Groomed

by Bethany Leigh

  She hoped Panda was wrong about DD not working out if the man wasn't an instinctive spanker. But she had the sinking feeling Panda was right. She scrolled through the forum contents, looking for the old threads Panda mentioned. She located a couple containing the same advice. Ask your husband to spank you. How will he know that's what you want if you don't tell him?

  Finally, when she was about to exit the forum in despair, Charlotte unearthed a gem.

  Thread: How do I turn my vanilla husband into a spanko? Please help!

  Rosy Cheek: This is something that worked for us, so fingers crossed it works for you guys as well.

  Go out and buy one of those erotic board games. Do you know them? It's like playing Monopoly or something, only if you land on a square there'll be a sex-related activity you'll have to do for the number of minutes/times that you rolled on the dice. This got us started because he landed on a square that said 'spank your partner' and lucky for me he'd rolled a six. I showed him how much I enjoyed it by wiggling my bum very appreciatively.

  It's worth a try, isn't it? Good luck!

  That would work! Charlotte was off the computer and in the shower in a trice, inspired. While she showered, dressed, and drove to the shopping mall, she planned the entire evening. Pick Connor up at four-thirty, home by six. Put on a roast, time it so it was ready by seven; make up a cosy fire too. When they got home she'd stoke the fire, light the candles, have Connor dig out a nice bottle of wine. Then, when the plates were in the dishwasher, she'd produce the game.

  Connor rolls a six and reads the directions on the square.

  "Spank your partner six times." His mouth quirks into a wicked grin and he crooks his finger. "Come here, princess…"

  God, she couldn't wait. Tonight was going to be 'sooo' good as Becca would say!

  Confident she wouldn't find sex-themed board games among the sets of Monopoly and Risk in Myer or Kmart, Charlotte made a beeline for the specialist games store. Bingo! There they were, in the 'adult' section, unfortunately wrapped in plastic, so she couldn't check their contents. Still, there was bound to be a spanking activity in all of them. Charlotte chose Desires because it had candles and wine on the cover. She felt a tad embarrassed being served by a guy about ten years her junior, but there! It was done. She had the game that would launch DD. She drove home on a high.

  Once home, she tore off the plastic, opened the box. She laid the board on the rug, read the activities on the squares.

  Use your tongue on your lover's body part of choice for X minutes.

  Kiss your lover in X different places.

  Massage your lover for X minutes.

  There were no bloody spanking activities! No 'spank your lover X times', not even a 'tie your lover to the bedpost for X minutes'; one of Charlotte's favourite fantasies was being tied to the bed and spanked. Even the board-game manufacturer thought that if Charlotte wanted Connor to spank her, she had to ask for it.

  Share a fantasy with your lover in X minutes.

  Tell your lover something you'd like them to do to you for the next X minutes.

  Charlotte packed up the game. She thought fleetingly about taking it back to the store, exchanging it for a different one, but decided against it. She'd opened it now, and anyway, who was to say the replacement would contain spanking-related activities?

  She'd still get the game out tonight. It was ages since they'd last had sex. Maybe if she drank enough wine she'd pluck up enough courage to ask for a spanking if she landed on 'Tell your lover something you'd like them to do to you for the next X minutes'.

  It was getting late; she needed to hurry to get everything ready before she had to meet the plane. Charlotte shoved the game beneath their bed, popped the roast in the oven, peeled and sliced potatoes, sweet potato and pumpkin. It took a frustrating half an hour to get a fire roaring in the wood heater; something Connor could manage in less than half the time. She drove to the airport and waved to Connor as he walked into Arrivals. He looked tired and burdened, but his face lit up when he caught sight of her.

  He enveloped her in a hug. "I missed you." He kissed her hair.

  She hugged back, squeezing hard. "I missed you too." They left the terminal hand in hand. "I've got a surprise for you back home."

  "What's that then? Geez, it's cold here."

  "I said it's a surprise, so you have to wait. But I've lit the fire, put a roast on."

  "Sounds great."

  "How's Josh?"

  "He's okay."

  Charlotte didn't ask about Deborah. Connor's face had already clouded over again and she guessed the weekend had been unpleasant. Well, tonight, they could make up for being separated all weekend with a beautiful evening of passion. They'd make love in front of a roaring fire. Maybe, just maybe she'd find the courage to tell him about DD.

  Happy, optimistic, she squeezed his hand.

  He squeezed hers back. "I love you," he said.

  She smiled at him. "I love you too."

  The smell of cooking greeted them when they stepped inside the house. Connor unpacked his bag while Charlotte stoked up the fire, checked on the roast dinner and lit the candles on the mantelpiece. When he joined her in the kitchen, Charlotte asked him to get a bottle from the wine cellar below the house.

  "Isn't there any wine left in the fridge?" He opened the fridge door to check.

  "I finished it last night."

  "Oh." He closed the door. "Do you really want a wine tonight? I don't really want any."

  Charlotte's spirits slumped. "You can't have a roast dinner without wine."

  "I've got a bit of a headache."

  She ignored how tired he looked and snarled, "Well, of course you do."

  "Charlotte, don't…"

  "Don't what?"

  "Don't…" He hesitated, opened the fridge again, and took out a bottle of lemonade. "Don't start anything. I've had a shit weekend."

  "Oh, and of course, mine's been wonderful! Stuck here, all on my own, hanging out for you to get back."

  He took a glass from the cupboard, poured the fizzy drink. "I know. I'm sorry."

  "And all because you can never say 'no' to her." To anybody, Charlotte added silently. Not to his boss, when she asked him to work an extra week of late shifts, not to his parents when they gallivanted off around Australia with their caravan for six months every year and asked him to look after their large garden while they were away. Connor could only say no if Charlotte completely cracked it, gave him some kind of ultimatum, and he had to decide who he was more afraid of upsetting. "Cave-In Connor," she taunted.

  Ignoring her barb, Connor gulped down the lemonade and put the glass back down on the counter. "I'll get you a wine."

  The typical retreat.

  Charlotte paced, angry, while he was down in the cellar. How the hell had she ended up with Connor? What had made him worth migrating to Australia for, giving up her family and friends in the UK? She must have been an idiot, like a couple of her friends had said she was. "You're crazy, Charlotte. You can't just marry someone on the other side of the world who you hardly know." "Are you sure about this? Leaving your life here for someone in Australia who's got a kid?" And, on the night before the wedding, her best friend telling her, "It's not too late to back out, you know."

  But Charlotte hadn't backed out. She'd married him, migrated.

  Sometimes Charlotte had no choice but to admit the truth to herself. She hadn't married Connor because she loved him. She'd married him because Teen Scene, the teenage magazine she'd worked on in London for a decade, had folded, and she'd been struggling to find another job in a rapidly shrinking industry. She'd wanted a different life, excitement, adventure, and marrying her Australian fling had offered an opportunity for that.

  And there was a harsher truth too. The only reason she hadn't left Connor was that it would mean returning to the UK and having to admit to her friends that they were right.

  Five

  In the end, Connor accepted a small glass of wine. Charlotte po
ured herself a large one, gulping it angrily between bites of the less than perfect roast that typified her lack of culinary skills. The meat was fine; tender, succulent, dropped off the bone when Connor carved it. But the potato, sweet potato and pumpkin were burnt to varying degrees. The pumpkin was virtually all black, just a tiny smidgen of orange poking through here and there, like a frigging Halloween decoration gone wrong.

  They ate in silence. The dinner, like Charlotte's planned romantic evening, was ruined.

  After they'd stacked the dishwasher, Connor carried what remained of his wine (almost all of it; by contrast, Charlotte was already on her second) into the lounge room, along with one of the candles, which he placed on the coffee table. Charlotte curled up on the sofa with her wine, while he threw another log on the fire, and poked at it. When the fire started roaring, Connor switched off the light.

  The flames from the fire and the candle cast shadows around the room. Connor snuggled up next to Charlotte.

  "This is nice."

  "Yep," she said.

  "Or don't you think so?"

  What a dickhead question. "Well, of course I think it's nice!" she snapped. "It's just wasted on you, that's all."

  "How is it 'wasted' on me?"

  "Because it's romantic and it makes me want to have sex right now on the rug. But you're not up for that, are you?"

  He sighed. "Sorry."

  "You're always bloody 'sorry'. But nothing changes. When did we last have sex?"

  "I don't know. A few weeks ago?"

  "Yeah, that sums it up." Charlotte took a savage slug of wine.

  "I've been on late shift…"

  "Yeah, last week. What about the week before that when you weren't on late shift? And the week before that and the week before that?"

  "You've been working a lot in the evenings lately, on the computer."

  "Oh, so it's all my fault, is it?"

  "No." Connor sighed and twirled the stem of the glass in his hand. "No, it's not your fault. I can't relax. I've got too much on my mind."

  "I thought sex was meant to be a good way of relaxing."

  Connor didn't reply. He sipped his wine.

  "You remember I said I had a surprise? I bought a game for us today," she told him.

  "What sort of game?"

  "An erotic board game. Wait, I'll show you."

  When Charlotte returned with Desires, Connor had finished his wine and was leaning back on the sofa, eyes closed. She nudged him.

  Connor startled. "Sorry. I must have dropped off to sleep."

  "This'll liven you up." God, she hoped so. She held out the game. "Look."

  Charlotte moved the candle to the mantelpiece and folded out the board on the coffee table. "You roll the dice and whatever number you get represents the X in the activities. So here, where it says, 'Use your mouth on your lover's body part of choice for X minutes' that means, if I land on that after throwing a six, I'd have to suck your toe for six minutes." Connor loved having his big toes sucked. That was his thing. Charlotte wished her thing were as easy to ask for, to talk about.

  Connor grinned. "How d'you know it'd be my toe I'd ask you to suck?"

  Charlotte giggled. "Because I can read you like a book. Want to play?"

  "Yeah." Charlotte's heart lifted, but quickly sank again when he shifted on the sofa and added, "But not tonight. I'm shattered. I'm going to have an early night."

  "It's only eight-thirty, for God's sake! We can play for an hour and then you can still have an early night!"

  "I don't feel like playing a game. I thought I'd unwind on the computer, then go to bed."

  "What the fuck?" Charlotte sprang to her feet, furious. "You've left me on my own all weekend, and you've been back here, what, four hours and you want to spend the night on the computer? Why can't you spend just one hour with me, play this game?"

  "I'm tired," he said, and he looked tired too, his eyes red and droopy, his face lined. "I fell asleep just now, you saw that."

  "If you were that bloody tired, you'd go to bed now not sit up on the computer!"

  "Well, I might do that. I just wanted to check on the news, I haven't seen the news all day."

  "Carlton beat Essendon by one point in the preliminary final, they'll play North Melbourne in the grand final. Forty thousand people marched in Melbourne to protest about what's happening in East Timor. So I've told you the news, now will you play the game with me?" Charlotte knew she was being unreasonable, but she couldn't help it. She'd wanted so much for this evening to be romantic, perfect, for it to be a launching pad for DD. And he had spoilt it. As usual.

  Connor rubbed his eyes, stood up.

  "Now what are you doing?"

  "I'm going to bed. You're right. I'm too tired to go on the computer."

  Charlotte snatched up the game board and chucked it at him as he walked towards the door. It caught his shoulder and he whirled round, angry.

  "What the hell's wrong with you?"

  "I just want a fucking sex life, Connor. There's nothing wrong with me." Charlotte watched as Connor picked up the board and folded it. When he carefully placed it back in the box, she lost it. She snatched up the box and hurled it across the room. It struck the edge of the bookcase and the box opened, depositing the board, dice, instructions and counters on the floor.

  "You idiot," he said. "You could have broken something."

  "Yeah, well, I didn't, did I?" Charlotte grabbed the instructions and tore them into quarters.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Oh, I'm baking a cake. What does it look like I'm fucking doing?"

  "We'll need those instructions when we play the game, you stupid—"

  "Stupid, am I? Yeah, stupid enough to get married to you. Stupid enough to think you'd be up for a game like this, stupid enough to think you'd actually want to have sex with me. I might as well throw the bloody game on the fire."

  She bent down to grab the board, but Connor was quicker. He held it, and the dice and counters, out of her reach.

  "Why do you even want to keep it?" she snarled. "You'll never ever want to play it."

  "I will. Why do you get so angry and irrational?"

  Charlotte hated that word 'irrational', because it was true. When she lost her temper, all reason went out the window. She wrecked things, felt terrible afterwards, but in the eye of the storm of her rage, all she wanted to do was destroy.

  "I'm not irrational."

  "You are and you know it." He slumped down in the nearest armchair, still clutching the box. "Look, I don't want to fight with you, especially over a game. I can't help being tired. I've had Deborah going off at me all weekend, demanding more money—"

  "What? She already sees more of your money than you do."

  "The local high school's not very good. She wants to put Josh in a private school."

  "And, of course, you'll be the one who has to pay for it because that fucking princess won't even take on a part-time job."

  "It's not that easy for her, Lottie. She still has to drive Josh to places, and she's got no family up there, no one to help out. She'd struggle to juggle even part-time work with Josh."

  "Well, she chose to move up there where she's got no family to help out. Just to spite you, so you couldn't see much of him."

  Connor rubbed his face with his hands. "This isn't about Deborah anyway. It's about Josh. It's important he does well at school, is happy. I've told her to wait till the end of this school year, see if his marks improve before moving him to another school. I think he's just missing his friends down here."

  "And missing you, probably."

  "Yeah. I enjoyed being with Josh again when Deborah wasn't around." He looked up at Charlotte and smiled. "But I'd much rather have been there with you. Whenever I'm with Josh, I wish he was our child, not mine and Deborah's."

  "I don't want kids."

  "I know that."

  "And you should have thought about all this before you had unprotected sex with Deborah."

 
"I was young and stupid. If I could go back in time… Just…"

  "Just what?"

  "Just don't get so angry with me. Your temper… It scares me sometimes."

  "What?" Despite her fury, Charlotte laughed at this. He was head and shoulders taller than her; several kilos heavier. "I'm too small to be scary."

  "When you get angry, the way you throw things, lash out… You are scary. You could kill someone one day, with that temper, without meaning to."

  Charlotte knew. It was something that had frightened her since she was a teenager, her anger. She remembered lying in the bath at her childhood home when she was sixteen, imagining herself going to prison for something she'd done when in a blinding rage. Even back then she'd destroyed things in angry frustration. After conflicts with her parents or at school, she'd smashed favourite ornaments and had to pretend to her mother she'd knocked them off the shelf cleaning or dropped them. Once, she'd torn up an essay she'd spent hours slaving over because she hadn't received the mark she wanted. As an adult, she'd read books on anger management but had never learned to control herself or to use her anger 'constructively', as the textbooks put it. Was it even possible?

  She sank onto the sofa, suddenly exhausted too.

  "It's the way I was brought up," she said. "There was a lot of anger in the house. Mum and Dad were always yelling, sometimes they smashed things too when they were arguing. I don't know any better." Tears welled up and spilled onto her cheeks. "I don't want to be this way."

  Connor walked over to the sofa and took her in his arms. She leaned into his shoulder and sobbed.

  "I know you don't like being this way. I can tell you hate yourself afterwards, and it bothers me. I wish I knew how to help you."

  Say it, Charlotte urged herself. Say it.

  Connor stroked her hair, her back. It would have been soothing if it weren't for her inner spanko nagging her, demanding she mention the s-word.

  "You could help me," she blurted out.

  He kept stroking her hair. "Tell me how."

  Never mind butterflies in the stomach, Charlotte's was full of enormous bogon moths. She lifted her head to dry her tears and blow her nose. He slipped his arm around her, hugged her close to him again.