Back to Vanilla

by Jennifer Maschek

  She opened to his sharp rap, wearing the outfit he had chosen and had delivered to her the previous week: thigh-length black lace hold-ups, a tight black PVC minidress, overlaid with a black net babydoll and topped off with a dark velour collar and fingerless black silk lace gloves, which stopped just above the elbows on her skinny arms.

  What greeted him was a real little girl lost, barefoot, tinier than he’d anticipated, so that the outfit grazed rather than clung to her slight curves, and this sight kindled his appetite more than he cared to concede. In all honesty, it was rare to meet a woman who looked even as appetising as her online persona, but this wee thing exceeded his already lofty expectations, a state he struggled not to convey too blatantly.

  Alasdair handed over the small clump of velvety crimson roses he had carried all the way from Edinburgh station, and her protracted gaze met his eyes with a fragility that, again, he hadn’t foreseen in their correspondence.

  What she saw was a tall, skinny older guy in a dark grey, well-cut if a trifle overused, suit. His face, which was what she focused on, was like the photos – weary, humane, and with what her grandmother used to call a “kind eye”, like that of a cow or a camel, rather than a stallion. His thinning hair, with a light touch of grey-white, was brushed firmly back from his forehead, and he clutched the bunch of dark flowers like a kid who’d been given them to hand over and forgotten they were there. The tired little bouquet embarrassed her: it was an old-fashioned romantic gesture that seemed thoroughly pointless, considering the nature of their electronic communications; as if meeting in a hotel room weren’t enough proof of intent. Somewhat incongruous to the formality of his clothing, a small navy backpack was slung over his right shoulder.

  There was a genuine benevolent smile on his well-aged face, and as he handed over the roses, he leant in slightly to kiss her flushed cheeks. This coincided with her swiftly half side-stepping and swooping, so that they kind of shook hands instead. She gestured him inside.

  Between Piccadilly station and the hotel, a five-minute walk away, Tamsin had paused for provisions. Reading between the endless lines of their correspondence, she had detected a love for all things spiritual – when it came to alcohol at least – and so had slipped 700ml bottle of Jack Daniels into her velvet duffel bag, along with a turquoise short-bobbed wig and a spanking new wet-look catsuit with front zipper. From the minimart en route, she’d added a litre of lemonade, a mango and passionfruit smoothie, some smoky-bacon tiger nuts and a three-pack of Twirls.

  He wasn’t the first guy she’d met in the past year, but was, without competition, the eldest of a total of four. All had been older, with ages ranging from 31 to 36, but there was something about the photo Alasdair had sent – him standing in front of a ceiling-height pine bookcase, totally exposed – that had touched her.

  He’d just looked so damned human, although, again, she’d focused on his face in that shot, his nakedness jarring with her belief – one she was challenging – that someone of this age should be covered up, and she wondered who had taken the picture (this not being the usual bathroom mirror selfie). Nothing hidden, he’d presented a mix of frailty and pride, and Tamsin had seen someone who would instinctively accept her ripening needs and temper his own to meet them. Accept was not quite the word, she thought, as she was hunting for someone with a more pedagogical bent, while she figured out exactly what those needs were.

  She’d also received a close-up from the same series: a side-view cock shot, a protractor-perfect 90 degrees, she was sure, the one hand in view placed casually on the lower part of his hip, which thrust slightly forward. She stared at the picture, willing it to turn her on, and rubbing herself as she did so, to create a Pavlovian link between the two things. This was what her mind needed, a skilled master figure who could look after her and teach her, no doubt. The key was to convince her body it agreed.

  And so he walked slowly into a room booked and paid for by him in her name, still almost anonymous, but with a whiff of the young girl already drifting in. Her embroidered brown coat lay across the back of one of the two bucket chairs, at least one of which he intended to bend her over before their night was done.

  There was an empty tooth glass, with a sticky film and a fingerprint or two testifying to its recent use, probably to consume some of the bottle of JD placed next to it on the table between the two chairs. Some shiny bits and pieces of jewellery rested on another table beneath the large-screen TV fixed to the wall facing the bed, the surface of which lay smooth and untouched, and from which he quickly averted his eyes; his primary task was to put the youngster at ease, and staring at the bed predator-style was not the way to achieve that goal. The transition between dominant master and pervy old geezer was sometimes inadvertently achieved with no more than a glance and it wouldn’t be the first time he’d made that error. And so he let his eyes wander around the room a bit.

  It was large and fairly modern, with one wall, the one behind the bed, painted a rich deep purple, a colour reflected in the soft blanket folded at the foot of that pristine mattress. As well as the two more comfortable chairs, tables and a desk with accompanying straight-backed seat, there was a long window letting in ample light and two full-length, rather narrow mirrors, one beside the bathroom door and the other on a wall next to the armchairs. There was also the inevitable tray of tea and coffee accoutrements.

  Tamsin watched, gaze unflinching, though her bottom lip had all but disappeared under the bite of her upper teeth, a gesture more of concentration than kittenish. He pointed to one of the bucket chairs and she nodded; of course he could sit down.

  “Can I get you a drink?” She remained standing and spoke in a rather formal tone, considering their previous conversations. “Lemonade, whisky… a combination of the two…?”

  “I’ll not be drinking tonight, lassie,” he said, “although a lemonade would be nice, thanks. Was your journey okay?”

  She was surprised at his refusal of alcohol, and it made her a little uneasy to drink alone, but if ever a person needed a drink, she was that person. Tamsin had promised herself that she wouldn’t let any nerves show through, but this was proving an oath she might soon have to break, as even unscrewing the bottle top seemed impossible with so shaky a hand. LittleGirlLost was quivering, eyes widening, trembling from the shoulders down. The small cloud of doubt that had hovered around her head for the past few weeks had dispersed and total certainty had jumped into its place.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” she said, blurting the words out like steaming coffee from an overfilled espresso pot. “I mean, yes, the journey was fine, great, but I’m sorry, I just want to be home. I mean, I want this, I do, but something just seems so weird, and, you’re a nice guy, I can see, but I just can’t. I can’t. It’s just nuts.”

  She was shaking her head, an involuntary action, which was slumped down like the rest of her body as she spoke, as if nothing on the planet could or would convince her to stay, and Alasdair was momentarily torn between a fear of his own disappointment and the need to make this young woman feel at ease. His time with Lyall’s mum, Lexi, had given him plenty of practice with what he assumed were panic attacks, and this felt to him like the beginnings of a spark that could either flame up and put her on the next train home, or be damped down. That was his challenge.

  “Look, sit down,” he said slowly, modulated and relying entirely on the power of his voice. He stood up, and took care to keep a healthy distance between them. “It’s fine. Whatever you choose to do, I’ll help you with it. I’ll sort out your return journey, if you need it, but truly, girl, you need to relax. You’re safe here. You’re safe.”

  For the second time that day, he pointed his left index finger towards the chair he’d just vacated, and guided her bit by bit with actions, not touching her, to sit down herself. Alasdair took the cosy woollen blanket from the foot of the bed and threw it over her. He then poured her a stiff one, still nothing for himself, into a plain white tea mug from the beverage tray and p
assed it over with a degree of deliberation. He sat down then on the wooden desk chair, the seat of which was covered with black imitation leather; it squeaked a little, fart-like, as he settled down.

  Tamsin smiled weakly in response to the eyebrow he raised sheepishly at the suspicious noise. It was the kind of smile that curved her lips a little down at the edges rather than up.

  “I know, I know, that’s the stupid thing, how safe I am, but I just,” she paused and slugged a hefty shot, the dainty fingers of her right hand curled firmly around the cup. “I just feel so silly and so totally out of my comfort zone, and I know it’s wrong, because this is about me, but I just…”

  “You’re thinking that maybe I’m just some dirty auld man, and that if you let me into your head I’ll take advantage of you and you’ll be left soiled with shivers running down at the memory of some filthy thing or things you wished you hadn’t done?”

  With pursed lips and a slight gleam returning to her eye, LittleGirlLost started to giggle a little, and raised her almost black eyes to look at him.

  “You’re thinking that I’m going to do things to you that your young lads haven’t and then you’ll, maybe, lose control and not know how to get it back? Maybe even become addicted to your old Meister? Hey, LittleGirl? Is that what you’re thinking? Is it, you cheeky wee thing?”

  Alasdair was still studiously not touching her, or moving closer, but by this point, she was barely holding it together, like a kid being tickled and writhing in her chair. Her bare feet were tucked up under her and she seemed to be decreasing in size before his eyes. She had tucked her short straight brown bob behind her ears and looked totally enchanting and absolutely exposed. There was something almost oriental about her, he thought – almond eyes, snub of a nose and full pink-lipped small mouth – and presently, when she had calmed herself and regained her poise, she looked up at him with a flicker of a secret smile on that perfectly drawn Cupid’s bow.

  The reality was, in her head at least, that she had to stay there, with him, in that hotel, or this was a spectre that was going to keep returning to haunt her. Everything she had read about and experienced of the BDSM scene had left her, if not hungering for, then profoundly interested in exploring what he had said could feel like an out-of-body experience, and one that he could give her. She loved the notion of being under the command, at the sexual mercy, of someone she truly trusted, but, genuinely, it was more than that; Tamsin coveted the strong whole-body buzzing feeling accompanied by a total lack of focus that she’d seen reported again and again.

  “It is apparently caused by endorphins, adrenalin, or other body chemistry. The actual sensation varies among individuals,” she’d read in a PhetX post she’d instantly favourited. “For me it’s a kind of warm, floaty, spacey, serene feeling which is less bothered by pain. Some people attach spiritual significance to the experience. For me it is the entire point of kinky play.”

  She had already let him down once, two weeks earlier, sending a frenzied email suggesting that she might be wrong and that it was all a mistake, in order to back out of their initially arranged meeting the night before it was due to occur.

  Honestly? She’d never even booked her train tickets. She had kept meaning to, but it simply never happened, although she knew he had his return ticket in hand; indeed, he had told her how he had gone down to the ticket office at Edinburgh station to purchase it rather than click a few keys on the internet. He had insisted that he preferred to trust traditional methods when it came to mundane transactions, rather than a website, although there was no denying that when it came to prowling, the internet opened many more doors. Something in the pit of her screamed that this whole thing was a bad call on her part, and however much she gulped it down, it would occasionally sneak back up on her.

  So they sat. She nested deeper, wrapping herself tightly under the blanket, while he talked calmly and with a studied precision about, to begin with, his arrival in Manchester, and the history of Piccadilly station since it first opened in 1842. He continued through the architecture of this northern city and began comparing it, with a passion she found remarkable, with the buildings of Glasgow, where he had spent a chunk of his youth. It was, thought Tamsin, the type of rambling that would normally have had her snoring, but it required no response whatsoever and she let his voice, with its slight poetic lilt, immerse her awhile, drifting in a soothing blend of JD and monologue.

  She unfolded in the chair a little and stretched her svelte legs out in front of her, so that the tips of her toes, nails painted shiny black, he noticed, rested on the very edge of that big bed.

  “Of course, neither city can compete with the glorious buildings of Edinburgh, which is where I was born and has been my stamping ground for most of my adult life. At last count, there were, I believe, more than four-and-a-half-thousand listed buildings, with an Old Town that includes that spectacular medieval fortress at the castle, and even the New Town dates back as far the early 1800s, when the major figures of the Scottish Enlightenment wanted to escape the over-crowded Old Town… Have you ever visited our capital?”

  And she was aware, suddenly, of the need for a response.

  “Erm, London? Yes, I’ve a few uni friends who moved straight there after we finished, though for some of them they were just going back home. But, erm, yeah, the buildings are really, erm, cool.” And as her mouth closed and she looked over at his ridiculously solemn expression, her head began to nod in a tipsy semblance of wisdom, while she bit her bottom lip tightly to suppress the sniggers that threatened to bubble out, and then eventually did.

  “I was actually referring to another capital entirely,” he said. “But no matter, you sound like you’re in a good place and I’m pleased. Can I get you anything? If you’re famished, I’m sure I could call down and get the kitchen to rustle us up some food?”

  “I’m in a good place. Kindly_Meister, I’m in one seriously good place, and this is where I plan to stay, though I kind of need to pee more than anything, and I’m way too hyped up still to feel like eating.”

  With this, she got up and manoeuvred herself with a wavering lurch past Alasdair, whose chair stood between her and the large bathroom, the door to which was on the other side of the bed.

  She went in and closed the door, and for a weird little moment, it occurred to her that, considering their chats and his penchant for watersports, he might decide it was cool to walk in on her unannounced, a prospect that filled her with both terror and suppressed disgust. So she turned the lock as slowly and quietly as her inebriation permitted, allowing him neither the discomfort of knowing her fears nor the chance to bring them to life. The thought, it has to be said, would not even have occurred to Alasdair, who had an acutely heightened sense of boundaries, a thorough appreciation of the codes and rules and the necessity of abiding by these in the world of kink.

  Blissfully oblivious to her barely bottled-up discomfort, Kindly_Meister stood and placed himself by the foot of the bed, looking down at the desk, and began flicking through the hotel information file. There was nothing in there that he didn’t already know, having paid close attention on the website to things like breakfast and checkout times; this was more of a focus than a fact-finding opportunity.

  Tamsin, meanwhile, had both of her hands on the pseudo marble sink-shelf combination, and was staring into herself in the fogged-up mirror. Not too wasted to be present, she was tanked up enough to feel both excited and on the outer edges of lust. She was finally ready to accept that everything was going to be all right. The JD had done half the job for him. All he had to do was keep it up.

  2. Megan

  “Well, what do you think the answer could be?” asked Mrs O’Hare, looking with an encouraging hopefulness, veering towards desperation, at little Adnan Guerra. His bright blue eyes were invisible beneath his plush eyelashes, so firmly glued were they downwards to the question on the personal whiteboard on the desk in front of him. Her every cell was willing him to succeed for both their sakes.
>
  “If twenty-one divided by three,” she repeated, “is seven… which we’ve already said it is, haven’t we… how can we use that information to work out what two hundred and ten divided by three is?”

  “Seventy… it’s obvious… you simply move the digits over to the left!” shouted Krishnan Ali, with a self-satisfied sigh; his position in the class, where he sat directly opposite Adnan on a table of four children, was ordinarily the blight of Megan O’Hare’s support teaching sessions in class 5JF’s maths lesson every Tuesday morning. Today, however, it was too close both to the lunch bell and to the end of a very hard term to be anything other than a blessed relief for both student and teaching assistant, and although Megan cast Krishnan a disapproving glance, Adnan’s look of abject relief at this reprieve was more than usually echoed by her own feeling.

  “That’s right, Krishnan,” she said, “though Adnan was about to answer and it was rather unfair of you not to give him the chance. Do you understand how Krishnan got to seventy, Adnan?”

  The ringing of the bell coincided with the frantic nodding of the boy’s head, and both adult and child conspired to pretend they believed his delusory yes. Adnan packed up and charged out of the classroom to his monitor duty, while Megan gathered the equipment left behind on the table and placed it into the various labelled trays ready for the next day.

  “How’s he coming on?” Her colleague Erin Grosel looked genuinely worried. In her mid-thirties, she was a tall, stockily sporty woman with a crinkly eyed, pink-cheeked face, the kind on which concern seemed permanently etched.

  They chatted briefly about the lesson, Megan acutely aware of the time and the need to get moving.

  Her youngest child, Sam, was due at the dentist in 47 minutes, and she hadn’t yet fetched him from playgroup, which, although it was attached to the school, invariably involved a slight strop as she peeled him away from whatever activity he was engrossed in. As she began excusing herself, the concern on Miss Grosel’s face became ever more acute, and Megan wondered fleetingly if this woman ever lightened up or was simply fated to drown in a sea of eternal fretfulness.