Spank: The Improbable Adventures of George Aloysius Brown

by Daniels, Alan

  Nice one, Catherine, I am thinking. This one could be a keeper.

  "You okay?" he asked me.

  "Sorry, it was my fault," I said. "Obviously, I wasn't looking where I was going."

  "No worries, happens all the time."

  "Really?"

  "No, you're the first."

  I laughed. "Somebody had to be."

  He grinned showing me a perfect set of teeth. God, Is this boy for real or what?

  "Look, I'm done here in 20 minutes. If you're not rushing off I'll buy you a drink. It's the least I can do. Ever been to the RSL? Best view in town." He pointed to a prominent two story building just behind the promenade at the north end of the beach. There was what looked like an upmarket restaurant on the ground floor and above it there was a balcony where people clustered under the shade of sun umbrellas watching the surf pound in along a kilometer of golden sand.

  "RSL?"

  "Returned Servicemen's League, but anyone can sign in as long as you're from out of town. You're not from here, are you?"

  "England. Here on a temporary work visa."

  "Thought so, a pom. No worries. I've got nothing against poms as long as you don't talk cricket. Your mob just won the Ashes. Believe me that really sucks."

  "Okay to talk rugby then?

  "Absolutely, last Lions tour we kicked your ass."

  He smiled. "I'm kidding."

  I held out my hand. "I'm Catherine."

  "Steed. Pleased to meet you, Catherine. So what do you say? Can I make amends with a cold one?"

  And, honestly, that's how we met. Sometimes, a girl gets lucky. Steed, Dr. Blondin if you please, recently graduated from the University of Canberra, is interning at Royal Sydney Hospital. Sadly, it proved to be a brief encounter. Three weeks later he would accept a job in Perth and although I promised to visit at Christmas before I go back to England, I don't hold out any hopes.

  But here and now in his furnished flat above a coffee shop in Surry Hills, there are serious indications he will make love to me. I have an appointment. No waiting. The doctor is in.

  He greets me at the door and we hug, a peck on each cheek.

  I stand back and pretend to give him the once over. He looks hot even with his clothes on.

  "Can I offer you a drink?"

  "White wine, if you've got it. Whatever's open?"

  He shows me the label of a Margaret River Sauvignon, and I nod my approval. We talk for half an hour or so like old friends, but I find it hard to concentrate. My mind is on other things.

  "Now where were we?" I say when we're into our second glass. My experience with Aussie blokes is that it's difficult to get 'em out of the kitchen.

  "Oh, now I remember, you were kissing me and then we started drinking, and then…"

  "Catherine," he says. "Do you mind, okay? Let me lead."

  "Lead what?"

  "Lead the dancing."

  "All I do is follow?"

  "That's right. Lay back and think of England."

  Well, okay, this is something new for me. Normally I like to be the aggressor, directing traffic, getting laid my way at my speed. This could be over in a hurry.

  "What's that joke about Australian foreplay? I say. 'Brace yerself, Sheila.'"

  He laughed. "The old ones are the best," he replied. "But I should warn you, I have cleats on my flip flops."

  This is better. I like a man who doesn't take it – or himself – too seriously. We are standing together near a half open window, the curtains languidly swaying in the breeze. Overhead I can hear the screech of lorikeets and below us the murmur of traffic roving up and down Bourke Street, your typical Sunday afternoon in Surry Hills, everyone and his parrot looking for a place to roost. Somewhere a car alarm blares, the quintessential sound of the city. No sirens here in apartment 302 although you might say I'm on maximum alert.

  Steed undresses while I watch. He removes his kit with that unassailable self-confidence that only truly beautiful people possess. Beneath his tan line his skin is pale, but his cock is almost black. I fight an urge to reach for it, take it in both hands, feel its softness, suck it to life, pull back the skin, uncover the smooth purple head of it, but he is making the moves, remember?

  He kisses my eyelids, unzips my jeans and pulls them to my ankles. I put my hands on his shoulders and step out of them. Taking his sweet time he unbuttons and removes my blouse then turns me and unhooks my bra. Kneeling at my heels he pulls down my panties and kisses me on each cheek. When he turns me again, he is erect, his cock a shade lighter than before, the skin stretched and shiny. The head reaches almost to his navel. I grow tense then limp as he scoops me in his arms and carries me to bed.

  An hour passes maybe more or maybe time stands still. He kisses my lips my chin the tip of my nose his tongue finds my ears my breasts feeling their fullness his lips close around my nipples until they harden and I moan with pleasure; I am his prisoner and it's total surrender; I stretch out like a cat curling my toes for the sheer joy of being. I close my eyes and feel his tongue tracing circles on my stomach finding my navel probing it; he spreads my legs kneeling between them and I am in heaven hearing only the beating wings of angels; his nose nuzzles my pubic mound his tongue tastes my cunt hairs teasing teasing before burying itself in that dark moist place reaching for the very center of my being; slow slow then faster faster then slow again the cycle repeating he licks me until my body grows rigid in the seconds before I come; I grasp his head with both hands pressing him to me breathing in shuddering gasps as if drowning and my whole body spasms in ecstasy.

  Outside, the traffic starts to move again. What has everybody been doing all this time? We lie silently together until our beating hearts return to normal.

  He turns to me.

  "Penny for 'em, Catherine?"

  "I think I'm dying."

  "I'm a doctor, I can give you something for that."

  "I think I'm drowning."

  "I'm a lifeguard. No one drowns on my watch."

  We laugh and he holds me tenderly, spooning while we drift into sleep.

  In an hour we awake, shower, and I sit primly in a borrowed bathrobe sipping a chilled Riesling from the Hunter Valley.

  "What brings you to Australia?"

  "Long story, escaping, I guess. I was living with a guy in Hong Kong until it all went terribly wrong."

  "Do you want to talk about it?"

  "No."

  Steed refilled our glasses.

  "The problem with playing doctor, Catherine, is that you see things maybe you shouldn't. I would say from the marks on your body you were beaten. What sort of a bastard would do that?"

  "Honestly, Steed, I don't want to talk about it. In a way what happened was partly my fault."

  "Was it? I doubt that. But time heals as they say and the doctor's prognosis is that the marks will disappear. Meanwhile, I believe we have some unfinished business."

  It's my turn to lead. I play with him, teasing him, letting the excitement build slowly. I am the hunter. He is the prey. He lies on his back and closes his eyes as my fingers prowl his body. I kneel at his side, running my fingertips up and down his chest, dancing them lower, drumming on the taught muscles of his stomach, teasing the blond curls below, stalking the pearl black quarry. I don't touch it. He moans softly, his breath coming in shallow gasps. Then suddenly I reach for it, squeeze it, stroke it, and feel it spasm. A single white pearl appears at the tip and hungrily I swallow it, tasting its sweet saltiness. He cries out and covers my hand with his. Then abruptly he sits up, grabbing me by the wrist and pulling me across his lap. In an instant, the hunter becomes the hunted. I feel a stab of pleasure between my legs. Gently, he strokes my thighs and buttocks. I thrust them up, feeling an old familiar longing. And then he spanked me. It was the sweetest, most erotic, most sensuous yet, administered at length until I knew I couldn't last another moment. I spun away, showing him his handiwork, how pretty in pink it looks. Then I took him, swallowing his black beauty between my burning
cheeks.

  Afterwards we lay silently together totally spent, not doing anything really. Then Steed gets up and makes me tea. He is still naked when he slides back into bed beside me.

  "Steed?"

  "What is it?"

  "Do you have to go to Perth?"

  "Look, it's a great opportunity. There's a job for me there in the tropical medicine department, I'd be a mug to turn it down."

  "Tropical medicine? That tsetse flies and things, isn't it? Wouldn't you prefer obstetrics?"

  He laughed.

  "You're incorrigible; I wouldn't get any work done."

  He pulled the sheets back and kissed my vagina. But he was as spent as I was and gently I pushed him away.

  Outside our window the sun is going down. Soon the fruit bats would rise from their roost in the Botanical Gardens and take off in great swarms to go where fruit bats go at night. This is the thing about Sydney, it's as if someone plunked down a great city in the middle of a tropical jungle. It's beautiful but menacing. There are snakes and spiders and sharks. It's what makes me shake my shoes in the morning in case one of them jumps out at me.

  When Steed left I went with him to the airport. We sat sipping coffee in one of those awkward pre-flight funks.

  "You'll meet someone else," he said.

  "You think so?"

  "Sure, go to the beach, you're bound to run into somebody."

  "Bastard!"

  I kicked him under the table, but his jibe has lightened the mood. At the entrance to security, that bleak point of no return, we hugged each other and kissed like cousins.

  Then I turned and walked away. I didn't look back.

  Steel rails spike through

  the desert's red heart; The sky also bleeds

  Haiku by CM Jones

  I took a taxi back to Jen's place, showered and got ready for the office. I have a temporary job filling in for someone on maternity leave as a sub-editor on the Waverly Times Tribune, an evening giveaway that's short on ambition and long on lucrative property ads. It's easy work and quite often I can work on my novel.

  There are six of us on the subs desk and after we put the paper to bed we walk to the local hotel for a beer. If there is a more fun group to hang out with than a bunch of Aussie journos I can't imagine it. They're either young and just starting out or old and on the way out. Either way they're happy to be working and at least two of them are trying to get into my jeans.

  "Remember when we invented that basketball league?" says Pete, plunking down a tray of schooners.

  The others all laugh, so I am assuming they do.

  "Did we ever tell you about that, Cat?"

  "You guys invented a basketball league?"

  "We did, all the teams, all the players. We wrote brief reports on the matches and published all the results."

  "Why?"

  "Well, it was in Dubbo, see? Dubbo is in the west of the state, bloody miles from here, at least a four hour drive. When it got to the last game of the playoffs the league wrote to our sports editor asking him if he would do them the great honor of presenting the trophy to the winner."

  Now it's all becoming clear and I join in the laughter. More beer arrives. When does it ever not in this country?

  "No offence Cat, but the sports editor at the time was an insufferable Brit, a total dickhead, the worst kind of management suck up and stupid enough to think because his name is on the masthead he's some kind of freakin' celebrity."

  "So he went."

  The others fell about laughing.

  "He did. He did. Four hours drive through to the back of beyond and now he's searching all over Dubbo for the Gocha Memorial Arena."

  Ha ha ha.

  "When he eventually got back he was hopping mad and drier than the dobby on a dingo. He knew we did it, concocted the whole thing, but he couldn't prove it. Shortly afterwards, he left."

  This gave me an idea that I didn't share with the others. I would save it up for when I left. I would introduce a little invention of my own.

  Among my duties on the paper is to put together the celebrities column, half a page, as someone once put it, of the insignificant in hot pursuit of the irrelevant.

  Along with the antics of Hollywood celebrities and the usual obits of people whose names we have invariably forgotten, I invented the fictitious Count Stephan von Barrio, madcap Austrian prince. Von Barrio was always showing up in Australia, Melbourne Cup, the Sydney to Hobart yacht race, the Perth film festival, wherever I could squeeze him in. He was my little joke. In yesterday's column he was in Darwin attending a celebrity wedding.

  Next day, as usual, I thumbed through the paper to see if the item had made it. It had not. But what I read among the obits sent a shiver down my spine.

  "Dead, Count Stephan von Barrio, 36: Darwin police speculate that the deceased ignored warning signs to stay off the beach and was taken by a crocodile. His body has not been found."

  Frantically dreading what I night find, I checked my emails. And there it was, written in the code that R.C.Montgomery had taught me in Hong Kong. "Poor Stephan. Came to a sticky end. He really should have been more careful."

  At that moment I have never been more afraid in my life. If R.C. Montgomery could hack into my office computer, get past the firewalls, remove an item in my column and replace it with another, he would certainly know where to find me. No drinks for me tonight. I have some serious decisions to make.

  For a week I did nothing, except worry. Then there was another email. I decoded it, my heart beating wildly.

  "It doesn't help to ignore me. You can't hide. I know where you are."

  Now I was really scared. I was being stalked. Jen said I should go to the police. But to tell them what? Inevitably questions would be asked about my relationship with R.C. Montgomery, questions I would not want to answer.

  I decided to go back to London. It's a big city. I could disappear there, buy some time and I had friend in George. George was connected. He knew people. During the weeks after we first met in the writing class we saw each other frequently to talk about our books and discuss strategy. I trust him. He would know what to do.

  Jen didn't want me to leave.

  "I can see not wanting to go to the police," she said. "Talk to Steed, maybe he'll know what to do."

  I shook my head. Not Steed. I'd already told him too much. He'd seen the marks on my body. I shivered, suddenly feeling chilled, although it was a hot summer's day. If R.C. Montgomery could beat me the way he did, what else might he be capable of?

  Telling the guys at work was a tough one. I told them I had to deal with a family crisis. Said I would be back. I didn't tell them about Stephan van Barrio.

  The day I left, Jen drove me to the airport. We held each other for a long time.

  "When are you coming back to England?"

  "I don't know, Cat. Soon. My dad was here last year for a few days en route from Dubai, but I haven't seen my mum for ages."

  "I'll drive down to visit you," I said. "It will be just like the old days. We'll go riding in the forest like we used to during the summer holidays."

  "Promise?"

  "Promise."

  We hugged and I walked away. I think we were both close to tears.

  At the entrance to security I turned to wave a last goodbye.

  "Say hello to Ruth and give Braveheart an apple from me."

  I don't think she heard. She didn't look back.

  On arrival at Heathrow I booked into a hotel under an assumed name and the next day things seemed a lot less worrying. I dialed George's number in Pimlico.

  He picked up on the third ring.

  "Hi yer, George. It's Catherine."

  "Oh, Catherine, hey, how are you?" He seemed delighted to hear from me. "Where are you is more to the point? Thought you were in Australia."

  "I was. I'm back. Long story. How's the book coming along? Six months is almost up. It's time for show and tell."

  "It's going well, I think. I'm more than half way the
re. I've finished the chapters on Cleopatra and Catherine de Medici. I'm on a roll. Have you heard of Boadicia?"

  "Sure, Queen Boadicia, 1st century AD. Made a bit of name for herself riding into battle with razor-sharp scythes fitted to the wheels of her chariot. Limbs everywhere when that girl arrived on the scene. What about her?"

  "That's where my man is now, in 1st century England. He's hitchhiking and she picks him up. They get along great for a while, Boadicia was a serial flirter, but then they have a huge row over the quickest way to get from Camulodunum to Londinium. He loses his patience and gives her a sound spanking in the back seat of the chariot. Puts her over his knee and paddles her little Boadician bottom with a rolled up program from the fights in the Coliseum? Guess what she was wearing under her chainmail?"

  "I couldn't even begin."

  "Nothing. Who would have thought it eh?"

  "Only a truly perverted mind."

  Heh heh heh.

  "George?"

  "What? You think the rolled up program is a bit over the top?"

  "No I think you're getting your history mixed up. Lions versus Christians in ancient Rome was several hundred years before Boadicia. Anyway, spanking is mainstream. It's sensuous and romantic, like a massage, I don't have to tell you that. It's even hinted at in my book. Many women fantasize about being spanked."

  George made a note of this, purely for professional purposes.

  "George?"

  "What?"

  "Don't even think about it. Get your mind back on track. You're supposed to be working on your novel, remember?"

  "Yes, right. Well, I just finished a chapter where Dr.Whom makes a movie with Linda Lovelace, star of Deep Throat. The research I did with good 'ol Gimble really paid off on that one. The interesting thing is that later in life she campaigned against pornography and the Doctor has a long conversation with her about that. And then he meets Germaine Greer, the Australian feminist, author of Lady, Love Your Cunt."