Unexpected Consequences (6 page)

Liz glanced from Melania to Jared. “Candi and I will help Melania. Why don’t you go with the boys?”

“Melania?” Jared peered at her.

With everyone staring, she was forced to meet his gaze. Jared’s eyes signaled a silent entreaty, but she ignored it, turning her head to look at Liz. “That’s a good idea.” She latched on to the woman’s suggestion. “Thank you.”

“If you need anything, you know where to find me.” Jared set the platter on the table and touched her shoulder. Warmth seared her flesh through her dress, disturbing in its comfort, and she shied away from it, surreptitiously shrugging off his touch.

Yes, she knew where to find him. If she had anything to say about it, she’d never enter his office again. She didn’t even want to dust in there anymore.

With Liz and Candi’s efficient assistance, the table was cleared with lightning speed and the dishwasher loaded with everything but the china and the crystal. Liz insisted on washing, and as Candi dried, Melania put things away.

She liked the women, enjoyed their company, and with the men gone—especially Jared—it became easier to make conversation, but she still felt like a robot, going through the motions of being sociable. Part of the problem was physical. Her bottom hurt so much, it took enormous concentration to move naturally. She couldn’t remember what natural was. Had she always moved this stiffly? The other problem was mental. Her thoughts were like the shuttlecock in a badminton game: constantly in play, never at rest, always being batted about.

She thought she hid her turmoil pretty well until Liz approached her after the dishes were done. “Forgive me if I’m overstepping my bounds, but you seem a little out of sorts.” Liz fixed a direct but compassionate gaze on her face. “Is there something wrong?”

Melania’s befuddled brain formed the words to insist she was perfectly fine, but when she opened her mouth, she said, “Jared hit me.”

She didn’t mean to phrase it that way—didn’t mean to say it at all—but the harsh-sounding words popped out, and she couldn’t retrieve them. She didn’t know who was more shocked—Liz, Candi, or herself. Silence filled the kitchen.

“What? Where?” Liz spoke first, scrutinizing Melania’s face as if searching for injury.

“Are you okay?” Candi touched her arm.

“Tell me what happened,” Liz said.

“Do you want to sit down?” Candi gestured to a wooden barstool at the counter.

Sit down? God, no. Melania shook her head.

She hardly knew these women, and besides, they were her guests. Revealing her personal humiliation seemed inappropriate, but as they hovered over her, their facial expressions knitted with concern and kindness, the urge to unburden herself proved too great to resist.

Melania bit her lip. Strangely, she didn’t want them to think badly of Jared. “I did something Jared told me not to, and I tried to hide it so he wouldn’t be mad. But he found out.” Tears of pain and shame pricked her eyes. “He hit me. With a paddle.” She omitted how he’d restrained her.

“Where did he hit you?” Liz repeated.

“In his study.”

“I mean where on your anatomy.”

“My…my bottom.” Heat flooded Melania’s face. She felt guilty for not readily admitting she and Jared had a domestic discipline marriage, but she feared people wouldn’t understand. Heck,
she
didn’t understand, and she’d agreed to it. That her husband had thought her behavior warranted correction and had spanked her was embarrassing.

“You mean he
spanked
you?” The tension seemed to leave Liz’s body, and she exchanged an odd glance with Candi.

Melania nodded. “Yes.”

Candi smiled and hugged her. “Oh Mel, that’s what it was. A spanking. Welcome to the club.” She released her and giggled. “That first one always rocks you a little. But it’s one of the ones you remember fondly forever.”

Fondly? Melania’s jaw dropped in shock and confusion, her gaze ping-ponging between the women.

Liz nodded enthusiastically. “I still remember my first spanking more than twenty-five years ago. Otis paddled me the evening before we got married. I had morphed into a bridezilla, and the night before the wedding, he let me know that was unacceptable behavior.” She laughed. “I was the blushing bride, all right, but it wasn’t my face that was rosy!”

Melania could not have heard what she thought she heard. “You’re
both
spanked by your husbands? And you’re okay with it?”

The women nodded.

“It’s that thing we do.” Liz shrugged. “You know that.”

Melania frowned.

“Don’t you?” The older woman narrowed her eyes with concern. “Didn’t you and Jared discuss discipline before you married? He didn’t tell you he’d spank you if he thought you needed it?”

Jared had raised the issue on several occasions. However, Melania had only half listened, more interested in planning the perfect wedding than in discussing something she thought would never happen. And what
adult
woman expected to be spanked? Slowly Melania nodded. “We agreed that he would lead our household and would handle discipline. I was fine with that part. More than fine. That’s what I wanted,” she admitted. That was what she
thought
she had wanted. Now that she had a more complete idea of what was involved, she wasn’t sure.

Melania was aghast at her naïveté. “He did say he might spank me,” she confessed.

Liz looked at her. “Did you think he was kidding?”

“No.” Melania shook her head then lifted her shoulders. “I thought I wouldn’t do anything that he thought would warrant a spanking. Or that it would be more of a pretend thing than real discipline.” She remembered the eroticism of the spanking she’d received the other evening, when they’d made love after going out to dinner. The same evening she’d spotted the damn shoes. “I guess I didn’t think.” She waved her hands.

“But you grew up in a home that practiced domestic discipline.” Candi’s eyes were round with amazement.

“What do you mean?” Melania tensed.

Candi flipped a hand outward. “Well, you know… Your parents have belonged to the Rod and Cane Society forever.”

“So?” Melania shrugged.

The glance Liz and Candi exchanged made Melania feel like she was on the outside of an inside joke. “Melania, what do you think the Rod and Cane Society is?” Liz asked.

Melania shrugged again. “It’s a prestigious fraternal organization.”

“It is a fraternally based organization, that’s true,” Liz agreed, speaking slowly as if choosing her words carefully. “But that’s where the similarity ends. The members of the Rod and Cane Society are men who spank their wives for discipline.”

Melania snapped her head back in shock. The information whirled in her mind like contents in a centrifuge, the ramifications rising to the forefront—Jared’s membership in the Rod and Cane Society…his comment that the wives in the organization could help her…
her parents’ membership
.

Melania’s jaw dropped. “Are you saying my daddy spanks my mother?” Melania’s troubles temporarily fell away, and she gaped at Liz. Memories rewound to the times when her mother emerged quiet and subdued after being summoned to Melania’s father’s den and of her moving gingerly for days afterward.

“Oh my God.” Melania clapped a hand over her mouth. “I had no idea.”

Dazed, Melania shook her head. Why had her parents kept their lifestyle a secret from her? And since they had, why had they introduced her to Jared, a fellow Rod and Cane member? They had to know she would be a spanked wife.

“About the organization or your parents?” Candi asked.

“Either.”

Liz glanced at Candi and nodded. “That’s very common. Domestic discipline is very much in the closet because people are afraid of the reaction they’ll receive from non-spankos. Many parents are either too embarrassed to talk about it with their children or don’t want to risk that their children will accidentally let something slip.” She gestured with open palms. “Some parents simply think it’s an adult practice that is none of their children’s business.”

“But my parents introduced me to Jared! They knew he would spank me. Why not prepare me?”

“Why don’t parents tell their kids about sex? They have to know they’re going to do it someday.” Candi made a face.

“Well, now I know why they wouldn’t answer my questions!” Melania huffed. “Rod and Cane was always revered in our house. But I never knew what it was about. I asked a couple of times, but my parents never gave me a good explanation, always quickly changed the subject.”

“Members sign a confidentiality agreement.” Liz leaned against the counter. “They couldn’t have told you even if they wanted to.”

“But I was only a kid!”

“Exactly,” Liz agreed with a nod. “Kids have a habit of releasing cats from bags. It all comes back to public censure. Keeping mum about the organization assures members of privacy.”

“Are there other organizations like it?” Melania asked.

Liz nodded. “But they’re more like groups of people who are into recreational or erotic spanking. Rod and Cane is the only one I know of that is this formal, with a governing board, bylaws, and specific rules of conduct for members.”

“But it’s a secret,” Melania said.

“It’s private,” Liz said. “We don’t talk about what we do except to…insiders.”

“But what’s to prevent someone from joining and finding out?” Melania asked.

“It’s a closed society,” Candi answered. “Men can join if their fathers were members or if they are invited and sponsored by another member. Women can only join the Auxiliary.”

Melania rested her hands on her hips. “That doesn’t sound fair.”

“The Society reflects the lifestyle and practices of its membership,” Liz said carefully. “These are men who rule their homes with…an open hand.”

Melania didn’t know what was worse: to think she was alone in having been spanked by her husband, or to find out there were many others, but that they thought it was normal and acceptable. Sure, she had thought it was normal and acceptable—but only until she had experienced it.

“You’re really okay with being spanked?” Melania slumped against the counter and stared at the two women.

Candi bobbed her head as if she’d just been asked if she liked chocolate or cheesecake.

“More than okay. We embrace it,” Liz said.

“What right does a husband have to be the spanker while the wife is the spankee? Not everything a man does is perfect. Why does the wife get spanked if she does something wrong, but the husband gets a free ride?” Melania had a clearer picture of domestic discipline now.

“Domestic discipline is consensual. It’s something that is agreed upon in advance by the husband and wife,” Liz said.

I
hadn’t agreed to it, Melania thought with irritation. Well, she had, but she hadn’t known what she was agreeing to.
But whose fault is that?
a little voice inside reminded.

“There aren’t any free rides.” Candi shook her head. “Tucker and I were friends before we became husband and wife, and we’re still friends. But a ship can’t have two captains. When disagreements arise as to what course to take, by the time you vote, hash it out, and come to a decision, you’ve run the ship aground. Spanking is only one small part of a domestic discipline marriage. It also entails love, respect, leadership, and obedience. When Tucker spanks me, it reinforces my respect for him and reasserts his role as head of our home. Delivering a spanking reminds Tucker he’s making decisions for both of us.”

Candi made it sound as if the man bore the heavier burden. Melania wasn’t buying it. “Spanking hurts!” she protested.

Candi giggled. “Like the dickens.” She did a half pivot and slapped her ample, pear-shaped bottom. “And when you have as much junk in the trunk as I do, that’s a lot of aching real estate!”

“If it didn’t hurt, it wouldn’t get your attention, would it?” Liz curved her mouth wryly. “The consequences need to be as great or greater than the infraction, or it has no effect on behavior.”

Melania recalled her initial reaction to the first few light taps and to the evening when Jared had spanked her erotically. Had that been the sum total of the spanking, it would not have deterred her from defying Jared again. Now she could barely sit. She didn’t want to be paddled at all, but couldn’t there be a happy medium between the extremes?

Liz studied Melania’s face. “You don’t look convinced.”

Talk about an understatement. Melania took a breath. “I want Jared to be in charge. I need a strong husband, a man who loves me but who won’t let me take advantage. I want a man who brings out the best in me. But I don’t think I can accept spanking. It’s archaic. Aren’t we independent career women? Why does a man get to spank his wife, but not the other way around?” She gestured forcefully. “Marriage should be a partnership, not a dictatorship.” Melania looked from Liz to Candi.

“Some men
are
spanked by their wives, but that’s not our way—the way of Rod and Cane,” Liz said. “You’re right about marriage being a partnership of equals. But…” She paused. “While men and women are equal in value and worth, we’re different physically and emotionally. We each play distinct roles in a marriage and have needs unique to our sex.”

Liz leaned a hip against the counter. “Melania, you know me as Liz Davenport. That’s my legal, married name. But my maiden name—my professional name—is Elizabeth Alexander.”

“
The
Elizabeth Alexander? The divorce lawyer?” Melania gaped at Liz, unable to connect this kind, calm, elegant woman with the infamous female attorney she’d read about in the media. That woman reportedly had her own set of testicles in addition to those she collected from the ex-husbands of her clients, earning her the moniker “the Bitch with Balls.”

“I’m a huge champion of women’s rights,” Liz said. “Women should have the right to choose what makes them happy and fulfilled—including being on the receiving end of a spanking if that’s what they want. It’s what I want.” Her mouth quirked with humor. “Not always at the moment it occurs, but overall, yes. Furthermore”—she paused, glancing at Candi—“I’ve seen the positive effects on other women who have
chosen
domestic discipline as a lifestyle.”