noelia and ramon

I heard everything.  Almost every word of Ramon’s scolding.  How he didn’t turn soft even though she was crying.  The chair scraping the floor.  The hard and fast handspanking mixed with Caro’s yelps.  Then every swat with the paddle.  By that time I was squirming in my own seat, hearing how bad it was for her, knowing it was about to be worse for me.  Because fucking Emilio had to leave me stranded and I couldn’t just come back home like expected.  I was going to spank him for that!  

When the paddling stopped, I began chewing on my fingernail, thumping my leg, because I knew I was next.  I suddenly was really interested in what the cop on duty was saying on his phone call.  There were soft mutterings in the punishment room, which I knew was Ramon giving her a final hug while she sobbed into his chest.  And then…

The doorknob clicked and the door squeaked open.  Caro emerged first, hands on her bottom, face stained with tears, hair matted to her forehead, eyes all red and puffy.  Yikes.

Ramon poked his head out.  “Noelia,” he bellowed in his best authoritative dad-cop voice. 

I jumped slightly in my chair as Caro sniffled, shuffling towards me, easing down on the bench.  

“Let’s go,” Ramon urged, standing to the side so I could go inside.

My tummy did flip flops as I shuffled past him, both knowing and not knowing what to expect.

The door eased shut behind me and he pointed to a chair.  “Sit.”  

I obeyed, though I didn’t have much of a choice.  Ramon came around and leaned back against the front of the desk, facing me as he folded his arms.  There was a tense silence while he stared, and I half maintained eye contact, half looked away because it was so uncomfortable.

“Do you even realize what you’ve done?”

I muttered an unconvincing, “Yeah.”

“Tell me.” 

“Ugh Ramon, can’t you just spank me and get it over with?”

“No.”

Now I folded my arms and looked up at him, and we had a staring contest that I was absolutely going to lose but… at least I tried.  “Fine.  I lied to you and Mateo about my weekend plans.  I’m sorry for lying.”

Surprisingly, he nodded.  “I believe you’re sorry for lying.  And that is only half of the problem.”  As soon as my eyes glanced up at the ceiling, Ramon barked, “Do not roll your eyes at me, Noelia.”  He paused and I just looked at the floor, too scared to look up and um, let another eyeroll escape.  “You went with a drug trafficker.”  I opened my mouth to argue, but he stopped me before I got a word out.  “You went across the border with him.  Did he have drugs in the car?”

“No!”

“Are you sure?”

I hesitated, remembering the ride back across the border, with Emilio’s friend.  

“Exactly.  Either you’re not sure or you’re lying to me again.  Which is it?”

My shoulders lifted in a shrug as I picked at a string on my shorts.  No way was I going to admit the whole truth… 

“Look at me!” he demanded, sharpening his voice so that I peeked up to see him still staring intensely at me.  “You were in the middle of nowhere, in another country, with a trafficker, and nobody had a clue how to find you if something happened.”

“Lexi and Caro knew where I was going.”

“That is not the point, Noelia!” he snapped, slamming his hand down on the desk.  “The road to Villamontes is 400 kilometers of wilderness.  Do you know what could have happened to you out there?  Best case scenario is an honest border guard who just arrests you both and all you get is jail time.  Worst case?  The guy he paid off turns a blind eye to you being trafficked and we never hear from you again.”

“Oh my God, Ramon, it’s not that serious!  Emilio is my friend, I trust him, nothing like that would ever happen!”

But my cousin didn’t stop, determined to get through to me.  “Do you have any idea what that would do to your family?  Imagine Mateo driving around looking for you, calling everyone he knows to find out where his little sister has disappeared to.” 

“There’s only one road…”

He cut me off before I had the chance to continue, clearly uninterested in my responses.  “Imagine us having to explain to Ceci why her sister didn’t come home.”

“I would come…”

“Mateo and Ceci have been through enough.  They don’t need to lose you, too, over a boy that you barely even know.”

I rolled my eyes again.  “You’re being so dramatic…”

He raised his eyebrows.  “Am I?”  

“Yes!”

“All right.”  He let out a slight sigh and stood up.  “Let’s go.”  He reached for my wrist, barely waiting for me to get out of the chair before dragging me over to the spanking bench.  

“Wait… Ramon…”  I dug in my heels but he overpowered me.  

Well… if he wanted me to know how serious he was, he succeeded, because now I was suddenly ready to hear his lecture.

“Wait… please… I’ll listen.”

He didn’t respond, just sat and gave me the command I had been dreading:  “Shorts and panties down.”

I put my hands on the button but gave enough of a whine and hesitation, that Ramon popped me a couple of times on the backs of my legs, hard enough to make me squeal and bounce from one foot to the other, then obey his instruction.  

He didn’t make me wait… as soon as my clothes reached my knees, he was pulling me over his lap.  His arm circled my waist to get me in the proper position, then he immediately started spanking.  

It was so much harder than I remembered… so much harder than Mateo!  Well, also, I hadn’t been in this much trouble in a long time.  But omg… he just started spanking, covering my entire bottom, getting into a steady rhythm, while I kicked and squirmed and cried out.  When I tried to reach back, he quickly caught my wrist, didn’t even say anything.  

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”

He paused long enough to ask (in the form of a sentence), “For what.”

“For calling you dramatic!  And for going to another country with Emilio and not telling Mateo where I was!”

Instead of determining that my sorry-ness was enough to stop the spanking, he started it up again, this time harder, if even possible.  “You know this guy is bad news, so I’m warning you right now, leave him alone.”

“But I like himmmmmm!”

The spanking paused again.  “I don’t care if you like him.  Liking him does not justify the risk of going to prison or putting your life in danger.”  He landed a flurry of swats, not stopping as the lecture continued.  “Mateo will not directly forbid you from seeing this guy, but I will and I am.  You will not be anywhere near him, do you understand?” 

“Yessssss!”

“You will not get in his car.  You will not go to another city or country with him.  You will not have secret meetings at the lake when you think nobody is watching.  The relationship is over, period.”

I think that made me cry harder than the spanking itself.  Because even though it felt like I was in love with Emilio, my hopeless romantic side was slowly fading into the darkness and my logic started to take over.  I didn’t want to accept my cousin’s words… but I knew they were true.  And I wasn’t sure if I was going to follow his instructions or… just hide it better.

“You have a family.  People who will be torn apart if you disappear.”  

“Owww, Ramon, I knowww!  I get it!!”  My bottom felt like it was on fire… getting redder and redder by the second.  He still had a tight grip on my wrist, a tight grip on me, making sure I wasn’t going anywhere until his lesson sunk in.  

When he finally stopped, I let out a huge sigh of relief and tears of joy (okay and pain).  I was about to push myself up when he nudged me back down.  “Be still.  We are not finished.”

“Waittttt nooooo,” I whined, looking back just as he picked up the wooden paddle I’d heard him use a few hours (okay, minutes) ago.  It was small but thick, not the worst implement at the comisaria, but worse than I’d ever gotten from him or anyone else.  “I’m sorry,” I sniffled, giving him puppy eyes that wouldn’t work but were worth a try.

“You and Caro are my baby cousins, and I’ve always gone easier on you both because of it.  But you’re older now.  And…” he said, landing the paddle down with the loudest POP! followed by the sound of me yelping.  “You know better.”  He started getting a rhythm with the paddle now, and I shrieked while intensifying my kicking.  “Mateo warned you about Emilio.  Caro warned you about Emilio.  You didn’t listen to them, but…”  He paused the paddling for a moment.  “Look at me.”

I wiped some of the tears away and turned to glance up at him.  His mouth was in a thin line of seriousness, eyes carrying a hint of fear mixed with… sternness.  Not anger exactly.  He was just definitely not playing.

“You will listen to me.  Emilio is no longer someone you associate with.  Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir!”

I saw as he lifted the paddle again, giving me another flurry that completely broke me.  It’s not like I had any thoughts anymore… it was just feelings.  Finally crying everything out.  The disappointment that Emilio had practically pawned me off on some random dude I didn’t know; that our relationship would never actually work out because of who he was; that I fucked up for lying to my family; that I wasn’t even sure if I could follow Ramon’s orders because I loved Emilio too much…

Sobs racked my body when the spanking finally ended.  My bottom and sit spots were throbbing, the pain deep.  Ramon let go of my wrist and helped me up on my feet.  I immediately went to cover my face, but he caught my arms so that I would first have to look into his still-serious-but-kinder eyes.  

“Noelia, I’m serious about this.”

Squirming, I whined, “I knowwww, you just showed me how serious you are!”

He pulled my focus back to him.  “Don't make Mateo have to worry about you like this ever again, or you will be dealing with me.  Got it?”

“Yes, Sir.”