The Dilemma: A Her Choice Story Read online

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  Liz stretched under the light sheet that covered her, realizing she was still naked under it. Smiling, she stretched again, loving her sore muscles and sore nether parts. Maybe sex would never get stale with Matt. Hopefully she would always be as ready and eager for it as she was right now. She’d been married before, though, and knew passion faded after a while. She hoped it was a long, long while though. Noticing the note on the bedside table, she read:

  Got Ben off to school. Have a good morning off. Love, M.

  Folding it carefully, she got up, tucked it in her underwear drawer with some of the cards and other things he’d given her.

  Frowning, she saw another letter stashed in there she needed to handle soon. Soon as she got paid again next week, she would get that done. One of those pesky past life loose ends. Quickly, she put it out of her mind for now, though. There was nothing she could do about it today.

  Taking a leisurely shower, she pulled on blue jeans and a Rose’s Ranch t-shirt. Slipping into sneakers, she planned out her day. Some housework, laundry, then she’d head over to the garden shed to get equipment and work on the rose beds a while. The first day she arrived on vacation here, she’d spied the sweet smelling, colorful rose beds and wished for the job of caring for them. Now it was reality, and she loved it. The roses always made her smile, and she even had begun to remember all their names, and special scents.

  She heard another thing she loved come in the door.

  “Matt!” She almost skipped from the bedroom to the living room. “I figured you’d be in the stables by now.”

  He smiled at her and said, “I was on my way there, but got side tracked by the mail. Thought I’d bring you yours.”

  Something seemed off in his demeanor, and she felt a thrill of nerves. What, oh no. It couldn’t be. She looked down at the top envelope. Yeah. It was.

  “Thank you for my mail,” she hoped he wouldn’t ask her about it. Just let it go.

  “Open it,” Matt said, in a way she knew wasn’t a question.

  “Oh, I’ll do it later,” she said, and dropped the pile of mail onto the couch. The white envelope stood out sharply on the muted green plaid of the couch she hoped to recover soon. Part of her on-going plan to make his cabin into a cozy home.

  “Don’t think so.” Matt sat down on the couch and handed her the envelope again. She felt awkward and wanted to refuse, but did a quick mental inventory. Did she want to have a lie between them? Did she want to open the envelope in front of him?

  No. To both. She didn’t really see an option, though. It had to be one or the other, apparently. Matt sat there directly in front of her, so sighing and with a quiver of nerves and shaking fingers, she tore the envelope open.

  She already knew what it said. There was a matching one in her dresser drawer but with less interest owed though, she was quite certain. This was the thing she’d planned to handle as soon as she got paid again, as much of it as she could anyway. One of the pesky loose ends she wanted to tie up from her past life. She had never wanted Matt to know about this. Liz wasn’t embarrassed a lot about her past. Sure there was a time when she dated too much, and was a little wild, but she’d settled down pretty quickly, and the last few years, she’d been a good mom and semi-decent provider.

  “Is that what I think it is?” Matt asked, quietly.

  Nodding, being glad he wasn’t a screamer, she simply handed him the envelope’s contents, feeling despite her embarrassment, almost a sense of relief as she did. This was really the only real bit of information she’d withheld from him and simply because it was so mortifying, so awful. Only other people got into this kind of trouble. Not her. Not her brothers, or Matt, for sure.

  “You took out a payday loan?” He asked, after skimming the letter. He read it again, as if he couldn’t believe it.

  Liz nodded again, swallowing hard, unable to look at him. “I planned to pay it off, or at least catch it up, when I got paid next week. But every time I make a payment, it just doesn’t seem to go down any. I’ve been trying, though, really hard.”

  “That’s because they’re charging you over 200 percent interest,” he said. “No way will payments ever work out, except for their good. Damn. I didn’t even know that was still legal. Two hundred percent.” He sounded dumbfounded and she couldn’t blame him.

  “I know. I just keep trying to pay it back, though,” she repeated, tears of mortification began streaking down her cheeks. This was something she’d wanted no one to know about, not her brothers, and definitely not Matt.

  “I thought we shared all our finances before you moved in,” he said, putting the letter down on the end table, and pulling her down to sit beside him on the couch.

  “I did!” she protested. “Well, but for this one. I did this one a while back to pay my power bill, because they were going to shut me off. There were a couple other bills from when I had the bike accident and hurt my knee, too. I didn’t want to tell you about this one, because, well.” She buried her head in his shoulder and wished she were anywhere but here right now.

  “Tell me why,” he commanded and stroked her hair. She didn’t want to look at him, but when she didn’t answer, he fisted her hair and pulled it gently, but firmly back so her face tipped up to his. “Tell me.”

  His face seemed impassive and she couldn’t tell if he was mad or upset or as disgusted with her as she was with herself. What good would knowing how he felt do, she wondered. Wouldn’t help what she had to do, or how she felt.

  “It’s just such a…a…” words struggled and she just wanted to be in his arms, not being forced to talk about this. “ It was a stupid thing to do. I just didn’t feel like I had any other choice at the time. I’d been out of work a few weeks, and had all these bills, and I couldn’t let Ben be without power, and it seemed an easy way to get the cash I needed.” She hiccupped and struggled not to sob in his arms.

  “You didn’t think of calling your brother, Eric? I don’t think he would have denied you money to live on, or feed your kid, or keep the power on in your house? He’s not that kind of man.”

  She shook her head, slowly, as far as she could with him still holding her hair, so she couldn’t hide in shame the way she wanted. “I didn’t want to. I wanted to do things on my own,” she whispered.

  Matt let go of her hair, but put one finger on her chin and kept her face up. She averted her eyes guiltily. “I can almost understand that. We all make bad choices once in a while,” he said, slowly. “This was a bad choice, but do you know what a worse one was?”

  Yeah. She did. “Not telling you about it with the rest of my bills,” she whispered. “I know I should have, but I was just so embarrassed.” There had been so much on the news back then about payday loans and title loans, warning people about them. That, though, had been how she’d heard about them. A piece on her local news, about how, yes, it was so easy to get quick cash from these people, and since she was worrying about her power bill right then, fearing she’d come home to a dark, cold house, she decided that was more important. She’d do anything for Ben.

  Besides, she wasn’t like some of the people they were profiling. She had a good job. In fact, at the time, she had two jobs. Full-time dental tech and a part-time job stocking shelves in a big hardware store in the early mornings. She’d taken the second job to catch up after her accident. Figuring she could get more hours there, if she needed to, she popped into the loan place on her drive home. It had been quick and easy, and the people were so nice, but now, over a year later, she owed much more than she’d borrowed so quickly and easily from the nice people. Anytime she’d been even a day late, she’d been hit with a huge fine, and her interest went up. She felt as if she were drowning in both the debt and the embarrassment.

  Matt pulled his phone out of his pocket, and called the number. Liz cried softly as she heard him pay it off with his credit card. The entire amount. If she didn’t feel so guilty, she’d feel so free and happy.

  She vowed to pay
him back every cent, and yet, she still felt as if the weight of the world had been lifted off her shoulders by her handsome cowboy riding to her rescue.

  Almost all the weight, at least, because there was the worst decision, she knew now, she’d have to deal with. One worse and much more complicated than a money problem.

  “There. One problem solved,” he smiled gently at her, and Liz kissed him, tasting her own salty tears on his mouth. “But now for the next one. First of all, is this the only thing you haven’t told me about?”

  “I didn’t tell you about losing my virginity,” she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere.

  “Money, Liz. Don’t try to be cute. It’s not the time,” he touched her nose with his finger. “Though we can have that discussion another time. Might be interesting.”

  “No, Sir, nothing else,” she said, slowly, eyelashes fluttering down, pink rising in her cheeks. All she wanted to do was crawl in a hole. “The only reason I didn’t tell you about this was I was trying to pay it off myself. Before anyone found out. It’s just so embarrassing.” She repeated it. He didn’t understand how awful it was.

  “When we were sharing our debts, did we put a clause in there about only sharing non-embarrassing information?”

  She shook her head and stared down at his belt buckle. She didn’t want to have this conversation. She was a grown woman, after all, who had supported herself, and… she stopped her racing thoughts. That was not what this was about. It was about honesty. Between the two of them. She knew that.

  Now, her issue, she realized, was that she had to regain his trust. How? Words, to start, then actions to prove it. “I don’t know what to say,” she said. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. I won’t lie by omission anymore. I learned my lesson. I’m so happy I don’t have to worry about that anymore. I promise to pay you back every cent.” She put her arms around him and hugged him tight.

  He hugged her back, and then deliberately set her apart, from him. “I hope you learned, but I’m going to make sure of it. One thing I will not abide is secrets and lies between us. Especially about money. I make enough, you have your own, and we talked about how we are going to handle things. That hasn’t changed.”

  He looked her up and down and she almost shivered with nerves. What was this?

  “But right now I’m going to give you a reminder of what happens to little girls who lie.”

  Mind racing, she thought about her mom who had soaped her mouth when she told stories as a little kid. Surely that wasn’t what he meant? Maybe it was? Liz shuddered, thinking of the taste of it. Ugh.

  “Stand up and pull your jeans down,” he said looking her directly in her eyes. She stared back into his stern ones, puzzled.

  “No,” she whispered, mouth dry, suddenly realizing what he was going to do. He loved to pat her butt and give her hot, sometimes smoking hot, foreplay spankings, but she knew this wasn’t going to be one of those, and exactly what he planned to do.

  “Yes,” he said. “Little girls who lie, even by omission, get their butts blistered. Then they remember every time they sit down for the next few days what they did and what they won’t do again.”

  Suddenly Liz had to pee, really badly. Nerves, she knew. Could this be really happening? “I’m not a little girl,” she said, almost desperately. “I’m a grown woman, and I said I’m sorry.”

  “I’m a grown man, and I know you are, but fixing that was too easy, and you need a reminder. Punished so you remember not to do it again.”

  “I really don’t,” she said, and wiggled away a little further.

  “Well, I’m not going to force you, but this is something I really feel needs to happen, for our mutual good,” Matt said, pointing to a spot by the end table. “Stand up and drop your pants.”

  Her mind danced away, but shakily she stood up, and reached for the button on her jeans. Was he really going to stand there and watch her pull her pants down like a naughty girl? Hanging her head, she knew that was exactly what she had been. She deserved this. It was for their mutual good, he’s said. Somehow she felt dubious about that.

  Maybe it was though, and then they could have a fresh start and never bring it up again? Except for her paying him back, of course. She hoped his interest was a lot less than the title loan place.

  “Quit stalling. Do it now.” His voice had none of the humor in it she’d grown used to. She didn’t like this, and of this, one bit. However, she decided she’d accept it, do what he told her to do. Why? Women did stupid things for love apparently. Slowly she unbuttoned, unzipped and shimmied her jeans down to her thighs.

  “Over my knee,” he told her. She knew she could pull her pants back up and walk away. Walk into the bedroom. Just tell him she didn’t want a spanking. But. Maybe she deserved one, and if Matt dealt with issues like this instead of yelling at her, maybe that was a good thing?

  “You are going to seriously spank me?” she whispered, trying to tug her t-shirt down to cover her still panty-clad parts. He’d seen her naked only a few hours ago. That didn’t seem to matter. She felt naked even though she wasn’t, and not a fun naked.

  “Very seriously.”

  Maybe it wasn’t a good thing. But what option did she have? Leave? No. She didn’t want to do that. And she kind of did want to be punished and forgiven. She’d been feeling so guilty and so bad about this for so long. Hopefully this would bring her a washing away of guilt? Some peace to them both? She had no idea.

  Awkwardly, she took the step to him and he helped guide her over his lap. That was not graceful at all, she thought. He probably thought she was a klutz. Hopefully, he knew it was nerves. Giving a short snort of a laugh, she realized he wasn’t even thinking of how she got over his lap, more than likely. Men.

  Her body rested on the couch and she hoped she wouldn’t kick the lamp on the end table over in a few minutes. She couldn’t see it. Her face buried in the closest pillow. She hoped she didn’t want to be sitting on it soon. Was he really going to spank her? This entire process boggled and baffled her. What had she signed up for?

  “Once I’m done here, we won’t bring this up again,” he told her. “Well, I won’t bring it up again. You can. I know girls like to talk about things.”

  Well, she liked to talk about sex after the fact. She wasn’t sure however, if he meant the spanking she was about to get, or the lie she’d told, or the money he’d paid off for her. Plus, she felt pretty certain, she really didn’t ever want to talk about any of those things ever again. None of them seemed like fun conversation starters, right now.

  But her mind shut that out as the first smack landed on her bottom. “Ow,” she protested, involuntarily. He wasn’t planning to mess around, was he? No. He wasn’t. Her heart pounded and she began panting. Nerves.

  Sharp smacks immediately began raining down and while she tried to hold still and just accept what she deserved, it wasn’t long before her instincts kicked in. She bit her lip trying not to cry out again, but couldn’t help wiggling just a bit. Then a little more. Soon, all she thought about, all she wanted was to get her bottom out of the way. Just not there! That part already hurt too much.

  Right when she was starting open her mouth to protest, he stopped and she took a deep shuddering breath, and sniffled. She needed a tissue. Was it over? Okay, she’d handled that well. Hadn’t she?

  “We are never going to have this happen, again, do you understand me?” he said and she felt her panties being pulled down. Crap. And other bad words.

  “Yes!” she sobbed out, giving up trying to be stoic, “I understand. Don’t spank me anymore, please!”

  “Job worth doing is worth doing well,” Matt said.

  “Not always!” she shrieked as his hand came down again. This was nothing like her play spankings, which were fun and hot and desired. She did not want this and did not want to beg, but Liz was pretty sure she was going to be doing just that. Real soon now.

  Why not? It might help and all she wanted was for this pain to stop. It hurt
so much. Her bottom felt on fire as he continued the steady thwack on her bottom. Panic started to rise. She couldn’t take this anymore. How long was he planning to keep this up?

  He held her firmly and didn’t let her move, though she tried her hardest to twist off his lap. Why had she thought keeping anything from him was a good idea? There was nothing good about either the fire in her bottom or the pain in her brain.

  “Please, no more, please, okay, I’ll be good,” she choked out. Damn, it was hard to talk when all she wanted to do was make it stop. How did you make it stop? She had no clue. “Sorry! Ow! I’ll be good, no more, no more!” Her butt felt on fire and yet he relentlessly lit more matches. She’d never look at a bonfire the same way again. She simply could not handle anymore more. She wiggled and kicked harder, her hand flying back to stop the assault on her bottom, but he grabbed it held it. Needing out of there, off his lap, was the only thought in brain besides the fire in her butt. No one had ever done anything like this to her before.

  Finally, with a loud wail of agony, she stopped kicking and fighting and went limp. He could do what he wanted, she couldn’t fight anymore.

  He stopped. It was over.

  Liz stayed over his lap, bottom throbbing, so mortified she couldn’t stand it. Could today be any worse? He’d found out her worst secret. He’d spanked her like a child. She’d cried and begged and kicked and whined and behaved like a little girl.

  It was horrible. She didn’t think she’d ever be able to look him in eye again. At least he wasn’t going to make her stand in the corner. Was he? No. Just no. She needed held right now. She needed to rub her bottom.

  Scrambling up awkwardly, she wanted to throw herself in his arms… but did he want her? She rubbed frantically, trying to rub out the pain. Rising up on her toes, she kept rubbing, wondering weirdly in some sane part of her brain, if going up on tiptoe was the spanking equivalent of opening your mouth while you put on mascara. It simply seemed like the right thing to do. The rubbing felt so good. What would it feel like if his big hands were doing it? She must be feeling better if she could think this much.