A New View

So here's how my thoughts have been running for the last month or so:

Back when I got spanked (and spanked, and spanked, and...) for the car fiasco, there was a moment, just a moment, when Nick got pretty exasperated with the whole thing. Now when I say "the whole thing", I don't mean me being an idiot and driving the clutch out of my car. I mean the whole DD thing. And when I say "pretty exasperated", I don't mean that he said so much as one word along the lines of this being silly, or played out, or any of that. It was just a tone of voice, just a fleeting expression when I asked if we would be continuing our little lesson on listening that night. "Yes, honey - I haven't forgotten."

But I know my husband pretty well, and that one nuance ripped the veil of sincerity off the whole punishment for me. So I decided, all by my lonesome, that once I was through this, I was going to just let the whole of DD die a quiet death. For oh, the entire time he's been spanking me, I've been partly or completely convinced that if I never brought it up again, neither would he. I didn't want anything about our marriage to be a sham, and I just wasn't going to force it on us any more.

And I've been through the whole I'll-make-the-sacrifice-and-give-this-up-because-it's-just-not-him bit. But that's the thing. I always felt it as a sacrifice. And this time was different. This time I had almost brought myself around to where I could live at peace with it. It became a vision of not just an easier life for him, but an easier, less dramatic life for me as well. I decided that I could live quite well without the emotional roller coaster of wondering every time it came up if I was being too much for him. I realized I could save money by not bringing home one more implement or pervertable that might not ever get used. I began to completely avoid the kitchen and school supplies aisles at Wal-Mart.

I kept quiet on the blog to give things time to settle down, to ease the whole possibility out of his mind, because every time I blog about spanking, it's like a big neon sign for him that says "HEY! YOUR WIFE LIKES SPANKING! GET ON THAT, WILL YA?!"

And I was doing pretty well. The pull was easing off. I wasn't automatically diving off into fantasyland every time I saw his belt threaded through the belt loops of his jeans. I quit looking for that certain meaningful Look in his eyes whenever he asked me if I would do some laundry. And I had gotten very good at checking any sneaky remaining impulses by quietly reminding myself that "things are different now - you're done with this."

Oh, I didn't plan to give up being a spanko, as if that's even a possibility. I was going to keep my blog, keep posting little spanko stuff I found, once the new normal had a strong enough grip to keep him from feeling obligated by it. I was going to keep putting myself to sleep with memories of spankings past and fantasies of spankings never realized. And there was always going to be the occasional spanking in bed, which I would definitely appreciate, but certainly never ask for.

I was playing an old familiar game of let's-see-how-long-he-goes-without-bringing-it-up, but this time it was with an eye toward reaching some magic date of DD eradication rather than a childish tally of how many days I could stuff down my needs. And for me this quiet goal was hovering around my birthday. If I could only make it to the 17th and past the implied expectation of a birthday spanking, I would be mostly there. And if I could carry it two more days, I could silently celebrate two full months since my last punishment. I had done my mourning and made peace with my new perfectly normal life.

Then on Sunday night, right before bed, he stretched and yawned and said, "We have something we're going to take care of tomorrow night." Well, crap. Now what was this all about? What it was all about was the laundry that had been sitting in the den clean and folded (by him) for a month or so. Granted, part of it had been put up and I had also added new clean clothes to the pile, but I had told him I would put it all away. But seriously, now, just when I was getting comfortable with my new viewpoint? So I very casually said, "Okay. I'm going to go on up to bed." Just like he hadn't totally undermined a month of reconditioning of my little spanko brain. And I went to bed wondering how in the heck I was going to get past this wrinkle... and fuming because as I climbed under the covers my stomach was flipping and the rest of my body was rebelling by reacting in those familiar and apparently not so decimated ways.

By Monday afternoon I had convinced myself that if I played it low key enough, he might very well just forget. It wouldn't have been the first time, and it would be even easier to let it slip by the next evening. So I very deliberately made no reference to his announcement of the night before. In fact, I didn't even put up the laundry, so afraid was I that it would trigger his memory and his sense of duty.

It was getting late, and I was feeling pretty confident when he turned to me and said, "We have something to take care of." And though my brain was racing furiously, I couldn't come up with a thing to say, so much so that when he brought out the Cane-IAC Jr with holes, I just sat in my chair looking thoughtful.

"Trying to figure out some way to talk me out of this?" he asked. "No," I answered slowly, coming up hard on the realization that I was going to have to let him in on my new viewpoint after all. Immediately following that bit of enlightenment was the sudden sure knowlege that however sincere I was, it was all going to sound pretty suspect in the face of a hard paddling. But I tried. I stumbled around and muttered something along the lines of, "Well, it's just - see, I've been thinking - I mean, I kind of thought maybe it was time that we just let this go. I mean, not the laundry, the whole thing. You've given me, well, it's been almost five years, and I kind of thought we were done with this."

"Who told you that?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.

"Well, it's, I mean, this is kind of silly."

"What this is, is you standing up and getting a spanking. Now come on."

"Seriously, Nick, I'm not trying to get out of this, I just don't - "

"Now."

So I got up, and realized all of a sudden that whatever my grand notions, Nick's place as head of the house had taken on a whole new reality for me. He really was mad about the laundry. This wasn't something he was doing in response to any sort of cue from me. He actually meant this.

And then I realized, uh, there was actually going to be a spanking. It turns out that the only thing about me that had truly embraced life without discipline was my bottom. 6o swats turned into 80 turned into somewhere just over 100 because my poor, out-of-practice backside wouldn't stay put. And I was crying in the first 25 swats, tears that lasted and increased through the spanking and the 15 minutes afterwards when I had to stare at the laundry and think about why I'd been punished.

When it was all over, I tried to explain to him that I had meant what I said, that if he wanted to just go back to life without DD, I wouldn't be mad at him. And I tried to explain what started it all for me, that little moment back a month and a half ago and how I didn't want it if it wasn't going to be real. What he told me was that he doesn't want to play games, but that there are times (like with the laundry) when he really does see a spanking as the best option. He doesn't see everything as a punishment issue that I do, but he's happy with having the option to spank me if I need it, and "the dog isn't going back in its cage."

"But I just don't want this to be something you do just for me."

"It's not," he assured me. "It's something I do for me too. Things work better for us this way, and we're not going to stop doing it. It's not your choice, and this is how it's going to be from now on."

The rest of the night was lovely, no more tears, although there were certainly some loud cries of passion. Today I'm still sore and pretty bruised too, but I feel like this has finally become really genuine for me and for us. Oh, and I put that laundry up yesterday!