Chapter Text
Their morning ritual was becoming a wonderful, luxurious thing. Set back into motion by Tom’s return from filming, and pushed into the realms of taking care of one another by the start of their physical relationship.
Crusty toast and deliciously bitter orange marmalade, washed down with fresh coffee and mineral water replenished and refreshed tired minds and bodies.
“Do you think Eddie might want to move in with us?” Jean blurted, breaking their comfortable silence with a question that had just occurred to her.
“One more valid question for the list we’ll share when we’re all back together again,” replied Tom between mouthfuls of sticky toast.
“There is one question I need to ask while we’re alone, and I’ll ask the same of Eddie in privacy, too: what is your family going to make of our relationship? Your family is important to you, as are you to them.”
Tom’s first thought was, ‘She’s willing to be not just his, but ours!’ Then he considered her question. “My family loves you, they love Eddie. After some initial worries, a few all too personal questions, and a little thought, I know they’ll be more than accepting.”
He knew he was being truthful. Every family had its quirks, and his was not without a few. What was one more?
“What about your family, Jean?”
She shrugged. “The two uncles in Norway I haven’t seen since I was eleven, or the sister who married a boring banker so she no longer had to share a family name with me? And whose family already think of me as a freak show? Those snobs can go whistle.
“If your Mum invites me back for Christmas dinner this year, I know I’m fine with the family thing!”
Tom looked pensive for a moment, biting at the inside of his cheek.
“Not sure if it’s my place to say this, but I already know Eddie’s answer. He and his family aren’t close. I doubt he gives a monkey’s. Well, at least you have a heads-up on that possible answer.”
“Thanks. I’ll be sure to ask everything else first.”
Tom smiled his assent. Then asked, “What are you up to today?”
“Not much. An hour at the gallery sorting the placements, nothing else. Want to come with? We could grab a sandwich, eat lunch in one of the parks. It’s chilly today, so no one’s going to look twice at a guy in glasses and a hoodie.” She gave him a sly smile, “Let’s go undercover, Mr Pine!”
“How did you…? That’s…”
“Stop littering my desk with proposed scripts.”
The downturn in the weather did work to their advantage, as no one paid the least bit of attention to the scruffy looking couple disembarking from a taxi near the Serp gallery.
Once inside, it was a different story.
Mo warmly welcomed Jean, and then gave a quick nervous look at the tall, shabby man sat in one of the chairs in the reception area behind her. Cottoning on, Jean smirked.
“Sorry, Mo! That’s Tom, my flatmate. We’re off to lunch after this, so let’s make it quick…”
Her words faltered as Mo – who until this point had always been the epitome of The Urban Man – raised a hand to his open mouth and a look crept into his eyes that Jean recognised as hard fangirling. Her shoulders slumped.
Every other hardened Londoner could not give tuppence if the ghost of Laurence Olivier sat next to them on the Tube – they were all too blasé to show reaction. But the guy she needed to pull off her exhibition was currently acting like a school girl.
Taking one of Mo’s perfectly manicured hands in one of her rough, work calloused ones, she said, “Come with me!”
As they walked, Jean hissed in Mo’s ear, “He’s just a bloke who answered my Standard ad for a flatmate. In actual fact, it was his Mum who answered the ad. Before I’d known what or who was moving in, his Mum had paid the deposit and a month in advance. True story.”
Jean knew Mo was sensitive to the etiquette of introductions, so decided to play.
“Mr Mohammed Al-Gherah, Mo, may I introduce my flatmate, Tom. Tom, this is Mo. He works here.”
Ignoring Jean’s rude introduction, Tom stood, smiled, and shook hands with the fangirl. He then slipped faultlessly into his charming and utterly lovely ‘meet the public’ persona.
Jean mouthed, “I am so sorry!” behind Mo’s back.
A few minutes later Mo was more like his old and professional self. Tom was sat in Mo’s office with a coffee and Radio 3, and things seemed to settle down. Mo was furiously taking notes on his tablet as Jean gave her wishes for final adjustments.
They were about to wrap up the meeting, when a loud and familiar voice exclaimed, “En chellam!”
Arms closed around her from behind for a swift bear hug. She recognised the scent of his aftershave and London traffic before she turned around.
“Arun! How are you?”
“Good, good! Would’ve been better if you’d called, but how can I compete with your sculptures?” He winked and smiled good naturedly.
“Sorry, Arun, you’re just too animate for me,” Jean laughed.
The chatter ended as Tom walked over from Mo’s office. He pulled at her hand. “You promised me lunch, darling,” he said before placing an arm around her middle, and wishing Mo and Arun a good afternoon. He pulled her out the gallery door before she could form the words to describe his rudeness.
Arun felt rather non-plussed, and turned to Mo, “Who the hell does he think he is?”
Mo sighed, still staring at the door, “He’s the god of flatmates.”
The short walk to Jean’s favourite sandwich shop on Gloucester Road passed in silence. Tom ordered their food without consulting her. Jean crossed her arms. If he wanted a bit of time work out whatever was bothering him, so be it.
They walked to Kensington Garden’s Round Pond, and ate sat on one of the many benches facing the water. One of them still had a face like thunder.
Half way through her sandwich – emmental with green salad, not one her favourites – Jean lost patience. She threw the remains of her lunch on the ground at Tom’s feet. The ducks instantly reacted; pecking, loudly squabbling, and diving around his ankles for the food.
“NaaaagGGGHH!” Tom drew his legs up, not caring for dignity in the face of a mass duck attack.
Jean crossed her legs on the bench and turned to Tom. “No more pouting. Tell me what’s wrong!”
Still staring at the squabbling ducks, he grumbled, “He called you ‘my dearest.’”
Blinking and shaking her head, Jean knew she was missing something. “Sorry? I’m confused! Tell me what’s going on here?”
Tom pulled a card from his pocket. Jean recognised it as Arun’s daft chat up attempt.
“You left your clothes on the bathroom floor last night. This was on the floor too.”
Jean took the card and offered it to one of the ravenous ducks, which did it’s best to tear away at the vellum.
“So that’s why you darlinged me. And…”
Squeezing his shoulder, she asked, “Oh, sweetie, how many times were you propositioned by a stranger this year, or last?”
Tom blushed, looking at the now duck free ground and stretching his legs to the floor again. Jean took his head in her hands, turning his face to hers.
“And how many times have you taken up any of those stranger’s propositions?”
“Never!”
“Bingo! You are now an honorary female. And that, by the way, is high praise!” She smiled and released him.
Jean’s hand sought his; she stroked the smooth skin of his palm in small circles, and watched purple-hued rain clouds scud across the skyline. She tilted a little more to rest her head on his shoulder.
He gently squeezed her fingers. “Sorry!”
“Completely forgiven.” She raised his hand to her mouth, lightly brushing his knuckles against her lips, enjoying the feeling of his skin against hers.
As they stood to leave, Tom slipped an arm around her waist again, this time with nothing more than closeness in mind. “Think we can make it home before the rain starts?”
Jean took her time showering, then dressed in an old, worn thin white muslin shirt and a comfortable pair of Captain America boxer shorts. Feeling quite calm, even with Eddie due to visit that evening, she paused when she heard what sounded like a child’s tantrum.
“What the….?” Tom turned from his tablet to frown at her as she walked through the living area.
“You received thirty-seven likes, three reblogs and some really saucy comments in the last three days of thfrustration posting our stories, and I received nada, zip and sodding zilch. Why?!”
Making reassuring noises at her pouting flatmate, Jean moved in to lean over the back of the sofa. “Let me take a look at the story you posted.” His big hands started to draw the tablet to his chest; she calmed her face to smile kindly. “Please, Tom. It can’t hurt.”
“Urrggh. Okay,” His shoulders slumped as he pushed the tablet into her waiting hands.
She read as she walked into the kitchen, opening the fridge to filch some of the food Tom had made earlier. Dish of spag-puttanesca in one hand, tablet in the other, she closed the fridge door with a knee, then repeatedly bumped her forehead against the door surface, whispering an agonised, “Oh, Tom!”
Cocking an ear, Tom knew she was reading his story. He felt it was well written, comical, a bit sexy, and everything he wanted to write at the time.
Jean exited the kitchen, food in hand. She sat and ate. When finished she picked up his tablet, and raised an eyebrow. “You haven’t read my story, have you?”
“Yeah, well… No.” He felt a tinge of guilt for not having read her story yet.
“Here you go. Enjoy. Then we compare.” She handed back his tablet and took her dish back to the kitchen.
Tom reclined and read.
Spare the Rod
by SculptJV
A small alarm sounded on Ms Vaughn’s phone, alerting her to the imminent arrival of her most troubled student. As form tutor for the Upper Sixth boys at the exclusive St Williams’ College, she had thought certain forms of behaviour – such as ‘acting out’ -would be minimal at best. But Thomas Oakley pushed against every norm.
She knew he resented being with them. He regarded them as nothing more than a punishment. Remembering the personal details she had reviewed a few months ago, after his first real rule-busting infraction, that involved alcohol, she had thought at the time, ‘Dear gosh, he’s nineteen, only four years younger than me!’
Tom had punished his father for remarrying not a year after divorcing his mother by spectacularly failing his ‘A’ Levels. His father had retaliated by enrolling Tom at St Williams’ and forcing his son to repeat two years of school.
Tom should really have retaken his A2’s after a summer of private tuition then attended university alongside his peers, but Tom’s father, she had learned, was an incredibly inflexible man.
In many ways her heart went out to the young man. His father was publically ridiculing him, and the behaviour he demonstrated was almost understandable given the circumstances. But she had to keep order. Some of the Upper and Lower Sixth boys were starting to see Mr Oakley as a figure to be emulated. And that had to be nipped in the bud.
She sighed, remembering the wonderful little pieces of ‘advice’, and creepy trips down memory lane she had received from some of the more ancient members of staff, on dealing with trouble makers.
“In my day, one simply had to beat the devil out of such a boy. It worked wonders!”
“When a cane was hung on the wall of every classroom, they paid proper attention.”
“I remember young Proops over there improved after a sound thrashing.” The librarian, Mrs Brank-Forcewell, gestured to Mr Proops, the games master. “He soon became a timid and quiet boy, but a constant bed wetter.”
That last tidbit highlighted for Vaughn what cold and uncaring corporal punishment did to young boys. And if Mr Proops’ attitude to his classes – and everyone in general – was anything to go by, such discipline bred completely sadistic brutes.
That was why she ensured her office held tea making facilities; she had a different approach.
By the time the kettle was boiling, she had set out cups and a small plate of shortbread biscuits on a table before the hearth.
There was a knock at her door. “Come,” she replied.
When the door opened she smiled at the blond young man sulking in the entrance to her office.
“Good afternoon, Mr Oakley. Take a seat I’ll be with you in a moment.” She indicated the chairs by the hearth, not the desk, which had the man looking slightly unsure.
She heaped assam into the teapot, added water just off the boil, and then settled in the wingback chair facing her student. “That needs to steep, so in the mean time why don’t you tell me what’s troubling you?”
“Nothing much,” came the indolent reply.
“Tom, I know you find life here to be difficult, and we’ve spoken about this before, but now your behaviour is starting to…”
Vaughn was cut short by Tom’s loud offer of, “Shall I be Mother?”
He took up the teapot and strainer, and instead of leaning over the table to pour, took two steps to tower over Vaughn, smiling and gesturing for her to raise her empty cup. She returned his smile, raised her cup, and immediately found Tom in her personal space. He leaned in close, breathing in the steam from the pouring tea, sighing loudly.
“Lemon?” he asked.
“Thank you, yes.”
He laid the pot on the table, and turned to spoon a segment of lemon onto the saucer by her cup, all the while leaning over her. After he sat back down, he gave her the world’s most interested and innocent smile. Vaughn blinked then found her track again.
“Mr Oakley, your disrespect of authority has to stop.”
The damnable young man’s smile broadened. “Make me.”
“I am trying to make your time here easier on you, Tom. We both know you do not want to be here, and know we are at an impasse. Do you have any suggestions on how we might go forward? I am here to listen and help in any way I can.”
With his usual smirk of disdain, Oakley muttered, “Want to spank me, Miss?”
“Don’t be an arse, Tom. I am not one of the decrepits around here who long for the days of corporal punishment.”
“Really? Then why do you have a twelve inch wooden ruler on your desk?” He rose, stepped to her desk and snatched up the rule, slapping it against his open hand a couple of times.
“Mr Oakley, release my stationary item this instant. And sit back down.”
“And if I don’t?” Oakley grinned wickedly, perching on the edge of her desk. She knew he wanted to push her too far, hoping to be expelled.
Not today!
Vaughn crossed the room to her desk, and switched off the CCTV camera that normally invaded her privacy, and kept her safe whilst interviewing difficult students and/or parents. She turned.
“Stand, Mr Oakley.” He did so, the long rule still in his hands. She assessed his height. He had a good eighteen centimetres on her.
‘Hmm… The desk chair it is,’ she thought. Settling herself, she raised the hem of her skirt to mid-thigh, and said in calm tones, “Mr Oakley, please attend.” She motioned to the space before her.
“Hand me my rule, if you please.” He did so with an uneasy smile. She took it, then said, “Mr Oakley your actions are starting to influence others. I cannot allow that to continue. It needs to be made clear to you that St Williams’ will not tolerate your bad behaviour. And neither will I.
“Unbutton yourself. Trousers to your ankles then place yourself face down over my lap.”
Oakley’s face flushed pink, his mouth hung open for a moment. He licked his lips, then dove to comply, positioning himself, slipping his under-wear free, semi-erect cock between her slightly spread thighs. Given his height, he was easily able to place his hands on the floor, ensuring his stability.
In spite, Vaughn closed her thighs around his pendulous cock. She could hear him laughing softly. “You are about to be punished, Mr Oakley, don’t sound so pleased.”
The first couple of strikes of the rule on his taut white behind had him gasping and bucking. By number six he had orgasmed. She felt the length of him pulsing, his semen spilling on the rug beneath them. In retaliation, she clenched her thighs harder, receiving several breathless, wincing gasps for her effort.
By the twelfth strike, he was making noises that had nothing to do with pleasure. By the fifteenth he was no longer attempting to hold back his tears. Throwing the rule to the desk, she pulled the man-child into her arms.
“Hush, hush… You’ve been in need of release for too long. It’s okay, just let go.”
He held her, his breath catching lightly as she stroked his back and whispered soft nothings for a long while.
Knowing that after a certain amount of time, their interview needed to be ended, she squeezed Tom’s shoulder.
“I need to be elsewhere. And so do you, shortly, but first drink some tea.”
She walked to the door.
“Ms Vaughn?”
“Yes, Mr Oakley?”
“If… When the next time my feelings or actions are disrespectful… May I come to you to talk about my behaviour again?”
Jean lay back on the sofa, watching a goldfish-mouthed Tom.
“Naughty Shakespearean prose, huh?”
“Spanking Oakley into submission, huh?”
Eye contact sparked the giggles, and they could not contain the laughter that spilled wild and free.
“If Oakley was a naughty boy, I know you are a very naughty girl, and that there is a twelve inch wooden ruler in your desk drawer!”
With wide eyes they looked at each other then Jean’s desk, and both bolted in the same direction. Tom’s longer stride ensured he reached the drawer first, and brandishing her wooden ruler, cried out, “This is going to be my payback!”
“Are you kidding? I can only just sit comfortably today!”
She reached for the rule, he kept raising his arm, then teasing her with it just in reach. Jean resorted to tickling, the just as her hand closed on the prize, they heard the front door opening.
Frozen in place, they both turned to see an amused Eddie surveying the scene.
“Why, poppet, are you wearing Chris Evans on your arse?”