Tapping in codes, I wondered how to approach the situation. I wanted to make him an offer. An offer of reparation. Rachael seemed to think he was good at what he did, and if I was going to perform this experiment, I wanted to be in the hands of an expert.
'Do you mind my asking . . .' I opened cautiously.
'Yes, I do,' he snapped.
The door behind me opened and Mr Chase looked out, frowning at my efforts on the computer.
'Everything all right here?' he asked, lowering his spectacles in Dr Lassiter's direction.
'Fine!' I said hastily.
Dr Lassiter looked as if he was on the verge of dobbing me in, but unexpectedly he nodded instead and made a noncommittal gesture. Chase returned to his lair.
'Thanks!' I said. 'I owe you one.'
'You do,' agreed Lassiter tightly.
'I'd like to . . . pay you back. However you like.' I swallowed, holding his eye, which widened.
'I'm not sure I understand.'
'I, um, well, if Rachael isn't available any time . . . I mean, I don't know how exclusive you are, but if you aren't . . . I mean . . .' Good Lord, this was turning into the worst bout of verbal diarrhoea of my life. How the hell does one ask a man for a good thrashing?
Dr Lassiter leant forward so his elbows were on the desk and his flinty eyes connected to mine. I tried to look submissive. How do you look submissive? I went for a sexually available, startled-fawn type of thing.
'Are you saying, young lady, that you share certain of Rachael's tastes?'
The 'young lady' made me feel a certain squirminess in the pit of my stomach. Suddenly I was very small and very helpless. Was this normal? I didn't know, but I rather liked it. An acquired taste, perhaps, but then most of the finer pleasures in life are.
'I don't know, but I'd like to find out. If you don't mind, I'd be very grateful if you could . . . test me.'
'Test you?'
'Try me out.'
His voice was very low and his face very close to mine.
'It would be a pleasure,' he said. I drew in a deep breath. 'You strike me as a young lady in dire need of discipline.'
'Yes, I think you could be right.'
'Yes, I think you could be right, Sir.'
'Yes, I think you could be right, Sir.'
The tiny barrier of air between us quivered. 'Very well,' he said briskly, straightening up with the first recorded Lassiter smile. 'Rachael is regrettably unavailable most of the time, due to her personal commitments. Would next Thursday suit?'
I checked my rota. 'I get off at six, Sir,' I told him, very much hoping that this would turn out to be true in every sense
'Six it is. No later.' He stepped back again, took me in long and expansively from my head to my midriff, where the desk curtailed me, then hoisted up the golf bag and strode off.
I was unreasonably excited by the prospect of this new direction in my boudoir life. The anticipation took me through the eight celibate days and nights leading up to my initiation. I lay in bed imagining the sting and the throb and the shame and the voice lecturing over my head as the lashes fell. Except the voice was not Lassiter's, it was Chase's, chiding me for some future piece of misbehaviour that threatened to derail our delirious happiness together. Lassiter would be another substitute for the man I really craved, and I wondered if it would gall him to know that. One imagines that these dominant chaps don't take kindly to unfavourable comparison with others. Perhaps he'd whip me all the more soundly if he knew. The thought made me come, hard, flooding my busy hand with my deviant juices.
You're a bad girl, Sophie. You're a very bad girl. Ooh, I know.
I was antsy all of Thursday afternoon, my eyes flicking over to the revolving doors every few minutes. Dr Lassiter had called the day before to stipulate my dress code – no trousers, plain white cotton knickers, over-the-knee socks or hold-up stockings, nothing patterned or colourful. Minimal make-up and any mascara should be waterproof. Rachael had not been wrong about Lassiter being one for the details.
I had opted for over-the-knee socks, to make the occasion stand out, since I wore stockings or hold-ups most of the time anyway, on the off- chance that Chase might unexpectedly fling me on to his desk and give me one while the guests were at breakfast or cocktails. Without hope, what have I, eh? They should probably have been white, but mine striped black and red all the way up to my lower thighs, making me look like Minnie the Minx. I wondered if Dr Lassiter was a Beano man; probably was, with all the whacking and thwacking that went on in those cartoons.
At ten to six, my putative punisher walked through the door, golf bag ominously slung over his shoulder. He did not wave, or smile, or acknowledge me in any way, but simply strode up to the desk, purposeful as the Terminator.
'Good afternoon, Sir,' I quavered, my fingers slipping on the keycard as I fished it off its hook.
'Young lady,' he said formally.
'You're in room 137,' I told him. 'It's pretty soundproof.'
'I should certainly hope so,' he said, then he lowered his voice. 'I will expect you in ten minutes. Don't be late.'
He swivelled on his heel and headed for the lift, the golf bag rattling behind him.
Ten minutes later, in the first-floor corridor, fear and excitement were gummed together, all twisted up and inseparable in my stomach. Lower down in the crotch area, excitement was winning the day, though, routing fear up into the far reaches of my brain, where it had run up against the forces of rationalisation.
It will be fun, they said. He is experienced. He will know how far is too far, and will stop well before that point. I will know how it feels, so I don't have to wonder any more. I might like it. I probably will like it, if those sticky night-time fantasies of merciless taskmasters are anything to go by. Merciless taskmasters. Chase. Oh, if only Dr Lassiter could be him.
I knocked on the door.
He opened it slowly and stood at the crack, ushering me in with a look so genuinely terrifying that I reconsidered my plan for a second.
'So you are here. I applaud your courage,' he said, directing me to the centre of the room where I was to stand, feeling spotlit, while he ran through the drill.
'Sophie, I gather that this is entirely new to you. You have never practised submission?'
'No, nothing like it, really. Maybe in a very playful form, but . . . you know . . . that's all.'
'I see. And which aspects of this practice do you most wish to try out? I can accommodate most tastes. What would you like to gain from today's session?'
Lassiter was circling me, not in an intentionally intimidating way, but I felt intimidated all the same. And I quite liked it. It reminded me of being in Chase's office.
'What you were doing with Rachael,' I began haltingly. 'That's what I want to try. It doesn't have to be a scene or anything. You don't have to role-play. I just want to know what it feels like.'
'Corporal punishment?'
The words gave me a frisson. 'Yes.'
He smiled, not reassuringly. 'Well, given the circumstances that led you here, that would be entirely appropriate. I was tempted to bend you over the chair with Rachael and stripe the pair of you last week, I must admit.'
'I'm sorry about that,' I repeated. 'It was a difficult call.'
'Well, you called wrong, didn't you? But never mind. You will pay for it.'
Something in his sinister tone was causing patches of wet warmth to seep into my knickers. I almost felt like kneeling and begging for mercy, and yet I didn't want mercy. I wanted punishment.
'Before we proceed,' said Dr Lassiter, 'I need to make a couple of things clear. First of all, do you have a safeword?'
'Oh . . . I suppose I should . . .'
'I see you haven't thought of this. We shall use the traffic light system then. You may call ''amber'' if you want me to ease up or slow down or you need to tell me something. If you call ''red'' you want me to stop, unequivocally. Does that make sense to you?'
'Yes,' I said gratefully. 'Red to st
op altogether, amber to change or slow down. Green if it's good, yes?'
'Yes. Perhaps ''bearable'' rather than ''good''.' There was a hint of ghoulish humour behind his clipped phrasing. 'Secondly, do you expect any sexual element to the experience? It's entirely up to you.'
'Ah.' I had been unsure of this, but was glad he was asking the question rather than making an assumption. Dr Lassiter was not what you might call a handsome man, and he was older than my usual type, but his dry verbiage and his absolute poker-straightness were strangely compelling. I would only have to go and masturbate afterwards anyway. 'Well, I think I would like you to be in charge, completely. Consider my body yours to use however you want. You know, as part of . . . the price I have to pay. That seems to be the way the dynamic should be, if it's going to be hot instead of just painful.'
'Mine to use however I want?' His eyebrows jumped; he was taken aback. 'That is a reckless invitation, Sophie. It's lucky for you that I am a gentleman, isn't it?'
That frisson again. 'I don't know,' I said saucily, biting my lip. 'Is it?'
There was a moment laden with significance, then he turned to the bed and emptied the contents of his golf bag. A thing that looked like a table-tennis bat, a leather strap, a crook-handled cane. A bottle of lotion and another of lubricant. A pack of condoms. The cloak and mortarboard, which he put back in the bag. We will not be role-playing, the action told me. This will be 'real'.
He turned back to me, clasping his hands together against his chest and looking me up and down. I shuffled diffidently on my Mary-Janed feet, feeling the hem of my kilt brush against my sock-clad knees.
'Your manners last week, young lady, left a lot to be desired, didn't they?'
'Uh . . . did they?'
'Yes, they did. And you will address me as ''Sir'' when you speak to me. You acted in haste and your impetuosity led to considerable embarrassment.'
'I know. I'm sorry, Sir.' I stared at the ground, just as if I was back at school, being berated for late homework. I would find it hard to take this seriously from most men, but somehow Dr Lassiter had that knack of unlocking your shame and playing with it. Was it something he had learned to do, or did it come naturally?
'I daresay you are, but that does not preclude you from suffering the consequences of your actions. You and I both know that you need a sharp reminder of what constitutes acceptable behaviour. Ask me for it, please, Sophie.'
My head shot up. Ask him? In words? From my own lips? I could tell that he was suppressing some satisfied amusement behind his mask of severity; he knew I had not been expecting this.
'I cannot proceed unless you have spoken the words,' he said softly. I supposed it made sense that he needed my explicit and unambiguous consent. Perhaps, then, it was only fair.
'Oh . . . right. Please will you . . .' I hesitated, not sure I could say the 'p' word, so weighted did it seem with mortifying sexual connotations.
'Please will I?' he prompted, gently but firmly.
My volume dropped to a whisper. 'Please will you punish me, Sir?' I looked past the side of his head, not wanting to see how his face reacted to my words. The wall mirror needed polishing, I noticed. This was Jade and Maria's floor; no doubt the lazy bitches had been slacking off again. I would have to have a word with Elaine, the head of Hospitality Services. I was jolted out of my dissociation by Lassiter's voice, strong and confident now.
'Indeed I will.' He beckoned me towards him, seating himself on the edge of the bed. 'Place yourself over my lap, young lady.'
Now was the time to giggle and make jokey remarks, but somehow I could not. Something inside me did not want this to be simple light-hearted fun. Something inside me really wanted to submit, to gain his approval, to be a good girl. It was all wrapped up in my feelings for Chase in one way or another. Perhaps I wanted it whipped out of me.
I lowered myself tentatively on to the sharply creased trouser legs of Dr Lassiter, hoping I wouldn't flatten them. Still, at least there was a trouser press in the room. My elbows sank into the duvet beyond him, while my legs rested in the featherdown at his opposite side. My lower torso was elevated, presenting my bottom as the target; he tucked my knees up against his thigh so that I was half-kneeling, raising my arse higher.
'Good, Sophie. Now, while you are under my authority, you will abide by my rules. You may cry and squeal as much as you like, but you may not try to shield yourself from your punishment, nor may you break position. If you do either of these things, I will bring a stronger implement to bear on your rebellious bottom. Do you understand me?'
'Yes, Sir.'
The words, the way they were spoken, the significance of them, were making me shiver. I shivered even more when he took the hem of my kilt and raised it to my waist, leaving my white cotton knickers and stripy socks on display.
'Are these regulation socks, Miss?' he demanded ominously.
'I'm . . . not sure.'
'I do not think they are. There will be an additional penalty to pay for those.'
Woe is me. His hand descended to the top of the socks, a finger running beneath the turn-ups, then it ran up my bare thighs and came to rest on the twin cotton-covered crests of my bum. He moved the hand around as if taking measurements, up the hill and down the dale and even swooping a finger along the valley, which made me jiggle my hips.
'Such pale skin you have, Sophie. Let's see if we can't put a bit of colour in these cheeks.' The first smack rang out, sudden and shocking enough to make me gasp, although not in itself terribly painful. The succeeding volley lulled me, made me think that this was, after all, a pleasure game, a bedroom folly. They were not hard nor fast, just little warming slaps that made me want to moan and push my bum out for more. His hand was firm but considerate, covering the entire area of my big school-issue knickers and sometimes straying over the elasticated border to my unprotected thighs, which stung, but in a good way.
He was lecturing me as he spanked away, but I was not catching much of it, though the steady rumble of his voice added to my enjoyment, enabling me to lose myself in the punishment fantasy. The sense of being at his mercy intensified the sensations, making much more of it than the usual bedroom rough and tumble. The warmth became heat, and the heat was not only on my rear cheeks. It had spread and was now oozing between the lips of my sex, a liquid fire that interfered with my ability to keep still beneath Dr Lassiter's hand. I began to grind myself against his thighs, wiggling my bottom and gasping.
He stopped abruptly and said my name in a warning tone. His fingers plunged between my legs, pushing the cotton up inside my streaming lips so that a damp stain spread across the whiteness.
'You are making a mess of these knickers,' he said, tutting. 'I think it's time they came down, don't you?'
'Oh!' I snuffled my protest, trying to trap his fingers between my thighs, but he escaped and wrenched the knickers down to my knees, keeping them there.
The air circulated around my wet pussy and warm bottom. He put his hand back down on my rear. 'Well, Sophie, your bottom is pink, but what colour are you? Still green?'
I nodded vigorously. Don't you dare stop, I said in my head.
'Good. I think we can take things up a level, then. See if we can get you properly hot.'
I was not sure it was possible to get much hotter, but I supposed he meant my skin rather than my libido.
His hand began to fall faster, stingier, peppering my cheeks with shot. Instinctively I tried to put a hand back to shield my bum from this new campaign, but he pre-empted me, twisting my wrists up into the small of my back while the smacks continued in a random unpattern, sometimes down as far as my knees. Now I was writhing with discomfort, considering calling 'amber' but knowing that I would despise myself if I did. This was nothing, surely. But, oh, it really didn't feel like nothing. It felt like searing vengeance on my poor bottom, and the worst of it was that I had no idea when it would end. I compromised with myself, moaning, 'Pleeease stop, it huuuurts,' instead of mentioning a colour. Somehow
, though, I knew that this would inspire his arm to swing higher and his hand to slap harder, which it did.
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