Rules For Spanking: MMF Bisexual Romance

by A. Anders

  With just a rose, that 110-pound woman had rattled me to my core. I felt like a pig who went looking for its mom and found a pork sandwich. I did not feel good.

  I didn’t understand why I was having that reaction. I had seen a lot of death in my life. How could this simple ceremony affect me so much?

  I put that out of my mind, knowing that it wasn’t important now. The only thing that mattered was surviving the night. Counting the roses, two people were going to be eliminated tonight. My heart sank.

  Brad was the first one safe. Gray and Bob were next. Even Buck-Naked Billy got a rose. In the end, the three people left were Thorin the Pale, Bernard the Banker, and me.

  My heart raced as I stared into Rose’s steely eyes. I was having a hard time breathing. My hands shook. Thorin was still the only person she had invited on a solo date. I had no reason to think that he wouldn’t get the last rose.

  “Ford, would you consider spending the rest of your life with me?”

  I wasn’t sure what I had heard. Had she asked me to leave? No, she had invited me to stay.

  I pushed past the guys, not giving her a chance to change her mind. Standing in front of me, she smiled. Then she did something that she had never done before.

  Instead of just handing me the rose, she lifted it between us. As I reached for it, I felt the heat of her small hand as it cupped my neck. She was lowering my cheek to kiss it. But at the moment when I thought I would feel her warm lips, I felt only the puff of her breath.

  “Find me,” she whispered.

  Released, I slowly pulled away. I couldn’t mask my surprise.

  Needing confirmation of what I had heard, I looked into her eyes. I found it. Though she was smiling, she was begging me to keep her words a secret.

  I had been right to tell her about Kurt and Ian. Now she wanted to tell me something. But what was it?

  Chapter 4

  Everyone quickly dispersed once the elimination was complete. I watched, but Rose never looked back at me. Beginning a new regimen tonight, the pawns led us back to our rooms for interviews.

  I told Pete just enough to stop the blinking red lights. Following Ian’s instructions, I started by pretending that the elimination hadn’t happened yet. I said that I was nervous because I hadn’t spoken to Rose in days. When prompted, I spoke about the elation I felt about getting another chance at love.

  I would have said anything to escape Pete’s watchful sensors. I wasn’t planning on escaping to the dock tonight. I didn’t need to. I was pretty sure that I knew what was going to happen there. No, tonight I had to find Brad.

  Bernard the Banker had been the one to tell me which cabin was Brad’s. What he hadn’t told me was that he, Victor, and Brad shared a room. By the time I knocked on their door, Bernard was already gone.

  “Brad, can I speak to you?” I asked, inviting him outside.

  He joined me, and I led him away from the cabins. He spoke soberly.

  “I have to admit, the only thing I could think of as I watched Bernard pack his stuff was what you said about us dying after elimination. You’re in my head,” he admitted with an uncomfortable smile.

  “I need to get to Rose. Do you know where she is?”

  “You mean her cabin?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Now, why would you want to know that?” Brad asked, settling into his normally playful self.

  “I think she knows something about what’s going on. I told her my theory, and she told me to come find her.”

  “Is that really why you’re looking for her?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You sure you’re not trying to get a leg up in the game?”

  I hadn’t considered this obstacle. Did Brad think that I was trying to outmaneuver him?

  “I’m just kidding,” he teased. “I’m proud of you. You’re getting your head in the game.”

  “So do you know where she is?”

  “Of course. I’ve been up there a few times. It’s good to have a marketable trade.”

  Brad was more resilient than I had given him credit for. He was going to win this game.

  “I’ll tell you where she is and how to get in undetected, on one condition.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Whatever you learn from her, you tell me.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  We shook on it. I was now in league with the show’s professed villain. Was there any way that this deal was going to end well for me? As far as I knew, sending me to Rose was how he was going to get me eliminated.

  I couldn’t worry about that now, though. I had to trust somebody. I still didn’t know how game shows like this worked. So if I didn’t trust him, I was probably dead anyway.

  “Rose lives in a cabin ten minutes from here,” he had said. “They’re really serious about keeping guys out. Three scout bots continuously circle her cabin. If this show is like any other one, breaking the rules means elimination. And if you’re right, death.”

  Brad told me about his path up the hill and past the scout bots. I followed his directions exactly. Each step along the way, I looked for signs of deception, but everything was as he had described it.

  The scout bots were of the CB128 series. I was familiar with these bots. They were the civilian equivalents of the CD230s. The CBs had one motion scanner while the CDs had at least two. That meant that it was possible to sneak in behind these scout bots, which is what I did.

  Crouched in the foliage that lined the woods, I waited silently. They scanned the perimeter just as Brad had described them. Waiting for two sweeps, I stayed low and then scurried in.

  All of this stealth movement was second nature for me. The training was hard to forget. So when the second scout bot passed, I crossed, avoiding the sweep of a faint red beam that came from the roof.

  Brad hadn’t told me about the beam on the roof. I’m not sure that I would even have noticed it if I wasn’t familiar with the scouting techniques programmed into bots. Had Brad unknowingly been caught by the rotating roof beam? Or had he lucked out each time he had visited?

  With my back pressed against the wall of the cabin, I had thirty seconds to get in. Brad had given me a pattern to tap on the window, but I wasn’t sure if I wanted Rose thinking about Brad tonight. I would honor our agreement and tell him anything she told me about the game. I drew the line there.

  I triple tapped on the window to no response. The drapes were closed, and the lights were on. I was sure that she was in there. I knocked again. Still nothing. Should I have used Brad’s knock pattern? Had I doomed my mission by not using it?

  Fifteen seconds. That’s how much time I had before I would be spotted by a circling scout. I was feeling calm. If this was going to be my last stand, I liked my chances. I had the woods in front of me and the only thing behind me would be mono-laser bots. I’d gotten away from far worse than that.

  “Ford?”

  I turned to my left to find Rose’s contorted face peering through the glass.

  “Quick, over there,” she said ushering me toward the door.

  Four, three, two. My internal clock ticked off the seconds. I slipped into Rose’s cabin and closed the door behind me. Staring at the space under the door, I watched for a blue light. It didn’t come.

  I was sure that I had entered a second too late, but when thirty seconds passed without a response, I turned, immediately locking eyes with Rose. She stood tall behind me. She looked happy to see me.

  Relaxing, I shifted my eyes past Rose.

  Aaack! I yelped in my head. I threw my back against the door, stunned by what I saw.

  On the floor surrounding Rose was every piece of clothing and cosmetics bottle she owned. Along with that was every dish she had eaten from and every object she possessed. It looked like the aftermath of a hurricane.

  Do you know that feeling when your sexual organs spontaneously suck back up into your body? Well, mine were so deep inside of me that I would have to unbutton my collar to pee. Rose was more
than just a slob. She was psychotic. I could only think one thing: What the hell?!?

  “Did they spot you?” Rose asked from Summer Fashion Mountain.

  “I don’t think so. They’re programmed to investigate anything out of the ordinary. If they saw me, they would have knocked by now.”

  “How do you know that?” she questioned, crossing the Isle of Dirty Dishware.

  “I’ve had some experience with them in the past.”

  “A secret bad boy?”

  “I wouldn’t say that.” I crossed the room toward her. “So this is your place?” I asked, hoping and praying that it wasn’t.

  “Yes. Excuse the mess,” she replied with a smile that I would have found charming if we weren’t standing in the Bermuda Triangle’s sphincter.

  I didn’t smile back.

  “Is something wrong?”

  She was genuinely confused. Couldn’t she see that she was one discarded panini press away from living in a landfill? No, wait, my mistake. She had one on her bed.

  “No!” I protested. “I just… I just didn’t expect you to live here.”

  After a baffled look and a head-clearing shake, she offered me a wry smile. “You didn’t do much research before coming here, did you?”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “You think I live like this?”

  “Like what?” I asked casually.

  Rose looked at me amused.

  “This mess is so the show can’t use any footage of me when I’m in here. It’s what everyone does on these shows.”

  Rose saw my confusion and explained it slowly.

  “Think about it. They need me to be everybody’s fantasy. They need women to want to be me, and men to want to date me. So they can’t portray their precious bachelorette as a complete slob, can they?”

  I scanned Rose’s face. She was telling the truth, and so I abandoned my search for the Loch Ness monster amongst her unmentionables. I took a deep breath and laughed in relief.

  “You’re right. I did absolutely no research before I came here.”

  “I could kind of tell.”

  “How’s that?”

  She thought for a moment and then replied with a blush. “It was the way you went after the bear.”

  My heart sank. Remembering what Brad had said about it, I couldn’t hide my embarrassment.

  “No, no,” she said touching my arm. “It was kind of… incredible.”

  When I looked up again, she was inches from me and our eyes met. I froze. I couldn’t think. My brain was blank, and I saw her again for the first time. She was astoundingly beautiful. I was speechless.

  After a quiet moment staring into each other’s eyes, Rose took my hand and led me across the room. A rush of air filled my lungs. I hadn’t realized it, but I been holding my breath.

  Clearing a space on the couch, we sat. Facing each other, our knees touched. Avoiding her eyes as I looked up, I did everything I could to catch my breath.

  Pulling myself together, I remembered why I had come. She had told me to find her. As I sat ready to get to business, my mouth was high-jacked by something that I knew I shouldn’t say.

  “I have to ask,” I began. “Why did you choose Brad for your one-on-one date after the challenge?”

  Rose looked at me as if the answer was obvious. “Because he had gotten the ring.”

  She paused when she saw my disappointment. “Ford, I don’t make the rules here. I just know that I have to follow them, and that includes when I really don’t want to.”

  I dared to look at Rose again. She was smiling. But for the very first time, I also saw something else.

  What had made me invaluable as a recruiter was my training in spotting micro-expressions. Micro-expressions are brief cracks in a person’s mask when their true feelings come out. I had never seen one in Rose. That meant one of two things: either she was exactly who she portrayed herself as and she had nothing to hide, or she had had a lot of practice hiding.

  What Rose’s crack had revealed was her heart-wrenching sadness. She was in pain, and she didn’t want anyone to know. What was she hiding? I was intrigued. She had me, and I needed to know more.

  “So you gotta tell me,” I began, “how did a girl like you end up in a place like this?”

  “Probably the same way a boy like you did, Mr. Secret Bad Boy.”

  I paused.

  Secrets, I considered. I guess we both have secrets.

  “Fair enough. So, what do you know about this show?” I asked, ready to get serious.

  “I don’t know much. I got an email inviting me to apply. I did. Three months later, there you were walking up the dock.”

  “An email? From who?”

  “A casting director I had never heard of.”

  “Did you notice anything strange when you were applying?”

  “What would you consider strange? I went in for interviews, met a few producers. Two weeks later they told me that I would be their bachelorette and gave me the dates.

  “Is that it?”

  “Yeah. Pretty ordinary. Which is why I was intrigued when you said that thing to me.”

  “You mean that the show was killing the people being eliminated?”

  “Yeah. What’s up with that?” She paused staring at me. “And be honest with me. Are you a plant? Is this some sort of plot twist? Is that how this show is different?” she asked in rapid fire. “Oh, and I promise I won’t tell anyone. I’m really good at playing along.”

  I stared at Rose. I was starting to believe that she didn’t actually know anything.

  “You haven’t noticed anything unusual? At all?”

  “Well, I was taken to a deserted island to choose between fifteen guys who were willing to risk their lives to win my hand in marriage. And, oh yeah, everything I do and say is being recorded. Would any of that count as unusual?”

  She had me there. So the question became, should I tell her what was going on or keep it to myself?

  “I wasn’t kidding, ya know,” I said deciding that I had to talk to someone about it. “Everyone who has been eliminated has died.”

  “And I suppose that you watched them die?”

  “Two of them. Yeah.”

  “You do understand that this is what these shows do, right? They get you to sign away all of your rights, and then they lie to you so that they can make interesting TV. In fact, I’m still trying to figure out if you believe what you’re saying, or if you’re just trying to make me believe it.”

  “Rose, I know what I saw.”

  “But think about it. Wouldn’t that be an incredible show twist?”

  “You mean, parents losing their children so that a corporation can sell shampoo?”

  “Yeah. I mean, no. What I’m saying is, what if you could have that twist without anyone actually dying?”

  Rose thought for a second and returned to the conversation excited.

  “Okay. What about this? What if the producers wanted you to think that you saw someone die?”

  “And why would they want me to think that?” I asked gruffly.

  “So that you could come here and convince me. Think about it, if you convinced me, then everything I did on the show would change. I wouldn’t just be looking for a husband, I would be deciding who should live and who should die. How would someone react to that? Now, that’s a show I would watch,” she confessed gleefully.

  I had to admit, I hadn’t considered that angle. Could Kurt and Ian both be alive somewhere watching as I ran around trying to convince people of their deaths?

  But if that was true, why hadn’t the producers trained me to give confessionals? Why wouldn’t they have told me the rules of the show, even if it was just to manipulate me? Didn’t it make more sense that I was supposed to be eliminated early?

  And the death rattle coming from Kurt’s lungs. Who would know to fake that? How would they know to make it sound so real? After all, I’m just a corporate recruiter.

  “Wow. You really haven’t
seen one of these shows before, have you?” she said staring at me intrigued.

  All I could do was shake my head, no.

  “Then let me give you a little inside information,” she offered sincerely.

  I gave her my full attention.

  “If you don’t want to be eliminated, then win… my heart. I promise you that I’m taking this show seriously. When I’m asking you if you would consider spending the rest of your life with me, those aren’t just words. I really came here to find my true love.”

  Rose shifted her body to face me as she slowly put one hand on my chest and the other on her own. I watched her closely. I was sure that she felt my heartbeat. Again looking into my eyes, she continued.

  “Keep in mind that there are no cameras around. This is just a girl talking to a guy.”

  Rose paused and looked away. She was shaking. When she looked at me again, it was with such vulnerability that I swallowed.

  “So now that you know how I feel, I’ll ask you again. Ford, would you consider spending the rest of your life with me?”

  Her sincerity left me disarmed. I couldn’t think, so I spoke. “Yes. I would.”

  Rose’s kisses poured over my lips like the rain. Touching her, my skin was ablaze. I reached out pulling her into my arms. The kiss had woken me up. And for the first time in years, I was alive.

  The longer I kissed her, the more my body yearned for her. When I pulled her to me for more, she tilted her head, prying her lips from mine. Their absence hurt. The moment had been too short.

  She rested her forehead on mine as if she, too, couldn’t stand to be apart. But instead of kissing me again, she sat up.

  “I want you to play the game, okay?” she said dazed. “I want you to win. I want you to be the one I spend the rest of my life with. Can you do that?”

  The only thing I could say was, “Yes.”

  “Good. You should go before someone realizes you’re gone. I want you to stick around, okay?”

  “I’ll do whatever it takes,” I said, unsure of what I was agreeing to do.

  Neither of us said another word. She just walked me to the door, and I hurried out. Was it reckless for me to exit without checking for the scouts? Yes. But I was feeling out of control, and I couldn’t help myself.