Embraced (4 page)

Meg put out fixins for everyone to make their own sliced meat sandwiches while he went to change into something more casual.

The minute her brother arrived, Mandy began acting nervous. She dropped a whole jar of pickles on the floor, and

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Carolyn Faulkner

managed to make her paper napkin into her sandwich. Barrett didn’t seem to notice how his younger sister was behaving, but Meg surely did. Mandy actually jumped when Barrett ducked into the kitchen where they were cleaning up and said in a strong, deep voice, “Amanda, you and I have something to discuss in my office.” The way he emphasized “discuss” and Mandy’s obvious skittishness and reluctance in following him down the hall, Meg surmised that the discussion was going to take place between the palm of Barrett’s hand and the swell of Mandy’s butt. Apparently, the jig was up.

Meg was conflicted. Part of her wanted to run in there and rescue her friend from a humiliating, painful punishment. Part of her wanted to be a fly on the wall. Glancing toward the office every once in a while, half hoping she’d hear something, half praying she wouldn’t, Meg went about preparing tonight’s dinner –

meatloaf. When it was done, she stuck the uncooked loaf in the fridge to cook later, but she was so antsy she had to get out of the house. Grabbing her latest book – a lurid, soft-core romance novel

– she and Butchie, who had taken up residence in the kitchen as soon as he realized that’s the room the food came from, went to swing on the glider on the far end of the veranda, hoping to lose herself in the engaging plot line.

It was a while later when Barrett came through the door.

He didn’t see her as he stopped to light a cigar, but she saw plenty in the grim set of his mouth. He crunched an old, worn Stetson onto his head and stomped off, burning rubber as he roared out of the driveway. Hypocrite, Meg thought. Wasn’t that what Mandy just got her bottom blistered over? At least he hadn’t looked like he’d enjoyed it any. Good. He should feel guilty about punishing his sister that way. She was a grown adult. So what if she got the occasional ticket – it wasn’t like she’d gotten caught selling drugs, for Pete’s sake.

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Embraced

Meg didn’t know if Mandy was going to want a sympathetic shoulder, but she figured she’d make the offer, anyway. Mandy could always tell her to get lost. As she neared her friend’s door, she could already hear deep, heartfelt sobs. A soft knock. “Mand? Are you ok?”

The sobbing quieted to a large extent. “Yeah - I’ll be fine if I can just have my butt surgically removed –“

“Okaaaaaaaay.” Meg was worried. “Can I come in?” She wanted to see with her own eyes that her friend was all right.

Loud sniffles greeted that suggestion, but then a soft, “Uh-huh.”

She opened the door to see her best friend lying on her ivory and green wrought iron canopied bed – butt up, of course.

There certainly were no outward signs of abuse. Meg sat gingerly on the side of the bed. “Are you sure you’re ok?” she repeated.

Mandy turned and looked at Meg for the first time. Her eyes were so puffy from crying they were almost swollen shut.

“Oh, Manda, I’m so sorry!” Tears came to Meagan’s eyes, also, as she felt partially responsible for Mandy’s punishment. “Do you want to talk about it?” Meg offered, not really knowing if she wanted to hear or not.

Amanda snorted. “What’s there to talk about? I told you I knew what he’d do, and I was right – he gave me 87 spanks on my bare butt! Do you know how humiliating it is to be put over your brother’s lap bare-bottomed like a five-year-old? And – “ she was beginning to sob again “ – he m-made me count e-each one –“

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Carolyn Faulkner

While trying to soothe her friend by rubbing her back, Meg suggested, “Did he give you a chance to explain why you got the ticket?”

Rolling carefully onto her side to face her friend, Mandy drew a halting breath. “He always gives me time to talk and explain to him, unless it’s something immediate like sassing him when I was younger, or using foul language. I’ve had my butt smacked in every grocery store in Carverton! With something like this, it’s not like he jumps me when I come in the door. Barrett’s not like that.” She proceeded to recount to Meg what happened.

Mandy followed her brother’s broad shoulders into his sanctuary. She didn’t like the room much, probably because she spent most of her time there over his lap watering the flowers in the carpet pattern with her tears as he rained blistering smacks down onto her defenseless bottom.

They took their accustomed seats, side by side on the comfortable black leather couch. The ritual had been long established. He always listened patiently to her side of the situation first. Barrett’s big beefy hand dwarfed hers in a gentle hold. In a deliberately calm, quiet voice, he asked, “So tell me why you thought it was necessary to go 25 miles-per-hour over the speed limit on a two lane, country road?”

Mandy had to hand it to him. There was no trace of sarcasm in his voice. If she’d been racing to the hospital, sick, or had even a somewhat reasonable excuse, he’d’ve listened and probably let her off with a stern lecture. Unfortunately for her, it really wasn’t a matter of life and death that she get home to keep her best friend from making a fool of herself over her brother.

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Embraced

She couldn’t meet his eyes until his fingers lifted her chin.

Tears were already trailing down her cheeks. “I- I just wanted to get home to g-greet Meg.”

Barrett enfolded her in a big bear hug and let her cry for a moment within the comforting strength of his arms. The emotion in his voice rumbled through his chest, “And I just want you to get home in one piece. We’ve been through this before, not very long ago, either. It’s been less than six months, hasn’t it?” She nodded her head in shame. “Amanda, I couldn’t bear it if I lost you – or any of my siblings. It would kill me. Maybe that’s why I’ve been so hard on all of you, and why I’m not about to go easy on you now.” He rubbed her back gently, then got up, placing the well-used straight-backed oak chair in the middle of the floor. Mandy was still on the couch, biting her lip, as if waiting for her cue. He stretched out his hand, palm up, saying firmly, “Come here.”

Manda got up to place her trembling hand in his.

He sat down while she reluctantly unbuttoned and removed her jeans and panties in a familiar downward motion, lying across the muscular trunks of his legs. A large paw covered the entire of her bottom, end to end. The softness of the words belied the terror they evoked in her. “I think we’ll keep the ‘one-stroke-per-dollar-of-fine’ rule.”

*
WHACK!
*

And the spanking commenced.

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Carolyn Faulkner

eg gulped convulsively, lost in her friend’s story.

She almost felt as if she was the one bare-Mbottomed and vulnerable over the big man’s lap.

Amanda’s voice broke as she remembered the unrelenting, burning pain that accompanied each loud *SPANK* of that callused palm on her tender bottom. “It was awful. And he never let up, not once. If I miss a stroke it doesn’t count, so I probably got closer to 100.”

“Oh, Mandy, that’s terrible!” On second thought, she didn’t
want
to be on the receiving end of that man’s discipline . . . would she?

“And he scolded me through the whole thing, saying I ought to be more responsible and that if I behaved like a thoughtless, selfish little girl I was going to be punished like one.

When he was done, he- he threatened to take away my car if I get another ticket within a year!” Amanda threw herself into Meg’s arms.

Lead-foot Amanda obey the speed limit? It didn’t bear thinking of. “Oooooh, you’ll have to be really careful, won’t you?”

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Embraced

“I couldn’t l-live without my c-car, Meagan!” she fairly wailed. That threat seemed to be bothering her more than the spanking itself. If it had been Meg on the receiving end, it would have been the exact opposite.

“I’m sure he didn’t mean it,” Meg said soothingly, but that only seemed to agitate her further.

Mandy pulled away from Meg. “Oh, no. Barrett means what he says. He was deadly serious. He always is about punishments.” She sighed, rubbing away tears with the backs of her hands in a way that made her seem very little girlish. “I think the worst part is having Barrett mad at me, though. He didn’t even hug me when he was done; he just told me to go take a nap. He must be really angry.”

After a short cry on Meagan’s shoulder, Mandy decided to do as her brother ordered, exhausted not only physically from the punishment but emotionally, as well. It was as if Barrett had known that. He probably did from years of experience paddling butts. Meg tucked her in, then decided to continue reading on the veranda. As she set the dog on her lap, and picked up her book, she mulled over what she’d learned about Mandy and her relationship with her older brother. Obviously, Mandy loved her brother, and Meagan had known that. They were an extremely close family.

But Meg wondered if it Barrett could really love Amanda as much as he said he did and still punish her so severely? Wasn’t that a dichotomy? To love someone but cause them physical pain?

It was too much for her to answer without asking either of them a whole lot of embarrassing questions, so she applied herself to the novel in her hands. She became so lost in the sexy plot about a dashing, dark haired, brawny pirate and a red-haired, saucy maiden that he was standing next to her, blocking the sun and glowering down at her before she noticed he was there.

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Carolyn Faulkner

“You wanna learn about horses?” Short and not so sweet.

Meg nodded, not very sure of her reception when he was in this dark mood. He didn’t say another word, just walked away.

She hurriedly trotted after him, and got to spend most of the afternoon with him around her favorite animals, in a clean, open barn that smelled of horses and leather. Surly and sullen as he was, he was an excellent teacher, firm and kind with both her and the horse. But conversational, he wasn’t.

“When do I get to ride?” Meg piped up, while helping him groom the beautiful palomino.

“You don’t.” He was putting away some of the horses’

tack.

“Huh? Then why am I out here?”

The look he gave her made her truly wish she hadn’t asked.

“You’ll get into the saddle when you know how to take care of the horse properly before and after the ride, as well as saddle and bridle him yourself, and not before.”

“Ok.” He stared at her for a moment as if expecting her to argue with him or throw some sort of tantrum, but she simply continued to work on the snarls in Sugar’s mane. Never one to know when to shut up, though, she asked, “I’m going to ask you the same question I asked your sister, are you all right?”

Barrett hesitated just as he was hefting a big Western saddle onto a sawhorse. “All right?”

“Yeah. Are you ok?”

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Embraced

“I’m fine. Has Mandy been crying on your shoulder?” he asked abruptly eyeing her with that piercing, dominant he-man gaze.

“I just made sure she was ok.”

“She got what she deserved. A warm fanny is a small price to pay when she could really have been hurt if she’d had an accident coming home.”

“Mmmmm.”

“What does that mean?” He took the currycomb out of her hand and faced her.

“It means just what it says, ‘mmmmmm’.”

“Uh-huh. I don’t particularly care what you think of my disciplinary methods, Ms. O’Reilly. They work. All three of my siblings are basically responsible, hard working, educated people.

And that’s because I occasionally reminded them of their responsibilities, their chores, and their education by applying my hand to their butts. It worked, and I make no apologies for it.”

“I never asked you to. I have no right to demand explanations from you. I’m your sister’s best friend, and practically the hired help.” Speaking of which, Meg thought of the meatloaf in the fridge. “Am I done here? I need to get dinner started.”

“Yes,” came the curt reply.

“Thank

you.”

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Carolyn Faulkner

Barrett watched her go as he rechecked her work grooming the horse. She’d done a good job. And he’d let his unhappiness at having to punish Mandy overflow into showing her some attitude she really hadn’t asked for. “Huh,” he mused. It’d been a long time since someone had asked
him
how he was. Kinda startled him. He was usually the one asking how his family was.

Interesting, and nice, he decided.

He entered the kitchen just as she was popping the food into the pre-heated oven, and it was at that moment that a sleepy-eyed Amanda appeared, yawning. She stopped in her tracks when she saw Barrett, hesitating, but then a warm smiled melted over his face and he held his arms out to his younger sister. “C’mere, baby,” he coaxed, and Mandy practically ran into his embrace.

Barrett lifted his not-so-little-girl off the ground with a bear hug, rocking her gently in his arms, and Mandy soaked up the attention like a moth to flame. “I love you, Manda-Panda,” he said gruffly, not caring who heard.

“I love you, too, Bear.”

Feeling like an intruder, Meg left discreetly through the dining room and headed up to her room to write. Writing always calmed her roiling emotions, and the events of the day had certainly set her nerves on edge. It wasn’t very long before there was a loud rap on her door.

“Yes?”

Barrett stood in the entrance to her room, filling the entire space with his tall, muscular body. His tanned hands were jammed into his jeans pockets. “We’re going to watch a the latest Star Trek movie on video – wanna watch?”