Party Lines (4 page)

Lindsay
didn’t have time to process the indignity of the situation. The building pain
in her bottom as he applied his punishing hand over and over on the seat of her
blue skirt. The fabric was pulled tight against her backside, but it was little
protection against the volley of smacks that had her first crying out in pain.
And no matter how hard she struggled, Lindsay could not escape, and would not
until finally after what seemed like an eternity he let her go.

Lindsay
stood and backed up rapidly, pain and shock still in her tear-brimmed eyes.

“How
could you?” she asked. “How
could
 
you
, when I’ve done nothing to deserve it?”

They
were both quiet for a moment, Lindsay because she didn’t know what else to say
and Ron because he was genuinely surprised at her reaction. He’d expected
threats of police and lawsuits when he’d let her go. But instead, she’d said
something he’d never figured he’d hear. “How could you when I’ve done nothing
to deserve it.”

And
then when he looked at her, he knew. And she knew he knew. And it was hard to
say who felt worse.

Lindsay
leaned against the control panel, quite by accident and the elevator began its
descent once more.

“Lindsay.”
Ron stepped towards her, wanting suddenly to tell her that she was right, he
had no right. But she looked away with hurt in her eyes, and embarrassment. She
looked so small, so defeated and he wanted to take her and pull her to him and
hold her in his arms. But then the doors opened and she walked out into the
lobby.

“Lindsay!”
he called again, but she didn’t even look back as she walked out of the
building and into the pouring rain.

Chapter
Three

Ron
ran after her, and grabbed for the cab door just as she shut it. As the cab
pulled away, Lindsay looked back and his heart twisted again when he saw the
look of pained confusion still etched on her pretty face.

For
several long minutes he stood in the rain, watching the cab wind through the
street and disappear around the corner.

Ron
Sharp had always known he was a dominant man. Not just dominant in his approach
to business and life, but also in his personal relationships. And his dominant
streak was more than just the chauvinistic “Me-Tarzan-You-Jane” attitude his
ex-wife had so often accused him of. Ron Sharp was also a confirmed spanker,
not because he liked to hurt women but because he had always thought the answer
to many of the problems plaguing modern relationships could be solved to
upending the female over the male knee.

Ron
had thought this before he’d given his wife the spanking that had – at
least temporarily – put their marriage back on track. He’d thought it
before he’d even gotten married. Hell, he couldn’t remember when he hadn’t
thought that.

It
was an odd inclination, he knew, and not something he touted not even in
conservative circles unless it was done in a joking manner. As much as he’d
like to think real old-fashioned values existed, he knew that few men these
days thought like he did, and fewer women.

A
woman who would acquiesce to a genuine disciplinary spanking
were
few and far between. In fact, he’d given up finding one since his wife had left
him. After their initial spanking, there had been others. The most memorable
was one he’d given her had been after she’d gone out one night with friends and
neglected to call home to tell him where she was.

Despite
being a dominant husband, during his marriage Ron wasn’t particularly
officious. In fact, he had relatively few rules in his household. But what
rules he had he expected Tina to obey. And one of the top rules was that –
because they had a child – when a spouse was out they were required to be
accessible by phone, and to leave an itinerary.

Ron
had understood why his wife had wanted to get away, unfettered, for a girl’s
night out. He was not a jealous man by any stretch of the imagination and had
never called to check up on her. But when Brian began to run a fever he felt
concerned enough to let Tina know what was going on. An hour of calls later –
to her phone, to her friend Megan’s phone, to the restaurant where Tina had
told them they’d be going – he was worried and more than a little bit
angry. What if Brian got worse? Sure, he was more than capable of handling his
son’s fever, but as it got higher he continued to try and reach her without
success.

By
the time Tina came walking in at one-thirty in the morning, she was still
slightly tipsy from her Girls’ Night Out - tipsy enough in fact to announce
that she was a grown woman who didn’t have to let her husband know whether she
was every moment. Children got fevers, she said, and she didn’t call him every
time Brian got sick so why should he?

Ron
immediately saw all the hallmarks of her girlfriends’ influence in his wife’s
comments. And he wasn’t about to put up with it. Sitting down on the couch, he
pulled her over his knee and raised the blue silk skirt she was wearing without
explanation or preamble. Neither was needed, after all. Tina knew exactly why
she was being spanked and immediately dissolved into a flood of apologies that
grew more frantic when she felt the bikini panties skimming over her upturned
cheeks and lowered to the middle of her thighs.

But
it was to get worse because Ron was reaching into the drawer of the little
table behind the couch, fishing for the thick acrylic ruler he’d purchased
specifically for the purposes of correcting Tina.

Tina
whimpered as she looked over her shoulder and saw him removing it from the
drawer. But he didn’t use it right away. Instead he decided to redden her a bit
first with his hand so when the ruler was finally applied it would get her
attention in the most effective way.

“No,
Ronnie. Don’t!”

Ronnie.
He smirked. She called him that when she was feeling frisky or wanted
something. But pet names weren’t going to stop him from doing what needed to be
done. Taking aim at her round white bottom, he brought his hand down with a
stinging slap on the left cheek, and – unfazed by her little cry of pain –
began alternating spanks from left buttock to right until her whole bottom was
glowing rosy red.

Tina
was squirming now and – sensing that the ruler was imminent –
launched into the Promising Phase of her predicament. She promised to be good,
promised to answer her cell phone from then on, promised to call him even. By
the time the overlaid the rosy blush already on her bottom with the first angry
dusky stripe from the ruler she was promising never to leave the house again.

But
Ron knew better and sensed correctly that Tina would say anything to keep from
getting what she’d practically asked for by ignoring him for all those hours
while she was out partying with her gal pals. So he continued unflagging in his
assault on her bottom, and accelerated the punishment with snappy blows to the
lower part of her bum, assuring that she’d not sit comfortably for several
days.

Tina
continued to kick and cry, but it was only after the last of the promises
degenerated into almost infantile bawls and the defiance drained from her body
that Ron stopped. For long moments she lay over his lap, defeated, while he
rubbed her well-punished bottom.

When
he stood her up, she was still shaky whether it was from the booze or the
emotional trauma of the spanking he could not tell. So he picked her up,
dropped a kiss on the top of her forehead and carried her upstairs to their
room.

“Can
I check on Brian?” she asked tearfully, her voice full of regret.

“No,”
he said, laying her down on her stomach. “I’ll do it. You stay put.” Tina didn’t
move a muscle.

Ron
went into his son’s room and pressed the back of his hand against the sleeping
child’s forehead. His temperature was close to normal now and his breathing
even and steady. Good.

He
went back into his bedroom and looked at Tina. She was
laying
on her belly, the panties still bunched around her smooth, shapely thighs. Her
skirt was halfway up, revealing her cherry red bottom. Ron could hear her
sniffling pitifully.

He
walked over and turned her so she was cradled in his arms.

“Don’t
ever do that again,” he said. “Understand?”

“Yes
sir,” she said. Her voice was soft, submissive and yielding. And the moment was
perfect when she gently offered her lips for a kiss.

Ron
normally didn’t make love to his wife after a spanking but sometimes…well, he
just couldn’t help himself, especially when she offered herself to him so
sweetly. So they made love, and later in the dark Ron would reflect on how well
spanking worked on every level. Part catharsis, part aphrodisiac that simple
old-fashioned act cleaned the slate of sin and despite the
tears,
he knew Tina would wake the next morning with a smile and without a mention of
her sore bum. Throughout the day he would catch her – here and there-
rubbing at a sore spot and he’d recall the moment with an odd mixture of pride,
regret and excitement.

 It
would be several more years before he admitted that his old-fashioned
disciplinary remedy went beyond correction. It was, he knew, also his fetish.
But he didn’t see it as unhealthy and figured there were probably quite a few
dominant men out there who felt the same way he did about the practicality and
excitement of spanking a deserving female bottom. The trick was finding a woman
who felt the same way he did. He thought he had that with Tina until she went
back to work and began to express feelings of guilt for having ever allowed him
to “do that” to her. She seemed embarrassed at how well the system had worked
for them, as if she’d been part of something unnatural and unwholesome.

For
his part, Ron never felt spanking was anything but natural and wholesome and in
the end ended up counting his blessings. Tina hadn’t used their exercise in
discipline as ammo during the divorce proceedings. Ron was sure it was partly
because she knew she’d consented and didn’t want to explain it but also because
she was embarrassed that word of it might leak out if the filing ever became
public.

So
Ron was left alone and feared he’d never find a woman whose innate
submissiveness complemented his natural dominance.
Until this
day.

He’d
botched it, and badly. He closed his eyes and turned his face up to the rain,
envisioning the way Lindsay had looked at him, how she’d questioned why she was
getting a spanking she didn’t deserve. And he knew, somehow just knew that
despite her job, despite who she was working for, despite her defense of
feminism Lindsay Martin was exactly what he was looking for – a
submissive woman who wanted just what he had to offer.

The
trick now was to find a way to make her trust him.

***

She
couldn’t face anyone. Not right now. Trying to keep her voice sounding normal,
Lindsay left Clara Faircloth a hurried message about how she’d come down with a
bug and was going straight home. Clara immediately returned the call,
congratulating Lindsay on her performance against Ron Sharp and urging her to
call should she need anything at all.

Lindsay
listened to Clara’s words on her voicemail. She was still so rattled she couldn’t
answer the phone, couldn’t hold a conversation. She could barely give the
cabbie directions, and only murmured ‘yes’ when he looked in his rearview
mirror and spoke to her.

“Aren’t
you the gal who’s running the Faircloth campaign?”

At
her apartment building Lindsay got out and gave the cabbie twice the fare,
ignoring his calls that she wait for the change. She didn’t even bother to put
up the umbrella to shield her from the rain that continued to pour and ignored
the concerned look of the doorman as she shot past, dripping rain and tears as
she made for the elevator.

Her
apartment was dark and quiet and for a few moments she stood in the foyer,
breathing heavily with her back against the closed door.

After
a few moments she walked down the hall into her bedroom, leaving her coat,
umbrella and briefcase where she uncharacteristically dropped them by the door.

She
turned the lights on in her room and blinked at the brightness before walking
over and drawing the blinds. The sky was still dark and stormy, befitting her
mood.

Lindsay
walked over to the cheval mirror by her bed and turned. Looking over her
shoulder she took a ragged breath as she raised her skirt and lowered her
panties. Her bottom was still red and when she looked closely she could see the
faint imprints left by Ron Sharp’s hand.

With
a cry of anguish she hurriedly pulled her panties up and dropped her skirt,
whirling to face herself in the mirror. For a minute she stood there and stared
at her reflection, feeling a torrent of rage well within her.