by Jenny Plumb
Lucinda turned to leave the room, but Broderick was quicker. He was out of the chair and barring her exit in a second.
“Excuse me,” she said, irritated. “I need to make a private call.”
“By spinning this web of lies and having me cover for you, you’ve made this my business,” he said. “You’ll make that call here, and then you’ve got some explaining to do.”
“I’m not making any calls with you here.”
“Well, you’re not going anywhere until you do.”
Who the hell did he think he was? “Then you’ve got a long wait by that door.” She put the phone down on the table. Get out of the way, she willed him. She had to call her parents, reassure them. But she wasn’t humiliating herself in front of him.
“Lucinda, you’re being silly and selfish. I want you to make that call now.”
“And I want to make it in private.”
He crossed the room and gripped her chin, his eyes boring into her. She saw the fury in them and suddenly felt nervous. “You’ll make that call now,” he said. “Or I’ll turn you over my knee and tan your backside till you do.”
“You wouldn’t dare,” she muttered.
But she could tell from his angry face, from the way he was holding her, that he dared all right. Nervous, she capitulated. “Okay, okay, I’ll call them. Let me go.”
He released her. She speed-dialled her parents, wriggling her shoulders; his grip had been tight.
Her mother answered the call almost instantaneously. “Lucinda, is that you?”
“Yeah, Mum, it’s me. Don’t worry, I’m okay.”
“Your friend said you missed the train?”
She looked across at the kitchen window curtains, aware of Broderick’s eyes upon her. “Yeah, we did. We’re back at the house now.”
“We were so worried when we heard the news about the train, and when we couldn’t get hold of you…” Her mum started crying, and Lucinda could hear her dad crying as well, in the background. She felt terrible. How could she have put them through this?
“Have you seen the pictures of the crash?” her mum asked. “It’s awful. I don’t know how anybody got out of those trains alive. How come you missed the train, then?”
“Oh, you know what the tube’s like…” She heard Broderick click his tongue, sensed his contempt. “Shall I speak to Dad?”
“He’s a bit upset at the minute, love. Call back later. He’ll be all right then. Now he knows you’re safe. Call back later, okay?”
“Okay, Mum. And I’m sorry.”
“There’s nothing to be sorry about, love.”
Lucinda blinked away tears. “Sorry I won’t be with you for Christmas.”
“We wanted you to be with your friends. And you still will be, won’t you?”
Hardly. If she and Broderick had bonded over fake snowballs the other night, it was clear he considered her a little lower than earthworms now. No point ever going to him for a reference. “I’ll call again later,” she promised and put down the phone.
Instantly, she felt Broderick’s strong arms around her, lifting her off the chair.
“What the hell?” She struggled, kicked out, but he was far stronger and within a trice he was seated in the chair she’d just vacated and she was lying over his lap looking down at the tiled floor.
“Broderick! What do you think you’re doing?”
His hand descended hard on her backside. She may have been wearing tracksuit pants but his palm still stung. She jumped, squeaked, and he slapped her again.
She smacked at his leg, furious. “I said, what do you think you’re doing?”
He didn’t answer, just laid into her backside. He smacked her over and over again, on her left cheek, on her right cheek, right across the bottom, on her thighs. She tried to get up off his lap, away from his swinging arm. But he gripped her more firmly with one hand and pulled at her tracksuit pants with the other. Her knickers came off with them; he wrenched both knickers and pants down to her knees.
Frantic she tore at his trousered leg with her nails. “Stop it! You’ve got no right to do this!”
He peppered her backside, spanking first one buttock then the other, before delivering a dozen stinging swats to her thighs. She wriggled and squealed and kicked, pounded his legs with her fists. But every protest, whether verbal or physical, seemed only to increase his strength and determination. His hand continued to crack across her bottom, harder and harder, till all she could do was give in, lie limply across his lap, just hoping to survive the spanking.
Finally, he stopped. She didn’t move for a second or two, afraid he’d start again. When she did try to get up, he held her down firmly.
“Do you have any idea,” he asked her, “what it’s like to hear that someone you love has died in a tragic accident?”
She could tell from the emotion in his voice that he knew exactly what it was like. She didn’t know what to say.
She jumped as he delivered another scalding slap to her sore right thigh. “Do you?”
“No,” she whispered.
“Well, I’ll tell you.” He kept her pinned across his lap with one hand, and began gently massaging her burning bottom with the other. “You feel like your heart has been torn out. If someone’s old or they have a terminal illness, then you’re prepared – it’s still a shock, but you’ve always known they’re going to die before you do. But when it’s someone a couple of years younger, who was perfectly fine when you said goodbye to them before work that morning… Well, you can’t get your head round it. All your plans for your future, just gone in a second.”
He’d lost a girlfriend that way, maybe a wife. She still didn’t know what to say, especially in her position – across his lap, her bum on display, red from his handprints.
“So I know what it must have been like for your parents to know that crash had happened, to think you were on that train,” he said, still caressing her bottom. “And you need to think about what they went through till they knew you were safe. They thought their daughter had died before they did, well before she should have.”
He raised his hand and she stiffened, anticipating more painful smacking. But this time the four slaps he delivered were half-hearted. “Just think of others,” he said, his voice shaky, “before you deceive them.”
He was no longer pinning her down, but still she got up off his lap cautiously, half expecting him to push her back down and dish out more spanks. She yanked up her knickers and track pants, feeling heat emanating from her bottom as her hand brushed against it. She couldn’t look at him. She’d been caught out telling a pack of lies, he’d spanked her bare bottom. And he was her boss. She had to see him every day at work as well as at home. She’d never felt so humiliated. She’d never get over this.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, and rushed from the room.
Chapter 6
He shouldn’t have done that.
Broderick sat at the kitchen table, cursing himself. What the hell had he thought he was doing? He was Lucinda’s boss and he’d spanked her. Spanked her hard as well. He could tell from his stinging palm just how sore he’d made her bottom. How unprofessional was that? He could lose his job for this.
He buried his face in his hands. The last few hours had been surreal. Missing the train, hearing about the crash, knowing he could, should, have been dead or injured. Thinking about the effect his death would have had on his parents, his family, Kat’s parents. Then listening to Lucinda’s distraught mother, nearly hysterical because of her daughter’s lies. He’d been right to scold Lucinda, insist she made that call, face up to what she’d done.
But he shouldn’t have humiliated her by insisting she made the call in front of him.
And he certainly shouldn’t have spanked her.
Kat hadn’t minded the spankings. In fact she’d instigated them, years ago, when they’d first got together. “When I’m in a bad mood, the best thing you can do for me is put me over your knee and spank me.” He’d give
n her hundreds of spankings over the years – playful, erotic, disciplinary on the occasions she deserved it. One of the many things he missed about Kat was spanking her. Holding her over his knee, pulling down her knickers, spanking her. After a disciplinary spanking he’d cuddle her, gently make love to her. After play or erotic spankings, their love-making had been rougher. She’d loved that too.
But Lucinda wasn’t Kat. She hadn’t initiated the spanking, hadn’t consented to it. When she complained – to the police, to work, to someone, surely – everything he’d been through in the last few hours, the last year, wouldn’t serve as a defence. He’d crossed a line.
Lucinda had deserved the spanking, but he shouldn’t have done it. He’d put himself in the wrong and he needed to at least try to put it right.
He had to apologise.
She couldn’t stay up here in her room forever. But how the hell was she ever going to face Broderick again?
Lucinda examined Broderick’s handiwork in the mirror. Her bottom and thighs were a fiery dark pink, here and there she could make out finger marks. She hadn’t been smacked since she was a child, and never, ever had she been spanked like this. What if anyone ever found out?
She pulled up her clothes and lay face down on her bed. In need of a distraction, she checked the news on her phone, saw the pictures of the train crash. The first two carriages of the intercity train were completely mangled; the rest of it had come off the tracks. The local train was crushed too, forced over the embankment by the speeding intercity train. Her mum was right. How the hell had anyone come out of it alive?
She pictured her mum looking at those images, believing Lucinda to be on the train. Poor Mum and Dad, their lives already so difficult, so empty, thinking they’d lost their only child. Broderick had missed that train by chance, then taken her mum’s frantic call. Lucinda knew exactly how distraught her mum would have been. No wonder he’d been so angry he’d spanked her.
She’d deserved it.
It had sounded like he’d lost someone in a tragic accident too.
How was she going to resolve this? She was stuck in the house with Broderick over Christmas, and for a few more months beyond that. If she really couldn’t face him after the spanking, she could find a new house-share. But he was her boss at work too. It wasn’t so easy to find a new job.
Somehow she had to put things right with Broderick, admit she’d deserved the spanking, show him she was really a better person than the one he thought she was.
“Man up,” she told herself for the second time that day. “Go down and put things right.”
She grit her teeth and made her way to the stairwell.
And encountered Broderick on his way up.
Chapter 7
If she didn’t apologise straightaway, it would only get harder to do so. Lucinda took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve been selfish and silly like you said. I’m not always like this, really I’m not. It’s just that I’ve had such a bad year and I couldn’t face Christmas at home.” She felt tears pricking again, and struggled to keep her voice steady.
“Come into the living room,” he said, and she was surprised and relieved that his voice sounded tender now, not stern. “We need to talk.”
He took her arm and guided her to the sofa before switching on the gas fire and the tree lights. He lit the candles on the mantelpiece and snapped off the main light. Lucinda was glad of the shadows. She felt so embarrassed.
“I’ll get us a drink,” he said. “I think we both need one.”
He returned with two glasses of red. As he handed one to her, he caught her eye and said, “I’m sorry I spanked you. I shouldn’t have.”
She flushed, looked away. “I deserved it.”
“You’re not wrong there, but still, it wasn’t my place to do it.”
She wanted to lighten the mood, move past the embarrassment. “As long as you don’t do it if I’m out of line at work.”
“Now there’s a thought.” He sat next to her on the sofa, sipped his wine. “Why did you do it? Why did you lie?”
She sipped her wine too, before answering. It was rich and soothing, more expensive wine than she was used to. “My dad lost his sight a few years ago and he has a lot of other health problems as well. My mum cares for him. Their lives are really empty and all they seem to want is to see me happy. It’s like they’re dependent on that. And it makes it so hard when things go wrong for me like they have this year. I’d been with a guy for nearly a year when he dumped me while we were on holiday in July. We were island hopping, and I didn’t feel well one night – I’d eaten something dodgy – and I went to bed early. He met someone else at the bar, spent the night with her, told me next morning. I’d lived with him in his flat, had to move out of there. That’s how I came to be here. Mum and Dad took it to heart – it seemed to affect them more than me.”
She paused and took another slug of wine. Broderick squeezed her free hand gently, encouraging her to continue.
“Even when I’d started getting over it, Mum and Dad didn’t, especially Mum. She’s always asking if I’ve met anyone else, says how she looks forward to being the bride’s mother. Then I won the award at work and they were so proud. I was stupid enough to tell them that I’d gone for promotion. They thought I’d get it, so did I. They were as devastated as me when I didn’t. The trouble is,” she said, putting her glass down on the coffee table, “that when Mum drinks she gets all maudlin. Goes on about how the family must be cursed, how nothing ever works out for any of us. I didn’t think I could take it this year. That’s why I pretended I was going to Norfolk. It made them happy thinking I was spending Christmas with friends, having a good time. Happier than they’d have been if I’d gone home, been miserable all on my own.”
Broderick slipped his arm round her, drew her closer. Lucinda rested her head against his chest. It felt good to talk about Mum and Dad, the pressure she felt from them to be happy.
“I’ve had a rotten year too,” he said. “My partner Kat died. She was cycling home from work and was hit by a car. The driver didn’t stop.”
God, how awful. Lucinda sat up straight. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
Broderick sipped his wine, and Lucinda reached for her own glass. “It was back in January,” he said. “I really struggled to get over it. Everything in Melbourne reminded me of her. That’s why I went for the job over here. I thought it’d give me some distance, some space. Try to put my life together again.”
“Is it working?”
“It’s starting to, I think. I’ll never forget Kat, but she was all about having fun. She’d have wanted me to move on, enjoy my life.”
“People who love you always want you to be happy and enjoy life,” said Lucinda. “But it’s not always easy, is it?”
“No,” he said, his voice heavy, “it’s not. But we should still try, whatever happens. What happened to Kat, and what happened with those trains today shows how precarious life is. We need to live it to the full.”
He was right. She needed to get out more, be more sociable. “At least you do that,” she said. “You make proper plans for things and you socialise.”
“So do you,” he said. “You’re out all the time.”
“Not really.” She sipped her drink. Should she confess to him that her life this past few weeks had been complete fabrication? She’d already felt like a worm once today, did she really want to again?
He squeezed her hand. “Lucinda? What’s up?”
“All those meals with friends,” she said abruptly, “they never happened. I was dieting, I didn’t want to eat. So I pretended I’d eaten.”
“Ah,” he said, “that explains why your cupboard shelf is empty and why you never have anything in the fridge. So what have you been eating?”
“Not very much,” she admitted. “Well, some days I’ve broken the diet, but mostly I’ve eaten crispbread and fruit.”
“That’s silly,” he told her, a stern edge to his voice again.
“You didn’t need to lose weight anyway, and even if you did, that’s not the way to go about it. When did all this start?”
“After Matt dumped me for a slimmer girlfriend, I started comfort eating, gained weight.”
“Matt was an idiot to dump you.”
“You really think that despite what you’ve found out about me?”
“Yes,” he said, “I do.”
Their eyes locked. Lucinda was startled by the desire in his eyes. Did he actually like her? In that way? Her bottom still tingled from the spanking he’d given her; he’d seemed to despise her then.
Self-conscious and nervous, she looked away, swallowed more wine. “Kat was lucky,” she said, “having someone as caring as you.”
He grinned. “You really think that after I spanked you?”
“I told you it’s okay. Maybe I’ve needed it for a while, something to put me back on the straight and narrow.”
“Speaking of the straight and narrow…” Broderick sat back and slugged his wine again. Lucinda, disappointed, sat back too. She’d been sure he was going to kiss her; what had stopped him? “Did human resources say anything to you after you didn’t get the job? About why you didn’t get it?”
“No, nothing, just that you were the better applicant.”
“Well, they told me you wouldn’t have gotten it anyway, despite the award. They said you’re a super-talented graphic designer but their feeling was that you don’t yet have the maturity to lead a team.”
What? How dare they talk about her like that to him? “That was unprofessional,” she said. She took another gulp of wine, cross.
“Well, I think, given the way you’ve behaved these past few weeks, they probably have a point, don’t you?”
Lucinda sighed. Human resources were right, Broderick was right. “I suppose so.”
“So where have you been going, the nights you said you were with friends?”