“I’d say that has already been accomplished,” Lainie told her. “We’ve only tried it the once, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since.”
“Remembering is half the fun,” Julie told her. “Were you sore the next day?”
Lainie shook her head. “No, but I almost wished I was. Is that crazy?”
“Not at all,” Julie assured her. “A lot of people like having some sort of reminder, a little heat or marks. That’s what makes the engraved paddles so much fun. You have a little reminder afterward.”
Lainie’s blush had begun to fade as they talked, but now it surged again. Only this time it had nothing to do with embarrassment and everything to do with the picture that Julie had created in her mind. God, that was hot. The idea of carrying a reminder of her spanking in the marks on her body sent a surge of arousal right to her center. No, not just any marks. Grant’s mark. The sheer possessiveness in that should have been appalling, but it wasn’t in the slightest. It was sexy as hell.
What was happening to her? She was a strong and independent woman. She didn’t need a man owning her, possessing her. She wasn’t an object. So why did she find the idea of being marked so sexy? It wasn’t just that either. If she were honest with herself, she liked Grant being demanding. The more dominant and demanding he was, the more it turned her on. When she haltingly admitted as much, Julie just grinned. “Welcome to the club, honey.”
“How can you be okay with this?” Lainie had demanded. “Half the time I feel like I should hand in my feminist card or something.”
Julie went wide-eyed. “What? There are membership cards? Mine must have gotten lost in the mail or something. Should I report it lost or stolen? Is there a one-eight-hundred number written on the back, like a credit card?”
Lainie fizzed with laughter. “Shut up. You know what I mean. It really doesn’t bother you.”
“Nope,” Julie replied. “You like cavemen. Who among us doesn’t? It’s not a crime, not to anybody except my family at least. As far as feminism goes, I’ve always thought that was all about making sure that women had the same choices as anyone else. Choosing to live the lifestyle we do is a valid choice. No one has any more right to judge me on that than they do the fact that I chose to stay home with my children or that you chose to pursue a career. It’s all about choice. Our choices are just as valid as anyone else’s.”
“You have a point,” Lainie conceded.
“Of course I do,” Julie told her breezily, face alight with amusement. “Besides, if you’re happy, who cares what anyone else thinks.”
“Well, I’m happy with that part of it at least, in the bedroom. I’m still not sure what I think about the whole rules thing.”
“Not everyone here does DD, you know,” Julie told her. “You don’t have to. Everyone here incorporates spanking into their relationships in some fashion or another, but exactly what form that takes is up to the individual couple. It can be DD only, or only as part of sex, or some of both. I think most of us incorporate a little of both, but no two couples are alike. That’s perfectly fine. Like I said, it’s all about choice. Whatever form you and Grant figure out works for you, the rest of us will accept, as long as it doesn’t ever cross the line into abuse.”
“Does that ever happen?” Lainie asked.
“It has,” Julie said sadly. “We try to be really careful with the interview process and everything, but in a community like ours it’s inevitable that eventually a few creeps are going to slip through the cracks.”
“What happened to them?” Lainie wanted to know.
“When it came out what they were doing, they were evicted by the housing board. Their partner is given safe haven here for as long as he or she wants or needs it. Like I said, we will accept any kind of safe consensual spanking relationship, but not abuse, and we do know the difference.”
“A lot of people would say there is no difference,” Lainie commented.
“Yeah well, a lot of people don’t get it,” Julie replied. “That’s one of the best parts about living here. Everybody gets it, and we don’t have to deal with anyone passing judgment on our relationships.”
Lainie nodded. She could see how that would be a relief. Even though she and Grant hadn’t had this kind of relationship before moving here, she could just imagine the uproar it would cause if it got out. “You said the partner gets safe haven for as long as he or she needs.” Lainie said slowly. “He or she? Does that mean the man is not always the one in charge? The whole rules thing isn’t just about keeping women in their place?”
Julie laughed. “Not at all. I’m sorry. I promise I’m not laughing at you. I was just thinking what some of the others might have to say to that. We need to do some serious TiH reeducation with you, my friend. You should come to the book club. We have just about every couple combination possible around here. Two men, two women, male-female with the woman in charge, and male-female with man in charge. Male lead male-female relationships are the majority, but not by any means the only one. I told you, we accept all sorts of relationships.”
“I guess you probably think I’m pretty clueless,” Lainie said quietly.
“Not at all,” Julie assured. “You’re new. We all were once. It’s just hard to remember that sometimes. It’s probably even harder for you than it was for me at first. I was new to the community but not the lifestyle, you’re new to both.”
“It’s a lot to get used to,” Lainie said.
“It gets better,” Julie said. “You really should come to book club. It’s a great way to get to know people.”
“Book club?” Lainie asked.
“There are two,” Julie explained. “One is mixed, with both HoH and TiH members. The other is just for TiH. You are welcome to join either one or both, but I really think you would enjoy the TiH one. Jonathan spearheaded it. It meets at Venia’s. I don’t remember when the next meeting is, but I can give you a call if you’re interested. For that matter, I think I have the schedule at home. We can take a look at it tonight if you want.”
“Absolutely,” Lainie said. She couldn’t remember the last time she had read for pleasure or read anything that wasn’t required eighth grade literature. It sounded like fun. “So Jonathan is, what do you call it, a TiH too?” That was an interesting thought. From what she had seen of the man, he was sweet, quiet, and incredibly competent and efficient. She couldn’t imagine him needing someone to be in charge. It seemed like he practically ran things around here himself.
“Oh yes,” Julie said. “His partner, Benjamin, is his HoH. It’s completely obvious if you ever see them together. Ben is retired military and totally alpha male. Jonathan loves him to pieces, and the feeling is completely mutual.”
“That’s sweet,” Lainie said. “So they do DD?”
“Yeah, they do. Like I said, most of us do, but that doesn’t mean you have to.”
“Grant wants DD though, or at least he says he does,” Lainie said. “He’s completely convinced that it will save our marriage. His parents and grandparents all practiced DD, and he swears that they had the closest most solid marriages of anyone he’s ever known.”
“He does have a point,” Julie agreed. “I think DD brings people closer. I never feel any closer to Matt than right after he’s disciplined me. There’s something about it that bonds us. Of course, the fact that it often leads to fantastic makeup sex doesn’t hurt either” – she flashed Lainie a wicked grin – “but there’s more to it than that.”
“You’re kidding me,” Lainie said incredulously. “He punishes you like a child, and you want to have sex with him?”
“Ew,” Julie said, wrinkling her nose. “Don’t say it like that. That’s gross.”
“Isn’t that what it is though?” Lainie asked. “They’re giving us rules and punishments like children.”
“Absolutely not,” Julie insisted. “First of all, Matt doesn’t just give me rules like a parent to a child. We decided on our rules together. I had an equal part of that convers
ation. Didn’t you?”
Lainie considered it, thinking back to the initial conversation she’d had with Grant about DD back in the winter when he had first discovered Corbin’s Bend. “I guess,” Lainie said slowly. There had been a discussion, sort of. It had mostly consisted of Grant making his case as to why they needed to do this and her going along for the sake of pleasing him. She’d been tired of fighting, sick to death of the constant conflict, with her students, with her children, with her very life it had seemed. She’d been utterly exhausted and willing to agree to pretty much anything if it meant that Grant would stop working all the time and actually help her with things rather than relying on her to take care of everything. When he’d started talking about letting him be the head of the household and in charge, she felt like celebrating. She’d never dreamed that he was really taking all those rules stuff seriously. Even when he had started talking about rules and writing them down, she just tried to nod in appropriate places. To be fair, he had given her opportunities to talk about each rule and had asked her if there were things she wanted to add. However, since she had been absolutely certain they were no more than a token gesture, she’d felt no need to actually discuss things. She couldn’t honestly say she hadn’t had a part in the discussion though.
“Yeah, I did,” she admitted finally.
“So it isn’t really something he is imposing on you,” Julie pointed out. “It’s something the two of you have decided together.”
“It still feels like he’s trying to tell me what to do,” Lainie insisted.
“He is, in a way, but only within the bounds that the two of you have decided on together.”
“I suppose,” Lainie replied.
“If you’re not comfortable with anything, you really need to talk to Grant about it,” Julie told her. “You’re under no obligation to do anything you’re not comfortable with just for the sake of living here. Like I said, people incorporate spanking into their relationships in all sorts of ways, and that’s fine.”
“It’s not the spanking that’s the problem,” Lainie replied. “I like that just fine, at least in bed. I can even see how it might be helpful with dealing with guilt and such. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s that telling me what to do part that bothers me.”
“Then tell Grant,” Julie advised. “You two have to work out together what works for you. Communication is critical in a relationship like ours. If you’re going to make it work, you have to talk to one another. I’m serious. I’m not talking about the old proverbs and stuff that people tell you when you get married. When you do what we do, communication is absolutely vital. Matt knows me better than anyone else. Sometimes, I even think he knows me better than I know myself, but as much as I would like him to be, he’s not a mind reader. Neither is Grant.”
“Okay, okay, I get it,” Lainie said in fond exasperation. “I’ll talk to him.” She would eventually, but first she had to figure out how to talk to him out of this DD idea that he was so stuck on. She got that it was a family tradition for him, but just because it had worked for his parents and grandparents didn’t mean it would work for them. She was a different person and needed different things. She just had to make him see that.
“Where are we going?” Grant asked, puzzled, as they made their way down the road toward the entrance. He wasn’t at all familiar enough with the community to know where everyone lived, but he was pretty sure that the majority of the community, including both his own and Matt’s houses, lay in the other direction.
“Brent’s going to let us borrow his practice dummy,” Matt explained. “We’re going to pick it up from his house.”
“Practice dummy?” Grant questioned. He was familiar with the term of course, having seen and used any number of such items in his training as a police officer, but surely Brent did not have a practice dummy of the sort he was familiar with to teach people to spank.
Matt grinned. “You’ll love it. It’s pretty amazing. I’m pretty sure it was supposed to be one of those forensic dummies. It looks like a person, well, as much as a mannequin can anyway. It even has semi-lifelike skin. He uses it when he teaches classes.”
“How the hell did he get his hands on a high tech forensic dummy?” Grant blurted. He had seen them before, in training videos and such, but even the sheriff’s department he had worked with in North Carolina hadn’t had the resources to afford one. It wasn’t something that just your Tom, Dick, or Harry off the street knew where to get or could afford to buy.
“Brent was a cop,” Matt explained, “back before Corbin’s Bend. He worked in New York for a while and still has connections there. I’ve never asked but if I had to guess, I’d say that’s probably where he found it. He has a pretty extensive collection of implements and spanking related stuff too.”
“Wow,” Grant replied. Now he was incredibly curious. He’d been interested in spanking nearly as long as he could remember, but he had never had the nerve to actually act on his interest and collect implements or anything like that. He’d thought about it a few times, but with his job he could never afford to take the risk of someone finding out. The freedom of living here was amazing. “I don’t even have anything – well, except the paddle that came in the welcome basket.”
“You don’t actually need anything special,” Matt told him. “A lot of people prefer just using their hand. There are also plenty of innocuous everyday things that can do double duty: a hairbrush, a wooden spoon, a spatula, a belt, a ruler, a paint stirrer. Hell, I’ve even heard of people using the turning wand from window blinds.”
“Seriously?” Grant said. “Most of those are fairly common. I had encounters with a lot of them myself as a kid, but a rod from window blinds?”
“If it can be perverted, someone around here has probably done it,” Matt told him, chuckling. “I wouldn’t recommend experimenting with that one for a while though. It’s thin and whippy like a cane but plastic doesn’t give much, not the greatest choice for a beginner.”
“Don’t worry,” Grant assured him. “I wasn’t planning on it. What would be a good choice for a beginner?”
“Using your hand is probably the safest, but in terms of implements, you’d probably be better off with something lightweight and solid with a fairly broad surface to spread out impact and minimize the possibility of bruising or injury, like a thin, lightweight paddle.” Matt stopped in front of a house that stood off to itself near the entrance, turning and heading up the steps. Grant followed as Matt pulled keys from his pocket and unlocked the door. Inside the house, Matt headed unerringly for a room on the second floor. Grant trailed behind, curious. When Matt opened the door, it was clear that this room held the extensive collection Matt had spoken of. It was filled to the brim with spanking paraphernalia. A spanking bench held a prominent position. Artwork featuring men and women in the throes of erotic or disciplinary spankings in various positions adorned the walls.
“They’re beautiful, aren’t they?” Matt commented, startling Grant.
Belatedly, Grant realized he had stopped moving and was staring at the artwork, transfixed. Grant nodded, swallowing hard. They were gorgeous. They were also easily some of the most erotic things Grant had ever seen, a fact neither his libido nor his body had failed to notice. He shifted uneasily and tried to discretely adjust himself. He had to get a grip. He wasn’t some pimply-faced teenager. He was a grown man who ought to have some self-control. He typically had more than his share of control, but dayum that was hot.
Taking a deep breath, he mentally took himself in hand and turned away. The dummy they had come to borrow was positioned on a wire stand in a corner of the room. It was an androgynous mannequin, by his reckoning just under 6 foot tall, with an outer covering that vaguely resembled skin. Matt hefted it easily, but the shape and height made it awkward to carry. Matt tried tucking it under his arm in a football carry, but the legs and arms dragged awkwardly. Grant suggested they try a two man carry, and between the two of them, they managed to manhandle i
t into a position that was relatively easy. Each of them took an arm of the mannequin over their shoulders and carried a leg as though they were helping a third person who could not walk, guiding him in the center between them. The mannequin wasn’t heavy at all. It probably weighed less than 50 pounds so carrying it in itself was not a burden and using the rescue positioning allowed them to easily control the awkward height and arms and legs. It probably looked utterly ridiculous, but it worked.
“I didn’t exactly think this through well,” Matt admitted as they carefully maneuvered their way downstairs and out the door. “This would’ve been easier with a car.”
There wasn’t much Grant could say to that so he didn’t reply and instead concentrated on making his way down the street without damaging this dummy that undoubtedly cost far more than he could afford to pay. It was a good thing most of the community was occupied around the pool and clubhouse. If anyone had seen them carrying Brent’s spanking dummy down the street like an injured hiker, they would have probably been the laughing stock of the entire community for weeks. People were already curious enough with Grant’s family being new, having himself caught out looking like an idiot wasn’t likely to improve matters.
As if conjured by the thought, a man in a pickup truck pulled up alongside them in the road and slowed to a stop, rolling down the window and calling out, “Need some help there, guys.”
“Hey, Lelo,” Matt said. “Would you mind letting our friend here hitch a ride in the back of your truck around to my house?” He gestured to the dummy.
“Sure, no problem,” the man, presumably Lelo, said. “Got yourself a new practice dummy there, Matt,” Lelo asked, clearly teasing.
Matt shook his head. “This is Brent’s. I’m just borrowing it for the afternoon.” He took the dummy from between them, hefted it over his shoulder, and deposited it in the bed of Lelo’s truck.
“You giving lessons now?” Lelo wanted to know.
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