Mary and Daphne #198

Christmas is more fun that all the times which aren’t Christmas. Holiday stress is a thing, but so are holiday cookies. The universe balances, and Christmas wins.

I was explaining this to Mary at the mall as we walked past all the holiday-decorated storefronts and Santa. And Mary …

Okay, so the thing you hafta understand about Mary is she never sees the absence of a graceful segue as a reason to not do what she’s gonna do anyway. I mean, I knew what she was gonna do. I just thought maybe for once she’d try to put a little art into her craft. I should’ve known from her weak “you broke the toy” pivot when she bought that stupid bell that she wasn’t feeling patient enough for graceful segues of late.

“Daphne, enough,” she said to me apropos of nothing as we walked past Santa Land, “you’ll just have to wait and see if Santa brings it this year.”

Caught me off guard a little. Sort of wanted to stop a passerby and ask if they had any idea what my wife was talking about. I mean, wives, amiright or amiright? Always saying crazy stuff. And I should know cuz I am one.

“O, you’re doing the thing,” I said to Mary.

“You can’t have a present every time you ask for it.” I literally had not asked for anything.

“Uh-huh. I agree with you.”

“Keep back talking and I’ll tell Santa not to bring it.”

O, fudge muffins. Fine. “Back. Back back back back back back back. Now what’re ya gonna do, ya big, tall bully?”

“You’re about to find out, little girl.” She wasn’t smiling, but she was smiling on the inside. So bright and wide. On the outside, like, wow – she was one fed up Mary. You’d have thought I’d been a total brat all day, knocking over display racks, smarting off at salesclerks, pickpocketing, bah humbugging, and doing crimes.

The Oscar for Best Actress in a Public Discipline Scene goes to Mary, the woman who wasn’t being nearly as discreet as she could’ve been. See, I don’t need to act to lend some realism to our little sexcapades; Mary does the acting, and I just hafta keep up. Literally keep up, like when she takes me by the arm at the mall and speed walks like a disciplinarian who is not gonna wait until we get home to give me a consequence. She pulled me past Santa Land. Pasta the Hickory Farms holiday kiosk. Past the play area full of screaming kids and haggard parents. Past the seasonal holiday worker behind the counter in the junior miss department of Nordstrom. I think we’ve actually bought stuff from Nordstrom fewer than five times, but we always like to browse in there. It’s only a happy coincidence (that was sarcastic, just FYI) that the dressing rooms in Nordstrom have a lot fewer people in them than other stores’.

“Marrrry, leggo. People can see.” Fortunately, just cuz people can see doesn’t mean they’re watching, but it’s not so easy to tell in the moment. It’s not so easy to tell in the moment! Hmmph!

“You should’ve thought of that before you sassed me. You are in so much trouble now, young lady.”

“Quieter,” I hissed.

“If you think we’re waiting until we get home, you are sorely mistaken. You’re going over my knee, and then we’re going to finish our shopping trip, and if you complain about your sore bottom just once, your pants are coming down again.”

“(Gulp).”

I trotted along beside the lanky Amazonian Queen of Amazonia I married with a ball of dread in my belly, a scarlet blush on my cheeks, eyes wide and hyper alert to all the people seeing me marched to my place of buttsecution.

I kept telling myself it was wrong to do this in public. It was wrong, which made it even more titillating, which was also wrong. It fit squarely into the definition of Type 2 Fun: not fun when it’s happening, but so much fun to think back on.

“But Mary,” I whispered, and I don’t even know where I was going with that.

“Don’t you ‘but Mary’ me. We’re going to have a long talk after, but right now I don’t want to hear it until your bottom has been well and truly spanked.”

I started to turn to go into the dressing room in the Little Miss department. I’d been spanked in there three times before, two of which I want to forget. But it’s a lot better than a certain highway rest stop we’ve become familiar with over the years … So I got that going for me. Dammit…

“Not this time,” Mary said and tugged me along.

We headed up the escalator; at least I got to catch up to big Mrs. My Legs Are Longer Than Yours (Amazon royalty has the weirdest naming conventions). “Where we going?”

“Right over there.”

A dressing room at the back of the store, the farthest from the entrance. An empty clothes rack was parked in front of it. “Mary, I think that’s closed.”

“It is.”

Scroofit! She planned this! She made arrangements! How!?! Who is she conspiring with? Why did I marry a devious conspiring conspirator who conspired with her coconspirators?

She stopped short right at the entrance. I think she glanced around first, but I was too busy panic-imagining what she was gonna do to me that she couldn’t do in a dressing room with people in it, cuz she’s done stuff to me in dressing rooms before!

“We are going to go into the dressing room, I am going to spank your bare bottom, and then you are going to be the best-behaved little girl at the mall. Do you understand me?”

“Keep your voice down.”

“We’ll see who’s keeping her voice down in a minute. In you go, little girl.”

She stepped around the rac,k towing me behind her all the way down to the last dressing room. She steered me in and smacked my butt to propel me forward cuz for some reasons we’ll never know I was hesitant or something? And emotional. Hesitant and emotional.

“(Sniffle).” They were just nerves. ‘There goes Daphne,’ people say, ‘She sure has got some nerve.’

“Save some of those tears, Daphne Ann. You’re gonna need them.”

“But I didn’t do anything.”

“O yeah? What about that tantrum you threw in the home goods section?”

“All I said was that toaster oven looks like it would toast more evenly than ours.”

“And I am sick and tired of you badmouthing how evenly toasted our toast is. Little girls in Antarctica would be thrilled to have toast that’s overdone on one side.”

I give Mary all the credit for saying that without laughing. Me? I also didn’t laugh. Um, really.

SMACK! “Ow! Marrrry!” Stupid thigh spanks! Even through jeans they hurt. That’ll get anyone into the right headspace. Hmmph!

“Still think it’s funny?”

“No.”

“Can’t believe I hafta take your pants down in a department store to spank you butt like you’re a … And when did your wet your pull-up?”

“Marrrry!”

“If being in a wet pull-up embarrasses you, then maybe you should stop peeing your pants, little girl.”

“That’s not even what happened!” Mary’s ya-wanna-run-that-nonsense-by-me-one-more-time face. “I, um … uh … peed?”

“And where did you pee? Did you pee in the potty or did you pee in your pants?”

“You made me! You always make me! You won’t let me take them off until I …” SMACK! “Ouch! Urgh!”

“It’s not my fault you can’t hold it indefinitely.”

She has a point there.

Yeah, a stupid one.

“That’s just stupid.”

No, what was stupid was saying how stupid that was.

And until that day, I thought only people in cartoons made whooshing sounds, like the WHOOOSH my flailing body made as Mary pulled me across her knee like … like something that goes really fast … and stuff.

Spank! “Ow!” Spank! “OW!” Spank spank spank! “Nurner furdget!”

“Don’t you feel embarrassed getting turned over my knee in public and getting paddled on your wet pull-up?”

“Yes!”

“I have a solution for that!”

So here’s a thing I thought while she was spanking my ass Christmas red: it’s equally embarrassing to get your bare bottom spanked with your wet pull-up yanked down around your thighs. And here’s another thought I thinked before: all those times I thought it was just the worst getting bent over and paddled in a dressing room had nothing on getting put over Mary’s knee and paddled in a dressing room. Bent-over spankings come with a set number of swats in mind, usually; over the knee is more like ‘when I think you’re a well-spanked, sorry little girl.’ I’ve never believed there’s any correlation between how sorry a person is and how hard they’re crying. I mean, I was crying pretty hard and I wasn’t sorry at all, mainly cuz I didn’t do anything … But just in case, no more aspersions would I cast against our toaster. It’s a good toaster, and it’s doing the best it can; it is enough … even if it burns the edges. Hmmph.

Meanwhile, Mary’s up there just going to town. “…your little (SPANK CRACK WACK) Until you can’t (SPANK SPANK SPANK SMACK) Santa is watching (SPANK SMACK SMACK SMACK SPANK) you want him to see you like (CRACK SPLAT SPLAT SMACK) red (SPANK SPANK FWAP SPLAT) for a week! Do you understand me, little girl?”

“YESSSSSSSSSS! I pro-om-om-mise!”

“Then c’mere and cry it all out.”

Offer the fuck accepted! Right into Mary’s shirt, one of the best places ever to cry … Actually, nope; it’s THE best. Not that I blubbed or wept or besnotted her shirt, but yes, those are things I did.

“Are you ready to go back to shopping?”

“Mhmm.”

“Are you gonna behave yourself?”

“Mhmm.”

“Cuz what will happen if you don’t.”

“I’ll get another spanking.”

“And the next one won’t be in a closed dressing room. Speaking of which, we gotta get you diapered and out of here fast.”

“Do I gotta wear a diaper?”

“I didn’t bring you any dry pull-ups. Besides, new rule: if you wet your pull-up, it’s back to diapers for the rest of the day.”

“But that means every time I wear a pull-up, I’ll have to wear a diaper too!”

“If you wanna get it over with faster, you can wear them both at the same time.”

“Snurnle!”

“What?”

“I said ‘not fair.’ And you’re getting way too fast at putting your diapers on me.”

“Wanna me to slow down so you can savor it,” she said with a grin on her face I can only describe in very rude terms, so I won’t describe it at all. Moral high ground: captured … and stuff.

“Just saying you should probably do this to me less or, ya know, not at all.”

“It’s so cute that you have an opinion.”

“Voonermortin, Mary!”

“… What? Anyway, I think haven’t been spanking you enough. Your bottom is so bruised. Stand up; let’s see if these jeans fit over this diaper.”

“They had better.”

“Just barely,” Mary tittered at my expense. She’s always tittering. Hmmph. “Let’s go say thank you to the nice lady.”

“What lady?”

“The one I paid to close this dressing room for ten minutes.”

“How far in advance did you plan this?”

“A week. Bring your pull-up … To throw away, silly. Don’t give me that face.”

And see, the thing is, I have certain needs that just suck all the kinds of ways to fulfill; dammit. “When we get home, can I get the rest of my spanking?”

“That wasn’t all of your spanking,” Mary asked me, surprised and not surprised.

“Well, the thing is, see, I have a confession to make. I’ve been bullying our microwave on social media.”

And holy heck! You’d have thought I called our air fryer a glorified convection oven (which it so is!).