A New Forever

by Alta Hensley

  Clay snorted. "You're not wearing it."

  Elodie guffawed. "Even if I'd bought it, I could have chosen not to wear it."

  "Not if you realized you were going to be spanked for not wearing it when it's cold. Do you have a good reason for not buying a coat?"

  This was her out. She could just explain that the price of buying a coat didn't fit in with her monthly budget, but her pride got in the way. She had no choice but to lie. "I just didn't feel like it," she said, jutting out her chin. Lying to Clay didn't feel good, but at least she still had her pride.

  "Well, then." He paused for a long moment. "I believe a spanking is in order."

  "You are not going to spank me, Clay Carver." She said it aloud for the first time, after having said it in her fantasies for almost the past decade. It came out firm and strong, just the way she'd intended.

  He didn't say a thing. Nothing. Elodie didn't take that as a good sign. Instead, he got out of the truck and came around to her door, since she'd made no move to get out at all. He opened the door and stuck his hand in at her. "C'mon. Do you think I'm going to spank you in the theatre?" he asked as a young couple was walking by. They turned and laughed, then walked toward the cinema.

  If only to shut him up, Elodie got out, refusing to touch the proffered hand. "Will you please keep your voice down!" she growled.

  Clay merely smiled, reaching for and capturing her hand to tuck it into his elbow and escort her into the movies. Elodie was quite efficiently trapped. She desperately wanted to continue their conversation and strengthen her objections; her refusal to let him discipline her in any way whatsoever. But she did not want to get into that kind of a discussion in the middle of a public theatre. So, after he insisted on buying the tickets, she grudgingly ate the extra-large popcorn he'd gotten, and dutifully gnawed on the hard Milk Duds—which, in truth, were her favorite movie treats—all while being transported into a land of elves and fairies and magic spells that completely absorbed the both of them, even though it was an extraordinarily long movie.

  When it was done, however, and they were back in his truck, she deliberately picked up the conversational thread. "So. No, I didn't get a coat. But you are not going to spank me for not having done so."

  Elodie peered closely at his face, but Clay merely continued to stare straight ahead as he drove, smiling slightly.

  She paused for a moment, but he apparently wasn't going to say a thing.

  "Clay?"

  "I have to admit that I like the sound of my name on your lips."

  "Clay…"

  "Yes?" he asked, as innocently as was possible for him.

  It was then that Elodie noticed that he wasn't taking her home to her house—he was heading to his own place.

  "Take me home, Clay." A flat, hard statement that left no room for doubt.

  "Okay. I'll spank you there," he agreed all too readily, putting on his blinker to change directions.

  "No! No—not there!" She was getting so flustered that he might see her dilapidated living conditions that she started to forget the original threat. "You're not going to spank me at either place, Clay."

  He stopped at a red light, considering her for a moment. "Well, you seem to be very vehement about not wanting me to see your apartment. I'll have to investigate why at a later date."

  That pronouncement sent a chill down Elodie's spine.

  "But right now, I am going to spank you, and I think it should be at my house. I'm a man of my word, Elodie. I told you what I would do if you didn't buy a coat. I'm not about to become a liar now."

  "Are you crazy? You can't spank me! I'm a grown woman!"

  Clay's response was annoyingly laconic. "So was April. And she got her butt blistered whenever I felt it was necessary."

  "But she was your wife. You were lovers. It was natural for you both, and it was understandable since you had that kind of relationship…"

  He didn't say anything more, even though Elodie's entreaties became more and more fervent. When he'd driven through the large gate that read 'Carver Ranch' and finally pulled into the horseshoe-shaped driveway and up to the front door, he stopped and turned to her. "No, we don't have that kind of relationship. Yet. But you understand my beliefs on Domestic Discipline, and I care about you, and I can see that you're not taking care of yourself the way you should be. It's been relatively balmy around here lately. But we've had some snaps of below zero weather. I can't bear the thought of you walking around shivering in that kind of temperature. I want you to have a winter coat. I don't think it's too much to ask."

  He reached out and tugged gently on an errant blonde lock of hair. "And, when I ask you to do something, I expect to be obeyed. You're going to learn that very, very quickly."

  It was on the tip of her tongue to confess, hoping that would help her get out of a spanking. Pride be damned—she didn't want anything to do with being spanked by this man. He was too darned big, and too determined by far. If she had to cry poverty, she would. Now that her little fantasy was actually becoming a reality, it didn't sound so sexy anymore.

  But while she was pondering what to do, he had gotten out of the truck, come around to her side and opened the door, putting his hand out to her much more imperiously than he ever had. Elodie huddled back in the truck, as far away from him as she could. "I am not going to get out."

  "You would prefer that I reach in there and haul you out over my shoulder, in broad daylight? You know my head foreman lives right next door. And my other guys are working on mending fences nearby—I'm sure they wouldn't mind getting a show. And can you imagine when they get home and tell their wives, how fast the news that Elodie West got her butt blistered by Clay Carver will spread?"

  It wasn't the first time she'd cursed living in a small town. She knew that if she found herself in that house, she'd end up getting spanked. But he didn't look like he was going to back down in any way, shape or form, and, knowing Clay for as long as she had, she knew he wouldn't budge an inch.

  "I'm not going to wait forever, young lady." His voice was as calm and patient as if he was telling her he was going to go out for a stroll.

  Finally, as slowly as she dared, she climbed out of the truck. Clay took her arm and escorted her into his house.

  It had been a while since she'd been to the ranch. Elodie could remember the first time April had shown it to her. She'd been positively glowing. It was a white house with a round portico in the front. In the olden days, they used to call it a center hall colonial, because the front door opened into a center hall; a foyer, with a formal parlor along one whole side of the house, on the right, and an informal parlor—which Clay used as a study—and dining room along the left side of the house, with the kitchen and an added bathroom along the back. The beautiful, winding mahogany staircase in the hall led to the bedrooms and another two bathrooms upstairs.

  Both April and Elodie had had an appreciation for big old houses, instilled in them early by their house-happy mother, who desperately wanted to get out of the small place they all grew up in. Unfortunately, Momma never did, but April found a beautiful place where she and Clay could be happy and raise their children.

  Elodie had never imagined entering her sister's house in such a state—with a spanking hanging over her head—one that was coming from Clay himself, no less! He hadn't changed the house or the furnishings one bit; Elodie almost expected April to come bounding down the stairs.

  Clay saw her face and grimaced. "Feels like she's still here, doesn't it?" he asked softly, a sudden sadness settling on his face.

  She could only nod solemnly in agreement.

  "It's okay for us to think about her, to talk about her," he softly said as he wrapped an arm around her shoulder.

  "But you said we have to move on." She was fighting back tears.

  "We do. But that doesn't mean we have to forget. Or not talk about the elephant in the room."

  She nodded again. "You're right. I have been away from this place for too long. Trying to avoid."<
br />
  Clay gave a little squeeze, and softly kissed her on the forehead. "There's no easy solution, no answer. All we can do is move ahead."

  Elodie looked up into his eyes and matched his warm smile. "What do you think April would think?"

  He chuckled. "She'd feel really bad for you since she knows what's in store for you." He released a belly laugh, which was just what was needed to break the morose mood that had been set.

  Elodie shoved him playfully and feigned annoyance. "Clay Carver!"

  He took a few steps towards the double doors to his study, then turned and crooked his finger at her. "Come here, Elodie. And don't even think of bolting back out that door, because if I have to chase you, it's going to be that much worse."

  She hadn't been thinking that, but his comment made her wish she had. She'd been too deep in her memories to remember that the health and welfare of her bottom was on the line here. And there he was, standing there, crooking his finger at her as if he was going to give her a gift or something when she got in there with him...

  Elodie's hands went automatically to her bottom while he stared at her, trying to protect what could not be protected, at least not from him, apparently. She walked past him and into the study that way, standing nervously in front of his desk while he drew the curtains closed on the big bow and side windows.

  *****

  Clay realized that this needed to be done quickly. If he gave her too much time to think about it, she'd turn tail and run, and he didn't want to have to be chasing her across the cattle fields. So he took one of the straight backed chairs that had been put to such use occasionally during his marriage and set it down in the middle of the cream colored, Persian rug. It was one of the leftovers from their dining room table. Since there had only been two of them, except when they entertained, he and April hadn't needed all eight chairs that had come with the antique carved oak table, so some of them had ended up in the foyer, a couple in his study, and one in their bedroom. Their dual purpose had always made him smile secretly when he looked at them scattered around the house.

  He tugged on her arm, and she resisted, but not as much as he expected her to, though. She oofed a little when he laid her over his lap, and that thing that only seemed to happen with her now had happened again, and there was no way she was going to mistake what was poking boldly into her belly. Clay decided to ignore it—as much as was possible. He knew that if he mentioned it to her, she would dissolve right into the floor, and he hadn't really dealt with that situation yet himself. It was best to just concentrate on the matter at hand.

  It had been a long while since he had had a beautiful lady over his lap. He'd almost forgotten the feeling, but he couldn't take the time to luxuriate in it, either. Elodie needed to learn who was boss, and he intended to get the message home as quickly and efficiently as possible. One thing which he knew was vitally important in a Domestic Discipline relationship, was to always follow through with the threat of discipline. Consistency was of upmost importance, or the whole dynamic became wishy-washy.

  Despite the fact that he wasn't at all sure he should do it, he tugged down her jeans and panties all at once, before she really had a chance to work herself into a lather. There would be time for that later, he was sure. But for the moment, he'd caught her completely off guard, and he was going to use that to his advantage.

  Her round, white globes on full display would have made his knees collapse had he not already been sitting down. He couldn't fight the urge to glance at the V between her silky thighs, just begging his hand to dip in and explore. He wasn't sure why, but he was pretty positive that if he dipped his finger into her pussy, it would be instantly coated in her juices of arousal. Her breathing revealed much more than just fear of the upcoming punishment.

  *****

  Elodie was absolutely mortified. She had begun to reconcile herself with the idea that he might spank her—that she'd have to lie over his lap and feel his hand connecting with her bottom, but her mind had sterilized it nicely for her, so that she didn't have to deal with the more intimate, or painful, aspects of being put in that position.

  But here she was, and it was intimate enough when they were both fully clothed. Then he reached around under her and undid the button and zipper of her jeans, and before she could even manage a wiggle of protest, her pants and panties were around her calves.

  Oh God! I am completely bare and he can see everything!

  Before she knew it, the first swat descended, exploding on her bare flesh and making her draw in a deep breath with which to throw her head back and squall, but then the second and third and fourth smacks came along, and he settled into a rhythm that she knew was going to be trouble, and she didn't have a chance to dwell on the spike that was poking up from beneath her into her tummy.

  "No! Stop! Please! Clay!" There was nothing she could do. She was over his lap, bare bottomed, in the house that he and April had shared. His hand—broad as a barn and hard as a plank of redwood—was descending over and over onto her well-rounded butt.

  Whatever fantasies Elodie might have indulged in regarding what being spanked would be like, were nothing in comparison to the real thing. There was nothing she could do, nothing she could read—online or otherwise—nothing that she could have heard from April about it that would have prepared her for what it was really like to feel two thick thighs beneath her ribcage, supporting her as his left arm lay lightly over the small of her back, trapping her in place as easily and naturally as could be.

  She had never felt more vulnerable in her life. Not even when her ex-husband, Randy, was taking her virginity. Then she'd only felt pain and mild disappointment that that was all there was to lovemaking. It wasn't even so much the situation itself. It was that it was Clay. It was Clay who was actually delivering the spanking.

  Elodie didn't know where to put the pain. It hurt at least a thousand times worse than any spanking she'd ever received as a child, and he wasn't showing any signs of stopping anytime soon. She wiggled and squirmed and tried to buck or arch away from him, but nothing was working—the only thing that she was positive about her future was that that hand was going to continue to distribute its pain all over her rounded bottom and down the backs of each of her thighs.

  Those were the worst of all of them. Because of the size of his hand and how little acreage there was back there, he had easily gone over the small territory of her butt once and was ending up having to spank the same place several times, but the worst swats were still on the backs of her thighs, or that tender area just at the crease of her bottom. It was atrocious, and she wasn't at all sure she was going to survive it.

  Clay began to lecture just when Elodie was starting to think she was going to go crazy from the searing heat he was creating in her tail. "When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it. It's not as if you didn't know where you were going to end up if you didn't obey me, Elodie. I think I made that perfectly clear. All you had to do was go and get a coat. But no, you had to be stubborn. You West girls are stubborn to the bone—I should have known you weren't that different from your sister."

  *****

  Bringing up April at a time like this probably wasn't the smartest thing to do, but he couldn't help it. The comparisons were inevitable. But this was Elodie, who had probably rarely been spanked in her life, and not April, who had been spanked with a considerable regularity, especially when they were first married. Elodie was sobbing and crying with each swat, and Clay didn't want to be too hard on her this first time. He was sure that, even quiet as she was, she would get herself into more trouble down the road. There would be a time to be harsher with her, he was sure.

  But for now, he gave her twenty more hard slaps as he watched each red handprint come up through the already pinkened flesh. When he had finished, she hung over his legs, and he no longer had to worry about whether or not she noticed how hard he was, because he wasn't.

  Spanking a woman was a strange thing. In some ways, he found it—aspects of it�
��unbearably sexy. Having a beautiful young woman over his lap, her bottom revealed and dancing beneath the crack of his hand, the cascade of hair, the enticing wiggle as she tried to get out of what she knew she had coming to her. But the inflicting pain part, that was hard, especially when you cared about the woman you were disciplining, and Clay was of a mind that if you didn't care about her, you shouldn't be touching her like that in the first place.

  But he knew that Elodie had a need. He knew she needed someone to watch out for her, for her best interests, even against herself. He knew she needed a strong but gentle hand on her bottom at all times—at least to mentally know that it was there—to remind her that she was cared for by someone.

  By him.

  He'd been surprising himself for quite some time, but now he realized he was ready to make a small move towards putting his life with April into perspective. Not behind him at all, because she would always be his love, but into the right light. April was gone. There was no bringing her back. And he knew, from the few, scant, uncomfortable talks they had had on the subject, that she wouldn't want him to try to climb into the grave with her in any way—not in grief, and not by trying to smother that grief in work. She would want him to pick up—after a reasonable amount of time to honor her—and go on and have a great life, and be happy.

  Most of all, though, she wanted him to find love again. A love like the one they had had. She'd told him so, through tears one night when they were talking about the unspeakable possibility of losing each other.

  Tears came to his eyes as Elodie lay panting and crying softly over his lap. He rested his hand—which was probably just about as sore as her bottom—on the small of her back and began to rub. Another situation where he was somewhat at a loss. He couldn't quite comfort Elodie the way he used to comfort April. He could picture the look on her face if he tried, though, and it made him crack a watery smile.

  When her breathing had pretty much returned to normal, Clay whispered huskily, "Let me help you up, sweetie."