Straight Ahead

She looked straight ahead, as she always did after he’d bared her bottom and pulled her waist tight.

She would undo her belt and undo the button, pause just a moment to swallow the sawdust, lower the zipper and let the pants crumple.

If they were very nice slacks with smooth satin linings, they would slip silently to her ankles. She would wait for him to nod. She would push each low-heeled pump against the front of the opposite shin, wobble a bit if she were thinking less of balance than backside, kick each shoe in turn toward the center of the room. She would shake each foot and step forward, waiting quietly then while he folded the tailored slacks neatly and laid them on the stack of unfinished Newsweeks and perhaps the Sunday Arts and Entertainment section or a Vanity Fair.

If they were blue jeans – maybe corduroys in late October – they would slump to her knees and that would be that. No need to fuss over Old Navy denims.

The occasional mid-calf skirt could be left where it fell; she would simply step out of it when she bent forward and lowered herself onto his lap. If it dangled still from one of her heels, she would kick it off before settling into place with her bottom just so over his right thigh. That was where her bottom should be.

He had pushed her forward once with two fingers slipped firmly between her legs, before she learned, before she knew. She had craned her neck – hoping to see where he’d placed her, to see how it looked to be readied for the first time, to quell the quivering lips and the pounding chest.

Her eyes had popped open at that first loud CRACK!, winced when the next came before she was ready. Soon she had peered again across her shoulder – straining to see through the first bit of water how she could not break free, how there could not be flames at the peaks of her twisting backside, how there was nothing now in all the world but the blazing pain that filled her being.

But now she knew to look straight ahead. She would lean forward across the sturdy chair that was always of the same size and proportion. Now that she had learned after several trips across this lap to snack on carrots, to tone her muscles three times weekly, to respect the gift that God had given – now she too was always of the same size and proportion. When she lowered herself quietly onto his lap, she settled effortlessly now – with her breasts past his thigh and her toes off the floor and her bottom up high where her bottom should be.

Tonight it was slacks that slithered straight down to her ankles in the dusky evening cool, that goose-bumped the peach fuzz down the backs of her thighs, that brought the reminder to greet their friends warmly – as though her bottom were not sore and smoldering from being spanked sharply within the hour, as though she had not thrashed about as she always did, as though they too had lingered over the last glass of Syrah and pressed their purple lips together. They would still go off to the movies after he told her calmly about the promise she had broken, the poor judgment she had used. They would have to see a different movie, maybe half an hour later, but still they would go.

He froze her in place with a finger raised to his lips, speed-dialed the couple who were to be inconvenienced, asked if they could catch the 9:30 instead. She would sit for two hours on a freshly-spanked bottom and wonder if they suspected yet that she had stood with her slacks at her ankles, that she had lain herself effortlessly into her familiar place, that she had looked straight ahead with a quivering lip and a pounding chest and a knowing dread that belied her composure.

Would they catch her forced smile or notice the telltale fidgeting? Would one of them guess that he had slipped his fingers into the waistband of her taught cotton hipsters, that he had pushed them past the outward slope of her upturned tush, that he had let them slump as he always did – just past the smooth lower curve, half-inverted at the faint crease just above her thighs, the white liner still in place at her perfumed crotch?

When he nodded, she bent forward and settled herself as she always did – just so, with her breasts past his thigh and her toes off the floor and her bottom up high where her bottom should be. There had been times early on when she had tried in vain to pull away, but now she knew and took her place and settled down softly without any trouble.

She looked straight ahead – taking in the familiar view that by now was enough to prompt the lips to quiver, the breathing to quicken, the chest to thump and thump and thump – but otherwise indifferent to the fingers that found the top of her cleft, to the slight jiggle as the waistband snapped at the concave creases, to the superfluous emergence of his cock against her belly.

He had known as soon as he came home – as she had known he would, despite or perhaps because of the breath mints and mouthwash.

She’d been drinking at the office party, hadn’t she? Hadn’t they talked about risky behavior? Surely she knew how she was with a buzz on – a bit too free with secrets, a bit too prone to unwelcome frankness. How could she imagine that this was different from weaving through traffic at 30 over the limit? Wasn’t that just last week? Hadn’t it been barely seven days since he had last warmed her bottom for unnecessary risk-taking?

She was much too smart not to see the connection.

Much too smart to require further explanation.

“Yes,” she sniffed, gazing off vacantly at the coffee table and the candles and the knickknacks, all she would see through watery eyes when there was nothing but blazing pain in all the world to fill her being.

Now he would start. She looked straight ahead. Now he would start. There would be a first rude CRACK! then the next and the next…

She hadn’t felt him reach to his right after he’d peeled back those panties and snapped the taught waistband into the concave creases.

She hadn’t heard him slide open the drawer just below the unfinished Newsweeks and the Sunday Arts and the Vanity Fair, hadn’t noticed anything different while she looked straight ahead and waited…

Now her eyes popped open. The cool polished wood gently kissed the skin at the upturned crest of her well-toned bottom.

She knew at once: it was of course the horrid oval hairbrush he had tapped against her outstretched palms – “I don’t want to have to use this”, to which she would readily have agreed to anything – the fearsome instrument that would straighten out her twisted logic, ingrain the forgotten promises, teach her at last the grand unforgettable lesson.

“No!” she blurted.

“Oh yes, it’s high time.”

“Please?” She craned her neck, straining to look into his eyes.

“I’m s-sorry….” Could she at least see the thing that would crackle into the delicate flesh of her upturned rear, SMACK! ’til she thrashed about hysterically, SMACK! ’til the pain filled her being, SMACK! SMACK! SMACK! ’til she could not breathe?

She felt the brush come off her bottom.

They did, of course, go to the movies. She passed two excruciating hours on a swollen red bottom, sure she had not looked straight ahead.

She would never look straight ahead.

All she needed to know was in the other direction.