CHAPTER 26
Valerie
By the time Chris got home the next evening, I had changed my clothes three times.
The first outfit—a modest blue dress with a Peter Pan collar—felt too prim, too much like armor. The second—a soft knit wrap dress that cinched at the waist—felt like I was trying too hard, like I was trying to telegraph something I couldn’t admit. I’d finally settled on a simple cotton sundress in pale yellow, one that Chris had complimented once, with a fitted bodice and a skirt that fell just below my knees.
Underneath, after a lot of red-faced hesitation, I had put on my regular modest white panties. Chris hadn’t told me what to wear, had he? I’d spent the entire day, nevertheless, thinking about how I looked under my skirt.
Dinner was ready. A roast chicken with rosemary and lemon, roasted potatoes, and green beans from Mrs. Patterson’s garden down the road—the matronly woman had given me some as a housewarming gift. The table was set with the new dishes we’dgotten as wedding presents. Candles. Cloth napkins. I’d even cut flowers from the front yard and arranged them in a mason jar.
The house smelled like home. Like the evidence of a wife who had spent the day preparing for her husband. And I had—but the preparation that consumed most of my thoughts had nothing to do with chicken or place settings.
I heard Chris’s truck pull into the driveway. My hands stilled over the salad I was tossing, and I felt my whole body go taut. I heard his boots on the porch steps, then the door to the garage opening.
“Val?” His voice carried from the entryway, and something in its tone made the hair on my arms stand up. Not anger. Something more deliberate than that. Something planned.
“In the kitchen,” I called, wiping my hands on a dish towel.
He appeared in the kitchen doorway. He was still in his work clothes—dusty jeans, a flannel with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, sawdust caught in the dark hair of his forearms. His eyes moved over me—over the sundress, the set table, the careful domesticity of it all—and something softened in his expression for just a moment before it hardened again into that other look. The one that meant he’d made a decision and he would follow it through.
“I need you to do something for me,” he said. “Go to the kitchen and stay there. Face the fridge. Don’t turn around until I tell you.”
I blinked at him. “I… what?”
“You heard me, Valerie.” His voice was calm, but the authority in it was absolute. It was the voice that didn’t repeat itself, the onethat preceded consequences. “Face the refrigerator. Keep your back turned. Don’t peek.”
My lips parted with a question I didn’t ask. The look on his face told me that questions would not be welcome right now. I set down the dish towel and walked to the far wall of the kitchen—past the stove, past the pantry door—and turned to face the gleaming fridge I’d picked out myself two months ago.
“Good girl,” Chris said from behind me, and then his boots retreated down the hallway.
I stood there with my hands at my sides, my heart already climbing into a faster rhythm. I heard the front door open again. Then close. Then open. A scraping sound… something heavy being dragged across the porch? Chris’s soft grunt of effort. The thud of something being maneuvered through the doorframe, wood knocking against wood.
Whatever he was bringing inside was substantial. Furniture-sized. I heard it scrape slightly along the hallway floor, heard him adjusting his grip, his breathing a little rough. Then the bedroom door—our bedroom door—creaked wider on its hinges, and the sounds moved into that room. More scraping. A heavy settling thump. Chris muttering something under his breath as he positioned whatever it was.
My pulse had become rapid, my breathing shallow. My blood pulsed in my throat and my wrists and between my legs. Furniture. He was putting some piece of furniture in our bedroom. The night he’d promised to take my bottom. The night he’d promised to make it ceremonial.
The bench?Oh, God.He’d built the bench.
I couldn’t help it. My head turned—just slightly, just enough to catch a glimpse down the hallway through the kitchen doorway. I saw Chris’s broad back disappearing into our bedroom, his hands gripping something made of dark wood and padded leather, something curved, something with?—
I whipped my head back to the wall, my breath coming in sharp little pants. My whole body seemed to have become electric. I’d seen enough. The shape of it, the padded surface, the dark leather. It was just like the bench in the video. Just like the one Stacy had knelt on when Kevin had spread her open and trained her bottom.
“Valerie.”
I flinched. Chris’s voice came from the hallway, closer than I expected.
“Did you peek?”
The question hung in the air between us. I thought about lying. The impulse lasted exactly one second before the memory of last night—my soaked panties pressed against my face, the cold weight of Chris’s disappointment—crushed it flat.
“Yes, sir,” I whispered to the wall. “I’m sorry. I only saw… I mean… just for a second?”
“We’ll add that to your account.” His voice was matter-of-fact, the way a banker might note an additional charge. “Go take your clothes off and put on your training panties. The backless ones.”
My training panties. The only appropriate name for them. The underwear that framed my bottom cheeks in a lewd invitation. The panties that made me feel like exactly what I was: a wife who needed discipline.
“You’re going to serve me dinner wearing those and nothing else,” Chris added, his voice carrying that same even quality that undid me more thoroughly than shouting ever could. “I want to look at my wife’s adorable, naughty bottom while I eat the meal she prepared for me.”
