Getting a secret life.
The first time Anne saw him he was sitting at a table outside the club-house. It wasn't the first time he had seen her, she learned later. She had just come off court from her tennis four when he rose from his seat and took a step towards her. "Well played," he said smoothly, "would you like a drink?" "No, thanks," she answered crisply. Unperturbed, the man said: "Another time perhaps." "Perhaps," she said, without looking round as she walked past. Ten seconds later she couldn't have told you what the idiot looked like.
She played twice a week, once on club afternoon when you played anyone there and another with three girl-friends in a regular four. She was coming out into the street after her game the following week when he took her off guard. She hadn't given another thought to him until there he was, suddenly stopping her. She had to stop or she'd have bumped into him.
"Hi, remember me?"
"Yeah," she said, making to move on round him.
"I've been watching you play, you play a really cool game."
"Thanks," she said in an extremely cool tone. She had her ability to freeze out any unwelcome attention well developed. She was 26 and for half her life boys had flooded round her. She'd had to learn the hard way that her athletic body, her curly hair and olive complexion seemed to turn them on.
This guy was different, though. He must have been in his mid-30s, well-dressed in a casual way, taller than her and utterly unfazed by her no-no response.
"I've been watching you," he said.
"Oh get a life, dickhead," she spat out. "And there's a law against stalking women." She recalled with anger the old men who used to stand behind the court so they could see the girls' knickers when they served. It was why Anne had taken to wearing shorts with her tennis dress, though Jeanie seemed to lap up the attention and kept on wearing a dress. "Let's give them their cheap flash," she would giggle. Poor Jeanie. Now the hedge had grown up and they could play in more intimacy.
"O.K.," the man said and before she knew it, he had caught her hand and took it to his lips. "Alan Roberts".
"Anyway, how did you know we were playing tonight or are you always hanging around?" she said, pulling her hand back and immediately kicking herself mentally for breaking rule number 1: don't enter into any exchanges.
"Easy," he laughed. "Just rang the club and said I had to return something you'd lent me."
After her marriage broke up, Anne lived on her own in a flat in Stockwell. Before she got on the underground, she checked this guy wasn't following her. There was something creepy about him, just coming up to her and so smooth. As the days passed, though, she didn't just forget him. She found him coming into her mind at the oddest moments. Why shouldn't she have a drink? She'd been leading a monastic life for months, sheltered behind her cold gaze and sharp tongue, just like the new hedge sheltered her tennis four from the eyes of the weary old men.
The following week he was sitting again at one of the tables on the grass between club-house and courts. As they came off court she was prepared for him to approach her again, but he just sat at his table without catching her eye as they went past. Bastard, she said to herself, playing stupid games. Fool, she rebuked herself, after all you made clear you weren't interested. That night, she stopped off at the pub with Jeanie and the others for an hour and gossiped about work, mutual friends and boy-friends. It was the first time for months she'd done that and she felt better, just sitting in a group and laughing about nothing at all.
He wasn't there the following week, nor the following, and Anne told herself he was just another pick-up artist she'd put off and herself forgot about him. Six weeks later on a warm, early-summer evening, though, suddenly he was there in the street again. "You," she said.
"Me. Ready for that drink?"
"What the hell," she said, waving good-bye to Jeanie.
They sat outside at a nearby pub and exchanged the usual details about their lives. Anne was ready to let the evening run on as it might. She'd always been content to have boy-friends as long as they didn't invade her space. She could do with a night of passion, she told herself. The guy was respectful, interesting, good-looking and showed he liked her. So when he suggested coming back to his flat to carry on chatting, she was ready.
At work the next day, Anne could look back on a good night. She played over the scenes again and again with a secret inner smile. "You're happy today," said one of the secretaries. He had led her up the stairs to his flat, which pleased her. Now he'd got her home, he wasn't so crude as to make her go first and ogle her arse. In the flat they went at once into an embrace and she had her clothes scattered across the floor in half a minute. But he knew not to just fuck her and let her look after her own pleasure. He stopped the frantic kisses, holding her firmly by the shoulders. "Lie down," he said. "I'll give you a massage." Then he gave her a slow twenty-minute massage, starting with her feet, with little chopping motions on her legs to get the blood moving and strong stroking movements on her back to drag the tension out of her deep muscles. He gave the little, chopping motion on her buttocks and then smacked her hard, twice on each buttock. "Oh," she gasped, feeling the blows rush through her bottom to her groin. His hand was caressing her clitoris and then she had surprised herself by coming in noisy jerks of her body as he turned her over, raised her legs and licked her arse-hole and cunt. "My God," she said as she opened her eyes.
"I think you needed that."
"Oh, I did. Thanks."
"Get on top and fuck me," he said. She'd liked that, too. He didn't just want to jump on her and pump up and down. She rolled the condom onto his prick and slid his cock straight inside her gorged cunt. She started to move rhythmically up and down and her orgasm began to stir again. "That's impossible," she thought. She liked having a cock in her, but it had never made her come on its own.
"You sexy bitch," he said. Then he had started smacking her as she rode him, sharp cracks of his flat hand on her bottom. She'd not thought she was the kind of girl who liked being spanked. That was the sordid, smutty world of clothed men spanking school-girls in uniform. It had nothing to do with her modern independence. But she hadn't stopped him and when she came to another orgasm, he was still smacking her bum.
They'd made a date for the following week. She played the whole evening over in her mind during the intervening days. She found nothing the matter with being smacked if she liked it. He did, obviously. She found her mind running on. She imagined him smacking her while she lay on the bed, much harder than he was able to when he was fucking her. With a much longer swing of his arm, even with a stick. She fingered herself to orgasm every night that week in a sudden rebirth of her sexuality and pictured her raising her bottom to his hand. Just like dumb Jeanie flashing her knickers, she laughed to herself as she gasped to coming, then slid away into sleep.
She made her excuses to her tennis partners, telling them the truth: she had a date. She showered and dressed carefully in her cubicle at the club. Her outfit this week was very different. The barman whistled and she smiled back as she walked out with her day clothes along with the sports clothes and racquet in her bag. They met at the same pub. A quick drink was enough to tell her she hadn't imagined the chemistry. A kiss on the mouth and he patted her bottom. She knew she'd chosen right with some simple tight blue jeans to show off her biggish bum, when he whispered "you've got a lovely arse." "Not bad yourself, honey," she heard herself saying.
Back at the flat, he showed her into the living-room she hadn't seen the week before. It was classy, with minimalist decoration. A couple of pictures, long, square glass table and a couple of stylish wooden-armed easy chairs. A full book-case ran along one side. She walked to the window: it gave onto a wide, wild but controlled inner, communal garden. It confirmed her impression: the guy wasn't short of a pound or two.
"Sit down," he said. She turned, surprised at the sharper tone. He pointed to one of the two chairs. She sat, but he stayed on his feet. "You need to be punished," he said.
