“What do you have to say for yourself, young lady?”

I looked at my husband of six months and tried really hard to come up with something witty and intelligent I could say that would save my bacon, but it is almost impossible to think cleverly when a man who is built like a defensive lineman is standing there towering over you and holding a doubled belt in his hand.

“Well?” he impatiently demanded.

“Give me a minute, you lawyer, you!  Every criminal is given time to prepare a defense, so how about we discuss this next week?”  As a comeback I thought it was pretty good, but for some reason David wasn’t amused, and he also wasn’t stupid.  He knew I would be away on a business trip all the following week, traveling around and touching base with out of town clients who held interests here in our city.

“This isn’t a joke, Elizabeth.  This is the third speeding ticket you’ve received in the last five months.  I told you the last time that you would get punished with my belt if it happened again, and that was only four weeks ago.  Apparently the spanking I gave you with your hairbrush didn’t make much of an impression if you forgot it so easily!”

“You don’t understand, David.  I was running late to meet with an important new client, and those orange cone idiots tore up another street, and I had to make a detour…! I got behind two grannies, and I promise, there was no one else around that I could harm in any way.  The pavement was dry.  I just wanted to be on time!”  That was what I wanted, but the cop who pulled me over didn’t have a bit of sympathy for my predicament… especially when he saw my last name, or that I’d had two other speeding tickets in the last six months!

“Why were you running late, Bet?” 

The first time I told David my name, he raised an eyebrow and said, “‘Bet’…? Do you mean as in Bette Davis?”  I smiled and told him, “No, as in my Dad telling everyone ‘I won my bet; it’s a girl this time!’”  After six boys, my Dad was delighted to have a little girl to spoil, and spoil me he did.  The nickname ‘Bet’ stuck.

“Elizabeth, answer me!” he barked.

Trust David to hone in on the root of the problem.  “You know perfectly well why.”

“You overbooked yourself again, didn’t you?”

“Yes.  I just don’t know how to say ‘no’ to people.”  David actually rolled his eyes heavenward and sighed and it sparked my temper, which wasn’t very smart under the circumstances.  “You do realize that it is your fault I get a ticket instead of a warning when I am pulled over…?  I never got tickets until I married you six months ago, and now all a cop has to do is see my last name and just like that I am cited!  It is your fault!”

“You wouldn’t get pulled over in the first place if you weren’t speeding, Elizabeth Joy Barger Rutherford.  It is not my fault.”

“Oh yes it is!  They see the name ‘Rutherford’ and realize that I am related to you, the man who defends criminals for a living, and I get a ticket!”

“Well, isn’t it a shame that you can no longer charm and flirt your way out of a speeding ticket, Mrs. Rutherford?  Just answer this, how many times have you been pulled over and done just that?”

“Those happened before we were married and do not apply to the now!” I defended myself.  “You can’t judge anything I did before we said our vows.”

“Very well.  You are in enough trouble for this speeding ticket.  How fast were you driving, Bet?”

It was my turn to roll my eyes, but I dutifully answered, “Fifty-five miles per hour.”

“And, what was the speed limit?” he asked, wanting to make this scolding as dramatic as possible.  The man was a lawyer, and like most criminal attorneys, he was a good actor.  He was also handsome enough to be on stage or screen.  It was only one of the reasons I fell in love with him.  He was also fearless, and that was how I met him… I’d met with a client and was walking to my car in a parking garage late at night when three young gang members accosted me.  I am pretty good in a fight; my older brothers taught me how to defend myself.  But, there were three of them and they didn’t fight fair but came at me all at once.  Out of nowhere, David came to my defense.  He was quite literally my hero, and we’d been together ever since then.

“David, would you have come to my rescue in the parking garage if you’d known what a pita I could be?”  I felt tears sting my eyes as I wondered, and not for the first time, if David regretted marrying me.

“What kind of answer is that to my question?” he asked.

I gave him the signal for a time out.  “I need an honest answer, please?”

“I love you with every ounce of my body, and each and every hair on it.  Of course I would rescue you again.  I do not regret marrying you, Bet, darling, but you may damn well regret marrying me by the time we settle this speeding ticket issue.”  He gave the signal to resume play and then asked, “What is the speed limit for where you were driving?”

“Twenty miles per hour, but I didn’t know that until I was pulled over.”

“It was a school zone, Elizabeth!  How could you not know the speed limit?”  David was building up steam.

“The sign said ‘during restricted hours’.  I thought that meant when the kids were going to and coming home from school.  It also includes when they are at recess!” I informed David, the lawyer, of the law.  “I wasn’t aware of that at the time!” I added, defending myself.

“So, you were going thirty-five miles an hour over the speed limit… in a school zone!  Do you know what the fine is for that?  Do you realize that your license is probably going to be suspended?  Or you will have to go to traffic school?  Do you realize that speeding in a school zone is considered a 4th degree misdemeanor and you could be sent to jail for a year… or put on probation?  This is a notice to appear in court, Elizabeth Rutherford!  You can’t just pay a fine this time and walk away.”

“Oh great!  The judge will hear my name and give me jail time and probation and take away my license!  What am I going to do, David?”  I was truly frightened.

“You are going to take down those jeans and what’s under them and put your hands on the coffee table, Elizabeth.”

“No!  Seriously, I have to think, David!  If I lose my license, I could lose my job!  You know that I need to be able to go to appointments and meet with clients.  And jail…! I don’t want to go to jail!  I didn’t know that if the children were outside at recess I had to drive slower!  How can I convince a judge of that?”  I turned to my lawyer husband for advice, but he was intent on making me sorrier than I already was.  “Honey, you have to help me!  Please?”

“You know I will defend you, Bet.  And I will probably tell the judge that you have already been thoroughly punished.”

“You wouldn’t!  The paper would make a regular scandal of it!”  I was horrified.

“Elizabeth, you already have one heck of a strapping coming to you; I suggest you do as you were told, and do it now, or I am going to tack on extras… and the last thing you are going to want on top of this strapping is extras with a cane.”

“Cane?  Are you serious, David?” I looked at him in dismay.  “Are you that angry with me?”  I suddenly felt like a small child who was about to be tossed out into the world to fend for herself!  I was scared and the belt hanging in his hand looked like a terrible weapon.  “Honey, can’t you just spank me with your hand?  I promise that I have already learned my lesson and I will not be speeding again… Ever.  You have my word.”

“I promised you a strapping with my belt if you got another ticket within the next year, and Bet, it was only four weeks ago I made that promise!  Believe me, you are going to get that strapping.  What remains to be decided is if I’m going to start assigning you sets of ten with the cane for stalling and disobeying me…?”

I knew that trying to discuss the situation further was just going to bury me, so I did the only thing I could do… I unbuttoned my jeans, unzipped them, and pushed them down around my bare feet and ankles.  My light blue silk panties came down with the jeans, and I was bare from the waist down.  David motioned for me to put my hands on the coffee table and I knew that I would soon be crying real tears and making the wooden surface wet.

“I think you need to step out of your jeans so that you can spread your legs apart, Bet.  I want plenty of skin to stripe.”

I looked at him, hoping to see a bit of sympathy in his expression, but David was in his role of stern husband.  I did as he told me because I knew that extras given with the cane would be the worst of the worst.  Extras were given solely to my sit spots and I would have to count them.  However, he’d never used our ‘role play’ cane for punishment before, and I didn’t want him to do so this time.  I turned around, put my hands on top of the coffee table once more and when he told me to spread my legs further apart, I obeyed him.  With reluctance, of course.  I knew the strapping would hurt, especially since he wasn’t giving me any kind of warm up with his hand first.

“Your fine could be as much as $500, Elizabeth.”  I was shocked.  I remembered my last fine and that I’d received that same number with my hairbrush… after a hand spanking. I cringed to think that David would strap me that many times. 

“David, please… Don’t use the belt for that many strokes!  I won’t have any skin left if you do!”  I wasn’t exaggerating.  My hair was a bright shade of red and my skin was a freckled pale white.  I was very sensitive, and if David gave me five hundred stokes with his belt, I would be in bed for a week!

“You will get fifty, Elizabeth, and don’t think I am going easy on you.  Those fifty are going to ensure you can’t sit for a couple of days without considerable regret for your actions.”

He was through talking then.  The first stripe landed on my left thigh and I screamed in shock and pain.  It hurt, but before I could attempt to shake off the pain, David gave me another, right on the same spot!  I started crying, but he ignored my tears.  The leather caught my left thigh again and I knew what he was doing! He was not giving the pain time to recede before he struck again and again.  He was testing my ability to stay in place, and when I did raise my left foot off the floor in an attempt to avoid an anticipated stripe, he accidentally caught the calf of that same leg and I howled in pain.

“Keep your leg down and in place, Elizabeth.  You earned this strapping, and you will accept it as a grown woman.”

I didn’t feel like a grown woman at that moment.  I felt very small and the pain was overwhelming me.  He gave me four more after the one that caught my calf by mistake, and each of them was very hard.

“You can stay right there and think about what is happening and why, Elizabeth.  I want you to anticipate the next ten and wonder where they will be given and how hard they will be.  No talking and no wiggling.  If you take your hand off the coffee table and reach back to rub, I will strap your palm, hear me?”

“Yes, I hear you,” I managed to say through my tears.  David was being very firm and this was the worst punishment I could remember earning.  Well, it was the worst in terms of pain, but the one that was worst in terms of embarrassment took place in his office, just a few weeks after we met:

I was very excited to have a lunch date with my new boyfriend and didn’t mind going to his office to meet with him.  I figured he wanted me to meet his coworkers, just as I’d introduced him to the people in my office.  I made sure I was dressed nice, had my hair perfectly done, and I touched up my makeup in the restroom off the lobby of the high class building before I took the elevator up to the floor where the law offices were located.  I’d anticipated the special moment since David invited me the night before, and I practiced meeting the law partners he worked for in my bedroom mirror, wanting my smile to be just right.  I was aware that I was seven years younger than David and I did not want to appear immature.

But, when I got there the receptionist told me to have a seat.  “Mr. Rutherford is with a client.  I sat there for the better part of an hour and still no word from David.  I’d seen several people leave the law offices, and yet, David didn’t come and he didn’t come. I finally grew tired of waiting and I marched to the desk, my redhead’s temper assuming the worst… that the snotty blonde receptionist hadn’t even bothered to tell David I was here.  There was simply no way he would permit me to sit in the waiting room for over an hour without so much as a ‘hello’.  She looked up at me, her gray eyes full of irritation she didn’t bother to hide.  I lost the last bit of control I had over my tongue.  “Did you even bother to give David my message, or do you hope I will grow tired of waiting and leave?  There is no way in hell I would ever let a bitch like you sink your claws into my David!” 

Of course it was right then that David chose to walk out into the lobby with another man, and it was obvious he’d heard the exchange between me and the smirking blonde.  His brown eyes were snapping with temper and his neck and cheeks were burning with embarrassment as he walked the man I later learned was his client to the doors of the office and told him he would take care of everything.  When David turned to face me I honestly didn’t know what to do.  Oh, he’d threatened to spank me a few times, but I’d known he was mostly joking then.  Now I felt he was perfectly capable of carrying out one of those threats.

“Stephanie, I am sure that Elizabeth will be apologizing for her rude behavior as soon as I give her a lesson on manners. Excuse us, please.”  He took my arm and pulled me down the hallway to his office and marched me inside, shutting the door behind him.  He pulled a chair away from his desk, sat down, and just that quickly I was lying face down over his thighs and his hand was smacking my bottom over my skirt! 

“David Rutherford!  Don’t you dare treat me like a child!” I railed at him.  His hand wasn’t hurting my bottom as much as it was stinging my pride!  “You let me up so we can discuss this like adults.”

“There is only one adult in this room, little girl.  And the little girl in here needs a damn good spanking in the worst way.  How dare you come here and speak like that to a woman I have to work with every day?”

“She didn’t tell you I was here!” I yelled as loudly as possible.  The spanking was getting harder as David scolded and I couldn’t help squirming as I tried to evade the smacks he was giving me.

“Stephanie called me immediately, Elizabeth, and I asked her to tell you to have a seat because I was with a client.”

“You allowed me to sit for over an hour, David?”  Now I was angry with him and I am sure it showed.  “That was just plain…”

“It was unavoidable, Elizabeth.  I am an attorney; when my clients have an emergency they expect to see me for advice.  I think you should know that by now.  I’ve had to cancel an engagement before for that very reason.  While I didn’t think the appointment would take as long as it did, I certainly didn’t expect you to behave as a bratty child.”

“I didn’t think she told you I was here.  I saw all those people leave, and I never dreamed you could still be with someone when you knew what time I was coming!”  I felt insulted.  “You should have called me and told me you had to meet with someone.”

“If you check your messages you will find that I did.  In fact, I called you before ten o’clock!”  He was very angry.  Not checking my messages was another sore point between us. 

“Okay, let me up now!” I ordered, trying to push up from his knee but his other arm was resting on the small of my back and I couldn’t budge.  He was simply too strong.  His other hand was still spanking me every so often, punctuating his words with stinging spanks. 

The door to his office suddenly opened and an older man poked his head inside and said, “David, I need… Oh!  What on earth is going on in here?”