Shadow Lane Volume 9: The History of Hugo Sands and other Stories of Spanking and Love. Eve Howard
Читать онлайн книгу.
emailed it straight back to him, realizing it would be better to keep to her deadline than try to rework her paragraphs any longer. Then she went off to her afternoon classes and her early evening stint in the library, where she already had one part time job shelving books.
Bettie wasn’t enjoying her freshman year. She had no affinity for her roommate, a cheerleader named Randi. She hated her dorm room, with its cinderblock walls and metal desks. She missed the lush trees and refreshing rains of New England. Her instructors either confused or failed to engage her.
She had also become disenchanted with her suitor, Gilbert Rush, a driven young realtor. He however, was becoming less of a problem since beginning an affair with one of his silicon enhanced, thin, blonde associate sharks. Bettie was untroubled by the development and felt quite ready to cut Gilbert loose, for since coming to L.A. her lover’s topics of conversation had narrowed to stock options, real estate envy and designer consumerism, none of which interested the college freshman.
Bettie Brandon hated L.A. The sky was ugly and the landscape virtually devoid of trees. The air held no scent. Bright, glaring concrete and soul killing post-Bauhaus architecture set the scene for general despair. Scrawny palm trees, useless mini-malls and appalling plastic signage dominated every vista. Public transportation was a cold, unfriendly thing. Libraries were few and far between. All restaurants and offices were kept icy cold, apparently by law. And the local newspapers were unreadable.
Westwood was only marginally pretty, massively inconvenient and almost completely without charm. Without a car or bike, distances even to and from the bus stop from within the village, where Gilbert’s condo was located, exhausted and deflated Bettie. Getting anywhere in the city other than Beverly Hills on the buses seemed to take half the day, and the end goals inevitably disappointed. Hollywood Blvd. made Bettie want to cry. The beaches were crowded, chilly and bleak. Parks were one square block of grass with no hills to climb, no trees to shelter behind. Downtown was but a dozen skyscrapers, divided from skid row by two blocks of food stalls, jewelry marts and pawnshops. The Civic Center stood desolately apart from restaurants and other city life. Indeed, there was no city life except in West Hollywood and Hollywood, venues which Bettie was just beginning to discover as she searched for cutting edge music and fetish clubs.
And then there was the onset of winter to contend with. Day after day low clouds hovered above and chill breezes blew in off the ocean, reaching all the way to the campus. Again and again she questioned her choice to come out, the only positive side of which was the considerable distance now extant between herself and her mother.
Then came the introduction to Mr. Rose. She had felt a fierce attraction for him the moment he shook her hand, partially because she knew he was a dominant and partially because he was an attractive, confident older man.
While her high school girlfriends hung portraits of Brad Pitt and Keanu Reeves in their lockers, she had worshiped black and white glossies of Cary Grant and Robert Taylor, ordered from Movietime News. For it was while watching old movies that Bettie had first become attracted to suave, assertive men. As a small child she had noticed that these early 20th century heroes were somehow more charming then the men she saw around her at the turn of the millennium, when she was coming of age. She liked the way the men of the silver screen were always threatening to spank their ladies or were throwing them over one shoulder or tucking them under an arm to carry them off somewhere in order to smother their mouths with kisses.
Bettie had come to associate men in their late thirties and early forties with such romantic images. Augie Rose, for example, had short hair and wore crisp suits, just like Melvin Douglas or Franchot Tone. He had the proper look, was undoubtedly in The Scene, and in fact was in every way, Bettie’s notion of a real leading man.
But Bettie sensed that Augie Rose was not interested. His body language confirmed it. Which made her wonder why he had given her the work at all. She had already been affected by Gilbert’s cynicism and didn’t expect something for nothing in Los Angeles. Bettie sent Hugo an email asking his opinion after reporting the results of their first encounter.
Hugo wrote back:
Dear Bettie,
He probably took one look at you and thought you were fifteen. Next time you see him, dress like a lady.
Hugo
Bettie didn’t own many grown up outfits. She did have several pair of outrageously high pumps that Gilbert had bought her and which she had only worn with lingerie (in that deliciously sleazy adult motel with the mirror on the ceiling) for him. And she had a stretch jersey dress or two.
When Bettie arrived at Augie’s offices the following Tuesday to pick up her check she was dressed in a long sleeved cream wool sheath dress and a pair of black pumps with four inch heels and elegantly high vamps. Over the dress she had thrown a black cashmere princess cut topcoat that had been Hugo’s going away present to her at the end of the summer. She had knotted her long, thick hair into a full chignon at the back of her head and colored both her lips and nails dark red. The effect was to add several years to her appearance and she looked like a different young woman entering Augie’s office the second time.
“Bettie?” Augie asked, rising from behind his desk. She tottered in and unsteadily sat down. They looked at each other for a moment, neither knowing what to say and both coloring as they tried to decide.
“Don’t you look different today?” he finally remarked, raising his eyebrow at her as though the change did not entirely please him. In reality his heart was thumping at the thought of how easily he might possess the sophisticated little dreamboat who was so obviously offering herself to him for a second appraisal.
“Do you not like me this way?” she asked tremblingly.
“Well, I’ll admit you were a bit casual during our first interview,” he replied, writing her out a check and tearing it out of a large book. “Thank you, Bettie.” She took the check and put it in her purse.
“Thank you,” she said. “I hope my work was satisfactory.”
“Oh, fine. Call me next week. Maybe I’ll have something else for you.”
“Okay,” she replied, realizing with a heavy blush, that she was being dismissed.
By the time she had tottered to the bus stop, Bettie was sobbing. She was a beautiful, 18 year old submissive, a chic fashion angel in pure wools and fetish pumps. She had essentially wrapped herself up as a present for a 40-year-old man in the scene and he had simply dismissed her. Bettie was crushed. What had she done wrong? Why was he indifferent? She felt too ashamed at the lack of impression she had made on Augie Rose to confide in Hugo as yet.
Somehow she lived through the week, forcing herself to think about her schoolwork rather than Augie Rose. At least he had given her the invitation to call him. She did this mid morning on Monday, unaware that this is the busiest time for all businesspersons. She stammered out that she was calling to see if he had any more work. He seemed harried and said he’d call her later in the week.
More torment. Bettie had found Augie Rose’s website, which displayed several excellent portraits of the pulp fiction publisher. Therefore she was able to look upon the countenance of Augie Rose while she wondered and waited. Finally on Thursday afternoon he emailed her that if she cared to stop by on Friday afternoon he would have work for her.
Bettie was wildly excited at having a fresh opportunity to interest Augie Rose, but less than eager accept another tedious editorial assignment, the excellent money not withstanding. She had lost much valuable study time the previous weekend and dreaded another such laborious task.
This time Bettie arrived at Augie Rose’s offices dressed in a charmingly conservative little coed outfit composed of a skirt and matching cardigan over a fitted blouse, with well behaved two and a half inch pumps, rather reminiscent of the forties. She wore her hair loose and it rippled down her back. Augie was irresistibly attracted to its glossy luxuriance and in spite of his determination not to flirt with her, blurted out, “God, you’ve got beautiful hair.”
Bettie felt some pleasure at these