30 April, 2006

My Bottom Smarts "Spanko Brunch" (Topic: My first adult spanking)

Bonnie over at My Bottom Smarts has a wonderful forum that she calls "Spanko Brunch", where people can wrote about a topic she suggests, and then she posts a compilation of what everyone's said. This week's topic is "My first adult spanking," and this inspired me to write a response. (Why couldn't we have fun topics like this for grade school compositions? Oh, right.)

So, here's the memory:

Less than two months into our relationship, W. gave me my very first adult spanking. I can’t remember how I brought up the topic, but (in good lesbian fashion), I’m sure we talked and talked about it beforehand.

I can remember the day it happened. W. was coming to visit me (we were long-distance for the first 9 months of our relationship). We hung out at my apartment in the afternoon, but we were going to see Margaret Cho that evening. After some talking, she gave me a somewhat tentative spanking. She used her hand, and made my bottom very warm and rosy. And she made me very, um, squirmy and wet. It was delightful, and it confirmed that this was definitely something I would love to have more of. Mostly what I remember about it, and why I remember the exact day it happened, was that she was doodling on a piece of paper, and wrote our names. She decorated it with pink bottoms, with stars coming off of them. She handed this to me while we were waiting for the show to start. {{Shiver}} {{Squirm!!}}

Bonnie, thanks for suggesting this fun topic!

27 April, 2006

Having memories

I guess the problem, right now, is not so much having memories, but having my adult mind giving commentary on the things I remember. Part of me approaches it like a logic problem: if this is true, and this is true, then this is the answer. But then I connect with it emotionally, and things start to go haywire.

I’m writing about the memories (in my usual vague fashion) behind the cut.

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I remember hiding in a closet, watching my stepfather touch a little girl. I remember the darkness, I remember touching the carpet. There were clothes hanging above me, shoes and toys on the floor. The closet was a safe place to hid, he couldn’t see me, he couldn’t touch me. I abandoned that little girl.

I always thought she was my sister, because my sister is the one he touched. But this memory is from Alaska. And the little girl he was touching… she was big enough that her feet were halfway down the bed when her head was at the top. When we lived in Alaska, my little sister was only a year and a half old. I was four. The two of us were the only little girls in the house.

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Sometimes, it’s memories of things I’ve been told that line up together.

My mother has always complained that I’m not very affectionate. She’s told me about the times when I was a baby, and she tried to cuddle me, and I just held myself stiff and wouldn’t snuggle.

Separate from that, she’s talked about how I started sleeping through the night when I was just a few months old. By the time I was six months old, I didn’t take naps any more. But I was a “good” baby, and if she put me in my crib, I would amuse myself, and not cry or complain.

My mother believes in spanking babies who are only a few months old, or at least she did while she was raising children. She was going through a divorce and found out she was pregnant when I was little; I know that she hit us more often when she was in stressful situations when I was older.

Was this when I learned to dissociate?

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And sometimes, it is just persistent physical and visual memories.

I remember being in the bathroom and scrubbing and scrubbing and scrubbing at my… you know. Over and over, trying to wash… something away. I remember there being blood. I remember wondering whether I had started to get my period, and then realizing that it was just temporary blood. I can still see the gold-speckled formica of the bathroom cabinet, the ratty bath mat beside the sliding door of the shower. I remember the little square window, high on the bathroom wall, that looked across to the corner of the neighbors’ roof.

I didn’t start having this memory until after the first time I masturbated, and part of me asked why it didn’t hurt like... why I didn’t bleed like…

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Most often, though, it’s just an upwelling of fear, nervousness, tension. I was talking about it with my new therapist last week. Just describing what I felt, emotionally, when I was having anxiety.

I explained that it’s not so much emotions as a sense of tension. Feeling like there are things going on, above my head. Like danger is lurking above me, and can come crashing onto me the second I let down my guard, make a mistake, do something wrong. Loud noises surround me, I feel the air as something comes towards me… and then nothing happens. Over and over, day after day, this happens to me. On a good day, it comes in bursts, and goes away in between. On a bad day, it’s there all the time.

After therapy, my internal voices started to rant. “Why did you say that?” they asked, “You know it’s all lies. Why are you lying?” My only defense was that I hadn’t said anything happened, just described what I was feeling. And I know for sure that’s what I was feeling. “You’re just trying to get sympathy,” the voices rant. “You know what people will think, if you tell them this is going on.” Of course, the voices have no good explanation for why I would make it up, but they’re making it unpleasant for me to talk about it.

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Much as I hate this process, I’m very afraid of the alternative. Because I know that if I don’t keep pushing at this, I will go back to not really believing anything happened. Over and over, those voices in my head convince me that I was making everything up, or that I’m making too much of the things that I know for sure happened. They tell me it wasn’t bad, that it wasn’t hard… they berate me for letting anything out, because even if something did happen, I shouldn’t talk about it, and I certainly shouldn’t write about it. Much as I hate remembering, I don’t want to make myself forget again.

26 April, 2006

It's Okay to Spank an Inner Child

Yesterday was a particularly cranxious day. (Cranxious, of course, means that combination of cranky and anxious that is no fun either for the person feeling that way or the people they are around.)

By the end of the day, I was craving a naughty girl spanking, but (as often happens in that mood), I couldn’t find the words to tell W. what I needed. And so I was “hiding” in my study. W. came in to let me know she was concerned, but since she didn’t tell me I had to come out of my study, there I stayed.

Partly, it was just that I really didn’t want to try to go to sleep. And partly it was that I knew I’d just get more cranxious when faced with someone being soft and nice and trying to cuddle and nurture me.

I wanted to throw things around the room, stomp my feet, yell and shout; basically, my inner child was demanding a chance to be bad, bad, BAD!!! And my outer adult wouldn’t let it, or didn’t know how to make a compromise. Usually, I buy my inner children off with toys or similar treats. But this isn’t a good long-term strategy (my outer adult likes to have a place to live, and electricity, and all of those other things money has to be spent on). So there were no treats, and there was no chance for a tantrum, either.

I finally went to bed, thinking W. was asleep. I noticed that there was a text message on my phone, which had been charging in the bedroom. I checked it, and saw that she had asked me whether I thought a spanking would help; in her next message, she noted that she thought it would definitely help. I was sad at the lost opportunity for a spanking, but texted back that I agreed, but my phone had been in the bedroom.

Turns out she was awake, and she offered to give me the spanking. But the spanking wasn’t giving me the release that I needed—she was giving me a gentle, loving spanking, trying to help me feel better. But I so needed a naughty-girl spanking, to be sternly told what to do, not allowed to make any choices right then. I needed—desperately—for her to take charge. So we gave up, and turned off the light, and got under the covers.

And then my phone rang, with a friend asking whether she could stay the night, because she was locked out of her apartment. I started talking with W. as I waited for the friend to find out whether she could get in touch with her landlord or a locksmith, and then W. offered to come with me when I drove to pick her up.

As often happens, I was much more able to talk while I was driving. We discussed how I had been feeling, and what I needed. W. explained that she still feels ambivalent about ordering me to come into the bedroom, or giving me a spanking when I haven’t asked for it. But she also said that there are times when the main thing she wants to do is tell me to behave, to stop hiding, to stop expecting her to read my mind.

I’m not sure how to manage the divide there. In my ideal world, I could just say, “But that is exactly what I need you to do! Please do it! Please feel okay doing it!” But that’s not really fair, and so I don’t tell her this.

We also talked about the cranxious feeling. It stems from a desire to be a little kid, to be told what to do, to be given limits. And I find myself acting like a kid, pushing against the boundaries of appropriate behavior, just to see whether anyone will make me do the right thing. It’s such a comfort when it happens, and it gives me the strength to get through another day or week or month of being a responsible grown-up. But it also feels just a little weird, to allow my very child-like inner children out, and then to spank them. I wouldn't spank an actual child, and my inner children feel very much like the child versions of me. But W. reassured me that it is okay to spank an inner child. And, on further reflection, I do realize that inner children are capable of informed consent in ways that actual children aren't. Of course, I admit I'd rather I only had well-behaved happy inner children.

Even though I’m not supposed to expect W. to read my mind, or act as though I can read hers, well… I do feel very much like W. would prefer me to be all the grown-up; I get a sense that she hopes my little kid side (particularly the bratty, needy, cranky, misbehaving, limit-testing version) will be eroded by therapy, or by life or something. On some levels, I also wouldn’t mind if that happens.

But from my point of view, it feels like such a central part of me, the part where all of my inconvenient emotions are stored, that I’m reluctant to send it away. More than that, even though I rationally know perfectly well this isn’t her intent, it feels like W. is rejecting those emotional, inconvenient parts of my adult self when she talks about a time when I won’t need the naughty-girl spankings.

So I stay in this cranxious state, wishing I could figure out how to explain what I need. My fantasy right now is that I could let my inner children be the brats they want to be, throw a tantrum or break the rules. And then W. would sternly send me to the bedroom and stand me in the corner. After I’d cooled off, she’d give me a hard spanking, and maybe some more corner time. And then I could come to bed and sleep through the night, safe and forgiven. But I know that even if things went exactly as I described, it would be more difficult and more complicated than it is in my imagination. We’ll see how it goes.

25 April, 2006

Story: Six Out of Seven

I realized it’s been quite a while since I last posted a story, so here’s one for your reading pleasure. This was one of the first Janey and Michelle stories. I wrote it originally for the soc.sexuality.spanking Short Story Contest in 2001. It’s veeerrrry loosely based on a true event (which is to say, I’d gone to a poetry reading with a friend, and the poet offered the statistic that inspired the story). And for the next half hour or hour, I kept harping on the statistic to the friend. Other than that, though, it’s all fictional. I was single at the time, for one thing, and for another, I’m actually very leery of public spankings.


Six Out Of Seven
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"Surveys indicate that one person in seven participates in some form of s/m sex," the poet commented. I listened to her poem, and then realized....

“Six out of seven people are vanilla?!" I whispered to Janey. "That can't be right!"

"Shhhhh, Michelle," Janey whispered. "Let people listen."

But as the poet left the stage, I had to repeat, “Six out of seven! No way!! A lot of people had to have lied."

"Michelle! Shut up!" A few heads turned our way.

"They *must* be lying," I consoled myself. I didn't think again about the statistic until we left. Every several minutes, as Janey and I sat in the cafĂ© with our friends Liza and Sam, I would comment, “Six out of seven?! No way!!"

Janey rolled her eyes. "Michelle. We all heard. Be quiet."

"Nanny-nanny-boo-boo, you ca-an't make me."

"Stop being a brat and drink your coffee."

"I know you are, but what am I?"

As we waited for the train to go home, I commented again, “Six out of seven. No way!!"

"Michelle. Shut up. I mean it."

"Anybody want a peanut?" I asked, engaging in some subtle brattiness. "They had to be lying," I added.

Janey had finally had enough. "Why don't we find out?" she asked, her voice dangerous. "There are about fifty people in here. Let's see what they think."

"They wouldn't tell us!" I pointed out.

"No problem. Sam, Liza, you're both observant women. I want you to watch, and see how many people seem interested." Janey firmly grabbed my arm, and pulled me across her lap.

"Wait! Janey! What are you *doing*?!" I asked as quietly as I could, trying not to call attention to myself, draped across my girlfriend's lap.

Smack! Her hand cracked down, but over my shorts, it didn't make much noise. No one noticed. It was overalls, and she wouldn't take them off, not in public. Unfortunately, the shorts were baggy, and there was plenty of room to drag the legs up.

SMACK!! The slap reverberated through the station. SMACK!! I kept my face down, cheeks burning. SMACK!! SMACK!! Janey concentrated on the spanking. SMACK!!! I concentrated on being quiet. SMACK!!! SMACK!! After about a minute, Janey asked, "Do you two think you've got an accurate count?"

Liza smirked, "Yeah, I think we have pretty fair assessment."

Janey let go of me just as the train came. I hurried to be the first one on. The others followed me. Liza and Sam got seats halfway down the car from us. I glared out the window, and wouldn't look at Janey.

"So? What did you observe?" Janey asked the other two when we got to my house.
Liza and Sam giggled. "Janey, you won't like this, but Michelle was right. I'd say a good third of the people there were *quite* interested."

I smirked at Janey, stuck out my tongue, wiggled my hips, and said, "Ha-ha, ha-ha.
I was right, and you were wrong." And then I trotted upstairs.

21 April, 2006

Something in the Air

So W. and I had a little bit of "Sunday night" last night. I had been dropping subtle hints (where "subtle" means "completely overt, but short of saying outright that I wanted to have a spanking scene"), and when we got home, I showed her this program, which is a simple thing that will calculate a punishment or determine a random scene for you. I think it's possible to edit it to reflect one's personal preferences, but we haven't gotten around to that yet.

So we chose an infraction ("snapping and swearing") and let the computer determine the specific punishment. I believe it suggested 45 smacks with the hairbrush, a dozen with the cane, and 7 minutes in the corner, nude, with hands on head. And so we went to the bedroom to play it out.

I wasn't fully in "scene mode" while we were making the bed and otherwise tidying the room, but it's amazing how quickly one gets into a submissive mind-state when one takes off one's clothes, and stands in the corner. It's not that I've never had corner-time before, because I have. And I think some of it has even included me being nude. But there was something about last night that made the headspace come all the faster.

After eight minutes in the corner (I wasn't being great at standing on both feet and keeping my face to the wall, so W. added a minute), I climbed onto the bed for my spanking.

Now, W.'s hairbrush isn't particularly heavy, and it's usually not too painful, but last night, it certainly built up some sting. Between that and her rather, um, familiar stroking, I was squirming around quite a bit by the end of the session with the hairbrush. Then it was time for the cane. She repositioned me, and gave me a dozen moderately lenient strokes.

After that we took advantage of my brain being in the right space and had some hot, delicious sex. That was quite nice, too, even if the sex left me more sore than the spanking did!

19 April, 2006

Bratty Sizzlebutt

I was playing around online 'cause... well, just 'cause. And I found the ever-amusing Spanko Name Generator. My name (if the name I use is "Dyke Grrl") comes out to be "Bratty Sizzlebutt." Silly, and a great waste of time. Just thought I'd share.

Sunday Nights

“Sunday night” has become a euphemism for spankings. Last fall, as we began to explore disciplinary spankings, we found it helpful to have a set time for me to account for the work I’d done the previous week. Friday nights weren’t great, because we were both tired, and also because we like to have a peaceful dinner together (or with friends). Saturdays, we often were out with friends, or otherwise busy. And weeknights, we’re often too tired or too busy for there to be time. Plus, Sunday night spankings started off the week with a clean slate, and gave me incentive to work well during the week.

For lots of reasons (aka, me spending time focused on mental health), the accounting for my work part has been put on the back burner for a while. But the spankings have continued in various forms.

I have been very grateful for the routine of it.

Sometimes, it’s a playful spanking. Several weeks ago, W. created a schoolgirl scene that was really fun. We imagined ourselves to be two girls just starting out at a boarding school. W. “convinced” me that we should do an “experiment” to find out what it would be like to get a spanking, since the school used corporal punishment. She had a variety of implements, and we discussed what the potential punishments would be for various offenses. Within our roles as new schoolgirls, we took on the roles of various figures at the school. It was very meta. Of course, W. was the really naughty one, and managed to convince me throughout the role-play that I should be the only one getting the spankings!

Sometimes, it’s a short, sexy spanking that quickly leads to other things.

And sometimes, it’s what I’d call a cathartic spanking. This Sunday, we had friends over most of the day. I walked them downstairs when they left. When I got back, W. asked if I was “ready.” Since we hadn’t specifically discussed spankings, I thought she meant “ready to go hang out in bed instead of in the living room.” I’m dense like that. Then she grabbed me by the belt and firmly directed me to the bedroom. This sent a delicious tingle through me.

We went into the bedroom, and straightened up the bed. As I was getting my side of the bed settled, W. rearranged the various items stacked at the foot of the bed. Yup, I thought, a spanking is in the works. She pulled me to face the wall, and instructed me to stay where I was. She left the room. (I get some points here, because my cell phone rang at this point, and even though I knew it was my mother calling, I didn’t pick it up.)

She came back, and praised me for having stayed in position. She arranged some implements behind me on the bed, and stroked my hair—occasionally gripping it firmly. She asked whether I was all right, and I said I was. She picked something up and… OUCH! It was the bath brush. Even through jeans (and the handkerchiefs I keep in my back pockets) that thing stings! She delivered several sharp smacks while I squirmed and wiggled. She moved my hands back up to the wall every time I reached down.

When I really squirmed, she stopped and shifted to hold my hands in position. She picked up one of the loopy toys and brought that down across my backside several times. Like the bath brush, it hurt even though my bottom was fully protected.

Then she put the toys down, and I thought we were finished. She climbed onto the bed, and told me to get over her lap. I did, and she continued the spanking. But this time, she had a goal. She held me firmly, and told me that she was holding me, that she was in control. And then she told me to “let it out.” She spanked hard and fast.

“Let it out,” she urged.

I resisted, I struggled. “I don’t want to.”

She wouldn’t let me twist away, she wouldn’t let me block out my feelings. I finally relaxed, and let the tears come. She rubbed my back and stroked me and held me. She told me how proud she was of me, she reminded me that I was (am) safe.

I hadn’t been expecting this kind of spanking. I’d had spanking on the brain for days (well, I’m re-reading the Enid Blyton books, and those are definite fodder for spanking fantasies), but I didn’t think I was telegraphing my desires so strongly. More than that, I hadn’t been more than usually edgy over the previous week, so I wasn’t feeling desperate for a cathartic spanking.

But I think W. knew more about that than I did (or at least, more than I acknowledged to myself). Because the spanking helped immensely. Even though I had ignored my need to let out some of the tears, she seemed able to read it in me. I think I’ve slept a little better in the days since then. And while I’m still coping with flashbacks and anxiety, it’s been a bit more manageable—I’m going for hours at a time without intense anxiety, and this is an amazing relief.

I’m glad that we have these “Sunday nights” with each other, no matter how they turn out. And maybe, if I’m nice, we’ll have an extra Sunday night or two during the next few days of school vacation.

That's what happens

W. and I were at the warehouse store yesterday evening. A woman was near us in the aisle, and her kids were fooling around in the cart. One of them was standing up and leaning over, and she reached forward and popped him on the bottom. He said ouch!, and she commented, "That's what happens when you stick your butt out!"

We walked around the corner, and since there was no one in the aisle at that moment, I stuck my own butt out as I pushed the cart. W. gave me a smack, and said, "That's what happens when you stick your butt out!"

That smack stung more than I expected, because two days down the road, my bottom was still a little tender from our usual Sunday night spanking. (Two and a half days later, I can still feel it, actually!)

14 April, 2006

Bounded in a Nutshell

I might count myself the king (queen) of infinite space, were it not for the bad dreams.

Last night, I dreamt that I woke up screaming from a nightmare. I noticed that W. hadn’t woken up, and I realized that it had just been a dream. I whimpered, and tried to wake her up, but I wasn’t really capable of talking. And then, as she wasn’t responding to that, I realized it was still a dream. I think I actually woke up at this point, because I got out of bed. I managed to get back to sleep, but kept waking up from nightmares (and not remembering the nightmares) all night long.

Last night wasn’t what I would call a “good” night.

Sometimes I feel like I’m being really ungrateful, to my psyche, or to the gods and fates that determine how well or poorly I cope. For the last week or so, I’ve managed to have sufficient self-discipline to be able to get through the days, getting a lot of stuff done so that we could have people over for a Passover Seder last night. For most of a week, I was able to make myself do things, simply because they had to be done.

On the one hand, I’m profoundly grateful for that capacity in myself. It’s how I’ve gotten through the hard times in my life: that ability to manage to get things done, and even to get them done reasonably well, regardless of whether or not I can actually handle doing them.

But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve found myself more and more often in a situation where very little absolutely has to be done, and in this state, I seem unable to force myself to do things that aren’t vitally necessary. So I kind of fall apart.

It makes me feel rather guilty, since if I am capable of forcing myself to do things when they have to be done, if I am able to suppress the panic and the flashbacks and that horrible chaotic overwhelmed feeling some of the time, why can’t I force myself to have sufficient self-discipline to do this all of the time? I have those voices at the back of my head, accusing me of just not trying hard enough, not wanting desperately enough to feel better. If I tried harder, those voices reason, I could continue to manage all of the time, and not just when there is a deadline.

Now, rationally, I know that this is unreasonable and unhealthy. Heck, rationally, I realize that this is probably why I ended up with things like fibromyalgia (the year before I had what turns out to have been my first fibro flare-up, I distinctly remember having the constant sensation that I was sucking the energy reserves out of the very marrow of my bones, in order to get done all of the things that had to be done).

I realize that self-discipline alone isn’t going to keep me from having flashbacks. I understand that it’s not even healthy to suppress them. But, damn, I really wish I could.

I am also resentful that I don’t seem to have a choice about the panic, about the memories. If I could choose, I would have more time to just get to be peaceful and happy and enjoy living my life. And I hate that it takes strict self-discipline to pull this off, because if I’m not constantly putting at least part of my mind to the task of holding off all of the negative stuff, there it is, in the middle of my brain-space, taking over everything.

I suppose I do have a choice, but I don’t seem to know how to make it. Or I don’t have the courage for it. Because I know there is a dream I don’t even remember, the one that I dreamt made me wake up screaming. And I cannot bring myself to, I do not know how to, I am terrified to face the content of that first dream.

I wish I could just let the past be the past, inert, over, done. I wish that the fact of my survival were able to give me the strength to face what I survived. (And the voices in my head sneer, “It was nothing, it wasn’t bad, why are you whining about it?”) In a more positive sense, I try to tell myself that nothing I remembered could be as bad as the struggle to not remember. But I don’t seem to be convinced.