When it was finished, we lay on our backs side by side and he let loose with the most startling proposition I’d ever been offered.
“Let’s get married,” he said.
“What?” I thought he was joking.
“Let’s get married.”
“Whose universe are you living in?” I answered sarcastically.
“The one where people that love each other get married,” he stated flatly.
“You think sex is love, you’re wrong,” I told him.
“We have all we need, great passion. You can’t say our exchanges aren’t filled with uproar and sensation.”
“You think great passion is enough to build a life on?”
I turned over so I could look in his face, see if he was just pulling my leg. He wasn’t.
“Some of the best marriages are built on less than that.”
He stared at me, the gritty style, the winsome smile, the philandering twinkle in his soft brown eyes.”
“Besides, I’m completely in love with your hair,” he said running his hand along the smooth black surface. And your face.”
“You like my face?” How sweet that compliment.
“I guess a poet would say you have alabaster skin.” I could tell he wasn’t used to sentiment, that’s why this was so especially endearing. It was obviously honest. I wondered if he was more of a person than I believed him to be.
“You really are serious about getting married, aren’t you?”
He smiled, not the snicker I was used to, but a genuine smile.
***
Daddy hit the roof when we told him the news. I thought he was going to break something seeing us hand in hand, the marriage certificate on his desk.
“Of all the idiotic things you’ve ever done, girl … I ought to horsewhip you. And you too.” He glared at my husband. There was that finger again, waving in Rys’s face this time. “I swear, you don’t take care of her, you run off, you get mean and start drinking like your kind do, I’ll horsewhip you, too, before I kill you!”
“Mr. Trabor, Blair’s my wife,” Rys replied quite calmly. “I will take care of her.”
Seeing my father’s face was one of the prettiest pictures I’d ever seen. The old coot didn’t know what to say. He had no choice but to welcome my husband into his house, and nothing could make me happier!
My father had been brutal, not ever physically, but his emotional power over me was something I needed to shake. Marrying Rys in defiance of his wishes was just the act I needed to declare my freedom from the tyrant. Some of my friends told me I should just leave the ranch. But I love it too much, the horses, the open land, and my place in this tough world. No, getting married was a good accommodation.
It wasn’t until a few weeks later, after our initial honeymoon was over that I began to wonder if I shouldn’t have been more careful picking the man to mock my father. Living with Rys had certain challenges. If it wasn’t for great sex and the fact that my father would then chortle meanly in my face, I would have kicked him out after the second week.
First, there was his obstinate streak. As soon as we went back to work following a brief post-wedding hiatus, Rys started to get pretty nasty about my taming horses. Said it was too dangerous. I bristled instantly at that judgment and we argued about it. That war eventually led to the second challenge my new husband posed, one that hit me out of the blue. I never would have guessed that my life could take such an amazing turn.
We’d been sparring for three days about breaking Brassy, a young colt that liked to buck and rear. His temperament was one of the worst either of us had ever seen, but he was a beautiful horse and would bring a handsome price once he let someone sit in the saddle and ride. Regardless of Brassy’s nasty nature, I was quite sure I could handle the animal. After all, he was still small, and to me, not as tough as many other horses I’d worked.
“You’re not going to take this one, Blair,” Rys told me, giving me this stern, ‘I’m not budging an inch’ kind of look. “You’ve just had your arm heal, you’re going to break something else.”
I stared at him as a saucy malcontent, something malicious from my tongue about to spew, but then I stopped. Rather than piss him off with utter defiance, I decided on another tactic that I thought would get what I wanted, just in a different way. Exiting the stable, not another word said, I told him I’d make him lunch and he seemed pleased I relented.
Later, after Rys had eaten—while he was still jawing with another ranch hand—I slipped out the back door and returned to the stable to start working the colt. The young animal was wild, but at first manageable. With a little coaxing, I almost had him in bridle and bit. But when the sound of a truck in the yard made the animal rear back, I scrambled to get away from his descending forefeet. Slipping on a puddle of water, I scurried to avoid the enraged Brassy. I’m afraid I shrieked in fright. By the time I got to the paddock fence Rys was on the other side, while I was on my hands and knees looking at his muddy boots.
“What the hell, Blair,” he roared. He leaned in over the fence and pulled me to my feet. Not stopping there, he drew me over the fence with a jerk so powerful that it shocked me. Dragging me to the stable in short order, I was flung over a sawhorse having my ass spanked like a naughty brat. I kicked and shouted and tried to wench away from him, but he managed to keep one arm firmly grasping me so I couldn’t break free.
“Don’t you ever do anything like that again, do you hear me?” he roared.
“Take your hands off me, you bastard!” I shouted back.
“Oh, I’ll spank you as long as I think you need it.” The palm of his hand was coming down so fast I was beginning to feel a burn through my jeans. The more it hit, the more I struggled, the more Rys gripped me tightly. “You try defying me like that again, I will take off my belt and thrash you!”
“Just you try that!” I cried, even though it seemed absurd making that charge. He had me handily under his control. His left hand had me pinned, and his mean right hand just kept slapping my buttocks. There was nothing I was going to do about it but submit. Once he thought I’d had enough—perhaps because I’d stopped fighting him so much, I was getting awfully tired—he finally stopped and let me up.
My face must have been as flushed as my ass was underneath my pants. He held me still, but not as firmly, and looked down at me with a glare I hadn’t seen since before we were married.
“You hear me, Blair Montgomery, you’ll work the horses I tell you to work, and you won’t challenge me again on this.”
I was stunned. Another time, another place, I would have spit in his face, but I was too dazed to offer him one decent protest.
“You understand me?” he asked, just to be sure.
“Yeah, I guess I do, but …”
“But what? You think a husband doesn’t have a right to punish his wife?”
Of course I was thinking that, but oddly that wasn’t my question.
“Is this something I can count on?” I wondered aloud.
“You bet it is. We’ll do just fine, Blair, if you subdue this willful streak in you. You don’t, I’ll deal with it just like this. And trust me, your ass will be bare next time, and I’ll give you something that will really hurt.”
“What’s going on here?” I heard my father’s voice. Brushing my hair away with my hand, I looked up flustered seeing him standing in the stable door.
“Nothing’s going on, sir,” Rys answered him.
Surprisingly, that seemed to be enough of an answer for the man and he turned and walked away.
When it came to taming horses and women, Rys seemed to have a similar ability. He certainly had me in his control. I’d never considered myself a shrinking violet, but I was totally dumbfounded by the spanking and what it did to the image of my marriage and my husband. I suppose I figured that I could control Rys, just like I controlled every other man in my life. But that day changed all that. To my chagrin, I found myself being much more careful around him, a little more res
pectful. Though there were times that I could hardly hold my tongue, I made more of an effort to do so.
I remember the night after that first spanking, when we were together in bed. It seemed as though we’d upped the ante. I was as wild as that stallion, and with Rys’s hand clutching me where he spanked my ass, I thought there were firecrackers going off in my body. I’m sure Rys noticed, but we didn’t say a word about the breathtaking screwing.
Spanking wasn’t mentioned for at least three days, until I’d become a little more used to the idea and not so embarrassed. We were sitting at lunch, eating our meal casually when I finally mentioned that alarming moment.
“I can’t believe you did that,” I said, quite out of context to anything else we’d been talking about.
“Can’t believe what?” he asked.
“That you did that, you know … in the stable, when I tried breaking Brassy.”
A smile broke out on Rys’s face. “You can’t even say the word, can you?” Seeing his expression I regretted having broached the subject. “Yes, you got spanked, didn’t you?”
Yeah, I was rattled by it. “So, how come?” I asked.
“Because I love you. And I was so worried about you taking chances with no one around, I’ve never been so pissed.” He looked like he was getting pissed again.
“And that’s how you show love?” I ventured again.
“One of the many ways, Mrs. Montgomery. Face it, you married an old-fashioned guy, and for better or worse, you have me just the way I am. You’re not going to change me, likely any more than I’m going to change you. But I will give you a piece of my mind and a piece of my belt, if you screw up again.”
His expression was tough, his eyes were focused and clear, and it was clear to me that he meant every word he said. I’d better face it now as fight it.
***
Thursday nights, Rys played poker with his buddies. I thought of them as riffraff. They were a bunch that floated from ranch to ranch aimlessly. They probably would for the next twenty years. Rys was the only married one and I didn’t like that much at all. Occasionally, one of the town sluts would hang around their games, looking to tease a man to bed, lining her pockets with a little easy cash. To me, this Thursday night poker game was something that had to end, though I wasn’t sure how I was going to make that happen. I certainly didn’t want to raise my objections head-on, not if he thought it was a threat to his dominion over our relationship. I still didn’t think I’d make much of a submissively inclined wife, but I’d decided that I was going to have to use a little female cunning to get what I wanted.
I’m afraid my plan backfired, then again, it was really no “plan” at all, and it was hardly cunning.
One Thursday evening while I brooded alone at the ranch, I was getting particularly anxious when Rys wasn’t home by eleven as he usually was on poker night. He said he might be late, but that really didn’t matter, I wasn’t happy he was gone in the first place. Growing more restless with this “guys-night-out” crap, I finally took off in my truck, just to see what was going on. Driving toward town, I turned off the road at the Whitcomb ranch where the last month’s poker game had been played. John Whitcomb had the most lackluster ranch anywhere around. He’d never done well with cattle or horses, and he was almost always days from going belly-up. It was speculated that several times a good take in a poker game was the only thing that kept him from bankruptcy. He was not the kind of company I wanted my husband to keep.
Driving up to Whitcomb’s house, I waited for a few minutes in the truck, not sure that I wanted to go inside. But hearing a lot of loud conversation through the open window I could feel myself getting mad as a raging bull. I could see through the curtain, some floozy moseying her way around the table, and then sitting on a man’s lap. It might have been Rys’s she’d plunked her ass on. I was seeing red.
Out of the truck, I charged for the front door, and without knocking I burst inside, going straight for the kitchen. My eyes were flashing fire. But I stopped in my tracks and stared at the bewildered group. I had no idea what to say.
“What are you doing here?” Rys said, looking up, surprised to see my face. Thankfully, he didn’t have the loose strumpet in his lap, but I wasn’t so sure she hadn’t already been there.
“Shouldn’t you be home?” I managed to ask him, trying to hold back my anger. All these male faces and that cheaply made-up whore staring at me, I was overawed.
“I should be home shortly,” he replied, “but you should be home in bed.” He stared at me with stern, unmoving eyes. He wasn’t happy, but then, neither was I.
“I don’t see much poker going on here,” I sassed at him. There were no cards in sight.
“We just finished,” Rys said.
I stared at the woman, seeing a smug look on her face.
“Go home, Blair,” Rys said. It wasn’t a request but an order.
“Not unless you’re coming with me,” I returned.
“I said I’d be home shortly,” he said.
“But I want you to come now,” I replied, my words seething with smothered energy.
His expression only looked more unyielding. “When I tell you I’ll be home, I’ll be there. I don’t lie to you.”
“But I’m tired of your associating with this riffraff,” I blurted out.
Rys’s look turned especially rigid and his eyes flared.
“These are my friends, and you won’t insult them. Apologize now?”
“Apologize!” I stared at him shocked, then glanced at the floozy. “Her too?”
He was dangerously close to exploding on the spot.
“Her too.” he answered. “Now apologize.”
“I refuse.” I was standing my ground, even though it was turning to mush beneath my feet.
“If you want me to take you over my knee right here, I will,” he warned.
“You wouldn’t.”
“Would you like to try me, Mrs. Montgomery?” he said.
I didn’t believe him, but I should have, because he was as serious as I’d ever seen him. Seeing that I wasn’t budging, he leapt from his chair and was on me. And in a move so swift it left me wondering if it wasn’t accomplished by magic, he had his belt stripped from around his waist, and me firmly in tow. It was unfortunate that I was wearing a skirt that night, because seconds later, there I was, flung across his lap, my skirt raised, his doubled work belt coming down on my ass with an angry blast of smacks. There was just a thin pair of bikini cotton panties to cover my rear.
“Ouch! Goddammit,” I blared.
He laid in to me for all he was worth. That simple spanking in the stable didn’t even compare to his. The bite of the leather was mean and cutting. I was sure there were going to be blisters by the time he was done. Not only that, but the fact that there was a whole room full of men and one cheap slut looking on, only made my agony more desperate. I kicked and fought and cussed like crazy, but Rys kept going on.
“My, that’s getting mighty red,” one of his cronies piped in. My face blushed almost as hotly as my ass, though no one could see it with my black hair flailing wildly around my head which was upended and out of sight.
I cussed a blue streak, and Rys became even more furious. Pausing for a second, he suddenly jerked my panties down, so my ass was bared. Then he laid into me again with the belt coming down on my naked cheeks, the sting instantly angry.
“Oh, no you don’t!” I shouted, as my hands flailed madly.
Of course he didn’t heed my words. He just continued spanking my behind in full view of the gawking crowd. And when my hands got in his way, trying to reach back to protect my sore bottom, he gathered them in his hand and pinned them with an iron tight grip to my back.
“Oooh, yes,” one man murmured.
Another said, “I should try this with that dame I’m living with.”
Rys paid no mind to their indecent remarks, but I was humiliated and fighting mad. I couldn’t believe he’d put me through this. After ano
ther pause to secure my kicking legs, he started in one more time laying the belt against my naked skin so I was roaring loudly. I couldn’t even form words but spouted a bunch of angry nonsense, “ouch, ow, ouch, naaaaaaaa, pleeese, fucker noooooooooo.” I was desperate and desperately mad. And then because I couldn’t think of any other way to make him stop, I started blabbering something that was suppose to sound like an apology.
At first, it didn’t seem to matter what I was saying. But then, I noticed he began to slow the pace.
“Rys, I’m sorry!” I gave the words every bit of sincerity I could considering the circumstances.
“Are you ready to apologize,” he asked, pausing to hear my answer.
“Yes,” I answered quite convincingly, I think, and he eased up to the point that there was just one final blow. That landed with a heavy thwack as the thick belt snapped right down the center of both burning cheeks.
I would have been happy to crawl away and never face this crowd again, but Rys was determined otherwise. Bringing me to my feet, his hand held me close to his side, and I peered at the astonished audience. There I was, standing before all of them red-faced, red-assed, my panties bunched at my ankles. Thankfully, my skirt had dropped down over my hips and I wasn’t showing everything.
“Now, you can give my friends that apology,” he urged me when I didn’t speak.
With that instruction, I almost shouted a defiant “NO!” but I was sure that he’d only start all over again. I could tell just from the way he held me so closely to his side, that he’d not yet lost the nasty edge.
“I’m sorry, very sorry. I should never have …” my voice trailed off to a whisper, but apparently that was enough for Rys.
“Now get in the truck, I’ll see to you more when I get home.”
“You’re going to give her another whipping?” I heard one voice ask, as I was quickly out of my husband’s arms and out the swinging door. As I listened to the screen bang noisily on its hinges I heard his reply.
Birches, Cowgirls & Angels Page 16