Lessons in Art Read online

  The glowing punished skin was hot to the touch. He pushed his right hand between her legs and gently inserted his forefinger between the lips of her vagina. It was hot and wet. He couldn’t bear this any longer. His erection was stiff and throbbing. He was overcome with a desire to plunge it into her now. He pulled his shorts down and stepped out of them.

  He pushed his penis between her legs. ‘I can’t wait any longer.’ He was consumed by lust for her.

  ‘Please sir, you must finish my strokes for today.’ He could hear the arousal in her voice.

  ‘I’ll let you off the last one. In any case by Friday you’ll be begging me to stop beating you,’ he said cruelly.

  ‘Please, sir, you must give me the last stroke for today,’ Nicola pleaded with him. Tears were rolling down her cheeks from under the mask.

  ‘Very well,’ he said irritably. He picked up the cane and rested it across her backside. ‘You asked for this,’ he said angrily.

  He took the cane all the way back and swung his body round, slashing it with all his might into her bottom. Nicola’s body squirmed and jerked in agony. She flung her head back and let out a long, anguished howl. She managed to keep her balance but her hands shot down to hold the bar. James dropped the cane and gripped her arms from behind as she twisted her torso from side to side. He planted his legs either side of hers and would not let go of her until she stilled herself.

  ‘Next time I’m going to give you an extra stroke for that display. But no more now.’ He kissed her damp hair and face as she tried to free herself. But she was pinned against the bar by his weight and held above the waist by his strong arms.

  ‘Don’t you want me now? Weren’t all your tricks to make this happen?’ he growled at her.

  Later he couldn’t believe how rough he had been. He had felt nothing but animal aggression and lust. There was a madness in his brain that could be satisfied by sex with her alone. His penis was jammed upright against her right buttock. He was thrusting his pelvis into her, squashing her against the pad of the machine as hard as he could.

  He gripped her hair and slowly pulled her head back and down so he could look into her face.

  ‘Well?’ he rasped into her ear.

  ‘Yes, I want you,’ she cried back.

  He pulled her off the equipment and she stumbled, with the shorts still around her knees. He grabbed her to stop her from falling and pushed her up against the mirror on the wall. She was panting and perspiring. She shook one leg out from the shorts as they fell to the floor. Supporting herself against the mirror with the palms of her hands she stuck out her backside with her legs wide apart, inviting him in. With a hand gripping each buttock he pulled them apart to open wide the lips of her pink vagina while he pushed his penis in. For both of them the relief was palpable, to be joined at last, after days of her seductive foreplay.

  He felt her heat envelope his penis. Gripping the fronts of her thighs he thrust rhythmically in and out. While he grunted with pleasure she moaned. When he was nearing orgasm he withdrew, wanting to draw out the bliss as long as he could. He took the bottle of lotion and spread some over her bottom. When it glowed with a scarlet sheen he stood back and began to smack each cheek. With each blow she yelped. Then he entered her again, pumping vigorously.

  ‘I’m ready, come now,’ she implored him.

  But he didn’t. Holding himself back he withdrew again and rained short slaps over the cane marks on her buttocks and legs.

  When her whimpering was loud enough to satisfy him he stopped and thrust his pulsing erection into her again, gripping her hips to draw her onto him. Their perspiration mingled with the lotion on her buttocks to lubricate their bodies. Then he pushed her flat up against the glass. With his knees slightly bent and thrusting up into her, pressing her against the glass, squeezing her buttocks with his hands, finally he came. She shrieked in pain or enjoyment he could not tell. He held her pressed against the glass, both breathing heavily, biting her neck and shoulders. She had begun to cry again and seemed ready to collapse when he released her.

  Panting heavily he lifted her sagging body in his arms and carried her to the exercise mat. He laid her down, rolling her onto her front and lay down beside her. From time to time he stroked and kissed her back, her neck, the side of her face and the warm, bruised cheeks of her bottom.

  They lay like that for some time, and he was beginning to feel he was ready to make love to her again when she said she’d better go.

  He lay on the mat thinking, while she showered and dressed. When she came out of the changing room he rose and kissed her. They held their embrace for a while. She sighed contentedly and swayed a little in his arms. ‘James, I’m glad we did this before...’ she paused.

  ‘Before Rebecca returns?’ he finished, and she nodded.

  Eventually he released her and said with mock severity, ‘Well don’t think this will make me go easy on you on Friday.’

  ‘Of course not,’ she agreed.

  At the door she stopped and grinned at him. She put her hands on her bottom, now back in the tight black pants, and mouthed, ‘Ouch.’

  After she had gone he looked forward impatiently to Friday. It would be the last session and he wondered how to make it special. He half expected that Nicola would propose something herself. After all, she had come up with the idea of the gym.

  Chapter 7

  After the evening in the gym James had expected awkwardness between them at work, but any tension seemed to be on his side. Nicola was early again on Thursday, cheerful and full of life. If only he could relax it would have been a pleasure to be around her. Apart from the occasional accidental contact she avoided enticing him, and he was relieved that she kept to her own office for most of the day.

  That afternoon James had something important to do. After consulting a number of reference works he decided to his own satisfaction that the painting he’d seen in London was a forgery. There had been one or two unsavoury rumours about Francesco’s Gallery in the past, and James thought the best course of action would be to go straight to the police. With a more reputable gallery he would have spoken to the owners first, but he had a niggling suspicion that Francesco himself could be involved. A conference call with the Art and Antiques Squad at New Scotland Yard lasted over an hour.

  Soon after he put the phone down Nicola came in to say goodbye for the evening. Shyly she pecked him on the cheek, and as she turned to leave he made an impulsive offer.

  ‘Nick.’

  She stopped and turned back expectantly.

  ‘After the final session tomorrow, would you like to spend the night here?’ he asked quietly.

  In case he was sounding too soft, he added, ‘You might be in too much pain to drive home.’

  She smiled and said she would like that very much indeed. So that was that. Now all he had to do was pass a restless night in impatient expectation of the morrow. He did not have to meet Rebecca at the airport until Saturday evening, so there would be plenty of time to erase the traces of Nicola’s stay.

  Friday morning passed without incident, but with James less and less able to concentrate on his work. Nicola had brought her overnight bag, so it was clear that she still intended to stay. Shortly after lunch she spoke to him on the intercom from her office.

  ‘Since today is to be my last punishment, sir,’ she said, ‘I wanted to wear something special.’ Her use of ‘sir’ told him she was in her role of obedience. He said nothing.

  ‘I need you to approve it, sir. If you’re not satisfied I’ll go home and fetch whatever clothes you wish.’

  ‘Very well,’ he said with affected sternness. ‘Let me see.’

  Nicola appeared at the study door dressed head to toe in red lingerie. When he met her eyes he saw them brighten with pleasure at his appreciative gasp. His gaze travelled down the satin corset, to the red lace bri
efs and sheer stockings. She wore perilously high heels, also in red. In her hair were two tiny red horns and she held a toy pitchfork. She walked to the middle of the floor and twirled for him. The strings of the corset were drawn so tightly that he was puzzled how she could have done it herself, until he saw the discreet fasteners at the front.

  ‘You said I was a devil, sir.’ She pouted glossy red lips.

  He pushed his chair back from his desk and told her to come to him. She obeyed, smiling, and stood between him and the desk. She handed the plastic pitchfork to him, turned and put her hands on the desk, leaning over to thrust her bottom provocatively towards him. He reached out to touch the silk ribbon suspenders and the stocking seams, which she had ensured were perfectly straight. His hand followed the contours of her shapely cheeks through the transparent gauze of the briefs.

  Trying to retain the upper hand against yet another seductive onslaught, he said, ‘This is not just a game, young lady; you must learn your lesson.’

  That was something he needed to tell himself, he thought. He had gone far beyond the bounds of eccentric office discipline. In reality he was having an affair with Nicola, whilst engaged to Rebecca.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she pouted, not seeming to mind his harsh words. She swayed from side to side enticingly. He slapped her leg with the pitchfork.

  ‘Keep still,’ he ordered. He went on tapping her behind with the thin plastic rod, gradually making the blows harder.

  She did not object. She knew she’d had the desired effect, he thought. What could he do to regain the initiative? Make a new rule, of course.

  ‘You may wear this for today’s session. However, the clothes in which you are disciplined must be worn in the office during the day. Therefore you must stay dressed as you are all afternoon.’

  Then, knowing he was condemning himself to an afternoon of agony, he added, ‘And by the way, I’ll need you in here to take dictation.’

  ‘Yes sir, of course. I’ll just get my pad.’

  When Nicola returned he moved over to the Chesterfield sofa, where they would be more comfortable. He took across some papers relevant to the letters and put them on the coffee table.

  Nicola sat serenely at his side taking down his words, as if fully dressed. As he spoke he surreptitiously glanced at her lingerie. He could tell it was of high quality. Later, he thought, he would get a chance to look at the label.

  They worked for an hour, and then he decided to have a break. He asked her to pour him a scotch. James rarely drank during the day, but this was not an ordinary day. He watched her walk to the drinks cabinet, her slender stockinged legs moving gracefully, even in the four inch heels. She returned with the drink.

  ‘May I sit on your knee?’

  He parted his legs to make room for her. Why fight it? he thought.

  ‘Are you warm enough?’ he asked.

  ‘I am now,’ she replied, drawing closer to his body.

  He sipped his drink in silence for a while, conscious of her weight in his lap; his erection against her leg; her fresh scent; and the soft young skin of her arm resting around his neck.

  ‘You remind me so much of Edward,’ she said at last.

  James was not sure he was pleased to hear this. Edward had been twenty years his senior. She must have guessed his thoughts.

  ‘I don’t mean in age,’ she said quickly, ‘although of course, you are both figures of authority for me. Really I mean that you have his kindness and good manners.’

  ‘Well, I suppose we had similar backgrounds.’

  ‘I loved him as much as I loved my father. More, I suppose, because as I grew older I learned to love him in a grown up way. I never had that chance with my father.’

  He told her that Edward had been his tutor at university. ‘Afterwards he was always a good friend.’

  ‘When I was eighteen I did something very wrong that could have soured our relationship,’ she said softly.

  He noticed she blushed at the memory, and waited for her to continue.

  ‘But I was fortunate. It didn’t because he wouldn’t let it. In fact, he used it to do something he’d promised my mother he would do: something that strengthened our love, but which was rather unconventional.’

  She had already told him the punch line on Monday. ‘He caned you,’ he said.

  ‘Yes, and much harder than you did!’ she laughed, then without going into too much detail she told him about how she ‘confessed’ six times a year.

  ‘It went on for three years. I think he’d been hoping to stop sooner, once I found a compatible lover. But I never did. Finally he thought I wasn’t looking hard enough, so he stopped them when I was twenty-one.’

  ‘Why twenty-one?’ James asked out of curiosity.

  ‘They had to stop sometime. That age was the start of true adulthood for people of Edward’s generation. It seemed sensible at the time. Of course he became ill soon after, so they wouldn’t have gone on much longer anyway.’

  Something odd that she’d said came back to him. ‘Why did your mother want him to beat you?’ he asked.

  ‘Well I didn’t know that until I was twenty-one, when Edward told me the full story. He’d had an affair with my mother lasting many years. She was sexually submissive and my father simply didn’t get it.’

  ‘Did he know about your mother’s affair with Edward?’

  ‘Yes, he encouraged it. Edward believed him to have affairs of his own, so it was sauce for the goose, really.’

  ‘Why didn’t your parents divorce?’

  ‘In spite of their sexual differences they loved each other. And there was me to think about. Edward said he asked her to marry him many times, but she would never consider it. He wasn’t really sure that she didn’t love my father more than she loved him. In the end, I suppose, caring for me was a sort of consolation prize for him.’

  The afternoon light had begun to fade and the study was in shadows. James’ drink was untouched on the table. It was an enlightening story in many ways. For one thing, here was the reason that his old friend had never married.

  ‘I’m surprised your father agreed to Edward adopting you in their will,’ he said, eager for her to continue.

  ‘Edward said that the two of them got on fine. As you would expect they couldn’t really be friends, but they respected one another. I suppose for both my parents to die seemed so unlikely that my father didn’t really worry. And my mother insisted.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Well, to answer your earlier question, she could trust Edward - and only Edward - to force me to explore my sexuality without taking advantage of me.’

  James nodded. He knew Edward to be a man of honour.

  ‘If my nature turned out to be submissive, she wanted me to have the chance of fulfilment that she’d found with him. They agreed that the beatings wouldn’t start until I was an adult. Then I would be old enough to make informed choices about the sensations I uncovered. With his experience, Edward would be able to tell straight away whether or not I needed discipline.’

  ‘But wasn’t it traumatic for you when your guardian of more than a decade suddenly wanted to spank you?’ James asked, unable to imagine how Edward could have carried it off.

  ‘Unwittingly I gave him the perfect opportunity by doing something seriously wrong. After that it was easy for him; if I hadn’t responded he would have backed off from further beatings. He could claim that one time had been justified and our relationship wouldn’t have been too damaged.

  ‘But Edward was a clever man. Even before he first put me over his knee I think he knew I was submissive.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Well don’t forget he was experienced, like you. And more importantly he’d spotted the clues over the years. Remember those old westerns where the hero has to spank the heroine before they get t
ogether? When I was a little girl I was glued to those scenes.’

  ‘I remember them,’ he laughed. ‘I enjoyed them too.’

  ‘Once when I was a teenager he caught me watching a video of Belle de Jour. He came in just as Catherine Deneuve was about to be whipped. I moved my hand from my pants pretty quickly, but I think he saw it.’

  The room was growing cold and James was conscious that the girl was half naked. He turned up the heating, switched on some gentle lighting and drew the curtains. Sitting beside her again he pulled her to him and kissed her. The revelations had made him feel much closer to her. He unclipped the top two hooks of the corset and slipped his hands under the satin, to fondle her breasts. She held him round the neck and kissed him again.

  ‘James, I have a confession to make,’ she said timidly. ‘Two, actually.’

  ‘The place for confessions is across my lap,’ he told her, reverting to his stern voice. ‘Then I can react appropriately.’

  Compliantly she pulled herself across his lap before she continued.

  ‘I would understand if you wanted to sack me, but I need to be honest with you. I’ve grown so fond of you.’

  ‘What is it?’ He was intrigued.

  ‘I told you that I’d seen you caning Rebecca a few weeks ago.’

  He remembered she’d said as much on Monday. ‘Yes.’ As he listened his fingers traced the flowery pattern in the lace of the panties.

  ‘At first it was an accident, but I didn’t just see it and go; I stayed to watch for ages.’