Lecture Notes

by Justine Elyot

  “A lesson?”

  “Yes. You don’t seem to have any respect for me, so I’ve called on somebody you do respect. He is going to help me deliver this lesson.”

  “What? You’ve done what? Who?”

  “Sinclair.”

  “Oh God, please, not Sinclair!” I almost giggle at the corny way she delivers the line, but I remember to be appalled when a pinstriped Sinclair appears at the side of the shot, carrying a briefcase in one hand and some longer implements…a cane, and I think a crop…in the other. They must have stuck the camera on a tripod or something. Unless there’s someone else…bloody hell. Sodom and Gomorrah, right here in my living room.

  “Please not Sinclair?” his distinctive voice is low and silky, with a definite edge. “Why would that be, young lady?”

  “You’re so strict!” wails Mel. “I can’t negotiate with you like I can with Rob.”

  “Indeed. Hence his need to call on me. Perhaps this will have the positive effect on your behaviour that is so sorely needed.”

  “Very sorely,” grins Rob. “How do you advise we start this off?”

  Sinclair comes to sit on the sofa next to his odious friend. “I’d like you to take her over your knee and show me how you discipline her first.”

  “Fine.” Rob motions Mel to her feet and she drops herself sideways over his lap. Sinclair nips up and adjusts the camera so that it zooms into her expectant globes. No fourth person in the room, then; just the fourth wall.

  “Begin,” says Sinclair once he has returned. Rob raises his hand and commences spanking Mel, the slaps raining down fast and moderately hard, though Mel does not even try to move and appears scarcely affected. “Is that your hardest stroke?” asks Sinclair politely.

  “Oh no, I can go harder than this. Would you like to see?” The mild splats turn to earnest smacking sounds and Mel starts to jerk around, voicing the odd complaint beneath Rob’s intransigent palm. Sinclair occasionally offers advice, pointing out areas that seem less reddened, or urging Rob not to slack off when he seems to tire.

  “It’s all very well, Sinclair,” protests Rob. “But don’t you ever find that this hurts your hand? I can’t seem to go for longer than five minutes or so.”

  “You need to stiffen your palm,” says Sinclair. “Although it’s probable that your skin is more sensitive than mine. I find I can spank very hard for twenty minutes before I feel an adverse effect. Perhaps you should move on now.” He takes his briefcase, snaps it open and removes an oval-backed wooden hairbrush. “This will spare your precious palms.”

  “Thanks.” Rob takes the hairbrush and spends another five minutes achieving full coverage of Mel’s rear. By now she is starting to suffer, her breath coming in short gasps, though she does nothing like pleading or crying out, like I would.

  “Good,” says Sinclair. “Nice and red all over. Put her in the corner and I’ll take over from here.” He lays one hand on Mel’s bottom, seeming pleased with the heat that transfers from it. Mel jumps up and allows Rob to escort her to the corner of the room. He comes back and picks up the camera, moving it closer to Mel’s humiliating billet. Sinclair moves out of shot for a second or two, then returns, swishing his riding crop through the air. Ah, I feel a slight thrill of recognition. It’s the same one he uses on me; the one I’m supposed to have between my teeth right now. Oh, weirdness, weirdness. This is not like recognising someone you were at school with on the local news – this is a SEX FILM and the star is YOUR BOYFRIEND. Heh heh. Boyfriend. That sounds so wrong. Look, I should be getting worked up and hysterical. I should stop drifting off into silly mental alleyways. Though I suspect this is all a coping mechanism. Anyway, he is up behind Mel now and he is going to say something.

  “How does this feel, Mel?” he says. “To know that your behaviour has been so unsatisfactory that Rob has had to call in a disciplinarian for you?”

  “Uh…” Mel is lost for words. The crop cracks down on her arse. I feel squirmy on her behalf. I imagine it’s me in that corner, taking the stroke. I certainly know how that feels.

  “Well?”

  “I’m ashamed, sir,” she mumbles. The crop lashes once more.

  “I didn’t quite catch that.”

  “I’m ashamed, sir.”

  “As you should be.” Another stroke. “We are going to rectify the situation so that Rob can be proud of you rather than ashamed. What do you say to that?”

  Another stroke.

  “That’s good, sir.” Another stroke.

  “You won’t be forgetting this lesson in a hurry.” Another stroke and she jumps slightly to the left; the first real physical reaction I have seen from her. Sinclair moves her back into place with a stroke to the thigh, the cruelty of which makes me protest on her behalf. “Ooh, you bastard,” I say under my breath.

  “Now then, Mel, you will be bending over the arm of the sofa and receiving thirty strokes of the cane.”

  Thirty?! And Mel echoes my thought, yelping “Thirty!?” Swit swat, on the nasty spot between thigh and buttock.

  “That’s right. Thirty.” One final smack of the crop and he throws it aside (but not before he is sure it will land on the sofa rather than the floor). “I have to make sure you are going to take this seriously. Now take your place over the arm of the sofa, legs apart at shoulder-width, if you please.”

  “I’m not sure I can do thirty with the cane,” mopes Mel, possibly regretting her choice of birthday entertainment now. “Can’t you use the strap instead?”

  “As you mentioned yourself earlier on, Mel, I am not a man you negotiate with. Now bend over.”

  I am agog as the caning commences. I cannot even imagine what thirty strokes would be like. Eight was barely tolerable; after thirty I doubt I’d have any arse left to speak of. Mel grits her teeth and rolls around on the balls of her feet as Sinclair swipes on, having her count each stroke. Her voice gets weaker and weaker, her fingers scratch the upholstery and clutch, but somehow she keeps position. She must be very experienced. Will I ever be that experienced with caning? Fuck, what a thought. If I really want Sinclair, I suppose I’ll have to be.

  She makes it to thirty, her bottom a clutter of red stripes. “Thirty, sir,” she whispers faintly.

  “One to grow on,” prompts Rob from behind the camera, and Sinclair gives the most savage stroke yet, through which Mel can no longer keep still. She leaps to her feet, shrieking and clutching at her bum. I can see it is on the tip of her tongue to swear at Sinclair, but even she does not dare. He places his hand on the back of her neck, his fingers pressing into the flesh there.

  “I should bend you back down and give you six more,” he says in a voice that makes me, and presumably Mel, shiver. “However, since it’s your birthday….”

  He goes to sit on the sofa, unbuckling his belt and unbuttoning his trousers. “…I shall let you off with an appropriate expression of gratitude for the correction I have taken time out of my schedule to administer.”

  Mel knows the score. She goes to kneel between Sinclair’s knees while Rob zooms the camera down on to her plentifully striped and alarmingly red backside. “Lovely job, Sinclair,” he comments, just as my beloved’s tool makes its guest appearance on the show. I have to admit, he’s a natural in front of the camera. I wonder what the History Matters team would make of this little presentation though. Mel bends her head obediently down and sucks his tip into her mouth. Rob messes about with the angles, presumably unsure whether to go for Mel’s bottom, or her mouth sliding wetly up and down that magnificent shaft, or Sinclair’s face, or…not sure why that shot of the bookshelf is in there; it seems Rob is getting a bit distracted now.

  “Put the camera down, Rob, and join in,” invites Sinclair, a bit groanily, staring avidly down at his eager cocksucker. “I think she needs some attention below. I’m sure she must be quite wet by now.” Mel moans. Rob needs no second bidding; he clunks the camera down so it catches Mel and Sinclair at a slight angle, diagonally on to the lens. Mel’s oral (and rat
her vocal) exhibition is caught in its full effect, while Rob dances around trying to get his trousers off as hastily as possible, needing release for his substantial erection.

  Within seconds he is kneeling behind Mel, his hands on her naked breasts, pushing his cock up inside her from behind. “Oh God, Mel, your arse is so hot,” he breathes. “You’re going to be feeling that for days.”

  “S the idea,” says Sinclair, struggling a little now. Mel has got him almost all the way down her throat; no mean feat. She is caterwauling non-stop while Rob bangs in from the back and Sinclair is holding tightly on to her hair, forcing her movements.

  It’s as if I’m caught up in this frantic three-way shag, unable to step away or avert my eyes. I don’t know how to feel…part of me is bereft at Sinclair’s part in this, part of me is just shocked and part of me is…jealous of Mel. Not that I think I could….But I think, in a way, I’m turned on. I’m imagining I’m her…and it’s….oh…

  I have seen that look on Sinclair’s face; it means he is about to come. And he does, hard, into Mel’s mouth, while Rob continues to jackhammer in and out, slapping up against her decorative rump. Sinclair pulls out slowly, inch by inch, still holding Mel’s face. There is utter dispassion in his eyes as he looks at her slightly smeared features.

  “When you’ve finished there, Rob, I want her arse,” he says. I gasp.

  And then I gasp again when I look up to the doorway and see that Sinclair is back.

  We both dive for the VCR at the same time; he gets there first. “What are you doing, Beth?” he asks, and there is something like fear mixed with the exasperation and the sternness.

  I kneel up, having lunged too far and fallen almost on my face into the carpet. “I…just…” I cannot think of a single thing to say.

  He removes the cassette and stands with it in his hands, boring down on me with flinty eyes.

  “I…just,” I try again. “I…didn’t know you were a…I didn’t know you were for hire.” I spit the words out, wanting to reel them back in instantly, and collapse, sobbing hopelessly, face-first into the deep pile. He drags me up by my elbow, pushes me over to the sofa, sits down beside me and allows me to unleash a monsoon of woe on to his expensive shirt. Thomas Pink, I think. This’ll be the world’s priciest snotrag. It’s all a bit strange. Why isn’t he scolding me? Why is there no threat of the caning to end all canings being made? Why is he holding me firmly against him, running fingers through my hair, shushing me, rocking me? Come to think of it, why am I so devastated anyway? What am I actually crying about? I’m not sure I even know.

  My piteous outpourings dampen down to juddery snuffles. “Hush, Beth, hush,” soothes Sinclair, betraying no irritation as yet for the lamentable state of his shirt. “Come on. Better?”

  I nod into his chest.

  “I’ll get you something to drink.”

  He lets go of me and I flop down into the cushions, unable to meet his eye as yet. He comes back with a tot of brandy and a box of tissues.

  “Sit up, Beth. Look at me.” The familiarity of his command tone is oddly comforting and I do as I am told reflexively. I take a sip of the brandy and doctor my face with the Kleenex.

  “I’m sorry,” I say unevenly, hoarse with the racking sobs I have just been putting out for the last fifteen minutes. “I suppose it serves me right.”

  “I’m sorry you had to see that,” says Sinclair gravely. “I should have got rid of it really. No purpose to be served in keeping hold of it. Beth, it was a favour between friends.”

  “But you…I mean…a favour? Shagging that cow?”

  He almost smiles for a minute, but forces it back. “That’s my friend you’re talking about, Beth; I’d appreciate it if you could keep a civil tongue.”

  “Sorry. But I don’t like her. She likes you though.”

  “She doesn’t want me back, if that’s what you think. She wanted a threesome for her birthday. I was single at the time. I didn’t see any reason not to oblige her.”

  “So you wouldn’t do it now?”

  “No I would not. And I’m not going to be berated by you for things I did before we met; is that clear?”

  “Oh, yes.” I love the implication that I have a right to berate him about anything. That makes it sound Official. He wants to be faithful to me. He thinks of us as a legitimate couple. Oh, happy day. “It’s all in the past then?”

  “Very much so.”

  “It was just…horrible. Seeing you with another woman. And I couldn’t help wondering…would you ever want to do that kind of thing…I mean, you know, if you really wanted to, I wouldn’t…” I can’t believe I’m offering this. But I just couldn’t bear it if he ditched me because he thought I was a prude, or something.

  “Beth.” He takes my face in his hands, his eyes searching me, just a foot away from me. “Please don’t offer to do things you aren’t comfortable with just for my sake. I will know.”

  “But I want to make you happy,” I wail.

  “It would not make me happy to share you. It would make me horribly, insanely jealous.” He smiles at the lighting-up effect his words have on me.

  “Really?”

  “When I have something I value, I’m extremely possessive of it, Beth.”

  “And you value me?”

  “I do.”

  “Ohhhh.” It comes out as a long, blissful sigh. This is the happiest moment of my life.

  “Not that I might not like to show you off sometime. I’m not averse to a small display.” I squeak. “You might not want that now, Beth, but the day will come when what I want is what you want.”

  I think about this. It seems preposterous. That could never actually happen, could it? This is all role play, right? Then something else occurs to me. “What you were about to do in that film…?”

  “Yes?”

  I don’t frame the question, merely look up at him with trembly lamb-like eyes. He smiles slightly and nods.

  “When you’re ready,” he says. Eek.

  I quit the questioning while I’m (marginally) ahead and take refuge in the brandy balloon. Sinclair is holding one of my hands, stroking it deliciously. He values me. He would not share me. I bathe in the glow of divine rapture.

  “So, Beth,” says Sinclair softly, looking at me with undisguised affection. “I shall have to punish you.”

  Oh. We’ve got to that part of the conversation already.

  “You have been extremely disobedient.”

  “I know. I’m sorry.”

  “I have a punishment in mind, but I’m interested to hear your views on what would be appropriate. You have half an hour in which to formulate a suitable corrective for your actions this evening, then you will report to me in the office. If your ideas do not match the severity of mine, I will administer the punishment I originally intended. If, however, they exceed my own, then I will accept your suggestion. Think about it, Beth, and present yourself at my office door in half an hour.”

  He kisses me briefly, stands and disappears into his office. I am left gawping in his wake. Oh brother. This is a quandary and a half. Do I bid low, in the hope that he is in a lenient frame of mind? Or do I go for something realistic, only to be told that he had decided only a mild chastisement was in order? I wonder idly if Sinclair was born a sadistic mind-gamer, or whether it developed over time. Was it precipitated by some traumatic event? Then I wonder if I will ever really know him. Will he ever open up to me about his formative experiences, his childhood, his family? Will I ever be important enough to him?

  I am so busy succumbing to these ponderings that half an hour has passed before I can contemplate the matter at hand. Damn. I will have to extemporise.

  Three nervous knocks at his door. The ever-ominous ‘Enter’. It suddenly reoccurs to me that I am naked, whereas he is fully dressed. I note that he has changed his tear-stained shirt. I shuffle into the office, a study in vulnerability with my hands clasped modestly over my privates in a way that flattens my arms to my breasts, my head b
owed and cheeks crimson.

  “Ah, Beth,” he says. He is cross-legged, leaning back expansively in his chair, one hand behind his head. “We have some outstanding matters to address, don’t we? Move your arms to your sides.”

  I am reluctant, but I do as he tells me, exposing my hidden feminine assets to his steady gaze.

  “It hasn’t been long since your last little trip here, has it, Beth?”

  “No, sir.”

  “And do you remember what happened on that occasion?”

  “I…I was caned, sir.”

  “Indeed you were; eight hard strokes, I believe.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And what did you learn from that, Beth?”

  Ha ha, I learned that caning me turns you on, sir, you big mean perve! Do I say that? Er, no. I consider my answer carefully.

  “I learned that I should not disobey your rules, sir.”

  “Did you, Beth? Did you learn it? Did you commit that lesson to your heart and resolve to strive towards absolute obedience?”

  “Well….” Oh God. I know where this is heading.

  “It seems the lesson was not taken to heart, Beth. You disobeyed one rule – not to enter my office without permission – and one instruction – to await me, on your knees, naked, with the riding crop between your teeth. How did this state of affairs come about? I require an explanation.”

  “Well,” I repeat tremulously. “I didn’t think you’d mind if I went into your office now…now I know what’s in there. I didn’t realise that was still the rule…”

  “Did I ever state otherwise?” His tone is sharp and I flinch.

  “No, sir,” I admit. “I don’t think so.”

  “I did not. Until I do, this office is out of bounds to you except when summoned, is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well. Continue. Why did you not follow my instruction?”

  “As you know, sir, I, uh, found that videotape, so… I found it upsetting. I forgot to…do what you said. I’m sorry.” Big, big eyes.

  “I see. In short, you flagrantly disregarded my wishes and my trust. I am extremely disappointed in you, Beth.”