An Easter Holiday Story

Penny Cottontail

By Robin Smith
Copyright © 2007

Note: This is not a complete story. For the entire story, please join our website here.

Dr. Steven Decauter came home late on Easter Sunday--a Sunday he’d been promised he wouldn’t have to work at all.  He was in as foul a mood as possible under the circumstances (it was difficult to be in a completely foul mood; babies came at the most inconvenient times and did lots of unexpected things in the process, but when he could leave mother and child both healthy and happy in recovery, it left an un-erasable glow that no bad mood could wholly displace).  The only things he believed he could focus on now were dinner and sleep, in precisely that order, with perhaps two or three hours of mindless cerebral massage, in the form of television, somewhere in between.

Although it was technically a holiday, his was not a religious family, and he had no expectation of an invading horde of relatives wanting a ham or a pizza or whatever the traditional Easter dinner was these days.  The only family members he would have wanted to invite were the twins, but he knew better than to extend the request.  They called often (Sarah more than Thomas) and “instant-messaged” often (Thomas more than Sarah), but college was expensive, cross-country flights even more so, and they’d already committed themselves to visiting on Mother’s Day.  It was unreasonable to ask for Easter, too, especially as they’d never done anything special on that day as a family.

No, he had every reason to think he could spend a very quiet and very uneventful evening at home when he put his key into the lock.  The very last thing he expected to see when he opened his front door was his wife in a bunny costume.

It was a look his wife was surprisingly well-suited for.  The extra pounds that so dismayed her (and which he found so unprofessionally attractive) had melted themselves into a voluptuousness straight out of a Reubens painting.  White fishnet stockings added shapely new dimensions as well as the shine of innocent light and the sleek illusion of extra height.  The beribboned corset gave her a tucked waist without reducing her ample bosom or rounded bottom, and the resulting hourglass was enough to arrest any red-blooded man’s attention.  A fuzzy white triangle covered her with less than maidenly decorum, accented by a belt of tiny cloisonné Easter egg charms that tinkled as she shifted uncertainly from foot to foot.  But it was the ears that really drew his eye.  They were large and pink and white and fluffy, and in twenty years of marriage, he had never seen Penelope dress up.

Now she reached a nervous hand to stroke at one of these fluffy, floppy ears, pulling it down so that she could rub it across her cheek.  She was blushing, the color very vibrant and attractive against her Seattle-pale skin.  She smiled at him.

He smiled back, dinner, sleep, and television quite forgotten, and shut the door.  “You’re making me feel terribly guilty,” he said.  “I didn’t even say goodbye when I rushed out this morning.”

“Oh, no, don’t feel bad!  I’ve been waiting for this day for so long, and I don’t want anything to spoil it!”  She petted at an ear again, ducking her head after this earnest outburst, and ran her stocking-clad toe over the carpet.  “Do I look all right?”

“You look amazing,” he said sincerely.

“I was worried they wouldn’t have one in my size.”  She plucked at a garter, snapping it lightly against her hip.  “The shoes pinched my feet, so I took them off.  Do I look ridiculous without shoes?”

“You’re absolutely beautiful.”  Steven shrugged out of his overcoat, now beaming.  “And I appreciate the pageantry more than I could possibly express.  This is just what I needed to--“

“Not so fast.”  Penelope shook a finger at him, that flustered shine still bright in her eyes.  Then she giggled.  It had been ten years, at least, since he’d last heard her giggle.  His heart leapt even higher.  “Oh, I’m so nervous!  Okay.  Before I lose my nerve, here goes.  Ahem.  I’m Penny Cottontail.”

He burst out laughing as his wife of twenty years turned and shook a fluffy little stub of a tail at him.  The back of her costume was virtually non-existent, but it framed the field of her bottom for him in such a way that it seemed brand new to his eyes.

“And I’m going to hop on down the bunny trail,” Penelope--no, Penny--continued.  She hopped to prove it, causing all sorts of pleasant little jiggles.

“Should I hop, too?” Steven asked, removing his suit jacket and giving it a toss without looking to see where it landed.  He took off his shoes.

“No, you just follow me.”

Penny hopped away.  Her arms were drawn up bunny-style, and her little mostly-bare feet on the thick carpet hardly made a sound.  Steven followed the bouncing white ball of that cute bunny tail down the hall into the playroom.

Still the playroom, even after the two children were grown and off at school.  The toys were largely gone, but not entirely.  Although the twins had proved to be the fruit that Penelope could bear (and not without great cost), and their playroom days were mostly behind them, there was still the hope of grandchildren.  In the meantime, it managed to remain one of the most-used rooms of the house.  Penelope came in here to fold the laundry and to do her embroidery when the mood was on her, and Steven sometimes stretched out on the sofa for a nap during those days when he was too lazy to climb the stairs to a proper bed.  It seemed only appropriate to take bunny-games to the playroom now.

There was a blanket over the sofa, one he’d never seen--white and soft as bunny fur.  On the play table, stuffed with pastel-colored grass, was an Easter basket.  There was the obligatory chocolate bunny, a bottle of champagne and two crystal flutes, an oversized plastic egg, and three nicely-wrapped presents in pink, blue, and lavender paper.

“Is it all for me?” he asked, sitting down.

Penny sat beside him, both her hands clutching at his thigh.  “In a manner of speaking, it’s all for me.  But you get to open it.  This one first.”

It was the smallest package, cylindrical, fairy heavy.  Instantly, images from a commercial for warming massage oil skipped happily through his mind.  Twenty years of marriage.  It all went to show that you never really knew a person.

Steven ripped the paper off, already smiling broadly, and discovered he was only partly right.  It was lotion, not oil, but it was massage-related, and it didn’t warm on contact, it advertised itself as cooling.  Arnica ointment, it said.  He cast Penny a quizzical glance, but received no help apart from blushing lip-nibbles and her hands squeezing once more on his thigh.

“Now that one,” she said, and pointed him at a long, thin package.  The pink one.

His smile somewhat lopsided, Steven removed the pretty paper and opened the nondescript box.

It was a new belt.  Steven held it up admiringly, deeply touched.  Although his profession had made him somewhat more conscious of his appearance over the years, his was not a mind that thought of stylish accessories.  He relied upon the tailors to advise him on the suits he wore, and of course, Penelope picked out his shoes and ties and made certain he matched before he went to any seminars.  He’d never considered the humble belt as a vehicle for fashion.  The belt was a very handsome one, and he thanked her for it with sincere appreciation.

She giggled again, that nervous little giggle that took him right back to their honeymoon and her in that wispy French number, trying to figure out where the sleeves were, saying, “All this trouble just so you can take it right off again,” and giggling.  On impulse, Steven leaned forward to kiss her.  Her mouth was warm and welcomed him with girlish excitement instead of married pleasure.  A bunny ear tickled at his cheek.  Everything was so new.

“Now this one,” Penelope said.  She licked her lips and passed him the last present.  It was long, wide, flat, heavy, and the most elaborately festooned of the trio.  “And I want you to know,” she blurted as he began to tear the ribbons away.  “This doesn’t mean... I just... go ahead and open it.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her.  “Are you sure?” he laughed.

“I love you,” she said.  “I’ve always been very happy with our marriage.  Except for that one night when you threw the pot-luck dinner out the car--“

“Ah, yes.”

“--which I’ve completely forgiven you for and forgotten all about, so please don’t think that I’m telling you I’ve been unhappy until now, I just... go ahead.  Open it.”

Again, he started to tear the paper.  Penelope reached up to stroke her hands repeatedly down her left bunny ear.  Both hands.  Fist over fist over fist.  Her eyes were riveted to his fingers, and her color was high.

Steven’s mind whirled with possibilities, but he saw none of them when he finally lifted the lid of the box away and moved the tissue.  What he saw instead... at first he could only think it was half an oversized hairbrush or perhaps the wooden back of an antique mirror.

But what it was, of course, was a paddle.  Like a ping-pong paddle, only larger, the blade more oblong, and the wood smoothed fine and stained dark.  He picked it up and Penelope wiggled in her seat.

Cooling lotion.  A new belt.  A paddle.  And Penny in a bunny costume with very little to cover her bottom below the pert, fluffy tail.

Steven looked at his wife, his wife of twenty years, resisting with great effort the urge to laugh, for fear it might be disastrously misconstrued.  “How long have you been wanting to do this?” he asked.

“Well.”  She ducked her head, plucking at the seam of his pants.  “Quite a while, in all honesty.”

“And you never told me,” he mused, turning the paddle over in his hands.

“But you were so wonderful in every other respect,” she said, almost as if protesting.  “I’ve never been un-happy.  And then there were the children, and I couldn’t even imagine what it would be like if they... heard us.”

Steven took an experimental whack at the thigh his wife was not clutching for moral support.  He flinched back at the loud popping noise it made.  “No, I certainly see your point.  But why now?”

“I’ve actually been working up to this for several months now.”

“And you decided Easter because...?”

“The basket was on sale,” she explained, and he laughed again.  “Plus, I thought I would chicken out entirely if I waited for Christmas, and anyway, the kids would be here, so we couldn’t do it on Christmas, and then I saw the costume at the shop, and--“

“Oh, I do like the costume.”  He reached around behind her to tickle at her tail, and she squealed that honeymoon squeal and wiggled some more.  “And I certainly think we should explore this notion of yours, my dear Penny Cottontail, but belts and paddles may be a bit too advanced for this amateur.”  He lowered his hand from her tail and gave her bottom a hard pat, one not quite hard enough to be considered a slap.  “We’ll just have to work our way up that ziggurat, so to speak.”

She blinked her shining eyes, a smile growing on her just a little more with each passing hopeful, breathless second.  “And it’s all right?”

“Nothing you could ask for when we make love would ever be less than all right,” he told her.  He set his presents aside to make room on his lap for a rabbit, and then paused to hold her upright again.  “Unless you were to ask for something along the lines of a... polyandrous relationship.”

“What?  No, never!”

“Because I have my limits, dear, and they end where either an audience or competition begin.”

“You’re the only man I could ever want,” she assured him.

He started again to position her.

“Well, you and Brad Pitt,” she said.

“Well, of course, Brad Pitt,” Steven agreed.  “One could hardly blame you for Brad Pitt.  Heavens, I wouldn’t turn away Brad Pitt!”

She giggled, kicking her legs nervously as she found a way for the sofa to accommodate him and her both.  Her bottom, full and white as the moon, bumped up high over his knee, shivered with anticipation.  Steven let his hand wander, stroking her smoothness, her perfect roundness.

He couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t seen this wonderful woman as his best friend, his partner, his wife, but he realized all at once that he’d somehow fallen out of the habit of seeing her as his lover, and the realization wasn’t a pleasant one.  He slept beside her every night, kissed her nearly every morning, made love to her a healthy twice a week, but the excitement had faded somewhere along the line, and he’d never noticed until now, until it sparked right back up again.  And with that spark came a rush of warmth, of tremendous love.  Twenty years.  It must have taken such courage for her to do this, today of all days.

“My wonderful wife,” he said, and began to spank her.

He had absolutely no experience with physical punishment.  His own parents had been fervent believers in the psychological approach to discipline, and he hadn’t been a difficult child in any case.  His own children had been, apart from a little teenaged turmoil, quite well-mannered and never needed more than the occasional ‘volunteer’ position in the hospital’s maintenance department when they acted out.  He had neither received nor delivered a spanking in his life, and perhaps that was for the best because without bias, he attuned himself solely to her responses. 

Every swat was for her; watching her rolling movements and hearing her unrestrained murmurs and moans, he quickly ascended to a rhythm of slow, flat-sounding smacks that left rosy handprints in the perfect paleness of her bottom.  He never second-guessed his speed or the strength of his swing.  He watched Penny, listened to Penny, and trusted her to guide him well through this unfamiliar territory.  What might have easily turned into awkward giggles and an embarrassed retreat became an open door on a very real new world.  His hand was steady; his concentration was fixed, and he applied himself with mastery and conviction to the task at hand.

Mesmerizing.  That was the only word for it.  It was an attraction that assailed every sense.  It was pink and red in blooms opening right before his eyes, of ripples of flesh reacting to every impact.  It was the sharp staccato sound of skin on skin, her breathy gasps and sighing groans.  It was the feel of her warming stroke by stroke, and the sting in his own palm, a sure echo of what she must be feeling.  It was in the subtle scent of her arousal, growing stronger in the close air.  And it was all so... mesmerizing.

“You should’ve told me,” he heard himself say through the spanks and the cries and the moans.  “You should’ve told me years ago.  In fact...”  He paused to rub at the vibrant spray of red he’d laid into her; he did it just to feel her heat, but he kept on caressing when he saw how it made her arch and roll her hips.  “In fact, I think you should tell me now.”

“Tell you?”  With a haltingness that suggested she might be a trifle disoriented still, Penny looked back at him over her shoulder. “Tell you what?”

He raised his hand to deliver one--just one--crisp swat right to the center of the brightest patch of scarlet.  “Tell me everything.  Tell me anything.”  Another spank, to even out the color on each of her nether cheeks.  “Just tell me.”

Penny’s face went an even darker shade than her upturned bottom.  “You want me to... talk dirty?”

He could tell by the subtle tightening of her stomach, the shifting of her hands, that this prospect didn’t entirely displease her.  He rubbed at her bottom some more.  “Is this dirty?” he asked mildly.  “I wouldn’t say this is dirty.  But I’m very new to it, and you know me.  I have an analytical mind.  I like to research the things I don’t fully understand.  So, tell me.  How do you feel?”

“I... don’t know.”

He gave her a swat, rather a hard one, and she jumped on his lap and bit her lip.

“It feels like lightning,” she blurted, and shivered.

What an intriguing answer.

“Lightning?”  He began to spank again, slowly, not too lightly, savoring each jump, each shudder and sigh.  “How so?”

“When the sky is gray...” Her words came haltingly at first, but with each new strike, a little more confidence shook itself free.  “When the clouds are close and... and it isn’t raining, but only heavy and hanging and... and pregnant with rain.  That heaviness, that expectation.”  She pressed her face into the sofa, shaking her head, now seeming to speak without conscious thought, letting words come from her with the same abandon as the spanks that rained down on her from behind.  “That’s what’s in me when I think about it, when I think about you spanking me, and now here you are, doing it, and it’s lightning. It’s when the lightning comes, and that’s what it feels like!  Something hot and bright and piercing, all the way from the sky down to the ground with a--“

CRACK!

“Yes!” Penny screamed, tossing her hair.  “Oh, I’ve wanted this!  I’ve dreamed of this!  It’s like...!  It’s like...!”

“Tell me,” Steven urged, spanking her even faster, a little harder.  He could not remember a time when Penelope had spoken with such unrestraint, such vivid expressiveness.  She was a poet, too, this brand-new woman in her bunny outfit.  He wanted to hear more.  He couldn’t wait to steal another tantalizing touch of her hidden self, the self he was spanking to the surface.  “Tell me, Penny.  Tell me more.”

“It feels like the ocean, like waves that crash and crash, and you can feel them on the rocks beneath your feet, you can feel--“

CRACK!

She keened, rocking forward on his lap before pushing her bottom back to receive the next blow of his open palm.

“It feels like... oh, don’t laugh, I can’t explain it any better than... it feels like giving my virginity over and over, that same hurt and heat and heaven all at once, and I loved you so much, I love you so much!”

She shook suddenly, and Steven stood witness to her raptures for the first time when he was completely separate of them.  He experienced a rush of triumphant pride and pleasure, knowing he had given her this, had built it for her and bestowed it so well and with absolute unselfishness.  And he wanted her, yes, the proof of that must be as evident to her in her position as her climax had been to him, but there was an excitement in the waiting, and it was as she’d said, like close gray skies before that first burst of lightning.

To Be Continued...