“Pleeeaase! Joseph! No, Sir! No, Sir! Pleeeaasse, Sir!”
He spanked her until her pleas mixed with her sobs and became incoherent. She seemed to have no fight left. He released her and she slid to the sawdust covered floor, one hand gingerly holding her behind while she sobbed.
“ Come here,” he said.
She shook her head wildly. “No, Joseph. Please, no more.”
“ It’s over,” he told her gently as he reached for her arm. “I’m not going to spank you.”
Rising slowly, she crawled toward him. She stood on her knees between his legs and cried in his arms. “I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry for how I acted.”
Joseph couldn’t believe his ears even as he hugged and comforted his contrite wife. He couldn’t believe he’d missed out on the family secret all those years.
Joseph and his family arrived at his brother’s house for his mother and father’s fifty-first anniversary dinner. He looked at his family with pride. His wife was beautiful. She’d let her hair grow; now it was long enough to fall onto her shoulders, and she wore a lavender flowered skirt with a white sweater. His daughters wore skirts and sweaters as well, and they hadn’t had an unkind word to say since they left the house. He was proud of how far they’d come.
The year hadn’t been easy. For awhile he’d felt the paddle was a permanent extension of his hand so often did he have to use it, but with consistent sternness on his part, punishment in his household had lessened considerably. He hadn’t paddled a single bottom in over two months, a record for them. He’d made sure all three of his girls knew the paddle was packed in his suitcase for the trip. He hoped that was all the deterrent they’d need.
When Sheila came out to greet them, a look of strain on her face, his sweet Bonnie took her hands. “Sheila, may I speak to you alone?”
Bonnie had told him she meant to apologize to Sheila for the trouble she’d caused her last year. Since she’d found out she wasn’t the only wife in the family who received discipline from her husband she’d felt a kinship with the other woman. His heart warmed when they returned arm in arm. Maybe there was a friendship in bloom.
His brother looked at him with upraised brows and Joseph laughed. “You’re not the only one with a paddle, little brother,” he told him.
What Dad Tried to Tell Me – Part 2
Joseph hung up the phone and sat in the kitchen chair. He drew in a deep breath and let it out, his nostrils flaring, before he ran his hands through his hair. Jumping up from the chair, he paced to the window and looked out. Bonnie was still gone shopping. He gritted his teeth. He had to get out of there.
He strode to his car, jerked open the door, and fell in. Throwing the car into gear, he pealed out of the driveway. He hadn’t been so angry in a long while.
If he hadn’t taken a personal day he might have never known, but fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how he looked at it, he’d answered the call from the school. The girls had skipped school again. They’d hoped that the meeting with Bonnie had taken care of the problem, but evidently it hadn’t.
The meeting with Bonnie.
The one she hadn’t even told him about.
Joseph gritted his teeth and shook his head. Just when he thought things were going so well. He hadn’t had to paddle anyone in well over six months. The girls and his wife were respectful and obedient. He’d thought they were honest.
From what he could gather from the conversation with the principal’s office, the girls had skipped at least three days of school before they called Bonnie in for a meeting. Bonnie had assured them the problem would not repeat itself; however, the girls were caught skipping again today. They’d been found at the nearby Dairy Queen and were returned to school. If Joseph had been informed the
Weston Ochse, David Whitman