Oh, the reassurance of his embrace, like being folded in a huge blanket of erotic comfort. I feel safety and belonging, even as his hands slip under my skirt and my top, finding their targets without too much fumbling. One hand cups the smooth curve of my bottom, stroking and kneading it, sometimes moving down to my thigh; while the other has yanked down the cups of my bra so he can press his flat palm against the nipples, bringing them to painful hardness with expert ease. He encourages one of my legs over his hip so I am spread, then his fingers stroll down leisurely into the heated crack they find newly-opened. Mmm, I nuzzle into him, pushing and grinding against his hands, bumping up against the hard swell in his trousers.
He lets me out of the kiss just long enough to murmur, “The VC must have been mad to think I could let you go. I could never let you go.”
Blissfully I offer my stinging lips to him again, full of swirly whirly emotion, imagining my insides like one of those big funfair lollipops with different coloured whorls and loops – lust, love, happiness, lust, love, happiness. I flood his probing fingers with my juices and he is unbuckling his belt one-handedly, preparing to roll me over and pounce on top of me when I say, “I trust you, Sinclair.”
He stops for a second, hand clenched over the tooled leather and raises an eyebrow. “Good,” he says. “It’s mutual. Did you want a discussion now or can I resume my original plan to fuck you until you can’t stand?”
“No, what I meant was….” I am overcome with coyness for a few seconds and have to force the words out, “…that thing you wanted me to do….before….well, if you still want it…”
Sinclair frowns intently for a while, then his brow straightens. “That thing?” he says teasingly. “I’m afraid you’ll have to be more explicit than that, Beth. I haven’t the faintest idea what you mean.”
He bloody has, the swine! “You know!” I persist. “Don’t make me say it!”
He shakes his head, mock-mystified. “You want me to chain you up to the office wall and whip you unconscious?”
“NO! You know what I mean…”
“You want me to…put a collar and leash on you and take you for a walk on the Downs?”
“For fuck’s sake, Sinclair! Stop it!”
He laughs. “Well, come on, then. A clue, at least. And don’t think you’ve got away with swearing at me either.”
A clue. Hmmm. I wriggle round to face away from him – this kind of thing is much easier out of range of his penetrating eye contact – then I reach back for his hand and brush the fingers delicately up and down the crack of my behind, dropping it when he seems keen to continue the motion alone. He presses his thumb gently against the tight ring of muscle.
“Really, Beth?” he murmurs, holding it there.
I nod vigorously, my eyes tight shut, hoping against hope that he does not want me to say it in words.
“Tell me.” Fucker!
“You can…if you want you can…oh…please be careful though….oh…youcantakemeupthearse.”
I hear his satisfied exhalation at the same time as a cracker of a slap lands on my right bum cheek. What was that for? The sheer hell of it, no doubt.
“I think we’ll continue proceedings the in the bedroom,” he decrees, nudging me off the sofa with his knee, then taking me by a handful of hair (ouch!) and marching me out of the room while his unbuckled belt jingles and flaps about en route.
“Get undressed,” he orders, moving a quartet of pillows to the centre of the bed, as he did yesterday when he was about to strap me. Eek. Not that again, I hope. I shimmy out of my already-severely-compromised outfit and stand fidgeting while he arranges the scene to his satisfaction. “I want you over these cushions, on all fours now,” he says.
“You aren’t going to…?”
“Just do it.”
I position myself as required, finding myself admiring the view of the heavy cotton duvet cover once more, thinking that very soon I’ll be able to reproduce from memory every single thread. Sinclair kneels on the bed beside me, puts his fingers on the back of my neck and starts…oh, heaven…massaging it, quite gently, moving on to my shoulders.
“You need to be relaxed for this,” he says softly. “No tension, no anxiety. You will enjoy it if you can let go of your fears.” He drops a kiss on to the nape of my neck, then starts sucking at the flesh around it while his hands brush up and down the curve of my spine. At some point he starts using some scented oil, warming it in his palm before drip-drip-dripping it on to my skin. When he moves down from my back, over my tailbone and into the area of interest, I do feel my muscles stiffen involuntarily, knowing what it is in store for them. I get two strong smacks to each cheek for my trouble and a stern warning to stop clenching. “Trust me, Beth. You said you trusted me. Open up to me.” The skin is stretched taut in this position, and I feel as if there are handprints glowing on it, even as he rubs the oil diligently over every square millimetre of my bottom, down to my inner thighs, then back up, moving inwards, inexorably inwards. God, it is hard not to tense up again as I sense the progress of his fingers. It is tickly and I feel skittish, starting to squirm and rotate my ankles until he deems me too restless and spanks me again, a good half dozen this time. I decide to concentrate on breathing…in…out…in…out…in…oh, lubricant, oh God, he is greasing up the tiny pucker and it feels obscenely invasive; it is all I can do not to clench and try to pull away from him, but I will breathe…I trust….in….out…and after all, the idea that he will take me there is fantastically sexy in a taboo, forbidden kind of way. I will belong to him completely, and I am ready to belong to him in that way. I am ready to let him all the way in, as he has let me.
“I’m going to start with a finger, Beth,” he says, his mouth down close to my ear. “Just let it happen…just…that’s it…” There is a soft splurt of lubricant as his finger breaks the ring, which I have managed not to clench by some form of superhuman endeavour. “That’s good, Beth, you’re doing well.” It is not painful, just peculiar. The feel of it wiggling and pushing against the sides, testing their flexibility, is so odd I am helpfully transfixed with my attempts to describe in words in my head. What word would describe this feeling? Squishy, squirmy, wormy…squirmishy perhaps. Squirmishy, yeah.
But when Sinclair asks me how it feels, I just say, “Fine”.
“Fine?” he queries in a knitted-brow tone. “Are you understating, or are you trying to please me? How does it really feel?”
“Well….just…interesting, I suppose.”
“Good. Interesting is good. I’m going to add another finger then.”
He retracts the exploratory digit then forges forward again with its neighbour in tandem. This time it is a little harder to accept; there is a chafey kind of soreness on entry but he moves his wrist so that they slide in with relative ease, though he takes it slowly, very slowly, conscious of my screwed up face and stored-up breath.
“You can breathe out, you know,” he reminds me. “Probably a good idea. Keep relaxed and open, love. You’re doing very well. I’m almost all the way in now.” He moves his fingers back and forth, pushing them in right up to the knuckles, keeping his other hand on my neck, stroking it calmingly. “Brave girl,” he whispers. “Are you ready?”
I make a small noise at the back of my throat; I am still afraid, but I do not want to let him down. And I have to admit, it does feel almost nice now.
The fingers pop out, a little more lube is smeared outside and up around the entrance and then…oh….his hands are on my hips and I can feel him push, God, it’s enormously wide and thick, surely it will not…ah. I yelp a little and try to elude his grip, but he holds firm. “Don’t be afraid, Beth, you can take this. Come on, stop tensing. Just stay open…yes.”
I can feel the flesh yield, but it is far from painless. A sharp stinging at first, then a panic-inducing pang and I am sure he is going to damage me so try hard to push him out. But oddly, that just makes it easier for him to move further up. “That’s right,” he says approving
ly. “I know it hurts at first, love, but it will pass. Oh, God, so tight, oh God.”
This evidence of his extreme pleasure is enough to dispel the anxiety. It does hurt, but the worst seems to be over now and I’m fairly sure I’m not torn. Now the pain seems sweet, erotic even, like the aftermath of a spanking, and the sensation of stretched fullness is doubly so. He edges further and further up, Christ, he’s crammed inside, I’m sure I can’t take any more, I’m sure this can’t be good for me…I think he’s all the way in now; I can feel his pelvis pressing against my bum; his rather bruising grip on my hips has relaxed a little. He is jiggling his cock around inside me, accustoming me to the extraordinary weirdness of it.
“Your tight little arse is stuffed full of my cock now, Beth,” he informs me. “How do you feel about that?”
“It makes me happy,” I tell him. “I makes me feel all yours.” I want to say I feel mastered, but I can’t quite say the words.
“Does it hurt?”
“Only a little. Not too much.”
“Oh, I’m glad it hurts. But I want you to feel the pleasure as well as the pain. There will be pleasure too.”
Well, hooray. Shall we get on with it then?
Small, tight movements at first, making me whimper with each thrust, but soon the passage is stretched enough to make more forceful motion possible and he proceeds to fuck me properly, just as he would if he were taking me in a more conventional manner. I moan and squirm and on occasion try to escape the mercilessness of it, but then he reaches a hand down beneath me to flick at my clitoris and the wave of pleasure is amazing; much stronger than if he were fingering me alone, much stronger than anything…oh…BLOODY HELL, this feels INCREDIBLE…
“I can’t last much longer; you’re so bloody tight,” he complains, ramming himself hard up my back passage. “I’m going to take you like this as often as I can now, Beth; I hope you realise,” he warns, and his gently-spoken half-threat half-promise makes me wild with primitive excitement; I feel deliciously submissive yet primally powerful at the same time, and I come like a shrieking banshee, pushing back against him, which causes him to shoot his load in turn and collapse on my back, rasping raggedly into my ear for a long time afterward.
“So…” he says hoarsely, removing his now-limp appendage from my rear. “Was that as bad as you thought it would be?”
“Uh huh,” I reply. “Worse. Much worse. I’m not sure I’ll ever think straight again.”
He chuckles, shifts off me to the side and we doze off, entwined and exhausted.
*
“I don’t think you should wear a suit,” I opine, watching Sinclair run an elegant hand along the ranks of sharply-cut tailoring in his wardrobe. We are both shower-fresh, having thought it best to wash off the lingering traces of early-morning sex before setting off on our epic journey.
“No?” He frowns, replacing a tie in the rack.
“They’ve seen you in formal wear – on television and, er, probably some stills of that tape as well. I don’t think your intimidating side is the one you should be projecting towards them.”
“Hmmm. You could be right,” he muses, then he turns to me and smiles ruefully. “But I find confrontation very difficult when I’m not properly dressed.”
I blink a few times. “You mean the clothes make the man?”
“If I look the part I can take on anybody, Beth. I don’t really have anything casual in my wardrobe.”
Oh. I am stymied for minute. “OK…well…maybe just an open-necked shirt and trousers? Would that work for you? I’m worried that if you wear a tie my dad might grab hold of it and throttle you.”
Sinclair chuckles briefly. “You have high hopes for today then, Beth? Your concern for my welfare is quite moving.” He selects his habitual linen shirt and trousers combo and dresses for battle.
*
“What will you say to them?” I enquire, my head leaning on his shoulder as the train rattles through pastoral idyll after pastoral idyll. Thank God he decided not to drive, or they would be having this meeting in a hospital, no doubt.
“I don’t have a script,” he tells me. “I intend to play it by ear. I hope I can persuade your parents that I am a civilised man with your best interests at heart rather than an exploitative monster.”
“So do I, believe me,” I say, snuggling in further and catching the guilty eyes of the couple sitting across the aisle before they furtively look away.
Once we are at the opening of our cul-de-sac, I feel a jolt of nausea so strong I have to stop and jerk Sinclair’s hand in panic.
“You go on ahead,” he advises. “Prepare the ground. I’ll wait in that café over the street until you call me.”
I stare mutely up at him, all bravado evaporated in a puff of smoke.
“What if they cast me out? Disinherit me?”
He ruffles my hair and chuckles. “It won’t come to that, Beth. Go on. Be brave.”
Halfway through his go-get-em kiss goodbye, I am distinctly aware of twitching curtains in the vicinity. I watch Sinclair step back, dismissing me, thrust out the chest, throw back the head and march past the neat semis with their landscaped driveways and lead-paned upvc windows.
Mum is halfway down the drive before I get there, waving a dishcloth in a manner I’d have to describe as agitated.
“Beth, Beth, come in quickly before the neighbours see you,” she flusters. “If Mrs Mack at number 22 catches a glimpse, she’ll be straight over with some made-up cookery crisis.”
I flit inside the open door and make a break for the living room. Dad shoots up from his armchair, throwing the paper aside – it doesn’t seem that we’re on the front page today; relegated to an inside spread, I guess.
“Beth!” He lumbers over like an overeager buffalo, crushing me in an awkward embrace until I have to laugh falsely and protest that my ribs are about to crack. He holds me at arms length and scans me from top to toe while Mum wrings her hands in the doorway. “Are you all right, love? Has that man…hurt you?”
“No, really, I’m fine,” I say brightly. “Really. That’s what I wanted you to know. Everything’s fine.”
“Is it true?”
“Some of it,” I say, and mum throws her hands up in the air, lamenting.
“I’d love a cup of tea though,” I entreat. “I’ve been on the train all morning.”
“Yes, yes,” mutters mum, heading to the kitchen. “We need tea.”
*
“So then,” opens mum, pouring the a golden stream of hot liquid from the spout of the teapot, “You said some of it was true. How much of it?”
I take a breath. “I am seeing Professor Sinclair,” I open and there is immediate crashing of crockery.
“AM?” explodes Dad. “As in….present tense? I’ll wring his bloody neck!”
“No, no, please don’t!” I implore. “Dad, I know it looks a bit…fishy…but it’s not. He isn’t the way the papers have made him out to be – there’s much more to him than that. They’ve just picked up on a couple of salacious titbits and…made them look like the whole story.”
“VERY salacious titbits,” Mum points out. “Beth, he’s old enough to be your father and he’s…he’s…well, you know. Not very nice.”
“It’s not true that he sleeps with lots of students,” I tell them. “I’m the first.”
Dad snorts. “So he’s told you.”
“I am! I believe him! And if it hadn’t been for him, I’d have been kicked out of the university by now. He’s helped me so much – academically, financially and…you know…on a personal level.”
“Nothing ever comes for free,” says mum, lips pursed. “I don’t suppose he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart.”
“He was doing it out of love,” I say firmly. “He loves me. And I love him.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” snaps Dad. “You’re a child. You’re infatuated. Flattered that an older man who’s on the telly has taken a shine to you. Wake up, Beth. This is a fantasy.
You’re an ego trip for him and as soon as the novelty wears off, he’ll lose interest.”
Ah, how well I understand this interpretation. It was, after all, my own for quite some time.
“That’s what I thought,” I say quietly. “But I was wrong. He does love me. And I do love him, and not despite of what he is like, but because of it.”
“But he…that video…” says mum brokenly, unable to continue. Dad looks away, repulsed at the mention of this.
“That’s nobody’s business,” I say, discomfited.
“It’s no use, Beth, we can’t accept him. He’s not what we want for you,” says Dad.
“But you want me to be happy, don’t you?”
“That’s why we don’t accept him,” asserts my mother.
“I can’t be happy without him!”
“Oh, less of the Scarlett O’ Bloody Hara, Beth. Of course you can. And that’s an end of it. I don’t want to hear his name mentioned in this house again.”
“If you’d just give him a chance…listen to him…” I plead.
“No, Beth, no way. Never.”
“Please don’t make me choose between you!”
“Beth, don’t be silly,” says Mum in a panic. I have flipped open my mobile and am texting Sinclair. “NO GD, THEY DON’T WANT 2 KNO, I AM ON WAY 2 C U.”
“You aren’t leaving this house to go back to him!” booms Dad. “Over my dead body!”
“I am going back to him,” I cry. “I love him and that’s all there is to it.” The phone beeps. “DON’T YOU SPEAK ENGLISH? I AM COMING TO TALK TO THEM.” Argh!
Dad leaps out of the chair (second time today; that’s more leaping than I’ve ever seen him do in his life), thrashing around for my arm, but I elude his grasp and head for the front door, desperate to keep Sinclair away from this scene of carnage.
“Beth, darling, please stay, you don’t have to go back to him!” sobs my mother. I open the front door, oh God, he is walking up the road and there appears to be a couple of people with cameras in his wake.
Lecture Notes Page 24