PART V - JULIE'S SECRETS

         “Bobby?”
         “What, Jules?”
         “I am going to ask you something odd. I don’t know what you will think of me.”
         “Go ahead.”
         “Will you spank me?”


         The Victorian houses were almost too perfect. They were painted colors that would have had them cited by the mucky-mucks and poohbahs in Pound Ridge or Bedford, where white was the prevailing color.

         “Where’s your water tank?”
         “It’s hidden outside of town in West Windsor, and it doesn’t have ‘CRANBURY’ painted on it in big letters. And we don’t want to change the name of the town to ‘East Princeton’. So many towns around here just want to make sure you know we are near the great seat of learning. By the way, I doubt we’ll be able to go ice skating, Brenda. It hasn’t been cold enough to freeze the pond.”
         “That’s OK, I have weak ankles anyway. I better think about strengthening them if I have inherited any of my mom’s genes. If so, I’ll be packing a little bit of weight in twenty years or so.”

         Spending the last part of the holiday break with Katie was a gas. Anything to get her out of that solemn house.

         “It’s really great you invited me. I don’t think I could have spent another day with Mr. & Mrs. Norman Maine.”
         “Huh?”
         “James Mason, Judy Garland, Star is Born? Husband is going to hell in a hand basket with his drinking while wife rises in the world.”
         “Oh yea, they made that with Streisand and Kristofferson, I think.”
         “Couldn’t have been as good or sad as this version.”
         “Your dad is a, a, a?"
         “My dad is a drunkard.”
         “Yuck.”
         “That's a joke. Bogart says that to the German officer in Casablanca. My father is an account executive for some radio station in the City. He does like to drink though. I think it goes with the job.”
         “That’s sad.”
         “They got married when Mom was still in law school and Dad was just starting out. Mom is now a hotshot lawyer, does wills and estates, writes articles and is semi-famous. Dad flogs advertising, which is what he did at age twenty-five. I think he ran out of stations to work at in Connecticut, or maybe he likes to ride the train and hit the club car at the end of the day. He gets off in Stamford and drives home, sometimes I don’t know how.”
         “What does your Mom think?”
         “She’s too busy to think. Sometimes I think it’s a wonder they stay together, but I like my father a lot. He really raised me in many ways. Took me everywhere. We’d go to Yankee Stadium. He’d get free tickets from clients. Mom was too busy to go.”
         “That’s too bad what’s happened.”
         “I think he wasn’t that different then, but then he had me and devoted a lot of his life and time to me. Now all he has is his television and that big house. Mom spends her nights in her office at home, working, while all he can do is watch television. Did you know that on days I didn’t have school he’d take me with him when he had to see clients? Said I was his best sales trick.”
         “That’s cute. Do you think they will stay together? Does she still love him?”
         “I don’t know. If they break up, I can’t imagine him taking care of himself. I think of trying to help him somehow.”
         “You have your own life, Brenda.”
         “You don’t get it, Katie. He was my best friend growing up. He is a real sweetie. Mom went past him like he was standing still, and now he doesn’t know what to do. Whatever I can do for him I will.”


         “You did that really great for someone who says he hadn’t spanked a woman in his life. What are you doing now? You’re using those magic fingers on me, oh god, oh my, ohhhhhh.”


         “Mom, what’s with Dad? He hasn’t wanted to barbecue once since the weather got warm. He used to do that every weekend, even last year I think. And I asked him about going to the fireworks on the Fourth in New London. He said to ask you.”
         “I don’t know why he’s not using the barbecue. I have been trying to lose some weight and told him some of his recipes were out of bounds, but that shouldn’t stop him. You know I am going to be giving seminars nationally for this one outfit. Think of that, Brenda, YOUR MOM, talking to rooms full of lawyers from all over.”
         “Real neat. Will Dad come with you on these trips?”
         “He has to work too, and as for the Fourth, I did want to get up to Dutchess County and get this new Poughkeepsie office up and running over that break.”
         “What’s Dad going to do when you are out on the road?”
         “He takes care of himself.”
         “Not the Dad I've seen since I have been home. I did tell you that the last week of this month Katie and I will be starting work at this deli on Long Beach Island?”
         “Yes, you did. Will you need any money?”
         “Just a little. Katie’s parents have a house there so there is no rent, but I told you that already. Mom, I really am worried about Daddy. Take care of him, please.”
         “Brenda, your Daddy needs to do better for himself. I may not be here to take care of him forever.”
         “Waddyamean?”
         “I’ll be forty-five August Eighteenth. I smoke heavily. I’m overweight. My work is stressful. Anything could happen to me.”
         “Or you could leave Daddy, admit it that you have thought of it.”
         “That’s silly. Then I would be alone. Who’s going to look at a forty-four year old mini-blimp whose breath is like an ashtray and who has no time for anyone?”
         “If you ever do, believe me, I will help Daddy all I can. I will still love you because you are my mother, but Daddy will be my point of life.”


         ‘Poughkeepsie office? Who would be interested in me? If you only knew, my child. Julie, your lies are getting thicker. Why did God give me a smart and sensitive nineteen-year-old daughter? She’s really come a long way, and I have missed it all. And she’ll hate Bobby, I know it.’


         “How was the manicotti?”
         “It was good; I didn’t mind the sauce at all.”
         “It never tastes fresh enough to me.”
         “Opinions, that’s what courts are for. What did happen to the people we left in the lurch? I know you were hurt, but my office could have helped you. Bill Jensen is a good man and Renee is very competent.”
         “I’m sure they are. Bill would have learned a lot of estate taxes had I given him the work.”
         “He could have asked me all the questions he wanted.”
         “But I couldn’t ask you anything.”
         “We agreed. There was no way we could cooperate and be quasi-partners in business and keep our hands off each other, although you could have come to Stamford and seen the staff and avoided me.”
         “C,mon Julie, at some point we would have had to work together. You know I could not listen to any Philadelphia Orchestra tapes after Barb flew the coop. Too painful! It would have been the same walking into your office. I would have been afraid I would run into you, and then be disappointed if you did not show up. In your call you asked if we could work in business together. If you really believed we could, you would have made it happen. As you said, you usually get what you want.”
         “And what did happen to those three or four estates?”
         “I had to turn them over to another attorney. Didn’t collect a dime and had to pay a late charge for one person because of a late filing. Looked real great, real professional. Ran advertising in the phone book and weekly papers and then had to tell the people I couldn’t do it. It’s been a little over a year now; it was around your birthday. It was a Friday. Within four months I had to give up hope of retaining any of the work. You're right, it was not all your fault, but your decision and my pride made me look like an ass.”
         “I told you I could not help it. I couldn’t going on living that way for another two years and I could not lose my daughter.”
         “You should have thought of that before you advertised on line, or you should have advertised for something different. How about ‘Man to jolly me with his fingers and spank my round bottom. Length not important, thickness desired’?”
         “You always have a nice edge of sarcasm. Do you ever hear from what was her name, Lisa?”
         “No, she took me at my word.”
         “You could have gone back.”
         “Crawled back, you mean.”
         “So instead you came here to torment me.”
         “Torment, no.”
         “Then what are you going to do.”


         Bobby didn’t own the land that fronted on the bay. He was higher up on the hill, his ground stretching back to the top of the hill. The house, one story with a basement that was more above ground in the front than back, showed its length to the bay and top of hill. Its side walls ran up the slope. It sat about fifty yards from the road that ran parallel to the front of the house. A street bisected this road on the left side of his plot, but it was a football field in length from his walls. A large window looked out on the bay and a flight of wooden steps took the visitor up to the front door. At the top of the steps a deck was built out to the left and in front of the window. To reach the deck, the resident had to go out the front door.

         Bobby had wondered why a sliding door was not built in the window, but now that the house was finished he was not about to question anyone’s plans. He was not a person for deck sitting in New York, and did not take it up here. Julie used the deck in Red Hook. She would insist he join her there for the simple meals of breakfast and lunch, and at any time she needed a dose of nicotine. After her mid-August phone call, he locked the deck door and never opened it again except to show the house to prospective tenants.


         Linda was impressed with the picture of the house. It did not look as big as the BI-level on 199, but she remembered the bottom level was the basement there, while this new house had the cellar built into the hill. There were many more trees; they looked pretty tall. The note did not say anything important except that he might drive east in August. He had moved everything in and was ready for work within a week. He gave her his work and home numbers.

         He had engaged Linda to collect the rent from the Farbers, the unpleasant couple now renting the old house. He paid her a regular Realtor’s commission to forward their check to him and to watch the house. The rent checks were sent to a post office box in Rhinebeck for which she had the key. She wasn’t to perform labor at the house or tell the Farbers she was his agent unless she had a problem, in which case he gave her a Power of Attorney to act for him.

         A more sophisticated person than Linda would have felt this sinecure was Bobby’s way of assuaging his guilt for leaving and throwing her out of a job, but she could not blame him. She had been there the day of the phone call. He had told her immediately. Later that day, when Bobby felt like talking, she told him of finding Frank and whatshername, both stark naked, her big white butt staring at her as she came into the bedroom. She told him because she wanted to say, and did say, that she had the joy of giving the woman a swift, hard kick up her bottom and wished she could do the same to Julie. Despite the thunderclap that he had heard on the phone, Bobby had to chuckle at this. Knowing Julie, she would probably have loved it.


         “You’re incredible. You get better at it every time. My ass tingles. I am so hot and wet. Use your wonder digits on me. I think I am even lubricated where I’m not supposed to be.”
         “Think you are too. I’ll apply a little two-handed stimulation, one right here on this target I just turned red, especially on this thingee hidden away in here, and the other hand I’ll just slide under here like this, to feel these wet fleshy lips. Where is that switch that turns you on? I think this is it, isn’t it Ms. Superlawyer.”
         “Oh god, oh god, Bobby. What you do to me, oh, oh. Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh. Bobby, how many fingers is that in that little opening?”
         “You better keep your squeals down, Ms. Smartypants. We’re in this hotel with all these other people at this meeting. They’re going to wonder about you and your perversions.”
         “Let ‘em. It feels too good.
          "By the way, did you hear your cell phone ring a while back?"


         Bobby saw the flyer with the announcement of the NCLES seminar. He sat staring out his window, looking at the sun dappling through the trees. He smiled to himself. What a nice surprise for Julie’s birthday! He called the ‘800” number and found she would be speaking in either Montclair on the twentieth and King of Prussia on the twenty-third, both for two days. He sent his registration in for the latter date.

         Knowledge is power. She may be a very important person in her little world, but how many of her peers know her desire is to be put over a man’s knee and spanked. What if they knew that the last man who did it couldn’t hold a candle to her legal reputation? What could he do with that information? Could he stand up and phrase the question, “Ms. Thorpe, would you like me to come up to the podium and sit in that chair, turn you over my knee and paddle your butt?” She would melt.


         “I was eighteen and going with this guy named Charles, except everyone called him Chaz. He got pissed at me one night for mouthing off to him at a party. He took me in a bedroom, put me over his knee, pulled down my jeans and panties and spanked the living hell out of me. My girlfriend Karen looked in to see what was going on, and asked me all about it the next day. It hurt like hell but felt so good. I was so hot, we had to make love later that night. He was the one who also introduced me to the use of the alternative entrance.”
         “You didn’t know Brad then?”
         “No, I met Brad at twenty, we were married at twenty-two, me still in school, and had Brenda at twenty-four when I was finishing up. Got out of school with a kid and raring to practice some law.”
         “What does Brad think of this little love of yours?”
         “He would never spank me. He tried the back door once or twice but never could do it. He says I am oversexed. I tell him I am undernourished, or did the last time we tried anything. What do you think of my passion?”
         “It’s fun and turns me on, you can see and feel that. And for once I have an upper hand on you, so to speak.”
         With that he pulled her again over his legs and began to smack the inviting target he saw below him.

         The newspaper clipping was concise and not pretty:

PR MAN ARRESTED FOR FILING FALSE REPORT, DWI

Bradley Thorpe, 45, of Pound Ridge was arrested and released on bail Monday in Magistrates Count in Stamford Monday for filing a false report, driving while intoxicated and for leaving the scene of an accident. According to the Connecticut Highway Patrol, Thorpe was driving on Route 115 at approximately 7:45 p.m. when he lost control and skidded off the highway into a directional sign. Police say he apparently ran from the scene and called his daughter on a cell phone to pick him up and take him to his Pound Ridge home.

When questioned there later, he claimed his car had been stolen from the parking lot at the Transporation Center in Stamford and he had called his daughter to come and get him. His account was corroborated by his daughter, Brenda Thorpe, 19, also of Pound Ridge. Police have located two witnesses who saw Thorpe run from his car toward a nearby shopping center. Police are considering other charges against Mr. Thorpe as well as the possibility of charges against Brenda Thorpe for aiding and abetting and perjury.


         “Brenda, the police didn’t even come until after ten o’clock, so I don’t see how they can make the DWI stick. Bill Jensen says even if they tested Brad, it would have been three hours after the fact and he could have been drinking at home. Could have been, humph, probably was.”
         “That’s real nice, Mom. I just wished you’d been home that evening to help us. You might have kept us from shooting ourselves in the foot.”
         “I am so sorry, Brenda, but these conferences are important. This matter is going to cost some money and I am the one who has to raise it. How my smart nineteen-year old could be so dumb is beyond me, but I can understand. Bill says they will not file charges against you, but they will use the possibility to come down heavier against Brad. Seems he hit a highway department sign. I have no idea of the cost but I am letting our insurance handle that.
         “Well, I called Katie to let her know I won’t be joining her on LBI.”
         “Now that’s silly, baby. There is no reason for you to be here. I don’t think you will have to go to court. Enjoy your summer.”
         “Mom, I want to be here for Dad. I hope he doesn’t lose his job over this.”
         “I don’t think so, but what he did is a felony, reporting a stolen car that wasn’t stolen. He could have been put in a first time offender program, but he had that mess in Carmel three years ago and used his eligibility.”
         “That’s what I said, I want to be here to help him.”
         “Meaning?”
         “Just that, he needs support.”
         “And I don’t support him?”
         “I didn’t say that, Mom, but you are tied to your work and this new venture up in wherever it is. I don’t know why you just don’t buy out this little office up there instead of doing whatever you are doing that sends you up there again and again.”
         “I wasn’t in Poughkeepsie Monday, we, or I was at a Bar Association meeting in Springfield. It was two days, but I jumped in the car the minute you called.”
         “You weren’t in your room when I called and your cell phone didn’t answer. I had to leave a message both on your cell phone and at the desk. That was after they took Daddy. It must have been eleven o’clock and you did not call back until just after midnight. My stomach was doing flips.”
         “Brenda, at these meetings you have to spend your evenings schmoozing a lot of idiot lawyers. I can’t help that.”
         “I can’t believe you didn’t have your cell phone in your pocketbook.”
         “I probably did, but some places it doesn’t work.”
         “I’m sorry, Mom. I sound like Perry Mason. But let me help Dad too, and thanks for driving back that night. I know you don’t like night driving.”



         'How can I ever forget that night? He had me going so he had to put his handkerchief in my mouth to keep me from screaming out and our neighbors hearing. And why did we have to be in his room? He said he heard the cell phone, I remember, but I told him to screw it until he finished.

         ‘Bobby was so sweet, driving me back here in my car. Thank god I was able to talk Brenda out of coming with me! I don’t know where he would have hidden. Poor baby had to sit in that miserable transportation center after I dropped him off before getting Brad out. He never did tell me when the next train to Springfield left, or how long he had to wait.

         ‘I don’t know Brenda well enough anymore to know if she is suspicious or just angry with me. This is going to be a miserable summer, I can see, especially if she sits here at home. The next thing you know she won’t want to go back to school.’

"PART VI - WHAT GOES ROUND"