Whatever You Want Read online

  I never did. But over the next year and a half we became even closer. My behaviour and my grades at school had improved tremendously, and I was expected to achieve creditable grades at GCSE and even to stay on to do A levels, or maybe NVQs.

  Sometimes I could scarcely believe how happy I was – and at the same time how fiercely I longed for our relationship to be taken further, to express itself in the physical bliss I dreamed of so much in my waking, and sleeping, hours. We spent the weekend celebrating my 15th birthday with a trip to the theatre in the West End, and dinner in an expensive restaurant. As she prepared to bid me goodnight, I felt tears spring to my eyes and spill over. My throat closed. ‘I love you, Miss,’ I whispered, and leant over to kiss her on the cheek. I could feel rather than see the warm blush that spread over her neck and lovely face. I was leaning forward, holding my lips open, ready to receive the oft-dreamed of heaven of my kiss returned; this time an embrace of real passion, of mouths and tongues worrying, entering, the fusion of love I hungered for.

  But she jumped back, startled, and stammering some kind of gentle, embarrassed protest. My heart plummeted, sinking like a stone, and the tears flooded, blurring my vision as I clawed at the door catch and stumbled inelegantly out, running towards the entrance of the care home, her ‘goodnight’ fluttering feebly to the ground behind me. I didn’t look back.

  I was determined to conquer my slavish adoration of her, to tell her, in the language of my contemporaries, to “get stuffed”, but then it all became cruelly irrelevant, in the torturous months that followed, when she fell in love herself, alas not with me, but with Joe Servis, a teacher who arrived at Westport at the start of what proved to be my last year at school. I thought of him as my rival for her heart, but it was no contest, of course. I wasn’t naïve enough to continue to believe she had ever held any feeling for me other than friendship. We were close enough temperamentally. She was shy and unsure of herself, and probably got a lot out of our relationship – the dominant power she exerted over me, however benevolent it was. After all, there was, I had to admit, something a bit weird about it, even if sex didn’t come into it – to my long and bitter regret, I have to add. She did genuinely shock me by taking up with Mr Servis. She might not have been perverse enough to mess with a minor, but I would have bet that she was more inclined by nature to homo rather than hetero-sex.

  Nevertheless, she dumped me for Joe Servis. That’s what it felt like, and not only to me. She blushed like a beacon and guilt was written all over her pretty face every morning in class, and our former closeness was severed. I couldn’t forgive her for her cruelty, and my conduct and my grades reflected my anger if not my anguish. I could have got her into serious trouble, with my bitter talk of the “lezzy bitch” and her efforts to “get me out of my knickers”. Perhaps I did. She left the term before I did, at the Easter, by which time she had been courted and impregnated by Joe Servis and arrangements made for her to take maternity leave.

  ‘Serve her fucking well right!’ I declared vehemently. Out of sight, but definitely not out of my mind, not even after months passed, and I was no longer a schoolgirl, and no longer in the residential home but sharing a council flat with two girls in similar circumstances, searching less than half-heartedly for work while we lived rent free and on our meagre “benefit”. They were both pursuing the popular alternative plan of getting pregnant and gaining what they considered the superior status of “single mum” and all that that entailed. They ignored me as far as possible, which suited me fine, so despite their proximity, I was leading a fairly solitary and very limited life, bounded as it was for the most part of day and night by the four shabby walls of my barely furnished room. I spent a lot of time on my narrow, squeaky bed, reading – not the Bronte sisters or the Jane Austen Miss Challis had led me to, but the pink and bubbly covered paperback chick-bonking romances that required one hand to hold the book and the other to ferret in my knickers or, if I could be sure of uninterrupted solitude, to caress my sexual parts in sprawling, frog-legged nudity.

  Eventually the book would fall on floor or duvet as the urgency of my arousal demanded full attention, then my imagination would take over, every bit as fertile as the discarded novel, and Randy Mandy (I wish!) reigned supreme, along with her rampant paramour:

  I am in my neatly pressed school uniform once more, of mauve blouse, striped tie, grey skirt and black tights – I even wear the regulation navy knickers scorned by so many of my sixth-form contemporaries, but I know what a stickler Mandy always is for the rules, and I long as always to please my friend and lover. Mrs Servis lies on the bright floral counterpane of the marital double bed. She is dressed in a silken robe whose own vivid flower patterns make a riot of colour, spread open to display the short, mulberry-coloured nightdress, through which I can see the misty paleness of her beautiful, curving flesh, the dark ruddiness of the generous circles centring those soft breasts. The nipples already thrust in erect anticipation of my caressing fingers and tongue, and the dark little triangle of the pubis shows in the fold of thighs and belly – the thighs which will part joyously in subjection to my kisses and my devoted hands, as that sweet belly lifts and she offers herself, a willing sacrifice to the consummation of our love.

  I perch beside her exquisite limbs, study the perfection of her high-arched feet, the vivid darkness of the painted toes, curling in their hunger for the approaching bliss. I torment both of us deliciously by my pause, my almost chaste caress of the prominence of the anklebone, the pink roundness of the heel that sits so well in the cup of my palm. She whimpers as I lean forward, my hand on her thigh now, and she reaches up, proffering herself to meet my open lips. We kiss, softly, lingering, wet lips clamped, warm breath mingling with our prodding, writhing entangled tongues. I tug at my laces, untying the black shoes, push them toes to heels off my feet, my own pale unadorned toes showing dimly through the dark mesh of my tights. I kneel now in a predator crouch over my willing victim, hands reaching out to slip the fine silk of her robe from her shoulders while I bury my nose in the dizzying sweetness of her neck, the slenderness of the nape where her thick dark hair hangs. I kiss the secret shade worshipfully, and nibble at the divine, pierced, plump little lobe of the ear. The probe of my tongue into the delicate sensitised shell of the orifice causes the involuntary flicker of her shoulder. She gasps, turns and offers instead the parted deep red lips, seeking the thrill of the passionate kiss that stirs us both.

  The exclusive world of our sensuality explodes in a searing flash. Pain rips through me as I feel talons driven deep in my tumbling mass of fine gold hair plucking me away from Mandy and I am spun whirling through space until I am lying face down, across the trousered knees of Joe Servis. Mandy gives one faint cry, scarcely more than a gasp, as she lies there, her knees drawn up, staring at the broad back of her husband as he pins me down like a naughty infant about to be chastised. Which I am, mercilessly, flesh and dignity agonisingly flayed, as he scoops up the grey hem of the skirt, drags down the tights and the ugly navy cotton knickers in one savage movement and binds me over his knee in his remorseless grip on my twisted hair. The flat of his right hand descends in an endless succession of cracking, flaring smacks on my bared bottom. The squeals and hopeless kicks are for both the flaring pain and for my outraged sense of decorum. My stockinged feet scissor the air in rapid succession, the knotted tangle of my pants and tights slide down until they lodge around my calves like bonds, impeding further my threshing movement. The burning intensity of the assault on my helpless flesh overcomes altogether the affront to sensibility, and I sag, aware suddenly of the insidious arousal of the feel of his iron hard thighs across my belly, along with the burning pain. I feel the resistance drain away, from my struggle and from my voice. The shrieks and shrill obscenities die too and I am sobbing now, writhing only to escape each blistering crack on my quivering, clenching backside, and I beg for mercy. ‘Oh! Ow! Please! I’m sorry! Oh, stop, please!’

  When he does, eventually, I hang there,
my feet trailing close to the floor, the knickers and tights wound about my ankles. My skirt is still bunched about the middle of my back, my throbbing bum exposed to the cool air in all its crimsoned, fiery glory – and I weep blindly, desolately, reduced from the worldly 18-year-old lover to chastised blubbing child again.

  But the punishment is far from over. He hauls me to an upright chair into which he slams me down with such force that I scream anew at the pain that fires through me as my buttocks impact with the wooden seat. My skirt is caught up at the back, so that my burning, throbbing skin is in direct contact with the unforgiving wood, though my belly and genitals are hidden by the grey material. The tights and knickers are still like bonds about my ankles. I am weeping almost quietly now, lost in my desolation of physical discomfort and shame. At first I am only dimly aware of his actions as he tears the school tie viciously from around my neck, so that my blouse buttons pop open to the central divide of my bra cups, to which he pays no attention at all. Quickly he grabs my unresisting arms and pinions them behind the chair back, then binds my wrists tightly to the wooden supports. I am captive, sitting facing the bed. I could I suppose kick my legs free of the knickers and tights and wriggle and squirm across the floor to attempt escape. But I do nothing (it is, after all, my fantasy!) and sit there, enduring the biting bonds on my wrists and the intense torment of my burning bottom.

  Mandy has also remained hopelessly immobile throughout my punishment, and continues to lie there, like a sacrifice, as her husband swiftly sheds his clothes and stands shamelessly (and splendidly) naked. His body is slim but with the lean muscles defined. He is not hirsute – forearms and legs are covered only modestly with fine black hair, but his chest and torso is hairless. The thick wiry bush of his pubis stands out against the paleness of his belly, but our eyes (Mandy’s and mine) are drawn irresistibly to the rearing penis, of a darker coral shade, which thrusts potently up at an angle from the pubis, the slightly paler pink helm fully exposed. A bead of moisture glistens at its tiny mouth.

  Even if I was not tied down, I could not, would not, have moved. I feel my own belly and vulva, lightly concealed only by my skirt, clenching and beating with increasing urgency, and I am certain Mandy is equally aroused. Her eyes never leave the naked figure advancing on her. Her face is flushed. She has a pleading expression on her features, but for what I am unsure. Mercy or ruthlessness? He is rough, rapacious, grabbing her ankles, pulling her down the rumpled bed, spreading her long legs. He drags off her robe, and pulls the sheer nightie up until it is no more than a flimsy ruff about her throat. He savages at her breasts, his mouth open, gorging, sucking and biting at each quivering mound, and her shoulders lift, she cries out as she pulls his head to her, until he flattens her with his thrust, before spreading himself over her, scooping up her widely parted limbs and diving between them. I see just for an instant the swing of his testicles between his deeply hollowed buttocks and the glimpse of her gaping dark gleam as he lunges home, then her body is hidden, under those pumping nates, framed by her legs, the undersides of her thighs, her slim, hanging calves and feet swinging in response to his mighty thrusts. I see her narrow soles, very slightly yellowed, dust speckled, the painted nails beating their tattoo, the sweet pink graceful heels drumming on his ploughing bottom.

  The coitus lasts only minutes before the final rearing up and drive home, his gasp and Mandy’s high, sharp cry, then wavering moan of crisis, and all is still. She lies like a victim, only those pale ankles and feet showing beneath the crushing inert mass of her conqueror. And suddenly, desperately, I tear my wrists against the bite of the silk bonds in a vain effort to free my hands and assuage the storm of hunger and need I can feel seeping from me beneath the fragile cover of the skirt.

  Chapter Three

  THE AFRICAN NURSE COMES behind the screen where I am standing indecisively. The brilliant white of her overall emphasises the deep chocolate tone of her skin. Her bare legs, from the hem of the short garment to her white lace-up shoes, gleam as though they have been polished. Her teeth beam their whiteness too, large and just a little too prominent as she smiles and says, ‘Take off your skirt and pants, please.’

  At once, Simon’s voice floats over the screen. ‘No, I’d like you to do a full medical, doctor, if you don’t mind.’

  I hear the deeper bass rumble of the doctor: ‘Of course, Mr Hunt. Whatever you say.’

  Simon says. And people do. Whatever he wants. Especially me. The nurse gives a little nod, another toothy grin. ‘Everything off except the pants then, madam.’

  This is Simon’s way of punishing me for my little whimperings of complaint and distress after the episode with Mattius. In spite of my ready compliance with Simon’s wish, and command, I could not help my emotion of shame and a sense of devaluation after the event. After all, I did love him, and his desire to watch me being fucked by another man, in spite of his professed feeling for me, hurt me. I thought I could hide the hurt, tried to smother it with the notion that it showed the depth of my love that I would so willingly consent to such a thing, and that he would see it as such. But I overestimated my own capacity for selflessness, and that night, back in our room in the island’s luxurious beach hotel, I made softly whingeing complaint about my physical discomfort, and once again brought up my fears about the unprotected sex with the young fisherman, which Simon had insisted should take place.

  Typically, Simon did not show his displeasure by anger. Instead, with cruel kindness, he put me to bed early, alone , and gave me a sleeping pill, which ensured a night of drugged unconsciousness. Next day he announced that he had to deal with some business on the mainland, and that, for my “peace of mind”, he would arrange a check-up at a local private hospital while we were there.

  I strip to my white bikini briefs and slip my arms into the loose, thin cotton gown with its wide, ugly three-quarter sleeves, which the nurse holds out to me. It comes down to mid-thigh, and I step out into the doctor’s office. As always, I feel that shyness when I am with others in Simon’s company, in spite of my chequered past in which I have been exposed in all stages of dress and undress in front of strangers. I even blush when the young African doctor beams and immediately invites me to discard the robe I have just put on. Simon sits in a comfortable black leather scoop of a chair, like the punters at one of those intimate shows I have just referred to. The doctor doesn’t even suggest that my friend should leave while I am examined, and for a rebellious second I toy with the idea of making the request. But of course, I don’t. I slip the short garment off again and pass it to the attendant nurse, stand there self-consciously before all three while the doctor begins his examination.

  In my tiny briefs, I twist, turn, bend and touch my toes, crouch and stretch, obeying the rumbled commands, performing for my audience of three – or perhaps, to be more accurate, two, for the doc is my dominant partner in this little cabaret. I suffer a moment of concealed anger to flavour my embarrassment as he spends a considerable time dealing with my breasts, having me take deep breaths and “hold” while he listens with his stethoscope pressed to the top of my mounds, then hefts them individually, like a guess-the-weight competition, before a deliberate kneading investigation of each one, and helplessly I feel my small nipples tingle and peak to erection. The irritation worsens when my eyes fall on the superior dimensions of the nurse’s bosom, decently covered, of course, but straining against the white overall with impressive fullness.

  Then it’s forgotten as the doc invites me to climb on the high, narrow, white-sheeted examination table, and we get down to the nitty-gritty, the pièce de résistance of the whole show. Simon speaks out easily, explaining graphically and without any trace of embarrassment, the crux of the problem. ‘Miss Clarke is complaining of pain in her vaginal passage, soreness after a particularly vigorous bout of sex. She’s particularly worried about any unfortunate results of the episode. No protection was used.’

  The doc is clearly taken aback, though I cannot claim to notice his blushe
s given the darkness of his complexion. Simon has already informed him that pregnancy is not one of my fears, and of the details of my contraception regime. The doc’s tone rises slightly as he orders me to slip my knickers off, and his nurse gives a smothered giggle which she transforms into a cough before helping me to divest myself of the briefs. She then slips my feet into a pair of canvas stirrups and raises them until my lifted knees are wide apart and my sexual parts are displayed for the world – or, more accurately, my select audience – to feast their eyes on. At least mine can be directed up to the lights and arrangements of metal bars beneath the ceiling, which blurs through the tears I feel stinging in my humiliation.

  I feel a cold clamp, I feel my orifice even more brutally exposed as the labia are drawn back by the dilator, and I imagine the gaping expanse of my vagina. The stirrups give a little jingle as I jump and the muscles twitch at the sudden probe of an object – a spatula, and perhaps doc’s gloved fingers, exploring my hole. My varnished toes wiggle, and I close my eyes and hold my breath and fight not to let tears slide forth and a sob to escape my quivering bare bosom.

  ‘There is some chafing and bruising of the vaginal walls. Certainly the sexual activity has been a little – er – vigorous.’

  ‘Hear that, Crissie, love?’ My eyes are squeezed shut, and remain so. ‘You’ll have to be a bit more careful about who you have it off with here, sweetheart. There’s some mighty impressive specimens knocking about, eh, doc?’ He laughs, mano a mano , and I lie, utterly opened, spread on my rack of shame and opprobrium. The tears escape, one from the outer corner of each eye, and trickle down to the fair curls at my temples.