THE TOWERS OF FRAMDEN

Chapter XLI The Love Boat

2010-05-30T23:48:00.006+01:00

As I have just been reminded that the next Love Boat leaves St Katherine's Dock on June 26th I thought that I should reproduce the scene from my memoirs of a love boat trip some 10 years ago. This is an extract from "Towers of Framden" - my memoirs as a Councillor some 10 years ago. It is regrettably quite out of season to the rest of the texts before.

"We got to Charing Cross Pier with fifteen minutes to spare.
I dropped the ladies on Victoria Embankment and drove round the back of the gardens overlooking the riverside road to park my Ford Focus. I left the car, tucked my tawse behind my belt and, crooked cane in hand, and walked round the enclosed gardens to rejoin my companions by the riverside.
A queue of the most perverted beautiful people and freaks imaginable had formed up along the embankment edge, ready to embark on the boat. There were black nymphets and maids, men in uniform or dressed like slaves, pretty nurses, schoolgirls in short skirts and dishevelled ties, stern looking academics in togas and mortarboard hats, cross-dressers and transvestites in wonderful costumes or none at all with the overall emphasis on black or red outfits interspersed with plenty of bare obtrusive flesh. Many of the intended passengers wore outrageous or artistic costumes hidden temporarily under cloaks and leather jackets. There were gaggles of young teenage girls, mixed and same sex couples and companions of various ages, and single men hoping for attention, most of them obvious submissives. Some were dressed normally but carrying rucksacks or cricket bags full of rich costumes and essential equipment. Floggers and martinets could be seen in the hands of some of the ladies in the queue, while some men sported a cane, especially those in school related costumes. One guy looked like he had come straight from a countryside hunt complete in jodhpurs, red jacket, jockey’s cap and obligatory riding whip. A real Sir Jasper. All in all it was a collection of the most bizarre individuals that you would expect to see in one of your worst nightmares crowding just inside the gates of hell. Except for the groups of young girls they were silent or talking quietly, oblivious to the bustle of the riverside around them. In the fading twilight they looked like creatures from another world and the occasional wolf-whistles, shouts of derision, and honking car horns showed how the passing mainstream of city life appreciated their mutant fellow Londoners from the underground.
In fact the queue was already moving forward when we joined the queue and it took a little time before we were able to reach the ramp and descend to the level of the deck of the river boat. As we boarded, Ivan, our host, a bearded gentleman in a nineteenth century tailcoat, tight white trousers and top-boots greeted each of us in turn with a handshake for the male visitors and a kiss of the hand for every lady and every person pretending to be a lady. Just behind him, stood the serving maids, mostly male cross-dressers in short black dresses and starchy white aprons, honouring us with a bob and a curtsey as they served us a complementary glass of wine.
When we got onto the boat we dived immediately to the below decks saloon. There were long tables along both sides of the boat with benches on either side of each row of tables with a corridor wide enough for 3 people between the inner benches. The saloon crowded up quickly but it was good vantage point, firstly because you could put away your togs and excess equipment alongside the window ledges or under the table, and secondly because, even in the summer, as the night wore on, the exposed upper deck would get chilly. Downstairs all was cosy, or as the young German couple we met and chatted to in the queue, described it: “gemutlich”. Lucia managed to grab one window seat and Veronica, the Germans and myself, sat opposite her along one of the tables.
All around us people who were not already dressed up were changing into their costumes with the same lack of mutual embarrassment that you would find behind a stage or a catwalk. One big guy with a fat stomach was already parading effectively naked except for a thong that fitted around his willy in the form of a glove. He was on his own and looked rather sad. “An obvious client for me,” said Lucia. “In fact, too obvious.” There was a woman wearing a basque not dissimilar to Veronica’s, who was chatting with her friends, with the words “SPANK” and “HERE” written with a black marker pen across each cheek. Others were more discreet about their tendencies and would be wearing all-purpose dark flowing robes or tight leather and PVC costumes interspersed with exposed pink flesh. If they were females you had to guess early whether these last were submissive flesh fodder or camouflaged female preying mantis.
As the boat moved away from its mooring and proceeded downstream under Waterloo Bridge in the direction of the City, the bar opened underneath the stairway leading to the top deck and the maids moved into gear serving drinks and bar food, including warm chicken legs and sausages, and cold flans and salads. The food was for free but the alcohol had to be paid for. I got to the bar early to order drinks for my party, which now included the young Germans whom we seemed to have adopted. I preferred getting the drinks myself rather than leave it to the maids, who were invariably rude and impertinent. Apart from being ugly and male, they often got your orders wrong and were liable to spill your drinks over everybody else before you even got to them. They were suitably upbraided of course and every now and again one of these grotesque maids would be asked to lean over the serving table, have “her” dress lifted up and be spanked with various implements on “her” hairy bottom.
Upstairs we could hear a disc jockey announce that we were on our way to the Thames Barrier and then start off a cacophony of mindless garage and techno-music. Luckily this was not so loud as to prevent us from talking amongst ourselves downstairs. Conversations ranged from the academic achievements of the guests’ off-spring to the technical comparison of the sensations of being caned or whipped. Some participants, especially young females, were curious young first timers or even S&M tourists, anxious to observe what they had previously only dreamed about; others were great enthusiasts in their particular speciality in this kinky underworld; others again were professionals in the world of S&M handing out their visiting cards to future potential clients; and some were just the anoraks of the BDSM world busy analysing different kinds of paddles and floggers with the intensity and blinkered obsession of the train spotter. There were individuals desperately seeking companions or a larger group of people to indulge their fantasies; there were couples of long standing who had come to practice their intimate art lovingly with the added benefit of voyeurs to watch their performance; and their were groups of people got together for a fun time, often loud and provocative but rarely rude or intrusive. For there was code of conduct binding everyone and requiring that nobody be pressurized into doing anything they did not want to do, that people were not criticized or laughed at for their appearance or behaviour, that there should be no unofficial cameras and no exchange of money. All activities had to be conducted without animosity or aggression and be free of any coercion or financial compensation. This allowed for a stress-free environment in which to practice the most stressful of sexual practices.
Ivan came down and arranged for a couple of whipping benches to be placed along the corridor between the inner rows of benches. He shouted at the maids for failing to prepare the benches earlier. Then he greeted the people he knew and was happy to be introduced to newcomers, especially if they were nubile young ladies, like our Veronica, or like Petra, the German girl with us.
Then, like a true host, he opened up the floor for the first couple and with outstretched hand he invited Lucia to join him. Lucia looked resplendent in her new outfit and she cracked the whip over the heads of the watching guests. Some laughed with glee and applauded, while the less experienced had ducked when the whip had whistled over their heads to the amusement and derision of the others. Ivan stepped up elegantly to one of the benches, turned and bowed to Lucia, a bow which she acknowledged in turn with a polite nod of her head, then turned to the bench again, let his breeches drop to his top-boots and bent over the felt cover of the bench. At first his buttocks were covered by the tails of his coat but with one flick of the whip the coattails flew into the air and doubled back over Ivan’s back revealing a big white shapeless haunch ready for Lucia to ship into shape.
Normally for her demonstrations of whipping skills Lucia would have needed a much wider space than the narrow corridor between the benches provided. This was because many of her shots would come in a wide side arc hurtled horizontally at the victim. In these narrow confines she had to limit herself to vertical strikes, some curled and some direct aimed at the hapless Ivan’s huge posterior. Luckily that was all that was needed for the performance in hand as it was a whipping “pour encourager les autres” that was required, not an artistic display. As Lucia piled on the blows, each landed with uncanny precision on different sections of the white target ahead of her. It was pleasant to watch while whole sections of that lugubrious off white posterior changed systematically into beetroot red in such a way that the colour remained constant across the buttocks and not a single deeper wound or wheal appeared at all on any part of the bum’s surface.
Whatever warming up his rear was receiving Ivan was not registering any sign of pain or distress at the other end. At moments he seemed to be receiving his punishment with stoical passivity as if lost in a brown study. At other moments he would lift his hand in greeting to somebody or else continue to shout orders at the maids calling them “shameless hussies” and “lazy slobs” even at the moment when he himself was being treated in the way a shameless hussy should be treated. One of the maids gave him a V-sign and strutted off in seeming disgust. After about twenty blows, Ivan signalled that his punishment was finished, stood himself up, hitched up his trousers over his crimson posterior and kissed Lucia a profound thank you on her cheeks to the cheers and clapping of the enthusiastic audience at the bar tables.
As Lucia was about to sit back down one near naked guy dressed in a scant black leather harness jumped forward and asked to be punished and soon another couple was performing a whipping session at the second bench.
Gerd and Petra, our German friends, were into bondage. He removed her top and placed a sticking plaster over her mouth and proceeded to tie her up in the most provocative way on the floor, hogtied with her hands behind her back and attached to her knees and legs which had been bent back to meet them. He then left her on the floor trussed up like so much meat with her bare breasts mopping up the floor and her confined arms and legs sticking up in the air. He rested his feet on her body and invited an entranced Veronica and me to do the same.

On one occasion a cane-bearing bearded headmaster figure in toga and mortarboard appeared and asked me ever so politely whether I would allow Veronica to be caned. In fact his first words were to complement Veronica on having the most attractive and best shaped derriere on the entire boat and that he would very much like to complement this delectable sight by caning it thoroughly. It is one of the marks of politeness in this highly stylized world that anyone wishing to make this kind of approach should speak to the partner rather than make a direct approach to the intended victim, as this would be considered bad form. Personally I am still awaiting the definitive guide to the etiquette of the S&M world. I feel it would be more comprehensive than anything produced by the staff of Buckingham Palace or Erskine May’s handbook on Parliamentary Procedure. I glanced quickly at Veronica who looked terrified, so I suggested to the “Headmaster” that she was not yet ready but perhaps would be later. He bowed politely and left looking for other victims.
I bent over to Veronica and whispered in her ear, “Perhaps it would be best to pay the taxi fare, now.” She looked at me with a troubled expression. I asked her if she had ever been spanked before. Not since childhood, it transpired. I sensed that she was willing to experiment and in fact felt duty bound to do so after Lucia’s texted promise. However she was quite anxious in view of the apparent intensity with which various people were practising the arts in our immediate surroundings. I assured her that in paying her fare she would not have to submit to anything other than a hand-spanking or at most punishment with a light implement. While she was still mulling this over, I swung my legs over to the corridor side of the bench and taking her hand I coaxed her gently across my knee ensuring that she was comfortable, lying flat along the length of the bench.
Gently I massaged her back, then the top of her legs and then her exposed bottom. I allowed my hand to stray in the form of gentle circles around each cheek, emphasizing the hand movements with the occasional accented light slap using the tips of my fingers. My hands continued to circle by with a more regular rhythm of light slaps alternating with heavier smacks. The colour of her cheeks began to resemble the colour patterns of a peach, alternating orange, dirty yellow and various shades of carmine and red.

Then the massage was resumed with more gentle strokes and less slaps but each slap, when it came, was harder and more concentrated, first on one cheek and then the other. The slaps were smacks from below clipping the bottom with the palm of my hand working upwards and them clipping that same section of the bottom on the way down in a regular one two double whammy effect. Some of the glancing blows were purposefully hard but were in keeping with a creeping increase in tempo. Then after some minutes of undisturbed gentle caressing and even gentler imitations of slaps, I could see her buttocks just bristling with delicious anticipation at the next stage of the concerto. Sure enough it came when I suddenly introduced what I call the “wall of spanks”, in imitation of Phil Spector’s “wall of sound” as I rain down a sudden deluge of smacks administered at a rate of at least 200 blows a minute, which has the effect of numbing the whole area of attack and causing it to seek harsher sensations. This deluge of blows can last up to 5 minutes and it leaves my victims in a trance-like state of heightened alertness while I have to rest my hand from exhaustion. Then after a pregnant pause I provide the hard blows in a series of quite loud hammer blows delivered vertically in a downward motion with the open hand at regular intervals. Then after some twenty such hard blows my hand returns to the caressing motion and the numbing effect of endorphins dissipates as I tingle and taunt the deadened nerves back into the previous tense position of heightened anticipation.
I had checked now and again with Veronica to ensure she was riding alongside me on this joyride and that she had not forgotten her safe word in case the ordeal was too much for her. As my hand began to slow down she asked “That was lovely. Is that it?”
“You want more?” I asked rhetorically.
I took out my chequebook in the Midland Bank leather cover. “I see your assets are in the red, you bad girl!” I then proceeded to wallop her with the cheque book cover. Each leather bound stroke made a delightful retort as it kissed her upturned cheeks again and again and again. She chortled in her delight as the smacks made her wince with delicious anticipation. After ten strokes, I put away the cheque book, stroked her red bottom and declared that I now considered the fare paid properly.
“Yes,” she replied, “but I need to pay the taxi fare back home as well.”
“Well you can pay the taxi fare home, when the boat is homeward bound. I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait.”
“Bastard!”
“And for that reference to my family origins you will be paying the return fare double,” I hit back.
“Ooh,” she cooed provocatively, “you don’t scare me.”
“Come on upstairs,” I suggested, “let’s see a bit of London by night.”
Veronica agreed. “Good idea,” added Lucia, “I’ll join you two.”
We left the German couple behind to mind our places. Or rather we left Gerd behind to do that, as Petra was still lying there on the floor hog-tied with people stepping gingerly over her carrying drinks or else leading their own victims to the one of the whipping benches. We went upstairs into the fresh air and noisy dance music just as the boat was passing that riverside monstrosity, the Tate Modern, which some architects and planners with the aesthetic taste of a rhinoceros had converted from one of those execrable power stations that besmirched the Thames Valley in the nineteenth and early twentieth century into one of the ugliest modern art galleries in the Europe of the twenty first century.
Lucia pointed to a modern building on the northern side of the river, opposite the Tate. “Look it’s my son’s school here. He tells me that from this stretch of the river you can see seven bridges over the Thames.”
The boat was just about to pass under one of these bridges, the so-called “wobbly” pedestrian Millenium Bridge, when a party of young theatregoers crossing over from the Globe Theatre spotted some of our near naked revellers and began cheering and wolf-whistling us. As we waved back to them, our eyes caught the breathless sight of the majestic grand dome of St Paul’s bathed in white light like a bright beacon revealed suddenly in a passage way between the dark riverside rooftops. As we took in this wonderful scene we looked forward along the river over the looming edifice of London Bridge and could see the white lighted crenellated pillars of Tower Bridge soaring beyond like a magic fairy castle.
We took in the scene upstairs where Ivan was conducting a lottery draw where the prize was a tall girl dressed in a nurse’s uniform called Melinda who was ready to be whipped by the winner. I have often noted that tall girls are particularly prone to masochistic tendencies. They feel so out of place being taller than most men around them that they have a natural feel to being humiliated by men smaller than themselves. Perverse, I know, but true.
Several people were dancing. Others were just sitting round at the tables on the top deck, while a number of couples were indulging in the same pastime as those in the cabin downstairs. One woman had just peed in her pants and was wringing the contents into the mouth of an open-mouthed slave kneeling in front of her. Several young girls, probably already the worse for drink, were shrieking at the sight of all the freak activities around them and then shouting abuse at other boats, as well as bellowing at the top of their voices as we passed under each successive bridge. We tried to restrain them as we did not really want to draw too much hostile attention to ourselves, especially around Tower Bridge where there is a riverside police station.
The last thing we wanted was to be boarded by irritated Bobbies in a police launch with nothing better to do than to give chase to a boatload of cavorting sex perverts.
Lucia and Veronica stood with me for nearly 20 minutes watching the passing scene and smoking cigarettes. On one occasion a fellow dominant in an exquisite costume led her submissive male slave on a leash up to Lucia and asked her to hold him while she went downstairs for a leak. “If he misbehaves, just kick him!” she added as she left her victim with us. She returned after ten minutes (there had been a queue to the loo, as usual) but the male slave had stood there quietly with the leash around his neck all that time.
After some time Lucia and Veronica stepped back down for another drink but I was happy to sit on the top deck for a while watching the mysterious dark river banks of Bermondsey and Limehouse glide past while the lapping waves in the river, bathed in silver moonlight, coaxed us ever further into the murkier upper reaches of the great watery highway. In the darkness I recognized the Wapping Stairs where pirates were chained down and drowned in the rising tide waters of the river while Judge Jeffreys sat in a tavern on the other side, quaffing his beer, and listening to their shrieks and pleas for mercy as they died a long lingering death.
“A penny for your thoughts,” said a familiar voice beside me at the ship’s rail. I turned towards the voice and espied a 30 year old statuesque dominatrix with a familiar face that I could not quite place at first.
She looked at me laughing at my obvious perplexity. “Has the penny dropped yet?” she asked, stressing the word “penny” again. God, what an idiot I was! It was Penny from the “Framden Journal”! Penelope Wyndham, their top journalist.
“Hi, Penny! You journalists turn up everywhere. On assignment?”
“You betcha!” she laughed. “Got you on camera! No, Peter, just joking. Don’t jump overboard. At least not just yet. Not unless you’re with someone really startling.”
“Such as?” I asked.
“You know, Princess Anne, or Kate Winslet, or Helena Bonham-Carter…”
“Chance would be a fine thing,” I chuckled.
“Or even Melanie Sheldrake!”
“What??!!”
“Well you must admit, Peter, that would make excellent copy.”
“Very funny, Penny. Let me assure you that there are no other Framden Councillors on this boat.”
“Really,” said Penelope, smiling slyly, “are you sure?”
“Sure am,” I replied.
“Who are you with, Peter?”
“You asking privately or professionally?”
“I don’t know really. Depends who you’re with, Peter.”
“Well, if you’re asking privately, the answer is “I’m sorry, I can’t reveal their names,” but if you’re asking professionally then my polite answer is “Fuck off, none of your business.”
“Oh, Peter, that was uncalled for. Just being polite. I saw them earlier. They looked nice. I wonder if I’ve not seen the younger girl with the cherubic arse somewhere before. She looked well spanked by the colour of her behind. Been smacking the girls have you, Councillor?”
“So who are you with?” I said, preferring to change the subject.
“Well I have a little naughty schoolboy with me, today. You can just about make him out. He’s standing with his back to us chatting up some fat birds of prey. I think they want to cane him. They obviously don’t know that that is my job.”
I looked forward and I could just make out the large figure of a man facing away from us. He was dressed ridiculously in short trousers, a purple blazer with ribbon linings and a school cap that was way too small for him.
“You’re downstairs, Peter?”
I nodded.
“Well I’m bringing him down shortly for his caning. I understand the work benches are ready down there. See you then.”
I hurried downstairs to warn Veronica to be careful as there was a local Framden journalist on board upstairs. She was understandably alarmed.
“Journalists petrify me. After you know what, Peter. In the Council Chamber. I would never voluntarily go near a journalist again.”
“I have to say that I’m delighted to hear you say that, Veronica. I was always a little concerned…”
“Peter, after what Shamira and you did for me. You let me hold that job for a few more weeks; then you kept my name out of the press and now you’ve found me this super job at Whispering Trees with Lucia. I’ll always be grateful. Emil always said you’d come up trumps for me and you did. We all have our little secrets. You helped me keep mine. The least I can do is help you to keep yours. Please, please, don’t think I would ever want to be indiscreet or to harm you. Or Shamira.”
“And I’ll never let any harm come to you,” I answered magnanimously. I kissed her and she readily kissed me back.
“Thank you; thank you,” she repeated. “And you can spank me double or even treble for that, on the way back. Lucia was right. You are a divine spanker.”
She got up and kissed me again very generously on my mouth. Sitting next to her, Gerd and Petra, the latter now recovered from her hour long ordeal, applauded her kiss.
“Anyway, when she comes down I want to hide away somewhere where she won’t see me.”
“Veronica, I’m sure she hasn’t a clue who you are. However, she may be intrigued if she sees you next to me. Why not, with Gerd’s permission, swap places with Petra? Petra can sit next to me. She’ll then be looking at the wrong girl, anyway.” Veronica nodded enthusiastically and changed places with the German girl.
“Perhaps, Veronica, you want my Gerd to tie you up?” Petra asked her.
“I certainly don’t want to be thrown down on the floor like that!” exclaimed Veronica.
“Not for a beginner, no. If you are interested, though, Gerd can truss you up good. It won’t hurt a bit and you can carry on sitting on this bench. Trust me, Veronica, you will love it.”
Veronica agreed gamely to her new ordeal. Gerd asked her to sit up straight with her hands clasped behind her back. Then starting with her hands he enveloped her slowly in a cocoon of white rope, so that she looked like a victim helplessly paralysed in a bolt upright position within a spider’s web. Next he passed the rope through a gap between the planks on the bench top and secured it to her feet so that she was now unable to move or to detach herself from the bench. “Now,” said Gerd, “you are beautiful. You are a princess locked up by an evil magician in a high white tower. Now stay like that for fifteen minutes. You want to be gagged?” She shook her head.
“You look great,” I agreed. “There is no way that Penny Wyndham will recognize you.”
“And now, Peter?” I heard Petra speak. “I liked your smacking technique. I watched you with Veronica. Could you do the same for me as well? Especially that cheque book. That was very funny!”
I smiled my wicked uncle-like smile, took another swig at my beer and told Petra to get up on the bench on all fours. Then I got up and walked to her side. I gripped her firmly round her middle and lifted her skirt to reveal a pale unmasked Teutonic bum ready for a drubbing. I smacked her bottom heartily with my hand at various tempos and at changing levels of severity. Then I took my bank book waved it over her exposed derriere before roaring out “Here come your euros!” and applying it with added vigour to her ever more crimson posterior. After another 15 strokes I picked up my tawse.
“Aah, now we are getting somewhere,” purred Petra when she saw my new implement.
It was while I was thus happily engaged, and while Veronica was sitting bound and perfectly still two seats away from me, that Penny came downstairs towards me. “I seem to have mislaid my cane. Can I use yours, Peter?”
“Be my guest,” I said, almost proudly. “Put it to good use.” I stopped whacking Petra’s rump but carried on holding the fraulein tightly as I reached for my dragon cane. Penny swished it about a few times and then went upstairs to summon her recalcitrant schoolboy. And I turned my attention again to Petra’s rear.
A few minutes later Penelope was back again dragging her oversized boy down the narrow staircase by his ear.
Oblivious to our presence the man-boy in shorts allowed himself to be led by Penelope to the nearest whipping bench alongside where we were sitting. She placed her hand firmly on the back of his neck and pressed him down over the bench. “Down, you naughty boy,” she cajoled him. “You’ve been cheeking me all evening and now you’ve been looking up girls’ skirts. It is time you learned your lesson. Bend down and stay down. You will get one dozen strokes of the cane. Six across your trousers and six on the bare, you dirty little boy. Count them out aloud. Understood?”
“Yes, teacher; I’m sorry, teacher.”
“Too late to be sorry, now!” she reprimanded him.
His traditional style punishment began, much to the enjoyment of the other passengers. I had let Petra go now and she had swung round to the other side of the bench on her smacked behind to watch the new exhibition. She was fascinated as this schoolboy role play was still very new to her. It was a particularly English tradition where the caning of English schoolboys and schoolgirls was still within the living and sometimes even painful memory of most 40 year olds. No European had been punished in this ritualistic way in school for more than sixty years. In Poland corporal punishment at school had been abolished as early as the mid-eighteenth century. No wonder Poland got partitioned. In German schools caning had been abolished after the First World War. It was reintroduced by Hitler and a lot of good it did the Germans!
Veronica too had twisted her head round to try and look at this new show taking place directly behind her. Penelope had begun her assault and each swish of the cane was followed by the sound of the poor schoolboy counting out his strokes. “One.” “Two.” “Three!” Looking from Penny to her victim my glance rested again on Veronica who had suddenly turned away from the pedagogic tableau with a look of serious alarm on her face. She now stared forward with her back to the action as if determined not to see anymore. At first I thought she was exaggerating her concern at being recognized by the virago journalist but as the swishing sound continued and the counting of the strokes continued in a tremulous voice, especially after Penny had told him to stand up and drop his schoolboy shorts that I realized that something was terribly wrong. But what?
“Eight, Miss.”
Swish!
“Nine, Miss!”
Swish!
“Ten.”
Then it twigged. The voice! It was the voice! The voice of the schoolboy. It was familiar.
“Eleven.”
Could it be? No. It couldn’t. Yes, it was!
“Twelve, Miss. Thank you, Miss.”
The boy got up sorrowfully rubbing his sore bottom.
Yes. It was Councillor Andy Trosser!

Ludmila's tale (2)

2010-01-04T14:56:00.003Z

Our Boss now spoke. “I have six small sealskin packages here with very precious contents. They are diamonds for my agent in Hatton Gardens. You will both smuggle these for me into London. After arrival at Heathrow you will be taken to a special reception area where you can surrender the cargo and will be paid your money. We will store these diamonds well. Don’t you dare lose this cargo. If you do the consequences will be very painful. Ever had a hot corkscrew thrust up your arse?” We both shuddered. I looked at Valentina. She was kneeling there with her face white with terror, as white as her exposed rear.
‘Oleg picked up three packages and stood behind Valentina. He opened a tin of Vaseline and proceeded to poke the ointment around and inside her anus. Valentina gulped with pain and humiliation. I felt very sorry for her as Val was still an anal virgin. This was not a good way to lose your virginity. After a minute, Oleg began poking the tiny packages one by one up her rear passage. I could hear Valentina’s startled cries as she was effectively raped with Oleg’s fingers and stuffed but could only look on with horror. It reminded me of the film I saw of an English family sticking the stuffing up the rear of a Christmas turkey. Well, Valentina was some turkey! After about 3 minutes of this torture Oleg turned to Our Boss who was standing back watching this drama unmoved. “Sir, she is ready for you.”
‘Our Boss then removed his trousers and pulled out his cock. For a relatively small if stocky person that cock was quite sizeable. It was virtually fully erect with the pulsating veins clearly visible. I noticed that the foreskin had been cut back and the tip of the glans was shining in the reflected light. He covered his penis with a dollop of Vaseline and walked up to Valentina’s rear. He eyed his target carefully, seized her by her thighs and brought her rear closer to where he was standing by the side of the bed. Suddenly he lurched forward with his cock at full pelt at the swollen aperture and rammed it home. It did not go in easily as the orifice had been tight and unformed. So he made thrust after thrust into her anus while Valentina began to scream and beg for mercy. This excited him even more and he continued the series of attacks relentlessly while the sweat on his brow revealed the amount of exertion required. He paused for a minute to say to the hapless girl, “Don’t resist me you little whore! Just remember who I am and who’s paying you! Now keep that arse still while I push the cargo in to the correct position.”
‘He continued like that with thrust after thrust for what appeared to be an eternity, but was probably no more than five minutes. Valentina’s cried had been transformed into one continuous wail of pain as her insides were torn apart by this monster. At last he stopped and withdrew slowly. Poor girl! I could see some liquid oozing out of her orifice, accompanied by some blood.
‘Oleg stepped forward now. His voice was suddenly gentle and friendly again. He pressed some cotton wool against her anus and told her to raise herself slowly off the bed. He applied some paper towels and then helped her put on a nappy and over that some rubber pants that he held ready for her. She sobbed continuously as she put these pants on over her legs. In my vulnerable position on the bed I could do nothing to help her. In any case I was awaiting my fate. Oleg invited her to sit on a chair at the foot of the bed and wait for me to join her.
‘Now it really was my turn. “More Vaseline, I think,” said Our Boss. He was still standing there with his trousers off and his great cock still erect. I realized that my arsehole was going to have to accommodate this monster. At least I had the advantage that I had often offered hospitality up my rear and in normal occasions I had quite enjoyed it although it was always painful and uncomfortable. However I did not expect to enjoy this experience. And so it proved.
‘That traitor Oleg began lubricating my arse with the Vaseline. I felt his fingers poking around inside me. So far this was not so painful, but I sensed that what was to follow would be worse. I felt the first package being worked through my back passage higher and higher. Then a second package was thrust in with little ceremony, pushing through into the first. My anal entrance was already quite stretched but the real discomfort was in the lining of my stomach as I felt these objects intruding inside my body. Then the third package was thrust inside. I began to feel cramp in my stomach and a terrible desire to shit everything back but I knew this was only psychological. At worst I might fart but I had no intention of doing that with this psychopath standing behind me. I was feeling quite unwell even when Oleg stopped his poking about. Then I heard those dreaded words: “She’s ready now, Sir.” I felt a different pair of fingers inside my rear passage but I had no intention of looking over my shoulder. Instead I looked in the direction of poor Valentina, sitting all distraught on the chair at the far end of the room. She was looking at me with a combined look of pity and pain that I associated with some of the more beautiful medieval icons of the Virgin Mary looking up with agony at the suffering of Her Son on the Cross. Or was it the look of the raped bleeding girl in that Russian film about German atrocities in Belarus? Then I felt some steadying hands on the sides of my rear. “OK girl,” I heard the Boss say quite gently, “Poke your arse out a bit more towards me. That’s it, good girl. Now hold steady girl. You look like a much easier gateway. This shouldn’t take too long.” And then the bastard was inside me. Mother of God, it hurt, like a huge icebreaker thrusting my bowels aside. I yelled a few times, despite my earlier experience in buggery. He made just a couple of thrusts and he was completely inside me, with his tip now pushing the packages even further up my anal canal. “Good girl, good girl,” he said now. “Keep it steady.” It was like a sea captain urging the helmsman to keep the steering wheel steady as he surged through the heavy surf and spray. Suddenly I could hear him taking deep breaths. “I think that I have a further delivery for you, my dear. Keep well still.” And then it came. Or rather he came. The spunk he had denied Valentina. It was all over my back passage. I felt it dripping back out of my arsehole and even down the back of my legs onto the bedspread and this despite the fact that his cock was still embedded inside me.
“Whoa,…” I could hear him say, “Good girl. Well taken.” He smacked the side of my rump appreciatively. Then he slowly removed his organ and the Niagara Falls cascaded from my bum-hole. Oleg had been ready for this and stuck a large towel over my posterior and then stuffed my hole with some paper towels. These deteriorated immediately with the come soaking right through them, so 10 seconds later more paper towels were placed in my orifice, followed by a nappy. This time they held. But the green bedspread was covered with his spunk. Serve the bloody bastard right!
‘As with Valentina, Oleg helped me get up and pull the rubber pants over my legs and the nappy. I stood up swaying but still feeling very sick and with an overwhelming desire to defecate.
“OK girls, thank you. Good luck. Don’t lose this precious cargo. Bon voyage.” Our Boss had put on his trousers and walked out accompanied by his bodyguard.
I have to confess that I was transfixed by the horror of this account. “Is this Sheremovsky you’re talking about?” I whispered in awe. “Did he do this?” Ludmila shook her head silently and said nothing. I looked at Valentina. I was shocked to see her face in tears. I wrapped my arm around her and she laid her head on my shoulder and sobbed. “I have nightmares, you know,” she said through her tears. “Even now.”
‘We could have killed Oleg, but we felt too weak. He led us downstairs again. He chatted to us, told us not to go to the toilet until after we had deposited the diamonds in London and to sit together and not talk to any of the other three girls. We made a point of totally freezing him out. We did not acknowledge his words and pretended he was not there. We had recurring attacks of cramp, probably from the air pumped into anal passage when the diamonds were prodded in. All in all we felt very uncomfortable.
‘We sat down quietly in the library again. The other 3 girls were sitting there equally quietly. I could cut through the tense atmosphere with an axe. I gave them a quick glance and saw them looking down at their feet and sitting. Like us they were in obvious discomfort. Something else drew on my attention. I looked at Xenia in particular. To my horror she had a deep bloodied red gash on her left cheek. It looked like it had been made with a horse-whip. I stared at her in disbelief.
‘After a minute she saw me looking up at her. “Do you know what that bastard of a boss tried to do to me?” she whispered. I nodded my head. I did not want to hear the scene described all over again. Xenia obliged. She saw that we knew what she was talking about. “Well, I told him to go to Hell. Who does he think I am? And you know what he did. He shouted and screamed at me. Then he made that brute of a bodyguard of his strike me on my face with a whip. I’ll show him. I can’t do anything in Russia. He’s too powerful here. Just let me get to London. The English believe in justice. He has no power there. I’ll sort him out.”
‘We sat there in silence. I had grave doubts as to what kind of justice Xenia would get in England. About an hour later the chauffeur turned up and collected us and our suitcases. We left the mansion in silence. Only Oleg and that woman remained behind to see us off. They gave us some personal letters that had been sent to us in the last few days. I got a letter from my mother. Valentina got something from her parents and a letter from her Sergei. (We both looked at Valentina. She simply shook her head in resignation and took a deep breath.) She has never told me what the letter said but whatever it was it added to her misery.
‘The woman executive seemed particularly sympathetic to Xenia. She even gave her a cosmetic set as a going away present. It was one of those compact sets with perfume, eau de cologne, ointment and talcum powder. We were told to hold ourselves in 3 distinct groups. I was to travel with Val, Polina with Olga while Xenia, who was not carrying any diamonds, was to travel alone and not talk to any of us.
‘All Val and I could think of was our discomfort and our desperate desire to go to the toilet. We were aware that just one ease of tension, one passing of wind could result in us discharging our soiled precious cargo right there and then in front of our startled fellow passengers and airline stewardesses. On top of that we still had a sneaking feeling that British customs could have been warned about us and we could be facing the indignity of a body search and the horror of an English prison. All during that awful flight Valentina kept her fingers crossed and I prayed to the Blessed Virgin for us two and for Polina and Olga as well. At least Xenia was safe, though we wondered what she could do about her mistreatment on arrival in London. We feared she would be sent back straight to Moscow by the British authorities.
‘Luckily we were not accosted by customs at Heathrow Airport and our Belarusian and Ukrainian passports were waved through without even having our visas checked. A very pleasant English gentleman met us at the airport and introduced himself as “Timothy”, the coded name we were given in Moscow as the name of our London contact. He led us to another chauffeured limousine in the Airport car park. Olga and Polina were waiting anxiously inside. Timothy joined us in the car. The chauffeur started the engine but we asked him to stop. One more girl was to join us, we said. Timothy shook his head. He had only been asked to pick up four females. With even greater foreboding we sat back silent in the limousine as it purred its way through London. The chauffeur deposited us here. Timothy then revealed to us that he was an English Lord (“Yes, it was Lord Smallbridge,” inserted Valentina.) and that he was looking after the interests of Our Boss in the United Kingdom.
‘As soon as we arrived here he told us to leave the baggage with him and that we would probably “wish to make ourselves comfortable” as he phrased it, and he waved us into a room at the back of the house. There were two Russian women and a Chinese woman there waiting for us. We were told to undress completely and remove those horrid rubber pants. Then they gave all four of us glasses of Russian tea. After a few minutes we found that we had the runs. We realized then that the tea probably included a laxative. We wanted to go to the toilet but we were instructed instead to empty ourselves over some plastic basins. We squatted over them and slowly but surely we surrendered our smuggled loot. It was so grotesque; so undignified. The Russian women took away these sordid deposits while we were allowed to wait on a sofa, still undressed, and under the watchful eye of the Chinese woman. A few minutes later one of the Russian women returned and thanked us. It turned out that in the midst of that putrid mess all the jewels had been found. Not one was missing.
‘We dressed again. As we left the room under the stairs, Lord Smallbridge was waiting outside, with that same big brute, Nikolai, who led you here this evening. Smallbridge told us we had done a good job and handed each of us an envelope. It contained the money we had been promised. The Chinese lady now led us upstairs and showed us to these rooms. Our luggage was already waiting for us in the lounge.
‘We all had a good night’s sleep. We woke up about noon. I switched on the television to get the feel of being in England at last. I listened for a few minutes to a gardening programme and then they put on the mid-day news. One of the items was about a large haul of Afghan heroin found smuggled in at Heathrow the previous evening inside a bottle of perfume. A customs spokesman said that a woman from Moscow was now helping with enquiries. He would not reveal her name but an informer had apparently asked the customs to look for a woman with a fresh cut on her left cheek. Her trail was held 3 months later. She was found guilty of smuggling heroin and received a prison sentence of 10 years.

Ludmila tale (1)

2010-01-04T14:53:00.006Z

Ludmila took up the thread.
‘As you may remember, the last weeks were very pleasant. Discipline was loose. There were few compulsory classes and no exams. We could go shopping most afternoons or visit the coffee bars in our area. Obviously we had to be back every night and we still had drill and cold morning showers. The week before we left Val and I went to the British Embassy to collect our visas which confirmed our student status. The application had been lodged weeks before.
‘The last 3 days were even better. Twelve of us were put up in the Rossiya Hotel near the Red Square. Three of us were going to the United States; 2 to Canada; 2 to Australia; the remaining 5 were going to England. This was luxury. Two of us in each room, a warm bath every day, visit our friends and relatives in Moscow, unrestricted access to the hotel computer and watching TV in our rooms whenever we felt like it. We were given money to go to the hairdresser and went to see a ballet one night and a film on the next.
‘We were to fly out on Sunday evening. On Saturday night we packed our bags and suitcases and went out carousing most of the night in the Arbat district. At 11 o’clock in the morning the five of us were collected by Our Boss’ limousine. That is Valentina, Polina, Olga, myself of course, and another girl called Xenia. The chauffeur drove us out to the suburbs outside the great ring road. We were in hilly terrain somewhere past the Gagarin district and the wooded hills were punctuated by picturesque wooden lodges, old style dachas and newer brick structures, some the size of small palaces. We drove up to a beautiful wrought iron gate which opened automatically for us and stopped in front of a XIXth century mansion. Apparently it had once belonged to a prominent railway industrialist in the days of Tsar Alexander II. Now it belonged to Our Boss. Here we were to get our last briefings and our last meal before we departed for London that evening.
‘We found ourselves in a splendid library that spread through the height of 2 floors with books arraigned high up on the walls on each side with two levels of narrow walkways skirting round the whole room to make it easier to reach these books. The books looked old and dusty and were probably not touched most of the time. There was a piano at which Polina, who was a good pianist, sat down and played us a few tunes. We were offered drinks by a flunkey with a silver tray and several canapés and the obligatory caviar. They even offered us cigars and Olga and I decided to smoke one just for a laugh.
‘Then we were told to prepare for a big lunch in the dining room. The table seated 10 people, which included Major Timoshenko, Captain Trepachkova, Professor Denisov (the one who taught us all those strange details in the Human Inter-Relations course) and two other individuals we did not know, a man and a woman. These last two were introduced as high-powered Nafta Ural executives who worked directly with Our Boss, and they looked like Western-style company directors in striped British business suits. They explained to us the different structures of the holding companies in which Our Boss was involved and the many branches of the industry both in Russia and abroad. Val and I were registered quite legitimately as students, and the other 3 girls were registered as journalists, but we all knew that the latter was just a cover as their jobs were to be as club hostesses in Our Boss’ casino in Notting Hill Gate. However the executives made very clear that all five of us would be expected to give any support in public relations that would be required to promote the activities of Our Boss and his companies. We would all be given English mobile phones on arrival, live rent free in the apartment in which you see us now, and be effectively at their beck and call. We were reminded of the harsh grinding discipline we had undergone and told in no uncertain terms that, despite the much more relaxed atmosphere of living in London, we were still to show the same level of obedience and commitment that we had had to display at Lefortovo. In the case of Val and me we were expected to serve them in that role for the 3 years of our studies in London, the other 3 girls for the duration of their visas.
‘After an excellent lunch, Oleg (that was the name of the male executive) invited Val and me into the library again. We sat down in some comfortable armchairs. Oleg told us about the administrative side of attending a British university course, explained how to open a bank account in London, and gave us some useful London addresses, including a Russian Embassy official who was always at the disposal of Our Boss and the names of the clubs where we may be summoned every now and again. We were also given the names of about 10 useful British contacts, which included Lord Smallbridge and one of your local MPs. (“Which one?” I asked immediately, but Ludmila ignored my question). The other three girls had disappeared somewhere, so we carried on chatting to Oleg and as we swigged more and more vodka our conversation got friendlier and friendlier. He was in his thirties, a little older than us, but he told us a lot of fascinating stories about London and the British in general and we shared a few rather risqué jokes at the expense of Our Boss. When we suggested that probably the Boss would not be happy about these he proposed to show us round the Boss’ private apartments, just above the library. “Why not?” we said. What else were we supposed to do, while we waited?
‘We walked up a beautiful staircase with Russian and Italian Renaissance statues at each landing, and we passed through a large hall towards an ornate wooden door which appeared locked. Oleg looked left and right. Seeing that nobody was in sight, he put his finger to his lips and took out a key from his jacket pocket. He opened the door, looked around again, motioned us in and we sneaked inside. We wandered around a large lounge with hunting and sailing trophies dotted around the wall, glanced inside his bathroom with a walk-in shower and a large Jacuzzi big enough to fit in 6 people in one sitting. He invited us to use the Boss’ toilets while we were there, which we thought very amusing at the time. We even looked inside the sauna. Then we crept into the bedroom which had a large eighteenth century poster bed with a large green canopy. The bedroom walls were adorned with erotic pictures of medieval flagellants and scenes from harems and female steam rooms. We looked at all this splendour open-mouthed. Oleg lay down on the bed face up and invited us to lie down on either side of him. We were game for anything but imagine our surprise when we found ourselves looking up at a large mirror in the underside of the canopy. We giggled and waved to our reflections in the mirror. I even opened my blouse and flashed a bit of tit at the mirror which caused Oleg and Val to scream with laughter.
‘And it was at that very moment that disaster hit us. Another door, hidden in the wall, which we had not noticed until now, suddenly opened. In came a thickset man, with no neck and very close cropped hair that made me think of a bullfrog. He looked at us with an angry and arrogant expression on his face, as if we were so much dirt that had trespassed in this private apartment. Behind him stood a large-looking thug with enormous hairy hands. We got up immediately but not as quickly as Oleg, who sprang up as if about to salute.
“Sir, these are the two students.”
He gave this intruder our names and our ages. The man looked at us with a look of partial disdain and nodded. We both knew of course that we were in the presence of Our Boss, one of the richest men in the world, and certainly in the top 5 richest businessmen in the Russian Federation. He was not normally photographed but we knew that it could not be anybody else.
“Young ladies. I have been given to understand that you are bright and well prepared for your trip to London,” he said. “I am very very pleased about that. We have invested a large amount of money and time to get you ready and we have saved both of you from jail sentences in Russian prisons, where young girls looking like you would have been raped and infected by AIDS from your pox ridden fellow inmates. I expect you to show gratitude for the effort we have made by following our instructions to the letter in London and keeping your mouths shut. You will be well rewarded for your silence and your services. This is not Communism any more, you know. Also we have an immediate task that we want you to perform. If it goes successfully we will pay you an additional £1000 sterling on your arrival in London. If you fail you will rue this day for the rest of your life. One of your friends today was very disobedient and already has cause to regret it.”
“Oleg, tell them what to do.”
‘We looked accusingly at Oleg as we sensed that we had been deliberately tricked by him after he enticed us to this bedroom. We had no escape and had to submit to whatever we were told to do. Frankly we were terrified. Oleg returned our look with an impersonal stare as if he had not even known us.
“Please clamber on to the bed and kneel down near the edge of the bed. Rest forward on your arms.” We looked at each other and obediently followed Oleg’s instructions. He came up behind us, lifted our skirts and pulled down our knickers. I wondered what would happen. Was this a belated whipping just to remind us for the last time who was our boss? If yes, then we could take it. But the circumstances were certainly bizarre.
“Spread your legs, ladies.” intoned Oleg. This was now sounding quite alarming.

Dr Leia-Ann Woods

2010-01-03T06:04:00.001Z

Dear Leia,
Congratulations on your Doctorate.
Well earned!

Valentina's Naughty Adventures contd.

2010-01-02T23:57:00.010Z

‘I entered a large room with 3 doors at the far end. Trepachkova handed me a ribbon, led me to the door farthest away from me, then stopped and turned round just outside the door. “Remember Recruit Naryshkin. No recognition of the cadet even if you know him. No touching unless you have already been successful with tying your ribbon on his erect penis. After 15 minutes a bell will sound. If you have not yet been successful by that time your partner has his instructions to punish you for your failure. Ready?” I nodded. I looked round as a door opened two rooms away. I caught a quick glance of Ludmila emerging with her hair and clothes tussled and unkempt and a wild look on her face. Oh no!! However, just then Trepachkova opened the door to my room. I went in.
‘It was a little dark when I went in as the sky-light was covered over with darkened armoured glass and there was no other natural light in the room. As my eyes pierced the gloom I noticed that there was a cadet sitting on a chair opposite the door, while there was a table and two more chairs on one side of the room, a self-standing screen and a wash basin. On the other side was a large mirror. It took me only a few seconds to realize that the mirror was actually an observation window for whoever was supervising this perverse charade. I looked more closely at the cadet and I asked him to stand up. As he did so and my eyes adjusted more and more to the light around me I realized that the cadet was certainly no stranger to me. How could he be? It was Sergei!
‘As I was about to express my joy, shout out his name and throw myself into his arms, he put a finger over his lips.
I stopped in my tracks. The rules had to be followed. That was how we were conditioned. Yes, of course I had to “seduce” with my charms and place a ribbon around on his erect penis. How gross. How tawdry. I hesitated. Did I really have to follow this stupid game? For the first time I felt really rebellious. I looked at Sergei again, but he slowly shook his head and gave me a sad but knowing smile. More important, he unbuckled his belt and took down his trousers. As his trousers flopped to the floor, he stepped out of them, opened his shirt and placed his hands on his black regulation underpants. His thumbs were inside the elastic at each side, ready to whisk them off. But he stood there with a quizzical look, as if waiting for me to signal his next move.
‘I smiled. I realized that I could play this game after all, if Sergei was going to make things so easy. I dropped to my knees in front of him and blew him a kiss. Then I made a kissing motion with my lips directly at the level of his male organ. I was sure I was able to make out its shape even behind those regulation underpants. Sergei waited no longer and took the pants down. I blew another kiss at close quarters to his cock.
I could have been a horticulturalist watching a favourite plant grow. You know. Like in those nature films where they show flowers blossom or insects change form in quickened time, I was watching Sergei’s cock grow and flower with that wonderful purple glan tip emerge from the surrounding foreskin. I am sure no gardener watched his prize exhibit flower grow and blossom with more sense of wonder and joy than I felt on my knees watching this human ram take shape in front of me. I was like a child enjoying the sight of his balloon being blown up. I noticed the colour of his cock was a little darker than the rest of his body and there was a visible vein on the side of it as well as a brown mark near the stem, presumably a birthmark. All these details only added to the sense of wonder as I watched his manhood now fully formed and pointing directly in the direction of my open mouth. I sensed the head of his cock was beginning to lubricate and I certainly had more than enough saliva to add to any mutual sexual cocktail. Again I nearly forget myself as I was about to hungrily devour this meaty morsel in front of me. But with commendable self-restraint I remembered the task I had been set, took the red ribbon and tied it over his penis. He moved his body a fracture and the little bell at the end of the ribbon sounded triumphantly. I heard a voice on the tannoy system say, “Well done, Recruit Naryshkin, four minutes 22 seconds!”
‘So I had another fifteen minutes left and no more restrictions about touching now that the ribbon had been placed. I enveloped that wonderful human promontory into my mouth and placed my hands flat behind his beautiful buttock cheeks as I pushed his body towards me. I played with my hands now up and down his body in the region of his thighs as I sucked off his full cock. I needed his come so as to feel that he was mine, that I genuinely had a lover, not just a knight in shining armour pining for me in the spirit of courtly love. I sucked greedily now, like a baby suckling her mother’s tit, waiting for the juices to flow. My hands passed back to the lower part of his buttocks and beneath his crotch as I slowly worked my hands down under encouraging him to spend his load. I could feel the throbbing in my mouth and all of a sudden it was there, warm transparent unsweetened custard, which I rolled around my mouth and eventually swallowed. Yummy! Now he really was mine.
‘I got up now slowly from off my knees and placed my mouth next to his mouth while my hands carried on caressing his bum and his shrivelled little cock. My lips were still wet from his semen as I rubbed them into his mouth and we shared a deep and meaningful kiss. Now I felt his hands in the region of my buttocks, slowly lifting my skirt and feeling out the contours of the uncovered territories beneath. I was tremendously excited. It was like my first kiss. I felt innocent and happy like at the start of a new voyage of discovery. As his hands brought my body closer to him, one of them embedded itself in my rear crack and the other moved forward to the sharp little bush that fronted my pussy. Still leaving my lips glued to his, I let one of my hands cup his testicles through that withered little scrotum bag and played with my finger under his tiny cock. Except that within seconds it was no longer a tiny accessory but again a growing investment. Sergei pulled me to the table and sat me on top of it with my legs resting on the seat of one of the two chairs. Then with one hand, he moved the screen so that we would no longer be visible from the mirror, all the while keeping his mouth crushed to mine in a fervent kiss that was now beginning to deprive me of oxygen. A further minute and his cock had grown sufficiently to be re-anointed with a new ribbon if we had so wished. But we had other plans now, though hardly original ones. Acting in a race against time he prodded his newly emergent cock towards my pussy, which was now quite moist and expectant, seeking an entrance somewhat clumsily. I took the tip of his presentation, negotiated its passage past my labia and clitoris and welcomed it into my generous castle, while my legs took off from the chair and snaked their way around his body crushing it in my bodily embrace. I crushed him as much as I felt I could take that penis and all that was at the end of it, uniform and all, into my most receptive sheath and just smother it all there as I pressed for his next ejaculation. In the meantime his hands were now behind my back and now moving forward to support the cup of my left breast. In such am embrace he came again and I experienced a rapid fire of orchestrated orgasms which seem to envelope my whole body.
“Isn’t she a little romantic?” Ludmila jeered her account.
“So what happened when you went in for your “oral” test, Ludmila? Was it really so bad?” I asked her. “Valentina said you looked distraught.”
“Valentina has the observation powers of a mole up a negro’s arse,” answered Ludmila in a most un-PC like observation. It actually made me shudder. “When I went in I didn’t see Polina and I didn’t know what was going to happen. To me it seemed like a great game. That arse-licking dyke Trepachkova led me into a room. It was dark, so I fumbled around for a light switch. There was a murky strip light that came on but I recognized my Yuri straight away. I just about remembered that we were not supposed to recognize our partner so I called out “Hi there, Big Balls. What are you staring at? Stand up and get your fucking clobber off and show us your big prick.” I unzipped my leather jacket and flashed him by boobs. “Come and get it, if you can.” Of course with Yuri you don’t have to hang around. That prick of his was already a big ‘un because of the anticipation. He didn’t know it was going to be me, but his prick will tease at the sight of any bit of fanny. So it shot from little hut to skyscraper in no time at all. I hardly needed to egg it on. At one moment I was even shaking my hips, with my boobs and my unzipped jacket swinging from side to side, shaking that stupid ribbon with the bell around my head. His cock was like a huge straight sausage now and I tied my blue ribbon ceremoniously around it. “Ring, you bastard little bell!” I commanded, and sure enough it did, as soon as Yuri moved it. Then I heard this disembodied voice announce that I had tied that ribbon in 3 minutes and so many seconds.”
“You probably had the record time,” I suggested.
“I didn’t care about that. I had my big Yuri back. I shot out of my trousers real quick and Yuri unbuttoned his uniform shirt to reveal that fabulous hairy chest I had glimpsed only once. I am a peasant girl and I have been brought up to accept that the gifts of nature should never be wasted or God will be angry. No matter what those gifts are. Bread, meat, fruit, water, seeds, oil, sperm, whatever. There was no way I could let that oversize cannon shoot its load into God knows what. I needed to harvest this precious gift myself. I clasped him to me seeking to wriggle myself onto that giant cock of his. He stooped for a second to place his launcher in position and made sure I was impaling myself on it. Then he placed those big powerful hands of his around the lower part of my arse like a chair lift. He lifted me up and I wrapped my legs around his hairy arse and I felt that big prick of his right up my sheath. He started humping me against one of the walls. A disembodied voice called out again to stop as I had got full marks. Sod that. I knew my rights. I still had at least ten minutes. And I still had Yuri. They could just kiss my arse.
And that’s precisely what we allowed them to do. Because Yuri staggered with me, still clinging to him like a limpet, to the wall with the mirror and placed my arse against it as he continued to hump me right and proper. God, those examiners must have got a bloody eyeful. My fat arse pressing against that flat glass to a regular rhythm right in front of their fucking noses. Silly interfering turds!”
I have to say that Valentina and I were just helpless with laughter at this Rabelaisian description of an oral examination. Even Ludmila, who had described this scene with great gusto and out of a sense of great moral outrage, joined in the laughter. We must have laughed for a few minutes.
“Of course, we both passed with flying colours,” said Valentina. “Somebody had secretly decided to help us by setting us up with our former lovers, but we were star pupils anyway and someone had simply manipulated the exam so that they would get as much a kick out of watching us as we had from participating in it. We were able to spend the evening with our two lovers, but next morning they both had to return to Murmansk and that was the last we saw of them. Even though we kept in touch. But even Polina passed. When that miserable bastard whipped her hide he was visibly turned on and even ejaculated over Polina. She was too distressed to notice, but actually she had achieved the goal and got his prick erect.
‘We had only two weeks to go now. We were given more spending money and were allowed out of the barracks most afternoons, though we still had drill and cold showers in the morning. We brushed up on our English, read guide books about the cities we were being sent to (in our case London of course) and watched a lot of videos and television, including BBC World News.
We were being coached to serve the organization that had saved us from prison and afforded us this extra education and we were pleased, and even proud, of what we had achieved. Until the day of departure, in any case.” I noticed that the happy smile on Valentina’s face had suddenly disappeared. A dark cloud seemed to have appeared on her face.

Valentina's Naughty Tale continued

2009-12-31T13:05:00.009Z

‘Our little adventure is a good introduction to our examination day, which neither of us two will ever forget. Yes, we had passed our entrance exams to the English university, but we were on a separate course in order to justify the expense of our training and payment of our high fees for 3 years in England.
‘It was September.
‘When the two of us had recovered from our beatings and were allowed to conduct our normal activities at the barracks both Sergei and Yuri were gone. They were on a tough mind and body building assignment in Murmansk in the Arctic and we were not going to see them before we left for London. It was a terrible blow but the boys had been allowed to visit us once, supervised by an officer, to make our goodbyes. It was a frustrating few minutes, but I had had a chance to thank Sergei for his intervention and to hear from him that he wanted to keep up a relationship at some stage in the future. He clammed up when I asked him what punishment he had endured for associating himself with me, so I could only imagine his underexposed white buttocks being beaten over that same desk that Timoshenko interrogated me. I did not know for sure. Perhaps he just had to endure a long lecture or be told not to be such a fool and associate with a girl like me. After all he was the star pupil of the police academy. We had no means of communicating. No letters were allowed and we had no access to telephones or e-mails. We were both cut off from the real world as well as each other.
‘Now we had to concentrate on our training, especially as Ludmila and I were told very distinctly that we would not go to England unless we completed our course on a curriculum set up by a truly sick mind. It was how Our Boss wanted to prepare us for the world out there, outside Lefortovo, outside Russia. He had prepared this with great care.
‘We had a week on these exams, which included English language, martial arts, physical fitness, electronic espionage, applied information technology, geography (with a special emphasis on energy resources) and something called Inter-Human Studies. Curiously we were taught English by a very grumpy Englishman called William Casey. But only for a few weeks as we had problems understanding him. He had a very heavy accent. Apparently he was from Belfast. I don’t know what he was doing there.
‘The Inter-Human Stdies were really like a history of inter-racial contrasts and seduction techniques. It consisted of contrasting cultures between East and West and North and South, on cultural taboos and fertility rites. It covered the teachings of the main world religions on sex and marriage; contrasting laws on rape, child-sex, homosexuality and prostitution in different countries; a sort of world map on sexually transmitted diseases (supplied by the World Health Organization); the impact and spread of AIDS; and the growing role of sex and so-called sexual perversion in Western media and advertising. Actually all the more intelligent girls loved this course (it had been especially prepared for Our Boss by a university professor in sociology, Professor Denisov) because it was so stimulating. If nothing else, this subject made us experts on topics that could stimulate any conversation in an English pub or an official dinner or even in a conversation between two lovers. The less intelligent ones hated it. Professor Denisov was a zany mad absent-minded character but we loved his classes and put up with his eccentricities.
He would start each class by reading something controversial from a recent magazine or a newspaper to show how topical the subject of the day was. Then he would ask us individually for our views for which we had to stand up to give our answer and then wait standing for him to conclude the debate by summing up his own views after he had heard ours. Those whose views had coincided or been similar to his own would then be told by him to sit down. The others had to bend over at their desks and be hand-spanked by him personally on their bottoms.

Was Professor Denisov perverted? Yes, but in a sweet way, as he was really quite harmless. As a teacher he was excellent. With all these playful hand spankings we all knew our subject well. There’s a lesson there somewhere now that corporal punishment in schools is banned in all EU countries and your children run riot in the schools and the streets.
‘Our examination in Inter-Human Studies was equally imaginative. There were two parts. The first was the written part. We had all sorts of weird questions to answer. There was one on the Kama Sutra, I remember, and one on XVIIth Century erotic English poetry (you know: John Donne, Andrew Marvell, Lord Rochester). I loved John Donne’s “O my America”, it’s so sensual. (“I preferred Rochester,” chimed in Ludmila. “You would. He’s so gross,” replied Valentina.) We had to write about a French philosopher called Martin Houellebecq who specialized in commentaries resulting from his sexual tourist trips around the world; for special bonus questions we had to list what kind of spanking implements could be used in a Western S&M club. I got the most as I was able to list 27 items. My list included things like carpet-beaters, fly swats and leather-bound cheque books (“Yes, but nobody else got the one I listed,” intervened Ludmila again. “You did not mention the London Underground stationmaster’s white baton. You know, the little round thing they wave when they signal to the tube driver to close his doors.”)
‘The second part of the examination was practical. It was actually quite perverse, though some of the girls referred to it as the “oral exam” with all the double meaning that this implied. Basically each of us would be closed in a room with a male cadet for twenty minutes and in that time we had to behave in such a way as to arouse him and make the cadet’s cock stand erect. We were to demonstrate this achievement by tying a coloured ribbon with a little bell around his erect penis. There were all sorts of rules and sub-rules. We could not touch the cadets and they could not touch us in the first fifteen minutes, not unless we had managed to tie a ribbon around their projecting manhood. It would be up to us to entice them to undress sufficiently so that the penis was visible to the examiners watching through a mirror from an adjoining room. We could seduce through our appearance, our cavorting, our perfume, our speech, but no touching on pain of possible disqualification. To add to the perversity, if, after 15 minutes, the girl had failed to ignite the necessary spark in the boy, the boy was allowed to “punish” her with a riding crop for the last 5 minutes.
‘We were given about 3 hours to prepare for this encounter so that we could prepare our minds and bodies. In fact we had been allowed to step outside the compound to buy sexy clothes and perfumes in preparation for this crucial encounter. It was the last exam of all and we all turned up in what we imagined to be our most seductive clothes. It looked like a whore’s convention, the way some of the girls dressed. Olga was almost completely naked except for the narrowest of bras, a g-string and some black high heels. Another girl appeared in her uniform; Polina came dressed as a hospital nurse. Ludmila was dressed in leather trousers and a metal studded black leather belt and a zipped up leatherjacket under which there was no bra. She looked the most seductive of all.

I was more conservative. I wore a conventional purple skirt and white blouse that one would normally wear in an English office, topped with a Hermes label silk scarf and a light jacket matching the skirt. Under the skirt by contrast I wore traditional stockings but carrot red in colour and, just for a dare, no panties. We waited in the gymnasium and were to be called in one by one for this last test.
‘Polina was called in first. We waited patiently, chatting and gossiping, some of the girls discussing seduction techniques and clothes. A half an hour passed by without us even noticing how time flew by. Captain Trepachkova emerged and called in Ludmila. She disappeared after giving me and the others a cheery wave.
‘A couple of minutes later Polina reappeared. Her nurse’s uniform was dishevelled and the apron was torn. She was in tears. We crowded round her. One of the girls ran to the canteen and brought her a coffee. Olga consoled her stroking her hair and letting her rest her head on Olga’s bare shoulder. We asked gentle probing questions but Olga asked us to be patient. Eventually Polina felt able to speak. Apparently when she got into the room the cadet sat there with a stonewall expression, refusing even to make eye contact with her as she tried to sweet talk him and used every inch of her charm to break the ice. The cadet sat there like a statue. As all else was failing, Polina sought to disrobe by removing the top of her uniform and flashing her tits, then her skirt, while leaving her apron on to cover her sex, but he remained unmoved. After fifteen minutes a bell sounded. The cadet must have been waiting for that signal because he leapt up, grabbed her arm and sought to turn her over his knee. As she struggled he caught her by the apron which then got torn in the resulting tussle. Being a strong and powerful figure the cadet got his way bent her over one knee, held her tight with his other leg and walloped her several times with a riding crop he had ready beside him. She couldn’t remember how many strokes she received on her bare arse but really that was not so important. She was deeply upset by the sheer humiliation of being rejected in such a cynical way. I felt that if this could happen to Polina it could happen to me, or to any of us. I wondered what Ludmila was experiencing at the moment.

‘Trepachkova appeared again. I was next. With my heart in my mouth I stood up, gave a last adjustment to my dress, turned round and gave a brave smile to the girls and went in.

A new seduction

2009-12-30T15:44:00.009Z

I have not included the following extract in my published memoirs but it was a little too embarassing, but I introduce it as a necessary break in Valentin'a racy narrative.
Please enjoy (and smirk if you must).

Valentina

It was getting late but I was so mesmerized listening to Valentina’s description that I scarcely noticed the time passing. As the story progressed she had found time to check out of her PVC cat suit. It had got quite irritating particularly as her buttocks were still painful and scarred and she needed to find something else more airy to wear where her bum could be partially exposed. Apart from that, PVC wear is excellent for a shock first impression or for performing various dominatrix activities at a party but unless you are going for an intense role-playing sado-masochistic experience it soon appears tacky and uncomfortable. We were now quite intimate, almost friendly. It was that wonderful moment where two people become emotionally intimate following a good orgasm. There is that sense of intimacy of the soul to match the physical intimacy of the body that had taken place before. It is sometimes referred to as “pillow talk” but for seasoned articulate intelligent lovers the exchange of secrets and intimacies unlocked by the earlier coupling is as good as it gets. For women this kind of après-fuck conversation gives particular pleasure because so few men seem to appreciate the need for this mutual baring of souls. Many men prefer to fall asleep after they have spent their load or turn round and give a large fart which leaves the woman’s sense of well-being totally shredded.
Valentina felt sufficiently comfortable to change from her cat suit to her night-dress in front of me as casually as if we had been married for years. I watched her movements with barely disguised fascination. She was pretty, long legged and well proportioned and her breasts were delightfully firm and round. They were not outsize or huge hanging melons and with this I was more than happy as I did not seem to share the fascination of so many English males with large breasts. The nipples seemed to be pointed at that moment which was a sure sign that she was aware of her rousing effect on me, despite her pretence that she was paying me no attention. In profile the slight concave curve of the belly was matched by the convex inset of the small of her back before it protruded further out into a more rounded concave of her rump which then slowly receded below with an equally gracious eye-pleasing line into the top of the most elegant pair of legs I had seen. I suddenly realized that I was beginning to analyse her visually as a series of geometric shapes but reflected that this was only fair in view of her describing herself as a mathematician. I felt like asking her whether she preferred geometry to algebra but resisted the temptation. It was too abstruse and the joke could get lost in the translation.
Valentina fetched the vodka from the fridge, now somewhat chilled, but not nearly as much as it should be. She took a few minutes break to go to the loo and check her e-mails on the computer. She loosened her blonde hair and let it fall long over her shoulders. I remembered that she had worn pigtails when I first met her in “Pinks”. To have pigtails you need a lot of hair, and now it was fully revealed. It covered her shoulder blades and where she had allowed some of strands of hair to stray forward they caressed her breasts. Sensing my interest she tossed her head about, seemingly out of absent-mindedness, and the long mop of her hair was hurled about this way and that covering her nipples at the front and her shoulders and upper arm around her side before settling down over her back again. Curiously, male eyes being male eyes, I looked down at her pubic hair, which was shaved quite close, forming something like a Hitler moustache over her mound and pointing like an arrow to the sacred grove below. There was no doubt about it. The pubes were darker than the hair on her head, but the colour of both seemed natural to me.
Having thus made her impression on me and probably noticing that certain parts of my anatomy were evincing a spirited renaissance, she fetched some more aloe ointment, laced with the aroma of lavender and primrose, plonked it in my hands and told me “You caused the damage; you make it better. I want this over my poor arse, Mr Councillor, you wicked bully! And over my back and shoulders too!” She lay face down flat on the bed and hitched up the back of her night-dress, revealing all her delectable curves and her smooth white back, as well as the poor backside, still in purple and red blotches criss-crossed by hard red stripes, where the blood still glistened occasionally though it had now dried sufficiently to have stopped liquefying and staining her clothes. A light blow or scratch on the wounded areas and the blood could flow again. I rubbed her behind gingerly while admiring her body. My own cock was straining now against my trousers anxious to make its appearance and renew its acquaintance with the Russian girl’s body.
We heard muffled footsteps and a slammed door as someone came back into the lounge from the corridor outside. Valentina’s ears had pricked up at first, and then she smiled and said quietly, “It’s Ludmila. Want to see her?”
I was not sure whether I did want to see her as I was now very close to removing my trousers and assaulting Valentina’s virtue. Would Ludmila’s entrance enhance or prevent that sequence of events? But as I had not replied quickly enough, Valentina took my silence to imply consent and called out to her buddy.
Ludmila was of somewhat stockier build than Valentina and there were more fleshy curves at her hips and her thighs as well as larger and heavier breasts. She was wearing a lace dress, black in colour, which enhanced the curves and made her at this moment, highly desirable. I have to say that even though at the same moment I had the added temptation of a more demure and undoubtedly prettier Valentina lying down with her naked butt beside me. But by now it was my cock that was doing the thinking for me and his excitement had raided my brain and assumed command. The cock is the one part of the male anatomy that rebels against the all-dominating patriarchal brain. It causes the brain to succumb to totally unreasonable and selfish actions, whose consequences are normally incalculable. It also influences our other senses, especially visual and tactile, and undermines the objectivity with which their input is normally assessed by the brain cells when they are still working without the influence of the sex glands. Because of the sheer unpredictability of male behaviour under these influences it is wise to bring in institutional settings, such as sex parties, brothels, even marriage, where the hedonistic urges overcoming our brain are allowed to react without upsetting the social apple-cart or bringing us males into conflict with the law.

Ludmila took in the scene, first with a modicum of surprise, and then followed by a look of temporary alarm. The girls quickly exchanged some words in Russian which obviously seemed to reassure Ludmila. She sat down at the end of the bed, took the aloe ointment off my hands and proceeded to apply it with rough slaps onto Valentina’s body. Valentina made remonstrating sounds but it was soon obvious that she was not really objecting to this rough handling. The girls, I reflected, obviously knew each others’ needs and desires quite well.
“I left Polina with Mr Hanging Man,” Ludmila explained. “She can finish whipping the shit out of him. So what have you two been up to?” She looked again approvingly at Valentina’s smouldering rump.
“I was describing our life at Lefortovo,” Valentina explained in English now. “Petya Tomasovich wants to know about our background.”
“Your background,” Ludmila corrected her.
“Well, I’ve talked about that whipping you got from the priest. You and Yuri.”
“That horrible bearded pervert,” snarled Ludmila with unexpected ferocity. “That horrible cock-sucker. He had a reputation as a seducer of young altar boys. Those two boys that accompanied him to watch me being whipped, they were no innocents. They had already been shafted by the old bastard. Now he took out on us for what he practised on others who were not capable of protecting themselves. It was just our luck that he saw us down there in the crypt. He was with the two boys at the time. And just what were they doing there?”
“More important, Ludmila, what were you doing there?”
“None of your business,” she retorted. Then she reflected, looked at Valentina and said “I was having the fuck of my life. What did you expect after being cooped up in that miserable monastery?”
“You had me,” Valentina reminded her in mock reproach.
“Yes, Valentina, you are gorgeous and I love you, but how long was I going to be satisfied licking and fingering your little pink minge. What could you do to me? With your dainty little fingers? Your tongue? All yummy yummy as a starter, but not if you had my appetite for a main course. The shoe horn was not enough, nor those puny cigars we found. I need a throbbing male cock, hundred percent red-blooded human cock. Up my pussy, up my arsehole. Whatever! I’m brought up in a farm. I like my food natural. And I like my sex natural. Earthy and natural.”

Ludmila
“And that was Yuri?” I prompted.
“I see he knows a lot already,” she said accusingly to Valentina. “Been blabbing your mouth off again. OK. It was simple. We met just as Valentina tried to meet her little heart throb.Poor Valentina! All that effort, all that commitment, and that savage interrogation and that public caning. And all for something she had wished, not for something she had experienced. Now with me and Yuri it was different. We slipped off after communion, not during the communion, like you. Remember I’m Russian Orthodox. I actually take communion. I’m not an atheist like you, dear Valentina. Timoshenko went limbering off after you. We never came back to our pews after taking communion but we wandered down a special staircase to the crypt. We stopped near an old stone tomb, with a smooth slab on top. Yuri removed his trousers and I removed my jacket. We laid them out on the tomb. Then I lay down on top of the clothes, though I could still feel the cold stone against my bum and my legs. Yuri came down on top of me and, as I said, we had the fuck of my life. Trouble is neither of us was very quiet and suddenly this horrible bearded horror appeared with one of the boys. He mouthed curses on us and ran off. The boy just stood there looking at us. What a sight we must have been. Yuri was still inside me with his arse in the air, my naked legs splayed around his body, my clothes scattered over the floor, my hair dishevelled, my face flushed.”
“He probably wasn’t looking at your face, dear Ludmila,” laughed Valentina.
“Yes, he was. Because I lifted my head and asked him what he was staring at. He remained speechless so I told him to fuck off. And he did. We got dressed but then some officers from Lefortovo came, obviously called by the old priest, and we were arrested and brought to the barracks in a black van. We were thrashed by that pervert. But at least we knew what for,” and Ludmila looked disdainfully again at Valentina.
“Sure, but at least Sergei proved a true gentleman. That too was compensation.”
“Not as much as a good fuck,” continued Ludmila. “I was in the infirmary for 2 days after the whipping. But it was worth it. Then I came back and there you were still in the dorm moping after that blistering caning. The girls said you were wonderful. You took it all without any shrieks or groans; you maintained your dignity, especially in your departure. Actually, we both became the heroines of our dorm after that.”
I was getting even more worked up after hearing this exchange. Ludmila had watched me closely and she had obviously spotted the huge bulge under my trousers. “Val, are you going to fuck him, or shall I?”
With a malicious grin Valentina moved her hand quickly to cover the bulge in my trousers.
“Mine!” she shouted triumphantly.
She unzipped the flies and placed her hand firmly around the offending member. Like an explorer laying claim on some newly discovered virgin territory. “Come on, my precious,” she said, imitating the Gollum chant from “Lord of the Rings” which she had recently watched on a DVD. She yanked out my penis through the open zip. I could feel her strong grip, while her thumb came out over the top of my penis. ”Come to mummy, you naughty boy.” She put her lips around it.
“Hey, what do I get out of this?” complained Ludmila. “I’m the one who noticed he had a hard on!”
“I get his cock, you get his arse,” laughed Valentina. “Now get those trousers off.”
I did not need to be asked twice but an arse-hungry Ludmila got to my trouser top first. She loosened the buckle and then yanked down my trousers by the leggings so violently she dragged me off the bed too. I landed on the floor with a bump. From a night time romp this could seem to a squeamish man to be turning into a nightmare. The girls pranced about on top of me, cackling like a couple of harpies. They lifted me back on the bed.
I managed to lift myself up onto a kneeling position. Valentina had immediately seized that prized cock with one hand and cupped her other hand around the scrotum.
She enclosed my cock in her mouth up to the hilt and I could feel her tongue darting around the tip between the glans penis and the foreskin surrounding it. It was erect again and seemed blocked and frozen in its hardened state. The blood had flown in and was not able to flow out again, waiting until I had shed the semen into Valentina’s hungry mouth. Suddenly I sensed a new foe behind me. I felt like Poland in 1939, engaged fully with its primary invader, Nazi Germany, finding its Soviet Russian invader approaching from the rear. It was certainly Russian hands that were clawing now onto my buttocks and seeking to part my anus as a second tongue penetrated my crack and moved into the sphincter. Soon the nature of the rear invader changed. I felt Ludmila’s teeth biting into my rear and a finger penetrating my rear entrance. It was discomfiting as I could feel the fingernail in that penetration. But even as I felt violated, that finger had definitely located a spot that was connected through the nervous system to the penis. I could sense that the strong urge to ejaculate. I gave in to that urge. My pleasure train shot out of the station straight into Valentina’s mouth.
As we settled down after this latest outburst, my hand wandered over Valentina’s body to find the paper tissues I saw earlier by the bedside table. Again it was Ludmila that stopped me. “No,” she said, holding back my outstretched arm. “Not in Russia. No towel, no paper tissue. After a good fuck, the lovers lick each other clean, like good cats. Valentina can lick you, I can lick Val and you can lick me clean.”
Valentina giggled and was ready to oblige. However I signalled to Ludmila that I would clean her up first. This is not because I have a desire to please dominating women but because I felt that Ludmila was the person who had got least out of the last sexual encounter even though she had actually initiated it. It was very rare to find myself in the company of two women who were both as sexually mature and desirable as these two. Certainly no sexual activity that I had ever paid for with a cynical prostitute or S&M mistress could equal this sense of mature equality and self-respect. Their attitude and experience earned my respect. Normally one approaches a sexual encounter with the earnest intention of satisfying one’s own pleasure, often driven by a selfish animal urge that surmounts the resistors of self-control imposed by our education and our social taboos. Yet here it was obvious that the three of us had most to gain if we sought to stimulate pleasure for each other. So I felt it was my turn to pleasure the peasant girl from Crimea first. The encounter had been too short and the stimulation too one-sided for her to orgasm and my clean-up was more likely to stimulate her eventual eruption. Also I had a curiosity about exploring her body as much as I had enjoyed exploring Valentina’s.
I laid Ludmila on the bed, started with her belly button and applied my tongue downwards from the there. She gurgled with laughter. I covered her well-tufted mound and then sunk my tongue into the well of discovery beyond. I started with the outer, and in her case, very fleshy outer rim, including a loopy long labia and spongy clitoral lip, before following the descending path through the well-muscled cleft into the sheath below. The smell was a little sweaty but not unpleasant, and the taste a mite acidic but otherwise neutral. It was the tactile encounter with these strange membranes and soft walls punctuated by hard ridges and tight gates that was such fun for the lingual explorer. I was aware however that the outer prongs of the clitoris were tenser as I sought to abandon this mine of plenty. I applied my tongue gently but mercilessly to agitate these sexual feelers. Ludmila was begin to moan quite perceptively now.
I looked up from my task in time to see Valentina’s scarred bottom barely a foot in front of my nose as she descended in a squatting pose over Ludmila’s face, allowing the latter to lick away at Valentina’s exposed orifices. It was a like a stimulation relay run with the baton of pleasure passed on from my tongue through Ludmila’s stimulated body into her tongue and then into Valentina’s body. I had not finished yet with Ludmila as I rolled my tongue under her muscled crotch and then lifted up her legs onto my shoulder and burrowed under like a mole to run my tongue over her anal cavity. I could hear her purring with delight in her long pauses between bouts of tongue massage on her friend’s genital organs. I don’t think even Michelangelo could have composed a more complicated sculpture feature than the lingual ménage a trois that we had concocted here. God knows, we had posed for such a sculptor long enough, at least five minutes, before sensing that Ludmila had been stimulated at last into a belated orgasm
Now it was Valentina’s turn to do the final run of the relay race. It was my turn to lie down on the bed. Valentina licked around my groin and around my pubic hair. This time her tongue had done the same tour around my cock as it had done 3 minutes before. She had done the previous tour as a catalyst for the main event, now as a cleaner after the event was over. However both movements were equally pleasurable each time, both to her and to me. This despite the fact that the object of this attention had slowly shrivelled to its traditional flaccid nothingness, tiny and insignificant, evoking the girls’ pity rather than admiration. I find that mature lady lovers often treat the ebb and flow of the male organ as a source of wonder and enjoyment the way that children love the contrast between the chrysalis and the butterfly. After a satisfactory round of sex they poke and prod and caress the little midget like it was a house mascot. Unless they are sexually voracious they are happy for the little creature to emerge from its shell to resume its performance at a leisurely pace, knowing that any aggressive female attempt to resuscitate this little fellow to satisfy an immediate craving for renewed sex will only intimidate the lost soul, no matter how much new spirit its master seeks to imbue it with from the brain and from other sources of stimulation.
Even now it was not impossible to imagine that this chrysalis would metamorphosize. Certainly Ludmila viewed the shrivelled object less patiently than Valentina as she applied her finger tips to where Valentina’s mouth had just been. I personally sensed that given time and patience and sufficient stimulation from these two sirens the object of their desire could return before long to peak form. But what the hell! Let them sing for their supper!
Yet as I lay there being ministered to by Val’s tongue, Ludmila leaned over my face and let her breasts nudge my face and nose. I tried to fit her nipples in my nostrils which amused her, but after a time she starting swinging them more energetically over my head, so that they knocked against my cheeks and my nose. I slapped one of the breasts with my hand. This only encouraged her. Her milk white breasts started swinging backwards and forwards in great arcs like a large pendulum and each time they approached my head I would slap the offending appendage hard. The red mark of my hand appeared on the breasts but she only continued this action even more provocatively. In the end I sat up in the bed and proceeded to slap her breasts from side to side with as much strength as I could. It felt like I was playing volleyball with a soft white bouncy projectile. By the time she eventually stopped her swinging motion I had struck her breasts more than twenty times. Now I proceeded to caress her breasts more gently and she gave me a big slobbering kiss of appreciation.

I kissed the tips of her nipples again and lay back down on the bed.
“Valentina, you said you were going to tell me the whole story. So get on with it!”
“OK, OK,” she replied, bustling around the room, “but undress, make yourself comfortable. I will make you another vodka. Or perhaps you want an English cup of tea, Mr Councillor?”
“A vodka would be nice, thank you.”
I settled down stark naked, vodka in hand, sitting alongside Valentina on her bed, our backs resting against two large cushions, while Ludmila sat at the foot of the bed listening to the tale and occasionally eyeing and even prodding my penis, like a master baker waiting for the bread to rise in the oven. Occasionally I would lay a caressing hand on Valentina’s thighs and legs, but otherwise all was physically in repose as Valentina continued her account.

Valentina Naryshkin's tale (contd.)

2009-12-14T20:39:00.009Z

‘The altar boys, probably no older than 13, had been watching this ordeal with eyes transfixed on the heinous priest and his hapless victims. Their eyes emanated wonder and horror in turn as they witnessed the devastating display of clerical fireworks. Now Father Grigory put on his vestments again and signalled to one of the boys to get the basin ready with holy water. He then produced an ornamental handle with a long haired brush at the end with which he blessed and poured over the assembly of cadets and recruits, particularly the senior officers, then the two victims of his cruelty, then the trestle frame and finally the vaulting horse. Then the other altar boy handed him the incense burner. With this he repeated the same pattern of behaviour, swinging the instrument in the direction of all persons and equipment present. The sight of the two bleeding bodies tied to the trestle frame and now enveloped in the smoke from the burner was quite surreal. Satisfied with the impression he had made on the cadets and on his victims, Father Grigory donned his high chimney hat, gathered his equipment together and promptly left the room with the two boy assistants.
‘A detail now made its way to the two victims, and lifted their underwear back to its original place, albeit it was now covering a couple of bleeding rumps. Both then had their hands freed, cloaks were thrown over their bodies and they were marched out of the room. I say “marched” though, in the case of Ludmila, she was actually being dragged away from the punishment block, unable to move of her own free will. Poor Ludmila! Two other cadets brought up the rear of the detail, carrying out Yuri and Ludmila’s neatly folded uniforms.
‘Secretly, I had hoped that everyone’s passion for punishment was now sated. I thought that if I could imagine myself as being very very small and curling myself into a little womb-like ball I might remain forgotten and go unpunished for my futile attempt at love. If I could just wish myself to be small and disappear from everyone’s view. Repeat after me: “There is no Valentina Naryshkin; there is no Valentina Naryshkin.”
“Recruit Naryshkin, please step forward towards the vaulting horse” I suddenly heard Timoshenko’s brutal command. All eyes were suddenly on me again. Oh noooo!
“Recruit Naryshkin has taken it upon herself to absent herself from her post in the church during Holy Mass and under the guise of taking Holy Communion she conducted a failed attempt to commit a lewd act and to entice at least one other member of our school to accompany her in that lewd act. She has also failed to reveal the name of her intended accomplice. She will now receive 30 strokes of the cane al fresco.” Noooo!
“Recruit Naryshkin, you will now undress and take off every item of your uniform. Then please take your position across the centre of the vaulting horse, with your back to the assembled cadets and staff.”

‘Previously I had prided myself that I had the fortitude to take just such a position and to use my intended humiliating disrobement as a way of impressing on all my defiance of their threats and their beatings. Above all I was sure I would impress with my courage and sheer shamelessness. Then I had lost all my courage as I witnessed Ludmila’s whipping. My knees had been shaking and threatening to buckle under and let me fall. Then it really would be humiliating as I would be dragged up by the unrelenting Major and forced over the horse against my will. Now I needed to recover my courage and my composure. So that I could undress and bend over the horse with style and aplomb.
‘I duly undressed slowly and deliberately with my back turned towards the gawping cadets. Though my heart was in my mouth I was determined to make a show piece of my ordeal. I felt a hundred pairs of eyes exploring every contour and every crevasse of my body. In fact I revelled in that sort of attention. Really, I am an unashamed exhibitionist. I took my time laboriously taking off each item of clothing but with a final flourish as I swung my jacket, my skirt, my blouse, my underwear in the air before folding each piece neatly on a nearby desk. I marched stark naked to the vaulting horse and with a swift movement I propelled myself up onto it so that my head was upright and my body was pivoted in perfect balance on my arms rising vertically up from the top of the horse, while my feet were lifted clean off the floor. Then, like the “Titanic” sinking majestically beneath the waves, I dipped the upper part of my body with my head hanging straight down, so that my round rump, the pride of my anatomy, could be the reigning feature of this spectacular tableau of naked female flesh. I felt like announcing “Princess Naryshkin is now ready to receive all visitors, both welcome and unwelcome.” I lay there supine, but also rampant. My posterior was the mountain peak. Approach it with your instruments of torture if you dare!
‘I lay there in this cherished position for several moments awaiting the onslaught of blows to begin. However Timoshenko surprised me with another announcement.
“Is there anyone here who will share the blame with this shameless temptress? She faces 30 hard strokes with a cane which she obviously deserves. Her body will be badly bruised for a month and she will be unable to walk for several days. Yet somewhere in this gymnasium she has a partner. If somebody comes forward now, I will share out the punishment of 30 strokes between the two of you!”
‘Initially there a moment of silence. To me it seemed like an eternity. I felt I would now be exposed in my shame as a fantasizing sexual predator and to me that seemed even worse than the crippling physical punishment I was about to receive.
‘Then I heard the unmistakable voice of Sergei.

“Major, it was me. I am responsible for encouraging her and I accept all blame for this. I will take the whole punishment on her behalf.”
‘I was both astounded and exhilarated by this intervention. Sergei was my knight in shining armour ready to brave all in order to save his damsel in distress. I felt I was his princess in the tower. Sure he would have to remove part of that shining armour and expose a vulnerable part of his body to protect mine but that made him all the more attractive to me. Sure he would have to undergo undignified humiliation on my behalf as well as considerable pain but that only made the pedestal on which I now placed him even higher. After all, who was I to talk about dignity, as I lay there without a stitch across the vaulting horse with my bare arse exposed to all and sundry?
“Very noble of you, Cadet Orlovsky!” smirked Timoshenko. “I have not remembered an occasion when I have had to punish you before. Not for a long time. Well your noble gesture will cost you. You will get your stripes indeed. However we will not make a spectacle of you here. Please proceed to my office and wait for me there. Your partner here will get what is coming to her. Fifteen strokes of the cane and loss of privileges for one month.”
“Thank you, Major.” said Sergei. “But I would request that I receive all 30 strokes. Recruit Naryshkin is innocent.”
“Innocent? Orlovsky, you are not in a position to request anything and you will receive what you are given. No questions asked. Now proceed to my office immediately.”
‘Sergei saluted and marched out. From my unfortunate vantage point I could not see what was happening but I could hear and sense Sergei’s elegant departure. Now my posterior was left to face the enemy assault alone. Alone? No, I was no longer alone. My arse was the steady recipient of exquisite pain but my heart was singing. What did it matter that my bum was once again afire when I was conscious that the prize police cadet in Lefortovo was prepared to brave all to protect me. He must be in love with me and like a true medieval knight he was prepared to suffer pain and humiliation for that love. So while Timoshenko’s cane swooped and hissed behind me, all I could hear was the soft hesitant sound of Sergei’s voice repeating “Major, it was me.” While the bites of the rattan vampire at my rear tore into the skin and the flesh of my exposed white cushions, my soul was beguiled by the gentle stroke of a boy’s innocent caress. My body entered into the all embracing temple of pain but my spirit soared high over the temple roof to revel in the love of the new young god in my life.

‘I lay over that horse feeling that a burning frying pan had replaced my bottom. Nothing seemed to be happening. Why was there a pause? Then I heard Timoshenko’s voice “Punishment is over. You may now stand, Recruit Naryshkin.” So that’s why there was a pause! I had had all fifteen strokes! The cane had sung, the angels in my heart had also sung, and I had not even been counting the strokes. Then I noticed the pain. It was traumatizing the rest of my body which was no longer responding to my signals from the brain telling it to stand. As I lay there helpless, my white buttocks undoubtedly covered with bloody wheals and purple brush strokes on a crimson background, two senior girls came forward to help me get off the horse and stand up.
“Escort her out!” They came running up with a cloak to put over me, but I totally ignored them. I stood up to my full height,
saluted my tormentor Timoshenko and marched stark naked, with my bottom afire like a comet with a long red tail. My escort hurried behind me holding my neatly folded uniform. I stepped out into the corridor and marched straight to my dormitory stiff as a ramrod and with my head held high and proud.
‘As soon as I reached the dormitory, I threw myself on my bed and burst into tears.

Valentina's tale 3

2009-12-12T21:38:00.015Z

“Holy Communion, is it, Naryshkin? Did you get lost?” Timoshenko snarled quietly. “Back to your seat! Now!”
‘To say I was shattered would be an understatement. Like a whipped dog I hung my head and made my way back to my pew. My colleagues made way for me without saying a word. I looked round for Sergei but he was not there. My eyes looked for support from Ludmila, but for some reason even she had disappeared. There was nobody to give me comfort in my hour of desperate need.
‘A few minutes later Sergei returned to his seat, but without a glance in my direction. As the mass progressed I really did hang my head and pray. I prayed for deliverance from my tormentors, I prayed for revenge on my would be lover who had let me down, betrayed me even, and I wept. Yes, I wept real tears. Tears of frustration and anger. I wallowed in my anger and self-pity.
‘After the service we girls were normally allowed an hour to ourselves, before we were to return to barracks. The male cadets were marched straight back. I looked round for Ludmila but still could not find her. Desperate for someone to confide in, I asked my dormitory companions, but nobody could tell me where she was.
‘Suddenly Major Timoshenko stepped up to me out of nowhere. “Recruit Naryshkin, report to my office in the barracks immediately! Now!” I was terrified and managed to gulp out “Yes, Sir, immediately!” though my legs were turning to jelly and I was barely able to sound the words.
‘I marched back a couple of blocks to the barracks and made my way to the officers’ quarters. I reported to the duty sergeant and was directed to Major Timoshenko’s office. The sergeant told me to stand to attention in the corridor outside his door. As I stood there stiff as a ramrod, but inwardly shaking with fear, a group of cadets marched past. To my horror and disgust there was Sergei. He saw me and gave me a kind but quizzical look. As he was still part of an organized march he could not actually talk to me but his looks seemed to convey volumes of cryptic information, showing incredulity, pity, concern, encouragement. I only needed a key to interpret which of these emotions was uppermost. However my anger and pride, as well as my overwhelming terror at my coming fate, prevented me from making any rational reading. All I felt towards him now was hatred and contempt. Probably, just for an instant, my look conveyed that to him. It would only have been an instant. It was my conscious decision to ignore him completely and to face my fate knowingly alone.
‘Timoshenko turned up with our main female officer, Trepachkova, an attractive but strict police captain, on secondment to keeping us raw recruits and street urchins in tow. The duty sergeant ran up and unlocked the door to his office and opened it. “Get in Naryshkin and stand to attention opposite my desk,” he barked at me. I complied. The two officers followed me in. Timoshenko sat down behind the desk, Trepachkova in a second chair to the right of me. Inadvertently my eyes looked down at the contents of his desk. There were papers, and usual paraphernalia of a busy office, but the object I sought and dreaded most was also there, a strong rattan cane, with which I had already seen him beat several police cadets. Did he beat women too?
‘Timoshenko looked up at me and glared. “Well?” he said eventually.
“Sir,” I gulped, “I am sorry, Sir. I was lost and disorientated in the church, Sir. I was on my way to take Holy Communion, Sir. To give thanks for my exam results, Sir. I-I was lost, Sir. I am sorry if I bumped into you like that, Sir. I am really really sorry, Sir”
“That I can believe,” he answered looking at me menacingly. I felt relieved at this comment, but only for a second. “I can believe you are really sorry. You have good reason to be sorry. As for the rest,” at these words he shot up and picked up the cane, “they were a pack of lies! Lies, Naryshkin!” He screamed the last words at me and brought the cane swishing down with all its might on his desk. The crashing sound with which that cane hit the desk made me jump in spite of myself and in spite of the fact that I was supposed to be standing to attention.
“Right, Naryshkin. Let us list your transgressions. Captain Trepachkova, please correct me if I have left anything out.” He came from round his desk to stand beside me his hand behind his back holding the dreaded cane horizontally. Then he started pacing up and down behind me, so that, still facing forward towards his desk, I could not see him.
“First, Recruit Naryshkin, you left your post during Sunday service without permission. Holy Communion? You? Daughter of a Communist? Let’s cut the bullshit, shall we? Two, you mocked the holy Sacrament and the Body and Blood of Our Saviour by using that as a cover for your nefarious intentions. Three, you sought to camouflage your colleague’s escapade.” (Who, I thought?) “Yes, don’t pretend you don’t know. Your colleague, Ludmila Kulchik, obviously was in league with you. Disgusting behaviour! And in the very bowels of a building dedicated to the service and worship of God. Never mind. She will be dealt with separately for that. The servant of God will punish her and her paramour. Four, you are now lying to me to reduce your punishment. That itself is a serious offence. Four serious charges. That’s a public punishment in front of the whole establishment.”
‘I was almost paralysed with fear as I heard him list my transgressions, real and imagined. Each number had been reinforced by a swish of the cane singing through the air, though I could not see it as he was still pacing behind my back. Yet my thoughts were now working overtime, rushing and bumping into each other as I tried in my desperation to set together the jigsaw pieces that fitted into the larger reality. What had Ludmila done? Presumably something with Yuri? But when and where? And how was I involved? And how was she to be punished? Would her punishment be the same as mine? My thoughts reassembled now under the growing threat to my body. My punishment would be heavy too. I had to answer for four transgressions.
“Five!” shouted a female voice. Of course, Trepachkova! I had forgotten her completely.
“Five,” she repeated. “You forget, Major, the vicious physical and demeaning attack on your person.”
“Thank you, Captain. We are coming to that.” He moved round to the side of me now, looking at me intently and smacking his lips. My eyes turned sideways to look at him, though my head still faced forward. I felt shame and disgust over that very assault. I remembered my shameless attack on his body, assuming that it was not him, of course. Oh, God. If only Sergei had come after me. Then I would not be in this utter mess. “Were you making an assault on your senior officer? A very serious crime. That merits a public flogging! A hundred strokes of the cane! On your bare and worthless carcasse! And expulsion! You would be returned to prison. Is that your intention, Recruit Naryshkin?”
“No, Sir. Please Sir. That was not an assault, Sir.”
“Then what was it, Recruit Naryshkin?”
“An accident, Sir. An accident.”
“An accident?”
“Yes, Sir. An accident, Sir. Please believe me, Sir.”

Suddenly a heavy hand landed on my buttocks. It was a sharp and hard slap. My whole body jumped for a second time. It was as much from the unexpected shock as from the strength of the blow.
“Stand to attention, Naryshkin!” He bellowed at me. “Now answer me. Was that an accident?”
“No, Sir”
“Perhaps it was an assault?”
“No, Sir.”
“Well what was it then? An assault or an accident?”
‘My mind was thinking quickly. “Sir, it was punishment, Sir.”
‘Timoshenko burst out laughing. A hard cruel artificial laugh. Trepachkova joined in at a higher octave. “Punishment? Do you call that punishment?”
I was silent. Unable to think of a sensible response.
“Was that a punishment, Captain Trepachkova?” he turned to my other tormentor.
“No, Major,” replied the captain, evidently amused. “More like a lover’s slap.”
“A lover’s slap? Naryshkin, perhaps you think I am your lover?”
“No, Sir,”
“Perhaps you thought then that I was your lover?”
“No, Sir!”
“So it’s somebody else! I interrupted your lover from joining you. How sad! Who was it, Naryshkin?”
“Nobody Sir.”
“Don’t joke with me, Naryshkin! Who was it?” I heard that evil cane swishing through the air.
“Nobody, Sir! Really, it was nobody. I was on my own.”
“You take me for a fool! You haven’t felt my cane!”
“Sir,” I was nearly crying now. “Sir, it was nobody. Nobody came. I was about to go back to my seat!”
‘He pulled out a tiny piece of paper. “Do you know what this is?”
‘I glanced at it and to my horror I realized that it was my compromising note about the Archangel Michael statue. “I found this in my own headgear, Naryshkin. Yours, I presume?”
‘I could have denied it, I suppose. But I was so surprised that all I could do was to nod dumbly. So Sergei had never even seen my note, I realized. No wonder he failed to turn up. No wonder he looked at me in the corridor with such surprise and alarm. What a complete idiot I was. I had left my compromising note in the wrong cap. In Timoshenko’s cap, of all people! I was so angry at my own stupidity. I felt I actually deserved that thorough thrashing. Well, at least I now knew he had not betrayed me. All the more reason therefore not to implicate him
“Who was this for, Naryshkin? Who was your accomplice?”
“Sir, it’s all a mistake. It was a joke that went wrong. There is no other person involved,” I cried.
“Not good enough Naryshkin. For the last time, who was it!”
“It was nobody, Sir”. I was not going to betray him, no matter how much they intimidated. Even if they beat me until the skin was ripped off my behind and I could not walk. Red hot pincers would not draw that name out of me. I was stubborn when I needed to be.
‘Crash! I both heard and felt the Major’s cane come crashing down on the desk again.
“Okay, Naryshkin. Prepare yourself. We’ll see how long you last under my cane.”
‘Now I was for it! Any moment now I was going to be told to bend over his desk or take some other humiliating pose. Trepachkova will probably then pull down my panties and my poor behind was going to undergo an assault so terrible that it would beyond anything I had yet experienced or imagined. In any case I knew that after a time a lot of the pain, but not necessarily the damage, is absorbed by the endorphins released by our brain which anaesthetize the pain.
‘So I took a deep breath and waited for the command to bend over.
“Naryshkin, hold out your right hand.”
‘Oh no! Not my hand. Just as painful, but fewer endorphins.
“Sir?”
“Hold out your right hand, Naryshkin. I’ll teach you to play dumb with me.”
I felt a sense of dread choking my throat. Gingerly I put out my hand. It was shaking.
“Hold it steady, Naryshkin. Now your last chance. The name!”
“Sir, there’s nobody!” I cried out in wretched desperation.
‘A second later I really did cry out. The cane came down on my outstretched hand. It felt like someone had placed a red hot iron on it. I quickly withdrew my hand and placed the pain-stricken limb under my armpit.
‘Big mistake. “Right, Naryshkin. Put that hand out again! Now!”
‘Down came the cane a second time. This was dreadful. My eyes were watering and I longed to hide that suffering hand back in my warm cubby-hole of an armpit. But I kept my nerve and my hand remained outstretched ready for the next blow.
‘Another swish of the cane. More pain shooting through me. My brain was too shocked to find the means to dull that agony.
“Left hand, Naryshkin!”
‘I held out my left hand now. Again the cane descended on this new victim.
‘I wondered now how long I could keep this up. I knew by now what level of pain threshold I could endure on my bum, frankly almost unlimited. But my hand was a different matter.
‘Just then, the door opened. It was one of the police cadets.
‘He stopped short when he saw the scene with me holding out my left hand ready for my next caning. For a second there was silence.
“Yes!” shouted Timoshenko in great irritation. “What is it?”
“Mr Major, sir. I have been told to tell you that everything is ready in the gymnasium.”
“Is the priest here?”
“Yes, Sir. He is waiting in the corridor.”
“Right, Captain Trepachkova. Take Naryshkin with you to the gymnasium. We can resume this later. In the meantime I will speak to the Holy Father.” With those words he placed his cane under his armpit and left the room.

‘When I entered the gymnasium the room was full. I was marched to the front of the hall by Trepachkova. I stood next to the vaulting horse. I sensed that I would soon be stretched across it in an undignified pose. The male police cadets were there as well as our lady recruits. Everybody’s eyes were on me. Obviously they guessed that I had transgressed in some way and was about to be punished. I felt a certain frisson at the thought that all these young men would see the special attention Timoshenko was paying me. If it was going to be a traditional flogging at least I could show them my butt and display my courage under fire. And Sergei would see that. I would be protecting his name and he would love me all the more for it. As long as they don’t cane me on my hand. These still stung. But then a public caning on the hands was not a true spectator sport.
‘I looked around the assembly and saw Sergei. Sweet lad! He was peering at me through his glasses with an alarmed expression. Well just go on looking at me, I thought. I will be the centre of attention for everybody. Then you can test my mettle.
‘There was a hush as Timoshenko marched in accompanied by a bushy bearded priest and two altar boys.
One of the boys was carrying a basin of water, the other an incense burner. I was puzzled by their appearance and not a little alarmed. How was all this connected with me?
‘Then another door opened and in marched a police detail surrounding two figures. Then I realized I was not alone. It was Ludmila and her new boyfriend Yuri.
‘They marched to where I was standing and stood alongside me. Ludmila gave me a brave defiant look of solidarity. I smiled back at her encouragingly.
‘Timoshenko stepped forward authoritatively.
“Cadet Yuri Stepankov and Recruit Ludmila Kulchik,” he began, “you have both been caught in a most vile desecration of the House of God and have disgraced your uniforms and these barracks. Because of your vile sexual practices which you conducted in the crypt we have been obliged to apply measures not only to restore discipline but to make amends to the Lord and to the Holy Church for what you have done. Father Grigory has agreed to be the instrument of God in cleansing us and the basilica from this desecration. Please now remove all your clothes except your lower underwear.
‘Ludmila and Yuri must have had some inkling of the fate that awaited them because they showed no surprise or alarm at this command. Silently they removed their clothes and placed them neatly folded in true army style on the vaulting horse.
“Now please turn away and step toward the trestle frame at the back of the wall. Press your bodies against it and raise your arms.”
‘They did as they were commanded. It was a breathtaking sight. My darling Ludmila’s pleasant but curvy and pale peasant’s frame looked quite inviting against the dark wood of the trestle. We could even see a brown birthmark on her left upper thigh. I felt like rushing forward and embracing that lovely body that I had so grown to love in the past months. I just wanted to hug and kiss it and sink my teeth in that lovely flesh. Next to her stood her huge boyfriend with his majestic wrestler’s body, broad muscles on his arms, legs and his neck and a firm pair of buttocks, which were a real eyeful for the girls. They would have done a snooker player proud.
“Recruit Naryshkin!” shouted Timoshenko.
“Sir?” I was ready to face my punishment alongside these two demi-gods.
“Please proceed to the prisoners and secure their hands to the frame with leather straps.” I did so. I knew where the straps were as I had seen a punishment of a police recruit in this very position some months back. As I secured Ludmila’s hands I stood right behind her and whispered, “Sorry.” She did not reply.
“Now, Naryshkin, please draw down their underwear. Let us see the effect of this cleansing on their naked bodies.” I carried out this task with hands trembling. I could run my hands down the contours of their bodies as I removed the offending last piece of cotton cover protecting their arses from punishment. I stepped back and I could hear the sharp intake of breath among the cadets. I too gazed with awe upon those two beautiful bodies unprotected from their fate except for the underwear draped around their ankles.

“Father, they are ready for the cleansing ceremony,” announced Timoshenko.
‘At this the priest untied what seemed like a chord hanging around his waist over his vestments. As he removed the chord we suddenly realized with horror that it was one of those heavy knotted leather whips of the kind used traditionally by self-flagellating penitents. The priest cracked the whip and the sound sent shivers down our spine. It was like a firecracker.
“May God the Father and the Holy Spirit guide my hand!” cried Father Grigory as he took off his robe, removed his tall hat and then rolled up the sleeves of his white shirt. He swung the whip over his head and we could hear it whistle and crack as the tight little knots rebounded off each other.
‘He stepped forward towards the two miscreants and pointed them out to the cadets. “Inside these vile bodies that you see before you, in all their shamelessness and ugliness, dwells the rule of Satan acting through their basic animal instincts. He has corrupted both their souls and their bodies. Only by mortifying their flesh can they hope to purify their bodies and sanitize their souls. The road to salvation is the road through pain. We can all be redeemed as Christ redeemed us through his pain and suffering with the crown of thorns, the whips and the nails of the cross. Learn from this that you may all be delivered from the temptations of the flesh and be redeemed.”
‘Then he set to on the two victims tied to the trestle frame. He hit both Ludmila and Yuri with equal force all over those parts of the bodies he could reach, initially their shoulders and their back, but also their buttocks and the back of their legs. He kept to a pattern with 5 blows on Ludmila’s body, then five on Yuri’s. Then back to Ludmila again with a further five lashes. Each time the long leather whip struck them with a sickening crack, the end curled around them. Each blow drew more and more blood, mainly from the small knots at the end and also along the length of the whip. Soon their shoulders and backs especially were covered with streaks of bloods punctuated by small but deeper wounds where the knots had torn at their flesh. These wounds were not just on the backs of their bodies but round their sides and even their front. I could see from where I was standing, near but somewhat to the side of the victims, that Ludmila had flecks of blood on her beautiful breasts. The wounds round the side were the deepest as the whip was dragged after each blow. When the first blows struck Ludmila remained silent. She was a big and sturdy girl who had stood up to all the punishments meted out until now at Lefortovo without flinching. She was the toughest girl in our dorm. Yet the quirky little jumps she made as each lash struck home suggested that she could feel each blow acutely. She began to squirm after the first five blows, though she could not exactly move as her hands were firmly secured by the leather straps (I had seen to that), while her feet were held together by the panties around her ankles. Yuri remained stoically silent during his punishment, but even in his case I could hear him taking heavy intakes of breath after the more telling strokes.

‘By the time both prisoners had received 20 lashes each their upper bodies were covered with wheals and cuts. Blood was beginning to trickle down their bodies. Their shoulders were crisscrossed with blows that looked like sabre cuts and were now one mass of red. The vengeful priest was now aiming the bulk of his blows against the lower parts of their bodies. Blow after blow descended on their buttocks, fleshy and pink in Ludmila’s case, firm, hairy and white in Yuri’s. Both were now visibly squirming. While Yuri remained silent, Ludmila was evincing little squeaks now, like a kettle about to sing. Soon the song began in earnest as she grunted and made exclamations of pain. We realized suddenly that the priest was concentrating entirely on her now as if he saw this helpless female form a challenge or even a threat to his faith and his own chastity. The body obviously aroused him and in order to control the arousal he needed to hit it and tame it more and more. On top of the original four sets of five blows he was now landing a frenzied attack of more than twenty lashes over her Rubenesque posterior and her thighs and upper legs. And Ludmila was not just grunting bravely now. She was not just crying out. She was screaming now, almost with each blow. The bloody shoulders and back were now matched by an equally bloody posterior and legs. In fact the blood from her back was visibly descending down the contours of her fleshy body and draining into the crack between her two rounded buttocks.

‘Then Father Grigory appeared to pause for a minute and drew breath in short sharp gasps as he surveyed his handiwork on Ludmila’s tortured body. The brown birthmark on her upper thigh was no longer visible due to the blood. She was silent now as well but was no longer standing upright as her body sagged against the climbing frame and swung helplessly, bereft of spirit, quietly sobbing, her silent defiance broken.
‘The priest now continued his onslaught on Yuri’s magnificent body. It was a large target requiring a greater display of flagellating artistry. With downward strokes he enveloped his shoulders and his upper back. With his sideway swipes he wrapped that vicious whip around Yuri’s thighs and legs. I was sure that at least two of the strikes struck the testicles which were visible between his legs. It was the five little knotted carbuncles on the whip which cause so much of the damage as they ripped the flesh when they struck the body and were then dragged forward by the merciless priest. Yuri had remained silent throughout most of his ordeal, but even he was beginning to grunt with pain at some of the later strokes, particularly when they cut into places where he was already bleeding. But that magnificent beast did not succumb, despite an ordeal of more than 35 strokes. The scourge of God was getting tired, his passion and energy at last seemingly spent. He laid down the whip at last.
‘This was an intense relief for me. During the punishment of Ludmila and Yuri, I had a fear that this avenging cleric would be unleashed in turn on my poor body. I had felt quite sick. I doubted that I had the stamina that Ludmila had. If Timoshenko had whipped me in the same way when I was being caned in his office I might well have given away the name of my secret lover. However the theatre was not yet over.

Valentina' tale 2

2009-12-12T18:08:00.005Z

“Did you really have no contact with the men?”
“I’m coming to that. Don’t be so impatient, Petya.”
‘In May I had sat my mathematics entrance exam to a London college. The same week Ludmila sat a London chemistry paper. In July we learned that we had both passed and were sure of a place. We knew we were definitely travelling to London now. The organization was very pleased with us. As a special privilege we were allowed to have a party and some eligible young men were invited too.

‘We were both dressed in our uniforms which we now wore with a certain element of pride. There were 3 senior officers present, one of whom was our female captain. There were 6 young men present as well; all of them police cadets, who had done very well in their interim exams. In fact not only were these strapping young lads our reward, but we in turn were their prize. As the guests of honour Ludmila and I were sitting at each end of the table.
‘Glasses were produced and a bottle of vodka was served. It was the first alcohol we had drunk for months. They drank a toast to our success, very formally. Ludmila then drank the toast of the young cadets. After a few minutes the top officers left. We settled to some small talk, laughing and joking about the Academy and gossiping about some of the teachers and pupils.
‘Just then, I felt a hand on my left leg. I was startled at first and even mesmerized by this invasion of my person. True, it was a potential occupying force testing the lie of the land but I did not know the nature and identity of the occupier. Should I defend my territory or greet the invading force? Not wishing to interrupt the intruder as his hand massaged my knee, I eyed my immediate neighbours on my left and my right, aware that up to two cadets on each side were physically capable of this sub-tabular assault from their present position. The two cadets on my left were the obvious culprits. They were both looking at me with happy expressions and indeed one of them was actually talking to me avidly about his mother and his family village, while the other was listening to him and looking at me with raised eyebrows and a jokey expression, as if saying “Just listen to that twaddle. How boring!” While appearing to concentrate my attention at these two, I noticed that my immediate neighbour on the right, a dreamy looking guy, was deeply immersed in conversation with his neighbour.
‘I was enjoying the bold mysterious intruder’s attentions as the hand moved higher up my leg from the knee and then crossed over to my other leg. I looked down the length of the table to Ludmila. She was laughing and flirting outrageously with her immediate neighbours but as I continued to gaze at her she seemed to sense my attention because her eyes veered to meet mine and she gave me a huge impish grin with a strong hint of lasciviousness. She even winked at me, as if to say, “Well, I’m scoring here. How about you?” I grinned back happy now at my resolve and our common sense of achievement.
‘My left hand darted under the table and caught the mysterious hand now well up my right thigh. I gave the hand a strong squeeze. With my right hand I picked up my empty vodka glass and called out, “Which of you elegant young gentlemen will give me a refill”. My two companions on my left immediately reacted by reaching for the nearest bottle. One of them had stopped his passionate narrative but his listening companion was quicker and laid his hand on the bottle. But my companion on the right, apparently so busy talking to his neighbour was even quicker as his right hand seized the bottle firmly by the neck and lifted it to my uplifted glass, brushing off the slower hand of the cadet opposite him. He stopped his conversation too and now looked intently and meaningfully at me. He was very boyish in appearance but his intellectual look was enhanced by his steel rimmed glasses. I noticed his left hand was still invisible somewhere under the table.
“Let us raise a toast to your academic success in London, Valentina Ivanovna” he said as he finished pouring out the vodka into my glass and reached for his own glass now.
“Where was I?” she racked her memory. “Yes, I remember now. This boy called Sergei was raising his glass with one arm, but the other was still out of sight. So I squeezed the hand I was holding under the table even harder and cut into the soft flesh with my fingernails. I pressed my nails in deeply until I felt that I had penetrated the skin and was drawing blood. Yet I continued to stare my well wisher in the face to watch for any expression of surprise, or better still, any pain. Yet there was none.
“Why thank you, Sergei,” I answered him; happy that I had remembered his name amongst so many of the new strangers I had met this evening for the first time. “May your career prosper too. May no foreign invaders interfere with your life.” I let go the hand. The mysterious hand was not withdrawn but rested again on my thigh. Then it curled up and I felt a fingernail stab and cut savagely at a spot indecently close to my private sanctum. For a moment, I felt the pain intensely. It was an exciting kind of pain like the robust response to a challenge.
‘Automatically my face must have flinched. But my hand rested on his hand preventing further withdrawal. Sergei smiled at me and said “We must know when the invading forces are liberators and when they are hostile, my dear Valentina.” This was an obscure abstract comment totally undecipherable for any outside party. That clinched it in my eyes. I smiled back at him triumphantly while my hand released his. The invader had been entrapped in his turn on the land he had occupied but he had definitely not been repulsed.
‘As the dinner ended a senior officer came in and asked us to make our farewells. I watched the cadets as they saluted us and shook hands with us in turn. I looked at Sergei’s hand as he shook my hand. His hand was reddened and there was a clear scratch mark. I now definitely had my man!

‘Ludmila and I were both giggling with delight as we made our way back to our dormitory. Firstly there was the relief that we had at least been treated like human beings after our exams and not threatened with beatings. Secondly we were both a little drunk as you must remember that we had had no contact with alcohol for several months now. And lastly there were the boys. Yes, boys! In the plural. Just as I had been captivated by Sergei, Ludmila had her eye on a big blonde giant with a hedgehog haircut called Yuri. He had wasted no time in making suggestive comments to Ludmila and she had made little effort to disguise her approval. They had been grinning flirtatiously and rubbing each other’s legs and feet under the table.
‘The only problem for both of us was what to do now? How do we maintain our friendship let alone more lustful pursuits in the harsh discipline of the Lefortovo barracks? There was little scope for even the briefest contact to exchange a few words. The only opportunity for a more intimate meeting would be during or after the church service on Sunday at St Alexander’s Basilica. We were both determined to explore our new friendships on the first Sunday available.
‘Early on the Sunday morning, Ludmila and I both prepared little notes for our respective partners, saying where and how we were to meet during the Mass. My note to Sergei read tersely, “Statue of Archangel, Communion” and was followed by a single little cross and the letter “V”. It would hardly compromise either of us if it were to be found and yet the message was clear. We found ourselves in the canteen for breakfast. I chanced to walk past the table where Sergei sat with his fellow cadets and alongside his instructor, a real disciplinarian called Major Timoshenko, and slipped the note into the rim of Sergei’s cap as it lay next to him at the breakfast table. I managed to slip away unobtrusively, hugging myself with gleeful anticipation.

‘We paraded to the Basilica in our smart uniforms and took up our seats in a side pew. The basilica was in the shape of a traditional Greek cross with the altar in one of the wings. It was surmounted by a huge onion dome. As we waited for the service to begin I tried to catch Sergei’s eye but he looked steadfastly forward. I looked to the statue of the Archangel Michael placed strategically at the corner between two of the wings that formed the cross. Behind it I had espied a small curtained door which had been used occasionally as a side-door by priests and other church employees. I was brimming with excitement at the thought of my secret meeting with Sergei.
‘Soon the church was full with many latecomers standing in the corridors between the pews and against the walls of the Basilica. The mass began along with the chanting by the priests and the worshippers around me. I pretended to be deep in prayer, even though as the daughter of a Communist party official I had no time or experience of organized religion. The service meandered its weary way through the different stages of the mass as one dreary hymn followed another and the air was heavy with candle smoke and incense. At last we reached the moment for communion where the worshippers, mainly old babushkas, approached the altar to swallow the little wafer and drink the wine. At this stage it was permitted practice for those who were religious amongst us to leave their seats and proceed individually to the altar. I waited until two of my colleagues, both religious girls, got up and I followed them into the surrounding crowd in the direction of those queuing for communion. As the crowd surged around us I pretended to have lost contact with the two girls before me. Now just an anonymous member of the congregation, albeit it in uniform, I made my way towards the statue of my adopted liberator, the Archangel Michael. I passed behind the statue, lurked behind the draped doorway and waited for my loved one.
‘I waited what seemed a long time, though it was probably no more than 5 minutes. My heart was beating with renewed vigour and I felt both joyful and even horny as I imagined my fingers entwined around the vigorous slim body of my lover. The lengthening wait made me more and more anxious but the impatience only whetted my appetite for his body.
‘Then I saw a tall uniformed figure push its way past the crowd around the statue, obviously looking for me. As he moved forward without spotting me, his eyes turned towards the altar, I crept up to him from behind and, buoyed up by a sense of lusty mischief, I placed my hand on his delicious rear with a sharp slap.
‘He spun round. The delicious and knowing grin on my face froze in horror. It wasn’t Sergei; it was Timoshenko!

Valentina Naryshkin's tale

2009-12-12T17:49:00.015Z

Dear readers, I know many of you thought that Valentina's description of her stay in Lefortovo Barracks seemed a bit rushed. I think it only fair that I give her some opportunity to tell her own tale. These exotic excerpts were not in my abridged version of "The Towers of Framden".

Valentina Naryshkin's tale – Life in Lefortovo

‘In Lefortovo we lived 10 to each dormitory. We were all girls aged between 16 and 25. Many of us were students, others were former criminals, including armed robbers, pickpockets and confidence tricksters. That is where I met Ludmila, a chemistry student who had also had the promise of a university place in London, and who had been caught travelling on the Moscow metro without buying a ticket. Each of us had had a similar experience where we had been entrapped or caught by the authorities for some minor offence, had suffered a caning or other method of physical punishment and were promised the earth if we cooperated with the authorities.
‘In fact Lefortovo was a training school of unspeakable severity and depravity. We often underwent inspections, ostensibly of the tidiness of our rooms, but we often had to undergo internal inspections of our orifices in front of each other for drugs and other substances and we were encouraged to hold similar inspections of each other on a regular basis. We had to walk in just our bra and knickers down the corridor to the bathroom and shower there every morning in cold water. Although there was no access to this corridor from the male quarters they could get a view of us from some skylight windows in their section of the building overlooking our corridor and we had to undergo a barrage of obscene catcalls and wolf-whistles whenever we walked down this passage unattired. We were not allowed to respond to their cat calls and had to pretend that they did not exist. We would do gym exercises either in the nude or just in our knickers letting our breasts swing to and fro as we vaulted over the horse, practised star jumps, maintained pirouettes on the horizontal bar and clambered up ropes and wooden frames. We would dress smartly in uniforms on the parade ground and march in those same spotless uniforms to the dining room where we ate at a separate table from the male recruits.
‘We were only allowed to speak to each other in the dormitories, wash rooms or at dinner and we had strict orders not to converse with any of the males in the building. We were allowed to receive and write one letter a week to a friend or relative and these letters were checked and censored to make sure that no mention was made of where we actually were and we were not to describe or criticize any of our experiences.
‘Every day, except for Sundays, we would attend lectures and classes on various topics ranging from electronics to handling a gun and from knowledge of the human anatomy to diplomatic etiquette.
We had to learn by heart the details of military equipment in the Russian Army and practice how to read maps and draw with invisible ink. We were given the opportunity to hone our computer skills, to send e-mails in code and to hack into each other’s programmes. We learned a number of martial arts though we were not allowed to socialize with our male instructors and we were only allowed outside of the training compound once every two weeks for a few hours provided we had been well behaved and scored good marks in our classes. In the first few weeks we received no money, but with each week after that we were given more generous pocket money as long as we were making good progress.
‘If we broke any of the above rules we could expect loss of food and sleep, press ups and knee bends, even standing or kneeling naked in the corner of the dormitory for a few hours. Where we compounded more than one transgression we would be caned, either on the spot, bending over and clasping our ankles, or in more serious cases we would be summoned to the gymnasium and caned naked across one of the pieces of equipment
Most commonly we would be placed over the pummel horse. The number of blows would range from five to twenty and was administered publicly in front of the other girls. After a few weeks the more trusted senior girls were instructed to cane the others. If they made any mistakes in conducting the punishments, and especially if the strokes were not considered hard enough or they miscounted, the same number of strokes would be applied to them as well as their victims and they had to strip themselves to receive punishment. There were even three occasions where the transgressions were so serious, including answering back an officer, that the guilty girls had to strip and be punished with 25 strokes in front of the whole assembled school in the parade ground.
‘Occasionally we could hear the men being caned as well, but normally we would not be allowed to witness this. We were only caned on our hands or our buttocks, but they would be punished with strokes over their backs and legs as well as on their backsides. On one occasion we were called to the parade ground in our uniforms to witness a young male recruit being caned with fifty strokes over his entire body. He had hit an officer. He was tied to a trestle and we all got a thrill from seeing this handsome young man from behind with his cute tight little bum and beautiful shoulders. He was caned until the blood ran in streams from his back and his buttocks. When he was untied at the end of his punishment he fainted and collapsed onto the parade ground. His colleagues had to carry him back to his dormitory.
‘As you can imagine with such a regime we girls began to bond closely with each other and I became very close to Ludmila. Let’s face it, we became lovers. Some of the other girls formed closer links too and frankly we all became horny with each other, especially after a good punishment. We would lick the victim’s scars on her posterior, massage and masturbate each other and organize playful spankings of our own. We loved the rituals of a punishment just as some of us loved the rituals of the Orthodox mass we had to attend in uniform every Sunday. This lesbian interplay was not discouraged in any way by the authorities. Of course there were sometimes outbreaks of jealousy and bitter rivalry culminating in fights between the girls and they would kick and slap each other and pull each other’s hair. Whenever this occurred our officer would intervene and insist that the girls fight it out with each other naked in one of the martial art disciplines on a practice mat in the gym. We all crowded around to ensure the fight was fair. The winners got a kiss and a hug from each of us and the losers were spanked and held for 5 minutes under a cold shower.
“Were you ever punished?” I asked.
“Oh, frequently,” Valentina replied. “You know me. I’m not a saint. I think I was punished about twenty times. I’d been caught smoking a cigarette; another time I had exchanged words with some male cadets; I had tried to smuggle in some vodka after a Sunday outing. You know, the usual thing girls get up to.”
“And Ludmila?”
“She got her fair share of beatings too. In fact, because we were lovers, we wanted to ensure we were treated equally. If I was punished, she made sure she received a similar punishment. And vice versa. Solidarity, you know. On one occasion we both got sentenced to receive ten strokes. The pummel horse and the vaulting horse were placed opposite each other and we were placed across each one. We looked into each other’s eyes as we received our strokes, wincing from the pain and smiling encouragement to each other. We were close enough even to touch each other’s outstretched arms. After our punishment we returned to the dorm and turned each other on with a shoe horn. We masturbated each other so intensely
our squeals of delight brought in the night duty officer, who laid us over our beds and whipped each of us thoroughly on our already bruised naked arses with a heavy razor strap. It was agony, really painful, but it was also painful bliss. This was true friendship.”

Chapter IX - Training at Lefortovo

2009-12-09T18:56:00.019Z

Chapter IX Training at Lefortovo
(Gentle reader, this is the abridged expurgated version of this chapter. For those of you seeking a certain frisson and a study in depth of the dramatic scenes described herein should read my first blog on October 5th - called "A Taste of Framden". Not recommended for those not wishing to be shocked)

‘My name is Valentina Naryshkin. I was born near Vitebsk in the Soviet Union. My family was Russian. My father was a party official, my mother a railway engineer. When I was a little girl the old Union fell apart and Vitebsk became part of a new country called Belarus. My father lost his job and we had many problems. We were very poor. I won all the prizes for mathematics at school and I was a good chess player. We had relatives in Moscow and when I was 18 years old they told my father that I should come to Lomonosov University in Moscow and study there. Because we were poor I got a scholarship and then my aunt and uncle let me stay with them as a student, provided I became their housekeeper. They slept in one room and I bedded down on the sofa in the other room which doubled as a kitchen. Their children had already grown up and lived in other parts of Russia.
‘For two years I studied and slaved, because my aunt treated me very badly and my uncle was always trying to seduce me.

>

'I didn’t complain to my parents as it would only make them unhappy. They were so proud of me, especially as my studies were going well and I had just won a competition to continue my studies in London under an exchange scheme. The only thing I lacked was the money to go there.
‘Towards the end of the second year my aunt and uncle got very drunk one evening. I came back from a party in a friend’s flat and was met by a shower of abuse from my aunt who accused me of being a slut and of leaving their flat filthy and untidy. I was still a very quiet person then but I lost my temper and shouted back at her. She made to hit me and I pushed her back. My uncle, who was my mother’s younger brother, grabbed me by my hair (you remember my pigtails?) and demanded I apologized. I found my courage and shouted at him to let me go. He dragged me by my hair to their room and told me again to apologize or I will be punished. I laughed in his face. He hit me hard around the face and made my right cheek puff up. I pushed at him with all my strength and knocked him back against the side of the table. He lost his balance and hit his head on the floor. He temporarily lost consciousness and I ran out of the room. My aunt called me a murderer and telephoned the police. I was totally panic stricken as I had nowhere to go.
‘When the police arrived my uncle was just recovering but my aunt still accused me of assault. The police handcuffed me and took me downstairs to a waiting van. I was driven to the local police commissariat and thrown into an individual cell. A burly woman police officer came in and told me to undress to my underwear. My clothes were removed. It was quite cold but I was very frightened and did as I was told. After nearly 3 hours, the woman officer came back, handcuffed me again and led me along the corridor to a lift. Two floors up we got out and I was led into a large room with a female police inspector sitting at a table looking at my file. The burly police woman remained in the room and waited.
‘I stood to attention shaking with fear. The inspector eyed me up and down and inspected my swollen cheek which now nearly covered my eye. She accused me of being a hooligan. She said that I would be sent to correction camp for 6 months and then deported back to Belarus.
“But I was the person who was assaulted,” I protested. “Just look at my face”.
‘She then made me an offer. She played on my patriotism and said that Russia needs clever young scholars like me to learn from the West. I would be moved immediately to the police barracks in Lefortovo and live in a harsh regime. I would not be going to college but would still be able to continue my studies. The following September I would be allowed to travel to a university in London for a 3 year course that will be paid for. However I would have to show obedience and carry out any tasks that would be set for me. And just to show they meant business I was brutally caned there and then in the police station.

< ‘So what choice did I have? ‘In Lefortovo we lived 10 to each dormitory. We were all girls aged between 16 and 25. Many of us were students, others were former criminals, including armed robbers, pickpockets and confidence tricksters. That is where I met Ludmila Kulchik, a chemistry student from a peasant family in Crimea. She had also had the promise of a university place in London, after being caught travelling on the Moscow metro without buying a ticket. Each of us had had a similar experience where we had been entrapped or caught by the authorities for some minor offence, had suffered a caning or other method of physical punishment and were promised the earth if we cooperated with the authorities.

‘In fact Lefortovo was a training school of unspeakable severity and depravity. We had to shower every morning in cold water and undergo tough physical exercises as well as being trained in all sorts of espionage activities. We were only allowed to speak to each other in the dormitories, wash rooms or at dinner and we had strict orders not to converse with any of the males in the building. We were allowed to receive and write one letter a week to a friend or relative and these letters were checked and censored to make sure that no mention was made of where we actually were and we were not to describe or criticize any of our experiences.
‘Every day, except for Sundays, we would attend lectures and classes on various topics ranging from electronics to handling a gun and from knowledge of the human anatomy to diplomatic etiquette. We had to learn by heart the details of military equipment in the Russian Army and practice how to read maps and draw with invisible ink. We were given the opportunity to hone our computer skills, to send e-mails in code and to hack into each other’s programmes. We learned a number of martial arts though we were not allowed to socialize with our male instructors and we were only allowed outside of the training compound once every two weeks for a few hours provided we had been well behaved and scored good marks in our classes. In the first few weeks we received no money, but with each week after that we were given more generous pocket money as long as we were making good progress.
‘If we broke any of the above rules we could expect to lose the money we had earned, or suffer food and sleep deprivation, press ups and knee bends, even standing or kneeling naked in the corner of the dormitory for a few hours. Where we compounded more than one transgression we would be caned, either on the spot, with hand outstretched or bending over.
‘As you can imagine with such a regime we girls began to bond closely with each other and I became very close to Ludmila. Let’s face it, we became lovers. Some of the other girls formed closer relations with each other too and frankly we all became horny with each other, especially after a good punishment. We loved the rituals of a punishment just as some of us loved the rituals of the Orthodox mass we had to attend in uniform every Sunday.
‘Our studies intensified. We had wonderful old professor called Denisov who taught some extraordinary things about diseases and sexual practices around the world. We had a couple of excellent English teachers who had lived in London for many years. We got familiar with some Shakespeare plays and read poets like Donne, Keats and Rochester. You want me to recite some? Then we had a glum guy from Belfast who taught us about handling weapons and bomb-making. He was a miserable bastard called William Casey.
‘In May I had sat my mathematics entrance exam to a London college. The same week Ludmila sat a London chemistry paper. In July we learned that we had both passed and were sure of a place. We knew we were definitely travelling to London now. The organization was very pleased with us.
Our chief training officer told us, “As a special privilege, Valentina Ivanovna, you will be allowed to have a party and some eligible young men can be invited too.” Ludmila and I felt very proud.
‘__________________

“Sorry to interrupt this fascinating narrative,” I said, “but can you clarify why you are sometimes called Ivanovna? Surely your name, you said, is Naryshkin?”
“It’s what is known as a patronymic.” Valentina explained. “We Russians always take the name of our father as a middle name. My full name is Valentina Ivanovna Naryshkin. Ivanovna means I am the daughter of Ivan. If I were a boy my second name would have been Ivanovich, son of Ivan.”
I thought this was very original and said so. “It implies an older paternalistic society, where the father’s name is always honoured. What if you do not have a father?” I asked. “What if your mother does not even know the name of your father?”
“Then it is a matter of great shame to the mother and ultimately to the child,” Valentina explained. “You should do this in England, you know.”
”That’s difficult,” I suggested. “There are so many children born outside marriage or where parents aren’t even regular partners now. Some English mothers don’t even know the father’s truck number plate after they picked him up at the all night transport café, let alone his name.”
“I see you are joking,” laughed Valentina. “Is that why you have surnames like Longbottom? It’s the only part of the anatomy the mother remembers?” We both laughed.
“Anyway, Peter?” she asked. “What is your father’s name?”
“Well, he’s dead now, but his name was Thomas Axtell.”
“Then you should call yourselves, “Peter (or Petya) Tomasovich Axtell. Doesn’t that sound better?”
I had to agree that I rather liked the sound of that. However I asked her to continue.
__________________________

“Where was I?” she racked her memory. “Yes, I remember now. Ludmila and I had a party and we were allowed to dress in full uniform. It was wonderful after what we had experienced before.”
She continued her tale of her training at Lefortovo, of her romance with a police cadet and how she was punished for it, details too sordid to recount here.

Chapter VIII The Confession (contd.)

2009-12-08T08:22:00.009Z

“Yeow!” Though her body shuddered at the blow, she stopped struggling. She lay in the kneeling position on the bench as if waiting for the inevitability of another strike.
But I was not going to relent, blood or no blood. “Now, let’s have that answer again! How did you get the job with Pinkerton?”
“Petya, stop it. I can’t tell you. Now let me go!”
“Give me an answer!” With another loud swish I cut the bundle again against her rear.
There was no answer. After an initial kick she lay supine and still again. The blood trickled silently from her cuts.
I paused and I whacked her again.
“You bastard! Let me fucking go,” she yelled suddenly and now she did struggle.
I held her down with all my might. After a several seconds she stopped fighting me.
“Nice language, Valentina. Your English is getting better. So start talking. I want to know what you were doing at the reception. How did you get the job? How did you get to know Smallbridge and Sheremovsky?”I rested the twigs on her behind and waited.
“OK but please let me go,” she said more calmly. “You won’t find out that way. I know you are angry but don't hit me again.”
“Valentina, you’ve lied to me. You’ve made fun of me, you’ve led me on a dance, and now you’re trying to blackmail me as well.”
I smote her again a couple of times but more as a formality than as an act of punishment. Just to show that I could if I would. Then I rested and laid the bundle of birch twigs on the table.
“OK. OK. Finished?” she asked me impudently. “Can I get up now?”
She was as tough as nails, I thought. I let her head up and loosened my grip but she chose to talk anyway.
“Peter, I was hired to watch you from the very beginning. Both I and Ludmila.”
“By who?”
By then I had released her and she slowly and gingerly stood up holding her behind tightly. She let go and looked at her hands. They had small rivulets of blood imprinted on them. She seemed a little startled. She looked around, picked up the bottle of whisky sprinkled some of the contents on to her hands and then after a pause applied it to her wounds. She winced with pain. Then she did it a second time. She carried on speaking in a standing position, leaning slightly against me.
“It’s a long story. We are part of a group. We all work for a powerful man, the Big Boss.”
“Who?”
“The Boss. His name is not important.”
“It is to me. Let me guess. Yakov Sheremovsky?”
“He’s the Boss, that’s all,” she said quickly. “There is just so much I can tell you, but I just can’t give names. It’s too dangerous, even for you.”
I sensed now that despite some reservations she really was going to tell me something.
She took my hand and placed it gently on her rear. Slowly I started caressing the bruised cheeks.
“It started in the Civic Centre. You didn’t see me probably,” she continued, “but Ludmila and I were at the count.”
“The count?”
“Yes, you know, election night.”
“In the Civic Centre?” I repeated in astonishment.
“Well our team of girls had been hired by your Council to join those counting the votes. Don’t be surprised. I am a mathematician,” she laughed. “It was great fun. In the meantime, we were told to keep an eye on you. Ted Grayson and Emil Kapacek we knew already. However we were told that you were a man to watch. You could be important.”
“Me??”
“Yes, you!”
“But why? And who told you?”
“Peter, sometimes you are a man and you are clever. Sometimes you are a baby and you are naïve.”
“I still do not understand”.
“We were told that your support was important for the Pinkerton Plaza project and that you would be a new person in the picture but still quite experienced.”
“I see.” I said incredulously. “I have also noticed that your English is very good; almost impeccable. Yet in the night club you pretended that you could hardly speak English at all.”
“Well a girl can’t give away all her secrets at once. She would lose all sense of mystery. Most men in night clubs feel frightened of an intelligent and eloquent woman. They love a woman with an exotic accent and poor English so that they can feel superior to her. In a night club the men think they have power over the women, and the women let them think that. It is all part of the game.”
“Very interesting. OK, Valentina, who pointed me out?”
“Is that really important? One of the Big Boss’s people. Another Russian henchman. The Boss has a big organization here. Ludmila and I are a small (how you say it?) - a small cock in a big machine.”
I laughed. “A small COG in a big machine,” I corrected her.
“That’s what I said, a small cock.” I shrugged my shoulders in amused resignation. Perhaps her English was not quite that perfect after all?
“Once we knew you had been elected a Councillor,” she continued, “your friend Emil told us and said that you would probably be going to “Pinks”. We rang our immediate supervisor and he told us to go to the club and work as waitresses around you. We knew anyway that the club was owned by one of the subsidiary companies of the Boss, so we were not surprised when the club manager told us to do whatever we wanted as soon as we got there. We spotted Emil and your other friend, Chris, and the rest you know.”
“Not really. You already knew Emil and Chris?”
“We know that Chris has been adviser to the Boss’s architect over the Plaza project. We also knew we had support from Emil and from Ted Grayson. No, don’t ask me how I know this, and why. I do not know all the secrets. But we knew that they were already our people; people we trusted. You were new, however. I had to get friendly with you.”
“Thank you very much.” I felt used and deflated. Then I looked at this beautiful woman who had been seducing me in the last week and now paying such a bloody price for it and felt important again.
”Why you?”
“Well Ludmila and I are not bimbos. We both attend London University. Ludmila is a scientist. She is good at chemistry. I am a mathematician. Do I look like a mathematician? You should see me with my glasses. Then I am very sexy,” she laughed.
“Valentina, you are always sexy. Especially when you are naughty and need to be punished. And I knew you were very bright. But what has this mathematics got to do with my role in the Council.”
“Oh, you are so naïve. Still such a baby. Yes, we are students. But you know how expensive university studies are in England? Especially in London. High fees for foreign students. Very expensive. You understand now…” she looked at me pleadingly, as if she begged me not to enlarge on this matter.
“So you earn some money as society girls? As escorts?” I did not want to use the word “prostitutes”. “To pay for your studies?”
“Yes, escorts. But we are not prostitutes,” she suddenly stated with great ferocity. I was glad I had not used that word.
“Methinks she doth protest too much,” I thought. I decided not to make such value judgements aloud, as I was anxious to hear more about the Plaza project and my own supposed role in it.
“Yes, Ludmila and I had to choose who would go after you. We argued, and I won!”
“Very flattering. What did you do? You drew straws? You tossed a coin?”
“How do you know that?”, she said surprised. “Yes, I won. Best of three.”
I wished now I had not asked for that detail. I felt deflated again.
“Go on!” I said, to suppress my annoyance.
“Well you know I was very pleased to meet you. Especially when I saw how kinky you were. Sado-maso, you know. Very popular in Russia. Men and women both like it. You like to give good spanking. You like to get good spanking. You are a naughty boy. Me, I like that too. So I like you.”
I ignored the embarrassing connotations of this and ploughed on. “So what happened? You were supposed to keep up contact with me?”
“Yes, but I give you my card. And you do not call me. My bosses were not happy with this. They say they will punish us. Stop our money. Then we are told to come to the meeting on the Pinkerton site and we are told to mingle with guests and make them happy. Especially with alcohol. But we must make sure that all the Committee members will support the scheme. Also they wanted to thank you for what you had done already.”
“How were they going to thank me, exactly?”
“Well,” Valentina looked at me with a certain embarrassed shyness. “I was going to be the thank you. Is that a good thank you, darling?”
“You would sleep with somebody just for this project!?”
I disliked this turn of events. I already knew a good deal more than I wanted to.
“No, Petya, please. You are making this very difficult. Don’t be angry. I like you so much anyway. And I like to fuck you anyway too. I do not do this for them. And I am NOT a prostitute.”
I mused over this. After all, I thought, here she was in a strange country, exploited and therefore exploiting, doing as best as she could. She was probably the pride of some god forsaken town in Belarus, Russia’s dirt poor small neighbour. How could I judge her? And she was so delicious and sexy, especially when she was naughty and then contrite. That was just spell-binding. I had a great temptation to take her, bleeding bottom and all.
“How much longer can we stay here?” I asked, suddenly aware of our surroundings.
“My flat is on the floor above,” she said. “If you are ready, we go upstairs, and I will tell you the rest.”
“You live here? In this…?” I was lost for a word to describe this hedonistic palace of torture. “In this House of Shame? On your own?”
“No, not on my own. There are four of us Russian girls living here. There are advantages and we all have our own bedroom up there. It’s a big house.”
We drew back the curtain over the mirror to reveal that the body in black was still hanging there. Ludmila and another girl had removed most of the clothes of the hanging figure and his sex was now well established as was the paunch immediately above it. Someone had tied a thin rope tightly around his genitals which was attached at the other end to a remote control model racing car. One of the girls was operating the car so that whenever it reached the outer range of the length of the rope it began to yank and dig in on his crown jewels. The other girl was still taunting him and the size of his manhood.

We crept past this merry assemblage and Valentina exchanged a quick silent nod with Ludmila. Then we slipped back into the corridor and up the stairs.
There was a communal kitchen with a fridge/freezer and a sitting room upstairs which served four separate small bedrooms. The communal room looked very sane and sensible with no sexy pictures on the wall, just a Russian winter landscape reproduction and some posters for Aeroflot, a perfume ad and another poster for a Russian tourist board. There was a mirror over the mantelpiece though the old chimney entrance was blocked in with a radiator. There was a computer, also books in Russian on the mantelpiece including a 5 volume encyclopaedia and some erotic picture books, including an illustrated Kama Sutra with commentaries in Cyrillic script.
Valentina led me into her bedroom, which had a double bed which more than filled the small room, a built-in wardrobe, a table and chair and a wash basin. There was a beautiful icon of the Black Madonna of Somewhere or Other over the bed against the wall. I sat on the chair and she rested her sore behind on the soft bed.
“Tea, coffee, whisky, vodka?” she asked. She motioned to me to get the vodka from one of the shelves in the wardrobe along with a couple of glasses.
“Shouldn’t this be in a fridge?” I asked.
“Well in a freezer, actually. You know vodka can only be held in a freezer. It will not freeze up. If it does then it is not proper vodka. I took it out this afternoon, so it will still be a little cold”
“Not cold enough. I’ll have the whisky.”
I carried the vodka bottle back to the freezer in the other room and in the meantime Valentina poured me out a whisky and then one for herself. Forgetting herself she bounced back on to her own bed and then suddenly jumped up wincing with pain.
“Shit, that hurt! I’ve forgotten that you are the Spanking Councillor.”
I smiled, quite flattered by her description. I was ready to listen to her story now.

Chapter VIII The Confession (part 1)

2009-12-07T01:27:00.004Z

We walked to the next door on the same corridor. Valentina did not even bother to knock; she pushed the door open.
Inside, a man was swinging in a harness suspended from the ceiling. I was quite startled. He was hooded and dressed in a leather cloak. I noticed no eye slits in his hood. The poor guy was in total darkness. Around him stalked a woman in black lace, mocking him and insulting him. She carried a whip. The room included the kind of adult furniture that normally appeared at fetish parties I had attended. There was a wooden trestle structure covered by a cushion, a number of stools and raised punishment benches, stocks for the head and arms and a second diagonal cross. One of the walls was covered with artistically arranged instruments of torture. There were whips, some with metal beads, straps, canes, studded belts, floggers, pincers, metal and material handcuffs, restraints of various kinds and various instruments for sexual excess. It reminded me in a way of the lavish armoury hall in Hampton Court Palace, where the walls are lined beautifully and symmetrically with muskets, swords and pikes. Another wall contained paintings of flagellants, male and female victims of knouting and imagined scenes of monastic penitence orgies. A third wall had a large mirror in which the mysterious suspended figure and its tormentor could be clearly seen.
Despite the mask over her eyes I recognized the dominatrix by her hair, her bouncy breasts and her generous mouth. It was Ludmila. That mouth smiled in our direction but she placed an upright finger over her lips.
Valentina led me silently across the torture chamber to a second room behind the wall with the mirror. She shut the door and put on the light. It was a dark murky light and I needed a few minutes for my eyes to adjust. Immediately I spotted a large window with a panoramic view of the room we had just left. Obviously the big mirror I had seen before was double-sided. There was a microphone installed giving us all the sounds from the other room.
“Who is he?” I whispered.
Valentina smiled. “An old friend. I couldn’t possibly tell you who he is. If it were you would you want me to give your name to anyone who sees you in that video trailer, naughty English boy?”
I was seething with rage at this fresh taunt. I was determined to have my revenge in good time, especially as I needed to find out more about who Valentina was and why she was acting out this strange role.
I looked around the room we had just entered. It was obviously an inner sanctum of pleasure with padded walls apart from the mirror window. There were 3 monitors showing the goings on in 3 different places. One was the room bathed in red light where I had seen the Chinese girl being tortured. The second was the front entrance hall. The third monitor showed a different room with some naked people, male and female, frisking about in a large Jacuzzi.
As I got more accustomed to the light I observed a small mini-bar and a couch with a couple of comfortable seats in the room. Also there was a beautifully carved traditional kneeling stool with a raised arm-rest. Next to it was a table with a half-finished bottle of Johnny Walker Black Label, and a few carelessly abandoned instruments of correction. I was momentarily drawn by the sight of a primitive birch which I had not seen in close up before. I had seen these bundles of pain used in the Russian art-house film “Of Freaks and Men” and I had been impressed. I held Valentina tightly round the waist as we watched the proceedings in the other room for about three minutes. Then I switched off the sound and the cavorting of the body was now taking place in a mysterious silence like in an old silent film. After another few minutes I closed the curtain covering the mirror. Now we were truly alone. It was hot in there. I took off my jacket and helped Valentina by unzipping her PVC costume. Underneath her skin was sweaty but that was hardly surprising. I kissed her beguilingly. This time she turned her face round to receive my kiss.
I still held Valentina close by the waist as I tilted her face towards me and kissed her full on her lips. With our faces still glued together I moved our bodies together in the direction of the kneeling stool and her body followed willy-nilly. Her outfit began slipping off. I moved quickly now. I detached myself from the kiss and pushed her body onto the kneeling stool with her arms over the wooden rest. I held her down, my lips pressed against the back of her neck, evincing a long shushing sound to calm her. She was trapped by my body into a kneeling position on the stool.
As she was about to protest I covered her mouth with a second long kiss. I drew back from that kiss and said rather crudely, “You have just a gorgeous arse; let us celebrate it properly.”
“Petya, don’t be naughty,” she said beguilingly. Then suddenly a note of alarm entered her voice. “Now don’t do anything silly.”
“Valentina, tell me what is going on.” I shook her. “Who made that film?” I shook her again. She snarled back at me. “How did you end up at the Pinkerton Plaza presentation?” I shook her again. She laughed.
I lost my self-control and hit her on the cheek. I had never ever done something like that before to anyone , let alone a pretty female. But I was pretty mad... and frightened.
She smiled at me defiantly.
“You’ve got to tell me the truth, you bitch.” I think I must have roared this at her. I was stunned by my own anger.
“Let me go this instant!”she ordered me. She was sensing my hesitation.
I eyed the instrument behind her and remembered my original intention. “Answer me. Tell me the truth and I will let you go,” I said more quietly.
I picked up the bundle of birch twigs and swished it through the air. This was going to be a new experience for me as much as for Valentina, I thought.

She sensed the danger. “I don’t know about the film,” she blurted out. Seeing me shake my head she added quickly, “And our meeting at the site visit was just coincidence, Peter. I was surprised to see you.”
“Wrong answer! Try again!” I brought the bundle of sprigs crashing with all my might against her posterior. My anger gave me strength.
To my horror I saw the birch twigs draw blood.

Chapter VII The House of Shame

2009-11-25T22:56:00.013Z

I had been seriously provoked by her cheeky banter over the phone, but whatever irritation I felt was forgotten by the sheer frisson of seeing her in this provocative PVC garb.
I pulled myself together. “Valentina, hello! Tell me. What the fuck is going on?”
It is not often that I lose my self-control to the point of swearing like this. She sensed my anger so she pursed her lips as for a kiss. I relented again. I made to kiss her rich impish mouth. Suddenly she twisted her head sideways with a laugh and I had to make do with a peck on her cheek.
I found this very annoying.
“What the fuck is going on?” Valentina said back to me mimicking my voice. “Well, I can show you what the fuck is going on. But first,” she wagged her finger at me, “you must promise to behave.”
“Behave?” I asked. “What do you mean?”
“Well we are having a number of special guests here. We don’t want you to do anything disruptive.”
“That’s OK. I’m sure I will be on my best behaviour.”
She smiled at me enigmatically. “I know you will be,” she gave me a tormenting smile as if she was in on an amusing secret that I may not enjoy so much.
“Come and see, Petya” she said. She spun round and walked round the side of the staircase. I noticed now that all vestiges of that halting English she had used when I had first met her had now gone. She spoke English well and effortlessly, although the melodic foreign accent remained. It was obvious that her earlier pidgin English was a come on. As was probably most of her behaviour since then.
Under the staircase there was a wide cupboard protected by a curtain. She drew aside the curtain. Inside there was a long wide wooden ledge set against the wall with 2 computer monitors and keyboards and several metal chairs. I noticed that big Nikolai followed us but stopped outside the curtain.
We sat down on two of the chairs provided. She entered a password on one of the keyboards and went into an internet address. She pressed an icon on the screen and we found ourselves in a raunchy website offering sales of porn videos. Valentina smiled and looked at me knowingly. She entered a website called “Mood Swing Pictures”, clicked against an offer of a free sample video and waited. I looked quizzically at the screen and then at her. She caught my gaze again and this time she grinned almost savagely. “You will like this, Petya. Please say you do.” Somehow I felt I might not.
After about 15 seconds a film trailer popped up. It was a 45 second video with sound effects of a pretty almost naked girl with pigtails and red stockings whacking the naked bum of an anonymous silent man bent over a couch. It took only 3 seconds for me to realize that the girl in question was Valentina. I did not know at first whether to congratulate her or commiserate with her for being caught by the camera in this pose. She looked magnificent.
Then all of a sudden a terrifying thought occurred to me. It made me feel sick to the pit of my stomach. I ask her to rerun the sample and peered carefully at the victim. Then to my horror and surprise I recognized the room, I recognized Valentina, and I recognized the couch. I was staring at.a picture of my bum being mercilessly whacked. I did not recognize the bum at first as it was not a part of me that I was over familiar with. At least not visually. Yet instinct told me that the posterior in action was somewhere close to base. Otherwise why else would she show it to me? I was so mortified I was sick.

“Petya, you look ill. It is such a nice picture, don’t you think? Do you want me to play it again? No? I will go a get you a drink.” I mad a grab for her. Hastily she jumped aside and left through the curtain.
I was speechless at first. The sweat poured from my forehead and my mouth went quite dry as the reality of what I had seen hit me. I seized the key-board and worked my way back to the video trailer. I looked to see where and how the whole video was accessible. On pressing the button to order a purchase of the tape I was thrown onto a reject pop-up which stated “not yet available for general release”. For a moment I actually felt relieved.
Then the reality struck me. They had the tape and were withholding it to ensure my compliance. My compliance? To what exactly?
I felt intense anger now. I needed to hit something or somebody. I would have hit Valentina if she ha been next to me. Where the hell was she? I got up and ripped aside the curtain. Then I stopped dead. I found Nikolai standing in the corridor looking at me.
As I made to move forward he shook his head slowly. “Just you dare,” he appeared to be saying. He looked quite intimidating. I sobered up, sat down and took stock for a minute.
What could I do? Retrieve the tape? How? There was undoubtedly more than one copy. Count on the anonymity? Yet this short piece was undoubtedly part of a longer whole perhaps with my face visible, where my anonymity would probably be non-existent. Would I be blackmailed? Should I resign?
If only…if only I had resisted.…How can I cure myself from this cursed appetite?
I remembered how I had loved the shape of Valentina’s body as she positioned herself initially to indulge my “curse.” I remembered how I had taken a few moments to contemplate the contours of the scenery. These are normally moments to relish no matter how shameful. I have to confess that I have relished them before. From an early age. Again, let me explain. Yes, explain the inexplicable. Even when I had first been snogging and petting young girls at the age of fifteen I had been drawn to imagining them perched over my knee or over a desk being whipped. It was frustrating because girls were not into this thing very much at that age. They could take violence or being verbally abused more than a ritualized smack. I would fantasize and watch in fascination on the odd occasions that a caning had still been applied in my boys’ schools, but girls seemed to endure a different kind of rough treatment. If I once let the matter slip about my secret desires, a girl would laugh; but if I dwelt on it longer they shied away. “You’re weird,” she would say. “You do go on”, and would promptly up and leave.
I was troubled by my seeming weirdness. I fantasized about canings received by other boys in my school and was even jealous when some of my closer friends had to suffer this indignity. I had once received a single slipper on my bottom from a gym teacher while in my PE shorts and that had been exciting from the very moment I had to bend over and clasp my knees in front of the class. I had been shouting and pushing while in the queue to jump the vaulting horse. The glow of the single hard slap and the indignity of my position in full view of my classmates embarrassed and excited me.
But this was not the full ritualistic caning, however, where you report at lunch-time to the head’s office. These seemed both dreadful and enticing and my friends said that they really hurt although it would have been unthinkable to cry out or complain. I almost wanted to join them and to be one of them, but I had never screwed up the courage to commit a sufficiently serious offence and join this elite. Most of my rudeness or late essays resulted only in boring detentions and writing a hundred lines. Only once did I find myself in this compromising position and, frankly, I do not want to dwell on it. So corporal punishment etched itself into my imagination all the more strongly in that I largely lacked the concrete experience.
I confess that I drew pictures of girls getting spanked or whipped which I kept in a secret drawer until my inquisitive mother found them there once and I hastily destroyed them. I felt deep shame and resentment. I was weird, I concluded. I was a pervert. I withdrew into my world of books and for some years I stopped chasing skirts. In fact I found that I was more likely to be seduced by young ladies on account of my bookish absent-mindedness and my self-deprecating sense of humour. I no longer needed to go on the pull. I was a lamb to be mothered, not a lion to be feared.
As I grew older and reached my middle thirties I attended a number of fetish parties as well so I was able to practice what others would barely dare fantasize about. It was a secret world of dungeons and discreet parties, often hidden within larger assemblies of fetish fashion displays. We would meet, dance, display and perform in airfield hangars, remote farms, on boats in the Thames, and at trendy Soho and City venues. I was also able to indulge my special fantasies further by attending parties in North London where girls were paid generously to be beaten and could then, if you so wished, beat you in return. Most of my fellow guests at these parties were older men in their sixties and seventies. It sounded sad but at least these guys knew how to have a good time.
Well my curse had now come to haunt me with a vengeance. I sat down again in front of the screen and buried my forehead in my hands. Despair! Despair! Despair!

Further feverish thoughts were cut short by Valentina bringing me a tumbler of whisky. I took a grateful gulp. “How could you? How could you?” I hissed at her.
Valentina shrugged her shoulders. “I am sure it was just a coincidence. The club must have filmed everything going on there. It was not my normal place of work, so I really didn’t know about it. Honest. You do believe me? Don’t you? Remember I am the victim too. After all you recognized me straight away on that recording. Others will too.” I stayed silent. I was obviously unimpressed. She caressed my hair and my cheek. I shook her off like a petulant boy.
“Don’t be so glum. Nobody knows that it’s you, do they? And why should anyone know?” Why indeed? But what was the price to pay for that anonymity?
There was a prolonged silence. My silence was sullen, hers expectant. She appeared to be waiting for my response. I robbed her of that pleasure and stayed sulkily silent, but actually seething with anger underneath. Nikolai’s brooding presence beyond the curtain prevented me from exploding there and then and beating the crap out of her.
“Cheer up. Let me show you round the house,” she said to a change of tone. “That may cheer you up. Some very sexy people here. You’ll love it. Come on.” She sashayed her way up the staircase, swishing her little whip against the side of her leg.
I was still sullen and angry. In fact I must confess I was also quite frightened. I looked round me wondering whether I should cut my losses and make a dash back to the entrance. But between me and the door stood the heavy menacing bulk of Nikolai. Now I really felt frightened. I looked back up the staircase. Valentina had reached the top now and was beckoning me to follow with her finger. How could I refuse this Russian siren? More important still, what option did I have?
As I mounted the staircase I noticed that the staircase wall was covered with beautiful erotic pencil sketches. They showed languid reclining females and rent boys being doted on by bloated rapacious elderly gentlemen in Edwardian clothes and army uniforms. On closer inspection some of the women wore uniforms too, but they looked suitably dishevelled and mismatched with bulging breasts popping out beneath the cloaks and epaulettes.
“Let me show you something more,” said Valentina, as we moved forward from the top of the steps. She led me along the corridor on the first floor landing. A door opened on the left and a very handsome young man appeared in a chauffer’s glistening uniform. In fact the jacket and trousers were made of some black leather material. I noticed his long sleek eyelashes. He smiled at Valentina and inclined his head in my direction with an insolent stare and a polite grunt. His hair was slick and he had a sybaritic air about him. He held open the door for Valentina and then passed by us on his way down to the staircase. Valentina gazed after him with an amused smile inviting me with her eyes to look round at the young chauffer myself. I spun round and found to my amazement that the rear part of the leather trousers had been cut away to reveal a milk white firm pair of young male buttocks. The buttocks appeared to be shiny and had obviously been shaven clean and then rubbed with some ointment.
“You prefer boy buttocks or girl buttocks?” she asked cheekily. I glared at her. “OK, OK, don’t be so glum. I know the answer, naughty English boy.”
“Don’t call me that!” I snarled back at her.
I sensed a presence behind me and looked round again. No, it was not the chauffer. It was Nikolai again looking at me dark and brooding. I looked back to Valentina who had beckoned to me once more as she stood by the door which the saucy “chauffeur” had opened for her. “I hope you will not be a spoilsport now” and then without waiting for an answer she walked through the door and opened a second connecting door just behind it.

The noise of merriment hit us immediately. Valentina went in first, then me. Nikolai followed us in, closed the door and stood behind us.
The first thing I noticed was that the room was dark, but bathed in a red glow, which came from 3 wall lamps covered with red crepe paper. There were about 10 figures in the room, mostly women, but with 4 men, one of whom, I inadvertently noticed, was Lord Smallbridge, smoking a cigarette with one of those long-cigarette holders. They were sitting on low chairs and settees clutching partners in various states of undress. At the end of the room was a St Andrew type cross with a naked young Chinese woman tied to it with a white rope while another, a tall gangly girl of Slavic appearance and almost as naked, was standing over her with a tilted candle dropping hot wax on to her victim’s exposed breasts. The girl was sucking in her breath with pain at every drop of wax as it sizzled on her exposed body and every now and again evinced squeals of pain. The audience clapped and cheered. Luckily I had witnessed scenes like this in the dungeons underneath the big fetish party events so I was not so shocked. The only difference, and it was potentially a shocking difference, was the fact that, in contrast to the usual fetish parties, the victim on this occasion appeared to be a somewhat unwilling one.
To me it was both sickening and exhilarating. The rest of the company must have thought the same as they clapped and cheered further.
Smallbridge saw me just then. “Come on in, old boy! Come in! Valentina, find him a place, there’s a good dear. You want to have a go at that?” he said as he pointed to the Chinese girl left hanging on the cross. Her tall tormentor had stepped away now and the victim just hung there with her head hanging down. “Ecce Virgo,” the randy old lord called out. He may have been an elderly gentleman roué, but undoubtedly still sprightly.
As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness I noticed that some of the supposed women around me, were actually male cross-dressers in female clothing. Or they may even have been transvestites. I am not that good at telling them apart. My attention went back to Smallbridge and I realized suddenly that His Lordship was waiting for my answer.
“Maybe not just now,” I said. It would have been a bit sudden to have dived in like that. Normally, I would have loved this kind of scene, but after my recent experience downstairs I was not really in the mood. Secret cameras can work in red light too. Once bitten…Nor, frankly, did I like to abuse potentially unwilling victims.
“Perhaps you may want a ride with one of our chauffeurs? “, he asked diplomatically. He glanced round looking for his new tasty morsel of flesh and but could not spot him anywhere. “Where is that silly boy, Boris, anyway? Oh yes, he’s probably popped downstairs to the loo. How tiresome. Shall I have him fetched here?”
“No thank you, Lord Smallbridge, please not on my account,” I replied with equal politeness. “I don’t think that kind of ride is quite my cup of tea.”
“Never mind,” said Smallbridge. “ So. Droit de seigneur and all that!”
He got up, still holding his cigarette, and walked towards the crucifixion site. I noticed he was wearing a long white Victorian night dress over his gaunt aristocratic body. Gently he cupped one hand under the girl’s breast and kissed it. Then with equal grace he dropped some hot ash from his cigarette onto it. The girl gave a light shriek.
“Nikolai, there’s a good fellow,” Smallbridge turned to the brute still looming behind us. “Turn her round, will you?”
Nikolai stepped forward to the cross and untied the Chinese girl’s feet and then her hands. He kept tight hold of her left hand as he swung the frightened girl round and slammed her back against the cross, holding her there with his other hand against the small of her back. The tall gangly girl with the candle stepped forward and tied the Chinese girl’s hands again to each arm of the diagonal cross. They both stepped back leaving her feet untied but her bare buttocks and back exposed to the baying and appreciative audience.
Smallbridge ran an admiring hand over her rump and hind quarters as if he were inspecting so much horseflesh.
“A right old Chinese filly, eh Axtell? Ready to be saddled and mounted.”

He took a small leather flogger and applied it several times with moderate strength to her back and her behind. This must have caused her some stinging discomfort as her body writhed and she continued to utter those sharp gulps of intaken breath. They left some marks but broke no skin.
“Olga!” he called to the tall girl with the rope.
He handed Olga his cigarette holder. Then he in turn knelt down behind the Chinese girl and kissed her bum. His oral attack on her rear orifice grew more sustained and intense and she writhed now under this new unexpected bombardment. The company cheered him on ecstatically. Suddenly the old aristo got up, lifted the front of his night dress and presented his emerging member. Olga applied some Vaseline to the girl’s body. Then his Lordship reared up and plunged his weapon straight into the Chinese girl’s back passage. She called out “Please no, Sir!” and then screeched with awe and pain, with her head tilted skywards as if seeking salvation there, while he worked himself into a frenzy and began to ram home his lance with startling vigour uttering wild cries in the meantime, which he had probably picked up on the hunting field. He sustained this charge for more than two minutes, with thrust after thrust rammed home as he grasped the upper sections of the cross crushing his poor victim as she writhed helpless in agony between the cross and his thumping carcass. She looked like one of those baroque paintings of a stigmatized St Teresa of Avila enduring her orgasm of divine pain.
I turned in alarm to Valentina and she returned my look with a look of indifferent disgust. I looked away in embarrassment but could still hear the peer’s incessant gasping.
Suddenly it was Lord Smallbridge who was out of breath, sucking at the air around him, as his withered flanks shuddered and then held still while he unloaded his princely burden into the poor girl’s anal cavity. Now he hung limp, drawing deep breaths, as he pushed himself ever closer to the girl’s body, as if seeking comfort from the receptacle to which he had imparted this hereditary deposit. Finally he let himself emerge. Then he turned round, bowed to the audience and he was given a standing ovation. “Well done, My Lord. Excellent. Bravo”.
To me this scene appeared utterly grotesque. At last, I thought, a level of depravity I have not and never will descend to.
“Untie her please, Olga. She deserves a cheer too,” Smallbridge said.
Olga untied the ravished girl. She appeared somewhat shell-shocked and uncomfortable as she had felt her bum being ripped apart. Nevertheless she managed a quick bow to an appreciative audience, picked up the scanty dress she had dropped on the floor before her ordeal and skipped like a frightened sparrow out of the room. I consoled myself with the hope that there was big compensatory envelope full of crispy notes waiting for her in the next room, but really I could not be sure.
This was all very well but I had not come here for fun and games, but to get some answers. I was ready either to find out more directly from Valentina or else to leave the building altogether. I could see Nikolai was no longer standing behind me so my priority was to seize the occasion to leave that room, if possible, with my Russian companion.
I looked around. I looked for an excuse to leave. “Where’s your friend? Ludmila?”
“In another room. You want to see her, naughty English boy?”
Truth to tell I was getting a bit irritated by her constant mocking and I felt that on this occasion it was not me that was “naughty”.
“Can we go and see Ludmila?” I asked innocently.
“Yes, Petya. Why not? Come with me.” Well, that was easy. I could leave this oppressive company at last and get some straight talking.

Chapter VI - The Invitation

2009-11-24T23:04:00.019Z

The plot thickens....

Lord Smallbridge

"Chris, Emil and I were invited up to the first floor portakabin by Lord Smallbridge. His urbane charm was replaced by a look of black fury. “What are we going to do about this bloody woman, Chris? Obviously she is entitled to ask questions and voice criticisms. But she is not even giving this scheme a chance. And she keeps hogging the press. It can be very damaging to our investors. You saw Mr Sheremovsky’s concern.”
Chris buckled under the onslaught and looked at Emil.
“Well, he mentioned he was concerned about his investors,” Emil commented sarcastically. “I suppose he meant himself.”
“Never mind that,” snarled Smallbridge. “What about this woman Sheldrake?”
“She’s from the opposition,” Emil replied calmly. “We can’t be held responsible for their antics. Our side has an ample majority on the Committee to see this project through. And the other minority parties will support this as long as we address some of the ecological issues and can obtain the right level of community gain.”
“Community gain indeed!” snapped Lord Smallbridge. “You mean the generosity of our funding for your little pet schemes. Well there won’t be any pet schemes if there’s no development. Those Chinks were ready to pull out before our Ruski friend intervened. It’s all down to him. He doesn’t mind the high profile in a way. And he has no link with Russian government’s policy to the Chechens, which Sheldrake complained about, though frankly they deserve everything that they get. But prolonged opposition with the support of the media can build up a head of steam and can cause some of you Councillors to backtrack. I know about local government politics better than you think. Your majority is only 3 votes. I convinced Sheremovsky to go for this site in your Borough after I discussed this with your officers. You better not let me down”. He looked at Chris Finneston. So did I. I was suddenly very concerned. I could see now that there must have been a hidden agenda of which I had not been aware. No wonder the scheme was so dove-tailed to our Borough Plan!
“Lord Smallbridge,” Emil reverted. “We’ll speak to the opposition leader. Most of their side are amenable and business-orientated. I’m sure that we can override the influence of Miss Sheldrake. She’ll be isolated.”
“Even if isolated, she may remains dangerous,” I volunteered. “She is like a woman scorned.”
“Ah, Councillor Axtell,” Lord Smallbridge beamed at me. “We were only fleetingly introduced downstairs. I have been told that you are the main warhorse for taking through this scheme. We were all very impressed with your questions downstairs. Obviously the right man for the job. You were right, Councillor Kapacek, for recommending him. You think that he can contain the Sheldrake woman?”
“I’m sure he can,” said Emil, looking at me with a quizzical smile.
I was dumbfounded. Firstly, because I was being discussed like the prize bull in a stud farm and this was taking place between senior Council figures and an outside developer. It looked like there had been many discussions in quiet corners and collusion in high places of which I had been totally unaware. Obviously I was seen as just a convenient chess piece in this game. Secondly, I was surely the last person able to influence that woman.
“You ignore the fact that she hates me,” I protested.
“That means you’re half way there, Peter,” he chuckled. “After all, what is hate but inverted love? She obviously feels a strong passion for you and you have to find the chemistry to change the nature of the passion.” The others chuckled at this nonsense home-spun philosophy. “Besides,” he winked knowingly, “You’re the ladies’ man on the Council.”
I was dumbfounded. So much so that for once I could not say anything. Here was the Council Lothario imbuing me with his priapic disposition. I was stunned by the sheer hutzpah. Also I kept turning over in my mind as to what would be the best way of tackling Sheldrake’s destructive influence, especially with the media. Should she be won over? Or politically destroyed by ridicule? Or just isolated and marginalized? I could not think of any other options. Would did Emil expect of me anyway? That I would get into bed with her? Perish the thought. I was not into bestiality.
As we walked back down to the ground floor portakabin I turned to Emil. “These are high level stakes, Emil. Just what has been going on?”
“This is too big a project, for it to go wrong. Do what you’ve been doing and it will be fine.”
“By the way, Emil, did you spot Valentina and Ludmila? It’s surely not a coincidence.”
“Who??”
“The waitresses.”
“Yes, what about them?”
“Ludmila was the one that danced for you at “Pinks” on election night. Remember her face?”
“No. Be fair. I wouldn’t recognize her from that end, would I?”
Our colleagues were still eating and socializing when we got into the ground floor level. The drink was flowing freely as was the conversation. Patricia Wallace was making a pass at one of the architects and Ludmila and Valentina were in their element cavorting with their drinks trays around the crowd of drunken notables. Valentina came over to me.
“Hello, naughty English Councillor,” she winked at me.
“How did you get the job here?” I asked her sharply.
She answered a question with a question. “You still have my card?” she asked.
I nodded.
“Then use it!” and she walked back to the assembled company.

When I got back home I fumbled in the pocket of the jacket I wore on election night. Her card was still there but a bit dog-eared, though I had not looked at it even once. Her card included only the name “Valentina Ivanovna Naryshkin, student of mathematics”, and a mobile number. That afternoon I telephoned the number on her card. There was an answer phone message but it sounded quite innocent. “Hi there. This is the flat of Valentina and Ludmila. We are not in at present but please leave a message.” What was curious was that this innocent message was repeated in Russian. If she had a clientele, as I suspected, then it was obviously not just the London tourist trade.
I attended my local Councillor surgery at St Edmunds School that evening and on my way back I dropped round at the Stevens’ house for a cup of tea and a bit of political gossip. Meena Chakravatty was also there. I told them about the day’s events and in particular the developers’ declared commitment to support Swinton Middle School.
Fred Stevens showed me the latest London Evening Standard with a picture on page 5 of the demonstrators outside the sinister looking wire fence of the Pinkerton Plaza site with a large “Trespassers will be prosecuted” notice behind them. The headline read “Russian tycoon plans pleasure palace in Framden” and referred to city analyst gossip about the possibility of Russian oil money being invested in London property, and included some comments about Yakov Sheremovsky’s latest acquisitions of property in the Gulf states and the French Riviera. Melanie Sheldrake was quoted as saying that the secretive behaviour of Sheremovsky and his unwillingness to open up the site to the public, which included the barricading of an ancient public way, required firm opposition. She accused Framden Council of caving in to economic pressure and ignoring the interests of Framden’s inhabitants. She raised the threatened view from Daffodil Hill again. The final sentence in this report read. “No spokesman from Framden Council was available for comment.”
I was speechless with anger. I rang Emil but he was not at home and he was not replying on his mobile. I rang our Council leader, Ted Grayson. He had already seen the story and had been frantically trying to contact Emil as well to prepare a proper reaction. I went over the day’s events with him.
“Will you be free to-morrow? It’s a Wednesday.”
I said “Yes”.
“You and I need to have a meeting. Along with Emil, Andy Trosser, the local ward Councillors for the Pinkerton site, Chris Finneston from Planning, the Chief Executive, and someone from the Press Office. We have to react.”
“I think, Ted, we should go further. We need to take the offensive. Hold a public meeting. Shame the opposition into supporting us. Perhaps bring the developers into it. Lord Smallbridge will be a very convincing front-man.”
“Good idea, Peter!” said Grayson. “We’ll decide that at the meeting. I’ll get the wheels in motion. 10 o’clock should be OK to catch the deadline for next day’s “Standard” and for the Framden Journal Friday edition.”
“You are so masterly,” Meena cooed at me as she watched me haranguing Grayson. It was almost embarrassing.
Just then my mobile rang. It was Valentina.
“Hello there, naughty English boy. We’re having a party!”
“Where are you? What’s the address?”
“I don’t know if I can tell you. Can we trust him, Ludmila?” There was a muffled giggle over the phone.
“Oh no! Definitely not”
“Valentina, don’t give me that crap. What’s the bloody address?” She was trying my patience.
Her telephone went dead. I was about to redial but stopped short as I noticed Meena and the Stevens looking at me somewhat alarmed.
“It’s a Council tenant. Having problem with a noisy neighbour. She’s afraid to give me her address, poor dear,” I explained to them.
“Ring her back,” said Meena. “Tell her we’ll go together.”
“It may get a bit rough,” I explained. “It’s the Stanhope Estate. I know the building anyway. I’ll drive there and ring again. Look guys, thanks for everything and don’t wait up for me.”
I got back to the car, drove to the end of the street, stopped and rang Valentina’s mobile number again. It was busy and then came the same message as before.
I swore, redialled and then swore again. Bitch!!
I drove slowly in the direction of my part of the Borough when the mobile phone rang again.
“Petya. You naughty English boy!”
“Christ! Valentina, tell me where you are?”
“Not if you swear at me again.”
“Swear? I didn’t swear.”
“You are such a liar, you naughty naughty boy. I cannot invite you to my party like this. You should get your botty spanked.”
“Cut the crap, will you. What’s the address?”
There was a moment’s discussion, and then Valentina came back on the line. “Drive to Eddington. You know, the big train station. Then call us again. But only if you are going to be well behaved.”

Eddington Station

Twenty minutes later I was outside Eddington Main Line. I stopped the car and rang again. Valentina answered.
“What is the make of your car, big boy?”
“It’s a new red Ford Focus. Why?”
“Wait!”
I waited at least ten minutes. Suddenly, the passenger door opened. A large grim looking man, resembling a bouncer, opened the door. “Are you Peter?” he barked at me. It was strange and alarming but also, somehow, a familiar question.

I gulped and nodded. He promptly sat next to me in the passenger seat. “Drive car to the other side of station”, he ordered. I did as he asked, racked both by anxiety and curiosity. As I parked the car, he said, “OK. Out!”
I got out one side, he the other. “Please lock the car. Come with me.” He towered over me. I was the standard 5’11, but he must have been about 6’6 or more. To my alarm I remembered the big guy who had followed Sheremovsky out of the portakabin. It was the same man. His first question also reminded me with something more than a shock that I had indeed met him before. He had been at Pinks and had taken my money as he barred my access to Valentina.
Meekly now, I followed him but without even looking where I was going. I was very intrigued by my apparent adventure and this anaesthetised me from any sense of physical danger.
We passed from the railway approach road to a narrow short cul de sac with 3 of those small seedy hotels associated with backpackers and bed and breakfast dives, of the type the Council used to use for the homeless, but which was now used to house immigrants. We passed these and came to another nondescript terrace house but without any neon lights or signboards of any kind. Yet it looked like it had been a hotel at one time. The windows were covered by shutters on the inside but chinks of light could be seen through them.

House of Shame

The giant hammered on the door. “It’s Nikolai!”
The door opened and there on the welcoming mat, in front of a large staircase, stood Valentina. I was amazed to see that she was dressed in a red PVC suit and had a riding crop in her hand. “Come in you naughty English boy. Welcome to the House of Shame.”

Chapter V The Site Visit

2009-11-12T18:51:00.005Z

The story continues..

"The site visit was arranged for 2 weeks later. Councillors and planning officers gathered together at the Civic Centre and a Council bus collected them and drove them to the site. Jim was driving. There was no sign anywhere of Melanie Sheldrake. The site was just a derelict plot of land of the type that planners called “a brownfield site”. There were some dilapidated industrial buildings and portakabins still left on the site, surrounded by barbed wire fencing. At the entrance to the gate, which was padlocked, stood a group of about twenty people, including a journalist and photographer from the Framden Journal. Two of the protesters bore placards, saying “SAVE DAFFODIL HILL” and “NO RUSSIAN BLOOD MONEY HERE”.
“Well, I’m glad that the planning issues are so clear cut,” joked Emil as our bus pulled up at the gate just opposite the protesters. Two representatives from the site developers met us here, one with a key to open the gate. Just as the gate swung open, a blue Alfa-Romeo pulled up next to the entrance. It was Melanie Sheldrake. She made towards the protesters who greeted her with clapping and cheers. We could see her glad-handing the small crowd.

Jim hesitated and turned to Chris Finneston. “Do we wait for Councillor Miss Sheldrake?”
Chris looked at Emil and me, then at the 3 opposition Councillors. One of them, Philip Egerton, got out the bus and walked up to the crowd. Immediately the Ann Robinson look alike drew him in and introduced him to some of the protesters. After a short conversation Egerton came back to the bus.
“She will follow us in her car”, he explained.
“We cannot let her in unless she comes now,” said the development agent. “We have to lock the gate behind us.”
A frustrated Egerton walked back to the group. A discussion followed. We could see Egerton gesticulating, pointing first to our bus and then to the gate and the site beyond.
“Fucking Queen Bee!” muttered Emil as we watched this charade.
“Councillor Kapacek, please! Language!” exclaimed Patricia Wallace, another female opposition councillor on the bus.
“My apologies. I didn’t really say that, did I? It’s the bloody kids. I pick it up from them”.
Meanwhile, Egerton came back again to the bus.
“Please just give her a minute and she will follow us in her car”.
After another five minutes, we could see her walking to the car sill in animated conversation with one of the protesters. Eventually she got into the car and then sounded her horn and flashed her headlights at us.
Jim started his motor. We drove in convoy. Leading us was a security van driven by one of the developer’s agents, next came our bus, then the blue Alfa-Romeo, and at the rear another car with the remaining representative who had stopped to lock the gate to the jeers of the protesters. “She said to them to wait as she will speak to them later,” explained Egerton pointing to the Alfa and then to the protesters.
“Fucking Queen Bee,” I could hear Emil repeating himself, but a little more quietly this time.
The convoy continued for nearly 3 minutes down a concrete drive passing some empty industrial buildings on the way and a bailey bridge over the canal. We turned a corner between the buildings and arrived in a courtyard in the middle of which stood a gaunt metal structure bearing 3 large portakabins connected by a metal staircase. A mixed delegation of Oriental and European gentlemen was waiting for us as we clambered out of the Council bus. They were flanked by 2 young ladies dressed as waitresses carrying a tray of drinks. As we grabbed the drinks from the bobbing young waitresses I sensed one of them giving me a knowing look and then grinning towards her companion. While I pondered this in my sub-conscious, I could see the head of the delegation gesture us with a wave of his hand into the portakabin on the ground floor.

We all stepped singly through the portakabin door. There were about twenty chairs around the walls of the main room and two large tables. One of them was covered with a white tablecloth but was otherwise empty, except for a jug of water, some glasses and several bottles of wine at one end.
However our eyes were drawn automatically to the other table. It was covered by a vast maquette – a plastic model of a large multiplex housing estate, including 2 towers over 12 storeys high. They seemed to me even higher than the tower of our civic centre. One distinctive feature was the canal passing through the middle of the estate but that was the only common feature between what we could see on the model and the reality of the derelict brownfield site around us. The buildings formed up mainly on one side of the canal with 2 distinct towers and a lower level of 5 storey buildings in a semi-circular structure. One wing of these 5 storey buildings actually crossed the canal to join a further 7 storey building on the other side. One of the towers and some of the more low-lying buildings were adorned with large balconies, which on closer inspection looked like large conservatories. Inside the semi-circular structure on the southern bank of the canal was a plaza, with a dipped area forming the seeming replica of an amphitheatre punctuated by two water features, namely a waterfall and a fountain. There was also a raised platform on the plaza, with what appeared to be a glass pavilion and which corresponded to a wider gap between the buildings, probably with the intention of forming a long distance view over London’s landmark high towers and church steeples towards the royal parks. The rest of the plaza was surrounded by shops and restaurants and at one end included access to motor vehicles. The canal was also criss-crossed by 3 pedestrian bridges consisting of imaginative curves that would have done justice to the old Penguin Enclosure at London Zoo. Beyond the built up section of the canal was an extended terraced garden. A service road dipped low into the site underneath the buildings and led presumably to some underground parking, while a raised section of the service road branched off and up into the plaza. Planning drawings and artistic impressions of the canal side and the plaza were pinned up around the walls.
We stood looking silently at this maquette in sheer awe, our drinks still in our hand. A panelled wall was closed up behind us as we gathered round the model. A general murmur of admiration arose at the boldness of the design. I looked approvingly at Emil and at Chris Finneston and nodded enthusiastically. Chris beamed back at me with what I thought was excessive enthusiasm for a Borough Chief Planning Officer.
“Welcome to Pinkerton Plaza,” a heavily accented voice spoke behind us. We spun round. A gentleman we had not seen before stood there, surrounded by a reverential semi-circle of the host team. He was a short stocky man with a sallow hard face. His shoulders were broad and his neck was short so that his head appeared to emerge straight from his body. “Please make yourselves comfortable.” It sounded like an order. Yet his hard face was creased by a smile in an obvious attempt to sound friendly and welcoming.
“I am delighted to meet you here. My name is Yakov Sheremovsky. I am the Managing Director of Nafta Ural and, apart from that, I am the newly appointed Chairman of this development consortium. I deeply regret that I cannot spend any time with you just at the moment as I have other pressing business following my recent appointment. No, do not worry. I am not buying a football club.” We all laughed, almost hysterically, at this joke.
“I know that this ambitious project may seem controversial to some of you and I understand that due to lack of information about the details and of our intentions, some people choose to criticize our development. That is only fair. However some of the criticism seems more personal. And that is not fair. I must say that I feel personally insulted by local newspaper headlines from last week. This is not good for my investors. Also,” he added menacingly, “it is not good for Framden.” Here he held up a copy of the Framden Journal bearing the headline “Councillor Slams Russian Project” with a picture of Melanie Sheldrake underneath the headline. We all glanced at her as she glared back.
Sheremovsky did not even give her a glance. His face turned again into that menacing smile. “I am sure however that today we will have an opportunity to clarify any matters of concern. This project is too important for us and for you to be thrown away with the garbage. Here is my good friend, Lord Smallbridge, who is the Vice-Chairman of the enterprise and he will be your host this morning. Next to him is the distinguished architect Sir William Tallis who, we are proud to say, is our main consultant for this project. For the moment therefore I must leave you, but in good hands. Please accept my sincerest apologies.”
With that he turned around and was gone, followed by a big brute of a guy, who had been standing quietly by the entrance. I glanced through the window outside and saw a long black limousine waiting for Sheremovsky as he and his gorilla emerged from the portakabin. It had not been there before when we arrived. I was particularly struck by the appearance of the bodyguard. I had seen him somewhere before.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the plummy voice of Lord Smallbridge could be heard. “Let me introduce my two fellow directors (he hastily introduced the two oriental businessmen by name), and the architects and engineers engaged in this grand project, which we are certain will be of great benefit to the residents of the London Borough of Framden.”
The two waitresses brought round more drinks. A camera man came forward out of nowhere and started taking pictures of us as we stood around the model. Eventually we were invited to sit on chairs around the maquette.
First, Lord Smallbridge spoke about what he saw as the economic and social impact of the development. Then Sir William Tallis and his assistant, a Mr Lamsden, were introduced by Smallbridge and began a detailed 30 minute presentation of the role of each building and how the plaza would be utilized, including a short film with virtual reality models of the plaza complex day and night. Two of the high rise buildings (those without the balconies) were due to be offices for companies which, we were told, had already proved their commitment to the site by investing money into the speculative land purchase. The plaza, the canal side walk and the shops were for the use of the general public, not just for the residents and employees on the development. The large glass frontage opposite the amphitheatre was supposed to be a gymnasium and swimming bath to be opened as a private club, but it could be open at certain times for the use of schools and youth groups. The pavilion on the terrace above the plaza was supposed to be the entrance to a restaurant which would serve people in the area below the terrace during the colder months but would have open air al fresco dining in the summer on the terrace itself. The branch of the service road which stretched up to the plaza was only for removal vans, taxis and emergency vehicles and would be divided from the main part of the plaza. All other cars as well as office deliveries were through the underground car park. It looked too good to be true.
As Council spokesman I threw in the usual questions. Access by foot to buses and the nearest underground station? Pedestrian access to the nearest school – Swinton Middle (the one that Meena had been so concerned about)? Wheelchair accces? Reassurances about public access to the canal walk and provisions for bicycles? Was there a tree planting programme? Would the shops include a supermarket? (Yes). What size would it be and how would it affect the nearby local shopping centre? What other entertainments had been envisaged for the site? Cinema? Community centre? Bowling alley? Electronic games room? Pub? The answers came in pat as if there was nothing that concerned them more than to comply with our own Borough Plan.
Melanie Sheldrake bided her time. Suddenly she seized the initiative during a pause in my questioning. She asked Sir William searching questions about the view from Daffodil Hill nearly a mile away, blighted, in her eyes, by these high rise buildings. She said she was concerned about women being raped in the underground car park and groups of youths skateboarding on the amphitheatre steps while gangs would terrorize the plaza area. Here Lord Smallbridge intervened to point out that there would be a management contract ensuring proper 24 hour uniformed security on the site. She threw in questions about rubbish being thrown in the canal (by who, exactly?) and her concern over the erection of this “high rise concrete jungle”. Would the room sizes be adequate, she suddenly asked, and would residents have the right to regulate their own heating?
These were scatter gun type questions, where each answer she was given was ignored as she pounced on to the next subject. Consequently, even when she raised some valid concerns there was no opportunity for any one else to follow it up properly. Her questioning and her body language revealed her hostility to the whole project and also betrayed an ignorance of planning procedure that might have given any coherent substance to the wide range of her objections. It also revealed the sheer force of her personality as she appeared to have shuffled her colleagues from her own party in to a sceptical approach to the project.
I watched her angry face with some alarm and disgust. Her antics were infuriating and undermining the potential harmony between developers and the council as to how this useful and practical proposal could proceed. Yet as she continued I began watching her with a sort of fascination. As she leaned across the model pointing to the pedestrian bridges over the canal the contours of her body and her curvaceous rear became more and more explicit.
As she leaned over further I was concerned that her left gesticulating arm would crash into one of the towers, while her breast seemed to skirt over the top of the 7-storey building. As I was nearest I leaned forward and placed my right hand outstretched in the air as a symbolic barrier between her body and the tower. She stopped short suddenly, looked at me with obvious disgust, straightened up and continued her diatribe.
The architects were polite in their response but were in no position to show offence at her remarks. So I felt that it was my job to bring her into line.
“Councillor Miss Sheldrake should be aware that for the time being we are only considering outline planning permission, so many of the details she raises are not relevant at this stage.”
Sir William concurred politely with my comment though he did seek to answer some of her broader concerns. He sounded gracious but also a little patronizing in his replies. Chris Finneston chimed in at this moment to say that outline planning was on the agenda for the July meeting of the Planning Committee and the details of the full application would be brought to a special meeting of the Committee in October. “Well, Daffodil Hill is an issue for outline planning and so is public access,” she answered. “If Councillor Axtell wants to skirt over these crucial issues and ignore his constituents there is no reason for the rest of us to do the same.”
Before I could reply, Lord Smallbridge announced that some refreshment had been prepared for us. He drew back the panelled wall behind us and revealed the second table covered now with a very rich buffet.
“Well I’m not wasting my time at this pig trough,” she snapped rudely as she gathered up her papers. “I need to speak to the real people of the Borough. Barbed wires are preventing them from seeing this hideous plan.” She stalked off to her Alfa-Romeo parked outside the portakabin and drove off.
“Well good riddance to her,” a giggly female voice whispered in my air. I turned round in surprise. It was the saucy waitress. “Another drink, Petya?”
Good god! It can’t be! But it is. I recognized my old acquaintance from “Pinks”. It was Valentina. Valentina from Vitebsk. Why did I not spot her immediately? Of course the pigtails were gone and her blonde hair had been lifted up over her head. Also I had not expected to see her in this new context.
The other waitress, I then realised, was her friend Ludmila.

2009-11-08T21:45:00.000Z

Chapter IV Pinkerton Plaza (second part)

2009-11-08T21:05:00.005Z

Now we are getting somewhere.
My next clash with the Sheldrake bitch, and your invtiation to view the Pinkerton Plaza project, which became my obsession for the next couple of months.

" The biggest planning application by far on the agenda was a large canal-side development scheme worth £2 billion, involving flats, shops, restaurants, a leisure centre and a canal-side park and recreation area. It was called the Pinkerton Plaza Development. As this application had already drawn a restless crowd of protesters, while representatives of the developers were also present it was automatically put first on the agenda.
There was Korean and Hong Kong investment in the project and it was rumoured that one of the Russian oil oligarchs had now put up half of the money. Of course we had no love of Russian oligarchs. We were also aware that this scheme would meet enormous opposition as it would give us high rise development in an area that could block out London views for courting couples and kite flyers from Daffodil Hill and that it would add considerably to traffic congestion in the southern part of the borough. We knew though that the scheme appeared to have enormous benefits too, including an increase in local jobs, the introduction of a new park and new bus stops and the filling in of an unpleasant neglected inner city site once called the Claybury Industrial Estate. Chris Finneston and his staff had seen to that. This area was still anachronistically zoned as industrial on our Borough Plan but we were nothing if not flexible on these issues. With the development, we were told, there was also likely to be an influx of young children to this part of the Borough, in an area where there are two existing primary schools with excess capacity and which would otherwise have to be merged or closed. (I had consulted Meena on just that point the night before).
If we were to acquiesce in the plan, we would probably have to put forward proposals to the developers to fund what we called “community gain”. Here, the richer the development, the longer our shopping list. We needed to draw up such a list and we also knew that we could also argue endlessly about other details such as parking and traffic restrictions.
Consequently when we had our first group pre-meeting on the previous evening we had agreed that we would meet the developers and order a site visit. We had been given to understand that the main opposition party would ask for the same thing. So, effectively, we assumed that the Committee meeting the following day would be a done deal.
This is why, at the full Planning Committee meeting, I put forward this proposition to hold a site visit as a formal motion without a prolonged speech. This required little effort or preparation on my side, because it seemed obvious that our side would propose it and that the majority of the opposition would concur. Also there was too much at stake for a hasty decision to be made too early for or against the scheme. So it seemed superfluous to discuss the merits of the scheme in open forum at this stage. Even those members of the public who had turned up to protest at this development accepted this in silence.
Following my motion for a site visit, Emil was about to move to next business when Sheldrake indicated her wish to speak.
“Councillor Miss Sheldrake.”
Incidentally there was a strange convention in the Council, dating back to the radical 1980s that women councillors on our majority side were referred to simply with their surnames in the same way as male councillors. However the opposition, traditionally sexist, had insisted that their female councillors retain their female title of Mrs or Miss or Ms or whatever.
Anyway Melanie Sheldrake now had permission to speak. To our astonishment she demanded outright rejection of the scheme there and then. The meeting sprang into life. She immediately raised the emotive issues of the historic views from Daffodil Hill and then proceeded into a long ramble about traffic congestion throughout the borough and how we had always neglected the car user in all our considerations. I could see the local Framden Journal correspondent avidly copying down her speech. Members of the public were clapping, some even cheering. The other opposition Councillors were keeping their heads low avoiding eye contact with us or with each other.
Suddenly she glared at me. “And here we have Councillor Axtell, lap dog to every third world developer who chooses to spend his ill gotten gains in this Borough, trying to arrange another freebie booze up for himself and his colleagues…..”
The Committee members erupted with anger at this. Emil was calling her to order: “Councillor Miss Sheldrake! Councillor Miss Sheldrake! These comments are insulting and out of order and must be withdrawn.”
She tried to speak further but the uproar prevented her. In the hubbub, Emil’s voice could still be heard. “Councillor Miss Sheldrake. You must withdraw these comments. They are clearly racist. And you must withdraw the personal insults concerning Councillor Axtell and apologize to him.”
There was silence and all eyes were on her. At first my cheeks had been burning with indignation at her outburst. On reflection I realized that I had expected nothing less from her and in a strange sort of way I was flattered by her accusations and her hatred. It was so personal it was doing her no good politically. Apart from that the Committee, including the Chairman, had already taken my side. In fact, when I had recovered from the surprise, I found that I was feeling no animosity towards her whatsoever over this. Calmly I rested my cheek on my arm and waited for her response.
After a short silence, Melanie Sheldrake spoke. “Chair, I unreservedly apologize if my remarks about third world developers could be construed as racist as that was not my intention. Please remember however that Russians even now are killing Chechens in a vicious war of occupation.” (“Councillor Miss Sheldrake, that is not relevant”, I could hear Emil vainly trying to intervene.) “As for Councillor Axtell, I apologize for using the phrase “lap-dog” as that is not really fair to dogs of any kind, certainly not the ones I treat in my surgery.” That was it? After a moment’s hesitation, some of the Committee members burst out laughing, though others were still horrified by her earlier remarks and her cynical justification. Emil was already chuckling, somewhat shamefacedly.
In the confusion she looked brazenly at me. “Touché, you bitch,” I thought.
I asked the Chair to speak. Emil looked at me quizzically but allowed me to speak.
“Chair, fellow Councillors, I think that many of Councillor Sheldrake’s concerns over this development can be addressed when we meet the developers at the site visit. She will of course be able to attend the meeting herself. I hope that she does, so as to make her points. Apart from that I am not seeking any personal apologies from Councillor Miss Sheldrake. She is entitled to her views and her idiosyncrasies. Provided that she can promise me one thing. That as a lap-dog, I do NOT end up in her surgery.”
Now the whole Committee, including the attending officers and members of the public, was laughing. I looked directly at Sheldrake. She looked at me. Was I imagining it, or was there less steel in her eyes? There was a brightness, but not that of hate. Were not her eyes now saying in turn, “Touché!”? "

Yes! This is Melanie Sheldrake

Chapetr IV Pinkerton Plaza (first part)

2009-11-06T23:55:00.001Z

OK. The story continues.
First my other fetish other than spanking. Here goes:

"Chapter IV Pinkerton Plaza

I had always liked planning issues. As the weighty responsibilities of office descended like a heavy rain cloud on the newly elected councillors, this thought remained uppermost in my mind. Even as we attended our refresher courses on the Byzantine complexity of council finance and on coping with the sudden inflow of council background papers and documentation and learning how to digest the contents and store the papers, I was already glancing with anticipation at our first Planning Committee agenda and scanning planning notices in the local paper. I must have seemed a nerd to some of my colleagues as I learned new computer skills and remembered key council passwords mainly in relation to the contentious planning issues. Of course I was committed to dealing with our first casework from our constituents, most of which had been picked up during the canvassing in the election campaign, and the rest from our first two surgery meetings, but I managed to shove off most of the housing and school issues on to Meena and concentrated on those dealing with planning, traffic and the environment.
To others planning questions may seem abstract or obscure, but to me they are the bread and butter of urban life. Most Council responsibilities, such as education, social services, council housing, libraries, parks, street cleaning, waste collection, consumer protection, are hampered by financial restraints. Yet you are saddled with the statutory obligation to carry out these activities to an advanced standard or you can be fined or impeached. It was responsibility without power.
With planning the reverse is true. It is power with only minimal responsibility. Planning decisions are far more wide ranging because it is other people or organizations who spend the money, and you merely tell them if they can do it or not. You can sit there like God Almighty, while humble individuals, small businesses, corporations and state institutions proceed in a cavalcade in front of you with their proposals ranging from a mere pavement crossover or a humble garage extension to a multi-million pound shopping and office complex. If you say you are not sure, you could be wined and dined by the most powerful as you deliberate your decision. Even the smallest and humblest Councillor can be treated like royalty and participate in these life or death issues. Does the Sheikh of Qatar want to build a squash court in the back garden of his London residence and needs to remove a few trees? You ask for a site visit, and traipse around the grounds with his London site manager as you gawp at his chandeliers and golden staircase and wolf down the proffered wine and canapés. Eventually you condescend to approve the planning application.
Of course you have to be careful with these giant corporations. There are statutory limitations, even when there are no financial ones. You may not like an ambitious residential project with poor architectural designs, a loss of unused green space and a sharp increase in local traffic and parking problems. Also local residents may be up in arms against it and start preparing petitions and demonstrations outside your office. Yet you cannot just throw the scheme out because you don’t like it or it is unpopular with your electorate. If you do, the developers will almost certainly appeal to the Planning Inspectorate in the Deputy Prime Minister’s Office and if your grounds for rejection are not considered sound or fair, the whole scheme is foisted on to you, warts and all. (Why the Deputy Prime Minster’s Office, you may ask? Because that is the way Whitehall has been rearranged to fit that phenomenon called John Prescott.)
So you have to introduce a bit of horse-play. If you think that there are some merits in the scheme then you ask for changes in the details you detest and impose conditions restricting, say, the amount of parking space, hours of use, etc. and you seek so-called “community gain”, where you ask the developer to introduce a proportion of cheaper homes for key workers like nurses or teachers, or contribute to a bus route or pay for a pelican road crossing at a nearby site with a large accident problem. Even then, that may not be the end of your problem because on the one hand, a corporation could appeal against conditions they consider too harsh, and on the other you have to explain to an enraged group of residents why you are eventually giving consent to a vastly unpopular development which will impinge on their immediate neighbourhood. You have to have the wisdom of Solomon and the cunning of Ulysses to contend with planning issues on a Council. These are the sort of issues that could cost you an election, if you make the wrong choice.
To prevent the Councillors in the majority party wandering off in all directions on these complex issues we always held a group pre-meeting on the day before the Planning Committee to decide on our party policy. Emil, who had discussed the more serious issues with the Council Leader and with the senior planning officers beforehand, would lead the discussion. Once we decided our policy we were supposed to stick to it at the open session of the Committee meeting. My role as Committee Vice-Chair was to act as the majority party spokesman. So I became the Oracle, the voice of the Council on some of the most controversial issues facing our Borough. As soon as I have made my position known at a Committee meeting every observer was aware which way the vote would go. “Councillor Axtell has spoken. Framden Council has decided. The multi-million pound scheme is off/on.” Heady stuff!
Do not judge me too harshly. I am merely being honest with myself. Behind my publicity-seeking ego and disguised under my modest manufactured self-effacing exterior, I’m still an honest regular guy with dreams of doing good for my fellow men and women. I still fight for maximizing the use of public transport against the encroachment of the car, for protecting the small family stores against the supermarket giants, for saving meadows and trees and familiar old landmarks against the incursion of breezeblock developers. I preferred the quiet, decent human-sized streets with parents walking their children to school and the traditional old shopping centres to the concrete monstrosities of today with their wind-blown empty plazas, multi-layered car parks and monotonous shopping chains. So, yes, dream on. I am ambitious enough to want to leave a giant footprint on my world. But I am still idealistic enough to prefer that footprint to be a hanging garden rather than a tower block.

At our first Planning Committee meeting, a few weeks after the election, Chris Finneston, our Chief Planning Officer, presented us with a huge agenda of strategic planning applications.
As usual we were seated in a horse-shoe shaped arrangement of tables in Committee Room 3, with Emil at the head, me on one side of him and the Committee Secretary and the Legal Assistant on the other side. Beyond the legal officer sat three Planning Officers, namely, Chris Finneston and his usual minions, Peter Bulmer and Suleiman Kurali. Then there was a representative from the Traffic Engineer’s department and then officers from other department. Beyond them again sat the opposition Councillors headed by a scowling sceptical Melanie Sheldrake.
To my left sat my own party colleagues, a real mixed bag of busybodies who generally showed little interest in anything unless it directly affected the wards they represented and were liable to cause a real stink with residents associations. The only one who had a more general interest was Councillor Potts, our working class veteran, who was interested in making life as difficult as possible for the Planning Officers as he settled old grudges over planning schemes he had failed to prevent. He was the barrack-room planner who knew every clause in the Borough Plan and the planning manual by heart but had little inkling of their spirit. He would sit there scanning the planning agenda with great interest and occasionally picking his nose and smearing the bogeys seemingly surreptitiously over his papers, thinking nobody could see him.
Next to him was Councillor Craven who spent most of the meeting reading her correspondence and scribbling hand-written replies for eventual retyping by the Council typing pool. She and I did not get on too well for reasons I could not quite understand at first. We just did not click from the beginning. I mentioned this to Meena who immediately laughed. “She’s got a girlfriend, you blind twit,” she laughed, “what on earth would she want you for?”
Then there was Councillor Perera, another embittered soul, whose wrinkled features failed to disguise his equal contempt both for the opposition and for Emil and myself.
Councillor Kausar was friendly but totally clueless. Unless the planning application applied to a mosque or to a medressa, or to one of his acquaintances or their businesses, then he was just not there. Not mentally anyway. He would sit there dreaming with his gaze fixed on some point outside the window as Finneston explained some important planning detail. When it came to a vote, he would be watching me to get the right lead as to how he should vote.
As for Councillor Graham, he was the least experienced. His Jamaican parents were obviously proud to see their son Noel become the first black Councillor on Framden Council but Planning was not quite the field that he or they thought he should be in. He had wanted to play a bigger role in the education side. Yet I sensed from the pre-meeting the previous day that the planning bug had bit him too. He did not say much. He was on a learning curve after all. But it was a sharp learning curve. He too watched for my hidden signals but with a readier understanding of the issues involved.
The rest of the scene was completed by the 3 rows of chairs put out for the public. Behind and around the chairs were self-standing panels with planning application drawings. The public normally consisted of a local journalist (probably the one who had drawn the short straw when they drew lots on apportioning their jobs), a few professional planning nerds, occasional developers anxious to see their planning applications approved and delegations of residents or tenants association anxious to see how their petitions of objection would be handled. The public had no say at this stage of the process. Only councillors who were Planning Committee members and Council officers could speak at this stage. The only concession to objectors was that a local Councillor who was not a member of the committee would be allowed to speak on the issue on their behalf. Here all the general public could do was to observe that each issue was being considered on its merits. However it was not always easy for concerned members of the public to sit still while the future of their road or their favourite scheme was being discussed. They might sometimes shout something out or grumble publicly, but that could lead to them being asked to leave the meeting. This was the Councillors’ show...."

Chapter III - The Oath of Office

2009-10-31T22:47:00.000Z

OK, guys and girls,here is the next chapter of my memoirs

Next morning I woke late. My mother woke me up. Not to spank me of course, but to congratulate me on becoming a Councillor again and to tell me that my cereals and my coffee were ready on the kitchen table.
I should explain that Mum had a separate room in the two storey apartment I had purchased six years ago in an Edwardian apartment block when my professional partnership began to flourish. I’m a junior (very junior) partner in a quantity surveying business. God, how boring! I know, I know. In purchasing this flat I had however also taken advantage of the proceeds from the sale of my parents’ house in Maida Vale after my father had died. The deal was that my Mother would live with me in a separate room within the flat but that she would not interfere in my life, my marriage plans, my business or my political career.
Fat chance of that! Yes, it is true that she did not interfere in my work. I’ll grant her that. Perhaps she thought our secretarial staff would look after me sufficiently. For the rest I had to contend with the constant interference of a sprightly 78 year old lady, wandering around every corner of my flat. She was pampering her only son, of course. That was the general excuse. It was probably a benign interference in so far as she was ready to make me breakfast every morning and cook me meals when I was home in the evening. That was still tolerable. Even when she complained that I did not tell her when I would be home for dinner. It was difficult to blame her, I suppose, as her only ambition now was my future. That and the desire to have a long cruise in the Caribbean.
She believed however that she had a God-given predisposition to find fault with every possible female visitor to my flat. She always managed to be present with her obligatory cigarette, in the television room alongside the front hall as soon as she heard more than one voice after the front door had opened. For male friends of mine like Emil and Fred Stevens this was not a problem. A quick and very polite exchange of greetings would satisfy both parties, except of course in moments of greater political crisis when my mother wanted to hear a blow by blow account of how each problem was going to be tackled and how she had warned her son that such problems will arise if the views of residential organizations are ignored or we ignored the problem of immigrants, a somewhat embarrassing refrain of hers which we treated with polite disdain. In any case my parents had never fully understood why I did not follow in their political footsteps. My Mother was resigned to it now, however, even if I did not fully appreciate the gains she thought Britain had made from that “nice Mrs Thatcher.”
Worse if the visitors were women, especially women on their own. She constantly made herself visible in a sort of pro-active “absence” which entailed her brushing against us every now and again, either in the TV room, or the computer room, or the kitchen and then beating a seemingly apologetic temporary retreat before re-appearing again at a different vantage point and apologizing again, while we sat and talked, mostly politics, or transport problems, or films and theatre and other similar pursuits. She was even able to slip into the bathroom or my bedroom when the action had moved there if she thought this kind of intervention was necessary in order to complete her intelligence dossier on my new companion. Subtlety was not her foremost talent. On one occasion she managed to bump into my bedroom “by mistake” when my head lay buried between my visitor’s long legs, which happened to be spectacularly spread-eagled upwards against the headboard at the time.
“Sorry, dear, I didn’t know you were busy. I thought your TV was on. Did you want a cup of tea?”
“M-U-U-M!!!!”
Needless to say this sort of preventative diplomacy served its purpose. I no longer invited women into my flat if my intentions were other than merely social or political. Perhaps for those same reasons I did not have any permanent partner, let alone a wife.
I came to the Civic Centre and made my way to the Chief Executive’s office at the appointed time. I was to swear my oath of office to serve the people of the Borough. This was done ward by ward throughout the day so the 3 Corindale Ward Councillors were invited to appear together. Meena was already in the waiting room and greeted me with a beaming smile. Melanie Sheldrake was also there and met me with her customary scowl.
Meena was in bubbly high spirits. She was the Framden North Constituency Party vice-Chair and a history post-graduate student at UCL. She was a bright and chirpy 28 year old, with a wholesome look that appealed to the public. She was expected to go far in politics but this was her first time as Councillor. Like me she did not live in Corindale, so she was dependent on me for advice, both on Council matters and on the local issues in Corindale. I took the opportunity to warn her about the importance of the Party Group meeting that same evening, when Councillors lay down their markers over their future posts and tasks on the Council. I promised to back her in her bid to become Vice-Chair of the Education Committee as long as she backed me on becoming either Chair or deputy Chair of the Planning Committee. We kept our voices low so that the bitch Sheldrake could not hear us. During a pause in our animated conversation the hellfire witch suddenly leaned forward towards Meena and asked her how Ching was.
I remembered suddenly that the two women were on talking terms. They had actually met during the count and discussed pleasantries. For nearly half an hour. What on earth did they talk about? And who is Ching?
Their apparent friendliness was surprising. Our side called Melanie Sheldrake the “Ice Maiden” or “Anne Robinson” after the sadistic TV presenter, and with reason. Despite her somewhat handsome face and smart dresses, despite her often smoky voice, despite the fact that to an objective eye she had an attractive body (yes, her breasts were small but her legs were shapely and the shape of her rear could be seen under her knee-length skirt) yet she was feared and reviled as a reactionary harridan. Without raising her voice, she tore into my colleagues during committee and Council meetings and at public gatherings with the cold ferocity of a barracuda and her face would take on a haughty look of disdain. Recently she had made national headlines when she made mincemeat of the Council’s attempt to close a school which had failed an inspector’s report. She watched our budget-making and our long term financial plans like a hawk.
She had reserved most of her venom for two people. One was our diminutive Leader of the Council, Ted Grayson. This was understandable because of the arrogant way in which he managed to dismiss and humiliate most of the opposition speakers.
The second was myself.
There were historical reasons for that. When she had first campaigned against the housing project in the Wilkinson School Playing Fields she had mounted a spirited campaign and sought to ambush the sitting Councillors, including myself, by holding a public meeting to which even the local MP had been invited. There was a London Voice camera crew present, as well as a couple of local journalists. I had sensed a trap and warned off the MP from coming. I had then spoken on his behalf, as well as that of the Council, outlining details of housing needs in the Borough. My comments sought to calm the crowd but they remained suspicious. To strengthen my arguments I mocked Melanie Sheldrake’s fanatical opposition, mimicked her voice and rubbished her claim that the new housing estate would consist entirely of council houses. I promised that the recreation land would give access to local people. I then accused her of stirring up this issue either through ignorance or duplicity. Either way, I claimed, she was deliberately misleading the public.
When she protested, I had challenged her: “Are you just ignorant, or are you lying? Which is it?” As she had tried to mumble her answer, I kept interrupting and badgering her. “Well, Miss Sheldrake, are you ignorant, or are you lying?!” my voice must have sounded shriller and shriller. “Well, answer!” I continued to banter her as she remained silent. It all must appear very ugly with hindsight, I know, but her method of attack was even more ruthless and anyway I was fighting for a just cause – a much-needed housing development on a landscaped site – as well as for my political life.
In fact at the end of the day it was she that won, because I was deemed to have bullied her excessively. In fact I confess it now. They were right. The public meeting then went against my compromise proposals. We had to impose the new development without public support and in the face of a cascade of hostile letters to the local press. Furthermore we lost the subsequent vote in the elections. She never, never forgave me for the brutal way I had treated her that day. The cow had won my Council seat and she took it from me with relish! So there was no love lost between us all round.
Anyway Sheldrake was seemingly polite to Meena and made a point of ignoring me.
The Chief Executive’s secretary waved us into the room where we took our oath. Sheldrake and I swore on the Old Testament, Meena on the “Bhagavad-Gita” – the ancient Hindu sacred text. I made some light hearted comment about which one of these books was older and which one had more picturesque legends.
“What a trite comment to make on such a solemn occasion,” hissed Sheldrake “Why don’t you treat a moment like this with some dignity, you ignorant man?”
The brutality of her words took me aback. I turned to Meena and the Chief Executive and lifted my eyes skyward with mock horror. They had been rooted to the spot with shock and embarrassment by Sheldrake’s rudeness, but now they both grinned at me, though the latter immediately tried to recover her solemn mien. Sheldrake stormed out.
“See what a bitch she is?” I asked Meena as we left the room.
“She obviously doesn’t like you. But then you’re a bit of a male chauvinist,” she laughed. “Well you can be so patronizing sometimes, you know”. Like most of my political colleagues, Meena was a stickler for political correctness and equal opportunities. She did possess a sense of humour though, and this prevented her from sounding too sanctimonious. “Still, I’ve spoken to her, and she’s not bad at all. I found her very human, very understanding, actually,” she explained.
“You what! Meena??! What on earth can you find human about her?” I asked. “Yes, and by the way, who’s Ching??”
“My chow chow.”
“What?!”
“My chow chow. My dog. He was ill yesterday. She gave me some good advice. She’s already better today.”
“Your dog??” Then I remembered. Of course. Melanie Sheldrake is a bloody vet.

With all this unpleasantness you may wonder why I was involved in canvassing and in politics at all. So why did I do it? Because I wished to win for my party? Possibly. I obviously enjoyed the respect and friendship of my fellow party activists whose ideals I often shared.
Did I stomp the streets because I had ideals? Well yes, I did have ideals. Somewhere. Once I had many. In the 1980s as a student I had marched against apartheid and against cruise missiles. I had marched in support of Solidarity in Poland and against the generals in Argentina and Chile. I had marched against increases in student fees and against the poll tax. In my twenties I had organized public meetings and I had learned how to speak in public and to utilize the media. Somehow these causes seemed so simple then, so clear, so strong, so obvious. Where had all these causes gone now? There was the war in Iraq but the issue was hardly clear-cut. Yes, I still protested against the treatment of the Palestinians, I supported a separate homeland for the Kurds and independence for East Timor and for Tibet. But my passion for these causes was somewhat spent.
Of course, the enemy was at home too. I still felt strongly on issues like freedom of the press and prison reform. I was increasingly concerned over energy issues and the climatic chaos emanating from the world’s misuse of its energy resources. Locally I supported waste recycling schemes and campaigned for bus lanes and cycle lanes, for restraints against the car (while cheerfully using mine), for solar energy panels and for ecology areas in parks. I wanted to urge my colleagues to implement measures that would discourage parents from driving their kids to school in the morning. My real passion was protecting street trees. I was also concerned over the quality of education and discipline in schools and was very supportive of the introduction of new teaching technology, such as the white boards. I hated the compensation culture that made it more and more difficult to provide adventure playgrounds and obliged schools to cancel education trips and sports outings. I still wanted the Councils to give generous provision in their social services to older people and to ensure a free house insulation service for all pensioners in their seventies and over. These were all noble causes in their own way.
After all, I used to say to myself during my more cynical moments, even a dirty street puddle can reflect the sky.
Yet ultimately the satisfaction was not really altruistic. It was personal. I have to be honest here. Basically, I enjoy being a Councillor. I enjoy being able to help my constituents. I enjoy seeing the pleasure on their faces when I had managed to obtain some benefit for them or to right a wrong. I enjoy being thanked and recognized in the street. I enjoy the power that enabled me to help people. Only then did I really feel fulfilled. I did not find it difficult to like people but I preferred it even more when they liked me too.
So, yes! I have to confess that in my selfless help for others I was really being selfish. I was selfish in my selflessness. Aren’t we all? “Mea culpa.” That’s the negative side of me. But I also genuinely enjoy the company of people, male or female, young or old. For my self regard, I need an audience and I want an audience that is enjoying itself. So I woo and butter up the people I canvass, charming them and convincing them, shamelessly flattering their appearance, their houses, their gardens, their cars, their children, and listening intently to their views and complaints with my head either nodding sympathetically or tilted beguilingly to my left, my eyes innocently open and my judgement innocently suspended as I sought their approval and their vote. I possess a firm and honest handshake, a quick kiss for the female voters when they declare for me outside the school gates (“pour encourager les autres”) and a sincere promise to treat their complaints and problems after I am elected. Every person who left me a complaint or engaged me in a longer conversation received a letter from me afterwards assuring them that I would prioritize their concerns as soon as I was elected.
I have to confess too to a craving for being praised, for being popular, for being recognized in the street, for being a somebody when I am introduced socially, “Oh, this is Peter, he’s…..” followed by the gratifying: “Oh, I’ve heard of you” or “I know who you are…” Then, internally, I melt like butter on toast; outwardly, I stand tall and beam at them. I pretend how simply chummy and unpretentious I really am. With fame as my prop I can actually pretend to be ordinary, the decent chap that lives next door. Without that prop it is different. I feel like I’m a social cripple, a nothing, a shit.
Mind you, I despise the transparent pretentiousness of modern divas and TV celebrities. My favourite childhood hero, as I think I may have said already, was Phileas Fogg from “Around the World in 80 Days”, the cool caricature of a self-confident, even arrogant, Englishman (created by a Frenchman, of course) who always remained unruffled, never excited, regardless of whether he faced triumph or disaster. I liked to pretend to be the strong silent type, never seeking the limelight and never seeking praise even though that is exactly what I am hungry for, that very recognition and praise that I am not apparently seeking. This may seem a contradiction, but was it really?
To earn that praise I have to instinctively seek what my constituents and voters want or prefer. That would probably explain one of my stranger attributes in the political word – my ability to recognize the other person’s feelings and point of view, particularly my opponent’s. I seek their insights and I sense their private ambitions as they spout their public aims. I see myself and my principles and arguments through the eyes of others. This is an attribute, that is true. It helps me in public debate, in pulling the punches in my attacks so that I do not offend even when I attack them if that is my intention. I know where their weaknesses lie, where they are most vulnerable and also on what they are prepared to sacrifice or negotiate away.
While this insight is to a certain extent a true and valuable gift, it is also a curse. If I see the other person’s point of view, do I water down my own views? I may perceive my opponents’ weaknesses but I might also expose my own. Unless I am driven by anger or passion then this ability to see myself as I think others see me, takes away that need for making firm selfish decisions which every decisive person should possess, whether in politics, or love, or arguing with your plumber. I lack the single-mindedness of the fanatic or the committed crusader. I am repelled by extreme passions whether they are on my side or that of my opponents. I can only overcome this gifted curse by steeling myself to make a hard decision after I have weighed up the pros and cons. I can hold a well argued line, weighed up by the synthesis of opposing views, but the resulting firmness, cloaked with reason and generosity to an opposing view, lacks that most precious of political virtues – true egocentric conviction. My own ego may be camouflaged and well honed following weeks of preparation of analysis, and it may look attractive in a hansom carriage, but that carriage may well fail to arrive on time for the ball.
At the triumphalist Party Group meeting the same evening we had a four hour session at which we carved up the committees, school governorships and representative bodies between ourselves.
Ted Grayson, a small Danny de Vito look-alike, was re-elected Council leader. The opposition charitably call him “the poison dwarf”, but he was a good speaker, a sharp debater with a strong line in sarcasm and a special talent in cutting political deals within the Group, with the opposition, with business developers, and with the unions. He congratulated the Group on its re-election victory, welcomed the new Councillors, including Meena and me, and warned us that from next year we were going to move away from a committee system of running the Council to a Cabinet system. We were apparently the last of the London Councils to be doing this. This would make a small number of Councillors virtual full time professionals and make competition for positions much sharper next time.
My old friend, Emil Kapacek, had been a bit bleary-eyed that morning after his evening at Pinks, but he had obviously spent the afternoon in cutting some deals with his senior colleagues in the Group. He dropped his bid for Chair of the Housing Committee and went for the Planning Committee instead. This had prevented me from standing as Chair of Planning against another Councillor, called Perera, from a more radical faction, but Emil had a wider following than me, and was more likely to beat him. After all, there were many newer Councillors from the previous election, who did not know me personally. In the end I stood against Perera for the post of Deputy Chair of Planning, but at the last minute he stood down in a huff and I was elected Emil’s deputy unopposed.
Meena won her post as Deputy Chair of Education, following support from its existing Chair, Bill Kitson. This was a big success for her considering that Education was the biggest single spending item in the Council budget. More than 50% of the Council’s financial income is budgeted for schools, nurseries, colleges and youth centres. Because she was a newcomer to the Council and visibly ambitious and able, she was resented by many of the older male Indian Councillors, particularly because of her work in founding a shelter for battered Asian women. Ironically, that made her that much more of an attractive candidate for the white Councillors and she sailed through.
As the meeting drew to a close our Chief Whip, Andy Trosser, came back to the meeting after a short absence. He had just exchanged a few words with his opposite number in the main opposition party.
“Well, as you can guess, old Algie Batchelor’s re-elected as their leader,” he announced. Then he added, “But you’ll never guess who they’ve elected as Deputy Leader?”
Members of the group shouted out a few random names, but Trosser shook his head. “No, it’s the Ice Maiden herself, bleeding Sheldrake”. I was not the only person to groan.
As the meeting ended Emil and I walked out together. We passed Trosser on our way out. He accosted us and leaned his heavy bloated frame in our direction. “And do you know on which Committee Sheldrake will be the opposition spokesman?”
???
“Yours, mateys. On Planning Committee.”

Unabridged unexpurgated version

2009-10-27T23:09:00.000Z

All right alright you bullies!

You wanted a more graphic version of my first meeting with Valentina.

I am so ashamedof it so in the published version I only alluded to it. But OK, here it is!

I hope you choke on it you mean lot!

Peter

"So I made my choice. “Can you please hold Sebastian for a minute?”
“Pardon?”
“Yes, sorry. I meant you to hold this…” (I pointed to my rampant instrument). I explained hastily. Sorry, did I really call it by that name out loud? Apologies for that. A slip of the tongue.
At her very touch (was her hand trembling a little?) my member changed from a Welsh hill to a Derbyshire High Peak. Its tip emerged from its folds of skin with a shiny mauve tinge. I caught my breath as I held the shower with one hand and applied liquid soap vigorously to my erect cod piece with the other. I applied the soap around my member, then around her hand as she held it, then through the neighbouring territory. The soap got more and more slippery.
I reached beneath my unbuttoned shirt and applied the soap with a quick flip under each armpit.
Finally, I plonked some soap playfully at the end of her nose.
“Is that OK now? I am very sorry,” asked Valentina. “It is clean now.” She let go my stiffened cock and it drooped a little below the horizontal line.
We walked out of the shower room and she produced a condom packet. “I dance now for you, or do we do fucky-fucky?”she asked.
“Please undress and lap-dance for me while I sit on the bed.” I wanted to pace myself for this blessed half hour. I did not want to score too early as there may not be time or energy for a second goal.
Slowly she removed her skirt. Then her panties too when I gave them a little tug. Off came the waistcoat and blouse, which in any case were a little wet because of the earlier juggling in the shower room. She still had the red stockings on. She began writhing to the music from the loudspeaker on the wall, which at least was a little less deafening than the piped music in the club below.
“This is good? I very sorry.”
I began to read a sort of signal in this stream of “sorries”. Well, she was a Slav, after all and did I say also that she had a divine bottom too? I did? Sorry, I don’t want to repeat myself.
“Yes, very good, Valentina. But you are such a naughty girl.”
“Yes, sorry. But you are naughty too, Petya.”
She had been writhing with her back to me as her cool bottom and ribboned stocking tops rubbed against my groin.
She got up, turned towards me and sat on my lap, still writhing, but not so dramatically as before. She steadied herself and produced the condom again. “You ready now? I put on.”
She seized my penis with one hand, holding the tip of it between her thumb and forefinger and drawing back my foreskin. With the other she placed the condom wrapper in her mouth and with true aplomb, ripped it open and held it near the top of the penis ready to encap it. “Are you ready, naughty English boy?”
However the effect of that thumb pressed to the top of my penis was so arousing that I could feel the gourd rising from the seat of my anus to the tip of my cock. I could hold it no longer. I was speechless as I caught my breath and gulped for air.
“Oh, Peter. Very sorry. Too soon. Too soon. You think you do again? It is OK. Condom not wet, not touched.”
I felt too relieved, too satisfied, to think of doing it again straight away. But we still had another 20 minutes. Perhaps I could do it again, if I tried. But I had to take some radical steps to raise the flagpole a second time.
“Valentina, we try again. Yes. But I need at least 5 minutes to recover.”
“Yes, sorry. I am very bad girl.”
“You most certainly are. And your bottom is quite cold. Like fish in Arctic Sea”.
She tried to figure that one out.
“So I will warm it for you. Just right for naughty girl. Get up!” The last words were abrupt.
She looked puzzled. Then she caught my drift.
She looked at me as if sizing up my threat to her precious derriere.
“OK. Ten smacks. You are very naughty”, I repeated. She nodded.
Obediently she lay her beautiful body over my knees and lay their prone, her face peering inquisitively into the mirror.
Let me assure you that I had been here before. This was no fumbling experiment on my part. I was an accomplished, even an exquisite smacker (or so I have been told).
She did not protest as I performed the ritual.
Before I let her stand up I complemented her on the sunset colour and warmth of her beautiful globes and rubbed them appreciatively.
She got up and gave her red aching bottom a quick appreciative glance in the wall mirror before she rubbed it. She looked quizzically at me and asked if I was ready.
Alas, not yet. She played my instrument up and down professionally, first between her fingers and then between the palms of her hands in circular motion. Though my erring member was upright it still did not seem ready to release the trap door again so soon. Finally she placed the rubber over it and then descended on it with her mouth. Yet I still did not feel the urge to burst forth after this operatic performance. The prelude had passed through too many overtures. Valentina was beginning to sweat from the effort.
I had another trick up my sleeve, yet one more throw of the dice. After all I knew my capacity and the depths of my depravity quite well in this kind of activity. A true symphonic climax was called for with cymbals and cannon fire.
“Valentina. We need some more smacks.”
“What!”
“We need more. Do you have a leather strap, or a cane?”
“But no marks! You promised,” she protested.
“Valentina, no worry. No permanent marks.”
“No marks? If there are marks I beat you”.
“Yes, I need to strap you so that I know that you feel it. Otherwise I cannot get my cock to perform.You understand? Do you have any implement here?”
“What?”
“An implement. Like a tawse? Do you have a tawse?””
“A what?”
“A strap? A leather strap?”
“Let me look.” She rummaged around in the cupboard. Clearly, I suddenly realized, she was not familiar with the room.
Eventually she emerged triumphantly with a leather strap and a cat o’nine tails from a drawer. After all every decent British home should have one. “This OK?” she asked.
I chose the middle-sized thick black leather strap with two tongues and felt it land on the palm of my hand. “This! Bend over the couch now. 5 strokes!”
She removed the condom which she had previously placed on my penis as she could see it would somewhat immobilize me. She was right. As you must surely know, you cannot act the stern headmaster with a condom perched on your half erect member. It affects your dignity as well as your stroke. And a caner must have dignity. Then she bent obediently and enticingly over the couch.
I took a few moments to contemplate the contours of the scenery. These are moments to relish and I have to confess that I have relished them before. From an early age. Again let me explain. Yes, explain the inexplicable. Even when I had first been snogging and caressing young girls in their naughty places at the age of fifteen I had been drawn to imagining them perched over my knee or over a desk being whipped. It was frustrating because girls were not into this thing very much at that age. They could take violence or being verbally abused more than a ritualized smack. I would fantasize and watch in fascination on the odd occasions that a caning had still been applied in my boys’ schools, but girls seemed to endure a different kind of rough treatment. If I let the matter slip about my secret desires once a girl would laugh, but if I dwelt on it longer they shied away. “You’re weird,” she would say. “You do go on”, and would promptly up and leave.
I was troubled by my seeming weirdness. I fantasized about canings received by other boys in my school and was even jealous when some of my closer friends had to suffer this indignity. I had once received a single slipper on my bottom from a gym teacher while in my PE shorts and that had been exciting from the very moment I had to bend over and clasp my knees in front of the class. I had been shouting and pushing while in the queue to jump the vaulting horse. The glow of the single hard slap and the indignity of my position in full view of my classmates embarrassed and excited me. But this was not the full ritualistic caning, however, where you report at lunch-time to the head’s office. These seemed both dreadful and enticing and my friends said that they really hurt although it would have been unthinkable to cry out or complain. I almost wanted to join them and to be one of them, but I had never screwed up the courage to commit a sufficiently serious offence and join this elite. Most of my rudeness or late essays resulted only in boring detentions and writing a hundred lines. Only once did I find myself in this compromising position and, frankly, I do not want to dwell on it. So corporal punishment etched itself into my imagination all the more strongly in that I largely lacked the concrete experience.
I confess that I drew pictures of girls getting spanked or whipped which I kept in a secret drawer until my inquisitive mother found them there once and I hastily destroyed them. I felt deep shame and resentment. I was weird, I concluded. I was a pervert. I withdrew into my world of books and for some years I stopped chasing skirts. In fact I found that I was more likely to be seduced by young ladies on account of my bookish absent-mindedness and my self-deprecating sense of humour. I no longer needed to go on the pull. I was a lamb to be mothered, not a lion to be feared.
As I grew older and reached my middle thirties I attended a number of fetish parties as well so I was able to practice what others would barely dare fantasize about. It was a secret world of dungeons and discreet parties, often hidden within larger assemblies of fetish fashion displays. We would meet, dance, display and perform in airfield hangars, remote farms, on boats in the Thames, and at trendy Soho and City venues. I was also able to indulge my special fantasies further by attending parties in North London where girls were paid generously to be beaten and could then, if you so wished, beat you in return. Most of my fellow guests at these parties were older men in their sixties and seventies. It sounded sad but at least these guys knew how to have a good time.
But enough about these sorry tales of secret worlds. In front of me was Valentina’s delectable derriere and I was sufficiently charged up to be ready to show some sparks. I felt that I was almost there. I sensed that my juices were approaching the exit gap but were not quite there yet. Even after those 5 blows with the strap.
In desperation I needed a new tack. Necessity is the mother of invention. I peered at her bottom and ran my hand down her posterior.
“You know there are some deep marks, there, after all.” I volunteered the comment.
“But you promised, Petya. You are very bad English boy. Now I will give you smack with this strap. You give me five so I give you five!” I have to confess she had read my mind like a book, as if she knew my habits.
I pretended to protest but actually I was quite game as I knew that if she measured out some strokes on my sweet spot properly then I was certain to perform.
“OK,” I said, “5 only. A promise is a promise.”
I looked around the room and chose a sturdy armchair, placed it in the middle of the room with plenty of space around it and bent double over the top of the headrest.
“Five good hard strokes”, I ordered from this mounted position. Then I buried my head in the soft cushioned seat of the chair expectantly. Was it weird? Was this depraved? Maybe, but British females are not always aware that hundreds of thousands of males would happily place themselves in this position. In their dreams, perhaps. Well, I could do it for real. That was my advantage.
Valentina had her new instructions and that was her advantage. She ploughed on conscientiously. The audience had asked for an encore and the score must be played to the end. With an almighty effort she wheeled her arm in a full rounded arc to make a decisive contact with my behind. An unmistakeable loud “whack” reverberated around the room.
“Valentina, I’m ready! I’m ready,” I yelled .

Before I could get up, she gave me an unexpected extra wallop across my protruding posterior. As I rose up, Mount Vesuvius erupted. No need again for recapping the oil gush with the condom and no need to place my exploding member in her innermost niche, which I had not even had a chance to explore. I just came there and then in the middle of the battlefield and a cry, like of victory, emanated from my body.
“Now,” she giggled. “Naughty boy. Naughty Peter. You take my personal card with my mobile number. Yes? Please contact me soon. You know how to treat Russian girl. Now go home to your mummy. Let her know what a naughty boy you are. Perhaps she give you a spanking too. I hope so”.

There now. My secret is out, you bastards

Framden Civic Centre

2009-10-27T22:57:00.000Z

Chapter II - The Maid of Vitebsk

2009-10-26T00:18:00.000Z

Here is the much awaited second chapter of my novel.

This is from the abridged version:-

Chapter II The Maiden from Vitebsk
It had set out to be rollicking good fun with Emil that evening, despite the cold.
It always was with him. He was a born raconteur and bon viveur of the old school, never happier than telling tall stories of his exploits in the merchant marine, or as a Catholic schoolboy, as well as a Councillor. He wowed elderly ladies with his risqué cheeky comments, but he was happiest wowing the younger constituents, especially with female younger constituents, with whom he flirted outrageously. He also shone at the party organized fish and chip quiz nights. His knowledge of European Kings and Queens, the Russian Revolution and of seventeenth century warfare was matched only by his love of classical painting, and both surpassed by his knowledge of football and modern pop music. This last he kept up to date by vibing with his teenage son and 8 year old daughter.
He had apparently represented his college at University Challenge in the late 70s and he reminisced about how his team were the final runners up, and (this only in more discreet circles) how his resulting media image and (then) long hair helped him “pull in the birds”. I shared so many of his interests in history, in painting, and, I must confess, in women, that we had become inseparable when we had last been on the Council together. I used to have fierce debates with him about the role of Lenin and whether he was responsible for the Red Terror. We argued over the relative merits of Holy Roman Emperors Otto I and Otto III. I did have to bow to his superior knowledge of Byzantine history and of how the Czechs allowed themselves to be defeated by Tilly’s troops in the Battle of the White Mountain, but I was more knowledgeable on Napoleon’s Marshals and Hitler’s Field-Marshals. Still, I did not challenge his claim that defenestration, as practised in the Czech parliament in 1619, would certainly have livened up the debates in Framden Council.
In fact Emil and I used to sit in the well of the council chamber during formal Council meetings just below the opposition front bench and pass semi-audible disparaging personal comments about them whenever they tried to intervene in the debate or ask difficult questions (“He’s not got those ridiculous red braces again?” “I think that’s the third time she’s said the word “outrageous” without drawing breath; think she can she do a fourth?”) Our side used to enjoy this form of verbal torture that we employed on our luckless opponents and we were treated as the secret weapon to undermine the opposition’s morale in the Chamber. The problem was that our behaviour was no better at our party’s group meetings when we would mock ludicrous interventions from some of own party colleagues or even some of our leadership’s proposals, so we had little chance of advancement to any committee chairmanships. Yet Emil was often able to dignify his presence at these debates with a fiery committed speech on the homeless, or the depravities of compensation culture in our schools, where he would draw on his gift for irony with his rich knowledge of English vocabulary and his genuine passion for the subject in question, to deliver memorable speeches that were even printed and quoted in the local press. As I mentioned before, his undoubted popularity with his voters ensured him a strong personal vote at election times and that undoubtedly strengthened his standing in the party now. He was now no longer just the party court jester.
We met up with Chris Finneston, the chummy Chief Planning Officer, in the car park, and walked over to “Pinks”, abandoning our cars for the time being in the Civic Centre car park. It was only a 10 minute walk to the club. Despite the cold, we were buoyed up with drink and with our success. We could have been walking in the tropics.
Outside “Pinks”, there was a short queue. We joined it and waited patiently to be allowed in. We continued to be in good spirits and quite light-headed, so much so that it was only at the last minute that Chris reminded Emil and me to remove our campaign rosettes. “Remember the local press was in the Civic Centre for the count. Some enterprising redtop press photographer could have followed us here. After all, they resented your victory. You better stay anonymous. Or else you’ll ready be making front page news: ‘Councillor re-elected and disgraced in one day’.”
At this we dissolved into giggles like 3 naughty schoolboys.
A few minutes later, following a quick frisk by the doormen and we were inside. The noise from the piped music was deafening. A girl was cavorting on the stage and several totally naked girls were treating their half-embarrassed punters to a lap dance as they thrust their graceful white nether regions into the groin of their respective well dressed victims. Other men sat by the stage, some egging on the main dancer, others pretending to be totally disinterested in the whole proceedings. They could have been sitting in a church or a library for all the difference their surroundings seemed to be making to them.
I loved this kind of scene and I have to say that I was a little embarrassed that I loved it so much. I was aware that there was potential exploitation of the women in this kind of set up, and even more there was exploitation of those males masochistic enough to have come in. But it was the overall sense of decadence of these establishments that appealed to me. That and seeing the female anatomy so well exposed.
Why was I such a sucker for the female anatomy? Must I go further down this path? Suffice it to say that I was entranced by almost anything female and within the sexual availability years, stretching from sixteen to sixty. Probably, as I get older, even beyond sixty. I love how women talk. I love how women think. I love how women dress. I love how women manage children so well. I love how women multi-task. I love how women are occasionally vulnerable and frightened, be the reason spiders, or mice, or yob street culture. I love women on the silver screen. I love women lusciously clothed. I love women in beautiful breathtaking hats. I love the mystery of women. I love women’s scent. I love women in white clothes. I love women in uniform (no, really, don’t scoff; I love seeing pretty women Israeli officers; women police officers, women barristers). I love women’s obsessions with figure and diet and I love scoffing at them for it and assuring them that love handles are all the rage. (Yes, it’s true, ladies. No man I know loves a broomstick!) I love women’s ability to fantasize. I love women’s ability to be materialistic and practical. I love women bands. And that’s before we get to the more overtly sensuous images of women.
From Botticelli, to Bronzino, to Titian, to Rubens, to Boucher, to Goya, to Ingres, to Renoir, to Magritte I am hooked to the passive reclining meekly insolent female form. Visiting the National Gallery or the Tate to see these paintings when I was still a teenager was like consuming so much chocolate cake. The flow of clothes over a beautiful pale display of undulating flesh could indeed make me salivate and lose my concentration. I could refresh myself by watching a dramatic battle scene or a Constable landscape to rest my eyes and pacify my soul, but it would be back to the dessert before long.
Now, in the age of computers, I no longer needed to visit galleries. I had built up my own private collection under “My Pictures” on my Office Word Programme. I could drool now over every imaginable picture of my choice, including historical dramas and battle scenes as well as erotic masterpieces, but interspersed also with photographs of actresses and singers and scenes from some of my favourite films.
Looking about me now at “Pinks” with my two companions, I was not unlike being in a scene that any great painter or film-maker could have imagined, a parade of female forms ripped off the canvass, and imbued with the breath of life by commercial convention.
As I mused, a scantily dressed big breasted blonde came up to us with a tray and a drinks list. “Prepare to be fleeced”, Chris warned us.
“Personally I’d much rather do the fleecing,” commented Emil as he eyed the waitress from top to toe. She returned the complement eying him in a saucy pose as she switched the weight of her body back towards the left heel. “Yes?” she asked with a sexy East European accent. Polish, perhaps?
“Can’t have this on account, then, Chris?”
“Not likely.”
“Come on, Chris, don’t we pay you enough?” said Emil, with a wink. “I improved your salary increase earlier this year, remember?”
“I’ll pay for your drinks, Emil. The first round anyway. What you do with the young ladies is your business. I’m not staying more than half an hour. I still have work to do tomorrow, even if you gentlemen do not.”
“Bleeding spoilsport! Bloody killjoy!” Emil’s tone of voice was mocking.
We ordered something bubbly and stupefying and asked the blonde, who appeared to have no other customers, to join us at the table, and to bring a friend. We could have asked for two but Chris excused himself. “I’ll watch, while they grind, and you suffer, you elected perverts. If the people of Framden Borough could only see you now. Kissing babies last night and kinky dancers tonight!”
“Always preferred kissing the mothers, rather than the babies. Don’t you, Peter?” I nodded vehemently to Emil’s jibe, aroused more and more by the drink and the sight of the two girls, who had now joined us. The second girl, also a blonde, was a little slimmer than the first. She had a rounded pretty face with large expressive eyes and straight hair coming down each side of a parting at the top of her head and then continuing into two pig tails. She wore the customary “Pink” top consisting of a white fluffy blouse and a purple waistcoat with the word “Pinks” handwritten all over it (in trademark shocking pink, of course). Her breasts look enticingly peachy through the blouse and she clearly wore no support for them. Her plaited skirt was short, far above her knee which was covered in red fishnet stockings, the tops of which could be seen peeking out from across her white thighs clearly visible under the hem of the skirt. All in all I thought her exquisitely attractive. I drank this view in slowly with my champagne.
Sensing my interest in her presence, she smiled at me with a slightly quizzical smile but the lips were clearly parted.
“Polish?” As good an opening line as any.
She nodded absent-mindedly. Then she suddenly stopped and shook her head. “What?”
“I said,” I shouted over the noise, “Are you from Poland?”
“Oh, no, from Belarus. You know Belarus?” she asked almost in trepidation. Obviously many of the yobs who frequented the club would not have had a clue.
“Ah, I know,” I said sagely. “Minsk.” At least I remembered the name of the capital.
She smiled, but shook her head again. “No, Vitebsk actually. It’s near Russia. Really, I am Russian. My name is Valentina. You call me Val, yes?”
“Valentina from Vitebsk? Very romantic.” She smiled a full smile at this unexpected compliment, amused as much by the alliteration as by the easy way I had picked up seemingly difficult words which were dear to her but clearly beyond the pronouncing skills of most Brits, at least those frequenting this kind of establishment.
“My name is Peter.”
“Peter,” she repeated. She seemed relieved that my name was so easy. Some of the Irish, Japanese or Indian first names are very difficult for foreigners. London was now a multiethnic city and Framden was a key part of that cocktail of nationalities. It all takes a bit of getting used to. But “Peter”, it seems, was OK.
“In England for long?”
“Yes. Not long. Student.” Of course.
“And your friend? She is Belarusian too?” The other busty blonde was taking off her skirt ready to dance on top of Emil, who was reclining back like a Roman Emperor.
“Yes. Ludmila. She is Russian too!” This was getting confusing but the music in the room was deafening.
“Russian, not Belarusian? From Russia you mean?”
“Yes. She is from Crimea.”
“But Crimea is in Ukraine now.” I was genuinely puzzled, not just showing off.
“Yes. She is Russian too.”
This conversation, half drowned in the noise and seeking to leap unsuccessfully over language barriers, was beginning to get pointless.
I saw that our communication had better get simpler. Let flesh speak to flesh, even if it is communicating through a pair of firmly zipped up trousers.
“You dance for me, Valentina?”
“Yes. Do I take off skirt for you?”
“Everything, dear. With your bare bottom. I like nice bottoms. But you can keep stockings on.” The combination of red stockings and white bottoms was too exquisite to ignore. And, as you have probably gathered, I just love bottoms.
“And my top?”
“Depends. What can I touch?”
She smiled enigmatically. “You cannot touch me.”
“Nowhere? Not even your hand? The back of your head?” I joked. “Your bottom?” Did I say I liked bottoms? Oh dear. Perhaps I should not. I mustn’t reveal all my obsessions.
“No. At least, not here. I will lose my job”. She did not look intimidated when she said it. She was even grinning.
She picked up my hand. “No ring?”
“No wife,” I said. “I live with my mother now.”
I persisted. “Some people do touch.”
“Yes, touch. No, not here.”
“Then where?”
“There is another room, upstairs, but you pay a lot more money”
I was prepared for this.
“We go there. How much do I pay?”
“I’m not sure but I will ask. I think about £70”.
“That is OK. I will pay”
“OK, if you like I go now. Nobody in that room now. In 2 minutes you go to toilet. To gents. Then when nobody sees you, continue through second door just after toilet. Says “private”. Go in and up stairs. You see me there.”
“You sure??” It seemed a little dangerous, but I was in a good mood and felt a bit of a daredevil. Hell! The people had spoken and they had liked me and now I needed my reward for winning the people’s trust. Valentina seemed like the right kind of reward.
Valentina nodded blinkingly as if guessing my thoughts. “Yes, OK. I go now. You go separate.” She got up, kissed her friend Ludmila, who was cavorting over Emil’s body, and went through a door behind the bar.
“No deal then?” chuckled Chris. He obviously could not have heard our exchange.
I shrugged my shoulders.
“Let’s finish the champers, Peter, and then we’ll scramble. Leave Emil to his own devices.”
“And can I add,” Chris continued, “that’s it so good to have you back in the Council, Peter. I’m really looking forward to some sensible planners on the Council Planning Committee, who are not so politically driven. And not so populist. We lost a number of planning appeals because of these people in the last couple of years and the stupid decisions they took.”
“I guess they were only trying to satisfy what their constituents wanted,” I observed. “But yep, it will be good to get back on planning. If the group let me to-morrow, that is.”
We engaged in a few more minutes of small talk, watching Emil with the lady crawling over him building up a sweat, as much on him as herself. She had taken off her top now and we could see her ample breasts flopping to the rhythm of the piped music as she writhed intensively, with her arms straight at the moment, resting on Emil’s shoulders. He seemed to be sinking under her weight with each effort and twist that she made. The lower his body sank into the chair, the higher rose her frilly knickered posterior. With time her arse became the dominating feature of this rhythmically moving group sculpture.
“I see Councillor Kapacek is slowly succumbing to the people’s will,” I observed as Chris laughed, almost hysterically. The Councillor’s grunt-like response failed to get past the hanging appendages swaying dangerously over his nose.
“Look,” I said, “I think I’ve had enough. I’m going to the gents. Then probably for some fresh air. I’m beat. Look, lads, if I don’t make it back, don’t wait for me.”
Chris agreed to join me in the gents, but Emil offered no resistance to my suggestion. He was in no position to offer resistance to anyone, least of all to Ludmila.
Chris’ offering in the WC was short and swift whereas I pretended to remain for a somewhat longer session in one of the cubicles.
Chris nodded to me from his vantage point over the urinal but I shut and clicked the door of the cubicle behind me.
I sat for another minute or so on the toilet seat and sensed rather than heard Chris’ shuffled departure. Come to think of it I do not think he even washed his hands. When I opened the door, he was certainly gone.
I came out of the WC and, following Valentina’s instructions, I made my way through the private door and up the promised staircase.
At the top I was accosted by a large looking brute dressed, or rather enwrapped, in a tight tuxedo.
“Are you Peter?”
I gulped and nodded.
“Please pay me £75.” He had a foreign accent too. Was he Albanian? Or another Russian perhaps? “What you do with her is your business. She will get a share of this, but if you want to pay her extra that’s between you and her.”
In for a penny, in for a pound, I thought. Or was that kopeks and roubles? I was ready for anything. I was re-elected. My political career was back on track. My sense of self worth was rising. So was my sap. Why not celebrate to the brim?
I paid him in twenties. He even offered me a fiver in change, but with a gallant gesture I refused. You never know when you might need someone like that on your side.
He pointed to the next door on the left.
The door seemed a little tight at first, but I pushed it open with a strong shove.
Valentina was inside, smiling, with a new bottle of unopened champagne.
“We have half hour together. I do what you want, yes?”
I nodded, increasingly pleased with the progress of the day. I realized I was being fleeced, what with the house champagne, but then I remembered I would be due some Councillor’s allowance at the month’s end, so what the hell? Earlier I had the dust and gruel of the streets of Claybury Ward, chatting, arguing, convincing, promising. The people had spoken after equally gruelling and mind-numbing recounts. Surely this half hour was a just reward?
She pointed to another door. “First, please have wash in here”. I opened the door. There was a shower with a somewhat tattered curtain and a toilet. The floor was still wet from the previous users.
I looked at the mess with some distaste. “This place is a pig-sty. Only if you come with me.”
She nodded. We both went in and I began to remove my clothes. I love undressing in front of an appreciative audience even if it’s only my doctor or my acupuncturist (as long as they are female), so this stage of the game was enjoyable. She did not undress at first but bent past me as she turned on the shower. Then she stepped back as I placed my hand for a split second on her bottom.
“Nice,” I said. “Very nice. Good Russian bottom.” She smiled appreciatively.
“Yes, Russian,” she smiled. “But from Belarus”.
“Yes, I know. From Vitebsk. Very good Vitebsk bottom.”
She brought the shower-head down lower. “Please clean your cock now”.
I gulped at this sudden somewhat crude demand. However all I said was “Hold on then.” I removed my underpants very hastily and chucked them on the wet floor of the shower-room. “Any soap?”
She brought down some liquid soap. “Want me to hold shower?”
It seemed a bit of a daft question at first. Then I saw the conundrum.
You see, there were actually 3 things to hold at this juncture. First, the shower head. Then the liquid soap which I had poured out onto my right hand. And lastly my own protruding member. I could only hold two of them as I only had two hands. Assistance was needed here. So her question was very practical. In fact her question was also very diplomatic. After all, by mentioning the shower, she was offering to hold the most innocent of the three objects. Presumably to allow for any shyness on my part. Yet I had the option to let her hold something else.
For some bizarre reason I thought at that moment of how Councillors make decisions at council committee meetings.
Normally after presenting a report, council officers offer 3 options and Councillors are flattered into believing that they are undertaking a choice. However if they look at the options carefully, they will find that the first option is very radical and flies in the face of your Party’s election manifesto, the second suggests a gross overspend to the budget and will not be endorsed by the Finance Committee; the last seems radical but, in the circumstances, reasonable. So we Councillors choose the last option. But the Council officer knows all along that this was the only option we could have made. It’s a bit of a con.
However Valentina was a true democrat. She was offering me real choices. I could choose cake, marzipan or chocolate.
So I made my choice. “Can you please hold my little friend for a minute?”
“Pardon?”
“Yes, sorry. I meant you to hold this…” (I pointed to my rampant instrument). I explained hastily. Sorry, did I really call it that!
At her very touch (was her hand trembling a little?) my member changed from a Welsh hill to a Derbyshire High Peak. The soap got more and more slippery.
I reached beneath my unbuttoned shirt and applied the soap with a quick flip under each armpit.
Finally, I plonked some soap playfully at the end of her nose.
“Is that OK now? I am very sorry,” asked Valentina. “It is clean now.” She let go my stiffened cock and it drooped a little below the horizontal line.
We walked out of the shower room and she produced a condom packet. “I dance now for you, or do we do fucky-fucky?”she asked.
“Please undress and lap-dance for me while I sit on the bed.” I wanted to pace myself for this blessed half hour. I did not want to score too early as there may not be time or energy for a second goal.
Slowly she removed her skirt. Off came the waistcoat and blouse, which in any case were a little wet because of the earlier juggling in the shower room. She still had the red stockings on. She began writhing to the music from the loudspeaker on the wall, which at least was a little less deafening than the piped music in the club below.
“This is good?”
Now did I say already that she had a divine bottom too? I did? Sorry, I don’t want to repeat myself.
“Yes, very good, Valentina. But you are such a naughty girl.”
“Yes, sorry. But you are naughty too, Petya.”
She had been writhing with her back to me as her cool bottom and ribboned stocking tops rubbed against my groin.
She got up, turned towards me and sat on my lap, still writhing, but not so dramatically as before. She steadied herself and produced the condom again. “You ready now? I put on.”
She placed the condom wrapper in her mouth and with true aplomb, ripped it open. “Are you ready, naughty English boy?”
I really cannot relate in this version what happened in the next half hour. Certainly I had over-indulged in some of my weaknesses, but this is not the place to describe them.
“Now,” she giggled at the end of the session, “Naughty boy. Naughty Peter. You take my personal card with my mobile number. Yes? Please contact me soon. You know how to treat Russian girl. Now go home to your mummy. Let her know what a naughty boy you are. Perhaps she give you a spanking. I hope so”.

As I said, this is the tamer edited version. If you want the fuller unabridged version please let me know and perhaps we can provide it.

2009-10-20T01:21:00.000+01:00

Here is the second and final part f Chapter I - Election Night

"I felt so proud and pleased with myself as I walked down through the entrance hall to the steps at the front of the palatial Civic Centre building. It was cold outside as winter still refused to let go of its earthly shackles despite the fact that it was now the first Thursday in May and spring would normally be preparing the scene for summer by this time. At least it was not raining any more.
I looked up at the tall familiar tower of the municipal pile that we call the Civic Centre, illuminated by floodlights. Every day, while I had been outside the Council, I could see this tower hovering over the surroundings blocks, sometimes from several miles away as when seen from Daffodil Hill. It is red-bricked but with a Renaissance style loggia at the top. It was my symbol of longing, of the order and power in which I was not sharing. It was my lighthouse symbolizing the kingdom I was being denied and the stage on which I could not act. Now I was underneath the welcoming tower again, a true member of the select brotherhood responsible for running the Borough. I was a Councillor again.
Jim, the Council bus driver, was standing chatting with the night porters. He seemed to share my view. “Good to have you back at last, Sir!” he yelled across the crowded entrance hall towards me. Perhaps, I reflected, he says the same thing to anyone who wins.
The entrance was crowded with other winners from my side, still wearing their multi-coloured rosettes. They chatted and backslapped and hugged each other surrounded by their families and their supporters. The dwarf-like Council leader, Ted Grayson, and the two local MPs were there amongst them congratulating each in turn. They were intoxicated. This was partly because of the election result and partly because of the alcohol freely flowing in Framden Civic Centre that night. Here and there opposition party workers and candidates could be seen slinking out, their dark rosettes now a tarnished symbol of defeat.
We were jubilant. Now we felt doubly vindicated. We watched, tired and admiring, as one of our two Framden MPs, pasty faced Owen Draycott, preached patronisingly to a TV camera. Then we jeered unsportingly as the local opposition agent tried to justify his party’s defeat in Framden.
Grayson saw me and thrust me towards the TV journalist. “Here’s the real victor tonight,” he yelled at him. “This is Peter Axtell. He’s one of the two candidates who won at Corindale Ward. Take a comment from him.” The journalist politely shook his head. “I’ve got what I need, thank you, Councillor Grayson.” he said without even looking at me. “It’s a wrap.” I was disappointed, even hurt, but only for a fleeting moment. Then I reflected that I had nothing concrete to say at this moment anyway. Plenty of time for the publicity, I thought. In the meantime I thanked Ted Grayson for trying to push me forward. He seemed to recognize the measure of our achievement in my ward.
May I explain? My ward, Corindale, was a marginal, switching regularly between the two main parties, depending to a certain extent on the political mood of the country at the time of the election. Only a few hundred votes ever separated the two main parties from each other. This time the margin of difference was less than thirty votes. Hence the recounts. Sometimes Council policies and administrative errors could change a small proportion of that vote; sometimes it was personal with voters. Your name or your face just did not fit. Or you had become a hate figure over a specific blunder. Perhaps you had upset people for supporting the erection of a new block of flats to which the remaining residents on that road objected. When the results are that close that could be enough to scupper your chances. On the whole though, as I have said already, election results reflected the national mood of the country.
I know about the face not fitting though. Four years ago that had happened to me. The issue had been a proposal to build houses on some open space. The plan had not gone down well in one of the neighbourhoods I represented. Even though these fields had been fenced off and were inaccessible and unusable. They had been part of the sports grounds belonging to Wilkinson Meadow, a private school situated in a different borough, which was anxious to capitalize on the sale of that land to a developer. A number of residents, most of whom had never been able to use the field, but who were used to the sight of green grass, even if it was overgrown and a dumping site for unsolicited waste, had complained bitterly to the local Framden Journal. They organized a petition and even ran a fete to raise money for their campaign. The fete had been patronized by the opposition.
In fact the feisty young veterinary surgeon who had led the campaign, Melanie Sheldrake, now showed her true colours by becoming an opposition candidate in the election that followed. I had managed to provide a compromise plan which allowed the Council to give permission for a small pleasant housing estate, while retaining a large well landscaped green area with access for the local residents. Unfortunately the scheme was approved too late to save our bacon. Our 3 candidates went down, guns blazing, in the Council election 4 years ago, with the name Wilkinson Meadow School Playing Fields seemingly engraved on our political tombstones. And that bitch of a vet managed to get onto the Council in my place.
Now, fours years later, events took a different turn. The estate had been built; the green landscaped surroundings were popular with locals as a place to walk their dogs and as a kick about area for the local kids. There was even a small organized playing area and a hut for toddlers. In our election literature our three candidates stressed that this was our achievement. Also the mood in the country was more sympathetic to our party. So we managed to scrape through.
Correction: only two of us managed to scrape through, namely, Meena Chakravatty and myself. Our third candidate, Fred Stevens failed. Perhaps because he looked elderly on the campaign picture. Perhaps because his name came lower down in the alphabet, and therefore at the bottom of the ballot paper. Yes, even small details like that seem to count with voters. So poor old Fred got pipped at the post.
Who got in to that third place? That bitch of a vet, Melanie Sheldrake, that’s who! She beat poor Fred by only 6 votes. There were 2 recounts called by our anxious election agent. Poor Fred was nearly in tears. He had served on the Council for many years and lost his seat in Corindale Ward along with me four year ago. At least I was relatively young (I was 35 then) and had only served one term. If I had failed to recapture the ward this time I could have tried elsewhere, but for Fred this was probably an ignominious end to many years of sterling service to the party and the community.
His wife, Lesley, was also devastated. She had been the election organizer for the ward. She and her husband had been the mainstay of the party organization and social life in Corindale for nearly 30 years. Now she was bitter with everybody. For a start, with Meena Chakravatty for being a newcomer to the area. In fact Meena had been parachuted in by the Framden party leadership to ensure that there was a woman candidate in every ward. Many of the older party hands resented this.
However most of Lesley’s anger was directed at the sultry vet, who had retained her popularity in the area as a campaigner, and robbed her own precious husband of his council seat. I certainly shared her anger. I noted in the immediate aftermath of the count that Sheldrake the vet seemed, just accidentally, to have ignored me as I approached her with the conventional cross party congratulations.
Emil Kapacek caught me as I was descending the Civic Centre steps. Emil was a fellow Councillor from another marginal ward who had not lost his seat four years ago and now managed to retain his seat again despite the adverse media hullabaloo. “Congratulations, Councillor Axtell, again!” he grinned at me, stressing the magic title: “Councillor”.
“Why, thank you, Councillor Kapacek, you bouncing Czech,” I grinned back. Emil was popular on the Council, a bit of a wag really, full of jokes and passionate speeches. His parents had settled in London after the Communist takeover of Czechoslovakia in 1948. Emil was also popular with his electorate. In fact he had received a huge personal vote over and above his party label, which must have given him great satisfaction, as it increased his standing within the party group on Council. He would almost certainly now be eligible for a Council committee chairmanship of his choosing, probably Housing. Also we were close personal friends and he was genuinely glad to see me back. So now he was in a particularly good mood as he came over to me.
“Where to, Councillor Axtell?” he asked half mockingly, still emphasizing my newly recovered title. “Back home to mummy?”
“No,” I explained. “I’ve already told her the results and she’s gone back to bed. She’s getting old now; she doesn’t need too much excitement. Four years ago, she came to the count and left bitterly disappointed. This year she didn’t want to risk having a new disappointment like last time. So I’ve told her the good news over the phone and she’s happy as a sand boy. So I do have some time to kill, even though I am tired.”
“So do I,” said Emil. “Susan’s gone home in our car to relieve the child-minder. Yet I still feel like celebrating. Pubs are shut now. What do we do, Peter?”
Of course he knew my answer as well as I did. There was only one place we could go at such a time. “Pinks”. This was the gentleman’s club with the lap dancers and other vivacious ladies. It was a place we frequented occasionally when the hour was late and a heavy task had been accomplished. Then we would all feel light-headed and ready to run any risk, including the fleshpots of “Pinks”.
I was about to say “Pinks” out loud when by some chance my eyes were drawn up to a commotion at the top of the stairs. It was only some rowdy but happy Indian colleagues of mine crowing over their victory. Yet though it was they who caused the commotion they were not the reason that I paused in my reply. Standing slightly to the right of them I espied a lonely figure standing motionless. She was glaring at me. It was the bitch! The vet from Hell! Melanie Sheldrake! And her look was menacing. It certainly would not do to state our destination as “Pinks” in her presence.
Slowly, cat-like, she stepped down towards the bottom of the stairs. Probably she would have preferred to avoid Emil and me altogether, but we stood our ground. Hey, this was our Civic Centre after all! She was from the minority party. Why should we skulk away to one side for her? So we stood our ground.
“Hi there, Melanie,” I ventured as she reached our level. I had never called her by her first name before as she had never encouraged anyone to be too forward and many of our earlier meetings had been confrontational, full of mutual anger and sarcasm.
“Congratulations on your result. Perhaps we can work together for Corindale now,” I suggested meekly, perhaps too meekly.
“I wouldn’t cooperate with you for all the tea in China.” She spat out. “ Just keep out of my way! You got in by a fluke. I’ll make sure you’re out again next time round. You and your lot!”
I looked at her in astonishment. My proffered hand hung in mid-air. I knew she carried a lot of bile but I thought that she would at least attempt to disguise it in the formal surroundings of a public Council event. “Please yourself,” I said feigning indifference.
“Good night, Councillor Kapacek,” she said icily to Emil as she swept off.
“Miaou!” Emil whispered in my ear. Probably even he did not have the courage to say anything else in her presence. He nudged me knowingly. “Welcome back to Framden Council, Brother! It’s a real snake pit!”
We both watched her storm off to the car park and shook our heads. I don’t know what went through Emil’s head, but I noticed her sleek slim body, the contours of which were just visible through her spring jacket. With a frisson I noted that she had a curved protruding posterior only partly concealed by that jacket. In fact the bottom of the jacket was resting on those rounded globes.
“Remember, Peter,” said Emil, “the most venomous snakes have the most exquisite exterior!”
Perhaps he had seen the same Melanie Sheldrake that I had seen."

Next week: Chapter Two - Where will the naughty councillors go to celebrate?

Chapter I Electon Night

2009-10-09T01:26:00.000+01:00

Chapter I Election Night

The Returning Officer adjusted her bifocals and finished her final announcement of the night, “…and I hereby declare that Peter Robert Axtell, Meena Chakravatty and Melanie Aneta Sheldrake have been duly elected as Councillors to serve the Corindale Ward.”
Yum, yum!
I was bursting with delight and pride. “Yum, yum” is what I felt but I was determined not to show it. Stay cool, Peter, I said to myself.
Indeed, my own joy was drowned in an almighty cheer. I glanced around me. Everyone seemed to be jumping up and down, hugging and lifting up their arms in triumph. Meena and her mother were dancing with joy. Now Meena was about to leap at me and embrace me. I did condescend to give Meena a bear-like, almost fatherly embrace, and I allowed the faintest smile to appear for a moment on my lips. Just for a moment mind. A little hug, a little pat on the bottom. That will do for now. Especially as her mother launched herself at me too.
It was all getting to be a bit of whirl. One of the failed opposition candidates, an elderly gent, proffered me his hand with great dignity. I took it calmly and (I thought) nobly, and patted him on the shoulder patronisingly. The third party candidates also got their required handshake. Others from my side rushed up exultantly and I met their gush of exaltation with the dignified air of a reluctant victor, thanking them profusely but calmly for their efforts. I sought to trade their hubris for my seeming humility. What a strange thing to think at such a moment, I thought. I obviously do not do spontaneous joy very well.
The Stevens couple came up sorrowfully too, crushed in their despair at failing to win a seat and yet big-hearted enough to congratulate me. I comforted them both more warmly than the others. I suggested “a next time”, convincingly I think, to which poor Fred Stevens could only shake his head in sullen disbelief. Actually he was probably right. His chances of returning to the Council would now be slim. After all, Fred was now in his upper 60s. The next council elections would be in four years’ time. Would we be selecting a 70 year old for this seat?
Yet inside, Fred or no Fred, I was gloating unashamedly in joy and triumph. For the hubris had not really been traded in for anything. No way. It had merely been digested into the deepest recesses of my soul where it howled like an untamed poltergeist as it rippled through every fibre of my being. It was a silent but shuddering joy. Victory at last! After a 4 year break I was here! Back on the Council! The words of the Returning Officer were the final confirmation that I had made my comeback.
Not just mine, of course. Our ward, Corindale, had been the last to have its count declared because of the closeness of the vote and the subsequent recounts. We knew now that our party had retained its control of the Council and increased its majority from 5 to 7 votes. Not a dramatic result to an outsider perhaps, but both the local paper and the London press had predicted a hung council, or even a defeat for us. The relief and joy of my colleagues at this narrow victory came largely as a result of the tension of the last 6 hours as the votes were counted and recounted in the main hall of the Civic Centre.
I had known the result some 5 minutes earlier. The Returning Officer had briefly shown us the final results and checked some final voting papers which had seemed ambiguous. After the first recount I had deliberately retired to the Council coffee bar listening good-naturedly as my colleagues would run up to me and brief me on the latest results in the other wards and on the knife edge result in our ward. All the other candidates and monitors had paced back and forth over those recounted votes and crowded around the counting tables as they watched the votes mount and the election boxes move from one of the end of the room to the other disgorging their precious paper contents on the way. I continued to sit calmly in a coffee bar armchair making small talk with whoever felt relaxed enough to speak to me. I made it appear that I could not care a flying fart as to who won the vote and that I was oblivious to the tension and drama surrounding me; like Sir Francis Drake playing bowls as the Armada proceeded up the Channel. Or like my favourite role model – Phileas Fogg from “Around the World in 80 Days”. After all what could I change at that late stage in the game?
That was my brain talking. Or rather the PR man locked into my brain. He had been placed there by my ambition and my warped delayed emotions. In truth, I was a quivering jelly surrounding a beating heart that kept repeating “You must win! No more a nonentity! No more the horrors of being entombed in obscurity!”
That close count in turn was the culmination of a year of campaigning, the last 3 weeks of which had been particularly intense. There had been plenty of hard foot-slogging and emotional stress before, of course. All through an unusually cold and rainy April we had conducted door to door visits, pestering reluctant and dazed householders, leafleting around the whole ward once a week, each time with a new leaflet. Twice a week we took a trip to the Party office in Framden town centre to telephone our voters, electoral register in hand, marking off the polite and the terse, the indifferent and the belligerent, supporters, opponents, don’t knows, maybes, don’t cares and downright liars, who will lead you astray whatever you ask. We had canvassed voters door to door in the key areas. I had personally taught Meena all the tricks of the trade and she had upped the stakes like an old trouper broaching her meet and greet campaign with even greater enthusiasm than me.
Then there had been the weekend campaign stalls, occasionally in the High Street, occasionally at the Corindale Sports Centre. We accosted shoppers and visitors in the streets, sticking leaflets in outstretched hands or inside shopping bags, dishing out badges and balloons to children. Then there was that awkward day when we chatted up the primary school mums waiting for their kids outside the gates of St Edmunds School. Some of the saucy young mums were a sheer delight as I traded electoral promises for kisses and cheeky banter but others were downright grumpy. And then there was the day we leafleted the commuters at North Framden Station campaigning for a lift because of the inadequate escalator service, which was a sheer joy as every passenger, whether our supporter or not, overcame their curiosity and took our leaflets. Wearing party badges and rosettes can transform you from a normal diffident citizen minding his or her own business into a licensed intruder forcing his attentions and his “How are you, luv?” incantations onto a reluctant but resigned general public. .
Was it enjoyable? Hardly at the time. Was it endurable? That was a better question. Often, yes. Was it exhilarating? Not when you first start by approaching a group of indifferent potential voters with their minds on their daily chores; but “yes” when you eventually run across supporters, and definitely “yes” when you looked back at it afterwards. Anything that helped you flirt with pretty women, young and not so young, was always fun. If you wore a party rosette you could actually accost women in the street and nobody thought of calling the police. Now that surely was a good thing.
After a round of drinks at the Civic Centre makeshift bar with my ward supporters and with other successful candidates from our party in the neighbouring wards, I had telephoned my mother to tell her I had been successful. Despite the lateness of the hour ( as it was well past midnight), I had also telephoned my senior partner, Roger Clarkson, to tell him I would not be coming to work for a couple of days. I worked as a quantity surveyor, a dispiriting exercise. I explained that I needed to sort out where I stood in the Council and take my oath of office the following morning. With those necessary duties performed, I could afford to let my hair down a bit. I could live my dream as a Councillor.
_
I felt so proud and pleased with myself as I walked down through the entrance hall to the steps of the palatial Civic Centre building. It was cold outside as winter still refused to let go of its earthly shackles despite the fact that it was now the first Thursday in May and spring would normally be preparing the scene for summer by this time. At least it was not raining any more.
I looked up at the tall familiar tower of the municipal pile that we call the Civic Centre, illuminated by floodlights. Every day, while I had been outside the Council, I could see this tower hovering over the surroundings blocks, sometimes from several miles away as when seen from Daffodil Hill. It is red-bricked but with a Renaissance style loggia at the top. It was my symbol of longing, of the order and power in which I was not sharing. It was my lighthouse symbolizing the kingdom I was being denied and the stage on which I could not act. Now I was underneath the welcoming tower again, a true member of the select brotherhood responsible for running the Borough. I was a Councillor again.

A taste of Framden

2009-10-05T07:44:00.004+01:00

Dear friends,
Before I start serialising the abridged memoirs ofmyself as a Framden Borough Councillor (Framden is a London Borough, as you should know), I would like to introduce a passage from the unabridged version as a taster of what i might contain.
A little out of context perhaps but here goes:

‘I was born near Vitebsk in the Soviet Union. My family was Russian. My father was a party official, my mother a railway engineer. When I was a little girl the old Union fell apart and Vitebsk became part of a new country called Belarus. My father lost his job and we had many problems. We were very poor. I won all the prizes for mathematics at school and I was a good chess player. We had relatives in Moscow and when I was 18 years old they told my father that I should come to Lomonosov University in Moscow and study there. Because we were poor I got a scholarship and then my aunt and uncle let me stay with them as a student, provided I became their housekeeper. They slept in one room and I bedded down on the sofa in the other room which doubled as a kitchen. Their children had already grown up and lived in other parts of Russia.
‘For two years I studied and slaved, because my aunt treated me very badly and my uncle was always trying to seduce me. I didn’t complain to my parents as it would only make them unhappy. They were so proud of me, especially as my studies were going well and I had just won a competition to continue my studies in London under an exchange scheme. The only thing I lacked was the money to go there.
‘Towards the end of the second year my aunt and uncle got very drunk one evening. I came back from a party in a friend’s flat and was met by a shower of abuse from my aunt who accused me of being a slut and of leaving their flat filthy and untidy. I was still a very quiet person then but I lost my temper and shouted back at her. She made to hit me and I pushed her back. My uncle, who was my mother’s younger brother, grabbed me by my hair (you remember my pigtails?) and demanded I apologized. I found my courage and shouted at him to let me go. He dragged me by my hair to their room and told me again to apologize or I will be punished. I laughed in his face. He hit me hard around the face and made my right cheek puff up. I pushed at him with all my strength and knocked him back against the side of the table. He lost his balance and hit his head on the floor. He temporarily lost consciousness and I ran out of the room. My aunt called me a murderer and telephoned the police. I was totally panic stricken as I had nowhere to go.
‘When the police arrived my uncle was just recovering but my aunt still accused me of assault. The police handcuffed me and took me downstairs to a waiting van. I was driven to the local police commissariat and thrown into an individual cell. A burly woman police officer came in and told me to undress to my underwear. It was quite cold but I was very frightened and did as I was told. After nearly 3 hours, the woman officer came back, handcuffed me again and led me along the corridor to a lift. Two floors up we got out and I was led into a large room with a female police inspector sitting at a table looking at my file. The burly police woman remained in the room and waited.
“Stand to attention, Naryshkin!” I stood to attention shaking with fear. The inspector eyed me up and down and inspected my swollen cheek which now nearly covered my eye.
“I have your file here, Naryshkin. You are a hooligan, attacking your aunt and nearly killing your uncle. Yet you also have a scholarship at Lomonosov and you have been selected to go to London. And you have no money?”
‘I replied that I was not a hooligan and that I was the innocent party, but that the rest of the statement was true.
“We won’t beat about the bush here, Naryshkin,” said the inspector. “We would have to take your word against your uncle’s and aunt’s and this will not help you. You would be sent to correction camp for 6 months and then deported back to Belarus. I have noticed the fact that you have been hit and that could be a mitigating circumstance though I think our Moscow judges would not be so understanding. In any case you could not live again at your uncle’s flat and as you have no other money, back to Belarus you go.
'I was shattered, devastated...
"Oh no, not my poor parents," I thought. Anything butthat. Anything, anything...
'The inspector eyed me carefully.
"On the other hand….," she continued haltingly. "Russia needs clever young scholars like you to learn from the West. I have a solution for this. But you must take it or leave it. Understand, Naryshkin?
‘I nodded. I begged them to find something that would prevent my deportation to my humiliated parents in Belarus.
“Very well, here is the proposition. You will not be prosecuted in court for this offence. You will move immediately to the police barracks in Lefortovo and you will live there until September. You will not go to college but we will provide you with a mathematics tutor. We will supply you with funds for any services we ask you to do. Next September you can travel to university in London for a 3 year course that the state will pay for. All right, so far, Naryshkin?”
‘I could not believe my good fortune at this unexpected offer. I gulped my thanks.
“However a crime has been committed by you and you must answer for that. It will teach you respect for your elders and make you obedient to us while you are in our employ. Understood?” I was not sure I would like the sound of this.
“You will receive 12 strokes of the police rattan cane on your bare behind. It will be administered here now in this room. Is that agreed, Naryshkin?” My heart skipped a beat and I completely lost my voice. “Well, Naryshkin?”
'I gulpd deeply and thought very very quickly. Then I nodded.
“Actually that is a wise choice,” she said. “Please wait.”
‘She dialled a number on the telephone. “Colonel, the candidate has agreed to the scheme. Yes, that is right. The name is Naryshkin, Valentina Ivanovna Naryshkin. She is 21 years old. Yes, that’s the one, the student, the mathematics student. Yes, I will give you the details later. I will start her induction now. Why, many thanks, Colonel. I appreciate that invitation and my partner will be delighted. Yes, thank you, Colonel. Good bye.” She smiled blissfully into the middle distance.
‘She looked up at me standing by her desk. The smile on her face evaporated immediately.
“Very well, Naryshkin. That is settled. Now bend over this table and grasp the other end with your hands.”

‘I did so though I was quite paralysed with fear. The inspector got up, moved round behind me, and slowly pulled down my knickers. I sensed her hands lingering over my exposed behind. I think the dyke got a real thrill from this. I felt very vulnerable.
“Very well, officer. Proceed with the punishment. Naryshkin, count the strokes aloud. Any you get wrong will be repeated.”
‘The burly woman guard stepped up behind me and I could hear the swish of her cane as she tried out the weapon in mid air. Without any more ceremony she cut me with the first stroke. The pain was excruciating as it engulfed my entire frame. I choked with pain and then I counted, “One!”
‘Then the next one crashed into my posterior. The pain from the earlier stroke was augmented by the second one. How could I survive this? “Two.”
‘The rattan struck me again. Pain was all. Pain was universal. “Three.”
‘Swish. It was the next stroke. Pain is universal and also eternal. “Four!”
‘The wind whistled the arrival of the next stroke. Is there a life before pain? “Five.”
‘Thwackk! God, is there a life after pain? “Six!”
‘When the next stroke hit me I jut screamed. I had been absorbing the pain silently until now. The pain was now so unbearable. There was a few seconds’ silence before I managed to call out “Seven!”
“More quickly next time, Naryshkin! Or the stroke will be repeated,” barked the inspector.
‘Relentlessly came the next cut. Heat and pain were transforming my senses into a distant eternal dullness of pain. “Eight!”
‘The next hit just plunged anonymously into this morass of suffering on my exposed rear. Anonymously but still I felt it and screamed again. “Nine.”
‘I felt I was losing all sense of pain as the acute all embracing sting of the next stroke entered the hotplate burning on my posterior. “Ten!”
‘Until now the strokes had come with a monotonous regularity with about 4 seconds between each stroke. But I had to wait for the next stroke for a little longer as I heard the police officer swishing around the cane to recheck its elasticity.
‘I was so numbed by the pain that I assumed that the next stroke could no longer add anything more to my suffering. Yet when it arrived so briskly after the longer pause it started as an immediate sharp explosion like a bee’s sting followed by the pain one feels when one has roasted one’s derriere against a hot metal grate. “Yeow!!” I was howling now.
“Naryshkin! I did not hear the stroke! Do you want it repeated?”
‘I had genuinely lost count now, as I struggled through my tears to repeat the word “Twelve!”
“Naryshkin, you have miscounted! Officer, repeat stroke eleven!”
“Nooo!” My cry was cut short by the next cut which made me feel as if a cobra had bitten deep into my bum. The previously dulled pain exploded into a sharp but prolonged focus. All my pride and restraint was broken. I was not even crying. I was howling like a little child. I whispered hoarsely through my tears, “Eleven!”
“I did not hear, Naryshkin. What was that?”
“Eleven!” I yelled with all my might.
‘The last stroke was the mother of all cane strokes beginning and ending as an unendurable jellyfish sting that encompassed all the pain one could imagine from a severe scalding to a sword thrust and then to the bite of a maddened wild animal.
“Punishment completed!” said the burly police officer.
‘The inspector came over behind me again and ran her hand gently over my bruised stinging butt. “Very promising! You’ve made a good start, Naryshkin. You may get up now.”
‘In fact I could barely lift up my wounded frame as I felt paralysed by the searing pain that covered my arse. That pain drained me of all my energy in the rest of my body in order to withstand the acute concentration of hurt in the area of my backside. I am sure the effect would have felt the same if I had been branded on my bum with a hot iron.
‘I dressed though my knickers barely fitted around my swollen buttocks. I was marched back to my cell, told to dress again and then put in a police van and driven to my new dormitory in Lefortovo.
Valentina's tale continued.

There. Sad tale. But at least you have your taster.
Thanks and happy salivating,
Now back to my Council correspondence.
Peter

Chapter headings

2009-10-01T23:58:00.000+01:00

:10 PM

1 comments:

Councillor Peter Axtell said...
Here is a taster - the chapter headings:
Chapter I Election Night 3
Chapter II The Maid of Vitebsk 9
Chapter III Oath of Office 17
Chapter IV Pinkerton Plaza 23
Chapter V The Site Visit 28
Chapter VI The Invitation 33
Chapter VII The House of Shame 37
Chapter VIII The Confession 43
Chapter IX Training in Lefortovo 49
Chapter X The Three Witches 52
Chapter XI The Smugglers 62
Chapter XII The Press Release 67
Chapter XIII In the Mayoral Chair 76
Chapter XIV Japanese Invasion 81
Chapter XV The First Prophecy 87
Chapter XVI Media Frenzy 96
Chapter XVII The Third Chair 104
Chapter XVIII In The Meeting House 110
Chapter XIX Rent-a-Crowd 118
Chapter XX A Visit to the Vets 127
Chapter XXI Apology and Aftermath 134
Chapter XXII Colorbis Travel 139
Chapter XXIII Whispering Trees 146
Chapter XXIV The Fortress of Nafta Ural 151
Chapter XXV Canine Capers and Cannelloni 160
Chapter XXVI The Second Prophecy 168
Chapter XXVII Framden Lock 173
Chapter XXVIII The Wedding 177
Chapter XXIX The Well of Corruption 183
Chapter XXX The Party is Over 189
Chapter XXXI Mistress of the Bullwhip 196
Chapter XXXII The Love Boat 201
Chapter XXXIII The Wombles of Ulster 209
Chapter XXXIV The Trap is Set 216
Chapter XXXV Unwelcome Visitors 223
Chapter XXXVI The Secret Entrance 232
Chapter XXXVII High Noon 236
Chapter XXXVIII The Third Prophecy 249
Chapter XXXIX The Summit Meeting 258
Chapter XL The Mummy Returns 264
Just a taster.
Enjoy....
Peter
October 1, 2009 3:25 PM

Towers of Framden

2009-10-01T22:10:00.000+01:00

Dear friends,
Towers of Framden is my hitherto unpublished journal as a Councillor written 8 yeas ago.
I would very much like to share it with my readers. I shall start serializing it in a couple of weeks' time.
Be warned. It is for adult reading only.
Hope you will enjoy it.