“What’s mine is yours. Help yourself to anything. And, stay as long as you need to.” Dan gave his younger brother Kyle a manly hug, the kind where both men are holding a bottle of beer and being careful not to spill a drop.

“As long as you want to,” Dan’s wife, Morgan, chimed in. “Dan, did you show Kyle where the clean towels are?”

“No. And I will bet a month’s pay he doesn’t give a shit.”

Morgan was about to disagree, but one look at Kyle changed her mind. He suddenly looked completely exhausted, to the point where he was swaying as he stood. His girlfriend had thrown him out of their apartment two hours earlier, as a long-simmering argument had finally boiled over. Kyle had called Dan asking if he could spend the night, but both Dan and Morgan expected he would be around longer than that. And now the emotional reaction was finally settling in.

“If you guys don’t mind, I think I will just hit the bed.”

“No problem. I have to go out to the job site tomorrow morning, but I’ll try to be quiet. Sleep in as long as you want.”

Dan and Morgan cut short their nightly routine and quietly headed to the master bedroom at the back of the house. Kyle stripped to his boxers and collapsed on the bed in the guest room. He should brush his teeth. Maybe take a quick shower. But he could still hear Alison’s screams of rage echoing in his head, and they sapped his strength. Alison had gone from tears and pleading to blazing anger in a split second. Just crazy. Or maybe he was. Or both of them. Kyle fell into an uneasy sleep, sprawled on top of the still-made bed.

Sometime in the still and dark a noise brought Kyle back to the surface. His mouth felt parched and foul; a kink in his neck competed with a slow throb in his head. His half-hard penis protruded from his boxer shorts, the result of a full bladder. What had he heard? A staccato sound. Something inside the house.

Again, this time, half of Kyle’s brain knew exactly what the sound was, while the other half said, No, it can’t be. The distant sound of the palm of a hand striking soft flesh.

And a third time. This time, the sharp smack was immediately followed by a voice – Morgan’s voice, in a muffled cry. Of pain?

The blows came faster now. Whack…whack…whack. And although Morgan’s whimpers and yelps were just on the verge of hearing, Kyle was convinced he was not imagining them. He suddenly realized he was holding his breath, straining to hear. His cock was hard now. His imagination provided images to go with the sounds.

A final blow, relatively loud. Then, after a brief pause, a more subtle, rhythmic noise, almost inaudible. Dan and Morgan were fucking.

Kyle stiffly got out of bed and went into the guest bathroom. He had to will his cock to go down before he could pee. It took a while, standing in front of the toilet, trying to think neutral thoughts. Then a splash of cold water on the face, a swipe with the towel, and back to bed. Under the covers this time.

Although he didn’t realize it consciously, Alison’s angry words, which had haunted his dreams the first half of the night, were wiped away. In their place were the faint sounds of Dan and Morgan’s little slap-and-screw session. Kyle slept soundly.

Early Saturday morning, the sound of Dan’s diesel truck woke Kyle. He found his pants draped over a chair and recovered his phone from the pocket. Two messages, both sent about half an hour earlier; one from Alison and one from Dan.

The one from Alison was just a picture, no text. After a moment, Kyle realized it was a haphazard heap of his stuff, piled just outside the apartment door. Looking closer, he saw some things he had given Alison mixed in. Clothes. Jewelry. He sighed.

The message from Dan had both text and a picture. You and Morgan have a hall pass today if you want her. Home by noon. That could have been one of Dan’s outrageous jokes, if not for the photo. Morgan lying face-down on satin sheets; her back, ass, and thighs visible. Her butt cheeks and upper thighs flaming red.

Forcing himself to be calm and reasonable, Kyle set the phone aside. He shaved using Dan’s razor. Something Dan had said the night before came back to him: What’s mine is yours. It took on an extra layer of meaning this morning.

After a shower, Kyle felt pretty much human again. He could smell bacon and coffee. He slowly ventured out to the kitchen, half expecting an alien replicant instead of his familiar sister-in-law. But it was just the same old Morgan, smiling at him. “Good morning! How did you sleep?”

This was normally an easy question to answer. “Pretty well. Part of the night, anyway.”

Morgan set a plate of eggs, toast, and bacon in front of Kyle, who suddenly realized he was voraciously hungry. As Morgan turned to pour coffee, Kyle couldn’t resist a look at her ass. He wondered: could there still be marks this morning?

After Morgan brought coffee and sat across from him, Kyle brought up Dan’s text on his phone and slid it over to her. “Did you…um, know about this?”

She read the text and smiled. “I didn’t know he took a picture. I look….”

“Beautiful.”

“I was going to say, I look like I need to lose a few pounds. But thank you. And yes; Dan and I talked about the hall pass.”

“I didn’t know you two did stuff like that.”

“Well, we’re not really swingers. Not finding somebody new every weekend or anything. But Dan has known for years that I wanted to sleep with you. Since our wedding, actually. Here I was, the blushing bride, fantasizing about my new husband’s handsome brother. Very naughty. I might need to be punished for that.”

“So. You like to be…spanked?” For some reason, it seemed to him that just saying the word “spanked” to Morgan was crossing a line.

“Ohhh yes,” Morgan said with a little laugh. She seemed to be searching for the right words. “During the day, Dan and I are equals. We respect and support and admire each other. We share all the household tasks. We both like our jobs and take them seriously.” She took a sip of coffee. “And at night, when our bedroom door closes, he just…owns me. And it is so good. So right. So physical.”

Kyle felt a pang of regret. His life with Alison was completely different. They seemed to compete and get in each other’s way all day. And in bed, well, things went right ten percent of the time – twenty, tops.

Morgan continued: “Who knows why we crave certain things? Or certain people.” She gave Kyle a meaningful glance. “I can come just from being spanked. When Dan and I met, neither of us knew that was even possible. I think I like it better than fucking. Although I wouldn’t give that up.”

If Kyle had crossed a line with the word “spanked,” Morgan had gone further with “fucking.” Kyle felt he could ask more questions. “Do you ever use a paddle? Or a whip? Or a belt?”

“Yes. And those things are good. But we both prefer when he uses his hand. Dan says he likes it when we both feel the sting, skin on skin.”

Kyle set down his fork and stared at Morgan. She got up, walked to his side of the table, and held out her hand. “I’ll clean up later.”

“One more question,” Kyle said, as Morgan led him back to the master bedroom. “The whole spanking thing. That’s just between you and Dan. Right? Something exclusive?”

Morgan turned to him and smiled. “What you’re really asking is, can you spank me. And the answer is yes. Let everything go into it; all your frustration and anger and need. All your pent-up feelings about Alison. I will take it all and ask for more.”

In the bedroom, Morgan pulled the blinds most of the way shut and dimmed the lights. Kyle had seen her in swimsuits many times; she and Dan had a pool and they all spent a lot of time there in the summer months. One of Kyle’s favorite things was to see both women together: Alison with her almost-too-thin body, compact ass, and slender legs, next to Morgan with her voluptuous figure like a 1940’s pin-up girl. Naked in the dim, warm light of the bedroom, Morgan seemed timeless and mysterious. Kyle felt he had been entrusted with a precious gift.

There was a chaise lounge between the foot of the bed and the door. Morgan motioned for Kyle to sit there. She draped herself over his lap, careful of his insistent erection. She looked at him, her eyes glinting. “You know what to do. Please; don’t be gentle.” And she turned her face away, her long, blonde hair flowing free.

Kyle placed his left hand at the small of Morgan’s back. She felt so warm and alive. He raised his right hand like a witness swearing to tell the truth and brought it down on Morgan’s right ass cheek with a satisfying smack. He rolled her slightly away with his left hand to get the right angle and spanked her left ass cheek to match. “Harder!” she said.

Two quick blows to the right cheek and two to the left. Her skin was getting hot and red, and so was Kyle’s brain. His hand stung with each strike. “Harder! I need more. Please!”

Kyle roughly spread Morgan’s thighs, took aim from another angle, and landed a hard blow squarely on Morgan’s pussy. She gasped and her whole body jerked. “Again! More!” He rained blows on her pussy, her thighs, her ass. He kneaded her ass cheeks in his fists. There seemed to be a red curtain between them. Something critical was shaking loose, deep inside him.

Morgan was losing her voice. “What (SMACK) would you do (SMACK) to Alison (SMACK) if she were here?” And that simple thought unraveled the last remaining fiber of Kyle’s inhibitions. For the next few minutes, he was a mindless, soulless spanking machine. And Morgan was in heaven. Pain resonated in her mind like the clear tone of a bell and transformed into total bliss.

At about 11:30, Dan parked his truck in the driveway and let himself into the garage through a side door. He left his mud-caked work boots in the garage and went into the kitchen. Immediately, he heard the sharp whap…whap…whap from the back bedroom, followed by a plaintive wail from Morgan, a sound he knew and loved. She was coming. Lil’ bro is a quick learner, he thought. I could join them, but I’ll just leave them alone. I’ll have to be quiet. In this house, sound carries.