by DJ Black
Sammie liked the place as soon as she saw it. It was the kind of house you saw in movies and the hometown cosy feel all along the tree-lined road had broken through her hard LA cynicism like balm for the soul. Not that she would ever admit it, perhaps not even to herself.
The couple who strolled onto the porch were not what she was expecting either. They were young and cool looking. She was at most a young 30 with long well-groomed dark hair and looked like someone that belonged in a magazine. He was a little older with short sandy hair and a square jaw that held his easy smile like it never knew a frown. She was put in mind of the Marlboro Man, although this cowboy looked too smart to mess with cigarettes.
The 'c' word made her wince and was just one of the many reasons she was here.
As the car pulled to a halt the cool cowboy stepped from the porch and extended his arm with natural largesse.
"Aunt Aggie," he grinned.
"Oh don't, you make me feel old," Sammie's mother simpered.
Sammie rolled her eyes up at the lame exchange as an opener for getting back into character.
"Nonsense, you sophisticated city-types never get old," he teased, "and anyway we are practically the same age."
Sammie rolled her eyes again, this was so lame. She knew her mother was at least six years older than her great nephew Dhenry. Dhenry, what kind of name was that anyway?
"This is Samantha, your... cousin, sort of? I never remember how it works," Sammie's mother offered hesitantly.
"Cousin will do fine Aggie, after all I can't really call an 18-year-old my aunt can I?"
"She wouldn't be your aunt anyway honey," the long-haired woman said, coming forward.
"I'm almost 20 you dork," Sammie muttered under her breath.
Aggie glared at her daughter, but Dhenry appeared not to hear.
"This is Kathy," he said introducing his wife.
"Kathy," Aggie said enthusiastically and took her hand.
Sammie folded her arms in defiance to the world.
"Samantha," Aggie said in a tight voice, "Come and say hello."
Sammie rolled her eyes up for the third time in as many minutes and heaved a sigh like she had just been asked to walk home on a wet day in January. Then she threw her long suntanned legs out of the car sideways, and without unfolding her arms came to an upright position.
"The spit of her mother, with the same red hair and pretty too," Kathy said with a warm smile as she offered Sammie her hand.
"Give me a break," Sammie muttered. "My hair is washed out ginger and everyone knows it. And the only pretty one here is you."
"Thanks... I guess, but you're pretty too you know," Kathy said uncomfortably.
Pretty lame. Sammie smiled to herself for amusement, which showed on her face as a smirk.
"Young lady if you don't amend your attitude..." Aggie said in a threatening tone.
Sammie went for a fourth eye-rolling.
"I can see we are going to have our work cut out for us with this one," Dhenry chuckled.
"Look I am so grateful for you taking her in like this," Aggie said in a weary voice mixed with relief.
"It really is our pleasure, besides, what are families for?" Dhenry reassured her. "What was the beef with the courts anyway? I heard she was cleared?"
"They never even pressed charges," Aggie said quickly, "She was just a material witness, but there are some issues that came to light and... well the court said she could not reside within 50 miles of the city."
"And you have your job... of course," Dhenry said calmly.
"I don't know anyone 50 miles from LA and there is no way she is setting up house on her own at the moment. As for family, there are only you or your Aunt Margaret in Boise."
"Talk about me as if I'm not here why don't you?" Sammie said belligerently.
Aggie had never felt more embarrassed and that was saying something given the number of police stations and courts she had attended with Sammie in the last few months.
"I am rather afraid I took my eye off the ball since Tom left... Fiji, I ask you, he was always such a dreamer. You know his girlfriend is only... sorry," she sighed. "It's not his fault. My work has been... anyway it is out of my hands for the moment."
"Hello," Sammie said in a surly voice, "I am still here."
"Excuse me," Aggie said abruptly, "there is something that needs my urgent attention."
With some sixth sense Sammie's ears pricked up, but it was too late to flee. Aggie grabbed her daughter's arm and without breaking step marched towards the porch with her daughter in train.
"Mom, come on, I'm sorry I..." Sammie whined.
Aggie didn't speak but availing herself of a bench on the house's veranda she sat down and hauled her half-struggling daughter across her knee.
"N-not here, come on," Sammie gaped, her face colouring sharply.
The denim shorts were a struggle, but Aggie was fast becoming an expert and in a moment they were going south to meet Sammie's ankles.
Before the girl could react her mother hooked a thumb in the band of her panties and they too joined the shorts.
"Mom," Sammie gasped, "Please."
For a moment Aggie lamented the fact that she didn't have the hairbrush to hand, but needs must... she thought and brought her hand sharply down on the bare seat of her daughter.
"Omigod," Sammie gasped, but the spank was the first of many.
The spanking was sound enough, but it was more of a marker against future behaviour and although Sammie's bottom was red, the girl was more embarrassed than stung by the time she was set on her feet.
"Now Samantha, do you want to go to Aunt Margaret's or stay here?" Aggie barked at her by now meek daughter.
"Here," Sammie said in a small voice.
"Right, then mind your manners while your elders talk. Now face that wall there until you are told to move.
Sammie made to pull up her shorts but was told to leave them.
"If she gives you any trouble, you have my full permission to spank her," Aggie said wearily. "And make it count; these days she is used to far more. Something we just got around to lately."
"Oh I think we can manage that," Dhenry said pointedly glancing at his wife.
Kathy blushed and sucked in her cheeks, a response that was not missed by Aggie who smirked a little. The older woman remembered just how Dhenry and Kathy handled their marriage.
"Did you hear that Samantha?" Aggie said in a scolding voice.
"Yes." Sammie bit her lower lip.
Dhenry was surprised at the transformation. She just needs to be away from LA and the whole sin city routine for a while, he decided.
"I'm sorry for her attitude, but it has been a long drive. Not that I am making excuses..." Aggie said with a sigh.
"Aggie, we get it, no need to explain. I am sure that Sammie and I will get on like a house on fire as soon as she learns the rules.
"House on fire, eh, just don't let her play with any matches," Aggie said ruefully and glancing back at her daughter facing the wall on the porch. "She can stay there until it gets dark."
"That's in about 40 minutes and by then supper will be ready anyway," Kathy put in.
On the porch Sammie groaned and shifted from side to side in irritation, but knew better than to complain.
Sammie had been with Dhenry and Kathy for about a week and had yet to settle in. The day after her mother had left, Dhenry had given her a pile of community college pamphlets with the pronouncement, "It's that or you get a job."
She had considered answering back, if only to test his resolve in disciplinary matters, but he had eyes like the chief cop who had arrested her and so far she had funked it.
The other thing Sammie couldn't figure was the whole place, both house and town. It was a complete dump by LA standards. The TV was out of the Ark and they had no cable.
"Not a great package huh?" she had said when she had been told.
"Eh no, we have no package, zilch, nada, no cable," Dhenry had explained.
Then she had been told that the house was a smoke-free zone and that included the porch.
"I don't smoke," Sammie had said quickly.
Dhenry had given her a hard look then until she had been forced to look away.
"We don't tolerate lies here either. I know perfectly well your mother has forbidden you to smoke, but you do it anyway, so I'll pretend I didn't hear that. You're 19 and what you do in town is your own affair; within reason that is," he had scolded her.
Shifting uncomfortably and to change the subject Sammie had asked, "About town, what do you do here anyway? You're not actually a cowboy are you?"
"Cowboy?" he laughed, displaying one of his sudden mood swings she was to get to know so well, "No, I am not any kind of a cowboy. I am the town Sheriff."
Sammie's jaw had hit the floor; she could see why her mother had kept back that particular titbit of information.
"Kathy is the head librarian in town," he continued. "No cowboys here."
"I am one of two librarians," Kathy put in, "I just happen to be senior. Just as Dhenry here is chief of police in town, but only has three deputies."
"Rub it in why don't you?" Dhenry growled good-naturedly, giving Kathy a swat on the tail.
The swat was something that occurred a lot between them and not always in such good humour, Sammie had noticed. It took her that first week to find out why.
Their home was big and solid and Sammie had been given a large cool room above the garage in a wing away from the main part of the house. It was all angles with alcoves so that her bed was out of sight of the desk and she could pretend it was an apartment. This not only afforded Sammie some privacy but as she suspected, kept her out of their hair.
But with no real TV and only a magazine she had already read twice, Sammie decide to snoop.
On her first foray she found a paddle, a cane and an antique hairbrush on the dresser with pristine bristles on one side and devoid of varnish on the other. The third item she might have missed but for the first two and the fact that her mother had one like it for much the same reason, if Sammie's guess was correct.
There were also some books with suggestive titles like Sweet Surrender and Her Master's Voice along with a copy of The Story of O, but they were clearly Kathy's and on Dhenry's shelf were car mechanic books and textbooks on law and law enforcement.
Her second reconnoitre came as a result of the sounds of an argument. Sammie was keen to know that Mr and Mrs Perfect weren't so, and at the back of her mind she was curious about how this might get resolved given her earlier discoveries. She wasn't disappointed.
By the time she got to the landing where their room was, a spanking was already well underway.
The door to their room had been left open and by hanging back she could see that Dhenry had Kathy over his knee with her denims and panties down at her ankles. Her bottom was already a mean red, but Dhenry was putting the hairbrush to her like he was only just getting started.
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