by Loki Renard
“Come on,” Mary said, distracting Annika completely. “We’re going out.”
“Where?”
“Somewhere important,” Mary said. Her blue eyes were twinkling with excitement, as if she knew something Annika did not. Annika was suspicious, but not worried.
“Where are you ladies going?” Steven interrupted them on his way from the office to the refrigerator.
“To the flower arranging club,” Mary said sweetly.
Annika gave Steven a pleading please don’t make me go look. He simply shook his head and smiled at her.
“It will be good for you to make friends with the other women,” he said. “Thank you for taking her along, Mary.”
“It will be fun,” Mary agreed. “More fun than you think,” she added under her breath, just loud enough for Annika to hear, and quietly enough to pique her interest.
They left the church and walked down the leafy path. It was a beautiful Sweetville afternoon. The sky was blue, the birds were singing, and the sun was shining in a reassuring way that warmed Annika’s shoulders and back in what felt like a gentle hug.
“Floral arranging is quite fun, once you get used to it,” Mary said, glancing over her shoulder.
“Are you worried we’re being followed?”
“You can never be too careful,” Mary smiled. “There are eyes and ears everywhere in Sweetville.”
All Annika could see were trees and bushes and the occasional fence. Nothing to worry about.
“In here,” Mary said. “This is the Sweetville Women’s Hall.”
The Sweetville Women’s Hall was a low-slung long rectangular building that looked a bit like a church aside from having no steeple or spire. Each window was complemented with gaily painted yellow shutters and a window box in which grew marigolds. The lawns were neatly mowed in the clearing, around which pine trees grew in a thick stand, providing privacy and a sense of seclusion even though they were in the very heart of Sweetville.
Hollyhocks grew rampant around the door, which Mary pushed open to reveal a well-furnished foyer complete with armchairs and cut flowers and lace doilies. The room beyond the foyer was filled with laughter and women sitting about a great round table covered in various cut flowers, with green foam blocks stacked aplenty, and several vases for each of the participants.
“Hello, ladies,” Mary said. “I’ve bought Annika along.”
“Hello!” the ladies trilled pleasantly. They all seemed very pleased to be arranging flowers; indeed, they were flushed and pink, some almost glassy-eyed. The reason for their state soon became apparent when Annika spied delicate little glasses perched atop almost every available surface. Their finely cut crystal interiors held a blood-red liquid that flowed so ubiquitously, it scented the air.
One carefully coiffed lady turned to another with decanter in hand. “More sherry, Susan?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” her friend said.
Annika supposed that the Floral Arranging Club sounded better than the Tipsy By Two O’Clock Club; at least, as far as their respective husbands were probably concerned.
“Can we get you two a drink? It’s sherry or sherry I’m afraid, we’re all out of sherry.”
There was a chorus of laughter in response to the question.
“No, thank you, Kitty,” Mary said. “We can’t stay long, I’m afraid. Steven likes to keep Annika on a short leash. I thought we’d make our introductions. Annika, this is Kitty Treewood, of the Bainbridge Treewoods. She runs Treewood Stud.”
“Hello,” Annika said, shaking the woman’s hand. Kitty Treewood was a tall, attractive woman in her late thirties with thick blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. She had the sort of bearing and features that made tweed look as if it had been made for her and her alone. She was wearing a rather nice coat of the stuff, matched with riding breeches and tall leather boots. Annika supposed the crop in the corner of the room was hers. Kitty had a broad smile, plenty of teeth, and her eyes sparkled all the more as she consumed her beverage.
“And this is Millie Winter,” Mary said, moving to the next lady. “And Stacy Gurnsey, and Elizabeth Brown, and Fanny West, and…”
Annika lost track of the names almost as soon as Mary said them. She was trying to take them in, but they seemed to fly in one ear and rush out the other as soon as somebody else was introduced.
“Would you like a drink, Annika?” Kitty asked the question. Annika could remember her name because she was named after a cat.
“She really shouldn’t.”
“We really shouldn’t,” Kitty Treewood guffawed, “but we do.”
“Pastor Soames will be very upset if she drinks,” Mary said. “She’s not yet twenty-one, you know.”
“There’s plenty of supervision here,” Kitty said. “Let the girl have a drink if she likes. I’ll deal with Pastor Soames.”
If there was anyone Annika could imagine dealing with Steven, it was Kitty. Besides, what could one little drink hurt? Everybody else was doing it.
“I’ll have a small one, please,” she said.
“They’re all small ones,” Kitty said, pouring her a full glass of sherry. “Come, sit, arrange a flower or two.”
Annika was presented with one of the green foam blocks, which she found was quite fun to sink her finger into and watch as the material gave way. She soon discovered that floral arranging was actually sort of fun, sticking cut flowers into the foam in ways that were pleasing to her eye while rich-tasting sherry trickled down her throat and into her belly.
The ladies of Sweetville Brides were quite outrageous when they wanted to be. Though they looked prim and proper in their pastel cardigans, well-starched blouses, and slacks with divots at the hips, what came out of their mouths was anything but proper. The conversation tended toward the carnal, albeit in somewhat shadowed terms.
“Clancy’s been on his special pills again,” one woman said. “I feel like a bald tire down there.”
The ladies tittered and placed carnations suggestively against lilacs.
“You should be glad Clancy’s making the effort,” someone else chimed in. “The last time Mark and I did anything, Reagan was still in office.” She sighed and plucked a rose from the center of the table. “Nothing has been the same since Reagan.”
It was universally agreed that indeed nothing had been the same since Reagan. Annika did not have an opinion on the matter, so opted to sip her sherry and push more flowers satisfyingly into the arrangement.
“Oh, no, you can’t have red lilies and dianthus together!” Someone swooped in to rescue Annika’s flowers from looking ugly. “That’s almost as bad as gaillardia and dianthus!”
There was a round of laughter. Clearly a joke had been made. Annika was not sure what it was.
“They’re just flowers,” she said.
A hush fell over the room. A chill descended. Annika felt Mary draw close protectively.
“She’s foreign,” Mary explained. “She doesn’t understand about flower arranging yet.”
There were a few strained smiles in Annika’s direction. Annika had the distinct impression that the other ladies would like it very much if she would leave so they could talk about her.
“She is right,” Kitty Treewood said. “They are just flowers.”
“Oh, Kitty!” someone guffawed. “You are the very end!”
“The very end of what?” Annika inquired.
Laughter ensued and the congenial atmosphere was restored. Annika had not understood almost any of the interaction, but the edge of hostility was gone. Someone topped up her sherry and handed her a purple flower.
To Annika’s surprise, she had a good time. A large part of that was due to the three glasses of sherry she consumed while letting the feminine chatter wash over her.
The clock struck five o’clock and like an enchanted carriage turning to a pumpkin, the magic was over. Ladies gathered up the cut flowers and bundled them up for storage, tables were cleared, and before Annika knew what was happening, she
and Mary had been ejected back into the real world. The world where she was still not legally allowed to drink. The world where Steven paddled her for doing so. Hard.
“Steven is going to kill me,” Annika moaned. “Those women are bad influences.”
“Have some peppermint tea,” Mary suggested. “It will cleanse your breath a little.”
“It’s not going to matter. He always knows.”
Mary gave her a quick side-hug. “Good luck,” she said before peeling off to go find her own authoritarian mate.
Annika moped home, certain she was in trouble. She slipped in the side door, but managed to run straight into Steven, who had apparently decided that the laundry needed to be done just at that time.
“How was it?”
“I survived,” Annika said. “There are friendlier biker gangs.”
His deep chuckle made her feel warm and fuzzy and nervous all at the same time. “Oh I’m sure that’s not the case.”
“I’m sure it is,” Annika said. “They almost shanked me for using the wrong flowers.”
Steven shook his head and extended an arm. “Come over here.” She went and he cuddled her close. “Sounds like you’ve had a hard day.”
“It was easier when I was outcast,” Annika said.
“You were never an outcast, just new to town. Sweetville doesn’t get a lot of new people moving in. I’m sure the ladies are thrilled to have you.”
“I had a drink,” Annika confessed to his chest.
“Aw,” Steven stroked her hair. “I know.”
“You know?”
“Mrs. Treewood called me hours ago. Told me she’d given you a sherry to welcome you to the club.”
Annika looked up at him accusingly. “You let me worry!”
“I gave you space to tell me the truth, and you did.” He kissed her. “So you’re not in trouble.”
Annika muttered to herself about the unfairness of it all, but she was secretly grateful that she was not in trouble, and that she now knew Mrs. Treewood was in the habit of calling the pastor and tattling on her. Even with the best of intentions, she could still have caused a great deal of trouble.
“Stop pouting,” he said, patting her bottom. “You had a nice afternoon with the ladies, and you’re not in trouble. There’s nothing to pout about. Besides, you don’t have time for this. We have a wedding to arrange, young lady.”
“Are you going to call me young lady when we’re married?”
“What would you prefer? Mrs. Soames?”
Mrs. Soames. She hadn’t thought of herself as being Mrs. Soames before. The name seemed nice. Annika Soames. She rolled it around in her head a bit. It was a lot less of a mouthful than Annika Protslovika, much more American.
“There’s that smile,” he said, lowering his head to kiss her. “You should be happy. Enjoy our engagement.”
“Does our engagement come with romantic dinners?”
“It could.”
Sweetville, Steven told Annika, had a particularly nice restaurant, the Savoir Faire, and he explained how nice it was as they got dressed. Actually, he used the restaurant as more of a promise of a carrot—as opposed to the stick he was showing her if she didn’t wear the dress he’d picked out.
“It’s too pink. I have red hair. It won’t work.”
“It will suit you wonderfully,” he said. “It’s formal and appropriately modest and the skirt is loose enough that it can come up if you need your bottom spanked.”
“What do you mean, if I need my…” Annika couldn’t bear to repeat the sentence.
She stayed quiet most of the way to the restaurant, thinking about how strange her life had become; strangely wonderful, but strange nonetheless.
The Savoir Faire was everything Annika had come to expect from a Sweetville venue. It was well kept, well decorated and filled with people who looked as though they didn’t know what a pore was. Annika didn’t know how everybody in Sweetville managed to look so put together all the time, but she hoped she would one day learn their secrets.
“Where would you like to sit, Pastor Soames?” the maître d’ asked the question deferentially. “We have a table in the rear if you would like some privacy.”
“Well, I do like…”
Annika tuned out the discussion. Her stomach was growling. She wanted food. She got it by swiping a piece of uneaten bread from the nearest table. The diners didn’t seem to notice, but Steven did.
“Annika!”
She grinned around the bread, enjoying the scandalized tones. It was nice to know that even though they were to be married, she could still surprise and outrage him. Unfortunately for her, discipline followed outrage. There were approving looks from the other diners as Steven spanked her to the table.
“You can’t do that in front of people!” She complained, futilely attempting to cover her bottom.
“Of course I can,” he warned. “Keep that up and I’ll turn you over my knee right here.”
Annika stared at him, her mouth slightly ajar. He wouldn’t. But… maybe he would. Steven was something of a dark horse, especially when it came to discipline. In fact, looking around, she realized she was far from being the only woman not sitting comfortably. Several other female diners showed signs of squirming on their bottoms.
“Oh, look,” Steven said. “John and Mary just came in!”
He waved them over and the happy couple joined their table. It was plain to see how much Mary adored John. She practically clung to him as they walked through the restaurant, her arm wound around his like a vine about a strong tree. For his part, John was just as taken with her. His usually dour expression melted into fondness when he looked at his wife.
Annika wondered if Steven felt the same way about her. She knew he wanted her, and she certainly wanted him, but there was something between them. A secret or something like it. She could feel it every time she was with him. It created a distance. Maybe it was just because they hadn’t known one another very long. Maybe it was because marrying a man for a green card, no matter how nice a man, was a bad idea.
“What’s wrong?” Mary nudged her.
“Don’t whisper, you two,” John cautioned them. “If you have something to say, say it out loud.”
“I was just saying how much I like my new brand of tampons,” Annika said loudly, causing both Steven and John to stare at her with stricken expressions.
“Annika, that’s not appropriate dinner conversation,” Steven chided.
“If John wants to be nosy, he will hear things he doesn’t want to,” Annika shrugged.
John gave her a hard look. “You’re going to end up spanked, missy.”
“That’s up to Steven,” Annika smirked.
“I’m going to spank you right now if you don’t start behaving more politely,” Steven warned her. “I’ll have the waiter bring a paddle if I have to.”
Annika set her jaw. There was no way she was going to be spanked publicly, especially not in front of John. It would actually be better to be spanked in front of a dozen strangers than Mary’s husband. From the moment they met, he’d been a thorn in her side. A stern reminder that she didn’t fit there in Sweetville, a reflection of her own insecurities.
She fell silent for the rest of the meal, unwilling to risk punishment and not at all enjoying her food. Mary managed to keep up a stream of appropriate and light conversation, which more than made up for Annika’s silence.
The meal was supposed to be a celebration of their engagement, but it had turned into a reminder that she was an outsider. She was not going to feel any different when they were married. It would be the same thing, but with a different piece of paper.
“Are you alright?” Steven squeezed her hand as they left the restaurant.
“Yes,” she lied. “I’m just tired.”
He accepted the lie. He accepted it because it was pleasant, just like everything else in Sweetville. They returned to the church house and Annika made ready to go to bed, all the more convinced that s
he didn’t fit.
“Before you go to sleep,” Steven interrupted her tossing of pillows and blankets. “We need to have a little talk.”
“I don’t want to talk,” Annika grumped.
“Good,” he said, “because what I really meant was I want to pull down your pajamas and spank your bare bottom.”
“But I didn’t do anything…”
“Who said you had to?” Steven sat down on her bed, took her over his lap with his practiced hands, and proceeded to make her quite naked from the waist down. Annika’s mood improved almost immediately. She loved the feeling of his warm hands on her bottom, and she loved it even more when he slid his hands down and played his fingertips against her inner thighs, teasing her with the prospect of more pleasure.
“You were a little temperamental tonight,” he said, slapping her bottom lightly. “I think this spanking will do you wonders. An attitude adjustment.” He slapped her bottom sharply, then pressed his fingers down between her thighs, finding the entrance to her body. Annika gasped and clutched at the bed sheets as he pushed his fingers inside her for a moment.
“I know what you need,” he murmured down at her. “And you’ll have it when we’re married. You have the passions of a wife. You just need to have a little more patience.” His fingers slid deeper, stretching her. She started rocking her hips back, impaling herself on his hard digits. It was almost what she needed. Almost, but not quite. That wouldn’t come until their wedding day—a day Annika suddenly couldn’t wait for.
Chapter Nine
Annika’s wedding day was everything she had ever imagined it to be and much, much more. All of Sweetville came out in support of the pastor and his bride. The church was beautifully decorated, as was the reception hall. Annika had seen glimpses of all of it before being whisked off to Mary’s house to be prepared. Her gown was beautiful, a gorgeously embroidered princess design with long flowing skirts under a corset that made the most of her slim waist and cupped her bosom appealingly.
“You look so beautiful,” Mary said, applying the final touches of makeup. “I’m so happy for both of you. We never thought he would find love again.”
