Sandcastles

by April Hill

  By forbidding her to swim in the lagoon, Denning was not treating her as a responsible adult or even as an employee. The man needed to understand that when her ordered her around like a child, he was definitely barking up the wrong tree.

  She had been in the water for no more than a few seconds when a massive wave crashed against the outer rocks and exploded into the cove, churning the lagoon’s placid surface into a frenzied whirlpool. Suddenly afraid, Gwen gasped when she felt the sand slipping away beneath her feet, leaving her unsteady and flailing to regain her balance. A second later her knees buckled as another incoming wave threw her sideways into the roiling lagoon. Unable to get to her feet and mercilessly battered by each new wave that burst into the cove, she turned, hoping to crawl on her knees back to the safety of the beach. She had gained a few precious feet when the next wave hit her in the back with astounding force, knocking the breath out of her and throwing her facedown in the water. She struggled wildly to the surface and inhaled deeply, only to be pulled under again, tumbling over and over beneath the swirling currents like a stray seashell.

  In that instant, Gwen realized that she wasn’t going to be able to get out. She managed to scream once, and then again, but her strength was ebbing with each new wave that sucked her beneath the icy water.

  Suddenly, someone grabbed her under her arms and she felt her bruised body being dragged backward toward the beach. She was confused, gasping for air, and before she could recover, another wave caught her full in the face. Gwen began to choke, her eyes burning with salt water and grit. And then, miraculously, she was on her hands and knees on the sand, throwing up salt water, her chest heaving. Someone was thumping her back, between the shoulder blades.

  Finally, as her lungs cleared she began to breathe normally, drawing in great welcome draughts of cold air. Her vision was still blurry from the salt, but she recognized Denning standing over her.

  “Not too bright, huh?” She tried to laugh but coughed instead, choking up more seawater. Abruptly Denning took hold of left arm, dragged her further up the beach and dumped her facedown in the sand. Before she realized fully what was happening he began tugging the wet bottoms of her suit down her gritty thighs. A moment later Denning’s large, strong hand cracked against her bare, sand-streaked buttocks—four swift, sharp blows, hard enough to take her breath away. Before she could protest, he landed a second agonizing volley of rapid-fire smacks, and this time Gwen wailed in shock and pain. Moments earlier her backside had felt like it was freezing. Now the same area seemed to be on fire.

  Gwen shrieked again, as Denning smacked first one scalded cheek and then the other. When she tried to squirm away in the soft sand, he pulled her to her knees and hauled her across the upturned hull of the old blue dinghy, while she screamed for him to stop. Holding her down on the splintered wood, he quickly unbuckled and removed his belt and began strapping her bare backside and thighs hard and fast while Gwen bucked and writhed uselessly, her curses and shouts drowned out by the wind and the waves.

  When he finally stopped, Gwen reached back frantically to grasp at her scalded buttocks. Denning leaned down took her chin in his hand and forced her to look at him.

  “Never do that again!” he shouted. “Do you understand?” When she gritted her teeth and stubbornly refused to reply he drew his arm back and delivered three resounding thwacks to the lowest, most tender part of her already-red behind. Gwen opened her mouth wide and howled.

  “I understand, damn you! Now let me go!”

  Denning stepped back and allowed her to get to her feet. “Good. Now get back up to the house, and if I ever see you swimming here again, I swear to God I’ll take the hide off you!”

  Gwen stumbled up the beach and climbed the long wooden staircase, pulling her clinging suit up as gracefully as she could. She was struggling to fight back her tears, unwilling to cry in front of him and wanting nothing more than to get to her room and pack as quickly as possible. Her Anonymous Source was right. Joshua Denning was nuts.

  Back in the house, she showered quickly and then crammed her few belongings into the battered suitcase she’d arrived with. When she felt sufficiently composed, she ventured into the living room to find Denning. He was standing by the front window looking down toward the beach.

  “I need to borrow your phone to call for a cab,” she said coldly. “Or I’ll walk up to the road and try to get a ride into town.”

  For several moments he said nothing. When he spoke his voice was very quiet.

  “My wife drowned in the cove three years ago while trying to swim to the rocks. When I saw you in the water I thought….”

  Gwen sighed closed her eyes and sank slowly down on the couch.

  “I won’t apologize,” he continued, “if that’s what you’re waiting for. I warned her—over and over—not to swim there the same way I warned you. You had that whipping coming for scaring the shit out of me. But if I overdid it…. ‘ His voice trailed off.

  Gwen shook her head. “I’ll live,” she said wearily. “I may not sit down for a while but I will live. And God knows I won’t try swimming there again if I live to be a hundred. You were very persuasive. And I am sorry. Sorrier than I can tell you. If you want to add a few more whacks I’ll understand.”

  He smiled. “I think the point was made. But I’ll keep the offer in mind for the future. You strike me as the kind of lady who doesn’t listen. A slow learner, maybe.”

  Gwen touched her backside and winced. “That was a first for me. Tell me, do you always beat the hell out of your house guests?”

  “Only those I care about. I generally let the others drown. It keeps my reputation as an uncaring bastard intact.”

  She came and stood in front of him and looked at his face carefully.

  “I’m sorry if I frightened you, … Joshua.” Without waiting for an invitation, she put her arms around his waist and leaned her head against his chest. At first Denning didn’t respond and said nothing. But he didn’t move away. Moments later, he encircled her trembling shoulders with one arm and touched his lips to the top of her head very softly.

  In that moment they could both feel that something had passed between them, but neither Gwen nor Joshua Denning could not have said what it was.

  Chapter Two

  There was no further mention of the incident on the beach, but in the days that followed, Gwen found Joshua Denning even more distant than he’d been before it happened. When he spoke, it was almost always something to do with the house or the dogs or some other inconsequential matter. He was rarely in the kitchen with her now, and even more rarely asked her to prepare dinner for him. Instead he came into the kitchen when she wasn’t there and prepared a sandwich for himself, which he then carried to the den to eat. He asked nothing of her, said a polite good-morning and goodnight each day, but otherwise stayed to himself. Unsure of exactly what she was to him, if anything, or what her position now entailed, Gwen became increasingly uneasy. It was time to get what information she could and get the hell out. Joshua Denning wasn’t just an enigma. She was beginning to understand that he could also be real trouble.

  It wasn’t the spanking that made her uncomfortable with him, unexpected and unpleasant as that event had been. It had happened so quickly and then seemed so logical after his explanation that she had simply found herself accepting it. It had happened, would never happen again, and that was that. Somehow, even with Gwen’s modern attitudes it hadn’t seemed particularly abusive under the peculiar circumstances. She had rarely been physically punished as a child and had nothing with which to compare it, so the event stood by itself—unique, painful and something she wouldn’t care to repeat—but not alarming.

  On the fifteenth day, as she poked through his file cabinet in the belief that he was on the beach with the dogs, he caught her.

  She had left the door to the den open unconcerned about his suddenly appearing. Like many people who live alone, Joshua Denning was a creature of habit. In all these weeks, his daily evening
walks with the three dogs had always taken just over an hour, almost to the minute.

  Charlie, she discovered later, had stepped on a small piece of glass. Denning had carried him most of the way home, with Charlie complaining bitterly and in need of first aid.

  Neither Denning nor Gwen said anything for several seconds and during those brief, terrifying moments, she began to fear that he was going to simply fling her out the front door as he reputedly had done with other intruders. Instead, he walked over and removed the stolen papers from her hand tossed them casually back in the file cabinet and slammed it closed. He sat down on the edge of his desk, thought for a moment, then opened a drawer and withdrew a wide wooden ruler about eighteen inches long. Gwen turned and tried for the door, but he caught her arm and pulled her back.

  It took Joshua Denning less than one full minute to ensnare the fleeing thief, turn her across his knee and yank her jeans and panties down to her knees. The thirty stinging swats across Gwen’s squirming backside with the heavy ruler took much, much longer. (Close to an hour by Gwen’s admittedly biased estimate) Undeterred by her frantic kicking or by the obscenities she screamed at him, Denning covered every inch of both cheeks with bright red welts and finished the whipping with several scorching swats to the backs of her thighs. Gwen was still spewing insults when he dumped her unceremoniously onto his swivel desk chair and spun her around to face him. Gwen winced and yelped in pain when her smarting behind hit the chair seat, but when she tried to rise he shoved her down again—hard.

  He sat on the edge of the desk, with one hand on either arm of the chair, effectively trapping her.

  “All right, I know you’re not a thief. If you were here to steal, you could have cleaned the place and been long gone by now. So who are you, or what are you, besides being an ungrateful little liar and a cheat?”

  “What is it with you?” Gwen cried, ignoring his question and trying to rub her stinging butt. “Do you just get off hurting women or what?”

  “Oh,” he asked calmly, “did that hurt?”

  “Yes, asshole!” she shouted. “Of course it hurt! Like hell!”

  “Glad to hear it,” he said. “And in about one minute I’m going to start all over again, three times as hard and a hell of a lot longer, if you don’t tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

  Gwen flushed. “I can’t” she muttered.

  “Why not? You don’t still believe all those stories about me, do you? That I shoot intruders and turn the dogs on people? Not bloody likely in your case. The damned dogs already like you better than they do me. But in less than one minute flat I am going to take my belt off and begin setting your lying little ass on fire.” He glanced at his watch. “You’ve got forty-five seconds. Start talking.”

  She sighed. “I’m a writer,” she said finally.

  Denning gave a short, bitter laugh. “No you’re not,” he said, coldly. “You’re a reporter.”

  Gwen’s heart sank. “How did you know?”

  “It wasn’t difficult. Liar, cheat, thief, reporter. They’re all the same in my experience.”

  “All right,” she growled. “I am a reporter... sort of, but only because I really need the money. The truth is I’m also a serious writer, or trying to be and .…”

  “And it’s in your blood” he said bitterly finishing her sentence.

  “If it is, it’s mostly because of you!” she shot back. “And because of Jezreel! I’ve read every word you’ve ever written, damn it!”

  Denning laughed again. “And I, of course, am supposed to be flattered by that. Let’s see if I can guess: you’re writing the ‘Great American Novel’—the one for which the entire world has been waiting with bated breath. But first you need just a little encouragement—a few pats on the head to prove you’re a grown up writer and not just a hack and a phony. Unless I’m slipping, you’ve got the masterpiece on you somewhere, tucked away in wax paper against the damp, waiting for the day I’d beg to see it. Am I right so far?”

  Gwen glared at him but didn’t answer.

  “I’ll let you in on a secret” Denning said. “You’re the fourteenth—no the fifteenth—budding genius I’ve thrown off my property since I wrote that damned book. I will give you a certain amount of credit, though. You’re the first one clever enough to actually lie your way inside the damned house. You can congratulate yourself for that small triumph while you’re hauling your bruised and blistered little ass back into town tomorrow morning. You’ve got your story—maybe not the one you expected—but a pretty good one. Feel free to file charges against me for assault and battery. That ought to provide a few excellent headlines if anyone still cares about my supposed eccentricities, which I doubt.”

  She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye—a genuine one to her surprise.

  “I wouldn’t do that” she said softly. “Try to get you into trouble or sue you or anything. I deserved whatever’s happened to me. I guess I’m lucky you didn’t go ahead and shoot me.” She reached behind her and gave her bottom a tentative touch. “I’ve never been shot back there, of course, but I have a feeling it wouldn’t hurt a hell of a lot worse. But hey! Please don’t feel you have to demonstrate. I’m leaving; take my word for it.”

  Trying not to smile Denning looked at her with renewed curiosity. “Tell me one thing,” he asked. “How did you get here? And unless you’d like a reprise of what just happened, try making it the truth for once.”

  Gwen looked down at her hands. “I waited ‘til I was sure it was raining and left my car in the bushes about a mile from here. I figured that would give me a few days. Poor Charlie was the bait, of course. I knew you might throw out a starving stranger, but you’d never turn away a hungry dog. I read that somewhere. I did my homework, but I swear to you I didn’t know about your wife—drowning, I mean. Nothing I read mentioned anything about your wife. I’m sorry about everything I really am but, I know that sounds hypocritical but -”

  She paused. “Would it help to tell you that I already decided not to use any of this - any of the photos or the stuff I’ve found about you? I couldn’t, after you’d been so nice to me. You even saved my life—although that was sort of a mixed blessing.” She smiled at him hesitantly. “Anyway, first thing in the morning I’ll go and find my car and get out of your life—if it’ll start, anyway. If not, maybe my editor can send someone for me. I’ll tell him I couldn’t find you. I’m sorry, Joshua for everything.”

  Gwen turned to leave but he stopped her.

  “You do have the manuscript with you right? Your undiscovered masterpiece?”

  She nodded.

  “Leave in on my desk, and I’ll look it over before you leave. You’ve worked hard while you were here. I owe you that much.”

  “You don’t have to do that” she said quietly.

  “Leave it on my desk” he repeated.

  By seven the next morning Gwen was already packed and ready to leave. She was hoping that Denning would agree to let Charlie stay. She found the two of them on the deck asleep.

  “I’m ready to go,” she said, touching his arm softly. “But I need to talk to you about Charlie, if you have a minute.”

  He yawned and stood up stretching.

  “Is the coffee ready?” he asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t think you’d want anything this morning. I’ll go in and make it right away. But first, I did want to ask if maybe you and Charlie hadn’t bonded, you know, to where you might want him to stick around? He’s kind of big for my apartment in Hollywood and .…”

  “Charlie can stay,” he said briefly.

  “Thank you. I know he’ll be happier here. He was kind of an unwilling co-conspirator in this whole thing and .…”

  “You can stay, too if you want to,” Denning said, leafing through the pages of her manuscript. “It’ll be easier for you to work on the book here … easier than my getting a telephone.”

  “You read it?” she cried.

  “I read it. All 17
5,000 words of it.”

  “And you liked it?”

  “Think again. Some of the worst swill I’ve ever waded through. Buckets of it. Could you have avoided at least one cliché?”

  Gwen simply stood where she was, stunned. He picked up the manuscript and pointed to a page of her typed dialogue.

  “Do you know, or have you ever met anyone who talks this way?”

  “Well no,” she stammered. “Of course I haven’t. The book is about the Civil War and the Old South and that’s .…”

  Denning slammed the manuscript down on the coffee table. “You’re not old, and you’re not from the South, old or otherwise, and Gone With the Wind has already been written, thank God. Once was enough. You didn’t even research most of this crap. You stole it. Be glad Margaret Mitchell’s dead or she’d haul your plagiarizing little ass into court.”

  Gwen was fighting tears.

  He watched her with no sign of sympathy. “You said you wanted to be a writer.”

  “I do!”

  “No you don’t. You want to play at it and hear a lot of half-assed compliments like every other fucking phony ‘writer’ who’s tried to get in here to see me. If you want to waste your time, go right ahead, but please don’t waste mine. Is this all you’ve got on paper?”

  “No” she sniffled. “That’s my only novel. Excuse me—my only ‘bucket of swill’! I’ve written a lot of stories too—smaller buckets of swill, I suppose.”

  “Go and get them, if you’ve got them hidden somewhere, as I’m certain you do. After that, you can go and defrost the refrigerator—maybe do something I pay you for.”

  He wouldn’t say as much, but as she watched surreptitiously from the kitchen, Gwen could tell that Denning liked the stories. He spent a fair amount of time marking in the margins and making little noises to himself, so there was still hope for her. Joshua Denning did not suffer fools gladly, and if he was reading her short stories all the way through there was something—however small—that was keeping his interest.