He unties me and returns my arms gently to my sides, then removes the blindfold. Everything is blurry and I don’t know whether it’s the shock of the light or general post-orgasmic malaise. Perhaps both. Eventually I make out his facial features above me; the sharp angles and exotic planes of him. There is a kind of tenderness in his eyes and half a roguish smile. I cannot resist reaching up and cupping his face in my hands, stroking it.
“You’re killing me,” I tell him dreamily. “But I love it.”
He drops a kiss on my sweat-beaded brow. “I know,” he avers. “I’ll be killing you a lot more, I think.”
“Mmm. Do.” I shut my eyes, flexing my wrists a little against the vague numbness in them. Fingertips drifting up my arm, drawing little patterns on my weary skin.
“Why don’t you go back to sleep?” he suggests. What a star! Just what I was planning to do. “I’ll wake you for lunch. I think I’ve exhausted you.” Exhaustion never felt so good. I want to savour the feeling of him beside me in a drowsy post-apocalyptic kind of way, but I’m asleep before I even have a chance to answer.
Chapter Eight
“I thought we’d go out,” he says, “now that the rain has cleared up.”
Has it cleared up? I squint at the window and it is true that there seems to be some brightness beyond the blinds.
“Come on then. Up. Shower. Dressed.” He removes his dressing gown cord from where it still flutters on the bed head, waving me up and out.
Later on we sit in the lounge of the Gorge Hotel, looking at the Suspension Bridge and the cliffs that veer down either side of it to the flat muddy churn of the river. He has ordered two roast dinners and we sip at orange juice while we wait for it to arrive.
“Will you tell your parents about me?” he asks, in a manner that is too studiedly casual to really be so. “When you go back home next weekend?”
I wonder if he is worried about finding a shotgun-toting dad at his door and find the idea amusing. “No,” I tell him. “I don’t think…they’d understand.”
“Do they know you live with me?”
“They don’t know you’re a Professor. Just ‘a friend’. Would you want them to know?”
He shrugs. “There’s no need for anyone to know. It isn’t anyone’s business.”
“Right.” Hm, doesn’t sound like a longlasting commitment, does it? “So would you tell your parents?” I ask slyly.
“I don’t have any,” he says flatly. “They’re dead.”
“Oh!” Clumsy idiot! “I’m sorry.” It sounds so lame, but I just don’t know what to say. I’ve never been bereaved.
“Long time ago, Beth. But thanks for your concern.” He smiles tightly at me and puts a hand over mine for a second. Then the food arrives and the melancholy cloud passes over.
After eating we move out on to the terrace, finishing our drinks. “I could murder a cigarette,” I mutter under my breath.
“It would murder you in the end,” he caps sternly. I sigh. A smoke is a rare and stolen pleasure these days, only to be indulged in when I’m lurking in pub gardens or on the library wall with Dearbhla and Emily. But now I’m, like, ‘with’ Sinclair, I suppose I daren’t even do that, for fear of him tasting it on my breath.
“Just one tiny puff,” I whine, “just to take the edge off the craving.”
“Absolutely not,” he says, in a ‘debate-closed’ kind of way. But I feel like pursuing the subject.
“Don’t you think you should take up smoking?” I ask mischievously.
“Of course not. Why?”
“In tribute to the founding fathers of the University? You’d be unemployed if it weren’t for the evil weed.”
Sinclair has to consider this. It is true that the University was originally built on the proceeds of a tobacco empire, and many of its buildings still bear the names of the fag lords that endowed it.
“This city’s prosperity was originally based on slave trading,” he says. “But I don’t feel the need to endorse slavery as a consequence.”
I splutter into my drink. “Yes you do!”
A withering stare…withers me. “I most certainly do not, Beth,” he says coldly. “You have the option to leave me at any time, with no negative consequence to you.”
“Do I? So you won’t get me kicked out of the university if I do?” I need clarification on this point.
“No. I won’t. I would try to persuade you to stay, but if you were resolved not to, then I would accept that.”
“Would you? Really? Try to persuade me to stay?” I feel love loop-the-loop around my body. “That’s so…” I break off, starry-eyed.
“So…?” he prompts me.
“Oh, nothing. I really like you, you know. You could probably break my heart.”
He puts an arm around me. “I’ll try to keep any pain I cause you superficial.”
God, how romantic.
*
We walk across the Downs, talking about his time in France and politics and stuff. They are setting up the annual Easter funfair and we watch them a while, erecting the dodgems and the waltzers under a lowering sky. Eventually the rain returns and Sinclair takes my elbow and runs with me across the green expanse of Down so that I am veering wildly in his long-legged wake, coughing and giggling while the raindrops stream down my face. We skid past the small grove where I had to cut those switches and finally find the road and cross to the stately mansions of the Village, crowding for shelter into the first available doorway and standing there kissing breathlessly, swooningly, while the rain gushes on. Even while I am pressed against his wet face, held tightly against his lean body, the intrusive thought that life can’t possibly get any better than this chills me. I want it to go on forever and ever and ever.
*
On Monday morning, Sinclair still gets up at six, despite the Easter vacation.
“Vacation for you,” he snarks at me. “You don’t have books and papers to write, keynote speeches to make or television projects to pitch.”
“Television projects?” I sit up, trying to bring my eyes into proper focus. I’m not a morning person.
“Yes,” he says, without elaborating. “I’ll expect you up by eight, Beth, as usual. Don’t forget you have notes to prepare by Wednesday.”
I groan and return to the oblivion of the duvet while he leaves the room. Last night was just like any other Sunday night – extra tuition. I was rather inattentive and made the fundamental error of trying to divert Sinclair from his scholarly path by flirting with him. It only took a few minutes across his lap having my tramlined bum spanked into re-ignition to convince me that this was not one of my best-laid plans. It seems he is pretty resolute in his intention to remain the unyielding disciplinarian – it’s all for my own good, apparently. It hurts him more than it hurts me…not.
I crawl out of bed for eight and am bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the time he strolls in from the gym, damp-haired, frowning at a text message on his mobile.
“I’ve poached some eggs,” I say hopefully, since he is always moaning on at me about frying them in too much fat.
“Hmm. Sorry?” He glances briefly up at me, punching buttons with one elegant thumb.
“Eggs. Poached,” I pout.
“Right. Good.” He completes his text, looks about the kitchen distractedly, kisses me (still distractedly) and begins randomly picking up pepper mills and suchlike.
“What’s up with you? You’re like a cat on a hot tin roof.”
“I prefer A Streetcar Named Desire,” he says mystifyingly.
“What? Earth to Sinclair.”
“Don’t be cheeky.” He pierces me with The Look. Heh heh, that got his attention. An opportunity to disapprove of me will always bring his focus back.
“Sorry, sir,” I say coquettishly. He folds his arms and gives me the expression of mental calculation that I interpret as ‘Should I spank you now or leave it till later?’ A perennial dilemma in Sinclair-land. Then his mobile bleeps deafeningly and he grabs it
out of his pocket and gazes at its screen with such a passionate intensity that I feel a wave of envy. I want to be that phone. Not fair.
He scans it anxiously, then his brow unravels and a broad smile lights his face. He throws the slim silver saviour deftly into the air and catches it, then inclines his body towards me with devilish insouciance.
“You are looking at the next presenter of History Matters, my dear.”
“Am I?” History Matters is a magazine-style programme on BBC4 devoted to discussing current affairs in the light of historical precedents, strung together with commissioned films. I know Sinclair has made a couple of the film contributions in the past, but I had no idea that Reginald Quint was leaving the show. Mind you, he is about eighty-odd, so perhaps it’s not that surprising.
“Yes, it was between me and that dreadful purple-haired woman from the Bodleian Library.”
“Wow. So you’re going to be…a TV personality?”
Instant images of myself and Sinclair on the front cover of OK Magazine in…crowns, or some such…shoot across my consciousness. Steady on, Beth, he’s not a footballer. He’s an historian. Slightly less avidly-read-about during dull lunchbreaks than the Beckhams. All right then, not OK. Maybe the Times Educational Supplement though.
“Of a modest kind,” he says, with an anything-but-modest gleam in his eye.
“Congratulations. That’s….great.” Please don’t ditch me for a sophisticated media babe. Please. Please don’t. “Will you have to spend much time in London?”
“No, it’s made here. It really won’t demand too much of my time at all. Maybe three hours a week in the studio…a few meetings here and there.” He is thinking so much more than he is saying. He is thinking…newspaper and magazine interviews…TV talking head shows…Parkinson…charity broadcasts…household name. Profiles in the quality press: ‘The Man Who Put Sex Back Into History’. Fans. Groupies. STOP! NOW! I might be letting my paranoid imagination run away with me here. I should just be happy for him. Happy for him. He deserves it. “You seem somewhat underwhelmed, Beth.”
“No, no. I’m not. I think it’s…amazing. You’re going to be famous.” I smile weakly.
“Oh, not many people watch BBC4,” he says, preening. “Maybe…slightly less obscure.” Dazzling smile. “But I have a lot to organise, Beth. How about a trip to the library? Get those notes written up and I’ll see you back here for lunch?”
Hmph. Don’t let me stand in the way of your brilliant career, will you?
“Fine,” I say and trudge off groves-of-academewards. He does not even say goodbye, already on the phone to negotiate his fee.
*
Sinclair’s busy morning of organisational meetings seems to have consisted of a haircut and…oh my God, has he had his eyebrows waxed?
I drop my book bag and squint at him. He has the good grace to blush at being caught out in his vanity. At least he hasn’t got himself fake-tanned, I supposed.
“Nice do,” I comment. “Got to look gorgeous for the cameras, haven’t we?”
“I’m not sure I care for your tone, Beth. And yes, shallow as it is, appearances are regrettably very important when it comes to making an impression on television.”
“You could go for a Rip Van Winkle style beard and baggy corduroy suit. Didn’t seem to do Reginald Quint any harm.”
“I am not Son of Quint. And you can stop teasing me now if you want to be able to sit this afternoon. I’ve made you a sandwich.”
“You’re too good to me.”
“Yes, I am, aren’t I?” He points to the plate that awaits me on the table and watches me keenly as I bite into it. “You need to eat it all,” he says. “You’ll need the calories.”
Uh oh. Why? I look up at him, enthralled at the suggestion that I am in for a lavish helping of afternoon delight.
“You’ll see,” is all he says to my wordless enquiry. I take a fresh look at the sandwich. Lean turkey, low-fat mayo, lettuce, tomato in a granary roll. Sinclair is all about slow-release energy it seems. Mm, that bodes well. I masticate it slowly, not wanting the knot of excitement in my chest to affect my digestion. Where will we be? Bedroom, office, living room…? It doesn’t really matter now that Nerys has gone for the day. I wonder what she thought of the new sleeping arrangements.
I drain my glass of orange juice and leap up, ready for action. Sinclair smiles rather evilly – but that’s his regular smile-style – and motions me out of the kitchen. I follow him eagerly to the bedroom. Oh. Not his/our bedroom. My/the spare bedroom. Que pasa?
My horrified ‘Oh!’ on entering elicits a low, spooky-cartoon-character laugh from him. I would have preferred a fully-kitted-out dungeon, complete with stocks and thumbscrews, to this travesty. He looms up behind me, resting his hands on my shoulders as I gaze bleakly around the room.
“What do you think?”
I make a non-committal noise. He laughs again.
“You don’t want to go to the gym. So I’ve brought it to you.”
“You’re so thoughtful.” What are these contraptions? I can see that one is for running on…but what is that bent pole thing? And the other thing looks like a modern version of a rack.
“Come on, then, get changed, and I’ll put you through your paces.”
“I’m not a pony!”
“Get changed.” His stern tone cuts through my incipient sulk and I pick up the clothing piled neatly on a bench and inspect it. Horrible, horrible gym wear. Ugh. “You expect too much of your body, Beth,” he says, switched into full lecture mode. “You think you can treat it badly and it will still do everything you want it to. But it doesn’t work that way. You’re nineteen, so you can’t imagine the long-term effects of your lifestyle. You are sure you will live forever. You aren’t fat, you don’t have cancerous lungs or a cirrhotic liver, so you think you can do as you please. But unless you start improving your behaviour now, you will soon start to see the legacy of your laziness. Blah blah blah.” I let it wash over me as I don the hated shorts and crop top, pulling my hair into a band and marvelling at the strange light/heaviness of trainers on my feet.
Standing before him, hugging my chest, I feel actually more embarrassed and humiliated than I did in that ridiculous school uniform. Now he is genuinely pushing me out of the comfort zone of my self-perception. While schoolgirl roleplay might be a ‘Beth’ thing to do, huffing and puffing on a running machine definitely isn’t. I am now not-Beth. I am just some deindividual.
“It fits you all right?” he asks with brisk faux-concern.
“Fine,” I snark.
“Good, let’s warm you up then.” Oooh. That phrase reminds me of him spanking me over his office desk before the caning. Let’s do that instead! No such luck. He orders me to do all kinds of unnatural acts like star jumps, running on the spot, punching the air and stuff. This is like a masterclass in mortification. I hate getting sweaty (outside the bedroom), and within five minutes I am purple-faced and wheezy.
“Time to ditch the cigarettes,” he observes. “They may have built the university but they’re destroying your body.” I double over floppily, my arms hanging. “Can you touch your toes?” he asks mercilessly. I stretch that little bit further, answering his question. The swine lopes up behind me and smacks my backside so hard I nearly fall forward on my knees. “That’s a position we’ll be seeing more of,” he says mockingly. Then he pulls me upright again, holding me straight by my hips. “With me so far?” he croons into my ear.
“You’re cruel,” I accuse.
“Hm, sadistic, some might say,” he replies nonchalantly. “Come and try the rowing machine.” Ah, the rack thing. I sit in it and spend an unenthusiastic ten minutes pulling back and forth. God, this is boring. How can people do this for hours at a time? I wonder if Sinclair will consider putting a TV in here. Next he makes me do about three thousand stomach crunches, using the bendy bar thing, and finally I set my tentative foot on the running machine. He sets the digital counter so that I am having to run at quite a f
ast pace. I really don’t think I can keep this up for long. “Too…fast…” I pant out after the first minute, alarmed that he intends me to maintain this pace for quarter of an hour.
“At your age, this should be comfortable for you,” he tuts.
“I can’t DO it!” I insist shrilly, gripping the sides of the machine and trying to lift my feet from the relentless conveyor belt.
“Keep going,” he says unbendingly, then he leaves the room. Does he seriously think I’m going to carry on when he isn’t watching me? I lean over and press the stop button, collapsing on to the bars while my hammering heart slows to an acceptable manic thumping. I don’t look up when he comes back into the room, but just allow my legs to buckle and kneel lifelessly on the motionless rubber. “I see,” he says unpleasantly from somewhere slightly above me. “Direct disobedience.” I can’t think of a reply, and I’m not sure I’m capable of speech yet, so I continue clinging for grim death to the bar. Until a firecracking slash across my knuckles makes me yelp and fall backwards on to my arse. I look up and see that a stony-faced Sinclair is brandishing a riding crop.
“It appears a motivational tool is required,” he says severely. “Get up and put the machine back on, Beth.”
“But…”
“No! Get up and put the machine back on.” The threat in his eyes is more than that of the machine and the crop combined. I pick myself up, mouth drooping, and lean over to the button. The conveyor belt roars back into life, straight back to the unforgiving pace I found so difficult to keep up. I want to cry as I lift my weary feet to pound the rubber spool over and over again.
Lecture Notes Page 13
