Page 357 of Dirty Discipline, Vol. 1

Jerking her hand out of the blond man’s grasp, she shouted, “No, I’m not okay!” She thrust an accusing finger at her unwelcome companion. “I don’t know who this man is, but he’s crazy as a loon! I am not looking for my father, because my father’s dead!” she barked up into the frowning blonde’s face. “And that was no six-foot-tall, hairy, eight-legged bunny I saw scampering in front of my truck. It was a spider!”

The man beside her sighed and ran a hand through his hair. The two officers looked at one another, and Audrey stamped her foot, shouting up at the tree tops, “And the world has until the count of five to switch back into color, by God! One!” She cast the night sky a baleful glare and her whole body bounced as she tapped her foot with impatient patience. “Two,” she warned the heavens.

Adjusting their hats, the two officers grabbed her. Audrey was handcuffed for her own protection and put into the back of their patrol car. Before one of the officers closed the door, the strange man came over and squatted down beside her.

Very calmly and very matter-of-factly, he said, “I have waited fifty years for a non-movie generated co-star. If I have to wait another fifty years for you to get your lines right, I’m going to be really, really cross with you.”

She stuck her tongue out at him, but as she looked angrily away, for a moment she couldn’t seem to make her lungs inhale. The sensation of breathing in a vacuum came again. It lasted less than a second before her stomach seemed to drop to her toes, much like riding the downhill curve of a roller coaster, and the whitest, brightest light exploded all around her.

Suddenly, Audrey was back in the crashed truck, staring at the steering wheel, which was clenched tightly in her no-longer-cuffed hands. The radiator was still hissing in front of the pine tree, and the police lights flashed rhythmically through the rear window, occasionally lighting up the interior around her in all its black and white glory.

She glanced in the rearview mirror. The two police officers were still talking to one another back on the road, as though nothing had happened, as though they hadn’t just cuffed her and put her in the back of the squad car.

Tap-tap-tap.

The strange man was back. Leaning his shoulder against the truck, his smile turned slightly weary. “Let’s not try to make this any more difficult than it already has to be, all right?”

Audrey scrambled sideways out from behind the steering wheel and shoved open the passenger door. As fast as she could, she took off running into the surrounding woods.

The police yelled for her to stop, but it was the immediate set of footsteps that came crashing through the leaves and brush behind her that put wings on her feet. The man had given chase, and despite her best efforts, she could hear he was catching up.

It wasn’t a very exciting escape attempt. It was an old forest, vastly overgrown and dense, with fallen trees and rotting stumps, all covered in moss and ferns.

He caught up to her, half-laughing as though unsure whether he ought to be amused or annoyed. “Okay, hang on…”

But there was no such thing as ‘hanging on’ when the entire world went suddenly crazy. When he tried to take hold of her arm, she swung around on him fist first. She missed his nose by a good eight inches, but the attempt alone was enough to leech some of the amusement from his eyes. His face took on a sterner expression.

“Have you lost your mind?” he demanded, and grabbed both of her arms to keep her from hitting him again. “I’m trying to help you.”

She couldn’t slug him, so she stepped on his foot instead—hard. When he let go of her with a shout and grabbed his own calf, she threw a leg over the top of the log in a renewed bid for freedom.

“All right, damn it. That’s enough.” The man grabbed the back of her shirt, pulling her back off the fallen tree. Catching her shoulders, he shook her once, the look in his eyes now anything but amused. “That hurt! Now, I know you’re scared—”

“Let go!” She stomped rapidly and angrily at his feet.

“Ow!” Through gritted teeth, he growled, “I’m trying to be patient with you, but I swear, if you do that one more time, I’m going to put you over my knee.”

She actually stopped fighting him for all of two seconds. Then her eyes narrowed and she kicked him smartly in the shin.

“Ow! That’s it!” he snapped and sat down on the log. “If this is the only way you’re going to settle down and listen to me, then fine. We’ll do it the hard way.”

The next thing Audrey knew, she was face-down across his lap and he had both her legs pinned between his own. Her jaw dropped and her eyes widened in shock when she felt his open hand connect sharply with the seat of her pants. “Hey!”

It didn’t hurt exactly, although it did sting. And maybe if he’d only left off with the one swat, it might not have developed into something more painful. But he didn’t leave off. In fact, he kept right on walloping her, his palm cracking across her rapidly warming bottom with Levi-muffled smacks and pops that turned that slight stinging sensation into a full-blown burning ache with unbearable quickness.

As her level of discomfort increased, so did the volume on her protests. “Stop! Let go of me!”

She beat her fist against his leg and swung her elbow back, trying to catching him in the side. It wasn’t very effective as far as self-defense went, and frankly, he was doing more damage with the fire he was vigorously paddling into her behind.

“I know you’re scared,” he started again, his hand never once breaking the angry tattooing rhythm he was delivering. “So was I when I first came here, but if you don’t stop fighting me and start listening, we might damn well be here forever!”

“Ow! Ow!” The warmth in her jeans had become a bonfire of heat, the steady smacks of his hand imparting very real shocks of pain each time it landed. “Stop, please!” she yelped and squirmed. Her distress growing, she tried to reach back with her free hand and grab his arm. “No more, please! Ow!”

“Oh no, you don’t.” He caught her wrist. “You wouldn’t settle down when I tried to talk to you, so now you’re going to do your listening like this.”

“Okay, okay!” Audrey bucked, desperate to twist her bottom out of his reach. “I’ll listen, I swear!”

He pulled her until she was centered over his knee, making her bottom an even better target and dropping her nose that much closer to the earthy ground. And he kept right on spanking, his hand seeming to grow harder and his swats more painful as he lectured, “Like it or not, we’re stuck with each other and without a whole lot of choices. So, you can either cooperate and make this easier on the both of us. Or you can continue acting like a little pain in the butt, and I’ll tell you right here and now, I’ve got no problem returning the favor.”

---