Free Sure Thing by Ashe Barker Page A

reputation. Shit, I don’t want to get Tom into trouble. On the other hand, this is what’s at the root of my confusion. Tom scared me to death that day. And the day after.
    My stomach drops, I shudder just remembering how helpless I felt that awful day, my humiliation, my vulnerability. If Tom and I are to get anywhere together I need to get past this, I need to understand what happened that time, and find a way to trust him. My head tells me I’m safe with Tom, but my heart keeps remembering the sheer terror of being made to lie across his knees while he spanked me. He hurt me, he really hurt me, and I’m stuck in that place. I need to talk to someone, get that whole thing into perspective if I can. Maybe talking to Abbie will be helpful. Therapeutic even. She may understand, might be able to help me see a way forward. It’s worth a shot.
    “He spanked me.”
    “Right…” Obviously not a big deal on Planet Abigail.
    I take a deep breath, and blurt it out. “I didn’t agree to it. Well, I did, but not willingly. Not really…” I stop, and try to recall the tangle of fears, feelings, the confusion I still struggle with as I try to make sense of what really happened that day.
    “He made me strip, and he put me over his knee. And he spanked me. A part of me enjoyed it, I think. And that’s what’s so weird, because I was scared, really scared, I had no idea what might happen next. He was so angry…” I glance up at her, wonder how she’s taking this. Maybe on Planet Abigail this is normal behavior too.
    Then I can see at once that it’s not. Her face is incredulous, shocked, stunned. For a few moments she just stares at me, disbelief etched all over her features. She frowns, grappling with what I’ve shared, trying to understand. Rather like me, really.
    Then, “Tom? Tom did that? He spanked you in anger?”
    I nod and realize I’m twisting my fingers together on the table. Consciously I separate my hands, lay my palms calmly on the table top and fix my gaze steadily on hers.
    “Yes. Tom did that.” My voice is firm now, and I’m finding her shocked reaction oddly comforting. At least now I know it’s not just me over-reacting. What happened between Tom and me that first time we met—well, second time if I’m being totally accurate— was odd, off, not appropriate. Not even in Dom/sub-land.
    “Why? Have you any idea why he would have done something so…outrageous? You said he was angry. Why was he so angry?”
    I start to bristle and she’s on it straight away. She reaches for my hand, still lying on the table top, squeezes it gently. “Not that being angry is any excuse. He shouldn’t have laid a hand on you without your consent. No way. But, I’m just trying to understand the circumstances, how it happened.”
    I can see that, and she’s right. The circumstances were pretty unusual. Tom did have every right to be angry, although perhaps not to express it in the way he did. I reflect back to that afternoon, and recall that spanking me was not his first choice, in fact. His original intention was to turn me in to the police and I begged him not to do that. I even hinted that I’d be prepared to have sex with him if he didn’t report me. He understood what I was offering but did not take me up on it. But he still relented—fell back on a more direct method of retribution instead.
    Abbie is still watching me, curious, waiting for more explanation, anything to make sense of this bizarre tale. I have no real choice but to spill the beans. Anything less would be grossly unfair to Tom. And wouldn’t help me to settle my present dilemma.
    So I tell her. I tell her what happened on that riverside footpath in Bristol, and my part in it. I explain that I met Tom again by chance, had no idea who my landlord was when I leased Smithy’s Forge, but he recognized me and he was furious, at first believing I’d somehow tracked him down and deliberately followed him to Yorkshire. I told her something of