Off of the Beaten Path

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  With his hand coming down on her bare bottom, the sting became fiercer. A fiery pain, beginning at her twin ass cheeks, moved everywhere throughout her body. It was a struggle just to keep her in place, but Jess used every bit of strength he had to hold the bawling, moaning, screaming brat in place while he attempted to subdue her. Jess went on slapping her rear cheeks, while they turned from a blushing pink to a flaming red, to finally a purplish scarlet. This was as necessary as spanking as she’d ever had, and as he’d ever given her. And he was not about to let up until she finally succumbed. Jess wished he had the use of some other instrument to punish her, it would certainly be easier on him. But it didn’t matter that his hand was beginning to sting, probably as much as her bottom was. Maybe it was justice for them both. They could both feel the hurt together, as she worked out whatever Ashley Bloom needed to work out over his lap.

  Ashley’s bottom was looking blotchy and raw when she finally began to relent to the treatment. She had seemed to sob out all her woe, her cries becoming much less vehement, and her arms and legs were at last relinquishing. In turn, Jess’s spanks became more like love taps than hearty smacks, until he finally stopped altogether and laid his hand gently on her hot bottom.

  “You think you can look at this a little more calmly?” he asked her at last.

  Her exhausted body appeared to bristle for just an instant, though she relaxed again. She pulled away from him, and ended up slumped to the ground, her raw naked bottom hitting the ground with a painful bounce.

  “Ouch!” she moaned, though it was clear that the quality of her woe had diminished. She looked up at Jess through strands of tangled blonde hair. Her wet tears only accentuated the dirt and grease that smeared on her face.

  “You’re a mess,” Jess told her.

  “Thanks.”

  “But a calmer mess,” he added, as he reached down to try and help her up.

  “I’m fine where I am,” she announced to him. Her words were a little biting, but they didn’t pack the punch of her earlier harangue. Her anger had for the most part vanished.

  “You still look pretty to me,” he told her.

  “And you’re still condescending.”

  “Only when you descend into being an unruly brat,” Jess told her.

  “Can’t I be upset about this?” she said as she looked back to her plane.

  “Of course. I don’t blame you. But now that the storm is over, maybe we should figure how we’re going to get out of here?”

  She nodded.

  “I guess it’s through the jungle,” she said looking around. “I think there’s a village a few miles out. There should be enough daylight. If I get my compass and my bearings straight, I think I can get us there before it gets dark. There’s a road going in that far, and I imagine we’ll find a radio there. We’ll have someone pick us up.”

  “Sounds like a plan to me,” Jess agreed, content to let her do the thinking, she needed the diversion. “Let’s hike.”

  Neither of them was good at sitting tight anywhere, especially in the middle of the jungle. And the more space Ashley put between herself and her damaged plane the better. At least she could say she had saved their necks landing it in this impossible place; it was one thing to be thankful for.

  ***

  “So are you clean again?” Jess asked, looking down at Ashley’s pretty pink face, her flushed cheeks glowed, the smut, grease and dirt had been sufficiently washed away.

  Just twelve hours out of the jungle, and it looked like Ashley had physically recovered. The journey had been arduous, and they had fought and laughed and managed to get out together alive. Reaching the village, they radioed ahead, and someone had arrived hours later to take them back to Caracas. It was all pretty simple, looking back, except for Ashley’s plane sitting uselessly in a jungle that would likely grow up around it overnight.

  “I’m fine,” she said, looking at him sadly.

  “Maybe you could take this as a sign,” Jess said, sitting down next to her at the fresh air cafe.

  “Of what?” she asked.

  “Time to move on,” he suggested.

  Since returning to civilization the two hadn’t made love, they hadn’t really even talked. There seemed to be a curious distance between them that neither could explain, except that Jess was offering his best explanation now, on a gamble, hoping Ashley would agree with him.

  “I’m staying here, Jess,” she announced, knowing it would not please him.

  “You are?” He was surprised to hear that she’d made the decision so soon. Certainly that decision. He thought that at best, she would fly off with him right away; and the very worst, she’d give herself a week or so to decide, and then come back to California. This declaration took him totally off guard.

  “Mac offered me a way to get my plane back, or at least replace it,” she explained. “It’s a good offer, and I have to take it.”

  “You have to take it?” Jess queried, as his annoyance showed in his voice.

  “I have to think about my future,” she said, as if he should be following this line of thinking.

  Jess leaned back in his chair and sighed heavily, as a certain weariness was creeping over him. “So we’re back to square one, aren’t we?” Jess observed.

  “What’s that mean?” she asked.

  “You making deals in South America, I teach at Berkeley, and though we seem to really want something more between us, we can’t seem to get anything serious off the ground. Kind of like your downed plane in the jungle.”

  “Oh, please don’t act this way,” Ashley tried pleading with him.

  “Hell, I like acting this way,” he was raising his voice. “If you can throw a fit, I suppose I can too.”

  “Does that mean I get to spank your bottom?” she asked, trying to lighten his mood.

  “Not on your life,” he shot back readily. “Yours is the only bottom that’s going to get spanked in this relationship. But since we don’t have one, I guess that’s not going to happen either.” He was dreadfully grim. Ashley had never seen him this way, and she didn’t know how to react. “Let me know when you’re really serious, Ash. Maybe I’ll still be carrying this torch for you. I doubt if that’s going to change, though I’m beginning to wonder why I bother.”

  “Please, Jess,” Ashley was pleading with him. “I do care about you. If you can just wait. Things will come around, I really feel that.”

  “You’re giving me nothing, Ashley, but a lot of excuses. The timing is perfect, it could never be better. But I suppose if you don’t see that, then maybe we don’t belong together after all.”

  “Jess, I just need some time,” she tried again.

  “Okay,” he relented. He refused to argue with her. “But if and when you’re ever ready, you know where I am. Offer me your bottom with a strap to lay across it, and I’ll probably take you up on it without a second thought.”

  Ashley tried to smile at the idea, but Jess wasn’t all that happy with the suggestion. As far as he could see, it was over. It was time for him to pick up the pieces of his broken heart and move on.

  Ashley watched Jess stand and cast her one solemn enigmatic glance before he walked off. Part of her wanted to charge off after him, but the rest of her, remaining clearly in control, forced her stay fixed in her seat.

  Chapter Six

  One Month Later

  Jess was fiddling with the files in his office. He hated filing, hated paperwork in general. Why he was a professor, and a research scientist, he wasn’t quite sure. Maybe he should have been a baseball player, he thought, as he stared out the window at the day outside. It was a good baseball kind of day. He could imagine himself out on the green field in the middle of summer, putting a good pocket into his old glove, waiting for a fly ball. He fingered that old glove fondly. It always laid on the edge of the worktable beside the picture of Ashley and her plane.

  “You know what pisses me off?” The voice rang out with amazing clarity, cutting into Jess’s thought
s with its direct but decidedly playful tone.

  Jess turned around to see Ashley standing in the doorway of his office, looking like the vibrant sassy jewel of a woman she was. She looked like an angel, all that blonde hair shining in the sun, though he knew her as the devil that constantly haunted his waking life, and his nighttime slumber.

  “What’s that?” Jess replied to her question, too shocked to say any more. He hadn’t heard a word from her since he left in the restaurant in Caracas, and he had to closely study her face to make sure that she was actually standing there in the flesh. It was so reminiscent of months before.

  “It pisses me off that you’d pull this ultimatum crap with me,” she declared.

  “Ultimatum?” he queried.

  “Thinking you had the Right and only answer to my life,” she clarified.

  “You mean coming to California?” he asked.

  “Exactly,” she said.

  He shrugged. He wanted to take her in his arms, but he wouldn’t dare give her anything until she gave first. Not anymore.

  “You know what else pisses me off?” she said.

  “What?” he asked. He saw her eyes dancing lightly, which gave him hope.

  “When you’re right about what’s best for me,” she said.

  “I am?” he asked. This was starting to amuse him.

  “Yeah, you are,” she said. From behind her back, Ashley pulled out a long leather strap, something looking akin to an old barber razor strop. “You said when I was ready, and laid this on my ass out for you, you’d probably give in to me without a second thought. I thought I’d just find out.”

  Jess moved out from behind his desk. Taking the strap from her hands, he felt the leather, and eyed Ashley Bloom with a thoughtful stare. “So, does this mean you’re in California to stay?” he asked her cautiously, expecting her to tell him she’d be off elsewhere in a matter of hours, leaving him again; but instead, she nodded her head, yes.

  He smiled at her pleased. “And so, you’re willing to take a few licks, for being so obstreperous getting yourself here?”

  “That’s what it means,” she admitted.

  The fire and flash and exuberant energy that had always been between them was rollicking again. Jess’s heart skipped a beat to match Ashley’s beating passion. He couldn’t believe this was happening, but he decided not to argue. “Well Ashley Bloom, you certainly surprised me,” he said at last.

  “I’m kind of glad I did,” she said with a wicked gleam in her eye. “But you just better be prepared,” she warned. “You have no idea what you’re getting into.”

  “I know, but I’ll have some fun finding out,” he said, as he held the leather firmly in his hand.

  “You gonna punish me now?” she asked, as if she couldn’t wait.

  “Not yet,” he said, as he pulled the blonde aviator close to him, and put his arm around her. “I’ll be in charge this time,” he told her with a determined voice. “I’ll say when.”

  Ashley shivered in his arms excitedly.

  And yes, he’d lay the strap on her ass really hard before the night was out. But for the moment, he was content to just feel the target of his designs, while letting her suffer and wait. Fondling her bottom playfully, Jess brought his lips down to kiss Ashley’s offered mouth.

  Chapter Seven

  “Are we going to get out of here today?” Jess asked. He stood next to Ashley at the small airport, the temperamental blonde had been running around in the midst of high drama for the last hour trying to get her life in order enough to leave.

  “Yes, yes, yes, I’ll be ready,” she barked, too nastily to suit Jess, though he had no choice but to listen to her now, and wait for a better moment to suggest a few corrections in her behavior.

  Another half hour, and Ashley was even more irritated, and Jess more exasperated, as the aviator couldn’t seem to get everything “straightened out” so they could be on their way. When they were finally in Jess’s Wrangler on their way out of town, headed for the low foothills and then the Sierra’s beyond, Jess breathed a sigh of relief, though he wondered just what kind of vacation he’d have with the woman he loved.

  One week, one lonely mountain cabin, just Jess and Ashley and all the quiet, with hours to kill, this was their trial run at a real relationship. Could they even stand being in the same room for twenty-four hours, let alone six days? That was the question they wondered about.

  This was the first opportunity they’d had to be really alone with each other since Ashley Bloom relocated from Venezuela to Northern California. A few nights in San Francisco were not enough to secure any relationship, when they were both too horny and smitten and overwrought with anxiety to have anything more than great sex, and a few prickly conversations. The high-strung tone of their encounters hadn’t seemed to diminish because they were closer and saw each other more often; and their sparring continued to end up in Ashley going over Jess’s lap for a few good whacks on the rear, or an out and out spanking when the tension became too thick for either to bear.

  Actually, they both decided that spanking would likely be a regular part of their relationship the way it released a lot of tension, and aroused them sexually. Though Ashley didn’t like admitting it, just the thought of Jess spanking her sent her sexual energy soaring. Even though they both figured that spanking would be part of this week in the mountains, they hoped to circumvent the edge of hostility that often clouded their happier times together.

  “So, you always bark at people like that?” Jess asked her, after they’d driven several miles in silence, with Jess trying to think of some way to break the ice. It was clearly the wrong thing to say, but he couldn’t help comment on what he’d seen back at the airport. She’d been lashing out at people all over the place, a rather appalling sight to witness.

  “I wasn’t barking,” Ashley protested.

  “You just sounded a little shrill at the airport,” Jess said, trying not to sound judgmental.

  “Shrill!” she exclaimed.

  “Yeah, like now.”

  Ashley pursed her lips and stared out the window watching the golden California hills roll by. With some soothing New Age music playing in the cassette deck, the two should be peaceful as lambs, though they were not.

  “And now you’re going to pout,” Jess observed her silence.

  “There’s no satisfying you,” she snapped.

  “There’s no satisfying yourself,” Jess suggested. “I think that’s your problem. You just can’t expect to control every situation. You’re always going to be frustrated if you expect perfection from people. Life just isn’t that cut and dried.”

  “Gee, thanks for the assessment,” Ashley said, sarcastically. “You’re sounding awfully professorial today. But let me tell you, if you’re going to play counselor with me all week, you might as well turn this vehicle around and go home, because I’m not about to listen to you lecture me like a student all week long.”

  Jess stopped talking, letting Ashley settle down, and letting his irritation with her die away. He had no intention of fighting with her, though at the moment, the prospects for peace between them didn’t look very good. It was a bad way to begin.

  He glanced at her scowling face, thinking how beautiful she looked when she was smiling, and wishing she were now. “You’re looking awfully nice today,” he finally said. He was admiring the way her blonde hair was falling about her shoulders. He loved it when she wore it down, instead of pulled back in a ponytail. Ashley was still staring out the window; she hadn’t stopped since they had quit their little tiff.

  “Trying to make amends,” she retorted, turning back to him.

  “Trying to be nice,” Jess snapped.

  “You don’t have to coddle me with compliments,” she said.

  “I’m not, it’s called the truth.”

  Ashley went back to staring out the window for a second, but not for long this time. “You know Jess, I don’t think this trip is a good idea,” she suddenly blurted out, as
she rearranged herself in the seat next to him, so she could look at him directly as she made her point.

  “Oh?” Jess said.

  “No, it wasn’t,” she stated flatly, as if it should be evident to Jess.

  He looked at her annoyed. “What the hell has gotten in to you?” he snapped. “You were perfectly happy about this trip last night.”

  “Well, I’m not now,” she retorted, with a distinct edge in her voice. Her sassy zinger went straight to Jess’s heart. He had a feeling that there was a lot more behind her rash statement, and he’d had enough of her petulant behavior. Whatever the problem was, they were going to get to the bottom of it before they went another mile.

  Without announcing his intentions, Jess looked for a spot to stop the Jeep; and in seconds turned onto a dirt road off the main highway, pulling a good 100 yards into the trees where he cut the engine.

  “What are you doing?” Ashley asked, when she finally came to from her deep consuming reverie.

  “A little necessary repair work,” he said.

  “To what?” she looked worried.

  Jess didn’t reply. Getting out of the car, he went around to the passenger side and opened the door, then carefully, but firmly pulled her out of the vehicle.

  “What’s going on?” she asked.

  A convenient fallen log became a perfect spot to enact his plans, and dragging Ashley’s half protesting body with him, he sat down, and briskly flung the blonde aviator over his knees.

  “What are you doing!” she demanded to know.

  “That should be clear,” Jess replied. “A little remedy that seems to work between you and me.”

  Only then did it really register in Ashley what was happening, and only then did she really start to kick and fight to get away.

  “You can’t do this!” she roared, for openers.

  She struggled with Jess’s firm hands. Unfortunately, they were a lot stronger than she was, and still held her in place. She should have known by then that there was no way she’d get away.