Seven Scarlet Tales Read online

  The strokes came harder and faster. At first I was almost wild with the relentless pain, but before I could jump away or beg for mercy, something happened, and the heat became sweet instead of fierce.

  ‘You deserve this, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes, oh yes. I deserve it.’

  I wasn’t sure if I was falling into some kind of delirium, but I was convinced I could take this forever. The glow possessing my bottom cheeks was moving inside my body, lighting it up from crown to sole until I felt as if I were made of neon. Horny neon.

  I shimmied my hips and pushed my bum out further. He could do his worst. I was never going to be taken to my limit. I didn’t seem to have one.

  But, of course, I did really, and he found it in the end.

  ‘Please,’ I gasped, when the soreness was huge in its magnitude and my skin stretched over my rounded cheeks so tightly I thought it might tear.

  ‘Aha. You’ve had enough. Well, that was very good, for a beginner.’

  I let my shoulders sag, searching for breath. Now he had finished with his belt, I noticed the ache in my knees and I unglued them, one by one, from the seat.

  I was trembling. I hadn’t realised I was trembling.

  ‘Have you learned your lesson?’ he asked.

  I nodded.

  ‘Which is?’

  Ah, now he was asking. I wasn’t sure what the lesson was supposed to be. All I felt I’d really learned was that I enjoyed being whipped with a leather belt.

  ‘I should respect you,’ I decided upon.

  He liked that a lot.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, a smile in his voice. ‘You certainly should. Has any other profound epiphany stricken you while you were being struck, as it were?’

  ‘Just that …’ I floundered for coherent speech. ‘I need this.’

  ‘You need it? You have a taste for it?’

  ‘Yes, yes. A taste. That was so different from the way Leo did it. You had so much more purpose. You weren’t afraid.’

  ‘You liked it, I can tell. It’s very obvious.’

  In the air between my thighs, I felt a disturbance – his hand, so close to my lips, which I now understood were slick and juicy.

  ‘Touch me,’ I whispered.

  His fingers were light and yet firm, somehow, stroking up and down the slit.

  ‘This is part of you, Ms Reddish. This need is in you and you can’t ever rid yourself of it.’

  ‘I know,’ I moaned, rocking back and forth to encourage his deeper touch.

  ‘But who will be there when you need to be soundly thrashed? Who is going to administer the medicine? I’m a busy man.’

  He was: very busy. Especially his fingers.

  ‘I’m happy to oblige when our diaries allow, but I can’t always be on hand. With my hand.’

  His aforementioned hand was doing sterling work. He rubbed my clit and filled my cunt with fingers that were still warm from their sharp contact with my bottom.

  I was writhing like a serpent now, greedy for his masterful manipulations.

  ‘You need someone,’ he mused. ‘I think I know who, too. Are you close?’

  ‘Who-oo-oo?’ I wailed, so very near to that melting moment.

  ‘This young man I see watching us from the doorway,’ he said.

  I was coming and yet I wasn’t coming, trying to stop myself, unable to stop myself. I jerked upright and yanked my head towards the doorway, my face a rictus of unwanted orgasm.

  Leo stood there, looking, frankly, rather terrified.

  I gabbled senselessly, still impaled on the elegant digits of Mr Peregrine Sands, notorious theatre critic of the Universal. Leo could see exactly where they were, and he could see me, kneeling on a chair with my bottom bright scarlet and swollen with welts, naked and ashamed.

  Dear God, what a moment. I still masturbate over it now.

  I hid my head in my arms and sobbed out the remnants of my climax.

  Sands pulled out his fingers and smacked me smartly on the rump.

  ‘You can’t hide, you know,’ he said.

  Presumably he then turned to Leo and addressed him.

  ‘Well, don’t just stand there, man. Come in. Your leading lady has a proposition for you.’

  ‘I don’t,’ I muttered, but I made no move to stop the scenario from unfolding.

  ‘Me? What’s happening here?’ Leo’s voice was thick, syrupy. He was turned on.

  ‘I hardly think it could be much clearer,’ said Sands, dryly. ‘Your Katharina here is paying the price for some shrewish behaviour, in a manner Petruchio would approve. You do approve, don’t you?’

  Leo said nothing for a while, but I surmised that he must have nodded, because Sands said, ‘Good.’

  ‘You’ll see a more detailed review of the performance in the Universal next week,’ he continued, ‘but I wanted to give you a small, and more focused, critique of your spanking style, if you’d care to hear it.’

  ‘Uh, carry on, by all means.’

  ‘It was rough and ready but with a certain crude effectiveness,’ said Sands. ‘However, you need to develop more finesse, particularly with your pacing. You also need to take care that you target the fleshier, lower portion of the buttocks rather than aiming too high. Don’t go in all guns blazing. You need to take a more considered approach. I’d give you three stars.’

  ‘Three. Thanks.’ Leo sounded as bemused as I felt.

  ‘You can improve. A little practice will take you to the required level of expertise. If you like, I can tutor you.’

  ‘Excuse me.’ This was enough now. I held myself upright and twisted my neck to glare at them both. ‘I am physically present, you know. I am here. And it sounds as if you’re making deals that might need my approval.’

  ‘Ms Reddish,’ said Sands, coldly. ‘You yourself have stated that you need to be spanked. I’m facilitating this for you. I don’t think the tone is quite called for.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say,’ said Leo.

  ‘Don’t you want this?’ Sands was waspish.

  ‘I do. If she does.’

  The ball was in my court. And my court was hot, and so over singles games. I wanted doubles now. Well, of a sort. Obviously I’d be unpartnered.

  ‘What you’re saying,’ I said slowly, ‘is that I can count on either of you for a bit of hanky-spanky fun whenever I fancy it? Is that what you’re saying?’

  ‘Precisely. And young Petruchio here has said that he’s amenable if you are.’

  ‘M’name’s Leo,’ he mumbled uncomfortably.

  ‘A lion among men,’ said Peregrine. ‘Lions shouldn’t cower. Come over here and I’ll give you a lesson.’

  I looked sharply around at Sands. Did he mean to spank me again? The glow was fading now and my bottom didn’t hurt much at all, but there was a residual tenderness that might not take kindly to more of the same.

  ‘She’s still a little pink from my attentions,’ said Sands. ‘Both disciplinary and otherwise. But I think she’s ready for more.’

  ‘Isn’t that for me to say?’

  He ignored me.

  ‘She has a sturdy bottom, capable of absorbing a hard session, though you’ll need to build up her endurance. I recommend starting with your hand only and moving up to implements when you can’t achieve the desired level of discomfort in the same time. Come here and put your hand on her.’

  Leo’s hand was bigger, brawnier and rougher than Sands’ but it felt electric on my cooling flesh. Whatever my mind thought, my body was happy to have him there.

  ‘You must remember to keep the strokes low. Don’t go above this imaginary line.’

  Sands’ finger traced a delicate path across the broadest section of my bum.

  ‘I wish we could draw it on,’ said Leo, with a nervous laugh.

  ‘Well, perhaps in the early stages you could.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘I’m not walking around with magic marker all over my arse.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ said Sands, ‘nobody a
sked your opinion.’

  I made to rise up, and he back-pedalled.

  ‘But no doubt you can make your own arrangements between yourselves.’

  I relaxed again, wanting to know what was going to happen next.

  ‘I hope you’re going to behave yourself now, Ms Reddish. You are a very lucky girl. Two men want to address themselves to your rear. Not many women get this opportunity, you know.’

  ‘My night just gets luckier and luckier,’ I said.

  ‘Now, then, Leo. Let’s see what you’re made of.’

  Leo’s hand landed, not particularly hard and rather clumsily, across the crack of my arse.

  ‘No, stick to the cheeks,’ advised Sands. ‘You can alternate or you can focus on one at a time. Focusing on one and excluding the other makes for a remarkably uncomfortable experience for your submissive, actually. I only do it when I’m feeling especially cruel.’

  Leo began to rain spanks, first on my right cheek and then my left.

  ‘Harder,’ said Sands. ‘She won’t break.’

  As Leo grew in confidence, I found myself respecting him anew. He wasn’t holding back now, and I liked it. Both liked and hated it, if I’m honest, but that tension was the thing that drove me wild and I wanted to keep it going.

  Sands interspersed little nuggets of advice with the strokes.

  ‘Not so high. Yes, you can really see the colour start to deepen now. If you want to go down to the thighs, that’s fine. I think the inner thighs and more delicate areas are for the more advanced spanker. Perhaps another time.’

  I gasped for breath, sweat prickling on my brow and making me itch. Leo had reawakened every iota of the sting from Sands’ previous work. Now it was flaring rapidly through me, relighting the fire between my legs, which seemed to have forgotten all about the relief Sands’ fingers had afforded.

  I moaned and began to plead.

  Leo stopped.

  ‘Is that enough?’

  I didn’t know if he was asking me or Sands.

  We both replied simultaneously.

  I said, ‘For a start.’

  Sands said, ‘What do you think?’

  Leo pondered for a moment.

  ‘That’s a great colour,’ he said, then more awkwardly, ‘Callie, are you OK?’

  ‘I’ve forgotten what OK is,’ I said. ‘I can’t even answer. I’m a long way outside anything I thought would ever happen.’

  ‘Follow your desires,’ said Sands. ‘Don’t look to any preconceived schema of what’s right or acceptable. You won’t find one. This is about doing what you feel. What do you want now?’

  ‘I want your attention. Both of you. On me. On my body.’

  ‘You’re a greedy girl, aren’t you?’ said Sands. ‘You deserved that spanking. But I’m sure it can be arranged. Very well. Stand up and take off the rest of your clothes.’

  I nearly fell off the chair, but I made it to my feet somehow and looked anxiously over to the door.

  ‘Shouldn’t we think about locking that?’

  ‘Why?’ said Sands. ‘If anyone bothers to come down here – which they won’t, having no business to – they’ll just see what’s what, won’t they?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He stepped closer and whispered into my ear.

  ‘They’ll see a very badly behaved young woman behaving very badly, won’t they? And getting her just desserts. Getting her dirty, greedy, filthy desserts, on her knees in the dust. Two men going at her. And a sore, bright red bum. I don’t think they’ll get the wrong idea, will they?’

  ‘No,’ I whispered back.

  ‘No,’ he reiterated. ‘So undress. Or perhaps you’d like Leo here to help you?’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  In a kind of trance, I began removing the rest of my clothes. First my stockings, and then my thong. I was shimmering, glittering, glowing.

  I looked down at my breasts, noting the swollen state of my nipples. Somebody needed to touch them. Now.

  I walked up to Leo and cupped them in invitation.

  He understood, and put the pad of one thick finger to my stiff red bud.

  I looked over at Sands. This was all about him watching me, for some reason. Watching me and grading me, dispassionately. Something about that turned me on more than I could express.

  I imagined his review in my head as events unfolded.

  Caroline Reddish was an adequately whorish little piece, bringing flashes of submissive brilliance to her role. The moment when she begged her lover to pinch her nipples is a case in point.

  I sucked in my breath, feeling the burn of pain as Leo, with a stunned look on his face, closed his finger and thumb tight.

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered, looking again at Sands. ‘Hurt me. I need it.’

  ‘Get on your knees and suck him,’ said Sands abruptly.

  A frustrated director – I knew it!

  I obeyed swiftly, wishing the floor wasn’t quite so grimy, but then I thought it was fitting and I should get my knees dirty.

  ‘I want to see that slutty mouth wrapped right around his cock,’ said Sands.

  Leo stood there, motionless, while I unbuttoned his fancy trousers then guided the elastic of his boxers over the swollen cockhead they concealed. I’d always thought he’d be a big boy, and I was on the money, it seemed.

  The oral sex scene in the first act gave Ms Reddish an opportunity to use that greedy mouth of hers to stimulating effect. Leo Bradley played strong and silent to the hilt, but the simmering tension beneath was apparent to all.

  He jerked his hips forward, eager to get my lips on him. I sucked him down, enjoying the warm bulk when it filled my cheeks and lay on my tongue.

  ‘She’s done that before,’ commented Sands. ‘She’s an experienced cocksucker, I’d say.’

  Reddish demonstrated ample technique in the art of fellatio, but Bradley didn’t allow himself to be bested, taking his co-star by the hair and roughly fucking her face.

  He stopped when I began to gag.

  ‘You all right, Cal?’

  ‘She’s fine,’ said Sands, laconically. ‘She likes it rough. Don’t you?’

  I nodded, mouth still full, but it seemed my performance was destined to be cut short anyway.

  ‘So how are we going to play this, Leo?’ Sands wondered aloud. ‘She wants fucking, that much is plain. I don’t suppose you’ve double-topped before, have you?’

  ‘Um …’

  ‘No, I thought not. Well, what if I direct you and then take her myself afterwards. Would that satisfy all of us? No, don’t take his cock out of your mouth, Reddish. You can stay on your knees. I know you’re going to be satisfied, that much is a given.’

  I waited for Leo’s verdict, hoping it wouldn’t be long in coming. My jaw was starting to ache.

  ‘Direct me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sands with a trace of impatience. ‘You can take direction, can’t you?’

  I chuckled, the sound coming out like a snuffle around Leo’s stiff shaft.

  ‘I suppose.’

  ‘This is one production I’m rather keen to see. Believe me, it beats the dreary Rattigan revival I’m supposed to be reviewing tomorrow. Take your prick out of her mouth now and let her stand up.’

  I gave him one last lascivious lick for the road and stumbled to my feet. My knees were ashy grey.

  ‘Sit yourself down on that sofa there, Leo, and have her straddle you. I’d like to watch her little red behind riding to and fro. Little red riding whore.’ He laughed at his own joke.

  Leo, beyond questioning any of this, shucked off his trousers and boxers and went to sit on the dusty sofa, some kind of chaise longue affair used in an Oscar Wilde comedy perhaps.

  I looked over my shoulder at Sands, who offered me a grim nod.

  But the star of the show, undoubtedly, is Ms Reddish’s rosy, highly spankable arse. I shall hope to see a great deal more of it in the future.

  I put my hands on Leo’s shoulders and positioned my knees o
n the buttoned velvet, either side of his thighs.

  ‘You might need one of these.’

  Sands prowled up behind me and pressed a foil square into Leo’s hand.

  A condom.

  And now this seemed real, at last, where it had been dreamlike before.

  Leo fumbled with the condom while I swayed my hips, putting on a show for Sands.

  Once it was on, Sands clapped his hands.

  ‘Now. Fuck her. Hard.’

  Leo gripped my hips and jolted me downwards over his cock. Although I was wet and tingling with need, I wasn’t quite prepared for the speed of the coupling and I yelped.

  ‘Got you,’ he snarled. ‘Now you’re exactly where you should be.’

  ‘Steady on,’ I muttered. ‘And don’t go thinking this means we’re an item. It doesn’t.’

  He settled straight away into a punishing rhythm. I was in a good position to control some of the movement, but he was just so damn strong that in the end I had to give in and go with it. And besides, that was what Sands was telling us to do.

  ‘Keep at her, man. Don’t show her any mercy. Just a good, hard fuck. It’s what she wants; you know that.’

  Leo pumped and grunted, grunted and pumped. The friction was incredible, building up inside me, spreading heat all over my body. I bent down and pressed my breasts into his upper body, still in its dinner jacket and white tie.

  ‘You just wanted somebody to smack your arse,’ gasped Leo. ‘Well, I can do that. I’ll do it any time you like. And then I’ll fuck your pussy raw.’

  ‘Get hold of her bum cheeks,’ instructed Sands. I don’t know whether he’d heard Leo’s words, but I suspected he had. ‘That’s it. A good handful of those lovely hot buns. Spread them wide for me. I want to see what’s between them at the same time as I can see your cock going up inside her.’

  ‘You’re a filthy pervert,’ I sighed. Just the way I’d always imagined him.

  ‘Yes, I am, and that’s why you came here.’

  I knew what he was looking at. I knew that that shrewd, piercing, intelligent attention was directed not at the finest drama of our generation, nor at some unfortunate show doomed to close at the end of the week because of his damning notice. No, the gaze of the UK’s finest theatre critic was aimed squarely at my exposed anus. I hoped it wasn’t a two-star affair or worse.