Seven Scarlet Tales Read online

  I didn’t have time for rejected drama queens, though. I had my meeting with Peregrine Sands to plan. There was no question of my not going. I had to see him and find out what he had to say. And do.

  ‘To be honest,’ I said, rising to my feet and addressing the table, ‘I’m bushed. I think I’m going to leave early, and let the victory feeling sink in, before I end up too drunk to remember.’

  There were protests, and entreaties to stay, but I brushed them off and left the room, intent on slipping into the backstage area.

  It was easy enough. I found the ladies’ toilets and lurked in there, perfecting my maquillage while I ran through fifty mental scenarios of what might happen next.

  Was I going to get spanked? Was I? Really? And by Peregrine Sands?

  According to Emma, he was a master of the art. She had had the privilege of baring her bottom to his learned palm, and the lesson imparted had been unforgettable. Or so she said – she was prone to exaggeration, like most of us.

  I contemplated being late. If I wasn’t already due an appointment under his hand, I certainly would be then. On the other … hand, I didn’t want to overegg the pudding. I had a feeling Peregrine Sands didn’t wait for anyone.

  The props store was located in the lowest basement room of the theatre, and it took me a little while to find the right combination of staircases and doors, so it was just as well I hadn’t lingered too long over my lipstick.

  When I pushed at the door, I tried to make as little noise as possible. I wanted to get my bearings before I got his attention.

  The room, which was large and low-ceilinged, was in darkness. I could make out the shapes of huge backdrops used in past productions. Forests, by the look of them, and the turrets of a castle. Looming less, but still just about visible, were all kinds of strange-shaped objects and furnishings, plus a pony trap, minus the pony.

  A little unnerved, I thought he must have changed his mind, and I considered turning back.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  With an accompanying click, light flooded the room, causing me to blink and look wildly around. I still couldn’t see anyone.

  ‘Mr Sands? Sir?’

  That was a flash of inspiration, it seemed, for he stepped out from inside a large wardrobe, instantly made flesh.

  I bit my lip to stop myself from grinning. This was utter madness, but I was desperate to know what was going to happen next.

  ‘You used the magic invocation,’ he said. He crooked his finger at me, beckoning. ‘Come here.’

  My sequinned gown swept through the dust.

  When I was about a foot away from him, he put out a hand to stop me.

  ‘I want to look at you,’ he said.

  This suited me, because I wanted to look at him.

  Up close, he looked younger than he did on television and in the papers, but at the same time he had more wrinkles, at the corners of his eyes and mouth. This was a good sign – he must smile more than one ever noticed. Or perhaps it was just the legendary chain-smoking.

  He wasn’t smoking now, though. He was thinner in real life, too. He was of the type you might call ‘elegantly wasted’; beautifully dressed with ruthlessly neat hair and bright, shrewd blue eyes.

  Those same bright, shrewd blue eyes bore into me while I stood, chin up, looking as bold as I dared, waiting for the next thing.

  His fingers brushed my shoulders. They were tinder-dry and I could see the yellow smoker’s tinge on the inside of his left index finger. They left a trail of delicious sparks behind them, moving slowly across my exposed collarbone, then up the centre of my neck, to the soft underside of my chin.

  He prodded it higher, straining the back of my neck, making me look directly up at him.

  ‘Caroline Reddish,’ he intoned.

  ‘My friends call me Callie.’

  ‘I’m not your friend.’ He smiled, a thing of cruelty and sex. It made me smile back.

  ‘I know,’ I said, my voice as smoky as I could make it.

  ‘Why did you come here?’

  ‘Because you asked me to.’

  ‘No. Why did you come here?’

  I swallowed, which wasn’t easy with my head tilted so far back.

  ‘I wanted to see what would happen.’

  ‘What were you hoping for?’

  ‘You, well, you offered a, uh, a critique, which I would be very grateful to hear, from the lips of our greatest living theatre critic.’

  He laughed, or rather made a ‘ha’ sound at that, and removed his finger from my chin, and tapped my cheek instead.

  ‘You’re a little slyboots, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I like that. I like to deal with those kinds of tendencies. But first, I have another question for you. Why did you choose to perform Kiss Me, Kate?’

  ‘Oh. Well, it’s a classic, isn’t it? And it plays to all my company’s strengths – musical numbers, comedy, drama …’ I trailed off. He had a look on his face that showed quite clearly that he wasn’t buying this line.

  ‘There are plenty of shows that do that,’ he said. ‘I think you had another, more specific, reason. And I’m going to worm it out of you, believe me, my girl. So you might as well tell me now.’

  ‘I just thought you might like it.’ I was speaking in a shamed whisper for some reason. I felt guilty, a kid caught scrumping apples in the meadow.

  ‘Yes. You thought I might like it. And why did you think that? Have I ever, in any of my columns, expressed the slightest enthusiasm for this kind of thing?’

  Well, no, he hadn’t. His columns tended to favour the hard-hitting, depth-plumbing type of thing. Light musical comedy was rarely mentioned.

  ‘Well … We did win,’ I said. ‘So I must have got the right idea, from somewhere.’

  ‘Someone,’ he pressed.

  I couldn’t look at him. I turned my face away but he cupped it in his hand and twisted it firmly back.

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘I might have heard a rumour.’

  He merely flashed his eyes at me, inviting me to go on.

  ‘About you and your, uh, your tastes. Certain specialist tastes. And it made me think of Kiss Me, Kate.’

  ‘Delicately put. I need the provenance of this rumour now, please.’

  ‘I don’t want to get anyone into trouble.’

  ‘You can name the establishment rather than the employee. I just need confirmation.’

  ‘Oh God. People are going to get into trouble, aren’t they?’

  ‘Only people who deserve it, Caroline. People who deserve trouble will get it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not prepared to say.’

  ‘Sorry, are you?’ He looked supremely irritated for a moment, then he took a breath and seemed to change tack. ‘Well, we can come back to this. You didn’t come here to be investigated, did you?’

  ‘Um, no.’

  ‘You came here, knowing my tastes, having received two provocative messages from me. Certain conclusions have been drawn, Caroline. Am I wrong to draw them?’

  I looked around me while I sought a mental escape route. The brightly painted sets lent a surreal air to the situation, as if we were characters in a pantomime. Perhaps we were.

  ‘Not wrong, maybe,’ I said.

  I looked back at him.

  ‘Are you going to spank me?’

  His smile was more guarded this time.

  ‘I think that’s what you came here for, isn’t it? At least …’ His long, thin finger drew the outline of my ear. ‘I hope so. Of course, it’s entirely possible that you only came here to compromise me …’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying not to sound too ‘actor-doing-sincerity’. I always found genuine emotion hard to express since theatre school. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that. I’m an admirer of yours. I always have been. And there’s no more to it than that. Nobody knows I’m here, and I wouldn’t tell a soul, I swear.’

  ‘Not even Emma Frayne?’

  ‘Not even her. Oh!’

  She was busted, then. Oh well, it could
n’t be helped.

  ‘That’s good,’ he said, giving my earlobe a little tweak. ‘Because I set a lot of store by discretion. I wouldn’t normally go about things this way. But when I saw you in that scene, oh, Caroline, you convinced me. He was really spanking you, wasn’t he? That bronzed, muscular Adonis whose lap you decorated so well. He wasn’t holding back, was he?’

  ‘No,’ I admitted, my cheeks heating up.

  ‘And that was too perfect,’ he said. ‘I loathe musical theatre and yet I sat through this performance keeping a tight grip on myself, knowing what to expect and expecting disappointment. A hand that skimmed away just at the point of impact while somebody slapped the bench behind you. You can’t imagine how it affected me when I realised you were really being spanked. Because, you know, you can’t act a spanking. If it isn’t real, it isn’t convincing. The faces and the body language are always overacted. I’ve seen too many pathetic magazine shoots to be taken in any more.’

  ‘It was real, all right. I made Leo do it. He didn’t really want to.’

  ‘I think he did. But one must put up the weak protest, for fear of being seen as a monster.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Turn around.’

  I hesitated then presented him with my rear view. The dress was backless, plunging down to my coccyx in a way that drew attention to the tight, sparkly silk around my hips and bottom.

  I gasped when Sands put his hand on the curve of my arse and moulded his palm to its shape.

  ‘Who could resist this?’ he said, and his voice was directly in my ear. ‘No straight man alive.’

  The way he held his hand there was so possessive and so natural that I knew I had gone beyond turning back. A ripple had gone all the way through me, upwards, outwards, downwards, inwards. And most particularly, cuntwards.

  I had been excited from the start, but now my wetness was undeniable. My nipples were protruding out from the midnight blue silk and my breath was short and laboured. My body was telling him to do it. Do whatever he wanted. My mind could not summon up the effort to argue with it.

  ‘Did you get hard?’ I asked him. ‘When you watched me?’

  ‘Of course I bloody did, you little minx.’ He pushed his body forwards into mine. He was hard now. I could feel the outline of his erection just under the cheeks of my arse. ‘I had to put my programme over my lap. It was fucking inconvenient. I know there are rumours about me, and people would have been watching for my reaction. And you knew that. And believe me, you’re going to pay for it.’

  ‘I know I’ve been bad,’ I said, shutting my eyes in rapture. ‘I know I’ve misbehaved.’

  ‘He gave it to you hard, didn’t he?’

  Sands’ breath was hot in my ear, and his lips brushed the tender skin behind it, kissing then nipping.

  ‘Leo? Petruchio. Yes, yes, he did.’

  ‘How did it feel?’

  ‘Even with the petticoats, it stung. He left red marks on my bum. I looked at them in the dressing room afterwards.’

  ‘Mm, I bet you did. Did it turn you on?’

  ‘Yes. I rubbed them. Then I rubbed myself. Lower down.’

  ‘You dirty little bitch.’

  ‘Mmm.’ I pushed myself back against him, wriggling my hips.

  He took off his jacket and threw it over a wooden painted cloud.

  ‘I think I’d better get the deed done before I end up bending you over and fucking you senseless, Ms Reddish, what do you think?’

  ‘Either way,’ I moaned, butting my head into the hollow of his neck.

  ‘That’ll do, Miss Sex Mad,’ he said primly with a preliminary smack to my bottom. ‘Now let’s determine the sentence. I want you to take off your dress and stand on that chair over there.’

  ‘Take off my dress?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said, so calmly that I started to do it immediately.

  The tight-fitting silk with its non-existent back had meant I couldn’t wear a bra, so when I pushed the shoulder straps down my arms, my breasts were soon bared to his inspection. He didn’t flinch, just watched with avid greed.

  ‘Your nipples are hard,’ he said, folding his arms.

  I didn’t really have an answer for that.

  My beautiful sparkly sequins slid to the none-too-clean floor. I didn’t stop to consider my nakedness until I’d picked up the gown and folded it neatly on a table. But, that done, I could no longer ignore my sheer stockings, my tiny thong or my bare backside. All of them were on show to Peregrine Sands.

  I climbed on to the chair and stood, feeling three times more exposed, on its seat.

  ‘Are you going to review me?’ I asked.

  ‘None of your impertinence, madam,’ he said. ‘But yes. I’m going to give you a review. A long, painful and scathing critique, which will be given not in words but in actions.’

  Oh dear. I was for it now.

  ‘Now then,’ he said, coming to stand in front of me. His eyes were directly in line with my crotch; what a happy coincidence. ‘I need you to give me your own honest assessment of your performance. And I don’t mean your performance on stage. I mean the little subterfuge that led you into this position.’

  Not sure what he wanted me to say, I shook my head.

  ‘Well, uh, I think it worked out pretty well,’ I said. Strange words to speak, when standing naked on a chair, with a man who meant to spank me hard glaring into my pubic region. I’d stand by them, all the same.

  ‘No, that’s not what I mean. Of course your little scheme was successful. You won the award and you’re about to get your personal prize. I want you to list all the bad things you’ve done, Ms Reddish, en route to this ignominious position.’

  ‘Oh, I see. Well. I suppose I was a bit sly. Crafty. I used some insider knowledge to nobble the jury. The jury being you. And I—I used dishonest means to get my way.’

  ‘Yes, that about sums it up. Dishonest means to get your way. Is getting your way very important to you, Ms Reddish?’

  ‘Yes. I suppose it is.’

  He put a hand on my thigh and patted it. I nearly fell off the chair.

  ‘I understand. I’m the same. I like to get my way. Which of us is about to get it now, I wonder?’

  ‘Maybe both.’

  He smiled at that, quite a tender little smile.

  ‘I hope you’re right. Spread those feet a little wider. Put your hands behind your back.’

  He inspected my parted pussy lips at close quarters, dipping his head so close that his breath warmed the moistened slit. He held me upright – just as well, because I might have collapsed otherwise – with his hands on my inner thighs.

  ‘Wet,’ he murmured. ‘What a very bad creature you must be. Do you always get this wet when you’re about to be spanked?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I whispered.

  He looked up sharply.

  ‘How can you not know?’

  ‘I’ve never done it before. Apart from, you know, on stage.’

  He took a step back, frowning.

  ‘Turn around,’ he said.

  I presented my rear view.

  ‘No marks,’ he said. ‘Your Petruchio can’t have tamed you very much. He’s left the better part of the job to me. Do you think you can be tamed, Ms Reddish?’

  ‘I doubt it,’ I said, suddenly defiant. I wanted the conflict, the tension. I wanted to reprise my stage role and have him overpower me until I had to submit.

  ‘Oh, you doubt it, do you? There’s a challenge if ever I heard one. Very well. Kneel down now.’

  I did it. The seat of the chair was uncomfortable on my knees but it was good to be able to cling to the back rung.

  ‘This is for your friend Emma,’ he said, laconically, ‘though I’ll be giving her the message in person, as well, make no mistake.’

  His hand was at once sharper and harder than Leo’s. I think he had it held in a particular way, the palm open but the fingers tight. It was more painful than Leo’s fumbling lunges.

  I ye
lped and almost tipped the chair forward, but he put a hand on my shoulder and carried on.

  What was this like? Was it what I had expected? It hurt more than I thought it would, the peppery sting spreading across my cheeks. Peregrine never left me a moment to process each stroke, but laid them on quickly, until I was gasping and wriggling around. I held on to the chair, though, my knuckles whitening as the heat built.

  ‘And here’s something else for being a little schemer.’

  If possible, he began to smack even harder. I was uncomfortable now, itching between my legs and sore above them. I felt my skin tighten under the onslaught. I waggled my feet and jerked out a plea to stop. I didn’t want him to stop. I just needed to catch a breath.

  ‘You’ve bitten off more than you can chew,’ he said dispassionately, holding fire. ‘It’s not unusual. I’ve often rendezvoused with girls who promised more than they could deliver. Get your dress on and run along now.’

  ‘No.’ My voice ground against my lungs, low and hoarse. ‘I can take it. Just not used to it.’

  ‘Are you sure? Because what I just gave you was only a warm-up. You’ll find you can bear a bit more, perhaps, now that you’re good and hot.’

  ‘I can. I’m sure I can. Give me more.’

  ‘I’m going to try you with my belt. Don’t panic. I’ll start gently and build up.’

  The sound of it, sliding sweetly through the loops, did nothing to stem the flow of juices in my pussy. I squirmed with anticipatory dread.

  ‘This is for your barefaced cheek, madam,’ he said.

  It was no more than a little flick at first, a localised dart of sting, almost a caress after his mean, hard hand. I sighed with the unexpected pleasure of it and pushed out my bottom for more.

  ‘Yes, you like this, don’t you?’ he purred.

  The next stroke was harder and made a gorgeous splat sound against my skin. I felt the stripe sizzle into a welt. I hoped it would leave a mark.

  I hoped my whole bum would be one swollen mass of red stripes when he came to throw down his belt and grab my hips and enter me from behind. But I was getting ahead of myself.

  First I needed to live through this whipping. Breathe through it, clench through it, survive it.