She heard Eddie stir behind her and June thought he walked into the bedroom and back out. There was a sharp clapping sound and Eddie's voice was calm when he said, "All right. Come out from the corner." He moved the coffee table a few feet away from the sofa. "You are to put your hands on the sofa and remain bent over. Your ass is mine now and I don't plan to make this easy on you."
Sobbing with inner pain, June turned toward him. There was a leather-soled house slipper in his hand. He planned on spanking her with a slipper? "Is that for—what is that for?"
"It isn't to keep a foot warm. I think you know what it's for, June."
Cheeks going hot, June did as he asked, waddling across the room with her panties around her ankles. Bending at the middle like that stuck her butt out as a perfect target. That slipper was going to hurt.
Eddie made sure her skirt was up and her bottom was perfectly exposed. Her left, rear garter was still in her pocket and she could feel the stocking slipping on her thigh. It was twice as humiliating. Her dishabille must make her even more naughty looking.
June tried to focus on deep breathing, but that all went out the window when the first smack hit her right cheek with a resounding crack. She flinched, but didn't cry out. In fact, she didn't cry out for the next nine spanks either, but on the eleventh, she couldn't hold her voice any longer. Her voice was watery and thick from the sobs that grew stronger with every successive crack of the slipper.
"You might not be totally defenseless, June—you have nails and feet—but faced with a man with his hand raised toward you, you are too vulnerable. Don't you make me come to your defense that way again."
"Y-yes."
"I'm making it my job to keep you out of harm's way, but you need to do your part and not bring it on yourself." The slipper kept rising and falling, trailing down her ungartered left thigh and back up again, where Eddie plied the bizarre weapon to the place where June's thighs met her bottom.
"Okay! Yes, sir!"
"You were very naughty. A very bad girl, June."
Sobs made her throat raw. She hadn't felt so chastised, so small and immature in many, many years. And never had she been spanked until Eddie.
"I'm sorry. I'm really sorry," she blubbered, sure that Eddie had hit her forty times by now.
With one resounding spank on her seat, Eddie stopped, tossing the slipper onto the sofa near her hand. "Done. You're going to behave better now, right, doll?"
Head hanging, tears dripping, June nodded.
Eddie sat on the sofa and opened his arms. "Come."
Crying freely, June crawled into his lap and cringed at the heat in her bottom. She buried her face in his shirt and bawled.
Eddie quietly petted her hair and back, waiting for her to calm a bit before he said, "You can calm down now. It's over, kid."
"I-I-I'm sorry," she said, her tears lessening.
He petted her long hair some more, pressing his lips to her temple. "I love your red hair, June. I love the way you give it all and don't hold back."
Was he going to say he loved her in a romantic way? Was this a moment of glory, despite how she got there?
"You tease all my senses," he told her, but he didn't vow undying love.
A little dagger of disappointment stabbed at June's heart, but she tried to push it aside. It was too soon for him to be in love with her, even though she thought maybe she was falling in love with him. He'd never know. She couldn't tell him. Saying the words out loud would make her too vulnerable. What if all he felt was affection?
He tilted her head toward his face and kissed her swollen eyelids. "I should go," he said. "You need some time to calm down. You need some quiet time."
"Don't go," she whispered.
"I'll come pick you up in the morning. We'll start all fresh, okay?"
What could she do but acquiesce? "All right."
Eddie kissed her gently and then indicated that she should rise. He was gone a few moments later and June hurried into the bedroom where she could cry another liter of tears.
* * * * *
The day dawned bright and cheerful. Van Nuys was still smoggy, but a breeze from somewhere was diluting it enough that Eddie didn't feel his eyes stinging. He wondered how June was going to greet him. Would she be angry with him for leaving her alone the night before? He'd done it out of respect for her. Comforting her hadn't been enough, and yet he'd have felt like a heel taking advantage of her by coaxing her into a sexual encounter. What he'd told her was true: she needed some alone time to come to grips with her behavior and the aftermath of three spankings. Eddie didn't want to do her emotional harm. He cared too much about her.
And that was part of the problem. He cared too much. The more he thought about her, the harder it became to think of being parted from her, and yet that was inevitable. There was no way around Romantek's strictures not to reveal real world information.
Once at June's apartment, he found her calm and collected, smiling with only a little embarrassment in her cheeks. It was a relief to Eddie to think he'd done the right thing leaving her alone.
"Have you eaten?" he asked, once he'd been admitted into her place.
"No. I don't cook."
"I haven't eaten either. There's a little luncheonette near the office. Why don't we go there and have a bite? We'll hit the office after we eat."
She smiled again, a little shyly, he thought. "Okay."
The drive was quiet for a while, but June fiddled with the dials in the middle of the dashboard. Wipers started squeaking across the windshield, but, apologizing, June turned them off quickly. After a moment, she found a music station on a radio. They were playing a song with the refrain, "Some Enchanted Evening." It reminded Eddie of the less enchanted evening he'd spent with June the previous day. It left a sour taste in his mouth, but he acknowledged with his intellect that it had to go that way. She needed correction and he wasn't afraid to give it.
Maybe he should have been afraid—afraid of the emotional closeness it engendered. Too late now, he thought wryly. He was in deep.
The luncheonette was busy, but they found a booth in the middle of a wall of them and sat down. A waitress came by with a big grin and a couple of menus.
She had a badge that read "Mabel." Mabel was quite effusive with her smiles and enthusiastic greeting. "Hey, Eddie! Long time, no see. How ya been?"
Eddie smiled. "Great, Mabel. How about you?"
"My feet are killin' me," she said, giving him a playful shove on the shoulder.
Eddie laughed.
"I know, I know. I always say that."
"You sure do," he agreed. "What's good today?"
"You don't want your usual plate of eggs and bacon?"
Bacon. Eddie's mouth watered at the word. It was one of his favorite things. Everyone teased him for his geeky affection for the stuff, but that didn't stop him from loving it. "Yeah, I do, thanks. Actually, I was asking on behalf of the lady." He nodded toward June and Mabel gave her a big smile.
"Welcome to Goldie's," she said. "The special this morning is poached eggs on toast."
June's bright eyes got brighter. Apparently, she was eager to take advantage of what was offered here that she couldn't get in her real time. "I'll have that, please."
"Comin' right up. Coffee?"
Eddie spoke up for the two of them. "You know it, kid."
Grinning good naturedly, Mabel turned the upside down coffee mugs on the table right side up and went to fetch the coffee pot.
While Mabel was away, they started a conversation about Grayson. They were both very suspicious of Arthur and his father, Hendrickson. Maybe they were working together to get the insurance money.
Mabel came back and poured the coffee, but lingered for a moment. "You workin’ on a case, Eddie?"
"Yeah. June here is an insurance investigator and we're working together."
"Golly!" Mabel exclaimed. "A lady insurance investigator. What will happen next?" She shifted her weight. "Say, did I hear you say the name Gra
yson? Would that be that big wig who's always throwing money around? Some have said he'll soon have a statue in Lincoln Park."
Eddie smiled. He didn't want to give too much away, but he didn't see any harm in mentioning Grayson's name. The more he knew about the man, even through rumors and gossip, the better he could work on the case. "We've been talking to him, yeah."
Mabel sounded a little sarcastic as she said, "I hope that scion of our community isn't in any trouble. It's only been a month since his company—er, what was his job?—oh right, his company's chief financial officer, got hit by that car. Killed deader than a salted snail. You remember that?"
"Sure, but the details are a little fuzzy by now."
"I thought Shorty Deets was up a creek on that one. He's such a scoundrel anyway, it's no wonder he was in trouble after hitting that guy."
"Right, no wonder." Eddie was dying to ask more questions. Who was Shorty Deets, and didn't the CFO accident seem too big a coincidence in relation to Grayson and his wife's sudden death? Something was fishy.
"Well, I hear that familiar ding. Time for me to pick up an order."
"Okay, Mabel."
As Mabel walked away, June gave Eddie a meaningful glance. He responded quietly, acknowledging her unspoken comment. "Yeah, we'll have to do some investigating. When we get to the office, I'll call George and we'll ask a few more questions."
Nodding, June said nothing. The food arrived and they set to it without further conversation.
Fran—ever vigilant—was there, happy to greet Eddie as they entered his office. June paused, hesitating a few feet into the room. Stiffly, she turned to Fran. "I'm sorry, Fran, for treating you so badly. I apologize."
Eddie's secretary looked positively shocked for a moment, but she gave June a generous smile. "That's okay, Miss Tarryton. I understand. It's about Eddie, so I understand real well."
June's shoulders visibly relaxed. "Thank you." She proceeded into Eddie's inner office.
Eddie decided to give June a hard time and stayed out in the reception area talking to Fran for a few minutes.
"Hey, doll. What's cookin'?"
Her smile could have lit the place in the dark. "A few calls."
"Anything important?"
"Yes, I think so. Mrs. Grayson's brother called, looking for Miss Tarryton. His name is Turner Quick and he had something he said was important to tell her."
Eddie hadn't even realized Elizabeth had a brother. He should have thought of her family connections as sources of information. "Did he say what it was?"
"No, he clammed up when I asked. He was nice, but a little chilly."
"Did he leave a number?"
Fran tore a sheet off a notepad. "Sure did."
Smiling, Eddie took it and tapped her on her perfect little nose. "Thanks, babe."
"Eddie…about Miss Tarryton…"
Eddie arched an eyebrow.
Fran hesitated, her eyes on her desk as she fussed with pens and pencils. "I mean…is she your girl now?"
"Yeah, Fran. I don't know what she sees in me, but she rings my bells."
Fran's face fell. "Oh."
Romantek might very well have had plans for Fran and Eddie, or maybe she was just there to keep things interesting. And they were interesting all right. It was mighty tempting to find out what Fran was really offering, but not tempting enough to risk ruining things with June. As he'd told Fran, June was his girl. He had no intention of cheating on her.
"Hey, don't take it so hard."
"I hoped, I mean, I thought—well, it doesn't matter. You'd better call Mr. Quick."
Eddie felt a little like a heel, but he nodded at her and gave her shoulder an affectionate squeeze as he walked around her desk and to his office.
June was sitting there patiently. Or, maybe not so patiently. She was tapping her foot on the floor. Her pumps emphasized her gorgeous gams, and Eddie remembered those legs wrapped around his waist. He willed himself off that race track.
"Done flirting?" she said, her voice tight.
So, the jealousy hadn't been spanked out of her. Something to note for the future. At least she'd done what he ordered and apologized to Fran. "For now," he said, just to needle her.
Light auburn brows drew together in response.
Eddie put his hat away and took off his suit coat. His desk chair was pretty comfortable as he sat and reached for the telephone hand set. Using the ancient communications equipment was kind of fun, even if the rotary dial was rather a pain because the process was so slow compared to the mechanisms of his modern comm device.
He got a dial tone, something it had taken him a minute to figure out during his previous challenging foray into pay phones, but before he dialed the number on the slip of paper, he looked over at June. "I'm calling Elizabeth's brother, Turner Quick. He apparently called while we were out. Said he had something important to talk to you about."
"Me?"
"So he told Fran."
"Hmm. Want to hand me the phone?"
Would June know how it worked? He was tempted to make her struggle with it as he had, but decided to be a nice guy and do it for her. She was already pissed off about Fran; why add to her annoyance? "I'll dial—you might break a nail. Here."
She fit the receiver in her hand and held the phone up to her ear, giving him a little, tentative look. That one look told him that she knew he was real. He couldn't put his finger on it, exactly, but something was different. June looked like a woman who was dying to tell a secret, but couldn't. He knew how that felt, but he didn't dare acknowledge it with even a nod.
Eddie dialed, and there was a pause. He could hear the phone ringing at the other end.
"Hello!" June said. "I'd like to speak to Turner Quick, please." There was talking on the line. "Oh, Mr. Quick, this is June Tarryton of Premier Insurance. I understand you were looking for me?"
She fiddled with the phone cord while Turner Quick spoke to her. Eddie was dying to know what he was saying.
"You can't go into detail over the phone?" She frowned. "Okay. Mr. Strong and I can meet you at your home a little later. Say two-" She looked at Eddie for a quick confirmation. He nodded. "Two o'clock?"
Apparently that was okay, because she smiled and picked up the note paper and a pencil off Eddie's desk, writing quickly. "Okay, Mr. Quick. We'll see you then. Thank you."
She returned the receiver to its cradle.
"Well?"
June pushed the paper toward him. "That's his address. He said he needed to talk to us about Grayson and Elizabeth. He wouldn't say why or what. Kind of annoying. I mean, do we have time to be traveling all over the place?"
"That's our job," Eddie told her. "If we could do it all by phone, there wouldn't be much fun to it."
"I guess. The smog is kind of icky, though."
"Comes with the territory."
"Right. Hopefully, there'll be a breeze to minimize it."
"Hopefully." He paused as he thought. "I want to talk to George Williams again. We need to find out more about Shorty Deets and that CFO death."
"Do you think it's suspicious? I sure do." She fiddled with her gloves, alternating between tugging on the fingers and pulling them back snug.
"Yeah, I think it stinks to high heaven."
"I want to see that car, too."
Eddie considered all the crime investigation vids he'd seen over the years. The investigators in those shows always studied the evidence carefully. But he didn't know how cold that trail was because he didn't know when last year the accident had occurred. George could help with all of that. "Yeah. I'll ask George about it." Eddie had memorized the number from the phone directory, a weird book of infinite value. He dialed it quickly, feeling like an expert.
A fellow answered with the police precinct number. "Captain Williams, please." June was watching with great focus.
"Just a minute," the person at the precinct told him.
"George Williams."
Eddie was glad he was in.
"Ge
orge, this is Eddie Strong. I have a few more questions to ask you about the Grayson case."
"That again? Geez, you sure are a dog with a bone." But, unlike the last conversation, George's voice sounded a little curious. "What do you want to know?"
"Tell me about the Grayson CFO accident case."
"Nothing much to tell. Bill Arminster was the CFO of Grayson Industries. He got drunk one night and fell in front of a car. Neighbors saw him weaving down the street not far from a beer hall. It happened to be Shorty Deets behind the wheel. We investigated, of course, since Shorty has a record, but it looked like an ordinary accident. Arminster fell against the curb and broke his neck. No charges were filed."
"Is the car still in impound?"
"No, but it needed repair. I suppose it could be in a garage around somewhere."
There had to be hundreds of garages in Los Angeles, but it was likely to be local to Shorty Deets. "What kind of car was it?"
"Nice car. Shorty was doing all right for himself. God only knows how. Anyway, it was an Olds Futuramic."
That certainly seemed appropriate for a RAVE. "Do you have an address for Deets?"
"You don't have a phone book?"
Duh. "Yeah, of course. I don't know what I was thinking."
June was looking at him curiously. "What?" she mouthed.
Eddie shook his head at her. Her query could wait. "George, I'm also curious about Arthur Grayson."
"We were, too. He's a sorry character. We thought maybe he could shed some light on his mother's state of mind before she offed herself. He was polluted the night he saw her, but his alibi checked out. After he saw his mother, he went to a club and was seen by the staff there, and a girl he tried to pick up. We know he didn't kill her before he left Mrs. Grayson's house because she had a habit of taking a sleeping pill right before hitting the sack and her pill had been taken that night. We figure she was trying to calm herself before she did the deed."
"She had sleeping pills and yet she hung herself? You didn't think that was strange?"
Eddie, My Love Page 9