Sweetie Sometimes - Chapter 1

PLEASE BE AWARE THE CONTENT OF THIS NOVEL CONTAINS ADULT SEXUAL MATERIAL

Sweetie is approaching forty, single and wanting to give colour to the fantasies she has only sketched so far....

From the corner of her eye, she watched as a fully clothed man, across the far side of the room, stood beneath a classic oil on canvas, rhythmically thrusting himself into a woman bent facedown over a plush velvet Chesterfield sofa. The subject of the portrait; a blush-cheeked maiden, her modest bosom tightly buttoned, looked down upon the room with a formal disdain, as though bearing witness to the scene before her. Her skirts showed only the tips of her tiny feet, encased in delicately buttoned boots.  On the side table next to her sat a bible.

The woman being ridden below her, was naked apart from a tightly laced, flesh-pink corset, and a pair of 0ld-fashioned bloomers, which were draped around her ankles.  Her breasts, the nipples swollen and dark, dangled and danced with each thrust, and across her trembling buttocks, lay an artful arrangement of perhaps eight, maybe ten red welts, raised on the skin. All had been delivered with an expertly wielded crop some while earlier in the proceedings, and each had been received with a howl, followed by a most polite ‘Thank you Sir’.

Sweetie – not her real name – looked away from the couple, feeling it was somehow rude to stare. She rested her gaze on the shuttered window, willing herself to concentrate on the mundane, the everyday.  Her thoughts turned to home; they needed toothpaste, and her shoes could do with being re-heeled.

The span of the window seemed huge, and the light from several lamps cast odd crooked shadows across it.  She traced their outlines with her eyes, to give her mind something else to focus on, but each led her back to where she had started.  She tried looking around the room, admiring its antique elegance despite the decadent air.

The house was stately, august; like a grand, if elderly duchess. From the outside it had seemed a little ‘Miss Havisham’, appearing slightly dishevelled, and now well past what must have been a glorious heyday, as bright, shiny London traffic swam around it like a slow-moving shoal of silver fish in a castle moat.  She wondered if behind it lay a hidden, secret garden, wildly overgrown, with crumbling red brick walls, the mortar turned to dust, fitted with antique latticed iron gates, which were rusted now; the keys long since lost.

It was not quite Belgravia, not quite Mayfair but an elegant address nonetheless; one in a row of large terraced buildings, finished in the Italian stucco so fashionable of the period.  Numerous wide steps led up to double-width, glossy-black doors. Stone lions sat on either side, in the shade of each portico, but over the long years, layers of grime had settled into the cracks and crevices of their flamboyant manes, and snarling faces.  Here and there, the paint had bubbled and curled.

Intricately patterned black iron railings almost concealed the shorter flights of steps that led down to the basements, and what had been the servant’s entrances.  The doors here were much smaller, narrowed to reflect the tradesmen’s status, and fittingly, the average adult would need to bow their head on entering. 

It would be easy to imagine the baker’s boy dallying on those steps to waste a little of his working day.  She could picture him clearly, whistling, running his fingers absent-mindedly along the railings whilst nearby a blinkered carthorse waited, snorting steamy breath from it’s nostrils, in the early morning turn-of-the-century air.

The unmistakable roar from the diesel engine of a bus brought her back into the present.  From the top deck it would be possible to see right into this room, were it not for the shutters across the windows. On seeing inside, the passengers might stare, sit upright, and pretend to be transfixed by the droplets of rain, or look shiftily around to see if anyone else had noticed the goings on.

Perhaps though, as cynical city dwellers, they would look, shrug their shoulders and return once more to their preoccupations, seeing only the globules of water shivering as the engine vibrated, and watching transfixed as they trickled down the outside of the glass.

Maybe in moments, the whole bus would be in uproar, the passengers outraged, a baying mob calling for blood.  Perhaps it would turn into a farcical scenario, like an Ealing comedy, with uniformed ‘Bobbies’ arriving in a swarm, and blowing sharply on their whistles, whilst dragging half-dressed, and most indignant souls into Black Maria vans, accompanied by the wailing of sirens.

“They call this the ‘Great Room’ Sweetie,” whispered Angel, suddenly appearing at her side.

“It’s quite public as you can see.”

Sweetie felt the weave of the heavily embroidered curtain and fingered the silk tassel of the tie-back, taking in the plump feather cushions of the classic sofa and the old, classic prints on the walls.

Wanting to feel the embossed rich wallpaper beneath her fingers, she made to step closer to the wall and stumbled in her heels. As she did, a hand reached to steady her, catching her elbow.

“My old mum would’ve said ‘You’ll do yourself a right mischief in them heels’.”

As he said it he didn’t smile, but perhaps raised his eyebrows a glimmer, perhaps he didn’t, she couldn’t be sure, but he met her eyes nicely with his own, and then he was gone.  She steadied her position, balanced the tray carefully and lowered her head just slightly, to appear less noticeable.

‘Just think of yourself as literally part of the furniture;’ Angel had said when she had given her the job, ‘they’ve got all the fanny they could possibly want and it’s more available than Cod in a fish and chip shop, so you don’t have to worry, they won’t give you a second look’.

They hadn’t either. She had been standing there in her costume for almost an hour, ignored by everyone accept Angel who busied herself to and from the bar area fetching and carrying implements as they were demanded. The rules were definitely the rules in this room and as she had given no consent to be touched, so she was ignored.

The men, either Masters or Dominants wore suits, with the exception of one or two who wore breeches with shirts that sported flounces down the front.  She was reminded of ‘Mr Darcy’ although she was pretty sure that Miss Austen would have swooned at such a scene.  Mostly, they would not have looked out of place in the office, which she guessed was where they had come here from, and where no doubt some would return to after the games. That, or a dash across town to catch trains back to the suburbs, or further out to the Home Counties, perhaps even beyond.

The women, the willing submissives, wore corsets, petticoats, bloomers, and stockings, or else very little of anything.

Sweetie had been intrigued when a giggling Angel told her before she agreed to the job, that the party theme would be ‘Wicked Masters Punish Their Disobedient Servants’ – though there was a distinct lack of young, wan-looking footmen getting their just desserts.

Greg, who was knelt on all fours opposite her, with the feet of a Master resting on his back, was surely a submissive, but then it was very easy money. Either way, she didn’t much care, it added both to her ‘portfolio’ of adventures and her pocket.

She returned to unnoticed, persona non-gratis in the corner by the window, whilst another layer of underwear was removed and the giggling women, clearly not very ‘sorry’ for their misdeeds, were laid over furniture or laps, and their buttocks soundly spanked, paddled or flogged.  It was oddly disconcerting, and yet, at the same time, delightful to observe.

“You should try not to smile. Someone might wipe it off your face for you.”

He was back!  The man from earlier who had steadied her as she stumbled. She looked him in the eye.

“You? Will you wipe the smile off my face?”

“I don’t play here.” He replied and she was immediately disappointed: He didn’t like her.

“A watcher.” It came out like a statement of fact though she had meant it as a question, but her disappointment leant it an air of disapproval that she hadn’t intended but found she could not conceal.

“Actually a drinker, an occasional afternoon drinker who can’t stand the stink of the public bar and the late-lunch heave of people. And yes, someone who quite likes his art ‘alternative’, his cinema ‘independent’, and his ‘frantic antics’ with females flavoured a shade richer than vanilla. You can get me another one of these please, when you’re ready.”

He swilled the last of the liquid around the glass and drank it down, then held out the glass to her. She took it and turned from him.

“Manners I like though.” She turned back to face him, smiling at the reprimand.

“That was an Irish whisky with two blocks of ice.” He held two fingers up to confirm his order.

“Yes Sir.”

He smiled briefly. “What do they call you then, apart from ‘Bitch’?”

She grinned at him, there was no trace of malice in his words, they both understood the joke and anyway, he had kind eyes.

“Sweetie”

“So you taste good then, right? His head was shaved where he was balding, and he loomed over her, stooping to hear her from his height. His smile was wide, his teeth dazzling white against a tan gained in the sun rather than from a bottle.

“You have lovely teeth!” She laughed at her awkwardness. He studied her a moment, allowing a smile to play over his lips before he looked at his watch and looked serious again.

“Sweetie, get my drink and get it quick.”

She turned and tottered to the bar. She was just about to ask the barman for the order when he placed the drink on a clean napkin in front of her.

“A regular then?” She said. He did not even glance at her and turned back to polishing glasses at the sink.

She liked the man, had liked the feel of him as he’d steadied her. She had no idea quite why, but of all the people she had met on this rather crazy journey, he was perhaps the first who had really piqued her interest.

She thought about how his hands might burn her, how those teeth might nip at, and bruise the tiny folds of skin at her throat. How his fingers might snake through her hair and bunch it into a fist, pulling it just enough to make her dizzy with pleasure, a sizzle of warmth searing her belly. She realised she already knew his smell.

She began the long walk back across the room in her treacherous heels, trying to balance the tray on one hand, as Angie had shown her earlier. When she looked toward where he had been sitting, he was no longer there.

Scanning the room, she saw him standing beside the fireplace deep in conversation, one hand resting on the mantelpiece. Had he moved deliberately? Again, she walked the width of the room in the heels, her tray in one hand. She had a sudden vision of herself falling spectacularly just as she reached the fireplace, showering the men with liquid, and ice and shards of glass as she tumbled to the floor. She coughed to stifle her laugh at the thought, and he glanced at her as he took the drink from the tray but did no more, in fact, he seemed to turn away from her.

For the first time, on this strangest of days she felt foolish and awkward.  She really was the invisible servant they had employed her to be, paid very highly, to disappear into the background of the scene, her discretion valued, her discomfort enjoyed.

How utterly mad that she took pleasure in imagining him physically bruise her, yet having him ignore her bothered her greatly.

A good psychologist would no doubt question her lack of self-esteem, or think her perverted, but then a psychologist would do their learning from books. Sweetie had long concluded that people were just not so easy to read.  They always had secrets, fascinations, obsessions, and the kinks and twists, even when they were never acknowledged, were always there; deeply buried perhaps but there, never the less.

She went and stood in the position Angel had shown her first, and listened to the moans of the women who were being humiliated, exposed, and beaten.  Sweetie thought them most beautiful, as the punishing hands of others pleasured them, and their faces shone with the blissful honesty of their desire, and the sweet fulfilment of it.

Around the room, in couples or threesome’s they were sprawled on the furniture, or else they stood over the sprawled. She gazed at the bodies; real bodies, shaped and sized differently to each other, some showing signs of the process of decline, others still holding onto the gorgeous bloom of their youth. All of them were carried without shame, as though to be naked publicly, to behave in such a way was perfectly normal without any need to cower or conceal.

She watched their hands groping, and gripping at soft white buttock cheeks, and thrusting themselves hard into the heat of the women. Some stood and stroked their cocks, smiling, and holding them over open, eager mouths. Faces either frowned in rapt concentration, or were contorted with the agony of their coming ecstasy. Grunts and cries, moans, and streams of filthy words echoed around the sumptuous room, and finally, sighs of blissful pleasure.

No longer able to help herself, her eyes searched the room for the man from earlier, but she couldn’t see him anywhere.  She looked beyond the players, beyond the bodies still writhing, or those convulsed with gentle laughter at a well-timed joke, and those simply prone, sweat beading on their skin, sated, stirring occasionally to stroke or caress an admired curve.

Sighing and suddenly dismayed, she rested her gaze once more on the shuttered windows, and thought again of the buses that passed just beyond them. She imagined the collective weariness, as the passengers swayed in their seats, whilst the bus lurched, navigating the sharpest corners of the narrow London streets. The air would be filled with the fizz from their headphones, or the vibrant buzz of their many conversations. She could almost smell the damp of their clothing, the waft of fast food, the diesel fumes.

In the background the late afternoon traffic, would hum as it began to build toward the evening rush.

She looked again toward the lovers dotted around the room. Perhaps, next time, if she were invited back, she would find the courage to join them in their pleasures. Why not?  It had been a strangely unsatisfying journey so far, and the more she thought about it, the more it seemed like the natural next stop along the route that was taking her toward her own destination, perhaps to the end of the line.