Personal Shopper (5 page)

Mr. Crane pulled
out a large paddle from the box. Burned on the side in crude letters were the
words "The Enforcer."

Laura didn't
mean to gasp, but she did. "Good Lord!" she said.

Mr. Crane laughed.
"It's impressive, isn't it?" He turned it from side to side, admiring it. It
was not especially large, about two-feet long including the handle, or
especially thick, maybe a half an inch. But it looked like it was well worn.

"I imagine this
humble paddle frightened a lot of school children into their best behavior."

"I can only
imagine," said Laura. "It scares me and I'm 32."

Mr. Crane pulled
out a long narrow box from beneath the shelf and laid the paddle inside,
carefully wrapping tissue paper around it as if it were made of glass. "You
must have been spanked a lot as a child to have such a reaction."

"Actually, just
once," Laura replied. And it was true. The most memorable time had been when
she was around six or seven. She and another little girl at their private
Christian school had been caught passing notes, something the other girl told
her "big girls" did, based on credible intelligence she'd received from an
older sister, a seventh grader.

Mrs. Wells, the
teacher, determined that her class was not going to adopt the evil ways of the
kids on the second floor, decided to make an example of the two miscreants. So
Laura and her friend were forced to stand in front of the class, bend over Mrs.
Wells' desk and endure three smacks with her paddle.

In retrospect,
Laura realized the woman hadn't hit them very hard. But the humiliation and
discomfort was enough to cure her of note-passing for the remainder of her
academic life.

"Let's just say
I'm glad to be an adult," she laughed as Mr. Crane handed her the paddle.

"Oh, adults
aren't immune from corporal punishment," Mr. Crane said. "It's still practiced
in some societies and even in some traditional homes."

Laura considered
this for a moment. "Not here. Not in the United States," she said with
certainty.

Mr. Crane shook
his head. "Don't be so sure. You might have friends whose husbands care enough
for them to offer correction once in a while. A sound spanking is hardly the
same thing as a violent slap or punch, you know. Most parents spank their
children and love them very much. A man who spanks his wife likely does as
well."

Laura didn't
spank Evan, but didn't tell the man so. In fact, she found herself very eager
to end the conversation. She was blushing deeply and didn't know why. Hurriedly
she asked Mr. Crane how much she owed him.

"Oh wait," he
said before he took the money. "Mr. Greenway may also be interested in this. He
pulled out a leather strap. It was in the same lot. Apparently this was in the
schoolmaster's home, although he didn't have kids. He was married, though. I
don't know if Mr. Greenway has one of these." He handed Laura the strap. She
accepted it as someone might accept a snake.

"You can just
put it in the box," she said.

"Very well," Mr.
Crane said, smiling his thin, mysterious smile again.

Laura looked
around uncomfortably as she waited for Mr. Crane to write out the receipt in
precise, almost feminine penmanship.

On the way out,
she stopped to admire a few period pieces Mr. Crane had for sale. He stopped at
each one she noticed, giving her a brief history, before walking to her car and
opening the door for her.

He made sure her
taillights could be seen going around the corner before he picked up his cell
phone.

"Hello,
Max, Crane here.
How are you? Yes, yes, she's already picked it up. I'd say her reaction was
charming. She was clearly unsettled by it but didn't exhibit any aversion that
should keep you from moving forward." He laughed. "Yes, yes indeed. I agree she
deserves to be punished.
And protected.
She's a pretty
little thing. You two would make a nice couple."

Chapter
Four

Max Greenway
hung up the phone and smiled. Since Laura McCaffrey had walked out of his house
the night before he'd been able to think of nothing else.

He'd admired
that she'd been straight with him about what had happened with her money. There
were
any number of lies she could have told. She could
have told him her purse had been stolen or even that she'd lost the money. Both
lies would have been unoriginal, but he'd have likely given her the benefit of
the doubt given her fine reputation.

But she hadn't
lied. She'd told him the truth, in the process offering up more information
than she'd intended to - information that led Max Greenway to one conclusion:
she needed a man like him in her life.

He wanted to be
that man.

Laura McCaffrey
was no Prissy Able. She was committed to excellence and wanted to succeed not
just in her business life but her personal life as well; that was evident
through her devotion to Evan. But she was afraid - afraid to make waves and
ruffle feathers - even when she needed to do just that very thing in her own self-interest.
And while he knew she had it in her, Laura needed a strong arm to lead on to
help give her the courage she needed. She needed a guide, a protector. She
needed him.

And Max Greenway
was a man who knew something about following his instincts when he saw
something he wanted. All his life, he'd let his gut lead him. His gut had told
him that dropping out of college and coming back to help his family was the right
course. It was. His gut had told him that he could continue his dad's roofing
business. It had. His gut told him that going with the security business would
be his ticket to success. It had.

Now his gut was
telling him that Laura McCaffrey was a woman worth pursuing. But he didn't want
to make the same mistakes with her he'd made with Prissy Able. He'd started out
by bailing her out before he'd decided to establish himself as the authority.
He wasn't going to do that with Laura. He wanted to establish himself as the
authority from the get-go.

He'd sought
advice from Crane, his longtime friend, even as Laura had been on her way to
his shop. Crane had been in the spanking scene for a long time, and while he
was a slight, rather effeminate man that many people assumed was gay, he was a
sought after heterosexual dominant whose silky voice and aristocratic demeanor
belied a steely side that submissive women loved.

Max had met
Crane during a brief foray in the local scene, but even after he decided it
wasn't for him, the two had remained good friends. He'd run the idea of his
plans for Laura by Crane and the antiques dealer promised to give Max an
accurate assessment of his feelings on it after he'd met her. Obviously, he
still thought Max was wise to move forward.

The only wild
card
laying
how she'd react. He knew she might
consider him a flake and walk out of his life once and for all. But Max wanted
it all - the perfect woman in the ideal structure, with him as the leader. It
was a chance he was willing to take.

He knew it was a
risk. Max knew it would bother him if she Laura ever thought of him as Prissy
Able had - resenting his guidance when he really only had the best intentions.
While aesthetically, seeing Prissy over his knee was something he never tired
of, his satisfaction was secondary when it came to punishment spankings.

The last one she
got from him was for three bounced checks. He'd always impressed upon her the
importance of getting money into her terminally low checking account before 2
p.m. and, more importantly, the importance of writing down all her checks so
she wouldn't have a problem in the first place. But Prissy hadn't listened.

It was a warm
Wednesday afternoon when he heard her yell "
Damnit
!"
from the foyer of her apartment and walked from the living room to find her
reading the notice. He'd been irritated that she had cursed - an offense that
always got her at least two hard swats over her blue jeans.

But he knew he'd
have to do much more than that when he saw her standing there looking with
typical shock at the bank notice.

Max had walked
over and took it from her as she began her usual litany of excuses, which had
grown to include a vast banking conspiracy against her.

She knew even as
she babbled that her stalwart boyfriend was having none of it.

"There's no
excuse for this," Max told Prissy, snatching the notice from her hand and
shaking it at her. "You've been told and told but for some reason you never
seem to want to improve until you're threatened with a punishment spanking."

"Well maybe they
just don't work!" Prissy had shot back and
Max,
and
Max had felt his irritation grow at her defiance.

"Well, maybe
that means I haven't spanked you hard enough to get through to you." He'd
picked her up then, bodily, and carried her down the hall to her bedroom.
Prissy had squealed and wriggled as he approached her bed, but he'd ignored
her, determined this time to spank some sense into her pretty blonde head.

The bed creaked
slightly when he sat down on the quilt coverlet, moving far back enough to make
sure both the front and back of her body were supported. Max knew this was
going to be the most serious spanking she had gotten from him and he didn't
want to keep having to reposition her as she flailed. Having her body supported
would help him keep from losing his grip.

As usual, Prissy
was wearing blue jeans, so Max worked his hand under her belly and deftly
unsnapped them. It took a little effort to pull them down. Prissy favored tight
jeans. Max usually appreciated them until it came time to spank her. Each time
he wrestled to remove them he made a mental note to require looser clothing
around the house. But when he saw her tight round ass outlined in denim, his
resolve broke.

Prissy struggled
harder when she felt him slip her panties down to join the jeans bunched at her
knees, but Max ignored her and started her spanking, bringing his hard palm
down squarely across both cheeks.

He watched the
red outline of his hand blossom against her skin before adding another just
below it Prissy bucked as he continued but couldn't evade the hand that came
down over and over, each slap flattening the springy flesh briefly before each
deepening shade of red followed in its wake.

Max had learned
how to read
Prissy's
"signs" during a spanking. She
was the master of the fake cry, and she was so good he'd actually been fooled
during a few spankings. Prissy was crying now, but he knew it wasn't genuine.
She had a high pain tolerance and the fake crying meant she was hurting bad
enough to want him to stop before she reached her boundaries.

That wasn't
going to happen this time.

"Stand up," he
ordered, and marched Prissy over to the corner. He knew she hated having to
stand there, nose pressed into the corner with her bottom on display. But
again, he told her she'd later thank him when she realized such humiliations
were a deterrent to failing to balance her checkbook.

He stood there
watching Prissy for a moment.

"I don't think
you're sufficiently sorry yet," he said.

"I am too, Max,"
she sniffed, but he could hear the surliness in her voice just the same.

"Come here,
Prissy." he said.

Prissy turned
and whimpered at what she saw; Max had removed his heavy leather belt and was
standing there holding it in his hand.

"
Nooo
!" said Prissy when she saw it, and Max smiled to herself.
Now he had gotten her attention.

"Yes," he said,
grasping her arm and pulling her back to the bed. "You're going to learn,
Prissy. You're going to learn that when I tell you something, I'm not telling
you for my health but because I expect you to listen." He bent her over the
bed. When she tried to stand back up, he pushed her down. "Don't you dare," he
said.

Prissy whimpered
as Max ran his hand across her bottom. "I'm tired of playing at this, Prissy,"
he said. "I've been reluctant to really spank you hard because I've been
reluctant to cause you any more pain than I have to, but you've left me no
choice in the matter."

When Max began
to use the strap, he intended to send a message. He wasn't gentle, and brought
the strap down until
Prissy's
fake cries dissolved
into genuine screams and continuing beyond that until the fight left her and
she bawled helplessly.

She'd cried for
a long time - a very long time - and there was no denying that he'd made an
impression. But the outcome had not been as he'd hoped. The spanking had caused
resentment, and Max realized that he had erred in not really being sure that
Prissy was with the program when he'd implemented it.

Max didn't want
a similar situation with Laura. Of course, he knew he was getting ahead of himself.
He didn't even know if she was interested in him. He was looking forward to
finding out.

***