Bad Girls (4 page)

I said it as a statement but also as a question. She could veto it. She could tell me it wasn't working for her, that it was making it worse, but she didn't.

‘Yes, daddy.'

The spell was cast. Her voice wasn't smart or sarcastic and mine wasn't scared or timid.

‘You know what happens when you get into trouble, don't you, Sugar?'

‘Yes, daddy.'

She got up and then lay facedown over my lap. I wished I'd asked her all sorts of questions, like how many he gave her and what he said to her and what their rituals were, but even if I got it wrong, I didn't think she'd mind.

‘Daddy's going to give his little girl thirty swats with the paddle now.'

‘No, daddy, I'm too sore. You just spanked me. That's too many.'

‘You're going to get whatever I say, Sugar. You know better than to argue. You'll get extra strokes if you're not careful.'

‘But daddy…' and she started to cry again, only this time it was different. She was crying like the worst thing in the world was the spanking she was going to get. It was like she was little again, before it all felt so hopeless, before parents split up and before you were too scared to tell someone what you were thinking. I still don't know what to do about those things, but at that moment I knew exactly what to do. I raised the paddle and brought it down hard.

‘One.'

‘Remember me?' she asked.

Alex had noticed her when he first walked in the convention hall. Short blonde hair, fashionable black suit, crisp white blouse buttoned up to her neck. She didn't look like anyone else at the trade expo. At expos like this the buyers tended to be older men, and the vendors' booths were fronted by cute young women for the buyers to ogle. What this arrangement lacked in dignity it made up for in efficacy, and Alex had become accustomed to it by now. He always wondered if there was some rent-a-model temp agency that the vendors used to staff their booths. While unbearably cute, these girls were all too young and insubstantial for him.

The woman standing before him, however, was a bit older and more sophisticated. He had thought she looked familiar but dismissed the possibility that he knew her as wishful thinking. Yet here she was, smiling knowingly while she awaited his answer. Alex had the horrible feeling that she was about to get the best of him. He tried to place her but failed. He was confident that he would remember if any of his professional connections looked like her. Blonde hair. He had never even been on a date with a blonde. Cute smile and eyes that looked at him with encouragement.

‘Are you a movie star? Because I don't get to the movies much.' As soon as he said it, Alex regretted playing it for laughs.

‘Come on, Alex, you don't need to be embarrassed. I'm the one who asked for it.'

Shit. Sarah. Dyed hair. New clothes. A year older. Not bent over my lap with her panties around her ankles.

‘Oh, my God, Sarah. It's so good to see you.' Alex tried to cover his embarrassment with enthusiasm.

‘Yeah, you too, Alex.'

Awkward pause.

‘So, how have you been?'

‘Fine. You?'

‘Good. Good.'

Whatever. They looked at each other blankly for a moment before Alex couldn't help but ask what was really on his mind.

‘Aren't you mad at me?'

‘Why should I be?'

‘You tell me. I never understood why you left.'

‘Jesus, Alex, it wasn't any big deal. I just had to go, that's all. It freaked me out a little, but it's not like there was anything wrong with it.'

That wasn't how Alex remembered it. He remembered the drink, the flirting, the coy spanking references, and then he remembered more drinks, more flirting and more spanking references, until they finally ended up in his hotel room, ready to realize their fantasies.

But he also remembered her storming out, barely taking the time to pull up her panties, let alone offer an explanation.

Standing before him now, Sarah resembled Ms Model Citizen. She gave the impression that Casanova couldn't have pried her out of her buttoned-up suit with that date rape drug. Her prim composure looked impenetrable. It was the kind of façade that made Alex sure of two things: first, that he would give anything to spank the look of aloof indifference off her face; and second that she would never in a million years consent to anything of the sort. He stared at her and wondered how this could be the same woman who'd been more than willing, who had even proposed it, only to abandon it abruptly for no perceptible reason.

But it was definitely the same woman. The woman who stood before him possessed the ass that he'd fantasized about almost every day for a year. Behind the fragile beauty of that face – porcelain-like in color and, Alex imagined, porcelain-like in delicacy – lurked the same unforgivable thoughts, appetites and needs that burned inside him. Which could only mean one thing: that she would want it again this year. Appetites like that don't go away.

‘Come with me,' Alex said, made bold by the realization. ‘We can finish what we started.'

‘Can't. I have a meeting in an hour. How about tomorrow night after the reception?'

It changed from an impulse to a premeditated crime. He worried that she would lose her nerve, but he accepted her invitation.

‘See you there.'

The next night at the reception, Sarah saw Alex from across the room and surprised him again.

‘Don't I know you?'

‘You look familiar,' Alex replied.

‘Maybe you saw me in the 2004 romantic comedy,
Drinking alone at a Hotel Bar
.'

‘Weren't you also in
The Amazing Disappearing Woman
?'

‘That wasn't one of my better roles.'

‘No, it wasn't. I've been hoping you'd do something new.'

‘Oh, yeah? Any ideas?'

‘How about
Unfinished Business
?'

‘What's my role?'

‘Just be yourself. You'll be fine.'

‘I wouldn't be so sure.'

‘Trust me this time.'

‘When does shooting start?'

‘After this thing ends. Room 873. Let yourself in.'

Alex offered her his card key the way he might if he were betting all his chips on an uncertain hand. She took it, turned and walked away without looking at him. It was a small thing that meant a lot.

The banter had worked. It got them where they needed to go, but Alex found the playfulness incongruent with what he was feeling. Was she playing because she was nervous or was she trying to duck the truth about her running away? Was their flirting a way to ease them into an intense encounter with their secrets, or was it a way to avoid facing them head-on? The truth was that he still burnt from last year. He had spent a year wondering if he'd done something terribly wrong. When she cut it short and ran out of his room she suddenly seemed erratic – dangerous even. He had worried about what she might do. He had even worried that he might make the same mistake – whatever it was – with other women. Since that night, whenever he was with a woman and remembered how things had gone so bad so fast, he became perceptibly more timid. As much as he fantasized about Sarah, he also resented her, wanting to continue the spanking, only this time he was motivated by a feeling of having really been wronged. Where the original spanking was to fulfill a mutual desire, this one would be to actually punish her for how she made him feel.

The paradox in punishing bad behavior by fulfilling a lifelong desire wasn't lost on Alex. But in the deep, sometimes backwards emotional logic of adult, erotic discipline, it made sense. He also understood that the intense, messed-up logic of it might be the very thing that drove her off. It was scary. They were doing something of significance. Her reluctance to trust a stranger was pitted against her strongest desire; her autonomy was pitted against her hunger to submit; and the need she felt for an intense experience was pitted against her fear of vulnerability and shame. Of course she felt conflicted about what she was doing. Who wouldn't? Last year she had balked at giving up all control, not only the control over the punishment but also the control she normally exerted over her own emotions. Giving up these controls had triggered some inner alarm deep inside her. The panic had surprised her as much as it had Alex. Even more surprising to her was that when she tried to bury the panic, her famous self-control had abandoned her and she just made it out the door before she lost it completely, crying the whole elevator ride back to her room and for much of the next year.

Alex didn't know that Sarah, too, hoped to exorcise some demons that had haunted her ever since. All he knew was that this time it would be different.

Using his card key and letting herself in meant she was doing it on her own accord. She stood outside the door, screwing up her courage and wondering what it meant that she was doing this. What would it mean if she went through with it this time? What would it mean if she didn't? Alex had been right; there was something that needed finishing. She slid the card key in the slot and stared at the green light before forcing herself to turn the handle.

Alex sat at the desk across the room. It felt like forever before he looked up.

‘Hi. I was told you were looking for an actress for your film.'

Her voice revealed more uncertainty than before. Was this the right thing to say? Was this game going to continue? Alex hadn't expected it to. He had expected contrition, some real acknowledgement of what had happened. He considered demanding it, but it occurred to him that there might be a better way to get there.

‘Are you here to audition?'

‘Yeah, I guess.'

‘What's your name?'

‘Sarah Miller.'

‘What role are you auditioning for?'

‘For the girl.'

‘Which girl?'

‘You know. The girl who…'

‘Yes? The girl who…?'

‘The girl who has come back.'

‘Come back, Sarah? I don't understand.'

‘I'm the girl with unfinished business.'

‘That's pretty vague. What business?'

‘I'm the girl who wanted to be with a man, but then I got scared and left.'

‘And now you've come back?'

‘Yes.'

‘Are you scared?'

‘Yes.'

‘What are you scared of?'

‘Myself.'

‘Why?'

‘I don't know, Alex. I'm just scared. I don't know what I'm going to do.'

‘I think you're too scared for the role, Sarah.'

‘No, Alex, stop doing this. It's not funny anymore.'

‘It's your game, Sarah. I don't even know if you want to be real.'

‘I want to be real. I do.'

‘Then tell me why you're here.'

‘I can't talk about it, Alex. Just do it to me. Please, just do it to me.'

‘Just do what, Sarah?'

Silence.

‘Say it, Sarah, or I can't help you.'

‘Spank me.'

Sarah had been tearing up since his first harsh words, but he hadn't done anything to make her feel better. He was testing her. If she was going to run, she would do it now. He watched and waited, still behind his desk, using all his strength to remain still and look at her. The truth was he would have lacked this control if it weren't for the role he'd slipped into. As himself he would have comforted her, not driven her harder. In the role of director he could watch, impassive, as the battle waged inside her.

Then she ran, but not towards the door. No, she ran to him. He stood up and caught her in his arms, enveloping her as she collapsed on him and sobbed into his chest. It was a year's worth of tears and it had only just begun.

‘There, there, honey. Just so you know what kind of movie this is. Now I'd like you to read a scene with me. Come on, sweetheart. Get a hold of yourself.'

It was hard for Sarah to stop crying when she felt like she was sinking deeper and deeper into the place that terrified her. She held onto Alex for dear life, looking up at him through teary eyes. Could she let herself go so completely with him? Could he be the rock that would anchor her in this storm?

He cradled her head in his hand and stroked her hair. It was a gesture that made her feel safe, the way a father might make his daughter feel safe, though Sarah's father had never made her feel anything but empty.

‘We're going to do the spanking scene. We'll start after you've arrived. You've come back to be punished for running away from the hero. You know he's glad to have you back, but you also know that you have to face the consequences of the damage you've done. He holds you in his arms as you cry, overcome by regret and fear. How you wish you had never left him, and how you wish you didn't have to get your spanking. You're so sorry, but he can only forgive you if he gets to show you how much it hurt. What you've done has torn him up, and now he needs to make you endure the pain that you put him through. Can you understand that, Sarah?'