Total pages in book: 80
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 73013 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“Oh, God,” I whispered. I wondered, despite myself, what it meant—who came to get defiant young wives from their sponsors’ cars? Just the aestheticians themselves? Or did they call in the security guard from the little booth at the entrance to the shopping center?
I squirmed in the comfortable seat again at the terrible thought of Rick’s justice if I disobeyed him again. How could I possibly try to brat in the face of another—maybe even worse—whipping?
Wait, said the rational part of my mind, heard from for the first time in what seemed like quite a while. None of this… this isn’t the plan, right? You’re going to find a way to… to negotiate this…
What if I demanded to talk to Rick? Better, what if I just called him, now, no matter whether he was on the golf course in the middle of some important shot or something? Looking at April as if she might spring across the car to grab me, I took my phone out of my purse.
April smiled a sad sort of smile when she saw.
“I’m sorry, Mandy, but you won’t get through to him.”
I frowned at her. How could she know that? I pulled up my favorite numbers. I noticed to my confusion that Rick’s, at the top of the list, was grayed out. I touched it, and a message popped up.
Calling Rick is currently prohibited.
“What?” I said, staring at the screen in horror.
“Girls aren’t allowed to disturb their husbands during the day,” April told me. “If you have an emergency, obviously, Rick will be notified. One of those old-fashioned things.”
I looked up at my phone to gaze at her, wild-eyed.
“If you make them come and get you,” she continued very calmly, “the security guard will stay and have a good look at you in the chair without your panties on.”
I closed my mouth long enough to swallow hard.
“Joan didn’t tell me that,” April said, another sad—no, wistful, really—smile coming to her lips. “There—I’m a better sponsor than she was.”
I got out of the car on unsteady legs. As I followed April into New You, with every step I contemplated turning and running. I wondered how many young women had tried that—and I felt certain that the guard in the little booth must have a video screen that showed him my progress toward the day spa’s door. I tried to figure out why the prospect of him seeing me with my panties down had made me obey when the threat of my husband’s belt hadn’t done the trick.
Because he would see my pussy? Well, of course I didn’t want him to see that… but the thought hadn’t motivated me anywhere near as strongly as knowing he would see what I myself hadn’t had the courage to look at in the mirror: the bruises Rick had left on my backside as a reminder of my very first lesson in marital obedience.
So I had avoided a male stranger’s eyes on those humiliating marks. I still felt faint, though, as I saw the door of the day spa swing open, pushed by an unseen employee, maybe, a receptionist or even the aesthetician with whom the New Modesty had made my appointment. A woman, definitely, but someone who—like April, if she really were going to have her own wax beside me—would probably see precisely what my heart had quailed at the thought of a security guard seeing.
Because I knew I had no choice. The idea of substituting a mani-pedi for the mortifying prospect of a Brazilian hadn’t made it six inches off the ground before dropping to the tarmac like a lead balloon. The mere image April had painted—what it seemed she herself had gone through—of a man strapping me into a chair and taking my panties away, revealing the evidence of my misbehavior and my husband’s rough justice… plus the knowledge that Rick would have a reason to punish me again tonight… it all seemed simply to short-circuit the reasonable-seeming but impossibly silly plan of negotiating a sane solution with my dominant bridegroom.
“Hi!” said the pretty woman who had opened the door for us—clearly a receptionist. “Welcome to New You.” She had her eyes fixed on me as April slowed her own steps to let me go first toward the door. I felt heat rise to my cheeks, but I struggled mightily to keep a smile on my lips instead of the frown that threatened to emerge. Maybe I could share my inner conflict with April, but the day spa receptionist would never see it.
“Hi, Mrs. Dennison,” she said warmly, her eyes flicking briefly to my companion. Then, looking back over at me, “I’m guessing you’re Mandy. Welcome. I’m Grace. Please come on in! Reba’s going to take care of both of you—she’s all set for you in room three.”
So Grace wouldn’t be the one, would she, to see me with my panties down? That somehow made it easier to enter the bright, beautifully designed space of the day spa. But just down the hall from the reception area, the door of room three seemed, just with that number 3 on the door, to threaten me with my undoing.