Wanna Bet?

by Chula Stone

  “Are you sure he’s her husband? They don’t have the same last name.”

  “Like I told you, I’ve heard before that on the mainland; women don’t take their husbands’ last names when they marry. Liu Chang and Wei Shung are from the mainland. They got political asylum after Tian An Men square. Especially since they are Christians—they were persecuted by the police. I think it’s amazing he’ll have anything to do with anybody in the security business after what he’s been through, but they both helped us that night. I want to show my gratitude and respect. And yes, a little gloating never hurt anyone.”

  “I’ll be ready in five minutes.”

  They walked down to the restaurant that had become one of their favorites since the day of the building bomb scare. Jenny always enjoyed chatting with Wei Shung while the men pointed things out to each other in Liu Chang’s Sports Illustrated.

  “Are you okay?” Jenny asked when she noticed her friend sitting at the cash register on a pile of soft pillows.

  Wei Shung giggled and covered her mouth with one hand while the other rubbed her backside. “Liu Chang no like I come sleep so late. Many nights, no sleep. Got sleep earlier tonight. Promise.”

  Jenny’s imagination created a mini-movie starring Liu Chang wielding a bamboo spatula on his wife’s backside. He’d probably bent her over the bed, applying vigorous swats to her bared bottom until she lost count. Jenny almost giggled at the thought of what the Cantonese lecture must have sounded like. She wondered if Wei Shung enjoyed how he held her in his arms to comfort her. At least, she hoped she enjoyed it. And he’d better do it or she’d sic Jeep on him.

  “He isn’t too harsh with you, is he?”

  “Too harsh?”

  Houston, we have not made contact, Jenny thought. “I mean, he doesn’t really hurt you. You know. He’s not scary mad, is he?”

  “No, not scary. Love. Want help me. Just talk with hands, that all. Very love.” Then the usually shy Wei Shung surprised Jenny by saying with a knowing nod, “Very hot. Spank? Oh, yeah, very hot. After spank, lock a door. Have a fun. Woo-hoo!”

  “You have a point there,” Jenny agreed.

  “After spank, or just play spank, lock a door. Have a fun. Married girls, hm? Okay, yeah.”

  Jeep, carrying their boxes and containers of rice, hot and sour soup, and Mu Shu pork steered Jenny away from the counter. “What were you two going on about? Looked interesting.”

  Jenny blushed.

  “Now, I know it had to be interesting,” Jeep laughed. “That blush gets me every time.” He stopped her on the street to kiss her soundly.

  Back in the apartment, they ate quickly. Jeep still had his chopsticks in his hand when he turned away from the table and started counting.

  “Wait! I’m not ready!” Jenny protested.

  “It’s my birthday,” Jeep reminded her. “Eight, nine, ten.”

  She barely made it out of the kitchen before he caught her and bent her over to give her a single hard swat over her skirt and panties. She reached the bedroom the next time before he got her. That was two, but he raised her skirt this time. They played for several more minutes, the count increasing to fourteen before he asked for her blouse. The next several rounds were spent alternating between swats and clothing until they became very distracted in the living room.

  Afterwards, Jeep complained sleepily, “I never got my full thirty minutes of Chase.”

  “Whose fault was that?” Jenny pointed out.

  “Yours. You were too cute, with your little pink behind peeking out from under those cute little panties. How’s a guy to resist?”

  “You don’t have to resist. That’s the beauty of being married.”

  “But I still want the rest of my swats.”

  “What? What for?” Jenny cried when Jeep hoisted her over his lap. She made a little frustrated whining noise.

  “Bad chicken plucking,” was his prompt reply. He took her in his arms, drawing her further across his lap and positioning her with her legs astride one of his and her head and shoulders behind his back. She had told him in so many silent little ways that she loved this position. It brought them close and he could hold her to help her stay in place, which she wanted to do out of respect for him.

  For a play spanking like this, she loved to rub against him, knowing it was as arousing to him as the spanking was. He popped her behind firmly, slowly, and lovingly, and she moaned in response. Each swat was placed and timed with a care she couldn’t help but feel. Sometimes he reached over to hold her bottom up and slap the crease where buttock met thigh. The sting was intense, but the heat afterward spread quickly all over her soul.

  “I should spank you for real, you know,” Jeep said.

  “What for?”

  “Scaring me so the night of the bomb. I remember it every time we go to the Red Dragon.”

  “That was weeks ago,” Jenny protested. “And as I recall, you did spank me for that.”

  After another long while, Jenny sighed, “I guess I’d better learn better chicken plucking technique.”

  “For my birthday next year, you can present me with a perfectly plucked chicken.”

  “When will Tobin be getting out?”—Jenny, trying to sound her most innocent.

  “I have to pick him up at noon from the courthouse.”—Jeep, knowing her too well to be fooled, but enjoying her attempt.

  “Will this mysterious Sniper person be with him?”—Jenny, tipping her hand.

  “If he is, you’ll never know it. I’m not bringing him here and you’re not meeting him, so forget it.”—Jeep, trying to warn his dear little wife off.

  “I don’t particularly want to meet him. I just can’t help being curious. They way you all go on about him, I have to wonder. He can’t be all that scary.”—Jenny, just begging for a little reminder spanking, as far as Jeep could tell.

  “Wanna bet?”—Jeep, wondering how hard it was going to be for him to get her mind off this dangerous track.

  “So, will you be bringing Mr. Tobin back to the office? I haven’t actually ever worked with him in the office. Well, except that one day last summer. That seems like ages ago. Do you think he’ll like the new arrangements in the office space? And how we’ve decorated it? And my being there full-time?”

  “Mrs. Abernathy knows what Mr. Tobin likes. They’ve worked together for years. And he knows you’ll be there. Before he went inside, he told me to have you put on staff just as soon as the company was up and running again.”

  “I’m so glad it’s all getting back to normal.”

  “Well, when those two thugs Pepper caught sang like canaries to keep out of federal prison, it wasn’t too hard to wrap up the case against Chalk. No Chalk, no Van Dyke. No Van Dyke, no real problem.”

  “But he’s still out there,” Jenny mused. “Isn’t Mr. Tobin worried about that?”

  “Van Dyke is a very big player. It took a local connection like Chalk to bring his attention around to us. He’s not going to bother with us, now that Chalk is going away for fourteen to life.”

  “Was it hard to get Mr. Tobin cleared?”

  “Not once we were free to file the papers. The accountant and the lawyer got together and did it; no problems.”

  “Sounds like a set up for a joke. An accountant and a lawyer get together…” She giggled.

  “It wasn’t any joke, I can tell you. And the bill won’t be a joke, either. This whole thing has cost Sentry Security plenty.”

  “Mr. Tobin won’t be letting anyone go, will he? You don’t think any of the guys…Or me, for that matter. Last hired…”

  “Don’t worry about that either, little one. Mr. Tobin doesn’t exactly live paycheck to paycheck. We’ll all have to work hard for a few months. Bonuses may be thin on the ground. We won’t get any new gadgets for a while, maybe, but we’ll be fine.”

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “I just know. Please don’t let this get you down. Or into trouble.” He gave her his most serious look, hopin
g it would warn her, but knowing a more direct approach might be best. He reached down, pulled her up into his arms and held her close. Then he smacked his palm down on both sides of her backside ten times.

  “Ow! That hurt!”

  “I meant it to hurt. Behave, or else. Quit worrying, or else. Curb your curiosity, or else.” With one more swat, low and hot, he kissed her and made his way to the car. He wondered if she would be able to comply.

  As he drove to the courthouse, he contemplated the case again. Almost over now. All over but the shouting. Sentry back up and running. Chalk behind bars for good, thanks to a bit of good luck with Pepper and some astute spade work. Jenny had no small hand in that, either. Too bad it was too public for her to go with me to the courthouse. Without her, we might never have known how big this whole thing would get. She deserved to see it through to the end. But if the Sniper were coming out with Tobin, which he might, there was no way Jenny was riding in the car. So Jeep kept her at the office and hoped the Sniper had wheels someplace close by. And another assignment far away.

  Who would have thought about a boss as big as Van Dyke messing around with something like this? It was Jenny who’d found the connection between Chalk and Van Dyke’s lieutenant. They had never located that lieutenant, which was suspicious in Jeep’s mind but not alarmingly so. People disappear all the time in our business. What is causing these nagging doubts?

  Tobin, Jeep, the lawyer, McKenna, and the accountant, Le Beau, all rode back to the office, the Sniper pleasantly absent. Jeep had nothing against the man, if you could call him that. Robot. Ghost. Loose cannon—all came to mind as better terms to describe him, but he had come to Mr. Tobin’s aid more than once while they were all three on the inside. He was grateful to the Sniper and knew this wasn’t the first time he had given over and above the call of duty.

  Nodding his approval, Tobin looked around his newly decorated office building. “It looks wonderful, Mrs. Abernathy. Very well done, indeed.” His uppercrust British accent was faint but distinguishable at times like this, when he was tired and stressed.

  “I’ll be taking my leave then, if we’re done here, Tobin. Congratulations again on a second start to your business. May all your trips to prison be as useful to you and as lucrative for me.” Jack McKenna raised his thin leather briefcase to them in a kind of salute, then strode away.

  “He’s going the wrong direction,” Tobin noted wearily.

  “He doesn’t spend much time here, but I don’t think that’s the reason. He’s looking for Jenny,” Mrs. Abernathy noted.

  Jeep suddenly looked like he’d swallowed a balloon the wrong way. “Jenny? Why?”

  “Stand down, man,” Tobin ordered. “I’m sure it’s nothing. Mrs. Abernathy, would you care to explain yourself?” Jeep could see that Tobin was not taking this comment lightly, either.

  “All the men are jealous of Jeep and Jenny. They want her to fix them up with girlfriends of hers so they can find someone like her,” Mrs. Abernathy explained.

  “Just what we need,” Le Beau moaned. “More conservative girls who won’t give a man the time of day.”

  Tobin looked thoughtful, then seemed to shake himself weakly. “I’m beat. I haven’t got time to contemplate the advantages and disadvantages of the changing social climate of my company. What I need to know is, do I still have a company, and if so, for how long.”

  “I can help you there, Mr. Tobin,” Le Beau answered. “But if you would rather wait until tomorrow, I can make myself available, of course. I have a few meetings scheduled, but they can be rearranged.”

  “No, not tomorrow. Tonight. We can go back to Sports and Spuds, where you met Jenny, remember, Jeep?”

  “Sure do, Mr. Tobin. A man shouldn’t forget where he meets his wife. We’d love to come.”

  “His wife?”

  “Well, yes. You knew about that.”

  “I wasn’t in that long. How did that happen? You didn’t…she isn’t pregnant, is she?” Jeep didn’t know whether to be offended by his words or intimidated by his scowl.

  “No, sir, Mr. Tobin, and I don’t appreciate your implications.”

  Jeep could see Tobin relax fractionally, but Mrs. Abernathy obviously didn’t like such a personal conversation between two higher-ups going on in what she considered her hallway. “Would you two please move it inside?” They had arrived at Mr. Tobin’s new office suite and she gestured them both in. As she was at least two feet shorter than Jeep, it gave him a bit of an internal grin to realize that he had no intention of even questioning her authority. This lessened his tension and he could see that Tobin was observing the same irony.

  They all sat down—Mr. Tobin behind his new desk, the other three in client chairs arranged behind a coffee table. “So how did this happen so quickly? I know we discussed her conservative lifestyle, but…”

  “You have no idea how conservative,” Jeep put in. “But that just brought us closer together quicker. You know how it is. When two people go through a crisis, it builds a bond. And it didn’t hurt that she thought we needed to get married right away in order to pull off the deception about the business.”

  “Are you telling me you used the Chalk case to pressure Jenny into marrying you?”

  “All’s fair in love and war,” Jeep quoted. “And all it did was move the timetable up a bit. I would have gotten her anyway. I just didn’t have to wait as long.”

  “And the whole office now knows about the spanking thing,” Mrs. Abernathy added. “The boys are all clamoring for some of what they’ve got.”

  Mr. Tobin looked thoughtful. “This will take some getting used to. By the time I found out about all that, I had more urgent matters to attend to. It seems I’ll have a bit of catching up to do.”

  “Only if you want to find a wife like Jenny,” Le Beau laughed. “It looks like you and I will be the only ones left fighting over the lovely Mrs. Abernathy.”

  “If my Carlos were still alive, he’d deck you for that,” Mrs. Abernathy said without rancor. “Actually, I don’t need him to do my decking for me, as you well know.” She raised a hand in a casual but obvious martial arts strike position.

  Tobin left that comment lying there unaddressed. Instead, he rolled his chair back from his desk with a sigh. “Just one more thing I missed while I was away. I would have loved to see the lovely Jenny in her gown.”

  “She didn’t actually wear a gown. We got married at the courthouse.” Jeep admitted this with no little unease. Tobin’s assumptions hit a sore spot. Jeep knew a girl like Jenny had probably dreamed about her wedding all her life. For some reason, he got the impression that not one of those dreams included handguns. Or bodyguards as witnesses.

  “No wedding? What do you mean, no wedding?” This seemed to bring Tobin out of his stupor. “What did her parents have to say about all this?”

  “She hasn’t told them we’re married,” Jeep mumbled. “I haven’t even met them.” This was another sore spot for Jeep. He understood the fact that she didn’t want her parents to think they were living together, but she could have told them they had eloped. It was the truth. He resented the fact that she seemed reluctant to let them meet their new son-in-law.

  “They’re her parents. How could she avoid telling them?” Tobin growled.

  Jeep shrugged. “They live on the other side of town. We never see them. They don’t even go to our church. And Jenny says they don’t go out much. In fact, that’s about all she’ll say about them—that they’re very private people.”

  Tobin sighed. “Do I have to do everything myself? Mrs. Abernathy! Take care of this immediately.”

  Since Tobin’s idea of taking care of such details was tasking Mrs. Abernathy with them, Jeep knew he must feel deeply about the situation. Still, practical matters had to come to light. “We can’t really afford…”

  “Who said anything about you affording a wedding. I owe the girl that much, and a lot more.”

  Now it was the accountant’s turn to weigh in, and Jeep w
as not surprised to hear him protest. “Tobin, as much as I laud your romantic sentiments, I must point out to you that our financial position is at the moment…shall we say, less than ideal. You have been away for months. Costs to restart the office itself were not inconsiderable. You have not been in any position to find new clients. In short, we need to tighten our belts for a while. In a year or two, perhaps…”

  Jeep chimed in here. “I appreciate the thought, Mr. Tobin, but really, we understand. It’s not a good time for the company.”

  Tobin plowed over both of them. “And until this wedding takes place, and until her parents know she is properly married, you, Jeep, will move in here. And give up your key to her apartment. And behave like a gentleman.”

  Jeep was on his feet in a flash. “But Tob!”

  “That’s an order, Jeep. If you don’t want to find yourself treated to the Feldspar Enforced Removal Plan, consider yourself a single man and prospective bridegroom. And remember: the faster this wedding goes through, the faster you can resume your life. I recommend that you give Mrs. Abernathy your fullest cooperation!”

  Jeep knew he would do it, too. He would trump up some charge and have Feldspar hold him if he didn’t play along. In fact, maybe he deserved this. It might even work out to his advantage, if he could just convince Jenny.

  “Now, everybody out. I’ll see you at Sports and Spuds at seven o’clock with Jenny in tow. Are you going to tell her, or do you want me to do it?”

  “I think she’d take it better coming from you,” Jeep replied. As in, she won’t bash your head in with a frying pan.

  Jenny and Jeep arrived at the Sports and Spuds five minutes early to secure a table and get everything ready for Mr. Tobin’s arrival. After checking out the area for suspicious characters, Jeep seated Jenny.

  “I’m kind of surprised he would choose to spend his first night of freedom here,” Jenny commented. “I would have expected him to go to the Country Club or something.”

  Jeep could tell that she was a bit antsy about being in Tobin’s company again in a social situation. She would not see him at work very much, but at least there, she would know what to do and how to treat him. She seemed comfortable with him in the role of a boss. As a friend, well, he was glad that she wasn’t too enthusiastic about going to the Sports and Spuds when she realized he would be there. In fact, her reluctance suited Jeep just fine.