But Honey, I Can Explain!

by April Hill

  Just to show that he's not a bully, or some sort of grim, humorless prude, I should point out that Will has a fabulous sense of humor, and when I'm not sprawled wriggling and squalling across his lap, he's the most loving, caring, gentle man I've ever known. He does indulge in the occasional glass of wine with dinner, and has a cheerful, robust, and apparently endless appetite for sex. Anywhere, at any hour of the day or night, and in just about every mode and position I've ever read, thought, or dreamed of. The all-round, perfect husband—most of the time.

  The unlikely love affair between Will and I began one summer morning when I was driving to work and had the bad luck to get broadsided by an eighteen-year-old drunk. The kid was arguing with his girlfriend on a cell phone and ran a stop sign. He walked away without a mark on him, whereas I ended up in the emergency room with a badly broken right wrist, a broken left toe, a cracked ankle bone, and a whole lot of aches, pains, and bruises. And a string of follow-up appointments with the orthopedic surgeon recommended by the hospital.

  This turned out to be a Dr. William Morgan. Six-feet-four, a lean, hard 190 pounds, sandy brown hair, smoke-gray eyes, etc., etc. and so forth. Not that I noticed his appearance, of course. After all, the man was my doctor. Besides, the sad truth was that this guy was so out of my league it didn't even cross my mind that we would ever have anything but a professional relationship. And since my insurance company routinely rejects any claim that doesn't involve dismemberment, gross disfigurement, or permanent vegetative states, I knew he'd probably end up suing me.

  It did not escape my notice, however, that the handsome Dr. Morgan wasn't wearing a wedding ring. My first orthopedic appointment went without complication. I went home with a clumsy, light blue plaster cast on my wrist and arm, and with my foot wrapped in tape, bandaged and encased in a gigantic boot-type air-cast. Dr. Morgan explained to me that the healing process would take six to eight weeks, maybe more, with the possibility of future foot surgery a distinct possibility if I wasn't extremely careful. Perhaps already suspecting that he was dealing with one of the least cooperative patients he would ever meet, Doctor Morgan sent me on my way with a lot of very precise directions about how to wear and how to care for my new casts. Don't lift anything heavy. Don't walk on the foot unless absolutely necessary; keep everything elevated and iced, blah, blah, blah. I listened politely, and began plotting how to get around all of the ridiculous and totally unnecessary restrictions. After all, I told myself, I'd always been a fast healer.

  After only three days off work, bored out of my mind and with my limbs entombed in the doctor's cumbersome devices, I'd had enough. On the afternoon of the fourth day, I decided to go to the movies. "Batman: The Dark Knight" had just opened to rave reviews. What was I supposed to do, miss a motion picture masterpiece? Just because I wasn't allowed to drive (even if I'd had a car) and because the nearest movie complex was three miles away? The theater was only four blocks from the bus stop. Surely, I could walk that far, right? Especially if I left the damned, oafish boot at home.

  The good news is that the movie was great. The bad news is that by the time I got out of the theater, my bandaged foot was swollen and throbbing. When I couldn't get a shoe on, I'd simply pulled a heavy sock over the whole mess, then stuffed the injured foot into an old house-slipper. Not too attractive, but serviceable. Now, the wrapping had come undone, and the foot felt like someone had run over it with a cement truck. I limped over to a brick wall and sat down, groaning. It was four long, hot blocks to the bus stop, and I had just under twenty minutes to make it there, lumbering along like one of the creatures from "Night of the Living Dead." With only two bucks in my wallet, I started scrounging around in the bottom of my purse. Maybe I could scrape up enough change to get a cab home. I was still counting, but about to lose hope, when a horn beeped just behind me. When I turned around to look, what to my wondering eyes should appear but a bright red Jeep Cherokee, bearing in its air-conditioned interior, Dr. William Morgan, M.D. Oddly, Dr. Morgan seemed somewhat displeased to see me out and about, which I could tell from his distinctly disapproving tone and the scowl on his otherwise remarkably handsome face.

  "What…What the hell are you doing?" he fumed. You know, I've never understood why people go around asking stuff like that. It was perfectly obvious what I was doing. I was flagrantly disobeying the good doctor's orders. I had a very good reason, of course, and I was preparing to explain about the "Dark Knight" and how fabulous it had been when the doctor leaned over, opened the passenger-side door, and gestured for me to get in.

  "Where do you live? I'll take you home."

  "I don’t need a ride, thanks," I chirped brightly, lying through my clenched teeth. "It's just a couple of blocks. Really."

  "I'll drive you," he repeated. "I told you not to put any weight on that foot for at least a week." I looked down at both my feet, as though I weren't sure which one he meant. "It feels fine. Really." "Get in the car." Since this sounded more like a direct order than a polite invitation, I hobbled over and climbed dutifully into the front seat. Actually, I was unbelievably relieved by the coincidence of his showing up. My wrist was aching, my bandaged foot was in agony, and the leg attached to it hurt all the way up to my crotch.

  "Do you live around here, Doctor?" I asked, trying to make idle conversation—and to change the subject. "Or are you with the Uncooperative Patient Police?"

  When he didn't smile, I should have known the drive home would not be a pleasant one. "Are you always such a pain-in-the-ass to your doctors?" he asked, finally.

  "I haven't had all that many, " I answered, truthfully. "I've always been a very healthy person, actually."

  "Oh, yeah? How long have you been a heavy smoker?"

  "And what makes you think I smoke?" I countered.

  He only chuckled. "Take a wild guess."

  "Is that a polite way of saying I smell?" I inquired huffily.

  "I didn’t think it was all that polite, actually. You need to stop—now. At your age, maybe it’s not too late."

  "Well, that's a cheerful thought. Thanks, Doc."

  "It's not my job to be cheerful. If you need help with stopping, I can recommend…"

  "I can stop any time I want to," I said. "I just don’t want to, right now. Anyway, I don’t need help."

  The doctor shook his head, obviously annoyed. "What you need is to have your backside paddled next time you light up. And every time you act like an idiot and ignore good medical advice. Do you think physicians enjoy seeing their work undone by stubbornness and plain, arrogant stupidity?"

  "Are you going to take me home, or just sit here and keep insulting me?" I inquired as snottily as I could manage. "You can make a left at the corner. My apartment building is a few miles down, on Orchard, just beyond the park."

  Dr. Morgan gave me a look that said volumes, but he slammed the car into gear and turned out of the parking lot. Five minutes later, he stopped in front of my apartment building, then got out and walked around to my side to open the door.

  "You didn’t need to do that," I protested icily. "I can get out by myself." When I tried to get out, though, I snagged the heel of my one sandal on the door rim and half-fell out of the damned car. Dr. Morgan caught me by my good arm before I hit the ground, but the arm got twisted a little, and hurt like blazes. I did my best not to yell from the pain, but I couldn’t help it. He slipped one arm around my waist to support me.

  "Can you make it up those stairs?" he asked, pointing to the three brick steps at the entrance to the building.

  "Of course, I can," I lied. "I came down them, didn’t I?" But I couldn't, of course. My foot was swollen up like a watermelon, now, and my entire arm was on fire. I couldn't remember ever feeling so awful—and so beaten up. And now, on top of everything else, I was feeling guilty and ungrateful. I didn’t want his help, though. What I wanted was for him to just go away and leave me lying there on the pavement like a beached whale, to die in peace. So, as I generally do in times of crisis, I began to bawl.


  And that's when Dr. Morgan simply picked me up in his arms and carried me up the steps, into the building, and down the hall to my apartment door, with me sniffling directions.

  "Get out your key," he ordered, which sort of forced me to admit that the door wasn't locked.

  The doctor looked around the grungy hallway, a locale I've often thought would make an excellent set for one of those late-night, low-budget gang movies on TV— about warring drug pushers, where even the hero is tattooed and bald and named Shank or Rocco. Evidently appalled by the relentless squalor of the little corner of Heaven I call home, Doctor Morgan shook his head in disgust and carried me inside, depositing me none too gently on my sagging couch. "I'm going out to the car for a minute," he said, walking back toward the door. "Wait exactly where you are and don’t move that leg. Do you understand?" I wiped my nose and nodded. A few minutes later, he was back, with a large brown leather case and a small cardboard box.

  "For now, I'll have to splint the foot," he explained. After removing the original bandage, he rewrapped my swollen ankle tightly in white gauze and slipped on a black neoprene brace. "When you come into the office tomorrow morning, I'll…"

  "I can't come tomorrow," I began. "I have to…."

  "I'll be here at 7:45 to pick you up. Be ready. And don't take this splint off again, even to shower. Put it in a plastic bag if you have to. Keep your foot elevated for the rest of the evening, and…" He paused long enough to pull a business card from his wallet and write something on the back of it. "Call me at home if the swelling gets worse." He rummaged around in the brown bag until he found a sample box of some sort of pills. "If the pain gets too bad, you can take one of these every four hours, but don’t take more than that." He winked. "If you're not wide awake and ready when I get here in the morning, you're going to get your butt spanked—hard. Got it?"

  I blushed. The man was kidding, right? After he left, I sat on the couch with my splinted foot up on one pillow and my arm on another and thought about what had happened. One part of me—the independent, "I don’t need anybody" part— was still annoyed by Dr. Morgan's overbearing manner. Another part of me, though, was already working on a pretty good crush. Even that little reference to his spanking me was kind of intriguing. He'd been joking, of course, but there was something in a deeply secret place inside me that found the idea oddly appealing.

  I don’t mean the spanking itself, since I've never been a real big fan of pain of any description. I'd never been spanked, and although I knew that there were women who enjoyed a bit of playful paddling, I had a gut feeling that what Dr. Morgan had in mind wouldn't be a whole lot of fun—for me, anyway. So, why wasn't I put off by the idea of a man taking down my pants and spanking my naked behind? Worse yet, why did it actually sound attractive to me, in some bewildering way?

  It took me a few hours, but I finally began to understand. After thirty-four years of "doing it my way" and one short-lived marriage to a world-class jerk, the idea of being taken firmly in hand and protected by a strong, determined man who loved and cared about me was…OK, very appealing. And if that meant being spanked occasionally, what the hell, right?

  That heart-warming little romantic fantasy lasted for about thirty minutes, until it came to me how stupid I was being. Love and care about me? Hell, this poor guy was probably simply trying to be nice. Doing his best to be a responsible doctor and a good Samaritan, if rather a tough- minded one. He had obviously seen me for the screw-up I was, and simply wanted to give me a shove in the right direction. Worse yet, maybe he was just being fatherly!!! Maybe he jokingly threatened all his uncooperative patients with being spanked. Maybe it was part of some calculated folksy bedside manner. Here I was harboring lustful (okay, totally obscene) thoughts about a man I hardly knew, and he was just being a kindly Dutch uncle. I ask you, now, could I have been any more pathetic?

  I spent what was left of a miserable evening trying to do the piled-up dishes in my sink with one hand and breaking half of them. Not that I gave a damn about my mismatched Salvation Army crockery, but I was finding being a one-handed, one-footed cripple beyond exasperating. I like to think of myself as a fairly talented freelance artist, but in those days, I made my meager living by painting faux finishes and tacky fake Regency furniture for a couple of demanding and decidedly snooty interior decorators. I knew there was no way I could keep my job with a humongous ski-boot on my foot and a heavy cast on my arm. It was only the wrist that was broken, I reasoned, not the whole arm, so why did the damned cast have to be so big, and so long? Without a moment's intelligent thought about what cross words might greet me when I walked into Dr. Morgan's office with a drastically altered cast on my wrist, I selected a curved Exacto blade from my work bench, slipped it into its steel handle, and started carving.

  * * *

  The next day, exactly as promised, Doctor Morgan showed up early at my front door—with a morning paper, coffee and bagels, and a cheerful "good morning." After hacking up my cast the night before, I'd been nervous enough about its appearance to try to conceal the butchery with an artfully wrapped Ace bandage. I was holding out the hope that my crime would escape detection, at least long enough to come up with a good explanation. Like that was possible.

  We chatted amiably over coffee and on the ride to his office. Then, after only a few, mildly testy remarks about my unauthorized theater outing the previous day, he checked my foot, rewrapped it tightly in gauze and tape, and even found me a slightly less restrictive "boot" to wear. The man was a charmer, all right.

  "This is a short day for me," he said, when he'd finally finished. "I've got two more patients to see, but if you'll go out in the waiting room and read a magazine for about an hour, I'll drive you home. I'll even take you to lunch, first, if you'd like."

  Terrific! Things were definitely looking up in the "Cinderella Fantasy Come True" department. Still, I've always been a big believer in putting my cards on the table and knowing the score, so I decided to blurt out the one, slightly awkward question that was nagging at me. "So, uh, I'm not sure what to think. Is this lunch thing like a medical appointment, or, well, like a… A date?"

  He thought for a moment. "More like a medical date?" he suggested, smiling. "After lunch, I thought we could go back to your place—or mine, and get to know one another a little better."

  "And maybe play doctor?" I quipped. I was trying very hard to be cute and coquettish, but cute and coquettish aren't things I do real well, and to my ear, I sounded even stupider than I usually do.

  He grinned. "You never can tell. Should I bring along a hospital gown for you, just in case?"

  The problem with all this flirtatious silliness was that it was having the effect of putting the good doctor and I on a much more familiar footing, and that familiarity was about to lead to a fairly painful few moments. For me, anyway.

  "Now," he said cheerfully. "Let's have a look at that wrist."

  Shit! He removed the Ace bandage and sat there for a moment, studying the remains of my redacted cast.

  "What? You didn't like the color?"

  "It's just that I couldn't do anything with it," I said quickly. "I thought if I made it just a teeny-weeny bit shorter, you know? Well, anyway, I'm sure you've heard that old joke about shortening the legs on a table? The thing is, I kept trying to make it even all the way around, and before I knew it…"

  He finished the sentence for me. "You'd made it into a bracelet." I gave a nervous little laugh, but Dr. Morgan wasn't smiling, even at his own joke.

  At that moment, his nurse, Debbie, came back in. She looked down at my wrecked cast, obviously puzzled. "What on earth happened?" she cried. "I've never had one do that before. Come apart like that."

  "You don't understand, Deb," he explained affably. "Miss Johnson did this, herself. With an Exacto knife. Would you mind going across the hall and getting the materials for a new cast?" He smiled at me. "Light blue, again?"

  I nodded miserably. "Light blue will be fine, thank you." The mo
ment Debbie left the room and closed the door behind her, the pleasant mood in the examining room changed abruptly, and before I knew what was happening, the good doctor had my skirt up and the upper portions of me bent firmly across his hip. The spanking that followed was lightning fast, hard, and hurt a hell of a lot worse than I had expected—not at all like my fantasy. I had managed to come this far in life without ever being "physically corrected," and my first reaction to my first totally unexpected and humiliating spanking was shock and disbelief. How could a simple, human hand cause so much intense pain? And so much heat! In such a short time? And to an area I'd never thought of as being particularly sensitive? Anyway, when the first stinging blows began to land (with an amazingly loud thwacking sound,) I emitted one sharp yelp of surprise and a quick string of very audible "ow-ow-ow's." A second later, belatedly remembering where I was, I stuck my fist in my mouth and made a valiant effort to lower the volume.

  Doctor Morgan, on the other hand, seemed totally unconcerned about either my privacy or about blowing his image as a gentle healer. It all happened with astonishing speed, and by the time Debbie opened the door again and re-entered the room carrying a plastic bin of cast-makings, he had set me back on my feet. My nose and eyes were red and swollen, and my rear end was on fire, but my clothing had been restored to its previous condition, more or less.