Boston Strong

April 20, 2013. 6:00 am.

“Take everybody out of the bedroom,” he says.

I lift the two cats and our little dog out of the room. I close the bedroom door from the hallway side. I go to the kitchen to fill their separate bowls with breakfast. I refill their water bowls. I start the coffee. The ritual feels good. Today is the same as every day, I tell myself.  Last night the surviving bomber was captured. My home is still Boston. I'm 3,000 miles away, but it is still home. And we are all safe. In the back of my mind I know it isn‘t true. It doesn’t take an actual bomb to change absolutely everything. But it isn’t time to think about that right now. I return to the bedroom, ready and aching to be taken out of myself.

I re-enter the bedroom wearing only black cotton panties, my pajamas of choice. I hear the coffee pot start to percolate behind me as I close the door. I’ve been making the coffee too strong lately. The grocer was out of our normal breakfast blend and I’d had to purchase a darker bean. My husband is already sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs spread, his knee ready for me. I hope I’ve gotten the coffee-to-water ratio right this time, not because I’m afraid of not doing it right, but because I want so much to make it right for him. I know I’ve been a disaster lately. “Coffee’s cooking,” I say, hoping he catches the hint after my post-wake-up breakdown. I don’t want to go back to the images of disaster in my hometown . I want to play.

“Did you make it the way I like, young lady?” he asks.

“Of course, Sir,” I respond, falling into character, hoping I’m not lying.

“Not too strong, not too light?” he asks.

“Yes, Sir. Just the way you like it, Sir. I think I‘ve made it just right.”

He nods and pats his thigh. “That’s the way I’m going to spank you now. Not too strong, not too light. I’m going to spank you just right.”

I step towards him and straddle his thigh. This spreads my legs, leaving my bottom and thighs open to his administrations while my upper body rests on the bed, secure and stable. He sets his hand on my hip. “That’s my girl,” he whispers, and I realize he’s whispering to himself. I’ve been so caught up in my own worries, I hadn’t realized he needs this just as much as I do. “Please spank me, Sir,” I say. “I’m yours.”

The first smack is startling, if only because it’s early morning and my flesh has barely had time to wake up. He smacks the other cheek and I squeal. “Quietly,” he reminds me, because it’s Saturday and we haven’t heard the upstairs neighbors’ dog bounding about their apartment. If the dog isn’t up, they’re probably not up yet either.

“Don’t spank me so hard, then,” I reply, testing how much sauciness he feels like taking from me.

“Don’t make me spank you harder,” he says. Not much sauciness, I realize. This is to be intense, but connected. No characters after all. Just us.

A steady flurry of strokes comes next, bouncing from cheek to cheek, each one stinging but I maintain control of my voice. I don’t count, but after about twenty smacks he lets off and rubs my bottom while I breathe out a sigh of “Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.”

“Good girl,” he says, still letting his hand circle my backside. “You’re doing so well. Are you ready for twice as many?”

“I think so.” I reposition myself, letting his knee fully rest between my legs so that he can feel the warmth of my body reacting to the spanking. “I probably shouldn’t say this, but you can pull my panties down. If you want. Sir.”

He yanks my panties to my thighs. “I was going to do that anyway,” he says. I look back over my shoulder and he looks towards me, both of us smiling. “Ready?” he asks, but doesn’t wait for my response.

He spanks me hard, but not too hard. Enough to draw a gasp out of me with each slap, but not enough to make me howl or squirm away. I don’t think about anything outside of the moment. I focus on the heat of his body close to me, the sting of each slap, the warmth spreading through my own body and the moisture growing between my thighs. If he keeps this up, I’m going to slide off his knee. I wiggle forward, trying to prevent the inevitable.

The spanking stops and he once again rubs my bottom in soft, circular strokes. I sigh beneath the touches. I want him, but I know it isn't time yet. After he rubs me for a few moments, he reaches under the blanket and pulls out a square leather paddle. He’d hidden it beneath the covers while I went to make coffee. “What else is under there?” I ask.

“Ssshhh,” he tells me. “I’ve got you.”

The phrase wilts me. It’s what we say to each other when the other is having a hard time, or not feeling well, or even completely falling apart. These past few months, I’ve been completely falling apart. “Tell me again?” I beg.

“I’ve got you,” he tells me, holding the leather paddle against my pink bottom. I nod.

As the leather paddle falls upon my warmed backside, I realize that instead of leaning away from it, I am thrusting back towards it, meeting it mid-stroke. He realizes it as well, and increases the speed and strength. Soon my body is rocking over his thigh as I would his cock, but the spanking overtakes me as no sex could. My face feels flushed; I am dizzy. I reach forward, grabbing blanket into my palms, clutching the fabric like reins and riding the pain.

“More,” I say, and he knows what I want. He slides his leg out from under me, pushing me up onto my knees on the bed. He grabs a pillow and shoves it under my hips. He slides the senior cane out from under the blanket.

“Are you sure?” he asks, his hand traveling over the warmest parts of my bottom, now throbbing with heat, pink and tender, but nowhere near where I need to be. I nod. “Don’t forget. This is for you. I’ve got you,” he tells me again. I know it’s not just for me, but instead I say the words he wants to hear:

“Cane me, Sir. Please, please, cane me.”

The cane is our everything. It’s our way to sex, to redemption, to escape. The cane is the physical representation of the electricity between us when everything is right. It’s the reconnection when we’ve disconnected and need to find each other again. More than anything else, I trust him with the cane. More than anything else, it’s the implement he uses when he needs to tell me he loves me.

This morning, it’s the way to show each other how much we need one another. I give myself to him. He trusts his strokes to me.

Six strokes, then another twelve. Another six of the best after that. This particular morning, it was not the strokes that were important. It was that he gave them to me, and that I took them. Willingly. Wontonly. And afterwards, my thighs parted and dripping, it was that he took me as if I were the only woman on earth. Perhaps, in that moment, I was.

When we finish, I am exhausted but exhilarated.. He asks me to lie still, and he takes photographs. In between shots, he strokes my stripes. He makes me feel beautiful. The world, in this moment, is not so terrifying after all. I am strong.

I am not afraid.