When the Spanish maid carried the second suitcase out to Dr
Mappamundi's little car she had a smirk on her face and Emily
hated her for it. The hood of the car was up and the handle
on the passenger door was still broken, so the maid had to
lift the bag over the door onto the seat. When Dr Mappamundi
came down the stairs she was wearing no makeup and it was plain
she had been crying again. Shamefacedly, she kissed Emily on
the cheek, then turned to speak to Mrs Armstrong who pointedly
ignored her, turning to arrange the lilies on the massive hall
table. Dr Mappamundi's shoulders slumped in defeat, then she
turned and went out to her car. Before Emily could follow,
Mrs Armstrong turned decisively and pushed shut the massive
door, leaving the hall in its usual semi-darkness, only lit by
a stair window. The crackle-surfaced oil paintings retired
again into the gloom and the row of ivory elephants, the colour
of decaying teeth, were still on their long march into the
darkness below the stairs.
"Thank goodness," Mrs Armstrong said. " Well, nobody can say I
have not done my best with her."
Dr Mappamundi appeared to have totally forgotten that Mommy never
believed herself to be wrong and that when she made her mind up
there was no more to be said. Hysterics and crying were not
going to make any difference. It was worse than when any of
the maids had been sacked. At least none of them had gone so
far as to go down on their knees before Mommy. But that is what
Dr Mappamundi had done, pulling despairingly at Mrs Armstrong's
skirt and then had collapsed moaning on the ground until Mommy
had forced her to her feet and given her a stinging slap across
her cheek. Dr Mappamundi's humiliating departure from the house
had been almost as great a shock as her arrival, Emily thought
as she followed her mother up the broad staircase. Outside, the
little sportscar had crunched down the drive with a final,
defiant spurt of gravel and an autumn gale lashed the trees of
the driveway. A grim ivory warrior sneered at Emily from the
window embrasure on the stairs.
Emily remembered that warm morning late in the Summer. Dr
Mappamundi had left the top of the little red sports car down as
it stood on the gravel overnight. As Emily tried to open the
passenger door, Dr Mappamundi said airily "I think the handle's
broken, Emily, just climb over "
Emily, wearing a skirt, did not find this easy and Dr Mappamundi
zoomed off, spraying gravel from the driveway onto the lawn,
while Emily still had one leg hooked over the little door and was
trying to arrange her tender bottom onto the leather bucket seat.
In some ways it had been very pleasant having Dr Mappamundi staying
in the house, although Emily found that the discussions between her
mother and Dr Mappamundi were usually a little abstruse..
Dr Mappamundi now swung the little car gaily down the wide, tree
lined boulevard, swerved to avoid a refuse lorry, mounted the
pavement for a few yards and demolished a two-year old sapling
before regaining the road.
This morning she was wearing a dark red suit and a white blouse
with discreet red polka dots. Not everyone could wear red high
heels, but Dr Mappamundi managed it with aplomb. Emily was surprised
her mother had not commented, as she would have done with Emily
and, after all, Mrs Armstrong had certainly now placed herself in
loco parentis to Dr Mappamundi.
"Emily," Dr Mappamundi said, as she negotiated one of the narrow
side streets near the university, "You're very quiet."
"Am I?" Emily said.
Dr Knapp glanced at her quizzically.
"Did something happen last night?"
"Such as what?" Emily asked.
"Oh, come, Emily, don't play the innocent with me."
"I h..heard you and Mommy having an argument downstairs," Emily
said."I was in bed, remember..You were discussing...."
" Wittegenstein, yes," Dr Mappamundi said impatiently. ""Of what
we do not know, therefore we may not speak." But we do know
what goes on in that house, don't we."
"Did...did Mommy spank you," Emily asked. "I heard you cry out."
"Yes, I lost the argument and your Mom spanked me..I have no
complaint. I was in the wrong and she totally demolished my
foolish arguments. She "brought me to book" as she so delightfully
puts it."
"Dr Mappamundi, believe me truly, I'm so sorry,"
Her professor made in impatient gesture as she reversed awkwardly
into a parking spot and helped Emily out the door on the driver's
side, leaving the car at a forty-five degree angle to the kerb.
"No, Emily, I've accepted her right to do that. Don't ask me why.
You know we are both now firmly in her charge. But Emily, please
say that's all you heard.?"
"I thought I heard you crying - after Mommy went to bed..."
"And?"
"And I. ..I came to talk to you."
"Oh my God, I knew it," Dr Mappamundi said.
She looked back at the car.
"Do you think it'll do? Oh, to Hell with it"
She leaned over the car to lift a pile of essays and Emily couldn't
help looking at her shapely bottom which in turn reminded her of
the professor's first visit to the house.
"Emily, we can't discuss this properly now. Let me see, I have a
free period at half two - can you come to my study then?"
"I...I don,t really want to talk about it," Emily said.
"Please, Emily," Dr Mappamundi said. "This is monstrously unfair
to you. I really am your friend Emily. Perhaps we can help each
other in this."
Emily had one lecture with her friend that morning, but she
studiously avoided eye contact. Dr Mappamundi was less than
usually concentrated, although she could often be lured away from
the subject in hand by some of the more mischievous students,
particularly the female ones. A discussion on Kant and Hegel
took a couple of side trips in which Dr Mappamundi's monthly
periods and the merits of waxing rather than shaving one's legs
were elegantly touched upon. Emily's mind was so far astray that
she had later to be recalled twice by the lecturer in her English
Literature class. At the time appointed she tapped rather
timidly on the massive oak door of Dr Mappamundi's study. When
bade to enter she found Dr Mappamundi in her leather armchair,
in her stocking feet, one foot balanced on the thigh of her other
leg while she massaged her toes gently. Her discarded red shoes
with the four inch heels stood together on the desk on a volume
of "De Summa Theologica." The rest of the desk was covered with
files and books and Dr Mappamundi swept them imperiously to one
side.
"Emily," she said gravely, "If you know nothing - fine. However,
if you do you must prepare yourself for anything your mother may
ask you."
"But I haven't done anything wrong," Emily wailed.
"I'm not for a moment saying anyone has done anything wrong,
Emily," Dr Mappamundi said in her closely reasoned way "I do
hope you won't think so. However your mother is quite likely
to punish you severely if she thinks you know anything. She will
prove you to be in the wrong and will not let you jeopardise her
position in any way."
"I know," Emily wailed in despair.
Dr Mappamundi reached across the desk and took the girl's hands
in hers.
"Tell me, Emily."
"I went into your room last night. I'm sorry, but you were
making a funny noise - I thought I heard you sobbing."
Dr Mappamundi's face was paler than before.
"The door was slightly ajar. I only looked in. And as soon...."
Emily began to sob, "as soon as I s..saw I wasn't...wanted.I...
went away."
"Emily, to put it bluntly, you saw your mother and I... not to
put too fine a point on it, you saw her on top of me, isn't that
it?"
Emily nodded in dumb misery.
Dr Mappamundi rose and crossed the room gracefully, on the balls
of her feet like a dancer, to collect a coffee percolator and two
cups. When she had poured the coffee she appeared to be
considering very carefully what she was going to say.
"Last week, Emily, the first time I came to see your mother, you
heard me beg her for mercy....."
Emily nodded.
"And you were there, dear Emily, to witness my humiliation.
Somehow...I just about got through it. And there was a certain
perverse..." here Dr Mappamundi broke off and began biting the
knuckle of her left thumb, a characteristic habit when she was
considering a knotty philosophical problem..
"Last night, Emily, your mother took me beyond the point of no
return. I was frantic, begging her for clemency but this time
I was terrified as well. "
Again Dr Mappamundi was silent, deep in thought.
"She made me another of her famous propositions. But first she
questioned me closely."
"I don't understand," Emily said.
"She suspected, well more than suspected, and by judicious
questioning she established to her satisfaction...." here Dr
Mappamundi paused again and made a steeple of her hands as
if taking a break for prayer. She could sometimes be
maddeningly slow to come to the point and was always so conscious
of the need for what she called "cogent reasoning" and "provable
propositions"
"The fact is, Emily, that she made me admit what I think she
already knew ... that I.. well, I had a...a multiple orgasm
while I was across her knees last week. Please don't look so
shocked, Emily, you know what an orgasm is."
Emily nodded dumbly.
"I'm not a lesbian, Emily. I did experiment a little as a
student
and had a brief fling with a female lecturer, but then," she
shrugged her beautiful shoulders and spread her hands as if in
supplication "doesn't everyone?"
Emily stared at her open-mouthed.
"Perhaps not" Dr Mappamundi said. "Anyway, Emily, I did not
initiate anything, so please don't be so cool towards me. Have
you ever succeeded in resisting your mother?"
" No, but this is...such a shock!"
"Emily, how shall I put this? Your mother is..."
"What?"
"She is ... not inexperienced."
"My God," Emily buried her head in her hands.
Dr Mappamundi had a dreamy look on her face. She crossed her
arms in front of her and appeared to caress her neat breasts in
their warmth.
"I have to tell yo
u this, Emily," she said. "Your mother is a
fabulous lover."
Emily stared in disbelief.
"A somewhat selfish one, perhaps," Dr Mappamundi studied her long
red fingernails for a moment, " but so superbly sensitive to...
to her own needs... goading, spurring on, as it were... "Dr
Mappamundi gulped, ".. that she can drive a lover wild, yes,
wild in simply trying to...to satisfy her desires. The
overwhelming need to...to give her pleasure then becomes one's
supreme desire, a desire that is translated into.... Oh, God!."
Dr Mappamundi was for once lost for words, swallowed and licked
her dry lips and appeared embarrassed at the way her voice had
thickened.
"So is it..... going to continue?" Emily asked.
Dr Mappamundi thirstily drained the cold dregs of her coffee
"If only it would," she said wistfully, taking her red heels
from the desk."but she has given me no indication, in spite of
my entreaties, that I may merit a permanent place in her bed.".
Dr Mappamundi crossed her left leg over her right thigh and
slipped on the shoe, then reached for the other one. "For the
past week I have had to behave as I were her wilful daughter. "
She slipped the other shoe on, then stretched out her feet to
inspect them. "Now I fear I may be just her tart!"