Two Hundred Dollars Ch. 05

175 Dollars

Bailey crawled out of bed on Monday at a leisurely pace. The basement floor brought her the cold bite of autumn, prompting her to wrap her dark blue robe around herself and head to the kitchen to turn on the coffee maker. With that vital process begun, she walked a few steps past her bedroom door to adjust the thermostat. She could hear Kent already awake and working, but he'd have never thought to warm up the apartment. Most boys, in Bailey's opinion, had a real chip on their shoulders about enduring cold weather as if it didn't exist.

She shrugged it off as she returned to the kitchen and wait for her coffee. As they had the day off for Thanksgiving, she could take it even easier than her normal lazy Monday morning pace and let the place warm up as slowly as it pleased.

Maybe because he smelled the coffee, Kent came out of his bedroom, already looking wide awake.

"What time is it?" Bailey asked him.

"Nine thirty," Kent started heating a skillet in preparation to scramble himself a couple of eggs.

"How come you aren't home for the long weekend?"

"Money," Kent admitted, now setting up the toaster with two slices of bread and pressing the lever down. "That's a long bus ride to see my parents for two days. I'll see them all at Christmas. You?"

"My parents are off visiting my brother in B.C.," Bailey twisted her lips. "So I'm stuck here."

Kent grimaced at that. British Columbia, while lovely, sat half a country away from their present location, with three provinces and a lot of wheat in between.

He added a bit of oil to the frying pan, waving his hand over it to check for heat.

"You want anything while I'm here?" he asked.

Bailey shook her head, "I'll just do my coffee, for now, thanks."

The coffee machine started dripping out its dark salvation while Kent cracked his eggs in a bowl and scrambled them with a fork.

Leaning over the small pot of coffee, Bailey inhaled the scent of her fresh brew and felt invigorated. She had cleared up the matter of Laura's intrusion to her satisfaction and needed to keep her forward momentum.

"How long have you been awake?" she asked Kent, noting he appeared fully dressed in jeans and t-shirt.

"Couple hours," he admitted, pouring his eggs in the frying pan and achieving a satisfying sizzle. "Shit tonne of work to do for that stupid group project."

Bailey poured her coffee into her mug and sat down at the table, curling her body around the mug's warmth.

"You'll need a break at some point, though," she let her voice trail off.

Kent smiled, "No doubt."

"I was thinking of having a nice dinner, actually," Bailey put in. "Pick up one of those pre-roasted chickens at the grocery store? Maybe some fries too."

"Oh," Kent nodded thoughtfully. "I mean, hell, I can mash potatoes. I'm not completely useless in the kitchen."

His toast popped just as he poured his scrambled eggs out onto his plate. He dropped the plate on the table across from Bailey and went to the fridge to fetch milk and jam. Once the toast was covered in a spread of strawberry jam, he settled in.

"Shouldn't there be vegetables or something?" Kent asked, digging into his breakfast.

"Yeah. I hear those are good for you," Bailey nodded sarcastically. She sipped her coffee and added, "Whenever we get hungry, we can head down to the grocery store and pick something up?"

Kent swallowed a mouthful before replaying, "Sounds great. We'll split the bill?"

Bailey nodded, watching Kent demolish his breakfast. "Do you even stop to breathe?"

"Studying burns a lot of calories," he spoke around a mouthful of food.

She didn't get halfway through her cup of coffee before he finished his entire breakfast. With a raised eyebrow, she watched Kent rinse his plate off and stick it in the dishwasher.

"Just, uh, pop by whenever," Kent said. "I'll be working in my room all day."

"Right," Bailey agreed, her eyes half lidded.

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Several quiet hours passed. Kent, knowing that Bailey hadn't got her brain in gear yet, concentrated entirely on his project work. The jackasses in his group surely hadn't done their part of the work and he knew too much of it would fall on him.

My kingdom for competent coworkers, his brain cried out. Someday I'll get out of school. Someday.

The clock in the corner of his computer screen read exactly 12:00 when Bailey came into his room. For some reason, Kent had expected her to have changed into her standard blue jeans and t-shirt, but he found her leaning against his door frame with her dark blue bath robe still wrapped around her.

"Hey," she said.

"Yes," he drawled back.

"Kinda special day today," Bailey began.

Kent shrugged, "I suppose."

"I have an idea," she said. "A proposal, if you will."

"I will entertain your proposal, as always," Kent kept his voice officious and distant.

Bailey inhaled.

"Okay, here goes," she said, "It's pretty warm in here."

Kent raised a finger as if to object, before lowered it calmly, "Agreeing so far."

"And the landlords upstairs are gone, and so is Carson."

"These are all statements of fact."

"So I was going to put three tick marks in the box," Bailey jerked a thumb over her shoulder, "If you'll do it a bit differently."

"How so?"

Bailey loosened the ties on her robe and opened the front of it to him. First, as it opened at the top, he saw the loose blue sweater she wore on the top of her body. Then, as the rest of the robe opened, she revealed that she'd covered the lower half of her body with only a blue pair of athletically styled panties.

"The deal is," she explained as she slipped the robe off her shoulders and hung it over her forearm, "I spend the whole day, just like this -- except when we go outside -- and you can take your spankings... whenever... you... want."

"Fifteen spankings," Kent replied. "Whenever I want."

"Twelve," she corrected. "That's the deal. I get a discount for, um -"

"Putting on a show?"

"Yes," Bailey seized on that, "for putting on a show and for, let's say, letting you surprise me."

Kent took a very deep breath, scanning her from bare feet to hips before looking her in the eyes.

"Can I see the back?" he asked, nodding at the little blue panties.

Bailey tilted her head and rolled her eyes, but still turned around in the doorway, sticking her hips out just a little in his direction. Kent noted that while the panties weren't thong-like at the back, they had a nice inward curve that worked well with her thin frame.

She remained facing away from him as she spoke over her shoulder, "I can change which panties I'm wearing, if you really care. Now do we have a deal?"

"Will you change them every time I spank you?"

Bailey sucked in a breath, "If -- if you want, I'll go through my whole wardrobe."

"Deal."

She immediately reached out for the marker and made three tick marks on the board.

"Do you want to do any right now?" Bailey spoke without moving.

"I think I'll do two now," Kent stood up and approached her, laying his striking hand on her left cheek.

"Don't tell me," she chided instantly.

"Pardon?" he shook his head as if he hadn't heard her clearly.

Baily stammered a moment. "I mean, you don't have to tell me how many or when. That's why I get a discount. Because you can just do it whenever."

"Oka-ay," Kent replied. "So you don't want a warning?"

Bailey turned her head away from him, sighing and looking up at the ceiling, "I'm going to know you're there. You're not a fucking ninja."

He slapped her left cheek good and hard.

"Yow!" she cried out, much louder than she usually did. "One."

He struck the right cheek immediately after, even harder.

"Ha! Christ!" she screeched out. "Two."

"Done for now," he told her, pushing her out the door via the hand that cupped her cheek. "I'm going to head out to the grocery store."

"The chicken'll get cold if you buy it now," Bailey put her free hand on her hip as she turned to frown at him.

"I'll get everything but the chicken," Kent pointed out, "We can get the chicken right before we eat, but I need to boil the potatoes and mash them ahead of time, never mind whatever else I find."

"Oh, right," Bailey agreed, eyeing his spanking hand. "I'll see you later."

"You'll change while I'm gone?"

"Of course. A deal's a deal," she replied.

=============================

Bailey went back to her room and waited for Kent to leave, her body shaking with impatience. When she finally heard the outer door close, she came back into the hallway and walked to his room. With an involuntary exhalation that forced her eyes closed, she slipped off her panties. Holding them between the thumb and forefinger of her left hand, she lifted them up and hung them over the corner of his whiteboard.

Her left hand then braced against the door frame as she began panting.

Any time, she gasped, closing her eyes again, he can do it any time.

Until then, everything had gone according to her schedule. But this day, she had handed it over to him. He could just come up behind her at any time and slap her ass.

Bailey felt her knees collapsing as her toes turned inward. Her right hand dove between her legs, pressing down on her sex. She moaned, stretching her left arm up along the door frame and pressing her shoulder to the wall.

Maybe he'll warn me. Maybe he won't, her lungs pushed out another involuntary breath, leaving her gasping for air. Maybe he'll grab my hip to hold me still. Maybe he won't.

She squeezed her thighs together, trapping her hand inside, her middle finger probing between her lips.

It's entirely possible, she mused as she squirmed, half-naked in his doorway, that he'll just come up behind me in the kitchen and... slap... my... ass!

Cringing as her body convulsed, Bailey sank to her knees, barely keeping herself upright, crying out loud to the empty apartment.

Some thirty seconds later, she recovered enough to wipe sweat from her brow and sit back with her butt on her heels. She took two very deep breaths.

Glad that's out of my system.

Bailey had already decided, by virtue of her promise, she would keep her end of the bargain by making herself available the whole evening. That clearly meant leaving her door open, forcing her to control herself for the rest of the evening. She'd thought it a thrilling idea when she'd come up with it, but now worried if she could go the whole night without masturbating.

Or at least until he's done ten more spankings.

She got up very carefully, her legs still a little weak, and walked down to her bedroom to fetch a new pair of panties.

I think I'll do a thong next.

=============================

As the local grocery lay next to the cafe, it didn't take long for Kent to hustle back and forth with a small sack of potatoes and a bag of frozen vegetables.

I can probably manage to cook this without fucking it up too much, he thought as he tried to open the door and found it locked.

Makes sense, if she's wandering around half naked.

Kent patted his pockets and realized he'd left his keys at home. He hadn't thought to lock the door, but given that the deal he'd made with Bailey required her to prance around in her underwear, it made sense that she had secured their place.

Maybe running out so quickly after spanking your roommate wasn't such a bright idea, he realized. Or you would have thought of that yourself.

He rapped on the door gently, rebuking himself inside his head for the lack of patience that had led to this situation.

It took less than a minute before he saw Bailey's head poking through the little window in the door. She held up a cautionary finger, petitioning him to wait a moment, before she unlocked the door. Understanding her entirely, he waited until her footfalls on the stairway faded away before he opened the door.

More wisely, he locked it behind him.

"Is it closed?" Bailey asked from around the corner.

"Yeah, sorry."

"It's alright," she said, only a note of worry in her voice as she poked her head around the corner, "But you locked it again?"

"Yeah."

She put one bare leg around the corner of the wall that separated the stairway from the little laundry cupboard. From where Kent stood, he couldn't even see what she wore below the waist, only a whole lot of naked thigh with her sweater covering the waistband of her panties -- assuming she wore any.

As he shifted the bags so he had one in each hand to make his way down the stairs, Bailey waited patiently at the bottom. She closed her eyes and inhaled sharply as he stepped off the last stair onto the basement floor.

Kent lifted the bags in his arms and bumped the ice cold bag of mixed vegetables against her cheek.

Bailey yelped, "Bastard!" and felt goosebumps searing up and down her body.

=============================

She hadn't expected that. While she'd had the apartment to herself, she'd reconciled with the fact that she had ten spankings to contend with before she could have some time to herself. After staring upward at the summit of that unscalable mountain of patience, she'd eventually accepted it.

But now this torture?

She also had to contend with hours of non-spankings?

Son of a bitch.

Bailey shivered, not entirely because of the ice he'd bounced off her cheeks, and watched Kent walk down the hall to put his vegetables and potatoes in the kitchen.

He's not going to spank me.

With a nervous sigh, she walked down the hall to her bedroom and sat at her desk. Hours waited between this moment and dinner, and she had to spend them like this, waiting for him.

Waiting on his pleasure. Isn't that how the harem girls say it?

She had a feeling they said it like that.

Listening carefully, she heard Kent load the freezer and thump the potatoes down on the counter. His footsteps whisked across the floor, growing louder, approaching her door.

The sound stopped at her doorway, but Bailey didn't turn her head. Did she hope too much?

He moved inside her bedroom, coming for her.

Bailey felt her heart pounding in her chest, her breathing accelerated as if she'd found herself in a mad, dashing race.

What could she do?

She rose out of her chair, leaving her hands beside her keyboard, and leaned over her desk, letting him see the white thong he'd so loved. Bailey felt more than heard his presence, looming behind her, shifting to her left.

Sometimes he laid a hand on her first, letting her know where he'd strike, but he didn't do that this time. Instead, the moment she locked her knees straight, just as she inhaled, he struck her right cheek, hard and low.

"Ha!", she yelped, loud and high, enjoying the exhilaration of making so much noise, knowing no one could hear her but Kent. "Three."

The fourth strike came hard on the heels of her third, hitting her left cheek low.

"Four!" she screeched.

She waited, saying nothing as Kent rested his hand on her lower back, wondering if he'd do a third.

Instead, his hand caressed her cheeks, top to bottom and all around, and then left her stinging flesh. She never turned to make eye contact, just letting him leave her room. Bailey didn't move from her position until she heard his desk chair squeak.

She then slipped out her panties and selected the next pair, a more plain, traditional black pair. Quietly, she crept along the hallway to his room, the white thong in her hand.

Kent looked up when she stood in the doorway. He watched her hang the thong on his whiteboard, next to the blue pair already hanging there. She saw his well contained reaction, a simple raising of his eyebrow, a subtle mark of appreciation.

Bailey smirked at him, trying to maintain a condescending attitude, and turned on her heel to walk back to her bedroom.

=============================

Kent's afternoon began to take on a surreal aspect the longer it went. While he hammered away at his homework like a mythical dwarven miner, the thought of Bailey waiting in the next room constantly intruded upon his thoughts.

What are you going to do? he asked himself. You only have 8 spankings left for the day. You'll want to save those for later.

He felt the gripping force of logic on his brain. Eight spankings divided over roughly eight hours required some calculation. If he waited two hours, focused on his work, he could just walk into her room and lay two more on her taut little cheeks.

But I could wait longer, do more at once.

Kent considered the possibility of walking in, doing one spanking, and walking back out.

Concentrate on your homework.

For a moment, he thought it might be better to just walking in there, take her over his lap, and lay all eight slaps on one cheek. Leave her red and sore for dinner.

No. Don't ruin it. That's not how she wants it and, as much as this is my money, it is her ass here, so she definitely gets some say in the matter.

The tension in his chest continued to build.

=============================

By 4pm, another gnawing sensation starting eating away at him, and it came from neither the bulging urge in his groin, nor the thumping madness in his chest. Hunger, finally, had arrived.

He walked past Bailey's room, consciously forcing his hunger to override any other desire, and reached the kitchen. He dumped about half the mixed frozen vegetables into one of their two pots, added a bit of water, and set the burner to maximum. He half filled the second pot and placed it on the next burner, turning it on too.

Peeling potatoes didn't count for much fun, but he could do it quickly. A rough chopping job followed and the 'cubes', if you could call them that, found themselves in the second pot.

That took care of everything but the chicken.

He went back to his room and tapped away on his computer for a while until her heard the water boiling. The vegetables he could just drain and turn off, but the potatoes he had to drain and mash. He sighed, adding milk and butter to smooth it out and then started mashing.

Kent breathed deeply and exhaled slowly to build patience into his voice.

"Hey, Bailey?"

"Yes," she squeaked back instantly.

"You hungry yet?"

A long pause followed this.

"Sure," she replied. "I'll, uh, get dressed then?"

The implication of her question floated in the air between them. Should she put on her jeans now or... wait?

"Yeah," Kent replied.

Somehow, a completely silent note of disappointment drifted to him, carried on the emotional air currents swirling between kitchen and bedroom.

Bailey appeared in the hallway, still without pants on, looked at him and walked the other way. Kent followed her, grabbed his jacket from his room, slipped into his sneakers and caught up to her at the bottom of the stairs.

He hadn't noticed before, having occupied his mind with bumping her cheeks with the freezing bag of groceries, but she'd left her jeans folded up on the laundry machine, presumably in preparation for this outing.

By the time he got to her, she'd already pulled her jeans on and had started buckling them.

"Y'know," he said, "Before we go..."

He didn't have to say anything more. She silently undid the button on her jeans and pushed the waistband back down to expose her cheeks and her black panties.

As soon as she cleared the way, he slapped her left cheek, eliciting a long, low groan.

"Five," she breathed a moment later. "Any more?"

"That's good for now."

She started to pull her jeans back up but paused with her cheeks half exposed. "Should I change now?"

"Huh?"