Ana hugged the children as they filed out for the day, in two neat rows like little ducks behind their teacher as they headed out to meet their waiting parents. As they went, she accepted assorted gifts of stickers, a piece of carpet lint, a half-chewed crayon, and a tiny spatula swiped from the kitchen corner. Looking at it, Ana couldn't help but relive that morning. It was hard trying to imagine the itty bitty play utensil smacking at her backside with any degree of effectiveness. Like a mosquito trying to hit an elephant… she doubted it would bite much harder. In fact, as hard as she'd tried to smack herself, she hadn't been able to summon a single genuine wince all day today. A real spanking should tingle for a few hours at least, if not keep her sitting gingerly all day long. While Ana was relieved not to have to explain any undue squirming in addition to yet another bump into 'furniture', she felt cheated of the real experience.
Alone at last, Ana made her rounds through the empty classroom, washing the semi-circle tables and sanitizing the blue foam nap mats. As she worked, she tried not to think about either Miranda or Peyton. Shortly before lunch, she had given in to a lot of guilt and worry and sent a text to Peyton asking if she had found a hotel room last night. Her girlfriend—or rather, ex-girlfriend—hadn't answered. Had she really expected her to, and why did that make her feel even worse?
"Oh my gosh, I'm ready for this vacation," Sherri, the head teacher, said as she came back into the classroom. "If you stack the chairs, I'll start mopping."
"Sure." Despite her newly minted degree in early childhood education, Ana didn't have enough experience to land a teachership. Instead, as assistant teacher, she did everything Sheri told her and more. Ana didn't mind. Sheri ran a tight ship and was a great mentor. Although some of her methods were too old-fashioned for most of Ana's education professors, they were backed up by thirty years of experience. She loved each child as if they were her own, and Ana admired that. In addition, Sherri had never put Ana through the hazing other assistant teachers had to endure. Ana knew of several ex-classmates who had quit their first teaching jobs in tears. Ana had lucked out. For the most part, Sherri treated her like an equal. They made a great team.
Ana walked the classroom, stacking chairs in the back.
"What are you doing during the break?" A heavyset woman, Sherri puffed a little from the combined exertion of bending over and mopping beneath the low tables. "Going on another hike with Peyton?"
There went that pang of guilt again. Ana wished she could ignore it. "No, I'll probably just veg out and catch up on my sleeping in."
"Sounds heavenly." Sheri smiled. "Todd and are going up to the cabin for the week." Finished with the mopping, she planted a fist on her hip and looked around the classroom. "I think that's done it, hon. Let's go home. You enjoy yourself, you hear? I'll see you when Calvary opens again in two weeks."
Ana went to hug her, wrapping her arms around Sheri's neck almost the same way Rhae had done to her a few minutes earlier. "I will."
Leaving Sheri to lock up, as was her habit, Ana went home. By the time she arrived, her good mood had completely vanished. If there was anything more depressing than cooking for one person, Ana couldn't think what it was. Sitting at the kitchen table with her laptop open, she dedicated herself to avoiding the solitude with a bowl of cold cereal. She opened a chat window on the Heaven in Horticulture forum, hoping Miranda might be online, but she wasn't. Ana left a message for her instead. It said, simply: Had a good day at work. How was yours?
It was awfully early in the evening to expect a reply, but a returning message popped up on the screen halfway through her Cocoa Puffs.
Long. I've been comforting a sick friend. What are you up to?
Having dinner.
I haven't fixed anything yet. I have no idea what I want. What are you having?
Cereal, Ana answered. She started to take another bite, but then paused and put her hands back on the keyboard. In chocolate syrup.
She wasn't, although the Puffs were getting soggy and the milk had by now turned quite chocolaty. Still, she was a little curious as to whether Miranda would rise to the bait, and she was more than ready for a return to happier humor.
Tsk. Are you trying to get yourself spanked again? Perhaps I should be more severe this time.
And just like that, despite that morning's disappointment, an entire flock of butterflies came to glorious life in Ana's stomach. She could feel that fluttering all the way up under her ribs, around her heart, and in the far back of her throat. She had to put her spoon down because she wasn't sure she could take another bite without choking on it. Maybe you should.
It was an honest answer, but it turned those butterflies into bees.
And Miranda's next reply turned those bees into a raging swarm of hornets. Go get your scraper.
Ana couldn't move. No, that wasn't true. She was still able to reach for her keyboard. I don't want to. It didn't feel real.
No?
Those hornets swarmed harder. Do you do that in real life? Spank, I mean.
When it's needed. Is that what's needed, lovely? Do you need a firm hand in real life?
Ana put her hands on the keys, but then couldn't make herself type something light and smart-alecky back. Of course, she didn't need a spanking. Wanted, maybe, but nobody needed that sort of thing. She was twenty-two. She was a college graduate with a teaching degree and maybe, just maybe, by next fall she would have a class of her own.
She was intelligent and responsible, lived on her own and paid all her own bills, and so what if her bottom tingled at the thought of being bent over and laid bare for the sharp smacking attentions of something disciplinary? It was okay to have fantasies kinkier than the mainstream. It was okay to be a strong, independent woman and still wish for a stronger woman to take her in hand.
Wasn't it?
That still didn't mean she needed it. She wasn't… needy.
Her trembling fingers wouldn't reply, not that she could think of anything witty to say back. But when she glanced back at the screen, she found Miranda had not waited for a reply. There it was, in bold yet seemingly harmless letters in the chat box: Ana, do you want to meet?
Did she want to meet?
Hell yes, she did, but did she dare? What if it all went horribly wrong? What if they didn't suit? What if Miranda spanked her, and she still felt only that awful disappointment? Then she really would be alone, without Peyton, without anyone special in her life. Not even in the make-believe world of online.
Her fingers utterly betrayed her.
Yes, they replied, leaving Ana to simply stare in mixed horror and longing at the black and white letters in the chat box. It was such a stupid thing to be this conflicted when, in that moment, she'd happily have traded every single thing she owned for a few minutes with Miranda. Yes, I want to meet.
I want to meet you too, Miranda replied.
When?
When are you free?
Ana stared at her hands in shock, simply watching as they moved over the keys as if they belonged to someone else. My work's shut down for the next two weeks. So now, I guess.
The cursor blinked, unmoving, for what felt like forever. Then it jumped, and Miranda's reply filled the bottom of the chat window. Pack your bags. I'm getting you the first flight from there to here. What's your nearest airport?
Ana told her and, just like that, her whole world suddenly stopped. She sat frozen at the table, her Cocoa Puffs turning to glop in the bowl beside her, her hands cupping one over the other over her gaping mouth. This was everything she wanted right now… and yet, this was such a bad idea. Tonight? She couldn't leave on a half-second's notice! She had to pack. She had to find someone to plant sit—her gaze shot guiltily to the withered brown leaves gathered around the base of what few twigs remained of the green-growing thing on her windowsill. She quickly looked away again. Okay, no plant sitter, but still she had to catch a cab to the airport. She had to figure out a way to afford this. She had to let people know where she was going.
Where the
hell was she going?
Peyton was going to hit the roof.
No sooner had that thought flashed through Ana's mind than did she stop all over again. Who cared what Peyton did? Ana was no longer accountable to her. Why was she still thinking as if she were? If she wanted to take a spur of the moment vacation to meet an online friend (one who flipped every sensual trigger she'd ever owned, and then some), then that was no one else's business but Ana's and Miranda's.
She got up from the table, and her knees trembled. She had to work at stiffening them, steadying herself before she went to pack.
She really hoped she didn't screw this up.
CHAPTER SIX
Ana read the Castle brochure—all three full-colored pages of it—a dozen times while waiting for the shuttle to depart from the Starbucks parking lot in Granger. While she was reading, Peyton kept calling her phone. She called nine times—seventeen in all, if one started counting with the one Ana received barely upon walking out her front door, duffel bag in hand. If one also added to that the plethora of text messages she'd received throughout her four hour flight and two hour layover in Chicago, it was more like seventy-three.
Nursing her iced latte between increasingly nervous hands, Ana debated turning her phone off. The only thing that stopped her, each time that phone rattled out another vibrating ring or whistled to announce another text received, was knowing she hadn't told anyone about her impromptu vacation. How could she? Her parents already wanted her to drop everything and come visit them. When her mom had called last night to make the invitation, Ana had pretended she and Peyton were planning a week-long series of romantic daytrips—picnics in the park, hikes in the mountain, drives through the countryside just to see where those familiar little roads they passed on the way to work every day went—and she said it all knowing full well that when she got back she was going to have to lie some more, recounting how wonderful each one of those make-believe trips had been. But she would do it, because however many lies she'd have to tell to explain her time away, those would still be infinitely easier than to try explaining the Castle, the kinkiest adult resort in the world, to her parents.
Her pocket vibrated with yet another of Peyton's interruption attempts. Ana clutched the brochure in her lap, her eyes glued to the sprawling Ohio countryside passing outside her window, and tried to ignore it as the bus merged from city streets onto a two-lane country highway. Within a few miles, they had left the small town of Granger, with its two streetlights and sprawling amalgamation of Wild West-aged storefronts and modern buildings, behind them. The last thing Ana saw, just before cow pastures and cornfields became the only scenery of note, was a ginormous billboard that read: 'Maybe's Candy Shop! Now located exclusively online and at The Castle. Candies made fresh daily by the sinfully sweet Sinclair!'
There wasn't a single adult-oriented thing about that billboard, but there was something vaguely suggestive about the smiling redhead pictured there with all her confections and baked goods spread out around her. It wasn't until they were well past the sign and slowing down to turn onto a private, unpaved drive, that Ana realized some of those sweets had been in the shapes of canes, hairbrushes, and paddles, and that what she had at first mistaken for a ribbon of red in the background had, in fact, been a woven licorice whip.
Her belly tightened. A crawling sensation moved up the backs of her legs and across her bottom. Ana couldn't help but squirm in her seat.
The private drive wound them through a veritable ocean of cornfields. They rounded a tree-lined grove, past a security gate and more cornfields, and finally, there it was, the Castle—a massive gray monolith of stone and turrets rising from behind a high stone wall, shielded by trees.
In just a few minutes, Ana was going to disembark from this bus and, finally, she was going to meet the woman who had haunted her online dreams for the past eight months. She'd never done anything like this before in her life, but although her nervousness intensified inside her, so did the excitement. This was the sort of thing that could spark a whole new change in her life… or it could make everything come crashing down around her as only the biggest mistakes could. Ana didn't want to think that way, but she couldn't remember the last time she'd been this anxious to meet someone new… unless, of course, she counted the day she'd met Peyton. And look how that had turned out.
Almost without thinking, Ana touched her cheek. She'd managed to hide the remaining discoloration under multiple layers of foundation and make-up, but it was impossible to fully hide everything. What if someone noticed? Worse, what if they asked questions?
Don't think about it, Ana told herself, tucking her hand back into her lap. Miranda wasn't Peyton. Miranda hadn't just paid for this trip, she'd done everything possible to make sure Ana understood what would be expected of her once she got here. It had all been spelled out for her in the email that had accompanied the confirmation notice of her airline ticket and the Castle pre-paid admission packet: She expected Ana to have fun in a safe, sane and consensual playspace. That was it. Nothing more, nothing less. Ana did nurse private hopes that their online friendship might blossom into a real-life one, with visits back and forth. But if it turned out that they remained acquaintances rather than real friends, well, then at least Ana could say she'd been to the Castle. A place she never could have afforded to visit on her own.
Her pocket buzzed again. She held onto the brochure, crinkling the edges to keep from answering the insistent vibrating. She ought to put the silly thing in her duffel bag, then she wouldn't have to suffer its constant buzz for attention. She could, but she didn't. She wanted to get away from Peyton, but for some reason she couldn't seem to make herself cut this one last tie. That confused her. A part of her felt disloyal just for sitting here on this bus, every mile she took away from Peyton bringing her closer to a sex resort, of all places. Bringing her closer to Miranda.
Regardless of what Peyton said, two women—even two lesbian women—could be friends without sex being on the table. But was that what she wanted? It hadn't been last night when Miranda had sent her tickets via email. It certainly hadn't been a no-sex arrangement Ana had been aching for when she'd been bent over the pillow of her bed, her bottom high in the air as she'd waited for Miranda to give the command to get smacking. No, sex had definitely been on the table then, and if Miranda was even half as kind, authoritative and accepting in real life as she was online, then Ana knew (on her part at least) a no-sex relationship was not what she'd be wanting. All these insistent phone calls—something must be telling Peyton their break-up this time was different from the disastrous ones that had come before it. This time, the break-up was real. Ana was ready for something different.
The shuttle bus turned into a small circular parking depot in front of the Castle's main gate, with its drawbridge stretched across a clear moat dotted with lily pads. The portcullis was raised, the tips of its jagged iron teeth lending the archway the look of a hungry medieval maw waiting to swallow her whole.
Sliding the now wrinkled brochure into a side pocket, Ana hugged her duffel bag to her chest, bouncing alongside everyone else as the wheels of the shuttle found one last rut before easing to a gradual stop beside a line of porters, each costumed to look like medieval servants.
The hum of another silenced ring shivered against her upper thigh.
What if Miranda turned out to be like Peyton? Once upon a time, Peyton had seemed wonderful and different, too. Once, she had offered stability, love, and a lifetime of fun and togetherness. Not that Ana expected anything like that out of Miranda. Neither one of them was making magical promises here. Fun, that's what her email had said, and what she was offering was friendship—albeit friendship with the benefit of the occasional fantasy-induced spanking.
What if they didn't suit? What if they didn't even like each other?
What was it about bad break-ups, impromptu vacations, and an overabundance of nervous energy that made a girl's head fill up with ugly insecurities like these?
Ana eyed the drawbridge, craning to see if anyone might be lingering at that medieval maw or within the stone courtyard just beyond it, perhaps waiting for her. They were supposed to meet up at Orientation, according to Miranda's email. Fidgeting with the ends of her hair, Ana waited for the crowd of other passengers to get their carry-ons and leave the bus. Peyton's last angry words to her had been to say she was crazy and sick. Miranda, on the other hand, did nothing but assure her that she was fine. Of course, she preferred the latter, but what if Peyton was right? So many parts of what Ana considered to be her deepest, most private self was, according to most people, abnormal. Throw her lifelong fascination for spanking onto the pile, and it wasn't hard to see how Peyton might be justified in saying what she had.
Ana rubbed her chest, her excitement, guilt and nerves all leap-frogging over one another until she felt like the rope in a dizzying game of tug-of-war. She hadn't liked the way it felt when she'd spanked herself. There was a high likelihood that she wouldn't like it when Miranda spanked her, either. Or worse still, what if she liked it? Then she'd have to hop back onto the bus in eight days and return to her lonely, spanking-free reality. Or transfer to a school closer to here so she could visit Miranda as often as possible.
She hadn't even met the woman yet and here she was, looking for ways to turn her life upside down to accommodate her. How stalker-ish could she get?
Of course, if they didn't get along well and the vacation turned awful, eight days from now might not get here fast enough for either one of them.
"Time to get off." The bus driver, a kindly gentleman with salt and pepper hair, was standing on the steps by his open lever doors and smiling at her.
Ana startled when she realized she was the last person on the bus. Everyone else was out handing their luggage, purses, and backpacks to the porters. Jumping up, Ana hefted her duffel so it wouldn't catch on the seats and hurried down the aisle. "Sorry," she said, blushing.
"Nothing to be sorry for." Climbing back off the bus, he offered her a steady hand while she negotiated her way down the steep steps.
Ana Adored: Mistress of the Castle (Masters of the Castle) Page 6