When his phone rang from across the room, Harley was tempted to ignore it. The timing wasn't great - he was in the middle of trying to set up his classroom before students arrived on campus over the weekend, and it was starting to feel like a time crunch. Plus, it was going to be a hassle to get down there to answer it; he was, after all, standing on top of a stool that he'd placed on top of the counter so he could reach what he wanted to hang.

So he lets it ring out, and keeps on keeping on with what he's doing, despite the fluttery feeling in his stomach.

The sound stops, and starts again. He can't deny that he recognizes Noah's ringtone, but he could just claim to have put it on silent for the meeting he'd had with the other art department faculty earlier and forgotten to switch it back on. Careful not to overbalance his precarious makeshift ladder, he pushes up one of the ceiling tiles to slip his string through.

The ringing stops and immediately starts again for the third time, which changes the game. Noah had set up the "favorite contacts" function on all of their phones, which overrides a silent when the same person calls three times in a row like that. Harley either has to answer the phone, or he'll be answering why he didn't. Since being unreachable is one of Noah's pet peeves, and unfortunately one of Harley's bad habits, ignoring the phone is not an option for him. Resigned, he climbs carefully off his perch and heads for his desk. Not quickly enough - the ringing stops just as he snatches the phone up.

With a wince, he quickly redials his husband, who picks up almost before the call connects.

"Harley," to someone else, Noah would probably sound just as calm as always. But Harley can't miss the extra drawl his voice picks up when he's upset. He could probably count on one hand the number of times he's heard Noah raise his voice, but to those who know him well, that subtle lengthening of vowels and intensification of his accent is just as scary.

"Sorry!" he quickly interjects before Noah can say anything else. "I was across the room trying to hang something up."

A pause, and then, "Were you on a ladder without a spotter?"

"No!" his protest rings true because, well, it is true, he thinks as he eyes the stool on top of the counter. He wasn't on a ladder. Technicalities for the win today.

There's another pause, and he forces himself to breathe and wait for Noah to break it. If he starts babbling, he'll give himself away, which would suck. He's not feeling little, or submissive, but neither of those things would stop Noah from handing out a spanking if he decided Harley needed one, and he would definitely think that if he knew about how Harley had just spent the last hour or so.

"Have you talked to Kellyn?" his husband says at long last.

"Not since breakfast," Harley sinks into the chair at this room's desk and makes a mental note to either find a new one or bring in a cushion; sitting on this unforgiving chair any day after he'd had his butt walloped would be torture. "I thought she was turning in some paperwork on campus and then heading back to the farm to meet the trailer that was coming in mid-morning."

"She did that," Noah agrees, "but after she got the boarders on the trailer settled, she was supposed to meet me so we could surprise you with lunch. That was half an hour ago. Do you have any idea where she might be?"

Only half a hour? That's not so bad, and not out of character for Kel. Late enough to get herself a warm bottom, but not enough to be pushing Noah's buttons. Except that lately he's been pretty prickly over the move and everyone's new jobs, and there's been a lot less wiggle room for misbehavior. Which both means that Kellyn would know missing a rendezvous with him by a half hour would be a problem, and that she's been smacked enough recently that Harley wouldn't have thought she'd be itching for it.

Something niggles at the back of his brain, though, and he reaches for his computer to check something. Pulling up the website for the closest livestock auction, he gets a sinking feeling in his gut. If she's doing what he thinks she's doing, Noah's going to blow a gasket. And while they're all willing - eager, even! - participants in the lifestyle they've chosen, and he appreciates how often she feels the need to be a little naughty and reaffirm all their boundaries, it's different when somebody is in real trouble.

"Har?" Noah's voice comes down the line again, the smallest edge of impatience now coloring the tone.

"Um," he hesitates. He doesn't want to contribute to his second partner being in trouble, but he doesn't want to be in trouble for any crimes of omission either. "Did you look to see if the trailer was there?"

The next pause is ominous instead of impatient.

"Why would I need to check if the trailer is here?"

"Well, erm," Harley sighs and gives up. "That auction over in Crimson Creek is today, remember?"

He can see him frowning in his mind's eye as he listens to him stalk through the house and then yank the door open; the dinstinctive squeal of hinges that they haven't gotten around to oiling. His footsteps are louder on the hollow surface and steps of the porch and then crunchy on the gravel as he walks around the house to where they'd parked their personal trailer after unloading their horses when they'd arrived at the University farm. Where it is hopefully still parked, if Kellyn wants to sit comfortably any time soon.

Noah doesn't swear, because he has one of the cleanest vocabularies Harley has ever heard on an adult, but Harley can hear him growl something under his breath and that's all the answer he needs about how their night is going to go.

"Are you going to go get her?" he asks.

"No," Noah says shortly. "By the time I could get there, she'll have already done whatever it is she's doing to do. I'm going to come to campus, turn in some last-minute paperwork, check in with Dr. Thrasher, and take my best boy to lunch." His voice gentles and warms at the end, and despite his own worry and frustration, Harley finds himself smiling.

"Your best boy wants a milkshake," he says brightly. "Setting up my classroom has been hard work, and I need sugar fortification before I tackle my office."

Gladys Barr, known as Kellyn to most and Gladys Kellyn only when she was being full-named by her partners, pulled her rig onto last road on her trip slowly and deliberately. Not only because the roads were still unfamiliar and she always drove carefully with the trailer attached, but also because she was sort of dreading her arrival. But with four horses in the trailer, she had nowhere to run to.

She knew she was in trouble. Noah had called three times and when he couldn't reach her (when she ignored his calls, as she was sure he would make sure to correct later), he'd sent a half-worried, half-grouchy text message, asking where she was and why she wasn't answering her phone and if she was okay. Harley had texted shortly after that, and asked her to stop and think before she did anything she'd regret. About an hour later, probably when he figured out exactly where she was, Noah'd called again and left a voicemail she hadn't yet been brave enough to listen to, though she had sent a text to both of them with an ETA when she left Crimson Creek.

Of course, she knew she'd be in trouble well before that, probably from when she hitched up the trailer and pulled off the farm. She'd told Noah she wanted to go pick up some horses at the auction and he'd told her in clearly, no. That they needed to wait and see how many and what level of riders she would be working with before they purchased any new horses for the program. There'd be another auction in September and again in October, and they could go to one of those.

But that just wasn't fair. How was she supposed to evaluate her western riders on the college's almost exclusively English-style herd? And what kind of impression would that make on the riders she'd spent all summer recruiting, if they had to ride only hunt seat and dressage horses for a month or more? Frustrated and chafing at the declaration from her top, her partner, and in many ways her boss, she'd decided she was going to go pick up a few horses, and if she did it with her own money, he could mind his own business. It's not like she doesn't have plenty of money to spare.

That attitude had been enough to get her to the auction, and through the purchase of her four new steeds. Doubts had started to creep in on the way home, but she tried to pull the cloak of righteousness back around herself as she pulls onto the farm. She hadn't done anything wrong. Noah had said no to the farm buying horses for the team, but he hadn't said anything about Kellyn buying herself four new horses that happened to get ridden by the team.

Of course, as she pulls up next to the pretty little barn that is now home, the object of her thoughts is standing right there by the barn doors, hands shoved deep in his pockets and storm clouds on his face. She climbs out of the cab of the truck slowly, shoving stray peach-colored hair that has escaped her braid back behind her ears.

Noah has already come around the trailer, peering in the open windows at the curious equine faces looking back at him. "There's four stalls open still down by our three," he says after a moment. "I'll go pull water buckets from the loft and drop hay. We can top up the shavings after they're unloaded."

He's calm, steady. Taking care of animal comfort and well-being first. All of the things she loves about him. Though Kellyn can tell he's seriously unhappy, that's really because of how well she knows him. Most anyone else would probably assume he wasn't upset at all.

"Alright kids," she takes a deep breath after watching him walk away and opens the trailer door, climbing in to untie the horse in the rear. "Home sweet home. Let's get you settled in, hm ladies and gentlemen?"

They don't talk much as they settle the horses. They don't have to, they've worked together too long. Noah fills water buckets, drops hay, and lugs in more shavings to bed them down nicely. Kellyn unloads each horse and gives them a thorough looking-over to make sure they are fine after their trailer ride, writes instructions on the fronts of their stalls, updates the barn chore boards so whoever feeds in the evening isn't lost, and spreads out the shavings as Noah delivers them.

Unfortunately, the tasks don't last forever. She's resorted to re-hanging the halters and leads on each door, straightening them exactly, when Noah comes back from putting away his wheelbarrow. She doesn't look up, but she doesn't have to; he walks right up to her, pulling her away from the stall by the shoulder and turning her towards the door.

"Go straight to the house. Find yourself a corner and put your nose in it. I'll be in after I move the trailer."

Kellyn opens her mouth to protest that she can move the trailer, but before she can say anything, he propels her forward with a hard spank to her left thigh, followed immediately by a matching one on the right. "Now."

She goes.

She makes it across the parking lot and up the walk into the cute little farmhouse they now share amongst the three of them, the farm manager's house that became theirs when Noah took the position. She even makes it through the front door and toes off her boots before she pauses, feet stuck in place. She hasn't been put in the corner since they moved in, and the choices are overwhelming. Should she go in the kitchen? The living room? The den? Upstairs? Their old apartment hadn't been half as big as the new house, and she'd basically had a designated corner in each of its few rooms, by necessity of keeping them free of any clutter. Three people combining households did not fit well in a one-bedroom apartment.

Glancing into the kitchen, she rules it out immediately because the big windows she'd admired so much for the sun they let in also look right into the parking lot between the house and the barns, where anyone could be walking past. Getting curtains or blinds for the kitchen goes on her mental house to-do list.

The living room has the same problem. She pauses briefly at the base of the stairs, but remembers that all the space that isn't their new king-sized bed is covered in unpacked boxes that they've all been procrastinating. With a heavy sigh, she turns and trudges to the den.

With the right touch of decorating and some time being lived in, Kellyn suspects the room will be quite cozy. Right now it's cavernously, echoingly empty. One wall is floor-to-ceiling built-in bookshelves, with boxes of their books stacked neatly along the base, ready to shelve. The wall opposite has a fireplace with a beautiful stone facade. Across from the door, there is a bay window that offers a view of rolling green pastures. The walls that are left are painted a deep blue, and the floor is warm, worn original hardwood that creaks under her feet as she walks in. The previous owner had left behind a big, beautiful, heavy desk that looks like it was designed for this room, and three chairs that match it.

All of the corners are empty.

She shouldn't have to stand in the corner! She shouldn't be in trouble at all, and it's not fair to start her punishment by making her stand in the corner before she has a chance to explain why. Newly reinvigorated in her righteousness, Kellyn opens a box of books instead and starts to organize them on the shelves, ignoring the way her stomach clenches and telling herself she's jumping at every sound because it's a new house, not because she's nervous about Noah coming in.

Across the house, the door opens, and she hears him moving around the ground floor. She gives herself a pep talk in holding her ground as she grabs another book from the box, but when his footsteps start being louder as he moves down the hall towards the den, her resolve fails her and she drops the book and races for the safety of the nearest corner. A pause after he pushes the door open, and she winces; he had to have heard the book hit the wooden floor, and they hadn't even considered starting on this room yet before they all left the house this morning, so the two dozen or so neatly shelved books are also a dead give away.

He's behind her before she has a chance to think of an excuse, damn his ability to move as quietly as a mountain cat. He doesn't speak as he pulls her out of the corner and deftly unbuttons her jeans, pushing the denim and her cotton panties down to her knees, completely unphased by her attempts to swat his hands away and by her stammered protests. Then, he tucks her under his right arm and starts spanking.

She squirms and dances and kicks but his aim is unerring and his hard hand lights a fire on the lower half of her bottom that has her gasping and yelping after just about a dozen smacks before he stands her upright. "You ready to do your time in the corner?" he asks, still infuriatingly calm, but the implied threat of continued persuasion hangs between them.

"I'm ready," she mumbles, and he nods sharply before he guides her back to where the shelves meet the blue paint, emphasizing his point with two more hard smacks that lift her to her toes with a whine.

"Ten minutes," he directs, "and I suggest you think about how you want the rest of your evening to go before we chat about what happened today, my girl."

While she stands in the corner, trying her best to stand still and keep her hands at her side - lest he decide she need to do something awful like clasp them behind her back, or worse, put them on her head - and absolutely not to rub at the prickling sting he's already imparted, and intensely aware of her bottom bared and exposed, but also aware that's half of why he did it. The other half being easy access if she kept being obstinate…which might not be completely unexpected.

Meanwhile, she can hear him continuing her earlier work of sorting books and placing them on shelves. The minutes tick by, feeling like hours, and she swings wildly between wanting to admit her guilt and beg forgiveness, and wanting to hold her ground, because she didn't do anything wrong.

Finally - finally - Noah walks back over to the desk, which means an end to the misery of standing in the corner, regardless of which path she chooses forward.

"Alright, my girl, come here."

Slowly, she turns around and creeps towards him, hampered by her jeans and panties just above her knees. Noah is sitting on the edge of the desk and when she is close, he reaches for her and draws her between his knees.

"Kellyn, when we talked about the auction today, what did I tell you?"

"That the ag department couldn't buy any western horses until we see how the team shapes up," she answers confidently.

"Explain to me, then, the four horses we just put in the barn."

"The college didn't buy them," she tells him, confident that she's still said nothing but facts. "I bought them. And when we signed our contract, it just said we could bring our personal horses. There wasn't a limit to how many, and if I need to, I can afford to pay their board too."

There is a brief standoff as he looks at her, incredulous, and she does her absolute best to radiate innocence and good intentions.

"Gladys Kellyn Barr, you know exactly how I feel about creative rule following," he says sternly. "You know perfectly well I meant for you not to go to that auction at all."

"But I only spent my money!"

"My girl, you are just digging yourself a deeper hole. What's the rule about your inheritance money?"

Not to spend more than the monthly amount they'd agreed upon unless one of her partners had approved it first. Instituted between Noah and Kellyn early in their relationship when she'd admitted to him that the money was a burden, and she felt out of control with full access to it. They'd expanded the rule to include Harley once they became a triad. Both of her guys take this rule very seriously; they rarely deny her requests, but they come down hard on her not asking.

"I needed them," she protests, but weakly. Her heart is racing and she finds she's wound her fingers in the hem of her shirt. Still, she's not one to give up. "They're good horses. If they aren't the right fit, they'll be easy to sell."

"Then you should have talked to one of us about it. But deliberately breaking rules wasn't the way to do it, hm?" Noah waits until she meets his eyes and very reluctantly nods. "All that did was earn you a sore bottom."

Kellyn can feel her heart pounding in her chest, but she knows it's over. She can't deny breaking their rules, and she long ago agreed to the consequences. She doesn't struggle as he lifts her over his knee, upper body on the desk, though she does yelp once at the suddenness of it. As soon as his hand wraps around her hip to hold her in place, his hand lands on her upturned backside with a sharp smack.

From there, he continues without pause. Which is normal - he rarely lectures when he spanks. Kellyn gasps and squirms as the prickling discomfort from his earlier warning smacks is fanned into a blaze.

"Ow, ow, ow, OW, NoAH," he continues to spank her, his hand moving in a steady rhythm that leaves no doubt about his displeasure. Each smack brings new heat to her bottom, and she kicks and yelps. Like a metronome, he lands hard, evenly paced spanks over every inch of her bottom and upper thighs. None of her struggling does anything except make him tighten his grip on her. "Noah, please, I'm sorREEEEE!"

He ignores her protests, pleas, and wriggling until she starts to droop over his lap, each objection more watery and punctuated with sniffles. Only then does he pause, reaching down to tug her jeans and panties off entirely before standing her up. "Go get the paddle."

"I'm s-sorry," she rubs ineffectually at her wet face with one hand and tugs at her shirt again with the other, wishing it were about four inches longer to cover her exposed cheeks.

"I believe you're sorry, Kel," he says calmly, and her heart leaps at the chance that maybe that's it, but his next words dash those hopes violently against the rocks. "But this isn't the first time you've gotten spanked for either of these things, so now I'm going to give you some incentive to make it the last. Go get the paddle, please."

Fresh tears pricking the corner of her eyes, she hesitates, remembering all the windows at the front of the house she'll have to walk past to go find the paddle. "Noah…"

"Kellyn, if I have to ask a third time, it'll be my strap instead."

So she can walk through their house, and risk someone catching a glimpse through the window, or she can walk outside to the building next door and get his strap from his new office. It's a no-brainer; she knows he'd make her do it. Her partner never fetches an implement himself, always making the poor bottom do it, no matter how embarrassing or what the distance, and the freedom to make her do it bare-bottomed is part of why they've come here to RBU.

Still sniffling, bottom burning, she stays as far as she can from the windows and then climbs the stairs, taking a moment at the top of the stairs to give her butt a quick rub. It doesn't help at all, and she takes a quick moment to feel sorry for herself before she walks down to the master bedroom and then over to the nightstand. Of course Noah and Harley had prioritized unpacking the implements, of all things. Ignoring all of the other unpleasant things in the drawer, she grabs the paddle she knows Noah wants, oval like a hairbrush but slightly larger, and heads back down to the den.

It's heavy in her grasp, so she's quick to offer it to him. He takes it with a fond smile and sets it beside his hip. "Thank you, baby. That's my good girl. Let's finish up." He takes her arm and guides her back over his right knee, using his left leg to trap her legs. They both take a deep breath - she can feel his under her - and then he starts bringing the paddle down with loud, crisp spanks. It's bigger than his hand, and covers more ground, but he is using it at the same steady pace.

Each swat lands with a loud thwack and leaves searing fire behind. Kellyn is crying again from the start, her legs kicking out involuntarily when the paddle lands low on her sit-spots and the so-tender crease between her bottom and her thighs. She would do anything for it to stop, and there's nothing she can do but lay there and let it happen. She knows that Noah will not stop until he feels the lesson has been learned.

Finally, after what she is sure is an eternity, he stops and rids himself of the paddle - she can hear it thunk onto the desktop, freeing his hand to stroke gently up and down her back. "Okay, sweet girl. Take a deep breath. When you're ready, you can come up."

Once, twice, she gasps for breath and then scrambles off his knee, throwing herself into his open arms. "I'm sorreeeeeeeeeeeee," she sobs. Her bottom is throbbing, burning, but the sense of relief as he folds his arms around her is almost as strong. The guilt and nerves are gone, too - the best part of This Thing They Do.

"Hush, you're okay," he says, gentle and indulgent now. Leaving forward, he puts an arm across her thighs - carefully below where he'd set them on fire - and lifts her up, carrying her out to the couch they'd lugged across the country with them (because Harley and Kellyn refused to part with it, claiming they wouldn't be able to find one as comfy). "All forgiven now, sweet girl."

From where they've positioned the couch, Noah can see Harley's new car pass the house on its way to park, and he can also see the front door when his husband eases it open and creeps through. There's really no need for the caution; he's not sure Kellyn would wake if the horses from the barn came stampeding through.

The art professor drops his bag by the door and toes off his shoes, and then takes the carry-out Noah had texted him earlier to pick up into the kitchen before come back into the living room. He looks worried, like he always does when their girl talks herself into serious trouble. Not that Harley wouldn't roast her rear just as quickly on his toppy days, but for minor stuff. Generally, he lets Noah handle the big stuff.

"She's fine, Harley. It was a spanking, not a round with the inquisition." While Harley is studying Kellyn, he studies Harley. Something is bugging him about their phone call earlier, but he can't put a finger on it, and at the time finding Kel had been more pressing. Resigned to not figuring it out right this minute, he resolves to keep a close eye on him, especially as they head into the week of student arrival. Today's spanking will likely keep Kellyn on an even keel for at least a week, but Harley hasn't been spanked since before the move - nor has he dropped. It's only a matter of time.

They have a week of new student orientation and returning student move-in before classes start, which should give him time to sort out Harley, too.

"Why don't you take her while I put dinner on the table?" he lifts her from his lap and hands her to Harley. Not for the first time, he appreciates that she's on the smaller side, since she appreciates them manhandling her. "See if you can bring her back from the land of Nod."

He heads for the kitchen, but keeps half his attention on listening to his partners.

"Earth to Kel-bell," Harley croons.

"Har?" fabric-on-fabric as they shift around.

"Hey, sweetheart. Dinner's here."

"No thanks." Noah can practically hear the pout, and Harley chuckles.

"A sore bottom isn't going to get you out of dinner," skin on skin now, and Kel hisses. "Noah did a pretty thorough job back here. You do something other than take off and be unreachable?"

"Um…I may have bought the horses myself?"

"Oh, Kel," Harley sighs deeply. "You just really wanted a spanking, huh?"

"No! No, I didn't want a spanking. But Har, I need this to go well," she sounds a little stressed, but not distressed in a way that he needs to interfere. And anyway, she knows he's listening; sometimes she just finds it easier to tell some things directly to her Harley, fellow switch, than their top. She knows if Noah isn't right there listening, Harley will tell him later - they don't keep secrets (unless they want hot bottoms).

"What do you mean?"

"RBU has only ever had English competitive teams. I convinced Dr. Thrasher and the athletic director to take a chance on adding Western teams when they hired me, it can't crash and burn! Noah will make a great farm manager and you're already a respected art professor. I'm the wild card. I…I can't be the one of us who can't succeed."

Ah. Not that it excuses the behaviors that got her spanked, but realizing they were tied to her insecurities about being a trust fund kid whose parents never expected much of her except to look pretty and marry well does explain it a little better.

"That's not going to happen, Kel." Harley says firmly.

"We won't let you fail," Noah agrees, coming to the doorway. "Now come on, before this food gets cold."

Her head pops up over the back of the couch. "Can I have a cushion?" The pout and wide innocent eyes are out in full force.

"Sure," he answers, watching her face brighten with a glint in his eye before he adds casually, "But I fully intend for you to be sleeping on your tummy tonight, so if you sit on a cushion to eat your dinner, I'll just have give you a bedtime spanking instead."

Her spluttered outrage as Harley puts her on her feet is just so darn adorable, he can't help but grin. As if he pops both of their cute butts as they walk past, well, who can blame him?