by Nicole Dere
Ramzan never moved, just stared, as Ant turned and swung himself into the driver’s seat. I glanced back as we roared in a swirl of orange dust out of the compound. Ramzan stood, like a statue, then he was lost, in the dust and the blur of my tears as we began the rough ride home over the rutted murram road.
When we pulled into the familiar yard in front of the big old colonial house, there was a great cheer from the crowd of dark-featured onlookers, then hooting laughter and applause, when my pale figure descended gingerly from the high vehicle. Ant had not spoken a word during the 45-minute journey, and I had sat there stunned, at first weeping at the brutal way my idyll of love had ended, then afraid of the retribution which would surely follow at the end of the ride. To my amazement, Ant’s large hand fell in friendly fashion on my shrinking shoulder as he steered me towards the steps of the veranda. ‘Don’t you worry about that poofter friend of yours, sweetheart! We got a big surprise for you, that’ll make even yourtiny prick stand up for joy. Honey! We’re home!’ he roared, leading me up and through the wide open doors of the spacious living room.
And there was Clio, my beloved mistress, looking divine as ever, in a loose-fitting shirt which hid almost entirely the tiny shorts beneath. ‘Look who’s here, Marty, sweety! A welcome home present, you might say. Say hello to your new roommate!’
She was holding a dog chain in her hand and, wearing the thick leather collar to which it was clipped, short black hair hanging in wild disarray, crowning the head which hung in mortal shame, stood the slim, gorgeously naked form of Janet Thoroughgood, snivelling quietly, her exquisite, grubby toes squirming against the cool polished cement of the floor in her chagrin.
Jan’s Story
Chapter Ten
I STOOD THERE, WEARING only that loathsome dog collar, the leash held by the tall, beautiful woman who I knew took such delight in the mutual shame she inflicted on me and the shocked figure gaping unbelievingly at the spectacle of my nudity. It was a shock I, too, shared, in spite of the hours of preparedness I had endured for this painful meeting. But the sight of him in front of me, the graceful slim beauty of his nakedness, brought home to me with all its force the reality of this fantastic world I had so recently fallen into. But to begin at the beginning, as the Welsh bard said:
Fantasy was always a favoured escape route for me, especially after Mum abandoned me and my dad, so soon after my 11th birthday. When I grew up, I kept on telling myself I didn’t blame her. After all, I was certainly old enough to remember what our “family” life was like before her flight. I tried to tell myself I would have done the same thing, but I was never convincing. If I’m to face up to the truth at this late stage, however unpleasant, I would never have found the will or the guts to run like she did.
And she never came back. Not till I was grown up and I was about to get married. That’s when I truly realised how different we were. ‘You’re making a big mistake, honey. Don’t marry him. He’ll walk all over you, just like your dad. Don’t do it.’ Typically, I didn’t fly into a rage, only into a storm of tears and fled to my room, flung myself on the bed and hid my face in my arms, sobbing and kicking at the coverlet. The bitch! The bitch!I screamed, but only in my head. And I didmarry him.
Patrick was my first, and last, boyfriend. I had met him when I was 15, and he was almost exactly a year older. Until then, I was the original lonely child, so introvert I was almost inside out. I’d turn beetroot and tongue-tied if a boy so much as looked, never mind spoke, to me. I didn’t give them much chance to do so. I knew about sex, the mechanics of it, what went where, or should, how babies were made – or avoided. It didn’t help. I also knew about gays and lesbians, and that Iwas one.
I liked girls. I fancied them. But I was far too shy to do anything about it. Not that I didn’t want to. I had urges all right, too strong to ignore as I began my lonely voyage through my teens. I touched myself, played with my body, made love to myself, learning what was good, what was best, through long, torturous, sweet, lonely hours in my bed – or elsewhere.
It became my biggest sin – a shocking thrill, a habit powerful enough to be classed as an addiction. I would take long bus rides, prim and proper in blouse and skirt, white ankle socks or black winter tights, seated on the upper deck. I stared out of the window, seeking out the prettiest girls, or dreaming of Miss Burton, my English teacher, or Diane Wooler, my favourite prefect, and slowly I would undo the side zip of my skirt and slide my hand in. The fingers would feel for the elastic waistband of my navy blue knickers, and ease inside the cotton. They would pluck and tease their way through the sparse soft curls of pubic hair, then, very gently, begin to stroke the puckered lips of my labia, gradually penetrating further, caressing the top of the narrow fissure, and my thighs would clench, I would shiver at the deliciously stirring passion I created. Or I would sit for hours in the dimness of the multi-screen cinema, slumping further and further in the plush softness of the seat, my buried hand busy under the folded fleece or cardigan across my lap, my movements discreet but remorselessly arousing. I never climaxed, though frequently teetered on the maddening brink. Sometimes I even leapt up and ran before the crisis could overwhelm me; always with wet pants, which later I balled up tight and thrust into the washing machine with remorseful guilt.
That was part of the unavoidable aftermath, the mea culpabit, for I knew how perverse it was. And yet I was helpless to prevent it, no matter how many times I wept and swore “never again” and prayed to a god I was pretty sure did not exist. Instead it got worse. In the privacy of my bedroom I went the whole hog: working myself up to orgasm, finally deflowering myself – not that it hurt as much as I feared. The few watery pink spots would have been unimpressive enough to bring me under deep suspicion if hung fluttering from a medieval bridal bower.
What became more dangerous were the sudden, terrifying, ridiculous risks I began to take in weirdly public places and circumstances: like the changing cubicles at the outdoor swimming pool, which I would haunt for hours, spying like some sick old peeping Tom on the prettiest girls, in their skimpy swimsuits, or, hoping against hope, to catch a glimpse of them out of them. And I would stand, peeping out, my shins and feet showing below the brightly painted door, and my shoulders and fearful head above, my fingers rubbing and turning, probing in the tight slit of my vulva, stirring my excitement to a higher, sweetly tormenting pitch; until I would whimper and fall back onto the narrow bench at the back of the cubicle, lift one heel up on to the brightly painted blue seat, hugging my jutting knee and jamming the fingers of my other ferreting hand hard into the wet fissure of my vagina between my opened thighs, seeking out the enflamed upper nub of the clitoris to bring about the orgasm.
I was sick, I knew, but helpless against my perversion. In summer, I would wander onto the Common: several miles of gorse-covered grassland and clumps of thick woodland on the fringes of the town – a remnant of the New Forest edging the urban sprawl. It was well frequented, by kids, lovers and families picnicking, or out for a respectable stroll. That’s what made my behaviour so outrageously dangerous – and provided that extra frissonof thrill that urged me madly on.
I would find a suitable spot which provided cover, crawling into the thickness of a prickly clump of bushes, sometimes in a more woody glade of trees with their attendant clusters of briar and wild brambles. Both were fraught with peril. It was rare to be beyond the sound if not the sight of humanity, approaching or receding. Crouching in my den, I would squirm about, slipping off my blazer, my light summer blouse, my thin skirt, ankle socks and sandals. I would pause then, teasing, touching, until I could feel the dampness of arousal that made my knickers cling to my crotch, delaying the final stripping as long as I could, before I eased my slight breasts out of the cups they scarcely needed for support, then dug my thumbs into the pale cotton pants and slid them off my hips, sat on the prickly, tickly earth and wriggled them down my limbs, and off. I knelt, or if there was enough cover I stood, my toes digging into the grass, or the loa
my fine dust, and my fingers would ease the lips of my sex apart, penetrating the already dampening cunt, opening, plunging deeper, seeking out the tiny spot, the centre of the excitement that spread like electricity through me. The biggest thrill, and deepest, heart-thumping danger, came when I heard footsteps or voices, and could actually spy out, watch people approaching. I could hardly breathe, faint with tremulous delight and with fear, and that sense of appalling sin which was all part of the excitement of seeing them, close to me, their ignorance and my awareness, my working fingers in my clamorous flesh, bringing myself to that final, consuming orgasm. Tears would pour down my sweating face, and I would be shaking with terror and a frenzy of ecstasy. My cries were stifled in my working throat. I stood, a trembling invisible statue, until they passed out of sight if not earshot, before I folded, jack-knifed to the dusty ground, my knees drawn up to my chest, and drove rapidly to the consummation of my climax. My muffled sobbing was like the releasing of a dam as I rolled onto my stomach, my feet waved and threshed at the passion sweeping through me. Snivelling and shivering, I would eventually sit up, hug my knees, before finally moving to wipe the tearstains from my cheeks, and the bits of grass and leaves and dust from my pale, clammy skin.
I certainly never saw myself as any beauty. I spent hours studying myself, but all I saw was a skinny waif, all big dark eyes and matchstick legs with knobbly knees. Who could ever fancy me, especially those graceful nubile goddesses among my contemporaries that I lusted so hotly after? Then, like a thunderbolt, along came Patrick Thoroughgood.
He was handsome. Even Ihad to acknowledge that. I knew him. Who didn’t – at least among the females? Tall, dark, and brooding. A youthful Heathcliff. And just as much a loner as that character of sinister romance. Girls might briefly have the hots for him, but his total disinterest soon chilled their ardour. ‘Weirdo!’ was the bitchy verdict of the many who had dreamt and dampened their pants in futile anticipation. ‘He must be gay!’ they consoled themselves and each other. How wrong they were!
When he approached me, out of the blue, I was literally gobsmacked – lower jaw hanging, eyes on stalks, while the blushes started at my curling toes and raced rosily up through every inch of glowing skin to my brow. My tongue stuck to the roof of my gaping mouth. He didn’t seem to mind, even managed a wry smile as he fell into step beside me. And told me as my senses reeled that he had been plucking up courage to ask me out for a long time, and that he thought me the most attractive girl in this school or any other.
My gayness withered stillborn and I lost my virginity in a whirl of painful pleasure during the long summer holiday, every moment of which we endeavoured to spend together. He had an ancient motorcycle and I clung rapturously to him, my arms hugging, my thighs open and my summer dress fluttering up around the dainty little moist briefs I would soon be shedding along with my other things in one of the numerous secret spots I was able to guide him to where I had made solitary love before this sea change had swept right through me.
I loved him. I loved everything about him: his voice, his thoughts, his masculine strength and beautiful, muscled body; and especially his neat and virile penis. I loved to stare at it, to watch its transformation, from the satin soft sweet curl of the hanging, squat tube, with that ruff of folded foreskin about the peeping pink tip of its dome, to that throbbing, fearsomely potent, hard column, with its large acorn glans proud and emergent, its narrow mouth glistening already with the promise of the thick fecundity of the come which would erupt at the climax. I loved to touch it, to caress and manipulate it to that rampant elongated state, to feel its heat against my own soft skin; across my face, my lips, between the swells of my bared breasts. And, eventually, the claiming thrust, the occupation of the tight but accommodating passage of my vagina in the fierce plunging drive to the culmination of our fucking.
We did an awful lot of it, at every opportunity, and there were plenty of them. He worked at a summer job, and so did I, but it still left a lot of hours for us to spend together. Parents didn’t bother us much – his folks seemed to like me, and eventually accepted our relationship – including our “sleeping” together in his room, once his mother had exhaustively interrogated me about our knowledge and practice of contraception. My dad wasn’t that interested. A lot of the time we had the house to ourselves, day and night. I rarely saw my mother, who was living many miles away, near Bristol, with the man she had met soon after she had left home five years before. I wrote and spoke occasionally by phone. I didn’t tell her about Patrick.
The fairytale summer became a fairytale autumn and then winter. The more clothes we wore, the more we had to take off, but we worked all the faster. Nothing could cool our ardour, not even my scarlet thermal vest and matching almost knee-length panties, though they raised a few smiles. But it wasn’t all they raised, or, rather, their removal raised. Our fornicating in the bushes was a fond memory, and we thanked Providence for central heating and easygoing parents.
His body became almost as familiar as mine. We were still able to spend hours wrapped naked together in happy dependency. I had to admit, if only to myself, that I loved all the tenderly exciting build-ups as much as, if not more than, the fiery consummation: the feel of his strong body against mine, its beautiful, smooth strength under my palms as I caressingly traced every inch and he did the same to and for me; the sensuality of my hands stroking at the silken soft sac of his balls, feeling the skin tighten, the roughness of its puckering, the lift of the testicles at the hardening of his prick, the splendid throbbing strength of that long column of muscle, the smoothness of its engorged head, the salty taste of his emission on my lips and lapping tongue. Very occasionally, he would allow me to fellate him, my mouth straining to swallow as much of his virile length as I could take in, my teeth lightly nipping, tongue working, dreading and longing for that final rearing surge and the fierce ejaculation of his thick come filling my convulsive swallowing throat, the roof of my mouth, his excess spilling from the corners of my lips, down my chin, onto my sweating breasts as I swooned in giddy exaltation.
We were an exclusive pair, sealed in an intimacy which allowed no interlopers. Even our families drifted on the inconsequential edge of our existence. We had each other, and that was all that mattered. That’s what I told one of my jealous spitfiring rivals, when she rounded on me. I was astonished when she hissed back at me, her eyes blazing: ‘You mean hehas you. And you’re had by him, you dozy little cow!’ It was true, I reflected later. But so what? Yes, I was his, and amazingly fortunate to be so. That’s how I wanted it to be. The knowledge of his dominance thrilled me.
It showed. In our second summer together, he got a better, more reliable bike, and we went further afield, with rucksack and tent stuffed in the panniers. Patrick would find a quiet country site, put up the igloo tent and quickly strip me down to ankle socks and black trainers. I was painfully shy at first, despite my previous lonely excursions into nudity on the Common. He took countless photographs of me outdoors, clad in only my footgear, posing perched on the motorcycle or lewdly draped round a tree or spread on the grass. “Amid the alien corn” of a field ready to be harvested, the scratchy stalks with their pale ears reaching to my tingling tits. And once he made me lie with my upper torso protruding from the tent flap, breasts covered with my bikini top, while the rest of me lay beneath the hot canvas, spread out for his delectation, as he lapped at my vulva and then drove his prick deep into me while the sun beat down on my squinting features and I stared at a jovial quartet of campers no more than 30 yards away. Yes, I belonged to him, and was happy in his benevolent despotism.
I stayed in the sixth form at his bidding, and applied to the local university – he waited a year for me, working so that we could begin our BA Ed. together. We were an old established couple celebrating five years of unmarried bliss when we graduated, Patrick with a 2.1, which disappointed him, me with a 2.2, which left me glowing with grateful joy. ‘We’ll get married,’ he announced, with his usual decisiveness,
as though at last we had arrived at the threshold of the adult world. He didn’t ask. I didn’t expect him to.
That was when my mother, rarely seen since she had deserted me nearly ten years before, made her appearance and her dramatic declaration, warning me off him. I took no heed of her, except to lie there soaking the pillow as I bawled my eyes out. All right! I thought. Yes, he canwalk all over me, and I’ll lie down on the ground for him to do so! She left before the ceremony at the register office, but my dad attended, and sort of gave me away. Not that there was any need to. I’d belonged to my new husband for the past six years nearly, and he’d had me “more times than he’d had hot dinners”, as he was fond of jovially reminding me.
Chapter Eleven
THE DECISION FOR US to up sticks and head off for Africa was, of course, his, as most decisions were, from the colour of bathroom curtains to the brand of lavatory paper we used. I was nervous of course, but mine was not to reason why, and, besides, my experience as a teacher for the past year and a half had not been a happy one. I had been weepily disappointed when I failed to land a post at the same secondary school as my new husband, though from the tales he subsequently told of the behaviour of its pupils my desolation was considerably lessened. I was having enough discipline problems with the girls and boys of Class 6 in the junior school I was appointed to.
The apprehension which tinged my excitement at the prospect of our move to Africa was greatly eased by the thought that I would be freed from the burden of a career which, after only a few terms, I had learnt was not one at which I would shine. Instead I would be a lady of leisure, one of the pampered memsa’abs,with servants at beck and call and pools to lounge beside in the tropic sun. That wasn’t the reality, but the reality was dizzily mindblowing enough.