Little Scandals #01: Marybeth

Marybeth knew she had nearly been aborted. She knew to thank God for her life, and she'd known it since she was a little girl. Her mother had been wayward – a word her mother used. The mean kids accused her birth-mother of harlotry, but Marybeth had known better. If her mother had truly been a harlot, those kids couldn't even have teased her. She wouldn't even have been alive. Marybeth was proud of her mother for seeing the light, and turning her life around on what Marybeth had imagined several times was her very own deathbed.

Perhaps, like with Abraham, Gabriel himself had come to turn her birth-mother to the light. She'd condemned harlotry in that hospital room with the vacuum whirring and that death merchant hovering over her. And she'd probably known, too, as Marybeth had learned, that in rejecting harlotry she must control her own sexual predilections for the benefit of her would-be husband – one of which she immediately realised she needed, of course. But life for a single mother is even harder than for a woman alone. If her birth-mother had kept Marybeth, she would surely have turned back to a life of harlotry.

And Marybeth had always known – always known – that if she were selfless and meek, forgiving and sweet, never prideful, never wilful, womanly and demure, then Jesus would provide a good husband for her. And He had! Or so she'd thought.

He came from good stock. His hand was firm and even. His eyes were kind. His voice was low and gentle. He had few vices and worked like a farmer. And he was comfortably endowed, her grandmother would have said, God rest her merry soul! In her high school, from which she'd graduated two years ago, some of the girls had tittered over how "well-endowed" their boyfriends were. One of them, Connie DeWitt – now, there was a harlot! – would demand Marybeth "dish" on her "man", knowing full well Marybeth wasn't allowed to date. Even if she had been, and even if she'd had a boyfriend, she never would have responded. Never prideful, never wilful. But if she admitted it to herself now, through the haze of the shock before her, she would have to say that Samuel was certainly comfortably endowed.

And now she looked at him in his kind, sad eyes, and back to the piece of paper in front of her. And she loved him – oh, how she loved him! She'd prayed for Jesus to show her a man who was strong enough to lord over her impure woman's heart. For she had those thoughts – prideful, wilful thoughts. Lustful thoughts in abundance. She'd prayed for a man to please and serve. She would focus all her lust on him – on her husband. On her father.

Her breath caught in her throat at the thought and it wouldn't budge. The great welling throb in her windpipe caused her eyes to water and her jaw to quiver. She started pulling at her long blonde hair. She released her breath but the tears began to drip. As she had since she'd been very young, she promised herself that tears were okay if only she could keep the rest of her composure. She just pictured Blessed Mary and her trials and knew her own were naught.

Her pride, her will bellowed at her: "It doesn't matter! It doesn't matter at all. He's your husband and you love him!" But she wasn't sure if that were her will or her righteousness. Marybeth wept.

Samuel reached for her hand and she pulled away. He cocked a stern look at her, and her composure cracked – just a little. (It was barely a sob.) She gave him her hands, as was his due. A wife to her husband. A wife to her husband. A girl to her father.

He spoke, as tears ran down her young cheeks.

"Marybeth, I know you think this means we can't be husband and wife anymore. I thought that too, for a time. But on the way home here, tonight, I realised – we have to continue living as one. No one can know about this – our lives would be ruined, and we'd never be able to be together again in any way. We'd be miserable – worse than miserable."

"But, but—"

"Quiet now, girl, and hear me." His face was stern; his eyes were steel.

She heard him, and it thrilled her – fear and submission to her husband, as the Lord has willed – but beneath that, the blade of shame slashed at her feet – fear and submission to her father – her father. The man who had inoculated her mother with her – conceived her in her mother's belly. That harlot!

Marybeth's beautiful face broke into a million pieces. She ripped her hand from her husband's grasp and wailed, pulling at her hair and her dress. Samuel was taken aback, and moved to rise, but before he could Marybeth did.

"You!" she accused, flinging the hand she had stolen from him back at him. "You! What were you! What are you! You liar! You thief! This isn't possible! It isn't right!" She howled and fell to her knees. Bent over, biting stone tile, prostrate at his feet.

He loomed over her.

"I'm as unhappy about this as you are, woman," growled Samuel – that robust baritone that thrilled her with its righteousness. "But as a man – you know – I can see through this problem more clearly. You know better than to accuse your own husband, and you certainly know better than to bear false witness. You've made this harder for both of us with your childish braying. Now get up and come over my knee."

Again, the thrill. Oh, how right to submit to him, her father! She knew it in all her being. It was right that she should make herself wet – prepare herself and submit to his authority, for his pleasure was the will of God. He had always applauded her on her dutiful submission to his punishments. She was proud of the slipperiness she gave when he punished her. But now she was wet for her father! Bile in her throat made her choke. She had been wet for her father for years.

Still, she stood, and blubbering raised her long skirt above her calves, her knees, her thighs, over her bepantied bottom he doted over so well, over her hips; and she bent over his knee. Her husband – her father – pulled her panties down like he had done time and again – in love and in sorrow, to show her his appreciation, and to show her his guidance. Her husband: it was God's will. Her father: was that God's will, too?

And before the first stroke of his strong hand landed against her young, peachy backside her memory gave her her wedding again. Her parents had been so difficult to convince, he being so much older, but she'd prayed and prayed, and begged. Her father was first to soften. Her – adopted father. He was from good stock, and he loved her!

The first smack hit her bare rear, a searing redness that darkened her adopted father's face in her mind's eye. Her mother sat quietly, lips pursed, unconvinced. And a snarl as the next blow reigned down. With the next, Marybeth's mother bore her teeth.

Marybeth saw Samuel in his tux on her processional, full beard smiling proudly as his virgin bride – his virgin daughter! – walked down the aisle. Had he known then? Had he sought her out exactly?

Another wind-sweeping blow clapped against her reddening fanny. Her naughty bud tightened against his knee as it always did, as it had when she'd placed her lips to his before her family and his, before the priest – before God! That night – the candlelight. And he'd undressed her. He'd told her, but he'd needn't have. She'd known her body was his. He'd held her face with his hand and regarded it in the candlelight.

And smacked it! The blow on her bottom shook her jaw. She coughed a stifled scream, and lifted her right foot off the floor. His powerful hand on her hip kept her steady and glued to his leg. She could feel his erection. Her father was turned on by her – and, oh God help her! – she was turned on by her father. She came from good stock! Good stock!

With his next whack on her backside, he softened his blows – not much, mind you, but enough. Enough for her to remember the first time his strong hands had encountered her breasts. Or the second time his hungry lips had encountered hers. Or the first time her hungry lips had encountered his rod – his cock, he called it.

"Do you like that?" he'd demanded softly, sitting on the side of the bed, stroking her hair, his cock on her lower lip. He'd put it in her mouth. He'd moaned and gasped as he showed her how to manipulate his cock with her lips and tongue. Had he known then? Had he known when she'd nodded, that yes she liked it? Had he known his daughter liked very much to suck his cock?

Had he known when he put his thumb against her naughty bud, that pleasure trove, and pressed against it, licked his thumb and gone back to it, rolling it around and around, rubbing it up and up and down? Had he known when he'd knelt between her buzzing thighs and pulled her dark furrow to his mouth and kissed her there as he'd kissed her on the mouth. Had he known when his crazy circles around her naughty bud drove her into screaming, flailing fits, all but singing the name of God– had he known then that he was her father? Or had he, like her, never bothered to ask? And which would be worse? Which!

Samuel's hand was a steady rhythm against her backside now. The rhythm reminded her of the rhythm of his cock inside her that first night. After he'd pushed past that strange barrier she'd had all her life. After he'd held her till her pain, and then discomfort subsided and her body was ready in full to accept him – her father – as her lord and master. The way he'd held her wrists and embraced her lips with his and he'd slipped deftly in and out of her wet slippery hole. Her well, he called it. Her father called it her well. Her husband.

She couldn't stop crying, and for the first time two years, the spankings her husband – her father! – delivered drove her tears on instead of covering them up, calming them down. She was lost and didn't know how to submit, and didn't want not to. But she couldn't. She couldn't go on living with the man – he was her father.

"Look at me, Marybeth!" She found herself kneeling in front of him – an oh-so-natural position. Caught by the familiarity, she dropped her bawling for a moment and looked him in the eyes.

"We have to continue living together. We can't get divorced, or the courts will be involved, then the press: everyone will find out. Our lives would be ruined. Worse than that. Think about it: how would you ever find another husband? I might even go to jail. And you might too. It's just. The way. It needs. To be. Is that clear, my love?"

"Yes, Sir," said Marybeth. "That's clear." She could do nothing more than submit. Her husband knew better than she did. Her father knew better.

Had he known?