Winter Wonders
Chapter 9
By patty, Copyright 2008
Tired and sated as she was with in person snippets from Caleb and Lilia’s life with Roy and Mary, Connie still became engrossed, lost track of time, and read well into the night.
May 21, 1867
The sun has gone down and Roy and I have spoken. We do not see eye to eye, and this time he is in the wrong. Between us we settle our differences, I accept the discipline that accomplishes so much between us, but public displays that telegraph private things between us when there is no cause is unfair to me. Roy and Caleb may crow and strut like roosters over any manly deed they please, but I will not have my pride nor the truth that I am subject to his discipline be something my husband crows about in front of others.
He didn’t see his behavior toward me this morning entirely my way, but at least he has agreed that in the future he will confine any warning to me to behave to remain only between us. His main argument that it should make no difference to me is the close quarters we live in now; that most times my bottom is blistered, or anyone’s bottom is blistered for that matter others are likely to hear at least the smacking if not already know why.
I had to remind him that our lives together would someday take us into new communities where such private things would not be so hard to protect from the eyes and ears of others. When we turn down the lamp tonight it will be the first time Roy has acceded a point to me when it comes to his headship of our family.
May 27, 1867
My lord I was sure I would become a murderess! Thank goodness we are underway again. The elders were mistaken there was no snow, though we did endure a severe storm with hail. It has taken five days for the injured to recover and for damages to be repaired. Gossips and snoops! I will never abide them. Clarissa has found five allies among the forty-six women we set out with. Among them they have made belittling Lilia and I their mission. Holding my tongue has become a supreme task; though I’m afraid Lilia has not been as successful. If only there was a way to make Caleb and eventually my Roy see how cruel and harsh the words are. If only their husbands could hear what they say and see what they do to hurt and bait. Please God put it in your plans.
We crossed the New Mexico border into Colorado today and the Wagon Train split. Twelve families including the Meets and all of Clarissa’s allies turned northwest with us, everyone else headed straight west to California. Roy and Caleb plan to settle us in Idaho. The other ten families are headed to Seattle. We are only a few short months from spitting away and leaving our nemesis behind, but it seems like forever!
Lilia has suffered Caleb’s displeasure with her behavior toward Clarissa’s cohorts twice in six days and I have only narrowly escaped.
I did not escape spanking though because today is my birthday. Roy did not stop at twenty, as he had another purpose in mind. He was so sweet, so attentive. It was pure lust that kept him from spanking me to a sweet death.
We excused ourselves and took a long walk along the creek where we set camp late this afternoon. Lilia took my duty helping to prepare supper, and Roy and I took our liberties. Oh laws! Is it a sin how I crave him thrusting within me after my bare bottom is set on fire? Now as we’ve embraced our shared needs I find being spanked for our mutual lust and no crime at all a new and special gift we share.
May 30, 1867
Lilia is twenty now too, but I am older and her senior!
As it should be tonight she will share a sweet private evening with Caleb. Thankfully because she’s been such an easy target and I have not, the shrews have left her alone this week. I resisted as long as I could, but today, because I know that no one sees their activity even after the unfortunate victim ends up spanked and restricted, I lashed out with my mouth and because of it I have become suspect for tampering with the evening meal.
Roy will not hear me. It’s not my fault! Even if he wants to believe me, the weight of evidence and my history of prior devious acts has doomed my hide this time he says.
My provisions didn’t have enough pepper to make tonight’s stew the challenge to eat that it was. Yes I prepared it, but how could I have ruined it, we didn’t own enough pepper for me to make it so hot? My salt stores weren’t even opened, how could I have put so much salt in the potatoes and onions that no one could eat them? I never salt potatoes; I hate salt in my food. Yes I put the potatoes to boil, but I wasn’t alone with that pot. Roy’s response was that I’ve done more devious things through subterfuge that neither of these deeds were beyond my devious skills. I’d have had to recruit many others to get enough pepper and salt.
Lord help me it’s my own doing that Roy will not query his peers or the whole group in a public gathering. He can’t ask the other husbands to find out who helped me sabotage supper. I understand why he cannot exclude me from culpability in a public plea. I just never anticipated that asking him not to publicly humiliate me with threats or warnings might hamstring him from seeking what he would need to excuse me.
I have some thinking to do now, and tonight I am to be soundly spanked for willfully ruining everyone’s supper. I know I didn’t do it, but I have nothing but suspicion to offer about who did. What I face now is a trial of my own making; punished for a crime I did not commit because I have been guilty before and begged my husband to keep certain things between us private.
***********
Connie laid the book on her chest and pondered Mary’s entry. Could she really be preparing her mind to accept a punishment she did not deserve? The prospect was not just confusing, it had Connie’s heart bristling. Roy should trust his wife, he should believe her.
**********
May 31, 1867
My bottom is blissfully hot today, and my secret needs sated well enough to carry me to eternity. I could shoot Roy for letting me stew thinking I was to be punished, but when he placed his finger across my lips as I finally went to him ready to accept what was coming with a final objection, I could see in his eyes he was not serious about punishing me.
“Thank you my love for your brave acceptance of blame for a prank I know you would instantly own once caught. I believe in you. I know you did not do it. Thank you for your trust in me to honor your wish that discipline between us remain private. I will spank you tonight my love, but you and I alone know the purpose is not to punish you, but to please both of us.” That’s what he whispered to me!
Then he cut a switch to satisfy anyone who might be snooping, and then we walked for well over half an hour taking us far away from the camp.
It was perhaps the sweetest of evenings. His kisses were gentle, his hands so confident and firm. By the time he found a spot suitable for our purpose, I was eager to bare my bottom to his hand. If anyone followed, they saw and heard a very long spanking accompanied by what to all would sound like a scolding for not having better relationships with the older women in the wagon train.
It was all I could do not to laugh instead of yelp as his hand burned my bottom, when he leaned down to whisper “If you align with those shrews I’ll spank you bloody.”
Roy’s wicked humor was that as he spanked me harder and harder with one hand his other probed and tormented my secret parts. My cries to stop, and have mercy were sincere, but it was not pain or punishment I resisted. My body betrayed me and I shuddered with the same intense release I’ve enjoyed when he is within me thrusting to give us a child.
The switching that followed was hard to take, but the promise of what was to come placed my mind away from pain. Our walk back to the camp and our wagon gave me time to absorb what we’d done, the deepest secrets we’d revealed to each other.
His needs and mine are so raw that the threat of punishment enriches it. My arousal and anticipation was heightened by the threat, and so was his.
Once in our wagon and bedded for the night, Roy kissed and caressed my ‘punished bottom.’ Then he suckled that most sensitive part between my thighs until my body clenched again and again with more spasms of bliss.
His organ became thick and hard as he spanked me, and I caressed it to sustain that as we walked back to camp. Though I had already come to release twice, when Roy finally thrust within me I swooned. Our coupling was gentle at first, but when his hands cruelly squeezed and kneaded my sore, hot bottom, my wonton body needed his thrusts harder. He took me to another release many minutes before he found his own.
My Roy is the sweetest, most gentle hard man possible. I am blessed.
June 4 1867
Caleb is my hero! I know he and Roy have spoken extensively about everything, and are like-minded to the point of question as to whether they are twins separated at birth. He is the only man Roy is free to speak freely of our secret with, as Lilia is my only safe confidant. Yesterday Caleb heard one of Clarissa’s gang gloating about how tenderly I sat my wagon the day after the supper sabotage. He made it his business to intrude into the cluster and demand answers for the details they spoke of that I would have had to share with them if I was really responsible. Of course their lies fell short, and Caleb sought out some husbands to help him reconcile inconsistencies.
I am vindicated!
Roy has winked and warned me that I will pay for expressing such gleeful pleasure at the unfortunate fate of others, but tonight, as I enjoy my spanking, and the loving that comes with it, I still boldly pen now that I will harbor secret satisfaction that others will endure real wrath and true repercussions for the thing so many believed was my doing.
**********
Connie tucked the book under her pillow, turned down the lamp, rolled to her side and closed her eyes on the image of Mary and Roy entwined together. Mary’s words drew a very different portrait of the coupling between a man and woman, than Connie’s limited life had shown her so far. The unashamed lust Mary shared on the pages of her diary woke needs deep in Connie’s soul. Parts of her body ached and her hands involuntarily probed to sooth.
Sleep came eventually, but it was fitful. Though the evening had been joyful and the images she closed her eyes on were pleasant, what invaded Connie’s dreams was neither. Fear stalked her sleep. The memories of the brutal acts of a man who no longer had a face haunted her. Tears invoked by the cruel contrast of what Mary had lived and Connie had known soaked the pillow.
It was still dark when Connie tossed and turned, her gut attempted to silence the jumble of half awake thoughts and her dreams, “I’m not worth that kind of love.”
Mary stroked her cheek, “Don’t ever think that again!”
Connie again found herself uprooted from her bed and seated on gently sifting crystals of snow that glistened in moonlight. Again, Mary sat with her; both of them sheltered from the wind by Mary’s headstone.
“Let go of all that pain Connie,” Mary whispered. “You’re safe from that forever now if you stay here with him. Roy would never cause you that kind of pain. His touch will cleanse your heart of it if you allow it.”
“I’m not worthy!” Connie struggled with the bonds of dreams and Mary’s will that held her.
“You are!” Mary gripped her young guest’s shoulders and shook. “Keep with this outlook and I will see to it you discover just how good men deal with a good woman who succumbs to doubt and speaks low of her value.”
“You don’t know me!” Connie tried to shake free.
“I do!” Mary’s grip tightened. “You know I do.”
“Your Roy is a descent man, neither he nor his friends deserve the taint I would bring into their lives.”
“You cannot think this way Connie,” Mary’s touch was again soft; her cool fingers stroked Connie’s tears away. “No one can blame you for crimes committed against you. You didn’t invite them, circumstance did! You wouldn’t even have been in that place except that you were betrayed by a cold and perhaps more evil man’s requisites. Your sweet soul drew them – you are what they crave and can never possess.”
“My shame will ruin all of you …. ” Connie sobbed.
“Nonsense! You have no shame! One man breached and brutalized your intimate physical body one time. This is not your crime or your shame either,” Mary pulled Connie close. “When you take your true love to your bed one day, he will know you are his and his alone. He will not want nor need that your first coupling be a test of pain. Let go of these past months Connie. Let yourself open to trust…..”
Connie wasn’t quite finished, she had things to ask Mary, but as she tossed over to her right side and the first inkling of the light of dawn blew winds that erased their cozy warm spots in the snow cover, she found herself back on her crude mattress in the cabin loft. A giggle from below her punctuated her half awake awareness. Quiet ruled for long enough that Connie was again captured by mist and dreams.
************
Lilia could not help her giggles when Caleb woke and tickled her and then just as she almost convulsed out of his grasp, shifted gears and kissed her.
“I love you!” Caleb nibbled her ears.
Lilia was prepared for their usual morning coupling. She was not prepared for the way Caleb went about it. He rarely spanked when he woke her. Nothing was ever left un-addressed between them by distance or sleep. This morning though he chose to apply a quick warning that she keep to the promise she made and not conspire to further delay their return home. It turned out that it was a warning and a warm up.
“We’ll be overheard husband,” Lilia giggled.
“Good, it will keep you a humble wife,” Caleb chuckled back. He spanked his wife faster with crisp firm smacks of his hand. Lilia responded lifting her bottom to his hand, deeper parts of her quickly seduced.
*********
Connie heard, but didn’t really. The sounds from below entwined into one last predawn dream. She woke with no memory of her dreams, just a fleeting sense of irritation. Something startled her awake though full daylight and silence in the cabin met her waking awareness.
Connie got up and quickly descended the ladder from her loft. The cabin was empty.
“They left without waking me?” she cursed at the windows the walls and the door. “Oh my! The animals!”
Connie pulled her coat and boots on, ignoring her own semi urgent needs, she ran to the barn. She expected a restless brood of hungry creatures and a milk cow in need of udder relief. What she found were guests doing her chores for her and for reasons she didn’t try to grasp, it irked her sensibilities.
“What are you doing? This is my job!” she exclaimed, her hands found her hips and her body found a fully defiant stance.
Caleb glanced toward the light of the opened door and initially smiled at the still disheveled form there. His good humor quickly fell away when defiant waif spoke.
“Helping out sweetie,” Lilia answered immediately, her heart felt as though it was skipping beats as she looked toward Caleb. His expression darkened predictably.
“Yes, helping out. Helping out a slovenly ungrateful over sleeper,” Caleb stood up dropping the scoop back into the feed he was sifting for the pigs.
“This is my job,” Connie knew she’d gone past civil limits, but for reasons she’d never understand held her defiant ground.
“Then why are we here and you barely awake?” Caleb stalked toward his small hostess.
“I never over sleep! I never do, and anyway so what if I did this one time, I’m here now. If you’d left as I expected you had, these animals would still be well cared for now!” Connie responded to Caleb’s ire defensively.
“You expected we’d leave without word? What about Lilia’s offer to you yesterday? You put no stock in the word and promises of your friends?” Caleb advanced on her and took Connie by the arm before she could back away and evade him.
“I woke up, you were gone, you didn’t wake me, what else was I supposed to think?” Connie maintained her defiance and pulled against Caleb’s hold on her.
“That we were here doing chores and letting you sleep since we kept you up talking until late!” Caleb pulled Connie tight to his torso. “Why in God’s name would you assume we’d just up and leave after my wife pressed me so hard to let her stay hours after we should leave so she could help you learn pastries?”
“I don’t know you,” Connie lied. “You came here and descended on me with no invitation or notice, how could I know you didn’t leave with the same flurry?”
“I’ll not speak further to this. I will now act so you will never again need to question the motives or actions of friends. There are so many things I could question about your motives, reactions and thinking as you hold it out here now. This is how errant waifs learn to respect their friends!” Caleb pulled Connie over to the bails of hay Roy hadn’t yet sliced.
“Honey?!” Lilia worried.
“Just finish her chores please.” Caleb’s response was harder than he intended it to be. Lilia understood; even she was baffled by how Connie blustered into the barn and then didn’t immediately recognize the mistakes she was making.
Connie’s vague waking unease crystallized as soon as her torso was pulled across Caleb’s lap.
“No!” she cried out.
“Yes!” Caleb’s hard hand impacting Connie’s thin nightgown covered backside argued.
Lilia did her best to finish milking bossy. Her mind tried to issue messages by telepathy from deep in her heart to Connie. There would be no reaching her now, and Lilia shook her head. Connie was living the consequences of what seemed to be baffling actions. Lilia knew that there probably were explanations; she just didn’t know Connie well enough to assume that she knew where some of her irrational outbursts came from. This time Caleb acted too fast for Lilia to intervene.
Connie and Caleb eventually resolved their issues, though for Connie the resolution came about the hard way. She conceded that she was wrong ‘jumping’ to the conclusion that her guests had pulled out. Caleb held fast that she should have checked before acting as if friends would lie.
Connie had pushed open the barn door expecting only work to face her.
Caleb let his hand come down hard for what was probably only a minute or so, but to Connie, Lilia and Bossy it felt like much longer. When Caleb released her, Connie stood quickly, and made sure to repeat the apology she first offered under duress. It was accepted easily, and as if nothing at all had happened, Caleb and Lilia moved forward with the morning’s activities their good humor gently coaxed Connie along with them. By the time pastries were in the oven and her guests said their goodbyes, Connie had completely climbed out of the funk she woke up in.
