The Pamphlet

  It was a couple of days after the spping incident. Candy had calmed down, and they were both pretending it hadn't happened. Which was good, because tonight was maintenance night.? Marcus approached her with a hesitant smile.?

  "I'm sorry we have to do this," he said gently.?

  Candy sighed and rolled her eyes but complied. "Let's just get it over with," she muttered, positioning herself over his knee.?

  The first few swats were routine, each one met with a soft count from Candy.?

  "Eleven, sir... twelve sir... thirteen sir..."?

  At fourteen, she flinched, a small gasp escaping her lips.?

  Marcus paused immediately.?

  "It's okay if you need a moment," he said, rubbing her back soothingly. "Don't forget your safe word."? Candy looked up, puzzled.?

  "I have a safe word?"?

  "It's 'kazoo', remember?"?

  She frowned. "When did we come up with that?"?

  "Last week," he reminded her.?

  "Uh, okay..."?

  He continued to rub her bottom gently.?

  "You're doing okay," he reassured her. "After we're done, I can hold you or make some tea if you'd like."?

  Candy turned her head to look at him, eyebrows raised.?

  "Marcus, where the hell is this coming from? And stop rubbing my ass!"?

  He looked sheepish. "It's from the pamphlet. The aftercare one."?

  She groaned. "Oh gods. I thought I tore that up."?

  "You did," he admitted. "A new one was in the mail the next morning."?

  "Oh, for Pete's sake!" she excimed, exasperated. "Just finish the maintenance. I'm tired of my arse being out!"?

  In Paddlewick, where tradition and discipline intertwine, even the most personal moments can be guided by protocol and pamphlets.

  Later that night, over dinner, which against tradition Marcus had mostly cooked even though it made the crystal change hues in warning, he handed Candy a folded note. She opened it with a frown, squinting at the annoyingly neat handwriting:

  “Dearest Candy, I’ve secured you a pce in this week’s Literary Society gathering. I’ve heard it’s… educational. You’ve mentioned wanting more socialization. I believe this will be good for you. Yours, Lady Eleanor”

  Candy stared at the note like it might explode.

  “Oh, I’ve mentioned wanting more escape, Marcus,” she muttered aloud, jabbing her fork into her toast like it had personally betrayed her.

  When she confronted him at lunch, arms crossed and eyes narrowed, he stayed maddeningly calm.

  “You need community,” he said, not looking up from his tea. “You need... guidance. Female companionship. Paddlewick is complicated, and-”

  “You’re sending me to a wife cult.”

  “It’s a support group.”

  “For wives.”

  “Yes.”

  She stared at him. “You know I used to have a fantasy correction-ball league, right?”

  “I know,” he said gently. “Now you need... a braid circle.”

  She made a sound somewhere between a growl and a groan. But deep down, she knew he wasn’t wrong. She’d been isoting herself. Avoiding the world. Her post-transformation life had become a haze of scorched dinners, stilted etiquette drills, and silent resentment. So she went.

  “Whacked and Wine-Logged”

  The parlor buzzed with the soft clink of crystal gsses, the hush-hush of whispered secrets, and the faint scent of vender-scented scandal. Tasseled cushions spilled across velvet window seats. Candles flickered inside porcein sconces shaped like chastity bells. A tray of fruit tarts hovered midair beside a selection of enchanted cordials, gently rotating. The whole room felt like a spell designed to keep women tipsy, talkative, and just guilty enough to confess things they swore they never would.

  Candy hesitated in the doorway. She was wearing a blouse she didn’t pick, shoes that pinched, and a grimace she didn’t bother to hide. The air smelled like rosewater and pretense.

  “Ah, there she is,” cooed Lady Verna Plumettle, standing from her cushion with the kind of grace that only comes from decades of knowing precisely how to disarm someone with a smile. “You must be our Candy.”

  Candy blinked. “You say that like I’m dessert.”

  “We hope you’ll be sweet,” Verna said. “But tart is fine too. Come in, dear.”

  As Candy entered, five women turned their heads in near unison, all perched like enchanted hens waiting to size up a newcomer.

  Verna gestured zily. “This is Crisse—newly married, excellent with ribbons, prone to magical mishaps. That’s Maeva Crill, who’s been married long enough to diagnose you with one gnce. Tilda Merribow, society’s favorite reformed troublemaker. And me, your hostess and occasional enabler.”

  Candy gave a stiff nod. “Hi. I brought... nothing.”

  Tilda smirked. “Good. We’re already full of wine and shame.”

  Crisse offered a shy wave. “We’re really gd you came!”

  Candy arched a brow. “Are you?”

  Maeva shrugged. “Not yet. But it’s always fun to watch someone’s first gss of truth.”

  Verna handed Candy a crystal goblet that sparkled just slightly too much to be trusted.

  “To wives,” she said, raising hers.

  Candy clinked, reluctantly, and just like that, she was seated, surrounded, and sipping from a chalice that tasted like strawberries and silent judgment. She had officially entered the world of Paddlewick’s most dangerous circle of powerfully repressed women.

  The conversation flowed like wine, politely at first, as if everyone had agreed to pretend this was a real book club. And for the first five minutes, they did try to talk about the book.

  “I did like that Lacey chose a dragon instead of her husband’s crest for her marital tattoo,” Verna said, lounging across a velvet chaise with a gss of rosé. “It felt bold. Defiant. Slightly unhinged. I respect that.”

  Crisse beamed. “Right? I was so gd she didn’t cave and take the Croplee crest like everyone expected.”

  “She caved in other ways, though,” Maeva said, arching an eyebrow. “I mean, three paddlings and a passionate scolding and suddenly she’s polishing chamber pots and reciting hymns?”

  Tilda snorted. “The only thing she was defying was her spine alignment.”

  Candy smirked and took a sip of her wine, but then frowned. “Wait, back up. The tattoo. That was just spicy fiction, right?”

  Several heads turned.

  Verna blinked. “Darling… you haven’t gotten yours?”

  Candy stared. “That’s real?”

  Crisse blinked. “Of course it’s real.”

  Tilda reached down and lifted the hem of her gown just enough to show a sly little fox curled across her upper thigh, tail tucked pyfully over its backside. “Standard pcement, magical seal. Mine glows if I lie about chores.”

  Maeva grunted and rubbed her hip. “Mine’s a loyalty rune in knotwork with my husbands initials in the middle. Standard issue. Glows in the rain.”

  Candy looked horrified. “So… you’re telling me I’m just walking around… unbranded?”

  Verna topped off her gss. “Not for long. The marital staff always catches up. They’ll schedule you for branding once your file clears. You’ve probably already been assigned.”

  Candy groaned. “I don’t want a butt dragon.”

  That did it. The room erupted into ughter. Crisse practically choked on her wine. Maeva wheezed. Tilda snorted hard enough to spill onto her bodice.

  “Too te now,” Verna giggled. “You said it. Now we have to call you Lady Butt Dragon.” Candy muttered something extremely undylike into her winegss.

  As the ughter ebbed, Verna topped off her gss with a practiced flick. “Not for long, dear. The marital staff always catches up. They’ll schedule you for tattooing once your file clears.”

  “Who’s on your case?” Maeva asked casually.

  Candy hesitated, then groaned. “Sergeant Strapforth. And Mrs. Prim.”

  The room collectively winced.

  Crisse actually whimpered.

  “Oh gods,” Tilda said, wide-eyed. “You got the Emotional Iceberg and the Domestic Guillotine?”

  “I’ve never seen Sergeant Strapforth so much as blink out of rhythm,” Maeva muttered. “Let alone show a human emotion.”

  Everyone nodded grimly.

  “And Mrs. Prim?” Verna added, swirling her gss. “What a piece of… work.”

  “She once gave a woman a citation for sighing incorrectly,” Tilda said. “In a private garden.”

  Crisse nodded. “And that was during apology therapy!”

  Candy slumped lower into the couch, groaning into her braid.

  “I’m going to die with a dragon on my ass and a discipline log signed in bloodless ink.”

  “Welcome to Paddlewick,” Verna said brightly. “Now drink.” And drink she did.

  “Alright, darlings. Let’s talk about what really matters.”

  “Politics?” Candy asked, deadpan.

  “Punishments,” Verna replied sweetly.

  A small cheer went up.

  “No judgment,” Verna continued, settling in like a smug duchess of discipline. “We’ve all earned a few red cheeks this week. Figurative or otherwise.”

  Crisse, sitting primly with a vender ribbon in her hair, raised a trembling hand. “I, um… I tried to enchant the tea kettle to sing. It ended up quoting The Lusty Limericks of Lord Linton.”

  Tilda burst out ughing. “Oh, that’s the moaning kettle from chapter five!”

  Crisse nodded miserably. “My husband gave me five spanks for the spell failure, and ten for inappropriate verse during breakfast.”

  “Corner time?” asked Maeva Crill, deadpan.

  “Twenty minutes. Nose to the spice shelf.”

  Maeva nodded in solemn understanding.

  “Mine was Tuesday,” Maeva said, scratching her shoulder without looking up. “I forgot to charge the symbolic marital crystal. He said, quote: ‘A flickering virtue beacon invites communal decay.’”

  “Pfft,” Tilda snorted. “Communal decay? Gods, they rehearse these.”

  “My husband once said ‘wanton dey spoils moral souffle,’” Verna added, sipping. “I nearly bit through my tongue ughing.” And that’s when it happened. Candy ughed. Not a scoff. Not a bitter little exhale. A ugh. It started with a snort, then bubbled out of her like a rogue spell, warm and unguarded.

  “Oh no,” she gasped, clutching her stomach. “That’s… that’s an actual quote? ‘Moral souffle? What does that even mean?’”

  “No idea, but it’s verbatim,” Verna said ughing.

  Tilda leaned in. “You okay there, Candy?”

  “I’m fine,” she said quickly, straightening like a soldier under scrutiny. “Just choked on wine.”

  “No you didn’t,” Maeva muttered, sipping again. “You ughed.”

  “Lies,” Candy said. “Slender, malicious lies.”

  But the smile was still tugging at the corner of her mouth. She crossed her arms and scowled. “It wasn’t funny-funny. It was tragedy-funny. Like slipping on dignity and falling into nonsense.”

  “Which is Paddlewick,” Verna said, clinking gsses. “Welcome, dear.”

  Candy rolled her eyes, but accepted the refill.

  Tilda raised her gss. “To surviving soufflés, sanctimony, and sexy time-outs.”

  Crisse blushed furiously. “Wait—we’re counting those too?”

  “Oh honey,” Verna said, patting her hand. “Those are the only ones worth counting.”

  And just for a moment, as the ughter swirled and the wine warmed her cheeks, Candy let herself rex. Only a little. But enough.

  The next morning Candy woke up to the cruelest of sensations: sunlight, birdsong, and the pounding of a tiny, very judgmental bcksmith inside her skull.

  “Ugh,” she croaked, dragging the bnket over her face like a shield. “Why is the sun shouting?”

  Her mouth tasted like regret and rosé. Her bones creaked like they'd been rearranged by vengeful etiquette spirits.

  She sat up, slowly, and blinked around the room. She was in bed. Alone. Fully dressed. Impressive. But as she reached up to rub her temple, her hand brushed something… braided. She froze. Then groped upward with both hands. It was real.

  A long, elegant braid, sweeping from the crown of her head down over her shoulder, tied with a delicate satin ribbon that was definitely not hers.

  “What the…” she whispered, turning to catch her reflection in the vanity mirror.

  It was… good. Really good. Like “featured in a paddle-friendly etiquette scroll” good. And she had absolutely no memory of how it got there.

  She stumbled into the hallway, groaning with every step, and found Marcus in the kitchen, humming softly while making eggs.

  He looked up, did a double take, and blinked.

  “…You look nice.”

  She gred at him. “Do not compliment me. I’m hungover and betrayed by my own hair.”

  He raised his hands. “Hey, I didn’t touch a strand. I found you passed out with your boots on and smelling like Tilda’s handbag.”

  “Then who—?”

  She stopped. No. It couldn’t have been them. It had to be.

  “…The Society.”

  “Probably,” Marcus said, flipping a pancake. “You did mumble something about ‘soufflé justice’ and ‘Crisse’s spoon dilemma.’”

  Candy sat heavily at the table. Stared into space. Then reached back and gently fingered the braid again. It was kind of perfect. Marcus slid a pte in front of her.

  “So,” he said casually, “are you going to keep going?”

  She sniffed the food suspiciously, but didn’t argue.

  “...Maybe,” she muttered. “For Crisse. And the soufflé trials.”

  He smiled. She scowled.

  “Don’t get smug.”