“What work?”
“Taming you.”
“Never!”
“Well see about that!” Smack! It was then that Jeffrey discovered the trousers had an elastic waist and could be easily tugged down.
“Hey! Wait! Don’t!”
“Stop fussing, young lady,” he told her firmly, lowering her khakis to reveal her thin white cotton panties. Under them her gym-pampered bottom was that of a woman half her age, smooth and firm, with just a tinge of pink against the white where his hand had struck. Again he began to spank her, slowly and effectively, pausing a few beats between each swat so that each could be appreciated separately. Soon he had her half whimpering, half panting in expectation of his now more rapidly descending palm. Presently he pulled her panties down to her thighs and started all over again.
The sting of his large hand soon caused her to yip. Then she cried, “Oh Jeffrey, can’t we take a break?” She twisted to bewitch him with her sapphire gaze. “A shoe shopping break?” she added meaningfully. In a second she’d slid off his lap and was whipping her Capri’s back up. “You fascinated me when you mentioned fetish pumps,” she admitted, reminding him that Dream Dresser was open until midnight.
“All right, but they have to be at least seven to eight inches high,” he agreed, grabbing his car keys and ushering her out into the night.
After the shoe event it was all over for Augie Rose with Garda but for the Dear Augie letter. It wasn’t that Garda didn’t like Augie very much. It was just that she seemed suddenly to like Jeffrey Jardine much more. Augie was charming, deferential and sincere. Jeffrey was bossy, cynical and sexually aggressive. There was no question that Jeffrey would conquer.
Naturally, Augie reacted with customary grace and good humor but the affectionate rejection left him feeling deflated for a couple of days.
Garda, ridden with guilt at having played with the emotions of a deserving gentleman, appealed to Hugo to supply Augie Rose with a proper replacement. By the end of the day, Garda had received the following email from Hugo:
Hi Red,
I’m sure Mr. Rose is inconsolable. So near and yet so far to spanking heaven. There could never be a replacement for you. However, I do have a niece out there, attending UCLA, who might prove of great interest to your new friend. She’s not a blood relation, by the way and I only met her for the first time last summer, when she deliberately came looking for me after she found out I publish The New Rod.
Her name is Bettie Brandon. She’s of age and has been a complete spanking fetishist since toddlerhood. She’s a lit. major, pretty and mature for her age.
She has a boyfriend in the scene, a young shark from the Harvard Business School, now working for a real estate broker uncle of his in Westwood, but Bettie doesn’t care for realtors. I understand your Mr. Rose is a paperback book publisher. That would be more in Bettie’s line. Maybe he can even give her some freelance or start publishing her stories. Little Bettie Brandon is bored with her lover and has begged me repeatedly to put her onto an interesting older man in the scene. Mr. Rose cannot lose with this proposition. I’ll have Bettie email him tomorrow.
I highly approve of your thoughtfulness.
But what a bad girl you were to disappear from my life for so long!
Missing you, H.
Garda ran over to Augie Rose’s offices during lunch to apprise him of the incoming email from Hugo Sand’s 18-year-old half niece.
“Can they even write when they’re that little?” he asked.
“Her ad specified older men.”
“I’ve seen those ads but they never made any sense to me,” said Augie, escorting Garda out to lunch at Le Chardonnay.
“Dearest, you don’t understand. Younger girls adore older men. If you need to ask why you’ve probably forgotten how awkward you were at nineteen.”
“I’ve never thought much of men in their forties who run after teenaged girls,” Augie confided to Garda as they shared a bottle of wine, “I’d feel like an idiot dating one.”
“Hugo suggested you might give her some editorial work. College girls are always strapped for money, you know.”
Augie smiled at the innuendo, tremendously touched that Garda had taken such a personal interest in his happiness on such short acquaintance. He kissed Garda’s hand and murmured, “I feel so connected.” And yet he also felt a twinge of unease at the entire proposition.
Bettie Brandon’s email was waiting for Augie upon his return from lunch. It simply introduced herself and stated that Hugo Sands had indicated that Augie Rose might possibly have some freelance editorial work for her.
He sent her a reply at once, telling her to come and see him the following day.
The next afternoon at around two p.m., Augie Rose was looking out his 10th floor window when he saw Bettie Brandon get off the bus on Little Santa Monica Blvd. and begin walking up Roxbury Dr. towards his building. A slight girl with shiny black hair that hung in a waist length ponytail of tight, rippling curls, she was dressed in pegged blue jeans, a checked shirt and hiking boots.
In a few minutes Augie’s secretary was buzzing to inform him of Bettie’s arrival. Augie had her sent in directly and rose from his desk to firmly shake her hand. She was a small, olive complected beauty, delicately formed, with large, dark eyes and a wide, full mouth. After thanking him for the interview, she disposed of her backpack on the floor and timidly waited for him to speak first.
“My friend Garda tells me you could use a little freelance,” Augie began, in a detached but not unfriendly manner.
“I’m not quite sure what that means,” Bettie replied.
“Freelance means assignments you complete outside of the office. I just lost my in-house editor and have quite a few small jobs I could give you. I notice you got off the bus. Don’t you have a car?”
Bettie shook her head, saying, “It’s not a long bus ride from Westwood.”
“See those paperbacks?” Augie indicated a small stack of books with plain pastel covers and provocative titles. “I’m about to recover them and I need back cover synopses. There are eight titles there. I’ll give you $50 per synopsis.”
“Wow,” Bettie took the books and looked at them.
“You don’t have to read them. Just skim them. Give me between a hundred and a hundred and twenty words each. Think you can do that?”
“Yes.”
“By when?”
“When do you need them by?”
“Think you can do them over the weekend?”
“Yes.”
“Okay. Email them to me,” Augie said by way of dismissal.
Bettie Brandon left with the books in her pack, noting that Augie Rose had barely looked at her and feeling that the handsome publisher was completely uninterested in her scene affiliations.
Bettie neglected her schoolwork all weekend to complete the assignment and was still working on it Monday morning. The sex novels were awkward and her summarizations of them lackluster. She hadn’t enjoyed the assignment and wondered how such inept writers were ever able to have their manuscripts published. She also disrespected Mr. Rose for buying and recovering such brain drool. By noon she’d received