Page 1 of Curves Disciplined
BEAU
Iwouldn’t say I’m piss drunk, but I’m damned near close. I’ve got an eye closed in a desperate attempt to see one dartboard in front of me instead of three. It’s a valiant attempt, but the danged thing is still spinning. I practice my throw but my eye keeps focusing on the dart in front of me instead. Am I aiming at the bullseye or the guy parked ten feet to the right? I can’t tell.
“Beau?” A long-forgotten voice calls my name from somewhere behind me. The femininity of her tone pulls me from my drunken stupor.
The dart falls to my side as I turn around to see the one that got away. Penelope Hughes stands there with a perfect smile and her hand hovering over a swollen belly. Her fingers are neatly manicured and her outfit looks too expensive to be in a dive bar like this. At any moment I’m afraid some desperate homeless man is going to knock her down and steal the diamond off her ring finger. “You shouldn’t be here.” The first words I form and they’re hardly welcoming.
Her grip doesn’t even tighten on the life growing inside of her; she was never afraid when she should be. “We should talk, Beau.”
My tongue feels thick in my mouth; I can’t tell if it’s the blast from the past or the alcohol. Maybe it’s both. “Why? That’s not my baby in your belly.”
Penelope smiles indulgently at me and shakes her head softly. The brunette locks that frame her face bounce in response. “No, it’s not. But I still need your help.”
Despite all the years of heartache that she caused me, I’d do anything to make her life easier. If there was a puddle before her and she wanted to keep her feet dry, I’d fall on the ground for her. “Alright, Pen. Let’s talk.”
She makes me sober up first. We drive down the street to the all-night Denny’s and she fills me up with water, black coffee, and the greasiest burger on the menu. I note with only moderate interest that she sips on a glass of water with lemon. As always, she is conscientious of what is best for her and the baby. The last time I saw her, she was pregnant and doing the same thing.
“So what’s up?” I wipe any offensive stains off my beard before she can be disgusted. Penelope might have loved me once upon a time, but it was my rough around the edges appeal that drove her off. That and the fact that I didn’t have the bank account to sustain her lifestyle. “What can I help you with?”
Penelope inspects imaginary dirt, or maybe it’s real. I don’t know. She deigned to lower herself and visit fast dining with me when we were dating because she liked the idea of being normal. In the end, though, she was a rich girl through and through. “I need your help with Cecilia.”
My blood runs cold. Once upon a time, Cecilia could have been my daughter. If Penelope would have settled for being my wife, she would have come from my loins instead of some rich college boy’s.
I met Penelope in high school. I was smart as a whip and got a scholarship to the hoity-toity private school where the teachers were paid well and actually cared about the well-being of their students. I was going to become a scientist and cure cancer, or at least that was the goal. Then I met Penelope and it all went downhill.
I spent four years messing around with a girl who was out of my league. She was so beautiful and rich that it made me hurt in all the ways a girl like that can ruin your life. I never made it into college. I never became a scientist. I might have introduced her to a dark and twisted world, but my dreams and ambitions were shot.
Unfortunately, hers weren’t. She had the money to buy her way into Yale and from there she found a husband who could give her the world. He also gave her Cecilia. The last time I saw Penelope, intentionally, she was six months pregnant. We sat down at a booth very similar to this one and she told me that he was leaving her. He wanted a tight piece of ass, not a wife and child. I told Penelope that I’d take care of her. I might not have money, but I had heart. Penelope didn’t want a beating organ, she wanted to be a trophy wife.
Down the road, she went. We passed one another in the grocery store and I saw her and Cecilia at the park from time to time. I worked in construction and created a name for myself in the business, but it was never enough for her. Penelope dated and remarried and divorced time and time again until it stuck. Now here she was again, six months pregnant.
“How old is she now? It’s been a while since you were last,” I pause to choose my words carefully, “in this condition.”
Penelope brings the glass closer to her lips but sucks on the straw she requested from the server. She has never trusted a beverage container at a dining establishment where the washing machine breaks down every few days. She’d rather kill the turtles than put her lips on a glass that isn’t polished. “She’s twenty-two now and quite out of control. There’s some social media app that she’s been posting photos on. OnlyFans? LonelyFans? I’m not sure. One of my friends said that their husband told her about it. They saw photos of Cecilia on it and videos of her doing things to herself.”
It is a pleasure to see Penelope’s cheeks pinken with embarrassment. I have to force myself to stifle a grin. “What kind of things?” It is truly a test of my self-restraint not to laugh.
The weariness in Penelope’s gaze grows deeper. “This is serious, Beau. My husband said that if she doesn’t shape up, he’s going to kick her out. I don’t know what to do. I can’t control her. She doesn’t listen to me. She doesn’t listen to Charles.”
Though the coffee helped sober me up a little and the greasy burger helped even more, the realization of what she’s about to ask me is what really does the trick. “Penelope, no.”
A very convincing pout appears on her lips. The blood-alcohol level still apparent in my system wants to cave. “Beau, please. You used to be very good at getting people to submit to you. That was very much your thing.”
“It still is. Or was.” I turn my head from her, unable to make eye contact with her ice-blue gaze. What am I supposed to say? The boy she grew up with might still be the same, but I don’t want to apply that kind of twisted discipline to her daughter. “Pen.”
“Beau,” she retorts just as quickly. “Cecilia needs this, maybe even more than I did.”
Penelope conveniently frames our former relationship like it was something she needed, not like a consensual dynamic that we both loved. I think if I was rich, if I had money, she’d have stuck around and we’d still be engaged in the very same things that we explored together years ago. “I can’t do what you’re asking me to do, Penelope.”
Her hand comes down to stroke her swollen belly. “Your discipline in my youth led me to become who I am now, Beau. Without your steady hand, I don’t know if I would have made it. Cecilia needs you. I need you to help her. Please. This is the last favor I will ever ask of you.”
During the height of our relationship, we explored our sexuality in ways that were far beyond what teenagers should. I had a craving for discipline and punishment and I enjoyed putting Penelope over my knee. At first, she detested it. But in the darkness, she requested it. On the nights when we got drunk with our friends, she yearned for it.
“You’re asking me to humiliate your daughter, Pen. You’re asking me to come into your house, put your daughter over my lap, and spank her.” I lay it out for her in intimate detail because it won’t stop there. If I do what Penelope wants me to, there’s a chance that I will want more. I’ve never touched a woman like that just for fun. I only put my hands on a woman’s ass for the sole purpose of touching her soul. They say that some women can’t fuck without falling in love; I have the same relationship with spanking and discipline.
Penelope brings the straw to her lips once more and chugs the rest of her water in an unladylike fashion. Her cheeks turn an embarrassing shade of red as she brings the glass to the table with a jarring slam. “Don’t fall in love with my daughter, Beau Brooks.”
“Don’t ask me to do this then, Penelope Hughes,” I return in kind.
I can see the thoughts as they pass through her head. How badly does she want her daughter to settle down? How much is she willing to risk? Is she willing to risk me? “Fine. Do it. But please, please don’t fall for her.” Penelope begs even though she has no right to ask this of me. She is married now and she’s expecting his child.
I owe her nothing, so I don’t make any promises. Once upon a time, I promised to give Penelope the world, then she broke my heart. From that day forward, the only person I made promises to was myself. “I’ll take your daughter in hand, Pen, but that’s it. Whatever happens after that, you brought on yourself.”
Her teeth graze her bottom lip in a sinking feeling sort of way. There is nothing she can do but hope and pray that she hasn’t invited the devil into her home. “Okay,” Penelope whispers. “Okay.”