Tables Turned.

Paul subconsciously chewed at his thumbnail; proof enough of his nervousness and a bad habit in times of stress.  He sat at the dining room table glancing occasionally out of the window and down the street, wondering what time Grace would make it home.  The table was set with two places, candles, best china and Paul had taken care to dress tidily; Grace was a bit of a stickler about dressing for dinner and not slopping about in sweatpants.  He hoped that seeing him in some smart dress pants and a shirt and tie would put her in a good mood.

All afternoon he had been dreading this moment, knowing that a row was in the offing.  He knew he shouldn’t have done it, he knew it when he organised it, he knew it when it was being done and he certainly knew it when it was all over and finished and he couldn’t understand why on earth he had gone through with it.  Grace had made it clear that they couldn’t afford a new dining room suite just yet and that it would be more prudent to wait until the New Year’s Sales to begin before they thought of changing the one they had.

But Paul had been unable to resist the walnut table and matching chairs that went with it when he saw it 3 weeks ago in a local antique shop.  He had only intended to ask the woman in the shop if there was a chance of retaining it until the sales were on. 

Perhaps it was the sneer-like smile that the woman gave him along with her comment of ‘Oh no, Sir, I’m afraid that’s impossible.  This is the only one that we have and it cannot be reserved’  that had made Paul cave in and place a deposit on it there and then.   

One thousand nine hundred pounds for an antique table and chairs wasn’t expensive… was it?  Not considering the quality of the wood and the way that it would perfectly compliment the rest of the furniture in the house… it really was a golden opportunity.  In which case, why hadn’t Paul explained all this to Grace?  In fact, why hadn’t he even mentioned that he had gone ahead and bought the table without her knowledge, let alone her permission to spend their money in this fashion? 

Well . . . that wasn’t quite right . . . he didn’t feel that he had to ask her permission for things, theirs wasn’t that sort of relationship.  Their decisions were normally taken jointly after discussing whatever it was, thoroughly.

Sometimes Paul would see Grace’s point of view and change his opinion and sometimes it was the other way round and Paul had always in the past considered himself lucky that this was so. And he understood why she had said no – he did have something of a habit of scouring antique shops and bringing home things that were beyond their budget but that he had been unable to resist and he had agreed with her on this occasion that they couldn’t afford new furniture just yet.  He’d agreed with her!  Knowing that, he still went ahead and ordered it weeks later.  More importantly, it wasn’t the first time he had done something similar but it had been on smaller purchases or decisions so Grace tended to purse her lips at him and huff a bit.  She was good at not nagging.

They didn’t have what could be called a volatile relationship, they hardly ever rowed really but it was very frustrating for him when they did.  Recently Grace would maintain what could otherwise be called a ‘dignified silence’ whenever she was annoyed with Paul.  It wasn’t sulking because that wasn’t in her nature but she would show her displeasure with him by being singularly unforthcoming when it came to conversation.

The silences were becoming more and more regular and that was something that Paul couldn’t bear.  Paul knew that he wasn’t happy with the status quo of things but he at least knew why and he knew that it was his fault but he got the impression that Grace wasn’t that happy either and he worried that that was his fault as well.

Very often when they were together watching tv or eating, he would turn round to find her looking at him as if trying to work something out.  Or maybe to work up the courage to speak.  He knew all about that particular dilemma.

  

However, Paul was fervently hoping that this was going to be one of those occasions that Grace decided to go with her dignified silences although he had the feeling that it wasn’t going to be so.  Instinct told him that he might have gone a bit too far this time and this was going to result in a full blown argument.

As he mused on this point, his hand stroked the top of the table that, although was aesthetically pleasing to him, no longer held his attention.  His mind had wandered back to the woman in the shop who had sold him the table.  Well, she had kind of pushed him into it really.  He had been dithering – it really was a quality piece and as an amateur furniture restorer he appreciated the work that had been done on it already – and telling himself that if he just waited, something similar would come along and he could restore it himself and not pay over the odds for it.    

The woman could see his quandary but instead of giving him any sort of guidance or help, she had more or less bullied him into making the purchase.  Implying that it was too expensive for him – well, it was really but she didn’t know that, suggesting that he might need to get his wife’s permission first, that he could get in trouble if he made the purchase on his own, asking if he were allowed to make such big decisions without consulting her.  Everything she said goaded him to be more and more reckless. 

The only thing she had said that was good was also something very odd.  She had asked him to stand next to the table to see if he felt that it really was right for him – her claim being that such old furniture had its own essence and history and personality – and he would get a feel for it and it for him if he was touching it.  Brushing up against it really.  She practically manhandled him to stand flush against the table top, his groin being pressured by the edge as it sat just above his pubic bone. 

Then she had ‘tripped’ and fell quite heavily against his back, pushing him forward to such an extent that he was bent over the table and her hand was holding him down as she used his body to lever herself – infinitesimally slowly it seemed to him – into an upright position.  Before he was able to unfold himself, she had told him cryptically that the table fitted him very well but when he arose and turned to ask her what she meant, she had already moved off to return seconds later with her order book, a Sold sticker and an enigmatic smile on her face. 

Paul was so flustered that he agreed to the purchase all the while reliving those few brief moments that he’d had when he had experienced what it felt like to be bent over a table with a woman’s hand holding him in his place.

His place.  Yes, well, that was a whole can of worms.

His mind had wandered to his relationship with Grace.  He did love her, he really did, but there were times when he wished that she was more. . . definite?   Uncompromising?   That was an odd thing to wish for in a wife, he knew that but it was what he craved.

She could be stern; he’d seen her do it with her family when she’d intervened in their numerous squabbles to keep the peace.  It wasn’t so much that she really was stern with them, more so that they were shocked into silence by her raised voice.  As if they knew that, even though her anger wasn’t real, the fact that she felt she had to ‘take charge’ meant that things had gone far enough.  That was normally enough to bring them all back to their senses and Paul could sit in the aftermath, embrace the small thrill that ran through him and wish things were different.  Ah well, if wishes were horses. .

Well, if wishes were horses, at least he could complain of being saddlesore.  If Grace ever knew about the things that he looked at secretly on their computer!  She must never know though.  Those deep, dark secrets were for him alone and he wouldn’t let them sully his marriage by even trying to find their way out of the recesses of his mind.  Oh, how he dreamed though. 

Paul had been fighting it for a long time now but he really had no option other than to admit that he was a pervert.  Not a pervert in the sense of illegal activities, just maybe too kinky for surburbia.  He couldn’t imagine that in the smallish town they lived in there were other people like him – that sort of thing went on in the big cities.  In the big cities, men were spanked and thrashed and dominated and no-one turned a blind eye.  Well, okay, maybe it wasn’t quite that blasé but it had to be more the norm than it was here where he and Grace had lived for the last 7 years since their wedding.  Seven years – what was it they said about the 7 year itch?  This was more than an itch.  This was an overpowering, compelling, gripping, all-consuming need.

Paul was brought back to the present by the click of the front door shutting as his wife arrived home and he shot to his feet flustered that he hadn’t had time to fully prepare himself mentally for her arrival. 

Grace found him standing in the dining room frozen in fright, planted in front of the table as if to hide it.

Paul was surprised to see a steely look in her eyes already as she walked slowly into the dining room, dropped the bags she was carrying on the sideboard, and stepping round him, looked at the gleaming table that stood there.  She slowly turned her head towards Paul and raised one eyebrow in question which caused a sense of guilt to sweep over him.

“Care to explain?” she asked in an unyielding tone than he had never heard her use before.

Paul managed to stutter a “U-um…” before his throat dried up.  He took a deep breath, gathered forces and weakly offered  “It’s our new dining table… er… it was on special offer you see…” before all thought of further excuses were swept away.  He gave a hopeful smile, which wasn’t returned.

“Special offer?  Really?  I thought we’d agreed to wait until the New Year’s Sales before we decided on what we were going to buy?” asked Grace in what, with hindsight, seemed a deceptively mild voice.

“I-I know, but. . . well, it really was too good to pass up… considering the quality. . . it has a parquet middle leaf. . . don’t see them often. . .” he trailed off as Grace interrupted him.

“How much?” she asked. 

“How much?” she queried again when he didn’t answer.

Paul bit his lower lip before mumbling “One thousand, nine hundred. . .”

With great restraint Grace took a deep breath and said “You spent nigh on two thousand pounds on a table and six chairs?  . . . and why exactly did you buy six chairs when you know that we had agreed on four  There are only two of us and we hardly ever have more than two guests to dinner at a time… and on the occasions that we do, we have two extra chairs in the study that are perfectly usable!”  Grace’s voice became more severe with each phrase until it seemed to drip from her with frozen disregard.

He offered a timid, “They came as a set . . . it has extra leafs . . . and it had to be all or nothing,”  hoping that she accepted this excuse.

After staring at him for what seemed like an eternity, she announced, “Well, you can ring the shop tomorrow and get them to come and take it back – it’s not stopping.”

“I can’t do that!” wailed Paul in panic.  He had no idea whether the shop would accept it back but no way was he going to face up to that woman and admit that his wife had demanded that he return it.

“T-they said there was no return on it,” he lied feebly. 

*******

Paul knew that he was the type of person that other people sniggered over when they read about them in the Sunday tabloids being caught in some compromising position. There would be innuendos and finger pointing and snide comments about being caught with his pants down. It was this fear of discovery and of public shaming that stopped him doing anything other than fantasise in private.

 

Even if he didn't go to a 'professional' and did eventually screw up the courage to tell Grace, no doubt she'd be disgusted and leave him and then it would all come out anyway. His friends and family would find out and he'd be a pariah.

No, much better to keep things as they were and suffer in silence.  How ironic, he thought to himself; not the sort of suffering he so desperately wanted.

*******

“So then, the famous table is ours!  Well, it certainly is beautiful, I'll give you that.”

“What do you mean, famous?  I don't understand,” responded Paul.

“Then I’ll explain.  Your problem, Paul, is that you don't listen.  You don't pay attention to what you're told and then when it all falls down around your ears, you're surprised.”

“Do you remember me telling you three months ago to not buy the same cell phone as me?  No, you don't have to answer, I know you remember because you agreed with me and then you went out and bought it anyway and then hid it from me for two days.  You do remember that, don’t you?  Can you remember why I told you not to buy the same phone as me?  I told you that you'd be better off getting either a different model or at least a different colour but you insisted that you wanted that one.  I told you that we'd get them confused.  That one day we'd end up going to work with the wrong phone.  You remember me telling you that, don't you, Paul?  You remember me telling you that there could be dire consequences if that happened?  Of course, I was thinking about the business side of things, about not having all my contacts available or missing some vital information I needed for a meeting.  I believe I mentioned that as a possibility, didn't I?  So, where was I, oh, yes, phones.”  Grace stopped talking and looked at him quizzically.  “Where is your phone, Paul?”

“My phone?  Um, I'm not sure. .?  In my jacket pocket I think.”

“Maybe in your jacket pocket?  Ok, why don't you fetch it and we can confirm that’s where it is.”

Paul practically scuttled from the room still at a loss over what their phones had to do with the new table and chairs.

He re-entered the room with the phone in his hand and a puzzled look on his face.

“Erm, it's run out of battery and I can't restart it now.  I don't understand, I know I charged it last night and I don't know why my PIN number isn't working.”

“Ah, that would be because it isn't your phone, it's mine.  When I asked you this morning to pass me my phone, you gave me yours and kept mine.  I had been planning to charge it at work because I knew it was low.  Luckily, as it powered down completely my clients resorted to phoning the land line once they couldn't get though.”

“Oh,” replied Paul, still looking at the phone in his hand in puzzlement. “So. . . ?”

“So, the woman from the shop phoned you this morning to ask you if the delivery had gone well as she said her delivery people had reported back that you looked a bit nervous.  Well, strictly speaking, she phoned me, didn't she?”  This last was said with mockery, a tone he wasn’t used to hearing from his wife.

“Ah.”

“Yes, indeed.  Ah!  It turns out that she was fairly surprised that I was fairly surprised to find out that I had bought some furniture.  I wasn’t at all happy, Paul.  I hope you realise that.  I was forced to admit to a perfect stranger that I had no knowledge whatsoever of what my husband was up to when my back was turned.  How do you think that made me feel, Paul?  A bit miffed perhaps?  Slightly cross?  Annoyed?  Fractious?  Out of sorts?  How about somewhat angry?  No, I have it. . . how about Bloody Furious?  And embarrassed.”

Paul hadn’t moved from his spot next to the table – he was beyond words and although his mouth was dry with dread, a tingle ran through him every time her voice rose an octave and every time she gave him a piercing glare.  He watched as she took a deep breathe through her nose and slowly release it as she tried to bring herself back from the brink.

“Mind you, I found her very sympathetic to the cause when I ranted over the phone to her about how inconsiderate you were.  About how we had talked about this and that I had told you that we couldn't buy anything like this just yet.  Do you know what she said to that, Paul?”

Paul slowly shook his head in negation.  He was dying to flee the room but was like a hare caught in headlights - unable to move a muscle.

“Well, she kind of laughed drily and said 'how very disobedient of you’.  She said that she thought you looked like the disobedient type and that if her sub had done anything like that . . . and then she trailed off the conversation right there.”

Paul looked like he had been struck by a lorry.  He was absolutely horrified by what Grace had just told him but a part of him couldn’t help but get a thrill from it.  He didn’t want his wife to know about this part of his psyche but he felt just a little bit pleased that something in him had been recognised by that woman in the shop.

 

‘That was why she bent him over the table’ he thought to himself.  ‘

“Paul . . . why does Juliana think you're the disobedient type?”

Paul was still trying to get his head around the truth behind what happened at the shop and regretting that he hadn’t known; that he could have, maybe, done something to prolong the experience.  It had lasted only about five seconds but they had been five glorious seconds.

“Please don’t make me repeat myself.  Why does Juliana think you’re disobedient?”

Something about what his wife was asking him penetrated his lust addled brain.

“Er, who’s Juliana?” he asked in a daze.

“Juliana, my dear, is the woman from the shop.  She’s the woman who sold you the table and chairs.  She’s the woman who bent you over the table and told you that it fitted you perfectly.  You do remember her, don’t you?”

Paul nodded dumbly.

“She’s the woman who asked you if you shouldn’t consult me before buying.  She’s the woman to whom you admitted that yes, it really was too much money but that you couldn’t resist, that you’d find a way to get round me later on.  She’s the woman who knew, just by looking at you, that you were doing something you shouldn’t be.”

“Um, I didn’t know that you knew her. . .?” Paul trailed off not knowing what else to say.

“Well, I didn’t this morning, but I do now.”

“What do you mean?” he queried.

“I mean that Juliana could tell how angry I was about what you had done that she invited me along to her shop – she’s the owner, by the way – to discuss the matter and to see what solution we could find.”

“I ended up not going back to work and I had a very enlightening afternoon with her.  She even closed the shop and we sat and talked for hours.  Do you want to know what we talked about?”

Paul actually didn’t want to know what they talked about; he was too aghast to even think of what they may have talked about.  He shook his head in the vain hope that Grace didn’t tell him.

Grace ignored him.

“We talked about you.  We talked about what possible reason you might have for having done what you did.  We talked about what you were hoping this purchase would elicit.  We also talked about the history on our computer and all those websites that you’ve been visiting for the last 8 months.  Oh, what. . .?  You thought I didn’t know about those?  You thought I didn’t know about you wanting to be dominated and wanting me to do all those things to you?  Well, I’m assuming here that you want me to do them to you.  Have I got that wrong, Paul?  Is it me or are you looking for someone else to dominate you?”  Grace’s voice cracked somewhat on this so she obviously wasn’t so calm and collected as she first appeared.

“No.  I mean, yes.  No, I mean it is you and I don’t want anyone else.  You’re the only one I’ve ever wanted.” 

He crossed a mental finger at the small white lie over the fantasies he had had about almost any woman he saw who he thought had that certain something about them, that looked like they wouldn’t stand for any nonsense.  Those were stupid flights of fancy that lasted no longer than it took for the woman to pass from his view.  He’d never really had a serious desire to act out any of his kinks with anyone other than Grace.  Except.  Well, that was to be expected.  The woman from the shop, Juliana, was the only woman to have ever touched him in that manner so it had to be normal for him to use her face during those moments he allowed himself to wank over a favourite fantasy scene.

“OK then. So. . . you’ve got a little spanking kink. . . so what?  I’m sure half the neighbours round here have something like that or worse going on.  I know for a fact that the man with the ginger hair two streets over likes to wear women’s clothes, I’ve seen him out early in the morning when he thinks no one else is about and I happen to leave to catch the early train.”

Paul knew who she was talking about and frankly, he was a bit shocked.  He was an older man and was always out walking his dog and he seemed so . . . normal?

“Are you sure?  It could have been his wife.”

Grace tutted at him.  “One, he’s not married.  Two, even if he was, his wife wouldn’t physically look like him and have the same coloured stubble and three, I saw him backlit against the sun and he’d obviously never considered how sunlight can pass through a flimsy skirt.”

Paul looked askew at her.

“Paul, when he wears a dress he doesn’t wear underwear.  Of any sort.  Think of Princess Diana and work it out.”

They both looked at each other for a second or two and Paul couldn’t help the nervous bubble of laughter that escaped him.

Grace was the first to bring herself under control and let the moment pass.  She turned away from him and walked to the window and surveyed the street, hugging herself in comfort.  Who knew what secrets lay behind so many closed doors?

 

She steeled herself to continue, a lot rested on tonight, not least her marriage and any chance of future happiness for them both.

“I’ve been waiting for you to bring it up.  Even in a joke or as a drunken comment one night.  Any kind of mention that would give us the opportunity to discuss it.  But you haven’t.  You’ve let it fester and grow inside you until you’ve closed yourself down and you’ve shut me out.  That hurts, Paul.”  At this point she turned to face him but kept her distance.

“You think I’m so closed minded that I wouldn’t even consider going along with what you wanted. . .?  That’s insulting to me and to our relationship.  You’ve been living a lie this past year and you’ve made me live one too and I don’t know if I can forgive you for that.”

At those words, Paul collapsed into the nearest chair and hid his face in his hands.  He was aghast at what he had done and tears were rapidly forming over the idea that he had brought about the end of his marriage.

She let him think the worst; he deserved some castigation of the mind as well.

“Is that really what you want, Paul?  You want me to dominate you?  To spank you and fuck you?  You need to explain it to me and you need to ask me to do it.  This can’t be my decision; it’s not something that I can impose on you, not this first time.   This one time, you need to ask me.  Because I’m angry, Paul.  I’m very angry.  And there’s nothing more that I’d like right now than to hurt you.  The problem is that I still love you and I think if I gave in to my anger I’d hurt you in the wrong way and I don’t want that.  So I’m willing to do all that you want, but the first part of your punishment is that you have to talk to me.  You’ve kept this secret long enough and it’s time to let it go.  Once you’ve done that, we can move on.”

It took about five minutes for Paul to stop crying.  He didn’t even know why he was crying but he supposed it was the cursed stress relief that was mentioned so often on the sites he visited.  The day had finally come and he hadn’t even had to have the courage to bring up the subject himself.  His own stupidity had led to this.  To being served on a platter the opportunity to get it all out in the open without a sense of ridicule and humiliation attached.  He owed it to Grace to at least try so he opened his mouth and told her.

He told her everything, about it being all about control, how he needed at times to let go of responsibilities, how he needed permission to put down his worries and hand them over, even if just for an hour or so, so that his mind was open to think clearly.  How he needed to be free of decision making when he was stressed.  That he needed to feel cared for, and loved and looked after, even if that care and love came in the form of restrictions or physical discipline.  That to him, a spanking meant that someone was concerned enough about him to bring him back into line, to make him get the most from himself.  He also explained that the idea of it turned him on, that it spoke to his libido on a level that couldn’t be put into words.

He stumbled over trying to explain to her what pegging was and why he wanted it.  Physically it was exciting, his body was just built that way and it was no less exciting emotionally either.  He couldn’t give her a clinical, scientific reason why he wanted what he wanted but he tried to tell her about the thrill it produced in him.  About how it was all theory at the moment, that he had never actually done anything and he knew there was the possibility that he wouldn’t like the reality but that even not liking it and being forced to submit had its own appeal. 

At the end of his speech, a silence filled the room.  ‘At least she hadn’t walked out in disgust,’ he thought to himself.  That was something to be thankful for.

Grace cleared her throat and spoke as casually as she could manage so he couldn’t see how affected she was by what he had said.  He had laid his soul bare before her and it had been a privilege to witness it but he looked defeated now.  His shoulders were slumped and he sat at that damn table as though life itself was over.

“Well, I suppose it’s similar to how I like my feet being touched and you don’t.  Some people do and some people don’t.”  She didn’t really want to bring levity into a moment like this but finding the right note was a hard call and if the truth were known, she didn’t really understand his desire.

“Yeah, I suppose so” responded Paul with a small huff of self-ridicule.

Grace braced her shoulders and walked towards him, stopped at his feet and waited until he lifted his head to look at her, red-eyed and unhappy.

“So now we move on, yes?” she asked holding her head firm and daring him contradict her.

“Yes . . ?”  He wasn’t exactly sure how they were meant to do that but he was willing to agree to whatever she wanted from him.

“Stand up then.”

Paul stumbled to his feet wondering what was going to happen next and was mesmerised as he watched her begin to undo the waist of this trousers.  Once she had lowered the zip, she let go and they fell to the ground as though anxious to get out of the way.  Still Paul didn’t move, all he did was look down at his state of undress and wonder if he were hallucinating.

Grace hooked her fingers into his briefs either side of his hips and ran her fingers slowly back and forth from front to back.

“These as well?” she asked him.

She took his audible gulp as the answer she had been waiting for and slid her hands inside to push down his hips, taking the material with him.  He’d been right about the whole thing being sexually exciting to him; there was an obstruction in the front of his briefs that caught on the material and delayed its descent.   Once past the growing barrier, they too beat a hasty retreat to his ankles.

“Move over here and stand beside the table, Paul.  No, right up against it, facing it.  You fell in love with it. . .? let’s see if you still feel the same way.  Bend over.”

Oh.  Dear.  God.  The words.  How Paul had been dreaming of hearing those words from his wife.  Without the slightest thought of not complying, he shuffled where she led him and slowly bent forward and laid himself across the top of the table – even now he couldn’t help but admire the smoothness of the wood, which he thought suddenly was going to come in very handy as there would be no splinters.  And a certain part of him was already rubbing itself against the underside of the leaf he was currently splayed across.  Thank God for quality.

Grace then moved away and he heard the sound of the heavy curtains being drawn across the windows, not only making the room more intimate and private but also preventing any passer-by getting a glimpse of him in this position.  Small mercies – he didn’t want to be the talk of the neighbourhood and he’d been so caught up in what had happened that he hadn’t taken into account the uncovered windows when he’d allowed her to undress him from the waist down and put him over the tabletop.

“Don’t move a muscle, I’ll be right back” upon which instruction Grace turned and left the room, leaving Paul alone with his thoughts.

‘Why didn’t he get up?  She had pulled the door to and he had also heard her climb their stairs –one of the treads about half way up had a squeak that he had been meaning to fix for ages – so he knew not only that she had gone up, he would know when she was coming down and he would have ample time to get back into place.  So, why did he stay where he was?

Because although he felt a bit silly bent over with his trousers round his ankles, he felt strangely at peace.  Also, the frisson of shame he felt at his predicament added to the excitement.

He wondered what Grace was going to do. . . he wondered what she knew how to do!  How much of an idea could she have got during an afternoon chat with this Juliana woman. . . He guessed that he was about to find out as he heard her descend.  No, he wasn’t ready yet, she had rushed it.  His fear suddenly spiked at what was about to happen and his body stiffened as she re-entered the room.

Grace walked forward and stood behind him.  He started as she laid a hand on his back.  It wasn’t heavy and it wasn’t holding him down but he couldn’t have moved if he had wanted to.  He was held in place by a joint sense of submission and anticipation.  Even the apprehension was something to be enjoyed.

“Well, Juliana was wrong about one thing and right about another.  You haven’t moved, so you can’t be as disobedient as she said you were.”

Paul didn’t remember the events quite how Juliana had apparently related them to his wife but he was hardly in a position to argue his innocence.

 

All he did was give an involuntary squirm which caused Grace to laugh.

“But she was right in that the table fits you.  It fits you perfectly.”

For some reason this nonsensical approval gave him chills.

“Okay, down to business.  I hope you’re comfortable Paul because you’re going to be in that position for a long, long time.”

Paul’s last sensible thought was whether or not he had turned the gas down on the casserole bubbling away in the kitchen.

“This is for the disrespect you’ve shown me in our personal relationship.  We’re a couple, Paul, we do things together.  We share!  We learn and we grow. . . together!  If you have some secret little kink that you like to think about and fantasise about in some corner of your mind, that’s fine, I don’t expect to know all your secrets.  But this isn’t something that you could keep tucked away.  This bled out into our everyday life and it altered it.  You’ve been withdrawn, rude, antagonistic, sullen.  You’ve been punishing me emotionally for not giving you what you wanted without telling me what it was you wanted.  Do you know how I found out about your Internet searches . . .?  I thought you were having an affair so I looked to see if I could find any clues.  I was convinced that I would find emails or messages to another woman; that you were on the point of leaving me.  That’s what you brought me to Paul, with your inability to talk to me, to trust me with this.”

As Grace’s voice cracked, Paul’s body shook with emotion at how very near he had come to ruining his marriage.

“So, this is going to be my revenge.  Or your punishment for making me feel like that.  It doesn’t matter what it’s called, but I’m going to make you suffer as much as you made me suffer all those months.

He hadn’t been aware that they owned a leather strap but apparently they did.  He knew this by the fiery stripe that slashed across the crown of his arse.  His skin resonated with pain and he was shocked beyond speech by how much it hurt.

Before he had a chance to voice his dismay another 5 heavy blows were placed in fast succession in varying areas of his shell-shocked rear.   This was not sexy, this just hurt!

Grace set about lighting his arse on fire and she was implacable.  He felt the anger behind the blows, her frustration and her rage and he was distraught that he was the reason for it.  This would be cathartic for them both.  He yelled out his pain but still she continued, panting with the exertion and only lessening the strength after some twenty or so more heavy whacks.  On and on.  Never ending pain that built up unrelenting until he thought that he wouldn’t survive another blow.  And then she stopped.  Both of them were breathing heavily but Paul’s breaths were interspersed with sobs of remorse . . . for the spanking he had just received and for the pain he had caused her.

It took a minute or two for either of them to be able to speak but Grace managed it first.

“That was for not trusting me.  Don’t ever make me feel like that again!”

Paul was nodding and shaking his head in agreement. 

“Now for part two,” she continued.

“What?”  Paul was horrified at her words.

“Oh yes.  That spanking was for what you did to us.  This one will be for the table and chairs.  I’m still cross with you, Paul.  I’m cross with way that you do as you bloody well please without taking me into account.  You’ve got away with it for too long – well, it stops right here and now!  If you can’t willingly offer me the respect and deference that, as your wife, should be forthcoming by itself, then I’m going to take it by force.  I get that a lot of it was to do with you being unhappy and therefore . . . acting out, if you will.  But even so, it wasn’t acceptable.  Basically, this was a temper tantrum that cost us nearly two thousand pounds – all the recent things you’ve done have been badly disguised temper tantrums.  And I’m not standing for them anymore.”

Oh dear God, what had he created!

“So, Paul, just to make it crystal clear, let me warn you now that if you ever, ever go behind my back again after we’ve made a joint decision on something, then this is what you can expect.  I will not put up with your manipulations anymore!  Do you understand me?” 

How on earth could you answer such a question?  To say No would imply that he felt he had been treated unfairly and to say Yes would be an invitation to more of those awful stinging slaps.  He had no choice.

“Yes.  Yes, Miss, I understand.” The title slipped out without thinking, a conditioning he’d picked up from the sites he had visited.

“Good.”   Grace moved away from the table and apparently placed the strap back in the bag she had brought in with her.  He heard her pick something else up but had no idea what it was.  It wasn’t a new purchase; that was all that he could work out.  She returned to his side and once more laid a hand on him, this time she ran it down over his bottom, feeling the heat radiate from it.

“So, every evening this week you’re going to receive a spanking, one for each chair that you decided to buy.  Perhaps not being able to sit down on any of them for the foreseeable future will make you realise the error of your ways and teach you to Do As You Are Told!  I’ll give you your first one now and then you only have another five to look forward to. . . aren’t you now glad that you bought a set of six?

Paul lay horrified at his wife’s words.  The spanking had been so very much worse than he had imaged it would be.  The skin on his backside felt as though it was about to burst; he didn’t know if he could take more of the same.

Without any attempt to discuss matters further, Grace slapped him smartly across the fleshiest part of his backside. 

Now he knew why she had gone upstairs earlier on – it had been to fetch one of house slippers from the bottom of their wardrobe that he had received last Christmas as a present and had never worn.  He hadn’t liked them then and he liked them even less now.

He thought that he wouldn’t have been able to take more, but of course, the choice wasn’t his.  He could take it because he had to take it; it was as simple as that.  She pushed him to his limit though, spanking not only low on his bottom, but also down his thighs.  His pride would not allow him to stand up and refuse the punishment and he tried his hardest not to squirm too much so that Grace could not accuse him of trying to escape his just deserts.  He would have kicked his legs out in protest but was hampered from doing so by his trousers still pooled at his feet.  He did stamp his feet occasionally to alleviate the pain but all that he accomplished was to dislodge the trousers from one leg only.  Was it possible to feel more undignified? 

Even as more and more spanks fell, Paul because aware of a difference.  The rage from Grace was no longer palpable and somehow, the quality of the spanks had changed.  They still hurt but now each one sent a shock wave of energy straight to his groin.  He found himself pushing himself forward each time the slipper fell, not to pull away from it but as a cause and effect reaction.  Each time he felt the pain in his backside, he felt the urge to rub against something.  His wife would have been his first choice, his hand his second.  As it was, all that was available was the underside of the table but it gave him the friction he needed.  Christ, if she didn’t stop soon he was going to ejaculate all over it.  Okay, that would be the ultimate lack of dignity. Please, God, please make her stop before that happened.

Grace gave him one exceptionally hard whack across the centre of his bottom, the hardest yet, that caused him to jerk upright and bellow out loud.  He shook with the emotions running through him and as his spasm passed, he collapsed back down to lie inert across the table, exhausted and bereft of the energy to move.

“Well then.  That went better than I expected.  Juliana was right you know; those low down spanks across the back of the thighs looked like killers.  Yes, very effective. . . I think we’ll keep those for special occasions from now on.” 

Grace sounded exceptionally pleased with herself and rather . . . smug. 

“You can get up now Paul, unless you’re planning on staying there all night?”

Actually, no, he couldn’t get up.  First and foremost, if he did she was going to see the evidence of exactly how turned on he had been by what had just happened.  He’d have to polish the underside of the table later on but maybe he could get his pants up without her seeing anything.  The idea didn’t appeal; the tight briefs were going to be torture on a freshly spanked bottom but he couldn’t see an alternative.  Secondly, his whole body was wracked with pain and any movement promised torment.

Paul started to slowly unwind himself and kept his back to the room.  Maybe if he could just reach down and grab his briefs he could cover himself enough to escape the room.

“What on earth are you doing?”  Grace had stopped rummaging through her bag and walked over to stand beside him and thrust something into his hand.  “You might as leave those where they are, kick them off, it’s going to be much more comfortable for you.  And clean yourself up before you drip on the carpet.”

Paul looked down at his hand and saw the tissues she had placed there.  She knew!  Well, he supposed it was normal that she did.  She knew his body and the signs and noises he made when he came so it shouldn’t be a surprise to him that she knew exactly what had happened.

Past caring by now, Paul kicked himself free of his underwear and took a moment to mop up after himself.

“So, this is part of our life from now on, is it?”

Paul turned to look at her as she posed the question.  She hadn’t changed from her work clothes but seeing as she always wore heels and pencil skirts to work, he thought she looked magnificent.  He could picture her wearing stockings and the thought of her pegging him dressed like that gave him a tremendous thrill.  She hadn’t said anything about that though so he supposed it wasn’t going to happen.   

He had, eventually, been honest enough with her to tell her all his fantasies. . . was she going to be honest enough with him to tell him whether she could do that or not?

In answer to her question, all he could do was grin appealingly and say “Yes please. . .?”

“So, you haven’t changed your mind?  Did it live up to your expectations?” 

Grace seemed genuinely interested in his response.

Paul took the time to think before he answered.

“The first spanking hurt.  A lot.  I can’t say I enjoyed that very much.  But the second one was . . . exquisite!”

“Juliana says that buying the table was your way of bringing things to a head.  She also says that she could tell by the quality of my anger on the phone that I was woman enough to give you what you wanted.  I think she was right on that – was she right on the other?”

Paul gave the question serious thought.  Had he brought all this about on purpose?  Was it a case of bratting till he got what he wanted?

“I don’t know.  I didn’t consciously do it, but, maybe. . .  I honestly don’t know.  It was inevitable that we would have had an argument I suppose, but I couldn’t have predicted all the rest of it.  Maybe I was playing out a one sided fantasy that I thought wouldn’t have an ending . . . ?”

Grace nodded her understanding and waited to see if he had more to say.

“And I understand, you know, Grace. I understand about the other...... If you can't do that, then okay.  I’d like it but I understand. . .”

“Oh, I didn't say I couldn't do that. I will do that.  But you're going to have to wait for it. You're going to have to get through all your spankings first and then you get your reward. Apart from which, Juliana took me shopping this afternoon - that's where the strap came from but she advised that I take you with me to buy the dildo. You're the one that's going to be intimately acquainted with it so it makes sense that you get to choose it. And you'll need to be trained before you take it, that's what Juliana says anyway.”

Paul looked at his wife agog.

He had come so close to losing everything but thanks to a stranger in a shop, he now had it all.  A part of him knew he should be grateful to her, and he was, in a way.  She’d obviously advised Grace on what to do and how to do it but he liked the slipper more than he liked the strap.  He wasn’t likely to run down to her shop and heap thanks on her for that recommendation.  In fact, he didn’t think he’d ever be going back to her shop again.  Some people are a once only experience, thank you very much.

“How come she knows so much?” Asked Paul as he surreptitiously rubbed at his sore behind, hoping to offer it some small comfort after it’s ordeal.

“Oh, she’s the President of the Bloxley Heath Kink Brigade or somesuch thing. Monthly meetings, tea and coffee mornings, bring and buy stalls, the whole kit and caboodle.”

Paul looked at his wife as if she had lost her mind.

“She does this as well, Paul.  Obviously.” 

As she talked she moved about the room, tidying up, picking up his clothes and putting the chairs back in their place.  As she passed him, she slapped his hand away from his rear and gave him his trousers.   

“Stop rubbing and put those on.  What was I saying . . . ? oh, yes, Juliana.  No, I don’t think she runs any clubs but she’s obviously experienced.  The men who delivered the table this morning . . .?  Both are her subs apparently.  And she's offered to give us some help in finding our way. Which I thought was quite nice of her really.”

‘Oh great’, thought Paul as he pulled his trousers back on.  They were loose about his scorched skin, something he appreciated but it felt odd to be dressed with no underwear on.  Nice odd, but odd. ‘No way was he wanting her giving Grace any more help but he was sure he’d have enough time to convince Grace that between them they knew enough to get by and what they didn’t know, they could work out.  He didn’t need that bitch sticking her nose in any more than she already had done.’

He was brought back from his thoughts by the long peeling ring of their doorbell.  ‘Who on earth was that . . .?’ was his first thought.  He was in no mood to be interrupted by Jehovah Witnesses at such an important moment.

He looked at Grace and said “If we don’t answer, whoever it is will go away.  It will be a cold caller or something.”

“No,” she replied calmly.  “It will be Juliana come to discuss the table.  Open the door, Paul.  Now!”

As Paul made his way to the door he stopped mid-stride in alarm.  Grace had mentioned a spanking for each chair.  ‘Oh God, she didn’t know yet that it was a set of eight chairs but Juliana did!’

The End.