Tuesday, October 23, 2012

DOMESTIC CHANGES

DOMESTIC CHANGES


Norma and Carl were the last of their party to arrive at the restaurant.  Norma winced when she saw the hard wooden chairs.  She had just received a sound spanking from Carl minutes before they left the house and her bottom was still burning. She was surprised she wasn’t sending smoke signals. As she gingerly sat down she noticed a slight grin on Carl’s face. He’s having a good time at my expense now but she was plotting her revenge.

This was a celebration of their first anniversary. She and Carl had met at a grief support group more than four years before.  They had both been widowed at 59 and 60 years of age had found it hard to adjust to being single after having been married for more than half their life.  The support group had been their lifeline.  The majority of the people were around the same age, some older and some younger but they all had something in common and some of them had forged a bond that went beyond the confines of the meetings.  For those that had no family in the area it was their comfort zone.  A place to go with people you knew.  It made the nights and holidays enjoyable and a lot less lonely.

Sometime after the first year, their friends began noticing Carl seemed smitten with Norma and  mentioned it to her.  She was surprised and paid attention and sure enough Carl did spend more time and attention to her than to the other female members of the group. She liked Carl but thought he was a little too authoritarian for her so she shied away.  Her Fred had always allowed her to be a free spirit.  She never had any constraints and they had a wonderful marriage – it had been a real love match from the first. She had no intention of letting someone run her life at this stage of the game.

Carl had stepped up his campaign to woo Norma and she finally gave in and agreed to go to dinner with him.  He was a very nice man – very polite, had lovely manners and was still a looker with silvery blond hair and blue eyes.  She noticed that he always got a great deal of attention from the ladies.  It didn’t seem to affect him in any way which gave him points in her eyes.  Their first single date went very well and she accepted another invitation.

Those dates increased and before long they were a couple. They went together to all of the support group outings, they introduced either other to their children and all of the “kids” thought they were a cute couple and they settled into a comfortable relationship.  Neither one thought of moving in together nor getting remarried.

Somewhere around the third year of this arrangement Carl began to push Norma to entering into a more permanent relationship.  When she finally agreed she thought it would be best if they just moved in together.  Carl did not like this idea but when Norma told him that was her stipulation  he acquiesced.  They decided it would be best to get a place that was neither his nor hers but theirs. They found a cute apartment so Carl put his house on the market and Norma rented her place to one of her children.

Everything was going to be new.   They were like newlyweds  – new furniture, new household goods, new rules (like putting the cap back on the toothpaste, and putting the toilet seat down). 

This arrangement lasted six months when one day while out and about they came across the new condominium complex being built not too far away from their current neighborhood. Carl had sold his place and wanted to buy something else.  Norma agreed and so they moved out of their apartment.

More new furnishings, same old household goods and rules, one new proposal.  On their first day in their newest home Carl proposed once again and presented Norma with a beautiful engagement ring. She finally gave in.  They had a small outdoor wedding and all of their children and the other support group members attended. Everyone was thrilled at their happiness.

Norma’s excitement lasted one week.  Carl began putting constraints on Norma that hadn’t been there before.  When she confronted him about them he explained that now that she was his wife he expected her to treat him as the man of the house. 

“You are the man of this house, just like I am the woman of this house” she told him.

“That’s not what I mean” said Carl.

“Just what do you mean?” she asked haughtily.

“I mean that you should do what I tell you to do.  I am only interested in your safety and well being and want to protect you the best way I can”

Norma told him that she had left her father’s house some forty five years ago. She said in all the years she had been married to Fred he had never ever given her a set of rules to follow.  She told him she was not about to start being ruled now.

In the interest of peace, Carl backed down.  He had been the man of the house in his first marriage and just assumed the role now but if Norma felt so strongly perhaps he would have to try and adjust accordingly.   She was a woman used to having her own way and when that didn’t happen she turned into a harridan. Apparently, Fred had a passive personality and given her free rein and as long as they were both happy he had seen no need to “put his foot down” over any issue in which they were in disagreement.

One evening when they were out with a new set of friends they had met in the condominium complex, Norma did something that really bothered Carl.  She had a few too many glasses of wine and this released her inhibitions.  Her conversation began to get a little too loose for him and he tried to silence her.  When she balked at this, he excused them both and took her outside for a little fresh air and private conversation. When he was far enough away from the building he lectured her on her behavior and gave her a couple of swats on her behind.  She was appalled that he would strike her and slapped him across the face.

“That is entirely unacceptable and I will not stand for it.  We are going back inside, picking up our things and going home where I will further deal with this behavior” he told her.

“I am going back inside but there is no way I am leaving, I am having too much fun” she said.

“In that case, we will just head right to the car” and he grabbed her arm and led her to the car. She was raising a fuss and he told her she was making a spectacle of herself and people were watching.  When she looked around she saw quite a few people just staring in her direction.  She quieted down and let him take her to the car.

When he got her home he dragged her over to the sofa, pulled her across his lap, pulled down her slacks and began spanking her bottom.  She was hitting and kicking him.  He had enough.  He put her down keeping hold of her arm and pulled her into the kitchen. He pulled out a chair,  grabbed a wooden spoon out of the jar, placed her back over his knee and this time removed her panties.  He pinioned her arms behind her back and with one leg over her legs began reddening her butt and upper thighs.  He lectured her about her behavior and about the face slap.  He told her that was never to happen again and each word was punctuated by the slap of that wooden spoon on her now glowing behind.

When he felt she had enough, he let her up and asked her what she had to say for herself.  She was sobbing too loudly to be coherent and he was unable to understand what she was saying.  He was angry with himself because he had spanked her in anger but it had been building for quite some time. He told her he was sorry he had spanked her so hard but was not sorry he had spanked her.  He told her he felt she had deserved it and didn’t want to ever have to do that again.

She ran up to the guest room and ignored him when he tried to comfort her.  The next morning when she went into the bathroom she noticed a few bruises on her behind.  He would pay for this she thought.  She was going to tell her son what he had done and then watch him squirm. 

After she took a shower and calmed down she thought about the whole thing.  She wasn’t sure she deserved the spanking but she had slapped him.  She knew that was not something she had ever done or thought of doing so maybe she did have a little too much to drink.  Then she thought about how embarrassing it would be to tell her son she had been spanked.  After all, it was just a spanking, he hadn’t beat her.  She decided to just give him the silent treatment for the next couple of days.  She was good at this and it had always worked with Fred.

On their anniversary day, it had been four days since she had spoken to him.  He showed no signs of even being aware she was doing this on purpose.  When he told her their friends were meeting them at the restaurant to celebrate their anniversary she said she wasn’t going.

“Oh, you are going.  You have the choice of going and sitting comfortably or going with a sore behind”.

Darn her pride she thought, Carl was true to his word.  She told him again she was not going and he had her over his knee in a flash.  Somewhere around the 12th spank of that hairbrush she gave in.

So here she sat on a hard wooden chair with a smarting behind while trying to laugh and carry on a fun conversation with her friends.  Some first anniversary this was. She had a feeling she had better change some of her habits or a sore backside might become a regular thing.

She was going to have to come up with some way to make him pay but then she looked at him and felt a gush of excitement.  Marital bliss isn’t always what it is cracked up to be and a little turmoil keeps the juices flowing and at their age that was important.


If you are interested, there is a sequel to this story entitled The Payback.