“Venus and Mars Are Alright Tonight…”

(Continued from A Halloween Tail…)

He drifted off to the twinkling array of stars splashed across the moonless night above the ridge. The heavy November comforter made for a pleasant weight pressing him gently down into sleepy submission. Tomorrow he would definitely look for his old star chart to see if those three in a row were Orion’s belt or just a dipper handle. Tomorrow. He’d forget of course…it…really…didn’t…matter…as he drifted into dreamless sleep.

When he next cracked open one eye the room was still dark. The stars had scattered as Venus, this month’s morning beacon, had broken above the tree line. She gazed down upon him indifferently; offering neither warmth nor consolation, just a herald of night turning into eventual morning. But still, he found the company somehow comforting in its implacable permanence.

He had almost let his eyelid slide shut when he knew-didn’t feel, but knew-he wasn’t alone in the room. It wasn’t a sound, it wasn’t a smell; it was just that feeling that alerts a solitary person when someone enters his orbit.

He opened his other eye and lifted his head scanning the room until he saw her sitting on the rickety old wooden chair against the far wall away from the windows. She wasn’t moving and-as far as he could see-not breathing. Say what you will about Venus, but she doesn’t throw much light and in that corner of the room the shadows were ground ink.

“Good Morning, Mr. No”, she said, her voice both raspy and young-like a child with a cold. “Because it is morning, after all. The sun just doesn’t know it yet.” There was a general tittering around the bed and the rustling of what sounded like dead leaves on the hardwood though there were no leaves in his room. He cut his eyes to the sounds but saw nothing.

The ever creaky old chair made no sound as she rose and approached the foot of the bed. She appeared small and petite in the gloaming with bright yellow hair this time-as much as he could see of course-because on top of her head was his hat-which he hadn’t seen since that day at the ruins.

“Do you still wear my brand, Mr. No?” she asked. The rustling around his bed swelled and he could almost feel a breeze, or more correctly, many small breezes swirling from all directions.

“Brand?” he asked. Or thought. He wasn’t sure he had spoken. “What brand?”

The tittering got louder as if he were being laughed at and the breezes coalesced into caresses then touches then finally grabs that he couldn’t resist. He struggled against unseen hands pulling and pressing until, with a wrench and a yank, he was flipped onto his stomach. The cool air of the unheated bedroom prickled at his bare skin. The tittering laughter rose again.

He felt the bed shift as she crawled up onto it. “There it is…” she said as he felt her finger trace the outline of the tiny handprint on his ass. “This binds you to me, Mr. No. You realize that don’t you? You wear my mark.”

“Look. I…What do you want?” this time he knew he was talking. He just wasn’t sure what he was saying. He couldn’t move beyond a wriggle. Forces that he could not see pulled his legs apart. She laughed and the bed shifted again.

“No-don’t”, he cried fearing another whipping.

She moved behind him-closing between his legs until he felt her presence on the insides of his thighs.

“No whipping for you tonight, Mr. No”, she said as if reading his mind.

He felt her tiny, cold hands spread his cheeks and her body lean closer.

“No! Don’t do that…Please don’t do that…” he cried.

Her hand slipped between his legs and gripped his hardening cock. “See? Again you say ‘NO’ but this says something else.”

Something touched his asshole and his body jolted fully awake. His wail was cut short by another unseen piece of fabric jammed into his mouth. Was she wearing that scarf again? he wondered-then could only grunt as something pressed-hard, cold and large-against his anus. He cried out soundlessly feeling himself opening wide as he was slowly penetrated. He yelped helplessly as the forces holding him ratcheted tighter and heavier.

He awoke with a start, his trip-hammering heart pounding in his ears. Pink clouds were scudding across the perfect blue sky but he couldn’t see them with his face in the pillows as he vigorously humped his mattress to the screeching disapproval of the old box springs. Coming to consciousness, he quickly rolled onto his side to stop the action and looked down at his engorged cock waving like a mast on a stormy sea.

He put the palm of his hand on the thick head as if he would tamp it down as a child might a jack-in-the-box. Nope, that wasn’t helping and by the pulsing feel of the thing he had caught it not a moment too soon. Remembering, he reached tentatively back to feel his backside-then gently, between his cheeks. Nope. Nothing. What a fucking dream! He sat up carefully. His hard-on, ignored, began to collapse in on itself like a pocket telescope.

He stood and shivered then looked around for his clothes. Then he saw it and froze but not from the cold. His hat was hanging on the back of the chair. He picked it up and caught a whiff of leaves and woods and-for a moment- something sickeningly sweet and rotten. Like old fruit or meat left in the sun. Regardless, he put it onto his head and without adjustment, it fit perfectly.

There, naked but for his hat, he looked out the window at the path that left the yard and wound east where it would eventually meet up with the trail that led to the ruins-then up into the hollow. It’s a walk he would be taking later today, you better bet.

Continuing….Back to the Hollow

Roles Can Change…

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(Takes place immediately following Breakfast With the Bests)

Her face in the corner, she heard the shuffling of bare feet behind her.

“Well, hello Rebecca’s bottom. And how are you this morning?”

“Funny….”

“And what did you do to find yourself presented so pleasantly in the corner?”

“Nothing”, she sniffed.

“Oh, come on. Franklin is strict but fair, right? You must have done something.”

Rebecca chose to ignore the question and ask her own. “Are you naked?”

“Of course I’m naked-that was the order wasn’t it?”

“It was”, she answered into the walls feeling the words bounce back in little puffs. “I just wondered if you might-once he left, and once I left, you would…”

“Just do as I pleased?”

“Well…”

“Fuck that. Every day I have to make decisions and live with them. Exhausting. I pay you guys good money-when you’ll take it-so I don’t have to do that over here. And besides, he left 10 minutes ago and you’re still in the corner. Right?”

Rebecca sighed and didn’t answer. This was not a conversation she really wanted to be having-and definitely not like this:bare-ass and in the corner. Again, she had trouble reconciling the things that happened in the dark of night, between the blue silk sheets upstairs and what happens in the sun drenched kitchen when she was late for work and there were still breakfast dishes on the counter.

“How long?”

“Alarm is set. Twenty minutes.”

“And you won’t even turn around?”

Just to move, Rebecca stretched her arms above her head then clasped her fingers around her neck. Bethany had gone silent but she could feel her move closer-bare feet sliding across the ceramic. Then with a shift in the air, she was right behind her. Rebecca’s heart fluttered with the touch of bare skin against her backside.

“Poor Rebecca…can’t even move. I can do what I want…as long as I’m naked…”

“Bethany….”

“Shhh…” Bethany’s arms circled her waist as she closed the space between them, then tightened as she molded her body against her sometime lover’s back.

Rebecca could feel the wiry bush against her bottom and her thick nipples poking her back through the thin cotton shirt. She closed her eyes and took quick gulps of breath sliding her hands up the wall and pushing backward slightly. Light-dark, bedroom-kitchen, sheets-counter…sometime she hated her lack of control. Usually right up until the point of losing it.

Bethany slid slowly down Rebecca’s back allowing her taut belly, then firm nipples, to flow over her gooseflesh prickled bottom. The older woman squeezed her eyes closed feeling Bethany’s breath caressing her as she knelt behind. The breath got closer and warmer but Rebecca didn’t make a sound until that first moan with the brush of tongue against her bottom.

“I love your soap…” Bethany whispered with a soft lick and taste.

Rebecca felt her cheeks pulled apart, then the wet, rough tongue flicking then prodding against the tight little bud of her asshole. She moaned softly again and reached back to pull the girl’s face deeper into her crevasse bringing the tongue harder into her. Without disengaging, Bethany slid her fingers up along the inside of Rebecca’s thighs and caressed the wet swelling there.

“That didn’t take long…” Bethany breathed.

Just as she was about to slip a finger up into the marsh, the cheery, metallic tones of Rebecca’s alarm tolled the break of the mood.

“Looks like your time’s up” said Bethany, pulling away from the glistening ass and allowing her cheeks to slide back together.

“Ohhh Nooo…” whined Rebecca less than half joking.

“Oh yes”, said Bethany, standing and silently wiping her mouth. “You know”, she said after a moment, “I can’t remember the last time I spanked you.”

Rebecca didn’t answer immediately concentrating on normalizing her breathing. “I think I remember a few slaps last night.”

“Those are different. I’m talking about a spanking. About you over my lap with your bum-this bum”, she patted it, “Up under my hand. You laying over my lap offering up your bottom to me. To be punished. I don’t remember the last time that happened.”

“I think that was…uh…never…”

“Oh…that’s right. Never. Huh. And I don’t think I can remember the last time I saw Franklin spank you. Can you?”

“He has, of course.”

“But the last time I saw it…?”

“I believe that was never as well.”

“Hmmm…There seems to be an imbalance in our little game.”

Rebecca attempted an authoritarian tone. “If there is, it’s an imbalance that we all agreed upon. The roles we play…”

“Roles can change” interrupted Bethany lightly pulling a silence over them.

“Yes, I suppose they can”, said Rebecca finally.

She cupped the older woman’s ample bottom then moved her hands to her hips once more pulling her backward so Rebecca could feel Bethany’s bush rubbing against her, then hugging her high so she could feel her hard nipples against her back.

“Yes”, she whispered in her ear. “Roles can change…”

And with that, she padded away….

(Continuing…)

Maybe…

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Maybe pouring vodka over ice wasn’t the best choice on the day he decided to quit drinking. Maybe the fumes would help, he didn’t know. And if she came home early she would see it and know nothing was amiss.

Maybe he should have tried yesterday. That was a quiet day-might have been easier. Or tomorrow-things would smooth by then. Today is just not the best for this.

Maybe it would help if he didn’t have a loaded gun in every room. Maybe if there was no moon it would be better.

Maybe he should turn on a light.

Breakfast With the Bests

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From “A Beaten Belle” tumblr

(The morning after Nightcap IV)

Large and airy, with a wall of windows overlooking the gardens facing the sunrise, it was a perfect breakfast kitchen which, having slept late, they really didn’t have time for this morning. Small price to pay. Rebecca, dressed for work in clinging dark jeans and a green polo was rinsing the few dishes they’d used for their wheat toast and yogurt. Franklin, as always, was a study in choreographed nonchalance from his carefully scuffed thousand dollar Russian calf ankle boots up through his washed out jeans and checked shirt. His briefcase, a sleek leather number with more buckles and straps than a saddle, sat open beside him as he read the Wall Street Journal over a cup of strong coffee.

“Well…” he looked up as Bethany padded into the room. “Somebody had trouble getting out of bed this morning.” And it looked like Bethany had just. Her hair was stuck in stiff whirls so out of control it looked styled that way. She wore the plush terry robe that was left in her room and, as evidenced by how it gapped and draped, nothing underneath.

Her smile cracked one side of her face but didn’t do much to open her puffy eyes as she flopped into the chair opposite Franklin. “”Coffee?” asked Rebecca over her shoulder.

“Please…”

She shifted as Rebecca set the coffee in front of her and crossed her legs allowing the robe to fall open to mid thigh. She took a moment to sip before covering it back over. Best had gone back to the paper but Rebecca had seen and looked subtly away. She always had trouble reconciling what goes on at night with the supposed normalcy of daylight living. This was her issue alone-Franklin thrived living in a state of constant dusk.

Bethany reached into the robe’s pocket and brought out a small envelope that she pushed across the table. Franklin put the paper aside and opened it. The ten fifty dollar bills inside were sharply identical with edges that looked like they could slice a banana. He took one and held it up to the light admiringly. He sniffed it. Then he rubbed it between thumb and fingers before laying it back on the table. He placed a couple of the others on top of it-showing the serial numbers-all different, of course, and non-sequential. “Yours?” he asked looking up.

“No!” she said sharply. “The real thing. Legal tender for all debts, public and….private.”

“Teasing”, he said placing the bills back in the envelope. Then he slid it back. She raised an eyebrow. “We spoke”, he said nodding toward his wife. “This isn’t necessary anymore. You’ve become a part of the fabric of our lives. We don’t need this.”

“It’s just a token, you understand”, she said. “It doesn’t really…”

Franklin flipped the back of his hand in the air-a light dismissive gesture. “Give it to your church, or the food bank. But not to us.”

Her smile, still no more than a fold in the puffy marshmallow of her face widened a little, pulling her eyes closed. The girl needed a cold shower. “Thank you. Thank you both.”

“No worries”, Franklin said. “Now show.”

That opened her eyes. She glanced at both, then stood and turned her back slowly. They didn’t want her to show them her ass, they wanted her to present her bottom and reveal the evidence of their shared evening. She leaned over placing one hand on the table, then dropping her eyes to the floor, pulled her robe up with the other slowly-not stopping until it was draped over her back.

The golden morning sun bathed Bethany’s bottom. The left cheek showed some pink tinges from the night before with most of the bruising that she particularly liked to carry with her for a day or two at least, was concentrated on the right side where the end of the cane bit. Rebecca frowned at that knowing Franklin would not be pleased.

“Very nice”, Franklin pronounced and Bethany straightened allowing the robe to fall. She turned to face them again but the robe had loosened and draped slightly open. She ignored it and instead ran her fingers through her hair, pushing it back away from her face.

“What do you have on tap for today?” Franklin asked her.

“Oh…not much. I left today open. I’ll be out of here right away”, she added quickly.

“No need to rush. In fact, no need to leave. Why don’t you hang here today? We both have errands to run that will tie us up most of the day so you’ll have the run of the place. Hang by the pool, use the sauna-hot tub. The gym…Make it like a vacation day. A spa day. What do you think, honey?”

Rebecca had been distracted and wasn’t really paying close attention but answered, “Sure” quickly.

“There is one…condition though”, Franklin said.

“What would that be?”

“You have to be naked. All day.”

“All day?”

“Yep. Pool’s secluded, deck…I want you haunting my house a bare ghost while we’re away…and it probably won’t be all, all day-we’ll be back in the afternoon.”

“Deal” she said. “I could use a spa day. Thank you.”

“Excellent. But…uh. It starts now.”

“Starts?”

“The naked part.”

Bethany’s eyes sparkled as she bit her lower lip and slowly opened the robe slipping it over one shoulder then the other. It fell to the floor as she raised her arms beside her in a silent “TA-DA!” Her young breasts clung tightly to her rib cage and flat stomach tapered to the tight black thatch that Rebecca, leaning against the sink, could still feel in her mouth.

Then, like a girl off to school, Bethany kissed them both on the cheek and walked out feeling the four eyes on her bruised bottom.

“Did you see…”

“I saw.”

“Do you need a refresher on proper caning technique?”

“No!” she said too quickly suddenly nervous. “No…I don’t…I just got carried away.” The silence hung and she felt a need to break it-to further plead her case. “I was too…God, excited….”

“You were too excited. That’s OK. Just remember it’s her you need to be concerned about. Once she is getting everything she needs, just how she needs it, you can give in to your own needs. Right?”

“Of course, right. I’m sorry…” After what she thought was an appropriate pause, she asked “Did we talk about not taking her money anymore?”

He made that dismissive flipping motion with his hand again. “Only three of the bills were real.”

“Really? Were they hers, like you said?”

“No. Better than hers. She is good. But whoever did those bills is an artist.” He slid off into thought for a moment.

“What will you do?” she asked.

“To be determined, sweetheart. To be determined…” his voice trailed a moment then he perked up as if remembering something. “All in due time. But for now-some correction is in order.”

“Please Franklin…”

“And as I’ve got to get to the airport it’s going to have to be corner time for you.”

“Franklin…” she whined.

“Set your phone for 15 minutes and put your nose over there…” he pointed unnecessarily to the designated corner that she knew too well.

“I’m late as it is. You know how Charla….”

“As I said, set your phone for 20 minutes and put your nose over there.”

She crossed her arms over her chest loosely and looked at him; more pleading than glaring.

“Twenty minutes going once….going twice.”

“Alright”, she huffed, knowing that 30 minutes in the corner would be more than she could stand.

She moved to her spot and got her nose close enough to the walls that her breath bounced back and washed over her face. She set her phone for twenty minutes and placed it on the counter. Then, with a sigh she could feel, unsnapped and lowered her jeans. Then her underwear. They clung above her knees as she let her arms dangle. That was the bitch-what to do with her hands for twenty minutes.

She felt Franklin’s breath on her neck. “Bethany has a sweet bum”, he whispered to the back of her head. “You have a magnificent ass!”

“You know what Charla’s going to do to it if she catches me waltzing in late again.”

“I love you in stripes baby”, he whispered, patting her fulsome cheek.

(Continuing…)

The Weight

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It was everybody’s bad luck that Danny had started drinking at noon that day. His regular shift was 11 a.m. to 6:00. He would open for the oldsters who needed a shot and a beer between Mass and Sunday dinner then manage his regulars through two football games, turning it over to Nick for the evening and late night. Nick was away this weekend, though, so the day was his. Clean through till 2:00.

They called Benny Pace, Hats, even though he had only one-a tortured fedora that was as sweat-stained as his rolled up trousers were piss-stained. A yellowed white shirt completed his motley ensemble; a shabby connection in his mind to when he was a snappy dresser.

His sons, Elmer and Frank inherited his gambling territory but it wasn’t much anymore. They ran poker machines and illegal pinball always scrambling one step ahead of the law. They carried the air of two “connected guys” but weren’t really. Big fish in a very small pond-but it was their pond.

Two guys at the bar that night had caught sight of the roll of cash Benny was holding. The regulars were used to it-always picked up bills that he’d let flutter to the floor and put them back in front of him. “Did you see that old guy’s wad?” one of them had asked him. Danny didn’t know him-short and wiry. Dark-with a pinched face. “He was lucky at the track yesterday. When Benny hits, everyone hits.” Danny chuckled and tapped his knuckles on the bar in front of the two signaling that their next drink was on the house.

Had he been a little less drunk he might have caught the gist of the conversation. He might have caught their eyes as they were casing the old man and felt what was happening. But he didn’t. The next morning, when he heard about old Benny being beaten and robbed he knew who did it and also knew that nobody could ever know how he knew. This place that he’d inherited from his uncle was a safe place. People came in here to be protected from “out there”. Danny had let the outside in.

But today, in the light of day, drinking coffee instead of Canadian Club he was not thinking about making something right. Some things can’t be made right. Some things just have to be worn.

If old Benny ever got out of the hospital-was ever back in here drinking wine from the jug that nobody else touched-whistling at the girls and babbling in his ridiculous way he would always have to look at him and know that the shit that he got plunged into was on him.

When sunlight slashed through the bar he knew even before squinting at their silhouettes that it was Elmer and Frank. Elmer was Danny’s age, short and round. Frank, older and smaller, did all the talking.

“Sorry about your Dad. How’s he doing?”

“Looks like he’ll make it. Fucked him up pretty good though.”

“Damn shame…” said Danny.

“They were in here? They guys did this?”

“There was more than one?” Danny asked.

“Looks like two. Cops got one. The other…” he shrugged.

“There was a lot of people in here last night Frank. Don’t know…I probably saw them. Hell, I probably served them. I’m sorry.”

“For what? You didn’t do nothin’.”

“Still….”

“No, that’s the motherfucker gonna be sorry. They won’t hold him till the old man can ID him, and he can’t see now so….”

“Shit…”

“He’s getting out this afternoon. We know where he lives. He’ll wished he stayed in jail.”

Danny rubbed at the faux woodgrain on the bar. And rubbed. His eyes were somewhere in the middle distance. And rubbed. Just as Elmer gave his brother his “what-the-fuck?” face, Danny spoke.

“Don’t do nothing. It will be too obvious.”

“What?”

“It will be obvious.”

The Pace brothers looked at one another, then back to Danny. Elmer stuck out his hand. “You know we’re not going to forget this.” Which is why he was doing it. He wouldn’t forget it either.

“I just wish there was something I coulda done.”

“These animals. There’s nothing you could do.”

“Go someplace tonight. Be seen and don’t worry about it.”

Danny had taken out the street light next to the apartments where the guy was staying. Just a few blocks up-not far. Hell, if he was standing up on the roof right now, Danny could see the house he grew up in. This was his alley, his bar and the street above, his street. Deep truth be known, he didn’t even like Benny or his sons-two entitled fucks who never worked a day. But this wasn’t about them at all. Not at this point.

He skulked behind the dumpster and pulled the bandana up to his eyes when the scuffling tread came up the asphalt. He recognized him even in the shadows. Stupid bastard didn’t know enough to stay away.

He gripped the bat tightly and strode up behind. The guy never knew what hit him. Danny tried to be surgical-no need to go overboard. Kidneys to bend him backward-stomach so he’d fold. The most obvious joints and bones next-bust the knee cap, ankle, stomp the hand and teeth for good measure. Left him writhing and moaning. Slipped between two buildings and out to the main street. The bat down the sewer. Done and done.

The next morning he was reading the paper when Kevin Bannon, his most regular of regulars came in for his first beer to wash down his first aspirins.

“You hear about that guy? The one robbed old Benny?”

“No. What?”

“Dead.”

“Dead?”

Somebody put a beatin’ on him. Ruptured his spleen or his kidney…something. Bled out. Right up the alley there.”

“Benny’s sons maybe? Elmer and Frank?”

“Naw, they were at the casino all night playing blackjack and winning like fucks. Everybody saw them.”

A single droplet of sweat trailed from Danny’s collar, down his spine and spread at his belt line. “Well. Fuck him”, he said. “They should give whoever did it a medal.”

“Absolutely!” Kevin agreed.

Danny popped his knuckles on the bar. Beer was on him.