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  “Sitting W/Dad. Cnt Lv.”

  “Has there been a change in his condition?” Mark’s too classy for text language, which only makes me want him more.

  “No Change. Just 2 Tired.”

  “Too tired to hear about Lynx?”

  “Be there at 9”

  I sit with Dad and talk to him a bit longer. There’s no response. I tell him I love him, hide the fictional list in my car and head over to Mark’s. The ride through traffic and the walk from the parking lot to lying to the attendant to service elevator journey leave me even crankier than I was before.

  “I’ll be glad when I don’t have to be Lucy Conway anymore,” I spout, annoyed that I still have to use the cleaning lady’s name, as I come off the elevator in his apartment.

  “I wouldn’t be so quick to give her up,” Mark responds with wry humor. “If you don’t get Lynx back you could use the job.”

  “That’s not funny,” I pout.

  “Neither is ignoring my summons. I needed to speak with you.”

  “Look, I’ve already got enough problems in the world without you,” I start, my volume rising with every other word. “I am trying to sit with my father. I’ve got the clock on Lynx ticking down like a bomb and now I’ve got you with your expectations, distractions and plans. You need to back off.”

  “Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought we had a deal.”

  “We do, but until I have all this other stuff in the bag you’ll have to sit some time out. Our deal is only a deal because I say it is.” I stick out my chin like I’m fourteen and he notices. He smiles and nods, clearly indulging my fantasy that I am in some way in charge.

  “We’ll deal with that temper tantrum in a minute. And trust me when I say – we will deal with it. But in the meantime, I need to tell you what happened with Blake today.” Mark motions for me to sit down on the couch.

  “Let me guess, you summoned Blake to a meeting and he’s decided to give Lynx back to me and we are all going to a picnic on Sunday,” I mumble caustically.

  “If you insist on acting like a child, we can deal with your attitude now and save the news until later,” he offers. I realize I am way out of line with him – deal or no.

  “I’m sorry,” I say truly apologetic. “I’m so full of doubt, guilt and just…”

  “That’s fine,” he soothes. “So, good news or bad news?”

  “Good. Please, God, anything that’s good.”

  “I got into the system and found out which IT person Blake sent over to Lynx. As luck would have it, it was Howard, the biggest nerd in the herd. I asked him to write down everything he did for Blake, including upload a remote desktop connection which lets him into Lynx. I had him sign it in front of my assistant and locked it in my private safe. So we have that part of the puzzle for the package we file with the judge. That part was easy.”

  “Are you crazy? He’s going to tell Blake and he’ll know we are up to something!”

  “No, he won’t. Let’s just say two tickets to the San Diego Comicon that he happened to win for outstanding service to the company, along with airfare and hotel, made him a little forgetful of the events of today.”

  “So you bribed him?”

  “I said it was easy. I didn’t say it was cheap.”

  “And the bad news?” I fear to ask. I’m relieved Mark got the kid to confess and put it in writing, but lately I’ve developed “second shoe syndrome” where I expect something bad to happen at any time.

  “Today at work I had little run-in with Blake. I was trying to get into his office and see if he had a hard copy of the records of his transactions. He does, but I had to leave before I could get it.”

  “Won’t he move it now that you’ve seen it? Or shred it?”

  “I don’t think he knows that’s what I was in there for. I waited until he went out to lunch. I saw Valerie’s car in the lot so I knew he’d be gone for some time.”

  “Valerie James? He has lunch with her?”

  “Well, it is not in the nature of the Stone family to kiss and tell, but, of all the assets we’re involved in, she is the one who gets the most personal attention or with whom he…ah…makes the ‘deposits’. Anyway with those two at lunch, it gave me time. I called a nearby florist and had them bring over a dozen roses from a secret admirer to Rona, Blake’s’ assistant. I figured she would be so curious and awestruck she would stay downstairs long enough for me to look around.”

  “So, Valerie and Blake, sitting in a tree. F-U-C-K-I…”

  “That’s enough! Anyway, I got in there and the place is a wreck. How he even manages to make evil schemes work is beyond me. Papers everywhere! Then I realized he wouldn’t hide something as private as this where anyone could find it. I remembered when we were kids, Blake went through a brief and odd sort of kleptomania as a child.”

  “So he’s been stealing people’s things for a long time?”

  “No, not things, exactly. Pictures. As a small child he would take people’s pictures from their homes or school or whatever. If someone had a picture sitting in a drawer or in a frame easily opened he would nab it and hide it. He would always keep them behind the bookshelf in his room. He would pull out the books, put the pictures against the back of the shelf, and replace the books. It was the perfect hiding place.”

  “Not if you knew about it,” I scoffed.

  “I found out by accident. We were wrestling and tussling around. Our mother came in to tell us to stop and right as she was walking the door I lost balance and fell into the bookshelf, knocking it over and all the pictures came out. There were so many. Some showed people my mother didn’t even know.”

  “Okay, you know this story just moved your brother from the evil bastard category to the totally psycho group?”

  “It wasn’t really that odd. All the pictures showed smiling adults and families doing happy things. Some were magazine clippings and advertisements. Our parents were busy, stoic and somewhat jaded. I think Blake was trying to “steal a little happiness” and once he got caught, it never happened again. But, he continued to use the back of the bookshelf to hide things. Porn, condoms, report cards - anything that needed to be kept private.”

  “So he’s stealing my happiness, so he can get laid by Valerie James?”

  “No, I think he’s getting that already. But I did discover a folder, behind a set of tax law books, that has ledgers, printouts and things. I’m sure it’s Lynx. I thumbed through it but before I could get all the books out to get it, Rona was back. I guess she’s getting a divorce and assumed the flowers were from her soon-to-be ex. Instead of trying to get the name out of the florist, she threw a fit, shredded the roses in front of him and told him to tell the jerk he could ‘sit on the thorns’. Then she rushed back upstairs so I had to leave the folder where it was.”

  “Did she figure out what you were doing there?”

  “No, I told her I needed a transfer document and couldn’t find it in Blake’s mess. Later he came into my office and asked why I was rooting around his desk. I told him I needed a transfer document to wrap up a file, and mentioned that with the new regulations we should go over all recent transfers, including Lynx, to make sure everything was audited and right. He got pissy and said ‘Of course everything is right!’ and stomped out of the office.”

  “Well, good. I have the T-list for Valerie. I’ll give it to Janice and she can turn it over, although I can’t imagine why she would want a source list so bad.”

  “She doesn’t,” He replies confidently and stands holding out his hand. I rise and take it as he walks me to the “playroom” we used before. There’s just a box of Kleenex and a hairbrush.

  “Then why am I giving it to her?” I ask nervously as he sits on the bed and pats the mattress for me to sit down too.

  “Because you aren’t willing to give her whatever you have that she really wants. You’re no better a liar than Blake is, my dear. I know you’re hiding something from Valerie, and you’re hiding it from me too. I don�
��t know what it is, or care. But we need to give her something.”

  “Mark, I’m not...” I look in his eyes, so beautiful, so solid. I can’t lie to him. “I’m not ready to tell you what it is. I’m not ready to let it go. It’s not you, really, it’s just that…”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Mark replies. “That’s not why we are here anyway.”

  I look around the room again and point out the large wooden hairbrush on the dresser.

  “We’re here to change hairstyles?” I ask jokingly. He laughs, thank goodness.

  “We’re here to change lifestyles, or at least how you deal with life,” he grows serious again.

  “With a hairbrush? How on earth are…” A blinding picture flashes through my imagination. The Kleenex, the hairbrush, the bed. “Oh, no, you’re not serious.”

  “This time, I’m very serious,” Mark says as he rolls up his shirt sleeve – one and then the other. He adjusts his position on the bed and looks at me with a slight grin.

  “You’re going to spank me? With a hairbrush? Like a little kid getting punished?” I can’t tell if I’m giggling because this is so silly or trembling because I’m a little scared but my voice is shaking.

  “I am going to spank you, with my hands, and then maybe the brush, like you are a grown woman who needs some release. You bottle everything up inside you, Julia. Your fear, your doubt, your guilt. This is one of the quickest and best ways I know to strip off the armor and get to the soul of the problem.”

  “Mark, I know I’ve been a bitch lately, but really,” I begin but I know the look in his eyes – it’s the ‘I’m patiently waiting for you to stop talking so we can go on’ look.”

  “I can’t promise you will like it. But what I can promise is that when I’m done you will have one red backside and one happy inside because you are going to cry out all the stuff that’s blocking you from thinking, laughing and loving.”

  “And if I don’t feel happy and joyous after your little spanking fiasco is done?”

  “Then I’ll happily refund your money, and enjoy your red backside anyway.” He says with a wink and a sexy smile. “Look, Julia – this can be ‘win-win’ or it can just be ‘I win’ but, either way – you’re getting a spanking. Now stand over there and pull your pants off. You can leave the rest on for now.”

  I feel like such a fool. Standing here in front of Mark, with his sleeves rolled up in a very no-nonsense fashion. My parents didn’t believe in spanking and I was raised in the era when it had been voted out of schools. I had to do extra chores or be grounded a few times, but I’ve never had anything like this. So here I am, a grown woman, about to go through a silly childhood ritual.

  Mark instructs me to lie over his lap. He puts a pillow on his legs so it raises my bottom slightly in the air. I put my head down on the bed and stare at the wall. Maybe if I act entirely uninterested in this nonsense, he will cut this short and we can get down to some lovin’.

  He begins my rubbing my bottom in circles, my mound instantly alive at his touch. He rubs and grasps my rear, even leaning over and giving one of my cheeks a little kiss. His hand slips underneath my panties and I feel his finger flit against my lips. Then his left arm goes around my waist and his right hand gives my rear a series of short swats. They pop against my skin like little jolts. Not entirely unpleasant at all. After a couple of volleys he rubs me again and I feel some warmth rising on my pinkish globes.

  “This is just the warm up,” he narrates. “Warming you up slowly will help you endure when the real challenge begins.”

  “We could just stop here,” I joke, and earn another volley of short smacks on my rear. Then his hands continue rubbing and press against me. I wish I would have volunteered to take my panties off, because my wetness is sure to be apparent any moment. He shifts his legs under me, raising my bottom a little higher and gives me about twenty quick smacks, one right after the other. I feel the heat rising on my globes.

  “Deep transformation,” He says as he is rubbing my warmed rear and running his fingers under the waistband of my panties. “Takes time and you must remove your outside shell to release what is in the inner storage of your soul.”

  Mark slowly pulls my panties down. I feel the cooling sensation of the air on my rear and it gives me delicious goose bumps. At the same time, I feel him peeling off my defenses, cutting through my hard-ass demeanor and exposing me.

  “Sometimes,” Mark continues, speaking slowly and deliberately, as if to a child. “We need someone else to remove that shell for us.”

  SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! Mark starts spanking me harder, his hand unrelenting, the warmness I felt before is turning into a consistent hot presence. I put my head down and try to endure. I’m not going to end up like some kicking screaming three year old no matter how much he thinks that should happen. I steel myself and grit my teeth but the stinging hits just keep coming and coming.

  I discover I am moving back and forth across his lap, subconsciously trying to dodge his hand even though it seems to hit the target every time. This last volley is hard and sharp, the pain and heat radiating from my behind throughout my whole body. My legs give in and start kicking back and forth in the air. He pauses for a moment to let me catch my breath while he rubs my sore behind in a soothing, arousing manner. Then, just when I am ready for him to turn me over and take me, the spanking starts again.

  “How long do we have to do this,” I sputter between spanks. My gosh why isn’t his hand ready for fall off? My bottom is becoming an inferno and he’s still smacking it.

  “Until you are finished,” he replies, giving me three good hard smacks on each cheek making me lurch forward. Amazingly, I purposely slide myself back on his lap and lift my bottom for him to continue.

  “Am I somewhere near done?” I ask over some smacks, each word revealing the strain in my voice as I try not to let it show this is getting to me. “I feel pretty well roasted.”

  “Oh trust me, Julia,” Mark says cordially then lays another eight or ten wallops right in the sit spot. “When you’re done – you’ll know. We will both know.”

  Mark stops for a second and gives me more mercy rubbing, his hand managing to wander into my cleft and feel the wetness there as well. He leans over and picks up the wooden hair brush from the nightstand. Taking some Kleenex out of the box, he places them near my hands.

  “No, please,” I whimper. I already have a painful stinging blaze back there and I can’t image the unforgiving flat surface of that brush is going to make it feel better. Mark just pats my rump.

  “This will speed things up a bit,” He says in a soft kind voice. I want to sit in his lap and hug him. “The best I advice I can give you is to feel it, and then when you’re ready let it go. Let everything go.”

  I have no idea what that really means. He starts with small little pops on each cheek and I can already feel the difference. The swats increase, faster and harder. I give up trying to control my bottom or legs; they are both swinging and moving. I grip the bedspread and put my head down, feeling the first tears start to form. I can’t fight this anymore; I let them roll down my cheek gasping as the fire burns.

  This is so embarrassing. At my age, lying over a man’s lap having my bare bottom spanked with a hairbrush like a small child. But, this is par for the course. I’ve been embarrassed about a lot of my behavior lately – screaming at Blake, lying to Mark, mistreating employees, ignoring my dad to get more articles by deadline, pushing myself to the point of exhaustion and pushing away anyone who couldn’t keep up with my pace. I’ve been such a bitch to so many people for so long.

  Mark somehow senses my introspection. No more mercy rubs, he starts wailing away with that brush hitting the same spot over and over. My bottom is bouncing off his lap and I hear a sound, a wail before I realize it is coming out of me.

  All the times I took people for granted. All the ways I fought and pushed against my mom and then she was gone. She was gone and I hadn’t even said goodbye. And now, what did
I do with my Dad? I put him in the specialty center and threw as much money as I could at it to save his life but I spent all my time at Lynx. It was all about me, my career, and my stubborn ungiving way.

  My sobbing grows loud as gobs of snot and tears run down my face. I don’t even bother with the Kleenex because the boiling on my bottom has released a flood out of me. Again and again that brush comes down and so many images start flooding my mind and I remember what Mark said. I stop fighting them and let them go, grasping, screaming and convulsing over his lap.

  I think of my Dad and all the times I put him off, and Greg. Greg cheated on me and I was right to break off the engagement. But I also treated him like a coin I could carry in my pocket. Everything in our relationship rotated around me, around my career. We ate at places I wanted to review. We saw movies of issues I wanted to write about. Me, me, me. And when he didn’t please me or when he needed me to please him – I was unavailable. I didn’t make him cheat but I sure as hell didn’t encourage him to stay.