Lecture Notes Read online

  “Time you were up,” says The Voice peremptorily. I beg to differ. My first lecture isn’t till eleven. That makes rise & shine time approximately…ten forty five. OK, ten thirty.

  I ignore him and burrow down beneath the duvet, fantasising that perhaps he will come in and drag me out of bed…and yet, as soon as he claps eyes on my lithe and maidenly form in its outsize White Stripes tour T-shirt, he will be stricken with instant infatuation and we will end up back in said bed for the rest of the day. I wonder what his beard feels like against your face…

  More banging at the door. “Up. Now.”

  I mouth a silent ‘fuck off’, but what he gets to hear is a querulous “Why?”

  “Because this is my house and you abide by my rules.”

  “Oh my God, you sound like my mother.”

  “Less of your cheek. Get up before I have to drag you out of there.”

  Ooh. My stomach flips with excitement. It’s as if he is programmed to act out my darkest fantasies. The idea amuses me – Robot Sinclair, primed for her pleasure – but even so, I don’t stay in bed to test the theory. I jump out and begin the long drawn out process of beautifying myself to face the divine Professor.

  At eight twenty four, showered, freshened and bright-eyed, I stroll into the kitchen, wondering hopefully if Sinclair might have breakfast on the go. He is sitting at the table sipping moodily at a cup of coffee. Proper coffee made from beans, not dust in a jar. He looks up from The Guardian and his face elicits a gulp. He is not happy.

  “I told you to get up at eight o’clock. It is now eight twenty four.”

  “I don’t have a lecture until eleven,” I defend myself.

  “That is beside the point. While you are in my house, Beth, you will do as I tell you. Are you able to do this or not?”

  “I…yes. I will. I can. I’m sorry. Sir.” I shake my fringe winningly into my eyes, praying that he will now lighten up and fry me a rasher. He called me Beth! That has to be a good sign, doesn’t it?

  “We shall see,” he says contemplatively. “I’m going to make my point completely clear, Beth.” He stands and I quiver. Something bad is going to happen. “Bend over the kitchen chair, Beth, with your palms flat on the seat.”

  Wild mute appeal pours from my eyes but he isn’t buying. He takes a wooden spatula from a hook over the granite work surface. Oooooh no. He makes an impatient gesture to me, noting that I am still upright, and I plunge forward into the rather compromising position he has outlined.

  I don’t like being bent like this with my arse in the air; I feel the humiliation of my plight keenly, and never more so than when Sinclair swishes up behind me and pulls my leggings down around my knees. Thank Christ I didn’t wear a thong today.

  “I think we’ll have a stroke for every minute I was made to wait, Beth,” says Sinclair calmly. “That makes twenty four. A good round dozen for each cheek.”

  I hold my breath, waiting for the onslaught to commence. The first stroke brings it shuddering out in a long squeal as the flat wooden end makes a loud whapping noise on my backside.

  “That really hurts!” I object.

  “Yes,” he says equably, slamming on the second. Incipient heat radiates symmetrically through both hemispheres of my behind and I’m not quite sure I can handle another twenty two strokes. Sinclair accompanies the hard paddling with an encomium against the perils of late rising and sloth, telling me that I will be getting up no later than seven thirty from now on unless I want to greet every day in this painful manner.

  When eventually the twenty fourth stinger is landed, I am gripping the chair so tightly my knuckles are white, chewing my lip to avoid the mortification of crying out too much and amazed at how hot it is possible for a bottom to get without actually catching fire.

  Sinclair replaces the horrid thing on its hook – can’t push fried eggs around a pan with it now without having an inevitable mental association – and drawls, “Lesson learned?”

  “Yes, Sir,” I quiver. No more lie-ins for me. Boo hoo.

  I have only just pulled the leggings over my throbbing bum, wincing as the elastic brushes the tender flesh, when a hard-faced woman of fifty or so materialises in the room.

  “Ah, Nerys,” says Sinclair genially. “Good morning. I need to introduce my new lodger to you. Beth, this is Nerys, my housekeeper. Nerys, this is Beth, who is staying in my guest bedroom for the time being.”

  “Hi,” I say, plastering an ingratiating smile on my flushed face, wondering how much of what just happened she might have heard.

  “Hello,” she says coldly in a strong Welsh accent.

  “Please let me know, Nerys, if any of Beth’s habits inconvenience you, or cause a problem. I will deal with it.”

  “I will,” says Nerys. “I’ll start with the bathroom if I may.”

  Sinclair inclines his head graciously, like a bloody feudal lord. “Thank you,” he intones. “I really ought to get on now.”

  Nerys leaves the room and Sinclair honours me with a quick pep talk before leaving for the university. “If I were you, Beth, I’d spend these unaccustomed morning hours making a start on my Laclos essay. My spare key is here; take care of it. I expect any room you use to be left exactly as you found it; Nerys will let me know if anything is out of place.”

  He moves out to the hallway, sorting through some papers on a table and putting them in his briefcase. I follow him, willing him to bugger off so I can go back to bed. Or perhaps I could nip over to Cliveden; give Emily a knock and get eggs on toast in the White Rose Café.

  “I want you back here by seven,” he says, heading for the door.

  “Seven?” I blurt. “Why?”

  “Dinner,” he says, raising an eyebrow. “You’re cooking.”

  “I’m…not!” I hiccup, aghast, but he is out of the door before my dismay registers on his dial.

  *

  So what to do now? I am seriously discombobulated by the whole dinner thing. I fan my essay notes out on the living room floor but there is no way I can concentrate on fictional seductions when the real-life version is wedged at the forefront of my mind. Besides, the fierce sting of my wakey-wakey spanking has settled into a somewhat pleasurable warm throb, spreading down below in a way that is tempting me back to bed for some, er, self-catering.

  But that is out of the question with that pinch-faced harridan clattering around the place. I can just imagine her reporting back to Sinclair. Your lodger spent the morning masturbating. It was very inconvenient, I couldn’t get in to change the bedding. Shudder. Anyway, I have a candlelight supper to arrange. Oysters, champagne, lots of whipped cream. Maybe some new underwear. Is he a stockings and suspenders man, I wonder? I think he is.

  I compromise on Sinclair’s suggestion of a morning of study; I do indeed go to the library, but my perusal is of recipes rather than literary commentaries. Then I nip over to Emily’s and borrow fifty quid which I spend with delirious ease in Agent Provocateur on an eau-de-nil and black tulle bra and knicker set. The knickers are dead cool, with a burlesque-esque fountain of frills and suspender straps. I leave the shop relieved that I resisted the temptation of nipple tassles and open crotches. Maybe next week…

  I sit in my eleven o’clock lecture wondering if I have actually mislaid my mind. Sinclair doesn’t even like me. If he’s considering a trip into my knickers, he needs to plan his itinerary a bit better. Less slap and more tickle. Although on the other hand…I lean back against the bench, squirming delicately on my tender backside and finding myself revelling in the feeling. It’s as if it makes me his, somehow, and so conversely him mine. Oooh, he has marked me as his property…I try to snap out of this, not wanting to leak all over the ancient wood of the lecture theatre, nor yet distract any sensitive male noses in the vicinity with my aromatic effusions. God, it is hard to avoid thinking about though. Especially as Dr Blakey is giving the lecture. Was he giving her…lectures? Is it really over between them? Did he ever..do the same things to her?

  The e
ndless stream of carnal thoughts takes my head hostage and I have to give up any hope of essay-writing for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, I promise myself. Tomorrow I will spend all day writing yonder essay. Unless Sinclair has ravished me so thoroughly over the passion fruit mousse that I can’t move from the house…mmmm. You see? Useless. Can’t think.

  At four o’clock I race out of my lecture before Dearbhla can collar me and demand a blow-by-blow account of my first night chez Sinclair and head straight to Sainsburys. They don’t have oysters! Or chanterelles. Or whole sea bass. Or…anything. What am I going to do? Would Sinclair see the funny side if I rolled up with two portions of chips with curry sauce? Gah, rethink, rethink.

  I leave Sainsburys at half past five with a jar of pasta sauce, a bunch of bananas and four bottles of wine. Overdoing it with the wine? I’ll have to compensate for the lousy meal somehow. And besides…a drunken Sinclair. What could be funner?

  *

  Back at the flat half an hour later, Sinclair is not yet on the scene, so I make the most of the uninterrupted boudoir time to slink into my new foxy lingerie and make with the scented body lotions. I hear his key turn in the lock just as I light the gas to heat the water for the pasta. I picture him walking into the kitchen and falling into a dead swoon at the sight of me in my one posh frock, wearing make-up. What actually happens is that he calls, “I can’t smell cooking,” from the living room, and then appears to shut himself in his sinister study of doom. I shrug and pour the pasta into the bubbling water, hoping my minimal activity in the kitchen will preserve my maquillage intact. I skitter about laying the table…and picturing another kind of laying on the table…and lighting candles in giddily high spirits. When Sinclair walks into the room, to my extreme excitement, he does do a mild double-take.

  “Dressed for the occasion?” he says, and I’m not appreciating the hint of derision in his tone. “It’s just supper, Beth; there was no need for…all this.”

  I flush heavily. “Just thought…you know, just a thank you. For keeping me off the streets.” I run back into the kitchen, where the sauce is popping and roiling like molten magma and see to the serving up. Sinclair strolls in behind me and checks the fridge for wine, raising his eyebrow at the bountiful supply therein.

  “What are we having?” he asks, checking over my shoulder. “Oh.” I slump at the obvious disappointment. “Pasta in a mass-produced sauce. White then.”

  He uncorks a bottle and sails haughtily into the living room with it. How rude, I think, but I can’t seem to sustain the righteous indignation. I so want him to stop thinking of me as this terminal idiot with no redeeming features, but it’s as if failure is written in my DNA at the moment.

  Sinclair makes a sterling effort to eat the dinner, though the pasta is several shades the wrong side of al dente and the sauce not to his taste. Best stick to the wine…

  “Well, then, Beth, I take it from the convenience food dinner that you have been far too busy studying to think of anything else. How is the essay going? May I look it over after supper?”

  Eek!

  “Oh no,” I say. “I’d rather wait…till it’s…a bit more coherent.”

  His eyes bore into me. I hate my transparency, and his acuity. “Until you’ve actually started it, you mean?” he says.

  I wring my hands in despair, the fork landing with a clang in my bowl. “I was so anxious about cooking tonight…I couldn’t concentrate….” I launch into the story of my recipe browsing and the disastrous shortage of upmarket sophisticated ingredients in Sainsburys. His face relaxes into benign amusement at my plight and he tuts at me when I finish my tale of woe.

  “Beth, there was no need to get into such a state about something as mundane as cooking supper, was there? Something simple would have done just as well. Have you ever cooked before?”

  “Yes!” I insist defensively.

  “Real cooking, I mean. Not just cheese on toast.”

  “Oh..uh…not really.” I stare into the bottom of my wine glass prior to draining its contents.

  “Getting drunk will scarcely help.”

  I beg to differ. “So sausages and beans from a tin next time then?” I say gloomily.

  He laughs. Ah, that’s a sound. A tingly glow warms the cockles and I feel tight with love for him.

  “I’ll straighten you up, Beth. By the time I’ve finished with you you’ll be almost fit for decent society.” There is a look in his eye that makes me fear for the gusset of my new undies. Oooh, melt, my lover, melt.

  “Decent…” I echo softly, daring to hold his predatory beam. The air thickens and blocks my vents.

  The phone rings.

  Damn. Sinclair raises his eyes bad-temperedly to the ceiling, refusing to answer the belligerent bleeping. His answerphone message cuts in. It’s very manly. “This is Sinclair; please leave a message.” Beeeep.

  “Eliot, I know you’re there. Please pick up. This is ridiculous.”

  Dr Blakey! Wahey! Scandal!

  “Out,” he says to me briskly, gesturing to the door. “Now.”

  I pout and slink off to my room. I want to listen! I try to stick my ear against the door, but it does not yield any secrets.

  Quarter of an hour later I hazard a return to the living room. For some reason, it really irritated me to hear Blakey call him Eliot. Ain’t she got no respect? I feel like a lioness with her cub – no other woman must touch him.

  He is drinking deep from his wine glass, gloom etched into his sharply sculpted features.

  “I need you to leave the house for a while,” he says. “Go and see your friends.”

  “They’ll be at the pub,” I tell him.

  “Meet them there then,” he says, eyeballing me intimidatingly.

  “I…er, I haven’t got any money.”

  He sighs and delves into his trouser pocket, bringing out a tenner.

  “Stay out of mischief,” he says, placing it in my hand. “And I want you back by eleven. Sharp.”

  I bump into Blakey on the way downstairs, looking as if she has a swarm of bees in her knickers. When she sees me she stares wildly, looking up the stairs to Sinclair’s apartment door then back at me again.

  “Evening, Dr Blakey,” I say insouciantly. Ha! How’s he going to explain that little arrangement to her? They will split up for sure.

  Rather than meet Dearbhla and Emily on a slow Monday night at the Union, I…what has come over me?...simply spend an hour or so mooching around the locale in the dark. It is a chilly, almost moonless night, but I feel brimful of this strange romantic longing, and solitude is what I need. In the expansive stone mansions I pass, I sometimes see a tiny tableau of life through a lit window – a piano practice, a table laid for dinner, the flickering blue of a television screen – and I want to feel included in something like that. With Sinclair. I want him. Oh God. I really want him.

  He said be home by eleven, didn’t he? So twenty past ten is a perfectly acceptable time to come back, no?

  I slide my key into the lock as noiselessly as I can, turning the handle with excruciating slowness and inching open the door. Rather rewardingly, the sounds of discord emanate in a jumbled mess from the living room. I stand in the doorway, frozen for a few minutes, trying to fine-tune my ears. Sinclair is not raising his voice, but Blakey certainly is.

  “…twenty first century woman….Victorian era….power….and control….not standing for it….mature adult relationship….I was mistaken….”

  Ah, sounds good. What did he do? Did he try and wrestle her over his knee? I am delighted at the mental image that springs to mind. Dr Blakey isn’t a kinky sort then. He’s better off out of it…and into me.

  I jerk to attention as the living room door is crashed open and a furious Blakey pauses mid-storm to stare at me again. “Here she is,” she spits. “Your little project. I’d get out of here if I were you, dear. The man is an unapologetic sadist.” Hey, my favourite kind. An apologetic sadist would be lame. She presses her face to mine. “Good luck.” />
  And she’s off.

  Sinclair appears in the door frame, not exactly chasing her and begging her to come back. He frowns at me.

  “Why are you here?”

  “You said to be back by eleven,” I remind him.

  “So I did. Glass of wine? Or have you already had too much?”

  “I..we didn’t go to the pub.”

  He raises an eyebrow. “Really, Beth, is my influence so compelling already?”

  I smile sheepishly and move after him into the living room, seating myself on the sofa at the opposite end from him. He hands me a glass of pinot grigio and pours one for himself.

  “I need to make it clear that anything that happens in this house is private and should be classed as restricted information. If it becomes public knowledge that I have had…dealings…with Dr Blakey, I will know the source, and believe me, Beth, the consequences will be unpleasant. Have I made my point?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good.” He strokes the stem of his wineglass for a while, staring out at the pitch black night.

  “I won’t tell anyone. You can trust me.”

  He looks at me sharply and then relaxes his expression. “I suppose I’ll have to,” he says. “Though coming from somebody who tried to blackmail me last night….”

  “I know, I know, I’m really sorry about that. You know I am. I’m really grateful for everything you’re doing for me.”

  My supplication seems to loosen him a little. “Dr Blakey and I were a mismatch,” he confides. “It was a brief and ill-considered liaison that was never likely to work.”

  “Oh. Why not?”

  “I have certain….tastes, Beth, as I’m sure you’re aware. Dr Blakey does not share those tastes.”

  “She says you’re an unapologetic sadist.”