‘And does he … pay?’ I asked, delicately.
‘I don’t think he’s ever met any of the girls outside the club. But he likes what goes on inside it. He likes it very much.’
‘I guess he’d give it a rave review.’
‘Hell, yes, honey, five stars.’
I had just placed my entry for the competition. Initially, I’d been considering something modish and stark, but now my choice seemed clear. I’d go retro. Spanktastically so.
Still, there was no guarantee that my cunning plan would pay off. Certain of Peregrine Sands’ switches might be tripped by a good old spanking scene, but I didn’t know that his critical faculties would follow suit, and we had some stiff competition out there.
I watched the stiff competition parade across the stage in sequence, including Denny and Roger and our guys singing ‘Brush Up Your Shakespeare’. I had chosen not to perform tonight.
Finally, the last spangle-clad butt waggled offstage and we all waited, breath bated, for the master of ceremonies to make his grand entrance.
I could never quite decide whether or not I fancied him. He was attractive in a pale, wasted sort of way. There was a languor about him that I think he affected in order to disguise his venomous core.
He took to the stage, commanding it without doing anything at all – an enviable talent – and stood at the lectern, waiting for pin-drop hush before launching into a lecture.
His words of appreciation on the subject of am-dram were pithy and scintillating and I felt quite touched that he didn’t save his best lines for the professionals and give us some of his second-rate stuff.
A couple of times, he glanced towards me, eyes flashing like silver blades, piercing my abdomen and spreading a pool of warmth inside.
By the time he made the announcement, I had decided. I did fancy him. Quite a lot. I especially fancied his voice, which was clipped and authoritative, in the manner of a
1950s Movietone News broadcast. It pleased me that people still talked like that. It pleased me even more to imagine him calling me a very bad girl in those tones.
He didn’t call me a very bad girl, though. He called me a winner.
We had won.
The applause caught me by surprise and for a moment I couldn’t stand up, my knees seeming to have deserted my legs.
I went up to the stage and stood in his orbit, accepting the statuette and the envelope containing a cheque for ten thousand pounds to put towards our drama club funds. I shook his hand and thanked him profusely and made a silly speech full of names and the word ‘lovely’, but I didn’t once look him full in the face.
Then I was back at my table and he wasn’t there any more.
It had worked. My plan had worked. And I supposed that was that.
Until I looked inside the envelope.
There was more than a cheque in there.
There was a postcard, the twin of the one that had been delivered to my dressing room after the performance.
And in the same handwriting was written a message:
‘Come-uppance time, Ms Reddish. If you want my honest critique of your performance, meet me in the prop room in one hour.’
‘What’s that?’ Leo tried to peek over my shoulder but I returned the card swiftly to the envelope.
‘Nothing, just a compliment slip.’
‘You’re blushing. You never blush. What is it?’
‘Nothing, I’m just flushed with success. That’s all.’
He laughed and put his big hand on my knee.
‘Want to celebrate somewhere more private later?’ he whispered.
‘Leo!’
I was astonished. I had no idea the big lummox of a boy was remotely interested. He was handsome in a fresh-faced farmboy kind of way and a lot of the girls – and some of the boys – were after him, but we had started to assume that he was in the closet.
‘Sorry. Sorry. That was inappropriate,’ he said, withdrawing his hand as if I’d stung him. ‘Too much champagne. Forget it.’
‘Hey, it’s OK,’ I soothed. ‘No harm done. I just didn’t know you cared, that’s all. Thanks. I’m, uh, flattered.’
‘God,’ he groaned. ‘Flattered. That’s the ego-killer, right there.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake, don’t sulk. Just dust yourself off like a big boy.’
‘You don’t have to patronise me, Callie. I am a grown man.’
‘Some might say overgrown.’
He looked at me with eyes like a hurt cow, then turned back to his champagne glass. Somewhere in the bubbles, the word ‘bitch’ might have been uttered.
I didn’t have time for rejected drama queens, though. I had my meeting with Peregrine Sands to plan. There was no question of my not going. I had to see him and find out what he had to say. And do.
‘To be honest,’ I said, rising to my feet and addressing the table, ‘I’m bushed. I think I’m going to leave early, and let the victory feeling sink in, before I end up too drunk to remember.’
There were protests, and entreaties to stay, but I brushed
them off and left the room, intent on slipping into the backstage area.
It was easy enough. I found the ladies’ toilets and lurked in there, perfecting my maquillage while I ran through fifty mental scenarios of what might happen next.
Was I going to get spanked? Was I? Really? And by Peregrine Sands?
According to Emma, he was a master of the art. She had had the privilege of baring her bottom to his learned palm, and the lesson imparted had been unforgettable. Or so she said – she was prone to exaggeration, like most of us.
I contemplated being late. If I wasn’t already due an appointment under his hand, I certainly would be then. On the other … hand, I didn’t want to overegg the pudding. I had a feeling Peregrine Sands didn’t wait for anyone.
The props store was located in the lowest basement room of the theatre, and it took me a little while to find the right combination of staircases and doors, so it was just as well I hadn’t lingered too long over my lipstick.
When I pushed at the door, I tried to make as little noise as possible. I wanted to get my bearings before I got his attention.
The room, which was large and low-ceilinged, was in darkness. I could make out the shapes of huge backdrops used in past productions. Forests, by the look of them, and the turrets of a castle. Looming less, but still just about visible, were all kinds of strange-shaped objects and furnishings, plus a pony trap, minus the pony.
A little unnerved, I thought he must have changed his mind, and I considered turning back.
‘Hello,’ I said.
With an accompanying click, light flooded the room,
causing me to blink and look wildly around. I still couldn’t see anyone.
‘Mr Sands? Sir?’
That was a flash of inspiration, it seemed, for he stepped out from inside a large wardrobe, instantly made flesh.
I bit my lip to stop myself from grinning. This was utter madness, but I was desperate to know what was going to happen next.
‘You used the magic invocation,’ he said. He crooked his finger at me, beckoning. ‘Come here.’
My sequinned gown swept through the dust.
When I was about a foot away from him, he put out a hand to stop me.
‘I want to look at you,’ he said.
This suited me, because I wanted to look at him.
Up close, he looked younger than he did on television and in the papers, but at the same time he had more wrinkles, at the corners of his eyes and mouth. This was a good sign – he must smile more than one ever noticed. Or perhaps it was just the legendary chain-smoking.
He wasn’t smoking now, though. He was thinner in real life, too. He was of the type you might call ‘elegantly wasted’; beautifully dressed with ruthlessly neat hair and bright, shrewd blue eyes.
Those same bright, shrewd blue eyes bore into me while I stood, chin up, looking as bold as I dared, waiting for the next thing.
His fingers brushed my shoulders. They were tinder-dry and I could see the yellow smoker’s tinge on the inside of his left index finger. They left a trail of delicious sparks behind them, moving slowly across my exposed collarbone, then up the centre of my neck, to the soft underside of my chin.
He prodded it higher, straining the back of my neck, making me look directly up at him.
‘Caroline Reddish,’ he intoned.
‘My friends call me Callie.’
‘I’m not your friend.’ He smiled, a thing of cruelty and sex. It made me smile back.
‘I know,’ I said, my voice as smoky as I could make it.
‘Why did you come here?’
‘Because you asked me to.’
‘No. Why did you come here?’
I swallowed, which wasn’t easy with my head tilted so far back.
‘I wanted to see what would happen.’
‘What were you hoping for?’
‘You, well, you offered a, uh, a critique, which I would be very grateful to hear, from the lips of our greatest living theatre critic.’
He laughed, or rather made a ‘ha’ sound at that, and removed his finger from my chin, and tapped my cheek instead.
‘You’re a little slyboots, aren’t you?’ he said. ‘I like that. I like to deal with those kinds of tendencies. But first, I have another question for you. Why did you choose to perform
Kiss Me, Kate
?’
‘Oh. Well, it’s a classic, isn’t it? And it plays to all my company’s strengths – musical numbers, comedy, drama …’ I trailed off. He had a look on his face that showed quite clearly that he wasn’t buying this line.
‘There are plenty of shows that do that,’ he said. ‘I think you had another, more specific, reason. And I’m going to worm it out of you, believe me, my girl. So you might as well tell me now.’
‘I just thought you might like it.’ I was speaking in a
shamed whisper for some reason. I felt guilty, a kid caught scrumping apples in the meadow.
‘Yes. You thought I might like it. And why did you think that? Have I ever, in any of my columns, expressed the slightest enthusiasm for this kind of thing?’
Well, no, he hadn’t. His columns tended to favour the hard-hitting, depth-plumbing type of thing. Light musical comedy was rarely mentioned.
‘Well … We did win,’ I said. ‘So I must have got the right idea, from somewhere.’
‘Someone,’ he pressed.
I couldn’t look at him. I turned my face away but he cupped it in his hand and twisted it firmly back.
‘OK,’ I said. ‘I might have heard a rumour.’
He merely flashed his eyes at me, inviting me to go on.
‘About you and your, uh, your tastes. Certain specialist tastes. And it made me think of
Kiss Me, Kate
.’
‘Delicately put. I need the provenance of this rumour now, please.’
‘I don’t want to get anyone into trouble.’
‘You can name the establishment rather than the employee. I just need confirmation.’
‘Oh God. People are going to get into trouble, aren’t they?’
‘Only people who deserve it, Caroline. People who deserve trouble will get it.’
‘I’m sorry, I’m not prepared to say.’
‘Sorry, are you?’ He looked supremely irritated for a moment, then he took a breath and seemed to change tack. ‘Well, we can come back to this. You didn’t come here to be investigated, did you?’
‘Um, no.’
‘You came here, knowing my tastes, having received two provocative messages from me. Certain conclusions have been drawn, Caroline. Am I wrong to draw them?’
I looked around me while I sought a mental escape route. The brightly painted sets lent a surreal air to the situation, as if we were characters in a pantomime. Perhaps we were.
‘Not wrong, maybe,’ I said.
I looked back at him.
‘Are you going to spank me?’
His smile was more guarded this time.
‘I think that’s what you came here for, isn’t it? At least …’ His long, thin finger drew the outline of my ear. ‘I hope so. Of course, it’s entirely possible that you only came here to compromise me …’
‘No,’ I said, trying not to sound too ‘actor-doing-sincerity’. I always found genuine emotion hard to express since theatre school. ‘No, I wouldn’t do that. I’m an admirer of yours. I always have been. And there’s no more to it than that. Nobody knows I’m here, and I wouldn’t tell a soul, I swear.’
‘Not even Emma Frayne?’
‘Not even her. Oh!’
She was busted, then. Oh well, it couldn’t be helped.
‘That’s good,’ he said, giving my earlobe a little tweak. ‘Because I set a lot of store by discretion. I wouldn’t normally go about things this way. But when I saw you in that scene, oh, Caroline, you convinced me. He was really spanking you, wasn’t he? That bronzed, muscular Adonis whose lap you decorated so well. He wasn’t holding back, was he?’
‘No,’ I admitted, my cheeks heating up.
‘And that was too perfect,’ he said. ‘I loathe musical theatre and yet I sat through this performance keeping a
tight grip on myself, knowing what to expect and expecting disappointment. A hand that skimmed away just at the point of impact while somebody slapped the bench behind you. You can’t imagine how it affected me when I realised you were really being spanked. Because, you know, you can’t act a spanking. If it isn’t real, it isn’t convincing. The faces and the body language are always overacted. I’ve seen too many pathetic magazine shoots to be taken in any more.’
‘It was real, all right. I made Leo do it. He didn’t really want to.’
‘I think he did. But one must put up the weak protest, for fear of being seen as a monster.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Turn around.’
I hesitated then presented him with my rear view. The dress was backless, plunging down to my coccyx in a way that drew attention to the tight, sparkly silk around my hips and bottom.
I gasped when Sands put his hand on the curve of my arse and moulded his palm to its shape.
‘Who could resist this?’ he said, and his voice was directly in my ear. ‘No straight man alive.’
The way he held his hand there was so possessive and so natural that I knew I had gone beyond turning back. A ripple had gone all the way through me, upwards, outwards, downwards, inwards. And most particularly, cuntwards.
I had been excited from the start, but now my wetness was undeniable. My nipples were protruding out from the midnight blue silk and my breath was short and laboured. My body was telling him to do it. Do whatever he wanted. My mind could not summon up the effort to argue with it.