*Go now to www.headmastersflame.com to read the NEXT chapter of The Headmaster's Flame and be updated on new chapters FIRST, on my all-free, dedicated, slick website created especially for mobile phone screens, and you can subscribe your email for a free Kindle book.*
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡelcHOmc1zJ
‘So what exactly did you want to teach me, Quasimodo?’
Neill watched Natalia’s face inches from her bacon and eggs, doubled over at the table with her arms wrapped around her middle.
‘How it feels to have your womb ingesting itself,’ she rocked to and fro. ‘Either that or I’m hungover.’
‘After one glass of wine?’
‘One more than I normally have.’
‘Well that rare steak you polished off rather well last night will replenish the lost iron,’ as he stubbed out his fag and shut up the door hatch. ‘Where’s your magic pill then? Didn’t you say that help pains?’
She tossed the blister packet to him, as he took and studied it.
‘Wow! Days of the week on there to make it nice and simple! But not so simple, because you’ve taken Saturday and Sunday’s, silly bum! We’ll keep it in the fruit bowl so you remember it every morning.’
He tossed it between the oranges.
‘I need chocolate,’ she moaned, ‘and not your rank Green & Black’s. You have to speak to Ocado as there were a bunch of things missing in the last delivery. They’ve substituted my nice ham for the hardest, lumpiest, white-mouldy sausage I’ve ever seen.’
‘That’ll be my Bonnebouffe Truffle Saucisson, matured for 23 days. And if you’re referring to a four-tin pack of spaghetti hoops, Quavers, and finely-sliced mystery meat, I removed them from the basket to salvage the last of my respectability and continue to mature you. Come on, up—’ He pulled her arm. ‘Can’t be having a day off when the cleaner’s coming today to pick the popcorn kernels off the rug from last night’s romcomathon you made us watch.’
They filed out to the car.
‘I’m aching everywhere,’ Natalia slumped inside.
‘Did I go too far with the dirty mitts on your tits?’
‘Possibly.’
‘Well, come crash in my sick room this morning if you want. I’m planning a quiet one to do the final sign-off for the interactive boards, an email detox and some frightfully dull Board paperwork.’
‘Ok,’ she yawned. ‘Ooh! My bus is coming.’
‘Bye honey.’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡC4BGFuIbeL
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡcQceaqDjtX
*
‘Twenny quid? She gave you twenty pounds for passing you some paper?’
‘Must be the rich boyfriend,’ Sam winked to Laura.
Stacey was watching from just behind them.
‘Me mam said you don’t live at home anymore,’ she piped up. ‘That true?’
Natalia looked at all three of them and sat down without a word as Williams bustled in.
‘Right, form! Settle down.’
When everyone arose to leave, Ryan whispered behind her.
‘Tell your sugar daddy he has till Monday to get the next lot.’
She was too tired to ask what he would do if he didn’t. Dropping back from the bustle of pupils making their way up to Geography, Natalia diverted along the first floor to Neill’s office.
She knocked cautiously, knowing he could see her on the camera.
‘Come back in five minutes please!’ came his call along with the grunt of somebody else.
Dawdling in the toilet down the corridor, she came out to spot Dinkey heading down the stairs, then went and rapped again.
Neill opened it immediately, standing bemused at her faltering eyelids.
‘Do come in, Tremble.’
He locked the door as she went straight to curl up in his chair.
‘Night night, Nuisance…’
He came and stood over her.
‘Ahem.’
He shook the chair till she fell into a heap on the floor, then pulled her by her armpits into his lap.
She kicked off her shoes and tucked her knees into his side, hooking her feet under the arm rest as he stroked her hair behind her ear, his nose enquiring at hers:
‘School too much for you today?’
‘Mmm,’ she joke-bit at his nostrils. ‘Everyone’s a nosey cunt.’ She tensed her bottom then farted. ‘Sorry,’ followed by a louder longer note. ‘Blame my period.’
‘Mff. Lucky I love this vile creature.’ He pulled and patted her bottom snugly sideways into him. ‘What lesson is it for you now?’
‘Gorpy Egah.’
‘Porky Egger? Is that what you just released from your bottom?’
‘Geography,’ she murmured in a falling doze. ‘Way it’s spelt on the display board in the department. They’ve put each letter alternating up and down over two lines so it doesn’t read Geography, it reads Gorpy Egah. For… four… years now.…’
‘Oh. Should get that ripped down.’
‘And Gawky Begger—’ she said mid-yawn, ‘just mildly threatened that if you don’t get his next stash soon he’ll cause some kind of trouble…’
‘I wouldn’t worry about him. One trip down the bobby shop, they’d have his dad for crack possession and he knows it.’
‘How do you know he sells crack?’ she frowned.
‘Bought some off him.’
She sighed and closed her eyes as he rubbed the back of her hair into a frizz, she deeply inhaling the scent of his jacket that was her own home from home, the muscles of her whole body softening with a gladness somewhat that he was averse to period blood, if this sweet platonic treatment took its place.
‘Tea?’ he offered, mid-scanning emails.
‘No… just you. How long can I stay?’
‘Hour? Two hours?’
‘Miss lessons?’
‘Since when’s that been a problem with me, lil’ lady.’
‘Teachers. Will start asking…’
‘You’re mine, not theirs,’ he hot-breathed in her hair, mouse-clicking.
‘Mmmm, good point…’
‘I’m putting my phone on silent. This work’s so dull I’ll probably join you in a bit.’
He shuffled up to type on his keyboard, she clinging like a koala with her head in his jaw till the jiggles of his working arms upon the clattering keyboard became aids of a repetitious lull dropping her into slumber.
She heard herself give a little snore, just before there was a mouse-like knock at the door.
‘Neill? Are you in there?’
‘Mmmh—’
‘Shhh,’ came prickly lips at her forehead.
‘Is he in there?’ It was Mrs Tracey’s voice.
‘No I don’t think so,’ came back Mrs Coleman’s shriller tone.
‘Long lunch break started already? He’s harder to get hold of than an anorexic flea.’
‘Or an eel in a BP oil spill!’
Two shrill laughs broke through Natalia’s sleep-plugged ear canal.
‘Well even Joan didn’t manage it,’ Tracey chuckled, ‘what hope do we have?’
‘Plenty with enough lippie on!’ snorted Coleman.
‘Right, Gorpy Egah and Shingle, clear off,’ Neill muttered.
‘Shingle?’ Natalia murmured.
‘Anagram of English. Single but rough as gravel.’ The rub-rustle of his hand on her hair drowned out the retreating women’s chatter as Neill himself yawned back onto the headrest, hands clasping around Natalia’s waist till in a moment, surprised to feel his mouth drooping open, his eyes blinked open in surprise, then closed again.
And there for thirty minutes were the Headmaster and his beloved Year 11 girl curled up together fast asleep, both mouths drooping, with little jerks in tandem, till there was a loud rap at the door.
Neill’s waking pig-grunt had Natalia stirring, all stiff and numb.
‘Arghhh, my knees—’
He cupped his palm loosely around her mouth.
‘Shush, shush baby, wait a moment. Le Anus Gagis there.’
‘Who—?’
‘Anagram of Languages. There’s none for French…’
She blinked into the bright screen, at the fuzzy, high-angle shot of bespectacled Williams knocking again.
‘Neill, Neill? This is important.’
Then in a small moment of horror, Williams turned her face directly up at the camera, as though frowning right at them.
‘Oh my god—’ Natalia hoffed into Neill’s palm that promptly plastered tight around her mouth.
Clenching her dead legs for a few more seconds before Williams marched away, Natalia heaved a sigh of relief - and farted simultaneously.
‘Unseal Gag,’ she added.
‘Both ends,’ he frowned, as they stretched their legs.
He glanced to the clock. ‘Whew, talk about a kid nap. Back to lessons now.’ He rummaged through a drawer of odds and ends in his drawer and spun over a comb. ‘Sort that bird’s nest before you go.’
‘But I don’t want to go to lessons,’ she sighed, ignoring the comb and bending over his desk, both her hair and bottom sticking up in the air. ‘Can I go home instead? Still don’t feel good.’
He leaned over to grope her. ‘Nah, you feel very good.’ He pulled out a stapler. ‘Now go work for those exams. We’ve been spending far too much time on poetry, Scrabble games and the wankiest anagrams I’ve ever heard.’
‘But I just don’t feel in the mooood. Let me go home and I’ll do my lesson work there. I’ll do an English essay. Please, please?’
‘An essay? On what?’ He opened up the stapler, fiddling with a fresh line of staples as it promptly fell out and tinkled over the desk. ‘Christ, this is worse than the remote batteries…’
‘Give it here.’ She took it, nimbly inserted a new line, closed it up with a click, and held it to him.
‘Why, thank you—’
She held it away. ‘Let me go home and you can have it.’
‘Give it right here,’ he blinked, ‘or I’ll staple you down in that position and spank you with it, then put it in your mouth and fuck you up the bottom till your tongue is stapled to your palette…’
‘In English for homework we have to answer a sample exam question. I can have it ready for when you get home—’
‘Cleaner’s in today.’
‘Bus takes over an hour and she’s gone by midday.’
‘Hm,’ as he tapped his keys, ‘and how do we know you won’t cheat?’
‘Well, because I don’t need to. And, while you read my essay and see how good it is, I’ll sit between your legs and open your trousers…’
He drew a breath, then glanced to the stapler stood up suggestively between her cupped hands.
‘…And I’ll suck your beautiful, hard cock - well if isn’t hard, I’ll lick and suck your balls until it is heaving…’
Her tongue came down the black plastic as Neill’s stare shifted between the stapler and her face.
‘…Through the whole time it takes you to read and mark the whole thing. And I won’t take it out of my mouth the whole time—’
Eyes gleaming, she lowered her mouth over the triangular hinge-end, then up again.
He shifted in his seat and looked back at his screen. ‘I can have you suck my cock any time I like. Right now if I wanted, then pack you off to lessons.’
‘But I will be so excited to thank you for letting me go home,’ she wiggled her tongue into the stapler’s top crevice with a hot breath. ‘You can’t command a girl to be excited, can you, sir?’
His eyes flickered back and forth, lingering to where she was now deep-throating the top hinge end. He drew a sharp breath.
‘Go tell Reception you’re unwelland I’ll verify a sign-out.’
The stapler smashed to the floor and toppled all the staples out again as she flew upright. ‘Yesss! …Oops!…’ She picked it up and wonkily lodged them back in. ‘Thank you thank you thank you,’ she threw her arms around Neill’s neck till he choked. ‘Best best head ever, for the best Head ever—’
‘Keep your voice down you devil,’ he seized her wrists away from his head. ‘Don’t mess my hair up and sort yours out.’
Snatching up the comb, she ran it at high speed through her hair, then attempted to do the same to his till he snatched it away.
‘Go, sick girl.’
She grabbed her bag. ‘Coast clear?’
‘Yep. See you later, sucker.’
Natalia dropped her buoyant gait down the corridor upon the sight of Williams at the double doors.
‘Have you been in lessons?’
‘I’m… not well miss. I’m going home.’
‘Were you in your last lesson?’
‘Sick room.’
‘What are you doing up here?’
She paused. ‘Getting Neill’s permission to go home.’
‘He’s in his office?’ Williams frowned.
‘He is now yes.’
‘I was only there ten minutes ago?’
Natalia smiled, as Williams’ lips pursed. She coughed politely and slipped away, turning a few moments later to see Williams still staring.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFpY1ORG8br
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTNSSTXOzE6
*
On the tomato-red chair, at her corner desk, was the schoolgirl thoroughly in work-mode like he’d never seen her before.
Head tilted on one arm, her face was almost right angle to her pen-squirrelling hand. Earphones in, she sucked a lolly, the white stick protruding from her pursed pout as she stared in concentration at the nib chafing words to the paper in almost macro vision. Intent yet nonchalant at once, in her school top and skirt with bare legs crossed at the knee, her ankle twirled as the pen squeezed tight between her forefinger and thumb, oozing out thoughts she hurried to record like sand falling through an hourglass.
Feeling a shift of air behind her, she glanced round with a little jump and a smile. His hands came to her ears before hers could, pulling out the wires gently, and then another hand to pull out her lolly, place it into his own mouth and ask, lump in cheek:
‘How long have you been writing?’
She glanced to the clock. ‘One hour.’
‘Exam’s over.’ He crunched up the lolly and tossed the stick into the fire ash.
‘I guess it’s time for the… red pen?’
‘Indeed.’
Tossing his phone and fags onto the couch cushions, he unzipped his fly that was already bulging with the drive home’s anticipation, and like a dog bouncing out of the front door, her first thought was, she didn’t need to lick his balls to get that going - but she’d be polite and ask anyway. Her question remained unfinished as he brought himself forward straight into her mouth, balls still cloaked inside his trousers, whilst she, eyes wide up at him, was motioned down by the subduing baton in her mouth into the space in front of the chair as he took the seat for himself.
Sitting down under the desk like a pet spaniel between his trousered thighs, shoe leather enclosing her knees, he shifted in closer to get to the essay. Collecting her lips and edging her palette over him like a stick of rock in incremental shifts, her growing momentum emitted the first moan from his mouth hanging open to the ceiling as his hand halted her head.
‘I have to make a confession—’
‘Umph?’ She eased her mouth off. ‘Am I priestess again?’
‘I’ve never marked an essay whilst being sucked off before.’
‘You disappoint me.’
His hands capped her ears back onto his cock.
‘And the thing is,’ he stroked her eyebrows as her eyes went wide in query, ‘if you eat my cock like you do a bar of nougat I won’t be able to concentrate. So just hold it. Keep it warm. Just like that—’
He adjusted her head.
‘Ummph—’ she nodded, slurping a trace of saliva as she steadied her arms over his thighs.
‘Right, we’ll begin. So what do we have here? AQA English sample exam question for Jane Eyre, which asks:
‘How does Brontë present Jane’s principles in the following extract, focusing on the nature of tru-UU-th?’’
His flinch on the last word as Natalia gave a momentary suck made him frown down, as she tried not to giggle.
‘‘In this extract, Rochester has just revealed to Jane after their failed wedding, the truth that he is really married to Bertha. He has declared his love for Jane and his desire to live with her… blahdy blahdy blah, blahdy blah… diddly doo, diddly doo…’
He scanned through blasé as her head twitched with muffled laughter.
‘Keep quiet you,’ he glanced to her.
Oh, she liked this.
‘So let’s read your essay. ’Firstly, as a modern reader—’ Technically first is correct, not firstly. Common mistake we all make, but never mind… ‘There is a tiresome tedium in observing a drawn-out lie.’ Hmm. This is a GCSE exam paper young lady, not a Guardian column.’
‘Ummm,’ she blinked.
He continued.
‘Maybe we are used to seeing, since the time Jane Eyre was written in 1847, a gamut of media texts: books, films, and particularly the soap opera genre, that have taken influence from such a narrative twist as a dramatic wedding objection; lies drawn out for a long time between two lovers…’
‘Maybe, Jane Eyre was radical for its time, and divorce not so heard of, or was far more controversial. However, even if the latter was true, it could be argued that Rochester should equally be able to reveal his truth, as Jane would know how difficult it was perhaps to separate from a wife.’ Hmph. Do you start every paragraph with maybe?’
‘Mmmha-bee,’ she intoned back. Saliva was starting to drool down her chin.
‘I believe what bothers Jane is the lie, not the nature of the truth being hidden. It forces us to see the book as symbolic rather than literal, which may well please some readers, but for others such as myself, I find that I come to a story to suspend disbelief, not to be told some moral abstractification of something non-human.’ Hmm, again, too much about your opinion. What are you going to tell us next, recommendations for our Netflix watchlist?’
‘Umph.’
‘Keep that cock in your mouth Natalia, and now suck.’
Her sudden voracious plug made him gasp.
‘Oh, fuck, that mouth of yours, ohh…’ He grasped her head, whilst she didn't know what delighted her more: him reading her words, or being tongue-tied to her electric chair.
‘Ok that’s enough. Hold it.’
He turned the page, blowing held breaths till he started to read out again.
‘‘If Rochester truly wants to show how deep his love is for Jane—’ …What’s this, Bee Gees lyrics?’
A snort sent a saliva bubble swimming on his shaft.
‘…There should be little problem in showing his fullest truth, as they have throughout the novel, been concerned with the nature of truth.’ Ok, good. ‘…Truth beneath the artifice of Blanche Ingram, and indeed of society at large, right from the start… Jane being painted as a liar at school… Rochester prying truths from the guests of the dinner party… and so on, blahdy blah, blahdy blah…’
He read silently, frowning, his hand pulling her into him.
‘…I find myself yearning for Rochester to just tell the truth.’ Hmm. Yearn, yarn, yawn.’
Her saliva dribbled down his trousers.
‘Ok, so firstly… I mean, first - you’re not following enough of the assessment criteria.’
‘Ummph?’
‘They want you to specifically unpick language. They want you analysing it in that particularly puerile way, because this is GCSE. You’re writing something here more like A-Level or BA, with the philosophical stance of a literature critic.’
‘Mmm,’ she approved.
‘But that doesn’t score the points, Natalia’ - as she frowned again - ‘they want you to take a clause like ‘I walked back’ and say’ - Neill put on a feminine shrill tone: ‘this illustrates how much she loves Rochester, as she wants to comfort him in his despair!’’
‘Whahhgh,’ garbled Natalia, coming off with a string of drool. ‘A fucking baby would write that!’
‘Exactly. Can you put that cock back in your mouth, Natalia, and don’t take it out again.’
‘Mmmphhh,’ she latched on disgruntled.
‘Now suck.’
Her eyes still wearing a glint of indignation, she sucked.
‘Mmm. Ok, stop. Now onto the other problem. You’re being too critical of the book. You can only do that so much before you veer off the good-girl track the examiner’s looking for. They don’t care about your opinion, they only pretend to, insofar as the perimeter of ensuring to kiss Brontë’s dead arse, and revering AQA’s choice of book for the syllabus. Your essay makes more of a celebration of what you’d prefer the book to be.’
Her eyes narrowed.
‘Suck.’
Her eyes shifted around, cheeks going pink as she did.
‘Good. Now listen. Just like that - no, keep sucking - you’re supposed to suck AQA’s cock, basically. They want you licking, sucking, playing your tongue around their helmet… mmm, pursing your lips gently up and down their shaft… on and on and like a machine…’
She followed each nuance of his words as he made a deep approving moan.
‘Do you agree?’
‘Mmmhn, mm-hmm,’ her eyes flared, as her tongue stroked flat and wet, pooling all over her lower face with a saucer-shaped patch now on his trousers.
‘It’s a very good essay of course,’ he gathered the papers up, ‘it shows your top-level competence, as always. So… very… competent…’
Her sucking quickened with his breaths; the cue for coming was coming, and then he’d grade her essay.
He gripped her head.
‘Despite this being like nothing any fetid GCSE teen in the country could write, it falls short of what they want. Not even an A. It’s B+ at the most—’
‘Mmpph?’
‘You’ve overshot. Just like I’m going to do—’
Withdrawing like a plug from a leaking wall, he stood up over her, spilling out - not on her, but over the desk - right over the essay.
Crouched down, she looked up to a softer, longer ‘Ahhh!’ and the subtle sound of a running drip on paper.
He was urinating over it too.
Bewildered as though in refuge under furniture from a tsunami, she quickly rubbed her wet face and crawled one way, whilst he groaned the other, dropping his trousers to the floor.
‘I’m soiled. All for a B+.’
She got up and perched on the couch arm, looking over at her defiled, ink-wet essay, whilst he stuffed his trousers into the washing machine and came back swigging a glass of water.
There was a moment of silence, as she blinked in disbelief.
‘Are you… actually pissed?’
‘Yes, I actually pissed.’
‘Pissed off… at me?’
‘I expected an A* of you.’
‘The next one will be.’
‘But like I said,’ he sat down in his shirt and pants, frowning at the floor. ‘The problem is you’re being too clever - you are too clever - and just imagine that being the impediment to getting ten A*s?’
‘Well, it won’t,’ she blinked. ‘I’ll keep doing mock papers and hone it exactly as I need to. Anyway it’s not the end of the world if I don’t get ten A*s—’
His eyes shot to her. ‘You will get ten A*s.’
‘But what if I didn’t? It’s a bit of a tall order to want it in every single subject?’
‘No, it’s fucking not. You are entirely capable of thrashing the exams twenty, thirty A*s over, and it would be a travesty if you didn’t.’
She shrugged. ‘Like you say, if I’m BA level then it’s hard for me to stoop to their low hoops—’
‘You will be clever enough to stoop and play the game,’ he said sternly.
‘Well, I’ll try my hardest.’
He sighed and shook his head. ‘I don’t want my sexual appetite to be responsible for scuppering your education. We might need to curtail our activities for a bit. I couldn’t bear the thought that I ruined you.’
‘Oh, your sexual appetite? You couldn’t bear? I, I, I!’ she glared.
‘Newsflash, Natalia, I am the 37-year-old figure of authority; you were legally a child four months ago and the latter should not be living with the former—’
‘What? You don’t mean you want to send me back to my mum’s?’
‘I didn’t say that, but—’
She shot to standing. ‘You can’t do this to a girl! You can’t mess me about - like, like you’ve done twice before!’
His face screwed.
‘After London,’ her bottom lip shook, ‘ooh I adore you pretend girlfriend, now bugger off till you’re 18! Then after I flexed my bum in the red leotard - for you, onlyfor you… then it was keep it on the lowdown, delete all our chat!’
He stared and put down his water. ‘Nat-a—’
‘Shit shepherd I never want. Do you think I sat writing that in my bedroom all smiley knowing that I’d be changing it to Dr Fondle 72 hours later? No, I wrote it when I was in the pit of despair thinking my life had ended! Don’t you know what fucking life is like for a 16-year-old girl? Only because I fell down the fucking stairs did you take notice of me again, and… and get to be your little pet, and—’
Now he flew to his feet. ‘Natalia! Don’t be preposterous! You know you would have ended up here sooner or later.’
‘Oh would I?’ Arms crossed, she blinked sideways to the fireplace.
His breath grew harried as silence fell for a moment.
‘You know I’ve always wanted you. I would have got you somehow.’
His hand came out tentatively, as she tightened her arms and hung her face to repress the flicker of a smirk.
‘I… just have a conscience,’ he sighed, and sat back down.
‘Well tell your conscience to stop being a prick,’ she growled, eyes still on the fire ash. ‘Everything was fine till I wrote this one stupid essay that means nothing. I could take it right now, if it wasn’t sloshed with your spunk and piss and rewrite it into a A* in twenty minutes.’
‘Yes… I know you would.’
Another silence.
Her eyes raised. ‘Is there something else bothering you?’
‘What?’
‘You just seem… irritated by my essay. Even from the start, I could feel it in you.’
His face screwed.
‘I could feel your hackles raising,’ she added. ‘Hardening…’
‘That was my cock inside your mouth, darling,’ he drolled.
‘No no. Inside you.’
He rummaged for his phone that was vibrating in the cushions. ‘I think you’re talking more nonsense than your essay,’ he frowned, studying his phone screen. ‘So maybe I should have spunked in your mouth after all,’ as he raised it to his ear. ‘…Hello Steve. Yes, it’s all go with the boards—’
She left him droning to Dinkey and retired to the bathroom with thoughts flying around her head. Should she be here? Did he want her here? Did she want to be here after he just spoke to her like that?
Mascara specks swam at her bottom lashes as she gazed at herself, lathering her hands with Bayliss & Harding in his big rectangular sink. She plucked a fresh olive towel from where they were lovingly rolled and placed in the walnut hatch just below, then went for a lay down in the bedroom, hearing plates clanging downstairs half an hour later. Was he already making dinner for her? Was everything ok? Were they both just hangry?
‘Ah! Just in time,’ he saw her peeping round the kitchen. ‘Let’s eat on the sofa today.’
They forked bowls of pesto pasta in silence, Neill flicking through the channels with his 1000th dissatisfactory sigh of the day.
‘I’ll let you watch your Northern soaps if you forgive me my rudeness,’ he tapped the remote control on her thigh.
‘Aww… no thanks.’
She slid her head on his shoulder watching BBC2’s Saving Lives at Sea, where a drunken festival goer had dived into the sea and was being hauled onto a rescue boat. Neill’s arm slowly hooked around her with a dry kiss on her head.
‘Ed says hi.’
‘Is that him there?’
‘Rang when you were upstairs. Says he’s officially split from his long-time skirt Andrea, but is rather satisfied to spend Easter on his happy lonesome up in Snowdonia writing a novel.’
‘Was she cheating then?’
‘Hm? No, no; she does all her essays by the clock just like you.’
‘By the cock? Are you going to go mark Ed’s masterpiece while he sucks yours?’
‘No, you’d suck his masterpiece whilst he master-rates mine.’
‘Ew, the Ed-master!’she laughed.
‘You sound like your mum. Have you texted her today?’
‘Yep.’ She passed her phone.
‘Jesus. She’s going to spread what over a bonnet at Otley Chevin?’
Natalia snatched it back. ‘You’re in my WhatsApp chat with Alana. Click to the texts with the seventeen consecutive ‘ok loves.’’
‘You don’t tell Lush about your filthy headmaster?’
‘Course not.’
‘Ok love. Let’s get you off to bed, hmm?’
Happy enough to be packed back off to bed by 8.30, she relished laying staring at her phone, undisturbed. She removed Sam and Laura from her Facebook friends, then searched for Alana Reynolds and Aisha Mutanga. She thought about her own empty profile picture. Preferring not to curate a picture of herself, she changed it to a picture of her hand cradling furry Ras’s chin, backdropped by nondescript blurred floor. Then she wriggled her toes in delight when both Alana and Alana accepted her friend request, chucked her phone and smiled to sleep.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFnKsVdiZym
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡdWpP4Nkfgn
*
He was coming out of the bathroom as she came out of the bedroom, wrapping herself in her robe. She hadn’t heard him come in last night, nor leave the bed first, but the familiar crick in her neck told her she slept on his shoulder.
‘Morning, Neill. Are you ok?’
‘Yes darling, how’s your tummy,’ he tousled her stomach as he squeezed past. ‘I’ll get breakfast ready whilst you shower.’
Finishing their tea downstairs, he watched her crouched in her fur coat, putting out food for Ras.
‘Shit - I should have said this earlier, but I didn’t know Fuxton would come a day early. Do you have your old coat?’
‘Erm, yes? It’s in your wardrobe—’
‘I need you to go back to wearing that. I can’t have the chance that Fuxton might recognise it from when we flounced out of the Three Horseshoes that time. Did she ask you about it?’
‘Erm, no,’ as she thought of Luxton’s glance down it. ‘So, go back to my bobbly blue coat?’
‘It’s spring now so you don’t need the fur. We could always buy you a new one.’
‘Um, ok.’
She trotted upstairs as Neill followed to use the bathroom.
‘Natalia! Come in here!’
‘I put your razor back where it—’ She came in to find him frowning at the bin.
‘What’s this? Jam rags sticking out as large as life?’
‘Well… have you never seen a handkerchief, spotted with strawberries in your wives’ hands?’
‘Othello. Very astute.’ He blinked over at the sink. ‘And what have I told you about putting your toothbrush in the cup, not laying in a puddle?’ He grabbed the brush, then reached for her arm. ‘Bend over. Right over the toilet. Pull down your knickers. Look right into that mess I have to look at…’
She groaned as he jostled off her coat, and tugged down her skirt, tights and baggy black knickers to just under her buttocks.
‘Oh my goh—’
‘Keep still. Absolutely still.’
‘Neill what are y—’
She shivered as the cold plastic toothbrush handle was pushed along her vulva, and once wedged - sticking out, she could imagine, like a tail - he pushed her forward over the toilet bowl as her palms clapped to the wall.
‘Jesus Neill…’
‘Don’t move.’
Behind her she could hear his belt unbuckling, followed by brisk motions of chafing flesh and mounting breaths, as her head lowered in tutting disbelief.
‘Mmmm… AHHH—’
His monster groan had her turn to see a flash of his slowing hand now smoothing to a faint dribble-splash into the toilet. She reached and pulled the flush chain.
‘Ah good. You’ve learnt to do that too.’ He drew out the toothbrush and handed it to her: blood over the handle, semen coating the bristles on the other end.
She took it by the blood end, looking impressed.
‘Which teacher’s pigeonhole shall we leave this in?’ she grinned.
He frowned. ‘Brush your teeth and off we go.’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjNUUvGp03s
She jogged up behind him at the boot of the car. ‘Neill, Neill - it’s PE, I need my kit from there before you close it—’
‘Here.’
‘Neill… also, I was thinking,’ as they buckled their seatbelts, ‘what you once said, ages ago, about me changing classes…’
‘Hm,’ he frowned as he tapped his phone in the cradle.
‘You asked if I wanted to change to Clayton’s form. Well, I think I should. Sam keeps asking me questions, and the less Williams sees of me, the better. I’m becoming fast friends with Lana, and—’
‘Just hang about with her then. Remember that we can’t be bumping into her mum. If you’re on two syllable terms with the girl and practically sext with her then you don’t need to be in her form class.’
‘But I do. You can’t just wander up to girls and say hey, you texted. To hang around with them you have to be integrated from the start of the day, and form class is the bolt on, where I can sit with them, and—’
‘Not right now Natalia. Ask me another time. I’m straight out again this morning for an appointment and I’ve got Mangina on my case about some teenibopper travel organisation Phil’s thrusted into the school tomorrow that I still haven’t signed off—’
‘Mangina?’
‘The dick-donk Deputy milksop claiming an angina diagnosis when the only pain in the neck is him. Then I have your three inch fool Ryan, texting me repeatedly about the oil - who does he think he is! - I should have given the cretins a placebo.’
‘Oh. Well, is there anything I can help with today?’
‘Yes. Get your head down and do your work.’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡL2agArzkRj
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ59VTrz7dvW
*
‘Hey, want one? I mean… ¿te gustaría uno?’
She may as well give in to the Sminty scarecrow offering his wares again at the bus stop. Maybe he could smell her spunk teeth again.
‘Si,’ she blinked as she took a mint. ‘Gracias.’
‘De nada,’ he smiled, then said something more in Spanish. She turned away, with more to worry about than keeping up a daft pretence. She was dreading PE that morning without having had the balls to ask grumpbag Neill if he’d do her another sicknote. She could’ve written one herself like the old days but the sight of Luxton’s wry face on Tuesday had already put more willies up her than Neill.
‘Right, girls! It’s good to be back! Warm up stretches for netball!’
‘Not Archery, miss?’
‘We’re giving Archery a miss,’ Luxton grinned, ‘so grab a ball, Lisa. Will you be wing attack as usual?’
Natalia donned a green bib and moved into position as goal defence. Luxton’s wrinkly lips blew the whistle and the girls moved like wasps.
She hadn’t missed this one bit. She suddenly longed for Miss Barnes with whom she at least had something in common. They both knew the feel of Neill’s knees spreading theirs, the force that push down their top vertebrae as he pounded them like a sink plunger. But today, Neill was the one this morning who put her back into her bobbly blue coat of her past life. The life where she’d daydream away most evenings on-bed, scrolling on her phone like last night. When she could eat food from a tin without judgement, watch whatever she wanted on TV without a truce token and fling her toothbrush however she liked.
The ball flew past her head as Natalia flinched. The girls screamed goal, and Luxton blew the whistle.
‘That’s three nil!’
‘Nat are you even awake?’
‘Why does she have to be on our team?’
‘Time, girls! Quick stretch then off to get showered and changed.’
Alana came to Natalia’s side, with Sam and Laura keeping at a distance as though Alana were a most useful mosquito repellent.
‘Hey Lana…’
‘Aw, hon,’ Alana squeezed her arm as tears filled Natalia’s eyes. ‘Period, still?’
‘That, and…’
‘You want to chat? Aisha’s ill and Gem’s MIA. Come tell me everything. Anything to do with your boyfriend? Missed a bonnet fuck?’
‘Mister what?’
They looked at each other and giggled.
Natalia glanced around. ‘Don’t tell anyone this, swear?’
‘I swear,’ Alana said earnestly.
‘I live with him.’
‘Oh! Thought you were going to say you’re pregnant.’
‘Well, no, but nearly.’
Alana’s eyes bulged.
‘I mean, he didn’t want to use condoms, not even Hanx, so I went on the pill, but I know you’re supposed to still do double whammy, and—’
‘Oh, Aisha doesn’t. Well, she started out… but anyhow. So how do you live with him? Does your mum know?’
‘She thinks that I’m at a friend’s house. Bet she knows it’s a bloke to be honest.’
Alana gasped. ‘Come back to mine after school?’
‘Oh? Oh, no, I can’t—’
‘Have a break from Mister BF! My parents are out, we can hang out in my kitchen and order in a pizza.’
Natalia hesitated. ‘Your mum’s out?’
‘Yep, both are away till tomorrow. Meet me at hometime by the back gate.’
On the way up to Maths, Natalia did a double take at a flash of Neill jogging down the stairs. His hair looked shorter around his neck and temples and he was fresh-shaven without the usual red sore on his neck. His morning ‘appointment’ must have been to the barber’s. And was she mistaken or was she pulsing his tongue into his cheek like a BJ at her? She looked away quickly as she heard in close earshot:
‘You have lunch money, ba’y?’
‘Er, about five quid…’
The sound of people came round the corner.
‘Will leave some in an envelope,’ his eyes emphasised with that sharp blue coolness that seemed to reassure her it was still Neill - who still owned her, adored her and clandestinely cared for her - ‘Pigeonhole - the real one this time,’ he added, as she flashed a grateful smile back.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSmavtsaVUl
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7TgylQ43CB
*
Natalia sat awash with the glow from Alana’s beaming white breakfast island.
‘Wowsers. Your kitchen is huge. It’s like an alien dissection lab.’
‘It’s alright,’ Alana laughed as she prised open her spinach and ricotta pizza. ‘We want an extension if Dad gets promoted, but he’s reducing his hours to spend more time at home with us, lazy bum. I told him my predicted grades are already As, don’t do it on my behalf.’
‘Oh. Well that’s good he—’
‘What’s your boyfriend’s place like?’
‘Like this,’ Natalia nodded down at her pizza. ‘A meatfeast.’
‘Looks like a whole carcass on that thing,’ she frowned over.
‘It’s lovely, but a lot smaller than this.’
‘Now I don’t know if you’re talking about his crib or his meat!’ she laughed.
‘He has a cottage,’ Natalia smiled.
‘Sweet! And he’s there all alone, till you swept him off his feet to get in there?’
‘Pretty much.’
‘Whoa!’ She shielded her munching mouth. ‘What’s his name, you never said?’
Natalia caught sight of a kitchen brochure on a pile by the recycling bin.
‘Wren. That’s his nickname.’
‘He’s in his twenties right?’
‘Yeah… 25.’
‘Have a picture?’
‘No…’
‘Hm! How do we know he’s even real?’
‘I… well… I can’t just carry round pics on my—’
‘I’m joking, I’m joking! So how come you don’t you like living with him?’
‘I am, I am. I’m just down with the period blues.’
‘At my time of the month I’m a major no-touch zone. That’s why I just can’t move in with Alex yet. I need my space.’
Natalia chuckled as Alana looked up queryingly. ‘Well,’ began Natalia, shielding her smirking mouthful of crust now, ‘it’s not usual for a 16-year old to move in with a bloke, is it? Even though I’m doing it, I kind of assumed my situation was an anomaly.’
‘Out of all the girls in our year I’d never have thought you’d be the anomaly,’ Alana laughed. ‘They say to keep your eye on the quiet ones!’
‘Oh, er, ha.’
They licked their fingers in silence.
‘That’s my only takeaway for the month,’ as Alana put her box into the fridge. ‘And only because you forced my arm. …Oh! Looks like mum went to Boots for me!’
She took up a plastic carrier just behind Natalia. ‘Yas Queen,’ she cooed. ‘Saved twenty quid on this special offer with Advantage card points to boot. I’m saving my cash for driving lessons in September,’ as she rustled out a box of Nordic Colours.
‘You dye your hair?’
‘Well I don’t get my blonde highlights from Yorkshire sun! Although Mauritius brightened the top up for me. Is your natural hair dark brown? Have you never dyed your hair?’
‘No, no…’
‘You’re gazing at the box like you’re hypnotised.’
‘The woman on the front looks like she’s having an orgasm.’
‘Here’s four more, all orgasming. …Wait! Shall we dye you?’
‘What, is it even allowed at school?’ Natalia had the sudden thought of seeking permission from Headmaster-cum-boyfriend over text message.
‘Only Mrs Williams cares about those old dress codes. Since Neill took away ties, no-one bothers about appearance anymore. We’re all too busy gazing at his!’
‘Ah… ha. Will it even work on dark hair?’ Natalia turned over one of the boxes and studied the colour chart.
‘Yep, we did a strand on Gemma. But you are going to have the full works,’ Alana cracked open a box. ‘Here, you wear this hat…’
She came at Natalia’s head with a white plastic cap with dangling tie strings.
‘That is not the kind of bonnet I want to be shagged with!’
They were in peals of laughter as Alana swivelled her to a mirror. ‘I pull out strands from these holes,’ she indicated, ‘it takes ages but that’s the secret to lovely lines of blonde.’
Well, why not, Natalia thought. Neill had a funny haircut today, why shouldn’t she?
By the time they were up in Alana’s bedroom, newspapers spread over the floor and a towel pegged around Natalia’s neck, Alana began to hook out hair in long swoops as Natalia cringed in the mirror.
‘I look like a loony in a straitjacket.’
‘You have to sit still. So you said you got the pill now?’
‘Yeah, I—’
‘I so want to, but mum’s nutritionist says it’s bad for the gut. And I don’t buy Aisha saying an Actimel a day will solve it. That stuff’s loaded with artificial sweeteners.’
‘All I know is it saves me from a sticky situation in more ways than one.’
Alana squealed. ‘So what’s your favourite thing in bed with Wren? That’s if you ever do it indoors?!’
‘Haaaa. You go first.’
‘Well,’ she gazed, now hooking hair from the air, ‘I love to do Alex a striptease. You know, with a bottle of wine, straddle his lap and take his hands up my thigh then strip off my bra. Oh! Last time I even licked his balls. I told him I got it from a dirty story!’
‘Oh! And?’
‘He loved it. He wanted to know who wrote the story. I had to say it was The Sexual Life of Catherine M! He asked me which porn channel it’s on!’
‘Haven’t read that.’
‘Me neither,’ Alana laughed. ‘It’s on my mum’s shelf. So what’s the horniest thing he’s done? Dish!’
‘Well…’ Natalia thought of the huge bananas she glimpsed in Alana’s fridge and grew hot under the towel. ‘…Er, do you like being tied up?’
‘Hmm. We once tried it with my pashmina but it slipped off too quick and I fetched a Hanx from my handbag because he was stiff as! So do you do all that kinky stuff? Chains and whips, all Fifty Shades? Does he have a dungeon in his cottage?!’
‘Nah! We just use things laying around. So once, he tied me up with the girdle from my dress. He gagged me with it at the same time so that my arms were back strung to my head. It was… Ow—!’
‘I bet it was!’
‘You just poked my scalp with the hook.’
‘Whoops! …I am so trying that with the girdle! And then you did it?’
‘He fingered and he shagged me. It was only like, my third time or something. Lucky he went slow. You can’t really go fast when you’re tied up like that anyway. Spine goes all floppy.’
‘I love it!’ Alana squealed. ‘Oh, I’ve got to meet him!’
‘No way. Well, I mean… we’re kind of keeping out of the limelight you know, so my mum doesn’t find out.’
‘Right, well, I’ve pulled enough hair through the cap.’
Natalia shook her head from side to side. ‘I look like I have alopecia.’
‘You’re so dry.’
‘Until you put that stuff on,’ she coughed as Alana ripped open two sachets of powder and stirred in a strong liquid. ‘Urgh! Open the window, it stinks!’
‘Don’t be a baby.’
‘On the contrary, will this turn my hair grey?’ Natalia grimaced as Alana coated the brush with the lumpy white paste.
‘You will be irresistible to Mr Grey!’ She began to slap the mixture on, which quickly grew warm through the thick cap, stirring Natalia’s anxiety top to toe now. ‘So, how tall is he?’
‘Um….’
‘Five foot five? Six foot?’
‘He’s a bit taller than me.’
‘I should hope so! Hair?’
‘Yes.’
‘What colour.’
‘Er, brown. Short. Brown eyes.’
‘More Keanu or Brad?’
‘I’ve no idea.’
She sighed. ‘Well, you know I normally go for dark boys, but Alex has converted me. Kind of reminds me of Timberlake, you know? I’m trying to get him to grow it, like Owen Wilson’s. You hardly ever see long hair on blokes. Except our headteacher of course.’
Natalia coughed. ‘Such a strong smell. I need some water—’
‘Here,’ Alana passed it. ‘You know… I do still have a crush on him. Don’t tell Aisha.’
‘Who, Owen Wilson?’
‘No, Neill!’ she laughed.
‘Ohh…’
‘Did you know he was seeing Miss Barnes?’
‘…No?’
‘He was smoking outside with Mrs Tracey today, after Miss Barnes said her goodbyes, saying that he’s backed his car up better alleyways, and the saucy look he gave! And that posh Headmistress he had on his arm at Valentine’s, he charms all the stunners. Oh, it’s the experience thing in older men I’m so curious about. Sometimes I despair when Alex is fingering me, it’s like he’s fiddling with a Playstation joystick.’
Natalia nearly spat out her water.
‘Keep still,’ Alana nudged, ‘you nearly pasted my bracelet! So is Wren any good in that department?’
‘Well, the first time he went down on me, do you want to know what he did?’
‘What, what?’ Alana stopped.
‘I made a cheeky remark, saying he had been too well behaved. And he said, I’ll show you well behaved. He flipped me over and tied up my wrists with his tie— …my tights, then left me there whilst he made a cup of tea…’
‘Oh my god…’
‘And then he came back up, flipped me over a pillow, spread my legs, sipped the tea then kissed and licked and sucked my clit until I exploded—’
‘Oh god! This has to be better than Catherine M!’
‘And then he shot in the tea.’
‘What! He didn’t fuck you?’
‘We were leading up to that.’
‘Jeez! Alex would never have the restraint.’
‘What, on his cock or your arms?’
‘Wren sounds like a gentleman. A warped one! And I’m stealing that trick! But Alex will be coming in me, not my coffee, yeuch!’
‘How long do we leave this on?’
‘Fifteen minutes till rinse.’
‘Time for another noisy, frothy coffee?’
They laughed.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡfmZhOS1wPG
Natalia stood in front of the mirror after the towel dry.
‘Well I’m not blonde. Oh wait, I spy with my little eye, a gleam of ginger at my crown!’
‘A good blast of my power dryer and you won’t recognise yourself.’
After the dry was done, Natalia peered though a curtain of harlequin hair.
‘Wow. Is that… attractive?’
‘I think it’s taken quite well,’ Alana combed and inspected. ‘All neat, no blobs. Nice coverage at the front, that’s always important. I also combed a few into your lower undergrowth where the hat usually misses.’
She pointed a lamp.
‘Wow, I’m blonde! …Ish!’
‘Mr Grey will lurve you, thanks to my handiwork.’ Alana tapped on her phone. ‘Well, mum’s on her way home. We’ll grab the rest of the pizza from the kitchen and go back to my room.’
‘She’s coming back tonight?’
‘Yes, don’t worry!’ She laughed at Natalia’s face. ‘She doesn’t bite! I always have friends round!’
‘No, I just remembered my… own mum. I’m supposed to be helping her, er… shift something out of the garage.’
‘What? In the dark? Light the way with your hair, I guess!’
‘Oh god. Give me a hat to wear.’
Still staring down at her phone, Alana tossed her a beanie from the coat pegs as she drew her phone to her ear. ‘Here. My moron dad has millions of these laying around, he won’t miss it.’
‘I’ll bring it back tomorrow, I promise…’
‘Yes, yes. Where’s your fur coat?’
‘Oh, well, it’s spring now,’ Natalia shivered at the coat pegs.
‘I’m first in line if you donate it, I’d wear it all seasons! Here, take the rest of your pizza—’ Alana pushed the box into Natalia’s hands. ‘And this,’ she shoved into her pocket, ‘is a reusable cloth pad for your period instead of your Kotex. You can buy more on Bloom & Nora.’
‘Oh, er thanks—’
‘Aisha uses a Mooncup but it’s like a plunger up your vajajay. Have you got the same driver from the Uber you got for us at the schoolgate, he said just call him direct? Wait here, in the warmth!’
‘No, I’m taking the bus,’ she hastened to get out of the door. ‘I’m er, low on funds…’
Then she silently kicked herself, expecting Alana would now offer to pay. Thankfully she’d already turned away, phone clamped on ear. ‘Hey, Gem, where have you been…’
Headlights of a Land Rover were plunging into the driveway as Natalia disappeared along the hedge.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXIPw4Q3CDy
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwl3dzHzTCk
*
Three consecutive texts had come in from Neill over the past hour, and four missed calls.
‘Where are you??’
‘Are you ok? x’
‘Call me asap’
A smug smile settled her shiver as she pictured Neill tapping his phone in angst. That, and mentioning her mum to Alana, had reminded her that her diaries were still under her mattress at home. She’d walked ten minutes down Weetwood Lane with no landmark in sight to order her cab, till she found a pub to sit and hug her soggy pepperoni box to keep her warm till she got to Gipton.
No answer at the door as she knocked. She still had her key, and let herself in.
Looking tidier than usual, but fridge as bare as ever. She went upstairs, yanked up her mattress, opened the concealing pillowcase and heaved a sigh of relief that her diaries were still there intact, with the hair she’d strategically stuck at the top corner.
She typed to Neill:
‘Sorry!! I’m just at my mum’s. All is good xxx’
She leafed through Neill’s love notes, from Good Santa letter to London contract. Oh she’d ‘escaped moany bedhead mum’ to be in ‘lovely Richie’s car’ on a daily basis now. Then those beloved set of sexting sonnets. ‘Ten flicks from the mermaid that’s reading this letter… would have seamen from miles away desperate to net her.’ How he’d netted her now.
He rescued her from her drunk mum, to make her drink his semen-laced whisky. Saved her from hunger and mediocre school meals, to leave her hungry in the middle of sex games. Caretaken her after the stair fall and threat of being beaten up at school, to spank her bottom raw.
From bullies who book-ended her in Assembly, to be book-ended by bananas. From having her book slapped on the desk as he did for the others in English, but slaps ten revision guides over her bottom. From wearing a tie at school, to be tied up and gagged with it.
What would Alana say if she knew what Neill was doing with Natalia? Would she disprove, or squeal in titillated laughter that he was fifty shades of Wren kitchen himself? Would she be incredulous that the quiet, anomaly of the Year was the hot, long-haired blonde Head’s new ‘stunner’? Would the whole school laugh if they knew the sexual subjugations he put her in?
Did she feel, deep down, that she ruled him? That every act of subjection and humiliation, was a little boy having fun with toys outside the room of a psychologist who awaits seeing him, already knowing him before he does? She, who’d lay hands upon him like a healer and bring forth what scares him?
He twice called her priestess. ‘Raphaelite imprint of goodness’ inside a confessional where he, ‘some wanker,’ is talking. ‘Baptise’ his cock, ‘flood it’ with the springs of eternal youth. Sex with other women was an operation with a ‘surgical glove.’ Cunnilingus with them incurred an attitude akin to filing a tax return: he was willing to do it when required.
With Natalia he jumped in like a little boy into the sea to bathe and splash for hours, duck in his head and open his mouth for it, towel himself dry afterwards before plunging in again and again.
And within those waters was something that deeply drew him, but the Red Sea unnerved him, and her mind kept going back to the essay, that something had pissed him off about Jane Eyre leaving Rochester? Memory of a wife? Maybe he had loved after all; maybe his heart had been broken?
He said he’d stopped reading the book ‘after Bertha was wheeled out.’ It was a part of the book that she shared his disinterest for, yet making that case in her essay seemed to irk him. That email from Rose came back to her mind. What did it say again? ‘You’re not serious about her. A box of Cheerios and a London trip doesn’t… make you God’s gift? …The place you stayed in!’ Would he really tell his ex-wife he plays sugar daddy - in Ryan’s words - to the new girlfriend, when he laments his conscience directly to her?
She yawned, catching her reflection in the phone screen; flicking on her camera to admire her brightened hair, splayed back on the pillow, that seemed to soften her brown eyes like almonds and plump her cheeks. She pouted for a selfie. Mmm, sugar daddy’s gonna like it. She went onto Facebook and put it up as her profile pic.
A like came up from Alana.
‘Well hello twin! Looking damn HOT! xxx’
There was a sound at the front door. She threw down her phone and ran downstairs - her key was still in the door.
‘Hi mum.’
‘Bloomin’ ‘ell, you’ve gone and coloured your hair!’
‘Shit,’ Natalia’s hand went to her head, ‘my hat’s upstairs—’
‘Gi’or! Help me with these shopping bags—’
‘I’ve been gone so long I’ve forgotten what gi’or means.’
‘Give over! Is everything alright then? With yer mates?’ as they carried the Aldi bags in the kitchen.
‘Yep,’ Natalia mused as she unpacked. ‘Oh, bleached white Warburtons! Oil cocktail margarine! Wafer thin ham made of mystery meat!’
‘Oh, not good enough for the likes of—’ Mary watched as Natalia ripped excitedly into the loaf’s orange paper.
‘Shall I make us both a sandwich?!’
Mary chuckled. ‘Thought you weren’t my girl anymore?’
‘Sorry for saying that, I was just heated in the moment of Marcia’s mum being a cow.’
‘Aye she’s a right one. So this boyfriend you’re with—’
‘Friend.’
‘Come on. I know it’s a lad. That bloke you’ve got ringing me up, is he the dad of Sarah or the lad you’re with?’
‘Erm… both. It’s Sarah’s brother who I’m kind of dating.’
‘Oh aye. Nice car?’
‘Huh? Just a Saab,’ as they made their way into the lounge and Mary turned on the TV. As the dramatic beat of ITV News began, it was almost as if Natalia had never left.
‘Well, this is nice,’ she smiled, wondering about the car reference. ‘Is Uncle Andy well? His accounting and all that?’
‘You must be growing up if you’re showing that kind of interest,’ she murmured.
‘Have you rang him lately?’
‘Nah. Cost me seven quid last time, all to hear him mumbling on about his statin dosage whilst I missed the end of Emmerdale.’
‘Where’s Darren?’
‘Workin’. Brings money in, like, but I hardly see the bugger.’
‘Don’t you get romantic evenings together?’ Natalia smiled, as her mum continued staring at the TV.
‘So you’ve gone and popped your cherry with Sarah’s brother have ya.’
Natalia stared. ‘Mum! No way—’
‘She says, looking blonde as a prossie! It’s alright love. I did it when I were 16 too.’
‘Well,’ she shrugged, not sure which bit to react to first, ‘of course girls want pleasure too, not just boys—’
‘Forget orgasms with a bloke,’ she cackled.
‘Well… why would you have sex then?’
‘Pleasure and love - what are those? …I’m jokin’! Course we all want a bit of that. Sex with a bloke is more about fun, a three-minute thrill you can time a soft-boiled egg by! Love’s more the cuddling, having a good snog before and after, you know.’
‘So, you don’t have an orgasm with a man?’
She waited as Mary finished another mouthful.
‘The whole thing’s an orgasm. Getting a good grope of each other, and getting taken, unless you’re talking about, you know, masturbation. Dirty bastards don’t get enough with a woman so they wank it themselves. Or sometimes if they’re too lazy to climb on top of you they ask for you to finish them off!’ She nodded to Natalia’s plate. ‘Bit like those crusts for the first time I’ve seen!’
‘Oh. Forgot.’ She threw back one back, half-chewed.
‘There’s nothing wrong with sex with boys, love,’ Mary flicked the channel. ‘Just make sure you use condoms. I were talking to Judy earlier, she sez they’re all at it now. Contraceptive pills in their fruitbowls. Dildoes in their attics!’
Natalia’s eyes shot up.
‘Fruitbowls? Dildos? Where?’
‘I don’t know, it were her mate Lee—’ Her mum paused to softly belch. ‘Someone’s house. She’s a cleaner.’
‘Who does she work for?’
‘I don’t bleedin’ know. Maid 4 Cleaning, suits Lee to a T.’
‘Maid2Clean?’
‘Summat like that. Why?’
‘Oh no no, it’s just that Sarah’s mum, well she owns a couple of companies, and… well, it doesn’t matter. Boring stuff,’ she feigned a yawn.
‘Still looking him up?’
‘Who, dad? No, I’ve given up.’
‘Mm. Are you off again now then?’
‘No, I’m going to my room to lay down.’
‘Oh aye? I’ll bring you up a cuppa.’
Natalia’s face lit up. ‘Three white sugars!’
‘We only have white, silly mare.’
‘That’s my girl,’ Natalia sprang out of the room, as her mum looked on bemused.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVOACFlceTD
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOhgmtgc6qo
*
Bedroom door shut, curled up on her bed, Neill answered after one ring.
‘Natalia! Are you… ok?’
‘Yeah, I’m just keeping my voice low…’
‘Why are you at your mum’s? Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘I… just fancied a break…’
‘Oh, I was rather worried. I guess I know now in both senses what fucking life is like for a 16 year-old girl.’
‘Sorry… we’ve been having a good chat. Life chat, and all that…’
‘I… guess that’s good—’
‘Listen,’ Natalia craned her ear to her door for a second, ‘I need to ask - is your cleaner from Maid2Clean?’
‘Yee-es—’
‘And is she called Lee?’
‘No, you know she’s called Dahli…. er.’
‘Dah… lee… Oh, god.’
‘Oh come on. With a name as common as Lee she can’t be the one and own-Lee—’
‘She saw my pills in the fruit bowl and the vibrator in the loft. She must know damn well whose house she’s cleaning and it’s only a matter of time before she figures out it’s me living there—’ She leaned an ear to her door again. ‘And I can only assume that because my mum hasn’t said anything that she hasn’t chelped to her already.’
‘I’ve never heard the expression chelped, my little Yorkshire pudding, but I’ll change the bitch pronto. It’s dark now honey, you’re not getting the bus back are you?’
‘I might stay here tonight.’
‘What! Why?’ His bark distorted the wire.
‘Well, my period and all that… and getting a chance to placate my mum? There was a sort of glint in her eye today I haven’t seen in ages.’
‘Are you going to be safe there? What if she starts an interrogation?’
‘But I get a break from, ahem - following your rules…’
‘Oh, no no no no! You’re mine wherever you are.’
‘Mmm,’ she smiled, ‘but you still can’t stop me, can you? And you wouldn’t kn—’
‘I will know if you don’t ask for permission.’
‘Well then, can I?’
‘Tell me exactly what you want to do and Neill will tell you if you’re allowed to do it.’
‘Nooo, I’m too embarrassed.’
‘Shut up and speak.’
‘Oxymoron—’
‘You, poxy moron, I’ll write off all rights in a moment. You touch yourself without permission, and I’ll know. I’ll know just by sniffing that indelible doughy smell on your fingers that no amount of Carex will extinguish when I know it better than my wank rank own.’
‘Well it’s a bit more than doughy right now.’
‘Oh of course.’
She drew a breath.
‘Well?’
‘I can feel myself getting wet, as soon as you answered the phone. I can feel it, pushing out juice, like…’
‘Like lemons split open and running beads down the reamer. Your poem.’
‘Ahh, yes… and the pointy bit, the reamer, is just the thought of you, the energy of you… but it’s throbbing, almost stinging, like it’s sluicing my flesh along with it, because when I put my hand down, it’s red. It’s a blood orange… soft, warm silky red on my fingertips…’
She paused to hear him exhale.
‘It’s stabbing like the time at your desk choosing the new uniforms, when you wanted to know what was wrong with me. When I said it was my period I was mortified, but so happy to know someone cared about me… and a man too, who didn’t recoil, just went on reading his catalogue sheets like a newspaper on the bus.’
His throat cleared softly.
‘Shall… I continue?’ she asked.
‘Go on.’
‘Well, on my period, I got to see the stuff that had swirled excitedly inside me every time I came to your office, now poured out… for you. That time you had the boys beaten up, I pleasured in red hands, the red that was their blood spilt… our secret red-handedness. And here I am again in this bed wanting to wank all the wanks I wanked for you, and tears I cried for you, and blood I watched shed for you all together at once, and I, I…’
‘Listen, my little poet. If Charlotte Brontë did phone sex and wasn’t dead you’d have some stiff competition—’
She giggled.
‘My darling, I am astonished as always at how beautiful your words are, and how beautiful you are, and I want to tell you something…’
‘Mmm?’
‘That night in Kensington, when I first heard you bring yourself to pleasure, I spent the next hour in a strange trance, and on the way home I know I teased you for it, but I was still writhing that it was the most beautiful thing I ever heard. It stunned me, that pleasure you were having, all by yourself, with your own body - pardon me, that no man had ever fucked - it was all your private own, and I envied it, I envied the very room you were in, that’s why I came in the next day, and saw your knickers like remnants of a party I had no admittance at, nor the right kind of ticket to. And so when you told me that wank poem by my fire - yes it was funny and naughty - but it was as though you had permitted me a step into your world, the highest honour. And when you pleasured yourself in my office that time, I had the longest wank for you later - I knew then for certain that my mission was not just to smutty fuck you, but make love to you, in the hope I could make you make those same sounds, better even; live inside them, live inside you.’
‘Oh…’
‘And I do wish you were in my cottage right now so I know you’re nice and safe, not lamenting the lonely wanks in your old bed, but as you’re there… make yourself come for every time you have cried for me, and for every one, tell me you love me. And when you’re back in my arms all weekend, I’ll make you come double that number, make love to you triple in minutes, or however long it takes to make you cry again, and I’ll lick every tear from you—’
‘I love you…’ she made a long breath.
‘Oh, so you’re—’
‘Oh!’ Her soft raspy breath. ‘I love you—’
‘How many times exactly have you cried over me?’
‘Six, seven?’
‘Make it eleven.’
‘I’m saving the rest for later… mum’s coming up.’
‘She envies your world too.’
‘No I think she needs a piss… - Ahhh—’
‘Was that one?’
‘I’m not urinating after coming, like you, if that’s what you mean…’
‘Why not?’
‘I’m off to sleep, but will you keep your phone on?’
‘Ok, goodnight my darling—’
‘I love you.’
‘Naughty little—’
‘Bye.’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡrV4KqwBUCl
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡMAJsD6dpTL
*
She woke wondering for a moment where the cottage beams had gone. Her phone had buzzed, and she tapped it to see it was midnight.
She expected a text from Neill, but it was a Facebook friend request. Her eyes opened wide when she saw it was Anton Tretikoff, the bald, blue-eyed man she had messaged some time back.
Her finger hovered. Should she accept? She went into her messages, but there was still no reply to the one she’d sent him ten days ago:
‘Hello! Sorry to bother you. My name is Natalia and I am looking for my dad. His name is yours. I am wondering if you might be him. Did you have a daughter? Sorry again. Thank you.’
As she stared at it, she saw the cursor coming up onscreen. He was typing something.
‘Oh my god,’ she whispered.
The dots kept blinking, then stopped.
She waited and waited. Was he still online? Had he fallen asleep?
Another ten minutes there was nothing.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTKnrZGXtdE
She couldn’t sleep. Her heart raced. She lay for a while… oh boy! Could it be? Could it be him? Who could she even talk to about it? Not her mum. Should she tell Neill? He didn’t want to make him feel awkward. Alana? She wouldn’t understand. She wants her ‘moron’ dad to stay at work more.
She texted Neill.
‘R u awake?’
Waiting for a reply, she lay drifting off.
I am awake!
I am here!
Yes, I am your dad!
A flood of messages rained all around her, falling into puddles that evaporated as her phone drilled louder and louder till she woke.
The Facebook chat was still unanswered, and Neill was calling.
‘Morning Bloody and Mary! I’m on my way!’
‘It’s not even four…’
‘Put on your bobbly coat and be down the road in twenty minutes!’
She stuffed her uniform into her school bag, grabbed her diaries, threw her blue coat over her pyjamas, encased her hair inside her beanie and quietly closed the front door.
It felt like zero degrees outside. Shivering like a seizure; two blaring taillights, one Neill-scented backseat at her nostrils and one fireman’s lift across gravel later, she was being plopped into his argyle brushed-cotton bedcovers.
‘Now that’s where you belong, don’t you agree?’
‘Yes, yesss s-sir,’ she shivered the cover to her chin.
‘What’s with this hat? Are you a boy?’
He promptly pulled it off as a knotty frizz fell over her forehead.
‘Natalia! Why is your lovely hair a… blood orange! Is this what happens when you masturbate on your period?’
‘I just fancied seeing how much more fun blondes have.’
‘Well as one myself, I can show the non-blonde end of you. And you won’t be seeing much. Bend over. Right over. I’ll fetch a towel—’
She got onto her knees, till he returned and thrust her bottom up higher, laying a towel beneath her and yanking her knickers to her shins. His knees between hers, his elbow round her face, shimmying inside her as she gave that involuntary gasp to his penis pushing entry through the flesh mounds of her insides, packing deeper and deeper into her till they were one writhing entity in the dark room where daylight was not for another hour.
He turns her onto her back, as the free air round her face wafts the scent of her fucked blood that was almost rubbery, as he glides in and out of her from this angle with a smooth and strangely fluid ease, till his shoulder plasters over her face and all she can smell is his musky bready flesh, ramping up in speed, that makes her in turn, reach some strange state of suspension, and her tears prick again, at the thought now that he has reclaimed her, victoriously entered into her blood orange world… and how his semen will dance with her blood, and how he is greater than Rochester and she than Jane in the greatest cocktail shaker of all.
The shadowy dishevelled Neill sat up fiddling with something, then leaned to the bedside as she slid herself to standing, cupping her crotch lest blood drip on his duvet.
She caught a glimpse - loosely laying amongst a wad of tissue - of a bloodstained condom.
Raising it between two fingertips, the whites of her eyes pierced through the dim daylight now peeking through the curtain, as he lay catching his breath.
‘Are you serious?’
‘Mm?’
‘You used a milksop marigold?!’
‘I thought you’d be glad.’
‘I’m on the pill now, and my period,’ she frowned, ‘talk about a double whammy! If you have any STDs I’ve already got them. Am I just a smutty fuck like your other women? I thought I was the Grand Fucking Canyon?’
He chuckled faintly. ‘I’m sorry darling,’‘I’m working up to it.’
‘Why are you so squeamish about blood? What about all our beetroot brownie jokes about it? You loved me in the red dress. You bought me a red chair!’
‘Bad memories I guess…’
‘Of what, spilling Ribena down your pants as a three-year-old?’
‘I cut myself badly on a bottle about ten years ago, and—’
‘And all my poetic, darling words last night on the phone about you being a man who doesn’t recoil! Were you busy recoiling at the bits about blood or busy watching a boring fucking war film?’
His eyes rolled. ‘Come on, Natalia, I—’
‘I mean, war films are full of blood. You do realise I could have bled when you popped this vile teenager’s cherry last week?’
‘Why do you think I went slow?’
She stared, swept up the towel, tissue and condom, and went off to the bathroom.
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡsVcYLOmZYj
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2fVJZErixG
*
‘Wake up blondie. You’re in Alana’s class!’
‘Oh my god!’
She jumped up to where he stood pulling his pants on and stretched them back down.
‘Good Lord,’ as he looked down to her hungrily licking his balls. ‘I guess that means you like me again.’
She flexed her neck. ‘Well, cricked again. So I cuddled you. Oh, it’s Friday! Are you doing Assembly?’
‘Ye-es…’ as he wriggled his pants down for her to lick lower.
‘Oh god! Which suit are you going to wear?’
‘I hadn’t chosen yet…’
She glanced to his hangers. ‘Cream one. Reminds me of that time you flicked my pigtails on the stairs and made me cream myself,’ as she licked faster and hungrier.
He sighed and tousled her head. ‘Christ, just add pigtails now and I’d fuck you in front of Assembly. Let’s get breakfast and get this red rose back to the wood of Thorns, hmm? I’ll drive you all the way today.’
He snatched her brush and paddled her bottom as she bent for her dressing gown.
‘Ow-w! What was that for?’
‘For contravening school codes. Or birthday bumps on behalf of Miss Patrick today, 59 to go. Imagine celebrating over half a century of life in a council estate hovel!’
‘Feels like I have. Oh, pass me that hat—’
He picked it up from the floor. ‘Daniel Reynolds’ handwash only, silk-lined beanie,’ he peered inside, ‘and you say you’re not quite in with Miss Del Ray? Was she the one who dyed your hair?’
She snatched it. ‘Yes.’
‘You went to her house?’ he frowned. ‘Did her mother see you?’
‘She wasn’t in, I made sure. And I told you, being in Lana’s form is safer to see less of those prying prigs. So what are you giving Miss Patrick as a gift? Fucking her in front of Assembly?’
‘Now that makes a man recoil. I’ve already given her and all the staff my blood, sweat and tears. They can’t have their birthday cake and eat it!’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡG9YNJ57xVf
Natalia was gazing into her still-unanswered Facebook chat as Neill sped them down the dual carriageway into Killingbeck, flicking his fag out of the window.
‘Sexting bestie to keep your form seat warm?’
‘Not as warm as my boyfriend does,’ she wiggled her bottom satisfactorily. ‘Wish I could stay all day on this.’
‘You will next week.’
‘Oh! You still haven’t told me where we’re going on holiday!’
‘I was about to last night, until you disappeared to your mum’s - leaving me feeding your cat just like your mum - and I didn’t even know if we were still on, let alone the holiday. Fiddlesticks, that reminds me of my own mum—’
‘We’re going to hers?’
‘No, but I think I am, tomorrow,’ he tapped his phone and groaned. ‘Yes. Fuck.’
‘What, she’s scheduled you in like a good boy?’
‘No, they’re just very busy, and… well, I’ll make a short day trip of it. Will you be ok home alone, my little strawberry cheesecake?’
‘You’d be strawberry cheesecake right now if I sat on you. Wait…’ she frowned. ‘Drop me off before the shop.’
‘Righto. See you at home - straight home this time!’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡP3WYcjFfiq
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡh89xAGOjtr
*
The bell dingled as Natalia pushed inside to the familiar, pleasant newsagent smell of paper, sugar, spices and slightly odorous old fruit. Her eyes fell on the counter stacked high with its plastic amphitheatre of chocolate bars and sweets; scratchcards on one side, chewing gums on the other, and a grey Pakistani man backdropped by every brand of cigarette and vape bottle, looking down at Page 3.
She looked around, then stepped over.
‘Excuse me, do you have any fresh desserts?’
He raised a bloodshot eye. ‘Frish-er?’
‘Fresh desserts.’
He frowned and nodded to a shelf of packaged brioches and croissants.
‘No, I mean like… cakes, cheesecakes, cupcakes…?’
Small orange teeth appeared as he called out startlingly:
‘Ahmed! Mee-ti?’
A young boy in an apron appeared at the back door. ‘Mun-jamid!’
‘In the freezer,’ he nodded. ‘Look in the freezer.’
She stepped over and peered though thick glass at Mr Freeze ice pops, Calippos and Twisters, then caught sight of a Happy Shopper Lemon Pavlova. She pulled it out, wiping off thick shards of ice.
‘Is this the only flavour you have?’
He was turning his newspaper page and didn’t seem to hear.
‘I’ll take these,’ she placed the pavlova and a jar of strawberry jam on the counter. ‘Do you sell birthday candles?’
‘Kindles! Nooo! Sorry!’
She hugged the box to her chest and lifted her ringing phone to her ear as she stepped out.
‘Why so early, shat the bed?’ she muttered. ‘…Hi, mum!’
‘Well thanks for leaving a note!’
‘Yeah, sorry, I had to leave in a hurry.’
‘Where’ve you gone, London?’
‘No, I’m walking to school right now!’ she laughed.
‘With bedhead?’
‘I’m actually good in the mornings now. Anyway, gotta go!’
What perfect timing to be moved into Alana’s form class, Mrs Clayton’s Food Tech room! No-one had arrived yet, as Natalia busied in the far corner with her jam.
‘Shit, I can’t open it. Shit, shit…’
Three more frenetic squeezes later it popped open, before encasing the pavlova into a plain cake box and making a pitstop at the toilets.
Approaching Reception, someone came skulking out the other way.
‘Oh, hi Alex.’
‘Sup,’ he nodded as he passed by, with the exact same sheepish look as the CCTV footage.
‘Becky…’ Natalia came through cautiously, half expecting to find her buttons undone. ‘Neill told me to pass on this cake for Miss Patrick to the staff room. It’s a surprise for her 60th. He asked can you hook out some birthday candles and set it up for breaktime? And keep it somewhere room temperature so it defrosts in time.’
‘Oh! No nuts, right? He once brought in a nut cake, you know!’
‘Oh no, nothing of the sort. Thanks a mill!’
She ran back to form where the room was now bustling.
‘Sorry, miss…’
‘Becky says you’re in our form now,’ Clayton frowned down at a note, ‘due to a clerical numbering issue. Rather unusual, given we’ve just lost one last term… well! Do sit down and join us.’
Alana and Aisha gestured her between them with excited whispering.
‘Your hair is gorgeous, where did you get it done?’ Aisha admired.
Natalia grinned, as Alana squeezed her hand.
After form was taken, the classes filed into Assembly, Natalia’s hand still in sweet vanilla Alana’s. When Sam and Laura turned to stare, her heart beat as though it had done three laps of cross country. Her and Alana must look like the Olsen twins! And oh, they must wonder why she was missing from form as well as Facebook!
Her attention - and everyone’s - was soon diverted by Neill in his cream suit entering at the front, making a clamorous drumbeat of palms upon the podium.
‘Oh god he’s staring right at us,’ whispered Alana.
‘Shut up,’ giggled Natalia, trying to compose herself, as Neill’s eyes lingered on them momentarily as his lips parted to address the hall.
‘What are you illegally blondes two gossiping over?’ Aisha leaned over at Alana, who was in a blinkless trance watching Neill.
‘That suit. What a zaddy.’
‘Good morning, everyone! Plenty to go over this morning but firstly, we wish many happy returns to Miss Pah—’
Natalia’s hand shot up. Neill’s eyes flicked over in surprise, as well as Alana’s.
‘Ye-es, Natalia?’
‘Correction, Neill. It’s first, not firstly.’
Neill’s eyebrows raised, as a few heads turned and tittered.
‘Ah… yes, yes. One of those mere pedantries in which those oddities, like myself, frequently indulge, and well observed, thank you…’
Alana nudged Natalia. ‘So brazen! I think you just made him blush!’
‘We wish many happy returns to Miss Patrick,’ Neill resumed, ‘and forty of those golden sixty years devoted to education right here in Thornwood. Three cheers!’ The school erupted into applause as Miss Patrick blushed and Neill continued, squinting down.
‘Year 7s are putting on a… read carefully: Easter Creme-Egg-Hunt next Wednesday, and Year 8s organising a basket raffle - all baskets will be strictly checked’ - to a wave of sniggers - ‘as well as a non-uniform day for everyone on the last day of term.’
He ran through final banalities, then after a reminder about tucking shirts in, keeping toilets clean, and putting rubbish in bins, he ended on:
‘As you will know, this week we have PE teacher Patricia Luxton return to Thornwood. Welcome back!’
Neill turned and clapped his hands slowly as the hall picked it up, Luxton smiling drily.
‘He left that one to last and least,’ Natalia chortled.
‘Year 10 and 11s,’ he rapped, ‘please stay here in the hall, for we have Maya, the travel scheme for sixteen-year-olds, presenting to you for the remaining duration of RSE.’
The hall began to disperse, Neill crossing the floor, shooting Natalia a marked look as he pulled out his fag packet, and exiting out the side presumably to leave Doris and Dinkey to drag the tables into position.
‘I didn’t know there would be any travel opportunities till we’re 18,’ Natalia remarked to Alana as they moved toward a table.
‘I get enough jetlag with family holidays. Flying out Easter Monday to Ko Samui and the fourteen hours is gonna kill my skin.’
‘Ohh! Are you staying Lamai Beach?’ cooed Aisha, as Natalia zoned out, watching the two arriving organisers pulling stacks of booklets from two rucksacks. She stared at the badges on one of them, feeling a vague remembrance from somewhere.
‘You know Natalia—’ Alana turned, ‘I was your hairdresser but I didn’t ask you the main question, where are you going for your holidays?’
‘Er, not abroad. But maybe London, or—’
‘Bonnet surfing?’
They all laughed, just as one of the organisers turned to hand them the literature.
Natalia stared. It was Sminty Scarecrow. Her face went bright pink.
‘Hola, señoritas,’ he grinned, then went back to the front. Natalia jumped up and followed whilst the hall was still in chatter.
‘Hello,’ she bit her lip.
‘Well, hello. Is the new hair a disguise?’
‘Shut up.’
Without the bulk of his coat and backpack he appeared bigger than at the bus stop. His broad shoulders were outlined by a pebble beige shirt, leading down to lean legs in Levi jeans.
He laughed. ‘I knew you weren’t Spanish!’
‘Yeah yeah, I know—’
‘Only from the way you pronounced gracias yesterday, with an S like a Mexican, not a th sound.’
‘Oh. Bollockth.’
‘Ha! Sorry, I didn’t mean to hound you at the bus stop. But today you can ask me as many questions as you like! Well, about the Maya scheme.’
‘So that’s your business?’
‘Correcto! That’s what I’ve been doing for six weeks. Talks at all the schools.’
‘How old are you to be doing this?’
‘Your turn for twenty questions, and rightly so! I’m just finishing uni in Manchester. I’ll explain all in my little intro, then you can ask me whatever you want at the end!’
Natalia sat down, as ‘Stuart, but call me Easy-Stu,’ introduced himself with a potted history:
‘…I was 16 like you all once, green with envy for my older brother Bert jetting off to Costa Rica for his gap year. Ma and Pa told me a 16-year old can’t do anything like it. Fast forward to my uni days I thought, why can’t the summer holidays be an opportunity for something wonderful before college? I got together with mastermind Charlie here…’
Natalia glanced over at Sam and Laura idly flicking papers. Ryan sat making a paper plane with his leaflet, which was the furthest he’d get with a travel scheme. She was glad to be sitting with Alana and Aisha’s, whose eyes were trained on Stuart, double-blinking and lips parting in wonder at the wunderkind who’d seen forty countries by the age of 23.
Stuart and Charlie now reeled through the expeditions on offer, and Natalia fell into her own reverie: Turtle Conservation in Sri Lanka. Teaching English in Rural Cambodia. Photography in Victoria Falls…
The pupils were invited to read over and ask questions, as Stuart wandered to Natalia’s table.
‘So what do you think, ladies?’
‘Oh, we love it,’ Aisha enthused. ‘I mean, we travel so much already, but the look of Women’s Empowerment in India—’
‘Island Marine Conservation with Diving Certification in Thailand!’ bubbled Alana. ‘I’m going to Ko Samui next week!’
‘Oh, a beaut!’ chimed in Stuart. ‘I swam with manta rays at Ko Kradan when I did waitering at Halapua.’
‘The vegan place? I know it!’ Aisha chorused.
‘And ee baa gum there’s yoga,’ mused Natalia.
‘But can Stu stand on his head?’ Alana giggled.
‘Not quite!’
‘Oh, she can!’ gushed Aisha.
‘Really?’ Stuart gazed at Natalia. ‘Wow!’
Another pupil shot up their hand for his attention as he moved off.
‘Not bad…’ Aisha nudged Alana, as she giggled back - ‘Needs a few more arm days at the gym. Nat?’
‘Oh, we’re all taken, no peeking,’ she smiled, watching them giggle at the denim stretching over ‘Hot-Stu’s’ lean buttocks as he pulled out a wad of forms to distribute.
‘Says they do bursaries for certain income thresholds,’ Alana nudged Natalia, ‘so you don’t have to rely on Mr Money!’
‘I’ll put my email. Not my address.’
Neill rushed in at the end as the pupils began to leave, as Alana made a beeline for him with Aisha following behind. Natalia held back, watching Alana’s hands clasping as she gushed at Neill.
‘I hope this was interesting for you, er, er—’
She turned to Stuart.
‘Natalia.’
‘Natale domini,’ he said softly, light hazel eyes twinkling. ‘Did you see that the Yoga scheme is on Christmas Island?’
Natalia glanced nervously back to Neill who was now shaking hands with Charlie, reeling off platitudes with his dazzling smile of full-beam Head-lies. She knew he hadn’t read a word of the brochures.
‘Oh, who couldn’t go all misty eyed at the idea of Enchanted Forest Art Therapy in Belize when you’ve been in a dump like this for five years?’
Stuart chuckled.
‘Sorry,’ she added, ‘I didn’t mean to be facetious about your—’
‘Oh, not at all! School, early life; it all plays its role in your growth in life.’
‘Not if you’re planted upside down,’ she smiled.
‘Well, I would love to see you stand on your head in any country, señorita, but if it happens to be Zimbabwe, keep me in your contacts,’ he passed her a card.
‘Boss is waiting,’ she nodded, recognising Neill’s impatient foot tap behind Stuart.
‘Informative morning, Natalia?’ Neill enthused as he shook hands with Stuart.
‘Yes, thank you Headmaster! Two big thumbs up!’
‘Come drop by the staff room before you go,’ he smiled to Stuart, ‘I hear we have celebratory cake on - meringue - originates from Australia, so it suits a jetsetter!’
As he sauntered off, Natalia leaned over to Stuart.
‘Don’t eat the cake. I heard it’s a Happy Shopper Pavlova from the newsagent, about as exotic as clubbers’ vomit on the drains of Deansgate.’
‘You know Manchester!’ he grinned. ‘Thanks for the advice!’
‘Adios.’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡW5VjPXXzYu
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡorf0ss3CMX
*
Neill came through the front door at five o’clock to find Natalia rocking side to side in the red office chair, sucking a Swizzels lolly with the cat on her knee, the fire blazing.
Ras jumped off as Neill stepped over, catching her face up in his hands as she half-rose and he half-bent:
‘You’ve got some explaining to do, Russian ballerina,’ he delivered squarely into her irises before turning to pour his whisky.
She innocently resumed her rocking and she put her lolly back in her mouth. ‘Pavlova?’
‘What did I almost eat today?’
‘Why so salty?’ she giggled. ‘Who ate it?’
‘Everyone, Natalia,’ he sighed, throwing back a mouthful of drink. ‘Everyone in the fucking staff room.’
He sat down opposite as she continued smirking.
‘Well all bar Khan and Tracey,’ he added, ‘but Khan had his kombucha, of course—’
‘Oh but Tracey had a chicken seed-zer sandwich.’
‘What?’ he frowned. ‘When? Oh, don’t tell me—’
‘She put me on detention for coming back late that time, and I had a little condoment in my bag…’
She patted the lolly on her tongue, as he shook his head and stared.
‘I’ve always wanted one over her since she undermined you at Christmas,’ she sucked smugly. ‘So how did it play out today?’
He sighed. ‘Well, I was served a slice, when Big Tits came up beaming her thanks for my thoughtful arrangement just as I brought my mouth to it, thinking how delicious it looked…’
‘It was Happy Shopper. So much for your respectability!’
‘I recalled our jokes about Winner-Tomato-Sauce on the Banana Pound Cake last December, as well as your gleeful face at the defiled toothbrush yesterday. I knew in a flash you’d swiped the Durex from last night. I returned my slice firmly to its plate and passed it to Doris, then indulged in watching them both swallowing me like a fantasy come true without even touching the bints.’
‘Oh my!’ she squealed. ‘Did anyone suspect anything?’
‘Not a thing,’ he sighed again, studying her. ‘They all licked their lips and some, the plates. Good Lord. You’re viler than anyone I’ve known. What are we going to do with you?’
His eyebrow raised to where she pushed the lolly down between her legs, and brought a red-flecked lolly up to her mouth.
‘Just dip the Swizzels stick and lick, remember?’ she smirked. ‘Now Riding Hood really would be little red…’
‘And you’d wield something that would make better strokes that the art student you were in London?’
‘But it’s also like…’ She put the lolly down again, his eyes following to where she twirled it, and checked it bore enough red.
Holding his glass aloft, as though shielding himself from his own intrigue, he watched as she spun the lolly into her pursed, reddened lips.
‘Is that what peasants do when they can’t afford lipstick?’
She smiled, crunched up the lolly, slunk to the floor and crawled to the spot on the floor between his legs, face to his knee.
‘But all Little Red wants to do is give you a red-lip stick,’ she pouted onto his fingers resting round his glass.
‘You want to get blood on my cock,’ he said curtly.
She put out her tongue, as his forefinger raised - and her tongue began a dance around it, their eyes locked onto each other. She wanted to cast this spell right, and the gleam in his eyes was amplifying hers - as she kept sucking his finger, as his other hand went to open his fly to where it appeared promptly in his hand, high and stiff as though an up-and-dressed emergency serviceman called to action.
She instinctively arose.
‘No,’ he raised his finger at her lips. ‘Stay there, on my finger, till I say. Suck it. Suck it with those red lips.’
She ramped up the sucking on his one outstretched finger, as vigorously as she could, licking and pushing it deep, acting all the world that it was as thick as a penis.
‘Good. Show my cock. He’s right here watching. Make your lips red again, and back to my finger. You’ve got to win the bread, little Red.’
She paused as he set down his glass, then resumed making the biggest fingerlicking meal she could, eyes seeking permission to take a second finger, approved with a murmur as he pushed it in, where she smeared her lips to faintly trail blood there.
‘More red. Now tongue—’
She hung it out as he stroked it.
‘How much do you want my cock, blondie?’
‘Let me suck your cock,’ she played back a little whimper. ‘Let me make it red, I want to make it red…’
‘More lipstick and then you may come devour him.’
Smiling with the seed of triumph, she retraced her lips with blood, came forward to mouth the bobbing end, as he laid back and exhaled, watched her as though she were a good film, or an old sentimental one with moments that gave him smug recollection, following by leisurely candour. She, unsure of just how messy and bloodstained her face might have become, carried on regardless, the satisfaction in his face her only barometer of concern as he stiffened and groaned and she felt his orgasm was cooked.
‘Do you want strawberries and cream?’ he said now.
‘Mm, yes. Fill my mouth—’
‘No, back on the chair. Pull your knickers down, right down…’
Following his direction with eyes of surprise, she landed back on the red seat with a crank, held her own knees back with red-stained hands, wondering how uncomely her open knickers and reusable, butterfly-patterned cloth towel from Alana would look, her red vulva wound spread in both sight and scent, as he took hold of her ankles with indifference, pulled her legs up and apart like an acrobat in stirrups.
Holding her taut and looking down in pause for a moment, his cock making contact, he seemed occupied, as though performing some sort of reconciliation with blood perhaps, beginning to rub the glistening helmet a centimetre inside her, as if that had to step inside the house first before he did; be christened with his precum like a litmus test of drool - and he was waiting for the colours to show up red for stop or green for go. He pushed inside and they let out a groan equal in measure, for her pinned back thighs created a pipe curve of entry that stimulated him and momentarily alarmed her, and after a few strokes that confirmed this position was more agonising than pleasurable to her, he was flowing into her flow, with the last spurt like a dropped hose end spilling down her vulva.
She craned her head to watch him, watching it like a child watching paint trickle from where he’d just splatted his brush; her own Little Red saddled with the salacious slobber of big bad Wolf, who now sat back on the couch and took up his whisky, watching her vulva drip down the red leather like the end credits of a thriller where he’s just inserted his own name; a demon he had faced, now custard pied.
‘What a cunt-cock-tion,’ he remarked.
‘But… you didn’t have your cake and eat it.’
She sprung up, and before he could speak, she bounded up on the couch and wrapped her thighs around his face, sliding her vulva onto his nostrils and his mouth and chin, and his eyes were wide, but he didn’t push her off, watching the words fall from her grinning mouth:
‘Take it and eat it. Do it in love for me—’
He almost spluttered into her, before instinct made him latch onto her as habitually as ever, and with a staring in his eyes, he licks, sucks, almost defiantly, holding the backs of her knees as he scooped in his tongue like a dog cleaning the empty bowl of strawberry pavlova.
And there was the Headmaster in his cottage; a naked, menstruating 16-year old schoolgirl with bloodstained buttocks flashing the glimmer of his logfire, planted on his airways like a gas mask he inhaled as her face turned ceiling-ward... her eyes rolled, mouth opened, quivering began, her knees buckling, his grip tightening as she bolted with orgasm, their mmmms in unison, her spine now flipping forward like Quasimodo until she was hugging his head, sliding down his chest.
He gasped back, wiping a red smear across his mouth, as she put his whisky glass to his lips.
‘Have four sips,’ she concludes, ‘of whisky and cock. Go on then, give it a good wash…’
‘Only for you,’ he muttered, pushing her away as though he’d just committed an act of bestiality. ‘Only you.’
‘There was a bit more in the cake—’ She hesitated. ‘Let’s say… a little kombucha?’
‘Oh? So are you going to urinate after coming, after all?’
She stared.
‘I’ll have it on tap. Stand back up - I’ll show you a man who doesn’t recoil.’
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡggoazqPInT
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ3NDL7viJIT
*Go now to www.headmastersflame.com to read the NEXT chapter of The Headmaster's Flame and be updated on new chapters FIRST, on my all-free, dedicated, slick website created especially for mobile phone screens, and you can subscribe your email for a free Kindle book.*7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡbSnL7TuKuy
7Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ5dUAb1zmQ9
