The Choice (20 page)

With that everything came together; the way I’d been sent to make the birch for my own whipping, how he made me pose and stripped my bottom and breasts and sex to the open air, how he tied me to leave me exposed and helpless beside my friend, how he’d whipped me into a frenzy, how he’d teased me with his lovely cock, and how he’d fucked us both and made us come.

They must have heard my screams back in Oxford. I couldn’t stop, and he wouldn’t. If he hadn’t had a firm grip on me I’d have pulled away, because I felt unbearably sensitive and the whole thing was just too much. He knew how to handle me though, keeping me firmly in place and rubbing until at last my muscles went limp and my screams and cries had turned to sobs.

He still hadn’t come, seeing to our pleasure first despite being able to do just as he pleased. I was dizzy with reaction, half slumped in my bonds, and Violet was no better, but still I would have surrendered myself in any way he pleased, or done anything he asked once I was untied, for all my exhaustion. Instead he took pity on us, or maybe it was simply that he could no longer hold back, sprinkling our bottoms with hot droplets as he took his pleasure over the sight of what he’d done to us.

After that there were no barriers between us at all. That night the three of us slept together, and in morning he took turns with us again. We stayed in bed for hours, completely lost in each other, before going down to the beach for a final swim. At lunch I found myself unable to shake the deep sense of melancholy that had begun to creep up on me. My flight was late afternoon, and they were leaving the next day, but I was wishing we could stay forever and clung on to each of them in turn until my taxi driver had begun to grow impatient.

It should have been raining, to suit my mood, but I was driven back to Cherbourg in brilliant sunshine. As the plane climbed over the Contentin I was able to make out the house, with James and Violet tiny specks on the beach and kept my head turned until I could no longer see them, or the coast, something I hadn’t done since I was a child.

13

THE THREE OF
us had already discussed our relationship, and while none of us was prepared to abandon what we’d found we all realised that things couldn’t be the same. Violet and I would have to wear some clothes occasionally, for one thing, and I couldn’t risk anybody finding out that I had become part of a
ménage à trois
with a notorious flagellant ex-don and his equally outrageous lover.

That didn’t mean we couldn’t see each other, especially Violet and I, or visit James’ house, but I would have liked both she and I to move in, which was impossible. I still cycled out to the house on the Eynsham Road the very day I got back, for a brief but passionate reunion, and yet I still felt inhibited and dissatisfied. I was also unsure about Stephen, as my feelings for him had waned just as those for James and Violet had grown, but he was so glad to see me again and so eager to get me into bed that I gave in without so much as mentioning his failure to say goodbye properly the previous term.

After that, things simply picked up where they’d left off, only busier than ever. I had plenty to do as Recorder at the Chamber, while Dr Etheridge made it plain at my first tutorial of the term that he expected me to keep my work up to standard, while with Eights Week later in the term I had to spend nearly all of what little time I had left over on the river. I was doing well, and was determined not to lose ground, so I put everything I had into it, often leaving me so exhausted that it was all I could do to crawl into bed when I finally got
back
from the Chamber, finished an essay or came in from a boat-club meeting.

Violet was full of sympathy and determined to look after me, chiding me for overdoing it and even threatening me with a spanking. There was nothing I wanted more, and she began to take me in hand each evening, just gently, with me naked over her lap after my shower or with my knickers pulled down, but always bare. When she did it I could feel the tension draining out of my body with each and every smack, until it became more important to me than coffee, drink or conventional sex. As she had pointed out, it was addictive, and I was rapidly becoming hooked. I didn’t care, telling myself that a hot bottom did me no harm whatsoever, unlike caffeine and alcohol.

Only at weekends did I manage to get away completely, and James’ house quickly became a sanctuary, the only place where I could really relax, although even there my head was always full of the things I knew I’d have to do over the coming days, weeks and months. I couldn’t be birched either, which would have done me a lot of good, what with having to change for rowing in front of my team-mates nearly every afternoon and because Stephen would see.

I had thought about telling Stephen, but I wasn’t completely sure how he’d take it and couldn’t bear the thought of rejection. Nevertheless, I was getting to the point at which sex without spanking could no longer satisfy me and knew that if our relationship was to work I would have to bring it up. It seemed little enough to ask, when he was forever filling my head with disturbing thoughts of Thai ladyboys and Giles Lancaster, but I simply couldn’t bring myself to ask for it straight out.

My chance came in the third week, after rowing. As we walked back through the meadows we were discussing our
chances
in Eights Week. The men’s and women’s races consisted of each college’s boats lining up in a row, one behind the other, depending on their previous year’s position. The aim was to bump the boat in front and avoid being bumped by the boat behind and over the week’s races move to the front position. The winner would be named Head of the River. Mary’s were Head of the River and expected to row over and keep their title, while in the women’s table their boat was third and so had an off-chance of gaining them the Double Headship, which had only ever been done once before. Emmanuel were in front of them and Boniface behind, so we both had a lot of interest in the outcome, although he didn’t seem to think much of my chances.

‘You’re good, and I think you’ll row over, but Mary’s are better and they’ve got everything to work for.’

‘So have we. Three bumps and we’re Head of the River.’

‘You’re not going to catch Emmanuel!’

‘If we can catch Mary’s we can catch Emmanuel, and St Helen’s too.’

‘The three best women’s boats in the university, over four days? Be realistic, Poppy.’

‘I am.’

I wasn’t, I was just repeating the coach’s propaganda, but if you don’t at least pretend to believe in yourself, then who else is going to? In reality the best we could hope for was to catch a dispirited Emmanuel on the second or third day, after Mary’s had bumped them, and just conceivably St Helen’s in the same way, leaving us second or third with a realistic chance at the Headship if we could get our act together the following year. As Stephen responded with a derisive laugh an idea hit me, the perfect way to end up across his knee without admitting I was into spanking. I acted on it immediately.

‘At least we’ve got a chance, unlike your crew, who’re likely
to
end up in the second division, and I’ll tell you something too. If we don’t go Head of the River you can spank me, bare bottom, in front of both our crews …’

As he laughed I realised I’d gone too far.

‘Not in front of everybody. I was joking. But you can do me, is that a deal?’

I stopped and stuck my hand out. He hesitated.

‘Spank you? Really?’

‘I mean it. Come on, shake.’

He shook my hand, not very firmly, as if he wasn’t quite sure about it, but that didn’t stop me feeling as if I’d just dissolved into jelly. Even to use those highly charged words to him had set me trembling, and now he was going to do me, while the two-week wait before it happened was going to bring my state of apprehension to a blissful, agonising peak. Not that I’d go that long without it, because if Violet was in her room when I got back to college I was going to be begging to go over her knee. As it was I had to have something, even if not my favourite.

‘Take me into the bushes, Stephen.’

We walked up along the bank of the Cherwell instead of crossing it, so we weren’t really safe.

He glanced around before replying. ‘There are rather a lot of people about, Poppy. We might get caught.’

He was right, it wouldn’t have been all that hard to find somewhere quiet. I reminded myself of my promise not to take that sort of risk and we walked on, now hand in hand. We continued to talk rowing, although my mind was on other things, until we reached the end of Rose Lane. Giles’ window was open, and Stephen hesitated, obviously wanting to cross the street to talk to him, but I tightened my grip on his hand.

‘You can see him later. I want you now.’

‘Well, if it’s like that.’

‘It is.’

As we walked on I felt I’d won a small but important victory, because for all that I was effectively offering sex on a plate he had chosen to stay with me. I promised myself he wouldn’t regret the decision, hurrying him to Boniface and up to my room. The oak was open, which meant that Violet was in, but I made a point of raising my voice to address Stephen, making sure she knew I wasn’t alone.

He hadn’t changed, and the scent of hot fresh sweat was clear in my senses as I pushed the door closed. I wanted to treat him and, although my head was full of images of him pulling my shorts down for spanking in front of the entire Emmanuel rowing crew, I took a very different tack as I put my arms around his neck.

‘How would you like to fuck me while you’re sucking on a nice big cock?’

We both knew the answer, and he responded with a groan. I hauled his top up, kissing the hard muscles of his torso and rubbing my face against his sweat-slick skin. For all his gay fantasies he was magnificently male, and my body was responding to him for all the conflict in my mind. I lifted my top, freeing my breasts into his hands and he began to knead gently and stroke my nipples while I continued to stroke and tease, still talking.

‘That would be fun, wouldn’t it? You could go on top, so I’d be trapped underneath you, and I could watch, close up. I’d watch, Stephen, as he slid his cock in and out of your mouth, with his balls right in my face. I’d kiss them too, Stephen, and suck him. Would you like that, darling? Would you like to watch me suck another man’s cock?’

I’d changed tack, not on purpose, but just letting my fantasy build of its own accord.

His answer was more a gasp than words. ‘Bad girl!’

‘So you would? That’s nice …’

It was, a great deal nicer than imagining him with another man. I pulled the front of his shorts open and burrowed in to find his cock, tugging on it as I carried on.

‘I would, for you. I’d go down on my knees to both of you, letting you take turns in my mouth, all the way.’

‘Rubbing us together.’

‘If you like, and putting both of you in my mouth at once, if you’d fit. I don’t think you would.’

I was sure of it, his erection was thick enough to make my jaw ache without trying to accommodate another man at the same time, but fantasy is fantasy. Another man like him and I’d at least do my best, while on a more practical level there was no doubt about the effect my dirty talk was having on him. I guided him down onto the bed, kneeling at his feet in the position I liked best, where I took him between my breasts, squeezing them around his hard, hot shaft as I continued.

‘Both together in my mouth, until you came, or you could do me top and tail, with you inside me while you watched me suck him off. How would that be?’

‘Better still, side by side with two men, or two ladyboys.’

I bit back a touch of irritation and reminded myself that I was supposed to be giving him a treat.

‘You think about that then.’

I took him between my lips, enjoying his cock despite knowing that in his head he was the one with a mouthful. He was still worth worshipping, and I was in the place I felt I should be, on my knees to him with my breasts naked, his erection rearing high over the rim of his shorts, his balls naked to my tongue. I pushed my shorts down behind, baring my bottom as if I’d just been spanked over his knee and was saying thank you.

In a couple of weeks I was very likely to be in that position, paying my forfeit for my supposed overconfidence with a smacked bottom. He was sure to do it hard, because he could hardly fail to with his long muscular arms and powerful chest, hardened by endless rowing. I’d be helpless too, with him holding me around my waist or with my arm twisted behind my back as he spanked me, squealing and wriggling across his knee, my bottom bouncing and bare to the smacks, his cock growing hard against my side.

I couldn’t hold back any more, not even to wait for him to lose control and fuck me. My hand went down the front of my shorts and I was rubbing frantically as I sucked, my spare hand stroking my out-thrust bottom and wishing my cheeks were red and hot and sore. He came, and that pushed me over the brink, the two of us riding our orgasms together, united in body if not in mind, but it didn’t matter. In a couple of weeks I was going over his knee.

He gave a pleased sigh as I rocked back on my heels. It had been good, and done in anticipation of better to come, but I wasn’t at all prepared for the first words he spoke once he’d recovered himself.

‘I could make it real, Poppy … not with the ladyboys, but what you were talking about before.’

I could imagine exactly who he was thinking about as the third party, and it was not going to happen. Physically, Giles couldn’t be faulted, and if his personality was a different matter I might have managed to get over that. It was his attitude to Stephen that made submitting to him out of the question, and it would have been submission.

Fortunately I had an excuse, having explained to Stephen my determination not to do anything that might come back to haunt me. As I explained I was very conscious of having
already
done so, and with a vengeance, but he didn’t even know about Violet, let alone James. So he accepted what I had to say and the idea was put on the shelf, to remain a fantasy unless one day it proved possible without risk.