Mary and Daphne #139 (Patreon)

I can’t help myself: I like Sundays. I used to get the Sunday Scaries, but early retirement did away with those, so now it’s just church in the morning (which we’re still doing on Zoom), and then anything I want. I can mostly do anything I want any day of the week, but I can do it with Mary on Sundays. I know some couples who don’t do much together and some who don’t do much apart, and whatever works for them. But I’m firmly in the doing most things together camp. And at night, in our tent in that camp, hoo boy!

It had been before March 2020 that we last went to the mall. I didn’t really know what to expect. I guess I expected more empty storefronts and fewer shoppers. I at least hoped there’d be fewer shoppers, but with Christmas having begun – apparently – the day after Halloween and people trying to buy gifts early in case stocks were down or things arrived late, it looked like any pre-pandemic Sunday at the mall.

Mary picked a parking spot at the edge of the lot and just sat for a moment looking around before turning off the car. “What,” I asked, pretty sure I knew the answer.

“I was hoping it wouldn’t be so crowded.”

“We’re both vaccinated and wearing masks,” I shrugged. “It just is what it is.” And it’s not like I haven’t been scared for my health since all this began; it is my health. I just learned to accept the things we cannot control; either that, or I learned to take my immunocompromised-health-in-a-pandemic anxiety and add it to the ball of all my other anxieties and just slowly let it give me an ulcer. Ha! Um, anyhoo …

We can’t avoid crowds forever. It wasn’t even Christmas crowded. It was just regular crowded. I don’t like crowds for reasons having nothing to do with the pandemic or my autoimmune condition, but I learned long ago to tolerate them because that’s life.

Mary turned off the car and put her hand on my forearm, fixing me with one of her meaningful stares. “Stay close to me,” she said.

“Okay,” I replied while resisting the urge to roll my eyes. Stay close to her because why? So she could swat virus away from me? Speaking as someone who has been accused of being a tad dramatic from time to time, Mary was being so dramatic. And I didn’t care. I wasn’t planning on going far from her. That’s the whole point of spending the day together, the togetherness part.

In retrospect, I’m surprised we didn’t get kicked out of the mall for gratuitous hand holding. I like Mary’s hands. They do all these fun things to me. Hand in hand, shopping. Swap the mall for a farmers’ market and put us in matching fleece vests, and we’d be That Couple, the one everybody hate-envies.

“You know what we haven’t gotten you in a long time,” Mary said after we’d perused for a bit.

“Jewelry.”

“I got you jewelry for Christmas.”

“And it’s beautiful and I love it,” I said as I fingered a heart necklace she once gave me that was resting very suggestively at the soft spot between my collarbones. Anything on that spot is suggestive; it’s just such a sexy spot, and I don’t know why.

“We haven’t gotten you any Junior Miss undies in almost two years,” she said as though I don’t deserve jewelry on a more regular basis. In millennia past, people would come from far and wide to deliver gold and jewels to my forebears. True story.

“Pretty sure I don’t need any of those,” I said to Mary because I didn’t need any of those.

“Because you wear diapers now?”

“Marrry,” I whisper-whined, “I do not, and keep your voice down.”

She had that wolffish grin of hers plastered on, her I’m-gonna-pounce-on-you-and-you-can’t-stop-me grin. And of course I can’t stop her! I’m just a small forest creature! Doesn’t mean she has to give in to her predator instinct every darn time the mood strikes her. She’s a beast is what she is, a sleek, beautiful, caring, vicious beast. Which is only awesome almost all the times.

“I thought you wanted back in panties.”

“I’m wearing panties,” I continued to whisper while she continued to talk at a normal volume.

“Training panties.” Okay, so yeah, but whose idea was that? Mary’s! With a capitol M which stands for Marrry!

“I don’t need any,” I hissed, “because I have like fifty pair and fifteen regular pair that you’ve hidden somewhere in our house.” She didn’t leave enough in my drawer to get through even a week without laundry. How would we even go on vacation?

“Okay,” she said, “if you don’t think you’re ready.” She shrugged her I’m-not-done shrug. “After all, Doctor Spock did say not to force it and to wait until your little girl tells she’s ready for potty training.”

“Ugh! You are such a nerd.”

“How,” she asked.

“Quoting Star Wars,” I said while making my duh-ya-big-nerd face at her.

“There so many things wrong with that,” she said as we kept walking. O please jeebus don’t, I silently pleaded as she started to explain the things wrong with it.

“Wanna go in,” she said to me as we were about to pass a lingerie store.

“Who are we shopping for?”

“Us,” she said and took my hand. It must be kink related, but lingerie has never been on my top-ten list. I’m gonna venture that given that my kinks lean so heavily toward roleplay, the idea of a woman in lingerie was never itself so sexy to me that I got all drooly about it. I’m all about the domestic discipline, and a woman in lingerie isn’t especially domestic, at least not to me. There’s even something, dare I say, vanilla about lingerie (at least the kind they sell in malls; not so much for some websites and Etsy sellers we’ve patronized).

On the other hand, Mary in lingerie. Things that lift and things that are tight and things that are shiny and things that are lacy. Doesn’t throw me over the moon, but I do like looking and touching. And me in lingerie? Depends on what it is. Anything that could be considered a one-piece, heck yes. Anything else? Meh.

One thing we can agree on are things that open with bows. I didn’t think much about it at first, but it’s obvious in retrospect why Mary likes me in things with bows. For my part, anything that opens with a bow is something I can open hands free. Taking something off Mary hands free? Color me yes.

And to be clear, this wasn’t like a kinky lingerie boutique. We’re not talking about leather or plastic with matching boots. Most of what the store had was something you’d actually wear on a daily basis, not purely fun stuff.

“Wanna try this on,” Mary asked as she took a bra off a rack.

“I don’t need to try it on. I know my size.”

Her eyes darted left and right like she was going to do or say something inappropriate. Which would be so out of character for her. I mean, Mary? Saying something inappropriate in public? Never happens. Really.

“I wanna see you in it,” she said. Ah, I got it now. If what she says is embarrassing to me, she’ll say it loud and proud. If it’s embarrassing to her, she looks around like she’s making sure no one will see her shoplifting.

“You’re blushing,” I chuckled at her.

“It’s … feel.” I did.

“Yeah, that’s how satin feels.”

“You don’t have to,” she said like she knew she could bait me into it. “Not like it’s a necessity. You can keep wearing your training bras if you want.”

That was clearly bait. She was trying to bait me with her transparent reverse psychology and the smart remark about my bras (which are mostly bralettes, which are NOT training bras). And why did she even bother trying to bait me? It’s not like I ever take her bait.

And to prove that point, I coolly responded, “As if!” Give it here.” Dammit …

I started toward the dressing room with it, Miss Mary The Voyeur hot on my heels in more ways than one. “You wanna come in,” I asked her flatly. Like, big surprise that she wanted to come in an ogle me.

“Yes, but I wasn’t gonna ask.” She sounded delighted. She gave me a playful shove into the dressing room and closed the door behind us. “Arms up.”

“What is it with you and dressing me lately?”

“Ask yourself, Daphne: is it dressing you or undressing you that I like so much?”

“I swear you’re in heat or something.”

“Arms up,” she repeated. I complied cuz I’m a good girl, not because she’s the boss of me. But also because she’s the boss of me and as a good girl I do what my boss tells me (when I want to … and some of the time when I don’t).

If you’re gonna live with Mary, ya gotta have some moves. Ya gotta have reflexes. “No!” I propelled the word out of my mouth as I clamped my arms against my side. I knew what she was doing.

“What’s gotten into you,” she asked as though she was innocent of anything which she is not. Not! Okay? Not.

“You were gonna tickle me.” Like, hey lady, save it for the bedroom. And slow tickles. Soft tickles … and stuff.

“I …” She cut herself off and blushed. I made the boss of me blush cuz I straight up called her out. Not that she apologized. “Fine,” she acquiesced, “I’ll save it for later. I wouldn’t wanna make you wet that pair of training panties too.”

“What ‘too?’ There’s no ‘too!’”

“Little girls always say that.”

“Grr!” Ya know what? Calling her out again. “You’re just teasing me cuz you’re embarrassed I caught you trying to tickle me.”

She didn’t blush, but she did say, “And what are you gonna do about it?”

“I’ll… grumble and take my shirt off. Hmmph!”

“Lemme help.” She set my shirt aside and stood behind me, opening the clasp on my bra.

“It’s been a while since I helped anyone try on a bra. Do my hands go here?”

“Eep!” I didn’t Eep. “No pinching either.” And btw, no, her hands would only be in the way where she was doing the pinching … not that we were in a hurry.

“I guess I’ll just have to have my fun with you later,” she said with with all this faux innocence not really masking her lascivious intent. She’s often lascivious and often very intent about, my squared away girl scout with all that planning ahead she does to stay a step ahead of me (and PS, I don’t think I try as hard as I used to catch up).

“How about looking but not touching, Miss Mary Handsy.” I can put on a bra quite fast when I’m trying to get it on before Mary has any more ideas or loses her ability to resist the temptation that is me.

“Mmmm,” she said as she wrapped her arms around me from behind and put her chin on my shoulder. “I like it.”

“Both of them?”

“(Snort snorf gasp cackle).” I can make her blush and dissolve into hysterics. I’m talented. “You’re on your toes today.”

“Gotta be around you. Especially in public.”

“Does it feel good?”

“Yeah.”

“Wanna wear it home?”

“Just promise me you won’t tear it when you ravish me later.”

“Promise.”

“You gonna get anything?”

“Not today.”

“Can I get some panties while we’re here?”

“Hmmm. Have you been a good girl?”

Ugh! So not cool. “I’m always a good girl.”

“Really?”

“You better say it if you wanna go to bed with someone who likes you tonight.”

“You’re always a good girl.”

“Whose good girl?”

“My good girl.” Ooo, she’s kissing me! She’s got the hots for me. I can tell. “Let’s go pay and see what else we can find today.”

This may surprise you given my penchant for breaking the spending rule, not that I ever did that or anything and you shouldn’t believe anyone who says otherwise even if it’s me, but I’m hit-and-miss with shopping. Some days I’m just not feeling it. I think maybe I like in-person shopping less than online shopping. I like being out, but I like the limitless possibilities of online shopping and discovering things I need that I don’t actually need. But Mary is one of the shop-til-she-drops types except when she feeling like one of those responsible-and-couldn’t-possibly-spend-another-centin-good-conscience types. Which won’t stop her from fingering the merchandise (and also products they sell in stores. Heehee!).

I wanna point out that accidents happen. Though not the kind you’re probably hoping, not to me anyway. What I mean is sometimes things are no one’s fault, but try telling that to Mary. I turned around for two seconds, and she was gone. She was looking at a table of tops, I was looking at a table of different tops right next to her table, and she vanished. I know she’s a sorceress ninja, but just plain disappearing is a pretty cool trick even for her. Cool in one of those ha-that’s-cool-don’t-ever-do-it-again ways. Not that I was scared or anything. But Mary …

I turned a full circle and didn’t see her. Said her name and heard nothing in reply. I texted her, and I got a ‘Not Delivered’ thing right back because the mall is a dead zone or something. I walked out of the store and looked up and down the concourse, and no Mary. I thought about just staying there, but that’s for people who are lost, and I wasn’t lost. We’d come from the left, so if Mary moved on to the next store, it would most logically be a store to the right, so I turned right and slowly walked in that direction keeping my eyes peeled (which is such a gross expression; ugh!).

I got about halfway to the end of the mall when I decided to turn back. She couldn’t walk that far without realizing I wasn’t with her. But my deductive reasoning proved unnecessary because ya know what electronic device works just fine in the mall? The public address system.

“Daphne Ann Taylor, please come to the customer service desk in front of Macy’s.”

Did she just have the public address lady double name me? Really Mary? Just … really? We’d been separated maybe four minutes. Did she even look for me before resorting to the lost kiddo service?

I was mildly embarrassed. I wasn’t very embarrassed or even regular embarrassed because it’s not like everyone knows my name. I looked just like any other woman walking through the mall. The customer service desk is this circular desk in the middle of the concourse, and there was Mary standing near it with her arms folded.

I waved, she saw me, and she started walking toward me. Not running or jogging or speed walking, but at a quick step, and, “Oof! Mary!” Um, quite the hug.

“Are you okay?”

“Of course I am,” I said as I tried to wiggle my way out of her death hug. She stepped back but kept a grip on each of my upper arms. I saw her relieved face turn into her angry face in real time. Mary has a disappointed face for when she’s disappointed in my behavior. She has an irritated face for when she’s irritated at me. Her angry face is for when she’s (did you guess already?) angry with me.

Not that I have a praise kink or anything or that being in Mary’s good graces is all I’ve ever wanted and not being in her good graces is The Worst, but … yes. Not fair. I didn’t even do anything. And whenever I see Mary’s angry face, I hear the watch commander in my brin go, Ruh roh. Not gonna be good.

“I told you not to wander away,” she said to me.

How is she so strong, is a thought I had as she practically spun me around and started marching me toward the Macy’s entrance, still gripping my upper arm. Good thing being dragged through the mall by your arm like a ten-year-old in serious trouble isn’t embarrassing, right? Really. … Dammit. Debatable whether this was a mistake or not, but in preparation for telling her what was wrong with her version of events, I tried to shrug my arm free.

Perhaps Mary has forgotten the rules about being in public. It’s has been nearly two years without us being in public hardly ever. She’s delighted in telling way too many jokes about me being to learn how to socialize again, but take a look in the mirror, lady, because while discreet smacks are on the list of okays, the spank she delivered when I tried to shrug my arm free was not discreet at all. One might go so far as to say it was downright conspicuous.

I don’t know who saw. I wasn’t paying attention to anyone around us. I was paying attention to me and to Mary and concentrating my efforts on (1) not getting another one of those and (B) not attracting any more attention because while she’d said it to me before this, this was the first time I truly believed her when she said, “I will put you over my knee right here, young lady. Right on that bench. Do you want that?”

Who the heck was this person!?! She made a sharp left just before the entrance to Macy’s and took us down a hallway to – o wonderful! – a family restroom. I say wonderful because if she forgot the no-conspicuous-BDSM-in-public rule, I wouldn’t have put it past her to give me a full-on bare bottom spanking in a regular restroom in the moment. For onesies, she’s done that before (and it was horrible … but also so arousing … Dammit …). For twosies, she didn’t, um, seem inclined to be lenient with me.

No sooner were we inside than she turned me sideways and started delivering a bunch of spanks to go with the one she gave me in front of about a hundred people. I was saying something to the effect off, “Hey! Ow! That’s not ouch! I didn’t ow!”

Let that settle for good and all whether a hand spanking through jeans and a, ahem, pullup (that belongs to Mary and I was just wearing it for her!) can hurt. The answer is yes if you really put your all into it, and Mary’s Type-A-never-do-things-by-halves personality was a-shining bright. Really!

I think, based on my perfect-never-been-wrong reasoning skills because I couldn’t make out what she was saying over my own voice and the sound of her hand on my butt, that Mary was saying, “I (SPANK!) told (SPANK!) you (SPANK!) to (SPANK!) stay (SPANK!) right (SPANK!) next (SPANK!) to (SPANK!) me (SPANK!) and (SPANK!) I (SPANK!) turn (SPANK!) my (SPANK!) back (SPANK!) for (SPANK!) one (SPANK!) sec- (SPANK!) -ond (SPANK!) and (SPANK!) you (SPANK!) dis- (SPANK!) -a- (SPANK!) -ppear (SPANK! SMACK! SWAT! SPANK!)!”

I know for sure I transcribed the SPANK! parts of that correctly cuz ouch.

“Hold still,” she ordered me when she got tired of doing the spanking two-step and spun me to face her. I wasn’t trying to get away cuz that’s against the rules. I was just trying to avoid her hand which is different because … reasons. Really. I did, however, break a major rule of submissiveness and try to stop her as she tried to get my jeans open. All that achieved was her telling me, “Hands (SPANK!) by (SPANK!) your (SPANK!) sides (SPANK!), little girl, or I’ll take you right back out into the middle of the mall and everyone can see what a naughty (SPANK!) little (SPANK!) girl (SPANK!) you (SPANK!) are (SPANK!)!”

“Mary, stop! Stop it! STOP!!!” Ooo, that got her attention. Trouble was I wasn’t sure how much of her attention I wanted just then. “I didn’t do anything!”

“You wandered away after I specifically told you …”

“You wandered away! I turned my back for a second, and you were gone! Where were you?!?”

“I was right there.”

“No you weren’t cuz I was right there, and you weren’t. I looked! I looked, and I waited, and I then I went looking, and that’s when the PA person called me.”

“Exactly! You left the store.”

“Because I thought you left the store!”

“I was in the dressing room.”

O, yeah … guess I shoulda looked there, but that didn’t put me in the wrong. “You didn’t say anything.”

“I …”

“I think the word you’re looking for is sorry,” I didn’t say nearly as petulantly I was my right to petulantly say. Hey, if you’re right, does that make it righteous instead of petulant? If so, I said it righteously. Good for me.

“But you shoulda …” She started to say something, but I saw she’d lost her mojo because she made her oops-lost-my-mojo face, a face she often makes halfway into realizing I’m right and she’s wrong. I don’t see that face as often as I’d like for reasons I’ll never understand. Um, really.

“No. I stayed right in the store, and you weren’t there when I turned around.” Ooo, now she’s making my oops-I-screwed-up face.

“ … Sorry.”

“You should be, Miss Mary Too-Quick-to-Spank!” I reached back and gave my butt an illustrative rub. “I hope your hand hurts,” I said in my cute-but-petulant voice (definitely not righteous; pure petulance). “You’re the one who needs to readjust to being in public again.” That was my regular voice. “Nothing is gonna happen to me if I’m out of your sight.”

She took a deep breath and pushed it out through her nose, looking down and away from me. “I’m sorry.” That’s when I got attack-hugged. “I’m sorry. I just … sorry.”

“Well … good. Just … you don’t hafta try to protect me from … whatever you thought.”

“I just worry about you getting sick.”

“You don’t get so anxious when I go out without you.” She’s been encouraging me to leave the house.

“I know. I just … When you’re right there I just … get anxious cuz I can, I guess.”

“It is so hard being married to a big sometimes,” I joked (sort of) trying to lighten the mood. I like that she worries about me, but she can be overprotective. Unreasonably so. Like she’s there to protect me so she feels anxious, but when I’m doing literally the exact same thing on my own, she’s not? Totally a covid thing. I get it. But she’s gonna hafta get a grip on that. Not that I’m judging the emotion cuz (this may surprise you) I’m an anxious person myself, but better ways to deal with it than, as a random for instance, spanking me in the middle of the mall!

“You spanked me in front of everyone,” I said in my I’m-being-very-calm-about-it-but-what-the-crappin’-crud! tone.

“No I didn’t.”

“Um, yeah ya did, Mary.”

“That was just a …” So that’s what it means when someone’s eyes are turn to saucers. Huh. Kinda cool. “IsosorryandI’msorryandalsoI’msorry!” Ugh, it is so discomfiting when she talks like me.

I responded from once more inside one of her murder hugs with, “Ifgiyou,” because seriously she is strong and hugs like a python sometimes.

“What?”

She let me up for air. “I forgive you.” Because I’m gracious like that and also because I’m sorta in love with her. “And for the rest of the spanking too.”

She shook her head and chuckled. “You have no idea how lucky you are.”

Excuse me? “How am I lucky? You just spanked me in front of a hundred people and then did it a bunch more times!”

“Because I was gonna paddle you like … People would’ve seen one weepy, red-faced little girl walking through the mall with her hand on her butt.”

“As if! When have I ever cried during a spanking?”

“(Guffaw cackle snorf cackle snorf snorf)!”

“What’d I say?” Um, really.

“(Horselaugh snorf snorf). O you,” she said and made to hug me again, but I dodged. “Hey, c’mere.” Ya know who’s she like? That guy from Mortal Kombat who says, Hey! Get over here!

“You hug too hard sometimes, and I only like it most of the time.”

“Awww. I forget what a delicate flower you are. C’mere.”

“I’m not a delicate flower.”

“Uh-huh.”

“ … You spanked me in front of all those people … And dragged me through the mall like a naughty kid … And had the PA lady call me by both names … And gave me a spanking I didn’t earn.”

“O, like you’re dying.” She gave me a swat on my butt to emphasize her point.

“I think you owe me stuff.”

“That’s fair.”

“I don’t own any platinum.”

“How about an ice cream after lunch?”

Ooo! Sugar! “I accept.”

“How’s your diaper holding up? Need a change?”

“It’s not a diaper, and it’s not mine,” I whined.

“Well excuse me for forgetting it’s a pull-up, which is just a diaper that gets pulled up.”

“It’s not! It’s totally different,” I whined as she put her arm around my shoulder and walked us back into the hallway.

“That’s just something they want you to believe,” she with a wink in my direction (who was she winking at, do ya think?) and gave me a peck on the cheek.

“Um, Mary?”

“Yeah, Daffodil?”

“When you said you’d put me over your knee right on that bench,” I asked as we walked by the bench in question, “when we get home, could you, um, tell me more about that … exactly … while we do stuff … and things?”

“(Snorf)! What sort of stuff?”

“Ya know, stuff … and also things.”

But, um, yeah, I was deeply traumatized by being spanked in front of the whole mall … and stuff. Um, really.