Breaking the Workaholic

"Can't you just spank me and we'll get back to work?"

John blinked slowly at his lanky young subordinate before telling her, "Sarah, I don't know how I should respond to that."

"Well, I do. I don't see why not. You've given everyone else around here a second chance. Or a third, or more, seems like."

"Yes, well, I didn't..."

"Spank them first?"

"Sarah, maybe you should stop saying that. If you want another chance, you've got it. But not another chance to do this again. You put yourself in danger – serious danger," he recounted, stopping rather than elaborating further. "No project, no schedule is worth that, ever. That level of risk is unacceptable." The way he bit off that word conveyed a level of disapproval she had never imagined.

"But with this on my record, my career is over," Sarah argued. This can't be happening, she thought to herself. Four years she'd tried to ask him, bring it up somehow, and it doesn't even register; twenty-five years she'd waited to ask someone, find someone she could ask. Now she just wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. Except that he'd probably find her. If he even bothered to look. "I'll be stuck at this level forever."

"I can't help that," John explained dispassionately.

"You could if you didn't put it in my file," she snapped. But that would be wrong, he's thinking, she told herself. How could she be asking him to do something like that – something outside the rules? He was the guy who lived for the rules. Rules and ratios, pressures and temperatures, carefully controlled reactions. Just like her. So he should understand, right? Wrong. As usual. Correction. As always. Why would she expect an uncontrolled reaction?

"Sarah, I can't." End of story, his voice said.

Not even for me? she wanted to ask – except that she knew the answer - and didn't want to hear him say it. "Why not?" Having already thoroughly humiliated herself, like she seemed to every time she opened her mouth, she was now angry as well – angry and disappointed. In herself. "I've given you an option," she reminded him. If I cry, she promised, I'll shoot myself.

"But not one I can exercise," John rebutted, regarding her flared nostrils and clenched teeth with rising but hidden alarm. Usually by this point she had withdrawn, disengaged, and the subject of personal interaction remained closed until her next, infrequent outburst.

"You still haven't told me why not," Sarah pressed. Seeing his discomfort, now she wanted to punish him, keep him on the subject that so obviously distressed him.

"Because you work for me," he stated simply, rationally, and definitively.

"So you're saying I should transfer," she retorted easily, being by nature contrary.

"Because you work here," John expanded conclusively as his phone vibrated, diffusing the situation. His relief was infinite.

Except that Sarah reached it first, covering the buzzing device with her hand. His hand slapped down on hers, nearly crushing it in his tense grip.

"Sarah!?!" he growled in amazement and horror. The "rule" was that they always answered their phones. Something might have happened.

"Don't you see the irony in this?" she spit at him. "You can't spank me because I work here. If you don't I have to quit. What, you think you can spank me then?" The vibrating had stopped, except for the vein along his jaw.

"Then there would be no reason for me to," his ever-rational voice explained as he struggled to regain his composure. "Then you'd just be another stranger on the street."

As soon as he said it John realized his mistake, with no idea how to recover. Sarah didn't just start to cry, she doubled over in her chair as if from physical pain. He let go of her hand. His phone buzzed again to signal that a voice mail, presumably from the missed call, had been recorded. With a Herculean effort he ignored it.

All his life John had been more comfortable in silence than conversation. Music was okay, perhaps, it was just – other people. But this was not a comfortable silence. His mouth gaped as he tried to best phrase the words "I'm sorry."

Sarah didn't even look up, turning before rising and moving to the door where she held it ajar. "I'll be resigning," she informed her supervisor levelly. "Stranger."

John rose suddenly. "Sarah, close that door," he barked. Though startled she didn't comply, electing merely to stop and cock her head, listening.

"Leave if you want," John accepted, "but I have something to say to you. Before you go."

Sarah closed the door quietly and returned to her chair, standing with her hand on its back.

"Sarah, I brought you into this job," John reminded her. "I trained you. I – I taught you. I haven't asked you for anything except what the job demands. You owe me one favor."

"That's just bullshit," Sarah stated baldly. An eerie calm had come over her. "A minute ago I was a stranger – or at least I will be a minute from now. I had a job, and you needed me. I knew plenty when I got here and I couldn't have helped learning, wherever I had ended up. I'm much better at my job now and yes, you've been a huge part of that. But I've also given this job everything I have and you seem to think because maybe it's my job that means you don't ever have to say thank you or show any appreciation at all. Because you haven't. I've worked so much overtime that I haven't had to use a vacation day since I got here four years ago – I've taken it all on comp time. Yes, you've always tried to be fair and you've always done whatever you thought was best for me and I appreciate that so thank you. And if you want a favor all you have to do is ask – all you've ever had to do is ask. But I've earned my way every day I've been here." She paused for an unsteady breath as John watched from a state of shock. "I don't owe you anything." As she reached to push her lank auburn hair away from her face her tears continued to slowly slip down her cheeks and she let them. Without the four years of frustration inside of her she felt strangely hollow.

"Sarah, I'm your boss. I know how much vacation time you have – I'm supposed to. If you want to resign, I can't stop you," John conceded.

"No, you can't," Sarah agreed, holding her breath.

"I'd like you to take that vacation now. When you find another job, you can turn in your resignation then. If you change your mind, you just come back to work, and none of this ever happened."

Sarah stood frozen. I want to die, she thought. No, she corrected herself, I want to cease to exist. To have never existed. Or maybe I never have.

"Sarah?" John asked the silent woman, "I want you to do this as a personal favor to me." No reply. "Please."

"I'm leaving now," was all she could say.


*****


For four years Sarah had been there every day, or nearly so. When she spoke of taking comp days she'd referred to a few scattered instances when she'd maxed out on overtime. John, being exempt, had not needed to even do that. She was as much a part of his day as dinner – in fact, a bigger and more consistent part than dinner, which they had so often shared, skipped, or worked through. And John was not one to like change. He supposed he'd have to replace her but chose not to think about it – he could replace her, probably, in some fashion, on his staff but not in his life. Maybe it wouldn't come to that. And maybe they needed some time apart. It was probably better for both of them.

But she also had four years' accumulated vacation – twelve weeks, John thought, as he filled out a timecard to process her paycheck in absentia. And there was no way for him to know if she was ever coming back, no way to know if she'd even honor their agreement – his request, actually – and inform him if she really resigned. He wondered what he'd put nine weeks from now – unpaid leave? Short-term disability? Not really disability – Sarah was certainly able enough. And it might be inaccurate to call it "short-term." So, was she coming back? He didn't know. He didn't know if she'd found a new job. She was presumably alive – no one had reported finding her body, he thought grimly - but he didn't know if she'd moved or so much as left her apartment in the past three weeks. Technically, he was her supervisor – still – and he should know these things. It was his job. And that, he told himself, is how to make a rationalization.

Sarah had said that he'd always done "what he thought" was best for her and he had, he hoped. Of course, in the past it had been very easy to decide, even in a split-second. Now, three weeks had given him no insight. The staff had suffered little because he, who wasn't sleeping anyway, had carried her load; but how long could that go on? His own performance was starting to slip and every deferrable task was piled up around him, doubling the height of the administrative corral that encircled his desktop.


*****


"Hi, I'm John H___, Mr. Stevens?" he introduced himself to the super, a hunched man who would be overworked by little work at all. "I wonder if you can help me. I'm looking for Sarah M___ but she doesn't seem to be in her apartment. Have you happened to see her around lately?"

"I don't think I can tell you that," the unit manager advised him, locking the door behind himself as he left the complex office. "Who are you?" Though appearing to not normally be a very attentive person, he studied John's face as if preparing to reproduce it for a police sketch-artist.

"I'm her boss," John explained firmly, choosing logic over persuasion, as always.

"If you were her boss I'd think you'd know where she is," the cagey Mr. Stevens challenged.

"And why would that be? Do you mean because she's on vacation?" John suddenly remembered that she might no longer live there – very unlike him to forget such a thing, or to forget to check the mailbox for her name. Apparently he'd taken a day off just in time. "Can you just tell me if she's been around?"

"Do you know or don't you? If she's on vacation, what are you doing here? I've never seen my boss on my vacation, I'm glad to say, and I surely don't ever intend to."

"An emergency's come up at work," John patiently explained, "and I need to see if she is available to help." That statement was true enough, John assured himself – they'd been running a person low and the situation was about to get critical. And here he was, not at work, putting himself further behind. "She'd be paid overtime."

"I should be so lucky. She's not here," Mr. Stevens finally admitted, "She's gone."

Once, long ago, John had tried to play pee-wee football. At an early practice, before pads were issued, he'd taken a shoulder in the solar plexus, knocking the wind out of him. Today made twice.

"On vacation, just as you say," the super continued.

Okay, John thought to himself, feeling a sudden touch of vertigo. She's gone but on vacation. "Do you know if she's coming back?" he asked. The insistence with which he asked startled the man.

"She didn't confide in me," he answered, regarding the unusual question and hesitating slightly.

John waited in silence, but not patiently. "Yes?" he finally prompted.

"Her rent's paid, her car's here, I can tell you that," Stevens continued.

John's relief was so enormous that he felt light-headed – oddly, sort of like he had when he thought she might be gone for good. Of course, he should have checked for her car himself. Maybe he should take tomorrow off as well.

"What might it be worth to you?" the super implied clearly.

"Ahaaa," John breathed, grabbing quickly for his wallet, then pausing in dismay. "All I seem to have is a twenty." The idea that Sarah's apartment manager would sell her personal information revolted him but since the man would John found himself a willing, if change-deprived, customer.

"That'll do," Mr. Stevens agreed, taking the bill from John's unresisting fingers. "Ms. M," as he referred to her, "said that if a man comes asking and gives me money, to tell him to talk to Tracy in one-fourteen."

"And is she here?" John pressed, hoping that he wouldn't have to go to an ATM to track "Tracy" down.

"Tracy's at work, gets back about five, five-thirty. I don't have her cell, or I'd give it to you."

Free? John resisted asking. "Then I suppose I should come back around then," he concluded. "One more thing, just because I'm curious - did Sarah say how much money I was supposed to give you?"

"Any amount," the manager cheerfully replied. "Coulda been a quarter. 'Cept you didn't have a quarter."


*****


Four-thirty saw the over-dressed John sunning himself in a pool chair, his eyes glued to the door of apartment one-fourteen. With Mr. Stevens' blessing he felt no need to be surreptitious, and he pulled the bill of his cap down only to avoid the lowering sun. He had a selection of bills in his wallet and even a quarter in his pocket so he felt ready, in that sense. As far as talking he had no idea what to say – if it came down to that, he would just have to hope for the best.

It's Wednesday night, he reminded himself after most of an hour. Unless she goes grocery shopping, she should be home in fifteen minutes – assuming the super was accurate as to times, which he doubted. Even so, better than Friday night or even Thursday, when some people go out after work. Taco Tuesday? He didn't know of any Wednesday happy-hours, but then, he wouldn't. Had he needed to, he would have asked Sarah. He was not a patient man. He didn't like waiting. He should have brought something to do, except that he hadn't wanted to be distracted. Maybe he needed to be distracted more often.

At quarter to six a young woman approached the door of 114. John, not wanting to frighten her, resisted his impulse to jump up and address her before she got inside. Mindful of this, he waited until the door closed before going over himself, but upon ringing the door buzzer, no one answered. The apartment didn't look that big, it seemed like she must have heard it, so after a long thirty seconds he buzzed again, again without result. He retreated and leaned against the pool fence, counting to himself in his effort to delay his next attempt as the two passing minutes twisted his nerves into cables.

"Oh there you are," the pretty blonde exclaimed as she opened the door. She was about Sarah's age but petite and friendly, and still dressed for an office. "I'm so sorry, I just had to run in and, well, you know..."

"You were expecting me?" John asked her. Something about her pricked at his memory – had he ever seen her with Sarah? He didn't really associate Sarah with anyone outside of work.

"Well I saw you out by the pool and I figured you were here to see me, but when you didn't get up, I thought if I hurried it'd be okay."

"You are Tracy, right?"

"Yes – did you want to come in?"

"I could, if you'd like," John agreed, still a little mystified.

"Sarah's told me your name but I've forgotten it, I'm afraid. I'm so sorry," Tracy apologized.

"John H___. So you know me?"

"Well, I know you're Sarah's boss, I've seen you around – I pick her up sometimes when her car's in the shop, you know? You didn't think I invite a strange man right in, did you?"

"Well, you did this one," John said, trying to make it sound light.

"I didn't mean strange in that way," Tracy teased ambiguously with a bright smile. "Would you like something to drink, or should I just tell Sarah you came by?"

"So she's okay, and you're in touch with her?" John asked a little too insistently.

"Oh yes," she assured him.

"And can you tell me where she is?"

"Oh no," she replied with equal brightness.

"Do you need money?" John asked suddenly.

"What? No, why?"

"I just thought Sarah may have told you I'd offer you money," John tried to explain, feeling somewhat foolish. Starting to feel very foolish. Here he was, a – let's face it – middle-aged man on a wild-goose-chase after a young woman who should find herself a nice husband and have a family like she would want.

"She only said 'probably,'" Tracy laughed. "No, she just said to call her."

"Wonderful. May I have her number? She doesn't seem to be answering her cell phone – at least not the one from her work."

"No, no, I mean she said for me to call her. And I will."

"Well thank you," John said sincerely – he had long learned to recognize a steadfast position when someone took one. "Soon, I hope?" He wanted to kick himself, but he hadn't been able to resist asking.

"Soon as we're done here – can't have you peeking," she smiled. "Did you want to leave your card? I'll call you at the office tomorrow."

"This is it, here," he said, producing it from an inside pocket with a magician's flourish and pointing. "My personal and cell numbers are on there, too – you can call me immediately."

"Thanks."

"No, thank you. Tell Sarah I said...." With no idea what to say next, he floundered. "Tell Sarah I said 'hi.'"

"Or maybe just that you stopped by," Tracy suggested.


*****


Thursday morning John had been at his desk for two hours when Tracy's call came through.

"Mr. H___? Sarah says she'll be back and why don't you come by Saturday around ten?" Tracy reported, and the grin in her voice carried easily across the wires. John felt foolish again and tried to think of exactly how he looked yesterday at the apartment complex. Tired, he had to conclude. Meaning old. He'd slept well last night for once, maybe that would change, he thought hopefully. He looked balefully around his office. He could still work Saturday afternoon.

"Tracy?" he asked. "Did she say anything else?"

"Well actually, she said come by Saturday at ten o'clock straight up. If that matters to you."

"It matters," John told her quietly. Sarah would always be on his wavelength, and she had wanted to remind him of it. His face crackled as he tried to smile for the first time in nearly four weeks.


*****


It had been a distracted forty-nine hours John had spent since Tracy's call, distracted enough that three people each asked him if things were alright at home before realizing their obvious mistake. Ten o'clock was an odd time for people who rise at four; too long after breakfast, a little too early for lunch. John wondered if he should have brought a snack – Sarah'd been gone, she'd have nothing in the house. Or flowers, maybe. No, wait – he was obviously not thinking clearly at all – he didn't even know what the purpose of his visit was, let alone where it was going – or even what "it" was.

Unlike Tracy, Sarah opened the door before he even buzzed, having heard his tread as he climbed the outside stairs. She flashed a dazzling smile - imperfect, uncorrected, uniquely Sarah.

"John! Welcome," her voice wrapped around him, though he recognized the note as unnatural. "Long time, stranger," she kidded awkwardly, and John smiled just as awkwardly.

"Sarah – you look so..."

"Tanned?" she prompted, pressing the door closed, leaning back against it. Terrific. Beautiful. Young and in full blossom. Rested, happy, glowing.

"Healthy," John settled on. Yes, she was tan – that explains why her teeth look so white, he realized, but the smile was still unfamiliar. "It's really good to see you."

"Yes, I heard you wanted to. Wesley and Rick both on vacation next week, is that it?"

"Oh, have you been talking to them?" John asked, feeling a pang of – jealousy? Being left out? People with a secret he wasn't in on? Kindergarten memories threatened.

"Naw, I just knew their schedules. So how much did you have to pay the super?" she teased.

"Twenty," John admitted, feeling a flood of embarrassment. He'd let the money go pretty easily and may have been prepared to pay more, if need be.

"Dollars?" she said, incredulous, "Ouch – sorry. What, you didn't have anything smaller?" One glance at John's expression confirmed this. "I told him not to rob you."

"So, Sarah – you look good," John said carefully. "Getting plenty of rest," – she nodded at this – "and plenty of sun, I can see." As the straps of her tank shifted he saw no gradation in the tone anywhere, not even below the neckline, as far as he could tell. He wondered how she looked under those cargo pants, until he caught himself.

"Oh yeah, this vacation's been great," Sarah bragged. "Just what I need." "Need," she said – not "needed," though at least she didn't say "so far."

"And paid, too – so not strapped for cash," John pointed out.

"Oh, nowhere close. Everyone's so glad to see me, I've spent nothing – just like when I was working. No, I've got a lot stashed away already – not that I need to tell you." True, John thought, with his modest needs and extensive savings he no longer needed to work – and was Sarah saying that she didn't either? Of course, he'd be bored out of his mind...

"September 16th. Four weeks," John counted, "You must be getting bored."

"Are you kidding? No way," she laughed, her phrasing reminding him of the gap in their ages. And he had never been able to use slang or current expressions of any kind – even the most common phrases sounded ridiculous coming from him. "I've got some classes, they're kickin' my butt."

"Classes? Just recently?" he asked, surprised. His position had been slipping away but intellectual stimulation was the pillar he'd rested it on. He'd always figured another job might take her away but work would have had to have kept her too busy for a school schedule.

"On line. Any place, any time. Grad classes, lakeside – just me, a laptop, and a cellular network card. Aromatic and Ring Hydrocarbons, Phase Behavior, and sunscreen."

"Well, good to hear you've been using protection – from the sun, I mean," John explained himself quickly. "So you've really got no reason to come back," he ventured.

"Maybe in a year or two, unless you really need me," she contended. It almost came out the way she wanted, which was casually, but she was listening attentively for his response.

John glanced around the compact living room. Two shelves of the bookcase were empty; three cardboard boxes sat full of books on the floor. Getting ready to move, perhaps. Something was wrong with his ears, he had a sensation of falling. "Sarah, we do need you," he told her.

"We?"

"Our operation. Our entire operation. Not just next week, all the time."

"And you?" her voice had gotten progressively more articulated - the honey had been as short-lived as he had expected, replaced by her native precision – and now she clearly intended to pin him down. "Do you need me, John?"

She remained in the corner against the door like a mounted butterfly. John half-turned and drifted the room, looking for words in the personality-deficient walls. "I don't need you," he said a bit too loudly, his back to her. Turning around he saw that she had her lips pressed together, tightly. "I want you. I'd like to have you back. I'll get along without you, if I have to – not very well, perhaps, but I will. But in terms of me, I want you to come back." That, he felt, was a true fact.

Sarah blushed deeply while tears pricked her eyes. I haven't cried since I left, she thought, not since September 16th. She let out a breath she'd been holding for years. "Do you, John?" she asked, wanting to hear more. "Do you want me to come back?"

"Sarah, I miss you. Without you I'm all alone there. Oh, plenty of people can do the work, but – well, none of them are you. If you don't mind me saying it, we're a lot alike."

"I don't mind you saying it," Sarah said softly, turning her face to the wall to hide her tears. Unnecessarily, since John was looking away as well. "And my file?" she challenged. "Is there a letter in my file?"

"Not exactly. The incident you're referring to is on a post-it note on my desk."

"So if I resign?" she asked carefully, nonetheless causing John's head to snap around, startled.

"It goes in the waste-basket," he avowed.

"And if I come back?" she demanded, and enjoyed the sense of relief she could read on John's face.

"It goes in the waste-basket," he repeated. "Same waste-basket, even."

"Then why does it need to be there at all?"

It was John's turn to blush. "It serves as a reminder," he pronounced severely, "that there are – unresolved issues between us."

"You need a reminder?" Sarah whispered, but he had no trouble hearing her.

"No," he spoke softly into her ear, "I want a reminder."

Sarah grasped him carefully, slowly turning the two of them around, putting John's back to the wall. He didn't resist. And then with a step she was gone, moving to the center of the room, between the coffee table and the low couch.

"In that case there's only one other issue left to be resolved," she declared.

"Sarah..." John growled warningly but with rising panic.

"If the answer was still no you wouldn't be here. Now get over here," Sarah commanded. "You asked me for a favor and I granted it. Now I'm asking you for one and you'll do the same. It took four weeks – over four weeks – for you to get here. This doesn't need to take all day." She watched John approach warily, pleased with his awareness that he couldn't talk his way out of it. "Though," she continued with a giggle, "It always could – if you'd like." Then, firm again, she insisted, "But we're going to get started right away."

John grasped Sarah's arms, lightly. Even barefoot she was tall enough to only need to tip her head slightly. John kissed her, slowly – carefully, precisely. Perfectly.

"Sit down!" she commanded again, reaching for the waist of her pants.

"Sarah, this would change everything between us," John protested softly as Sarah leaned back slightly. Instinctively John followed, until she stopped suddenly, causing them to collide. John pulled his body back sharply. His calves were against the edge of the couch and with a sharp push he was seated. An olive curtain suddenly dropped and his eyes were on level with the narrow strips securing Sarah's thong. He saw no evidence that she had been wearing it while sunbathing.

John leaned forward, resting his forehead on Sarah's hip, his nose practically on her thigh, soft despite how lean she was. "Sarah, I don't have to do this," he said, quietly.

"The hell you don't," Sarah retorted. "Push your knees out, give me some room." It was hard for him to argue with a limber young lady whose firm, narrow – well, "bottom," John supposed he should call it – rose so invitingly over his right thigh, practically under his right palm.

"John?" Sarah asked from floor-level, repeatedly trying to flick her hair out of her eyes. "Do I ever annoy you?"

"Annoy me?" John replied. Exhaust, entice, worry, distress, invigorate, inspire. Accompany, perhaps? "Not really," he admitted.

"Never?" she challenged, incredulous. "How about when I put myself in mortal danger?"

The words literally made John see red. "I don't want to think about that," he said. "At least, not right now."

Sarah gave a little shiver from that implication while demanding, "Then you'd better think of something else."

John licked his lips for the twentieth time in the last sixty seconds. Sarah's tank had ridden halfway up her back, displaying the tattoo at the base of her spine. Its curves accentuated the feminine shape of her angular frame, her waist smaller, her hips nicely wider than he had ever realized.

"How about..." John suggested slowly, "When you decide to sunbathe nude?"

"Hey no fair – there was no one else – ow! – around! – ow! really! yeow! hey! slow – ow! down! – ok! ow! bad idea! ow! sorry! ow! no, really! owwww!


(The End?)

The Woodshed

All my life I have traveled this route, with my parents or, in my college days, alone; with my fiancé now my husband and our two children. And someday, I know, what we call progress will overtake these rural farms but not now, not yet – for one more journey I've been granted a reprieve and the woodshed still stands.

It is not my woodshed in any sense but the site of unshared fantasies and so I cannot protect or preserve it except in my mind or pictures; I could never explain a desire to buy the property, more rundown each year and now so far removed from every other part of our lives but it is the sight of this lonely outbuilding that, more than anything, tells me I'm home.

This was not always the case because when I was young, when at age ten I first noticed it and began to watch for it, it signified that we were getting close, that the nearly hour-long car ride was nearly over, that soon we would be at grandma's house. My father had laughed and my mother, a confirmed urbanite, had scowled as he explained that one building, now long removed, was an outhouse; when I asked about a second building not much further along he had said it was a woodshed.

My father was older when he had children and his mother was already elderly and trips to grandma's were a visit to a long-gone world, with wood-burning stoves and a kitchen "hotter than the hinges of Hades," as he would complain; of hand-made quilts and down comforters on the beds of people not rich; of crockery and maple mixing spoons; and also of things remembered or rumored or whispered about – switches and razor strops and, yes, woodsheds.

I was in Advanced Reading and had heard of a woodshed, which in my mind had no other purpose than a place of corporal punishment, the thought of which affected me strangely. So common were my thoughts on the subject that the idea of having a separate building dedicated to it seemed not at all odd but perfectly reasonable. My first sight – my first conscious sight – of one was a revelation, in that it was so small; I had been imagined something more on the lines of a barn, at least a smallish one, maybe with a window, uncurtained but dark with cobwebs. And yet I was not disappointed, I just adjusted my thoughts to fit this reality – that rather than a tack room, walls hung with harnesses, hames, and seemingly-innocuous leather traces as long as a car, it was dark and private in sight and sound.

Doubtless the route from the interstate to the road to grandma's was dotted with numerous sheds, at least when I was ten; but having had one identified for me I was mortified at the thought of asking about any others and seeming to express an interest in them. So this first became my woodshed, my landmark. The first time I saw it a small girl was being led to it, having had a tantrum in church, still in her pretty dress and, presumably, frilly panties, an angry man in uncomfortable clothes and a thunderous scowl leading the way. The girl, who existed only in my mind, was not me – I had never had those curls and certainly not a tantrum and my skin was too sensitive for anything but the smoothest, unadorned underwear. Still I was spanked, on the bare, for this misbehavior, and lucky he used only his hand. Over the next six weeks I was spanked many times in that woodshed, apparently deeply angered by church services on a disturbingly regular basis.

At the tender age of twelve I contrived to take a picture of my woodshed, creating an entire hobby and dragging my overly-accommodating father up and down the highway for hours, shooting two rolls of film as cover while only daring a single shot of my secret obsession. But oh! what a shot it was, living inside my dresser drawer for three years before I managed to update it with one in focus. At least on the second trip I managed to have my father drop me off to wander up and down the highway alone; I shot one roll with three pictures of the shed, spread throughout the other photos so no one, not even the person who developed them, would suspect.

By that time I had developed a fascination for tight jeans and the strap, though my own jeans were seldom tight, my figure not cooperating with my fantasies. Still, country girls were sassy and ill-tempered and were always being told "that's it, you're getting the strap" or "you'll be getting the strap for that" to my uneasy delight. Like the built-for-purpose shed, the strap was a country creation to provide effective discipline, broad heavy leather, worse than any belt. At times my imagined plump rump was roasted right through the well-worn denim that stretched tightly across it; most often, though, they came down, with effort, peeled off like the second skin I intended them to be, bare skin leathered until I was squalling and bawling and then "given something to cry about." Once, even, I had so much trouble getting them off that I was given double for dawdling, which became a threat thereafter. Somehow, as if in a dream, these imaginings combined so that I received my strapping and its extensions on the bare while I still seemed to be sealed into my fictional jeans, which held in the heat so that I'd be "cooked in my own juice." For by then I well knew the source of my fascination, and each detailed imagining left me feeling like I had earned another spanking.

Also at fifteen my grandmother passed away, a time during which I spent days on end inside the woodshed. My father was devastated and remote; my mother has never been comfortable around his family. I felt guilty over not feeling a greater sense of loss at the passing of this eighty-five-year-old woman. And so it was off to the woodshed. Perhaps I had objected to making the trip a week ago, or two – now I was paying the price; maybe I had complained about my outfit for the funeral, for which I was introduced to the switch. Situations occurred at such a dizzying rate that I was unable to keep them straight.

After that our trips to the homestead, with two of my aunts in residence, became less frequent, generally once at the holidays and a reunion in the summer. My fantasies would become more varied, more vivid, and would last a month or two before I'd forget them, the next time striking me completely differently. During college, when I would make the summer trips alone, I became taken by nudity, or the idea of it; I had been caught skinny-dipping, or with a lover, or a party had gotten way out of hand, and there I was, led – almost dragged – naked to the woodshed to be taught proper behavior. By now the choices were varied, and my bound wrists were attached to the rafter so that I may be disciplined by crop as well as switches and strap.

My own father never spanked me in the woodshed (or in reality, anywhere else); he was a gentle man, serious, and his disapproval alone kept my behavior pretty blameless. In the case of my cropping it was a neighbor of my grandmother's, who I had never formally met, impossibly old in a blue plaid shirt and suspenders, hands dry and chapped but a grip like a clamp, the disapproval of a deacon and the determination of an evangelist. At times he was accompanied by his wife (most definitely not my own mother) to avoid the appearance of impropriety and, based on the other times, with good reason.

Also in college I had the idea of a wool-suited woman with a hairbrush who encouraged my studies in the dining room of her lovely, very formal home. I wore a white blouse under a sweater and only my shirttails protected my modesty, being all bare below. She spanked very hard but without anger, just disappointment and resolution and I had to visit her many times for being late to a study session or missing an easy exam question. No matter how minor the infraction I was always, in my mind, spanked until I couldn't sit and then some more before being sent to the corner to frame my apology and plan for improvement. One Christmas I tried very hard to get her into the woodshed but she simply refused, no matter how I put them together they never fit.

Not all my dreams were dire; I would imagine flirting at the Fireman's Field Days and having my boyfriend (equally fictional, unfortunately) throw me over his shoulder and stride off to show me the errors of my ways. I was a wife, "wanton but well-tended," with gorgeous wavy hair and a perfect ivory nightdress, taken to task and having her pretty little bottom painted bright scarlet for her grievous indiscretions. And once I was a wife for real, with an equally real partner in these trips, I easily imagined my real-life husband escorting me to the woodshed for our nightly (!) discussion of poorly-balanced checkbooks or missing dishes on the dinner table. Seldom was he too harsh, certainly not more than once a week, and afterward of course he would love me so well that, well, sometimes he would have to spank me again.

Now my fantasies have stopped growing, so great is the traffic through the woodshed door, so many are the spankings I receive upon passing, every one meant to be remembered. And the shed itself never changes, weathered grey against an explosion of green in the summer; boards soaked black by melting snow throughout the long winter, lit by the low sun behind us.

My parents are waiting along with my relatives; the kids are patient but bored in the back, so we don't stop to visit my woodshed; my husband doesn't even know why I take his hand and squeeze it but the woodshed is still there and maybe there'll be another chance next time, or the time after, or the time after that.

Candy

Candy
by Matt Anglen
June, 1987

"Come on, let's get out of here – I need to move," I growl, getting behind the wheel. The windows are down and both doors slam when we close them, that's fine with me. I fire up that 396 and let it rev good and loud – there's a sound my old man can't ignore. Six months I've been out of this house, I don't know why I ever come back.

Pulling out I don't lay rubber, Candy's afraid I'll lose my license and we won't be able to see each other as much though I've told her I'd come over if I had to crawl. Still, when she wants something it's hard to tell her no, especially when she slides across the seat right over thigh-to-thigh.

"Why do you have to have a stick?" she pretends to whine.

"Men have sticks, that's the way we are," I joke. "I thought you liked us that way." She sticks her tongue out and my heart goes thump. I'm pissed off and trying not to take it out on her.

"When you drove an automatic you could put your leg behind me," she reminds me, something I can't do with a clutch. I'd lay my right leg out along the seat, driving with my left foot and her right in my lap. It was pretty sweet, I got to admit.

I get down to Main heading through town, watchin' the lights, tryin' to let go of all those knots my old man always puts in me. Candy puts up her hand and plays with a ring, a ring I haven't seen before. I try not to breathe, make my mind go blank, just drive, but I know she wants me to ask.

"That's a nice ring," I tell her and it's true. "Your folks give you that?" I ask stupidly. The only thing her folks ever gave her was a crooked nose at age fifteen. That and a last name with thirteen letters and no vowels. Candy C-plus-twelve, I call her.

"Nope," she teases. "Guess again."

"No." It comes out a lot meaner than I mean it to.

"I was bad," she informs me, and I try not to think some more. I know her johns give her stuff all the time. "Think you should spank me?"

I squirm a little, shift gears to cover it. "You know I don't want to get into that kinky stuff."

"I won't call you 'daddy,'" she offers. "Just put me over your knee and slap my ass until I'm sorry." She pulls her arms inside her top and starts taking her bra off.

"Sorry you had to wear that," I tell her, trying to change the subject.

"Don't be silly – I wear one all the time," she says. "Just not around you."

"Oh." As she wriggles free I am struck by the image of her wriggling out of her jeans, the little patch of her panties that almost disappear at her hips. "You wearin' a thong?" I ask, trying to slide my hand down back to see.

"No. You'll have to pull them down," she explains. "To spank me." Giggle.

Traffic is light since it's Sunday night, streetlights finally coming on, even people at dinner are home by now. Candy opens her purse and starts putting on her mint lip gloss. I don't think she even likes the flavor, only wears it because I do. She puts on a lot.

"Have I ever told you you have the most delicious ass?" I ask her, and it's true. If I ever was going to slap an ass, hers would be my very first choice.

"Not since we got in the car, you haven't. You could kiss it if you want," she reminds me.

"I could do that," I agree, finally starting to relax.

"If I'd been good," she corrects me. "Too bad I'm so bad."

"Too bad," I echo non-committally. She is so soft and pretty... She puts her hand, the hand with the ring, on my thigh. "I'm sorry I didn't get you a ring," I admit. Money's been tight since I got my own place.

"You give me what I want," she assures me, flashing that cute little shy smile that's always so surprising.

"I give you what I can," I promise.

Candy kneels on the seat and leans so close I can smell mint as she whispers. "Good. Then give me a spanking."

We keep going past the high school, four, six, eight blocks. Her breast is against my arm, I swear I can feel her nipple through the fabric. I wonder if the ring came from a pawn shop, or the guy stole it, or it used to belong to his wife. But Candy likes it, I don't want to say anything bad. We sit at the light and I try to think. Up ahead and to the right is the long lazy loop that will take us an hour, an hour to forget dinner and my old man, work, bills, Father's Day, everything. Turning left we can cross the river, get on the Interstate, and be back at her place in ten minutes.

"You want to head back?" I ask.

"When the light changes." Suddenly my whole world is warm, wet, slippery mint Candy that I just can't get enough of.

A car behind us honks its horn and I shift back into gear, not even flipping him off.

"Someday," I promise, "I'll get you a ring."

Candy, Continued

We come down the river on the south side, on the Parkway, a lot faster than we headed out. At the college is a bridge like the Interstate, overpass on one end, traffic circle on the other. As always I come in at about seventy-five, shooting around it like a carnival ride. The car has gotten quiet, Candy hanging on my arm but not teasing me anymore. I guess I've gotten quiet, mostly. I try to remember exactly what I've promised – I don't like to honor my commitments grudgingly.

I don't know why I feel like we're making a mistake – maybe because this is the one thing she wants, out of a lot of oddball possibilities. She has gotten hopeful, happily silent, and seems younger; making me, relatively, feel older. She doesn't ordinarily depend on me or anyone else for much of anything; this seems a strange choice.

I park across the street and we roll the windows up, which I figure is a good sign, Candy carrying her shoes, now shorter than me by several inches. We walk up the two thin rows of cement blocks that once made a driveway. Now they, and we, are almost swallowed by the bushes on the fence side that are trying to get a year's growth into our short little summer. Already the narrow space next to the shingle-roofed garage is choked solid.

We go up the back stairs like a troop of cavalry, as my mother would say, but in this neighborhood they only hear gunshots and sirens. An exaggeration, perhaps, but not much of one; it is certainly no exaggeration to say that the only thing halfway new or working on this entire house is the deadbolt. In the darkness of the stoop Candy finds her key and lets us in.

Her room might be advertised as a studio apartment but there's not a lot to it, mostly a bed and then on the other side a small table and two chairs, and in the corner a bigger chair to watch the tiny TV that sits on the table. She's got the curtain to the kitchen open and through it I can see the brightly-painted cabinets and more over-ambitious plants that hope to be bushes someday. Everything else - walls, moldings, the ceiling, even - has been painted beige as if by a single burp of a spray-gun. One weekend we bought curtains for the window, white and sheer with a bright green stripe across the bottom. They look nice.

In the kitchen she turns on the radio and comes out carrying a drink – just water, not a real drink, though there's plenty in there. To be honest I'm feeling less receptive than ever, not moving much past the door except to close it and turn the lock. I guess I've got myself planted with my feet apart and my arms crossed because she tosses her hair back and says "You look very strict and stern." I suppose I do. She walks right up and bumps my arms with her breasts before pecking me on the lips.

"Okay?" she asks and I try to focus my swirling thoughts. Taking a sip she offers, politely, "Want something?"

"Candy, I'm not your father," I try to explain. "I am not going to hit you."

"Matt, if you were my father you wouldn't be here." She puts her arms around my neck, tilting her head and kissing me, for real this time. I resist – there are some things I don't like being manipulated into doing – but she just says "Thanks for being here" and breaks it off. "And you're not going to 'hit' me, you're just smacking my butt," she explains, turning around as she does so. "C'mere."

She puts her hands on the table with her backside stuck out. "Come over here and smack me one," she commands, which only stiffens my resistance. Seeing this she just says "Oh come ON!" and I feel like I'm acting stupid so I move.

"You're not going to hurt me," she promises. I'm a little dubious but I go ahead and slap her on the cheek, hard. My hand smarts a little, almost a satisfying pain. "See?" she asks over her shoulder. "Bad girls get a lot of padding back there. That's how you can tell," she jokes. "Try it for real this time."

I must have done something wrong the first time so I try again, harder, on the other cheek. My hand is going to have to get a lot tougher for much more of this.

Candy turns around and cocks her head to the side. Now her arms are crossed. "Getting ready?" she asks.

I glare at her. "Turn around," I tell her, and really let her have it. This time she sort of tucks her bottom in a little and her head goes back, then forward, her chin twisting away from me. I can't see her face because of her hair but when I could her eyes had closed in a slow blink then opened really wide. Instead of turning toward me she turns all the way around to the other side in a little wriggling, dancing-type move.

"What did I tell you?" she asks, unconvincingly breathless. "It's okay, really. See?"

I don't believe her but this isn't the first time she's had to explain how to do something and it's always worked out before. By backing up a step I'm sitting on the bed and she's right in front of me. I push up her top a little, touching her right below the navel with my fingertips. "How 'bout I do that other thing you like?" I offer. I've learned a few things, at least.

"Later, baby," she half-whispers, guiding my hand to the snap of her jeans. "Time for that later." She nudges my thumb toward unsnapping them.

"Candy, I don't know what to say," I blurt, finally admitting it. I don't want to spank her for sleeping with some guy and getting a ring out of it. I don't want to be angry like my father and sometimes it's hard not to be. I don't want to yell and say all those things he always does. And somewhere in here I notice the ring is gone. Probably in the kitchen. The thought of how well she knows me makes my heart hurt. I look up at her as I slide her zipper down and try to breathe.

"Ask me what I did," she says quietly.

I think of the cops saying "do you know why I pulled you over?" which always sounds stupid but I've got nothing better. The waist of her jeans is open, peeled back halfway off her hips; the plain white panties right in front of me can barely contain the hair beneath them. Suddenly I figure out that this is why she wore that ring tonight - not to look nice for dinner, not to show it off, not to make me jealous. She had this planned before I picked her up, even. I feel stupid for having taken so long to realize it.

"Candy, do you know why you're here?" My voice is kind of deep anyway and it comes out like a growl, almost comic.

"Uh huh," she answers unhelpfully, and I'm stumped. After a long pause she takes a deep breath and admits, hesitating, "You caught me reading a dirty book."

This confession, intended to be so perfect, so aware of all my many reservations, still manages to embarrass me, only in that it reminds me that she does read books while my immediate reaction is how unlikely that would be. I'm the smart one, the one who reads all the time and somehow, because she keeps her books under the bed, I forget that she does, too.

When I was in the eighth grade I had two teachers – well, two of six or so. One got so mad at me for talking back that she sent me to sit in the second-grade class the entire period, at one of those little desks. The other called me in to discuss my grades, which were ridiculously low. She told me she knew I could do better. Right now I want to be Mrs. Walters, the good teacher - the second one.

"Candy, what have I told you about those books?" I ask.

"That I'm not old enough?" Candy replies uncertainly. "That they're not good for me."

"They're not. They're not good for you, are they, Candy?" I parrot sort of mindlessly. She has my fingertips – of both hands – stuck inside the waistband of her panties, in the middle at the back. I am speaking directly into her cleavage, her knees against my own as she leans into me. "They will keep you from becoming the person I know you can be," I tell her, recalling that lecture from five years ago. "They will keep you from being the person I know you can become." The memory makes me somber with self-disappointment.

Candy takes her fingers off of mine and puts her hands in my hair, tilting my head back. "Baby?" she asks softly, "We're just playing, okay?" My palms are full of her cheeks, my wrists pushing her panties off of them, the tips of my index fingers brushing each other, almost between them.

I resist saying "Sorry," and instead choose, "Playing, maybe, but that doesn't make this okay." Before I finish she's lying across my lap. Do you know why I pulled you over? I think to myself with a private smile.

"I know," she squeaks, "I'm sorry." This is a side she doesn't show me very often, and I don't mean her mouth-watering ass, which looks better, smoother, and softer than ever – I mean the needing side, the wanting side. She's a provider at heart but can't always be giving, I guess. Who can? I manage to get my arm out from under her and reestablish some sort of balance.

She's tried to get a tan and though this is only June the shape of her swimsuit bottom is clear from where perfectly white cheek meets nearly white thigh. Remembering our practice from a minute ago, I pull back my hand and slap her cheek good, producing a sort of ringing sound with the suddenness of a rifle shot. To my surprise, no sirens are heard. My hand stings about a dozen times worse than it did on her jeans but I don't have time to notice because Candy jumps, wriggles, and bucks – all at once. I grab her hip to pull her toward me just as I spank her on the near side.

"Holy!" she starts, but doesn't finish it. "Eee! Ow! OW!" The last "ow" sounds indignant, as if I'm the one doing something wrong. She attempts to get up but is much too far over, tries to look at me over her shoulder through her hair, her feet coming up nearly to my face. "Baby? OW! Jesus!"

"Had enough?" I ask. She's taken about ten swats to some very emphatic – and negative – reaction.

"Baby?" she starts again. "Just... just... just almost that hard, okay?"

I'm kind of surprised at this but I smack her again, still too hard, I'm betting, trying to figure out what's okay. Of course, then I can tell it's not hard enough, I guess, though she seems to be suffering; or too hard again, it's difficult to find the right touch. Her ankles cross and rise and fall with a will of their own, waving her bunched jeans like a flag of surrender. Her cheeks and thighs squeeze or part and straighten or bend unpredictably as the band of her panties stretches and rebounds.

"Candace Marie, you will not read those books," I tell her, since I have to say something, though I worry that I'm getting too serious again. "They are *not* good for you." Meanwhile Candy's saying she's sorry but it sounds like "I'm sorry, mmm, I'm sorry, mmmmm," mixed with "ow's" and little "heh's" and other not-quite-desperate sounds so I keep smacking her.

Suddenly she says "Stop, stop, Oh God, stop, stop, stop" and I figure she means it so I do, right away. She slides from my lap to the floor between my knees, coming straight up between my legs, knocking me onto the bed so fast that we're lucky I don't split her scalp with my teeth. She's got both hands in my lap trying to get my pants open while wriggling out of her panties and trying to kick off her jeans. It might have worked better if we weren't in such a hurry but sometimes that's just not one of the choices.

She grips me like a stick shift on a bad clutch, knowing how I like it and in a flash I'm up and she's astride me. I mean, I'm flat on my back, my feet still on the floor, her knees against my ribs. Before I can even wonder if she's ready I get my answer and it's off to the races with her running way out in front. She plants her elbows at either side of my head and a big kiss right on my lips, hungry for the taste of me so I tilt my head back to meet her. She's moaning, but fast, a lot of little "oh-oh-oh-oh's" which she interrupts just long enough to pant in my ear.

"Baby? Finish my spanking later, okay?"

I grunt something in reply; maybe it has a vaguely positive sound to it.

"Promise? Promise me, baby. Promise me you'll finish it later."

When I reach down and slap her butt she shivers from cheeks to chaps, as they say. "Shut up, would you?" I tell her, "I'm trying to fuck." I slap her again to make her shake like that and she rears up and pulls her top off, dropping her breasts like the ball in Times Square at New Year's, only there's two of them.

She says she never fakes it with me and up till now I've believed her but it's not usually like this, thrusts an inch deep but three or four in a second. Not our usual Sunday-night climax, definitely.

I spread my arms out, crucified, and she reaches under them, burrowing her hands beneath my shoulders, pulling herself tight against me. Looking up I see that the window is closed as a rivulet of sweat runs off my face, then another. It's too hot but I feel chilled in my damp shirt and ridiculous with my pants and briefs pulled down on top of my socks and shoes.

After a while she raises herself up, looking into my eyes. Already I feel myself stirring for her, opening my mouth in the hope she'll lower her breast into it.

"You said 'fuck,'" she teases. "We'll make a wild one out of you yet."

Peaches

She sat at the table eating a peach when she heard the door lock turn and she smiled. He liked seeing her like this, face a mess, enjoying herself and she timed a big bite with when he'd step into the room. He looked tired but grinned when he saw her, her heart going soft, and as she lowered the peach he covered her mouth with his, licking her lips. He really liked peaches, he'd tell people, but she knew it wasn't true; at home he'd say he'd meant hers, ripe or juicy, whatever she had to offer. That couldn't be denied.

He looked at the peach again and a hard hand clutched her heart, the other side of having peaches fresh off the tree. She didn't like the peach switch and he was looking at her speculatively – what would she do if he sent her for one? Pout and get him to use his belt instead, in that way she loved to be warmed by it? March sullenly and dutifully outside to comply? Refuse, even, and make him spend the evening setting her afire? The thought of refusing appealed to her mind but her body was weak. She lowered her eyes, waiting, but the moment passed, though she had seen it, clearly – maybe she would get spanked tonight, she hoped. The way he cupped her side as he pulled her to him and put his mouth on her again made her happy and hopeful. Then he went to change and she went back to her peach.

Four things she sometimes did would earn her the switch she so hated – if she was caught, that is, but she was careful. Each time she did any one of these things she thought of the possibility, being led half-undressed out back to put her hands on the porch column and lean her head on her hands. Once flat-footed, once on her toes, and then the last one, even longer than the first two and harder, too, though the first two always felt so hard she'd think that, this time, it was as hard as it could get. He'd ask her if this was the only time she'd done it, since her last switching anyway, and the answer had never been yes so she always had to be switched for the other times, too. In the right mood she'd cry but in any case he'd be nice afterward, not nice enough to let her rub or get dressed or have lotion or, sometimes, salve, at least not until much much later, but nice in ways that mattered. But seldom was she caught, more often she would see some scrap of paper left out or other indication or evidence, incriminating if only he recognized it, and as she retrieved it the thought of how close she'd come would fire her. Often later she'd have to ask to be spanked, she'd be in such a state, and even his hand could really hurt if he thought she needed it which at times she did.

He was still washing up and she did, too, her hands and face had gotten all sticky. Removing and folding her jeans she put them on the chair seat next to her, sliding it under the table where he wouldn't see. When he came out he'd put his hand on her thigh and finding it bare would have to spank her, if not now at least sometime this evening. She wouldn't refuse the belt but more than that she didn't know. The taps turned off and he'd be out soon. She wanted to unbutton her blouse and make him smile but she wanted to surprise him, too, so she just sat still and waited.