Neighbourhood Watch (16 page)

‘Who’s she?’ Aliceon asked, handing him a beer. She hadn’t bothered dressing since being in the cellar. She wore only the skimpiest of thongs. Her pert bare breasts swayed enticingly close to him. The crotch of her thong was pulled so tight he could make out the alluring shape of her labia. Even though the fabric was black, Max thought he could still see the telltale signs of wetness that made the gusset glossy. His erection twitched with more force and he made a renewed effort to stop himself climaxing in Linda’s mouth.

Trying to appear cool and nonchalant, Max opened the tin of lager and drank a mouthful before replying. ‘This is Linda. She’s one of the neighbours.’ He thought of offering fuller introductions. ‘Linda, meet Aliceon, Megan’s sister, who I found chained and ready to be striped and fucked in the cellar this evening. Aliceon, meet Linda, the next-door neighbour who’s come here unexpectedly to suck my cock.’ The words sounded too unreal inside his head and he simply said, ‘Linda wants me to humiliate her.’

Aliceon cast a sneering glance in Linda’s direction. ‘What does Megan think about this?’

‘It’s difficult to know what Megan thinks about this,’ he growled. ‘Since Megan pissed off earlier this evening and didn’t leave any word about where she was going or what she was doing, I have no way of knowing her thoughts about anything.’

Aliceon glared at him. Now she was no longer chained, he noticed, she could be defiant. It was a trait that he knew he could have thrashed out of her if he had devoted the necessary time to the project. But, because he loved Megan and adored Aliceon, Max preferred to see both women being characteristically rebellious.

‘Don’t you think Megan’s going to be pissed off that you’re getting a BJ from the next-door neighbour?’

Max shrugged. He kept the gesture economical so it didn’t shift his cock from Linda’s mouth. ‘Megan and I have an understanding,’ he reminded Aliceon. ‘You should know about our understandings better than anyone else.’ As he spoke he reached for the crop that she had brought for him.

Aliceon deliberately held it out of his reach. ‘Megan’s told me you both agreed not to have anyone else inside the house without the other’s permission. Have you got Megan’s permission for this?’

Max nodded down towards Linda, on the step. ‘Look carefully,’ he told Aliceon. ‘She’s not inside the house, is she?’ While Aliceon was distracted Max snatched the crop from her fingers. It felt good to have the familiar stiff length in his hand. Glaring down at Linda, admiring the way she had accepted so much of his erection into her mouth and sucked and licked exactly as he commanded, he said, ‘You can stand up now. You can stand up, turn round and bend over. I think it’s time I began to teach you a little about punishment.’

Linda continued to suck his rigid cock as she stared uncertainly up at him. He had spent so long talking to the woman in the house that Linda wasn’t sure if he was now talking to her.

‘You can stand up,’ Max repeated, ‘turn round and bend over. I think it’s time I began to teach you a little about punishment.’

She didn’t dare hesitate. He had made it clear before that, if she showed any signs of hesitation, he would simply close the door and the opportunity to learn from him would be snatched from her for ever. For the first time she saw the near-naked woman behind Max and was amazed how strikingly similar Aliceon was to Megan. The woman was attractive – painfully attractive. Linda didn’t think Max would be troubled by the prospect of closing the door on one willing female when another was so close to hand.

She took her mouth from Max’s length and stood up. Acting quickly, not daring to make him repeat his instruction again, she turned round and bent over.

‘Put your hands on your knees,’ Max snapped.

Linda obeyed.

‘Keep your back straight. Hold your arse as high as you can.’

Doing as he asked made the muscles in her back, thighs and calves ache like bruises. But, knowing she
had
to obey him, Linda did as she was told. Night now held Cedar View in the folds of its black, oppressive cloak. The two lamps that illuminated the street shone liquid gold that dripped from the bonnets and windscreens of the parked cars. Linda couldn’t resist glancing along the street, searching for movement, fearful that someone might see what she was doing and compound her embarrassment with discovery. The shifting of a shadow across the road made her inwardly cringe. But, with no time to peer into the darkness and try to work out who was there, she simply closed her eyes in shame and struggled to maintain the position that Max had requested.

‘Ten stripes,’ he said.

He made no attempt to lower his voice. His words echoed along the darkened street. It was almost as though he was shouting his command so it would be heard inside the party at her house next door.

‘I’ll teach you about punishment with ten stripes across your arse. If you think I’ve taught you properly, once you’ve had your ten stripes, I’ll kindly let you take my cock up your arse afterwards. Do we understand each other, Linda?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered. She wondered if she should say the word louder, not sure if he had heard and worried he would think she was hesitating or ignoring him. ‘Yes,’ she answered more forcefully. ‘Yes, we understand each other.’

As she was saying the words there was a whistle of air. A shock of blazing heat assaulted her buttock and Linda stiffened in pain. She was so surprised by the impact that she couldn’t immediately tell how much it hurt. It happened in a sensory vacuum, void of sensation. Cocooned in an expectant silence, she waited for her body’s reaction and wondered how pleasurable the pain might prove to be. She bit back
an
exclamation as she felt the raw anguish shriek through her rear.

Max landed a second slice with the crop. Again it whistled. For a second time the rusty razor of agony scored her buttocks. The force was severe enough to make her teeter on the verge of collapse. The pain was so shocking she wanted to scream.

Max struck a third blow. There was another vicious whistle, a bitter, brutal sting. This time Linda couldn’t stop sobbing in protest. She kept the sound soft and low, not wanting to draw attention to herself or what she was doing.

Behind her she heard Max chuckle. Worse than Max’s mirth, she was crushed to hear Aliceon’s voice, lowered to a reverential whisper and edged with both awe and arousal. ‘That’s harsh, Max. You’re really laying into that poor bitch.’

‘You’ve had worse,’ Max grunted.

‘Not much,’ Aliceon mumbled.

Another blow. This one scorched like a branding iron. The pain was too much, too intense, more than she could handle. Linda didn’t know what sort of insanity had made her think she could suffer punishment like this, and she no longer cared to explore it. She was hurt, she was humiliated and she wasn’t going to take any more. Her backside ached as though it had been scoured by a million needle-sharp shards. For her own safety, as well as for the remnants of her dignity, she had to escape the brutality of Max’s punishment and get back to her party.

Movement over the road caught her attention. At first she wasn’t sure if she was seeing a glimmer of light or a reflection of something through the tears that filled her eyes. When she turned her head slightly and concentrated, Linda realised that the movement came from outside the garden of number one. Although the
shadows
were at their densest in that part of the road, she could make out the silhouette of a figure holding something against its face. The reflection of the streetlights shone from the lenses of his binoculars.

With a broad smile, Linda held her body stiff. She renewed her grip on her knees and straightened her back. Deliberately, she raised her backside higher to meet the next blow from Max’s crop. Staring towards the figure outside number one, Linda began to feel the delicious sexual warmth that was instilled with each kiss of Max’s crop – a warmth enhanced by the knowledge that her humiliation was being watched and admired.

Fourteen

2 Cedar View

TANYA WAS STILL
sneering with disgust when she returned home. There had been very little worth eating or drinking inside Joanne’s house. The woman seemed to live off a diet of mineral water and some nasty-looking white paste labelled ‘tofu’. There had been an anaemic lettuce in the bottom of the fridge but no real food she could enjoy as she pretended to continue her search. Even if she had discovered something edible, Tanya didn’t think she would have been able to enjoy eating in Joanne’s home. The vague smell of pee that lingered there had killed her appetite for everything except the tin of lager she’d found. But Tanya’s sneer had nothing to do with Joanne’s unwitting lack of hospitality or the disquieting fragrance.

It was the photographs that disgusted her. They weren’t particularly explicit or shocking but she was appalled by their presence. It didn’t trouble her too greatly that Joanne had photographs of other people. A couple of them showed faces, so Tanya guessed they had known she was taking their picture. But Tanya was repulsed by the idea that the woman had taken secret pictures of
her
, showing her private parts. She also felt sure that much of Joanne’s photo collection had been obtained without permission, which was just wrong.

She wondered why Joanne would have such a collection. If she had wanted the pictures for the fun of having a private porn collection, she would have kept them in her bedroom, or somewhere else where she was likely to have a wank. Tanya had a collection of explicit novels and magazines that she kept in her own bedside cabinet, next to the cheap vibrator she had bought for herself at Christmas. She felt certain that all adults kept their porn close to the place where they were most easily able to wank. But since Joanne had stored the photographs in a drawer in the front room, she must be keeping them for another reason. It could only be blackmail.

Her desire to quit working for Joanne Jackson surged stronger than ever. As soon as Max had confirmed she had a week’s reprieve from the rent – a month’s reprieve if she could squeeze that much out of him – Tanya intended looking for a job that would replace the income she got by working at Joanne’s. The thought should have made her smile but her mood remained black. Even when she went to the kitchen sink and burnt the Polaroids one by one in the stainless-steel bowl, her spirits refused to return. Her frown remained deep and she squeezed her nostrils shut against the smoke that threatened to prompt unwanted tears.

She sneaked out of the back door of Joanne’s, aware that Max would be watching the street as she pretended to conduct her search for Megan, and stole through gardens and shadows in an attempt to return home without alerting him to her movements.

The lights remained bright at number six. The sounds of the party, the shrieks and bays of laughter, made her natural scowl turn even more sour. The unusual number of cars on Cedar View that evening made it easier for her to steal past Max’s house. But at
the
same time they reminded her that everyone else on Cedar View was enjoying the night, while she was frustrated, alone and shunned.

Movement outside number one made her pause. Bitterly, she realised the seedy old voyeur who lived there was outside the house training his binoculars across the road. Instead of looking towards the house with the sex party, he was facing towards number four. She tried to catch a glimpse of what was happening that had caught Tom’s interest, but the angle of the house and the large four-by-four filling Max’s driveway prevented her from seeing the front door.

As Tanya watched, a couple ran from Ted and Linda’s. They shrieked and giggled happily together, heading into the heart of the cul-de-sac. Tanya recognised Denise Shelby, but only when the woman took the burly stranger she was with up the path of number eight and into the garage.

Tanya’s scowl of contempt tightened into a grimace. Seeing Denise with another man confirmed her suspicion that everyone on Cedar View was having some sort of fun this evening. ‘Everyone,’ she muttered, ‘except me.’

With the last of the photographs transformed into an ashy memory, Tanya decided to pick up the phone. She was going to call Max and tell him to find his own missing wife. Everyone on the street was ignoring and excluding her. If they were all going to shun her, she could return the compliment and shun all of them. She no longer wanted to be a part of Max’s games with Megan, or belong to a street that excluded her from their parties and fun.

Her decision made, Tanya walked over to the telephone beside the window. Snatching the receiver from its cradle, glowering through the curtains, she watched Joanne rush – panicked – from number six.
The
woman was dressed like a leather slut and, to Tanya’s irritation, it made her look very sexy. And yet, Tanya thought, regardless how good the woman looked in her provocative clothes, her house still smelled of piss. The pettiness of that thought made her smile with grim pleasure.

Joanne’s features were briefly illuminated by a streetlight, her brows furrowed and her muscles taut. Tanya succumbed to a moment’s happiness at her neighbour’s upset. Then her gaze travelled up the street to number seven. Her cruel smile broadened as she realised that, even if none of her neighbours wanted to include her in their fun, it was still possible to get pleasure at their expense, and possibly a month’s reprieve from her rent. Placing the receiver back in the cradle, not bothering to trouble Max with her call, Tanya went out of the back door and stole along the street to the Graftons’.

Fifteen

3 Cedar View

EVERYTHING HAPPENED SO
quickly that John was briefly disoriented.

He had sucked the Goddess’s plastic cock until it was slathered with saliva. Kneeling at her feet, worshipping her with his actions, thoughts and tongue, he felt as though he had finally found his rightful place in the world. The Goddess had endured his adulation as the party continued around them. The Goddess had made him feel that his adoration was wanted and appreciated. She had excited him with her wickedly innovative domination. And then, brutally, she had torn the plastic cock from his mouth and stepped behind him.