Chapter Two

Catching Carl Where He’s Not Supposed To Be

Dressed in a baby pink colored tank top sans bra and a pair of tight-fitting jeans plus clunky platform sandals, twenty-four-year-old Louisa Cannady knew that she looked good. She had the sort of hourglass figure and rolling walk that invariably turned men’s heads. Heck, she ought to have a good figure! For one thing, she watched her weight very carefully, often turning down the ice cream and chocolate candy she craved. For another, it had cost her parents a pretty penny to shell out the money for the boob job that got her breasts that would fill a C-cup but which she often let go braless since the silicone sisters were so wonderfully perky.

Louisa boasted a body that could have got her into Playboy and a face that might have looked just right for the cover of Vogue or Cosmopolitan. It was a heart-shaped face with regular features, a softly turned-up nose, large pouty lips, and big sky blue eyes. She had never had much acne even as a teenager and her fair skin was creamy and clear. Her teeth were pearly white and straight (thanks to years of braces!) and she was often complimented on her smile that showed off those teeth along with her dimples. Her hair was a natural sunshine shade of blonde. She kept her hair looking silky and she was currently wearing it parted on the right side and past her shoulders, straight until it got to the ends where there was a little bit of a curling under like in a pageboy.

Not that Louisa Cannady was a beautiful airhead. She was not a stereotypically “dumb blonde,” not at all. She loved to read, especially biographies of famous people who had overcome terrible obstacles. She also liked to look at works of art and visited art museums with some frequency.

Of course, Louisa was not really a classic “egghead” type either. She had never been a great scholar in school and had sometimes teased those who were although she would secretly admit to herself that she envied them. After high school, she had not wanted to go on to college. It was just too much time and expense and she did not look forward to writing a lot of essays like so many people did in college. At eighteen, she already had a job in a grocery store where she had gone up from bagging to cashiering. She enjoyed working the cash register at the grocery but also wanted something more so she had enrolled in a school that taught medical support positions and now worked fulltime in a doctor’s office as a medical and coding specialist while still working in the grocery store part-time on the weekends.

Louisa was really the type of woman who could get just about any man she really wanted. However, she only wanted one: Carl Cannady. They had started going together a couple of years earlier and had been married a few months ago. Louisa loved Carl deeply and believed that her love was returned. She had been strongly attracted to him when they first met which was when he was a customer at the grocery store. Carl looked exactly like Louisa’s type of man. Only two years older than she was, Carl was a robust, muscular sort who showed off his physique in tight t-shirts and jeans much as Louisa showed off her figure in revealing clothes. He had jet-black hair and a swarthy skin due to the Italian and Native American parts of his ancestry. His features were strong and he had a sensuous mouth, high cheekbones, and a jut-jaw that made him look very traditionally masculine, a look Louisa had always liked. Partly because of her fondness for men with that macho look, she was a fan of old movies starring Clark Gable and John Wayne. She had often masturbated while watching classic flicks. She was especially aroused by John Wayne movies in which he gave a woman a spanking but she had always wondered what it would be like if John Wayne had gotten a spanking. She did not believe he ever had in a movie but he had been occasionally spanked in Louisa’s fevered fantasies.

Carl worked full-time as a house painter and used to work part-time driving a van for a senior citizens’ home. He had quit the latter job because he was getting more hours painting houses and that work paid a little better. Carl was a kind man with a good sense of humor and could be wonderfully patient. He was a hard worker and, unlike some traditionally masculine men, he easily expressed affection.

However, Carl also had a bad side – or more accurately a foolish side -- and Louisa feared he might be exercising it just about now. She hoped that she would not find him where she expected to find him but catch him she certainly would if he was there.

Louisa left her apartment and walked down the stairs to the parking lot. She opened up the driver’s door to her candy-apple red Toyota Camry and slid behind the wheel. As she put her key in the ignition, the radio automatically turned on and the Jonas Brothers came on belting out That’s The Way We Roll. Louisa looked behind her and saw that another apartment resident was walking pretty close so she waited until he passed before backing out. As she turned her head around, she smiled just slightly. She liked the Jonas Brothers and especially liked this song. Louisa thought it was good that those handsome young Jonas Brother wore purity rings symbolizing their commitment to remain virgins until they married. Of course, Louisa had not been a virgin when she met Carl but she occasionally wished that she had saved herself for him. Carl had told her that he had had sex with only two women before her although it was four if you counted oral sex.

She slowed to a stop at the entrance to John Adams Dr. and waited for first a white SUV and then a small black car to pass. It still was not clear so she waited for another car to pass before pulling onto the street.

Oh, she did love Carl! She had never felt closer to any other man and could not imagine having a better sex life than she did with him: it was beautiful. Carl liked to do a lot of kissing and foreplay that got her aroused and he could stay hard a long time so she could often have more than one orgasm. Even when Louisa did not have an orgasm, she very much enjoyed the intimacy of sex with him. She had never faked it or lied about it because, unlike some guys, Carl’s ego was not bound up with her having a climax every time they had sex.

If only he would not . . .

The light up ahead went to yellow and Louisa did not have enough time to get through safely so she slowed to a stop. On the radio, Pink came on to sing So What about the break-up with her racecar driver husband. Louisa sure hoped that the problems she had with Carl would not lead to the finish of their marriage!

When the light turned green, Louisa’s foot went from brake to accelerator and she was soon going about 60 miles per hour along with the other cars on the road. She drove past several streets until she saw Lewis Blvd. where she made a left.

Soon she was in the parking lot in front of the establishment of “Madam Dirk, Psychic Reader.” So was the beige Hyundai that belonged to Carl. As Louisa turned off the ignition of her vehicle, her hands clenched into fists. She waited for a while and when Carl did not soon exit the establishment of Madam Dirk, Louisa decided it was best not to make a public scene. She would confront him when she got home.

She did a slow burn all the way home. Why did Carl have to be taken in by all that hocus-pocus rubbish? It was the sort of thing that attracted fools and dumb characters in movies. How could Carl, the man Louisa loved, let himself fall for such obvious con jobs? What made it most aggravating was that they just could not afford it. They were not going homeless or hungry – but they might if Carl kept turning money over to fortunetellers. The two of them wanted to have a baby in a couple of years so they had to put together some savings and they had almost nothing in the savings account. Louisa was not extravagant so she believed that Carl’s trips to fortunetellers were a large part of the reason they were just getting by.

It was a little over an hour after Louisa’s stop at Madam Dirk’s parking lot that Carl came home. “Where have you been?” Louisa asked, hands on her hips and eyes narrowed, when her husband came through the front door of their apartment.

“Oh, just here and there,” Carl answered with a shrug. “I stopped off at a store and had a coffee, then I went to the library and looked at a few magazines, and I stopped off for a beer. Only one!” Carl winked and then smiled broadly, displaying his straight white teeth.

Louisa frowned. “Is that where you were?” she said in a razor sharp voice.

“Yes, honey,” Carl said. “That’s where I was.”

“You’re lying,” she told him, her blue eyes like bullets.

Carl felt a tremor go through him: he loved Louisa. What did she think? Did she believe that he had been out screwing around with another woman? He had not! If she was suspicious of him that way, it was completely unfair.

Carl cleared his throat. Then he earnestly declared, “I haven’t been out cheating. I swear to God, Louisa. You’ve got no reason to be jealous! None!”

“I didn’t accuse you of cheating,” Louisa told her husband.

“Yeah but that seems to be what you think,” he said.

“Well, it’s not,” she said. “I said I know that you’re lying about where you’ve been. Now tell me the truth – the whole truth and nothing but the truth just like you were in a court of law.”

“I did, honey, I just did,” he insisted. “I told you everything.”

“No, you didn’t,” she angrily retorted.

“Yes, I did.”

“Oh, Carl!” Louisa exclaimed. Her arms crossed over her ample bosom. “It just so happens I went to Madam Dirk’s. And I saw your car there.”

Carl looked down at the dark green carpet and at his black sneakers-encased feet. He took a long, deep breath and then swallowed hard. “OK, OK, I went to Madam Dirk,” he admitted. “Look, honey, we don’t agree about spiritual matters. But I’m your husband, not your slave. We can disagree about these sorts of things.”

“We don’t have the money for you to go wasting it on fortune-telling foolishness!” she said in a furious voice.

“Well, at least I wasn’t cheating,” Carl pointed out.

“You’re not supposed to be cheating. You’re also not supposed to be wasting our hard-earned cash. How much money did that awful Madam Dirk charge you for getting the wool pulled over your eyes, Carl?” Louisa asked.

Carl bit his lower lip and looked down again in embarrassment. “It’s really none of your business, Louisa,” he told her.

“What’s yours is mine and what’s mine is yours,” she said. “That’s what marriage is all about.”

There was a pause as Carl shrugged his shoulders and rolled his eyes.

“Well, Carl?” Louisa prodded.

He bit his lip and looked down again. “I spent one hundred and twenty dollars there,” he confessed.

“One hundred and twenty dollars!” Louisa shrieked as she stamped her foot on the carpet. “That’s outrageous! How can my husband be such a sucker!”

“But Louisa, Madam Dirk really seems to know what she’s doing,” Carl said. “I think she’s a good psychic.”

“There’s no such thing as a good psychic,” Louisa retorted. “They’re all a bunch of phonies and you just pissed our money away, Carl!”

“I think she saw things for real,” he said. “In fact, she said that our financial situation will be bright. She saw brightness for us in her crystal ball. She also said we’d have a healthy baby in a few years. She said we had a good marriage. I think Madam Dirk really has that sixth sense people talk about.”

“Carl, I’m not going to put up with this,” Louisa told him as she shook her head, causing her blonde hair to swish. “Madam Dirk didn’t see your real future. She didn’t see your real future at all!”

“But I think she did!” Carl exclaimed.

“No, she didn’t,” Louisa said. “What she didn’t see is that your wife is not putting up with this type of nonsense.”

“Oh, Louisa, if you feel so strongly about it, OK, I won’t see a fortuneteller again. I swear I won’t.”

“That’s not good enough!” she practically shouted. “You’ve wasted our money just like throwing it in a paper shredder! Carl, you’ve got to be punished for this nonsense.”

“What? What do you mean?” he asked in confusion.

“I mean just what I said. You have to be punished for seeing that fortuneteller.”

“Punished? How?” Carl’s mouth hung open.

“You’ve behaved in a very childlike manner so you’ve got to get treated like a child,” she told him. “You’ve got to get a spanking.”

“A spanking!” Carl repeated incredulously. He paused, trying to take in what his wife had just said. “Oh, this is a joke! You’ve got to be joking.” Carl giggled, albeit uncomfortably.

“It’s no joke,” she said. “No joke at all.”

Carl gasped. This really was serious! What could he do? To take a spanking like a child – how humiliating! He could not stand it.

However, he did not want Louisa to consider leaving him. He loved her as much as a man could possibly love a woman. He also did not want her to continuously throw this in his face. At least for Carl, verbal abuse could hurt as much or more than hitting. He had been spanked as a child and sometimes thought it was not nearly as bad as a long scolding. Perhaps it would be best to let her spank him and so clear the air of this whole thing.

“OK, OK, Louisa,” Carl said. “I’ll let you give me a spanking.”

“Good,” she said. “Now take your belt off and hand it to me.”

The reality of what Carl had just agreed to suddenly sank in. He felt his neck and face get hot. He was so embarrassed. His hands flew to his painfully burning face. “Oh, this is terrible,” he said. “Do you have to do this, honey?”

“I have to do it,” she said in an implacable voice. “I must know that you have learned your lesson and that means I’ve got to teach it to you with an appropriate punishment.”

Carl unbuckled his belt and pulled it through the loops of his jeans. Another, even harsher, blush flew over his neck and face as he handed it to her.

“Thank you,” she said. “Now get me the ruler.”

“Why do you need the ruler?” he asked. “You’ve got the belt.”

“Because I want this spanking to be punishment,” she replied. “Real punishment. I think you’ll need to be spanked with something more substantial than a belt and, to me, that means spanked with wood.”

Carl let out a deep sigh. He grimaced and closed his eyes. When he opened them, he asked, “Where is the ruler?”

“It’s in the kitchen,” Louisa told him.

He walked to the kitchen. “Where in here?” he asked, his timid voice betraying his fear and shame.

“The first drawer to your right,” she answered.

He opened it up. Sure enough, there the ruler was. He picked it up although a tremor ran through him as he did so.

Then he went back to the living room and handed it to his angry wife.

“Now go to the closet and fetch that heavy wooden clothes brush,” Louisa commanded.

“What?” Carl exclaimed. He shuddered with fear. “The clothes brush? You’d spank me with that?”

“I will indeed spank you with that,” Louisa said. “Now go get it!”

Carl swallowed hard. His mouth went dry. He was truly scared now. The clothes brush was kept in the hallway closet. He walked to it on legs that felt like they had turned to rubber. As Carl opened up the closet door, he shivered. Looking at the clothes brush caused him to blink rapidly several times. Groaning, he picked it up. It felt hideously heavy in his hands but that might have been because his hands had gone weak with fear.

He slowly trudged back to the living room and handed the clothes brush to his wife.

“Thank you very much, Carl,” she said. She put the ruler and the clothes brush on the maple coffee table that was in front of the divan. She picked up the belt and doubled it back. “Bare your bottom and lean over that chair,” she commanded.

Carl’s hands trembled as he undid the button over his fly, and then unzipped the fly itself. He pulled the jeans down to his thighs.

But he left his jockey shorts up.

“Bare bottom, Carl,” she told him in the most business like possible tone.

“Does it have to be?” he asked plaintively, his eyebrows pulled up and mouth frowning. “I just think it would hurt too much on bare skin.”

“It will hurt just as much as it should on bare skin. Drop them, Carl.”

Carl pulled his jockey shorts down to reveal a pair of slim buttocks with downy hairs on them above slim muscular thighs that had long curly black hairs. The buttocks were pulled tightly together with tension.

“Ah, Carl, you really are scared,” Louisa observed.

“Yes, I am,” he readily acknowledged.

“Well, good!” she said. “Be afraid, my dear. Be very afraid.”

She brought the belt down as hard as she could on her foolish husband’s buttocks. Swat!

The belt stung Carl’s bare buttocks and, along with the relatively mild pain, he felt with renewed shame the acute embarrassment of his childlike position. Oh, this was awful!

Louisa brought the belt down hard and repeatedly on her husband’s tense naked ass cheeks. Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Did Madam Dirk predict that you would get a spanking when you got home?” Louisa asked.

“No, she didn’t,” Carl sadly replied.

“Then her crystal ball must not be that effective after all, right?” Louisa pressed.

“I guess not,” Carl said.

Louisa spanked some more. Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

Carl did not cry out but he cringed as his bottom stung.

Louisa saw that he was getting pale pink stripes across his butt cheeks. She was happy about that as it served him right for wasting their money on such absurd nonsense.

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Are you going to go to a fortuneteller again, Carl?” Louisa asked.

“No, honey, never again,” Carl answered.

“You better not,” she said and brought the belt down some more. “You sure as hell better not.” Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Deciding it was time to spank her husband with something a little bit stronger, Louisa put the belt aside and picked up the ruler.

She brought the wood down on bare flesh that was already pink and stinging. Swat!

Carl cringed.

Louisa noted the new pink mark across Carl’s butt cheeks. She drew her arm back and then brought the ruler down as hard as she could. Swat!

“Ouch!” Carl cried out, his deep voice unusually high-pitched from this greater pain. This really stung!

Louisa began spanking in earnest with the wooden ruler. She brought it down both hard and fast. Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

Carl’s bottom burned with the sharp pains. “Ouch!” he cried. “Ow! Ouch! Ouch! Ow! Ah!”

“It sounds like I’m starting to get through to you, Carl,” his wife commented.

“Honey, you always get through to me,” he said. “Always. No matter what you do.”

She resumed spanking. Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ouch! Honey, it hurts! It hurts! Ouch! Ow! Ow!”

“It hurts? Ah! What do you think it’s supposed to do? Tickle?” she replied sarcastically. Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ow! Ow! Ouch! Oh! Ow! Ow!”

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ouch! Ow! Oh! Oh! Oh! Ow!”

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Oh! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ouch! Ow!” Every swat stung like a bee. Carl just did not know how much more of this he could take.

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ouch! Ouch! Oh, Louisa! Oh, it hurts! Ouch!”

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ow! Ow! Oh! Ouch! Ow! Ow!”

Louisa liked the way her husband’s butt cheeks automatically flinched from the blows of the ruler, the ass cheeks compressing together and then bouncing apart. She also liked the way his bottom was turning color from pink to a mottled red.

“I think it’s time for the strongest instrument,” she said as she put the ruler down and picked up the heavy wooden clothes brush.

Carl shuddered. He could not take any more! “Please, please, stop it now,” he begged. “Please, Louisa. I’ve been punished. I’ve been terribly punished. You’ve already hurt me something awful. I won’t see another fortuneteller ever. I swear I won’t! Please don’t spank me with that clothes brush! I don’t think I can stand it!”

“Sorry, Carl, but the clothes brush it will have to be,” she told him in a voice as firm as one of her swats.

Again a shudder went through Carl’s body. He hurt so badly and he had taken so much, how much more would his angered wife mete out?

Louisa drew her arm back and then brought the heavy wood down as hard as she could on her husband’s already mottled red and sore butt cheeks. Swat!

“Ow!” Carl cried out shrilly as his bottom suffered a terrible sting.

“Too bad Madam Dirk couldn’t see your painful future clearly in that crystal ball or those tarot cards or your palm or whatever,” Louisa acidly observed before bringing the clothes brush down in rapid succession. Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ouch! Oh! Oh! Ouch! Ouch! Ow!”

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“It hurts! Ouch! Ouch! Oh! Ow! Ow!” In his pain, Carl began to pick first one leg up and then the other. His hands clutched into loose fists. He felt sweat break out on his forehead and scalp and on the palms of his hands.

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Oh! Ow! Ow! Ouch! Ow! Ow!”

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ouch! Oh! Ouch! Ow! Ow! Ouch!”

Louisa saw that her husband’s bottom was turning completely red and a very deep shade of red at that. She enjoyed the way the ass cheeks tensed and bounced as she spanked. It reminded her of a kind of dancing – dancing spanked butt cheeks.

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!

“Ow! Ow! It hurts! Oh, it hurts! Ouch! Ow!” Tears started in Carl’s eyes and blurred his vision.

Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat! Swat!