The Bottom Line (28 page)

‘Hello, miss,' he said, smiling as he did so, and the penny dropped.

‘It's not Darren Donovan, is it?' I asked, scarcely able to believe the evidence of my own eyes, whereupon he confirmed that it was. This time, however, there was no mention of Evie. I showed him the garden, listened to his suggestions about how frequently he should come, what he should do and what his charges would be, and explained to him how to get into the shed should I not be there. Then I made him a cup of coffee and we chatted about those old times, which we both remembered, again without any mention of my former nickname.

I must say that I was very impressed by Darren. He may have spoken in a very thick local accent with those syntactical errors that were commonly associated with it, but he was a very pleasant young man, scrupulously polite and certainly easy on the eye. We agreed that he would come the following Friday and every Friday for a month, mainly to tidy up and try to restore some recognisable shape to the garden, and then we would review progress and decide whether to continue with the arrangement. Although I would be at work on Fridays, he would call on Saturday mornings for his money, while doing other jobs in the neighbourhood.

It all went very well and the garden gradually reverted to its former shape, though Darren was keen to impress upon me that it would need a lot more attention before it could really be called pretty and, even then, it would need regular maintenance. I had no objection and paying twenty pounds a week to have a beautiful garden without any effort on my part seemed well worthwhile. He came every Friday while I was at school, charged for three hours' work and returned on the Saturday morning to collect his money - which went straight into his back pocket, I suspect, without disturbing the taxman - and have a quick cup of coffee.

During the holidays he came on Saturdays, because he had two other Saturday calls in the area and it was easy for me to arrange to be at home for at least part of the time. It was all very easy except for the one Saturday when I realised I had no notes in my purse and asked Darren whether he could wait until the next week for his money.

‘Well, no,' he said, ‘I can't. You see Saturday's when I get paid by the other people as well and I need the money for the weekend.'

I didn't ask him what he needed the money for, since it was none of my business, but asked him to call back after his next job and told him I would have his money then. Meanwhile, I got in the car, went to the nearest hole in the wall and withdrew what I needed. When Darren returned I gave him his twenty pounds, with a couple of pounds extra by way of apology, and that was the end of the matter. In hindsight, perhaps, I should have spotted a warning sign.

Spring turned to summer and the garden grew prettier and prettier. Darren may not have been very bright but he certainly had the necessary touch and he was totally reliable. One Friday I invited him to call me Olive since we were now both adults, but he said that wouldn't be right and he continued to call me miss.

During the long summer holiday the Friday visits were again replaced by Saturday visits, and it was towards the end of the holiday that, one Friday, I got an urgent phone call from a distant relative whose husband had suddenly died. She wondered whether I could go for the weekend and help her sort things out. It was only about fifty miles away and I had nothing serious planned for the weekend, so I said I would.

Before I left I wrote a brief note for Darren and stuck it on the lawnmower where he was sure to find it. The weekend itself was uneventful and I returned to find the garden looking better than ever. I decided that the next week, the first Saturday of the holidays, I might give Darren a bonus for doing such a good job and for being so reliable.

Saturday duly arrived and so did Darren, punctual and polite as ever but with just a hint of reserve, I thought, as he told me what he planned to do next. I left him to it and busied myself around the house, glancing occasionally out of one of the back windows. As usually happened on a warm day, Darren had stripped to the waist and was busy working, totally unselfconscious, and I knew that, when he tapped on the door to ask for his wages and to come in for a coffee, he would be covered again. Then it occurred to me that the car was nearly out of petrol, so I popped down to the local supermarket, did a bit of shopping and filled up the car.

I was back in plenty of time and had the coffee already on when Darren tapped on the back door. He came in and we chatted about this and that, nothing of any great note since Darren's horizons were limited, but it was all very amiable: other people's gardens, the success or otherwise of the darts team in Darren's local, occasionally his plans for the weekend, but never with any mention of any girlfriend. We finished our coffee and Darren stood up, ready to go.

‘Right then,' he said, ‘I'll have my money and then I'll be off.'

I was thunderstruck, as I'd just spent the contents of my purse at the supermarket. ‘Darren,' I said, ‘you're not going to believe this, but I'll have to go and draw some out. I'm so sorry.' His face darkened. ‘Can you call back when you've done Mr Fairbanks's garden and I'll have it ready for you - with a little bonus, too?'

‘No, miss,' he said, ‘it's not on and you owe me two weeks, remember.'

I realised he was right, since I'd rushed away the previous weekend and had left no money with the note. ‘I'm sorry, Darren,' I repeated, ‘but I'm afraid that's the best I can do. I haven't enough money to pay you one week, let alone two, but it'll only take me ten minutes to go and get some and it'll be ready for you by the time you've finished Mr Fairbanks's garden.'

‘But I'm not going to Mr Fairbanks this week,' he said. ‘In fact, you're the only call I've got today, so I've got to have what you owe me.'

‘Well, I really am sorry,' I said, ‘but you'll have to wait a while. Have another cup of coffee and I'll be back in ten minutes. Do you mind?'

‘I won't have to,' he said, ‘but be as quick as you can. I need your bathroom while you're out, okay?'

‘Yes, of course,' I replied, realising as I spoke that Darren had never been upstairs. ‘Up the stairs and second door on the right.'

So off I went and, fortunately, there was no queue at the hole in the wall and I was back very quickly. Darren was in the kitchen, still drinking his second cup of coffee. I opened my purse and counted out his money, then added another ten-pound note. ‘Is that all right?' I asked him.

‘No,' he said, to my surprise, ‘not really.'

‘Darren,' I said, ‘come on, be reasonable. I know it was stupid of me but I've only been ten minutes and I've given you a ten-pound bonus. I don't see what else I can do.'

‘Do you remember,' he asked, ‘how you used to tell the class that mistakes have to be paid for? We did that stupid book about that bloke who sold his wife at a fair and you told us he had to pay for it the rest of his life.' If I grimaced inwardly at this summary of
The Mayor of Casterbridge
, I said nothing.

‘And then,' continued Darren, ‘you used to rap my knuckles if I forgot something that you thought I should remember, didn't you?'

I admitted that I had, very occasionally, rapped his knuckles, but added that it was only really a joke, not a serious punishment.

‘Yes,' he said, ‘but that bloke thought he could use his money to buy his way out of trouble, just like you.'

Clearly Darren had taken in far more than I had given him credit for at the time, but I didn't understand where this was leading and said so.

‘I'll show you where it's leading,' he said, springing off the kitchen stool on which he had been sitting. Stretching his left leg in front of my legs, encircling my back with his left arm and then suddenly pulling me forward and down, he tipped me so that I was half across his knee and badly unbalanced, the tips of my toes just touching the floor. Then I felt a hard hand land on my left buttock and, immediately, the same hard hand on my right buttock.

‘Darren,' I screamed, ‘you can't do this! Put me down.'

Darren ignored me and delivered another salvo of blows, striking each buttock in turn. The blows didn't seriously hurt my bottom, since I was protected by both skirt and knickers, but my pride was very seriously hurt and I was all too conscious of where we were, right in front of the kitchen window.

‘Darren,' I shouted, ‘stop it at once or I'll have you charged with assault.' The next half-dozen blows landed before I could catch my breath again. ‘Darren,' I yelled at him, ‘anybody might come past.'

This did the trick. He removed the arm that was holding me across one knee and allowed me to stand up again. ‘Ah,' he said, grinning, ‘so that's what's bothering you. You're afraid that somebody might see you, are you? Well we can do something about that, though I don't know who's likely to come past the back windows of a detached house.'

As he spoke he was manoeuvring me towards the staircase and I realised, to my amazement and horror, that I wasn't even resisting. I stumbled upstairs and Darren pushed me across the landing and towards the back bedroom. I wondered briefly why he had chosen this room rather than my own more spacious bedroom, but the answer was quickly to hand. The room contained only a single bed, a chest of drawers and a sewing chair which had belonged to my mother and which had no arms. He sat on the chair and motioned me to kneel on the floor to his right. Then he placed a hand firmly in the small of my back and pushed me down and across his lap, telling me to place my hands on the floor on the far side, while my toes remained on the floor on the near side.

I realised only afterwards that I had submitted to all this without saying a word, but I said plenty when he folded my skirt above my waist, not that he listened to me. And there I was, a lady of spotless reputation, kneeling across his lap and waiting to be spanked, the most intimate parts of my body concealed only by a pair of knickers. I have to say, however, that what followed was relatively gentle, at least for a while. He must have spanked me for a couple of minutes, first half a dozen on one cheek, then half a dozen on the other and then a few across the middle.

He was obviously holding back, perhaps to observe my reaction, because while each blow smarted a little they didn't actually hurt and my bottom was becoming suffused by a pleasantly warming glow, as though I'd been standing with my back to a coal fire. Moreover he took it quite slowly, allowing me some recovery time after each round, time I needed to catch my breath rather than to allow my bottom to recover. It wasn't till I'd been there for a couple of minutes that I knew for certain that what I really wanted him to do was remove my knickers.

Perhaps he even sensed this because, as I was trying to rationalise this bizarre fantasy I was experiencing, he slipped his thumbs under the waistband of the knickers and pulled them down to my ankles.

‘Darren,' I shrieked, wriggling as I did so in a vain attempt to break loose, ‘stop that this instant. Pull my knickers up or I'll have you charged with assault - physical and sexual assault.'

He just laughed. ‘No, you won't,' he said confidently. ‘You'll put up with it. You're probably enjoying it. Anyhow, you deserve it for being such a fucking patronising bitch.'

I opened my mouth to tell him just what I thought of these outrageous remarks when his hand landed again, harder this time and on my bare bottom. I squealed and squealed again as his hand landed on the other cheek. And yet, while this was a good deal more painful and I suspected that I must be turning quite pink, I knew inwardly that I was capable of tolerating the spanking I was receiving. I took six blows and then he stopped.

‘Please, Darren,' I begged, ‘take them right off. I feel uncomfortable like this.'

He reached down and I felt him raise each foot in turn as he slipped my knickers off and then pressed me firmly down again. He told me to spread my legs a little, which I did, and then the serious spanking began. My flesh was getting warmer and warmer and I was having increasing difficulty in breathing in the cramped position into which I'd been forced, but I knew both that I could take it and that there was no way now I was going to beg for mercy.

It went on for a few more minutes, his hand covering every square inch of my bottom and often straying to the tops of my thighs as well, until the warmth turned to a sort of numbness and I even wondered, entirely irrationally, whether I might pass out.

Mercifully he released me and told me I could stand up. I bent down to retrieve my knickers but he told me to leave them where they were. ‘In fact,' he said, ‘you can take the rest off. Come on, let's see whether it's all as good.'

I pulled the top over my head without thinking, and stood there before him, wearing nothing but a bra. My choice of bras is quite wide and this happened to be a rather pretty one, with low cups and lace trimmings. Then I suddenly stopped.

‘Darren,' I tried once more, ‘you just can't do this. And I'm certainly not taking my bra off. Now let me get dressed, you pick up your money and go and we'll say no more about it.' I had made no attempt to cover the nudity of my lower body, yet I felt strangely unwilling to reveal my breasts - and at the same time quite certain that I really wanted to, which explains why, when Darren undid the first of the two hooks, I made no effort to stop him and even unfastened the second one myself. Perhaps it was my awareness of just how wet I was between my legs.