It's been a long time since I've earned a real punishment. Sure, I've been smacked and scolded; I've mouthed off and stuck out my tongue; I've transgressed minor rules and even gotten hairbrushed a little. But a real, serious, big-time punishment? It's been a while.
So when I got a text message from M on Monday, I was nervous. The text said, "When you get home you are to change into your plaid skirt and a white shirt and wait for me." Gulp. Wouldn't you have been a little nervous?
The tough thing was that I didn't know if I was in real trouble or pretend trouble. We rarely use special outfits or props for punishment (ebony hairbrushes sadly excluded), so there was a good chance he meant it to be stern-sexy instead of stern-stern. Except that I had a guilty conscience. My stomach did flip-flops and zig-zags the whole drive home. I bit my lower lip. My nostrils flared. I immediately changed into the plaid skirt and white shirt at home, poured a glass of wine, and turned on the TV while I waited for M.
Fortunately, I didn't have to wait long. He opened the front door and I stood up from the couch. He smiled, a warm, genuine smile, and said, "My, what a pretty girl." I walked over to him and he enfolded me in a big hug, holding me tight without saying anything else. After a while, I whispered, "Am I in trouble for real or for pretend?" and he whispered back, "For real as a naughty girl who got sent home from school," and I breathed a sigh of relief. Sort of. Cause, you know, my stupid guilty conscience.
M walked me back to our bedroom, talking low and sexy in my ear the whole way, about how naughty I was to be sent home and how I was going to be spanked and more sorry than I already was. When we got to the bedroom he put me in the corner, telling me to think about how much trouble I was in. And I did. Only I couldn't really concentrate on the sexy part of the experience--I think the punishment part of my brain is wired to the punishment part of my brain and I couldn't separate being in "trouble" from being in Trouble. So when he pulled me out of the corner into a hug, I had to spill my guts. (Stupid guilty conscience!) I whispered, "I didn't have my cell phone last night."
I should back up a little. Sunday night M and I had a big fight. The root of it was pretty trivial (as are the roots of most big fights), but we were really emotional and involved and both of us believed that we were right. To compound the issue, his parents were staying for the night and we couldn't really have the whole fight. He got frustrated and decided to end it. I was still really really angry and needed to blow off steam, so I went out for a walk. I walked hard, working up a good sweat from the effort and emotion, until I was tired and realized that I had to turn around and walk home. All in all I was probably only gone for about an hour, but it was dark and late and I sort of have a rule about taking my cell phone with me when I go out alone, especially at night. Technically the rule says I have to have the phone if I'm out alone in a strange city, but even I'm not so obstreperous as to think that going out at 11 p.m. by myself when I'm mad is a great thing to do. At the time I didn't care--I was too mad. But by Monday night I'd just spent several hours working myself into a submissive, punishment headspace, and I needed to confess.
M paused and said, "I wondered about that. You're going to be punished for that too." And then he bent me over his knee and flipped up my skirt. Gulp. Still unsure about how real this spanking was going to be, I went without a fuss. He spanked me with his hand, rubbing and increasing the intensity, but not saying anything. Then he stood up, bent me over the bed, picked up a large, heavy strap (one of Ian's, I'm sure) and started strapping me. Not particularly hard, but any strokes with one of Ian's straps are solid enough. At some point he bent over and rasped in my ear, "Your punishment for going out without a cell phone is going to be much harder than this." And I relaxed. Suddenly the situation became crystal clear: I was being strapped for being "naughty," not for anything real. I could enjoy the strokes and let my mind wander to the sexy place. We had beautiful, crazy, gorilla monkey sex when the spanking was over, and then went to have dinner at our friend Lily's house. I had to keep the skirt on and show Lily my still pink bottom. And I had to tell her that I was in serious trouble. And why. Sigh.
The punishment didn't happen until the next night after work. M held me close and scolded me softly, then guided me back to the same corner in our bedroom. I stood very still while he moved back and forth between our room and the guest room, pulling out implements and testing them, and then stood even more quietly when he settled onto our bed and took out a book (I could hear the pages rustling). A long/short time later, he pulled me out of the corner by the nape of my neck and took me into the guest bedroom. The end of the bed had two pillows and Ian's strap was sitting in the center. I bent over the pillows and he said, "Twenty." No warmup, no rubbing.
They were hard. A couple had me gasping and one actually caught me so low that I stood up involuntarily from the pain. I made it through, of course; in fact, I've had much harder play spankings. But a real, serious, formal punishment for a big rule infraction is different. You know.
The sign in our room now reads, "Days Since a Real Punishment: 1."
