by Frank Martinet
Sherry's heart did a little flip when she saw the brackets. Were those extras? They had to be - she'd just finished putting up the drywall and closing up the entire attic.
But doubts immediately began to assail her. She looked worriedly up at the ceiling. It was beautiful work, but had she screwed up? Her bottom began to tingle.
It was a ridiculous reaction. She was 23 years old! Yet the memories of her father's strict discipline would never fade away. He was a big man - over six feet and robustly built - and he swung a paddle like he meant it. Every blast to her butt had felt like a nuclear bomb had gone off. It was agonizing.
He'd paddled for everything - coming home late, missed chores, lying, wearing the wrong outfit, pretty much anything immoral or against his many rules. But in general Sherry had been a good girl and hadn't needed much discipline for her behavior. Where she'd gotten spanked the most had been work-related.
She'd started working with her dad in her early teens. At first it was just manual labor, hauling stuff, carrying tools, etc., while he taught her everything he knew about construction. Gradually he started giving her more responsibility, letting her drive in screws, work with equipment, and even finish up jobs.
With every task, however, there had always been a consequence if she didn't do it right: his paddle. He didn't spank for mistakes, but for carelessness or not asking for help when you knew you needed it. It was fair. Sherry always knew the score and accepted her discipline when she deserved it.
But there were many times she screwed up and cost the company money to fix her mistakes and that was always a paddling offense. Not at the job site, thank the Lord. No, her dad always paddled her at home so none of the crew knew. She'd have been mortified if they'd even suspected. She couldn't count the times the day after a screw-up she'd eaten lunch standing, pretending to be too full of energy to sit and relax, or perhaps she'd lie down on her belly - anything to not have to put her still-sore rump against a hard surface.
A hand slipped back now to gently fondle one of her cheeks thoughtfully. This was a paddling mistake for sure, she knew. She had grabbed a bunch of the brackets on her way up into the attic to screw them into place as part of the final lockdown, but had she actually done that? It was understandable she couldn't remember - it was a task she'd done so many times she didn't have to think about it. She could picture herself doing it, but it might be a memory from a different job. After years working on a zillion houses, everything blurred together.
Sherry vaguely remembered running to Eric who'd had some questions for her about another part of the job. Had she set the brackets down to talk to him? There was so much to do it was possible that without the pieces in her hand she'd forgotten about that part of the project and had moved on to something else. Now the attic was foamed, the ceiling was sealed, and everything except for the final painting was done. Just finding out if she'd made a mistake would require ripping open the attic and undoing work. And if she hadn't installed the brackets, which was seeming more and more likely since they were here in her hand, it was going to cost thousands to undo and redo everything.
Fuck! she thought, and her mind went back to her sliding down her jeans and panties and bending over the back of the family sofa and holding on for dear life while her father ominously lifted that thick, long, awful pine board.
She'd made the paddle herself at age 15. It had been one of her first official projects. Her father had insisted she make it since she was getting too big for hand-spanking. It had taken her three tries to make the board. The first two her father had rejected for various flaws. She'd been worried he'd spank her, but he didn't: he just showed her what she'd done wrong and ordered her to redo it.
Later, of course, there had been plenty of opportunities to test out the paddle. Her dad never gave her many licks - sometimes it was just one or two - but every whack hurt like the dickens. Every time she installed a product wrong, wasted material, made a poorly thought-out decision, or didn't ask for help or advice like she should, she ended up bent across that couch regretting her foolishness.
Now she felt like that again. It had been years since she'd felt the board, but it had been years since she'd screwed up this bad. Over time the dollar amount that was considered spankable had changed. Now that she was her father's partner in the business, a few hundred bucks here and there wasn't a big deal.
Sherry certainly wasn't careless with money, though. Not after she'd been taught to value every dime. Now she bossed others and tried to impart the same ideas in her crew. Waste was waste, and while a dollar here or there might not seem like much, in construction those little things could often add together to become big bucks. Being vigilant was the only way to profitability.
Cursing her stupidity, Sherry dragged a ladder over and climbed up. She cut a small hole in the drywall near one of the joists and peered in with her flashlight. She had a dreadful feeling she already knew what she was going to see, but still her heart sank when she finally uncovered the wood and saw there was no brace. How could she have been so careless? She deserved the mother of all paddlings after this fuck-up.
For a moment, she considered waiting until the crew was gone and undoing all the work herself. It would be a fitting punishment. If she worked all night, maybe she could have it done by tomorrow and no one would know about her mistake. But there was no way - the job was too big and there'd be signs, such as tons of discarded drywall. She'd need supplies, too. No, there was no way to keep this hidden. It was embarrassing, but she'd just have to admit her mistake.
She called over Damian, her foreman, and ruefully explained the problem. "I screwed up," she told him. "I didn't double-check before we sealed everything in."
He was sympathetic, telling her everyone screws up sometime, but they both knew this was a hit to the budget and would eat up valuable time as well.
"At least it's not a concrete foundation," he said. Sherry nodded, knowing things could be worse. Mistakes and cost overruns were a factor in every job - but that didn't make her feel better. As a teen she'd gotten paddled hard for such errors and it felt odd that now that she was an adult she could get away with it.
Or could she? Maybe her father would still spank her. What was she thinking? Of course he would. He was a stickler and never let anybody get away with anything. He'd never officially told her that her butt was off limits, had he? He'd merely raised the bar. Mistakes under a grand were now considered too minor for paddling. So far Sherry had skirted under that line, but today's issue would certainly be several thousand. She was going to get her butt blistered.
Knowing that punishment was coming, Sherry was distracted and bothered all day. She tried to push it aside and worked hard and was extra careful in all areas. Once she found herself scolding a new young worker too vehemently and realized she was projecting her anger at herself on him and apologized to him.
As evening approached and the workers went home, Sherry stayed late fixing her mistake. There would still be more to do tomorrow, of course, but she did some overtime as an additional penalty. Finally she told herself that she had to face the music. She was stalling.
The drive to her dad's was dreadful. She squirmed the whole way, unable to shake the memories of terrible spankings past. She couldn't help but dwell on the mystery of how many licks he'd give her. Dollar-wise, this was her most significant mistake ever - didn't that merit the hardest paddling ever?
The worst spanking she'd every gotten had been 20 swats for sneaking out to a forbidden concert when she was 17. She'd deserved it, but that had been hell. She'd been bruised and unable to sit properly for days.
In terms of a construction mistake, however, the most she'd gotten was 15 when she'd busted an expensive saw by not operating it properly. Some of those swats were because of the safety considerations - Dad had been furious, as she could have seriously injured herself.
"Know your equipment," he always said. Using tools you didn't know or using them against the manufacture's directions was an opportunity for disaster.
Sherry suspected today's mess was probably closer to a 20-swat affair. After all, the amount of money was significant and she was 23, so old enough to know better and old enough to take a hard spanking. Maybe two dozen? she guessed. It was a terrifying number when just one of her dad's wallops was enough to make you bawl like a baby.
By the time she pulled into his driveway, she'd convinced herself that she'd take whatever he dictated. She deserved it. If he said 30, she'd accept it. She felt terrible and knew she had a spanking coming.
Dad was surprised, but pleased to see her. He was working two jobs across town so they weren't seeing each other as often the past few weeks.
"How's everything going? Everything alright?"
Sherry had to refrain from weeping as she shook her head and explained what she'd done. "I really screwed up, Dad," she said. "I'm really sorry."
To her shock, he laughed. "That's nothing, honey. I know a guy who built a whole house and forgot to put in plumbing lines. I'm not kidding. An utter moron, though his wife was having his first baby at the time so his mind was elsewhere."
"You're just trying to make me feel better."
"Everyone makes mistakes."
"Not you."
"I'm the exception that proves the rule," he grinned. "Though I just don't make mistakes now because I made them all when I was your age. I learned. That's the key here. Did you learn anything?"
"Oh yeah! I already decided I'm going to create a checklist system on my phone for even the obvious stuff, just to make sure every step is checked off and properly inspected."
"That's my girl." He brushed away her blond hair and gave her a kiss on her forehead. "Are you going to stay for dinner? I was just going to heat up some leftovers - pot roast from the weekend."
A long-time widower, her father was surprisingly adept in the kitchen. His repertoire wasn't extensive, but what he could do, he did well.
Sherry frowned. "But aren't you... I mean, I screwed up. Big time. That means-"
He turned back to look at her. "What, you think I was going to paddle you? Sherry, you're not a kid any more."
"Oh." She blushed and stared at the floor. Oddly, the relief she expected to feel didn't come. She should have been elated - no spanking - but instead she felt empty.
It reminded her of the time she'd finally beaten her father at Monopoly when she was 11. She'd stolen money from the bank when he was distracted by a phone call.
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