Subculture

by Sarah Veitch

  Suddenly the gold looked less pleasing to the eye, the assistant’s smile more mechanical. Reece walked away with his package, trying to push the bloody vision from his mind. He’d read that flogging was common on the island, was mandatory for over thirty crimes.

  He’d also read of the way the punishment was carried out. It was savage, even merciless. The prisoner would be strapped to a trestle. The man wielding the cane would ensure that its long thick contours split the skin. Blood would spurt out and the prisoner would scream, then moan, and usually lapse into semi-consciousness. Afterwards he’d need urgent medical care. And it wasn’t just young men who suffered such a fate; any man under fifty could be so brutalised.

  Reece walked slowly from the store. He knew now that he couldn’t as much as give Lisa a playful slap on the buttocks. It wasn’t respectful. It wasn’t his way. She’d probably had one fleeting submissive fantasy, so sent him that unsettling photo. She’d hopefully forget all about such acts if he never referred to them again.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ‘Does he spank you too?’ Ria asked with a wide grin.

  Lisa felt her own mouth gape open in surprise. She licked her lips, started to move her hands into an open-palmed delaying tactic. ‘That’s hardly relevant,’ she muttered, looking away. She’d come here to Ria’s consultation suite to give her back Don Muscat’s clinical file. She’d simply said ‘Michael said we should sort this out. Seems I’ve stolen one of your patients’ and Ria had responded by asking if Michael spanked her too.

  Now Lisa tried once more to put the conversation on a professional slant. ‘Don came to me because...’

  ‘I hear he just came,’ the Sexual Therapist quipped with light hearted innuendo. Her breasts rose against her pale pink silk shirt dress as she laughed. Lisa stared at the moving mammaries, then at their smirking owner. How did Ria know what had happened between herself and the handsome blonde youth?

  ‘Don... consulted me because he was tense,’ she continued. ‘Anxious about the situation with his fiancee. I gave him a calming aromatherapy massage.’

  ‘And that’s not all you gave him,’ Ria stated flatly.

  Lisa faced her square on. ‘I was acting in my own time. He wasn’t officially my patient.’ And I’m damned, she thought, if I’ll be called unethical by the likes of you.

  ‘Hey, don’t get me wrong,’ Ria threw up her hands. ‘I’m not judging you. We’re all having a good time here.’

  No, you’re having a good time because you’ve got Michael, Lisa thought. Thinking of Michael pleasuring another woman’s curves made something in her inner belly flip over. Her thoughts were saddening; I’m just trying to hide a very bruised ego and an increasingly lonely heart. Aloud she said, ‘Anyway, Don’s all yours now. I only agreed to see him to keep Marie-Rose happy.’

  ‘She was far from happy when Michael found out,’ Ria answered, accepting the cardboard file. ‘I hear,’ she continued with obvious slow relish, ‘that he took her into the gardens and tanned her arse.’

  How could the woman talk so freely about such a shameful act? Lisa took a step into the corridor, her mind blurring. She just wanted to escape from Ria’s clumsy attempt to prove that she knew it all.

  ‘What Dr Landers gets up to with his other staff members is none of my business,’ she said offhandedly.

  ‘Hasn’t he tried it on with you too?’ Ria shot back.

  Lisa stopped and faced Michael’s girlfriend again. ‘What has... what has he said?’

  The other woman shrugged. ‘Not much. We’re too busy having fun to talk about other people. It’s just that I know that at one time or another all his female staff have gone over his knee and been soundly spanked.’

  Lisa felt her cheeks flame. ‘Perks of the job,’ she muttered, using humour to hide her embarrassment.

  ‘So it’s a perk getting your bum slapped, is it?’ Ria replied.

  There was no answer to that. Well, there was - but she was damned if she’d tell her rival that she’d enjoyed the afterglow of the shameful spankings. How on earth could Ria discuss the situation with such equanimity?

  ‘I’m here to work,’ she said simply.

  ‘That night when I saw you, you’d both been to the casino,’ Ria countered.

  ‘Dr Landers showed me how to gamble,’ the herbalist replied. Taught me the route to new heights of rapture. Taught me how to beg for an orgasm after being caned.

  ‘I’ve played roulette there,’ Ria murmured.

  Lisa didn’t trust herself to speak, so simply nodded. Michael had probably taken all his woman to the casino, then. Had he chastised Ria in the same room in which he’d caned and fingered Lisa? And had they returned here to Vitality to make the sweetest love? They were talking straight here, so she might as well know. Lisa tightened her tummy muscles and forced herself to meet Ria’s unreadable eyes. ‘Did he chasten you there?’ she asked with hard-won casualness.

  The Sex Therapist shrugged. ‘He dragged me over his lap in his suite once. I was laughing so much that the waiting patients must have heard us. Oh, and on another occasion he threatened to tie me to a tree.’

  Lisa nodded. She had to listen to this in an unemotive state. If she found out that Michael was really a cad it might be easier to start hating him. And hating probably hurt less than unrequited love.

  ‘The... correction made you laugh?’ she probed gingerly.

  ‘Just until he raised his palm. That bloody hurt. Funny, isn’t it, what some men get off on?’

  ‘Hysterical,’ Lisa said. She stared more closely at Ria, trying to gauge what the other woman was thinking. Something about her story just didn’t gel. Michael loved to talk a girl down, to dominate. Why would he choose a partner who found his sexual proclivities risible, even daft? ‘So you’re not into this sexual discipline?’ she continued softly, searching her rival’s heavily cosmeticised eyes for evasion or discomfort.

  ‘Me? I’m into everything,’ Ria said. She squared her shoulders back, a move which pushed out her generous breasts and showed off the outline of her nipples. ‘I’m a very good all rounder. That’s what most men like best.’

  But Michael wasn’t most men. He was unique. He knew what he wanted. Desired someone much more submissive than even Lisa herself. Ria didn’t seem to be at all channelled in that way - the punishment seemed like a game to her. Yet it was real to Michael. He didn’t want to play...

  ‘Have you been dating Dr Landers long?’ Lisa prompted. She was beginning to wonder if the therapist was just one of the man’s many sexual diversions.

  ‘We’ve been close for a couple of years,’ Ria said.

  ‘You... um mentioned that he chastens the other staff,’ the herbalist continued. ‘You don’t mind that?’ She’d asked a blushing Jamilla the very same thing. But Jamilla was like Lisa. Each found the situation difficult to talk about. Just saying the words made Lisa’s belly prickle, brought about a new hot shame.

  ‘As long as he saves some of his energy for me, I’m quite happy,’ Ria answered, leaning back against the opposite door jamb. Lisa felt a strong urge to move away from the Sexual Surrogate. This woman was invading her physical space and her mental boundaries. She’d somehow turned Lisa’s short professional visit into a prolonged affray.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve delivered the file, so I’ll go,’ she murmured, taking a step back into the corridor and dredging up a wan smile.

  Ria’s lipsticked mouth widened. ‘Any messages for Don Muscat when I see him next?’

  Lisa’s brain tried to think of a quick riposte, but it was dulled with disappointment over the loss of Michael. ‘Just that I hope he resolved his pre-marital difficulties,’ she said.

  ‘From what I hear, you took his mind off things,’ Ria murmured with a knowing grin.

  Lisa realised that she was going to have to confront the situation directly in order to get all the double entendr
es over with. ‘What did you hear, exactly, and from whom?’ As she asked the question she sucked in her tummy muscles and held them tight, then prayed inwardly that Michael hadn’t been discussing her sex life. He’d stood watching for at least thirty seconds as she drove her pelvis down on Don Muscat’s straining flesh. She’d never intended for him to see her that way. She hadn’t thought things through, had acted blindly. Could the enraged and jealous doctor have told the others about her afternoon indiscretion, her ethical lapse?

  ‘Carmen was in the corridor as Michael left your room,’ Ria said. ‘She caught a glimpse of the two of you lying on the floor. Didn’t Don want a threesome? Is that why you sent Michael away?’ She grinned. ‘There was this time when Michael was pulling down my pants and Carmen came in. I suggested that she join in the action. She ran out of the room all flushed and offended, and Michael tied me to the coat hook and took off his belt...’

  Lisa felt the blood rush to her loins at the image. She could picture her own internal struggle as she waited for the leather band to enliven her taut bare cheeks. ‘I’m not into threesomes myself,’ she admitted, trying not to let the Sex Surrogate see how aroused she was at imagining a swishy male belt connecting with two tethered female buttocks. The mental and real life vision excited her, even if she genuinely recoiled when the actual belt lashed down. Her pain receptors would be murmuring no, no, no and trying to escape the flogging, whilst her wettening sex screamed yes.

  ‘And I’m not into belts,’ Ria laughed. ‘I mean, I tried it that one time, but only for three or four strokes, then I untied myself and gave him a long slow blowjob.’ She seemed to belatedly take in Lisa’s look of surprise, and added, ‘Like all men, he loves that best.’

  Loved it as the aftermath to a punishment session, not instead of one, Lisa thought. She felt strengthened by the knowledge. Not that she wanted to trade arousal secrets with her smirking colleague. No way.

  ‘I don’t think you should be telling me this,’ she muttered, smoothing her dirndl skirt down over her restless hips, then lacing her fingers together.

  ‘Oh, don’t start playing the puritan,’ Ria said.

  Was she? Lisa hesitated, trying to work out her own motivation. One part of her wanted to know what Ria and Michael did in bed and out of it. Another more sensitive part just wanted to flee.

  Ria obviously felt compelled to justify herself or break the silence. She grimaced. ‘I’m just being honest, that’s all. Most people are curious about other people’s sex lives.’ She hesitated. ‘So let’s make it a two way street, love. What did you and Michael get up to whilst I was away?’

  Lisa felt her lips part with surprise. She wished for the hundredth time that she didn’t end up gaping like a goldfish in Ria’s presence. Did her colleague really expect her to describe such intimate hours? She’d never discuss the spanking, tawsing and caning she’d received from Dr Landers, couldn’t reveal that surreal blend of stimulus and degradation and desire.

  ‘He and I had a purely business relationship,’ she lied. ‘Still do,’ she added, feeling the tightness in her chest start up again. He genuinely was just her boss now - and it wasn’t enough.

  ‘So you haven’t fucked him?’ Ria probed.

  This time Lisa really could tell the truth. ‘No, I haven’t fucked him.’ Though God knows, every cell of her being wanted to.

  Ria seemed to relax at Lisa’s words. Leastways, her shoulders sagged a little, and her features softened.

  ‘It’s just that... well, he’s so handsome and assured that he gets plenty of offers,’ she said.

  ‘Thought that you didn’t mind?’ Lisa queried, realising that the girl had an Achilles heel despite her hard exterior.

  ‘Normally I don’t,’ Ria said frankly. ‘I mean, the rest of the staff aren’t exactly his intellectual equals so he’s not likely to stray.’

  ‘And I am his intellectual equal?’ the herbalist asked softly.

  The Sexual Surrogate shrugged. ‘I guess.’ Ria obviously didn’t want to pay her newest colleague a compliment.

  Lisa tried to figure how the other woman’s thinking worked. ‘So it’s alright if he has sex with other women as long as they don’t overtax him mentally?’ she queried.

  ‘As long as he doesn’t fall in love with them,’ Ria said.

  The twenty-eight year old let out her breath. Ah, so her rival was human after all. She wanted a committed one-to-one relationship of the heart, if not the body. ‘Don’t worry - I’ve a fiance in Singapore. I’m not going to steal Michael’s love from you,’ she murmured, trying to produce a reassuring grin. Why did the thought of being with Reece no longer give her pleasure? Was she just too saddened by Michael’s behaviour to take joy in another man?

  ‘It’s the Clinic that I’m worried about,’ Ria replied. She waved her hand in the direction of the window. ‘This is a great place for me. But Malta’s small - it wouldn’t suit some women. A new conquest might try to get Michael to relocate.’

  ‘And you’d lose your job?’ Lisa prompted.

  ‘Or have to work for a less liberal employer. Michael understands the need for Sexual Surrogates, so he doesn’t interfere in my day to day practice. Plus he gives me time off to give lecture tours throughout Europe. He’s great.’

  ‘Great but promiscuous,’ Lisa said.

  Ria shrugged. ‘It’s not in a man’s nature to just have sex with one person.’

  ‘It’s not in a woman’s nature either, but more of us manage it so that people don’t get hurt and jealous,’ Lisa said. She stopped, surprised to find that she and Ria were actually starting to have a reasonable conversation. The rivalry of moments before now seemed dead.

  ‘How do you feel about...’ she started curiously. Then she froze as Michael appeared at the top of the nearby stairs.

  ‘Ah, just the person I wanted to see,’ he said, increasing his stride.

  Lisa turned to go. ‘Well, I won’t keep you.’

  ‘You will. You’re the one I want to talk to,’ Michael replied.

  Lisa sucked in her breath. Her next words weren’t going to be subtle, but they might put an end to the nagging doubts she’d been having.

  ‘Sorry, I assumed that you wanted to spent time with your girlfriend,’ she said. His reply might double her feelings of loss and betrayal and humiliation. Still she forced herself to meet Michael’s steady gaze.

  ‘I thought that you were my girlfriend,’ he said softly.

  Lisa looked at Ria, noting how the other woman’s facial muscles had tightened into a watchful mask. ‘I heard that you and Ria were an item,’ she parried. She could have added that Ria herself had given her this information, but wanted to save the other woman from that level of disgrace.

  ‘Oh Ria and I are just old mates, isn’t that right?’ Michael answered, smiling at both of them. ‘We dated a bit, but we never really clicked, did we, Ria?’ Lisa watched as Ria grinned wanly then shook her perfectly coifed head. ‘But we make a terrific work team.’ Michael continued, ‘I dispense the drugs which alleviate the physical causes of impotence to our male patients then Ria arouses them to prove that everything’s working right.’ His smile widened with obvious pride and pleasure. ‘Our success rate so far is a hundred percent.’

  The herbalist nodded. She’d only been half-listening to the second part of his statement. The first part reverberated around her brain and warmed her breasts, her pubes, her belly - he and Ria had never really clicked. The woman had lied to try to maintain the status quo, and Lisa had been foolish enough to believe her. She should have asked Michael about their relationship outright.

  ‘What did you want to see me about?’ she asked belatedly.

  Michael glanced at Ria, then looked at Lisa with eyes which told of their need for privacy. ‘Come to my surgery and I’ll tell you,’ he murmured sexily.

  ‘I’ve a patient due any minute...’ She taile
d off. That sounded business-like and rejecting, yet she so wanted them to be close like they’d been after the casino trip. ‘But I’m free in an hour for the rest of the day,’ she added quickly. ‘Perhaps we can go out to lunch?’

  ‘Can’t - I’m free now for an hour then have a pre-lunch appointment,’ Michael said. He frowned and went quiet, was obviously thinking. ‘Then I’ve a meeting that I can’t get out of, but I’m available from about 3pm.’ He paused. ‘How about if I come back here then and drive you around Malta? There’s numerous restaurants in St Julian’s, so we can go there for dinner and a drink.’

  And then we’ll... Lisa thought shakily, and her nipples tingled and lengthened with forbidden deep desires. ‘I’ve got some pruning to do later,’ she explained, trying to keep the wild elation from her voice and from her features. ‘So you’ll find me in the herb garden at three.’ In truth, she’d shower and change after taking care of her medicinal herbs, but she’d go back there to meet Michael, would sit in the scented green setting trying to look informal and relaxed.

  ‘I’ll look forward to finding you,’ Michael said, and his tone was seriously self assured, even though his half-smile was jaunty.

  You’ll look forward to punishing me, Lisa thought with a low hard thrill. She turned to Ria, who was backing away into her room. ‘I love it here,’ she said quietly to the Sex Therapist and Surrogate. She didn’t know what the future held yet, just knew that she didn’t want the other woman to fret about her Vitality-based career. Ongoing worry was the opposite of what the Clinic strove for. Long term anxiety made people emotionally unstable and physically ill. Lisa knew that she wouldn’t try to take Michael from his beloved island - he belonged here. Loved its climate, its varied nightlife and nutritious home grown food.

  And he had an authority here that would be hard to build in London or another big city. He’d built himself an empire on this Mediterranean land that was perfectly geared to his dominant desires. Even if she ultimately decided to return to Britain, she knew that Michael must stay here in Malta. He was King at Vitality, whereas in England he’d be starting again as a Prince.