No Place Like Home

by April Hill

  "Hank..." I began.

  "Don’t say anything. Just do it."

  I did it. I cried a little, but I did it.

  Okay, since Hank and I met, I had experienced a few pretty good spankings, which I no doubt deserved, but what happened next, I didn’t expect. He was right, the word "spank" didn’t begin to cover it.

  Hank had always been a kind of impromptu disciplinarian, using whatever "equipment" and facilities were at hand, and forgoing what might be called "ritual" in favor of speed and efficacy. No ceremony, no ritual, and no discussion. I can’t say that I liked it that way, but at least it was over quickly, without a lot of acrimony.

  This time was different. This time he took the time to get it right, and make it thorough. I got "arranged," just like a piece of new furniture, straddling the ottoman with my butt elevated on a sofa pillow and my arms gripping the sides so I wouldn’t bonk my head on the floor. It was a very uncomfortable and ungraceful position, to say the very least. I can’t even imagine the view from where he stood, but after he began, I knew the southern exposure wasn’t accidental.

  He started with his belt, absolutely blistering my butt and the backs of my thighs until I screeched. Hank uses that term "blistering" a lot, a quaint ruralism left over from his Colorado boyhood, no doubt, but I have never actually sustained a real blister from his spankings, even the hardest ones. This one felt like it could be leaving blisters, and if it didn’t, it "sure as shootin’" wasn’t from lack of effort on Hank's part.

  The belt cracked across my elevated ass like liquid fire, and for a second, it simply took my breath away. The howl came a split second later, along with the first of several escape attempts, each foiled by Hank’s simply pressing one strong hand on the small of my back and forcing me back in place in time for blows two through six. Being short, and seriously hampered by the fact that my wide-spread feet were dangling inches off the floor, even arching my back had no effect whatever on either Hank’s aim or his grim determination to set my butt on fire, as he has so often promised. Once I was secure, he began to work methodically, welting one burning cheek and then the other, and laying a few especially hard ones across both at once. I squirmed, which only gave the biting leather clearer access to the tender inner portions of my legs and thighs and allowed at least one blow to make an agonizing hit on the puckered bulls-eye directly between my conveniently spread cheeks. A startling and altogether disagreeable sensation, I might add.

  I tried to escape, or more aptly, to alter his aim by squirming off the damned ottoman, but all I managed to do was increase the angle of my behind in the air, which opened up whole new avenues of pain, and made Hank mad, into the bargain. Like he wasn’t mad, already, you ask? That’s when he left for a minute, telling me to stay put or else, and leaving me to ponder what that "or else" might entail. He came back armed with a handful of long, supple switches, which I sincerely hoped weren't from Snow White's rose bushes. I like to think that even in his present mood, Hank wouldn't find thorns necessary. No thorns, just pure, flaming hellfire, raining on and into every nook, cranny, and orifice with perfect, unerring accuracy.

  (A note here for the Unspanked Among You: It’s very difficult to adequately describe a really serious spanking without repeating oneself. Words like fiery, burning, and scalding just don’t convey the true sensations. If you want to get the feel of it, I recommend getting a strong, very determined Alpha Male really pissed at you, getting naked below the waist, and then handing him a hefty handful of nice, limber switches. You could suspend yourself upside down from the ceiling with your legs wide open to speed things along and make it easier for him, but it isn’t really necessary. He’ll work it out.)

  The first couple of switches didn’t last too long, sending twigs flying all over the room as they finally split and broke from overuse on my beet red and thoroughly thatched ass and thighs. By this time, I was no longer howling or swearing. I had given up all hope of living through what was happening, and settled into sniffling and hiccupping at each stroke, and promising myself to listen to him in the future. As much as I hate to admit it, I knew from stroke one that this spanking was going to be a life-altering event. Behavior modification at its finest.

  I had the distinct feeling that Hank was thinking the same thing, and was fully determined to strike while the iron was hot, so to speak. Carpe diem, as my high school Latin teacher would say. I wish I could say that I was brave throughout this entire event, and that I took this very well-deserved spanking courageously, but that would be a big, very fat lie. I kicked and squirmed and squalled and swore and begged—none of which impressed Hank, or slowed him down. When he had thoroughly scorched my entire ass, he laid several nasty swats across the backs of my thighs and leveled a final assault on those adorable lower swells where my throbbing cheeks joined my flaming thighs.

  Finally, he gripped me around the waist, hiked my ass up a bit higher, and opened my legs even wider for what I learned was the finale, with a fresh switch welting the insides of my thighs and my flanks He finished with several hard smacks with his open hand on the crown of each swollen buttock, and mercifully, stopped.

  I lay where I was for a while, sore, sniffling a little, but mainly, feeling very, very chastened. I like that word chastened, because it’s extremely accurate. I was embarrassed, and ashamed and repentant, all at once. I wasn’t even mad. Just chastened. (Don’t worry, though. I got mad later.)

  Hank simply seemed depressed, or maybe unhappy, and definitely drained. He had to help me off the ottoman, which was embarrassing. I went into the bathroom to change into my robe and shower, and stood for a long time, letting the cool water flow down my swollen butt. After I’d patted myself dry, very carefully, I perched on the edge of the padded bathroom hamper and tried to compose a short speech. When I finally had the courage to glance in the mirror, my face was flushed and my nose was beet red and running. Altogether lovely. I splashed more cold water on my cheeks (at both ends) and walked back into the bedroom, where Hank was leaning against the edge of the dresser, apparently waiting for me to emerge.

  "Are you all right?" he asked softly.

  I decided against a smart-assed answer. He seemed genuinely upset. If I had been expecting "spankor’s remorse," though, I was about to be disappointed.

  "I’m fine," I sighed. "We Thatcher women are made of sterner stuff than most."

  "Glad to hear it," Hank said. "It looks like you’re going to need that over the years."

  "That doesn’t sound much like an apology," I observed, beginning to feel a bit miffed.

  "Were you expecting an apology?"

  I tried sitting down on the bed, immediately regretted it, and bounced back up. "Not really," I replied, trying to avoid rubbing my rear end too openly. "But you could have been a little less..."

  He looked at me, quirking an eyebrow. "Less effective?"

  "Less vengeful," I said finally.

  Hank sighed. "Is that what you think?"

  I shrugged my shoulders. "Well, of course, I was in the cheap seats, as it were, but as an interested observer, it sort of seemed a bit ‘over the top’ to me."

  He shook his head a bit sadly. "To tell you the truth, I don’t know for sure what happened, but if I was out of line, I’m sorry. Not for the spanking, but for the vengeful part, anyway. Does that help at all?" He reached out and took my hand in his.

  I rubbed my rear. "Not especially. But if that’s all the apology I’m going to get..."

  "It is," he interrupted.

  "Well, then, I guess I’ll have to settle, won’t I, or pack up my Oreos and hit the road.”

  Hank looked stricken. "You’d do that?"

  “Not now, but I want to keep my options open, just in case."

  There was a pause, maybe the longest, most uncomfortable pause we’d ever had between us. "I think I’ll just go on to bed, now, if it’s all right with you," I said finally. "I’m pretty tired."

  Hank simply nodded and released my hand. Feeling suddenly shy i
n front of him, I went back into the bathroom to put on a nightgown, and when I came out, I could hear the TV in the living room. Hank had turned on the news. I crawled into bed, but didn’t sleep. Instead, I lay there and watched the dreary rain through the little leaded panes of the back window, wondering exactly what had changed.

  After a while, the living room was silent, and soon, Hank come into the room and sat down on the bed next to my pillow.

  "I want to apologize," he said softly, stroking my arm. "Not for what I did, but maybe for doing it so..."

  I sighed. "It’s all right," I said. "I’ve decided I’ll probably live. It just happened."

  Hank shook his head. "No, it didn’t just happen. This afternoon, when I thought something had happened to you, I thought I’d lose my mind. I wanted you to know that...to feel it. I’m in love with you, Karen. I want you around for the rest of my life. If I lost you..."

  I smiled. "Say that again," I murmured.

  "I love you, and I want you with me, forever."

  "Okay. Once more, now, with a tape recorder. A video camera, if you have one around. I need tangible evidence. For Mom."

  "I love you. Marry me, and let me take care of you."

  I sat up. "That’s all very well, Lieutenant Everett, but I don’t see a diamond ring."

  He smiled and kissed me on the forehead. "We’ll go shopping tomorrow."

  I shook my head. "Never mind. I don’t really like diamonds, anyway."

  Hank chuckled. "So, what’s this going to run me, here."

  I thought for a moment. "I’ve always wanted a hamster. Get me a hamster."

  Hank didn’t even seem surprised. "A hamster it is. Anything else?"

  "No, just the hamster. And everything else you own in the entire world, of course."

  Hank reached down and took me in his arms. We stayed that way for a while, with me just lying quietly and listening to his heart beating. When he joined me in bed, we talked for a long time, and then one thing led to another, and we made love until it was almost light. For the first time in my entire, confused life, I knew exactly what I wanted, and where I wanted to be.

  I woke up at almost noon, feeling pleasantly and wonderfully drugged, as though none of my limbs worked and would definitely collapse if I tried to stand up. Hank was gone, but there was a note on his pillow, the contents of which made my cry. I won’t lie, though. I had never felt so happy in my life, but my ass felt worse than I can ever remember…. except for one time in college when I fell asleep under a sun lamp trying to get an "all over" tan. Hank had already been out shopping. On the bedside table, directly at eye level, I saw two perfect, tiny brown hands gripping the bars of a bright blue cage, and two beady little black eyes staring intently into mine. I named him Ringo.

  Hank called about an hour later, and we chatted, with me lying on the bed absolutely naked, totally enervated, and wondering where the man gets his energy. When I asked him this, giggling slightly, he told me very politely to shut up because he was sitting at his desk and blushing while his partner, Ed Knowles, looked at him with this knowing, lascivious smirk. Later, however, in a less heady and romantic mood, Hank said I was tired because I had rotten eating habits, never ate fresh vegetables, ate too much chocolate and definitely way too much sugar. He didn’t actually say in so many words that I could lose a few ounces here and there, but I sort of picked up on the unspoken implication. I guess the bloom was already off the rose. After I hung up, I went into the tiny bathroom and stood on the toilet seat to inspect my rear end. It was still pretty pinkish and reddish around the edges, and vaguely striped here and there, but quite respectably firm for its age. What Snow White really needed was lower wattage in all her damned light bulbs.

  A couple of nights later, we went into Westwood to see a new movie at the Bruin. The movie was lousy, but it was really nice just being out of the house, so I didn't care. We stopped at a drug store on the way home so I could buy Engagement Ringo some cage litter, a chew stick and a toy. (At Hank's suggestion, we also bought him a cage cover. We had discovered that Ringo was a voyeur, and liked to watch. Hank was afraid he'd get some sort of hamster complex.)

  When we got home, I went into the bedroom to give Ringo his presents. He was gone.

  YES! I know it was only a hamster! Just like I know that most people would probably go out and buy another one and move on, but I'm a little peculiar, in case you haven’t noticed. I've been known to go into mourning for two weeks over a goldfish swept to his death down the sink. To Hank’s everlasting credit, he reacted almost the same way I did, although for different reasons, as it turned out. It never even occurred to me that fat, endearing little Ringo could be the victim of foul play, but it was apparently Hank's first thought. God, it must be awful being a cop. The thing was, his cage door had been closed and latched, and while Ringo was utterly charming, and quite possibly one of the brightest hamsters ever born, a veritable Rodents’ Scholar among his own kind, even I didn’t think he could pick a lock.

  I tried to maintain my composure and refrain from asking about a ransom note, and together, Hank and I tore the little house apart, again, moving every stick of furniture. I wandered around the house weeping, calling Ringo’s name and offering little snacks of chopped up Twinkies. After two hours of searching, though, I knew that Ringo was dead, or worse. Hank continued prowling around the little house, checking the windows and the alarms, and told me to stay in the bedroom, but I knew what he was doing. He wanted to be the one to find the mutilated little corpse.

  Finally, Hank came back and sat down on the bedroom floor with his back against the bureau. He was out of breath and sweating, and he uttered the awful words I'd been dreading.

  "I’m afraid he’s gone, babe."

  I crawled into his arms and started to cry again.

  Later, after I had cried myself to sleep, Hank pulled the covers up over me and went into the bathroom to shower. I turned over drowsily, looking for him, and heard the shower start. Several moments passed.

  "SHIT!" Hank screamed from the bathroom. I stumbled up, also screaming, and ran to him, but then tripped on a rug and fell through the bathroom door, landing on my hands and knees on the wet tile. I looked with dread around the steamy bathroom, prepared to see something horrible beyond all belief.

  What I saw, as the steam cleared, was Hank, standing stark naked in the shower stall, covered in soapsuds and waving a bar of soap over his head. He was having what looked a lot like a nervous break-down. Since I had never seen Detective Everett go bonkers like many of us are accustomed to do on a regular basis, I was really impressed with the level and extent of the profanity he was unleashing. On the floor of the shower, squatting on his fat haunches and watching Hank’s every move with indignation and obvious suspicion, was my sopping wet Ringo, rubbing soap from his sweet beady eyes with one adorable little fist.

  "I almost stepped on the damned…..!” Hank didn’t finish the thought, and it was a very good thing for him that he didn't. It was obvious by the look in his tiny beady eyes that poor little Ringo had already been traumatized by his experience. I scooped him up from the shower floor and kissed him on the top of his adorable, wet little head—Ringo, that is.

  I bundled my tiny friend in a fluffy white towel, then gave him a fluff up and a quick blow-dry with the hair dryer before putting him warmly to bed in his newly improved hamster cage. (We had discovered that the bottom of the cage was moveable, making escape an easy matter for such a brilliant little fellow.)

  Then, I bundled Hank into a fluffy white towel, where he swilled down a very large single malt whiskey to calm his nerves. He didn't want a blow dry, though, so I put him warmly to bed and gave him the closest thing to a blow dry I could think of.

  * * *

  CHAPTER NINE

  The three of us, Hank and I, and my tiny rescued "Engagement Ringo," slept like the dead that night, totally exhausted, but at four o’clock, I woke up with a curious thought. In my sleep, something had come to me. Something abou
t the house. It was all I could do not to wake Hank immediately, but he needed the sleep more than I did, and I decided that my hugely important brainstorm could wait until morning. I curled up on the couch with a blanket and a paper and pencil, and started drawing.

  And as Alice would say, the longer I thought about it, the more the whole thing got curiouser and curiouser. I picked up the phone, and called Mom.

  When Hank woke up and opened one bleary eye, I was already sitting by the bed, ready for him.

  "There’s something funny about the house," I said. "We need to go back, there. Now."

  Hank groaned and sat up. God, he was handsome! Even this early in the morning, with a scruffy beard. I felt very lucky. Ringo was still soundly asleep, curled in a ball in the corner of his cage with his fat little rump facing us, or ignoring us. Life was perfect. Except for the demented killer stalking me, of course.