Dan's excuse for all this taxpayer-provided opulence? Excellent lobby and elevator security. (Fine hotels are apparently extremely diligent in preventing riff-raff from wandering about their hallowed premises—riff raff being defined as the credit-unworthy, and/or heavily-armed mob killers.)
Although Dan and I were technically roomies, he appeared reluctant to take advantage of what I regarded as the first genuine perk of being pursued by a lot of murderous thugs bent on dumping my lifeless body under a truckload of freshly poured cement. The chill I had noticed earlier obviously hadn't dissipated, though. So, there I was, over-moisturized and reeking with God only knows how many dollars-worth of perfumed potions, while the target of all my cosmetic efforts was preparing to sleep in the adjoining room—alone, and in a hide-a-bed too short to accommodate all six-foot-five-inches of him.
And then, facing yet another romantic debacle, I made a life-changing decision. It was time to get my love life back on track with a bit of direct action. It was either that, or endanger Dan's expense-account privileges by throwing myself from the sixth-story window of the very first four-hundred and fifty buck a night hotel room I'd ever stayed in.
I strode into the suite's living room and confronted him.
"So, now you hate me, right?" I demanded. "I mean, for causing all this trouble—for you and everyone else?"
Dan sighed. (I'd begun to notice that he was doing that a lot.) "I don't hate you," he said quietly. "What's wrong is that I have a job to do, and you've been making it very hard to do." He stopped what he was doing and sat down wearily on the edge of the hide-a-bed.
"And if I thought it would help to set your behind on fire, again," he added, grinning. "You'd already be dangling across my knee, with your panties at half-mast and screaming for mercy.”
"Help with what?" I asked weakly.
"Help me to separate how I feel about you from what I need to do to keep you safe."
"You can't do both?" I inquired, feeling even more helpless than I had before.
"No, I can't. What I want to do is chuck this whole assignment and carry you off to somewhere Bogusi will never find you and where no one will be able to make you testify against him."
I sat down next to him. "But I want to testify," I insisted. "I want to see the sonofabitch locked up for the rest of his rotten life."
"And what if that doesn't happen?" he asked. "What if he gets off, the way he has before? What you don't get about this guy, Beth, is that he's famous for never giving up. You know why he took out Eddie the Slug by himself? In a public place, in front of a store full of potential witnesses? Eddie was a nobody—a fucking 'gopher'—until he started stuffing his pockets with fifty dollar bills from the boss's petty cash drawer. Small change to an organization like Bugosi's, but Frank has a reputation for taking that kind of small-time disloyalty very personally, and he likes to drive the point home, himself, in case someone isn't getting the message. He was born and raised in that part of Newark and probably felt completely safe in busting in there in broad daylight to blow Eddie away. The only thing he didn't plan on was someone like you."
"The demented good citizen with an eye for petty details," I moaned.
Dan chuckled. "I'll bet even Bugosi's doting mother doesn't know that he's got a piece of his ear missing—bitten off a few years back by a third runner-up Miss America. Or, as you revealed to the world in your statement, that he wears a girdle."
"Telltale rolls of fat, top and bottom," I explained. "And don't forget the pierced ear. No earring, but one pierced ear with the hole closed up, like he changed his mind, after the fact. Also, in case your guys missed it, the man must spend a fortune on spray tanning products."
"Okay," Dan continued. "So you stand up in court and nail the bastard, dead center. That's just the beginning. His lawyers are going to point out that you were face-down on the floor, scared out of your mind and confused by the sound of echoing gunfire. Your ears were ringing, and your eyes were bleary with dust and smoke. You looked up and saw an overweight, middle-aged man in a suit—like millions of other overweight, middle-aged men in suits."
"That's not the way it was," I said stubbornly.
"Maybe not, but that's just a few of the things they're going to throw at you. You wear glasses, don't you?"
"Only to read, sometimes, and even that's pretty rare. I'm always losing the damned things."
"Where were your glasses that morning?"
I shrugged. "Who knows? In the refrigerator, for all I know. I do that, now and then."
Dan sighed. "Exactly."
"I thought your job was to get me to court," I complained sullenly. "In one piece, ideally."
"It is my job, or was, until…until everything started getting complicated."
"Complicated how?"
"You know damned well, how," he growled. "Before I understood what was happening, I realized that I was probably falling in love with you. And by the time that dawned on me, it was too late."
"Well, gee whiz," I grumbled. "You make it sound so hopelessly romantic. Sort of like when you don't watch where you're going and step in a big wad of chewing gum. Then, when you start looking around for something to scrape it off with—like a popsicle stick—you can't find anything."
I could see that he was trying not to smile—or maybe laugh. "Something like that," he agreed solemnly.
"So, now what, Officer Crawford?" I asked, probably a bit peevishly.
"Tomorrow morning, we get on a charter flight—to Newark."
"Back to Newark!" I yelped. "Why in God's name would we—"
He smiled. "Cool down. They picked up Frank Bugosi this afternoon. He'll be going to trial as soon as everyone can agree on a new date. That's why we didn't fly out tonight—I wanted to be sure he was locked up and out of circulation."
"All that money wasted on one night in this overpriced hotel room," I groused. "When we could have been halfway to Kennedy by now."
"Yes, but there's a lot we can't do on a plane that we can do in an overpriced hotel room," he observed. "The FAA doesn't approve of sexual activity, even on a governmental charter. So, the way I see it, since we're stuck here, in a room neither of us could afford, we may as well get the department its money's worth."
With that, he swept me up in his arms, carried me to the bedroom, and got me naked in record time. Getting him naked took a little longer, since he was wearing a tie and a belt and an empty shoulder holster, which, I, in my understandable haste, managed to get all tangled up. Then again, maybe it was because my hands were shaking just a bit with awe and anticipation—while I was lowering Dan's shorts and revealing some totally awesome male equipment, in full readiness.
Okay, the room and all its amenities were a scandalous waste of taxpayer money, but in our defense, Dan and I did our level best to appreciate and make use of every single one of those amenities. And, if asked by the management for a recommendation on its website, I, for one, will be sure to give the luxuriously appointed king sized bed extremely high marks—especially all those very firm, very useful pillows.
Many years ago, I counted up all the orifices on the female body that could be put to use in the pursuit of sexual pleasure. Being an exceptionally naïve fifteen-year-old with zero hands-on experience, and further encumbered with my stifled Midwestern upbringing, I could only think of two—three if I included having my navel tickled.
But then, I found a dog-eared copy of The Joy of Sex at a garage sale, and that number doubled. Okay, yes, it's stimulating to have a man blow in your ear, but I have trouble thinking of an attempted penetration of that orifice as a lot of fun. And while there are probably millions of women around the world who are driven to moans of ecstasy while having their nasal passages caressed, I generally regard the basic four orifices as sufficient. Especially in a luxuriously appointed king-sized bed, in the company of a tirelessly lusty, innovative, and energetic guy like Dan, who must have memorized every page of the Joy of Sex by the time he was twelve and begun practicing a
nd improving upon everything the book preached shortly thereafter.
Which is why both of us arrived at the airport the next morning bleary-eyed and rumpled. I even had a bit of trouble climbing the steps to the twin engine plane, with my thigh muscles aching and rejoicing at the same time. As I sat down, I made a promise to myself to start working out, again—something I stopped doing after my third visit to a gym. On the other hand, a workout like I'd had the night before just had to have burned off thousands of calories, right? I felt like a limp ragdoll, but when I glanced over at my handsome, perfectly in-shape seat-mate, it was obvious that he had already recovered from all those hours of vigorous exercise. And he didn't look even one lousy ounce thinner.
Proving once again that life isn't fair.
Chapter 9
I spent most of the flight back east asleep, dreaming about a girlfriend I used to know, named Melanie. We both worked at a second-rate publishing house, as sub-sub assistant editors to a second-tier assistant editor. Melanie looked like everybody's idea of a fairy-tale princess, with blond hair that she wore in this beautifully smooth, shining "twist" on the back of her neck. It was a look I envied, because it gave her the appearance of being not just beautiful, but business-like, organized and self-confident—and sure to be promoted to a sub-assistant editor very soon. My hair, on the other hand, refused to be forced into a twist, but went every which way, giving me the appearance of a down-on-her-luck bag-lady.
Melanie also had a great-looking boyfriend—a Disney-like Prince Charming, while my own boyfriend at the time was a painfully shy computer geek who brought me a sandwich and an apple in a brown paper bag every day, because he'd found out that I couldn't afford to buy lunch. To my everlasting shame, I envied Melanie her prince of a boyfriend—until he pulled out a lot of her hair, beat the shit out of her, and put her in the hospital with a couple of knife gashes across her face—before going back to prison on his fifth domestic assault charge.
I'm not sure why I'm telling you this. Maybe because I was still worried that the vast improvement in my love life wouldn't last beyond the upcoming trial date. Maybe Dan wasn't the nice guy he appeared to be. Maybe he was sort of playing me along, to keep me in the mood to testify—kind of a government provided gigolo. And there was also the possibility that everything between us had gotten overblown. Face it. Dan and I had been thrown together in an essentially artificial situation and a dangerous one. Could a situation like that—complicated by his sense of responsibility and devotion to his job, along with the forced proximity required in protecting me twenty-four hours a day—make everything seem like a lot more than it really was? Could home-sickness and boredom, when combined with a degree of genuine affection and a few dashes of sex, be confused with love? And would that feeling of love begin to dissolve when those few weeks of essentially unnatural intimacy came to an end?
Worse yet, was he already married? With kids and a house in the suburbs and maybe a dog? Considering how many lies I'd told him, could I truly expect him to be honest with me?
All my doubts about Dan redoubled when we arrived back in Newark. After we left the airport, he promptly stashed me in what he called another "safe house," with two federal marshals posted outside the door and another marshal—a woman, this time—as my watchful roommate. My earlier attempt at an unscheduled bus ride to Seattle had apparently spooked the official "spooks," leaving them concerned that I might try to fly the coop, again. Of course, none of them had witnessed Dan's warning, just before we landed at Kennedy, to "take my damned belt to your butt, if you give these people any more trouble." He had punctuated these cautionary remarks by lifting my skirt and laying two sharp, pre-emptory swats across the fullest parts of my derriere. It was an unexpected and disheartening conclusion to the extremely agreeable hours we'd shared the previous night—in our posh, government-financed hotel suite. Even before we landed, I was having visions of being unceremoniously dumped, and while I didn't blame him for being concerned about my loyalty to the DOJ and to the Witness Protection Program, I felt that leaving me too sore to sit comfortably on the ride back to Newark was a bit much and, under the circumstances, not at all comforting.
I didn't see or hear from Dan for three days, during which time I cried more or less incessantly and refused to eat anything but glazed doughnuts. Georgia, my federal marshal roommate and sworn protector, was apparently worried that I was having a nervous breakdown brought on by a consuming fear of my imminent murder at the hands of one of Frank Bugosi's thugs. Hundreds of these bloodthirsty hirelings—according to the New York Daily News, anyway— were still at large and under orders to dispose of me in any manner they wished, as long as it was painful and permanent.
On the fourth day, suffering from claustrophobia and cabin fever, and convinced that I'd been permanently abandoned by the man I loved and trusted, I asked to go for a short walk—a request that was met with open hostility, a loud chorus of, "noes," and the appearance of a pack of cards and a paper sack filled with board games. I wasn't permitted free access to television, presumably because I might see something about the upcoming trial, but I was free to watch all the old John Wayne movies and sports events I wanted.
The following morning, I was given the glad tidings for which we'd all been waiting. Frank Bugosi would go to trial in just over one month, over his lawyers' outraged objections.
Dan dropped by that afternoon, held a brief, behind closed doors conference that included everyone but me, and left without a single word to the one person in the "safe house" whose life was on the line until Frank was convicted and imprisoned. I was angry and hurt and looking for someone on whom I could vent same of that pent-up anger.
Poor Georgia was the unlucky recipient.
I started small, then went big. A weeping, screeching, profanity-laced tantrum befitting an enraged toddler when he's just been told a very firm, "no," for the first time in his short, spoiled rotten life. Among other things, I demanded to see Dan and threatened to remain completely silent on the witness stand, if he didn't make an appearance in one hour. (I would have made it a half an hour, but I had no idea where he really was at the moment.)
I'm sure that you're familiar with that ancient adage that goes, "Be careful what you wish for—you may get it?" Well, it's true. Dan arrived in just under fifteen minutes, looking like he could spit nails. He ordered me into the bedroom, ordered Georgia out of the bedroom, and once the door was closed, began rolling up his shirtsleeves. By this point, I was—naturally enough—becoming very, very nervous.
Which is why I decided to take a firm stand on the subject of my Constitutional rights as a citizen. A citizen who had voluntarily, of her own free will and with courageous disregard for her own life and safety, agreed to help send a vicious criminal to prison.
Now, how much help do you think that speech was, in preventing what Dan assured me was a much-deserved and long overdue encounter with his belt? You are absolutely correct. In fact, it may have made things worse, as if that were even remotely possible.
Having never had a previous encounter with a belt, I have no way of knowing if what happened was within the normal range for such things. What I do know is that it was preceded by a kind of Alpha male ritual that involved the rolling up of shirtsleeves, followed by a grim order to pull down my pants and bend over the end of the bed. And then, of course, the final, slow pulling of the belt through its loops.
I was expecting some sort of lecture on my consistently disruptive attitude, my erratic behavior, and my poor judgment, but Dan skipped over that part of the ritual, and after carefully folding the belt in half, proceeded directly to the main event.
Yes, I could have called his bluff, and, yes, I could have simply refused, gotten up from my humiliating position and walked away. But for some reason even I don't understand, I didn't do either of those things. What I did was swallow my pride, take a deep breath, and bite down on the edge of the nearest pillow. I think I was more worried that Georgia and her comrades might have their ea
rs pinned to the wall than I was about the upcoming unpleasantness, itself.
By the second excruciating swat, though, I couldn't have cared less about what anyone heard. And when the belt cracked across my behind for the third time, I was more than ready to make an escape attempt—which I did, and then wished I hadn't. Dan simply placed one firm, strong hand on the small of my back to keep me securely in place and then delivered a sextet of scalding swats to that exquisitely sensitive area between my upper thighs and the tender underswell of my butt.
I counted nine solid swats, and it was over—except for the fire raging in my behind, and what I was sure would be livid welts by the following morning.
Oddly, I didn't cry, not until later, anyway, and not because of the pain. It hurt, of course—a hell of a lot more than I'd expected—but the worst part was knowing that Dan was angry enough with me—or disappointed enough in me to feel like it was something that needed to be done. He might even have wanted to do it, maybe to punish my lies and ultimate betrayal.
A note, here: Maybe an apology or maybe just an attempt to explain myself. As a feminist to the core, I would never in a million years have believed that I would allow a man to take me across his knee and actually spank me like a disobedient little kid. Not without a fight, and certainly not without having the sonofabitch arrested for domestic abuse. But, I had already done exactly that, and then let him make love to me, bringing me to peaks of pleasure I'd never known before. And now, like a lamb to the slaughter, I was about to let it happen again—lying face-down, ass-up, waiting to have my butt strapped with a leather belt. Dreading it, but accepting it. Submissive and unafraid. (Well, maybe just a little bit afraid.)
Why?
Your guess is as good as mine. All I knew at that moment was that it felt somehow good to submit, to let him be in control—for now, anyway.
Maybe it was guilt or a deep-seated need to show that I was willing to accept responsibility for my behavior. But what I was actually doing was handing my guilt and the responsibility for what I'd done over to Dan. Now, after a nine-swat whipping, I could walk away feeling that my slate was clean. And that wasn't fair. I had let him down. I'd let the Witness Protection Program down, and I'd let myself down. Face it. I wasn't all that afraid of Frank Bugosi and his thugs. What I had to face, now, was the depressing truth that my reason for threatening to bail out—if it could even be called a reason—had been to pay Dan back for not wanting me as much as I wanted him.
Hero Undercover: 25 Breathtaking Bad Boys Page 85