The Paddle Pact – Part 2: The Verdict

The pan was back in the sink by Thursday. Hattie found it there with a sigh and a dramatic hand to her forehead.

"Court is in session," she announced, from the doorway. "The defendant will stand."

Owen was on the sofa with the television muted. He didn't stand. He leaned back, folded his arms and pretended to be very interested in a documentary about lighthouses.

"I'm not guilty," he said. "The pan was soaking."

"You soaked it for two days. That's not soaking, that's abandonment."

"I'll need a lawyer."

"You have one," Hattie said, and held up the sheet of paper. "Me. I wrote the rules."

He stood at last, with the exaggerated sigh of a man who had been waiting all evening for this, and crossed the rug to the middle of the room. The paddle was already on the coffee table where she'd placed it an hour ago, next to a glass of wine she hadn't touched.

"Safe words?" she asked.

"Red, yellow, green. I know. You made me learn them."

"Good. Tell me where you are."

He looked at the paddle, then at her, and some of the joking left his face. "Nervous, a bit. Mostly up for it."

"Green or yellow?"

"Green," Owen said. "Go easy on the first one."

"I always go easy," Hattie said. "Bend over the arm of the sofa, please. Hands on the cushion."

He did it with a grin, cheeks pink, and she took a moment to just look at him: the broad back under his jumper, the way his trousers pulled slightly when he bent. She felt a rush of affection and a sudden, bright thrill underneath it.

"Count for me," she said, and lifted the paddle.

The first swat was light, a soft warm smack through the denim. Owen laughed out loud, startled, and then said, "One," in a slightly strangled voice.

"Still green?"

"Green. Very green."

She set a steady rhythm, pausing between each one. She talked as she went, teasing him about the pan, about the football, about the cutting board. By the fifth swat he had stopped laughing and was breathing slowly into the cushion. She could see the flush spreading across his skin and feel the heat through the paddle.

"Six," he said quietly.

"Yellow? Do you want to stop for a second?"

"No." His voice was rough. "Green. Keep going. I like it."

"Seven," Hattie said, and wrapped her other hand gently around his waist, feeling him relax into the touch.

They finished at ten. She put the paddle down, rubbed her palm once over the warm fabric and then sat beside him on the sofa so they could both breathe.

"Verdict?" Owen asked, into the cushion.

"Guilty," Hattie said. "And sentenced to a week of dishes, singing."

He groaned, then laughed, then rolled onto his back and pulled her down on top of him, both of them shaking with silly laughter.

"What song?" he demanded.

"Something awful from the nineties. I'll find it."

"You're a monster."

"You're a monster who leaves pans to soak," Hattie said, and kissed him, slow and warm, until the documentary about lighthouses had finished playing to an empty room.

Later, in bed, he traced a line across her shoulder and asked the question she had been waiting for.

"Same time next week?"

"Next week," she said. "And this time I'll be the one who forgets the dishes."

"You'd never."

"I'd absolutely never," Hattie said, and turned off the light, smiling in the dark.