Sarah's Education

by Madeline Moore

  Veronica smiled the smile of a predator. ‘Exactly. That’s why the rich ones will pay handsomely for dates with their impossible dreams. Do you think you could play the part, Sarah?’

  ‘Double pay? Give me time to research the kink, and I’m sure I can.’ Sarah paused for thought. ‘Veronica, if I’m going to spend time on research, and if the date is so obsessed, why don’t you tell him that for three times our usual rates we promise him the smoking sex experience of his life?’

  ‘You think you could deliver on that guarantee?’

  ‘I bet I can.’

  Veronica pulled half a dozen magazines and a couple of DVDs from her desk drawer. ‘Very well, here’s a start to your research. The magazines are his. He wants them back. He’s marked the pictures that turn him on the most. That should help you.’ She pushed the box of cigarettes towards Sarah. ‘These are what he’ll want you to smoke. A warning, though.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If you research online, have your virus filters and so on in place and up-to-date. Some smoking fetish sites are contaminated.’

  ‘I’ll be careful, I promise.’

  That night, Sarah pulled her little desk over to one of her two small windows, opened it wide, slid a DVD into her laptop, lit one of the long cigarettes and picked up her pen. There was a yellow pad beside the stack of magazines. She was prepared for total immersion in her research. By the end of the week, she’d decided, she was going to be the smoking fetishist’s ideal woman. For the very first time, she was being chosen for a date for her sophistication, not for her innocence. That was very satisfying.

  Two days later, she spent eight solid hours in front of her mirror, practising. Three days after that, she scoured the better hotels, looking for exactly the right setting. At the end of the week she delivered a typed sheet of paper to Veronica.

  ‘Tell him that he has to follow these instructions, to the letter.’

  Veronica scanned the page. ‘You think he’ll play along?’

  ‘He’s a fetishist. He won’t be able to resist. His cock won’t let him.’

  ‘I like your attitude, Sarah. Anything else I can do to help?’

  ‘Costume is important. So is hair and make-up. May I borrow from wardrobe?’

  ‘Craig will take care of you there. I’ll book you with Carlo for the make-up and hair.’

  ‘I’ll need a wig, a long straight blonde one.’

  ‘Carlo has wigs. Anything else?’

  ‘You’ll bill the client for the hotel room?’

  ‘Of course.’

  An hour before her date was due, Sarah let herself into the room she’d booked. It had no bed. There were two oversized leather club chairs and a matching four-seater sofa, each with its own side table. Sarah drew on her stagecraft to arrange the furniture and lighting.

  In the en suite bathroom, she checked her appearance. Her hair glistened halfway down to her waist. Her eyes were theatrical, with heavy silver lids, impossibly long artificial lashes and tip-tilted corners. Her lips were wet and scarlet. Carlo had exaggerated her cheekbones for her while leaving her face very pale. She looked wicked.

  The bodice of her smoke-grey silk dress was an ‘M’ held up by spaghetti straps. The points of the ‘M’ just, only just, covered her nipples. The skirt of her dress was slit to her waist but rendered barely decent by press studs from the top of her thigh to her hip. She kicked her loafers off and stepped into pumps that had impossible heels.

  Setting the scene so elaborately, in a way that was designed to delight a man, was fun. What sort of scene would Jon have liked? It was a shame that she didn’t know. The schoolgirl thing hadn’t been his idea, so she had no clues as to his secret fantasies, except that they included bondage and corporal punishment.

  Sarah set what was left of her box of cigarettes on the sofa’s side table, in easy reach, with two books of matches and an oversized ashtray. One cigarette she held, with a third matchbook. She arranged herself carefully, back arched over the sofa’s rounded arm, one leg extended along the seat, the other foot dangling over the edge, with its shoe hanging from her toes. That’s what he’d see first, when he entered the almost dark room, an elegant ankle and foot with a hanging stiletto pump, carefully positioned so as to show ‘toe cleavage’. By the pictures he’d marked, foot fetish, including heels and hose, was his secondary kink.

  There was a diffident knock at the door. Sarah said nothing. His instructions were to let himself in. She ignored a second knock. The lock clicked. Her client slipped into the room, opening the door just wide enough to pass through. All Sarah saw of him was his silhouette, tall and slim, in the light that leaked in before the door closed. His shadowy shape settled into the armchair opposite her and ten feet away. She hadn’t put an ashtray on his side table. Like many smoking fetishists, he didn’t smoke. It was sinful, which made it exciting.

  Sarah gave him a minute to admire her ankle, foot and dangling pump. She put her cigarette between her lips and struck a match. The client sucked in a deep breath. For him, the sight of a woman lighting a cigarette was the equivalent of one baring a breast to a tit freak. Sarah had learnt a lot in the course of surfing fetish sites. Slowly, she closed the distance between the flame and the end of her cigarette. Nonchalantly, she reached out to the chain of the standard lamp and pulled it. Now her face was spotlit – the face, to him, of an excitingly depraved woman.

  She drew deeply, held the smoke in her lungs, then let it trickle from between her lips to be sucked back in through her nostrils – the classic French inhale. Sarah was rewarded by a dramatic sigh. As far as she could see, without letting it show that she was looking, he had his hand in his lap already.

  She dropped her head back, took another drag, and exhaled a long plume of smoke. The wall behind her was dark. The way she’d arranged the lamps, her smoke would be backlit, pale grey.

  Yes, he definitely had his hand in his lap, and his cock in it.

  Ignoring him, she French-inhaled, blew plumes, tried a smoke ring and, when she was sure his attention was on the smoke, surreptitiously popped the press stud at her thigh. A movement of her leg hissed the silk of her dress on her nylon, drawing his attention down to the length of slender thigh she’d exposed. Her cigarette was half burned. She stubbed it and lit another. In the course of consuming her second cigarette, she popped another stud and shifted to part her dress to the top of her thigh. A movement of her foot swayed her dangling pump. Her client gurgled his appreciation.

  Sarah managed to rub herself against the arm of the sofa, dislodging one strap of her dress to dangle halfway down her upper arm, almost baring one breast. After all, he did want actual sex, as well as to watch her smoke.

  Once more, she stubbed half of an extremely expensive cigarette. At last, she turned her gaze in his direction and husked, ‘Light me.’

  He stood as fast as he could while tucking in and zipping up and strode to her. In the indirect lighting from the floor, he looked to be in his late forties, ginger-haired, with a broad high brow, aquiline nose and thin lips. His hands shook as he fumbled with the matchbook and held a quivering flame to the end of her cigarette. She drew deeply and aimed a stream of smoke at his face.

  ‘I …’ he said.

  ‘Stay there, beside me,’ she told him, still keeping her voice husky, like that of a heavy smoker. Keeping her eyes hooded, she treated him to two more plumes of smoke to his face. For the first time, she let him see that she was looking directly at him. A shrug slithered the loose strap to her elbow, baring her right breast. His eyes darted from her nipple to her mouth and back again. Sarah bent her head and aimed a stream of smoke at her own nipple. In the still air of the room, wreaths of smoke circled her breast. That focused his attention.

  Sarah took her cigarette from between her lips and held it low, letting its smoke rise in a rippling veil over her breast. Her fingers reversed her cigarette, bringing its glowing tip close enough below her nipple that she could feel its heat. His eyes widened.


  ‘Ashtray,’ she said.

  He took it from the table and held it for her. After she’d flicked her ash, she brought the filter end of her cigarette to her nipple and caressed herself with it. He spluttered in a most satisfactory way. While his eyes were riveted to what she was doing, she popped the last stud on her skirt’s slit. Cool air caressed her tummy.

  ‘Take it out,’ she told him.

  ‘Wha–?’

  ‘Your cock. Take it out.’

  ‘Yes, of course.’ He unzipped and pulled out a very slender, very white, shaft. It was cute rather than impressive and might have been a rather thick king-sized cigarette. Could the similarity be the origin of his sexual preference, or just coincidental? The way he stood there with his cock hanging out half-erect, it looked as if he was unsure what he should do with it. Sarah let him wonder and smoked some more, ignoring his discomfort. It felt a little strange for her, taking the dominant role, but she let herself be guided by what she’d learnt from her research.

  When she stubbed again, he snatched up the matches and held them ready. Very slowly, Sarah selected another from the box of identical smokes, inspected it and put it to her lips with, ‘You may.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Once more, his hands trembled as he lit her cigarette. Seeming to gather his courage, he asked her, ‘What may I call you?’

  Sarah let her eyes narrow before replying, ‘Lady Nicotine, of course.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Her next smoke ring circled his cock. It leapt in response. She directed a plume directly at its head. It twitched. Sarah filled her lungs, French-inhaled, and opened her mouth into a smoke-filled ‘O’. Holding the smoke there, she brushed her dress aside, exposing her pubes and slit, reached down and inserted the filter tip between her pussy lips.

  Her client buckled at his knees.

  Sarah slowly masturbated herself with the cigarette. His cock strained and quivered. She plucked the cigarette out and held it up to his mouth.

  ‘I don’t,’ he said.

  ‘Do it!’ she commanded.

  His lips closed on the pussy-juice soaked end. He sucked. She returned the cigarette to her pussy.

  He gasped, ‘Oh God!’

  She gave him another drag with the order, ‘Hold it!’

  He obeyed.

  She pulled his face down to hers and told him, ‘Kiss me.’ As he did so, she sucked the smoke from his mouth, blew it back, sucked it again and then released it, their mouths an inch apart, to swirl about both of their faces. When she took his shaft into her free hand it was rigid.

  With an aloof look on her face, she slowly pumped his cock while blowing smoke at it. He had to clutch the arm of the sofa to stay upright. By the way his thighs were flexing inside his trousers, she had him close to a climax but it was far too soon for that. The poor man was paying dearly for the smoking fetish experience of his life. She owed it to him to prolong his pleasure.

  She said, ‘There are drinks in the minibar. Pour me one.’

  ‘Oh – of course. What would you like?’

  Somehow, champagne didn’t seem appropriate. ‘Whiskey.’

  ‘Should I get ice?’

  ‘No, pour it straight up, for both of us.’ Instinctively, she knew that he’d rather drink what she told him to drink than whatever he usually did.

  When he returned with a drink in each hand, Sarah had another cigarette waiting to be lit. She made no move to take a glass from him. Looking confused, her client clunked both glasses down on the side table and hurriedly fumbled a light from the matchbook. Sarah arched back to take a glass. She took a long drag from her cigarette, drank half the whiskey in her glass, looked him in the eye and exhaled the smoke she’d been holding in her lungs while she’d swallowed. He seemed to like that so she did it again, draining her glass.

  ‘You may drink,’ she said.

  ‘Thank you, Lady Nicotine.’ He made the last word of her pseudonym three distinct and savoured syllables.

  Sarah twitched her extended foot. Her pump fell to the floor. He glanced down at it, uncertain how to react.

  ‘Put it back on for me,’ she told him.

  He stooped. His fumbling fingers obeyed her command, inserting just her toes and leaving the pump dangling once more. When he touched her stockinged foot, his face contorted with lust.

  ‘Kiss it,’ she said.

  He pressed his lips reverently to her instep.

  ‘Stand now.’ Her cigarette was halfway burnt so she put it out and had him light her a fresh one, which she held in her left hand instead of her right. The first two fingers of her right hand took hold of his stem in the same way that she was holding the cigarette. She looked from one to the other, as if comparing. Sarah held her next drag in her lungs, applied her lips to his cock, sucked on it, withdrew and exhaled a plume, as if his cock had been a cigarette. He clutched the sofa’s arm again.

  Sarah repeated, cigarette, cock, French-inhale, cigarette, cock, plume, over and over. He was trembling from head to foot. Very subtly, she moved the fingers that held his shaft, gently masturbating him. His face turned purple. His legs stiffened, pushing his hips forwards. When Sarah judged that he was on the very brink, she stubbed her cigarette and moved the ashtray closer, just in time for him to grunt and ejaculate into the tray, on top of the ashes and crushed butts.

  He staggered backwards. ‘Oh! Oh!’ The backs of his calves hit the armchair. He fell into it with a groan.

  Sarah lit up again and waited. She was heartily sick of the smoke but she didn’t let it show. Would he want to go again?

  Her client recovered, stood and zipped himself. ‘Thank you. That was … Most marvellous. Thank you.’ He left the room.

  Sarah butted out. The entire date, not counting her research and preparation time, had taken an hour and a half. Usually, she earned about a hundred bucks an hour plus tips. This time, she’d made twenty times that. When next she spoke to Veronica she’d remind her that she wanted any kinky fetishistic clients, provided they weren’t dangerous or icky.

  Those upmarket whores she’d seen in Veronica’s waiting room – she bet that they never made $3,000 an hour by attending their silly parties.

  22

  ‘GOD I LOVE this class.’ Penny moved the books she’d used to save Sarah a front row seat so Sarah could sit down. ‘Professor Trelawney really makes you think, doesn’t he?’

  Sarah nodded. Christopher, seated on Penny’s other side, leant forwards and tapped his temple. ‘I love to think, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes!’ Penny hugged him. ‘I’m going to miss you next year. Why don’t you come to Berkeley with me?’

  ‘Perhaps. It all depends on which fine institution of higher learning offers me the biggest scholarship. In the meantime we could spend the summer together, baking in the blazing Bajan sun,’ said Christopher. He grinned at Sarah. ‘You too, babe. It’s time for some midnight love …’

  Sarah smiled. She’d given up trying to engage in playful banter with her friends in the moments before Jon entered the lecture hall. It was pointless. They’d figured out she had a mad crush on the teacher. Perhaps it was because every time she saw him Sarah blushed beet red. She could not help herself. Apparently, her sympathetic nervous system went into hyperdrive at the very scent of Jon.

  ‘Sympathetic to what,’ Penny had wondered when Sarah’d offered her clinical explanation for her flushed face.

  ‘Her pudenda,’ Christopher had suggested.

  No, better to just sit quietly and let them amuse each other while she arranged her notebook and pen and tugged her short skirt down so her friends couldn’t see the lacy tops of her fancy stayups.

  ‘My love,’ whispered Christopher, ‘is like a red, red rose.’ He grinned, then suddenly gaped at Sarah. ‘Hey!’

  Jon strode to the podium. Sarah dropped her pen. She leant down to pick it up and knocked over Penny’s stack of notes.

  ‘Shit!’ Sarah almost never swore out loud. Why now? ‘Sorry,’ she said in response to Jon’s rais
ed eyebrow.

  ‘Everybody ready? Let’s begin,’ he said.

  Sarah tried to concentrate. Jon was, as Penny had opined, a terrific teacher and the material was nothing short of mind-blowing. Yet all she could do in his class was compulsively play their weekend together in her mind. He was the one. Why didn’t he see that?

  Or was she destined to fall in love with her clients, over and over again, mistaking business transactions for something much more. Something she might never have, if she continued in her present profession. The sound of the bell shook her from her reverie.

  She glanced around, startled that an hour had passed. Sarah was gratified to see that she wasn’t the only blank-eyed student. Boys and girls alike were transfixed by Trelawney’s lectures.

  As this was their last class of the day the three friends usually repaired to the student pub before heading home. Christopher had something to attend to so Penny and Sarah started off together.

  ‘Come to Berkeley with me,’ said Penny. She was on a crusade to get Sarah to at least apply to a few universities for the fall and the one she was heading to was top of the list. We could have a blast. Fun, sun and philosophy. I bet you could still get in.’

  ‘Nah.’ Sarah kicked the loose snow along the path to the pub. She always felt a little blue after her ethics class. She couldn’t seem to shake Jon from her system the way she’d eventually managed to shake Jack. ‘I’m sick of school.’

  ‘I never thought I’d hear you say that,’ said Penny. ‘I thought you were going all the way, sister. Dr Sarah Meadows.’

  ‘We’ll see. Maybe later,’ said Sarah.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Nothin’, why?’

  ‘Lately you’ve become aloof again. I thought we’d really become friends.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘So talk to me. I can keep a secret. If there’s something going on between –’

  ‘Between?’

  ‘I don’t know. Between you and Professor Trelawney. Or maybe you and Christopher?’

  Sarah froze in her tracks. Trelawney? Christopher? ‘Oh my God! I have to stop Christopher!’