Rule No. 1: Thou shalt address thy husband as "Sir."

Actually, he sprung this one on me the night he proposed, so it may as well have been, "address your fianc as 'Sir.'" After a charming and romantic proposal, he couldn't have surprised me more if he'd have pulled out a gun and put it to my head.

"What?" I squeaked, my mouth dry and my face blushing to match my fancy red cocktail dress. I immediately looked around to see if any of the nearby tables in the elegant restaurant had heard his ridiculous statement.

"What, Sir," he corrected calmly, his gentle eyes gazing into mine with such open love that it put me off balance.

"You're kidding, right?"

Troy took my hand in his and used his thumb to massage the precious diamond he'd placed there only moments before. "Does it look like I'm kidding?"

It didn't, and he wasn't.

I looked around again, and then hissed back at him with a whisper, "What would people think? You may as well expect me to make the archaic vow to obey at the wedding ceremony!"

He let go of my hand and stared at me in surprise. "Jenny, of course I expect you to vow to obey me. Just as I will vow to cherish, honor, and protect you. You already do a good job of obeying me; why would you take issue with it now?"

Do a good job of obeying him? I gulped down almost my entire glass of wine, stopping only when Troy gently took hold of the glass and placed it on the table, just out of my reach. "You know," I said, with more than a hint of sauciness in my voice, "I do not do a good job of obeying you. If I happen to take your advice once in awhile, that doesn't mean that I'm going to go around doing your bidding like a little puppy dog."

I stared forlornly at the ring on my finger. It was a gorgeous princess diamond, and it would be extraordinarily difficult to remove it from my finger. All I wanted was a wedding in a big church wearing a pretty white wedding dress, marrying a guy who could afford a nice house with a pretty picket fence. Troy's mini-mansion was merely a bonus.

"In fact, I'd sooner obey a puppy dog than obey you."

From the look he gave me, I thought he was going to snatch the ring clean off my finger. I didn't want him to take it, though. I wanted to throw it in his face, but then I didn't really want to let go of it at all. I'd like to say I'm not a materialistic freak, but what girl doesn't love a diamond?

"Sir," I tested, just to see if I could say it. I nearly choked up the yummy piece of filet mignon that had just melted on my tongue.

Troy suddenly looked like a proud rooster strutting around a farm. Even in his business suit. "That's not so bad, is it?"

I tried to tell him otherwise, but I was choking. He didn't seem to notice. I coughed and reached for the bottle of wine, filling my glass again and gulping it down--not just to wash away the offending piece of meat.

"This is some joke, right?"

He leaned forward. Unfortunately, he didn't whisper, but he did talk low enough that I could hope the nearby tables couldn't hear. "I can take you out to the car right now, and we'll sit in the back and have a good discussion about me not joking. I'll bare your little bottom, and you can finally get the answer to your question of why I always keep a hairbrush in my vehicle."

I blushed hard. So hard that I felt my face was going to burst from the pressure. I looked over to the neighboring table and a pretty young woman in a black dress and a diamond choker around her neck pointed to my finger and then smiled and gave me the thumbs up. She had clapped when I'd put the ring on my finger after the proposal, which had sent up a round of clapping around the restaurant.

If only she knew.

I looked at Troy's hands and tried not to imagine them on my bottom. He'd done that a lot lately, come to think of it--rub my bottom in slow, lazy circles until I fell asleep. It was soothing, and at first I had resisted because it made me feel a bit too little-girlish, but the comforting massage had won out.

Now I wasn't sure if I wanted my bare bottom anywhere within ten feet of this man.

"In fact," he said...?

Rule No. 2: Thou shalt be spanked every Friday night, no matter how thee behave.

"I guess that's more of a promise than a rule, huh?" Troy clinked his glass with mine, as if I should be excited about that promise.

"Spanked?" I squeaked, guzzling down my third glass of wine that night to stop choking on yet another piece of filet mignon. I was beginning to hate my beloved filet mignon.

"It's not like I haven't spanked you before." He winked a blue eye at me that set off his beach-blond hair. He had the tan to go with it, too. "Or taken you to task, when necessary."

"Yeah," I hissed, growing more concerned by the minute at the close proximity of the other tables to ours. Ignoring the latter comment, I countered, "But I was drunk and so were you, and we were just having some kinky sex."

"Oh," he said with a loving grin. "I had more of a spanking in mind than kinky sex. I expect you'll shed a few tears every Friday night."

I looked at him in astonishment, my jaw working to find some words to express my disbelief. "But why ... why in the world would I ever, ever," I repeated, "consent to that?"

And what planet are you from? I wanted to add. I twisted the ring on my finger, a bit horrified (and slightly relieved, if I'm to be honest) that I couldn't get it off.

He grinned at me. "For the security of it."

"Have you gone bonkers?" I asked, a bit too shrill, because a few diners turned their heads to glance over at our table. "Have you gone bonkers?" I asked again, this time in a whisper.

"It's Friday tonight, isn't it?"

I just stared at him, open-mouthed.

"I think we should start tonight."

Before I could object, Troy had raised his hand in signal to the waiter, and the check was delivered--for once--immediately. When the valet pulled around with Troy's treasured Bimmer, I climbed in and sat as close to the window as possible, trying not to eye the hairbrush that had always sat in the passenger-side cup holder. I never did like BMWs, anyway.

"Now," Troy said, using 'now' as a sentence in a way that irked me. "You've been a good girl this past week." He pulled out into the street with a gentle turn of the wheel, turning towards his home in the upscale section of town. "So you've no reason to feel guilty."

I opened my mouth and a hissing humph came out. I tried to coherently voice my feelings on the subject, but nothing came out.

"You'll be well-spanked, though, spanked enough to cry yourself to sleep, and spanked enough to be sore the next morning."

I finally found my voice. "Is that supposed to comfort me or something?"

"Well, yes, of course. I'm never going to slack off my duty to you. You can expect consistency from me, and take comfort in that."

Before I could put up a good fight, he turned into his house--I liked to call it a mini-mansion. He'd inherited it from his grandfather, and though it wasn't quite big enough to be called a mansion, it sure came close enough.

It was big enough that I had never been in the "left wing," but that's where he led me. With a grandiose gesture, he swung open the door to the second room on the right. "The whipping room!"

I blanched and lost my breath. All the wine seemed to instantly go to my head, and I clutched at the wall for support.

Troy caught me in a hug and chuckled. "Oh don't worry, sweetie. More like a spanking room, really. My Nanna was a tiny woman, and grandfather was always quite gentle in his admonishments. I would never hurt you, sweetie."

I giggled, which I knew meant I was definitely buzzed from the wine. I get inordinately happy from alcohol. No matter how life may treat me, a little wine and I am a happy girl.

Troy didn't seem to notice my drunken state. To be honest, I don't think he noticed how much wine I had drunk at dinner. He patted my back. "It's natural to be nervous. Grandfather always said my Nanna was nervous every Friday, even after fifty years of Friday night spankings." Then he added with unmistakable pride, "Grandfather never missed giving her a single spanking, not for forty-five years. Not until he wound up in the hospital with a mild heart attack."

I gulped. Nerves were even taking over my happy wine feelings.

"You're not going to spank me, are you?"

"I am, like I will every Friday night forever." His eyes looked romantically into my eyes as he said it, as if he were proclaiming his undying love to me and willingness to die for me. Or something.

He flipped on the light switch then, and at first I was taken back by the charming elegance of the room. Shiny hard wood floors, old-fashioned flowery wallpaper, and rich antique furniture lent the room an old-world grace.

I was thoroughly charmed, until I noticed a cast iron contraption in the middle of the room, looking almost like the skeletal structure of a miniature boat. I gasped.

Troy beamed with pride. "It looks just like the spanking rack in the movie 'Lady Jane,' doesn't it?"

I couldn't breathe again.

"I knew you were the girl for me when we watched that movie together. One finger told me you were the one for me. Lady Jane was bent over that rack, and her mother birched her good. You sat there with wide eyes and parted lips, entranced."

I blushed. He had also turned me over and playfully accused me of being aroused by the scene. He'd pulled my panties down and confirmed his suspicions with a probing finger, then had mischievously given me a few swats.

I'd been slightly embarrassed and aroused at the same time, but now the memory took on a whole new meaning. We hadn't watched much of the movie after that.

"You're going to..." I gestured weakly towards the spanking contraption, unable to finish.

"Oh no, sweetie. That's reserved for severe punishments, if you ever behave badly enough to warrant one." He put a hand to my back and guided me further into the room. "Like I said before, you do a good job of obeying me, and I don't think we'd ever use it in anything except play."

Play? I thought back to the movie and the tears streaming down Helena Bonham Carter's face, and tried to imagine how anyone could imagine that as play.

"Now. There'll be--"

I couldn't bear it any longer. "Would you stop using now as a sentence? It's low-class and--" I almost laughed at the expression of surprise on his face. I doubted he'd ever been called low-class in his entire silver spoon life "--and it's just ... just--just plain annoying!"

For once he seemed to be speechless. I felt a surge of triumph, thankful to finally have a bit of 'hand' in the night's events, if not the upper hand.

Troy smoothed away his surprised expression and nodded calmly. "Of course, you're quite nervous. Now--" he caught himself before fully enunciating the 'w' and cleared his throat. "There'll be a certain routine to our Friday nights."

"As soon as we get home from dinner--and we'll have a romantic dinner together every Friday night--you'll have ten minutes to freshen up before I expect your bottom on display in the corner."

I stared at the corner, a wacky vision of my bottom atop a stand there, lighted like a precious museum piece. I turned towards him and then eyed the door nervously.

He gently held my hand and guided me towards the corner. "Like this." He pointed to the round rug beneath my feet. "If you keep your toes on the carpet and off of the triangle of bare wood floor in the corner--" he then pushed my head down to bend me over quite a bit "--and your nose planted snugly in the corner, your bottom will be displayed quite nicely."

As if to illustrate his point, he rubbed his hands over my backside, and I wondered how he had gotten me in this ridiculous position so easily. I tried to stand, but his hand was firm upon my back.

"Normally, you'll bare your bottom yourself and see to it that there is no clothing to interrupt its beautiful display."

I gulped as he lifted the skirt of my dress and laid it carefully on my back. Even though it was silky satin, it stayed in place there, since I was bent in nearly a ninety degree angle. His fingers hooked under my hose and panties, and I squealed as he pulled them down to my ankles.

"You'll keep your shoes on, but in the future I expect you to remove your panties and hose while freshening up, before you enter this room. For now, step out of them."

I could barely breathe for the bulk of nerves in my stomach, but I obediently stepped out of my hose after he unbuckled my shoes. He guided my foot back into the shoe and buckled it back on, then repeated the procedure with my other foot.

He rubbed both hands over my bottom and dipped his fingers between my legs. "See? I was right. As much as you look like a deer in headlights right now, you crave this and like this." In a quick motion, he slid two fingers inside of me and I cried out with pleasure. He put his thumb on my button and massaged inside and out, making me whimper and beg. One of the reasons I'd fallen in love with him was his talent of turning me into a limp, quivering mass of pleasure at a second's notice.

"I'm sorry," he suddenly said, and pulled his fingers out. "Normally there will be no sex in this room. I just..." he cleared his throat. "You're quite beautiful there, you know."

"You can't just stop like that!" I cried.

He ignored me. "Corner time serves two purposes. Grandfather always called it 'humbling time,' and it's also a time for reflection. After corner time, I will expect you to confess to your misdeeds and misbehaviors, and anything you 'forget' will be punished with double the normal due."

I curled my toes into the carpet and tried to stand up, but his hand was firmly pressing into my back.

"Just stay there for a while, young lady." His hand began that lazy rubbing he did to put me to sleep. I usually loved it, since that was the only way I could fall asleep in any amount of time less than two hours.

But now my bare bottom was poking out into this graceful room. I already felt about eighty years out of place amongst all these elegant antiques. My grotesque position made me feel absolutely incongruous.

"You just stay there for a good fifteen minutes."

I started to object, but he tapped a finger to my bottom and clucked. "Now, now, be good. You'll stay there for a good fifteen minutes and think about your place in our order of things."

"My place?" I growled and squeaked my objections at the same time, but he held me in position.

"Yes, your place. I am head of my household, and as such, I will see to the health and happiness of my family, as well as the discipline of my wife. Did you not tell me when we first met that your parents had never really taught you discipline?"

I shook my head against the truth of his words, even though I had told him that. "That doesn't mean I want you to teach me discipline! I'm thirty-two years old, and I can handle my own self-discipline!"

Troy chuckled. "You know, Grandfather told me that whenever his wife turned a new decade, whether it was thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty, she always insisted that she was now too old to be spanked."