Reform

Chapter One

Adventures in Accounting

High school bites twice as hard the second time around

Fate had me pulling secretarial work for the Matron the day Foxtrot caught Ashley St. Croix snooping around the South Fence. I didn’t know Ash very well in those days. She was just another one of us bad girls that learned some things too slow, other things way too fast, for the society to tolerate. I noticed her because I envied her ears, but hadn’t said more than ten words to her since she transferred into Reformatory Southdown a week before.

Foxtrot lurched Ash into the office while I straightened out the accounting records and filled in the intern checklist homework for Professor Henderson‘s Life Micromanagement class which is just a long way of teaching me to balance a checkbook.

I heard the report of this wicked violation (which wasn’t anymore detailed than what I’ve already written) and Matron thanked her grounds keeper/thug Foxtrot, who promptly left in the stiff manner of a mummy released to visit evil on all mankind and mow grass. I bet he eats puppies. A hunched back would have looked good on him. Matron told him to close the door behind him, and he did, an evil grin on his crusty old puppy-eating face. I saw this on the sly, because I didn’t want him to see me or look at me or think about me or anything with me. Or to me.

It didn’t take long for the first cracking sound. I felt no suspense over any possible mercy on the part of Matron Danielle Gregor because she didn’t have any. She did have a lot of canes: all identical. I never measured one, but they were long and thick and could bend in half without breaking. I saw a cane in an old movie once. English cane. Gregor’s canes were exactly the same except the handles didn’t curve, and the manufacturers used about ten pounds more wood, either to improve the durability, or to make it a lethal weapon.

Each would eventually break, of course, but don’t worry sweetheart, Matron always had another one.

She didn’t use anything else on us. I suppose all the professors had their favorite. I know Henderson favored the hairbrush, probably as an excuse to get a girl over her lap like a Sadistic Santa Claus. She wasn’t so bad though, not cruel, just a capitalist opportunist like you’d expect an economics professor to be. Coach Van Brown liked her paddle so we could really feel the burn. Her brain was empty except for a couple hundred insipid slogans. Favorites or not, every goon around Reformatory Southdown dished out variety on us except for old Danielle Gregor, Matron.

She was probably beaten viciously with a cane as a youth so often she confused cane strokes with love and she had an awful lot of love to give. Probably just the results of a joyless and painful childhood -- at least, oh God on High, I hope so. Please don’t think me low. I don’t approve of hurting children, but in retrospect that bitch deserved a bad childhood.

CRACK! Four seconds. CRACK! I’m pretty good with numbers; that’s why I frequently get this accounting job. I couldn’t help but count poor Ash’s punishment. Numbers are amazing. Just from the number of CRACKS and number of seconds or minutes between them I can paint you a pretty good scene of the room:

Obviously, there’s an ill-fated girl bent over a big mahogany desk, holding onto it for dear life. Her black uniform skirt is up, her white cotton standard issues are down to her knee high socks, and just after CRACK four her white blouse is a little damp with sweat. The CRACKS this time didn’t pause at two or three, which meant Matron had every intention of given out 12 straight. This meant Matron was angry. Usually she’ll stop at 2 and walk around the desk you’re over, whipping or bending the cane, all smiles, waxing philosophic on ethics, crime and punishment; but nobody can quote her because all anyone over that desk can think about was how much time was left before the bitch completed the circle and got-ta spanking.

I’ve been over that desk only on arrival; kind of a “welcome to the party” assorted gift basket of pain, humiliation, and caste classification.

I got six cuts of that lovely phallic symbol. My pride held in my screams and begging until half a second after stroke one. I thought she was going to cut me in two. She didn’t, and I didn’t pray for death, just a swarm of locusts or an earthquake or anything that would stop that devil woman from getting around to stroke two while she demonstrated the nature of unlimited power. God must have been busy planning another universe or something, because He didn’t send locust one. Not one manna Happy Meal from Heaven.

Gregor sent me five more fire demons, all fresh from Hell.

I didn’t hear anything from Ash. Maybe she grunted, or gasped, or some other noise I wouldn’t hear through a door.

I nailed it. Gregor didn’t stop at six. She stopped at twelve, idly walked, a little intoxicated with puissance and adrenalin, to face Ash, leaned over nice and slow, her face hard as rock, all this just to ask a question. Very inefficient.

Now, since the only reason to snoop around the South Fence is to escape, and since Gregor knows full well that only a newbie like Ash didn’t know that nobody can escape through the South Fence because there is nothing to hide behind while sneaking up, because of all the damn cameras, infrared cameras, and sound detectors, because of the miles of untamed wilderness between the Fence and the next road, and because of the nearby stable full of nervous horses that nay at any stranger in the night, Gregor isn’t asking Ash about partners in crime, as nobody was or is stupid enough to partner up with a newbie. No, Gregor is asking Ash if Ash understood the error of her ways.

Now Gregor is giving Ash some time to catch her breath and think seriously about the path she’s on and how taking the road less traveled is for free poets, not convicts over a desk, ass in harm’s way. Well, folks, what can I tell ya: Ash took the road less traveled.

And that made all the difference.

On the issue of sitting down for a few weeks, anyway. Now let me impress you some more with my perspicacity. After Ash said nothing, or said whatever Gregor didn’t want her to say, Gregor took off her jacket, folded the sleeve of that dour white blouse, face all smiles because now she had a challenge and a blank check, and put herself into educating the ignorant wench. The rate of fire went from four seconds to three seconds, and the CRACKS went from CRACKS to CRACKS. As loud as I’ve ever heard them, and most days I hear them three times a day.

Twelve more times Matron Gregor, biting her lip, raised that cane over her shoulder before bringing it down with all her might. I could see it perfectly in my head. Tall, long blonde hair tied in a somehow conservative pony tail, strong Amazonian muscles working in perfect unison, like a pitcher throwing a fast ball with everything he has from his hair to his toes—and that cane strained to the max to keep up with her.

Not a peep from that crazy girl made it through the door to me, who, by this time, stared at the door in amazement.

You might think, dear readers, that only a callous cold fish wouldn’t cry a river of empathy for the poor girl over that desk. Dear Readers(whom I hope paid full price for this book and didn’t go cheep and buy second hand), canings happen all the time here. It’s a fact of Reform life to which one must adapt. I’ve received my share of Old School correction, though I’ve succeeded in avoiding Gregor’s wrath since my homecoming, a laudable record.

You avoid it when you can, you take it when you must. I’ve heard a thousand beatings through that door, and each time the girl came out alive. Broken, pissed, embarrassed, sometimes even aroused—all emotions of the living.

“Ash’s Stand,” as I think of the event, was different. Never heard a girl take the Matron’s best without howling through the door. Never even heard of it, and gossip is the coin of the realm around here. Well, cold cream is also legal tender since cold hard cash grew more and more scarce. And sure, tough-guy girls may brag about getting through six or twelve CRACKS without begging for mercy, or calling on Jesus, but we all yell ourselves hoarse by the end.

24 down, and no Jack Bauer to the rescue. Another pause, and here my magical powers of deduction failed me. I was certain, positive, Ash would come to her senses and give the Matron whatever the fuck the Matron wanted.

CRACK!

Twelve more times. No peeps. No howls, no nothing. I saw the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire once. I loved the outfits everyone wore, like what they wear in the Florida Freehold during the summer except not yellow because the Romans’ didn‘t worship the sun. I’m no historian, but I’m pretty sure the Romans didn’t worship Mickey Mouse, either.

Other than fashion, what I remember about the flick was some savage German warlord putting a torch up to James Mason’s hand to get him to scream. No dice, Mr. Warlord. The warlord was so impressed he threw his icon into the fire and applied for classes in Roman stoicism.

I didn’t have an icon or a fire, so I Just sat there, transfixed, while a girl had her soft little bare bottom dipped into a tank of piranha without a sound of protest.

There are always laws. Everywhere you go. Laws are a universal problem. One of them said no more than 36 acts of cane justice on a girl’s supple heinie[1] at any one time. This might be the first time that particular legislation ever had an impact, but it did, and I’m grateful to whichever statesman pushed it through, or, more likely, the lobbyists that pushed the statesmen through.

Three minutes after the last CRACK the Matron’s door opened and I got my first real look at Ashley St. Croix beyond her ears. She opened the door, closed it, and shouldered the frame with all her weight. Mid twenties. Her long red hair looked like she tested wind tunnels for a living(canings do that, with all the thrashing of the neck and gnashing of teeth). Her face was downcast, self-conscious, and exhausted. I didn’t see one tear. She had made an effort to get her uniform sharp, but you‘d need an iron to get the ruffles out of your uniform after even a moderate beating, much less the legislative limit.

Our uniform was well thought out. The white blouse coated with some fancy chemical so that when they shine this blue light in the night it glows like a supernova in the darkness. The sleeveless black vest sweater for winter is good enough for our day to day lives, but wouldn’t be much good in the woods, not for days. The skirt is black and short so the thicket would cut our legs to ribbons. Socks were knee high to keep us warm, but they slipped down when running. Annoying as Hell when you’re late for class. And finally the shoes. Comfy if you aren’t running to class, and they clickity-clacked like a horse cop on Bourbon Street.

So much to explain about our little world.

I studied Ash’s face the hardest. She looked focused on merely existing, and maybe a little traumatized, but mostly focused. Otherwise she was tallish, but a half foot below the Amazon on the other end of the cane Ash only moments ago met intimately. Her features were striking, strong, and beautiful in a just off way like a tilted panting.

As I said, her whole body screamed exhaustion. She might have slid down that door frame any moment. She breathed, looking down, her hands on the wood, and breathed for a minute more. I don’t think I breathed once. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to rush to her, sooth her, help her to bed so she could rest on her tummy. But I didn’t know her.

She took a deep breath, let go of the door frame, and minced her way across the office, one hand on her battered bottom, the other on my desk for support. Her face twisted up the instant her hand made ass touchdown, then melted back into an expression that screamed “I could sleep on a bed of angry porcupines.” She moved too fast and had to stop. She faltered just a smidge, but it was excuse enough. I stood up and walked to her side. I put my hand on hers. She was slouched over a bit, so our eyes were level when they met.

‘Next time,’ she said. ’I’ll wear my work clothes. I wont look so out of place.’ Fat chance. They keep the work clothes locked up when not in use like a Swiss banker hides gold.

‘Nobody can escape through the South Fence.’

‘Yes, a person can, but I wasn’t trying to escape.' Her voice was throaty, rich and beautiful. 'I can smell gasoline a mile away. It’s my favorite smell. I just followed my nose.’ She pulled her hand out from under mine, patted mine, then both her hands messaged her fanny. She closed her eyes allowing me to study her face without feeling rude. She winced and gritted her teeth. She massaged her wounds with a rueful face, but no anger.

‘See you around.’ I couldn’t place the accent, not with so few words. Southwest maybe. Best guess was the Arizona Complex, but there was a force to her tone that screwed up my measurements. An originality.

She turned from me and minced to the hallway. She took deliberate, small steps, and rubbed her cotton padded rump over her skirt.

‘How do you know a reformer can escape through the south fence?’

‘Because a person can do anything.’

I felt weird. Not bad, not good. Can’t describe it better than that. Don’t know any word for it other than “weird.” I sat down and pretended to finish the accounting. I would have actually finished the accounting, but it was already finished, and I was too afraid of handing it over to Gregor at the moment. She might be furious over the recent Phyriic Victory of the Cane against Ash’s gluteus. Sure sure, Ash’s rump suffered greatly, but Ash never said uncle, and warfare is about will, not pain.

If Gregor boiled over, and she saw me, she would see something. Anything. Any violation of the myriad rules, no matter how trivial, and then she’d… well, figure it out. Actually, she’d more likely abuse her discretion with the subjective violations, like slouching or, my favorite, “untoward tone, expression, or aspect.” What the Hell does that mean? Then it would be Danielle Archer’s turn over the desk, screaming my head off(we have the same first name because Life likes to make fun of me). I hate the cane. I would confess to being a DDU spy if it would save me from one cut. So I stayed at my desk, head down, going over the numbers, while Gregor no doubt fumed.

Know your enemy.

Five minutes later the light on the phone went off that meant Gregor was using hers. Five seconds after the light went out she stormed out of her office, a cane in hand, and barked. "They need me in the dorms. I’ll be back in ten minutes. Twenty minutes, and I want that work done by the time I get back unless you think you can do math better standing up with tears in your eyes.’

The dorm was going to catch Hell. The trick to surviving trench warfare is not to be where the mortar shells land. If I had gone into that office, I would have gotten a spanking fit for three girls on my only ass. Instead, in her fury, she had called the dorm goonlets to round up recent offenders or usual suspects.

A goonlet is generally a despicable creature. Their Latin name is “trusty.” Suck-ups, sadists, and sans scruples. You can tell them by bright red armbands and the weapons they carry. Hairbrushes, straps, straps cut into ribbons, paddles, anything but the cane, no doubt for insurance reasons. Goonlets are the most common source of tanned fannies; the sun coming in at a close second.

One Goonlet was cool, sort of a double agent. Goes by Alexia Glatzer. Normally I’d call her to tell our mutual friends to dig a hole, jump in, then pull the dirt over themselves and stay until the dragon goes back to her mountain, but Glatzer would be in the gym about then, taking the lazy reformers to the woodshed and pretending to beat them. Some, of course, she would beat, the ones she couldn’t trust, or Senator Gail, or girl’s Coach Van Brown was likely to inspect, but hey—no matter how sneaky, no matter how careful, no matter even how obedient, sometimes you are going to catch a spanking, so hold on tight and think of England.

But not for my friends today; not if I could help it. I opened the window and looked for a homing pigeon. I found one three stories down tending a rose garden. A senator no less.

Senator Gail sat in the rose garden on rose garden tending duty, petting one of the FA’s dogs on their monthly inspections. They were cute, though I never really Old Yellered up to them because I knew those beasts could snap me in half with one bite. The FA only sent female agents for such inspections, so the closest thing we gals got to boydom was a friendly bomb sniffing dog trained to eat people.

‘Gail. Hurry, the wind’s blowing… shit…. East!” The forlorn Pincher barked and stretched his lease at Senator Gail as she off and ran towards the dorm, or “the East,” or I hope “the East”, but maybe Gail thought “the East” was the stables further down beyond the dorms. The problem is that girls are cliquish, easily bored, and never ever satisfied. Some of the girl‘s have their own little code, or change the code when they get bored or suspect the goonlets have decoded it, or just for the plain old fun of it—then they tell one or two people.

If Gail had gotten into a fight with her roommate Heather since yesterday(I put it at fifty/fifty), then Gail wouldn’t know Kathy Toro and Katherine Winterborn got into a huge fight after the breakfast coding session over what should be what and the whole thing broke down along party lines and I and a few others have been spreading the word to go with Kathy T and next week Katherine will get to decide the code all by herself because the time has come for all good men to come to the aid of their party.

If Heather used Senator Gail’s soap on a rope again, plenty of my friends would catch it, and a lot of horses would panic for no good reason.

Hell with it. I collected my work, and walked into the lion’s den while the lion was out torturing elk. I set the work down on the lion’s otherwise bare desk, then did a little detective work. Ash’s sweaty palm prints were still there, a little faded, at the far corners of the desk. Only the pair of them. That meant that Ash stretched herself all the way over, just to get that bottom a little higher and give that sting a touch more agony, but didn’t even move her palms once. I banged my hands after each teeth jarring, pride erasing cut I got.

Maybe there was something wrong with her spinal cord?

I turned to leave and that’s when it happened. The reason most of you are probably reading this autobiography. If time reversed and I’d idly turned on that spot a hundred times I don’t think I’d see it again. On the accounting sheets we use there is a red horizontal bar on the top right of the page, and one or two vertical black bars: one bar for the Federal Associated States funds accounts, two for private school funds owned by private non-profits. There, sticking out of a not quite closed briefcase on matron’s chair, was a little bit of paper with a red horizontal bar, and three vertical black bars. Not one or two, but three bars.

You might be wondering why I’m in this horrible place, getting my twenty-three year old nether cheeks spanked on the state’s dime and society’s profit. What terrible crime put me into four years of constant fanny tanning danger? I assure you, it wasn’t respecting people’s privacy.

---

[1] My spell checker doesn’t recognize “heinie”. Preposterous.

OK, digging deep to post

First, happy 4th of July! Up the rebels, down the British! No taxation without lame-ass, corrupt representation!!

There, now that I've alienated the largest spanko demographic in the world, I can continue with the news.

Second, I've got a three day weekend and I hope to write another chapter to something. I also hope to get Christie Brinkley on the re-bound.

Third, just to prove I'm still lingering, I'm going to post the first chapter to my magnum opus, my book length spanking novel I wrote a year or so ago. Yes, yes, I know--It's just like the long awaited Guns and Roses CD. If you are given to fainting, tie pillows around your head and don't hold a hot cup of coffee. Safety first, cuzz baby, it's red hot. I like to think of the work as a mixture of Heinlein and... well, Heinlein. He was a perv.

However, the ugly fact is that, while I dote on my beloved creation, I'm not one-hundred percent happy with the first chapter. So, comments are welcomed. Who am I kidding--comments are craved. Like, crack addict craved. I'll take any advice except "too many notes".

I don't yet plan to post the whole book, but I think I may post the second chapter some time in the near future.

Don't tread on me!!

PB

I still know, damn it.

This cowboy story just propped up in my head. Why, PB, don't you continue one of your many started stories?

Good question. Too damn good for me to answer.

PB

Who Wears the Pants?

Who Wears the Pants?

Chapter One

Hand Talkin

Roy Leiter trotted his horse down Last Town Road. Last Town’s water well dried up years ago, he was told, and the citizenry moved almost every bit of wood east three miles to a more reliable river. There was a lot of “I told you so’s” for a time, but equilibrium returned. It only took ten years.

Roy took Austin out for a good trot every Saturday. He sometimes went North or East or South, but this time he went West, and when he headed back to town he came across the last vestiges of Last Town being put to use. A horizontal horse post, once for the sheriff’s office, was the only wood left behind. Some said because it was wood-eating worm ridden. Others said it was a bad luck post because three horses lost their teeth within a month after being tide down. A quiet majority believed that Sheriff O’Keefe was a fat, lazy drunkard no-good shiftless son-of-a-bitch didn’t want to upstake and haul any horse post.

The post was at work now. Roy’s long sight wasn’t all that good, but his ears worked ok and he could here a belt whipping across the plains long before the blur turned into an Indian woman draped over the horse post, her bottom bared and catching hell from the long belt of a big bellied giant. There wasn’t a sound from the squaw, but the music of leather and hide was loud enough for Roy to sneak up on the two newly weds discussing proper behavior.

‘Er… pardon me.’ Roy said from the top of Austin. The man didn’t seem to notice, and he continued his attentions. The woman quivered under the husbandly duties, but she said not a word of thanks. Roy got down and tapped the man on the shoulder, a foot taller than his own. He whirled, a stream of white hair from a birthmark adding a touch of flair to the act, distracting Roy from the belt hand up and ready to go. “Ah! Er… pardon me.’

‘Can’t you see I’m negotiating?’

Not many teeth, but his breath was enough to make a man standing too close drunk.

‘Yes, I was just wandering if…’ It then occurred to Roy that he hadn’t the faintest idea what he was doing. ‘It just seems that this is something that should be done indoors.’

‘She’s mine! I caught her, so I’m the one that skins her when she runs. And she runs!’ Roy assumed he meant “ran.” Three more blistering licks to the fine hide before Roy tapped the giant on the shoulder a second time. The giant grew frustrated. The Indian, looking more curious than impatient for more punishment, looked over her shoulder. Roy only glanced at her, but was a little struck by her almost serene face. There was a definite strain around the eyes, and the lips were pressed closer than looked natural, but otherwise she seemed quite together. She must appreciate a guiding hand, even a public one.

Glance over, Roy got back to the belt wielding monster.

‘Women sometimes want attention and, yes, I agree, they sometimes “runs” to get it, but you see, that doesn’t address my point, which is, you can do this indoors. That’s probably a law. See, you’re disturbing the public peace.’

The giant looked around at all the nothing. Roy looked too, longer than the giant did, at the vast wasteland of scorpions and lonely cacti around them but eventually he had to face the man he spoke that nonsense to.

‘Well I’m the public. Now let her up and we can go into town and you can rent a room and discuss your marital problems in a more…’ Roy had never been punched in the face before, but he guessed the giant had done it right when he woke up a minute later. His legs didn’t want to admit they were connected to his body, but his eyes worked OK, giving him two clear pictures of everything. For a short distance anyway, which is all he needed to study the bare foot squaw and her two seared bottoms.

The red skin’s rear end skin wasn’t red, but crimson with blotches of purple and blue and white. If her sitter were twice its normal size due to the thrashing then her seat at the obedient times was twice the normal size of the average white woman’s. Her waist was thin, but her bottom was huge and would go loose, tense after a lick, then stay tense a few seconds, then relax just in time for another lick. The woman never made a sound, but her straining muscles couldn’t lie.

After a time of reflection, Roy got up, retrieved his hat, and shook some dirt off.

‘I see you don’t want to talk. I’ll just get on my horse.’

‘Do that!’ WHACK WHACK WHACK. He whipped up a “gurrah!” at last from the obstinate creature. It was low and constrained, but it was a start. ‘Ah! So you can feel. I tell you, savage, my arm was spent, but I think you’ve just given me another hour of effort. So lets decide once and for all who you belong to.’ The woman craned her neck to set her eyes square on the large man’s eyes. She stretched her shoulders, set her chin, and dared him on. He laughed. ‘One… two… three-’

Roy drove Austin into the giant at a high gallop. It was remarkable to see a man fly like a bird, indeed, but Roy was more preoccupied with his horse and her victorious neighing. She seemed to enjoy the act of knocking that bastard down. Well, knocking him nine feet over, and four feet down from his hips. Why? Roy’s mind catalogued several possibilities:

1. Austin didn’t like a man punching her master.

2. Austin didn’t like a man who beat another woman, same species or not.

3. Austin didn’t like people.

4. Austin’s shoulder was out of sorts, and needed a jolt.

5. Animals like to attack other animals.

Roy choose to operate on number one. Roy got off Austin, pet her, fed her the sugar cube he’d saved for his coffee but didn’t use because he hated sugar in his coffee, and decided that any or all of the possibilities he could live with. He never beat Austin. He preferred giving the cold shoulder for punishments, not that the mare needed many.

He walked over to the sleeping giant and took his gun belt and pistol. That it was heavy and ugly was all Roy could think, not knowing its name. Six shooter. It wasn’t a Colt, which is all he knew for small arms. Well, it didn’t really matter. Roy took the bullets out of the pistol and the belt, put them in his pocket. He did a little math in his head. Figuring done, he put a dollar in one of the bullet rings of the belt, and dropped it on the sleeping nephilim.

He got that feeling of being watched. Looking over his shoulder he got his first good look at the squaw’s face. She wasn’t pure Indian. Something about her was white, or maybe chinaman, Roy couldn’t tell. And maybe a little Mexican. Or Arabian, but Roy had only seen the one in his life. He couldn’t begin with the mystery of her, but he could see the cold eyes and colder mouth, and the lines of strain and her sweat. He unsheathed his knife.

‘OK, now look. I know I hit your husband with my horse, but that’s no reason to hit me, OK?’ She didn’t move or express emotions of any kind as far as Roy could tell. ‘I could leave you here, and your husband would cut you loose when he wakes up, but it doesn’t look comfortable, and there might be an ant hill around here. So I’m going to cut you loose, but don’t hit me, or Austin here will kick you.’

He stood behind her bent form and got to sawing her bonds off, but he ran into an insurmountable problem. No bonds. He couldn’t help but smell her while he searched for some rope. If smells could be seen, this smell would be pretty.

Her hands weren’t bound, but instead held onto loops which she let slip. She stood up and lowered her dress. It wasn’t a real dress. Not a proper dress. Whatever tan cloth the Indians wore was ragged and short around the bottom. Very un-Christian, but that was to be expected with a savage. Someone had taken a pare of scissors to cut the rag in half to show off the stomach and lower back, and the slight frock showed all of her arms and legs and stomach without shame. Shameful! Roy had never seen such a thing since he left New Orleans and all her bars three months ago. He stood and sheathed his knife and concluded that she was probably a Mormon.

Whatever she was, she didn’t rub her sitting fat. Didn’t look to cry neither.

Something about her. She wasn’t a proper Indian, not that you could always tell. Lots of different types, even after President Jackson. Roy couldn’t help but stare, though he knew it was rude. She was darker, and her eyes were slanted a bit and her hair was softer than what her heard Indian hair would be, but raven dark and soft, yet she looked strong.

Roy walked over to the giant’s horse, tied it to the recent whipping post, and took the bullets from the rifle and the belt. He had to put three bills into the holster to make amends. He shook his head at the expense. The men in his family were never very good at money. Like water in a clenched fist. He removed the saddle from the brute’s horse and rubbed the beast’s back until the blood flew right.

‘So, I’m sorry I hit your husband with my horse. He’ll wake up. Well… see ya around.’ She just stared at him. ‘Do you speak? English? Deutsch? Latin… no, I guess that’s stupid. Besides, I can barely… I mean there are two poems I’m pretty good at and an essay by Seneca but on the whole… so… are you angry? No? Good.’ She kept looking at him with that blank face that scared him a little though she didn’t quite reach his shoulders and he still had Austin for defense.

Roy got up on Austin, and went East. After about a minute he noticed the Indian girl walking along in his wake. He stopped Austin. She stopped too. Roy offered her his cantina. She drank it, then put it back into place on the saddle before resuming her vigil. Her head down and submissive.

‘I see.’ Roy hadn’t shaved that morning, and the bristles on his chin rubbing against his hand helped his brain to sort the sundries out. ‘I’m starting to think you two aren’t married, and if a man is whipping a woman that isn’t his wife, then I’m guessing that woman isn’t submitting to that whipping like a dutiful wife. Frank Johnson never ties up Victoria when he whips her. She wouldn’t allow that, given her pride. From Virginia, you know. Prideful people. Not to say she’s a bad Christian, just that after God, Jesus, and a few others, she thinks she’s way up there on the righteous list. Maybe she is…’ Roy looked around. He didn’t find anything to help, so he looked back at the Indian maiden.

Had he rescued her from a tyrant? If he had, was he obliged to become her tyrant? In China, maybe. But what about the States? What would Mr. Jefferson say?

‘Well, OK. I can get you into town. It’s a ways, so…’ Roy stepped down from Austin. He gestured for the Indian to get up. ‘Get up. Go ahead, my legs could use a stretch. Now look, maybe you don’t understand English, but I’m sure you understand this!’ He gestured again. With both hands, but it didn’t help. She shook her head a little, side to side. ‘Pride!’

Nothing.

He took her arm as soft as he could and prodded her towards the saddle. She shook him off. She was strong. Roy held is arms out, palms up, and gave the woman a gesture that men have given women since ancient Egypt that asked, ‘Why?’

Roy saw her first expression. It was annoyance. She looked up at him with eyes that rebuked. He didn’t know what he’d said that upset her so, especially since she couldn’t understand a word he said. Maybe, in her tribe, it was insulting for a woman to ride when men walked. Maybe her tribe was like an Indian Virginia?

Roy’s deep contemplation ended after the Indian stamped her feet. She was very frustrated, just like Victory was before a whipping. Roy always suspected a connection, but here this Indian was just whipped, and harder than Frank ever whipped Victory, and Victory was always so nice after, yet this redskin was very frustrated. It didn’t make any dang sense.

The squaw regained control of her female pagan emotions, looked Roy blandly in the eye, and made an exaggerated show of rubbing her bottom. She then pat the saddle harshly, like she was spanking it, then rubbed her bottom again and made an exaggerated face of pain.

‘Oh! OK. I understand. You don’t want to… yeah, of course! Silly me. We’ll, lets just walk then.’ Roy led his horse into town, a flustered squaw walking stiffly in tow. ‘You know, people can get along if they’re patient. That’s what you need—a patient man. I’m sure you’ll find one, the towns’ bursting with all kind of men.’

PB

I know I know I know...

This site will survive! It will go on!

Eventually.

I'm hoping this weekend I'll have some time and energy to write... well, hell--anything. I blame No Country For Old Men for any delays, as since I got the DVD I've been forced, by moral imperative, to watch it again and again. I'm watching it now. I watch it when I sleep at work.

But don't give up on Proper Spanking Stories. This is only, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

Signing Off for now,
PallidBust

Who needs deconstructionism?

I've been reviewing my online works. After due consideration, I've decided that they are a lot better reads when read drunk. So, I advise you to have a drink. Vodka, whiskey... anything hard. Or, if you are a beer drinker, lots and lots of beer. Don't drive after--just read.

Cheers!

I'm fixing to get ready to continue one of my stories. Recently I've suffered an humiliating lack of self-control, and it has rocked my confidence. However, never say drink. I shall regain my self-worth. I'm drinking on it. I mean I'm working on it. More spanking stories drink. Soon. More spanking drinks soon.

PB

Tessy Plinkerton Saves Proper Chapter Two

The Long Pinch

I took an extra shift to cover Kitchy because she was so upset at loosing her sorority pledge to domestic bliss that Veronica and I felt the need to convince her that it would be a good idea to see her shrink before going to a bar full of boys to get drunk. So, at seven P.M., after the boss and the boss’s third wife had their turn fanning my fanny 44 times(which isn’t fair by half because the boss’s third wife wasn’t an employee and retained deceptively strong arms from her pole dancing days), I walked to my apartment, not too proud to give my rump an almost continual rub, public propriety be damned. My flank ached to the bone and almost everybody I knew had already seen it anyway.

I’d hate for creatures without stars on their bellies to rise up.

However, I was in a good mood as it was my most important birthday, though I served the office of a whipping girl and walked a beaten wreck.

I didn’t use my Segway to get to work because it wasn’t too much of a walk. See, in Proper, there is Proper proper, to the north where all the townies work; then there is Proper Suburb to the east of Proper proper, where all the townies live; and finally, three miles of open brush and highway south of Proper proper, loomed College Town where all the school kids, professors, and youth targeting businesses linger at sufferance. Plenty of “Open Space” laws restricted growth, so we’re bunched up pretty close.

A car seemed superfluous to me. Also I was poor.

But enough socio-economics. I just wanted to take off those damn shoes, shower, and get ready for a girls’ night out of drunken revelry and Devil-may-care abandon in sneakers. Not that I knew many girls. This was only my second semester in college, and the first one had been rather demanding. But I planned on making a bunch of friends this semester, as I’d found my academic stride, so to speak.

I lived on the first floor, and I was glad of it, as I didn’t want to stretch my hips any more than necessary. I opened my door, tossed my purse to the entrance table where I put my bills, and walked into an empty apartment. I blinked a few times, stunned, until the sound of my purse hitting the floor shocked me into the Spartan reality that was my abode.

‘Where’s all my shit?’

Living room: nothing. Kitchen: nothing. Bathroom: nothing. Bedroom: while nothing ever happened there, at least there used to be crap in there. Now—nothing. My pad looked like the day before I moved in, not the day it was made because the last tenet left a cigarette burn in the carpet that I hid under my potato-battery middle school science fair project that I’m not giving up on. I named the potato Paul Kersey. But now the project had given up on me, and there was that burn in the carpet. Mocking me.

I got mad, stormed to my door, opened it in, and stamped right across the sill to get punched in the eye and knocked on my Injun red ass.

‘Tessy!’ Curfew Mayday Moynihan, my apartment neighbor, pounced on me. I was too dazed to defend myself, which is just as well as I wasn’t being attacked. We’d only talked maybe half a dozen times, and I don’t recall calling her a name or anything to justify domestic violence.

‘You need to be less clumsy.’ She checked my pulse and did that horizontal finger move refs use on boxers that just got knocked down but wouldn’t stay down because it was all on the line.

On my back, I gave up on everything.

‘Why did you punch me?’

‘I did not punch you.’

‘Madam, you most assuredly, and admirably, punched me, not one minute ago.’

‘I reached out to knock on your door, then you opened the door and ran towards my knock. My knuckles connected with your… It was an accident and not my fault. I need to teach you how to duck.’

‘You didn’t come here to spank me, did you?’

‘Come again?’

She grabbed me by the neck, I shook her off and waited for sweet oblivion. This was as good as any place to die. Curfew disagreed. She grabbed me by the neck and pinched my arm and forced me not to give up and die on the floor. I resisted, but the pain in my arm proved I was still stuck with life so I went limp and let her put me on my… sigh. The sill of my door is hard wood, and Curfew plopped my clickerclackers down on it with all the grace of a monkey shot out of a tree.

‘What? Why are you making that face?’

‘Never-you-mind.’

There is a full length wall mirror that came with my now sparse and barren and desolate room for living, so I gave myself a look. ‘Fantastic. Hey, teach me a lesson in the other eye so I’ll look like a cute raccoon.’

‘I’m really, really, very not at fault.’

I don’t know why we humans do this, but I felt an uncontrollable urge to poke my swelling eye socket. It hurt, bad, did no good, yet I couldn’t stop. I watched myself, in the mirror, torture myself, for no damn reason. I didn’t even know anything about Al-Qaeda.

Curfew is about my height, same shade of Arian blonde as me (but an anti-fascist. I’m a Blue Dog democrat and I think she’s just a democrat), but she is cut a womanly-shape (a callipygian pulchritude was her physique) while I am a dipstick. She’s also a modern type girl from Oregon and a lot prettier than me, so it didn’t seem fair that she could, in addition, kick my country ass. My only hope at parity was a superior grace under pressure; like acting cool while having no property other than a spanked, pinched, black-eyed body on splintered feet.

‘Was I robbed or something? They did a Hell of a job.’ She grabbed my wrist and stopped my eye poking.

‘Stop it. No, our apartment building is condemned until the asbestos decontamination is completed.’ Do you know how Bruce Lee could throw a punch without actually moving his fist through space-time? It just happens, instantly, without increment of time or displacement? Fist by waist—Fist in face—Fist by waist, all at the same time? Well, I do, because I transported to the parking lot.

‘There’s asbestos in there!?!?!’

It took a few seconds for Curfew to catch up to me. ‘No. But we’ll have to move-out until it is removed.’ I closed my black eye and eyed her with my other eye. I even turned my head oblique to give my glare import.

‘Once again?’

‘You should really read the inter-apartment memorandums.’

‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘No doubt. Could you please speak plainly?’

She sighed, and my confused rancor knelt to envy for one fraction of a second. Boys must love how Curfew sighs. Guttural and long. ‘This complex is owned by a company incorporated in Delaware. However, a Mesothelioma lung cancer federal lawsuit in Ohio found for the plaintiffs, and the judgment requires all buildings owned by the company in the States to be evacuated and de-asbestosed.’

‘Even the ones without asbestos?’

‘Admittedly, the judgment is heavy handed.’ Curfew dressed like her airborne grand-father except for her running shorts, T-Shirt, and sneakers beaten so bad I could grok with them. I say she was airborne because she always carried this dark green messenger bag thingy she inherited from her greu-da(that’s what I called mine) that hung around the left shoulder but swayed around the right hip. It was bigger than a purse, covered with pockets inside and out, and bad-ass looking on her because she had that kind of internal self-love that didn’t feel foolish wearing military green canvas in a demilitarized zone.

‘I believe the issue has been appealed, and will be heard by the United States Supreme Court next year, a couple of months after the asbestos that isn’t there is removed according to schedule. However, delays are expected because of an upcoming union dispute.’

I mention her bag because it fascinates me as from it she could David Copperfield anything out of it. If she had been in the movie Back to the Future, the movie would have sucked because she would have said, “What, you need 1.21 gigawatts? No problem, got that right here next to the gum.” I assume she stores things alphabetically.

From her bag she now pulled a spray bottle, closed my right eye-lid, and sprayed molten lava into my face. I couldn’t move because she was so strong, but I could scream bloody murder, and I did. Passer byes were too drunk to help, so I writhed in agony alone.

‘Why are you doing that, bitch!?!?!’

‘I’m trying to help—‘
‘That’s the M.A.C.E. can not the medicine can, bitch!’

‘Don’t curse. My knocking on your door in conjunction with your failure to duck caused a slight cut on your mug.’ She put the can-o-lava away (I tried to run but she clamped my neck) and brought back a bottle of water she doused me with. Then she put away the water and brought out a towel to dry me up.

‘Holy Grail in there?’

‘Not yet. I do have Omega-8 fish oil pills. They’re good for youthful skin and prolonging brain functioning.’ She did have outstanding skin… ‘Look, Duck, your stuff was moved to a storage locker downtown.’ She gave me the information. ‘I got a line with a friend of mine. We can float you a couch to lay your hat until you score a pad. If you need it.’ She straightened my uniform.

She mollycoddled me and I let her. It felt good. I’d been so abused that day, and most of my life was spent as the baby of a large close-nit family, and Curfew was so damn dominate that getting pushed around and having my face washed and wiped was a nice break from homelessness.

Then, dear readers, I snapped. ‘I am not helpless!’ I stamped my foot, closed my eyes in shock, then knelt to the curb and sat on my red butt. I suspect moaned during the blackout.

‘Stop moaning, Duck. Lookit, we can—‘

‘Why are you calling me—don’t call me Duck. Thank you kindly for the offer, but all I need to do is get downtown, get my Segway out of storage, come back to College Town, get drunk, and sleep out behind a bar until morning. Then I’ll have my Segway and find a line on a new place.’ I looked away to end the discussion and turned my cute little button nose right into a Doberman Pinscher. Its’ nose was wet, and now so was mine. It cocked it’s head and looked into my soul. Eyes wide, I played dead on instinct.

‘Curfew.’ I whispered. ‘Curfew. Call an ambulance.’

‘What? Oh, please.’ Curfew reached over my shoulder, put her hand on the monster’s giant face and shoved it. It took a few steps back, but it kept looking at me. ‘Go on, boy, go dig up a dirt squirrel or something. Tessy, you have a real problem here.’ I didn’t argue. ‘All the places are taken.’ The dog thought it over than scampered away at a bouncy lazy gait. I resumed breathing.

‘There must be an empty room somewhere.’ I scoffed this. Curfew knelt down herself and sat on the curb. She studied some loose gravel.

‘The apartment complex hosted a conference for the residents and local renters. I planned to drag you along, but you didn’t show. I surmise that you took an extra shift. I didn’t think of that. However, the conflagration of renters and homeless went well for those involved; but it went badly for those not involved, which is you, Duck. The long and short of it is this—there is not one vacancy left in the private sector in town. You are screwed unless you take my help and wait for another dropout to hightail. It wont take long, the way demographics are going.’

She looked away as she spoke, off to the sunset, like a cowboy. She let some gravel fly into the gutter across the street—all net. She looked on, totally unimpressed with her impossible shot but studying it none-the-less. That wasn’t fair. She was city folk. I’m the one that should have that internal strength Clint Eastwood is so good at mimicking.

‘Thanks, Curfew, but I got it covered.’

‘Anyway here’s my number.’

-----

I had nothing covered. I rode on a bus. The seats were padded, but my ass was raw enough to make me shift the whole three miles north, hoping the other pedestrian proletariats didn’t notice. I let my eyes follow the low sun to the west and tried not to think. My feet swelled and felt too big. There was a sign, a specific sign, that forbade the removing of shoes.

They’ve thought of everything.

The greasy big headed storage yard manager gave me the key to storage locker 25 which held all my stuff. I followed the line of numbers until locker 24. The next locker was 27. I returned to the storage yard manager. Oh, that’s right. 25 and 26 are on the other side of downtown. I walked on hard concrete and found storage lockers 25 and 26 next to a dumpster full of flies and, from the smell, a probable corpse. The key did not work. On closer inspection, the number on the tag on the key was originally painted “26”, but some of the paint had worn off so that the number looked like “25”. On the walk back to the storage yard manager I tripped on the loose stone of an handicapped curb ramp. I hit the ground on my knees, and the key slipped from my fingers and flew right into a grated drain. I could see the keys, but that was it, as the bars protecting all the treasures of the street drain were too close together for my hand to penetrate far. The key and tag lay on a ledge halfway between the grate and the running water below. I continued to the storage yard manager who explained to me that company policy demands I return one key before getting another. I pleaded special circumstances. The United States of America does not negotiate with terrorists, and neither, I learned, did Acme Storage, Inc.. I walked back to the grated drain. I got some gum out of my purse, chewed it, then stuck it to the edge of a twig from a cypress in a little patch of dirt stunted and trapped in the sidewalk between the pavement. In the process of stamping the key with my sticky stick, my cell phone fell out of my waitress uniform’s breast pocket through the grate and into the deep end of the drain, and said goodbye as it journeyed to the ocean. The gum had hardened. It was my only piece of gum. I re-chew it and tried for the keys again. The gum fell off and ran after my cell phone. I took a hairpin from my purse, needled it through the stick horizontally at the end, pricking my finger twice. I hooked the key, and liberated it from the drain. I pat the tree and removed some cigarette butts and candy wrappers from around its tiny plot of earth. I returned to the storage yard, which had closed for the night five minutes prior. I returned to the bus station. I had missed the last bus for College Town by three minutes. I turned south, and began my three mile walk to my empty apartment. It began to rain. Then it really began to rain. My feet began to blister on all sides against my shoes. I took off my shoes, and three paces after stepped on a dead bee in a puddle which stung the middle segment of my left pinky toe which turned red and swelled.

However, I am not allegoric to bee stings, so I guess someone up there is looking out for me.

It was dark anyway. The sun had almost completely abandon me anyway, but the wind and sharp rain made it difficult to see more than a few feet. The drops stung my eyes whenever I dropped my hands. Given the Irish holiday, I feared drunk drivers so I stuck to the edge of the road. I have no idea how far I sojourned when I slipped down a gentle flood plane. Not far, just a few feet, but enough to cover half my body in mud. I sat there looking in the direction of my hands (too dark to actually see them) and breathed. I couldn’t think of anything else to do for a long time. From somewhere deep in my brain surfaced a memory of my mother saying that some people are at the bottom of the barrel looking down. Then I looked up.

A bar. There was an olde timey type, well, pub I guess, thirty feet from the road, right in front of me. It was lit up and open for business. The door was a massive block of wood, but I managed to open it. The sign on it read “Crossroads Inn”. Despite the single road running north and south, and the obvious misnomer, I’d take it.

It was beautiful inside. Everything was made of mahogany, glimmered, and full of old looking crap like full suits of armor and grainy pictures of men in beards and women in corsets or white robes, and classy old world paintings from Italy I guess. Not the diner duck art I’m familiar with. I’d only just started Art 101. Best of all there was a massive fireplace gushing heat at me. No, even better: there was a bar.

Somehow, even on St. Patrick’s Day, I was the only customer. The place was large and open, like Beowulf’s tavern in the movie, but being the only customer made it seem more massive than even the Super Dome. I took my final limps to the bar, dropped my shoes, sat on a stool too high for me, my ass too numb from cold water to hurt more than my feet. There was a bar wench. She was beautiful too, like the place around her. She fit well with it. Her hair was pitch black, long, and I bet she stroked it five hundred times every night with a hairbrush. She looked like a tall, dark haired Veronica Lake. Her smile was a separate source of warmth the equal of the fire place. She wore a simple tan sundress she perhaps sowed herself. She looked me in the eyes, I mean right in there, blinked a few times, then relaxed her demeanor.

‘What can I get for you, miss?’

Wet and shivering, my mouth muscles too numb to smile or frown, my makeup mixed with rain dripping off my face, I took all of the tip money out of my purse in one fisted ball, and plunked it down on the smooth wood.

‘I want this much alcohol.’

‘My tab.’

‘AAAAIIIIIIIII!’ I screamed as I fell from my stool. I hit the ground but bounced right up, hands up and ready to fight. Fight or flight chemicals triumphed over my self-pity, and this bar was the only place to survive the rain, so I held up my dukes and gritted my teeth. Then my eyes saw more than red.

The bar wench sat on the stool next to mine. I looked over, and no, the bar wench was still standing there, sweet looking as ever. I looked back to the stool. There she was.

I kept my fists up and covering my face, but just the same I thought I should say something. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you sit next to me.’

‘I get that all the time.’ I looked back and forth between the ladies. They were definitely twins. No doubt about it. Anywhere from twenty-seven to forty-three years old. The new one wore $10,000 worth of full body leather, tight from her toes to her high collar. Her face was thinner, more sever, and her smile was hungry.

‘I’m sorry. I, ah,’ I reassumed my perch on the stool. ‘you frightened me.’ The leather lady looked to her sister, the bar wench, and widened her smile.

‘I get that a lot as well.’

‘You guys are sisters that own this place?’

‘We run some of it,’ the bar wench said. ‘But neither of us own it.’

‘Yet.’

‘Ahem.’ The bar wench. ‘They call me Circe.’

‘Hello.’ I turned to the leathered one. ‘I’m Tessy.’

‘Yes, Tessy, and I am called Medea. Like I said, my tab. This time. Drink up.’

‘Media?’ Circe put a flask down in front of me. The designers of the hooch really put bucks into presentation. Way more than the company that makes that booze with gold flakes in it. This number was made of stone, with engraving and lattice work running up the side that all coalesced at the top, but there was no cork or screw cap. The bottle was latched. I unlatched it and smelled its innards. A red wine that smelled like red licorice, my favorite candy. I took a swig of the thick liquid. I shivered and hung my feet hurt from a high stool and I took a swig.

‘Jesus.’

‘Oh, it’s not quite that loaded, dear, but I like your ambition.’

‘What?’ I took another swig. Holy Crap, please don’t be expensive or rare, Mr. Taste Good. I pray to whatever gods may be: don’t be expensive. I went for a third gulp. Media leaned in eager but frowned dejected when Shirley held my hand.

Shirley smiled at me and it was quite convincing as I agreed before she argued. ‘Let’s get you out of wet raiment before you catch consumption.’

‘Yeah,’ wow, this was powerful stuff. It must be moonshine with some Red Vines stuck in it. I wasn’t drunk, just really, really not thinking. ‘the remains of my uniform are… rags and consuming should happen… after warm.’

I got mollycoddled again, and this time by professionals. Before I knew it I was stripped down, patted dry, and rapped up in a robe like a snug little bug before the roaring fire on a couch with ten times my body weight of fluff a little bug like me can sink into and forget about all the trials and travails of this transient earth. I clutched my flask of awesomeness as I’ve seen mother apes hold their newborns. Get away, Jane Goodall. Mine!

Shirley sat at the other end and rubbed my feet. I think I thought I saw her suck the bee poison out of my toe, and the toe certainly felt fine now, but I lacked capacity to act as a proper witness. Ha! Proper City calls proper witness, Tessy Plinkerton, to the stand. I giggled, and took another snort.

‘Tessy,’ Shirley said. ‘Do you know what pain is?’

‘Shfff. Sister, I could write the wikipedia article on pain.’

‘I know you are familiar with pain, Tessy. But do you know what it is?’

‘Ummm… neurons?’

‘Close. Pain is energy concentrated in the wrong place.’

‘Humph. Do you have a TV? I think they’re running a Scrubs marathon. I want to merry J.D.. Or Dr. Cox, maybe. Turk’s pretty cool, but he’s already married. To… the nurse. Carlene.’ I laughed. ‘She’ll never divorce Turk. She’s Catholic.’

‘I’ve only seen one marathon run, dear, and it didn’t end well.’ The leather one said. I must have been loaded first class because Media appeared right above me hanging over the arm of the couch I wanted to be buried in, and I didn’t even scream. ‘But, as I recall, it lasted a day. So we have time to answer Circe’s questions, don’t we?’ I just smiled at her. She was right, we had all night.

‘Tessy,’ Shirley said. She had a sweet voice. ‘Pain is energy concentrated in the wrong place. Did you know that energy is immortal?’

‘Sure. First Law of Thermodynamics.’ Wow, I pulled that out of my ass. ‘Energy isn’t created or—‘

‘Law?’ Media said, shocked. She grabbed my shoulders, but looked at her sister, then back at me, as she hovered above me. ‘Law? As a rule of man? Like the ban of littering?’ She started to take a laugh, but then the laugh took her. She managed, between gasps, to look at her sister, who also laughed but wasn’t quite as patronizing about it. ‘Law.’ Shirley cracked a little bit more, but seemed the type too demure to lose control. Still, the sisters shared a nice little sibling joke. I’ve been there. I sort of wanted in on it.

‘Yeah. You know, Sir Isaac Newton.’

Media exploded. ‘The puttering islander?! The mooncalf apple eater?’

‘Oh, wait… no, my mistake. He did motion. Sorry, the SAT’s are over, I can’t worry about that kind of higher level smart shit anymore.’

‘Medea, calm yourself!’ Shirley, though laughing herself, chastised the media, I mean Media, who rolled around the floor in a happy fit.

‘Higher… higher level! We’ve been gone too long! This is priceless!’ She stretched out her leather collar to get some room for her throat to breath. She wore some red beads or ropes or something around her neck. They were pretty, but looked pretty tight as well. Leather people love feeling hugged all the time like that. I didn’t even much care for tight jeans, but whatever. To each her own. I remember thinking about how I was warm, my ass in particular. Why was my ass so warm? Oh, right—everyone I worked with or for had spanked me just, let’s see… a month ago was it?

‘Dear,’ Shirley again. ‘Pain is energy, and energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transferred. Is what you were about to say.’

‘Yep.’

‘And did you know the movement of energy creates power?’

‘Yepper. Called heat.’ I took a swig.

‘So, if a wasting entity, like this Newton you so revere (shush, Medea!), were to drink deep of a little pool of the Spring of Knowledge, and learned how this transfer of pain worked, how to capture and channel the heat, they would gain power while accepting pain from another, er, human. Person. Correct?’

I took another swig of the licorice wine and gave her a think. Not understanding a word, I couldn’t find anything wrong with it, so I agreed with a scholarly ‘sure, why not?’ Being a college student now I had to accept the burdens of peer review. ‘Hmmmm…. Power. What do they say about power?’

I could smell the leather, but I didn’t feel any movement in the couch, or hear any movement for that matter. I turned towards the fire and there was Media, like a Doberman, right in my face and smiling at me. ‘It corrupts.’ Her eyes were huge and shifted gravity.

‘But it can also be used with virtue for good.’ Shirley tickled my feet. I hate being tickled. I managed to turn my head. It was slow work, those eyes were so lovely dark and deep, exactly like the pony I dreamed of when I was a little girl reading—but I had someone tickling my feet and my eye connection with Media snapped once I made it to Shirley who said, ‘Per ardua ad astra.’

‘I took French. No, I failed French. Then I took German. C-.’

Shirley was so nice. She smiled at me. She looked up and to the right, and blinked a few times. Then she looked down, thinking something over. I took a slug. She looked back at me, her head titled, amused that she did not perfectly understand what she said. I was certain of it. She looked like a dumb actor pretending to be a doctor or something, reading lines he didn’t understand, but still doing it well. ‘To help man in his long march from the swamps to the stars’?

‘Sure. Reagan. I was a Reagan Democrat, but I was too young to vote. Bush seemed like an alright guy, but Reagan was funny and had fantastic hair. Like J.D.. Oh, yeah, the marathon. TV?’

‘Almost there.’ Media said. She probably hated TV, given the name her parents labeled her with. Parents could be cold. The booze was working on me. I grew mawkish and thought more and more about my mother. Wherever she was, I hoped they had fireplaces and feet rubs.

I was fading fast, and I new it. I hated thinking about her. When I let these thoughts go it was a downhill slip. I took another slug of booze. Something went wrong. I went from mawkish to scared. I retreated into the couch. Media followed.

‘Tessy, what if you could take peoples’ pain from them, and have powers beyond your imagination?’

‘Wha…’

‘What would happen?’

‘I’d help people.’

‘Yes. Do you know what they would do?’

‘Thank me?’

‘No, childe. Perhaps at first. Inexorably they would flock to you, en masse, and douse you with their pain until you drowned in agony; then they would blame you. Then they will forget you.’

‘No…’

‘Oh yes.’

‘You mean like Jesus?’

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ Media was right in my face and seemed to take up the whole world. She kept smiling at me. She was over me and I couldn’t escape so I clutched my bottle and I think I started whimpering. I started breathing again when she looked to her sister. ‘I said it: this one is ambitious.’ Over me but head turned as she was, her ear was lined with my mouth, so I took my shot and let out whatever shriveled shred of self-respect or pride I had left after the day.

‘What do you want from me!?’

Media flinched. She looked at me, and now she wasn’t smiling. The bar wench shoved the leather freak away from me and I started to cry. She gave me that warm smile, but now I didn’t trust it. ‘Sleep, Tessy. You don’t have to decide tonight. It’s better if you don’t.’ She pet me.

If I dreamed that night, I never remembered them.