Even the tiny click of the key as I slide it into the lock makes my heart jolt and my teeth clamp together. My arm is shaking but I manage to twist the door handle and…I am in.
The breath I have been holding gushes out. I switch on the light and find…just an office. A bit on the Victorian side, perhaps…There is an old school desk, with inkwell and all, highly polished with a matching chair. Also a more comfortable chair; a green leather wingback number set back in the far corner. But as I take in more and more of the scene, certain jarring elements hit my senses. Many of the books in the shelves that line the wall appear to be rather non-academic in tone. A vast collection of Victorian ‘yellow novels’ for instance, along with many other titles indicating kink-tinged erotica. An umbrella stand beside the desk contains not umbrellas but a goodly-sized collection of canes and riding crops. And the pictures on the wall are prints of old-fashioned black & white or sepia pictures of buxom young ladies in Edwardian undies getting their bottoms whipped.
Well, OK, so far it’s…unconventional, but nothing too surprising. I lift the computer off the school desk and lift the lid and…
Eek!
Collars, cuffs, chains. A selection of dildos and…is that a butt plug? I’ve heard of them but have no real idea what one looks like. A scary-looking strap and a leather-covered paddle. Various jars of lubricants. Some kind of harness arrangement. Feckin hell – talk about the Compleat Sadist. Though there isn’t anything sharp or too painful-looking, it’s all a bit intimidating. Can I imagine myself trussed up at Sinclair’s mercy….OK, not that intimidating. Ooh, the things he might do to me…ooooh.
I pick up some egg-shaped things on a string and turn them over in my hands, wondering what their function might be.
Something makes me turn around sharply and look at the door.
Sinclair is standing there.
The egg-shaped things drop to the floor with a clatter. He has the most peculiar look on his face, not angry as such, more…controlled. Expectant.
“I’m sorry,” I stutter. “I just couldn’t…”
“No. You couldn’t resist. I didn’t think you would.”
“What do you mean?” I ask faintly.
“I left the keys there as a test. I wanted to see if you would take the bait. I was right, of course. You did.”
“You meant me to see all this?”
He just looks at me for a long time then says, “Yes. So what do you think?”
“What…do I think?”
“Does it frighten you? Appal you?”
“No.”
“Seriously?” He leans against the door jamb, eyebrows raised. I am twisting my hands nervously, but I mean what I say.
“It’s…interesting. I mean, why would I be frightened? I know what you’re into. I’ve experienced it often enough! And, you know, sir, if I didn’t like it, I would have moved out by now.”
“You like it. I thought you did. Beth, I rarely meet women whose tastes coincide with mine. Occasionally I meet people at clubs or through the internet, but my position makes it risky. Nine times out of ten I try to meet people in the normal way but find the rigmarole of dating and getting to know them leads to a sexual dead end when it turns out they find my proclivities abhorrent. I’m tired of it all, Beth.”
My heart is thundering almost out of my ribcage. He seems to be building up to something…quite…interesting…
“Are you?” I whisper.
“Very. What I would like is to meet a woman who will accept my tastes and enter into a relationship in a spirit of enthusiastic curiosity. Somebody I could teach, somebody who is willing to learn from me. Somebody attractive and sexy and…in need of a firm hand. Could that somebody be you, Beth?”
His voice, deep and low and reminding me of rippled silk, washes over my numbly unbelieving ears. Is he really asking me this? Am I dreaming? He lured me into this situation with the express intention of propositioning me. It’s weird, but so knicker-wettingly exciting I can hardly emit a squeak.
“If you like,” I shiver.
He looks at me again for a long time while I curl up and die of mixed embarrassment and desire. “Come here,” he says at length.
I totter over what seems like hundreds of acres of ground and then he puts out his hand, I take it and am pulled close to him, against his chest, my forehead just level with his chin so that bristles of beard tickle it. He smells gorgeously musky and sandalwoody; I want to bury my nose in the crisp warm cotton of his shoulder and breathe long and deep, but he pre-empts me with a long finger on my chin, tilting it up until my lips hover in his orbit, I can feel his breath, hot and sweet and I can feel this enormous force radiating from him, his intentions for me, he intends to possess me. Those seconds before our lips meet are so powerful I can picture myself turning to jelly and slipping through his strong arms before the moment crashes over us, but then he has me and the moment is there and I am inside the moment, kissing Sinclair, KISSING SINCLAIR, and my life is complete.
I have kissed a few boys in my time, but this is no boy, and doesn’t it show?! I am unused to the confidence with which he latches on and his persistence in pushing the kiss further and further until his tongue has slipped past my (admittedly hopeless) defences. I cling on, hoping he is not revolted by me, hoping I am doing this right, shaking with the enormity of it all and trying at the same time to s
tore and record in memory every scintilla of sensation his thorough scouring of my oral cavity brings. There comes a point, way past the time I stop caring about the prickling of his beard on my chin, way past the moment when I remember I can breathe through my nose, when I stop analysing it and the anxiety ends and I float amoebically on to clouds of pure desire. Sinclair, it seems, has been waiting for me to reach this pinnacle, for he promptly disengages, leaving his lips tantalising millimetres from mine and smiles at my heaving-chested gasping.