Whipping Up A Storm 3

JUNE:

A phone call from Hooper’s agent. The fairy-tale content of which would be, having seen his audition, a sufficiently impressed producer wants to cast him in a movie. Alas, in the real world such things don’t happen. Although not promising anything so grand, it is an offer of a part in a commercial for Sahara muesli bar. No big deal, but a job. The chance to earn money providing he knows how to ride a camel. He does know how to ride a camel, doesn’t he? Naturally, born and brought up in Hammersmith, he does not. But he knows the one word that an actor needs to say without hesitation. The word is a simple yes. That’s yes to whatever the producers or casting agents ask of you; yes, to whatever is required. Worry about what you have committed yourself to after you get the part. Therefore, in his time, amongst other things, Hooper has put himself forward as someone that could drive a racing car, who is an expert mountaineer, who is unafraid of snakes, and who has experience of swinging from a trapeze after a spell in a circus. Now, in answer to the question posed, he can add the ability to ride a camel to this dodgy inventory; although, try as he might, the parallel between a camel and a bar of muesli escapes him. Even when explained (something to do with the bar providing enough sustenance to stave off hunger throughout the day), it still escapes him. Don’t camels store water rather than food? Dietary profiles aside, although they are hardly the most sociable of creatures, Hooper learns, once he adjusts to frequent gusts of wind and groaning from the camel, that plied with slices of cake from his handler, Oscar (as he is known) is reasonably affable.

One of an actor’s strengths is the ability to take a little knowledge and stretch it a long way. Arabs don’t sit astride a camel as you would a horse. Hooper knew the theory – had seen Peter O’ Toole do it in Lawrence of Arabia. Armed with such dexterity, he perches on the arch of the back that meets the camel’s neck as if his name is Abdul. After which, following Oscar’s wobbly rise from the kneeling position, Hooper manages to cling on whilst looking deceptively relaxed to the end of the shoot.

It is late when he returns home. Six weeks after that first night, and Zola, along with the boxes and the jumble she bought with her, is still there. Not that he minds. His relationship with her might be somewhat static, but all the same he finds her a welcome distraction.

Seeing he is exhausted after what has been a testing day, Zola, hardly a domesticated goddess, fixes him something that looks like a capsized omelette and is almost edible. Afterwards, he sits on the sofa to ease the aching back Oscar’s bony, clothes-horse contours have left him with.

He must have dozed for twenty minutes or so. Startled, he comes to. Outside it is dark but the curtains are open. There is noise – a grumble of thunder, followed by a jagged bolt of lightning. There is a flash of yellow from beyond the window. A car’s headlights arc across the room, more lights illuminate their space. He is aware of the splash of vehicles on the rain-slicked road, of steady rain – maybe a gathering storm – its approach something that had escaped him up to now. For undefined reasons, momentarily he feels a lack of caution race in the room along with the swishing cars on the road outside.

Having melted into the shadows, Zola is standing by the blackness of the window, looking out at the pelting rain. She turns to face him, the twist of a sly smile forming on her lips. "You know what? It’s raining ..."

It seems to have been a while. He has almost forgotten the implication of her remark.

In a tone of voice that is novel to Hooper, Zola tells him to draw the curtains and wait for her return. He watches her walk across the room and open the bedroom door.

He waits, with only the steady splash of rain on the window and the thump of his heart for company.

Zola’s return is signposted by the ringing of her heels on the hard floor. Then she opens the door and steps back into the main room. She has transformed into a silhouette in black: black top, black skirt, tan over-the-knee boots racing up her thighs. Fresh lipstick blazes red against her young, pastel-coloured skin. And in her hand, almost as an afterthought, trails the whip. Taking a stance in the centre of the room, she raises it, tapping it on her upturned hand like a wartime German commandant.

All Hooper can do is to stare in open-mouthed surprise.

Milking the attention, she walks with slow steps. She halts by the window. Resplendent in her outfit, she stands, defiantly flashing him a rebellious smile, challenging him: "I can be frightening for such a little girl, can’t I?"

"More like you have stepped out of a dream."

"Don’t be fooled. I am really a nightmare in disguise."

"I wouldn’t go that far."

"But you should. Once you see what you have let yourself in for, you will! You should prepare yourself. What follows will be painful. Bit like me: not everyone’s cup of tea. Black, no sugar. Too bitter by far for some."

"Perhaps you’re what I need."

"You might be sorry you said that."

"I don’t think so."

"We’ll soon find out. You’re going to be my plaything for a while. Do you think you’re up to it?"

"What do you want me to do?" He is surprised how thin his voice sounds.

"Don’t ask," she says, taking a leisurely step forward. "Accept it. I don’t want to go into details. It will become clear. And if it isn’t, I shall punish you until it is." She arches an eyebrow – such a mouth-watering gesture as she adopts the upper hand. "Give you a taste of Old Larry’s whip!"

Only a fool would ask questions now. Questions are liable to break the spell. As an actor, Hooper knows all about that – not questioning, just slipping into character.

She tells him to take off his clothes.

Why not? Her directive places him in an actor’s safe zone. There is no demand for him to make any decisions. He is merely required to follow instructions. That suits him fine. Direction is all an actor needs to become the person on the page – or in this case, the person in Zola’s head. So, when she tells him the next step is to kneel before her in homage, actually, she doesn’t need to. With their roles clearly defined, harping back to the Under Her Heel script he has scoured, he knows what to do. He is already sinking towards the sheen of her boots as she gives the order. And when he thinks about it – if indeed he does for more than a few seconds – what else is he supposed to do?

Looking up at her from ground level with a long-lens aspect, he no longer sees Zola as an influenced Madonna lookalike, more as a siren luring him onto the rocks. The whip has converted her from a pouty juvenile into a woman – a woman so dazzling he has no choice but to serve her.

As if reading his mind, outstaring him, she shoots him an indolent glare. She extends her left booted foot. It shines before his eyes. Slick, highly polished and dagger-tipped at toe and heel.

"Let’s put you through your paces. Bow to me and kiss my boot," she says. "Kiss it slowly and with feeling."

The boot becomes an extension of her skin: soft, dangerously shiny, and glossy.

"Work your way up my boot with your tongue. Just up to the top and no further. Don’t dare touch or kiss my thigh."

Hunched, head lowered, absorbed, he moves upward until the looming temptation of her thigh, encased in a flesh-coloured stocking, is only a kiss away.

"Don’t you dare!" she intones, reading his mind again.

His lips are inches from her thigh. The slightest movement and – to hell with the consequences – he can disobediently lap at the wonderful pink tint of her upper leg.

But he remains steady, resisting the temptation. Instead, he whispers the words of adulation she wants to hear and, strangely, he wants to say.

"Good boy," she purrs, appearing to soften her attitude. But not entirely, as she twirls the whip, so he feels a rush of air dangerously close to his face. She noisily slaps the whip on her flank. She takes a step back, presenting him with her right booted leg, stroking the visible patch of her flesh suggestively with her free hand.

"You know what to do. I might make something of you yet."

Head lowered again, grovelling at her feet, he barely looks up from his delightful task.

Meanwhile, words never designed to tumble from such a sweet childlike mouth, spill from her clenched teeth ... Going to teach you, Mr Wine Waiter who can’t keep the bottle steady.

Put you in your place …

On your knees before me ...

Bring you to heel ...

Discipline you ...

Make you beg …

Make you worship me ...

This time, as his mouth nears the pinnacle of its journey, he can’t control himself. His lips slide over the top of her boot and graze her upper thigh.

Out of nowhere, there is the zing of the whip. The razor cut of its flap on his buttocks. It stuns him, but his lips continue to savour her thigh.

I said worship my body, not slobber over it.

Another flick to make him shudder.

Down! Right down!

And guided by the tartness of her words and the acidity of her whip, his face slithers part way down her thigh, over her knee, down her calf to the booted tip of her toe.

Stupid boy! You must learn the hard way.

You need a proper taste of the whip.

Stand up!

Go to the window!

Puzzled, he crosses the room.

Open it!

He fumbles with the curtain and opens the catch on the quarter window to push it open. With the worst of the storm grumbling in the distance, he is buffeted by a gust of warm air along with a swirl of drizzle.

Still raining?

No words. Can’t speak. He grunts; he nods.

Just enough for my rainy-day whip then.

He mutters a reply to the night.

Bend over the windowsill. Right over, so your body is inside and your head outside. Don’t worry about the window, I’ll see to that.

She closes it behind him. He finds himself wedged tightly within its frame. His hands scrape the brick work of the outside wall. Unobscured by a ledge or a balcony, the wall tapers to a sheer drop. It is black and wet out there, with thankfully not a soul in sight to witness his indignity. He and Zola have this unenviable place to themselves – gifted to them by the rain. It looks even less hospitable than usual. Water runs in rivulets on the deserted asphalt below his line of vision, where there is an upturned can of lager. By the drain, shaped like a child’s paper sailboat, is a soaked empty packet of cigarettes trying to drift to safety in the twisted stream of tumbling water.

A whip for a rainy-day, you said. So, one rainy-day whipping coming up.

Her voice is carried on the wind. Unable to turn round without breaking the spell Zola has created, Hooper hears the first stroke. It seems far-off, as if coming from another room or even another building. Then there is the afterglow of flaming heat on his naked buttocks. He makes a pact with the night; a lost mumble in the wind, drowned by what has eased to soft falling rain. The striking flap of the whip makes him shiver as it lands again. He thinks about twisting free so he can re-enter the room. But, as he moves, she tells him to remain still. Her voice carries a compelling edge of coldness that compliments the rain and his compliant position. There is another leathery whistle before the delayed sting, spreading like a splash of hot wax across his flesh. Then another stroke of the whip, followed by its burn.

Someone new has replaced Zola. As fearsome as Veronica Belmont, though thankfully without a bullwhip, this surely cannot be the person that had stepped from the bedroom they shared. No, this is a Janus of a woman. Changing shape and mood with a turn of her head, a snap of her fingers, a twist of her wrist, a flick of the whip.

The rain has dampened Hooper’s hair, plastering it to his face. He welcomes the cool air, which serves as antiseptic to the knife-like sharpness slicing through his body. And the different sensations: the darkness, the rain, the cooling air, the hot, smarting strokes from Zola’s whip, along with the associated sounds from the room, all contrive to confuse him. His confusion doesn’t stop there. Zola yanks him back inside the room and bangs the window shut. He stands, slightly stooped, blinking rain droplets from his eyes, not at all like the leading man he aspires to be. To complete the look, rain seeps from his upper body to puddle on the floor.

She leans back with her arms folded, whip dangling from her wrist by its loop, telling him to towel himself dry. This causes him to mistakenly imagine his ordeal might be at an end. But, concealed in her words, there is urgency in the order telling him that will not be the case.

Sure enough, when he returns from the bathroom, naked under the towel that he has fastened round his middle, he finds Zola seated on her chair. The game has changed. She has hitched her skirt; her legs are parted, and he can see she isn’t wearing panties.

He is still damp. She laughs at the absurdity of his appearance. It’s a really hurtful laugh just when he is at his most vulnerable. She tells him to drop the towel and beckons to him with her forefinger.

"Come here, boy!" Now her voice is even bolder, enhanced to match her dominance.

He takes a step, but she shakes her head and holds up her finger to halt his movement.

"Not so fast!" She snaps her fingers as if addressing a tardy waiter. "Crawl to me like you mean it! On your hands and knees!"

He assumes the doggie position, moving forward in an awkward motion until he is between her legs, gazing up at her thighs and the dark thicket hidden beyond. "Now use your tongue to please me." She punctuates her order with more flicks of the whip.

"And I do expect you to please me, slave!"

It is the first time she has called him slave. The introduction of the word is another potential game-changer. There is no time to turn the prospect over in his mind. There is a hand on his head. More contradictions, as soft fingers that should be placing flowers in a vase grab his hair roughly, steering him into what up until now was forbidden territory. Clamped by her knees, his head is lodged between the glorious softness of her thighs. He follows her scent with his probing tongue.

She responds with a grimace followed by a moan. She arches her back, inviting his tongue to probe deeper, spurring him on with hands that clench his hair.

Supported by his arms, Hooper senses her body lighten. She leans backwards, hair flung across her face. Nails rake his back, scoring his flesh.

Hooper’s hands feel the tops of her stockings, then the dazzle of her bare thighs – their creamy whiteness always a shock after the nylon stocking. His tongue, almost numb with effort, continues its quest.

It seems Zola is determined to prolong her pleasure. She takes her time, giving no indication how close she is to fulfilment. When the moment comes, she moans softly and grabs his hair so tightly he fears she might remove clumps of it by the roots.

Afterwards, she shakes her hair back into shape as he slides down her leg.

For an elongated minute, their breathing is the only sound in the room.

For Hooper, unremarkable has just become remarkable.

And he loves her for it.

Still with her head lolling backward, her tongue drizzles over her lips in appreciation, as she gives him a satisfied grin. "Yummy yum! yum! That was refreshing," she says dreamily. "Like an ice lolly on a hot day!"