He set my bottom afire with quick, firm smacks that had me writhing and uttering promises to never misbehave in a Mexican restaurant again.
Would you believe Mr. Lyndon made me stand in the corner again?
After further scolding, he helped me up and guided me back into place with my nose pointed at the converging walls.
"No rubbing." He directed my hands on top my head.
Lacing my fingers together with a sigh, I hoped I didn't have to stand in the corner for all eternity. Having to stand there, aching to rub my stinging bottom while also aching for my husband's touch, was the worst kind of torture.
"Do you think you've learned your lesson, young lady?" His warm breath tickled my ear, and his nearness prompted me to attempt to rub against his hardness.
Unfortunately, moving out of position was a mistake that cost me two firm spanks, one on each cheek. I rose up on my toes and hissed. Why he'd felt the need to purchase a hairbrush when his hand was a paddle itself is beyond me.
"Okay, yes! I have really learned my lesson! I promise."
"Tell me what you did wrong. I want to hear you say it." The same amusement that had threaded his voice in the car had returned, reminding me once again that although he was displeased by my actions in the restaurant, this wasn't a real, serious punishment.
My face heated as my guilt deepened. Part of me still thought the prank to be funny, but another part of me realized how deeply I'd embarrassed my husband. While I could laugh the same sort of prank off had it happened to me, Mr. Lyndon is the serious type and my sense of humor certainly clashes with his on occasion.
I swallowed hard and peered over my shoulder, meeting his stern visage. Truth be told, he hadn't spanked me any harder than he usually did during foreplay, but the fact that this was because I'd done something wrong reaffirmed our roles. He was the head of our household, and I had shown him great disrespect. A wave of submission rolled over me and I felt humbled.
"Um, I lied to the waiter and said it was your birthday."
"And?"
"I knew you would be embarrassed when the waiters sang to you and put that big hat on your head. I'm sorry and I promise I'll never misbehave again."
"Don't make promises you can't keep, little girl." He grinned and tapped my nose playfully.
"Well, I at least promise not to tell a waiter it's your birthday again. Been there, done that, and learned that lesson. Seriously though, I'm sorry I embarrassed you in a crowded restaurant."
"Come here, sweetheart."
I turned around and practically flung myself into his open arms, needing the warmth of his embrace. I sighed against his chest and soaked up his masculine scent. He hugged me tight and reached down to massage my punished bottom cheeks.
"Mmm, I murmured. That feels nice."
He cupped my face and kissed me, and I circled my arms around his waist and melted into him, relieved to have his forgiveness and thankful to be married to such a kind, patient man. Even if he doesn't always share my sense of humor.
Finally, at long last, he grasped my hand and led me to the bed, forcing me to bend over yet again. Except this time he didn't spank me.
Sue Lyndon
"Sue Lyndon is a multi-published author of erotic BDSM romance and spanking romances. She enjoys a good book in any genre, loves Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica, and runs on coffee and chocolate. She also writes non-bdsm sci-fi romance under the name Sue Mercury."
Report for Punishment
A Strict Husband, Wyoming Heat Book Two
Karyn and the Crigon
A Firm Husband, Wyoming Heat Book One
Shana's Guardian
Damian's Ward
Taming Princess Anna
A Work In Progress By April Hill
"So, what did you do today?" Jeff asked, looking around the office curiously. "Anything interesting?"
Other than making a feeble pass at the fridge, feeding the goldfish, and consuming most of a half-gallon of Rocky Road ice cream, I had, of course, 'done' absolutely nothing since he'd left that morning. But, a confession of that nature could only cause trouble.
"Well," I yawned, leering suggestively. "After Antonio Banderas left, I was pretty worn out, of course, but I did manage to clean out the fridge."
Jeff didn't smile. "That's it?"
"Ha!" I cried. "You wouldn't say that, my dear, if you knew Tony like I do! The man is a sexual dynamo! Insatiable! Now, let's see what else. Well, I did clean the toilet, but I don't put that in the interesting column, of course. The fridge is like some alien planet, though. I just never know what I'll find back in there, mutating into complex new life forms. By the way, a few of the little devils managed to escape, so watch where you walk."
Jeff leaned against the window frame, shaking his head. He still wasn't smiling. If he was going to be this grumpy the rest of our lives, I was going to need better material.
"Cute," he said, his voice cool. "But you know damned well that's not what I meant. Did you write today, or not?"
I let my shoulders slump wearily. "I tried." I made a real effort to look worn out from a day's creative effort on my laptop. "I swear to you, Jeff, I tried my best, but nothing came. Nothing! Besides, you know Jerry Springer? Well, he was discussing this really kinky sex thing where people use vegetables. Eggplants and melons and… It was absolutely fascinating, trust me! Zucchini, we can all understand, but you simply wouldn't believe what you can do with a nice, firm butternut squash."
Jeff tossed his briefcase on the counter. I had definitely lost him. "I thought we'd had this out two weeks ago, April," he said. "These excuses are older than I am."
I stuck my tongue out at him. Okay, it was childish and stupid, but give me a break, here. I was desperate. "Oh, they are not. I make up most of them, you know that." I made a quick stab at changing the subject. "You want dinner? I found a couple of interesting leftovers at the back of the fridge. You get first choice—the furry green one, or the gray lumpy thing with little beady eyes?"
"What I want is an answer," Jeff said firmly. He looked at his watch. "And I want it in one minute flat, or we kick this up to the next level."
Uh-oh. I laughed, but the laugh sounded a little thin, even to me. I was very afraid that I knew what he meant. "You're not still harping on that? That dumbass idea you had about spanking me? You can't be serious!"
Once again, Jeff didn't smile. "Try me." He delivered these words in what I have come to think of as his 'Clint Eastwood' voice.
In the sixty seconds that followed, I reviewed my somewhat limited options. More than a month ago, Jeff and I had agreed, (over way too much wine, apparently,) that what I needed most to jump-start my obviously flagging writing career was an 'incentive'. Jeff's unique take on the word 'incentive' was a tad different than mine, of course. My suggestion had been to take a few weeks (months?) off, go to Italy, and relive in precise detail some of the extremely nice moments from our honeymoon. Jeff's suggestion, while admittedly less expensive, was a whole lot less appealing.
Jeff proposed, and I am not making this up, to start spanking me! Definition: To inflict, with a variety of unpleasant flagellation implements, a very long (Jeff assured me of this part) and astonishingly painful (another promise) to my dainty behind. (Okay, that 'dainty' part is probably not completely accurate. Insert 'winsome', instead).
The truth was that I had begun to invent increasingly lame excuses to avoid working lately, and I hadn't turned out one decent chapter in all that time. I'd started a new book months ago but had moved on and tried a few times to come up with something else that moved me, and these nameless orphans were now gathering dust in a cluttered corner of my hard-drive, incomplete but remarkably promising. I had an important conference coming up in three months, in New Jersey (important in that it was my first and only conference ever, in New Jersey or anywhere else) and I didn't feel even remotely close to ready.
Enter Jeff and his comic hairbrush. In anticipation of my failure to produce, Jeff had done
some shopping at a local thrift shop and returned home with an old wooden hairbrush, which he left propped on the dresser as a thoughtful reminder to me to work harder and to get my butt in gear. It had started as a kind of joke, but after a few weeks with nothing finished, the joke had gotten pretty old.
"Two weeks, April," he announced one night. "If you haven't finished something in two weeks, that hairbrush gets used."
I sneered. "Sure," I growled. "You and what three professional wrestlers?"
"Nope," he said, tapping the brush against the table. "It's all going to be one hundred percent voluntary. Consensual. It has to be, to work the way it's supposed to. We make a deal. If you don't show some real movement in getting ready for that show in the next two weeks, you get your bare ass paddled, by me, as hard as I can do it. Sort of a harbinger of things to come. Hey, I know! We'll call it the Alpha Spanking. After that, when I come through that door every night, there's going to be visible progress in the writing department—word count. If there isn't, you get spanked again—longer, harder, and maybe even in a few novel places."
"That's not fair!" I sputtered. "And bizarre! Do you really think I'm going to let you, or anyone else, actually spank me, for God's sake?"
Jeff shook his head, a little sadly. "That's up to you, but that's the deal, and you have to agree to it. Otherwise, we sublet this place and move back to suburbia. I'm tired of driving an hour and a half to work and paying this kind of ridiculous rent for empty, unused space, just because there was an inspiring view from the window. If you're not going to take this seriously, you can go back to accomplishing nothing in Connecticut, and call it a hobby."
I tried tears. Jeff watched, handed me a wad of Kleenex—and held his ground. I had never seen my wonderful, sweet-natured husband so unsympathetic, and so determined. When we didn't talk about it any further that night, I hoped that my lack of enthusiasm, let alone my lack of agreement, had called his bluff.
It wasn't that I didn't want to work, because I did. Really. Over the last year, I had started a lot of stories, some of them pretty good, too. But, now, the best one, begun so eagerly, was dead in the water, every new word was like bleeding. My own analysis of my present 'writer's block' was that I didn't need a creative incentive so much as I needed a really creative excuse. Who needed this kind of pressure, I reasoned. It was no wonder many famous writers were considered crazy. What I needed was understanding, and sympathy. Even Jeff wouldn't have the heart to use a monster hairbrush on a crazy person, right?
Then again, he might.
Money was no incentive, not the way it had been four years ago, before I met and married Jeff. At that point in my life, garbage dumpsters were beginning to look a lot like fine dining, and I lived in a third-floor walk-up that had reminded me of the set of Cats. I shared these squalid accommodations with not one, but two roommates, both of whom were named Tiffany. The Two Tiffanies, though reputedly of opposite genders, had in common the same vocation, a vocation they pursued noisily on a rollaway bed in the kitchen because of its proximity to the fire escape. It seemed that a fair percentage of The 'Tiffanies' clientele preferred to arrive and depart 'incognito'.
Tiffany One was actually the first adult person I'd ever known who got spanked, although in Tiffany One's case, the spanking was professional as opposed to punitive or recreational.
"You would adore Tiffany One," I explained to Jeff, who was lobbying at that time to get me out of my shared apartment and into his. "She dresses from head to toe in black leather and keeps a closet full of whips and dog collars. I have to use ear-plugs when she has a 'date', and she can NEVER sit down when she eats. When I asked her about it, she told me it was 'uh, like, uh, a' occupational hazard.'"
"Is this the girl Tiffany, or the boy?" Jeff asked.
I shrugged. "Who knows? One of them is much prettier, but the other one has bigger boobs. I get them all mixed up, because they're always sharing clothes—and clients."
A month later, Jeff's arguments won me over, and I agreed to move to Connecticut with him, despite the creative sacrifices I would have to make. (Like cockroaches and finding drug paraphernalia and used condoms in the hall every morning.) Jeff was the best thing that had ever happened to me, and I could finally face my mother when she asked about my love-life. I had battled my last surly landlord! Jeff introduced me to a clean house, decent hours, healthy meals, and multiple orgasms, (only one of which I am still pursuing with enthusiasm.) Despite his encouragement and his endless support though, I began to find myself plagued again by fears of failure, and of the almost certain rejection that comes to any writer. At least living the way I used to, no one ever expected anything of me, and I had obliged them—in spades.
When Jeff saw I was bored, he concluded that a change of environment would help, and that's when we moved to the city and leased the loft. We moved from the small Cape Cod in Connecticut that Jeff had bought while still in college, to this grimy, 'artistic', overpriced neighborhood in Soho, and I started to work. But it didn't take long before I slipped back into the old pattern of watching TV, reading, sleeping, and pretending to work at what I had once loved so much, and now regarded as drudgery.
Which was approximately where things stood on the evening my beloved promised me a spectacular spanking every night for the foreseeable future—unless I started back to work. An incentive, he said. And for some reason, maybe in my sleep or dead drunk, I had accepted the deal.
As things were turning out, it looked like I had made an extremely poor deal.
* * * * *
As Jeff finished his coffee the following morning, he looked up and pointed to the kitchen clock. "It's seven-fifteen. I'll be home around six-thirty. Don't worry about dinner. I'll pick up something on the way home. Eleven hours should give you a pretty good start. I wasn't kidding last night, April. I want to see some progress—by tonight. No more screwing around!" He grabbed his jacket and briefcase, kissed me goodbye, and was out the door.
He didn't mean it, of course. I was still fairly sure of that. Jeff and I had both cut our teeth on ERA rallies. Jeff's law firm specialized in civil rights and labor cases. Every day, he defended the rights of women deprived of equal opportunities on the job, in the marketplace, in the courts. Surely, he wouldn't…
I dawdled around the studio the way I usually did each morning, idly dusting this chair and plumping that pillow, then wandered into the bedroom alcove to pick up the wooden hairbrush from the dresser. Out of curiosity, I smacked the thing against my palm, really hard. OUCH! What the hell, I thought. I went to the back of the studio, and logged onto my laptop. Why not do a little writing today? I had nothing better to do, right?
The thought of the hairbrush smacking into my quivering, naked backside was nasty, but not quite nasty enough to sustain the brief creative upswing, and after an hour, I was tired. So I bargained with myself. I'd reward myself for the 250 painful words I'd slaved over with one show. When I sat down and turned on the TV, Roman Holiday was just starting. Three hours, one frozen lasagna and a brief nap later, I woke up, refreshed and ready to try again. Which was when the phone rang. An hour of pleasant chit-chat with Jeff's sister and the clock read two thirty. Still four hours to work, and if I was good at anything in this world, it was faking work.
I spent an hour on the New York Times crossword, gave up in abject defeat, and glanced through the TV guide.
Things would have probably turned out better if Three Coins in The Fountain hadn't shown up at four o'clock on American Movie Classics. I was definitely in an Italian mode. I moved the desk and found the plug for my ancient laptop. The battery had long since given up running the computer on its own. I set up a work-space on the coffee table in front of the TV, and made myself comfortable on the couch, telling myself the change would help me to be more productive. Before long, I'd moved the laptop to my lap (of all places) and curled up with it in the recliner. Comfort, and practicality.
The problem with old movies is that they're sometimes not any better than
staring at the blank white screen. She'd tried deleting Chapter Six and retyping it twice as many times, hoping like a car stuck in the snow, that a running start would be just the momentum she needed to get out of the rut. In between chapter and six or somewhere between the new secretary's arrival in the Eternal City, and where she sets her sights on Louis Jordan, I dozed off, and woke up just in time to hear the front door open.
* * * * *
For several golden minutes, it seemed that Jeff had forgotten his nasty little threat. He had brought Chinese from the place at the corner and a bottle of white wine. Lovely. We ate on our tiny balcony/fire-escape that overlooked the Armenian bakery, where we could watch the usual floor-show— a pair of sewer rats making love on the wall in the empty lot across the street. You have to love New York, sometimes.
Finally, Jeff stretched, and picked up the plates to take them inside.
"Come on in and show me what you got done, today," he said cheerfully. "I saw the laptop. Hopefully that means you were able to accomplish something?"
I groaned to myself. Time was running out, and my sins were about to overtake me. I had one last chance—that Jeff wouldn't remember where I'd left off last. It had been quite a time. Okay, who am I kidding? I had quickly cut and copied the previous text to bring my word count from 23,480 to 46,960. By the time I got inside, he was studying my computer screen with a frown.
"It's asking if you want to save the last item you copied before exiting." He ran his finger over the mouse pad before looking at me with an intensity that made my chest thump with my increased heart rate. What the hell? I'd closed the document but it was still open, waiting for me to click cancel or OK. "What would you have to copy? Is this today's work?"
"Of course it isn't!" I cried in confusion, snatching the laptop from his hands. "This is an old one, silly!"
Jeff nodded, but he was still frowning. "Okay, let's see what you did today."
Confessions of a Spanking Author Page 13