No Place Like Home

by April Hill

  Hank’s sunny mood had already begun to crumble, even before I threw the temper tantrum and the phone book. Yeah, the phone book: "Los Angeles-Downtown area and Sections of West Hollywood," I think. The book sailed past his head safely enough, and I might have made a clean getaway if the dumb thing hadn’t crashed into a potted plant and taken out the little TV on the dresser. One moment, Oprah Winfrey was hooting a cheerful ‘Good Morning’ to a studio crammed with shrieking women, and the next moment she disappeared in a little puff of smoke as the plant crashed through the screen.

  (You know, I really don’t know why I do things like this. I certainly wasn’t raised that way.)

  Anyway, I guess my host had had enough, because before you could say “And now, a word from our sponsors”, Hank had come around the bed, removed my suitcase (and my panties), and pushed me facedown across the bed.

  I hadn’t been spanked since I’d moved in with him, and I’d sort of forgotten the sensation, because the first smack came as quite a shock to my tender sensibilities— and a couple of other places, as well.

  Every time in the past, when Hank had spanked me, I’d kind of "submitted," if that’s the right word, maybe because I knew I had it coming, and maybe because somewhere deep-down I kind of liked the feeling that somebody else was making the difficult decisions for me. But this time, I fought, and though I’d never really thought of Hank as the kind of guy who worked out a gym or anything, he must have been getting in shape somewhere. I’m small, but I’m wiry, as they say, and I still lost the fight, before the first round has even started.

  When I tried to scramble away across to the other side of the bed, he dragged me back by one ankle and continued smacking my ass with what felt like a tennis racket or a boat oar, but turned out to be nothing more than his clothes brush. (I like a well-groomed man, don’t you?) Then, in an almost flawless imitation of John Wayne, he secured my squirming person over his knee and began the real festivities. I’m not especially proud to report that I exhibited no pride at all. And no courage. I howled. I shrieked. I threatened. I begged. Hank just spanked, without a word and without stopping for air. He worked me over on one side, then the other, then back and forth again, and when I tried my best to kick him, he pried my legs apart and laid a couple of hard swats on the insides of my thighs, which stung like hell. And as a grand finale, he gave the backs of both my thighs a few really hard swats. Oprah was probably breaking for her first commercial by the time he finally threw the brush down and dealt each of my throbbing cheeks a parting shot with his bare hand.

  If this were a different kind of story, Hank would have ripped off my remaining clothing, spread my lovely, willing thighs, and thrust his rampant member into my eager velvet orifice. That’s not exactly what happened, though. What happened was, he dumped me on my feet, threw my suitcase back in the closet, and told me that if I made a move to leave, he was going to take off his belt and "set my goddamned ass on fire." Romantic, huh? Just the way a girl likes to start her day.

  Like a jerk, I started to cry, and I hate women who cry. I hate women who cry almost as much as I hate women who giggle, but I couldn’t help it. All of a sudden, the dam burst, and I was blubbering like a baby, bawling at the top of my lungs. A real class act, running nose and all— the whole catastrophe. What a vision of loveliness I must have been. I was standing in the middle of his bedroom, with my panties at half-mast, my skirt twisted backwards, my nose running, and losing my mind. My hair was in my face and my rear end was throbbing, and in the middle of this mayhem, the man I was almost certainly in love with was calmly hanging my clothes neatly in the closet, oblivious to my caterwauling.

  By the time he was done hanging things, my wailing had tapered off, dwindling down to a lot of gasping sobs and wet sniffles. Hank pulled down the covers, undressed me so tenderly it made me start bawling all over again, and put me to bed. Within three seconds, I was out like a light. It had been quite a day.

  When I woke up, it was late afternoon, and Hank was dozing on the bed next to me, with a book lying open on his chest. Even though he was snoring pretty loudly, it felt really good having him there. Later, he made soup, and we ate it in front of TV, and watched the news, followed by “Wheel of Fortune”— just like an old married couple. What he didn’t do, though, was apologize fro what he’d done, earlier, and that surprised me a little. I watch a lot of TV, and all those guys on Montel and Maury Povitch always seemed to get sensitive and remorseful they did stuff like belting their "old ladies" in the chops. (I can’t recall any of these guys ever spanking their old ladies, so I was willing to give Hank the benefit of the doubt and think our situation was a little bit different.

  So, tough, no-nonsense broad that I am, I asked him, straight out. I needed an immediate apology, and an explanation. Did he enjoy it?

  This is what he said, almost verbatim.

  "No. I didn’t like it. It made me feel like shit. I don’t want to hurt you, Karen. Ever. I’m in love with you, but I want you alive and safe, and if that's what it’s going to take to keep you out of that damned house, then you can be sure I'll do it again—as often as I have to. And if that makes me a louse, I'm sorry. When this is all over, I’ll apologize, but until then…"

  Okay, maybe I wasn't the tough, street-wise broad I thought I was, and maybe I wasn’t really as strong and self-reliant as I’d been pretending. Maybe I liked being taken care of by a determined alpha male, after all. What I didn’t know, was what the rules were.

  "So, this...This spanking thing," I stammered, pointing meaningfully to the place on the bed where the last event had occurred. "Is that, like—negotiable?"

  While I was working up the question, Hank had been lying on the bed, propped up on one elbow, and watching my misery with undisguised amusement.

  “Sure,” he said. “When this is over, we’ll do just that. But until then…Well, I hate to break this to you, babe, but so far, spanking you seems to be the only way to get your undivided attention. And so far, it’s worked. You’re here with me, safe and sound. From my point of view, that’s a pretty powerful argument for a little bit of carefully applied police brutality."

  And so, I agreed. I would abide by his rules—for now. And I would take the consequences without whining if I screwed up. Which I would never do, again, because I was an intelligent, reasonable adult who now recognized that by being stubborn and pigheaded, I had put my life in danger, and made his job harder.

  Hank didn’t ask me to put my right hand on anything sacred while I made the above promise, which was a good thing. Like the New Year’s resolutions I swear to every year, this vow didn’t make it three full days. Two days after I gave my solemn promise to keep my nose out of police business, I decided that the Los Angeles Police department had dropped the ball and wasn’t making enough progress.

  I borrowed (Okay, stole,) Mom’s snappy little Mercedes, and drove up to the White Rancho, under the misguided belief that sleeping with a detective made me one too. I was looking, of course, for the elusive clue. I didn't find a clue, but I did get my behind spanked good and hard for my efforts. Hank evidently had spies on every corner, because I had barely turned into the driveway of the house when this very no-nonsense cop named Jablonski pulled up behind me, ordered me out of the car, and shoved me unceremoniously into the back of a patrol car. I was escorted back to Hank’s place, and ordered inside. Five minutes later, Hank arrived, got my panties down in record time, and whaled the living daylights out of my bare ass with a wooden paint stirrer. (Did I mention that Hank likes to putter around the house?)

  This time, after the spanking, I didn’t even get the lovely make-up session, but a stern lecture on the subject of my lying, and my massive stupidity. In case that wasn’t enough, he threatened me with a truly epic “blistering” if I made one move from the house in the next week. I was given to understand that a wooden hairbrush used for five solid minutes on soft female butt is not something I’d enjoy very much. I believed every word. Hank has a real way with word
s, among other things. But I was still pissed.

  I slouched around on the couch all week getting madder, feeling sorry for myself and watching Dr. Phil, Judge Judy, Oprah Winfrey, and way too many re-runs of “Divorce Court” to be healthy. Out of sheer spite, I found and ran up Hank’s Visa on QVC. I sent him a lot of adorable scented candles in the shape of baked goods, and a really nice selection of bath and beauty products. My third spanking of the week arrived on the same afternoon as the chain saw and the gas barbecue grill. It (the spanking) was delivered out of doors, al fresco, with several of the barbecue grill’s "absolutely free with purchase" plastic cooking utensils.

  I spent the following day sitting uncomfortably on a pillow and negotiating with the friendly folks at QVC for the return of my earlier purchases. Not all my shopping went unappreciated, though. Hank decided to keep the chainsaw, to trim the brush under the deck. He said I got a good deal, but from where I sat, the price was way too high.

  * * *

  CHAPTER SIX

  "It has to be about Larry," I insisted, munching on a piece of toast a few mornings later. "All of it. Maybe what the CSI guys said was true. I just wandered into the whole mess by accident."

  Hank shook his head doubtfully. "Maybe, but what about the car? We didn’t see another car here the night Larry was murdered, and if the killer was driving Larry's car that night, why would he have left what he did at your place? Why not go somewhere private to chop Larry up?"

  I changed theories in mid-stream. "Okay, so maybe it’s all mixed up with Mister Frankie. Were your guys watching his house that whole night—the night Larry got chopped up, as you put it? "

  Hank sighed. "No. I pulled them off Frankie’s place to watch yours. Stupid move, as it turned out, but it seemed like a good idea at the time."

  "Well, then, anyone—even the killer— could have been parked around the corner from Frankie’s that night, out of view."

  He threw the newspaper across the room in frustration. "I know, but what I really don’t get is how the second creep got in the house to beat you without Starides and Avila seeing him. They checked inside and out that morning, with me, before I left. I still think the guy who attacked you could be the same guy who killed Larry."

  "But they’ve already caught the murderer," I said doggedly.

  "Wrong. They caught a murderer. I'm still not convinced that he’s our murderer. I just don’t believe that much in coincidence. You’ve had three things happen at that house that just shouldn’t have."

  "Hey," I said. "You’re the one who told me this wasn’t Kansas. Maybe the truth is that it just isn't a very nice neighborhood. I’m sure Frankie’s customers aren’t all Boy Scouts. All these deserted streets, maybe..."

  Hank shook his head again, and stood up "I’m going back up to the Ranchos for another look around. And this time, I’m taking a forensics team I know, not the damned teenaged whiz kids. There’s got to be something we’ve all missed."

  "When are we going?" I asked eagerly.

  "I didn’t say anything about ‘we’," Hank replied. "You’re not going near that place again."

  "The hell I’m not!"

  With a heavy sigh, Hank took my arm and pulled me down across his knee.

  I yelped in disbelief. "Wait a minute, damn it! All I said was..." But I had apparently just crossed the Great Divide—and into territory about which Hank had already made it clear there would be no further discussion. I seem have this short-term memory problem, which Hank promptly set about improving.

  Since I was wearing nothing but Hank’s pajama top, he simply raised the flap, pushed me as far forward over his lap as I could go, short of hitting my head on the floor, and began smacking my raised behind with his bare hand. Which, by the way, is extremely noisy, and hurts a lot more than you might think.

  Dismayed by the injustice, as well as the gross indignity of my indelicate position, I pounded my fists on the floor and called him a couple of not-so-polite names, which was my second mistake of the morning. Hank tolerates my mouth—most of the time—but I have a way of overstepping even the most generous bounds. I guess to make a special point, he dumped me on my back on the couch, rolled up his shirtsleeves and began to unbuckle his belt. At this point, I saw what was coming, and wailed a protest, which was ignored. A second later, he had my legs up over my head, and was welting the daylights out of my ass and the backs of my thighs with his folded belt.

  It was very quick, very embarrassing, very painful, and very convincing. I promised not to go near the house. Hey! I know when it’s time to compromise.

  But, Hank had been right about one thing. There had to be a connection between all the weird stuff that had happened in and around my little rancho. And somewhere, someone knew, or had information about how it all linked together. After Hank left, I thought about it for a while, and decided that a good place to start looking for a missing link was at Fat Joey’s. And Hank hadn’t said anything about my not making a visit to Fat Joey's, now, had he?

  Since Mom was still mad at me for involving her Caddie in my assorted messes, I called Mona and begged to borrow her Honda. At that time, Mona owned this decaying little blue Honda Civic. It wasn’t much to look at, and hadn’t passed inspection since 1999 for sixteen or eighteen very good reasons, but she kept in her garage, "in case." Mona lives in constant mortal terror of "The BIG ONE”—the gigantic earthquake that California has been expecting since the San Francisco quake of 1906. Twenty years ago, Mona had a dream in which a big blue house falls down on her head and kills her. (As it happens, Mona’s house is painted blue.) When I suggested that maybe she should just repaint the house and thereby thwart the curse, she explained to me that doing something like that might easily upset the Time and Fate Continuum, and tear an irreparable hole in the Cosmic Something or Other. (Following Mona’s thought processes isn’t always easy.)

  Anyway, whenever I’m at my most desperate for transportation, she’ll sometimes let me use this decrepit auxiliary vehicle, always with reluctantly. Mona is also under the impression that everyone in New York City drives on the wrong side of the street, ("like them Europe people") and that I will become confused while driving, crash headlong into oncoming freeway traffic and die in the flaming carnage, and that Mom will blame her for my fiery demise. I’ve tried to correct her on the subject of New York drivers, but Mona says she saw it on Letterman, which settles everything, of course.

  So, after sneaking out the back door, climbing over the rear fence, and down the beach, to where she had agreed to pick me up, off I went, in Mona’s sputtering little Honda. My plan was to ask a few adroit and cleverly crafted questions of some of Fat Joey’s less mainstream clientele, in the hope that my subtle but incisive female questioning will prove less threatening than the LAPD’s crude interrogation tactics.

  Within ten minutes, I had gleaned several very interesting and useful tidbits of information, such as: A.) Fat Joey’s daytime patrons are even scuzzier than his nighttime patrons, and B.) Joey’s bathroom defies description. I learned all of these things just minutes before I was arrested for soliciting prostitution. Don’t ask. It’s too complicated.

  It took two hours to straighten out the small misunderstanding that led to my unjust arrest, and another two for Hank to come and get me out of the lockup. I’m sure you’ll believe me when I say that I hadn’t asked anyone to call Hank. If they’d offered me one phone call, the way TV cops do, my cop would have been dead last on my list——for obvious reasons. But, somehow, my name and reputation had preceded me, and a call had gone out over the police grapevine that Detective Everett’s dimwitted main squeeze was in the slammer.

  Hank didn’t say much as he pushed me out the door and into the car, and we rode back to Malibu in virtual silence. I spent most of the time fiddling with the buttons on the car radio, pretending a sudden fascination with broadcast evangelism. I didn’t know whether to be more nervous about the stupendous spanking waiting for me when we got home, or telling Mona that her precious Es
cape Vehicle—the only thing standing between her and being squashed like a bug when the "Big One" hit—had been impounded, probably for the remainder of its short, rusty life. It had turned out that Mona collected parking tickets like some people collect TupperWare. All things considered, two or three minutes with Hank’s clothes brush seemed more agreeable than twenty seconds of Mona’s volcanic temper.

  "Just what did you think you were doing at Fat Joey’s?" Hank asked when we got home. He asked in an almost conversational manner, but I was watching his every move very carefully, waiting for the axe to fall. Later, it turned out that he entered the room with no intention of spanking me, and wouldn’t have, if I hadn’t opened my famously smart mouth.

  "Turning tricks, of course,” I growled. “What else would a hot chick like me be doing at Fat Joey’s? Hey, we working girls need to pay our rent, too."

  "You know," Hank sighed. "I honestly wasn’t planning to wallop you twice in one day. but I’m beginning to think you like getting your ass blistered."

  Since we were two rooms away from the clothes brush, and since Hank was apparently in a hurry, he simply turned me over his knee in the time-honored tradition, slipped my panties down, and used a fish to spank my already profoundly sore, bare ass. That’s right—a fish. This flat, wooden fish from Japan, carved by an old world master, I’m told, out of a foot-long piece of flawless teak wood. The fish was a gift to Hank’s brother-in-law and an extremely valuable piece of Oriental art— when it’s not being misused as a paddle. I had dusted this ugly, totally useless piece of wood for days, and had I recognized its potential to inflict pain, I would have assigned it to the fireplace instead of a place of honor on the coffee table.