Shadow Lane Volume Eleven: The Venus Club A Novel of Sex, Spanking and Modern Love. Eve Howard

“Now how can I shoot you in a Renaissance gown, or any gown except the one you get to wear in a lunatic asylum?”

      Amanda lowered her eyes and bit her lip. Sooner or later someone was going to scold her for cutting her hair, it might as well be Mr. Robbins. And yet, he was rather a new acquaintance to adopt this degree of proprietary familiarity with Amanda and her proudly independent personality balked at his impertinence. So instead of apologizing for her mistake, Amanda serenely conceded, “I would make a terrible model at the moment.”

      “Not terrible,” he grunted, “but problematical.”

      “I heard your wife is playing the lead in Kiss Me Kate at the local theatre this month,” Amanda changed the subject. “I can’t wait to see it!”

      “Really? Are you a Cole Porter fan?”

      “Of course. Plus, there’s the famous spanking scene.”

      “Don’t tell me you’re into spanking too?” Pascal wondered when he’d stop being surprised by discovering spanking enthusiasts in Random Point.

      “Can you have the slightest doubt?”

      “What’s with Random Point? Is it some sort of cosmic magnet for spanking people?”

      “It’s not a supernatural phenomenon. It’s because of Hugo having his publishing company here for twenty years. The name Random Point has become synonymous with spanking, in the fetish world, like San Francisco and leather.”

      “Tell me about this famous spanking scene,” Pascal growled. He vaguely remembered a spanking scene from the movie of Kiss Me Kate he had seen once long ago. Was his wife to play the character who got spanked? Again? When she’d starred in A Doll’s House at the repertory theatre in Woodbridge two years before, she had contrived some spanking business that had never been in the play before. The little devil, he thought. No wonder she was more than over the moon about getting this part. The play was booked for a month of performances. She would get spanked numerous times on stage. Not to mention all the rehearsal spankings, during which she would be manhandled by her co-star, a buff, hearty, bullet-headed British baritone of unassailable masculinity. Pascal fumed.

      “The spanking occurs during the play within the play, with Fred and Lily playing Petruchio and Kate. She takes a swing at him and he says, ‘The name of the play is The Taming of the Shrew, not He Who Gets Slapped.’ Then he spanks her on stage. It’s a great scene. Probably the high point of 20^th century musical comedy.”

      “Humph!” brooded Pascal. Then he turned his attention back to Amanda’s head, looking at her critically from every angle. “I could shoot you as a tomboy, or a leatherwoman.”

      “I think I’d look good in skintight latex,” Amanda said helpfully.

      “Good point. Then no one will be paying any attention to your hair. Do you have any latex?”

      “Not at this point. It’s pretty expensive. I’ve been thinking about it.”

      “Go on line and pick out two latex outfits, send me the links and I’ll buy them for the shoot.”

      “Yay!” Amanda jumped up and down.

      He cocked his head at her, “Will you let me shoot you nude?”

      “Skintight latex is just like nude. Especially in a light, transparent color.”

      “True,” he conceded.

      “Tasteful nude is fine,” she told him. Pascal smiled. “But all your work is tasteful,” she corrected herself.

      “You’re a very nice girl,” he said gruffly. “but I still think you did a bad thing cutting your beautiful hair. Someone should spank you for that.”

      “Not you, Mr. Robbins. You’re not even into it.”

      “Who said I’m not?” he demanded, taking her by the arm. “What man worthy of the name isn’t into spanking?” he asked, pulling her over to one of the glass counters, bending her over and before she could process what was happening, smacking her slim oval cheeks over her skirt six times, bestowing three smart slaps to each before letting her up. A deep blush suffusing her face at this unexpected assault, Amanda unconsciously put both hands back to her bottom, now radiant with heat and a certain sting.

      “How… dare you!” she sputtered indignantly.

      “God, you’re adorable,” he cried, taking her face between his sensitive, long fingered hands and kissing her lightly on her rosy mouth just once. “But you’re naughty,” he added, causing butterflies to flutter in her stomach.

      “You can’t just bend someone over and spank them!” she charged, placing her hands on her hips.

      “You’re my model, aren’t you? That means you have to be submissive to me,” he casually informed her.

      “Really?” she sputtered.

      “Of course.”

      “Huh!” she retorted, now over folded arms. “I don’t need to model that badly!”

      “Oh yes you do. You like to see yourself in photos.”

      “Well… maybe I do,” Amanda grinned, dropping her arms to her sides.

      “Don’t forget to send me the latex links,” he told her, breezing out the door as though he had remembered an appointment.

      “I won’t,” she called after him, imprinting his dashing image in her mental photo album. It would be charming being one of Pascal Robbins’ models and to pose for shoots specifically tailored to her look and personality. This would be extra curricular work of the highest caliber and fit to be exhibited in any resume. Amanda was well pleased with the opportunity and in reality took only a little umbrage at the liberties the photographer had taken with her. However, mindful of his marital status, not to mention the fact that his wife was a lovely young woman also in the scene and apparently extremely jealous of her handsome husband’s affections, Amanda decided she would let him go no further with her, no matter how adorable he found her to be. At any rate, between Colby, Jaime the gardener and very shortly, Raphael Price, she already had two or three too many boyfriends.

      “Pascal Robbins spanked me,” said Amanda to Pamela in the sauna at the Random Point health club that night. They were clad in two-piece swimsuits after just having done a yoga class as well as a number of laps in the pool.

      “That’s not like him!” Pamela replied with surprise.

      “He never spanked you for cutting your hair?”

      “He’s never taken any kind of liberty with me.”

      “He was so fresh.”

      “It’s so typical of the disrespect these dominant men show us,” huffed Pamela, adding, “but then, Pascal is not exactly in the scene, so he doesn’t quite know the etiquette.”

      “That doesn’t make what he did any less impertinent,” Amanda pointed out.

      “Still, he knew he could get away with it. Even as innocent as he is, he can peg you for a submissive who isn’t going to fuss if someone smacks her.”

      “He kissed me too. On the mouth.”

      “Really!”

      “Do you know how long I made Colby wait for our first kiss? Months!”

      “What is that like, being totally in control of a man?” Pamela wondered, leaning up on her arm to regard her younger blonde friend across the cedar box in which they reclined.

      “Oh, Colby’s not a man, he’s a jock,” replied Amanda carelessly, then added with more interest, “Why? What do you mean? What’s Mr. Bartlett really like?”

      “Oh, he’s the worst offender imaginable when it comes to abusing his rights as a dominant,” Pamela declared candidly.