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My mouth still open, I turned to look at Rick, willing him to say that his wife despite her youth had the right to express gratitude however and whenever she wanted. That Mrs. Purdy had a lot of nerve—no, that didn’t even cover it—that she wasinsaneto suggest that he shouldcorrect my behaviorfor failing to thank her.
To thank her for instructing me to call her ‘Mrs.’
“I know it’s just a misunderstanding, Florence,” Rick said. He turned to me, a smile on his face that didnotindicate he thought this woman had lost her mind. “Mandy, why don’t you go ahead and clear it up.”
I blinked at him. I closed my mouth. Rick’s eyes narrowed a little, and my heart started to beat faster because to my dismay I could now recognize the look on his face as the same one that had preceded my trip to the private room in the airport lounge. Did the New Modesty office have private rooms, too, I wondered wildly?
Of course it does, my seething brain told me.And this time Rick will have plenty of time to make me take my jeans and panties down. While Mrs. Purdy waits outside.
I had managed to keep the blood out of my face for half a minute or so, but now it returned in a full force blush to the roots of my hair. All I could think about was changing the subject—or, if I couldn’t, of getting up and trying to run away despite the absurdity of the idea.
I turned to Mrs. Purdy and saw that she had turned on her sweet smile again, and directed it at me.
“I’m-I’m sorry, M-Mrs, Purdy,” I stammered. “Thanks… thanks for your… help.”
CHAPTER13
Rick
I could hear the embarrassment and the fear in Mandy’s voice. My heart went out to her, but at the same time I could see in my beautiful wife’s eyes just how effective Florence Purdy’s method of counseling would be—had already been—where Mandy’s confused ideas and needs were concerned.
It rankled a little, as it had when Scott had approached me—could that actually have been just this morning? On one level I knew that even at twenty-eight, and eight years older than my bride, I couldn’t claim to have any experience of marriage, or even of long-term romantic relationships—let alone the kind of relationship it seemed absolutely clear both Mandy and I longed for.
On another level, I thought as I looked across the desk at the New Modesty counselor, a man like me, who had long prided himself on his alpha qualities, should be able to take his wife in hand without outside help, shouldn’t he? True, I had never expected I would be called upon to apply those dominant parts of my personality to the sweet girl I had married—I had thought her firstforget ithad meant that I should save that alpha side of me for the workplace.
Nice guys didn’t force the issue in the bedroom: that idea had seemed utterly ingrained in my psyche before this morning. I still had to admit to a good deal of disbelief that among Florence Purdy, Scott Dennison, and the rest of Rocky Falls, I would have constructive examples and solid guidance in doing just that—ensuring that when Ididforce the issue in the bedroom, teaching Mandy to fulfill her conjugal duties according to my dominant wishes, I would do it with confidence and with skill.
Florence turned to me with that slight variation on her smile that I could tell she directed at the husbands she counseled, while she saved the super-sweet, condescending version for wayward wives like Mandy.
“I think you’ll find, Mr. Williams, that the firmer you are about Amanda’s manners, the easier a time she’ll have settling in here.”
Mandy literally gasped at that, and I glanced over to see that the cherry red in her cheeks had gone to crimson. She looked back at me with the same beseeching expression I had seen so frequently today as my adorable bride had begun to realize how her life had changed, at least for the week of our visit to Rocky Falls. My task, as Scott and the New Modesty website had told me, lay in ensuring that at the end of the week Mandy had learned to accept her need to submit to me as an obedient bride.
Her face begged me to take her away from this office, from this town—from everything that had so obviously confused her so much. I remembered the same expression from the private room where I had finally spanked her for the first time. Again I saw what the New Modesty guidelines had told me I would see if I looked with care and understanding: part of Mandy wanted to escape, yes, but she wanted to run away from herself, from her own wanton needs, just as urgently as she wanted to run away from Rocky Falls. Indeed, the reason she wanted to get away from Florence and this special town lay in her mistaken belief that if she fled the place, she would also flee her own growing understanding of her dark desires.
I looked at Florence and returned her smile.
“I’m sure you’re right, Florence,” I said. I turned back to Mandy. “Dee, sweetheart, I want to be clear. The next time you’re rude, you’ll have another trip across my knee.”
Mandy
For a moment I thought I couldn’t have heard Rick correctly, because he simply couldn’t have said that in front of the horrible Mrs. Purdy. Hecouldn’thave implied, so casually, that he had already put me over his knee and spanked me for disobeying him.
My face couldn’t get any hotter, after what Mrs. Purdy had said about manners. I felt tears spring up in the corners of my eyes and I had to look down at my hands, folded in my lap, desperately pushing down a sob of abject humiliation.
“Amanda,” I heard the older woman’s voice say, the tone seemingly one of genuine sympathy, “I know how hard this is. You’re going to find that here in Rocky Falls, though, that people talk quite openly about family discipline. It’s embarrassing, yes, but it’s also a fact of life. Let me tell you a little secret that isn’t really a secret, because I know Mr. Purdy told his friends at the coffee shop this morning… I got punished last night myself.”
I raised my eyes in disbelief, to see that the woman’s smile had lost a little of the super-sweetness to become actually compassionate.
“What…” I started. “Why did…?”
I didn’t even know how to put the question together.
“Never you mind,” Mrs. Purdy said, her tone becoming a little severe. “I should tell you that we consider it impolite to ask that sort of question.” She looked over at Rick. “Don’t you punish her for that, though, Mr. Williams, since she didn’t know.”
I looked from my husband to the counselor, confused and embarrassed—grateful for Mrs. Purdy’s advice to Rick, because fear had thrilled through my belly at the wordimpolite—but at the same time feeling strangely let down.
Mrs. Purdy had looked down at her tablet, and begun tapping on it. She looked up at Rick.
