Margaret put down her book suddenly, “Rob! Turn that TV down a sec.”
“Why?”
“Quick, I think I heard something. Shush!”
Rob pressed the mute button and they both sat silently in bed, listening.
“Hear it?” asked Margaret in an anxious whisper. Rob nodded gravely; it was the unmistakeable slap of flesh hitting flesh; and with considerable force by the sound of it.
“Do you think it’s - “
Rob put a finger to his lips and nodded.
They stayed tense, listening. In front of them, a soap couple had a screaming row in total silence.
After several minutes, Margaret said, “I don’t know, Rob. It’s been going on for a while now – maybe it’s something else?”
But then they heard it: low moaning. Soft, barely perceptible but there. The moans turned to gasps and then someone cried out.
Rob clambered out from the lukewarm bed and pulled on a navy blue dressing gown. “Right, I’m going round there.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Rob… maybe we should call the police instead?” Margaret’s eyes were wide with shock as the cries from next-door came louder and louder.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll go and knock on the door.”
“Rob, I really don’t think - “ but he had already left.
Margaret pulled her knees up to her chin and listened. She heard Rob’s heavy step on the stairs and then the creak and scrape of the front door opening.
Next door, the cries suddenly stopped. All she could hear now were the soft muffled rumblings of a man’s voice.
Margaret hugged her knees. It was frightening: he seemed like such a nice, polite man. Then again, Sally and Peter Bryant had only moved in a few weeks ago; really, she barely knew them at all.
Just goes to show, she thought. You can’t trust anyone these days.
A few minutes later, she once again heard Rob’s familiar tread on the narrow wooden staircase.
She hurried over to the doorway. “Well?”
“No one answered.” He replied.
“Oh dear,” Margaret dithered on the spot, her sensible nightdress swishing slightly. “Umm… ohh…”
“Well,” Rob heaved a big sigh. “It’s all gone quiet now. Probably gave him a fright.” He pulled off his dressing gown, hung it on the hook on the back of the door and stepped around his wife to get back into bed.
Margaret stayed by the door, biting her lip.
“There’s nothing you can do right now, Margaret. Maybe you could have a bit of a chat with Sally tomorrow or something? Ask her if she wants our help, perhaps?”
“Yes, I suppose…I suppose I could do that.” She walked around to her side of the bed and got in just as Rob put the sound back on the TV.
Business as usual, thought Margaret, as she adjusted her pillows. Although she picked up her book again, she found her attention wandering and she kept on re-reading the same sentence. In the end she gave up and tried to sleep.

The next day, there was Sally Bryant, bikini-clad and bold as brass, lounging in her garden with a small, contented smile on her face. Margaret wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting – a few bruises and a hunted expression, perhaps? – but it certainly hadn’t been this. Although, she was wearing sunglasses – maybe to hide a black eye?
“Umm…hello?” called Margaret with a nervous little wave over the low hedge, bouncing on her heels slightly and gripping the insides of the sleeves of her bobbled beige cardigan.
“Oh, hi Margaret!” said Sally, beaming and taking off her sunglasses (Nope, no black eyes there). “I was hoping to catch you actually. I wanted to apologize.”
“Apologize?” Margaret stared at her in bewilderment. What was this? Misplaced guilt?
“Yes, for last night. If we were, if we disturbed you, that is.”
“But – “
“Actually, why don’t you come round mine for a cup of tea?” Sally stood up and draped a violet kaftan over her brown shoulders.
Margaret just nodded in confusion.
In the kitchen, Sally placed a large bowl-shaped yellow mug full of steaming hot tea in front of Margaret, who was perched, straight and tense, on a high kitchen stool.
She took a deep breath. “Sally, I want you to know that Rob and I are here if you ever need... umm, well what I mean to say is, if… if you’re ever in trouble, or – “
“Trouble? What sort of trouble?” Sally sounded genuinely curious. Then again, Margaret had read enough chick-lit to have grasped the concept of denial.
“I’m talking about your husband,” Margaret lowered her voice to the tiniest of whispers, “abusing you, Sally.”
“Abusing me?” The confusion on Sally’s face disappeared and – to Margaret’s intense surprise – the younger woman burst out laughing. Was this some kind of extreme emotional response?
“Last night,“ Margaret began.
“No, no, no. You don’t understand. “ Said Sally, still giggling. “He wasn’t beating me up.”
“But Sally we heard – “
“He was spanking me.”
Margaret’s mouth fell open. The kitchen suddenly felt very hot.
Sally took a leisurely sip of tea as though she hadn’t said anything even remotely unusual and then smiled at the view of her garden through the French windows. “It’s such a beautiful day, isn’t it?”
Margaret closed her mouth and nodded, staring down hard into her cup of tea.
She didn’t know what to say. She knew that that sort of thing went on, of course.
But not in quiet little country villages like this.
Not with normal people.
Taking a huge gulp of her tea – she wouldn’t want to be impolite after all – Margaret half-fell off her stool and said, “Well, I’d best be off, things to do, you know.”
“Ok Margaret.” Smiled Sally. “And thanks – I really do appreciate you checking that I’m ok.” She grinned, leaned forward slightly and whispered, “We’ll try to be a bit quieter in future!”
Margaret fumbled with the handle on the French windows. “Yes. Right. No, of course. Well, thanks Sally, for the, umm, tea. Cheerio.” And she scurried out into the sunshine.

Nights passed without the flicker of an incident; all Margaret’s straining ears could pick up was occasional low murmurings and the creak of bedsprings. She told herself that this was ridiculous, that she didn’t want to hear that. But the truth remained that she felt strangely frustrated and was making absolutely no headway with her book. She felt as though some long-slumbering part of her was starting to stir.
So when, on Saturday night, she once again heard that soft muffled moaning coming from next-door, she found – to her dismay – that her pulse was hammering in her throat.
“Not again!” Rob slammed a half-finished crossword down onto his bedside table and made to get out of bed.
Margaret grabbed hold of his bare arm. “Wait, Rob! It’s not what you think.”
Rob looked down at her hand, momentarily shocked. She hardly ever touched him these days, especially not when they were in bed. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I talked to her about it a couple of days ago and – “
“You never told me that.”
“Well, you never asked!” she hissed and let go of his arm. “Anyway, she explained to me that what we heard wasn’t her husband abusing her.”
Rob looked at his wife but she was studiously avoiding eye contact. “What was it then?”
Margaret felt herself blush again; she hated that she blushed so easily. “Well, he was, umm…oh, Rob, can’t you just use your imagination for once?”
The noises from next door were getting gradually louder and harder to ignore. Margaret made a show of picking up her book.
“Is it some kind of sexual thing, then?” Rob noticed that Margaret flinched slightly at the mention of the ‘s’ word.
“I’m not exactly sure if it’s like, umm, that,” she mumbled, staring at the page in front of her as though it were taking up every ounce of her concentration.
“Well, what then? What is it like?” He had turned around in bed to face her but Margaret still found it impossible to look away from her book. She realised that she was shaking slightly.
“Sally told me that, that what we heard was… was her husband, umm…” Here was another ‘s’ word that Margaret didn’t think she could bring herself to utter.
Rob studied his wife. She seemed upset and yet… her eyes seemed brighter somehow. Her lips, too often pinched or pressed together, were slightly parted and he caught fleeting glimpses of her tongue.
“Well?” He asked, his voice low and soft.
Margaret’s eyes, seemingly against her will, stole away from her book and looked straight into her husband’s. She took a tiny breath and whispered, “He’s spanking her.”
They stared at each other, spellbound, listening to the sounds through the walls coming in ever-increasing intensity. Rob was more shocked by his wife’s sudden attention than by their neighbour’s antics. She had that look on her face – a look she’d worn very often back when they were busy making babies, but had begun to lose in the process and raising them and then losing them to adulthood. That look resurrected a long-dead hope.
“Margaret,” he murmured, moving his right hand closer to her, slowly.
Margaret’s breathing was shallow. She could barely comprehend what was going on with her body. It was as if her mind had relinquished control. She was aware of her own hand moving towards Rob’s but was powerless to stop it.
Next door, Sally Bryant cried out.
Then silence.
Total, crashing silence.
Margaret blinked as if waking from a dream and the spell shattered into a million pieces. She looked down to see Rob’s hand inches from hers. She snatched her hand away and turned to fuss with her pillows, wondering if it was possible for her to get any redder.
“Margaret,” said Rob again. She could hear pain in his voice but couldn’t bear to look around. Instead she placed her book by the lilac bedside lamp and lay down with her back to him.
“I’m awfully tired, Rob.” Said Margaret, in a voice that sounded high and strange. “I’m going to sleep now.”
She turned off her lamp and lay completely still. Minutes later, she heard the bed creak as Rob got up and left the room. Eventually, Margaret managed to force herself into an uneasy sleep.

The next morning - Sunday morning – Margaret awoke to brilliant sunshine streaming in through a gap between her lavender curtains and a husbandless bed. She raised herself up on her elbows and frowned. She always woke up first.
Suddenly, the events of last night came crashing into her brain. She clamped her hands over her eyes in horror and embarrassment.
And then came the guilt. Rob had reached out to her and she’d rejected him. Again. She sat up with her knees pressed up against her chest and wondered where he was.
As if on cue, she heard his heavy tread on the stairs and then there he was in the doorway holding a mug of tea. He walked silently around to her side of the bed and held the mug out to her, handle first.
She took it wordlessly and wrapped both of her hands around it, like a child with a mug of hot chocolate. She noticed, absently, that it wasn’t her usual mug.
Rob was still stood there, looking down at her. “I’ve got some breakfast for us downstairs. Come down when you’re ready and maybe we could have a chat.”
Now she really was surprised: Rob? Make breakfast? “Fine” she mumbled and Rob left the room.
Half an hour later, they were sat together at the kitchen table, with fresh air and birdsong streaming in through the open windows, eating the most deliciously fluffy blueberry muffins and sharing a generous punnet of fresh strawberries.
Although Margaret usually would have complained about the effect of a muffin on her middle age spread, she found herself savouring every mouthful of the naughty muffin and gently sucking on the plump strawberries before sinking her teeth into their ripe, juicy flesh.
Throughout the meal, Margaret would occasionally look up to see Rob watching her but she always looked away again immediately. What’s the matter with you? She asked herself. Why are you shy of your own husband?
The answer was simple: because they didn’t know each other anymore. They had become strangers.
“Shall we go into the lounge to have that chat?” Rob stood up and pushed his chair back under the sturdy wooden table. He looked down at Margaret.
She nodded and pushed back from the table, her chair legs squeaking against the tiled floor.
They walked into the lounge in silence. However, when Margaret went to take her habitual seat in the faded burgundy armchair, Rob said, “No. Sit here on the sofa with me.”
Although she was sure that she should feel outraged at him ordering her around like this, all she felt was a mild sensation of butterflies. She perched on the sofa’s edge and gazed down at her slippers.
“Margaret, would you like me to spank you?”
She nearly fell off the sofa. “What?!”
“I asked you if you’d like me to spank you.” He repeated calmly.
Say no! Hissed a sharp voice in her head – the voice that held sway these days – a sermonising, bitter old bat of a voice that reminded her, sometimes, of her mother. What does he think you are, some kind of pervert?
But she wasn’t saying no. She was just staring at a small patch of carpet, feeling hotter and redder than she ever had before, whilst inside her a battle raged.
It was a battle between two opposing urges: the urge to be good, to be normal, to sacrifice her own happiness in order to appear good and normal to others - the urge to stay exactly as she was. But then there was the other urge.
Margaret shivered.
Rob patiently watched his wife as she struggled with herself. A flood of emotions crossed her face and he noticed a fine trembling around her lips.
He waited.
Eventually, she looked up. “Yes, I would like you to spank me, please.”
He sat back more comfortably on the sofa and held his hand out to her. She went to take it but then her face crumpled and she turned away.
“What’s wrong, sweetheart?” It had been so long since he’d called her that.
“It’s just, aren’t we too old for this kind of thing?” She asked, fussing with the sofa cushions, her back to him.
“You’re only as old as you feel.” He smiled at her.
“Well, if that’s true, then I must be about 80.” Her forced flippant laugh turned into a sob.
Immediately, Rob was there, his big warm arms tight around her. She buried her face in the long-forgotten scent of his chest and cried and cried.
He stroked her hair, listening as everything she’d been holding in for the past few years came pouring out. “I just feel, I feel so old. The kids have all gone,” Rob hugged her tighter. “Every day is the same. And we don’t, don’t you know anymore.”
“That wasn’t a choice that I made, Margaret.”
“Well, as if you’d want to do that with me anymore.” Said Margaret, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.
“What?”
“Well, look at me!” She wailed through choked sobs. “I’m a mess! I’m fat and old and grey. My clothes are all frumpy and – what are you doing?”
Rob, still holding her, had begun slowly to adjust her position. “I’m going to show you that I don’t think you’re fat or old or grey or any of those things.” She was now lying over his lap. “Are you sure you still want this?”
Margaret felt dizzy and was overwhelmed by an odd sort of fearful excitement. “Yes,” she whispered.
Rob placed his left hand on Margaret’s lower back and began to spank her lightly over her pale blue nightdress.
A beautiful warm tingling sensation stole over her whole body. She began to realise just how much she’d missed real human contact. Stretched out across Rob’s lap, the warmth of his body against hers and the warmth that he was creating with his hand all combined to make her feel safe and cherished. Margaret melted into these new sensations.
After a while, Rob ran his hand down the back of her legs to her calves and pulled up her nightdress. Margaret immediately tensed up. Oh no! He’s going to be looking straight at my fat backside!
However, far from being disgusted, Rob made soft murmurs of appreciation as he gently stroked the soft curves of his wife’s pink bottom. In his eyes, it was just as delectable as it always had been.
He started to spank her again, more firmly this time. He stopped every now and then to stroke and squeeze and check how she was feeling.
Her bottom now a darkening shade of magenta, Margaret started to squirm slightly and became aware of warm feelings in places other than her bottom. The feel of her husband’s erection pressing against her hip told her that she wasn’t the only one who was affected.
She found herself making those now-familiar low moaning sounds. Those sounds of pleasurable pain that had slipped through their bedroom wall and changed everything.
She must remember to send Sally a thank-you card.

Two months later, Margaret and Rob lay in bed, her head on his chest, his arm around her back and her bottom warm and tingling.
The TV had been moved into the kitchen.
“Rob, I think we need a change.”
He chuckled. She felt the low reverberation in his chest. “What do you want me to do this time?”
“Nothing like that.” She smiled against his warm skin. “What I meant to say is that I think we should move.”
“Move house?”
“Yes. This house is too big for just the two of us and now we’ve got no ties, we can go wherever we like.” She raised herself up on her elbows and kissed him on the mouth. “What do you think?”
“How can I refuse?” He murmured into her hair.

Emma Jones was sat up in bed doing a crossword when her concentration was suddenly broken.
“Here, Mike.” She said, turning to her husband, who was in the process of fixing an old radio. “Do you hear the racket that new couple are making next door?”