Saddling the Storm

Will Jensen rolled up the window of his pickup as he turned onto Birch Road. It was dusk and though the air was warm and the wind calm, there was clearly a storm in the offing. He could feel it in his joints, even smell it in the air. A summer storm could rise up suddenly in those parts, filling the sky with furious bolts of lightning and booming claps of thunder. Will was also anticipating a patch of rough weather on the home front that evening, but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle.

An hour earlier, he'd been wandering the aisles of the local grocery, searching for frozen waffles.

It was his wife, Jill's birthday and she didn't feast on cake or ice cream on her special day. In the first year of their marriage, Jill's birthday found the couple too broke to go out and get a cake. So instead, they settled for the only item in their fridge- a modest package of frozen waffles. Will toasted the frigid yellow discs to golden-brown perfection, cut them up with a fork then brought the morsels, each smeared with margarine and doused in maple syrup, to her waiting mouth. It was ambrosia. And naturally, this became a tradition.

Once he'd located the right section in the frozen food aisle, Will had a question for his other half. He flipped open his cell and brought up her number. "I found the waffles. But I forget, which kind do you like?" This innocent inquiry brought about a reaction that soon had Will holding the phone away from his ear to avoid the heated tirade on the other end. He tried to get a word in, even if only to make a useless apology, but Jill just kept on angrily raving. And so he did the unthinkable, he hung up on her. Jill Jensen stormed around the house, restlessly arranging and rearranging furniture and knick-knacks, quietly muttering obscenities all the while. She was a whirlwind of activity, pausing only now and then to peer out the front door to see if her husband had pulled into the driveway. When he finally did, she marched out to the front porch where she positioned herself with arms crossed like some immovable object barring entrance to the house.

"Strawberry!" she shrieked. "%*#$! We've been married sixteen years and you can't remember my favorite kind a waffles?! It's %$#@ing strawberry!" With that, she turned and stormed back into the house.

"I thought you might have changed your mind." Will shouted, knowing full well this would do nothing to calm her down.

He stood there staring at the gravel in the driveway as his wife charged back and forth between the living room and the kitchen ranting about %$*#ing blueberries, #!@%y chocolate chips and then something unbelievably nasty about buttermilk. Just as Jill's tempest of a temper tantrum reached gale force, Will began to feel a few drops of rain fall on him and soon found himself standing in a full-fledged downpour. It was then he decided he'd had enough. Taking a deep breath, he adjusted his belt, narrowed his eyes and headed toward the porch. There was an ominous boom of thunder in the distance as Will swung the front door open and moved in the direction of the offending noise. He bounded into the dining room to find a very surprised Jill poised to swing a fireplace poker at a framed photograph of Will.

"Come here!" he said as he bolted forward, cornering Jill between the dinner table and a bookcase.

"Now, Pecos!" she said dropping the poker as she tried to maneuver herself out of his path. Jill sometimes called him Pecos after Pecos Bill, the mythical cowboy who once lassoed a tornado, saddled it and rode it into submission like a bronco buster. It was a nickname she used affectionately or, in a case like this, to calm him down. It clearly wasn't having any effect this time.

A flash of lighting followed by a powerful crash of rolling thunder caused Jill to flinch and gasp. Will moved in on his errant wife, grabbing her by the shoulders and pressing her against the wall. His eyes were ablaze as he spoke.

"Now listen! One of is going to undo their belt right now and it's gonna to make a world of difference to you which one of us it is! So get that belt unbuckled and those jeans down or you're gonna get snake bit!" He then released her and watched as Jill's hands went straight to work unfastening her buckle. Her eyes were glued to Will's large, thick snakeskin belt. The hide of that viper had mercilessly bitten her buns on more than one occasion and she had no interest in riling it again. A moment later, her pants were loosened and around her thighs along with her panties. Will grabbed her firmly by the elbow with one hand as he pulled a chair from the dining table with the other. There was a short, wordless struggle that ended with Jill across her husband's lap with her unprotected bottom in the air. He wasted no time in putting his message across, immediately landing half a dozen slaps onto her bare, upturned rump. Jill was wriggling and twisting around, desperately attempting to avoid the painful onslaught of punishing smacks. Will simply pulled her closer and threw his right leg over both oh hers locking her into a scissor hold before delivering another thirty or so swift, resounding swats to Jill's sore, jiggling cheeks.

Above the house, enormous, sizzling streaks of lightning illuminated the clouds as they raced wildly across the sky.

This being Jill's fortieth birthday, it was tradition for her husband to stop spanking her at about this point. No such luck. Will was no more a slave to tradition than he was to anything or anyone else. He grabbed a fistful of her wild auburn hair and carefully pulled her head back as he lowered his lips to her ear. "You know I'm flat out crazy about you, honeysuckle." he whispered. "But you've been spoiling for a dose of this medicine and now you're gonna swallow it!" He then brought a volley of solid whacks her aching backside. "And I wager it won't be the only thing you'll be swallowing tonight."

Stunned by this filthy remark, Jill peered over her shoulder and hissed. "You son of a-"

"Go ahead!" Will said, cutting her off with a particularly sharp slap to the ass. "Get yourself in deeper! You're already gonna do fifteen minutes in the corner with your caboose on fire as soon as I'm done here." he stated, giving her reddening cheeks another good stinger. "If you wanna spend those precious moments with a bar of soap in your mouth on top of that, I'll be happy to oblige! Is that what you want, birthday girl?!"

Jill bit her quivering lip. Will took the lack of a reply as a 'no' and continued to administer to his wife the long, hard spanking she so richly deserved.

By the time he was almost finished blistering Jill's bottom, the sun had sunk below the edge of the earth, leaving visible only a dark gray ceiling of restless storm clouds. Wall shaking claps of thunder emanated from above. Jill's cries were barely audible amid the din of wind, thunder and the rain that pelted the roof and walls of the old house.

Eventually, the frenzied squall subsided. There was only a light staccato of raindrops dancing on the roof as Jill stood naked in the corner of the dining room, shifting from foot to foot as she attempted to rub the considerable sting from her raw, red, throbbing buns. Will had gone out to the truck to get the items he'd purchased at the store and was putting them away in the kitchen when Jill finally managed to stop sobbing.

"Just so you know," Will said as he entered the room and came up behind her. "I got all four kinds of waffles. So we're covered." He then placed a kiss on Jill's shivering shoulder. She was as pliable as soft clay as he turned her around and took her into his arms. As they continued kissing, Jill reached down to unbuckle her husband's belt and lower his pants and boxers. Having accomplished this, she allowed him to position her near the dinner table and then lay her across it.

"Happy birthday, my little tornado." Will said.

He entered her as the last charge of lightning crackled off into the atmosphere.

"Oh, Pecos!" Jill moaned into the tabletop.

Out at the edge of the purple horizon, the thunder slowly rolled away as the clouds overhead adjourned from the night sky, leaving the landscape freshly drenched in sweet summer rain.