The oldest picture in the book

ã By Edwina Preston


It was against the rules. I knew that. But there was that sticky bit on my leg from the icy-pole I'd had at lunchtime. About an inch up from the knee, orange. I imagined there was also some of it on my face, around my mouth perhaps. When he slipped into the desk beside me, we both noticed it. He was showing me something in my book, but his eyes kept straying to it and eventually, he licked his finger and expunged it in one neat motion. Then, while still looking at the open page before us, he pushed up my skirt and searched for more.

Mr M was a strange-looking man. Small with a large head. It was possible that he wore a toupee. He had no wife, but there was a scar on his face and the common consensus was that there had been a wife, and a terrible accident, and now, no wife and a scar. Once, at a party, he had got a student into a cupboard with him.

His legs were encased, as usual, in blue polyester. My legs: disappointingly free of further orange stickiness. He persevered nevertheless. He explained those lines of Shakespeare that I could not quite comprehend and his fingers crept upwards, without, it seemed, any particular ambition. When they reached the top, innermost part of my thigh, he put them briefly on my crotch - just below the hard bit, where the softness kicks in - and then got up, just like that. Unperturbed, in blue polyester. Returned to his desk at the front of the room.

There was nothing more for some time. I imagined I had imagined it. And then, one day, he called me back to stay back after class. Something in my essay was wrong. I had wrongly interpreted some bit of something and it required further discussion. Perhaps I was to be punished.

As soon as the door was shut, he had his book of Shakespeare out: like a ledger, almost biblical - Collected Works with Annotations.

'I have to show you something,' he said.

In those days, we wore school dresses that buttoned right to the hem, came open like old-fashioned housecoats. As he flipped pages, he didn't look at me, he looked at the pages, but he unbuttoned, quite expertly, my school dress from the midriff down. One-handed. It was not something you imagined a man to be capable of, not with such expertise.

It was a nice feeling: there in my underpants, with my dress swinging open. I hoped the door was locked.

'I am looking.' he said, and as he said it - flipping pages, not even glancing at me- he drew my underpants aside like one half of a pair of curtains with that dexterous index finger of his, 'for the oldest picture in the book.'
I leaned over so my pubic bone brushed the desk edge, and peered over his shoulder.
'The oldest picture?' I said.  'Hmmm,' I said.
I turned toward him so my glistening little cunt - well, this is how I imagine it anyway, in retrospect- was somewhere near his eye level. He looked at it then, mildly surprised, and began to rub it with two fingers, dragging on it slightly, in a way that made certain of my muscles contract. I looked at the implements on his desk and vaguely hoped he might put some of them in me (ruler, ballpoint pen.)
'Here it is!' he said, taking his fingers away. I peered closer. He was right: it was a very old picture, an engraving. At first there were too many lines and cross-hatchings to make out exactly what was going on. I concentrated. He had returned his fingers to my cunt and was stroking it now and pushing his finger in occasionally, just up to the first knuckle or so, but a little deeper every time.
The picture was of two women, both in corsets: a large, busty one and a small, slim one. The slim one lay on a bed, with her knee kinked out, while the large one plunged something into her. I could not make out what this was: it might have been a wooden musical instrument, or a kitchen utensil, or something tailor-made for the purpose, but whatever it was the girl with the kinked-out knee looked ecstatic, with dreamy eyes half-closed and a little saliva coming out of the corner of her mouth.
Behind the large woman was a lewd-looking little man with bulging eyes. He had her skirts bundled up so her arse was exposed. Around her waist was a wide cord of some kind - a razor strop perhaps, or a man's belt - and the loose end of this was pulled tight between her legs by the lewd-looking man, one-handed.  His other hand was on his member (this, I have discovered, is the correct euphemism) - a member that was, strangely enough, much larger than would seem natural for such a small man.
By this time, Mr M's own member was making its presence felt. I had certainly become aware of it out of the corner of my eye. It stood upright from his open trouser fly, and was, it seemed to me then (having no prior experience) a nice medium size, generally-speaking. It was unexpectedly soft to the touch, and when Mr M took my waist and propelled me toward it, I was quite happy with the turn of events.
I put my elbows on the desk, as though inspecting more closely the details of the engraving -indeed, I was. Mr M scooped up the back of my dress, pushed my legs apart with his knees, and manoeuvred my arse outwards so that he could pull and rub at me some more. I pretended not to notice. He took off his belt then, and tied it around my waist, like the woman in the picture, bringing the loose end between my legs and yanking on it intermittently, spreading my arse with his other hand. It was good to have something to lean on, with all this going on.  The pressure of my pubis on the belt was unendurable in the nicest possible way.
Then he dropped the belt end and, with my arse cheeks still parted, and got several fingers working away inside me. I pushed my cunt a little harder against the desk edge, and my contractions began to have a kind of silvery, snowballing effect.
I will not say that Mr M's penis, when he put it in, glided in smoothly. It ruptured in fits and starts, and I am sure I made small noises of a kind, not meaning to. I was looking for the pleasure, for there were little offshoots of the pain that were certainly pleasurable. But before I had a chance to fully investigate these options, I'm afraid to say it was over. He had pulled out; there seemed to be a small sticky pool on my back, which he considerately wiped off with some kind of standard issue scratchy teacher's tissue. He whipped my underpants back in place with one hooked finger; used the same finger to re-thread my buttons, and dismissed me.
It did not happen again. Though I plastered myself in sticky orange confection, and left buttons undone, it did not happen again. I stayed back once, of my own volition, and asked if he had any old pictures to show me, but he looked at me oddly, as if he had no idea what I was talking about. Even when I drew up my skirt to show him that neat little cunt of mine, he just blinked and returned to his essay marking.

It does not matter. Mr M did what the best teachers should: he set me on the path to a future of intellectual endeavour. I am happy to say that my doctorate on 18th century erotic lithography was well received when I completed it last year, and will be published by an academic publishing house in September.  And my private collection - portions of which have been exhibited internationally - is one of the most extensive in the country.