Chapter 7

The cruise was incredible, and having Raquel with me made it all the more beautiful. We stood on the deck and watched things most people hardly even think about: walls of majestic glaciers, icebergs and ice floes, soaring ice covered mountains, the dark blue water breaking with the wake of a group of whales. Each time we would take each other's hand, or she would slip her arm inside mine and lean her head on my shoulder. Other times we just stared in wide-eyed awe at it all, our bodies cuddled together.

She fed me shrimp one night, right there at the table, and we giggled like teenagers when the cocktail sauce dribbled down my chin. People gawked at the gorgeous young woman and her older, silver-haired companion, but neither of us cared.

At night, we nestled together in our cabin, and let the wonder of the day flow between us as our bodies sought each other's deepest secrets. Each and every night, she slid her face from my neck down to my tummy and kissed me long and sweet, running her tongue from my navel up to just below my breasts, and then sucking and mouthing me gently around my upper abdomen.

A glow seemed to come over me each time, with each tender ministration of her mouth. It was accompanied by a warmth I cannot describe, almost an electric current, generated by her naked body, into mine. It was heavenly.

Astonishingly, I had only one day that I felt weak, and spent most of it resting in the cabin, but other than that, I felt energized, excited, and I made it to nearly eleven o'clock every night before my delicious young lover and I fell into each other's arms.

I'm sure that, by the end of the nine days, there was little doubt in any passenger's mind that Raquel and I were not mother and daughter, or office girlfriends. It didn't matter. Nothing mattered, nothing but her, and my last chapter in this life.

When we returned, she sat with me at the table and took my hand.

"I need to tell you something." It was almost like I was being scolded, the way she said it. But I braced myself for something else, something like "goodbye." After all, she had a life, and she was young. She was everything I wasn't, and had all the things I didn't. I took a deep breath and nodded.

"I'm moving in here with you," she said, holding my eyes with hers, "and I'm taking care of you."

A thousand thoughts raced through me. Brian and Gina, along with Stan Rosenfeld, had already arranged for hospice. I knew this. I also knew that Brian and Gina were planning on moving in too, when things got... bad. I was stunned, deeply touched, and totally disarmed by her announcement.

"It's not... going... to work," I started to protest, but Raquel was already shaking her head.

"Yes it will. Leave it to me."

"Raquel, what about Brian and Gina? I mean, are you going to be the live-in massage therapist, for crissake?"

She smiled. "No, you should tell them the truth."

I thought about that, thinking it was a bad idea. Then, I thought, what's the difference? What are they going to do... disapprove? Not come over for next year's Thanksgiving? I won't be here anyway. I almost laughed out loud. Truth. Love. Reality.

"No more pretending," Raquel went on, stroking my hand, then bending her head and kissing it...

"They'll be here next week," I said, feeling helpless about the whole thing.

"And so will I. Unless of course, you are completely against it, Susan."

The look in her eyes just then was so intense, so full of assurance and silent wisdom, I had trouble mustering any kind of argument. In some mysterious way, it made me feel that it was imperative that she be there for me, that it was part of a greater plan of some sort. The glow returned just then, blanketing me, the way it did when her mouth heated and anointed my abdomen in our private, darkened moments under the sheets.

"No. I'm not against it. I want you near me," I said. I'm not sure if I had ever meant anything so much in my life.

Raquel's face was so full of peace and relief then, I knew that everything else, Brian and Gina, all of it, would somehow take care of itself. I would find out soon enough.

And what about her family? I wanted to meet them, to know about them.

"Soon enough, you'll meet them all," She said with a wry smile. That told me that they must be quite a crew, if they were anything like her.

The Headmistress of Hanniman's School for Girls sat bolt upright in her chair, a long black dress flowing to the floor, her hair in a tight bun. A knock at her office door signalled that her 1pm appointment with a student had arrived. She looked at her clock and smiled. It was 1:03.

The girl came in, her honey-highlighted hair flowing sensually over the shoulders of a crisp white blouse. Her uniform skirt was short and her bare legs shone gently in the light of the office as she stood there, slightly knock-kneed with trepidation.

"Raquel Simmons, ma'am. You wanted to see me."

"You're late girl," the Headmistress scowled at her.

The schoolgirl bowed her head. "Sorry, ma'am."

"It's quite clear that you need some serious adjustments, young lady. You were caught smoking last month. Now, you were up after dormitory curfew, and on top of that you are late to see me. What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I... I..."

The Headmistress deepened the girl's fear by striking the side of her desk with a riding crop, causing her to jerk.

"I think you should start where every remorseful girl should start, and that is on her knees." The silver-haired Headmistress pointed to the floor in front of her. Raquel Simmons sank to her knees on the carpet of the office. The woman flipped through a file that was on her desk.

"What are we going to do with you, Raquel? Even your grades have fallen. Even after your punishment last time, it seems as though you continue your downward slide. Perhaps you are one of those, 'slow learners', hmm?"

"I don't... don't know, ma'am."

"No," the headmistress said, rising. "You certainly do not. Well, then we'll make this punishment a bit more memorable, so that next time, you will know."

Raquel was trembling as the Headmistress, just like last time, removed her long skirt, and stood before her in black lace panties and lace-up high heeled boots. She stepped toward the kneeling schoolgirl and tipped her chin up to her, standing so close that the girl could feel the heat of the older woman's body wafting around her face.

The headmistress toyed with Raquel's cheek, running her hand alongside it, then traced her lips and ran her fingers through her hair. She walked slowly around her, escalating the aura of control, and stood behind her now, her fingers still entwined in the youngster's silky tresses. She stepped closer, and held the girl's head against her body, knowing that Raquel could feel her mound against the back of her head.

"You are going to pay for wasting my precious time, child."

The headmistress smiled as she heard Raquel take a deep, sharp breath. Then she let go of her hair and went back to her loveseat. She looked Raquel in the eyes and patted her thighs. "Up here. Now."

Raquel knew what to do, and she meekly rose, walked to the Headmistress, and laid herself across her lap, breathing deeply. She bit her lip as she felt the woman's hands slowly draw her uniform skirt up and lay it on her back. This time, when lowering her panties, the Headmistress grabbed the waistband in the middle of the tiny cotton undies, and as she pulled them down, her knuckle cleaved it's way down the girl's exposed fissure, dangerously close to her hidden sphincter.

She worked the panties agonizingly slowly, prolonging Raquel's anticipation of the punishment, and finally rested the tiny white undergarment at her knees. Raquel's breathing was already very audible, and her mouth hung open amidst a forest of silky hair. Her mound rested just above the Headmistress' bare thigh.

Raquel gasped as the woman drew the tip of the riding crop down the middle of her back, and down the divide of her buttocks, the same trail her knuckle had just made. "What would your classmates think if they saw you in the shower with red marks on your bottom, Raquel?"

"Umm... I-"

"Silence now." The Headmistress followed the command with a swift strike of her open hand, forcefully on the center of Raquel's right buttock. The girl yelped and clenched, and Miss Orlander, the Headmistress, smiled as she felt the tender pubis of her ward press briefly against her thigh.

She administered nine more blistering strikes of her hand to the perfect buttocks of Raquel Simmons, who let out a muffled squeal with each hit. She squirmed on the Headmistress' lap, her young sex rubbing and grinding against the older woman's legs as she did.

With her young and pretty captive panting and trembling on her lap, Miss Orlander picked up the crop from her desk. "And, a little hint of things to come, Miss Simmons, if you are ever called to my office again. There will be one strike for each minute you were late today."

She whipped the crop into Raquel's thighs, connecting three times, each time higher and closer to the intimate flesh tucked within. Raquel's squeals turned to ragged moans at the painful strikes, and she sobbed softly as she lay there on her captor's lap.

"Now then. You are young, and I know that your skin is tender. I will make sure that you won't have any real bad marks there." She took a tube of skin lotion and squeezed a dollop of it into her hands. Then, she gently massaged the wounded upper thighs where her crop had found it's tender target.