by Sadie Wolf
I want a hug. My hand brushes your stomach as I walk by, my hand up, half reaching out. I stand at your side, close enough to feel my skirt rest on your leg. I want to hold your hand but content myself with standing just behind you. I feel the warmth of my arm burn reflect off your clothes. I wonder if I could claim brain fever as the cause of all this badness.
I can’t be mad with you because I want you to hide me. Like a shy child at a party I want to cling to you for comfort. I understand that you are part of what I should be hiding from, but this feels so unfamiliar I want it to be just you and me. I know I have been rude and bad tempered. I know that my rage scared me and made me do things I hate. I know I am desperately unhappy that I have been so unkind, but I want you to make it better. I want you to hold me. I want you to make me safe.
But it is not just you and I. There are three of us. Dan is here and you two are united in this. I realise you know everything I have said and done. I realise, with slow and mounting horror, that you knew when you scolded me I needed to act like this. This is what you do. You let me behave as I must and only when I have done what I need to do you come and get me.
This is you coming to get me. You knew all along.
I can’t let Dan see me cower. I will not let him see me submit. I let go of my physical need for you and move one surreptitious step away. I raise my head and glare out of the window. I can’t stop myself; I need to do this too. I wonder if you know this like you know everything else. I want to reclaim self-respect. I want to be treated nicely. I want all of this silliness to stop. I catch Dan’s eyes and raise my eyebrows in silent challenge.
You speak to me in a tone that makes me lower my eyes and want to crawl into your arms and away from you all at once. But I will not and I cannot crumble like that. I will not submit in front of Dan. Inside I am ashen, but I cannot show this to you. I just can’t.
You remind me what you expect of me, how you love me and that I should hold myself accountable to the highest standards of behaviour. I think how wonderful if I could hold myself accountable rather than suffer the ignominy of having you do it for me. I do not say this. You tell me how I let myself down and how I let you down. I cannot imagine how I find defiance after those words but I do. It is silent defiance and imperceptible to most men, but you are not them.
You allow me time for a response, a chance to tell you what happened. If this were only you and I, then I would stammer and stutter out a true version of events, already repentant, already wanting forgiveness. I wish, I wish, I wish I could.
I can’t.
There are two roads in front of me, two choices. I always submit to you but this time I have to go all Robert Frost, don’t I?
‘Well maybe,’ I start and inject as much sarcasm into my voice as I can muster, ‘I got a bit annoyed because you had just spoken to me and I listened to you and maybe –’ getting into the spirit of it ‘– I was in pain and did not need to be told yet again what I already knew. I just wanted some sympathy.’
I am warming to my theme now. I know how much you hate to see me in pain.
‘It really hurts, it really does.’
All intolerance is gone from my voice. I appeal to your concern and let my pain stand for my defence.
‘So I am sorry –’ I try to sound it, I really do, ‘– if I was a bit sharp, but it hurt and it still does and I don’t know why you both have to be so mean about it.’
I gave it my best shot and I cannot believe it won’t alter the outcome. I know I can’t sway you, but it has to work on Dan. I do not want to look at you because I have no chance to change your mind, but Dan is a whole new ball game. Dan can change your mind for me. It will all work out.
Or not.
You don’t speak to me. You turn me around very gently, taking care not to touch my burn. You place me in the corner, as though I belong there, as though this is normal, which it might be if it were just the two of us.
‘You can do better than that, little girl. Why don’t you think about it?’ You speak so softly in my ear that it sounds like a caress. I remember fifty times a day how much I love you and this is one of those times. ‘But you know not to stand in the corner like that, don’t you?’
My breathing gets deeper. You absolutely cannot mean this. My hands shake and I whisper to you that I just can’t. Your hands are a familiar touch when you help me. My skirt is unzipped and coaxed down my legs and I step out of it, like a child at bedtime. You lift my hands and place them on my head. You take my tee shirt and fold it halfway up my back and then gently, terribly you roll down my panties and leave them underneath my bottom, resting in a neat line at the tops of my thighs.
Anger leaves me. It betrays me because it can go when I am destined to stay here.
You talk together in relaxed voices, with no concern for my plight. You are not discussing me so much as talking as old friends, light banter flowing with shared references that amuse you both.
I flitter between relief and humiliation at being ignored. If I had the slightest ability to do so I would turn around and be enraged, but I embody futility.
There are clicks and then the brief fizz of beer bottles opening. It sounds like any friends meeting on a warm day.
I pretend I am not here. I don’t think about the total ignominy. I try not to visualise my yellow tee shirt over the pale white of my back and how my round bottom sticks out, speaking for me, telling of my disgrace.
I try not to imagine the clash of my red arms against the sun-brightened blonde of my hair. I feel the line of my parting under my hands and remember with horror that I did my hair in pigtails this morning. It amuses you to see my hair like that and it was so hot outside and it seemed cute at the time. Now it mocks me, another sign of my forlorn position. The parting is neat and straight and reminds me of the line down the centre of my bottom as it faces the room.
I hear my name in murmured conversation once or twice but you do not sound like I want you to sound. You sound amused, relaxed, no rush and no concern. I want you to sound worried about me and to think you might be pushing me too far. I inwardly plead for you to come and get me and cover me and say sorry and kiss me.
You say my name and unbidden I respond. I respond in a secret way, signs of my desire, hidden between my clenched, closed legs. But you merely ask if I have anything to say to you both. Still facing the wall, I can only nod.
You tell me to turn around and lower my arms, and I turn on one heel. I keep still, grateful you positioned my panties to allow me a semblance of modesty at the front. You ask me what I want to say. I mumble an apology to you and to Dan. I am almost crying, not with repentance but with resentment.
When you do not ask me to extend my meagre apology, when you let it rest on the air, when you allow it to speak for itself, it is then I realise you are going to allow Dan to spank me.
I feel I am falling and I scrabble for a hold, for a way to understand this. I know that when all this is passed I will lie awake for hours feeling guilty about the way I spoke to Dan. I know he has become a receptacle for all the rage I feel over not being able to control you. I know, and I hate this, that until Dan spanks me I will use him to hide from you.
I understand the two of you have discussed this, without asking me, without warning me. I understand how necessary it is and how much I have to lose and gain. I just want you to stride in and come and save me. I am yours, all yours. All this is about your hands and your eyes and, my heart sinks when I realise, your decisions.
This is so horrible. The inequality between you and me is overwhelming. Now faced with the both of you I crumble into obedience, into submission, and you both know it.
Without a word you come to collect me. You know I cannot walk to Dan on my own, and it occurs to neither of us that any of this need be expressed in words. I hold onto you and you place me to his right as he sits on the sofa.
I do not know how to let go of you. You guide me forward over his knee. Your hands offer terrible comfort while you move my
legs and arms to where you wish them to be. You leave me then, but I feel you close, in a supervisory role. But you are with me so I am home still. This is all you; you are in charge of every moment.
Over an unfamiliar lap – a new kind of awkward – I wait for the lecture. My head hangs; I feel at odds and I don’t want to cling to him like I would to you. I worry about his hand on my bottom.
Dan tells me how he cares for me, that he considers me a friend and wants me to be safe and well and happy. He tells me that the language I used is not only beneath me, but also how unkind it is to speak to a friend that way. I say nothing. I know he is right. I am furious and indignant that he feels he can say these things to me. If he thinks he can speak to me like this then I think it is acceptable to swear at him. I resolve to never, ever be open or friendly with him again. I almost hate him. But that thought makes me sad, so I ignore it.
He starts to spank and I do what I can to keep still, to keep my legs together, not to kick too much. His hand is flat against me, his arm holding me steady as I arch away from him. His pattern and his grip are unfamiliar, a stranger’s touch. I am aware of my nudity in a way that makes me try to pull inward and away from him. I feel his fingers forming a cup around the curve of my bottom. I hear the noise of the impact and my shouting out the scene of my humiliation. I try to stay still, to not react. He does not spank with your strength or your deep knowledge of me, but the fact that he is not you makes it so much harder to bear. He concentrates at the base of my cheeks and then, at your suggestion, peppers my thighs with sharp stinging swats that make me try to kick him away, and cry out for him to stop. Again at your behest he redoubles his efforts. I do not know any more where his hand strikes me; I cannot distinguish one slap from the next. I stop fighting. I accept the pain.
He stops. His hand rests on my burning bottom. The lightest pressure is unbearable but I accept it. I do not say a word. I open my eyes and see tendrils of my hair hanging in front of me, damp with energy and heat. I listen to you talk to him and to his replies.
I breathe. Slowly I come back to myself. I remember how and why this happened. A tiny spark of indignation reignites. I say nothing but I feel the tension in my back when I try to peel away from Dan without moving, as though I can pull myself inward and leave my body where it is.
I wait, feigning patience. If I try to get my own way now I will lose. My bottom burns, my face is bright red with the shame, my arms are red with burn from the sun. My bottom is pink though, a deep pink. It is not red. I know this because I listen to you two discuss its colour.
I am allowed up. This permission is hard to take. I stand stiffly with compressed emotion. I don’t rub my bottom. You have never told me not to rub my bottom, but I do not think I could cope with another order. I will stay still. I will seem to accept every word.
You tell Dan how you know I have not had enough. You notice all the signs I think you will never see: a tilt of my head; the evasiveness of my eyes that shows concern with not being caught, or rather a yearning not to do wrong when you can see it; and my breathing a little more evenly than is normal while I strive for control over myself. You point out the tension in my hands, the way my shoulders push down and back. You notice it all.
I could spit with rage as you describe all of this to Dan. I am angry that you have known this all along. I am angry that you never told me, so that I could drop the pretence or find new ways to hide my feelings. More than anything I am angry at your light tone. I feel stupid and small. You know so much and I am so safe with you. I want you. But I am enraged with you; such an impotent anger. I let this emotion roll over and smother the others.
I flash a glance at you, one where I do not hide how I feel. You catch it and offer it to Dan as one last piece of evidence. I have not said a word and still you have read me like a score sheet. Not one note escapes you.
You tell me to stand behind the sofa. I know the position I have to adopt. I concentrate on my breathing and keep even my eyes still in the hope I might disappear somehow, but an image jars in my head. The vision of the sofa’s paleness clashing with the hot, dark, angry pink of my bottom will not leave me. I smile a furious, defensive smile when I realise how little camouflage I have. Just as you instruct, I place myself over the back of the sofa, moving forward so my feet dangle off the floor and I lean forward, resting my arms on the seat. I am unbalanced, steadied only by your firm hand on my back.
Dan moves to the side so he can see what you do. He does not move to see me, but to see what happens to me. I grip the cushion tightly and stare at my fingers when I think the word punishment . That word is almost impossible to bear.
Before you lift your hand I know you have won. The position I am in, the way I obeyed you without question, the way the whole room stills for you, waits for your next move, tells me you have won.
Out of the corner of my eye I see a familiar movement of your arm and hear the slide of leather through denim and I know you are taking your belt off. It is not just that you have won, but now I am sorry too. You don’t need to do one thing more. I tell you this and I mean it, I mean every word.
You comment on what I say, not to me but to Dan. I want you to take me more seriously than this. I want you to listen to me, to let what I say alter your course. I feel so powerless, so helpless, so observed, but without one tiny element of control. You see every part of me, you understand me so completely you can ignore what I say. You know my lies where I do not.
You push my back down and position my bottom to your liking. From the first stroke of the belt I realise how much my bum already hurts. Your belt flicks burning ribbons onto my already swollen cheeks. I bite my lip and tense all the muscles in my back and my stomach. I will not call out. I will not ask you to stop. I will not … and I forget the rest.
I kick, my legs splay in an acknowledgement of my total lack of dignity and I cry out ‘No’. I make sounds, and buck and writhe. I push my arms and try to move away, to move towards you. I exist only to make this stop. I beg you to stop.
You stop. For one moment I feel my heart lurch and I think you stopped because I asked. You say nothing. You wait for me to compose myself. I do not know whether to curse you or myself when I do just as you wish. I settle. I wait. I submit.
I do not know how many more times you cross my cheeks with leather. I do not know because I have given up now. I acquiesce to every line, every stripe. The pain is total, more than I think I can bear but your actions tell me you think this is what I must have. I accept it because you think it. I pant with the pain and with the ease into submission. I make noise but it is for me, not a message to you.
At some point you stop. It takes several seconds for me to realise this. You ask if I have anything to say to Dan. I thought this could not get any worse but that is always when you are at your best.
I look up and stutter an apology. I mean it. He smiles and I smile back at the end. I feel ashamed of being mean. I have no rage for the first time in hours. I understand now, finally, why you did this.
You saw me lash out at myself, you saw my horror when I spoke unkindly to a man I adore. You saw my rage, my unhappiness and my confusion. You came to fetch me. Every act was a loving act.
I have no idea about anything else in the world. I am not what I thought I am. I am what you say I am. And you say I am loved.
I am loved.
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