Red Notice

Norbury-on-the-Water being what it is, it wasn't long before I found Kam under the indigo sky. About three minutes, in fact. They were stood under a streetlight, staring at their phone, outside a pub called The Wigtown, still dressed in their dungarees, yellow shirt, and red beanie. Students were coming and going all around and, through the bright windows, it looked packed already. I didn't much fancy standing at the bar, craning to hear and be heard over the chatter, being clumsily knocked into every fifteen seconds, but ultimately I'd do whatever Kam wanted to do. That probably did reflect very well on me but, alas, I am what I am.

Kam spotted me just as I was about to cross the street and, putting their phone away, waved energetically - I hurried across, a bus rumbling by just inches from clipping me.

"Welcome," said Kam, smiling widely, as I looked around.

"Are the others here yet?"

"Couldn't make it," they said, in a tone of voice that led me to believe the were being truthful. "So I guess it's just us - should be able to fit in the pub a bit easier, though."

"It does look pretty packed," I said, glancing at The Wigtown - being this much closer, I could now see just how full it was and it didn't even look like standing room would be easy to come by. "I guess that's what happens when you put a uni in a little village."

"Yeah..." They, too, glanced at The Wigtown. "Shall we mug it off? We can just walk around and I'll show you the village?"

"That'd be nice," I agreed, glad to avoid drinking and so able to keep my promise to Nadine.

"And if we have to drink," Kam added, as we walked down the street, past the pub and a line of shuttered shops, "there's a newsagents and we can go to the park. It's very illegal but, you know, laws are for squares."

"I think I'd rather not drink," I said quickly, relieved that I managed to get what would pass as pushback out of my mouth, "it's only my second day tomorrow and Nadine warned me not to come in hungover. I don't wanna push her buttons straight away."

"Yeah, you definitely don't wanna do that," Kam giggled. "Believe me." We reached the end of the street and, then, they turned back towards me. "Okay, and that concludes our tour."

"What?" Kam started laughing. "Are you se..."

"There's nothing in this village," Kam sniggered morbidly. "It sucks. We'd have to go to Dorking for something to do. You wanna go to Dorking?"

"Well..." I really didn't wanna go to Dorking.

"I'm kidding," they said quickly. "We're not going to bloody Dorking."

"Oh!" I exclaimed. "I was totally ready to just say yes to be polite."

"Aw, you're the sweetest thing," they said, reaching over and stroking my forearm, which exploded into goosebumps.

"So... what shall we do instead?" Kam shrugged.

"Well, there is a park nearby - can just go for a wander?"

"Sure! Aren't you cold, though?"

"Nah, I'm pretty resistant," Kam replied, looking down at their outfit. "I could wear a lot less and be comfy." They winked at me and turned back the other way, leading me down the street.

We reached Ward Park, which bordered the Crownbird premises, in a few short bounds; even with dark rapidly falling there were plenty of people about and the park was almost amber with lights lining the pathways alongside the still boating lake and skirting the treeline. At its furthest end stood a dark, foreboding woodland.

"So," Kam said, as we followed the path along the lake and I made a mental note to come here with a book when it was daylight, "I didn't get a chance to properly ask before I shot off earlier - how'd your first day go, all things considered?"

"Well, it was definitely interesting," I replied, and she nodded knowingly.

"Think you can handle carrying on?" they asked. "Day after day?" I took a deep breath.

"I don't know if my hand can," I said, holding it up, and Kam laughed.

"We'll get you a riding crop." I stared at them. "Joke."

"Okay, good, I'm not ready to brutalise just yet."

"I know you're not - that's fine. Your pace. No matter what Nadine might say or think or whatever." I thought of what happened in Sainsbury's and, in a flash, knew I was with the person who'd most enjoy the story.

"You might like what happened earlier," I said, and Kam looked at me, intrigued. "I was in Sainsbury's and I overheard some girl saying she's gonna get a red notice on purpose. She reckons it'll be a big fuss over nothing." Kam's face exploded with delight.

"Oh, that's mega," they said excitedly, "you got a name?"

"Nat."

"Shit, I don't know a Nat, but if one comes up on the Excel sheet then you'll know it's probably her. What'll you do?"

"Well..." What would I do? I wanted to say I'd show her exactly why she shouldn't have underestimated me but, deep down, and not even that deep, I knew I wouldn't. She'd keep her underwear on like the rest while I kept daring myself to go further and kept choking. "I really don't know, if I'm honest. I want to prove her wrong, but... I don't think I'd be able to pull it off like I want to."

"Want some advice?" asked Kam.

"Sure?"

"Write down what you want to do beforehand. Then you've got it to consult. Hell, you could email students who get red notices to tell them ahead of time what's gonna happen, if you wanted."

"You've thought about this before, haven't you?" I said, raising my eyebrows in what I hoped wasn't an overly knowing way.

"No..." Kam said quietly, looking at their feet performatively, before we both broke out into laughter.

"Did you ever consider taking the job?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I like my job and I guess I worried it'd get boring if I was spanking all the time. The spanking would get boring, I mean."

"I can't imagine it being anything other than quite terrifying," I sighed.

"You'll get used to it, eventually - and that's what I'd be afraid of. I quite like spanking in a recreational sort of sense. You probably noticed."

"Yeah, I did." Kam grinned, tongue between teeth, and we both fell briefly silent as a mother coming in the opposite direction pushed a pram past us. "I have to ask," I said, finally. "Why're you so... you know..."

"Nope, I don't," they replied. "What?"

"Forward." The word hung in the air.

"Am I?"

"You showed me your butt."

"And you still haven't shown me yours," they replied. "That doesn't seem fair."

"Well..." I shivered, trying to figure out what this was and coming up short, "good things come to those who wait." Kam laughed as we passed beneath a light and bathed in the amber glow. In the sky over the dark woods, the red light of an aircraft flashed, like a pipe bomb.

"I guess so." I wondered, in this moment, if I'd still be as comfortable as I felt were Kam a man. Probably not - this would probably start circling the drain of 'problematic' pretty quickly. "I can't believe I've spanked you."

"I can't believe I haven't spanked you. But I don't mind, that much. I'm more of a sub. Always have been." I thought of what Cherry had told me.

"My friend told me I give off really strong sub energy."

"Your friend's right."

"And now I have a job where I'm basically paid to be a dom." Kam laughed again. Their laugh sounded like a cartoon frog sometimes.

"Isn't the universe cruel in its ironies?"

"Very cruel. I can imagine getting into it, I guess, but it's hard when every time is so high-pressure and I have to be switched on and everything. I don't know how I'm gonna be from one to the next."

"Well," said Kam, eyes lighting up, "what if I told you that you can spank me whenever you want?" My stomach did the type of pirouette beyond the ability of even the most famed gymnast.

"Why would you want me to?" It took a lot of effort not to stammer. They shrugged lightly.

"It's fun. It's risky. And you're cute. There - the three reasons I do pretty much anything."

"You really enjoy this stuff, don't you?" I said, and Kam nodded slyly; as they looked away, I happened to glance down and see that their yellow shirt had become untucked from their dungarees on this side and, now, the purple waistband of their boxers was poking out. I tried not to stare - I'd only make it obvious.

"The thing is, I'm actually ace."

"What, like, asexual?" They nodded again. "How does that work?"

"So," they explained, their voice taking on a more cerebral, educated, 'let me tell you a thing' tone, "for me, stuff like that is kinda divorced from any sexuality. Other people would get horny from it and, I guess, I sorta do, but it's more just this really deep excitement."

"That might just be horny," I laughed.

"Uh-uh," they said quickly, shaking their head, like I was denying them a latchkey of their identity, which maybe I was, "I don't feel anything if I think about sex or if I see porn or anything. But I enjoy the play of it all, you know? It's like a game to me."

"A bit like when you're a kid and you're exploring without actually having the hormones, yet."

"Exactly!" cried Kam, a little too loudly, seeming delighted that somebody had put it into words for them. "Like, you know how maybe you're sitting with a date and you're in public and they'll really discreetly slide their hand down the back of your jeans?"

"Yeah?" No. That'd never happened to me.

"Well, for most people, that's foreplay - that's leading to something. For me, that's it. That's exciting and fun all on its own and I don't need it to lead to something else."

"Oh, okay, I think I get it." Kam sighed, mentally reminiscing.

"Do you remember your first time?" they asked. "I don't mean sex - I mean just first time you ever messed around with someone like that."

"Well..." Did my little session with Alexa the previous week count? Kam was probably expecting something a tad more distant. "I guess there was this one time when I was a kid at a sleepover and we were all sleeping all over the floor cause of how crowded it was, and I was up against this other girl and we were, like, touching each other, and stuff. And then we never mentioned it again."

There was, of course, much more to this story - but I wasn't about to spill it all just like that. A lot of alcohol and/or psychoactives would be necessary to weasel it out of me; how Ambriel was the popular girl I'd spent all term yearning to be friends with at my new school, who aced sports day and was the first to figure out how to download music from the Internet and got the part I'd wanted in the school play. Her hair had been as dark as space and body still not done shedding puppy fat, and for some unknown reason that night she snuggled up against me. In my youthful innocence, thinking her asleep, I'd dared to slip my hand down the back of her pretty blue pyjamas. I did it for no other reason than sheer curiosity - I remember being surprised to find she didn't wear underwear when she slept and feeling some excited privilege to be touching her as my hand slid down her soft bottom and between her cheeks. For a long time I'd felt her bare rear, feeling too a strange and alien excitement in the pit of my stomach, stroking her soft cheeks and trying to memorise their shape. Then, she'd stirred, and I came to realise that she'd never been asleep at all as her hands slipped down between my legs. She hadn't played with me, as an older girl might think to, just explored, more curious than aroused, and we giggled against each other as my hand moved between her legs too and felt her dampness until we fell asleep together. I don't know if there was a 'spark,' if that's what you want to call it, which made me what I am, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was where it began. After Christmas, Ambriel would be gone, her family having moved abroad, and at the little classroom goodbye party we threw on the last Friday she had taken me aside and kissed my cheek and then vanished forever. Curious, I thought, that I had enjoyed both giving and receiving, so to speak, even at that age.

Kam and I were skirting the edge of the woods, now, keeping to the path, passing an old football which must have been left behind at some point in the past either near or far.

"I don't really remember my first time," sighed Kam. "Lost in the oblivion of my mind. But I remember how my whole thing with, like, spanking and BDSM and stuff started. Me and my friend-" they stuttered on 'friend' just enough for me to wonder if they were hastily replacing 'cousin,' which was unlikely but would have been funny, "-we were in Art class and someone made some joke about getting spanked for missing homework. And then me and my friend started talking about, like, what it'd be like if the teacher actually did spank us. And then we agreed to try it out on each other, so during break we went into the toilets and went over each other's laps. And we got really into it and spent the rest of term doing that until we got caught and suspended."

"Wow," I said, "that's intense. The rumours must have flown."

"They did - it sucked. But, oh well, I got to discover my kink. So it's not all bad."

"I suppose not - if you got to figure yourself out." Kam stopped, suddenly - I stopped too and saw they were looking into the woods, where the lights only penetrated so far before all became darkness. "What is it?"

"I don't suppose... no, never mind, sorry, let's go."

"No, go on, what is it?"

"It's stupid," Kam sighed, shaking their head.

"It might not be." They looked at me, biting their bottom lip, their elfish face full of nerves.

"I was just gonna say... I don't suppose you fancy sneaking in there and, you know, having a go? With each other?"

"Seriously?" I looked past her into the woods. "In there?"

"There's enough light and we won't get lost," Kam said, "but it is really dumb. It's what teenagers would do. So, yeah, never mind." It was strange - I wasn't certain that I wanted this, at all, but it was right in front of me, for the taking, and so surely I ought to take it? After all, ever since I'd last had Kam at my mercy, I'd wanted it again. I'd even feared the last time really had been the last time. Right now, it didn't need to be.

"Alright," I said quietly, my heart thundering, and Kam's head whipped round to me, "you're on."

"Wait, really?" they said, grinning. "We're really doing this?"

"I feel bad," I said quietly, "you didn't get to do it to me. I guess we should make it fair." A low-effort excuse - but one Kam accepted. At once, they grabbed my hand, theirs soft and dainty and holding mine tight, and led me off the path and between thin trees.