Birches, Cowgirls & Angels

by Lizbeth Dusseau

  The spanking went on for what seemed like forever, but unlike the others, Brandy didn’t want it to end. As hard as it got, as sore as her behind was, by the time he finished, it was a good kind of hurt and a good kind of pain. She wanted to feel it for days, for the memory to never end.

  When Naughton finally stopped, he laid his hand on her bottom and squeezed the cheek gently. Then, just as gently, he raised her into his lap and held her tight to him. He kissed her face and ran his hand along her cheek and let his nurturing presence calm all the wounds within and without.

  “You want to get out of your depression and your financial problems?” he asked her.

  “Of course.” The minute he mentioned that part of her life there was an instant of anxiety in the pit of her stomach.

  “Well then, you’re going to stay here and perform next weekend—because I need you. And the day after, I’m sending you off to a treatment center. You’ll handle the depression, you’ll handle the booze, and you’ll get yourself back on track.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve got a problem, Brandy. More than I can take care of by myself.”

  “So you ship me off and that’s it?” She knew this was too good to be true.

  “No, that’s not it. But you’ve had a long season of sadness and it’s gotten in your soul. I’ll be around to see you through, but you’re going to do it right.”

  “You’ll be around?” she asked. “What does that mean?”

  “It means when you’ve gone through the program and you’re feeling stronger, then the Cowboy Grill will be your first booking. I might just keep you hired here for a long time.

  She looked at him suspiciously. “Don’t you dare toy with my affections, Naughton. I’ve been bruised and battered far too much. I know it’s my fault, and I guess I’m going to handle it, but I couldn’t take it, you give me all this affection and then take it way.”

  “I’m not planning to take it away. I just want you to be ready for what I have to offer.”

  It was hard to believe that anyone could care about her so much. How in million years did she manage find someone like this?

  “But what about the money? You know that’s a mess.”

  “Don’t worry about it, I have enough to take care of things right now. Besides, some financial problems can be squared away with a lawyer, and I have a good one. What’s more important, though, is curing what’s in here.” He pointed to her chest. “This comes first.”

  “You know, Naughton, you’re really something special.” Her eyes were filling with tears again.

  “And so are you. You’re a shooting star that needs a place to land and maybe in time to rise in the sky again. I’m going to help that happen, Brandy Winger. You can trust that.”

  She did trust him. She still wasn’t sure why he’d picked her out of the crowd of gifted singers that wandered into his Cowboy Grill and then went on their way. But she was sure he meant what he said. Naughton was a man of his word, the steady and serene kind of guy she needed as a rock to lean on when she had feet of clay.

  Desperado

  I have auburn hair that reaches to my waist, pale green eyes that sometimes look like the devil, and a sassy attitude. Of course, that’s what’s kept me in business these five years. The Angry Bear Tavern that I inherited from my drunken daddy—he was bested in a gunfight he should have never started—is not an easy place to run. I make accommodations, do what I need to do, and sometimes that’s not very Christian, or so the Christians would say. Hell, as Lyle McCarren’s daughter, I’ve been at odds with the churchgoing crowd all my life. When preacher Estes Honaker took me over his knee and paddled my behind in front of the Sunday School class, for speaking my mind about the resurrection of the dead—I told them I didn’t want to be walking the earth with no dead folk—that was the last time Kiley McCarren was in church. I ran from the claptrap Sunday School room, out the freshly painted sanctuary, with the choir singing hymns, and decided to hold up with the town drunk, my daddy, in his tavern for the rest of my life. I figured if God wanted me, he’d have to come to me right where I live, right in the middle of this teaming den of iniquity.

  I suppose I’ve mellowed since that Sunday morning when I was a sassy nine year old. Now, I’m a sassy twenty-six year old and not likely to change all that much. I drink, I gamble, I’m pretty good at that, if I do say so myself. I’ve left a table more than a few bucks under and many times walked away with the jackpot. And, yes, I sell myself on the side when the mood feels right. I take care of the other girls in the tavern, some that have been whoring a whole lot longer than me, and I’m generous to a fault. I’ve never turned away a stranger from a good meal, and have rarely turned away a generous man who’s in need of the warmth from a woman’s thighs. I don’t consider myself holy for my choice of vocations, but I know I’m offering a valuable service for this lonesome frontier. Men need women, I figure. It gives them balance. Oh, I don’t like them dirty and I’ll tell them as much as I push them toward the bathhouse before they can lay a hand on my puss, or fondle my derriere. But when they are clean and looking reasonably wholesome, I don’t have a problem taking their money while they hang their holsters on the bedpost and I spread my fragrant legs.

  That’s the way things have been with Kiley McCarron for a long time. But lately things have begun to change, which is the point of my story. Seems this desperado had other ideas about my virtue and I now find myself ready to change just about everything because this unwholesome brute decided to pay The Angry Bear a visit.

  It began one night just before The Angry Bear closed. I was dead tired, my girls were all tucked in their beds earning a night’s wages, and it was just Jess, the bartender, and me sitting sorrowfully drinking a last whisky when a hulking man clouded the entrance of the saloon with his massive form.

  He didn’t say a word, just stood there for a moment and stared inside. We could hardly make out his face with a bright moon shining behind him. I felt myself tremble, and was sure Jess was reaching for his gun under the bar, just in case.

  I knew Jess was righteously cautious about this stranger, but even though I trembled, I had no real fear. This wasn’t a mean sort of fellow about to tear the place apart—oh, yes, we’ve had a few of those since I’ve been in charge. But he wasn’t like that at all. This man was a desperado in need of soothing, not a fight.

  Seconds passed while we three stared each other down. Turning into a minute or two, I wondered if he’d ever enter. And then, just before I was about to invite him in for a shot of whiskey, he pushes open the saloon door and strolls inside. I’ll never forget the sound of his boots hitting the hard wood, the way the boards beneath him creaked. He came slowly on us, the lamps on the wall beginning to light his face the closer he got. There was nothing about his expression that wouldn’t cause a woman to flee in fear of him. His look was as fierce as his large body. His coal black eyes were lit like torches, and his black beard and mustache seemed to swallow his mouth so I couldn’t clearly see his face. With hair that reached his shoulders flowing in a wave of ebony, I saw him as a man of conviction and force, and that force swept through me like the quaking earth.

  “Whiskey?” I asked.

  “And a woman,” he said.

  Jess poured his drink, while I answered his request.

  “I’m afraid I’ll have to do,” I said, “all my girls are in bed.”

  He inspected me while he downed his liquor with one gulp. Then, as if he couldn’t make up his mind, he inspected me more. I’m a beautiful woman, especially dressed in emerald green satin with a low cut bodice that shows the blush of my breasts. I wondered what more he wanted.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “Kiley. Kiley McCarron,” I said proudly. “I own this place. And as long as you’re here you’ll behave like a gentleman.”

  He nodded. “You’ve got a bed upstairs?” he asked looking toward the staircase behind the bar.

  I hesitated. He was certainly not a
flirtatious man. With so little finesse, I wasn’t too sure we’d make love or just fuck. Not knowing how to respond I remained silent, glued to the polished bar that held my weight. I suppose I wondered most how I’d get him into the bath before he had me.

  Noting my delay, the desperado reached into his pocket and withdrew a wad of bills, enough to pay the taxes and re-shingle the exterior of the aging saloon.

  “It’s only one night,” he said, “and your thighs are broad and your ass is fair, I’m sure your cunt is hot as well.”

  I saw Jess blush, I almost did too, but my lessons in roughness had taught me to be careful of too much chagrin. I didn’t need to give away any fear.

  “Put the money in the safe, will you? Jess,” I replied. Turning, I walked toward the stairs, expecting the desperado to follow me.

  I pretty much forgot about him bathing, with it so late. And thankfully he wasn’t the kind that wanted to get too close anyway. But he did have a way with my hind end. Bending me over the bed, he massaged my generous plump mounds with his burly hands, kneading the flesh like flour dough and occasionally smacking my fair Irish skin with a good hearty whack. That got me all hot and flustered and I swayed my behind lewdly, letting him know how much I liked his nasty treatment. Not that I really wanted him to think I was having that much fun … but I couldn’t help myself. Ah, it felt so good, all that heat and fire. I held my tongue, though. It was well after midnight and with all the noisy slapping of my ass I was afraid that we’d wake one of my girls. I certainly didn’t want them to think I gave into a man that way. Some girls have a thing about being delicate, submissive flowers gently bending to a man’s will, but not me. I never planned to let a man get the better of me, even if it was one as miraculous with his hands as this one was.

  After the fucking was over, he wanted me lying with him. He was warm, his arms nurturing, and he didn’t need a bath as much I thought he would. I found myself settling into his heated body thinking that we really fit together.

  “You know you shouldn’t be in this kind of business, Kiley McCarron.”

  “And what business is it of yours?” I said, impudence showing.

  He had a lock of my hair in his hand, holding it so tightly it hurt. Pulling me up above him, enough so he could look me squarely in the face, I saw his quarrelsome expression and an attitude that was strangely fatherly. Not that I’d had much fatherly affection to compare it with, what he displayed was rather amazing the effect it had on me. Almost as if I liked the way he wanted to protect me. I had to shake off the feeling, it was ridiculous. The man was a dangerous desperado, I was convinced of that, and I’d be wise to watch myself.

  “Every good whore I’ve ever known either turns up dead or becomes a withered old hag by the time they’re thirty. You’re too beautiful to let that happen.” He let go my hair and I fell back against his arm beside him.

  That was a backhanded compliment, I thought to myself. But a warming gesture in its own way.

  “So, who are you anyway?” I probed him, since he thought he had the right to make comments on the facts of my life.

  “Brady Jarret,” he replied.

  I immediately shot up, trying to wriggle my way out of his arms. “You shouldn’t be here,” I said. Where there had been some warmth in my heart, it was growing as cold as ice in winter.

  “I am, so what?”

  “You should go.” I tried to weasel out of the bed, but he reached out and clutched me with one enormous fist. “No wonder your whores end up dead, tied to a man like you,” I said.

  I struggled more against his grasp, but he wasn’t letting me go.

  “You think you can best me, brat, you’ll just make me laugh.”

  “I gave you your money’s worth,” I said. “But nothing obligates me to stay with you now.”

  “Ah, so it’s all in my name, huh?”

  “It’s not your name at all, it’s who you are, and I don’t need fugitives from the law hanging out in my saloon. Now it’s the dead of night, you’ve had my loins, it’s time to leave. The window should suit you just fine.”

  I was as righteously adamant as I knew how to be, but the man wasn’t letting go. Struggling with him was getting me nowhere. But positioning myself just so, against his hefty body, I laid into his groin with my knee as hard as I could. He “yeowwweed” like crazy, but he didn’t let go. And once he’d recovered from the blow, which didn’t take long at all, I found myself upturned, flung naked over his lap on the edge of the bed, getting my behind walloped with the palm of his hand. His broad stroke was mean and it hurt like the dickens. Whack after whack laid all about my fleshy mounds, it began to really hurt.

  “You goddam bastard!” I wailed, forgetting that there were sleeping whores all over the upstairs of the saloon.

  “Call me what you like, bitch, but you don’t fuck with my balls!” he wailed back.

  He must have been into his third dozen whacks before he let up at all, and that seemed only because he wanted to jockey me around on his lap so he could secure me rigidly against him. Such power, such force, and such a nasty sting! My ass was hot as a coal fire. With every added smack the burn only became more unbearable. There was no getting away from the fiery blast. The man was mean and determined, and not hearing a word I said.

  Over the din of my own noise, I managed to hear a few doors creaking outside my closed one, and then I hollered all the more!

  “Hush, whore!” he snarled in a whisper at my ear. “Or perhaps you’d like the authorities to know I’m here in your bed. Think they wouldn’t arrest you too for harboring an outlaw as mean as me?”

  I immediately squelched my cries, but the desperado still didn’t stop spanking me.

  “You think my girls aren’t out there with shotguns?” I hissed through my teeth in an angry whisper.

  “Let them listen, Kiley McCarren. Let them watch if they want, but they won’t stop me and neither will you! You’ve probably needed this for a long time and there’s been no man, that’s man enough to do it!”

  His hand came down on my smarting behind as fervently as ever. I know this would be the last time I’d knee a desperado in the balls. Too bad I hadn’t discovered that piece of wisdom ten minutes before. Gritting my teeth, I kept my cries to a minimum and let the brute go on spanking me. Then with a sudden move he jerked me to my feet.

  “Now, you ever try that again, you obnoxious harlot, and I’ll use my belt and leave welts.”

  “As if there’s going to be a next time!” I fumed at him, my hands on my hips, my eyes shooting darts as fierce as the ones his coal black eyes were throwing my way.

  “Oh, there will be a next time,” he assured me. “I rather like your spit and fire, and I like your ass.”

  “Don’t you ever try me again, or I’ll have the marshal after you.”

  “Hah! You won’t know when I’m coming, little lady. But rest assured, I will have your ass again, right in the palm of my hand.” He reached to fondle my sore behind but I managed to pull away. “And if you get testy on me, I’ll take you to the shed behind this saloon and give it to you proper. There’s nothing like the crimson butt of an angry whore to cure what ails a weary man.”

  He stood, his great shoulders towering over my seemingly slight form. In comparison to him I felt like nothing at all. There was lots more I might have said, but his demeanor silenced me. To argue was pointless, and with him putting his pants back on, I figured I was better off not saying a word as to tempt him to throw me over the back of a chair and pelt my ass with his leather belt.

  He was out of the saloon moments later, slipping stealthily into the night. As I watched through the open window, I was, on the one hand, glad to see he was gone, and on the other, wondering when he’d return.

  Wild—the feelings in me were something akin to lust and I could just imagine what it might be like having his nasty leather belt doubled in his hand, the blasted thing taking my ass end to another bright and burning moment of thrill. It was a night I would
remember well.

  When I finally appeared outside my room that morning, my curious friend Jennymae asked, “You had a trick gone sour, Kiley? Sounded like quite a brute, I almost came in with Harley and dragged you out.”

  “I don’t know. I really don’t know,” I answered her, shaking my head and I refused to discuss my night with anyone.

  I didn’t see the desperado for two weeks, and with each day that passed I became more sure that his threat to return would never materialize. He was a dangerous wanted man in these parts, leading a dangerous life. While his crimes had all been for money—a train robbery, and a couple of banks heists, he had left one man dead. That man foolishly tried to challenge Brady Jarret when he’d have been wise to let this desperado take off with the bag of cash. I knew Brady was a dangerous man, the kind no woman, whore or Christian lady, should think about. But still, I found myself dreaming about him, and more than once on a lonely night when I was sleeping by myself, I took my body heat to a climax, remembering the utter command he had over me body and soul.

  Just as the memory of Brady Jarret was fading from my mind so I could hardly recall his face, he showed himself again. This time, he didn’t bother with the front door or the shot of whiskey. He climbed the stairs in the alley and came through my window at dawn.

  “I want a bath,” he said as he weaseled his way inside my room. Thankfully, I was alone.

  Without a protest, I found myself giving him exactly what he wanted. Just one look at him and my heart was beating rapidly, and I was becoming liquid between my thighs the lust was so strong. While he waited in my room, I took care of the water and soap. And then when I snuck him down to the wash room at the end of the hall, he had me stay.

  “Bathe me,” he ordered.

  “I don’t do that,” I told him.

  “Maybe not to other men, but you will to me,” he informed me, very sure of himself.

  “I beg your pardon.”