Lecture Notes (12 page)

“Professor…Sir,” I venture timidly, deciding to ask him about this.

“Umm hmmm.” He is half-asleep, his eyes closed, breathing into my hair so that strands of it play ticklishly on my forehead. 

“That didn’t seem particularly…sadistic.”

He expels a rapid burst of air from his nostrils; the ancestor of a chuckle.  “Beth, I’m a reasonable man. You need to accustom yourself to my body before we move on to anything more…creative. I don’t want to frighten you off before we’ve even begun. I will take things at your pace and if you are uncomfortable with anything I do, you have only to say so. Eventually your body will be entirely mine, but it will take time to achieve the level of understanding and trust needed for the kind of unconditional submission I’m hoping for from you.”

“Unconditional submission,” I repeat faintly.

“Yes, Beth. Don’t be afraid. You will always be taken care of. Your wellbeing is one of my top priorities. I intend to show you your darkest desires, the ones you suppress because you think them unacceptable, and give them to you; to free you from the constraints of your own fears. I will give you what you want.”

“Oh.
What do I want?” I ask him, rather confused on this point.

“You want to be mine. You want me to hurt you.
You want me to own you. You want me to love you.”

The words sear like lightning through my chest, connecting invisibly
and inexorably with my groin. He is right. He is bloody right. That is what I want, and furthermore, it’s what I’ve always wanted.

“Why do you think I want that?” I ask.

“It’s obvious,” he says.

I want to a
sk why, but I hang fire. Is this something he saw in me right from the day he called me into his office to lecture me on my studently shortcomings? Or has it been a more gradual realisation? He has been testing me over these past few weeks, to see how I react to the infliction of pain, and I have passed, apparently with flying colours. The idea of Sinclair having this in mind all along is eerie, and yet powerfully, erotically flattering. I feel special, at last, for once. Beth the Amorous Also-Ran, the one who got the more popular girls’ hand-me-downs and cast-offs, the dreamy impractical clueless fool gets the most sought-after man on campus. It doesn’t matter that he only wants me because he knows he can tie me up and beat me – because that is what I want too; what I have always fantasised about on some level.  The way I used to love playing kiss-chase on the village green for the thrill of being caught, the way I used to flick through Victorian school novels to get to the caning scene, the way I used to bind my hands to my bedpost with my school tie and imagine myself at the mercy of some domineering bastard…it was all leading to this. A man who will not think me perverse and be frightened by my tendencies, but will embrace them, and indulge them, and enact them and add his own to the mix. It could be so good. 

There is, I must admit, one unsettling element in the compound, and that is my absolute lack of informa
tion on how he feels about me. I don’t want to be used and cast aside. I hear his words in my head…
I will give you what you want….you want me to love you…
That has to be grounds for optimism, doesn’t it?

The phone by the bedside shrills, jerking the
pair of us from our lassitude. Sinclair answers, looking blearily at me as he speaks.

“Yes
, did you get my message? That’s right. Well, I hope it doesn’t put you out too much…You’re sure? That’s good…that’s very understanding of you…” He half-snorts, smirking at me with dynamite-hot rumpled sexiness. “Yes, precisely. Thanks, let’s hope so. Yes, see you at half seven then. Bye.”

I don’t ask the ques
tion but he answers it anyway. “I’m taking you out tonight,” he says. “Birthday dinner with friends. I don’t suppose you’ve anything remotely suitable to wear to the Gourmet Boat, have you?”

My chest tightens. This is real. Official.
I will be on his arm tonight at one of the chicest restaurants in town, being introduced to his sophisticate friends. But he’s absolutely right about having nothing to wear.

“Wow,” is all I can think of to say, with a dr
ippy smile. “The Gourmet Boat. No. I haven’t.”

“We’
ll have to fix that, won’t we? Come on. Up and dressed. I’ll buy you a dress.”

*

‘Surreal’ is a word I’ve always over-used…well, since I understood what it meant at least…but I think I can apply it with justification to the experience of shopping for frocks with Professor Sinclair. I expect him to take me down to the ugly seventies concrete shopping centre, or maybe The Mall, but in the event we remain close to home, finding a street of chi-chi boutiques I have never even bothered to look at before, correctly assuming to them to be well beyond my price range. As is everything bar Poundstretcher, I must admit.

There is an intimidating hush once the bell o
ver the door has ceased its clangour, and it is almost as if the costly silks are whispering around us.
‘Who the hell does she think she is? It’s obvious she’s his tart – she couldn’t afford this herself…’
  When the manageress emerges from behind a rack of floatiness like a solid form through phantoms, her tight welcoming smile says exactly the same thing.

“Good morning.
Can I help you?”

“Yes, we’re going out to dinner tonight…a birthday celebration at a good restaurant…I wond
er what you have in size…what? Ten?” He looks at me questioningly. I nod. This is somehow violently embarrassing. Part of me wishes he would leave me to speak for myself; another part is grateful at not having to. “Suitable for this young lady.”

Argh! He called me a ‘young lady’.
That makes it so obvious I’m his mistress! I feel like I’m on parade, and it occurs to me that tonight will only increase this feeling tenfold.

“Of course, sir.”
She moves over to the rails of clothes on the left-hand side of the room; less glitzy than those on the right. “The neckline on this is very flattering..and I think she has the figure for a more fitted cut…” Hang on! I am here! It isn’t going to be Sinclair wearing the bleeding thing, so why is she only addressing him?

“Is the colour quite right, though?” he demurs.

“Hmm.” The woman frowns and looks me up and down unforgivingly. “She can carry any shade of green or blue…she’s too young for black really…”

Sin
clair quirks an eyebrow at me. I wear black all the time; I’m the monochrome kid. The pair of them fuss and shake heads over endless swathes of fabric before finally settling on a double-layered clingy floaty type thing in teal with silver pattern things subtly printed on the sheeny top dress. Spaghetti straps, drapey neckline, asymmetric hem. I have to admit, it’s pretty. I feel like a different person when I look at myself in the mirror; a person with taste. But of course, the taste is not mine. He stands behind me, leaning over my shoulder, looking into the mirror at me with an expression that leaves me in no doubt that, were we not in a shop, the dress would be in tatters around my ankles by now. He takes my hair and piles it messily on my head, accepting a clip from the helpful manageress, his fingers crawling across my scalp like an army of pleasure-giving spiders. The love bite from this morning glares crimson at me and I have to stop myself glancing anxiously over at the assistant, especially when he presses a finger against it, drawing attention as if it were needed.

“I think a necklace…a pendant of some kind…something simple,” he mutters to the poor woman, who must be feeling increasingly voyeuristic, given that Sinclair is now tracing a finger along the line of my throat down to my collarbone, then resting his hands on my shoulders, pressing his thumbs sensuously into the ba
ck of my neck and rotating them. She rummages in a glass cabinet and emerges with a pearl teardrop on a slim silver chain. “Perfect,” avers Sinclair, placing it gently against my skin and fastening the clasp. He rests his lips, almost accidentally, against the portion of my neck it lies upon, just for a feathery second, but long enough to make my head loll heavily to the side with the sudden collapse of my vertebrae. I see the look of veiled interest again in the manageress’ eyes and I feel weak with the potency of the moment. We are a timeless staple of romantic and sexual drama; the older man, the ingenue. The possessor and the possessed. Looking at us in the mirror, I feel a sense of connection with women who have been in my position throughout the ages – maidservants, actresses, village girls, Roman slaves. I am carrying on a well-established tradition, and yet it feels so daring, so new.

“Just shoes, then,” he says
, and pretty swiftly I am sorted out with some high-heeled silver strappy numbers. I voice a fear that I may not be able to walk in them.

“You won’t need to walk.”

Right.

He won’t let me hear how much it all comes to, but there can’t be much change from four hundred quid, I’d sa
y, and he isn’t even finished. Leaving the boutique, we cross the street to Agent Provocateur…oh my, he is going to buy me underwear. He is so brazen! I can’t face this. I tug appealingly on his hand. “Must we?” I falter, pitching up outside a window display of red satin and black lace. “Of course,” he says sternly. “What’s underneath is the most important part of the outfit. If you get the foundations wrong, the whole effect is ruined. Come on.”

He pulls me through the door and I half-bury my face in Sinclair’s jacket sleeve when I see
every head swivel towards us. He shrugs me off rather violently and begins browsing the mannequins as if this were perfectly normal.

“May I help?” asks a heavily made-up young woman sweetly, and to my absolute horror/fascination, I see that it is Mags Parker from the
Wessex Whisperer
. Now I’m going to be the most talked-about woman on campus. Oh well. Only one thing worse, as Oscar Wilde said.

“Yes.
I think we need a corset, don’t you, Beth? To go underneath a strappy dress. A nice tight one that laces up the back, if you have such an item, preferably not black in this instance…though perhaps I should get a black one also…”

“Oh, yes, we have several,” M
ags assures us, winking at me. “Perhaps you’d like to come with me to the stockroom and choose one, eh, Beth?” Hack alarm! She wants a quote.

Of course, Sinclair tumbles to this straight away; he has had three years of this girl’s journalistic wiles.
“As the buyer, I believe I should have some say in the purchase,” he says smoothly, leading me by the elbow to the back room.

Rail upon rail of racy lingerie greets us in this immodest haven; eventually we select a pale blue satin number with ribbons an
d its cousin in bedroom black. I cannot help but run my fingers over the garments; I have never worn such an item before and it seems far too unforgiving to be comfortable.

“Are you happy with the style, Beth?” he asks me, holding the black number up and frowning at it.

“Mm hmm,” I say awkwardly, not wanting to give anything away to Mags.

“You’ll need to try it on then.”

I look around vaguely for a changing room but there isn’t one.

“Oh, we ca
n do that in here,” says Mags. “You’ll need help with the laces though. I’ll give you a hand.” She looks over at Sinclair, expecting him to leave, but he remains where he is, leaning up against a rack of thongs. After a minute or so of this standoff, she sighs and turns back to me. “You’ll need to undress,” she clarifies.

It’s my turn to look beseechingly at Sincla
ir, but he merely smiles back. “Do as she says,” he tells me.

In a dream, I lift my black jersey tunic over my head so I am standing in my bra and black footless tights and ballet pumps.
I turn away from my audience and unclasp the rather childish flowery bra I am wearing, watching it drop to the floor so I am naked from the waist up. I cross my arms over my breasts, annoyed at the way my nipples perk up from the cold backroom air, and wait for Mags to approach with the corset. I click up the metal snaps as rapidly as I can, though this is not very rapidly – it is very constricting and I have to fiddle with the clasps. Eventually it is on, though, and Mags moves behind me and pulls the laces in so tightly and swiftly that I feel a rush of faintness up to my brain.

“
Can’t….breathe…” I wheeze out. Mags looks over to Sinclair, seeking his advice, it seems.

“That’s good.
A little tighter would be better, but she needs time to adjust, I suppose.”

I want to protest, but the effort of squeezing the words out from my clamped diaphragm just seems too much
to contemplate. I concentrate on establishing a regular breathing pattern and look at myself in the mirror. I look undeniably sex kittenish. My breasts are thrust up and out, my hips flare lasciviously from my cinched-in waist, and I can imagine that Sinclair is admiring the view from the back even more.

“Yes, I’ll take them.
Both of them,” he says to Mags. “I just need some accessories – a suspender belt and some stockings. Seamed, I think. Silk, of course.”

“Oh, I’ll go and get some, sir.
Er…matching knickers?”

“No, that won’t be necessary,” he purrs and I almost drop my head into my
hands. Never, ever, ever, even when I had to go to Sinclair’s to swap the essay notes, have I been more mortified in my life. Mags actually giggles with delight as she leaps into the boxes of hosiery like a young gazelle. Having located suitably scandalous stockings and suspenders, she has to help me out of the corset and back into my regulation-student uniform.