Emily Carter slammed the Jeep Grand Cherokee into a vacant slot right across the street from the Tacahoosa Sheriff’s office. She flung the door open and stepped out into the morning sun. The tall dark-haired woman’s white broad-rimmed Stetson, freshly laundered white blouse and smart grey pin-stripe pants might have looked out of place in some parts, but not in this affluent township with its fine houses and outlying horse ranches.
A horn beeped just as Mrs Carter began to cross the street. Looking around, with more than a thought to giving the driver a piece of her mind, she saw a dark blue Ford pick-up pulling in behind her Jeep.
“Sarah-Louise!”
“Hi Emily. You too?” Only an inch shorter than Emily Carter's five feet seven, Sarah-Louise Huxton’s long blonde hair flowed untidily down from a battered tan Stetson. As she got out of the pick-up, dusty faded blue jeans, a red check shirt and calf-high carved leather boots suggested Sarah-Louise was just what she was, a hard-working ranch owner.
“Your Elisabeth and my Lucy? Both of them?” Emily asked.
“I guess so. Unless you’ve taken a fancy to the gorgeous Sheriff Ed Johannson and you’re just bringing him some apple pie to have with his coffee.”
Emily Carter chuckled as she pictured in her mind the six foot six inch, sixty-two year old sheriff and his two fifty pound bulk. She’d become good friends with Sarah-Louise Huxton ever since moving to Tacahoosa three years ago after her divorce from her California lawyer husband, Joe. Lucy Carter and Elisabeth Huxton, both now eighteen, had also become good friends after Emily took her to Sarah-Louise’s ranch for riding lessons.
“Quit making me smile, Sarah-Louise. I’ve been working this anger up for the past hour and I want my Lucy to know all about it.”
“Now you see, it’s the exact opposite with Elisabeth and me. When I don’t talk, she knows she’s in big trouble.” Sarah-Louise Huxton linked arms with Emily and together they crossed the street and entered the Sheriff’s office.
“Hi Sarah-Louise. How’re y’all doing? Mrs Carter, isn’t it?” Solana Rodriguez, a pretty young Hispanic deputy greeted them from behind the counter. “Why don’t you go right into Sheriff Johannson’s office? Your girls are in there having coffee. At least it might help their hangovers, even if the conversation don’t.”
“Thanks, Solana.” Sarah-Louise Huxton smiled at the deputy and led the way past the counter and down a short corridor until they reached the sheriff’s office. With just the briefest of knocks, she pushed the door open and went in.
“Why, good morning ladies,” Sheriff Ed Johannson greeted the two women through a mouthful of a massive half-eaten sandwich as he looked up from his large chair behind the desk. Long blonde-haired Elisabeth Huxton and Lucy Carter with neat short dark hair sat on hard wooden chairs placed against a side wall, looking decidedly pale and sickly, not to mention out of place in their very short party frocks. “I did offer your two girls some of these fine bacon sandwiches but for some reason they declined. Can’t imagine why.” He chuckled as the two eighteen year olds practically retched at the thought.
“How much trouble are they in, Ed?” Sarah-Louise asked.
“No real trouble with me, Sarah-Louise. We just picked them up off the street outside Joe’s Bar and brought them here for safe keeping. Seeing as how they were too drunk to stand up and seeing as how it was gone three in the morning, we thought you two ladies wouldn’t take too kindly to being woken up at that hour.
“Appreciate that, Ed.” Sarah-Louise looked angrily at her daughter. “What was Joe thinking of? He knows full well they’re under twenty-one. He should never have let them in his bar in the first place.”
“I’ve been checking that out, Sarah-Louise. It seems Joe didn’t serve them. They got chatting to a couple of out-of-town guys, then those two guys bought some liquor and the four of them disappeared somewhere around the back. Neither of your girls have been able to identify the two men. At least, that’s what they’re saying.”
“Oh God!” Emily Carter exclaimed. “Anything could have happened.”
“If I catch your drift correctly, ma’am, I got Solana to have a long talk to them. Apparently these two guys weren’t what you might call boyfriend material, more two old bums just doing the girls a favor by buying them alcohol. Nothing more. We haven’t got enough to trace them, but even if we did we couldn’t charge them with much more than supplying alcohol to a minor.”
“Thanks for getting that checked out, Ed.” Sarah-Louise said with some relief. “Can we take them off your hands now, Ed?”
“They’re all yours, ladies.” Ed Johannson grinned.
Sarah-Louise pointed towards the door. “Shift your butt, girl.” Her words were meant particularly for her own daughter, and Elisabeth unenthusiastically hauled herself off her chair and out, followed by an equally lethargic Lucy Carter who somehow managed to avoid the angry glare of her mother.
The bright morning sun was too much for the teenagers to bear and they shielded their eyes as they crossed the street towards their mothers' vehicles.
“Put your seat-belt on,” Emily Carter snapped as she slammed the door of the Grand Cherokee shut, an act that did little for Lucy’s throbbing head. Having dutifully complied, the journey home was made in a stony silence that Lucy was not too sorry about.
“You’d better get to bed.” Mrs Carter told her daughter coldly when they got home. “We’ll discuss this tomorrow.”
Apart from hearing Lucy come down to make herself a sandwich at some point during the early evening, that was about all Emily Carter heard from her daughter until breakfast the following morning.
“You feeling better now?” Mrs Carter asked when Lucy sheepishly sat down at the breakfast bar in the kitchen.
“I guess so.” Lucy answered, a little unsure of her mother’s disposition.
“Ham and eggs?”
“Sounds good.”
Mrs Carter soon had their two breakfasts dished up and placed before them on two neighbouring bar stools.
“How long am I grounded for?” Lucy asked, having decided her mother’s mood was notably less frosty than the previous day.
“I’m still thinking about it.” Mrs Carter took a long drink of orange juice. “You want to come out to the Huxton place with me this morning? Sarah-Louise phoned late yesterday and asked us both over.”
“Yes.” Lucy replied, surprised she was being offered such a treat. “Maybe I could help Elisabeth with the horses? Perhaps give them a little exercise?” The dark-haired eighteen-year-old knew she was pushing her luck but reasoned she was in so much trouble it could hardly make matters worse.
“Maybe. I’m sure Elisabeth would welcome the help. Not that her mother will want to make her work easier, I guess.”
“Okay. I’ll wear jeans.” Still amazed at her mother’s benevolent attitude, Lucy considered asking whether working with the horses could become her punishment for her drunken night out, but decided that might be a risk too far, at least for the time being. She could always raise the possibility later.
The drive out to the Huxton ranch was surprisingly amicable, at least as far as Lucy was concerned. Her mother was actually speaking to her, and not about her shameful night out.
“Hi, ladies.” Sarah-Louise Huxton greeted them from the front porch of the two-storey ranch house as they drove into the yard. “Elisabeth’s in the barn, honey.” Mrs Huxton told Lucy. “You want to go find her while your mom and I have a chat?”
“Sure,” Lucy answered with a broad smile, having been a little uncertain about her reception after the two girls’ shameful night out together. While the two mothers went inside the house, Lucy headed across the yard towards the large barn. “Hi, Ellie,” she called, peering into the comparative darkness through the large open doors.
“Oh hi, Lucy.” The blonde haired girl, dressed in jeans and a blue shirt, looked up from where she was working on a large western style saddle mounted on a low trestle. “Come on in.”
“That’s nice.” Lucy commented as she passed her fingertips over the beautifully carved leather of the saddle. “What are you doing to it?”
“Mom bought it cheap a while back in a bankruptcy sale over in Tolerosa County. It hadn’t been used for years and all the leather had dried out. I’ve been feeding it and giving it a good polish to get it supple again.”
“You’ve done a good job. It looks beautiful.”
“Thanks. How’s things with your ma?”
“Amazingly pleasant, actually. How’s yours?”
“Yeah, not too bad.” Elisabeth stood up and stretched her back after spending so long bent over working on the saddle. Her long wavy blonde hair glistened in the few rays of sunlight that permeated the inside of the barn. At fully five feet nine inches tall, she towered over dark-haired Lucy by a good six inches. “Which is also amazing considering she hasn’t got around to paddling my butt yet.”
“Excuse me?”
“I mean I’m still waiting to be punished for our drinking session the other night. How about you?”
“I’m still waiting to be grounded. I did ask, but mom says she’s still thinking about it. My guess is three weeks. Isn’t what you’re doing with that saddle part of your punishment?”
“Gee, no. This is chores. All part of the fun of living on a ranch.”
“Yes, I know you have to work hard to help your mom. I still envy you, though. I’d just love to work with the horses the way you do.”
“Yeah, it has its good points too, I guess.” Elisabeth wiped her hands on a clean rag and replaced the lid on the tin of polish she was using. “You want to go for a ride this afternoon, if our mothers allow it?”
“Yes, that would be great,” Lucy answered, her mind already concentrating on the joy of riding one of the fine horses the ranch was renowned for, and oblivious to any other thought.
Elisabeth smiled wryly at her friend’s ingenuous pleasure. With the cleaning materials put away, she looked through the large open barn doors towards the ranch house. She grimaced.
“Looks like we’ve got company.”
Lucy looked out into the bright sunshine and saw Sarah-Louise Huxton and her own mother heading towards the barn.
“They might have brought us some coffee or something,” the small dark haired girl commented, seeing her mother walking with her hands down by her side and Elisabeth’s mother with her hands behind her back.
“You done with that saddle, Elisabeth?”
“It’s done as far as oil and polish are concerned, mom. I guess it needs working now to get it really supple.”
Sarah-Louise Huxton smiled. “Just what I was thinking, honey.”
“It looks really lovely, Elisabeth,” Emily Carter added. “And these western-style saddles must be really comfortable compared to what we had back in California.”
Lucy Carter smiled too, pleased at the amicable way the conversation was going. “Perhaps we could try it out, see how it feels?”
“You girls really are reading my mind, honey.” Sarah-Louise cocked her head to one side as she spoke to the girl standing next to her daughter on the opposite side of the saddle. “What do you say, Elisabeth?”
“I guess.” The blonde girl seemed unsure, and noted her mother’s hands were still out of sight behind her back.
“We do need to sort out your behaviour the other evening, now don’t we honey?”
Elisabeth bit her lip, frowned and looked at her mother suspiciously.
“Let’s get to it then.”
Sarah-Louise Huxton used her left hand to gesture towards her side of the saddle, while her right hand fell to her side holding a wooden paddle about eighteen inches long by four inches across, one end narrowing into six inches of handle just a couple of inches across. The blade part had maybe a dozen holes drilled into it. “Lucy, you’d better come stand round this side, honey.”
As Elisabeth slowly walked one way around the saddle, so Lucy went the other. Elisabeth stood close to the saddle, facing it. Lucy was confused.
“Stand next to me, Lucy.” Her mother said, sounding strangely authoritative.
“What’s happening? What’s going on?” Lucy asked nervously as she complied.
“You’ll see.”
“You know the drill, Elisabeth.” Sarah-Louise Huxton spoke. “Pants down. Underwear too. We’re all girls together here.”
“Mom! What’s happening?” Lucy whispered to her mother as her friend, Elisabeth, started unfastening the front of her jeans.
“Shush!” Emily Carter tetchily quashed her daughter’s questioning as she too watched the tall blonde eighteen-year-old push her jeans down her long legs.
With her jeans now bunched up around her riding boots, pale blue brief panties stretching slightly as she bent down, Elisabeth stole a quick look around at her audience. Then she stood up straight, hooked her thumbs in the side of her underwear and quickly thrust her panties down, making sure they fell all the way to rest on top of her jeans.
“Oh no!” Lucy gasped as she saw her friend’s creamy smooth bare buttocks unashamedly exposed and suddenly realised what was about to happen.
“I’m ready when you are, honey.” Sarah-Louise brought the paddle up and patted it against her left hand.
Elisabeth responded by leaning forward over the saddle and going right down until she lay across the now well-polished riding surface. Her mother moved forward and shuffled around until her stance allowed her to place the paddle comfortably across both cheeks of her daughter’s bare bottom.
“Ten whacks, honey. Ready?”
“Yep,” Elisabeth answered, looking around with a large grimace.
Sarah-Louise Huxton swung the paddle back easily, then sent it crashing down with considerable force onto Elisabeth’s bare bottom, where it landed with a loud bang.
“Uuuhh!”
As soon as Mrs Huxton brought the paddle back for another swing, Emily and Lucy Carter could see large pink bruises already appearing on the milky white contours of Elisabeth’s bottom.
Bang! Another heavy stroke landed just a little lower than the first. Elisabeth grunted again.
Bang!
Uuuhh!!”
Bang!
Uuuhh!!”
Bang!
Uuuhh!!”
With five swats duly delivered, Elisabeth’s bottom was covered by a sore redness which caused Lucy Carter to stand and watch with her mouth gaping. Her mother seemed more resolute and immersed in deep concentration as she watched every move.
“Uuuuuuhh!!” The grunts got longer.
“Uuuuuhhh!!”
“Uuuuuhhh!!”
Lucy looked on amazed as Elisabeth continued to lie still across the saddle while she was being soundly spanked by her mother wielding the paddle.
“Oooooooooohhh!!”
“Ooooooooooowwww!!”
As the final two whacks of her punishment landed across her bare bottom, Elisabeth’s squeals became ever louder, and her bottom ever redder.
Mrs Huxton stood back and admired her handiwork. “I think that’s a pretty fair spanking, don’t you honey?”
“Yes, mom,” Elisabeth gasped as she slowly eased herself up from the saddle.
“I don’t want to stop you going out and having fun, honey, but step too far out of line and there’s always a price to pay.”
“Yes, mom.” The tall blonde eighteen year old looked coyly at Lucy and her mother while she gently massaged her naked backside.
Lucy Carter moved forward hesitantly, expecting to be stopped at any moment from aiding her friend. Nothing was said, though, so she continued and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Elisabeth grinned sheepishly, then reached down to find her underwear. Lucy helped her untangle the brief blue panties from the jeans and pull them back on. While she was helping with the jeans, Lucy failed to spot Sarah-Louise handing the paddle to her own mother.
“You okay?” Lucy put an arm around Elisabeth’s shoulders.
“Sure.” Elisabeth smiled gratefully.
Both girls turned to face their mothers. Lucy’s face fell when she saw her mother holding the paddle.
“M-mom?” Lucy’s voice faltered as her eyes stared at the wooden paddle.
“I guess it’s your turn now, Lucy.”
“Mom! No way! You can’t. You never have.”
“No, but I’ve thought about it a few times. I think this time you’ve just gone that one step too far.”
“Mom! You’re not serious? You’re not really going to spank me?” Lucy’s face broke into almost a smile as she still doubted her mother’s seriousness, expecting and certainly hoping for her mother to suddenly confirm she was just teasing.
Emily Carter’s response was to gesture her daughter towards the saddle, just as Sarah-Louise Huxton had done with Elisabeth. “You’ve seen what you have to do, Lucy.”
“Mom! You’re kidding? Right? You’re not really going to spank me, are you?” Lucy looked hard into her mother's face, seeking out any sign, a glint in the eye, an upturn of the lip, anything that would prove she wasn't actually expected to comply.
Mrs Carter ignored her daughter and turned to her friend, standing next to Lucy and now fully dressed and gently rubbing her sore bottom. “Elisabeth, do you feel up to helping Lucy?”
The tall blonde eighteen-year-old gave a brief nod in response and took a half turn to face her shorter dark-haired friend.
“Looks like you’re going to get spanked too, Lucy. Might as well get it over with.”
“No! Mom?” Lucy looked despairing back at her mother, but the expression on Emily Carter’s face confirmed her resolve to punish her daughter.
“You both knew you shouldn’t be drinking alcohol, Honey,” her mother stated. “Even in California it would have been illegal the way you went about it. It seems only fair you both get the same punishment.”
“Mom! Couldn’t you just ground me? That’s what you normally do.”
“Not this time, honey.”
“Mom!”
“Lucy,” Elisabeth said quietly. “It seems to me your mom has made her mind up. Best get it done. Then we can maybe have some lunch and think about going for a ride later.”
Lucy, conscious both mothers and her friend, Elisabeth, were all looking at her and waiting, realised there was no way out of this. It was time to surrender.
“What do I have to do?” Lucy asked nervously.
“Just step up to the saddle and drop your jeans and panties,” her mother replied.
Lucy slowly turned to face the saddle, then shot her head round.
“Mom, I don’t have to bare my bottom, do I? I mean, can’t we do this back home, if we really have to do it at all?”
“Come on, Lucy, Elisabeth didn’t make all this fuss.”
“Mom, not here. Not now!”
“You watched while Elisabeth took her spanking, honey,” Mrs Carter reminded her daughter. “It seems only fair she gets to watch you getting yours.”
Lucy looked at her friend, and felt suddenly guilty that she was making a big fuss trying to avoid taking the same punishment, or at least trying to avoid taking it in front of Elisabeth and her mother.
“I’m sorry, Elisabeth, but this is a whole new experience for me,” she said with a look that really begged, ‘Please help me! Please get me out of this mess!’
Ignoring the two mothers looking on, Elisabeth put an arm around the shorter girl.
“Lucy, the way it looks, you’re getting spanked, right here, right now, and there’s no way out of it. You’re not helping yourself making all this fuss.”
“No, I guess you’re right,” Lucy finally conceded.
“Come on, stand right there,” Elisabeth said, pointing to the floor in front of the large saddle.
Lucy silently complied.
“Now, get your jeans and panties down,” Elisabeth continued, placing a hand on her friend’s shoulder.
“Oh god!” Lucy muttered as she fumbled at the button securing the waistband of her jeans.
Elisabeth and the two mothers looked on as Lucy slowly released the button and slid the zip down. Elisabeth quickly gave her friend’s jeans a tug and they dropped to around Lucy’s ankles.
“Now your panties.”
Lucy looked at her, tears already starting to form in her eyes. Elisabeth helped by tucking Lucy’s red T-shirt up all round, leaving Lucy with a bare midriff and fully revealing her white thong.
“Nice knickers!” Elisabeth remarked. “I might try and persuade my mom to let me have some like that.”
“Mom, can’t we leave this until I have some better underwear on? You know, like underwear that covers my bottom?”
“No, we can’t,” came the blunt answer. “Elisabeth had to take her panties down. Let’s see you do the same.”
“Mom!”
“Take them down, honey. You don’t want me to do it for you, do you?”
“Take it from me,” Elisabeth whispered. “Panties don’t make it hurt any the less.”
“I guess,” Lucy responded. “Oh, okay!”
With one swift movement, Lucy slipped her very brief underwear down.
“Shall I bend over now?” she asked, with a look over her shoulder at her mother, who stood patiently with the wooden paddle in her hand.
“That’s what you need to do, honey,” came the reply.
“Get right across the saddle, stick your bottom out and hold tight,” Elisabeth advised.
After a little shuffling, Lucy got herself comfortably across the saddle with her bottom neatly and prominently presented for her punishment. As she did so, her red T-shirt fell back down. It felt like her bottom was once more hidden from view, but she didn’t feel inclined to check, much less to voluntarily pull the T-shirt back up.
“Let me pull your T-shirt right up, Lucy.” Elisabeth offered, rolling up the thin garment before Lucy had a chance to respond. “There, that should stay up out of the way so your mom can do what she has to do.”
“This is just so gross!”
Elisabeth simply patted Lucy’s bottom and stepped aside to give Mrs Carter some space.
“You sure you don’t want me to spank her, Emily?” Sarah-Louise Huxton offered as Lucy’s mother stood awkwardly behind and to one side of her half-naked daughter.
“No, it’s my responsibility, Sarah-Louise,” Mrs Carter replied. “I probably should have done something like this a long time ago.”
“Mom, this just isn’t fair.” Lucy wailed, her face hidden from sight on the other side of the saddle.
“What’s not fair, Lucy? I’m going to give you ten licks just like Elisabeth got. Same crime, same punishment. Sounds fair to me.”
“Okay, you win!” Lucy said amidst a sigh. “Can we just get this over with?”
“Sure. Hold tight. Here we go!”
Taking a firm grip on the handle of the wooden paddle, Emily Carter drew the paddle well back and gave her daughter a good hard smack right in the centre of her bare bottom.
“Oowww!!” Lucy squealed.
“I think she could take it a little harder, Emily.” Sarah-Louise Huxton advised.
“Mom, no!”
“Like this?” Emily Carter drew the paddle back even further and hurled her arm forward with as much strength as she could muster. The paddle cracked across Lucy’s bare bottom with a resounding bang.
“Yeeeeoouucch!!”
“That’s the idea, Emily,” Sarah-Louise encouraged. “You’re getting the hang of it now.”
Pausing just a second or two to note her daughter’s reddening bottom, Emily hurled the paddle down again.
“Ooooooooowww!!” Emily wailed as the paddle hit her bottom with another loud bang.
“I’m not sure you’ll want to go riding so soon after this, Lucy.” Her mother told her as she hurled another stroke of the paddle at the girl’s bare bottom.
“Yeeeeeeeoouucchh!!”
Emily Carter swung three more strokes at her daughter’s bare bottom in quick succession, with Lucy squealing loudly after every one.
“Only two more to go, Lucy. Just as I’m getting the hang of it.” Her mother told her. “Let’s make them count.”
Using two hands to hold the paddle now, Mrs Carter swung the paddle with even more force and the paddle crashed into Lucy’s bare bottom with an even louder bang.
“Oooooooooowww!!” Lucy cried. “Hey mom, my bottom is really sore, you know?”
“I can see that, Lucy. Your butt would glow in the dark. And if you ever let me down like that again, well, now you'll know just what to expect, won’t you?”
“Mom, no!”
“Hold tight!”
Using a two-handed grip again, Emily Carter took aim for the last time and hurled the paddle down onto Lucy’s bare bottom.
“Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeoooouuucchh!!!”
“Okay, girl, you’re done.” Emily took a last, lingering look at her daughter’s red sore bottom and turned to Sarah-Louise. “Thanks for the loan of the paddle. That was a great idea of yours.”
“Beats getting uptight and angry. Better for Lucy, too. Much better than spending days on end cooped up in her room wasting time and doing nothing in particular after she’s been grounded.”
With Elisabeth’s help, Lucy pulled herself up and off the large leather saddle and began softly exploring the damage to her bottom.
“God it feels sore!” Lucy whispered to Elisabeth.
“I guess that’s the general idea.” It was Elisabeth’s turn to reach down and help her friend with her jeans. “Don’t worry, it’ll feel just a little easier in a bit.”
“Only a little? How long?”
“Sitting down won’t be too comfortable for a few hours yet, and the marks will take a week or so to disappear entirely. After that, you’ll be good as new.”
“It sounds like you’re an expert.”
“I’ve had a few paddlings over the years, I guess.”
With Lucy fully dressed, but still rubbing her smarting bottom, the two girls turned to face their mothers.
“Okay, girls. Guess you’re due some lunch. Let’s go.” Allowing the two girls to go first, Sarah-Louise left the barn arm in arm with Emily Carter. “Let’s see how they sit on those nice hard wooden stools I’ve got in my kitchen!”
“Sarah-Louise, you’re just plain evil!”
The End
© Kenny Walters 2024