Sandcastles Read online

  The spanking was long—easily the longest since they had begun their “arrangement,” and the result for Gwen was a fiery red bottom and a lingering painful sting that made it impossible to pull her jeans back up without renewing the sensation. Denning turned the paddle over in his hand admiringly.

  “Very effective,” he observed. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Do I get a vote?” Gwen grumbled, rubbing a slightly abraded spot on her ass. “Have you ever heard of sandpaper?”

  He grinned. “Sorry about that. I was in a hurry. Back to the shop, I guess?”

  “Enough chit-chat” Gwen growled. “Could you explain to me why I just got spanked for doing something you already said I could do?”

  “You were spanked—considerably less severely than you deserved, I might add—because you have a bad attitude and a smart mouth.”

  In an apparent effort to prove his point, Gwen hissed “Fuck you.” under her breath.

  What happened next was, simply put, agonizing. Without a word, Denning seated himself on the edge of the deck table and pulled Gwen across his thigh. He yanked her jeans down again and began welting the same still-fiery area he had spanked so diligently less than five minutes earlier. For the short but memorable “double header,” which Gwen would feel for a couple of days and remember for much longer, he was forced to hold the victim firmly in place, since she began to howl and kick almost immediately. Gwen’s behind was blotched uniformly red and lavender by the time she surrendered and apologized contritely for her remark.

  Afterward, Denning went back to work, leaving Gwen to minister to her fiery backside with a cool cloth. As she changed into dry clothing and reconsidered the incident, it occurred to her that the man she was almost sure she was in love with had rigged the whole scenario as an excuse to test his new paddle.

  “You didn’t really mean that I had to quit smoking today, did you? Just like that?” she asked, poking her head in the den door.

  He didn’t look up from the typewriter. “Light a cigarette and find out,” he suggested mildly.

  “I thought I had to agree about these things,” she said, sullenly. “At the risk of bringing on another merciless beating, SIR, I would like to point out that an awful lot of rules have been added without discussing it with me!”

  “Don’t use ‘awful’ as an adverb. You sound like what you Americans refer to as a ‘hick.’ Moreover, that sentence requires the plural, as in ‘discussing them with me’” he corrected her. “I appreciate colloquialisms and often use them myself. Now with regard to the rules: if you don’t know the rules, don’t disobey them.”

  “That’s a non-sequitur!” she hooted, gleefully.

  He didn’t stop typing. “Yes it is. Now spell it.”

  She thought for a moment. “I can’t.” she conceded.

  “Of course you can’t.” he chuckled. “Bend over the desk if you wish, and we’ll go over the spelling.”

  He wasn’t always harsh, and was sometimes even playful; on those occasions he gave her nothing more than a few swats—always for minor infractions, such as her atrocious spelling. These brief, often light-hearted “mini-spankings” began to have an odd effect on Gwen, which very much surprised her. She rather liked them. She liked them a lot and sometimes sought him out a few minutes afterward to lure him away from his work (or hers) long enough to make love standing up or on a table or the floor or whatever was handy and quick.

  After one of these sudden attacks of lust, he lay on the couch next to her stroking her inner thighs and evincing small yelps of pleasure from Gwen as his fingers wandered between her legs to gently stroke her sore buttocks. When she moaned appreciatively and sighed, he suddenly flipped her onto her stomach and smacked her on the rear end—hard.

  “Do you think I can’t see what you’re doing?” he asked, trying not to laugh. He stood up and buttoned his pants. “You enjoyed that, you shameless little slut!”

  Gwen rubbed her smarting backside with both hands. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she cried. “Of course I enjoyed it—before you hauled off and smacked me like that! That hurt, damn it!”

  “Good, but I was referring to the spanking that preceded the foreplay. I finally understand. You actually enjoy being spanked—as long as I don’t do too a good job of it.”

  “The hell I do!” she objected. “It still hurts....” She paused. “Just not as much.”

  “That’s just it. You enjoy it when it doesn’t hurt sufficiently. It turns you on.”

  She grimaced. “Okay—maybe just a little. Is that some sort of crime, now? It was the absolute rage in the old romance novels I used to read when I was sex-starved and untutored.”

  “Well consider that aspect of the romance over. You and I aren’t about to blur the boundaries. When your drawers come down you need to know that what’s about to happen is going to leave your ass on fire and hurt like bloody hell, not just put you in the mood for a good screwing. You need to understand that you’re in for a walloping and not foreplay. I don’t like to be a killjoy, but there it is. Get up and go back to work. I want that final draft of the new story in one hour—or else.”

  He walked away into his den and closed the door.

  It was almost dark an hour later when she knocked on his door with the pages he’d asked for.

  He took them from her and began to read. A few minutes later he called her back, and with almost no ceremony pulled her pants down, bent her over the arm of a chair, and while Gwen bemoaned the injustice of it all, used the large desk ruler to pepper her squirming buttocks with a dozen or more scalding swats.

  Gwen had known when she handed in the manuscript that it wasn’t right, and certainly not up to his expectations. It was her third lousy effort at a rewrite, and she was simply bored with a project she had been editing and reworking for nearly three weeks. After this afternoon’s romantic interlude, she had taken for granted that his mood would be mellower and less demanding... earning her a few swats, maybe a brief lecture and a stern warning.

  Instead, the spanking he meted out went well beyond what she’d expected. When her ass was so scorched she could barely stand the blows without crying aloud, Gwen tried to stand up and was rewarded by a harrowing assault on the backs of her thighs and between her legs that he held forcibly apart while he swatted.

  “That wasn’t necessary!” she yelled when he finished. His face grim, Denning pulled her across his thigh and continued spanking, this time with his hand smacking her flanks and the lowest parts of her butt until she began to groan.

  He stood up and pushed her facedown across the desk. “Now!” he said. “Stay there! Exactly like that—for thirty minutes or until you can tell me exactly what was wrong with what you just handed in. If you don’t get it right, I’m going outside and cut a switch, and you’re going to wish you’d never found this house or me!”

  “I already wish that, you goddamned bully!” she screamed. Ignoring his instructions, she got up straightened her clothing and walked to the doorway. “And if you think I’m going to stand there like a spanked child standing in the corner, you can think again! Just can keep your fucking sadistic lessons, Professor! I’m leaving!”

  She turned and walked into her room. She was throwing the last of her things in her suitcase when he knocked softly on the door.

  “Go away!” she shouted. Then changing her mind she flung the door open slamming it hard against the wall. “You’re absolutely right! This is your house and your room! I sleep on your sheets! I eat your food and live on your charity! I’ve obviously wasted weeks of your precious time! When I get back to LA and find a job I’ll start paying you back! Send me a bill, and if it takes me the rest of my fucking life I’ll pay you every fucking red cent I owe you with goddamned interest!”

  “I don’t want you to pay me back, and I don’t want you to leave” he said quietly.

  “Who the hell cares what you want?” she shrieked. “If you want it, you get it; is that the way it works? You won a goddamne
d Pulitzer Prize and made more money than God, and that gives you permission to keep slaves!”

  “Is that how you see it?” Denning asked sadly.

  “How else am I supposed to see it, Josh? One minute we’re friends—or at least I thought we were. Sometimes, lately, a lot more than friends, and the next minute I’m nothing to you but a worthless hopeless student who’s wasted your time!”

  “Did I ever say worthless? Or hopeless?”

  “Oh, okay!” Gwen said, coldly. “That’s better, I guess. Still a student, but not without hope—a little more worth your valuable time. Is that supposed to make me feel better? Before you answer that, let me ask you something else, Josh. Will you promise to answer me honestly? It won’t change anything, but I need to know.”

  He nodded.

  “Do you like it when you’re … when you’re doing it? When you’re spanking me? Oh, I know about the ‘light’ stuff.” She blushed. “After this afternoon, I guess we’ve already settled that, but when you’re doing it really hard, do you like doing it?”

  There was a long pause before he spoke.

  “No.” he said. “I don’t usually like it, but I won’t lie to you and say ‘never.’ There’ve been a couple of times—the first time specifically—when I felt righteous. Another one or two times I was so angry with you. But usually, when I realize how it’s hurting you, it makes me feel like shit. You may not believe this, but I’ve never done anything like this before … hit anyone—and certainly not a woman.

  “There’s a gray area here, Gwen; you know that,” he continued. “People get arrested for a hell of a lot less. When we started, it seemed simple enough—even straightforward. You screwed up and I spanked you. And afterward, you tried a little harder and improved, rather than get paddled again. Easy enough. But no, after I’ve finished whipping you I’m not especially proud of myself.”

  Denning sat down on the edge of the bed wearily, his face showing the strain of what he was trying to explain. “But I’ll tell you what I do like about it. I like the look in your eyes when I’ve just spanked you really hard. You’re not subdued or afraid. You’ve never been afraid. It would kill me to see that in your face. But you’re stubborn, and you’re mad as hell. You’re so mad you could kill me sometimes, but you’re also determined to show me—to prove to me how dead wrong I am! At moments like that, I could whale the living daylights out of you and you’d still come back for more, rather than just throw in the towel and give the whole thing up. Even when you’re over my desk with your butt getting red and happily plotting to slit my damned throat while I’m asleep, I can see it. A few moments later, you grit your teeth and make the decision to hang in there—just to show me how wrong I am. And how strong you are.

  “Even when you’re blubbering and your nose is red and running and you’re rubbing your butt and glaring at me with murder in your eye, I can tell that you’re going to go back to the computer and get it right this time—not just because you don’t want another hiding, but because you’re determined to prove me wrong. To prove what an idiot and an asshole I am. From the very beginning—from the very first time I spanked you—you’ve always known that you could throw a damned lamp at my head and storm out of here. You knew I wouldn’t stop you, but you preferred to stay here and make a fool out of me.

  “And you know what? It’s working. Each time you get better, smoother and the writing is more real, more focused. There’s less crap and more meat to what you write, and for those minutes while I’m reading what you’ve written, yes, I think it’s worth it. Until later at night when I watch you sleeping on your stomach because you have to. Sometimes I pull the sheet down and look at you and hate myself because I can’t believe that I’ve been responsible for hurting you that way. And then the very next day just when I’ve decided to stop all this, you bring me another ten great pages.

  “So if you still want to leave, I won’t try to stop you and I won’t blame you, but I won’t change anything either. I’m going to keep this up until you want to do it for yourself and not just to screw me or impress me or even to avoid another sore butt. And I want you to recognize all of this, too, if you don’t already. I know and I think you know that if I ever start letting you off easy, you’ll settle for less, because you’re lazy and indolent and used to having your own way. Harmless traits in an heiress, maybe, or a hack for ‘SEEK!’ magazine, but crippling for a serious writer.”

  He paused and took a deep breath.

  “You asked me to give you an honest answer, and that’s about as honest as I can make it. No, I don’t like hurting you. What happened a few minutes ago was nothing more than petty revenge on my part for allowing myself to be taken in and I…I’m sorry.”

  She interrupted him, “But what if I can’t do it, Josh? What if you’re wrong and I belong back at ‘SEEK!’ What’s all this about, if I never get to be the writer you’re trying to make me?”

  He smiled. “I’m not trying to make you a writer. You are a writer. Stop fishing for compliments. I’m just trying to make you into the kind of writer who knows what she really wants. A writer willing to do what it takes to get there.”

  “And what about me as a woman?” she asked softly. “What’s going on between you and …?”

  “Again, that fishing for compliments,” he said, with a chuckle. “That’s another thing about you. You’re impatient.”

  Gwen sighed. “Okay, let’s add this all up.” She began hanging things back in the closet. “I’m lazy, indolent, spoiled, dishonest, impatient—probably insane—a rotten cook and housekeeper—anything else?”

  “Yes. You’re a smoker, but I believe I’ll be able to change that by the end of the week. I think we can take ‘dishonest’ off the list now, and I’ve become used to the insanity. But your best trait is that you’re not afraid—of just about anything. You’re certainly not afraid of me, and I’m generally considered very frightening. But I’ll make a bargain with you, since this seems to be a day for changes. If you tell me with absolute honesty that all this hasn’t helped, I’ll never spank you again. And in any case from here on I’ll try to be a bit more … sensitive to your feelings. Let’s say you’ve been promoted—from slave to indentured servant. Next semester perhaps you’ll advance from indentured servant to overworked abused apprentice. After that, who knows?”

  “All, right you win,” she said. “I will admit that there has been some significant improvement, so to speak, since the beginning of the semester. But do I have your guarantee that you won’t escalate the penalties as the lessons get harder?”

  He laughed. “No further bargains and no guarantees except, of course, for all that milk of human kindness that we both know runs through my veins... somewhere. I try never to beat my students into unconsciousness. It makes them listless in class. Besides, you’d have already run like hell if you thought that—and had the cops on me. The discomfort in your ass isn’t what this is about, and it never will be. Oh, I know the spankings hurt, and you try to get out of them by working a little harder, but that’s still not your primary motivation. You’re still after that Pulitzer Prize, and you’re planning on picking my brain clean of everything useful before you bail out of here and you know it.”

  “Ah” she smiled. “So you teach psychology, as well as creative writing!”

  He rose from the bed and put her suitcase back in the closet.

  “Absolutely,” he called back to her as he went back to his office. “I am a man who wears many hats.”

  * * *

  The weeks passed, and as the stories were finished to his satisfaction, piling up in a tidy stack on the corner of her desk, Gwen found herself alone for longer periods each day. She knew without asking that Denning was working on the novel again.

  “What’s it about?” she asked the following evening as they walked along the beach.

  “What’s what about?” he countered leaning down to skip a stone expertly across the water.

  “The new novel.”

  �
��Oh you mean the novel the world is waiting for? The breathlessly awaited sequel to Jezreel? The novel that’s going to cement my niche in literary history?”

  “I think you’ve already done that.” she said softly.

  “Hardly. One successful book makes a writer a flash in the pan. You need a body of work to earn your place on Mount Olympus.”

  “But all of your early books were wonderful!”

  “All of my early books were crap” he replied.

  “Well then, this one will do it.”

  “There is no this one, Gwen. I’ve retired.”

  “I don’t believe that!” she cried. “You couldn’t!”

  “But I have. It was as simple as turning off the computer. I never liked writing on a computer, by the way. I’m still a yellow legal pad kind of guy.”

  “But won’t you miss writing?”

  He chuckled. “Do you think a new mother misses her hours of agonizing labor?”

  “Well she does have a baby when that’s all over, you know! And when you’re done with a novel you have .…”

  “A ‘Movie of the Week,’ perhaps?”

  She nodded. “You didn’t like what they did with Jezreel.”

  “Did you?” he asked, bluntly. “I couldn’t have cared less. They could have made it into a ‘Three Stooges’ comedy, for all I cared. I sold the damned thing for more money than I’d ever seen in my life. If I start throwing it out of car windows I’ll never be able to get rid of that much money. They didn’t make a movie of Jezreel. They made something else.”