Over the Knee (26 page)

The slipper exploded against my bottom with a loud meaty whack. I choked back a cry and kept my legs straight. The rubber sole of the shoe imparted a brutal sting, but I resisted the urge to grab my bottom.

The next three strokes came in rapid succession, hurting terribly. With each stroke I bent my knees a little more, until I was quite out of position.

‘Back in place, snotty,’ Peter growled. ‘Right down. Come on, show some pluck.’

I turned scarlet as I straightened my legs and clutched my trousers. The taunts and scathing tone of his Carruthers persona were so unfamiliar to me. He’d never played a bully before. It was humiliating and frightening, but in an exhilarating edgy way. I didn’t fully understand it, but somehow I knew that I could endure more of this as a boy than I ever could as a girl. Peter seemed to know it too.

Again Peter applied the slipper. He allowed very little time between strokes, which made it harder to take. I straightened my legs when he barked at me to do so, but there was no way I could maintain the position for long.

‘Feeling these, are we, boy?’

‘Yes, Carruthers,’ I whimpered.

‘Good. Then I may be getting through to you.’

The onslaught continued until I had lost count of the number of strokes. Again and again the slipper descended, painting its distinctive imprint on my cheeks.

By the end I was yelping with total abandon, not caring if I sounded like a girl or not. I clung to my dignity as a boy, not breaking position too badly and not reaching
back
to shield my bottom. I didn’t beg him to stop, either. And I didn’t cry.

Finally, Peter stopped.

Thinking it was over at last, I stood up, stumbling a little.

‘What do you think you’re doing? I told you that was for failing to clean my study properly. I’m not finished with you yet.’

I lowered my head.

Peter’s face was a mask of cruel glee as he fetched a rattan school cane from the wardrobe. It was long and dense, but at least it wasn’t the Pop cane.

‘Back in position,’ he ordered.

With a soft moan, I resumed the position.

‘This time you can drop your trousers, boy,’ he said. ‘And your underpants.’

I gasped.

‘You heard me. You’re a cry-baby, Shepherd. And cry-babies are punished on the bare. Now take them down.’

‘But, Carruthers –’

‘Now, boy. I want to see those baby-cheeks. Drop your trousers or I’ll do it for you.’

I blushed so hard my scalp tingled. But I wasn’t about to disobey. With a mournful sigh I bent to the task, unbuckling my belt and unfastening my trousers. I held them up for a moment before letting them slip down to the floor. They puddled around my feet and I stood before him in my boy’s underpants. Putting them on earlier had felt sexy and transgressive, but now I was self-conscious. I knew Peter was thoroughly enjoying my discomfort and I hesitated only another few seconds before hooking my thumbs into the elastic and pushing the cotton underwear down my thighs.

‘Feet apart.’

I managed to shuffle my feet away from each other until they were about twelve inches apart. Then I felt the cane tapping against my backside. I winced. I already felt well and truly beaten. My bottom burnt and tingled from the
assault
of the Pop cane and the slipper. The school cane would be excruciating after that. And I knew he would use it hard. After all, he wasn’t punishing
me
; he was punishing a boy who had broken the schoolboy code by telling tales. No matter how much you were bullied, no matter what was done to you, you
did not
squeal. As always, he had set me up nicely.

‘Six strokes,’ Peter pronounced. ‘Stay in position. You know I’ll repeat strokes if you give me an excuse. Don’t you, you little worm?’

‘Yes, Carruthers,’ I whispered.

‘This is for running to Fleming. Before each stroke you’re going to say, “Please teach me not to be a cry-baby”.’

I moaned with shame. Oh, God, this was torture! I swallowed and plucked up my courage. I could do this.

‘Please teach me not to be a cry-baby,’ I said.

The cane sliced into me instantly, painting a line of fire across my already sore backside. I gritted my teeth, grimly determined not to make a sound. The words I had to speak were degrading enough; I didn’t need the added dishonour of blubbing.

‘Again,’ Peter directed.

‘Please teach me – not to be a cry-baby.’

Another savage stroke met my aching flesh, but I kept my legs straight and my cries to myself. I swallowed and spoke my line again.

The third stroke made me hiss, but I forced my legs to stay rooted to the floor. My fingers were gripping my trousers so hard they were shaking. I felt tears pricking my eyes and I willed them away.

The final three strokes steadily increased in intensity and I knew he was trying to break me. But I stuck to my resolve, gasping and biting back my yelps of pain. I spoke the awful phrase six times, feeling as though I was being brainwashed. By the time it was over I was a trembling mess.

‘Very good, Shepherd,’ Peter said, a trace of pride in his voice. ‘Get up. Get dressed.’

I hurriedly adjusted my clothing, eager to let poor Martin escape the evil clutches of Carruthers. I stood before him, my eyes on the floor.

‘Right, boy,’ he said. ‘This time if Fleming asks you about the state of your girlish little backside you’ll tell him how much you deserved it, won’t you?’

‘Yes, Carruthers.’

‘Excellent. And I expect to find my study habitable tomorrow.’

‘Yes, Carruthers.’

I turned to go, but a lift of his eyebrows summoned me back.

‘Isn’t there something you’re forgetting, boy?’

I looked up, confused and worried that there was more to come.

He raised his eyebrows.

Suddenly understanding, I lowered my head again. ‘Thank you, Carruthers,’ I murmured.

He smiled. ‘You’re welcome, boy. Now, off with you.’

I headed for the door, snatching up my hat as I went. I scampered down the stairs, eager to get out of my tormentor’s sight, and sank back against the wall outside the study. I felt drunk. Drowning in that confusing cocktail of embarrassment, arousal and shame. I covered my face with my hands. It was so flushed it felt feverish. I knew my bottom was bright red and I couldn’t wait to look at it in the mirror.

I heard Peter’s footsteps on the stairs and I braced myself for the encounter. When I peeled my hands away from my face he was standing by the clock, grinning cheerfully at me.

‘You OK?’

I buried my face again. ‘Oh, God,’ I moaned. ‘I don’t know if I can face you again!’

‘Oh? That’s a shame. Because, while that little roleplay may be over, you still have your customer to deal with. Rent boy.’

I didn’t think it was possible to blush any harder. My face felt scorched.

He opened the door to the library. ‘Inside,’ he said, beaming wickedly.

I obeyed, a lamb to the slaughter.

‘Now then, my lad,’ he said, his tone different. ‘That’s as far as I ever got in school. With you, I can go much further.’

I recalled some of the things Shaun had said in his mock obscene call. I hid my face again, horrified.

Peter was positively revelling in my embarrassment. ‘Yes, that’s exactly right,’ he teased, as though reading my thoughts. ‘Trousers down.’

With nervous fingers, I unbuttoned my trousers again and let them slide down my legs.

‘Over the arm of the sofa.’

I shuffled to the spot he indicated and bent down over it. I grabbed a cushion and shoved my face into it.

Behind me, I heard Peter chuckle. Then I felt his hands in the waistband of my underpants. He pulled them down slowly over my punished bottom, making me wince at the pain.

‘Very nice,’ he commented, running a finger along the tramlines. ‘I do like a lad who can take a proper caning.’

At the sound of his zip, I realised just how wet I was. Endorphins were pinging around in my head and my sex was screaming for release. I was desperate for him to touch me, to take me.

I heard the soft pop of a plastic top coming off a pot and then there was a cold oily sensation between my cheeks. He eased them apart with his thumbs, exposing me completely. His finger sought the little rosebud of my anus and I whimpered into the cushion as he swirled his finger around the puckered ring, probing. Coaxing it open. I couldn’t stop myself clenching at the intrusive sensation. But the determined finger pushed inside, up where no one had ever been. It must have been obvious to Peter that I was a virgin there.

‘Rent boys get buggered, lad. Ever done it before?’

I moaned something I hoped he would take for ‘No’, clutching the edges of the cushion at his soft laughter.

He withdrew his finger and positioned himself behind me. ‘Come on, legs apart,’ he said, gently smacking the insides of my thighs.

I wanted it. But I also wanted the floor to open up and swallow me. I spread my legs obediently, as much as the trousers around my ankles would allow.

His cock pressed against the tiny opening and I tightened up involuntarily.

‘Relax,’ he said, placing a warm hand on my lower back to hold me down. ‘Don’t clench.’

I forced myself to do as he said, whimpering at the intrusive pressure. He pushed cautiously, with soft little thrusts, until at last the head was inside. I cried out, more out of fear than pain.

‘That’s it,’ he said, pleased at my surrender.

I dug my fingers into the cushion, shuddering as he slid the length of his cock up inside the virgin passageway. The sensation was completely alien to me and impossible to process. I couldn’t decide if it was pleasure or pain or both. I trembled with shame and exhilaration at the invasion.

He thrust himself in up to the hilt, his pelvis smacking against my welted backside. I yelped as he began to fuck me in earnest.

I tried to imagine having a cock, feeling it rub against the arm of the sofa as he thrust himself in and out of me. Would he reach round and grab it? Squeeze it and fondle it to bring his little rent boy off as well?

Peter wasn’t tender at all. He twisted a hand roughly in my hair, shoving my face down even further into the cushion. ‘Dirty boy,’ he said with perverse affection. ‘So tight inside.’

I was grateful for the position, as I would have died had he made me face him. My bottom stung with each thrust, as his skin met my skin. I cried out at the pain, but they mutated into muffled animal sounds through the cushion.

He slid in and out of me with ease, pounding against my punished flesh. Over and over. The friction against the sofa was stimulating me as well and I adjusted myself to get the maximum benefit from it. But Peter sensed my movement
and
he reached round with his hand to pleasure me himself, all the while talking to me as a boy.

At last I felt the spasm of his climax and he clutched at my sex. Within seconds, he forced me to my own shattering orgasm. Spasm after spasm battered me from within and for a moment it seemed like the pleasure would overwhelm me. It was almost more than I could take. I screamed into the cushion, liberated by the primal release.

I sagged over the arm of the sofa, panting and spent, unable to move.

Peter withdrew himself and I heard him doing up his trousers. I lifted my face from the cushion, but I still couldn’t get up. Dazed, I stared at the stitching in the upholstery of the sofa.

I reached around and gingerly touched my bottom. ‘Oww,’ I groaned.

Peter was still standing over me and eventually I lifted my eyes from the cushion to look at him. He placed a handful of twenty-pound notes on the sofa in front of me.

‘Worth every penny,’ he said.

Eighteen

Dear Angela,

I understand that Dr Morrison has become increasingly concerned about the progress of your research, and that despite repeated requests you have failed to provide satisfactory evidence of the data that you have gathered for at least three months.

As you know, your supervisor is required to make regular progress reports to the funding body, and the present situation jeopardises both your own project and the Department’s prospects of securing funding for other students in future. At this point in your research, you should be collecting your results into final form for presentation in your thesis. If you are to remain in good standing, we need you to present drafts of at least two chapters of your thesis within the next four weeks.

This letter is the final warning stage before we will need to report your lack of progress to the Dean for disciplinary action.

Yours sincerely,

Prof. Richard Chalcroft

Head of Department

I FOLDED THE
letter with trembling hands and slid it back inside the torn envelope. I felt an awful sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach. Thank God Peter hadn’t intercepted the letter. It was incontrovertible evidence of a crime, laying out my guilt in cold impersonal writing. Like a bad
report
card you knew that you would have to show your parents eventually. The longer you put it off, the more worked up you got and the worse you knew it would be. And as the anxiety began to spiral out of control you had to ask yourself whether it wouldn’t be better just to face the music and have it done.

Lowering myself into the nearest chair, I considered my options.

Over the past few weeks I’d had a succession of concerned emails from Dr Morrison and I’d filed them away, promising myself I’d respond to them later. I never did. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t been working at all. I stuck to my schedule. Well, more or less. Naturally, I had lapses and I bore the cost when they caught up with me. Stroke by stroke. Ah, the stories that birching block could tell …

I winced at a phantom cut of the birch and made my decision. I couldn’t show the letter to Peter. I would have to reply to it; that went without saying. But Peter didn’t have to know about it.

Except that he
would
know about it. He didn’t keep such a close eye on me any more; he trusted me now to be honest. I couldn’t lie to him. But was it really lying? A lie of omission, perhaps, but not a complete falsehood. Where was the line?