Reckless Disregard

Chapter One “Bridget!” she whispered anxiously over the information counter. “I need a favor.” The bubbly redhead had a dash of freckles across her nose that made her look either cocky or sweet depending on her mood. She was an artist, carrying her leather portfolio under her arm as she moved through the museum lobby on the way to her studio. “Nope,sorry,” the museum’s associate curator turned away heading back toward heroffice. “Bridgey,please!” Alecia’s whisper was more impatient. Her blondefriend whipped around, “No, you’re off limits,” she said, sure that Alecia hadsome scheme in the works. “I know, Iknow, but you have to help me.” Two women on the far side of the lobby, hearingthe disquieting conversation turned and stared. Bridget stared back at themwith a pleasantly calm smile. “In my office,” she said to Alecia, “but make itquick and quiet.” When thedoor closed behind them, Bridget turned around with a grim and determinedexpression on her face. “You lookso serious, Bridgey.” “I’mworking, Alecia.” The official looking Bridget Fox was dressed in a smart teal green designer suit that flattered her slim body, while her blonde hair trailed behind her head in a long French plait. When it wasn’t braided, she wore it loose to dangle down her back, to sway as she moved with a sensuous and innocent ease. Perhaps it was the soft bangs on her forehead that often made her look much younger than her twenty-nine years. With blue eyes twinkling, she could adopt the face of a twelve-year-old, particularly when she was getting a reprimand from her husband, Geoff. Though Bridget could be as mischievous as her friend, and was often a bundle of insecurities, at the museum, she worked to portray herself as a self-assured woman of substance—an attitude she knew was paramount in her position. She’s worked hard the last two years to secure a position she often felt she wasn’t suited for, but wanting it so badly—she wouldn’t do anything to screw it up. “It’s just one teensy favor,” Alecia squinted her nose sexily. The artist didn’t have to put on airs for anyone, or dress demurely. Unlike her best friend, she could be as outrageous and silly as she wanted. After all, it was expected that artists were eccentrics. “Tiny favors for you have only gotten me spanked,” Bridget reminded her. “But not this time, really. I promise. Cross my heart,” her index fingers traced the crossed lines over her full bosom. Alecia’s pale satin shirt looked a bit too small, gaping at the center so her black bra peeked out from underneath. The long black skirt below hugged her round hips closely, and just skimmed the top of black Army boots—this was ‘dressed up’ for the quirky painter. “You promise the sun, the moon, and the stars, but what do I get? My ass paddled raw every time you cook up some scheme.” “This is no cooked up scheme. I’m desperate.” Her eyes and mouth made a desperate looking expression to augment her desperate tone of voice; but then she instantly backed off. “I mean, not actually desperate, I just need a thousand dollars for two days.” “What!” “Two days. That’s all. I have three paintings that just sold for seventeen hundred. The money will be in my bank account by Thursday, but I need the loan until then.” “Why?” A pained expression crossed the redhead’s lips. “A debt.” “To whom?” She squinted again making the painful admission. “Lyle McCall.” “Lyle!” “I know it was stupid.” “But why?” “I overspent my allowance from Charlie three months ago on that coat Maude Jaffrey made for me. I couldn’t admit how much it cost. I told Charlie $500.00 and he was pissed at that. I’d have never seen the light of day if I told him how much I really spent.” “And how much was that?” “Twenty-five hundred.” “Aw, Alecia, you didn’t.” “I had no idea until she was finished. I commissioned it, what could I say?” “That you couldn’t afford it.” Alecia looked aghast. “Never!” she almost sounded angry, “besides, I bumped into Lyle, and he was so sweet, and before I realized it, I was borrowing the money. Of course, he wants it back now.” Bridget was aghast for her own reasons. “What possibly went through your mind to borrow money from that bastard?” “It was three months ago, I thought I’d sold the collage. And, it would have worked out if that old bitty had made good. How did I know she was going to back out at the last minute?” “Everything ‘would have’ worked out with you.” “But I do need you now, Bridget, please,” her soulful green eyes could tug the heartstrings of a stubborn mule. “A thousand dollars?” “And you’ll have it back in three days, four days tops.” “Why can’t Lyle wait?” “Because Lyle’s an ass, and he’s already waited three weeks beyond his deadline. He says he needs it now, or…” she winced, “or he’ll have to get more graphic.” “Meaning he’ll rough you up.” “Well, I’m not sure. Maybe. But I can’t let Charlie know. Everything has been so perfect between us. Next week is our one-year anniversary. I can’t screw this up.” Alecia was always desperate beyond measure when she was desperate at all. The rest of the time, she was as carefree as a bird. “You know this is against my better judgment. But…” she sighed heavily remembering Alecia’s months with Lyle all too well. “I’ll write you a check.” “Oh, you are saving my life. But I do need the money in cash.” “Cash?” “We’ll go to the bank after work and run it on to his office.” “Alecia, I can’t.” “But you will, please,” she c****d her head again, and the phone rang. Answering, Bridget was drawn into a long conversation with a major donor from which she could not escape. Before she finished, Alecia was waving her hand at her playfully and slipping out the door. The remainder of the afternoon Bridget was too busy to get back to Alecia, though she managed to call Geoff and let him know she’d be late for dinner. “How late?” he asked. “About seven, seven-thirty.” “I thought we had plans.” She could hear the sexy snicker in his voice, and imagined a deviously delicious grin on his face. “Afterwards,” she spoke sweetly. Listening to his deep voice, she thought of s*x and earlier that morning, her mind resting on the thought of her husband’s body, her own suddenly clenching with a lovely erotic spasm. They’d made love. In fact, she’d gone over Geoff’s lap for a very sensuous spanking. By the time he was ready to press himself into her warm wet home, she was so hot she practically came with the first thrust. The sensuous afterburn lasted nearly all day, now revived by the sound of his mellow voice. “You’d better not be late, or I’ll repeat the treatment I gave you this morning,” he warned. “That wouldn’t be so bad,” she answered. “Maybe I’ll use the hairbrush.” “Ooo, ouch!” “I want you home tonight, Bridget. We’re away from each other too much. And I won’t be answering the phone tonight. Nate’s in charge.” “Oh, that is good news!” she exclaimed, happy to hear that his partner was taking up some of the slack. Geoff’s detective agency kept him busy all hours of the day, many nights, and away from his wife more often than was good for their relationship. It was when he was gone that she got in trouble. Their three-year-old marriage was still in the honeymoon stage in many ways—especially sexually, though they did have their moments when nothing was right between them—and most often, it had something do to with her once best friend, Alecia. However, since the last fiasco six months before, she’d been on orders to stay clear of the ‘reckless woman’. After that miserable fiasco, she willingly obeyed the order. She remembered well—the two were shopping in New York when the redhead just had to preview the gallery showing of a former classmate from Barnard. The gallery was a long-distance walk through a marginal part of the city and the two were unfamiliar with the dangerous neighborhood. They were roughed up by thugs looking for cash, which they didn’t have, and then rescued by an off-duty policeman who tongue-lashed them for not knowing what they were doing. To make matters worse, he forced them to confess their foolishness to their husbands over the phone so one of them could come pick them up. The officer didn’t trust the two not to make another stupid move. (He must have gone to the same school of husband/wife relationships as Geoff and Charlie. He’d mentioned taking them over his knee as he hauled them safely into a diner, and was grimly insistent that they tell their whole foul tale. “Just like dames to come up with some cockamamie story about why you’re late instead of telling the truth. You ought to be spanked for being so half-witted?” He mentioned spanking for the second time in ten minutes.) Of course, the pair was not supposed to stray far from their hotel and shopping, and Geoff and Charlie were pissed as hell getting the call. Safely home two hours later, Alecia and Bridget were almost simultaneously, in their respective homes, upended over their husbands’ laps, their bare bottoms blistered raw with hairbrushes. This was the third such reckless misadventure in a month that had Geoff so hopping mad he leveled a threat on Bridget she could not easily forget. “You stay clear of her, Bridget Bennington Fox. If you do anything, I mean anything that approaches this for the next ten years, you’ll be hauled in front of the tribunal so fast your head will spin.” He didn’t need to say more. The threat was enough to set the impressionable Bridget on the straight and narrow for the rest of her life—so she thought. Spanking was definitely a fixture in the Fox’s marriage—one Geoff Fox gladly shared with Charlie when his then fiancée and Bridget’s best friend, Alecia, displayed the calamitous ends to which her cockeyed plots could take her. While Bridget had begged her husband to mind his own business, the forthright Geoff couldn’t help but intervene, offering the bewildered Charlie the one solution that worked for him when his wife’s obstreperous behavior was too much for a simple scolding. The fix seemed to work as well for Charlie and Alecia—both with regard to her behavior and s*x. The couple came up smiling broadly after Alecia’s first good going over—apparently they discovered the erotic advantages right off. And such spanking good times outweighed the bad ones enough to see them through the very painful ones. The tribunal, however, was a twist on the matter for the most extreme occasions. Geoff became informally acquainted with the sect of disciplinary aficionados through a case he worked in the first years of his agency. In fact, the figurehead of the organization, Andrew Lassiter, had hired him for a personal matter, and in the course of their association familiarized Geoff with the subject of corporal discipline—his first exposure to the adult application of a typically youthful punishment. He went so far as to explain its place throughout history and recommend several books and publications on the subject—which Geoff only gave a cursory perusal. He had found the spanking part fascinating from a strictly erotic point of view—something Andrew freely admitted was a pleasant byproduct of the exercise. However, since Geoff couldn’t quite figure out how corporal punishment might be incorporated into a relationship with a woman—especially one like Jessica, his then current girlfriend—he filed the information away in the back of his mind thinking it was unlikely he’d find any use for something so offbeat. To his surprise, his relationship with Bridget several years later lent itself to spanking from the very beginning—and Lassiter’s tribunal turned out to be a most effective way of getting Bridget’s attention just when she was faltering the most. The tribunal members like Andrew Lassiter ardently practice the disciplinary arts within their marriages and even their more casual relationships. In this case, the fellowship was a strictly male dominant, female submissive organization—though Geoff was informed that there were other sects for male submissives and female dominants. For those that stringently adhere to the sect’s rules, wives are brought before the tribunal each Friday evening for an accounting and atonement. A tribunal of five male members, with Andrew at its head, hear the misdeeds of the wife in question, then act as judge, jury and administrator for the sentence they decree—which is usually some degree of bare-bottomed punishment that can be carried out in a variety of ways. For those husbands, like Geoff, who are less willing to turn their wives over to these diehard disciplinarians and their rituals, the tribunal can be utilized for exceptional times when a naughty wife needs an alarming wake up call. Bridget’s one time before ‘the tribe’, as she ruefully referred to the group, was appalling. It was the first time she’d ever been spanked by, or in front of, anyone else. She’d never been so thoroughly embarrassed. It was bad enough facing the five dour looking gentlemen in their stuffy business suits; but as far as she knew, Geoff had left her to these civilized wolves and her only choice was to submit. She had to agree there was a strangely titillating feel to the harrowing moment, but it wasn’t until after it was over that she could enjoy anything erotic. That night she was as passionate in bed with her husband as she’d ever been—and they both surmised the ‘whole’ truth about the incident. However, while she was going through her dressing down, viewing five starched stern faces, and finally feeling Albert Donogan’s paddle brusquely spank her naked bottom, the ordeal was frightful.