by Jessica Ashe
Olivia shakes her head. “You do the writing and I do the pictures.”
“Okay, that sounds fair. We’ll do that while Daddy cooks dinner.”
“What would you like to eat?” Parker asks.
“Do we have a choice?”
“You can choose how you want your eggs cooked.”
I smile. “Surprise me.”
Epilogue
Carly - Three years later
“We’re done,” I say, when the final box has been unpacked.
“I think we’ve earned a drink,” Parker replies, as he wraps his arm around me.
“We’ve barely lifted a finger. We paid movers to do it all for us.”
“It was still stressful. I had to google ‘home movers,’ email them, pay the bill. It’s exhausting stuff.”
“Screw it, why not?”
Parker pours two glasses of wine from the bottle that the sellers left behind for us as part of the welcome package and we relax on the sofa in front of a television that isn’t yet hooked up to the cable or internet.
“I should call Marie,” I say. “Tell her she can bring the kids back.”
“Or… we could pretend that we’re still unpacking for a few more hours.”
“That would be mean.”
“Marie loves looking after Olivia and Charlie.”
“Two more hours,” I reply. “Then we phone her.”
This is nice. We don’t get much alone time these days, and when we do, we have to arrange it in advance. It’s a little weird to drop the kids off with Aunty Marie when she knows full well I’m about to spend the evening getting my ass spanked and being degraded.
There’s no ‘room’ in this house. We thought about turning one of the spare rooms into something exciting, but Olivia’s getting older and it’s going to be harder and harder to explain why Mommy and Daddy have a locked room that she’s not allowed to go in.
We still play, of course. We kept a lot of the toys, but they’re hidden away in our bedroom now. I’m not able to swing from the ceiling while Parker fucks me, but it’s not exactly dull either. We’re still more active than most couples if the shocked look on the face of our mover was anything to go by. We did tell him not to open that box.
“Why don’t you take tomorrow off work?” Parker asks. “The four of us could go to the beach.”
“I can’t,” I reply. “I’m far too busy.”
“I’m starting to wish I never sent Kelsie your script.”
“Oh please, you love being a stay-at-home dad.”
“True. But it would be nice to see you a little more often.”
“I have three months off work when this season is finished. You’ll be sick of the sight of me.”
I never did sell my script. Not directly, anyway. One night while working late with Sergio, we got talking about the movie I wrote and he asked to read it. Six exhausting months later and Netflix bought the rights to a television series based on the two main characters, Amber and Clyde. They loved the script, but thought it would work better as a ten episode series where the characters have time to fully develop. I went in to the meeting prepared to shoot them down, but came out completely convinced.
Netflix gave me a top level position with sign-off on the scripts and a say in casting choices. My influence wasn’t enough to get Tami in the lead role—she lacked the experience—but she did get the role as the best friend of Amber. The best friend is often concerned that Amber is going too far with the submissive role and warns her to be safe. It’s a role Tami was born to play.
The characters aren’t mine any more. The screenplay I wrote needed a lot of additional backstory and character development to stretch over ten episodes—with the potential for a second season, of course—so plenty of other writers have chipped in. It’s still weird seeing the characters I created all those years ago finally coming to life in front of me.
One of the scenes I wrote is being filmed with barely any changes—the steamy sex scene where Amber gets into the submissive role and takes her punishment for the first time. The lead writer congratulated me on the scene and said it felt ‘authentic and believable.’ I could barely keep a straight face. It’s being filmed next week. The actors are currently undergoing training on how to do safe spanking. I love my life.
We finish our glasses of wine and make the most of the completely distraction-free environment. Neither of us so much as looks at our phones. Occasionally I wonder whether life would be better if I didn’t have my phone on me all the time. Then I remember that I like playing Candy Crush Saga on the toilet.
“Let’s go to bed,” Parker says suddenly, snapping me out of my daze.
“I’m not tired. And there’s the minor issue of the kids coming home later.”
“We’re not going to sleep. Let’s christen the bed.”
Parker has that mischievous look in his eye. Sex of any kind could not have been further from my mind a few hours ago, but one look at Parker and it’s all I can think about.
We head upstairs to our new bedroom, which has a brand new bed for good measure. We’ve unpacked most of our toys, although they’re all tucked away in drawers.
“Go into the bathroom,” Parker commands. “Come out in five minutes’ time wearing only your underwear. Understand?”
“Yes, sir,” I reply. It’s been too long since we played, and with the big scene coming up next week, it’s a good idea for me to get some practice in.
I strip down to my mismatched and not-at-all-flattering underwear. Parker never cares. If anything, it fits the mood better. I’m not supposed to be a sultry seductress. I’m a normal woman, doing as my man commands. I’m wet just thinking about it.
The five minutes drag but finally, it’s time to step out of the bathroom.
Parker is standing by the bed, still fully dressed. That’s not unusual. He tends to stay dressed for long periods until he’s finished doling out his punishment. The punishment tonight involves a leather whip which he’s already holding menacingly in his right hand.
I wait by the bathroom door for my instructions.
“Stand here,” he commands, pointing to the space in front of him.
I do as he says without hesitation. It comes naturally now, although I suppose it always did.
Parker caresses my body, his hand running over my breasts and then reaching around to my ass for a quick squeeze. He’s warming it up to ensure I can handle the whip.
“Hold this,” he says, passing me the whip. I’m not usually allowed to hold the toys, but I take it anyway, my desire to obey stronger than my curiosity.
“What do you think of the whip?” he asks.
I frown. It’s one of my favorites. We’ve used it plenty of times, so it’s a bit late to be asking me if I like it.
“Look closer,” he says, spotting the confusion on my face.
I run the whip through my fingers, caressing the leather as my heart races in anticipation of it cracking down on my bare flesh.
Then my fingers hit something. A gold band is lodged in place halfway down the whip. When I twist the whip, the gold band turns to reveal a large diamond.
“You’d usually be on your knees right now,” Parker says softly. “But today it’s my turn.”
I hear Parker drop to his knees in front of me, but all my energy is focused on sliding the ring off the whip. It’s a tight fit, but eventually, it comes free.
“Carly Wicks, we’ve had a lot of fun over the past four years. I want a lifetime of that. Will you marry me?”
I nod my head while fighting back the tears. We hadn’t planned for this. We’ve had a child, but agreed that marriage didn’t matter so long as we were a family.
My hands are shaking so Parker stands up and slides the ring onto my finger.
“Would you have preferred the ring to be in the box?” Parker asks.
I shake my head, still not sure if I’ll be able to speak words.
“This seemed appropriate,” Parker continues. “I did thin
k about recreating the first night we met, but I couldn’t track down that couple.”
I laugh, and this time attempt to speak through the tears. “It’s beautiful. I can’t wait to tell Tami.”
“Don’t forget your parents. They’ve been hinting enough.”
“I’ll give them a censored version.”
Parker smiles, and examines the ring on my hand. I’m already in love with it. I go grab my phone from the bathroom and dial Tami’s number.
“What are you doing?” Parker asks, his face turning serious. “We’re not finished here yet.”
I cancel the call and throw my phone to the floor. “Sorry, sir.”
“Bend over, Mrs. Kaye. It’s time for your punishment.”
* * *
THE END
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Hard Tackle
Chapter One
Kristi
Sorry Kristi, I can’t make it. You’re on your own.
A wave of panic washed over me as I stood outside the client’s building and read the message from my boss. I was on my own? The only thing I’d done on my own since starting my internship at Goodson, Mitchell, & Price was make the coffee, and everyone had bitched about that.
There’s too much milk.
There’s not enough milk.
I said two teaspoons of sugar, not one.
Leona didn’t even trust interns to take proper notes in meetings, so she always had at least two of us doing it. “That way if one of you fucks up, hopefully the other will have picked up the slack.”
Did I mention how much I was enjoying my summer? At this rate, I couldn’t wait for my final year of college to start. Working sounded great when you were studying for exams at two in the morning, but in reality… yeah, the real world kind of sucked.
I typed out a panicked reply to Leona’s email. If it was possible to hear terror through typed words, then I felt sure my email had that in spades.
Maybe we should call off the meeting and do it another day? I’m not qualified to handle such an important client by myself.
After all, clients didn’t come much more important than Barton Fenner. A first round draft pick, and hotly tipped to be a star quarterback for the next ten years. Plus the media loved him; mainly because he generated headlines. Not always positive headlines, but headlines none the less.
Barton’s agent hired my firm to look after him, and I’d been put on the team. We’d hoped for an easy beginning; Barton wasn’t supposed to be in the first team at all this year, but then, well, the phrase ‘shit hit the fan’ springs to mind.
The team’s first choice quarterback, Milton Pattern, picked up an injury in training and ruled himself out until Christmas. Barton was now the team’s first choice quarterback, and tonight he was celebrating his promotion in the only way he knew how.
I didn’t know jack shit about football, but if Barton was half as entertaining on the field as he was at parties, then he would earn his inflated salary.
Pictures of Barton appeared on social media within minutes of the party kicking off. The pictures were innocent enough at first, but he started getting visibly more and more wasted. The more he drunk, the more skin he showed. The same could also be said of the bimbos draped over him.
Leona had called me on my cell while I’d been sat at home in my pajamas watching television. She insisted we get to the party as soon as possible. An “emergency” as she described it, although I doubted it quite qualified for flashing red and blue light and siren treatment.
I made it to Barton’s apartment within twenty minutes of Leona’s call, but then she had bailed, and left me standing outside by myself. An intern, in charge of the ‘new hotness.’ All I had to do was stop him making an ass of himself at his party. I was basically his babysitter.
A reply from Leona came through.
You’ll have to handle it. We don’t have a choice. Just keep the cameras off him if possible. I have every faith in you.
Oh now she had faith in me. This morning, she’d asked me to tell her the time, and then double-checked my answer.
At least I had a chance to prove myself. That was the main goal of this internship. That, and not fucking up. One of those was likely to happen tonight.
I took a deep breath and counted to ten, before stepping through the front entrance of Barton’s apartment building in downtown San Francisco. The building was unremarkable; I’d walked past it hundreds of times before without giving it a second thought. Now, it was intimidating. This was the building in which Barton Fenner lived and partied. The value of properties here was about to go through the roof.
I walked to the elevator confidently, trying to look like I belonged, and pressed the button for the top floor. I pulled out my phone and looked through the photos on Twitter. In just the last ten minutes, ten new photos had popped up under the hashtag #BartonMVP.
In the latest picture, he had lipstick marks on his cheeks. Give it another hour and he’d have lipstick on other parts of his body.
I heard the music while the elevator was still three floors away from Barton’s. I thought my eardrums were about to explode when the doors slid opened. Barton hadn’t bothered hiring any security to watch the door, which partly explained why so many women off the street had managed to get in and share photos online.
In three years of college, I’d never been to a single frat party. I’d never regretted missing out—until now. If I’d accepted some of the infrequent invites that had come my way, I might have been better prepared for what I saw when I walked inside Barton’s apartment.
Men paraded around in wife-beaters, or with shirts wide open, while the women wore either bikinis or tops that covered roughly the same amount. Sure, it was the middle of summer, but it was San Francisco, for Christ’s sake, not a beach in Los Angeles.
From nowhere, a splash of beer landed on my hand and sleeve, ruining the one expensive outfit I owned. I reserved this suit for client meetings, but I was horrendously overdressed for this one. When I turned in the direction of the beer-spilling culprit, I saw a man pressing a woman up against the wall and kissing her neck, while she moaned loud enough for me to hear it over the music. Then I saw why. He had his hand between her legs, and was furiously working his fingers inside her. Right in the middle of the party. In full view of everyone.
Gross.
The rest of the party almost looked tame by comparison. Almost. Guys and girls, or quite often girls and girls, drank shots from each other’s bodies without any regard to the mess they were making. I pitied the poor cleaner who had to tidy up after this bunch in the morning.
“Damn, girl, who let you walk around fully clothed?”
An arm appeared from behind me and grabbed me around the stomach. I smelt cheap beer, as he leaned in and pressed his groin against my ass.
“Get off me,” I snarled, using both hands to push his arm away.
“Alright, calm down, sweetheart. You need to get a drink into you. A stiff drink and a stiff—”
“Leave her alone, Doug,” another man said, appearing alongside me.
“Whatever, man,” Doug muttered as he disappeared.
“Sorry about him,” the man said. “Had too much to drink. Much like everyone else here. My name’s Clyde.”
I shook Clyde’s hand as if we were at a respectable business meeting instead of in the middle of a party fit for the last days of Rome.
“Nice to meet you Clyde. I’m Kristi.” He carried an air of authority and confidence about him, even though he was sm
aller than nearly everyone here. I knew that not all football players were big, but this guy looked more like he might be Barton’s accountant than his teammate.
“You looking for Barton?” Clyde asked. I nodded. “You his image consultant?”
“Yes,” I replied. Perhaps that was a bit of a white lie, but ‘intern’ was never a word that conveyed confidence to clients. “How did you know?”
“I didn’t; it was more out of hope than anything. You’ve arrived not a moment too soon. He’s in the kitchen making drinks.” Clyde pointed towards the far corner of the apartment.
“Thanks.”
“No, thank you. If you can get him through this night, you’re a hero in my book.”
I pushed my way through couples kissing, grinding up against each other, and doing God only knows what else, until I made my way to the kitchen.
Clyde was right; I’d come just in time.
Barton stood by the refrigerator, completely shirtless, and surrounded by a flock of eager young women, all desperate to get their faces in a selfie with the soon to be legendary quarterback. Selfies that would soon appear online.
Barton didn’t seem bothered by the attention. He smiled for the photos, and freely grabbed a handful of each girl’s ass as they posed for their photo.
“Barton Fenner?” I called out.
Barton ignored me and so did all the girls. One of them spilled her drink down Barton’s chest, and quickly started licking it off to jealous looks from all the other women.
I shuffled awkwardly, as I realized that I’d been staring at his chest for a little too long, and now some of the other women were starting to notice me. I did stand out somewhat. I wore more clothing than the five women in the kitchen combined.
Two of the women stood either side of Barton, and leaned in to lick his cheeks, while another girl took a photo. This is what I had to deal with. This was the man I had to keep under control.