After showering I went into the bedroom, expecting him to have done exactly what I’d told him to do. He’d dressed all right, but was sitting on the end of the bed looking for all the world like a sulky ten year old, feet turned out on their sides, shoulders slouched, hands dangling between his knees and a poor me expression adorning his face.
I hauled him roughly to his feet. “I’ve obviously let discipline slip far too much since your illness. You’ve clearly forgotten even the rudiments of obedience.” Despite being clothed only in a towel I sat on the bed yanking him across my knees, slapping his backside hard enough to demonstrate I was in no mood for defiance. “I expect you to do as you’re told, and you were told to stand in a corner, not sit on the bed pouting.”
When I allowed him upright again, he moved himself into a corner with some alacrity. His face was flushed and there was a hint of tearful alarm in his eyes, as if it had just dawned that he really was in trouble. He adopted an appropriate position, hands behind his back.
I got dressed, made the bed and then sat down on it, addressing his back. “So, you cancelled your appointment without having the common courtesy to discuss it with me before or after the event.”
“I was going to tell you. I just forgot, and I’m fine, Tony,” he spoke a little too quickly, keeping his sight fixed on the wall in front of him. “I’m sure the doctor is right when he says it’s nothing serious and just a matter of giving my immune system time to boot up to full power again. Anyway, like you said, it was my appointment, so it was my decision as to whether I attended it.”
“BULL SHIT!” I leapt to my feet, striding over to him and turning him round to face me. “It doesn’t work like that and you know it. At best your actions were ill mannered. I’m your partner, as well as head of this house. I had a right to know that you were considering doing something of such magnitude. I had a right to be given a chance to dissuade you, because this is something that potentially affects both of us. It wouldn’t be so bad if I thought you’d made an informed and rational decision, but you obviously haven’t. I know how much you hate the vertigo attacks, how anxious they make you because you’re afraid the meningitis has done something to your brain. I’m the one who holds and comforts you when your anxiety turns to fear in the middle of the night. This scan could have set your mind at rest, mine too. I know what this is really all about, Lee. You were annoyed about the driving ban and even more annoyed about Joe, so you did something you knew would upset not only me, but your mother and Joe too, though I’m sure you choose not to believe that. Talk about cutting your nose off to spite your face.”
I went across to the dresser picking up the heavy wooden hairbrush that lay there. Neither of us uses it on our hair. It’s there to serve as a reminder of my authority and sometimes used as a tool to reinforce it, such as now. I sat down on the bed again, laying the brush bedside me. “Take your jeans off and come over here.”
“It was my appointment, Tony, mine, not anyone else’s. I had a right…”
“Jeans OFF and over here. I won’t tell you again. I’ll simply come and get you. I’m sure you don’t want the indignity of being dragged across the room by your hand like a naughty little boy.”
He unfastened his jeans pushing them down and kicking them across the room before coming over to me. I briskly pulled down his briefs before arranging him over my knee, making sure his penis and balls were arranged as comfortably as they could be against my right thigh. He was semi-erect, a response to adrenalin. It wouldn’t last, not once punishment got underway.
Picking up the brush I began rapidly applying it to his bottom, building up a pattern of glowing ovals. In my estimation he had more than earned a sore bottom. I made sure he got one, continuing even when his resistant grunts and moans turned to tears and pleas.
“Tony, stop, please, oh god, please, TONY, please!” He sobbed, squirming and kicking up his heels, trying desperately to block the descent of the brush. He even resorted to using his safe word, the one he uses when we play hardcore in the bedroom, an Italian word for halt, yelling it over and over, ‘fermata, fermata.’ I stopped, but only to rearrange him over my left thigh, using my right leg to anchor his legs. We were not in a play situation and I was going to make damn sure he knew it. I resumed the spanking, stopping only when the oval brush marks on his bottom and the top of his thighs merged to turn his skin the colour of a fine Indian Ruby.
Setting the brush aside I kept him across my knees, lightly rubbing my hand over his back until his sobs eased. “First thing Monday morning I’m going to arrange for you to have a scan. I’m going to pay for it, no matter how much it costs, because you and your health are my principal concern.”
“I’m not going private, Tony, I’m not. I’ll ask to be put back on the waiting list.”
“I’m sorry, love.” I helped him to his feet and then picked up my discarded towel using it to wipe the salty secretions from his face, “but you had your chance. We do it my way now. The subject is closed. Get dressed please, quickly. We’ve both got work to be getting on with.”
Watching him stalk across the pavement towards the shop I knew he was nowhere near accepting the decision I’d made, and though I was sorry for that, I was in no way regretful of having made it. I shook my head as he threw up the metal shutters with unnecessary violence, and unlocked the door. To my mind if anyone had a right to be in a foul mood, it was me. I’d put up with his fussing and fuming over the earrings and car keys and now this bombshell over the scan. Lee had got what he jolly well deserved and he had no right to be sulking over it, something I would take pains to point out when I picked him up for lunch.
If truth were told I was pretty tired of his spoilt brat attitude. I’d let him get away with too much lately. It was time to rein him back in. I briefly sounded the car horn to let him know I was off, but he didn’t turn around. Stepping inside the shop he slammed the door behind him. I could only hope that by the time I picked him up again, he’d have come to terms with things a bit more. If not, then the lunch I was planning in his favourite Italian bistro would be postponed in favour of a trip back home, closely followed by a return trip over my knee for a stern reminder of household authority.
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