An Hour In Common: Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Oh Our Damn Principles

Amy cranked up her radio and sang along to the 1812 Overture. ‘Ba--- bapa bapa ba pa bah..’

She checked her naked ass in the mirror. Four days after her silly, embarrassing encounter with corporal punishment and her cheeks were white again. Her Asian Alternative Medicine woman was right about that cream even though she was a bit snerky at Amy’s story about getting hit in the ass by a bull in Spain. Oh, she didn’t say anything, but that Dr. Wong smiled the way people smile when they know another person got spanked. Gloating schadenfreude.

No purple, red, or even pink. The cheeks looked a little cute pink, but Amy guessed that she just liked pink. But she couldn’t ignore her hair. It was fuller than it had ever been in high school. Her skin shined flawless. She felt like a fucking princess in a story. She got in her shower, enjoying every damn second of every damn moment.

‘Baaaaaa baaa baaaa ba ba bapa bapa bapa bap bap bap…’

After a huge breakfast of carbs and butter and cream and jam and everything she shouldn’t eat in cartload amounts and dressing to show off her chest and thin in comparison waist and ample white ass in a dark gray Egyptian cotton suit that screamed POWER!!!! she skipped to her car and drove to work, not catching every green light, but not even noticing the reds.

‘Baa baaa baaa baaaaaaaa’

She was too happy to listen to NPR’s morning report, which would just try to depress her, so instead she gave a super cute fireman a hundred dollars. He stood about a billion feet tall, with chiseled black as coal muscles, with a fireman’s boot upside down asking for donations from people trapped by the red light. He looked a lot like Captain America, if Captain America were black, but why couldn’t Captain America be black? This was America!!

‘Thank you very much, miss!’ His smile was as wide as Amy’s, but Amy didn’t feel at all self-conscious at being reminded that her mouth was too big.

‘Hey, I get my ass caught in a fire, I want you to pick me up and drag me out. You.’ The light turned green, and Amy had the need: the need for speed.

‘You!’

‘Hey, rescuing pretty young girls is our product!’ The fireman yelled, and caught a glimpse of the wealthy young lady laughing gaily as she tooled down the road in her speedster, reminding him of his wife when they were young and carefree, and also of his daughter and everything splendid about being alive. Then he got back to collecting money for the Station, smiling from ear to ear.

Amy was so freaking happy that even the laborers tearing up the street in front of the McClane One Building saw a skip in their step.

Entering the great hall of M1, set to be renovated so it looked better than M4 in Tokyo, which was awesome Amy knew from her three business trips, Amy saw the sobriquet Mr. Hillbreaker and Mr. Finch at a waiting corner of couches and limitless fresh roasted coffee. Hillbreaker wore Armani. He looked fantastic. For some reason Mr. Finch wore a suit Amy couldn’t place. It looked… cheep. Off the rack. Why was he slumming? Amy smacked her head. The labor dispute was today! Mr. Finch slummed it to interact with the proles who were very sensitive about such egalitarian things. He was probably their rep for the negotiations… that sly dog.

‘That man can spank.’ Amy beamed, laughing at her foolish girlish self.

‘Miss Border?’ The door man was an elderly fellow, but could hear a dove landing on a marshmallow all the way back home in Alabama. Amy, shocked, looked at the man who held the door open for her every morning.

‘That wall could use a tank. Of fish, Frank. You know, like the Japanese. A long tank of exotic fish. They say watching fish is good for the nerves and cures cancer.’ Amy looked Frank square in the eyes. ‘I read that in Forbes. How are the grand kids?’

‘Very good, Miss.’ Frank smiled with perfect understanding, and humiliation should have been the word of the day, but Amy couldn’t care less. This was a freaking awesome day, like the last three days, like every day!

Amy skulked the two spankers. The waiting area was on the corner adjoining the elevators. Amy pretended to push the button, then sat bored on a chair at the corner in a perfect position to listen without being seen. Trace, the secretary, clickclacked her way from the entrance towards the elevators. She’d probably push the elevator button, the bitch. Amy loved hating the little cute blonde.

‘So, I mean, you haven’t seen her before?’ That was Mr. Finch.
‘No.’

‘So, I mean, will she go back? Be… will she go back?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Well… the other one. The older one. Is she—‘

‘Man, that girl is hot.’

‘Who, that blonde?’

‘No, idiot. The older one. Oh, but yeah. That blonde is hot toooooo trot.’

‘Yeah. But about the younger one. With brown hair. Is she a member, or whatever? Is she ever going to be there again?’

Amy chewed on the marble corner. It was just too delicious.

‘Amy, how are you!’ Tracy Gould was a perfect little blonde centerfold, but Amy hated her even more now as she pushed the button for the elevator and continued to pretend to have human emotions. ‘You look so pretty today!’ All Amy heard was “You don’t normally look pretty!”

Bitch.

Amy had a glorious morning of work, then a glorious Chinese lunch, then she walked the halls of power to her office when she came across Mr. Finch in an empty office. He looked very, very strong. Not bulky, but solid. Amy leaned on the open door’s frame and watched him measure the window with his tape. She liked a man that measured his territory. He looked very, very strong. She knew he had a Hell of a swing with a paddle, but she didn’t know how good he was at pulling hair and biting. There was, sadly, only one way to find out.

‘Moving in?’

So cute! He jumped and dropped his measuring tape. He looked bashful, then recognized Amy, and took a few steps towards her, trying and failing to keep cool. Amy kept her position, feeling powerful, and smiled at him. She thought about bending over for him to get spanked and how funny that thought was when the reality was she had all the power in the whole damn world. Hell, she had so much of the power that it seemed only fair to take a spanking from him. From time to time. To keep things interesting.

‘Miss…’

‘Amy. My name is Amy Border. You working here now, Mr….?’

‘Bill Teller. Yes, for the a little while at least.’ He lacked guile, so stunning was the Amy before him. She reveled. Heather had snatched up this powerhouse of capitalism, and now Amy was going to break him into domestic obedience. She thought about the spanking, and how the memory of that humiliation would fuel her sexual power play. Poor bastard didn’t have a chance. But a tycoon like him must have good health insurance.

‘I’m in too good a mood for this.’ Amy smoked pot once in the Netherlands. That euphoria was nothing to how she felt now. ‘I’m going to give you all the power. Do you want to take me out to Italian tonight, or French? After the movie I’m picking.’ She smiled her big mouth smile, and didn’t even care.

‘Um… Italian?’

‘Good boy. Here’s my card. Pick me up at seven-thirty.’

Ahhhh… he was bashful AGAIN. ‘Ah, well, the thing is I don’t—‘

‘Teller, you got those—excuse me, Miss Border.’ It was Childe, the building super. A mean little man of dubious morality and stained overalls, probably stained with the blood of the people he kept in his cellar. ‘Er, Teller, you got the measurements?’

‘Yes, Mr. Childe,’ Bill pulled a note pad out of his pocket. ‘But I need to make two more—‘

‘So you don’t have the measurements, do ya? Why are you in that suit?’

‘I’m going to the circumcision of a friend’s kid in an hour. On my lunch break.’ He wasn’t submissive. Not at all. He acted very straight, but subordinate.

‘Errrrr….’ Childe growled and glowered. ‘How very touching. Get the measurements to me so I can do my job, freelance! Miss Border.’ Childe nodded, then scurried off to go kill some butterflies or something.

‘The thing is, Amy, I don’t own a car at the moment.’

‘You,’ Amy pointed. ‘Are maintenance?’

‘No, I’m a subcontractor for the renovation. Carpentry.’

‘Oh. Your firm owns an architectural business…’ And your chauffer has SARS, right?

‘Er, no. I just started up a…a.., well it’s not a firm, really. Teller Carpentry. I’m not actually incorporated yet, with the State, but I’m working on that. You, I mean your firm, McClane Corp., subcontracted me to help Trant Designs to redesign some of the offices.’

And he’s wearing that suit, probably his best suit, because his Jewish friend’s kid is getting the snip. That suit he wore when he paddled Amy’s ass was the Club’s, just like her own hippy disguise was when she took the paddle. Oh, well Hell then! Idiot.

‘You know, Bill is it?, I have to work late tonight then, you know, take care of my neighbor’s dog. She’s in Seville. My neighbor, not the dog, which needs someone to, you know, look after. The dog, not my neighbor, who is in Spain.’ Really, none of that was a lie, except the part about her taking care of the dog because the neighbor took the dog with her for a dog show in Spain, so Bill’s reaction was totally unjust.

He looked down and aside, then halfway back at her, and smiled. ‘I understand.’ And he seemed to. Then he measured things. Amy would have preferred if he acted a little bit mean. Insufferable apathy. He was clearly hurt! What lower middle class man wouldn’t be? Get angry, carpenter!

Childe stuck his head in. ‘I don’t hear no measuring! Miss Border,’ The little troll nodded, and left. Amy followed. She had important work to do on convincing the Malaysian government to lax it’s restrictions on foreign junk food imports; specifically McClane Goodies’ new line: Snacktastics.

---

Amy’s gym hour was five to seven, PM. She often went back to work after, but she never missed her torture. Rank has it’s privileges, of course, so in fact she was at the gym from four to seven, but the first hour didn’t count on the sheets because Heather was an exercise nut. “Blood flow is good for the brain: the brain is good for the company.” Amy spent the first hour with the weights and aerobics and stretching or any combination of the equipment available, but she always ran the track from six to seven, PM.

Damn carpenter ruined her day. Amy, unlike most people, had goals. She couldn’t waste time dating some common worker that wears a cheep suit to his friend’s kid’s circumcision. Maybe an artist, sure, as long as he’s Pomo. Or a baseball player. A carpenter? Cocktail parties were the real engines of advancement. That’s were people climbed the ladder. What could Bill, cute as he was, do at a cocktail party full of the best and brightest?

Refresh drinks, that’s what.

Amy was not a snob, Amy told herself. It’s not about snobbery. She didn’t think her vote was more important than his. She didn’t think her life was more important than his in the larger scheme of things. She sped up her running machine, and explained to herself, in plain, simple reason, that she was not a bad person. It’s just that people want different things, and they want what they want, and it simply wouldn’t work. Best to just end it before it starts before anybody—Amy tripped and almost bashed her face into the churning rubber of the tread mill. She skinned a knee and both her palms. She jumped off.

Her legs (she’d forgotten she had legs) seared. Her tailor made shorts and sports bra, both black, were soaked in sweat. Her face dripped salty water. She felt like shit in the ocean. She realized how much skin her outfit showed, and felt a billion judging eyes on each inch of exposed flesh. She turned to the water fountain to see, because God hates snobs, Bill drinking from it. Then he returned to his weights and spotted for Mr. Hillbreaker but instead spotted Amy, and looked away as fast as lightning to help his older friend who struggled under way too heavy weights.

Amy looked on. ‘Damn it.’

Amy felt like absolute naked shit in an ocean, but there was nothing she could do about it because she was doing the right thing. She’d worked too hard to throw away her potential just to make a common Joe feel good about himself. Damnit.

God damn it.

This had to stop. The day had started so super awesome, and Amy, as a feminist, knew she had to do something to fix all reality. To take charge; to make change. Why the hell did she wear workout clothes that showed off 80% of her body?

The bulletin board frustrated things. Amy stood before it, in her tight little running shorts that showed off her bottom, which she was so proud of that morning because it healed so fast, and her bra and the gallon of sweat on her and her hair, and stamped her feet.

‘French maid… French maid… school girl… too light!’

‘Miss?’

Amy turned on the man in his fifties, balding, but taller than her by at least two inches. And built.

‘Miss, perhaps you would like a cup of coffee.’

‘You’re in on it, right? Forgive me, I’m new, but I’m a platinum member. You’re in on the, you know, game?’

‘Not a game. It’s a humanistic method. But yes, but also I think you should take a minute to calm down.’ He talked like a fucking shrink.

‘Buddy, don’t tell me what I should do. I need… damn it. Are you game?’

‘Yes, but—‘

‘No buts about it! Yes or no! Are you game or not?’

‘Yes.’ He shrugged in infinite patience.

‘What do you like to use? I don’t want any drawn acting. I want it hard, painful, and I want to beg for you to stop, and I want you to ignore me and just spank the shit out of me, because, buddy, I’ve been a horrible little slag of a bitch today. I want to get beaten with something that bruises every inch if my ass to the bone. What do you use for that?’

‘That would be the hairbrush.’

Amy grabbed her face then the man’s shoulders. ‘Perfect! Yes, of course. The hairbrush. Use the hairbrush on me. I want to be bruised after, understand?’

‘I do, but I think it would be better for you to take a minute in the lounge. Just a minute.’

Amy ground her teeth. ‘Don’t tell me what I need. Now take me to the room or whatever, and spank me till I beg you to stop, then start spanking me, understand?’

He sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘Good, because YEOUCH!!’ For an old man he had iron fingers, and those fingers twisted Amy’s ear, forcing her to bend over and march in step. ‘Jesus Christ, stop!’ It was difficult walking at half height, but Amy stumbled along. They turned a corner. Amy caught a glimpse of a few people passing and made their day, but she couldn’t focus. ‘Motherfucking asshole!’

‘That will cost you extra.’

A door slammed. Amy found herself in the middle of a library. It was all wood and filled with books and a big mahogany desk. It was beautiful. Old world. Very British.

‘Oh, I want this.’ Amy said, rubbing her ear while snapping out of her fury to look around in envy. ‘Do you know the designer? Woah, wait, that hairbrush is way too big. Go back to the desk and get a smaller—oof!’

The carpet was beautiful! Normally Amy didn’t go for gray, but it was so austere and fluffy that it made her a believer. Her fingers curled in the stuff, her nose bobbing against it smelling the history of gliding English hills for Churchill to immortalize. Thinking about how to get a hold of the manufacturer reminded Amy that she was an adult that absolutely didn’t need a spanking.

‘Wait wait wait…’

‘You asked for it, and you’re going to get it.’ Some shrink! Amy floundered and bucked until the man (she didn’t even know the man’s name) pulled her tight little black shorts down. She gasped. She was bare ass under the eyes of a strange old man. Her whole body turned into energy. Her toes curled, her eyes went blank. She was set for a spanking, and her brain was splendidly free of thought.

CRACKSMACKWHACKPLAMZINGZAM

Amy refused to scream. She bit her lip, looked forward, and took her spankings with dignity until spank twenty, when she screamed, “STOP! ENOUGH! I LIED!” but the fucking shrink ignored her. He brought that hairbrush down onto Amy’s perfectly spankable ass, then above his head before bringing it down again in less than a second. He didn’t stop or let up, but went cheek too cheek while Amy wailed, the pain building.

She cried and thought about how brave she was at first and cried harder.

‘I changed my mind!’ She heard herself say, but it came out more like ‘I… oh…ohangedohohoh -- OOOHHHHHHHHHH’

She stopped trying to get away. She gave up, and each smack was that much more painful. The pain built up so that she couldn’t feel the individual spanks, but only sensed a constant searing along with a regular CRACKING noise. She grabbed the legs of the chair she hung over, clenched her teeth, and stopped crying. She growled, her face stretched in agony and anger, but her eyes dried up for several minutes of bare bottomed misery, longer than she thought possible, until she thought about what a bitch she really was. Then she bawled.

The shrink patted her back until Amy caught her breath.

‘Ohhh…. I… goth.. gotche…. I’m, I’m, I’m soooooo sorrrryy…’

‘I know, baby.’

‘I, I, I, oh God, I don’t want to be… who I am. I mean I don’t mean to be who… ohhhhhhh.’

‘Baby, nobody does. Focus on actions, not identity.’

Amy cried again, and the Shrink waited out the tears, patting her lower back even though her tush and thighs were ever so available. A patient man can always outlast a woman’s tears, Amy thought as she finished up weeping. Is that what a man was? Is that what she should be looking for? A patient man?

‘Now, girl, you have to be punished for cursing.’ Amy moaned, but what she didn’t do was consider that she had a choice. She readjusted herself over the man’s knee. ‘I think ten good licks, where your bottom meets your thigh, should do it. Please ask for each spank, count it, thank me, then ask for the next. Understand?’

Amy gathered her mind together, her body no longer made of painful energy. Ten licks sounded horrible, but what choice did she have? She had to speak, or suffer further.

‘Yes, sir.’ What was the deal about the bottom meeting the thigh? ‘Si—sir? Can I have spank, please?’

‘Certainly.’

SMACK

‘Ah’ Amy breathed in. ‘AHHEEEEEEEEEEE.’ That was the absolutely worst place to spank! ‘Sir! Sir! Don’t… I mean, One! Sir! May I have another spank someplace else, sir, please!’

‘Sorry.’

SMACK

‘GAAAHHHHHH…. Ahhhhhh…. Ohhhhhh….’

‘Well?’

Amy fell limp over the man’s knee. She murmured and sniffled. She thought about asking for another spank, but she might as well have day dreamed about flapping her arms to the moon. She was done. She mumbled for mercy, but the Shrink must not speak Mumble, because he spanked her twenty times on that crease between the butt and the thigh. Amy was too weak to move, but she could still scream.

The ordeal over and her shorts in place, she stood a broken wench of a girl, shamelessly rubbing her bottom before a man she’d only just met, while said man lectured her on the need to be patient with oneself, and not self-torture because of intrusive thoughts, whatever the Hell that means.

‘Any questions?’

‘Yes,’ Amy sniffed, still rubbing with abandon, like the harlot she felt like. ‘Are you a psychiatrist?’

‘Yes, but my slots are full for three years. I can refer you to an excellent man. Went to The Harvard with him…’ A little bit of insolence returned to Amy’s heart, but she kept it out of her face.

---

Amy bounced into the emergency meeting. Amy’s boss was in a panic, her favorite on American Idle had been kicked off last night, her ass was blue and purple from the therapy session with the shrink’s hairbrush the day before, Dr. Wong was on vacation while Amy was out of magical Asian butt-soothing cream, Trace brought her decaf that morning, and the sky was falling – but for the love of all the saints and friars, LOOK AT HER fucking HAIR. Got any thicker some game hunter will shoot her for a lion and mount her over the family fireplace, and Amy knew she would look awesome up there.

To sit was agony. But agony was only sensation, right? And didn’t sensation just mean you were alive? OH LIFE! OH LOVE!

‘In four hours, people,’ Heather said, pacing before the brain trust of McLane Corp., which consisted of Amy, Trevor, El Anji, Steff, Komo, and Ted, eying each other for fat prey. ‘we will have lost the cell-phone account.’

The room grew so cold Amy feared her eyeballs would freeze and role out of her head. Doom. The keystone to the Billboards and Promenade Project swept away. Millions lost. This was worse than New Coke in the Advertising Days of Myth and Legends, where so many heroes fell.

‘Smelling blood, the Union is threatening to call a vote.’

Amy looked around for a sword to fall on. She found a Sharpie pen in her purse, but that would hardly do the job. All of a sudden her ass hurt in a simple way; not at all life affirming.

‘Our worthy competition has a thing with a baby duck in it. My industrial spies couldn’t smuggle a copy out, but apparently it’s absolutely adorable. Coca Cola Polar Bears adorable!’

‘Oh,’ Bill said, marching into the office in manual labor clothes. ‘Sorry, I thought the room was—‘

Heather waved. ‘Go ahead and work! At least we’ll get something productive done today.’ Heather paced a bit. Bill, measuring tape in hand, shifted his head and looked Heather over askance. Heather, her back to him, could hear body language. ‘Work, work! And you people:

whatthefuckarewegoingtodo?’

Bill stayed out of the way, measuring, while the suits discussed possible new angles and fresh approaches. Amy refused to be distracted except when he bent over. Did he feel her eyes on his ass when bent over? Amy doubted it. Most common men didn’t have that sense. He contently measured stuff as the rest of the room fell into pandemonium while Amy watched him when not in panic.

‘What aboooouuuuuuttttttt….’ Ted began. ‘A whole train of baby ducks following… ooh -- a mother duck?’

Anjii punched his left palm in triumph. ‘And one of them is a baby swan!’

‘What flibbertigibbet will buy… we’re panicking.’ Heather sank her face into her hands, her elbows on the table, shaking her tired head side to side. ‘Our brains are paralyzed. There isn’t time for a Chinese takeout break. We have to get lucky.’ She moaned. ‘Bill, what do you think?’

‘About what?’ He said, laying under the table. Amy and the rest leaned back and let their minds wander outside the box. He didn't touch Amy's leg, which annoyed Amy more than should would admit.

‘A commercial to sell cell phones.’ Heather’s face still cradled and hopeless.

‘Well, they’re useful, but people take them for granted. Especially teenagers that never lived without them. How about Romeo and Juliet?’

‘What about them?’ That was a slight improvement. Heather’s voice, head just an half inch off her fingers, cheered up from despair to mild confusion.

‘I mean the play. What if the Friar and Romeo had cell phones. Totally different ending. Something like that.’

Bill measured the table leg to leg, then crawled out from under of the table and started in on the window, which was massive. He rubbed his chin stubble (didn’t have to shave that morning for a religious rite of passage), and bit his lip. How best to start measuring this bad boy?

As Bill planned is measuring, the suits, one-by-one, turned their heads. Only Heather dared break the silence. ‘Bill… go on.’

‘Hmmm? Oh, well, ya know,’ Bill kept his eyes on the window, strategizing. ‘Like, Romeo is there in the graveyard, or cave or whatever it was…’

‘Capulet Family Crypt.’ Noted Amy, who was rewarded with a chorus of ‘shhhhs!’

‘Yeah, it was a crypt. So Romeo is there, and he’s about to drink poison, then “Take Me Down to Funky Town” ring tone goes off. He answers it with his other hand, and the Friar says, “Romeo, listen, I gave Juliet this sleeping pill, to fake death, but she’s not really dead. So don’t do anything stupid.” Romeo looks at the poison in his other hand. He says, “Yeah, right. What, you think I’m stupid? Yeah, I’m cool. Later.” Then he stares at the poison, thinking, “WHAT AM I STUPID?” because everyone I know wanted to slap him the whole play, right? I mean, calm down, teenager, you don’t have to go to the max every second. Then Juliet wakes up and says that thing she says. Like, “Romeo, Romeo, where fort are’t my – oh, there you are. Hey, what’s that?” Romeo has to act fast, so he switches poison with cell phone, dropping the poison behind his back on the sly, and says, “Hey! I was just text messaging to find out where the party is tonight. You know, killing time until you woke up.”

Bill walked to the window. He measured from the left to right, then up and down. ‘Oh!’ He turned with his hands out and his eyes ablaze, unaware that the thrill of epiphany lit up his spirit. ‘Then, as the camera pans out while to two lovers kiss, the narrator says… what’s the name of the firm? Whatever, Brand X cell phones. The voice reads while the words come on screen, “Brand X cell phones: turning sad endings into happy endings.” Then Bill got back to the window.

Heather checked her watch. She then, after closing her gaping maw, and calm and cool like a lady, turned back to her crew. ‘I hope to God each and everyone of you got that.’ The peons nodded. ‘Ted, get that down to the patent office immediately.

‘Except,’ Amy said, a little flushed herself. ‘It’s turning tragedies into comedies.’

‘Good,’ Heather pointed at Amy to confirm, which always gave the young woman a thrill.

Bill snapped his fingers. He said to himself, ‘that’s the names. Tragedy and comedy.’

Heather pressed on Ted. ‘Just the basics, we can amend it later. Gogogo.’ Ted almost made a Ted sized hole in the door. ‘Amy, get the complete screenplay from the internet on your laptop, and get the multimedia engines up. Trevor, organize the IT guys and give them the specs. Komo, contact the clients and tell them we are going to knock their socks off in one hour. Anji, Steff – you’re presenting Romeo and Juliet. Get into character and work out your acting and dialog. Fuck if you have to. It’s time to sweat, so Go people!’

Amy was so excited in the group effort and the taste of hope that she only snuck one peek at Bill bending at the window three or four times. Her own aching ass escaped her attention entirely.