The Pact

by Justine Elyot

  ‘Well, we can fix that,’ he said, and my heart skipped a little, because he had That Look on his face. That Look was normally a prelude to the ribbon ties and the flogger coming out of the bottom drawer in the bedroom. I wasn’t sure how this would translate to the kitchen, but I was interested in finding out.

  ‘Can we?’

  ‘Yes, I think so. We’ll set aside an afternoon every weekend before your assignments are due in, for you to work. That time is non-negotiable working time, and by the end of it you need to have your assignment finished and ready for me to look at. With me so far?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Boring way to spend a Sunday afternoon, but I have to find the time somewhere, I suppose. What if it isn’t finished, though?’

  ‘Ah,’ he said, and That Look intensified to cuffs-and-riding-crop level. ‘If it isn’t finished – or even if it is, but I don’t think you’ve made your best effort – there will be consequences.’

  He raised his eyebrows. I squirmed. I’d heard that word often enough to know what it led to. We’d only role-played this kind of dynamic before, but making it real was certainly an interesting idea.

  ‘What kind of consequences?’ I asked, but he knew I knew, and he shook his head at me.

  ‘I’m surprised you have to ask, Claudia.’ He only called me by my full name when he had me over his lap, as a rule. The use of it sped me straight into my most submissive headspace. ‘What’s the one thing guaranteed to improve your behaviour?’

  I looked down at my lap. ‘Oh, that,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Yes, Claudia. That.’ He tapped the spatula end lightly on his palm. ‘I can demonstrate if you like.’

  ‘That won’t be necessary,’ I said hurriedly. It wasn’t that I disliked being spanked, but that thing had been pushing eggs around the pan.

  ‘So, do we have an agreement?’

  ‘Well …’ I twisted my fingers, exquisitely embarrassed by the thought that I was going to have to admit that only the threat of a spanking would suffice to get me out of my lazy habits. But, looking at Joe and that attractively determined cast of brow he got when the subject came up, I couldn’t fight it. ‘Yes. I guess so.’

  ‘Good. Can you get the chips out of the oven, love? These eggs are just about done.’

  The first month of the course went very well. When we were set work, it was mostly of an easy ‘write about your experiences of …’ nature, and I had no trouble rambling on in an unstructured manner about stuff that had happened to me in the office, so the Sunday afternoons passed swiftly and my offerings met with Joe’s approval.

  The second month was trickier. The first real essay led to an afternoon of moaning and huffing at the computer screen and having endless sly peeks on Facebook even though Joe had advised me to shut down my browser until the thing was written. The first thousand words were fine, but Joe wasn’t impressed with the way it tailed off and collapsed into waffle after that. So I found myself tipped over his knee and spanked with the leather paddle, then sent back to finish it after dinner, instead of the companionable glass of wine in front of Netflix that should have been my reward for a job well done.

  I was more disciplined after that, and managed to avoid any repeat scenarios, although I sailed close to the wind on a couple of occasions.

  But this weekend had been a disaster. It was nearly Christmas and, what with the office party on Friday night, a hungover shopping trip on Saturday and a present-exchange meal with friends on the Sunday, my assignment had been shoved into a dusty corner of my memory and left there. Joe hadn’t thought about it either – until the morning it was due in.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, pulling on his coat before rushing out to the station. ‘I forgot to ask you. Did you have an assignment due in this week?’

  I took a deep breath and kept my back to him, rummaging in my handbag for dear life.

  ‘No,’ I said. I think it was the first outright lie I’d ever told him, in our three years together.

  ‘Really? Once a fortnight, I thought.’

  ‘Usually,’ I said in a bright falsetto that must have been a dead giveaway. ‘But with it being so near Christmas …’

  ‘Ah, OK.’ He put his hands on my shoulders from behind and bent to take a kiss. From the corner of my eye I could see my guilty face pressed to his in the hallway mirror. ‘I’ll pick you up from the station tonight then.’

  ‘Yeah. See you then. Have a good one.’

  All day at work I tried to squeeze a few sentences into each coffee break or natural lull, but by the time the hour to leave for college rolled around, I’d still only managed 224 words. It was no good. I would have to beg for an extension.

  The extension was granted, but only for 24 hours. Bugger! I was going to have to work through the night – and how was I going to hide that from Joe? Perhaps I should just be honest with him, but I didn’t think I could bear to see his disappointment in me. Even a spanking was better than that.

  It was worth a shot, at least. If I could get him really exhausted, fairly early in the evening, he might sleep through my midnight-oil-burning.

  So I dropped my bag on the floor as soon as we were through the front door and got him up against the wall, standing on tiptoes to push my body right into his, letting myself loose on his mouth.

  ‘Christ,’ he panted, once we’d kissed each other into a state of choking breathlessness. ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Been thinking about you all day,’ I said, my hand already down the front of his jeans, closing around the hardness it found there. ‘Sitting at college, getting wetter and wetter.’

  He yanked my hand out of his pants and gave me a sharp smack on the rear.

  ‘Get up those stairs,’ he growled, shoving me towards them with a fist in the small of my back.

  I ran up, rejoicing at the success of my plan, and fell back on to the bed, laughing and squealing as he climbed on top of me. In between bouts of energetic grappling, garments were removed and discarded, until we lay naked, ready to engage.

  ‘Is this what you wanted?’ Joe pulled one of my legs roughly towards him, positioning it over his hip so I was spread wide.

  I nodded, breathtaken by his transformation from mild-mannered civil servant to sex-starved caveman.

  ‘No need to ask whether you’re ready then.’ He clamped his hands on my shoulders and pushed his way in, filling me up completely. He let me lie there, taking a few moments to make sure I knew it, before grabbing my bottom and beginning to thrust. There was no slow, sensual build-up tonight. This was going to be a hard, headboard-banging shag that would leave me seeing stars even before my climax.

  I clung on to him for dear life while he gave the bedsprings a pounding they wouldn’t recover from in a hurry. He stopped every few minutes to change position, moving me to my side, then on top of him, then finally on all fours. It occurred to me that my plan to wear him out might incur some collateral damage – I wasn’t sure I’d be in a fit state for contemplating the psychology of the workplace after this. I was well on the way to being completely fucked, in more than the literal sense.

  I laid my dazed head on my forearms and kept my bum high in the air while he gripped my hips and pistoned into me. If I looked back at him, I’d see nothing but a blur. I was like a rag doll in the spin cycle of a hot wash.

  I came first, loudly into the pillow, and it didn’t take him long to follow. With one, final, savage thrust, he collapsed on top of me and lay there, heating up my ear with his hectic breath.

  ‘Christ, I’m done for,’ he moaned, rolling off me and parking the dead weight of his arm across my body. ‘You minx.’

  ‘I’m dead,’ I said. ‘But I’m also starving. Is there anything for me in the oven?’

  ‘Oh – yeah. Bit of leftover stew in the pot, on the bottom shelf.’

  ‘I’m going to get some. Do you want me to bring you anything?’

  He shook his head, eyes already closed. ‘Think I’m just going to lie here … and …’

 
I smiled. He would be asleep within minutes, if I knew him as well as I thought I did.

  ‘OK, babe.’ I got up and put on my robe.

  Twenty minutes later the dishes were in the sink and I was on the laptop. It was only half past seven. If I really got down to it, I could be writing my conclusion by the time the Newsnight credits rolled.

  By ten o’clock, I was 1785 words in. More than halfway, I told myself, trying to chase away the dispirited sense that this wasn’t going as quickly as I’d hoped. I’d said an awful lot of what I had to say and wasn’t sure how I was going to flesh it out to three thousand words. Did I need to read through the bloody chapters again, to see if I’d missed anything? I was going to need coffee at this rate.

  Sighing, I reached for my textbook and began to flick through it. A floorboard creaked upstairs and I stopped abruptly, breath held. Was he awake? Yes? No?

  If he was, he’d probably only go to the loo and then get back into bed.

  A couple of minutes passed with no further sound. I got back to the books, poring over the relevant chapters in search of inspiration.

  When I looked up, Joe was standing in the kitchen doorway in his dressing gown.

  I slammed the book shut and held it under the table, as if it was incriminating evidence, which it was.

  ‘Oh! You’re up!’

  ‘Mm hmm. What are you up to?’

  ‘Nothing. Just Face –’ he came over and picked up my college notebook ‘– book,’ I finished lamely.

  ‘And you need this for Facebook, do you?’ He held it up for me, eyebrow cocked.

  ‘Erm …’

  ‘Come on, Claudia, you know you can’t lie to me.’

  He was right. Even the attempt was killing me.

  So I confessed everything, with added pleading referencing the season of goodwill and the quality of mercy etc. and, when I was finished, I looked up him with hopeful appeal.

  He sat down opposite me, pressing his fingers to his lips.

  ‘Hmm,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Obviously there’s nothing I can do about it now,’ he said. ‘Because your first priority is to finish this essay and get it emailed over. So I think I’ll leave you to it.’

  He stood up and headed for the stairs.

  ‘But …’ He couldn’t do this! Just leave me guessing about how he felt, what he thought should be done, what my ultimate fate might be. It was too cruel.

  He turned and looked at me expectantly.

  ‘Not tonight,’ he said. ‘I’m going to bed. You finish your work. We’ll talk about this tomorrow.’

  He was asleep when I finally crawled into bed at 2.35. The last part of my essay was pure gibberish, since the encounter with Joe had frazzled my capacity to express myself clearly, so no doubt there’d be extra retribution to come when the grade wasn’t a good one.

  If only I’d been honest with him. I’d still have been in trouble, but I had a feeling I was in deep trouble now. Joe had had nothing to say because he was genuinely angry, and he always avoided acting in the heat of anger. I had to hope a good night’s sleep might have calmed the inner tiger.

  By the time I woke up, he’d left the house. A note on the kitchen table told me he’d gone for an early-morning gym session, indicating that he must really be mad with me, as he only did that when he had serious emotions to work through.

  I tried a text message. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Fine’ came back while I was on the train into work. ‘Come straight home tonight.’

  I swallowed. ‘I will.’

  And I did. I didn’t even pop into Tesco Metro for a bottle of wine or anything. I just sat on the train feeling like Joan of Arc on her way to the faggots, but with less saintly conviction.

  I walked through the front door, my usual cheery ‘Anyone there?’ a little strangulated in my throat as I took off my coat and put down my bag.

  He didn’t reply, but I saw his coat on the peg, so I knew he was around here somewhere.

  I put my head around the living-room door, and there he was, sitting in the armchair, still in his suit and tie. Usually he got changed into something more casual as soon as he possibly could, but tonight he sat there, one elbow on an armrest, his head resting against his hand in profound contemplation.

  The formal Joe was about as daunting a sight as I had ever seen. He raised his head as I tiptoed into the room and gave me a long, unsmiling look.

  ‘Come and sit down,’ he said quietly.

  I perched on the corner of the sofa, our knees almost but not quite touching.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said tremulously, but he shook his head, silencing me.

  ‘Tell me why you lied to me,’ he said.

  ‘Oh, because, well, because I just didn’t want you to know how slack I was,’ I said. My throat was tight with panic. I’d never seen him this serious, this sombre, before. I was terrified that I had done irrevocable harm to us, after three of the happiest years of my life. ‘I mean, I want you to be proud of me …’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘And I am. Most of the time. But, Claudia, we had an agreement, didn’t we?’

  ‘Yes.’ My chin was trembling now.

  ‘And the agreement was for your benefit. Not mine. It was to make sure you performed to your best ability on this course, so you can pass it and move to the next level at work. Wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So … don’t you want that any more?’

  ‘Yes, I do, of course, I do …’

  ‘But you don’t want me to supervise you in that way? Or have anything to do with it?’

  ‘No, it’s not that, I really do, more than ever.’

  ‘You want me to hold you to account for this, then?’

  There was no other answer. ‘Yes.’ I really did.

  ‘You’re happy for me to give you what I think you deserve?’

  I nodded, begging him with my eyes to do just that. I was giddy with need for it, weak at the knees with the thought of it.

  ‘Good.’ He drew a deep breath. ‘In that case, you’d better go and wait for me in that corner.’ He pointed to the one nearest the window.

  I stood abruptly, questioning him with a look. I was met with an impervious stare.

  ‘What are you waiting for? Into the corner. Oh, and you can take your trousers and pants down while you’re there.’

  I questioned it no more. I had never been sent to the corner before, but if that’s what he wanted, that’s what he’d get. I pushed my nose into the angle and lowered my trousers and underwear as required, shivering at the cool air that circulated around my thighs and bottom.

  He had already left the room, so I didn’t have to worry about him watching me. I did have to worry about where he was going and what he was fetching, though. But as long as he was staying here with me, and demonstrating his love and care for me – however painfully – all was well.

  He returned, still suited and booted, about ten minutes later.

  ‘I thought I’d give you some time to reflect,’ he said.

  I twisted my neck, saw what he was carrying, and quailed. I hated that thing.

  ‘Oh, not that paddle.’ The words spilled out before I could prevent them. ‘That one’s the absolute worst.’

  ‘I know,’ he said. ‘That’s why I chose it. I’m not doing this for fun, Claudia. You need to know that I’m serious. OK.’ He sat down in the middle of the sofa, putting the paddle beside him. ‘Come over here and tell me what’s been going through your mind over there in the corner.’

  Unfortunately, my reflections hadn’t been particularly repeatable. Mostly they were about how cold it was, and whether I had goose pimples on my bum, and whether I could persuade Joe to go easy on me. I didn’t think I should confess this somehow, so I made something up.

  ‘I’ve been thinking how sorry I am,’ I said, hanging my head, all the better to see Joe’s shiny shoes and his lap lying in wait for me. I was creepingly conscious of my lower-half nakedness, full
y visible to him, and I wanted to get this over with. ‘And how I should always be honest with you, because love is about trust and communication and all that.’

  ‘“All that,”’ he echoed. ‘I’m not sure you’re taking this seriously.’

  ‘Oh, I am!’

  ‘You should. I’ll show you how seriously. Come on.’ He slapped his thigh, inviting me to introduce my midriff to it.

  Awkwardly, my face flaring with heat, I lowered myself sideways into the required position. He jogged me with his knee a couple of times, encouraging me to raise my bottom higher and tucked his arm around the small of my back, holding me tightly in place.

  ‘Now, this is for the original offence,’ he said quietly, his palm resting on the curve of my buttocks. ‘Bear in mind it’s only part one.’

  ‘Part one!’ I exclaimed, aghast. How many parts was this punishment going to have?

  ‘Yes, part one. This is for failing to complete your assignment on time. But we have other matters to deal with as well, don’t we?’

  I sighed. ‘I suppose so.’

  ‘So we’d better get down to it. Keep still now.’

  I was initially relieved to find that he wasn’t starting straight in there with the dreaded wooden paddle. That thing packed an unbelievable heft, to the extent that we never really used it in play. It was strictly an instrument of punishment.

  Joe started with his hand, and I say I was ‘initially’ relieved because actually Joe’s hand is not made of gossamer, far from it. On this occasion it seemed to be made of something like leather, and he hadn’t been spanking long before my bottom was hot and stinging all over and I was beginning to writhe in his grip.

  ‘Bottom up,’ he admonished as I tried in vain to squirm away from the quick, sharp peppering of smacks. ‘You know why you’re getting this, and I’m not going to let you off lightly. For a start, I don’t think you’d want me to. We’ve talked about this often enough.’

  Goddamn it, he was right. When we’d talked, theoretically, about genuine punishment, I had asked him very seriously to be strict and unyielding. What the hell was wrong with me? Why would I ask that? Perhaps I should stop engaging in theoretical discussions about punishments.