Maureen and Cliff are an empty-nest couple that live next door. Well, almost empty nesters, as their youngest daughter, Samatha, who is in her late twenties, kind of lives with them as she is trying to figure her way as an adult. The couple is perhaps a decade or more older than me, with about the same age gap between me and Sam.

A few weeks ago, I was driving home from work and noted a small, silver SUV pulled over by a motorcycle cop. It was a section of boulevard notorious as a speed trap. On the back of the vehicle was a reflective, magnetic reindeer that gave away the otherwise nondescript car as belonging to Maureen, though as I passed the driver and my eyes met and I saw was Sam who was driving.

I got home, had changed into something cozy and comfortable, pouring myself a glass of wine when the door bell rang. I figured it was a holiday delivery and opened the door to find Sam standing there. “Are you gonna tell my parents I got stopped,” she asked without any prologue, stalking past me.

“Well, happy holidays to you,” I answered. “…but wasn’t going to tattle on you. Why are you so worked-up?”

“If they found out I got stopped for speeding, even though I got off with just a warning, it would be the last straw?” Sam replied.

“Last straw?” I asked.

“Yeah, it’s been not such a great semester for me and a traffic violation would likely lead to a literal trip to the woodshed,” she confided. I had been occasionally tutoring her with math as she attempted a second, or possibly third, chance at finishing her bachelor’s degree.

“Woodshed?” I asked, expecting this was a figurative reference.

“Yeah, when we really messed up, it’s where dad gave us kids our punishments,” Sam explained, then added, “…and those didn’t end just because we’re now grown-up.”

“Punishments?” I queried, seeming like all I could muster was one or two syllable questions.

“Yeah, getting my bare ass paddled,” she blurted. “Look, I will make it worth your while to keep our little secret to ourselves,” she continued, seemingly believing I was a threat to the condition of her most shapely bottom. She had no way of knowing that spanking was deeply interesting to me and would certainly have loved to witness a punishment event that apparently were relatively common just a few yards from my back door. The mere mention of paddling had caused me to grow stiff. Still, I was not going to inform her parents about the traffic stop.

Her next move was unexpected but so very welcome. She dropped to her knees and tugged down my running pants and boxers. It took very little effort on her part to bring me to fruition, showed me the bountiful contents in her mouth and then swallowed the evidence. She stood and gave me a salty kiss, “Our secret, right?” I nodded my agreement.

About an hour later I got a text from Sam, ‘You promised you wouldn’t tell!’

‘I didn’t! Promise!’ I replied.

“Somehow Dad knows and he’s really pissed,” Sam revealed. I wasn’t sure what to say in response so stayed quiet. I was in my kitchen, when I noted the light in their backyard come on, then Sam stalked from the house to their detached garage - the ‘woodshed’. I waited for a few moments, expected Cliff to follow. I slipped on a coat and slipped out my back door into the dark yard. Going around my own garage, I was mostly shielded from view and quietly snuck up against the near side of their garage. There were high windows that I could peer into Cliff’s brightly-lit workshop. Sam was draped over a sawhorse, facing away from me. Her jeans and panties were around her ankles, and my heartbeat quickened with the view of her bare and quite amazing bottom.

Perhaps Cliff was keeping her waiting on purpose, extending the anticipation as she lay exposed in readiness to receive her punishment. After several minutes, I heard their backdoor open and close, followed by the sound footsteps across the yard. Cliff entered the shop and retrieved a paddle that I had missed that was laying on his workbench, probably put there by Sam as part of the punishment ritual. He tapped it against his daughter’s proffered bottom and gave her bare cheeks a hard swat, then another and another. Sam wailed with each of the dozen strikes. When he was finished, Cliff hung the paddle on a hook near the door and returned to the house. Sam’s bottom was bruised and I watched in rapt interest as she stood and gingerly pulled up her panties and jeans. I stayed in the shadows as she returned to the house and then turned off the yard light.

I returned to my house and lay on my bed replaying the scene in my head and slowly stroking myself. My phone chimed with an incoming text. It was a photo from Sam, a view of her bruised bottom in the bathroom mirror. ‘Looks painful,’ I replied. ‘Come over and I will apply some soothing lotion.’

‘What sort of lotion do you have in mind?’ she asked with a wink emoji.

‘Natural secretions,’ I answered.

‘I’d love to. Rain check? I’m kinda grounded,’ she admitted.

‘Hold you to it,’ I agreed and quickly brought myself to a most copious release.

Then today, I was driving that same stretch of road and another car like Maureen’s was stopped by the cop. Half-expecting to see Sam at the wheel, the driver this time was Maureen. She half-waved as I passed and I wondered if a trip to the woodshed was in her future. I got home and hoped Cliff would respond in-kind and was looking forward to another surreptitious trip to watch a paddling. I was erect from the mental imagery of Maureen’s bare bottom being spanked when the door bell rang.

“Can I persuade you to keep what you saw a secret?” she asked.

“Hmm, in exchange for a sexual favor, or perhaps I should put you over my knee for a good spanking?” I suggested.

“How about both,” Maureen answered.