Party Lines Read online

  “Not all spankings are for punishment,” he’d said, gently guiding her across his lap. “Not all spankings have to hurt.”

  She’d been wearing an adorable pair of tap pants with delicate lace around the edges. The fabric molded to her bottom, accentuating the tantalizing shape of her cheeks. Lindsay had trembled slightly as he’d rested his hand on her bum, squeezing first one firm, springy buttock and then the other.

  “Do you trust me?” he’d asked again.

  “I trust you,” she said, her voice soft, sweet.

  She’d trusted him.

  He’d raised his hand then, and delivered a firm smack – not too hard, just hard enough to leave a barely-visible blush through her underwear. She’d moaned a little, but had not struggled.

  She’d trusted him.

  So Ron had delivered another, this one a little lower. He’d used his entire hand, the span of it covering the lower half of her bottom. This time she’d moaned louder and her hand had started to come back to cover her bottom, but Lindsay had stopped it and instead had gripped the coverlet to her side, thrusting her bottom up a little as she did. She was offering herself to him now, and Ron had murmured that she was a good girl, a very, very good girl.

  She’d trusted him.

  He’d begun then to test her, to help her find the limits between pleasure and pain. This was, he’d tell her later, important for both of them to know. For purposes of pleasure, he’d bring her to the brink of tolerance; for purposes of punishment he’d take her as far beyond it as the misdeed warranted. “Did she accept this?” he’d asked. She had.

  She’d trusted him.

  And the idea that all that had now changed over something he’d not done cut him to the core. He wanted to drive straight to her house, to explain he’d not done this thing to her. But he knew the media would be seeking him out for comment on the story. Already his Blackberry was buzzing away, but he’d only tried to reach one person: Lindsay. And she’d not answered.

  Was she OK? He didn’t know. He only knew he had to get to the bottom of what happened, to try to mitigate it somehow. He needed to convince his boss not to gloat, to downplay it. He’d tell Hopkins it was for his own good, that looking mean-spirited would not help his campaign, that the voters would respect him more if he appeared magnanimous. And that was true. After he’d done that, he’d find Lindsay – no matter where she was – and let her know that he’d had nothing to do with what had happened, that she’d had every cause to trust him, that she still could.

  Ron slammed on brakes in the circular drive of Hopkins’ home. He’d not bothered to speak to the butler as he rushed inside and had only grunted a ‘hello’ to Hopkins’ heavily made-up wife, whose bleach-blonde hair was pulled back in its usual severe bun.

  “He’s in the study,” she said, her voice pouty at being ignored by her husband’s handsome campaign manager.

  Ron walked in without knocking to find Hopkins on the phone.

  “Hey, gotta go,” he was saying. “And thanks for everything. Yeah, this is going to be the turning point. No doubt. We’ll talk later. Bye.”

  He snapped his cell phone shut and tucked it in his pocket. “Ron!” he said jovially. “Damn glad to see you. Damn glad. It’s going to be a good day, compadre, a good day. But I guess you already know that if you’ve seen the paper or watched the news.”

  Ron had not seen the papers, but now he stood holding the one sitting on the arm of the couch and stared down at the front, the sick feeling in his stomach deepening. He turned it towards Hopkins.

  “Your work?” he asked icily.

  “My idea,” he said. “But the credit goes to a good friend who also happens to be a private investigator.”

  Ron felt a renewed surge of anger. “I thought finding out information on Lindsay Martin was a task you were assigning to me.”

  Hopkins smirked. “Initially,” he said. “But nothing was forthcoming and I was impatient for results, especially after that little bitch got all high and mighty on me at the last debate.” He laughed. “Bet she’s not so high and mighty now.”

  “Well neither are we,” Ron said angrily. “It’s hard to be high and mighty when you’re fighting in the gutter.” He flung the paper across the room and Hopkins stood there, looking shocked.

  “I can’t believe this,” he said. “I really can’t. I go out and find someone who can turn this campaign – my campaign – around, and you stand there daring to lecture me on how to win? In case you haven’t noticed, Ron, our numbers are up in the latest tracking poll. There’s not a radio host or editorial writer in this state who’s not questioning the judgment of Clara Faircloth right now. And as for that little arsonist cunt…”

  “Enough.” Ron waved him off, shaking his head. Words came back to him – Lindsay’s words about how she wouldn’t have committed herself to Clara Faircloth’s campaign had she not truly believed in who the candidate was and what she stood for. Ron remembered how he’d called her noble. And she was. And at the moment, he felt less than noble running the campaign of some reptile in a three thousand dollar suit. Ron had promised Lindsay she could trust him, promised himself that he’d be someone she could respect and obey. But serving Bradford Hopkins negated those promises.

  The words “I quit” were sitting on his lips, ready to tip from his mouth. His feet itched to head towards the door. But something stopped him. There was a better way to handle this, a way that would redeem the woman he loved and punish Bradford Hopkins for hurting her.

  “No wait,” he said, running his hand through his hair. “You’re right. I’m just too territorial about these things. What you did was brilliant, Bradford. I guess I’m just pissed that this P.I. got the information before I did. The point is that now we’ve got to ride this wave, right it straight to Washington, D.C. How would you feel about going on Newstalk Today to discuss your outrage tomorrow morning?

  “Newstalk?” Hopkins licked his lips. Every politician relished an audience with moderator Harper Williams, but only if they were already in the catbird seat. Williams offered momentum for advancing politicos, and a death stroke to those already behind the eight ball.

  “If I pull a few strings…” Ron said, forcing a smile.

  “Pull away, my boy,” Hopkins said, stepping over to pound his campaign manager on the back. “Pull away! I smell victory.”

  Ron accepted his touch, all the while hating the man more and more. He smelled something, too. A rat. And by the time Hopkins appearance with Williams had ended he’d make sure the voters knew it.

  ***

  She let herself in the townhouse with the key he’d given her. In the kitchen Lindsay found two wine glasses, one still marked with the shade of lipstick she’d worn the night before. She remembered how she and Ron had curled up in front of the fire, how he’d put his arm around her shoulder, how protected it made her feel.

  It had been stupid to come here, she thought. What had she been thinking? That he was going to show up? She laughed out loud at her own stupidity. Ron Sharp was probably sharing a celebratory drink with Bradford Hopkins, crowing about how she’d played into his hands.

  Lindsay sat down on the couch and rubbed her temples. She felt strung tight, like an over-winded guitar string that would snap if it were touched. Breathing deeply she attempted to calm down and decide what to do next. She knew she couldn’t avoid the media forever. Today she would face them and take full responsibility for what she’d done in her activist past. Then she would go to Clara Faircloth and tender her resignation so the taint of her past wouldn’t be an issue in the campaign.

  Ron Sharp had been right in his initial assessment of her. She didn’t have what it took for this kind of game. She’d let herself believe all the things people had been saying about her – that she was sophisticated and savvy and astute. But in the end she’d been brought down by a man who would do anything to win, including a wholesale exploitation of her weaknesses and desires.

  Her submissive tendencies had been h
er downfall, her willingness to believe Ron Sharp’s assertion that taking that path somehow made her stronger. All it did was open the door to her heart wide enough for him to thrust his knife into the core of her. She felt used and stupid and filthy. A lump swelled in her throat and she swallowed it, knowing if she started crying she’d never stop.

  Lindsay stood and walked over to the little wooden desk in the corner of the living room. Opening one of the drawers, she fished out an envelope and a piece of paper.

  “You won,” she wrote on he paper. “Congratulations.” Folding the paper, she slipped it inside the envelope along with the townhouse key. After sealing the envelope she wrote “Ron” on the front and laid it on the kitchen counter beside the two wine glasses.

  Taking one last look around she sighed sadly. It all seemed like a dream now, a fairy tale that she never should have believed. Picking up her handbag from the couch she walked to the door and opened it.

  He was rushing in so fast he almost ran into him and for a moment they both looked at each other, her face a mask of shock and his a mask of pain and regret.

  “I was just leaving,” she said, and went to push past him. But he grabbed her shoulder and gently pushed her back in.

  “No,” he said firmly. “Not until we talk.”

  Lindsay turned around to face him as she locked the door. “Why, Ron? Are you hoping to get one more secret out of me to run to your boss with? Was ruining Clara’s campaign and my professional life not enough for you?” She was crying now. “I have just enough dignity – just enough – to walk away from this without falling to pieces. Leave me with that, please, because if I have to stand here and let your presence remind me of how incredibly stupid I was to trust you I may just crumble.”

  He stretched out his arms to her. “Lindsay. No. Let me explain…”

  “Explain what, Ron? How you cultivated this relationship with the intention of duping me? How you likely laughed at how easily I was taken down a peg? Don’t bother.”

  She moved to push past him again, only to find herself stopped a second time.

  “Lindsay, stop. You have to hear me out.” His voice was full of frustration. “Listen to me.”

  She jerked her arm in an effort to get away but he held her fast, ignoring the hurt fury in her eyes.

  “Lindsay, I didn’t do it!”

  “Bullshit.”

  “I didn’t! I promise! I promise on my life. I promise on my career…”

  Lindsay laughed. “I think they’re one in the same. It’s hard to separate the man from the mission, Ron. Save your lies.”

  “I’m not lying!” He was raising his voice now, his face bearing the same look of warning he’d gotten every time he spanked her. Lindsay felt her stomach twist a little in apprehension.

  She sought to calm herself in an effort to diffuse the situation long enough to escape. “It doesn’t matter,” she said softly. “It really doesn’t. I’m done with this – this job, this life, you.”

  He shoved her back a little, but still stood between her and the door.

  “That’s it then?” he asked. “You’re quitting. Just like that?”

  “I’m not cut out for this,” she said. “I can’t possibly stay in this kind of environment and risk becoming like the kind of people who did this to me. I can’t risk becoming like you, Ron.”

  “I told you. I didn’t do it,” he reiterated. “It was Hopkins. He was pissed over what you said to him at the debate. He even asked me to dig up dirt on you but I didn’t, Lindsay. So he hired a private investigator.”

  “Who?”

  Ron Sharp shook his head. “I don’t know.”

  “Convenient,” she smirked and walked towards the door. “Now move. I’m leaving.”

  “You’re not,” he said. “Not until I can get you to understand that I would never do something like this. Believe me. I know how it looks. And I understand why you suspect I had something to do with it. But I’ve shown my true character to you – or at least I thought I had – in a manner sufficient enough to at least warrant more consideration than this.”

  “You’re preaching to me about consideration?” Her voice was incredulous. “What right..?”

  “I have every right given that I did nothing wrong,” Ron stressed.

  “Fuck you!” she said, shaking her head and went to move past him a third time. But Ron grabbed her again and this time Lindsay did something she knew was completely out of character for herself. Drawing back her hand, she hit him – hard – across the face.

  For a moment they were both silent, eyes fixed on one another’s. Lindsay’s were furious and Ron’s were cool and stern.

  “I don’t care what you think,” he said. “You are not going to get by with that.”

  “I have nothing more to say to you,” she said.

  “Well, I’ve got plenty to say to you,” he said. “But first you’re going to learn that there’s a price to pay for striking me across the face, young lady.”

  He began to drag her towards the bedroom.

  “What…what the hell are you doing?” she asked in disbelief. She frantically tried to pull away, but was no match against his superior size and strength.

  “Exactly what I promised to do,” he growled. “Punish you for defying me. Lindsay Martin, you’re going to get the worst spanking of your young life.”

  Chapter Eight

  Lindsay couldn’t believe he was going to do this. She couldn’t believe Ron had the nerve to even threaten to spank her, not after what he’d done to her. Did he really think she was so stupid, so submissively needy that a sore bottom would take her mind off of this terrible betrayal?

  “You bastard!” she fumed. “You let me go. NOW!” Ron had hauled her into the bedroom now and sat down on the still-unmade bed, pulling her over his lap.

  “You are going to listen to me, Lindsay,” Ron said. His voice was infuriatingly calm and collected.

  “I’m not listening to anything you ever have to say ever again you blood-sucking, back-stabbing manipulative, self-serving OW!”

  His hand had landed across her bottom, hard. He roughly jerked up the skirt she was wearing, his face grim, and continued spanking her, the blows hard and steady. Lindsay’s tirade dissolved in sobs.

  “Are you ready to listen?” Ron asked.

  She did not answer. She hated him. Hated him so completely. She had nothing to say to him, so how could she let him know that her tears were as much from the shame of having ever believed him than they were from the pain of what he was doing.

  Ron looked at the back of her head, at her body. She wasn’t reacting the way he’d thought she would. The tension in her body, the energy of her – everything was different than it was when he’d spanked her before. She was submitting, but not submissive. She wasn’t acquiescing, she was just waiting it out.

  He stopped spanking her, suddenly feeling horrible.

  “Oh God, Lindsay,” he said, lifting her up. “I’m sorry.”

  She pulled herself from his lap and faced him, her expression one of deep hurt. “No you’re not. You’ve known exactly what you were doing from the very beginning.”

  He sighed, exasperated. None of this was going the way it was supposed to. “I’m not apologizing for what’s in the paper. I didn’t do it. I told you that, whether you choose to believe me or not. I’m apologizing for spanking you. There are times for it. Now wasn’t the time.”

  She smoothed her skirt down. “There’s never a good time a grown woman to be spanked, Ron.” Lindsay had managed to stop crying and now her voice sounded flat and sad. “I’ve learned that, so if the dominant man in your had hoped to teach me a thing or two, rest assured that that was the main lesson. I thought being submissive made me strong because you convinced me it would. But it just made me vulnerable to the worst sort of person.”

  When she turned to walk away he clutched at her arm. “Lindsay….” But she looked down at him with such an expression of disdain that he let her go. There wo
uld be no way to convince Lindsay that he’d not been the person who had betrayed her. Not this way, at least. And he knew that if he were in her position he’d probably be just as hard to convince.

  “I can’t make you stay,” he said.

  “No,” Lindsay agreed. “You can’t, Ron. It’s over.” She turned and walked out, leaving him sitting on the bed holding back tears of his own.

  ***

  Breaking up with Ron Sharp was the second hardest thing she’d ever done. The hardest was sitting down with Clara and telling her about what had happened. Lindsay didn’t divulge the complete details. She didn’t tell Clara about her submissive needs, nor about Ron’s dominant tendencies. She only remarked on their “undeniable, mutual attraction,” and tearfully confessed how that attraction had blinded her to the dangers of the man’s character – danger she should have been aware of.

  Clara had been genuinely shocked. And disappointed. It was her disappointment that hurt Lindsay more than anything else. She had not wanted to cry in front of Clara, but couldn’t stop herself. It was just all too embarrassing.

  “..so you see,” she said. “You see why I have to leave, Clara. If I can’t trust my own judgment, I can’t expect you to trust it, either.”

  Clara stood up. “Leave? What in the world are you talking about. You aren’t going anywhere.”

  Lindsay looked up, surprised that Clara wasn’t accepting her resignation. “But surely you don’t want me after this.”

  Clara threw her head back and laughed. “Lindsay Martin, do you think you’re the first woman who’s ever had an embarrassing revelation from their past come out. Or the first woman who’s ever found herself betrayed by an unscrupulous man? If those things excluded us from being trusted, then I couldn’t in good conscience run for office!”

  “You mean you want me to stay on?”

  “Of course,” Clara replied. “For two reasons. First of all, I believe in you. I believed in you when I hired you and I still believe in you, Lindsay. You’ve caught quite a few spears for me. I’m sure you can catch the ones they’re aiming at you now. Second, Hopkins is trying to use you as an example of my ‘poor’ judgment. If I accept your resignation that’s the same thing as admitting they are right.” She gave Lindsay a motherly hug. “And we both know they’re not.”