As if she had read Ginger’s mind, Traci smiled. “Maybe we would be more comfortable if we moved this over to the living room,” she suggested. Except that it wasn’t really much of a suggestion as she was already walking that way.
Not seeing much of a choice, Ginger followed her, taking a seat on an oversized easy chair directly across from the couch Traci sat on.
Traci sipped her coffee, looking completely at ease, despite being stonewalled.
Of course she doesn’t care, she gets paid whether you talk or not. Ginger’s inner voice was on a roll today.
“Would you like some more coffee?” Traci’s calm and cheerful demeanor was really getting on her nerves.
“It doesn’t matter where we sit, or how much coffee you give me,” Ginger informed her. “I still won’t talk to you.”
“Okay.” Traci crossed her legs underneath her, trying to get comfortable. “So you didn’t come to talk. Why did you come?” Traci inquired, looking serious for a moment before leaning forward conspiratorially. “It’s the coffee, isn’t it? I’ve heard the rumors. The word on the street is, it’s the best cup of coffee in town. Between you and me, I started that rumor. I think it’s helping drum up business,” she joked.
Ginger bit back a smile, recognizing a sister in snark. Under any other circumstances, she would have laughed, happy to have found a kindred spirit. Today, she just glared.
“I’m only here because I had no choice,” she deadpanned. “My husband made me come.”
“She does speak!” Traci exclaimed lightly, setting her coffee on the table between them, and leaning in closer. “And, for the record, I appreciate your stance, I really do. But,” she added, almost gleefully, “I call bullshit.”
Ginger frowned at her, gritting her teeth together, her jaw set in a scowl. This woman, she thought to herself, was highly unprofessional. What kind of therapist called ‘bullshit’? She looked at the clock on the wall. Twenty more minutes until she was free to go. Free being a relative term. Rose Rolson, who had Hazel, would be picking her up. Beau wouldn’t let her stay home alone while he was at work today.
“See the thing is, I believe you always have a choice. Sometimes all of the options suck, but you still have a choice. Rock, meet hard place.”
Ginger glared at her. “I didn’t have a choice.”
“Sure you did,” Traci persisted. “Unless of course, you were knocked unconscious, hog tied, and dragged here, and I see no evidence of that. So this is Corbin’s Bend. I get it, right? You probably had a choice between coming here and getting spanked.” She scrunched up her nose. “Not much of a choice, and both options suck, but you still had to choose one over the other.”
“No, we’re not currently practicing domestic discipline,” Ginger informed her with a smirk.
That caught the therapist off guard, this was Corbin’s Bend after all, but she quickly recovered. “Okay, fine. So you could have chosen not to come here today, and there would have been no consequences from your husband about such a decision, correct?”
Ginger’s eyes narrowed suspiciously, but she confirmed with a quick nod.
“So then, let’s try this again. Why are you here?”
“I’m here because my husband told me I had to come, and I like that he did that. It’s the first time in weeks he has put his foot down about anything.”
“Now we are getting somewhere.” Traci looked genuinely happy. “Listen, Ginger, here’s the thing, you don’t have to talk to me. You are more than welcome to come sit on my couch as often as you want and enjoy a great, albeit outrageously expensive, cup of coffee. But the truth is, by not talking, the only person you are hurting is yourself.”
“I don’t think that’s true.” It was a simple statement, delivered in the faintest of whispers, but those few words held every ounce of fear, anxiety, self-loathing, and uncertainty that had been consuming her, and it was all wrapped up in a desperate plea for help.
Traci motioned for her to continue.
“I think I’m hurting everyone. I don’t think I know who I am anymore. My marriage is a mess, I can’t seem to go into my own restaurant without having some sort of break down, and,” her voice cracked, “I don’t think I’m a very good mother.” The last sentence came out in a strangled sob.
Traci was on the floor beside her chair in seconds. “Ginger, I think you’re just fine. I think what you are going through and what you’re feeling right now is more normal than you realize. And you know what else? Being able to voice your fears and insecurities is the first step to being able to work through them. So be proud of yourself today. You just made a major breakthrough, and I think that you’ll find that if you stop holding everything in, and keep talking, you’re going to start feeling better very soon.”
Ginger looked up at her through tear-laden lashes, feeling a glimmer of hope that hadn’t been there earlier. “Really?”
“Really.” Traci beamed at her, handing her a tissue from a box on the table.
“But we’re almost out of time! Can I come back again soon?” Ginger found herself mourning all the time she had wasted being stubborn.
“Absolutely. You can come back at this same time tomorrow if you want, I don’t get a lot of morning appointments. We’ll schedule before you leave today. But, Ginger, don’t think that you can only talk to me. Talk to Beau. He loves you very much, and he’s very worried about you. He wants to help, but he probably doesn’t know how. It’s okay to tell him what you need.”
“But what if I don’t know what I need?”
“It’s okay to tell him that too.”
* * * * *
“Honey, I’m home!” Beau called out as he walked through the door on Monday evening. He was in a silly mood, but he had finally found clarity, and that was something to celebrate.
It wasn’t his wife that returned his greeting, but Rose, with Hazel in her arms. She put her finger to her lips, and softly shushed him. “Ginger’s resting upstairs. She did a lot of talking today, and I think it drained her a little bit.”
“But she’s okay? How did her appointment go, did she say?”
Rose shook her finger at him. “What she wants to tell you about that is up to her, I’m not going to be the snitch. But I will say this, because I think it needs to be said. She wants to talk to you, Beau. But some things aren’t always easy to say, especially if we think the other person won’t be willing to listen. You need to listen, and you need to pay attention, and then you need to act. Don’t be too afraid to give her what you know she needs.”
Beau smiled wryly at the older lady’s hidden message. She was a spitfire for sure, and he adored her for it. She wasn’t saying anything different than Marcus, her husband, or Jim had already said. And he was finally hearing it. “I hear ya, Rose,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her cheek as he took Hazel from her. “Thank you for helping out today, I really appreciate it, but I think we will be okay tomorrow.”
“Hmmph,” she blustered at his show of affection. “You’ll be fine tomorrow, and you would have been fine today too, but I’ll stop by for a bit just to check on her anyway. I’ll bring her some baked goods, so it doesn’t look like I’m checking up.”
He bit back a smile. “I don’t know if that will work, Rose, but I sure appreciate it anyway.”
She already had her coat on, and was halfway out the door before stopping. “Listen, and act,” she reminded him, smartly, before shutting the door behind her.
Beau tossed back his head and laughed before turning his attention to Hazel. “You need to go to bed early tonight,” he told her seriously. “Mommy and I have lots to talk about.”
Hazel, of course, just smiled and gleefully bopped him on the head in response.
He fed Hazel, and bathed her, letting Ginger sleep. He needed her to be well rested later. She slept for hours, and he was just beginning to worry when she came downstairs and joined them on the couch where he was feeding Hazel a bottle.
Her eyes were bright, and her pony
tail was messy, but to him, she looked beautiful. She flopped happily onto the couch beside him and wiped her eyes, laying her head on his shoulder. “Hi,” she said while yawning.
“Hi, yourself. That was a long nap. Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah, I’m hungry. Is dinner done?”
“There’s a plate in the fridge. You go eat, and I’ll put Hazel to bed, and then we’re going to have a talk.”
She eyed him wearily. “I know.”
Chapter Twelve
They sat on the couch in silence. Beau had said they were going to talk, but so far neither one of them had said anything.
“I made a mistake,” he told her gravely, when he finally spoke.
The heaviness in his voice scared her, and she reeled back to look at him, her heart pounding. Why did he sound so ominous? Was this about something different? Had something happened?
She silently questioned him, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I should have spanked you for lying to me. I should have never made the decision to stop domestic discipline.”
Ginger was so relieved, she laughed. For a moment there, she had been thinking something completely different. Unable to think of a thing to say in response, she did the next best thing. Launching herself forward, she landed face- down across his lap. She couldn’t send a clearer message than that.
“Mmmmm” he murmured, squeezing her bottom cheek. “I take it you agree?”
She just giggled, wiggling her bottom at him in response. He slapped it playfully, and she moaned in anticipation, steeling herself for more.
“Not so fast, there.” He hauled her up to a sitting position in his lap, and she pouted, batting her eyelashes at him. “There will be time for that, later. I want to talk to you first, and I want to see your face when I do.”
“Couldn’t we just skip the talking and get straight to the fun stuff?” She rubbed against him seductively, her fingers working the buttons on his shirt as she spoke.
“No, we talk first, and if and when I spank you, it’s not going to be for fun.”
“Fine!” she crossed her arms, and fake pouted, but she couldn’t hold back her smile. She waited a beat, for him to continue. “So, talk then.”
“You’re going to talk first,” he told her, cupping her chin in his hands. “You’re going to talk, and I’m going to listen, and when it’s my turn, there’s a very good chance it will be my hand doing my talking for me.”
She wanted to talk, she did, but there was so much to say, it suddenly seemed abundantly overwhelming, and she didn’t know where to start. She sat there with her lips parted, ready to speak, but stayed silent. Beau seemed to understand what she was feeling.
“When did you start having panic attacks, Ginger?” he asked gently, giving her a starting point.
“After the new year, when you went back to work.” She sighed.
Beau raised his eyebrows, clearly surprised by her answer, but he let it slide. “How often did it happen?”
“I don’t know. It wasn’t regular, or anything. There was no pattern.”
“And you let it go on for months, and it never crossed your mind to mention it to me?”
Uh-oh, that didn’t sound good. “Well, when you put it like that,” she squealed, “it sounds bad!”
“It is bad, Ginger. It’s very bad. I’m your husband, and you didn’t trust me enough to tell me what you were going through. In fact, when I asked you if that might be the problem, you blew me off, and said you were fine.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
“Not as sorry as you’re going to be. Continue.”
“They weren’t bad, nothing like the last two, and I guess I just didn’t realize how serious it was. It usually was just a feeling, and my chest would hurt, and I would be hyper sensitive for a few minutes, and then it would go away.”
“But you knew you weren’t feeling like yourself, and you should have known that panic attacks could be potentially dangerous under different circumstances. You’re a smart girl, Ginger, I’m sure that fact crossed your mind at some point.”
“Yes,” she admitted, tracing the outline of his shirt pocket with her fingertip.
“Can we talk about why you didn’t tell me? My pride says it’s because you didn’t trust me, but my head and heart tells me that’s not the case.”
“It’s not at all!” she rushed to assure him. “I was ashamed. I always thought being a mom would be so easy, and after everything with the birth especially, I would have thought that the rest would be a walk in the park. Hazel’s not even a difficult baby, so why couldn’t I handle it?” Her voice cracked, and a stray tear made its way down her cheek.
Beau wiped it away with a sad smile. “You know don’t you, that it’s chemical, and it has nothing to do with your abilities to handle motherhood, or anything else.”
Overcome with emotion from voicing the things she had kept inside for so long, all she could do was nod.
“I wish you would have told me, about everything, and when I took spanking off the table, I wish you had told me that that wasn’t going to help.”
“Before, when, we were, um, practicing again,” she whispered, suddenly feeling very shy, “it was better. The rules and lists, and consequences, they helped. I felt normal again, and even when I didn’t, I still felt like I could breathe easier.”
“It gave you the order you were missing. I should have known that. I know you well enough that I should have known that, but you shouldn’t have been afraid to tell me, either.”
“I did argue with you,” she reminded him.
“So you did.” He looked thoughtful. “I believe you said that you lied to me twice, and admitted to it counting as dangerous behavior since you lied about your health. Do you still feel that way?”
Wary of what she might be getting herself into, she bobbed her head up and down in agreement.
Beau nodded also. “Normally, since so much time has passed, I would stand by my earlier decision, out of fairness, but since it was a serious offense, and because I don’t think a free pass is what you want, I’m going to punish you for it now. Are you in agreement?”
She idly wondered what would happen if she said no, but she didn’t really want to. “Yes,” she whispered.
His eyebrow furrowed, and he looked at her expectantly. “Yes, what?”
She gulped, nervously. “Yes, Sir.”
He lifted her off his lap, lowered her to the couch beside him, and stood. “Take off your clothes, and go stand in the corner. I’ll be right back.”
She quickly obeyed, stripping down to stand in only her bra and panties, and crossed to the corner in the room. She had thought that Beau would go upstairs, to fetch their paddle, but oddly, he had turned towards the kitchen for some reason. Turning her nose to the wall, she shrugged. He probably just needed a glass of water or something, or had decided to go easy on her, and use the much smaller, but still very ominous wooden spoon.
He returned from the kitchen, and she could hear him moving around behind her, scooting the coffee table back and bringing in a chair from the dining room. Her stomach clenched, knowing exactly what that would mean for her bottom.
When she thought for sure he was finished, and was going to call her out from the corner, that was when he turned and headed up the stairs. He was only gone for a few minutes, and when he returned, she heard him take a seat on the chair that she knew was now prominently placed in the middle of the living room.
“Turn around, Ginger.”
She turned and gazed at her commanding husband. An involuntary shiver ran up her spine at the very formidable sight he made. The coffee table, having been pushed out of the way to make room for the chair, had been placed beside him, and on it rested the infamous Corbin’s Bend paddle that was given to all new residents in their welcome basket. They had many paddles but that was Beau’s favorite by far for the branding like marks of the Corbin’s Bend logo it left on the recipient’s backside. Beside it, lay hi
s favorite belt, which had been wrapped around his waist only minutes before. The object currently holding her attention, however, was the small sandwich bag dangling from his fingertips. She looked at it, then back at him, questioningly.
He nodded. “I know you know what this is, and what it’s for, don’t you?”
Her breath hitched. She did of course recognize the object, and she was aware of its alternative uses, but it was not something they had ever used in all their years together. He had to be bluffing.
“Answer me, Ginger. What is this, and what is it used for?”
Damn. She swallowed thickly. She had thought that to be a rhetorical question. Her face flamed with embarrassment. “It’s a ginger plug, Sir, and it’s used for…figging.” The last word came out in a low whisper as she stared down at the floor, afraid to look directly at the offending object.
Beau wasn’t about to let her get away with that. “Look at me, Ginger.”
She forced herself to meet his gaze, which was firm, but patient. “Lying is a serious offense, and I will not tolerate it. You lied about your health and well-being, which resulted in dangerous consequences that could have been avoided had you chosen to be open and honest with me.”
She shivered, half from the chill of standing there in her bra and panties and half from the thrill of anticipation. Her body kept betraying her. She shouldn’t be excited by this, but she was.
“I think you’re starting to like being spanked, and while I intend to make very sure that you don’t enjoy this one, the ginger will provide additional punishment, and incentive for you to think very hard before you lie to me in the future. Are we clear, and ready to begin?”
“Yes, Sir.” She was ready. Terrified, and more than a little aroused, but ready to get through it and get it over with.
“Very well.” He patted his knee, motioning for her to get into position. He set the baggie on the table beside the implements, and didn’t pick up either of them. That was good, it meant she would be getting a warm up with his hand.
Ginger Up Page 10