Now I’m about to go to college and boyfriend is about to do the same.
But to get to the point. About a week ago I was in the Combat Zone looking for spanking magazines in an adult bookstore. There was a lot of stuff there, but nothing really pleasant. Then I saw The New Rod Quarterly. The cover illo was so perfect my heart almost stopped.
I bought the magazine and dismissing my boyfriend, rushed home. The instant I opened to the first page, I was in heaven. The writing was so reflective of what excites me and the illos were just charming. And then there were the letters from people just like me, and those fabulous personal ads. (I already have 3 dates lined up for next week!)
Finally I noticed the masthead: Editor Hugo Sands. I remembered that my mother’s maiden name was Sands and that I had an uncle Hugo. My heart went bumpety bump again.
I called my mother to ask her where you lived. She sounded suspicious but told me that she thought you lived out on the Cape. No one I knew had ever heard of or had been to Random Point, so I called information and asked the operator whether it was out on the Cape. She told me that it was.
In September I’ll be traveling to California to matriculate at U.C.L.A. If you allow me to visit for the summer, I could work for you writing stories, inputting, doing anything you needed in return for my board. I’d be a model houseguest and never make a mess or play loud music. And I’d be so grateful for the opportunity to get to know my favorite relative better.
Sincerely,
Bettie Brandon
P.S. If you say yes, Mother and I will probably have a big fight over this, but nothing bad will happen. My late father left me a trust fund for college, and I was planning on working away for the summer anyway.
B.B.
”
Bettie was thoughtful enough to include a photo, which showed her to be a small, slender, olive-skinned sprite with extremely delicate, Mediterranean features and a long mane of tight, glossy, black curls.
Hugo tossed the letter on his desk and lit a cigarette, trying to consider the possible calamities which might arise from granting her wish. In the end he turned to his keyboard and wrote a short, friendly reply, telling her to come whenever she liked.
“Well, I guess it’s true that the spanking fetish does run in families,” Laura commented that evening as she examined the photo and letter.
“It might run in your family,” said Hugo, “but I doubt it does in mine.”
“How do you account for this Bettie then?’
“Bettie isn’t really a blood relation of mine. Her mother, my sister Louise, was adopted.”
“I see,” said Laura, not exactly happy to hear this news.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to touch her.”
“She’s sure to get a crush on you.”
“We’ll make sure it gets transferred to someone else as soon as possible.”
Laura wasn’t pleased to be called out of town the eve of Bettie Brandon’s arrival. Having submitted a chapter of her graphic novel to a publisher in New York, she was now being summoned to that city to show them the rest. Unwilling to postpone such an important interview, Laura had reluctantly departed from her lover only moments before he drove down to the railroad depot to collect Bettie, who was due on an early evening train.
It was a warm day for early June and Bettie was wearing khaki shorts, hiking boots, sox and a sleeveless, white, cotton halter top that showed a bit of smooth, olive midriff and molded daintily to her small bosom. She was very slender, by no means tall and appeared fragile. The slightness of her frame unsettled Hugo, forcibly reminding him of how young Bettie was.
Bettie had written a fairly spunky letter, but she felt properly timid upon debarking at Random Point. She expected to be met on the platform by a distinguished older gentleman, who was perhaps a bit daffy, in the manner of John Lithgow. Yet the only forty-something male pacing the platform was a tall, sandy haired, custom tailored boomer, sophisticated in the manner of Cary Grant. Deciding that someone this savvy could never be her Uncle Hugo, Bettie walked straight past him, hauling a backpack almost as big as herself.
“Bettie?” the striking man said and she turned in disbelief, almost knocking someone down with her pack.
“Uncle Hugo?”
“Just plain Hugo would be even better,” he told her, giving her the perfunctory kiss on the cheek, relieving her of her burden and hoisting it over his own shoulder. The incongruity of the old backpack against his pristine beige suit made her smile. “I can’t believe you’ve been carrying this yourself,” he remarked, leading her from the station.
“Oh, I’m deceptively sturdy,” she assured him, flexing her calf to reveal a runner’s muscle. She was remarkably slim but very well formed, with particularly beautiful skin.
“How did Louise take it when you told her where you were spending the summer?”
“I haven’t actually told her. Luckily I have a friend whose family has a cottage in P-town. She’s going to let me use it as a return address for Mother all summer.”
“Good thinking. But what if she tries to call you?”
“I told her the cottage didn’t have a phone.”
“Implausible, but original.”
“Thank you for letting me come.”
“Tell me that after dusting 117 clocks.”
“Time must really matter to you!”
“I also own an antiques shop.”
“I love old things,” she said in a rush, then immediately flushed. Hugo threw the bag in the back of his car and opened the door for Bettie.
On the way home he took her through the village, where he showed her his shop and Marguerite’s book store, up the Cliff Road to Anthony Newton’s mansion, down again to the beach and then back to his house by the road through the woods.
Bettie stared at him whenever she thought she might risk it. Then they arrived at his old stone house and he took her inside. Bettie was placed in the redecorated attic bedroom, as far away from Laura’s room as possible.
“I have a girl friend,” Hugo explained as he showed her where everything was. “She’s in New York now but she’ll be back in a week or so.”
“Is she into it?” Bettie asked before wondering whether this was a discreet question.
“She’s my illustrator.”
“Oh!”
“I’d advise you to turn her into an ally as quickly as possible,” Hugo disclosed, piling logs into her hearth for later in the evening. “And by the way,” he added, “I’m not really your uncle. Your mother was adopted. I guess she never told you that.”
“No, she never did.” Bettie sat down on the bench at the foot of the bed and stared at him in astonishment.
“She always knew about it. That’s probably why she warned you to stay away from me. She remembered that we aren’t blood relations and doesn’t trust me with you.”
Bettie Brandon was a quiet, intense, thoughtful, cautious, compulsively meticulous little creature that was seen but seldom heard for the first several days of her visit. She wrote constantly in black marble notebooks with cartridge pens and was reading Crime and Punishment. Her favorite walk was to and from the Random Point post office, where Hugo had