Trish's body froze, twisted, with her feet still pointing into the corner as she peered back at Hubs, searching his face for a sign that he was joking about the brush or that he might relent. Couldn't he see the effects his hand spanking had on her? Didn't he realize that she was fully chastised? Wouldn't he notice the desperation in her tear-stained face and have mercy on her inflamed bottom?
Hubs returned her stare impassively for a long moment. "Young lady, if I have to get that hairbrush, you'll wish you'd done as you were told."
Trish felt a cold slurry form inside her. She believed him. Whatever pain and embarrassment her loving spouse was about to visit on her wouldn't compare to the penalty for disobedience right now.
"Last chance, Patsy." Hubs leaned forward and planted his feet.
Trish's arm shot out, finding the railing, and she began to pull herself up the stairs. Her legs felt so heavy. All she wanted to do was curl up on top of, next to, or entwined in her loving, attentive, generous but now stern and exacting Hubs. How much more punishment would he subject her to before that could happen?
Trish summitted the staircase, and wobbled her way down the hall and into to the bathroom. She saw herself in the mirror above the sink. Her face and neck were flushed and her eyes red and glassy. She made a quarter turn each way to survey the evidence of her misery. Expecting carnage, she was astonished that her bottom, though an angry shade of red, was intact. She gingerly traced her fingertips over her nether curves, marveling at how such unleavened suffering could result in only mild injury. There was something else too, a warmth between her legs competing with the slurry in her gut. Trish wondered for a moment whether Hubs might decide to take her again. Not if she looked like this, though. She noticed her hair, an unhinged disaster from her flailing, and reached for the -
Trish heard heavy footsteps on the stairs as she realized her mistake. The brush was still in their bedroom. She rushed from the bathroom to the nightstand, grabbing the wooden implement and pivoting toward the door, only to see Hubs filling its frame. Trish desperately wanted to turn the clock back, just one minute, so she could bring the brush to him as he'd instructed, demonstrating her obedience and contrition. She wanted to be a good girl, his good girl, accepting his correction and enjoying his affection, but there was nothing for it now. He advanced on her, and she reflexively put the brush behind her, gripping it with both hands in the small of her back. "I'm sorry," she whined, as Hubs closed the distance between them and clamped his hands on her upper arms. She stared at his barrel chest, wanting more than anything to bury her face in it.
"Missy," Hubs replied, "you're about to be so much sorrier."
Trish dissolved into tears and offered no resistance as Hubs moved and turned her. He sat on the edge of the bed and manhandled her over his lap. Her upper body came to rest on the mattress, and she reached one arm around his waist, like a derelict vessel softly mooring herself, while leaving the other arm, with the brush loosely held, akimbo across the comforter.
Hubs began to lecture her in a low, calm voice. "I was going to give you a small taste of the brush and take you back to the beach, Patsy."
Trish sobbed. She was terrified of the unknown quantum of pain that awaited her but equally ashamed of having disappointed Hubs by failing in this small, easily completed task. She needed beyond need to be received back in his good graces. She would endure her comeuppance without complaint.
"Now I have to punish you." She shifted her legs, settling her hips into a more comfortable position, as if it would matter. "The next time you're tempted to ignore my instructions, I want you to remember what's about to happen," he continued. She decided to distract herself by focusing on the gentler attention Hubs might pay her on the other side of this.
"Hand me your hairbrush," he commanded.
Trish sigh-choke-sobbed and reached back with the brush. As she felt Hubs accept it, she also felt one of his broad hands encircling her forearm and extending the whole arm away from her body. Without thinking, she tested his grip, trying to free herself. He may have chuckled. She let the arm and everything else go limp, calming herself by imagining the hoped-for intimacies after this uncomfortable interlude.
Hubs began, and poor Trish suffered beyond measure. She descended into incompetence, losing orientation to time, place, and identity. There was only the one painful thing and it was everything. She was erased and redrawn with every stroke, obliterated and reconstituted until every want, fear, hope, and memory disappeared along with the echoes of her wailing.
