Subject: Story: The Fire
From: Carolina Jim <carolinajim@greenvillenc.com>
Date: Sun, 06 Apr 1997 15:42:43 -0400
"Don't forget...", Marge reminded the girls one more time, "I want one of you here all the time while the roast is in the oven. It won't be done until 4:30, and I don't know if Mrs. Helton and I will be back by then."
Betty and Judy, still wearing their Sunday dresses, finished their milk and began clearing the lunch dishes. "Don't worry, Mom. I've got a term paper to work on. I won't be going anywhere.", 20-year-old Betty assured.
"Neither am I.", Judy added. "I have two exams next week." The perky 18-year-old would be graduating from high school on the following Friday.
A horn sounded. "That must be Mrs. Helton!", Marge said as she gathered her pocketbook and headed for the door. "See you later!", the attractive widow told her daughters. She wasn't really looking forward to spending a beautiful spring afternoon at church going over the budget for the upcoming year.
The girls retired to their rooms after cleaning the kitchen. Judy couldn't wait to get out of her dress. A tomboy at heart, she was much more comfortable in a pair of dungarees and a tee-shirt. The teenager slipped into the loose-fitting garments (the only kind her conservative mom would allow) that hid her well-rounded and shapely curves, put her light-brown hair into a ponytail, and sat down at her desk.
At the same time across the hall, Betty was also changing clothes. Unlike her sister, though, she preferred skirts and dresses. It was more feminine, and she thought wearing nice clothes made her look more mature and grown up. In fact, the college sophomore often scolded Judy for looking like a boy. That was because Betty was a little jealous, although she'd never admit it. She was taller and thinner, but didn't have nearly the figure her sister had. Judy had a prettier face, too, and didn't have to wear glasses like Betty. So, dressed in a calf-length gray skirt and white blouse, Betty brushed her reddish-blond hair and got to work on her term paper.
They had barely started studying when the phone rang. It was Mary Simmons, Judy's best friend, wanting to know if she would like to come over for some home-made ice cream her family just made. Of course, Judy said yes. "I'll only be gone for an hour.", she promised Betty. "I've got too much work to do."
Betty went back to her report. Ninety minutes later, she realized she was missing an important reference book. That meant a trip to the library. Judy should be back any minute, she thought, so she checked the roast in the oven and left a note on the refrigerator door.
The budget meeting took a sort break a little after three. Marge stood outside the front door with a few other women to enjoy the warm sunshine. "I hope we have more money in 1959 than we do this year.", a lady commented just before a fire truck went whizzing by.
Everyone was about to go back in when one of Marge's neighbors came racing up the street in her car. Helen Brown pulled to a screeching stop in front of the church. "Marge!", she yelled. "Your house is on fire!"
Marge wasted no time in scrambling to the car. All kinds of terrible scenarios ran through her mind. She was thinking the worst as Helen drove.
The fire was out even before Marge and Helen made the five-block drive. The firetruck was sitting in the front, and a dozen volunteer firemen were walking around the house making sure it was safe. There was no sign of Betty or Judy.
Bob Franklin, an old friend of the family, was one of the firemen on the scene. He saw Marge who, by this time, was almost frantic from worry, and tried to comfort her. "It's all right, Marge.", he said soothingly, "it wasn't serious. The roast in the oven caught on fire, that's all. You'll have to keep your windows open for a while to let out the smoke, and by a new lock for the kitchen door - we had to break it to get in."
"What about the girls!", she asked, almost hysterically.
Bob did his best to reassure her. "There's no one in there, Marge - we checked. Your daughters weren't home."
Judy, feeling rather full after all the ice cream she ate, saw the firetruck and a crowd of people in her front yard. "What in the world...", she gasped to herself while picking up her pace.
"Oh, Darling! You're OK!", Marge cried when she saw Judy. The relieved mother, tears streaming down her cheeks, nearly hugged the air out of her youngest daughter.
"Mother! What happened?", the newly-arrived Betty asked with a book under her arm. She, too, got a big hug and kiss.
The firemen gathered up their equipment and left. A few neighbors stuck around, volunteering to help. One called the locksmith, and he was there within minutes to fix the door. By this time, Marge's relief was turning to anger. She had specifically told her daughters to keep an eye on the oven. None of this would have happened if they had obeyed.
Betty and Judy weren't feeling so good, either. It hadn't taken long for them to figure out the whole thing was their fault after they discovered neither was home at the time.
A very quiet pair of sisters looked on while the locksmith did his job. "You were extremely lucky, Ma'am.", he told Marge. "It could have been far worse. Wasn't anyone home?"
"There should have been but, no, there wasn't." Marge glared at the girls as she spoke. It was then when they realized just how angry Marge was. "I'm going to start a few fires of my own before this day is over."
The guilt-ridden girls left the kitchen and went to their rooms, choking back tears. It had been many years since either had been spanked, but their mother had made it perfectly clear they were going to get one today. Judy sat on the edge of her bed, face buried in her hands, wishing she hadn't stayed so long at Mary's. Her bottom tingled under the denim dungarees. She remembered how much one of mom's spankings hurt even though her last one was almost six years ago.
Alone in her room, Betty paced back and forth, and occasionally wiped a tear from under her glasses. Every so often, she brushed a hand over the seat of her skirt. She was almost looking forward to the spanking; being punished for the stupid thing she did would help erase some of the tremendous guilt she was feeling. Not that the 20-year-old could easily handle a bottom-warming; Betty would feel the effects for days, a week if Marge decided to use the hairbrush. And the embarrassment of being spanked would last far longer than the bruises for both girls. At least Mom doesn't spank pants-down like some of her friends' parents did, Betty thought.
The locksmith finished his work and left. Marge went to her bedroom, retrieved the old wooden hairbrush that was used for punishing the girls, and returned to the kitchen. The sound of her footsteps in the hallway caused a couple of hearts to pound, but the time was not right. Marge pulled a chair to the middle of the floor and sat down. "Let them stew a few minutes...", she thought to herself as she patted the brush in her palm.
Judy could see the locksmith leave from her window. The 18-year-old started breathing heavily and erratically; any second now she expected her mother to burst into the room. Betty could only hear the truck leave. There was a lump in her throat as she tensed her slim buttocks under her clothes.
A full thirty minutes passed. "BETTY! JUDY! GET YOUR BACKSIDES IN HERE NOW!" Marge's loud, stern voice sent shivers down the girls' spines.
Two scared and repentant young ladies walked down the hallway. Neither said a word to each other. They entered the kitchen and found Marge seated in the middle of the room. The hairbrush laying in her lap turned their faces ashen.
"I don't want to hear any excuses.", the angry mom stated. "You were told that one of you needed to be home to watch the stove at all times. You didn't, and as a result the house almost burned down. I thought, especially at your ages, you were mature and smart enough to know not to leave an oven unattended. I was obviously wrong.", she lectured the sniffling girls with bowed heads. "You're going to be punished for your blatant, irresponsible behavior. I'm going to spank you until your bottoms are black and blue, and I promise you'll remember to do as you're told every time you try and sit down for a week. Is that understood?"
Betty and Judy nodded their heads weakly. "Good." Marge picked up the brush and pointed it at her youngest. "Come here and lower your dungarees."
With a whimper, Judy obeyed. On unsteady legs, she walked towards Marge. She stood at her side and pulled the jeans down to mid-thigh. She was about to bend over the maternal lap when Marge stopped her. "Not so fast, young lady." The widow placed her fingers inside the waistband of Judy's white nylon briefs and tugged them down to the lowered jeans, leaving the teenager's shapely, milky-white bottom bare.
"No Mommy!", a shamed Judy cried. A hard slap to her right buttock quieted her while a terrified Betty looked on.
"Enough!" Marge placed her errant daughter across her lap. "You deserve a bare-bottom spanking, young lady, and that's exactly what you're going to get!" She cast an ominous eye at Betty. "Both of you!"
For the next five minutes, Marge wielded the hairbrush with a vengeance. Judy kicked and screamed as her bottom reddened, then purpled, under the searing smacks. Her cute behind was badly discolored and swollen when she was finally allowed up to massage the sizzling bottomcheeks. Her dungarees and underpants slipped to her sneakers as she cried her eyes out.
Betty could barely see through her fogged up glasses. "March yourself over here.", Marge ordered. Betty did, and lifted her skirt and slip to her waist. She squeezed her eyes shut while her mother slipped down her underpants and placed her across her lap.
"You should be ashamed of yourself.", Marge said as she looked down at Betty's small, pale buttocks. That was the last thing Betty heard before the hairbrush landed squarely on her left bottomcheek and filled her world with pain.
Marge spanked her oldest daughter every bit as hard and long as she did Judy. By the time the last smack landed, Betty was crying and kicking more like a 5-year-old than a college sophomore. Her bottom was raging. She rose and rubbed her black and blue behind, oblivious to her panties falling all the way down.
"Now go to bed!" Two well-spanked young ladies, sobbing and rubbing their bare backsides, hobbled from the kitchen. Despite the sun shining through their bedroom windows, they cried themselves to sleep.
Marge had cleaned the kitchen as best she could and eaten supper when Helen Brown dropped by. She explained what started the fire. "I bet Betty and Judy feel just terrible...", Helen offered.
"They should.", Marge replied. "And after I spanked them they felt even worse."
Helen admitted she would have done the same thing if her daughters ever did anything like that. "They wouldn't be able to sit down, that's for sure.", she said.
"They won't, I can assure you of that. I pulled down their pants and really tanned their behinds with the hairbrush. Then I sent them to bed without any supper. I doubt they'll forget this day for a while..."
Two very sore students came to breakfast the next morning, fluffy pillows under their arms. Wearing loose-fitting dresses and walking stiffly, they grimaced and moaned as they sat down on the soft cushions. Their bottoms were still a deep red and warm to the touch. The bruises throbbed, almost unbearably.
"I hope I never have to pull down panties and spank again.", Marge lectured the squirming girls. "But the next time either one of you disobeys me, that's exactly what I'm going to do.", she told her blushing daughters.
"I'm sorry about yesterday, Mom...", Betty said apologetically, "it won't happen again." Judy also said she was sorry.
Marge looked at the two embarrassed girls and shook her head. "It's a shame it took a couple of sore behinds to come to that conclusion."
Betty and judy kissed their mother goodbye. They then spent a long, excruciating day sitting on hard classroom chairs that left them teary-eyed by the time they got home.
It was a painful - and embarrassing - week for both. More than once, Marge caught them pensively rubbing the seat of their dresses or skirts. Judy's usual attire of jeans, no matter how loose-fitting, was out of the question. On Thursday, the day before Judy's graduation, Grandma came to spend the night. Grandma had, of course, heard all about the fire and the subsequent spankings. Yet Marge thought recounting the experience would be an added humbling punishment. "Judy, why don't you tell Grandma what happened after the firemen left?", she suggested at supper that evening.
Judy's and Betty's faces turned red. Their bottoms still bore the marks from the hairbrush and sitting was uncomfortable. "Mother spanked us...", Judy replied softly.
Grandma understood what Marge was doing and played along. "She spanked you?", she asked, feigning surprise. She turned to her oldest granddaughter. "You, too, Betty? You got a spanking, too?"
Betty bowed her head. "Yes...", she mumbled.
"You would have been proud, Mother.", Marge said to her daughters' eternal consternation. "I actually pulled their pants down and walloped their bare backsides for the first time, just like you used to do to me..."
The End