I ignored the stream of invective and four-letter words coming from Breschetta, then smiled and raised a thumb toward the control booth when Eddie Blizzard, the show’s director, announced over the PA that he had switched from live delay feed to a Suzanne Sommers infomercial.
“Now you are going to pay for all the snarkiness and showboating you’ve done today, young lady,” I told her, and pushed up her simple yet obviously overpriced linen skirt to expose her bottom to the audience.
She wore only a red silk thong beneath the skirt, and Breschetta wailed in embarrassment and used a dozen unrepeatable epithets in quick succession.
I waited for her to take a breath and then said, “Whoever resorts to name calling first, loses,” and then proceeded to slap her bare cheeks, just hard enough to make a loud clap.
“Eddie, do something, for god’s sakes!” she yelled.
Eddie chuckled over the PA. “I did, princess. I’ve got the cameras zeroed in on you, fore and aft, just the way you demand them. This will be solid gold, sweetheart, I …”
“I mean make him stop, you insufferable idiot! Call security! Security!”
I glanced over, and the two burly guys in uniform were grinning and chatting casually to Mavis, the pretty assistant director. None of them seemed in a hurry to intervene, and in fact the two men were gently but firmly restraining Breschetta’s two little go-fers, slant makeup and hair stylists, to keep them off the stage, so I got serious on Breschetta’s bottom.
“You need to learn better manners, missy, and stop acting so superior, especially when you have no idea what you’re talking about. You also need to clean up your language, because you sound like absolute gutter trash talking that way.”
She screamed in anger and pain, trying to drown me out, but I kept on scolding, confidant that the tiny mike in my lapel would pick up all I had to say and relay it to the audience. Sure enough, there was redoubled applause as I warmed to my subject, and also heated Breschetta’s little bottom so that it approached the hue of her scanty pseudo-drawers.
Her frantic kicks sent her trendy little high-heeled shoes flying off, and the number two cameramen caught one, grinned, and gave me a thumbs-up.
“Give ‘er a few for me, Professor,” he said. “Never does have a good word for anybody, ‘specially the crew.”
I nodded, and leaned into my work, bringing my arm up and down in a steady, driving rhythm designed to outlast the most stubborn brat’s resistance. Suddenly I felt a strange vibration in the studio and realized that the audience had picked up my cadence and was clapping in time, like a gospel revival meeting, only with a very shrill, and rapidly tiring, female soloist.
“Are you going to apologize for being such a snarky snob, and a know it all, and an opinionated muddle head, Breschetta? Hm?”
“I … I … I don’t know!”
“Well, let me tell you that your director your studio audience and I are all perfectly prepared to keep this up until you do say you’re sorry, and you had better mean it, missy. Now go on.”
“Please stop, I’ve had enough! It really hurts, it does!”
“That isn’t an apology, Breschetta. You know what an apology is, and I need to hear one, a sincere one, before I stop spanking your naughty behind. Do you understand?”
“But … I … okay! I … I’m sorry! Now stop hitting me, okay?”
“No, Breschetta, you’re not in charge right now. You don’t give orders. And I don’t hit anyone. I do spank stubborn, willful, disrespectful, disobedient girls from time to time, but I do not hit. Is that clear?”
“Then stop spanking me! Please!”
I spanked harder. “I said, is that clear?”
Something inside her changed. A switch flipped over, and she sagged across my thigh.
“Yes, sir, it’s clear, and, and I’m sorry I was such a cow. I won’t do it anymore.”
A hush fell over the audience as I put Breschetta on her feet, smoothed down her skirt, and gave her a hug.
“That’s better, Breschetta, and you’re forgiven.”
I nodded to the burly security men, who stood aside and allowed Derrold and Darian, Breschetta’s go-fers, to mince over and collect their mistress from me, and hustle her off the set. Eddie’s voice came over the PA.
“I’m ordering all your books, Professor.”
The audience cheered agreement, and I looked down at the shredded remains of the ones onstage.
“I’ll make sure you get autographed copies, Eddie, and thanks for the backup.”
I got my jacket and slung it over my shoulder, then bowed, waved to the crew, and walked into the wings.
I love standing ovations.
The Games People Play
B&D, she thought halfway through the meal.
Glancing to her right, Lauren, Lady Smithwyck, member of Parliament and rising star in her constituency, could see her handsome husband seated across from her and two seats down. Precisely between Christina Galen and Marianne Foxworth and facing Geraldine Taylor, whose husband was threatening, in his usual understated way, of course, to block action she needed on the upcoming immigration bill.
“Bored & Dangerous” described Mark, Lord Smithwyck, perfectly at the moment, and she experienced that all-too-familiar little knot just below her breastbone that put her on high alert.
To begin with, he hadn’t wanted to make the trip, although, come to that, nor had she. But it wasn’t good politic to turn down an invitation from the head of her party to spend a weekend in “consultation” at his family hunting lodge.
They would be missing their usual Sunday morning outing at the park with the boys and Mark had grumbled all the way down to the country. She had double-checked his luggage to make sure he didn’t bring along the fishnets and eyeliner — something he was prone to do when thwarted. Or nervous. Or bored. She had adjusted to her lusty husband’s need to relieve tension by donning feminine attire, but it was not a habit she cared to have flaunted.
There was no sign of them, however, so if he were going to misbehave, he would at least be doing it in proper male twenty-first century apparel.
And just now he did, indeed, look ever so proper, she admitted, stealing a glance at him while nodding to some inane comment from the dinner partner on her right. Ever so proper. And ever so devastatingly handsome in his excellently cut dinner jacket. And ever so completely hers. A relationship she still marveled to consider.
Seven years after the boost the naughty boy, who lived to flaunt convention, had afforded her political future following a whirlwind courtship, and she still couldn’t get enough of him on the home front. Her family wealth and his family genealogy were the perfect combination to soothe voters’ fears that the tiny politician with the Herculean temper might not be up to the job of representing their interests in Parliament.
Mark had, she admitted, been perfectly charming, as only he could be, since their arrival. Three hundred years and sixteen generations of aristocratic breeding did tell — even when the six-year-old in him took over. Believe it or not, he was a gentleman, even if she could have penned a book — no, wait, make that several volumes — detailing his oft-times decidedly ungentlemanly behavior.
Just now, he was putting away the final bite of beef on his platinum-rimmed plate. And eyeing his anorexic neighbor’s scarcely touched meal speculatively, considering helping her dispose of it with his usual hearty appetite.
Lauren’s disaster antenna went on full alert, realizing he was perfectly capable of spearing the waif’s grilled fish and transferring it to his plate, and she automatically leaned toward him slightly and willed him to look at her.
Which he did. Complete with that devastatingly handsome little-boy grin that caused the scar just above his lip to distract her temporarily. She promised herself to aim a kiss at it later, if he was a very good boy right now. And probably even if he wasn’t, she admitted to herself.
But at the moment she needed to head off disaster. It was a simple message she delivered �
�� a pointed look at the temptingly-filled china near his right hand and an almost imperceptible shake of her head.
It was a simple message received — the long-fingered hand glided gracefully back toward his own place setting and he swallowed the temptation to clean the skinny blonde’s plate for her.
He would exert great self-control in this stuffy, pretentious, mind-numbing company and do his wife proud.
He even signaled his intention to behave properly by giving her a lazy and very private wink.
At least, she thought that’s what he was conveying. And she relaxed into that thought for a full thirty seconds before it occurred to her that the action was open to another interpretation entirely.
But by then she was much too far behind in the game to make the slightest difference in the final score.
“I understand we’ll be taking another look at the home discipline issue next week,” Kelvin Watlington said from his place on a left diagonal to Mark. “The Royal College is pushing for a ban again. But the electorate’s divided, the polls say.”
The topic turned attention Watlington’s way, but no one offered a personal opinion on the subject. So Watlington sought one out.
“Smithwyck, you’re not a pol. So give us your thoughts — as a representative of England’s finest families, you might say. Does a good old-fashioned spanking find favor in your house?”
Well, Lauren thought with faint surprise, there was a conversation starter one didn’t normally hear in political circles. If Watlington were depending on her husband to keep the verbal ball rolling, however, he would be in for a letdown. There was only one answer daddy Mark could give and it would be short and sweet and negative.
“Most certainly,” Mark responded.
And the sip of wine she had just tasted threatened to go down entirely the wrong way. What did he mean “most certainly”? The twins had never felt a disciplinary hand applied to their little posteriors and probably never would. For starters, their father was the appallingly guilty instigator and model for most of their mischief and he knew it well. So though he was quite excellent at bluster and threats, he relied entirely on time outs and missed opportunities — theirs, not his — to keep control of the duo.
And while she had been known, on more than one memorable occasion, to connect the palm of her hand with a masculine cheek, it had always been a beard-enhanced face she took aim at.
“Really,” Watlington mused. “So you do support a firm hand, shall we say, within the confines of the family abode?”
“I thought most people did,” Mark responded with a completely innocent look that signaled approaching disaster. “We certainly find it most effective and rather imperative to the happy state of our home.”
“Well, I’m not sure about most people,” Watlington intoned. “I am, personally, rather at odds with your view. And I must point out that if a clear majority were to share it, we probably wouldn’t have to keep having this discussion about government involvement. But, then again, I’m just the father of three grown daughters, so our perspectives may differ. I suppose if I had a house full of lively little boys I might think an occasional smack on their bottoms was in order, too.” And he chuckled at the table for twelve.
She saw it coming.
She was helpless to prevent it.
She closed her eyes and prayed.
Faith failed her.
“Oh, I do beg your pardon. I’m afraid I misunderstood you completely,” her biggest little boy interjected with a nasty grin. “I thought we were talking about Lauren’s bottom.”
And ten heads with arched brows and open mouths swiveled toward her as rich red color climbed from her chin to her brow.
The distraction of fishnet stockings, she thought, would have been a blessing at this point.
“How could you?” she hissed within the confines of their guest room hours later.
“How could I what?” he demanded innocently while he obligingly unzipped her dress. “He was joking, wasn’t he? I thought it was all in fun. Come on now, my love. Kiss me, Lauren.”
“You pillock. You bloody, blasted booby. You … you imbecilic moron! Do you know what the headlines will say about this tomorrow?”
He paused in an effort to push the dress off her shoulders as she stood in front of the mirrored dressing table, snatching off the few items of jewelry she reluctantly wore on occasions such as this.
Assuming a meditative stance, he considered. “Oh, I don’t know, something about ‘a spanking good time was had by all.’”
She snarled and he abandoned any effort to help her further undress, turning his attention to removing his own jacket.
“How can I possibly be in control of my party if they think I go in for — for …”
“For what?” he asked with a rakishly cocked eyebrow as he removed his cuff links and tossed them toward her open jewel box on the dressing table.
“You know for what. Did you have to make me the star of that peculiarly British fantasy?” she demanded as she struggled out of her slip.
“Aha, it’s the fantasy part that bothers you,” he chuckled, unknotting his tie and pulling it free.
“No, it’s you that bothers me. I can’t take you anywhere. I can’t trust you for a moment. You’re going to ruin me,” she spat out as she unhooked her bra and reached for her gown.
“Why would I ruin you? I adore you. I love everything about you. You mesmerize me, Lady Smithwyck. You haunt me. You make me want to do all kinds of wicked things.” He waggled suggestive eyebrows at her and grinned maddeningly.
“Well, you can forget about that. You can certainly forget about whatever it is that’s going through your sex-obsessed brain right now. You know we’ve never … well, I’ve certainly never … though who can say about you, you beast. But it has never crossed my mind to even consider …”
“Now, now, Lauren,” he cautioned, wagging a finger at her. “You’re very close to crossing a line here. I warn you. And you really should practice some basic intellectual honesty where your sexual preferences are concerned. I can read the signals. I know you’ve been waiting — hoping — wondering — what it would be like to go over my knee.”
“You have finally done it,” she stormed. “You have lost your mind. And you’ve lost something else as well, Smithwyck, because I’m not letting you anywhere near me after what you just did at dinner tonight. You’re going to be in your own personal sexual timeout for the next twenty years,” she threatened, wheeling around to face him with her gown still clenched in furious fists.
“Oh, Lauren. Now that’s a mistake. Yes, that is definitely a mistake on your part, but I won’t hold it against you this time. Just say you’re sorry and I’ll forgive you for not being nice to me,” he offered with his arms spread wide.
“Say I’m sorry? Dream on, my lord,” she spit out, thrusting her furious face upward toward his. “You’ll be sorry you ever …”
And that was the moment he moved with amazing speed to push her lacy little panties toward her knees, pull her against his chest and deliver a stinging smack to her bare bottom.
She sucked in her breath — partly in outrage, partly in surprise, partly in pain, partly in something else she didn’t have a name for.
And despite herself, she glanced back over her shoulder toward the mirror to see his big frame wrapped around her bared body just as he administered another tingling spank that gave her matching pink cheeks.
She instinctively reached to cover herself, but he caught her hands in one of his and with the other began tracing a soothing fingertip path across the imprint left by his palm.
“What a lovely little peach of a bottom you have, Lauren,” he whispered. “A lovely little blushing peach. Just waiting for me to taste it,” and he dropped to his knees, turned her slightly and brushed his soft lips in feather-light kisses across her smarting flesh.
And her last coherent thought — before she sank beside him on the floor with a sigh of surrender — was to wonder where s
he might discretely purchase a very suitable hairbrush.
Taking a Hand at Discipline
Somewhere in the air, over the Atlantic, I lost my breath. And I found a guiding principle.
It is one whose power I cannot explain and whose origin I can only imagine. It is, nevertheless, inviolate.
I will reveal it in time, but it seems important to detail, first, what preceded the revelation.
The plane was on a flight path from London to Atlanta. My senses were heightened already, as they always are after time spent abroad.
The sole male flight attendant approaching my seat, soon after the plane gained height, gave every appearance of being a strictly professional type as he saw to the needs of other passengers; yet, when he served me, he smiled warmly and even initiated some light and teasing banter.
I can never resist.
I return all smiles directed toward me.
I consistently rise to the invitation to charm. Effortlessly.
My attention, I confess, was diverted, but not so much that I could fail to take appreciative notice of his eyes, his lips, his voice. All passed muster with grace to spare, for a man mature enough to have raised young adults of his own, at least.
He passed on then. To engage others, for all I knew.
Sky miles later, he returned with my favorite drink in hand, unbidden. And he said a curious thing: He identified me with the town where I live.
Now, it is a small place. This was, then, no random conversational point that happened to include a well-known geographical location. This was, surely, no casual reference guilessly uttered to enhance polite conversation.
This was a signal. He had gone a step beyond and he was publishing the fact.
I was first surprised, then intrigued, and then set off-balance.
Did he anticipate a reaction? And, if so, what did he hope it might be?
Suddenly I was reduced to an emotional age much younger than my parents could have biologically credited.
Finely Disciplined Thoughts Page 6
