The Education of Annalise

by Laetitia

  "You take a nap and I’ll clean up the breakfast mess...and Amanda...?

  "Yes?"

  "That’s an order!"

  "Yes sir!" she replied snappily.

  "That’s my girl!"

  * * * * *

  He let her sleep through most of the morning. He sat by her bed and read a little, but mostly he watched her sleep. He was tired too. This head-of-the-house proposition was a lot more complex than he had thought originally. He smiled. His friends had made it sound so easy...a fairly stern spanking to begin and a couple of short but strict reminders after that and presto!...a thoroughly rejuvenated relationship! He chuckled softly to himself. He really had thought it was as easy as "shouting orders and spanking her breathless" as Amanda had accused.

  He hadn’t been prepared for the distress he felt when he had to spank her. It was especially hard to spank her over and over again...knowing that her poor bottom was already raw. He had thought if he could just focus on his anger as he turned her over his knee...he would feel just fine about it. But he didn’t. He didn’t worry about that. He knew he was right. He truly believed the words he’d spoken to Amanda. She and their marriage were worth fighting for, but it wasn’t easy. He was shaken to discover how much they both meant to him now.

  He knew though he couldn’t tell how, that his relationship would be forever changed with Amanda. No longer could he afford to walk away when she behaved badly. He no longer had the luxury of not paying attention. He could no longer avoid confrontations. He knew he had come very close to losing the thing he held most dear, and he was determined to do whatever it took to cherish and protect his wife...no matter what it took.

  He also knew that he had an obligation to be calm and fair. He needed to be very sure he was spanking her for the right reasons...So far no problem with that! he thought. She could be so amazingly stubborn and unrepentantly bratty. He also admitted to himself that she was warmhearted and witty and passionate and irreverent...and he loved her more than even he could comprehend. He just knew the warm feeling that spread through him whenever he looked at her, and the tenderness he felt for her pain even as he was spanking her.

  Amanda opened her bright green eyes and smiled up at her husband. She had no idea he had been spending all this time just thinking of her. Sometimes she thought Darren didn’t know nor care if she was there. She’d been pretty oblivious about him too. She ran her hand over her still-hot bottom. Well, she certainly was aware of him now!

  "Hello sleepy-head!" Darren leaned over and kissed his wife tenderly. "It’s way past noon. You must’ve been really worn-out."

  "Well that’s one way to say it," she quipped. Amanda sat up, winced, sucked in some breath through clenched teeth, and finally got to her feet.

  Darren laughed. "You’re determined to be a saucy baggage right to the end aren’t you?"

  "Well yes, if it comes to that. It is after all my end we’re speaking about."

  "And a very nice end it is too!" Darren wrapped his arms around her, then dropped his hands to cup her bottom and give it a light squeeze.

  "Ouch! Damn it!" Amanda pushed him away...then her eyes got very large and she covered her mouth.

  This was one of those times when he had to be fair. "It’s alright Amanda.

  You’re not in trouble. I should have known you’d be very tender. It wasn’t well done of me." He took her in his arms again and kissed her lightly.

  "Forgive me?"

  "Perhaps," she said her eyes twinkling.

  "What does that mean...perhaps?"

  "Well, perhaps I’ll forgive you, if you’ll agree to forgive me instead of spanking me...what do you say?"

  SMACK! He swatted her hard.

  "Owwwch!"

  "I think you’d better toughen up Mrs. Stone. I don’t bargain with brats."

  "You have no heart!" Amanda stamped her foot in frustration.

  "You’re right. I don’t. I lost my heart to you the first time I saw you."

  Amanda felt tears well up in her eyes. He was so obviously sincere. She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him deeply savoring the closeness she felt with this very special man.

  "So are we through with training for a little while?" she asked breathlessly.

  "That’s entirely up to you, Amanda Marie," Darren looked down at her. He looked so serious, she knew he meant it. If she could just be good...there would be no more spankings. She was sure she could do it!

  "What would we do with the other two days...?" She looked up at him and tried to appear innocent.

  "I’m sure we could um...improvise." Darren nuzzled her neck below her right ear, because he knew it sent shivers all over her body. He was enjoying this tender moment, but he had no doubt that she’d be over his knee again sometime in the next two days...and many times more into the foreseeable future. He was a decidedly happy man!

  The latter part of summer was such a bore, all five women agreed. People had scattered to their country estates to wait out the "dog days" in relative comfort until the London season began in late October.

  "At least we have each other," Jessica Myrick opined as she half-heartedly plied her fan.

  "I couldn't agree more," Amanda Stone took a sip of cool lemonade. "If Annalise hadn't invited us here, Darren and I would've been stuck in our town house all summer. What a dreadful prospect that would have been."

  "Why would you have to stay in London?" Rebecca Powers asked. "Doesn't Darren have an estate around Chester? I hear it is very beautiful there."

  "Oh it is!" Amanda hastened to assure, "but it is so very far from London and Darren and Justin are working on some collaboration or other."

  "Well I hope this time it doesn't have anything to do with us," Kaitland Lindsey said with an aggrieved air. "If I could, I'd keep my Ben as far away from Justin as was humanly possible...no offense Annalise..."

  "None taken," Annalise replied, and meant it.

  The women fell silent as they each reviewed their own reasons for being past-annoyed at Justin Burke and his Family Plan for Domestic Tranquility. Five little bottoms tingled with remembered spankings...some fairly recent...and the women unconsciously squirmed in their seats and blushed...then they all burst out laughing.

  "Well, I mean really!" Kaitland persisted. "I was doing just fine, thank-you-very-much, in my domestic arrangements, before Justin shared his plan!"

  "Kaitland, be fair," Annalise felt obligated to come to her husband's defense even though her's was the most recently spanked bottom...at least she thought it was. "He would never have volunteered that information if Ben hadn't asked him...so evidently you weren't doing as well as you might have thought."

  "I have to agree with Annalise," Amanda chirped in. "I thought I was doing just fine too, only to find that after five years of marriage, Darren was beginning to hate the woman I was fast becoming. I won't pretend to like everything about this new plan," she smiled at her friends who smiled back with true empathy, "but I must say, Darren and I haven't been this close since we first married."

  "I for one, would like to go back to the way it was before!" Kaitland said.

  "Oh I'm sure you would if your screams from this morning are any indication of your husband's enthusiasm for the plan!" Jessica laughed. "I heard you clear down at the end of the hall. Lud Kaitland! Stuff a pillow in your mouth or something. That's what I do when Chris dusts my tail feathers."

  "No need to be crude, Jess," Amanda admonished. "I don't always think clearly myself in the heat of the moment...do you?"

  Jessica blushed and shook her head, remembering a whole other kind of "heat of the moment" last night. Their rooms were close by the west wing where Amanda and Darren were accommodated, and Jess could tell from Mandy's gentle reminder that her shouts of fulfillment probably were every bit as loud as Kaitland's spanking shrieks had been. "Sorry, Kait," she mumbled.

  "Think nothing of it!" Kaitland replied. "It's not like we aren't all fighting the same war."

  "War is a much too vi
gorous a word don't you think?" Rebecca asked.

  "No! And you wouldn't either if you had seen the high-handed way Ben treated me this morning..."

  "We heard," Annalise couldn't resist adding to Kait's discomfort.

  "Yes well... it was all caused because I took exception to Ben's stated intention of staying in London for who knows how long and leaving me here...in this bucolic backwater...no offense Annalise."

  "None taken."

  "Not that I don't adore all of you..."

  Murmurs of assent from all confirmed they understood the root of Kait's frustration.

  "But I am unenduringly bored!" She stood up in her frustration and began to stride around the cozy circles of lawn chairs under the dappled shade of an ancient oak.

  "Kait, I sympathize...we all do...we're all sans husband for awhile," Rebecca said softly, "but what did you accomplish by berating Ben. Are you less bored since he spanked you?"

  Kait's hand instinctively rubbed the curve of her bottom. "Truthfully, yes. At least I have the warm reminder of his hand on my bottom to keep me company while he's gone. Sometimes I think I sass him just to be provoking." Kait laughed. "At least while I'm across his knee I know he's not thinking of anyone or anything else!"

  The women all laughed so hard at that, they had to dab at tears with their delicate handkerchiefs, and stir the air with their elaborate fans.

  With their soft pastel summer-light dresses fluttering in the breeze, and their floating handkerchiefs and fans, the five ladies looked like an exotic aviary full of brightly plumed birds. Canfield, the ancient butler at Westmiden, let his mind toy with that fanciful image as he picked his way gingerly across the lawn.

  "The Times, madame," he bent low and held out silver salver on which the paper rested toward Annalise.

  She reached for the London newspaper eagerly. "Thank you Canfield. I appreciate you bringing it all the way out here." She smiled her gratitude.

  "No trouble at all, madame. I know how you ladies enjoy the news from town," he smiled patronizingly at them all....a breech of decorum only allowed in the most inveterate of retainers. "Can I bring you anything else?"

  "No nothing, thank you," Annalise was flipping past the news pages to get to the section which interested them most. They couldn't resist a daily column called Whispers which purported to examine the social foibles and fancies of the socially elite...in short...the ladies' nearest and dearest friends, present company excepted..

  "Lise! Hurry up! Who is she writing about today?" Kait returned to her seat and was leaning in so she could catch each word..

  "Caro Lamb!" Annalise whispered her name almost reverentially.

  "Oh my stars! What has she done now?" Becca managed to sound both shocked and intrigued.

  "Nothing yet, but listen to this:

  Lady Caroline Lamb, wife of William Lamb, Lord Melbourne, has shared with this writer her intention to host an end of summer garden party for a few of her closest friends at her husband's estate outside of London, two days hence.

  Unkind wags have implied that she has been sent to rusticate in the country by her irrate husband because of her outrageous behavior at their last soiree, where she had draped herself in a diaphanous scarf and not much else, and had instructed her servants to serve her on a large silver tray to Lord B****, who was said to have been less than impressed by the entire performance.

  Lady Lamb denies any truth to the rumors and is looking forward to a rest in the country with the small exception of this intimate party."

  "Oh Lise! We have to get invited! We just have to!" Kait was up and dancing around. "She's your near-neighbor. Send her a note!"

  "I don't know," Lise answered, but she was clearly tempted. "I don't think Justin would approve of us going to any social gathering that Caro Lamb was hosting. She is very much out of favor."

  "Which makes it doubly enticing," Jess jumped in. "Oh please Lise! Tell her you are plagued with a houseful of women whose husbands are in town. Tell her we are driving you to distraction trying to keep us entertained...that she would be saving your life if..."

  "Oh Jess! Spare me the purple prose!"

  "She's right though," Becca jumped in. "You would be telling the truth. We are bored, and we are driving you to distraction. Lise, this could be such fun!"

  "I don't want to be the one dissenting vote, but Lise's right," Amanda said.

  "What would our husbands say if they knew we were going to Caro Lamb's? I can't think they would approve. I'm fairly certain Darren would have an attack of apoplexy if he thought I was within a country mile of that woman. You should have heard the tirade I was subjected to when her latest indiscretion was revealed. 'I tell you Mandy,' says he, 'I've half a mind to call on Lord Melbourne and tell him about The Plan! That would make her march sharply.

  You mark my words!' I had a harrowing time trying to talk him out of it."

  Why did you even try?" Kait asked.

  "Because, a man like William Lamb who has already been publicly cuckolded by his wife and Lord Byron, isn't likely to have the interest or determination to try to take Caro in hand at this late date. No. It's better that Lord Melbourne not know...especially since he would then forever look at me strangely because he would know my husband spanks me. No thank you!"

  "You are all forgetting a small detail...our husbands will never know!" Kait announced with glee. "They'll still be in town!"

  "That's right! Lise please, please!" Jess pleaded.

  "You just want to go flirt with all the men and you think you can get away with it because Chris won't be there. I know you!" Lise said.

  "No Lise, I promise I'll be ever so circumspect! Truly!" Jess assured her.

  "We'll all make sure you are well behaved," Becca said. "The last thing we want to do is draw attention to ourselves."

  "What do you think, Mandy?" Lise turned to the oldest of the group.

  "Maybe if we just went for a short time," Mandy wavered. "Our husbands will never know...so where's the harm? But only for a short time. Agreed?"

  "Agreed!" they all answered with a whoop.

  Annalise Burke received a reply in the affirmative soon after she had sent Timmy, the stableboy, to the Lamb's estate with her carefully penned note requesting an invitation for herself and all her guests. Caro Lamb had sat down immediately and wrote back to her:

  My Dearest Annalise,

  Of course I would be delighted to entertain you and your friends at my small gathering. It will be very much of a small country assembly I fear.

  My darling Byron will not be in attendance. He has expressed his desire to go to Greece and throw his lot in with the freedom fighters there. Now what good a poet can do in a war is beyond me. Sometimes men can be so tiresome!

  Don't you agree?

  Please call on me after two in the afternoon of Thursday, August the 23rd.

  Sincerely,

  Lady Caroline Lamb

  "We've been invited!" Kaitland twirled and skipped around the front parlor with abandon, dangling the note she had rudely snatched form her friend's grasp.

  ""What should we wear?" Becca sounded so worried the others just laughed at her.

  "I have an idea!" Mandy said. "Why don't we take the carriage into the village and do some shopping. It's much more fun to shop when you have an occasion to attend, don't you think?"

  "It's just a small village," Annalise felt constrained to say, "but I'm sure we could find some small whimsies to purchase. Besides, it will help to pass the time."

  "I've already spent my allowance for this month," Becca admitted. "I probably shouldn't..."

  "Nonsense!" Kait said. "I'll lend you the money if you find anything you like.

  Jeff will never have to know!"

  "Oh you are a dear friend!" Becca said as she gave Kait a quick hug.

  "We women need to stick together!" Kait struck a militant pose and the women dissolved into peels of laughter.

  The afternoon did indeed pass quickly. All of the woman bought so
me little trifle, a hair comb, a Belgian lace fan, a Calais shawl. They were as excited as girls let out of the schoolroom, giggling and gushing over each other's purchases. People in the village smiled indulgently. They enjoyed watching the antics of the five young women. It was obvious that they were all very young...even Amanda, and they were so pretty and full of life.