I came home last weekend to find our most often-used implements hanging across our bedroom wall for our sixth wedding anniversary. I sat down on the edge of the bed, overwhelmed by despair and arousal. The sight of so many at once was thrilling and imposing, terrifying and exciting.
The first few nights they hung vigil over our sleeping bodies, I woke in the early hours of the morning and found even the shadow of the wall to be a quiet monster looming over me. To my surprise, it became a comforting creature: a feral beast that guards the abode, an avalanche-prone mountain that keeps intruders at bay, a god angry with its people but determined to see them survive. The wall, capable of setting fire to my skin then destroying the flesh beneath. The wall, a catalyst for a phoenix rising, always rising, from its repetitive destruction.
One of the themes of this blog is my struggle with the concept of punishment. I have embraced, rejected, embraced, and rejected the very idea of punishment. I have rebelled at the idea of naughty school girls, because in reality, they should have better guidance than a cane over wet panties. I have rebelled at the idea of domestic discipline - a marriage is a partnership, not an opportunity for abuse. I have even rebelled at the idea of tops and bottoms, dominants and submissives, because I welcome spanking but I have a say in what happens to me, in what is right and wrong for my body, my mind, my heart.
Then last night, a new leather collar around my neck, committed to a play version of complete submission that we have been toying with these last few weeks, I was commanded not to speak. Mr. W had buckled the collar but did not use the lock, which along with its key is secured safely in my nightstand drawer, in a beautiful box a Lelo anal toy had first occupied. He had been describing the terms of my submission, whispering in my ear. I had been agreeing aloud, "Yes, Sir," with each term. Then he told me that I couldn't come without his permission. He began to rub my bare clit.
I had a question. "I have a question," I said.
Apparently, "Yes, Sir," were the only words allowed. We had not even reached a state of warming my bottom, but he said to me then, "Did I say you could speak?" I shook my head, too caught up in the moment to assert myself. "That will be two of the best of the cane for you."
I heard "two dozen." We always speak of the dozens, never the singular. He doesn't know I heard it this way, and reading this will be the first time he knows of it. I was terrified to speak then, because I heard "two dozen."
He told me to bend over, and he grabbed the junior cane, the second over from the right in the picture above. He told me that they would come hard and quickly. Still caught up in the idea that I was receiving two dozen hard strokes, I held my breath, terrified to breathe because I knew I would scream without a proper warming first. The strokes came, one, two. They were painful; they left their mark. But it was only two.
He stood me up. My eyes darted every which way. I still had a question. I began to bite the insides of my cheeks. I tilted my head. The collar bit at my neck. I had asked him in the beginning to tighten it one step beyond comfortable. Now, trying not to speak, the tight collar was a reminder that I had committed to submission, that I would not do what he had advised I was not permitted to do. But I was also trying not to laugh, because it was a new and absurd situation, but also one of despair because I am so used to saying what I want. I decided I would wait to ask until the collar was off, when we were back to ourselves, when my voice was never in question. I rolled my eyes and nodded to myself, agreeing with myself that waiting was the best plan.
"I just wanted to see if you would do it," he said then. He grabbed me around the waist and we fell on the bed, wrapped around each other, giggling. "Telling you not to speak, I didn't imagine you could do it."
"I tried!" I said, tears in my eyes. "I was trying so hard."
"I know," he laughed, kissing me. "I didn't think you could do it. I didn't expect you to do it. I thought it would be funny to tell you that."
"Worst. Timing. Ever!" I said, my thighs locking on his, his cock pressing against me and my arousal dripping down my legs. I love these moments, these moments when our connection wins out over any play we might desire. When we know that at the heart of things, we are perfect. We see everything the same way, even the absurdity of commanding me, me of all people, not to speak.
"What did you want to ask?"
""I wanted to know if your permission was implied when you're rubbing my pussy. If it's okay to come just because you're touching me. Or if I need explicit verbal approval."
"You don't have the right to do anything," he said, touching my clit again, slowly pressing it into circles beneath this fingers. "You have to wait for verbal permission."
"So I can't assume that just because you're touching me, you want me to come?"
"Oh no. You have to wait," he said, advancing the pressure, making me tremble beneath him.
He began to rub me faster and faster, pressing my clit into my pussy, demanding with his fingers that I come for him. "May I come?" I asked.
"No," he said. My hips jerked backwards, playfully terrified of coming against his will. The two dozen strokes I thought I might receive before could very well come if I orgasmed under his fingers without his permission. That was the parameters of the play we were setting up even as we spoke and explored each other.
His circles slowed but the pressure increased. "You may not come without my permission," he advised again, My hips couldn't deny his touch. I began to throb beneath him, but I waited, waited, waited until finally he told me to come, and I did.
The paddling he gave me afterwards, however, indicated I hadn't obeyed at all. The bruises I have this morning are the very reminders that I was insubordinate. That I came, and came hard, before he wanted me to.
We plan to mark those bruises farther, harder, deeper. My bottom is waiting. My throat is waiting. I want that collar on. I don't want to worry about right or wrong or punishment. I have reached a new place. I want to submit. I want to obey. I want to be beaten. I want to come, if he will let me. I want to be the phoenix rising under the wall. Paddle me, I will rise. Strap me, I will rise. Cane me, I will rise. And as my bottom burns and writhes under your administrations, Sir, I hope that you rise too.
