“I felt pressured, as though if I refused he’d kill the shooting space deal.”
“You let yourself be pressured into sex over something as trivial as that?”
“I’m not sure how it happened. I’m only sure it happened fast. He seemed to instinctively know all my vanilla buttons and pushed them in a row. The earlobe nibbling, the bosom squeezing, the digital penetration.”
“Preceded, I imagine by liberal inhalations of cocaine?” Hugo accused, remembering that this was Randy’s drug of choice, which also accounted for his general greed and irascibility.
“Gee, you know him well.”
“Gee, I know you well,” said Hugo cynically.
“Hugo, I feel wretched.”
“It’s the cocaine and cheap, meaningless sex. Smoke some weed, take the thrashing you deserve from me and you’ll feel better.”
“Hugo, this never happens to me,” she explained, curling up on the hearthrug in front of the fire.
“Maybe if you wore blue velvet and corsets instead of austere business suits it would happen more often,” he pointed out, sitting down beside her and removing her ultra high-heeled pumps one by one.
“Thank you!” she cried.
“I’ll find you another pair to set off your corset,” he said, disappearing upstairs and returning to her a few minutes later with a pretty pair of lower heeled black brocade pumps with high vamps. “You’re the same size as Laura,” he told her, slipping the 18th century style shoes on Garda’s graceful feet. “Turn around, I’ll unzip you,” he told her. She let him help her out of the dress, which revealed her charmingly corseted, long, slim torso.
”You’re just as delicious as ever,” he told her, holding her waist between his hands. “But I’m highly incensed at your letting Randy Price see you, no less have you in this!” Hugo declared, pulling her across his knee and giving her eight or ten quick smacks on her fully pantied bottom, which appeared as taut and smooth as ever under the sheer briefs. “You’ve behaved shockingly, young lady, even for you!” he said, with a half dozen more spanks, before letting her up.
Garda, blushing furiously, took her wine across the room. He laughed at her embarrassment. “Has it been so long since you’ve been turned over somebody’s knee?” he asked.
“About 22 years,” she admitted, pretending to study his bookcase and presenting an elegant rear view.
“Is this true?”
“I kept trying out different masters. But as you know, they don’t often specifically spank.”
Hugo smiled, “I binged on slaves for a while myself.”
“Really?”
“I kept meeting girls who’d grown up on The Story of O. I had three girl friends in a row who virtually wanted to be told when to go to the bathroom.”
“What happened?”
“It warped my character. I started taking the scene too seriously and wound up alienating someone I really cared for.”
“That would be the lady with the good taste in shoes?” Garda asked, extending her well-shod foot.
“Had you returned just a few years ago, you would have found me insufferable.”
“I’m sure that even at your worst you were never as grisly as some of the creatures who’ve lured me into their dungeons. I’ve been suspended, hogtied, hot waxed, prodded, pinched, clamped, cinched, everything but wrung out and hung up to dry.”
“No corporal punishment?”
“Oh, I’ve been able to obtain a few dreamy floggings from ripped leather men over the years, but I was never lucky enough to meet a straight one with the proper looks and brains to interest me.”
“That’s insane, Garda. California is probably the spanking capital of the world. I’ll have you set up with a spanking boyfriend within weeks of your returning to L.A.”
“You seem incredibly sure of your powers,” Garda smiled.
“Trust me.”
“It seems like I’ve been sublimating this need since the last time I saw you,” she mused.
“I can’t think why. You were always such a self starter.”
“I’ve been remiss,” Garda admitted.
“And should be punished.”
“Hugo, this wine is lovely, but do you know what I’d really adore?”
“Tell me.”
“One of those luscious Irish coffees you used to make us before we went skating at night.”
“Come with me and I’ll show you how it’s done,” Hugo said, leading her by the hand through the house to his rustic kitchen, with its wonderful hearth.
Garda watched Hugo grind the coffee beans, sitting on the wooden table and swinging her long, slim legs. “You always took such good care of me,” she said fondly. “Remember that day we pretended that I was a baby and I crawled around the floor and talked baby talk all afternoon and you spanked me I don’t know how many times?”
“That was fun,” he agreed, measuring out a jigger of Bushmills.
“You used to literally spend hours spanking me. Remember?”
“Can you blame me?”
“And you’re saying there are really others like you?”
“Can you honestly doubt it? You saw the magazine. Why don’t you answer some ads while I begin researching my California resources? I promise you’ll be playing regularly before you know it,” he guaranteed her, pouring cream into a bowl and placing that under a blender.
“The truth is, I’ve become a boring corporate lawyer,” Garda sighed.
“I still can’t understand how you could have allowed Randy Price get the better of you!” Hugo exclaimed, remembering her lurid confession with annoyance. “He’s not even your type.”
“Hugo, you don’t understand. Men just don’t come on to me that often. I give off a spinster or dyke vibe. Or maybe it’s that I don’t flirt. Anyway, I seem to be seldom pursued these days. So I was flattered into submission.”
“Oh, that’s nonsense! What else did you do with him?” Hugo snapped, while whipping the cream.
Garda shrugged, “I just gave him head, let him finger bang me, trivial stuff.”
“I can’t believe you went down on your knees to Randy Price!”
Garda bit her knuckle.
“You’re hopeless,” Hugo declared, pouring coffee into a mug, adding the jigger of Bushmills and the whipping cream. Garda took the cup and a spoon to stir it. “Bring that with you and follow me,” Hugo said, grabbing the whiskey bottle and a glass along with her smoking materials and leading her up three pairs of stairs to his attic playroom.
“Wow,” Garda said, peering out of the porthole window and catching a glimpse of the half moon through the swaying boughs. Then she noticed the skylights, the sophisticated furnishings, all suitable for playing on and the looking glasses to reflect it all.
“All the dungeons in Random Point are traditionally located in the attics,” he informed her.
“What are you going to do with me?” she asked, drinking her coffee fast.
“You mean to you, for making me angrier than I have ever been with you before! And after being back in my life just one afternoon!”
“But,