Oh. My. God. Had Carlton really just spanked her in the kitchen, with her mom and Jeffrey out in the living room? What in the hell was he thinking? The kitchen wasn’t soundproof! She was sure they had heard everything. Had they heard what he said? Probably not, he had been whispering, but she hadn’t exactly been quiet or discreet.
Cecily wanted to sink into the floorboards at the moment, or at the very least escape to her room for a good long cry, but that wasn’t an option. There was no way out of the kitchen without running into the very people she wanted to avoid at the moment. Feeling stuck, and impossibly mortified, she stayed put, busying herself around the kitchen with random things. The lone glass in the sink got washed. The front of the refrigerator wiped down, and the sugar bowl near the coffee pot refilled.
She stayed in there as long as she possibly could, until she heard the front door close, and the roar of a truck engine signaling Carlton and Jeffrey’s departure. It was probably safe now. She could face Venia, couldn’t she?
“Cece, sweetie, they’re gone. You can quit hiding in the kitchen now.”
Mothers. They knew everything. Putting her game face on, so her mother wouldn’t hound her with embarrassing questions, she made her way into the living room.
Venia was settled on the couch, in a fuchsia velour jogging suit, covered with an afghan, despite the fact that it was quite warm inside. Her foot was propped up on the arm of the couch, and she had no less than four pillows behind her head. Beside her was a basket full of her knitting projects, her laptop, her Kindle, a bottle of water bearing the logo of the medical center, and a bowl of fruit.
“Wow. Jeff works fast,” Cecily commented with amusement.
“Yes, he spent fifteen minutes running all over the house gathering this stuff so I would be comfortable and have everything I need for the next month,” Venia said with a wink, that Cecily took to mean that thankfully, Jeff at least, hadn’t heard what was going on in the kitchen.
“I’m sorry to be an inconvenience to you, honey. You don’t really have to stay. I will stop fussing and let Jeff hire someone.”
“Mom. No. It’s fine. You are not the problem, nor are you an inconvenience. It’s just…well, it’s a lot of things really.”
“Oh, mmmhmm. Lots of things. Like the fact that you lied when you told me my book saved your marriage? Or, how about when you told Carlton that you were spending holidays here, and then told me you were spending holidays together? Or, oh, I know, when you let me think you and Carlton were really practicing domestic discipline in your own marriage?”
Cecily gaped at her mother, completely speechless. “How did you…? Did Carlton…? What?”
“Close your mouth, dear. I’m your mother. I know everything. Oh maybe it took me longer to figure out some things than others, but eventually, I find out everything. You’re not as good at secrets and lies as you think you are, though goodness knows you sure get enough practice.”
“What else do you know?” Cecily asked wearily, almost afraid of the answer.
“Are you asking if I know the story behind your and Carlton’s shotgun wedding? I don’t. But given the fact that I’ve never seen a wedding photo, and I have to literally interrogate you to get a single detail out of you, I’m going to infer that it wasn’t the exciting and romantic affair you have made it out to be. But I like Carlton. A lot. So why don’t you tell me the truth?”
“Okay,” Cecily began, unsure of where to start. How did you sum up a relationship like the one her and Carlton had? “I met Carlton in college. He was in my sophomore marketing class, and a few others. Eventually we ended up joining the same study group. We were both studying for a degree in business and marketing, so we ended up at a lot of the same classes and events over the years. We were in several study groups together. After I graduated and went to work in New York for Pure Face cosmetics, Carlton stayed on to get his PhD. On my twenty-fifth birthday, I went to Vegas with a few friends from work. Nathan and I had just broken up, so I had to move out of our apartment, and to top it off, we had just found out the company was going to be shutting down. My friends were just way more into partying than I was, so I begged off when they went clubbing and went and sat at a sushi bar that was at the hotel we were staying at. That’s where I ran into Carlton, who was having pretty much the same kind of problem. He was there with friends from business school, but Carlton is a pretty stoic guy. Partying and strippers aren’t really his thing either. At first, it was pretty harmless. We had a few drinks and caught up, but we were both in a really bad place emotionally. Carlton had his eye on this job at Tetra Electronics. He had interned there a few summers, and there was a job waiting for him after he finished his PhD, but the money that his parents had set aside for his education had run out quicker than it should have, given the rapidly rising costs of education, and the fact that they hadn’t accounted for him getting his PhD. He had an inheritance, from their deaths, but it was in a trust. He couldn’t access it until he was thirty, or married. I was about to lose my job, and my apartment, and he owned his parent’s house in New York. The more drinks we had, the more obvious the solution seemed. So we had a drunken impromptu wedding in the hotel chapel. The plan was to stay married for a year while he finished his education and I looked for a new job. So, there it is. Now you know.”
Cecily was breathless. Her heart was pounding, and she couldn’t even look at Venia. It was literally the first time she had told that story out loud.
“Well, that’s certainly quite the story. Sounds like you were both in a hard place, and you made the best of it. But it’s been four years now, and you’re still married. Do you love him?”
Trust Venia to cut straight through the bullshit and get to the heart of the matter and to ask the hard questions. Luckily, Cecily had a ready answer.
“I do. It’s not a deep passionate, can’t keep my hands off him crazy love, but some days it feels like it’s getting there. What we have is a sustainable love. Carlton knew me at my absolute worst in college, and he saw through it. He always finds the best in people, Mom. He wasn’t really my type, but my type was never good for me. I respect Carlton. He’s brilliant, and he’s funny, and he’s kind. We may have had an unconventional wedding, and married because of the advantages, and even stayed married because it was easy and convenient, but there have always been feelings there, and eventually it became more, and we made the decision to stay married because we wanted to. It’s funny, because we’re coming up on our fourth anniversary, but we are pretty much newlyweds right now. We spent most of our marriage, until this year, living on separate continents.”
“It’s not the love story I would have chosen for you, but I think it’s better. It seems like you and Carlton have a deep respect for each other, and you knew each other pretty well before you got married. I think you’ve already got the important stuff figured out, and that takes some couples a very long time to do.” Venia sighed. “My only wish is that you had a wedding picture that was as beautiful and as extraordinary as your marriage seems to be.”
“Mom, do you remember what you used to say to Cadence and I when we worked on those wedding notebooks? We would sit there for hours, cutting out pictures of dresses, and cakes and flowers, and discussing every single detail as if it were the most important decision we would ever make. And then you would say ‘Remember girls, you can have the perfect cake and flowers and dress, but none of it matters if you don’t pick the right groom, because the wedding is just one day, but the marriage is for a lifetime.’ I picked the right groom, Mom. Nothing else matters.”
“Cece, you are one smart cookie.” Venia smirked. “Now you can tell Carlton that everything is all out in the open, and that I knew almost everything anyway, and the two of you can stop pretending to be something you’re not.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t sure how she felt about that at all. “I don’t know. I could tell him you know about the wedding, but everything else? It doesn’t seem like the right time.”
“Anothe
r lie? Really, Cecily? It’s not good for a marriage, honey. Not good at all.”
“I know, but…” she trailed off, too embarrassed to say what she was really thinking.
“Let me see if I can take a guess, here. You read my books, maybe even a few others afterwards. You liked them. They turned you on. You decided to try a little spanky-panky in the bedroom, and you liked that too. So you started wondering what it would be like if it were really for discipline, and not just for play. The idea is as scary to you as it is exciting. Sometimes you think you’re going crazy. Then you come here, and Carlton finds out about the lies you have been telling, one being that you implied that you were indeed living this out in your marriage. He doesn’t want to lie, and you don’t want to tell the truth, so you compromise. You agree to take a spanking for the lies, and he agrees to live out a DD relationship while you are here in Corbin’s Bend. You both find that you kind of like it, but you probably have a lot of questions. You can’t ask anybody, though, because given the novice nature of the questions, they might figure out that the two of you don’t live this lifestyle after all. Then I get hurt, and you end up staying, knowing this means that per your agreement, you’ll have to keep up this whole domestic discipline trial you’ve got going, and you’re not sure you want to do that. Then again, you’re not sure you don’t want to do that either.” Venia paused for effect. “How did I do?”
“How do you do that?”
“Honey, my life revolves around this stuff. I write it, I live it, I read it, and it’s all around me, all day every day. Also, I heard the two of you in the kitchen.”
“Oh, you’re funny. You had me going there for a second.”
“Look, all I’m saying is this. If you’re curious still, there is no harm in that. Your jig is up, but the good thing is that also means you can ask all the crazy questions you want. Everyone here has asked them at one time or another, trust me. But, if you’re just curious, or you just want to try it, or you just need more information, you need to communicate that with Carlton. You wouldn’t be the first couple to be curious, or to incorporate DD on a trial basis, or to use it to solve one particular problem in their marriage without a full commitment to living this way in all aspects of their life.”
“I’m just not sure.”
“And that’s okay too, honey. All I’m saying is, if you have questions, or you ever want to talk about it, you’re in the right place.”
“Thanks, Mom.”
“And you don’t have to talk to me either, if you are uncomfortable with that. There are a lot of others who you could talk to. We’re a pretty open bunch.”
“Okay.” It had been a pretty good conversation, but Cecily was ready for a subject change. “How are you feeling? Are you tired? Are you in pain? Do you need anything?”
“Oh, I’m okay. Just thinking about how this messes up all my holiday preparations. And you know what I was remembering?”
“What?”
“The year Daddy got laid off, and we had to live off my income from writing, and we couldn’t afford much for Christmas. You and I were so bummed, and your dad said ‘Christmas is too commercialized anyway, let’s have a Christmas from the heart’. Remember that? The only gifts we were allowed to give were homemade things or gifts of service? I think that ended up being my favorite Christmas ever.”
Cecily remembered. She had been fourteen at the time, and she had hated that Christmas. It wasn’t so much about the gifts she would receive, because her parents always made sure she had what she needed, it was the figuring out what to give that sucked. She wasn’t crafty like her parents, and gifts of service never seemed like enough. She had ended up buying nice scarves and cutting the tags off so that her parents thought she had made them.
“You know, I think we should do that this year. It will be a fun and special way to commemorate Carlton’s first Christmas with us, and it will be easier for me, since I won’t be able to get around and do all the shopping I normally do.”
“Mom, it’s the twenty-first century. Nobody shops in stores anymore. Just order everything online like the rest of the world.”
“I hate shopping online. It’s so impersonal—might as well just give everyone a gift card—it takes about as much effort. No offense, darling.”
Cecily only shopped online these days, and always sent her mother a gift card for every holiday.
“I think a Christmas from the heart is just the ticket. I already have some great ideas. I’m going to tell the guys when they get back.”
“Fabulous.” Cecily did not even attempt to hide her sarcasm.
“Oh, it will be wonderful. You’ll see. It will be the best Christmas ever. I can hardly wait.”
Chapter 6
Whatever Carlton had expected to find upon returning to Corbin’s Bend that evening, the scene that greeted him took his breath away.
It was nearly nine at night when he and Jeff returned from Boulder with the rest of his and Cecily’s things from the hotel. Knowing that he and Cecily had not left the afternoon on good terms, he wasn’t sure what to expect.
What he did not expect, upon entering the room that was now theirs for the next five weeks, was to find her, clad only in a pale pink lacy bra and panty set, complete with garters and stockings, kneeling in the corner.
He entered quietly, locking the door behind him, as he took in the scene before him. God, she was stunning. Just looking at her had him hard as a rock. But what in the hell was she doing?
“What’s this?” he asked quietly, coming up behind her and bending to kiss her neck.
“Can I come out?” she asked breathlessly, turning to look at him.
“Of course.” It seemed a silly question since he had never told her to be there in the first place. Confused, he took a seat on the edge of the bed, opposite the corner where she knelt.
She rose and walked over to him slowly, taking a seat on his lap when she reached him. “I felt bad for the way I acted earlier. I was very disrespectful, and I was behaving like a spoiled child.”
“So, you put yourself in the corner?”
“I wanted to make sure you believed me when I said I was sorry.”
“I see.” He didn’t really. It was an interesting development, but he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it yet. “How long were you there?”
“Oh, about ten minutes or so.”
“I’m not sure that’s nearly long enough,” he teased, before getting serious. “Cecily, sweetie, I appreciate the gesture, but for one thing, our disciplinary arrangement only extends to lying, and for another, I should have talked it out with you before agreeing to stay.” He sighed, shifting her on his lap so that she was looking at him. “I don’t regret making the decision to stay—it was the right thing to do. But, as far as this discipline thing goes, our agreement was for five days, and we will stick to that.”
“Is that what you want?” Cecily looked torn, a feeling that Carlton understood completely. He was really beginning to see the benefits to this domestic discipline thing, and he feared that if he kept it up for a month or more, he would never want to go back to the way things were. It wouldn’t be fair to her.
“I honestly don’t know what I want, but I don’t think keeping up the way we are is healthy. Sure, we are taking it seriously, but in a way, for us, it’s also a game of sorts, and now that I know more about it, and understand the depth of a relationship like this, I don’t think it’s fair to do that.”
“So, what if it wasn’t a game? What if we agreed to try it out for real?” Cecily was staring down at the ground, her voice a near whisper. He almost didn’t hear her. “We don’t have to,” she added in a rush. “My mom knows everything. But, I mean, we’re here, and I think I just want to see what more there is to it. We’re in Corbin’s Bend, for god sake! We might as well see what all the fuss is about, and we might as well do it while surrounded by like-minded people with experience.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing, to be honest. But, are you su
re? If we do this for real, it’s going to have to be a little more involved. I might decide to punish you for something besides lying. Do you think you could honestly be okay with that?”
“I think so. I trust you, Carlton. You’re not the type to take advantage, and despite the thoughts running through my head yesterday, and even earlier this afternoon, you’re not a power hungry sadist.”
“Gee, thanks, sweetie.” He winked at her, wondering how in the hell he had ever gotten so lucky. “So then, how do you want to do this? Do you have any idea how to begin with something like this? Is there any insight to be found in those books you read?”
“Probably about as much as there is on those websites I know you’ve been studying.”
“Touché. Okay, how about this. Be honest, respectful, and obedient. If you disagree with something I say, make sure you express yourself in a calm and respectful manner, and we will discuss it. If I tell you to do something, make sure you do it, and for goodness sake, Cecily, no more lies!”
“That seems fair, and almost too easy.”
“We’re basically on vacation right now. Neither one of us have a lot of responsibilities at the moment, nor do we really know what to expect in our lives for the next month. I think these three things will cover the basics. We can always be more specific later, if the need arises.”
“Okay, that covers rules. What about…” Cecily trailed off, her cheeks a lovely pink tinge that confirmed her embarrassment. Carlton understood. It was almost surreal, sitting there having a frank discussion with his wife regarding rules and punishments.
“What about punishments? Is that what you mean?”
She nodded.
“Spanking is working nicely. I do enjoy seeing your naughty bottom in the corner every once in a while. If I catch you in another lie anytime soon, I’m going to be very tempted to wash your mouth out with soap. Let’s not overwhelm ourselves right now. That seems like enough.”
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