Return To Big Sky

by Jade Cary

  I sat back and stared at the words on the screen, and then into the muted-purple room, and the ache started to lift, just a little.

  I know what I have to do. It’s just so…hard. But I am not fifteen anymore, or twenty, and I have seen what avoidance does. We’ll speak again, Daddy…and thanks.

  I slept until nine—unheard of for me, especially here, when work starts at first light, sometimes before.

  I showered, fluffed my hair, put on a clean pair of jeans, a blue fisherman’s sweater than came to my thighs, and boots. At the last minute, I put my hair up in a clip. I had no idea why, on this particular day I gave such a damn about my appearance, but I did. I was conscious of myself for the first time in a while, and it was all for my trip to the gallows. I needed to find Jed.

  I went downstairs, and my stomach plummeted to my shoes. I hadn’t expected Jed to be where I expected him to be last night, yet here he was, leaning against the farmhouse table, a cup of coffee in his hand, and a dark cloud over his face.

  “Hi,” I croaked.

  “Sit down.”

  “Jed, I wanted to…”

  “Sit down.”

  I pulled out a chair at the head of the table farthest away from him, and sat.

  “What are your plans for the day?”

  “Just…um, work, unless you need me for something.” I didn’t recognize the sound of my own voice.

  “You stay up here today. You’re not to go to town, you’re not to go riding, you’re not to leave this house. Am I clear?”

  I wanted to lash out, say how dare he, tell him he didn’t own me, ask him where he got off, but I did none of those things. I stared at my hands and nodded.

  “Keep your phone on and next to you. If I call, you pick up. If I text, you answer. Got me?”

  I nodded again.

  “I cannot deal with you now, as I couldn’t last night, but believe me, you will not go to bed tonight without hearing from me in a way you never have before. Consider that today while you sit at home and do nothing but think. Do you understand me, Chandler?”

  “Yes,” I whispered.

  “Good.” He turned to go.

  “Jed?” I shot up out of my seat and ran to him. I threw my arms around his neck and, God bless him, he put his arms around me.

  “Tell me it’ll be okay, Jed. I know you’re mad, but tell me it’s not the end.”

  He snagged the clip out, grabbed a handful of my still-damp hair, and pulled my head back. “It is not the end, darlin’. It’s the beginning.”

  “What are you doing?” Jed asked when he called at 10:15 a.m.

  “Just cleaning up. I had a little breakfast, and some coffee. I may have some more. What are you doing?” I was shy, my voice reflective of contrition, of remorse, and of trepidation. While I thought I knew what to expect, I really had no idea.

  “I’m handling some business in Bozeman. Remember what I said about today.” He was no nonsense; his tone snatched at my heart, and gave me furlies in my girlies. I knew it shouldn’t. I was in deep trouble.

  “I know.”

  “Okay. We’ll speak later.”

  “I love you, Jed.”

  “Love you, too, Chandler Elise.”

  Oh, my.

  By 12:30 I’d watched an episode of The Waltons, the tail end of Pioneer Woman on Food Network, and I’d taken a call from New York. I was chomping at the bit to get some work done, and I couldn’t do it in the main house. My cell rang at 12:40.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  I told him what I’d done since the last time he called. “I’m bored,” I said at the end.

  “Good. Are you thinking?”

  “I’m thinking I have work to do. Couldn’t I just go up…?”

  “What part of you are not to leave the house did you not understand, Chandler Elise?”

  “I…none…all…I mean…I just…I’ve got some work to do, Jed, and I…”

  “Go to your room.”

  “Huh?”

  “I said go to your room. Take the phone with you and get up to your bedroom. Now.”

  My heart thumped and my crotch convulsed. I started to protest but he cut me off.

  “Go ahead, make things worse on yourself.” Silence. “Go to your room, Chandler Elise, right now.”

  “I’m going.” I sounded petulant. And six. I stomped up the stairs and went to my room. “I’m here.”

  “Good. That corner between your bed and the west-facing window? Get in it.”

  “You are not serious.”

  “I can make the hour and a half drive back to show you how serious I am, or you can get your nose in that corner. Now.”

  “Okay. God.” I walked around my bed and stood facing the corner. Shit.

  “Are you standing in the corner?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You don’t move until I call you or text. You think you’re bored, young lady, I will show you bored.”

  “Jed, I…”

  “You arguing with me?”

  “No. No, I’m not.”

  “Then close your mouth, stand in the corner, and think about how you are going to do what you are told without back talk for the rest of the day, and then think about how much trouble you’re in with me. And Chandler?”

  “Yes, Jed?”

  “I’ll know if you move, so don’t.”

  “Okay.” How the hell, I did not know, but I didn’t doubt him. I’d learned at least that much.

  In ten minutes, he texted, Don’t lean. Stand up straight.

  Jesus.

  In ten more, he texted, Stop hopping, young lady. Stand still.

  “What the hell?” I screamed into the room. I looked around for cameras, for a spy, for him, for God’s sake.

  You are insane, I texted.

  I am keeping track of arguing and sassing, Chandler. Do NOT push me.

  All right. Jesus, all right!

  Ten minutes later, the phone rang.

  “Do your legs hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you bored?”

  “Immensely.”

  “Would you like to get out of the corner?”

  “Yes, I would.” I sounded contrite, I knew I did, and it was not intentional. Something about being made to stand in the corner made me cranky and petulant, but what Jed was doing to me now, from 90 miles away, was unleashing something foreign in me I couldn’t name. I wanted to be spanked, held and forgiven, in that order. What the hell was wrong with me?

  “The next time you ask me if you can do something I’ve already said you may not do, you will pay that corner another visit. Do you understand?”

  “I do.”

  “Is that sass?”

  “No, I’m practicing for our wedding day.”

  “Chandler, you seem to think I am joking here. The only reason why I am not home and you are not over my knee getting your ass blistered is because I have business I can’t get out of, so this is how we’re doing it. Don’t think for a minute that because your bottom is not sizzling right now, it won’t be by tonight. This is not a joke. You are being punished. Do you hear me?”

  Oh, good god. Until that second, I truly had no idea what game he was playing. It was kind of fun and kind of odd and kind of like nothing I’d ever experienced before, but those four words had me spinning.

  You are being punished.

  Ho-ly shit.

  “I hear you,” I said, my voice barely a whisper.

  “When I say something, I expect my words to be heard and then obeyed.”

  “I know.”

  “We went over this a week ago.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you have any objection to what I’m saying?”

  “No.” My nose burned and my eyes filled like a lake after a dam burst.

  “Would you like to sit down?”

  “Please.” I sniffled and he heard it because his tone changed. Still firm, but he was softer about it.

  “Sit on the stool at your van
ity table.”

  I wanted to lie down on the bed after standing in a corner for a half hour. Instead, I did as I was told.

  “Am I unfair, Chandler?”

  “No.”

  “Am I arbitrary?”

  “No, I’ve never known you to be.”

  “Do I know what I’m talking about most of the time?”

  “I find that to be true all of the time, so far.”

  “Then explain to me why you disregarded my instructions and went into that damn real estate office?” He raised his voice on that one.

  “Arrogance.”

  “Damn straight. What’s going to happen when I get home, Chandler Elise?”

  My loins burned and I may have wet my pants. “I…”

  “Chandler?”

  “Jed, please.”

  “Answer me, young lady.”

  “I’m…” I swallowed hard. “I’m going to get…I’m going to get spanked.”

  “That’s right. Think about that for the rest of the day. Leave the TV off, too. I want you to sit and think about how hard I am going to spank you for your blatant disregard of my orders.”

  “Your orders?” Well, that came out without a thought in hell.

  “You’re damn straight! I have reasons for the things I say!” Jed never yelled, but he was yelling now.

  “You’re right. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

  “You did, and it’s going to cost you.”

  “Jed…”

  “You still don’t get it.”

  “I do.”

  “You will, in a way that will stick this time. Go downstairs and light a fire, sit on the couch and think. Or you can lie in your bed. Those are your choices.”

  “May I ask where Maria and Charlie are?”

  “On a field trip with Charlie’s class. They won’t be home ‘til around nine.”

  Oh, crap!

  “Do you have any other questions?”

  “No.”

  “Good, then you know what you need to do. I’ll call later.”

  It was bloody 1:15. Oh, my goddddd!

  I went downstairs, lit a fire and I sat, and I stared into it, and I thought. About getting spanked. Hard. Really, really hard.

  Fuck.

  This was excruciating. I was not one to sit around, yet here I was, sitting around, ordered to by this dominant man who felt I needed a strong lesson.

  It is not the end, darlin’. It’s the beginning.

  “I got it! I read you loud and clear, ogre!” I said to an empty room, empty and lonely. I now couldn’t get the idea—hell, the fact—of a spanking out of my head. It was all I thought about.

  How hard.

  How long.

  Pants up or down (Snort. Really?).

  Would he use his hand, or something else?

  Where would it happen?

  I had an opportunity to practice this method of self-torture on that endless drive to someplace private after I counted the crosses, and ‘endless’ was only about ten minutes. I’d had all day for this carnival fun house of joy, and I was a wreck. The knot in my stomach only grew bigger. That was guilt. The ache farther down was worry. I spent a good deal of time deciding I would not make a huge fuss, like I did during the previous spankings. I wouldn’t cry; I wouldn’t try to get away; I wouldn’t fight him. I could do this. I was Montana strong, and it would be over in about two minutes, as the others were.

  I took a deep breath. I can do this.

  At 5:10, my phone chimed.

  Chandler Elise?

  Yes, Jed? I answered immediately.

  What are you doing?

  Sitting. And thinking.

  Good girl.

  Thank you.

  You’re welcome. Chandler Elise?

  Yes?

  Go into the study, take your pants off, and find a corner

  Shit!

  Let me know when you’re there

  Oh, fuck. This was beyond horrible.

  May I ask a question? I typed, and I did it before I thought it through.

  Once your pants are off and your nose is in the corner you may ask

  I think I need to ask before I do this

  My cell rang immediately

  “What do you need to ask?” he said when I answered.

  “Will I make things worse if I do?”

  He was silent for a moment. “This one time, no.”

  “No matter what I ask?”

  “No matter what you ask, this one time.”

  “You won’t accuse me of arguing, or back talk?”

  “No, Chandler. Ask.”

  I took a deep breath. “What will happen if I…if I don’t…” I swallowed past a boulder in my throat, my parched, desert-dry throat. “…do this?”

  “I will put you there myself as soon as I walk in the door.”

  There was no honor in that. Of all that I was unsure of, I was crystal clear about this.

  “Go on, now. I’ll stay on the phone with you.”

  Tears sprang anew, dammit! “This is new for me,” I said as I headed for the study.

  “Me, too,” he said. I loved him for that.

  The study still smelled of my father, with some Jed thrown in. A single lamp cast a muted glow over a corner of the desk. I stood in the doorway and chose a corner, the one to the right of the fireplace and to the left of the wall of windows and the French doors behind the desk, which opened onto a green expanse of trees and grass and some seating. I’d have to remember to take the furniture in this weekend before winter’s first snowfall. This is what I thought about as I chose a corner to stand in with my pants off.

  “Chandler?”

  “Yes?”

  “Are you in the study?”

  “Yes.”

  “Put the phone on speaker, set it down, and take off your pants.” My lip started to wobble, but I did as I was told. It was chilly in the room, and my legs broke out in gooseflesh as soon as I pulled down my jeans. I tossed them on the fireplace hearth.

  “Okay.”

  “Okay, what?”

  “My…m-my pants are…off, and…”

  “Good. Turn the phone off now. We won’t be speaking again. Get in the corner and think about what’s going to happen when I get home.”

  And then he was gone. This was all too much. I was breaking; I could feel it. I sniffed and snuffled as I turned the phone off and set it atop my jeans. Then I turned to the blasted corner, gave it a pronounced middle finger, and took my place. The man hadn’t touched me yet and I knew that I’d never go against him again. Every emotion I could think of circled inside me: anxiety, humiliation, regret, longing, guilt, adoration, and yes, even arousal. I knew how Jed loved, and at this moment, I felt it with every fiber of my being. I’d never had to endure such a thing from anyone, ever. I’d never been made to atone for my mistakes, or think about how I might have hurt someone, or concentrate on where I went wrong, and why it was wrong. I’d been on my own since I was fifteen, and a young person learned what was acceptable at that age mostly from her peers; peer punishment was nothing like this.

  After what I estimated to be about fifteen minutes, a faint squeak and the snick of the front door closing announced Jed’s arrival, but I could sense him long before that.

  A Reckoning

  [rek-uh-ning]

  n.

  1. A settling of accounts

  2. Retribution for one’s actions

  3. An accounting, as for things done

  The thud of boots—determined but not in a huge hurry—echoed throughout the house. I shivered when that sound ceased and I saw him out of the corner of my eye, standing in the doorway of the study.

  “Chandler Elise.”

  I pressed my hand against the warm wall of wood in front of me as my knees buckled. I felt woozy. My ass tingled. My lady bits pulsed.

  “Face front, eyes on that corner.” His voice was low, deliberate, firm. He strode into the room, the creak of the hardwood beneath an expensive oriental rug conf
irming he was close. He stopped behind me, his heat warming my back even as an icy chill rode up my spine.

  “Lift your sweater off your bottom.” That sweater, heavy and soft, had kept me warm from my shoulders to mid thigh for the last fifteen minutes or so, and as I lifted it to my waist a chill swept like a ghost over my panty-covered backside and my now bare thighs. He stood over my left shoulder. I ached for his touch, something to acknowledge I still meant something to him, that we were slogging through this unchartered territory together, that perhaps he was as nervous as I was. His fingers brushed over my hips whisper soft, and he took hold of the waistband of my panties. I flinched, instinct causing my hands to grab his of their own volition. I dropped the hem of my sweater and it pooled across our collective wrists.

  “Your panties are coming down, Chandler. Lift that sweater and do not move,” he said in my ear.

  I swallowed hard and did as I was told.

  “Higher.” The soft cashmere tickled my sides as I lifted the sweater above my ribcage. Another chill caressed my butt as Jed turned my panties inside out and brought them to rest at the crease where bottom and thighs met.

  “This will help you think.”

  I shivered. Tears pricked my eyes.

  “Are you cold?”

  I nodded.

  I swore I would not cry. I promised myself I would not fuss. I was determined to take this with dignity, but all of it failed me. I could have drummed up some anger, some indignation, some righteous chest thumping at such old-fashioned misogynistic treatment, had it not been for his honeyed voice, so firm, so determined, yet so goddamned kind.