The Punishment Book

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But...

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

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

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

I'm perfectly happy with that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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