crumpled. “Please, sir!” Her hands clenched and unclenched in little fists.
Wes couldn’t resist: he reached out his own right hand and opened it, took her left gently inside. “I know you’re scared, honey. Have you ever been spanked before, at home?”
She shook her head as a tear trickled down her cheek. Wes could already tell that the very idea of being held accountable this way had started to produce beneficial effects.
“Well, it’s going to hurt, and you’re going to be one sorry little girl, but I promise it’s going to make you feel better afterward.”
Ashley bit her lip. “How?”
“You’ll feel more secure, knowing you have real boundaries now. That’s the way discipline works. The threat can’t do it all on its own, especially when you’ve already lied to me and used bad language. I have to make it completely clear to you that while you’re with me you will make better choices about your behavior, or you will pay the price, on your bare bottom.”
Her eyes went wide again. “Bare? No. Forget it.”
“Bare-bottom discipline is what young ladies get when they’re disrespectful, in an old-fashioned home. Knowing that your daddy won’t hesitate to take down your panties to punish you will make you think twice about your conduct from here on in.”
“But…”
“There are no buts about this, Ashley, except the one that’s going to be bare when you go over my knee.” Wes spoke sternly now. “Go ahead back into the bedroom. Put on my t-shirt again, with nothing under it. I’ll be waiting for you in the living room to spank you.”
She had lowered her eyes to her hand, held in his.
“Unless,” Wes continued, knowing he needed to offer her a real alternative, “you want to take your chances on your own. I’ll drive you to a gas station, and you can call your parents.”
She looked up at him sharply. She tried to pull her hand away but Wes held it for a moment, looking into her eyes, before he let it drop. When he did, though, she didn’t withdraw it fully, but left it there, next to her plate on the table, as if in hope that he would take it again in his.
She said very softly, “Does it really have to be on my bare bottom?”
Wes thought he could hear in her words that a reluctant fascination with the idea had begun to take hold. Ashley spoke as if she almost wanted him to say what he did indeed say.
“Yes, honey, I have to punish you that way. And if you’re very disrespectful, you’ll get an old-fashioned switching.”
“A what?” she asked in horror.
“A switching, honey. You’ll have to go out into the woods and cut a branch and bring it to me so I can whip you with it. It’s the old-fashioned way to make sure a girl remembers her manners.”
“You wouldn’t really do that, would you?” she pleaded.
“I would only switch you if you really needed it, but, yes, I would. A girl who’s had a switching has a sore bottom to remind her for a few days, and sometimes that’s what it takes.”
Now Ashley was definitely breathing a good deal harder.
“Time to get changed. If you’re going to stay, I want you back here in the t-shirt, ready for your spanking. If not, you can go ahead and come back wearing your own clothes. You can take as long as you want to make up your mind.”
Chapter Five
Ashley stayed in the bedroom, looking at Wes’ t-shirt, for a long time. What her mind couldn’t seem to get past was the difference between the horrible thing the warden had said about the paddle in his office, about how he didn’t mind tanning a girl’s hide, and what Wes had said.
Nothing in her heart or head had felt the slightest fascination or interest in bending over the warden’s desk so that he could take down her underwear and swat her with a wooden thing that had holes to make it hit harder. Nothing.
But… Wes. Take you over my knee.
She didn’t want it. No, of course she didn’t want it.
But she did want to stay with him, and the things he