Bad Girls (3 page)

‘What do you want to talk about?' she asked.

‘I don't know.'

‘Jeez, Brian, say something.'

‘Something.'

She started to laugh. ‘Now I can see why Ted said you never got laid.'

What? Shit. If I'd been tongue-tied before, it was twice as bad now. She turned and faced me, upping an ante that was already too rich for a coward like me.

‘Tell me what you like, Brian.'

She was so beautiful it was scary. I said the first thing I saw. ‘I like your eyes.'

‘That's so stupid. I mean what do you like to do?'

‘When?'

‘When do you think?'

‘I like to go down on girls.' I thought that sounded gutsy. Even though I'd never done it, girls were supposed to love it.

‘That's better.'

We started walking again.

‘Know what I like?'

‘No.'

‘Ted didn't tell you?'

‘No.'

‘I like to be spanked.'

‘Have you ever been spanked?'

‘Have you ever gone down on a girl?'

‘No.'

‘Me neither.'

‘Gone down on a girl?'

‘No, idiot, been spanked.'

‘Can I kiss you?'

‘Yeah.'

We started kissing, and as soon as I thought it would be okay I grabbed her ass, kneading the flesh and hoping she would know how badly I wanted to spank her. Then she stopped kissing me.

‘Don't just feel my ass. Tell me what you want to do to it.'

‘I want to spank it.'

‘That's all?'

‘I want to pull down your panties and spank it.'

‘Go on.'

‘I want to make you pull down your panties and make you lie over my lap and spank you ten times as hard as I can.'

‘That's better.'

We both laughed, not sure if we were serious. I went to kiss her again but she backed away.

‘I dare you.'

‘What?'

‘Are you slow or something?'

‘Here?'

‘You're the boss. You tell me.'

We weren't too deep in the woods. It was getting dark but we could still hear the motivational speaker and the crowd clapping. My dad would have expected me back ten minutes ago.

‘Pull down your pants.'

So help me, she did.

‘And your panties.'

It was the first time I'd even seen it. I sat down on a fallen tree and told her to lie across my lap. It was impossibly awkward, but she managed it anyway. I raised my hand above my head and spanked her. It wasn't hard, not nearly as hard as I could, but I still spanked her. It was loud and I was terrified someone might hear. She let out a giggle. It was probably because she was nervous, but I worried she was laughing at me, so I spanked her again, harder this time because she'd giggled. I alternated cheeks – oh, miraculous cheeks – with each spank, watching my red handprints appear, confirming that I was actually doing it. My head was throbbing and if it had been possible for a nineteen year old to burst a blood vessel and stroke, I would have done it. I was literally light-headed by the time we got to ten and I had no idea what to do next. Luckily she just slid down to her knees between my legs, undid my pants and began sucking my cock. It wasn't hard and I thought she would think the worst of me, but she was unfazed and took no time at all to become the first girl to ever make me come.

My hands tingled and my knees were weak when I stood up. I was still brushing dirt and bits of bark off my pants and trying to coax my hard-on down when I slid into the seat next to my dad.

‘There was a line,' I whispered to him. He rolled his eyes.

When I called her I was afraid it would be awkward to talk to her. I shouldn't have worried.

‘How are you?' I asked

‘My butt is a little sore. How are you?'

Oh my God.

‘Fine.'

‘You don't say much, do you, Brian?'

‘I guess not.'

‘That's okay. I still like you.'

That was exactly the sort of thing that usually tripped me up, but this time I got it right. ‘I like you too, Megan.'

‘I bet you say that to all the girls you spank.'

‘Whatever.' She wasn't the only one who could be snide.

‘You want to come over?'

‘Is your mom home?'

‘God, you are so retarded. Of course not.'

‘You want me to bring some beer?' I asked, trying to make up for being retarded.

‘Is beer all guys can think about?'

‘No.' All I could think about was spanking her, but I was too scared to say it.

‘Then get over here and we'll try to come up with something better to do than get drunk.'

It was just after school and light poured in her window. In the light of day it was even scarier. Even she didn't have anything smart to say, so we just started kissing. Then we stopped and I knew what to do. I sat down and she began to unbuckle her belt, but then she mumbled something that might have been ‘wait a minute' and ran out of the room. A catalogue of everything that I could possibly have done wrong passed through my head before she came back, a little out of breath and flushed.

‘Use this,' she said, her voice soft, cracking.

She handed me a paddle, lacquered pine, about eight inches long and a third of an inch thick. I took it by the handle and it was heavier than I thought it would be.

She pulled her jeans and panties down to the crook of her knees and lay across my lap. She stretched her arms out on the couch, gripping the end of the cushion like she'd done this before. I patted her bare ass with the paddle before the first spank, wondering how hard to do it and not wanting to mess it up. She grunted with the first stroke and gasped with the second, her breath catching in her throat with the initial sting and then releasing through her grimaced face. It was way more serious than in the woods. The paddle made a cracking sound when it hit her skin. It wasn't sexy like it was when I fantasized about it. It wasn't light or fun or playful. It was scary because I was afraid of whether I was doing the right thing. I was glad when I got to ten and could stop. By then she was crying, but I don't think it was really because it hurt. It wasn't that kind of crying. It was more like a paddling was just the sort of thing that could make you cry.

We cuddled on the couch for a while, without kissing or anything. She held me with one of her hands; with the other she gently stroked the red skin on her behind. I could tell by the way she lay her head on my shoulder that I hadn't done anything wrong. I stroked her hair and she didn't seem so scary anymore. When I kissed the top of her head she began to cry harder, like she'd thought of something that made her really sad. Maybe her whole smart mouth attitude was just to protect her from feeling like this. She sniffled and I handed her a tissue from the end table. She sat up and blew her nose. Then she looked up at me, using her thumb and pinkie to pull her hair, wet with tears, back from her face.

‘Did you like the paddle?' she asked, trying to be light. She smiled underneath her sniffles.

‘I dunno. Did you?'

‘Goddamn it, Brian, don't you ever say anything?' She started crying again.

‘I'm sorry. It's just…' What I had meant to say was that I didn't think it was really about whether or not I liked the paddle.

‘Yeah, Brian, I love the fucking paddle. I love it so much that when my mom and I were moving out I stole it from my dad's dresser and brought it with me. Because I love being paddled, Brian. I used to love it when daddy beat my ass for drinking beer or making out with my boyfriend or smoking pot.'

Why was she mad at me? If it had been so awful, why did she ask me to do it?

‘It's the paddle your dad used on you?' I was so far out of my depth that I couldn't do more than restate the obvious. I braced myself for some smart-ass response, but instead she just nodded and struggled to hold back the tears.

If I wasn't doing too well at this, that's because this wasn't the sort of thing that happened to me. I only heard about this stuff from other people. Sex games that go too far, girls who spill their guts to you, fucked-up, divorced families: I'd heard about this stuff, but it didn't happen in my world. I was outside of it, almost like I was watching it on TV or in a movie.

I wondered how this would sound to the guys around the campfire. At least now I would have a story to tell that wasn't a complete lie. Except that this wasn't the kind of thing you told about. I had finally made it to the land of sex and drama only to learn that you didn't do things like this so you could impress your friends.

‘At first I thought I'd be glad to be rid of my dad,' Megan began, ‘but when he went to stay with nana and grandpa so me and my mom could pack up and leave in peace, I cried. He didn't even really say goodbye. He just left. The paddle represented everything I hated about my dad. If he wasn't paddling me he just avoided me. It was like I didn't exist except when I got in trouble. Then my mom would call him at work and he'd tell her that he'd handle it when he got home. I'd know I was going to get it.'

‘How'd he do it?' I didn't even really want to know, but I think she wanted to tell me. It felt sad, not sexy. At that moment she seemed vulnerable, not tough or cool.

‘When I was little he used to grab me by the arm and drag me up to his room. I hated it and used to fight as hard as I could. He was so big, and when he was holding me down on his lap I could feel how strong he was. He had a smell that I never smelled anywhere else. He'd beat me with the paddle and I'd kick and scream and cry. I was just a kid and it hurt like hell, but he only gave me ten and it was over pretty quickly. Then he'd send me to my room until I calmed down.

‘When I got older he stopped for a while. I think he was avoiding doing it. I was pretty out of control and my mom was scared I would run away if they were too hard on me. Besides, she had begun to hate my dad and stopped telling him when I got in trouble. Then just this year he started again. On my eighteenth birthday I got really drunk and sideswiped a parked car when I was driving home. The next day my dad told me to come in his room. I thought he was just going to yell at me, but he locked the door behind me and I began to get scared it was something else.

‘He was so nervous he didn't even really say anything. It was the way boys get around me, and I got really freaked out. I was about to call for my mom but then he grabbed me by the arm and pushed me down across his lap like he used to when I was little. I was so shocked I didn't do anything. I just lay there, even wriggling to help him get me in position. It was almost like I wanted it.

‘He must have gotten the paddle out beforehand, because he had it next to him on the bed. That first time he did it with my pants on. I think it was too weird for him to bare my bottom, but God did he beat me hard. I couldn't believe it was happening and I couldn't believe anything hurt that much. I didn't even cry; it was almost like I was too scared to let myself go. I didn't know when it was going to end or what he was going to do next. I wondered if he'd gone crazy.

‘It was so harsh. I was black and blue for a week. When he'd finally finished he just got up and told me, “Just for your information, Sugar, I'm going to do that to you again whenever you get in trouble.” Then he left, and I began crying.

‘Soon it wasn't even my ass I was crying about. It was him calling me Sugar and having parents who were getting a divorce and knowing that I would never tell my mom what happened.'

‘Did he do it again?'

‘He did it all the time. It was like he would look for any excuse. Whenever my mom wasn't there he would find something I'd done wrong. He began to do it on my bare butt and it grew into this elaborate ritual. He said it was so it would teach me a lesson, but it was really because he liked it that way. It sounds so sick, but the weird thing is, part of me liked it. I could have avoided it if I'd wanted. I could have just left the house so I was never at home alone with him. But I didn't. When it was happening I hated it and always swore to never be home alone with him again, but afterwards I'd always wonder about when it would happen next.'

She started to cry even more.

‘Hey,' I said, and held her to me. ‘Hey.'

But she wouldn't be soothed. I looked out the window, dumbfounded, a bare-bottomed girl beside herself on my lap. She was bawling so hard that she was choking. I thought of something and at first there was no way in hell I was going to do it, but then I couldn't stand it any longer, so I did.

‘Sugar?'

She stopped mid-sob and looked up at me. It wasn't a look I'd ever seen on anyone's face before.

‘You need another paddling, Sugar.'