Mary and Daphne #25 (Patreon)

I don’t know exactly what Mary does. She tried to explain it to me once, but I think she’s either responsible for making her company’s website stuff work, or possibly for keeping the internet on. Or both.

Either way, she’s always been pretty good at finding a balance between work and everything else. Then the pandemic hit, and her whole company and the rest of the world started working remotely, and the internet was breaking, and she fixed it. Or something. Anyway, she was working a lot.

And then they got through that, and Mary wasn’t working fourteen hours days, but she was starting work at the time she’d normally be just getting in her car, and she was finishing work at the time she would normally be relaxing on the couch with me after dinner, and she wasn’t taking breaks like she’s supposed to. And she knows she’s supposed to. Like I said, if she takes care of me and I take care of her, we have nothing to worry about, so I took it upon myself to get her to take those breaks.

My first attempt was what I call the Human Fitbit. I went in her office and gently shook her chair. She looked at me, I paused, and did it again. “What are you doing,” she asked with a bemused expression.

“Reminding you to get your steps in.”

“Awww,” and she got up and came to the kitchen with me and we chatted for a few minutes.

Of course the thing about a Fitbit is it doesn’t just remind you the once. An hour later, she smiled at me and we had lunch together.

An hour after that, she stood up, grabbed me by the upper arm and spank-marched me out of the room. Which I guess I should’ve seen coming because that’s pretty much how I feel about my actual Fitbit, wherever it is.

My second attempt was a solid idea in theory, but the execution of it didn’t go as planned. I was in the middle of cleaning the house, again, and we all know how I feel about cleaning, but I got jack squat to do unless I make it up, and the feather duster gave me a naughty idea. I thought it would be a nice surprise.

I went into the office, casually tidied up, and said, “Can I get under your desk?” It’s the glass kind, like a table, and Mary scooted her chair out, and I got under there, saw this one very particular spot I wanted to clean, and went for it.

It’s a bit of a blur after that. There was a knee coming at my face and a clattering sound I think was responsible for the bump on my head. Then somewhere in the foggy distance I heard, “What are you … Daphne? Daphne?”

So I guess that was basically successful insofar as Mary took the rest of the day off and sat with me on the bed doing a concussion protocol every thirty minutes. Mary felt so bad about it she ordered me my very own French maid outfit, and I’m really conflicted with myself over how much I like it.

We did end up spending way too much money on gardening stuff, and that at least gave me something to do. I found out I actually enjoy it. I wrestled some old scraggly bushes out of the ground, put in a bunch of new soil, and planted some flowers and vegetable seeds. Little lettuce leaves we have growing in our backyard. Mary says I’m adorable when I come in wearing my gardening shortalls all dirty and smudged with grass stains.

I’ll admit I didn’t help matters when I got a little teary when I found leaf spot on our chard plants. I don’t remember it this way, but according to Mary, my exact words when she asked me what was wrong were, “My chard is sick (sniff).” It was an emotional time of the month, okay?

And it was deliciously sunny one day, and Mary was inside, and I was puttering around the garden without much to do because once you plant the things you just kinda wait, more or less, when I had another one of those ideas. I knocked on the back door and waited for Mary.

She came and opened it and said, “It’s not locked,” and started walking back to her office, and I knocked again.

“Excuse me, ma’am. I’m from the lawn service. Are you the lady of the house?” She picked up on that game right away, and she was not at all satisfied with the quality of my work. I was soundly punished for my indolence right there in the garden, and then she showed me the proper technique for ploughing. Plus I didn’t get kneed in the head, so everyone was a winner (a couple times over).

Other techniques worked just as well, like the time I made a sign that said, “Headmistress” for the door to her office and wrote myself a note for detention. Or the time I put on a toolbelt and knocked on the office door and said, “Did someone call for a vibrator repair?” That was a super easy fix (turns out the problem was the on button was in the offposition), but a service call is a service call, and she refused to pay the bill but did barter services of her own. And much to my chagrin I found out quite by accident that if I’m wearing a pull-up or diaper, Mary is never so wrapped up in her work that she forgets to come check it. She’s so wonderfully conscientious like that, to my friggin benefit.

And I even, god help me, took a page from Jane’s book when nothing else worked and bratted. If I timed it right around five, she’d deal with me right then and not go back to her laptop. It’s actually pretty hard to brat that often and not repeat the same things. I found myself on the internet googling ways to misbehave, and I’m not proud but I will admit I drew the prettiest picture on a small section of kitchen wall. I’m not an artist or anything, but I’m pretty good. Mary seemed, I’m not sure exactly.

I went into her office and said, “Come see what I drew,” and she said, “Just a minute,” and I said, “But I wanna show you now,” and she got the queerest look on her face and followed me to the kitchen. I could see she was trying to look disappointed, and it was a real struggle because she sort of looked actually delighted, and she had a hard time at first lecturing me without laughing. I got quite a spanking with the wooden spoon right there at the table, but not before she told me it was a very pretty picture, and despite myself that made me happy all over that she thought so. Plus I had to do corner time after, and then while she made dinner I had to scrub the wall bare bottomed. I did sorta wanna marry her all over again when I went downstairs the next morning to find she had taken a picture of my drawing while I was in the corner and printed it and put it on the fridge (because she’s so proud of me – teehee).

And I did sorta wanna hide my face in a pillow when I found out she texted that picture not just to every kinky person we know but also to her mother and my mother.

And after the first few weeks, I didn’t even get in much trouble (not counting the on purpose stuff). Just a tiny bit of trouble.

You know how it wasn’t uncommon way back when for someone to give a spanking in front of company without even pausing the conversation? I found out what that’s like, except over Zoom. I wasn’t in major trouble, but according to 50% of the people who live in our house, some interloper named Miss Sassy Pants needed her seat warmed. I didn’t agree, but 50% of our household is made up of 100% of the people who decide these things, so I ended up across Mary’s lap on the couch getting a pretty thorough hand spanking when Mary’s phone rang, and she actually answered it.

“Hey Brenna,” Mary said without missing a beat to my butt.

“I can’t see you,” Brenna said. “But I can hear you just fine,” she giggled.

“Sorry about that,” Mary said. “I’m spanking someone’s little fanny for her. Say hello.”

“Hello,” I said as I blushed with my entire body. Brenna has seen me spanked. Brenna has spanked me. But something about how casual it was, like this was just an unremarkable thing that shouldn’t interrupt their conversation made me feel about four years old.

“Is this a bad time,” Brenna asked. For which one of us?

“No, I can multitask,” Mary laughed. “What’s up?”

“I’ll be quick. I was just calling to see if you how you felt about a socially distant get together.”

“Hmm, (SMACK!) I’ll need to think about it. Daphne is vulnerable, and I’ve been pretty much keeping her at home.”

“I understand. Give it some thought, and I’ll text you the details.”

“Will do.”

“Behave yourself, Daffy.” No one expected an answer from me, because she hung up and Mary kept spanking my butt for another minute and then it was over.

“You going to think twice before you sass again,” she asked me.

“Yes.”

“Good. Sit up, little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl,” I said as I did and totally undercut that argument by sitting up and leaning my head against her shoulder.

“How do you feel about going to something like that,” she asked me.

“I don’t think I should, but you can if you want.”

“I think that kind of defeats the purpose a bit.”

“People do it, though. People who have to. They just put everything straight in the washer and get in the shower when they get home. You should go. You’ve been cooped up even more than me.” Which is why I was trying to get so creative in getting her away from her laptop a few times a day. She didn’t say anything for a moment.

“Can I ask you something, and you promise to tell me the truth,” she asked.

“Mhmm.”

“When this is all over, how will you remember this?”

“It’s awful, for so many people. But, um, just for us, we’re doing okay, and I, um, I think I’ll look back on it as one of the best times in our life together, because we get to be together so much. Does that make me selfish?”

“It’s not selfish, little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl. And you need to stop work at the normal time.”

“But then I lose out on all your fun hijinks.”

Of course she put two and two together. “When did you figure it out?”

“When I answered the door and found you wearing the girl scout costume.”

“Heehee. I liked that one.”

“So when are my thin mints getting here?”

“Maybe that can be tomorrow’s project, figuring out how to bake homemade thin mints.”

“You’re becoming quite the little DIYer.”

“Ooh! There’s an idea.”

“What?”

“I could dress up as a ‘do me yourself kit’”

“You’ve been awfully single minded,” she laughed.

“I watched everything on Netflix already.”

“Well how about I stop work no later than 5:30 from now on? I’ll put it on my calendar every day.”

“Can I still make a ‘do me yourself’ costume?”

“If you don’t, you’re gonna be in so much trouble, little girl.”

“I’m not a little girl!”

“Mhmm.” And then she did that thing where she kisses me on the forehead and my nose and my lips and my chin and my neck and any resistance that was once in me just goes away. Such an unfair trick. Really! Mmmm.