Backfire: Halloween Metafiction Special

This was meant to be a lighthearted halloween mind-bender using the characters from Backfire. It...um...kind of ran away with itself...

Neither of the girls had expected the party to be quite like this. Sure, it had been made clear that illicit substances would be present, and neither of them had a problem with that (Sara was a habitual pot smoker. April just liked to party, whatever that entailed by local customs), but this was a step beyond what either of them were used to. So, April thought as she looked around at the bearded, strangely dressed young men and women, this is what actual hippies look like. Wow, its just like on TV! The novelty was a pleasant distraction for April, but in the back of her mind she was still dreading the end of their girls’ night out. She kept giving Sara nervous glances when she thought she wasn’t looking.

Sara kept her cool smile on; with her long, straight hair and inexpensive clothing, she fit in with this crowd much better than April. A couple of people smiled and waved Sara over to them.

“I’m gonna’ go talk to Matty,” Sara said to her roommate, her voice taking on that subtly domineering tone that April had grown accustomed to, “don’t get yourself in more trouble than you’re already in.”

A shiver of fear went down April’s spine, even as a naughty tingle rose from her crotch. She met Sara’s eyes, which - as always these days - seemed to take her in and engulf her. April nodded obediently. Sara smiled and gave April’s miniskirted bottom a stealthy pinch, making her whisper a quiet “ow!” before turning away to talk to Matty. 

April stared after her for a moment, wondering how and why she had let her life get like this. If her parents knew half of what had been going on, she’d never be able to look either of them in the face again. She watched Sara talk to Matty for a moment, until Sara looked back over her shoulder and gave April a perfectly innocent smile. A smile that said nothing unusual to the rest of the room, but reminded April that tonight was going to be a hairbrush night, and not a short one either.

Fortunately, there were plenty of distractions, and April was resolved to take her mind off the cruel fate of her helpless buttocks while she still had that luxury. She met Lindsey at the makeshift bar and traded sorority gossip while helping herself to a rum and coke. The two of them giggled and gossiped away until Nancy showed up, and they went into the back room to play beer pong. After gracefully losing, the now very lightheaded April found herself introduced to a trio of hippies. She chatted energetically, positioning herself as best she could in her drunken state to show off her outrageously curvy figure; she had no intentions of betraying her boyfriend, but one of the hippies was really cute, which made her body language mostly involuntary.

“Are you sure this is a good idea?” She paused to hiccup. “I have to walk home tonight.”

“Do’ worry, hon,” the bearded fellow reassured her as he carefully - almost reverently - fished the bits of dried fungus out of the plastic bag, “nothing bad happens from this.”

“Yeah,” his fellow backed him up, “this isn’t just the usual magic mushroom. Its sacred to the Plains Indians.”

April raised her blonde eyebrows. “Really?”

“Yeah,” said the first hippy, “it lets you connect to the spirits, opens your mind to the real world behind the universe. The shamans and medicine men say they use it to talk to God.”

April still wasn’t convinced that this was the best time and place to be experimenting with strange drugs, no matter their religious value. Unfortunately, she had always been sensitive to peer pressure, especially when it came from sexy boys. After rewarding her benefactor with an alluring smile, she accepted the fragment and bit off one end.

She felt the same, after swallowing the fungus. A bit drunker, perhaps, as if she hadn’t noticed how strong her intoxication was until now, but still no worse for wear. The boys congratulated her, nibbling their own dried fungus as they did. Funny…why couldn’t she hear what they were saying? It was like their mouths didn’t emit any sound. In fact, nothing was making sound. Her ears seemed to have switched themselves off.

She lay back against the wall they were sitting by, staring, wide-eyed, into the next room. She caught a glimpse of Sara at the bar, and suddenly, impossibly, she heard Sara’s voice from across the silent, crowded party, even if the words she said didn’t make sense. Her vision was blurring at the edges, her body growing weightless…

…

…April was in an unfamiliar room. Piles of clumsily-folded clothes (boy’s clothes, she observed) were scattered across a futon couch. On the wall by the door hung a variety of abstract sketches in cheap frames, a pre-revolution Iranian flag, and a preserved tarantula in a display case. Outside the window, snow descended on a rural street.

She blinked, quite deliberately. She knew there had to be a reason she was in this place, but she couldn’t for the life of her remember how she had arrived. Wasn’t there a party she was going to with Sara tonight? Or was that last night now? She tried to remember, but it was like tossing her mind against a solid fog. Holy mushrooms. The Plains Indians used them to talk to the spirits. Who had told her that? Well, they must not have worked, because she didn’t recall talking to any stupid ghosts.

Something bumped its nose against her ankle. Startling a bit, April looked down to see a stripey gray cat rubbing up on her leg. Was this her spirit animal? She guessed that shouldn’t be a surprise; she had a cat of her own after all, even if she hadn’t seen it since winter vacation. It was a different color, sure, but who said her spirit cat had to look anything like Nutmeg? The cat looked up at her with an inquiring expression. April transferred the mushroom slice to her left hand and bent down to let it sniff her fingertip. “Hello, kitty,” she said softly.

“What???” a male voice spoke up behind her, startling her, “Who’s there???”

Right, of course. When you’re in a new place, you look around before picking up the cat. Everyone knows that. Mushrooms let you talk to gods. She turned to face the voice. A bunkbed was nestled in the back of the small bedroom, and sitting on the unmade bottom bunk was a young man around April’s age. Fair skin, brown hair, maybe kind of cute if he had a shave. On the bed beside him was a half-open Gateway laptop. His expression was angry. “What the hell are you doing in my room?”

April’s lips opened soundlessly as she tried to answer. Should she apologize and leave? No, she’d still be in someone else’s house with no idea how to find her way home. What was she supposed to say?

“S-sorry,” she managed to squeak, “I…I don’t know where I…is the party still going on?”

The boy looked startled. For a moment, he seemed downright stupefied. Slowly, he raised a dark brown eyebrow. “Party?” He asked, his voice more subdued, “What are you talking about?”

“Well,” April took a step back toward the futon, not keeping eye contact, “I was at a party with my friend Sara…do you know Sara?…and I just…I don’t know how I got here, but I’m sorry for coming in without asking.”

As she spoke, his expression grew less defensive and more surprised. When she mentioned Sara, his eyes widened. There was a long, awkward moment after she finished. April was about to apologize again and ask for directions when he spoke.

“Oh no,” he whispered, “No, this can‘t possibly...”

…

His jaw went slack as the realization hit. Was he hallucinating? Dreaming? How could this possibly be happening? She looked exactly how he had imagined, wearing one of the expensive blouse and miniskirt combos that the richer girls at his college had worn. No, it couldn’t be, it just couldn’t.

“Um…” he said, wondering what his next question would have to be if she said yes, “…is your name April?”

The girl nodded, her eyes widening a little, vulnerable. He felt his heart accelerate. Her eyes got so large and blue when she felt nervous or embarrassed. He thought it was sexy, in the “cute and innocent” way, which was exactly why he had made them that way. He counted backward from ten, then ran through the alphabet from Z to V. If he was dreaming, it was an awfully lucid dream. The girl stood there nervously, in obvious discomfort. He had to tell her something, but would the truth be the best option?

“Um. Well.” 

He stopped to close his laptop. It really would not do for her to see what he was writing.

“I‘m not sure how to say this, but…uh…”

This is your last chance. You can make up a lie, that would probably be the best-

“…well, I guess from you’re perspective, I’m sort of like…”

NO DO NOT USE THAT WORD.

He changed his wording at the last second “…your creator?”

He had meant it as an explanation, but the way it came out definitely had a question mark at the end. Silence. He was about to offer her a seat, but she sat down on the futon before he could open his mouth. She looked as bewildered as he probably did.

“You mean,” she looked at him very intently, a mixture between skepticism, fear, and awe, “you mean you’re, like…God?”

DAMNIT.

“No,” he said quickly, raising both hands in a “no” kind of way, “Not like a God. Just…” Just the creator and constant omnipotent manipulator of your entire universe. Just the being responsible for thinking you into existence. “…okay, maybe sort of like a God, but I’m not all-knowing or powerful” just powerful enough to completely remake your world on a whim “or anything. I…basically I’m just a kid living in a world a lot like yours, and I made you up.”

She gave a nervous, unbelieving chuckle. Her laugh was musical, lighting a masculine fire in his blood. That sound was the guiltiest pleasure he had ever enjoyed. “What do you mean?” she asked crinkling her dirty blonde eyebrows at him.

He bought himself some time by standing up and very deliberately unwrinkling his shorts. This was going to be a hard pill to swallow. It was hard for him to even say it.

“Okay, well, I’m a writer. I write fiction, or what I thought was fiction.” He paused, asking himself again why he was telling her this. Unfortunately, April’s wasn’t a face he could lie to, though it might damn them both. “You‘re a character from one of my stories.”

He scanned April’s face for any signs of…well, anything. It was unreadable. Queeny jumped up on the futon and put her nose up to April’s thigh. April ignored the cat. He started feeling sick to his stomach. He knew where this line of questioning would go. He knew that she couldn’t learn the truth, and he knew that he didn’t have it in him to lie.

“Oh…huh.”

She looked down at her lap for a moment, trying to let it sink in. He watched her reach over and stroke Queeny’s head, her eyes lost in contemplation. He felt like he was about to throw up.

“Am I the main character?”

He looked away. “Yes.”

“Is…is my world real? Like, are the people I know actually…?”

“I don’t know.” That was something he hadn’t thought of, actually. If April was a self-aware entity, did that mean that her entire fictional world was full of self-aware entities? If she was only sentient because of the mental energy he expended in simulating her mind, though, that would mean that only a few of the main characters - the ones he’d really put himself into - were alive. He thought of a girl living an entire lifetime in a world of holograms, being raised by a simulation of a loving family who didn’t actually have souls, and it was one of the most heartbreaking thoughts he had ever had. And what about when I’m not thinking about her? Is she “asleep” when I’m not in her head? Does she DIE every time I delete a new draft and start again? What about Sara, or Kevin, or any of the others? How many of them are real?

She chewed her lip in that completely adorable way she often did. “You don’t know? Didn’t you make them?”

A slow breath escaped between his teeth. “Yes. Sort of. I don’t have everything fleshed out, necessarily,” I spent more time thinking about your ass than the rest of that universe combined “I just assumed that your world was mostly like mine and made up a few specific characters.” He shrugged in what he hoped was a reassuring manner. “I dunno, maybe its all real outside of my head. You seem to be, right now at least.”

“So,” she said slowly, trying to wrap her mind around it, “you’ve been…writing me…since I was born?”

Fuck. “No. I only made up a little about your childhood. Just that your parents were wealthy, and that you were an only child. I guess I imagined them having kind of Germanic sounding names, like Martin or Ella?”

April nodded. “Those are my parents.”

Interesting. Were those always your parents, or did I just now do that retroactively? How much of you is there, really? 

He hoped he could change the subject, but she was too fast for him. “So wait…does that mean I’m the most important person in the world-err-in my world, I mean?”

He couldn’t tell if she was hopeful, or afraid. Probably the latter. He didn’t think he could conceive of a realistic character who wouldn’t be frightened by that, and that meant she must be frightened. “I don’t know. If I actually did invent your world when I made it up, then yes, that would…I suppose…make you the center of it.” He was about to offer up the possibility that maybe he didn’t invent her world, but instead was simply being informed about its events through some kind of prophecy, but he only had to think about that for a fraction of a second before it lost its plausibility. Her body was shaped just like a girl he had failed to seduce once in school. She and her friends watched Dexter religiously because it was his favorite show. He had definitely created this. 

He answered very slowly, thinking about every word. “If we’re basing importance off of…” he paused, struggling for the right word. His vocabulary always failed him when he most needed it, “…causation, then yes, the rest of your world exists to tell your story.” He was careful to keep eye contact, so she knew this next part was genuine. “That‘s not to say that other people in your world are necessarily worth more or less, just that you‘re…um…” damnit, it was much easier to express these concepts in writing than in conversation “…well, I…you know what I mean, right?”

April did not seem to know what he meant. On second thoughts, neither did he.

Her hand stroked the cat again, absentmindedly. Her eyes were far away, almost vacant. He realized that this wasn’t as easy for her as it would be for some people; he hadn’t designed her to be intelligent or quick-witted.

“So,” she said, her blue eyes coming a little ways back into focus on his, “if everything is just to tell my story…what is the story about? What am I supposed to do?”

He bit his lip. April stared at him, bewilderment turning to impatience, and trepidation. Beneath her soft, fair-skinned face, a brain was waiting to process information. He put a hand to his stomach, trying not to be sick. She was waiting.

“Okay,” he said, “basically…”

…

He sat beside the crying girl, staring at his hands in dismay. What could he say to her? What could he do for her? Instinct told him that she needed a hug, but that would be the worst thing he could do. He kept his body a respectful two feet away from hers, and made absolute sure not to glance below her neck, even by accident.

“I made you enjoy it,” he said so quietly it was almost a whisper. “I made sure you didn’t suffer.” That wasn’t entirely true, though. The first chapter had consisted of nothing but misfortune and humiliation for her. The sorority scene in chapter three had also been completely unpleasant. Even if that wasn’t the case, though, it would barely have helped.

The more painful bits of the last fifteen minute's worth of conversation replayed in his head. “Why did I never have a baby brother?” she had asked. To make you more spoiled and self-centered, so that Sara would have more to punish you for. “Why did you make me want a baby brother if you knew I couldn’t get one, and the story doesn’t even show my family?” Because I imagined caring as one of your redeeming qualities, and I always put a bit of thought into what makes my characters tick even if it isn’t apparent to the reader. “Its all just your stupid fantasy?” No, I put it up on the internet for a bunch of other people to jerk off to as well. The interview had lasted until she finally did what she had been threatening and broke down into tears. He felt a sharp sting at the corner of his own eyes as he watched her.

“Y-you said…” she struggled between sobs, “…you said you made me like a…” she wiped her nose, only for more saltwater to drip down it, “…a real girl, who you know? So I’m not…not just a…a…”

“You’re not her,” he said somberly, sitting with his hands in front of him, “she’s not you. Her name was Katie. I knew her in college.” He didn’t tell her the rest of that story, which would have gone something like; she was smarter, more confident, and more emotionally mature than you. I just used her body and gave it a weak, spoiled, co-dependent personality named April so that it could get spanked more often. 

She shook her tangled blonde head, her tears continuing. He wondered if the holocaust had happened in her world, or smallpox, or malaria. Considering that she lived in a twenty-first century United States very much like his own, her world probably had the same history. If April and the other main characters weren’t the only sentient beings in their universe, he had condemned hundreds of millions - no, billions - of people to death.

“I’m sorry,” he said for the hundredth time, looking down at her huddled, shaking body, “I didn’t know. I just never knew.”

Queeny was still perched on the edge of the couch, wondering why nobody was petting her. She had tried sniffing at the half-eaten mushroom slice that April dropped, but he quickly snatched it away; there was no telling what that could do. Minutes flowed into one another. He wondered how long it would be until his brother came home, and what he would have to say if April was still around. Not that this was a significant problem at all, compared to the others on his mind.

“I’ll change things,” he said. “Once I send you back, I’ll make it different. You won’t remember this conversation.”

She looked up hopefully, her normally beautiful face blotchy with tears. He did his best to look confident.

“You‘ll be smart, and powerful, and happy. So will everyone else. No one will get hurt or disappoint themselves or anything.”

Of course, that would only work if the act of writing itself was what caused time to pass in her world, rather than him imagining it. He would never be able to stop his own imagination. Not to mention that rewriting her character might just kill April and replace her with another consciousness with the same name. It was the most comforting lie he could think of.

“Send me back,” she whispered, “make me forget. Please.”

He stumbled to his feet and hurried over to his laptop. Hopefully this would work…

…

The young man sat on his bed, alone but for the cat. His brother came in, said hello, and left. The young man barely noticed him. He was thinking.

I’ve written science fiction. Horror. I’ve had entire civilizations destroyed. I’ve turned people into tormented ghosts and marauding vampires. I gave terminal brain damage to ten thousand people when the cyborgs poisoned the Washington DC water supply. I’ve created a entire world where people’s souls are eaten by demonic piranhas after they die. And even without his own devised horrors, how many holocausts had he unleashed in the invisible backstories? How many genocides? How many epidemics? How many deaths?

He let his chin sink into his hands. He ignored the bangs that hung in his eyes. They were insubstantial. It was the other side of his skull that had unsolvable problems.

What if its not just me? What if every writer creates worlds with people? What if every person with an imagination and two minutes of free time does?

Then another thought, so chilling it multiplied all the rest.

What about writers who write about writers?

No, he was just overthinking it now. There had to be limits to how far things could scale, in one direction if not both. There had to be a Real world that the others branched off from. There just had to be.

Suddenly, he was looking at a small object lying on the nightstand by the futon. A half-eaten slice of mushroom. April must have left it.

No. No, this wasn’t right. There was no reason to do this. He didn’t need to, he really didn’t.

The mushroom sat there.

What about writers who write about writers?

He felt cold and clammy as he picked up the little pinch of dried fungus and held it before his mouth. It smelled musty, with an undertone of something he couldn’t name. One side of it still showed the marks of April’s teeth, reminding him that even if she was back home, she was still real.

He gulped, sucked in a deep breath, and bit.

The walls fell away. The ceiling vanished. The bed turned to smoke, and he was falling, falling, tumbling through the blackness. But he wasn’t really falling. There was no gravity, he was floating in place. The darkness was as thick as blood, but he pushed through it. He had to see, had to find out.

And then he heard the screams. He turned around, and saw it.

A head, a face the size of a galaxy, the darkness flowed from its pores like sweat. A face that filled the sky, a face that filled all the skies, a head he couldn’t even see. A million, bloodshot eyes stared into the darkness, and in each eye a spinning world. Fire flashed, an eye blinked, and there were screams. Quadrillions of deaths in every one of a million eyes. Mouths ingested universes. Worlds died, to make room for more worlds, which died. The face sang and basked in the music of the endless screams.

…

A young man lay on the floor of his bedroom. A laptop sat on the bunk above him. A cat sniffed at his shivering face, but he didn't notice. He shuddered, his mouth barely managing to twitch open.

“Azatho…”

In Hot Water

The other girls were already chatting and gossiping by the time they entered the locker room. Most of them were bleached blonde, expensively clothed upperclasswomen who failed to so much as notice Mamta Amani as she filed in after them. Mamta wondered again if this was the wrong sport for her. She had swam at her old school, but her old school had been a whole let less cliquish and a whole lot more ethnically diverse, and the swim team here seemed to be the “popular girl” sport.

“So,” said one of the blondes as Mamta picked out a locker and began undoing her jacket, “I just decided who my favorite actor is.”

Mamta looked up at her teammate, hoping this was a conversation she could get in on.

“Oh?” Asked another blonde. “Who?”

The first one moved her slim body in a way that indicated Mamta. “Tim Curry.”

It actually took Mamta a few seconds to get it, while the girls around her were chortling away. Was that really the best they could do? Really? She felt like she should be offended or something, but that was too stupid to even count. She sucked a slow breath into her petite mouth and thought for a moment.

“I liked him in It,” Mamta offered slowly, wondering if perhaps this could be salvaged, “and the voice acting in cartoons.”

“That’s very interesting, darling,” said Blonde #2, making eye contact with Mamta for a fraction of a second before turning back to her friend. “Anyway, I SO can‘t wait to see the second part of New Moon!”

“I KNOW! I’m rereading the whole series just to get ready!”

Mamta looked around for a sympathetic face, but every head was pointed away. Classes would start in two weeks’ time. Were they also going to be like this?

Well, socializing wasn’t the reason she was here anyway. Mamta pulled off her shirt and skirt and began digging her swimsuit out of her backpack. To do this, she had to bend over the bench that her pack was resting on, with her back to Blonde #1.

“Heh,” Mamta heard a chuckle, “here‘s a fun fact about swimming. If you‘re tall and slim, you go through the water faster. If you‘re short and have…um, what‘s the civilized term…very generous hindquarters, then you just might be out of luck.”

“WHAT?” Blonde #2 looked up in shock, “Are you calling me fa-”

She saw what her friend was smirking at, and her expression changed.

“Oh. Hahahahahaha!”

Mamta’s eyes widened indignantly, and she quickly sat down. Her peers continued to titter.

“Oh god, its actually spilling over the side of the bench! Too much pilaf, huh? Lot of carbs in all that rice!”

She felt a sting at the corners of her eyes. What had she done to invite this? How could she make it stop?

“Check out her back,” said #2 as she pulled off her bra, proudly exposing a pair of breasts that made Mamta’s flat chest all the more depressing, “I’ll bet you can see her blowhole! MAN THE HARPOONS!”

She just barely prevented herself from making a sound. She couldn’t let herself give them that satisfaction. Mamta awkwardly slid out of her undergarments and - still sitting on the bench, worked on her swimsuit. She really didn’t think she was overweight. Her stomach was actually very slim, her breasts were small, and she had a very smooth, almost cherubic Indian face that was absent of chubby cheeks or neck fat. The only thing about her that wasn’t thin was her bottom, but that made up for everything else. For a petite woman, Mamta had quite expansive hips, and each of them supported a soft, head-sized globe that pointed straight out behind her. It really didn’t match her frame at all.

“Speaking of ginormous asses,” said #2, “I can’t believe Cheryl is on Team Jacob. What a stupid whore.”

As they slipped back into their Twilight discussion, Mamta took the opportunity to stand up and quickly pull her suit the rest of the way on. She stole a glance at the mirror. Her tan, bright-eyed face stared morosely back at her. That suit didn’t cover nearly enough of her derriere; her cheeks were almost bulging out at the bottom. Unfortunately, it was the closest fit she could find.

…

Coach Bartelli was an overweight, mustached man with an all too apparent coat of black body hair. “Welcome back,” his voice echoed across the pool as he glared up at this year’s girls’ swimming team. “Great to see all your young, idealistic faces, however long they last. Welcome to swimming. Obviously.”

The girls lined up by the pool, as was customary. Bartelli frowned at them.

“So, warmups. So that you don‘t pull your muscles, drop off the team, get fed up with sports, and grow up to be a bunch of inanimate lard sacks like me. Jumping jacks! Make like you‘re being electrocuted!”

Mamta went through the stretches and exercises, carefully avoiding looking at the other girls. Fortunately, she was soon given something much more pleasant to look at in the form of the lifeguard, who strode out of the office. Like the rest of the team, Mamta had already met Andy. Andy was a freshman at the community college across the street. Tan, rugged, with smooth muscles that clung to his tall frame like a tight jacket. When Mamta had visited the pool before, Andy’s topless presence at the side of the pool had kept her attention, and probably that of most of the other ladies present. It took a good deal of concentration to remain focused on her situps.

“Alright,” said the coach when they had done their last butterflies, “before we actually get in the water, I need to tell you about our new disciplinary policy. The school can‘t afford to pay me - or any other poor shmuck - to hold detention anymore. So if you screw up, you get treated to the brand new ‘on the spot disciplinary procedures.’ In case any of you didn‘t read the lovingly typed and printed twelve-page activities booklet that I spent days writing for you - and I‘m guessing that‘s all of you - here‘s what that entails. If I say-”

Mamta had no intention of screwing up, and she had skimmed the lovingly typed and printed twelve-page booklet. She knew she should really pay attention anyway, but just then Andy the lifeguard bent over to check a loose rivet in the diving board, pointing one of the roundest, tightest rear ends Mamta had ever seen in a bathing suit right at her. By the time she realized that she wasn’t listening, the coach had finished his speech.

“Time to get in the water now,” Coach Bartelli said, gesturing halfheartedly at the pool. “Don’t worry; if you drown, the school is completely liable.”

The cold water bit at her dark, tan skin as she slipped into the water. The coach instructed them to start with one lap each of crawl, breaststroke, and butterfly stroke, just to “make sure no retards accidentally slipped through the tryouts.” Mamta, as always did well on the breastroke, as her large thigh muscles propelled her quickly. When it came time to do crawl, she had to spend more effort to keep up with her teammates. Butterfly, which was an all but new technique to her and had little to do with leg movements, saw her coming in last.

“Great,” Bartelli congratulated them as he stared at the floor, “real impressive. Now, for this part we’re going to need to pull the cord down the middle of the pool. Um…” He looked at Mamta, who had caught his attention by being last, “whatsyername, Mexican girl. Go help Andy set it up.”

Mamta’s face blushed scarlet under her tan, as peals of blonde laughter rang in her ears. She climbed out of the pool, not making eye contact with anyone as she walked, dripping, around the pool toward the coiled rope.

“How’s it going?” Andy asked as he walked up beside her.

“Oh…” she giggled nervously as she felt his body heat on her wet skin, “…um…I’m having a good day so far.”

He grinned, making her heart accelerate. “So far.”

She raised an eyebrow at him. He just chuckled and shook his head. She felt herself blushing again.

“So,” he said as he hauled the biggest coil of rope to the edge of the pool and put it down, “what have you heard about on-the-spot-discipline?”

“Um…” she blushed again, “I think I know the important parts.”

She bent down to tie the rope to its hook, and immediately felt a hard slap across the underside of her wet bottom, making her gasp and almost fall into the pool. She looked up at him in shock, one small hand darting to the injured part of her rump.

“Mmm,” he murmured before she could say anything, “we’ll see if it worked.”

He chuckled and walked away with the other end of the rope, leaving her with her hand on her butt and nothing left to do. She stared after him for a second, not sure she could believe he had just done that. Then, unsure of what to do about it, she dived into the pool and swam back to her teammates, reaching them just as Andy finished tying it up.

“Circuit time,” said the coach, “crawl edition. Swim up the right side, go under the rope, swim back on the left, repeat. Keep track of your laps, ‘cause hell if I’m going to be bothered. Ten minutes, go.”

For some minutes, they swam (“I said crawl, dammit! Oh, yeah, that’s right, keep snickering at me…”) furiously back and forth, slipping under the rope at each end. Mamta felt herself getting tired. Damn, she really had let herself go over the summer. She stopped for a moment to catch her breath, cursing herself and most of the people she had to interact with these days, at the far end of the pool. As she was panting, she suddenly felt a rough hand grab and squeeze the underside of her left buttock where it was poking out from under her suit. Mamta squealed and nearly lost her grip on the edge of the pool.

“Is that a handprint, senorita?” The voice of Blonde #1 came from right by Mamta’s ear. “Does your mommy still spank you for hogging all the rice pudding?”

Mamta looked furiously over her shoulder. Everyone else was swimming. Coach Bartelli was staring at his corpulent belly and miserably shaking his head.

Blonde #1’s face was right in the middle of her vision, grinning with perfect, white teeth. At that moment, something snapped.

A high pitched scream echoed across the pool as a palm smacked across Blonde #1’s face, jarring her head to the side and sending her golden hair flopping wetly around behind her. Everyone stopped swimming and turned around. Andy was staring intently from his perch on the lifeguard tower. Bartelli was peering across the pool with a somewhat bovine expression.

“This,” Bartelli finally said, “is going to be a really long school year.”

Blonde #1 treaded water away from Mamta turning around to make sure everyone could see the pink handprint on her face. “She hit me!” the girl exclaimed as if everyone didn’t already know, “She actually hit me!”

Bartelli’s mustached face disappeared into his hands. Mamta felt her heartbeat echo in her skull. The girls all looked at each other. Over on the side of the pool, Andy was staring at Mamta with an almost dumbfounded expression.

“Everyone, get over here,” Bartelli finally said. The girls swam back to him. He looked at Mamta with hard eyes.

“Did you hit whatsername?” he demanded sternly.

Mamta looked down at the water. She felt her hair drooping limply against her back.

“Yes,” she said quietly. Blonde #1 was about to indignantly clarify what her name was, but Bartelli cut her off.

“Is there a reason you hit whatsername?”

Mamta looked up at him. No one had seen the other girl grab her ass under the water. If Mamta accused her, she would just deny it, and her friends would all back her up. She glanced nervously across the pool at Andy. He was still watching the developments with great interest, leaning forward at his post so he could hear better.

“She was teasing me,” Mamta said, hopelessly.

Bartelli sighed and looked back at the blonde. “Whatsyername, is it true you were teasing the Latina?”

“I was just asking her if she was alright!” the blonde insisted vehemently, “And my name is-”

“Did anyone else see what was going on before she slapped her?” He gestured limply at each of the two girls as he spoke their pronouns. No one said anything.

“Alright,” groaned Bartelli, rolling his eyes at the high ceiling, “everyone, get out of the water.”

As the eleven dripping girls climbed out of the water, Mamta felt her body vibrating, a sense of impending danger coursing through her with the adrenaline. Bartelli motioned for Andy to come over to the bench at the head of the pool. Andy complied, his chiseled face starting to look a bit excited, as if he were looking forward to something.

“In the pool,” said Bartelli, “on-the-spot discipline is the duty of the lifeguard. Figures. Girl who slapped the other girl, come over here.”

The blonde and her friend were grinning from ear to ear. The other girls were watching intently, their expressions falling somewhere on the spectrum of sympathy to cruel excitement. Mamta felt her insides sink as Andy walked over to the bench. Her eyes widened when Bartelli opened the box of swimming equipment and fished out a clear, lexan paddle, and grabbed a plastic folding chair with his other hand.

“Watch this, girls,” Bartelli demanded as he turned his fat, glowering face to the rest of the team, “nobody wants this repeated too many times, or they’ll call a staff meeting and yell at us and I’ll probably miss my reruns.” He handed the paddle to Andy, who took it a little too eagerly, before setting down and unfolding the chair so that its back faced the team. “Ten strokes. Let’s get this over with.”

The terror was rising in her. Mamta looked at Andy. His alluring musculature was a double edged sword, in that it would allow him to swing that paddle viciously hard and fast if he wanted to, and unless she had misdiagnosed the lust in his eyes, he would want to. He had been waiting for this. Hoping for this. She then looked back at her teammates. The blondes were whispering excitedly to each other.

Moaning softly under her breath, Mamta approached the chair and - following the coach’s instructions - bent over it, sticking her oversized bottom up into the air and at the rest of the room. A few droplets of water hung for a moment to the naked undersides of her melon-sized buttocks before dripping down to the floor.

“Um…” Bartelli seemed suddenly very distracted as he beheld her offered rear, “..wow…uh…ten strokes Andy. Start now.”

Mamta closed her eyes and sucked in her breath, gripping the edge of the chair’s seat with her hands as she felt thirteen pairs of eyes feast on her shamefully exposed buns. She felt a hormonal heat in the skin of her back and thighs as Andy came close to her, his body heat touching her skin and causing involuntary reactions. She gripped the seat tighter, digging in her nails.

Andy lost no time. He held the paddle just behind Mamta’s prominent buttocks and straightened it out, making sure that its flat, transparent surface was perfectly opposed to her thickest curves. Then he raised it up, and brought it flying down into her flesh, making her soft bottom splash and spread out under the force. The first crack of the paddle reverberated across the room, echoing dramatically.

“OOWWW!!!”

Mamta’s fingers gripped tighter at the chair. Her body shivered. Her skintight bathing suit offered little in the way of protection, and its wetness actually served to amplify the force. The sting was immediate, powerful, and fiery.

As the girls watched with wide-eyed enthrallment, Andy lined up the battle again, this time positioning it a little lower, over the part of her bottom that was hanging out. When it connected this time, it bit into wet, naked skin.

“AHH!!!”

Her cry of pain was almost a loud moan. The paddle lick sent ripples of movement down her muscular thighs and caused her to bounce a little on her toes. Her bottom and thighs were pretty tight for their size, but the paddle was still enough to make the former jiggle and bounce.

The third paddle lick was exactly like the second, leaving another layer of pink across her half-naked sit spots and making her large rear end bounce as if it were on springs. The fourth was higher, at the rounded tops of her cheeks, and compressed the flesh in a different direction. After every lick, she cried out and shook her legs, trying desperately to distract her body from the pain. Some of the girls were starting to look a little horrified, involuntarily grabbing their own swimsuit-clad bottoms as they realized that they too might someday be subjected to this treatment. Bartelli’s eyes were almost bugging out of his skull.

The tenth crack of the paddle was like a bucket of gasoline tossed on a forest fire; a sudden spike in the burning pain that then disappeared into the rest of the inferno. Fire! Her ass was on fire! After the tenth stroke Mamta rose to her feet and seized her abused fanny with both hands, breathing deeply and stamping her feet in a frenzied spank-dance. The two, rounded bits of bottom that stuck out from under her suit had been turned from light brown to a sunburned pink.

“Ow! Ow! Ah!”

Andy stood back, trying to suppress a satisfied smirk, and put the paddle back away. Bartelli stood in place for a full ten seconds, mouth hanging a little bit open.

“Um…” he said when he managed to remember where he was, “…yes, so, don‘t do that again. Ass you can see - as, I mean as you can see - I…uh…I‘m not putting up with any…uh…shenanigans.”

Mamta turned her soft, delicate face over her shoulder to look at her teammates with dewy eyes. A few of them looked really sorry for her. The blondes and their handful of cronies were grinning, though a couple of them looked as if they thought this was a little too much.

“We’ve still got fifteen minutes,” said Bartelli, covertly adjusting his swimsuit to make sure that nothing was visibly poking out, “and I don’t want you to suffer any less than I did in high school. Frogstroke, come on!”

They quickly returned to the pool. Mamta avoided making eye contact with anyone as she walked gingerly back to the water. She winced when she bent her hips to jump back in. The cool water felt good on her paddled bum, especially when she took a second to pull her bottoms out to let some water under the fabric, but the leg motions for the frog stroke - which she was normally very good at - were painful. She got off to a slow start, feeling the burn with every stroke. She broke the surface once to see Blonde #1 beside her, smirking toothily. She did her best to ignore it and keep swimming. It was a long, painful, uncomfortable quarter hour.

Finally, the timer rang, and Bartelli motioned for everyone to get out. “Same time tomorrow,” he said, still looking a little distant and distracted, “shower and dry off and go home. I don‘t want to see any of your smug, youthful, all-your-life-ahead-of-you little faces until tomorrow.” He then turned away and whispered a little mumble that sounded almost like “that…ass…”

They filed off into the locker room, Mamta making sure to keep at the back, one hand still clutching her stinging hindquarters as she went. From across the pool, she saw Andy sitting at his post, still watching her. She felt a little flutter of excitement and nervousness in her tummy.

As they entered the locker room, various conversations began to start up around the room. Mamta over to her locker and started pulling off her suit. Her bottom stung and burned deeply as she pulled at the waistline. She leaned forward a bit to help get it down, when a blonde voice (yes, even her voice was blonde) sang out from behind her.

“Rotundo ass is all pretty pink! I guess your mommy isn’t the only one who spanks you!”

The other blonde swooped in beside her friend. “That’s what you get for slapping me, you little bitch! He should have given you twice that many.”

“Don‘t worry, Ash,” said Blonde #2, “he did it really hard. Look at how she’s wincing!”

“Mmm, good point. I wonder if I should say hello to that lifeguard after practice. I’m sure he knows which girls deserve his respect; he obviously knows which ones don’t!” She leaned over and delivered a hard slap to Mamta’s ample rear, making the girl squeak in pain and almost lose her balance. Several girls laughed.

Growling in frustration in rage, Mamta pulled her swimsuit back up and marched back the way she came. She was not going to put up with this. She’d wait in the hall that connected the locker rooms to the pool until the other girls had all gone. She didn’t care how long it took. Mamta stood in a corner in the damp hall and closed her eyes, struggling for happy memories to fill her mind with and drown out the sounds of showers and gossip and vapid giggles from the next room.

Finally, the last of the showers turned off, and she heard her beloved peers finish their exit. Breathing deeply, Mamta went back into the locker room, shed her ill-fitting suit, and turned on a shower. It was a struggle to find the right temperature; at first, the hot water stung her pinkened buns and made her wince and hiss with pain. Then it was too cold, and she danced involuntarily out of the water’s reach. Finally, she managed to hit a happy-ish medium that was warm but not hot, and stood under it.

As the warm water came down on her face and gently cascaded down her smooth body, she closed her eyes and let her mind wander. The sting in her butt seemed to have crept through her torso, and was now causing a tantalizing little prickle in her womanhood. She whined softly to herself as she wrung out her hair, bringing her left hand downward and pushing at the front of her vulva. A lusty tingle rewarded her touch as she found her mind’s eye rest itself on Andy. The way he looked and smiled at her, the way he shamelessly flirted with her earlier in the practice. Warm water coated her skin, giving her a sense of isolation and privacy. Slowly, she crept her hand further down her front…

A strong, masculine arm wrapped itself around her middle, pulling her naked body against a wall of hard, hot muscle. She started to yelp as her soft bottom was pressed painfully against a male body, but another hand clamped itself over her mouth. She tried to struggle, but his arms were like iron bars under a layer of rugged skin. She kicked her legs in a futile attempt to flee as he dragged her out of the shower and toward one of the benches. As he half-carried her across the room, she managed to turn her head up and catch a glimpse of her attacker’s face. Andy’s dark eyes were full of intense determination, his face showing exertion as he steered her to their destination. Mamta felt her heart go crazy.

With a strained grunt, he sat down on the changing bench and pulled the half-struggling Mamta over his lap. His trunks were tight around his crotch, and she felt something iron-hard pushing into her belly through them. Knowing what was coming, she gritted her teeth and clutched the tile floor. Andy pushed her torso a little further over his knees, putting her ponderous, glistening-wet cheeks right over the edge of his lap, so that they pointed at the ceiling. He admired their bounce for just a second, and then started the spanking.

His hand was like sandpaper against her pink, paddled buttocks, rasping and burning her flesh with each loud, wet slap. The sound as his palm connected with her wet, rosy cheeks was like a firecracker echoing in the enclosed locker room, and the pain exploded and sparked in the wake of each smack. Left sit spot, right sit spot, left, right, left right…he spanked her harder and faster than she had ever experienced.

“Ahh! Ohga…I…ahhhh!”

Her voice got higher and higher pitched as she futiley begged and wriggled, but she was careful not to be too loud. The forest fire in her bottom was back, and with a vengeance! She couldn’t yelp fast enough to keep up with the spanks, couldn’t wriggle in any way that would diffuse the pain. She was helpless, bound in place, as her bottom just hurt more, and more, and more…

Andy’s arm had to be getting tired, and his palm was certainly in pain, but he had the willpower to ignore these obstacles. He spanked on and on, faster than the second hand of the clock, exploding volley after volley of fireworks against her bouncing fanny. Her sit spots were red, red like ripe strawberries or lustrous tomatoes, and the rest of her bottom ranged from something just shy of that to hot pink as the layers of sore handprints piled on top of each other. He kept his left arm pressed hard on her back, and his right rising and falling, until the juiciest parts of her ample rear were a shade that bordered on purple and she was almost on the brink of tears. Then, before she lost control and started screaming loud enough to be heard outside of the room, he stopped. She kept writhing and panting over his lap, her abused bottom completely dried off.

“Andy…” she begged, her voice barely a whisper, “Now, right now!”

“Of course,” he whispered back, playing with her wet, black hair. His voice was low and gravelly. “Over the bench.”

Mamta stumbled to her feet and bent over the end of the bench, sticking her red and pink ass up at her paramour. Andy lost no time in scrambling around behind her and - having ditched his trunks at some point - sliding his impressive length of rock-hard penis into its eager socket. Mamta gasped as he pumped his hips into her spanked ass, pushing down on her back and forcing her chest against the bench as he pumped in and out. The sex was fast, furious. Mamta reached around behind her, grabbing his taut bottom and pushing and slapping it to make him work harder. Andy grabbed a handful of hair from the back of her scalp and pulled, making her look up at the ceiling and gasp, as he thrusted deeper and deeper into her slick vagina.

Andy didn’t seem to notice when she had her first orgasm; even as she lolled her head back and clamped a hand over her mouth to keep herself quiet, he didn’t lose speed. Her second climax was stronger, building on the afterglow of the first, as she rose on a wave of pleasure above the agony in her bottom, riding the ocean of pain on a soaring raft of orgasmic ecstasy. She was almost ready for a third orgasm when Andy stopped, his body shuddering, and she felt a spasmodic twitch inside of her as his penis erupted.

The two of them lay, panting, on the changing bench, his penis slowly retracting from her as it shrank back into flaccidity. The bench under her crotch was wet with her emissions; they’d have to clean it off thoroughly before they left. Slowly, her boyfriend of three months brought a hand back to her head and slowly massaged at her neck and chin. She moaned weakly, enjoying his touch.

“You,” Andy said huskily between deep pants, “are completely insane.”

Mamta giggled. “Didn‘t we plan it together?”

“I didn’t think you were going to do it on the first day of the damned schoolyear,” he said, almost indignantly, “and I really didn’t think you were going to physically assault one of your teammates.”

“Those girls are bitches,” Mamta said bitterly, “if it weren’t for you, they’d have kept me off the team.”

He rolled his eyes. “Oh, I know. They‘re just jealous of you. Your intelligence, your sophistication, your looks. Heh, one of them tried to flirt with me after practice.”

Mamta purred at his compliments. They always did wonders for her self-confidence.

“But…slapping them across the face? Even if they’re bullies, that’s kinda…”

Mamta grinned mischievously. “I know. She totally deserved it, but I shouldn’t have done that.” Silently, Mamta really did enjoy the irony of her current situation. She could do whatever she wanted to those horrible girls during swim practice, and she’d be rewarded for it with the kind of sexy, public paddlings she had fantasized about for years. But yeah, slapping someone in the face was kind of not okay; she’d be more subtle in her mischief from now on.

“Oooh,” she murmured, changing the subject, “my ass is on fire.”

Andy chuckled, straightening up to massage her big butt with both hands. “Mmhmm,” he hummed unsympathetically.

Mamta closed her eyes and enjoyed the attention her nude Adonis of a boyfriend was applying to her ravaged rear. She had met Andy a few weeks after her family moved to town. They had been sure to keep their relationship a secret, as Mamta wasn’t sure what would give her parents a worse heart attack; the fact that she had lost her virginity before getting married, or the fact that she had lost it to a non-Hindu. It was fortunate that she was eighteen, so she could get The Pill without them being informed.

“You should get back to the pool,” she mentioned after a pleasant minute.

“There’s still a few minutes until the open swim, and I doubt Bartelli cares where I went. Mmm, you’re so beautiful.” His hands moved up to her back and began massaging that as well.

“You too,” she whispered back.

Just then, the door to the locker room flew open, and both the young lovers looked up with a start. Coach Bartelli was standing in the doorway, mouth hanging open under his thick moustache.

“WHAT THE FUCK AM I LOOKING AT????”