Long Winter

[Droogie15]

(This Thread is intended to be an SM themed retake on the movie Misery as written by Stephen King. It is a closed thread for myself, ~*Fairywings*~, and Miss Miaka. We may need police roles in the future so any lurking readers PM me if youre interested.)

On the outskirts of Pueblo, Colorado, 700 miles from the nearest ocean, Two hours from the nearest major city, 1.4 miles from the most dangerous bend of highway in all of Pueblo, Tom and Isabella Haskins lived in their unassuming two bedroom cabin, a brown square in a blanket of white snow. Tom huffs steam from his mouth inbetween overhead swings of his axe, chopping firewood for the week, he arranges his little wood chunks in rows along the wall nearest the back porch. During the week, whenever they needed fuel for the fire, they could just hop out, grab the kindling and run back inside. He finishes the caber slices that he had set aside for hmself, completed the task of making the woodpile and makes the relatively long trek to his woodshed to hang his axe. Clapping his hands together on the walk back he signs, breathlessly:

"My bey-bay takes the mo-nin' train,
he works from nine to five and then-"

Pausing to regain his breath taking large steps to overcome the snow.

"-He takes A-noth-uh home uh-gen,
to find me bap bah na nah."

Leaving the rest to odd non-words happily taking the place of actual lyrics. He enters the house through the back door, the screen shutting with a smack on its frame, he shuts and locks the main door behind him. His parka, pants, and boots are all wet and he prepares to take them off.

 

[Guest]

Isabella Haskins stood at her kitchen sink staring at the vastness of their property through the tinted window. She stared at the snow covered land, the frosty tipped trees, and her husband outside singing to himself. Thinking of how much she did not miss the city where things were always busy and tiresome, she couldn't help but smile to herself. Not that long ago she was a nurse at the hospital dealing with critical care patients daily. The pay was great, the job she loved but the time and the energy was outrageous. She always felt worn down and ready to run away. Here, she was happy for the most part. Though she missed the one on one with patients, even if they were critical. She missed using her skills and sharing her compassion with others.

Peeling potatoes, as she was doing now, was nothing compared to starting IV's, bandaging wounds, and the mountain of other duties she carried. Yet, she never complained.

The life she had now was wonderful. Lots of land to roam and care for, especially in the summer months. She was never wanting for things to do, there was always something. She had even found time to knit, and taught herself to play piano on the old upright given to her by her deceased mother years back.

Her attention snapped to when she felt a slice on her finger.

"Ah, shoot." She whimpers, running her finger under the water. "That's a deep one." The knife had managed to slice deep in to her thumb, enough so that a simple bandage was not going to take care of it.

Putting her skills to use, she grabbed her first aid kit and went to work on her cut. Pulling out butterfly bandages to pull it together as she was out of sutures, she quickly fixed up the problem and went back to work on dinner. The last potato hit the pot just as the door opened, her husband entering all wet and cold.

"Hello dear," She greets him. "Supper will be ready in half an hour."

 

[Droogie15]

"Good. Where's the paper? I'll check my scores before that's all on the table." Removing his parka, he hangs it beside the back door. His boots go just below the rack and his snow pants, are hung to dry in the laundry room.

Returning to the kitchen with a pair of drawstring pants as an indoor replacement, he grabs his honey by the hips as he passes her in the kitchen. Stopping behind her, holding her closely with a playful but still actual sort of possessivism about him, he leans his head over her shoulder.

"What is for supper tonight, Girl?" The man speaking as-if-to-his-dog tone of voice no coincidence, this was regular life in this home. His hands still chillingly cold from the outdoors, Isabella could feel that temperature difference through her trousers.

After recieveing the answer that satisfied him pertaining to the description of the food, he spanks her hip encouragingly with his left hand and leaves her in peace in the kitchen. Picking up the paper from the dining table he finds himself a seat, opens the black and gray paper and remarks, with proud affirmation. "What a good girl."

 

[Guest]

With the potatoes boiling, carrots steaming, meat frying on the stove and the bread just coming out of the oven, Isabelle was quiet pleased with herself. Up until she met Tom her life had consisted of simple meals, generally out of boxes. It had taken a bit of time, but now she could cook almost anything and have it turn out. Best yet is they grew their own vegetables and hunted out their own meat quite most of the time, as well as raising a few animals for food purposes. The feeling of sufficiency was amazing.

"What a good girl" she heard her husband say. Fighting a giggle, she simply smiled and set the table. Her mind wandering to how she had come to this home. It was a few years back, she was driving down the road and she had blown a tire. While attempting to fix it, a man had stopped to offer his assistance. The young man helped her out and invited her over for a meal and a place to dry off. As it was only just down the road she accepted. Not normally her style to be so bold, but something about him told her it was ok.

Perhaps it was his smile, or his helpfulness...but deep down she realized she was attracted to his strength. His take charge attitude, the dominating manner in which he conducted himself.

That chance meeting lead to many dates, and ultimately a marriage in which he was truly the head of the home.

As wonderful as it was, deep inside she had the longing to be in charge of something..anything..as she had been at work. To control, hold someone's life in her hands again, she longed for this greatly.

The table set, food set out, she called her husband to the room and greeted him with her dutiful kiss.

 

[Droogie15]

Very happy to see such a beautiful meal on the table, he pulls his seat from the table's head and takes his own seat. Isabella belongs at his left side and has, by command, always sat exactly where He placed her. He looks over the mouthwatering array of food thinking of his mother every time Isabella makes His dinner. He had given her the knowledge he had of cooking, along with his mother's homemade recipe book, to make her the cook she is today.

"This looks good and you were on time too." Tom's lips are pursed in intense primal thought as he covers his plate with Isabella's lovingly made food. After satisfying his projected need for food, his plate strikingly organized, he sets his plate down in front of him and takes Isabella's up, giving her a similarly organized plate with significantly less food, done so that she'll have to interrupt his meal to ask for seconds. He kindly returns the plate to her.

"There was a near miss in the Spider's Web today." The nearby aforementioned bend in the highway, is a hotbed of snow and ice related car accidents during this time of the year. It is known as the Spider's Web due to the tight collection of snow covered tree's and their tendency to catch the sides or fronts of cars that lose control on the bend and slide off the road. "I heard the tires squeel but no rattling of the trees. I guess they were lucky enough to slide into that meadow." Tom has visited the site a number of times. Only from a distance to view the crashed abandoned cars or the hurt people. The last time he was out in that area was when he picked up Isabella. There hadn't been a crash he had heard from their since this winter began.

"Good potatos." He says with an understatement of innocence to the things he was actually considering.

 

[Guest]

Isabella glanced at her plate, the meager servings her Husband had dished to her. He insisted on fixing her plate, and always so meticulously. "Everything has a place" she had been told on several occasions. Heaven help the day she put her own food out, or had her potatoes and vegetables touch each other.

Once she had joked about buying dishes with separated spaces. The result was no supper for her, but she had to sit and watch him eat and clean up when he was finished.

Her independenced proved a problem on a few occasions, mostly housework related. He wanted things done his way, and made sure she knew it. Not that it was a problem, but it did keep her on her toes.

Tonight she was famished. In an effort to get things done, she had skipped lunch. So many chores that needed completing if she was to be allowed her piano time. Figuring on a decent supper, she felt she could skip her salad and soup for lunch and focus on the house. Now he serves her so little.. However would she manage?

She hears him speak while contemplating her meal "Good potatos." Almost instinctively, and with very little thought she replies "Thank you, Sir. Happy to have pleased you."

Taking a bite of her own, she decides it is best to eat and hope she has enough. In the end though, her hunger proved too powerful.

Quietly and very timidly she asks "Excuse me, Sir. May I please have some more?"

 

[Droogie15]

With her request, he finishes the piece of food he was eating, and wheels his body back into his chair disapprovingly. Clenching his jaw with disbelief, he picks up his napkin from his lap, wads it and whips it over the corner of the table. His eyes, thin slits of black and white edge over in her direction.

"Next thing, you're going to want to make your own plate. Then you'll want to serve yourself before I have my chance at the meal. Then, you'll go back to that damn store bought food from the government!" He shoves himself away from the table, stands and steps right before Isabella's slouched, trembling form.

"Get up right now, woman. You're not fit to eat dinner with your man!" He points to the livingroom, across the main hall from the diningroom and commands with a hiss, "You go into the livingroom, kneel in the corner and just wait for me to clean up this mess. Hope, that by the time i get in there I only give you ten with the heavy paddle!"

The livingroom is brown paneled wood walls and soft blue light from outside. Completely dimmed of artificial light, since no one was occupying the room, it makes her wait all the more uncomfortable.

 

[Guest]

Knowing better than to argue and make the situation worse, Isabella found her spot in the livingroom and kneeled as instructed. She knew the drill, this had happened before.

In an effort to maintain his dominance over her, he often would "punish" her. Sometimes leading to a very active night in the bedroom, other times leaveing her alone in the spare room without blankets or pillows for the night. All depended on how well she took the punishment and how severe her crime.

She knew not to ask for seconds, she knew better than to second guess, why had she opened her mouth?

The sounds from the kitchen not only signified things being cleaned, but a still very angry man.

Her knees hurt, not just from the carpet, but from all the cleaning she had done today..the floors needed scrubbing earlier. But obediently she sat there..trying not to focus on what was to come.

 

[Droogie15]

He was proud of the ruccus he was making in the kitchen as he cleaned. In the lean thinking that occurs in moments of anger, this seemed the right thing to do. Plates, dishes, pots, pans, panlids, potlids, the tray that had held the rolls in the oven.

He had worked out his upset in the energy expended in cleaning the array of dishes but it was his duty to punish Isabella. He found her and she belonged to him. If he didn't watch over her, with love and care, even in the name of punishment, she would end up like all the other spoiled, squaking, rotten women that walked the other. "She'd be as bad as all those wives on sitcom television shows." He told himself, affirming his proper choice in keeping her in her place.

"You know I do this because I love you." Standing in the wide doorway to the livingroom, the heavy paddle hanging from the end of his left hand. He had crafted that paddle himself from a fallen tree out of the meadow. Drilled holes in it himself too.

"Up on the couch here, put your nose in the seat cushion and lay your knees down here." Pointing to the area just at the foot of the couch. Happy to see that she was being obedient in follow his instructions, she almost always was, he intended to give her only ten strokes.

"You will count the stroke and thank me after each count. Is that understood?" His tone is now patient and loving, the way you'd imagine a sheppard to speak as he was disciplining a lost ewe.

His arm raises behind him, a different set of muscles than the ones that chopped all that firewood, he would easily be capable of providing this punishment.

*WHAPP!!* The first stroke against her upturned and unprotected rearend. The stinging sensation as annoying but not yet painful enough to be remarked. He pauses to hear her count.

 

[Guest]

Isabella assumed the appropriate position and waited for the coming smack on her naked bottom. It did not matter how many times this had happened in the past, each time was as nerve racking and painful as the last. Each moment before the first slap she finds herself trembling and fearful.

"The perfect place to be for a wife" she had once been told. Referring to the complete submission that some men required of his wife. At the time she had doubted it, but now it was all together too real.

The first whapp of the paddle on her bottom had her biting her lip.

"One...Thank you, Sir." The skin stung from the initial slap. He waited a few moments then slapped again.
"Two...Thank you, Sir."
Again...
"Three...Thank you, Sir." By now the tears were welling behind her eyes..her hands gripping the material of the couch, knuckles white.
Again...
"Four...Thank you, Sir." Her voice was starting to break. She knew from past experience if she did not answer, he would make it worse. She had to maintain her strength and voice..
Again...
"Five...Thank you, Sir." Half way through...tears now flowing down her reddened cheeks..her bottom on fire from the blows...
She braced herself for the next slap.....

 

[Droogie15]

Tom extended his left arm back methodically, his shoulder lifting his arm to a near 90 degree angle. His face was expressionless during the punishment but he was very alert inside and very much enjoying the small session.

In the distance (1.4 miles away to be exact), the steering pair of tires on some unknown car audibly locks and skips over the snow plowed embankment alongside the glossy black road. The engine runs freely and noisily for a split second, without the connection of the tires to the ground causing it friction. Immediately after, the window frames of the cabin rattle violently and, shortly after that, the explanation of the rattling, the sound of a cannonball being shot from a cannon, reaches both Tom and Isabella's ears. The long reverberating echo of a car catching a side on one or more trees suggests the severity of the accident.

"C'mon, pull your jeans up and get your coat. I'll get the bike and meet you in front." Tom grants Isabella to join him in taking action, the reality of life and death pushing Isabella's punishment out of the picture entirely.

Minutes later, Tom warms the engine of his snow mobile in their snowy indistinguishible front lawn, goggles clutching his face. As Isabella hops on the back and gets a hold of his torso they rush over a white clearing and through a short patch of forest to investigate the crash.

 

[Guest]

.