Mary and Daphne #15

Scene #15

I was such a good girl for two whole weeks after the bath brush incident. I didn’t get a single spanking, at least not a real one. A swat or two doesn’t count. Truthfully, I was getting tired of being good all the time. What’s a 31-year-old hafta to do to get her butt paddled?

Nana helped, though, to keep me out of trouble, just by giving me something to do, and I also think having her to talk to put me in a much better mood, especially since I didn’t have anyone to talk during the day. I just missed adult interaction. We didn’t hang out every day, but a lot of days I went over there. And yes, Mary insisted on delivering me to her door if I went over in the morning, and that one time she did have to swat me out of bed and into the shower, but that doesn’t count as a spanking, and I went over sometimes on my own anyway. 

Mary did set some rules for those visits, though. She was fine with me calling Mrs. Wilson ‘Nana,’ but after after a week, Nana was at our house when Mary got home, and I guess Mary felt it was time to set some parameters. Nana was only too happy to oblige.

She thanked her for the new panties she got me (I thanked her, too), but no more presents unless she and Nana talked about it first. Fine by me. She thanked her for helping me get some chores done, but she didn’t want Nana doing that; in fairness, I didn’t ask for help. I think really Mary meant she didn’t want her doing that too often, and Nana didn’t help much. And she had to stop baking with me so often. I was less happy with that rule (cookies!) but I also wasn’t so happy when Mary pinched my thigh. 

In fact, I wanted to call her a bitch, spanking or not, but instead I just gave her a very dirty look. That she ignored, which was kinda bitchy. I had not gained weight, but Mary still said, “She’d eat anything she wanted if I let her, so I try to make sweets a treat. Plus sometimes her little sugar highs end with her in trouble.”

“Well, we wouldn’t want that,” Nana laughed. “I’ll try to remember to stop spoiling her so often.”

“I do not get sugar highs,” I protested. Kids get sugar highs. I’m well past that point.

“What about trunk or treat last year?” Technically there were no trunks because it was a fetish party in a club, but there were treats aplenty. The person who brought the Oreo balls won first prize for best erotic treat, and they didn’t even mean them that way, so they claimed. But that was just one time.

“I ... well ... that was just the one time.”

“Uh huh. What about Easter?” So I ate too many peanut butter eggs and maybe got a little rambunctious, but I still don’t think that Mary needed to take me up to my childhood bedroom. Guess I should be thankful everyone thought we went up there to have sex, preferable to them knowing I got my Easter dress lifted while she gave me ten with the purse paddle. Not that we didn’t get plenty of weird looks and my parents didn’t use every trick in their mental inventory to remain in denial.

“But ... peanut butter.” That’s a valid excuse, right? Lots of people can’t control themselves around peanut butter. So maybe I got a little too mouthy talking to relatives. Stranger Things sucks, and I don’t care if my cousin is fifteen, she’s gonna stand there and she’s gonna listen to why Stranger Things sucks while my nephew sneaks me another peanut butter egg even if Mary said enough to both of those things. That’s what Easter is all about. Besides, there are no more novelty shaped peanut butter cups from Easter until Halloween. You strike while the iron is hot, and now as I’m writing this I think I see Mary’s point and maybe I do have an addiction, but Stranger Things really does suck.

“I don’t think you’re gonna win this one, Daffy,” Nana said.

“Be a lot easier sometimes if you didn’t remember everything,” I huffed.

“Don’t be a grumpy gus,” Mary warned me. “And you’d get in a lot less trouble if you remembered better.” Low blow, Mary. Low blow.

“She’s just showing off,” Nana said. “They do that for company sometimes.” Who is ‘they?’ Other thirty-something’s? That must be what she meant.

“Don’t I know it,” Mary replied. I didn’t reply. I chose to let the rest of the conversation happen without my input.

“And,” Mary continued. “I need your help.”

“Happy to help however I can,” Nana said.

“My guess, and my hope, is that Daffy is nothing but an angel around you, and I get that you two are close in a very special, and I really love that. But as you know, Daffy and I are fighting a war against naughtiness and ...”

I think I turned white as a sheet. Not our white sheets, but Martha Stewart’s white sheets. I wondered what color Nana was because I was looking at the little piece of carpet between my shoes. I couldn’t believe Mary was going to give Nana spanking permission. I mean, ignore that I don’t want anymore people to have that permission (there aren’t enough already? really?) but how could Mary even think to involve our vanilla neighbor that way? It was just unethical. I was mortified for both of them and for myself. It was so not like Mary.

“... if her behavior really warrants it ...”

O god o god o god! 

“... I’d appreciate if if you’d tell me.”

Is that all? I don’t know if Nana was relieved, but I was relieved enough that I didn’t even mind that Mary just turned my Nana into her narc.

“Well,” Nana replied, “if she really crosses a line, I’ll let you know. But me and her are gonna have our little secrets. That’s what Nanas do.” O, ya gotta love your Nana and secret surrogate pretend grandmas in general.

“Good,” Mary said. “She could use a good role model in her life.”

“I have one,” I said, kinda impulsively, but maybe just a little trying to be cute.

And I was pretty damn good for those two weeks, and I woulda been with or without Nana possibly telling on me. I really felt like myself again. I guess I just needed enough time to feel like I was in a routine again. I did my chores, I took on more chores, I had dinner waiting for Mary most nights, I sent applied for jobs, I did some phone interviews. I was my sweetest self, and I followed the rules almost a hundred percent. Then Mary had to go and make new rules.

The thing about a domestic discipline marriage is it’s hard to tell if you’re about to get a spanking for real or for play. I hadn’t done anything that I knew of, but I guess maybe I was ready for a serious spanking, so when Mary said, “Over my lap,” one evening, I didn’t exactly protest. You might even say I sorta hopped out of my shorts and over her knee in one motion. Like a dolphin. Or a golden retriever.

And then she didn’t spank me, which what the fuck? If I was hard up for more than a swat, then she had to be, too. I was ready to just ask. Instead, she started massaging my butt. Which is almost as good as a spanking, but it’s not the same even with the soft smacks and her fingers doing wandering around down there. Maybe I am a brat, but she is such a tease sometimes.

“You’ve been doing so good these past two weeks,” she said. “Quite the turnaround. I’m very proud of you.” She always says I seem to listen better when I’m over her knee, but I don’t think so. It’s hard to hear over a paddling, and it’s hard to pay attention when she’s tickling the insides of my thighs.

“But the job search is taking a little longer than I hoped...” Which is not my fault. “...and I wanna set some new guidelines until you’re back at work.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I don’t want you to get any further out of a work routine than you already are. I could send you over to your Nana’s more, but you’re already over there from the morning two days a week and even if she we’re okay with it, I’m not.”

“But she likes spending time with me.” I’m her favorite sort-of granddaughter.

“Of course she does. I just don’t want to intrude on her time anymore. You can go see her whenever, but I don’t want to just presume I can drop you off at 8:30 every day, but I also don’t want you laying around the house on days you’re not with her.”

So if Nana didn’t consider me hanging out for such big pieces of the day to be daycare, and if I was sorta somewhere in between, Mary apparently did think of it that way, at least in effect. I knew what she meant and agreed - there’s a point where you wear out your welcome, pseudo-daycare or two friends spending a lot of time together or not.

“You ready to hear the rules?”

“Yes.”

“You’re going to get up at the same time I do every day. You’re going to go to the gym or go for a walk every day. You’re going to dress like you are going to work every day. And you’re going to go bed like you have work in the morning.”

“I can’t stay up a little later?” That would severely cut into my video game time.

“Nope. I want you used to your regular sleep schedule when you go back to work.”

“Do I really hafta dress for work?”

“You wear jeans to work.” Yeah, but jeans are yoga pants or shorts. “Just put on a skirt if you don’t wanna wear pants with buttons.” Which was a pretty good summary of my feeling towards real clothes when there are athleisure alternatives. Anyway, jeans haven’t been sexy since it became okay to wear yoga pants almost everywhere.

“Okay,” I said. These were not big deals. I’d be doing them again soon once I got a job. Going to the gym every day instead of most days isn’t a problem when you don’t have anywhere else to be.

Her fingers were swirling over the backs of my thighs. I was about ready to ask, now that we were done with the new rules, whether we were going to get busy or not when Mary handed down the last rule. I don’t know if she put me over her knee in the hopes her fingers would keep me too distracted to put up a fuss or so I was spank-ready if I put up a fuss. Probably both. Mary is crafty like that.

“Lastly, you’re on your own a lot, and I want you to have a reminder to behave.” Finally. Finally! FINALLY! I’ve been arguing for maintenance spankings for years, and Mary always said she knew better than to let a kinky little monkey like me get away with maintenance spankings. I’d enjoy them too much, she said. Of course she was right, and irony or ironies, I once pressed the issue so much that I got an on-the-spot spanking for asking one too many times for maintenance spankings, but fine by me now. I was ready to hop up and get a calendar. Let’s get these puppies on the books. How about Sundays at nine, instead of church? Good? Great. Set an alert on your phone.

Nope.

“So from when we get up on weekdays to when I get home, you’re wearing pull-ups.”

Oh. So no maintenance spankings. Pull-ups five days a week. The rule about pull-ups still stood, too: they come off when they’re wet. I can use the potty, but no regular underwear until the pull-ups are wet. I’m not a fan. At least not as much as Mary thinks. She thinks she knows everything about me, but it’s more like 98.7%, and she thinks the rest are things that she knows and I don’t wanna admit, but that’s at most 1.1%, and pull-ups and related activities are in what’s leftover. Probably. 

Talking Mary out of a rule is like time travel: possible in theory. I came close once. But nope. Fine line, too, because trying to talk her out of a rule is a tightrope between feeling like I’ve at least saved face by protesting and falling off the rope and over her knee. One time I fell off the rope and over the hood of the Subaru, and now I’m not allowed to drive over 75 no matter how fast everyone else is going because, and excuse me if I don’t see the logic in this, I wouldn’t drive over a cliff just because everyone else did, would I? Whatever. I had to sit on the hood of that car while she lectured me after. Stupid hot metal. And stupid cows watching the whole time.

I don’t wanna wear pull-ups every day or really any day, especially not if I hafta use them even if it is just a little and I’m a big girl dammit and ... Butt up, panties down already, I had to express my feelings in just the right way. 

So I said, “But ... I don’t ... ehhh ... seriously ... urgggh.” I mean, how could she say no to that? Cicero himself couldn’t have made a better argument with his toga pulled up and his butt on the firing line.

“Yes, seriously,” Mary said.

“Fine,” I whined.

And now you’re wondering, geez, she went two weeks without a spanking? Daphne Ann? And she managed to keep herself from saying something to get her spanked even after that awesome oratory was shot down like a drone flying over a crazy farmer’s crop circles? Maybe she doesn’t even need spankings anymore. Maybe she finally learned how to behave.

Meh.

My two week streak came to end the next day. In fairness, I was following all the rules we talked about the night before, and I wouldn’t have even gotten caught if Mary I’m-so-thoughtful hadn’t been so thoughtful.

I got home from my workout (at least I don’t hafta wear those stupid pull-ups there), took a shower, put on real clothes and the Goodnite, and blam. Caught red handed.

“Ahem.” I about jumped outta my skin. I thought I was alone, of course. Instead I just almost choked on the milk I was drinking and spilled some down my shirt.

“Mary,” I said as I wiped my face off. “What are you doing home?”

“My meeting was canceled, and I thought I’d come home and surprise you. Took the rest of the day off so we can go do something fun.” Little warm fuzzy ball of love right in my tummy when she does sweet things like that.

“Aww,” I said and gave her a milk free hug. Skillz. She put her hand on my butt, and it was all I could not to jump up and down and say, See! I’m following the rules! Please be proud of me! (Golden retriever does seem an apt metaphor for me sometimes. I take no offense.) She kissed me and let me go.

“Drinking out of the milk carton? Something wrong with our glasses?”

“Um, I was just ... I got back from my workout and I was just really thirsty.”

“I thought we broke you of that habit years ago.”

“I ... I almost never,” I said. ‘Almost never’ translates in Mary’s mind to ‘Is a thing she does when I’m not around.’ She’s not always right about that. I’d give you examples, but I forget what they are. Really. 

“Sorry.”

“Well, good thing we have all day,” she said. She grabbed me by the front of my jeans, pivoted around me into a kitchen chair, and popped the button on my jeans one handed and in one motion. The chair wasn’t even facing out and then suddenly it was and she was in it. Everyone thinks I’m kidding when I say she’s a ninja, but that is some ninja shit. Mary is no more a developer team leader than Clark Kent was a cub reporter. And Mary would spank the lies right out of Superman’s mouth, too.

“But it’s just milk,” I tried to say by way of getting out of it. Jeans down, pull-up on display, pull-up down, Daphne naked between her waist and her ankles. That took almost a whole two seconds.

“It’s a rule you broke, Daphne. You know that.” Over her knee. I could draw our kitchen tile from memory. 

Mary’s purse was by the door, and the spoon was in its crock, so I grabbed the chair legs, wished once more I was tall enough that my feet were at least on the floor, and settled in for a hand spanking.

People who think an adult won’t cry at a hand spanking may be right if the person doing the spanking isn’t a ninja. How fortunate for them. But Mary is the kind of ninja who believes in proportional justice, so I didn’t cry. I grunted and twisted and squirmed and kicked my feet a little, and of course none of that deterred her and she kept a firm hand around my waist to make sure I didn’t fall off and hurt myself. I didn’t even beg or anything. I just made the occasional “Eep! Ow! Ah!” She was thorough like she always is, but it only took five minutes until she was satisfied I’d learned my lesson.

“What are you not going to do again,” she asked as I laid over her knee with a dark pink butt pointed at the ceiling.

“Drink out of the carton.” And then I was on my feet. 

“Your pull-ups are still around your ankles. Your undies never stay on,” she said as she redressed me. Gee, what a wonderful bonus to wearing pull-ups. We should write the company so their marketing division can slap that on the packaging. ‘Won’t fly across the room when spanking your wife.’ 

And once more, these are not my pull-ups. They belong to Mary. It’s complicated, but when you consider the term ‘use,’ Marx’s view of ownership still works and I don’t like em anyway and she buys them and just because they’re on me doesn’t mean they’re mine. By that logic, the entire earth is mine, and I don’t want to explain that right now so just accept it.

On the long list of sanctions Mary may impose on me, none of them last very long. At the very bottom of the list, on the other side of the bath brush and the belt and taking my phone away (torture!) is grounding. When my spanking is over, it’s over. She doesn’t hold my naughtiness against me, and I don’t pout. Not unless I want a second spanking. I rarely pout (without meaning to).

I got my hug (sigh), and my, “All’s forgiven. You’re my very good girl,” (sigh), and my kiss on the forehead (flutter, melt). And I wasn’t even sore enough that I had to put any effort into not rubbing. Not that it would help through Mary’s stupid pull-up anyway. “Where do you wanna go to lunch?”

“Anywhere you want,” I told her.

“Oh, no you don’t,” she said as she swatted me again. “You’re picking this time.”

“Can we just go sit at the pub and hang out?”

“Sounds perfect. Go find your shoesies.” She let me go, and I got another swat to send me off.

I think we’re put in earth to make people happy. Mary makes me happy. And I’m probably still gonna drink out of the carton sometimes, but I’ll wear these stupid pull-ups if she says so. It makes her happy.