Daily Maintenance Spanking

 A couple of weeks ago I was given an idea which I immediately embraced. Thus, a joint email was sent to both my husband and me. It outlined an idea which the kink friendly therapist we have been using, on and off, had found to be successful with several of his recent clients.

In essence the idea was for me to be given a daily maintenance spanking. We would be working towards five minutes a day. It was no problem to work up to that amount of time, but to cap it at five minutes. No other directive was given, except that if the spanking led to a play session or sex, that was fine.

I had mentioned to my husband to expect an email and once he received it, and I let the dust settle a bit, I asked if it was something he thought might work for us. He was fine with it, he said, so long as I was fine with it. I have noticed this pattern, that he wants what would make his girl happy, consistently.

Several days went by. I admit I was a bit frustrated. I think he noticed that too. He came to me one morning out of the blue and said we would start now. It was a loving spanking, peppered with lots of soft and loving touch.

We got to Friday and that was a very busy day for me. We had had a lovely evening out together at a concert and by the evening I was looking for a shower and bed. He came to me at a low energy point, and I wasn't able to be sweet enough in my request for a shower first. He noticed. He always notices these things.

I got the rounds of the kitchen later. He made it clear that he was in charge of when things happened and how they happened. He was quite right about that.

The following morning the spanking was memorable, and my memory of that day is that I was quiet, co-operative, sore and present. It was far too soon to know what this daily spanking was doing to me, to us. Each day had been a bit different to the one before, in terms of a reaction, so I was in a 'just noticing' state. I noticed that I was a bit out of sorts but only in an internal way. Just, noticing.

The following morning, I asked if he was okay with using his hand. I had a feeling about this, and he admitted that his hand had acquired a deep bruise. He showed it to me. He is on a lot of medication, and I had already wondered if it was going to be an impediment.

It would have to be an implement, I assured him. I didn't want to see him hurt. That wasn't the idea at all. 

We both did a search of suitable items. He had a wooden paddle and a leather one. I had a wooden hairbrush. The cane wasn't going to work, nor the flogger, the strap or the crop. They were all there somewhere, but we only searched for the paddles. I wouldn't say I am not a masochist but nor am I an ardent masochist. I can be quickly brought to heel at the thought of a sound beating.

He selected the leather paddle, because he is sensible and that was enough of an upgrade from his hand for now. In truth, his hand hurt more the previous day, but the paddle induced sexual excitement almost immediately, and he struggled not to turn it into an instant sexual encounter. 

The man is on androgen replacement therapy so technically speaking what happened isn't supposed to happen. However, spanking can illicit these sorts of results. So, he did that and then spanked again later.

I think a threshold we have to get over is that I can't prevent myself from making a lot of noise when paddled and I think this can throw him off, as if I can't take the pain. It's not easy, for sure, but it's something that has to be worked up to, not at all insurmountable.

It occurred to me, as it would to any sensible person, that there are some issues to address. Is it not the case that after a few weeks of this, one is going to be almost constantly marked? And, what about sexual appetite? What about the ability to concentrate on other matters?

I went looking for material about daily maintenance spanking and found very little of use. One couple has partaken for the past 18 months every single day and has nothing but a glowing report (pun intended) of the practice. That's reassuring, but it does have to be noted we are talking about a self-professed intense sadist and masochist. I wish I could hear from others who are perhaps a little more mainstream in this non-mainstream practice.

So far, all is good. We have both agreed to this and what's important here is that we stick to our agreement.

One thing I have noted already is that it has brought out his desire for a dominant stance overall. We have an agreement that I don't start to eat my dinner before he takes his first bite or tells me I can begin to eat. We had takeout last night, a very rare thing these days, as I usually cook meals that suit his needs, and it completely slipped my mind. He noticed. I was pleased he had noticed. I definitely had erred, and he told me I had earned a disciplinary stroke. 

Ah, he wants to do that too. So be it. I am delighted. I want him to want this.

I think the thing about agreeing to something like a daily spanking is that it is an instant recognition of the polarity between us, an instant recognition of the power dynamic at play. Whilst I don't have months or years of experience of it to be able to recommend it, the initial results are more than satisfactory.

Active Submission

 I heard a woman say on a podcast that she realized she was submissive when she identified with the submissive in all the BDSM/D/s/kink stories she read. It's the same for me and was that way from an early age.

In my marriage, I do, and always have provided service. I do this willingly enough. I am a pretty good cook. There are no complaints. I whizz through laundry and like to keep a house clean and organized. So, that's just the way I am.

When I was talking through a little detail for a written Contract with Daniel, a kink educator, he suggested I come up with something else, something more meaningful for the dynamic. So, we settled on me turning down the bed; that is, taking off all the cushions and extra pillows and turning down the bed. It's a small thing but I like to do it and he notices that I do it, what it represents, and he appreciates it.

Our lives didn't allow for a lot more add on, since pretty much all the service kind of activities of our lives are done by me anyway, and I am quick to help him with, say, stacking wood in winter, or gathering leaves in Autumn. This is especially the case now that he is on a chemotherapy type of drug which does sap his energy.

As I listened to the podcast of the 24/7 dynamic couple, I realized that we do pretty much all that they do on a day-to-day level. I am given tasks to do that I do well, and that he doesn't want to do or feels I could do better. We have been together so long that this developed into a groove that requires no discussion. 

I will ask his opinion about certain decisions and keep him abreast of matters but not always, because he doesn't necessarily want to know. Sometimes, he will say, 'why are you asking me this?' in a way that means, 'that is your province and I trust you to make the right selection.'

Daniel thought my husband should have a tracker on me. We both didn't see that as a form of communication that was ideal for us. I say when I am leaving the house and roughly when I am coming back. I might say, 'I am going to the supermarket' or I am going to Book Club'. I don't ask permission for these things, but I do inform. If I wanted to go on a girls' weekend or to a retreat, that I would definitely seek his approval to do.

Last night, I reached for some Kit Kat (a chocolate bar in Australia) and he asked me, 'Did you ask permission?' I smiled and said, 'May I please have permission for some more, Sir?' and he broke off a bar and handed it to me. I love this sort of thing.

This past weekend, he created a Friday rule too. That made my heart sing. I have to ask for something each Friday which becomes a weekend activity. He added in, 'If you don't come and ask, you'll get a beating. Got it?' I did get it. I have a love/hate relationship with spanking. I really do remind myself to be careful what I wish for.

Which leads me to say, it's just not enough for me to have this undercurrent of roles in our lives. I like to feel it more, in a literal sense. He knows this, and also that the feeling he provides, when he chooses to provide it, can test me.

My awareness of my own Self only grows, and I was aware on the weekend that I overreacted to being spanked hard and fast such that I couldn't get on top of my breathing. For the first time ever, I swallowed in some weird way where a sharp pain travelled up into my nose and I said, 'please, I need to stand'. He thought I was just being a whimp and said, 'no' but I said, 'please, it's my nose'. 

He consoled me and that should have been the end of the story, but my sense of Self, or ego, or my uppitiness or whatever you want to call it, got in the way and I became wordy and critical. So, he did too. 

This led to a waste of time back and forth which only ended when I said, 'Okay, I know I am bad.' 'Get that idea out of your head. You are not bad,' he said. This led me to say, 'I'm sorry. I overreacted.'

That night as we cuddled together just before sleep I said, 'I am sorry for today. You should probably spank me for it.' (This isn't a habit of mine - this is progress!)

He said, 'I appreciate your words, cindi.' We fell asleep in one another's arms.

I slept all night, but I was aware of my ass, in a way only a submissive can be. I woke aware of a sense of gentleness and calmness within me.

I know I need a period of training to get back into the lifestyle in a complete way and I do consider what happened just a bleep; not a setback, just me fully accepting my rightful place and associated behavior again. 

In another circumstance this past weekend I said to him, 'Please, Sir, could you go slower' and he liked that; made note to me that it was a good thing I did that.

So, I think this is a go-er for us, quite suddenly. I think we can build momentum from here. I am miles more aware and willing to be an active submissive now and for us, that's a good thing.

DD versus D/s

 I happened to see on Instagram a post that said, 'These are the three words that saved my marriage' (and it's not I love you'). I was sufficiently curious and went to the link to discover that the three words were 'You do you.'

There's merit to this approach. Maybe especially in the D/s space there's a strong chance you are partnered with someone the opposite of you in so many ways. So, to be understanding, maybe even celebratory about the differences is a good thing. It doesn't take much thought to realize that if you have a submissive bent and your partner does too, that's not the dynamic you're looking for. 

A certain amount of frustration, to put it mildly, is going to ensue about these differences, however, it has to be said. Great to have an understanding of the other's quirks and areas of paramount difference to your own, but not so great when those differences impact your life adversely.

I was on a hunt for something a bit different to roll around in my mind and came across this DD, or is it CDD, site where there was an enormous emphasis on training a wife to be neat and tidy, competent, responsible, to do the household chores. Men were on there, and the wives too, talking about laundry, or not doing the laundry. There was talk about being lazy and forgetting to charge the mobile phone before one went out with the children.

This was like reading about people so different to me, I really couldn't relate. I have always been the one to do all the laundry, even long before we married. No-one, and I mean no-one could ever call me lazy. I am, nearly all the time, in constant motion, doing things and achieving tasks. Honestly, I am the one trying to motivate anyone who might help me to achieve all these goals I have in my head.

There are little things brought to my attention. My children will say I have kept too much of their art projects, but when I try to throw them out, they have second thoughts. My desk doesn't always look like that of an anal retentive, but it's not bad either. I regularly discard what's not needed. I am somewhere between a houseproud person and a tiny bit messy, depending on the day and the time of day. Put it this way. My husband isn't complaining, unless I try to make steps to work on his study which is absolutely his 'den (of too much stuff)'.

So, these DD sites (well one in particular) was both a massive turn on for me and at the same, somewhat ridiculous, in my mind.

These husbands weren't into spanking as a turn on. Not. At. All. This was about training, discipline; results; outcomes. There was talk about a wife being ready to submit to her husband on a moment's whim, regardless of exhaustion and so on, but there was next to no talk about play, per se. This was business. This was the man taking his responsibility seriously, to guide his wayward wife in the right direction by ensuring she had all the necessary corporal discipline to train her to be the best wife.

I had a very brief exchange sort of lately with the hypnotist wherein he mentioned a self-discipline contract. I had to look this up and indeed it's a thing. You decide on your goal, commit to it in writing, sign it, and give yourself some consequences, if you err. He emphasized that he wasn't prescribing this for me and he definitely didn't want me self-punishing. Honestly, I just mulled the whole thing.

The DD blogs suggest to me at least, that a woman, a wife, needs her husband's guidance to ensure that she is suitably disciplined by him such that she is a good wife; that she is not capable of doing this for herself. They suggest that there is a right way to do things, and this right way is known by him, not her. But with the right guidance, he can teach her, instill a bit of fear of doing the wrong thing basically, and Bob's your Uncle, you've got the wife of your dreams.

There's some implication that women are addle headed, incompetent, lazy, that really irks me. I hope you got that long before I wrote that sentence. And I am not saying that this approach, done in a lighter way, wouldn't work with some women. The harshness written about there worked with the women commenting. They rarely complained in an overwhelming way. They had been 'trained' not to complain. If I get a spanking, the result is I feel softer. I don't complain either. There's a bit of mystery around this.

Having said that, I am at peace with a man saying to his wife, a wife that wants a power exchange with her man, 'I don't want you doing things this way, I want you to do them that way.' That way may just be his obsessive compulsive nature showing through, but nonetheless, if a woman wants that dynamic, I think it's perfectly all right to submit to his wants and desires. I say this assuming it is understood that the man and woman are equals (or whatever the make up of the couple), equally capable of running their own lives but don't necessarily want to.

I've been mulling the DD space and the D/s space, thinking about what makes it different and what makes it the same. In D/s and DD the man is expecting, demanding, respect, as in the D/s space, but in DD it feels to me that there is less respect for the woman/wife. In D/s you submit because you want to, because that arouses something deep in your core, your soul. You may have all the degrees, the big career, the prestige, the wealth, not to submit, and yet you do, because it just makes senses to your inner being and to your sexuality. Not once in all the dozens of comments I read by women on that site did even one talk about how aroused it all made her. Maybe she thought it was wrong to admit to it. I simply do not know.

In my own marriage, things were not going well at all at the same time as the hypnotist and I met one another, via his podcast. He assured me he could sort things out. It was sort of hit and miss for a time, but he was right. A lot came right, came back on line, once we both started treating one another respectfully and in a D/s sort of way.

How did that happen? Well, he cleared my husband of a lot of pent up negative emotions. He led me deeper into what we call my slave mentality. He got us having intense sex again. It wasn't DD doctrine but rather making both people responsible for the sexual dynamic. It was very much about me developing boundaries. I didn't see any evidence of the DD wives having boundaries. That's another difference I noted. In one case, a woman wrote in who was clearly being abused, and there was no suggestion for her to start creating boundaries about what she would not tolerate. There was no talk about being two independent people and creating interdependence; none that I could see.

I think too the hypnotist encouraged my husband to give me autonomy, to delegate if you like, tasks to me. This was a log jam for us that needed to be cleared. I am someone who needs to achieve progress. Hold me back and I am going to experience extreme frustration.

I am not here to say that spanking isn't effective, or can be effective, to achieve necessary changes. There's a certain necessary humility in a D/s power exchange that's part of the deal, and a spanking can achieve that humility. I know I feel more myself when I am bossed around, in whatever capacity. If you want to tap into that slave mindset that sits there, like an itch that needs to be scratched, spanking can do it.

But, on this DD website I was reading, it's such a go-to that it seems bordering on something else. I don't know. It just seemed...excessive...brainwashing, and not in a good way.

It's not entirely black and white here. The hypnotist, a long-time player in the M/s space believes passionately that there are far too many 'good guys' and he is not alone. He's not a punisher though, not these days, but rather doesn't reward. He's seen too many broken men to not want to encourage the masculinity of a man and the femininity of a woman.

I argue that submission is a wiring thing. You can bring it out in someone whose submission is latent or unexpressed, but I don't think you can make a woman who has no interest in a power dynamic suddenly become submissive. You can encourage mutual respect, respectful and useful communication models, ways of sorting through conflict. There has to be deep deep trust before you can go further into a marriage structure that encompasses a power exchange.

My fantasy world swims in an intense dynamic and my mind tries it all on; everything. There is a saying: 'Take the best and leave the rest'. I try on intensity; all these harsh spankings for not getting the laundry done, for example, and then I let the thought go. The hypnotist suggested that if I needed to feel the control more, I devise a nonsense rule that made it clear I wanted to feel the power, so to speak. It could be laundry, I guess. It could also be...hmmm...(I've had such trouble figuring something...) not making dinner. THAT would get his attention. I'm not sure I would use it more than once. Maybe not turning down the bed. It's a rule and he would notice if I stopped doing it. I think he'd realize I needed to feel it.

I truly like the idea of containment, of expectations, of feeling into myself in this way, but DD does not sound fun. It doesn't sound fluid, flirty or fun. It doesn't sound like it's loaded with pleasure (a word that I think is a loaded trigger...). By God, though, horses couldn't have dragged me away from reading there for quite a few days. 

Loving, differently

Since I have had my nipples pierced it has occurred to me that my cravings for a sense of containment and of belonging relate to a physical need. If I have enough physical sensations I am automatically satisfied and satiated. That is, I can't establish adequate satisfying feelings from any particular thought alone. A positive thought begets more positive thoughts. I can manifest the thought that I do, in fact, belong, and that's a good thought. However, there is no positive thought that means that I can overcome a lack of physical sensation. The physicality is confirmation of the ownership that I feel on my skin or in my body.

But, even the above statements are 'thoughts' or 'ideas' that require some logic or explanation that goes beyond, intellectualizes, an innate and natural sense of things to which most women of a submissive mindset would relate. It's not unheard of for some very submissively inclined women to reject spankings, pain/pleasure applied to the skin, but so many of them, as far as I can tell, love/hate the physical force of a spanking, given simply because they exist or because it is a form of correction, or both.

It's not just that the event relates to the agreement between the two of you, important as that is. It's that there is something about working one's way through a spanking, the challenge of it, that induces some sort of happy hormone to flood the mind of a submissively inclined person. It's as if the body needs to get out of its comfort zone and feel a little pain. It is as if a submissive's mind and body needs pain to be felt on the skin, not just for the reminder of being alive, but to suck the juice out of life; to feel buoyant and energized.

I have to think that only a natural Dominant really understands this. To the mainstream person, pain is pain and to be avoided. I don't like pain any more than the next person, the stubbing of a toe, or a pain in the gut. Yet, the laying on of pain in a spanking, carefully managed to take me up to my pain tolerance and then a good bit beyond it, is a gift; a rare gift; too rare.

I think this is where non-kinky men with kinky wives may lose their way because to ignore or avoid their woman's craving for receiving pain is to avoid giving them the gift of pain; the gift of effervescence; of feeling at peace within themselves. There's a sizzle in the air between two people, one who wants to give pain, and one who wants/craves to receive it. Whatever challenges lie within the process, there's a sense of accomplishment and 'flying' that can't be got in any other way. I remember once being left with the feeling that I was in love with the whole world after a spanking. I wouldn't trade those feelings and sensations for anything. There's an exchange of energy worth gold to both individuals and the union of those individuals.

I know, I don't just think but I know that I would have been well matched with a man who had a kinky, dominant and sadistic mindset. The proviso is that I would have needed to know that he adored me and would protect me to the ends of this earth. Given that situation, I would have accompanied him through life providing for his demands. I would not have been with a man who wasn't somewhat patient with me, but I feel in my bones that I would have accommodated his requests, feeding me as he would his own desires such that they became my own.

Of course, I am talking about the perfect Dominant; smart, patient, sensible, challenging. Someone who enjoyed the long game; someone strict and sure of himself; someone in whom I could melt and feel safe and assured. Imagine the utter thrill of having a sensual and sexual guide through your life; thinking, planning and scheming for your mutual kinky thrills! It's the stuff of dreams. Well, my dreams, anyway.

Of course, it has long and often been chronicled here that I met my husband, whom I love very much, long before I admitted to myself and to him just how kinky I really was. I can't expect him to lead me into the land of kink when it is not the land of his dreams and thoughts. But, even if the gift of pain is a rare gift, we all get gifts sometimes and often they are well researched.  A man wouldn't buy his woman a diamond ring without gathering some information and the gift of pain is no different. Anyone can perform a spanking once the procedure has been researched, just as one researches the best way to fix a tap or to build a deck. If you want to know how to do anything, the information is there. It is hardly an impossibility for any person. But, there must be intention and commitment; an understanding of the importance of the thing.

It has been proven countless times that I like to feel some force behind the words and/or actions of the Other. I want to be surprised/overcome/not provided with a way out. I want to feel the commitment of the other, their intention; their power in the relationship; their authority. That is all it takes. From there, there are no mistakes. Who is the leader of the pack? Who calls the shots? Who has deemed it the right time to receive pain, to have my nipples pierced, my cunt pierced; a tattoo? Well, the person who loves me the most, of course. Thy will be done. When the love and the commitment are there, I don't see much to stand in the way, just as one moves country for love, or has another child for love, or forgives and forgets for love.

The one disappointment to me in being alive at this time is that I don't think that future generations will have the barriers to get through that women like me have now, and have had in the past. People now confidently explain they are gay or transgender. They cross-dress and state it. They are proud of who they are, and yet, non-kinky people can still struggle so earnestly and profoundly with the notion that their needs and desires are 'weird'. But, to love in a kinky way is still to love;  to love differently.

Of course, we all need to be our authentic selves. I respect that. Still, I live in hope that people born and brought up to be conservative in disposition can come to understand that people like me can be accommodated without breaking any laws of nature. I want to be loved like any woman, just differently.

Duration

A power exchange dynamic is best explained in my life as the full expression of my entity. It wasn't anybody else's idea, but rather the instinctive and natural side of my nature needing to be expressed. The element of me that sought to be challenged and stretched, to be connected to someone who sought to challenge and stretch, sat there, just slightly under my skin.

I knew this at the same time as I lacked awareness. I felt the stirrings of desire when watching moments in a movie or reading certain scenes in a book. I felt more alive when not treated so much as a woman whom one treated with respect, but rather when I was tested to tap into some inner strength to step up. Respect is a required element of any valuable transaction, of course, but I innately understood that when I was asked to mine down to my personal power, I somehow rose up and became my best self.

Words struggle to express the ineffable; the reason why I keep on writing on here, doggedly trying to achieve the impossible. When I am spanked and taken right up to and beyond my pain limits, it helps me to rise up to be my best self. Comfort is not my enemy but at the same time it is hard to imagine always being comfortable. I find a certain comfort in struggle; a reminder that I am alive and that blood flows through these veins; that my lifeforce is still very much with me.

For the past few weeks there has been a more physical life within the marriage. He's wanted to spank me and test me and those challenges take me down to a very minimal space where the responses are quite out of my control. I'm a puppet with strings; strings that need to be pulled. This, I love.

In the midst of a discussion with some women lately we got onto the topic of the 'Outlander' series.  I couldn't resist speaking of the spanking scene. Claire had disobeyed Jamie and not stayed where he told her to stay. Her actions put not only Jamie but all his men at risk. If it had only been him that had been put at risk, her 'sorry' would have been enough, he told her, but it was important that the men knew that she was punished, and thus she'd need to be spanked. He removed the leather belt that held up his sporan and after much chasing, did the deed. I was laughing away as I told the story, as were some of the women, but one woman looked horrified.

'And, you continued to watch?'

She was absolutely aghast.

'Well, yes.' (I wanted to say, 'I was transfixed'.)

Then, she turned on me.

'Oh, so you like a bit of the rough stuff, do you?'

For a moment, our eyes met, and I considered for a split second answering her by telling her the truth. However, I chose to do what I nearly always do when met with rudeness, I just remained silent. The group quickly moved on, as if it hadn't happened.

It has to be said, I'm not fond of being punished, but, yes, it has happened, in various ways. Whilst I am not fond of it, in fact deplore it, I do recognize it as part of the dynamic. It's tricky. The moment one feels unfairly treated (as did Claire) the heckles go up, but at the same time it's hard to feel bedded down in the dynamic without clarification of expectations.

There are a variety of factors that make for a situation where the natural flow of energy between two people is less at certain times. For one thing, we can't always operate at top gear. We would be sapped of energy, the energy that comes from within us and that is our engine; distracted from other important elements of our lives.

Yet, in a union where there is a natural dominant personality and a natural submissive personality, and where one needs the other in order to have an exchange or flow of energy, it never dies out completely. There is always an ember that can ignite. This knowledge is very important to me. It is what keeps me feeling safe and wrapped in affection; youthful and able to live a passionate life. It is what reminds me that I'm in this power exchange relationship for the long haul.

Update

I thought it was time that I recorded something in this journal. Frankly, it can feel so self-indulgent, all those 'I' statements that one inevitably writes in a journal such as this one. There are three already! It was my husband that asked about the journal and it was his thought that writing again here wasn't a bad thing. I really didn't think he read here. One never knows.

It's been about a month since I wrote and somewhere in there I drifted into a sort of 'depression'. I'd noticed that my mind was chattering away at such a constant and demanding rate that I took the positive step of buying a book about depression, How to lift depression [...fast]. I find it a wonderful aid and I've been working my way through it marking it up so that I can remind myself of the messages whenever I need to do that.

The primary message of the book is that 'depression is always secondary to another problem'. The authors speak in detail of the 'human givens', those elements that all human beings must have  in their lives, and they encourage the reader to do an audit of their lives. First, a depressed person must be calmed and whilst there are various techniques for this I find focusing on the breath in a 5/9 pattern works wonderfully well. So, I inhale to the count of five and exhale to the count of nine.

I was aware before buying the book that I had developed a sleep issue. I was waking far too early in the mornings regardless of when I went to bed and I was aware I was dreaming; lots and lots of mental activity going on in my sleep. The authors explained that a depressed person who inevitably ruminates on issues during the day, deeply in an emotional state and not a rational one, has disrupted sleeping patterns, specifically related to REM dreaming.

If someone dreams excessively to work through the day's upsetting thoughts, they can wake up exhausted. Such people may wake early and find they can't get back to sleep because 'their brains are unable to 'take' any more emotional discharge by dreaming'. This made complete sense to me. I had suspected this. After reading the book, one morning I used the 5/9 pattern and managed to get back to sleep and stay asleep for a couple of hours. Hallelujah, it was working!

The audit of my life is something that I am in the process of doing. I'm in a transitional period of my life and some tweaking of my life and how I live it needs to considered. I might work a couple of days a week, or volunteer for an organisation weekly, or something else new. I might take myself to the library for several long stints of writing each week to make progress on my writing project. Getting the next stage of my life sorted to my satisfaction is a work in progress, but it's not what had me thinking dark thoughts.

One of the human givens is 'volition: a sense of autonomy and control over our lives'. Really, all my married life I've not had that much autonomy. Once I started having babies my husband was happy for me to be with the children and he took virtually full control of our finances. He decided if we went on vacation or did up a home or what we invested in. Yes, I have made suggestions and he's not unsupportive of my suggestions, depending on whether or not he feels that he can manage something. He's generous when he feels that he can be generous.

The situation has often demanded that I display a good deal of patience and I think this is when the lack of autonomy has been felt the most. I'm so much more someone who would prefer to stay away from high risk, whereas high risk is his game. Just lately we talked about this in a very honest way and he listened to me and said that he had been thinking along similar lines, to break down the risk by taking a particular action.There are not my decisions, but he is doing something soon that will enable me to feel much more comfortable. I already feel more comfortable knowing that this is in the pipeline.

I suddenly realized, having re-read what I have written so far that it is so important that I explain that I am not the sort of depressed person that can't get out of bed, or go to the gym or the theatre, or for a walk, or make a meal, or see friends, or visit my mother. I am fully engaged with life whilst at the same time knowing within myself that I am not operating at full speed. My batteries are still operational but delicate, as if at short notice they won't work for a time, and then they do again. I can still enjoy a film, a piece of music, a passage from a book, the birds singing, a conversation, cooking, writing, the light when the sun hits the trees in a certain way in the morning, dressing up, a meal; the business of living. I really do love life and all that it has to offer but I hate my mind when it won't leave me be.

This morning I had an urge to wear pink and realising that I didn't have a lipstick pink anything, went in search of such an item on the Internet. The exact colour I want to wear was not to be found but I shall keep my eye out for it. Depressed people probably aren't nearly so concerned about finding the perfect pink top or dress. I suspect not. It's not that I don't have happy thoughts but simply that I have too many thoughts and some of them aren't that pretty. That's what upsets me, that I can't control that.

Returning to the 'human givens' one such vital category is 'attention: receiving it from others but also giving it.' From a few comments my husband has been making lately it is clear that I don't give him enough attention. In the foggy thinking that makes up depression, that tendency to say 'woe is me', I'd forgotten that he needs to receive attention just as much as I need to receive attention. Four children later, all adults now, he wants his share. I've been remiss here. I really have. Intent on service of a dominant kind I've been a taker more than a giver. I dropped the ball when it comes to pleasing him and making this right has been a great aid in bringing us closer and in getting that chattering mind of mine to take a hike. I can explain this further some other time for this post is already long.

Griffin and Tyrrell write 'What helps is getting the depressed person to stop worrying and get their basic physical and emotional needs met, stop brain exhaustion and rebuild their energy levels and self confidence. We call this the human givens approach to therapy'. They are convinced that depression is not a biological illness and I agree. They believe however that 'there is a biological element to depression' and that depressed people have low levels of serotonin, a consequence of depression.

It is now 10 years since I asked my husband to spank me for the first time. I have come to know myself well such that I know what can give me an enormous boost; make my life feel that I have abundant riches. Taking me into that realm such that I can be a sexual slut is unbelievably enriching, though slightly scary since once bimbocindi is out of the box it's hard to put her back in for some time. There's a greedy, slutti, demanding, voracious side to her, and a childlike, stamp her foot side too. 'I want...' she can ultimately demand when thoroughly discombobulated (though never in scene) when she doesn't get her way, sounding more desperate than she cares to admit. It's embarrassing, truly embarrassing to see her like this. I am not always especially impressed to know her and yet she is a part of me.

In all my experiences in the past ten years it remains the case that to be beaten is the most uplifting of all experiences. To get to that total sexual surrender such as I did on Saturday is gorgeous, but the next day when my husband bent me over and spanked me as he wanted, it put me into a tail spin. I wanted the serotonin (or whatever it is ) that is released after a proper beating. I desperately wanted that, not anything else. I wanted to walk on air. I wanted my drug. I wanted to be satiated such that I no longer wanted.

This is the sort of attention that I want, and need. Yes, I need it. I need to be tied up, tight; a gag in my mouth. No way out. And then, over a period of time, beginning with a warm up, beaten harder and faster, until I am absolutely spent. Then, the serotonin kicks in. My love for him explodes. My world is set right. I am deliriously happy. (Footnote: Re-reading this I've not made mention of the other way to get serotonin in my life, a daily kinky ritual that went somewhat unattended during the depressive cycle and is likely the culprit as well, but that's another story for another day.)

My intellect tells me that to get someone to do something you want them to do it is necessary to make it appealing for them. Of course, some people have a predilection to spank as much as some people like me have a predilection to want to be spanked. Failing that, how does one get to a point where it is a desire on both parts for this interaction? I have no definite answer, but possibly it is part and parcel of him seeing me happy immediately afterwards and for days later. Since it rarely happens in a comprehensive way, how can I entice him to partake, not just this time, but in a more regular way? This is what I am working on and thinking about. 

Does this mean that I have an obsession? Sure. Of course it's an obsession. A need. It's addictive. But, it's not like heroine or some other drug. I've never taken a drug in my life, so I'm surmising a bit here, but the point is that kinky happenings won't kill me.  To be restrained and to receive adequate sensory stimulation is my medicine.

We're talking about this which is a good thing, better than not talking. Perhaps he will read about my feelings here too. God knows I don't go to the rack willingly. You do know these sorts of beatings hurt like hell, right? But, the fact remains I need it. I really do think that if I could just be taken to the rack in a somewhat consistent way, with full understanding of the enormous benefits of this practice to me, that as a human being I'd have all that I could possibly want. Isn't it the strangest thing that someone who is so devoted to me in so many other ways can't understand this.

Enduring kinky thoughts

I took a survey for Galen Fous which asked questions about my kinks and fantasies; when they started and what they looked like. This prompted me to think about the sort of archetypes, thoughts and images I might have been inspired by in early childhood, for my fantasies began at a very age. I had kinky thoughts as early as four or five years old. I masturbated to them most days.

That period of my life is now over 50 years ago so it’s hard to remember much detail, but I distinctly remember bath time. As my bath was running I would often bend over. To anyone who might walk in it seemed I liked to touch my toes, but what I was doing was imagining being told to bend over for a spanking. I also remember touching myself to orgasm as a very young child. When I went to bed and the lights were turned off, this seemed the ideal ‘cover’ for my fantasy life where I could masturbate to certain images and experience the pleasure of the arousal and the climax of my body. Falling to sleep was then certain and I’m sure that I sometimes fell asleep during the process. It was my relaxation time; my time to think my own nasty thoughts.

I can distinctly remember a day in primary school (elementary school) when it occurred to me that if it was possible to read minds, I was in big trouble. Could I be letting off signals of the thoughts going through my mind? I determined that day to be vigilant about ensuring that I kept my dirty secret safely guarded.

I recall becoming aroused when there would be some sort of discipline in a story. It could be in a school setting or in a home setting. I’d know on what page it had occurred in a novel and I’d return to that page over and over. If it happened in a movie or in a show I was watching I’d hold my breath as if struck dumb by a kink filled meteor. I’d take those images to bed with me that night, and all the nights after that to re-enact.

I never made myself the perpetrator of the action, but rather the person who needed to be disciplined. I’d struggle sometimes, as I do now, to come up with a real offence, since I made it my business as a young child to stay out of trouble and not to bother anybody too much. Yet, I was immediately and profoundly aroused when in my fantasies I was lectured, sent to the Master’s office,  placed in a corner to think about my behaviour, made to write lines, put over someone’s knee and spanked.

I needed to find in my mind suitable people who would naturally behave sternly and firmly. I needed to find people quite different to my parents who would not have dreamed of behaving this way. I needed to locate for these guilty pleasures images of people who were particular; particular about rules and keeping a girl in her place. I suspect I came up with the sort of people I saw in movies, men who wore suits and looked formal and strict; men who saw it as their business to keep young girls in check, for their own good. Sloppy attire, eating sweets behind closed doors, being late to class or smudging the ink were all behaviours that could be stamped out with a good, hard bare bottom spanking, and they didn’t hesitate to make these behaviour adjustments.

I didn’t confine my disciplinarians just to males. I had a soft spot in my kinky mind for the nasty House Mistress of a boarding school who would call girls into her study after school for such behaviours as not making the bed well enough, for not passing room inspection or for bringing mud into the boarding house, having not wiped their shoes at the door. Later, she was the one who gave enemas, and who delighted in informing of a whipping that would take place on Saturday morning. She’s the sort of woman who took private delight in a girl festering and squirming for a few days just thinking about what was to come; when the girl would get her ‘just desserts’.

I also explored the situation of being in a friend’s home and her father being a stern disciplinarian. Of course, to keep the matter sorted my parents would have told her parents to treat me as if I was their own child and this led to both my friend and I being spanked whenever it was deemed a necessary correction.

Later, naturally enough, I added all sorts of concepts and scenarios to my fantasies. There would be stern lovers and husbands; there would be trips to institutions where a girl was transformed into the ideal wife. I left the more innocent world of spanking to a world where roles were far less well defined. One minute a ‘Master’ would be thrashing me and the next he’d have me over a table and feast on my holes. Hold on! Aren’t I at a school where they can’t do that? Apparently, they could do anything they wanted with me. I let my fantasy take me where it wanted to go and that often led to bondage, to anal play, to use by multiple men; to being pierced and wearing heavy rings; to more whipping than I think I could possibly ever manage in real life. I was an ‘owned girl’ and the only rule now was to obey and accept.

Today, if I need a quick fantasy, or even if I don’t and one just fleets across my mind, it is of me waiting; waiting to be disciplined; shamed, lectured, beaten and/or used. If the fantasy is particularly fleeting, there might simply be a leather strap or a cane hurtling through the air on the way to a waiting bare backside. If you’d been watching me you might see me look slightly startled as I brace myself for the awaiting pain, and pleasure in the thought.

I am today not terribly different to that little girl who grew into a big girl at secondary school and a woman at University and later in the work place and home. I try not to bother anyone and to get along under my own steam. I do my work. I am responsible, reasonably quiet living; take great joy in many small things; sometimes struggle to overcome obsessive thoughts and worries; to keep my world in some sort of order.

Getting back to the survey, I don’t think I was overly burdened with archetypes of femininity or how a girl should behave (more on that next time) except to say that I was probably a good child in an effort to not be disciplined or lectured; to not be any trouble to anyone. My parents worked very hard and were largely unavailable to me so it made sense to get on with things on my own and not to cause them trouble. Also, I didn't want to be in trouble. It wasn't at all comfortable for me to be corrected.

It’s interesting that my fantasies were and are about scenarios that I try to avoid. If I do something naughty, even now, I’m not looking to get caught and be dealt with. Guilt might mean I must confess and that will probably lead to consequences. The consequences may well lead to sexual arousal somewhere down the track but I hate consequences. I hate trouble and I especially loathe getting into trouble. I am fearful waiting to hear my fate and I’m mad as hell when it is meted out.

I absolutely love attention. Since a dominant must pay attention – to the bad as well as the good – then those consequences are part of the deal that I accept. He might be meting out disciple, but if he’s doing that then he’s paying attention, which after all is, even when being undertaken by the meanest of Masters responsible for my fantasy education (of even the most debauched kind) a form of affection and care.

Did the lights just go on? I was a lonely child, responsible for myself from a very early age. There was virtually no discipline, no rules, because there didn’t need to be. As a young child I created my own rules; to do my work, to not to be a burden to anyone. So, what could be more sensible than create scenarios in my mind where I lived in an entirely different world where there were rules; where people did pay attention to me; and where thus I was subject to discipline? And, over time, why not add in sexual components; more lovely, passionate, pleasurable attention!

I am not exaggerating in the least when I say that I have fantasies every day of my life. Nor am I exaggerating when I say that my hunger for expression of my sexuality is with me as a constant companion. I can taper it down at the edges with absorption into tasks, busyness, reading, writing, cooking, walking, talking and living life. But, my dears, it never ever goes away. Without a doubt I’m your classic perverted attention sponge.

Fear

I feel sure that growing up as I did in the 50s and 60s when corporal punishment was still very much the done thing, I was fascinated and fearful of what happened to some children. Since it didn't happen to me, but supposedly happened all about me, I think I grew up with a feeling that whatever it was, it was to be feared, and avoided. Then, the fear became eroticized and the next thing you know there is a middle-aged woman writing over 900 entries in an e-journal about her thoughts and feelings around that!

Many of my fantasies include fear as their base. I never launch into a spanking in my thoughts. Never. I'm told I'm going to get a spanking. It's a waiting sort of experience first. I'm put up against a wall to wait or told to report on Sunday at 3 pm, maybe five or so days away. Perhaps I have to report to the Master at the end of the school day. They seem to know that inducing my fear of the spanking is the real correction; reminding me minute by minute that they are the ones in control. They are the ones who will administer pain in order to make their point.

It seems so close to an impossibility that I could ask for a spanking, it practically is an impossibility. Yes, I once asked to be spanked, but just that once, when my craving overwhelmed my fear. Late 40s and having thought this stuff for decades I simply had to know what it felt like to be spanked. I'm fortunate that my husband didn't make it a 'Claytons' sort of spanking. It was the real deal. It hurt, it stung, it had me flailing around and screaming my head off. And afterwards, man, was I relieved and happppppy. I flew.

I often walk the dog late. She gets nervous around most other dogs and if I walk her late she doesn't need to feel fearful. There are overhead lights one way, just little lights along the path the other way,  and when I look left it is quite, quite dark. I imagine it is the woods and I test myself with the thought, 'Do you have the courage, little girl, to walk into the dark woods where there might be wolves?' I am seriously terrified at the thought, and I just can't do it, but I like to play with the fear. I look left, but I walk right.

I'm still the little girl in the red cloak, frightened of the big, bad Wolf, but so incredibly entranced by him at the same time. I suppose it won't change now. I have no reason to imagine it ever could.

Arousal from spanking

Relationships adapt, change and evolve over time. My feelings about being spanked have evolved as well and that bothers me a bit. Spanking is where it all started for me. As a little girl I'd come across a disciplinary scene in a novel and I would stop breathing, dog ear the page and return to it endlessly; play it out in my mind when I was alone in my bed and the lights were out.

Spanking is how I engaged my husband in a power exchange with me. We tried a number of different techniques and I have vivid memories of some of them. He was aroused by spanking from the outset but I think he was also aroused by the happy girl that came about after the spanking. He'd often push me far beyond where I wanted to go and I'd hang onto various little phrases that my mentor used. 'It will be over soon', I'd repeat to myself and this seemed to allow me to bunker down into the spanking. Sucking and biting a ball gag or cock gag helped a great deal and being restrained was often the perfect scenario for me, allowing me to take more than I normally could and to experience that intense sense of 'letting go' and catharsis.

For some time we had a 'black book' and he wrote down any sort of behaviour of mine over the week that he didn't appreciate. I remember saying something cheeky during one disciplinary spanking and he said immediately 'five more whacks'. It was a crop he'd been using and the five fast whacks delivered produced five angry weals which instinctively had me deciding to move away. 'Did I give you permission to move?' he barked. It stopped me in my tracks and I regained my position,  not wanting any more, a little frightened to disobey, flustered but aroused by it all too, of course.

Since the break of those sorts of situations and scenarios I'm having trouble returning to the sorts of games that he wants to now play. I think he feels that I need to be spanked for my own good and for the sake of us, but something holds me back. I give myself messages to 'let go' and just accept but there is a real rebellion going on in my head.

I wonder about this rebellion. Am I sub-consciously thinking, 'You've been absent for a long time. What makes you think you can just return when it suits you?' Physically, I am not enjoying it. There is more annoyance in the smacks or the sting of the paddle, a rising of umbrage, and I can't settle into it. He hates that I can't settle into it and he tends to stop, upset with me. Maybe, some would say, he should just keep going and get it over with, but he's reluctant to cause any undue harm to my state of mind.

He's suggested we return to the 'black book' and whilst I am not someone who enjoys having my little failings documented and dealt with, maybe that's best, at least for now. It's not that I am not aroused by the thoughts of spankings, or talking about them and so on. Perhaps I don't care for the fact that he wants to make them the so called 'sexually arousing spanking', as in spank a bit and rub a bit and touch a bit. That's just not working at the moment for me.

Maybe, I have gone so far down the 'rules' path this year that the need is there to go further. I've been introduced to rules and corrected for breaking them enough times that this sort of 'person of authority' in my life who can dictate the rules for me seems perfectly natural now. Maybe he's right about the 'black book' but maybe rather than him decide arbitrarily that I did something he doesn't care for, it should be a fairly fair system where the rules are determined in advance. If 'no talking back' is a rule, then fine, I'll embrace the rule, eventually.

It's all rather new and different and I can't quite get a handle on my own thinking about it all. It's like there has a been a bit of loosening of the wires of my brain and my thinking is altering, and what arouses me is altering. It's the tighter grip that my brain is processing as arousing rather than the physical sensation of being spanked. It's as if that is now something that isn't so much foreplay for me but something delivered for other reasons. There has been arousal in both methods but somehow the arousal is the end result of this sort of power over me in my life now, something more serious and sophisticated perhaps...

Pervert to pervert

The three couples had agreed to meet and when Veronica and her husband arrived the other two couples were ensconced on the veranda of the Club, overlooking the immaculate tennis courts and gardens. It was a beautiful, balmy evening, not in the least crowded, unexpectedly, and there was a sense of privilege in the air. As she walked up the back steps leading to the verandah she heard Marcus's deep, booming voice and knew immediately where her friends were seated. She and her husband walked directly to them.

"Did you bring The Herald?" he asked them, a stab at their being late.

They gave their apologies, as was appropriate, and Marcus offered his acceptance of the excuse by way of a remark.

"Come here, gorgeous, sit by me."

It was evident to her that he was in a playful mood, and she was happy to concur; to feed him.

Conversation ensued; the type of conversation that happens amongst three couples that know one another well, but not well enough to talk on topics other than the superficial. The conversation rambled easily from topic to topic, never staying too long on any one topic; nothing meaty or consequential; as anticipated.

A restaurant was mentioned and Marcus noted that he wouldn't go back. It was okay; the food was fine but the restaurant was too loud, he said.

The irony was too much for her. Whilst the others changed topic, yet again, she turned her body and looked directly into his eyes.

"It was too loud for you?"

"Yes."

"It was too loud for you?"

"Yes."


"As I walked up the stairs just now, I knew exactly where you were seated because I could hear your voice so very clearly above all the other voices, but the restaurant was too loud for you?"

Their eyes met. She was enjoying herself.

"You are very cheeky. You have always been very cheeky."

She started to giggle. Appetizer had arrived. Thank God, for she was starving.

"You're naughty. You're a very naughty girl. I can tell."

She was loving this and she giggled her head off.

"How can you tell?"

"It's that glint in your eye. I know a naughty girl when I see one."

"Ohhhh, really??"

The restraint he was using was palpable to her.

"I have such a strong desire to spank you. I'd love to put you over my knee right here, right now."

"You do?"

She was being provocative. She was loving the threat, but she was also weighing up the slight possibility that he was bolshy enough to do it; praying that his wife's presence would stop him dead.

"I'd love to spank your bottom. I know you'd love it."

"I would?"

"You know you would, you little tart. You don't fool me."

She was a mass of giggles, amazed that they'd shared this dynamic without the slightest clue that the others cared a dolt. Whatever they were talking about, it mattered not to them that the two of them were engrossed in a tete a tete.

That they would engage in a sexual dalliance was completely out of the question. It was never going to happen. That they knew one another's natures and enjoyed this game was something they both understood. To know a pervert you have to be a pervert and they were certainly both that.

Kinkiness is not a choice

I was beside my sister-in-law in her car some years ago when she made the comment that she wished she was 'straight'; that being gay had caused her many problems in her life, but she was who she was. That was all there was to that.

It was a piece of 'evidence' for me that being gay was not a choice because growing up I'd heard the opinion voiced many times over that gay people were often choosing to be gay. My sister-in-law's sexuality was never an issue for me, though it was cause for concern in her own family. I wonder if, subliminally, I related to her sentiments. It was before I had comes to terms with my own sexuality really but I still understood what she was saying.

I sometimes do have the thought that it would be easier to be non-kinky. I had it this morning. I happened to be on Facebook and a friend had posted a photograph of her oysters and champagne happily sitting on a table on the veranda of her holiday home waiting to be devoured. I thought, 'Wouldn't it be easy to be like her. I could get my kicks out of things like that and never have to visit the dark side again. Life would be one long party and I could be frivolous and think everything was "gorgeous"'.

However, that's not me. I didn't choose to be kinky, but I am. My spirit flies free when I am contained, instructed, corrected, spanked and used. When I am not particularly happy the reason is that this didn't happen any time recently. Sure, there are other reasons why I might be out of sorts with my world but so long as I have such experiences, I can cope. Life doesn't get me down for long so long as my submissive nature can soar.

My husband and I went away this weekend on our own and that has been a very rare thing for us, especially this year. It should have been lovely from the outset but the truth is that there were some tense moments. "Oh boy, you really need a fuck!" he said to me yesterday when my responses weren't too flash.

This morning he said, "Let's work in the garden for the first part of the day and if you're a good girl I'll fuck you in the afternoon." "Okay," I replied.

At lunch time it was time and he led me into the bedroom. He caressed me and blindfolded me; put my mouth gag in place. I started to relax. "Feeling better?" he asked. I nodded I did. "Now be a good girl and bend over the pillow for your spanking." Bimbo didn't hesitate.

He was using a paddle and he'd been using it for some time when he said that if I wanted more all I had to do was raise my bottom. No response. If I wanted to do that I could do that any time up until the count of 10. I raised my ass at 5. "Oh, you are hungry today."

More pain. More struggle. Some caressing. He repeated the instruction. Bimbo panted through to the count of 8 and raised her ass again. "Oh, you really are a little pain slut, aren't you?!" he said.

This time he thrashed. Ten hard and fast whacks of the paddle that had me screaming through the gag.

Part of him likes to think he hasn't been subverted; that he does it for me. But, he was aroused by the activity. There is no doubt about it, because after a long lovemaking session he bellowed like a bull and filled me with his semen; something that he hasn't done in a while. It pleased him and relaxed him in full measure.

I am sitting here now on a bruised and mark ass and loving every minute of it. I feel my old self. I feel...happy. Yes, the oysters and the champagne and the freshly mowed, immaculate looking lawn at the oh so perfect holiday house looked inviting, but I wouldn't trade it for satiation of my kink on any day. It's that important to me. 

Obedience training

I spent the best part of Sunday stuck on a blog in tumblr. I deserve credit for achieving a massive amount of laundry but in amongst that, yes, I was absorbed in the world of a man who presents as a very strict Dominant. He is not, he says, a boyfriend. He's a Dominant. He's good enough to explain how it came to this moment in time and he's perceptive about his inclinations and mindset. He knows what he wants and he knows that many women want to give him what he wants. He is not wanting, it appears, a permanent situation, and having a wife, kids and a house in the suburbs is very far from his mind, as far as I can tell. He's urbane; a sophisticate; an educated man, interested in the Arts; creative.

I think he's real. I really do. I am less gullible than I used to be. For goodness sake, one of the people in my writing class has set up a blog not unlike this to benefit his writing practice and create a character, so anything is entirely possible. Even so, I think the man in question is pretty genuine. He's very, very consistent. So, let's assume, for the sake of the argument that he is entirely genuine.

If I could use only one word to describe his philosophy about the power exchange relationship it would be 'obedience'. No matter what else he might be asked by readers or what he might write, it all comes down to this word. In an ideal world, he writes, he would never have to punish a girl because she would be completely obedient. Since it is probably not possible for someone to be obedient all the time, and especially at the beginning of a relationship, his view is that you make sure that the first time she disobeys you the punishment is completely detestable  to the submissive. So, she might enjoy a spanking. Make sure the spanking is awful; something that she never wants to experience again. Whatever it is, make sure she hates it. It might be 1000 lines or kneeling in the corner for an hour. So long as it is a completely distasteful experience.

This sort of writing is where I began years ago in my reading. I located somewhere a man that said that as a Dominant you have to be a bit like Fonsie; create a persona of being tough, be tough once and then the power arrangement was forever clear. The man yesterday with the tumblr blog said that he'd never had to repeat the same lesson with the same girl; that thereafter he had her obedience. I wonder about that. Yes, an unpleasant experience will be memorable but will it be remembered forever? Perhaps so.

Somehow in my mind there's a difference between being in fear of someone and being quite sure of what the consequences will be for certain behaviors. This is where the (brutal) punishment spanking idea worries me as a philosophy. I can completely come to terms with being pushed beyond my limits for a spanking that is done outside of the punishment realm, but I'm not at all sure how I'd feel later about a man who took me to the realms that this tumblr blogger is suggesting he has taken girls because they were disobedient. There is a part of me that says that disobedience is a break down of the agreed dynamic of the relationship and that this must be sorted but that there are many ways to a skin a cat and many ways to get the dynamic back where it should be, for both your sakes, without having the fear button kick into place in her mind. (Or, am I being pedantic?)

Technically speaking, a harsh spanking is okay, except for the fact that I worry about the repercussions. I'm not sure how I would feel, if my feelings would be forever changed; not just my feelings about ever disobeying again and doing that thing again, whatever it may be, but my feelings about the man. That's the thing. I've been spanked soundly for being naughty (can't remember what I did) and my feelings didn't change but that's because, I think, that I wasn't spanked so soundly that I'd never do another naughty thing ever again. Maybe it would have done me good to have that sort of spanking where I forever feared another one. I'm really not sure about all this at all.

Generally speaking, my experience is that any disobedience or break down in the power dynamic is going to lead to a breakdown in the relationship overall. This tends to mean that communication is thwarted, giving me an opportunity to decide how I feel about things. And, how does that make me feel? That makes me feel that I've made a mistake and that I want to get things sorted and back to normal. It makes me want to make up and say that  I am sorry. It confirms the submission. Every mistake ultimately makes the power more present and predetermined. Every mistake makes me wanting to make no more mistakes, until one day I stop making mistakes. Until one day, viola, I'm trained! I'm the submissive, the girl who obeys and he's the Dominant, the man who has the power.

Yes, you can spank them unmercifully or you can do the hard yards and let time take it course (which is not to say that a sound spanking isn't part of the deal, by the way). If she has a genuine submissive nature, and the Dominant holds his nerve, she'll eventually see obedience as a very natural thing; a turn on; the way she desires to live.

Spanking desires

In the past week or so I've read rather a lot of material about spanking and I've watched several little clips that have turned up on tumblr sites that I follow. It's a desire of mine that has returned with some gusto and is pervading my mind on a regular basis at the moment.

On Saturday I asked my husband if we could return to a more disciplinary approach in our relationship. That is, could I ask that he think about when a spanking might be in order. He was all right with that and later in the day just before we left to go out and have a bite to eat for a late lunch he called me into the bedroom. He ordered me over a chair and he spanked me.

Unfortunately, it didn't do what I hoped it would do. His mind rather quickly wandered to pleasure, which is fine of course, except that I think I've been craving the positive effects of a sound thrashing for such a long time the light spanking just didn't do the job. In fact, it frustrated me intensely.

I watched a clip, all put on for the camera of course, where the girl got a spanking over her jeans at school and then a bare bottom spanking at home for getting in trouble at school. The wooden paddle left her with bruises and one can imagine that three days later she'd have more bruising still, making sitting down rather a chore.

I want (well not want, but crave) a spanking that takes me into a sub-space sort of mode. I want the sort of spanking that leaves me clutching at the ropes in some vain attempt to unattach myself and flee. I want to feel that sense of joie de vivre I experience after a sound spanking; that feeling of love not just for my husband but for the whole world; that full body orgasm that makes me high as a kite on life. I want it to feel more than a bit uncomfortable when I sit. Do I want to experience the pain of a spanking? I actually don't. Do I crave a tear producing spanking? I really do.

Reflections, chronic fatigue

As this year starts to draw to a close, I'm aware of some turbulent thoughts and so I am going to take a few minutes here to be reflective about the past year.

On a personal level, it's been a year of achievement. I've finished five M.A. subjects, which I am pleased about. I can run further than I could at the beginning of the year and I've involved myself in more social activities. They are all positive accomplishments, I think.

In other ways, however, the year has been challenging. My husband's chronic fatigue condition has dominated the year and my opportunities to let 'cindi' out of the bag have been compromised in a number of ways.

I'm left to wonder what I am doing and where I am going. I am deeply conscious of the part of me that responds so beautifully to having a dominant and feeling that sense of strong connection and yet the opportunity for this forging of my submissiveness with a dominant force is ultimately compromised.

The love that my husband and I share seems to be unbreakable. There have been challenges for the marriage and yet neither of us has ever seriously thought of walking away. It's not just the children. It's this unbreakable union of ours; the unconditional love. We are in this together until death do us part.

On occasions I can see and feel him trying to be the man he once was to me. I know he wishes it were different. The will is there but the energy rarely is. We have little talks about how it might be, what changes we could make, what might work for him or what he might be able to manage, but the simple fact is that he has changed now. The condition only allows him so much focus and energy to draw on in a day. Whether this is permanent no-one can say.

Of course, I look up advice for the spouses of people with chronic fatigue for tips. Communication is the big piece of advice, to be patient and realistic and recognize they are doing the best they can. The other piece of advice is to not be too hard on yourself. They have lost a part of themselves but as the spouse you too have lost a part of your life.

I think what I've tried to do is hold onto that part of myself that gives me such a boost in life, that part of me that revels in submission, at the same time as I am dealing with profound loss. Of course, the two don't really go together. Deep down, I know that I am trying to chase the depressive thoughts away. I so wanted this time of our lives to be different.

On the weekend I spoke to him about how it all began for us: a spanking arrangement. I was telling him about my stats; that of all the posts I have ever written the most popular by far was the one called 'Spanking Memories'. I understand that many people would have googled those words and landed on my journal but even allowing for that there's huge interest in spanking and spanking arrangements out there. I asked him if he'd like to go back to that. I suggested a time when it might work because privacy is still very hard for us. The children come and go without notice. We would hardly ever have the house to ourselves at the same time of day and week.

He thought it a good idea; said that he felt it helped me to be spanked and I said that I thought it helped him to spank me. So far it hasn't happened. But, that's the goal for us; not a particularly grand or all encompassing goal but it's a 'something'; a 'something' that could make a big difference for both of us.

One of the aspects of myself that I don't like is that to me I can feel weak. Some people have to endure so much and here am I sorta breaking down when on the surface my life is going along all right. It's just that on the inside I feel so vulnerable and...liable to break. I feel...little, and wish that someone would pick me up and give me the most enormous bear hug. Well, I can't complain really, my youngest son gave me a lovely hug at the front door this morning and I noticed I held onto him perhaps a second longer than I should have. It's just a rather vulnerable day for Vesta.

So, enough of this self pity. I'm off to the market to see my Chinese fishmonger, my Vietnamese butcher, my Moroccan deli man. I adore my little weekly outing amongst all the nationalities of the world in the one location. I'll smile at them and they'll smile at me and all will be right with the world. 

Spanking reaction

The exploration of my nature, my authentic self as some people like to call it, has been going on for a few years. I was reminded of that this morning as I responded to a comment left on a post written in 2009. Throughout that period, most of the time, it has been a rather intense situation. I've lived and breathed the exploration. There are few days when these thoughts haven't entered my consciousness.

I'm going through a patch where I'm trying not to focus on the exploration and yet, all paths lead back to here. The thoughts pervade my mind even when I will them not to exist. If one takes yesterday as an example, it was a very pleasant social day with friends and friends of friends: lovely wines, lovely food, a gorgeous sunny day in a very pleasant garden. The chit chat kept me busy and it was only on our way home that I realized that I hadn't had a kinky thought all day.

The thought that I'd managed to keep my mind busy - listening and talking - was quite pleasing. Perhaps I was becoming more like 'normal' people who could focus on real world matters pretty much all of the time.

Yet, here I am the next morning, up early to take a tablet so that my hay fever doesn't get too out of control, with my head swimming with thoughts relating to my submissive nature.

My husband and I have been happy. He took me away for a long weekend in the country last weekend and we had the opportunity to do what we wished. We'd rented a little cottage that was quite private and one evening he decided to spank me. He took off his belt after that and all in all, I was rather soundly thrashed. He told me that I'd not managed to follow his direction in relation to two matters and so there was a disciplinary component to the session; something that didn't bother me too much at the time really, if you take into account that the sex immediately thereafter was quite thrilling.

However, the next morning I felt very agitated and that was because (or I think it was because) he complained that there was an attitude in my tone, and there probably was, but at the time I thought he was being very pedantic about it.

In fact, I think I was experiencing (and in fact he pointed this out to me) 'sub drop' because it has been quite some time since we've played like that. My reaction to his chiding me was seriously overboard, but I couldn't do anything about it. I felt distressed.

I must say he handled it well; gave me a little time to settle myself down and then insisted that he was taking me out. As soon as the decision was made on my behalf I settled down and thereafter we had a very happy day. If it had been left to me, it would have been miserable because I wasn't capable of getting myself out of the stew I'd cooked. It's moment like this when someone telling me what to do is a thousand percent right.

I like to think that I can sort out my life and order my days; that I'm relatively focused and organized and forward thinking. In fact, this year has been lovely because I've pushed through that natural reserve and introversion to join groups and be with people more regularly and it's been...very nice indeed.

However, the fact remains that the expression of my submission nature soothes me and completes me. Sex, spanking, bondage, restraint - these things are very important to me. Being at one; feeling content with my husband - this matters a great deal to me. I'm still the same gal. I still sit at this lap top of mine and wallow in thoughts of lust; possession; obsession. I'm still on the adventure of my life.

Just when I thought I was out...

Ever since I began my writing for assessment in my course I've handed in something at least a little bit kinky, or at least with something naughty about the story. This time, I was committed to playing it straight and work with a narrative entirely non-kinky. The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides was entirely appropriate, I decided, to launch myself into real literature and to give smut a break. I determined that to be a serious writer that is what I needed to do. Work with the material of a Pulitzer Prize winner and a writer of whom I am in awe and I was heading on the right track, was my estimation.

Ah! But, I would not be entirely right at all. For Jeffrey is perfectly capable of a little smut himself and he handles the material deftly.

One night in their unit, Leonard asked "What's your most secret sexual fantasy?"
...

To placate him, Madeleine thought for a moment, "This'll sound weird, but I guess it would be to be pampered."

...

And, for the next hour or so, Leonard went about fulfilling it.
\...

She was frightened to ask Leonard what his secret fantasy was. But in the spirit of reciprocity, a day or so later she did ask. Leonard's fantasy was the inverse of hers. He wanted a sleeping girl, a sleeping beauty.

...

Well, that was easy," she said afterward.

"You got off lucky. It could have been a slave-master sort of deal."

"Right."

"It could have involved enemas."

"Enough!"

The spirit of exploration that now dominated their bedroom had a strong effect on Madeleine. It led her, a little while later, to confess to Leonard one night, when he wanted to repeat the hairdresser scenario that being pampered wasn't really her secret fantasy. Her *secret* secret fantasy was something she'd never told anyone and could barely admit to herself. It was this: whenever Madeleine masturbated (this was hard in itself to confess to) she pictured herself as a little girl, being spanked. She didn't know why she did this. She had no memory of being spanked as a girl. Her parents hadn't believed in spanking. And it wasn't really a fantasy of hers; that is, she didn't want Leonard to spank her. But, for some reason, thinking about herself as a little girl being spanked had always helped her to have an orgasm when was touching herself."

So, here's what I think about all that.

(1) The writing in this scene turns me on much more than the writing in 50 Shades of Grey.
(2) I'm feeling slightly all powerful and am not at all inclined to tell you if Leonard does spank Madeleine (but could be bribed to do so...).
(3) I really really want to work with this narrative source now.
(4) All through the book I had this sense that Madeleine felt rather like me. The above is evidence of this fact.

So, as Al Pacino would say, "Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in."

Spanked for procrastination

The day started out well. The youngest lad walked off to school happily and I made for the gym and had a good workout. I didn't stop for tea because the plan was to go straight home to read my lecture and do my work. All good, so far.

I got home and made my owner and myself a poached egg on toast; had a little chat about various points of interest and then sat down to do my work. Simple. On track.

This is the danger moment. Perhaps if I were just to check the gmail...Ah yes, a comment. Best reply to that; it's only polite.

Then, perhaps just a quick look at a pikki or two....Oh, that one's nice...and I could post it for all those deviants who come to my blog to look for smut. No harm in sharing...

So, I've done that now and it really is time that I went about my work, or something like what happened to this girl might happen to me. Wouldn't it be fun if Masters still spanked girls who procrastinate like in the good ole days...

Okay. Okay. I'm going to do my work.

Nearly spanked with a hairbrush

Last night, I had a dream about getting a spanking. This is a very rare event. Unlike Abel who has regular dreams about giving spankings, I don't, alas, dream about getting a spanking except on very rare nights.

I was living with another family. There was a dream before that dream where I was with a boy, a disabled boy who I think belonged to this family. I was very close to him and putting two and two together, somehow or other I was a part of their family. Maybe, they'd adopted me or maybe I was an exchange student. I really don't know.

Anyways, clearly I'd done something naughty and the father was not at all happy with me. I seemed to know that I was going to get a spanking. I was waiting in the living room area of their house and I felt a sense of expectation about it. Maybe, I should have had a sense of foreboding about it but I don't recall that; just a knowledge that at any time he could call me for my punishment. I was completely accepting although I had no idea what a spanking would be like. I am clear on that. I felt curious as much as I felt worried. I was fairly certain it was going to hurt quite a bit. I figured that if someone was going to punish you by putting you over their knee, they were going to make sure it was memorable and motivated a person to never do that thing again. But, I didn't know for sure.

He came into the room and he said to me, "Let's get this over with. Into my study."

I got up immediately and walked into the study. I was ready to do exactly as told but at that moment he remembered that he'd left the hair brush in another part of the house. I was disappointed that we couldn't get on with the discipline. I had this sense that punishment was a good thing because once I got what I deserved I'd be able to be forgiven and to move on with a clean slate. I distinctly remember wanting that spanking so that I could be punished and be done with the sense that I was "in trouble" and in the bad books.  There would be no pleading for leniency from me. I wanted that hiding.

And, then...the dream ended. I never did get my spanking. I never did get a chance for the father to tell me that I had been forgiven and that he expected me from now on to obey his rules and that he felt sure that I was a good girl who simply needed to be reminded that it was my place to do as I was told.

I am still awfully disappointed about it. I can't understand at all why my subconscious would derail me in this way and not allow me the correction I so sorely needed. And, it's not the first time I've been taken up to the moment of a good thrashing in my dreams only to be let off the hook by waking up. It's absolutely not fair!

Domestic discipline

Here's  a little confession. I can procrastinate rather badly. Oh, I don't miss deadlines but I can put the issue off. Quite a bit of my writing on this web journal relates to said procrastination. It's the easiest thing in the world to sit here and type away my thoughts. They flow freely and aren't marked (well, once upon a time my posts were either 'Approved' or 'Declined' and my God, did I love that!) so when I have something I should do but don't feel like doing, I tend to come here. Also, I'm sitting in front of the television bored silly by what's on offer.

So, let's consider procrastination and see how this might be handled in a power exchange relationship. In my case, my procrastination is up to me to sort out. I don't ask for help and I don't need help with organizing my day or life. In fact, I'm the one in my relationship most likely to have the best handle on deadlines. I'm the most inclined to not take a task right up to the deadline. My husband is much more comfortable with the adrenaline rush of taking something right up to the deadline. If I consistently missed deadlines, then that would be another matter. But, I don't. So, what if a girl did miss her deadlines; what if she wasn't managing her life well?

I have no issue with a Dominant or Top creating rules that he thinks would aid the submissive (bottom). Structuring things must surely aid some people and there's the benefit of incentive that can be added into the program. I find it quite arousing to think that a person may say that I can't have chocolate (it's on my mind because I just had three little pieces of dark chocolate with my coffee) or that I have to run 5 out of 7 days or some such rule that is monitored.

Certainly, when we are on holiday my husband has an opportunity to monitor what I eat and a little piece of marzipan in dark chocolate is allowed usually but I must ask and not just help myself. It's a fun part of the dynamic because if he wants to use something against me and tells me I must be punished it can happen any time and with complete privacy with no children to worry about. Yay!

Within our day to day lives we've tried having black marks; a little black book if you will. For a time, it was fun and arousing for both of us. However, the bottom line is that he doesn't really want to monitor my every move and I don't really want him to monitor my every move. Spankings are usually welcomed but it's not necessarily our style for him to tell me that I've earned, say 12 swats and then have me get into position. I sit here and ask myself why that is so...

Well, it seems that I  like to be captured. It seems that I function best when I have no prior notice of what is going to happen. My husband has discovered, so he tells me, that the best situations are when he totally surprises me. Thus, I may not be fully awake when I find myself blind folded or bound or told to get over his knee, or be put over a pile of pillows and entered. There's no former planning about this sort of thing, as in he doesn't give me any warning or notice. It just happens and it seems that's what I respond to best.

This reminds me of one of the most delicious memories from this year. I had bought tickets for my youngest son and I to see a movie on a Saturday afternoon and my husband knew this. However, with about an hour before we were scheduled to leave my husband "captured" me in the bedroom. Within seconds he had me bound tightly to the bed. He had laid me across the bed sideways and tied my wrists together and my arms to the other side of the (four poster) bed. My legs were also secured firmly. I can't remember if he had a pretext for this course of action or he simply said that it was time for a hiding but either way I was immediately in the zone. The reason I say this is because I couldn't remember having my hands bound and later when I tried to get away (an instinctive reaction) I realized that I hadn't a hope.

So, he spanked my bottom for a while and then he transferred to an implement; our leather paddle. I couldn't get away which is always a good thing for me and for reasons unknown I was able to absorb a lot more pain than usual. My husband seemed to sense this and the paddling was harder and longer than it had ever been before. With no hint that I had reached my limit he paddled firmly away and his voice was very dominant; lower and more demanding than usual and it was that commanding voice telling me to just take it that seemed to work the magic, I think. I remember that I didn't want to relent; didn't want to give in and beg for him to stop. I wanted to see how much I could take. It was only when I was pulling at the restrains with all my might that he contemplated that I had had enough and secretly, even when he did stop, I questioned privately whether I could have taken more.

Of course, he removed enough rope to have his way with me. He's not a sadist in that he doesn't require to do this for his own needs but when he does do it he is always aroused by it. Then, he ordered me into the shower and to get myself together immediately because it was time for my son and I to leave.

I distinctly remember being agitated about being hurried along. After a sub-space experience I'd rather go slow. However, once the two of us were sitting down in the theatre and the movie began I recall the most extraordinary sense of well-being; this beautiful welling up of feelings of love; this gorgeous sense of sitting on a terribly sore bottom. I have no idea if other people experience this (please do tell me if you do) but I was filled with and overcome by a deep sense of satisfaction with my life and my love expanded not just to my loved ones but to the whole wide world. I was glowing in my appreciation and my rightful place in the world. It was a 'body and mind orgasm' and I was flooded with happiness.

This is really our sort of thing. Discipline is something that we don't really do. Oh,  I'll get the rounds of the kitchen if he doesn't care for my words or tone and I'll be told to leave his study if I come in there and start trying to throw my weight around to get him to do what I want him to do; that sort of thing. But, it doesn't work for him to tell me that I was rude (or naughty or disobedient or whatever) and it's time for my punishment. It did in the short term but it doesn't in the long term. Maybe that's just about us as a couple or maybe it's because we've been married so long it doesn't seem right. I don't really know.

If I watch spanking clips (and okay, I've watched a truck load lately just before bed time) I don't particularly enjoy the DD scenes. I go for the Master who is caning the poor schoolgirl's bare backside. There's nothing wrong with DD or DD spanking clips if that's your kink but it doesn't seem to be mine.

Quite some time ago now, I'd go to my husband or he'd come to me and  he would give me a few swats just before bed. I liked that, but it wasn't sustainable. Maybe things get tired if you do them every day. I think once a week is more doable but we can't be sure if the children are around or not at a particular time of the week and that gets in the way of any firm plan related to that.

Yet, every day now for many days I've woken with someone chasing my tail. My very first thoughts on waking are about being spanked or whipped or caned and I am starting to think that I really could do with much more spanking than I currently get!

A keen student

I should not be here. I should be over there, writing my response for this week's assignment. I'm doing 'Journalism' now and as interesting as it is, I am too tired to write a serious article; too tired to think about newspapers and the role of the media; of how the greed of shareholders may be the enemy of good service to readers, and so on and so on. Better to do that first thing in the morning when my thoughts are cogent; when I feel a big girl in the big, wide world.

Right now, I feel tired from drinking wine at lunch; never a good idea for me when I need to work. So, to hell with the work. I am going to day dream instead...

I'm a woman in her mid 30s and I have fallen in love with a man around twenty years older than me. We met via a friend who invited me to a party in the country and that's where I met  Joe.  The courtship was something of a whirlwind. I acted entirely on my instincts and sense of happiness and adoration for him and we married in a small ceremony in the local church.. Naturally, I moved to the country since he was well established on a large cattle farm in the centre of the country and there was never a thought that we would live anywhere else. It was well understood that I was joining him in his life.

He was very kind to me and highly attentive and I was blissfully happy; deeply in love with him. As time passed I came to see that he was set in his ways and I had no choice but to accept that we would do things his way.  Of course, I made efforts to steer him to my way of thinking on matters that were important to me and he was generous about that. He seemed to enjoy giving into me on the little changes I wished to make to the household. I would ask very nicely if I may have this or that, or if we could do this or that. He seemed to enjoy allowing me little indulgences and alterations, as if I were a child and he were the indulgent parent. I confess I played up to this; being sweet and smiling prettily and getting my way.

But, he was clearly the boss and I never considered second guessing him on matters pertaining to the running of the farm. If he told me to close the gate behind the cows, I did so. If he told me not to go near a certain horse because he was afraid I may be kicked, I stayed well away. He enjoyed teaching me about life on the farm and I enjoyed being under his tuttelage. "Good girl," he would say when I managed to tie the knot the way he had demonstrated or when I learned to drive the motor bike precisely as he had shown me. My life was a joy every day as I learned to fit in to my new life as his helpmate.

Perhaps six weeks into the marriage, my husband called me into his study just before I was ready to serve dinner and had me sit by the fire. He handed me a glass of red wine.  He told me of how proud he was of me; that I had settled so beautifully into the country life. He patted me on the head and I purred with satisfaction. He moved his chair closer to me.

"Darling?"

"Mmmm-hmmmm?"

"I feel like spanking you."

His words had an instantaneous response on me. I was aroused but shocked; a little afraid. I needed to understand what he meant.

"Have I displeased you, Joe?"

Not at all, my darling. I just wish to spank you for my own pleasure."

"Ohhhhh. Would it hurt, Joe?"

"I'm afraid so; yes."

"Darling, I want you to do whatever pleases you."

"That's my girl. You are sure?"

"Yes, Joe, I am sure."

Joe sat down on a hard, wooden chair and he had me take off my panties, lift up my dress and bend over his knee. I felt very strange  exposed in this way but I wanted to please my new husband and would never have considered denying him this pleasure. For a minute or so, he spanked my bottom, alternating from cheek to cheek with his hand and I wondered what the fuss was all about. It was a pleasurable, light sensation and I rather liked it. Every dozen or so smacks, he would rub my cheeks smooth with his palm. It was quite lovely. Having never been spanked before I had expected something quite unpleasant but this was very pleasurable.

Then, he stopped.

"Now, it is time for me to use a paddle. This may hurt a little, darling. You don't mind?"

"No, no, Joe. I don't mind."

From the first swat of the paddle, I realized that this was an entirely different sensation. It stung quite considerably.

"Owww"

"Be a good girl, now. It will be over soon," he told me.

And so, I told myself to be brave and to be good and to accept this sting. But, over a minute or so, the sensations built and I was breathing heavily. This stung like blazes!!

"Owwwww. Owwwwwwwwwww," I repeated over and over again.

I didn't want to move out of the range of paddle. I wanted to move out of the range of the paddle. I didn't know what I wanted at all.  I was just trying to be good and to hang on."

"There's a good girl," I heard him say at one stage and later, "Not long now, darling. It won't be much longer."

When he finally put down the paddle and rubbed my stinging skin I felt that my ass was on fire. But, the thing about that was that it wasn't exactly a horrible sensation. I rather liked the feel of the heat and I felt extraordinarily close to Joe. My entire body and mind was profoundly aroused in a new way and my first reaction was to sit up and kiss Joe longingly on the lips. He returned the kiss and then he said:

"Did the young lady enjoy that?"

"Not telling," I said

"Did the young lady enjoy that?" he repeated.

 "Possibly..."

"Did the young lady enjoy that?" he asked again.

"The young lady did."

He smiled a devilish, wicked smile; one that instinctively had me smile back.

"Ahhh, Mildred, I have so much to teach you; so much to show you...so many things to do to you...!"

"Hurry, Joe, hurry. Show me right now."

"Patience, darling. You must have patience. Let's have dinner first."

"Dinner? You want to eat?"

"Come, darling. If you are polite and obedient, I'll show you a good time after dinner."

"All right, Joe. Let's eat!"