I didn’t see this spanking coming.

I’m hardly ever out of bed before Abel is. In fact, this morning when I woke up, he was already up and about, getting ready to take Martha to the train station after her overnight stay. I gave both of them a sleepy kiss, and headed for my desk and the Internet. I heard them go out, and then heard Abel come back, and assumed he was starting work, as he always does at this time of morning.

Half an hour later, Abel walks into my office. “What happens to girls who leave their phones on when their husband is sleeping?”

Sleeping? At 7am? Who’s ever heard of such a thing?

He was holding up my mobile phone by a pink deer charm I got in Nara. It was buzzing with a new text message, which it does over and over if it’s not stopped.

I grabbed for the phone, but he held it out of reach. “Come upstairs and earn your phone back,” he said in a ‘you’re doomed’ kind of voice.

I walked into the bedroom with him. He sat on the bed. “This is the phone,” he said, holding it up. “And this is a hairbrush,” he picked up the Mason-Pearson. “Over my knee.”

“But…”

“Bend over.”

There was no point making a drama about this. I sighed and went over, and received a dozen or so memorable cracks of the brush. I owwed dutifully, and possibly even apologised.

After I paid the ransom, my phone was released.

I stroked the deer charm. It didn’t look especially traumatised. It must be used to random spankings at all hours.

I’m not sure I am, though.