Sometimes at work, Madeleine found herself toying with her wedding ring wondering if marrying Robbie at his determined insistence was the most foolish thing she’d ever done.
***
A year later…
A year…twelve months…fifty-two weeks. It seemed like such a short period in an individual’s life. But so much can happen in that time. In fact, it only takes a matter of seconds for a life—for dozens of lives—to be altered. Just one misstep on the battlefield was all it took to alter life for the newlywed McKellars.
Given Robbie’s disability, it was decided that they would live permanently at the country house on his return home. The large rooms of the estate and the elevator to the second floor would more easily accommodate the wheelchair than an apartment in the city. There’d be plenty of space for them and the round-the-clock nurse his father hired for his care.
“I’ve lost a leg. But other than that I’m alive!” he would shout at anyone who tried to pity him.
In truth, there were other complications regarding his health, but he refused to make them matter. Instead, he set up an office at the house where both Madeleine and he could work for the Endowment from home.
“It’s an easy commute,” he liked to joke. “Hop on the elevator and I’m at my office. I don’t even have to get out of my jammies.” His smile beamed as large as ever.
In the face of his physical tragedy, Robbie’s spirit remained vigorous and his determination to build a new life gave everyone reason to reflect. There seemed to be not one wrinkle in his steady manner. He’d made his choice to go to war and refused to regret that choice for even a second. Even Madeleine would sometimes feel a sweep of optimism when she was around her bright-hearted husband. However at night, she often lay awake and wondered about what would become of them. What kind of future could they have now that they were more business partners than lovers? How cheery would he continue to be when one of the driving forces of his life had been ripped away? And it wasn’t just sex. The immobility was certain to have an effect on him eventually. No riding, hunting, squash tournaments, vigorous games of tennis or cycling through the countryside. How could that not effect him? Perhaps what concerned her most was that for all his optimism, she knew that Robbie had a dark side lurking in the shadows of his good-natured character. That place she so rarely saw, but knew might explode on them all eventually.
For Madeleine, the year since her marriage had been horrible, and more than once she’d wondered what crazy turn of fate had made her the wife of a disabled veteran of a miserable war. What a strange sorority of women that was! Her life had been so reasoned, so ordered, so well-controlled and planned. How could she have foreseen this? The marriage had been as impulsive for her as it had been predictable from everyone else’s point of view: Of course she’d marry him—even if it was a rash decision. Now she was pitied as much as he was, and she hated that.
She worried that she’d grow to regret the marriage—‘in sickness and health’ had taken on real meaning, and sometimes that was not a pretty one. Would she resent him? Lose herself in his care? Lose the very lust for life that he’d so enthusiastically cultivated during the six years of their affair? There was a darkness in her too, places she played in her fantasies, obsessions that she found difficult to shake; and what means she’d used in the past to deal with these strange demons were no longer available—not with Robbie unable to perform sexually as he had in the past. His interest in kinky sex died with this unfortunate circumstance.
In the weeks that followed Robbie’s return home, what haunted Madeleine as much as these unanswerable questions was what happened the day they moved into the house. The disturbing incident was simply impossible to forget…
The renovations to the necessary rooms were still ongoing, the sound of hammers everywhere when they first arrived at the estate. Everyone had urged that they wait until the changes were completed, but Robbie insisted they move in as soon as possible. It was not a particularly good day and everyone was out of sorts that harried afternoon. Robbie’s mother had taken her second tranquilizer, his father, who preferred to escape the commotion, letting everyone else ‘sort it out’, had taken off to ride with his good friend Daniel Prothero, who he’d dragged in from town to keep him company. Robbie, meanwhile, had refused to rest, and was busy overseeing the renovations, giving orders to the crew and making sure that things were done the way he wanted. Madeleine felt in the way, when for what seemed like the hundredth time, he brushed off her suggestion that he ‘take it easy’.
“You know, I think I’ll take a walk,” she finally announced to Robbie, trying her best to smile just before she fled the house. “In fact, I could take you out for some fresh air, if you’d like?” By this time, she counted on him to decline the offer.
“Oh, for heavens sakes, Madeleine, you’re not going to treat me like an invalid!” he announced one more time. “If I want to go out I can wheel myself around.” Then he smiled. He’d been jumpy since his return from the hospital, quicker to vent his anger, but just as quick to make amends. “You go ahead, darling,” his tone softened, “take that walk. It would do you good. I’ll take care of things here. I want this done so we can get to work. We’ll both be a lot happier once we do.”
“Yes, I suppose we will,” she agreed.
She admired his fighting spirit, but at the moment, she was at a low point, and she dared not share this fact with him.
The brisk autumn day was fragrant with the smells of the changing season. Maple leaves rattled above her head as she strode down the walk path toward the woods. She’d headed directly to the secret garden—as she’d named that wonderful spot in the woods, where sometime in the 1920s, just after the estate house was built, someone had dug out a pond then built a stone gazebo at its edge. Over the years, the area had been planted with perennial flowers, roses and beautiful vines. At one time it had been the highlight of the McKellar gardens—so her mother-in-law had told her. Not so now. Gardens closer to the house were now the family’s favorites, and more recently, the ‘secret garden’ had become overgrown, a little wild, a little savage, which was probably the reason Madeleine loved it so. She often went there alone when she was at the estate, and she knew without having to give the idea much consideration that it would become her retreat from the pressures of her married life. So much to think about… so many thoughts consumed her days. But for now, she’d swear off the dreary speculations and enjoy the season.
She took the rugged walk path past the water, stopping to pluck a sprig of chamomile from the bed of wildflowers then gaze across the tranquil pond with its lily pads gently rising on the rippling water. The sounds of croaking frogs and buzzing insects filled the air.
Making her way up the old stone steps to the gazebo, Madeleine looked out over the water, viewing the scene from a completely different vantage point. She stared to the East across the short meadow that butted up against the woods, then her gaze returned to the water, until from the corner of her eye she noticed something or someone moving toward her. Recognizing the familiar man, she ducked behind one of the gazebo’s hefty stone pillars hoping that she hadn’t been seen.
She waited, barely breathing, while her heart pounded in a furious rhythm. But the crunch of the undergrowth beneath the man’s feet suggested that he’d already seen her from a distance.
“You’re hiding from me now?” she heard him speak as he moved inside the gazebo and stared her down.
“I came here to be alone.”
“Ah, then I’m intruding.”
“You are,” she stated flatly, avoiding even the appearance of being friendly.
Several times in the past year, Daniel Prothero had been at McKellar family events and never once was he anything but amiable. At the same time, it always seemed to Madeleine that he’d not forgotten the incident on the yacht—or that embarrassing scene when she was spanked before Robbie’s friends—and he was there to make sure that she’d not forgotten those remarkable moments either.
What beat so hotly inside her now was a lust for Daniel Prothero. There was no use denying it. For seven years that lust had been nourished on the occasions when they were intermittently thrown together at a family party. But those times were always in the company of friends and family members, which made it easy to ignore the lewd way her body might react to his presence. This time was quite different. They were alone for the first time since that regrettable sexual incident, and now she’d been sideswiped, so taken off guard that any means to control her physical and emotional reaction would be nearly impossible.
Unfortunately, her rude comeback had not been enough to deter the man. In fact, he moved several steps closer. “Sorry that my being here is so distressing for you, Madeleine. You might want to look at why.” He smiled thinly, then settled one keen eye on her.
“I think we both know why,” she managed, while with every bit of determination she could muster, she attempted to suppress her surfacing desire.
“So you admit it? The energy between us is impossible to ignore.”
“I never said that.”
“But you feel it regardless. I know what you’re feeling, Madeleine. You may not want to admit it, but if you looked inside yourself for half a minute, you’d see the quandary you carry around with you every day, a quandary growing stronger by the day. My question: is it so wrong to desire what is natural to you?”
“If you mean sex with you, that is out of the question. I am a married woman.”
“But you do think about it.”
“Think about sex with you? That’s ridiculous.”
“And I find that claim difficult to believe.”
“What? You think you’re irresistible to women?” she tried to joke, though it seemed to fall flat.
“No, just to you. You want—no you need what I could give you. That’s why your panties turn into a wet knot every time we’re in the same room.”
“What nerve!” she turned away from him and look out over the water.
“I’m just speaking the truth,” he snickered darkly. He stepped forward having her almost pinned against the railing, then taking her by the arms, he abruptly turned her around. His chest was pressed against hers in the place where his flesh would record the beat of her anxious heart. His hand moved behind her neck, holding her steady as his lips crushed against her lips and then opened wide to the passion behind it.
For that terrible sixty seconds everything in her body stirred but the will to push him away. When she finally returned to her senses, she gave him a two-fisted shove, then slapped his face in a move too fast for him to stop. When she went back for a second slap, he caught her wrist, and in one rash move, he pivoted her 180 degrees, bent her over his arm and began smacking her bottom with a determination she’d not felt in many months—probably never except when Robbie was in his darkest hours. But Daniel was nothing at all like her husband. Spankings from Robbie had either been sexy foreplay, or replete with that scornful and disturbing energy that rose up from some mysterious repository.
Daniel was much more straightforward: the adamant punishment was payback for the slap in the face, and she’d earned every smack.
“If you think, I’d let a slap in the face go unanswered, you’re dangerously naïve.”
Her inner fury rose fast and she attempted to wrench herself from his grasp. But Daniel was like a rock, holding her so firmly against his side that her efforts seemed sadly childish. She did manage to kick his leg in the process of her angry fit, which raised his ire to a boiling point. “You just don’t know when to quit now, do you?” he bit off. Seconds later, he had her skirt lifted over her bottom, her panties yanked down to her knees, and his hand coming down against her pink ass cheeks until the imprint of his large, firm palm had turned the flesh scarlet. The pain was unrelenting, but so too were the feelings that seized her deep inside her belly. She understood without thinking where this would lead—just as it was that night on the yacht. Though she had no intention of going down that path again, she had few options, especially when the spanking only heightened her sexual arousal.
As the pain grew more difficult to bear, she wanted to lash out again, but she didn’t dare scream and call attention to her embarrassing plight. Who knows who else might be traipsing through the McKellar property on that afternoon? She could only hope that Robbie’s father had returned to the house and they were truly alone.
“Strange how you take to punishment,” Daniel added to her misery with the exultant comment.
“Please, stop!” she wailed in a breathy whisper.
“And spare you the retribution you’ve earned for being such a naughty wife.”
His words shocked her, resonating so deeply that in that instant her body seized up in a powerful orgasm she could not suppress. While Daniel kept on spanking her bottom, she writhed erotically inside his grip and let out a moan that could only be construed as sexual. When his hand moved between her heated ass cheeks, he found her pussy dripping with juices.
“And should the naughty wife get used the way she deserves to be used?” the mockery in his voice again. “Hum…? What is it that Madeleine wants?” His fingers went deeper into the trimmed thatch of dark hair at the opening of her pussy, grazing against her clitoris and the sensitive opening of her spasming vagina. “I can always stop now, if that’s what you want. Just tell me, Madeleine.” His fingers slipped ever deeper into the molten opening causing another round of spasms. “You get to choose. I will not take you without your permission. Never let it be said that I raped you.” He kept on and on with the mocking taunt, knowing that his words were pounding in her brain, relentless and tormenting, urging her to do exactly what her body so desired.
Finally, in the low and guttural voice of a woman possessed, she murmured, “Fuck me!” in a tersely seething statement of her violent need. “Fuck me, Daniel!” she then declared more loudly.
Daniel let go of her body and pulled away, then shoved her roughly toward a stone bench. She bent over and rested her hands on the cold surface while he moved back in behind her proffered ass. His organ had grown large, and for several humiliating seconds he batted the head about her ass in a taunting reminder of his power to control her. Then with firmly grasping fingers taking a hold of each ass cheek, he pried her cleft wide apart and plunged his pulsating cock into her pussy. As he fucked her, he held her cheeks in his fists and squeezed. He made quick work of his task, as there was no mistaking that his confrontation with Robbie’s bride had turned him on as much as it had her.
The pain on Madeleine’s ass lingered on after he ejaculated into her clenching love hole—for as long as he held her ass and smacked her flesh to make the event as painful at the end as it was in the beginning.
“Punishment gets you off, Mrs. McKellar,” he announced, as if it weren’t already obvious. “If you’ve learned nothing today, you’ve learned that. Consider that knowledge my gift to you.” He finally let her go, although she was slow to revive; slow to stand and cover her scarlet cheeks. He actually had to smack her one more time to get her moving. “Maybe you want to stay here all day with your ass hanging out, but that might prove embarrassing. One never knows who’s going to be out for a walk on a day like this.”
Abruptly brought back to life, Madeleine jerked upright and scrambled to find her panties and pull them back in place. They were soaking wet in seconds, and the smell of their sex rose up in the languid air to assault her senses.
“Oh, dear God, what have I done!” she said. She’d closed her eyes, wishing for all she was worth that this had just been a bad dream from which she’d finally awaken. But reality was not so kind to her. Opening her eyes, the reminder of her infidelity was there before her.
“Perhaps this is just fulfilling a need, Madeleine,” Daniel came back with surprising tenderness. “You’re going to have a hard road ahead trying to squelch the fire of lust that burns in you. It’s a wonder how you’ve survived this long without taking some measures to address it.”
“Wha
t do you mean?”
He looked at her with a sincerity she’d never seen in him, no sign of the lurking mockery she normally associated with the man. “I mean that you have obvious, even peculiar needs. I saw that when we first met. The situation you live with now will not get better.” He obviously meant her marriage to Robbie. “Which makes you easy to take advantage of. I’m forewarning you. I will not be the only man to want you.”
“And you offer me what?” her reply was laced with irony.
“Offer? This is something you have to figure out for yourself. But I’d start with your need to be punished and work from there. What kind of accommodations you make in the future to work this out… well, that is up to you.” He sighed a bit regretfully, then he reached out and affectionately grazed her face with his warm palm. “Perhaps we’d better leave this here and get back to the house before we’re missed.”
He turned to go.
“What! You’re going to fuck me, then leave me here just like that! Do you realize what we’ve done!”
He turned back. “Am I supposed to regret what happened? I’m sorry, I don’t. I don’t have the guilt buttons you do. And I certainly don’t have the need to be punished for my sins, if this was a sin. I won’t apologize. I enjoyed myself, and it would appear you did too. Did I take advantage of you? I suppose. Will I again? I can’t say, but probably not. Certainly not like this. I don’t think we need to cause the McKellar family anymore pain than they are already feeling.”
Punishable Offenses Page 7