Free Unsure by Ashe Barker Page B

back onto your debt again. Doubled. I will have my payment. All of it. Got that?”
    “Yes. I understand.” I know when to stop. I hold my chin high. It could have been so much worse. Still might be…
    “Good. Now, take off the robe.”
    “Why? What are you going to do?” My voice is a cracked whisper. Somehow I don’t think this will involve fists now, or rape despite his insistence that I drop my robe, but I know it’s not going to be enjoyable.
    “I’m going to put you over my knee and deliver the spanking you deserve. And you will not be sitting down again for a while. And yes, before you ask, Miss McAllister, this is going to hurt. Not as much as a brick on the back of the head, but enough. What shall we say? Twenty strokes sound about right to you?”
    I wasn’t going to ask. And did he really say twenty? Christ, I’ll never survive that. Just two or three punches from Kenny would usually be enough to bring me to my knees. And Tom Shore is twice Kenny’s size. I shake my head, clutching the front of my robe, ready to protest in earnest. He sees, and, amazingly, he hesitates.
    “Not twenty then. Fifteen?” He watches me, his head cocked to one side. “Right. Ten. Agreed?” I find myself nodding, astonished that any of this seems to be negotiable. Still, every little helps. I can probably manage ten. I think. It’ll be over in a matter of seconds.
    He gives me a few moments to digest what’s just been settled, then, “Am I going to have to come over there and fetch you, Ashley?”
    Yes, probably.
    Assertive Ashley makes one last-ditch attempt. “If I agree to this, if I let you spank me, it’s absolutely the one and only time. You’ll never lay a hand on me again after this.”
    I stand my ground and he looks at me, his gaze assessing. And unexpectedly warm. His tone is soft when he speaks to me, almost caressing.
    “If you say so. Well then, let’s see if we can release your inner submissive, just this once.”
    I can’t contain my snort of disbelief. “I hardly think so. Inner doormat might be more like it. Inner punchbag maybe. But you’re wrong—I’m none of those things anymore.”
    He shakes his head, his eyes never leaving mine. Despite my fear, my outrage at this madness that he’s apparently convinced me could actually happen, that look still curls my toes in a way Kenny never managed. I wish desperately that I’d met Tom Shore in different circumstances. Who knows, I might even have… No, I wouldn’t. Surely I couldn’t. Could I?
    Not that he needs to know any of this. I hold his gaze, defiant, determined, my inner turmoil safely buried along with any treacherous inner submissive that might be lurking. His next words stun me.
    “No, I agree. I don’t know what it is you think you’re not anymore, but what I have in mind has nothing at all to do with being a doormat or a punchbag. ‘Shaz’ might have been that once. I saw that much on the riverside in Bristol. But I suspect Ashley McAllister is something entirely different.”
    What? What does he see in me that even I can’t recognise? How is this different? My puzzled frown just makes him chuckle softly, as though he knows something I don’t. Then, “Ashley, the robe?”
    “Why? Why do I have to undress? Can’t you just…?” Assertive Ashley gives up the battle and I’m whispering, and now starting to shake again.
    His tone hardens—there’s something more there now, an air of command, demanding obedience. “I want you naked. I want you scared, humiliated, hurting. Like I was. The robe, Ashley. Now.”
    Out of options and done with words, I stand. I’ve accepted his ‘terms’ and now I just want to get this over with, get through it as best I can. At least now I know what’s in store, and I know I can survive it.
    My hands shaking violently, I start to unfasten the belt holding my robe closed. I’m clumsy, fumbling, desperately embarrassed. Never an exhibitionist, never even remotely confident about my body,