by April Hill
Jed has never been a believer in “warm ups.” The purpose of a “warm up,” as I understand it, is to enable the victim to endure a longer, harder spanking. But Jed’s spankings were rarely long. They usually weren’t preceded by a pre-whipping lecture, either, and never by a gradual warm up. They’ve always been just fast, hard, and to the point. The only thing that differs is the position, and the implement. In this instance, Jed had selected the big, sturdy, long-handled wooden spoon because he knew that I absolutely hated being spanked with a wooden spoon. A wooden spoon looks lightweight and benign, but in the right hands, it can deliver a level of pain the novice spankee can’t possibly imagine. It’s quick and agile, and capable of seeking out the smallest, most inaccessible places. Every swat stings like blazes, and leaves a bright red, egg-shaped welt that can smart and itch for days. After years of practice—on my unlucky behind—my husband has become a master of the wooden spoon. Jed wields an inexpensive wooden spoon like Itzhak Perlman handles a violin—with finesse, and expertise.
I wish what happened that day was as merry and charming as what I just wrote, but it wasn’t. Jed laid unto me with everything he had, and within seconds, I was squirming and bucking and doing everything I could to escape the storm of blistering, rapid-fire swats. Jed had clamped his knees around my lower legs, making escape impossible, and even squirming was no easy matter. He kept his left arm securely around my waist, and simply whaled away at everything between mid-butt and lower thigh, peppering my bare ass and the soft backs of my thighs with too many quick, sharp smacks to count. And when I wriggled around just right, he even landed a few on the tender flesh between my opened thighs. Trapped under his left arm, and unable to reach back and protect any part of my scalded behind, all I could do was lie there, yelping and yowling and squealing while he set my bare ass and everything south of there on fire until finally, I was howling not just for him to stop, but with genuine remorse.
When he let me up, my face was streaked with tears, and almost as red as my throbbing behind. And this, he reminded me, was just the on-the-spot quickie—the proverbial swat to the new puppy’s hindquarters when you catch him peeing on the rug. The real payback would come when the bills came in.
The house didn’t burn down. Nothing completely burned, even the nylon shag rug, which sort of curled up into a big, frizzy three hundred and twenty-eight dollar from Crate and Barrel ball. (When accidents of this nature occur, Jed tends to describe them in financial terms, usually glaring at me while he jots the figures down.) Thus, the rug was three hundred and twenty eight dollars, the replacement sofa cushions were two hundred and forty three dollars from Macy’s Furniture Department, including shipping and handling, and the cleaning of the rugs, draperies, couch, chair and matching ottoman (all of which still smelled like smoke) came to just over four hundred dollars. The walls and ceiling needed to be painted, and the repairs to the fireplace were incalculable, of course. My sneakers had been thirty-nine bucks at J.C. Penney’s most recent shoe sale, but I didn’t mention that specific loss to Jed, since I had a sickening feeling all the numbers floating around might be adding up to something spectacular, and the grand total was already soaring. If Jed chose to divide the total by ten, that would still mean a hell of a lot of swats forcefully applied to the unhappy arsonist’s behind, and she didn’t need to add a last-minute thirty-nine to the equation.
It came to just over fifty, I think. A merciful sentence, under the circumstances, I suppose, but it was hard to see it that way while I was “under the lash,” as it were. I lost count after the first few swats with Jed’s belt, not just because I was wailing so loud, which I was, but because the lingering odor of smoke in the couch (over which I was bent) was annoying—and distracting. I got another half-dozen or so a couple of days later, when I suggested that maybe we should hire someone to repair the bricks on the fireplace. Not only did I get dumped over the ottoman on the spot, and whacked to tears with a ruler, but Jed ruled that I had to sand and repaint the entire fireplace by myself, while he watched, with an eye to authenticity and the big, fat ruler in hand. All errors in color and coverage would, of course, result in a stern reprimand, and further blistering whacks to my bared bottom.
I started the sanding the following morning, wearing nothing but the bottom of an old bathing suit and one of Jed’s discarded long sleeved white shirts. A fetching outfit, especially with the addition of a thick paper mask and a pair of sloppy gym socks—to protect the antique flooring, not my feet. Jed sat at the desk and read student papers, glancing up now and then to check on my progress, and to make sure I was doing everything to his exacting specifications. The fireplace is a good eight feet wide, and spacious—I can stand up in it—and the ceiling in the room is also high—just under nine feet. Since the fireplace extends ceiling to floor, you can probably get a rough idea of how many bricks, and how much sanding, I had to finish. In two hours, my knees were scuffed and aching, and my shoulders were so sore I could barely lift my arms. I risked a small moan, and a little bit of whining.
Three hard ruler swats across the rump later, I was back at work, grumbling under my breath about divorce, and/or emasculation. Jed merely smiled, and went back to his papers.
By noon, I was in full rebellion, and stood up defiantly. Even Roman galley slaves probably got a ten-minute coffee break, I protested.
Jed sighed, and glanced around for the ruler. When he couldn’t find it, he looked through the toolbox and found a suitable replacement.
Being spanked with a dried up paint brush while bent over the back of a couch isn’t especially dignified, especially when both Thomas Jefferson and John Adams were looking down upon the goings-on from their usual places above the mantel. Places that afforded both of these gentlemen an extremely humiliating and revealing view of parts of me to which only Jed usually enjoys access. When I mentioned this, Jed paused just long enough to assure me that these worthy gentlemen would have done no less to their ladies, had either Martha or Abigail committed such an outrage on their own stately homes at Monticello or Peacefield.
Jed is a historian, but even he had no unshakable evidence to offer that the two colonial First Ladies really had their naked bottoms spanked by their husbands. All things considered, though, it was sort of comforting to think that I might be in such illustrious company.
THE END
“The Great Pumpkin Caper”
When Carrie O’Donnell glanced out her front window that late autumn morning, she was already teetering on the edge of what her husband sometimes referred to as one of her “Flaming Tantrums.” What she saw on her front porch, and on the brick walkway leading up to the porch was more than enough to push her over that edge, and into the fiery abyss.
Yesterday afternoon, less than twelve hours earlier, Carrie’s six-year-old son had proudly deposited his very first hand-carved Jack O’ Lantern on the front steps. It had been a virtual masterpiece of pumpkinry—boasting a sweetly crooked smile, several missing teeth, and three only slightly misplaced eyes. (When carving the left eye with a dessert spoon had proven more difficult than expected, the young artist had added a second left eye just below the first one. His beaming mother had pronounced the effect delightful.)
Now, the wonderful Jack O’ Lantern lay smashed into sodden pieces, awaiting discovery by its heartbroken creator. Anxious to spare her precious child that one small agony, Carrie did what any loving mother would do. She flung open the front door and scurried about the yard in her bare feet, collecting in the gathered folds of her nightgown the sticky remains of the once handsome vegetable—whose name in life had been Percy the Pumpkin.
Once Percy’s dismembered corpse had been laid to temporary rest in the vegetable drawer of the refrigerator (awaiting a proper burial,) Carrie stormed upstairs to the bedroom, where her husband was preparing to go to work. It was shortly after six o’clock, and Sam O’Donnell, a uniformed police officer, was due at his precinct by seven-thirty. Fortunately, young Daniel O’Donnell was still tucked in bed,
blissfully unaware of the tragedy that had befallen Percy.
“The little bastards did it again!” Carrie hissed, careful not to awake her child, sleeping just across the hall.
“Which little bastards?” Sam asked, strapping on the heavy back duty belt laden with handcuffs, radio, and black riot baton. After slipping his pistol into its sleek black holster and snapping the holster closed, he turned his attention to the last item in his morning routine, by leaning over to kiss his wife. “The ones down the street, or the Dastardly Dennison gang?”
“It’s not funny, Sam!” Carrie exclaimed, her voice furious. “They smashed Daniel’s pumpkin. All over the front yard!”
Sam swore. “Poor kid. I’ll go in and talk to him about it before I leave. But I did warn you not to leave it out at night. You should have known what would happen. They do the same thing every year, to every pumpkin on the block.”
Carrie bristled. “So, now it’s my fault that we live in a high crime neighborhood?”
“High crime? C’mon, babe, smashing pumpkins may stink, but let’s not go overboard. It’s a common Halloween prank. Someday, I’ll tell you what we used to do in my old neighborhood when I was a kid. As mean-spirited as this is, it’s still just a prank.”
“Prank, my ass! That Dennison kid is a rotten little thug, and I’ve had all I’m going to take from him!”
“How do you know it was the Dennison kid?”
“He’s been threatening all the other kids for two weeks. He and that gang of hoodlums he hangs around with. Daniel says they call themselves the Pumpkin Predators.”
“Too many video games,” Sam said. “The whole bunch need their collective butts walloped.”
“Ha! “Carrie whooped. “This from the guy who doesn’t believe in spanking children!”
Sam grinned. “Who said anything about spanking? I was thinking more along the lines of flogging. Or maybe caning. You know, like they do in Singapore? Besides, the ‘rotten little thug’ is eighteen, and a senior in high school, not that he’s got a chance in hell of actually graduating. Why don’t you go over and talk to Angela about it.”
“I already did that. Last year.”
“And?”
“And your dear friend Angela explained to me in her superior, know-it-all tone, and in tedious detail that ‘boys will be boys.’“
Sam sighed. “Yeah, I see a lot of ‘boys’ like that. This year it’s smashing pumpkins for fun. Next year, he’ll probably be boosting cars for the same reason.”
“Then why don’t you go over there and arrest someone?”
“Arrest who, and for what? Even if you actually saw who trashed Daniel’s pumpkin, it’s not much of a crime.”
She thought for a moment. “So arrest Angela, for…Okay, maybe for ‘Failure to Prevent Wanton Destruction of Public Property’.”
“Overlooking the fact that there’s no law like that on the books, what public property was destroyed?” Sam asked.
“Daniel was going to enter his pumpkin in the Jack O’ Lantern Beauty Contest— at the park. That’s a public event, isn’t it? The taxpayers pay for the party, and for all the prizes.”
Sam grinned. “Try again, counselor.”
“It was a really great pumpkin, Sam,” she sulked. “And you know it.”
“It was the most amazing pumpkin I’ve ever seen, and we will all mourn its loss, but it was still just a pumpkin.”
“Just a pumpkin!” she cried. “What kind of father are you?”
“The kind who’s going to be late for work if I don’t get moving.”
Carrie crossed her arms. “If you don’t do something about this, you can start sleeping on the couch.”
“Yeah, sure. Last time you made me sleep on the couch you crawled in with me an hour later. I spent the night like a pretzel and woke up with a crick in my neck.”
“I was reading ‘The Exorcist,’ and it got creepy,” she said sullenly.
“And what about the time before that?”
“You would remember that!”
“Of course I remember it. It was like being back in that old VW bug I had in college. The one where you first agreed to …”
“Never mind,” she snapped. “Just go on to work. I’ll give Daniel the bad news about Percy, and get a couple more pumpkins while he’s at school.”
Sam leveled a careful eye at his wife. “Okay. One thing, though, before I leave. We’re clear about this smashed pumpkin business, right? No vigilante justice?”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning if I come home and find myself in the middle of a range war with Angela Dennison, someone’s going to get her tail blistered.”
Carrie sniffed. “Angela would be my choice.”
“A little closer to home than that,” Sam warned.
“That’s not fair.”
“Maybe not,” he said with a wry chuckle, “but if Herb Dennison wants his brat of a wife spanked, it’s up to him to get it done. I can only be responsible for the brat I live with.”
“Fat chance that’ll happen,” Carrie grumbled. “Unlike some husbands I could mention, Herb Dennison seems to think his wife is one hundred percent perfect.”
Sam pulled Carrie into his arms and kissed her again, hard. “I think my wife is perfect, too—maybe ninety-eight percent of the time. It’s that two percent that usually gets her butt set on fire.”
With that, he picked up his hat and headed to the front door.
Suddenly, Carrie remembered what she wanted to tell him, and followed Sam outside, waving. “Don’t forget to stop at Party-Ville,” she shouted.
Sam leaned out the car window. “What for?”
“Stop pretending you forgot!” she yelled back. “I ordered your costume a month ago—for the Dennisons’ party.”
Through the windshield, Carrie saw her husband mouth the single word, “Shit!”
“Yes, darling. It’s that festive time again. This year’s theme is The Golden Age of Hollywood. I rented you a Keystone Cops outfit. It’s positively adorable!”
“I’ll bet, “Sam growled. “I may feel a cold coming on.”
Carrie pointed an accusing finger. “Don’t even think about it! We’re going to that stupid circus if I have to… “ But Sam was already down the driveway and gone.
The subject of Angela Dennison and her annual pre-Halloween bash was a tender one in the O’Donnell household, due to a long-simmering mutual animosity between the two women. The Dennisons were the wealthiest couple in the neighborhood, a circumstance Angela never failed to expound upon to anyone within earshot. Herb Dennison was a very successful accountant, but from Angela’s point of view, he had lost his sexual allure at around the same time he lost his waistline and most of his hair. And though she insisted upon referring to Carrie’s tall and own trimly handsome husband as an “underpaid civil servant,” she was not above trying to seduce him. Angela was the sort of woman who always needed something fixed, and with her own spouse clueless about hammers and screwdrivers, she often trotted across the street, batted her fake eyelashes at Sam, and dragged him off to repair a leaking faucet or a wobbling fence post. Being happily married and a gentleman, besides, Sam was more amused than offended by Angela’s advances, and had never taken them, or her, seriously. The same, however, could not be said of Carrie.
And with the Dennisons’ Halloween party just two days away, Carrie’s mood was becoming increasingly testy. Neither Sam nor Carrie wanted to go, but when they declined last year’s invitation, Angela had spread it around the neighborhood that Carrie was “green with envy” at Herb’s success and “horribly jealous” of Sam—all because of a “silly, innocent little incident” the year before that. (Toward the end of the evening in question, Angela had whisked Sam away, on the pretext of changing a light bulb. Close to an hour later, Carrie found them both in Angela’s spacious new pantry, with the door snugly closed and Sam balanced precariously on the top rung of a flimsy step-ladder. Angela’s arms were twined tightly around Sam’s upper th
ighs— “To keep the poor boy from falling and hurting himself” she’d explained sweetly.)
“We’re not going,” Sam said flatly, when this year’s invitation arrived in the mail. “Who the hell cares what Angela tells the neighbors? Besides, all she really wants to do is show off that new hot tub they installed last week. Ed Skinner says it set old Herb back fifteen grand, and the poor schmuck can’t even use the damned thing. He’s got some skin allergy.” The fact was that Sam had never liked the Dennisons’ Halloween parties, or most any other party, for that matter. But Carrie was determined to show up at this year’s event. One last time, she vowed, just to set the record straight. Sam groaned, but after listening for a week to Carrie’s whining and pleading, he’d finally relented. One last time. Period!
But everything had changed, now. Angela’s juvenile delinquent son—a young punk obviously destined for federal prison, had committed another outrage and gotten away with it. An act of revenge was definitely in order. By the time Sam’s car was out of sight, Carrie had already come up with the beginnings of a plan. The revenge part was easy enough, of course. Carrie had always had a talent for retaliation. The tricky part would be retaliating without winding up sprawled across Sam’s knee, with her underwear in a tangle and her rear-end ablaze. The risk of a world-class spanking was fairly high, but Carrie was willing to take that risk. Angela Dennison was overdue for a little bit of well-deserved payback.
* * * *
Carrie and Sam had been engaged for only four months when the subject of spanking first came up—not, as one might expect—in the context of child rearing, but because Carrie had chosen, that afternoon, to call her intended several obscene names when he suggested that her apartment was less than neat.