None of that, as suggestive as it all seemed to me, compared to the rack affixed to the wall, with the wooden paddle, the leather strap, and the rattan cane hanging from it.
I whirled around, the fight-or-flight impulse taking me over yet again. The door still stood open, and for a moment I saw through it a clear path across the lounge to the glass doors I had somehow, like an idiot, entered this crazy place through. Rick appeared in the doorway, then, and instead of darting toward him, to my confusion I took a step back, toward the bed and the chair.
I felt my eyes go wide and my lips part. Without thinking about it in the slightest I put my hands behind me, covering my backside. When I realized where they had gone and felt the fabric of my jeans beneath my fingers, my face crumpled into a sob of fear and confusion.
“Ricky,” I said, as he closed the door behind him. “What’s happening? Whatisthis? You… you can’t…”
My eyes went to the horrible rack with the frightening things hanging from it. I didn’t even really know how I knew what they were, and what husbands did with them, in ‘old-fashioned’ communities. My parents had certainly raised me in a more or less traditional way, but discipline had happened according to more modern standards: time-outs and groundings, denied privileges, all the usual stuff.
I looked back at Rick. He had narrowed his eyes, and I couldfeelhim studying me, as if he had his hands on the sides of my face as he gazed into it, trying to figure me out—no, not just trying to figure me out… trying to figure out how to make me happy…ushappy.A little sob rose into my throat.
Slowly and gently, he said, “Youknowwhat this is, Amanda Garrison Williams.”
Rick turned his face toward the rack of punishment implements, gesturing there with his chin while not taking his eyes from my own. My face crumpled as my eyes, without me wanting it—with me trying to stop them—went there again, to the horrid rack, to the terrifying leather strap hanging from it. My cheeks burned like a bonfire. My hands clutched at the little round cheeks of my backside. Tears formed in the corners of my eyes.
When I looked back at my husband, after only a split second of attention to the awful spectacle of the menacing things on the wall, I saw him still assessing me. But I also saw what looked like a more confident expression in his eyes, as if I had somehow confirmed that yes, I did know what this was.
“Idon’t,” I whispered. “I… Ricky, Idon’t.”
But I heard the lie in my voice, and I heard the echo of my husband calling me by my full name,Amanda Garrison Williams,the way a parent did when a kid had gotten into trouble.
“Dee,” he said. “I’m going to whip your bottom now, for disobedience. Put the pillows in the middle of the bed, and lay down over them. You can pull your jeans and panties down once you’re over the pillows.”
From somewhere outside I heard a woman cry out, and I knew John Franklin had started punishing his wife, just as Rick meant to do to me.
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “Please… Ricky…”
“Call mesir, Dee,” he said, his voice very strict. “You’ll call mesirfrom now on whenever it’s time for me to correct you.”
My jaw went slack. That incredibly old-fashioned phrasecorrect youliterally took my breath away.
“But…”
I managed that one word. After it, my brain felt like the traffic-jammed interstate we had taken through Philadelphia to get to the airport.
But you can’t!seemed like the turtle-slow car in front, the one that had just caused an accident, when another car, one with a reckless driver, had tried to pass too quickly.
The faster car, in my mind, was,But I’m a fucking adult!
“Rick…” was the next thing to come out of my mouth, and I could hear how desperately something inside me demanded that I play for time, that I put off dealing with the confusing mess my husband’s words and actions had made inside my mind and my body.
“Sir,” Rick said, so decisively that I felt my brow crease hard and—much worse—my fingers tighten behind me, trying so mortifyingly to defend my backside from the bizarre idea of my husband teaching me the kind of old-fashioned lesson it seemed the New Modesty Inquirers’ Program sanctioned—maybe even recommended.
At that thought my eyes went even wider. I realized my lips had opened again, as if to continue my already incoherent utterance, but no sound had emerged for several seconds.
“Look, Dee,” Rick said, stepping toward me, his arms open. “Come here. Let me hug you while I explain.”
I shook my head slowly, looking into his face, seeing his resolution, clutching my bottom-cheeks, backing up until I felt my arms make contact with the wall opposite the bed. To my dismay and confusion, when I tightened my fingers behind me and felt the taut flesh through the denim and my cotton panties, the tension there awoke the same trembling, fluttery, terribly embarrassing feeling I knew from my naughty cuddling with Rick during our courtship.
A wave of humiliated heat swept through my body at the realization, along with the defiant resolution never to let Rick know, even if we did stay married. I shook my head more firmly, in a fruitless attempt to rid my brain of the thought.
Rick took a deep breath through his nose, his broad shoulders rising in his white Oxford shirt. He let it out, his nostrils flaring a little with the force of the air. I felt my face crumple at the effect my husband’s sheer physical presence had on me.
Sir. He told me to call himsir. How… how could I…?
And yet part of me knew, and the knowledge sent another hot blush to my cheeks.
I’ll never tell.