Chapter Four

SPIRITS WERE EVEN giddier than on an average Friday afternoon, and my last lesson of the day was more or less a write-off, a sacrifice to the gods of the impending half-term. I put on a video recording of Gleeand let 8KY get on with it while I planned the next rehearsal of West Side Story.

It was going well. The Jets and the Sharks were slowly taking shape, while the girls couldn’t get enough of the dance scene, imagining themselves in the circle skirts and neckerchiefs, clicking their fingers at their bequiffed admirers. The nasal timbre of Kacey’s voice was receding, replaced by a pretty serviceable soprano. Tunde was excellent as ever. And Superhead was … Well, he knew how to direct. He was a man who understood the mechanisms of control, using his voice, his stance, his body, his hands … I shook my head. Daydreamer. Forget it.

There was a vacancy in my fantasies, ever since I spooked SecretSadist by asking for webcam contact. I hadn’t heard from him since – four weeks had passed.

It had been a blow, of course. We had been messaging a matter of a couple of weeks, but in that time I had grown so strangely close to him. Perhaps that was the problem. Perhaps I came across as needy or suffocating. Don’t make excuses for him, Cherry. He’s married, or in a long-term relationship of some kind. He’s unavailable and he played with you. But that’s hardly surprising. That’s what you let yourself in for when you get involved in this – kind of thing.

This kind of thing.

I should just accept that my sexuality, my kink, was always going to be taboo, sordid, disgusting, sleazy. But what could I do? I’d tried vanilla, and it hadn’t worked. Was I going to have to settle for a life of self-love?

It looked like it from here. I’d tried a few other doms on the site, but the correspondence had been desultory, the connection nowhere near as instant and killer as what I’d had with SecretSadist. Pale shadows. Should it matter who whips you, so long as somebody does? This was a question I couldn’t answer.

I’d given up for the time being, left MasterMe.com alone for a couple of weeks and switched all my focus to the musical and the plans for the new studio. Of course, this wasn’t entirely safe. It left me open to my stupidly adolescent yearnings for the man whose click of the fingers had furnished all this wealth. Super, stupefying, Superhead Marks.

He was waiting for me when I arrived in the hall, dropping music scores here and there on the scuffed parquet in my wake.

‘Somebody help Ms Delaney,’ he ordered, shaking his head at the collective apathy of the performers, and Tunde stepped in, gathering the papers up like confetti in reverse.

‘I ain’t singing this,’ said Kacey, thrusting her copy into my face.

‘Why not?’

‘I ain’t saying I’m gay.’

The hall erupted into mirth.

‘What are you talking about?’ Superhead asked long-sufferingly.

‘The lyrics say “I feel pretty and witty and gay”. I ain’t saying that. I ain’t no lezzer.’

Superhead raised an eyebrow. ‘If it’s what’s written down, then it’s what you’ll say.’

‘It’s OK,’ I flustered, rushing to Kacey’s rescue. ‘Those scores are rather old. Most productions use an alternative version – “pretty and witty and bright”. Then they substitute “today” with “tonight”’ for the rhyme.’

‘Well, I’ll sing that then,’ said Kacey, mollified.

Superhead looked slightly askance at me and I trembled pleasurably beneath the weight of that severe brow. Should I have forced Kacey to sing words she wasn’t comfortable with?

‘Fine,’ I said. ‘Though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being a lesbian, as you know perfectly well.’

‘I know that, Miss. Just wanted to be clear. I mean, Maria’s straight anyway, innit, or none of this killing and stuff would have happened to begin with. Thought it might be confusing for the audience.’

Well saved, Kacey. Superhead’s brow unfurrowed and he began directing people to their places for her song.

‘I feel pretty,’ she sang with such a magnificent glottal stop that I had to remind her she was playing a Hispanic girl, not Eliza Doolittle.

‘Are you a lesbian, miss?’ asked Yousef from 11JG.

‘No way, man,’ Lanh answered him, ‘cos, like, Mr Sim’s balling her, innit?’

‘Get out,’ growled Superhead. ‘Come back when you can show a bit more respect.’

They slouched off while I died a thousand deaths. Now Superhead would think that Gareth and I were still an item. Not that it mattered, I supposed. Kacey and her girlfriends twirled around the imaginary fabric store, dancing with imaginary dummies, and Superhead moved closer until he was able to talk to me without being heard by the kids.

‘Are you off anywhere this half-term?’

‘Me? No. How about you?’

‘Off to London tomorrow. Family visit. Look, do you have time for a drink after the rehearsal? Bit of a wind down?’

I looked up at him, needing to see what his face looked like when he asked me out. It looked like a normal face, handsome but normal. He wasn’t anxious for my reply. It was merely a friendly request. I wasn’t sure whether that was good or bad.

‘Yeah, that’d be nice,’ I said, striking a balance between nonchalance and biting-off-of-hand. At least, I hoped so.

‘Good. Not the local, though, eh?’

‘They don’t let you in without Pompey dots.’

He laughed at my reference to the favoured local hardman tattoo.

‘Somewhere south of Albert Road then?’

‘Perfect.’

‘So is that where you’re from then? London?’ I asked, once he had set down a wine spritzer for me and a real ale for him at a pleasant pub with a roaring fire just off the main drag.

‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I suppose you know I was at a school in Camberwell before coming here?’

‘Oh, we all heard the stories. From lawless no-go area to top of the league tables in three years. Very impressive. You can already see that St Sebastian’s is starting to pull itself up by the bootstraps too. I got all the way from the canteen to the staff room without having to break up a single fight yesterday.’

He smiled, gratified no doubt by my blatant fangirling.

‘It’s a challenge, but I like challenges,’ he said.

‘Hence trying to get the kids into musical theatre,’ I said. ‘Shall we go for opera next term?’

Oh God, don’t look at me like that!It was a kind of indulgent, avuncular look, but there was something else in it, an interest that was just keen enough to make my heart constrict as if bound in rubber bands.

‘We need more teachers like you on the staff,’ he said. ‘Positive. Interested in the children as individuals. Fostering high expectations.’

I was too flattered to speak.

‘Oh,’ I said, taking an interest in my wineglass. ‘Is that unusual, then?’

‘Strangely, yes. At least, as far as St Sebastian’s is concerned.’

‘It isn’t true,’ I blurted, cursing myself for saying the words before they were even out. ‘About Mr Sim. Gareth, I mean. We aren’t … I mean, we were, last term, but we aren’t … any more.’

He took a draught of his pint and nodded.

Say something!I waded into the silent breach.

‘Is that OK? I mean, do you frown upon relationships between staff members?’

‘No,’ he said, leaning a little bit further forward, ‘not necessarily.’

I was about to ask him if his wife was a teacher when a loud beery sound from the doorway made me look away.

‘Oh God,’ I muttered.

‘Well, look who it –’ Gareth was on the verge of making a spectacular fool of himself, but he processed the identity of my drinking companion in the nick of time and turned his declamation into a brisk nod and a formal, ‘Headmaster. Cherry.’

‘Gareth,’ said Patrick unenthusiastically. ‘Come and join us. We were just indulging in a bit of a debrief session after our rehearsal.’

‘No, you’re all right,’ said Gareth. ‘I’m here with the rugby boys. Thanks, though.’ He skulked back to his broad-shouldered group at the bar, casting occasional glances over said broad shoulders for the remainder of our conversation.

‘You don’t have to explain yourself to him,’ I said. The atmosphere had switched from warm to awkward. I couldn’t stop looking over at the bar.

‘I know. I wasn’t. Er, so, you were saying …’

‘What was I saying? I’ve forgotten now. About you going to London? I’m not going anywhere much. Might visit my mum.’

‘Does she live locally?’

‘Nah, abroad.’

‘Really? What country?’

‘The Isle of Wight.’

He frowned at me for a thrilling moment before crumpling divinely into laughter, in which I joined with gratitude.

I had the feeling that, were it not for the hostile man-mountain at the bar, Patrick would have been offering to buy another round of drinks, but instead he picked up his scarf and made an apologetic face.

‘Well, best be getting my bags packed if I’m on the road tomorrow. Thank you for the company – I needed it after the half-term I’ve had.’

‘Oh, not a problem,’ I twittered, cheeks glowing from more than the effects of the coal fire. ‘Any time.’

He put a hand on the inner part of my elbow as I rose to my feet. I had to shut my eyes.

‘I appreciate it,’ he said softly. ‘Can I … Should I walk you home?’

‘No, no, I’m fine. I only live a couple of streets away.’

Idiot, idiot, idiot!

‘Right. Well, have a great half-term. You’ve earned a rest.’

‘You too.’

We were at the door. The back of my neck burned, probably from death rays sent out by Gareth’s eyes.

Outside on the pavement, Patrick took a step back – figuratively, it seemed, as well as literally.

‘See you in November,’ he said, raising a hand before turning and half-running, head down, into the slow dawning of another Friday night.

Perhaps a few days in the 1950s – I mean, Isle of Wight – were exactly what was called for. My mother was keen to know if I had ‘met someone’ – my break-up with Gareth had disappointed her, though she was good enough not to show it – but I couldn’t exactly give her the love-life lowdown. One one-night stand, a flurry of internet messages and an unattainable crush. It didn’t amount to much.

Sitting on the grass on a windy, stormy day, looking out at The Needles, I tried to analyse my relationship with Patrick Marks. Was it more than professional, or was I deluded? What he’d been saying when Gareth interrupted us that last night … Wasn’t it something to do with workplace romances? What had he said? I tried and tried to call the exact words to mind, but the threads wouldn’t disentangle. And besides, if he was married … Oh, it was no good.

I would go home, draw up my lesson plans up until Christmas and return to work with renewed professionalism and efficiency. Perhaps I would get a twinset and wear my hair in a bun, go for full-on librarian chic instead of the slightly messy, distrait image I tended to present to the world.

And then Patrick could unpin my chignon and take off my glasses and … But, Ms Delaney, you’re beautiful …

God, I’m a twat sometimes.

I took the hovercraft back on Hallowe’en, a Friday this year, and braved the gathering gloom along the promenade, past the kids in Screammasks shaking hollowed pumpkins full of candy, until I arrived at my cold, unheated flat.

I switched on the computer before I attended to the boiler – for some reason I had this itchy premonitory feeling that SecretSadist might have a new message for me, but I was wrong.

Sitting down with a cup of tea and a chocolate Hobnob, I found the usual stream of messages from hopeful pain-inflicters on MasterMe.com. Delete, delete, delete. My finger hesitated over something different, some kind of flyer or general invitation.

‘Come to the first Solent area Munch!’

What the hell was a Munch? I thought of The Scream, then some kind of picnic affair, before clicking out of idle curiosity and reading on.

‘Do you despair of ever being able to meet and socialise with like-minded local people? Well, now you can cheer up and get your spank on, because the first ever Solent area Munch is scheduled for Sunday 9th November at 1 p.m. In the Mason’s Arms, Itchin Lane.

‘Come for a drink and a chat – no obligations, no pressure, discretion assured. Dress code = casual. No school uniforms or latex please!

‘We hope to see you soon!’

Interesting. The message was signed by one Soton_Spanker. A little bit of rummaging around MasterMe.com revealed him to be a male aged 30-40 with interests in corporal punishment, fantasy role play and astronomy. A kinky geek! The side of me I had planned to squash bounced back in full effect, my deviant synapses firing once more.

A smidgen of additional detective work dulled my overactive libido, though. He was in the “in a relationship” category, with a cute-looking girl called BadLilBunny.

All the same, the invitation was intriguing. What did a group of spanking fetishists look like in the field? Somehow, I didn’t think I’d be able to resist the temptation to find out.

The first week back at school was rough, both weather-wise and in terms of workload. I staggered through the Friday rehearsal without Patrick, who was at a conference, before falling into a pit of vodka with Lou.

I was still mildly fuzzyheaded on the Sunday morning, though the worst excesses of the hangover had receded and I was at least able to eat.

The storm appeared to have finally blown through and the sun made itself known for the first time in some days. I could do this. I could have brunch and then get on the train. It wasn’t a long journey, and it was in the neighbouring city, which boded well for my anonymity. Could I really do it?

I logged on to the computer and messaged Soton_Spanker.

‘Is the Munch still on?’

I’d eaten my toast and was on my second cup of coffee when the reply pinged in.

‘Very much so! Are you coming?’

‘I hope so. Will try to make it.’

‘Excellent – we’ll be in the corner furthest away from the dartboard. Look forward to seeing you.’

There it was. A commitment. Not unbreakable, of course, but it put a weight of motivation beneath my idle curiosity, heavy enough to send me to the cupboard for coats and scarves and make sure my railcard was in my purse.

All the way on the train I entertained a stupid fantasy of Stuart, my spanking surgical sailor, being one of the parties lurking in the corner of the snug. A reunion, all the more passionate for being unexpected – he would bend me backwards over the table for an extended kissing scene, then he would bend me forwards and bare my bottom, right there in the pub, while the Munchers looked on and applauded.

By the time the train pulled into the station, I was struggling with an inconvenient heat between my thighs, wishing that I had been a) alone in the carriage and b) wearing fewer than four layers. Under my coat, my jumper dress, my tights, my knickers, a furtive humidity radiated out, soaking my underwear, demanding attention I couldn’t give without criminalising myself.

The vibration of the engines beneath the prickly seat had almost tipped me over the edge, so it was a relief, in a contradictory kind of way, when they ceased and I was able to step out into cold, head-clearing air and concentrate on finding the pub.

It was in a quiet backstreet close to the dockyard. The row of sleek, shiny motormonsters lined up outside denoted a bikers’ pub – a nice choice, I thought. There might not be an actual correlation between bikes and BDSM, but the two seem to rub along together quite well.

I stopped halfway across the gravel car park and looked behind me. Should I stay or should I go? I could just nip off over to West Quay and go for a browse through the shops instead. Catch a movie at the neighbouring multiplex, overdose on popcorn and self-loathing, go home.

‘Nice boots! I think I saw some like that in last month’s Elle.’

From the doorway, a snub-nosed blonde laughed over at me, beckoning madly. I recognised her from her MasterMe profile – BadLilBunny in the flesh.

I didn’t move. ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘They’re only from the market.’

‘Shepherds Bush?’

She had stepped down and was crunching across the gravel towards me, still beaming, a naughty little angel in Seven jeans, with an Australian accent.

‘Shepherds Bush?’ I repeated, not understanding.

‘You know. The fetish market. I love that Victorian lace-up style.’

‘Oh, no, no, just the market under the old Tricorn centre. Sorry, are you ..?’

She held out a hand.

‘Maz,’ she said. ‘Aka BadLilBunny. And – you’re going to think I’m insane if you’re not – but I’m guessing you’re AtYourService?’

‘Umm,’ I hedged. This was my last chance to back out. Say, ‘No, certainly not, I’m a churchwarden called Gladys,’ and make a run for it. But her smiley, welcoming aura won me over. ‘Yeah, that’s right. Keris.’ I took her proffered hand and shook, congratulating myself on my presence of mind. After all, how many Cherries of my age could there be in the area? I didn’t want any curious Googling fingers linking my bare spanked arse to St Sebastian’s. Keris could be the bare spanked arse. Cherry could be the rest of me.

She giggled and pulled me rather abruptly into a hug.

‘I’m so excited to have another girl in the group,’ she confided. ‘The guys are going to love you. Come on. I’ll buy you a drink – newbie privilege. What do you like?’

‘Uh …’ Did I necessarily want to lose my inhibitions today? Maybe not. ‘I’ll have an orange juice and lemonade, thanks.’

The pub was dark and creaky and, despite the smoking ban, there was a kind of tobacco-laden feel to the air inside. I wouldn’t have been at all surprised to find out that the ghost of a pipe-smoking Harley rider sat by the fireplace on the night of the full moon.

Maz pushed me into the corner furthest from the dartboard with an explanatory chirrup of, ‘This is Keris, guys, do your gentlemanly thing,’ before flitting off to the bar.

A lanky guy in spectacles and a Killers T-shirt leapt up and offered me a place on the bench beside him.

‘Hi,’ he said effusively. ‘Are you AtYourService?’

I nodded, blinking around me. There were two other men there – a massively bearded man in dusty leather trousers and a older gent in a smart shirt and chinos combo. It seemed Maz and I were the female contingent.

‘Yeah,’ I admitted. ‘You must be – Soton_Spanker?’

‘Justin,’ he said with a nod. ‘This is Rev and this is Lawrence.’

‘Rev?’ I looked at the biker and snickered. ‘You don’t have a dog collar.’

‘As in revving a bike,’ he explained, raising an eyebrow. ‘No holy orders taken. Though I might be in possession of a collar or two. I don’t wear them myself though.’

I experienced a frisson, hyper-aware of the fact that I was a submissive girl surrounded by doms. Daniella in the lions’ den.

‘You’re new on the scene,’ remarked Lawrence.

‘I didn’t even know there was a scene.’

‘Oh, there’s a scene,’ said Justin confidently. ‘You can participate in it as much or as little as you like, but it’s definitely there. So you’re new to kink?’

‘I suppose. I’ve had a … I haven’t done much. I’ve been interested for a long time though.’

Maz appeared with the drinks and I exhaled deeply, hoping she would dilute the scrutiny I appeared to be subject to.

‘Yay, a total newbie,’ she said. ‘You’ve been so brave, coming here alone. And it’s a great first step – we’re all friendly and experienced. Even if you don’t want to play with any of us, we’ve got loads of advice and help to offer.’

Play.

The word didn’t fit. My secret fetishes had always seemed so dangerous, so serious, a deadly delicious poison infecting my bloodstream, threatening my chances of a sane and ordered future. What was frivolous about that? But perhaps, after all, it could be no more than a game.

Weirdly crestfallen, I gave Maz a weak smile.

‘I’m glad I came,’ I said. ‘You’re all very – approachable. This is quite a scary thing for me to do.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Justin. He had a kill-you-stone-dead sexy smile, all lips and teeth. Maz had chosen well. ‘And I bet you were expecting a load of guys in leather carrying whips in their holsters. Well, I suppose Rev is a bit like that …’

We all laughed, Rev more than anyone. My disappointment faded – why would I be disappointed at meeting people who understood me at last? I decided to cheer up and embrace the opportunity. If nothing else, it would be a learning experience.

And I learned a lot that day.

I learned that Maz had come over on a student visa and stayed after meeting Justin through the MasterMe website two years earlier – she was an A&E nurse working at the general hospital. I wondered if her nursing skills ever came in handy in her private life, but I refrained from asking. I learned that Rev was recently divorced and “back on the scene” after taking a break for a few years. I learned that Lawrence had been a spanking fetishist from boyhood, but only with the advent of the internet had he been emboldened to explore his interest, having suppressed it for fifty years. Our generation was lucky. We could take our sexuality and run with it, let it evolve and develop instead of stuffing it under the bed and putting on the stiff upper lip. I was moved by his story.

‘Don’t be like me,’ he said. ‘Don’t try and deny who and what you are.’

‘I won’t,’ I promised.

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ said Justin with a devilish wink. ‘Not now we’re on your case.’

Ah, Justin. An interesting man. A lecturer in astrophysics at the local university, he looked wholesome and earnest but Maz assured me that he wielded the meanest cane this side of the Thames. And whenever he smiled “wholesome and earnest” flew off his face, replaced by “filthysexygorgeous”.

By two o’clock, both Lawrence and Rev had left, pleading other commitments, but Justin, Maz and I got another round in, and this time I felt comfortable enough to let go of my tight-reined self-control and order a bottle of Mexican lager.

‘It’s a shame your web dom disappeared,’ Maz sympathised, having been regaled with the story of SecretSadist. ‘But hey. His loss is our gain, eh, Justin?’

I looked rapidly from each to each. In what sense?

‘She means,’ said Justin, putting the drinks down, ‘that you probably wouldn’t have come to the Munch if you were still in touch with him. Steady on, Maz, it sounded like you were trying to seduce poor Keris here then.’

‘Shit, sorry, didn’t mean it to come out like that!’

Justin left a beat, putting a contemplative finger to his lip before speaking again.

‘Though if you were interested, of course …’

The beer bottle was slippery in my hand. I put it down.

‘Interested? In what? You’re … I mean … You’re together, aren’t you?’

‘Sure,’ said Maz, taking an insouciant chug of her alcopop. ‘We’re together. But we aren’t exclusive. We’re poly.’

‘You’re …’ For some reason, the only image that sprang to mind was acres of agricultural polytunnels flapping in a field. ‘Poly?’

Justin laughed. ‘Polyamorous.’

‘Polyamorous? Is that like, bisexual?’

‘No.’ Maz was delighted, enraptured even, at my naïveté. ‘It means we have a kind of open relationship. But not the kind where we go off individually and sleep with other partners. We like to include other people in our relationship, I guess, is one way of putting it.’

‘Oh. How does that work then?’

‘It’s complicated.’ Justin smiled charmingly. ‘But then, so are we. So are you, I think. We have a network of close friends and playmates. Some of them are lovers, in a full sense. Some of them just like to come along when there’s a big group scene planned. Horses for courses. Horsewhips for friendships.’

‘Heh.’ The chuckle was a punctuation mark. I had no idea what to do with this information. Did I have to do anything with it?

‘So, J is just saying,’ Maz took up the baton. ‘If you found yourself needing a bit of action of any kind, you know, we’d be happy to oblige. Either or both of us, if you see what I mean.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Justin put a hand on mine and I flushed all over. ‘We’ve frightened you off, haven’t we? Look, forget it, Keris. Some people are cut out for monogamy and some aren’t. No judgements. If you’re a one-man woman, that’s cool. We just thought it would be a shame, if you weren’t, to let a gorgeous unattached submissive woman like you slip away without mentioning the possibilities. Still friends?’

I flicked my eyes up at him. His pout, his spectacles, his ruffled brown hair, his taut man’s arms.

‘I’m not frightened,’ I said. ‘Just curious.’

Maz shuffled up closer to me, her denimed hip nudging mine.

‘Curiosity is good,’ she said. ‘We can work with curiosity.’

‘What sort of thing … I mean … How would it work – if I was to – in theory …’

Justin stemmed the flow of verbal diarrhoea, squeezing my hand.

‘It would work any way you wanted. We can fit around your fantasies, unless they’re further out there than ours – which is unlikely, if I’m honest. Whatever you’ve never done, whatever you’ve dreamed of doing … Just say the word.’

What an offer. The remnants of my common sense suggested that I thank them politely for their interest, take their mobile phone numbers and make my goodbyes. The rest of me, plus beer, had different ideas.

‘Well, you know, I’ve come to a Munch. I think the interest in spanking is a given,’ I said coyly.

Maz giggled and did a sort of excitable wriggle beside me.

‘We kinda figured, and believe me, Justin is the best spanker around. He’s a thinker – I reckon thinkers make great spankers, don’t you?’

‘It’s the appliance of science,’ he said, with yet another knicker-soaker of a smile.

Oh God. Apply that science to my backside. Apply it good and hard.

‘So … I might be in the market,’ I said haltingly. ‘For a, y’know, just something to tide me over while I’m waiting for something more permanent.’

‘A stop-gap.’ Justin pouted cartoonishly. ‘Aww.’ He brightened, winking. ‘No, that’s cool. Absolutely. I can do that. So … Do you want to fix a time and place? And do you want just me, or is there any way Maz can get involved?’

‘Well …’ Fuck. Now the contract was on the table, I didn’t know what clauses I wanted to include. ‘Why don’t I invite you two round for supper? Friday night. We can take it from there.’

‘Terrific!’ Maz squeaked. ‘I can’t wait. We’ll bring our toybox, right, J?’

Play? Toys? Was this just another way of deferring adulthood? I didn’t know. And right then, neither did I care.