On the Table

From Blushes Supplement 20

Angela opened her eyes. Some seconds of frantic confusion and then she realised she was awake in bed, in her bedroom. It had been a dream. She swallowed. Her mouth was dry but her body was sweating. She groaned. Christ! Jim woke up. ‘What is it? What time is it?’

‘Nothing.’ Another groan. ‘I don’t know.’ She turned to look at the luminous bedside clock. ‘Oooh… six. Almost.’ The horrid dream was still with her. Still vivid. Christ.

She knew who he was, the man in the dream. He was the man in the furniture shop, where they had bought the table. He wasn’t exactly the same, people never were in dreams, but that was who he was. And of course there was the table. Their super new glass-topped dining table. Everyone said how super it was: the table and the six matching cloth-backed chairs that went with it. The man in the dream was the man in the shop who had sold it to them. Six weeks ago. He had been absolutely charming in the shop, a smooth talking, charming salesman. Well he was the manager actually. He had been absolutely charming. But in her dream… Angela shuddered. It had been so real. So absolutely… their table…

‘I was dreaming.’ It was six. She wouldn’t be able to get back to sleep. Christ. ‘What about?’ Jim was properly awake now and turned towards her. She was on her back and his hand came across her boobs, rubbing them through the thin cotton nightdress. Jim was awake and as he didn’t have to get up for an hour there was not much doubt what he would be thinking about. Yes. His hand slid down and found hers. He moved it in to his groin. He was fully erect. She took hold of it, the smooth, hot, stiff flesh in her hand but her mind was still in the dream. Downstairs in their dining room. She was on their table. Their super new table. On her back on the glass top.

Her hand in response to Jim’s hand that was holding hers was stroking his swollen penis. ‘What was the dream?’ he asked again. Angela shook her head. It was too awful, too absolutely awful. Why did you have to dream things like that? That man, Mr Marran she remembered what his name was now, had a cane. She had to take her clothes off. Everything except knickers and shoes and stockings and suspender belt, and get on the table. On her back. Her legs up in the air. Then he made her take her knickers down — or up as it was in this awful position. To her knees. Her knickers round her knees and her bottom bare and of course everything on display. And then… that cane…

‘I can’t remember,’ Angela said. ‘Some awful rubbish.’ Jim was getting on top of her. She didn’t always want it in the morning but today it was all right, it would be a release from the grip of the dream.

Because there was something else, something to make her shiver even though the dream was over and it was only a dream. She had to go in there today. Hillfields, the furniture shop. Mr Marran: she had to see him. The payments on the table and chairs.

That was why she had dreamt that awful dream of course. Anxiety about having to go and see Mr Marran. Angela was to make the payments for the new suite, out of her housekeeping allowance, but last month she had been short and she hadn’t been able to make that first payment. Now she had to go and see Mr Marran about it. Ten o’clock this morning. If she could give him the money for that back payment it would be all right. But Angela couldn’t, she was still short.

It was her own fault. She had spent the money, on another pair of expensive shoes. Angela couldn’t resist pretty shoes. And there was also that dress. She couldn’t ask Jim for the money: he would want to know where her allowance had gone, want to see proper accounts. So that meant…

Jim was screwing her now and it was really getting to her, turning her on. Sometimes it felt like nothing but now, this morning, Angela could feel the pulses begin to throb through her. It was that bloody dream. Mr Marran getting her up on the table downstairs and making her hold her legs up in the air and then really cutting that cane into her bare bottom. She hadn’t known what was worse, the awful pain of the cane or the horror of having to expose herself like that. It was just about the worst dream she could ever remember having, and now what Jim was doing, his big thing up inside her, came as an overwhelming release from the awful dream. She was making sort of sobbing sounds as her body caught fire. For the moment Angela forgot that other part, the reason why she had had the dream.

She remembered it immediately afterwards of course. And the sickening thought: What if Mr Marran were to actually do that? Do what had happened in the dream so that the dream had in fact been a premonition, it was something that was going to happen. She could see that Mr Marran. Not the charming Mr Marran who had sold them the table but hard-faced — as he had probably been in the dream although she couldn’t actually recall details of his face from the dream. But hard-faced saying, ‘If you can’t pay, Mrs Wilmot, then clearly you need some sort of lesson.’ Come back with her to the house. Jim at work of course. ‘Now, Mrs Wilmot, we’re going to teach you that you can’t simply not make payments on a legal contract. Take off your dress.’

‘You can’t… dream something that’s going to happen, can you?’

‘What?’ Jim was half asleep again. She repeated her question, fiercely in need of an answer.

‘I… I don’t know… I… think I read somewhere that you can. Some… people think so.’

That was all she needed. All the lovely glow from the sex was suddenly gone. All at once every nerve in Angela’s body seemed to be jangling. Mr Marran. It can’t be true…

She tried to get to sleep again, like Jim, until the alarm went but Angela knew she couldn’t. Her head was full of horrible vivid pictures chasing each other round and round. In desperation she thought, I’ll wake Jim up; make a clean breast of it. Tell him I couldn’t make the payment and the reason why and say I’ll never, ever do that sort of thing again. Tell him I’ll take the shoes and dress back. But they had had all that out before and Angela had already vowed she would never buy clothes she couldn’t afford. And probably they wouldn’t take them back in any case. But anyway it was only a silly dream. Mr Marran just wanted to discuss the payments and she had only missed the one. It was true she wasn’t going to be able to pay the next one either, but after that… After that she would have got things sorted out. Household economies. Yes, it would be all right. He only wanted to discuss it. Remember what a charming man he was.

These positive thoughts naturally did not last. They were not with Angela as she got into the car to go in to town. No, that awful dream was more vivid than ever. Would she be back here, in perhaps an hour’s time, in the company of Mr Marran? Mr Marran intent on teaching her a lesson. She could hear his voice: ‘I’m going to teach you a little lesson, Mrs Wilmot. Something I think you will not enjoy. Have you ever been caned? On your bare bottom? Because that is what I am going to do. I want you upside down on the table with your clothes off and your legs up in the air.’

Angela almost couldn’t face it. She could go to a phone box and call and say she was ill. But that wouldn’t really help. No, there was nothing for it. Walking along the pavement to the shop, the clip-clop of her high heels reverberating in her jangling head. She thought: I could at least have worn something else. Flat heels. But without thinking she had put on what she had on in the dream: her black high-heeled courts with nylons and a suspender belt. The things she had had on when she was upside down on the table…

In the shop. She felt sick, faint. Mr Marran. Saying something to her but Angela’s head couldn’t take it in. He was smiling. They were going through into the office. Sitting down. What was he saying?

Angela was in such a state that it took a while, her head just wasn’t working. He must think he was dealing with a nutter. She was saying, ‘Pardon?’ ‘What?’ But gradually it got through: he wasn’t taking a hard line. Not threatening her with the law and talking about teaching her a lesson. Mr Marran in fact was quite as charming and friendly as before. Perhaps even more so. Missing one payment was no problem at all. Don’t worry about it. He was charming and friendly and more than that. He was being distinctly flirtatious. He fancied her.

Angela couldn’t believe it. In the car again driving back, her head was in as much of a spin as before only now a very different sort of spin. Wild elation. All those dreadful fears were suddenly gone off into the clear blue sky. Mr Marran didn’t want to do that dreadful thing to her. It had only been a silly dream. Instead Mr Marran had suggested having coffee tomorrow morning, and Angela had accepted. Well, she had to keep him friendly. Mr Marran definitely fancied her, no doubt had thoughts of screwing her. That thought… well, the idea of being screwed by an attractive, charming man was not such a dreadful thought. Not that Angela was necessarily going to agree to it. But…

Her head was full of all this as she drove along the lane to their house. Out in the middle and not thinking, not really looking. Suddenly a red car in front of her. It had to swerve violently to avoid contact. It almost succeeded, with a slight scraping, but finished up in the hedge. Oh Christ!

‘You bloody silly bitch!’ he ranted, his face bright red. The red car was scraped along both sides, whereas there was virtually nothing on Angela’s. The man’s eyes seemed to be popping out of his head in his anger. ‘You silly bitch! You need a bloody good thrashing!’

He was going to go to the police, he said. She would be done for dangerous driving. She needed locking up. Well, at least they’d take away her licence. For five years probably. And there’d be a bloody big fine. And the insurance costs as well.

Angela didn’t know what to do. She wanted to cry. Jim would kill her if there was a big insurance claim, and the thought of the police… she pleaded with the man. He was still ranting on. But then…

In her house. ‘I’ll make some coffee,’ she said. He seemed to be calming down. The shock of it was so dreadful that Angela had forgotten everything else. Mr Marran, the dreadful dream, all that. But it was shortly to come back.

Over the coffee he said, ‘Look. OK. I won’t go to the police. I won’t even make a claim. If I can have some personal satisfaction instead.’ For a second she thought: he wants to screw me. But he continued calmly, ‘What you need is a good thrashing to teach you a lesson. If you let me do that we’ll call it quits.’

Her head was jangling. He went out, to his car. When he came back there was a cane in his hand. Angela’s head… those pictures. The dreadful dream…

The man said, ‘That table. Yes. That would be nice. Shall we have you up on that?’

Her breath came hissing out in a low, disbelieving moan.

‘Yes. I’d like you up on the table. Your clothes off except knickers and shoes and stockings. Then I want you on your back on the table. Upside down holding your legs up in the air.’