Author's Note: I debated putting this second part of the story into the BDSM category, but I decided that it had started as a Loving Wives story and the characters wouldn't be doing what they're doing without the adultery, so it would remain in this category.
If you don't like spankings / strappings of a disloyal wife... this is not the story for you.
If you don't like cheating wives stories where the couple days together in the end, this is also not the story for you. In fact, I'm probably not the author for you. I like a happy ending where people work things out one way or another.
For those of you who want to see what happens after the temptation and how Janet and Paul's marriage goes forward... enjoy!
**********
The next morning Janet woke up and didn't remember any of her dreams. She also didn't feel the rampant horniness that she had for the past few weeks. But the guilt was still there. Stronger than before. It pushed down on her with a weight that made it hard to breath.
Blinking, she turned onto her back and found her husband looking at her with calm blue eyes.
"Good morning beautiful," he said quietly.
"G-g-good morning," she stammered. Emotion and tears welled up and Paul frowned.
"Sssh," he said, putting his fingers to her lips when she opened them to say something, although she wasn't sure what. "It's okay. I promise."
And then he kissed her and got out of bed, grabbing his robe as he headed towards their bathroom.
"Don't stay too long in bed, Mac said he was going to leave right after breakfast," he said, glancing back at her before disappearing into the bathroom. A moment later she heard water running as he turned on the shower.
Confused, Janet lay on her back and stared up at the ceiling.
So they were just going to pretend like nothing had happened? But... that's not what she wanted. For one horrified moment when Paul had said good morning to her she'd thought that Mac had lied and Paul hadn't given his permission for anything. Obviously he knew though. But they weren't going to talk about it? Weren't going to acknowledge it?
In some ways that seemed the easy path. But Janet had enjoyed what had happened last night. Not the sleeping with another man part, although she couldn't deny that she had enjoyed the sex, but what she wanted was the experience of last night with her husband. The man who should have fulfilled her fantasy.
Closing her eyes, she scolded herself for being so selfish. Paul had arranged to have her fantasy fulfilled. Not only that, but he didn't seem to be angry or upset that she'd gone ahead and done it. Or maybe he wasn't sure? No... she'd seen it in his face. He'd known. And even if the rest of her life was spent having either missionary or her-on-top sex with no extra spice, she should be grateful that he had made sure she'd had her fantasy fulfilled. That he'd cared enough to do that, to trust her like that.
Although she still felt as though she'd betrayed his trust. Permission was one thing, but in hindsight she felt like she should have rewarded his gesture with her own, by turning Mac down. The weeks of build-up, the dreams, the yearning had played against her and she'd leaped upon the temptation without thinking any of it through. She'd risked her marriage for a fantasy, and now she was going to live the reality. Which, for her, meant being the perfect wife for Paul and never ever giving him any reason to imagine that she needed more than he was willing to give her ever again. She'd had her fantasy and now she was going to have to let it go, because Paul was more important.
Perhaps knowing how much she wanted to fulfill it again and again and never being able to was her penance.
*********
The goodbye with Mac was less awkward than any of them had worried. Two large hugs, no sexual tension, and a vague promise to keep in touch over emails, Paul and Janet waved goodbye and that was that. Any tension came from herself, although Paul seemed strangely relaxed. Which, for some reason, only made her more tense.
Afterwards she spent the day bustling around the house, using cleaning as a way to work out her angst. By the time she was cooking dinner it was in a sparkling kitchen. The bathrooms were equally shiny, the laundry had been done, she'd dusted every surface in the house (other than Paul's home office which is where he'd spent the day holed up) and she managed to admirably pass the time. Unfortunately that didn't help shut off her brain. She'd made Paul a sandwich for lunch and brought it to him. He'd thanked her, sincerely, and that had just made her feel even worse.
If she could go back and do it again, she wouldn't have given in last night. The aftermath wasn't worth it.
Not only was she still wishing that Paul WOULD spank her, punish her, she now had a fair idea of just how good it would be if he did, but instead of feeling good about herself she was drowning in guilt and self-disgust.
But Paul was going to get a gourmet dinner.
"Something smells good," he said, striding into the kitchen as if her thoughts had conjured him. Jumping a little, startled because she hadn't heard him coming, Janet sent a side long glance at him through her lashes as he began setting the table for her.
"You don't have to do that, I can take care of it," she said immediately, starting to put down the spoon she was using to make sure the béarnaise sauce didn't stick.
"No, you stay there," he said, firmly enough that she stopped in her tracks and blinked. That wasn't how Paul normally talked to her. "I can set the table. You've done enough just by cooking, and from what I can tell the entire house has gotten its spring cleaning."
"Okay," she said slowly, going back to stirring.
There had been something in his tone of voice - not anger or anything, but a distinct note of... command? Almost? Something that she didn't think she'd ever heard from him before. It had given her stomach a little flutter, but at the same time she wasn't sure that she wasn't imagining it.
She watched him from the corner of her eye as he set the table while she began to plate their food. Steak with béarnaise sauce, green beans with toasted almonds, and oven roasted herbed potatoes. One of Paul's favorite meals, and from the quirk of his lips as he took his plate he recognized it as the guilt offering that it was. And yet he still didn't look as though he was upset with her.
It was starting to disgruntle her. Did he not care that Mac had slept with her? Fulfilled her fantasy?
Was it a matter of trusting her or being indifferent?
Her stomach churned as she considered the implications of that question. It didn't make for an easy eating, but she forced herself to do so anyway. If Paul wanted things to be normal then she was going to do her best to give that to him, figuring that it was the least she could do. ******** If anything, Paul found Janet's show of guilt extremely reassuring. It was obvious that he wouldn't have to worry about her wanting to act out her fantasies with anyone else again. The key point was that she wanted things to be different between them, her fantasy wasn't about being with a different man. If he'd been willing to test her fantasy with her then she never would have started fantasizing about Mac in the first place.
Granted, he still felt a little betrayed, but at the same time his talk with Mac last night had been extremely revealing. Not so much about Janet's desires, but his own. The betrayal fed a small flame of anger, one that made him feel justified in wanting to punish her. That could, potentially, be a good thing. The guilt that he was carrying over from his ex and the way she'd accused him of abusing her, made it extremely hard for him to want to give Janet the fantasy she requested. Now he had some anger to counter that. As long as he kept a leash on that anger and didn't act out of it, didn't try to punish her because of it, it actually made his own emotional blocks easier to deal with.
Because he wanted to spank her. He wanted to turn her ass a bright cherry red, to punish her for going outside of their marriage. He wanted to wipe away any fantasy, any memory of another man and make her his all over again.
Waiting all day to do so was putting both of them on edge. Dinner was slightly awkward, mostly due to the fact that Janet was trying so hard to match his act of normalcy and he kept getting distracted by thoughts of the upcoming night. Although he'd meant to do the dishes, since she'd cooked (not to mention cleaned the entire house as far as he could tell), he decided it would be kinder to both of them if he let her do the dishes while he opened up the shoebox that Mac had given him. The sooner they could start the evening the better.
Going to their bedroom, Paul left the door open a crack so that he would be forewarned if Janet came upstairs since he didn't know what was in the shoebox yet. When he opened it, he was immediately intrigued. There was a leather strap about a foot long, stiff but flexible enough to be curved around the inside of the box. He was pretty sure the strap matched the description of what Mac had called a 'tawse,' an old-fashioned instrument used to spank naughty children and recalcitrant wives during Victorian times. The idea of applying it liberally to Janet's backside immediately appealed.
Taking the leather strap in his hand, he grabbed some of their pillows and began experimenting, practicing. He was a fast learner and quickly discovered how to swing it so that the end either curled or remained flat, trying different angles and strengths. Feeling quite ready to punish his wife and simultaneously fulfill her fantasies, Paul went to get her.
*******
When Paul called her to him, standing at the bottom of the stairs, she didn't know whether his demeanor had truly changed or whether she had fooled herself into thinking it, due to her guilt. Somehow he seemed more powerful, more confident, meeting his eyes was almost uncomfortable because she felt like he could see down into all the darkness that last night's activities had unleashed. Cupping her face in his hands, he tipped her head back so that he could look at her more clearly. Janet peered up at her husband, seeing a glint in his eye that she hadn't before, and yet also a tenderness that showed his love for her.
It made the guilt even worse.
"I'm so sorry about last night, Paul," she whispered miserably before he could say anything or cut her off. "If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't."
"It's alright," he said softly back, his thumb stroking along her cheek soothingly. "I shouldn't have asked Mac to do what I should have done for you."
"Why did you?" she asked. Her hands came up to press against his chest, wanting to touch him. As erotic as her interlude with Mac had been, there was nothing as satisfying as the feel of her husband's body. "I wanted it to be you."
Paul sighed heavily. "I know. I was afraid."
"Of what?"
"That you wouldn't like it and you would hate me for hurting you and that I would like it too much and want to do it again and again even though you hadn't liked it."
"Oh..." Janet realized quite suddenly that perhaps that had been a real possibility. She had felt quite sure that she wanted to experience her fantasies, but what if she hadn't liked it? What Mac had done had hurt, but she'd been left craving for more. What if it had hurt and she'd ended up being angry or feeling betrayed? No wonder Paul had been afraid. Of course, instead he was now the one left feeling betrayed. "I'm sorry."
