Rumours

by Alison Tyler

  Over and over, Geneva’s hand came down on the blonde’s bare ass. There was no other explanation possible for the steady smacking noises that echoed throughout the hall. Women eyed one another as they quietly worked their way through the tables and racks of multicoloured items. Nica stayed at my side, choosing black slacks, a purple mohair cardigan and a faux alligator purse for herself. She was adept at avoiding items that wouldn’t suit her, and plucking the most perfect pieces from the piles. While I watched, she snagged a periwinkle-blue sweater for me that had glittering sequins around the neck and down the open front. ‘Just your style,’ she said softly, and I wondered why she was being so friendly. I had a lump in my throat from listening to the sounds of the spanking being delivered just yards away and, if I’d been a man, I would have sported a massive hard-on. Instead, I found myself wondering if Alhambra was as excited as I was.

  What would people think if I presented myself behind the curtain as the next willing participant, begging Geneva to take care of me. I could think of a million reasons why she should spank me, and only one why she shouldn’t: the gossip. I’d never live it down. In spite of Geneva’s own words that I needed to get over myself, this wasn’t something I could actually do.

  Finally, Nica asked if I wanted to pause in our clothing search for a glass of wine. The Saloon had provided a free case for the event. Although she wasn’t the official bartender tonight – it was an open bar – she was an excellent hostess, and took me over to the corner where the plastic glasses were set out and poured me a glass of Sonoma Red. I drained half in a swallow, and Nica grinned at me.

  ‘You’ve never been around them before in a scene like this, have you?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘It happens quite a bit. Alhambra has a nose for trouble. She likes to play games, and she likes to push Geneva’s buttons. This is generally the end result. At least three times a year, we all get to witness a spanking at the bar. Two months ago, Geneva bent her over the pool table and thrashed Alhambra with her belt.’

  I realised that the spanking going on in the far corner of the room must have increased in intensity, because suddenly I could hear Alhambra crying out, her words muffled but decipherable: ‘I’m sorry, Geneva! Oh, ow!’ I had to work hard to focus my attention on Nica, to figure out what she was talking about. Part of me wanted to sit on the floor and listen to the thrilling sounds of punishment behind curtain number one.

  ‘She did what?’ I finally asked, when I realised I couldn’t follow Nica’s story.

  ‘She gave her a taste of the belt.’

  ‘What’d Alhambra do to deserve that?’

  ‘Kissed Willow.’

  ‘Isn’t Willow dating Zeppelin?’

  ‘Zeppelin’s her brother –’

  ‘The other Zeppelin, then?’

  ‘You can guess the answer to that, can’t you, Charlie? Yes and no –’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ I said, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. ‘You all are dating the town at large. I forgot.’

  ‘Don’t things like this ever happen in LA?’ Nica asked me.

  ‘Multiple dating, or spanking in public?’

  Nica paused. The spanking had stopped, but other, even more arousing, sounds had now replaced the smacking noise. I could just guess how Alhambra and Geneva were making up. None of the other women in the room seemed the slightest bit concerned by the situation. Girls who wanted to try on clothes were doing so in public, stripping down and sliding on dresses and jeans, then modelling for their friends’ opinions. Nobody seemed shy, and none seemed the type who would have used the curtain space in the first place. I could have guessed that, after being present at the latest NUDE event. But there were plenty of flushed cheeks and bright eyes in the room, and I realised that I clearly wasn’t the only one who’d been aroused by the scenario.

  ‘Spanking,’ Nica said. ‘This sort of thing –’ she motioned with her chin to the tie-dyed curtain ‘– it’s big in Britain and I just assumed it was pretty widespread in cities like LA.’

  ‘Sure,’ I told her. ‘If you go to the right clubs. The ones in Hollywood with names like Sin or S/M Satisfaction.’

  ‘But not at your neighbourhood bar or clothing exchange?’

  I shook my head. ‘I’ve never seen it.’

  Nica shrugged. ‘When you live in a small town, there are less places to hide. You start to know things about people. Intimacies. Secrets. Even fetishes. Eventually, there really aren’t any secrets left. People are much less inclined to hide their wild streaks when they understand that everybody already knows all about them.’ She smiled. ‘Besides that, we don’t have the funds for a sex club. We only have The Saloon and get-togethers like this one. People out here don’t want to drive all the way to San Francisco in order to get off.’

  ‘But won’t she be embarrassed when she comes out?’ I asked, trying to picture myself in Alhambra’s position. I would never be able to slip out from behind the curtain. Not after that. ‘I can’t imagine –’

  ‘Christ, no. Alhambra’s fully aware that at least ten other women would gladly take her place over Geneva’s lap in a second. And that, if she and Geneva were to break up, there would be a host of other girls ready to take their turn.’

  I could believe that. I thought I might even be able to point to those women, simply by the way they were acting. The sly smiles. The pink cheeks.

  ‘In fact,’ Nica continued, ‘I’ll wager she set the whole thing up on purpose, kissing Mia but knowing she’d get caught, and knowing precisely what the end result would be.’

  For me, the end result was a yearning to be over a strong man’s lap and spanked the way Geneva had spanked Alhambra. No big surprise there. After hearing their saucy session in person, I couldn’t get the sound of it out of my head. There is something so sexy to me about that slap-slapping sound of a hand meeting a bare, naked ass, and it made the desire to be spanked myself even more powerful. In truth, with me that yearning never actually goes away, but over the past few weeks, I’d convinced myself that I could live without that sort of sexy stimulation. Maybe I was wrong. Here, people seemed to go after exactly what they wanted. Just look at Alhambra. Perhaps I should behave the way she did, go after what I wanted until I found it. But that would mean being as bold as her, and I didn’t think I had that in me.

  I spent the rest of the night in my cabin, trying to figure out why I was wired the way I am. I should be able to have a relationship without the possibility of kinky sex, right? I should be satisfied with hot kisses and sweet sixty-nines, with entwined limbs and warm caresses.

  But I wasn’t.

  When it was after midnight, I got into my car and drove to the station, thinking about confronting Alden and asking him point-blank to give me what I desired. I knew from Mia what he wanted, so maybe we could work out a deal. I’d heard about couples who switched in their role-playing activities. Why couldn’t that be us?

  But, when I cruised by the station, I saw Sheila’s car parked next to Alden’s truck, nestled in there as if the vehicles were as intimate as their owners. So that’s why she had left the clothing exchange. The two of them had been together. Was that why Geneva had been so insistent that I attend? Geneva was on the force, after all. Did she have inside information about the goings-on between Alden and Sheila? Was she a double-agent, being kind to both sides for her own unexplainable satisfaction?

  My head hurt from the different twists and turns made by everyone’s relationships. I thought of that quote, ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave …’ Well, this town seemed tangled aplenty. I couldn’t even begin to keep everyone straight.

  I went home feeling sorry for myself about Alden and dissatisfied because, like that famous Stones song, I couldn’t get what I wanted. Something was definitely going to have to change.

  The yearning didn’t stop that night, or the next day. And when I saw Alhambra out in public, cheerful and fresh-faced, the desire flooded through me with such force that I had to s
top for a second to catch my breath. I sat for a moment outside the post office, on one of the handcrafted wooden benches in front of the mural. I now knew that the woman watering plants in the picture was Sukie.

  Finally, I headed inside the building to collect my mail, and pulled out several bills along with a flyer for Johnny’s band, advertising his upcoming Halloween gig in the city. The glossy postcard featured a stellar photo of the band on the front, the four tough-looking boys all propped up against the drummer’s hot rod. They looked as if they’d been plucked right out of the 50s. Four hoodlums in their white T-shirts, crisp blue denims and leather jackets.

  On the back of the card, Johnny’d used red pen to draw a heart and his initials. ‘Don’t forget!’ he’d scrawled above the heart. I hadn’t forgotten, but I’d thought maybe he had. Forgotten about me, that is. When I got home, I emailed Mia, asking her to meet me out of town to discuss what she thought I should do. But, before we could broach that subject, I had to quiz her about what really had happened between her and Alhambra.

  ‘It all got blown out of proportion.’

  ‘I was there –’ I insisted. ‘I saw –’

  ‘You were just there at the end,’ she said. ‘We were trying on clothes, and Alhambra decided to get a bit flirty, and she kissed me. I think she knew Geneva was about to walk in. It’s as if she has a sixth sense or something, because she did the same thing at The Saloon on my first night in town. The girl is a good kisser, that’s for sure. I went with it. I’m trying to give you as much of a gossip break as possible. I was sure this wouldn’t hurt.’

  ‘It hurt Alhambra’s ass –’

  ‘Yeah.’ Mia grinned. ‘I heard all about that. But I think that’s probably why she kissed me in the first place. And Geneva found me afterwards and apologised for the slap. But I told her not to worry. I had it coming to me.’

  I gazed at Mia in awe. She’s always been like this. She doesn’t hold grudges, and she hardly ever gets angry. She rolls with the situation. Which is what she told me to do about Johnny’s band. To roll with it. Or in her words: ‘Are you kidding? You have to go.’

  ‘You dislike Alden that much, huh?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You wouldn’t want me to go see Johnny so badly if you liked Alden. You’d want me as far away from Johnny as humanly possible.’

  She shrugged and flipped her hair. ‘It’s not that I don’t like him, Charlie, but I keep hearing about him and you and Sheila, and the triangle sounds as if it’s getting more complicated than ever. Might as well turn it into a rectangle. That’s a little more fair. Besides, it’ll be fun to get out of Raysville for a night,’ she said, ‘and maybe I’ll bring Noah.’

  When Mia asked Noah to go with her, he told several of his friends, and the group started to grow until we had a true caravan heading to the city, carloads of locals planning on being in San Francisco for Halloween night. It would be a nice break from the small-town parties, people said. Of course, word got to Alden and he ended up on my front porch once again.

  ‘Your boyfriend’s playing in the city?’

  ‘Ex.’

  ‘I know all about exes,’ he said, his dark eyes even darker than usual.

  ‘Yeah, you do, don’t you?’ I stood my ground, defiant.

  ‘So am I invited, Charlie?’

  ‘You do whatever you want. That seems to be your M.O.’ But in my heart I wasn’t that sure. How could I be upset with Alden for seeing Sheila when I didn’t know what my own feelings were for my ex-boyfriend? I wished I had a switch inside myself that I could use to turn off the emotions I still felt for my musician. If I saw Johnny, would I want him with the same pull as always? And, if he saw me with Alden, how would he react? The thought both frightened and excited me, and I didn’t bother with worrying about what the correct response should have been. I went with my initial decision and, on the night of the concert, I found myself waiting for Alden to pick me up. Mia had driven ahead with Noah, the Sweethearts in a snit but catching a ride with the rest of Noah’s bandmembers.

  Alden arrived dressed as a firefighter.

  ‘Clever costume.’

  ‘We were called out right before I came to pick you up. I didn’t have time to change. I wasn’t on duty tonight, but it sounded like an ugly accident, so I went to help.’

  ‘You look great,’ I told him, feeling bad for making fun of him. The one part of our relationship that I felt most unsure about was his job. I could tell this was where his true secrets lay, and I didn’t dare question him about them. Someday he might come clean with me. Until then, I’d back off. ‘Really,’ I said.

  ‘So do you.’ He eyed me up and down. I had on a tight lace-up bustier made of shiny satin, black fishnets, a micro miniskirt that barely covered the tops of my thighs and revealed the red roses on my pretty garters, huge stack-heeled boots and a crop. I was wearing a pair of dramatic, opera-length, black velvet gloves, and my red hair was tucked under a very believable black wig. ‘Sort of like a dominatrix.’

  ‘Betty Paige,’ I corrected him.

  ‘Well, wasn’t she into all that?’

  ‘In the pictures, anyway.’

  ‘Where’d you get all the gear?’

  These were items I’d worn with Johnny, and I had debated about bringing them to Raysville, not thinking I’d have any use for the fancy outfit. But I just said, ‘Oh, you know, I put it all together from odds and ends.’

  ‘You ready?’ he asked.

  I nodded and, because I couldn’t help myself, added, ‘Are we picking up Sheila on our way?’

  He looked at me as if I’d slapped him.

  ‘Because I hear the two of you have been spending plenty of time together.’

  ‘Oh, Charlie,’ he said, sounding disappointed. ‘You’re not buying into all the gossip, are you?’

  ‘How can I help it?’

  ‘Listen to what I say to you. That’s what you should be doing.’

  I didn’t have a response for that, so I flicked on the radio and we listened to the music in silence. As we drove over the Golden Gate Bridge, I realised I’d only crossed the famous landmark a handful of times since moving to Raysville. The powerful structure was imposing even in the darkness, and I took in the grand design, the deep brick colour, the sulphur glow of the lights. I supposed I was turning into one of the locals, making a habit of not going ‘over the hill’ for any reason if I didn’t have to. That thought made me smile. Maybe I’d find my place in this town yet.

  Alden pulled us into the parking lot, seemingly surprised by the number of vintage cars present.

  ‘It’s a rockabilly band,’ I explained. ‘They have a deeply loyal following. I’m sure that a good third of the cars were driven here from Los Angeles and the Valley.’ As always at Johnny’s gigs, there were a multitude of beloved cars in cherry condition, with special licence plates designating their classic status. Many of the gleaming chassis were painted in bright candy colours, sparkling coats of paint in neon turquoise, electric orange, shimmering fuchsia. Quite a few of the cars were further decorated with multicoloured flames or fancy silver tailpipes that shot out actual fire. Fuzzy dice hung from nearly all of the rear-view mirrors.

  We headed inside, where the warm-up band was already playing. This bar was so different from The Saloon that I had to take a moment to get acclimatised. Far fancier, the decor featured a Rat Pack theme, with photos of Sinatra and his cronies framed on the walls. The drink of choice seemed to be martinis, and a giant martini glass hung over the bar, blinking off and on in bright-green neon.

  I recognised a few of the fans from previous gigs, girls in beehive hairdos and their fellas in pompadours and tight white T-shirts, tattoos crawling up and down their biceps. I felt myself on edge, waiting to see Johnny. What would he think of the fact that I was there with a date? He couldn’t have expected that I’d be living like a nun when away from him, could he? Because I didn’t expect the same. Some of the girls who followed the band had been eyeing him fo
r years. I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d taken up with one – or several – of those groupies right away, to dull the taste of me. Hadn’t I virtually done the same thing with Alden?

  Although I didn’t locate Johnny immediately, I sensed his presence. Maybe that’s why Cody’s appearance was the one to shock me. As soon as Alden went off to get us drinks, Cody walked up to me and spun me around to face him.

  ‘I didn’t know you were coming,’ I said, smiling and looking him over. He wasn’t dressed in a costume, just jeans and a blue workshirt over a white T. But what would he have gone as? A cowboy? He had on his battered boots and the leather belt with the antique silver buckle that he always wore, and he looked as relaxed and handsome as ever.

  ‘I thought everyone in town was making the trek,’ he said evenly.

  ‘Yeah, but you’re the one person in town who doesn’t do what everyone else does.’

  He tipped his hat at me, letting me know that I was correct in my assessment, and that he was pleased that I’d noticed. Then he leaned in tight. ‘I like that on you.’ He motioned to my outfit.

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘You make a perfect Betty Paige. You’re just missing the bondage gear and the bright-red ball gag.’

  My eyes widened as I stared at him, easily visualising what he was describing. Would Cody tie me to a tree, like in that infamous Betty Paige picture? Would he crop me, or spank me, or paddle me with the back of my antique hairbrush? And, more important right now, how did he manage to turn me on with a simple sentence?