"I want you to go and stand in the corner while I work out how to deal with this." Her voice was steady and assertive, and any anger she felt was disguised.
"NO!" Simon replied, in an equally firm voice, but with his anger barely concealed, "I'm not a child! We'll sit down and discuss this like adults."
"You will go and stand in the corner, Simon. Your behaviour has been childish so I'm going to treat you like a child. Go into the corner!"
"Look!" he shouted, "I've said I'm sorry. I shouldn't have searched through your knicker drawer. It won't happen again. Let's just sit down and talk this through. You're overreacting and that's making matters worse."
"You're the one shouting, not me," she calmly replied. "And I don't appreciate your condescending tone of voice. You need a period of time to calm down and reflect, and you will do that while you're in the corner."
He was standing in the bedroom stark naked, having come out of the shower room only minutes earlier. On entering the bedroom, Emma had been sitting on the bed, firmly wrapped in a bathrobe, holding a pair of her black satin thong panties that she had taken from her lingerie drawer. Even before she had time to speak, Simon had found himself blushing. Somehow, he didn't know how, she had discovered that he had worn them. Now he was trying to defend himself and avoid utter humiliation. He'd not had to stand in the corner since he was at junior school and he didn't enjoy it much then. Perhaps if this was a game, it might have been fun to be sent into the corner by Emma, but this was clearly not playtime and she meant business. Yet he understood his predicament and he realised it had the potential to get much worse if all the truth came out. He judged it might be best to go along with her order, if only to defuse the situation. But first, he thought, one last attempt to gain the upper hand.
"Me standing in the corner will only delay our little chat," he argued. "Why don't we both get back into bed and work our way through this. Come on, darling! We can work this out, can't we?"
"If you think you are sleeping with me before this is sorted out then you are sadly mistaken," she retorted.
"But that's what I want - us to sort this out," he pleaded, his patience wearing thin. "I want us to deal with this like adults and that means talking to one another in a rational way."
"Go and stand in the corner," she repeated, pointing in the direction of the only empty corner in the room.
He decided to change tact in the hope of making light of the situation. "Why don't you give me a spanking, Emma. That would be punishment. I could get over your knees."
She had never spanked him before, so she had no idea where that idea had arisen from but evidently it was something else that he fantasised about. "We've been together for nearly a year - and you've lived in my house for two months - and I don't know you at all, Simon. I don't like what I'm hearing. I seem to be sharing my house - and my bed - with a pervert. You have one last chance to do what you've been told or else you pack your bags and go. What's it to be?"
Simon recognised that suggesting a spanking had been a step too far. He also knew her threat wasn't an idle one - she'd made it clear when he moved in that it was her house and her rules. If he was to save their relationship he had no choice but to comply with her demand. So, reluctantly, and feeling rather humiliated, he moved into the corner so that he was a foot away from the wall. At the very least he hoped this cooling off period would give him time to rescue the situation.
"No, Simon," she said. "I want you to get closer. Toes touching the skirting board and nose touching the wall. Clasp your hands behind your back. You will stay there for thirty minutes. Keep very still! If you move or talk I'll reset the clock."
With deep concerns, he did as he was instructed, wondering what was going to happen after his time was up. How much damage had he caused to their relationship, he pondered. He couldn't bear losing Emma and was intent on doing his utmost to repair any damage.
He stood quietly and as steadily as he could. This wasn't like corner time at school, he recalled. There the miscreant would stand two or three feet from the corner, turning around whenever the opportunity arose to pull faces at the class. He didn't want to risk misbehaving here, not with the mood that Emma was in.
The atmosphere was silent save for the occasional sound that Emma made as she got dressed and did her hair and make-up. Simon tried to do his best to use his corner time to work out how to make amends with Emma but he didn't find facing a blank wall to be conducive to developing a plan. Instead, he found himself thinking about how attractive Emma was and how devastated he would be if they split up. She was a gorgeous woman, two years his senior, and with a beautiful figure which she kept in shape from regular exercise. He knew he had to salvage the situation but didn't know how.
After what seemed like an interminable period, there was some movement from behind and he heard a zip being pulled which he interpreted as her putting on her jeans. Simon tried to recall how long it normally took her to get this far. He was sure that he had spent more than thirty minutes facing the wall. More like an hour he thought. He wondered if she might have forgotten the time. Should he ask her if his thirty minutes were up? Fortunately for him, he thought the better of doing that and maintained his silence, praying that she wouldn't keep him there for much longer. But still, the time dragged on and he found himself counting seconds and then minutes, all the time feeling a growing inner restiveness which he had to stifle by keeping dead still.
Finally, Emma spoke. "You may turn around, Simon." Having been only a couple of inches from the wall for so long, it took his eyes a few seconds to refocus. She was sitting on the bed wearing blue denim jeans and a red blouse. Her short blond hair had been carefully brushed and the light make-up applied to her face accentuated her natural beauty.
He went to move towards her, intent on sitting alongside. "No," she said, firmly, "I want you to stay standing."
"But can I get dressed, please?" he asked.
"No, I want you like you are," she replied, "And put your hands behind your back."
Emma could be very assertive, which was probably due to her legal training and the need to present herself forcefully in what were often male-dominated courtrooms. Simon looked rather subdued and she felt vindicated that thirty minutes in the corner had calmed him down. In reality, he was extremely tense but he feared so much for his relationship with Emma that his plan, if you could call it that, was to play it by ear and to let Emma start the talking.
She looked at him for a good thirty seconds before opening the dialogue. "Listen, Simon," she said, "What I have discovered today has shocked me and I want to try to understand what's been happening. You have to be completely honest with me. Do you understand? Is that clear?"
He nodded and she picked up the black panties that were still on the bed. He felt himself blush again. "Are you going to deny that you have been wearing these? If you tell me any lies, then you go back into the corner for another thirty minutes. It's Saturday so we have all day if we need it. Do you agree that you have worn this thong?"
Simon replied with a nod. "Sorry, I didn't catch that," she responded.
"Yes," he said meekly, after a moment's hesitation.
"Well, let me hear you admit it properly. Say 'Yes, Emma, I have worn your black thong.'"
His face turned a shade of scarlet as he repeated her words, "Yes, Emma, I have worn your black thong."
"Good, now we are getting somewhere. Do you know what gave the game away?" she inquired.
"No," he replied, wondering what she was getting at.
"They're stained!" she announced, forcefully. She stood up and pushed the inside of the front panel to within a few inches of his face. "See," she said. "White stains in knickers taken from a drawer of supposedly clean knickers. Did you jerk off in them?
"No, Emma, honestly I didn't," he exclaimed. He paused for a few seconds before adding, "They're pre-cum stains, you know, they're ..."
"Yes, I know what pre-cum stains are, thank you very much. So you wore them, got aroused, leaked and then put them back in the drawer. Is that what happened?
He took a deep breath to control his rapid breathing. "Yes, darling. ... I'm really sorry. It won't happen again."
"But how many times has it happened before, Simon?" she exhorted. "Do you normally avoid the dark-coloured ones so the marks don't show?"
"No! ... I mean, ... I've only ever worn that one pair." He felt himself panicking because of her line of questioning.
"You're lying, aren't you?"
"Why would I lie?" he asked, trying to look as if his feelings had been hurt.
"Obviously because you don't want to dig a deeper hole for yourself. Are you telling me that this is the first and only time you have ever worn my knickers? What about other girl's knickers?" She gave him no chance to reply before she continued. "Are you saying that at the age of thirty, you suddenly, and without any background with this fetish, developed a penchant for wearing female underwear? If that's what you are saying then I don't believe you. You don't suddenly acquire this urge. You must have done this before. Well, say something!" She'd been spewing out words like a burst of machine gun fire but now it was his turn to speak.