A Shadow in the Water

by April Hill

  Chapter Nine

  By the time I arrived at the nearest police station, in the unwelcome company of Boobies’ understandably irate owner, the beer and Scotch had pretty well worn off—thankfully—leaving me with a pounding headache and a bad attitude. (It didn’t help that my head had sustained a large, painful lump when the car roof caved in, and that my own bruised upper half had taken a pretty good wham from the driver’s side airbag.) We were greeted upon our arrival by a surly desk sergeant, who waved in a noticeably familiar and cheerful manner to the bar’s owner, but demanded my name, etc., which I declined to provide, citing my constitutional rights as an American citizen.

  “Looks like you’re expired,” the sergeant observed. He wasn’t referring to my appearance, but to my driver’s license, which, as luck would have it, was expired—and partially eaten as well. (Benjamin, presumably.) “And in a civil situation like this, being expired trumps your constitutional rights,” the sergeant explained. “You insured, at least? Somebody’s gonna have to pay for the damage to those big…” He paused for a moment, obviously searching for a way to refer to the bar’s damaged property in mixed company. He finally settled on “boobs.” I was apparently not the sort of woman worthy of a more politically correct description.

  “The car’s not mine, but I’m certain it’s insured,” I assured him. “The owner is a very law-abiding person. He’s a police officer, actually, the same as you are.”

  “Not in this town, he ain’t. We only got three. So, what’s this police officer’s name?”

  “Mathew O’Connor. He’s a lieutenant with the LAPD.”

  “Yeah, well that’s not gonna cut you any slack, here, lady. Does this O’Connor know you’re out driving his car into steel poles?” He winked. “Or did you maybe steal it?”

  I was about to make a smart-ass remark, when it suddenly occurred to me that the answer to the sergeant’s question wasn’t that simple. I had no idea whether Matt’s insurance would pay for damages caused by someone else, especially since that someone else was driving the car without his knowledge or permission.

  “His insurance card is probably in the glove compartment,” I said. “I can run out and bring it to you, if you like.”

  The sergeant looked me over for a second or two, obviously wary. And why not? He’d already sized me up as a reckless driver and a car thief, and now, I was about to make a run for it. “Give me the guy’s number,” he grunted. “I think I’ll just go ahead and give him a call.”

  Okay, I thought glumly. Maybe I should make a run for it. With a little luck, I could make it across the Mexican border before Matt get’s back.

  It took Matt almost three hours to get back from San Diego, during which time the sergeant allowed me to lie down on a bench in the back room. I could tell from Matt’s voice as he came down the hall that he wasn’t going to be in the best of moods, and I was right. The sergeant came in and pointed in my direction. “This lady says she belongs to you. Does she?”

  “What happens if I say no?” Matt asked irritably.

  “She’ll go before Judge Kowalski in the morning. Look here, O’Connor, I called you as a professional courtesy.”

  Matt sighed. “I know, and I appreciate it. Thanks.” I might have been imagining it, but he didn’t sound especially grateful. “Is there any paperwork I need to fill out?”

  “Nah. Just the business with those big knockers that got knocked down,” the sergeant replied, obviously pleased with his little pun, or whatever it was. “You can go ahead and take that up with Bud Willis—he owns the place. It’s not the first time someone took out that set of jugs, but before tonight, I can’t remember anyone ever wrecking a whole damned car.”

  “She seems to have a knack for things like that,” Matt remarked wearily.

  The sergeant chortled. “If I was in your shoes, buddy, I’d take a ping pong paddle to her bare butt, and just plain wear her out, as my Pop used to say.”

  “You wouldn’t have one handy, would you?” Matt inquired. He came over and took my arm to help me up. “Can you walk?”

  “Of course, I can walk,” I growled.

  I got as far as the car without making things worse, but we were no sooner inside than I opened my big mouth and sealed my doom. “Don’t start!” I snarled, though Matt hadn’t said a word, yet. “Just don’t start! It’s not my fault that your stupid car doesn’t know the difference between forward and reverse.”

  I’ll bet you’re thinking that it’s impossible to spank an adult woman of slightly more than average size on the front seat of a car, aren’t you? Well, you would be wrong, and Matt more or less proved it, that night—when we were out of sight of the police station, thank God. The way it’s done, in case you’re interested, is to:

  A. Be sure the vehicle is at a complete stop.

  B. Put the vehicle into park, as a safety precaution.

  C. Wedge the intended victim’s upper portions into that convenient space between the bucket seats, with her kneeling on the passenger seat—with one foot on the floor, and the other crammed against the passenger door. It will be necessary to lean across and use your left hand, of course, or to deliver your blows backhanded, but the effect on the victim will be approximately the same.

  D. With your right hand, pull the intended victim’s underwear down as far as her contorted position—and yours—will permit. Only one hemisphere of her squirming buttocks will be easily reachable, of course, so you must try extra hard to make your blows hard, and your aim accurate, lest you injure your hand on the gear shift.

  E. Done properly, you’ll be able to apply a very substantial spanking, although you’ll probably be left with a severe ache in your shoulder, and a possible rotator cuff injury. You may also be temporarily deafened, since the victim will be howling in pain and screaming obscenities directly into your right ear.

  F. The important thing to remember is this: After you have reached your destination, you can always continue the spanking indoors—at greater length and in total comfort.

  Fortunately, I was able, between whacks, to gasp out a garbled version of what I’d learned about the sumo wrestler, which convinced Matt to drive back to Malibu instead of continuing to try to flay me alive in the car. It was already four in the morning, so he agreed that we would stay at Carlotta’s for the remainder of the night, while he looked through the stuff I’d found. When we got there, I shed my clothes without ceremony and fell into bed. Matt tucked me into my old bed with a bedtime story—sort of—about how he was going to spank the holy shit out of me when I was conscious enough to feel it—and remember it.

  “I have never, repeat never wanted to take a belt to anyone as much as I do you, right now,” he added grimly. “You could have had your throat cut tonight in that dump, or been crushed to death in the damned car. Do you understand that?”

  I did, actually, but I was too exhausted to get the words out, or to apologize.

  I got up at about ten the next morning, feeling every bit as awful as I looked. Matt came out of the kitchen, took one look at me, then went and got a wet towel with ice in it. He plopped the icepack on my head and pushed me down on the couch.

  “What are you doing?” I asked weakly, touching the front of his shirt. “You’re sopping wet.”

  “About that kitchen,” he said, shaking his head. “Didn’t Carlotta have a cleaning lady?”

  I rearranged his improvised icepack, noticing that my head felt oddly different than it used to—sort of rectangular and misshapen. “Is that meant to be a crack?”

  “Just a simple question.”

  “You’re looking at the cleaning lady. The poor do not have cleaning ladies, Lieutenant. We are accustomed to living the simple, unadorned life.”

  “You’re pushing your luck,” he warned. “One more wise ass remark and we’re going to take up the issue of my car, sick or not. Now, shut up and go back to bed. We’ll talk later.” I staggered back to the bedroom, and Matt went back into the kitchen. A few minutes later, a
s I drifted to sleep, he was still banging things around.

  Around noon, I woke up again. This time, Matt was asleep in the big upholstered chair, his long legs stretched out on a shabby ottoman. I noticed that the dining table was missing its usual accumulation of unopened mail and dented hubcaps, and the entire room had been straightened and dusted. The sliding glass doors that faced the ocean were clean and wide open, and the air coming in through them felt cool and fresh on my forehead. Seeing that God was in His Heaven, and that all was right with the world, I lay down on the couch, snuggled into the dusty cushions, and went back to sleep. It was nice, actually. I’d never had a cleaning lady before.

  When I opened my eyes again, I lay there for a moment, trying to remember where I was. Then, a wave of nausea of epic proportions struck, and I rolled off the couch and stumbled into the bathroom, arriving not a split-second too soon. When I’d finished my business there, I wandered feebly back into the living room, where Matt was trying to watch the news, bending close to the tiny twelve-inch black and white TV I keep on my worktable.

  “You can get these things in color now, you know,” he said, following my progress across the room.

  “Carlotta believed that color TV destroys your brain cells. After what I did last night, I think there may be something to her theory. I’m sorry, Matt. About everything. The car, especially.

  If you want to beat me to death with a couple of Carlotta’s hubcaps, I’ll understand.”

  “Nope. I’m just going to let you lie there and repent of your sins. We’ll talk later.”

  I groaned. “Please stop saying that! I can’t stand the suspense. Besides, if you don’t do it now, you may miss your chance. I’m so sick, I want to die.”

  “So, let’s see. This is your first hangover?” Matt asked, like the rat he can be when he puts his mind to it.

  I groaned. “I’m out of practice. I think you lose the talent for hangovers after being sober for a year or two. I read that, somewhere. God, I feel awful! Do you think a person can accidentally throw up his own stomach without knowing it?”

  Matt chuckled. “I doubt it, but from what I could hear, you gave it your best shot.”

  “Thank you. I’m glad you’re finding my misery so entertaining.”

  Matt pulled the ottoman over and sat down on it, facing me.

  “Stop whining. I have some news. While you were asleep, I did some calling around— about your sumo wrestler. Are you interested, or too sick to care?”

  I sat up too fast, grabbed my head, and yelped in pain. “Tell me now, before I die.”

  “His name is Roy Phelps, and he works for Simon Yarnell. The Simon Yarnell.”

  “I’ll bite. What’s a Simon Yarnell?”

  “Philanthropist, financier, on the board of directors of three major financial institutions, two pharmaceutical companies, and president of the Yarnell Foundation for Arts. He’s one of the most powerful men in the state, maybe the whole country. Also, when he’s not handing out dough to the poor or the politically useful, he’s Monica Howard’s father.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I knew the name was familiar, so I ran her information. The lady’s name is, or was, Pamela Leigh Yarnell. She changed it when she dropped out of college in her sophomore year and went into show business. Daddy wasn’t happy with her career choice, or her choice of husbands.”

  “But why would somebody like Yarnell hire a bozo like this bartender guy—the sumo wrestler? What’s his name again?”

  “Roy Phelps, and unless I miss my guess, he’s one of Yarnell’s bodyguards. He lives in a little guesthouse on Yarnell’s estate in Oceanside, anyway. Which is where I’m going this afternoon—to talk to Phelps, and maybe Yarnell. And don’t even ask. You’re not coming with me.”

  “Why?” I whined. “I’m the one who found Phelps. It’s my clue, so why can’t I go?”

  “Because you’re not on the police payroll, that’s why. This is what I get paid for.”

  “I’ll just be an observer,” I insisted. “ I know the cops have ‘ride along’ programs. I saw it on television.”

  The whine in my voice was getting worse, and even I could hear it.

  “So you’re feeling better?” Matt asked, laying a concerned hand on my head. I was too dumb, and too eager to go with him to see the trap he was laying.

  “I’m feeling great, “ I said. “It’s amazing. The nausea’s gone, and the headache, too.” Actually, I was feeling better, with just the idea of a lovely ride to Oceanside.

  Matt stood up, took off his belt, doubled it in one hand, then pulled me up and bent me almost gently over the arm of the couch. He had me head down, with my fetching, oversized muumuu tucked up to my waist well before I could protest the cruelty of it—spanking the pale, shivering buttocks of a woman in such obviously poor health. To tell the truth, though, I was too tired to complain. Every crack of the damned belt stung like wildfire, but he stopped at ten, something I know because he counted them out loud—like a pirate captain at an on-deck flogging. And then, he made me another promise.

  “I just changed my mind,” he said. “I’ve decided to take you along to Yarnell’s—not because of your whining, but because I still don’t feel safe leaving you here, alone. But. If you so much as even ask to get out of the car when we get there, I swear I’ll take you over my knee and set your ass on fire right there on his front porch.” He patted my reddened rump. “Meanwhile, you can think of what just happened as your first payment on my insurance deductible.”

  I rode to Oceanside sitting on the only remotely comfortable portion of my rear end—the far edge of my left buttock, which came close to throwing my back out of joint. When we stopped for lunch, Matt didn’t seem to notice that I was walking like Quasimodo.

  Over my chicken salad sandwich, I decided to bring up certain troubling aspects of our relationship. “I want to ask you something,” I began, a bit irritably. My rear end was sore, and that made it a little easier to stay on topic, so to speak.

  Matt sipped a cup of coffee. “One thousand dollars.”

  “What’s one thousand dollars?”

  He smiled. “The deductible on the Cherokee. You still owe me nine hundred bucks. I collected the first hundred back at Carlotta’s, if you’ll recall.”

  “That was not what I was going to ask, “ I growled. “But now that we’re on the subject, that means … Okay, so math is not my best subject.”

  “Eighty more swats. If you make a cash settlement, I’ll discount it ten percent.”

  “You’re a cheap sonuvabitch, you know that?”

  “I thought the offer was very generous.”

  “I don’t have nine hundred dollars!” I whined.

  “Then you’d better be careful not to add anything else to the bill, like you keep doing.”

  All of this cute blather had actually segued nicely into what I wanted to talk about. I tried to think of a delicate way to ask my question, but there just wasn’t one.

  “Is this going to be a regular thing?” I cleared my throat. “This, uh … way you have of … well, you know.”

  Matt looked up at me, grinning, and I knew he was enjoying my misery. “What?” he asked again.

  I groaned. “Whatever you want to call it,” I mumbled. “Oh, come off it! You know damned well what I mean! This-this discipline thing of yours?”

  “Oh,” he said, as though a light had just dawned. “You mean my spanking you?”

  I looked around quickly to see if anyone was close enough to hear. I could feel myself blushing all the way down to my unpolished toenails. “Yes,” I croaked.” Have you … I mean, do you always…”

  “No,” he said. “You have the distinction of being the first woman I’ve ever spanked.”

  “Am I supposed to see that as a compliment?”

  Matt thought for a moment. “I wouldn’t call it a compliment, exactly. Now, I have a question for you. Why do you let me do it?”

  “Let you!” I cried. “I neve
r fucking let you! You just did it!”

  “The first couple of times, maybe. But after that, you could have told me to get lost. But you haven’t, and I’m wondering why not.”

  I leaned across the table to whisper. “I don’t remember it that way, detective. I remember ending up face down with absolutely no discussion, getting my behind whacked! I sure as hell didn’t get to vote on the issue.”

  “But you didn’t leave, either. Come to think of it, you stayed around afterward—for dessert, so to speak. Have you ever thought that maybe you like it?”

  “That’s disgusting!” I cried, totally forgetting where we were. I lowered my voice, but Matt was still smiling, damn him. “And it’s not true. In case you don’t know this, it hurts!”

  “On a scale of one to ten—one being stubbing a toe, and ten being burned at the stake?”

  “That’s a dumb scale,” I snapped. “Stubbing your toe hurts like hell.”

  “Worse than getting your butt blistered?”

  “No … just different.” I rolled my eyes. “This is a really stupid discussion, you know.

  “You started it.”

  Another couple came in and sat down at a nearby table, and I leaned forward again. “I don’t like it, and whatever you seem to think. I am not into that BDSM thing, like Gabe and his playmates.”

  “Have I ever tied you up?” Matt asked pleasantly. “Handcuffed you? Stopped you from leaving when you wanted to? Drawn blood or left bruises? Left anything except a pretty good sting? Do you want to know what I think?”

  “No,” I growled.

  “Tough, because I’m going to tell you, anyway. I think you actually like getting spanked, because it lets you off the hook, so you don’t have to feel guilty about some of the dumber things you do.”

  “Oh, that’s deep, Dr. Freud,” I said sullenly. “And what is it I have to feel guilty about?”