Читать книгу Shadow Lane Volume 6: Put to the Blush A Novel of Spanking, Sex and Love - Eve Howard - Страница 10
ОглавлениеHugo Sands had all but forgotten that he had a niece until her letter arrived one early Spring day.
“Dear Uncle Hugo,” it began, “You probably don’t remember me because the last time you saw me I was only 3. That was 15 years ago, at the last family Christmas dinner you attended.
It’s too bad that you decided to dump the family, because you’re the most interesting person in it. My mother has told me repeatedly that you are Satan’s avatar. I finally think I understand why.
I must tell you that I have always been into spanking. Ever since I can remember (about age 3 or 4) I have entertained spanking fantasies. The subject of spanking preoccupied me throughout my childhood and once puberty set in, nothing changed.
I’ve been writing spanking stories for my own amusement since age 8. From ages 11 through 15, I would share them with my girlfriend and we would act them out. We’d pretend they were spy stories, but they always ended in one of us spanking the other one.
Then, I got a boyfriend and stopped playing games with my girlfriend. I initiated spanking foreplay with my boyfriend and received some attention in this area, but he was mostly interested in sex. You know how that goes.
Now I’m about to go to college and boyfriend is about to do the same.
But to get to the point. About a week ago I was in the Combat Zone looking for spanking magazines in an adult bookstore. There was a lot of stuff there, but nothing really pleasant. Then I saw The New Rod Quarterly. The cover illo was so perfect my heart almost stopped.
I bought the magazine and dismissing my boyfriend, rushed home. The instant I opened to the first page, I was in heaven. The writing was so reflective of what excites me and the illos were just charming. And then there were the letters from people just like me, and those fabulous personal ads. (I already have 3 dates lined up for next week!)
Finally I noticed the masthead: Editor Hugo Sands. I remembered that my mother’s maiden name was Sands and that I had an uncle Hugo. My heart went bumpety bump again.
I called my mother to ask her where you lived. She sounded suspicious but told me that she thought you lived out on the Cape. No one I knew had ever heard of or had been to Random Point, so I called information and asked the operator whether it was out on the Cape. She told me that it was.
In September I’ll be traveling to California to matriculate at U.C.L.A. If you allow me to visit for the summer, I could work for you writing stories, inputting, doing anything you needed in return for my board. I’d be a model houseguest and never make a mess or play loud music. And I’d be so grateful for the opportunity to get to know my favorite relative better.
Sincerely,
Bettie Brandon
P.S. If you say yes, Mother and I will probably have a big fight over this, but nothing bad will happen. My late father left me a trust fund for college, and I was planning on working away for the summer anyway.
B.B.
”
Bettie was thoughtful enough to include a photo, which showed her to be a small, slender, olive-skinned sprite with extremely delicate, Mediterranean features and a long mane of tight, glossy, black curls.
Hugo tossed the letter on his desk and lit a cigarette, trying to consider the possible calamities which might arise from granting her wish. In the end he turned to his keyboard and wrote a short, friendly reply, telling her to come whenever she liked.
“Well, I guess it’s true that the spanking fetish does run in families,” Laura commented that evening as she examined the photo and letter.
“It might run in your family,” said Hugo, “but I doubt it does in mine.”
“How do you account for this Bettie then?’
“Bettie isn’t really a blood relation of mine. Her mother, my sister Louise, was adopted.”
“I see,” said Laura, not exactly happy to hear this news.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to touch her.”
“She’s sure to get a crush on you.”
“We’ll make sure it gets transferred to someone else as soon as possible.”
Laura wasn’t pleased to be called out of town the eve of Bettie Brandon’s arrival. Having submitted a chapter of her graphic novel to a publisher in New York, she was now being summoned to that city to show them the rest. Unwilling to postpone such an important interview, Laura had reluctantly departed from her lover only moments before he drove down to the railroad depot to collect Bettie, who was due on an early evening train.
It was a warm day for early June and Bettie was wearing khaki shorts, hiking boots, sox and a sleeveless, white, cotton halter top that showed a bit of smooth, olive midriff and molded daintily to her small bosom. She was very slender, by no means tall and appeared fragile. The slightness of her frame unsettled Hugo, forcibly reminding him of how young Bettie was.
Bettie had written a fairly spunky letter, but she felt properly timid upon debarking at Random Point. She expected to be met on the platform by a distinguished older gentleman, who was perhaps a bit daffy, in the manner of John Lithgow. Yet the only forty-something male pacing the platform was a tall, sandy haired, custom tailored boomer, sophisticated in the manner of Cary Grant. Deciding that someone this savvy could never be her Uncle Hugo, Bettie walked straight past him, hauling a backpack almost as big as herself.
“Bettie?” the striking man said and she turned in disbelief, almost knocking someone down with her pack.
“Uncle Hugo?”
“Just plain Hugo would be even better,” he told her, giving her the perfunctory kiss on the cheek, relieving her of her burden and hoisting it over his own shoulder. The incongruity of the old backpack against his pristine beige suit made her smile. “I can’t believe you’ve been carrying this yourself,” he remarked, leading her from the station.
“Oh, I’m deceptively sturdy,” she assured him, flexing her calf to reveal a runner’s muscle. She was remarkably slim but very well formed, with particularly beautiful skin.
“How did Louise take it when you told her where you were spending the summer?”
“I haven’t actually told her. Luckily I have a friend whose family has a cottage in P-town. She’s going to let me use it as a return address for Mother all summer.”
“Good thinking. But what if she tries to call you?”
“I told her the cottage didn’t have a phone.”
“Implausible, but original.”
“Thank you for letting me come.”
“Tell me that after dusting 117 clocks.”
“Time must really matter to you!”
“I also own an antiques shop.”
“I love old things,” she said in a rush, then immediately flushed. Hugo threw the bag in the back of his car and opened the door for Bettie.
On the way home he took her through the village, where he showed her his shop and Marguerite’s book store, up the Cliff Road to Anthony Newton’s mansion, down again to the beach and then back to his house by the road through the woods.
Bettie stared at him whenever she thought she might risk it. Then they arrived at his old stone house and he took her inside. Bettie was placed in the redecorated attic bedroom, as far away from Laura’s room as possible.
“I have a girl friend,” Hugo explained as he showed her where everything was. “She’s in New York now but she’ll be back in a week or so.”
“Is she into it?” Bettie asked before wondering whether this was a discreet question.
“She’s my illustrator.”
“Oh!”
“I’d advise you to turn her into an ally as quickly as possible,” Hugo disclosed, piling logs into her hearth for later in the evening. “And by the way,” he added, “I’m not really your uncle. Your mother was adopted. I guess she never told you that.”
“No, she never did.” Bettie sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed and stared at him in astonishment.
“She always knew about it. That’s probably why she warned you to stay away from me. She remembered that we aren’t blood relations and doesn’t trust me with you.”
Bettie Brandon was a quiet, intense, thoughtful, cautious, compulsively meticulous little creature that was seen but seldom heard for the first several days of her visit. She wrote constantly in black marble notebooks with cartridge pens and was reading Crime and Punishment. Her favorite walk was to and from the Random Point post office, where Hugo had obtained a box for her to receive correspondence over the summer.
Hugo was disappointed the first time he sat her down at a computer to input some letters, to discover that Bettie couldn’t touch type. He shook his head as she began to hunt and peck, knowing that this would never do.
“Young lady, the first thing you’re doing is going to summer school to learn how to type,” he told her firmly, and the next morning drove her to Woodbridge High School to enroll her in a class. In a couple of days he was gratified to see her attacking the pile of letters without looking at the keyboard.
One afternoon, after presenting Hugo with an almost perfect letters column for his next issue, Bettie said, “Hugo, may I ask your advice?”
“Sure, Bettie, what’s on your mind?”
“Well, obviously I’ve never met someone through an ad before and I’m going on my first date tonight. What should I expect?”
“Who are you seeing?”
“A man named John Philpot. He’s coming from Boston. We’re meeting at a coffee house in P-town.”
“Philpot, eh?” Hugo searched for the name in his customer database. “I can’t tell you too much about him, I’m afraid. He’s bought three issues of the journal. That’s about it. Did you get a photo?”
“No.”
“Bad.”
“Really?”
“You tell me after the meeting.”
“He’s 27 and a construction worker. He says he’s buff and tanned from his work.” Hugo smiled.
“Have you spoken on the phone?”
“No.”
“That was your second mistake.”
“Why?”
“He might not be your type.”
“I never thought to get a phone number,” she mused, beginning to feel less than confident about her first scene date.
“You’ll know better next time,” he told her.
“Do you think he’s going to want to, or, I mean, try to ... you know...”
“Spank you?”
Bettie nodded, her flushing rose.
“Well, I’m sure he’ll want to, but he probably won’t try unless you give him the green light.”
“Really?” she brightened. “You mean I don’t have to play with him if I don’t want to?”
“Of course not.”
“But, how do I get out of it if he asks?”
“You mean without hurting his feelings?”
“Yes!”
“I suppose you wrote him a fairly provocative letter?” Bettie nodded with embarrassment. “All right, here’s my advice: Plead youth and ignorance. Tell him you’ve suddenly realized that you’re not quite ready to play yet.”
“Do you think he’ll accept that?”
“He’ll be heartbroken but he’ll accept it.”
“Okay. Good.”
“Or, you could be a perfect angel, wear jeans, take a walk down to the coast line and take advantage of a certain fallen drift log that’s been in P-town ever since I can remember, and let him give you a dozen or so swats over your pants.”
“Really?”
“Why not? You have to get your first spanking sometime and the man’s coming all the way from Boston to meet you.”
“But, what if I’m not attracted to him?”
“You have a good imagination, close your eyes and pretend he’s Val Kilmer.”
“Are you serious?” Bettie demanded, thinking, ‘I would have said Cary Grant.’
“You know Bettie, spanking is sexy, but it isn’t sex. It can be as innocuous as you choose to make it.”
“I still want it to be from someone I find very attractive,” she said with conviction. “Especially the first time.”
“Well, let’s hope for the best. But next time, get a photo. Now, how are you getting to P-town?”
“I thought I’d catch a bus.”
“Do you have a driver’s license?”
“Yes.”
“Then you may borrow my car,” he told her. Bettie flushed at this mark of favor. Showing up for her date in the bottle green, vintage Jag thrilled her.
Obeying Hugo’s suggestion to wear jeans, Bettie departed for Provincetown at seven p.m., more content in the nurturing she was receiving from Hugo than excited by her upcoming date. “If I do let John spank me,” thought Bettie, “I’ll close my eyes and pretend he’s Hugo.”
But Bettie returned at nine p.m., unsettled and unspanked. Hugo had just returned from a dinner engagement and was feeding his tomcat baked salmon when Bettie walked in.
“Well, that was fast,” he commented.
“I know,” she sat down at the wooden kitchen table with a sigh and put her chin on her hand.
“Tell all,” Hugo said, filling his wine glass and leaning against the mantle piece to listen.
“You were right,” she reported, “He wasn’t my type. Worldview a heady mixture of Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern and Al Bundy. He liked me a lot.”
Hugo laughed. “Did you break his heart?”
Bettie hung her head and mumbled, “Yes.”
“How did he take it?”
“Oh, he was really nice about it.”
“I guess you never walked down to the coast, huh?”
“No. His amphetamine-charged energy scared the hell out of me,” she confided.
“You can have a glass of wine if you like,” said Hugo. He poured her one and she took a sip.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling at him.
“So, who’s next on your date list?”
“I have two dates planned for the weekend in Boston and I have a friend I can stay with there.”
“Tell me about them.”
“One’s a young shark in training at the Harvard business school.”
“Now that sounds promising,” said Hugo, who’d taken his undergrad degree in art history in Cambridge twenty-five years before.
