by Chula Stone
“I saw you leave.”
“You couldn’t have.”
“I could if I was sitting in your living room.”
“But I kicked you out.”
“And I kicked myself back in after you went to sleep. You have to understand, little one, you are not in charge of this operation. I wanted to spare your feelings, but when you pulled this little stunt, I got over that sentiment pretty quick.”
“Shhhh, they’re starting.”
“You’re the one who’s talking now,” he chided right back.
She shoved the hymnal at him and faced the front. He put his arm around her to draw her close and put his hand over hers underneath the hymnal, holding her there effortlessly against her discreet struggles to free herself.
It was the longest hymn of her life. She had never noticed before how long it took to get through just three verses and a chorus after each one, but with his hand on hers, the second hand on her watch seemed to stop functioning. Still, in all honesty, she had to admit to herself that if he had let go, she would have been disappointed. This contradiction distracted her to no end, but somehow she managed to finish the song with the rest of the congregation, more or less on the same page and in the same key.
Her church was rather modern and even had a praise band which played in the background while the minister asked people to greet each other after the few songs. Keeping a firm hold on her right hand with his left to prevent her slipping away again, Jeep began introducing himself to those around them with: “Hi! I’m Jake Eep, Jenny’s fiancé.” Since Jenny had been going to the church for several years, quite a few people sitting near them were acquainted with her. She knew the word would spread like a bad cold, but what could she do?
When they were seated once more, Jenny tried to put some space between them on the pew, but Jeep just scooted closer. When she tried to scoot again, she ran into the Bible of the woman sitting next to her, and it tumbled to the floor. She reached down to retrieve it just as Jeep stretched out with the same goal in mind, his arm fully extended across her in a way that had her shooting up straight in her seat. He turned his head as he came up with the fallen Bible and was treated to a close-up view of her blouse before she pushed him away.
“We’re in church!” she hissed.
“You’re the one talking again,” he wrote on his bulletin.
“And you are acting like a heathen,” she wrote back.
“All the more reason I need to be here in church,” he answered, his maddening grin driving her to want to curse. Here I am in church, about to strangle my fiancé. There’s something wrong with this picture. Then she realized what it was. She wasn’t angry with him—she thought it was funny and started to giggle.
Now it was Jeep’s turn to look disapproving. He nudged her with his elbow and wrote, “Pay attention!” on the bulletin. The preacher was giving a good sermon, all about wisdom and how God gives it freely to those who ask for it.
Wisdom. Jenny tried to get herself under control. Do I even know the meaning of the word? Then she looked over at Jeep. Here he was at church, with her, trying to protect her and willing to do whatever it took toward that end, even to the extreme measure of marrying her. She relaxed in her seat and started taking notes.
After the service, she tried to walk out to her car, but Jeep corrected that misconception. “I had Salk come with me and take your car home. There’s no point in advertising that you’re being foolish.”
“I wasn’t being foolish. It’s Sunday morning. I didn’t think anybody would notice I was gone, including Chalk. He’s got to be busy trying to get at Mr. Tobin in prison,” Jenny commented as Jeep closed her door.
“You let me decide what will be noticed and what won’t. I noticed and that’s enough. When I get you home…” He let the sentence trail off and she got that familiar tingle in her posterior.
The ride up to the third floor in the elevator was quiet but not unduly tense. Because of his matter-of-fact manner, she had almost convinced herself that he wasn’t really going to go through with it.
Her impression was corrected the moment he shut the door behind them.
Taking her firmly but gently by the shoulder, he swatted her backside as he guided her through the apartment. “What were you thinking, leaving that way? Chalk knows where you go to church! I’d have brought you to church if you had asked. But no, off you go, on your own! That is not allowed. Do you understand?” he demanded.
“Please, ow! Stop! Let go!”
“Better pipe down,” Jeep advised her. “Do you want the neighbors to hear?” He swatted her once more as they walked to the kitchen, where he sat down on a straight-backed chair. On the table, he had already laid out a wooden spoon and a heavy, plastic set of salad tongs that detached at the base.
“What are those things doing there?” Jenny asked, trying to stall.
“Why shouldn’t I have gotten ready for something I knew I was going to have to take care of as soon as we got back? Some ladies put a roast in the oven before they go to church, so it will be ready when they get back. I laid out some implements. Maybe it’ll be part of our Sunday morning routine when we get married,” he added conversationally as he pulled her over his lap. “Do you know how to use a crock pot?”
“Jeep!” she protested. How can he talk about lunch at a time like this?
“Oh, right. You’re ready to get this over with. No problem.” Picking up the spoon, he began swatting her backside with alacrity.
Soon she was squirming and pitching, but he obviously had no trouble holding her in place. Her head was screaming at her to put a stop to this nonsense at once. She hardly knew this man. He had no right to do what he was doing. But her head had several days earlier lost its vote in the matter. Her heart and her body had pulled off a coup and deposed her brain, stripping it of its influence and relegating it to a kind of Greek chorus roll, while the main players kept to the center stage.
She wasn’t trying to count, but it seemed that he must have worn a hole right through her wool skirt before he put down the spoon and picked up one side of the salad tongs. Although they were big and she had no wish to get better acquainted with those tongs, she had a feeling that he was determined to use them, so she was more happy than otherwise that he was reaching for one of them. At least he’s done with that doggone spoon! That’s got to be a good thing. Then it made contact with her rear and she forgot any previously imagined reason why his touching that tong was anything other than a total crisis.
“Ow!” she shouted. “Oh, ow!”
“What? Is this worse? It’s plastic. The spoon was wood. I thought it would be worse.”
“This is no time for scientific experiments. Take my word for it. It’s worse. Much worse,” she gasped.
“Then I’ll finish up,” he replied, obviously unfazed by her complaints. He counted out ten more swats before she realized he was going to go beyond that number.
“Ten is usually enough to finish up with,” she suggested through clenched teeth. “Most of the guys’ letters say they finish up with ten.”
“Sorry, but I happen to think that the ending needs to make a real statement in any sort of learning situation. Since I am trying to get you to think before you act, I think I’ll top things off here in a way that will leave you with something to contemplate.”
“Oh, I’m thinking, I’m thinking,” she assured him. “I know I was wrong. Please, stop. That’s enough.”
“Okay, go over the rules again. What aren’t you allowed to do?” He asked this as he stood up and put his arms around her in a comforting embrace.
She reached down to rub her stinging burning backside, but he took her wrists between the fingers of his hand and kept her from alleviating any of the sensation. “I…I uh…can’t go out alone. I have to keep the doors locked and stay away from windows. I can’t use the phone or answer the door. That’s all, isn’t it?”
“For now, yes, it is. You did very well. Now, how about you say it again?”<
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She repeated the list, more or less in order and with each new rule she named, he gave her five hard swats with the salad tong, reaching easily over her back and applying the swats with an ease that made her wonder if he learned everything so quickly.
“You can let me go now,” she sniffed after several minutes.
“But I don’t want to,” he countered. “When I first realized you were going out alone, it occurred to me what might have happened if I hadn’t been there to catch you. What if someone had taken you, hurt you in some way? I couldn’t live with myself. I couldn’t live without you.”
“Nothing happened. Nothing is going to happen. There’s no reason for all this fuss. I’m sure Chalk will focus on Mr. Tobin. He’s a smart man and he thinks that’s what Chalk will do.”
“You let me worry about that,” Jeep answered. “Your rules are in place for a reason. They will remain your rules until I say otherwise. Understand?”
Slower and slower his words had come. Closer and closer his lips had come to hers. Hotter and hotter the kiss stretched and pulsed between them. Then they heard the key in the lock and Salk hollered, “Anybody ready for pizza?” Jeep tried to retain his hold on her, but was laughing too hard to keep her from slipping out of his grasp. “Say, what are you doing with those salad tongs?” Salk asked.
“Didn’t you bring any salad to go with the pizza?” Jeep queried.
Jenny rolled her eyes and whined while she waited for them to turn their attention to the food so she could rub her backside.
Chapter Four
“When is your husband getting home?” Salk asked Jenny.
I wonder if that irritating smirk is part of Sentry Security’s basic training, Jenny thought. If it is, I know who must be giving lessons. “Jeep called to say he’ll be a little late. The meeting with this Sniper person got delayed, but he’ll be able to relieve you by six,” Jenny answered. Hearing Jeep referred to as her husband still gave her a bit of a shock. Even if it wasn’t a real marriage, it did seem strange.
“That’ll do, then,” Salk replied. “I’ve got a hot date. Maybe I have you to thank for that. It was you who gave me the idea of the spanking social club, and from there to the dating service.”
Jenny turned beet red and Salk laughed. “If those cheeks turn that red, I wonder how red your other cheeks get when Jeep gives you a…“
Jenny threw a dish towel at him. “Get out of here! You know this isn’t a real marriage. He just wants Chalk to think we are going on with our lives. And he wants to live here without drawing attention to himself. Anyone who knows me knows I wouldn’t have a man living here if I wasn’t married to him. It’s all part of the charade. Now that Chalk is behind bars with Mr. Tobin, I’m sure Jeep will move back out.” And file for divorce, she added mentally, wondering why that thought bothered her so much.
“He just installed that over-the-door gym in the hallway and hung his heavy bag. Don’t seem to me that a man going to move out soon goes to so much trouble. Don’t seem to me a man totally loco over a chick moves out on her, real marriage or no, ‘less he’s stupid. And one thing J. Eep ain’t, it’s stupid.”
“About this whole Jeep thing. I thought his nickname was just, you know, descriptive. Did it really start out because his real name is Jake Eep and people combined it to Jeep?”
“I wouldn’t know. By the time I met Jeep, we were both in the army and the way his name badge read…it was kind of a no-brainer.”
“Somebody call me?” Pepper asked, sticking his head in the door. “You mentioned a no-brainer.”
Salk gave him a fake elbow to the head and Pepper responded with his customary dive tackle which both men at the last minute turned into a complicated two-man somersault stunt Jenny never quite got used to. In such a confined space, how they avoided breaking half the crockery was beyond her, but they never so much as spilled a drop of coffee. Pepper then effortlessly vaulted his six-foot frame onto the counter and leaned his elbow on top of the refrigerator to look down at both of them.
“Would you two quit doing that?”
“Jeep told us to keep a close eye on you. I can do that better from up here,” Pepper stated blandly.
Salk went back to his earlier job, which seemed to Jenny to be that of folding the most intricate paper airplane possible out of a candy bar wrapper. “I was just telling Jenny that I didn’t think Jeep was letting her out of this deal. Can’t tell whether she’s sorry or not.”
“Oh, fiddle-faddle!” Jenny retorted.
“Fiddle-faddle? Did you just really say that?” Pepper asked incredulously.
“You’re leaning on a refrigerator, pal,” Jenny retorted.
“Good point,” Pepper gave in. “We all have our little foibles. And Jeep’s is that he wants to remain,” and here, he shuddered with decided distaste, “married. Not that marriage to you would be worse than marriage to anyone, but really, marriage? As in one woman? Forever? Uhhhh!”
Now, Jenny was getting miffed. “It’s not his choice. We’ve about got this mess wrapped up, now that Chalk is behind bars. Jeep can move out. You can all move out. And best of all, I can get back to my life.”
Salk’s snort was derisive, though Jenny doubted he actually knew the word. “Jeep says that maternity leave gig is long over by now. He says you’re on Sentry’s payroll. And anyway, wherever you work, Jeep went to all that trouble to sneak you into the courthouse…”
Jenny rolled her eyes. “Do you have to remind me?”
Pepper had to get his two cents in. “I thought the scarf was just the thing, but the sunglasses were a bit over the top. It was I who stole the Groucho nose he meant to make you wear, by the way. You can thank me later by getting me a date with one of your club cronies.”
Salk steamrolled on. “And he already had the license and everything. That guy’s got brains, for sure. He didn’t leave even half a loophole for you to wriggle out of. Guy goes to that much trouble…”
“That wasn’t any trouble to go to. Do you know what it takes to put on a wedding? I’m not even sure it was legal.” That just slipped out. Jenny hadn’t meant to voice one of her most serious concerns. Now that Chalk was caught, her foggy position bothered her. This apartment, this pseudo-job, and even her perhaps-husband were all due to a one day’s temp job working for a man who was now behind bars, depending on a mysterious man named Sniper to protect him from some psychotic lowlife. This didn’t exactly inspire great confidence in Jenny’s mind.
Just then, Jeep’s key rattled in the lock. She didn’t know how she knew it was him, but she did. No one opened a door like Jeep. No one entered the apartment like Jeep. No one made her feel safe, like Jeep. Safe and comfortable and loved. Oh, Lord help me, she prayed. I never expected this.
“Everybody out. Roving duty, both of you, until you go off at six, Salk.”
Pepper floated to the tile and brushed past Jeep as he came through the kitchen door. Jenny watched Jeep turn and put his hand out, palm up. “You couldn’t have felt me lift that,” Pepper accused. He handed Jeep a gun Jenny didn’t like the look of at all.
“I didn’t have to feel it. I know you,” Jeep replied. “You always take something. My gun was unsnapped in its holster. Logical guess on my part.”
“My logical guess is that something happened, if you’re sending us both out to rove,” Pepper posited.
“Want to try for the follow-up shot? Guess who tried to hire the Sniper on the plane here?” Jeep challenged him.
Pepper stopped with his hand on the doorknob, Salk close on his heels. “Van Dyke.” It was a statement, not a question.
“Two for two,” Jeep confirmed. “Round in the chamber.” Pepper nodded his confirmation and Jenny wondered why Jeep would want Pepper to keep a round in the firing chamber of his gun when Jeep had been teaching her to never do such a thing. Especially after he had caught her with a round in the chamber last week and had made his displeasure known all over her poor throbbing backside with the salad tongs and a newly acquired
hairbrush—Jenny knew this was unusual advice.
“What’s going on?” she wanted to know.
Jeep had other things on his mind as became evident to Jenny when he drew her close before Salk had had time to key the deadbolt shut behind himself. Kissing her thoroughly had become his habit over the last few weeks whenever he came into the apartment. It was a bit like Saturday morning cartoons: something she looked forward to but couldn’t admit to herself how much she enjoyed it.
This time, the kiss didn’t stop. Jeep brought his hands up to her face and held her steady long after she first tried to move away. She relaxed into a kind of pleasant stupor until she realized that his hand was under her shirt and moving north-northwest at an alarming rate.
“Whoa there, cowboy.”
“That’s husband-cowboy to you,” he growled. “Why should I ‘whoa?’ I am your husband. Just for a minute. Just let me…”
She fell again under the spell of his caresses until the heat kicked on and a puff of air blew across her moistened skin, startling her into awareness. She realized he was startled, too, when she opened her eyes to find him halfway to the apartment door, gun drawn.
“What’s going on? You were just trying to distract me with your little antics!”
“Wanna bet?” He looked out the peephole as he spoke, but he holstered his gun. “If you don’t believe I really wanted to do exactly what I was doing, and it had nothing to do with some ulterior motive, come with me to the bedroom right now and I’ll take the greatest pleasure in proving you wrong.”
She put her hands up. “You’re avoiding the question. What’s going on? I thought Chalk was caught and Tobin would be wrapping things up.” She noted the wary, watchful look on Jeep’s face. This didn’t look like a man bringing the bases in from the field. He looked more like a batter facing a pitcher with a reputation for mean curve balls. Thinking back, she reflected that Chalk’s curve balls were indeed mean and, in fact, tended to go “boom.”