This short story is an entry in the 2002 Soc.Sexuality.Spanking Summer Short Story Contest and is copyright by the author and commercial use is prohibited without permission. Personal/private copies are permitted only if complete including the copyright notice. The author would appreciate your comments
Category: Spooky I've had the idea for this story for years, but I'd never written it down before.
The Shopping Trip
By
Melinda rounded the corner of the aisle, sure that Paul would be there. She 'd already checked every aisle of the grocery section, and he hadn't said anything about needing something on the other side of the store. She had been wandering the aisles, daydreaming about the wonderful hours-long spanking he'd given her the night before, and wondering about the spanking she'd be getting that night, so she hadn't actually noticed when he'd walked away. She was starting to get a bit worried. She hated when they got separated in this store, because for some reason it took forever to find him again.
She had been wandering the whole store for an hour, and still no Paul. Now she really was worried. Where was he? He wouldn't have gone out to the car without telling her, he wasn't like that. Finally she decided to have him paged.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
After half an hour, the clerk at the counter suggested that they not bother trying to page him again. She didn't know what to do, she was so confused and panicked that she couldn't think anymore. She started insisting on seeing the tapes of the store cameras, that maybe she'd be able to find him that way. The manager took her into the monitor room, and they checked every camera, still no Paul. When they asked what he looked like, she was so distraught that the description came out all garbled, which led the men to rewind the tape to see for themselves. They finally spotted Melinda on the tape, walking into the store, but she was alone. When she saw it for herself, she fainted.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
When she came to, her adult daughter was standing over her, looking worried.
"Mom, what happened?"
"I couldn't find your father, no matter where I looked. We came to the store together, but then he just vanished," she cried, "What am I going to do?"
"Mom, calm down. You're going off the deep end here. You couldn't have possibly come to the store with Daddy. He's been dead for six months now."
Blackness surrounded her, and she fainted again.
The End
© Copyright Summer, 2002
Reviews
John <johnb(at)ssec(dot)wisc(dot)edu>
Has reality bent its rules for her, or has her mind just lost its moorings? The story doesn't really let us know, but that's just fine.
Jodi <ladiejj(at)webtv(dot)net>
This story definitely fits the spooky category. It builds up and leaves us asking question. We can feel the tension and the womans anxiety. The ending sums it all up well. Nicely written..
Pablo Stubbs <Pablo.Stubbs(at)newsguy(dot)com>
I liked this a lot. For some reason it reminded me a little of the obsession created by loss and bordering on madness in Hitchcock's film Vertigo. It doesn't feel spooky, exactly, but the depiction of madness is very discomforting. I might have liked the explanation in the final paragraph to be a little less explicit. The last sentence of dialogue in particular feels like exposition directed at the reader, rather than something the daughter would actually say to the mother in that circumstance. But still, an unusual and nicely written story.
Owen Williamson <ashthorn(at)maildulf(dot)com>
I have to admit that I didn't really get the point of this story at all. There's only a passing reference to spanking, and it doesn't seem to hang together.