Blackwick’s — The Old School Tie

Story from Uniform Girls 13, a follow-up to Blackwick’s — Tailors since 1897

Two gentlemen in a quiet corner of their club.

‘Blackwick, eh?’

‘Yes, an absolutely first rate fellow. Make up anything you care to mention and no questions asked. And all in the strictest confidence. He’s made me up some quite splendid things for a couple of young ladies.’

‘Ah. No questions eh?’

‘None at all and he’ll do just anything. Keen to have his tailoring skills tested no doubt and also, I don’t doubt, keen to get his hands on a young person.’ A guffaw. ‘I mean when he’s got her up on his table or whatever to take her measurements I imagine those tailoring fingers can dip into all sorts of nooks and crannies. Eh?’

‘Ah.’

‘No harm done though. Except perhaps to young Miss’s dignity.’

A knowing smirk from his companion. ‘Just as long as it’s only his fingers, eh, what?’

They both laugh heartily. Then a pocket book is taken out and a telephone number noted down.

----//----

That is how Suzanne Bexley comes to be here this Friday afternoon. In this queer little basement room. It is queer, to Suzanne at least, because the only natural lighting comes from overhead pavement lights, thick rather grimy glass which filters through a greenish glow that is almost like being under the sea. Now and then people, pedestrians, walk by overhead and those solid shapes of shoes seen as if through an unfocused camera lens only add to the eeriness.

She is standing here alone and feeling perhaps a little scared. An assistant, a young lad, though older certainly than Suzanne, has showed her down here. The boy had a silly grin on his face — but then boys often do have silly grins as they think their funny boy thoughts. Suzanne doesn’t really know any boys. She does not know a lot of men either. Except for Mr Pirbright. She does not know Mr Pirbright really well yet but she is going to know him a lot better. Her mother has told her that.

‘Mr Pirbright is a very nice gentleman and also quite important and you’re very lucky that he seems to have taken an interest in you. So just… well, always be on your very best behaviour and do whatever he wants.’

What does Mr Pirbright want? Suzanne doesn’t really know but he does seem quite nice — except for what he did two days ago. Her mother says she should call him Uncle Henry but so far Suzanne mostly can’t remember that. Mr Pirbright — Uncle Henry — is quite rich. Suzanne’s mother has told her that and it seems likely to be true, with that big house he lives in. He has brought her up to London today to see some of the sights. Earlier they saw Trafalgar Square and stuff like that, but now the only sight is this funny, a little bit scary, room with those eerie feet now and then walking by over your head. It is a tailor’s shop. Mr Pirbright has gone off somewhere — his club? — and is going to call back later.

You can see it’s a tailor’s shop because of all the suits hanging along the walls, some half-made with white chalk marks on them. Also all those rolls of cloth. Is she going to be measured for a suit? Or a coat? Suzanne doesn’t know. Mr Pirbright didn’t say and Suzanne didn’t ask because she is still a bit shy with him. Slightly scared too especially after what he did on Wednesday. That really hurt. Not only that…

A creak on the stairs. And then another. Feet descending. That boy again? Or… Yes.

‘Hello. Suzanne, is it? I’m Mr Blackwick.’

A man in shirtsleeves, smiling, a tape measure in his hand. It said Blackwick’s outside the shop. Blackwick’s Bespoke Tailoring. Bespoke means made to measure. Suzanne smiles shyly back.

‘Got your blazer off then. That’s a good girl.’

The boy had told her to take it off — with a grin and an overdone wink. The St Hilda’s blue blazer is neatly placed on the table. Leaving Suzanne in white blouse and blue-and-red-striped tie and navy pleated skirt. Plus white ankle socks and black button-over shoes. Mr Blackwick looks approvingly. A very pretty girl, short ash-blonde hair with big blue eyes and soft full pink lips. But then girls brought to him usually are pretty. A nice shape too it would seem. Long legs and a pair of budding bulges pushing out the front of the blouse. Oh yes. This Mr Pirbright, a new client, is clearly a gentleman of taste.

He moves closer, humming to himself. Lightly squeezes an arm and then slides his hand over the slim back. No bra strap. That is nice too, though of course girls of this age, young and firm, shouldn’t need that sort of support and constriction. It is almost criminal to contain them. A little pinch to the slender waist and then Mr Blackwick sits down on the stool.

‘Good, very good, young lady. So shall we make a start?’ A friendly avuncular smile. ‘Slip your knickers off please.’

A pink flush, deepening, suffuses the pretty features. Oh. It would be measurements presumably. Measurements for what though? She should have asked Mr Pirbright, then she would have had some idea. Her knickers. Suzanne bites a full lower lip.

‘Come on, Suzanne.’ Persuasive sympathetic tones. ‘No need to be shy. We’re quite private down here and it is necessary.’

A quick unhappy look at Mr Blackwick and then Suzanne does it. The big blue eyes darting away and not really knowing where to look except that she doesn’t want to meet Mr Blackwick’s benign gaze as her hands slide up under the pleated skirt and fingers reach into the elastic of her knickers. Eventually a crumpled white garment, of nylon it looks like, appears at the hem of Suzanne’s shortish skirt. Crimson-cheeked now she dares another darting glance. He had said ‘off’, but…

‘Right off, Suzanne. We are going to want some freedom of movement.’

Whatever that can mean Suzanne does not dare to think. The white knickers come on down, over her knees, to be finally stepped out of as she steadies herself with a hand on the table. The bunched nylon is taken by Mr Blackwick and casually tossed over onto a bolt of cloth. Suzanne pushes back a strand of errant blonde hair. Overhead, outside, a pair of feet go ghostily by. She stands with her legs tight together. It is a funny feeling and not at all a nice one to stand alone before a stranger who knows you have no knickers on.

Mr Blackwick reaches for Suzanne’s hand and pulls her closer. ‘That’s it. Now then, nice and relaxed,. Tell me about school. What is it called?’

It is called St Hilda’s but the words come out sort of garbled because Suzanne is feeling pretty awful. Because Mr Blackwick’s hand is going up her skirt. Up the backs of those soft bare thighs. It is his right hand, the one not holding the tape measure. So his fingers are free to…

‘What are the teachers like, Suzanne?’

Suzanne hears herself mumble something — nothing that she could even recognise herself though because her thoughts are elsewhere. But then Mr Blackwick’s thoughts are elsewhere too: in fact in the same place as Suzanne’s. His hand up under her skirt has reached Suzanne’s silky smooth bottom. Patting and gently squeezing. Probing a bit. Fingers…

‘Would you please turn, my dear?’

Mr Blackwick seems to have lost interest in events at St Hilda’s — supposing there was any interest in the first place. Suzanne hesitates. If she turns…

Briskly Mr Blackwick’s two hands, one inside and one outside of her skirt, put her in motion. Turning. So that the hand inside her skirt…

‘Nnnnnggg…’ A sound of sudden shock. Suzanne’s knees are all at once jelly-like and threatening to give way. Because Mr Blackwick’s hand… is cupping that silky fleeced mound. His fingers are right there. On a girl’s ultra-sensitive headquarters. Right there!

‘Keep still please,’ Mr Blackwick’s voice crisp and calm in spite of this awful thing he is doing. Mr Blackwick of course has had girls down in his basement before. ‘Nice and still. Just a little check.’

How can she? How can he…? His fingers…

Mr Blackwick’s fingers are doing a little probing. Yes. One finger in particular. The business of making up highly specialised garments for gentlemen’s young ladies does have its little perks. Mr Blackwick has learnt that gentlemen do not object. So that even if a young person does complain Mr Blackwick gets no comeback from the gentleman. Maybe they even think it is good for the girls. Softening them up so to speak.

Smiling slightly Mr Blackwick finally withdraws his hand. His finger. That will do for now, for the moment.

Suzanne is shaking all over. Sweating. Mr Blackwick’s hand is not there now, his finger no longer in. But she can still feel it. He can’t… He couldn’t But he did. Well, she will tell Mr Pirbright. Doing that can’t be needed for measuring for whatever she is being measured for. She will tell Mr Pirbright. Except that Mr Pirbright… Ok then, she’ll tell her mother. Except that her mother…

Mr Blackwick, while Suzanne is hotly deciding whom she will tell about what he has done, is at the table. Doing things with the rolls of cloth. Arranging them.

‘What I’d like now Suzanne is for you to get up on the table here. Lying on your back. It’s a nice convenient position to take measurements.’

Suzanne is still in a bit of a state, her heart racing, from before. What is he saying: lie on her back on the table…? That… Mr Blackwick suddenly has a firm hold of her arm. And underneath one delicious haunch. Lifting. She squeals out a gasp of alarm but Mr Blackwick has learnt that firm, decisive action is the answer with hesitant young girls. All at once Suzanne is on the table, on her back. Her pleated skirt is up round her waist. Also her legs are sprawled apart.

She squeals out again and grabs at the skirt, pulling it down, frantically conscious of what in her knickerless state she must be showing. She also tries to close her legs. But she cannot. Mr Blackwick at the end of the table and grinning down has a firm hold of her knees.

‘Just relax, Suzanne. Lie still and I want your legs up. We need those measurements, don’t we?’

She can’t close her legs but she tries to push her skirt down between them. Mr Blackwick is pushing her legs up so that her feet are on the table but her knees are raised high. The bolts of cloth have been moved and there is one for her head to rest on. It is not uncomfortable but…

‘Put your hands at your sides, my dear.’

Suzanne weakly allows her hands to be moved from where she is holding her skirt. Perhaps the best thing is to try and not think. The measurements can’t take long. And then… She tries to close her mind. Lying on her back there is that funny light, the pavement, above and to the left. Another pair of marching feet appear and disappear. Perhaps all this is a dream. In the dream Mr Blackwick is standing at the end of the table, just beyond her raised and parted legs.

Mr Blackwick gazes with pure unalloyed pleasure. It is a sight not granted to every man in the street. A girl’s special privacy. A furry peach, its cleft partially opened by the parted thighs. Soft and delicate pink. Oh yes. Quite, quite marvellous.

He comes close, to the side. Must get on of course. Measurements. The tape. It circles her right thigh, just above the knee. Mmm. Then higher. Or in her present position, lower. Closer certainly. A series of measurements. Mr Blackwick’s head bent in concentration, the dedicated craftsman at work. Getting ever closer to that delicious split open peach. Suzanne is trying to close her mind but it is not easy. Not with those hands. And not after what Mr Blackwick did before. Now with her legs open like this.

The hands do in good time reach that ultimate goal, the very highest circuit, the thigh where it stops being a thigh and becomes something else. At the inside of the thigh at this point of course is the furry peach. As one might suppose as his makes this ultimate measurement one of Mr Blackwick’s hands, his right and therefore most dexterous hand (by definition, does dexter not mean right?) is right there. At the open peach. In necessary intimate contact with it. The fingers of his dexter hand are especially dextrous. They have, we may be sure, been here before. With other girls up on the table for measurement. The fingers know just what to do, where to go. As this careful measurement proceeds.

It is awful, supremely awful, but Suzanne has to lie there with her legs raised and open and let it happen. Mr Pirbright has told her to be nice and co-operative, just as her mother has told her to be nice and co-operative for Mr Pirbright. It is awful; the most awful thing.  What his fingers are doing. Though he is making a measurement. The measurement takes an awfully, awfully long time. Time for two sets of feet, a man’s and a lady’s, with a long interval between, to go by overhead. By the end of this time…

Mr Blackwick at last is helping Suzanne down off the table. A Suzanne who is shaking like a leaf, with little beads of perspiration everywhere pricking her skin. She cannot bear to look at Mr Blackwick. Desperate embarrassment. Shame. For that truly awful response his awful fingers have drawn from her.

Mr Blackwick is smiling to himself. It is sometimes quite amazing how these innocent-looking ones will react. He rubs his hands across the front of Suzanne’s blouse. Over those two promising bulges. Not surprisingly at this moment he can feel firm, stiffened-up nipples there.

‘Good. I expect you feel better after that, eh Suzanne? Now just a few more measurements.’

His hands as she stands limply against the table go to her waist. To the popper and zip of Suzanne’s skirt. It slides to the floor. A little ‘Eeek!’ from Suzanne but at this stage she is really too exhausted , shocked, to respond to anything. One hand does automatically come across to cover herself though. Naturally Mr Blackwick removes the hand.

Measurements of those darling hips and then the slender waist. Then as Suzanne is made to hold her blouse and thin vest high — very high, up beyond those pink-pointed prominences — Mr Blackwick takes yet more measurements. Including of the pink-pointed promontories themselves. With the tape taut over them — taut but not too tight — he makes the ripening glands joggle. A test of firmness. There is just the merest resilient jiggle. Causing another of those sounds — ‘mmmmgggh!’ to pop from the pouty-soft lips. There really does not seem to be any end to this awful measuring.

But that is incorrect. Mr Blackwick is now at an end. All things must finally end, even the measurements of such an experienced and careful craftsman as Mr Blackwick. And time is getting on.

In fact Mr Blackwick does not have a lot of skilled tailoring to do. It is a minimum, a bare minimum one might say. Indeed to be honest none at all. No, all that measuring has been quite unnecessary for what is required for Mr Pirbright today. But a tailor does love to measure, it is as it were meat and drink to him. Measuring of young girls at any rate. And in the future, for further tailoring requests that he will no doubt get from Mr Pirbright, those measurements will certainly be needed. Although it is very likely that in that event Mr Blackwick will decide he has to take all those measurements again. That is the way it is with the old-time type of craftsman.

Be that as it may for right now, today, things are virtually completed already. Mr Blackwick takes from behind one of those half-finished suits what seems at first sight a rather strange item. And at second sight too. It is in part at least a tie. An old school tie as it happens. Red and white and gold striped. The old school tie of St Benbows, a minor boys public school. The establishment where Mr Pirbright spent his younger days. This tie is attached near its narrow end to a white cotton webbing belt. Suzanne still in a state of some shock observes this item without great interest. Not thinking it can be for her.

Until Mr Blackwick fastens the belt round her waist. A wide-eyed look at the belt and then at Mr Blackwick. What is this? The tie is for the moment out of sight. Dangling down behind her. What…?

She has been permitted to drop vest and blouse back into position. They do not reach very far: perhaps an inch below her waist. Mr Blackwick nonetheless taking pins from his mouth pins the garments up out of the way. So that he can see clearly what is what. Suzanne is told to part her legs slightly. The dangling St Benbows tie is pushed/pulled through the arch of her thighs. And up the front. To where just below the belt buckle is a piece of material to which are sewn the back halves of two pop fasteners, side by side. The tie which has been passed between Suzanne’s legs is drawn taut. Where it crosses the two poppers Mr Blackwick makes a chalk mark. Sitting on his stool and taking out his needle and thread he proceeds to sew two front halves of poppers on the back of the tie. It is the work of a few moments at most. And then: pop, pop!

----//----

Mr Pirbright calls at Blackwick’s some 40 minutes later. A call down the intercom by that young lad. Mr Blackwick is all set, finished. He passes a large handkerchief over a slightly warm brow. It had been an extremely stimulating afternoon. He pats Suzanne’s bottom which apart from the St Benbows tie between the cheeks is quite bare. A second appreciative pat and then he goes up the stairs.

Suzanne is left alone in this strange subterranean place with its suits and its greenish light and the now-and-then feet. What has happened in this little room is not credible. She weakly shakes her head. Then another creak on the stairs. Feet. Mr Pirbright this time. His face, eyes keen with anticipation. As he sees for the first time in the flesh what he has fashioned in his mind. Oh yes! Oh yes indeed! He sits on the stool and draws the shaky-kneed Suzanne to him. Oh my word! Trembling fingers test the pop fasteners. Ah…

Upstairs Mr Blackwick has that quiet introspective little smile. What a choice young person. So much so of course that he has gone just a little further than is normally his custom. When he had her bent face-down over the table for those final checks. It was simply… well, so inviting. Irresistible. Still no harm done. Girls of that age, just coming into flower. And no doubt Mr Pirbright himself…

Mr Blackwick looks up to see the lad with the silly grin on his face.

‘Nothing to do then, David? Some sort of holiday camp is it we’re running now?’