Mother Nature

Sometimes what comes natural is a good sound spanking. A story by Mark Danelaw.

The afternoon sun fell through the kitchen window in rectangular patches, illuminating dust motes and the steam rising from Mrs Patterson’s teacup. She was a woman of sixty who lived three houses down and remembered when the neighbourhood had been orchards. Today she sat at Elizabeth Dane’s kitchen table wearing a floral housedress and an expression of mild concern.

“She’s been there twenty minutes,” Mrs Patterson observed, stirring her tea.

“Thirty,” Elizabeth corrected, not looking up from her ledger. “And she’ll be there until Terri decides to come home.”

Jodi was stood in the corner of the kitchen, her nose pressed against the corner where the two walls met. She was well positioned so that anyone entering through either the back door or the hallway would see her immediately. Her plaid skirt was pinned up at the waist, her cotton panties pooled around her ankles. Her bare bottom; pale, freckled, already flushed pink from anticipation, was as fully exposed as her shame. She could hear every word

“The hairbrush is effective,” Mrs Patterson said, “but in my day, we had other methods. My mother kept a switch above the doorframe. Thin as a pencil, flexible as a whip, it stung something fierce.”

“Terri prefers the hairbrush,” Elizabeth said, her pen scratching across columns of numbers, “She finds it sufficient.”

“For lying?” Mrs Patterson clucked her tongue, “Young women need to understand consequences. A switch leaves marks that remind them for days. A hairbrush is… so domestic.”

Jodi squeezed her eyes shut, her face burning. She could feel the air on her exposed bottom, could hear the clock ticking on the mantel, she could smell the lemon cookies Mrs Patterson had brought over. The position was designed for maximum exposure, legs slightly apart, back arched, bottom presented at exactly the height where a seated observer could see every twitch, every clench, every shade of colour.

The back door opened and Jenny entered; dropping her tennis bag with a thud. She was 18, dark-haired, wearing her school uniform of white blouse and navy skirt. She saw her elder sister immediately, the pinned skirt, the bare bottom, the posture of disgrace, and a slow smile spread across her face.

“Oh,” she said, her voice dripping with faux sympathy, “Poor Jodi. Are you in trouble again?”

Jodi didn’t answer. In fact she couldn’t answer. The rules of corner time were absolute: silence, stillness, and exposure.

“Poor grades,” Mrs. Patterson supplied helpfully, “And hiding the report card. Terri found it in the trash.”

“How dreadful,” Jenny said, settling onto the bottom stair where she had a perfect view. She pulled out her phone, a gift from her grandmother and began dialling. “I should let the girls know. They’ll want to… support her.”

Jodi heard the beeping, the rings, Jenny’s murmured conversation. “Yes, she’s in the corner now… bare, of course… pink as a salmon… mother’s not even home yet, so who knows how long… come by after five, the show should still be on…”

Elizabeth said nothing.

They came in twos and threes. Jenny’s friends from the tennis team, from the senior class, from the neighbourhood. By five o’clock, the kitchen and hallway were crowded with girls in plaid skirts and saddle shoes, all pretending sympathy while they stared at Jodi’s exposed bottom, whispering about the spanking to come, speculating on how red she would get, how long she would cry, whether she would have to stand in the corner afterward with her punished bottom on display while the family watched television.

“That’s what I have to do,” admitted someone.

Terri arrived at six, her tennis whites damp with sweat, her face already falling as she saw the crowd, the corner, her mother-in-law’s expression of cold assessment.

“Mother,” she said, her voice tight.

“Your daughter lied about her grades,” Elizabeth said. “She’s been waiting for you. In the meantime, she’s provided entertainment for half the neighbourhood.”

Terri’s jaw tightened. She walked to the corner, lifted Jodi’s skirt higher, examined the flesh—already warm from standing, trembling from embarrassment. “Upstairs,” she said quietly, “My room… now.”

The girls dispersed, disappointed, as Jodi shuffled out of the corner, pulling up her panties with trembling hands, her face scarlet. But Jenny lingered, and Elizabeth gestured for her to stay.

They heard it from the kitchen. The scolding, muffled. Then the clear, sharp cracks of the hairbrush, heavy oak, solid maple, Elizabeth didn’t know which Terri used, falling again and again. Jodi’s screams, genuine now, not performative. The sound carried through the vents, through the walls, a rhythmic punctuation to the evening.

Forty minutes later, Jodi descended the stairs. She was crying silently, her face swollen, her skirt still pinned up. Her bottom, when she turned to take her assigned corner in the living room, nose to the wall beside the television, was the colour of a ripe tomato, darkening toward purple at the sit-spots.

“Quite a long spanking I hope…” Elizabeth said to  Terri, who had collapsed into a chair.

“Long enough,” Terri said, her voice exhausted, “She’s grounded for the week. No phone. No outings.”

Elizabeth set down her pen. “In my day, lying meant an enema. Swearing meant mouth-soaping. Stealing meant a switch across the bare bottom until welts as fat as worms twisted across your bottom… applied by your grandmother while your mother watched.” She looked at her daughter, “You were 18 when you stole the lipstick from Woolworth’s. Do you remember?”

Terri’s face went puce, “I remember.”

“I used a switch that day. You couldn’t sit for a week. And you never stole again.”

“Mother, times have changed…”

“Human nature hasn’t,” Elizabeth turned back to her ledger. “The girl will sneak out. Mark my words. She’s not broken, only bent. And when she does, I hope you’ll have the courage to do what’s necessary.”

Jodi stood in the corner until nine, her punished bottom displayed to the family as they ate dinner at the coffee table, as they watched the evening news, as Jenny painted her toenails on the sofa and made occasional comments about how red certain bottoms looked tonight.

When Jodi was finally released, she could barely walk, let alone sit down, her flesh throbbing through the sore.

*

Jodi lasted four days. Then she climbed out her window and went to a party three blocks over; an old trick much used and usually successful. She did not dwell on her failures; they were an occupational hazard of being a teenager.

Midnight came and went and it was beginning to get light when she finally trudged up the drive at three in the morning. Climbing the oak tree to her window was an old game and tried and tested. She thought better of the light and eased herself into the room.

The sudden flood of light startled her and she whirled around in surprise. Her mother was sat on her bed glaring at her.

“I can explain,” Jodi ventured.

“No, no you can’t,” Terri warned her.

“I guess not,” Jodi winced.

“Tomorrow morning at 7.30 I will find you in just your sleeping top nose to the corner waiting in the kitchen, is that understood?” her mother’s tone was icy.

“Hmmm,” Jodi squeaked.

“I suggest you set an alarm.”

*

The morning found a well cornered Jodi at breakfast. As ordered she was wearing just her pyjama top so that her bare bottom was displayed to the room.

“Mom this is so embarrassing,” she said once her mother came down.

Terri rounded on her, “Is it, is it really? But not as embarrassing has having a defiant daughter who sneaks out when grounded, gallivants around town like a… and sneaks back home at all hours. This is unforgivable Jodi I am beyond furious with you… you betrayed my trust you…” she took a deep breath and forced herself to calm down.

“Sorry,” Jodi whispered.

“No, no you’re not,” Terri said calmly, “But you are going to be, trust me. After a breakfast you have an appointment with the bath brush out in the garage. It goes without saying that as of now you are grounded indefinitely. While you are grounded you will be spanked again after church every Sunday and spend the rest of that day contemplating your sins in whichever corner I choose, and regardless of any visitors.”

All this Jenny heard as she came down and after a bright, “Good morning,” she sat at the table and grinned.

Elizabeth was less pleased, but for now she kept her own counsel.

The spanking was epic. Terri, as promised, used the bath brush, the long-handled monster reserved for the worst offenses. Worse yet once Jodi was marched tottering to the garage she was confronted by a kitchen chair and an open garage door; a bright opening populated with busy people coming and going in the street and washing cars.

“Mom, no, no please… this is…” Jodi was already set to cry, “Everyone can see.”

“I know,” Terri sighed, “When I was your age you grandmother spanked me this way… more than once… the neighbourhood kids were hell and once word reached senior high… but I learned a lesson, a good one and I see now that I have been too soft on you.

A dejected Jodi fell across her mother’s lap and glowered into the cement floor. Risking a look sideways she saw 17-year-old Thomas Clark strolling past. Thankfully he did not turn, but beyond him Mr Jenkins had paused to stare as if not quite believing what he was seeing.

“Pick a spot on the floor, keep your eyes on it,” her mother told her, “It helps, believe me.”

The brush landed across Jodi’s bare bottom with real bite. Her jaw dropped and her eyes started in her head. The thwack even turned heads and Jodi had to look away lest her eyes met another’s out in the street.

Terri spanked Jodi in sets of a dozen or so, pausing only to let Jodi’s screams subside before beginning again. Jodi’s bottom went from pink to crimson to purple to something beyond colour, a swollen mass of welts and bruises that would last for weeks.

All the while neighbourhood kids and their parents gathered in the street or pretended not to, as the show gathered both pace and volume.

Jenny strolled out and leant on the opposite wall to drink in the scene like cherry cola, the colour of which coincidentally matching her older sisters bare bottom. “This is so neat,” she giggled.

It took a while but finally the task was done and Jodi was a sobbing mess. Despite the audience she could not have cared just then, she could not have cared if the whole spanking had been televised. Her bottom burned; layers of burning sore over heavy ache.

“She won’t sit down for a week,” someone said.

“If she is lucky,” said another.

Jodi got one more unpleasant surprise. Terri helped her daughter up and led her to the back wall of the garage. “Face touching the concrete, bottom out, you are stay there for the rest of the morning,” Jodi was told, “And that door stays open.”

Jenny watched it all with boundless satisfaction.

Terri saw her younger daughter’s ghoulish face and remembered the circus she had organised at the start of the week. “You come with me,” she said hauling Jenny inside, “I am so done with you, like I told your sister, I have been way too soft on you.”

“Mom… what…?” Jenny blustered as she was taken across her mother’s knee and found her bottom well and truly bared. “After I spank you, you can go stand in the kitchen where Jodi was, and for as long as her punishment lasts…”

The hairbrush did its job on the 18-year-old’s bottom, a vigorous application that brought howls for a minute or two and then repentant tears for 15 or 20 minutes more. By which time her bare bottom was shiny red and framed with small welts that followed the curves of her behind.

“I didn’t do anything,” she bawled, over and over.

“Really, is that true I wonder?” Terri spanked on, “Maybe if I continue you will remember.”

“It…it was j-just some fun,” Jenny sobbed.

“Are you having fun now?”

“No.”

“You may go to the corner, and Jenny stay there, I don’t care who comes calling and they will now after what happened in the garage. People do so love such things… don’t they Jenny?” Terri said sharply.

The afternoon was a miserable affair for the sisters. Both were  given chores; bare-bottomed chores. Like taking out the trash; three bags to the curb past the neighbours walking their dogs. Mowing the lawn; both front and back, with the vibration of the motor traveling up through her punished flesh and the sun beating down on exposed bottoms. When she finished, they were sent back to the corner to stand side-by-side just like sisters with red bottoms cooling while ‘well-wishers,’ friends and family came and went.

Elizabeth watched it all with a calculating eye. Still he said nothing until the girls were finally in bed. “You know, this was to be expected, you have been far too lenient on those girls.”

“They are not just girls though, they are young women now, and don’t you think it is too late?” Terri did not want to hear it.

“Today was a good start,” Elizabeth said, “I think you proved that it is never too late… and that a girl is never too old for a good spanking.”

Terri sighed and pinched her nose. “I guess you are right mother, you usually are.”

“I usually am aren’t I?” Elizabeth stood up, “Come on, let’s get this over with.”

“Wh-what? Let’s get what over with?” Terri frowned.

“It is time for change, we have been too lenient all round and it stops today. As I said you have made a good start but we both know that you will fall back,” Elizabeth took her daughter arm and began leading her away.

“Where are we going?” she feared her mother wanted her daughters to have another round of spanking.

“Upstairs to my room young lady, I think it is time I reinstated spanking for you and it is exactly what you are going to get.”

Terri gaped. “Mother, mother… y-you can’t… I..”

“Shush,” Elizabeth soothed, “It is going to happen and I think you know it.”

Terri protested all the way to her mother’s bedroom, but somehow found herself surrendering.

The spanking was long and hard. Elizabeth used her hand at first relentless; spanking Terri’s bare bottom while bent across her knee, her trousers and panties down and all dignity stripped away. The slipper that followed gained gasps and small yelps as Terri’s firm round bottom pinkened to red and then reddened to something sharper. The hairbrush was a revelation. Terri had forgotten and expressed her regret at full volume so that not only the neighbours heard, but Jodi and Jenny too.

The girls watched from the doorway, their own punishments forgotten, their eyes wide as their mother was spanked like a child, while she bawled like one.

Jenny might have smiled despite everything, she wanted to, but open schadenfreude was now off the menu, her mother had seen to that.

As for Jodi, any hope that todays’ much deserved ordeal was a one-off was dashed. If mother wasn’t too old for a spanking… she could not wait to move out.

It must have been pushing the half hour before the spanking ceased. “Excuse me ladies,” she said to her granddaughters, as she hauled Terri to her feet and led her downstairs. “Now young lady, that corner nose to the wall, hands on your head while the girls watch.”

Jodi and Jenny exchanged glances and both let an unconscious hand stray to their bottoms.

There and then the new regime was established. Elizabeth explained that Terri was now subject to the same rules as her daughters: corner time after spankings, bare-bottom chores when assigned; the hairbrush for minor infractions, the bath brush for major ones, and the dreaded switch that was kept above the kitchen door for the worst offences. There would be other things, she said, but time enough to find out.

As for Terri, her bottom throbbed and her face burned. She was 40-years-old and standing in the corner like a child, punished, exposed, humbled, and relieved; mother was home.

By Mark Danelaw