Finely Disciplined Thoughts (13 page)

The first round is not quite over, however. To help me decide on a cooperative response, he gets my feet moving by the simple method of imagining his new target on my thighs. I hurry toward the stairs, but he matches me, step for step and lick after lick, working his way back up to my deep rosy pink and stinging cheeks as we head up to the bedroom together.

Some part of my mind tells me there is comedic value for an uninvolved bystander as I try both to avoid his unerring aim and explain my point of view.

“Not ... fault,” I gasp. “D-didn’t m-mean ...”

“Really?” he demands, increasing the power behind the smacks. “Exactly what did you mean, trading words no lady would use and descending to some nameless trash-mouth’s level? Whose fault is it that you let your temper get the best of you, missy?”

I am saved from answering, for the moment, by our arrival in our bedroom. I know now where he was being busy while I stood contemplating in the corner.

Two pillows are layered over the railing at the end of the bed. His belt lies, already doubled, beside them. The nasty hairbrush is further up the bed, where he can reach it easily once I am settled over his lap.

I realize the spanks have stopped, at least for the moment, and try to turn toward him to put myself into his arms and plead my case. He is having none of it.

“Bend over,” he orders ominously, and points to the pillows.

There is no “settling” into position. I simply collapse over the cushion that will elevate the target he is looking for and reach frantically to grasp the comforter, since I know I will need to hold on tight or pay the price.

From the corner of my eye, I see him pick up the belt and hear its buckle jingle as he takes a firm grip.

“How many days did you have your say on The Line?” he asks, using his quiet voice again. The contrast to his earlier growl is not a cause for celebration, mind you. Only a very foolish girl would make such an assumption. I have enough experience to know better.

I search my mind frantically for the answer, squeezing my thighs together and knowing my cheeks are clenched as tightly as he will ever allow. Is he asking for information or confirmation? I try hard to remember accurately.

“Th-three,” I offer, finally.

“Three,” he repeats. “Three days of a level eight disobedience. I see that as twenty-four licks. Count them.”

I accept three bands of fire with as much grace as anyone could muster, but after the fourth, which I record in something very close to a shriek, I propel myself forward and farther over the bed rail so my center of gravity is changed, and I kick both feet up toward the twin mounds that he is trying to split in two horizontally. At least it feels that way.

“Feet on the floor. Keep them there. The next time they get in my way, I’ll start over. That goes for your hands, as well, sweetheart.”

He’s never made that threat before, but I believe him. My brain certainly believes him, but my extremities aren’t listening to my brain. They heed only the call of hyper sensitized nerve endings that lie too close to the surface of my rapidly reddening bare bottom. As a result, I end up getting thirty stripes, because the next time I kick – at lick six – I not only fail to obey, but I graze his shin in the process.

I realize my mistake immediately.

“No, no … sor-sorry, H-Hale. … h-help it.” I push myself up enough to turn pitiful eyes on him, but he is unmoved. He has stepped back half a length and is stroking the supple leather gently across his left palm. He is waiting for me to accept what I deserve. He won’t wait long, though, and I know it. I throw myself down again with a sob and drag a handful of comforter toward my face, as though hiding my tears will somehow lessen the sting that births them. I make sure he can hear me, though. “O-one, then,” and it comes out with defiance even before I feel the gawds-awful bite, and I squeeze frantically, rocking as much from side to side as I dare.

He is merciful in that he accepts even my most pitiful attempts to call out the numbers, some of which are practically unintelligible in my misery. He even corrects me kindly once – “It’s twenty-two now, sweetheart. We’ve already done twenty-one” – and I am so grateful I finally give him the torrent of tears he has been working so hard for.

All I can think of is how relieved I am that it is over when he helps me stand, taking my hands firmly in his so I cannot give in to the temptation to self-comfort, and walks me to yet another corner. I am puzzled that he has not hugged me, though. Even if he decrees corner time, Hale always hugs when he is through spanking.

That is when I remember that he is not, in fact, through at all. The consolation is that I am already so full of sting and fire, I believe I cannot possibly hurt any worse. Thank heavens, I think as I bump my forehead softly into the corner, over and over, to distract myself from the blisters I am sure must be rising on my well-basted nether mounds. Thank heavens the she-devil who lured me into my sin cannot see or hear the price I am paying.

He will not take me in his arms yet, but Hale presses a tissue into my fingers and smoothes the damp hair off my face where bitter tears have plastered it. I cry harder, in acknowledgement.

“I’m asking a lot of you, Emma. I know that. I know it is not easy to ignore the terrible things someone is saying about you in public, but you only make it easy for people to believe there is some truth to the things that are said when you fight back with the weapons your enemy chooses. You can best her. You are clearly more intelligent and more articulate, but do you really want to win a filth-slinging contest?”

I know I should agree with him, but the terrible truth is, I don’t care how I win, as long as I grind the faceless “her” in the mud.

My cheeks are clenched in blistered anguish and my jaw is clenched in bitter rage. I know Hale will not leave me like this. He will keep on until he has spanked it right out of me.

He’s done it often enough. You would think I could have learned to let go sooner, even if I could not avoid the initial temptation, but it isn’t a simple matter of recognizing what wins me relief. It is that something deep inside me must finally yield because the physical pain has, at long last, awakened me to the shame of what I have done, and I must be rid of it. That is what the hairbrush is for – to drive me into true repentance so I can find forgiveness and peace in his arms.

He confirms the heavy revelation for me as I shudder-breathe in my pitiful corner. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be, Emma. Let go. She’s not worth it, whoever she is, whatever she says. I hate it when you cry. But I’m prepared to listen to you all night until you’re ready to lay it all down and walk away. Then I’ll help you fight the battle the right way.”

The awful thing is, I know he is as good as his word, but I can yield neither to his threat nor his promise. I can only hurt and know there is more coming until the pain on the outside sweeps the pain on the inside clean out of me.

I don’t know how long he has left me in my place of contemplation. Long enough, clearly, for my body to produce a new torrent of tears, because they begin to stream down my face as soon as he calls me to come to him where he sits on our bed. My backbone stiffens then and I go to meet my fate, foolishly daring him to make me regret what I have done with every thought my body telegraphs.

No, not foolishly. Foolishly does not begin to describe it. Because Hale takes one look at my face and form, reads me perfectly, and adjusts his tactics. I am prepared to go over his lap and to attempt to rip the comforter to shreds again. He turns me, instead, and pulls me down to sit on his thighs, facing the right hand that is gripping the hairbrush. I open my mouth in surprise and feel my body grow a little softer, a little more compliant, even as I frantically seek to take all my weight on my own thighs instead of my poor, punished bottom.

The yielding is a tactical mistake. It makes it far too easy for him to push me backwards so that my head and shoulders and upper back are balanced on the bed, while he scoops my lower legs up, hooks his left arm around me at knee level and forces my legs back enough to give himself completely clear access to the most sensitive part of my lower anatomy – in modified diaper fashion.

This is new territory for me, but I have no trouble figuring out what my reaction to it will be. I am horrified, but there is no way to fight him without risking sliding off the bed and breaking my neck. His strength is all that is keeping me in a safe position – as safe and as completely vulnerable as I have ever been in my life.

I thought I knew the meaning of having my backside set on fire. I only knew the half of it, as it turns out, but I learn the whole lesson before that blazing brush leaves off smacking every last inch of my tender places, with special emphasis on the portions I will have to sit on at some point. I can only hope that will be in a far distant future, because I know, with great certainty, that I can not possibly allow anything to touch me there again for a long while, not even Hale’s breath, which is coming rather heavily as he wrestles me into position with one side of his body and drives out my devils with the other.

Neither of us knows how many smacks I endure before it is all over. Neither of us sees the situation changed by my shrieks or pleas or promises or wriggles or foreshortened kicks. Neither of us leaves off praying for it to be at an end.

And then suddenly, it is. Because whatever bitter thing has taken root in me suddenly comes out on one long, heart-rending sob. It leaves me trembling and limp and leaves Hale scooping me up, hair brush flung aside, to hold me fiercely and yet tenderly in his arms, rocking me gently, uttering soothing little noises, pressing soft kisses into my hair and across my eyelids, and stroking my aching flesh with the hands of an angel wherever he can reach.

All I can feel, all I can know, is peace. Finally. Peace.

I surrender.

Sleep must have claimed me almost instantly once I found my safe haven, because I have no memory of activity between my yielding and my awakening. Hale is still holding me, but he has moved us both to be fully reclining on the bed, freed from our clothing and draped, with a nod to modesty and comfort, by a satiny soft sheet. The first thing I see when I open my eyes are his hands. He has wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him spoon-fashion. His fingers are cradled tenderly around my own, lying just inches from my gaze.

Hale has beautiful hands. Even when they are engaged in forcing me to evaluate my failures, they are so utterly perfect in their mastery. I can trust myself to such perfect, strong, gentle hands.

The fiery pain in my bottom is not so intense, but there is a deep ache I had not been aware of before. I have encountered it often enough in the past to know it will abate. But it will be a while. A lapse of time I will come to number in days, rather than hours, most likely.

I draw a cleansing breath and exhale the last of the tension that has plagued me since I first saw my name writ ugly.

“I love you,” he whispers against my shoulder, sealing it with a kiss.

“Me, too.” I want to snuggle back into the warmth of his body even closer than I already am, but experience tells me that would not be my most physically comfortable option.

“It can be over now,” he says.

I feel something slimy crawling over the skin of my soul. Easy for him to say. I am the one who will be forced to endure in silence until my enemy finds fresh pickings.

He loosens my fingers and moves his left hand to trail, so very, very softly, over the flesh he has subjected to such strict discipline just minutes before.

“The attacks have stopped. Take my word for that, and don’t go to The Line again. There is nothing good for you there.”

“But what if —”

His fingers leave off their sweet ministry and brush my lips instead.

“No ‘what ifs,’ little one. Trust me. It is over, unless you choose to keep it alive. I give you credit for knowing how to bury the whole ugly experience.”

I consider, tears stinging my eyes again. I have been so ill used. How can he expect me to simply trust the evil one will not attack again? How can he expect me to seek forgiveness for my own less-than-perfect response? Because he will. I know he will. Hale does not bother spanking unless he expects me to be truly repentant when he is finished.

I do not want any more of his encouragement to do the right thing. Neither do I want to continue this anonymous battle. But something inside me is still crying out for assurance that I am not bearing the entire burden of this fiasco. Surely it cannot mark me as the villain if I simply crave some assurance my name will not be blackened again and some hint that the suffering has not been mine alone. Surely I have a right to expect some justice.

I entertain the thoughts silently, but Hale hears me.

“There are some battles we can manage alone, sweetheart. There are others it is wiser to let someone else fight for us. And then there are those we have to confront as a team. There was a small window of opportunity for us to decide which approach was best here, but you denied me the chance to show you just how far I will go to protect you and just how hard I will fight to support you. It is not a question of what you are able to do for yourself. The issue is simply this: neither of us stands alone anymore. We are one. We are at our strongest and best together. And when we sever that bond, we are at our weakest, because our hearts begin to mourn the loss and it affects everything we attempt.”

“How do you know it’s over? What makes you so sure she won’t keep on?” I am not quite ready to admit the truth of what he says. I can stand the embarrassment of words unfitly spoken in public. I cannot bear the thought of hurting Hale, even in private. So it is safer for my emotions, just for the moment, to focus on petulance.

He sighs. “Because I know who she is. And I know who has stopped her.”

I am certain he feels me marshal my mental forces for the attack. He heads me off.

“Don’t bother asking. You don’t know her. Neither do I. Your tormentor is nothing but a name attached to boredom and random jealousy. But I do have an image of her I find I rather like considering, unworthy of me though I know it is. It’s one of her puffy, red, teary eyes that seem very sad, with tiny, bitter soap bubbles dripping out of the corners of her nasty little mouth, and her very tender bottom showing off at least a dozen more stripes than yours. Hers is much plumper than yours, too, sweetheart, and not nearly so soft and smooth or loveable. In fact, I feel rather sorry for the poor guy who had to spank her, although he seemed to have found thorough satisfaction in carrying out his responsibility, from the way he described it to me the second time we discussed the issue.”