A Teacher's Tale

"Goodnight, Mrs. Stanhope!" The chorus of eight year old voices rang out raggedly, usually emanating from an upturned smiling face, as class 4 filed out of the room, higgledy piggledy, jostling and untidy, eager to embrace the relative freedom of the outside world their parents' cars, fish fingers for tea, "Blue Peter" on television, et al.

Julie Stanhope smiled back at each of them in turn, and made appropriate responses. "Don't forget your reading to night, Julian!" "I hope the hamster's better, Simon." "Enjoy the football, Jane."

With a sigh, she picked up a pile of unmarked story books and dropped them into the bright red stacking plastic box which did duty as a briefcase for the transport of marking, forecast books, report cards, etc. between classroom and lounge sofa, where they were dealt with. Lifting the box with two arms, she called out "Goodnight" to the cleaner and, dexterously lifting her coat from its hook with an outstretched pinkie, she dropped it on top of the box and made her way, almost at a run, through the "quiet room" to the outside rear door.

Only when she had manoeuvred the door open, by a complicated piece of trickery involving the use of elbows and toes, did she risk a general yell of "Goodnight" to her remaining colleagues, still marking books at their desks. A ragged chorus of responses followed in her wake, including one plaintive "Julie!" from her year group leader, which she pretended not to hear as she let the door swing to behind her, and scuttled towards her little Fiesta in the corner of the playground.

Pulling the passenger door open, she dropped her box on top of the pile of Kleenex tissues, squashing the box, and hurried round to the driver's side. She flopped into her seat and, letting her breath out with a sigh, luxuriated in the cocoon-like silence.

But, fearful, still, of being caught before she made her escape, she turned the key in the ignition and guided the car towards the open gate and did not totally relax until she had joined the minimal traffic on the country road which led homewards.

It was still only four o'clock and, although she had to be back at school at half past seven for a "New Parents' Evening", that still meant that she would have a good hour and a half before her own two children returned from their independent school in the town.

She savoured the prospect of returning to an empty, quiet house - having her own space, as the current phraseology would have it. Ten minutes later, the Fiesta drew up in the drive and Julie hefted her box in her arms, nudging the car door shut with a swivel of her hips. At the front door, she laid the box down beside the two full milk bottles - one full cream, one semi-skimmed - on the front step, and unlocked the storm door. Quickly, she stepped over the mail, lying on the mat, and unlocked the inner front door, then decoded the house alarm.

Moving through to the kitchen, she snapped on the light, filled the kettle, put a tea bag in the pot, then returned to the porch. She picked up the pile of mail and took it into the lounge, flinging it onto the settee as she drew the curtains and switched on the wall lights. Back outside, she retrieved her box and put it down beside the settee before, finally, returning outside again to bring in the milk bottles, depositing them in the fridge.

Only then did she divest herself of her coat, kick off her shoes, and curl up on the settee, running a hand through her short, dark hair as she leafed through the mail, waiting for the kettle to boil.

The three junk mail items she jettisoned without opening, and set aside the two credit card statements for her husband's attention later in the evening. With a twinge of conscience, she slipped the department store statement into her bag, awaiting a convenient moment to bring it to Paul's attention.

There was a letter for their son, Stephen, addressed in a round, girlish hand, and Julie sniffed it, smiling slightly at this classic display of maternal curiosity. A couple of business letters were addressed to Paul and these she placed in front of the clock, with the credit card statements. A postcard from neighbours in the South of France drew only a cursory glance before Julie turned to the last item in the pile.

It was a long, white envelope, without a stamp of any description, bearing only the words "Mrs. J. Stanhope - Personal", produced by a PC, in some sort of italic script. Julie Stanhope teased her curiosity by fingering the envelope, trying to guess at its contents. It seemed to contain just a single sheet of paper, and she shrugged. It was probably only a circular from the tennis club, or something. Impatiently, she ripped open the envelope. Inside was a folded sheet of paper, which she opened up and spread along her thigh.

As she gazed at it, her mouth dried and her insides liquefied.

In the centre of the top half was a photocopy of a photograph, and, although it was a poor copy, she recognised it immediately. It was a picture of herself, stretched out languidly on the lounge sofa which had preceded the one she was sitting on now, one leg stretched along the length of the settee, the other dropping to the carpet. One arm was dangling over the arm of the settee, the other resting along its back. She was smiling, a little self-consciously, at the camera, which had been held by her husband, Paul, some six or seven Christmases ago.

And she was entirely naked.

Much of the detail had been lost in the photocopying, but there was no missing the slight shadow under the firm breasts, the darkness of the prominent nipples and aurolae and the dense black triangle between the firm, spread thighs.

Involuntarily, Julie swung her legs off the settee and closed her legs, hunching her shoulders as she tried to take in the message in the lower half of the paper.

"I know it's not a very good copy, but I recognised you straight away. So, I imagine, would your colleagues, your neighbours and your posh friends at the tennis club. I'll be calling on you at half-past four to-night to discuss what we're going to do about it."

It was signed off - "A Concerned Parent".

Julie sat on the settee, stunned. The kids had bought Paul an digital camera that Christmas and, inevitably, his thoughts had soon turned to nude photos of her. For an apparently sober, staid accountant, her husband had an unexpectedly lively interest in sex, and in keeping their marriage from going stale. The nude photo scene had stimulated his attention for a while, but had been superseded by the acquisition of a video recorder, upon which the camera disappeared to the back of a drawer.

The video craze, however, had not lasted long, either, Julie's self-consciousness and Paul's inadequacy as a cameraman contributing to a quick disillusionment about its erotic propensities. Julie had made sure that all his taped attempts had been surreptitiously wiped and, she had thought, she had all the photos safely locked away in her strong box with birth certificates and various family documents.

Her mind was still whirling when the ring of the doorbell nearly made her heart stop. Frantically, she looked at the clock, but the face was obscured by Paul's letters. She pulled back the sleeve of her blouse. Her watch showed exactly 4:30.

She stood up. Dare she not answer? Force of habit, as much as anything else, combined with a sense of utter unreality, propelled her into the hall and across to the door. Forcing herself not to think, she turned the handle.

She had put one foot into the porch when she became aware that her caller was already inside it, and she gasped in surprise - but not panic - as he spoke. In the gloom of the unlit porch, he was unrecognisable - indeed, it took Julie a second or two to realise that he was wearing a stocking-mask. The mask also muffled his voice, so that his opening remark was lost on her, but he was already moving past her into the hall and she followed him, dumbly. He closed the inner front door behind her, and locked it with the key, still dangling from the keyhole.

It wasn't until he clicked on the shaded hall light and leaned forward to take the piece of paper from her that she realised she was still carrying it. Ostentatiously, he folded it so that only the picture showed, then held it in front of her, forcing her eyes to scan it.

Dragging her eyes away from the picture, she looked past it, at him. He was dressed all in black - black polo shirt, tracksuit bottoms and trainers, and even the stocking pulled over his head, flattening his hair and nose and mouth, was black.

"Who are you?" she whispered, in a faltering voice. His reply was curiously mangled, but she could make it out well enough.

"I told you. I'm a parent who's concerned about a teacher of children who flaunts herself like a shameless hussy. Aren't you ashamed?"

Eyes downcast, Julie nodded. "Yes," she whispered.

"How would you like this photograph to go to. . . . " he hesitated, then "John Wilson?"

Her stomach lurched at the thought of the school caretaker - an ex-Army man of sixty-plus, but still with a salacious interest in all the female teachers under 40 - gloating over the picture, and she ran her tongue over dry lips.

"He'd love it, wouldn't he?" Again, she nodded, but said nothing, her heart beating wildly.

He stretched out his hand and lifted her chin, forcing her eyes up to meet his.

"OK," he said. "Now show me, Mrs. Stanhope - show me what you've got."

"Here?" asked Julie, in genuine surprise, looking around the small hall with its wood parquet floor, surrounded by doors.

"Here," he agreed, quietly, then, like a whiplash "and now!"

Julie started as though she'd been hit, then, with trembling fingers, started to unbutton her blouse. With just two buttons loosened she stopped and looked at the formless face behind the grotesque mask.

"Please ..." she whispered. "Please don't ..."

But he just stared at her through his mask and, after a few seconds, her heart heavy, Julie re-commenced unbuttoning her blouse.

"Take it off," he commanded, when all the buttons were undone, and she complied, leaving herself unclothed above the waist, apart from her cream silk brassiere.

"Now the skirt," and it was the work of a moment to unhook the catch and release the zip so that the long flowing skirt fell down to Julie's ankles.

"And your slip." Hooking her thumbs under the elastic, Julie eased it over her hips and pushed it down her thighs until it, too, slid to the parquet floor, exposing brief panties which matched her brassiere.

His voice was hoarse now.

"Now the bra, Mrs. Stanhope," he rasped, with a little cough to clear his throat, and Julie's hands reached up her back and expertly unclipped it. Then, crossing her arms, she drew the loosened garment off her shoulders and held it in front of her.

"Drop it," he breathed and, with only a momentary, helpless hesitation, she let her arms fall and the brassiere joined the rest of her clothes, on the floor, at her feet.

With a deep breath, she looked down at her discarded garments, then gasped as his palms rubbed over the tips of her exposed nipples. Involuntarily, she looked up at him and, for the first time, saw his teeth as he grinned, wolfishly, beneath the mask and dropped his hands to his sides again.

"Nice tits, eh?" he commented, and laughed as she shook her head, her face burning. She knew that her nipples were hard - and she knew that he knew . . . .

"OK," he went on, his voice steady now, and clearly modulated. "Now, take off your panties for me, Mrs. Stanhope."

For the first time, she turned away from him as she eased her panties over her hips and down her thighs. Leaning on the telephone table for momentary support, she lifted her left leg out of her panties, then flicked them away with her right foot.

"The photo doesn't show your bottom," came the voice from behind her, "and that's a pity, because it's gorgeous."

Julie whirled round and nearly collided with him. Automatically, she had put her right hand, protectively, between her legs, with her left arm over her breasts, but, as he pushed her arm aside and took hold of her breast, she lifted it to push him off and his other hand burrowed into the soft furry covering and encountered a moist dampness.

Her thighs, which had been tensed together, parted in resignation and his finger caressed her vulva. Then he eased her round, gently, and she bent forward at the waist, her hands supporting herself on the telephone table.

For a second or two, his hands left her, then they came round and took hold of her full breasts, and squeezed, as his knees eased her thighs further apart and, with a slight stooping movement, his full length entered her from behind.

As he penetrated her, his lips nuzzled the back of her neck and she realised that the mask, too, had come off. With an effort, she twisted her mouth round and sought out the lips of her husband, just as he exploded inside her, with an accompaniment of strangled obscenities.

"Wow!" breathed Paul in her ear, as they lay slumped together on the parquet floor. His arm was flung exhaustedly across Julie's shoulders and his breathing was still very heavy - great post-coital gulps and gasps gusted across her rapidly cooling back. "Wasn't that something?" he went on, with enthusiastic satisfaction.

"Mmmm," she murmured, and, in truth, the elaborate play-acting had aroused some basic, elemental instinct within Julie, but now, in the aftermath, she felt somehow ill-used. It was not just that she herself had not achieved orgasm - Paul had been far too quick to reach his own climax for that - but there had been nothing in the whole episode of the love which should exist between husband and wife.

There had been nothing in it but sexual excitement - admittedly for her, as well as Paul - but, for all the mutual affection which had been shown, it might as well have been a total stranger who had forced her to strip and submit to him. Or, from Paul's point of view, a woman he had never met before submitting, whimpering, to his will, to his male domination.

Of course, she knew very well that Paul, like most men, entertained harmless fantasies of that sort, and she also knew that that was as far as they went. But she longed for the days when all he wanted was to enjoy her body for its own sake, when the mere feel of her breast was enough to arouse him to insatiable hunger.

Guiltily, she recalled the almost devotional look of pleasure on Alan Trent's face at the sight, and feel, of her exposed breasts, just six short weeks ago. They had been fellow tennis club members for more years than she could recall and she had always looked on him as a close friend - someone in whom she had confided problems over the years and who had listened and, invariably, offered good advice. He was also the father of Julie's daughter's closest friend , Camilla, and so the families had had many contacts over the years.

There had also been an element of flirtation in the relationship between Alan and Julie, which was what had led her to remark, as they were chatting in the car park after an early season foursome, that she would miss him during his upcoming three-week holiday.

The intensity of his assertion that he, too, would miss her - "much more than I should" - had taken her aback. They were standing, facing each other, between their respective cars, and, as she lifted her eyes in surprise, she realised that the car park was empty. Heart beating wildly, she held his dark eyes and, when his head bent towards her, her lips were parted in readiness and she responded violently to his kiss.

Still kissing, they had tumbled into the back seat of Alan's car. His hands slipped under her tennis shirt, caressing her ribs and belly, then slid up her back. When they encountered her bra strap, he broke off the kiss and looked at her, questioningly. Julie had simply nodded, and closed her eyes as he fumbled with, then successfully unclipped, the catch.

At first, he had just raised his hands to push up the cups of her bra, catching her tumbling breasts in his strong, warm hands, but then he lifted the front of her shirt to expose their nakedness. At that second, Julie was looking down at his head, and her newly-exposed breasts, and as he lifted his head, the expression of almost childlike wonder on his face brought a lump to her throat, and a rush of love to her heart.

"Oh, God, Julie – they're beautiful," he muttered, his eyes bright with admiration and desire, then she gasped as his hands closed round them, his thumbs rasping across the tips of her hugely aroused nipples.

"Oh, Alan," she groaned, and squeezed her thighs tight together to try to extinguish the heat pulsing at her core, but his mouth had already descended to take her left nipple into his mouth, and his hand was sliding up her thigh, underneath her short white tennis skirt.

Julie knew that this was the moment she should call a halt to it – this madness – but, instead, her head thrown back, eyes closed, she relaxed her thighs and awaited the first touch of his fingers on her most secret place ......

When it came, it was as soft as thistledown – the slightest feathery touch, unerringly aimed, running up and down the exact contours of her pussy lips through the moist material of her panties – and it nearly took Julie's breath away, so sensitive were her lips to his touch.

And then the incredible thrill of feeling his finger slipping inside her panty leg and, totally without resistance, into her lubricated vagina.

"Oh, Julie," he breathed in her ear. "I can't believe this is happening."

"Take them off, Alan," she implored him, terrified that one or other of them might have a mad moment of sanity and call a halt to this wonderful, incredible episode. "Pull them down and – and – oh, for God's sake, fuck me!"

There was a ludicrous few seconds when he didn't know whether to pull Julie's panties down, or deal with his own shorts, but Julie solved that for him by dealing with her own panties, while Alan wrestled with his clothing.

Then – suddenly – Julie looked up and his cock was free – very hard, pointing straight at her mouth and, for a second, she wondered if ...... But then Alan sat down on the back seat of the big car and reached out to her.

"Do you mind ......?" he asked, hesitantly, motioning her to come towards him, and she shook her head, vigorously.

She wanted to have a better look at his penis, which didn't seem to be at all like Paul's, but, on balance she realised that she was more anxious to feel it inside her, and replied – "Oh, no – no – not at all."

A little awkwardly, Julie moved forward, her slim thighs parted either side of Alan's sun-bronzed knees and thighs, then, smiling apologetically down at him, she reached down between her spread thighs and tentatively took hold of his penis, for the first time.

"My God!" she thought to herself. "I've got Alan Trent's cock in my hand," and then she considered what she was about to do with it, and she thought her heart might burst with excitement.

And then – suddenly, but, oh, so wonderfully – it was in. Julie arrayed her fingers firmly round the erect shaft of his penis, then manoeuvred her body over it until she felt it nuzzle against her slit – and eased herself downwards and felt the consummate joy of his shaft pushing up her wet channel, into her innermost depths.

"Ohhhhhhh," she sighed, with joyous satisfaction. "Ohhhhh, Alan – oh, my god - is that all right for you?"

He laughed, almost hysterically – "All right? All right? It's only a dream come true!

Oh, Julie – I simply can't believe it!"

Of course, that first time had been over very quickly, but, since then, they had managed several longer, much more satisfying liaisons, and, in fact, had talked, seriously, about the possibility of leaving their respective marriage partners, to be together, permanently.