Mastering Maeve (17 page)

They flew into Angelina County and drove the fourteen-mile distance to Burke. Maeve had never seen anything quite so sparsely populated. Sure, Connemara was rural, but farms were small and frequent houses and villages dotted the landscape; there were constant signs of life. Here the distance between homesteads was much vaster. There was the hint of a large city in the distance, which Larry informed her was Lufkin. The US-59 brought them round by Diboll, which although more urban than most of the journey, was still no bigger than a lot of Irish towns. It was all so different from what she expected and her shock was visible as they drove into the tiny city of Burke.

“That’s it, that’s Burke?” she said in a stunned voice. “Is there no more? Clifden is much bigger.”

“Yup, this is home,” he laughed. “Wouldn’t do for an Irish town though; there are no bars here. Maybe that’s why it stayed so small—no watering holes.”

“What, no pubs? Are you serious?”

“Burke is what we call a dry city; no alcohol is sold here. If you want a beer, you gotta go further afield.”

“So what did you do for a social life when you were, say, eighteen?”

“I grew up in Lufkin. It’s a much bigger city, but you can’t buy alcohol in most states until you’re twenty-one.”

Maeve was flummoxed by what she saw all around. If she had any idea of an exciting life in America, it was being abruptly shattered. How would she begin to make friends her own age in what she considered a village of only about seven hundred people? And her mind started racing ahead—what about schools and sports facilities for children? It was unlikely that such a small city would afford much along those lines. She’d have to look into Lufkin a bit more; she didn’t realise her face was almost grimacing at the thought.

“Hey, even if we choose Texas, we don’t have to live on the ranch,” he reassured her with a laugh.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to offend you. It’s just that I was wondering what we’d do for a social life and things. I didn’t expect this,” she said, waving her hand to indicate the green surrounds.

“I can see that,” he replied. “This is us now.” Larry turned off the road onto a long driveway. At first there was nothing to be seen but green lush fields and cattle, but in the distance she could see some huge pine trees and the outline of a traditional timber-framed house. As she had expected, the house was a lot bigger than most Irish farm houses and kept in immaculate repair. The trees gave way to an open yard. Larry drove his pickup into the garage under the side of the house. The door led them up some stairs into a large open kitchen/diner/family room. The floors were of a bleached wood with massive rugs in the living area, making it seem cosier. There were floor-to-ceiling windows in the dining and living areas and the bright country look cheered her heart. It was certainly a kitchen she could get used to working in.

He brought her upstairs to his bedroom so she could freshen up or lie down. The king-size bed caught her fancy, as well as the size of the room. Massive walk-in closets lined the walls and the master bathroom held a huge bath and shower.

“Wow, you really can do everything bigger and better than us, can’t you?” she gasped. The shower was her first port of call, wanting to rid herself of the stickiness of travel in the late September heat. When she came down, there was a veritable feast of chicken wings, ribs, Caesar salad and bread rolls, all courtesy of Larry’s housekeeper. Maeve was far from used to being waited on like that. It embarrassed her. It was one thing as a guest in a hotel, but in someone’s home, it just seemed wrong.

“There’s an army of men needing food every day,” Larry justified. “Joanna’s cooking is simple and filling, but she’s not used to feeding women. She put extra effort in today.”

Joanna came to clear the dishes, but Maeve wouldn’t hear of it; she figured it was enough for her to look after all the men. She was a sturdy woman in about her forties, not stylish, but neat and tidy. Maeve noticed with approval that her hair was pinned back. It was one of those things she was a stickler for around food, being raised in the catering industry.

“That Caesar salad was delicious. I have to get you to show me how you make the dressing,” Maeve enthused as she helped clear the dishes.

“It’s real easy, I’ll show you tomorrow. How long y’all stayin’ for?”

“I’m not sure yet; about a week, I think. It depends on Larry.”

“What part of Ireland are you from, near Dublin?”

Maeve smiled as she answered. She knew the woman was only making polite conversation; she probably knew as much about Connemara as Maeve knew about Burke. “It’s a really small country. Dublin is on the east coast and I live on the west, but it only takes about three-and-a-half hours to travel between them. I can’t believe the vastness of here. You can get from one end of Ireland to the other in less than a day. God knows how long that would take here.”

“I don’t know, I’ve never been out of Texas.” Joanna replied. Maeve had noticed that there were a lot of small enough farms around Burke, suggesting a low income in the area. Coming from Ireland, she knew that the more land you had, the better chance there was of making it pay.

While they were sitting over coffee, Larry said he had some business to take care of on the ranch the next day, and would be gone for a while.

“Oh, can I borrow the car and take a trip into Diboll?” Maeve asked.

He laughed at her pronunciation. “We call it Die-ball, honey, not Dib-bull, but sure, you can use the car. I’ll come back at about ten and go out for a short run to make sure you’re ok with the automatic transmission and right-hand driving. Don’t take it out until you’ve been out with me.”

Maeve thought he was being ridiculously chauvinistic. After all, no one had shown him how to drive in Ireland and the manual transmission was way harder to grasp, but she decided to let it pass. Sometimes she just didn’t have the energy to fight.

Larry was already gone next morning when she arose and Joanna was clearing away the dishes after the men’s breakfast. The kitchen looked like there had been an explosion in it; the massive table was a disaster zone. Joanna greeted her with a cheery ‘good morning’ as she cleared away.

“Might be best to bring your breakfast into the living room; now what can I get you?” she offered.

Maeve grabbed a mug, filled it with coffee, and popped some bread in the toaster. “If you let me have this, I’ll help you with all that,” she volunteered. “Why not have a coffee with me first.”

She soon learned Joanna had been a single mom, widowed in her early marriage, leaving her with three small children. Her life had been spent juggling her children and subsistence jobs cooking and cleaning for ranchers. She’d been with Larry since he started up; he paid better than most and his kitchen was the most up to date, so she liked it there. It seemed he was a fair employer and popular among his workers.

“It’s no life for a young man hidden away out here; he needs company,” she remarked. “I was wondering what was keeping him in Ireland so long. Now I know.”

Between them they made short work of the clearing up, filling two dishwashers and scrubbing pots and pans. Maeve helped Joanna start the lunch preparations, then, looking at her watch, she discovered it was eleven thirty already. She was surprised that Larry hadn’t been back to take her out for a test drive, but she was impatient to explore so she decided to go ahead, after a brunch of fresh fruit and waffles. Driving around the yard a few times, she soon discovered that the automatic transmission was easy to manage.

Getting to Diboll was no problem; it was a clear run and she was careful at pedestrian crossings and junctions to look for people coming from both sides so she wouldn’t get confused. Even the left-hand turns weren’t as bad as she had feared. She wandered around and somehow managed to find her way to the history centre and got lost in a mountain of old newspapers. Hunger finally stirred her from her reading. It was four p.m. already. Time she was heading back.

When Maeve got to the car, she saw her cell phone sitting on the seat where she left it when she had been using the sat. nav. system. She berated herself for her stupidity; talk about asking for a break-in. Picking it up, she saw five missed calls from Larry. She didn’t bother returning his calls as it would take less than ten minutes to get back to the ranch, even driving slowly. She edged out of the parking lot, getting her bearings again, remembering to drive on the right. There was some idiot tailgating her all the way; she had tried pulling over to let him pass, but he had only slowed down too.

All went well until she was within a mile of the ranch where she came across some cattle that had broken out onto the road. Maeve instinctively reached for the clutch to drop down a gear, but of course there was no clutch and she ended up pressing down pretty sharply on the brake, causing the tailgater to rear-end her. Fortunately nobody was hurt and there was only slight bumper damage to both cars, but this delayed the journey still further as the sheriff had to be called in. He sent the idiot packing, saying he could expect a claim from Larry’s insurance company, but he insisted on driving back to Larry’s behind Maeve.

When Maeve pulled up at the ranch, she was totally unprepared for the scene that met her. And it didn’t help that she was accompanied by the local sheriff. Larry was pacing the yard, shouting into his phone.

“It’s all right, Clive, she’s here, call off the search,” he yelled as she opened the door. The sheriff stepped out of his car simultaneously.

“Hi, Larry, this little lady seems to have had a small accident in your car. Riley was following her to see who was driving your car and the asshole—pardon me, ma’am—was driving too close.”

“Shit, Maeve, are you ok?” Larry interrupted him. She nodded as the sheriff continued.

“Not much harm done. She was rear-ended a little, but since she was in your car with a strange-sounding accent, I thought I’d just look in to ensure she really was a houseguest of yours.”

Once the initial relief of her return and the shock of the accident had passed, Larry’s fury returned.

“I thought I told you
not
to take the car out until I brought you for a test run,” he scolded. “I have half the ranch out looking for you and now we’re behind in our work. Why didn’t you answer your cell?”

“Sorry, I forgot it in the car and I only saw your calls when I was ready to leave, and then I thought I’d be back within a few minutes. I never thought.”

“Go inside, we’ll talk about this in private,” he warned, mortifying her in front of the sheriff. She went up to his bedroom in a sulk until he followed her.

“Get ‘em off,” he growled, pointing at her pants.

“No!” she replied firmly. “You have no right.”

“No, maybe I don’t, but you’re gonna get it anyway, either now, or later, when you ask for it. I’ll be pissed at you and you’ll be sulking with me until you do ask; maybe in a few hours or maybe even days. If you leave it until that, it’s an extra ten strokes with the belt on top the rest of the spanking.”

Maeve realised it was true; the silent fighting would be torture and she would come back for it later just like she had before. There was something about his tone and the threat of worse to come that cut right through her resistance. His anger was almost palpable and his masterful manner made her weak, both with desire to earn back his approval and in truth with a darker submissive desire, a need to cede to his control. In spite of her anger and sense of injustice, she could still feel her pussy throb even as she trembled. It was as if she was almost hypnotised into submission and she started fumbling with the button on her trousers, muttering “Ok.”

Before Maeve had time to reconsider, Larry had grabbed her and upended her across his knee, roughly pulling her trousers down without even opening the button, which popped off, rolling onto the floor. He started spanking, hard and fast, with no let-up. She couldn’t begin to keep count. Her breath was catching and she started crying as much from outrage and temper as pain. But he was taking no pity on her.

“You put your life and other people’s lives at risk,” he barked as he smacked.

“The accident was not my fault, you heard the sheriff,” she retorted angrily, earning her even harsher wallops.

“It may not have happened at all if you hadn’t disobeyed me. And you had me frantic with worry when a simple phone call would have solved that.”

Faster and harder the swats fell until she sobbed an apology, one she didn’t feel was entirely justified, but at that moment in time she’d have done almost anything to stop him. Not until he had her word that she wouldn’t do something like that again did he stop smacking and take her in his arms and comfort her. Maeve was surprised that the erotic sensation didn’t follow immediately as it usually did. Nor did she want his comfort. She was feeling somewhat miffed at the injustice of it all.

“I need a bath and little time to myself, if that’s ok,” she said, pulling away. He decided it was wisest to let her go.

As Maeve shut herself in the bathroom, she wondered if she really was ok with being punished like that. It seemed hot during sex, and even in her fantasy world, but when it came down to it, she certainly didn’t believe Larry was any closer to perfect than she was and it bloody hurt. And yet, in spite of her current discomfort, she did feel more at ease, even though she felt it was unfair. If there was one feeling in the world Maeve couldn’t deal with, it was guilt, and for her the biggest benefit of being punished was that she seemed to be better able to let go of it. And almost as soon as admitting her emotions, the pain became pleasure, an illicit thrill that coursed through her body fuelling desire. Now she wanted him. She called out his name, hoping he would hear. She climbed into the tub gingerly; while her yearning might make her feel good, there was no escaping the fact that a scorched ass submerging into a hot tub was something to be taken by degrees.

Maeve lay back in the tub, eyes closed. She heard the door click but she didn’t stir; she knew it had to be Larry. She heard his footfall and breathing come closer first, then she smelled his distinct manly smell and spicy aftershave. Still she didn’t open her eyes; it was kind of erotic relying on her other senses. Next she felt his strong hands massaging her shoulders, easing the tension out of them. Neither spoke but rather relied on touch. She leaned forward to allow his hands to massage lower down her back. She felt his hands guide her body forward more and she put her own hands on the base of the bath to steady her. His touch moved lower and instinctively she knew what he wanted so she got up on her knees. She was relaxed and open to his unspoken guidance, switching to a position of all fours, her eyes still tightly shut.