Party Lines Page 3

  Lindsay stood and backed up rapidly, pain and shock still in her tear-brimmed eyes.

  “How could you?” she asked. “How could you, when I’ve done nothing to deserve it?”

  They were both quiet for a moment, Lindsay because she didn’t know what else to say and Ron because he was genuinely surprised at her reaction. He’d expected threats of police and lawsuits when he’d let her go. But instead, she’d said something he’d never figured he’d hear. “How could you when I’ve done nothing to deserve it.”

  And then when he looked at her, he knew. And she knew he knew. And it was hard to say who felt worse.

  Lindsay leaned against the control panel, quite by accident and the elevator began its descent once more.

  “Lindsay.” Ron stepped towards her, wanting suddenly to tell her that she was right, he had no right. But she looked away with hurt in her eyes, and embarrassment. She looked so small, so defeated and he wanted to take her and pull her to him and hold her in his arms. But then the doors opened and she walked out into the lobby.

  “Lindsay!” he called again, but she didn’t even look back as she walked out of the building and into the pouring rain.

  Chapter Three

  Ron ran after her, and grabbed for the cab door just as she shut it. As the cab pulled away, Lindsay looked back and his heart twisted again when he saw the look of pained confusion still etched on her pretty face.

  For several long minutes he stood in the rain, watching the cab wind through the street and disappear around the corner.

  Ron Sharp had always known he was a dominant man. Not just dominant in his approach to business and life, but also in his personal relationships. And his dominant streak was more than just the chauvinistic “Me-Tarzan-You-Jane” attitude his ex-wife had so often accused him of. Ron Sharp was also a confirmed spanker, not because he liked to hurt women but because he had always thought the answer to many of the problems plaguing modern relationships could be solved to upending the female over the male knee.

  Ron had thought this before he’d given his wife the spanking that had – at least temporarily – put their marriage back on track. He’d thought it before he’d even gotten married. Hell, he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t thought that.

  It was an odd inclination, he knew, and not something he touted not even in conservative circles unless it was done in a joking manner. As much as he’d like to think real old-fashioned values existed, he knew that few men these days thought like he did, and fewer women.

  A woman who would acquiesce to a genuine disciplinary spanking were few and far between. In fact, he’d given up finding one since his wife had left him. After their initial spanking, there had been others. The most memorable was one he’d given her had been after she’d gone out one night with friends and neglected to call home to tell him where she was.

  Despite being a dominant husband, during his marriage Ron wasn’t particularly officious. In fact, he had relatively few rules in his household. But what rules he had he expected Tina to obey. And one of the top rules was that – because they had a child – when a spouse was out they were required to be accessible by phone, and to leave an itinerary.

  Ron had understood why his wife had wanted to get away, unfettered, for a girl’s night out. He was not a jealous man by any stretch of the imagination and had never called to check up on her. But when Brian began to run a fever he felt concerned enough to let Tina know what was going on. An hour of calls later – to her phone, to her friend Megan’s phone, to the restaurant where Tina had told them they’d be going – he was worried and more than a little bit angry. What if Brian got worse? Sure, he was more than capable of handling his son’s fever, but as it got higher he continued to try and reach her without success.

  By the time Tina came walking in at one-thirty in the morning, she was still slightly tipsy from her Girls’ Night Out - tipsy enough in fact to announce that she was a grown woman who didn’t have to let her husband know whether she was every moment. Children got fevers, she said, and she didn’t call him every time Brian got sick so why should he?

  Ron immediately saw all the hallmarks of her girlfriends’ influence in his wife’s comments. And he wasn’t about to put up with it. Sitting down on the couch, he pulled her over his knee and raised the blue silk skirt she was wearing without explanation or preamble. Neither was needed, after all. Tina knew exactly why she was being spanked and immediately dissolved into a flood of apologies that grew more frantic when she felt the bikini panties skimming over her upturned cheeks and lowered to the middle of her thighs.

  But it was to get worse because Ron was reaching into the drawer of the little table behind the couch, fishing for the thick acrylic ruler he’d purchased specifically for the purposes of correcting Tina.

  Tina whimpered as she looked over her shoulder and saw him removing it from the drawer. But he didn’t use it right away. Instead he decided to redden her a bit first with his hand so when the ruler was finally applied it would get her attention in the most effective way.

  “No, Ronnie. Don’t!”

  Ronnie. He smirked. She called him that when she was feeling frisky or wanted something. But pet names weren’t going to stop him from doing what needed to be done. Taking aim at her round white bottom, he brought his hand down with a stinging slap on the left cheek, and – unfazed by her little cry of pain – began alternating spanks from left buttock to right until her whole bottom was glowing rosy red.

  Tina was squirming now and – sensing that the ruler was imminent – launched into the Promising Phase of her predicament. She promised to be good, promised to answer her cell phone from then on, promised to call him even. By the time the overlaid the rosy blush already on her bottom with the first angry dusky stripe from the ruler she was promising never to leave the house again.

  But Ron knew better and sensed correctly that Tina would say anything to keep from getting what she’d practically asked for by ignoring him for all those hours while she was out partying with her gal pals. So he continued unflagging in his assault on her bottom, and accelerated the punishment with snappy blows to the lower part of her bum, assuring that she’d not sit comfortably for several days.

  Tina continued to kick and cry, but it was only after the last of the promises degenerated into almost infantile bawls and the defiance drained from her body that Ron stopped. For long moments she lay over his lap, defeated, while he rubbed her well-punished bottom.

  When he stood her up, she was still shaky whether it was from the booze or the emotional trauma of the spanking he could not tell. So he picked her up, dropped a kiss on the top of her forehead and carried her upstairs to their room.

  “Can I check on Brian?” she asked tearfully, her voice full of regret.

  “No,” he said, laying her down on her stomach. “I’ll do it. You stay put.” Tina didn’t move a muscle.

  Ron went into his son’s room and pressed the back of his hand against the sleeping child’s forehead. His temperature was close to normal now and his breathing even and steady. Good.

  He went back into his bedroom and looked at Tina. She was laying on her belly, the panties still bunched around her smooth, shapely thighs. Her skirt was halfway up, revealing her cherry red bottom. Ron could hear her sniffling pitifully.

  He walked over and turned her so she was cradled in his arms.

  “Don’t ever do that again,” he said. “Understand?”

  “Yes sir,” she said. Her voice was soft, submissive and yielding. And the moment was perfect when she gently offered her lips for a kiss.

  Ron normally didn’t make love to his wife after a spanking but sometimes…well, he just couldn’t help himself, especially when she offered herself to him so sweetly. So they made love, and later in the dark Ron would reflect on how well spanking worked on every level. Part catharsis, part aphrodisiac that simple old-fashioned act cleaned the slate of sin and despite the tears, he knew Tina would wake the next morning with a smile and without
a mention of her sore bum. Throughout the day he would catch her – here and there- rubbing at a sore spot and he’d recall the moment with an odd mixture of pride, regret and excitement.

  It would be several more years before he admitted that his old-fashioned disciplinary remedy went beyond correction. It was, he knew, also his fetish. But he didn’t see it as unhealthy and figured there were probably quite a few dominant men out there who felt the same way he did about the practicality and excitement of spanking a deserving female bottom. The trick was finding a woman who felt the same way he did. He thought he had that with Tina until she went back to work and began to express feelings of guilt for having ever allowed him to “do that” to her. She seemed embarrassed at how well the system had worked for them, as if she’d been part of something unnatural and unwholesome.

  For his part, Ron never felt spanking was anything but natural and wholesome and in the end ended up counting his blessings. Tina hadn’t used their exercise in discipline as ammo during the divorce proceedings. Ron was sure it was partly because she knew she’d consented and didn’t want to explain it but also because she was embarrassed that word of it might leak out if the filing ever became public.

  So Ron was left alone and feared he’d never find a woman whose innate submissiveness complemented his natural dominance. Until this day.

  He’d botched it, and badly. He closed his eyes and turned his face up to the rain, envisioning the way Lindsay had looked at him, how she’d questioned why she was getting a spanking she didn’t deserve. And he knew, somehow just knew that despite her job, despite who she was working for, despite her defense of feminism Lindsay Martin was exactly what he was looking for – a submissive woman who wanted just what he had to offer.

  The trick now was to find a way to make her trust him.

  ***

  She couldn’t face anyone. Not right now. Trying to keep her voice sounding normal, Lindsay left Clara Faircloth a hurried message about how she’d come down with a bug and was going straight home. Clara immediately returned the call, congratulating Lindsay on her performance against Ron Sharp and urging her to call should she need anything at all.

  Lindsay listened to Clara’s words on her voicemail. She was still so rattled she couldn’t answer the phone, couldn’t hold a conversation. She could barely give the cabbie directions, and only murmured ‘yes’ when he looked in his rearview mirror and spoke to her.

  “Aren’t you the gal who’s running the Faircloth campaign?”

  At her apartment building Lindsay got out and gave the cabbie twice the fare, ignoring his calls that she wait for the change. She didn’t even bother to put up the umbrella to shield her from the rain that continued to pour and ignored the concerned look of the doorman as she shot past, dripping rain and tears as she made for the elevator.

  Her apartment was dark and quiet and for a few moments she stood in the foyer, breathing heavily with her back against the closed door.

  After a few moments she walked down the hall into her bedroom, leaving her coat, umbrella and briefcase where she uncharacteristically dropped them by the door.

  She turned the lights on in her room and blinked at the brightness before walking over and drawing the blinds. The sky was still dark and stormy, befitting her mood.

  Lindsay walked over to the cheval mirror by her bed and turned. Looking over her shoulder she took a ragged breath as she raised her skirt and lowered her panties. Her bottom was still red and when she looked closely she could see the faint imprints left by Ron Sharp’s hand.

  With a cry of anguish she hurriedly pulled her panties up and dropped her skirt, whirling to face herself in the mirror. For a minute she stood there and stared at her reflection, feeling a torrent of rage well within her.

  “How could you?” she screamed at herself. “How could you?” Turning she fixed her eyes on the bedside table and with one swipe of her arm sent everything on it –lamps, books, clock – flying against the wall.

  Lindsay threw herself on the bed and began to sob, not from the hurt of the spanking or anger at Ron Sharp but from confusion. For while the spanking had shocked an angered her, she’d not felt the kind of indignation she’d expected. If anything she’d felt disappointment that the first spanking – the spanking she’d always known she’d really wanted – had been delivered without just cause.

  Ron Sharp had been right when he’d said she shouldn’t have injected his personal life into the campaign, but he’d done it first. Why? She felt conflicted, confused, because if it had just been her then he would have had every right to spank her. And it was with a great deal of shame that Lindsay now faced completely the horrifying truth: he’d given her exactly what she’d always wanted, only under imperfect circumstances.

  And even worse: he knew. She could hear it in his voice as he followed her out of the building. That was why she’d not turned back. If she had, Ron Sharp would have known in an instant that she felt nothing unnatural in his assault on her backside.

  But then again, maybe he already knew. She’d not run straight to the police as any Worth Feminist would do. If she were truly indignant the police would be cuffing him at this moment and taking him to the station, where she’d be waiting to bear angry witness to his humiliating ordeal. A revelation like that would ruin everything for him and become the kind of scandal that would destroy not only his career, but bring Bradford Hopkins along for the ride. With news of the assault on the front page of every major newspaper – and probably the Drudge Report to boot – Clara Faircloth would be a virtual shoo-in.

  Lindsay rolled over, painfully aware of the still throbbing bum and threw her arm across her face. Never, ever before had she felt so miserable, so conflicted. She had a loyalty to Clara. But she had a larger loyalty to herself and wondered whether her deep down need had telegraphed some vulnerability to Ron Sharp. Why else would he take a chance on doing something so ridiculously reckless?

  From the other room she could hear her phone ringing and the sound of her own voice as the message kicked in. “You’ve reached the home of Lindsay Martin. I can’t come to the phone right now, but if you leave a message I’ll call you back. Thanks, and have a nice day!”

  She heard the shrill beep and was just wiping away more tears when she sat bolt upright at the sound of a man’s voice. It couldn’t be. It just couldn’t.

  “Lindsay. It’s Ron Sharp. Listen. I need to talk to you.”

  Lindsay looked over to the phone on the opposite table – the one she’d not cleared in a rage – and started at it as if it were a snake, as if Ron Sharp were going to emerge from it.

  “Listen. I know you’re there. I got a taxi right after you left and…well, I found out where you live and I want to come see you.”

  Lindsay’s eyes widened and with a trembling hand she picked up the phone.

  “You can’t be serious,” she said, suddenly aware of how hoarse her voice sounded. Holding the phone away she cleared her throat and took a sip of water from a cup on the nightstand.

  “I am serious,” Ron said. Then a pause. “I’m always serious.”

  “If you’re worried that I’m going to call the police on you don’t,” she replied. “I should but I’m not.”

  “I’m not worried about that. I didn’t think you would.”

  Lindsay shook her head. “What makes you so sure?”

  “I don’t know.” Ron grew quiet for a moment. “I just somehow don’t think you’re that type of person.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Lindsay said, her voice edged with sadness. Suddenly she felt very alone and very lonely. She could have been talking to anyone – her friends, her parents, Clara Faircloth, anyone. Did anyone really know her, know the deep secret she’d been harboring for as long as she could remember?

  “I think I do.” His voice was patient and somehow comforting. Outside thunder crashed and Lindsay pulled her knees up to her chest, fresh tears falling from her eyes.

  She wiped them away. “Yeah?�
� she asked, laughing through them.

  “I think so.” He paused again. “Can I come up?”

  “Come up?”

  Lindsay stood, feeling her heart beginning to race. No, he couldn’t possibly….She walked through the apartment to the front and looked out from between the curtains, her eyes widening at what she saw. Ron Sharp was standing out on the sidewalk in front of her apartment, looking up at her from beneath his tilted umbrella. A cell phone was to his ear.

  “My address is unlisted,” she said.

  “Yeah? Well, given the price of gas, cabbies are pretty easy to bribe these days.”

  Lindsay put a finger to her temple. Her mind was racing. Should she let him in? She didn’t really know. The practical side of her said it was lunacy to do it. He was her enemy, her nemesis, her rival. Less than an hour ago he’d upended her over his knee during an argument and spanked her to tears. And now he wanted to come up and see her, and this on the heels of a claim of some Higher Understanding?

  She put the tip of her finger in her mouth and chewed on her nail for a moment. She was a mess. Her makeup was still streaked from where she’d been crying. Her wet things were still by the door – no doubt sitting in a puddle at this point. She was in no condition to receive company, especially Ron Sharp’s.

  Lindsay peeked out through the blinds again. He was still standing there. He was till looking in the direction of her window.

  She took a deep breath. “OK” she said. “Come on up.”

  Chapter Four

  Her hand was shaking as she opened the door and for a moment they both stood there, looking at one another. Ron was breathing heavily, his face a mask of regret. Lindsay did not need to look in the hallway mirror to know that she looked small and confused.

  She stepped aside and waved towards the interior of the apartment. “Come in.”