Welcome To Corbin's Bend

by Thianna D

  “No.” But at least he set his belt aside.

  Her bottom felt laved by fire, but the pain there wasn’t anything compared to the pain she felt ripping through the inside of her when he gathered her up to sit on his lap. He wrapped her in the tight cocoon of his arms, rocking as he stroked her hair. “It’s okay to cry,” he said, as if she needed his permission.

  Maybe some part of her did.

  When he hugged her, she latched onto him back, burying her face against his neck like a child trying to hide from the world. “I’m so tired of this!” she wept.

  “Tired of what?” he asked.

  She was throbbing, sore across every lower inch of her bottom where his belt had striped her. She could feel the welts, overlapping with nearly every stroke, stretching her skin as they swelled to create an unbearable tightness all over back there. But the pain of that was secondary to the ripping that made her hug him so fiercely. It used to be that she never cried. With him it seemed she couldn’t stop.

  “I don’t like you,” she wept. The only problem was, she didn’t quite think that was true. He had marked her, both inside and out, just as thoroughly as if he’d used a brand. There was no getting free of that.

  Chapter 18

  All weekend long, Cadence languished in the useless boredom of her bedroom, and there wasn’t one damn thing she could do about it.

  Marcus took care of her, like she was a baby. He dressed her every morning in clean nightshirts and panties, discovered she only had clothes enough for three days and promptly went out and bought her a whole wardrobe full of underwear and nightgowns. He brought her food and things to drink, alternating coffee with juice or tea. He carried her to the bathroom when she needed it, drew her a bath when she wanted it, and twice, he put her back across his knee and paddled her bottom with the broad, flat of his hand. Once for being snappish after he warned her he was in no mood for it, and then again for arguing that she was well enough to get up and at least take herself to the bathroom.

  “I’ll use the cane!” she begged, and then begged all over again because he was stronger than she was and no matter how she wriggled or thrashed or tried to dodge him, he still caught her arm, still sat down on the edge of the mattress, still dragged her down to lie across his knee and bared her bottom (because when he spanked her, he did so on the bare now, every single time) as he said, “Keep pushing like this and the only one who’ll use a cane today will be me.”

  Then his hand began that dreadful smacking cadence all across her writhing nates and Cadence went from begging to wailing in very short order because it just wasn’t fair!

  It was also just a spanking. It was childish. It was insignificant. She tried to make herself grow some perspective. Compared to any other torment in the whole of history, it was the one people in line for much worse would have loved to get and yet, for Cadence, it was hell. Marcus made her bottom burn. He made it hurt. It never stopped anywhere near soon enough, but what was worse, apart from the burning and the hurting and the eternity of blistering smacking that went on and on forever, Marcus made her feel mortified.

  From first smack to last, the entire time she was bucking and howling and positively dancing across his knee, with his never being satisfied until he had her bottom blushing all those hot, achy, freshly-spanked shades of pink and red, he made her face blush too. Here she was, a grown woman, twenty-six years old, getting her bare ass swatted because she refused to do as she was told. Was she being asked to blow up a bank? No. Was she being asked to fellate the boss? Not even. She was being asked to take care of herself, to stop being stubborn in ways that were hurting her, and to let herself get physically well. Why was that so impossible for her? Why did she keep resisting?

  She didn’t know, but she did stop arguing after that second spanking. She stopped trying to get up too, and somewhere between all the times he brought her something to read or drink, or all the times he adjusted the pillows or fed her painkillers to make her more comfortable, or massaged that wonderful heating liniment into her knees so they’d stop hurting if only just for a little while, Cadence even stopped hating him for making her feel so pitiful and weak. After all, he couldn’t keep her in bed forever. Sooner or later the weekend was going to be over, Monday would come, and Marcus would need her to resume her duties so he could resume his.

  Except that when Monday did come, that’s not what happened.

  Marcus brought her breakfast on a tray and two painkillers in a little cup next to her juice. He carried her to the bathroom, then adjusted the pillows all around her, massaged the liniment into her legs and cheerfully said, “Another few days, I think. The swelling is almost gone.”

  “Maybe I could get up today…just for a little while?”

  “Do you want to know what the difference between your bottom and a freshly boiled lobster will be if you do?” Marcus replied.

  Something told her that was not a trick question.

  “There won’t be one?” she guessed.

  “Good girl.” He ruffled her bed-head muss of curls and sat down beside her to drink his coffee and chat away while she finished her breakfast.

  “Your bedside manner sucks,” she said waspishly, and had every intention of waiting until he went off to work before doing whatever she wanted to. And she already knew ‘whatever’ absolutely would include getting out of this bed. Maybe if he saw she could handle small excursions without ill effect, then he’d relent a little.

  Except, that’s not what happened, either. Enter the spies, as she very quickly came to think of the boys. From the moment Marcus finished his coffee, bent to press a fleeting kiss to her brow, and walked off, taking her breakfast dishes and cheerfully calling back as he went, “Have a good day, honey. Papa’s got to bring home the bacon.”—Buddy came bouncing in with a storybook in hand. He crawled right up onto her bed, eyed her carefully for signs of rejection even as he cuddled in close to her side.

  “Dad said you still don’t feel good, so I’m going to read you a story. Do you like stories, Cadence? This is my favorite.” Lying down with his head on her shoulder, he opened the cover, taking plenty of time to show her each of the illustrated pages. “‘How the Trollusk Got His Hat,’” he read, “by Mercer Meyer.”

  It was a fun story with brilliant artwork, and by the end of it, Cadence was thoroughly impressed by Buddy’s reading skill.

  “He’s really smart for being only six,” she exclaimed when Marcus brought her lunch tray later that afternoon. “Did you know he could read like that?”

  “I have no way of answering that without showing my absolute bias for my boys’ intelligence. They were all reading by three. I’m pretty sure they got that from their mother. From me, they get their cooking skills. Michael made the sandwiches. Sorry, they’re a little burned on one side.”

  “Michael’s cooking on the stove?” Cadence asked in alarm.

  “No, sadly this can only be labeled a tragic toaster accident.”

  Tragic was right. They must have been at the end of what they had for bread, because, as Cadence could only guess, Michael had burned one set beyond all recognition. How he’d kept the smoke alarm from going off or her from smelling it, she had no idea. But this toast wasn’t just burned, it was charred. Rather than make someone suffer through that inedible a sandwich, he’d split the two halves onto two different sandwiches. Apparently, she and Marcus had drawn the short straws.

  “Good peanut butter,” Marcus said, eating his.

  “Maybe I should—”

  “Cane,” he reminded her.

  “—just get up long enough to—”

  “Cane,” he said again, half singing and half shaking his head.

  “—keep the house from burning down, damn it! Why do you have to be so stubborn?” she cried, so frustrated now that she was on the verge of throwing her lunch at him.

  “There’s a pot and kettle case if ever I heard one.” Marcus crunched through another bite of peanut butter and char. “You’re also one more
cuss word away from a hot bottom and a mouth full of soap.”

  “Argh!” Cadence howled, and even tried to suffocate herself with her own pillow. It didn’t work and afterwards, she lay in bed, glaring up at the ceiling with his parting kiss still tickling at her forehead. She was still fuming a few minutes later when all three boys entered, Playstation system in hand.

  “Want to play a game with us?” Daniel asked, bouncing up to sit on the foot of her bed while Michael plugged the game into her TV. “We’re going to Destroy All Humans.”

  “You blood-thirsty little serial killer, you,” Cadence dead-panned. Four hours later, however, she was collecting brain stems at a first-grade level, sometimes beating Buddy and sometimes not, but pretty consistently getting her hiney handed to her by both older boys. She had just crashed her last ship in a cow field when Marcus came home for the night. She hadn’t even realized he’d left until she saw the grocery deli bucket filled with barbequed chicken and potato wedges.

  “Who wants to get the Kool-Aid, napkins and plates?” Marcus asked, which must have been a secret cue because all three boys jumped up and did it. Bringing the food right to her bedside table, he began to unpack the supper right there. “Saving the world?”

  “Nope, but I’m doing a wicked good job at destroying it.”

  “Bathroom?” he asked.

  “Please.”

  Once he pushed the blankets aside, he paused only a moment to check her knees before picking her up in his arm and carrying her into the bathroom.

  “I know I fought the bed rest thing up until now,” she hedged when he set her down on the toilet. “But I think by tomorrow, I’ll be able to do at least this much on my own.”

  “We’ll see. Call me when you’re done.” He walked out and closed the door, leaving Cadence to take care of business while listening as he moved about her room. She let the flush of the toilet summon him back again, and although the temptation to just meet him at the door standing up was strong, Cadence wasn’t stupid. She knew exactly how the night would end if she tried. Call her crazy, but as badly as she wanted out of that bed, she wanted more to go just one day without getting turned across Marcus’s knee. She’d been spanked more in this last week than she had in all the rest of her life.

  “How I’ve survived this long without someone there to constantly bust my butt, I’ll never know,” she griped as he picked her up again.

  “I confess, now and then I wonder that myself.” He didn’t even have the grace to be chagrined about it.

  Having retrieved what he’d asked for, the boys had returned in her absence and were even now positioning themselves around the TV to continue their gaming.

  “I want to play now,” Buddy said.

  “It’s my turn,” Michael told him, and since he already had the controller, that pretty well decided that.

  “Put it up,” Marcus interrupted. “There will be no world destroying and brain collecting during dinner.”

  All three groaned, but they also put up the game.

  “Can we put on a movie?” Daniel asked, coming to take a plate when Marcus dished up the food and passed them out.

  “Just because we’re eating in here tonight doesn’t mean we watch TV. Supper time’s for talking and catching up.”

  “Yeah, but usually we catch up about school and there isn’t any anymore,” Michael pointed out.

  “I guess we’ll have to find something else to talk about.” Marcus pretended to brighten. “Oh, I know. Why didn’t anyone do their chores today? Let’s talk about that.”

  “I wanted to do my chores,” Cadence interrupted.

  Marcus gave her a warning look. He held out her plate. “Do you really want to talk about that? Because I will clear my schedule.”

  “No, sir.” She promptly put a wedge of potato in her mouth so she wouldn’t be tempted to say anything more. Her resolution did not outlast her dinner.

  Once dinner was over and the boys had adjourned to whatever chores their father had set for them, Marcus handed her two painkillers, rubbed the liniment on her knees and delivered his verdict. “Another two days, at least.”

  “Oh, come on!” Cadence exploded. She immediately tried to laugh it off, but the sudden swell of helpless frustration was more than she could take. “You’re just saying that to make me suffer!”

  Marcus did not share her feigned amusement. “Why would I want to make you suffer?”

  She should have shut her mouth and she knew it, but dinner was over, they were alone, and she was all out of potato wedges. “Because you get off on it! Because the more you aggravate me, the better your chances are that I’ll do something you can spank me for, you…you…you sadist!”

  “You think I’m enjoying this?”

  “Yes, I do!”

  In the middle of picking up what remained of the deli store supper, Marcus stopped what he was doing and dropped everything back on her nightstand. “You think I’m doing this to keep you in bed indefinitely?”

  “Yeah!”

  One of these days, she really was going to have to learn to shut her mouth. Unfortunately, this was not one of those days, although it wasn’t until Marcus walked across the room to shut and lock her bedroom door that she had that particular epiphany.

  “You think I’m being unreasonable?” He started back toward her bed. “Deliberately, unforgivably cruel?”

  Cadence watched him come, her breath catching in her chest and strangling in her throat. He had a funny look about him. Calm and quiet, stern and intense—she didn’t know how to classify it. All she knew was when he locked those slate gray eyes on her, she found it impossible to look away. If she thought for one second that getting up out of bed right now would not end with her bottom bared and rounded up on pillows while he took off his belt, she’d have been making a very prudent and strategic retreat.

  “Let’s see how cruel I really am.” When he reached her bedside, she tried to pull the blankets back over her, a thin cotton barrier totally inadequate when it came to shielding her from Marcus. She no sooner got her legs covered than he caught the edge and whipped it right back off again. “Which is your best knee?”

  Cadence wordlessly pointed. His expression was one of determination, but his hands were firm and gentle as he took her left leg, cupping her ankle and behind her knee.

  “One knee bend,” he said. “Just one. If you can make it, you can get out of bed right here and now. On three, ready?”

  Gripping the edge of the mattress when he began to count, Cadence lay back against the pillow-strewn headboard and braced herself. When he reached three, she lifted, hiking her knee up toward her chest and almost made a full ninety-degree angle before icepick-like pain shot straight up through her leg. She stopped instantly, but he kept lifting and bending, gently forcing the motion until she lost control of the involuntary scream she just could not keep locked behind her tightly gritted teeth.

  She struck the mattress with both fists, spitting even as he lowered her leg back down again, “That’s not fair! I’m stoving up! You’ve got me just lying here!”

  “Are you going to get up when I leave this room?” he interrupted calmly.

  “Damn right I am!”

  Marcus took off his belt, folding it in half once before palming the buckled end. Though he was looking right at her, as if he had no interest in anything beyond listening to her tirade, he unbuttoned the wrist cuffs on his work shirt and began to roll up the sleeves.

  “You can’t!” she cried, helpless desperation already beginning to displace her equally useless rage.

  “Roll over,” was all he said.

  When Cadence only glared, he sighed.

  “You’ve got five licks coming,” he tried again. “You can roll over and take them like a good girl, or I will roll you over and instead of five, you’ll get twenty. Hurry up and decide, because I’m only going to count to three and then I’m going to take the choice away from you. One…two…”

  Cadence rolled over, and that hurt t
oo, but nowhere near as much as those five biting licks that he lay across her freshly-bared buttocks in neat overlapping, ladder-like lines all the way from the hem of her nightgown to the tops of her thighs where her panties lay bunched in a roll. She made it through from start to finish without shedding even one of the hot tears burning at her eyes, not even when he lay his gentle hand on her back, rubbing right between her shoulder blades.

  “You did this to yourself,” he softly reminded her. “Not me. So I’d appreciate not being made the brunt of your anger because you don’t like the consequences your actions have brought you.”

  The worst part was, he was right. She knew he was. She folded her arms in around her head so she wouldn’t have to look at him while her bottom burned and throbbed.

  “Look at me,” he coaxed.

  Cadence shook her head. She didn’t think she could without bursting into tears, and he’d seen her cry enough for one lifetime.

  “Cadence…”

  She was saved by a knock on the door.

  “Dad!” Daniel called frantically through the wood. “Buddy put dish soap in the dishwasher and now there’s bubbles all over the kitchen floor!”

  “It said dish soap!” the youngest Devon boy shouted from further down the hall. “It’s not my fault!”

  Marcus tsked.

  “They’re singing your song,” Cadence said thickly.

  Marcus tsked again, but he didn’t argue. “I’m coming,” he called and stood up.

  No longer boxed in by his overwhelming proximity, Cadence tried to reclaim some normalcy. She reached down, hooking the elastic of her panties to pull them back up over her striped bottom, but he stopped her.

  “Hold out your hands.” He tapped the mattress between her head and the headboard. Halfway expecting he might strap her hands next, Cadence reluctantly obeyed. She caught her breath, cringing even as she opened her hands. Marcus lay his folded belt into the palms of both her hands. He tapped the worn and supple leather. “Hold this while I’m gone, and think about it. We’ll talk when I get back.”