Story: Her Dry Eyes

Another story along the same theme, first posted to soc.sexuality.spanking in July 2002

Her Dry Eyes [M/F – though I suppose it could be F/F too…]

She really is such as child.

Don’t get me wrong, she seems like an adult. Being the teacher she is, she can give an extemporaneous, though thorough and incisive history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, a critique of nationalism in light of postmodernism, or a trenchant theological treatise on the importance of unity within the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church. She can discuss music from Beethoven to Yo-Yo Ma, Miles Davis to John Lee Hooker, the Chieftains to ‘Amr Diab. And she cooks like a European grandmother ("no, the produce must be fresh – from the garden, or at least the farmer’s market").

But as a graduate student, she excels at tardiness, procrastination, and work that, while fine, is far below her potential. Her stereo will, as often as not, be playing one of those hideous rock bands like Green Day or the Beastie Boys or even, God helps us, the South Park soundtrack. And it’s not unheard of for me to find out she’s had ice cream for breakfast.

She’s not naughty…just…willful. Rambunctious. Bratty. She knows all the right buttons to push – and jams them often. Though I remind her that there are certain physical limitations in this world – time and gravity being but a few – she seems oblivious. An attitude she never grew out of – she still brags about how, when she broke her ankle at age ten, she continued playing kickball in her walking cast.

And now that she’s sick, it’s all I can do to get her to settle down long enough to rest. To pay attention to her symptoms. To take her medicine regularly. To do the exercises the doctor gave her to do. “But, they’re not fun like hiking, or swimming. I don’t feel anything when I do them.” So, I gave her something to feel.

Yes, I spanked her. Long and hard. With a wooden hairbrush, her baby fine hair mingling with the boar bristles. I laid her over my lap. Made her suffer the indignity of my pulling her panties down around her knees. And through it all she whimpered. Curled her toes. Squirmed. Put her face in her hands and sobbed. Or seemed to. When I let her up, her eyes were dry.

She’s laying on her bed now. Her tummy on the quilt. I sense her sadness. Her contrition. Her scalding discomfort. Her ache to cry and let all those feelings out. But that grown up – that sophisticated adult who shut out the little girl long ago – won’t let her. I wish I had seen her when she was that ten-year-old playing kickball, before a hard life came and dammed her tears.

But I know someday it will happen. She will be lying over my lap, panties bunched up around her knees. And I will be using the hairbrush on that tender spot where the buttocks and the thighs become ambiguous. And a salty glaze will come over her earth green eyes. And then tears will finally accompany those vocal sobs.