Are You Listening?

By Jonathan Quincy Graves

“Oh, John, I’m so glad you’re home.  Would you mind terribly giving me a hand?  I need to move a couch, and it is just too heavy for me.”

It’s Saturday morning, and I am lounging around the house in my pajama pants and a robe.  My wife, Margery, left early this morning, saying she wanted to get her shopping done before the crowds hit the stores.  Before I was interrupted, I was contemplating using her absence as an opportunity to check out my favorite soft porn sites on the web.  That was the plan before Gloria, who lives next door, appeared on our doorstep.

“Uhm, sure, Gloria, just let me get some clothes on, and I’ll be right over.”

I started to close the door, but she blocked it with a foot, took me by the arm, said, “Oh, don’t worry about that.  This will only take a minute,” and she pulled me out onto the front porch.

Our front door locks automatically when it closes, and I heard it shut behind me.  I did not have the key in the pocket of my robe.  Why would I?  How could I have known that my ditzy neighbor was going to drag me out of my own house?  Usually, we leave the back door unlocked during the day, even if we are not home—it’s a safe, quiet neighborhood and we’re at the end of a cul-de-sac—but I was pretty sure that Margery had not unlocked it this morning, and I knew I had not.

Describing Gloria as ditzy may not be fair, I don’t really know the lady.  She is about our age and reasonably good looking—not beautiful, more like handsome, as that applies to mature women.  Tall, about my height, I realized, and full figured.  I’m about average for a man, five foot nine inches, and Gloria must be at least that.  Funny, never noticed before.  At any rate, as I said, I don’t know the lady, but she and Margery are good friends.  I frequently see them with their heads together over a cup of coffee, hatching some sinister plot.  She lives alone in the house next to ours.  I think she was married at one point, but they split up.  I don’t know the details, and was never much interested in learning.

“Gloria, you just locked me out of my house, and I’m not even dressed.”

She looked me up and down as we continued off the porch, down the sidewalk and hung a left toward her front door.  “Oh, you’re fine.  No embarrassing bits poking out.”  (What?!  Damn, I had no idea this lady was this forward.)  “I’m sure Margery will be back from shopping before too long, and she’ll probably let you back in.”

I took that last comment as humorous, although there was no playfulness in the way Gloria said it.  I hope that Margery has not been sharing details of our private life with the neighbors.  She’s been after me lately to take more of an interest in helping her around the house, but what can I tell you?  I’m not uncomfortable living in a home that has a few dirty dishes in the sink or a stray dust-bunny in the corner.  The bathroom need not be sterilized before I use it, and I never need to eat off the kitchen floor.  You get the idea; I like to be comfortable in my own home, and for me, part of being comfortable is in not sweating the small stuff.  Anyway, we argued about it again last night, but I told her that I was not the housewife in our marriage, and if those things bothered her, then she should be the one to take care of them.

“Come on, John, stop dragging your feet,” Gloria said.  “I want to get this started.”

“What could be so urgent about moving a couch?” I asked.

“Did I say that?  Oh, I guess I did.  Never mind, you’ll see once we get inside.”

“What?”  I tried to stop forward progress, but she had the momentum, and I’m sure she would have dragged me out of my slippers if I had not resumed stepping along to keep up.  She seemed encouraged by my inability to stop this parade, and actually lengthened and quickened her step.  At that point, another realization struck me.  Gloria is not only as tall as I am—maybe half an inch taller—but she’s surprisingly strong, as well.  Funny, it just never registered before.  Of course, I would have never seen her in the local gym.  I’m not into all that extra effort to no purpose, myself.  I get my exercise walking from my car to my office five mornings a week.

I got no further information out of her.  She just continued pulling me along, up her stairs onto her porch, and in through her front door, which she had propped open with a book.  As we passed through the door, Gloria shoved the book to the side with her foot, so the door could close behind us, and proceeded to guide me into her living room.  She has a large, overstuffed chair sitting with its back to the doorway, and at the last minute… before we passed it by… keeping me moving at the same high rate of speed… Gloria slammed her hip into mine and I found my body folding over the back of that chair, trying to regain the breath the collision expelled.

While I was lying there, struggling to make sense of what just happened, and in some distress to resume breathing, Gloria pulled the sash off my robe—it wasn’t actually knotted—pulled the robe off my shoulders and yanked it—and consequently my arms—behind me.  She then used the sash to tie my wrists together behind my back.  I don’t wear the top to the pajamas, so my torso was now bare.

“Huh,” Gloria said, “that went just how I had it figured.  How often does that happen?  Don’t answer that, that’s not what I brought you here to talk about.”

Don’t answer? I’m still trying to breathe! I thought.  GASP!  “Whu… What the hell are you doing, woman?”

“Yes, that’s better, a short, direct question, wasting little effort on the irrelevant.  Although, it could have been more courteous.”

“Courteous? You brought me over here under false pretense, knocked me into this damned chair, practically killed me and tied my hands behind my back. What was courteous about any of that?”

“See now?  What is gained in a conversation that does nothing but list the obvious?  Very well, let’s get back to your original question. Now, how to start? At the beginning, they always say, but where is the beginning when describing years of gradual decline? We could be here the rest of the week trying to find that starting point and never even get started talking about what counts.”

“What the hell are you going on about? Untie me and maybe I won’t have you committed to the looney bin. Never guessed that Margery was consorting with an insane woman.”

“Now, now, if we are to make any progress in this discussion, you’ll need to focus on the probable rather than the unlikely. I just tied your hands behind your back.  Is it probable that I will turn right around and let you go without even getting what I want from you first? See, now, that would be unlikely. No, no, it is much more… probable… that I will take advantage of your helpless situation and get what I want before I let you go.  Yes, let’s start with that.”

Keeping her hand on the back of my neck to hold me bent over the chair, Gloria pulled a short length of rope from under the cushion, gazed at it for a moment, then threw it to the side muttering, “Don’t need that one.  Never thought he’d be in a robe with a sash.”  Then she reached further under the cushion and extracted a longer length of rope with clips on each end.  “Need this one, though,” she said, wound it around my wrists somehow, draped the two ends over my shoulders, then clipped each end to the feet at the front of the chair.

My wrists were now pulled almost painfully up to my shoulder blades, and my feet barely touched the floor.  I considered doing a somersault over the back of the chair to relieve the pressure.  While I struggled with this concept—I’m in no way a gymnast—Gloria reached under the chair and pulled out a pair of short ropes with padded cuffs, attached them to each of my ankles and clipped them to the back legs of the chair.

I struggled to free myself, even trying to lift and swing the chair as a weapon, but it was too heavy and I was still out of breath.  Perhaps I should spend some time at the local gym after all.

Seeing me twist and strain, Gloria slapped me hard on the seat of my pajamas and said, “We’ll have none of that, now.  You’re right where I want you and you can’t get loose.  And, before you ask, that’s no accident.  It’s just how I planned it.”

I might have guessed it was not an accident, given the ropes and ankle cuffs strategically placed.  I was going to have to speak clearly and calmly to diffuse this bizarre situation before it got out of hand.  I was obviously dealing with a woman a couple slices of bread short of a sandwich.

“This was a very good plan, Gloria.  I’ll bet it worked just the way you expected.  So, why don’t you untie me now.  We can have a nice cup of coffee and talk about whatever you want until Margery gets back from the store.”

“Who said anything about coffee?  I didn’t bring you over here to have coffee.  Why in the world would a person tie another person over a chair just to have coffee?  That doesn’t make any sense.  You’re not very smart, are you?  No, we’re not having coffee, we’re going to have a serious discussion.  Well, I’m going to discuss, you are going to listen… seriously.”

“Okay, Gloria, we don’t need to have coffee, but if you untie me, it will make it easier for me to listen to what you have to say.  What do you say, Gloria?  Why don’t you let me up so we can talk… or discuss… or whatever.”

“Oh, I think you’ll listen, just the way you are,” Gloria said as she tore my pajama bottoms off my body.  Literally ripped them off.  With one yank, the seams came apart and I was naked from the waist down.  Well, I was not wearing the pajama tops to begin with, so I was naked, period.

“Gloria, what are you doing?!” I exclaimed.

She stopped and looked at me like I was demented, then said, “You really don’t know?  I just ripped off your pants and bared this little, pink ass.”  She slapped the ass under discussion, hard!  “I thought even you could have figured that out.”

“Ow, Gloria, that hurt.  Don’t do that.”

“Ah, now you’re getting ready to listen,” she said as she felt around under the cushion once more, and withdrew a long, heavy, leather strap.  “Almost ready to listen.  Do you know what this is?”

“It’s a strap, Gloria, now untie me.  This has gone far enough.”  I jerked at my bonds, but they didn’t give.  No matter how I strained, that heavy chair and those stout ropes held me secure.

“No, it’s not a strap.  It’s a listening strap.  It’s the strap Momma used on my Da when he wouldn’t listen to her.  My Da was a good man.  If this strap was good enough for him, then it’s good enough for you too.  You’re not near as good a man as my Da was.  My Da helped my Momma, he didn’t tell her it was woman’s work.  He just got right to work when Momma told him.  He knew how to listen because of this strap, and you’re going to listen too once this strap is through talking to your little, pink bottom.”

“No, Gloria, you can’t do this to me,” I yelled as she took up position off to the side and concentrated on my proffered bottom.  She’d wrinkled her brow and the tip of her tongue was poking from the side of her mouth.  “Gloria, don’t!” I cried as she twisted back then uncoiled delivering a huge SMACK! to my defenseless backside.

“Aaugg!  Ow!  Damn, Gloria, that hurts!  Stop right now!”

SMACK!

“Of course it hurts,” Gloria said over the top of my cries of distress.  “That’s what straps do.”  WHACK!  “You really didn’t know that?”  SMACK!  “Boy, you really don’t know much about anything, do you.”  WHACK!  “I can’t understand why a woman as bright as Margery,”  SMACK!  “would stay married to a man as ignorant as you.”  THWACK!

I could hear Gloria talking, but I was beyond understanding what she was saying.  That heavy leather strap was laying white-hot stripes across my ass with every swipe.  Her form was perfect, her follow through, textbook.  None of which mattered.  What mattered was the steadily growing conflagration that was my ass.

If I were an external observer, it would have amazed me that Gloria could speak so clearly given the effort she put behind every swing of that strap.  Not being external, nor just an observer, there were much more pressing concerns on my mind at the time.  Like, how could I get this crazy lady to stop beating me with this flame-thrower of a strap.

The pain was intense, and it was steadily creeping down over the curve of my bottom towards the top of my thighs.  When it reached the crease where they meet, I screamed a scream that should have alerted the entire block to the agony that was my backside.  After three of those, I had to stop to inhale, and I thought I heard Gloria say, “I bet you’re listening now.  My Da always listened to Momma when she got to this point with her strap.  He was a better man than you.  He knew how to listen.”

Hoping I discovered the key that would unlock the agonizing trap I was in, I yelled, “I’m listening, Gloria.  I’m listening.”  My will was broken and I sobbed, “Oh please, I’m listening.”

I was too far gone to count, but I think Gloria delivered nine more hard smacks, working three inches down from the tops of my thighs before she stopped.  Those last dozen or so were by far the worst.  I lay there, over the back of that heavy chair, too destroyed to fight any further.

I kept babbling, “I’m listening.  I’m listening,” although I’d reached the point where nothing registered other than the pain.

“Yes,” Gloria said, gently assessing the heat of my ass with the palm of her hand, “you’ll listen now, won’t you, John.  You’ll listen when I tell you there’s no such thing as ‘women’s work’ and when Margery asks for your help around the house, you’ll say, ‘Yes, Ma’am’ and hop right to it.  Isn’t that right, John?”

“Yes, Gloria.  Yes, Ma’am, Gloria.”

“And if you see something that needs attention, something that should be cleaned, you’ll clean it even before your wife asks you, won’t you, John.”

“Oh, yes, Ma’am.  I will, honest.”

“You may not realize it, but you leave your windows open in the evening this time of year just like me, and our two houses are not that far apart.  I can hear the disrespectful way you talk to your wife, and it’s not right.  My Da never talked to Momma that way.  He listened, and did what Momma said.”

If what I just felt was the strap Gloria’s mother applied to her father, I damn well bet he did what the old lady told him to do—the first time she told him, and right quick, too.

“I’m sorry, Gloria, I’ll never talk to Margery like that again.”

“Promise?”

“Yes, I promise!”  I’d have sworn any oath she wanted as long as she did not return to swinging that strap.  And I’d mean those oaths, too.

“Because,” she continued, “I noticed something when I brought you over to my house.  For a man, you’re not very bright, and you’re sure not very strong.  I’ll bet I could get you over here, bent over this chair, your pants down and your bottom up to feel Momma’s strap, any time I wanted to.  Any time I thought you weren’t listening.  Do you want to bet?”

“No, Gloria, I’m sure your right, and I’ll listen real good from now on.”

“We’ll see, and if you’re lying to me, I’ll introduce you to Momma’s cane next time.  Da listened especially well when she used that on him.  So, you just rest where you are for now, and think on what I discussed.  I’ve gotta make a phone call, but I’ll be sure to hear you if you didn’t really listen and you try to leave before I let you.”

“I won’t, Ma’am.  I was really listening, honest,” I said to Gloria’s back as she left the room.  I meant it too.  There was no way I was going to let this crazy lady think I hadn’t listened to her.  And maybe she’s right, I thought.  Maybe I should help Margery around the house more than I do.  She’s always been a good wife to me; I should return the favor.  I may have been a little delirious; I know I was in a panic, but I thought I was making sense.

When Gloria got to the kitchen, she closed the door and made a phone call.

“Hello Margery.  You can come home from your shopping trip now.  I’ll see that John is all wrapped up in his robe and waiting for you on your front porch.  Just don’t expect him to be sitting.

…

“Yes.  It went pretty much as expected.  I gave him my best ‘Crazy Lady With Her Momma’s Strap’ routine.  I think he bought it, and he won’t sit comfortably for the next few days.  I’m damn sure of that.”

…

“My mother?  No way.  My father ran our household, not that either of them required much running.  My folks were the perfect, loving, married couple for that time and circumstance.  No, I bought the strap last week at that leather works on 2^nd Street.”

…

“Yeah, like I say, I laid it on pretty thick.  He shouldn’t cause you any trouble, at least for a while.  And if he starts acting up or slacking off again, just let me know.  After this morning, I’ve got his number.  He won’t give Crazy Lady Gloria any trouble.  And if he does, well, I already warned him about Momma’s cane.”

In the living room, John almost thought he heard laughter coming from the kitchen.

What’s that crazy lady up to now?  Damn I hope Margery gets home soon to free me from this insane asylum.  Who can tell what that nut case will do next?  First thing I’ll do when I get out of here is report this incident to the police.  That mad woman could do somebody some real damage with that strap.  Hell, she already has.  I’ll not sit easy for the rest of this month.

On second thought… No, maybe turning her in is not such a good idea.  Fred and the boys at the station would have a field day with this one.  It would be all over town within the hour, and I’d never live it down.

Damn, I can’t turn her in. I’d better take the threat seriously.  This woman is dangerous.  I’ll start in the garage just to show some good faith.  Margery’s been after me for months to pick up my tools and straighten the place out so she can actually park her car there and close the door. Plus, if I have the garage door open while I’m working, Gloria will see that I listened and took her advice seriously.  Yeah, that should do… for a start.

Well, hell, I’ll have to sound Margery out and determine her priorities to make sure she doesn’t tell Gloria that I’m not listening.

END

Copyright © 2020 by Jonathan Quincy Graves. All rights reserved.  Please do not repost or use for any commercial purpose without written approval from the author.