Finishing her water, she chucked the bottle into a nearby garbage and strode towards the fridge with purpose. Jake, the skater type who had been guarding the fridge before had now moved to the couch. At least she thought it was him on the couch, but it was hard to tell for sure with the tall leggy blonde draped over the top of him, gyrating her hips against his as if they were indeed naked and not in a public place. After grabbing her second water, Carolyn took over the spot near the fridge Jake had occupied earlier and surveyed her surroundings from a different angle.
There was nothing else to do. And the water bottle she had grabbed was one of the mini ones, so she chugged it quickly and grabbed another. She sipped it slowly as she observed the party around her, wishing she fit in somewhere and didn’t feel so out of place.
Finally, Jenny, who was obviously buzzed, came back and grabbed her, giggling. “Caro! I brought you here to have fun! And you’re just sitting here like a l-lump on a log!” Jenny complained, mangling the common saying. She didn’t notice. Carolyn allowed herself to be dragged around the room, guided by her very intoxicated friend who tried to introduce her to people, but couldn’t remember what she was saying from one moment to the next.
Finally, one of the nerdy girls from her math class spotted her and took pity on her, distracting Jenny easily, and gently pulling her away.
“Hi, I’m Alice. You having fun? Cause, I got to be honest, it doesn’t look like you are. Here.” She smiled sympathetically, handing Carolyn another water from a nearby cooler.
Feeling relief at having gotten away from Jenny, Carolyn took it gratefully, smiling at Alice and allowing herself to feel relaxed for the first time since she got to the party.
“I wasn’t, actually, but I’m feeling better now. Hey, it beats studying, right?”
“Mm-hm.” Alice swayed a little bit as she nodded, and took a long swig from her own water bottle.
Carolyn mimicked the action. Why was she so thirsty? Was it hot in here? Was she dehydrated? She couldn’t seem to get enough to drink tonight. Good thing it was only water, she thought, as she bent down and grabbed a fourth bottle.
“Good morning, sunshine.” Carolyn peered blearily at the phone she barely remembered answering, smiling when she heard Luke’s voice on the other end of the line.
“Morning, Lucas!” She tried to sound chipper, but her throat was dry and scratchy, and her voice came out a raspy whisper. “Just a minute, I need some water.”
“Take some aspirin, too.”
She frowned, looking around the room in confusion. “How did you know I had a headache?”
“Educated guess,” Lucas informed her dryly. “I take it you don’t recall drunk dialing me last night?”
“Drunk dialing you?” she repeated stupidly. “Oh no, Lucas, I would never. I don’t drink. Promise.” Her eyes widened at just the thought of what Lucas would do to her if he ever caught her drinking.
Lucas remained adamant. “That’s what you said last night, too, in between slurring your words, and knocking over nearly every piece of furniture in your room just trying to make your way to your bed.”
Silently, Carolyn sat up in bed and surveyed the room. Lucas was right. She didn’t have a lot of furniture in there, but it was all over the place. Her desk had moved two feet out of the spot where it usually sat, and her desk chair was upended sideways onto the floor. Even her wastebasket had been knocked down, spilling garbage all over her usually pristine floor. And the weird thing was, she had no memory of getting to bed last night. The last coherent memory she had was Jenny talking her into a study break. She gulped heavily as she realized there could easily be a fragment of truth to Luke’s claim. But how?
“I only drank water, I swear!” she whined frantically into the phone.
“That’s what you said last night, too. And since you obviously don’t remember it, I’m going to repeat what I said last night. You have a midterm this morning, and you are going to make it. Not only are you going to make it to class, you are going to do well on the test, because if you don’t, darling, your cute little bottom will pay the price.”
Her stomach rolled at the thought of leaving her bed. She could barely sit up. How could she walk all the way across campus, much less manage to take and pass a test she was ill prepared for? Her eyes filled with tears as she realized how royally she had messed up, and how much trouble she was going to be in. And it wasn’t even her fault. She had just wanted a study break, and to make new friends, and to forget about how much she missed Lucas. Lucas was going to kill her.
“I can’t take the test this morning, Lucas, there’s no way! I think I’m going to be ill.” She threw the phone on the bed and somehow managed to make it across the hall to the bathroom where she emptied the contents of her stomach. On its way up, she could certainly clearly make out that her water had been spiked with vodka. How had she not known last night? Her tears continued to fall unchecked into the toilet bowl as she continued to dry heave, emptying her stomach of every last drop of water, vodka, and even stomach acid.
When she felt like she could stand, she stumbled her way to the sink, and gazed upon her reflection in the mirror, gasping at what she saw. Her usually perfectly coiffed hair stuck flat to her head on one side, while sticking out in every imaginable direction on the other. Her trademark red lipstick was smeared halfway up her right cheek, and her mascara had of course smudged, leaving her eyes rimmed with black crust. She looked like Bozo the clown and a raccoon had a baby together. Not having the energy to bother with her usual routine, she splashed water on her face with a tiny bit of soap and scrubbed roughly with one of the scratchy bathroom paper towels. Her face would probably look like she had road rash tomorrow, but right now, she just wanted to feel a tiny bit normal.
When she was certain that she had cleared her face of the debris of leftover makeup, and come to terms with the fact that how she currently felt was as good as it got today, she made her way back across the hall.
The sight that greeted her at her door had her wishing she could empty her stomach all over again, but there was nothing left. Holding a large bottle of water and a wooden spoon that had to be at least a half inch thick, wearing his usual Levi’s, flannel and cowboy boots, stood her husband, looking mildly amused but still none too pleased.
“Lucas… I… what are you doing here?” she stuttered, her eyes never leaving the ominous looking spoon he grasped tightly in a white knuckled fist.
“We have things to discuss, my darling little wife. Lots of things. And on top of that, I’m going to make sure you make it to class.”
“But… but, Luke, that’s four hours from now! You have a job to do! I can take care of myself!” Even as she protested, she allowed him to grab her elbow and usher her into the dorm room, closing the door behind them.
“Your ability to take care of yourself is what is currently in question, seeing as how you were quite obviously drunk last night, and according to you, have no recollection or knowledge of how you got that way.”
Carolyn, who had sat on the bed immediately after entering the room, as if she really believed that doing so would protect her backside, scooted backwards on the bed, as she watched her husband of less than two weeks, advance towards her menacingly.
The look on Carolyn’s face stopped him in his tracks. He had to remember with her that there was a fine line between determined dominant and PTSD trigger. She had scooted so far back, that she was now backed up against the wooden headboard, and though she had never broken eye contact, her face was as white as a sheet and her eyes had taken on a glassy dazed sheen.
Mentally swearing, he quickly checked himself. A sleepless night spent worrying about her and an early morning drive in which he tried and failed many times to reach her before she finally answered, had him understandably on edge. But it was no excuse for being the cause of her fear.
Forcing his tight features to relax he slowed his gait from the intimidating march he had used earlier and slowly approached the edge
of the bed, unfurling his fist and allowing the spoon to roll onto the bed sheets. He put his hands up in a universal gesture of peace and surrender.
“I’m sorry if I scared you, Caro. I spent a long night worried for your safety. Can we talk?”
She moved forward, barely an inch, but it was something. He sat on the edge of the bed facing her and forced his voice to sound calm and even. “Tell me what happened last night.”
“I was studying for today’s test, and it was boring, and I was sad, because I missed you and Rosa a lot. Jenny came by and invited me to a study break party, and I figured I could go for an hour, get refreshed, and take my mind off you. I didn’t know there would be alcohol. It’s not allowed in the dormitories.”
Frowning Lucas nodded. He had gone to seminary school, so he hadn’t encountered many of the problems that one might expect to encounter at a state school.
“When I got there, it was clear that people were drinking, but I didn’t see any alcohol at first. They had snuck it into the mixers. Like it looked like they were just passing out soda and OJ and stuff, but it was spiked.”
“And you didn’t realize that until this morning?” Lucas nodded, seeing how it could happen.
“Uhh.” Carolyn hesitated.
Luke recognized the look on her face. He had seen it over the years on many a naughty wife in the community, the moment they realized they had some explaining to do. He raised his eyebrows and waited.
“No, Sir,” she admitted sullenly, staring at the abandoned spoon. “I realized it almost immediately.”
“And yet you chose to stay.” It was a statement, not a question, and it was delivered in such a way designed to make a naughty wife’s bottom twitch with anticipation as she realized that she had a comeuppance coming that no amount of talking or explaining would help to avoid.
“Yes, Sir. I chose to stay. But I did ask for a water. And honest to goodness, I never dreamed for a moment that the water was spiked also.”
“I believe you.” He nodded curtly. “But the fact remains that you made a series of bad decisions that resulted in you being drunk on campus, and waking up unprepared for a big test you have this afternoon. A test that makes up a large percentage of your final grade. One small decision can have a lasting effect on your life, Caro. It could have been so much worse; do you understand that?”
His heart flooded with relief as she contritely nodded and scooted all the way towards him on the bed, so that their knees were now touching.
Apparently past her fear, and at peace with the inevitable, Carolyn picked up the spoon and set it in his lap. “I’m sorry, Lucas. I know you’re right. I should have left the moment I saw that people were drinking, or not gone at all.”
“That’s right. You put yourself in a very dangerous situation, Caro. Waking up with an angry husband and a hangover could have very well been the least of your problems.” With a sigh, he picked up the spoon and tapped it on his knee absently.
“You could have been hurt, or raped. Someone could have taken advantage of you. If you had been caught, you could have been expelled. I’m going to blister your bottom, Carolyn, and it is going to hurt, and you are going to sorely regret your poor decision making skills, but it is nothing compared to the pain and regret I would feel if something happened to you.”
He watched her eyes fill with tears as she resigned herself to her plight, taking in the gravity of his words. Ready to get it over with, he patted his knee expectantly. When she slowly leaned forward, he grabbed her arm, pulling her face down across his lap, and lifted her skirt laying it flat across her back, before slowly lowering her pristine cotton panties to her knees. Her bottom glowed white and he smiled. He never would have guessed that she would have gone this long without any sort of spanking at all.
At home, she had managed to be sweet and respectful, and she was a pleasure to be around, genuinely seeming to enjoy Rosa’s company and taking the burden off her whenever she was able. He needed to make today a clear lesson that her behavior outside of Green Valley affected their lives just as much.
“Your bottom is so white it glows my dear. But that won’t last long. Here shortly it will be glowing a different color entirely.”
Carolyn’s back stiffened and she whimpered. Lucas understood. This was her first spanking with anything other than his hand, and she was understandably scared. He would watch her carefully, just as he had the first time and adjust when needed.
His large hand massaged her pearly white globes, still wanting to have his say. “I understand what happened, and how it happened. I get that you are not entirely at fault, but I want you to feel this one for a while, and leave a good memory of the pain so that the next time you are placed in that sort of situation, you will make a better choice.”
“Yes, Lucas.” The words came out in a hiss, just as his hand connected with her bare ass. He started slow, muttering between swats about safety, responsibility and poor choices, interspersing it with threats like, “You’ll take that test standing up when I’m through with you.” By the time he picked up the tempo, Carolyn was weeping softly into the bedspread. He knew that it was more from regret than pain, as he wasn’t hitting all that hard, and he hadn’t even touched the spoon yet.
“Lucas,” she gasped, when he shifted on the bed, grabbing the spoon and laying the hard, flattened side across the crack of her bottom cheeks. “Please don’t. Please can we wait until tomorrow night? People might hear.”
His brow crinkled as he considered. “Well, this is a fine time to worry about being embarrassed, isn’t it, Miss Caro? Maybe you should have worried about that more last night.” He tapped the spoon across her bottom considering. “I drove all the way here to check on you, and to paddle this naughty little behind. But you’re right, I could have considered bringing something a bit quieter.” He frowned, scanning the room for something that would work in place of the spoon, smiling when he spotted it. “Ah yes, that will do nicely, I think.”
He patted her bottom, and helped her off his lap, steering her into the corner of the room to wait. Then he crossed to the window, and removed the adjusting rod from the blinds. It was a different kind of pain than the spoon, but for a novice like Caroline it would seem equally as wicked, and be a heck of a lot quieter.
When he had it in his hand, he retrieved her from the corner, watching her expression change when she saw it. He held it up for her approval, and though she looked more than a little intimidated, she nodded and slowly draped herself across his lap once more.
“Okay, Carolyn, my dear, let’s get this over with.”
“So you can go back to work?” she asked tearfully, as if she was both certain of the answer and devastated by it, like she would happily prolong the punishment until her ass fell off just to not be lonely for a while.
He crossed his legs over the top of hers and took both of her hands in one of his, effectively pinning them in the middle of her back, cracking the plastic rod across her bottom before he corrected her. She jumped as much as she was able, which wasn’t much since he had her all but pinned in place.
“No, my sweet wife. I want to get your punishment over with because I need to take care of you and get you all ready for your test today. Starting with breakfast.” As he said it, he brought the rod down slicing across her sit spots, but this time she didn’t jump.
“Really? You want to have breakfast with me?”
He let the rod fall twice more in quick succession, watching as thin red welts formed across her soft pink flesh before instantly fading. “Of course I do. You’re not the only one who is lonely when you are away from us, you know.”
“Really?” The surprise in her voice was evident, making it clear that this thought had never once occurred to her as she twisted her head around to peer at him over her shoulder.
“Yes, really.” He punctuated this declaration by laying a quick succession of stripes atop the fleshiest part of her cheeks, chuckling softly when she looked away quickly as if she couldn’t
stand to watch. “So what might have been a better thing to do then, if you were missing us as much as we were missing you?”
“Call you?” she sniveled regretfully.
“That’s right.” He spoke firmly, lighting into her ass once more. “That would have been a much better thing to do. Then you wouldn’t be laying here over my knee finding yourself subject to a long bare bottom spanking, would you?”
“No, Sir!” she wailed as he applied the rod generously to her sit spots, then sat back to admire his own handiwork. He was almost done.
“We’re a family, Carolyn. Every decision any of us make affects the others. If something had happened to you, Rosa and I would have been devastated. Do you understand that? Put yourself in our shoes. How would you have felt if you had gotten a late-night call from either of us in that condition while you were more than an hour away?”
“Pretty scared,” she admitted, bracing herself for what she knew would follow. He obliged, laying stripes across the top of stripes for good measure, crisscrossing from the top of her cheeks to the top of her thighs. She wouldn’t sit comfortably during that test, but she would know she was loved.
He finished quickly, noting that Carolyn had remained stoic throughout her spanking. Normally he might take that as a sign that he hadn’t yet gotten through to her, but today that was not the case. He was pretty well certain that by the time he laid his last stripe down on her very red and tender backside, his case had been well made.
He tossed the rod aside, and in one quick scoop had Carolyn sitting upright in his lap, smoothing her hair and kissing her face as he whispered words of truth and encouragement. It was only then that her tears began to fall. Her chest heaved as she leaned into his, soaking his shirt with her tears. He froze for a moment, pondering her reaction. He had never had this happen before. He wasn’t quite sure what to do or say, so he just continued as he had been, rubbing her back, and waiting.
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