A Storm Weathered

A Storm Weathered

copyright 2002, by patty

Thunderstorms were among Lorraine’s favorite things. It made the small cabin seem all the more cozy when the world outside was hostile. The wind whipped the trees overhead, and the ground vibrated with the distant thunder. Morning was by far the best time for a storm too. The air would clear out with it, leaving behind a clean fresh day.

“Perfect,” Lori thought. She needed to clean away many things, and this was a good way to start.

If she hustled she could pick some tomatoes and greens and collect whatever eggs were laid, before the storm rolled on top of her. She put a flannel shirt on, more to protect from mosquitoes that hovered in the still pre-storm air than for warmth. Halfway out onto the porch she stopped and thought better of her sandals. Rubbers would do better.

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“Where did you put them?” she spoke absently to the spirit of the cabin’s owner. It was a rhetorical question. The boots and sundry other tattered foot wear were where they’d always been. Piled and tossed in a heap in the corner of the ‘honest-to-god’ mud room. Lori sorted long enough to find two that were close enough in size to possibly be mates, and after shaking and banging them against the wall, shoved her feet into them and trudged out and down to the garden.

It was over grown, and weedy. Even so, Lori was able to rescue several baskets of vegetables from the varmints and birds. The chicken shed was another matter.

“Maybe I’ll wait till tomorrow for eggs,” she grimaced, and stepped back out of the smelly nesting shed. It had been over a week since anyone had been out here and tended to things. Fortunately the chickens were free rangers. If they’d been coop hens they'd likely be dead.

With cleaning the chickens’ nest area on her list of things to do after the storm, and two baskets full of vegetables, Lori headed back to the cabin. The angry storm line was closer, and the air seemed thicker as if the storm was pushing all the hot stale air from the valley up the edges and over the side. In the distance down the mountain, she could see the gray wall of rain sweeping across meadows and fields.

“It’ll be on top of North Conway in a few minutes,” Lori mused. As if the storm read her thoughts, a streak of lighting cut through the sky, and connected to the spire on top of the small mountain town’s largest church.

“One -- one thousand, two -- one thousand, three -- one thousand, four….” The low rumble of thunder stopped the count. “Four miles as the bird flies,” Lori announced to the bugs and mosquitoes that were keeping her company.

It was a 30 minute drive and closer to fifteen miles to drive down the gravel road to the town, but that was just fine by Lori. She’d sooner have the birds visit than people. “Especially now,” she growled as stray thoughts filtered through her mind.

“He knows by now,” she sighed. That particular thought pulsed through her with unpleasant electricity. Lori did her best to avoid dwelling on just how her husband of 105 days was handling her sudden disappearance. She knew it wouldn’t be well. Chances were good some doors and cupboards were slammed, and a whole litany of epithets and threats were issued to walls, furniture and objects in their small apartment.

Stress had been building between them over what began as minor things almost since the end of their honeymoon. Lori knew Royal was a man with a strong personality from the very beginning. One of the things that made her take notice of, and first become attracted to him was his ability to garner control and the lead in almost any situation. She liked that he was a natural ‘boss.’ She liked his easy and natural authority. But living with him, and it, was proving to be a challenge.

In her early forties, Lori had been single since loosing her first husband in a car accident eleven years earlier. She’d been making her own decisions about finances and leisure time for a lot of years now, and having Roy in the picture, second-guessing her at what seemed like every turn was grating on her.

If she were honest with herself, it wasn’t every turn, only those that involved over spending and over extending her credit, and spur of the moment evenings with the girls taken without calls or notice. But for now, her selfish take on those issues and the unsettling direction recent discussions about them had taken were enough to convince her she didn’t want to be honest.

Each time the subject came up, the discussion became more and more heated. Roy taking a firm stance that it had to stop, Lori reminding him she made her own money, and was an adult who could think for herself. Lately though Roy had begun to directly challenge her contention that she was an adult. Telling her that not only was she not behaving like an adult, but that she was worse than a spoiled child. A month ago, he’d started to intimate that he was resisting the urge to treat her just like the child she was, but he wouldn’t elaborate on just what that meant. And then last week he’d dropped the bomb.

“If you dip into savings to cover some non-essential expense, even once in the next two weeks I am going to spank you!” The words came out of exasperation. They had been going round and round the issue, and Lori was obstinately refusing to see Roy’s point of view, and finally --- out it came. The edict that was the reason Lori was four hundred miles from home, half way up a mountain waiting out a brewing storm.

Roy had been in Dallas on business for three days when Lori called him to say good morning and hear his voice. All seemed fine and normal until Roy informed her he would be catching the 6AM flight. He would be home before 8AM.

“And when I get there you better be in the kitchen with your bank book on the table.”

The shift in the tone of his voice was amazing.

“What?”

“You heard me. Don’t try to argue. I warned you. You tested.”

“It’s my money Roy!”

“It’s our money. For once and all Lori, you’re going to get that through your head. If I have to brand it into your bare ass, you WILL get it through your head,”

“No Roy! Please?”

“Lori, we’re not going in circles on the phone. You be in the kitchen with your bank book at 8 tomorrow. You better not make any plans for the rest of the day either.”

The call ended with Lori’s heart pounding a mile a minute. Roy made sure to tell her he loved her. She told him she loved him back. And then she was alone with her thoughts; spiraling, confusing, irritating thoughts.

For an hour or so she pondered Roy’s arrival home, and what she would say. When her mind got stuck on what he said he would do, and images of how that would be, Lori began to be captured by the urge to run.

As luck would have it, Lori had just the place to run to. She could go to her Aunt Elizabeth’s cabin, one of her favorite places on earth.

“Damn him! If he thinks I’m going to be here waiting for him to lecture me and then punish me like a kid he’s got another thing coming!”

Lori planned to come up here on the weekend anyway. So, thanks to Roy and his threats, she came a few days sooner.

*****
Another rumble of thunder disturbed Lori’s thoughts. When she looked up and out over the rocky vista down the mountain, the storm had advanced. It would be on top of her in just a few more minutes. The stillness of the air around her belied the whipping tree tops in the distance. Loris smiled, and took it all in. “Nature is so awesome,” she thought, and then she turned to step back inside the cabin.

The cuckoo clock chimed and sang. 9AM. Lori’s mind went back to Roy. No doubt about it by now. He knew she wasn’t home, and that she’d disobeyed his orders.

“So let him stew!”

***********

The storm blew in with fury, scoured the air and the earth, and in two hours, when it was over, the sun took a peak or two as if to make sure all the crevices and folds were properly rinsed and clean. Birds and squirrels chirped and chattered to insist the job was properly done, and finally the sun agreed and came out to help the cool breezes dry everything off.

Lori made herself some lunch, and before starting work on the garden and the chicken shed, decided to go for a short hike. There was nothing more soothing than picking wild herbs and mushrooms after the rain.

She heard her cell phone ring, as she stepped off the porch. It would be Roy wondering where she was. “Not yet,” she told the next ring, and she moved forward on her mission.

Roy didn’t leave a message. The only things he had to say to his lovely spoiled wife, he would say to her in person. It didn’t take him long to figure out where she’d gone. Her duffel bag and hiking gear were all gone. So were her paints and drawing pencils. The clincher was Lori’s Aunt’s will sitting out on the blotter of the half opened roll top desk.

“Good idea sweet heart,” Roy smiled as he picked up the phone. In twenty minutes, he secured the next six days off work, packed his duffel with clothes and gear to compliment Lori’s, locked up the apartment, and headed northeast toward the hills.

About the time Lori was listening to her cell phone ring unanswered behind her in the cabin, Roy was crossing Vermont’s southwest border. He was only a few hours away. Roy had two stops planned on his route.

The first was for wine, and some other ‘special’ groceries. The second would be later when he crossed into New Hampshire, a last stop for gas and a quick bite to eat before he headed up the mountain.

The Vermont Country Store off Route 100 in Weston had everything he wanted to make the evening he had planned. Lori didn’t know it yet, but her escape from what she had coming had actually set the stage for exactly what Roy wanted.

A quiet get away for the two of them where he could lay the ground work for how things were going to be for them from now on, without any interference from nosey neighbors, telephones and other distractions. Lori was going to get a thorough introduction to the lifestyle he’d been reading about for months now.

Domestic discipline was exactly what she needed. Roy knew it, and he was convinced that deep inside herself, Lori would know it too. As soon as she had a chance to see it and experience it, that is.

Wine, ham, old fashioned preserves and crackers, and a sturdy maple bath brush filled the packages Roy loaded in his Cherokee. Resolve, and committment were already loaded in his heart.

Cleaning the nests in the chicken shed took the better part of two hours. More than once while she shoveled and raked the filthy straw and rotten eggs, Lori thanked the rain gods for the storm that cleared the air. Tackling that chore in the heat and humidity would have been torture. As it was it was dirty and hard enough work even with cool fresh breezes wafting through the shed. After she laid fresh straw on the shelves and rafters where the hens preferred to nest, Lori stepped out into the mid afternoon sun, stretched, and skipped over to the well, and then pumped a bucket full of cold water to rinse off with.

The cold water felt wonderful, so after scrubbing the straw and dust of her neck, bare arms and legs, Lori tipped her face up to the sky, and dumped the water that remained in the bucket over herself. The cool assault sent goose flesh rushing over her skin in a delicious decadent sensuous wave. Lori shook and then wrung her wet hair into a long tail down her back.

“A glass of ice tea, and I’ll start on the garden,” she bargained with her muscles countering the mild fatigue that was trying to compete with her plans. The thing that really won out for her was the thoughts of Roy that kept chasing every free moment she gave her mind.

“Busy, gotta keep busy,” she chattered with the air. “He’ll kill me. Yep, kill me. Oh well, too late now. Maybe I’ll call him tonight, just so he knows I’m OK. Why should I worry what he’s thinking, I’m the one who was threatened and had to run. He’s going to worry though. Not exactly fair. I could have left him a note. Better that I didn’t though. Don’t want him coming up here. Not yet anyway. First he needs to get that Neanderthal idea out of his brain.”

The tea tasted good.

“Boots, I need boots again. ‘Bubber roots’ where did you get to huh? Come out come out where ever you are.” Lori kept her chatter up, found the rubber boots she’d mated earlier, and made her way down to the garden.

“Would you call him if you were me?” Lori chattered to the spade she used to loosen the earth under the weeds. “He really should stew in his juices I think. Imagine telling me he was going to spank me. He’s my husband not my father. Heck if he was my father and said that I’d go to a social worker and have him arrested.”

“Well you know Lori, you have been a royal pain. Hahahaha a Royal pain alright!”

“Yeah, so?Royal’s the one who’s a pain. Always telling me what I can and can’t do with my money and my time. Shit! If I’d l wanted to marry a banker and a parent I wouldn’t have picked him!”

“Oh yeah? You did pick him. That’s exactly what you got. And you picked him.”

“Oh shut up! Just shut up!”

Lori pounded the spade deep into the soil. It was a rotten companion.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“Oh yeah? Is that so? What’s with this creaming in your panties every time you think about him pulling you over his knee huh? You kind of like the idea don’t you!?”

“No effing way! No way no way!”

“Yeah right. Put your hand down there right now and tell me you don’t secretly wish he was here right now pointing his finger at you telling you off and taking his belt off right in front of you.”

Lori clamped her thighs together, aware of the electric buzz of arousal settling deep between them.

“Shut up you stupid wench. Who cares about it any way? So what if it’s a sexy idea? That’s all it is an idea. I’ve been spanked for real, and it isn’t any fun. Thinking about it and having fantasies about it is not the same as doing it.

“But you kind of want him to do it though don’t you? In fact if he doesn’t do it eventually you’ll be disappointed.”

“Yeah well, not now I don’t. Now I’m here, and he’s there, and I don’t want to think about it anymore. So will you just shut up about it? Please? Look out there at the valley. It’s quiet and beautiful and pure peace. Quit wrecking it with this shit OK?”

Lori’s chatter kept up, and helped the time pass.

Roy scanned the property after he put away the groceries and his duffel. It was almost 5PM. Her car was there, and the bedroom smelled of her soap. Although he really had no doubts she was going to be here, the evidence that she was let him relax.

There she was pretty as a picture digging and working away in the garden. From the looks of it, she was deep in thought and conversation with herself. Hand gestures and all. Roy smiled. She did that often, chattered away time, having complete two sided conversations with her own mind. He was tempted to stroll down the hill and eaves drop, but he decided it would be better to start supper, and sit up here and watch from a distance.

“Let her work off as much of the piss and vinegar as she can,” he reasoned.

Lori didn’t see Roy on the rocker until she was up on the porch, and he moved. His seemingly sudden movement caught the corner of her eye, and in a split second she was off the porch. The scream of surprise that escaped her mouth was immediately replaced with a litany of curses and threats.

Roy had to laugh at the animated figure below him on the path. Lori was brandishing the spade like a ninja with a pole.

Recognition slowly wiped down her fear, but the heart pounding residual of pumped adrenaline would take much longer to abate.

“Jesu-Mary-and-Joseph! You scared the shit out of me!” Lori gasped as soon as she caught her breath.

“So I see,” Roy continued to laugh. His sides were beginning to hurt he was laughing so hard.

“It’s not funny! You’re lucky I didn’t have a shot gun or something like that!” Lori groused when he wouldn’t stop laughing.

“You should have seen yourself!” Roy chuckled.

“You’ll see yourself in a minute if you don’t stop! I’ll launch you right into an out of body experience!” Lori swung the spade into the pillar on the edge of the porch nearest Roy’s position.

“OK, OK,” Roy smiled. “No need to knock the house down now.”

“What in the hell are you doing here any way?” Lori shifted gears.

“Me? Let’s talk about you,” Roy willingly took hold of the conversation and ran with in the direction Lori’s question pointed.

“You know damned well why I’m here. So you just get down off this porch and go on back home. This is my cabin and I don’t want you in it,” Lori hissed and stomped up the steps toward the door.

“I have an idea why you’re here, yes,” Roy nodded and move behind his wife to follow her into the cabin’s cozy kitchen. “Which is exactly why I’m here. We have unfinished business.”

“No! Not here! This is my place and I didn’t invite you here,” Lori turned to defiantly face her husband who towered inches behind her.

“This place will do just fine young lady,” Roy growled.

“Don’t call me that!” Lori turned back away, and scanned the room searching out the source of the mouth watering smell. “Who told you you could cook on my stove?”

Roy smiled and laughed again. Lori’s irrational side could be so endearing. It was one of the things about her kept life interesting.

“Stop it! Just stop laughing at me. It’s not funny!” Lori hissed and spun back to push her tall husband away from her.

He was ready for her though, and easily caught her wrists. He held her so it looked like she had two fists aimed for his chin.

“No it isn’t funny. You ran away from consequences you earned. You didn’t leave a note. What if I hadn’t guessed where you were? Were you planning to let me know you were alright?”

“Yes I was! Now you let me go,” Lori retorted, and tugged to get her arms back.

“No. While I have you we’re going to talk,” Roy pulled her closer and leaned down so his face was only inches from hers. His deep blue eyes flashed with intent and resolve. Lori cringed. She couldn’t find any words to directly address what Roy was getting to. All she could manage was raw nerves.

“Roy!” Lori whined and tried again to pull away. “You’re not being fair.”

“Oh yes I am. I’m being more than fair. I could have let you stay out here wondering what you’d done to us. I could step back and let you to keep chipping away at what matters to us until it’s broken beyond repair. That would be unfair,” Roy shook her, to stop her struggles, and pulled her closer. “Instead what I’m going to do is give you one hell of a paddling and a chance to wake up and smell the coffee. Because, my darling wife, if you don’t come around, and start taking our partnership seriously, it’s going to come apart”

“Are you threatening to leave me?” Lori blinked a stopped pulling.

“No, I’m not threatening anything. I’m speaking plain English to you,” Roy answered his eyes becoming soft with the truth of it. “We need to come together on things Lori, and you having every little selfish thing your own way all the time is not going to help us do that.”

“How is me buying a few outfits or going to a pub with the girls once in a while ruining us?” Lori set her jaw with resistance.

“It isn’t a few outfits, it’s two thousand dollars in outfits in six weeks. It isn’t going to a pub once in a while it’s going two and three times a week. And it’s thinking it’s OK to run off without leaving word,” Roy shook her again.

“Damn it Roy!” Lori whined again.

“Damn it Lori!” Roy growled, and pulled her to the bedroom. Talking would get them nowhere but to the same frustrating corner they’d talked themselves into over and over again for months now. “It’s time I kept that promise I made you the other day, and I mean to do it right!”

“No Roy! Don’t! Don’t!” Lori quickly shifted into fight or flight mode. She couldn’t get her arms back, and she stood no chance of impeding their progress to the bedroom. Roy was more than double her weight, and he was easily able to manage any fight she tried to put up. All she was able to do was drop her bottom, so he had to drag her behind him like a water skier riding dust bunnies.

Exasperated by her fighting, Roy gave her arms one last good pull when he got her close to the bed. “Get over here now, and quit this fooling around. You’re getting a spanking whether you like it or not. And you’ll get one everyday for the next week if you don’t come around and get your head on straight!”

“I don’t like it one bit! And you better not!” Lori twisted her arms so she could grip Roy’s when she managed it she dug her finger nails into his arms.

“So help me Lori!” Roy growled, as he rescued his hide by taking both her hands into one of his. Her lycra shorts came down in one pull, and the white cotton briefs she had under them came down with them.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” Lori screamed when she felt herself falling down across her husbands lap. He spanked her ten times while he was still getting her pinned into position.

“Owe! OWE! Oh Christ! Owe! Stop!” Lori gasped. “You’re hurting me!”

“I’m spanking you! It’s supposed to hurt!” Roy answered her petulant complaint.

“Stop! Oh! Owe!” Lori tried to kick out from under the next round of spanks, but Roy had her legs trapped between his. She wasn’t going anywhere, but it didn’t stop her from trying.

Roy spanked her harder. “Settle down and take your spanking like a big girl!”

“Oh fuck Roy! Please stop! This hurts too much,” Lori bucked as best she could.

“Good! It hurts. We’ve established that. It’ll hurt a whole lot more before I’m through.” With that Roy set about spanking with everything he could put behind the swing of his arm. Lori squalled like a tom cat in a fight, and tried to use her nails like one too. Roy’s rhythm was barely interrupted as he trapped one hand and then the other up on the small of her back.

Her backside was becoming an interesting shade of mottled red. His finger marks blanched, and then filled in dark red with each spank. In a few minutes, his hand began to feel numb, and the knuckle of his middle finger throbbed. Roy started to wonder if Lori’d had enough. She showed no signs of giving in yet though.

“Damn woman you’re wearing me out!” he announced after ten solid minutes of spanking failed to make any measurable impact on Lori’s resistance.

“Let me go then you sorry mother fucking sine of a bitch!” Lori squalled an answer.

“I guess we’ll have to change tactics here then leather butt,” Roy’s answer was filled with humor. At least he wasn’t breaking her, he smiled a little reassured. The bag with the bath brush in it was just a few feet from his right leg, so Roy leaned over to rummage for it. His search was quickly rewarded, and in an instant, Lori’s squalling changed key and went up a full octave.

Roy was a little surprised by just how desperate her struggles became. The brush certainly made a better impression than his hand did. In only a few more minutes, Lori started to let go and give in.

“Are you ready to talk reasonably now?” Roy asked her.

Lori sobbed and nodded.

“Promise?”

She nodded again.

“Good,” Roy set the brush down beside his hip on the bed, and let Lori’s arms go so he could soothe and rub her back. He laid his right hand on her bruised hot behind and his left on the dip between her shoulder blades. Gently he massaged both areas while Lori sobbed and recovered.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a few minutes.

“Are you really? For what?”Roy crooned.

“For being selfish and mean,” Lori hiccupped. “I really do love you Roy.”

“Good to know, I love you too,” Roy massaged. “Things have to change Lori, you know that right?”

Lori nodded, and began to sob again.

“Why you crying now?”Roy asked.

“Because I don’t want you to hate me,” Lori sobbed after a few minutes.

“I could never hate you baby. You are everything to me, and that’s why we’re going to spend the next few days coming to an understanding about our goals and where we’re going,” Roy wrapped his arms under her middle, and lifted Lori up to sit on his lap.

She winced a little when her bottom made contact with the coarse denim of his jeans.

“I love you,” Roy whispered into Lori’s hair.

“I love you.” Lori looked up into Roy’s eyes, not sure what she would see there, needing something, and afraid of it at the same time. What she saw was more than love, and it made her want him like she had never wanted him before. He was so sure, so certain. It made him powerful.

“Aren’t you ever scared?” she asked him as her fingers traced the smile lines on either side of his mouth.

“Scared?” Roy smiled, and searched Lori’s eyes for the deeper answer to her question.

“Yes, scared, scared you’ll get it wrong, that the answers you think you have might be all wrong? Scared you’ll make a choice that will ruin everything?”

Roy knew immediately that she wasn’t questioning him and the integrity of his actions, but rather she was marveling at his strength. It made him smile.

“All the time baby, all the time,” he took her mouth with a kiss.

“Me too,” Lori closed her eyes. The last of her tears dropped from her eyelashes, trickled down her cheeks and salted their kiss. “Love me?”

Roy needed no further enticement. Shifting, he pushed her shorts and panties off all the way, and lifted her so he could free himself from his jeans. He was erect and ready to explode, but he wanted to be sure that his wife understood and could count on his devotion to her. His release would keep until she was thoroughly loved.

When his jeans were down, Lori climbed back onto his lap, and slipped herself down easily onto him.

“You’re very wet aren’t you little one?” Roy smiled and took possession of her mouth, so Lori could not answer. “Maybe spanking you isn’t such a cruel mean thing after all?” he whispered when he let her mouth go, and her pelvis rubbed and rocked on him.

Lori let herself revel in the sensations of him thick and long inside her, the tightening twinges of an odd mix of pain and pleasure as her hot bruised bottom tightened and relaxed with the rhythm of her pelvis as she fucked him. She was aroused, very aroused, by the spanking. But it wasn’t so much the spanking as it was his power and authority. He’d done it. Hard and sure, just like he said he would. He didn’t hold back even one ounce of purpose in punishing her. He meant to punish, and he did it. Completely. No matter how much he feared hurting her, or struggled against his own inhibitions and fears, he made up his mind that she needed to be spanked properly, and he did it. Lori knew it, was grateful for it, and was more in love with her husband than ever because of it.

For now though she couldn’t admit it to him. For now, she just needed to take it in. To take him in all the way.

“Fuck me,” she whispered.

Roy lifted and turned them, and did just as his wife asked. His thrusts were fast and rough, making Lori cum in seconds. Roy held his own release. The fucking done, he slowed his strokes, and made love to his wife. Long slow blissful love.

When they sat down to supper, it was dusk, and the ham was done perfectly.

“You have two more spankings coming Lori, if you’re lucky,” Roy announced after they finished their meal.

“Two”! Why!?” Lori caught her breath. Surprised and blind sided by the announcement.

“One will be a punishment, hard and serious, just like this one was, for running away. The other will be to seal the deal on a new agreement between us. I brought some reading material for you honey. We’re going to talk about a lifestyle called domestic discipline. If after you read about it you agree, we’ll seal the deal with the spanking of your life.”

Lori closed her eyes and nodded her head.

“Shit! He found the websites too!” she thought. A wave of arousal and goose bumps washed over her. “OK, here we go….”