For Emma P.
I am not entirely sure why I am writing this. I am tempted to blame being stuck at home, having to endure self-imposed quarantine after a brush with Covid-19 at work; bored out of my mind, with nothing on TV worth watching that I've not seen before. Then again, perhaps I am just suffering a bad attack of nostalgia. Boredom does that to me sometimes.
Or I could just be completely honest and admit that I am feeling desperately horny and deeply frustrated, having spent the last forty minutes utterly failing to find any free porn-clips on-line worth pruning my fingertips over.
So where to begin? Where does any part of one's life truly begin?
I suppose, in this instance, the answer is in a London pub (that I won't name as I still use it occasionally), with me nursing my second large vodka & tonic of the evening, waiting for the monthly perverts' 'munch' that I attended in those days to begin and wondering why nobody else was showing up for it.
Thinking I must have mucked up my diary and arrived on completely the wrong day, I was actually just about to leave when a couple I knew to be regulars appeared and joined me at my table.
"Here for the munch?", the man asked, addressing his enquiry more to my cleavage than to me. "Emily isn't it? Or is it Emma? Edna? We saw you here last month. Shame about tonight, but we only live just round the corner and fancied a drink, so here we are anyway".
Mystery solved! It was life, not my diary, that was fucked up. The munch had simply been cancelled -- something about the chief organiser getting his foot clipped by a passing car while cycling to work and ending up in hospital. It had been announced that lunchtime on the munch's social media page apparently, so my own fault for not checking before I left home.
But that's all by-the-by. The point is, having nothing better to do, the three of us ended up holding our own little munch and a few vodka & tonics later (okay, perhaps more than a few), I found myself volunteering to help some of the couple's friends who were setting up a little 'special interest' holiday business -- a pretend boarding school for adult 'naughty boys & girls' wishing to experience a traditionally strict education with old-fashioned school dinners, hijinx in the dormitory after lights-out, and corporal punishment as the principal attractions.
Stays could be anything from a weekend to forever, I was told, so the couple had signed up as guinea-pigs for a fortnight -- he as a part-time janitor, she as a naughty schoolgirl.
"They needed volunteers to try it all out before taking in paying guests", the woman explained, "and what are friends for if not to help each other? It's basically a free holiday for anyone who does volunteer. You just have to buy your own regulation school knickers. They provide everything else.
"Why don't you come with us? I'm sure they would love to have you".
You could almost hear the cogs in her little brain grinding as her eyes joined those of her husband in sizing up my tits.
"Oh wait!", she exclaimed, "Didn't you go to a boarding school as a girl? A really posh one? I know our friends are trying to make theirs as authentic as possible so I imagine they would be all over you. You know, as a sort of technical advisor?"
I half-nodded, waiting for her to finish mentally undressing me; no doubt imagining me stripped down to only knickers and a singlet in the school's gymnasium, or perhaps shivering naked in the communal showers.
"Not really my thing I'm afraid", I shrugged, smiling to be polite, while actually thinking why the fuck would I want to put myself through all that again, having spent almost my entire childhood and adolescence at a boarding school for girls so Dickensian that even a hardened masochist (which I am not) would probably see it as cruel and unusual punishment.
Too polite by half though, that's my trouble! Another vodka & tonic later, I found myself on the phone speaking to the school's 'Matron', realising only too late that I was being interviewed as a prospective volunteer.
"We are desperately short of women teachers", Matron gurgled, sounding for all the world as though she and her phone were being held under water. "Are you sure we can't tempt you, dear?"
"No, thank you but... No!... Sorry".
More gurgling: "Oh, are you a submissive?"
"Yes... Well sort of... I...".
"Sort of?!", Matron interrupted somewhat sharply. "Look, I don't mean to be rude, dear, but have you ever actually submitted to anyone? I mean in the flesh? It's just that, as we are going for a sort of full dress rehearsal, I am not sure we can cater for a total novice. Getting caned really hurts you know".
I suddenly found myself trying desperately not to chuckle, as I do when nervous and wishing I was somewhere else.
"Sorry, bit tipsy and obviously not explaining myself properly", I slurred. "What I meant was, I have been putting my arse on the line on and off since I was nineteen. So, been there, seen it, done it and lost my T-shirt. And my knickers, now that I think about it. I'm always losing those! I can't imagine why", I giggled, that last vodka just starting to take effect.
The gurgling emanating from my phone glitched into an unintelligible garble, but I'm sure I heard a man saying something to Matron at the other end and he did not sound impressed.
"Oh God!", I sighed, for some reason feeling the need to justify myself. "Okay... Look... umm... I just meant that I'm not really into the usual bondage and torture thing. I... I am more what has been described as...".
I took a very deep breath and decided just to spit it out.