I'm an actuary. I find it an interesting and profitable career even though other people seem to have different ideas. About the interesting part – no-one can deny it's profitable. I will have to admit that the subject may seem a bit dry to the uninitiated. The general response to my telling someone my profession is, "An Actuary? One of those guys who make accountants seem interesting."
Apart from the inevitable job-related slurs on my personality, I have a full social life and not all my friends are actuaries. Hardly any, come to think of it. They do tend to be boring people. I also have my fair share of success with the ladies. It helps if you're tall and not un handsome.
It was spring and a pleasant, sunny, Saturday and I went out for a run. After my run I finished up at the local park and was strolling through it while cooling down. While there I met this attractive young lady that I'd seen there before, usually with this red-headed bruiser escorting her.
As the young lady was alone I stopped to say hullo and introduce myself, as we obviously lived in the same neighbourhood. She wasn't averse to having a talk and we just strolled around the park chatting generally.
Now even though we were chatting quite freely there was nothing sexual about our talking. For some reason there wasn't any spark between us. As far as I was concerned she was just a pretty woman who I automatically parked in the friend zone and was pretty sure she'd done the same where I was concerned.
Considering that I had just assumed that we'd both friend-zoned the other you can understand that I was slightly taken aback when she grabbed my arm, snuggled up to me, and started flirting as though it had gone out of style and she was single-handedly going to restore its popularity.
"What the hell are you playing at?" I asked, smiling down at her.
"Possessive boyfriend," she said, smiling up at me, a pleading look in her eyes. "I'm trying to get him to stop being so jealous whenever I talk to anyone."
I laughed.
"Fine by me as long as you realize I have no intention of getting beat up over this," I told her, continuing to stroll along while she clung to my arm.
She giggled, assuring me he wouldn't really get violent. He was just all hot air. She could handle him.
So that was how the situation stood when there was an outraged bellow from behind me.
"What the fuck are you doing with my woman, asshole?" came the roar.
I disengaged her arms from mine and turned to face the challenger. True to my intention of not getting into a fight I gave a soft answer.
"None of your fucking business, asshole," I snarled back at him.
"He won't actually get violent," she had said.
"He's just full of hot air," she had said.
She should have told him that. His face went as red as his hair, then he was coming at me, head down and fists swinging, apparently intending to charge through me as though I was the defensive line at a football match that had to be broken through.
Not wanting to be smeared all over the park I stepped aside and let him charge past. It was entirely accidental that I happened to kick his foot as he passed, flicking one foot behind the other one.
When his rear foot hit his front foot his feet stopped moving forward. Unfortunately, inertia said that the top half of his body had to keep going forward. With his legs not underneath his body gravity said that his top half had to come down. If it hadn't been for a fine sturdy tree the belligerent boyfriend would have done a face-plant into the grass, which would have cooled his ardour slightly.
That fine sturdy tree really cooled his ardour. He ploughed into it, head first, and dropped as though sapped. He didn't get up, either. You know how scalp cuts bleed? This guy really demonstrated it. He'd torn a gash at the top of his scalp that was going to take stitches to fix.
I dropped down next to him to apply pressure to the wound to try to slow the bleeding. I had a jumper with me, in case the weather had cooled down, and I used this to staunch the bleeding. There was no way I was going to be able to wear that jumper again.
While doing the first aid I was yelling at the poor bastard's girlfriend to call for an ambulance. Boyfriend was going to hospital for stitches and an overnight stay for probable concussion.
Silly twit called both the cops and the ambulance and they both rolled up at the same time. I explained to the cops that the man had tripped over his own big feet and that I hadn't touched him, no matter what his girlfriend said. Fortunately, there were several other witnesses, including a couple of people who had filmed the incident. The cops checked a video and it showed apeman charging at me and me moving to the side and letting him go past, so there were no charges, apeman clearly being the aggressor and responsible for his own accident.
The ambulance boys assured the cop that the only damage to the guy seemed to be the wound to his head, where he'd met the tree, and that he was only suffering from a split scalp, a sore head and possible concussion. They carted him off, girlfriend trailing disconsolately behind. The cops did take all our names and addresses of course. That was to have an unexpected consequence.
The next afternoon there was a knock on my door. On answering I found a redhead standing there, female this time. As far as I was concerned she was marvellous. Shoulder length hair that was a real carroty orange colour. That was its real colour, too, I was prepared to bet. Green eyes that were glaring at me and creamy skin, totally freckle free. She was wearing what was probably categorized as a loose top, but she had enough superstructure to make the top tight in an interesting way. She had long legs and I could see most of them as she had on a short skirt.
"Michael Jefferies?" she asked politely, a politeness given the lie by the look on her face.
I humbly conceded that that was my name and how could I help her.
"The police told me your name. You can tell me where you get off, beating up my brother," she promptly yelled. "How dare you beat up a sweet young man like that? I'm going to have you arrested for this."
I opened the screen door.
"Why don't you step inside and we can discuss this like adults," I said, indicating that she should move on in.
She hesitated for a moment and then went storming past me, standing in the middle of the front room, tapping her foot irritably.
"Well?" she demanded, turning around to face me.
"We've already established that I'm Michael," I said, "but who are you?"
"I'm Deanna and you're avoiding the subject. You assaulted my brother in the park yesterday. He's got ten stitches thanks to you. How dare you attack someone like that? I'm having you charged."
"You're on a loser there, sweetheart," I calmly informed her. "The cops visited the scene of the accident and did an investigation."
"Assault isn't an accident," she put in. "They couldn't have investigated very well."
I spread my arms to the side, trying to look helpless.
"What can I say? There were witnesses. They saw your asshole brother attack me and fall over his own big feet. It was patently obvious that he was entirely at fault."
"That's not what Michelle says. Michelle says you were coming on to her and when Brian objected you knocked him down."
"Really? And what does Brian say?"
"He doesn't remember what happened but he assures me that he would never try to assault someone so you must have started it."
"Mmm. Tell me, Deanna, do you ever look at the internet?"
"What's that got to do with things?"
"There's an interesting short video that's turned up on Youtube. Let me show it to you."
The man who had filmed the incident had told me he was putting it up on Youtube. I'd checked that morning and there it was. I crossed over to my PC and, bringing up Youtube, I ran the video. It was short but explicit. It showed me standing still while Brian charged at me, then it showed me sliding to the side while Brian charged past and then went stumbling into the tree. The one thing it didn't show was me kicking Brian's foot as he went past.
Deanna had watched the whole thing in silence. Now she turned on me.
"What'd you do to upset him?" she demanded. "He wouldn't just attack someone like that. You just have done something."
I just shrugged and tried to look innocent.
"I was just taking a walk in the park, cooling down after going for a run. This woman came by and started talking to me and then the idiot attacked me. Poor temper control and poorer sense of balance. You have to pity someone like that."
Oops. It seemed that I'd gone a bit too far. Deanna made an outraged growl and swung at me. She missed as I ducked back.
"Hum. It seems that like brother, like sister. Keep your cool, lady. It wasn't my fault that your brother hurt himself."
She wasn't listening. Incensed, she swung again, and I found myself in a bit of a quandary. I couldn't duck back as the couch was now behind me. If I tried to dodge to either side she might just clock me by accident and I didn't really want her slapping me. It would be painful.
I solved the problem by sitting down. She'd swung so hard that when she missed she'd spun around and was now side on to me, and off balance. I reached up and pushed and she tripped over my legs, finishing sprawled across my knee.
Every so often temptation comes your way. It's a smart man who knows when to yield to it. When Deanna landed across my knee I flicked her skirt up and my free hand came down firmly on her bottom.
"You," I growled, "Need to learn to control your temper. Let me help you."
I emphasised this with another firm spank. Did this gentle reminder encourage her to take control of her temper? Not noticeably. She was swearing quite rudely, abusing me and wriggling around, kicking her legs up and down.
"You really should cool down, sweetheart," I advised her. "I can keep this up longer than you."
She ignored my well-meant advice, continuing to wriggle and swear. After a couple more spanks I decided to up the stakes. If I thought her language was bad when I started spanking her I learnt otherwise when I pulled down her panties. She'd have made a sailor blush with her choice of language.
I lay down a few more hard smacks on her now bare bottom.
