Mary and Daphne #136 (Patreon)

“Daffy,” my beautiful bride asked me, “take a look at this.” We were on the couch, her with her tablet at one end, me with my phone at the other with my knees drawn under my blanket, cups of cocoa on the coffee table because it was finally chilly enough to drink hot things again.

I sat up and scooted over to her. “What?”

She tilted her tablet toward me to reveal Twitter. “Why is this funny?”

I looked at the meme. I read some of the comments. “I don’t know.”

“You have to know.”

“I don’t have to do anything,” I said because I’m not a brat. If I were a brat, I’d have added, And you can’t make me. Nyah! Really.

I looked at the meme again. “I don’t get it. Sorry.”

Mary shook her head, and a puff of irritated air flared her nostrils as she exhaled. “What’s the big deal,” I asked.

“Between the two of us, no cool people live in this house anymore.”

“You seem a little upset, so I’m not going to take that personally.”

“There’s a ton of pop culture we don’t understand. What the heck is ‘yeeting?’” I shrugged; she looked at me like she was sorry to be delivering bad news. “I guess it’s official. Our generation isn’t the trendsetter anymore.”

That wasn’t news to me. When all the new cast members on Saturday Night Live are younger than you, it means your generation is no longer the cultural cutting edge, even if you personally never were, and that happened to me two or three seasons ago (and Mary is older than me but don’t tell her I said so cuz apparently that’s a sensitive issue with her right now).

I wasn’t sure why this bothered her. She’s not a pop culture kind of person, and she wasn’t when I met her either. She always had Jagged Little Pill playing in her car, and it was fifteen years old by then (and we both like it, so no judgment). “What’s the big deal?”

“The big deal is I used to be cool.”

“Well,” I said sheepishly, “you’ve been awesome, but cool? Really?”

She looked at me through accusing eyes above an I’m-faux-scandalized-by-your-betrayal gaping mouth. “I was too!”

“Before I met you?” Like, seriously? Not trying to be mean.

“I was very cool in college,” she said sounding kinda offended. “Ya know what? Over my knee.”

“What!?! Seriously,” I said as I got over her knee. She did tell me to, after all, and she’s in charge. Which come to think of it is kinda the antithesis of being cool. Since when is The Man cool? And since she’s the one giving out the spankings, she’s definitely The Man (but don’t tell her I said so cuz she’ll do stuff to me … and things. Stuff and things). I mean, she’s awesome. But cool?

“Yes seriously. You wanna talk about who’s cool and not cool,” she said …

“You wanted to talk about it,” I reminded her while she talked right over me.

“ … then let’s talk about who’s cool and who’s not. Who’s getting her jammies taken down for a spanking over her soggy diaper?”

“That’s so not fair,” I grumbled. “You picked out everything I’m wearing.” In fact, she ordered me to hold still while she got it all on me, twice(!) cuz I didn’t just acquiesce to her shenanigans.

THWOCK! THWOCK! THWOCK! “Learning your lesson yet,” Mary asked me.

“It would help if you told me what lesson you’re trying to impart.” True story. A snarky true story.

“Something about name calling,” she said. THWOCK! “There.”

“Um, is that all?” No reason I’m asking. Actually quite grateful but … as long as I was over her knee she could, ya know, keep going til I got happy and floopy and flushed … and stuff.

“Yes. It was a very big spanking for such a little girl,” Mary teased me while tickling the backs of my thighs with her fingertips.

“It’s okay that we’re not cool anymore,” I reassured her. “We’re other stuff.” I personally have no problem being other stuff and things. I don’t think I ever was cool. Witty, urbane, cultured, well read, lots of fun when I wasn’t being not fun – all of these things plus lots of others, I’ve been and still am.

“Maybe we can be cool for our age,” Mary conjectured while absentmindedly running those fingertips of hers up and down the small of my back. That’s one of my happy-please-touch-me-here places. It turns me into a contented little puddle. She knows that. She wasn’t paying attention because she was so concerned with being cool for some reason. I knew the reason (a certain someone is soon to turn thirty-nine), but I decided not to say the reason from my vulnerable position over her lap. She could figure it out on her own.

“Now that you mention it Mary, I bet you were the coolest girl at your college. You were a card-carrying lesbian while the other girls on your floor were probably still experimenting. You were a trendsetter.” Not that being gay is trendy … though I think when she was in college it actually kinda was. Was Will and Grace still on?

“There was that,” Mary said, clearly missing my sarcastic joke. Mine is a very dry humor. Parched sometimes. I’m like a vodka martini with no vermouth at all.

Those fingertips of hers … I let out my I’m-gonna-be-sexually-frustrated-all-day sigh. Or at least until I had a moment alone. Or could get Mary to focus on, ya know, me and her and us and things. Yep, things … and stuff.