LSF Publications: spanking fiction ebooks

A Christmas Carole
by Austin Carr
Carole was watching a saccharine Christmas movie on TV, but far from putting her in the spirit of the season, it was souring her even more on the holiday. As the family hugged happily at the credits, she disgustedly flipped to another channel. "Yeah, Merry damn Christmas to me," she muttered, flipping through the remote until she found something less annoying. It was a futile search. She'd have no doubt felt differently if her husband was with her on Christmas Eve, but he was working the swing shift now, which meant she rarely saw him outside of when they were sleeping. Truth be told, even when he was physically present he was largely absent in spirit. She doubted they'd be laughing and hugging their way through unwrapping Christmas presents like old times even if Gary were home.

Her marriage was just five years old, but Carole could sense it crumbling faster than their fifty-five year old starter home. At least with the house she could call in plumbers, painters, repairmen of all types, but she was at a loss as to who she could call for a marriage on the fritz. Her friends were of no earthly use, largely trying to entice her back into singledom so they wouldn't feel quite so left behind, or sniffing disdainfully that the young married woman with the good job and handsome, professional husband was concerned about a couple of niggling problems that wouldn't even register on their own relationship debit sheets.

She'd even sounded her mother out on the subject, but absent obvious adultery, physical abuse, or chronic alcoholism her mom was hard pressed to see a significant problem. Her husband was unfailingly kind, if increasingly distant, and never made her uneasy. While sex had tapered off in quantity and was quite a few degrees cooler in quality, Gary was a skilled and considerate lover and usually responded quickly to her advances. She was concerned that his own sexual advances, once an every morning and evening expectation, with ad hoc approaches thrown in whenever she bent over just so, had so quickly dissipated. It wasn't as if she'd gotten fat or let herself go. She still looked great in tight jeans, better in a tight skirt, and could glance over her shoulder in the mirror and look at her butt with approval.

And now his new work schedule was seemingly another nail in the marriage coffin. Gary was an operations manager for a large I.T. processing company and he'd recently moved to the swing shift - a 4PM to midnight grind that meant he left before she got home from work and didn't get home until she was asleep. The move was bad enough, but when she found out he'd actually put in for the position change, she was flummoxed. He told her that the twelve percent shift differential would make a huge impact on their finances and while that was true she didn't know if the extra money offset really only seeing her husband on the weekends.