I wrote this many years ago (sigh, switchy tendency that I denied for so long was there all along…)

I’m still down with the flu and when I’m back up, I’ll be desperately trying to shovel out of the pile of overdue work that is growing every day.  So, for certain persons who enjoy such things… a story.  Not a new one, but maybe new to some people.  🙂

This isn’t particularly a true story, though based on certain realities at the time it was written.

Kindling

“No!”

“Take them,” he said, his voice infinitely patient. I often wonder why he doesn’t just leave me, but he never has.

“I don’t need them!”

He looked at a spot above my head, sighed and tried again. “Take them, hon.”

I slapped his hand away, sending the pills skittering across the wood floor. He looked at me. “I’m not crazy!”

“No, you’re not. They have entirely different pills for crazy people. You, love, have a chemical imbalance, now take your chemicals so you can get balanced again.”

“You think I’m crazy.”

He looked at me, resigned. “Do I?”

“Yes. You’re being condescending.”

“I’m being patient. If you were a diabetic this wouldn’t be an issue.”

“That’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same, hon. Your brain is an organ too.”

“I’m not crazy!”

“We already did that bit.” We looked at each other in silence for a moment, him calm, me scowling.

“Take them, please.”

“I’m not taking them off the damn floor!”

“Then throw those away and get new ones.”

“Don’t be condescending!”

“Hon, has it ever occurred to you to wonder why when you stop taking your pills, everyone else suddenly becomes unreasonable?”

I felt a surge of anger. I grabbed a pillow and flung it at him with all my strength. He grabbed it, his mouth setting into a hard line.

“No,” was all he said, but it carried an authority that cut through my tantrum and cowed me into sullen stillness. “I am tired of this. When you are ready to talk, you come see me.” He turned without another word and walked into the study closing the door behind him.

I pounded my fists into the couch and screamed in frustration. My emotions were in turmoil, I was long past the point of rationality. My thoughts flitted through my mind like phantoms, slipping through my fingers as I grasped for them. I pounded the couch until my arms got tired then I threw myself down and cried, desperately wanting him to come back out and steadfastly refusing to break down and go to him myself.

My heart ached. Thoughts were running out of control. He hated me. He was going to leave me. I was crazy. I was a nuisance. I was a burden. He’d be better off without me. I was sobbing and becoming lightheaded when he came back out of the study.

“Stop it,” he said firmly. I felt a stab in my chest. Now he was angry with me too, probably disappointed. I was too overwhelmed, I couldn’t stop. I began to choke.

I was barely aware of him coming to me and laying a blazing swat across the seat of my jeans. I stopped crying, jolted painfully out of my spiral of despair.

“You’re kindling. Stop it. Get up.”

Still gasping for air, I pulled myself off the couch. He sat down and pulled me toward him. As he unbuttoned my jeans, I knew what was coming and began to cry softly.

“You left me,” I said, plaintively.

“I didn’t leave you, I went in the other room to work. You could have come in any time you wanted.”

“You didn’t want to see me anymore.”

“I didn’t want you throwing things at me, no. But, I do believe I told you to come see me when you wanted to talk.” He worked my jeans down to my knees and gently pulled me down across his lap.

“You don’t like me when I’m off my pills. You don’t like who I really am, you only like me drugged.”

He laid a hand on my bottom and I flinched. “Honey, I love you no matter what. Your meds don’t drug you, they make you healthy. When you don’t take them, you don’t feel well. You aren’t yourself when you have the flu either, but I don’t stop loving you then, do I?”

I pouted, pointedly studying the patterns on the couch cushions. “This isn’t the flu,” I pointed out. I heard him sigh above me.

“No. It isn’t, but it is a physical condition nonetheless. It should carry no more stigma than diabetes or epilepsy. That point of view needs to start with you. Do you understand?”

I felt a decision being made somewhere in the murky confusion in my mind. “You think I’m crazy.” Baiting.

He said nothing for a moment, then swatted me hard. I jumped, biting back a yelp. “That’s a game, baby. I don’t think you want to go there.”

I contemplated it, squirming, feeling the warmth and strength of his body. I knew he would stop the kindling, give me the endorphins to stop the spiral of emotions brought on by madly firing neurons. But, I needed more than that from him. I was standing on the edge of a precipice; my heart was in my throat, butterflies in my stomach. I needed only step over the edge to give myself to him. I closed my eyes. “You do, everyone does.”

There was a long moment of silence, his hand rubbing slow circles on my bottom. “All right.” He didn’t speak as he drew my panties down my thighs and began to spank, slowly, rhythmically, lighting my entire bottom on fire. I managed to take the first ten in relative silence, only tensing and biting my lip. Beyond that I lost count. I began to yelp and squirm, but his strong arm kept me firmly in place. Each swat became an assault to my endurance.

At some point, it became more than I could take and I began to struggle in earnest, pleading and whimpering. He didn’t answer, he didn’t stop. I felt a wave of helplessness wash over me. It was too much. Tears began to spill once more, but this time they weren’t born of irrational delusions, there was no confusion, only his arm around my waist, the slap of his hand, the burning sting. Everything became clear, simple, uncluttered. I allowed it to take me. My body relaxed, the sobs came unhindered and unhurried.

Finally, his hand stopped falling and rested lightly on my bottom. It trapped the heat radiating from my skin. I listened to the rhythm of my heart, the throbbing in my bottom, the catching in my breath. Neither of us spoke for a long time. When my breathing had returned to normal leaving only a hollowness in my chest, he slid my panties back up and helped me off his lap.

I quietly pulled up my jeans, subdued and introspective. He watched me silently. When I was done, I stood before him, waiting for something intangible. “Go take your meds,” he said softly, the gentle authority in his voice.

I looked at the floor. “Yes, sir,” I said, the words barely audible, but we both heard them, and we both understood.

I went to the kitchen, pouring the hated things from the various bottles into my palm. I felt the tug of resistance at the back of my mind and stilled it. He came in behind me as I swallowed the last of them and wrapped his arms around my waist.

“Good girl,” he murmured in my ear, the slightest tinge of mirth in his tone. I suddenly felt light, relieved, giddy. I turned in his grasp, wrapping my arms around his neck and grinning.

“I want to go for ice cream.”

He smiled, infected by my mood. “Mmm, standing up?”

I laid a quick kiss on his lips and with mischief in my eyes said, “You only think you’re that good…”

• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 

Like