Plain Passion

by Nattie Jones

Chapter One

Would tonight be the night?

Betsy almost broke into tears of nervousness as the open buggy jostled over a bump. She fell against Eli, who smiled down at her and snapped the reins of the horse, heading towards a secluded grove.

Just last week, Eli had called her his ‘Aldi’—girlfriend—after the Sunday singing at the Yoder’s place. Betsy bit her lip and fiddled with her black ‘Kapp’ strings. When he’d asked to take her home tonight from the barn hop, he’d said he’d something important to talk with her about. His rich brown eyes had a happy sparkle when he said it, and Betsy’s heart had leapt.

After all, they’d been riding home from singings for over two years now, ever since she’d been of courting age at sixteen. It was the way of the People—as the Amish referred to themselves—and had been for many years. At sixteen, girls and boys both entered the age of ‘rumshpringa’, where they all sowed their wild oats in the world until they decided to settle down and make their kneeling vows before the church.

Betsy sighed happily as she stared up at the night sky from Eli’s buggy. They rode in a comfortable silence, and she enjoyed the slow pace of the buggy. Unlike her sister, Ellie—who had sowed her wild oats until she’d ‘yanked over’ to the Yankee ways, Betsy was ready and eager to join the church, settle down, and get married. ‘Dat’ and Mama were so heartbroken that Ellie hadn’t joined the church that Dat refused to speak of or to her.

“I heard about your intentions to join the baptismal class next month.”

Betsy’s heart began beating a little faster as they pulled into a small, deserted lane for some privacy. The black night air suddenly seemed charged with an energy that matched the chilly spring air. Stars shone through the tree branches, forming little beams of light that danced over Eli’s buggy.

She pulled the buggy quilt up a little higher on her lap to ward off the chill before she answered affirmatively.

“You’re one of the youngest.”

“I’m ready.”

He nodded. “I’m ready to kneel myself.”

Betsy breathed in relief. She wondered if he had waited for her—he was twenty-six now, and she guessed that some would think him a little old for her. He had not run with a wild rumshpringa gang, though, so she knew it hadn’t been a crisis of faith or a desire for ‘Yankee’ things that held him back.

“You waited awhile,” she observed.

He laid his hand on top of hers. “I waited for you.”

She could feel the blush flowering on her cheeks and bit back a flattered giggle.

“We’ll be kneeling in time for next fall’s marriage season.”

Her voice caught in her throat, but it didn’t much matter, as she had no idea what to say to that.

“Will you marry me, Betsy Borntrager?”

Betsy couldn’t bite back the grin, nor the quick and breathless reply of happiness. “Yes!”

He smiled broadly, and he didn’t smile often. His fingers curled into hers, so that they were holding hands. They sat in pleased silence for several minutes while the clouds drifted across the stars and the moon.

“But there are a couple things we need to talk about, first.”

She turned to him, adjusting the heavy buggy blanket around her shoulders. “What, Eli?”

“Available farmland in our district is getting scarce. I’d love a dairy farm, but my father has six more children to raise. I’ve been looking at land in Kentucky … or, if you’d like to stay in the district, it’s likely I’ll have to lunch pail it, at least for a good while.”

She stared at the stars for a long time, willing the tears threatening her eyes not to show. A father should be home with his children, teaching them side by side on the farm, day after day. It’s how her brothers were raised, and how she always dreamed of her family one day. But moving? She’d miss her family, her community …

“I hear they’re a bit fancier, down there.” Betsy and Eli were Schwarzentruber Amish, committed to the old ways even more than the Old Order Amish. “They’re using cell phones and even indoor plumbing.” She picked at a piece of lint on the blanket. “I’m happy, Eli, and even at the cost of not raising our children on a farm, I see more harm in raising them to fancier ways.”

She stared down at the toes of her black boots, patiently waiting for a response. An owl hooted in the distance, and a deer stole across the dirt lane, his coat turning dark and gray for the winter.

“Then we will trust God,” he said. “While I’ve been waiting for you to grow up, Betsy-girl, I’ve saved enough to buy a farm, if one goes on the market.”

Betsy shyly reached over and rested her hand close to his, hoping that he would hold her hand. His big paw engulfed her immediately.

“And the other thing …”

She smiled up at him. “Yes, Eli?”

“Discipline.”

Her breath stopped, a knot formed in her belly, and Betsy didn’t know what to think. She fiddled with the hem of the blanket, wondering what he wanted from her.

“When was the last time you had a ‘gut bletsching’?”

Betsy gulped at memories of spanking. Dat had always been strict in bringing them up in ‘das alt Gebrauch’—the old way—especially since her older sister, Ellie, had turned away from the church. Whenever Betsy questioned the old ways, he would just shake his head. “It’s our way,” he would say.

Obedience was their way of life: obedience to their elders, obedience to the Ordnung, and obedience to God, above all. And children were taught at church, home, and at their small parochial school, the value of honoring and obeying their parents and teachers. Her parents, like so many other Amish parents, would have felt that they had failed their duty to their God and their community if they had spared the rod, and brought up spoiled children.

Betsy could barely answer Eli, except in a whisper. “Have I disappointed you, Eli?” A wife is her husband’s helpmate, and she hoped that Eli believed that she would be an obedient wife, eager to work and serve the needs of her husband, family, and community.

He avoided her question. “Betsy, it’s never been my way, nor my father’s way, to be silent against a wrongdoing.”

For sure and for certain, Betsy knew that was not the typical way of her people. In her home, Dat could use silence as well as he did the switch. Even her Mama would spend days fretting over what she had done, before she would finally figure it out and go to Dat asking his forgiveness. And if she failed to remember, the punishing silence could go on for days and days. He used the switch on Betsy until the day she turned sixteen, and then he used silence with her, too.

“When was your last ‘bletsching’?” he asked again.

She bit her lip. “Dat was strict, but for sure and for certain, much stricter after Ellie yanked over. I think he blamed himself for losing her to Yankee ways.” She took a deep breath. “I’d found one of Ellie’s old books hidden under her mattress. I didn’t want to read it—I’d just found it and was glancing through to see what it was, but Dat caught me.” Betsy felt her bottom and legs tingle, just thinkin’ of it. “I was near sixteen, too old for a ‘bletsching’, but he blames those books for Ellie leavin’.”

Her Dat had taken a switch to her legs, and used his big, heavy hand on her bottom, as if she were only a baby. They’d prayed together, and talked, and she’d apologized. Her Dat had tears in his eyes as he both apologized and asked if he had done anything to turn her towards Yankee ways. She knew better than to correct his assumption that she had actually been reading the book, no more than a member of the People would speak out when falsely accused by the elders—to do so would show a lack of proper submission to the ‘Ordnung’. She submitted to her Dat’s correction like a dutiful daughter, hoping to relieve him of worry that she would follow in Ellie’s footsteps.

Eli nodded his approval at her story. “You are a ‘gut’ daughter.” Since she looked close to tears, he pulled at her ‘Kapp’ strings. “You’ll be a good mama and wife. We’ll be a good family, God willing.”

She twirled her ‘Kapp’ string around her pinky. “Then what do you mean, with all this talk?”

“My Dat was always loving and gentle, but strict. He could give a switchin’ not to be forgotten, in a way that was gentle.” He clucked at the horses as they grew restless. “He was the same way with Mama.”

Betsy felt a stab of worry deep in her heart. She’d known Jacob Miller, the bishop next door, to be mighty strict with his family, and had seen him raise a hand to his wife. The stress of being a bishop must be somethin’ awful on a family, but she had hoped never to marry a man that would treat her so. She gripped at the quilt in her lap, took a deep breath, and told Eli, leavin’ out the names of the family, rightly so.

“Aw, Betsy. I’d never raise a hand to you in such a way.” He softly wiped the tear at her eye. “But it’s something you’ll have to feel, to know for sure, ain’t so?”

Eli watched her fiddle with the hem of the quilt as she stared straight ahead. “You asked me earlier if you had disappointed me.” He waited a beat, while a worried frown crossed over her face. “I saw that you drank a few cans of beer at the barn hop.”

Her head snapped down shamefully at that. “I’m sorry, Eli,” she whispered.

He did use silence, a loud, disapproving silence until she felt her eyes burn. “Will you submit to my discipline?” she heard him say. The decision to submit, to nod, was instant. Tears already poured from her eyes.

Eli knew Betsy was always eager to obey her family, the ‘Ordnung’, and the elders, and he knew her dismay at his disapproval would be a punishment in itself. He saw her hands trembling, and he wanted to scoop her up in his arms and smother her face with kisses of reassurance.

But he needed to prove to her that he was a man she could count on for a husband, a man she could trust to lead and discipline their children with love and wisdom. And he hoped that he could prove to her that he was a man worthy of being head of their house, even worthy of correcting her, when the need arose.

“Before we marry, we will be able to answer Bishop Miller that we haven’t broken the Ordnung. I want you to lie over my lap, though, and I will bare your bottom for your ‘bletsching.’”

He rubbed her back gently while the tears overflowed and she wrung her hands. “Eli?” she whispered. “My sister …”

He soothed her back and nodded for her to go on.

“My ‘Dat’ forbids us from seeing her.” Her lip trembled. “Even after all Jack did for Ephraim, my sick brother, but …” she took a deep breath “… one day he looked at me and said that no one could visit her, and she was not welcome on our farm.” She adjusted the buggy blanket to hide the trembling in her hands. “It was like she died … one day she was there every day, talking with me and working side by side, always teaching me. Then the next day she was gone, and never to be seen again. That she was living only one farm over hardly made it feel better.”

Eli had been seventeen when Ellie had left the Amish way to go to school and become a doctor, all while marrying a Yankee. He remembered the way Jack had helped the community out a great deal after a tornado. “Ellie and Jack both were baptized in a Mennonite church, and Ellie’s clinic has been a blessing to our community. They are not under the ban, Betsy.” He nodded in approval. “They joined an easier church so that she could become a doctor, but they still run their farm the old way—no electricity except for what Jack uses to work, although Jack still keeps his truck.”

She nodded, looking relieved. If Ellie had taken her kneeling vows before turning to Yankee ways, she would have surely been shunned by their People, and her family left to mourn her as dead, hoping that every time they refused to talk to Ellie, that they would be helping lead her back into God’s grace.

“I used to climb a tree at the edge of the woods between our properties. This way I wasn’t disobeying my father, but I could sometimes see a glimpse of Ellie through a window.”

He stopped rubbing her back and settled back in the open buggy. “Choose, Betsy.” He was a little nervous, but he knew that their love was strong. Though they’d never professed it out loud, Betsy had had her eye on him since she was six, and he fourteen. His affection had been almost brotherly, but he knew — even then — that she would be his one day. She’d known it, too, and had made sure that he didn’t forget her.

Her black ‘Kapp’ was fastened securely with pins, despite the haphazard way the strings dangled down. When she turned and crawled over his lap, it stayed securely on her head. Good thing, too, just in case she was moved to silently pray to God for forgiveness during her ‘bletsching.’ He was surprised at how light she was, almost as if her clothing weighed more than she did. He parted her apron so that it fell to the side of her bottom, and reached down to grab the hem of her dress at her ankles.

“I won’t lie, Betsy, this is going to hurt pretty bad.” He wanted her to know what would happen, hoping to take the fear of the unknown out of her trembling legs.

“It’s supposed to, ain’t so?” She had a breathy soft voice that he loved, with a sweet Pennsylvania Dutch accent.

He swallowed a chuckle. “I will be a gentle husband, I hope, but a strict one. I won’t ever raise my hand to you in anger, and I will never, ever hurt you in a way that ain’t right.” She didn’t answer, but made a strangled squeak as he pulled up her long dress until her legs were bare. He hooked his fingers in her white cotton underwear, and pulled them down to her knees.

Desire grabbed him fierce at the sight of her stick thin legs, smooth white skin, and small form. She was only five four to his six two, and a small thing at that compared to his big build. The urge to protect her was a mighty strong instinct, and made it easier to focus on his task. He laid his hand on her bottom, pleased that his hand covered the length and width of her little cheeks.

The buggy squeaked as he adjusted her body until her bottom was high over his knee, and he moved forward in the seat so that he could take his other leg over the back to trap hers. He heard another squeak, and wasn’t sure whether it came from the old seat or Betsy.

“You’re joining the baptismal class, Betsy, and that means that you’d better start following the ‘Ordnung’ or the elders will not let you kneel for your vow. You are not the youngest to join, but if you aren’t sure about your readiness, then you’d better to wait a year, than to commit before you’re ready.”

He waited for a response.

“Eli, I am ready, totally ready.”

He was glad to hear it. “Then drinking beer at a hop that I discouraged you from attending in the first place is not the way to show it, ain’t so?”

Her voice was the highest he’d ever heard it. “No, Eli.” With remorse dripping from her voice, she added, “I’m sorry.”

“And it’s my duty to protect you, to see that you don’t do that again. When my hand finishes teaching you a lesson, the buggy whip will make sure you don’t forget it.”

He snapped his hand across his cheeks, with a tight rein on his strength—he didn’t want to cause her any undue damage. She didn’t so much as squeak, and the bright full moon showed no handprint on her bottom. He raised his hand again, snapping it down a little lower, almost lifting her cheeks on the upswing.

She squirmed a little.

He frowned when still no handprint appeared, and knew that he had to use a little more strength to get through to her. Raising his hand above his head, he gave her a good and loud swat, hard enough to make her cheeks wiggle and her to squeal in dismay. He eyed her left cheek, and delivered a full swat to one side, and then the other, relieved that he was giving the punishment she deserved.

He’d never spanked a girl before, but he’d seen his father spank his younger brothers and sisters—heck, he’d felt everything from his father’s hand to a switch and to a buggy whip, much like most of his Amish kinsman. Just as he’d seen, he knew true repentance and submission to punishment were the important keys.

He wouldn’t stop spanking, until her bottom was good and raw, and then he’d lay ten welts across her bottom that would last a few days so that she could remember her punishment for a few days. He’d seen guilt in Betsy’s eyes, and suspected that her father had punished her up until her sixteenth birthday for as much Betsy’s sake as for any fear he may have had over going to easy on his first daughter.

A crow cawed loudly in the tree, and then flew away, startling both of them.

Betsy laughed uncertainly. “Scared me,” she said.

“Me too,” he chuckled, and rested his hand on her bottom.

She took a moment to breathe, relieved that the crow had seemed to melt away the uncomfortable silences around his smacks. She was both relieved and disappointed that he spanked nowhere near as hard as her Dat had—although those last few smacks had been hard to bear.

The disappointment surprised her the most, though, over anything else that had happened tonight. “Eli … you … I think, this is what I want, what I need,” she broke off. She knew it in her heart, and she also knew that she craved the kind of ‘bletsching’ her father had given her—painful and long, until she’d cried her heart out in repentance, until her tears washed all the guilt away. But she didn’t know how to explain that to Eli.

For sure and for certain, she didn’t have the courage to try. She took a deep breath and let it out on a squeal as Eli’s hand blazed across her bottom. He was a big man, and she loved the way his hand covered her bottom completely as he smacked. It made her feel small next to him, even delicate.

More than that, it made her feel protected.

His hand crashed down on her bottom so hard that it made the buggy squeal in protest. She grabbed onto it to help steady her, relieved that horses didn’t seem to mind at all.

Eli picked up the speed, and leaned his arm on her waist to keep her steady as his other hand punished her bottom in jarring spanks that cracked and echoed against the trees. She’d all but told him to spank her harder, and he wouldn’t let her down. The full moon was a spotlight through the trees, and his rough, calloused hand felt nothing as he reddened her bottom.

He felt a surge of disappointment when she started to wiggle against the pain, clawing herself forward and trying to get off his lap. “Betsy!” he snapped, sharp enough to cut her defiance. He reached over and picked up the buggy whip, knowing that it was his duty to lead her into submission.

He adjusted the whip, shortening the tail so as not to hurt her more than necessary, and then snapped it down just above her knees and the white panties collected there.

“I’m sorry!” she cried.

He whipped her from the top of her knees to her bottom, until she lay compliantly across his lap, accepting of her punishment. Dropping the buggy whip, he started up again with his hand, and set his mind to his task. She was beautiful there, and he focused on the rhythm of the smacks to keep going past her whimpers, to smack through her cries, until she burst into sobs.

Eli didn’t stop there, encouraging her remorse with every smack of his hand, until her sobs came from the bottom of her heart. Then he picked up the buggy whip once more, this time whipping it across her bottom hard enough to leave a good welt. He laid nine more welts, one after the other, until she was limp over his lap and her sobs turned to heartbroken blubbering.

With relief, he threw the buggy whip to the bottom of the buggy and stopped spanking, instead rubbing his calloused hand in circles over her bottom until she calmed down a little.

She didn’t realize he’d stopped right away, so wrapped up in feelings of remorse and sensations of pain. Betsy felt a small relief in pain, but his hand rubbing circles on her bottom was rough, and hurt.

But also awakened something tingly in her belly.

She stopped crying, finally, wiping her eyes in big swipes, and then making a pretty apology for her wrongdoing. More than anything, she was dismayed to having given Eli reason to be disappointed in her behavior.

She was suddenly struck by the realization that she was bare to Eli, bare to the moon, her bottom feeling big and exposed in the chilly night air. She realized that her legs were spread enough to give him a clear view of her sex, but she didn’t move.

The air was suddenly charged with a tense silence, and his hand stopped circling. She held her breath as it moved down her bottom to her thigh, his fingers coming so close to her pulsing womanhood. He only had to move an inch to touch her, and she only had to lean back a little, for a pleasure that called to her, though she’d never experienced it.

It was Eli who broke the silence. “Stand up,” he said gruffly, his voice uncharacteristically rough. She let her dress fall down before taking her place next to him in silence. Had he known her thoughts? Was he disappointed in them?

He snapped the reins and turned the buggy onto the main street, heading towards her farm. The silence between them was uncomfortable and unsure. She felt tears burning her eyes as they rode for over an hour. Finally, only ten minutes from her house, he stopped.

“Thank you,” she said in a lame attempt to put things back to normal between them.

He cocked his head at her. “Was it that bad?”

She shook her head.

He smiled, and leaned in to give her a passionate kiss. “Now that we’re engaged, I’ll be watching you between now and next November.” He lifted her chin up. “Understood?”

She smiled broadly. “Yes, Eli.”

For sure and for certain, her life was wonderful and ‘gut’, and she gave a silent prayer of thanks while she went quietly up the stairs to her room after Eli left. As was custom, her parents gave no mind to her late night return at four in the mornin’. It was expected, as it sometimes would be a two or three hour buggy ride home from a hop, and that after a night of barn games and such.

The only problem — would Dat approve of a man who might need to lunch-pail it?