Hallie resents the flutter she gets in her nether region every time she is confronted with anything having to do with corporal punishment. The flutter turns to pulsing sexual need as she eavesdrops on the couple crying out in joint passion. She is acutely aware of an imaginary ache centered surprisingly not in her sex, but at the tender place where her ass meets her thighs. With shame, she feels the tingling in her pussy as she imagines being bent over on the receiving end of a correction like is in progress in the house she’s standing in front of. As unsettling as it is to feel the cream gathering between her legs, her pulse heats up when she realizes it’s always Troy Jackson she imagines standing behind her, delivering the spanking. She reasons with herself that it’s only because she has a clear picture of what he looks like in action, but if she’s honest with herself, she knows that’s only part of the story.
She’s spent hours talking with Traci and Aunt Gina trying to understand why women would ever want to live in a place like Corbin’s Bend. She’d started with the intention of convincing them they were both crazy, but in one short week, their gentle reassurances about the values of the DD way of life already have her doubting her own conviction. Both women have assured her there is nothing wrong or even unusual with how she feels. While she still doesn’t understand how she can feel both dread and excitement at the thought of a punishment, she’s coming to terms that she can no longer deny at least to herself that the thoughts of a punishment excites her on some level. With the history of real violence in her past, these feelings are more than confusing.
Hallie resumes her walk to Traci’s, anxious to escape her inner turmoil. The second Traci opens the door, the emotions she had been holding in bubble up and Hallie finds herself with unwanted tears streaming down her face.
“Come on in and tell me what’s wrong.” Traci ushers her in.
“I’m just being silly. It’s nothing.”
She has her coat off and they are headed to the kitchen. Hallie swipes at her tears, trying to downplay the effect of the walk over. As always, Traci has a coffee waiting.
“So, what happened?”
“It’s warm out there.” She takes a sip of her coffee to calm her nerves.
Traci is confused. “And that’s reason to cry?”
Hallie hedges. “Some people have their windows open.”
Instant recognition. “Oh boy. You walked over past Danelle and Carrie Ann’s.”
“Who are Danelle and Carrie Ann?”
“They are a couple here in town. Danelle is the HoH and let’s just say that Carrie Ann is disciplined… often… loudly. It’s kind of their thing.”
“What do you mean, their thing?”
“Exhibitionism. Everyone here is pretty open about the lifestyle, but most keep the details behind closed doors. Danelle and Carrie Ann are a little less private. Parents of young children who may not understand the dynamics of Corbin’s Bend yet have learned to steer their kids clear of their block when the weather is nice enough to have the windows open. You never know what you might hear.”
“So everyone knows about this and it’s okay?”
“Theirs is a consensual relationship, Hallie. Just like the outside world, no two relationships are exactly the same, but we are accepting of all types here in Corbin’s Bend. We have several couples who live a BDSM lifestyle and other couples who live a domestic discipline lifestyle, but don’t incorporate spanking, choosing to use other less severe punishments instead, and every flavor of DD in between. Each couple has to figure out what it means for them on their own through communication.”
The women sit in silence for a while as Hallie thinks things over. She finally breaks the silence. “I’m pretty sure Aunt Gina got spanked last night.” Hallie is embarrassed, choosing to look at her coffee mug instead of her new friend and therapist.
“What makes you say that? Did you hear the punishment?”
“Not really. I could just tell at dinner Uncle Adam was not happy about something when he got home and they excused themselves right after dinner to go up to their bedroom, which was out of the ordinary. They were gone over an hour and when they came back down, I could tell Aunt Gina had been crying and she seemed to wiggle a lot while she was sitting watching TV with us.”
“Did you talk to her about it yet?”
“No. It just seems like it’s none of my business, you know?”
“Maybe, but she knows how much you’re struggling with the whole idea of DD and trying to decide if you want to stay here in Corbin’s Bend after the first of the new year. She’s told me how worried she is that you’re going to want to leave. She really hopes you’ll stay in town with them. I keep trying to tell her to give you time. You are making progress.”
“Am I? Sometimes I wonder.”
“It’s only been a week, Hallie. How would you have acted a week ago if you’d heard Carrie Ann being paddled through that window?”
Hallie smiles. “I’d probably have rushed through the front door and tackled Danelle like I did Troy.”
Traci lets loose a hearty laugh. “Oh boy. What a memory that is. I’ll never forget the look on Troy’s face when you were on his back trying to strangle him.”
The girls spend a minute laughing about what, at the time, had been a very traumatic event for Hallie. That’s when she knows Traci is right. She has made a lot of progress in the last week.
Traci brings things back down with an unwelcome question. “So, are you ready to tell me about Gene yet?”
Hallie takes a deep cleansing breath. “You know, I think I am. I want him gone, and I’ve been carrying the baggage of him around with me for way too long.”
“So, your mom married him. How old were you at the time?”
“Sixteen. At first, I thought he was just a blow hard, but I soon figured out he was so much worse. He made us use all of Mom’s income to take care of the house and our living expenses because he said he wasn’t gonna pay to raise some other bastard’s kid. He then spent all of the money he made on himself.”
“Sounds like a real peach.”
“You don’t know the half of it. He was pretty big into gambling. He went out almost every night, often coming home late drunk and in a bad mood if he’d lost that night. At first, he would just take it out on Mom. Do you have any idea how I felt as a sixteen year old virgin having to sit in my room and listen to my mother being roughed up by that asshole before he would… well… he got off on really rough sex. I broke in there once when she was crying out for him to stop and fought him off of her, but he backhanded me hard enough that I saw stars. Then the asshole forced me to sit in a chair in the corner and watch him finish her off that night, telling me if I didn’t behave, he would do the same thing to me. That was my introduction to sex, watching my mother be basically raped by a man she was stupid enough to marry.”
“Oh, Hallie, I am so sorry, for you and your poor mother. What a terrible trauma for her to live through.”
“Thanks, but that was just the beginning. Things changed pretty quick after that night. He didn’t even try to hide what he was doing to Mom after that. In fact, I think he loved the humiliation we both felt being controlled and afraid of him. I begged her to leave him. I don’t think I’ll ever understand what happened to my mom those last few years of her life. It’s like she was brainwashed by him or something. She stopped even trying to fight back.”
“Oh, Hallie. It breaks my heart that you had to go through seeing your mother as a battered wife. I have treated several women that have been able to recover, but I saw first hand how hard it was for them to fight through their fear. Still, I’d have hoped she could have kicked him out if not for herself, then for you.”
Hallie feels the tears pooling as she remembers her mom. “She tried. Once. After a really bad night, she called a locksmith and had all of the locks changed while he was at work. We boxed up his shit and put it outside. I was so proud of her that day.”
“So what happened?” Traci’s quiet prodding helps Ha
llie keep going.
“He came back, all apologetic with flowers, promising he would change and that he would get help for his gambling addiction. She bought his line of bullshit. Things were better for a few weeks, but then went back to the way they’d been before, if not worse. By then it was my senior year and I had hoped to just make it until I could move away to go to college. Looking back, Aunt Gina offered to let me come live with them after graduation. I wish I’d taken her up on the offer, but I ended up staying home. I felt guilty leaving Mom there alone with him, you know?”
“She made her choices, Hallie. I’m sure she would have been happy for you to get away from him. What happened to your mom?”
“About a year after I graduated from high school, she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She hadn’t been feeling good for a while. I had begged her to go to the doctor, but she was so afraid to go because she knew she would have to explain the bruises all over her body. By the time they found it, she was already stage four. She only lasted a few months. I don’t think she was afraid of dying, but I know she was terrified of leaving me alone with Gene. She made me promise to leave and go live with Aunt Gina, but the very night of Mom’s funeral, Gene tried to rape me. The bastard actually thought I was going to take Mom’s place, can you believe that shit? I fought him off and went over to Eddie’s. We really weren’t all that serious, but I had spent a lot of time with him and the band to avoid going home. They were just about to leave on their first tour, basically playing beer gardens across the south. We traveled in two cargo vans. Slept in tents in camp grounds more often than real beds.”
“Sounds like an adventure.”
“Honestly, it was fun. At least more fun than the last couple of years before had been.”
“What happened with Eddie? How did you find yourself driving across country in the middle of the night in a snow storm to get help?”
Her heart contracts. She understands how it’s said that people can have a broken heart. That is what Eddie did to her’s, but not the way most would think. Eddie had been her friend first, and the loss of his friendship is what cuts her to her core. “I started feeling less and less like his girlfriend and more and more like his mother about a year ago. He was so fun before he started having some success. I’ve heard that fame can change people. He hasn’t even become that famous yet, but he’s already out of control. It started with him fucking around with groupies that would follow the band from gig to gig. At first I tried to pretend it wasn’t happening, but eventually, I’d had enough. We pretty much broke up, but I stayed on as the band manager. It was like trying to herd a bunch of grown children around the country, trying to keep them sober and showing up to shows on time. Still, I helped get them a recording deal and then landed them the opening gig for Matchbox 20. They really are talented and they have what it takes to make it big, but they are hell bent on throwing it all away.”
“That must really make you angry to see them messing up something that you’ve put so much time into.”
“I’m fucking furious, at all of them, but especially Eddie. They’d all started drinking and doing drugs so much that it was starting to remind me of being surrounded by a whole group of Genes every night. I had told them if they were going to keep doing drugs, I was going to be out of there. The night I left, they’d taken Gopher, the car, out to try to find a score. They actually missed the whole fucking opening show. Blew it off. Left me there to get reamed out by the tour manager. When they dragged themselves back to the bus hours later, I already had my one bag packed. I had planned on bluffing, trying to scare them all into cleaning up their act or I was going to leave. I told them the record company was done putting up with their shit and they would be replacing me with someone who could control them. Well, my threat didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.”
“What happened?”
“Eddie was high. I know he had to be, because he had never hurt me before, but that night… It was my worst nightmare. It was Gene all over again. He was so violent. We hadn’t slept together in almost six months, but he almost raped me that night, in between slapping me around and trying to choke me until I’d agree to stay. One of the guys in the band, Justin, finally broke into our room and stopped him or who knows if I’d still be here. I didn’t stick around to see what happened between Eddie and Justin. I just grabbed my bag, purse and the keys to Gopher and drove away. I didn’t really even know for sure where I was going until I had time to calm down and turned towards Corbin’s Bend.”
As soon as she stops talking, Hallie feels a wave of relief, followed closely by a wave of exhaustion, felt deep in her bones. Traci doesn’t try to say something clever to make it all better. Hallie suspects she knows no words can really change anything. Only time can do that. As her tears continue, Traci stands and comes around the island to scoop Hallie up into a strong bear-hug. The strength of her embrace breaks down her last emotional wall that had been holding all of the shitty memories of the abuse her and her mother had survived since losing their beloved Nana. There in Traci’s kitchen, Hallie cries for her Nana, for her mom and for her own innocence lost. When the women pull apart several minutes later, Hallie can see the tears on Traci’s face.
Hallie reaches for the box of tissues, grabbing several and handing one to her new friend, before blowing her own running nose. “I can’t believe you’re crying too. I’m the one that’s messed up. I hated what Mom did so much and then I went and did the same thing with Eddie.”
The flash of anger in Traci’s eyes surprise Hallie. “Are you kidding me? You are nothing like your mother. Don’t you dare say that again. I know you loved her and she didn’t deserve the hell that Gene put her through, but she has to take some responsibility for her own choices. You, on the other hand, escaped the cycle of abuse not only once with Gene, but you refused to put up with any violence from Eddie. If you were a battered woman, like your mom had been, you would still be on that tour bus right now, putting up with Eddie’s escalating violence until he gets the help he needs to straighten out his life. You did all you can do for him. It took great strength to pick up and leave everything that you had known for the last few years, especially not really knowing you had a safe place to go to.”
Traci’s words have a direct hit with Hallie, and she is suddenly filled with optimism for her future for the first time in a long time. She’d been feeling like she was a failure for running away from the tour, but Traci has held up a mirror, forcing her to examine the last few weeks through a neutral lens, and Hallie begins to like what she sees.
“So, you think there might be hope for me after all?”
“Oh, Hallie. There was always hope. The only thing that’s changed today is that you are finally going to start believing it. I think you are already on the road to recovery.”
“Whatever that means, right?”
“Right. The good thing is you’re young and you have your whole life ahead of you. So the real question now is, what does Hallie Boudreaux want to do with the rest of her life?”
Hallie smiles a sad smile. “If only I knew.”
Chapter 7
Troy hasn’t looked this forward to Christmas so much since he was eight years old and had asked Santa for a new bike. He’s pretty sure the excitement he feels as he sees the sign announcing Corbin’s Bend three miles ahead would rival finding that bike under the tree that Christmas morning so many years before.
It’s been less than two weeks since he was here last, but the time has dragged by. He’s been busy at work so it wasn’t too bad during the day, but the nights have found him distracted and obsessing over the events of his last visit to Corbin’s Bend. He’d been tempted to drive out last weekend, but Traci had talked him out of it. His brain knows he’d done the right thing in spanking his sister, but he can’t shake the feeling that she may not feel the same. As a result, he’s phoned and texted her more often than normal. It’s important to him that they get to spend this first Christmas in four years together reconnecting.
He might also have an unconscious motive for checking in with his sister frequently. Thoughts of a petite young woman with a fire in her green eyes have haunted both his waking hours and sleep. Troy is ashamed to admit he’d hoped his sister would let information about how Hallie was doing slip into their conversations. Ever the professional, Traci has been careful not to share anything more than passing information on Corbin’s Bend’s newest resident. Troy respects his sister’s careful confidentiality with her patient’s private conversations, yet he’s anxious to know more about Hallie Boudreaux than that she’s doing well.
He’d timed his arrival to pick up Traci in time to head to St. Michael’s Parish for the Christmas Eve service. He’d hoped to have time to come in and chat with his sister before heading out, but traffic had been heavy and she is already coming out her front door as he pulls in the drive.
“Hi, Troy. I was getting worried I might need to go save us seats. It fills up fast on holidays.”
Troy leans over to kiss his sister on her cheek as she slides into the front seat of his SUV. “Hey, Trace. Yeah, I’d hoped to be here sooner too.”
Troy backs out and heads the few blocks drive over to the church. There’s a light dusting of snow coming down and the night has the kind of magical feel like only Christmas Eve can.
“So does the whole town show up at church on a night like this?”
“Mostly. Some people go out of town to visit family, and there are two services, one at seven and one at eleven so I’m hoping it won’t be too crowed at this first one.”
“Well, you may have to help me if I forget people’s names. Everyone seems to remember me because I’m with you and I met them once at the picnic. What’s the pastor’s name again?”
“Father Henry Beauchamp. I’m not sure who else will be there for sure other than Brent, Char and Kayla. They called earlier to make sure we’d be going to the Christmas Eve party at the Community Center between services. I told them I’d need to check with you, but I thought we’d at least stop by.”
Return to Corbin's Bend Page 81
