Chapter 2: The First Hundred
The crack of the paddle against Robert's upturned backside echoed through the living room like a gunshot, and he bit down on the leather throw pillow so hard he tasted the faint, bitter residue of dust and old conditioner. His knuckles were white where they gripped the opposite arm of the sofa, his body braced in a humiliating arch over the backrest, sweatpants pooled around his ankles like a puddle of defeated fabric.
"One hundred," Ava declared from somewhere to his left, her voice bright with malicious glee. "And that, my friends, is the century mark."
Robert heard her phone chime with notifications—a cascade of digital pings and buzzes that suggested her sorority sisters were thoroughly enjoying the show. He couldn't see the screen, couldn't see anything but the soft beige carpet and the grain of the leather upholstery inches from his face, but he could imagine it. Could imagine the group chat exploding with laughing emojis and captions he would never live down if any of them ever met him in person.
"Mary," he grunted, pushing himself up slightly, testing whether the position could be made more bearable. "Don't you think—"
"Don't I think what, darling?" Mary's voice was honeyed, patient, devastatingly calm. She was circling around to his side now, the paddle resting against her thigh like an extension of her arm. Her green eyes swept over his exposed backside with clinical appraisal, and Robert felt the heat of embarrassment rise up his neck to join the heat of the punishment already blooming across his skin.
"I think," she continued, reaching out to trace a fingertip over one of the darker red stripes, "that you're doing beautifully. One hundred down. Three hundred to go."
Robert flinched at her touch, not because it hurt—though it did, a deep, throbbing sting that radiated outward with every heartbeat—but because of the tenderness in the gesture. Mary had always been like this. Fierce and playful by turns, her punishments delivered with the same care she might give to gardening or baking. She didn't enjoy causing him pain, exactly. She enjoyed the control. The ritual. The way he surrendered to her authority time and time again, even when he knew what was coming.
Which, he supposed, was the real reason he kept forgetting to take out the recycling.
"You're not even sorry, are you?" he muttered into the cushion.
"Not even a little bit," Mary confirmed. She stepped back, raising the paddle, and Robert heard the air shift as she brought it down with practiced precision. The impact landed just below the previous mark, a fresh burst of fire that made him gasp and grip the sofa harder.
"One-oh-one," Ava counted. "And he's still not crying, ladies. Give it another fifty."
"For the love of—" Robert's protest was cut short by another swing, this one landing on his upper thighs where the skin was more sensitive, less padded. He jerked involuntarily, a strangled noise escaping his throat.
"Language, darling." Mary's voice carried a warning edge. "You know how I feel about swearing in this house."
Robert bit back the retort forming on his lips. He knew the rules better than anyone. Swearing meant extra. Talking back meant extra. Moving out of position meant starting over from the last multiple of twenty-five. He'd learned these rules the hard way over the years, through trial and error and more than one missed Sunday football game spent lying on his stomach with an ice pack.
The paddle came down again. And again. And again.
Ava had stopped counting aloud for a moment, too busy typing something on her phone, her thumbs flying across the screen with the speed of a woman who had grown up in the digital age. Robert caught a glimpse of her profile from the corner of his eye—her blonde hair pulled back in a messy ponytail, her hazel eyes dancing with mischief, her lips curved in a grin that was entirely too reminiscent of Mary's.
"You know," Ava said conversationally, lowering her phone, "I told Jennifer and Lisa they should come over. See the fun in person."
Robert's blood ran cold. "Mary. Please. Tell me she's joking."
"She's not joking." Mary's voice was light, almost cheerful. She paused in her rhythm, letting the paddle rest against Robert's lower back while she checked her watch. "Actually, I believe they should be arriving right about—"
The doorbell rang.
Robert closed his eyes. He could feel the blood rushing to his face, could feel his heart hammering against his ribs, and it had nothing to do with the pain radiating from his backside. This was something worse. Something deeper. The kind of humiliation that stripped away years of dignity and left you bare in front of witnesses you couldn't easily explain away.
"Be a dear and get that, Ava," Mary said, stepping back from the sofa. "Let them in. Robert and I were just taking a short break before the next round."
Ava practically skipped to the front door, her bare feet padding across the carpet as she pulled it open with theatrical flourish. The sound of girlish giggles spilled into the living room, bright and invasive, like sunlight through a dirty window.
"Oh my God," a voice gasped. "Is he still—"
"Yep," Ava confirmed. "He's still in position. Mary made him put the paddle down and everything."
Robert wanted to die. He wanted the leather sofa to open up and swallow him whole. He wanted to rewind the past hour and actually take out the recycling when Mary had asked him to, instead of shrugging it off with a "I'll get it tomorrow" that had clearly been the final straw.
"Hi, Mr. Davenport," Jennifer said, her voice floating over to him with all the casualness of a girl greeting her friend's dad at a school function. Except her friend's dad was bent over a couch with his pants around his ankles, his backside striped like a zebra and his dignity in tatters. "This is, uh. This is pretty wild."
Robert heard Lisa giggling behind her, trying and failing to muffle the sound behind her hand.
"Jennifer. Lisa." He kept his face turned toward the cushion, his voice muffled. "I would say it's nice to see you, but I think we all know that would be a lie."
Ava snorted. "He still has his sense of humor. That's good. That means he's not broken yet."
"He's not supposed to be broken," Mary said mildly, coming around to stand in front of Robert. She tilted his chin up with one finger, forcing him to meet her gaze. Even in his humiliation, Robert couldn't help but notice how beautiful she looked—flushed with the exertion of the punishment, her auburn hair slightly mussed, her green eyes bright with amusement and something softer underneath. Love, maybe. Or satisfaction. Or both.
"You know I love you, right?" she said quietly, her voice low enough that only he could hear.
Robert managed a weak smile. "Doesn't feel like love from this angle."
"It feels like love from mine." She released his chin and stepped back, raising her voice to address the room. "Alright, girls. Ava's been keeping count for me, but I think it's time we let our guests participate in the festivities."
Robert's eyes widened. "What?"
Jennifer clapped her hands together with genuine excitement. "Oh my God, really? Ava said you might let us take a turn, but I didn't actually believe her."
Ava grinned, holding up her phone. "Ladies, you heard the woman. Jennifer and Lisa are about to take their first swings at the Davenport target. And for those of you just joining the live stream, yes, this is really happening, and yes, he's really this red."
Robert turned his head to glare at his stepdaughter. "You're live-streaming this?"
"Technically, it's a private group," Ava said, unconcerned. "Just me and about sixty of my closest sorority sisters."
"Sixty—"
"Robert." Mary's voice cut through his protest like a knife. "You're in enough trouble already. Do you really want to add another fifty for backtalk?"
He fell silent. The threat hung in the air between them, tangible and real. He could feel the weight of it pressing down on him, could feel the heat of his punishment throbbing in time with his heartbeat, could feel the eyes of three young women boring into his exposed flesh.
Jennifer stepped forward first, taking the paddle from Mary's outstretched hand. She was a pretty girl—dark hair, freckles, a cheerful disposition that Robert had always associated with Ava's more wholesome friends. Now she held the paddle with tentative curiosity, testing its weight, running her thumb over the polished wood.
"Is there a technique to this?" she asked.
Mary smiled. "It's all in the wrist. Snap it at the last moment, just before impact. You want a sharp sting, not a deep thud."
Robert felt Jennifer step to his side. Heard the whisper of air as she raised the paddle. Heard Ava count down on her phone.
"One hundred and twelve," Ava said. "And that's where the professional ends and the amateurs begin."
The first swing was tentative. Awkward. It landed higher than Mary's strikes, catching him on the softer curve of his sit bones, and Robert couldn't help the grunt of surprise that escaped him.
"Not bad," Mary observed. "But you're pulling your shoulder too much. Keep your elbow loose."
"Sorry," Jennifer said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "I've never done this before."
Robert closed his eyes. This was his life now. He was being coached through a paddling by his own wife, with his stepdaughter's sorority friends taking turns swinging the very instrument of his destruction. If someone had told him ten years ago, on his wedding day, that this would be his future, he would have laughed in their face.
But here he was. Bent over the sofa. Sweatpants around his ankles. Backside on fire.
Jennifer found her rhythm quickly, her swings becoming more confident with each attempt. The sting of her paddle was different than Mary's—less precise, more diffuse, a broad burn that covered more surface area. Robert gritted his teeth and held position, counting silently in his head as the blows rained down.
Eleven more from Jennifer. Then Lisa took a turn, and she was worse. Not because she was crueler, but because she was nervous, and her nervousness made her hits erratic, landing on tender spots and sensitive curves that made Robert jerk and gasp.
"A hundred and fifty," Ava announced, checking her phone between count calls. "Halfway to halfway, folks. We're making progress."
Robert heard the glee in her voice and couldn't even bring himself to resent it. Ava had always been Mary's partner in these little disciplinary episodes, ever since she was sixteen and Robert had accidentally walked in on her boyfriend sneaking out of the house at two in the morning. Mary had made him sit through a lecture about responsibility that lasted two hours, and Ava had watched from the stairs, laughing.
Now she was twenty-two, a college senior with a wicked streak and a phone full of evidence of her stepfather's most humiliating moments. And Robert loved her anyway. Loved her like she was his own daughter, even though they shared no blood and had only come into each other's lives when she was already halfway grown.
"Ava," he said, his voice strained. "When you're done broadcasting this to the known universe, do you think you could find it in your heart to—"
"You want me to stop the live stream?" Ava's voice was innocent, but her eyes were anything but. "But Dad, the girls are really enjoying it. Tammy just asked if I could do a close-up."
Robert shoved that mental image away before it could fully form. "I will pay you."
"You don't have money."
"I'll do your laundry for a month."
"I have a washer and dryer in my apartment and the fine motor skills to use them."
"I'll tell Mary she was right about the Rottweiler."
Ava paused. Blinked. Exchanged a glance with Mary, who had raised an eyebrow at this new development.
"You'd really do that?" Ava asked. "You'd admit that Mary was right? About everything?"
Robert didn't hesitate. He was in too deep now to cling to pride. "I'll admit she was right about the dog, the landscaping, the marital counseling, and the paint color in the hallway."
Mary's eyes widened. The girls exchanged looks of disbelief. Even Lisa stopped swinging the paddle long enough to stare at Robert with a mixture of awe and horror.
"For the love of God," Robert said, his voice pleading. "Just end the live stream."
Ava's fingers hovered over her phone screen. She looked at the comments scrolling past—rapid-fire messages from her sorority sisters, all of them begging to see more. But then she looked at Robert's face, at the genuine desperation in his eyes, and something in her expression softened. Just a fraction. Just enough.
"Fine," she said, tapping her screen. "Live stream's over. Happy?"
The sound of the ending chime was like a sm all mercy. Robert let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding, his shoulders sagging with relief.
"One hundred and fifty," Ava repeated, pocketing her phone. "Now can we finish this up? I have a study group at eight."
Mary took the paddle back from Lisa, her fingers wrapping around the handle with practiced ease. She stepped behind Robert and pressed the flat of the paddle against his already-stinging flesh, letting him feel the cool wood against his heated skin.
"This might be a good time to mention," she said, her voice calculatingly calm, "that Ava's study group doesn't start for another three hours. And we still have two hundred and fifty smacks left to go."
Robert buried his face in the cushion and prayed for strength.