Finely Disciplined Thoughts (5 page)

I will encounter it. Soon.

We are leaving now. It has been an horrific afternoon. I warned him it would be. He warned me it must not be. Not with words. With the ever so slight twist of his head, the tiniest quirk of his eyebrow and the briefest flaring of his nostrils.

It could not have been otherwise, nevertheless.

To place me in proximity to his father, whose political opinions are superseded in outrageousness only by his allegiance to certain sports teams. To insist that I sit down to a meal with his harpy mother, who has never considered me worthy. To expect me to play nicely and share my toys with his sister-in-law — the cow who makes it clear she would alter her widow’s status in a split second should he give her an opportunity.

What did he expect? I’m only human. And I did warn him.

They hug him in farewell. Repeatedly. They accent their good-byes with kisses. More than one each. More than two each from the heifer.

No one hugs me. No one presses their lips to my cheek.

I say just that to him as he opens the car door on my side.

He says to content myself. Something will be pressed to my cheek shortly.

I know he does not mean his lips.

I will not beg. I will not cry. I will not plead. I will simply state my case — the truth of the matter.

I wait an appropriate interval once he climbs in, starts the engine and pulls away from the curb outside his family’s home. I judge nicely the length of time I need to lay out the facts.

“They hate me. I don’t know why. Virtually no one else in the world hates me, so the problem must lie with them. You cannot be angry with me when you forced me to spend the afternoon surrounded by people who go out of their way to upset me. I warned you I could not be expected to enjoy their company. But I did tolerate them fairly well. You have to admit that, if you have an ounce of fairness in your soul. I was a perfect lady, right up until your father made that remark about the Cubs. And it was not my fault I could not help your mother with the dishes. You know a greasy water spot on this silk would have ruined it. And as for Carol the Cow, it was time to let her know I’m on to her. We’ve played this game long enough. I simply made sure everybody is aware I won’t tolerate her flirting another minute. It is regrettable about her recent weight gain, but I think she was entirely too sensitive about my mentioning it. But besides all that, I never wanted to go and I was very clear about that. Just because it’s Thanksgiving does not mean I should have to make nice with your relatives. But you insisted. You made me go. I’m sorry it turned out badly. But it is all your fault. It really is.”

We are pulling into our driveway at this point. Timing is everything, I always say.

He opens my door for me. He takes my arm and helps me out. He leads me up the walk. He unlocks the door and stands back to let me go inside. Always the gentleman. Such a quiet gentleman. So quiet, I can hear the butterflies fluttering in my tummy, the gulp caught in my throat, the increasingly frantic rhythm of my heart.

Such a quiet, big, stern gentleman.

I am small. I am noisy. I am in terrible trouble.

He takes off his overcoat, helping me out of mine, and hanging them both in the hall closet. I cannot stand the silence.

“It’s not me,” I say. “It’s you.”

He has one foot on the stair. He turns calmly and looks at me. I understand the look perfectly. It signals that if I fail even slightly in adhering to the script, he will unleash his power to make me doubly regretful.

“It isn’t fair. You knew I couldn’t do it,” I whisper.

How did I fail to consider this moment in my immediate past? How did I miss counting the cost?

I put my foot on the stair next to his. I make myself move upward, even though I know what awaits. He follows so close behind, I can feel his breath on my neck. It is not so hot as a dragon’s breath might be, but that is only because the fire in his system is all flowing to his arm — to his right hand — where it will fan out and find a target. Very soon.

I cannot see well. It is the tears, already arrived. I ordered them not to come. They ignored me. As did the trembling in my legs. And the sob moaning between my lips.

I would undo it all in a moment, take it all back in a split second. But they make me so angry. He knows they make me so angry. It is his fault I ruined the afternoon. But I will be paying the price. How can that be fair?

We stop at the foot of the bed. The only question is how he will tell me to prepare myself and what props he will use to make sure it is a scene I do not forget anytime soon.

I have a hint. I bite my lip to keep from begging. If I begin now, when he is simply unbuckling his wide black leather belt, where will I find myself before it is all over? What will be left for me to express myself with?

He pulls the cowhide free and doubles it over. He lays it on the light blue coverlet, just beyond the footboard with its smooth, curved edge at just the right height. I should know. My body has measured it many times.

I cannot look at him. And so it is a moment before I am aware that he has moved beyond unbottoning the cuffs of his snow-white shirt and is working on the same type closures down the front of the garment.

“I made you go with me,” he says quietly.

I agree, but hesitantly, wondering if such affirmation will make my situation better or worse.

He shrugs out of the shirt and then, before I know it, whips the T-shirt over his head and frees his arms completely. Dear gods, I think. This is going to be very bad. The worst ever.

“They are not the easiest people in the world to love,” he says quietly.

I want to laugh derisively, but I am almost choking with dread and I cannot make a sound.

His hands are at his waist. A button; a zipper. The pants slide down his long legs. He steps out of their puddled existence on the carpet.

I am stunned. I wait in dreadful silence.

“I expected more from you than you could give, else why would you fail me?” he says quietly.

I know the honest answer. But I cannot make myself accept the responsibility. I am in foreign territory and my fears are increasing exponentially.

His thumbs hook in the elastic of his underwear. He skims the garment down in a swift movement that leaves him naked except for the black socks. Then these, too, are stripped away.

I realize he is bare. And I am still clothed.

What can this possibly mean?

“Get the cane,” he says quietly.

Everything in me cries out for mercy. Surely I have not been so wicked. But some part of me knows exactly what I deserve.

And so I turn and make my way to the closet, feeling for the length of smooth, rounded, slightly supple, polished wood that hangs in the farthest corner.

I come back to him, dreading the next command. And the next.

My skin is already reacting. My muscles and nerves are, even now, marshaling themselves for the discipline.

I make myself take the few steps that will bring me back to his side.

He should look vulnerable. He should look faintly ridiculous, standing there naked at the foot of our bed. Instead, he looks beautiful. And strong. And sure.

I want to touch him. Instead, I hold out the cane brimming full of sting.

“Six first, with the cane. Then a dozen with the belt,” he decrees and I hold on to what dignity I can muster by sheer grit, while my mind and heart melt with dread and fear.

“Yes, sir,” I manage to say and reach to raise my skirt and begin the long unveiling.

“Not for you. For me,” he says quietly.

And he bends over the footboard and spaces his open hands a little more than shoulder width apart, sinking them into the soft blue coverlet.

I have no words.

He is so beautiful. Even in this sinner’s position. He is so very beautiful. I cannot imagine a marring of this perfection of skin, muscle and bone, lightly dusted here, heavily furred there. It is as though I have never seen him before, and yet I know each square inch of his flesh perfectly. I simply know it in another context. Never this one. This is my place.

“Begin,” he says. “I will say the numbers, but you must make them count.”

“I can’t,” I whisper.

“You can. Do it.”

I know the voice. I recognize the threat. I am programmed somewhere deep inside to respond, even when I dread the consequences with everything in me.

I step back slightly and make myself measure the cane across his bare flesh. He does not flinch exactly, but a slight tremor passes through his hips.

I suck in air because I have none left inside me, and I draw back the disciplinary rod. It makes contact across the center of the cheeks that await in that full welcoming mode he always insists I offer. The one I struggle with so desperately.

But even I know there is no bite to this cane’s kiss. It is gentle in the extreme.

He does not even bother to look over his shoulder at me, although he has raised his head.

“We will call that a practice,” he says. “Now get serious.”

And so I try again. My arm goes back. I consider a moment and then raise it slightly, realizing I have never seen his arm employed at such a task. I can only guess at the optimal angle. I try to make up for my lack of knowledge with all the power I can put behind it.

There is a snap as the rod bisects his cheeks. He does not enjoy the sensation, although he shakes his head and says, again, that it is not worthy of a count.

Frustrated, I draw back again and cut lower this time, with all the determination I can muster.

He inhales sharply and the muscles in his hips go concave in defense.

I do not know if he counted. I do not care. I drop the cane and fall on my knees beside him, pressing my lips to the flesh I have just marked. I am crying, his name bubbling from a throat ready to sob on his behalf.

His skin is so warm against my face. I cannot believe I have caused him any pain. I lift my arms and encircle his body, pressing my mouth, my moist eyes, my own cheek into the little valley the muscles in his haunch have created.

I feel his hand on my head.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was me. All me. I deserve this,” I sob against the flesh so lightly dusted with soft masculine hair.

He is silent for a moment. Then he turns slightly and lifts me up, drawing me into his arms and kissing away my tears.

“Sometimes ... sometimes it is harder to give than to receive,” he says.

It may be the worst spanking I ever deserved.

A Pointed Cure for the Lie

He was happy.

A sweet breeze came in through the kitchen window, helping dissipate the smell of last night’s Southern-style deep-fried catfish dinner. He allowed himself the feast twice a year, which was as much as his system could tolerate.

The downside to the delectable meal was a stale after-odor of sizzling lard, mixed with a heavy flavoring of bacon grease, but the open window was quickly drawing the smell out, and soon there would be only the memories of his gastronomical satisfaction left behind.

Except, even as he filled the coffee maker with fresh, cool water from the tap, he realized something was not quite right in his world. It took only a moment for the problem to make itself felt. Literally.

Water began to pool around his bare toes; water apparently pouring from the slight crack at the bottom of the lower kitchen cabinet doors.

Next, his eye was drawn to a sink boasting standing grease-filmed water; a sink making ominous gurgling sounds.

He knew the problem, knew because he had encountered it half a dozen times since she came into his life.

He crammed the rubber stopper into the drain to try to hold back the rest of the water he had innocently allowed to run while he filled the coffee maker. Wasteful on his part, he knew at the time, but surely not punishable by the disaster with which he was now faced.

Then, grabbing a roll of paper towels, he eased open the cabinet door and began sopping up the dripping mess.

There was, he knew with a certainty, a dense blockage of cream-colored sludge, flecked with small brown bits of cooked corn meal and pepper flakes, lodged in the elbow of the plumbing and forcing the water coming from above to flow, instead, out the area where the hardware was supposed to connect.

He knew the blockage was there. He knew how it came to be there. He knew what he was going to do about it.

His palm itched.

It was just as he came to the last towel on the roll and was making a grab for whatever cloth replacements he could find to finish the job that he heard her squeak of horror.

“Oo-ooh. What did you do?” Vallie demanded in a vaguely accusatory voice from the kitchen door. Her bare foot had evidently made contact with an errant stream of greasy water whose progress he had failed to halt.

He reminded himself to breathe deeply.

He stood up slowly and turned to face her — sleep-tossled and adorable in one of his T-shirts that barely covered her unmentionables.

Wordlessly, he passed over one of the still-dry kitchen towels. She accepted it with a grimace that told him she didn’t appreciate having her kitchen’s orderliness disrupted or her toes subjected to an unexpected oil bath so early in the morning.

“It seems the sink is stopped up,” he said finally, when he could trust himself to speak calmly.

“But you are going to fix it, aren’t you?” she demanded. “I have friends coming for lunch this afternoon and I can’t manage with a stopped up sink. And you know,” she said, favoring him with one of her little girl smiles, “I would just make a bigger mess of things if I tried to take care of it.”

“Don’t you think you might have done enough already?” he inquired with equanimity.

Her expression was one of complete innocence. So he fed her a hint, hoping she would accept it graciously and spare them both needless additional distress.

“You had K.P. last night. Remember? I cooked. You washed.

Her eyelashes fluttered. But not fast enough to hide the light of understanding he saw flash in them.