Cross Country Tour Part 9

The story begins here

Ben walked into the lobby of  the Standard Club Hotel on Michigan avenue carrying a hooded mummy over his shoulder.

He knew that there could be repercussions for beating Sam Harper to a pulp and trying to kill him, but he couldn’t think about that now.  His wife was in crisis.  She had been so consumed with breaking through to the next stage of her career, that she had taken her life in her hands by spending an evening at the mercy of one of the most notorious entertainment hustlers in the industry.  He knew that Sam had been working for Columbia, and he knew that She’d fall for his smooth line.  He chided himself for his stupidity.  It had been his job to protect her, if not from Sam Harper, then from herself.  He never should have gone to Detroit when she needed him.  

He dropped Lucinda on her feet on the floor of their hotel room.  When he peeled the hood of the bed sheet off of her head, he found her face wet from tears, and a repentant look in her sad, pathetic, huge brown eyes.  She began to spasm in bursts of tears and a blubbering that shook the walls of the room.  Ben, again, looked sternly at her and held up his finger as a warning,  She fought to control her convulsions in a cacophony of hiccups and whimpering as Ben peeled away the sheet and piled it on the floor at her feet.  She stood, naked before him.  “Turn around and bend over,” he demanded.

Lucinda hesitated.

“NOW!”

She jumped and quickly obeyed.  Ben got down on his knees behind her, grabbed her hips and plunged his nose into her exposed sex.  He took a whiff, searching for that foreign smell of another man, or even that familiar smell of her own sexual satiation.  He smelled nothing but the soap she normally uses.  He took a breath of satisfaction and relief as he stood back up.  “Okay, you can stand up.”

Lucinda stood and turned around.  Her face had gone from pathetic to irritated,  “Happy now?” she snapped.

“Yes, I’m happy,” he said humorlessly as he raised a finger to her nose.  “And do not take that tone with me.”

Lucinda pursed her lips and shivered.  “Ben, you have to let me explain.  You haven’t heard the whole story.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure I put the pieces of this puzzle together myself.  Let me tell you the whole story.”  Sam nodded toward the bed.  “Sit down.”

Again, Lucinda hesitated, an unsure slant to her gaze.

“You need to move when I tell you to move, Lucy. Now is not the time to test me.”

Lucinda stumbled back until the bed met the backs of her thighs and plopped down hard so that she bounced a couple of times.

“Now, you let me know if I missed anything,” Ben grunted caustically.  “Sam came to you with promises of fame and fortune if you’d meet with him at his hotel to discuss a contract with Columbia.  You, being you, couldn’t resist that pull.  And even though I made it clear that you were to stay away from him, you slipped on that dress that I warned you never to wear in public, met with him without my permission, guidance or protection. You didn’t trust me enough to inform me of your plans, so you not only kept it from me, but you asked Charlie to not say anything, thereby putting him in a bad position.  How’m I doing so far?”

Lucinda nodded and wiped her wet face with the palm of her hand and lifted her chin almost self righteously.  “Well… you didn’t really say I couldn’t wear the dress in public.  You  said I couldn’t wear it on stage.”

Ben stared at her for a moment before he said, “Do not play with me, woman.  I am in no mood.”

“Sorry.” She winced and dropped her eyes.

“At some point in the evening,” he went on, “ he slipped you a sedative.  Most likely the compound Chloral Hydrate.  He got you to his room, got you undressed, and probably  spend most of the night running his hands over your body while you were comatose.  And the only reason I’m not on my way to his hospital room to smother him with his pillow right now is because I don’t smell him on you.  Did I miss anything?”

“No, that just about covers it,” Lucinda mumbled.  She took a deep sigh and let it out nervously in spurts.  ”But you believe that I didn’t sleep with him, right?” She looked hopeful.

“Of course I believe you.  I’m not stupid.”

“Then why did you just inspect me like a bloodhound?”

“Just because you didn’t sleep with him doesn’t mean he didn’t rape you while you were unconscious.  I had to make sure.”  He sat down on the bed next to her.  “I don’t know why he didn’t take advantage of you, but he certainly could have.  He’s lucky he didn’t.”   He lowered his voice almost as if in prayer.  “We’re lucky he didn’t.”

Lucinda reached up and wrapped her arms around her husband’s neck and squeezed tight. Ben wrapped his arms around her back and rested his head on her shoulder. He whispered in her ear, "When I couldn't find you all night, I was so... scared."

"I know," she whispered back. "I'm sorry."

After a few seconds, he released her, and grabbed her arms and pulled them from around him.  Suddenly, without warning or ceremony, and in one swift motion, he pulled her over his lap and tightened a vice grip around her waist.

Lucinda struggled and let out  an “oof!” as her stomach hit his thighs.  “Ben!”

“I am tired of this Lucinda,” he said with an chilling calm to his voice as he rested his hand on her bottom.  “You told me that you wanted to build a life with me, and you promised that we would find a happy medium between fame and our privacy.  I did everything in my power to make sure you weren’t taken advantage of and abused by the system.  We have more than most blacks in this country.  Hell, we have more than most people  in this country.  You wear the finest clothes, you have a beautiful home, you’re recognized and adored by your fans. You’re gorgeous, you’re healthy, you have good friends, and a man who loves you… and you’re not satisfied.”

Lucinda tried to lift herself off his knees, but he held her in place and tightened his grip.  “Ben, I’m satisfied.  I am,” she blurted out desperately.

“Why don’t I believe you?  More importantly… why do you lie to me?”

Lucinda took a deep, sporadic breath and closed her eyes in anticipation.  If she knew her husband, he’d start to lay into her right... about...

The first resounding crack of his hand on her round cheeks caused Lucinda to howl, “Owwwww!”  He repeated the swats over and over with a force that caused him to draw in extra oxygen in order to sustain his momentum.  Lucinda’s bottom shook as her legs began to dance vigorously in response to the horrible sting in her backside.  Ben kept slamming his hand into her as she began to wail uncontrollably.  He continued to attack her bottom evoking howls and shrieks that eventually  climbed an octave and began to sound like a tropical bird calling out in the jungle.  She reached her hand back and covered herself for a couple of seconds, and Ben stopped, grabbed her hand and pinned it at her lower back, and then resumed as she pleaded and squirmed.  

She was crying so hard, the blood pounding in her ears preventing her from hearing Ben as he continued lecturing her on selfishness, thoughtlessness, disobedience, foolishness, and a half dozen other adjectives that described her poor decision making habits.  He stopped at one point and shook his hand out to relieve the fire in his palm and fingers, and then resumed with the same intensity with which he had started.

He wailed on her backside until he felt her stop fighting.  Finally after several minutes, she lay exhausted over his lap, sobbing and blubbering, apologising, and pounding on the mattress with her fists.

She didn’t even notice that the spanking had ended until she felt herself being lifted by her shoulders.  “That one,” Ben raised his all powerful finger again, “was for lying to me about your plans to meet with Sam behind my back.  You've got another spanking coming for wearing that dress after I forbid it, and telling me that you were packing it away.”

Lucinda reached behind her, rubbed her swollen butt. peered at him from under her wet eyelashes, and nodded her head.  She rolled on to her tender bottom as she attempted to catch her breath through her sniveling.  Through her tears she saw it.  Ben’s right hand, the one that had pummeled Sam's face only thirty minutes ago had broken skin all over its swollen knuckles.  The rest of his hand was almost doubled it’s size as her spanking had probably exacerbated the inflammation.  

Lucinda stood up sorely and padded into the bathroom where she retrieved her bathrobe.  She left for the hallway, and returned a moment later with a bucket of ice.  Taking her husband’s hand in hers, she lifted it up to her face and felt the fevered temperature against her lips as she kissed his swollen knuckles.  She then guided his hand into the bucket of ice, and leaned into his shoulder while she cried quietly.

Ben watched her for a moment, and smiled inwardly as he leaned down to kiss the top of her head.  “I love you, you know,” he said.

“Yeah, I know."

“At ten o'clock we're meeting someone for breakfast downstairs. You've got some time to get yourself together.”

“Breakfast? With who?”

“The person we had a date with for dinner last night when you didn’t show up.”

Lucinda's tears were still coming out of the corners of her eyes.  She wiped the side of her face on Ben’s shoulder and looked at him.  “We had a dinner date with someone last night?  What are you talking about?"  The last thing she needed right now was to put on a cheery face for a group of fans, or some college student DJ for a campus newspaper of radio station.  All she wanted to do was hide in the hotel room and nurse her punished bottom and wait for the other shoe to drop.  This whole debacle wasn’t over by a long shot.  At the very least, Sam was going to find some way to exact his revenge on Ben.  And ultimately, on her.  “Ben, please, I don’t want to go to breakfast. I just want to crawl in bed, and…”

"Wait for your second spanking?"

She smudged a huge teardrop into her mascara. "yeah, something like that."

“You are to be ready by ten o'clock.  Understood? You'll get your second butt whoopin' after breakfast."

***

It was a good thing he told her that she had to start getting ready a whole three hours  before they left for the restaurant downstairs in the hotel.  As it was, she needed an entire hour to lay in bed and pout and complain about her poor ass-a-fire.  The second hour she needed to call room service to deliver a jar of cold cream so that she can begin to cool off her backside.  And the third hour was reserved for the shower, and perfecting her hair and makeup before she tried on three outfits.  He knew her right down to her last quirk.  

He watched her as she went through her repentant-healing routine.  God, she was beautiful.    She wasn’t a very pretty crier.  Her nose always turned beet red, and her eyes swelled to their bloodshot capacity.  She’d wander around in circles for a while, rubbing her bottom and cursing under her breath.  That’s when Ben would have to issue another of several warnings about her language, and, ”You better not be cussin’ about me, little girl, I’ll add a third ass warming to your dance card.” to which she would pout and roll her eyes.

Then, true to form, she’d spend another 40 minutes or so curled up in the fetal position under the covers and dab at her eyes with a cool washcloth that she’d periodically move to her bottom for a quick cool off.

After that, the passive pleading would start.  “Ben, I’m so sorry I screwed this whole thing up. I know you must hate me.”  to which a conversation would take place designed to make her come out looking like a sad, pathetic wretch who’s being punished for not knowing any better. This was usually where Ben would inform her that there wasn’t a person on the planet that was as clueless as she wanted him to think she was.

When she was finally ready for breakfast at 10 o'clock, Ben opened the door for her, but stopped her before she stepped out into the hall. "No matter what happens at breakfast," he said, "I want you to know that I love you and I couldn't be more proud of what you've accomplished."

Lucinda gazed at him through her fresh makeup that gave the appearance that she hadn't been crying uncontrollably all morning. "Ben, what are you talking about?" she demanded.

"Everything will be clear in a few minutes. But I guess I can tell you that my trip to Detroit Saturday wasn't about booking another gig."

"Benjamin Webber, are you telling me that you lied to me?" Lucinda managed to smile.

"Yes, Ma'am," Ben tried to look sheepish. "But I think you'll appreciate this lie."

And he was right. As they walked into the dining room, the hostess showed them to their table and their waiting guest. There, in a remote corner of the restaurant, nursing a cup of coffee, and reading the entertainment section of the newspaper was at the one and only Berry Gordy, President and CEO of Motown Records.  

He rose and took Lucinda's hand and said, "Miss Hastings, I've been a fan for quite some time, and I'm honored that you would consider signing with our little operation."

“