by Loki Renard
They landed in Invercargill, but they may as well have landed in another universe. The plane touched down at an anemic airstrip set among bucolic fields filled with grazing sheep. A single building comprised the terminal. Aster stood on the tarmac upon which they had disembarked and stared in disbelief.
“Is this actually a city airport?”
“It is,” Owen said. “If you’re lucky, they’ll sell you a chocolate bar inside, assuming the lady who runs the food counter isn’t taking the pilots their afternoon tea.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“Maybe.”
He wasn’t kidding, she discovered when they went inside. The small kitchenette-type food stall was closed, meat pies in plastic wrappers gently simmering untended inside a warmer that emitted a constant scent of pastry and meat.
A short drive in a shuttle bus, which smelled of something Aster wasn’t familiar with and didn’t want to be familiar with, took them to Invercargill proper. The city was just as much of an oddity as the airport had been. Everything seemed lost in time, irrevocably dated. A preponderance of red brick buildings mixed with concrete slab warehouses and office buildings clearly built in the throes of the 1960s made it simultaneously dour, industrial and bland at the same time.
“I know I was supposed to change the time on my watch when I got here,” she said. “But how do I change the year?”
Owen smirked at her. “The further south you go, the slower things change. They still get glass milk bottle deliveries down here.”
“The guide book says I need a helicopter to get to Te Anau,” she said. “How do you get a helicopter down here? Do they even know about helicopters yet? Do they even have electricity? Jesus Christ, I feel like we flew through a time warp to get here.”
Owen chuckled, highly amused by her reaction. “And you want to head even further into the wilds? You can barely handle town.”
“Let’s just get out of here,” Aster said, much unimpressed as a bunch of people in puffy vests pushed out of the van behind them, chattering in German. She didn’t understand a word they said, but she imagined they were probably just as befuddled as she was at this little cluster of history and industry nestled in the middle of nowhere.
Chapter Five
Getting a helicopter was easier said than done. That was to say there were helicopters, but the pilot had to attend tryouts for the local rugby team and wasn’t available until the next morning. That left Aster and Owen to find some kind of accommodation. Unfortunately a local mustering festival had left most of the hotel rooms in the city booked. Aster was forced to take refuge in second-rate four-star accommodations.
“There isn’t a decent hotel in this whole place,” Aster grumbled as she walked into the room. “I was told New Zealand was beautiful.”
“Quit your moaning,” Owen said gruffly. “It’s one night and this is a nice room.”
“This is a shoebox,” Aster said. “The beds are right next to each other.” She looked around herself, hating everything about the room. Who would have thought that tearing off to the middle of nowhere would have the consequence of discomfort? “I mean, we’re sleeping right next to each other.”
“So?” Owen shrugged. “You were half naked in my lap this morning. I wouldn’t think you’d care about sleeping close together.”
Aster scowled at him furiously. “If you’re going to talk to me like that you can get the heck out of here. I won’t share a room with you.”
“Yes, you will,” he said implacably, looking through the room service menu. “You don’t have a choice.”
She glared at him, all imposing and unyielding with his broad shoulders and his curling dark hair and his devil may care attitude to controlling every single moment of her life. He was, bar none, the most frustrating man she’d ever met.
“Look at this bed,” she said, sitting on it. “It’s hard as a rock and these sheets... they’re like sandpaper! They’re so rough they don’t have a thread count, they have a grit rating.”
Owen snorted. “Okay,” he said. “You’re just going to have to live with it.”
“And what are we going to eat? That room service menu is gross.”
“Tell you what,” he said. “Stop moaning for a second and I’ll take you out for a traditional New Zealand tea.”
“And if I don’t stop moaning?”
“I’ll spank you and then take you out for tea.”
He meant it; she could see that in his eyes. Aster sort of understood that, she had gotten them into a bit of a mess. They were both without luggage or spare clothes thanks to her spur of the moment decision. Still, she could never admit fault. Besides, it was his job to follow after her and do what she did.
“If you don’t like me moaning, wear earplugs,” she snapped. “You’re my bodyguard, not my damn nanny. If I want to complain, I’ll complain. If I want to whine, I’ll whine. If I want to...”
Owen sighed and reached for her. Aster dodged out of the way. “You are not going to spank me,” she insisted, holding her hands up as she jumped up onto one of the hard beds. “I didn’t do anything, and even if I did, it’s your job to just put up with it.”
“Now you know that’s not how this works,” Owen said. “You need a damn good spanking for what you pulled today. Dragging us out here and then complaining that it isn’t to your liking. You can’t just fly to any part of the world and expect it to accommodate you perfectly. That’s incredibly spoiled.”
“I’m not spoiled!”
“Oh, you are,” he said, advancing on her. “You’re spoiled enough to think that this four star hotel room isn’t good enough. You’re spoiled enough to think you’re not spoiled when you turn your nose up at a whole city within minutes of landing in it.” He made another grab for her, just barely missing.
“Owen!” She squealed his name and jumped from the bed she had been standing on to the next one. “This isn’t fair!”
“Get down here,” he said, pointing to the spot of the floor in front of him.
“No! I know what you’re going to do,” she said, wringing her hands together. “And I’m not going to help you do it.”
“You know I don’t need your help,” Owen said. “I’m just giving you a chance to make this a light spanking and not a pants down thrashing.”
“OWEN!” she exclaimed loudly. “That’s not... You know... No.”
“Yes,” he said. “Spoiled girls get spanked.”
“Don’t you dare,” she said, pointing at him as she sidled away across the bed. “I didn’t even do anything.”
He stopped moving after her and lifted a finger, crooking it at her. “Come here, Aster.”
“No! I’m not going to do anything. This room is awful and you’re awful and I don’t need you punishing me. I haven’t done anything to be punished for.”
“Come here,” he repeated. “I need for you to do as you’re told.”
“No, you need to work out how to protect me from other people and how to stay the hell out of my business. I’m not your problem.”
“Your father said otherwise and I think otherwise, now come down off that bed and come here.”
Aster refused again. It occurred to her that aside from the flight itself they’d been fighting all day. In fact, they’d been fighting since they met, more or less. If only she could fire the insufferable man. If only he wasn’t working on her father’s dime. The only control she had over the situation was in making his life difficult and resisting him whenever possible.
“Come and get me,” she said. “Though I have to warn you, if you do, you’re going to get hurt.”
Owen’s smile was handsome as he cocked his head to the side and looked at her with all that charm that almost diffused the situation – but not quite.
“You couldn’t hurt me if you tried.”
“You want to bet?” Aster was not going to let herself be spanked again. It was time she took a real stand. “I’m not some helpless girl, you know. I can defend myself.”
“You don’t have to defend yourself against me, you just need to behave yourself.”
“Behave myself?” Aster shook her head and threw caution to the wind. “Not for you. Not ever.”
They could have argued forever, but Owen put an end to the discussion by closing the distance between them, wrapping his arm around her thighs and picking her up off the bed. Aster squealed and drummed her fists against his back as he sat down, pulled her over his lap on that uncomfortable hotel bed, drew her jeans down and slapped her bottom hard.
“You’re not a bad person, Aster,” Owen said as his palm bounced off her cheeks. “You just need to settle down and accept things as they are sometimes. Not everything in your life is going to be five star. Not everything is going to go your way.”
“Shut up and spank me if you have to,” Aster slung back at him. “But spare me the uplifting psychobabble, Dr. Phil.”
“Right,” he said, pausing in the wake of her rudeness. “Obviously a hand spanking isn’t going to work. We’re going to have to use an implement of some kind.”
“Well there aren’t any here,” she snarked over her shoulder.
“I disagree,” he said, opening the bedside drawer. There, in the cabinet was a Gideon bible. Owen picked it up and slapped it across her bare cheeks. Aster straightened and yowled, every part of her body tense as the blaze sank into her bottom.
“Owen, that’s a fucking bible! Have some respect!”
“You want to respect it, don’t swear while you’re being spanked with it,” Owen chuckled. He swatted her again, the weight of the book imparting a heft to the sting. “Besides, sometimes you just have to make do with what you have. I’m not going to wear my hand out on your butt.”
“Then stop spanking me!”
“Nope,” he insisted. “You need this.”
“I don’t need this! This hurts!” Aster wiggled furiously over his lap. “You know it hurts.”
“Then you should have listened when I told you to stop acting like such a brat. The whole world isn’t a five star hotel, Aster. You’re going to learn that here.”
“Fine! I’ve learned it! Now stop spanking me!” She kicked out vigorously in an attempt to dislodge herself from his lap, but it didn’t work. He just held her tighter and spanked her harder.
“Settle down,” he growled down at her.
“Fuck yourself,” she replied. “And let me go.”
“Nope.” He downed his impromptu tool and returned to using his hand to spank her. “I guess we’re going for the long haul version seeing as you’re being stubborn. I guess I’ll just spank you until you learn your lesson.”
“You’ll be spanking me a really long time if you want me to think that this place is anything less than a total shit hole,” Aster screeched angrily. The spanking wasn’t having the effect Owen wanted it to. It was making her angry and it was making her more defiant than ever.
“I see,” he said. “Well, if that’s how you want to play it, you can go to bed without dinner.”
“Fine! I don’t want to eat anyway!”
She hated him in that moment. She hated the restrictions he placed on her, and the way he wouldn’t let her just do whatever she wanted to do. She hated him for holding her over his knee and punishing her for having a damn opinion. Yes, she had sworn at him and disrespected him, but she wasn’t sorry for that and spanking her wasn’t going to make her sorry either. When the last swat fell she was just as disgruntled and irritable as she had been going into it.
“Take your clothes off and get into bed,” he said firmly.
“Oh, go fucking...” the words were lost as Aster kicked her shoes off and let her jeans fall to the ground. She climbed into bed and pulled the covers over her head, hiding the tears in her eyes. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry. He was a stupid mean brute of a man and she wished that she’d never met him.
She heard Owen moving about the room for a while. It was such close quarters that she could hardly stand it. There was no privacy, no place to just sulk. She had to feel his presence close by while she tried not to snivel too loudly.
“Aster?” he spoke after about ten minutes.
She pushed the blankets back, revealing her mussed up hair and tear stained cheeks. “What?”
“I’m going to get us something to eat,” he said. “Stay there.”
“I thought you said I wasn’t getting any dinner.”
“You need some,” he said. “You’ve not had anything since breakfast today as far as I can tell. That’s probably why you’re in a terrible mood. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
He left Aster to her misery in the hotel room which was still not good enough even after the spanking. She turned the television on and watched some New Zealand presenters natter at one another in vaguely intelligible words. Then there was more rugby, close ups of big men in tight shorts. It wasn’t all bad.
She sniffled in bed and watched television until Owen returned with a thick package, which smelled like fat and salt, under his arm.
“What the hell is that?”
“Fish and Chips,” he said. “A New Zealand specialty.”
“I thought that was British.”
“They make it in the UK,” he admitted, “but they’re not very good at it. Fish and chips here are made fresh to order. Over there they deep fry them and then leave them sitting out until someone comes by, plus they serve them with peas. Peas!”
“So that’s what you care about enough to get upset,” Aster said as Owen settled his newspaper wrapped package onto the little table by the sliding door which looked out onto a weed rimmed patio where an empty bag of chips was being pursued by a sparrow. “Fish and Chips.”
“I’m not upset,” he said, unwrapping the layers of paper to reveal golden fried fish and thick crispy cut fries, or chips as he insisted on calling them. A rich scent filled the air, making her stomach growl. Nothing about the meal seemed healthy, but it did seem tasty.
“Come on over here and eat,” Owen said, sitting at the table himself.
Aster didn’t move at first, but after a few minutes watching Owen eat hot fries she decided that she wasn’t going to starve herself. She sidled over to the table, still in her panties and snagged a piece of battered fish.
“Good, right?” Owen said when she’d had an experimental nibble.
It was good. It was rich and it was flavorful and the fish was clearly fresh. She tried a fry, a very small one that had been fried to a gold crisp. It crumbled in her mouth in a tasty conflagration of fat and potato. In spite of the fact that she could feel her cholesterol rising by the moment, she liked it. It was comfort food and it filled her belly with dense richness that soothed her jarred feelings.
“It’s not bad,” she eventually admitted.
“If we’d gotten these when we got off the plane you might have saved yourself a sore butt.”
Aster glared at him. “Leave my butt out of this.”
As they ate they watched re-runs of Friends on one of New Zealand’s four main channels, while Owen explained that Friends had been running non-stop in New Zealand since it first aired. Aster thought that was odd. “But it’s prime time viewing hours,” she said. “They don’t put something new on here?”
“No.” Owen shook his head. “There’s a prophecy that says if Friends ever stops airing in New Zealand, something terrible will happen.”
“Really?”
“No,” he chuckled to himself, “but there has to be some reason for it, and that’s as good as any.”
He had sort of a goofy sense of humor, she thought to herself. If it wasn’t for his fixation with disciplining her, she might even manage to like him. She picked at the fish and chips for a while, trying to sit comfortably but finding it difficult. Her butt had taken a heck of a lot of punishment from Owen, and he didn’t even seem to think that it was a big deal. He’d smacked her until she was bright red and sniffling and then carried on like nothing had happened.
“We should get an early night,” he suggested. “The helicopter is going to be leaving just after dawn.”
“I guess,” she said. It was going to be odd sharing a room with him, even if they did have separate beds. The quarters were undeniably close. In some ways it was hard to believe that they’d only known one another for two days. Two days and she’d seen him in his underwear. Two days and he’d seen her half-naked – the most significant half.
Owen tidied up the fish and chip wrappers and they both retired to their respective beds where Aster laid staring at the ceiling for what felt like hours, sleep completely evading her. Eventually she gave up and switched the television on.
“Turn that off,” Owen grumbled.
“I can’t sleep.”
“Close your eyes and be quiet,” Owen grunted unhelpfully.
“I tried that. I still can’t sleep.”
He sighed and sat up, his masculine frame silhouetted in the flashing television light. “You’re not going to be able to sleep if you pump light and sound into the room either,” he said. “Turn it off already.”
“Nope.”
“It wasn’t a request.”
“I don’t care.” Aster put the remote under the covers. If he wanted it, he was going to have to come and get it.
“What’s it going to take to get you to stop being a little brat?” Owen sighed the question as he pushed the covers back. She held the remote tight, but it didn’t matter. Owen didn’t come for her; he walked to the television and unplugged it.
“Jerk.”
Owen returned to bed. Aster was not going to give up that easily. She flicked her lamp on and off over and over until he growled, rose from his bed and came toward her. There were no further warnings or comments, he yanked her blankets off her, took her by the hand and flipped her over onto her stomach. Pinning her to the bed by the small of her back he started swatting her hard and fast.
“Owen!”