Ricochet (18 page)

straight as he said that, "that we should provide

one for him."

"What? How? We pay someone?" Matt asked

incredulously.

"No." Karl shook his head. "Rick's a proud

dom - he'd hate that. I thought… seeing as there are

so many subs in the cast, and seeing as we all

agree that we much prefer Rick when he's happy

than when he's not, that we'd draw straws for it."

"Draw straws for what?" Matt asked.

"To find a volunteer," Cara told him. "To be

spanked."

"By Rick," Casey added.

"What?" Matt stared at them.

"Only if everyone is happy with that," Daniel

said quickly. "Nobody has to volunteer if they

aren't."

"Hang on," Matt said, holding up his hand.

"Am I in some surreal episode of the show

because this sounds like the kind of insane plan

Alex Tanner would dream up. Or Jason Jarvis in

one of his evil moments." He shot Karl a

suspicious look.

"It is a bit out there," Karl agreed. "But

desperate times call for desperate measures."

"We're not going to deceive Rick," Daniel

said. "Whoever draws the short straw will go to

his trailer and offer their services as a daily

spanking partner until Rick can make alternative

arrangements."

"Am I the only one who is living in the real

world here?" Matt looked around at the others.

"We draw straws and whoever draws the short

one goes to Rick and asks to be spanked?"

"It's called taking one for the team," Karl

said.

"That's easy for you to say! You're not a sub,

so I presume you're not going to be offering up

your ass for a daily tanning?"

"Not a tanning - just a light spanking," Karl

said smoothly.

"And everyone agrees to this?" Matt looked

around again. "You all agree - Daniel, Estelle,

Cara, Casey? You agree that if you draw the short

straw, then you'll actually do this? You'll go over

there and ask Rick to spank you?" he asked

incredulously.

"Nobody has to agree to anything they don't

want to do. You can lay down whatever

parameters to Rick that you like," Daniel said

firmly. "And if you don't want to draw a straw,

nobody will make you. This is entirely voluntary."

"And nuts," Estelle said, blowing out another

circle of cigar smoke into his hair.

"Completely and absolutely bonkers," Karl

said, with a straight face.

"Totally whack," the twins said.

"Definitely unusual," Daniel added. "But

we're all single, unattached subs…"

"More's the pity," Estelle commented darkly.

"So we're free to offer ourselves up for this if

we want," Daniel finished.

The twins turned to look at each other, two

red spots on their cheeks, and then nodded

vigorously.

Matt sat there, completely dumbfounded.

Then he remembered how Rick had eulogized

about spanking that night at his house a few weeks

ago, and how he had made it sound like an almost

spiritual experience. Matt had a sudden, vivid

mental image of what it might be like to be hauled

over Rick's thighs, his pants stripped down to his

ankles, and his ass soundly spanked by those big

hands.

"I'm in," he said.

It took him a few seconds to register what

he'd done, and then he clapped a hand over his

own mouth, horrified with himself.

"Good." Karl nodded. "So - we're all agreed?

Whoever draws the short straw goes over to Rick's

trailer and offers him their ass for a spanking?"

"Agreed!" they all said it at the same time -

except Matt who was still wondering why on earth

he'd joined in this collective act of madness.

"Matt?" Daniel asked gently.

Matt nodded. "Agreed," he whispered.

"Okay then!" Karl opened a box of matches,

snapped one in half, and held it up. "Whoever

draws the short match is the person who does

this."

Everyone

nodded,

and

Matt

watched

nervously as Karl arranged the little handful of

matches in his hand, so you couldn't see where the

short one was.

Karl put his closed fist on the table nearest to

Daniel, and they all watched, with bated breath, as

Daniel gazed at the matches thoughtfully.

Matt tried to imagine the quiet, dignified

Daniel, going over the knee of Rick O'Shea for a

spanking but his brain failed to compute. It simply

wasn't possible. It couldn't happen. There was no

universe in the world where Chief Christie went

over Alex Tanner's knee. It was wrong on every

level.

He was sure he wasn't the only person in the

room who let out a massive sigh of relief when

Daniel drew a long match.

"Now the twins; I take it you want to go as

one person?" Karl asked, which was a redundant

question because clearly there was no way just one

of the girls would go into Rick's trailer if they

picked the short straw. The twins nodded, their

sleek blonde heads bobbing in unison.

They reached out together and let their

fingertips touch each of the matches in turn, as if

trying to decide. This went on for several seconds.

"Oh for fuck's sake!" Matt said eventually, his

nerves getting the better of him. "Just pick one."

They grinned and then suddenly, without

seeming to conspire at all about their choice, their

fingers joined on the same match at the same

moment, and they pulled it out.

It was a long one.

"Just you and Estelle now. Fifty-fifty," Karl

said, putting his fist in front of Matt's face.

"Right. Okay then." Matt swallowed hard. He

thought of Estelle drawing the short straw and

wondered what on earth Rick would think if she

turned up at his trailer door with this insane offer.

He felt a stab of something in his gut, and then

realized, as his fingers closed around a match, that

the only person he could bear to draw the short one

was… himself.

He tugged it out, and then his stomach seemed

to go into free-fall as he stared at the broken match

in his hand.

"Oh shit," he breathed. Seconds ago he'd

wanted it to be him, but now it was he desperately

wished it wasn't as his nerves came rushing in.

"Matt!" squealed the twins, enveloping him in

a hug. "You are so lucky! Rick is so fit. We'd love

to be spanked by him!" They giggled and hugged

each other instead. Matt just stayed there, gazing at

the broken match in his hand.

"You don't have to do this, Matt," Daniel

said, gazing at him keenly. "We can come up with

another plan if you don't want to do it."

Despite his nerves, Matt now felt equally

desperate that this might be taken away from him.

"No!" he said quickly. "I mean, I want the old Rick

back as much as you do. So…" He took a deep

breath, trying to work out his see-sawing emotions.

"So, I'll do it!" he said firmly.

"Good boy," Karl said approvingly.

"Thank you, Matt." The twins enveloped him

in another massive twin-hug, and Matt twisted and

squirmed away. "Sorry, Matt," they said. "Too

much hugging!" They knew he didn't like anyone

getting into his personal space; he'd tolerate the

occasional hug from them, but he preferred to keep

people at arm's length.

"Well done, m'dear. You go and show that

big, bad dom what a little tiger you are," Estelle

said, making claws with her hands. "Rawr!"

"You are all completely insane, you know

that?" Matt told them, standing up.

"And you are a star, Matthew Lake," Karl

said, grabbing hold of his hand and pumping it.

"A star idiot more like," Matt muttered. He

walked over to the trailer door and turned to look

back at them for moral support.

Daniel gave him an encouraging smile,

Estelle saluted him with her cigar holder, and the

twins clung onto each other and sighed at him

happily. Karl just stood there, with a look of quiet

satisfaction on his face.

Matt gave them a feeble wave and then

opened the door and walked out into the LA

sunshine.

He closed the door behind him and took a

deep gulp of air as he gazed across the studio lot

towards Rick's trailer.

Was he really going to do this?

Strumming on his guitar wasn't quite as good

a distraction from his problems as sweet-talking a

beautiful sub into bed but it helped a little, so Rick

tried to lose himself in the music. He didn't have a

scene for another couple of hours, and he had far

too much thinking time on his hands. Rick didn't

like thinking time.

He tried to cast that magazine article out of

his mind, but it kept creeping back in, and he

wasn't even sure what was bothering him about it.

He knew the editors of those magazines made

things up; they'd written all kinds of garbage about

him over the years. The problem was that there

was always some tiny grain of truth in there that

made it just believable enough to the readers so

they'd swallow it, even when it was way off the

mark.

There was a timid knock at his door, and he

glanced up. "Come in!" he called, still strumming

on the guitar. Nothing happened. Then there was

another knock, louder this time. "I said come in!"

The door opened a tiny crack, and he could

see one blue eye staring in at him.

"Matty?" He frowned. "Are you coming in or

not?"

The door opened slowly, and Matt crept into

the trailer and closed the door behind him. He

leaned against the wall with a bizarre kind of

forced nonchalance.

Rick put the guitar to one side and gazed at

him curiously. "Did I do something wrong?" he

asked. "Only, you're looking at me weirdly and

people usually only look at me that way when I've

been an idiot."

"No! Uh… no." Matt stood up straight and ran

his hands through his hair. Instead of smoothing

down his blond locks, he succeeded only in

messing up his hair completely. Rick liked the way

it looked - tousled, like Matt had just got out of

bed. "You didn't do anything wrong. I might be

about to though," Matt said.

"Matty, you're starting to freak me out. What's

going on? Are you okay? Are you ill?"

"No, I'm not ill. Although I might be insane."

Rick laughed. "That's my Matty. Did you just

yell at someone?" He went to pick up his guitar

again and then stopped. "Wait - you're not going

through a counting crisis, are you?"

"Sort of." Matt made a face. "Did you know

that there are fifty-two steps between Karl's trailer

and yours?"

"What were you doing in Karl's trailer?" Rick

asked, feeling irritated all over again.

"Everyone was there, not just me. We held a

kind of cast meeting."

"Oh." Rick looked up, unable to stop the hurt

reflecting in his eyes. "Without me? I'm part of the

cast, aren't I?"

"About you," Matt corrected him.

"You're holding meetings about me behind my

back? Wow." Rick sat back, feeling bruised.

"No - it's not like that, Rick. Look, everyone

is worried about you, and we all want to help."

"No need. I'm fine," Rick said stiffly.

"Well, we care about you, and we know

things haven't been going too well with you lately,

so I'm here to… well, to volunteer."

"To volunteer for what?" Rick asked blankly.

Matt took a deep breath. "Foraspken," he

said.

Rick frowned. "A what? I have no idea what

you just said."

Matt took a deep breath. "I'm here to, um,

offer up my services to you as a… spanking

partner."

Rick gazed at him for a long moment, and then

he let out a bellow of laughter. "Oh - that's a good

one, Matty! I like it!"

"It's not a joke," Matt said quietly.

"Aw, c'mon! Don't mess with me. I said it

was a good one! I laughed!" Rick picked up his

guitar and strummed a few notes, still chuckling.

"No. Really." Matt stood in front of him and

there was a tense kind of energy to him that made

Rick look up. "Look, Rick, I know it sounds insane

- I thought so too, at first. Then I remembered what