The Punishment Book

Crashing into Natty

Crashing has a way of putting me in a very Natty mood. And last Wednesday, after a long Mother's Day, a longer ME/CFS Awareness Day, and a trip to the acupuncturist, I crashed. Every noise became too loud. Every light too bright. Television was painful. My cells felt like they were shaking as their vitality drained into oblivion.

All my haughtiness and dominance of the day before melted into dependency and submission. I wanted to be taken care of. Petted. Told what to do, especially as I was too exhausted to figure it out for myself.

Someone Else's Fantasy

There are very few things about one's body that feel sexy when one is pregnant.  There are even fewer after delivery.  (Gi-normous breasts excepted.)

Actually, I had a fairly strong libido during pregnancy.  What we couldn't enact in real life got pushed into my head and I was able to get some satisfaction from vivid fantasies, close proximity to M, and a good vibrator.  In the three weeks since our son's birth, though, I haven't been able to orgasm once.  Part of this is due to the rigors of new parenting and the simple lack of opportunity.  But even when I have a few stolen moments to myself, or M and I have a rare minute together, I can't come.  The desire is there, but my body can't get on board. 

It has also been a loooong time since I've been spanked, for punishment or pleasure.  M has given me a few swats here and there, but intense physical play has been off the table for a while now and will be for a while to come (c-section incision has to heal first).  

But even though I can't play and I can't come, that doesn't mean my life is completely devoid of kink.  In fact, I've experienced lots of kinky things since becoming a mother.  None of them happen to correspond to anything I like, but in the spirit of making lemonade out of lemons, I'm trying to have a sense of humor about it.  Here are a few of them:

Listening & Leading (or sometimes, topping from the bottom is okay)

We were together on the bed not so long ago, doing what we do very well. Canoodling, I called it once, and Chris laughed at the word but agreed. Sometimes it is foreplay, and sometimes not. It is touching, often naked touching. Sometimes there is spanking.

It'd been about a week, because of one thing and another, and I'd sorely missed his time and attention. In addition to my own woes, I was under a work deadline (finished 2:30 this morning, yay!, waiting for feedback now). And I have a bit of a cold coupled with a nasty cough. Chris has just started another semester of graduate school and the subjects addressed in these courses promise to be of a pertinent and absorbing nature for him. He has a new toy and is busy getting iTunes behaving properly instead of me.

And, he'd been to the gym that evening.

You know, in and of itself, that's not a problem. Except his particular fitness facility is filled with college co-eds, most of whom have been worshiping at their own altars since puberty and are exceedingly conscious of how they look. Everywhere. I've seen them.

So he comes home and tweets this sentence while grilling dinner: "Saw a great pair of shorts at the gym today. Well, wasn't so much the shorts as what was in the shorts. Or rather partially in the shorts."

For some reason, it hit me the wrong way, you know? Now, I'm not a jealous person, normally, although I've had my moments, and my jealousy tends to focus on things rather than people (i.e. that video game, that volunteer opportunity that takes 40 hrs of your week outside of work, that iTouch you're playing with when I'm in the room trying to have a conversation with you, etc). And, as Chris pointed out later, I'm generally just as likely to point out that cute bum before he even notices it. Generally.

So we're canooding, and he's got me all tucked up against him.

Intending to confide, I told him that I'd been jealous about the girl whose bottom was half-displayed by her shorts, presumably intentionally.

He was honestly surprised, and why shouldn't he be? I'd normally not care a whit. But "I haven't felt very sexy lately," I reminded him, proceeding to cough up a lung into my pillow.

Chris gathered me up in his arms and muttered against my ear. "I should hairbrush you for that."

And here's why this blog entry is on Punishment Book... because if he had hairbrushed me, it wouldn't have been a nice little loving spanking with a hairbrush. No, it would have hurt. It would have felt like punishment, and he would have intended it to be painful. I don't think the momentary reaction of jealousy would have been included in why he wanted to hairbrush me then and there, but the feeling that caused the jealousy - the feeling and sense that I was undesirable - would have been what he was punishing.

He doesn't like it when I express self-doubt. I believe there is a standing rule around here that if I ever say "I'm a terrible mother" again, I'm headed straight over his lap with the ebony hairbrush, no ifs ands or buts. I know this and how he feels about my expressions of internal angst and self-loathing.

And yet, I need to be able to confide in him and tell him my fears and my hopes and my needs. If I can't confide in him and trust him to make it better, then who else is there to turn to? (Nobody, not like that, and my heart would break or ice over, and I would withdraw emotionally and probably sexually.) And if I can't confide in him and trust him with my whole heart and not just the stronger pieces of it, then are we really as strong as we believe us to be?

But, if he can't punish me for fear of breaking that trust, am I manipulating things to get my own way? And is, as he pointed out in very pertinent ways much later, my backside really his to do with as he pleases if he can't hairbrush me without risking a silly breakdown? Should I be repressing all of those feelings so that he can hurt me at will and way? Should he hurt me at will and way even if he risks those silly breakdowns, just to prove the point that he can and that he's unhappy with me?

In the end, this is yet another reason why our relationship is not a simple Top/bottom arrangement, and why Chris must be (and is) a listening leader. It's a symbiosis ... and that's probably best. He didn't spank me, but listened to the tremors in my voice when I pointed out that hairbrushing me would discourage me from, in the future, telling him when I was upset. I did suggest he arrange for a hairbrushing on a different night. I even suggested (for more selfish reasons!) that he combine it with bondage. And the moment passed without tears or recriminations or the hard spanking he wanted to give me.

This morning, I'm still confused as to why I was jealous.

But...

Thank you, Chris, for not forcing the hairbrush. And thank you, for listening when I said to please not. I don't think it would have worked out quite the way you intended - then and there in that moment, I think it would have escalated it instead of purged it as you intended - but I know you could have. And you know I wouldn't have stopped you, if you'd insisted. So thank you.

Open Door - Juggling Kids, Honesty and Disclosure in a Kinky Household

Parenting kids in a kinky household really is different. I suppose everyone experiences parenthood differently, but I think kinksters definitely have unique challenges.

Our kids have been raised in a very non traditional environment.  I don't think that will really come as a shock to anyone who knows much about our family. First, they were exposed to polyamory from their earliest memories. There was always Mommy, Daddy, and, from the time they were 4 (almost 5) someone else. I wasn't the first person either of them had in their lives seriously, either. It has always been perfectly natural for them to see multiple people loving each other and sharing affection.

They also see evidence of our dynamic. Both CC and I always called him Sir, and I still do.  When they were very small they actually thought it was his name. We also slept on the floor, each with our own beds on the ground next to Daddy's. Again, I still do this.  They've never thought of it as sleeping on the floor of course, they think, "Daddy's bed and bridget's bed."

Yet, for all this openness we've always tried to be very careful about crossing age appropriate lines. They never see or hear us play. They aren't aware of the specific sexual dynamics that exist between us. In fact, when CC was pregnant with the little guy they told me they consider all three of us to be "married" and then hastened to add, "But you and Daddy don't have sex... right?" At the time I told them they really needed to talk to Mommy and Daddy about that.

Closure

I've had this plan for a while now to write about topics other than specific punishments. There are a lot of things that float around in my head and some day I will have some spare time and be able to actually sit down and write about some of them. I was just thinking this week that I needed to make time to write a post for the PB.

From now on I am not going to allow myself to think this thought. It clearly jinxed me. I fear this will be especially long winded story telling, but the back story really does lead up to the conclusion.

My old nemesis has returned, and it's name is toilet paper. Yeah, really. Running out of TP is Master's biggest pet peeve and it's gotten me into trouble in the past. In fact, it is the only offense I can ever recall being punished for more than once. Two nights ago mark the third time I've been punished for it.

This was especially hard for me because there was a guest in attendance. Master is dating someone right now. They've been seeing each other since October.  We'll call her J. She is wonderful and I hope to see great things from this relationship. However, last night her presence worked against me because she used the last of the toilet paper in the main bathroom and there was no spare under the sink.  Her natural response was to come out and say, "I am going to steal toilet paper from the other bathroom." Master's natural response was to give me the look of death.

From now on I am not going to allow myself to think this thought. It clearly jinxed me. I fear this will be especially long winded story telling, but the back story really does lead up to the conclusion.

My old nemesis has returned, and it's name is toilet paper. Yeah, really. Running out of TP is Master's biggest pet peeve and it's gotten me into trouble in the past. In fact, it is the only offense I can ever recall being punished for more than once. Two nights ago mark the third time I've been punished for it.

This was especially hard for me because there was a guest in attendance. Master is dating someone right now. They've been seeing each other since October.  We'll call her J. She is wonderful and I hope to see great things from this relationship. However, last night her presence worked against me because she used the last of the toilet paper in the main bathroom and there was no spare under the sink.  Her natural response was to come out and say, "I am going to steal toilet paper from the other bathroom." Master's natural response was to give me the look of death.

Unresolved: Establishing Authority

I wrote this to post over at This Thing We Do Forum, and then thought that it would be a useful post for the Punishment Book as well. I also want to encourage people--especially tops, we REALLY need some tops over there--to check out the forum and join in the discussions there, if they are so inclined. It's a pretty great place, or so the people who are members keep telling me. :)

W asked me to post about this, although I admit that I can't remember all of the specifics of what she wanted me to say. So I will go with my best memory, and add some things from my own perspective, and we'll see where that gets us.

We have been struggling for a while with W establishing her authority. I am frustrated. I feel like either I'm making myself follow the rules and behave--which undermines my perception of W's authority, because I feel like I'm the one in control of what happens, and whether or not we get into fights. Or else I'm breaking the rules, and causing W to respond to my behavior--that kind of topping-from-the-bottom thing, which makes me feel like I'm still the one in control of the situation.

W, on the other hand, is frustrated because she feels like she *is* establishing her authority. From her viewpoint, either I'm following the rules, or I am breaking the rules, and she is enforcing them. And then she'll get feedback from me, usually afterward, that says, "Well, but I felt like I was the one in charge of that situation." Which, frankly, undermines her confidence in her authority.

Maintenance Fail...

I can't remember the last time I was actually punished for something. Honestly.

It's not that I'm perfect, but that I'm not spanked for being imperfect. We're all imperfect. So fouling up Chris's lunch or forgetting to get the car washed or not doing the laundry do not garner punishments. Chris gets serious if it affects the family's health, the family's safety or putting shredded paper in the canister without bagging it first. Otherwise, he's just as likely to indulge me as not.

I'm perfectly happy with that.

The thing is, discipline - punishment - has been part of my quirky head for as long as I've had it. A variety of fantasies have provided me with dream fodder for decades now, and I'm not ashamed to say that in the days that preceded a real, live disciplinary agreement, the whole notion of being punished was a lot more rosy than reality. In my dreams, I'd misbehave a lot more and get spanked a lot. In reality, I misbehave very little and get spanked a lot.

So for a few months now, I've been pondering ... and I think I have to conclude that mock punishments and maintenance ('just because') spankings are no longer enough of a substitute for discipline. And, I have to say, I'm not entirely happy about that. It doesn't seem quite right that I should be jonesing for punishment, simply to satisfy some sulky petulant corner of my brain. It doesn't seem fair to me or to Chris, and as really pushing his buttons means needlessly endangering someone or something, it really isn't fair to our home and family.

Add in 4-6 days of enforced neglect from regular reinforcing intimacy and I have been ripe for challenging Chris in the last two evenings.

So last night I took our daughter's 50-cent disk shooter off the bureau, where I'd left it after confiscating it from her, and shot it just past his head. It hit the wall behind him, but he did stop talking mid-sentence, grabbed me, and dragged me over his knee for 5 minutes of hard spanking. I remember dimly hearing the words "You're asking for it, aren't you?" I don't really remember answering.

Tonight, after he studiously and deliberately ignored my three hints that he might want to do the dishes, I took an ice cube from the freezer and put it in the back of his shirt. I'm sure I had a good reason - maybe to get him to pay attention, as he kept ignoring me. Or maybe to get him to pay attention to me? In any event, when he very clearly told me to remove it from the back of his shirt and said he'd had enough, I did remove it.

And then pushed it down his pants so it slipped between his ass cheeks.

Of course I got spanked for it, later. When the princess was asleep and the house quiet, there was a paddle and a strap. Perhaps the playfulness of it all has gotten to me too, because I didn't have to fight off any guilt. Pain, yes. Guilt, no. Not even much repentance, honestly.

I've never really been a brat. I doubt I've bratted like this since well before the princess was born. Even Chris asked me what had gotten into me. I'm worried that I'm trying yet a new way to get what I want from him on a nearly constant basis - his dedicated, focused, energized attention.

I suppose this is one of the problems of taking a fetish and turning it into a working, living relationship. There's no question that discipline helped me master the concept of locking the doors to our house, or taking care in the sun. I'm more careful about what I do with a cell phone in the car, too. There's also little question that I pursued a disciplinary arrangement with Chris because I thought it would help me prioritize his needs and desires more, and I think that it still mostly has that effect. But I can't and won't deny that I also found the whole concept of a disciplinary relationship sizzling hot. It pushes nearly every power-exchange fantasy in my head and feeds my sexuality with instantaneous arousal.

I'm afraid that spanking me 'just because' isn't a preventing sort of spanking anymore. But if it doesn't work, what will stop me from pushing again and again and again?

Tears at Bedtime

What Happened: I got spanked at bedtime last night.  It wasn't especially hard (a bare-bottom, over the knee hand spanking) but it included scolding (I had stayed up later than I was supposed to, even after being reminded to go to bed) and went on long enough to hurt.  Not a lot, not like a hairbrushing, but enough so I started feeling very sorry (okay, mostly for myself rather than my actions) and telling, then begging Paul to stop.  

That doesn't work.  As I was reminded, I don't get to decide, just as it wasn't for me to decide that I didn't want this spanking.  I hadn't wanted it either -- by the time he took me otk, I was tired, even over-tired, and wanted to go sleep.  Plus it was late enough and quiet enough that I thought the spanking could be heard from the street.  Our window, you see, was open because I hadn't expected this. 

Then it happened, and not for the first time. My whiny frustration at not being able to get away, at the spanking that continued and I wanted stopped, at not ever feeling like there was enough time for anything rushed together with the frustrations of the day and guilt at being scolded and for ignoring Paul, I burst into racking sobs.

Course Corrections

My Master is going to beat me.  I don't know exactly when, and I am not even 100% clear as to why. Yet, it has become clear to both of us that this is what is going to happen. We both need to clear the air.

I'm terrified. I haven't been seriously beaten in a very. long. time. 

It makes sense, our dynamic has more or less taken a backseat to the events of the last couple of years. First, Master and CC were changing and having issues and most of the focus was there. Then, they were splitting and the focus was there. It's really been at least two years since we've been focused on each other and our dynamic in any real way.

For a highly dramatic and whiny account of the unraveling of our poly family you can read backwards on my personal blog. For the purposes of this post, it's enough to know that CC has decided to go her own way, and the last year has been spent largely on this change in family status.

There are a lot of things that are different now. I am not sure we will ever be back to that "pure" Master and slave dynamic we had in years past, but it's certainly a goal of ours. Running a household and supporting each other through a painful breakup has changed things in ways neither of us would have guessed.  It put a huge amount of stress on each of us individually and on our relationship. There have been moments when I was not at all sure we were going to make it together.

Rules of the Lashes

A. finds the darnedest things while websurfing. Like this list of rules from a nineteenth-century American school -- along with the number of lashes delivered should the rule be broken -- in a manifesto about what's wrong with public education.

 "We're going to play a game," he said when he first told me about the table below. "You'll have to memorize each of the rules and number of lashes. And if you get the number of lashes wrong, you will, of course, receive that number of lashes."

He's not kidding either. Once he gets here next week, he's planning a session with these rules, a cane, and me in my school uniform. I can't wait.

Except I don't know which will part of me will win out -- the Lisa Simpson in me or my spankophilia. Indeed that's always my problem when playing a schoolgirl: I can never decide if I want the "A" more or the spanking. However A. assured me this afternoon that there are always plenty of spankings for being a smarty-pants.

I wonder how many lashes Wm A. Chaffin would ascribe to that misdemeanor?

oOo

Rules of the Stokes County School, November 10, 1848 Wm A. Chaffin, Master (click on the table to see it in full)

I think the biggest shocker in this list was the penalty for playing cards. I mean, why the hell is playing cards worse than betting in any other form?

(Cross-posted at Natty's Spanking Blog)

Fear and Tawsing in Los Angeles

I got tawsed tonight.  Not for discipline, not to remind me to be a good girl, but as a punishment for not doing what I'd promised to do today.  You see, after a week of cruising along, doing more work than I'd even needed to some days (this included working after coming home from a day working on campus), I was supposed to transition to the next stage of my work. This next stage is writing.  Not writing ideas of others, but laying out my own. 

Fear stalled me. Not fear of punishment, as some out there who don't think What It Is We Do is a good for me, but my ever-present fear of not being good enough. 

Instead of fighting through my fear and forcing myself to work, I let myself get caught up in the fun of the first day of fall on Twitter and the Mad4Plaid day some of us were having. (It was great fun, marred only by the gnawing guilt I occasionally (but only occasionally) experienced as thoughts of my neglected text passed through my mind. There was time for both, but I didn't want to do the work and it didn't get done.

That was all well and good until the clock chimed 6:00PM and Paul got home.  I looked like a good school girl in my plaid skirt and a pink oxford cloth shirt, but it quickly became clear as we talked about our respective days that I'd accomplished no school work today.  Paul spent a while talking to me, figuring out where the problem was.  It wasn't just, as I first declared, that I didn't do my work today. It was partly because I hadn't thought about what I'd promised (an outline) and had no idea where to start work on the task.

We broke the problem down, bit by bit, teasing out what was insecurity and what was confusion.  And of course, the over arching issue of why I'd stopped dead rather than try and work through any of it. The talk was exhausting -- any criticism of my academic work makes me defensive and cranky.  I know Paul must have to put on his best armor to talk to me about it.  We ended up curled up together on the sofa, my head in his lap.

And then he said something along the lines of "I think we need to go into the bedroom and talk about this."

Taking the new system for a test drive

W and I revised our system (rules, consequences, stuff like that) this week. This was a planned revamp, because we discovered things need to get tweaked on a regular basis, and we had hoped it would work better to plan to do this, rather than just waiting until things jam up and then fixing it when it's in a mess.

The title of the post is my face-saving way of saying that in spite of knowing that 1, W has gotten fairly consistent with enforcing the rules, and 2, that the new consequences could easily be far more severe than W would get on her own, I still felt the need to break rules this afternoon.

on safewords, flashbacks, and triggers

i've read a lot of debate about safewords. there are those who are of the opinion that having a safeword makes this thing we do emphatically "kink" rather than discipline. i don't agree with that, not in the least. in theory, i believe that safewords are what distinguishes this thing we do from abuse--that i have the power at any point to say, "hey, this is hurting me in the wrong way, i need it to stop or else i will not be safe."

and a lot of the time, i can do that. i don't formally safeword, but i communicate with w and let her know when something is going wrong. that is a major factor in her willingness to do this thing we do. and it's a responsibility that i have, just as much as i have a responsibility to be honest about whether i've followed the rules, just as much as w has a responsibility to be consistent with enforcing the rules.

about a month ago, that fell apart, on both sides.

Spring Break, 2009

On Monday I wrote a post here which included the statement

I'm at a critical stage in my life as a PhD. student. You'll hear more about it as the weeks go on, but this is the basic situation. Six to twelve months of productive work on my part, and it's very likely I'll finish my degree well and will be able to land a research and teaching job. Without the hard work, it's likely in 12 months I'll be looking at leaving graduate school without completing my degree.

At the time I wrote that, I'd done a little spade work which included several meetings with my advisor, an assessment of what I've already written (140 pages, maybe half of which is good enough to end up in the final document), started learning EndNote and using it to compile a library / bibliography. Oh, and I'd ordered some books from Amazon.

And, probably most importantly, I'd explicitly asked P for help. Asked him to make sure I spent most of Spring Break working on my dissertation.

Impish

I'm always sleepy when it's over.Endorphines flood muscles relaxing after tensing through blow after blow. I cuddle with my pillow imagining that it's his chest.

It was just another punishment. And for my customary offense: not going to bed on time. But the circumstances were somewhat ambivalent. I had substantially reduced my melatonin intake Friday night after a weary week under its somnific spell and didn't fall asleep until 6am. When it came time to go to bed on Saturday night upon the conclusion of Saturday Night Live, I didn't really see much point in getting there in a timely fashion. That I got confused about Daylight Savings Time and mistakenly thought I had an extra hour to spare is quite beside the point. I slid beneath the sheets well after 2am but didn't fall asleep until after 3...er, 4am. And since I didn't wake up until after 3pm on Sunday afternoon, it seemed silly to go to bed at 11:30, especially as I didn't even eat dinner until 10:45.

A bedtime vignette

Well, one of us had to break the silence, and I thought I'd do it with a short little disciplinary vignette.

It was very late Saturday night/early Sunday morning, and I was reading through my email. 

"Time for bed." A. sat next to me on the bed with his tray of tobacco and cigarette papers.

"I know." I nodded and continued reading my email.

Refreshing naughtiness

I was bad yesterday, and it felt really good.

Even after I was punished for it, and even after I assured Abel how sorry I was, I still remember how good it felt to be nonchalantly naughty.

The story is simple (Abel has told it in more detail here): we were at a church wedding, and I fancied a mint.

I had no mint, but there was a pack of gum in my bag. When I reached to get some (this was, I must underline, after the solemn part was over, and the newlyweds were having pictures taken with the registry tome), Abel asked what I was doing.

Party!

Tomorrow afternoon I leave work early and head to the Shadowlane Pary in Vegas for the weekend. I’m going to be dressed in my new English school uniform. This means I get to go through airport security, the trip to Vegas, and the cab ride to the hotel dressed as a school girl. Am I embarrassed? Hmm a bit. How did this come about? Well, let me tell you!

Frantic Fondling

A few minutes of research indicates that I have been seriously absent here. Seriously. I've written 2 entries since this very day last year. Why, you ask? Because I'm a well-behaved (if wanton) girl. Usually.

Not today, though.

In the interest of complete transparency, I have been spanked frequently in the last year. And you might say that I've been in trouble once or twice. Generally, though, I think I've been fairly level-headed and emotionally stable this last year. All in all, there have been noticeably fewer days when I've been in a tantrum with Chris, fewer days when I'm so overwhelmed that I vacillate between distraction and depression, and many fewer days when the little things add up so dramatically that I break down in tears by bedtime.

New Uniforms and New Beginnings

The PB has been relatively quiet lately, though research shows that's not due to a lack of spanking or spanking writing by many of the authors here.  Here's my research update.  Since last we heard from them, the ever so sexy Natty has been experimenting with topping and (of course) she has been spanked as well.   The lovely Haron has been welcomed home with a whipping (o that Abel!) while sparkle has been directed to devise her own painful welcomes for her reunion with Chris (who has been posting pictures of sparkle's bum, but that's another matter).   DykeGrrl / Jigsaw Analogy can often be found on the forum where I discovered she's getting regular maintenance spankings on Sundays (me too!). 

Finally, Paul pointed out late this afternoon that Iris was in trouble today too and going to get a spanking.  More sunburn trouble for Iris, complete with (perhaps) a spanking with / in front of a girlfriend guest. 

Okay, so I've delayed enough I guess.  A careful reader (which I'm sure you all are) would have noted the word "too" in that sentence above.  "Too" as in "also" or "as well."  Since it was agreed last Sunday that we would use Sunday's to discuss the week, and I've known all week I'd be spanked Sunday.  A tiny part of me has been looking forward to it because it would mean I was going to wear my new uniform.  But only a tiny part because I knew that the very act of wearing it would prompt a hard spanking and I'm not crazy.  You see, a little over a month ago, Paul surprised me with two authentic gym-slips.  They were ordered from a UK eBay vendor but they're imported from South Africa where school girls still wear them.  Although I'd tried them on, personal circumstances which required Paul to travel to the UK quite suddenly coupled with a heat wave (the uniform is a black wool blend) here when he returned  (with some authentic uniform shirts no less) meant I hadn't had a chance to really wear it yet.  Those of you who know me know that in addition to being a "sick little hand-tawsing freak" (thanks Niki), I have serious love for traditional uniforms.  Had this managed to be simply a maintenance spanking, it probably would have been eager anticipation I felt last night. 

Instead, given that the phrase "You'll get an e*e*a to clean you out in the morning when we get up and then we'll deal with everything else this afternoon" or something very close to it, was uttered, I was kept awake by more than just concern over the Doctor Who cliff hanger.  The e*e*a was to be my punishment for having eaten sugar without permission.

A Real Punishment

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?

Spanking soundtrack

Just because I haven't been posting much doesn't actually mean I haven't been getting spanked. I just haven't had anything especially insightful to say about them (for the boring details, you can feel free to check out This Thing We Do, or my blog. W has been asking me to write about punishments and maintenance spankings right afterwards, but that doesn't lend itself to good writing, so I haven't been posting here.

Anyhow. There was a point to this post: reader participation!

W likes to spank to music. We had been using various music channels through our cable company, but that can get annoying, either because it distracts one or the other of us, or because they have a string of songs that just aren't good for spanking.

So, what is YOUR spanking soundtrack?

If you made a mix for spankings, which songs would be on it? Some of it's about finding songs with a good beat (pun not intended, but there it is!), some of it's about having songs with good lyrics, and some is about pacing the spanking. Once we've gotten our playlist set up, I'll post the songs in a comment here. Feel free to add your own, either as an entire soundtrack, or just songs you'd have on the soundtrack, in no particular order.

Responsibility

So, I was punished the other day. I didn’t really disagree with it because I definitely made a mistake. He had planned to have some large items hauled away,and a couple of months ago I signed up for it. Yet, we missed the date for that even though all of us had mentioned it and wondered about it in the days leading up to it. That’s pretty cut and dried, right?

But, my Owner and I are sort of at an impasse about some of the finer details. You see, although I did definitely mess up and did deserve to be punished, I felt that this was an issue where responsibility was shared between the three of us. I felt CC could and should have just as easily solved this issue the several times she brought it up, and similarly so could he.  So, I’m not saying I shouldn’t have done it, because I should have.  I’m also not making any judgments about whether or not CC should be punished (although I think he thinks so). I just think we all failed.

I Like to Ask

Over the past several weeks, Chris has tried gamely to convince me to ask for a hairbrushing.

This, right now, I cannot do. I tried, really I did. I knew it would please him to take a piece of ebony or mahogany to my bottom until I was beyond whining. I knew it would please him in a convoluted way to end a punishment that has gone on much longer than either of us anticipated when he imposed it…

Maybe I should back up.

Out of Sorts

I’m in a pretty weird place today. Unfortunately I can’t go into all the details, but I can say I’ve been involved in a pretty big screwup. I’m one of those people who tends to be very hard on myself. I have a lot of ingrained guilt, and even when I haven’t screwed up big time I can usually find several examples of mistakes throughout a given day. If left to my own devices I could easily find a reason why I deserve punishment all the time.

My  Owner doesn’t view me the same way.  One of the earliest pieces of advice he ever gave me was, “Being a better submissive means learning to trust your Dominant to punish you when you need it and not do it to yourself.”  I’ve always taken that to heart, but I’m not terribly good at putting it into practice.  You can probably imagine that if I’m guilt ridden in general, I’m ridiculous when I have something specific to obsess about.

My punishment book

It was December 2002 and A. was my ambiguously undefined cyber-guy. We had been chatting (and flirting) online for months and finally declared over Yahoo Messenger that we really cared about each other. That we were a couple – you know, in an ambiguously undefined way.

Even more ambiguously undefined was how we'd ever be a couple in a clear and defined way. I was in Oregon. He was in England. I was bedridden. He was on the dole. I was praying just to get on the dole.

One afternoon – at least afternoon on my side of the Atlantic – we were doing the Nick Cohen End of the Year quiz at the Observer website. A. told me not to cheat by looking down at the answers. Which meant, of course, that I totally had to cheat.

"You really need your backside tanned, young lady," A. typed.

"Nuh uh," I replied.

"Hrm...well luckily for you, and your bottom, I am a few thousand miles away."

I grinned at first. But that longing to be together quickly stole my smugness and replaced it with grim silence.

How sparkle and Chris did not save my ass

It doesn't really seem fair to get spanked when one has company.  I mean, hospitality and propriety mean something, right?  So it seems even less fair to get spanked in front of company.

Even if they're kinky company.

Even if they're kinky, into-discipline company. 

Even if both members of said company have spanked me in the past.

Helping your neighbours

I'm not usually big on practical jokes, because I like people around me to feel good. I'm empathic like that. However, I'm not completely above occasional little naughtiness when events call for it.

This time, it felt like the events were *begging* for it. Abel and I were showing our friend Sarah around our town when we encountered one of these charity fund-raisers with a bucket: you throw some coins in there, and the guy gives you a sticker to say what a big damn hero you are for giving money away.

So. Abel tosses some coins into the bucket and receives the sticker. Now, if you happen to have a child with you, stickers are great. Otherwise? Not so great. Grown-up clothes don't look so good accessorised with stickers, plus there's icky glue on them. Plus, it's uncool to advertise your charitable donations - particularly, with a big piece of paper stuck to your boob. Therefore, I felt I was justified in rolling my eyes a little when Abel slapped the sticker onto the outside of my coat. "Keep it there," he said sternly.

It felt like he was putting me through a character-building exercise.

How my sister's dog saved my ass

Tuesday night I was dogsitting for my sister for a few hours when A. called for our daily chat. And in the course of our chat I had to confess that I had gone to bed 40 minutes late. Which was bad, but especially naughty as I had gone to bed that late the night before and gotten off with a warning.

"I think your sister's dog is going to witness a little domestic discipline," A. said. "Better fetch the ping pong paddle." (Which I was surprised he was even bothering with as he said the day before he can never take it seriously as an implement.)

"But," I whined. "I can't do this in front of the dog. She's looking at me."

And she was too. A tan, medium-sized, short-haired dog with big floppy ears sprawled out at the end of the bed who raised her head up and turned it toward me with big dark chocolate eyes.

"Bare bottom, please."

I pouted and pulled down my leggings and underwear. And felt weird as hell as the dog stared at me while I laid down on the bed, paddle in hand.

Re-starting

So, after a not entirely intentional hiatus over the summer and early fall, W. and I are working on getting our "system" working (again).  It's a struggle, and I'll probably wind up posting much more about it later.  This stuff is hard work!

We've been going through the rules, and trying to set things up so that 1, they're actually useful for both of us, and 2, so that the consequences work for both of us.  And I'm working on getting myself to trust that they will work, which is even more difficult.

One of the issues is lying (and, how unfair is this, she's including "lying by omission," which is my usual tendency, since I'm actually a pretty bad liar face to face).  She's looking for ideas about specific punishments for telling lies.  (I think being required to play 200 rounds of Word Whomp online would be a fitting punishment, but I think she'd disagree.)

W's also going to be getting her blog up and running, and plans to be asking a lot more questions this time around.  When that's been done, I'll probably post about it, and encourage people to surf over and comment there.

Also, on a somewhat related note, if anyone knows of a DD-type forum where the people don't do the whole "this setup works because men are naturally more responsible and women are weak, and that's how God ordained things to be" thing, and where they won't object to a same-sex couple, it would be really helpful if you could let me know.

Thanks.  I'll hopefully post in more detail when I have longer than 15 minutes to do so.

The Repeat Offender

Certain misdeeds chase me like demons of doom: most of the time I get punished for things I had already done wrong before, and suffered the consequences for, possibly several times.

It would be tempting to say: "Well, obviously, spanking doesn't work if you re-offend," but it's not so simple.

I don't react well to being expected to reform once and for all after only one occasion. Whether there's a spanking involved or not, the "go forth and sin no more, EVER" approach only makes me resentful: if I *could* avoid certain undesirable behaviour for the rest of my life, then I would, punishment or no punishment. I expect to live for a long time, though, and I don't anticipate spending any part of my life as a saint - which would certainly be the implication if all my usual quirks and badnesses were corrected forever within the next few years.*

One of my pet hates is hearing the phrase "Obviously, last time I didn't punish you hard enough." I don't hate it in a love/hate way: it just irritates the hell out of me. I'm not receptive to punishment when I'm irritated.

On the other hand, the phrase "I let you off last time", said in a hurt, regretful tone shred me into tiny little pieces.

The Story-ness and the Remembering

Last week I was proofreading a news story for A. and remembered that I had a post here that I started several months ago but never finished. Now that I have my new laptop and have become a manic blogger again, it's time to dig up it up and finish it, especially as I really enjoyed what I remembered. Or rather, I enjoyed the remembering. The actual event remembered was not so enjoyable while it was happening. Indeed, it was rather painful.

Out of Whack

M and I got back from Shadow Lane a little over a week ago, and I've had lots to think about since then.  I had a wonderful time there: saw lots of old friends, met some new ones, and got to play with people I like very much.  This hasn't always been my preferred (ahem) position at parties.  For a long time I only went to socialize; I didn't want to play with anyone other than my primary partner.  That has to do with an experience from a long time ago that did not happen at a party but colored my opinion about public play.

Anyway, I've changed my tune and now very much enjoy playing with a few people at parties.

Sleeping, Spice Drops and Ping Pong

Just a quick note before my embarrassing stuff, sparkle has a wonderful little entry over on her blog here and a (very hot) list of her rules and consequences here. 

So go read her stuff.

You're still here? 

Damn!

Okay, so I got spanked this morning.  Not just spanked, punished actually.  Why?  For going to bed very late (4:15am)  and then getting up very early  (6:45am). 

Details?  Okay...

You want to spank me with WHAT?

I've been trying to compose a detailed post catching everyone up on my life, but it's taking too much time and getting too long-winded.  So here's the update: M and I are back together.  And doing very well.  We are reincorporating discipline back into our relationship (though Chris still has disciplinary power too--now I have multiple tops watching me!).  And M has decided that he needs to spank me as close in time to my transgressions as possible.  Which means, given my living quarters, that we need a very quiet implement.

Sigh.  Show of hands: does anyone know what the quietest spanking implement in the world is?

Soap or Lines?

A. has developed this new affinity for including soap in any punishment he delivers over the phone -- much to my consternation (though, thankfully he hasn't been savvy enough to make sure the bar is wet or that I bite down on it, so it basically just gets on my lips, but still...).

When I whined about it this evening, he told me I should just be grateful I wasn't getting lines.

"Uh, I think I'd rather go with the lines," I grumbled while wiping my lips yet again.

Not that I really get to do any picking, but my question for you all would be to ask what you would pick: soap or lines?

A Little More Discipline

So, on my personal blog I told the scary tale of bad bad buggery that made me very sick for a few weeks. For the first couple of those weeks I was too sick to do anything remotely naughty. But after awhile, I found myself feeling very cranky. My inner ten-year old had had just about enough of the whole staying in bed thing. Trouble was, I still wasn't healthy enough to really get out of bed much. Which just made me crankier, and yet, really wanting a spanking.

Most of you are familiar with that feeling of being annoyed by just about everything and wanting to bitch about it all (and maybe even doing so) but when all is said and done, you'd really rather just get a nice, long spanking -- though you'd probably be irritated if it was offered (or told that's what you were getting). 

I was feeling that big time.

Upping the Ante

Most of us have inner children.  Some of us have inner teenagers.  With dissociative identity disorder (D.I.D.), those inner teenagers are a little more complicated to deal with.  They are more than that impulse inside, where someone can have a feeling, recognize it, and do something to make that feeling resolve, while still understanding the world in adult terms.  So when my inner 14 year old is active, she has all the reasoning and coping skills of an actual 14 year old.  You might think this would be challenging, and it is.  Or, as W. would say, "Boy, howdy."

A Nail-Biting Story

Last night I caught myself chewing my nails. I haven't done it since I was about - oh, six or so - and decided that coming back to the habit twenty years later wasn't something I wanted.

"Uh-oh," I said to Abel, with my mouth full of nail. "I think, I need a beating."

This is exactly the sort of matter where any initiative from Abel would have been firstly, impossible, secondly unwelcome: if he had seen me nibble on the nail, and forbidden me to do it under the threat of a punishment, he would have been invited to take a hike. However, helping me with an issue that I brought to his attention myself is a sort of husbandly duty. (The poor guy is so exploited.)

He sat on the bed, bent me over his lap and tugged down my knickers, and gave me a few experimental swats with his hand.

"Ouch," he said. "This hurts."

Limit Testing

Right.  So the other day I said things were getting "back to normal."

They are getting back to normal, but with some bumps.  I wrote about the first day on el tercer ojo (my blog).  My plan was/is to blog each day this month about how things are going.  But of course I'm already two days behind.  This too was supposed to be written up yesterday, but again, I've fallen behind.

What I've realized though is that being away from things -- my work, spanking, uniforms and accountability in general -- has made it a little difficult for me just to step back into life as a disciplined girl (or woman, whatever).

As it says on my blog, the first day went pretty well.  I didn't get any work done, but Pab and I had already talked about that and decided I didn't need to start my school work yet.  Everything else got done that day and the bedtime spanking was a sweet good girl one that hurt, but not too much.  I went to bed feeling very smug.  Clearly we have this discipline relationship thing down, right?  And can slide back into this like a pair of comfy jeans.  Right.

Tuesday?  Not good.

Moving Back to Normal

Or at least we're getting back to whatever passes for normal in our house. 

In early December I had abdominal surgery that required longish incisions on my stomach.  The recovery was painful -- more-so then I expected -- despite some really really good drugs*.  The surgeon had to cut through and reconnect muscle and resew my skin together.  I was uncomfortable and needed (and got) a great deal of TLC while I was healing.

In many respects recovery wasn't fun, though I did get some really nice gifts and cards from friends and family.  However, my healing did function as a "Get out of spanking free" card.  Oh and a get out of research and writing too.

Apparently, that card has been played for the last time this month.

Fitting the punishment in

One of the things I noticed about working for yourself is that you never have enough time. For anything. Even for most of your work. Everything needs to be extensively planned, squeezed into the calendar, finished in too little time, crossed off the to-do list.

This seems to include punishment. Unless it's planned ahead, or cramped into a tiny pocked of the day when neither Abel nor I happen to be running mental circles around our tasks - it's not going to happen. Luckily, we've got pretty good at finding time for things like that - eventually, after much putting-off - but it has also come to mean that I'm losing any ability to worry about a punishment much beforehand - or else I'd spend days and weeks waiting for a snatched moment, fretting.

A few weeks ago Abel woke me up before going off to catch a train, and informed me I was in for it: I had let the credit on the gas meter run out again. (We are old enemies, that gas meter and I.) I sighed, and agreed, and fell back asleep until my alarm clock went, and then there was work, and more work, and over the next few days we remembered a punishment was supposed to happen, but we failed to find that small shred of time and aloneness that would make it possible.

Be careful what you wish for

It seems like only yesterday that I was posting here about desperately needing to be spanked.  So given the title of this post, guess what I'm writing about today? 

Yep, I've been spanked.  Several times, actually, and not fun ones either.  Serious punishments.

But if you've been paying attention in the last few months, your next question might well be, "Who could have punished Iris, given the fact that she's no longer in a disciplinary relationship?"  Or perhaps, "Who could have punished that sweet angel Iris?--she's absolutely delightful!"  Or maybe not.  :-D

Myriad of emotions

Punishments often come with a myriad of emotions. Frustration. Ambivalence. Fear. Intimacy. Love.

Tuesday's punishment for several days of missing my bedtime included all of those. A. had told me the night before he was going to sort me out the next day, and I woke up Tuesday with that familiar mixture of excitement and fear. But also a great deal of ambivalence.

I hate wooden spoons

The tops of my thighs are quite stingy at the moment. Especially with my sweats rubbing against them. Or rather, with my sweats rubbing against my pajama bottoms rubbing against them.

Wooden spoons really are evil. As are drafty apartments.

Gimme an inch...

So, um, I posted last week about how I've got a bed time now. And that I get a reprieve for Saturday nights.

Well, last night was Saturday night so I knew I could stay up to watch Saturday Night Live provided that I was in bed by midnight. And I sorta watched SNL. I mean, it was on in the background. While I talked on the phone. Until about 12:55 am. And while I was sitting on my bed, I wasn't exactly in bed (whoever knew that prepositions could be so important?). Or even ready for bed. Indeed, I didn't actually make it into bed with the lights out until 1:15 am.

"Right. I have to have a think about your punishment," A. said to me tonight on the phone with that stern, British accent of his.

So tonight I'll be going to bed at 12 am sharp. And wondering about what my punishment is going to be.

Gulp.

A Different Kind of Post

I've been debating about whether or not to write this post for several weeks, but I've decided that I think it could be both really good for conversation and really good for me to write out.  So here it is.

After more than two years of being in a relationship that included discipline, I now find myself without it.  Without discipline and without the relationship, that is.  (And actually, I moved into my relationship with M from another one that incorporated discipline, so I guess that means it's been about three and a half years since I've been on my own in that sense.)  Aside from the normal gut-wrenching, soul-piercing pain that accompanies any break up, I'm also dealing with the loss of any practical application of discipline in my life.  At this point I'm still dealing with a lot of the initial grief and the loss of discipline feels kind of minor.  But it's starting to raise its head in small ways.

Broil It

I did something really stupid last night. It was inexcusable, particularly in our house. That being said, I had a terrible headache (i.e. edging to a migraine) which to this moment in time hasn't gone away completely.

What did I do? Put a slab of London broil on the boiler, put it in the oven, set the oven to low, and went and sat down on the couch with the princess. She climbed up on my lap and we got all cuddly and watched Scooby-Doo.

And I fell asleep.

I woke up to the smoke detector blaring at full volume.

Over the Knee

It's been almost ten years since I delurked on alt.sex.spanking.  This past month, sparkle's husband Chris wrote a bit about delurking and the effect it's had on his life, mostly in terms of people he's met on-line and off.  This blog, of course, is an example of wonderful connections we've made.  Generally I forget that I've been around for a while (and likewise I forget that I'm getting old) and therefore I've been fortunate enough to have met a lot of very kewl people in this scene.

But I had another "wow, I know some people who are famous" moment recently.  Maybe my most profound one.  So pardon me while I brag on a friend.

You see, a dear friend, Fiona Locke, has a novel that's just been published this week.  It's called Over the Knee and it has clearly been written by someone very into our scene for people like me (and you too if you read and like this site).  Yes, I know someone who's written and published a real, on-paper spanking book.

But that wasn't all.  I mean, I've met and chatted with a few other spanking authors (Eve Howard and Devlin O'Neill) at Shadow Lane parties and some other BDSM / kink writers like Miranda Austin and Janet Hardy from the newsgroup.  In the case of Fiona's book though, I know the person who took the picture on the book's cover.  I know both the spanker and the spankee in the picture (okay, so it's Fiona and her partner, but how often do you know of an author posing for the cover image?).  And I know (and live with) the person who built her website.  Although I contributed nothing to the success of this venture, I still feel so excited about it.

Besides, as great as reading stories online is, isn't there something especially wonderful about having a book about spanking in your hands?

Bedtime Blues

For the first time in our four and half year relationship, A. is enforcing a bedtime for me.

Both he and I have generally been night owls, appreciating a certain level of creative energy that comes in the wee hours. Long ago I used to be a morning person, but since my illness has reeked havoc with my circadian rhythm, I've been a I'll-go-to-sleep-whenever-I'm-damn-well-tired-enough-to-and- wake-up-whenever-I-damn-well-wake-up sort of person.

However, since being diagnosed with and beginning treatment for hypothyroidism at the end of August, my circadian rhythm has settled down into some regularity. By midnight I start getting pretty sleepy and if I stay up much later, I'm barely able to drag myself into the bathroom to brush my teeth, floss, pee, etc. And for the next two days I'll be groggy regardless of how late I slept in.

But, well, despite how much sense it makes to go to bed at midnight, I'd never quite make it there before 1 or 2 or even 3 am. I mean, I've been going to bed in the am for years now, so I just don't think about getting ready for bed at, say, 11 pm.

Well, I do now.