Bad Girls (8 page)

Every so often it would get really bad – or more accurately, I would get really bad – and even he would complain about how all the spankings were taking away from time he needed for other things. On these occasions I would beg for leniency. If, for example, I was to receive a spanking for a second, or even third night running, I would plead that the prescribed punishment be reduced, for it would in fact be much more severe than it was designed to be, coming as it would on an already bruised and battered bottom. He, on the other hand, would simply insist that the increase in severity was only fitting – necessary, even – given my alarming recidivism. It think the symmetry of cause and effect – offense and punishment – even pleased him.

He was, of course, right, but I would sometimes pout after he was particularly harsh. My protests couldn't last long, though. It was hard to be mad at Pete, and thinking about the spanking afterward made me hopelessly horny. It was a good thing too, because Pete always wanted me.

It wasn't like it was all spankings and gloom, either. We had an amazing sex life. Sometimes he would just come up behind me and grope me until I was wet enough to fuck; other times he would make a clever game of it. He was particularly fond of word games. One particular night he introduced a new one – he called it ‘antonyms' – and it marked a change between us. It was the night I graduated from my basic training and spanking became something different than it had been.

‘Isn't it odd,' he said to me, ‘that “to cleave” is its own antonym?'

I was in bed reading. ‘To cleave,' I replied. ‘Verb; to separate, to split, to divide.' He wasn't the only one who'd been a geek.

‘To cleave,' he continued. ‘Verb; to attach, to adhere, to come together and stick fast.'

I could tell where this was leading by the way he was stroking me. When I thought about it, it did sound pretty dirty.

I was lying on my belly and my legs were bent at the knees. My feet played idly with each other in the air. I knew I was being irresistibly cute, wearing nothing but a white cotton tank top that ended at the small of my back. I even wiggled my backside, which sported some fading bruises.

‘I think I've found the place where the antonyms meet,' he said.

‘Where?' I egged him on.

‘It's difficult to describe where exactly it happens. Let me show you.'

I looked around the room, playing the fool even though I could well imagine what he was getting at.

‘No, don't get up,' he said. ‘Stay right there. Here…' he put the tip of his index finger in the small of my back, ‘I can run my finger down the cleft—'

‘Cleft,' I interrupted. ‘Noun; a fissure, a crack or a crevice formed by cleaving.'

Pete began again.

‘I can run my finger down the cleft of her ass while she's lying on her stomach on a bed. Beginning at the top, my finger traces a line over the curve and then downward.'

Pete, clinical and distanced in everything, continued his bizarre travelogue.

‘At the bottom the groove between buttocks widens ever so slightly as the buttocks splay outward. Finally, my finger reaches the vague region underneath…' he wiggled his finger slightly for emphasis, making me want so, so much more, ‘here, the crack where two buttocks cleave together, cleaves, the two sides of the crack that guided my finger disappear, and I touch her wonderful little kootch.'

That was Pete's favorite word for it, and its cutesy informality contrasted nicely with his otherwise officious tone. He was a grammarian, a pervert, and a bit silly on top of it all.

‘That's where the two meanings of cleave come together, underneath a woman.'

‘What about cleavage?' I asked, proud to be so clever, but the crack of a hard spank on my backside surprised me. ‘Hey!' He had primed my kootch for some action, and I could hardly wait for it.

‘You don't want a spanking?'

‘No.'

His hand landed hard and loud on my other cheek.

‘Isn't it odd how “no” can be its own antonym, too?'

Another spank.

‘No, it's not.'

A fourth stroke echoed sharply through the apartment.

‘You really don't want to be spanked?'

‘No,' I said, but my heart wasn't in it. It had begun to hurt, but it lit the fuse on my libidinal dynamite and I didn't want him to stop.

‘Are you sure?'

‘No.'

‘That's my girl.'

He began to really spank me. It was just like my other spankings – it hurt; I cringed with every stroke and desperately wanted it to stop – but it was different, too.

‘For a long time I've wished I could just spank you because I want to,' Pete said. ‘I'm going to spank you a hundred times, but I'll stop if you tell me to.'

One hundred strokes was pretty severe, even for Pete. Only the most serious transgressions called for that sort of punishment. Yet he was going to give it to me for no reason, and I was going to have to stand it or he would stop. I didn't want to disappoint him.

‘But why are you doing it? I didn't do anything wrong.'

‘I'm doing it because I like you.'

‘Then don't stop. Don't ever stop.'

I made it to one hundred, even though it hurt horribly. For Pete, I would have taken a hundred more.

R/L

8:39 PM 5/10/2004, The Marriot Suites, near Boston

Ellen arrived late, as they had agreed she would. She arrived just late enough to provide the contrived reason for her punishment, and she knocked on the door so softly that Tom barely heard her. He was watching TV to calm his nerves and was pretty sure that the knocks on the door had been a figment of his anxious imagination.

He still didn't quite believe she would come. It felt precarious to stake too much on her bravery, so he had made himself expect the worst. But just in case it was her knocking, he turned off the TV and got up to check.

He expected to find an empty hallway and to be slightly embarrassed that he had fallen for the auditory hallucination. He expected her to be later, but there she was. Suddenly it was real and not at all like getting an email. There was Ellen, in the flesh. It was happening.

He recalled the script they'd written for that moment:

At 10:54 PM 4/22/2004,
[email protected]
wrote:

I arrive late. I thought I'd left early enough, but I hit traffic on the interstate. At this time of day you never know. Besides, I'm only a few minutes late. It's nothing, really.

But I know it's not nothing to you. Even though part of you is inclined to forgive me – shit happens, right? – you're quite taken aback by my lateness. You drove over 150 miles to meet me and I can't even be on time? What's worse, I don't even mention it. No apology, no mea culpa, nothing. You don't fall for the little charm act I give you. Everyone else lets me get away with murder because they just want to get in my panties. I usually let them, too, because it's easier that way.

For you, though, it's just a reminder of why you need to do it to me. It's because of shit like this. It's because I act like I don't care. If I let on how much I cared, I don't think I could stand it. Caring hurts too much.

Ellen

At 11:22 PM 4/22/2004,
[email protected]
wrote:

I'll show you that not caring hurts, too. I'll show you that not caring is a choice and you have to live with your choices. I know that if I don't care how you treat me, you'll learn you can disregard me like your other men. I'm following your lead now. I'm following your lead when I do what no man dares do to you: violate you, humiliate you, spank you.

You'll know what you're in for the moment you come in the door. I won't be swayed by your looks like your other boyfriends. Don't get me wrong, I think you're beautiful, but that doesn't mean I'll let you get away with treating me like shit. You'll find out that I won't let you get the best of me like you do everyone else. You'll know it by the way I grab your wrists and push you against the wall. You'll know it by the way I reach up your skirt and…

Tom

At 11:30 PM 4/22/2004,
[email protected]
wrote:

Oh, come off it, Tom. I'm just a little late. I can't control the traffic, for Christ's sake. You're not some ridiculous hard-ass, are you? Whatever.

Don't make such a big deal about it. Don't make it
an issue
between us. What are you, some oversensitive girl? Let's go get a drink. Come on, it'll put us at ease. Don't be so serious, Tom. Can't you have a little fun? What, did I say something wrong? Is Big Man Tom going to spank me? Hey, stop that. You can't touch me there. I hardly even know you. I'm not ready, Tom. Go slower. I'm not kidding. I said, don't. Please. No.

Together, they had scripted an arrival fraught with tension and conflict. They had imagined it tinged with coercion and violence. The arrival in their emails had segued seamlessly into punishment, even rape. But when Tom opened the door and Ellen was actually there, it was different. They stood there for a moment, considering each other, their curiosity momentarily winning out over their nerves until she finally averted her gaze and dropped her head.

Showtime, he thought. He reached out for her, though he did so sweetly, tenderly and reassuringly. She didn't protest and he had no urge to force her, though he would if it came to that. He loved the script they had written and was committed to it, but it didn't have to be mean. His momentary sweetness was meant to usher her in, to welcome her softly to the private stage where they would realize their fantasy.

They were silent as she stepped across the threshold and he closed the door behind her. Even as he meant to reassure her with his guiding embrace, he resisted the urge to lighten the weight or to dissipate the tension with small talk or pleasantries. The payoff for keeping his head in the game was great. This was a once in a lifetime encounter, a first meeting with someone he had only known online. It was classic. She was the schoolgirl on her first trip to the principal's office; she was the maid, called to her aristocratic master; she was the 21
st
Century liberated girl finally realizing the fantasy that had been hidden away for so long. It was all of this and more. When she faced him she faced the instrument of her own, personal justice.

While lovers who knew each other could play these roles, it was impossible to replicate the feeling of an absolute first time between two who had never met. The familiarity of a known lover would inevitably dissipate the anxiety of the first exposure, of the first touch. This, on the other hand, would be a fantasy come true. They both found themselves trembling. From the first moment he was touching her on his terms and he would punish her first, before anything else had gotten in the way.

They wouldn't wade in slowly; they wouldn't be checking in with each other every step of the way. They were going to dive in, or more precisely, he was going to dive in and pull her with him, for she had warned him that she would inevitably be overcome by the worst parts of herself; cowardice, unwillingness to see things through, hiding from the consequences of her commitments. Where the normal first date was a long negotiation of consent in order to satisfy mutual desires, this would necessitate the immediate imposition of his will upon her in order to satisfy their unusual desires. He would have to make her, and he came prepared to do so.

He had thought about how it would go. He would see her naked before they kissed; he would have her bottom-up across his lap before she had a chance to really look him in the eye. This was the pay-off of not cracking, of staying in character. So he was careful to stay in the moment, not to smile nervously or blush as he guided her into the room. She, of course, did all these things: she smiled, blushed and giggled a little. This was as it should be. It was her role to want to change the tenor of their encounter. It was his role to stop her. She would try to defeat him, to deny him and in the process deny herself what she sought. Her hand covered her mouth to suppress a giggle and her eyes snuck glances upward at him, impressed as all women were by his height. When he didn't respond to her gestures of seduction she got nervous and looked at the floor. In other contexts he would have been a complete sucker for her attention, but here he found her attempts slightly feeble. With all the responsibility resting on his shoulders he felt stronger than usual. Freed from having to look to her for approval, he was able to give himself over to directing their fantasy.

For all his efforts, though, this beginning was far from the way they had written it. He sympathized with her fear and recognized her bravery. It took guts to meet a man on these terms, even if she was doing it under the intoxicating influence of their emails. This just wasn't the sort of thing she did, except she was doing it. He guided her gently into the hotel room. With her warm hand in his he felt an instant affection for her. In spite of her late arrival, in spite of the ink they had spilled to choreograph the perfect spanking, he felt the momentary inclination to kiss and hug her, not to strip her naked and hit her bare ass. He led her gently to the far side of the room and turned her so that she was facing him, her back against the wall, eyes demurely watching her own toes wiggle in her sandals.