Title: Road Trip
Pairing: Val/Jon
Categories: Contemporary
Implements Used: None
Type: slash/discipline
Warnings: No spanking in this, I admit I couldn’t bring myself to make a character get a spanking during a vacation.

We should have taken a plane the little voice in my head kept telling me.

We were once again stuck in traffic, waiting to pay a toll to cross a bridge that redefined the meaning of highway robbery. But the toll wasn’t what had me so irritated, it was the traffic. I was tired of being stuck in it, because what was meant to be a 10 hour drive, was now turning into a 12 ½ hour drive, and we hadn’t even hit the halfway point of the trip, so II was pissed. A part of me wanted to scream and maybe kick something, but that would have been childish. So I opted for the next best childish thing, I tried to pick a fight. The problem is that you just can’t pick a fight with Val all that well.

“Would you tell me again why we didn’t fly? A ten hour trip has now been turned into 13 fucking hours, and I am sick of sitting in this fucking car!”

“Jon, watch the language, and don’t start getting mad at me. I can’t do anything about the traffic, and besides you know we both decided together, when we were planning the trip that we were going to drive it, because the plane and car rental would have cost more than the gas, and we also wanted to bring Barney along, something we couldn’t do, if we took a plane, after all, Barney wouldn’t exactly fit under a passenger seat.” At the mention of Barney, I glanced into the rearview mirror to see the very large, black and white dog curled up on the back seat. His ears had perked up a bit, and he seemed to be watching us. Barney was a sweetheart, a large one given that his mother was a pure bred Russian wolfhound and his dad a very large Heinz 57 mutt, so Val was right, a plane trip would have meant the kennel for Barney.

“Now calm down, we will pay the toll in a minute, and we will be on the other side of New York City before you know it, and well on our way to New Hampshire.” He continued in his typical calm voice. Val doesn’t really have buttons to push, and I at least end up in trouble long before I manage to push them to the point of making him lose it. Other people might manage the task, but he didn’t allow me that same opportunity. He can get mad, but he does body language mad, not voice mad. Right now he was doing not a care in the world calm, and it irritated me. Probably because I don’t do patience well at all. Also, probably because I was absolutely sick of the road trip already, and sick of seeing long lines of brake lights all but parked on the interstate. I started tapping my fingers impatiently on the steering wheel.

“Val are you sure you know where we are going?” I asked, still not sure if the back roads we took, when we hit a long stretch of road construction that left the highway the equivalent of a parking lot, would actually get us where we needed to go. I didn’t do off the beaten path well either, and admit that our little back road adventure gave me visions of Val and I starring in our very own New Jersey style version of Deliverance.

“Yeah, you are just going to go through the tunnel up here, and you will come out on the other side, and there will be a rotary, I will tell you where to get off. Piece of cake.” Yeah sure-nothing about this trip so far had been a “piece of cake.”

We had left the house that morning about an hour later than planned, because the three quick appointments I needed to do before we left ran a little over. Then we got stuck in traffic, due to a horrible wreck, then of course we hit the already mentioned road construction, and finally a good 6 hours into our trip, we hadn’t even hit the halfway point. I hated car trips, especially long car trips. But Val was right that we had decided together that we would drive this one instead of flying, because we wanted to bring Barney along. The money was a factor, but it wasn’t so big that we couldn’t have done it, we just knew that Barney loves swimming and couldn’t see leaving him behind for this trip, and it was the kind of trip made to take a dog along.

Traveling the weekend before the July 4^th probably wasn’t helping with the traffic, but Val’s family went to a lake house in New Hampshire every summer, and had done so since he was a little kid. Not everyone in the family made it every year, now that all the kids were grown, but this year, apparently all four of his siblings were going to be able to attend, and he was looking forward to the vacation. I admit I was looking forward to it as well, but I also admit I was a bit nervous. Val and I had only been officially together a little more than 18 months, and I still wasn’t used to being around his very large family. They were all very nice to me, well maybe with the exception of his older sister, and even she wasn’t really “mean” I just think she would rather I be Val’s “roommate” instead of his partner. She operated under the impression that Val would somehow stop being gay, if he just met the right girl, so being around her, usually resulted in a litany of girls she wanted to fix him up with. Thankfully Cindy and her family were renting their own house, and wouldn’t be around us as much.

We finally approached the Holland Bridge tunnel toll booth, and I couldn’t help muttering to Val “I can’t believe these tolls cost this much, how in the world can anyone afford to work in New York City, I would be broke just crossing the bridges.” But I didn’t have much choice but to haul my wallet out and give her a $20 to pay the toll with at this point, but I still thought it stank to high heaven. I handed over the money to the toll booth lady, got my change, and we inched our way towards the City.

As we entered the city I was overwhelmed by the sheer size of it, it was huge, there were cars and people everywhere and it felt like total chaos. I had never seen so much pandemonium all in one place.

“Uh, Val, exactly where am I supposed to go, there don’t seem to be any road signs or anything.”

“Just go forward and. . .wait . . . JON why did you just turn right?” Val practically shouted at me, when I looked over at him, he had a slight look of panic on his face that didn’t make me feel to comforted given the fact that Val doesn’t really do panic much at all, that is usually my department. At that point the little voice in my head that wished we had taken the plane was back, and it was also telling me that we had probably just stepped in a giant pile of doo.

So I tried to explain. “I didn’t do it on purpose, some guy just sort of filled in the gap before I knew where I was going, and I didn’t have any choice but to turn, it was that or wreck the car” the words just sort of came out in a big rush. At that point I started clenching my teeth, and gripping the steering wheel tightly, as I realized I was totally surrounded by cars, taxis and people-people who just walked out in front of me as if they were strolling in the park or something.

“Crap!” I shouted, as I slammed on the brakes for a group of people that stepped out onto the road right in front of. “Don’t they use crosswalks in New York, or are they just there for decoration or to give the guys who paint the road lines something to do?”

“Calm down Jon, I am trying to read the map, so we can figure out where we need to go to hit the I. Just move up a block or so, and take a left turn, that looks like it should get us on the right road.” He said so calmly, I was wondering if he even realized we were lost somewhere in New York City.

I wasn’t calm, I was sweating bullets, and all I wanted to do was get out of the City. The buildings towered over us, and you couldn’t see anything much beyond the next building, it made me feel uncomfortable, almost claustrophobic, but I went ahead and tried to move across several lanes of traffic in order to find a likely left turn he told me to make.

“Val should I take this one, does this one look right?” I asked, once I had gotten clear of the traffic and could make the turn.

“Yeah sure, go ahead and take that one” Val said, as if we were doing nothing more than taking a leisurely drive in the country. I made the turn, and the new street was a slightly less crowded street but it still felt overbearing, it almost felt like I was driving in a manmade cave the way the buildings loomed over each side of the road. Also, with the late afternoon sun, the City just seemed darker even though it was still mid afternoon. I slowly came to the end of the street, only to hit a one way road that required a right turn.

I heard Val mutter under his breath something about the map, and it looking like we could turn left. Not a good sign at ALL!

“Val I can’t turn left, what do I do?” I figured I would seek a little more direction, but at this point it wasn’t like I had any choice but to turn right, since left was out of the question, and there was a huge 12 foot fence straight ahead.

He didn’t really say anything, he just rolled his eyes, and kept studying the, so I made the right turn.

“Shit I hate this” I murmured a few moments later, while I was waiting for further instructions. Then a little more loudly for Val’s benefit “there is no way you could pay me enough money to live in this city, I would go insane if I had to drive in this traffic everyday.”

“Jon, people who live in the city don’t usually have cars or if they do, they don’t really drive them to get around the city, they walk or use public transportation or they take taxis. So if you lived here, you wouldn’t HAVE to drive in it” Val pointed out calmly, and then went back to the map. He indicated I should make another turn, so I turned and kept driving. I was definitely getting annoyed with the fact that he didn’t seem the least bit worried that we were lost somewhere in New York; he just kept handing out instructions for places I should turn.

“VALENTINE!” I said emphatically. “Can’t you at least be a little concerned that we are lost in New York City and we don’t have a clue where we are?” I think at this point the frustration had definitely gotten to me. My knuckles were white, I was gritting my teeth, and I felt like I was on the verge of losing it. “And you know, I could swear we have passed that building at least three times now-we are just going in circles, we aren’t getting anywhere at all” I said, as I gestured toward one of the buildings up ahead. I might have thrown in a comment about his abilities to read a map, but I figured he wouldn’t appreciate that much, and the last thing I wanted to do was get in trouble with him, somewhere in the middle of New York City, but only god knew exactly where.

“Jon we aren’t lost, we know where we are, we know where we need to go, we just need to figure out the route between those two places, and getting frustrated and taking it out on me isn’t going to help, at least one of us needs to stay calm, take another right turn up here at that street” Val said lowering the map, giving me an encouraging look. I wanted to be a good soldier, and follow his directions, but a right turn, when we needed to go the other way didn’t make sense, I felt like I was on the verge of rebellion.

“But Val, that is the wrong direction, we need to be going to other way, why are we going right?”

“Because we have to work our way back up to this point” he said slightly exasperated, pointing to a spot on the map that looked pretty much like any other spot on the map. Mostly the map he held just looked like somebody did a crappy job of making a tic tac toe board or maybe just a really ugly plaid.

“Well it was your map reading skills that got us in this mess in the first place,” I grumbled “we should have just stayed in the construction on the other road, at least then we wouldn’t be lost in NEW YORK CITY!”

Val gave me a pointed look, reached over and patted my shoulder gently almost like he was trying to pass on some of his calmness to me. “Jon we are fine, nothing is going to happen, we have a map, plenty of gas, and plenty of time, just relax. Oh, and turn right at this road coming up.”

“Okay” I answered as I followed his instruction. I tried taking a few deep breaths in the hopes that I could lower the stress level a few notches. I was hoping that this time, the road would get us where we need to be, but as we came to the end of the street, I once again saw that horrid fence and the sign that prompted us to turn right. “SHIT!” I yelled slamming my hands into the steering wheel once again “don’t they have any signs in this town? Ya know, “this way to I95” or “I95 2 miles” like every other fucking city in the world, do the people who run this city just assume you know where you are going? I just want to get out of this place.”

I could feel myself spinning out of control, the deep breaths didn’t help any, and the stress had hit the overflow point. At this point I knew I needed to stop driving, and I think Val knew it too, because he was watching the street for a place to pull over more than he was watching the map. The problem was that my map reading skills stunk. Navigation was not and had never been my forte. It was around this point, when I heard the unmistakable whining sound coming from Barney that indicated he needed a pit stop.

“Look Jon why don’t you turn down this street, it looks a little less busy than the others, just find a parking place then you can take Barney for a walk, while I take a good look at the map, and figure out what road we need to get on to get out of here” Val suggested as he started pulled out Barney’s leash for our stop.

I made the turn, and there were plenty of places to park, so I eased the car into one, and put it into park. Val handed me the leash and a dog doo baggie, just in case, then I hopped out of the car, and opened the door for Barney, hooking on the leash easily as he was climbing out of the car. We started walking down the street and I and glanced up at the buildings, the almost seemed to be closing in over me, and it wasn’t even 5 o’clock yet, but it seemed so dark. I found the city much more depressing than exciting, pretty much confirmed that big city living wasn’t for me. About 20 minutes later, Barney’s business was complete, and I was feeling a lot less stressed, the walk had been a good thing; I had also made an interesting discovery on our little walk that I wanted to tell Val about.

I few minutes later I approached the car, and saw Val leaning against the front fender, as I drew close to him I had a grin on my face “Hey Val, guess what I just realized?” He smiled as he opened the back door for Barney to climb in and asked “what?”

“I just realized that we are parked on Wall Street, for some reason I never really thought this is what it would look like, I think I expected something more glamorous or something, and at the very least I expected it to be busier.”

I saw Val smile, that sort of half smile that means he wants to laugh, but is holding it in “Jon, it’s Saturday, Wall Street isn’t open for business on Saturday. If it was Monday I suspect it would be a whole lot busier.” He paused for a moment then said “I have some good news for you; I think I have finally figured out the route out of here.” Then he quickly opened the passenger side door for me, I guess my navigation abilities weren’t going to be needed at this point, which was a good thing.

I didn’t climb into the car though, I needed him right now, so I leaned close in to him for a hug and I couldn’t help stealing a kiss-something we don’t often do in public. But then we were on Wall Street and Wall Street was pretty much deserted, there wasn’t much public to catch us, and at that moment in time, I didn’t really care if they did, I needed him.

The moment ended, and we both turned to get back into the car. “So Val, does this mean you are going to get to play the role of Kurt Russell in our own little Escape from New York story?” He couldn’t help but laugh at the admittedly corny joke, but at the moment I think we both needed a good laugh.

We climbed into the car, but before he started the car, he reached over and cupped my jaw, gently rubbing his thumb along the bone “Jon, look, I am sorry we ended up lost. This was all pretty much my fault, I was relying too much on my memory from when some friend and I came through here three years ago, and when I plotted our drive in today, I got the bridges mixed up, and had you drive in across the wrong bridge. I screwed that one up, and I am supposed to be the ‘map reader’ in this relationship.” He paused for just a moment, then “forgive me?”

What else could I say, “Hey, nobody’s perfect, besides when we are old and gray we can look back and laugh about the time we were lost in New York.” Then I leaned over for one more kiss, Val obliged me, and then started the car. He quickly pulled out of the parking space, made a few turns, and before I realized it, we saw a teeny, tiny, microscopic sign that said I95 on it.

“Did you see the size of that sign? How could anybody even read that sign? I think my shoe is bigger than that sign was.” We both laughed as we hit the interstate, and started to leave Manhattan and New York City behind. When I glanced at the clock I realized that it had been almost three hours from the time we hit the Holland Bridge until we drove out of New York. Looks like our 10 hour drive, then 12 ½ hour drive had just moved right on up to a 15 or so hour drive. That little voice in my head came back.

As we drove into Connecticut, I realized that I was starving. I think Val must have heard my stomach growling, because almost immediately he asked if I wanted to stop to eat. The plan had originally been to grab something quick and keep driving, but we were both so tired, physically and emotionally at this point, that we decided we wanted to take a little more time with our meal.

After the meal was over, I volunteered to drive again, because Val had driven the vast majority of the trip so far, my main contribution was only about 3 hours or so-and we didn’t really get far during that portion of the trip, and I could tell that Val was hitting his wall, and needed to sleep for a while. So we hit the road again, and continued North, while Val and Barney were sleeping soundly, I turned the radio up and sang along, not sure what anyone passing our car thought, when they saw me wailing away, but at that point I didn’t care, so long as it kept me entertained.

The traffic through Connecticut wasn’t that bad, and better yet there were no accidents or construction zones, and before I knew it, I saw a sign up ahead telling me that Interstate 95 and 91 were going to divide, and that is when I realized I couldn’t remember which one I was supposed to take. I took a quick glance at Val, sleeping better than he had all day, and I didn’t want to wake him up to ask, so I grabbed the map and turned on the overhead light to figure out what route to take. I noticed that I95 would eventually end up in Boston, and I knew that Boston was the last major City before we got to NH, so I decided to stay on I95-which was a big mistake, I just didn’t know it at the time.

Val kept sleeping, I kept driving, and before I knew it the signs indicated that Rhode Island wasn’t too far ahead. I was starting to see an end to our adventure, and a sort of second wind kicked in as I felt myself get excited that we were getting close.

“Jon, just how fast are you driving?” Val asked me as he peeked around the wheel to glimpse the speedometer. I didn’t notice that he has woken up, and even worse I also didn’t get my foot off the gas and onto the brake pedal fast enough. Val wasn’t too keen on speeding.

“Um . . . not too fast, I am just going along with the traffic.” I explained, but I pretty much knew he wasn’t going to buy that one, even before the words left my mouth.

“Jon there are exactly three cars within sight of ours, one well ahead, and the two you just passed, that isn’t going with the traffic.” I hate it when a good excuse goes up in flames.

“Okay, I was going 80, but I was just trying to make up some of that time we lost” I confessed, but I figured he wasn’t going to accept this excuse either.

“Jon there is no way in the world you can make up an almost 6 hour delay, and . . . Jon did I just see a ‘Welcome to Rhode Island’ sign? What are we doing in Rhode Island?” The question kind of threw me for a minute, because you couldn’t really get from Connecticut to Massachusetts without driving through Rhode Island first.

“Um, yeah, kinda hard to avoid it, since it is between Connecticut and Massachusetts” I answered.

“What do you mean hard to avoid it; didn’t you take I91 into Hartford like I told you when we left the restaurant?” He asked with that exasperated tone in his voice-the one that seemed to tell me I screwed up.

“Well, um . no, I sort of forgot, and you were sleeping so well, I didn’t want to wake you up to ask you, so I just looked at the map, and 95 looked like it would take us right where we needed to go.”

“Jon, 95 could get us where we needed to go, but almost an hour to an hour and a half slower than taking 91” and at that point, to my surprise, he started laughing. Good thing, because I think he totally forgot about the fact that I had been speeding not too long before.

“What’s so funny?”

And he laughed even harder saying “this” with a sweep of his hand around the inside of the car.

“What do you mean this?” I asked repeating his gesture.

“This whole situation, I don’t think I have ever been on a car trip, where so many things went wrong-makes me think we must have packed Mr. Murphy in a suitcase of something. At the rate we are going we will get to the lake house a good 7-8 hours later than we originally intended. Guess the good news is that it can’t get much worse than this.”

“Don’t say that, things can always get worse.”

It wasn’t much longer before I realized the car needed some gas, and I knew I was in desperate need of a coffee. It was also about that time, I noticed a Shell sign off an exit ramp, so I put my blinker on and took the exit, pulled into the station, and after we gassed up, and took pit stops, we got back in the car for the last leg of the journey-this time Val was back behind the wheel. He apparently hadn’t forgotten about the speeding, he just put the conversation off until later. Luckily for me, he restricted his displeasure to a lecture, and took the keys.

“Okay, Jon which way back to the I?” He asked pulling up to the gas station exit.

“Well I came in from that direction, maybe we should go back that way, to get on” I pointed, and he made the turn. Only, problem is that while we could see the exit ramp off the interstate that I took to get to the gas station, we couldn’t see a ramp to get back on the I.

“Okay, that’s weird, maybe it is back the other direction” he commented as he made a U-turn, and went back the other way, but once again no luck, we couldn’t find a ramp that would take us back to the I. There also weren’t any signs that indicated how to get to the I.

“I swear, I think the entire North East is messed up, they apparently don’t have enough money to pay for signs that indicate what road you are on, or what major roads are ahead, you would think they would at least have some signs like any other place, you know, the ones that have the I number with the little arrows indicating how to get there” I complained.

Val decided to turn back around, hoping he could get to the gas station and ask for directions from the attendant, but when he pulled into the lot, the gas station had apparently closed while we had been looking for the entrance ramp. We were somewhere in Providence, and didn’t have a clue where, or how to get back to the I-I didn’t even remember what exit number I had taken. Déjà vu all over again Oor maybe getting lost in an unfamiliar city take two.

“Well, I am thinking this must be one of those situations where the I has an exit only without a way to reenter the interstate, because we have driven all up and down this road multiple times, and there doesn’t appear to be a ramp, or any kind of sign indicating where it would be. Give me the map” he said as he pulled into the shell parking lot and parked the car. “Do you have any idea what road we are on? Did you notice any names?”

“No, sorry, I don’t even remember seeing a street sign, although I am pretty sure this was the exit I took” I said pointing to a place on the map. Val studied the map a few more minutes “Okay, I am pretty sure if we take this road, in this direction, it will eventually hook up to this road, which should take us back to the I.” He sounded much more confident than I felt. The only thing going through my head was the idea that the only thing worse than being lost in New York City in the afternoon is being lost in Providence, Rhode Island after midnight.

Thankfully, Val’s map reading abilities were better than mine, and his plan to get us out of the city worked like a charm, although what was supposed to be a 15 minute gas stop turned into a gas stop plus 45 minutes of driving around Providence. Chalk one more hour onto the how long does it take to drive from Virginia to New Hampshire road trip question of the week.

“Do you remember saying just a while back that this trip couldn’t get any worse? Well I think it just did.” I couldn’t help myself, given that our trip wasn’t getting any shorter. At this point there wasn’t much either of us could do other than laugh at the situation.

After, getting lost for the second time, I felt a little too hyped up to actually sleep, so Val and I mostly spent the next hour or so talking about various things-from the mundane to the philosophical. Soon we started the drive into Boston. The city skyline looked pretty at night, and the city lights and moon glimmered off the bay and river as we drove. The good news is that we somehow managed Boston without getting lost.

Traffic was totally dead at this point, and we were soon leaving the city behind us, and entering NH.

“How much longer before we get to the Lake?” I asked. I felt the adrenaline rise a bit because I knew we were getting closer to our destination, and considering it was well into the a.m. hours I didn’t want the trip to last much longer.

“Not much more than an hour, I don’t really remember the driving time from this side, we usually end up coming in on the toll roads.”

About an hour later we had arrived at the small lake side town where the lake house was located, although I didn’t realize that we had to drive down some dark and curvy road to get to the actual house. I also didn’t realize that Val wouldn’t be able to locate the turn. Guess it had been a while since he had been there, or maybe he was used to finding it, when the sun was up.

“Are we lost again?” I asked anxiously, three times in one trip would have done me in at that point.

“No, we aren’t lost, I know exactly where we are, it is just the lake house that is lost” he said as he turned around for the third pass of where the turn should be.

“Is there any kind of marking or anything to indicate the drive?” I asked.

“No, it’s just a dirt drive, there used to be a barn shaped mailbox, but it got knocked down about 8 years ago, and they just put up a regular old black one, and didn’t even bother to put the numbers on it” he said driving slowly down the road once again. This time he must have noticed the drive, because he muttered a “there it is” under his breath and started to make a turn.

The dirt drive was actually longer than I expected, and very dark, the kind of dark scary stories are made of-the kind of scary stories kids tell at camp outs and lock ins. Thankfully, our story didn’t end the way so many of those did, because there actually was a house at the end of the drive, and instead of an ax murderer or Hannibal Lecter, his parents and siblings were there to greet us.

Okay, his parents and siblings weren’t actually there to greet us, they were all in bed, but they had left a note for us, telling us which room would be ours, and that the bed was made up and ready for us. We opted to skip unloading the car, and went right to bed. I think both of us were soundly sleeping before our heads hit the pillows.

I woke up the next morning to the smell of coffee and the sound of bacon frying in a pan. The first thing I realized was that the bed was empty, the second thing was that I needed to go to the bathroom really bad, which led to the third, which was that I didn’t have a clue where the bathroom was.

I climbed out of bed, opened the door, and thankfully saw Val walking out of a door slightly down the hall from ours. I looked at him and urgently asked “would that be the bathroom by any chance?” He just smiled, opened the door and motioned me inside.

“Yes, I am going to head downstairs for a cup of coffee, you can join us down there after you get done in here.” I smiled and gave him a quick kiss before shutting the bathroom door-emphasis on the quick, my bladder wasn’t going to hold out much longer.

A few minutes later, I was in the kitchen making myself a cup of coffee.

“So what time did you guys get in last night?” Val’s youngest brother Rick asked, as I sat down with my coffee.

“Don’t know, think it was maybe around 3am or thereabout” I answered after taking a sip of coffee “it might have been sooner had we not gotten lost in New York and Providence.”

Rick’s eyebrows rose with a look of surprise “Providence? What were you guys doing in Providence?”

Val let out a laugh “let’s just say, if you are planning a road trip, it probably isn’t a good idea to have Jon map it out, if your goal is to get there in a reasonable amount of time” Then he gave a quick explanation of how we ended up in Providence as well as our adventures in New York City. And I think the story got repeated at least three more times as other family showed up, and asked the same questions. I figured I would never live this one down.

After breakfast, Val gave me a tour of the house, and the small private beach and boat dock. The lake itself was gorgeous, I don’t think I had ever seen a lake so clean looking, and the way the mountains seemed to circle the whole lake, just took my breath away. Going out on the Lake in the boat was exhilarating, and we spent some time that afternoon both skiing and tubing in the water. While the drive up was a nightmare, the vacation part had started off wonderfully.

Over the next few days, we spent a lot of time out on the water, visiting the various touristy places, biking, or hiking on the mountain trails. It was finally the day of the 4^th of July celebration. Apparently the city had a very exciting fireworks display at the public beach on the lake, and Val’s family always packed a picnic supper, and watched the fireworks from the beach. I was looking forward to the event, partly because I hadn’t been too a fireworks display over water before, and partly because there is a part of me that loves fireworks.

Val and I spent the morning riding bikes along the lakeside trail that served as a snowmobile trail during the winter months. Afterwards we cuddled in a hammock made for two out by the lake while the sun shone down on us, and a light breeze blew in off the lake. I was mostly resting, and just enjoying the sunshine. Val was working the various puzzles in a suduko book he had. I don’t do suduko, because it looks too much like math, no matter how much Val insists that suduko doesn’t involve any math. I didn’t care, it had numbers and that was close enough to math for me.

I am not sure how long we were out by the lake, whiling away the afternoon, but not long before lunch I noticed Rick coming down to the beach towards us. Rick was Val’s youngest brother, and we got to know each other quite well over the vacation. Rick was about three years younger than I was, and attended college at a university out of state. Because Rick was away most of the year, I hadn’t really gotten the chance to talk with him much outside of a few family functions until this vacation.

“Val, Jon mom said she had some lunch fixed and on the table, if you want to come in and have some” he called as he approached.

Jon stuck the pencil in his puzzle book, and shut it, and then he and I both began to shift our weight so we could get out of the hammock with as much grace as possible. “Sure Rick, we will be up in a minute.” Val said as he got onto his feet. Rick paused on the walkway, and waited for us so we could walk in together.

“Hey Val, I was thinking about taking the boat out after lunch, do you and Jon want to come along, or do you have other plans?” Rick asked us as we walked towards the house.

“Sorry, Rick, but I have a summer course starting almost as soon as we get back, and I was going to use this afternoon to make sure everything was ready to go.” Val was a math professor at a local college. Then he added “although Jon may want to go out with you, I doubt he wants to stay at the house while I do work stuff.”

I quickly told Rick I would love to go out on the boat, I loved everything about being out on the water-the speed, the wind, skiing and even the fishing, although fishing was best done in the morning, when it was quiet and there weren’t as many people out on the water.

After lunch Rick and I headed out on the boat. Val had told me before I left to be back by 3. I know why he wanted me back by three, mostly so I would have time to shower and rest before we headed out for the evening festivities, and while one part of me understood why, another part of me was a bit put out at being told when to be home. Not sure why it bothered me, because at home it wouldn’t have been so irritating. Maybe I just found it harder to accept Val’s authority when every other adult in the house, some younger than I was could come and go as they pleased.

Rick and I had a great time out on the water, it was a little more crowded that day than it had been any of the other days, so it made navigation a bit of a challenge. We both took turns at the helm, while the other went out on the skis, and it wasn’t long before were so caught up in the fun that we both sort of lost track of time.

We both wiped out a few times, and the overcrowded conditions made the pick ups a bit difficult. Sometime in mid afternoon, I had a pretty bad wipe out, and as I climbed in the boat and pulled the ski gear in behind me, I realized it seemed a little later than I had thought. “Hey, Rick, do you know what time it is?” I called up to him.

“Yeah, it’s 3:15, why?”

“Three fifteen?” my heart fell into my stomach “Look we need to get back to the house, Val was expecting us back at three.”

“I haven’t gotten my last turn at the skis, thirty more minutes or so won’t make a difference, and I want to go one more time before we put the boat up for the day. Don’t worry; Val isn’t going to be a problem.” That was easy for Rick to say, but I wasn’t going to volunteer just why Val might be a problem. The fact that his brother might spank me wasn’t exactly a topic of conversation I was going to open up with him.

“Look, I realize you want a last turn, but we really do need to get back, we have plans for tonight and besides it isn’t fair to Val to leave him to wonder where we are anyway” I tried one last time. Hopefully he would take my hint and we would start back ASAP.

“Hey, why don’t I get on the skis, and you can drive back to the house, while I ski.” I didn’t really want to take the extra minutes for him to get on the skis and out into the water, since I knew we were already late, but I agreed reluctantly, figuring it wouldn’t take him much longer to get suited up than it would take me to convince me to return to the house.

About 30 minutes later, we were within sight of the house, and I could see Val waiting on the dock. To any other observer he looked like he was simply relaxing in his lawn chair, but I could tell by his body language-the crossed arms, the slightly tapping foot, and the set of his mouth, that he was pissed, and I also knew why he was pissed.

He got up from the chair as I brought the boat in towards the dock, and caught the line Rick tossed to him “Hey bro, you missed a great time out on the lake, sorry you were stuck here doing paperwork” Rick said to him as Val tied the boat to the dock.

Val just nodded, not even much of a smile on his face. Rick tossed me a look that sort of said “I’m sorry” apparently Rick could read the body language too. For the next few minutes we got the boat tied up, and everything stowed for the night, then Val shot a look towards me, a look that made realize that I was definitely in trouble, the question at this point wasn’t “if?” but “how much?”

“Okay, Rick, looks like everything is stowed for the night, Jon and I are going to go in and shower and rest up a bit before we leave for the fireworks.” Val didn’t even wait for an answer, he just jerked his head towards the house, which was Val speak for “let’s go” and I was wise enough to follow. Rick just sort of nodded and stood on the dock in our wake as we passed him and headed towards the house.

All too soon, we were in the house and in our room, and he told me to go get in the shower. Once again I was wise enough to obey, not to mention that it put off the inevitable discussion to come, one I readily admit I wasn’t looking forward to. I took as long as I dared in the shower, got dressed, and walked back into the bedroom to find Val sitting on the bed. He gently patted the space next to him and invited me to have a seat.

“Okay, Jon, why didn’t you get back when you were told?” I knew that my excuse was pretty pitiful, but it was the only one I had.

“The time just got away from me, and I didn’t realize it had gotten as late as it had.”

“Did you forget your watch?” I shook my head. “Then why didn’t you use it?” I shrugged my shoulders, he kept looking at me, this time raising his eyebrow which meant in Val speak that he wanted more than a shoulder shrug for an answer.

“Because I took it off” I answered.

The eyebrow went up even more “Jon, your watch is a dive watch, the water wasn’t going to hurt it, they are meant to be used in water?”

“I know, but I didn’t want to lose it in the water while I was skiing, and once I took it off and put it away, keeping track of the time just sort of slipped my mind.” At this point I was sort of rambling, and I knew it, but then I couldn’t help myself and added one last excuse “Besides, it wasn’t like you didn’t know where we were, you knew we were on the lake in the boat.”

“That’s beside the point, Jon. Sure I knew where you were at, but the lake out there is huge, and you were in a boat, and you were skiing, people die in boat accidents every year. Just because I knew where you were, that doesn’t mean you were necessarily safe. You were almost 45 minutes late, I couldn’t help but be worried about you, and the thought that you could have been out there hurt wasn’t exactly comforting while I waited.”

“I’m sorry” I offered, and to be honest at this point I really was sorry. “I didn’t mean to worry you, I really didn’t. I wasn’t paying attention to the time, when I should have been.” At that point I looked at him, figuring it was time to get the real question I had out of the way “Are you going to spank me?” I was worried about the answer; for one thing I didn’t want to get spanked, for another I didn’t want to get spanked here, where somebody in his family might hear. But lateness was one issue we had early on in our relationship; it was probably one of those issues that prompted the discussions about discipline in the first place. It had actually been a while since I had been late, and I hoped that counted for something.

He paused for a moment, reached out his hand, and lifted my chin slightly-I hadn’t even realized I had been staring down at my knees. “I don’t think so, at least not this time. Although, you also aren’t going to get a pass either. Since, you were 45 minutes late, you can go stand in the corner for 45 minutes, and while you are there, think about why you were late this time, what you could have done to have avoided being late, and also how I felt waiting for you to come home.” As he said this, he stood up and gestured towards one of the corners in the room.

I sat on the bed in hesitation a bit too long, and before I knew it, he helped me along a bit by standing me up, and giving me a sharp, and not to gentle swat on the butt to spur me on. At that point I quickly moved to the corner he had indicated, the sting from the one swat a pretty good reminder that he could produce much worse, and while I didn’t relish standing in a corner for 45 minutes, it was much better than a spanking.

As I settled in, with my excellent view of the drywall work, Val came over to the corner, touched my back and softly said into my ear “I am going to take a shower, just stay here, I should be back long before your time is up.”

The corner is a boring place to be, not much to see, not much to do, and time seems to move tons slower, which is probably a good reason it is so effective for those times, when you are meant to think. After a few minutes it becomes very hard to keep from fidgeting.

It didn’t take long for Val to come back into the room. I heard him dressing quietly, drawers opening and closing, the soft sound of him brushing his hair, and then finally the sound of him settling down on the bed. He would occasionally tell me to stop fidgeting, but other than that he mostly left me to my thoughts. After what seemed like an eternity, he finally told me I could leave the corner. I turned around and he was sitting on the bed, doing another one of his blasted soduku puzzles, which he put down when he invited me to come over and sit beside him on the bed. I quickly ran over and climbed into the bed with him, needing to be close to him, and also needing to know things were okay between us and that all was truly forgiven. I melted into his arms, and he hugged me tightly. I lifted my face up to his, and he leaned down and gave me a very gentle kiss, and that kiss led to other things.

Later that night, we lay down on a blanket at the city beach and watched the fireworks. I cuddled closely in his arms and tried to use his warmth to ward off the slight chill in the night air. The fireworks over the lake were spectacular; you could see their reflections glimmer on the lake as they burst in the sky. Every now and then I would lift my head off my lover’s shoulder and peek into his face as he looked up into the sky, and I could see the fireworks reflected in his eyes. There was something special about that moment-something that just felt so right, being in his arms and cuddling closely. I knew deep down that he was perfect for me.

The End