Home for the Holidays

by Hill, April

  I should tell you here that I hate it when David uses a hairbrush. It’s not just that it hurts like hell, which it does. It seems childish, and makes a kind of embarrassing sound on bare flesh that leaves no doubt at all what’s happening, should anyone be listening. I swear it even hurts to hear the damned thing! There's this awful anticipatory rush of air as the brush comes down, descending like the sword of Damocles, and then the awful crack as it lands, "Splat!" with a scalding sting that almost lifts you off the arm of the couch. A split-second later, in a kind of a weird delayed reaction, you hear yourself howl bloody murder just as the damned thing lands on the opposite cheek, with just as much fire. And so on, and so forth, first one cheek, then the other, until your ass looks like a ripe tomato and feels like you sat down on a kitchen burner.

  A sweet and tender fellow most of the time, David’s temper usually only flares when I repeatedly ignore his more gentle warnings. When I do, (or when I get caught) I often pay for my error by being spanked. ("Spanked" is sort of a generic term, encompassing a variety of other chastisements. Each individual incident might be accomplished with any one of several implements, with the sole common factor being the presence of my naked rear end.) David and I agreed on this odd arrangement a couple of years after Amanda was born, while I was going through my second or third midlife crisis. Overall, the plan has worked pretty well.

  Originally, I agreed to be spanked as a tool with which to kick the smoking habit. Don’t laugh. It worked. It took longer than the cell phone thing did, but it did work. Actually, I think you could open a chain of clinics devoted to helping women to give up smoking, using exactly this method.

  The offending ladies would simply appear at the clinic every day, you see, as though they were going to see their parole officer. Once there, they would have to submit to being sniffed at by a counselor—like my husband, who has the nose of a pedigreed bloodhound. If the slightest whiff of the foul weed is detected, the "counselor" would promptly turn the client across his strong, masculine knee, lower her panties to her knees, and apply a strong, masculine hand, a folded belt, or a wooden hairbrush to her bare ass for no more than sixty to ninety seconds. Sixty to ninety extremely unpleasant seconds. (In my case, it took almost four weeks of such visits, but then, I went through a lot of mouthwash, afternoon showers, and cologne to beat the system until the counselor figured out what was going on.) The treatment was free, after all, so I had no financial incentive to finish the program.

  I don’t get spanked too often these days, but when it happens, I’ll have to admit that I usually have it coming. As a "boss," it could be said that David is tough, but reliably fair, and the fringe benefits of the system have been nice—a more peaceful, orderly life. Alas, the holiday season tends to bring out the worst in me. I am by nature a disorganized person, you see. I’m disorganized about just about everything, from my somewhat careless, (okay, abominable) housekeeping to my inept bookkeeping. You could call me sloppy, but I prefer disorganized, because it sounds more creative.

  Well, anyway, that night, after I got home from Christmas shopping and the encounter with the nasty elf, I added up my day’s spending and discovered that in one hideous afternoon, I had managed to add close to seven hundred dollars of new purchases to my already considerable total. I sat for a moment, staring at the figures and feeling my life begin to spiral out of control. My God, I thought, I’m doomed! (Please don’t be overly alarmed. This happens fairly regularly.)

  What I needed now was chocolate and a good night’s sleep. I would confess tomorrow—or maybe the next day. It had begun to rain, and the evening had turned chilly in that perverse way it does in California in the winter. I liked it, though. Having grown up in the east, I want it cold on Christmas, no matter what it takes. I have been known to turn the air conditioning to its lowest point to achieve the desired effect during the holidays. Tonight, I had already wolfed down two Hershey Bars and was settling down cozily into my pillow, dressed in my warm flannel pajamas (with clouds and stars) when David came upstairs to bed.

  He stroked my flannelled hip and leaned over to kiss me. When I politely returned the kiss and snuggled against his chest, David slipped his hand between my legs and with the other began to unbutton the top of my pajamas.

  But I was too tired to be trifled with. I slapped his hand gently. "Just a minute there, please," I protested. "Do you have a very good reason for doing that?"

  He grinned. "Yeah, as a matter fact, I do."

  I yawned." Is it going to require any exertion on my part?"

  "Well," he said, finishing the line of buttons and doing something very distracting to my breast with his mouth, "that would be nice, but I suppose I could just prop you up against the headboard and wing it alone. I gather one of us isn’t in the mood?"

  "The spirit is willing, but the body’s been at the mall all day with your offspring," I groaned, "on its aching feet."

  "I promise not to touch your feet," he said.

  I yawned again. "Okay, then, help yourself. Just remember to close up when you’re done."

  He rolled me over onto my stomach and began to massage my back. "Better?" His thumbs worked the sore area between my shoulder blades, and I moaned with pleasure.

  "Oh, God, yes. Keep that up, and I’m yours."

  "Rough day, huh?" he asked.

  "You may as well know it," I said. "I tried to sell our children today. The youngest two, anyway. I knew no one would take the twins."

  David chuckled. "Any takers?"

  "No. From what I could see at the mall, I think there’s a glut on the market. Maybe we could advertise. They are very cute, when they’re clean and not vomiting. All day long, I thought about what you’d do if I sold the children, or just gave them away, for that matter. You know, leave them standing by that little Salvation Army red kettle and disappear into the crowd. But then, I realized that would probably merit a pretty good spanking, right?"

  He nodded. "Yeah, probably. It might take a couple of days, but I’m pretty sure I’d notice them missing, sooner or later."

  I groaned. "God, how I hate Christmas."

  "You love Christmas," David said, kissing me again.

  "No, I don’t," I said with a sigh. "That was your original wife, the one who used to read books and had a waistline and who liked sex. Remember her?" I rolled over to look at him. "Do you think I’m insane?" I asked.

  David thought for a moment. "I don’t think so. Then again, maybe I’ve just gotten used to it. Why?"

  Not the answer I was looking for. All this silly chitchat was building to something, by the way, but I had to approach it from just the right angle. Before I could own up to going over my budget, I needed sympathy, followed by an hour of long, tender, romantic sex. Then, before the pleasant afterglow began to fade, I would make a full confession—while David was still feeling warm and accepting and well-loved and appreciated. (Please try not to judge me too harshly for using sex as a tool. I was in a bind, here, and needed to use whatever tools I had.) I began the approach to my confession slowly.

  "I bought some really nice Christmas cards," I said, "on sale."

  "To go in the drawer with all the others?" he asked, grinning. David knows me too well. It’s another of my most treasured Christmas traditions. I buy Christmas cards every year, but never use them. Like the iron, David says.

  "Oh, and I put six hundred and thirty-eight dollars today on the Visa." I added this part very quickly, hoping it would get lost amidst all the cute banter. No such luck.

  David stopped kissing me and sat up. "Repeat that, please."

  I moved away slightly. "You heard me. I did my best to stay in the budget, but I just couldn’t do it. Come on, now, you wouldn’t really spank me for buying you a few little Christmas presents, would you? That would sort of miss the entire point of the season, don’t you think?"

  "I would like to still be solvent at the end of the Christmas season," he said firmly. "Were you joking about how much you spent, or do we need to se
t aside a few minutes before bedtime for a little chat?" David didn’t mean "chat," of course. A "little chat" is a code he uses in front of the kids. Minus the code, a "little chat" means a couple of agonizing minutes across his lap, (the end of the bed, the arm of the couch, etc.) with my underwear puddled around my ankles, and my bare ass on fire.

  "Well, no matter what you do to me, it’s too late to change anything," I said sullenly. "I’ve already spent the money."

  "You’re going to walk a little funny when you have to take everything back tomorrow morning," he replied. "And I wouldn’t plan on sitting down anywhere for lunch, or dinner."

  "That bad?" I asked. I was beginning to rethink my decision to be honest. In my opinion, honesty is an overrated virtue.

  "That bad," he assured me.

  "What if I tell you I was just kidding?" I asked sweetly.

  "Then I’ll be extremely relieved and blister your adorable butt for lying to me."

  "It was just a joke, darling," I said, faking a yawn. "You know what? I really need to go to sleep now."

  David evidently didn’t enjoy the joke, because before I could roll out of range, he had yanked me across his knee, pulled my pajama bottoms down, and dealt my bare rump three or four swift, painful smacks. Apparently unsatisfied with my small yelps of pain, he dumped me onto the bed on my stomach and added a half-dozen more swats before I could get my pants back up. Deciding it was time to put some distance between us, I scrambled to the far side of the bed, rubbed my stinging behind and glowered at him. "Jeez, David, are you losing your sense of humor, or what?"

  "You bet I am," he shot back. "You blow the budget again, like you did last year, and expect me to just laugh it off?"

  "You’re the one with two sisters with six greedy children between them," I grumbled. "And I’m the one who has to do all the stupid shopping and keep to your stupid damned budget."

  "Let’s look at another way," David suggested, pleasantly. "I’m the one with the wooden hairbrush hidden in my sock drawer, and you’re the one who’s going to pay for every penny she goes over the stupid damned budget."

  His argument was convincing, which I why decided to leave him with the impression that my budget-overage crack was just a joke. Like Scarlett O’Hara, I would worry about it tomorrow.

  Worrying about things tomorrow is something I’m really good at.

  * * * *

  CHAPTER TWO

  Five days later, on Christmas Eve, after David and I had wrapped the last of the packages and collapsed on the living room couch with a much-needed cold beer, I began mentally adding up all of my shopping costs. Unfortunately, I had squirreled away little piles of crumpled receipts here and there all over the house—some of them in bizarre hiding places I’d already forgotten.

  I read once that real squirrels only find about twenty-five percent of the nuts they bury, and my average wasn’t shaping up to be much better. The truth was, even I didn’t have a realistic idea of how much I had spent—or overspent. It could happen to anybody, right? In my defense, it should be pointed out that inflation was on the rise everywhere in the country, and that a dollar didn’t buy as much as it used to, and that a fool and his money are soon parted and that … Well, I’m sure you see what I mean.

  Which is why, on the day after Christmas (when I totaled up the disorderly pile of rumpled receipts I could actually lay my hands on) I became alarmed. At first, I assumed that there was something wrong with the calculator, so I ran the figures again. And again. And then, a fourth time, with my fingers trembling and my mouth dry. Not including wrapping materials, scotch tape, and the two new pairs of scissors to replace the ones I kept losing, the grand total came to somewhere in the neighborhood of—well, just believe me when I say it was a very unsafe neighborhood. And to make matters worse, I knew that somewhere—lurking about in forgotten flowerpots and glove compartments and coat pockets and a wild assortment of sneaky little hidey-holes—there were more receipts. Many, many more receipts!

  How could this happen, my brain shrieked? Almost everything I’d purchased was on sale. Final markdown! Closeout! Clearance priced! Last minute bargain-priced! All my favorite words. In an attempt to stay within my ridiculously low budget, I had prowled the aisles like a miserly bag-woman, cackling with delight at my shrewd shopping skills. When David commented on the astonishing number of brightly colored packages under the tree (and later, at the excellent array of quality merchandise I had accumulated with such a modest outlay) I explained smugly about how good I was at ferreting out bargains. And the lovable idiot had believed me. He kissed me and even complimented my imaginative gift-wrapping.

  "You see," he said proudly. "I knew you could stay within the budget, if you tried a little harder. All it takes is a little planning and some careful shopping." If there was a note of suspicion in his voice or irony, I didn’t catch it. I smiled weakly and tossed a few receipts I’d just found in my robe pocket onto the cheerfully blazing Yule log. No sense taking chances, with everything going so well.

  Frantically, now, I added everything again, and was vastly relieved to find that I had made a mistake in addition. The total was less than I first thought—by eighteen dollars and thirty-five cents. Almost everything I had bought was absolutely unreturnable, so if I was counting on that eighteen dollars and thirty-five cents to save my ass, I was about to be severely disappointed.

  So, here we are, dear reader, back at New Year’s, where our story began.

  * * * *

  Somehow, I managed to sail safely through Christmas, but even when the good ship S.S. Claus had disappeared over the horizon, I remained wary and frightened in its turbulent wake. Like a traveler on a dark and troubled ocean, my eyes swept the deceptively peaceful waters before me. Deep in my heart, I knew that peril still loomed dead ahead, moving toward me like the iceberg that took out the Titanic.

  Every day that week, I sat in the front window and watched for the mailman. When he appeared, I dashed to the front porch and intercepted him before he could cram another disastrous sheaf of bills into our small mailbox. With David working out of the house at this time of the year, danger lurked everywhere. At any minute, he could pull into the driveway.

  New Year’s Eve day dawned bright, cool, and sunny, and Michael greeted the brand new year by falling off the swing and breaking a tooth. David was out for the day, so I bundled up my shrieking child and rushed him off to the dentist. When the damage tooth was repaired, I picked up Amanda at soccer practice and drove all the way home with my fingers crossed and my heart pounding. At exactly 3:18, I approached the house, and realized that David’s car was in the driveway. My blood seemed to turn cold when I saw the mail truck at the end of the block, turning the corner to leave the neighborhood. With the precise timing of a practiced felon, I calculated that the mail had thumped into our mailbox almost eight minutes earlier. I was screwed!

  When I dashed up the steps to the mailbox, my heart sank even further. The box was empty, its lid yawning ominously open. I had only one chance. If God was on my side, there had been no overdue bills in today’s mail.

  There were six, actually. My lackluster attendance at Sunday school had apparently annoyed the Big Guy more than I thought.

  Finally. I gathered up the courage to go inside. I thought briefly of sending Michael and Amanda next door to play, on the theory that it would probably be very traumatic for innocent children to watch their mother being hanged by her thumbs in their own cozy living room. Instead, I clustered them (if two small children can be clustered) around me as a temporary shield from flying objects, and peeked into the den.

  David was seated at his desk, writing checks. Big ones, from the look of his clenched jaw.

  "Why don’t you guys run upstairs and watch the new video," I suggested, thrusting a copy of the newest "Shrek" into Michael’s grubby hands. "Mommy needs to start dinner."

  The children, perhaps sensing a storm brewing, took the video and ran upstairs, already punching one another over who got to ope
n it. I went into the kitchen and rummaged through the fridge, pretending to plan dinner, and expecting at any moment to hear David calling me into the Inner Sanctum.

  Around four, the twins arrived home from shopping, and began the elaborate preparations necessary to get ready for a New Year’s Eve party/sleepover at a friend’s. Before long, the house was vibrating with rock music and the usual screaming arguments over clothes. Dinner came and went peacefully, with no eruption from David, and the twins went off to their party, carrying enough crap with them for a two-month trek over the Himalayas. David and I hadn’t made plans to go out, so before long, the younger kids were in their jammies, ready for the usual holiday ginger ale and onion dip pig-out. David had still made no references at all to the bills. Maybe it was going to be a quiet New Year’s Eve, after all. Maybe I had misread the look on his face. Maybe no offending bills had shown up. Yeah, sure.

  The evening passed, and the New Year arrived, as it always did. When the ball had fallen, the younger kids finally staggered off to bed. And then, just as I began to sweep up the confetti, David called me into the den.

  "How’s your math?" he asked, quite cheerfully, actually.

  Trying very hard not to wet my pants, I gave a nervous little laugh. "If I hadn’t cheated in algebra, I’d still be in high school; you know that." It was an old joke between us, but I was desperate to inject a little humor, here. "Why?"

  "Well," he said, leaning back in his chair and lacing his fingers behind his head, "I did pretty well in math, and I’ve just figured out that, allowing for outstanding checks and forgetting the small change, you went around fourteen hundred bucks over the Christmas budget. Sound about right to you?"

  It didn’t, of course. I alone knew that the drawers and cubbyholes everywhere in the entire damned house were still bulging with as-yet undiscovered and unwelcome surprises. But I decided to let this information wait for another day. Fourteen hundred dollars was enough on my plate for now—more than enough.