Chapter 4

The following morning, as I was going into the bathroom, I spotted a pair of Mum’s knickers lying on the floor in front of the airing cupboard. Mum had been in there a few minutes earlier. I guessed she’d taken a pile of her clean clothes out to take to her room, and had dropped these ones without noticing.

I whipped them up and stuffed them down inside my boxers. After brushing my teeth I went back to my room and took them out, spreading them on the bed and looked at them. I couldn’t help myself. I stripped off my pants and trousers, and pulled them on. I was already hard.

I had never worn knickers to school, but this just seemed fate. I pulled my trousers on again, hoping my erection would fade a little as these knickers were particularly soft and sensual. Luckily I had no PE or games today, so no changing.

Everything seemed to go well that day. Very well in some respects.

Barely two minutes later I saw my sister wearing just knickers and bra. I’d seen her like that a few times over the years, but never often enough in my opinion. It was only for a second, and she didn’t see me, but that image, like a few others of her, would be burned into my memory for a long time. She did have a stunning figure, and I just knew I would go looking for those particular knickers, and very soon.

First lesson on a Friday was double maths with Mrs Clarke. For once she had her hair down, and she looked so amazingly pretty. She was also wearing trousers rather than a skirt. Now while a skirt showed off her fine legs, the trousers she was wearing definitely showed off her equally fine backside. And since there was no sign of VPL I allowed my imagination to wonder whether she went commando, or wore thong knickers. Either was enough to get my juices flowing, and for a while, sat at my desk, I had a real boner. Mum’s knickers just exacerbated the ‘problem’, so it was fortunate I didn’t have to stand up.

At lunchtime Sandra slipped on a loose tile on the floor. Luckily she wasn’t hurt. No more than her pride anyway. But for a few moments I had a full view up her skirt and between her splayed legs. Beautiful lacy pink knickers! I couldn’t help looking. I wanted them. I wanted what was inside them as well, but I wanted those knickers.

“Stop perving,” she snapped.

“I’m not,” I snapped back. “Perving would be if I tried to look up your skirt. You accidentally flashed me and I couldn’t help seeing. That’s just seeing accidentally. That’s not perving.” I paused for a moment. “You do have very nice legs though.” I grinned at her. She just scowled back.

Luckily both Bondy and Talulah were there, and both had to admit that what had happened was not me perving, though Talulah did tell me off for looking. “I couldn’t help it,” I said insistently, “It just caught my attention, then I was looking. It wasn’t planned.”

Both girls accepted what I’d said, but Sandra did seem a touch uncomfortable with me. “Sorry,” I whispered to her. “I honestly didn’t mean to look at you, I didn’t try to, you know.”

She unbent a little, just nodding at me, without verbally accepting my apology. By the end of lunch break, she had relaxed completely and we were once again chatting as if nothing had happened.

As we walked to physics, Bondy did ask me, privately, what I had seen. I thought I knew him well enough not to blab, so I told him.

“Ooh, that sound so nice,” he whispered. “I wish I’d seen it.”

“Just don’t tell anyone I told you.”

“I wouldn’t. It’d be like Talulah, and telling about her.”

I nodded. “But it was so sexy,” I said.

“Sod off you bastard,” Bondy wailed softly. He wasn’t actually cross or angry with me, just gently frustrated. I laughed, but stopped teasing him. It was enough.

After lunch I had chemistry theory, followed by another maths lesson, then a ten-minute break and the final lesson of the day, physics theory.

I never knew whether schools in America really were the way they seemed to be depicted in film and on TV: when the bell went, everyone just got up and rushed off, regardless of whether the teacher was in the middle of talking. In England you had to wait until you were dismissed. If you started to put things away before then, you could, and sometimes would, get into trouble.

After the bell went, Mrs Clarke finished what she was saying, then told us to put our things away. “Simpson, wait please.” She didn’t sound all that happy.

After everyone else had left, she went to her desk and sat down. “Come closer please,” she said, beckoning to me. Then. “Sit,” she pointed at a chair. She didn’t sound cross, she did sound determined.

“Your father has been in touch.” I blanched. Shit. What had he said about Talulah? Mrs Clarke wasn’t Talulah’s maths teacher, but she was her, our, form teacher, so anything like this would come through Mrs Clarke.

Mrs Clarke just looked at me. “Yes, okay,” she said. “I will.”

Now I was seriously confused. “What?”

“Apparently you told your father you would like me as a concubine, but thought I was unavailable. Is that true?”

“What? Oh. What?” I was so relieved that Dad hadn’t mentioned Talulah after all, that I was just babbling. I don’t think she quite realised my sense of relief though. Not exactly anyway, as I was now panicking about something completely different. My brain was just a maelstrom of thoughts and emotions.

She smiled slightly. “About a third of all the boys I teach have a crush on me to a certain extent. I wish they didn’t. It gets in the way of my teaching.”

“But. But.” I started. I was confused, also worried. Why was she telling me this? To tease me? To remind me that she was a sponsor?”

“You are slightly different. I know you have a crush on me,” she waved away the half formed objection I tried to make. “That doesn’t bother me. Do you know why I teach you?”

I shook my head.

“Do you know why I don’t give you the same stuff I give the others?”

“Because I’m not good enough,” I whispered.

She gave me a tight smile. “You finished the A-level syllabus before the end of spring term last year; and don’t forget Easter was early last year. What you don’t know is that the end of year maths exams you did last May were actually your maths A-level.” My jaw just dropped.

“What I’ve been doing with you since May last year, and so far this year, is the further maths syllabus.” She shook her head. “You’ve not quite finished the further maths syllabus but I’ve also been giving you first year degree course maths. You are making such easy work of it that it is exciting to me. In this morning’s lesson I dug out some stuff from my second year. Advanced calculus. You made heavy weather of it at first, but the stuff I’ve just given you now is a direct follow on, and you breezed through it like it was one plus one.

My mouth just dropped. “Does Dad know?”

She smiled. That smile alone was enough to raise my blood pressure slightly. “Your parents knew and agreed, almost a year ago. I went to see them during the autumn half term holiday last year. Showed them how far you had already got, and explained what I wanted to do. They both agreed wholeheartedly.”

“Oh my god,” I said, a smile beginning to break out on my face.

“Do you know how exciting it is to teach someone like you?”

I shook my head.

She smiled. “Most teachers get a real buzz out of teaching someone like you.”

“So why are you telling me now?” I asked with a hoarse whisper. I was still in shock.

She sighed. “Over the summer break my husband was collected by the Confederacy. I was with him at the time, but he didn’t want to take me. I was so upset that I didn’t go with anybody.”

I frowned. But surely you’re a sponsor?”

She shook her head. “I had, have, a 5·9 CAP score.”

Once again my mouth dropped open. This beautiful, intelligent woman was a concubine?

“Will you go with me?” I asked, my brain still not really thinking straight. My thoughts just bypassed the higher functions of my brain and went straight from my desires to my mouth.

“Yes,” she said simply. “I will. There are a couple of conditions though.”

“I think I know the first, don’t tell anyone else.”

“Except for your father, who already knows and approves, correct. You can’t tell anyone else. If it gets out, not only will I stand up in school and call you a liar to your face, I won’t go with you. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“It’s very important that no one knows I have a concubines score. It would destroy any credibility I have amongst the students as a teacher. I wouldn’t be able to teach. So that too is an absolute secret. Understand?”

I nodded. My heart was pounding with excitement.

“Third. I notice that you, and Mr Bond have been hanging around with Miss Evans and Miss Walmsley.”

“Who?”

“Sandra Walmsley?”

“Oh, yes, sorry, I didn’t know her surname.”

“Well I’m guessing that that is because of Miss Evans’ home life?”

“Er, er,” I squeaked.

Mrs Clarke gave me a small smile. “I do know all about her life. I am so sorry for her. I really wish I could do more than the little I am doing.” She frowned slightly. “I keep her back for half an hour after school, officially in detention, about twice a week most weeks. Her sister stays with her, and they do their homework. Amber doesn’t know what her sister is putting up with and Talulah doesn’t know that I know.”

“How did you find out?”

“Sandra told me, in confidence, about three years ago, when she, Sandra, was in my form. I don’t normally have a sixth form as my form group, but this year I specifically asked for Talulah’s group. The fact that you were in it as well is just chance.” She smiled slightly, “good chance. It’s just a shame that Miss Walmsley is not in it. That unfortunately is out of my control.”

“Oh.” I frowned. “Did you report it to the police?”

She shook her head. “That’s not how this sort of thing works. One can report it direct to the police, but I go through what’s called a Safeguarding team.”

I frowned puzzled, but didn’t speak.

She gave me a smile that went nowhere near her eyes. “The safeguarding team is a small group of people who do an initial investigation and have direct contacts with the appropriate parts of the social services and the police. They deal with reports of issues with both children and vulnerable adults.”

“What,” I started to ask.

“Vulnerable adults? Don’t worry about the detail. Talulah is still only seventeen so is legally still a child.”

“Oh. Okay. So what did this safeteam do?”

“Safeguarding. Nothing. Not that I can see anyway. I’ve never gone back to them so I don’t know what they’ve done. With Sandra’s help, and now hopefully yours and Bondy’s, I keep as close an eye as I possibly can on what’s going on. If I ever think it’s a real, life threatening, emergency to either of them, or I think or believe that Amber is in real imminent danger of rape, then believe me I will head straight for the police and bypass the safeguarding team.”

“So why didn’t they do anything?”

She sighed. “I don’t know. Strictly speaking, I don’t know they did nothing. They never came back to me, though to be honest, as neither of them were in my class or form, I wouldn’t really have expected them to, but it would have been nice. They likely did an initial investigation, but as the information was third-hand as I had no direct knowledge of it, there probably wasn’t a lot they could investigate directly. It’s equally possible of course that they took it not further for the same reason I haven’t gone to the police direct. Amber. She still doesn’t know, and Safeguarding don’t have enough evidence, if any, of what is happening to Talulah. I’d like to think that if it was only Talulah, something would have happened by now.”

“Okay.” I wasn’t happy, but I could also see Mrs Clarke was even less happy.

“Could I report to the Safeguarding team?”

She shook her head. “No. My Safeguarding team is part of my union. For a doctor or a paramedic, it will be part of their organisation, for other people?” She shook her head a little helplessly.

“What about the NSPCC? Could I go to them?”

She nodded decisively. “Yes. Good point. Or Childline. Otherwise I guess it really is to the police if people don’t have access to a safeguarding team of their own. Any organisation that deals directly with children or vulnerable adults will have a safeguarding team of some sort, usually as part of Health and Safety or personnel. In a smaller organisation all it would probably do is collate the information then go direct to the appropriate authorities. For larger organisations like my union they will do some, maybe even a lot, of the initial investigation.

“When we had a Local Education Authority, there would have been a safeguarding team as part of the LEA. That would have covered all the schools in their area.” She looked down for a moment. “Problem is, I wouldn’t want to go to any local team, simply because Mr Evans is fairly well known locally, and has some clout. I had to go to my union, unfortunately they are just not local enough. When they never came back to me,” she trailed off unhappily, once again shaking her head.

“All right,” I siad slowly. “So what happens now?”

“Your father has told me what you told him, and between us we have worked out a bit of a plan for her. And this is the third condition. As far as I’m concerned, rescuing her is far more important than going with you. Understand?”

I nodded. So my father had mentioned Talulah. “Not a problem,” I said firmly. “How can I help?”

“Well, it’s risky, and sadly it would mean that you probably couldn’t go with your father’s group. Not unless he delays until next summer.”

“Why next summer?”

She grinned at me. “Partly because I want to see you get an A* in your further maths A-level.” Her smile vanished. “Mostly, however, to get my plans in order for Miss Evans. Talulah.”

“Oh!” I was really startled by that and didn’t know what to say.

“Of course, if that can’t happen, if Talulah has to go early for her own safety, then that takes priority.”

I nodded my agreement, then frowned. “How can you do that?”

“Your father has helped me to set up a group of my own. We’ve been in touch with the people in charge of collecting to let them know. There will be four male teachers, one of whom we hope will go with Talulah as her concubine, but obviously at the end of the day that has to be her choice.” She smiled slightly. “Talulah herself. She’s a lot stronger than you think. She got a six-point-seven CAP score, if I remember correctly, and that’s after all the home problems she has. Just think what she could have done if she’d had a proper, stable, loving home. Then there’s you, Mr Bond, Mr Higgis and Mr Blish. That makes eight. I need to find two more at a minimum.”

“You know Bondy wanted you?”

“What? How do you know?”

I told her the complete story, including how I had turned him from her because I had assumed she would be a sponsor. She smiled wryly. “Oh dear. Perhaps we had better not include him then.” She sighed. “No. I have to. You and he are now an integral part of the plans.”

“Oh. You could try Andy Halton.” He was the other seven-plus CAP in her form group.

“The ‘bit of a gobby bell-end’?” I gaped at her, shocked that she’d use such language. “Yes I know exactly how he describes himself,” she said with a chuckle at my discomfiture. “And he’s quite correct in his self description. No thank you very much. He doesn’t have the discipline to stay quiet, and actually... ,” she didn’t finish what she had been about to say, just shook her head decisively.

“Yeah, okay. Might be better to get people from outside the school then.”

She nodded. “It would, yes. I was just seeing if you thought any of the other students with a sponsor card would be suitable.”

“I don’t know most of them.”

She nodded. “All right. Well I think I know of two more people who might do.” She sighed. “You need to find three other concubines. Have you made a decision?”

I explained about my suggestion for Amber Evans and Selena Bond and she nodded. “Those two wouldn’t be your first choice though, would they?”

“I don’t know, I don’t know them. In any case, Amber is still only thirteen. I had half thought of Sandra, if she won’t go with Talulah.” Over the last couple of weeks I had slowly come to see that Sandra was actually a really nice person. I had grown to genuinely like her. I didn’t know whether I actually fancied her, she was still quite scary looking, but the thought had crossed my mind a couple of times. It was only as I was thinking of concubines right now though, that the choice of Sandra had even popped into my head.

“Sandra would be a good choice for you, a very good choice actually, but for Talulah’s sake she might be a better choice for her.” She pondered. “Assume Sandra will go with Talulah for now. I’ll see if I can come up with some ideas and suggestions for you.”

“Do you have children?” I asked softly.

A sad, haunted, look came into her eyes and she shook her head without saying anything.

“There’s a few other girls I thought of, but I don’t know if they have CAP scores.” I said after a moment.

“All right, let me have a list of their names on Monday, and I’ll see what I can find out on your behalf.”

“Thank you Miss.”

“Off you go now,” she whispered.

“Um. Er. If I really took my A-Level last May, shouldn’t I have got a certificate?”

She pulled a stiff A4 sized envelope from her bag. “Don’t let anyone see or know about that apart from your parents.”

“What did I get?”

“Open it and see.”

The envelope was unsealed so I pulled out the notification slip and a certificate. A*; I had got the top grade.

“Thank you, Miss.” I grinned at her. “I mean that. Thank you so much.”

She just smiled at me, her eyes still sad, and waved me away.

The rest of the school day, not that there was much left of it, seemed to go by in a blur. Twice in the forty-five minute lesson I was pulled by the physics teacher for daydreaming, When you know the most beautiful woman in the school has agreed to be your concubine, you can’t help daydreaming. The A* barely made it into my thoughts, Mrs Clarke filled them instead.

I did make up the list for her, but since some of the girls were in lower years and I didn’t know their names, the list was shorter than the one I had thought of when talking to Dad. She counted them quickly.

“Fourteen.”

I nodded.

“Any preferences?”

“Not really.”

It was her turn to nod. She looked at them for a moment and crossed out about five. “Already gone, and not available” she told me.

“They’ve agreed to be someone else’ concubine?” I asked.

She just nodded. I was half hoping she might have told me who the sponsor was, but she didn’t.

Two weeks later was the Autumn half-term holiday. Nothing special happened during those weeks, though I did get an idea that one of the girls on the rugby team was looking at me quite a lot. I wasn’t sure I knew her name, Margot I think, but she was most definitely cute. She wasn’t someone I had mentioned to Mrs Clarke.

The first Saturday of the holiday week, I was, once again, wearing a pair of Mum’s knickers. I had an idea she didn’t wear this pair very often. I never saw them in the wash and they were normally right at the back, right at the bottom of her drawer. She’d had them for a while, and they were one of about half a dozen pairs I used semi-regularly, so I knew they weren’t new. I did wonder whether she would notice if I stole them completely. I didn’t think she would, but I wasn’t sure enough, so I always put them back.

What I normally did was to ‘wash’ them under the bathroom tap the following morning, and then slip them between my bed and mattress to dry. While I was in the bedroom, I would slip them onto the radiator, with a towel over them, then hide them again when I left. Very occasionally, if there was stuff on the line, I might slip them onto the line and hide them there. That wouldn’t work with these particular knickers though, so my normal routine was followed, and they went back into Mum’s drawer half way through Monday, at the first opportunity I got.