Chapter XXXIII The Love Boat

 

We got to Charing Cross Pier with fifteen minutes to spare. In the car I discovered that, after a day’s break, Susan had begun working at Whispering Trees straight away. Talking together in their office and then taking lunch together had apparently drawn the two of them so close that they had begun exchanging more private information about their mutual interests. Carlo explained that he had made some initial remarks about “whipping into place” certain male colleagues, which touched off word recognition in Susan and provided the password into the magic kingdom of the dungeon and the cane. Within 24 hours they had drawn themselves so far into this fantasy world that Carlo had contacted me to book the extra ticket for Susan on the Love Boat. Their story was so absorbing I forgot my usual paranoia of that week, namely looking out for strange cars that could be following me. Can you create such a trusting relationship so soon? They had uncovered such intimate details about each other in such a short space of time? Perhaps there was more to Susan than meets the eye. Perhaps.…

I dropped them 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, 35 year old 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, purple 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 it. Within a few minutes we were able to reach the ramp and descend to the level of the deck of the river boat. As we boarded, Samuel, 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 on the hand for every lady and every person pretending to be a lady. He was accompanied by a real lady with a whitened face and a long white dress, so contrasting to her surroundings. Samuel introduced her as Lady Ivana. 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 5 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”. Carlo managed to grab one window seat and Susan, the Germans and myself, sat opposite him 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 in the dressing room 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 Carlo. “In fact, too obvious.”

“Why just for you, dear?,” countered Susan, “Where are my playmates?”

There was a woman wearing a basque, not dissimilar to Susan’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 praying 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 they even got to you. 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 fantasized 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 there were groups of people got together for a fun time, often loud and provocative but rarely rude or intrusive. For there was a 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 on board. 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.

Samuel, our host, came downstairs holding hands with Lady Ivana. He greeted and chatted to the people he knew like Carlo and me and was happy to be introduced to newcomers, especially if they were nubile young ladies, like our Susan, or like Petra, the German girl with us.

“Where are the long benches?” he suddenly asked the maids. The nearest “maid” gave a disgruntled retort. Samuel ordered two of them upstairs to fetch the benches and followed them to supervise. “You’ll be interested to know,” Carlo told me, “that we have quite a few disguised VIPs tonight. There is a famous Hollywood actress, a French Canadian singer and a royal Italian princess.” He obviously had this information from Samuel himself. I am convinced there were many people there that night who had no business to be there.

Down came the long benches to be placed along the corridor between the inner row of tables. 

Then, like a true host, he opened up the floor to form the first couple. Elegantly and with outstretched hand he invited Lady Ivana to join him at the centre of the floor for the opening performance. Samuel stepped up elegantly to one of the benches, turned and bowed to his lady, 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 cane the coattails flew into the air and doubled back over Samuel’s back revealing a big white shapeless haunch ready for Lady Ivana to make ship shape.   

Whatever warming up his rear was receiving, Samuel 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, Samuel signalled that his punishment was finished, stood himself up, hitched up his trousers over his crimson posterior and kissed Lady Ivana a profound thank you on her cheeks to the cheers and clapping of the enthusiastic audience at the bar tables.

As Lady Ivana stood there, 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. He rested his feet on her body and invited an entranced Susan 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 Susan to be caned. In fact his first words were to complement Susan 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 Susan who looked anxious, 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 Susan and whispered in her ear, “Perhaps it would be best to pay the taxi fare, now.” She grinned apprehensively. After a couple of hand smacks, I took out my chequebook in the Midland Bank leather cover. “I see your assets are already in the red, you bad girl!” I then proceeded to wallop her with the cheque book cover.

“Come on upstairs,” I suggested after she had “paid her fare”. “Let’s see a bit of London by night.”

Susan agreed.

“Good idea,” added Carlo, “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 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.

One scantily dressed lady pointed to a modern building on the northern side of the river, opposite the Tate. “Look, it’s my son’s private 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 Millennium 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 edifices of Southwark Bridge and London Bridge and could see the white lighted crenelated pillars of Tower Bridge soaring beyond like a magic fairy castle.

Carlo took pictures of some of the sites. Cameras are not normally allowed on these boats, but I assumed that as he was quite close to Samuel, he was acting the role of an “official chronicler”. I was not best pleased when he took a picture of me with Susan but he assured me he would kill the photo and he disappeared for nearly half an hour taking pictures of various revellers.

Susan and I took in the scene upstairs where Samuel was conducting a lottery draw. The prize was a tall girl dressed in a nurse’s uniform called Melinda who was ready to be spanked with a paddle by the winner. I have often noted that tall girls are particularly prone to masochistic tendencies. My theory is that they compensate for their unintended superiority in height over most men around them by needing to show excess subservience to them. Perverse, I know, but it seems to be 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. 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.

Carlo returned. He and Susan 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 Carlo and asked him 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. Unexpectedly, Susan took the leash, ordered the slave to bend over and gave him a few solid whacks with  her whip, before she returned him to Carlo. The slave mistress 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.

While we stood there I asked Carlo again about her warning over Sheremovsky, but he said he was only repeating what one of his Russian clients had said and there was nothing more he could add. I suppose a man like Sheremovsky must have many Russian enemies.

 After some time Carlo and Susan stepped back down for another drink and probably more victims, 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. The lapping river waves, 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 to die a lingering death by drowning 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.

“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??!!” For a moment I blanched. What did she know about Melanie’s private tastes? Then I realized that she had merely stated the most outlandish supposition merely as a joke. By my startled reaction I could have been giving the game away to Penelope. So I swallowed quickly and shut up.

“Well you must admit, Peter, that would make excellent copy.”

“So would a picture of me with the Pope. 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 on who you’re with.”

“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 when do I smack you?”

“Sorry, Councillor, I’m a dom; my sweet little arse is out of bounds.”

“So who are you with?” I said, preferring to change the subject.

“Well I have a little naughty fat 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.

As I listened to Penelope, I reflected on my earlier comparison to Proust and the “Cities of the Plain.” You go through life harbouring a guilty secret, a shameful urge, that you feel sets you aside from your fellow human beings. Sure there are freaks who share your obsessions, but you do not really identify with them. Then you scratch the surface here and there and it transpires that people you had assumed to be normal and whom you respect have their hidden dark side too. It transpires that they share your tastes and even practice them in a world far larger and far more intricate and multi-layered than the mainstream of society. Eventually it is the oddball, the pervert, the freak, who really sets the standard of normality.

There is a sense of that same fear of discovery of one’s oddness and sense of revelation in the magic world of Harry Potter. He was shocked to hear that his dead parents had been members of a secret magician’s world, the tentacles of which spread far and wide and encompassed his school and all who knew him and eventually every aspect of his existence. They even guided the fortunes of 10 Downing Street. Yet of this strange world of magic Harry had been totally unaware until his eleventh birthday, living as he did in the miserable two-dimensional world of guileless muggles on Privet Drive.

“You’re downstairs, Peter?” asked Penelope.

I nodded.

“Well I’m bringing him down shortly for his caning. I understand the work benches down there are in constant use?”

“Like a factory.”

“Good, I’ll see you there then.”

I hurried downstairs to warn Susan to be careful as there was a local Framden journalist on board upstairs. She was understandably alarmed. She had already met up with the polite “Headmaster” who had approached us earlier, except that it was her caning his bare bottom and not the other way round. She stopped beating the Headmaster and asked another lady who was watching her scene to take over the cane and continue.

“Journalists petrify me,” she said to 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, Susan. I was always a little concerned…”

“Peter, after what Meena 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 Carlo. I’ll always be grateful. We all have our little secrets, don’t we? You helped me keep mine. The least I can do is help you to keep yours.” Was there an undercurrent of menace in that reply, or was I being oversensitive?

Susan 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 somewhere where she won’t see me.”

“Susan, 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.” Susan nodded enthusiastically and changed places with the German girl.

“Perhaps, Susan, 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 Susan.

“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, Susan, you will love it.”

Susan 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 at first. Gerd managed to convince her and she eventually agreed.

“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 Susan. Could you do the same for me as well? Especially that cheque book. That was very funny!” She placed herself at my disposal.

A few minutes later Penelope was 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. His head downcast like that of a condemned prisoner. I could not even see his face. 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. 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 50 year olds. No other 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. In German schools caning had been abolished after the First World War. It was reintroduced by Hitler and a lot of good it did them!

So the other passengers gathered round. Susan too had twisted her gagged 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 Susan who had suddenly turned away from the pedagogic tableau and looked at me with a look of serious alarm on her gagged face. She now stared forward with her back to the action as if determined not to see anymore. At first I thought she was simply exaggerating her concern at being recognized by the virago journalist. Then I realized that something was terribly wrong. But what?

I was too far from her now to reach her and remove her gag. She would have to wait.

“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 Andy Trosser!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter