His Little Earthling Page 8

  “No. We’ll finish painting then I’m going to fetch the spoon.”

  Heart sinking, Sarah closed her eyes. She dipped the roller in the paint and rolled it on the wall, just the way he’d showed her. He finished a lot sooner than her, and started working on her second wall, until they met slightly sideways of the middle.

  “All done. Take these rollers and paint trays into the bathroom then wait for me in the den,” Ral said.

  “Please, can you reconsider? Please? I really wish I hadn’t done it,” Sarah tried one last time.

  “No. And if you keep trying to talk your way out of your punishment, I will start adding extras for every word you use to that purpose.” He was not moving an inch on this chastisement. She sighed heavily and snatched up the paint rollers, splattering paint on the floor protector when she stomped off.

  “Fine! Just blame me like usual!” She threw the trays into the shower and washed her hands with the tap on full blast. It covered her in drops of water but it was satisfying to make a big old racket. She ripped the plastic apron off and discarded it on the bathroom floor, then went into the living room and flopped heavily on a beanbag.

  Ral was throwing drawers open and rummaging in the kitchen area, and Sarah watched him with a growing sense of unease. Any second now, he was going to ask her, and she was racking her brain for an explanation.

  “Sarah, where’s the spoon gone?”

  “How would I know? Do I look like the prison warden for kitchen spoons?” She reflected that she really needed to work on being more convincing.

  “And the prize for the worst liar in the history of liars goes to…”

  “It’s still the guy from 2019 who devised the Excalibur hoax, and claimed he’d found it in Antarctica. Although, I don’t think I could have convinced a room full of scientists that the spoon was a legendary weapon, so maybe he was a better…”

  Before she finished considering the full implications of that thought, Ral slammed his hand down on the kitchen worktop, making her jump.

  “Enough. Where is the spoon?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” she shot back.

  “I’m going to count to three. That spoon better appear or I’m taking you to the store right now to buy a bigger one, then punishing you in a discipline room.”

  “What’s a discipline room?” Sarah asked.

  “It’s a public spanking room, usually found next to blocks of public restrooms, for the sole purpose of punishing disobedient bottoms. Go and get the damn spoon, Sarah,” Ral said. What kind of society had public rooms for spanking people? Minos Kerala was ridiculous. “One.”

  Sarah panicked. Should she hold out or fold?

  “Two.”

  She was rooted to the spot. There was no way she was giving up the spoon.

  “Thr—”

  “Okay! Okay, I’ll go get it.” She ran back to her room, where she’d stowed it under her pillow. Blushing furiously and trying not to cry, she put it in his waiting hand. Instead of moving or speaking, he just stood there, a stern look on his face.

  “Look, I’m sorry, okay? I actually am sorry. Not that you believe me. You just want to see my ass again.”

  “Guilty as charged. Take off your jeans and get over the ironing board.” He pressed a button and a little padded platform slid out of the wall at exactly waist height. Sarah shook her head.

  “There is no way that will take my weight.”

  “I wouldn’t suggest it if I didn’t know it was safe. Jeans off and get over the ironing board right now, Sarah.”

  With a sigh like the weight of the world was on her, Sarah went to the ironing board and pressed down on it with both hands. It seemed solid enough. She slipped out of her jeans and perched over the ironing board. It was slightly uncomfortable, despite the padded surface, and she didn’t like being balanced so precariously.

  Ral rubbed the surface of her bottom with the back of the spoon; all Sarah could do was close her eyes. She hated that spoon so much.

  When the first blow landed, it came down hard and all Sarah thought about was how much it hurt. Ral was taking no prisoners today and barely a half-dozen swats had landed solidly on her cheeks before Sarah was trying to get out of it.

  “Please, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to offend your spoon!” she cried, her legs kicking.

  “Remain still or you’re getting extras,” Ral replied dispassionately. Sarah wailed in response, but the threat was scary enough that she resolved to try and stay still.

  “Please, Daddy, I’ll do anything you say, just stop spanking me!”

  Ral spanked her twice more then stopped, but before Sarah thanked him, he leaned down to her ear and said, “Oh, I know you will; it’s the things I don’t specifically tell you that are the problem. It should go without saying that you should be truthful to people, yet you keep telling me that you can do things when you actually can’t. If you just ask for help when you need it, you will save a lot of time and effort instead of pretending you’re able to do things.”

  Sarah began to cry then.

  “But I want to be able to! And I’m used to being independent and doing everything by myself! Why would I assume you’re better qualified to… to… get me out of a rolling ball, or to paint a wall, for example, any better than I am? Am I supposed to just expect you to do all this?”

  “Of course not. That would be silly. What you should do is acknowledge your limitations. Then you can ask for help when you need it.”

  “But… but…” She cried harder as she tried to spit the words out. “But if I do that, then you’ll know.”

  “I’ll know what?”

  “How many things I can’t do! But if I say I can do them, then when I try, I’ve got a chance of getting some of them done, then you never had to know I couldn’t do it,” Sarah tried to explain, but she knew he wasn’t going to understand.

  “And why does it matter if I know you can’t do something?”

  “Because then you’ll think I’m crap,” she admitted, her voice breaking as she cried even harder.

  “Is that what this is about? Sweetheart, I want to help you be your best self. I’m not standing next to you waiting to rubbish your contributions or thoughts. I’m on your side. I’ll never think less of you for not knowing how to do something.”

  “Then why are you spanking me for not knowing how to do something?”

  “I’m spanking you because you’ve persistently lied to me, not because you were bad at painting. I said that already. Also, because you hid my spoon. Weren’t you listening?”

  “Yes, but I didn’t believe you,” Sarah replied.

  “Have I given you any reason to not believe me?”

  “No, I guess I’m just used to people saying one thing and doing another.” She remembered how, after her dad got a new job abroad, he would always promise to come visit, but he never did for the three years he had that job. Every week on the phone he’d tell her he missed her and she would cry at the end of the call. Wait, why was she even comparing these two situations? Sarah screwed up her eyes as her heart twinged, just like touching a bruise, and she realized that she was starting to get feelings for Ral. Who seriously had his shit together. And consistently saw her at her worst. Why was life this unfair?

  “In future, before I spank you I’m going to ask you to tell me why I’m spanking you. I think it would help you to pay more attention to why I’m taking the time and effort to correct your behavior.”

  “Yes, Daddy. I really am sorry.”

  “You always are, sweetheart. Count fifteen, please.”

  He brought the spoon down hard on her sit-spot and she yelped and kicked, right at the moment she remembered she was supposed to be saying still.

  “I’ll add two extra swats for that.” Ral didn’t hesitate to keep spanking her bottom with the spoon, and Sarah had to fight her own reactions to avoid getting any more. Sure enough, when he reached fifteen, he added two more swats, one on each cheek, then Sarah felt
only the cool breeze on her skin as she cried over the ironing board.

  “Go and stand in the corner, please, Sarah, we are not done here.” Ral’s voice broke through her thoughts and soon she found herself staring into the infinite depths of two perpendicular surfaces that could never truly meet.

  When Ral called her back, he made her bend over the ironing board again; she did it more confidently this time, since it had already proven it took her weight. He gave her another set of fifteen and she was crying after four, this time because of the sharp swats from the bitingly solid spoon—the sting wouldn’t get out of her ass before the next stroke landed, and since she’d just had seventeen before she went in the corner, it was a real struggle to remain still. The last round of punishment had made her think about what she’d done, but this round made her sure she never wanted to do anything to elicit this ever again. It was the meanest spoon in the history of evil cutlery and Sarah shuddered to think how much worse a bigger one might be.

  When he was finally done, she was feeling very sorry for herself, but then he gently tipped her upright, picked her up—she had a moment of worry that he might drop her or hurt himself, then she realized just how strong he was—and he hugged her to him. She nestled her head in his chest and felt soothed as he shushed her and held her.

  “It’s all right, sweetheart, I forgive you. But don’t ever lie or hide my spoon again. You took it well and you managed to mostly stay still. Now I’m going to sit you on a beanbag. Think you’re up to sitting?” His endless pink eyes met hers, and Sarah nodded. Her bottom was still stinging, but right now she’d agree to sitting on a wasp’s nest if it meant he’d hold her like this and look into her eyes like that afterwards.

  “Oh, good. You stay here and I’ll go get you something to drink, then we can decide what we’re having for dinner.”

  Sarah found herself being gently placed on a beanbag and carefully arranged, as if she were a feather, by Ral’s strong hands, then she watched him go to the kitchen area and start making drinks. Being punished definitely had its perks; there was no way he would have held her like that if she hadn’t been spanked to tears with the world’s most sadistic spoon. The memory of his hands touching her skin gave her chills while she replayed the last couple of minutes through her mind. He’d lifted her, he’d carried her, he’d placed her down so gently, like she was a delicate flower, and between it all, he’d held her and soothed her, and made her feel something she hadn’t experienced since the day she got her boobs: She felt little, and it was definitely not a bad emotion.

  “Would you like mallows in your chocolate?” Ral’s face turned toward her and she thrilled again. How did he have such beautiful pink eyes?

  “Marshmallows? You have marshmallows? I need them in my life!” Sarah exclaimed.

  A few seconds later, Ral handed her a yellow cup with a smiley face painted on it.

  “I think it’s gone wrong.” She frowned at the weird floating goo at the top of the cup.

  “That’s your mallows. Sorry, did you want them in a little bowl to melt one at a time?” He looked apologetic and concerned, a world away from her stern daddy who had just spanked her twice over the ironing board.

  “That’s… wait, aren’t ‘mallows’ marshmallows?” She poked the goo with her finger.

  “It’s sugary gooey stuff that melts when you put it in hot chocolate. Try it,” Ral encouraged her with a nod toward her drink. Sarah wasn’t sure the stuff in her cup was intended to go in people’s mouths.

  “Just give it a try, I promise I didn’t put poison in there.” He winked at her, and she knew he was trying to make a joke. She decided to humor him, and closed her eyes so she didn’t have to see what was going into her mouth.

  It was actually very nice, not at all how it looked in the cup, and Sarah found the texture wasn’t as gooey as she’d imagined, either. It was fluffy and light, but sticky, as though the hot chocolate was topped with homemade meringue.

  “What do you think?”

  “Very, very tasty.” Sarah nodded with approval.

  “I’m proud of you for trying it.”

  His kind words turned the evening into a perfect one, and it was so unfair that everything Ral did was perfect. He would never date her, and for that reason, she wished they hadn’t been thrown together.

  Chapter Eight

  Monday morning, Sarah was trying to finish a last-minute graph for her homework while Ral was having a shower. Usually, he walked her to school or went with her in the flying car, but today, he had an early morning meeting with his assistant, so she was going to travel on her own. His tablet began to buzz on the coffee table. Sarah stared at it for a moment, unsure of what to do. She picked it up and took two steps toward the bathroom, then hesitated. He would be naked in there. The idea of just walking in was too embarrassing. Anyway, these modern devices had 3D video calling; Ral couldn’t answer it while he was unclothed in the shower.

  Sarah was about to put it down when she decided she better answer it in case it was important. She hit ‘accept.’ A thin, pallid young man jumped out of the screen at her. When he saw her, his face changed from a polite smile to a livid frown, and Sarah took a step back in horror.

  “Ral’s tablet.” She tried to keep her face neutral despite her discomfort. She would never get used to these 3D video calls.

  His face screwed up in irritation. “Where’s Ral?” the man demanded.

  “Uh…” She felt very strongly that she didn’t want this rude-seeming man to know Ral was doing anything so normal as taking a shower. Sarah’s first job, working at a tech support helpdesk for a large office block, came to her rescue. “He’s unavailable right now, he’ll be in his office between eight thirty and six, if you’d like to call back then?”

  “It’ll be too late by then, don’t you know anything?”

  Sarah shook her head. Apparently, people like this hadn’t gone extinct. She wondered how they stopped being mean to one another long enough to reproduce. “May I take a message?”

  The man looked at her as if this was a particularly difficult question.

  “And who are you?”

  “I’m… uh… Ral’s cousin’s wife. Here to visit the big city!” Sarah filled her voice with mock cheer. She wasn’t going to tell this man that she was staying in Ral’s apartment while she was single, because he could make any number of assumptions about her non-relationship with Ral. Everyone she’d met in the future had been completely easygoing, even to the point of being very candid about their own relationships, but he looked like the type of person to make a fuss about such things, and she still didn’t know who he was or why he needed to speak to Ral.

  “No. I’m not leaving any message with you, little girl. You look illiterate.”

  She didn’t know why, but being called a little girl by this complete stranger seemed to reach inside her and jangle her nerves. Her sarcastic side took over. “Sure. I’m doing four-letter words next week!” Sarah spoke in the same overly hearty voice. Fuck, cunt, and twat came to mind as four-letter words she could use in a sentence to describe this man.

  Deciding she’d had enough of this, she added, “I’m going to go now,” then she hastily ended the call. Reaching through the 3D image of the horrible man to find the red button was creepy, and she felt shaken when she was finally alone again. She should probably leave Ral a note to tell him about this, but the stupid future didn’t have paper and pens. The only paper she’d seen so far was in the art room at the academy, and on Laila’s easel at her apartment. It was such a nuisance to have to switch from the graph she was finishing on her own tablet to send him a text message, or whatever fancy name they had in the future, instead of just scribbling something down.

  When she was done, she went back to her graph and tried to get it finished. She had three minutes before she had to leave, and five minutes of graph left to draw. Cursing her misfortune for answering the call, she hastily tried to plot the correct graph points on her tablet and sent it to the t
eacher before she left. All work was supposed to be complete before the beginning of the school day on which it was due. The problem with electronic work submission was that the teacher always knew exactly what time the work had been sent, so doing it outside the classroom, two minutes before the lesson was due to start (or worse, doing it in someone else’s lesson), wasn’t an option. They would know. Sarah guessed everyone in the future was supposed to be more organized than that, but it didn’t leave any room for unexpected changes.

  That was how she ended up holding her tablet in one hand, her bag and her jacket in the other, as she ran outside to hail a flying car. When she tripped over her own feet, the tablet flew out of her hand into the street. The last thing she saw on the screen was ‘work submitted,’ before the driverless flying car pulled up to the pavement.

  “Shit!” She was stretching her hand to reach under the car and retrieve her tablet when it began to melt from the heat beneath the vehicle. She recoiled and screamed in horror. Ral seemed to thrive on evidence. How could she get the tablet back to prove what happened to it? She wondered how the flying cars knew where to stop. Taking a few steps down the pavement, she hoped she could get it to move a little so she could get at her tablet. The car’s door slid down until it was closed, then it pulled away, rejoining the traffic that perpetually circled the city.

  “Great.” Now she would have to get another car to stop. Even though she’d never had to wait long here, her time at college in New York City had ingrained the fact that cabs couldn’t be counted on to stop. With the sleeve of her coat, she picked up the edge of her tablet, which resembled partially melted cheese. She waved it in the morning air, hoping it would cool down. It was still almost a rectangle. Maybe it would work if she turned it off and on again.

  The next time she waved, a cab came straight down from where it was flying, and hovered near her feet. The door raised open and she finally got on with her day. She hoped Ral wouldn’t be too mad about her tablet.

  After a day of being told off by every different teacher for not having a functional tablet to participate in lessons with, Sarah was very glad that it was time to leave. Ral walked around from his office and collected her at quarter past six and they got a flying car together.