‘You know, I might take you up on that. But let’s get the club thing sorted first, yeah?’
It seems the least I can do.
‘OK.’ I put down my glass and haul myself to my feet. ‘Let’s go and talk to Mal.’
Chapter Ten
‘Are you comfortable to sit?’
Three days after the caning, my bottom and wood still lack a fundamental affinity, and these schoolroom chairs are the worst.
‘Here.’ Dimitri unwraps a scarf from his neck and makes a show of laying it out on the seat for me.
Anton and some of the other audience members look on with intrigued amusement.
‘Stop making a show of me.’ I am drenched in embarrassment as I perch carefully on the blended wool silk. Dimitri puts an arm around my waist, pulling his chair right up close to mine.
‘What did you do to her?’ Anton wants to know, but before he can get an answer the demonstrators march onto the podium and the room hushes.
Mal is the teacher tonight, and Trixietots is his willing and able assistant. She is wearing a tiny plaid mini-kilt and over-the-knee socks; her breasts almost burst out of the tightly buttoned white shirt she is wearing, with obligatory skew-whiff tie.
We are here, rather unnecessarily in Dimitri’s case, to watch a caning masterclass. I think Anton should really start with Spanking 101, but he insisted on enrolling for this one as his first taste of the delights of Kinky Cupcake, so here we are.
We watch as Trixietots demonstrates every kind of bending-over stance imaginable and Mal explains the benefits of each. With each new pose he invites an audience member to come up and smack her knicker-clad bum – Anton is first to be picked and returns from the rostrum grinning like a lunatic.
‘This is my kind of school, innit,’ he says, reseating himself.
Next Mal talks us through a variety of different canes. Every thickness, every material is represented and, once he has finished talking, he has Trixietots pull down her knickers and take a stroke from each.
She is amazingly controlled. I flinch with each stroke, expecting her to jump up or scream or clutch her bum, but she doesn’t do any of it.
‘How does she keep so still?’ I whisper to Dimitri.
‘I don’t know. I will make you keep still next time. I will get you as still as her.’
I shudder, sure it can’t be possible, and hoping ‘next time’ might be a long way in the future.
I watch each line materialise along the ample cheeks of her bum, crossing the cleft, until she has a neat grid of strokes. I shift in my chair, wishing I was her, which is madness, of course, because I hate the cane. But it is so very, very sexy.
‘This is how the marks look, you see, when they are fresh.’ Mal runs the tip of a cane across each newly laid welt. ‘They fade with time, or some might present as bruising, especially from the heavier implements. In fact, I think there’s someone in this room with some older marks.’
I suck in a breath. Mal looks directly at me.
‘Rosie? A few days ago, wasn’t it? Would you be very, very kind and show us how they look now?’
‘Oh, I, I don’t know.’
I try to collapse myself into as tiny a ball as I can, flamingly aware that everyone in the room (a) knows I am sitting on a caned bottom (b) expects to be able to get a good look at it.
‘Maybe if Dimitri comes up with you?’
‘Come on,’ he whispers in my ear. ‘You are brave. You can do it.’
If he wants me to do it, I’ll do it. His word makes all the difference.
I let him help me to my feet and lead me to the stage, avoiding all eyes, especially Anton’s. I won’t have to face them anyway. It’s not my face they want to see.
I am placed beside Trixietots, who is still bent over a chair. Dimitri runs a hand along my spine, pushing me gently into a forward inclination, less pronounced than Trixie’s, but still making my neck and head droop down. He keeps one hand rubbing my back while the other lifts my skirt, so slowly and softly that I almost don’t notice. I shut my eyes, blocking out the harsh schoolroom light. Cold air trickles up the backs of my thighs. Their eyes are on my thighs. I goose pimple all over.
He is so careful, so delicate when he pulls the knickers down. He doesn’t brush the marks, doesn’t even touch them. Once the elastic is safely at thigh level, he straightens up and holds me in position with his palms on my shoulders, thumbs massaging my neck.
A confusion of thoughts swirls in my head. Everyone is looking at my arse, but Dimitri’s hands feel so nice, and it doesn’t matter, they all do this kind of thing anyway, and all the subs will be envious of me and want Dimitri to do the same to them, especially the straight women and gay men.