by Loki Renard
“What about Kitty?”
“You’re worried about Kitty?”
“John spanked her. Hard. And now she’s probably all alone. He’ll go home to Mary.”
“I will call Kitty and make sure she’s okay,” Steven said. “You go and wait for me in bed.”
Annika obediently went to bed, but she did not sleep. She sat up, thinking about Kitty and about John and about the way the slaps had echoed off Kitty’s bottom and all around the town square. It wasn’t fair. Something had to be done.
Chapter Twelve
A meeting of the Sweetville Brides was held the very next day and was much subdued. The cucumber sandwiches didn’t taste as good as Annika remembered, but it was no reflection on the catering—she’d had a bitter taste in her mouth since the night before.
“I have called this emergency meeting,” Kitty announced, “because it has been made clear to me that I have led the Sweetville Brides astray. A most shameful incident has bought that home. I am therefore relinquishing my presidency as of this moment.”
“No!” The howl went up from the assembled ladies.
Kitty’s expression brightened slightly, but her eyes remained rimmed red. The poor woman must have been crying half the night. “You don’t want me to step down?”
“It would be boring without you, Kitty,” Mary said. “Besides, if you don’t go too far sometimes, how will you know where too far is?”
Several other ladies lifted their voices in agreement. Nobody wanted Kitty to step down. The Sweetville Brides without Kitty Treewood would be like pie without the apples, they declared in various forms and guises.
“In that case,” Kitty said. “I think it is time I established a new position. That of vice-president. And there can, of course, be no other than Annika Soames to fill the position.”
The announcement surprised Annika much more than it seemed to surprise anyone else. “You want me?”
“You stayed by my side,” Kitty said. “When the chips were down, you were with me. You’re loyal. That’s invaluable.”
“I’m never going to care about flowers,” Annika warned her.
“I think I care enough for the both of us.”
The ladies laughed at length, for it was true. A ray of sunshine seemed to break over the little gathering as their combined spirits lifted. Kitty had been spanked, true, but she had not been completely cowed, and with Annika by her side, the Sweetville Brides were stronger than ever.
“My first action as vice-president,” Annika said, “is to announce my revenge plot.”
“Revenge?” Those assembled looked at her blankly.
“John Maplesworth spanked you, Kitty. He did it very hard and very long and it wasn’t nice at all.”
“I’d rather not relive that moment,” Kitty sniffed and colored a little.
“No, of course not. He had no right. He’s not your husband. And you weren’t doing anything that bad.”
“If you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking,” Kitty said, “then I strongly suggest you stop thinking it. John is not one to cross.”
“He is just a silly policeman,” Annika shrugged. “He can spank Mary, but not you.”
“Hey!” Mary objected around a piece of candy. “That’s not nice.”
“It’s not a matter of nice,” Annika argued. “John spanked Kitty so hard she couldn’t sit.” It was true. Kitty had not sat down the entire meeting. The closest she got was briefly perching on a windowsill, and she certainly didn’t stay in that position for very long.
“And what do you think he’ll do if you put yourself in his way?” Mary shook her head at Annika pityingly. “He was nice to Kitty. I don’t think he’ll be nice to you.”
“I won’t be nice to him either,” Annika said. “And I have a plan. A good Russian potato-based plan.”
“I thought potatoes were an Irish fixation?” Kitty murmured the question to Mary. Mary simply shrugged. She had the expression of a woman who knows that things are about to go terribly awry and there is little she can do to stop them.
“Potato is good for all countries and all places,” Annika said. “Potato is justice.”
John was not hard to find. He drove a large black vehicle marked relatively inconspicuously with the silver badge of the Sweetville PD. The amount of money in the town was just crazy, Annika thought to herself as she crouched behind the car. The police were so well funded and thought so well of themselves, they clearly refused to drive the usually garishly marked cars, preferring to look as though they were investment bankers. John was about to get a massive return on his latest acquisition. A potato in the tailpipe was simple, elegant, organic, and would herald the start of things to come, a campaign against authority that would turn Sweetville on its head. Thoughts of victory flashed through Annika’s mind as she carefully began wedging the tuber into the receptacle not at all designed to take it. It was a very tight fit, but it needed to be.
She would have gotten away with it, but just as Annika finished lodging the potato beyond any hope of removal, a shadow fell across her. She felt a chill that went right through her skin and sank into her marrow.
“Tampering with a police vehicle, Mrs. Soames?” John’s overly deep baritone, the one that made him sound like he was talking from inside an iron barrel, rolled over her.
She was caught. Busted, as the Americans would say. There was no point denying what she was doing. The root vegetable firmly stuck in the metal cylinder spoke volumes. Annika froze for a moment as John leaned down with a nasty glint in his eye.
“I’m going to spank your little ass until you can’t sit for a month,” he promised in menacingly soft tones.
Spurred by the threat, Annika jumped to her feet, kicked him in the shin as hard as she could, and ran. It had been a while since she’d run, but she hadn’t forgotten how. In the clear light of day, she had much less trouble evading John. He was big and he was fast, but she was light and nimble and…
“Ouch!”
Annika had no idea how John had caught her. What she did know was that he was holding her by the back of her neck like a wayward kitten and slapping her bottom with the other hand to the approving stares of passersby.
“I’m taking you home, Annika. And then I’m going to thrash you.”
“Steven will never let you! I’m his wife!”
“We’ll see about that.”
John marched her through Sweetville and up to the church house, where he wasted no time in letting Steven know what had happened. Steven didn’t seem surprised. He also didn’t seem happy.
“Is this true?” His question wasn’t really a question. He just wanted her to admit her culpability so the spanking could start.
“You know it’s true,” she said, “because John’s saying it. And if he says it, it must be true.”
“That’s enough snark, Annika. Bad enough that you should be in trouble. Drop the attitude.”
The attitude was the only thing keeping Annika from begging for them not to spank her, so she kept it. The spanking was going to happen one way or another. John had been looking for a reason to smack her since the day they’d met.
“If you don’t mind, I think it’s time I took care of the little matters of tampering with police property, putting other citizens at risk, and creating a potentially dangerous projectile,” John said.
“Be my guest,” Steven replied courteously.
“It was a potato!”
The war cry did nothing as John sat down and pulled her hard over one thigh. The other he clamped about the back of her legs. Clearly he was anticipating a struggle. Annika obliged him, lashing out against his legs with her fists until Steven put a stop to that.
“No!” Steven did not move from where he was standing, but the force of his displeasure stilled her beating arms. “You do not thrash about like a little brat,” he lectured. “You were caught doing something very dangerous and very silly. You will take your spanking.”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment since I
first saw your bratty little behind,” John said, clapping his hand firmly against her cheeks. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you got seriously out of hand.”
“Steven, help!”
“I’ll help you over my lap soon,” Steven said firmly. “Once John is done with you.”
“No!”
Steven sat in his armchair and watched sternly as John had his disciplinary way with her. To Annika’s extreme consternation, he almost immediately flipped up her skirt and spanked her over her panties. His large hand caught both her cheeks at once, swatting her to a state of squealing frenzy that had the neighborhood dogs covering their ears.
“Those panties need to come down,” Steven said. “There’s no point spanking her over fabric. She doesn’t feel it.”
“No!”
She felt John’s thumb in the waistband of her panties, then the rush of cooler air against her hot skin as he pulled her panties down and settled them just below her cheeks. Annika gave silent thanks for the small mercy. Not only did it mean her modesty stayed intact, it also meant that the very sensitive skin where bottom met thigh was being saved from the spanking.
John spanked her long and hard. He didn’t do anything fancy, he didn’t lecture, he didn’t vary the pace or the speed, he just spanked her bottom until she was certain that he would always be spanking her bottom, that it would never end, and that it would always hurt.
Annika was crying real tears by the time Steven took control of her, pinning her just as firmly over his lap as she had been over John’s.
“Now I don’t know what got into your head,” he said. “But you do not mess around with the law. Ever.” His palm started to fall hard and fast, whipping her back to a frenzy of contrition. “You’re lucky John caught you before any serious harm was done.”
“I don’t feel lucky!” Annika squealed.
There was a snort from John, and another volley of slaps from Steven.
“Well, you are, young lady. Remember. You’re my wife. What you do reflects on me. So I expect you to behave yourself and not engage in these ridiculous pranks Kitty seems to keep dreaming up.”
“You’re just mad because you never catch us before they’re executed.”
It was a suicidal sort of thing to say, but it had occurred to Annika that nothing would have happened to anyone if any of the self-appointed disciplinarians in the town had bothered to keep tabs on the Sweetville Brides. How could they possibly fail to notice where the problem was originating?
There was a brief pause in the spanking, during which the heat in her bottom soared seemingly of its own accord. She squirmed back and forth, but movement did nothing to make the stinging soreness abate. She was also keenly aware that John had a prime view of her very bare, very red buttocks. Not that he seemed to care about them. Annika had never been so very bare to so very little effect before.
“I caught you,” John drawled.
“You caught me on your car,” Annika replied. “You didn’t catch me on any of the ones I did before that…”
Just as she made the admission, John’s cell phone rang. He answered it and his face clouded over.
“Check the entire fleet,” he growled into the phone before hanging up. “We’ve got three cars stalled out around Sweetville,” he told Steven while Annika grinned. “Each of them blocked with a significant amount of debris.”
“Annika!” Steven sounded genuinely shocked. “Why would you do such a thing?”
“If Sweetville PD were busy, they’d have better things to do than beat widows with floral fixations.”
“This is about Kitty Treewood?”
“Of course it is,” Annika said. “All she did was mess with some stupid flowers and John thrashed her. I decided to even the score.”
“Is that right?” John growled.
Annika was glad she was over Steven’s knee and not John’s. John looked seriously annoyed at the revelation.
“You think you’ve got the right to go about settling scores against the police? Girl, that could get you into some serious, serious trouble,” John continued.
“I didn’t interfere with anything serious,” Annika said. “You have twenty cars. I did nine. That leaves you eleven to deal with important things, like cats in trees and old ladies who can’t get their garage doors to work.”
“You don’t think we do real police work here?”
“I think you wouldn’t know a criminal if you fell over one.”
Steven’s palm fell hard against her rump. “Annika, that’s enough,” he said. “You’re antagonizing the wrong man.”
“It’s alright,” John said. “She’s been playing her cards very close to her chest. It’s nice to hear what she’s actually thinking, all her devious little plans. Let the girl run her mouth.”
“It’s easy to be brave when you’re eight foot tall and nobody can touch you,” Annika spat. “It’s different when you get smacked for every little thing you do. It’s different when telling the truth means two big men smack you until you cry.”
“You’re not being spanked for telling the truth,” Steven reminded her. “You’re being spanked for pulling a silly, dangerous prank.”
Annika scowled furiously at John. “I’m being spanked because he was mean to Kitty and I was mean to him. And only one of us is allowed to be mean.”
“Kitty deserved a spanking and she got it. Just like you deserved one and you’re getting it,” John said. “This is the way it works around here. If you don’t like it…”
“What? I should leave, go back to Russia?” Annika tried to push up off Steven’s lap, but failed. “You’ve wanted to get rid of me since I got here.”
“I was going to say, if you don’t like it, you’re going to have a very sore little ass,” John said. “I don’t want you gone, Annika. I’ve never wanted you gone. I want you good.”
“Good luck with that,” Annika mumbled.
Steven’s lap was shaking. She turned her head to see that he was silently laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Your bottom is about as red as I’ve ever seen it, and you’re arguing with the man who made it that way,” Steven said. “That takes some nerve.”
“She’s got plenty of that,” John agreed.
“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” Annika complained, squirming. The sting was actually starting to fade a little, she was starting to feel slightly more comfortable… and then the spanking started all over again.
This time it was worse. This time it seemed more intense, perhaps because she was tender from the first two rounds, perhaps because Steven was not sparing her at all. His palm landed with swift gusto, loud slaps echoing around the room punctuated by her squeaks and squeals.
It wasn’t fair. None of it was. Tears started springing to her eyes, tears she couldn’t stop or control. The spanking hurt and in spite of her natural rebellion, even she had to admit that she’d lost. There was no avenging Kitty, not really. Steven and John had her at their mercy. They’d proved that many times over.
“I’m sorry,” she sniffed.
Steven stopped spanking. “What was that?”
“I said I’m sorry,” she snuffled through her tears.
“I know you’re sorry,” Steven said, kissing her forehead and rubbing her bright red bottom. “And I hope you’ve learned your lesson.”
Curled up on his lap completely sans panties, entirely aware that both men had seen everything the good lord had blessed her with, Annika was beyond considerations of modesty. She just wanted the aching and the stinging to stop. The spanking had abated, but the pain continued, making her wriggly and restless. She had been completely humbled, so much so that when Steven held her in place and started dabbing soothing cream across her bottom and inner thighs, she didn’t so much as make a squeak of protest, even when he made her spread her legs. There was nothing sexual in that moment, there was just the desire to feel better. She also couldn’t help but notice that John was looking
on with a very satisfied expression on his face.
“Happy now?” Annika asked the question bitterly.
“I’m not happy your tail is sore,” John said. “But I’m happy I caught you before you got it into your head that you could be a law unto yourself. You’ve been riding for this spanking since we met. And now that you’ve got it, we can be friends.”
Annika didn’t feel particularly friendly toward John. She felt hot-cheeked and flush-faced and completely undone.
“You’re not going to earn yourself any more of these punishments, are you, Annika?” Steven restored her modesty by pulling her panties back up over her cream-covered bottom. She closed her legs and squirmed into an almost seated position on his lap and nodded quietly.
“Hey,” John said. “You took it like a champ. And it’s over now. No more hard feelings.”
“Easy for you to say,” Annika sulked. “Nothing on you hurts.”
“Aw,” John tutted, sounding more genuinely sympathetic than she would have given him credit for. “Don’t worry. It’ll fade soon enough and you’ll be back to your usual self.”
“Just without the lawlessness,” Steven said, dropping a kiss on her head as he held her close in his arms.
She felt safe, loved, and somehow more protected than ever as the men turned the game on and began watching it. Curled up against Steven’s chest, Annika closed her eyes and let herself drift off to the sound of the announcer and the gentle caress of her husband’s hand against her bottom. All was well that ended well—even if it did hurt like hell.
Afterword
Remnants of an enjoyable dinner sat uncollected at the table while moans and slapping sounds emanated from the room beyond. The door stood slightly ajar and Annika’s bare bottom could be seen pinned over Steven’s hard thigh. He was spanking her very soundly, just as she deserved and as she needed. While his strong palm landed against her upturned bottom, her pale thighs lifted and parted, baring the delicate dewy folds of her womanhood to her husband’s adoring, ardent gaze.
Her naked breasts collected flour as she rubbed against the board where she’d been baking before Steven had come to claim her. His hand was falling hard, not because she was naughty, but because a good spanking was the best foreplay for an insatiable brat who was about to be filled with her husband’s hard flesh.
