by Annette Byng
I have a foul mouth when I'm mad. Nothing turns me on faster than a lightly reddened bum in bed. And yet bad language just got me the first spanking I didn't enjoy.
Alec knows about both my quirks. The little twist in bed he likes. I don't think he shares it; he has his own little weaknesses that make his eyes lose focus temporarily. But he's happy enough to put me over his knee during foreplay from time to time, and pepper me with sharp slaps until I'm exactly balanced between wanting more, and gasping and squirming as I try to escape.
The teamster mouth he doesn't like. I'm still getting used to his world, to the strange little subculture of officers here on this island in the Pacific, where everyone behaves as if they're in a time warp: I'm called ma'am by men twenty years older than I am, doors are always held open, and gentlemen never swear in front of a lady. And the ladies? They never, but never, swear at all.
I'm adjusting well, all in all. My grad school cohort - who could make a sailor blush with their cussing, I learned it from them - is a world away, but my dissertation can be done anywhere, and I have a little office nook that looks on to our garden. Many days it's too humid to work there, under the canopy but open to the air, and I retreat to the air conditioning, but whenever I can, I take my laptop to the outdoor office, and I don't much flinch anymore at the tiny lizards that sometimes scamper up the wall.
I'm even adjusting to the social life here. Some of it is up to me, but some of it is mandatory. There's a concept for you; only the US military has mandatory fun. So I dress as if I'm in my late 30s, not mid 20s, and go to tea parties, and murmur polite things to the wives of Alec's superiors and colleagues. A couple of them look like they could be real friends, but the setting isn't conducive to that, only to discussion of recipes, and clothes, and making appropriate noises at Mrs. Sheehan's humble-bragging. If you didn't know better, you might think she is actually aggrieved at having to help her daughter choose between going to an Ivy for college next year, or having a coming out year in Texas, complete with cotillion.
Last night, I was grumbling about the upcoming barbecue at the Sheehans'. Major General Sheehan is the head honcho in Alec's current command, so it's important to be properly obsequious. More than that, though, Alec likes and respects him, so I want to impress him too. But his wife is a piece of work, and the barbecue conflicts with an outing by some nearby Anglophone grad students to the new James Bond movie. Western pop culture and people from my world: I don't get much of either of these, here, and I'm annoyed at having to forego the opportunity.
I was already in my nightgown, lounging on the bed and telling Alec about my day's work as he undressed.
"You'll be ready for the barbecue when I get home?" he asks. "I'll only be home long enough to change out of my uniform, so you'll need to be dressed and made up."
I am not a high maintenance girl; I can have my hair and makeup done from nothing in under ten minutes. To a military man, though, that's a long time.
"Yes, yes, yes," I grumble. "You realize I could be seeing Daniel Craig with other PhD students, right? Actual women with IQs in triple digits?" This is a low blow, and I can see Alec's jaw clench, briefly. The wives here are as smart as any random assortment anywhere, but their whole lives are bound up in wifehood, and in some cases in motherhood. I know many of them have careers they put on hold to come here - there isn't much opportunity for employment on a contained American base abroad - and plenty of them are as smart as I am, but I really miss talking to people who read non-fiction for pleasure.
"This is part of the deal, Jules," he says. "You knew this. It would be overtly rude for you to refuse to attend this sort of event. I don't make any demands on the rest of your time, but it's not too much to ask you to spare a couple of hours, once or twice a month."
He's right. Unlike many of the men here, he doesn't assume I'm a full time cook, housecleaner and messenger just because I'm a military wife. He did all his own chores when he was single, and sees no reason why those chores should become mine now that I'm married to him. We don't keep track, but it seems to be pretty evenly split. And on the days when the writing has been going well, when he comes home and I'm still in pyjama pants, sitting at the computer, with not a lick of housework or cooking done, he's genuinely happy I had a productive day, and puts some meat on the grill himself.
But last night I was the crankiest I'd been in the months of our marriage. Oh, there was probably a hormonal element, but I was tired, I'd had a very bad day, writing-wise, my best friend got engaged and I couldn't celebrate with her, and I'd just texted my regrets for the Bond-viewing party.
"So when is it your turn?" I could hear the bitchy note in my voice, but I couldn't stop it. "When do you have to spend time smiling charmingly at people who have no interest in what you do all day, faking interest in their careers and accomplishments?"
"You mean other than the symposium where I listened to nine of your classmates present their work - in which I have no interest, as you know - because it was important to me to hear your presentation?" Alec never raises his voice, but as he walks toward the bed, to put his tie bar and cuff links in their tray on his bedside table, I can hear the ire plainly. "Or perhaps you've forgotten about the party with your friends where I was asked why I'm not ashamed to be a baby killer, and yet I kept smiling and making small talk until you were ready to go home?"
Ouch. I had forgotten that, actually. I thought, at the time, I should walk out with him, ashamed that my friends would be so rude, but I hadn't wanted to make a scene, and the moment passed. And now I was angry all over again, because I was caught up in my own pissy mood and didn't want him to remind me that it wasn't all about me.
I rolled over, turning my back to him, determined to grab a book and read in silence until I went to sleep.
"Why are you being such an asshole?" I flung back over my shoulder.
I heard it just a split second before I felt it. The smack was startlingly loud, and then I let out a small shriek as the incredible sting spread through my left butt cheek. I couldn't believe what had happened, even as I twisted over and saw the hem of my short nightie tossed up over my waist, and a red handprint already starting to show against my white skin. When I could tear my eyes away from that sight, I looked up at Alec, standing over me beside the bed. I searched for playfulness, even though this was nothing like the sexy spankings he sometimes gave me in bed. I tried to find remorse, at raising a hand to me and hitting me so hard. All I saw was icy calm, and it left me speechless.
"We do not speak to each other that way," he said, his voice so soft it was almost a whisper.
"That HURT!" My voice came out more as a shriek than as normal speech. "I don't want spankings like that!"
"That wasn't foreplay," he said, still in that immutable voice. I couldn't meet his gaze anymore, and went back to rolling away, my heart thundering, the sting in my buttock still occupying a good share of my attention. I felt the bed dip down and reacted before I could think: I clamped my hands over my injured bottom and scooted away, looking I'm sure like generations of naughty children trying to dodge a well-earned bottom warming.
And like those thousands who went before me, I didn't get far. Alec pulled me up, so I sat beside him, facing toward him, and left his hand on my shoulder.
"Jules." I knew he would wait until I looked him in the eye, but I dragged it out a few moments more. Part of me was afraid of another smack, but I was more afraid of the disappointment I knew I would see. I'd been beastly to him, and still he was calm.
"Jules." There was a note of warning in his voice, and I looked up at him. Even with the lump in my stomach from the conflict, even with the reddened cheek pressing, uncovered by my nightie, against the bedspread, I thought how handsome he was, the regulation T-shirt he wore under his uniform showing those gorgeous arms and shoulders to advantage, his hair so appealing, even in the ridiculously short Marine cut.
"You can argue with me all you want," he said. "If you really won't attend these social functions, we will discuss it. But when we disagree with each other, we do it respectfully, and we never, no matter what, swear at each other. Are we clear?"
I nodded. His lips tightened briefly, and I thought the lecture would continue, but he stood up, and resumed undressing, neatly, as ever, putting every item of clothing in the laundry bin, the dry cleaning pile, or back in the closet.
I still didn't know what to make of this, but I wanted to get several layers of insulation between my ass and his hand, so I scrambled under the sheets on my side of the bed and raised my book to hide my face, although I was far too distracted to read it.
"I can't believe you spanked me for swearing," I muttered, so quietly that he could have pretended not to hear me. He didn't, of course.
"Did I ever tell you how my momma cured me of cussing?" His voice was lighter, now, and the southern in his accent came out, as it always does when he's talking about his childhood. His mother died before I met him, but she sounds like a southern belle from central casting in everything I've heard of her, an elegant, refined woman who found the inner steel to raise Alec herself when his father was killed in Vietnam.
"No," I replied. The easier tone felt like a peace offering, one I wasn't sure I wanted to accept. One single smack, dammit, and it still hurt, minutes later. I hadn't realized how little strength he put into the little games that aroused me so much. I could feel the outline of his hand, just from the sting, and I was resting a bit too much on the other side. How much had he been holding back, before?
"When I was fourteen, I thought I was grown up, and far too big to be spanked," Alec said. "Now, Miss Jules -" the southern accent was a bit put on, now, and a tiny bit sexy, much as I wanted to pretend otherwise. "If you think 21st century officers aren't fond of bad language in the home, you can't imagine how strongly a southern lady a generation older felt about it. So when I cussed at dinner one night, feelin' mighty proud of how grown up I was, she told me that a gentleman would never speak like that in front of a woman, much less his momma, and I was to go to bed for the night."
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