My Precious Jewel

An unattractive corrugated-steel purple-painted hangar houses the Fun Factory, and when Ruby advised me to follow the sound of screaming juveniles she was only half joking.

It is not that I don’t want to see them again, but does it have to be in this primary-coloured, padded circle of hell?  Even the way their faces light up on seeing me and the boy’s excited squeal of ‘Daddy!’ do not quite dampen the dismay I feel on entering the building.  Inane jingly-jangly music plays pointlessly beneath the hysterical squawking of the patrons.  Everywhere children scramble like unruly monkeys across rope ladders and down chutes into vast repositories of plastic spheres.  Most of them are screaming, or laughing, but a notable minority are crying or throwing tantrums.

All in all, my sentiments are that the person who misnamed this travesty ‘Fun Factory’ should face litigation for false advertising.  This is as much fun as a bath of bubotuber pus.  When I mention this to Ruby she clicks her tongue at me and snaps, “I don’t think forty-year-old wizards were the target market when they conceived this place.”

Really, she is extremely impertinent these days; I feel this tendency ought to be checked.  But when will I ever get the chance to correct her shortcomings again?  I watch her tight-jeaned bottom wiggle over to where Tom is trying to kick a small boy off a slide and imagine it bared and squirming over my lap.  Mmm.  This is not a good place to be thinking of such an image though.  I quash it, or rather have it quashed for me by a feral-looking eight-year-old who yells at me to get out of her way.  My mood is not good as I growl out an order for two cups of tea and an apple juice to the menial at the serving hatch.  I take the drinks with me and sit at the table, ostensibly watching the scenes of bedlam around me, but really undressing Ruby with my eyes as she climbs and jumps after the boy.  There are so many things I want to do to her, I wonder if I could get around to them all if I lived to be five hundred.  That tight T-shirt should be illegal, but it outlines her breasts in such sinful detail that my eyes cannot but linger.  And if mine are hypnotised…grrr…I look around to make sure none of the other jaded fathers are ogling my woman.  Good.  Most of them look too tired to contemplate even mental infidelity, slumped over the football pages of their newspapers.  Sweet goddess, now she is on her knees, bent right over while she tickles Tom’s stomach.  Does she even know how that looks to a…ahem…casual observer?  Her arse cheeks are lifted and separated like two ripe melons straining to burst through the stretched denim…A frantic list of all the shameful indecencies I could subject that magnificent backside to begins to gallop through my head.  My breath is shortening and I have to affect sincere interest in the menu, placing it concealingly on my lap.  It really wouldn’t do to be seen like this…here of all places…one could get a VERY wrong idea…  Damn, she’s coming over.  I must rid myself of this inappropriate erection immediately.  What can I think about?  Hermione Granger!  Humourless bossy little Gryffindor prig…ah yes, that’s done the trick all right.

I restore the menu to the table top and raise my eyebrow at the vision of curvaceousness that is mine, all mine.

“What are you doing skulking over here?” she says querulously.

“Excuse me!  I am not skulking!”  Oh yes, a spanking is most definitely number one on the agenda for later.  Whenever later might be.

“Why don’t you go and play with the son you’ve had nothing to do with for nearly four years?  He’s asking for you.”

“I don’t play,” I say huffily, but something in the irate cast of her face convinces me not to pursue the point.  “Very well,” I mutter ungraciously.  She sits down, sips at her tea and grins.

“This I have to see,” she says as I move away towards the seething mass of snot-nosed mini-humanity.

“Come into the ball pool!” shouts Tom, hurling varicoloured plastic balls out at passers-by.

“I, ah, prefer to watch,” I tell him through the netting that separates our faces.

“Come in!” he says, his lips drooping and the first signs of tears making their presence known.

“How do I get in there?” I ask, looking around and seeing no other access point than a rather steep chute.

“The slide!”

Ah, as I feared.  With all the enthusiasm of Marie-Antoinette en route for the guillotine, I climb the squashy steps while tots scramble around my ankles, almost unbalancing me a number of times.  I have faced death on numerous occasions.  I have even meted it out.  So why is this so hard for me?  As I crest the stairs and appear at the top of the slide, Tom cheers and claps his hands.  I look over at Ruby.  The minx is laughing at me.  Only the thought of the painful retribution I shall exact from her later ameliorates the mortifying reality of my position.  I launch myself down and land with an unexpectedly hard bump, dislodging a shower of plastic bubbles as I do so.  Tom screams with laughter and jumps on top of me, the consequences of which are almost seriously grievous for my chances of ever providing him with siblings.

“DON’T….do that, Tom,” I warn, biting back an angry retort.  His response is to pick up a ball and throw it hard at my face. 

“Let’s play catching!” he suggests.  The boy is clearly overexcited, and I am tempted to drag him out of there and slip some Sleeping Draught into his fruit juice.  Give me a second or two alone with Ruby.  But I don’t want to alienate him, so I indulge him in a half-hearted throwing and catching game.  His reflexes are as yet poorly developed, so I get him to practise his catch over and over until he gets bored (mercifully quickly) and demands something to eat.

I lead him back to his mother, who produces some breadsticks from somewhere.  “When do I get you alone?” I ask her bluntly, holding her eye as colour floods into her cheeks.

“You have to realise what life is like for me now,” she says.  “I can’t usually afford a babysitter…”

“I can,” I say instantly.  “Hire one.  Tonight.”

“It isn’t that easy…”

“Ask your friend.  Freda.”

“I…”

“Ask her.  Call her now.”  I keep my eye fixed on Ruby as her shell of defiance crumbles and she takes her mobile phone from her handbag.  It seems she has been exaggerating the difficulty of finding supervision for the child, for the deal is made within a minute.

“He can spend the night at Freda’s,” she says, colouring beautifully at the inference she knows I am making. 

“Perfect,” I say, a smile flickering on my lips as she tears her eyes guiltily from my uncompromising gaze.

She giggles nervously.  “God, I can see the cogs whirring in there.  You’re making devilish plans, aren’t you?”

I reach over and thread a couple of her fingers through mine.  “The darkest, deepest, most devious and deviant kind, my dear,” I say with deliberation.  She shivers deliciously.

“Well I want you to take me out,” she says imperiously.  “I’m not a cheap date any more.  You can’t get your way with me just like that.”  I’m pretty sure I could, but I decide to humour her.

“Name your heart’s desire,” I say, though I always find it difficult to say romantic words without sounding sarcastic.  Why is that?  “I shall endeavour to fulfil it, Ruby.”

She is fluttering like a trapped butterfly, poor girl.  She stands no chance.  When I want something, I am completely, single-mindedly ruthless, as she will learn.

“Oh, well.  Dinner would be nice.  Somewhere…oh, I don’t mind really.  Not McDonalds though.”

“McDonalds?”

She smiles beatifically.  “I love the things you don’t know,” she exclaims.

“I’m delighted I have such novelty value,” I say, a stern edge creeping into my voice, which gets her knickers in even more of a twist.  They’ll be off before the stroke of midnight, I would put money on it.  “I’ll leave you to make a booking then, Ruby.  Anywhere you like.  I’ll pick you up at half past seven.”

“Half past seven,” she beams, winding her fingers more tightly into mine.

*

How does one dress for a ‘date’?

Impossible as it may seem, I have somehow arrived at the age of forty two with no experience of such a social encounter.  Having spent my teenage years mooning fruitlessly after the unattainable, I moved on to a few clandestine encounters with another man’s fiancée which had to end when she married.  As Lord Voldemort’s youthful protégé, young women were occasionally procured for my pleasures, though I prefer not to dwell on that time.  Although it was never explicitly stated, I always suspected that they were under the Imperius; their enthusiasm for me was certainly not something I would expect, given my usual underwhelming effect on women at that age.

Later on, my personal situation was such that the pursuit of a personal relationship was quite out of the question.  I spent sixteen years gratifying my natural urges with the assistance of the amenable ladies of The Enchanted Boudoir.  Occasionally I was tempted to take advantage of tired and emotional witches at the end of long nights in Hogsmeade or elsewhere, but as these women were almost invariably ex-pupils of mine, there was an odd, rather creepy quality to the liaisons which made them less enjoyable than they should have been.  The girls always came back for more, however.  I always had to send them away.

So while I am far from sexually inexperienced, I am wholly unversed in the ways of courtship.  Never since Lily have I wanted a lover rather than – excuse my coarseness – an available set of female genitalia for the night.  The night Ruby and I spent together in the beach hut was a revelation to me; it unlocked a set of needs and desires I did not even realise I had.  The sweetness of it was so potent it had an almost toxic quality, like Amortentia, suffusing one’s blood and one’s brain until madness is precipitated.  I want more of it.  I want it and I want her.

But first I must dress.

Before leaving the Muggle sphere earlier on, I purchased a copy of a men’s style magazine, and I flick through it looking for something suitably sharp.  Gods, no, nothing floral.  Do Muggle men really wear such unpleasant leisure outfits?  I am unimpressed until I find a well-cut suit in charcoal grey with a white shirt and discreet tie.  That will do.  I absorb the information from the magazine into my wand and then apply it to my own attire.  Aha.

The Malfoy’s mirror almost has a seizure.

“I usually admire your style, Sir, but in this instance I must object most strongly!  Is it your intention to look like a Muggle?”

“Yes,” I say curtly, and its response is a scream of outrage.

“IN MY MISTRESS’ HOUSE!  WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

Ignoring the idiotic glass rectangle, I make a few last minute adjustments, unable to decide whether to tie my hair back or not.  On the one hand…it looks more Muggle if I do…on the other…Sweet goddess, is my nose really that big?  I leave it down.

Descending the stairs to Apparate from the grounds – Lucius has never been able to disable the Anti-Apparition wards Voldemort put on his place of residence – I almost run into mine host, who stares at me with frank astonishment.

“Severus!  What on earth are you wearing?”

“Ah, Lucius, sorry, I can’t stop and talk.  I have business to attend to.”

“Muggle business?”

“Yes.”

I move to pass him, but he holds up a hand.

“How is your mysterious young family?” he asks with deadly courtesy.

“They are very well, thank you.”

“When can we expect a visit?  Narcissa is so looking forward to meeting them.”

“In due course.  Lucius, I really must….”

“Yes.  You really must.  Mustn’t you?” says Lucius, a hard edge in his flinty eyes.  It seems the perennially able Arithmancer is putting two and two together.

I nod and sweep towards the door, hearing Malfoy mutter under his breath in my wake.

“Unbelievable.  Snape, of all people, knocking up a Muggle.”

*

Ruby.  In a strapless dress, tightly boned to accentuate her tiny waist and luxuriant cleavage, flaring out in a froth of petticoats to just above the knee.  Her hair, shiny blonde, piled up on her head, her heels sky-high, her stockings sheer, a little vision of perfect beddability.  My throat is uncomfortably dry when she flings the door open to reveal herself and I find myself transfixed by the hollow beneath her throat and above her collarbone, wanting to kiss it so that she throws her neck back and offers its white expanse to me.

Later, Severus, later.

“Where am I taking you?” I ask her, my choice of words perhaps inadvisable as I am immediately assailed by the image of Ruby being taken by me, the way she looked, her rapt little face on that pile of old bedding in the beach hut.  Hmmm.  I really need to discipline my mind; at this rate I won’t make it through hors d’oeuvres without some kind of accident in the trouser department.

“I’ve booked a place by the river, brasserie type of thing.  Supposed to be nice.  I didn’t really know what to go for; I never really eat out.”  She smiles bashfully at me, as if embarrassed by her lack of sophistication.

“No, neither do I,” I tell her, wanting to put her at ease.  I hold out a hand.  “May I escort you?”  Damn, why does even that sound sarcastic?  Am I capable of saying anything naturally?

 

The waiter hands us menus and a wine list and I finally think to compliment Ruby on her appearance.  It’s considered good form to do so, I believe.

“Oh.  Thanks.  You look…really good too,” she says.  The atmosphere is stilted and formal for some reason.  I wonder if there is some pre-approved script for dates.  Is there something I have forgotten to say, or should I not have said something else?  I feel completely out of my depth.

“There’s lots of choice for vegetarians,” says Ruby approvingly over the top of the menu.

“Oh, still a vegetarian, are you?” I ask slyly.  “Albeit a fair weather vegetarian who eats pork scratchings.”

“It was hard being a vegetarian on The Rock,” she defends herself.  “Chips in curry sauce was as good as it got.  If I hadn’t sneaked the odd pork scratching, I’d have expired from some vitamin deficiency or other.”

I snort.  “Perhaps you could have tried eating some vegetables,” I suggest teasingly.  “I believe they’re an acceptable component of a vegetarian diet.”

“Is this how it’s going to be, Severus?” she asks, taking me seriously for some reason.  “You lecturing me all the time, just the way it was before.  I get enough lectures at university, thanks.”

I raise my eyebrows at her.  “You appear to resent me,” I remark.  “Would you prefer it had I not come back?”

“Severus, don’t be so touchy!” she says.  Touchy!  I am not touchy!  “I just….I’m not sure how to be with you.  It’s all a bit…overwhelming.  I think perhaps I’m trying too hard to show you I have grown up a lot since we were last together.  I’m so scared of being taken for granted, I suppose.  Or taken advantage of.  You know the effect you have on me…I’m worried you’ll try to exploit it.  And I’ll end up getting hurt again.  I’ve got four years of hurt and abandonment issues inside here, and it’s bound to leak out sometimes and splash you.”

It’s a fair point.  I preyed rather shamelessly on her vulnerability when I was her employer.  She would be a fool not to expect similar behaviour from me this time around.  How can I convince her my intentions are honourable?  Or rather, not completely dishonourable?

“Ruby, when we originally met, it was under the aegis of employer and employee,” I tell her.  “I interviewed you to see if you were suitable for the role of my assistant.  Actually, you weren’t, but that’s by the by.  I fancied you so you got the job.”  Ruby giggles delightedly.

“You had the funniest way of showing it,” she smirks.

I smile tightly back.  “Why don’t you turn the tables on me now,” I suggest.  “Interview me.  For the position of your husband.  You can ask all the awkward questions you need to get off your chest, and I can make my case.  What do you say?”

She puts the menu down and beams.  “You’re amazing,” she says.

“I’ve got the job already?” I ask hopefully.  She shakes her head but is interrupted in whatever she had planned to say by the waiter, who hovers at our elbows ready to take our orders.

“So then,” she says decisively.  “Professor Snape.”  Liking her use of my title.  Very authentic.  “I’d like to start by thanking you for your interest and asking you what prompted you to apply for the vacancy of Ruby O’Riordan’s husband.”

I sit back and steeple my hands, calculating the most devastating reply I can muster.  “I’ve had a strong interest in Miss O’Riordan for a long time,” I open, “although circumstances beyond my control prevented me from making an earlier application.  Nonetheless, it has always been my hope that the vacancy would not be filled in my absence and I would be able to compete for the post as soon as my situation permitted.  Although I was only made aware of it recently, I must add that the fact that she is the mother of my son must substantially strengthen my position in the marketplace.”

“Good answer,” she nods, “but it doesn’t explain why you have the interest in Ruby to begin with.  What is it about her that you are drawn to?”

Little scamp, fishing for compliments.  I raise my eyebrows at her, considering.  “When I met her, she was emerging from turbulent emotional circumstances, but although she seemed to have led a rather unhappy life thus far, she was touchingly trusting and optimistic.  It struck me that, while I responded to my own difficult youth by disappearing inside myself and believing in nothing, she was doing the opposite – reaching out and looking for something, or someone, to believe in.  I admired that quality about her.  She made me think.  She was bright, engaging and for some reason she liked me.  I need only to add that she was pretty, submissive and enjoyed getting a spanking almost as much as I enjoy giving one.  Voilà, the perfect woman.”

“Severus!” she admonishes, sweetly blushful.  “Keep your voice down!”  It seems a bit late for that, judging by the merry smirk playing around the waiter’s lips as he pours our wine.

“Was my exposition not to your satisfaction?” I enquire innocently, sipping at the full-bodied burgundy.

“No, it was fine,” she flutters.  “Er…on to the next question.  What unique qualities will you bring to the position?”

“Keen intellect, a firm hand and an inexhaustible libido,” I reply promptly.  If rather flippantly.  She pops her big blue eyes wide open and laughs.

“You’re terrible!” she avers flirtatiously.

“You know that’s not true, Ruby,” I purr.  “To elaborate, my outstanding intellectual capabilities will ensure that I can provide for you and Tom more than adequately while you continue your unremunerated studies.  I will take care of you and make sure you do yourself justice both academically and in the domestic sphere – because, as you know, I do not tolerate poor behaviour or slapdash work.  And your requirements in the bedchamber will be at the very heart of my concerns, Ruby.  I shall see to it that you are never left unsatisfied.”

All she can say to this is “Oh”, caught in the inescapable nexus of my gaze, looking as if I would only have to touch her for her to collapse under the table.  It occurs to me that over the course of the last four years she must have forgotten precisely whom she is dealing with.  She works at regaining her composure and ploughs on.

“Are there any areas of weakness you would need to work on?” she asks faintly.

“I am inexperienced in the role,” I admit.  “I have never…there hasn’t been anybody.  In the sense of a close relationship.  I would need your support at first, as you will no doubt need mine.  I am probably quite difficult to live with.  I like things my way.  I am not a patient man, nor a social one.”

“Well….I knew that,” says Ruby consideringly.  “I know what you’re like.  To be honest, I’m still a bit frightened of you.  Are you sure you can be a kind father?”

I fiddle with my napkin for a minute.  “My own paternal role model was extremely poor,” I confess.  “I have to say…I don’t know.  I was not a very kind teacher.  I’m not a very kind person.  But I haven’t felt love in this way for…”  I swallow, “…many years.  So it’s all new to me and hopefully the job will be as good for me as I am for the job.  My intentions are the very best, Ruby, I hope you believe that.”

“I do,” she says simply.  “You know, I’m not all that hungry any more.  Shall we just have starters and then go home?”

“That sounds ideal.”  She is giving me the job.

*

I have been planning my attack all the way back in the taxi, and as soon as the front door of her cheap crib clicks shut I stand by the staircase, arms folded and fix her with my hardest stare.

“Er…would you like…?” she asks nervously, tripping over a toy in the hallway.  “Maybe a drink?”

I block her way through to the kitchen.  “Upstairs,” I say.  “Now.”

She grins and tries to duck past me, clearly intent on playful provocation.  Excellent.  Good game.  I like it.

“Think you’re the lord of the manor, don’t you?” she teases, whooping slightly with excitement as I take a step towards her.  “But this is my manor, Mr High and Mighty, and what I say goes.”  She is shiny-eyed and breathless as she backs towards the living room door and stands flat against it, waiting for my reaction.

“Oh dear, Ruby,” I admonish in hushed tones.  “I think you must have forgotten the high price I exact for such defiance.  I will offer you one more chance.  You take yourself upstairs to the bedroom now or you suffer the consequences of your disobedience.”

Ruby pushes back her shoulders and thrusts out her cleavage, her face betraying how much this is turning her on even as she feigns rebellion.  “You’re not the boss of me any more,” she claims, falsely as it happens.

“Let’s test that statement, shall we?” I suggest softly.  It is the work of moments to dart forwards, capture her squealing form around the waist and hoist her unceremoniously over my shoulder.  She kicks out and beats her small fists against my back, so I clamp her ankles against me with one hand and use the other to lift her froth of net petticoats and deliver a sharp slap to her bottom.  Stockings and suspenders, I notice.  She is well-prepared.  She yells an unconvincing protest, so I lay on a couple more as I march up the stairs with her, rebuking her unladylike demeanour as we go.

Entering the bedroom, I notice that she has considered the eventuality that we will end up in here.  Scented candles await the touch of the taper; the bed has a corner of its bedspread invitingly folded over; the flowers I brought last time sit in two vases on the nightstands.  A good-sized bed as well; I will run no risk of the shoulder cramps that plagued me on the narrow cot in the beach hut…last time.  Mmmm.  I run a hand up her shapely leg, feeling the plump swell and recession of her calf, tickling the back of her knee and moving up to her silken thigh.  She wriggles slightly against my chest and I take a moment just to compose myself for the pleasures ahead.  It will not do to peak too soon in a fit of overenthusiasm after all this time.  Tonight I want to beleaguer and confound her with pleasure so intense she will find it impossible to contemplate life without me.  Tonight I want to overwhelm her.  Tonight I want her to realise and understand how profoundly and completely she is mine.  I light the candles with my wand, then I lift her down from my shoulder and sit at the foot of the bed, holding on to her wrists while she stands before me.  She gives me a challenging look, but it is coming from beneath her fringe with her head bent to one side, indicating the reality of her submission to me.

“Well then, Miss O’Riordan,” I begin in my best detention-issuing voice.  “How should I improve your rebellious attitude, do you think?”

She giggles fearfully.  “There’s nothing wrong with my attitude,” she says, rather half-heartedly.  She knows better than to argue with me, even in play.

“Nothing wrong with your attitude?  Taunting?  Name-calling?  Disobedience?”

She is too excited to think of a suitable riposte, I can see.  Her chest is heaving, the mounds of her breasts rising and falling in the tight constraint of her corset dress.  I want them out – Free the O’Riordan Two!  But first things first.

“Let’s try a little experiment then, shall we?  A before and after scenario.  We shall see if disciplinary measures have any effect on your behaviour towards me.  Does that sound fair?”

“No!” cries Ruby, almost quelling the upturn at the corners of her lips.  But not quite.  Four years is a long time for my poor little masochistic girl’s bottom to go unwarmed.  There is much lost time to be made up.

I feel almost philanthropic as I pull her over my lap.  “Never mind,” I croon, lifting the flurry of net skirts up to her waist and feasting my thirsty eyes on what lies beneath.  Little round snaps keeping the seamed stockings up at mid-thigh length, the frilled black elastic providing an enchanting contrast to her white flesh as it climbs up towards her sweet round arse, barely covered by wispy lace panties.  Oh gods, I have to keep a clear head here, but I am already painfully hard.  My open palm travels up one thigh, over both cheeks, stroking and kneading those temptatious curves while her breath catches and tiny little moans drift through her lips.  Then I bunch the lacy knickers in a fist and yank upwards, so they rest in her cleft, exposing both buttocks perfectly.

I savour the exquisite moment between the retraction of my hand and the first blow to her flesh, watching her tense, grit her teeth, squeeze her eyes shut, making all the little physiological preparations for self-defence, knowing they will ultimately be utterly useless in the face of my relentless chastisement.  Experimentally, I keep the hand in the air for just a beat longer than I had intended and am rewarded by a tiny, almost inaudible, “Please,” from her.  Gods, I hope I can keep control of myself.

“Please, Ruby?” I whisper.

“Please…”  She shifts her bottom, lifting it up towards me, her need so potent I half-close my eyes in rapt lust.

“Hmmm?  Yes?”

“Please spank me, Professor.”

Sweet.  Goddess.  I exhale deeply, then I set to the delightful task of obliging her.  I lay two hard smacks on each cheek and she sighs blissfully.

“It is unusual and somewhat refreshing to meet a young woman who accepts the importance of discipline in her life,” I tell her, moving my open palm in a considered path around the edges of each bouncing globe to ensure full coverage.  “I will make it my aim to ensure that you are subject to my correction whenever necessary, Ruby.”

“Ohhh, yes,” she concurs, rotating her wicked hips so that they grind against my throbbing cock, the little baggage.  I sharpen my slaps and increase their frequency, fixated on the sight of the pink imprints deepening to red.

“There will be no tolerance of unacceptable behaviour from you, young lady,” I tell her.  “I mean to be strict with you.”

“Oh God, yes,” she enthuses, now barely able to keep still at all, both from her squirmy need for release and the substantial sting from my merciless spanking.

“You are going to be a good girl, aren’t you, Ruby?  You are going to do as you are told?”

“YES, Sir, yes, Sir, oh God, yes, Sir.”

Now she glows like a crimson sunset and I suspect a couple of my harder strokes may cause some superficial bruising.  Perhaps it is time for the next stage of my scheme.  Listening to her short, snuffly breaths, I brush against the radiant heat of her arse, then wriggle my digits into the dripping cleft below, circling meditatively for a while as she jerks and moans then pushing two, no three fingers up inside while my other hands tackles the stiff little bud of her clit.  Oh Gods.  Despite having given birth, she is wondrously tight and I hope she is almost ready to flood my inquisitive fingers with her juices, because I’m sincerely starting to struggle with holding back my own desires.  Ah yes, she begins to buck and thrash against my firm hold on her, wailing helplessly while I continue to scissor within and stroke without her.  Kicking her shapely legs with their reddened thigh tops until she almost falls off me, so I have to caution her to calm down or I’ll spank her again.

“I’m sorry, Sir,” she struggles to say, every vestige of tension flying out of her body.

When she flops, bonelessly relaxed over my lap, I unzip the back of her dress, then I reach around to the sides of her knickers to untie the rather ergonomic ribbons that hold them together.  When I move her upright, the garments swish very satisfyingly to the floor, leaving her naked but for the stockings and suspenders that frame her thighs and bottom so splendidly.  I decide to keep them on for the next stage, which requires her presence on the bed.

My hands on her shoulders, I lean forward to murmur into her ear, “Now we have dealt with punishment, we can move on to pleasure.”  She nuzzles her head against my cheek like a cat and I lift her easily on to the bed, laying her on her back, though she winces at the contact between the cheap cotton of her sheets and the sore skin of her backside.  She should know better than to test me, I think with lipcurling gratification.  Looking down at her flawless alabaster body, lying undefended and available, I undress myself.

“You do want this, Ruby, don’t you?” I ask for clarification, though both my head and my cock are screaming You’d bloody well better!

“More than anything,” she says softly, oh my girl…(but WHY? Shrieks my treacherous head, why would you want ME?)  Dismiss the thought, take wand, kneel between her spread thighs and graze her stomach with it, perform the charm…

“What are you doing?” she asks.  “Don’t wizards do it the normal way?”

I roll my eyes at her.  “You know perfectly well we do.  Contraceptive charm.”

“Oh, there’s no need.  I saw the doctor…”

I swoop down and kiss her very, very hard.  “Had plans for the night, did we?”

“Roughly the same as yours, it seems,” she retorts.

“Don’t cheek me, Ruby; you know what will happen.”  I pat the exposed part of her flank warningly and she emits a long ‘Mmmmm’.  I take her knees and hook them over my elbows then I line myself up, rubbing my tip carefully against her opening, taking my time, making her wait…

“Please,” she says again.  Now is my moment.

“You are going to marry me, aren’t you, Ruby?”

“Oh Christ…”

“Say yes and I’ll take you now, as long and hard as you want.”  I nudge a little further, feeling how the flesh wants to yield, to enclose me.

“Oh Severus, you can’t….”

“Yes?”  I move it back the merest millimetre.

“Yes,” she shouts, banging her fists on the mattress.  “Yes, I’ll marry you.”

It is like sinking into the yielding flesh of an overripe peach, feeling its deceptively lush softness first, then the narrowness of the channel reasserts itself and I remember how it felt before as I bury myself in her tight wet heat, all the way to the end.  She slaps her hands down on mine and wails. 

“You make me feel so full!”

“I should hope so,” I growl and I have to hold back a little, steady myself, so as not to lose my seed then and there.  “Do you remember this?” I ask, reasoning that conversation might keep me calm, distract me from premature ejaculation.  “Have you dreamed about this, Ruby?”

“Oh yes,” she replies as I withdraw very slowly, about halfway back down.  “I always dreamed of you.  When I was pregnant with Tom was the worst time.  Sometimes it was almost as if I was hallucinating; I would think you were actually there inside me.”

“In a way I was,” I muse, suddenly realising that the image of Ruby with her belly round and ripe and filled by me is not going to do much to delay my climax.  Perhaps I should change the subject.  “I can arrange for a handfasting within two weeks,” I inform her, disciplining my thrusts so that they glide into an easy rhythm, keeping things slow and manageable.

“Two weeks!”  She tries to raise her head but she is too far impaled on my voracious prong to move much.

“Why wait?” I ask, shifting her thighs a little in an effort to locate the magical spot on her front wall, clamping them together around my cock.

“I might want a…normal…wedding.  With my friends and family.  I don’t even know what a handfasting is.”

“If you want a Muggle wedding, Ruby, you marry a Muggle.”  I increase my pace, showing her that I mean business both sexually and conversationally.

“But hang on, Severus, I need time to think about this… What about university?  What about Tom?  What about…oooooh.”  I think I’ve found it.  She squirms and spasms around me and I am pleased to notice that the slight altercation about the wedding is holding my orgasm at bay quite successfully.  I estimate that I can continue to pound into her for another fifteen minutes or so if I maintain this level of focus.  Focus has never been a problem for me.

She comes twice more, in two different positions, before I let myself empty my load inside her, and by then, she has agreed to the date and location of the ceremony, the menu for the subsequent breakfast, the metal and stone combination of the ring and half the guest list.  I congratulate myself on picking the moment so well.

“You’re evil, you know that,” she yawns, settling into the crook of my arm.  “But I do love you.”

“And honour me,” I remind her, pressing a kiss to her damp forehead.  “You might even learn to obey me one of these days.”

“Nah.  That would be boring.  I like the way you deal with disobedience too much.”

“So I gather.”  Sleep catches up with us for a while, though we awake and repeat the entire process in a different order several times during the night.