“Come here, Elle.”
He was standing beside the bed, where a small wooden tray with the Hershey wrappers on it was positioned just a little south of my pillow. He simply pointed to it. I shuffled my way back across the room and put the empty can beside the paper. He frowned down at my chocolate-grubby hand.
“Go wash up,” he said with a nod toward the bathroom.
I didn’t dare observe myself in the mirror above the sink. I couldn’t bear knowing how I must look.
I didn’t realize my husband had followed me until I turned to go back to our bedroom.
“Just a minute,” he said and guided me back to the sink, where he turned me to face him as he reached over and tapped the faucet on. He tested the temperature, adjusting until it suited him, then slipped a clear plastic bottle that I could have sworn once held a household cleaner under the tap. When it was about half full, he turned off the water and screwed the spray cap back on. Then he picked up a towel and gestured toward the bedroom. I shuffled out the door ahead of him, wondering if he meant to use the water to soothe the bottom he was threatening to blister when it was all over.
That proved not to be his plan.
He sat on the bed at a slight angle, his left side nearest the tray that held the evidence of my sin. He placed the bottle so it would be handy on the floor at his right side, unfolded the towel, and draped it over his lap.
“Time to pay the piper,” he said in the sternest voice I have ever heard him use. He reached for my arm, pulling me to stand beside him, but he didn’t offer me any help with what he wanted next.
“Bend over. And when you’ve got your sweet little bottom where I want it, I’d advise you to grab a handful of cover and hold on tight. It won’t help your cause if I have to be the one moving your hands out of the way. Keep your eyes open and trained right on the tray and tell yourself that’s why you’re here. That’s why you’re being treated like a bad little girl who deserves the hardest spanking any little girl ever got on her bare bottom. That’s why you’re going to cry and squeal and beg me to stop spanking you. That’s why you’re going to promise me anything to make it be over. And that’s why you’re going to think about what’s going to happen right now for a very long time, and you’re never, ever going to enjoy thinking about it. Is there anything you want to say before we get started?”
I gulped. “My safe word — it’s chocolate.”
He shook his head with a grimace and squinted eyes. “You think that’s funny, missy? Well, let’s see how loud you’re laughing in about ten minutes. No safe words. They’re for fun and games. This is anything but. This is about setting your butt on fire so you’ll remember it any time you’re tempted with something that’s so bad for you. Over. Now, young lady.”
I struggled gracelessly across his thighs, my upper body supported by the bed with the stupid tray half an arm’s length away and looming so large I couldn’t really see anything else. He shifted slightly and the next thing I knew, I was actually positioned over only his left leg. His right was trapping my own securely.
I heard a strange noise and then immediately felt a cool mist covering my bottom cheeks. Startled didn’t begin to convey my emotions.
“What are you doing?” I screeched and tried to twist up and off his lap — a move that he had cleverly made quite impossible.
“I’m creating a prime spanking target. They say a wet bottom stings worse. I can dry this one off with my hand as often as I need to,” he explained. “Or with the hairbrush tomorrow. Not sure if that holds true for a switch or a belt, but we’ll find out. There’s one thing for sure. It won’t make it hurt less.”
I could feel cool drips all over my bottom, meandering off peaks and into cracks and down sloping sides. A little shiver ran up my back. It was suddenly cold. The temperature began to change rather abruptly, however.
I admit I’ve watched a few spanking videos since then, so I know there are some techniques that translate one way to the spanker and another to the spankee. I think he must have started with a sort of grazing smack instead of a flattening one. One of those that makes a girl’s cheeks jiggle so rudely, no matter how hard she clenches. And he didn’t follow the rules about alternating sides. He just concentrated on the right cheek. It was harder than the pre-sex spanks he had given me in the past, but I could handle it. I was pretty sure I could handle it. I can’t say I was disappointed when he stopped, though.
“You probably need to know that doesn’t count,” he said conversationally.
Well, it counted as far as I was concerned. I tried to twist around and see his face again. He obliged me by leaning back and moving his head down closer to mine.
“I want to see proof you know you need this to help you. Squeezing your cheeks together like you’re trying to shrink a jean size says something else entirely. Now, let’s try this again. I’ve got all day, but my temper isn’t exactly improving and that’s to your disadvantage.”
Do you know how hard it is to will yourself not to clench when every instinct you have is urging you to minimize your vulnerable spots? You want to know what’s humiliating in the extreme? It’s to have your husband put his palms over your backside and maneuver your cheeks around to see if you’re plumpest parts jiggle enough to suit him before he starts smacking away at them.
“Good girl,” he said after a minute of such activity, and I felt this small surge of pride before I realized how totally idiotic that was. I was saved from opening my mouth to express that incautious thought by the speed with which he did two things: he sprayed my jiggly mounds again and then he began drying up the moisture with the hardest, fastest smacks I ever felt. If safe words had been allowed, I would probably have used one. Instead, I grabbed handfuls of cover and tried to pull my body out of the vice he had created with his legs, alternating moans with little yelps of pain.
“What got you here, little girl?” he demanded.
My brain functioned in defense mode for a second, recording only pain sensations and unable to process rational responses to questions. He didn’t seem to understand the difficulty.
“I said, what got you here? Do I need to spank louder for you to hear me?”
“N-no,” I squealed. “J-junk did.”
“What kind of junk?”
I didn’t feel up to a game of twenty questions.
“Chocolate — oh, oh-h-h-h, st-stop,” I gasped. “It was chocolate.” I squealed the last, hoping if I gave him the right answer, it would bring a halt to his serious assault on my bottom.
“What else?” he demanded, not slowing down a bit or letting up even a little.
“Diet C-coke. And I’m s-sorryyyyy.” And I was. Sorrier than I’ve ever been. I couldn’t tell where the next lick was going to land. There was no way to prepare or defend. I thought he had covered every available centimeter of flesh — expansive as it was — but I was wrong. I knew I was wrong when the spanks stopped for a second and I felt moisture again, but this time it was in virgin territory. It was where some of the first drips had meandered. I had a humiliating vision of just how chubby my cheeks must have become when I realized he was using one hand to sort of scoop my bottom up so he could have clear access to that famous sit spot. Since it was a two-hand job now, he was forced to concentrate on one side at a time, and he had intense concentration.
That’s when I realized I was sobbing and shrieking all at the same time, and working in some fancy begging, to boot.
“I’m sorry. P-pl-please, no. I w-won’t any m-more.”
There’s literally nowhere to go when you are trapped over a determined spanker’s leg. He just follows his target, even if you manage to roll a little bit from side to side. And it makes him something less than sympathetic that you seem to be trying to avoid what he wants so desperately to give you.
When he let the left cheek jiggle back into place, I took sort of a deep breath and told myself the worst was over and I had survived, although I was snotting into the duvet pretty good and I could no l
onger see the DC can or Hershey’s wrapper as anything but a tear-stained blur.
“Tell me what you’re thinking right now,” he demanded.
I’m thinking my rear end is on fire and it’s your fault, I wanted to say. But I knew better. Not only was it not wise; it was not true.
I swiped at my nose with one hand, afraid to let go the cover with the other because I knew if I did I would grab a handful of bottom and rub like crazy and that wouldn’t be a good idea.
I searched for the correct answer.
“I’m l-lucky you l-love me enough to d-do this,” I hiccupped, hoping those were the magic words.
Apparently they weren’t.
His hard hand, which I would have sworn was covered in sandpaper at that point, started in again and it seemed even harder than before. I was literally bouncing my upper body frantically on the bed to counteract in some way what was going on down below, which, of course, upset the DC can and made the candy wrappers slide around. Chandler didn’t take it well.
“Then lie still if you think you’re so lucky. Because what I’m seeing is a lot of clenching and wiggling and begging that tells me all you care about is stopping this spanking.”
Well, of course I wanted to stop the spanking. Even a hard-core masochist would have opted for relief in my situation. It finally got through to me that I had to at least try harder to stop fighting him, however. I willed myself to go limp over his lap and, at the same time, sort of lift my bottom toward his punishing hand.
“I’ll b-be g-good,” I whispered miserably. Pitifully.
He should have been moved by my subservience. He wasn’t. The only thing that changed was the speed of the spanks. That and the fact he dedicated himself to lecturing me now as he smacked.
“Don’t — you — even — think — about — drinking — another — sip — of — that — stuff — or — you’ll — end — up — right — back — over — my — lap — and — no — more — chocolate.”
I was nodding frantically into the covers that were balled up under my chin and kicking with complete ineffectiveness.
“K-kay.” I managed to gasp out. “Oh-ugh. It h-hurts.”
That changed things in a hurry. He was back to proving himself a speed demon, and this time he worked his way down to my upper thighs and back up again, over and over, until I thought surely I would just burst into flame. I had never imagined there were so many nerve endings available to be thoroughly set on fire.
And then, all of a sudden, it was just more than I could deal with. I couldn’t kick or clench or twist or talk. All I could do was cry in huge gulps and reach for him, for any part of him that would give me some human comfort to hold on to.
As soon as I found his left arm, it all stopped. The next thing I knew, he had freed my legs and was lying on the bed beside me, gathering me up in his arms and somehow moving me to be stretched out on top of him. He held me so close I could hardly breathe while I sobbed into his shirt and he made little soothing noises and rubbed my bottom, light as butterfly wings.
“It’s over, babe. It’s over,” he whispered, and I forgot for a moment there was much more ahead. I just wanted to lie there forever and let him make it all right again. He indulged me in that for a little while. I don’t know exactly how long, because I sort of drifted off. I could never remember being so tired.
I woke up to him smoothing my hair back out of my face.
“I wish I could stay here with you like this, but you know what has to come now,” he whispered. I wanted to beg him to forget the rest of it. I was fairly certain I would do just that before it was all over. But I found a little grit somewhere deep down and made myself scoot off him, moaning when my scalded flesh made even brief contact with the bed linens and experiencing something like deep muscle pain when I tried to scramble up on my knees and back off the bed.
Chandler stood quickly and helped me up. He even helped me — very carefully — put my panties back on, and he unpinned my nightshirt and let it fall back down mid-thigh. Then he picked up the tray with the contents linked so dramatically to my pain and shame.
I was conscious of an overwhelming hunger and thirst. I needed something to soothe me and sustain me. I glanced down at the littered tray he was placing in my hands to take to the next stage of this exercise in self-discipline and began breathing a little erratically. I wanted — merciful heavens, how I wanted —
My frantic thoughts were interrupted. “It’s going to be a long, hard weekend, sweetheart. We have some work to do,” Chandler reminded me in a voice as smooth and calming as the finest chocolate. He smiled gently as he kissed me softly and rested his fingers lightly where I hurt the most. The effect was as tingly, all over my body, as Diet Coke ever had been on my tongue.
And I finally knew exactly what I really, really wanted more than anything in the world.
In Line for Trouble
I thought, I really thought, it could not get worse.
I was wrong.
It was going to.
There is a website popular in my town. Established for the purpose of allowing residents to promote the area from a very personal perspective and to shine a light on its many fine features and possibilities, The Line veered off-course and off-purpose somewhere along the way.
I imagine things began to go wrong when it became clear comments could truly be made anonymously. There is something about the ability to express one’s self in secret to a large and encouraging audience that releases the dormant teen-age brat in too many people, myself included, apparently.
I stared down my saintly nose at The Line for months, holding up the intellectual level of participants for public ridicule every time the subject was mentioned. Each time gossip — ridiculous even in comparison to televised wrestling — surfaced about some resident of our fair city; every time a reputation met the chopping block, courtesy of Internet-hooded executioners; any time private disagreements played out in all-too-public cat-fight fashion — I was the first to criticize this cowardly approach to unfriendly social interaction.
It was particularly galling to me that so much of it was carried on in a manner that debased the Queen’s English and ignored all the grammar rules drilled into me by my sixth-grade Language Arts teacher. The ruptured syntax, bruised subject-predicate agreement, assaulted spelling, and crippled use of apostrophes (to mention just a few of the battered victims of spleen expressed publicly in print) offended me at a primal level and served to convince me, once again, of my own superiority and my naturally flowing and highly elevated morality.
The Line, in my unhumble opinion, was the preserve of the unlettered, crude and rude. I resolved to ignore it and concentrate on worthier matters … right up until my name was mentioned, in less than friendly fashion and in utter realms of falsehood, by a faceless poster.
It doesn’t matter how I got dragged into the fray. Suffice it to say that I am a semi-public figure in our community, and my opinion on a matter of official policy had become well known and not altogether popular. Rather than debate me on the issue or seek to win me to the opposing viewpoint in private and with good manners, some lowlife witch with an obvious intellectual death wish made unflattering statements about my appearance and proclivities. The prior point was exaggerated and the latter was entirely imagined by a vicious and small mind.
I tried to put it aside for days. The masked mugger, unchallenged, stepped up the attacks.
I responded.
And that is why I am standing here, my nose pressed firmly into the intersection of two walls and my quite bare behind necessarily angled outward toward the center of our living room, while the garments that covered the lower half of my body just a few minutes ago lie in a pathetic heap on the floor beside my toes.
Hale says I was more than willing to show my rear end in public for several days, so it should be a small matter to display it to him in relative privacy for a few minutes. He says more than that, actually — some of it in words, some of it in action. None of it
is pleasant.
And that is why there is an imprint of my upper teeth on my lower lip and a teary tracking of chocolate mascara down my face. So much for waterproof eye makeup.
Hale doesn’t read The Line, so I have no idea how he learned I had finally — yielding only after unprecedented enticement to do so -- expressed myself in less than charming fashion there.
He says it doesn’t matter how he found out; it matters quite a bit, however, that there was something to be found out.
He says I should be ashamed. And I am. Oh, I am. At least, I’m trying to be.
He says I should think about what I deserve. I would not. I could not. Except that I know he will ask me to share my thoughts very soon now, and there will be Hale to pay if I display a lack of commitment to his commands.
His commands are attention-getters. I’ll give him that. For the first time in days, my thoughts are focused not so much on what has been so despicably noised abroad about me as on the price I will pay for having showed I cared in such despicable fashion.
Such thoughts bring me, quite naturally, back to less than positive feelings for the loathsome toad who started all this. I still have no authorship to attach to the scurrilous attacks, but I have considered a half dozen possible miscreants, and all I can think of at the moment is each one of their malicious faces. I hope, I can only hope, that there is a Hale in each of the harpies’ lives and he is prepared to make her pay the price for her sins. How I would love to witness that shame and discomfort!
Finely Disciplined Thoughts Page 9
