By Conor Grayson

Norah was stacking: creamer, coffee grounds, small cardboard koozies still folded flat. She loved stacking, and organizing her shabby little counter, which was already neat and wiped clean, though no one was around to see it. A minor rumble gathered somewhere beneath her feet, as props stirred the ferry from the dock and into the channel. It was the weary downslope of an autumn day, and the great steel boat flashed in the afternoon sun and came gradually about. Norah, unencumbered by customers, settled into a chair and opened her books, content to pass the time burrowed in her thesis. Drew often remarked that Norah was happiest at times like this, being productive twice over, working while at work.

It was a lonely trip, the weekday route from Boston to Provincetown and back, especially after Labor Day. Norah had been working the coffee stand for a couple years now, taking rotating shifts on different boats, always out of and then back into the city. The hours could be weird, but mostly it was like study time she got paid for. Summers and weekends were crowded, and she did a brisk trade to harried parents draped in bags and children, or sleepy college kids in hoodies. She liked being busy. And then the morning rush would recede, and back she’d return to her books. But now, in October, even the weekends were quiet, so much so that sometimes she’d go up on deck and watch the water. There were a few regulars, who only emerged once the crowds had gone, and then disappeared again when the weather got warm. One was Thom, with an “h.” That’s how he’d introduced himself, “my name is Thom with an ‘H.’ I’m a poet.” And then he’d winked at her. Thom was maybe 70. He rode the ferry about four times a week, always buying coffee and chatting with her for a bit. Norah liked him. “What kind of poems do you write?” She’d asked once. “Sad ones,” he’d said, and shrugged.

“You don’t seem sad,” she’d replied.

“I know,” he’d said. Thom, her sad poet, a regular at the bar she tended on this lonely trip to land’s end.

Norah’s phone buzzed, and she glanced over and read the screen. It was Drew. Drew, her gal, her partner. A small avalanche of concern tumbled through her even before she saw the text. Normally hearing from Drew, even for something routine, was one of the great pleasures of her life. But she was remembering there was something she hadn’t done. Drew’s truck was out of gas, because Norah had been using it a lot, and Norah had assured her that she would fill it up yesterday. Which had not exactly happened. Norah forced herself to read the text.

“You didn’t fill up the truck.” The lack of greeting here was not a great sign. Still, Drew was direct, so much so that sometimes she was misconstrued. No need to panic yet. Norah grabbed the phone and texted back.

“Sorry baby! I’ll fill it up tonight when I get home.”

A beat, as the text was sent. The tiny check mark popped up immediately to show it had been read. Another little rock slide of worry went tumbling down from the mountain of order that had been her day up till now.

“Can you talk?”

Norah sighed. She thought about lying, just saying she was swamped. But it was a bad lie, and Norah couldn’t think of any better ones. It wasn’t her style, anyway. She’d always been pretty stubborn about the truth, even when it was explicitly to her detriment. The badger inside of her just dug in its claws and that was that. So Norah texted back that she could, pulled up Drew’s number and walked out on deck as the call went through.

It was bright outside, the sun glinting off the chilly blue water, and full with the smell of salt and open spaces. Norah rearranged her faded yellow scarf as she talked.

“Hey baby, I’m sorry, I just didn’t think it was a big deal. I’ll do it tonight…”

“Norah Dorothea. Listen to me, please.” Norah closed her mouth. She knew this tone. “I had to fill up the tank this morning, because it was so low I wouldn’t have made it to the pier. So I had to get off the highway and fill up, except so then I got stuck in the traffic at that intersection, and then there was a line at the gas station, and by the time I actually got to the pier most of the best stuff was sold. I’m lucky I could get anything from the boats at all.” Drew ran a seafood restaurant in the South End, a fancy one, and every morning at dawn she motored out to the pier to buy product. It was one of the restaurant’s selling points, this close relationship with the local fishing boats, and not having fresh fish would be a big deal for her business.

“Drew, I just didn’t think about that. I didn’t think it was a big deal. I just forgot…I mean, I didn’t forget, it was just raining yesterday, and I didn’t feel like going all that way. I’m really, really sorry.”

Over the phone, she heard Drew sigh. She was exasperated. “I know you didn’t forget. We’ve discussed this before. You don’t think these things are a big deal, because you don’t think through how they are actually going to affect me. But baby, this is a big deal. This is real life stuff. I need you to understand the, like, ecosystem we’re both in when it comes to decisions. And the decision you made,” another sigh, “the decision you made yesterday is totally unacceptable. What time do you get back?”

“We’re back in port around 6.”

“Okay, I love you. Please come right home when you’re done.” Norah knew what that meant. This was Drew’s line when she was going to be punished. “Please come right home when you’re done,” as if she was going to go clubbing or something. Well great. Norah turned back to her books, tried to study. But it would be hard to get much done the rest of the trip.

Her phone buzzed again, and she flinched. But it wasn’t Drew this time. It was Catherine, an old friend from Blackwood, her hometown, tucked away in the Berkshires. Catherine and Norah had been close growing up, but that friendship had drifted a bit when Norah moved to Boston.
“Hey, have you heard what’s happening?”

“What’s happening?? Don’t think so…”

“People are disappearing. Joe Crighton, Mike from the sub shop, others.”

“Disappearing?”

“Yeah, like actually missing. Five days for Joe, three for Mike. No one knows why!”

“That’s so weird!”

“Yeah!”

Norah wanted to text more, but she wasn’t sure what else to say. She didn’t really know those guys; after so many years in Boston, Norah barely had faces to attach to the names. It did occur to her that maybe it was time for a visit. She hadn’t been home in almost a year, and Drew had only seen her hometown briefly at Thanksgiving. Whatever was going on with the missing dudes, though, it did not seem quite as pressing to her as what she was facing that night. Soon she had forgotten about it entirely.

The ferry docked at 5:30, and 15 minutes later Norah was strolling up the pier. The seaport was rush-hour crowded, but soon she was in the warren of side streets in the North End, where she lived, and it was quieter there. The thin brick lanes were dimly purple in the setting dusk, and sugared with leaves the color of campfires. As she rounded a corner the street lamps came on suddenly, making her gasp, and then laugh, aloud and alone. She was two blocks from home. The neighborhood was absurdly romantic, especially now, but also a little melancholy; shadows from the kindled streetlights gathered in doorways and alleys, like mourners lining up to hail her. Okay, dramatic, she thought. You’ll almost certainly survive this. Then she was at her door. She paused, took two long breaths, and went in.

Up two flights of stairs and then inside, her footsteps loud on the wooden landing. The apartment she shared with Drew was small and full. Norah was a nester, and her instinct was to stuff a space with pillows and loveseats like she was stuffing a turkey. Drew was more angular in her tastes, but no less elaborate. And so the apartment was a riot of bumblebee-colored throw pillows and Gothic little statues, a Bockler painting abutting a bouquet of peacock feathers. It was extremely theirs, a spooky little salon that was close to all of their work obligations and somehow also affordable. Drew wasn’t back yet, so Norah set her bag down and took out her books. Might as well get some studying done in her last moments on earth, she thought. She flicked on a reading light and settled in, as out the window the sun continued to bleed its last woeful rays over the electric pulse of Back Bay.

It was well after dark when Drew got in. Norah’s stomach flopped as she heard her partner on the stairs, the obtrusive sound of boots on wood. As soon as the door opened, Drew went to her and kissed her. She smelled of salt and fish. Sometimes she would shower at the shop before coming home, but Drew liked to make sure Norah saw her like this on nights when she was going to punish her, the corded muscles and the bits of shaved ice still clinging to Drew’s tank top: the cold decisiveness of her work self. Drew’s eyes in the low light promised accountability, expectations, the brine of love and justice. Norah was scared out of her mind and wild with love. “Sweetheart, we need to talk about yesterday.” Drew was taking her hands, leading her to the couch. Sometimes she would be upended across Drew’s lap right away, but usually there was a discussion first. Tonight would be a discussion night. Norah wasn’t sure which was worse. So she let herself be led, sat down on the couch, and listened as Drew explained.

“So, like I said on the phone, I am concerned at your continued inability to think ahead to how your actions are affecting us. You didn’t fill up the gas tank, which meant I had to do it, so I was late getting to the boats. And that really, really fucking hurts my ability to run my business. I’m selling seafood in Boston, Nor. My product matters, and if the fish isn’t good, I either have to serve subpar food, which endangers the restaurant because god knows what critic or whoever could come in that day. Or, I have to use a lot of extra stuff making up for that lack of freshness, and that means spending way more on extra ingredients than I budgeted for or that makes sense for the business. And that hurts my ability to help us plan for our future. It’s all connected!”

Drew had both of Norah’s hands in her own, and was looking in her eyes. Norah’s vision was a bit blurred by tears, but she nodded, too ashamed to speak. Drew kissed her quickly and kept going.

“It also really bugged me what you said on the phone, that this isn’t a big deal. Honestly, that really pissed me off, baby. I’m not mad anymore, not like super wicked mad. But I’m, I guess, upset still. It’s a big deal! This is our lives! You’re so used to getting away with this sort of thing because people have been letting you off the hook. You’ve talked about having consequences growing up, but how once you were in college you kind of got away with things. But I know you, and I love you, and I know you can do better. You are not incapable of looking ahead, you wrote a damn book and now you’re writing a thesis. So going forward, we’re not making excuses for you anymore. We’re setting expectations and we’re assigning consequences. And I’m going to hammer whatever nails need hammering until this behavior starts to change. Do you understand?”

Norah nodded. I’m the nail here, got it. She decided not to say that out loud. In the immediate preamble of a punishment, Norah favored the quiet and contrite approach. Drew asked her to stand up, and she did. “I need to shower before I deal with you. I want you in that corner, and I want you thinking about what you did, why it matters, and what’s about to happen.” Norah nodded, she expected this, and she turned towards the corner, the only unfilled corner in the apartment. She took one step when Drew called her sharply back.

“Excuse me. How do we do corner time, young lady?”

Damn. Of course. Norah’s hands, shaking slightly, went to the drawstring of the harem pants she was wearing, umber and flowy, and Drew took two loud steps towards her and put her hands on Norah’s, stopping her. Again, Drew made eye contact and Norah quailed. “Norah Dorothea Munson. I asked you a question. There isn’t an easy way out of this. You’re trying to skip a step to go to the corner. When I call you on it, you try to just do it instead of answering my question. I am denying you this shortcut, and if I have to expend extra effort monitoring you again, tonight or any time you’re being punished, I’m going to be even more upset. This is exactly why you’re being punished. There are no shortcuts. So, please answer my question.”
Norah was a fountain of sad, but even now she wanted to be good, to show Drew she could do it. So she sighed, put her hands behind her back, and said “corner time is served with a bare bottom, ma’am.”

“Yes it is. Good girl. Now show me please.”

Norah turned, marched to the open corner, and undid her pants. She let them fall in a brief puff at her ankles, and then slid her panties down to join them. Then she folded her arms behind her back, lifting her shirt slightly up her back so that her bottom was entirely exposed, and let her head fall forward.

Behind her, Drew moved to the bedroom and then the bathroom. Norah heard the toilet flush, the shower flick on, the muted wonkings of a podcast coming through a closed door. The sounds of movement in another room only made her feel more conscious of her isolation. It was humiliating, standing in the corner like a beacon, her round pale elegant bottom so gratuitously on show. But more than this, she was furious at herself for endangering her partner’s work. It was a terrible thing to feel like a burden. Which she knew was emphatically not what Drew had said. But in her cornered state, the guilt, like little waves, splashed over her partner’s nuance and swamped her. Drew was most herself when she was accomplishing something. She was daring and had vision and was courageous, fought and improvised and waged little insurgencies against vendors or competitors: anything to carve a foothold in a tough business. And the thrills of Drew’s pursuits had become Norah’s own. So to think that it was her own carelessness that had undone these ambitions, even for a day, was a weight Norah found difficult to bear. The minutes stretched. Now the guilt was less like rippling waves and more like a million little crabs. Up they scurried from the marshlands of her conscience, nibbling at her guttered hopes of being good. Each pinch was a declaration of shame and regret. Click click click, their little claws went. Shame on you. Click click click.

The shower was off, the podcast paused. Drew was in the bedroom, taking her time. Norah shivered despite having ticked up the thermostat before Drew had come home, knowing that spankings always made her cold. Well, made most of her cold. “That’s because all of your warmth is in your naughty fanny, little girl,” Drew would coo to her when she complained, as they cuddled afterwards. “And who’s fault is that?” And Norah would stomp a little until Drew gave her a look, and then she would go back to cuddling. But that stage was a long way off, a summit she couldn’t yet see.

“Norah, face me please.” Norah did so, stepping out of the cloth tumbled at her feet as she turned. Her hands remained folded precisely behind her. One time she had forgotten to do so, had turned from the corner and just let her hands drop casually, her shirt fall down in back over her butt. Drew had grounded her from underwear for a whole long weekend, her dress pinned up in back, as a reminder. Memorial Day, last year: Norah remembered the fireworks. Now Drew was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. She was wearing green sweats and a tank top with an old broadsheet from the Salem witch trials silkscreened onto it. “Tryals of Witches at the Assizes” said her chest. It was maybe pushing it in terms of taste, Norah thought, but that was Drew for you. Drew held out her hand and said “come,” and Norah walked over and took it, and was pulled into the bedroom and over Drew’s lap.

She didn’t start spanking right away, instead placing one small, veined hand on Norah’s soft behind and pressing down. “What are you about to get, Norah Dorothea?”

“A spanking on my bottom.”

“Yes. Tell me why.”

“Because I didn’t fill up your truck, and because I need to take my role in our lives more seriously and be proactive in helping us both reach our goals.”

“That’s correct. I love you very much.”

“I love you, Drew.”

And so the spanking began. Drew started hard and fast, the way she always did during a punishment, spanking all over Norah’s bottom and down onto her thighs, which made the upended girl howl and panic and squirm and drew tears from her. Norah’s little sock feet kicked as she bucked over her girlfriend’s lap, but Drew easily held her down. Drew’s elbow tightened over Norah’s back like a winch, and so fastened the frantically swimming girl in place while she punished her. Her sit spots got the worst of it. Drew loved, even in this moment of discipline, the way Norah’s butt responded to a spanking, the tide of pink that spread across the lush white bay and then deepened into red. After a few minutes of steady attention, Norah’s fanny would positively shine. And they were reaching that point quicker than usual tonight, because this was so important, the shared obligations of their life together. Drew was dead serious about excising this tendency in her partner, which she suspected was really a belief of Norah’s that she wasn’t good enough, that she possessed some intrinsic deficiency that meant she didn’t deserve progress. Drew hated thinking about it, and if she couldn’t love the idea out of Norah, she would try to spank it out.

After maybe five minutes of Drew’s incendiary care, Norah was no longer fighting, just lying limply over her lap and softly bawling. Drew wanted to comfort her, but it wasn’t time yet. Instead, Drew paused the punishment, not saying anything, just rubbing her partner’s back. The still room was occupied only by Norah’s quiet sorrow. The overhead light in the bedroom was off, and the lamplight from the bedside table spotlighted the crying girl over Drew’s lap, like a ruined moll at the end of an old gangster film. Witness, imaginary audience, the wages of this woman’s crimes: the scumbled rose of her backside, her hot tears.

Drew wasn’t looking forward to the next part. Later, in some private remove, she would think back on the coming events and thrill to them, as would Norah. But in the moment, she hated having to plunge Norah deeper into this state. Nevertheless, she steeled herself and said sternly, “Norah, stand up.” Norah stumbled up off her lap, almost falling but for a strong hand on her shoulder. Her freckled face was a delta of tears. “What do you get when you’re extra naughty, young lady?”

Norah was silent. She knew, but that knowledge wasn’t ready to come out yet. A sharp slap to the side of her bare thigh made her change her mind. “Young lady, what do you get?”

“I get the belt.”

“Go get it, please.”

Norah did, on quaking legs and in a cloud of sorrow and fear. But also feeling, somewhere, a sense of relief, that she was cared for enough to be dealt with. That someone believed in her enough to have expectations. It was working, in other words, as the misery crabs that had pinched her in the corner began to disperse. It wasn’t that she was bad. It was that she was quite good, and quite underperforming. Back into the muck you go! she thought. But also, goddammit, why does this always work? And of course, she wasn’t done yet. The belt was in the closet next to the front door, intentionally far from the bedroom, where she usually got punished. Drew wanted it to be as long a walk as possible in their small apartment. The item itself was faded brown leather, heavy and smooth, with a thick iron buckle. Drew used to wear it when she worked on fishing boats in between college courses. It had salt in it, like in Drew’s clothes and under her nails. Drew had salt in her blood. Norah padded back through the dark hallway with the item clutched in both hands. This was the fate she had courted and conjured. But it seemed a terrible one, now that it loomed before her. Norah tried to focus on the cool of the wood beneath her feet, one of those banal details of their apartment she loved. It reminded her of better times, when she wasn’t carrying a belt to her lover to punish her with. But too soon she was in through the lit-up doorway and presenting that belt to Drew.

Without a word, Drew took Norah’s arm, firmly but not roughly, and guided her to a straight-backed chair that had been plopped down beside the bed. It was one of those old wooden pieces that are intrinsically part of public elementary schools, blocky and plain brown. Drew had picked it up at a yard sale last year, for this very purpose. Norah, being fairly short, hinged perfectly over the chair’s back, much to Drew’s delight. Immediately it had become the chair they used when Norah required the belt. And so the condemned girl took up the position, crossbeam pressed into her hip bones, hands on the polished seat, bottom presented for sentencing.

“Sweetheart, you made a very poor choice in not filling up the truck with gas. And you’ve just been spanked for that, haven’t you?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Yes, you have. And your bottom is very hot and sore, isn’t it, baby?” And Drew patted the target gently.

“Yes it is, ma’am.”

“Do you know why I’m about to use the belt on this punished bottom?”

“Um,” Norah hesitated. Her voice was faint, emerging from the nest of red-gold hair tumbled over her face. “I…I think so, ma’am.”

“Okay, try explaining it.”

Norah sighed. Here we go. “I am not, like, thinking ahead, and I’m not making good decisions. I mean…” Because this position and my aching butt are both going to increase my eloquence right now. “I mean, I’m not thinking ahead to what you’re trying to do with your business, but also what I’m trying to do with my stuff. You’re really ambitious, and I love that, really. But I think sometimes I’m ambitious too. But you’re putting in the effort and I’m just not, sometimes. And leaving your truck out of gas is maybe part of a pattern of ways I’m sabotaging both of us. I’m not bad, really…”

“You’re not bad, period.”

“Right, okay, but I can be better about helping to move our lives forward together. And that’s kind of abstract, but there are lots of concrete examples of my not doing it. Like the truck.”

“Like the truck. That’s exactly right, Norah. Thank you for owning all of that. And by the way, there are lots of things you do that do move us forward. Like what a rock star you are with your thesis. Like your job. Like lots of stuff. But all of the other stuff is real, too. So this is going to remind you of that.”

This really is a discussion night, she thought, just before the first strike landed. Then it did, and down she fell into a bright room of pain.

A garbage truck, somewhere below, banging unjustly: Norah stirred and stretched to close the window. It was just dawn, the bedroom seeped in smoky light. Drew’s bare body huddled possessively against her own; one hand slid down Norah’s arm to settle on her hip. Saturday, a rare day they both had off. Someone else would open the restaurant, another grad student would work the coffee stand. The tidal labor of the world would rip on without them. Norah kissed Drew’s forehead lightly and sank back into her pillow. She was sleepy, but that exchange with Catherine yesterday was bugging her. First of all, it was a little weird Catherine would reach out to her at all. They had been really close growing up, but like most childhood friendships, theirs had drifted. Aside from the occasional coffee date every other Christmas, they didn’t really talk. Not to mention, Norah was stubbornly not on Facebook, so even the evanescent happy birthday thing didn’t happen between them, or whatever people did on there. But whatever, maybe Catherine just didn’t know many people who would even remember the guys who disappeared. What bothered Norah more was the disappearances themselves. She just couldn’t pinpoint exactly why.

Again she thought of going home. Gosh, she hadn’t been home since Thanksgiving last year, and it was October. And when was the last time she had stayed for more than one night? Not since…well, not since the incident. The night her and Drew had decided not to talk about, the night they carried like a locked box between them. But that was three years ago. And now her old classmates were going missing? This is dumb, she told herself. This is a not good idea you are having. Her life with Drew in Boston was settling into place, why take a seismic risk? Could Drew take off work? Could she? Because you are supposed to go back. Because you’ve always known this. The voice in her head could be as demanding as Drew at times. This was one of those times. And honestly, she knew they both could take a week. Drew worked like a maniac but was also obsessive about redundancy; the restaurant would hum along without her for a short while. And there were always grad students to take her shifts on the ferry. No shortage of broke humanities majors! She thought. Once you got past the work stuff, it would be an easy sell for Drew, who got on great with her mom and loved the woods. They could stay through Halloween, their shared favorite holiday. Blackwood went big on Halloween, probably rooted in some old rebellion against the Puritan coast the first settlers had left behind. Rituals with perhaps not entirely unshadowed origins had, over the centuries, been rounded off into harmless pagan fun. Well, mostly harmless. Norah shivered slightly. But it would be fine. It would, in fact, be fun. And she missed her mom. The only one in my life who spanked me harder than Drew, she thought wryly. But surely that, at least, was in the past. When Drew woke up she would pitch the idea of driving west. Route 2 through old landscapes lambent with autumn’s bonfire, and then up into the darkened hills of whatever came next.