Rules for a Happy Life

Rules for a Happy Life By Nattie Jones

Rules for a Happy Life By Nattie Jones A Newsite Web Services Book Published by arrangement with the author

All rights reserved. Copyright 2007 © by Nattie Jones This book may not be reproduced in whole or part, by mimeograph or any other means, without permission of the author or Newsite Web Services, LLC Published by Newsite Web Services, LLC P.O. Box 1286, Loganville, Georgia 30052 USA [email protected] disciplineanddesire.com

Dedication As always, for my Mister Sir, the one whose love and rules make this girl's life a very happy one. I love you, Mister Sir.

Chapter One Rule No. 1: Thou shalt address thy husband as “Sir.” Actually, he sprung this one on me the night he proposed, so it may as well have been, “address your fiancé as ‘Sir.’” After a charming and romantic proposal, he couldn’t have surprised me more if he’d have pulled out a gun and put it to my head. “What?” I squeaked, my mouth dry and my face blushing to match my fancy red cocktail dress. I immediately looked around to see if any of the nearby tables in the elegant restaurant had heard his ridiculous statement. “What, Sir,” he corrected calmly, his gentle eyes gazing into mine with such open love that it put me off balance. “You’re kidding, right?” Troy took my hand in his and used his thumb to massage the precious diamond he’d placed there only moments before. “Does it look like I’m kidding?” It didn’t, and he wasn’t. I looked around again, and then hissed back at him with a whisper. “What would people think? You may as well expect me to make the archaic vow to obey at the wedding ceremony!” He let go of my hand and stared at me in surprise. “Jenny, of course I expect you to vow to obey me. Just as I will vow to cherish, honor, and protect you. You already do a good job of obeying me, why would you take issue with it now?” Do a good job of obeying him? I gulped down almost my entire glass of wine, stopping only when Troy gently took hold of the glass and placed it on the table, just out of my reach. “You know,” I said, with more than a hint of sauciness in my voice, “I do not do a good job of obeying you. If I happen to take your advice once in awhile, that doesn’t mean

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that I’m going to go around doing your bidding like a little puppy dog.” I stared forlornly at the ring on my finger. It was a gorgeous princess diamond, and it would be extraordinarily difficult to remove it from my finger. All I wanted was a wedding in a big church wearing a pretty white wedding dress marrying a guy who could afford a nice house with a pretty picket fence. Troy’s mini-mansion was merely a bonus. “In fact, I’d sooner obey a puppy dog than obey you.” The look he gave me, I thought he was going to snatch the ring clear off my finger. I didn’t want him to take it, though. I wanted to throw it in his face, but then I didn’t really want to let go of it at all. I’d like to say I’m not a materialistic freak, but what girl doesn’t love a diamond? “Sir,” I tested, just to see if I could say it. I nearly choked up the yummy piece of filet mignon that had just melted on my tongue. Troy suddenly looked like a proud rooster strutting around a farm. Even in his business suit. “That’s not so bad, is it?” I tried to tell him otherwise, but I was choking. He didn’t seem to notice. I coughed and reached for the bottle of wine, filling my glass again and gulping it down—not just to wash away the offending piece of meat. “This is some joke, right?” He leaned forward. Unfortunately, he didn’t whisper, but he did talk low enough that I could hope the nearby tables couldn’t hear. “I can take you out to the car right now, and we’ll sit in the back and have a good discussion about me not joking. I’ll bare your little bottom, and you can finally get the answer to your question of why I always keep a hairbrush in my vehicle.” I blushed hard. So hard that I felt my face was going to burst from the pressure. I looked over to the neighboring table and a pretty young woman in a black dress and a diamond choker around her

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neck pointed to my finger and then smiled and gave me the thumbs up. She had clapped when I’d put the ring on my finger after the proposal, which had sent up a round of clapping around the restaurant. If only she knew. I looked at Troy’s hands and tried not to imagine them on my bottom. He’d done that a lot lately, come to think of it—rub my bottom in slow, lazy circles until I fell asleep. It was soothing, and at first I had resisted because it made me feel a bit too little-girlish, but the comforting massage had won out. Now I wasn’t sure if I wanted my bare bottom anywhere within ten feet of this man. “In fact,” he said … Rule No. 2: Thou shalt be spanked every Friday night, no matter how thee behave. “I guess that’s more of a promise than a rule, huh?” Troy clinked his glass with mine, as if I should be excited about that promise. “Spanked?” I squeaked, guzzling down my third glass of wine that night to stop choking on yet another piece of filet mignon. I was beginning to hate my beloved filet mignon. “It’s not like I haven’t spanked you before.” He winked a blue eye at me that set off his beachblond hair. He had the tan to go with it, too. “Or taken you to task, when necessary.” “Yeah,” I hissed, growing more concerned by the minute at the close proximity of the other tables to ours. Ignoring the latter comment, I countered, “But I was drunk and so were you, and we were just having some kinky sex.” “Oh,” he said with a loving grin. “I had more of a spanking in mind than kinky sex. I expect you’ll shed a few tears every Friday night.” I looked at him in astonishment, my jaw working to find some words to express my disbelief.

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“But why … why in the world would I ever, ever,” I repeated, “consent to that?” And what planet are you from? I wanted to add. I twisted the ring on my finger, a bit horrified (and slightly relieved, if I’m to be honest) that I couldn’t get it off. He grinned at me. “For the security of it.” “Have you gone bonkers?” I asked a bit too shrill, because a few diners turned their heads to glance over at our table. “Have you gone bonkers?” I asked again, this time in a whisper. “It’s Friday tonight, isn’t it?” I just stared at him, open-mouthed. “I think we should start tonight.” Before I could object, Troy had raised his hand in signal to the waiter, and the check was delivered—for once—immediately. When the valet pulled around with Troy’s treasured Bimmer, I climbed in and sat as close to the window as possible, trying not to eye the hairbrush that had always sat in the passenger-side cup holder. I never did like BMWs, anyway. “Now,” Troy said, using ‘now’ as a sentence in a way that irked me. “You’ve been a good girl this past week.” He pulled out into the street with a gentle turn of the wheel, turning towards his home in the upscale section of town. “So you’ve no reason to feel guilty.” I opened my mouth and a hissing humph came out. I tried to coherently voice my feelings on the subject, but nothing came out. “You’ll be well-spanked, though, spanked enough to cry yourself to sleep, and spanked enough to be sore the next morning.” I finally found my voice. “Is that supposed to comfort me or something?” “Well, yes, of course. I’m never going to slack off my duty to you. You can expect consistency from me, and take comfort in that.” Before I could put up a good fight, he turned into his house—I liked to call it a mini-mansion.

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He’d inherited it from his grandfather, and though it wasn’t quite big enough to be called a mansion, it sure came close enough. It was big enough that I had never been in the “left wing,” but that’s where he led me. With a grandiose gesture, he swung open the door to the second room on the right. “The whipping room!” I blanched and lost my breath. All the wine seemed to instantly go to my head, and I clutched at the wall for support. Troy caught me in a hug and chuckled. “Oh don’t worry, sweetie. More like a spanking room, really. My Nanna was a tiny woman, and grandfather was always quite gentle in his admonishments. I would never hurt you, sweetie.” I giggled, which I knew meant I was definitely buzzed from the wine. I get inordinately happy from alcohol. No matter how life may treat me, a little wine and I am a happy girl. Troy didn’t seem to notice my drunken state. To be honest, I don’t think he noticed how much wine I had drunk at dinner. He patted my back. “It’s natural to be nervous. Grandfather always said my Nanna was nervous every Friday, even after fifty years of Friday night spankings.” Then he added with unmistakable pride, “Grandfather never missed giving her a single spanking, not for forty-five years. Not until he wound up in the hospital with a mild heart attack.” I gulped. Nerves were even taking over my happy wine feelings. “You’re not going to spank me, are you?” “I am, like I will every Friday night forever.” His eyes looked romantically into my eyes as he said it, as if he were proclaiming his undying love to me and willingness to die for me. Or something. He flipped on the light switch then, and at first I was taken back by the charming elegance of the room. Shiny hard wood floors, old-fashioned flowery wallpaper, and rich antique furniture lent the room an old-world grace.

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I was thoroughly charmed, until I noticed a cast iron contraption in the middle of the room, looking almost like the skeletal structure of a miniature boat. I gasped. Troy beamed with pride. “It looks just like the spanking rack in the movie ‘Lady Jane,’ doesn’t it?” I couldn’t breathe again. “I knew you were the girl for me when we watched that movie together. One finger told me you were the one for me. Lady Jane was bent over that rack, and her mother birched her good. You sat there with wide eyes and parted lips, entranced.” I blushed. He had also turned me over and playfully accused me of being aroused by the scene. He’d pulled my panties down and confirmed his suspicions with a probing finger, then had mischievously given me a few swats. I’d been slightly embarrassed and aroused at the same time, but now the memory took on a whole new meaning. We hadn’t watched much of the movie after that. “You’re going to …” I gestured weakly towards the spanking contraption, unable to finish. “Oh no, sweetie. That’s reserved for severe punishments, if you ever behave badly enough to warrant one.” He put a hand to my back and guided me further into the room. “Like I said before, you do a good job of obeying me, and I don’t think we’d ever use it in anything except play.” Play? I thought back to the movie and the tears streaming down Helena Bonham Carter’s face, and tried to imagine how anyone could imagine that as play. “Now. There’ll be—“ I couldn’t bear it any longer. “Would you stop using now as a sentence? It’s low-class and—” I almost laughed at the expression of surprise on his face. I doubted he’d ever been called low-class in

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his entire silver spoon life “—and it’s just … just— just plain annoying!” For once he seemed to be speechless. I felt a surge of triumph, thankful to finally have a bit of ‘hand’ in the night’s events, if not the upper hand. Troy smoothed away his surprised expression and nodded calmly. “Of course, you’re quite nervous. Now—” he caught himself before fully enunciating the ‘w’ and cleared his throat. “There’ll be a certain routine to our Friday nights.” “As soon as we get home from dinner—and we’ll have a romantic dinner together ever Friday night— you’ll have ten minutes to freshen up before I expect your bottom on display in the corner.” I stared at the corner, a wacky vision of my bottom atop a stand in the corner, lighted like a precious museum piece. I turned towards him and then eyed the door nervously. He gently held my hand and guided me towards the corner. “Like this.” He pointed to the round rug beneath my feet in the corner. “If you keep your toes on the carpet and off of the triangle of bare wood floor in the corner—” he then pushed my head down to bend me over quite a bit “—and your nose planted snugly in the corner, your bottom will be displayed quite nicely.” As if to illustrate his point, he rubbed his hands over my bottom, and I wondered how he had gotten me in this ridiculous position so easily. I tried to stand, but his hand was firm upon my back. “Normally, you’ll bare your bottom yourself and see to it that there is no clothing to interrupt its beautiful display.” I gulped as he lifted the skirt of my dress and laid it carefully on my back. Even though it was silky satin, it stayed in place on my back since I was bent in nearly a ninety degree angle. His fingers hooked under my hose and panties, and I squealed as he pulled them down to my ankles. “You’ll keep your shoes on, but in the future I expect you to remove your panties and hose while

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freshening up, before you enter this room. For now, step out of them.” I could barely breathe for the bulk of nerves in my stomach, but I obediently stepped out of my hose after he unbuckled my shoes. He guided my foot back into the shoe and buckled it back on, then repeated the procedure with my other foot. He rubbed both hands over my bottom and dipped his fingers between my legs. “See? I was right. As much as you look like a deer in headlights right now, you crave this and like this.” In a quick motion, he slid two fingers inside of me and I cried out with pleasure. He put his thumb on my button and massaged inside and out, making me whimper and beg. One of the reasons I’d fallen in love with him was his talent of turning me into a limp, quivering mass of pleasure at a second’s notice. “I’m sorry,” he suddenly said, and pulled his fingers out. “Normally there will be no sex in this room. I just …” he cleared his throat. “You’re quite beautiful there, you know.” “You can’t just stop like that!” I cried. He ignored me. “Corner time serves two purposes. Grandfather always called it ‘humbling time,’ and it’s also a time for reflection. After corner time, I will expect you to confess to your misdeeds and misbehaviors, and anything you ‘forget’ will be punished with double the normal due.” I curled my toes into the carpet and tried to stand up, but his hand was firmly pressing into my back. “Just stay there for a while, young lady.” His hand began that lazy rubbing he did to put me to sleep. I usually loved it, since that was the only way I could fall asleep in any amount of time less than two hours. But now my bare bottom was poking out into this graceful room. I already felt about eighty years out of place amongst all these elegant antiques. My

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grotesque position made me feel absolutely incongruous. “You just stay there for a good fifteen minutes.” I started to object, but he tapped a finger to my bottom and clucked. “Now, now, be good. You’ll stay there for a good fifteen minutes and think about your place in our order of things.” My place? I growled and squeaked my objections at the same time, but he held me in position. “Yes, your place. I am head of my household, and as such, I will see to the health and happiness of my family, as well as the discipline of my wife. Did you not tell me when we first met that your parents had never really taught you discipline?” I shook my head against the truth of his words, even though I had told him that. “That doesn’t mean I want you to teach me discipline! I’m thirtytwo years old, and I can handle my own selfdiscipline!” Troy chuckled. “You know, Grandfather told me that whenever his wife turned a new decade, whether it was thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty, she always insisted that she was now too old to be spanked. I tried to be reasonable. “Troy, your grandfather died three years ago, at the age of eighty-seven. That means he was born in early part of the twentieth century. For crying out loud, Troy, things have changed since then!” To my horror, Troy chuckled again. “Grandfather said that his wife tried that argument several times, too.” I nearly screamed in frustration. “I don’t give a fuck what your grandfather said!” Rule No. 3: Thou shalt not speak disrespectfully, nor shalt thou use disrespectful words.

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Troy gasped. “I have never heard you speak like that, in all our two years of dating!” I tried to get up again, but his hand was hard and immovable. “You bring it out in me!” “You’re blaming me for the disrespectful words you just uttered?” “Yes!” I was so angry, my chest was heaving in indignation. “That doesn’t bode well for your bottom, young lady.” I did scream then, a bit of a gurgled shriek of frustration, which was met with a full minute of silence from him, a silence only interrupted by my heavy breathing. “Well, normally, I’m sure you will behave while in the corner, and we will proceed to the couch for your spanking. But I see that you need some correction right now.” If I felt a surge of triumph for upsetting his carefully laid plans, then I felt a surge of panic at his threat of immediate ‘correction.’ “No, I don’t!” I expected him to start spanking right then, but he slowly ran his hands down my legs. He guided my feet apart and ran his hands up the inside of my legs, and my insides were once more a bowl of jelly. “Step your feet further apart, so I can spank you properly. This skin right here—“ he traced a finger on the inner, undercurve of my bottom cheeks “ —is particularly sensitive, and you’ll find it to be a quite effective punishment.” “You expect me to agree and just let you spank me?” “Of course. And I expect you to thank me afterwards, and do your best to take your due like a lady.” “Like a lady?” I squawked. “Yes, with dignity, grace, and obedience.” You are full of shit. But I didn’t say it out loud. Instead, I said, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

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“Of course I’m not kidding you.” That’s when he pulled my cheeks apart and traced his finger just inside my crack. “A good spanking here and I think it will be a long time before you talk back to your husband again.” “You’re not my husband yet!” “Ah, true. But I will be, soon enough.” His hand left my back, and to this day, I don’t know why I stayed in position. I don’t know why I just didn’t get up and leave that crazy room, and just leave him altogether. After all, I didn’t know then what I know now—that Troy was right on target with all this spanking stuff. I heard him rummaging, and though I had no experience getting spanked, I knew he was getting an implement. When he came back, he patted my bottom with a cold, hard paddle. “Spread the legs now, Jenny.” And I did. My legs must have known what my mind did not—that spanking was just the awful sort of thing that would somehow keep me happy for the rest of life. So my legs spread, and stayed in position even as the paddle swatted into my bottom with painful gunshots. Such was the pain that I didn’t notice he’d stopped and was speaking. “What?” I asked. “Say ‘fuck’ again,” he commanded. I sensed some sort of trick. Something wasn’t right. I was being spanked for swearing, and now he wanted me to say it? The paddle cracked across my bottom and I cried out, rising up on my toes. “It hurts!” He ignored me. “I said, say ‘fuck’ again.” Against my better sense, I whispered it. He pressed down on my back until my head was nearly touching the floor. He pulled at one of my bottom cheeks to expose my most sensitive skin, and rewarded my swear word with a burning smack

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on the inside edge that outdid anything I had felt that night. “Again,” he commanded. I whimpered, but swore again. The paddle bit into my skin as if it had teeth, latching on in a burn that felt a million times worse than anything I had ever endured. “Again.” I obeyed as the paddle hit the same spot, and five more times again as he commanded me to say the word I was beginning to hate more than any other. “Again.” I cried real tears as he let go of my bottom cheek and pulled up the other one, poising the paddle to attack the yet untouched skin. I couldn’t bring myself to say it, so I just whimpered. “Young lady, you are in no position to disobey me. I said, say it again.” I shook my head. “I can wait, you know.” I bit my lip, wanting desperately pull away from his hand grasping my bottom. I knew he was looking at everything I held private, as much of a prude I am. I did pull away, but he just pinched the skin in his hand harder. “I’ll wait, Jenny, as long as it takes you to obey. But you can take hours to finally say it again, and I will not relent. Now say it again, before we’re here all night.” I shook my head fervently. “If I say it again, you’re just going to spank me again!” “Good girl!” he cried, as if proud of me. “You can count on it. I’m going to spank you until you hate the word, and you can’t bring your lips to form that word unless I command it.” “I can’t say it now, as it is! Whether you command it or not.”

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“Well, however many minutes it takes you to say it, will be however many full swats across your bottom you get at the end of your punishment.” I sucked in my breath, horrified. “Troy …” I begged. Silence. He gripped my bottom cheek in that humiliating position, and I just pressed my hands into the corner and tried not to cry. “Please,” I finally whispered. “This is too embarrassing.” He didn’t respond, except to pull my cheeks further apart. “Hurts there, doesn’t it?” I nodded, hoping for mercy. “Good,” he said, with too much satisfaction in his voice. After awhile, he remarked, “You don’t like being on display like this, do you?” I couldn’t answer, but he thankfully didn’t seem to want an answer. “You don’t like the lights on when we make love, either. That’s okay, you’ll learn faster if you’re exposed—you’ll feel like your misdeeds are exposed, too.” After another long silence in which I kept telling myself to repeat the swear word and get this punishment over, he finally sighed. “Do you think I’m going to relent?” He seemed genuinely curious. I knew he wouldn’t. I shook my head. “Then why do you put off the inevitable?” “It hurts!” “That’s the point, sweetie. Now let’s get this over with. Say it again.” I swore again, and the paddle bit into my skin just like promised. “Again.” I balled my fingers into fists and groaned the word. CRACK! “Again.”

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I shook my head, but said it anyway. This smack bit deeper into my untouched skin, and I cried out. “Again.” Five more times again, and I was limp with the inevitability of it all. I almost leapt up in relief and sheer gratitude when his hand let go of my cheek and he took a step back. “Seven more because you stalled during your punishment.” Before his words could sink in, he cracked the paddle across my bottom seven times in quick succession, harder than anything I’d felt before. I squealed and shot up at the end, grabbing my bottom in a most undignified way. He placed my hands on the wall and bent me over in the corner again, this time kissing the back of my neck while rubbing my back. “Stay and think awhile, Jenny. You have a lot to process.” So I stayed in that awful position and thought. But mostly, my thoughts were wondering what else he had in store for me that evening.

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Chapter Two A surprising feeling of euphoria set in rather quickly after my first spanking. Even as I stood—or bent, rather—in the corner, I felt a pride well within me for a reason I couldn’t put my finger on. My bottom burned and I was sure I could feel a throbbing bruise in my muscles, but a silly grin was plastered across my face. I was thankful for the corner time, because I wanted nothing less than for him to be encouraged by the ridiculous grin on my face. I kept frowning, but my lips would tremble from the effort and threaten to let out a giggle. So I carefully swallowed the giggle and gave in to the grin, hoping it would fade by the time he let me out of the corner. I mean, how embarrassing would that be, for him to see me grinning? After a spanking, nonetheless. Not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to encourage him in this spanking thing. Or the obedience thing, either. My grin, I soothed myself, was probably just the wine. Like I said, I get happy when I’m drunk. Unfortunately, he came and pulled me out of the corner and into his arms, and wiped the tears from my eyes. With a burning ‘tap’ to my bottom, he sat us down on an antique rose-colored chaise lounge and pulled me across his knee. “I see you’re smiling. I bet you feel like all is right with the world, and that everything is in its proper place?” He didn’t wait for my disagreement, but began rubbing a cream into my bottom. The hard wood floor was shiny despite its age, which I attested to Mrs. Smith, the ‘household assistant’ who lived above the garage with her husband. They’d lived here for over thirty years, and even though Mr. Smith was pushing seventy now, he still tended the grounds.

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His hand was a tad rough against my spanked skin, but the cream was soothing. The slow, lazy circles were even more soothing. He put so much cream on my bottom, I knew it would take fifteen minutes just to rub in, so I relaxed. “When you’re good during the week, I’ll always rub in soothing cream after your Friday night spanking. When you’re being corrected, there will be no soothing afterwards, as I hope it to hurt as long as possible so you learn your lesson.” I squirmed, wanting to get away from my vulnerable position as much as I wanted to stay still for the soothing rubbing. “I’m only rubbing in cream after this punishment because you still have another spanking to go tonight. I find that if the skin is soothed after one spanking, the next one will hurt much more and your bottom won’t become desensitized.” I groaned. Troy chuckled. “It’s a vulnerable position, isn’t it?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “You’ll do your best listening in this position, I suspect. I mean, all I have to do is lift my hand and wallah!” He accented his exclamation with a sound smack to my bottom that made me squeal. “You’re getting a good spanking!” “I do prefer giving spankings with the spankee over my lap,” he continued. “It lends a certain intimacy, don’t you think?” I made an attempt to respond, but an incoherent sound came out instead. “But of course, punishments don’t often warrant intimacy, so you’ll mostly be over my lap for ‘just because’ spankings.” “Just because?” I squeaked, growing alarmed that I would spend the rest of my life constantly being spanked. “Yes,” he confirmed. “Just because I love you.” His rubbing continued, but indignation flared up inside me in spite of his calming massage. “And when are those, Tuesday nights?!”

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Troy laughed a good, hard belly laugh, and even ended it with a good slap to my bottom instead of his knee. “Hey! Stop that!” “Young lady,” he said, still chuckling. “You do not tell your husband to stop spanking you, at any time. Your bottom is mine to spank whenever I so choose.” Then he began spanking me, but this time it was more like those few kinky swats he’d given me in play when we’d watched the Lady Jane movie. That’s not to say they didn’t hurt, because they did. It was just a different kind of hurt that made my insides buzz with pleasure, too. All these sensations overwhelmed me, and my brain wearied of trying to sort them out. My emotions refused to be put in a category, and happiness and pleasure kept mixing in through all the pain and embarrassment, making it impossible for me to reject Troy and his ideas completely. But this kind of firm, hand to bottom spanking ignited my desire for him, and we have a pretty darn good sex life, if I may be so brash to say that. He can push my buttons so incredibly well that I often find myself worrying that I don’t know his buttons at all. “‘Just because’ spankings are spankings given just because I love you or because I find you cute— ” Smack! “—or adorable—” Smack! “—or irresistible—” Smack! “—or for any other reason at any time I feel like it.” “Are you ever going to let me up?” I huffed, with exasperation and a fair amount of pain. Troy was finding this quite amusing. He was having a grand old time at my expense. “I’d rather not.” I could feel him grinning at my bottom, and in a moment of impertinent playfulness, I wiggled my bottom at him. He answered me with another whack that sent shivers through me.

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But he did let me up, and his face went into serious mode. He should have been a school principal; his expression was so perfectly stern and severe. Just the expression on his face made my heart drop. I stared at my wringing fingers and felt genuinely remorseful that my behavior had put that expression on his face. “I am serious about your behavior, though. I don’t want to hear you swearing again, nor do I ever want to hear you talking back to me again. It’s disrespectful, and I go out of my way to treat you with respect at all times. I think I deserve your respect in return, don’t you?” I gulped. He looked like the portrait of his grandfather in the dining room. Imposing and powerful, but kind and generous at the same time. The kind of man children naturally adore, because they somehow sense subconsciously that he would die to protect them. And worse, he was right. He treated me like a lady at all times, which is one of the many reasons I was crazy about him. He was old-fashioned about opening doors and driving on dates and bringing me flowers. I loved every moment of it, and often wondered if he would drop all the romantic stuff once we were married—most men do. “Will you still bring me flowers?” I asked. “What?” he frowned. I bit my lip. “Are you the type that will bring me flowers even after we’re married for many years, or …” I stared at the floor, suddenly feeling bashful. “Jenny, we’ve been dating for two years, and I can promise you that you will be treated with the same respect, love and tenderness for the rest of your life that you receive from me now.” I smiled at that, but shook my head. “That’s not what I mean. Will you still do the little stuff?” He touched my cheek. “Always. How could I not?” He took both my hands in his. “Jenny, have I not communicated to you how much I absolutely adore you?”

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I nodded and then shook my head. “But you’re spanking me.” He nodded. “Because I love you.” Then he brought me closer and wrapped his arms around me, and pretty much ruined the tender moment by squeezing my sore bottom cheeks. “But we’re discussing your behavior right now, not mine, and the point is that I treat you with respect, so I expect the same respect in return. If not, you get spanked.” “Spanking me isn’t very respectful, is it?” I meant it to be saucy, but it came out in a tiny, timid voice that I didn’t recognize. “That doesn’t count, Jenny, and you know it.” I did? I shook my head. “Why not?” “Because that’s my duty. And you need it, too, to be happy.” I turned away from his penetrating brown eyes and tried to pull out of his grasp. “I do not, and how could you even know that without ever having spanked me before?!” He smiled and gently turned me back to him. “I’ve been testing you since we met to be sure we were compatible.” “What do you mean?” “I know you entered spanking into your search engine a few times.” I shook my head. “That was after you spanked me and we had kinky sex! I just wanted to find out, exactly, how weird we—uh—you were.” Then I crossed my arms over my chest. “You were snooping on my laptop? Spying on me?” Troy laughed. He sounded like a little boy when he laughed, but he usually was quite an imposing man. He was definitely his grandfather’s grandson, so to speak. “What about you? You’ve had your first punishment spanking and you’re grinning like you’re the happiest girl in the world.” I tried my frown again. It didn’t stick.

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“That’s a weird quirk of nature. Unexplained Phenomenon.” I shook my head at him to counteract my giggle. “My bottom really hurts, you know.” I tried to glare at him. “Good.” He turned me so that I was facing the wall to his left, and I gasped at the feel of another implement against my already spanked bottom. Where had he picked that up so quickly? “It’s going to hurt more, because we haven’t even gotten past the corner time portion of our Friday evening routine. If you’ll remember, you were just spanked for being mouthy to me. You still have a good Friday night cry coming.” I looked around behind me and he held up a hairbrush, exactly like the one he kept in his Beemer except this one was a dark cherry wood instead of a light oak wood. “We’ll have a good session with the hairbrush. I suspect you’ll learn to fear it quite well.” I already did fear it. A big knot of fear in my stomach that turned me on every bit as much as it made me want to run away. The fear of that notso-little brush pressing against the skin of my bottom made me so crazy with desire that I wanted to throw him to the floor and make love to him all night. “Why would you want me to fear something? That sounds cruel,” I accused. “So you’ll behave.” “That’s silly. I’m not a baby, or a kid, or slave or anything else that gets spanked. I can behave because it’s the reasonable and sensible thing to do. I’m an adult.” Troy nodded in agreement, but didn’t let me turn to face him. “Didn’t you once tell me that you were too afraid to be anything but good at school, but always fantasized about someone who would demand such discipline from you that he would inevitably have to take you to task?” “But I was drunk!” “But you were telling the truth, too.”

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I frowned. I hated that he was right. “You know, my mother spanked me a few times.” “Yes, you told me.” I did turn to him then. “I did not! I wasn’t that drunk!” He smiled gently and turned me back to face the side wall. “Yes you were that drunk, sweetie. You said that you’d always wished she cared enough to spank you for the big things that mattered, instead of just spanking you for spilled milk and getting on her nerves.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “And I told all my friends that I had thought you were such a gentleman for not taking advantage of my drunken state.” He guffawed at that. “Awww, sweetie, you have no idea how much I love you.” Feeling genuinely bewildered, I asked, “How did I end up here, letting myself being spanked by a man? It’s not right, is it? It’s not healthy.” I looked at him pleadingly, but the hairbrush continued to press against my bottom with an insistence that reminded me of the certain ending to our evening. I did what I could; I pouted. “You’re not really going to spank me again, are you?” Troy nodded and smiled gently—even a tad regretfully. “Until you cry like a baby.” Tears rushed into my eyes. “But why? I haven’t done anything wrong.” “Every Friday night,” he reiterated his promise. “You’ll see why, over time.” “But I want to know now!” I cried. He answered with the burning thud of the hairbrush to my bottom. I pulled away but he put one hand in front of my abdomen. “You’ll stand up straight for now.” The hairbrush smacked twice more and feet started dancing, in spite of my desire to retain a portion of my dignity at least. “Don’t you understand that it hurts?!”

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“Yes,” he said with a smack. “Stand still.” “And what’s the difference if I don’t? Either way you’re going to spank me!” “If you don’t take your spanking like a good girl, you’ll be given a separate and additional spanking for resisting.” “But how can anyone stand still? It hurts!” He changed his attention from my bottom to my legs. The hairbrush smacked on my legs—rather than thudded like it did on my bottom—with a searing pain that made me jump up and down in an effort to escape his punishment. “You stand still and accept the pain knowing that you want your husband to be the head of the household, knowing that you need spanking and structure to help you feel secure, knowing that you appreciate the attention and love of someone who wants to make sure you stay on the straight and narrow, and knowing that you’re grateful that someone cares enough to see that you achieve your goals and grow into the very best you that you can be.” With that speech, he turned me over his knee and the necessity of standing still for a spanking became a moot point. He locked my legs within his, and he pushed me forward until my bottom and the top of my legs were an easy, convenient target. He wasted no time in applying the hairbrush to my trembling flesh. “See, the last spanking may have felt like you were scalded and blistered, but the truth is, you’re only a tender pink back here. This hairbrush will see to it that you are a deep red by the time I’m through.” The hairbrush smacked at a frenzied rate, almost two smacks to each syllable. I scream-cried, trying to wiggle out from between his legs. They were much too strong for me, though. “You can cry, scream, kick, struggle, all you want. But take heart that no matter what you do, this hairbrush will not relent until you are a well-

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spanked young lady. Your bottom will be red and raw, and when you go to bed tonight you will sleep peaceful and happy with the release of your tears and the certain knowledge that you are safe and secure with me.” And truthfully, he was right. The hairbrush didn’t pause its attack, and although it felt like an hour before I was reduced to a sobbing mass with a throbbing bottom, it was probably more like five minutes. I hiccupped through my sobs, trying to stop my crying after the hairbrush stopped its assault. “How does the hairbrush feel, Jenny?” “Wha-at?” I sobbed. “How does the hairbrush feel? Do you like it?” “Are you nuts? Like it? Troy, my bottom hurts like hell!” He chuckled, which infuriated me. “Your bottom is pretty red, too. But,” he added, rubbing my legs softly, “this is still only pink.” He paused for a moment, as if pondering. “How does it make you feel to know that I’m about to spank the dickens out of your legs, and make you cry even more?” I swallowed quite a few curses, and at least the first fifteen responses that came to my head. He asked again, this time more gently and with sincere curiosity. “How does it feel, Jenny?” “Exhausting and … I don’t like pain.” I trembled. “Afraid.” I added in a very small voice, “I don’t want it to hurt.” He rubbed my back. “I know, sweetie. There’s no way around the pain. That’s the whole point.” “Why?” He shrugged. “That’s just the way it is. For my mother, and my nanna.” “But surely you’ve noticed that society has advanced beyond the subjugation of women to men.” “And surely you’ve noticed the skyrocketing divorce rate,” he countered.

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I pushed against the hard wood floor with my hands, trying to get up from my vulnerable position. I felt pretty ridiculous, with my dress hanging over my back, my shoes on, but my bottom and legs on display and framed for Troy to spank. I was the one receiving pain, and yet I was positioned to make it as convenient and easy as possible for him to inflict that pain. My legs trembled and I tried to control them into stillness, but they wouldn’t stop. They knew that the hairbrush was going to attack them next and my lips trembled in tandem with my body. “I want the love and the marriage my parents and grandparents had, and I want you to be as happy and feel as secure and safe as my mother and my nanna felt. They were spanked weekly, if not sometimes daily, and they were happy. They were submissive and they jumped to do their husband’s bidding at times, but they were happy.” He paused. “Do you think it is a bad thing, Jenny, to be submissive?” Troy tenderly stroked my hair. “Do you realize how submissive you are? You wouldn’t be here if you weren’t.” I was still trying to keep the tears at bay. I shook my head. “Submissive is a bad thing to be.” I wiggled my legs against the cool air brushing across my legs. My whole kinesthetic sense focused on my bare legs, anticipating the pain. Even knowing the pain was coming, my mind whirred with idea to get out of my predicament. “No, it’s not. It’s a beautiful thing to be. You want to give people pleasure. You have a huge, giving heart, and that’s why I fell in love with you. That’s why you paint. You don’t paint for yourself as much as you paint to give others pleasure. You would never paint in a vacuum.” “But I’m scared that you’re going to spank me more, even though I know you will, and I don’t want you to.”

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He tapped the hairbrush on my bottom thoughtfully. I don’t think he realized he was doing it, I think he was just trying to think. “Does it give you pleasure to spank me?” I gnawed at my lip, wondering if I’d want to take my next sentence back if I spoke it aloud. “Don’t you worry that you’re a wife-beater, that you’re a bully and a sadist?” He sighed. “I don’t like seeing your pain or hearing you cry. But I have to admit that when you are not fighting me, when you’re receiving the pain in a spirit of acceptance, I feel a certain …” He paused so long to collect his thoughts that I twisted my neck around to look up at him from my awkward position. “Like now. There is nothing for you to do but cry and accept the pain. I’ll admit that I flinch a bit when I have to give you a particularly hard whack.” He rubbed my bottom with the hairbrush in gentle circles while he thought. “But at the same time, it makes me feel tender and protective towards you. These last few months, I’ve never spanked you, but I’ve verbally reprimanded you a couple times.” I held my breath. I’d really hated that. He had a way of calling a ‘spade a spade,’ especially when I didn’t want to hear it. “You looked so mortified and ashamed that I’d called you to the carpet, but you needed to hear what I said. And it helped you, too.” I stared at the floor through my tears and tried to figure out how I felt about Troy feeling good about reprimanding me. “I love your trust in me, the trust you’ve given me tonight even when this is all new and weird to you. It’s a gift, and I return that gift by helping you grow.” I ignored the warm fuzzies around my heart and shook my head. “But I’m already full-grown!” He ignored me. “Honestly, Jenny, and don’t give the first answer that flies into your head. Look deeply into yourself. How would you feel if I let you

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up right now and let you go without the rest of your spanking?” My breath hitched in my throat—with hope, I think. “Relieved,” I said. To my consternation, he let me up. I looked at him with big eyes and watched him set down the hairbrush on the end table. “How do you feel, Jenny?” I still felt afraid. A different fear, though, and I shook my head against the truth of it. “Tell me, Jenny.” Troy opened his arms to me, and I walked into his embrace. I could only whisper. “I don’t feel good that you stopped.” “Why not?” I looked at his kind face and could hardly believe that such a nice, gentle man who always tried his best to do the kind thing could and would willingly cause me such pain. To answer him, though, I looked at his shoes. “I don’t want you to let me down,” I whispered. I stared at his feet, wondering for the first time since I’d known him what size he wore—he suddenly seemed to have awfully big feet. He pulled my chin up with a gentle finger and forced me to look into his eyes. “I’m not going to let you down, Jenny. That’s why ‘every Friday night.’” I nodded and looked back down at the floor again. In a move that surprised myself, I bent back over his knee and felt relieved that his leg locked mine yet again. I was still afraid of the pain, but I felt a warm comfort in my belly. Even when the hairbrush renewed its punishing attack on my legs, even when I screeched against the burning pain, I felt a happy place of security inside me. And that’s how it all began. That’s how I became a spanked wife surrounded by rules and paddles and routines that I rebelled against constantly, only to be spanked like a little child for

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said rebellion. Yet I married him six months later, mostly because I couldn’t get that pretty ring off my finger. I sometimes suspect that he ordered a half size too small on purpose.

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Chapter Three “Good morning, sweetie.” I giggled like a schoolgirl, feeling a bit giddy. It’d only been last night that he’d spanked me for the first time, and I was still feeling off center and shy. My bottom was still sore, too. Troy had insisted that I wear a nightgown and leave my bottom bare until he gave me back my underwear. “Morning.” I poured coffee into his mug while he poured his cereal. A shiver ran up my spine when he set down the cereal, walked behind me and placed a hand on the counter on either side of me. Although his minimansion was over a century old, the kitchen had been completely redone. It sparkled with newness and an air of modernity. “Sir,” he reminded. My mouth watered. He pulled open a drawer and rustled through it for the largest wooden spoon he could find, never letting me out of the cage of his arms. I blushed. “Right here?” I glanced at the window above the sink with no curtains. “Sir,” he reminded yet again. “Right here and now. Bend over.” I held my breath while he lifted my nightgown. I couldn’t understand how I felt so happy and scared at the same time when he exposed my bottom for discipline. On the other hand, he was behaving so strong and strict about this ‘Sir’ thing and the spanking thing that it made my mouth water. “I thought that we waited until Friday for punishments, Sir,” I squeaked. “You need a bit of training—” he paused while I squealed my objection to the word ‘training’ “— adjusting to your new lifestyle. You planned on spending the weekend, and since we don’t have to work until Tuesday, you get three more days of a happy, spanked bottom.”

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I sighed, though I was not entirely unaffected by my position. Visions of kitchen floor sex flashed through my mind, right along with visions of pulling the spoon out his hand and giving him a good spanking. The thought of Mister Alpha Troy accepting a spanking was so ridiculous that I giggled out loud. “See how happy spanking makes you?” Troy nudged at my giggle. “That’s not why I was laughing.” “Oh?” And then he did that rubbing thing— albeit with the wooden spoon—that always reduced me to drools. Then a sudden, surprising smack of the spoon made me jump and squeal in pain. “And you’d better start learning to say ‘Sir,’ or you are going to spend the next three days drowning in your tears.” I couldn’t breathe for a second, whether from his words or the spank, I don’t know. “That’s not why I was laughing, Sir.” Given my current position with a nasty wooden spoon poised over my bottom, ‘Sir’ didn’t seem so terrible or that unnatural to say. I did love him and even respect him. And for some crazy, mixed up reason, I didn’t feel the nervousness I had felt last night before I got spanked. I knew I was about to get my bottom spanked, but I felt calm and centered. I didn’t understand why. “This is one of those just-because spankings, just because I find you adorable in the morning, with your hair a mess and your face with that sleepy-happy look on it. And—” he pronounced with a solid smack to the top of my leg that made me squeal “—because you need a good spanking.” “I don’t need a spanking,” I said without much enthusiasm. I didn’t fear that this spanking would be all that unbearable. “Sir,” I added before he could correct me. “You need a good spanking, like you need hugged three times a day and slobbered with kisses six times a day and told that you look beautiful

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twice a day and rocked in my arms three times a week and your bottom rubbed until you fall asleep every night.” I giggled, but the spanking was really a spanking, even with the loving tone in his voice. He let the spoon attack my bottom until tears threatened, and even then he spanked harder. “I don’t need all that!” I huffed through the pain. But then I amended, “well, I just don’t need the spanking.” “Yes you do. You’re that sort of person. You like feeling my authority and you need to be reminded that I’m in charge in order to feel happy and settled and secure.” The wooden spoon was certainly not teasing anymore, nor was it loving, although the intent behind it may have been. I wiggled to get away from its fire. “You know better than that, young lady.” You could say the spanking started for real then. “But I don’t need it today!” I cried. He stopped and sighed with a genuinely impatient air. “Young lady, why are you getting spanked right now?” I squirmed. “For not calling you ‘Sir.” I cleared my throat. “Uh, Sir,” I added, just to be extra cautious. “Then—” he brought the spoon down sharply right at the top of my legs where it hurt the most “—I suggest you start addressing me as ‘Sir.’” The spoon started whacking fast then, like an army of carpenter bees systematically drilling holes up and down my legs, then across my bottom. I tried to keep my legs still, remembering how he had told me the night before the good feeling he got when I took my spanking with a spirit of acceptance. I bucked, though, when he parted my bottom cheeks and turned his attention to the sensitive skin inside my crack. I cried and tried to wiggle away.

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“Spread your legs, Jenny, and submit to your spanking. You know how to behave during correction.” His words sent thrills through me. He knew how attracted I was to him when he took that tone with me, and immediately I spread my legs obediently. The spanking became rough then, like ocean waters before a storm hits. The pain came in bigger waves, increasing with each precision strike of the spoon on my sensitive skin. I started to stand up but he caught one of my legs in his hand and lifted it up as high as it would go. I was left standing on one foot, unable to do anything but grasp the counter for support against the unfailing smacks of the spoon. Unable to escape the pain, I finally relented to it, and let it wash over me in sobs that shook my body. Troy stopped immediately but didn’t let me up. Instead he traced the welts the spoon had left and admired his handiwork. “I love the sight of welts upon your pink skin.” “Pink?” I groaned. “After last night, Sir, I feel like my bottom is dripping blood and covered in nasty bruises.” There was a moment of silence. “Do you really?” He rubbed the sore welts again. “You don’t really think that, do you, Jenny?” I shrugged. I’d been too embarrassed and slightly afraid to sneak a peak at my bottom in the mirror that morning. The next thing I knew, he was dragging me into the dining room, where a long, shiny mirror hung on the wall opposite from his formidable grandfather’s portrait. So powerful was the man’s gaze from the portrait that I blushed and looked at the floor when Troy guided me to stand with my butt towards the mirror and lifted my nightgown. “See?” he said, presenting my bottom with a wave of his hand. “Just a bit pink, no permanent damage.”

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I couldn’t look. I stared at the riding crop in his grandfather’s hand and felt my stomach do the nervous fluttery thing. “Young lady, look.” He turned my neck so that I was looking over my shoulder into the mirror. “That doesn’t look so bad, does it?” I shook my head, shy. My legs and bottom were pink. In fact, the precise shade of ballet dancer pink that perfectly matched my satin nightgown, with only a dark welts to mar the smooth skin. I stared at my reflection, fascinated. “That’s not to say I won’t turn your bottom purple if your behavior warrants it, or even switch you until you’ve a few drops of blood if you deserve it, but in general, I will not ever hurt you.” “Spankings hurt, Sir!” I cried. He chuckled. I wanted to stick my tongue out at his amusement, but I refrained. “You know what I mean, Jenny.” I snuck another peak over my shoulder and blushed. He followed my gaze and took on his enthusiastic, little-boy tone of voice. “You see the welts the spoon made?” He pointed them out, then I watched in horror as he lifted the spoon and whacked it down rather hard on a patch of only lightly pinkened skin. “Watch how the welt blossoms up, you can actually see the skin swell!” “Ow!” I watched tearfully, unable to tear my eyes away from the sight. “I just find that incredibly beautiful. I made that mark on you.” He puffed up with pride. I wondered fleetingly if this was some barbaric genetic instinct, like male dogs peeing on fence posts to mark their territory. “And you trusted me to,” he added. “I am just head over heels in love with you, Jenny.” I looked up into his eyes and saw that it was true. Then I looked back in the mirror at my poor bottom, and couldn’t help but feel something akin to

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pride. Some sort of twisted satisfaction, not that I could make any sense of it. “I felt like you burned my skin clear off last night, and there it is. All pink and rosy and looking too healthy.” I added forlornly, “But welted.” “Want some more?’ he asked as if offering me candy. I shook my head. Troy acted as if I had nodded. “Here, bend over the table and see if you can stretch you arms across and take hold of the opposite edge of the table.” He gallantly removed a dining chair out of the way and helped me down over the table. This time fear burned like a hot fire in my throat, but it wasn’t really fear. After a few moments, I realized it was love mixed with an intense desire to kiss him. Actually, more like devour him. I heard two more chairs being moved aside, and I looked up at his grandfather’s portrait as if to ask for help. But he seemed to smile down at me gently, and I even imagined him tapping that riding crop to his leg and then putting me over his knee and using that same riding crop on my bottom. What was I turning into? Not only was I now a spanked girl, I was also having visions of men I had never met spanking me. “You’ll find that I often will ask you to spread your legs for a punishment.” I rested my cheek on the cold, polished table and sighed. “What, are you some expert or something after one night of spanking me?” He chuckled. “Dear, I met you when I was thirty-four. I’ve had years of experience in the lifestyle, let alone all my grandfather and father taught me.” “Lifestyle?” I squeaked. Then before I could stop myself, “You spanked other women?” Troy laughed and patted my back. “Does that make you jealous?”

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I humphed and shook my head. “No, Sir.” Yes! Crazy jealous! “How did they like it when you spanked them?” “I hope not much,” he answered. “But most of them were into the lifestyle, searching for spanking partners.” “Lifestyle?” I asked again. “You know, there are quite a lot of women out there who would give their left arm to be in your position right now.” “Then why didn’t you propose to one of them?” He pulled my hair off of my face and onto my back. “Because they weren’t you.” “Well,” I said, trying not to sound smug at the feeling that I was special, “If they’d like to amputate their arm, that’s fine. But it seems rather ridiculous to amputate a perfectly good arm just to feel more pain on your bottom.” He stopped a chuckle. “Well, I meant it as a figure of speech, but it sounds rather grotesque when you put it that way.” “Anyway, back to the topic.” He used his foot to guide my foot out a good two feet. “You’ll find that I like to have you spread your legs for your punishment.” He then guided me other foot out at least two feet, so that I felt stretched almost in every direction. “Now this is a good position for a caning.” I gasped, remembering the American boy who had been caned in some barbaric country more than a few years back, who’d been revived with smelling salts in between strokes after passing out from the pain. I didn’t think he meant that kind of caning, but my stomach still protested the idea. “Not that you’ll earn a caning that often, if ever. But take a moment, and tell me how you feel with your legs spread wide, waiting for a spanking.” My voice came out high in a squeak of nervousness. “I feel like you’re looking at me.” I blushed. “I mean, I feel like there’s nothing I can

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hide.” Then with a blush and the smallest, softest voice I could use, I added, “I feel like I’ve been naughty and I deserve to be spanked and that I am meant to be spanked.” I took a deep breath and added sincerely, “Sir.” I spoke as quietly as possible, embarrassed to the core. Troy ruffled my hair and then raised the spoon. “Then spanked you shall be.” He made me cry again, and this time the spoon marked me with little moon-shaped welts that felt like ridges when I examined them later in the bathroom. But this time, there’d been something I’d loved about being spanked. He’d been harsher with the spoon, and I’d liked it. I’d cried and pleaded, but somewhere within me, I’d liked it. I ran my hands over the antique china washbasin and pitcher, wondering what life must have been like for his grandmother, back when it was normal for a husband to spank his wife. I stared at my reflection in the mirror, and wondered what type of person I’d become, that I liked being spanked. That I liked tracing my fingers over the ridged welts on my bottom. I gas ped a little to see a tiny bruise, then felt stark terror at the pride that welled up inside me. That’s when I heard the tv click on, and Samantha from Sex and the City was telling Carrie and friends over coffee about her latest conquest. I imagined Carrie in her pretty shoes and perfect fashion, and wondered if she’d ever have stood for her skirts being raised for a spanking from Big. I suddenly felt un-chic, un-cool, and so … not a woman girls could look up to and want to be. Rule No. 4: Thou shalt not lie to thy husband. In fact, thou shalt not lie, period. I came out of the bathroom and closed my cell phone, as if I had just been talking. “My mother’s having a crisis with her new boyfriend. She needs me now.”

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Troy looked half-hurt and half-surprised. “Well, of course. Will you be coming back later tonight?” I couldn’t look in his eyes; I was never one for lying. “I, uh … yeah, I think so. Yeah.” I grabbed my keys and added, “Later.” It was then that I noticed I was trembling, and I scooped up my jacket to hide my shaking hands. I backed out of the bedroom, pausing to blow him a kiss. “I gotta run, I’ll see you later.” I practically ran downstairs to my purse and keys in the foyer, then ran back to the staircase. “Love you!” I called up, and then ran out the door. Needless to say, I didn’t call him back, nor did I return that evening. I was a bit freaked, to be honest. I’d been fine as he drew me into his oldfashioned world. Encased in a century-old minimansion filled with antiques, I had almost felt like I had been taken back to another time. But when he’d turned on the television and I saw the smart, sassy women of Sex and the City who I often looked up to, I felt embarrassed. I wandered around my apartment for two days, even avoiding the studio I normally painted in for hours every day. About every two hours I caught myself checking the state of my bottom in the mirror. At first I felt relieved that the welts started to fade, but as my skin tone returned to a pale white, I felt disconcerted. With each disappearing welt, I felt more and more lonely. Worse, I felt marginally guilty for lying to him. But I needed some time to sort things out, to make sense of this new life he was offering me. More, I needed reassurance that I wasn’t nuts. Or weak. Or a shame to women everywhere. So I finally went to the internet and typed in spanking again on my yahoo start page. For the first hour or two, I came across more sites that terrified and horrified me than anything else. I worried that Troy would have me licking his boots and spending my nights gagged and bound to

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the wall. Then I fretted that I would have to ask permission to use the bathroom, permission to eat, and permission to enjoy the orgasms. In a moment of sheer terror, I had visions of Troy commanding me to drink his pee. But after a fair bit of searching and few glasses of wine (my nerves were quite on edge!), I started reading stories of loving husbands who ‘took their wives in hand’ when they needed it. I read ad after ad from women seeking exactly the sort of man Troy was, and it made me feel proud. I found many debates around the word ‘submission’ and even found some beautiful poetry from submissive women on the subject—though mostly from the same sites that were of what I was coming to think of as the ‘bound and gagged’ set. I jumped when the phone rang, and held my breath as the answering machine clicked on. “Hi sweetie, this is Troy. I thought you were going to stop back after visiting your mother the other day. I’ve missed you.” There was a moment of silence, followed by a sad sigh. “I went too fast, I’m sorry. I love you. Let’s talk about this, everything will be okay, you’ll see.” There was another sigh, then he added, “I’ll be in tonight, but tomorrow I’ve got dinner with my partner and his wife. Uh … you can come, I mean,” he cleared his throat. “I already asked you, but I mean, I’d like it if you came,” he finished awkwardly. I felt a rush of power to hear him so off balance. “But call me.” He then rattled off his number in the voice of habit. We’d been dating for over two years, and he still rattles off his phone number at the end of every voice message. By Thursday, I was ready to call him. But then it occurred to me that the next day was Friday, and I didn’t want a spanking. Even though I had reassured myself that I wasn’t crazy, and even though I had begun reading spanking romances with great pleasure. I’d even subscribed to a couple of pay sites chocked full of loving stories, and spent

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many hours day-dreaming of Troy spanking me again. So I chickened out. I sat in my living room in the dark on Friday, staring at the front door. I halfexpected and mostly hoped that he would barge in, turn me over his knee, and inform me that it was Friday and time for my spanking and I had no sayso whatsoever about it. It would have been much easier than calling him and admitting to the fact that I was beginning to feel attracted to this lifestyle. Heck, I was hardly able to admit it to myself, let alone to another human being. When the Friday night came and went with no more calls from Troy, I started crying. Then on Saturday, I got a call from my mother. “Troy called and offered me comfort for my relationship troubles,” she accused. I cringed at the phone. “He thought you were coming over to see me last weekend. I asked you to come over, I haven’t seen you forever, but you told me that you were spending the weekend with him!” Great. Now my mother was mad at me, too. “Mom, I just …” “I could care less if you lie to him, that’s your business, but I just don’t see why you couldn’t come over if you weren’t going to stay there.” I knew this could turn into an hour long phone conversation, and I wanted to keep the phone lines open in case Troy called me again. (Pitiful, I know) Not that I would answer. I just wanted to hear his voice on my machine. “Mom, Troy isn’t up to speed on things because we had a fight and we’re not talking.” I took a deep breath and lied again. “I was on my way over to your house on Saturday when I had to take my car in unexpectedly.” I awkwardly added, “something about rings in the engine, and it took them until today to fix it.” Then I saw a way off the phone. “Nikki is actually coming over to pick me up and

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take me to the shop so I could get my car right now.” My mother, I could tell, sensed something off about the whole story. “I don’t know, Chloe. You should have called me, I would have come and picked you up.” I rolled my eyes. “I figured you were with Dan.” Before she could respond, I gushed, “Oh! That’s Chloe, gotta go Mom!” I slammed down the phone in relief and collapsed into the chair. This lying business was just too much. I cried for another six days before I finally pulled myself together, got dressed, and forced myself out of the house. It was Friday, and I drove myself to Troy’s minimansion despite the tingling in my bottom. I walked around back to the kitchen entrance and let myself in. I don’t know why I didn’t ring the doorbell—I always ring the doorbell—I guess I wanted to catch him in the throes of depression, missing me. Unfortunately, he was laughing good-naturedly on the phone in his office. He sounded too happy considering how miserable I had been the past two weeks. I peaked into his office and he immediately stopped talking, a huge grin crossing his face. “Jenny!” Then, “Bob, I have to go.” Then he hung up right away, and considering it was one of the senior partners he hung up on, it made me feel special. “God Jenny, I’ve missed you.” I was relieved to see hurt in his eyes. Guilt, too. “I didn’t send you flowers.” In fact, he looked really guilty. “Flowers?” I asked, confused. His hands kept touching me on my arm, my face, and my hair, as if to reassure himself that I was really here. I didn’t need the reassurance of touch—I felt a surge of completeness standing next to him, like our souls embraced the instant we were

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in the same room. Corny, I know. I shouldn’t give away such details, but that’s how I felt. “I wanted to send you flowers, to reassure you that I would keep doing the little stuff, like you asked.” I nodded as if I weren’t confused. “But I didn’t want you to think I was some wifebeater who brings home gifts the day after he beats his wife and promises he’ll never beat her again.” I lost that warm fuzzy feeling. “Bu … but, you, uh … you told me you weren’t a wife beater. That this spanking stuff was an entirely different thing.” He looked confused. “I’m not! I mean, I would never raise a hand to you. Ever .” I shook my head and stared at the hand that had spanked me pretty darn hard not two weeks ago. Troy sighed. “I’ll spank you, I mean, and I won’t apologize for it.” He was suddenly defensive and defiant and stubborn. “You’re not making any sense.” I walked in and sat down into his office and sat down in one of the overstuffed, suede leather chairs. I suddenly felt so tired of trying to make sense of things. “You can send me flowers, if you want,” I said. “I love flowers.” He laughed and squeezed me tight in a big bear hug and planted sloppy kisses on my eyelids that he knew I hated. “Ick!” I cried, and we both laughed. Then he took hold of my arms and pushed me back a bit so he could look into my eyes. “Today’s Friday, you know.” I nodded at his serious expression but I couldn’t think of anything to say. “Is that why you came back today?” I nodded again, this time staring at his shoes. “Where would like to go for dinner?” My heart leaped in hope and I smiled up at him. “Franco’s!” Then a wave of disappointment washed

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over me. I leaned into his chest and breathed in the scent of him deeply. “What about after?” “After you will spanked.” He leaned forward to plant a sweet kiss on my forehead. The he pinched my chin between his thumb and forefinger. “Lying is a pretty big offense.” I could only imagine the punishment for that. My stomach rolled into a nervous knot. And I smiled.

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Chapter Four For the first few weeks of our engagement, the spankings came often—once a day at first, then three times a week, and finally they dwindled down to what he said would become mostlythe norm: every Friday night after our dinner out. As the wedding preparations were taking more and more of my time, I didn’t mind in the slightest. My bottom agreed whole-heartedly. In fact, after a few months things settled into a nice routine. From day to day, I lived like a normal girlfriend about to be married. But come Fridays, I’d get a nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach and have to consider my behavior over the last week. Dinner would normally be wonderful, as he always spoiled me on Friday nights. But then the time for the spanking would come, and I’d be sent of to the spanking room to stand in the corner with my bottom poking out. As the weeks wore on, I entered a lovely sort of denial about our relationship. Six days out of the week we had a normal relationship, and I just blocked out Fridays, still unsure as to how I felt about being spanked by Troy on a weekly basis. Since it was Friday, I had my customary butterflies thinking about the evening. I squashed them with a smile as I pulled into the parking lot of the Bridal Boutique. Chloe and Melissa, my maids of honor (how could I choose just one?), were eagerly waving at me from the doorway. They giggled as I jumped out of the car with an enthusiasm that made my heart happy. Doing the bridesmaid dress thing had to be one of the worst best-friend chores, and yet they were bubbling with eagerness. “Little black dresses,” I promised as soon as I joined them. “It’ll be a dress you can wear again, not an ugly bridesmaid dress that you have to get rid of right away.” “Yeah, right,” Chloe grinned.

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Melissa chimed in with, “That’s what they all say!” After we had tried dress after dress and they’d tried unsuccessfully to talk me out of little black dresses for them, Chloe announced that she wanted to throw a small dinner party slash pool party tomorrow night. “Are we bringing our men?” I asked. Both Chloe and Melissa had boyfriends at the moment, which made getting together on a Saturday night easier. “You bet!” I walked to the line of prom dresses for privacy and dialed Troy’s direct line. “Troy, Chloe’s having a little impromptu dinner party tomorrow night by her pool.” I smiled at the thought of margaritas and bikinis. “Can we go?” “Of course, sweetie, if you want.” He sounded distracted, though. “We don’t have any plans. You know you don’t have to ask me.” I bit my lip nervously; he wasn’t getting it. “But what about tonight?” “What about tonight?” he asked. “About, you know …” I thought about the welts and even the once-in-awhile bruises he gave me. “Tonight might …” I cleared my throat. “Interfere with a swimsuit tomorrow.” Troy chuckled. “Oh! That.” I overheard him giving his secretary a quick order before he returned his attention to our conversation. “Well, that could be a problem.” I felt my shoulders sag in relief. He understood! “Yeah, so can we postpone tonight for tomorrow or Sunday?” “No.” The answer came so quick my jaw dropped. “You know the rule. Every Friday night.” I looked over at my friends talking animatedly and having a good time. I felt relieved that they probably couldn’t see me blushing. “But how can we go if … if I’ve got … you know.” He didn’t say anything, so I finally added, “marks.”

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“That could be a problem. Have you been a good girl this week?” I snapped my head up and looked around, fretting despite the unlike probability that someone could hear him. “Yes!” I hissed. Then I thought about it, remembering that anything I forgot earned me double. “Um, as far as I can remember, yes.” I glanced towards my friends and added in a whisper, “Sir.” I heard Troy smile. “Good. Then it shouldn’t be too much of a problem, should it?” “But last week … I’d been—” I lowered my voice “—good, but I had marks.” “Did you?” Troy murmured with a voice that conveyed none of the worry I had. “Well then, you’ll have to hope that you won’t have any by tomorrow night, or you’ll have to come clean with them about your chosen lifestyle.” I frowned. “Or not go.” I added hotly. Troy’s voice grew firm. “I’ll leave it up to you, Jenny, but nothing interferes with our Friday nights. They’re for you, sweetie.” I felt tears threaten. “If they’re for me, why can’t I cancel them?” “Jennifer,” he warned. “You know better than that.” I hung the phone up without saying goodbye and pasted a smile on my face for my friends. “You know,” I said, joining them, “I’m not sure yet. If we can cancel our plans, we will.” Chloe eyed me with a sharp look. ‘What plans?” I blushed, unable to come up with a good lie on the spot. I shrugged. Melissa pointed a finger at me. “You gotta train that man, and you gotta train him now.” I shifted uncomfortably. Chloe adjusted her purse straps and turned to the mirror to study her figure. “You have to put the pants on, girl, and make sure he knows you’re wearing them.”

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“Couldn’t we both wear the pants?” I asked as lightly as I could manage. “Oh no,” Chloe said while fixing Melissa’s staticfilled hair from trying on dresses. “The woman has got to wear the pants, or she’s dooooooooomed.” She dragged the word out as if it were a fate worse than death. I giggled and tried to lighten the mood. “I can’t imagine Troy wearing a dress.” Melissa batted at her bangs in frustration. “I need a haircut. Jenny,” she said, turning to me, “better him wear a dress than you running around barefoot and pregnant.” I opened my mouth in shock. “But … I want a baby.” Chloe waved a hand at Melissa. “Of course you do, sweetie. You just have that baby while wearing Manola Blahniks on your feet and a diamond on your finger.” We all laughed at that, even as I stared down at my worn and frazzled tennis shoes forlornly. Troy had money, to be sure. But would he spend five hundred dollars on a pair of shoes for me? Did I even want him to? “How was your afternoon?” Troy asked when he picked me up at my apartment after work. I shrugged and then decided to test something. “We had a lovely time, and I saw the most to-diefor shoes at this little boutique.” “Did you get them?” “No way could I afford them and pay the landlord next month.” “My money is your money,” he said lightly. Then, as if struck by a thought, he gave me a look so long I stared at the road in horror, as if to will him back to watching where he was going. “How much were they?” I squirmed and remembered to fasten my seatbelt. “Six hundred dollars,” I said uncertainly. To my surprise, he grinned. “Already she wants to spend my money.” Troy puffed up proudly as the

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car rolled into his driveway. When we came to a stop in the garage, he pulled out his wallet. “Here,” he said, handing me a platinum card. “This is a credit card I ordered for you.” “I don’t want to spend your money.” I couldn’t bring myself to take the card. “I didn’t agree to marry you for your money, you know.” “Ah sweetie, I know. You’re the most unmaterialistic person I know.” He fondled my sweater that was admittedly beyond shaggy in some places and had a few splotches of paint that I’d chosen to ignore before putting it on that morning. “I adore your ragamuffin-artsy style, but I like the way you clean up, too.” I giggled self-consciously and picked at the fuzzies on my sweater. “Take the card, young lady.” “Troy …” I shook my head. “Young lady, the correct answer is ‘yes, Sir.’” I flushed and took the card. “Yes, Sir.” I didn’t have to use it, after all. “We’ll budget two thousand a month for the card.” He eyed me severely. “And I like to have it paid off completely every month.” “That’s pretty good,” I said. “We can talk about raising it, you know.” “No, that’s okay.” I crawled out of the car and followed him to the door. “I figure after the food we eat and the gas for the cars and my painting supplies and the bills around here, that’ll be …” I added in my head and jumped in shock when I arrived at a roundabout figure. “Jesus, Troy! I don’t need six hundred every month just for play money!” “Oh I’m sure you’ll find a way to spend it.” He unlocked the door and held it open for me. “You have to get your hair done and buy all those crazy products you have in your bathroom and I know for sure that you could read a thousand dollars worth of books in a month.” I probably could, but I shook my head.

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“And besides, that two thousand is after all the bills and groceries.” When I shook my head, he huffed, “Listen, you need new clothes anyway. You don’t have to choose between painting supplies and clothes anymore. When’s the last time you bought some clothes for yourself?” “Today!” “Besides your wedding dress?” I thought. After a minute of waiting, he sounded impatient. “Young lady, I asked you a question.” I shrugged, seriously trying to remember. “I don’t know. Maybe four or so years ago, Sir. I have plenty of clothes.” “Exactly my point! You need new clothes, so I don’t want to hear another word on the subject or else I make you spend three thousand a month until I think you’ve got enough clothes.” “Troy, geeze. How much money do you make a year?” Troy laughed at me fondly. “You know, most girls get around to that question within the first few weeks, not a couple months before the wedding.” He rattled off a figure that was enough to make me cough. “And besides, there’s all I inherited.” He gestured to the house—mini-mansion, actually. I silently pondered the new lifestyle I would be entering while he took the mail into his office. I must have looked uncomfortable and guilty. “Besides,” he added, “it’s an investment. One day your paintings are going to be worth millions!” “Oh shut up,” I said, blushing and pleased. But when I went to the bathroom to freshen up for dinner, I remembered my conversation with my friends that afternoon. I knew two things: I wanted to go the party tomorrow night, and I didn’t want to have any marks. Rule No. 4 (Again): Thou shalt not lie to thy husband. In fact, thou shalt not lie, period.

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So it wasn’t much of a surprise that when I met Troy in the bedroom as he was changing, I held my stomach and pouted. “I don’t feel good.” The lie did give me a bit of a sour stomach, so it wasn’t totally a lie, was it? “What’s wrong, sweetie?” He walked over to me pantless, with his white dress shirt hanging down and his tie half-undone. He looked so sexy I wanted to take back my lie and cancel dinner for an entirely different reason. “My tummy hurts and I just don’t feel right.” I’m a whiner when I’m not feeling good, and I loved that Troy didn’t seem to mind in the least. “Well, hop on the bed. Let’s take your temperature.” I piled up the pillows and leaned back on them. Maybe he’d bring me tea in bed, too, I hoped. He chuckled. “No sweetie, the other way.” I cocked my head at him. “What other way?” He shook his head and pulled the pillows from behind my back and piled them in the middle of the bed. Patting them, he said, “Make yourself comfy.” I stared at them and then at him. “And pull down your jeans and panties, while you’re at it.” Did he know I was lying to him already? “Are you going to spank me?” I asked in a small, guilty voice. “Not right now. I’m going to take your temperature.” When he pulled the top off a jar of Vaseline and stuck the thermometer in, I got it. “Not like that you’re not!” I sat on my bottom firmly, my mouth open as if to beg for the thermometer to be placed there. He stopped lubricating the thermometer and stared down at me. Even pantless, he could make me lose my breath with a look. “I’m not asking, young lady.” We stared at each other for a second as I started to work on some tears for a good pout.

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“Understood?” he asked, meaning answer ‘yes, Sir’ and get your butt over the pillows now. “Yes, Sir,” I mumbled, staring at his pantless legs. I may be the only one wearing pants, but it was clear who was in charge. What would my friends think? I reluctantly wiggled out of my jeans and lowered my panties as little as possible. He sighed. “Dear, just take them off.” I stuck my lip out. “Why?” I whined. “It’s not a spanking, you said!” Troy raised an eyebrow. “It can be.” And so I took off my panties, feeling very much like it was a spanking. In fact, laying face down on the bed and letting the pillows prop my bottom up into the air made my stomach flutter with the same nerves I felt before a spanking. But he didn’t ask me to spread my legs, which he always insisted on during a spanking. “Okay, dear.” When had I become a dear and not a sweetie? “Let me just get in here—” he spread my cheeks apart gently “—and we’ll see how you’re feeling.” I held my breath as the cold thermometer slid into my bottom. It was a weird feeling and my body tried to ignore the feeling as much as it tried to make sense of the new sensation. The thermometer quickly warmed to my body temperature, and for a few seconds I couldn’t even tell that it was in my bottom. But then he started twirling it slowly, softly. Absently. Which made it impossible for me to deny its presence. No one had ever taken my temperature that way. I felt like I was submerged in a rolling sea, with currents of desire and fear, safety and vulnerability, all warring for the power to take me with them to wherever they might lead. I bucked in retort, trying to escape the little intruder in my bottom. “Settle,” Troy soothed. I pressed my face to the soft comforter and let a small tear slip out. The thermometer wasn’t going

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away, and his hand rested across my bottom heavily to keep the thermometer in position. The feelings in my tummy were much like the ones I felt when I was about to get a spanking, but the feelings in my heart were like the warm contentedness I felt when he rubbed my bottom until I fell asleep. I relaxed and let my head try to sort it out. In the end, as he pulled out the thermometer, one clear emotion won out: I felt taken care of. And that was a warm fuzzy feeling about my heart that made me happy. “Normal!” he proclaimed. He turned me over and peered at me intently. “You know, if you’re too sick to go out tonight, then you’re too sick to go to the swim party tomorrow.” I felt my heart drop and I twisted a corner of the sheet in my hand. “And tonight is Friday. You get a spanking whether you’re sick or not, period. And if you’re not sick, and you’re lying to me, it’s going to be a doozy.” I held my breath but didn’t say anything. “Because,” he continued, “if you were to lie to me that would be a huge breach of trust. Lies between us will harden into a wall between us.” I kept silent. “Lies cause problems, too. Misunderstandings are one thing, but when a lie stands between two people who love each other, it drives a wedge between them. Better hot words of honesty than the silence of lies.” I stared at the white pillowcase and watched the little pink embroidered eyelets disappear as tears filled up into my eyes. He still had his hand on my bare bottom and my tummy lurched with nerves. But I said nothing. “I know, sweetie, that you wouldn’t want to start our marriage off on a doomed foot, would you?” I shook my head and swallowed a cry.

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“So let me ask you again. Are you really sick?” He even rubbed my back nicely while asking. That loving gesture made it not about the spanking. I wrestled with the truth. True, I was beginning to feel slightly sick to my stomach. So if I said I was sick, it wouldn’t completely be a lie. And I sensed that Troy would drop the subject and accept my answer without question. He’d probably even snuggle the covers around me and serve me a light supper in bed. But if I admitted that I’d fudged a little—okay, lied a bit—he’d be disappointed in me. I’m sure there was a spanking to match, but that’s not what made my heart feel sad. I didn’t want him to know I’d lied or that I was a person capable of lying. “Young lady, it’s a very simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ question. The truth does not take five minutes to decide upon.” With that statement, he reached into his bedside table where he kept a thick wooden ruler for ‘just in case.’ He laid it across my bottom and I curled my hands into the pillow. “Answer me now, young lady, before you have time to come up with a lie you’ll regret.” “I lied,” I whispered with a wavering breath. “What?” he asked and I heard him snap the lid back on the jar of Vaseline. “Speak up, Jennifer.” I got chills at the use of my full name. “I lied, Sir.” There was an angry silence and I knew he was waiting until he had it under control before speaking. “You lied a few months ago.” He put the Vaseline in his bedside drawer and stood up, leaving the ruler lying freely on my bottom. “Did I not give you a strong enough lesson?” I thought of the hairbrushing I’d received, followed by two terrible strokes of the cane. I shuddered. “You were … you gave me a …” I wasn’t sure of the answer that would keep me out of the most trouble. “It was a strong lesson, Sir.” I heard him rustling in the bathroom and assumed he was cleaning and putting away the

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thermometer. He came back in the bedroom only a few seconds later. “If it was a strong enough lesson, you wouldn’t have chosen to lie again.” I sighed. No matter what I said or how well I phrased it, there was going to be no getting out of trouble. So I switched to offense, even with my bottom propped up over pillows and a wooden ruler gently threatening me with its weight. He picked up the ruler and I immediately decided offense would be the best defense. “But you would have spanked me even if I had been sick!” “Yes.” I couldn’t look back at him, not with his hand holding the ruler and me in perfect position to get spanked. I growled. “That’s … cruel! That’s mean and you’re a bully!” I sat up and maneuvered my bottom under the covers as quickly as possible. Then in a movement that shocked both me and him, I smacked my hand across his arm as hard as I could. I threw all my hurt and anger at my own behavior into a slap at him that I immediately regretted. This time the angry silence was longer. So long, in fact, that I meekly re-piled the pillows up and repositioned myself above them. I even picked up the ruler and handed it to him. “I’m sorry Sir,” I whispered. “Stay just like that,” he said as softly as I had apologized. “I’ll be back.” I twisted the engagement ring on my finger while he was gone, listening intently for any sounds of his return. Frustration boiled over into tears— nothing is more frustrating than someone else being right. Regret is a heartfelt pain made me bury my face into the comforter. “Close your eyes,” he ordered as he came into the room. I obeyed immediately and was rewarded with a searing stroke of the cane that made me

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want to jump up. But my heart regretted my behavior, and I settled myself in for whatever he felt I deserved. “That’s for hitting me.” His voice was hard and guarded, as if bracing himself for an awful task. It made me feel even guiltier. “Now spread your legs.” Why was his voice so hard? I must have asked it out loud because he sighed. “I may like spanking you Jennifer, but I don’t enjoy having to punish you with the cane. I don’t like how much it’s going to hurt, and I don’t like to see bruises on your pretty skin.” I snuck a peek at his face and he looked sad. “But I like less how much lying would hurt our marriage.” He patted my leg in a reminder. I spread my legs. “Do you understand?” “Yes, Sir.” “Good. Now one more for hitting me and six more for lying to me—a second time.” Such was my guilt that I lay compliantly in position, even when the cane seared across my skin again. There was something different about being spanked—or caned, I should say—in the bedroom. I felt more vulnerable, emotionally. More accepting of my punishment. “Count these last six, and apologize.” Swish! I had to pull in a deep breath before I could respond, “One. I’m sorry, Sir.” Swish! I answered fast this time, eager to get the awful pain over with. “Two. I’m sorry, Sir.” Swish! Calling him ‘Sir’ took on a deeper meaning. Instead of it being a hollow show of obedience to a rule I found ridiculous, I began to feel proud of his strength. I respected him, and it felt good to say it. Swish!

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Even when it was answered with another painful stripe of pain across my bottom. He positioned the cane across the very top of my legs. “Four. I’m sorry, Sir.” And I held my breath. Not the top of my legs, I wanted to scream. Swish! I lost my breath, such was the pain. I curled my hands into the pillow and braced myself in an arch. Then I accepted the pain along with my guilt. It was hard to say this time—my whole bottom felt like it was throbbing with the blood gushing in to soothe the pain. “Five. I’m really sorry, Sir,” I said in a small, quivering voice. I heard him sigh and he leaned a hand on my back, pausing. “It’s okay,” I said, looking up at his pained expression. “It’s only one more, and we both know I deserve it.” He smiled a small smile at me. “Don’t worry, sweetie. I won’t let you down.” The sixth one made me bawl, mostly because there was a release with the last one. He dropped the cane on the bed and scooped me up, squeezing me tightly in a hug. He rocked me as I cried, gently stroking the hair off my face. I’d never been so sorry in my life as I had felt for lying to him, and I told him so. “Shhh, now. It’s over and forgotten.” I shook my head and sobbed, “But how will you trust me now? You still know I lied, and you know I could lie to you even though I love you.” I clutched his shirt and buried my face in his chest. “You can’t just forget that.” My heart hurt so bad that I just wanted to hide in his arms forever. “I wish I could erase what I said.” He sighed and kept rocking me, but reached his hand down and traced the painful welts left by the cane. “You don’t need more, do you, sweetie?” I looked up at him. “Would you give me more, if I did?”

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“Not with the cane.” He rubbed my bottom soothingly, but it hurt to the touch. “But yes, I’ll spank you more if you need it.” I stared at the cane on the bed and shook my head. “I don’t think so. I just feel really sad and sorry.” He used a gentle finger to force me to look him in the eye. “Are you going to lie to me again? Hit me again?” I shook my head passionately. “Never!” “Are you sure?” “Yes Sir!” The way I felt then, I’d sooner face the guillotine than lie to him. Forget the cane or spanking. “Then that’s all I need to trust you, sweetie. I forgive you and I love you and I trust you. It’s a pretty normal instinct to lie to get your way or to get out of trouble.” He sighed. “I don’t think less of you; I just think that you just needed to learn the hard way not to do it.” I snuggled my head under his chin and stopped crying. “I don’t want your behavior to call for another spanking like that again. Do you understand me?” I nodded. “Yes, Sir.” “Okay then.” He cuddled me closer. “And if you were sick, I’d still spank you.” I didn’t say anything, just stared at the floor dejectedly. “But you’ve got to understand that I love you, and that I’ll always do my best to do what’s best for you. You have to trust me to judge the seve rity—or gentleness—of your Friday night spanking.” He shook his head. “You know, if you had trusted me and not lied to me, your spanking would have been quite gentle tonight. You could have worn your new bikini in front of your friends without a worry tomorrow.” He pulled away from me to look down at me. “You didn’t give me a chance to prove that to you.”

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I nodded. “I know, Sir.” After a painful spanking, euphoria usually settled over me and I felt a surge of happiness as I craned my neck up to plant a kiss on his cheek. “You know, I didn’t choose this lifestyle. You just sort of thrust it into my face and said take it or leave me.” I took a deep breath. “But if you were to take it away, I’d be sad. I like it that you wear the pants—” I giggled as I noticed he still hadn’t put his pants on “—in the family, and that you spank me whenever I need it. I wouldn’t have it any other way.” So I became not just a spanked wife, but a happily spanked wife two months later in a pretty church and a pretty white wedding dress, with two maids of honors in little black dresses that I was determined they have a chance to wear again. And I vowed to obey him.

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Chapter Five Rule No. 5: Thou shalt treat others with the respect and graciousness equal to that of how one would treat the President of the United States if he showed up at thy door. Thou shalt treat thy husband with at least double that respect. “Oh my god,” I cried, and I could see my face turning red in the dining room mirror. I stared up at the portrait of Troy’s grandfather and shook my head. I called out to Troy. “Come see what your aunt and uncle gave us as a wedding gift!” “Uh-oh,” he laughed as he walked in, without a glance to the box. “I can only imagine, by the way you’re blushing.” It was a fine and fancy riding crop, with diamond studs and golden ornamental etching. Troy picked it up out the box and admired it with pleasure. He slapped it quickly against his thigh, not even wincing at the sting. “An excellent instrument,” he proclaimed, then looked at me in a way that made me blush and giggle. “What’s for lunch, by the way?” I frowned. “Your maid refused to cook lunch this afternoon.” “My what?” He looked confused. “Mrs. Smith?” I felt a drop of fear in my throat at his incredulous tone. “Well,” I cleared my throat. “I told her to prepare lunch, and when she refused, I threatened to take it up with you. We had a bit of a tangle about it, really.” “You what?” he asked, a stormy look passing through his eyes. “Hush!” I whispered. “Mrs. Smith is here, she’ll hear.” He didn’t lower his voice at all. “Mrs. Smith doesn’t cook, and she’s not our maid.” He was already pointing towards the table, the fancy riding crop still in his hand. “I suggest you go and

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apologize to her this instant, or you’ll be getting a spanking in front of her.” “But you only spank for punishment on Fridays,” I cried. At least he hasn’t, not since our first few weeks of domestic discipline. The vacuum shut off and I could it hear it being rolled to the foyer. “Troy,” I begged. “I couldn’t bear to, I’d be so embarrassed!” But he didn’t give me a chance to try. He put a hand to my back and pressed me to the dining room table. He unsnapped my jeans and wiggled them down my legs, then pulled my panties down too. “I like your dresses much better, young lady.” I didn’t let out a squeak, such was my fear that Mrs. Smith would hear. “Step out,” he commanded much too loudly. I would have debated the subject but I worried above all else that Mrs. Smith would eavesdrop. With a deep breath I did as I was told. “Spread your legs. You know how I like to see you positioned for a spanking.” I cringed as his last word, ‘spanking,’ seemed to echo through the room. I glared up at the portrait of his grandfather, silently accusing him of putting me in this awful position. When I finally positioned myself to Troy’s satisfaction, my greatest fear was realized. “Mrs. Smith, would you come in here please?” he called out. “Troy, no!” I whispered. In only seconds I heard “Yes, Troy?” then, “Oh my.” A hot tear trailed down my cheek and I didn’t dare turn my head towards the door. “Mrs. Smith, I hope you know what a treasured member of this family you are. You’ve been in this household for over fifty years, and you were an immense support to me when I came to live here at age eleven after my parents died.” I gulped. What could she see of my bare bottom from the doorway?

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“Mrs. Smith,” he continued, speaking to her as if I weren’t there, but I knew his words were meant for me. “I know we pay you a salary and you do a wonderful job of cleaning, but it’s always been much more than a working relationship. You clean with the heart of a mother, and my grandmother, my grandfather, and now I, have always tried to return that with the spirit of respect that kind of care deserves.” I felt my knees start to tremble. Then I felt the floppy flat tip of the riding crop press against the back of my leg and I held my breath. “Is there anything you’d like to say to Mrs. Smith, Jenny?” I nodded. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Smith. Please go away.” But I could only whisper, and I knew no one heard me. “A bit louder, young lady.” I clutched the end of the table in mortification. “I’m sorry for my behavior, Mrs. Smith.” My voice cracked as I said it, though it was at least audible this time. “Good girl,” pronounced Troy. “Thank you, Mrs. Smith. Would you please excuse us?” “Of course, and dearie, think nothing of it.” I could sense her giving me a comforting smile, but I was so embarrassed and I determined within myself to hate her. “Don’t worry, dearie. My husband has taken me to task many a time, too. In fact, I think I’ll just go outside and see what he’s up to.” Dearie, I scoffed inwardly. But then the riding crop smacked down and I knew Troy was disappointed in me. I’d only moved in two weeks ago with visions of being the genteel lady of the manor, and already I appeared to be the mistress from hell to the servants—er, household assistants. The riding crop was like nothing he’d spanked me with before. No thudding, bruising feeling like the hairbrush, or the hard sting of his hand. Not even the bruising sensation of the paddle.

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No, the riding crop felt almost like a switch, slicing into my skin with a sharp sting that took my breath away. I would have gotten out of position to object, but I didn’t want to lose my dignity, even though Mrs. Smith said she’d gone outside. This spanking was different than any he’d ever given me before. He didn’t spank me until I cried. He didn’t lecture me much, but just stung me over and over for endless minutes without pause. When he was done, he didn’t gather my crying figure into my arms afterwards and rocked me. He just let the crop hang from his hand as he addressed me. “I’ll send in Mrs. Smith to help you with the thank you invitations this afternoon while I’m at work.” My heart sunk. “Troy, please. You humiliated me.” He looked at his watch as if he hadn’t heard me. “I had planned on leaving thirty minutes ago, young lady.” Then he looked up at me, pointing the riding crop towards my nose like and accusing finger. “I expect you to be your normal, sweet, polite self to Mrs. Smith. Understood?” I nodded miserably, standing up and slowly pulling my jeans up over my scorched skin. “Stop right there.” I looked up at him in shock, and he pushed me forward to bend over the table, pulling my panties down to my knees to join my half put-on jeans. “That’s supposed to be ‘Yes, Sir,’ young lady.” Ten more quick lashes made me sob anew and I didn’t even try to get away from the pain. Almost immediately after he lowered the crop, his cell phone rang. I stood up and began the painful process of pulling my panties up again. “Okay, I’ll be there in ten minutes,” He snapped his cell phone shut and handed me the crop. “This goes upstairs in the whip—” he stopped himself, knowing I hated that word “—spanking room.”

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I took it and nodded, then added “Yes, Sir.” Troy ruffled my hair and kissed my head, but was running out to talk to Mrs. Smith before I could even get a hug. I looked around at all the wedding gifts and suddenly felt lonelier than I had felt in a long time. Rule No. 6: Thou shalt have dinner steaming on the table when thy husband gets home from the office. Mrs. Smith bustled around the dining room, organizing the presents and addressing thank you envelopes. “You make such a good wife for Mister Troy. I was always jealous of his Nanna, you know?” She didn’t wait for a response. “She got spanked every Friday at seven like clockwork, and look what a beautiful house they had. She had dinner steaming on the table at five every night, and a husband who couldn’t wait to get home, either. His grandfather, he was a hard worker —the hardest, really, but he never worked late. Couldn’t bear to, truth be told. He missed his wife from the moment he walked out the door and it showed.” I frowned and accidentally smudged my thank you card to Troy’s aunt and uncle. I hardly wanted to thank them—with the pain in my bottom, I felt more like cursing them for gifting us a riding crop. I sighed and looked up at her, exasperated. She didn’t notice. “I can’t help but notice what a change in you since he’s starting spanking you regularly, too, after the proposal.” I must have blushed, because she waved a hand at me. “It’s nothing to be embarrassed about, dearie. Troy’s grandfather even had me hold his wife down a few times when she earned herself some particularly severe spankings. I’ll do the same for you, if you ever want.” She looked at me as if she were offering a great favor. I just gaped at her.

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“I wish my husband would learn something from the Mister Troy and his grandfather, may he rest in peace.” “Who says I get spuh … spuh … spanked regularly?” “Oh dearie, just a guess. I heard noises a few Fridays, but I wasn’t sure until this morning when I saw him taking you to task.” I blushed. “Mrs. Smith,” I said carefully, not wanting to insult her and earn another punishment from Troy. “Thank you so much for organizing everything and putting the addressed envelopes on top of the gifts.” I threw in a good yawn for effect. “But I’m tired, and I just want to take a hot bath and shut my eyes for a few minutes.” Mrs. Smith came over and put her hand to my forehead like a mother hen. “The Mister Troy had to run to work too fast after spanking you, did he? You look unsettled, like you need a good hug.” She may have been right, but it did nothing to comfort me. She held out her arms to hug me but I busied myself organizing the stationery and pretended that I hadn’t seen. She dropped her arms and cleared her throat. “Let me go run you a bath and put some lovelysmelling lavender salts in for you. Just a …” I cut her off too sharply. “No!” At her hurt look, I added, “I just need to … some time …” Tears threatened, so I set down my pen and closed my eyes. “I’m just going to go up to my room.” As soon as was safe within the privacy of the bathroom, I cried with a depression I didn’t understand and sat in the steam of the hot shower until the water ran cold. Not feeling much better, I went and took a little nap before returning to the dining room to finish the thank you cards. Grandfather—as I was starting to think of his portrait—seemed to frown at me the whole time. An anger at the whole morning’s events began to brew within me, and finally bubbled into a hot

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feeling of betrayal. He’d spanked me and left me, without so much as a backward glance. Such was the resentment rising in me that day that by four o’clock, I sat and sulked at the dining room table after finishing the thank you cards instead of fixing dinner. I was getting tired from my anger, but I held on to it fast until he finally came home. As always, he dropped off his briefcase in his office, sorted through the mail real quick, took off his jacket, and finally came into the dining room. He looked around in surprise. “What happened, sweetie? Where’s dinner?” I scowled. “Oh no. Did dinner not do well?” He came towards me with such kindness I wanted to spit at him. “We can order in, it’s no big deal.” I growled and crossed my arms over my chest. My anger had built up to a point that I could barely grind the words out. “I. did. not. burn. dinner.” “Oh.” He hesitated, and instead of taking the last step towards me, he pulled out the dining chair beside me and sat down. “What happened then?” I glared at him. “I am not some fifties’ housewife wanting nothing more in life than to cook and clean for my husband.” He seemed taken aback. “But Mrs. Smith cleans.” He cocked his head at me. “And you cook because we agreed that you would cook Monday through Thursday since you work from home—and less hours at that—and Saturday and Sunday we cook together or go out. And Fridays we go out.” I scowled. “I am not cooking dinner for you anymore. If you’re hungry, get it yourself.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Look, I’ve had a rough day at the office, and I’m tired. We’ll discuss this on Friday.” I smirked. “Jenny,” he added, “I’m not going to punish you now, if that’s what you’re wanting. But you’d better think carefully, because each night dinner is not on

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the table this week, your punishment on Friday will be that much worse.” I stuck my tongue out at him, grabbed my purse, and headed to McDonald’s. I went to the library afterwards and didn’t come home until after Troy was asleep. I crawled into bed, stiffly keeping to my half. The next day I arranged my schedule so that I wasn’t home when he came home from work. I did the same on Wednesday, avoiding him like the plague. On Thursday night, he called my cell phone and calmly asked me if he should take his partner and his wife out to dinner instead of bringing them home to our planned dinner party. Although I had reluctantly started cooking the spaghetti sauce, I threw the wooden spoon in the sink and shouted “Fine!” I would have loved to slam down the phone, too, but the limitations of the cordless phone are such that the best I could do was press the hang-up button as hard as I could. Not quite the same effect, unfortunately. That was the point at which I started to hate myself. I mean, I love dinner parties. I love cooking up something pretty and pleasing my guests, putting out the fancy antique china and showing them around the house. I particularly liked Margaret Whittaker, his partner’s kindly wife. They were about twenty years older than us, but Margaret was a lady to be admired, gracious and just plain nice. Come to think of it, I liked cooking for Troy, too. I enjoyed trying new recipes every week, and watching his face light up with pleasure when he bit into my latest creation. I was trying to punish him, but I was hurting myself more. “I’m not going to dinner with you, and I’m not going to the spanking room tonight.” I crossed my arms over my chest, determined that this Friday was going to be different.

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“There’s a time and a place for your objections, and you know very well that this is not it.” “You are too damn—” I coughed with a fair amount of terror, not wanting another spanking for swearing “—darn strict!” “Young lady, are you going to need a correction for every swear word in your vocabulary before you start speaking like a lady? We’ll discuss that as well tonight.” I shrieked like a fishwife. “You are so damn frustrating!” Then I pounded two fists into his chest. “Damn you!” He grabbed my wrists and held them with a bit too much pressure for my comfort. I tried to pull them out of his grasp, screeching even more. A part of me was appalled at my behavior, and a part of me was just so angry I couldn’t control myself. “You let someone else see me getting spanked! It was beyond humiliating!” “Now, Jenny, I sent her away before I spanked you, and she couldn’t even see your bare bottom from the doorway. I preserved your modesty, if that’s what you’re worried about.” “I can never see her again—I hate her!” The memory of Mrs. Smith’s kindly face infuriated me, and that made me feel ashamed of myself. Which just made me angrier. “But she’s family, Jenny.” Troy had on his “I’m trying to be reasonable” hat. “She’s not my family! She may be yours, but she’s not mine and you humiliated me in front of her!” “Sweetie,” he paused with a worried expression on his face, “I know how you hate me to ask this, but … you aren’t PMSing, are you?” I folded my arms over my chest and ignored his question, though he might have had a point. “You crossed a line.” I shook my head. “I don’t like this spanking stuff anymore, I don’t want it, and I’m not going to ever let you spank me again!”

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Then, with tears running down my face, I blurted, “And you left without even giving me a hug, after all that!” I eyed the vase on the table, consumed with the desire to smash it to pieces. “You left me to face her alone, after humiliating me in front of her!” He stepped back at my words, his face falling into an expression of remorse. “Oh, sweetie.” He sighed. “I see what this is about. I forgot the aftercare.” He took a step towards me as if to hug me, but I turned away. “It seems like such a little thing,” he said sadly. “But the little things are most important to me of all! I told you that before we were married!” I stomped my foot in sheer frustration. “You promised you wouldn’t forget the little things!” Troy loosened his tie and tossed his jacket over the chair. Taking a seat, he sighed. “You know, just because I brandish the paddle doesn’t mean I can’t make mistakes.” He looked up at me sincerely. “I’m sorry, I should have stuck around longer and held you and made sure you were … in the right headspace before I left.” I crossed my arms over my chest and ignored his apology. “I don’t want anyone to know I get spanked. My friends would pity me, for chrissakes. You have to get rid of the Smiths. Hire a new gardener and cleaner. Hire a service.” “That I won’t do, Jenny. They’ve been with our family forever, and they deserve better than that.” “So retire them!” I screeched, feeling less ladylike by the minute. “It’s them or me, Troy!” Troy stood. “Enough. Jenny, I’m sorry. I was wrong, and everything has just been blown severely out of proportion this week because I didn’t realize what was going on. But right now you’re out of control and you need to calm down.” He firmly took hold of my arm. “Go to bed, and we’ll discuss this in the morning.” Then I snapped in the most sarcastic voice I’d ever heard myself use. “And what happened to

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Mister Every Friday Night You Can Count On It? Besides, I’m not a child and I don’t have to go to bed when you tell me to.” I wrenched my arm out of his grasp violently, not minding that I accidentally knocked his chin in the process. “Jennifer!” He frowned at me and I glared back. He grabbed my wrists again. “No!” I said. I tried to ignore the realization that I’d adamantly refused to submit to a spanking that night, and then turned around and yelled at him for not giving me that same spanking. He stood unmoving while I struggled and he took a few deep breaths to calm himself. Then he looked into my eyes and asked, “Is this really who you want to be?” At which I burst into sobs and tried—in vain—to pound at his chest some more. “I can’t stand it! Would you stop being right?” I tore away from him and curled into a ball in the corner. He came towards me to comfort me, and I shook my head and waved him away. “Go away, just go away!” I’d never seen him uncertain before, and the fact that he was looking at me uncertainly disconcerted me further. “I hate you! You bring out the worst in me and I hate you and I want you to go away!” Troy looked as if I had slapped him. For once, he did as I told him, and I curled into the corner of the dining room. I wanted to disappear, I was so deeply embarrassed. He’d seen the worst of me, that was for sure. I felt more exposed and humiliated than during any spanking or corner time he’d ever given me. Worse, I felt ugly. Ugly, unattractive, and not at all the lady the house called for. I felt his grandfather’s eyes boring into me from the portrait hanging across the room. I bet his tiny wife was always submissive and sweet, and practically perfect. I bet that she had never screeched and screamed at her husband.

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I looked up at Troy’s grandfather’s portrait through my tears, and thought I saw him shake his finger at me. I curled into the corner further, hid my eyes under my arm and sobbed. “Sweetie? Come here.” I didn’t look up, but I knew he was close. I shook my head fervently. “I can’t.” “Come here, sweetie. Let me hold you.” I shook my head. “I don’t—” I couldn’t finish my sentence, because an awful, keening cry peeled out of me in a sound only the heartbroken would ever recognize. “Sweetie …” he sighed helplessly. I shook my head and tried to explain, but I sounded like a whimpering dog trying to speak—my mouth could not seem to form any consonants. “Please, sweetie, let me help you.” “No!” He made a frustrated sound when I turned away from him, then grabbed my hand and pulled me over his knee in seconds. “I’m not ignoring your ‘no,’ Jenny. But I think you need to get in a position where you can listen reasonably and calm down.” He wrestled my jeans down, which must have been quite difficult, and locked my legs between his. After a fair bit of grunting on his part, my bottom was exposed and perfectly positioned for a spanking. The instant his hand touched my bare bottom, I broke into horrible, ugly sobs that wracked my body. It was as if his hand to my bottom was a switch in me, and all my anger drained out to be replaced by instant remorse. Troy said nothing and just rubbed my bottom, like he always did at night to help me go to sleep. I kept crying. After a long time of it, he finally asked, “Are you ready?” I managed to shake my head no and nod at the same time.

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“What was that, sweetie? Are you ready?” he repeated. I tried to say ‘Yes, Sir,’ but it came out as an incoherent whine. I nodded my head helplessly. I thought for sure he meant he was going to spank me. He did leave my panties down and my bottom bare, but he pulled me up into his arms and nuzzled my head under his chin. “Tell me everything, sweetie.” All my feelings spilled out, all my fears and insecurities and everything. I told him how I didn’t want him to see me this way, how I felt so ugly when I behaved like a fishwife, and how I knew something wasn’t right with the way things were going but I didn’t know what and I was afraid it was my fault and that I loved him so much and I didn’t want things to be ugly between us. He didn’t say a word, just listened and rocked me, rubbing my bottom in slow circles and letting me cry until I was practically asleep with exhaustion. On a last hiccup of a sob, I asked, “you know what I mean?” He stopped rocking. He smoothed my sweaty hair off my face and wiped the tears from my eyes. He kissed the place where my tears had been, and then he kissed the top of my forehead. “I love you sweetie, but I couldn’t understand a single word of anything you just said.” I started to cry again but it came out as a giggle. I giggled and started to cry again, and then giggle-cried for another five minutes while Troy rocked me. “We’ll sort this out, sweetie. Can you go to sleep?” I was half asleep already from sheer exhaustion. I took one last look at his grandfather’s portrait and said, “But not in here.” He stood me up and made me look into his strong brown eyes. “Listen to me, Jenny.

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Tomorrow you’ll take some chocolate-covered strawberries and tea to Mrs. Smith—she likes visitors on Saturdays, when her husband is off golfing.” I shook my head. He sighed. “I want you to make friends with her. I expect you to be polite and civil and kind, and to converse with her for at least an hour. If you still feel you cannot be comfortable in this house with her here, then you can inform her of her retirement at the end of the year.” “But—” “No, Jenny,” he said firmly. “Absolutely no ‘buts.’ You’ll do as you’re told, in this case at least, understood?” I stared at his big, shiny shoes. “Yes, Sir,” I whispered. Then he carried me to bed, but I was asleep before he took my clothes off and snuggled me under the covers.

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Chapter Six Rule No. 7: Thou shalt not pretend to be a reluctant participant in thy chosen lifestyle. “Wake up, Jenny.” I couldn’t open my eyes. I was exhausted and spent, like all my tears had drained every last drop of energy out of my body. It was not a normal Saturday—usually the spankings I got on Friday night made me bawl like a baby, but I slept peacefully afterwards and woke up happy and refreshed. Relaxed. But today I groaned. Last night had not been a typical Friday night. No spanking, no release of pent-up stress, and no after-spanking cuddling. “It’s ten o’clock already, wake up. We have to have a good talk and then you have to go visit with Mrs. Smith. I told her you’d be dropping by, and I even stopped into town this morning and picked up a box of chocolate-covered strawberries for you to give her.” I whimpered. He pulled the covers off and lifted my night gown off my bottom. I seemed to still have underwear on—which was unusual for a Saturday morning—because he pulled it down to my knees. “Okay,” he said, resting his hand on my bottom comfortingly. “I know this is a hard time for you. You’ve just moved into a new house, just gotten married, and your life is totally different than it was a mere six months ago.” I gradually opened my eyes, realizing I was staring into the pillow. “I’ve never been woken up with a spanking, that’s for sure.” I mumbled. “I’m not going to spank you.” He patted my bottom. “At least not right now. We need to talk.” I sighed. I know women are stereotyped as talkers— always wanting to discuss the relationship—but I’m with the men on this one. I

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love the beauty of unsaid words. Mostly, I preferred to avoid the situation altogether. “You haven’t finished setting up your studio yet and you haven’t painted in weeks, for one thing. That’s not like you—painting is a large part of who you are.” “If we’re just going to talk, can I sit up?” Smack! I sighed. It wasn’t a particularly painful smack, though. “There goes the ‘I’m not going to spank you’ promise.” He ignored my sarcasm. “Let’s start with the ‘Sir’ issue. You seem to be having particular difficulty with that rule.” “Can I sit up, Sir?” “No,” he answered quickly. “What is so difficult about that little word?” “Well, first of all, it’s embarrassing. I don’t want my friends to hear me call you Sir.” Troy began gently massaging my bottom with his fingers. Not the normal rubbing, but a deep tissue massage that was both relaxing and invigorating. “And?” he asked. “I don’t know when I have to say it. Sometimes it seems to be okay if I don’t say it for hours, and then suddenly it’s not okay and I get a spanking.” I recalled the day we spent at the local carnival last weekend and how much fun we’d had together. I hadn’t called him ‘Sir’ all day, and then suddenly, as we were leaving, it was an issue. “Just think of when your father required you to call him ‘Sir,’ and those are the appropriate times to address me as ‘Sir.’” I turned my head around to look at him like he was crazy. “I never called my father Sir! That’s ridiculous.” Troy sat there a bit dumbfounded for a few seconds. “Well, okay … I guess that helps explain your difficulty with the word.” “Did you call your father ‘Sir’?”

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He nodded and tapped my bottom in the same rhythm. “And my grandfather.” “So, what now?” I asked. “Do I have to append every sentence with ‘Sir’? It sounds a bit ridiculous.” The massage felt great, and I sighed happily when he started working his way up my back. “No, of course not.” He pulled at my nightgown and tangled me up in it while trying to take it off. “You could just ask,” I giggled, trying to unwind the ribbon from my neck. “Okay, you should call me ‘Sir’ when I tell you to do something, when we’re in the spanking room, when I take that tone with you, when we’re having a serious discussion …” he trailed off thoughtfully. “Anytime you’re over my knee, of course, and pretty much anytime I require a response from you.” I grinned into the pillow as his hands worked their way up my back, thoroughly working out all the knots of stress I’d gotten in the past week. “You’re pretty bossy, you know. I’ll be sir-ring you most of the time, at that rate.” He chuckled at my humor. “No complaint here. Jenny, you’ll learn when it is appropriate to say ‘Sir’ and when you don’t have to. I’ll try to be clear, but some of it is just subjective, in which case you’ll learn by getting your butt spanked.” “But I don’t want to call you ‘Sir’ in front of anyone, and I never want you to spank me in front of anyone again.” He sighed. “You don’t have to call me ‘Sir’ in front of anyone if you don’t wish.” He dug his thumbs into the back of my neck and it was as if he rubbed a hundred pounds off my shoulders. “Are you ashamed of our lifestyle?” “I’m ashamed of what people would think of me if they knew of our lifestyle.” I almost cooed when he lifted me off his lap and started massaging my shoulders. “I don’t want them to think I’m some weak-willed wife who lets her husband abuse her

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and … I don’t know. I know I just don’t want them to think of me the way they would think of me if they knew.” “Abused women are not weak-willed.” As he pulled at the knots of my shoulders I sighed. “And you most certainly are not weak-willed.” I cringed guiltily. “I’m not saying that I think that. I’m just saying that society thinks that, and I don’t want them to think of me that way.” “You’re awful concerned with what other people think.” I shrugged. “It’s just how I am.” I propped myself up on my elbows and looked up at him. “And I don’t want you to ever spank me so that someone else knows I’m being spanked.” “Except family,” he agreed. “Especially not family!” I cried. “My mother would be appalled, and your family is your family. Not mine yet, not really. What would they think of me?!” Troy laughed and turned me around, finally letting me sit up. I breathed a sigh of relief, pulled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around in a self-cuddle; I needed it. “They’d think you were one of them. All the men in the Kensington family spank their wives.” “What, you have spanking orgies?” “Hey,” he gently reprimanded my sarcasm. “No. But it’s not so unusual, if we’re spending a weekend together, for one of my aunts or sister-in-laws to be taken to their room and given a good spanking.” “See!” Not that I even liked that idea. “At least they take them to their room for some privacy, not call someone in to look at them ready to get spanked!” “My uncle bared my aunt’s bottom in the living room five Thanksgivings ago when she disrespected him in public.” I gasped.

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“He didn’t let us see anything, but he did ask my grandfather for a hairbrush and spanked her pretty good.” “You wouldn’t do that to me!” Troy tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear. He could be so gentle, and yet so not gentle, too. “I would, Jenny, and you need to know that.” “Then I won’t go to anything with your family, ever!” He ignored me. “But I will admit this, and I apologize again for leaving you too quickly after your spanking this week. They all see to it that their wives feel forgiven afterwards and feel like they’ve gotten their dignity back.” “I don’t know if I like that,” I said, even though I most definitely knew that I did not like that. “Of course you don’t, sweetie.” We sat their silently for a second. He gathered the pillows and piled them up to make a back rest, and then leaned against it, gathering me in his arms. That I did like—Troy was a rare breed of a manly man who still liked to cuddle. We relaxed there quietly until the grandfather clock chimed twelve, and then he helped me out of bed. “Time to go see Mrs. Smith,” he said firmly. I stared at the floor. “What about my Friday night spanking?” We’d skipped it last night, due to my temper tantrum. He looked down at me thoughtfully. “You know, I’ve heard that there’s a tradition in Judaism, that a convert will only be accepted after he’s asked three times.” I bit my lip. “You won’t be spanked again, until you’ve asked me three times.” I stared at him in shock. “But what about every Friday?” “And on three separate occasions, that is,” he continued, as if I hadn’t spoken.

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“But you promised!” I cried, surprised both at his decision and my dismay. He put a finger to my lips. “If you don’t like it, I want you to think about why. I’m not saying our lifestyle is always going to be easy. I can’t promise that I’ll always be a perfect spanker and I want you to be committed to it.” I stared out the window at the sunny, clear blue sky. “But what if I never ask?” He shrugged. “But you said that you wouldn’t enter marriage with someone who wasn’t … willing to live this lifestyle.” He smiled. “I’m fairly confident you’ll ask, but even if you don’t …” He gathered my hands up in his. “I love you more than the lifestyle, Jenny.” Crossing the grounds to the servant’s house carrying a basket of chocolate-covered strawberries, I felt like a naughty version of Little Red Riding Hood sent to her grandmother’s to apologize. Except I hardly knew Mrs. Smith. I knew, though, that there would be no way that I had the heart—or guts—to tell them to retire, no matter how awkward I felt around her. Troy gave me the option only to make feel like I had a choice, but in my mind, it was no choice. “Oh, dear! You shouldn’t have!” But she took them with relish and had them arranged on a pretty platter with a tall pitcher of lemonade before I could say ‘it was nothing.’ She looked so pleased by the strawberries but also very human. A little uncomfortable herself, she seemed eager to turn herself inside out to put me at ease. I figured I may as well get the worst over with. “Mrs. Smith, I behaved badly yesterday. I’m sorry. You obviously do a fabulous job of keeping the house in order, and I could never do such a good job.” In true awe, I added, “Everything sparkles and shines— it’s amazing.” I cleared my throat. “I’m sorry, I should have listened to you when you

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explained why fixing lunch would be too difficult instead of arguing because of my stubborn pride.” “Ah well, you can call me Margaret, dear.” She took a nervous sip of lemonade. “I tried to talk with you this week, but you were never around. My husband thought—” she looked furtively around “— actually, I’ve come to agree, that is …” she trailed off. She blushed and I stared at her in fascination. I realized that I’ve never seen someone over sixty blush before. Her wrinkled and well make-upped skin was growing red like the skin of a ripening tomato. Did age make people blush slower? Mrs. Smith fluttered her hands towards her lemonade but left it untouched. She then arranged them neatly on her lap. “You are my employer, and if you want me to cook lunch, then that is my duty. As my husband says, I say ‘yes ma’am’ and do it, and if that will make me unable to complete my work for the day, then I’ll either find a way to do it anyway or find a respectful way to inform you of the situation.” For some reason, it appalled me to hear her apologize to me. “Oh, no …” I didn’t know where to start. “First, please don’t ma’am me.” I blushed myself. “I’m too young, and … none of that is necessary, Mrs. Smith.” She wavered her hand towards my arm. “Call me Margaret, please.” I almost laughed. “Then why doesn’t Troy ever call you Margaret?” She shrugged. “He won’t hear of it.” She laughed and seemed more at ease. “He says that I’ve always been Mrs. Smith since the day he was born, and that I’ll always be Mrs. Smith to him.” I could tell she was flattered by Troy’s charm, even though she’d known him all her life. “I’ve never had a servant and this is all a bit new to me. I don’t know how to behave towards you, but I’ll try not to repeat my behavior of this week.”

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“Well, my husband is right, and I have the sore bottom to prove it.” She laughed awkwardly and then a wistful look grew in her eyes. “But I’ve always thought of Troy and his family as my family. It might be nice if— after I’m through with my work, of course—we could be friends, too.” She got spanked, too? Why was it all of a sudden that spanking seemed everywhere. I’d never given a thought to it in my life, and then all of sudden references were everywhere. Television, books, even songs. Now the servants! “How did Mr. Smith start spanking you?” I’m sure I blushed then at my forward question. “Oh, back then it was not a novelty or anything. Men spanked their children and they spanked their wives.” She nodded, as if agreeing with herself. “It was just life.” Surprisingly, I never really considered not asking for a return to our spanking lifestyle. The only issue was when and how. Yes, I missed the Friday night spankings and I missed the way he raised his eyebrow at me when I’d done something to warrant a spanking. But it was much easier to play the reluctant spankee than a willing one. It was also easier to accept a spanking than to ask for one. Now he expected me to commit to our lifestyle, ask for it, and accept it willingly. I did start painting a lot more. Actually, I sketched the first nude I had ever painted since after graduating from Parsons. I called it ‘Willing Wife’ and I wanted to paint it and surprise Troy with it, maybe for Christmas or even our first anniversary, depending on how quickly I could get it done. I just knew there would be a right time. I wanted to use mostly red and ivory tones, with a happy wife gracefully stretched out on a deep, fluffy bed. Her bottom was red, her face trailed with tears, but a small smile played at the corners of her little French pout.

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I’d sketched it after talking with Mrs. Smith, and although the subject was a twenty- or thirtysomething wife, she had Mrs. Smith’s smile and content expression that fixed on her face when she was talking about how her husband spanked her. Why didn’t I feel that happy when Troy told me what to do and what not to do? I felt worse when he didn’t, though. Over the next few days, it became more and more evident that not only was he not going to spank me until I asked for it, but he wasn’t going to reprimand me, either. First, I was so involved in my painting that I forgot dinner yet again. I heard him come in the front door and I rushed downstairs full of apologies. “I’m sorry, Troy!” But he was unfazed. “That’s okay, sweetie. I know you need to stay in the flow when you’re painting.” He was right and I should have been thrilled that he understood. But I felt disappointed instead. The situation did not improve. “Troy,” I said over breakfast the next morning. “I forgot to mail the bills last Friday.” He sighed in exasperation. “Jenny,” he said sharply, then stopped himself. “Can you mail them today or do I need to take them to work with me?” I shook my head and said in a small voice, “I can mail them today.” I waited for him to reprimand me, tell me to log it in my head for a future spanking or something, but that was the end of our discussion. That day I purposely didn’t paint, even though he’d made it a rule I was to paint every week day since I got my studio set up. And even though I couldn’t wait to get back to ‘The Willing Wife.’ I knew, though, that it would surely bother Troy. ‘Painting makes you happier and therefore healthier,’ he’d said. Well, I spent most of the day in the Jacuzzi catching up on my favorite authors. At dinner, I grew more and more frustrated when he didn’t ask how my painting went that

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afternoon as usual. I finally blurted, “I took a bath today.” Troy glanced up from his spaghetti to laugh at me teasingly. “I’m glad. It’s much more pleasant to make love to you when you smell good.” I tapped my foot impatiently as he cut a meatball in two. “I even caught up on some reading I’ve wanted to finish for a long time.” “That’s great, sweetie.” He seemed genuinely pleased with my news, which was frustrating me further. I finally got to the point. “I didn’t paint,” I said defiantly. He looked up sharply at me, meatball and fork poised in the air. He cocked his head slightly and then gave a small nod. “Well, that’s your decision.” I slammed my fork down. He didn’t even raise an eyebrow. “Damnit!” I finally got a reaction. He put his fork down and stood up. “Dinner is not to be a battleground. I’m going to get some work done in the office.” I screeched in frustration. “You don’t care whether or not I cook dinner, mail the bills, or even paint! You don’t care about me at all!” On a sob I tried unsuccessfully to stifle, I added in a small voice, “Will you spank me?” “Jenny!” Troy slapped a hand to the table. “You know that isn’t it. And no, I will not spank you. I do not want to—nor do I intend to—turn into the Jenny police.” He sighed. “That’s not what this sort of relationship is about.” “Then what is it about?” “Love and trust,” he answered automatically. I sighed. “That’s all fine and good, but what is it about, in practical terms?” “You trusting me to decide what’s best for this family, loving me enough to obey my decisions, and respecting my judgment enough to trust that those decisions are best for us.”

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“But even you said that you can make mistakes.” “You’re always allowed to voice your thoughts and opinions in a respectful manner at the proper time. I’m more than willing to listen with an open mind and you know that about me.” “None of that says anything about spanking me.” “When you do something that is not in the best interest of yourself or this family, or when you disobey me or forget a rule, you get punished. It’s as simple as that. You know all this and we’ve been over all this before.” He wiped his hands on the linen napkin and threw it down on top of his half-eaten dinner. “You bratted and tried to pick a fight with me at the dinner table. The consequence for that is to finish dinner alone. If and when we resume the discipline aspect of our relationship, more effective discipline will be the result of such behavior.” He didn’t need spanking to make me feel guilty. I apologized in a small voice and he picked up his dinner dishes, took them to the kitchen, and then disappeared into his office. I sat alone under the painting of his formidable grandfather, picked at my spaghetti, and tried not to cry. The next time I asked him to resume our spanking relationship was that Friday. “Will you start spanking me again?” “Why?” He wasn’t supposed to ask that. I shrugged. “’Cause I like it better when you spank me.” “Why?” I handed him the car keys and put on my coat for dinner. “It makes me feel safe and loved.” He smiled and I took it as a good sign. “I just don’t want you to spank me so that you leave marks before I want to wear a bathing suit or spank me when anyone would know I was being spanked.” Troy took the keys and his smile faded into a thin line of disapproval. “Jenny, I have feelings too,

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and it hurts me when you don’t trust me. You automatically assume I’m not going to give regard to your feelings or dignity, and you haven’t really given me a chance to prove otherwise to you.” I stared at his toes guiltily. “That’s not what I meant, Troy.” “I don’t want you to treat me like the enemy. I’m on your side, always.” He made me look into his eyes and then wrapped his arms around me. “Do you understand that? When I spank you, it’s because I want you to grow and learn, or it’s because I want you to feel safe and cared for.” I sighed. I waited another full week before I asked him again. I popped into his office the next Friday we returned from our weekly dinner out. I hoped to finally get a spanking—it was my third time asking. “Troy, do you think we could, you know.” I blushed. “Could we resume our spanking lifestyle?” Troy put down his pen, closed the checkbook and looked at me steadily. “But you’re ashamed of your lifestyle. I can see it. You won’t tell your friends. You won’t tell anyone.” “But it’s not a socially-accepted lifestyle!” I cried. “It’s not like telling them will make them feel more comfortable around me. They’ll pity me and worry about me and think I’m being brainwashed!” “Should they think that?” I just looked at him. “Think what?” “Do you think your lifestyle is one to be pitied? Are you worried about you? Do you feel like you’re brainwashed?” I pulled my legs up to sit Indian style in the overstuffed chair. “Of course not. He peered down at me. “Well, then. If they’re your friends, I’m sure they’ll have the attitude that if you’re happy, then they’re happy with your choices.” I clasped my arms around my knees. “Maybe. But I just don’t want to advertise our lifestyle to the world. Besides, it’s private and intimate.”

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“I know, sweetie, and it’s not like I want to advertise our lifestyle either.” He leaned back in his chair. “But I’m proud of who I am. I’m proud of what you give me, and I’m proud of our marriage. I’m not ashamed of it. You are, and that concerns me.” I didn’t know what to say to that—he was right. I settled down into the chair and studied the thick, woolen carpeting. After a long silence, I pointed out, “I’ve asked you three times.” Troy nodded. “Maybe three times isn’t enough.” I stood up. “You promised!” He stood up too. “Not exactly, young lady. Now get yourself to bed, young lady. You have a lot going on tomorrow, and you know how crabby you get if you don’t get a full night’s sleep.” I stomped my foot. “Why should I do what you say if you’re not going to spank me?” He literally rolled his eyes. “You said you were on your way up to bed when you walked in here.” “So!” I challenged. “You’re not going to brat me into spanking you, young lady.” I felt like sticking my tongue out at him. “But if you’re not going to spank me, then why should I listen to what you have to say?” Troy walked over to me, held my arm at my elbow, and put his face close to mine, like he did when he was coming in for a kiss. “You’ll obey me—” he emphasized the word I had trouble coming to terms with, even though his voice was very, very soft “—because you are my wife, and I am your husband. You’ll obey me because I always look out for what’s best for you. You’ll obey me because you love me and I love you.” He leaned closer to my ear and chills ran up and down my spine. “You’ll obey me because you vowed to at our wedding, and because you want to show me how much you trust me.” I tried to pull away so that I could look anywhere but into his eyes, but he held fast to my

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arm. I finally brought my eyes up to his and nodded. “But … but I can’t fall asleep unless you rub my bottom.” I didn’t have to work hard to let my eyes water. He smiled and leaned down to kiss my lips. “I’ll be up in a few minutes, sweetie.” He gathered me into his arms gently. “Don’t I always rub your bottom until you fall asleep?”

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Chapter Seven “You haven’t gone out with your friends in awhile.” Troy didn’t look up from the paper as he spoke. I glanced up from my current novel and shrugged. “I just haven’t felt like it.” There was a crinkle of the paper as he turned a page. “Well, I think you should get out and have some fun with your friends.” “We’ve just been married this year. They expect not to see me for a full year.” Troy chuckled. “Yeah, well. I want you to go out with them this weekend.” He’d taken to issuing orders a bit too frequently of late, even though I’d almost given up asking for him to resume our spanking lifestyle. Sometimes his orders gave me a warm, fuzzy feeling and sometimes they turned me on, but sometimes they just grated on my nerves. This was one of those latter times. “No, I don’t want to.” “You’re not allowed to tell me no,” he said mildly. He stood up to add coffee to our mugs. “Why don’t you want to?” “Because they don’t know anything of our lifestyle. They ask me how my weekend was, and I can’t exactly tell them I’m depressed because my husband won’t spank me, now can I? So I just feel better not talking to them at all.” He sunk back into his chair with an exasperated sigh. “So why don’t you give them the whole story so that they understand, and you can talk to them?” “Never,” I said. He sighed and folded the newspaper up. “It’s not that I want them to know,” I said quickly to avoid getting into the subject again. “It’s just that I have no one to talk to about this spanking stuff, and since it’s uppermost in my mind lately, I can’t think of anything else to talk about.” “You could talk to Mrs. Smith.”

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I frowned and laughed at the same time. “Troy, Mrs. Smith is at least thirty years older than me.” I cleared the breakfast dishes and filled the sink with water. Sometimes I washed the breakfast dishes by hand rather than put them in the dishwasher, simply because I found it relaxing and soothing to the spirit. Troy stood up and finished tying his tie for work. I watched his jaw muscles work the way they did when he was concerned about something. He grabbed his briefcase then immediately set it back down in the chair with a sigh. Looking up at me, he asked, “Jenny, are you unhappy?” “No!” I lowered my voice at his raised eyebrow. “You know, you just knew me as my social self. Ask my friends, I used to disappear for months on end and paint without going to a single party.” He shook his head. “A happy person likes to socialize. I’m worried about you.” He got up and took a seat next to me. “This spanking stuff isn’t a do or die thing with me, Jenny.” I just shook my head and emptied my coffee into the sink. “Well, right now it’s a die thing with you, not a do thing.” I bit my lip to hide the hurt in my voice. “I’m happy, besides! Just because I don’t feel like going out with friends who don’t understand me, doesn’t mean I’m unhappy.” “But the point is for you to feel loved and secure, safe within tangible boundaries. You used to be social and outgoing.” “But you’re not spanking me, so the point isn’t going to happen, now is it?” “Don’t take that tone with me, young lady.” I loaded the dishwasher quickly, eager to end the conversation and to finish my painting, ‘The Willing Wife.’ Edging my way towards the door, I said, “I think all newlyweds go though an adjustment period during the first year. I feel … like I lost a lot of freedom. Before I could come and go when I please, eat when I like, do what I like with very little consequence.” I snuck a peak at

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him to make sure he wasn’t hurt. “Now I’ve got to think about how my choices impact us, and …” I took a deep breath. “And beyond all that, I’m accountable to you for my behavior even though you won’t do anything about it.” Just thinking of being accountable to him gave me the warm-fuzzies, even though it was just one more life change I was getting used to. Still, the root of my sadness was that he wasn’t spanking me, and yet he seemed to find my sadness as proof to not spank me. It was exhausting. “Your life changes when you get married, but it’s supposed to be a change to be excited about. Not one to be depressed about. It’s not a jail sentence.” “I know.” I couldn’t look at him. “I can’t really pinpoint what’s wrong.” Actually, I could, but he wasn’t hearing it. I grinned up at him, trying to lighten the mood. “You know I hate change, anyway.” At his skeptical expression, I added, “I think I just need some time to sort it all out.” I heard his breath catch. “Time alone?” he asked in what I knew to be his ‘mild but really scared stiff’ tone. The realization that I knew him well enough to recognize that tone made me smile. “No, Troy. Just time.” He finally left, but not until he walked me to my studio in the left wing and worriedly made sure I was settled before leaving. The old painting set up on my easel held no interest for me, and I quickly pulled ‘The Willing Wife’ out of hiding. I jumped a mile when he burst back in the room. I stood in front of it, practically growling like a lethally-trained guard dog. “Get out!” Troy took a step backwards in surprise. “What’s that?” I could hardly believe it, but I was growling. “I’ll burn it!” I practically screamed.

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“What?” Troy seemed unsure whether to get strict or placate me. I took advantage of his momentary uncertainty. “Look, Troy, I need privacy when I work. I don’t interrupt your work, and I just want the same respect from you.” I mentally applauded myself for pulling out the word ‘respect’—that was one of his key paradigms. He looked at me for a second and then glanced around the room, as if I had a hidden lover or something. “Okay, Jenny, take it easy. I’ve told you from the beginning, I respect your art and you, of course.” He walked out and started pulling the door closed as he left. “I just wanted to remind you that we’re headed to the cabin next Wednesday for an extended weekend.” He was out the door before I could agree. I loved the cabin, but Wednesday would be my birthday. Uncharacteristically, Troy had made no mention of it. Normally he was great at details and remembering special occasions. But it was my first birthday since we’d been married, and I wasn’t sure how a wife should remind a husband of a special occasion properly without sounding greedy. Anyway, I didn’t want to remember I was getting a year older. But then again … maybe I could have a birthday spanking? I stewed for most of my birthday morning. For one thing, I had to pack for a weekend at the cabin while Troy finished some work at the office, and not only had he forgotten about my birthday, but he had not given me the laptop that he refused to allow me to buy with my own money. I had hoped his refusal was to do with a surprise birthday present. But despite my anger, I found myself procrastinating the packing in order to work on ‘The Willing Wife.’ I had chosen a large canvas, and using only ivory and red tones turned out to be quite challenging. Her skin was as flawless as I had always wished mine would become (but never did), and her nude

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form was tastefully half-hidden in the ivory sheets of the pillowy comforter. I even managed to make the background an ivory with just a touch of green that would make her reddened bottom, rosy cheeks, and child-red lips pop out. The only part I just couldn’t seem to get right was the bottom. After all, I’d never had a spanked bottom modeled for me. I’d seen mine in the mirror, but I was twisted around and wasn’t exactly studying it with my artist’s eye. After several hours of frustrated work, I heard Troy come home early. “Aren’t we packed yet?” he demanded as soon as I came downstairs. “I had to work,” I said curtly, my reasoning being that if he had to work, he wouldn’t have packed either. Since I work at home and on my own time clock, he sometimes forgets that my work calls, too. Unfortunately, Troy was in a chipper mood and not in the slightest bit tempted into a confrontation. “Good thing I got off early, then. Do you need to finish up while I pack, or do you want to do it together?” The problem with men, I figured, is they never want to have a good fight when you feel like it. Beyond that, I was beginning to feel like no birthday gift would be forthcoming, either. Troy ignored my foul mood while we packed, letting me stew in silence. Over the past few days, I had come up with various plans to ask for a spanking. My top choice was a flirty request for a birthday spanking after he gave me the laptop of my dreams. We were only an hour into our drive when Troy woke me up from a half-doze, half dreaming state. “I’m sorry, honey, I forgot my laptop and I need to get some work done this weekend.” I said nothing as he turned the car around. I just forlornly watched the rain splatter on the windshield. I said nothing an hour later when he

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asked if I would mind running in and retrieving it from his office. And when I opened the front door and about thirty people exclaimed “Surprise!” and burst into a horribly off-tune version of ‘Happy Birthday,’ I was rendered speechless. Troy came up behind me and softly buzzed into my ear, “Happy Birthday, sweetie.” My best friends were noticeably absent and I only knew one couple, but they all seemed very friendly. Mike and Nikki were good friends whom we had double-dated with often during our dating days, and we still met with them at least once a month. I smiled and spoke what I hoped was a gracious ‘thank you,’ and Nikki came up and gave me a big gregarious hug that perfectly matched her personality. She then started introducing me to all her friends—and I supposed Troy’s friends—while I tried desperately to remember names. “Troy,” I finally whispered when we had a moment. “I don’t know anyone. I feel like I’m the center of attention and should be all gracious, but I don’t know anyone and I feel shy.” “That’s okay, sweetie. You’ll find my friends a loving, accepting sort.” “Then why haven’t I met them before?” “Well,” he said carefully. “They’re my friends from a spanking club. I wanted to give you some friends to talk to for your birthday. You wanted someone your age to talk to about the lifestyle” I was touched even though I felt shy, and tears started welling up in my eyes. “I stopped going to the parties once I started dating you. Mike’s my buddy, though, and you’ve met him and his wife, Nikki.” “Yeah.” My throat was clogged with emotion as I noticed Mrs. Smith setting out a lovely buffet of my favorite Italian foods, along with enough tiramisu to keep me happy for a month.

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“Go on, sweetie, go mingle.” He put a glass of wine in my hand and I turned towards the pool area where most of the guests were mingling. “Have a drink, too.” I looked at all the women and wondered if they all got spanked, but didn’t ask. “Would you spank me in front of these people?” I whispered. He paused, a sad, tired look on his face. “If your behavior warranted it.” I didn’t want him to be sad after giving me such a thoughtful birthday present, so I gave him a peck on the cheek. “That’s okay, Troy, ‘cause I’ll be good.” “That’s my girl.” Then he gave me a smack to the rump that surely they all heard, and I blushed furiously. He grinned back. “Go get ‘em, sweetie.” People don’t believe me when I say I’m shy, but I’m generally too shy to actually act shy. So I mingled and thanked everyone for coming, finally settling down at a table in the corner with Nikki and a rotund and smiley-sort of girl she introduced as Janet. “So I’m told these are all Troy’s … spanking friends?” I blushed. They nodded eagerly. “From the Boston Red Bottoms,” Janet supplied eagerly. I had questions, but I didn’t know what to ask. We pretended to watch the other guests play in the pool in ‘relaxed’ silence. I suddenly started. “Nikki! You don’t … all this time … I mean. Do you and Mike?” I finally managed. She laughed and stole a piece of mini garlic toast from plate. “Yes.” Crunching on it unabashedly with her mouth open, she added, “I’m so glad that we can talk about it now.” “But you never said anything before!” She grinned. “Neither did you.” Always outgoing, Nikki put a hand on Janet’s arm. “Janet just joined us a few months ago.” Janet nodded and her silky brown curls bounced. “I finally brought my husband around to the idea.

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Now that I’ve got him trained,” she giggled, “he’s training me.” She had the air of a girl in first love, but she had to be pushing forty, at least. “How long have you guys been married?” “Twenty years. I didn’t tell him of my … desires until last year.” That meant she told him her dearest fantasy after nineteen years of marriage! I couldn’t believe someone would stay married for nineteen years while suppressing their desires. “Domestic discipline has been a real life-saver for our marriage. We feel like newlyweds again!” Nikki jumped into her pause. “Wait a second, some people talk about domestic discipline as if it’s a cure for life’s ills, or a fix-it-all for a marriage.” Janet humphed. Nikki grabbed my hand. “It’s not. If anything, it amplifies the difficulties in a marriage.” She grinned. “You can’t hide anything under the carpet, that’s for sure.” I nodded shyly. “I’ve been feeling sort of … sad lately.” I forced my leg to stop pumping up and down nervously. “Troy stopped spanking me.” Nikki raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Our Troy?” I wanted to say ‘no, my Troy’ but I nodded. “It took me forever to get Tom to spank me,” Janet said. “It saved our marriage, that’s for sure.” “But Troy is not a convert,” Nikki said. “What happened?” I shrugged. “He wants me to want it, first. I do want it, but he doesn’t seem to believe me yet, or something.” Nikki gave Janet an I-told-you-so look. “It’s a lot of ups and downs, and a lot of work once you get past the honeymoon stage.” I suddenly blurted, “You’re so happy and energetic and …” I trailed off, not wanting to add ‘perfect’ out loud. “I can’t believe you get spanked.”

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She giggled. “Mike loves to spank me in public.” She blushed elegantly. I felt a surge of jealousy that she could look so beautiful while blushing and didn’t notice what she said next. I couldn’t stop my mind from imagining what she would look like getting spanked. Nikki’s gorgeous body would be a great model for ‘The Willing Wife.’ “Speaking of which,” Mike interrupted, “Troy said you were to decide whether this would be a vanilla party or not.” “Vanilla?” I stared at him blankly. “Is this going to be a party where I can spank my pretty wife—” he kissed the top of Nikki’s nose while his hand reached down to pat her bottom “— or is this just going to be a regular party, no spanking added.” I couldn’t think of a thing to say. I felt the pressure to be a proper host and provide for my guest’s entertainment. On the other hand, I wasn’t sure I could pull off a flippant, ‘Spank Away!’ I was just too embarrassed. I looked at Troy on the other side of the pool engaged in conversation and then at Mike staring down fondly at his wife who was already squirming. It came to me then—I desperately wanted to finish my painting. “Sure, but … could you do me a little favor?” So Nikki, Mike and I snuck up to the studio and I locked the door behind us. I quickly pulled the canvas from hiding and set it up on the easel. I tried to push away my discomfort. After all, I was a professional and I’d worked with nudes often back in my school days. Mike made up for my discomfort with his confidence. “What do you need, then?” He sat on the couch and pulled Nikki in his arms. Her manner took on a sweeter tone than her normally sassy and funny self. “Um, I just need to see the bottom. Spanked, that is. I’m having trouble with the color. The rest is finished.” If my brush cooperated, it would be

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only a few strokes of color before the entire painting would be finished. “Just pretend I’m not here.” I blew out a breath of nervous energy. But soon I was entranced with the scene unfolding. Mike helped Nikki to her feet and guided her between his legs. “Remember that check you bounced last week?” “Yes, Sir,” she said with downcast eyes. I stared in shock. I’d never heard anyone else my age call their husband ‘Sir.’ And to hear perfect Nikki say it with such sweet submissiveness, too! He reached under her dress and pulled her panties down. “How do you want her arranged?” I swallowed. “Um, I just need her lying on her belly, her … uh, bottom slightly raised.” He guided her over his lap so that she could rest her head and legs on the couch. “How’s this?” I nodded and he winked at me. I giggled and felt slightly more at ease until he pulled Nikki’s sun dress up over her bottom. I remembered I was supposed to be painting, so I tried to calm my nerves while getting organized. “Would a hand spanking do?” I didn’t notice he was talking to me until he said, “Jenny.” I blushed and nodded. At least, I think I blushed again, but I might have already had a permanent blush pasted on my face ever since I walked upstairs with them. “You’ll let me know if you want me to stop so you can study her bottom, or if you want it welted with a belt or an instrument.” He rubbed his hand over her white bottom. “Do you want it pink, red, or purplish?” Nikki’s bottom was perfectly shaped, matching the bottom I had already painted. I only needed to add some color. “First pink, but then maybe red.” I eyed the painting and then her bottom, considering. “Does the hand leave a hand-shaped mark?”

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He grinned. “It can. Do you want it pinkened first, or do you want it white with an imprint of my hand?” I could tell the conversation was starting to get to Nikki because she was squirming. I wondered if I squirmed like that before a spanking. “Pink,” I croaked. The first slap made both Nikki and I jump. One of us squealed, and I hoped it was her. I studied Mike for a moment, admiring his strong, firm expression. He worked on her bottom with the attention of an accountant, slapping her cheeks in circles to evenly spank her bottom. But then I watched her skin begin to color under his hand and I began adding color to my painting. She squealed and wiggled a little, but not enough to move out of position. It seemed only a few minutes before I called out, “Can I see a hand shape now?” SMACK! I almost botched my painting as I jumped back, but then I leaned forward in fascination. “Do you mind?” I asked and got up to examine the contours of the imprint up close. Mike stopped spanking his wife and rested his hand on her back. When I looked at her bottom up close, I reached a finger out to trace the welt’s shape. “It is! It’s exactly like a hand!” Nikki made a gurgling, groaning sound. Forgetting my shyness again, I asked, “Does it hurt?” Nikki arched her back, rested her weight on her elbows and turned her head towards me. Her eyes were brimmed with tears but there was a small smile playing at her lips. “I take the fifth.” Mike chuckled, “Everyone’s different. My wife has a high pain tolerance, so I—” “Don’t move!” I practically shouted. Nikki had cast her eyes down at her husband’s words, her long eyelashes partially hiding her luminous green eyes. “Please don’t move,” I begged as I ran to my canvas. “Not anything, please, not an inch.”

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They were perfect models, as good as some of the professionals we had in school. I added Nikki’s eyelashes to my subject and then worked quickly on the hand shaped welt. It wasn’t until Mike cleared his throat that I realized it had been about twenty minutes. “Just one more minute,” I begged and then added my last brush stroke. “Done!” Mike patted his wife’s bottom. “We’ll finish this later, young lady.” Nikki jumped up eagerly and pulled up her panties, her manner quickly returning to her normal outgoing self. “Can we see?” I hesitated but relented. After all, I wouldn’t have been as brave as Nikki. “Oh! It’s beautiful!” And it was. I’d never felt prouder of anything I had ever painted, except perhaps my first oil painting when I was eight, an awful rendition of a ladybug that my mother still had hanging over the kitchen table. Both Nikki and I jumped at the insistent knock upon the door. “Where’s my birthday girl?” Mike strode to the door and opened it before I could say anything. Troy stepped into the room and raised his eyebrows at me without saying a word. I squirmed under his gaze but stood protectively in front of my easel. “I needed some help … uh, with my painting.” He took one look at Nikki’s face and then cocked his head at Mike. Mike, evidently, did not believe in keeping secrets, though to his credit I hadn’t asked him to. “Jenny needed a bit of modeling for her painting.” “She had you spank Nikki for you?” I laughed nervously at his incredulous tone of shock. “You can’t see.” Before he could object, I added, “It’s a surprise for you.” Troy looked relieved and pleased at the same time. “It’s good to know my wife can still surprise me.” He held out his hand to me. “Come on, some

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of the guests are leaving and we need to say goodbye.” Three hours later, after all the guests had left, I pulled Troy back up to the studio. “I thought you didn’t want me to see,” he teased. “Well, I can’t wait.” He laughed. I tend to give him gifts as soon as I buy them, unable to wait for Christmas or his birthday. “But it’s your birthday, sweetie! You’re the one who’s supposed to get gifts.” “I know.” I flipped on the light to my studio and gestured nervously. I’ve been a professional artist for over a decade, but I still get terrified when I show Troy one of my works; his opinion matters to me more than anyone else’s. I gnawed at my lip while he carefully studied it. I couldn’t see his expression as he bent down to exam it closely. “That’s gorgeous, sweetie.” He stood up and beamed with pleasure. “That’s really gorgeous.” I blew out a relieved breath. “You really like it?” He walked around the painting and grabbed me in a bear hug. “I don’t like it, I love it!” He kissed me then and pretty soon I had my mind on other things. His hands stroked down my back to caress my bottom and he pulled back. “Is there something you want to ask me?” I nodded, shy all of a sudden. “Will you … could I have a birthday spanking?” “Just for today?” he prompted. I shook my head. He waited for more than a head shake. I took a deep breath. “Will you spank me whenever you see fit?” I stared at his big tennis shoes. “And on Fridays again?” He smiled. “Most definitely.” This time I didn’t cry. Thirty-three slow spanks with his hand that hurt, but we ended with slobbery kisses all over each other that each of us hated. Somehow it had turned into a game to see who

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could gross the other out the most. He won, as usual, and he held me while I giggled, then turned me over his lap. “That’s a good and spanked bottom. If I had my way, I’d have you bare-bottomed at all times in the house, with a daily spanking to keep it pink and welted.” I shuddered as he rubbed my bottom, both in pleasure and horror at the thought. “Oh don’t worry, sweetie. I wouldn’t really do that. I know spankings hurt.” I looked at him and giggled. No, he didn’t know, I was sure. Not how much they hurt, though I suppose my cries gave him a clue.

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Chapter Eight Rule No. 8: Thou shalt respect thy husband’s decisions, and trust him to make the best decision for the family. It wasn’t like I didn’t know that my husband would be upset with my decision. It was even like I didn’t feel the nudges of my conscious as I browsed the laptops, watching all the cool graphic and sound displays they tempt you with in their demos. I knew it was wrong, but I justified it to myself with as many reasons as I could. Even then, I knew my justifications were weak, but my desire for a new, shiny, fast laptop accepted my inane reasoning. So it was with some trepidation that I brazenly and proudly showed off my new computer to Troy, trying to sound like I didn’t feel guilty and that I was confident in my choice. “Jenny,” Troy said softly and then sighed. He looked tired from work and guilt stabbed at me again. “We’ll discuss this after dinner. Put the laptop away.” He went off to his office to sort the mail like he did every day when he came home. I slowly put it away, letting my guilt brew into anger. Why shouldn’t I have a laptop? He gives me so much extra every month to spend on ‘whatever you want,’ and now that I buy whatever I want he thinks he can get upset with me. It’s not like we don’t have the money, or even that I don’t contribute financially to the household. I’ve been one of the lucky painters whose paintings sell quite well— mostly because my best friend Chloe, a sculptor I met at Parsons, ran a trendy art gallery and always featured my paintings along with her sculptures. I tend to feel guilty about spending his money in the first place, but Troy insists that is ‘our money’ and not his money. We have Mrs. Smith to clean,

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and because I don’t have a commute time, we came to the agreement that I would cook dinner on Monday through Thursday, we would eat out on Friday, and Saturdays and Sundays we cooked together. Today I had made his favorite: Kraft Macaroni and Cheese with tuna fish mixed in. He usually has a more refined palate than that; his second favorite entrée is probably something French and unpronounceable. As soon as he saw what I had set on the table he gave a small chuckle. “I can see someone feels guilty. Let me guess, we’re having hot apple pie a la mode for dessert?” “I do not feel guilty.” I did, but that was beside the point. “I have nothing that I should feel—” He interrupted me by holding up his hand. “After dinner, young lady.” I almost always love it when he calls me ‘young lady.’ It gives me little goose bump shivers of desire, but today it just annoyed me. We ate almost completely in silence as I was busy practicing every argument I could think of in my head. When Troy had finished his last bite of apple pie, he set down his fork and drank the rest of his wine. I nervously turned my fork over as if we were in a restaurant and I wanted to indicate to the waiter that I was finished with my plate. “Okay, Jennifer. Let’s clean up and have some tea in the kitchen while we discuss this.” I snatched the dishes up quickly, eager for the chance to persuade him that I had not been wrong. “Because,” he continued, “we’re likely to spend a good portion of the evening in the spanking room. You know that disobedience is not tolerated in this household.” I almost dropped the plates on the kitchen floor. “But you told me I could get anything I wanted with this ludicrous amount of play money that you want

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me to spend each month. Then I go and get something, and you get mad at me!” He swiftly took the plates from me and began organizing them in the dishwasher. “Young lady, I told you specifically not to get a computer right now.” I put one hand on my hip as I filled the teakettle with water. “In the stories, when husbands tell a wife they can’t get something then they always surprise them with it later! My birthday has passed, and you forgot to get it for me so I spent my money on it.” I slammed the teakettle on the stove and turned the burner on high. Troy sighed as he carefully closed the dishwasher. “If I tell you that you can’t purchase something, then there’s a reason for it.” “I’m not a kid, Troy! I’m an adult, and I get to hear the reason. I do respond to reason, you know.” As I put the spices back up in the cupboard, I realized I was furiously alphabetizing them. “I did explain it to you. A new operating system is coming out in two months, and you’ll want to wait at least a couple months after that for all the bugs to be fixed and all the issues to be resolved.” I slammed the cupboard shut, leaving the nutmeg and cinnamon not alphabetized. “Well I don’t like the explanation.” I snapped open the other cupboard to grab the tea and sugar. “It’s my money, and if I want to waste it, I can.” Before I could slam the door shut, he grabbed my arm. “I am head of the household, remember?” he said softly. “I get the deciding vote.” Then he took the sugar from my hand and set it on the counter. “And now I have to admit I made another mistake. I told you that we could sit down and discuss things over tea before we went to the spanking room, but I can see now that was the wrong decision.” He took the tea kettle off the stove and shut off the burner. “Go get yourself ready and wait in the spanking room.” At my defiant look, he added, “Now, Jennifer.”

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“What if I don’t go?” Troy said nothing. Then, after a long silence, he calmly said, “Come here, Jenny.” I felt my mouth go dry, but I went to him. As soon as I was within arm’s reach, he held my upper arm firmly with one hand, and deftly unbuckled his belt with the other. “You’ll feel this, and then you’ll wait in the whipping room, for a good whipping, too. I can promise you that.” “Spanking room,” I objected hotly. “Not a whipping room.” “Which is it to be? “I’m not going,” I said. “I don’t feel like getting spanked tonight.” For the first time ever, I was not bared for a spanking. The belt whipped across my jean-clad legs and bottom in ten painful strokes. “Tonight you will be spanked for disobeying me, tomorrow you will return the laptop, and Friday you will feel the consequences for refusing to go up to the spanking room when asked.” The belt focused on my bottom and I tried to run from its pain, but Troy had a strong hold on my upper arm. I ran a circle around him before I stopped in frustration. “Are you ready to go upstairs now, Jenny, or shall I pull down those jeans right here?” I eyed the belt, and though it was the first time I had felt its punishment, I already decided that I didn’t want to feel it again. I nodded and he quickly snapped the belt across my bottom again. “That is not the proper answer.” The belt over jeans didn’t sting nearly as much as an implement on my bare bottom, but if I was to be spanked, I knew that it would be best to get on with the real spanking and get it over with. I reluctantly answered correctly. “Yes, Sir.” He followed me upstairs. With the belt dangling in his hand, he walked two steps behind me—it felt like he had his eye on my bottom and his belt ready to strike at a moment’s notice. Walking had never

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felt so awkward. Each step made me more aware of how vulnerable my bottom was to a sudden attack and I had to work hard to attempt a ‘normal’ walk. The instant we stepped into the spanking room I burst into tears. “Now what are these stories that you cite as the reason you should have gone and gotten a laptop?” He patted his lap as he sat down and I timidly sat down as he wrapped his arms around me. I pouted and hid my face in his chest. “Just spanking story sites, about husbands and wives like us.” I felt his head nod and he said nothing, waiting for me to go on. “They always have stories about the wives getting something the husband said not to, and later find out their husband said no because they had bought it for their birthday or something like that.” I took a deep breath. “You didn’t get me one for my birthday.” “Sweetie, I explained to you why this is a bad time to buy a laptop.” Then he thought for a moment. “You don’t really believe that as a valid reason to disobey me, right?” I gulped. “I know, but I just wanted it now.” His voice had a hard, angry tone that I had never heard. “And you can’t have it now.” I pushed at him in exasperation. “I think I’ve figured that out by now, Troy.” I had tried to hide the sarcasm in my voice, but by the look on Troy’s face, I had not said that as sweetly as I had intended. His lips pressed together. ‘In real life, Jenny, husbands—especially your husband—say no for good reason and the wife hardly ever gets the thing she was forbidden to get.” He stared down at me and I suddenly worried that he’d tell me no laptops for the rest of my life. I bit my lip and stared down at his shined shoes. “Please don’t say I can’t ever have one,” I whispered.

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He paused long enough to make look up at him in surprise. Instead of answering me, he ordered me to get over his knee. “I think you need to hear what I have to say with the assistance of my hand.” He didn’t ask me to, but I knew that he expected me to bare myself from the waist down. His silence as I stepped out of my pants and lowered my panties to the ground made my stomach churn. My husband was angry with me for disobeying him, and I didn’t like it. Normally he spanked me with a gentle attitude of correction. This wasn’t one of those times. “When I say no,” he said, slapping my bottom on each word. “I mean no.” I stared at his ankles and listened intently. I feared that if he quizzed me on what he had said, I’d fail—and failing might earn me more spanks. In my over-his-knee position, I was acutely aware of how painful my inattention could be. “Period, end of discussion.” His heavy hand alternated between my cheeks in a rhythm I could anticipate, but the anticipating did nothing to stop the pain from coming. “You agreed to this relationship and you asked me for this relationship.” And after the difficulty I had persuading to resume this relationship, I was afraid to wiggle away from his hand that smacked with the force of a paddle. “You are not to defy my orders again, young lady.” His hand rested on my bottom and I breathed a sigh of relief. “That is not only disobedient, it’s disrespectful.” I hated for him to think I had disobeyed him in a spirit of disrespect. “But if I hadn’t asked for your opinion on which computer to buy, you would have never told me not to buy one, and then I would have been able to keep it!” “Maybe—” he said reluctantly. “See!! That’s not fair!” Despite my position, I drew my chin up proudly. “But that’s not at all what happened.” His hand smacked hard on my bottom again. “I told you not

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to buy it, and then you went out not even two weeks later and purchased it, with full knowledge that I told you no.” I squirmed under his resting hand and tried to sound repentant. It was a pretty laptop, loaded with slick new programs and fast processors. “Okay, but do I have to return it? They charge a one hundred dollar repackaging fee on returned computers.” “Oh yes, you do have to return it.” Then he pulled out his favorite implement—the hairbrush. “And you’ll pay for that one hundred dollars with one hundred smacks of the hairbrush.” I gripped his ankles with all my might, bracing myself against the impending attack of the hairbrush. I hated the hairbrush and I knew he could use it quite effectively. He did not take his time with the strokes either, but he mercifully made them lighter than usual. Even better, about halfway through my bottom felt numb. For about ten strokes I allowed myself to enjoy the pain-free spanking until the strokes began to annoy me. I was thankful that they didn’t hurt, and certainly not annoyed that I had a secret little reprieve from punishment. No, I definitely sure that my annoyance stemmed from the fact that I just did not want to return my new toy. I ignored his attack on my numbed bottom and said, “I think I should be allowed to keep it after I’ve-” He stopped in shock, ignoring my words as he demanded, “Have you gone numb already?” He knew? I held my breath, uncertain what to say. I hadn’t even thought to continue my cries, so as not to let on that I had gone numb. And now he seemed to know. If I admitted I had gone numb, I was sure that he would find some other way to make the punishment hurt. If I lied to him, I would be, well, lying. How could he possibly know that my bottom had gone numb?

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Evidently I asked that question out loud, because he answered me stiffly. “I’ve quite a bit of experience with disciplining young ladies, you know that.” I took a deep breath and took advantage of the momentary silence. “But if I’m punished for buying the laptop, then I’ve paid for it and I shouldn’t have to return it. That would be a double punishment, and that’s not fair.” “You’re being punished for disobeying me, and you’ll return the laptop because you weren’t to buy it in the first place.” He hoisted me higher up over his leg so that the top of my legs, rather than my bottom, were directly in his ‘firing zone.’ “No!” I cried. The hairbrush on my sit spot is horrible. It hurts! I talked fast to avoid its pain. “I think I should be allowed to buy a laptop and even though you said that I shouldn’t it’s my money and I wanted it and I can spend my money however I want—that’s what you said!—and I think that the current operating system is just fine and I don’t want the operating system that comes out in a few months because half the programs won’t work with it and I like my computer just the way it is so I just want a new computer with the same operating system and I’ll love that computer just the way it is!” “Jenny, you can disagree with me all you want. That’s not why you’re over my knee. You are not allowed to disobey me, period. Do you understand that?” “Yes, Sir.” I said correctly. “But— ” He finished the hairbrush spanking on my sitspot, which I hate. I couldn’t help but wiggle and try to get my naked legs and thighs away from the burning pain. The futility of my struggles only served to fuel my feelings of righteousness. I heaved a breath of relief as the hairbrush landed with a soft thud on the carpet. Troy helped

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me up and gently took my chin between his thumb and forefinger. Then he just looked into my eyes. I was torn between the guilty need to look away from his firm assessment and my stubbornness to prove that I hadn’t been wrong in buying the laptop. I glared back at him defiantly. “And your attitude tells me that the punishment I gave you did not communicate to you how seriously I take this issue. I told you from the beginning that disobedience such as this would always be punished firmly and most likely from the cane.” At the mere mention of the cane I felt my attitude slip away like satin off a bed. “But my attitude was going away … it’s gone!” He ignored my sudden change in demeanor. “What did I tell you were the two things that would be most harshly punished?” My mouth went dry. He’d sat me down on our second or third Friday and talked to me for over two hours on which behaviors would be spankable offenses. “Endangering myself and—” “Why?” he asked. “Because you hold me most dear above everything else in the world.” It had made me feel all warm and fuzzy at the time. “And what was the second thing I told you?” “Endangering our relationship,” I whispered. I gnawed at my lip. I hadn’t bought the laptop to endanger our relationship. I swallowed nervously. “An example,” he prompted. My stubbornness abandoned me and I found that I couldn’t look him in the eye. “Like disobeying you when you’ve specifically told me not to do something. You said it was disrespectful and distrustful.” “If I recall correctly, you vowed in front of your God, myself, your friends and family to obey me, didn’t you?” I nodded.

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“Pardon me?” “Yes, Sir.” “Didn’t I tell you from the beginning that disobedience such as this would always be punished firmly and most likely from the cane?” My lips quivered and my eyes watered. I answered “Yes, Sir,” but although my lips moved, nothing came out. I nodded again, and he let it pass. “What did I tell you that this sort of relationship is about?” “Love and trust.” I reached a hand forward and forlornly fiddled with one of his shirt buttons. “It’s not loving to dishonor your vow to obey me, nor is it trusting. It doesn’t matter what you did or how right you think you were, unless you felt like I had crossed a line and was endangering your emotional, mental, or physical health, happiness or well-being, then you have no grounds to disobey me.” I accidentally twisted off his button and he took my arm and led it down to my side. “Is that what you felt, Jenny? That I was violating your safety and health by telling you to wait for a couple months when they release the new operating system?” Tears ran down my face and my throat constricted so tightly with emotion that I could barely breathe. “Is the laptop more important to you than our relationship? Is it more important to you than showing your trust in me?” I swallowed a guilty sob. “Because if you can give me a good reason for your disobedience, then I have failed as your husband, and I will give you my apology and rub soothing cold cream into your bottom.” “Stop,” I whispered. “Stop what?”

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“I feel guilty, I know what I did wrong and you don’t need to make me feel even more guilty,” I whispered. “Sir,” I added. “Do you agree you’ve earned yourself a punishment?” I couldn’t see a thing through my blurry vision so I reached out blindly for his hands. I felt a surge of relief when I felt his hands wrap around mine. “Yes Sir,” I whispered and meant it. I promised to obey him, and a little greed for a new laptop was no reason to violate that promise. I started in surprise, though, when I felt a smooth fabric wrap around my wrists. “You’re … you’re tying my hands.” “Yes.” He leaned down and kissed one of my fingers. “Your fingers are precious, and with your tendency to reach back and try to protect your bottom from the paddle, I don’t want to see those fingers get a whack from the cane. It could do real damage.” I shuddered and stared at the lovely furnishings in the spanking room. It was decorated more lovingly than any other room in the house, as if grandmother had a special place in her heart for the room. “Is it too tight?” I shook my head as he took my arm and led me down the stairs to the dining room. I stopped on the bottom stair and turned to him. “I’m scared, Troy.” I could barely bring myself to look down at the cane he already held in his hand. “Will it hurt an awful lot?” “Yes,” he said, lips formed in a thin, regretful line. “You will probably have welts that will look worse than any that you’ve had before, and you will feel the foundation for the expression, “you won’t sit for a week.” I bit my lip. “Are you really upset with me?” I could take all the spanking he decided to dish out, but I hated the thought of him feeling disappointed in me or worse, upset with me.

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He stopped at the entryway to the dining room and gestured towards the table with the long cane. I humbly pushed aside two chairs and settled myself into my vulnerable position. I grabbed the other side of the table with my hands and held on for dear life. There was a calm certainty inside my heart that reassured me that Troy would never cause me harm, but a fear of pain was embedded deep within my belly. I shivered when the cool cane touched across the middle of my bottom and stayed there. “Jenny, you know that I enjoy spanking you most of the time, but this is not one of those times. On Fridays I spank you until you cry because you let go of all the worries you hold on to that you can’t really control. I spank you until you’re sobbing because something releases in you and you sleep soundly all night.” He tapped the cane on my bottom. “Do you know that I watch you softly snoring after you fall asleep on Fridays? I just adore that childlike peaceful expression on your face, and I’ve caught myself watching you for several hours.” I swallowed guiltily. “When I spank you on Fridays for that reason, your cries don’t bother me because I know they are giving you something good and cleansing inside, something that helps you.” The cane left my bottom and I held my breath. “But yes, I am upset with you, because your behavior hurt me and this caning gives me no pleasure. It’s going to hurt a lot and it’s going to hurt for several days afterwards.” His voice grew hard and determined. “You were given two strokes of the cane a while back for disobedience. It’ll be six strokes this time, and I hope it will make a more memorable impression on you. Are you ready?” No sooner had I nodded then first stroke laid across the middle of my bottom. All my tears dried up from the pain of it, and I held my breath as the

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cane rested an inch above the searing pain the first stroke had caused. “Jenny, I’m going to give you a choice. Do you want these fast and over with quickly, or do you want them slow?” “Medium?” I croaked. He rested a hand on my back—in reassurance, I think—and the second stroke snapped across my upper bottom. I understood why he’d tied my hands. They were aching to reach back and protect my bottom from the cane. I whimpered as the cane rested below the first stroke. “Oh, Troy,” I beseeched. Swish! I panted like a woman in labor and gripped the edge of the table harder. “Fast,” I whimpered. I wanted it over with, and he obliged. The next one came directly in my sitspot, and the last two were evenly placed below it. I screeched on the last two and he let me pop up and jump up and down against the pain. The burning heat that caused such pain slowly blossomed into a white-hot soreness that embedded deep within my skin. I squeezed my eyes shut and held my hands out to him. “Oh please, Troy, can I rub? Please?” Instead he gathered me in his arms and squeezed me tight in the kind of bear hug that I loved. “I know it hurts, sweetie, I know it hurts.” I liked the hug and the comforting, but I wanted to rub away the pain. “Please let me rub, Troy!” “No,” he answered, and guided me over to the corner. “You need to feel the pain and learn from it.” I whimpered and the pain slowly faded until I could cry it out in wrenching sobs. For the first time, he stood with me as I faced the corner, rubbing my back in slow, soothing circles. I finally turned away from the corner and buried my head into his chest. “I’m sorry, Troy, I really am.”

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He didn’t tell me to get back in the corner. Instead he held me in a hug and rocked me back and forth. “Was that a strong enough lesson, Jenny? If you need more, tell me, because I’d rather give you more now than have to repeat this lesson.” I shook my head adamantly and squeezed my arms around him. “Never! I’ll never disobey you again. I love you!” As it turned out, Troy was wrong about one thing: as much as my bottom hurt, I still slept peacefully after I’d cried myself to sleep. He rubbed my back as I fell asleep instead of my bottom, but I woke up the next morning rested, happy, and most of all, peaceful. And I returned the laptop with a smile on my face.

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Chapter Nine Rule No. 9: Thine husband may and will spank whenever he sees fit. “Troy!” I nearly screeched in panic. “The china! It needs to be washed and your family is going to be here in less than an hour!” The Kensington family had a reunion at Troy’s every August—a tradition started fifty years ago by his grandfather. Troy was maddeningly calm as he sauntered into the kitchen to envelop me in a hug. “Mrs. Smith took care of that yesterday.” I wiggled out of the hug, even though I’m normally a hug glutton. I’ll take a hug anytime, anyplace, and as many as Troy wants to give me. “I can’t believe I wouldn’t let you cater this! What was I thinking?” I looked at him, and for the first time I wondered what money could do. “How much money would it cost to hire a caterer now?” He just laughed. “Sweetie, it smells wonderful and you love cooking. It will be great.” He gathered up the china to take to the dining room. “Besides, my Aunts will swarm in here and help you in any minute.” Another thing I wasn’t looking forward to. “All these uncles of yours, and no cousins our age?” “Not around here. California, one in Alaska, and a couple in Texas.” Somehow I couldn’t imagine his blue-blooded family in Alaska. Or Texas, either, for all their Bostonian manners. Except for the spanking thing. I was both curious and nervous that someone would be spanked over the weekend. Several of his aunts and uncles were staying until Sunday in our guest rooms. Worse, I was worried that I would be spanked over the weekend. ‘Every Friday’ had been resumed a few weeks ago to my great relief, but tomorrow we’d have guests in the house.

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“Troy,” I said as neutrally and respectfully as possible. “I’m nervous about tomorrow. What if everyone knows I’m spanked?” He frowned at me. “Sweetie, you’re just going to have to trust me this time. You did promise to do that, didn’t you?” So I nodded and answered obligingly “Yes, Sir.” I didn’t trust that he’d be too concerned with whether or not his aunts and uncles knew I would be spanked, but I did trust that everything would work out okay. To his credit, I was glad he hadn’t cancelled our Friday night session. I like our Friday nights, even though I end them over his knee and usually sobbing with a burning bottom. Thankfully, his aunts did swarm into the kitchen within the hour, and—with one look at my stressed out face—they deposited me in a chair with a glass of wine in my hand. “Just tell us want to do, and we’ll do it.” But Aunt Mary sat across from me and kept me company while several women laughed and gleefully bickered as they put my dinner into serving bowls and platters. I barely noticed when she refilled my glass of wine again. Nor did I think anything of it when I had a glass of wine with dinner, and Troy politely refilled my glass at the end of the meal. And Troy’s Aunt Ethel and Uncle Stewart had kindly brought a special dessert wine, so of course it was only polite that I drink a glass and exclaim my gratitude. The tiramisu I had made called for an accompanying cappuccino, and I could hardly object when Troy’s Uncle Lane poured a bit of brandy in our drinks, as “the night is getting a bit chilly!” Then as we mingled and gossiped, I hardly noticed that no matter how many sips of wine I took, I never seemed to get to the bottom of the glass. I really didn’t notice that I was getting tipsy until I was talking with Aunt Mary and Uncle Richard.

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“Yeah, thanks for the riding crop.” Troy nodded his agreement despite my slurred words. “Not!” I exclaimed. His uncle gave me a sharp look and Troy’s aunt looked hurt. Troy grabbed the wine glass in my hand and placed it on the table. “That’s enough of the wine, for now.” “Who do you think you are? You can get drunk, but I can’t? I’ll drink what I damn well please, and fuck you for taking my wine!” Troy’s jaw muscles tensed and relaxed as his eyes narrowed on me. “You may have as much wine as you like as long as you can behave respectfully. But I suggest you get yourself under control.” He glanced at his uncle. “I’m sorry, Uncle Richard. You know how sweet she is normally. It’s been a rough few months for her.” “A good spanking ought to cure that mouth of hers.” I gasped. Troy nodded and looked at me. “That she’s going to get, and her behavior will decide whether she gets that spanking right now, or later tonight in the privacy of the spanking room.” I flushed. “You can’t talk about me that way in public!” Troy and his Uncle raised their eyebrows in precisely the same way at exactly the same time, confirming their blood relation. At any other time I might have thought it cute, but right then I certainly didn’t. “Fuck you!” I cried, and tried to make a grand exit. Troy’s rough hand stopped me, and instead he marched me into the kitchen. I knew just from the feel of his hand on my arm that I was getting spanked, and I knew from experience that there was no way out of a spanking once he decided that I needed one. “Take me upstairs, at least!” I hissed.

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He shook his head, his lips firmly pressed together. He filled a glass full of water and handed it to me. “Drink this,” he commanded. “I’m drunk, you can’t spank me now. I won’t learn my lesson!” I tried. At his pointed look, I quickly gulped down the water. “Then I’ll spank you a second time when you’re not drunk.” He took the water glass from me and then refilled it to the top. I groaned at the thought of drinking another glass. “Please,” I begged. That’s when I noticed a wooden spoon in his hand. Not one of those kitchen wooden spoons we use for everyday, but one four times the thickness that I had used today to stir all the spaghetti sauce we needed for his large family. So I drank it while he filled a teapot with water and set it to boiling on the stove. I slowly sipped, wondering what he was doing. “Drink up, young lady.” He set out a tall mug and a teabag of green tea. “I’m full!” But he forced me up on tiptoe and bent me over the edge of the counter, raising my dress up over my back. He then worked my hose and panties down to my knees. Five loud smacks later that I’m sure echoed throughout the entire house, he stopped. “Are we getting thirsty yet?” I nodded, both because I wanted to give the correct answer that would end the spanking and because I was thirsty, even though my stomach felt horribly full. For good measure I added, “Yes, Sir.” “Good.” He helped me up, leaving my hose and panties at half-mast. My dress blessedly fell down over my bare bottom. He handed me the water and I drank obediently. By the time I was finished, he had poured hot water into the tall mug and added the teabag. Taking me in hand, he guided me to the very table at which I had drunk wine with Aunt Mary just a few hours before.

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“Lift up your dress,” he said. “What?” I asked as he gestured for me to sit down. “You’ll sit down on your bare bottom, and you will not get up until you’ve finished this tea and I tell you that may get up. Understood?” I blanched and eyed the door to the hallway which led to the great room and kitchen. “Yes Sir.” What else could I say? So I lifted my dress and sat down on the cold bench, sobering up enough to feel guilty about my rude words to Troy’s Aunt and Uncle, and enough to feel worried about my deserved punishment. One green tea and a much-needed trip to the bathroom later, I was back in the kitchen and facing a firm Troy pointing to the kitchen island. “Are we sobered up yet?” I nodded and quickly remembered, “Yes, Sir.” “Good, bend over the counter.” I sighed and resigned myself to a spanking within earshot of his family. I could hear their chatter from the kitchen, so I hoped their jovial noise would cover up any noise from the spanking I was about to receive. Even more, I hoped no one would walk in and witness my punishment. I rose up on my toes again so that I could rest my upper body on the counter and felt the cool breeze on my naked bottom as he lifted my dress up. He then stepped away from me and headed towards the door. “I’m going to fetch that riding crop that you dislike so much.” “You can’t just leave me here like this!” “I can, and if you get up you will not like the consequences, I can promise you that.” And so I stayed there, bare bottomed and bent over the counter. I eyed the crack between the swinging doors and prayed that no one would come in. I glanced behind me out the dark windows and prayed that no one would go out back and look in on my discipline. Every time I heard a noise I held

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my breath, wondering if the passerby was heading towards the dining room, the bathroom, or— as I feared—the kitchen. I even tried coming up with a sufficient excuse to explain my bottoms-up position if someone walked in. No matter how hard I tried, I knew there was nothing that could explain away the fact that I was positioned for a spanking that I was about to receive with a house full of guests. I heard another creak of steps from the hallway and held my breath. But I was lucky. When the kitchen door swung open, my husband walked through with the riding crop dangling in his hand. I was relieved to see him but not happy to see the instrument in his hand. Still, I felt calmer than I expected. Being spanked in public (or in a different room where at least two people knew I was in that room getting spanked) had been my greatest fear. I’d expected exclamations of horror at the position I’d put myself in and imagined they would lose respect for me. The reality was much more straightforward. I’d done wrong, and my husband had taken me into the kitchen to deal with my misbehavior. I had no control over what the people in the other room thought of me, but I did want to make my husband proud. Yes, I’d misbehaved and now I was ready to pay the price. More than anything, I wanted to take my spanking like a lady so that I could feel proud of myself instead of ashamed at my behavior. So when he held the riding crop in front of me, I noticed I nodded in some sort of agreement. “Allow me to thoroughly acquaint you with the riding crop.” I held my breath. I may have thought I deserved the punishment, but that didn’t mean I didn’t fear the pain to come. “It’s a wonderful multi-faceted instrument. We’ve got this little tip here, right?” He paused to wait for my affirmation. I had to clear my throat before I could manage, “Yes, Sir.”

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“That’s a stinger, to be sure. With a light touch, it can be quite erotic.” He stepped behind me and I felt sharp little stings working their way up the inside of my thighs like a family of avenging bees. It could have been erotic under different circumstances, perhaps. Right then, I was just grateful that it could barely be heard. Little swishtaps may have echoed in the kitchen, but they were like a stage whisper and I doubted—hoped, really— that no one could hear them in the dining or in the great room where most of his family were talking and eating. “Of course, then we have the rest of the crop. Altogether it works like a cross between a switch and a cane.” I gripped the counter with my hands, determined not to cry out. He rested the crop against the top of my thighs and spoke. “Why are you getting spanked, young lady?” I gripped the counter and fretted. I felt badly about what I’d said to Uncle Richard and told Troy that, but I worried more about what Troy thought of me. “Are you disappointed in me, Troy?” Then in a smaller voice, I asked, “Are you embarrassed at how I behaved?” He set the riding crop down, laid a hand on my back, and leaned down to look at me while we talked. “Sweetie, like I told Uncle Richard, you are a sweetie. Everyone knows that and I know that, and I consider myself lucky that you married me.” A piece of my hair fell over my eyes and I started to let go of the other side of the counter to fix it, but Troy gently wiped it back off my face. “You like being your sweet self and you also like boundaries. I’m spanking you now so that you remember to choose to act like the sweet person that you are, and that you remember the boundaries and rules of our marriage. Disrespectful behavior is not tolerated and you know that.”

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Then he stood up and picked up the riding crop. “I don’t give you too many rules, Jenny. They all stem from two things: respect and trust.” I swallowed as he aimed the riding crop by measuring it on the middle of my bottom. “Jenny, do you think I am worthy of your respect and trust?” I felt so guilty I could only whisper. “Yes, Sir.” “I’m not asking for a ‘Yes, Sir,’ Jenny, I’m asking for an honest answer. If I have not earned your respect and trust, then I am in no position to welt your bottom with this crop.” I winced as he said ‘welt’ and I shook my head. “You’ve more than earned my respect and trust, Sir.” He was silent for a moment and the next thing I heard was the swish of the crop as it approached my bottom. I expected that it would be a screaming kind of pain, so I squawked when I felt the pain erupt. But it wasn’t that type of pain. It was more a pain in my heart that bubbled up and out through the aid of my husband’s hand. I’d hoped to take the spanking stoically, like I imagined a man would, but I fell into tears. Each stroke deepened my cries and inflamed the pain in my bottom. Each stroke lightened the guilt in my heart. Each stroke made me cry harder and release more of the hurt in my heart. I think I could have begged for welts if he stopped too soon. Troy knew me, though, and he didn’t stop too soon. He laid welt after welt on my bottom until I was sobbing with the pain of it. Then he gently pulled up my panties while I lay there crying and pulled my dress back over my bottom. “You march yourself back out there and you apologize.” With one final smack to my covered bottom, he stood me up and handed me the riding crop. “And you can carry this out there and give them a nice thank you for our wedding gift.”

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I looked at Aunt Mary’s sweet face and Uncle Richard’s strong, warm eyes and took a deep breath. “That’s okay, sweetie. I told him that might not be the best wedding gift for a new bride.” She cast an I-told-you-so look at her husband and he merely patted her sixty year-old rump fondly. “No,” I said, surprising myself with the realization. “It’s a perfect gift, and I love it.” I temporarily lost my breath as I realized it. “I’m lucky to have a husband that will use it.” Uncle Richard nodded. “My father—Troy’s grandfather—” he added unnecessarily “—gave this to me when I married Mary.” He looked at his wife adoringly and patted his thigh. Despite her pleasant plumpness, she perched well on his strongly muscled thigh. “The tip has been replaced a few times, but Nanna felt it, Mary felt it, and now you.” “The boundaries help me feel happy,” I said shyly as Troy came up behind me and took the cr op from my hand. He gave me a kiss that would have definitely got cat calls of “PDA!” in high school. “Have you seen the studio?” he asked everybody. I slunk behind him shyly. My best paintings were hung there, waiting to be taken to Chloe’s gallery for sales. He strutted like a proud parent as he took my hand and led seven of our family up the stairs. Then he openly bragged as he showed them each painting until my face was scorched red with pleased embarrassment. “And you should see the one she did for me—” Troy looked down at me fondly. “But she’s a bit shy about it, I think.” His family made the appropriate exclamations and cooed about my paintings politely, but I saw genuine pride in many of their eyes. I pulled at his sleeve a little bashful. Standing up on my tiptoes, I whispered into his ear, “You can show them that one, if you want.”

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He turned to study me. “Really?” “Yeah,” I shrugged. They’ve already heard me get spanked, so there was nothing else to be embarrassed about. “It’s who I am,” I said simply. And though I had come to terms with that only a few weeks ago, I suddenly felt proud, and happy to know myself so well.

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Epilogue It wasn’t like I woke up one day, and suddenly all was right in the world. “Going to lunch with Nikki today?” Troy asked on a lovely summer day five days before my second birthday as a married woman. “Yes.” For some reason, his question annoyed me and I snapped out my answer. “Sir,” I added, just in case. He gave me a long look and then resumed eating his cereal. “Did you order the snacks for your birthday party next week?” “Yes, Sir,” I snapped again. I’d had such a good time at my surprise birthday party last year and had grown to be friends with many of the women I had met in the lifestyle that Troy decided to make it an annual tradition. “Something you want to talk about, Jenny?” Troy asked mildly. “No.” “So there’s nothing wrong?” “No.” “Okay, pull down those pants, right now.” He went to the kitchen drawer and pulled out a spatula we used for the grill. It was flat and metal with square holes and a long wooden handle. I pressed my bottom back to the stove. “But I didn’t do anything wrong, Sir!” “I didn’t say you did.” “But you have to have a reason!” “No.” He started walking towards me. “I don’t.” I tried a pretty pout even though I’m not that good at pulling off fake tears. “But I don’t need a spanking.” “Yes, you do. You’re getting edgy and I want you to have a good day. You’re getting a spanking just because I feel like you need it, and that’s that.” My mouth went dry and then within seconds, it started watering again. “Assume the position, young lady.”

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I slowly shook my head in denial, not defiance. So I turned around and carefully stepped out of my underwear, then lifted my dress up. As usual, my abdomen swirled with nervous anticipation. “Spread the legs, Jenny.” I obeyed. Troy believed I needed to be spanked until I was crying my heart out, and most of the time I might agree with him. But not when I’m being spanked. No matter how hard I try, I can’t fake that cry to end a spanking early, though goodness knows I’ve tried. And so I assumed the position I had grown to vehemently dread and feel immensely grateful for as a spanked wife. Legs spread and bottom bare, I felt the clenching of my stomach as I willingly placed myself in the vulnerable position that would allow my husband to blister my bottom with as little inconvenience to him as possible. “I didn’t do anything,” I whimpered again, taking one last futile shot at preventing what I knew was going to happen. “You haven’t had a good, hard spanking for a long time.” He patted my bottom and then went to the drawer. “You’ve been as good as an angel for weeks now, and we had that pool party last week. I may have spanked you until you cried, but I only used my hand.” I heard myself chanting in my head, not the big wooden spoon, not the grill spatula, not the big wooden spoon, not the grill spatula. Count on my husband to pull out the instrument I most dreaded—and needed. “You haven’t had a good dose of welts for almost a month, and I know how you like to feel the effects for a few days afterwards.” I mentally cursed myself for admitting to him a few months ago that an extended sore bottom seemed to make me feel happier and more secure. Every painful movement reminded me that my husband cared. Even after a spanking ‘until you

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won’t sit down for a week,’ I found myself eagerly sitting down to make sure it still hurt. When it stopped hurting, I generally felt a small amount of relief but a bigger loss. Right now, though, I was not looking forward to the burning pain that would insure the lasting soreness. Sore I can bear and even enjoy, but blistering pain is another thing. I felt the large wooden spoon take aim and I knew I was in for it. I hadn’t done anything wrong, but my husband was going to give me what I needed but wouldn’t appreciate for a good hour or two. When I hadn’t done anything wrong, Troy was a pretty straightforward spanker. He put a hand on my back and instructed me to spread my legs a little further. He wouldn’t start until I was perfectly positioned—once he started there was no stopping until he saw the welts that would give me that warm-fuzzy after-spanking soreness. “Here we go,” is all he said. And then the large spoon popped, cracked, and burnt into my bottom at a lightning speed. As if he were hammering in a nail, he bent to his task with a firm determination to do well. Every few sobs he would stop and rub his hands over my bottom, feeling for the yet unwelted spots. “Oh, here we go,” he said, and then the spoon would attack that very spot ten times in a row and gradually smack around the spot until he found another one. All the while I sobbed from the pain, but I didn’t bother resisting. Smack after smack, I knew he wouldn’t stop until I was perfectly welted and thoroughly reddened. I knew with complete trust that he wouldn’t stop, because I knew that Troy would never let me down. It felt like ages until he finally stopped and rubbed my bottom fondly. As soon as he let me up, I threw my arms around him in a big hug even before I pulled my pants back up. “I’m happy,

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Troy,” I said in a hiccupping voice with tears streaming down my face. Troy laughed and took a step back. “That’s not exactly the reaction I was going for, but...” He reached behind me and patted my sore bottom. “What brought that on?” I kissed his cheek and gave him a squeezing hug. “You know what brought it on.” I shrugged. “I just realized it, I guess.” “Yeah?” he asked and nibbled on my arm with a look in his eyes that I knew promised more. “Yeah,” I smiled.

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