Grading Garnet: The Red Petticoat Saloon Page 6

  Gloria truly learned the meaning of regret that afternoon as Seth applied his enormous palm repeatedly and forcefully, to her bare butt. And she learned it the hard, fiery, stinging way, beneath the hand of a man who was determined to teach her several lessons, and he didn’t stop until he was quite sure that all of them had sunk in.

  By the time he ended it, every inch of her backside was seared an angry, inflamed red, as if she’d backed bare bottomed into a woodstove.

  He didn’t immediately let her up off his lap, either. Instead, he asked her what she’d learned from the spanking.

  Knowing he expected a response, regardless of the fact that she was hardly in a position to give him a coherent one, she hiccoughed, “D-don’t peep on people, no matter how curious you are. And, whatever you do, don’t break position. It doesn’t hurt you to spank me longer and harder, but it sure does hurt me!”

  He had to laugh at—and compliment her on—her thoroughness.

  Even though she was beside herself, sobbing pitifully, she still had enough fight left in her to try to blindly push herself away from him when he stood with her in his arms and walked the few steps to the divan to sit down with her, face up on his lap, this time.

  At that moment, there was nothing in the world that Gloria wanted more than to get far, far away from him. But, he wouldn’t allow it, easily avoiding her flailing arms and gathering her to him, folding her arms and legs up so that she couldn’t move. He gave her no choice but to cry it out on his broad shoulder, which she again couldn’t stop herself from doing, especially not at first.

  And those muscles were surprisingly warm and comforting to cry on, especially with his arms wrapped so tightly around her. His hand slowly rubbed her back, reaching up to pull the pins out of her hair. The now ridiculous seeming little hat fell unheeded to the floor as waves of her strawberry blonde hair fell down her back and over his now ministering hands.

  That made her lift her head from his chest as much as she could, whimpering, “M-my hair—”

  “Is positively gorgeous,” he whispered. “Don’t you fret about it, honey. I bet it feels good to get it out of that bun.” He was already running his fingers through it, marveling at the silky softness as it spilled through his big fingers.

  Then he began to rock her, slowly, while saying, in a deep, comforting tone, “You were a very brave girl, Gloria. And you are a good girl, too. I don’t want you to have any lingering guilt about what you did. That’s all in the past. You’ve been forgiven and we need not discuss that little bit of naughtiness again. It’s natural. It’s not a proper thing to do, as I’m sure you knew when you did it and you’ve learned even more so here today, but it’s natural to be curious about such things. They’re very strong urges, and very hard to avoid, aren’t they?”

  Flushed with a strange feeling of pride at his praise, she nodded against his chest, not saying anything, glad that, for once, he couldn’t see her blush.

  “When did you first realize that you wanted to be spanked?” he leaned down to whisper, then pulled back a bit to look at her, to watch her as best he could when she answered him. He was enchanted to see that her usually porcelain complexion had reddened to the point that one set of cheeks very nearly matched the color of the other.

  Gloria looked up at him, and even opened her mouth to respond, but nothing came out.

  Instead of being angry, he smiled down at her. “It’s all right. I understand. It’s not easy to talk about such things. With me, it was my first real love. She was a brat, though, a few years older than I was, and she knew what she liked. She convinced me to spank her one night, and I’ve been spanking young ladies who deserved it ever since.”

  “But I don’t want to be spanked, especially now that I’ve experienced first-hand just how much it hurts!” she railed, sobbing a little.

  He chuckled softly. “I can’t say as I blame you. I never got anything out of being spanked by my father myself, but then I was shown that I was on the wrong end of things.” Seth brushed her hair away from her eyes, still rubbing her back soothingly and rocking them slowly. “But do you also remember how I told Dottie that her own body would provide the evidence against her fib?”

  Gloria instantly turned her head back to his chest, almost nuzzling against his neck in her effort to hide from him. Only then did she reply, “No.”

  To which he out and out laughed, mentioning pointedly, but still with a smile in his voice, “You’re still going to give me that answer when you know what I did to her for fibbing to me?”

  “Oh, please, sir, it’s too embarrassing to think about!”

  He was almost of a mind to be lenient on her this time, but decided against it. Best to start the way he intended to continue. “Answer me, Gloria,” he ordered, just shy of sternly.

  She wept a bit more, piteously, then finally gave him a quiet, obviously humiliated, “Yes, sir, I remember.”

  He squeezed all of her once, gently. “Good girl. Thank you for being honest with me.” Then two fingers sought and found her chin, forcing her to look at him. “And, little lady, some day, in the not too distant future, I’m going to make your body prove you’re fibbing about not liking it, too.”

  With that obscene proclamation, he stole a quick kiss from her, one that lasted no longer than a second or so. He stood, helping her to her feet and rescuing her glasses from his desk to place them on her face, fitting the wire frames carefully around her ears, as she finished subduing her hair again. Then, he twirled her around, bent to pull her drawers up, tied the little bow without hesitation and then lowered her skirts, smoothing them down over her very tender bottom.

  “There you are. Good as new, better even. You’ve been absolved.”

  “Is that what you’re calling it?” she asked using sarcasm to hide her shock at the very fact she’d forgotten her drawers had still been around her ankles the entire time she’d been sitting… bare bottomed on his lap. She reached behind her to rub her behind, then thought better of it, pouting, “I’m not going to be able to sit comfortably for a week!”

  He looked thoroughly unrepentant. “Good. It’ll help you remember the lesson. I intend to do that for you as often as is needed to make certain you adhere to the restrictions laid out in your contract, as well as any rules I might make for you myself. If you disobey any of them, you can be certain that I will always see to it that you sit uncomfortably for as long as it takes to correct your naughty behavior.”

  Chapter Five

  Several days later, she was alone in her very own classroom.

  At first she’d wondered how she was going to get into town every morning, but then her host had offered to take her in. He told her that if he couldn’t for some reason, he’d get one of the other men to do it.

  And he’d been as good as his word, although this was only the second time she’d taken him up on it, preferring, for a few days, to spend as much time in her room as she could. Frankly, considering the appalling condition of her backside, she couldn’t imagine doing the physical things she needed to do to get the place ready for her class, nor could she imagine sitting for any length of time on the hard wooden chair she knew came with her desk. It seemed that every little movement reminded her of that she had been taken over that man’s knee and spanked like a misbehaving little girl, and she preferred to pretend it had never happened as much as was possible.

  So she’d written lesson plans, made up a test she’d give her students on the first or second day to assess exactly where they were, and even wrote a letter to Theodore. She then spent the rest of her time generally daydreaming about what it was going to be like to finally be able to do what she’d always wanted to.

  The school year here started later than she was used to. Because the children were needed for harvest or general help around the family ranch, school didn’t open until the late September and it would only continue until spring planting, but she knew she could easily work around that. And she also knew that the population of her classroom was
likely to be constantly in flux because of families constantly arriving or pulling up stakes suddenly when they decided that mining wasn’t for them.

  Yesterday, she’d asked Mr. McIntyre to bring her into town so that she could get some supplies, and he’d been almost too accommodating, even to the point of putting a pillow on her side of the bench seat of the wagon he was driving. It was the same one she’d found residing on the chair she used at his dining room table from the first night after he’d spanked her. She hadn’t been sure then and she wasn’t sure now whether it would be proper to thank him, and, unfortunately, she was still much too uncomfortable to eschew it, although she stuck her tongue out at him when she caught him giving her that devilish grin that said he knew exactly how tender she still must be feeling.

  “Why, Miss Owens, that’s hardly the behavior I would expect from a prim schoolmarm—and when I was only thinking of your comfort, too!” He acted shocked to his core.

  “Be happy I don’t slug you one, but you’re the size of a damned giant, so I can’t flatter myself and think it would have any effect. I’d probably just end up hurting myself in the process.”

  “Gloria.” He put his hand on her upper arm to get her attention. “Watch your language. That most definitely is conduct unbecoming a teacher,” he scolded. “The next time I hear you using language I don’t like, I’m going to spank you. And that’s more warning than you should rightfully expect.”

  Her mouth snapped shut at that. She had been going to talk to him along the way, but not now. Though she’d like to get some kind of reassurances from him that he wouldn’t hold the peeping incident over her head in any way, she disliked him correcting her, even verbally, especially when he was right. It was easy enough to refuse to deign to speak to him any further on the long ride in.

  Each one of Seth’s conversational gambits fell flat. Even him teasing her about being a pouty brat didn’t prod her into responding, so he stopped attempting pretty quickly, missing the way they had chatted before when he’d brought her home.

  Pulling the horses up in front of the store, he said, “I have to grab a fencing order, then go look at some horses, so I’m going to be a couple of hours at least. Meet me back here at eleven-thirty and we’ll have lunch before heading home.”

  When he did the gentlemanly thing and got down to come around to her side of the wagon, he found that she had already gotten down on her own. He frowned a bit at the realization that she had done so in order to deny him the opportunity to touch her as he helped her down.

  “Can you stay out of trouble that long, do you think?” He winked down at her. “Or should I stay with you to keep you on the straight and narrow?” Seth asked, only partly teasing.

  The glare she gave him—had he been a weaker man—might have withered his balls on the spot, but he was made of sterner stuff, and he just laughed, which only made her madder. “Remember, Miss Owens, eleven-thirty. And I don’t like to be kept waiting, so be prompt,” he warned as he swung himself back up and chucked the reins once to set the team to walking.

  Gloria shook her head as she watched him disappear down the busy street, then headed into the mercantile. Culpepper Cove’s school board provided some supplies for the school, but she preferred to have extras on hand, so she bought slates and chalk and erasers and even a few sweets for the children who did well on tests or were exceptionally well behaved. In addition, she remembered to get the two books she’d seen when she was in before, glad that no one else had purchased them before she’d gotten back to them.

  She brought her parcels to the school room, opening it up for the first time in she hadn’t any idea how long. The nice cross breeze created by opening every window replaced the stuffy, stale air with that filled with the pungent scents of horse manure, sweat and a few other distasteful things of which she really didn’t want to consider the origins. So she added flowers, or sweet herbs, to her mental list of more things she needed to get, which should sweeten up the smell of the place. She’d also place some in the outhouse, which was situated away from the building, in the back.

  Gloria shuddered to think of the condition that place was in. She was right to do so, she found out later when she had to avail herself of its services.

  Since she hadn’t brought her cleaning supplies, she couldn’t start either monumental task, but she had spied a broom in the back room, and set herself to sweeping the floors, keeping close track of the time so that she wasn’t late to meet Mr. McIntyre.

  Heaven forfend she should earn another punishment from him—ever again—much less one so close on the heels of the previous one, from which she’d barely begun to recover!

  So, even though she knew it was ridiculously early, Gloria quit sweeping and locked the place back up, then headed over to the mercantile, where he was actually already waiting.

  “I’m early!” she announced to no one in particular as she approached him.

  She was quickly growing to hate that knowing smile of his. It told her that he’d guessed that she’d been worried about being late, and he knew why, too.

  “Oh, are you speaking to me now?” he teased as she glared at him. “And good for you! Shall we have lunch?”

  He turned, his arm curved behind her as if to guide her, although he didn’t touch her.

  “Where are we headed? Do you know a good place?”

  “I do, but so should you. Didn’t you eat in the dining room of the Grand Central while you were there?”

  Gloria halted mid-step, looking aghast. “You can’t mean to bring me there!”

  Seth gave her a genuinely confused look. “Why not?”

  “Because the food—it’s prepared by someone who… who works at… that place!”

  “Yes, and Miss Nettie is probably the best—”

  “Cook in town,” she interrupted to fill in. “Yes, I’ve heard that said. But she still works at a—” she lowered her voice to whisper, because they were on the street, “—a whorehouse.”

  “So? What difference does that make?” He turned to hold open the door to the dining room for her.

  “Don’t you think it’s not… right to support such an establishment?” Then she remembered to whom she was speaking. “No, of course you don’t,” she said, rolling her eyes and frowning.

  “Miss Owens, it’s just food, and wonderful food at that, and if it comes down to it, the Red Petticoat is just full of people—and wonderful people, at that. Heck, I’m very good friends with one of the partners in that establishment—Gabriel Vasquez.” He tapped his foot impatiently, but the amazing smells wafting to his nose were making him less patient than he might have been with her objections. Making a decision, he turned on his heel and stepped back onto the porch and then down onto the street.

  Gloria followed, a smile on her face attesting to the fact that she’d won the battle. However, it didn’t take long before her lips turned down as she realized that his destination was the white building with the vividly red painted sign. He couldn’t possibly be serious! When he pushed one of the batwing doors open, she understood that he was.

  “You-you can’t…” Taking a deep breath to steady her voice, she straightened her spine and turned up her nose. “If you think this is any better, you need to think again. I’m not going to jump out of the frying pan directly into the fire!”

  “For an educated woman, you certainly are quite judgy aren’t you, Miss Owens? I don’t have a fondness for ‘holier than thous’. You haven’t met a single person who works in this establishment and yet you obviously believe you are better than they are…”

  “I know they are… whores!”

  “You have no idea what trials these women have overcome or what sort of people they are. Believe me, I’d rather spend my time with any one of Jewel’s gems than a single second with people who pretend to be good Christian folk when all they do is spread gossip and accusations. You’d do well to remember that the good book frowns upon hypocrites.”

  Gloria sputtered in outrage. She h
adn’t come all the way to California to be lectured about her morality. “How dare you! I am not a…”

  “Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye.” His recitation had her brow furrowing and then her mouth opening to gasp as his hand dropped to none too gently swat against the back of her skirts.

  Her face flooded with color as a man stepped around them, tipping his hat with a mumbled, “pardon me, ma’am,” as he pushed through the doors to enter the saloon.

  “Thou shalt not bear false…” She paused, not sure that exact wording would be relevant. Paraphrasing, she continued, “Thou shalt not lie!”

  “I am a lot of things, Miss Owens, but a liar is not one of them.”

  “You said that… that I was forgiven for peep… that my spank… that we’d not speak of it again!” she hissed.

  “And I haven’t,” Seth said. “I was simply referring to the fact that everyone makes mistakes and everyone deserves a clean slate once atonement has been paid for those mistakes. The good book also tells us to leave the judging up to the Lord.” His grin caught her by surprise as did his shrug. “I admit I find that one a wee bit difficult to swallow myself. I’m pretty darn sure that even a hundred switchings wouldn’t be enough to wipe Millicent’s slate clean.”

  Gloria had absolutely no idea what he was talking about. Her head was spinning and before she could ask who in the world was Millicent, the door opened again. This time it was pushed from the inside.

  “Are you going to stand there blocking the entrance all day?”

  “Sorry,” Seth said, “just give me a minute.”

  “Fine but if you’re looking to eat, you’d better hurry. Today’s special is gumbo.” With that, the large Mexican man gave Gloria a smile and a nod before stepping back into the shadows, leaving the two alone on the porch.