I spent the morning worrying about the whole thing: I really didn’t want a spanking from Ross, but as soon as I showed him the envelope, I was certain to get one. Certain sure, as they say where I come from. I dithered for ages about whether to tell him or not, and I can’t say I did very much useful work. I believe I’ve mentioned it before: Ross spanks horribly hard. He doesn’t bear grudges, and I’ll admit that there are certain compensations to a sore tail (like the making up that follows it) but while it’s happening I always wonder why in the name of all things I agree to it. I didn’t have to tell him; it wasn’t after all as if my conscience would trouble me on the subject.
But I love Ross desperately. Frantically. My time with Ross hasn’t at all been like my time with Vic. I know now that I could never have lived long term with Vic, our break-up was inevitable, but Ross and I have something permanent. And if the cost of not arguing is the occasional smarting behind, well, it’s better than the rows we sometimes overhear from the married couple next door. And even if Ross is pissed off with me, if I can explain why I did whatever it was that he didn’t like, he lets it go. He isn’t trying to run my life for me; I get a spanking when I’ve done something that hurts him, not for doing something that the rest of the world would disapprove of (except when I do something rankly dangerous on the motorbike). He’s my lover, and although I get my butt walloped when I’m out of line, I don’t think you would call him my Top. I don’t think I’ve ever had a spanking that I hadn’t asked for one way or another, although you needn’t tell Ross I said so – I regularly announce that it isn’t fair. Not that it does me a lot of good.
Anyway, I worried about telling him from breakfast until coffee time, and in the end I simply said to myself: Get a grip, make a decision, yes or no, which is going to make the day better? Answer, yes, because if no, you’ll spend the afternoon and evening worrying about whether you should simply have gone ahead and done it. So yes. Now, stop thinking about it. As if I can ever stop thinking about the spanking I’m going to get until I’ve got it.
Ross was at work all morning – early shift, six until midday. I’m regularly grateful that I’m self-employed, because it simply means that I work the same shifts that he does, and then unless some bird-brained publisher (of which there seems to be a scandalous number) comes up with some equally bird-brained scheme to do with A-level texts, we can have some decent time together. Or even some indecent time, for which I must say I am developing a decided taste. Ross is so relaxed about being out, that I’m becoming more relaxed about it myself, and he’s so comfortably physical that I’m becoming less physically inhibited too. I do things with Ross quite happily that I refused to do with Vic, or that it simply never occurred to me to try.
He came home for a late lunch, which I had ready for him, although I was so nervous that I can’t say I ate very much of it. Every so often he would glance across the table at me and frown suspiciously, and I would force down a bit more – I really didn’t want to start him off on asking what was wrong too early. He gets a bit snappy when he’s hungry: he seems to be very finely balanced for blood sugar, possibly because he’s so active, and I definitely didn’t want him to be in a bad temper before I started my little confession. A spanking was one thing, but there have been a couple of times when I’ve had a hiding to remember and I didn’t want this to be one of them. Not today. Not now.
He finished his lunch, and we made coffee and took it into the garden. Ross wandered up and down the path while he drank his, and talked about the plants, and about some plan he’s been making with Spike to change the layout, and I said “Yes” at intervals. And in the end Ross came back to me, took my half empty coffee cup from me and went inside to leave both the cups by the sink. Then he came out again, took me by the hand and led me back into the kitchen. He gave me a gentle shove, to drop me back on a chair, and leaned against the edge of the table.
“Well, Jerry? What have you done that you’re so anxious not to tell me?”
“What makes you think I’ve done anything?”
“Oh, come on, mate. You were staring into space and your eyes were crossing. I said that we were going to weed out all the gypsophila and plant opium poppies, and all you said was “whatever you and Spike think”. I know you aren’t interested in the garden, but you do generally notice if I suggest something actually illegal. Where were you? Not here with me.”
I looked sheepish. “No, I suppose not.”
“Well? What is it? Some disaster that I should know about, or something you’ve done that you know I won’t like?”
I gave in. I had walked myself right to the edge, so there was nothing to do except shut my eyes and step forward. Then it’s easy: down all the way to the bottom. I chose my words carefully.
“This was in my coat pocket this morning.” And I pulled out the envelope and pushed it across the table in his direction. He picked it up, frowning.
“Credit card payment? What about it?”
“It isn’t the payment on my card. It’s yours.”
“Mine?”
“It’s the one you gave me last month.”
“You forgot to post it?”
“It was in my pocket this morning.”
“Jerry, it’s not like you to forget something like that. You’re usually much more organised about that sort of thing than I am.”
I didn’t have a very satisfactory answer to that one, so I simply shrugged, keeping my eyes on the table.
“Hell, it was the big payment, wasn’t it? It’s the one that has the insurance for the bike on it. That’s going to cost. Where’s the statement?”
“Here, probably. In the pile of stuff that we haven’t got round to filing yet.”
It was. Ross’s face darkened as he looked at it. “I’ve missed the due date. It won’t go through in time even if I send it today. Fee for non-payment £25, and estimated interest another £7. £32 for carelessness, Jerry.”
I shrugged. “What can I say?”
“You can say ‘I’m on my way upstairs, Ross, I’ll have found the hairbrush by the time you come up’.”
Bugger. I had rather hoped that he wouldn’t have felt the need to make use of the hairbrush. It’s a large hairbrush, wooden, and it stings worse than Ross’s palm, which stings quite enough for my liking.
I trailed upstairs, miserably. Sore bottom coming. Well, not exactly a surprise, and it wouldn’t take very long, that was one comfort. Actually, it wasn’t a comfort. It’s the sort of thing that I find myself saying when I’ve got a tanning due, but it’s supremely unhelpful. Find the hairbrush, Jerry. I wondered vaguely about the possibilities of flicking the damn thing out of the window and saying I couldn’t find it, or hiding it, or simply denying that we had ever owned a hairbrush, but I couldn’t see myself getting away with it. Or more likely, Ross would just take me shopping for a new one, and add an hour’s fear to whatever I was feeling right now. Just find the hairbrush, Jerry. Sit on the bed, put the hairbrush down beside you, don’t look at it.
He didn’t keep me waiting long. He never does, actually. Usually I just go straight over his knee, but if he’s very pissed off he does make me wait. I don’t think I’ve ever waited more than ten minutes, though it feels like hours. He looked so damn big when he stopped in the doorway, although he isn’t actually any taller than me, despite being broader. And, unfortunately, stronger.
He sat down beside me and I trembled, and he saw that. His arms closed hard round me, and he pulled me to his chest, and I hid my face in his neck. He smelled of soap and something indefinable but distinctly Ross – warm healthy male, I suppose. His face came down against me, and I felt the warmth of his breath against my skin.
“All right?” he asked, gently. I nodded. I’m not afraid of Ross. I’m afraid of what he’s going to do, but not of him. He’s never given me more than I could bear, although a couple of times I’ve felt it was close.
“Up you get.”
I rose, stiffly, and turned to let him unfasten my belt and button. My zip stuck, and he struggled with it for a moment, before it gave way, and he slid my jeans down my thighs, and my briefs after them. He leaned in and kissed my stomach gently. “Come on. Down you go.”
I stretched out across his lap, head to the carpet, legs trailing, bottom lifted. He stroked me and I felt the movement of him lifting the brush, and I cringed a little, but he stroked me again, and I relaxed, rather consciously.
“Thirty-two spanks for thirty-two pounds, Jerry.”
Bugger again. I had been hoping to get away with two dozen.
SMACK! Do you know, one of the things I hate about that brush is how loud it is, applied to the rear. SMACK! And the other thing is frankly how much it hurts. That was two. Only thirty more. But my God, they hurt! He’s viciously accurate – he can land three on exactly the same spot, or move half an inch each time so that it combines the ghastly sting of repetition with the clean edge of a new place. He has learned – remember, he had never spanked anybody before he met me, and I don’t believe he has ever spanked anybody else – he has learned all about precisely where I would prefer a smack not to land. Like low down where the skin seems to be much more tender than it is higher up. And he can wait while I squirm – I always do, no matter what I say to myself about this time being different – and then catch me just on the inside of the thigh in the split second in which the target is available to him.
He laid on thirty-two crisp, sharp, noisy, accurate spanks, and I gasped through a dozen, yelped through eight or ten more, and squealed for the rest. It hurt, and when he stopped, I was trying not to struggle. I panted with relief when he shifted to let me up, and fell at once into his embrace. I desperately needed the hug. He wriggled across the bed to let me turn onto my face, and pushed an arm under me, and then pulled me to his shoulder. I was still gasping, and he stroked my hair and my face until I was a little recovered, and then came down to kiss me. Now that was good. He kisses most beautifully, and I opened my mouth and tongued his lower lip, and felt his amusement.
“Oh, Jerry. What am I going to do with you?”
So I told him. He gave a little squeak of surprise – like I said, I’m a quiet, inhibited type, and this was a sentence involving words that I don’t generally use, and which I’m not writing down. I said them to Ross, but I’m not repeating them to you.
“Good grief. In the middle of the day?”
“Now. This instant.”
“Well! I can certainly think of worse ways to pass the afternoon. But what’s in it for me?”
So I told him that too.
“Go for it. Be my guest. Or do you want me to beg?”
“Well, a little begging wouldn’t go amiss.”
“Oh, pleeeeeeeeease, Jerry. . .”
I can’t resist being begged. I don’t know anybody who can. I fought clear of my jeans, and my shirt, and then began to undress Ross, quite slowly, and giving a great deal of attention to everything as I uncovered it. He has terrifically sensitive nipples, and it’s an absolute joy to spend some time on them. And he likes it too. I made him writhe, and when I bit him, he bucked under me. Then I blew on the wet spot, while pinching the other one, and he made a most unusual noise in his throat, and bucked again. I knelt up over him, and reached for the bottle, and let him see me with the gel.
“Where are you going with that?”
“Here. Eventually. After I’ve been here. And here. And possibly also here.”
“What’s got into you?”
“Nothing yet, but presently I rather hope that this will. Although possibly not until after I’ve been here.”
I think he thought I had taken leave of my senses, but I tongued a nipple some more, and he seemed to stop caring. I slid down his body and felt him tremble, and then I slid a slick finger between his cheeks and opened my mouth at the same time, and he gave a sort of choking growl, and nothing more was said for quite a long time, except such minor felicities as “yes” and “again” and “more”. Oh, and “please”. There was quite a lot of “please”. He has beautiful manners, my lover. It was the second finger that did for him, that and what I was doing with my tongue at the time. He actually whooped, and convulsed, and made it quite plain that the combination was satisfactory. Quite plain.
He lay and panted for some time, and I propped myself on my elbow and watched him, and then he opened his eyes and pulled me down for another kiss. “That was quite something, you know? I didn’t know you could do that.”
“Neither did I,” I confessed.
“Listen, you don’t have to. I know you don’t like to do it for long, and. . .”
“Well, I’m working on it.” He looked worried, so I kissed him again. “Ross, trust me to know my own mind. I won’t do anything I really don’t want to. But I don’t mind trying things occasionally to see if I might have been wrong about not doing them, or to see if they’re just things I can get used to.”
“Just promise that you won’t feel that you have to do anything.”
“Promise. I never feel that. Hell, there’s gel everywhere. I think I must have knocked over the bottle. Let me get a cloth. Don’t move.”
I got both of us to a state approximating to clean, and then the doorbell rang. Nothing like it to puncture the moment, is there? We lay still and listened, but it rang again.
“I’ll go, I’ll get rid of whoever it is, you stay there and I’ll be back in a minute.”
He came back up with a handful of post, including a parcel. Since the Post Office stopped second post, which we didn’t have anyway, the first, i.e. only post comes any time between one and five. He flicked through the letters without opening them, glanced at the parcel (“my mum”) and stopped at the last envelope.
“Credit card statement.”
I wriggled across the bed. “Leave it, Ross, come down here. . .”
He grinned at me. “Hey, come on. I never punish you twice for the same thing. It’s safe to let me open it.”
Um, no, I didn’t think so. I hadn’t expected the blasted thing for another twenty-four hours. The whole thing was about to come down round my ears. Triple bugger.
“Jerry? I don’t understand this. The account was paid on the 15th, in full. So what was in that envelope?”
“The cheque.”
“Well, if the cheque is on the kitchen table, how did the account get paid?”
“By internet. I paid it over the internet.”
“You paid it? From your account?”
“Um. . . no. From yours. You aren’t nearly careful enough, Ross. I’ve known your magic numbers for nearly six months, and I know your password, too.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I don’t understand. Explain to me, very slowly, and as far as possible in monosyllables, what you did and why.”
“I paid the bill over the internet, and then I put the cheque in my pocket and left it there.”
“Why? I’ve just given you a spanking that you didn’t deserve. Why didn’t you tell me that you didn’t deserve it?”
“Because then you wouldn’t have given it to me.”
He was beginning to look hunted. “Are you telling me that you wanted me to spank you? Because you’ve always let me think that you didn’t. I mean, if you do, I’ll be happy to oblige, but. . .”
“No, I don’t. I didn’t. But I knew that you would want to.”
“Jerry, if you don’t stop arsing around and tell me what the hell is going on, I’ll bloody do it again, and you’ll be sorry, believe me.”
I sighed. “I hoped not to have to explain this to you until tomorrow. No, I don’t want to be spanked, not for fun, although I’ll take one when I’ve deserved it. But I know that you like doing it. And I also know that you won’t do it just for fun because you think it would be your fun, not mine. And I knew that you would want to do it today, but that you would feel you couldn’t without cause, so I just gave you cause.”
“You lied to me.”
“Actually, I didn’t. I said nothing that wasn’t the precise truth. It just wasn’t all of the truth.”
“You said you hadn’t paid the bill.”
“No, you said that. I said that the cheque was in my pocket, which was true.”
“Jesuitry.”
“Yes. I’ll admit to that. But it wasn’t serious.”
“Just so that I could spank you with a clear conscience?”
“Yes.”
“Jerry, you’re crazy. It doesn’t work like that. Now I feel bad because you’ve had an undeserved spanking.”
“Well, don’t think of it as being undeserved. Say it was for Jesuitry. Or for interfering with your accounts on the internet. It was a gift for you, that’s all, and then the sodding postman made it backfire.”
“A gift?”
“Yes. As far as my own pleasure is concerned, I don’t want a spanking, but I don’t mind occasionally – very occasionally – taking a mild, and I do mean mild, spanking because you like it. And because I love you.”
His eyes filled – I was really taken aback by that. And then he was all over me, and it was my turn to gasp and writhe, and believe me I did both. He spent ages stroking and kissing all the skin that was still red, and soothing a couple of rising bruises, and he found somewhere to kiss that I definitely wouldn’t have permitted a month ago (only now I’m rather anxious for him to do it again). And I ended up on my back with a pillow under my sore bum, getting absolutely everything that he could think of, and as slowly as he could manage, which is the way I like it.
“Ross?” I gasped. I got a questioning grunt in reply.
“Happy birthday.”
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©
,
2005