Tweed, Part 2

For those of you keeping track, this is the sequel to Tweed, Part 1, which appeared here in October. To refresh your memory, it's the story of a visiting American professor and his "hands-on" efforts to teach literature to his young English student. I'd like to thank Kelly and Blue for their technical advice and encouragement while I wrote this episode. I couldn't have done it without you! There should be a third and final installment coming sometime… OK, fine. Maybe not soon. Depends on the encouragement, I guess.

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Monday, November 17, 2003

Session with Sarah S.

She came.

I spent most of this morning wondering if she would show up at all, given that she missed our extra session last Friday. I tried hard not to think about her, keeping myself busy with reading papers and journals and having yet another cup of tea. (God, I miss coffee!) But I must admit that I was watching the clock as the hands slowly approached the top of the appointed hour. Sarah. Cheever. Sarah. Cheever. If I skipped one name just one time, I would jinx it. Sarah. Cheever. Sarah… Just when I thought time had definitely become stuck in some universal epistemological resin, there was a quick knock at my office door. Time restarted. It was her. Sarah.

She smiled brightly, said a quick hello, and edged sideways past me and into my office as soon as I opened the door. Her hair smelled of shampoo. She hung up her coat and scarf on the hooks by the door. She briskly walked over and sat down in the straight-backed chair near my desk, put her book bag on the floor, got out her copy of The Stories of John Cheever, and sat there, ready and eager. Smiling. Waiting. I closed the door and sat back down at my desk.

What followed was actually an excellent discussion of the assigned Cheever story, "The Chimera." Not only was Sarah prepared, but her ideas were on the mark, her questions well-considered, and her insights… insightful. We discussed what it means to be an American, what it means to be a WASP and to live in the suburbs. We discussed whether, at the time of the story, there was an established moral code in the suburbs, whether the suburbs were an Eden or a false Eden. We discussed Cheever's view of America in the 1950's compared to Updike's. She spoke at some length about the characters in the story, about the nature of disappointment in one's life, about whether or not the narrator was in control of his life or at the mercy of destiny or momentum. How does Cheever even mean the word "chimera?" Is the Olga in the story the unrealizable dream, or is she the fire-breathing monster from Greek mythology? We talked and talked and talked… not so much my lecturing or questioning as is so often the case in my tutorials… but real discussion. Before I knew it, our time was nearly over. No one spoke as I closed my book and Sarah closed her book.

The desk chair creaked as I leaned back and removed my glasses. "This was a very good discussion, Sarah. You obviously gave this story a lot more thought than the last one." I don't know why I was gushing. Did I want to encourage her? Did I feel guilty -– or maybe sheepish — about our last session?

"Thank you," she said, biting her bottom lip and trying not to smile. "I really tried."

"Well, it showed. If you do as well on your final paper this week, I'm sure your term grade will be much better than you were thinking it would be a couple of weeks ago. Just one more lecture and one more paper to go and you can be well rid of me." That's when it hit me. I'd spent so much of the week thinking about our last session together that I'd forgotten that this would be the last time we met together privately. This was our last tutorial. I hadn't forgotten that the term was ending but, for some reason, I hadn't put the two things together until this moment.

"Don't be silly. I've enjoyed your class and our tutorials." She looked directly at me. "Even that last one, although I may never forgive Updike for all the trouble he put me through."

I smiled. There was another pause, another silence. She wasn't getting up to go.

"Professor?"

"Yes, Sarah?"

"I suppose," she said, suddenly blushing and looking down at her lap, "I suppose… we should…" She was having trouble saying it, whatever it was. She shifted from side to side on the chair, knees together, arms crossed at her waist.

"Yes. Go on. We should what?"

"I suppose we should discuss last Friday." She quickly looked up at me. "I'm really very sorry that I didn't show up for the extra session we agreed to. I was doing a bit of late homework for another class and completely lost track of the time. I know that's no excuse, Sir. And…" Now she wasn't looking at me, just trying to get the words out. "And I know that it was wrong of me to not show up or even ring you to reschedule. Not that rescheduling would have been good. But… I know that it was disrespectful to you and didn't show the proper seriousness about my studies or your course." She swallowed. "I'm very sorry, Sir."

It's funny the things you notice when you shouldn't be noticing them at all. She wore a barrette in her short brown hair that was in the shape of the Eiffel Tower. She was sitting with both feet on the floor, knees together, staring at her hands which were clasped in her lap. Her fingernails were short, but they had a clear polish. She wore silly, fun bracelets, but no rings. And she was wearing black tights under a green wool skirt. I noticed all of these things in that instant. I guess the clock had stopped again.

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. She was reminding me that she should be punished. She wanted me to spank her.


"What do you think we should do about that, Sarah?" I leaned forward, resting my forearms on my desk. In spite of her good tutorial, I tried to sound stern, but couldn't be sure I wasn't blushing too. I felt warm and my hands were tingling. I would be lying if I said that I hadn't thought about spanking Sarah again or that I hadn't thought of tens of ways I would do it. It's just that now, presented with the opportunity, my mouth had gone dry and my heart was trying to break out of my chest.

"I don't know, Sir. I suppose that's up to you." Her voice was soft and low. And her eyes… her eyes were big and blue. Waiting. Waiting to see if what we clearly both wanted to happen would in fact happen. "This is the dance part of our show," I thought to myself. And now for the trained bear on the unicycle. That's me.

"There's our agreement, isn't there?" I asked, looking Sarah directly in the eyes, trying to keep my balance. Her pupils were dilated and sparkling. Again, she bit her lower lip before she spoke.

"Yes, Sir."

I pushed my chair back and stood up. I walked around the desk until I was standing in front of her chair. She looked up at me, still waiting. "Kick off your shoes and stand up," I told her. She was wearing a pair of black clogs, which she easily slipped out of. She stood up and we faced each other, perhaps two feet apart, maybe more. She glanced up at my face every now and then, but mostly looked off to the side, or looked at a place somewhere on my chest. It gave me the opportunity to look more closely at her face. She looks good when she blushes… but I seem to have thought that before.

"I see you remembered to wear a belt this time." There was a thin, leather belt around the waist of her skirt. It was black, like her tights. Her blush deepened.

"Yes, Sir. I forgot last time and those extra swats hurt." She looked down quickly. I could see that she was smiling a little at herself for saying so much in the situation. She rubbed her fingers across her lips as if to tell them to hush.

"Give me your belt, please."

She quickly looked up at me. Her eyebrows were raised in surprise. Even though it was in the agreement that she should wear a belt, I don't think Sarah thought that I might want to use the belt. Not for real. Not like this. Or maybe she did. I obviously don't know. But still, in spite of all that or perhaps even because of it, she didn't hesitate for more than a few seconds.

"Yes, Sir." Looking back down, she undid the buckle and slid the belt out of the loops. Slowly, she folded the belt in two. As she handed me the belt, her hand touched mine. Her hand felt neither cold nor hot; it felt the same as mine. "We're in this together," I thought. "We're the same." For just a second she looked up and our eyes met. But quickly the decorum of the situation prevailed. She looked down and backed up, resuming her place in front of me.

"Now take off your skirt."

She didn't hesitate at this demand. She unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it, catching it on one heel and then tossing it over onto her book bag with a soft thump. Her lack of modesty might have been because of the tights or because her shirt was long enough to cover her hips. The combination gave her a sort of neo-1960s mini-skirt look. I noticed that her feet turn out a little and that she had a hole in her tights just above the little toe of her right foot. Both things made me smile inside. Funny the things a person thinks in a situation like this. What would she make of my flamingo boxers if she were to see those? Very unexpected.

"I'm going to ask you to turn around now."

"Yes, Sir." She was standing, facing my desk. I was standing to her left. The chair she had been sitting in was to her right. The department chairman had stood in that very spot just the afternoon before. He was wearing shoes and trousers at the time, of course.

I began to give Sarah directions to get her positioned for the spanking. "Spread your feet apart. No, a little more. Good. Now, put your hands on your legs above your knees. No, grab your knees and put your weight on them. Lean forward a little. Put your weight on your arms and let your legs support you. More, more… No, no! That's just not right at all!"

I put the belt down on the desk and started to position her by hand. I grasped her hips from behind and pulled her a few inches further back, away from the desk. "That's better. Now, legs spread again." I bent over and patted her left calf, getting her to move her feet just the right distance apart. "Hands on knees." She did as she was told. "Bend your knees just a little. Good. Now, lean forward. Arch your back. No, arch it!" I pushed down on the small of her back with my right hand and tipped her chin up with my left hand. "Keep your head up. Look at that pencil holder on the shelf. Keep your eyes on the pencil holder and keep your back arched. If you don't, I'll add on mores swats with the belt. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Professor. I'll stand still, just like this." She was in the right position, but something still wasn't right.

Oh. Of course.

"No, no. This isn't acceptable. You need to tie your shirt up. It's going to get in the way." The shirt was so long that it completely covered her bottom, even in this bent position. Sarah quickly straightened up without moving her feet and tied the shirt in front with a large knot. What I could see of her belly above the waistband of her tights looked soft and smooth. "Better. Now back to how you were standing before. Hands on knees. Back arched. Pencil holder." She quickly and precisely resumed the position she had been in before. "Excellent."

Slowly, I walked around her, looking at how she was standing. She tried to stare ahead at the pencil holder, but I saw how she looked at me whenever she could, watching me examining her, watching me look at how she was standing there, bottom out, ready to be spanked. Except she still wasn't quite ready. Both she and I knew our agreement said that, if I were to punish her, I would be spanking or paddling her bare bottom. Her lovely, pale white bottom still wasn't bare the way it was last week. And agreement or no agreement, I wanted it to be. I had thought of nothing else since last Monday — Sarah's pink-spanked skin, soft and warm beneath my hand.

I walked behind her, hesitated, then slipped my fingers into the waistband of her stretchy black tights and her panties (low slung, pink cotton knickers, definitely not Victoria's Secret) and started to pull them both back and down over her upturned ass. My arms weren't long enough, so I had to squat behind her so that I could finish pulling her tights and panties forward and down her upper legs until they bunched up close to where her hands grasped her knees. For that short moment when I was squatting behind her, my face was only inches from her bare bottom, her thighs, her shaved pussy that smelled of soap and musk at the same time. "Who are we kidding?" I thought, resisting the strong desire to reach out and touch her with my hands, cheek, nose… with anything. "This isn't about a missed appointment. This is about sex. I didn't mean for it to be in the beginning, but it is now all the same." I stood up and stepped back from the brink between Sarah's legs. Remember the game, Professor.

Again, I slowly walked around her, admiring the view from a higher vantage point. With her head up and back arched, Sarah's round bottom was tipped back and up, all porcelain curves with a crease down the middle, ending in the rounded backside of her vulva, peeking out where her legs met. It was the loveliest thing I had seen since last week, when last I saw it, before and after that first spanking. Her breathing was noticeably faster. Mine was as well. Each of us was dealing with his or her own anticipation, anxiety, trepidation, nervous giddy impatient lust in a similar way. She had stopped watching me examine her. She was ready. So I needed to be ready as well.

"Sarah?"

"Yes, Sir?"

"While our tutorial today was quite good, I am still very disappointed in how you are approaching your work with me. We had an appointment last Friday, which you missed. Not only did you miss the appointment, but you didn't call me to cancel the appointment. You didn't call me to explain why you couldn't make it. That shows a lack of consideration by you for my time and a lack of respect by you for your studies with me."

"Yes, Sir. I know. I'm sorry."

"As punishment, I will be giving you twenty swats on your bare bum with my hand, followed by ten lashings with your belt. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Sir." Her voice sounded different. It sounded anxious, but not scared. Almost impatient. Almost as if those two short words really meant, "Spank me, NOW!" And that, even if she didn't know exactly what to expect from my hand and from the belt, she was ready to try it if I would just get on with it.

"Back arched. Look at the pencil holder." I placed my left hand flat on the small of her back to let her know that I was about to start. "Are you ready?"

"Yes. I'm ready."

She took in a deep breath and held it. I drew back my right arm, pivoted my hips, and then brought my hand down fast on her bare bottom. SMACK! There were no soft swats, no warm-up smacks with a cupped hand this time. No, each time my hand came down on her ass, it was fast, with force, and it clearly stung. SMACK! The color rose up in her skin almost immediately, brighter then darker pinks. SMACK! There were no warm-ups because these were the warm-ups. These were what would come before the belt. SMACK! She didn't waver or flinch as each blow landed, fingers together, fingers apart, two smacks per cheek then one dead center. SMACK! SMACK!

Around the eighth swat she began making little sounds, little cries each time my hand hit her reddening ass. SMACK! "Uhnnh!" One sound followed the other, time and again. They weren't loud cries of pain. They weren't whimpers or pleas. And I couldn't see her face, but I knew she wasn't crying. But the sounds… her sounds reminded me of the sounds someone makes when on the receiving end of a hard fucking. SMACK! "Uhnnh!" And I thought at the time that maybe I was wishing that to be true. Something was familiar. These little cries weren't the "Oh, Gods!" or the use of my name that sometimes sound too thought out, too contrived for anyone to actually say when there's a cock pounding away at them from behind and a forefinger up their ass. These were more like what you hear when conscious thought goes out the window and the mind drifts away, lets the body be and lets it voice sounds unfiltered, springing from some primal Cro Magnon fucking grunt. SMACK!

That was it. That was twenty. My hand stung. It was warm and I could tell my fingers were more filled with blood than usual. They felt tight, inflated. Tumescent. And Sarah? She was breathing in small gasps through her mouth… rapid in, slow out. Her eyes were closed and there were a couple of tears on her cheeks. But her back was still arched, her head still up. And, even though she was swaying a little forward and back, her hands were still on her knees. I took my left hand from her back and let it slide down onto her naked bottom. Her skin was soft, but shinier, tighter than before. And warm and fiery pink with some scattered red blotches. If my hand did that, what would the belt do? I tenderly rubbed both cheeks and she pushed back into my hand. OK, I thought, caressing her flesh. We'll see this through to the end.

For a moment –- just a moment -– I thought of John Cheever. I thought of how unhappy I've always thought Cheever must have been to see the world as he saw it and to live it half hidden from view. And I thought how this particular moment, here in my office with Sarah standing with her tights around her knees, was almost like a Cheever story. Here we are, the protagonists using sex to try and dislodge themselves from the mundane sameness of their lives. But what if there's nowhere for this to go? What if Sarah's life outside this office isn't mundane at all? What if this moment is all that there is or can ever be? The term ends this weekend. I walked back to the desk and picked up the belt.

Sarah's belt was about an inch and a half wide, leather, black with grain on one side, smooth and pink on the other side. I held it by the buckle and let it swing free, feeling the weight. Then I doubled it back over on itself, grasping the fold in one hand, the buckle and the other end in my other hand, bunching it together slightly and then pulling my hands apart, making the belt snap loudly when the two leather pieces slapped together. Sarah quickly looked at me over her shoulder, breaking her position for the first time. Her moist eyes were wide. I snapped the belt again and she resumed her position, looking at the shelf. She bit her bottom lip and waited.

I honestly didn't know what to expect the first time I swung the belt and hit Sarah's round, waiting bottom. I aimed for the center of her cheeks, trying to catch both equally, trying to strike horizontal. But the blow fell a little askew, catching the farthest cheek more. WHAP! The sound of the leather striking her skin was a shock. The sound of Sarah crying out was more of a shock. "Aaaaa-oww! No, please!" She straightened up immediately as if her spine were spring-loaded. Her hands flew off her knees and she used them to quickly cover her ass. But she didn't turn to look at me. She looked down, sniffing.

"Please, Sir. I won't…"

"I'm not discussing this. You have nine more to go."

"But, Sir. It really hurt and…"

"Resume your position. Now."

Slowly, she removed her hands from her bottom and bent over again, putting her hands back on her knees, trying her best to arch her back again and to look up. She was quietly crying. I could see the mark the belt had left on her skin. The reddish pink mark was the same width as the belt, extending beyond the pink area I had made before with my hand.

I tried to not hit the same spot the second time. I tried to catch more of the nearer cheek. I tried to get a different angle. I tried, but it didn't matter. WHAP! "Aaaa-owww!" This time there was no "No." This time her hands didn't fly back. She kept her hands on her knees when the belt smacked her skin, but against her will her back straightened, her head fell, and her ass clenched as if to defend itself from the blow it had already taken. It was clear this position wasn't going to work.

"Sarah, stand here and face the chair." I put down the belt. I placed a hand on her waist and gently, firmly turned her to the chair she had been sitting in for the tutorial. Her panties and tights fell to her ankles. I positioned her a step away from the side of the chair with her feet less than a foot apart. I had her bend over, putting her hands flat on the seat. Her arms were straight and bearing the weight of her upper body. "Keep your arms straight. You can hang your head down if you want." Her legs looked shaky, so I took a thick book from my shelf — a collection of Romantic poetry — to place under her heels. This would take some pressure off her legs and tip her ass up and out just the right amount. Again, as before, I squatted behind her. I quietly asked her to stand on her tip toes so that I could place the book under her heels. And again, as before, my face was only inches from her bare skin, her reddening bottom, her still white thighs. And her pussy? It had changed. The colors were deeper, the lips larger, wetter. She smelled less of soap and more of some secret she couldn't keep. I ran my hands up her legs as I stood. She shuddered.

I picked up the belt, doubled it over again, and resumed. WHAP! She cried out again, but not as loudly this time. The surprise was gone. WHAP! The sound of a belt traveling quickly through the air along its arc path was surprisingly quiet. I guess I hadn't expected that, perhaps thinking more of the swish or whistle of what I thought a cane or switch must sound like. But the belt was fairly quiet until it landed with a WHAP, bringing another red stripe to Sarah's skin. One blow landed too high, near the top of her ass. Another blow landed too low, just below her cheeks on her upper leg. I could tell that those hurt more than the others. WHAP! WHAP! She was still crying. But without asking, between each stroke, Sarah would take a deep breath, pivot her hips, and tip her ass up and out, presenting it to the belt. Asking, taking, crying. No wonder I couldn't quite identify what her yelps sounded like each time the belt hit her bottom. Part pain, part something not pain. I understood, but didn't understand. That doesn't mean I didn't know. I aimed the last two swats low on her cheeks, straddling the area where the back of her vulva was peeking out from between her legs. WHAP! WHAP!

And that was it. It was over. The room wasn't quiet. I was breathing heavily. Sarah was quietly crying. It was clear I had finished. But she didn't move. I stood for a moment, watching her… watching her legs shake, watching her arms tremble, watching her breathe in quickly and then slowly exhale. Her bottom was a bright reddish pink with darker splashes of color in the middle of each cheek. Here and there, I could see a mark where the belt had fallen where nothing else had touched her. Three inches of a red stripe here, two inches at a different angle there. X marks the spot.

I put the belt on the desk and reached out my hand to caress her warm, tender skin. "Sarah, we're done."

With that, her position broke. Her arms let go and she nearly fell forward off the book. I caught her with one hand around her waist and she spun into me, her feet still wrapped together in her tights and knickers. I held her as she stood there, sobbing. Her face was buried in my shirt, her hands holding on to my shoulders, then pressed flat against my chest. I held her and let her cry.

And my hands? My hands were gently, very gently rubbing her bottom. I could feel the heat coming off her skin. I could feel how the skin on the reddish parts was tighter than where her skin was only pink or where it was still white. I ran my hands over her ass, trying to take the pain away, trying to convince her jangled nerves to think of something else, trying to get her brain to come back down to Earth.

My brain was a happy, kaleidoscopic mess. My brain was in my hands, touching her perfect bruised bottom. My brain was in my nose, smelling her hair, and in my ears, listening to her sob into my chest. And my brain was in my cock, hard as any 17-year old's, straining at the fabric of my boxers and my pants, straining toward Sarah. And I know she felt it there between us. As she swayed slightly from side to side, she was leaning more into the leg with the bulge, the leg with cock. So we both knew what we knew. And that was that.

I don't know if I stopped touching her after a minute or ten minutes. I don't know how long it took for her to stop crying. But we both managed to stop. We managed to step away from each other and step away from the brink. She was still my student; I was still her professor. And so I stared at my shoe as she slowly bent over and gingerly pulled up her panties and tights. She undid the knot in her blouse, stepped back into her skirt, her shoes, and quietly slipped the belt back into the loops. Finally, she put on her coat and scarf, and then picked up her book bag to leave.

As I walked her to the office door, she stopped near me, turned, and looked up at me. "So, I will see you again next Monday." It wasn't a question.

"But Sarah, the term's over. Your paper is due Friday and I'll post your marks by Sunday. Sadly, today was our last session."

"I'll see you next Monday anyway. We can talk about my paper." And with that, she quickly and unexpectedly leaned up and kissed me, smiled, opened the door, and left. It was the sweetest mugging I had ever endured.

I'm not ashamed to admit that I masturbated as soon as Sarah's footsteps faded from the stairs. What would Updike have done? What would Cheever have done? The touch of her skin, the ripening of her pussy that I witnessed with my own eyes, and that single kiss on her way out the door had cracked open the fossiliferous bedrock of my year in England, the last decade of my same old life. Shake or be shaken? Chimera or saving grace? There's next week. And when we step off that precipice, will she and I fall or will we ascend like paper ashes — miraculous, glowing, fading to white and then gone?

I cannot hold my breath for seven days. I must leave this room and hope that, after a pint of bitters and a good night's sleep, I find my way back tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. So, don't lock the door, Mrs. Morris. And when a girl comes next Monday, a girl with twinkling blue eyes and a secret up her skirt, send her right up. We have an appointment.

End Episode 2

Thursday, December 29, 2005