Punishment

WARNING:  This post is graphic and discusses S/M and D/s punishment that could be upsetting for some readers.  Please read only according to your own comfort level, and know that all activities are engaged in with consent and have built to this level of intensity through a lengthy and intimate building of trust between my Sir and myself.

Yesterday was a good day.  We went out for the day, had a picnic, went shopping, had some tea… it was quite lovely.  I was a little edgy (see last post) but overall doing better than I’ve done in a while.  But it was a long day, and I got tired.

When we got home we were going about the business of settling the house for bed and Sir allowed me a few minutes to sit down at the computer to look up a recipe.  I wound up playing on my phone, ostensibly while I waited for the computer to wake up… but… it didn’t end there.

Sir came in and told me to put down my phone and find the stuff I needed online, I had two minutes.

I said, “Uh huh…” But it was Soda Crush…  I asked, “Can I just finish this one game?”

Sir’s mouth flattened out the way it does when he’s not super pleased but he said I could finish THAT round of the game then the phone goes away for the night.

I finished that game, but then it asked if I wanted to play again… and… I knew I should put my phone down… but… then I didn’t.  I can’t explain my thinking process any better than that.  That’s about the depth of it…  “I should put my phone down,” CLICK Play Again!

Sir came back in a few minutes later.  I had passed a level.  I was on a roll.  A four-game roll.  He held out his hand and said, “Give me the phone.”  He was using his voice (not sign) and it was not a happy voice.

I knew.  I KNEW I had to stop.  But at that moment it asked me if I want to play again?  I said, “Just one second…” and CLICK Play Again!

I didn’t look at Sir’s face.  I had a terrible feeling in my gut, but it was kind of detached and distant where it didn’t have to bother me too much.  Sir’s hand descended and he physically pulled the phone out of my hands.

He said nothing, just walked out of the room, and the terrible feeling got more urgent, but there was still a gauzy veil keeping it from getting too uncomfortable.  I started to go online to look up the recipe then remember I hadn’t updated my Goodreads profile since I finished my last book…

I’m sure you know how things went from there.

Sir was having a conversation with Sub Brother and came back more than five minutes later.  He looked at the screen and then literally pulled the plug out of the back of the monitor.

As if the glaring white of the screen had held magical properties, it’s sudden absence sunk the room into the dim and shadowy illumination of the small desk lamp and the veil of dissociation tore away.  I still didn’t look at Sir, but this time because I was afraid to see his face.  “I’m sorry,” I signed quickly before he said anything.  His response was silence.  Silence for a painfully long time.

Finally he spoke.  His only words… “Get the spoon.”

Because I’ve been struggling lately he’s implemented bedtime spankings.  These are not punishment particularly, more just reaffirmation of our relationship, reaffirmation of his control (and thus my sense of safety and comfort).  It is twenty swats each night before bed with the large wooden spoon.  He delivers them rapid-fire and I am wriggling and whimpering by about 15, but it is over quickly and the redness and sting are gone by morning.

Normally.

As I bring the spoon back to him and he closes the door to the office my heart begins to beat faster, though despite the earlier sense of dissociation disappearing, my brain still seems unable to fully comprehend what is going to happen.  I’m not as nervous as I know I should be.

Even when he says, as I slide down my jeans and bend over the back of the chair, “Three sets.  Ten count to catch your breath between.”

It does make my breath catch for a moment.  60 swats instead of the 20 I would have had.  And I feel a twinge in my chest that reminds me of guilt, but it still feels muted.

The first twenty are fast and hard.  I hold my breath for fifteen, then I lose my stoicism and gasp a yelp and twitch as the set finishes, stinging sharply.

He doesn’t count out loud, but I know my time is short so I try to gather myself, remind myself to breath through the pain, tensing and resisting just makes it harder to take…  Then it starts again, and I am whimpering from the first swat, squirming to stay in place by the tenth, his hand pushing me firmly down by the 12th, and holding me in place by 15.

For the second ten seconds I only gasp and whimper, my chest heaving in the beginning of sobs though tears haven’t come, yet.

I can’t remember the individual swats of the third set.  I remember sobbing tearlessly and plaintively whimpering “Sir, Sir…”  He couldn’t hear me, I knew, but somehow in that moment all becomes instinct and little of it logical.

After the third set he allowed me up and directed me to dress myself.  He handed me the spoon to put back in its place in the closet and followed me into the bedroom.  My eyes were dry but I couldn’t completely stop my breath from hitching and Sub Brother’s forehead drew tight in concerned sympathy, though Sir’s voice was hard as he said behind me. “Strip.  Panties only.”

I tightened my jaw and turned to the bed where I laid each item of my clothing, carefully putting my boots away in the closet, though I usually leave them by the laundry basket.  Sir watched me undress and when I stood as he demanded, he pulled the laundry basked from the corner and pointed to the empty space.

I sighed in resignation.  I hate standing in the corner.  I find it juvenile and humiliating and boring.  I struggle with it more than many other punishments and thus it is rarely used in our household.  Tonight Sir’s face shows now hint of softness as I carry my worn clothes past him, drop them into the laundry basket, then place myself into the painted corner.

Behind me he says, “Hands behind your head.  Don’t touch the wall.”

This is a new request and it brings a new spike of icy dread to my belly.  Usually the corner is a place for reflection when I’m struggling with my own head.  It is rarely punitive in this way.  As I raise my hands into position I realize I have to stand straight and keep my elbows wide to avoid touching the walls to either side of me.  I will not be able to slouch or relax, or take the weight of my arms onto my neck for relief.

The first five minutes are mostly boring, though my arms and shoulders begin to ache before the timer goes off.  Usually five minutes is the limit he leaves me there, but this time he flips the timer over and sets it to run again.  I feel a stab in my chest and take a deep breath, trying to resign myself to my punishment.  I did something wrong.  I did something very very wrong.  I violated out contract and the sacred trust we have with each other.  I disobeyed.  Directly.  More than once.  Not because I made a mistake.  Not because he wasn’t there and I thought I could slip it by… not even because I got distracted and sidetracked.  I sat in front of him directly and defied his order.  I felt the corners of my mouth tilt down, and my chin droop, though the cold paint of the walls touched my elbows and I had to quickly adjust my position.

The second five minutes became a torture as my shoulders became stiff and aching, my arms trembled, and my hands began to tingle.  I tried to shift, rolling my shoulders, until Sir took pity on me and told me to move my hands to the small of my back.  Even that position didn’t completely alleviate the ache in my shoulders, but it was tolerable until the timer went off a second time.

Sir ordered me out of the corner and told me to leave my panties in the laundry basket.  In his hands he held the large hairbrush and the blue strap (the most terrifying implement in our bag – to my mind.)  I felt my mouth open but I had nothing to say.  I moved stiffly to obey him and then followed his invitation to precede him into the hall.

He closed the door again.  This time I knew to save Sub Brother from witnessing the harshest punishment of the evening.  Even after almost a year together, it is difficult for Sub Brother when I am punished.

Sir instructed me to put my hands on the wall and I could feel my chest and belly beginning to heave already with my panicked breaths.  Sir set the blue strap aside on the bookshelf and began with the brush.  He worked more slowly with that than he had with the spoon, but each swat was brutally painful and I bucked and twisted with each one, sobbing and speaking his title again and again.

I think I got twenty swats with the hairbrush, although I lost count.  Then he set it on the shelf and retrieved the strap.  I began to shake my head, whimpering and sobbing but Sir took a handful of my hair and held me still.

The strap bit with brightly cruel pain and seemed to shock my nerves along the length of my body.  He used little force, I could tell, and even so, the heavy rubber stung and burned with a depth and intensity that make my heart thunder in true fear and panic.

He took longer for each swat.  Allowing me to recover the panicked animal reaction I had to each stroke.  And he stopped after ten.  I collapsed against the wall crying and shivering, though still, the tears wouldn’t come.

After a moment to recover, Sir roughly grasped my hair again and turned me to face him.  His eyes roved my face for a moment with a strange intensity then he asked me if I regretted my choices.

I couldn’t move my head far, but I nodded even against his fist in my hair, my own hand going to my chest, signing again and again, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

He said nothing, just guided me back into the bedroom.  He hadn’t held me, hadn’t forgiven me, it wasn’t over yet… I wanted to collapse into my bed and curl up, but I couldn’t… I stood, shuddering, Sub Brother’s eyes flickered from me to Sir as Sir put away the strap and brush then returned to the bed.  He directed Sub Brother to the far side of the bed, then went to the bed stand drawer and took out the clothespins… and the vibrator.

I tried to shake my head that I didn’t want this tonight… but he grasped my hair roughly and I realized this wasn’t going to be closure and reaffirmation of our relationship as he often uses sex after punishment.  He closed the first clothespin on my left nipple, as close to the tip as it would still grip… unbearably sensitive and painful… my knees almost buckled.

“Sir, no, please, I can’t…”

He placed the other clothespin the same way and I squirmed against his grip unable to stop myself.  Somewhere through the pain I heard him hiss and mutter something and the pins were adjusted slightly farther back.  Not far enough to be bearable… but less painful than they’d been.

He pointed to the bed, and sobbing and defeated, I crawled onto it, flinching as every movement pulled at the clamps.  I edged myself onto my back with the care of an invalid, and Sir lost patience.  He gripped my arm and pushed me back roughly, making me gasp and whimper.  He pulled my legs apart roughly and twisted the vibrator to its maximum speed.  He pressed it against my clit and held me down as I bucked violently.

It was too rough, and the clamps were too painful.  I couldn’t…  I told him I couldn’t.

He was implacable.  “The clamps stay on until you come.”

I came.  Eventually.  It wasn’t pleasurable, it felt more like a chaotic whirlpool of sensations that eventually sucked me down into them.  My body tensed and finally relaxed and Sir pulled the vibrator away, letting my body begin to sort itself back into a semblance of order.

Usually once he’s finished with me, he takes the clamps off… but this time he stretched himself beside me, propped up on one elbow, and traced his fingers around the curves of my breasts, watching my face.  As the other sensations slowly ebbed, the pain in my nipples became even more overwhelming and I begged softly for him to remove them.

For another moment he tortured me with soft touches and casual taps at the pins that made me jerk and writhe against him.  Then, finally, he removed first the left, then the right and reached over me to put them on the bed stand.

I clamped my hands over my breasts for a moment, then threw my arm across my eyes.  I didn’t realize the tears were coming until I felt the wet, coldness slide into my ears.  From a distance I realized Sir was brushing my bangs from my forehead and kissing me gently, the murmur of his voice reached my ears… “I love you…  I love you…” and I was too broken down to reject the words… or the reality.  Raw and unprotected, his love sank into me and finally my tears slowed and I curled into his chest, listening to the beat of his heart and the murmur of the words as he repeated them, “Good girl, I love you…” again and again.