"Come on…"
"I'm serious. Clay spanks me."
Elodie giggled and then stopped when she could see that her sister wasn't kidding.
"But, April, isn't that abuse?"
The younger woman shook her head vehemently. "No. He'd never beat me. Ever. I feel so safe in his arms, I can't even put it into words."
"But… he…" Elodie didn't want to read things into what she was being told, but there was really no way around it. Her curiosity would drive her crazy if she didn't ask questions now, while she could. "How does he…"
April smiled. "Just like you are picturing it. I think you know what a spanking looks like."
"He takes you over his knee?"
"Sometimes. More often, it's over his lap on the bed."
"More often? How often do you get spanked?" Elodie was trying not to appear too interested, and could only hope she was pulling it off.
But April seemed not to notice that Elodie was sitting forward, her eyes bright, her ears perked till they hurt. April was looking far away, as if she was over his lap right then, worrying about nothing beyond the health of her bottom in the next few minutes. "Not a lot, really. Just when I royally screw up. Or do something he feels is disrespectful or dangerous. Clay does not like to be disobeyed."
Elodie shook her head, stunned at the words she was hearing. "You let him spank you?"
April smiled warmly. "Yes. And, truth be told, I like it. Maybe not at the time it is happening, since it hurts like hell, but I really do like when he punishes me." She laughed before adding. "Just don't tell Clay that."
"He punishes you?"
A giggle and a casual shrug from April was her only answer.
"When was the last time?" Elodie felt like she was guiding someone in a hypnotic trance. Her voice was deliberately low and soft so as not to startle her sister out of her reverie.
April snorted. "Do you really have to ask?"
Elodie couldn't think enough to come up with a likely time.
"It was when I banged up his Ford diesel truck. It wasn't even hurt, really—just some scratches."
Oh, that time, Elodie thought to herself. When April had come fervently knocking on Elodie's door, looking for refuge after having had a bit of a fender bender while trying to parallel park downtown. She'd barely been able to get out much of anything beyond, "Oh, man, am I in trouble!"
That Ford truck was as close to a baby as Clay had, and he had saved nearly a year for it. April had taken it because her own car was in the shop. Without telling Clay. And now it was in need of repair—preferably before he missed it.
April's cell had rung, and it was Clay, calling her back home, and not happily so. Her younger sister had left as if she were going to her own funeral. Elodie had been concerned, but she'd never seen any evidence of abuse whatsoever, so she figured that all April was dreading was the inevitable fight about taking Clay's truck without asking or telling him. She had certainly never suspected that Clay would spank April when she returned home.
"Oh man, was he pissed!" she breathed into her wine glass, taking a healthy swallow. "I barely made it in the door before he had my pants and panties down. He put his foot up on that tapestried chair I have in the foyer—" she looked to her sister to see if Elodie remembered the one, and the picture was all too vivid in Elodie's mind "—and hauled me over his knee. I was hanging there, over his leg. My feet didn't touch the ground, and neither could my hands. I worried the whole time I was going to overbalance and end up falling on my head, but I should have known better. I wasn't going anywhere until he let me go, which was when my butt was about the color of..." April looked around Elodie's living/dining room combination for an example of the color she knew her butt had been. "That!"
Her younger sister was pointing at one of Elodie's recent paintings, which was propped up against the wall. She was specifically pointing to a painted field of red poppies.
"It couldn't have been that bad..." Elodie said. She didn't like to think that Clay would be so cruel. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt.
But April was adamant. "He stopped—eventually—and tugged me upstairs, into the bedroom, and I could see my butt in the tri-fold mirror on the vanity before he started up again where we would both be more comfortable."
"Again? He spanked you more?"
"Oh-ho-ho, yes! He spanked me so hard and long I think the only reason he stopped was because his hand started to hurt." April was shifting on the pillow she was using as a chair in the sparsely decorated apartment, as if she could feel the spanking even now, though this had happened weeks ago. "And he's so damned strong; I can never get away from him—no amount of wiggling or writhing—and, of course, that all just gives him a better show—"