Bad Girls (6 page)

The alarm went off frighteningly early the next morning. By the time I had stumbled into the bathroom and put on his robe, he'd set a place for me at his table and made me an omelet. It was the first time I'd had anything but Poptarts for breakfast since I stole that proscuitto.

‘What are you going to do today, Nicole?'

It was an innocent enough question, but I don't think he meant it that way. He knew that bankrupt shoplifters didn't usually make the right choices. It was his way of cutting to the chase. I was too scared to go where I knew he was going to take it, though, so I lied.

‘I've got a job interview coming up. I'm going to go home and prepare.' I tried to be vague and ambitious, in hopes it would discourage further inquiry.

‘Nicole, I'm a prosecutor. I spend my whole life taking apart people's lies. But I don't start work for another two hours. Just tell me the truth. What are you going to do today?'

‘I don't know.'

‘That's better.'

‘I need to figure out what I'm going to do about repaying my debt.'

‘You should get a job.'

‘Duh.'

‘No, I mean you should get a job today.'

‘It's not that easy, Pete.'

‘I'm pretty sure it is that easy, Nicole.'

‘Come on, Pete. I was thinking I really should go back to law school. Anyway, I haven't even updated my resume in eight months. Plus, I need to get resume paper and envelopes before I can even send any off.'

‘You mean steal resume paper and envelopes?'

It sounds mean, but it wasn't. He said it with a bit of a smile because he knew he was right, and I didn't deny it.

‘Get a job by the end of the day and I'll buy you dinner and make you come twice as many times as I did last night.'

‘Do you even know how many times I came?'

‘Four times. I like fours.'

He was right.

‘And if I don't get a job today?'

‘Then I'll spank you and send you home without dinner or sex.'

‘What?'

‘I warned you: I won't accept you the way you are.'

‘But…'

‘But what, Nicole? You didn't expect me to be so true to my word? Or is it the spanking thing?'

‘It's… well, it's both. It's everything.'

‘Look, Nicole, here's what I believe. We're all nuts in our own ways. Your way is no worse than my way, except your way is going to get you thrown in jail and my way is getting me paid well to do something I like. In spite of our nuttiness, we exist in a world that rewards certain behavior and is intolerant of other behavior. Typically, behavior that creates value for oneself and others is rewarded and that which sucks value away is prohibited. Thus, putting criminals in prison, rewarded; stealing from gourmet food shops, punished. The better the system can reward the good and punish the bad, the more effective it is. At the societal level the system tends to be clumsy and ineffectual, but at the micro level it can work quite well. I can give you immediate feedback, offer a transparent and just system of punishment and reward, and enforce it fairly as long as we continue to like each other, which I expect we will for quite a long time.'

‘Uh… okay. I guess.' He said it with such conviction that I was carried away by his words and moved by his guileless sincerity. I'd heard all this before, of course. Legal theory, the social contract, economics 101 and the like hadn't gone completely over my head. It was just that I had always sort of regarded myself as above all that. It was called rational actor theory, and I had always held onto my inalienable right to be irrational. My shrink seconded me on this, but he wasn't seeing me since I hadn't been able to pay, so he'd probably lost his vote. Pete didn't seem entirely rational himself, but I liked him.

‘So, you know what you have to do?'

‘Yeah.'

‘What time should we meet?'

‘How about seven?'

‘Sounds good. Do you want to meet here?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Don't be late.'

‘Or?'

‘Spanking. No dinner. No sex. It's that simple.'

‘I'll be salivating at your bell in no time, Dr Pavlov.'

‘A consistent schedule of reinforcement is essential to conditioning new behavior regardless of species, Nicole.'

‘Woof.'

We laughed, kissed, and fucked again before he had to leave for work.

Then the most amazing thing happened: I got a job. Actually, I got three jobs. I went places where you could get a job on the spot. Cheap restaurants, warehouses, retail. I just walked down the street and asked everyplace that was open. It was scary at first, but after a while it became easy. If they gave me an application I filled it out exactly as I thought they would like it filled out. It didn't hurt that I had worked so many jobs that I'd experience at everything from being an artist's model to a zookeeper (I liked the way I could claim to be experienced at everything from A to Z, though really I was an assistant to the zookeeper's assistant, but that's just another A).

Anyway, I found three jobs and was scheduled to begin tomorrow at whichever of the three I decided to show up for. All three sucked, but as Pete had said, each would reward me for creating value, even if it was only by serving food, lugging boxes, entering data or working a cash register. I had imagined that I would be ashamed to grovel for work that was so below me, but I created a persona for each job and that persona was better suited for groveling than I was. It was like anthropology. Besides, Pete's weird spanking remark gave me something else to think about.

The truth was, I kind of obsessed about it. Had he meant it? I had an easier time believing he would give me eight orgasms than believing he would actually spank me. Do people really do that? I always assumed it was all kind of a joke, like swingers or furries. I'd had some boyfriends who wanted to do it to me, and I let one or two. I liked how much they enjoyed it, but it didn't really do anything for me other than hurt. I hadn't really thought about spanking since I'd left St. Anne's in the eighth grade.

This was different. It felt sort of sexy, but it also felt degrading. Did he think of me like Pavlov thought of his dogs? Did he think he was always right? Was he some sort of upscale wife-beater who disguised his domestic violence as fetish-based behavior modification? Was he like those damn nuns? Who knew?

I wouldn't find out tonight, because his doorman buzzed me in at 6:55 with three job offers in my purse, in case he required proof. I was totally curious about the spanking, but also scared to death of it. I didn't want to disappoint Pete, and I'm not good with pain.

Dinner and eight orgasms arrived as promised. He was completely adoring to me, a great conversationalist and a hot lover – repeatedly!

‘How is it that you're still single?' I asked as we lay next to each other afterwards.

He reached over to the bed stand and handed me an envelope. On the cover it had my name. I opened it and inside were a series of documents. They had titles like
Weekly Schedule
,
Daily to-do List
,
Infractions and Their Punishments
,
Weekly Budget
, and
Cleanliness Requirements
. Each was specifically addressed to me, with an outline of his expectations, a course of action, and the consequences of success and failure. There were tables, indexes, cross-references, and charts. They were written like legal documents, with an impersonal tone that should have offended me but turned me on instead. He had done all this for me?

‘I'm very controlling,' he said. ‘Most women tire of it quickly. You probably will, too.'

‘I wouldn't be so sure.'

I kissed him and turned on the light next to the bed so I could read every word. The schedule, budget and to-do list were pretty self-explanatory. The schedule designated a specific day for every little thing and the daily to-do list provided the order in which they were to be done. The budget set out how much everything would cost, both in money and time; a budget, he noted, was to govern the distribution of all limited resources, not just money. I was always to know what was expected of me, and these documents left little doubt. You would think I'd have run as fast as I could in the other direction. I had always been a rebel, a non-conformist. I bristled at anyone's attempt to assert control over me, but the events of the past weeks had shown me where that led. In fact, if I looked a little deeper under my devil-may-care façade, I found an aimless malcontent. I didn't like my life, but I liked how Pete made me feel. Besides, my alternative was to try to dig my way out of debt myself, and that seemed destined to fail.

As I read I was taken away to a different place, and relished the cozy sense of security it made me feel. For the first time in years I went to bed knowing exactly what I would be doing the next day. A few years ago this would have made me intolerably claustrophobic, but now, tucked into Pete's immaculate bed, it made me feel good.

The
Cleanliness Requirements
read like the priestly codes in Leviticus (the priests must have been the OCD members of the tribe). There were sections on menstrual cleanliness; showers necessary before spankings or sexual activity, responsibility for providing a dark towel for lovemaking or bare-bottomed spanking, etc, and sections on hair removal; waxing or shaving acceptable, using his razor unacceptable; pubic coiffure according to my preference, but au natural and totally bald discouraged. Things like laundry days, ironing and dry cleaning budgets were in the other documents. The only part of the cleanliness document that made me blush was the part about the mandatory self-exam prior to sexual activity or spanking. After completing any necessary ‘natural functions', I was instructed to use a mirror, to be provided, to inspect my pussy and ass for stray bits of toilet paper, lint and other inexplicable but mortifying bits on my nether regions. I was not only required to stand with my back to a wall-mounted mirror, bend over and peer through my legs – urged to use my hands to spread my cheeks for a better view – but I also had to straddle a mirror on the floor and look down at the view it provided, preferably spreading my labia with thumb and forefinger and peering inside. I didn't know what he expected me to find in there, but his detailed instructions made me worry about what all my previous boyfriends might have found. The document explained the difference between an anal douche and an enema, prescribing a self-administration of the former prior to anal sex or punishments of a certain severity, and reserving the latter for him to administer on the occasion of particularly severe punishments. A footnote promised that the varying levels of punishment would be elaborately discussed in the punishment document.

Indeed, it was the punishment document that really got my attention. It was a labor of love, a legal code with an internal consistency that put federal sentencing guidelines to shame. It was prefaced by a theory of punishment, which espoused the efficacy of swift and painful punishment as the best way to reinforce a clear and fair code of behavior. Spankings had been chosen for their basis in tradition, the prerequisite intimacy and trust, the humiliation and shame involved, the wide-range of options, from mild to severe, and the unmediated physical immediacy of the feedback. I was a little dazed by the sheer quantity of big words used to justify and describe a slap on the ass, but the inflexible objectivity of it turned me on. I was but a function in this system; I would simply be treated in a way commensurate with my behavior. There was no room for conniving, negotiating, or making excuses. It wasn't like we were two people: it was like Pete was an instrument of a wise and commanding system that would dictate how and when he was to administer a prescribed dose of pain to my backside. The thought of it left me breathless.

The document was divided into three parts: principles, descriptions, and schedules of consequences, the latter being a schedule in the ‘tax schedule' sense, not to be confused with the
Weekly Schedule
, in which times had been blocked out for punishments earned. The first part – the principles of punishment – was subdivided into a defense of negative reinforcement, which argued that positive reinforcement by itself was insufficient to successfully modify behavior, citing several definitive studies on the matter, a defense of corporal punishment as the preferred mode of negative reinforcement, and finally an outline of the superior features spanking offers when compared to other means of corporal punishment. Reading between the lines I could see a hesitation on his part, as if he had to exhaust every other option before he could allow himself to go forward with this particular plan. The window inside the mind of the man who would, at some future date, inevitably give me my first adult spanking, was captivating. I imagined what would go through his head as he bared my ass and administered a punishment on my unprotected flesh. I even felt a certain bond with him; we were both, after all, subjects of the same law, for this code offered neither of us any flexibility. He would be as compelled as me to participate in the administration of the prescribed punishment, no matter our feelings on the matter. Somehow the fact that he had written the code himself was lost on me. Only later would I have to face the fact that however much we shared the experience, the agony was reserved exclusively for me.