Nine

GETTING THERE WAS another matter. I had two days, and the obvious thing was to take a flight south to the nearest convenient airport and then hire a car. The disadvantage would be that I knew only roughly where Blue Ridge was, and with my luck would end up benighted in some godforsaken motel where the proprietor kept his mother’s stuffed corpse in the basement and liked to make jumpsuits out of girls’ skin. I thought of using a small motorhome instead, which would hopefully enable me to park at campsites with no more risk than of being pushed into rough sex by what I’d once heard Hudson describe as ‘tornado bait’.

While surfing for motorhomes I came across a site that offered not only to hire a thing called a Winnebago but also to collect it from any reasonable location in the United States. The smallest version slept four, apparently quite comfortably, but that would give me the option of bagging Jemima and driving her to the nearest city with an international airport, an option that was becoming increasingly tempting. After all, she wasn’t going to pay any attention to me otherwise, and it would mean I could get her away from Hudson’s influence. How I could physically get her into the vehicle if she didn’t want to come was another matter, something I’d just have to deal with when the time came.

The more I thought about the scheme the better it seemed. I could even pick up my Winnebago from a lot to the north of Manhattan and leave first thing in the morning. They had one called a Classic, which was a sort of luxury bedsit on wheels, complete with armchairs and a huge double bed, all tastefully upholstered in a quiet blue. It wasn’t exactly cheap, but I had to take into account the savings I’d make on accommodation, and if I was a little cheeky I could claim back at least a proportion of my travel expenses from the university.

By midnight I had my Classic booked and ready to be picked up, fully fuelled, when they opened in the morning. It would have been a little awkward if Hudson and Jemima had walked in just as I clicked the button to confirm my credit card payment, but they didn’t and I went to bed with a glass of his most expensive brandy and a new determination.

Morning seemed to come in a blink, and this time without any disturbing dreams to drive me into an erotic frenzy. I showered, dressed, packed my things and made a grand exit, pointedly not tipping Kunstmann. Only when I was in the cab did I realise that I hadn’t left a note for Hudson and Jemima, but I couldn’t face going back.

My Winnebago was ready as promised, a gleaming monster in red and silver, more like a bus than anything. The thought of driving it at all was daunting, never mind six hundred miles in a strange country and on the wrong side of the road as well. I’d hired the thing, though, so had little choice but to make the best of it, manoeuvring it out of the lot and in a generally southerly direction to the sound of protesting hoots from New York’s population of cab drivers.

Another pointless but romantic ambition I’d had was to drive out of New York on the New Jersey Turnpike, which I now did, rather slowly but gradually building up my confidence on the wide lanes. Before long I was singing to myself as I went, and in a surprisingly good mood, which got better as I gradually left the city behind. I could see the land rising to the west, and although I knew I had a long drive ahead of me I didn’t mind at all.

The Winnebago came complete with maps and a guide book of recommended camp sites, so after a long day with only two rest stops I was able to spend the night in safety and comfort. I’d covered over four hundred miles, and the atmosphere of the place was already very different from that of New York, in accent and in general manner. There was even a restaurant there, and I treated myself to a rack of ribs in barbecue sauce, which seemed the right sort of thing to do in rural America.

I started early after a night as comfortable as any in a hotel room, pushing south and west until I was nearing Grassy Creek and could turn off into the mountains. The landscape changed abruptly, to steeply wooded slopes and shadowy valleys. I took my lunch at a restaurant made out of huge logs and populated by bearded men and brassy women, where I ate outside in warm spring sunshine Everybody was extremely friendly to me, wanting to know where I was going and eager to give advice, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask the location of a maker of spanking videos, which didn’t seem likely to be something they’d know anyway.

The Blue Ridge website had provided a fair amount of information, but nothing precise. Yet there were clues, such as the view from the window of the supposed principal’s office, which showed rounded, tree-clad peaks just like the ones around me. Some of the other samples showed girls being spanked outdoors, and two of those included a distinctive double peak. I’d printed one out, taking care to crop the image of a dark-haired girl in pigtails and a yellow gingham skirt being paddled by a woman who was supposed to be her mother.

A huge ginger-haired man in a red check lumberjack shirt and scuffed jeans was eating at the table next to me. He seemed just the sort to recognise the local geography.

‘Excuse me,’ I ventured, ‘but do you recognise this peak?’

He took a single glance at the picture, nodded and jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

‘You’re right under it, Miss. Split Peak. I reckon that picture was taken no more than two, three miles down the road.’

I looked up to where the trees rose high above us, to what seemed to be a single peak, but he presumably knew what he was talking about. All I now had to do was drive around until I found myself at the right angle and distance to the appropriately named Split Peak, and I would presumably be on top of wherever Blue Ridge Spanking did their shoots.

‘Who’re you visiting?’ the man asked.

‘I’m not,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m just passing through, but some friends I was staying with in New York recommended this area.’

‘They got that right,’ he answered. ‘God’s own country.’

He drew in a deep breath of air, then swung his leg across the bench he was sitting on so that he was facing me and spoke again.

‘Say, you’re English, ain’t you?’

‘Yes. I’m here for a conference, in Phoenix, but I thought it would be interesting to travel a little.’

‘Is that right?’

We began to talk, with him asking the questions and me answering truthfully except avoiding any mention of kinky sex. He was called Matt Reynolds, and had lived in the area all his life. I enjoyed talking to him, though it felt a little curious after being almost completely on my own for two days, but when he invited me to call in at a bar he planned to visit that evening I gave a noncommittal answer.

I knew if I accepted we would end up in bed, and the thought of being held by him was not at all unappealing, despite the fact that he didn’t seem likely to be able to provide the sort of sex I crave. On the other hand it was quite possible that before the end of the afternoon I would have a sulky Jemima on my hands. Also, I had no desire whatsoever to listen to the country music band that would apparently be playing. There are limits to my masochism.

He went back to work before I’d finished my lunch and I turned my attention to the map. To the east the land fell away towards a sizeable town, whereas Blue Ridge was obviously deep in the woods, but to the west there was only a scattering of villages before the border of a major national park. There was also a ridge over a hundred metres higher than the top of Split Peak, which allowed me to cut down my search to an area just a few miles square, with a single road running through it.

I was feeling confident as I returned to the Winnebago, and I was soon parked beside the road at a point where the view of Split Peak almost exactly matched that in the photograph. There was a steep valley on one side of me, but a long, heavily wooded slope on the other, and, less than a hundred yards further up, a track leading into it, marked with a battered wooden sign. I walked closer, to find that the sign was in fact a weather-beaten spanking paddle with the Greek letters β and ρ painted in faded blue.

Finding it was one thing, preventing them from using Jemima quite another. I had to make a deliberate effort even to start down the track, but I’d already worked out my options on the long drive south and there was no excuse for hanging back. It was a long track, leading deep into the woods. Split Peak was visible across the valley, and the ground was dappled with sunlight filtering through the verdant leaves, creating a scene both beautiful and peaceful, very much at odds with my mission.

I must have walked the best part of a mile before I reached the house. It was a curious structure, built of wood on a wedge-shaped stone base set into the hillside, with a single storey looking out over the valley, and a cluster of ugly concrete outbuildings at the back. The garden was below the house, a gentle slope ending in a patch of scrubland that might once have been a field. I recognised it immediately from the pictures of the girl in pigtails being beaten. It all looked so homely that I hesitated, wondering if the shoot had been real, with some unprincipled mother paid to have her daughter’s spanking recorded.

The paddle, I decided, proved otherwise, and I walked on with a tight knot in my stomach. As I knocked I could hear music, very faint, then footsteps and the door swung open to reveal the bearded man, in shorts and dark glasses, looking far from friendly.

‘I’m a friend of Hudson Staebler’s,’ I said quickly.

‘Penny Birch.’

His suspicious grimace vanished, replaced by a grin so wicked he’d have made a good understudy for the Devil.

‘Cool. Come on in,’ he offered. His accent was very different from Matt Reynolds’, but I’d already guessed that he was no local. ‘I’m Tucker Vance.’

I stepped into a hallway I’d last seen in a picture with two unfortunate girls, supposedly sisters, being giving corporal punishment for coming home late and dressing like sluts.

‘So where’s Hudson?’ he was saying. ‘And don’t get me wrong, you’re cute and that, but I was expecting a younger girl – Jemmie?’

‘Jemima,’ I told him. ‘They’ll be along later. I drove down separately.’

‘Cool,’ he said once more, and ushered me into the main room. ‘Make yourself at home. Fancy a Bud?’

‘Yes, please.’

He went into a kitchen, leaving me to look round the room. It was long, with a huge picture window facing out across the valley, and I recognised it from his website as the scene of more than one of his domestic discipline shoots, although he’d done his best to make it look as if it was several different rooms in several different houses.

‘So what are you up for?’ he asked as he came in behind me. ‘Great ass, by the way. I love a full ass in tight blue jeans.’

As he spoke he planted a firm smack on my bottom and kept his hand there, kneading one cheek as if testing me for quality. I managed a giggle, knowing I had to play my part, and as he finally took his hand away he gave a dirty chuckle.

‘Great, nice and meaty. Sit down.’

I sat, but I hadn’t answered his question and wasn’t sure what to say. He solved my problem for me by pushing a piece of printed paper across the table. It was a sort of price list, setting out the various punishments a girl could take and how much she would be paid for each. I hadn’t expected anything so complicated, especially as their main aim seemed to be maximum exposure and a hard paddling for everyone, but there were plenty of choices, set out rather like a pizza menu.

The basic, equivalent to a margarita, was a hand spanking on jeans delivered by a partner. Going in your knickers paid more, bare more still, with a bonus if your pussy showed and another for having your cheeks pulled apart. Being stripped off on top added a smaller bonus, and going nude another. Having somebody other than your partner to do the spanking also paid more, and more still if it was a woman rather than a man, although for me that would have been the lesser humiliation. Then there were implements, each with its specific increment in price, from straps and small leather paddles right up to the big sorority paddles and the birch. Any girl who took the sort of punishment I’d seen on their site would earn what seemed to me quite a generous fee.

‘I thought you only did paddling?’ I asked.

‘Hell no, that’s just for Blue Ridge, which is how we started off. Nowadays we do all sorts, but we’ve got to put it on all different sites or it wouldn’t look right. The big deal with Blue Ridge is that it looks like it’s for real.’

‘I see. What has Jemima chosen?’

‘Jemmie? She’s going to start with a shoot for Over Mommy’s Knee; that’s jeans, panties and on the bare, all by hand. We’re going to play it like she’s been skipping school, saying she’s ill. That way we get to stick a thermometer up her tushie, which pays extra and the customers just love it. Then once her butt’s had a chance to cool off, she gets the full Blue Ridge treatment, yes ma’am.’

He broke off with a wistful sigh, no doubt imagining how Jemima would look holding her ankles while she was beaten with his enormous paddle. I bit my lip, also imagining her, but with a thermometer up her bottom before a woman who was supposed to be her mother spanked her. If anything it was worse than the paddling, more intimate anyway, while the fake incest carried a stigma all its own.

‘So how you going to fit in?’ he asked. ‘You can’t be Mommy, because my Janey likes to do that, and she looks the part. Say, how about you’re Jemmie’s teacher, who comes in and lends a hand with the spanking? You’d make a great school ma’am.’

‘Thanks,’ I answered, but he carried on, immune to sarcasm.

‘Then maybe we could go over to the classroom and you give it to her again, only she gets uppity and gives you a dose of your own medicine, how about that? Some of our boys just love to see an older woman get it from somebody younger, especially when she’s been dishing it out.’

I found myself blushing at the thought of being spanked by Jemima on camera, but I needed to play for time and responded with a thoughtful nod.

‘You just take your time,’ he said, ‘but I surely want you in those jeans. You fill ’em out like two pigs in a sack.’

The remark was supposed to be complimentary, and I forced a smile. I had to be there when Jemima and Hudson arrived, but I wasn’t at all sure when that would be, possibly not until the morning. Meanwhile I had to keep Tucker Vance occupied, and I really did not want to end up on film myself. He presumably needed somebody on camera, so I was safe for the time being, but needed to choose something from the list to show willing.

‘I’m fine with jeans,’ I told him, ‘and maybe outdoors?’

‘Outdoors is cool,’ he said. ‘Great day for it. How about one for Down the Woodshed? That’s where we’re husband and wife, and I take you down the garden for a larruping, then after I make you suck my dick. You suck dick, don’t you?’

I’d gone bright pink, and my fingers were shaking as I scanned the list, which had no mention of sexual activities at all.

‘Other side,’ he pointed out.

I nodded weakly and turned the piece of paper over, to find a whole range of options, all offered in combination with spankings, from having a man masturbate over my smacked bottom cheeks, through fellatio and cunnilingus, right up to full sodomy after a dose of the paddle. The prices for having various things stuck up your bottom or pussy were listed too, including the thermometer, the handles of implements, various plugs and your own knickers.

‘Take your pick,’ he offered generously, ‘but I’d count it a personal favour if you chose to give me a blow-job, because you’ve got a real pretty face, and Janey don’t like that sort of thing unless it’s in the way of business, if you get me.’

Again I forced a smile, wondering how I could possibly escape with Jemima but without prostituting myself. He was waiting for an answer.

‘OK, a woodshed spanking, if you like?’ I offered.

‘Cool,’ he answered, and reached out to take the price list. ‘So that’s a hand spanking on the bare, with an extra bj. Pussy on show and cheeks apart, yeah? Cool. Fancy anything up your butt? A screwdriver handle maybe?’

I shrugged, blushing, glad it wasn’t actually going to happen but unable to stop myself picturing my bumhole spread on the rounded handle of a screwdriver as he watched. He nodded, frowning as he studied the list, then quoted a price that would have paid for my Winnebago hire and a couple of tanks of fuel on top. I told myself firmly it wasn’t worth making a prostitute of myself.

‘Cool,’ he repeated, and sat back, completely relaxed.

Outside it was bright sunshine, and if Janey came back I was going to need an excuse not to do what I’d agreed to. I thought of pretending I was on my period, but I had a nasty suspicion he’d simply offer me a bonus for having the string of my tampon hanging out of my vagina while I was spanked.

‘Nothing like a cold Bud,’ he said, and put his now empty bottle down. ‘If I know my Janey, she might not be back before dark, but don’t worry, you’ll get your tail attended to in the morning. While we’re waiting, how about we do your mugshots?

‘Mugshots?’

‘You must have seen ’em; face, cunt and ass, all in a row, with your name and the logo on ’em so no thieving bastards can pinch ’em. They’re a trademark of ours, and great publicity, believe me. They get all over the net.’

I could believe it and my stomach had gone tight, remembering the hideously intrusive pictures of the Blue Ridge girls, with every tiny fold of their most intimate body parts posted for all the world to gape at. Presumably they wouldn’t put mine up if they didn’t have a spanking set to go with them, but then again if I deprived them of Jemima they might very well do it out of sheer spite, complete with my real name, which it had been pointless to try and hide when Hudson could instantly identify me.

‘Shall we do it outside?’ he asked casually.

I got up, desperately trying to think of some excuse. The best I could think of was asking to use the bathroom first, but that would only postpone my fate. I did it anyway, wiping my pussy and giving my bumhole a quick polish and a check in the mirror to make sure I was clean. As I held my cheeks apart to inspect myself I was thinking of the shot he would take, showing the soft pink ring of my anus in her little nest of hair, which gave me an idea. All the girls I could remember from his pictures had been shaved.

He was already outside, setting up an expensive-looking camera on a tripod. I walked across to him, praying it was him, rather than the girls he worked with, who was keen on the removal of body hair.

‘Um … there’s one little problem,’ I said. ‘I’m not shaved, and …’

‘That’s cool,’ he said casually. ‘Most guys like to have their girls shaved, but hey, what’s wrong with the natural look? Face the camera, and relax. I want you looking like you’re just going down to the store, real normal.’

I turned to the camera, trying to look calm, but with a sense of panic rising inside me that hit a peak as he took the shot. They had me on record, unmistakable as myself, and yet still innocent because there was nothing rude to go with it. That wasn’t going to last long.

‘Cool,’ he was saying. ‘Now pop your jeans and panties down, look back at me and stick that cute little butt right out, all the way, so daddy can see the chocolate starfish.’

My hands went to the button of my jeans, opening it as I thought of how I would look, my face clearly visible as I looked back over my shoulder, my bottom stuck out to show off my pussy, my bumhole pink and rude between my spread cheeks, to be put on record for any man in the entire world to gloat over, to masturbate over …

Something broke inside me. I panicked, running before I could stop myself, down across the lawn and in among the scrub. Tucker called out, but I didn’t catch what he said, crashing in among the bushes and away, indifferent to anything but escape. Only the thickness of the undergrowth slowed my headlong flight, and I didn’t stop until I was well down the slope and among taller, older trees.

He hadn’t followed, and I rested, panting, as I struggled to get my thoughts under control. I knew I’d probably lost my chance of saving Jemima from the same fate, but the thought of my students and colleagues at the university seeing me like that was unbearable, never mind my mother. It would have happened too, because if I’d had my mugshots taken and spoiled Tucker’s shoot with Jemima he was all too likely to have put them up under my real name. Once they were up, anybody putting my name into a search engine was likely to find them. Every time I set a student an essay he or she would very likely have ended up studying not genetics but close-ups of my pussy and bumhole. I’d been right to run.

I couldn’t go back to Blue Ridge, so decided to make for the Winnebago and think about what to do next. Unfortunately a sharp gully ran down through the woods between me and the road, steep, muddy and choked with thorns. To get around the top meant coming uncomfortably close to the house, so I continued down the slope to the bottom of the valley. The river proved to be quite wide and in spate, making it impossible to cross, while a fence prevented me from following it up the valley. I went down instead, and after over an hour of rough walking managed to cross where a big tree had fallen and scramble up the opposite side.

By the time I reached the main road I was hot, sweaty and covered in tiny scratches, my hair full of twigs and my hands filthy. There was a bar some way further down the road and I made for it, ignoring the curious looks from the men inside as I made for the Ladies. Having used their bathroom I felt it was only polite to buy something, and I badly needed a drink anyway, so I ordered a beer and retreated to a quiet table. It was quite a rough-looking place, and other than the slatternly barmaid I was the only woman there.

Two of the men propping up the bar began to glance at me, making me nervous, and when a gravelly male voice spoke from directly behind me I nearly jumped out of my skin.

‘Hey, you’re early.’

It was Matt Reynolds, grinning all over his hairy face.

‘Hi,’ I managed. ‘I was, um … walking and I got a bit lost, so I thought I might as well come in.’

‘Glad you did,’ he answered me. ‘Another beer?’

‘Please, yes.’

I was still thirsty, and swallowed my second beer almost as fast as the first. Now that I was with Matt Reynolds none of the other men were paying me any attention at all. Evidently I was spoken for, and it was a great deal easier to accept the situation than to resist. I let him buy another round of beer and a third, then treat me to a dish of something called Brunswick stew, apparently a local speciality and traditionally made out of squirrel.

By the time I’d finished I could barely keep my eyes open for exhaustion. I felt drunk and warm, while the patter of his conversation washed over me without really sinking in. A band arrived and several friends of his joined us, both male and female. If the women hadn’t been asking me endless questions I’d have soon been asleep. They seemed to assume I was Matt’s property, and before long one of them suggested that he should take me home and put me to bed.

I knew he’d have me, but I didn’t really mind, just as long as he didn’t expect anything beyond sleepy acquiescence. He took me outside, and began to paw me even before we got to his pick-up, pressing his mouth to mine and squeezing my bottom. I gave in to it, letting him kiss me and touch where he liked, until my body began to respond in sleepy arousal.

He was keen, bundling me into the pick-up and driving just a few hundred yards down the road to where three huge trailers loaded with logs stood in a lay-by. I let him lead, responding to his kisses as he unbuttoned my blouse and pulled my bra up to free my breasts, allowing my hand to be guided to his cock, pulling him free and tugging him erect as he fondled me. He was barely hard before he was easing my head down into his lap, holding me by my hair as he put his cock in my mouth, not rough, but making it very clear that he wanted to be sucked and wouldn’t stand any nonsense.

I did it willingly enough, and he was soon stroking my hair and calling me ‘babe’ and ‘angel’ as I worked on his erection. My nipples were stiff as he groped my dangling boobs, and I was just beginning to enjoy myself properly when he came, full in my mouth and holding my head down to force me to swallow. I did it without fuss, enjoying the sensation of having my control taken away, which left him well pleased with me, and with himself.

We drove on and I was soon asleep, only to wake again as he lifted me bodily out of the pick-up. I was carried indoors and laid down on a bed, my clothes removed and my naked body explored, first with his fingers and then with his tongue, until he’d got his cock hard again. He fucked me on my back, with my legs rolled high as he loomed over me, then turned me over to take me from behind, rubbing his cock between the cheeks of my bottom before putting himself up me, and finally inserted himself in my mouth once more to come, and for a second time forced me to swallow.

There was no thought for my pleasure. I was used like a little fleshy doll, or perhaps he just assumed that the motion of his cock in my pussy was all the stimulation I would ever need. He didn’t spank me or sodomise me, and when, after my third fucking, he finally rolled off me and went to sleep I was left to masturbate myself to a badly needed orgasm, which faded to sleep almost before I’d extracted my fingers from my sticky hole.