by April Hill
3) Called the police to report “a loud party.” (A Saturday afternoon birthday party, attended by 23 shrieking eight-year-olds.) By the time the police arrived on the scene, I would have paid to have the entire pack of little beasts hauled off to Devil’s Island, but the cops simply swilled down the free Hawaiian Punch and left, laughing their heads off. Two days later, when the Smedley’s mailbox was somehow filled with mud, guess who took the rap and got her completely innocent butt whipped with a nasty, fat wooden ruler? (It’s true, this one I didn’t do. I may have taken the rap for my eldest, but no one could prove that in a court of law. Hey, what’s a mom for?)
Eventually, the police stopped responding to the Smedleys and their ridiculous complaints, but now, when unpleasant things happen on their property, Marigold Smedley picks up the phone and calls Sam, and the louse usually believes her!
“Okay,” he says, “I’ll admit that the woman is a foul-tempered witch, and a pain in the rear.” (Unlike me, Sam always uses the less obscene alternative when describing the woman.) “But I don’t think she’d actually make up all these ‘incidents’.”
“Great!” I yell. “So, you’d take the word of someone you know is a foul tempered witch, but you won’t believe, your own wife?”
Sam grins. “Yeah, but I know you better,” he says.
Today, we banter back and forth for a few minutes about the trash thing, but the outcome’s the same. Demon Neighbor wins, and I lose. Despite Sam’s grin, (see above), and the real possibility that he’s a teeny, weeny bit amused by my most recent offense, I’m doomed. Or as my eight-year-old hoodlum-in-training describes it, “my ass is grass.”
Strewing our own frozen garbage across the snow-covered Smedley lawn, Sam tells me, was an error in judgment, for which I will go next door and apologize.
“Forget it,” I say firmly. “I’ll die first.”
Sam isn’t really surprised. He sighs, and then goes upstairs to find his favorite implement, my own large, oval wooden hairbrush. (It sometimes takes him a few minutes to find this item, because I’ve taken to hiding it in different places.) This stupid hairbrush was a gift from my grandmother, when I was nine, and I should have burned it when I had the chance. I’ve never used it on my actual head. In point of fact, it’s never been used anywhere north of my rear end since Sam first discovered it nestled peacefully in my underwear drawer.
Then, as he usually does, Sam begins our session by bending me over something handy, comfortable and convenient, (in this case, the back of our lovely new living room couch… a bold blue plaid, with just a hint of red). After this, he takes my jeans down, pulls down my panties, and tips my trembling rear-end up to just the right angle. Since I’m short, small, and totally defenseless, this means that my feet don’t even touch the floor, and that everything else is visible, and vulnerable to him and to his damned excellent aim.
Please don’t assume, from this possibly suggestive scenario, that Sam’s intentions at these moments are of a sexual nature. Over the years, with my complete and enthusiastic collaboration, Sam has explored most (Okay, probably all ) of my available orifices and body parts. His efforts in that respect have been delightful, and imminently fulfilling, but at moments like this, his motives are purely (he assures me) punitive. I, for one, have reason to believe him.
Sam is always extremely thorough, and business-like about all this, whereas, I tend to be somewhat less cool. I’ve noticed that getting spanked is a lot like riding a roller coaster. You’ve done it before… been here before, and you know that you’re not actually going to die, but in that instant when your car hangs at the crest of that first, terrifying drop, you hear yourself screaming, “What was I thinking? Stop this, at once! I’ve changed my mind!” But, (to carry this roller coaster analogy to its bitter end) there’s no way off, and no way out. You’re gonna take the ride, no matter how loudly you object. The decision is totally out of your hands. Of course, Sam usually points out that the “original” decision was mine, exclusively, and that I was the one who made what turned out to be a very poor choice.
So, Sam swings his arm back, and the ride begins. As my crimes go, the garbage caper one is probably only a moderately serious offense, but when he lands his first stinging blow on my bare ass, it hurts like blazes, and I grab the sofa pillow and stuff the corner of it in my mouth. The kids are at my Mom’s, but this is a small house, with neighbors close-by on either side, and I’d just as soon Dorothy and Ed (on our right), and Jim and Kathy (on our left) don’t hear me howling when Sam gets really warmed up. I would like to preserve their perception of Sam as a great guy, and of myself as charming, witty, and sweet natured.
Sam’s being a little rougher than usual, and I’m already struggling like mad, so he holds me down with his left hand while giving my burning butt all he’s got with his right hand. I kick, and squirm, and when I try to reach back (a very BIG no-no in our house) to protect what I can, he takes my arm and holds it, then spreads my legs to administer a couple of no-nonsense warning swats to the insides of my thighs, adding insult to injury. My ass, as the expression goes, is already on fire, and he’s done a pretty good job on the backs of my thighs, as well. I drop the pillow, pound the couch with my one free fist, and muffle my wails against the seat cushions. If I live, I’m going to divorce him this time, for sure.
“Now,” he says, laying the hairbrush down and helping me up, like the gentleman he is, “You’re going to pull your pants back up, wash your face. You might want to run a comb through your hair, too and get your sorry butt next door to apologize, before the weather gets any worse. Tomorrow, you’ll clean that mess up, all of it. Are we clear?”
In case you’re not already convinced that I’m not awfully bright, I’m about to prove it to you.
“No way in hell!” I start yelling, nose to nose, now, with hubby, “You can just forget it! She can go fuck herself, for all I care, and so can you!”
You see what I mean?
This time, Sam uses only his hand, but Sam’s a pretty fair-sized guy, so that’s not good news, and since he’s convinced that his hand is less painful than other implements, he always tries just a little harder, and spanks me just a little longer, to be sure he gets his point across.
For “Spanking, Part II”, he doesn’t even bother putting me back in position, but just leans me across his hip and whales the daylights out of me while I’m half-standing up, hopping from foot-to-foot and yelping in pain. It’s short, and intense, and since my rear end is already beet red and sore as hell, every new whack brings an agonized and sincere apology. Two minutes later, my hair sort of combed and my butt throbbing, I trudge over (rather stiffly) to knock on Marigold’s front door, to eat crow.
* * * *
Sub-Chapter, or “How I Got Here”
Sam and I made an “arrangement,” a few years back, when I felt that I needed some help with this tendency I have to overreact to life’s frustrations. This would be accomplished, we agreed, by Sam’s applying some “fair and reasonable” physical discipline, where necessary. (What can I say? I thought it sounded better than fighting about everything. Who knew?) I seemed to have no self-control at all, and Sam was a model of calm and forbearance. Who wouldn’t benefit from being taken lovingly, but firmly in hand, whenever she ran amuck, by such a paragon? It sounded logical.
Please believe that I am not insane, nor am I totally immature, despite what Sam’s mother thinks. The truth is, that I’m a fairly intelligent and creative person, considered amusing and competent…usually. A very smallish portion of the time, perhaps four or five times a year, when the moon is full or when some malevolent planets are aligned in a galaxy far, far away, something in me snaps. That’s when Sam began to step in. Then, however, this spanking arrangement expanded to include “incentives” for me to give up some of my worst habits. I collect bad habits the way some women collect Tupperware, and like mushrooms or dandelions, when one of my bad habits is removed, another seems to pop up to replace it. The arrival on the sc
ene of the Smedleys has added to my frustration, so, what with one thing and another, I do seem to get spanked a lot, these days. I’m sure it’s only temporary, like a phase, and I look forward to long, peaceful years with Sam, after my present demons are exorcised. Until then, I eat many of my meals standing up, and Sam continues to risk getting a serious rotator cuff injury.
* * * *
Well, anyway, as I was saying, I went next door, as instructed, and apologized to old lady Smedley and the Ghoul Girls. I lied, just a little, swearing that the spillage of our three bags of frozen garbage was “accidental.” I was risking another session with Sam for the fib, but I knew the ghouls wouldn’t believe me anyway, so what the hell? The moment might have passed, had the younger troll, Wanda, the Wart-Faced Woman, not stepped up with her usual crooked sneer and said, “I suppose your husband made you slink over here to apologize.” That did it! C’mon, guys! I cut my baby teeth on women’s liberation literature. Gloria Steinem and I are cut from the same tough cloth. Am I supposed to stand there like a cough drop and let this creature imply that I’m a submissive, spineless female? A simpering, brainless Stepford Wife” No way in hell!
So, in high dudgeon (what is “dudgeon,” exactly?) I turned on my heel, and marched back to my own yard, plotting further vengeance, even as I rubbed my badly stinging butt.
I guess I should explain that, by trade, I am an artist. I add a small but pleasant yearly sum to the family piggy bank with my skills, and, among my colleagues, I am often considered imaginative and inventive. Like many other artists, I work with a variety of media and technique. So, while some other angry woman looking for payback might have spread gossip, or lobbed fashion insults, I looked to a more creative avenue, like sculpture.
There’s a place in darkest Canada, somewhere, where every winter, they build a hotel entirely out of snow and ice, and hoards of otherwise intelligent people claw their way through a frozen wasteland to stay at this hostelry, to freeze their asses off sleeping and eating on blocks of ice. (Running out of chilled plates at this establishment’s salad bar is never a problem.) In the northernmost regions of the world, in point of fact, creative minds have erected (remember this word) whole villages, and vast sculpture gardens of ice and snow. Frozen foreign equivalents of our own Mount Rushmore are commonplace, and applauded.
So, I asked myself, why not here?
Why not in the treeless, barren, snowy expanse of front yard belonging to the Widow Smedley and the Gruesome Twosome?
It had been a slow year, art-wise, and my creative juices were spilling over. I was ready for a challenge. I grabbed a pad and pencil, and went to work designing my masterpiece.
Out there, somewhere, readers are asking themselves, “Doesn’t this idiot know she’s going to get beaten into a stupor for this?” All I can do is claim amnesia. I can’t honestly remember what I was thinking. Which has always sort of been one of my problems, you know?
The biggest obstacle to success, aside from the real possibility of losing a lot of fingers and toes to frostbite, was the time factor. Rome wasn’t built in a day, after all. Remember those wonderful scenes in Edward Scissorhands, where he carves ice sculptures with his ‘hands”, as though he’s operating a chain saw? Well, I didn’t have a chain saw. All I had was hands, and determination, and one long, freezing night.
I told Sam I was going out shopping, and got an argument, of course.
SAM: “For God’s sake, Meg, there’s a blizzard coming! Leave it ‘til tomorrow. I’ll drive you, if the roads are clear.”
ME: “No. I need to go tonight. It’s a woman thing…please, don’t ask!” (Men can rarely argue with this.)
SAM: “Oh, all right! I’ll get the car out and drive you myself. The roads are going to be really bad.”
ME: “No. I’m fine by myself. Why don’t you ever trust me? You’re always telling me I’m a good driver, and then…”
SAM: (Grudgingly) “Of course, I trust you. Don’t lay that on me.”
ME: (No dialogue, just a hurt look.)
SAM: (Guilty) “Oh, all right, go ahead! But, for God’s sake, be careful!”
Which bought me some time to get started. I knew that Marigold and the greedy Trolls would be at the back of the house, watching Regis Philbin give away all those millions of bucks. Any stray passersby would probably just think I was crazy, clearing snow in the middle of the night. By morning, if I didn’t freeze to death, the deed would be done.
I worked for three hours, and when I got back inside the house, I looked like I’d been with Peary, at the North Pole. I was stiff with snow, my hair and eyelashes were frozen solid, and my nose was blue. Even if my nose fell off, though, it would still be worth it.
SAM: (Looking at me, and yawning sleepily.) “Wow! It must have been pretty cold out there.” My husband, the master of the understatement.
After Sam finally went up to bed, I grabbed a small ladder and what other tools I needed, peeked outside to see that all was clear, and dashed across the snow to my already partly-finished sculpture garden.
* * * *
I slept late the next morning, which I hadn’t meant to do. Still, anyone who’s single-handedly “erected” what I had, out of nothing more than snow and ice, needed a good night’s sleep. The work had taken longer than expected, because I’d decided, on a whim, to add a couple of merry snowmen, one on either side of the major sculpture.
What woke me, actually, was the annoying red light that kept flashing through the bedroom window, and the babble of voices from next door. To quote from that timeless classic, “A Visit From St. Nick,”
“…When out on the lawn, there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed, to see what was the matter!”
And “there, on the breast of the new fallen snow,” as the poem continues, IT stood, like something out of ancient Rome, an obelisk of pure ice, worthy of the emperor Trajan. My masterpiece! An eight-foot high, beautifully detailed, gloriously erect penis, complete to its circumcised tip. One hundred percent solid, hand-carved ice, and the centerpiece of my pornographic triad!
From where I stood, I could see that, anatomically speaking, the proportions of the mammoth penis weren’t exactly perfect. The giant snowballs that represented the testicles were over-large, as though the owner had suffered an unfortunate sports injury. Nevertheless, the total effect was stunning, even spectacular. One either side of the penis, were my last-minute snowmen, each with a cheerful smile on his chubby face, and a prodigiously outsized organ of his own, sculpted in ice. (Portraiture’s not my strong point, so one of the snow men, the one slyly bent over at the waist as though presenting his plump bottom for his companion’s pleasure, looked vaguely like Donny Osmond.) The other’s smiling face, as well as his previously rampant member, had met with disaster, evidently at the hands of Marigold Smedley herself. I learned later that she had attacked the little fellow, cutting off selected parts of him with a snow shovel, shortly before she collapsed. When I looked out, I could see her sprawled and spread-eagled on her back, as though she were making a snow angel.
A uniformed policeman, one of several in the Smedley yard, was helping Marigold to her feet, and Dracula’s Daughters were both pointing hysterically in the direction of my house. It had turned into a cold, but gorgeously sunny day, but from what I could tell, no one seemed to be in an especially good mood, despite the nice weather.
At that very moment, Sam’s red Apache pulled out of the garage and started backing down the driveway. I saw the car hesitate, as he became aware of the chaos, I guess. When he hit the brakes, the car skidded on the icy driveway, then swerved into our snow-covered mailbox with a kind of sickening crunch. The mailbox sort of leaned sideways, then toppled into the street. A moment later, Sam got out of the car. Even through my closed, double-glazed window, I could hear him swearing.
You probably won’t believe this, but until that very second, I had expected to get away with it.
Have you ever noticed how:
1) Thi
ngs just never seem to go the way you plan, and
2) How quickly a person you love like crazy can sometimes just lose his sense of humor over the smallest little thing?
As you might have imagined, the rest of the day did not go well. It appears, that in opening the Smedleys’ outside water tap to help with my ice making, I had inadvertently caused their pipes to burst, which then flooded their basement, blah, blah, blah. This problem, evidently, is fairly costly to repair, and the Smedleys’ attorney, as well as members of the police department, encouraged Sam to pay the amounts involved immediately, unless he wanted to see me in prison. Sam told the cops that he’d love to see me in prison, or maybe strung up by my thumbs from a light post, if someone could find him a good, full-time baby-sitter. So now, I’m sitting in the den waiting for him to get home, and from my window, I can see my masterpiece in ruins, reduced to large chunks if ice. I hope someone got pictures. No, wait… I take that back.
* * * *
After we finished at the police station that day, Sam brought me home, and then left again. He was gone a long time, and I was afraid that he might have done some shopping while he was out. Until now, common household implements, along with his own belt have always been adequate for his purposes. In his more irritated moments, he’s mentioned the possibility of acquiring a paddle or a strap. Or maybe a six foot, hand-tooled bull-whip, he always jokes. (Ha-ha) Where he would buy stuff like this, I’m not sure, but there is an establishment nearby that deals in what might be called “exotic” toys. I could only hope that he hadn’t seen their ad.