Old-Fashioned Values Read Online Free Page A

look, and then seemed to understand what she was saying. “If you’re asking whether I’d spank you because you told me you wanted to end our relationship, I hope that’s just a crazy fear talking rather than any underestimation of my character. I’d never, ever spank you out of revenge. I’ll try never to spank you out of anger, but one of the things John told me is that people who do loving discipline need to be realistic, and sometimes a guy will spank out of anger.”
    Sally saw herself in her mind’s eye, showing a bad grade to Mark—saw his face darken, saw him point to the bed, where she must lay herself down for punishment… She still couldn’t figure out why these visions of spanking seemed to stick in her brain.
    She realized she had broken eye contact with him, and was looking down at her knees, still covered, for now, in the navy blue rayon of her skirt.
    “Look at me, Sally,” Mark said gently. Sally raised her eyes to meet his again. “If I ever spank you in anger, it would only be because I felt I needed to be sure you got a message about your safety.”
    He had a kind smile on his face that seemed to make everything a little more comprehensible. “Like…” she ventured, “playing in traffic?”
    Mark laughed. “Exactly like that.”
    “Not like a bad grade?”
    Mark shook his head. “I do plan to discipline you about your academic work, because I saw how that helped Carol—Professor Baxter. But I’d never do it in anger.”
    “But…” Something about ‘plan to’ had made things seem less reasonable again. “Um, how many things do you plan to discipline me about?”
    Mark said, “May I hold your hands, please?” His voice had nothing but courtesy in it, but its tone conveyed an authority at the same time that seemed to make Sally obey him. She released her grip on the arms of the chair and extended her little hands to him, and he took them in his big ones.
    “I plan to have three non-negotiable areas of loving discipline: your manners, your grades, and your safety.”
    Sally nodded. It sounded so reasonable, though manners seemed like rather a big area. Still, Mark’s manners were impeccable, and it made her think that the part of this strange thing called loving discipline that concerned guidance in things like manners merited some consideration.
    “After that, I’ll have some suggestions for other areas in which I think you might benefit from some holding to account, and I’ll want to hear—eventually, when you get used to the idea—about any areas where you think you’d like to try a disciplinary regime.”
    “Where I’d want you to spank me?”
    “It’s not impossible. Carol actually asked John to spank her if she got behind on that article.”
    “I thought you said that John decided she needed the whipping.”
    “He did, but that was because the previous month she had told him she wanted that article specifically to be part of their agreement.”
    “What was the whipping like?” Sally whispered then, unable to keep her curiosity in check any longer. “I mean, did he make her cry?”
    “Yes, but I don’t think that was because of the pain. Or not just because of it, at least. After dinner he told her to get ready for her whipping. So she went to the living room, and she got an ottoman and lay herself over it. John had me sit on the couch and then he took off his belt. Then he said ‘Get ‘em down,’ or something like that. So Carol undid her jeans and pulled them and her panties down to the middle of her thighs. Then John gave her a little lecture—questions mostly—and had her promise to finish the article the next day, and then he started to whip her with the belt.”
    “How long?” Sally asked in a whisper.
    “I think he must have whipped her fifty times or more,” Mark said
    “Oh, God.” Sally felt very faint.
    “They’d been practicing loving discipline for several years,” Mark sad. “Carol definitely wanted it like that—even if she