by Paul Markham
Nathalie sat on the arm of the settee and gazed unseeingly at the stream of turgid trivia that appeared to have established itself as the standard pattern for Saturday evening 'entertainment' on the television. Half of her mind was numb with complete boredom, the other was frustrated at her apparent inability to shake herself out of a rut of admittedly very comfortable apathy away from her workplace - not that there was any chance of apathy even finding its way into the vocabulary of her working life, or that of any of her professional colleagues.
The pile of books on the shelf underneath her pc monitor, flanked by half-completed notes and sundry items of stationery of the type that so often decorate a work desk of that type, challenged her inertia, but without eliciting an effective response. For Nathalie, life away from the workplace had become like an afternoon out in the stifling airlessness of the African plains. She sipped mechanically at the mug of lukewarm tea in her hand before reaching for the remote control for the television, to see if it really was true that a change of visual dietary input could be refreshing. Apart from one advertisement that always brought a smile to her face, it was not and the ponderous burden of immobilising dullness crushed every last effort at climbing out of the rut. In fact, she was on the point of wondering if she was becoming depressed when her slow-moving thought processes were awoken with a jolt by a distinctive ringing tone from her mobile phone. She looked at the display and smiled half-heartedly to herself.
"Hi, Neil, wasn't expecting to hear from you. Thought you were away in the depths of Cornwall this week."
Despite the fact that she felt more comfortable with Neil than she had with anyone who shared her specific interests, she found it a great effort to muster the energy needed to inject some sparkle of life into her vocal tone, something that did not escape the notice of the caller.
"You sound listless and lethargic, Nathalie. Haven't you managed to kick-start yourself yet?"
Nathalie thought that her sigh had been inaudible, but she was mistaken.
"So, still bumping along on a slow train to nowhere, are you, Nat?"
There was genuine concern and interest in Neil's voice and this fanned a small ember in the pile of ashes that was obscuring Nathalie's vision of what needed to be done and could be done, if only she could shake herself out of her lethargy. A smile flickered across her interesting and kind young face, to which Neil had taken a great liking from the moment they had first met - to Nathalie's surprise and delight.
Nathalie's response was a barely audible grunt.
Neil's reply, in stark contrast, was characterised by a decisive and almost authoritative tone. "Well, Nathalie, I've had to postpone my trip to Cornwall until Tuesday, so I'm driving there on Monday, which leaves tonight and tomorrow free. Have you got a couple of hours free for a natter?"
One of the sad and debilitating aspects of certain forms of lethargy is that when the sufferer sees that there is nothing to do, it becomes increasingly difficult to find a slot in the great emptiness of the diary to accommodate even a short intrusion, even by a friend, into the grey, drab isolation. Neil was fully aware of this and had already made his mind up as to what needed to be done. He knew that Nathalie had every right to turn him away and he knew just as well that he would respect that right, but this was one of those times when her professed trust in him and in his judgement needed to be put to the test. Hearing nothing more than an extremely half-hearted "Hmm..." in response to his enquiry, he continued.
"Do you have any social commitments for this evening, Nat?"
There was something in his tone that released a shot of adrenalin into Nathalie's thinking. "Err, just a second, Neil, I need to look in my diary."
Neil was not so dull of wit as to be unable to recognise prevarication and this he took as his cue to put Nathalie's oft-stated confidence in his judgement to the test. Nathalie was on the point of moving to her second line of verbal delaying tactics when her intentions were cut short very decisively.
"Nat, go and shower, then put your long night-shirt on and a pair of comfortable knickers. Then go to your room, place two pillows at the side of the bed and wait for me. I shall be there in 35 minutes. I've got my key, so I'll let myself in. See you soon, Nat. Bye."
Nathalie's mind was now in overdrive, having been shaken very unexpectedly out of its lethargy. However, one of the problems with minds when called upon suddenly to switch into fully functional mode is that they can, metaphorically, so easily end up with both feet thrust down the same knicker leg and the trousers round the ankles, which does have an incapacitating property that is a real handicap to logical thought and reactions. Nathalie's mind was scrambling desperately for a sane and coherent response that would deter Neil's all-too-clear intentions.
"Neil, can you..."
Her stalling tactics were cut short by the realisation that the conversation had been terminated by the caller. Suddenly, where formerly had been a heavy overcast sky, with motionless cloud stretching from horizon to horizon, now there were heaving, billowing thunderclouds forming in her mind as gale force gusts of thought and emotion coursed through her head.
How dare he - a man she had not known all that long (but whom she had come to trust remarkably quickly) - tell her what to do and, furthermore, how dare he have the cheek to think he could just tell her that HE had decided how to deal with her, in a manner that left not a hint of so much as a shadow of a doubt in her mind as to what awaited her. He hadn't asked if she felt that she needed this, he had only paid lip service to asking if it was convenient. Why hadn't he just agreed to meet her in the quiet back bar at The Marquis so that they could talk through her situation calmly and sensibly.
Deep inside her mind, the cumulonimbus clouds of indignation, bordering on anger, were soaring to previously unseen altitudes as passions, now fully active, came forcefully into play. There was a purposefulness in her gait that had been absent for several days as her mind digested the implications of what Neil had just said to her and his manner of bringing their conversation to a close. In fact, Nathalie was so completely enveloped in the turbulence of her thoughts that it was not until she was switching the shower off and reaching for her towel that she realised how she had responded almost in an automated manner to the instructions she had been given.
This realisation brought about a slight change in her attitude, as her stubbornness and independent streak squared up to an aspect of her personality of which she had only become fully aware during the past twelve months. As she dried herself with meticulous care, the two factions vied with each other for control of her mind. A surge of not entirely familiar feelings almost made her knees buckle as she dried her bottom slowly and deliberately, only to be followed by an intense flush of something that was at once deeply comforting and wildly exciting, something that she found almost addictive, as she attended carefully to her intimate anatomy.
Nathalie wrapped the towel around her and secured it by tucking the end down into her cleavage before stepping out of the bathroom and walking along the landing to her bedroom. She sat on the bed and listened as the rival factions argued in her mind whilst she dried her short, pale brown hair with the very slight wave. As she listened to the competing arguments, she realised that there was a distinct difference in tone between the two sides. Her feelings of indignation appeared to depend upon volume to make their case, whereas those other, less readily explicable, feelings seemed to rely more on calm reason, at once logical yet infused with a deep warmth that had a remarkably calming effect upon her.
Nathalie looked in the mirror and smiled slightly to herself. She knew that Neil found her extremely attractive both as a person and as a young woman, yet part of her asked herself why. She was not wildly enthusiastic about her body image, yet Neil had almost convinced her that she was totally wrong to see herself thus. His actions had proved the substance of his thoughts and no man had ever previously succeeded in bringing her to the state that she had reached when he had hand-spanked her for the first time, combining a firm and stinging smacking style with a soothing gentleness that was both deeply relaxing and, paradoxically, extremely sensuous, stirring up very obvious erotic feelings inside her. She took a deep breath. She knew that she needed to wear no makeup at all. He would like her just as she was.
Leaning to the right, Nathalie opened the lower drawer and removed a pair of cotton boy-shorts from it. Having closed the drawer, she stood up and loosened the towel, allowing it to fall behind her, onto the dressing-table stool. She looked for a few moments at her figure in the mirror and, without any immodesty, realised that she certainly did not lack female attributes, not that there had ever been any suggestion anywhere other than in her own mind of deficiency in that area. She flexed her left leg and slipped her foot down one side of the soft white undergarment. Placing her left foot carefully back on the carpet, she went on to slip the right foot down the opposite side before reaching to raise the close fitting underwear to the tops of her thighs. Slowly, she did a half turn and pulled the shorts carefully up over the buttocks, a subject on which she and Neil would never agree.
Turning the remaining 90 degrees needed to face away from the mirror, she looked back over her left shoulder as she slid her knickers slowly down again to her thigh tops and on to her knees. A smile flitted across her face as she attempted to imagine what Neil's thoughts would be as he looked upon the same image.
Pulling her shorts up for a second time, Nathalie adjusted them for her intimate comfort and ran her hands unnecessarily down the curves of her buttocks to smooth the close-fitting garment, that showed off the shapes of both cheeks in a way that even she found visually pleasing. She walked across to her bed and removed her Tigger to the bedside table before placing the two pillows, on which her cuddly toy had been resting, at the edge of the bed. She leaned across the bed and picked up her knee-length night-shirt, which she slipped swiftly and easily over her shoulders and down over her body.
All preparations having been completed, Nathalie looked at her bedside clock before making her way downstairs and into the kitchen. As she moved around the house, she found it difficult to believe how her attitude, her feelings and her thoughts had been transformed in less than half an hour. Her immediate feelings were a strange cocktail, made up of a slight fear which, for inexplicable reasons, she regarded as positive, and of an electric sense of anticipation of what was to come. She allowed her mind to bask in those thoughts as she first set out two cups and saucers on a tray, then filled the kettle. A gentle gnawing deep in her abdomen and a strange anticipatory sensation in her buttocks sent a slight shiver down her spine.
Not to be reposted, reproduced or distributed, in part or whole.