by DJ Black
Was it a game they played or was it for real? Neither answer to that question really satisfied. Maybe both of them had their own reasons or at least, their own questions. For as lifestyles went, each day brought more questions than answers.
To call it a game was to trivialise something important to both of them. After all, their lives were a quest for order, a perfect pursuit of improved imperfection. They danced together amid sometimes shifting rules, each trying to better the other.
It was certainly real for them, but it was their own kind of reality. Not one normally drawn upon in the wider world. For what they did and what they shared was far too unfashionable, too fundamental for that.
Michael was pushing 50, although she swore he looked younger. He certainly still had his own hair, albeit largely grey, and his stomach was more or less washboard flat. And although he wasn't particularly tall, he was a head or more above her with a decent enough physique for a man 10 years younger. She particularly liked his arms that were thick from the biceps and hung from powerful shoulders.
He might have said that she saw him through the lens of love, for God knew he had his issues as time went by. He didn't bounce as easily as he had for one thing, and something had no sooner healed when another ache appeared.
Polly was much younger than he, still in her 30s and looking well on it. She was a little below average height for a woman, although most people would not wish to be on her bad side. Proudly ginger, she took no prisoners and had the fiery temper to go with it. Her curves were a little fuller than she would have liked and if she hadn't been such a keen runner she might have drifted too far towards chubby for her liking.
She was a proud, independent, professional woman whose education was every bit the match for her rather bookish husband, and in her life she had made some hard choices. One choice she had never regretted was Michael and their life together, even as unconventional as it may have been.
They were two people on a mission to re-craft their lives to their own needs. Beyond judgement, although others would judge them if they knew; beyond even what had gone before. Although each had a vast pool of fantasy and desire to draw upon as they fused two dreams into one.
For her there could be no easy submission. True, she wanted him to win, for his victory was the only road available to her own. But his triumph could only follow her soul-tearing best effort to defeat him. The open secret between them was that she demanded to be conquered only after a true battle.
For him the nature of their relationship was far from clear. Sometimes he struggled with the ruthless cruelty that nagged at the edges of the thing. Sometimes he was too aware of his fallible mortality to find the heart to take her to task for hers. There was the challenge of course. Living with her was the ultimate sport. But that was not what drove him.
To be trusted with such beauty to mould and improve as he willed, and thereby shape and improve himself; well that was at the core of it. But it was much more than that. Sometimes the only way to see it, This Things That They Did, was as a joint project, where he was the leader and she at once his second, his protégé and the clay from which they would build and re-build their lives.
All this and more he wrestled with daily, pondering if he was too quick to take her to task for her failures or too casual, or too harsh in his sanctions when she did so.
For her part she tended to wonder if today she could get away with it or not; and if not, why not? Also if she couldn't take out her crumby day on him, then who could she take it out on? Then if she did get caught, just how long would she be in the corner and how long and hard would he spank her?
Outside the shop the sun beat down with an unrelenting glare, and she had retreated into the store to escape the heat. She was still hot and bothered, but at least here there were shoes and pretty dresses. It wasn't as if she had to buy them. It wasn't strictly compulsory unless something was less than half price. But she could look, couldn't she? Then she would feel better.
For instance the black and white palm leaf-patterned dress was cut to just the style that flattered her. But it was rather pricey at £120. But she had to admit, it was pretty.
Now the problem for Polly was that her credit cards had already been maxed-out for that month, so without the half-price rule coming into play, she just couldn't chance it.
Not that Michael understood the half-price rule. Or at least, so far, he had never shown any signs of it.
"But, darling, I saved £40," she said to him once as she fluttered her eyelashes, "It was half-price. Forty-pounds, surely even you can see that that is a bargain?"
On that occasion he had crossed his arms to match his face and had just glared at her with his pale blue eyes.
"I haven't shown you the shoes yet," she had enthused. "Guess how much. Just guess."
He had cocked his head to one side as if sizing something up. The price of the shoes maybe, but she didn't think it likely.
"They are Gucci," she said with a sigh as if that fact trumped any price she had paid for them.
Michael never understood her when she went shopping. She sighed, but this time not in a good way.
Then she spotted the most darling little number cut just the way she liked it, and so slimming too. It had broad, rich, reddish-brown vertical stripes alternating with slightly paler, ginger ones that blended together with exquisite stitching. It had the look of silk, but given the price, it couldn't be.
Still it was a little pricey at... she winced. No wonder she liked it.
"That one is marked down, madam," the shop girl said encouragingly.
Polly looked at the price that had been scored out. Maybe it was silk, she decided. Not quite half price though.
"Not quite," she mused aloud as she held the dress up to her full figure in the mirror. "Maybe there is a nearly half-price rule."
The red matched her hair exactly and even the reddish-brown was a close echo to her dark highlights. It wouldn't hurt to try it on, would it?
The dress was amazing, and Polly felt like a queen as she swept around the room. She especially liked the shoes, which although had come nowhere near the half-price rule, had been reduced and they were a perfect match for the dress.
She would put the items at the back of the wardrobe and introduce them to Michael at a later date. He scarcely knew the entire contents of her wardrobe anyway and she had often suggested recent purchases were something that she had had for 'simply ages.'
"What's that?" Michael's voice was firm and steady behind her.
"Eh... what's what darling?" she said quickly as she swung around to confront him with a sunny, disarming smile.
He knew from long experience that she was putting up a front and he immediately went on his guard. Taking a slightly wide stance with his arms folded he gave her a hard, quizzical look.
"That dress?" he said in a significant tone.
"Oh what, this dress?" she replied with a sweet smile, "Do you like it? I thought I might wear it on Saturday."
"Uh-huh," he acknowledged suspiciously. "But where did you get it?"
"Oh... eh... it's just a dress... I was... eh... going to put it away at the back of the wardrobe but now I have decided I like it." It was a masterful piece of evasion that had the added advantage of being the truth.
Michael studied her warily. He didn't remember ever seeing the dress before, and it looked new. Then he saw the shoes.
"Now those are new aren't they?" He had her now.
"Oh... um... yes, fairly." She pulled a face.
"How new?" he said sharply.
"Eh..." She let her mouth hang open as she carefully considered her next answer.
Casting his eyes around the room, he spotted the glossy boutique shopping bag half hidden behind the arm of the sofa.
Polly followed the path of his gaze and winced. But it was too late to get to it before Michael did, and as he reached into the bag to retrieve the receipt, she knew her goose was cooked.
"New, as in today?" he sighed as he pulled the sales ticket from the bag.
"Maybe a little bit," she agreed with a sad pout.
Then he saw the price tag.
"How much?" he exclaimed.
"It's pretty," she whined.
His eyes did that thing where they seemed to flash only they didn't look away so she had to.
"I... I...," then she tried her final gambit, or it would have been if she had thought it through as a stratagem, but as usual, it was a purely emotional response. "It is so unfair. I was all happy and then you go and spoil it by being a poo-poo head. You're not the boss of me. I am a grown woman and if I want to spend my money on... ooh."
With that she flounced off and stormed out of the room.
Earlier in their relationship he would have completely lost his temper at this point, but he was learning. Michael's could bide his time.
As it was, the shoes had been kicked across the hall as a prelude to Polly's ascent to their room. He could hear her now stomping across the upstairs landing and slamming the door.
Michael stepped into the hall and stooped to pick up the shoes and put them neatly on the end of a neat row in the hall next to 30 or so other pairs that she had once just had to have. God I hope she isn't too far into the red, he thought, that would mean more financial juggling. Couldn't she see that two months' restraint would put her ahead and then she could shop without consequences? Hadn't that damn girl heard of a budget?
He looked up the stairs in the direction of their room. There was no sound of crying, which would often be his cue. No, he would let her stew for a while.
Forty minutes had passed when he ascended the stairs. The first thing he saw on entering the bedroom was the dress hanging on the front of the wardrobe.
Polly was sitting in her underwear on the bed looking at the floor dejectedly.
"Have you calmed down now?" he asked in a paternal voice.
She glanced up at him with sad eyes and did a sideways lip bite and then looked down again.
"I didn't catch that," he growled.
"Yes," she murmured.
"Yes what?" he asked sharply.
"I'm calm," she whispered.
It wasn't the answer he was after, but he was patient.
"Was any part of that my fault?" he said rhetorically, raising his voice a little.
"No," she mumbled.
"Where you or weren't you over budget?" he asked.
She looked up and winced.
"You know you can't keep doing this," he scolded, "If we keep going into the red we will end up running to stand still."
"I know," she said in a small voice.
"Do you? Do you really?" he said calmly but sharply.
She made an appealing sad face that said she was sorry, but was unable to put it into words.
"Is there any reason I shouldn't put you across my knee for sound spanking on your bare bottom?" he asked her with feeling.
"No," she squeaked.
It was an ambiguous protest.
"Quite apart from overspending, you were going to lie about it weren't you?" he barked. "And what was that outburst all about? How dare you speak to me like that when you are in the wrong? How dare you speak to me like that at all?"
His scolding demanded more than a one word answer now and her consternation played out on her face.
"I'm sorry," she wailed.
"Yes you are," he sighed. "Now stand up."
She made one last appeal to him with her eyes, and then with a pout, she got nervously to her feet.
"You can go and face that wall until I am ready to deal with you," he ordered, pointing at the space under the picture that faced the bed.
Polly bit her lower lip and then meekly went and did as she was told while he watched her with angry, crossed arms.
Once he was happy with her submissive pose he leaned over and reached for her knickers. Then in one firm tug drew them all the way down to her calves.
"Ooh," she gasped, but made no move to defy him.
"I think I like it better this way," he said, still leaving his voice stern. "You can stay there and think about what you've done and what you have coming."
"Yes," she whispered.
"Yes what?" This time he would have it from her.
"Yes, Sir," she quickly amended.
He leaned over and put his head on her shoulder close to her ear.
"Yes, Sir," he breathed in her ear, "I should think so."
Polly gulped.
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