The Well Worn Path

While it’s safe to say we all enjoy taking the road less traveled and venturing into the woods there are times when the well-worn path is a necessary detour.

Watching

He loved watching her doze on the couch-in front of the TV

Or on the recliner across the room with a book in her lap.

She worked hard, he knew. Sleep would overtake her before she was quite ready.

Or maybe she was ready-maybe she liked it this way

Surrendering to fatigue in the living room.

Her head would loll to one side or the other and the dark bangs she twitched at incessantly would be free to cascade over her cheek.

 

He would allow his gaze to stroke her face

Her cheekbones-high and handsome

The tiny nose with the little bump on the bridge that he didn’t quite understand.

She could have that fixed-but it did impart character

True beauty was not sterile perfection: bumps and tweaks were fine.

Her lips-slack and slightly parted

Past the tiny dip between her collarbones

To the gentle rise of her breasts.

 

Watching her doze like this-in the light of the front room was almost better

than watching her sleep in bed-

Where in the dim glow of the clock he could trace the outlines of

Her hips

Her legs

Her shoulders

Of course, she undressed in the bedroom.

 

He could not believe that he had found her-

That she was his and his alone after such a long and lonely journey.

At times like this he considered himself the luckiest man alive.

 

He heard a door open across the street and pulled away from the window.

He easily slipped deeper behind the hedge and moved toward the back of the house.

It was a dark night-especially in the back.

He could spare some time to wait at the bedroom window.

Hopefully she’d be wearing the green pajamas.

 

Candy’s Betrayal

“I think we have to call a meeting over this”, said Tina.

“Really?” Tommy asked. “You think so?”

They were sitting at the end of the dimly lit bar as the staff worked on prepping the place for the afternoon open. On paper, Tina owned the place as majority shareholder but Tommy was a major partner as was his wife Candy. She had finally bought into The Club a year ago when she was having concerns about Tommy spending so much time there. She knew it was the job and long hours were part of the business but she was concerned about the hours he was putting in with Tina. Those concerns were assuaged after a year of working together but she was still prone to unwarranted fits of pique when she felt his attentions were too focused on Tina or The Club and not enough on her.

Tommy’s job as manager was all encompassing. Everything from counting the till from the night before and readying the deposits to maintaining inventory to hiring, firing and maintaining staff. Tina had years ago set the job descriptions and defined the…unique strictures of the job.

“Look Tommy. Three times in the last two weeks your counts have been off. Deposit slips were wrong and the start-up register was off. The deposit slips, I fixed-no biggie-but Sherri was with me when I discovered the one from the other night. And Denise had the shorted register each time. “

Tommy rubbed his cheek, embarrassed. “I know…I don’t know…You know how I count and recount. My numbers are always what they should be….”

“Usually, yes…but”, she lowered her voice even though there wasn’t anybody near, “What about the wine bottle?”

He pulled uncomfortably at his ear. This wasn’t an interrogation per se, but he definitely wasn’t used to having to answer for his mistakes. He made them, sure but he typically caught and corrected them. Did he drink here during the day and at night? Sure-what was the use of owning a bar if he couldn’t. The staff couldn’t though-at least to any great extent-or they could be the subject of a meeting. Which is why he was discreet. Leaving an empty wine bottle and glass on the bar had been sloppy and frankly, he didn’t even remember doing it. That was last Friday-it had been a bad night.

“Amanda found the bottle and was ditching it when I saw it. She thought she was covering for Denise but they put two and two together and knew it was yours. So there-you have three different girls catching your mistakes-so you know the whole staff knows about it.” Tommy spun on the stool away from her. “What do we do? You’ve put me in a tough position.”

Tommy had never been called to a meeting. As manager, of course, he had called his share of meetings to keep the well-paid staff, some who had worked into partnership arrangements, in line but had never been on the hot seat himself. But he wasn’t exempted from the process.

“Look,” he spun back to face her. “Couldn’t we just work this out between us-up in your office?”

“And how would that look? Four clear offences that the whole staff know about-any one of which would have them bent over the pool table…”

“Not automatically”, he interrupted.

“No, not automatically, but you get the drift. It already looks like preferential treatment. Then for me to deal with you in private-and everyone would end up finding out-and Candy would know that I had you up in the office….That would be a can of worms.”

Yes it would be. Transparency was one of the major guiding principles of The Club. Everybody who came aboard knew the rules, knew what was allowed and not, knew what they could get away with and not and knew the possible penalty.

Tommy sighed, “Let’s call a meeting.”

“You’ll probably have the votes anyway” She patted his hand. “At least I hope so.”

They sat at the big round table at the far end of the bar. Tina, Tommy, Candy and the ten staff on duty today. Apart from Derek, the twenty year old they had brought on board a few months ago, and Tommy, everyone around the table were women. That the staff was 99% female-coupled with her majority ownership-were the reasons typically given that it was Tina who meted out the punishments.

As she explained the case against Tommy-it wasn’t really a trial but sounded like one-he looked around the table trying to judge who would be with him. Amanda mid-20’s cute, long legged, the one who had found the bottle. When he caught her eye she pulled an exaggerated frown, mouthing “I’m sorry….” He shrugged that it was OK, not her fault. She was one of those girls who would never get called to a meeting. She had seen Denise come out on the wrong end of one in her first week on the job and decided she was going to do everything she could to avoid the public paddling. Her guilt would push her vote his way.

The girls here fell into three general categories. First there were those like Amanda or his wife: avoid at all costs. Candy had turned down job offer after job offer here for almost a year, so petrified was she of the possibility. At the other end of the spectrum were the girls like and Deborah-not Debbie-whose mistakes and missteps seemed too numerous to actually be chance. The majority of the staff though, accepted the situation and just did what they did. They blithely assumed they wouldn’t ever do anything to bring on any penalty-or be caught- but if it happened, it happened. Tommy never thought about it. Never thought he would be in a position where he would have to think about it.

Candy wasn’t working today but he had called and asked her to come in. She seemed upset that he was being called to a meeting and of course she would come in to provide her support. And her vote. She sat across the table from him next to Tina.

So he counted in his head-he had Candy, Amanda…who knew about Deborah, probably a no. Anyone who liked getting paddled as much as she apparently did surely liked to watch others get it. Derek would vote for him, he was sure. He thought he could count on Denise-but she was the most senior person in the room and kept her own counsel. Tina would only vote in case of a tie.  There wasn’t anyone on the team that he didn’t like and that didn’t like him. He was betting most of the younger girls would follow Candy’s lead. He was thinking 8-3 for him. At worst 7-4. In either case, he was off the hook with an apology and a promise to the team to do better.

He was so caught up in vote counting he didn’t notice that Tina had gone quiet and everyone was looking at him. “Well Tommy, stand up and face the wall please. We have a vote to take.” The voting was anonymous only to the accused. He stood and faced away from the table. “Alright”, Tina said. “We’ve heard all there is to hear-unless someone has anything to add. Nothing? OK. So we vote. All who vote yes, that I paddle Tommy for what we’ve been speaking about raise their hand.” For a moment nobody moved. Nobody in the room had actually ever voted on stripping the pants off of anyone with their spouse in the room which brought an awkward dynamic to the vote. Even Deborah kept her hands flat on the table.

Then, without warning, but with a small wicked smile, Candy’s hand shot up. If questioned about it she would really have no answer about why she was doing what she was doing apart from the aforementioned “job jealousy.” Perhaps, she thought on some level, if he felt less comfortable in his position, less like the big boss and more like an employee, she would get more of him than she did. Maybe that was it. But whatever it was, she was sitting there with her hand up.

Tina leaned away from her eyes wide and mouth open. “You are so bad!” she mouthed silently. The young girls looked at each other grinning and as Tommy foretold threw up their hands in a solid voting block with his wife. Deborah next. Denise, shaking her head with a grin, followed suit. In a moment everyone around the table save Derek had a hand in the air. Finally, he too-withering under twelve sets of eyes-slowly raised his hand.

“Alright”, said Tina, for show “Who votes NO, that Tommy gets off with a warning.” All the hands came down. “Ok then.” Tommy almost turned around then to return to his seat at the table. “Tommy, head on over to the pool table. Denise, get the paddle.”

“Really?” said Tommy not turning around.

“Looks like it.”

His stomach flipped and fell at her words. He never expected this. Sure, anything could happen with a vote-that was why they were to be avoided. Petty jealousies could work themselves out, long forgotten grudges could be brought into play. He had thought of that, but not really. The idea that a group would stand against him and his wife was appalling. And he could never know who-because all votes had to stay secret.

His heart pounded on the short walk to the pool table and his legs actually wobbled. What to do? He could refuse-he was a partner after all and couldn’t be fired-but that would change the dynamic of the place so much….he had to find out from Candy what had happened here. Secret vote be damned-that was his rule for God’s sake!

Behind him chairs scraped as people moved into a better viewing position. She heard Tina say “Thank you”, no doubt taking the paddle from Denise. It was a nasty bit of business, solid oak thick enough to look heavy but lightened by the three holes drilled down the middle. “Get on with it Tommy”, came Tina’s voice. He was glad that his back was to the audience so they couldn’t see his hands shaking as he unbuckled his belt and unsnapped his jeans which fell to the floor. He felt a tiny trickle of sweat form between his shoulder blades.

Oh, Lord, thought Candy keeping her hands under the table so no one could see that they too were shaking. He’s wearing the black briefs that she had bought him. The briefs that cupped his rounded butt so sweetly. With club soccer twice a week and an irregular diet, Tommy was in great shape and his bottom still had a high round look to it. “Ahem”, Tina cleared her throat behind him and someone giggled nervously.

Truth is, Tina would have liked to reach out and pull his underwear down. She would have done it slowly, revealing his firm pale cheeks one inch at a time. She was the only woman in the room besides Candy who knew what a prime ass Tommy had. She knew the firmness of it; knew what it felt like to have a handful of each cheek. It was a bottom that deserved to be unveiled slowly.  As it was though, he put his thumbs in the waist band of his briefs and pushed them down where they joined his pants in the pile on the floor.

This was the time in most punishments where eyes were averted to spare as much embarrassment to the subject as possible. Today though, largely because of her exaggerated, comic pantomime with Tina at the vote, no one was looking away. This had become a fun diversion.

Candy breathed quickly to settle the flapping in her chest. She looked at her husband’s bare butt and was mortified in a way she couldn’t explain. She was joining a room of friends and associates gazing at something that, until this moment had been a secret to her. The tiny strawberry birthmark that looked like Lake Ontario on his right hip, that tiny scar at the top of his left thigh right below his cheek from a childhood fall were out there on display for all to see. Now-Oh God!-as he bent over to put his hands and elbows on the table his cheeks widened a bit revealing even more. And Tina was RIGHT THERE-standing right behind him with the paddle-taking it all in. Obviously Candy hadn’t thought this through well enough.

Tina patted his bottom with the paddle causing him to flinch. Who giggled at that? There was no time to think about it as the cool wood was gone then at the last second he heard a movement that was Tina swinging hard. The first swat landed cleanly and completely on his right cheek with a loud crack and a burn like a hot coal. He gulped and gritted his teeth not quite ready when the second landed in the same spot. Christ, that hurt! He tried to steel himself but again was not quite ready when the next searing smack hit him solidly on the left cheek. He grunted to himself…OW! Shit, shit…that hurt-ouch ouch! He was hoping to stand stoically and silently through this thing but he didn’t know if he could-

He couldn’t. The fifth and sixth swats landed in quick succession on the bottom of his bottom with a force that seemed to want to drive him over the table. He gasped loudly on the seventh and his right knee buckled on the eighth. “Come on Tommy-stay still” came Tina’s voice. He was grateful for the pause that the short scolding afforded. Sweat tickled his scalp. “I’m trying”, he said breathing heavily.

From behind, the fair skin of his bottom had taken on an angry pink hue with dapples of red at the contact points. Candy jumped around the tenth swat when Tommy finally yelped a loud “OUCH!” He began to struggle and move at each successive swat-up onto his toes-slapping the table with his hand-breaking one knee then the next-“OWW!” again.

Denise, sitting beside Candy, patted her on the thigh as if to say, it will be over soon. Be strong. What she didn’t know, what nobody else in the room knew, was that Candy had orchestrated this whole day. It had been Candy who had fiddled with the cash drawers and balances knowing that it would come back on Tommy. She had placed the empty wine bottle-his favorite!-where it would be found. If Tina had ignored all his apparent transgressions Candy would know that her suspicions were sound and there was something between them.

Tommy was up on his hands now-off of his elbows-and thrusting his bottom back toward the audience in a way that would have appeared lewd were he trying to do anything other than simply relieve the burning pain in his seat. What had been pink was now red and what had been red was now purple as he cried out loudly and freely with ever smack.

These things had their own momentum. People started to shift in their seats and look away. The punishment felt over. That was enough.

Tina stepped closer to him and put the paddle on the table. “That’s it Tommy. We’re done.” Candy watched him relax and to her horror watched Tina actually reach out and pat his tortured bum! First the right cheek where the colors were the darkest then the left. But wait-she had done that before-with the girls. A calming almost motherly pat after the punishment. Nothing strange there-it just felt wrong being her husband and all.

“Straighten up and stand here for a while”, Tina told him. “Take a breather”.

This was their version of after-punishment corner time. The punished was to stand there with their bruised bum out of all to see-if they cared to look at it anymore. Most folk just went back to work while the subject was allowed to recover, stop crying, rub their bottom, regain normal breathing….whatever. As long as they did it half-naked.

Candy approached Tommy and stood close to him. “I’m sorry”, she said.

“Wasn’t your fault…”

“You okay?”

“She really beat my ass. I mean really-“

“You want me to rub it?”

“No!”

She looked up at him. His eyes were full but he hadn’t cried. At least not yet-those tears were going to have to go someplace.

“You should rub it then…it will feel better.”

“I’m not giving them the satisfaction.”

She looked around at the empty bar. “Nobody’s looking…” She reached out and touched his bum just as Tina had, amazed at the heat coming off it. She rubbed lightly in a circle, one cheek then the other. “Doesn’t that feel better?”

He sighed softly and closed his eyes. The puddled tears squeezed out then and ran down his cheeks. “Yes, it does. Thanks.”

She stepped against him and looked down at his front as she rubbed. Oh yes, he was feeling better. By the reaction up front he was feeling quite good, hot bottom or not. She stood on tiptoes to kiss him on the cheek. “I’m going to run. Make a bank deposit for Tina on the way home.”

“Sure”, he smirked. “Enjoy your day off.”

“Come home early if you can. I’ll take care of your poor bottom. And the other thing.” As she was walking out the door she heard Denise call to Tommy that Tina said he could get dressed and get back to work.

A few minutes later Tommy took the stairs up to Tina’s office finding her behind the desk working on tax forms. He closed the door behind him.

“Jesus, Tina. You really went to town on me.”

“Yes, that was a good one…” she agreed taking off her glasses.

“Did you have to do it that hard?”

“Had to make it look convincing right? What would it look like to your wife if I was easy on you? You don’t want her to be suspicious do you?”

“Yeah, but…”

She pulled an exaggerated sad-face and came back with a baby voice’ “Awww, did I hurt your bum?”

“Come on Tina, cut it out….” She was up moving from behind the desk.

“Do you want Tina to kiss it and make it all better….?”

Before he could protest too much she pulled him tight to her by his belt and undid the buckle. He could have fought her off had he cared to but was fine with letting her spin him around, yank down his pants  and for the second time this afternoon bend him over. “Nice panties”, she teased as she pulled them down and off. There were places on his bottom that were still numb from the paddling and didn’t feel the soft kisses and tender bites that Tina put on them. “God, I love your ass”, she growled as she spread his cheeks, one hand on each and worked her tongue into the middle. Flat on her desk, he moaned as much because it felt good as to let her know that it felt good. He trust himself backward as he had done earlier.

“Oh no, you don’t…” she said fumbling with her own pants. “This one is mine…”

He heard a rustle behind him as her pants fell to the floor. She reached around him to grab the handle that had presented itself and turned him around. They kissed deeply, intimately and very familiarly as she dragged him to the couch by his cock. She flopped down and whipped off her killer black panties and kicked them across the room laying spread wide and waiting. He positioned himself above her on his knees and an arm before dropping deliberately and sheathing himself wetly to the hilt in one long thrust. She cupped his cheeks in her hands…”I love this ass,” she gasped as he trust again.

In line at the bank Candy still couldn’t stop thinking about her betrayal of Tommy. She had to think of a way to make it up to him….

Faerie Keyhole

I, almost literally, stumbled across this faerie keyhole along an (not The) Appalachian trail last weekend. My gram used to tell me that these were portals that faeries, nymphs and other extra-worldly beings used to slip between realities. I’m still looking for one my size.

Sherri’s Punishment (Part Two)

Continued from Sherri’s Punishment (Part One)

As promised, they didn’t have long to wait. They heard the truck pull into the driveways and both of their heads turned toward the sound like cats hearing their people coming home. They kept the attentive pose as the truck door slammed, then the kitchen door opened. Cassie dropped her eyes to the floor and Sherri came back to attention as Ron strode into his office.

“Hello, ladies”, he said brightly.

“Hi Honey,” came from the corner and “Hi Ron” from Cassie.

“Glad you could make it over Cass, but I’m surprised to see you there in the chair. There are two more corners here you could have grabbed.”

Cassie spoke quickly, her voice rising a little, “You never told me to stand in the corner. I didn’t know…..”

“That’s OK”, Ron said, fiddling with the computer on his desk. The room was full of hardware befitting a man who made a living in high-tech security. “I wasn’t specific. We did want to see how you’d react though, seeing Sherri like this…”

“We?…Sherri, were you in..”

“No, no, not your partner in crime…”

Cassie was distracted as Ron went to the closet and brought out a thick wooden hairbrush. It was round and solid and Cassie couldn’t help thinking what how much of her friend’s butt this would cover in a single smack. Her eyes even darted to Sherri’s small, tight bottom as Ron walked over to his wife with the brush. “Remember this honey?” She turned to look then snapped her head back into the corner. “Yes I do”, she said.

“She remembers, alright”, he was addressing Cassie now. “I only used it on her the one time-when she missed a car payment then lied about it. That was 10 swats on the bare butt and it had hurt so much she begged me to only use it for the worst offences. Right honey?” There was no comment from the corner.

“My first thought, leaving here this morning, was that I’d get home and give my little drunk driver a hundred swats with this.” At the number, Sherri’s knees almost buckled and she gasped. “Oh yeah” said Ron hearing her reaction. “One hundred swats with this baby would really make an impression, wouldn’t it?”

“Please, Ron…” she pleaded feeling sick to her stomach.

Watching her friend cower in the corner, Cassie suddenly wished she was anywhere else. What was about to happen in this room was between them and she shouldn’t be seeing it. She said nothing though, sitting rod straight, supremely attentive to what Ron was doing at the desk. Then to the flicker of a large screen mounted on the wall at the end of the couch visible from anywhere in the room. The screen came alive with a storm of static and snowy buzz then, after a few tones, her husband Chet appeared from his office in Germany.

“Evening, Cap”, said Ron.

“Hi Gang…” Chet came back.

Cassie flopped back in the chair. She and Chet Skyped at least once a week so she was familiar with the technology and process but nothing she had at home matched the equipment they were using now.

“So, as I was saying”, Ron went on, “I needed this punishment to be very memorable, so I was stuck on this hundred number. That would be an impressive number wouldn’t it Sher?” There was no comment from the corner so Ron went on to explain how he had thought to keep the number but maybe split it up between the two miscreants. Fifty apiece.

Cassie caught up with his train of thought. “You think you’re gonna paddle me with that thing?”

“Yes I am…”

“No way Buster.”

“Cassie”, said Chet calmly from the TV on the wall. “I’ve heard things about you for the last year-not from Ron either-I was hearing things while we were both over here. About your drinking, your carousing…”

“Who are you talking to? Who’s telling you….”

Chet’s message was simple. He, and Ron, had friends in law enforcement all through the city and county. And in six months he will have put in his time and will be joining Ron in his security company that will put them in a very different tax bracket. But the job requires some discretion and could easily be scuttled by a couple of wives acting like wayward teenagers. “So we decided to nip this in the bud, so to speak, right now.”

“What if I don’t? What if I walk out now and just say no?”

“Then you better keep walking”, Chet told her. “Because you won’t want to deal with me when I get back.”

“And”, Ron pointed out with a nod to the corner, “Your girlfriend Sherri there will go back to taking the hundred swats herself.” Cassie actually saw Sherri’s butt cheeks clench at the thought. “So you go ahead Cassie-decide what you are going to do. Deal with the consequences of your actions or run out on your friend. Up to you.”

Ron sat in the middle of the couch and turned his attention back to his wife. “Come on Sherri,” he said. That whole “woman-power-strong-in-her-nudity-thing” was gone as Sherri padded across the floor toward her husband. She didn’t expect an audience for this and was wondering how strong she could be, how much she could take before blubbering like a little girl and begging him to stop.

Standing beside her seated husband she knew there was no modest or demure way to lower herself over his lap. She was pretty sure the camera was behind her to give Chet the best view of the proceedings so she could feel his eyes watching her butt fill his screen like a harvest moon. Worse, with one foot still on the floor and a knee on the couch as she bent forward onto her hands, she felt her labia expose itself to all who wanted to see. Sherri couldn’t know, of course, but Cassie turned away at that, feeling that some privacy was called for.

In a moment Sherri was settled across her husband’s lap. She stretched her legs out behind her and pulled a couch pillow under her head. Ron leaned over and laid the paddle on the floor within his wife’s reach. “I’m going to start with my hand-just to warm her up a little.”

“Your house, your rules”, Chet said from Germany.

With a little pat that made Sherri jump, he started spanking her. These were slaps more than anything, cracks with his fingers that stung but didn’t really hurt-yet. Sherri lay still as the smacks got harder and spread out across both cheeks. After a dozen or so they were hard enough to cause her to wiggle a little on impact. “OK,” said Ron, rubbing her bottom. “Enough of that. Give me the brush, Sherri.” That was a trick of his-make her give it to him.

She reached down and picked it up feeling the weight. She handed it back.

“Thank you” he said. Then he placed his left hand on her back as if to hold her down and raised the paddle. He brought it down with a loud WHACK on her right cheek. The impact caused her jump forward and Cassie to jump simultaneously up out of the chair. A second swat followed to the same spot and a third slammed into her left cheek. She was holding tightly to the cushion burying her face in the rough pile.

Cassie had settled back into the chair but held tightly onto the arms seemingly lifting herself up with every swat. Chet watched from Germany, riveted to his computer screen. He and Ron had spent too many hours together for him not to know what went on in their marriage. To hear about it was one thing. But to see this hot, sexy, smart woman displayed in front of like this getting paddled was something else again. He tried to stay as detached as he could but having watched Sherri at the pool for years, his eyes discreetly roaming over her backside, made detachment tough. Tougher still when Sherri let out a loud yelp after the fifteenth swat.

She had held out as long as she could. Her first yelp was followed by a loud “OUCH” and then, after two quick swats at the bottom of each cheek, a loud “OW-OW-OW-OW” as she lifted herself onto her elbows. “Easy”, said Ron, pushing her back down. Her back was slick with a thin sheen of sweat. “Stay still…”

“I’m trying”, she said quivering. “I am…”

He looked for spots on her bum that were relatively unscathed but the real estate that wasn’t deep red and maroon was shrinking. He lifted the brush and brought it down dead center creating an echoing sound in the valley between the purple mountains. The next landed in the same place etching two parallel lines on either side of her slender seam. These were the swats that broke her. The standalone yells and cries coalesced into a long winded wail as she kicked her legs back, up and down, and bawled into the pillow.

Ron pressed his hand onto the small of her back and smacked the paddle hard when her butt lifted in response. “BAAAWWWWW,” she cried uncontrollably. “I can’t take it-it hurts soooo bad….PLEASE RONNIE. PLEASE…!” In answer he swatted her high on the left cheek and she screamed, throwing her right foot onto the floor. She knew better than to try to get up-she was just digging her foot into the carpet…to give the pain a different place to go. Ron used the angle to swat her right haunch and she cried out and kicked wider. He sat back and gave her a moment to calm down. Everything she tried to conceal when she lay over his lap was now on display as her legs were splayed as widely as possible. Her body shuddered with sobs. He moved the paddle into his left hand and patted her tortured bum.

“Question for you,” he said.

“What?” she blubbered with a sniffle.

“Any more drinking and driving?”

“Oh God no. Never….Please. I promise. Never!!”

“Very good. How many swats was that? Was anyone counting?”

“Thirty four,” squeeked Cassie, forgotten on the chair. Tears had streaked down her face as she watched the paddling.

“There you go. Cassie’s watching out for you. Only 16 more.” This brought another torrent of tears from Sherri as she begged to be finished. Ron listened and waited, then reached over to grab the right thigh and pull her leg back up onto the couch. Her butt glowed angrily. “I’ll tell you what. If you lay here-with your legs together and behave, I’ll give you six more and we’ll call it finished at forty.”

“OK, OK…I’ll be good…” she crossed her ankles and gripped the pillow tightly but left her bottom slack. The swats came quickly and she cried and yelped but didn’t kick. In truth, Ron laid off on these swats-they were more wrist flicks than the full arm blows she had already absorbed. At the last swat-which was the lightest of all-Sherri went entirely limp; the only movement coming from the waning sobs that were now open to the room as she turned her head and lay it on the damp pillow.

“Nice job, Sherri. You’re done…Or you might be. It depends on Cassie now. How about it Cass? Are you going to take your medicine now-and it will only be forty swats-or does Sherri have to pick up your share as well?”

The room was silent but for Sherri’s snuffling. The few tears that had worked their way down Cassie’s cheeks were now flowing freely. “I don’t want to do this….Chet? Please. Do I have to?”

Ron answered for his friend. “You’re a grown woman-even if you don’t act like it. You don’t have to do anything. But I’m giving forty more swats out right now and I got a candidate here if you’re not ready.”

Sherri’s relief in being finished now turned to icy fear of starting all over again. Sherri lifted up on her arms to see Cassie. Cassie looked at her friend’s tear-stained and mottled face. “Please Cassie”, she pleaded. “Please….”

Chet looked like he was ready to jump through the screen and take matters into his own hands when Cassie finally said, “I’ll do it.”

“There you go Sherri! Done and done. Go ahead a get up.”

His wife got off of his lap slowly. She didn’t straighten all the way up but stayed bent at the knees and waist to better pat her very sore bottom. The skin felt tight and dry enough to crack. Without waiting to be told she shuffled off to the corner and straightened just enough to get close to the walls. “Get undressed Cassie”, she heard Chet say behind her. She would be happy with her view in the corner facing the walls.

Sherri’s Punishment (Part One)

She stood at the sink rubbing her temple and looking at the car parked in the driveway. More correctly, two tires-the driver’s side-were in the driveway. The other two tires were in the grass having gashed a deep rut in the newly laid sod and crushed two dahlias for good measure. She remembered pulling into the driveway and thinking she was close to the edging. Why hadn’t she looked once she got out? At least straightened it out. Sure the deep tread mark would still be there but she might have passed it off as a minor mistake-a little distraction-instead of the testament that it was.

He was up early getting ready to head out of town for a morning of trout fishing so there was no doubt that he had seen the car while she was still asleep. His truck was beside her car in the driveway-she knew with all his gear in place. She heard him coming up the steps behind her.

“So, you’re up?”

Tried a smile. “Not sure, yet.”

“Didn’t figure to see you this morning, what with the snoring, the bedroom smelling like Tijuana…If you don’t know, you got in around three.”

OK-that answered that question.

“Who were you with?”

“Just Cassie and I-to begin.” That was a good thing. Cassie was a friend of which he approved. He and Cassie’s husband had been in the Army together and the four of them spent a lot of time together when they were all stateside. For now, Cassie was solo as Chet was in Germany. Her soldier was out-working happily in civilian security. “We went down to The Aces” she continued “……then she ran into some people she knew from work, then we moved to Five Star…then to the Legion, I think…or someplace before that”

“You driving all these places?”

“No! Cassie was….”

“Was that any better?”

“I left my car at The Aces…” she continued, “Then, when we got back there…”

…You drove home.”

“I didn’t think I was that drunk.”

“But you don’t remember how many you went to-I know you don’t know how many you had….and I bet you hardly remember the drive home.” Her stomach tumbled a little. There was nothing to explain-he had her dead-to-rights. “OK, look. I have to meet some guys on the stream in an hour-so I gotta run. But let’s be straight-You left here last night to have a good time, which was fine. But the one thing we know-the one thing you knew that you couldn’t do was drive after you started drinking. That was the one thing forbidden to you, right? No matter what you do-that’s the one thing out of bounds. You knew that, right? We had agreed on that.”

“Yes.”

“You had an extra $50 that I gave you for cab fare. You still have it?”

“Yes”.

“So knowing that you were prohibited from doing it-knowing that you had the money so you didn’t have to do it-neither of these things mattered to you when it came down to it, did they?”

“But it was so late…Cabs are ridiculous…” She stopped herself. “No”, her head hung low and her voice was small.

“So I have to make sure that the next time you put yourself in that situation, that you do the right thing, right?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. Here is what I need you to do…”

She listened looking at his shoes. She was on her own until 10 a.m. She should eat, maybe take a walk, clear her head, then shower. At 10:00 he wanted her in the corner. She knew the one-in his office, just off the first floor living room. Her back to his desk and the window behind. She was to stay in the corner for 20 minutes. He suggested she think about what she had done the night before.

Then at 11:00 she was to get back into the corner, but this time to take her pants and underwear down. She should again, use the time to reflect on the last evening and to consider the many points where she might have made a better choice.

“I’m supposed to take Dawn’s class at the gym at noon.”

“That’s not happening.”

She nodded, quickly, not raising her eyes but there was a hint of resistance. If she was six maybe she would have kicked her toe against the carpet. “You like this?” he asked? “Being treated this way?”

“No.”

“Then remember what it feels like.”

At 1:00, she was to strip down totally. As he said, “not even any toe nail polish” which was kind of a joke between them since she typically didn’t wear any. Actually she was happy for the little bit of private levity. He wanted her in the corner naked until he came home. And during that time she should think about what was in store for her when he did.

He leaned in and kissed her sweetly on the cheek as he headed for the door. “Have a nice day now” he said on his way out. He was able to compartmentalize everything-maybe it was the military training. He was angry earlier-will be later-but now, having laid out the punishment for her he was able to put it all in a box and deal with it later.

That was his gift, not hers. Her head pounded and her stomach fluttered but it was less from last night’s tequila and more from what was to come. She looked at the clock and worked at doing what she could with the couple of hours ahead of her.

She didn’t even think about not doing what he’d ordered. Their marriage was strong and based on trust and honesty. Sure there were things they kept from each other, there were things left judiciously unsaid as in all marriages. But for them-especially in matters of discipline-there was complete transparency. This was not the first time that she had been sentenced to do something that he didn’t monitor.

So at 10:00 sharp she stepped into the corner, placing her phone on the table beside her set to buzz in 20 minutes. She shuffled her feet closer till her toes touched the walls and moved her nose close enough so she could feel the warmth of her own breath bouncing back off the wall in front of her. As instructed, she thought about the evening before.

Her plan had been to meet Cassie for a few drinks. They hadn’t seen each other in a couple of weeks and some laughs and catching up was called for. Cassie was a firecracker and always drew a crowd. Women enjoyed her energy-she was always up for anything; looking for the next laugh or adventure. Men tended to gravitate toward her as much for her bubbling personality as her looks. Thick black curls and dancing brown eyes topped off a body that was 10 or 12 pounds away from being chunky but definitely wasn’t. As it was, she filled out her skin perfectly; stacked and tight in all the right places.

It was that lively sense of adventure that pulled them from The Aces and off to the next bar. But no, she wasn’t going to blame Cassie…she could have left her at any time, especially when Cassie had hooked up with her other friends. But she hadn’t… Her phone buzzed that 20 minutes were up. She stepped back from the corner and rolled her head to loosen a crick in her neck. With forty minutes to take care of the laundry she headed to the basement.

At two minutes to 11:00 she was back in the office. She stepped to the corner and unbuttoned her jean shorts. They were tight so she had to wiggle them down her thighs. Then she put her thumbs in the elastic of her underwear and rolled them down as well. She shuffled into place against the wall. She didn’t mind corner time fully dressed-sometimes the “time-out” worked almost as meditation. She almost didn’t mind corner-time fully naked. Long and lean with wide shoulders from years of swimming and tennis she was confident in her body. She knew how guys looked at her around the pool and, more importantly, how her husband looked at her unclothed. She retained some womanly power in her full nudity.

But she hated standing like this. Like this, she was a little girl again standing in the corner with her bare bum out waiting to be spanked. No power here as her shorts gave in to gravity and slipped into a puddle at her feet. Her underwear stayed mid-thigh.

She leaned her forehead against the wall and for the first time, as the cool air caressed her bare bottom, began to think about the punishment she would surely get when he came home. Spanking, of course, was nothing new to her. Depending upon the severity she could get through, work through or even enjoy a spanking especially if it was followed by rubbing, kissing and sometimes more. In the right frame of mind she could even enjoy the hard ones-looking at them as an athletic event…taking the best that the opponent could bring.

But she knew this would be something different. She could count on one hand the number of times she was flat-out punished in their marriage. They had all been well-deserved but that didn’t change the fact that they hurt. They hurt her outside obviously but inside as well. And it hurt both of them. The old saying “this will hurt me more than it does you” held in Ron’s case. She felt almost as bad for putting her husband through is as she felt for herself. He liked to spank her-for sure. But he didn’t like to hurt her. Today he would hurt her-and she knew she deserved it.

She clenched her bottom a little and her eyes started to sting when she was startled by Lady Gaga’s “Born this Way” coming out of her phone. Cassie. She looked at the phone and knew she wasn’t prohibited from talking in corner time. She put the phone on speaker. “Hey girlfriend”, Cassie sing-songed. “How are you feeling?”

“About how you’d expect. You?”

“Slept like the dead until an hour ago. Hot shower-now I’m fine…within limits. Don’t feed me tequila today.”

Sharon smiled leaning her head against the wall. “I’ll make a note of it.”

“Am I on speaker?” Cassie asked.

“Yeah, it’s just me.”

“Ron isn’t there…?”

“No-he went fishing this morning, remember?”

“Oh right, right……” Her end of the conversation flickered out for a moment. Then, in a lower voice, approaching a whisper “Did you get it this morning?”

“Get it?” Was she talking about sex? “Do you mean, did I get any?”

Cassie laughed-“I wish! No, no did he….beat your ass this morning?”

Oh shit-SHIT! What had she told her last night?

“….Or did he do it last night when you got home?”

“What are you talking about?” she asked with a dead voice.

Cassie related what she had told her the night before. How Ron was getting touchy about how much she drank-how she had to watch herself tonight and not get too drunk or she’d get spanked-one on the worst spankings she had ever gotten was when she had broken the glass on the china cupboard when drunk….on and on. By the time Cassie was finished talking Sherri had both hands clenched at the back of her neck pulling her head against the wall.

“Sherri? You still there?”

“Oh yes.“ she sighed. “I’m here alright.” Not adding, “standing bare-assed in the corner.” “Please Cassie, do me the biggest favor you ever could and forget everything I told you last night.”

“I wouldn’t tell anyone…”

Of course she would-three drinks and things fly out of her mouth like bats out of a cave. Sherri was approaching full panic mode trying to figure how she was going to fix this. She could hear Cassie talking in the background but she was paying her no mind until the phrase…”I’ll talk to Ron…” crackled into the room.

“Wait..! What? You’ll talk to Ron about what?”

“I just don’t think it’s fair…you only were out because of me. Maybe he’ll go easier on you if I explain the situation.”

“Cassie-that is such a horrible idea. You will make it worse, believe me. I did what I did-I’ll deal with it.”

“Come on, we’re all friends here. Ron likes me-I bet you I can get you out of this…”

“Look”, she’d try lying. “There’s nothing to get me out of. What I talked about last night….I was drunk. That’s all. Just babbling. About things we used to do. Used to-not anymore. He’s pissed at me, sure. But he’s fishing and I’m cleaning the house and when he comes home we’re going shopping. He’ll get over it-I’ll go on the wagon for a few days…it’s all good.”

Here phone alarm went off. Her twenty minutes were up. “What’s that?”

“Dryer, Babe. I have to go get the load out before it wrinkles. That would really piss him off.”

Cassie laughed lightly. “OK, girlfriend, if you’re sure you’re OK.”

“It’s all good-I’ll talk to you later.” She stabbed the “END” button quickly-before her friend could say anything more. She was so distracted she almost tripped on the shorts at her feet. “Christ”, she grumbled pulling up her panties “why can’t I just shut my mouth sometimes.”

The time until 1:00 flew. As far as she was concerned, the preliminaries were over. Ron usually spent two or no more than three hours on the stream so she expected him home sooner rather than later so the foreboding that she had felt all morning now kicked into a full blown dread of what was to come.

She was back in the office at ten to one pulling her T-shirt off over her head which she laid over the back of the chair. She wasn’t wearing a bra-didn’t really need one around the house. Her breasts weren’t that large (he called them just right) and they supported themselves-at least around the house-just fine. Down went the shorts again and this time she pushed her underwear down to the floor bending to pick them up and place them on the chair too. She caught sight of herself in the full length mirror that had remained in here from when this office was a bedroom. Nervously she ran her hands down her chest and along her thighs then, turning, across her bottom. She was back in the corner with five minutes to spare actually hoping he would be home soon. As he knew, the waiting was the worst part.

It wasn’t ten minutes later when she heard the back door open and her heart jumped into her throat. She hadn’t even heard the truck. “I’m in here”, she called over her shoulder, her voice breaking just a bit. Of course she was in there-where else would she be?

She listened to the footsteps coming down the hall and pulled herself up straight, kicked her shoulders out a bit and tightened her bottom a tad to present the best “ready” posture she could. She deserved what was coming and would accept her fate. She closed her eyes as the steps came into the office.

“Holy shit, Sherri. What are you doing?”

Cassie! What was she doing here? He eyes were wide open again staring at the wall as she tried to think of something quick. But that something couldn’t involve leaving the corner; Ron could walk in anytime and her not being where she needed to be would be a disaster. Her brain scrambled for something to say but nothing came to mind that could make this seem like something else. She sighed and looked over her shoulder to where Cassie was apparently frozen to the carpet. “What are you doing here?” she asked weakly.

“Ron called me…”

“My Ron?”

“Yeah-he called and told me to come over. That he was on his way home and wanted to see me. What’s going on?”

“Maybe you better sit down, Cass. Just move my clothes off the chair. How long do we have before he gets here?”

“He didn’t say….I”

She was interrupted by her phone’s ring. Cassie sat on the chair and watched her friend lean over to pick it up not turning at all away from the corner. Sherri looked at the phone-“It’s him. Hello? Yes, she’s here-just walked in. Kind of a surprise, yes…..a little awkward” back over her shoulder, “wouldn’t you say it’s a little awkward, Cass?”

“A little, yes,” said Cassie lightly flicking her eyes anywhere to avoid staring at her friend’s naked back. They had spent enough time in the pool’s locker room to have seen everything there was to see of each other, so Sherri’s nakedness wasn’t an issue-but the context of it surely was. For the first time since she got here a tiny flutter of butterflies flickered in her belly. Sherri hung up the phone.

“He’ll be here in a few minutes”, she said.

“OK. So what’s going on?” she repeated.

As Sherri told her story into the corner, the tiny flutter in Cassie’s belly grew. It was one thing to hear drunken stories about spankings and paddlings for household mistakes or misbehaviors in a crowded bar but another thing altogether to hear about them in the room where a punishment like that seemed imminent. Now Cassie couldn’t avoid glancing then gazing at her friend’s naked bottom. Was this really going to happen in front of her?