“Yes, it is,” he said and wiped the child’s face. She ran off to the morning cartoon show, and Mickey turned back to his breakfast. “The other thing, too. I mean, who do we know that likes the old slap and tickle better than you?”
“It’s not the kind of question I’d ask the girls during lunch break,” she said.
“Maybe you’re not the only one,” he said. “That Phillip Carlyle guy walks his two lady engineers around on leashes. Did I tell you that?”
She sighed. “No, you didn’t.”
“They both have nose rings, and they wear these long gold chains and he walks them like...”
“Like you walked me a couple of weeks ago?”
“You weren’t on a leash,” he said, eating scrambled egg.
“Might as well have been,” she said, and brought her coffee to sit across from him. “What’s really nagging at me is thinking that guy had it right, even fifteen years ago. Maybe I do have some sort of...um, disorder.” She sighed. “Damn, it’s hard for me to talk about this stuff. It makes me want to hide under the covers.”
“I don’t know about any disorders,” he said. “Are you defeated?”
“No, of course not. But I wonder if the other thing, this need of mine, maybe it’s a manifestation of something from the past, or maybe my brain doesn’t work right.” She put her chin on the heel of her hand. “Do you think I’m crazy, Mick? Maybe there’s something wrong with me.”
“If you are, I’m checking into the asylum with you,” he said, laughing a little. “Maybe they’d give us the same rubber room, and I have this vision of you in a straitjacket. Woo hoo. All those straps and buckles, and maybe some high heels.”
“I can’t talk to you about anything, can I?”
“You’d have been crying by now, this time last week.”
“Oh, shut up,” she said, warmly enough that it sounded like ‘I love you’.
He finished his oatmeal and took the dish and spoon to the sink. When he turned on the hot water to wash up, Sandy made a sound of protest and started to get up. He waved her back.
“You cooked, I’ll clean,” he said.
“But...”
“Don’t start with the, what did you call it, the proud self-sacrifice? Just sit and have your coffee. I’ll do this.”
“Shit,” Sandy said, looking at the wall clock. “Is that the time?”
“That’s eleven strokes with the paddle, when I get one,” he said. “No swearing where the baby might hear.”
“You missed a damn in there, I think.”
“Now you’ve said it again,” he said. “That’s what, twelve and thirteen?
“I’m vulgar, Mick, not fucking stupid. I know it’s not fucking necessary. It just feels pretty fucking fine every once in awhile.”
“Okay, then. Twelve. And now thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen,” he said. “I’m getting a paddle. My hand won’t be able to take the strain.”
“And fuck you very much, too, darling.” She kissed him on the back and went to get changed.
“Sixteen,” Mickey said to the empty room.
Sandy looked back at him from around the door jamb. “Hey, buster. I need a couple of full slips. I can’t be running around without a bra and not have something to hide my nips. And don’t blame me. You started this shit, you fucker. Size twelve.”
“Seventeen, eighteen,” he said.
She stuck her tongue out at him and disappeared laughing into the bedroom. Mickey finished the dishes and dried everything and put them away. He went to get the ten overnight shipping boxes that Sandy had packed while he was gone and loaded them into the truck for the post office run. He’d be doing that while Sandy made the daycare run and went to work.
“Don’t think I’ve forgotten the paddle,” he said.
“Eighteen?” She grinned at him. “That’s nothing. Why not make it twenty?”
“Up to you.” He shrugged elaborately.
“Fuck and fuck,” she said, and gave him an arch look.
Mickey laughed.
He found a nice selection of slips at Macy’s of all places and bought two in white, one red, and one black. The sales lady was a woman about twice his age who kept her face carefully straight as they talked about stockings. He bought three pairs of something called seamless nude uniform white, and three pair of beige, and three more of black.
Asking about corsets defeated him. He’d have to take Sandy for that discussion. He paid in cash, almost a hundred and forty dollars total, and started out of the store. Striding past the shoe section, his eyes caught on a pair of red pumps with nail thin heels and a very low vamp.
“Do you have these in a narrow size ten?”
They did, and he bought them, even though they cost most of the rest of his pay from Judge Oliver. Sandy, when she saw his purchases, thought it was scandalous, and was quietly furious with Mickey for spending so much money without consulting her.
“My choice,” he said flatly.
“But...”
“You said no more buts, San.”
“Goddamn it, Mickey...”
“Twenty-one,” he said.
She glared at him and went out to the treadmill. Mickey had a look at the bills due and at the checkbook and winced. He’d spent the extra pad of money they were going to have, and he’d done it glibly, figuring to please Sandy. Only Sandy was smarter than him, and a whole lot more practical. Damn, he was absolutely going to square himself away on that. If he was going to run the bills, then he was going to have to quit treating money like candy.
He grabbed the bags and headed back to the mall while Sandy was pounding furiously at four plus miles an hour in the garage. Ten minutes there. Five minutes of stuttering explanations to the saleswoman, and five more in the shoe department. The woman there was different from the one he saw earlier. She pointed out another pair of shoes on the sales rack, red satin slides with very thin three inch heels.
“Twenty-nine, ninety-nine,” the woman said. “Marked down from ninety dollars.”
“Do you have them in this size?” Mickey asked, holding out the pumps.
“Let me just check the stockroom,” she said.
Mickey got his refund and bought the red mules and caught all three lights green between the mall and their house. Sandy was in the shower when he got back. He put the shoebox and the bag on the kitchen table, and went to smoke a cigar. Sandy came out in a little bit with a towel wound around her body, almost but not quite covering her hips. She held the three flat packets of stockings in her hands.
“These have seams,” she said.
“I know.”
She sighed and her tone dropped back a couple of weeks to the mother and idiot son thing. “Honey, people will notice. It’s bad enough, you making me wear stockings. But this just draws attention where I don’t want attention. It’s...it’s...unprofessional.”
He’d heard it all before, and the questions were just her way of making him feel at least a little stupid for even thinking of taking her outside what she considered her comfort zone. She’d conceded a lot already. Enough was enough. Blah, blah, blah. Sandy kept right on going in her oh-so-reasonable voice, and she was grating on just about his last nerve.
“Now, we need to talk about those shoes, too. We simply can’t afford...” She saw the expression on his face and took a breath. “Don’t look at me like that, Mickey. You said you’d do better. That you wanted to take care of...”
“Did you look in the box?” Mickey said, snapping at her.
Sandy blinked. “I did before. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Different shoes,” he said. “Check the receipt.”
She turned and walked away. He waited, wondering what she would say next. In a minute, he heard a sharp rap of sound, and then Sandy, walking in high heels. “They fit perfectly,” she said in an abashed voice. “Do you have a magic wand or something? Turning two hundred dollar shoes into thirty dollar shoes is a pretty good trick.”
“I
only kept the work stuff, two slips and those stockings, like you said. Those shoes were on sale, and I thought you’d like them.”
“You...um...how could you...?”
“While you were on the treadmill.” He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants. “I’m sorry, babe. I screwed up. It won’t happen again.”
“I love that you bought them for me,” she said, caught flat footed by his admission. “Damn you, Mickey. I had myself all wound up to tear you a new one, and here you go making me feel like an idiot.”
“Twenty-two,” he said.
“What?” Her eyes widened suddenly, and she was trying not to smile. “But I thought that was just for cussing where Cindy could hear me, you rat.”
“You think so?”
“I can’t cuss anymore, ever?”
“Sure you can,” he said. “But it’s going to cost you.”
“Damn it...”
“Twenty-three. You’d better quit while you’re ahead.”
“I’m going in to dry my hair.”
“Not in that towel, you aren’t.”
“Shit,” she said, and clapped her hand over her mouth with sudden alarm.
Mickey grinned in the darkness. He was feeling about half stupid, but the anger had been driven by his own frustration. Spending money they didn’t have to spare had been a mistake. Fortunately, it was a mistake he could rectify. There had been a time when he’d have been too blind stubborn to give in like that. This time, however, he didn’t feel like the same way.
“They look very pretty on,” he said, motioning towards her shoes.
“I love them,” she said.
Her voice caught and for a second Mickey thought she was going to cry. She turned to go, and he sat back to relight his cigar, wondering at the roller coaster of emotions he’d brought on, both his and Sandy’s. Listening to the sharp crack of the new shoes as she walked, he knew that it had been the right thing to do, and not just to appease his wife. Screw-ups were part of life; taking responsibility for them was something else. It was about manning up.
The instant-on emotional outburst from Sandy should not have surprised him. It was a response driven by old habits, and not good ones. It hurt to walk back into that store. The clerks didn’t care, of course, but to him it was a public admission. The difference between that and some other thing was that he had not tried to blame Sandy for it. Once, he’d have been humiliated and angry, but no longer. He did it, held himself accountable, and fixed it as best he could.
That was something, at least.
Maybe a big something.
Chapter Twenty
Sandy came out brushing her hair. “I found this in the back of my lingerie drawer,” she said, holding up a pale blue and pink nylon Basque with dangling garter straps and sheer lace bra cups.
“I remember that,” Mickey said.
“Well, I could...” She let the silence play out, smiling a little.
“With the fishnets?”
“And my new shoes,” she said, giving him a smoky look. “Give me five minutes to put on some make-up.”
“Make it a little trashy,” he said.
“I’ll make it a lot trashy,” she replied, and turned her back to walk away again in the high heels. Mickey watched the greatest ass in the world until she went around the corner and out of sight.
Then his phone rang. It was well after nine o’clock. Mickey didn’t recognize the number, but answered. “No names,” John Willis said. “Do you recognize my voice?”
“Yes,” Mickey said, sitting up.
“I’ve made some inquiries,” Willis said. “We’re interested, if you are.”
“What do you mean?”
“My security guys are going to be there tomorrow. Can you meet them at the business airport west of Palm Beach International at say, ten?”
“Yes, I...”
“Better you talk to them in person. Salt and pepper. That’s how you recognize them. Bring what you told me about.”
“You mean...?”
“Whatever you have,” Willis said. “Don’t worry. It’ll be private.”
“Okay. But what does salt and pepper mean?”
Willis chuckled. “You’ll see,” he said, and hung up.
Sandy called from the bathroom. “Who was it, honey?”
“Business,” Mickey said. “I’m going to talk to some people in the morning. Maybe get something going.”
“Oh, that’s good. I’m so proud of you.”
She was coming back toward him brushing her hair out, walking a lot more carefully in the shoes because of the sharp heels. Mickey watched her cross the room. The tacky Basque fit her like paint. Her breasts bulged out around the inadequate cups, and the garter tapes were stretched tight so they spanned across the bend at her hip as her legs moved forward. The stockings accented her legs beautifully.
“How’s this for slutty?” she asked, posing a little for him.
“I’m going to fuck your ass off,” he said, getting to his feet.
She smiled. “So, what are you waiting for?”
Mickey took the hairbrush from her and hefted it in his hand. It was the varnished cherry Aveda paddle brush he had given her when they were first married, when twenty dollars for a hair brush had seemed like a whole lot of money.
“You want to brush my hair, big boy?” Sandy asked, batting her lashes at him. She had put on her contacts, and heavy eye liner.
“I’m going to give you a dozen whacks on each side of your lovely butt,” he said. “How would that be?”
She blinked and licked her lips. “With the brush?” she asked in a faint voice.
“Don’t answer a question with a question,” he said, and put his arms around her, holding the brush behind her. He kissed her gently, and said, “I’ll rephrase. Two dozen licks with the brush. Yes or no?”
“You said twenty-three, not twenty-four.” Her laugh was so nervous that it was almost a giggle. She pulled back so she could look him in the eye. “What if I don’t like it, Mick? I mean, this isn’t one of your friendly, Friday night spankings, is it?”
“Not unless you want it to be,” he said. “I’d like to whack you pretty good. Maybe leave a few marks and see how you like it.”
“You think I will?”
“I suspect you’re going to hate it,” he said, laughing softly. “But it’s going to turn you on, babe. At least I think it will.”
“God, what must you think of me?” She wrapped her arms around his neck. She put her lips to his ear, and in the softest whisper, said, “And why does it sound sexy when you say things like that?”
“Because it is,” he said, nuzzling her neck. “And because I’ m more nervous about this than you are.”
“I don’t know about that,” she said, jittery in his arms.
“Well, I do. I’m wondering if I can really do it.”
“Spank me? You’ve done that lots of times.”
“Not like this. Not...hurting you.”
Sandy leaned back in his arms and looked into his eyes. “You mean hurt me, as in really hurt me?”
“What I did the other night, that hurt you.”
She put her head on his shoulder again and pressed her hips against his. “I did it to myself, too. Remember?”
“And it hurt, right?”
“Yes,” she conceded. “Those clothespins are mean little buggers.”
“You came, honey. I heard you.”
“Crazy, huh?”
“I was just thinking we could kind of push the envelope a little, try some more and see where it takes us. I don’t mean harming you, San. But...” His voice trailed off helplessly.
“You think I like the pain, Mick? Is that what you think?
“Do you?”
Her lips moved over his neck, sucking gently. She sucked his earlobe, and bit it gently, and then put her mouth to his ear again, and whispered, “Yes,” so softly that he barely heard her. Her legs quivered a little against him as she spoke the single wor
d. Then she leaned back again and looked at him as if she had confessed a major sin in church. She looked frightened, all of a sudden.
“It’s good to get things out in the open,” he said. “Don’t be afraid, babe.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I’m scared shitless.”
He laughed, too. “Come on, it isn’t going to kill you.”
“I’m afraid of what it says about me.”
“Well, that’s honest enough,” he said. “Let’s just call this foolishness off before it gets out of hand.” He kissed her cheeks, first one, and then the other. “Come on, you lovely slut. Let’s fuck. No spanking.”
“Don’t do that,” she said. “Don’t change the subject.”
“We need to stop talking about it,” he said.
“Okay.” She pulled away from him and put one knee on the bed, bending over to support her weight on her arms. She looked over her shoulder at him. “Is this how you want me, Mickey? On my knees.”
“It’s a start,” he said, and unbuttoned his shirt.
“For the hairbrush,” she said. “I want my licks.”
“Your...?”
“I earned them, you bastard. You’re not taking them away.”
“That’s twenty-six,” he said.
“I don’t care if it’s a hundred and twenty-six,” she said.
She jumped when he hit her the first time, and sucked in a hard little breath that turned into a moan as she let it out. He hit her again, on the left that time. Her skin went almost instantly red from the impacts. It didn’t feel all that hard, but Mickey knew it was. He got her on the right again, almost in the same spot, and then alternated back and forth. Sandy let out a little yip of pain every time the hairbrush came down, and gasped and whimpered as he paddled her, but she didn’t try to push him away with her hands and she didn’t tell him no.
Mickey figured she was doing some kind of internal penance, suffering for what she had been doing. Letting her own guilt provide the motivation for the pain and the humiliation of being spanked like a child with a hairbrush. He thought about making her keep count, to add some flavor, but by the time he did think of it, he was bringing the brush down for number eleven and it was too late.
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