Notebooks of the Young Wife by Tara Black Page B

magazines?’ She looked up from the coffee mug between her hands and turned an indignant gaze full on me. It was not the time to confess to my own partiality for schoolgirl bottoms, so I suppressed a twinge of guilt and nodded in agreement. ‘But between women I try to tell myself that’s a different thing. Not that I’ve really got a choice .’
    Ama got up and leaned against the sink, frowning. ‘If I try and ignore it I just get more and more wound up. Fucking obsessed, can’t think about anything else. If it comes to it – and it has done – there’s a lady in town who’ll...’ she broke off, shaking her head, ‘...but I won’t go into that. You’ve got a reputation, Jane, and you’ve come along at the right time. If you’re up for it, of course.’
    ‘I’m up for it, Ama, the question is, are you?’ I was a touch irritated and let it show. However, in response her face cleared and there was the suggestion of a smile. She led me out round the dividing wall and with the air of playing a trump card positioned me in front of an object shrouded in some dark material. Plucking off the cover, she stepped on a pedal, threw a lever and with the sounds of machined parts slotting decisively into place, four steel tubes swung out from a stout pedestal bolted to the floor. There was a kind of double saddle in the centre and the padded cuffs at the extremities were sprung open.
    ‘Once I’m on, I’ll have to be. Up for it, that is. I don’t get off till you decide it’s finished, right?’
    ‘Right.’ I echoed the word trying to get a grip on the situation. ‘Is it, I mean, did you, er...?’
    ‘My design, my execution.’ It was now less of a smile and more of a smirk. ‘Although to be honest, the conception owes something to the modern dentist’s chair, and to various kinds of fuck seats. You know, aimed at facilitating position ninety-six-and-a-half from the Kama Sutra. Though the occupant of mine is going to have an experience rather more toward the dentist end of things.’
    I grinned at her, delighted at the enthusiasm propelling my beautiful black acquaintance towards a sound thrashing. I was keen to make it one she would not easily forget and my loins were turning to liquid at the prospect. She showed me how each of the hefty tubular spokes could be moved through ninety degrees horizontally and close to a hundred and eighty in the vertical dimension; once locked into place the apparatus was a punishment frame as rigid as any that stood on four feet in the traditional mode. And much more flexible: the body could be secured jack-knifed, limbs together, at one extreme or spread-eagled flat at the other; or of course, in any chosen position between the two. Furthermore, the central pillar could be raised or lowered in the manner of a hydraulic jack and, in addition, the whole of what it supported could be titled fifteen degrees forward or back. I was mightily impressed: Ama’s use of the thing might be only occasional but was important enough to have motivated a labour of love.
    I was itching to put the piece of equipment to a practical test, and to that end retrieved the cane from the kitchen. As I swished it a few times it occurred to me that while it was, if anything, slightly heavier than my own, the weight was concentrated into a perceptibly narrower form. While I planned my application of the rod to be quite unrestrained, I did not want to break the skin.
    ‘Ama, is there something you could wear? Thin, but tough is what we need.’ She nodded with what looked very like relief and turned to fish something out of the chest of drawers at her back. It was a pair of Bermuda-style shorts in a fine red leather, closed by zips that ran from the waist to the front of each thigh.
    ‘I had them made last year. After... after a time when...’ She broke off, biting her lip, and I squeezed her shoulder.
    ‘Put them on, sweetie. You should have said.’
    ‘I didn’t want to look like I was chickening