by Maren Smith
“Come on,” he said, and caught her arm. She didn’t exactly fall into willing step with him; she just didn’t resist. He was starting to miss the prickly Katy he’d gotten used to. “A hot bath and a decent meal will do us both a world of good.”
And after that, he was going to sit Katy down and get to the bottom of exactly what was wrong. He had a feeling she wasn’t going to say anything beyond she just didn’t want to go home. Worse, if she didn’t want to this badly, his feeling was starting to suggest that maybe he shouldn’t be forcing the issue. But then what? What in the world was he supposed to do then? Turn a blind eye while she went back to the Abilene and danced for tips, pinches and drunken leers? Over his dead body.
Cal looked at Katy out of the corner of his eye. He had no legal right to keep her from it, but he already knew there was no way he could walk away knowing she was kicking up her legs for a bunch of horny cowboys fresh in from the range. She didn’t belong in the Abilene; Katy belonged in someone’s kitchen, in a fresh and proper calico dress and apron, with a smile on her fresh and paint-less face and a house to call her own. Maybe even with a baby or two playing at her feet. And why did the imaginary kitchen in his mind look so much like his kitchen back home?
Hell, his kitchen wasn’t even finished yet! He didn’t even have a stove.
Shaking his head at himself, he started across the street toward the hotel. Halfway to the other side, he felt a hesitant touch at his fingers and looked down just as Katy slipped her hand into his. She looked miserable, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. He gave her fingers a comforting squeeze, and they continued the rest of the way hand in hand.
Katy stood quietly at his side while he checked them in with the surprised proprietor.
“I thought you left on the stage,” the man said.
“So did we,” was all Cal offered by way of explanation. “Could we get a hot bath and a meal sent up.”
“Certainly. You can even have the same room, if you like.”
Feeling movement at his side, Cal looked to Katy but she had already started towards the stairs. She trudged, seeming both tired and sore as she headed up to the second floor. “I guess that’ll be fine.”
“Fifteen minutes?” the proprietor guessed. “Or would twenty be more appropriate?”
Cal glanced back at him, but despite his knowing tone, there was only cool professionalism on his face. “As soon as you can, please.”
He left the counter and hurried up the stairs after Katy. It tickled at the back of his mind that he might open the door to their room only to find it empty, the window open and the curtains swaying upon a gentle breeze. That would have been very Katy-ish, but when he reached their room and stepped inside, he found Katy sitting at the foot of the only bed, hands resting in her lap.
“Are you going to spank me?” she asked, raising her head to look at him as he stepped inside. He hadn’t even closed the door yet and she’d made no effort to lower her voice.
Cal startled a little, more because of the older couple passing just behind him. He glanced back at them, but if they had overheard her, they neither one showed it. He quickly and quietly shut the door before facing Katy once more.
“Well,” he said slowly. “Had we been alone last night, I probably would have. I won’t lie; that was my first instinct once I had you safely back in my arms and the bandits were gone. But I think you realize now how foolish it was, first to say you had money and then to try and go with them.” Cal shook his head. “Still, no one got hurt. So no, I’m not going to spank you.”
Katy rubbed her hands on her thighs, unable to continue holding his steady gaze. She was quiet a moment, but then sagged a little more and sniffled. Her voice trembled. “Would spank me if I asked for one?”
He stared at her, stunned. “You want me to spank you?”
“No.” She trembled, blinking rapidly, her blue eyes beginning to flood with tears she was struggling not to shed. “B-but m-maybe I need you to.”
“For what?” he asked gently.
“For doing ev-verything wr-rong.” She covered her eyes with both hands.
It only took a few short steps for Cal to cross the room. He sat down on the bed beside her, reaching for her—not to pull her across his knees, the way she tried to go the minute he touched her arm, but to pull all of her onto his lap. He folded his arms around her, holding her tight against him and leaving her no place to hide. She tried anyway, struggling first to twist away and then curling in on herself when that failed. She buried her face against his neck even as she clung to him, making almost no sound at all when she began to cry. But then he heard that high-pitched keening whine and a second later her shoulders were shaking in ragged spasms.
Cal tightened his embrace, feeling helpless to do anything but rock her. “Katy, what is going on with you?”
“I don’t know,” she wept.
“All this because you don’t want to go home?” His mind raced, but he had to struggle to think of anything equal to this kind of resistance. “I don’t understand. Does Clifton…does he…touch you or…beat you?”
Katy clung to him, shaking her head, sniffling as she swiped at her tears with her sleeve. “He’s been nothing but decent to my mother and me.”
“But he’s not your father,” Cal guessed.
Katy broke, her voice cracking, descending almost incoherently into sobs once more. “He tried to be, when I was younger, but I never let him. And now—Cal, I can’t find my father anywhere there! Everywhere I look, I see only Clifton. His things, his influence. They didn’t just bury my father; they forgot him!”
“Katy, honey—”
“It’s true! The only time anyone speaks of him, it’s because I’ve done something wrong and all they say is how ashamed he would be of me.” She pushed abruptly away from him, twisting on his lap as if trying to get as much distance between herself and that shame as possible. “I miss Mama,” she confessed, her voice shaky and soft. “I-I-I don’t even mind Clifton…from a distance, as a person. He treats Mama as if she’s the most important person in the world, and I’m glad she has that. But every time I think about going back, all I can feel is this angry, ugly thing clawing up my insides and I can’t get it out! Why can’t I get it out?”
Cal touched her hair. He soothed his hand down her back, touching and rocking her until her writhing eased and she curled against his shoulder once more. He had no idea what to tell her. Instead, he asked, “If not home, where will you go?”
Katy was quiet. She sniffled, wiping at her damp cheeks with her sleeve again, and then she sat up. “Back to the Abilene. I have a ten-year plan.” Cal started to shake his head, but she forged on anyway. “I won’t be young and pretty forever. In ten years, I intend to have enough money saved up that I can quit the Abilene. Then I’m going to head somewhere where no one knows me. I’m going to buy a little house out in the country, with a garden just for flowers. I’ll have chickens, cows and horses, and a white picket fence, and maybe I’ll find a man who’ll love me just for being me.” She glanced at him. “Even when I’m prickly.”
Cal almost smiled at that. “Is that man going to know when to turn you across his knee and spank some of that prickliness back out of you?” He reached up, playfully tugging at one golden curling lock before he pushed it back out of her eyes and tucked it behind her ear. “That’s what I’d do, if I were him.”
She blinked twice, looking at him and then quickly away again. Her hands began to fidget in her lap. “Maybe he would. I don’t know. I’ve never thought about it before today.”
“What makes you think you have to wait ten years to find someone to trim your cactus thorns when they need it?” Exactly where he found the courage to ask that, Cal wasn’t sure. He wasn’t even sure what he was proposing. His ranch had a lot of growing left to do before it became anything close to what Katy was used to. His kitchen had half a roof, holes where windows were going to be and a chalk outline on the floor where the new
cast-iron stove was going to go when it finally arrived by train. He was in absolutely no position to offer marriage to anyone. He hadn’t even courted Katy, much less asked her family’s permission for the right. What Cal did know, was that he had gotten kind of used to chasing Katy around. He absolutely did not have anywhere near enough money to keep Katy dancing privately and only for him at a place like the Abilene for the next ten years. He could pretty much kiss his ranch and his sanity goodbye if he tried.
“What are you saying, Cal?” she asked, though by the look on her face, she already seemed to know. He found encouragement by noting that she didn’t seem to be angry or insulted by his awkward offer. Drawing a fortifying breath, Cal tried again.
“I’m saying I have a house. It doesn’t have a white picket fence, but I can build one and I don’t mind if you want to fill up our garden with flowers. I’ve got chickens, cows and horses. I’m not rich, but I do care about you. We were friends once, a long time ago. It’s been ten years, but I still think of you as my friend now. I like you; the good, the bad and everything in between, and I know of strong marriages that were built on shakier starts. I’m not perfect, Katy, but I promise to give you what you need: food on the table, clothes on your back, and yes, I will put you across my knee, strip your bottom bare and spank you each and every time I—or you—think you need it.” He smiled softly, liking the way she briefly closed her eyes when he caressed her tear-streaked cheek. “I may not be able to get rid of that ugly, clawing thing you say is inside you, but if you want to take a chance on me, Katy honey, I’m pretty sure I can put it in its place.”
When she opened her eyes and looked at him, Cal held up his hand, palm up, waiting for her to see if she would take it.
She looked at him, not his hand. “Aren’t you afraid I’ll say yes just so I don’t have to go home?”
“Are you afraid I’ll spank you longer or harder than you can handle?” he countered.
Her fingers fidgeted again. “My bottom is still a little sore from yesterday.”
“Sometimes it just has to happen that way.”
Her breathing quickened, her breasts rising and falling just a little bit faster. “Will you hold my hand?”
“For the rest of my life,” he promised.
Her fingers faintly trembling, Katy lay her hand in his, and true to form, she never looked back.
* * * * *
Jack Hallum, owner of Dustwallow’s only non-brothel hotel, signaled his two daughters in the kitchen, shifted the heavily burdened lunch tray to one hand and started up the stairs. He had almost reached the second floor landing when he heard the faint but unmistakable sounds—brisk, full-handed slaps meeting bare and vulnerable flesh, each clapped accompanied by muffled hiccups, yelps and sobbing wails—all half-stifled by (in his experience) desperately clutched at blankets and all emanating from the room down the hall.
Stopping where he was, he struggled to stifle an exasperated sigh of his own. Shifting the lunch tray to his other hand, he turned back around and motioned his daughters back down the stairs.
“Give them twenty minutes,” he said, and shook his head in mock disgruntlement. “Newlyweds.”
EPILOGUE
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Clifton Sullivan. STOP You are hereby cordially invited to Dustwallow, Utah to attend the wedding of your daughter and Cal Beckton, an event hereby set to take place two weeks from the date of this telegram. STOP Shotgun optional.
The End.
KAYLEE’S KEEPER
CHAPTER ONE
“This is fantastic!” Selena stepped off the tour bus grinning, her blue eyes wide and sparkling. “Have you ever seen anything like this?”
Disembarking behind her, Kaylee gave her new friend a nudge on the shoulder to keep her moving and then stepped down onto the gravel parking lot beside her. She knew her own expression could not have been any less awed. The Castle looked just like…well, a castle. The medieval stone-block structure towered atop its earthen plateau, surrounded by sparse acres of grassy meadows, which were in turn surrounded by tall, leafy trees. Condemned as a derelict (according to the six-panel photo-packed brochure, which Kaylee had faithfully read the whole way here), it was spared the indignity of the wrecking crew by an anonymous overseas buyer. Dismantled on the moors of its native Scotland, it was moved—first by cargo ship, then train, then truck—until it arrived at its new home in America, where building authorities nickel and dimed and permitted all restoration attempts half unto death before finally—finally!—allowing its noble reconstruction. And now, here it sat, a grand and historical site, slightly out of place in this remote Ohio valley and ultimately considered by the kinky-inclined to be the resort to end all fantasy resorts.
Multinational banners snapped and waved in the breeze along the parapet walls. The massive iron portcullis was raised then the drawbridge lowered; beyond that, the cobble-stone courtyard of a bygone era awaited its most recent busload of vacationers. There were wooden carts, horses neatly stabled amongst round bales of hay and sacks of grain. Leather harnesses, pony whips and riding crops that sent tiny thrilling shudders racing up her spine hung casually about. It was truly awe-inspiring, not to mention a little bit scary, but Kaylee was not immune to the historical romanticism attached to every crenellated tower, high-arching doorway and ghastly grinning gargoyle.
“We are going to have such a good time,” Selena squealed, clutching at her arm and hugging it.
Kaylee certainly hoped so. In fact, she had every expectation that she would have a fabulous time. Fantasies fulfilled, the website had claimed. Anonymity assured, the brochure vowed. Safe, sane, consensual play was advertised on every ad and every page. The reviews (and not just those posted on the Castle’s website) had raved that this was a "must go" place, and Kaylee had saved her pennies for almost two years, mentally debated for six months, changed her mind no less than two dozen times then finally purchased, not the ten-day package or even the five—she just didn’t have enough money for that. What Kaylee had, though, was still her dream come true: three full days in a kink-oriented castle that promised to be the vacation of a lifetime.
Singles or couples welcome. Bed, board and costumes provided. Consensual atmosphere strictly enforced. Art gallery, gift shop, group activities and how-to panels available, and on the last day of every month, a masquerade ball. She wouldn’t get to see that, darn it, but everything else…
Beside her, Selena screeched another excited squeal and grabbed her hand; behind her, a man wanting to disembark cleared his throat. Kaylee quickly got out of the way and they moved to stand in line with twenty other people while their suitcases were unloaded from the outer luggage compartments. En masse, they then headed for the main gate.
This many people all tromping across the drawbridge at one time sounded like the marching of a small army, and it sent a gaggle of women in maid costumes (some quite modest, some anything but) scampering from the courtyard where they had been setting up chairs in a semi-circle near the front door. They assembled into a hasty line at the bottom of the main steps, looking as one to a tall, butler-like figure waiting at the door. His hands were clasped behind his back and a neat cluster of birch switches peeked out from behind his leg. At a gesture from him, the line of maids retreated up the steps and vanished into the house. The last maid through the door received a snap on her skirted fanny from that birch-switch bundle. The maid barely made a sound, but Kaylee felt that snap all the way across the courtyard. Her bottom tightened, tingled, suddenly so sensitive that she could feel the scraping fabric of her panties and jeans with every step she took.
Beside her, Selena’s fingers clutched at Kaylee’s arm, squeezing as she squealed yet again. Her face was flushed; her eyes, bright. That single swat put a bounce of excitement in both their steps as they passed under the shadow of the iron portcullis and into the cobblestone courtyard.
Gazing up at the points on the iron teeth, Kaylee was distracted by a flicker of movement from one of th
e castle windows. It took her a moment to separate the figure watching them from the curtains. One hand in his pocket, one shoulder propped against the sill, a man in fine 1800s clothing stood framed by the second story window. His shirt was white, his pants and vest black, and flashes of gold from his waistcoat watch caught the afternoon sunlight, reflecting it back at her. Sipping from an elegant coffee cup, he was watching as they filed into the courtyard, approaching the line of tables set up just inside, and then his eyes caught hers. He smiled, though only slightly, pushed away from the window and vanished beyond her sight.
Selena pulled at her, reclaiming her attention. “Come on. We’ve got to get registered.”
The vacationers divided down into four short lines, one for each of the waiting attendants, all of whom were so well-versed in their set procedures that very short work was made of the whole process. The lines moved quickly, each person signing in, picking up a thin packet and then adjourning to find a chair from the selection set up in the courtyard near the castle door. Waiting behind Selena, by the time Kaylee stepped up to the table herself, she had overheard enough to know exactly what to expect.
