, have you forgiven him?’
‘Trying to worm his way back in but I said he’ll have to try harder than a packet of wine gums. Opened, too!’
‘Well don’t forget I might be seeing Sarah this week,’ as Natalia continued up the stairs. ‘Who’s not a boy.’
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She locked herself in her bedroom to eat her bowl of pasta whilst eyeing the pink vibrator sitting at the end of her bed as though it were a curious objet d’art. Her ten-second trial of it yesterday morning had been like holding an electric toothbrush to a sensitive gum and she worried that further trials would beckon her mum to ask why she was brushing her teeth in her bedroom. Still, the sight of it reminded her of the bawdy blessing of Neill who, apparently, was anytime now ‘giving one for her’ to the Headmistress of Harrogate Grammar.
She put down her bowl and picked up her phone to text ‘Vile Valentine’:
‘How’s it going Richard daaarrrling? X’
Half an hour of slow pasta eating later:
‘You fiend! Schmooze underway. Meeting the fatcat… X’
-‘Good luck!!!x’
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After three bags of Cheese & Onion crisps that evening, wondering whether she should have washed her hands before picking up the vibrator again out of boredom, another text came in from Neill:
‘Might not make it to Aberdeen but care to share an Indian takeaway the size of Scotland with me tomorrow night?’
She chucked the vibrator back across the bed.
‘YES TIMES A MILLION!!!!’
- ‘That easy to make you come is it?’
‘For you yes x’
- ‘Cab for 5.30 from the usual place. So that I can order the food and get the fire on… X’
‘Yes yes yes sir xxx’
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She spent the next 24 hours choosing what to wear, and was still late for the cab. If she wore the green dress she might not come home a virgin and wasn’t sure if this was a desirable outcome. Plus, it was cold and raining, but her sexy skinny jeans would be like wearing hot bandages by Neill’s fire that would lead to her stripping them off, and probably losing her virginity that way, so she stuck to her sheer lycra leggings and a sleeved top - with the padded bra again, to confirm she was just as much the woman as he ogled at the fair.
Soon she was splashing up the stepping stones over the dark gravel to his cottage door, holding her coat up over her head, peering out to lift the wet brass knocker.
‘Where’s your brolly!’ came the voice pulling her in. ‘Do I have to buy you that as well?’
‘Shut up. Get this wet thing off me.’
‘You didn’t bring that, did you?’
Neill, wearing a black short-sleeve t-shirt and lounge bottoms and all sweet, musky cottage scent, was mid-debagging a series of hot foil boxes in the kitchen.
‘This looks lovely!’
She helped un-lid samosas, bhajis, tandoori chicken, tikka masala, balti and rice, as he snapped his fingers to the cupboards.
‘Plates! You know where they are.’
They arranged the various dishes on the table with an awkward bumping of hands as they finally sat down. They caught each others’ eyes and laughed.
‘Stop it…’
‘You stop it.’
‘So, how are things at home?’
‘Mum’s not so good. Back to drinking twice as much as usual,’ she bit the corner of a samosa frowning, although the frown was mostly an attempt to recall what her woes actually were, since they’d evaporated upon the light touch of Neill’s fingers a moment ago when he led her through the lamplit lounge.
‘Not Robinson’s squash, I take it.’
‘Can’t believe I’m actually hoping she’ll forgive Darren, even though the weirdo had a phone with pictures of me on, and must have known were me, from the name on the chat.’
‘Ahh. Well, I got on the blower yesterday to Mr Technophone, demanding why he didn’t wreck the phones,’ Neill poured out a curry onto his plate, and passed the foil box to her. ‘He gave his sincere apologies and said the SIMs were removed, contacts were wiped, along with the content or rather, most of it…’
‘So, just a rogue WhatsApp folder was left,’ she mused.
‘He said destroying four phones would have been like throwing a grand into the bin, what with their peasant families to feed, and that selling them would have been risky. The upshot is that it’s unlikely Darren knows the pictures are you, although I can’t guarantee the pictures didn’t give him an upshot, so to speak.’ His eye glinted as he ate a forkful of chicken balti.
‘Till my mum sent them downriver?’
‘Lucky that’s the only place they’re streaming.’
‘Any tidal wave yet from your… school of fishy fair antics?’
‘Williams no doubt will have a bone to pick with me,’ as he poured two glasses of mango lassi. ‘And I’ll be expected to suspend Jack the Lad for the candy-condom jar, but I’d rather offer congratulations to a genius offering to a rabidly reproducing council estate. I’ll have to get hold of the two scallies who were filming it—’
‘Dean and Jenny.’
‘Mainly so I can have a good laugh with Jack,’ as he snapped a poppadum and handed her half.
‘Send it to You’ve Been Framed and you could cover the bill for the band. Could have filmed my bombshell mum too,’ Natalia sighed, dipping her poppadum shard into the mint sauce.
‘Turns out I was inadvertently to blame for that drunk gangbang they terrified you with then.’
‘And every other one. What’s new,’ she laughed.
‘It was better than a panto. No-one died. Doris had the closest thing she’ll get to an orgasm when she shrieked and dropped the vibrator, whilst I proved that separate sex toilets are as essential as contraception. Joan thankfully left in time but that car crash would have given her even more ammunition for our meeting with Phil.’
‘Phil?’
‘Philanthropist. Can never remember his name. Here, try this—’
‘You met him then?’ She dipped her bhaji into the sauce he offered, then grimaced. ‘Eurgh! That one’s so sour!’
He laughed. ‘Phil - and lime pickle - are alright. An acquired taste! A funny little old man in a Hawaiian shirt, with fingers smaller than yours and a laugh deeper than his pockets. He knew all about Thornwood - which shut up Joan’s intro - and said he’s excited it’s finally getting its big chance to shine, as his eyes shone like two pound coins…’
‘Oh, good—’
‘But he had to leave after one Brewdog and Joan regained the upper hand when they shook on the idea she’ll officially co-write the pitch. And I’ll bet two pound coins that’s how I end up spending tomorrow with Joan, although I probably won’t mind if it pushes this along faster.’
‘Sounds like a romantic day!’ she laughed.
‘I’m afraid to say she was perusing the lovely vintage red book of maps you gave me, and she wants to go up to Mother Shipton’s Cave. Means a whole day out in Knaresborough for lunch where she’ll probably expect a bunch of roses even before the posh evening dinner…’
‘You won’t be having a takeaway then?’ she grinned.
‘No no, not fun like this. Actually, your mother used a word I’ve never heard before in my life… not mardy, something else. Maud-gey?’
‘Maungey. M-a-u-n-g-e-y.’
He drew out and tapped his phone, eating a pakora from the other hand. ‘‘West Yorkshire dialect, especially of a child; sulky, bad-tempered, or peevish.’ Yes. That will be me after being wined, dined and undermined.’
‘You’ll be fine. Joan worships you,’ she winked.
‘Nah, she doesn’t.’
‘Why not!’
He laughed at her indignant face. ‘The romance is between my school and hers. Aligning sports matches, back-handers on marketing, swapping favours, yada yada, almost guaranteed to make Thornwood leap up the league tables.’
‘And her web whizz brothers? Did you meet them last week?’
‘Yes! Now you see, that was a match. Nice chaps, we’re going to play golf sometime. They’re already getting to work on a redesign proposal sheerly because I am shafting their sister.’
‘So,’ as she dolloped another curry, ‘with all this disingenuous deceit, apart from boons and backhanders, what do you actually get out of… sharrf-ting her?’
‘I don’t think you’d want to hear about the clown-act, the desperation and resent.’
‘Shut up. You made me write 30 times I must always be rude with Mr Neill, remember?’
He sighed, lowered his fork and leant forward, as she met his gaze:
‘Well, you asked for it. Because after an entire evening of ‘disingenuous deceit’… her being all phoney and I increasingly maungey… when I finally get her down and fuck the living daylights out of her, and watch as she descends into a mess of grunts and wobbles and red lipstick down her chin, it makes all of that portly pretence, that fucking feckless flattery, simply fall away, be obliterated under the battering power of my cock, which shoots the thing in its tracks like a deer splattered over a tree by a huntsman, and left there looking happy enough to be dead, grateful even, I just walk away thankful to be back in my own fag-smoking solitude.’
He paused, then added:
‘Till the dead deer calls me up and wants to be shot to pieces all over again.’
She laughed softly as she swirled fork lines in her curry. ‘It’s a good answer,’ she finally said.
‘A good answer?’ he smirked.
‘Funny, it kind of reminds me,’ she looked up in wonder, ‘how I felt after I finished ranting at her about Jane Eyre.’
‘You fucked her with your verbal cock.’
‘How did you become a Headmaster again?’
‘Shut up, this is interesting. Back to topic,’ as they collide-dipped their naan bread. ‘Hey—! Thought you didn’t like the lime pickle?’
‘Its wrongness has a strange appeal,’ as she licked it tentatively, grimaced, then licked it again. ‘What I want to know is, does she have an orgasm?’
‘Not sure, but it’s a similar expression to what you just did there.’
‘You don’t… know? Or check?!’
‘It’s sex, Natalia. Isn’t the line something like… ‘never had any complaints?’’
‘That’s definitely not a Freud line.’
He made a deep full-bellied sigh and stood up to unbolt the top half of the garden door.
‘Listen, it’s me that needs a fraudline. She’s as sincere as an air hostess,’ as he tossed a fag in his mouth and opened the door to emit the dark wet rainy night. ‘So I couldn’t give a monkeys whether that woman is faking, farting, or busy wondering whether her home insurance is up for renewal. But it’s good I’ve got you here today, because I need help home-hosting something myself.’
He clicked to light his fag, and took a drag. ‘Guess who’s coming up this weekend.’
‘Freud himself?’
‘The London gang. Ed, Monica and Justin - and Claire, I think. They’ve clubbed together for a train. I’m cooking them a four-course dinner this Friday night.’
‘Oh! Nice.’
‘And the problem is, the last time I met them, I had a girlfriend—’ drawing out his words, ‘who they all met, and they all liked, and we all had… a really good time.’
‘Ye-ahh?’ She shivered from the cold air now infiltrating the kitchen.
‘The trouble is, I need someone who looks and sounds, feels and smells, exactly like the girlfriend they met last time,’ as he turned his neck to blow smoke out into the garden.
‘Oh.’ He looked as sexy as fuck, how many minutes of nonchalance could she manage?
‘Do you happen to know anyone?’ he turned back at her.
She fingered her earlobe. ‘I don’t know anyone like that.’
‘Shame.’
‘Maybe it’s time they met the, erm, gorgeous, red-lipped… dead deer.’
‘I guess they could,’ he sniffed. ‘Another new one. Reinforce my shit track record with women.’
‘Bu-ut… I really like the sound of a big load of home-cooked food, on a day I’m normally scrolling Just Eat paid for by my generous Headmaster—’
‘Well if you’re going to be loaded up on daddy’s dinner then you may as well be here making yourself useful,’ reeling off at rapid pace now. ‘And you’re going to fully play the role again. Agreed?’ he squinted through a puff of smoke.
‘What does it involve? The… same?’
‘Oh, at least. In fact, we had a narrow escape in London,’ he eyed her earnestly now. ‘Do you know what Ed said to me on the phone afterwards?’
‘What?’
‘He said, Rich, you must be losing your libido in your old age or learning some restraint. You have the most gorgeous girl I’ve ever seen you with, and not once did I see you squeeze her bottom.’
‘Get lost, he didn’t say that!’ She let her stewing excitement erupt into a hoot of laughter.
‘You can ask him yourself.’
‘Well I’m not going to voluntarily raise the topic of our humongous lie…’
‘Anyway the point is, best to play it safe this time.’
‘Only if I can warm up by your fire and watch a film with you.’
‘Deal. You make tea whilst I go to the loo.’
‘Chai?’
‘Keeping it Indian, why not,’ he called as he passed into the lounge. ‘Yeuch! Tandoori on my t-shirt… toss this in the washer, would you—’
He appeared back at the kitchen door, his face shrouded by tugging t-shirt, all golden-brown-hairy-man-chest, flashing tufted armpits and rotund flexing stomach, as Natalia quickly averted her eyes and misjudged the catch. Luckily he’d already turned away before he could see it land like a comical ball of soot right over her face.
Her hand lingering on the faintly soiled armpit stitch before she opened the washer, she eyed his cigarette packet mischievously as she waited for the kettle to boil.
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*
‘You’re in Action,’ as he bent to light the fire.
‘I don’t feel it with this full belly. Now I’m in comedy romance… like you.’ A film cover of a provocative pair of stockinged legs came up onscreen. ‘It’s your stockroom femme fatale!’
Neill’s face shot up, illuminated by the now roaring fire. ‘Ah, Secretary! Put that on.’
‘But it’s an eighteen…’
‘You’ll be the judge of whether it’s worth that many.’
She giggled. ‘Looks far too embarrassing to watch next to you…’
‘Made 2002, the year you were born,’ he leaned to chuck the maroon blanket over her. ‘Looks like perfect desensitisation in time for this weekend, but keep your hands over the blanket where I can see them.’
‘Oh, dear,’ she laughed, clicking the film sceptically.
‘You spread out and relax there on Sarah. I’ll sit by the fire,’ as he began to lower his bottom into the single chair.
‘No, no… come sit with me,’ she whined, scooping up her knees to make room. ‘Come on…’
He sighed and sat down on the couch with her, hitching one thick socked foot over the other up on the table.
‘Are you comfortable there?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. You?’
‘Yep, yep, go on. Play.’
‘Play, as in, the film?’ she giggled as she dug her toes into his thigh.
‘Yes, so keep these still, you rascal—’
He gathered her pink-socked feet in one hand and parked them on top of his thigh. As the opening credits began to the sound of a typewriter, her toes arched back and forth like a sea creature, writhing in silent glee to the timely squeezes his hand gave back.
Young woman Lee Holloway, played by Maggie Gyllenhaal, was entering an office with her arms tied to a pole, picking up things with her teeth.
‘That was quick,’ she laughed.
‘It’s a flash forward. Wish they’d keep films linear, but got to hook in the perverts from the outset.’
‘What like us?’
‘No no, not that bad.’
She giggled, digging her heels into his thigh, as he grabbed and tickled her sole till she laughed uncontrollably, yanked it away, then proceeded to do the same all over again.
‘Come lay here if you don’t want me to trample you,’ she shimmied to the edge of the couch and patted the space. ‘There’s plenty room.’
‘What, lay with your Headmaster? Really you are a naughty girl. It’s not the weekend yet.’
‘But you do know we’re going to have to practice, don’t you?’ she mocked.
‘Oh, there’ll be nothing of the sort, young lady,’ as he looked to the space and sighed in manly relent, and she felt with delight the warmth of his thick body lowering into her side.
‘Darling, my arm needs to go around you. There’s nowhere else for it to go but round you, hm?’
She raised her shoulders then landed back into him; his bare hairy forearm looping around her neck, close enough for the warmth rising from his skin to be felt on her cheek.
‘Ok like this?’
She shuddered. Oh, more than ok like this.
‘I’m good, I’m good,’ her heart a-flutter to lay locked like this with him, under his blanket; as happy as a cat in a box, as a pig in shit, such was her excitement that ran a telltale squirm down her legs, dancing into her feet, which like two wriggling pink bookends found their place either side their bigger blue-socked prisoner.
‘Why is she suddenly in that baggy skirt!’
‘It’s six months earlier, sillypants. Didn’t you read?’
She’d been busy studying his arm hairs and imagining his pink nipple amidst them, and wondering if the hairs look the same around his cock. Better concentrate, before she looks like one.
They watched Lee leaving a mental institute, then storming out of a family wedding from her inebriated father.
‘Oh good, she has a drunk idiot parent too,’ Natalia chuckled, as they watched Lee pull out a box from under her mattress to perform an act of self-harm.
‘Oh, shit!’ She suddenly tore from his arm, bolting upright. ‘This reminds me of something!’
‘I’m really hoping you don’t perforate your skin with the leg of a fairy?’ His fingertips lingered on her hip.
‘No, no, I just remembered, at home… I left my diary out on the bed. I mean, my mum never goes into my room, but still…’
‘Is it overflowing with incriminating notes from your Headmaster?’
‘No, no…’ she blinked, she hoped, convincingly.
He sighed. ‘Come back here,’ he pulled her shoulder and re-looped her neck, as she smiled under the delirious spell of his arm hair that had just brushed her face. ‘I’ll drive you home after the film, ok? Where are your hands?’
‘Keeping warm.’
‘I bet they are.’
He tautened his arm, so it was now right up against her giggling lips, and whispered in her ear to make her wriggle in even more excitement, and him pull her in even tighter:
‘I’m going to test you on this film, and I won’t let you go home if you don’t get all the answers right.’
‘Ohhh… no need to pay any attention then,’ now mouthing his arm hair as she mumbled to his humerus. Oh god this was the best film ever.
‘Sorry I meant, you will have to go home if you don’t get them right. My poor couch Sarah has suffered enough from your impertinent poetry.’
‘I take it there’ll be… twelve questions?’
‘Eighteen.’
‘I’d better start answering the first one now,’ as she squirmed her hips.
‘Give me both your hands. Now, you little devil—’
She complied in mock-obedience, for her wrists to be scooped up and grasped against her breastbone.
‘This is a denial of my rights!’ she laughed. ‘How am I going to drink my tea?’
‘Oh, I’ll feed it to you, prisoner,’ as he leaned them both forward toward the table; took the mug to her lips as she aimed an exaggerated slurp at it, then pulled her back and re-collected her fingers.
She moaned softly. ‘When do I get my hands back?’
‘When you prove you can be trusted…’
‘Ok, ok, sir.’
They continued to watch as Mr Grey, played by James Spader, interviews Lee for the secretary job as she stands awkwardly at his desk in a purple rain mac.
‘Do you think that will be you applying to be a typist?’
‘If I spend all my time watching films with the Head…’
‘What did you get on your Mocks again - mostly As wasn’t it?’
‘Bs in Maths and Science.’
‘Tut tut. Definitely will be you then.’
They continued to watch as Mr Grey stared at Lee in long camera shots.
‘Why is the lawyer man acting so weird? Oh no, he’s reading out her name from the sheet like you did from my report card…’
‘Examining his next victim.’
‘How many have you had?’ she laughed.
‘You’re my one and own… Lee.’ He squeezed her hands still within his grasp, tautening his arm again as she wiggled her bottom back at him, laughing, just as Lee bent over a chair to install a mouse-trap, catching Mr Grey’s eye.
‘So he’s basically a perv checking her arse out?’
‘Only because she keeps thrusting it at him,’ he murmured into her hair.
‘Oh no, he’s just looking at her wound on the back of her legs.’
‘Never heard it called that before…’
They watched as Lee flirts with her feeble boyfriend Peter, then is questioned by Mr Grey about it.
‘Oh god… first she’s going on a date with Ryan, now Mr Grey’s asking her if she’s had sex…’
‘There’s nothing remotely similar to our situation. For a start, I serve you hot tea, not cocoa that’s been sitting congealing on the sideboard for half an hour—’
‘And you don’t take polaroid snapshots of all your heart-to-heart conquests?’ she laughed.
‘Only mentally.’
‘I felt an intimate tendril growing from his darker areas…’ the narrator spoke.
‘Tendril? Is that like a twitch?’
‘Tendril’s about to become the beanstalk, here comes the famous bit…’
Mr Grey called Lee into his office and asked her to place palms down on the table and read a letter.
‘What’s he gonna do?’ Natalia shifted uncomfortably in Neill’s grasp as they watched Lee slowly bend over the desk.
‘You know she wants it,’ Neill muttered.
Natalia suddenly wondered how she was going to get through what she assumed was a sex scene. Battle mode was to belittle the characters, woman first.
‘God, she looks like a rabbit caught in the headlights.’
Mr Grey began to deliver timely whacks upon his secretary’s bottom whilst she read aloud. Natalia’s fingers grew sweaty within Neill’s.
‘Wouldn’t she rather be on the dole than this?!’
‘Twenty doled out on each buttock. He could do with a paddle really.’
‘What, does she get that wet?’
‘Not as much as you watching it. Natalia, you’re very wriggly—’
She shook herself out from his grasp. ‘Sweaty, more like,’ as she shoved the blanket down. ‘From the curry, this blanket and being next to you…’
She sat up and reached for her mug.
‘Sure, warm tea will help. And while you’re up, throw another log on the fire to keep it burning. How’s it going in those spandex pants?’
‘Shut up,’ as she stepped over to the fire, glancing back to the screen, where Mr Grey instructed Lee to read the letter again and continued spanking her.
‘Oh, she’s getting used to it now,’ hollered Neill. ‘Hurry up, you’re missing the good bit! In fact, as I’m starting to remember, the only good bit!’
Natalia crouched down modestly, trying to avoid bending over whilst throwing the log in. The log tumbled down by the side of the fire.
‘Oops—’
‘Use the big glove - just there - and shove that log back where it should go—’
‘Me or the film?’ she laughed. ‘Big glove?’ as she pulled it on. ‘Is this what you use to spank Mrs Williams?’
‘I’d need a rounders bat for an arse as great as hers. Or rather a tennis racket, one for each buttock… Ah look! He’s ramping it up. Now he knows what he’s doing! He’s got the art.’
Natalia came to perch back on the couch, as Neill’s hand looped around her waist.
‘How much of an art is hitting someone on the bum?’ she scoffed.
‘Much so. It shouldn’t be lacklustre and half-hearted. He goes side-on, with a good run-up like he’s having a game of squash. I’ve never seen a porn scene deliver quite a textbook spanking as that.’
‘And how much porn do you watch, Mr Headmaster?’ she laid back onto his arm, pulling the blanket back up.
‘Not enough. Or rather not as much as other men, I have no time. Ahhh, all done! Their little fingers are entwined; all is good, they’re in love.’
‘All that over typos?’
‘Oh I’d say for wanking too. You know when girls do too much of that they need to be punished.’
‘Oh really? And how badly are they punished?’
‘Depends how naughty they’ve been. If they’ve misbehaved as many as, say, eighteen times they usually go right across the knee, bare-bottomed, or in the bare, as the Yanks would say, until they promise to be good again. Often they’re very red by then.’
‘Their face or their bottom?’ she giggled.
‘Both. …Natalia! Are you playing with yourself?’
He softly slapped his hand against her writhing, blanket-clothed bottom.
‘Oh! Cheeky,’ she laughed.
‘Where’s your hand?’
She brought out her right hand.
‘And the other one? Do I have to go finding it?’
‘But if you take my hands prisoner again, you’re only going to make me wriggle more,’ as her bottom proceeded to make micro shuffles into his thigh.
‘That’s fine, because it’s doing the job for me.’
‘Is that like… harder than your job at Thornwood?’
‘Oh far harder.’
‘Oh well. Like it or… lump it.’
‘Both, I think.’
She giggled. ‘Well it’s a toss up between this and other couch.’
‘I don’t think it would reach that far.’
She squealed with laughter. ‘Stop this x-rated director’s commentary and watch the film.’
‘What film?’ he said wearily. ‘My brain’s gone. Don’t laugh. It’s too hard to follow.’
She glanced to his body. If he had an erection she couldn’t see or feel it as his body was turned upwards and swathed in blanket. She turned back to the screen to see Lee smoking in bed.
‘Oh that was me with one of your fags—’
Now Lee put her hand down between her legs and a dazed, dorky expression came onto her face as she began to think of lines Mr Grey had said.
‘It really is you!’
‘Oh my god…’ Natalia huffed and puffed, ‘this is so embarrassing to watch…’ She pulled the blanket over her head.
Neill’s hand promptly pulled it back down.
‘Cock! Just one scoop of creamed potatoes!’’
‘That’s her wanking material?’ scorned Natalia.
‘Someone write that poor girl a poem.’
Lee was now orgasming, face-up in bed, eyes squeezed closed, as Natalia squeezed her own eyes shut in excruciation. ‘Oh, jeez,’ she moaned, straining to sit up. ‘She looks like a spasming chipmunk!’
‘Come back and relax,’ he laughed, strangling her backwards into him and whispering into her hair: ‘Stop getting so embarrassed. It’s just a silly film.’
She sighed, with no choice but let her sweat simmer upon a never-be-embarrassed, Neill bed of grunting nonchalance. As a scene began of Lee’s timid boyfriend mounting and penetrating her with mousey sighs, she had more to worry about going deaf when Neill guffawed in her ear.
‘Aww! Ryan doesn’t do it very well!’
She nervously laughed along too.
‘Oh dear,’ he remarked now, ‘he’s bending Minnie Mouse over the desk again.’
‘What’s he mumbling? Turn it up, I can’t hear…’
Neill flicked on the subtitles.
‘You’re not worried I’m going to fuck you, are you? I’m not interested in that… now pull up your skirt.’
‘I should use that line,’ Neill muttered.
They watched as Mr Grey shook like jelly, masturbating behind Lee’s back with a pained look on his face. Neill hooted in laughter, whilst Natalia averted her eyes to the fire, cold sweat patches broken out over her armpits. What was worse, she thought: watching the shame of female masturbation or the juddering mystery of a man’s? Being cringe-trapped beside Neill in his car, or on his couch?
‘Now she’s off to crack one out in the toilet, whilst he’s going ballistic over a spunk stain on his trousers. What a pair!’ Neill chortled, along with Natalia - mostly out of relief that scene was over - until Lee began coming to orgasm in the toilet.
‘God this film is too much to take…’
‘Oh, come on… look, I’ll fast forward it… goodness! Now she’s coming faster than you!’
The cringe of Lee’s orgasm was now on Benny Hill speed and Natalia couldn’t help laughing, this time genuinely - then whacking Neill’s arm, and remembering how Joan whacked his arm too. Ah, she had a use for Joan right now, topical too, like a steroid cream her wincing body sought relief from:
‘Have you ever spanked Joan?’
‘No—’ almost knocking Natalia off the couch edge with the preceding sharp inhale of his chest. ‘Well, not in the proper way it’s supposed to be done. I don’t have the intent. I do what I want to with her.’
‘Ahh.’
They watched as Lee in the film was fired by Mr Grey and began pursuing a sado-masochistic career.
‘Although funny enough, that reminds me of something Allsebrook muttered into my ear as we walked out of the fair…’
‘Oh? What?’
‘He said, to be sure to give Joan a good spanking. Then he laughed like the outro of Thriller.’
‘Funny friends then,’ she frowned, relieved that every orifice and gland of her body was drying up upon the mention of Allsebrook.
‘Why friends?’
‘Well, that was where I first ever saw Joan. That day you met her, she was going into his room—’
‘Like that…?’ He nodded to the screen where Lee was bursting back into Mr Grey’s office, proclaiming her love for him.
‘Not quite,’ she laughed. ‘She looked nervous. It seemed like they knew each other, but the door closed and I couldn’t hear what they said.’
‘Ha! Little spy!’
‘That was before you even met her. Because just a bit later, I spied you being introduced to her downstairs by Mrs Tracey.’
‘Hmm. Rather odd. Why didn’t you say earlier, Jane Bond?’
‘I just assumed it was, well, teacher business. Why, do you think she’s… seeing him?’
He mused. ‘Perhaps that’s why she plays up being so disgusted by him.’
‘Well that’s not difficult. There were once rumours Allsebrook would hold boys back on detention and breathe down their necks as he felt their crotches.’
‘Yeuch! So why wasn’t he on your fire list?’
‘Those rumours were way back,’ she shrugged. ‘Someone tripped him up on the stairs a couple years ago, he broke his arm and everyone’s treated him delicately since.’
‘Oh. Well, who knows. Maybe Joan’s his pimp, supplying him with boys from Harrogate Grammar instead.’
‘Yeuch indeed.’
‘I’ll put her on the spot and ask her tomorrow…’
‘What a romantic and vile Valentine you are.’
‘Well, my real Valentine turns up at the weekend.’
‘And she will worship you like she ought to,’ she added.
‘Ahhh… well that’s because she is a very sweet little darling…’ He tugged her back down, as she squealed delighted to lay half-choked by his arm for the tender conclusion of the film where Mr Grey baths, dries and kisses Lee’s naked body as she declares feeling ‘finally part of the earth,’ and just as Natalia feared literally choking up by the lovesong quietly prickling tears in her eyes, they promptly widened again at the final scene of Lee tied to a tree whilst Mr Grey copulates with her for their honeymoon.
‘And there you go, sleazy ever after,’ Neill rapped her bum softly with the back of his hand. ‘Come on then, I’ll take you home, miss.… behaver.’
‘Sure you don’t want me to get a taxi?’
‘I fancy some fresh night air. I also need to buy some fags.’
‘I need a wee…’
‘Don’t be all night up in there, chipmunk!’
She glared back.
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‘Funny,’ he remarked ten minutes later getting into the car, ‘I thought I remember that film being a lot dirtier than that.’
‘Are you kidding!’
‘There’s literally five seconds of sex, right at the end! It’s not really a film about sex. You don’t have to be Freud to see the BDSM is a cover story for their pain.’
‘And my excruciating pain watching it.’
‘So was it, or rather, will it be an 18?’ he glanced vaguely at her crotch, as she crossed her legs, as though she feared he could see the swimming pool that three lots of his toilet roll couldn’t relinquish. ‘I reckon at least. You got very hot at the spanking scene…’
‘No way,’ she blushed. ‘Ultimate degradation.’
He smiled. ‘Friday I’m picking you up at 5. Wear that gorgeous green dress you wore at the fair, and make sure you’re cleared with mum and all your girly diaries are locked away. Because once you’re here, you’re mine till Sunday, ok?’
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*
Natalia was loading the washer with the critical garments for the weekend when there was a knock at the front door.
‘Deliveries at teatime, what happened to post in the mornings!’ grumbled her mum, as Natalia’s eyes jumped to a flat square box in her hands.
‘Aye up, it’s got me name—’
It opened to a box of Thorntons chocolates.
‘Check the note, check the note!’ Natalia danced.
It said:
‘Mary Mary quite contrary, happy Saint Valentine’s, love! Be sure to share these with the love yer live with!’
‘Is that bloody Darren?’
‘What’s the handwriting like?’
‘It’s printed off a computer.’
Natalia frowned. Let alone a computer; would Darren have both the articulation and the reflexive irony to write ‘yer’ in the middle of his message?
‘Must be.’
‘Bloody Nora!’
‘Better do what the note says,’ as Natalia swiped at them, both laughing, and managed to gobble three before she ran upstairs.
‘My mum got a gift today…’
-‘Really love?’
‘Yer RASCAL!!!’
-‘Did it keep her smiling?’
‘And me too.’
-‘No gangbangs at home then?’
‘No sir… you?’
-‘Not yet’
‘What no sex yet?!’
-‘Only Mother Shipton got lucky being entered so far’
‘The cave?’
‘-Yes… not her mum. Long day.. only just got back to hers, now she’s making coffee’
‘Poor old Neill x’
-‘I’ll get her don’t worry’
Her face dropped upon a commotion heard downstairs.
‘You can’t bring that thing in here! A box of chocolates were enough, you lunatic!’
‘You what?’
‘Get rid of her!’
Had Darren brought round another stripper?
The lounge door slammed. There was a familiar rustle of a tracksuit in the kitchen. Darren’s pasty sacroiliac was crouched down by the sink.
‘Are you taking a dump on our floor?!’
‘Shush, come over ‘ere…’
Darren motioned her down to a cardboard box on the floor. Next to it was a small, straggly white cat, rubbing up to his ankle.
‘Wants more food, the silly beggar,’ as he reached for the remains of a kebab.
‘This is what you tried to appease my mum with?’
‘Mate of mine in Harehills found him in a box at back of KFC. Must have been a Christmas pressie someone got bored with. Thought we could take him in, but turns out your mum’s not mad keen…’
‘Mum’s not mad keen on anything that needs paying for or taking care of, including you.’ Natalia bent down and stroked the cat as it rubbed up against her knee and licked her fingers.
‘Aw. He likes smokey bacon crisps then!’
He laughed. ‘Do you like cats?’
‘Yeah. We haven’t had a cat in ages. My last one was run over when I was… eleven, I think. Just out there, right in front of me.’
‘I’m sorry to hear that, love. Well, I best take him down the shelter…’
‘Let me pet him for a bit. And then, well… I mean, if you like him, and mum lets you back in, she’ll have to let kitty in too, won’t she?’
They crouched down stroking it as he purred back.
‘Your mam said I was cheatin’. But I wasn’t.’
‘Well, she got a gift from someone today who she thinks is you,’ Natalia laughed.
‘Who?’
‘No idea. So use it as ammunition.’
He sighed. ‘I did me best. All I did was get a job, a second-hand phone with some raunchy stuff someone left on - which she chucked in the river - and then I rescued this poor little mite, and she acts like a teenage girl worse than you,’ he winked.
‘Cheeky. But I believe you.’
‘Are you being sarcky?’
‘Ha. No! I’ll talk to mum, if you behave. And not do the crazy drunk shit you did the other week.’
‘Cheers, love. And soz I got so bladdered. Mary mentioned you were a bit caput after, what with your exams an’ all comin’ up…’
‘So, what shall we call the cat?’
‘Think of summat. I’ll have to take him down for the snip. The RSPCA place will check him over for free, my mate said. Want to come?’
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*
‘Guess what, we’ve got a cat!’
-‘Fatcat?!’
‘Skinny stray. Rescued’
-‘I already gave you something to play with’
‘He’s playing with that right now! Lol’
-‘Wrong pussy’
‘Haha...ppy Valentine’s.. I hope?’
-‘Happy vile Valentine’s honey. But better be ready for Friday.’
‘For 5?’
-‘More than 5’
‘Hahaha xx’
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*
Fetching her green dress from the radiator where it had hung for the past 24 hours, with a long knitted cardigan over it in anticipation of multiple social breezy fag breaks in and out of Neill’s garden, she confirmed with her mum - standing with the cardigan done up to the neck whilst Mary didn’t even turn around from the TV - I’m staying at Sarah’s house, the same one, don’t worry I’ll text you… sure, fine, grunt, done. She didn’t even ask for Sarah’s address. Silver lining of her mum’s despicably nonchalant attitude to her welfare.
‘Who’s gonna look after that cat?’
‘Darren!’
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She dashed down the road with her bag bumping her bum in time to her heart rate, because this time it was Neill Taxi, her Headmaster in casual clothes collecting her to get ‘loaded up on daddy’s dinner’ whilst ‘playing a role’ that would involve squeezing her bottom to ‘play it safe’ - oh goodness - and now the conductor of the O-orchestra she’d been having since Tuesday, she took in through incremental sideways glimpses between putting her bag between her legs, rolling down her seatbelt, and hearing his enthusiastic words of welcome. As he checked his blind spot to move out, she saw his light beige trousers. As he asked if she’d missed him, she saw, navy blue shirt with top buttons undone. As she politely laughed back, she saw, he was slightly stubbly today.
‘Aren’t you preparing a massive four-course dinner back home?’ she asked of the twinkling eyes she finally dared to raise hers to.
‘Most is stuff in the oven, it’s fine. The rest is ready to go. I was in half minds about ordering you a taxi, but I made it to come and kidnap you properly.’
Her eyes fell again but her mouth worked. ‘Thanks. I appreciate it.’
‘Thanks, I appreciate it! So nicey nicey polite.’
‘Stop it,’ she smirked. ‘How do you want me to be?’
‘Just yourself.’
‘Do you want me to start swearing from the off?’
‘Why the fuck not? How’s your pussy?’
‘Ha, ha. Mum’s letting us keep him cos the RSPCA are neutering him for free with her being on benefits. They threw in a load of free food too.’
‘Does he have a name?’
‘Still thinking. I’m not allowing Darren’s suggestion of Valentine nor mum’s suggestion of Lager.’
‘How about Earl Grey?’
‘Hmm…’
‘Mr Grey?’
‘But he’s white. Kind of mean looking and straggly.’
‘Hmm. Well then I’m sure Ed will give us some inspiration tonight, especially if he starts dancing,’ he flicked on the music player. ‘Ah! We have Russian music right on theme—’ as Boney M’s Rasputin came on.
Natalia pulled a face at the sound of Russian squat dancers mixed to the beat. ‘Ohh,’ she moaned, ‘my non-existent Russian interest. What the heck’s Rasputin?’
‘He was big and strong, in his eyes a flaming glow!’
‘Mid-nineteenth century, drunk monk with healing powers and a way with the ladies. I heard they would surround him and lick jam off his dirty fingers.’
‘Bit like my cat licks mine,’ she laughed. ‘Is that the plan tonight?’
‘Not unless you want honey.’
‘Salted caramel, but I get to go before Monica.’
They both laughed, as the song stomped its chorus.
‘Ra-ra-Rasputin! Lover of the Russian queen! There was a cat that really was gone!’
‘Well that’s it, there’s your cat’s name!’ he enthused. ‘Just don’t chop his balls off so he can really be a Russian love machine!’
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They were pulling up at his cottage. Neill jumped out and ran round to her door, taking her bag, and then her arm, into the dark swirling country air and the day’s last murmur of woodpigeons, as she rose to standing, almost light-headed with excitement.
He pulled her coat around her with a most gentlemanly smile, murmuring: ‘There we go, all wrapped up again this time as my girlfriend, hmm?’ whilst she digested that he’d forgotten the word ‘pretend,’ and now flashing her a comically constant smile in that twenty seconds’ pace to the front door, her delight at his royally deferential treatment helplessly bubbled into laughter by the time he was at the keyhole.
With a creak and a mat-scrape and a slip-off of shoes, her hand slid into his as though his charming lounge was a dangerous cave, arriving by ten paces into the hobbit kitchen where not a takeaway awaited this time, but the seeping aroma of laboured home cooking. The small table where they’d last guzzled mango lassi over sex talk, was now extended to its full proportions, boasting cream tablecloth, candlesticks and a stack of plates and cutlery. Dotted around the worktops were various ingredients, chopping boards and implements.
‘Wow, looks busy in here!’
‘Six garrulous mouths to fill,’ as he peered into the oven.
‘So what are you cooking here exactly?’ She wandered further in, not giving a hoot for what was cooking, but just to get under his arm again as fast as possible.
‘Crostini and bruschetta hors d’oeuvres. Scallops and haddock rarebit starter. Champagne chicken roulade for main and panna cotta for dessert.’
‘I’m too embarrassed to admit I haven’t a clue what any of those are.’
‘You just admitted it,’ as he squeezed a washcloth at the sink.
‘Yeah, to you. Shall I put these veg trimmings into the bin?’
‘Oh, into the compost box there. Thank you darling.’
‘Oh, so polite.’
‘Speaking of admittance, I did ask Joan about Allsebrook…’ He looked up at the clock. ‘We have a bit of time. Tea?’ as he clicked the kettle.
‘Yes please. So what did you say?’
‘I said I’ve noticed you talking to Allsebrook a few times, do you know him?’ Neill’s voice raised, as the kettle stormed a brief boil. ‘She laughed, kind of nervously I thought, and then said, oh yes, her dad used to play cricket with him…’
‘Ohh.’
‘Then I thought I’d joke just to see how she’d react: ‘oh, there’s me thinking he was showing you the physics of biology and chemistry,’ and then she went all weird again, and muttered ‘no, he’s disgusting,’ and I laughed, just as I pulled out a fag in front of her in her garden and found to my bewilderment, her pointing out a hot-pink felt tip heart drawn on its side as I was lighting it up in my mouth.’
His eyes raised to Natalia.
‘And suddenly the tables turned for her to question if I was cheating, you little fiend,’ he said with a faint smile.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she smirked. ‘Sweet Joan of Art leaving you love mementos?’
‘Joan does not get the time of day to rummage in my kitchen or my fag packet like the Artful Dodger, and nor, in fact, does she own any felt-tip pens, but she was curious to know whom this was from.’
He poured milk into the teas, as they sat down at the table, Natalia grinning.
‘I got out of it by inhaling the fag once, then giving it to her,’ he continued. ‘Told her that whichever pupil played a Valentine prank on poor Mr Neill had fashioned a perfect expression of my affections for darling Joan in that moment. She took and smoked it, strutting down her patio with the pride of a peahen.’
Natalia burst out laughing. ‘Really?’
‘I watched her, thinking how I’d neatly averted any consequences of inhaling incinerated felt-tip chemicals onto poor peahen. Out loud, however, I extolled how soon I would take another aspect of pink, round affection and have it sucked, licked and deeply inhaled just as well as that cigarette. She got all excited thinking I was going to eat her cunt.’
‘Er, oh?’
‘She led me to her talcum-powdered boudoir, and spread her legs giggling like a schoolgirl - or rather, like you - whilst I smiled and climbed up on her collarbones so her arms were pinned to her sides and drove my cock down between her lapsed jaws before she could even make a sound of protest. Well, she did make a sound, all of it incomprehensible rather like Daffy Duck, and my spunk was shot down into her stomach before she could even gag.’ He sipped his tea.
Her mug rim stopped before her gaping mouth. ‘And then you… went down?’
‘Stairs, yes. Had another fag and discovered even more love hearts drawn inside the packet and chuckled to myself for a whole minute. Re-adjourned in the lounge, talked sweet to her over wine, took a call that I pretended to be an urgent work matter and left.’
‘Aw. You really are a vile Valentine.’
‘Thank you.’
‘So whoever drew the love hearts is not a fiend…’
‘I missed out a consonant. They made me laugh. Still, I have the whole weekend to get back on them, hm?’
‘Ahhaha—’ She jumped as his phone began vibrating madly on the worktop.
He snapped it up.
‘Ed! You fat bastard!’
Laughter and mingled words burst out in telephonic rasp. ‘Hey Rich! We’re on our way’ - ‘Monica managed to get us a cab’ - ‘It’s been a mad journey, we’ll tell you all about it,’ came a montage of voices.
‘Ok, ok, I’ve texted you the address, make sure you check it,’ Neill barked. ‘I’ll see you in fifteen then’ - ‘Can’t wait!’ came the final yelp of Claire.
Natalia gulped up her tea, looking down at the floor.
‘Hey,’ he reached over, putting his hand on her shoulder. ‘You’ve gone from abettor to fretter in the space of twenty seconds—’
‘Oh no no, just… calm before the storm,’ she smiled. ‘From the smoking caterpillar to… the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.’
He guffawed as he stood up. ‘I’m the smoking caterpillar am I?’
‘That’s what you reminded me of when I first met you in the office,’ she smiled up at him. ‘Crossed, of course, with the Cheshire Cat…’
‘A cross Cheshire cat! And now it will be off with her head… or rather, Claire off her head?’
She laughed, standing up beside him.
He caught her face between his hands. ‘Listen, little Alice,’ he looked intently into her eyes, ‘in fifteen minutes, I’m going to be kissing you, a lot - more than London, and my hands are going to be all over you, naughty parts this time. Are you ready for that?’
His words fell somewhere deep in her body like coins disappearing down the side of the ledge of a coin pusher arcade machine.
‘Aren’t you happy about it? I don’t mind if you want to go home instead and come another time?’
‘Stop it, no…’ she smirked.
‘Are you worried you’re going to be blushing every time? Which basically means you’ll be blushing for the whole weekend? You’re blushing now, even though I haven’t started yet…’
Her eyes fluttered. ‘You are so—’
‘I think we should take it slowly. I won’t touch your breasts but I get to touch your bottom. Deal?’
She burst out laughing, freeing her face from his hands.
‘Well which do you prefer I touch? Breasts or bottom?’
She cleared her throat and spoke quietly. ‘No, it’s fine.’
‘What’s fine?
‘What you said.’ Her eyes flared to imply.
‘Which part?’
‘Of my body?’
‘Of what I said. About your body. Breasts, or bottom, Natalia?’
‘For fuck’s sake… bottom.’
‘What about your bottom?’
‘You are so unbelievable…’
He grinned.
‘You can touch my bottom. Are you happy now?’
His face composed. ‘Well no, I haven’t touched it yet. Take that curtain off and turn around.’
‘Fuck off…’
‘You can’t talk to me like that if you’re my girlfriend…’
‘Why not?’
‘Because your bottom would get more than touched.’
She bit her lip as she peeled her cardigan off to the chair.
‘Now come and stand here, because I need to distinguish something very important—’
He took her shoulders and nudged her over by the kitchen counter, facing the cupboards.
She laughed. ‘Oh my god, what are you doing—’
‘As beautiful as this dress is, I can’t see your bottom very well in it. Till I do this—’
Her heart quickened as she felt his warm palm pushing up against the cotton along the curve of her buttock.
‘Ah there we go. There’s your bottom.’
‘Well spotted.’
‘Now the thing is…’ as he took away his hand and planted the other hand on her other buttock. ‘…Oh, this one’s pretty good too—’
‘Yeah, they’re fairly similar,’ she craned her head round in dubious titillation, as he continued:
‘I don’t think touching your bottom with both hands is acceptable. That would be far too rude, don’t you think?’
One palm was still planted on one buttock, squeezing his palm softly and repeatedly.
Her breath tumbled out. ‘Whatever you say, sir.’
‘That’s more like how to talk to me,’ as his hand gave one single, firm pat. ‘I’m off for a quick fag. Keep an ear out for the doorbell.’
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