Finely Disciplined Thoughts (7 page)

O’Neill: “On the contrary, I think they speak to —”

Fontaine: “You say that with a straight face, Mr. O’Neill. I am amazed, quite frankly. Surely you could have been more creative than ‘At the Top of His Game’ and — what’s the follow-up? Oh, yes, ‘Hitting Bottom and Loving It.’”

She turns to the audience and rolls her eyes. There are scattered sniggers. The Professor considers her politely, but the muscle in his jaw insists on clenching briefly. He makes another attempt to discuss his work. Alas …

Fontaine: “This appears to be a book very much directed toward men, Mr. O’Neill. Most people are aware that better than half the population is female and women make up more than 60 percent of the book market in this country. So why this approach? Did you deliberately set out to ignore women, or were you simply ignorant of the demographics?”

O’Neill: “Actually, Miss Fontaine, the books were written as instructive for both men and women in dealing with —”

Fontaine: “So you say. However, let me quote from page twelve in your first effort: ‘A man who refuses to confront such a situation smack-on and take charge is asking for trouble in the future, since he will have sent a clear signal to the lady in his life that he is unable or unwilling to offer her what she is clearly requesting.’ You seriously contend there is a message for women here? Isn’t this just a little behind the times? I mean, women clearly are no longer willing to be thought of in such condescending fashion.”

O’Neill: “Certainly there is a message for women, and a valuable one, I might add. I have applied the advice I give in the book in hundreds of situations where it was important to get to the bottom …”

The host interrupts again with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Fontaine: “And then there’s this, from the follow-up volume: ‘While it may be painful to contemplate, the simple fact is that the sweet blush of success stems, always, from a willingness to lovingly and firmly deal in the barest realities, even when it stings a little.’ Now really, O’Neill, where is the message for women there? This hardly qualifies as sparkling spanking repartee.”

O’Neill: “Perhaps if you quoted from page fifty-two in the second paragraph where I provide some straight-from-the-hip talk about —”

Fontaine: “If I didn’t know better, I would think you were attempting to top me in this discussion. Perhaps the producer forgot to mention our roles. I am the host. I call the shots. You are the guest. You answer my questions. After all, one of us is paid six large numbers to be here today. And that person would not, I think, be you.”

The host simpers at the audience, who begin to look uncomfortable. O’Neill’s blue eyes narrow and he assumes a more erect position on the guest couch.

Fontaine: “Bottom line, O’Neill, you’re doing nothing but whipping up hostility toward women with this trash.”

There is a collective gasp from the audience as Breschetta Fontaine glares at O’Neill and tosses his books toward him. He manages to catch them and places them carefully back on the table, with the titles readable on camera. His smile is firmly in place as he makes eye contact, but his right hand strays to his belt momentarily and he caresses it, lovingly, before leaning forward and balancing his forearms on his knees, with fingers steepled.

O’Neill: “If my books did, indeed, whip up hysteria toward women, it is difficult to believe sixty percent of the book market would have contributed to their success. What I do advocate is simple, disciplined, and heart-felt attention to relationships. Sometimes, those ideas find their reality in —”

Fontaine: “Don’t try to switch the focus here, O’Neill. I can almost see you envisioning yourself steering this ship in the direction of your own choosing, but the reality is, Prof, you’ve got no real power behind you at all, just a mighty small paddle.”

O’Neill: “That may be true, but I have vast experience in using it effectively. I think many women who have benefited from my expertise and experience could attest to that.”

Fontaine: “Let’s be frank, shall we? I’m outraged at your chauvinistic attitude. And you’re taking my concerns and brushing them off as though they are of no consequence.”

O’Neill: “To the contrary, Miss Fontaine, I’m deeply concerned about your concerns. But I’m also concerned about the one-sided view of my work you are presenting. You’ve made some unsubstantiated accusations based on some knee-jerk reactions to carefully selected portions of my books. It wouldn’t hurt you to bend a little, Miss Fontaine. Or at least, it wouldn’t hurt too much.”

The audience murmurs in apparent agreement with the Professor and he smiles warmly at them as he sits back and spreads his arms wide, laying one of them along the back of the couch and balancing his right ankle on his left knee. Unflattering color climbs high in Miss Fontaine’s cheeks as she glares at her seemingly relaxed and very comfortable guest, who has swung favor in his direction.

Fontaine: “It’s clear you are nothing but a bully, and just because you’re a strapping big man you think you can get the best of me.”

O’Neill: “Not at all, Miss Fontaine. But if you’ve read the books in their entirety, you know I’ve enjoyed great success putting my theories in place from top to bottom. There are certain behaviors and attitudes that cane — excuse me, I meant ‘can’ — only be effectively managed with a firm hand and a highly disciplined approach. That approach — the one I advocate and practice — has proven dominant time and again when compared to other relationship models.”

Fontaine: “There’s nothing submissive about you, is there, Professor? But that’s clearly what you expect from women. All this thrashing about you do over attitudes and the gratuitous licks you take at assertive females … But you’re not going to back me into a corner over this. It’s still my show. I’m still calling the shots. And I’ve got you beat on this. Everything you advocate — it all smacks of sheer brutality toward women and you know it. Well, I’m not having it on my show one second longer.”

Miss Fontaine reaches for O’Neill’s books and hurls them to the floor, where they land open, with pages fluttering. The host then jerks to her feet and proceeds to stomp all over the hardbacks, ripping out pages with her high heels. She underscores this punishing behavior by calling her guest several foul names, while the audience reacts first with bewilderment at her inexplicable behavior and then with growing distress at her public tantrum.

O’Neill moves to the edge of the couch and speaks calmly, but with great authority, to the still-ranting host, whose actions are becoming more childlike by the moment.

O’Neill: “Stop. This. Instant. You are behaving in a most unseemly and unprofessional manner, Miss Fontaine, and I believe you will have cause to regret it bitterly in the not-too-distant future.”

The host abandons her efforts to censor Professor O’Neill’s books. She stomps over to stand in front of her guest and bends over to look directly into his eyes. Her own are blazing and her hands are clenched furiously at her sides.

Fontaine: “Oh, yeah? And who’s going to make me?”

(But we all know they answer to that. Don’t we?)

And here is how it happened, in Devlin O’Neill’s own words.

I was far past my normal breaking point with this fire-breathing brat, and when she demanded to know who was going to make her regret acting like a three-year-old who ate too many sweets, I finally had had enough.

Her eyes got very wide but she held her ground when I stood and slipped off my jacket, rolled up my right sleeve, and then propped my left foot on the table, and tossed her bodily across my upraised thigh.

She weighed hardly anything since her diet and mild workout regimen were geared more to keeping fat off than actually building muscle tone, so it took less than five seconds to wrap her arms at her waist, and secure her firmly, her bottom up and her legs pointed toward the audience, who after a very brief silence erupted in cheers and applause.

I ignored the stream of invective and four-letter words coming from Breschetta, then smiled and raised a thumb toward the control booth when Eddie Blizzard, the show’s director, announced over the PA that he had switched from live delay feed to a Suzanne Sommers infomercial.

“Now you are going to pay for all the snarkiness and showboating you’ve done today, young lady,” I told her, and pushed up her simple yet obviously overpriced linen skirt to expose her bottom to the audience.

She wore only a red silk thong beneath the skirt, and Breschetta wailed in embarrassment and used a dozen unrepeatable epithets in quick succession.

I waited for her to take a breath and then said, “Whoever resorts to name calling first, loses,” and then proceeded to slap her bare cheeks, just hard enough to make a loud clap.

“Eddie, do something, for god’s sakes!” she yelled.

Eddie chuckled over the PA. “I did, princess. I’ve got the cameras zeroed in on you, fore and aft, just the way you demand them. This will be solid gold, sweetheart, I …”

“I mean make him stop, you insufferable idiot! Call security! Security!”

I glanced over, and the two burly guys in uniform were grinning and chatting casually to Mavis, the pretty assistant director. None of them seemed in a hurry to intervene, and in fact the two men were gently but firmly restraining Breschetta’s two little go-fers, slant makeup and hair stylists, to keep them off the stage, so I got serious on Breschetta’s bottom.

“You need to learn better manners, missy, and stop acting so superior, especially when you have no idea what you’re talking about. You also need to clean up your language, because you sound like absolute gutter trash talking that way.”

She screamed in anger and pain, trying to drown me out, but I kept on scolding, confidant that the tiny mike in my lapel would pick up all I had to say and relay it to the audience. Sure enough, there was redoubled applause as I warmed to my subject, and also heated Breschetta’s little bottom so that it approached the hue of her scanty pseudo-drawers.

Her frantic kicks sent her trendy little high-heeled shoes flying off, and the number two cameramen caught one, grinned, and gave me a thumbs-up.

“Give ‘er a few for me, Professor,” he said. “Never does have a good word for anybody, ‘specially the crew.”

I nodded, and leaned into my work, bringing my arm up and down in a steady, driving rhythm designed to outlast the most stubborn brat’s resistance. Suddenly I felt a strange vibration in the studio and realized that the audience had picked up my cadence and was clapping in time, like a gospel revival meeting, only with a very shrill, and rapidly tiring, female soloist.

“Are you going to apologize for being such a snarky snob, and a know it all, and an opinionated muddle head, Breschetta? Hm?”

“I … I … I don’t know!”

“Well, let me tell you that your director your studio audience and I are all perfectly prepared to keep this up until you do say you’re sorry, and you had better mean it, missy. Now go on.”

“Please stop, I’ve had enough! It really hurts, it does!”

“That isn’t an apology, Breschetta. You know what an apology is, and I need to hear one, a sincere one, before I stop spanking your naughty behind. Do you understand?”

“But … I … okay! I … I’m sorry! Now stop hitting me, okay?”

“No, Breschetta, you’re not in charge right now. You don’t give orders. And I don’t hit anyone. I do spank stubborn, willful, disrespectful, disobedient girls from time to time, but I do not hit. Is that clear?”

“Then stop spanking me! Please!”

I spanked harder. “I said, is that clear?”

Something inside her changed. A switch flipped over, and she sagged across my thigh.

“Yes, sir, it’s clear, and, and I’m sorry I was such a cow. I won’t do it anymore.”

A hush fell over the audience as I put Breschetta on her feet, smoothed down her skirt, and gave her a hug.

“That’s better, Breschetta, and you’re forgiven.”

I nodded to the burly security men, who stood aside and allowed Derrold and Darian, Breschetta’s go-fers, to mince over and collect their mistress from me, and hustle her off the set. Eddie’s voice came over the PA.

“I’m ordering all your books, Professor.”

The audience cheered agreement, and I looked down at the shredded remains of the ones onstage.

“I’ll make sure you get autographed copies, Eddie, and thanks for the backup.”

I got my jacket and slung it over my shoulder, then bowed, waved to the crew, and walked into the wings.

I love standing ovations.

The Games People Play

B&D, she thought halfway through the meal.

Glancing to her right, Lauren, Lady Smithwyck, member of Parliament and rising star in her constituency, could see her handsome husband seated across from her and two seats down. Precisely between Christina Galen and Marianne Foxworth and facing Geraldine Taylor, whose husband was threatening, in his usual understated way, of course, to block action she needed on the upcoming immigration bill.

“Bored & Dangerous” described Mark, Lord Smithwyck, perfectly at the moment, and she experienced that all-too-familiar little knot just below her breastbone that put her on high alert.

To begin with, he hadn’t wanted to make the trip, although, come to that, nor had she. But it wasn’t good politic to turn down an invitation from the head of her party to spend a weekend in “consultation” at his family hunting lodge.

They would be missing their usual Sunday morning outing at the park with the boys and Mark had grumbled all the way down to the country. She had double-checked his luggage to make sure he didn’t bring along the fishnets and eyeliner — something he was prone to do when thwarted. Or nervous. Or bored. She had adjusted to her lusty husband’s need to relieve tension by donning feminine attire, but it was not a habit she cared to have flaunted.

There was no sign of them, however, so if he were going to misbehave, he would at least be doing it in proper male twenty-first century apparel.

And just now he did, indeed, look ever so proper, she admitted, stealing a glance at him while nodding to some inane comment from the dinner partner on her right. Ever so proper. And ever so devastatingly handsome in his excellently cut dinner jacket. And ever so completely hers. A relationship she still marveled to consider.