by Laetitia
A part of Annalise's brain registered that Justin was no longer smacking her, but was resting his burning palm on her burning bottom. She wanted badly to buck or twist so his hot hand would drop from her swollen posterior, but she knew instinctively, that would not be a good option. She forced herself to relax a little, silently congratulating herself that she had survived this embarrassing display of husbandly dominance. She was even beginning to plan her revenge.. .maybe some starched underwear...or poorly cooked meals...she could blame those on others...maybe she would not allow him to sleep with her for a very long time! No , she decided, she wanted to punish him, not herself, but he would definitely have to redeem himself in some way before...
"The next stage..." Justin continued, his calm voice snapping her out of her fantasies and back to the painful present. "Is the explanation stage. It sometimes occurs that there are extenuating circumstances of which you are unaware. Since this exercise is meant to be a lesson and not an attempt to 'beat your wife into submission', at this point you will give her a chance to plead her case." Justin reached around and untied the gag from Annalise's mouth.
"So Lisa," he asked in a deceptively calm voice, "are there?"
"Are there what?" Annalise didn't know which she hated worse, the way her voice caught on half a sob, or the graveled croak caused by her previous screaming. Either way, she'd determined she wasn't going to make this interrogation any easier for her brute of a husband.
SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! " Owwwwch!" She threw her head back and howled.
"Behave yourself, Lisa. Explain how you happened to come here against my express wishes."
"I...I..." Annalise stammered. "She said you'd never find out..."
"She who?" Justin prodded.
"Kaitland Lindsey. She said she'd always done things her husband told her not to, and that she'd never been caught."
Justin shot his friend, Benjamin Lindsey a heated look. The other three men shared a smug smile. Well, that answered the question of who was the other woman.
Annalise began to tear up when she thought of the injustice of it all. "How was I to know that it wasn't usual to disregard what your husband tells you? She's been married for three years after all..." she stopped herself from saying more.
It all sounded so whiney and petulant.
Justin raised a brow at his friend, "How indeed," he commented. Benjamin Lindsey's color turned red, whether from anger or humiliation, Justin didn't know nor care. He had a wife to instruct.
"Do you know now?" Justin asked.
Annalise let go of her tightly held anger. "It just isn't fair! Why do you have to be such a bully? Other wives do whatever they want, when they want! Truth to tell, it's why most women get married as soon as they can...to get out from under their father's authority."
"Tell me Lisa, about your "father's authority". Did he never spank you for disobedience?"
"Never!" she said with some vehemence as if he had just proved the case against himself..
"Oh that is too bad! Then this must seem very shocking to you." Justin sounded sympathetic, but his next words disabused her of any notion that he was inclined to be lenient. "But you may as well accustom yourself to going over my knee when ever I think you've earned it...and this little escapade..."
He punctuated his lecture with a very hard spank right in the center of her bottom..."has definitely earned you a scorcher!"
"Owwwch! Let me up! This is barbaric!"
"No, my dear. It would be barbaric to allow you to go in whatever misguided direction your friends encourage you to go. There is only one person in your life you must accommodate, and that is your husband...bully or no. So unless you have any more cogent arguments to add, other than 'it's not fair!', I believe we'll continue."
"I hate you! I will never forgive you for this!" Annalise screamed at him over her shoulder.
"Oh you'll forgive me Lisa," Justin answered, " and you will thank me for this lesson." Justin shifted his attention to the men who were listening intently.
"The next step is the execution of the bulk of the lesson. It is in this step that you give your wife a clear, physical, demonstration of just how displeased you are with her behavior. Women are always claiming that men don't communicate their feelings well, and perhaps they have a point...but in my family, we were always encouraged to make our feelings...at least about rules and rule-breakers...crystal clear."
Having said that, he let loose with a barrage of spanks to his wife's bottom that left no one, least of all his wife, in doubt that this was one husband who was very displeased with his wife. He was methodical, and merciless, attempting to hit a new area with every spank. He began at the top of the left half of her bottom, working his way around in an overlapping circle, covering every inch, before he repeated the same procedure for the right side. He was thorough and fast. Had the men been permitted to watch, they would have seen his hand rise and fall in a blurred flurry. As it was, the sounds of Justin's hard palm hitting repeatedly on his wife's bare bottom raised a chill on the back of their collective necks. That he was communicating his message was evident by Annalise's reaction.
"Stop! Stop right now! Owwwch! I"ll kill you for this! Arrrgh! Please! Please stop! I"m sorry! Ow! Really! Oh please, that hurts so awfully! Oww, oww, oww! No more! I'll never disobey you ever again! Owwch! Don't hit me there again! Justin! Please, Please! I"m on fire! Oh! Mercy! Mercy! " Fairly soon the individual sentences blended together to form a series of incoherent sobs.
As soon as she stopped writhing on his knee and slumped, exhausted, Justin stopped.
"You can tell when you have delivered your lesson well, when your wife ceases to fight you and you can feel her let go of her stubborn defiance. Then you know it is time to go to the last part of the lesson."
Annalise set up a wail, "Please, please Justin . I can't take any more! I'll be good! I'll be perfect! I promise!"
Justin let her quiet down a bit before he continued speaking. "This last part of the lesson is delivered slower, but with periodic spanks to emphasize what you want your wife to learn." He took a moment to reposition Annalise across his knees. She had shifted a bit when she had wiggled to try to avoid the blows.
"I have been told that for a serious lesson, one usually about personal safety or a serious attack on your relationship, it is good to use this portion of the lesson to underscore the gravity of the offence. To do that, position your wife higher on your knee. Help her extend the top part of her body off the bed or couch, where she can have its support for the majority of the time, to draping from your knee and resting her hands on the floor. This will allow her bottom to shift higher so that the sitting area between her thighs and bottom is accessible as well as is the inside of her thighs."
As he was giving these instructions, he was shifting Annalise lower across his knees. All she could muster in the way of protest, was a soft whine. She was dreading the continuation of her lesson. Her bottom felt hot and swollen, and she wanted to rub it in the worst way. A part of her registered that Justin could see her "nether regions" as her woman parts were euphemistically called, from this angle, but she couldn't bring herself to care. She felt tears stream down her face and was dimly aware that her hair had come loose from their pins and was cascading to rest in a pool on the floor. She felt limp and vulnerable, just as her husband wanted her to be.
"I want you to listen carefully to me, Annalise. I am extremely disappointed in you right now." SMACK! He landed a forceful spank across the base of both globes. Annalise reared up and screamed as if she'd been burnt with hot coals, because it felt like she had. He continued to find that sensitive area and hit it with unerring precision.
"You will never again to put yourself in danger like that!" SMACK! "You will never again disobey me!" SMACK! "And you will never again attempt to hide the truth from me!" SMACK! 'do you understand?" SMACK! He waited for her muffled, "Yes." before he smacked her again.
"Please, Justin, please stop! I said 'yes'. I"m sorry I won't ever do
anything bad again," Annalise pleaded.
"As an added punishment, you will remain at home for the next two weeks.
You will be permitted no visitors. Is that understood? Your answer should be,
"Yes, sir." " Justin waited.
"Yes, sir," Annalise said softly.
"In a month I will decide if you can ever continue your friendship with Kaitland Lindsey. You are not allowed to see her until I have given you express permission."
"But Justin! We are in the same social circle. I can't control if she is at an affair when I arrive or comes in after me."
SMACK!
"You will not have any contact with that woman unless she is in the company of her husband or you are with me. Is that understood?"
"Yes, sir."
"When we are done here, you will stand in front of me, apologize for causing this disruption in our lives, and thank me for loving you enough to give you this lesson."
"Yes, sir."
Justin lifted her from his lap and set her feet on the floor. Annalise felt her knees turn to water, but Justin supported her between his two strongly muscled thighs.
"Go on, Lisa," Justin gently prodded.
"I"m sorry I was disobedient and careless...."
"And...? Justin asked softly.
"And...thank you for loving me enough to...to...spank me," she finally finished in a rush.
"That's my lovely Lisa," Justin said as he gently pulled her to sit on his lap. He untied her wrists, but kept her blindfold in place until the men left. He wiped the tears on her cheeks away as he continued to talk to his friends.
"You may take off your blindfolds now." The four men shifted in their seats as they removed the scraps of cloth from their eyes. They blinked and focused on the picture of domestic tranquility before them. Annalise was cuddled into her husband's arms, her arms encircling his neck in mute testimony that she still loved him."
"That is the end of the lesson. Loving and comforting is also a large part of this process, that and reminding your wife that you love her in whatever fashion you prefer. If you don't mind, I'll keep that part private. This is the
'secret' taught to me by my father and passed down through countless generations. Since I am unaware of any Burke marriage past, or present," he hugged Annalise, "which has not been gloriously happy and full of love, I must assume that the system works. I will tell you what my father told me:
"Be clear, careful, and caring, remembering always that your intent is to teach, not to punish." "
The men filed silently out of Room 17, closing the door softly behind them.
Justin removed Annalise's blindfold. He kissed her forehead and then her lips, then pushed her a little away from him so he could look her in the eye. He lifted her chin up with his finger.
"Don't ever make me do that again, Annalise!" he said sternly.
Annalise shook her head "No", unable to speak, and then snuggled back into the warm and welcoming arms of her husband.
Benjamin Lindsey hadn't needed his friend's less than subtle hint about what should happen to his beautiful wayward wife. Bad enough that she had come to this gaming hall unescorted, but she had talked Annalise Burke into accompanying her in direct defiance of her new husband's wishes.
Justin Burke had given a short course on how to handle your wife and Benjamin was determined to start his "homework" right away. When he'd last seen his red-headed darling, she had been stealing money from his pocket on her way to the card room. He had just laughed at her indulgently, and watched her go. Indulgent...he'd been too damned indulgent with that little baggage.
Admittedly, he hadn't been home much of late, but that couldn't be helped right now, and a man had a right to expect his wife to behave even when he wasn't watching her every moment. By Heaven! When he was through with her this night she would understand that fact quite clearly.
He wandered into the back parlor where most of the games were set up and let his eyes scan the room. One good thing about having a redhead for a wife, you could usually find her in a crowd. He spotted her at one of the back tables, and walked over to stand behind her with his hands resting on her shoulders. She raised her head up and back and beamed at her husband. When she smiled like that , he thought, he couldn't refuse her anything! That's how we've gotten to where we are today! He brought his thoughts back to the problem: his wife Kaitland.
Leaning down, he whispered in her ear, "Get your things. We're going home."
"What? Why?" Kaitland sputtered.
"Because I said so", Benjamin answered. "Keep your voice down!"
"I'm not going anywhere! Look at this hand! If you want to go home, go ahead. I'm sure I can find someone to see me home." She gave each of the gentlemen at her table one of her most flirtatious looks.
"I wouldn't mind bringing your wife home, Lindsey," Thomas Kinkade said.
" I would mind! Kaitland you're going home with me right now. The only thing yet to be determined is if you walk out of here with some degree of dignity, or I carry you out of here on my shoulder like a sack of grain. Which will it be?"
Kaitland couldn't summon up enough air to answer. She felt like he'd knocked the breath from her. This was not her doting, loving husband. This stern-faced man was someone she didn't recognize. All she could do was stare at him.
"So be it," Benjamin said as he reached down, scooped his wife from her chair and threw her over his shoulder.
Chaos erupted all around him. Kaitland finally found her breath to scream.
Men scraped their chairs back. Women squeaked in sympathy for Kaitland.
Kinkade stood up and shouted, "Now see here, Lindsey," but sat back down when he looked in Benjamin's eyes. The man looked like he had murder on his mind.
From her angle, Kaitland couldn't see her husband's face. She tried to push herself up on her husband's back. All she could see was the entire gaming room shocked to silence and staring at her and Benjamin, appalled.
"What in the name of all that's holy do you think you're doing?" Kaitland screeched as Benjamin began to carry her from the room. "You put me down this instant!" She began to pound on his back and kick her heels in the air.
Benjamin didn't even break his stride. He reached up and smacked his lovely wife's bottom so hard that the sound in the now silent room seemed to reverberate off the walls and created an echo effect that was even more embarrassing...if such a thing were possible.
Kaitland had other worries to occupy her mind besides her total mortification.
She was clinging with all her strength, to the back of her husband's suit coat for fear of being dumped ignominiously on her already throbbing back end.
Her husband was bouncing jauntily down the massive front steps of The Deuces Wild, heading directly to their waiting carriage.
"Omph! Owch! Put me down you fool! I can walk."
"No. I gave you a chance to choose and you took too long," was his smug answer.
"At least take more care! Omph! I can't breathe like this."
"That, my dear, is going to be a comparatively minor inconvenience when you look back on this evening."
Benjamin felt her shudder under his arms and smiled. He dropped her none-too-gently onto the slightly padded seat of the carriage, retrieved the "ribbons"
from a boy he'd paid to watch his horses for the evening, and bounced down on the seat beside his wife.
Kaitland would never forget how she felt when she looked up the steps and saw a crowd of men and women hovering in the golden lamp light on the front portico and staring down at "the madman and his wife". She covered her blushing face in her hands and wished she could be anywhere but here! She was almost grateful when the carriage jerked into motion...except that now she was alone with him.
"Darling," she began in her most patronizing voice, "what has come over you?
Are you ill?
"Were I you, I would worry about my own health."
Benjamin didn't even glance in her direction. He was making her decidedly
nervous. She decided that enough, was most assuredly enough, so she went on the offensive.
"Well, I certainly hope you're satisfied! I left my sable-collard wrap back there, and now, after that spectacle, I can never go back there again to retrieve it!"
Benjamin finally looked at her...a look so frigid she felt the icicles drip down her backbone. She shut her mouth with an audible snap. The rest of the fifteen-minute ride was accomplished in funereal silence.
Strangers walking along the street of the quiet neighborhood, would have barely taken notice of the young couple as they pulled up in front of the Earl of Mahlman's townhouse. The young man punctiliously helped the young lady alight and took her elbow to assist her up the walk. No one would guess that the grip Benjamin had under Kaitland's elbow was bruisingly hard.
"When we get inside, I will give you exactly fifteen minutes to change into your nightrail and join me in my bedroom. Do you understand?" Benjamin squeezed her elbow a little tighter.
"Yes, but..."
"Do not make me have to come for you!"
"I don't understand why..." Kaitland tried again.
By now they had reached the open front doors. Mr. Simons, as usual, had been watching for their return.
"That will be all for this evening, Simons. Lady Lindsey and I do not wish to be disturbed."
"Very good, sir," Simons replied as he fastened the locks on the front doors and scurried off to the rear of the house.
Kaitland was standing immobile in the entry hall. She couldn't make any sense of the last half-hour of her life. She watched as if in a trance, her husband refer to the mantle clock in the front parlor.
"Fifteen minutes Kait, and I mean it!" This last was punctuated with another healthy swat delivered to her bottom with such force it lifted off her feet for a moment and caused her to stumble in the direction to the main staircase.