A Shadow in the Water

by April Hill

  On the fourth evening, Matt came home very late, and when he learned that we had taken that lovely outing, he wasted no time at all in turning me across his knee, pulling down my panties, and delivering a lightning-fast but intensely ouchy reminder of the “rules” I had agreed to. I had inadvertently left evidence of my indiscretion (a candy wrapper and the receipt) on the hall table. Benjamin, despite being an equal partner in the crime, did not get spanked. Instead, he sat on the floor like the fat, rotten little traitor he is, watching my chastisement with apparent concern, but making no attempt to come to my rescue.

  When he had finished chastising me, Matt rolled me off his lap onto the couch.

  “The next time I tell you to stay inside, do it!” With that, he delivered one last smack, presumably for emphasis, pulled my underwear back into place, then stood up and finally removed his coat and tie. Did I not say that he had wasted no time?

  “So, now I’m a goddamned prisoner?” I wailed, jumping up to face him.

  Matt groaned. “You’re not a prisoner. You’re in protective custody. My protective custody, which makes me responsible for your safety.”

  “Well, you don’t need to worry about protecting me any longer,” I responded haughtily. “Or my fucking safety, either. I’m sick of being locked up and of being spanked like a little kid whenever you feel like it. And I’m sick of your making all the rules, too. As a matter of fact, I’m even sick of you. I’m going back to Carlotta’s!”

  (Note: Most of what I said was totally untrue. My feelings were simply hurt. Matt wasn’t behaving the way I wanted him to, and I knew it was my fault. What man wants make love to a raving nutcase, who won’t listen to reason? But that didn’t matter, now. If he didn’t love me, I wanted to be the one who walked out, not the one being walked out on.

  Matt shook his head. “You’re not going back to Carlotta’s,” he said firmly. “You’re staying here, until I say it’s safe to go back there.”

  “There’s no law that says you can make me stay here if I don’t want to.”

  “Maybe not, but you are staying.” He walked to the hall closet and hung up his coat, then took out a pillow and a blanket, and tossed both items on the couch.

  “What are you doing?” I asked suspiciously.

  “I’m sleeping on the couch, and you’re taking my room. Now, shut up and go to bed. It’s late, and I’ve had all I can take for one day.”

  He kicked off his shoes, plumped the pillow, and stretched out as well as he could, with his feet propped up on the arm of the couch. Matt is tall, and he looked really uncomfortable, but I knew what was going on, and it made me even madder than I already was. The guestroom where I’d been sleeping was just off the damned hallway, near the front door. The man didn’t trust me!

  “Why don’t you just admit it?” I demanded. “You don’t trust me!”

  Matt yawned. “I don’t trust you.”

  “That’s not fair!” I cried. “If you want me to promise that I won’t leave, all you have to do is ask. I am capable of making intelligent decisions, you know!”

  “Actually,” he said wearily. “I haven’t noticed that about you.”

  “So, that’s it, warden? You’re just going to camp here all night and guard the damned door, is that it?”

  “That’s it. And try to remember that I’m armed. I have a .38 snub-nosed revolver on me, and a drawer full of wooden spoons in the kitchen. Your choice. Now, get out of here and go to bed. The towels are under the bathroom sink. If you need something to sleep in, the pajamas are in the bottom dresser drawer. I never use them, so help yourself.”

  I sidled over and sat down on the edge of the couch, next to him. “What an amazing coincidence,” I purred, walking my fingers down his very, very slowly. “Neither do I.”

  I wriggled close enough to nuzzle his neck, and began toying with the zipper on his fly.

  Matt yawned, again. “You’re wasting your time,” he said. “I’m bushed. Go on to bed.”

  “I don’t want to go to bed. I’m not sleepy.”

  Matt put his arm over his eyes. “Then go in my bedroom and read a book. Turn on the TV and stay up all night, for all I care. Just do it quietly.”

  “That’s silly. There’s more than enough room in that lovely queen sized bed. You can sleep there, too,” I suggested, like the generous human being I am.

  “No, thanks.”

  “I give you my solemn promise not to offend your virtue, Lieutenant. Why won’t you …”

  “Because,” he said, “when you think I’m asleep, you’ll be out that front door in five seconds flat, that’s why. Which means I’ll have to use what strength I have left to track you down and paddle your butt. And if you don’t go to bed by the time I count to three, I’m going to get off this damned couch and do it, anyway.”

  I jumped up. “God, you’re grouchy!”

  Matt sighed, and punched his pillow to get more comfortable. “If you want to see just how grouchy I can get, keep talking. Now, go to bed!”

  I went into the master bedroom and sat on the bed for a few minutes, fuming. I was mad as hell. It was bad enough having my pitiful efforts at seduction spurned, without being locked up like a caged rat and having to watch reruns of “All In The Family.” Matt must have been the only person in Los Angeles County who didn’t have cable. I turned the lights low, slipped into his bed in nothing but his pajama top, and turned the TV up as loud as it would go, waiting for a reaction from the good detective.

  The reaction didn’t take long in coming.

  I had hoped, of course, that Matt would come to his senses and join me in bed, overwhelmed by how adorable I looked in the top part of his jammies, but that’s not what happened. He came through the bedroom door, ignored me completely, and began rummaging in the top drawer of the dresser. I was about to explain in a sultry voice that a condom wouldn’t be required, since I was on the pill, but Matt wasn’t looking for protection.

  He was looking for his clothing brush. A large wooden one, as it turned out.

  With no further ceremony, my grouchy host grabbed me by one ankle, hauled me down to the end of the bed, and flipped me onto my stomach. Then, with one hand on the small of my back, he laid into my conveniently bared ass with the clothes brush and a very well-defined sense of purpose. For a man who had claimed only minutes earlier to be exhausted, Detective O’Connor’s recovery was amazing. In less than ten seconds, my behind was ablaze, and I was wailing an apology. I managed at one point to scramble away, but like the dedicated and relentless police officer he was, he came after me and dumped me face down and butt in the air over two fat pillows. With one arm wrapped around my waist to prevent further flight attempts, he went on to finish what he’d started—adding a few whacks, as he explained later—for obstruction of justice and resisting arrest. (A little police joke, apparently.)

  I have rarely regretted anything as much as I did turning on the TV that night, and while I was muffling my howls of regret with a corner of the bedspread, I suddenly remembered that old Chinese proverb about letting sleeping tigers lay. When Matt was done, (or when I was, depending on how you look at it,) he tossed the brush on the bedside table, yanked one of the pillows out from under me, and shoved me onto the far side of the bed. Thirty seconds after his head hit the pillow, he was fast asleep—fully clothed except for his shoes.

  Now, you would think, would you not, that after a spanking of that description—and the description has not done it justice, I might add— wherein my rear end felt like I had sat down on a nest of fire-ants, that I would just roll over on my stomach and whimper myself to sleep? But no, I had a better plan. A smarter plan. I would get dressed, take Matt’s wallet and car keys, sneak out of the condo, and spend the night at Barry’s. To teach him a lesson. Clever, yes?

  I had made it almost to the front door when the living room light went on.

  There’s something very undignified about being spanked in a brightly-lit bathroom, with the spanker seated on a blue cheni
lle toilet lid-cover and the hapless spankee sprawled over his knee with a pajama top over her head, and her agonized pleas for mercy echoing around the color coordinated tiles. Aside from everything else, the light was very unflattering. This time, Matt used his hand, which worked remarkably well, since my ass was already in a highly tenderized condition. The spanking was blessedly brief, lasting only as long as the accompanying lecture and several threats to “take the goddamned hide off you (me, that is) if you try this again!” Apparently as a grand finale, however, he concluded the spanking with the most painful, absolutely worst single smack I have ever felt in my life—with a long-handled plastic bath brush. The right cheek of my scorched rump had been branded, as a lasting reminder. Three days later, the oval mark was still there, and still reminding me—every time I tried to pull up my damned underwear.

  I didn’t try to leave again that night, not only because even I am not that dim-witted, but because Matt locked the bedroom door, after initially threatening to handcuff me to the bed. (And if you promise not to tell my mother, I’ll confess that even with my rear end throbbing, making the sheet warm to the touch, I found the idea of being handcuffed to the bed by Matt unbelievably arousing—for all the good it did me.)

  Chapter Five

  The next morning, with my rear end still sore from yesterday’s triple feature, Matt and I sat down for a more reasonable discussion of our situation. While I understood that he was keeping me there for my own protection, I genuinely believed that I was no longer in danger—if I ever had been—and I was still in a fighting mood about going back to Carlotta’s. I began my arguments by trying to be logical, even though I don’t do logical awfully well.

  “You’ve had people watching the house all this time, and they haven’t seen even one bloodthirsty killer, or anything else weird,” I began. “Carlotta’s going to be back from Mexico at any minute, and I’ve got a ton of work to do before she gets here. As it is, she’s going to be pissed by how little I’ve done while she was gone.”

  “Then, I’ll go over there and get whatever you need,” Matt suggested, even more reasonably. “Just make out a list.”

  “There’s too much to bring, even if I could remember everything, “ I explained. “And besides, there’s no way I can work in this apartment. I’m a slob when I paint. I’d be spilling paint all over the carpet, and paint thinner, and …”

  Matt grinned. “So, I’ll get new carpeting. I never liked this color, anyway.”

  I tried another tack. “Let’s face it,” I said with a sigh. “The real reason I need to get out of here is because it’s becoming pretty obvious that we don’t get along.”

  “We don’t get along?” he repeated. Well, duh! Considering what had happened the day before, and only last night, and adding to all that the current overheated condition of my rear end, I found his surprise very surprising.

  “You heard me,” I pouted. “Ever since I got here, all you’ve done is order me around, abuse me, or ignore me. You have absolutely no right to keep me here against my will. I ought to call the police and have you arrested for false imprisonment.” I paused for a moment, and gave my rear end a meaningful rub. “Among other things.”

  Matt handed me the phone.

  “Go ahead and make the call. But you’re still not going back to that house. If you don’t want me around, I’ll bunk at Dan’s place for a few days, and get a policewoman to stay here with you.”

  Oops! Not what I expected. I started backpedaling like mad.

  “God! Why do you always have to over-react that way? I like you here with me,” I explained with another whine. “What I don’t like is getting my butt smacked every twenty minutes.”

  “Then stop acting like an idiot.”

  “All right,” I conceded. “You’re absolutely right. I’ve been acting like an idiot, but it’s not fair for you to have to leave. This is your home, after all. I give you my promise that I’ll stay inside, safe, and out of sight.” I was being so sweet and cooperative I was making myself sick, but the one thing I positively didn’t want was for Matt to leave.

  Matt wasn’t convinced. “Am I supposed to trust you, after what I’ve been through, already?”

  I crossed my heart with one finger. Matt studied me for a moment, and then seemed to relax a little.

  “Okay, we’ll give it one more shot. Pay attention, though,” he said firmly, “because this is how it’s going to work. You stay inside, and do what I tell you to do until it’s safe. No sneaking out to candy stores, no discussions, no arguments. Are we clear about that?”

  I crossed my heart again, with a little less enthusiasm.

  “One more thing,” he added. “And after last night, this part is non-negotiable. You bite me, or kick me again, and you get double whatever you’ve already earned. Call me a cock sucker, again, or anything close, and you get double swats for that, too.” (All of this was a reference to the previous evening, when I had done—or tried to do—all of those things while he was spanking the you-know-what out of me.)

  “So, I give up my rights to self-defense and free speech? You expect me to cooperate in that?”

  “When you’re wrong, yes. That’s the deal.”

  “What deal?” I asked suspiciously.

  “The deal that says you’ll play by my rules until we find this guy, and don’t do anything else to get yourself killed. If you break the rules, you get your beautiful ass paddled, hard, long, and every damned night if I have to. That’s the deal. Take it or leave it.”

  The only thing I saw to like about “The Deal” was the single word—beautiful—even spoken in such a disagreeable context.

  “And what is it I get out of this terrific deal of yours?” I asked with a sneer.

  “You mean besides free food and staying alive?”

  “Yes.”

  Matt smiled, then swept me up in his arms and carried me to the bedroom, just like a cave man. Less than one minute later, having stripped me like a banana, his strong hands and hot mouth were exploring every nook and cranny of me, north to south. Yeah, I know. He was playing dirty, but what else could I do? I signed on to the deal.

  * * * *

  The next few days were wonderful, on the romantic front, anyway, and the only real fly in the ointment was that I honestly needed to get back to work. Matt kept promising me that it wouldn’t be long, but I knew he was stalling, and still worried about my “secret admirer.” The cops had apparently stopped watching the house, except for the two patrol cars that normally prowled the neighborhood. Meanwhile, I was going nuts, wondering when the hell Carlotta was going to make an appearance. Matt had paid the phone bill for me, and sent a check for the gas and electric, so at least the house wouldn’t be dark and phoneless when she got home. Meanwhile, I called the few people I knew who might have heard from her, but no one had a clue where she might be.

  Most of Carlotta’s cronies were as flaky as she was, and even when they weren’t in jail or high on something, they weren’t what you’d call model citizens, or reliable. She’d been gone longer than this a couple of times before, and she had about a thousand close relatives in Mexico, so I wasn’t exactly worried. Until I heard Carlotta’s old Vespa coughing its way down the driveway, I never knew when she was coming home, or where she’d been. When she was between men (which is less often than you might expect, at her age,) or between buying trips, and not avoiding process servers, she usually stayed at the beach house. The rest of the time, God only knew where she slept, and even His information was probably out of date. Whenever I was desperate to get in touch with her, the shop was the most likely place. But, unless it was a peak time for tourists, she tended to stay on the move, and let one of her half-wit “associates” run the shop.

  All of this, of course, was leading up to another dumb move on my part. I broke the terms of “The Deal” just a few days after I agreed to it. Two unrelated things precipitated my downfall. Matt had unilaterally decided several days previously that it was time for me to move into
the twenty-first century, so I was now the proud owner of a brand new cell phone that I almost knew how to operate. It was a deep, cinnamon red color, and adorable. Beyond adorable! Once I had mastered the cell phone, Matt explained, I’d be able to do all sorts of wonderful things I’d never done, before. Like look at dirty pictures on the Internet. Or take out-of-focus pictures of Benjamin and send them to people I barely knew and didn’t want to talk to in the first place.

  The second thing? I got unexpected access to a car.

  One morning shortly after I got the new phone, Matt had to leave the house very early with his partner. An emergency, he said. And guess what? He left his car in the garage. There had been a secretive phone conversation a few minutes before that, in solemn whispers obviously not meant for my ears, so I was already annoyed by what sounded like a conspiracy. In a fit of pique, I made an impromptu decision to go over to Carlotta’s and get some of my stuff, and while I was there, I’d check out the house for myself. Matt usually called me about one o’clock every afternoon, so I figured I had plenty of time to grab what I needed and get back to the condo. With my cute little phone in my pocket, Matt’s extra keys in my hand, (twenty minutes of searching every drawer in the damned house) and being very careful to be sure no one was watching, I pulled out of the garage and set off for Carlotta’s. The sun was shining, I had the car windows open and the radio on, and I was a free spirit, again.

  As I drove, I used the adorable little phone to call Barry, but there was no answer. He had taken off for Florida three days after Gabe’s murder, moving up the date for his regular month-long visit to his Mom. He said it was because he missed me, but I think it probably had more to do with all the raunchy gossip in the papers. For a while after the murder, Encantada Cove had apparently been overrun with paparazzi.