Troublemaker Read online

Chris cleared his throat again, still leaning in the archway. “Er… trouble?”

  “Oh, did your wife fail to mention to you that she received five notes over the course of the day?” he asked, his voice icy. “It certainly caught my notice, considering that is actually a record for a first day in this establishment.”

  Jo swallowed, her brief flare of bravado extinguished as the tutor retrieved a handful of pink envelopes from his trouser pocket.

  “This first one,” he read, “is for a disrespectful attitude. The second… continued disrespect despite warnings. The third… failure to complete a test to a satisfactory standard. The fourth… further disrespect and swearing. The fifth… lack of concentration and effort.” He looked up and Jo quailed under the stern look he gave her. “Well, well, well, Joanne. What do you have to say for yourself?”

  Jo’s face was burning. It didn’t help that she could almost feel the wave of laughter that was fighting to get out of Chris’s stupid mouth.

  “She has a problem with me,” said Jo and she hated the petulance she heard in her own voice. “She kept picking me up on every little thing!”

  “That is her job,” replied Mr Anderson. “And it is your job to learn from her and to submit to our methods. Your husband doesn’t seem to have a problem with this.”

  “Yeah, because he’s getting to feel up the fucking secretary!”

  Silence.

  Jo looked up, trembling, to find Mr Anderson glaring right back at her. Even Chris didn’t seem to be almost-laughing anymore.

  Oh, fuck…

  Still glaring at Jo, Mr Anderson said, “Chris, I think it’s time for your wife to be punished, don’t you?”

  Jo saw Chris start slightly in her peripheral vision. “Oh, yeah… yes. Right.”

  Mr Anderson’s eyes never left Jo’s face. “Stand up, Joanne.”

  Too appalled by her own outburst to argue, Jo got to her feet.

  “Chris, you know what to do,” said the tutor.

  Jo thought this was debatable. Despite his earlier threats to “practise on her”, Chris seemed to have reverted to the uncertainty and awkwardness of yesterday evening.

  But it was different for Jo now. She knew that if Chris couldn’t discipline her, Mr Anderson would.

  As Chris sat down and Jo obeyed the tutor’s order to lie across his lap, she wondered whether the tutor would be taking over again this time… realising with a jolt that this was what she wanted to happen.

  “On the bare, I think,” said the tutor, and Jo lay still, in silent mutiny, as Chris dragged up her skirt and pulled down her knickers.

  “Right then, Chris: show her what you’ve learned.”

  Jo gasped—in shock more than pain—as a crisp smack landed on her bottom. The next had her hissing in her breath. There was no denying that Chris’s technique had come on in leaps and bounds.

  “That’s it,” said Mr Anderson and Jo was aware of him standing just beyond the sofa, ahead of her. “Nice and hard now. After all, she has behaved very badly…”

  Even though, on an adult level, Jo knew that the tutor was to all intents and purposes playing a role, that he wasn’t really a misogynistic arsehole, she still found herself gritting her teeth in irritation now, as opposed to discomfort.

  Chris was still spanking: the smacks were brisk and firm, if a little predictable and regular. But, damn it, he was so bloody quiet. Was he just going to go through this whole tortuous business and not say a word?

  Jo felt the heat rise to her face. It’s because he doesn’t really want it, whispered a quiet voice in her mind. Why would he have the words for something that he’s not into? Face it, girl, he doesn’t want to do this… and he never will.

  Just like the night before, Jo made a sound of embarrassed distress and scrambled off Chris’s lap. “It’s fine—you can stop now.”

  She could hear Chris making confused and out-of-his-depth “er” type noises behind her as she hurried through the archway and into the bedroom. She was just reaching for the door handle of the en suite when Mr Anderson’s voice brought her to a halt.

  “Joanne, stop right there!”

  She froze, her hand outstretched, just inches from the handle and the safety of being on the other side of a lockable door. She was aware of him, just a few paces behind her… but she didn’t turn around. Neither did she take a step closer to the en suite.

  “Well, it’s good to see that you can obey instructions when you put your mind to it. Turn around, please.”

  Jo turned, drawing her lower arms in against her chest without realising she was doing so. Once again, her gaze settled around Mr Anderson’s knees.

  “Why did you run away?” His voice had lost its stern edge and it felt as though he were speaking to her adult-to-adult now, as opposed to tutor-to-student.

  To her horror, Jo could feel tears welling up. She swallowed. “He doesn’t want it,” she whispered, and now that she had said it, the tears were out and spilling down her cheeks.

  Without a word, the tutor drew her against his chest and held her close.

  Through a shimmering sheen of tears, Jo could make out Chris hovering awkwardly in the archway. But then she buried her face in Mr Anderson’s shoulder and the image of her husband was obliterated.

  Chapter Twelve

  Chris looked on, feeling helpless and hopelessly out of his depth, as Jo wept and whispered in the tutor’s arms.

  Mr Anderson was like a doctor—a professional with years of training who knew exactly what he was doing. But Chris? Shit, he felt almost as though Jo were expecting him to be able to perform open-heart surgery or something after a day’s first aid training. That was how out-of-his-league this whole situation was.

  Chris watched as Mr Anderson calmed Jo, wiped away her tears with his thumb, and spoke to her in a gentle voice about “everything being okay” and “needing to have patience and let go”.

  Jo seemed to get a hold of herself and stepped backwards from his arms, smoothing back her slightly-messy hair with her palms and giving an embarrassed smile.

  Mr Anderson reached forwards and tilted Jo’s chin upwards with his fingertips. “You know you still deserve to be punished, don’t you, Joanne?”

  And, just like that, he was Mr Stern again.

  She just nodded, her face still wet with tears. The way she just gave in to this bloke, this pretty-much stranger, confounded Chris.

  “Yes, you do, and it’s going to have to be my belt.”

  Jo’s cheeks, already blotchy and sticky, flushed a more uniform shade of red.

  “One stroke for each of your infractions, and one extra for running away just now. That makes six in total. Do you understand, Joanne?”

  She nodded, eyes wide.

  “Take off your clothes.”

  Jo gasped, but Chris almost choked, which made Jo jump and look over at him, as though she had forgotten he was there.

  He cleared his throat. “Er… what exactly is…?”

  Mr Anderson glanced back over his shoulder and Chris couldn’t help but be reassured by the calmness of his expression. “Apologies, Chris. I didn’t mean to take you by surprise. I was going to talk to you both this evening about some of the rituals around discipline and how the removal of clothing can help to bring the submissive into the right headspace, but as you can see, things have worked out a little differently than I planned. Are you comfortable for us to go ahead?”

  Chris tried to catch Jo’s eye, but she was staring resolutely at the floor. He gave an awkward shrug and a half-grin. “If Jo is comfortable, then so am I.”

  He saw Jo wince. Great, he’d gone and said the wrong thing again.

  “Thank you, Chris,” said Mr Anderson with a grave nod. “Joanne, clothes off. Now.”

  Without looking up, Jo started to unbutton, loosen, and shuffle out of her clothes. Her skirt fell to the floorboards with a gentle flump and was followed by her blouse.

  Then she was standing in a pool of her own clothes, wearing only her bra an
d knickers, and Chris could see the flush spreading from her cheeks to her throat and her upper chest. Her gaze was fixed on the floorboards, as if she had been tasked with memorising each and every line and whirl in the wood.

  “All of it, Joanne,” ordered Mr Anderson, standing with his arms folded in front of her. “Underwear too.”

  Jo looked up then, a desperate, pleading look in her eye, but whatever she saw on Mr Anderson’s face seemed to drive all hope away. Her expression was one of fearful resignation as she reached back to unclasp her bra.

  “Good girl,” murmured the tutor, as that too tumbled to the floor at her feet. “Knickers too.”

  Jo squeezed her eyes tight shut at his words and then, eyes still closed, hooked her thumbs into the waistband of her knickers and pulled them down to her knees. She let go and they whispered down her calves, settling around her ankles.

  “Step out of them and bend over the end of the bed.”

  Chris watched, eyes wide and grin long gone, as Jo simply obeyed.

  “That’s it—just a bit further forward,” murmured Mr Anderson, gripping Jo’s hips and shifting her position until it suited him.

  Chris couldn’t quite get his head around the way this man effortlessly controlled and manoeuvred his wife. The way he dominated her as though it were the simplest thing in the world. Chris watched him as he might watch a professional violinist strike up a solo: with impressed admiration but absolutely no expectation of ever coming close to matching that standard.

  The now-silent room was only slightly disturbed by the whisper of Mr Anderson’s belt as he drew it out of his trouser loops.

  “Six strokes, Joanne,” he said, his voice soft but firm. “You are to stay in position until I tell you that you may get up. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, sir,” she whispered, her face turned away so that Chris could barely hear her.

  “Good girl.”

  Mr Anderson folded the belt in two.

  Chris watched, transfixed, as if in slow motion, the tutor pulled the belt back high and then snapped it down hard across Jo’s naked cheeks.

  She gasped and then let out a wail that seemed to hold both pain and fear. Chris could only deduce that the belt hurt far more than she had expected it to.

  “One,” said Mr Anderson, with total calm.

  “Oh, oh! Please!” gasped Jo.

  But the second stroke was already on its downward trajectory, and Chris watched the red stripe flare across Jo’s bottom in its wake as her cries rang through the otherwise silent room.

  A pause and then, “Two,” said the tutor.

  “Please! I’m sorry!” wailed Jo. Chris could see the muscles in her legs tensing up and trembling as the skin on her lower back started shining with the sweat that was now erupting all over her body.

  Chris expected the tutor to ignore her pleas and carry on with what he was doing, but instead he watched as Mr Anderson let the belt fall to his side for a moment and reached forward to place a hand on Jo’s trembling back.

  “Shh, shh,” he soothed her. “Nearly halfway there now, Joanne. You’re being such a good girl. Such a good, brave girl. Here,” and then he reached across the bed and dragged a pillow across the duvet, “hold onto this if you want to.”

  Chris saw Jo’s trembling hands grip the pillow as if it were a lifebelt as Mr Anderson got back into position behind her. He slapped the belt lightly against her bottom and she twitched like a startled mare.

  “Are you going to behave better in your classes tomorrow, Joanne?” he asked, raising the belt back up behind his shoulder.

  “Yes, sir,” she whimpered.

  “Good.”

  The belt whipped down—Chris actually recoiled at the force of it—and Jo screamed into the pillow, her legs kicking out behind her in a desperate attempt at an impossible escape.

  Unable to hold back, Chris took a step forwards. “Um… maybe that’s a bit too hard.”

  He expected Mr Anderson to disagree with him. What he didn’t expect was for his wife to glare up at him from the bed, her red face wet with tears but screwed up in hard lines. “Chris, it’s fine!” she snapped. Then the rage seemed to leak right out of her and her head slumped back down onto the pillow. “Please just… don’t.”

  Mr Anderson gave Chris a brief smile and a nod, which Chris assumed he was meant to find reassuring, and then remained motionless until Chris had retreated back into the archway.

  “Now, Joanne,” he resumed, as if there had been no interruption, “how many was that?”

  “Three, sir,” she replied, still sounding put out.

  “I see. Three more then.”

  And, without any further warning, he proceeded to rain down three hard strokes in quick succession.

  Jo gasped and wailed and kicked… and was left breathless and shaking, all in the space of about five seconds.

  “Stand up.”

  Jo obeyed, gripping the bed’s left post for balance, and Chris got a clear view of her backside which was striped with six overlapping welts, each red and raised.

  Mr Anderson gripped her by the shoulders and steered her over to the wall by the door.

  “Stand here and face the wall. I want you to think about what you have done and how you will behave differently tomorrow. Stay where you are until I tell you otherwise. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” was Jo’s murmured response. Her voice sounded like it was coming from far away. Too far away.

  Where last night Chris had felt excitement when witnessing her punishment, tonight he felt a growing sense of despair. She was floating away from him; he could feel it.

  It was all he could do to keep hold of the very tips of her fingers.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Jo’s mind was not on her “personal presentation” lesson at all. She had barely glanced at the sheet that Ms Edridge had dropped onto her desk a quarter of an hour ago—How to Dress for Your Body Type—and even the knowledge that she was sure to fail the test that would inevitably come afterwards was not enough to drag her out of herself.

  She just couldn’t stop worrying about Chris.

  The previous evening had been weird. Chris had disappeared off into the living area as soon as the tutor left and had stayed there, staring at the TV screen whilst Jo foraged for a bit of food in the kitchen and then took herself off to bed. The difference between that and their first night at the centre couldn’t have been starker.

  Try as she might, Jo hadn’t been able to think of a single thing to say, and Chris had been staring at the TV (some kind of home improvement programme) in that kind of fixed, eyes narrowed way that made it clear that he wasn’t interested in chatting.

  She had muttered “goodnight” and had got a vague “mmm” in response that made her chest tighten up. She had lain in bed for a good hour, staring at the shadows on the ceiling and listening to the murmur of the TV through the archway before slipping into a sort of half-doze and then a fitful, dream-harried sleep.

  This morning, Chris had already finished breakfast by the time Jo woke up and between showers and getting dressed and Chris hurrying out of the door, there was barely time to say anything to each other at all.

  “Right, class,” announced Ms Edridge, her sharp voice cutting right through the morass of Jo’s thoughts, “time to share your findings.”

  Jo barely suppressed a groan.

  “Heather,” Ms Edridge snapped and Jo saw Heather flinch behind her long black hair, “stand up and tell the class what your body type is and what sorts of clothes you should wear.”

  That made Jo sit up straight. “I’m sorry—what?” she gasped, glaring at Ms Edridge.

  “Another note already, Joanne?” said the tutor, snatching out a pink piece of paper without looking at her. “Unsurprising but nonetheless disappointing.”

  “You can’t make people do this,” Jo snapped back. “Who are you to tell people what they ‘should’ wear?”

  “And another one,” said Ms Edridge, raising her voice
above Jo’s. “I think I will have to speak to Mr Anderson about how easy he is being on you.”

  Jo blew out her breath and shook her head, eyes narrowed.

  Heather was crouched, half sitting, half standing. “It’s okay, Jo, really,” she murmured, casting Jo a slightly cringing sideways glance as she got fully to her feet.

  “You don’t need to answer to her, Heather!” snapped Ms Edridge. “I think you need a note as well.”

  Heather flinched and hugged her elbows as Ms Edridge scrawled on another pink piece of paper.

  Nina gave a long, easy laugh, throwing her chestnut hair back over her shoulder. “Oh goodness me, there are pink notes flying around this room like confetti! You’re on a roll, Ms E.”

  “Are you angling for one yourself, Mrs Wright?” asked Ms Edridge in a cold voice, her eyes still fixed on the note she was writing for Heather.

  Nina laughed again. “I’m sure Eddie would be pleased.”

  Jo grinned in spite of herself. It was silly, really, how much she let Ms Edridge wind her up. Nina had the right attitude: a healthy dose of perspective and humour. Jo could tell that this was all just fun for her. And probably for her husband too, by the sound of it.

  If only it could be like that for Jo and Chris…

  “Well, I’m afraid we will have to disappoint him,” muttered Ms Edridge, signing Heather’s slip with a jagged flourish and tossing it to one side. “Your body shape and suitable clothing, Heather,” she barked, looking up again now.

  Heather was still clutching her elbows and tilting forwards. Jo had a sudden urge to shake her and scream at her to stand up for herself, for God’s sake… and then felt immediately bad about it.

  “I… I think I’m a… a ‘pear shape’, which means I should wear A-line skirts, fitted tops, and wide leg trousers…?”

  “Yes, good. Sit down,” she snapped. “Next—Mrs Butler.”

  Ms Edridge settled back in her chair and folded her arms as Heather sank back down onto her seat and Jo stood up.

  Jo put her hands on her hips and tilted back her head: if nothing else, she felt the need to correct the confidence imbalance that poor Heather had brought about in the room. Also, she couldn’t help but want to counteract the adversarial signals that Ms Edridge was giving off with her crossed arms and her contemptuous impression.