Pardon the dust

I've been meaning to clean this blog up for awhile. My blogroll -- or lack of one -- has made for a messy group of urls with glaring omissions and broken links. And I've been wanting to add some goodies like the comments widget, Yahoo Messenger button, Twitter, etc. Some of that I've accomplished tonight (er...this morning). Some of it I have not. But I will get it finished this week (tomorrow, insh'allah as my Arab friends say -- God willing!), and I appreciate your patience while I try to make this blog a even more enjoyable.

In the meantime, my spanking mojo is coming back here and there (well, my domme mojo has been back for sure and my little girl mojo is also creeping back). New juicy posts should be forthcoming both here and the Punishment Book soon.

A swinger of birches

Afraid my spanking mojo has gone to "tentative" the last couple of weeks while I've been a bit sickly. Nothing serious, just the ebb and flow of a weakened immune system, adjusting to new medication (my insurance company finally approved the long acting narcotic my doctor prescribed -- yay!) and too many doctors appointments (now that I'm done with pelvic floor physical therapy, it's on to hand therapy for that finger I broke during my tumble down the stairs back in November).

I keep wanting to post something, especially as my StatCounter numbers have been higher than ever. But while I've plenty of material in my mental notebook to post, I haven't had a matching level of energy. So tonight I will simply leave you with the closing line of the Robert Frost poem, "Birches," (alas his mind is not as prurient as mine) which I came across at my new favorite web addiction, poets.org:

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

I daresay that more than a few of us would share such a sentiment.

Nothing says Christmas like a Santa with a tree up his ass

I tried to take a picture of the plastic Santa atop my tiny Christmas tree with his slightly surprised but clearly pleased expression despite the evergreen branch up his ass, but unfortunately my batteries are not charging like they should. I figured you all, my dear pervy readers, would appreciate a Santa who doesn't mind being anally impaled.

Not sure that Christmas trees are quite my thing (I'll stick to good ol' butt plugs and ginger root), but after last night I can say I do like having my ass cheeks spread wide with medical tape. It made me feel so deliciously exposed and naughty. We're definitely going to be playing with that again.

But not tonight...er...this morning. It's time for me to take a bath and go to bed. And maybe get the last of my Advent spankings (if we're up to it). I've been wondering what the most appropriate implement would be for Christmas. My first thought was a cane, but this afternoon as I dug out our heavy duty wooden spoon to use, ya know, for actually mixing, I thought it too might be a good one. I am curious which implement you, dear reader, believe imparts the most Christmas spirit.

Merry Christmas, my friends. Hope your holiday is that perfect mixture of blessed and kinky.

Happy Solstice!

It's the shortest day of the year but at 10:08 tonight (PST), the winter solstice occurs. It will also be time for the Second Annual Global O when people all over the world will orgasm for world peace. True, it does feel a bit like Sting (who, apparently, all men hate) and his tantric orgasm. And orgasming at exactly 10:08 (or wherever you are in the world) is a bit of a challenge (bet Sting has been practicing for this for a long time). But, you know, it's an orgasm and it's for world peace, so it can't be too bad.

Sorry to be so quiet lately. Last week was a rough week, health-wise. And every time I start to feel better, A. starts feeling me up and we start doing stuff and then the next day I feel like shit again. The other day when he was taking his trousers off and starting to flirt with me, I told him to put his thing away as I was finally feeling half-way decent and wanted to stay that way for awhile.

But I think it's coming out tonight. Especially after he catches up on my Advent spankings (eek!).

Reaquainting my bottom with the belt and more

Despite the whole falling down the stairs thing, I had had a lot of pent up spanking energy the last couple of weeks. And what was really keeping us from playing much was hosting my dad for a few days as he's been having a particularly bad time of it lately. But once we had some time to ourselves last Tuesday night and our cuddling on the bed could lead to groping and petting, all sorts of things happened.

Like A.'s member swelling and myself getting a bit dewy. And me scraping the splint on my finger down his dick (which made it swell more). And my ass getting butt plug-fucked. And, of course, spanked.

At first I did the topping from the bottom bit. "Please don't spank me with your belt!" I begged.

"You so want to get spanked...Say it! I want to hear you tell me what you want," A. demanded.

Hmph! I hate asking!

But as I was naked on all fours with my ass high in the air hungry to feel that belt on my ass, I quickly gave in.

"I want you to spank me," I admitted just above a whisper. "I want you to whip me with your belt."

And, dear reader, he did. And oh did it hurt! Within a couple of strokes, I was swimming in nausea (the room spinning every time I turned my head didn't help matters any) and shocked at how much it stung. I thought about stopping the whole thing but kept thinking I would adjust to the pain. Instead I just kept thinking "oh God -- make it stop!" Thankfully A. sensed this from my yelping and moving about and lightened the strokes, then stopped completely and went about trying to increase my endorphines the old-fashioned vanilla way.

And I didn't even get a decent orgasm out of it. Even worse, I was soooo sore the next day (worse than falling down 23 stairs!). I mean, some of those muscles haven't been used for, like, eight months.

Needless to say, it kind of put me off spanking for a bit. At least any spankings with implements. I was still craving the odd hand spanking. But frankly, my friends, I was rather afraid of encountering that belt again. Or straps and ping pong paddles. And hairbrushes, canes and riding crops were too hideous to even contemplate.

So when A. announced the night before last that he wanted to finally break in our new futon-cum-spanking bench, I was a bit reticent. I mean, I was sorta in the mood for a spanking, but more of a little girl over the knee hand spanking sort. And I certainly wasn't in much of a submissive or sexual mood. I had been feeling annoyed with everything since the night before, though I didn't know why. As I watched A. get out just about every implement we own, I felt even more ambivalent and slightly sick.

Yet I think it was that fear that finally pushed me to go ahead with it. If I wussed out, the fear would just grow and it would be even harder to meet up with that belt again. Or any other implement for that matter.

So I stripped as ordered (except the cast boot on my left ankle that I sprained in September which the doctor said on Monday I have to wear all the time now, not just when I leave the house, because it's still not healed), though pouted a bit to myself as I did. Sat naked on the bed while he went out for a smoke. Contemplated my impending thrashing, still feeling petulant and afraid, yet also determined. When he returned, I timidly made my way to and over the new bench. As I rested my arms on the seat of futon and laid my ample bottom right on top as my feet dangled several inches above the carpet, my emotions felt like two weather fronts about to collide in the form of a nasty storm. My eyes were already slightly moist. This was it. This just might be the time I actually cried.

After giving me several smacks with his hand, A. decided he wanted my bottom a bit lower. I jiggled my hips down so that my toes touched the floor. He smacked me a few more times, then started softly with the strap. But the edge of the top of the futon was pressing against my pelvis -- you know, the pelvis that always hurts -- and the nausea started trickling back.

"I gotta move," I practically whined. A. fetched a couple of pillows to place under my pelvis as I scooted my bottom back up on top. This was bit more comfortable and after I took a deep breath, A. continued with the strapping.

"What's that like on a scale of 1-10?" he asked after a succession of progressively harder strokes.

I always find that a difficult question to answer in the midst of a spanking because at that moment it will feel a lot more painful than if I have time to compare it with other spankings. On the other hand, each spanking is unique and this one in particular had some very specific conditions attached to it making this a necessary question.

"Um...maybe a seven or so," I answered.

"Let's see if we can get it up to an eight or a nine."

Ugh.

"I'm going to give you 12 strokes. Count them, please."

I groaned aloud reflexively before I remembered that was serious transgression.

"Yes, Sir," I said as submissively as I could. But it was too late.

"Was that a groan I heard?" A. asked as he patted my head.

I stopped for a second to consider if somehow I could spin it as something else but quickly decided to just apologize and hope he had mercy.

"I'm sorry, Sir."

"Right. That will be an additional six."

D'oh! I almost groaned aloud again by accident but stopped it with a deep breath just in time.

A. brought the strap down with a reasonable amount of force. Certainly not full force, but definitely harder than he had been. After the first six strokes, he changed sides so my left cheek wouldn't feel left out. At nine and ten, I was getting close to my limit, especially as the strap kept landing just inside my cheeks. At twelve he rubbed my bottom and switched sides again.

"Now for the extra six. Continue counting, please."

I think it was during those six that my endorphine spigot finally turned on (in addition to another sort of spigot). When he finished with the extra six and groped my bottom, I eagerly pulled my legs apart. His fingers wandered a bit, just as I'd hoped they would.

But he wasn't done with that strap yet. And I wasn't quite finished pouting either. Indeed, a part of me was even just a little irritated that I was getting aroused. Yet I couldn't deny that I was hungry for that strap even as it hurt so much. When he switched to the ping pong paddle and it kept hitting me just inside where my thigh and cheek meet, I so wanted to plead and beg him to stop. And I also wanted more. More, more, more, more, more...

Of course he did stop -- with the spanking, that is -- and turned his attention to more intimate areas. I still didn't come (I'm not sure if I can in that position), but I did feel all nice, warm and fuzzy when I laid down a few minutes later (which I made sure to do earlier this time as I didn't want to get too sore again).

However I still felt like crying. As I got ready for bed I thought about asking A. to spank me more. To give me a hard spanking full force with the hairbrush until I bawled my eyes out. But when it really came down to it, I knew I probably wouldn't get the release I needed that way.

No, I needed to do it in a less kinky, less fun way -- sitting down with myself and being aware of my feelings. So I went to bed and A. went back to work at the desk in the kitchen and I pouted and cried my way through my frustration at having to spend so much time going to doctors appointments lately and being too tired to do much of anything else. And having a broken finger that makes typing hard. And a stupid ankle that STILL has to be in a cast boot. Yeah it was definitely wallowing. But somehow by letting myself wallow, I went to sleep feeling a lot better.

And by pushing myself over the back of that futon, I was able to feel a lot better about getting thrashed. Which is good because tomorrow is my birthday -- the most spankable day of the year.

How do you think I should get my 35 whacks?

Kinky in the ER

So when last I left you, dear readers, I had fallen down a very long flight of stairs while incurring relatively minor damage. Actually you can barely tell I fell except for the red splint/cast on my left index finger.

I did promise to share some kinky moments from our time in the ER, and I apologize I've been slow to get to that as well as to your comments. While the fall itself wasn't so bad, it's meant even more doctor's appointments (I had 3 last week and have 4 this week). Coupled with vertigo (that finally went away last Friday -- yay!), it's left me knackered. Plus, it's hard to type with a broken index finger.

At any rate, during the several hours they kept me in the ER for observation, A. and I tried to pass the time as best we could.

We considered snagging some of their purple nitrile (latex-free) gloves, but then I pointed out that I'd already absconded with a whole bunch of gloves from my clinic a few weeks back. "Very naughty," A. said. Indeed. And I'm hoping the punishment for said theft will require those gloves.

After the doctor put my finger in a splint, he handed us a large roll of medical tape and instructed me on how best to wrap my finger until I was able to consult with the hand surgeon sometime the following week. Upon seeing the sizable roll of medical tape, I immediately thought about a thread on the newsgroup many years ago about using medical tape to hold the cheeks open in order to administer discipline to one's bummy hole. After the doctor left, I promptly told A. about this other possible use, who seemed to agree that some medical tape experimentation would be in order.

The whole time, of course, I was hooked up to an oximeter which read my heart rate and displayed it on a large monitor. A. decided to have a bit of fun with it.

"Let's see what words make your heart rate go up," A. said. "I'm going to fuck your ass..."

82..84...85

"I'm going to open your cheeks and tape them back with medical tape... "

86...87...91

"...so I can plug your ass with ginger..."

91...92...93

"And spank you with a hairbrush."

88...83...82

"Ah so spanking isn't doing it for you," A. said

"Well, maybe the thought of spanking is relaxing for me," I offered.

"It shouldn't. I'm not doing it right if it does."

"I dunno." I shrugged. I didn't consciously feel less inclined to being spanked.

"Uh oh, your spanking mojo is critically low." A.'s voice became urgent. "Nurse -- get me 5 CCs of spanking mojo right away!...Then show me your knickers."

I always giggle when A. says knickers. I mean, how can you not? It's a funny word!

What ended up affecting my heart rate the most was talking to my mom on the phone. The almost perfectly identical waves on the heart monitor suddenly became erratic and my heart rate jumped up to the mid 90s. True, I was talking about the fall. But I do think it suggests that my mother may actually be hazardous to my health.

The next day when I had to go back to the ER to get another CT scan to make sure the vertigo wasn't from something more sinister, my mom drove us to the hospital and stayed with us. At first we thought about playing our little heart monitor game again, but quickly realized we'd have to do a more PG-rated version. Thankfully there was a television in the room to pass the time. And also thankfully my CT scan ended up being normal. So my mom stepped out while A. helped me get dressed (him dressing me made me feel very child-like, in a kinky sort of way), after which he managed to steal a few soft, playful swats on my bottom with me bent slightly over the gurney.

Despite what my heart rate did when A. suggested he was going to spank me, my spanking mojo has actually remained mostly intact. But as this post is long enough, I'll post about that tomorrow. Promise.

Taunting gravity

So I got that spanking a few hours after my last post. It was a lovely over the knee, good-girl sort of spanking with A.'s hand. Just the perfect getting reacquainted kind of spanking.

However there have been a few kinks in our spanking play since then, despite both of us being eager to try out our new wooden-slatted futon-cum-spanking bench. There's been a family issue. And A.'s jet lag. And my shoulder getting really cranky. And then there was last Wednesday.

Once a week my massage therapist/acupuncturist massages and needles away my pain and makes my life just a little bit better. The only drawback is that her office is up a long flight of 23 hard wooden stairs. So every week I slowly make my way up the stairs with little rest breaks along the way and carefully make my way down after my session.

Except I wasn't very careful last Wednesday. I quite foolishly decided to attempt going down the stairs with my bum right knee, a cast boot on my left foot, a plastic bag of groceries and my cane in my right hand while holding onto the railing in my left hand. It only took one step for me to completely lose my balance and fall head first down each and every one of those 23 hard wooden stairs.

As I was falling -- you know, after the obligatory SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! -- I remember being amazed at what was happening to me. I mean, I never fall down head first. In all my years of bad balance, I've learned to fall backwards onto my butt or against the wall. I also remember thinking while I fell that I had to finally stop falling at some point. And eventually I did. I landed flat on my back on the concrete floor next to the door.

A woman in the shop next door heard me fall, came over and ordered me not to move. My massage therapist came down and (I think she was the one) called the ambulance. Someone got my mother sitting out in the car waiting for me. "Why hasn't the ambulance gotten here?" she demanded and was answered a moment later by the paramedics arriving.

There was a lot of concern about internal bleeding because I'm on Coumadin, but after being examined by a zillion nurses and doctors and various radiological equipment in one of those blindingly bright trauma rooms in the ER, I had only sustained a cracked nose (with a tiny bit of bruising under my right eye), a dislocated/broken left index finger (it makes typing LOADS o' fun!), and lingering vertigo (also great fun on the computer). And, of course, lots of beautiful bruises. Oh and a large scrape under my nose that A. says makes me look like Hitler (though it's close to gone thanks to Neosporin). I totally look like I've been fighting with the bruises on the knuckles of both hands and the broken nose. Or like a domestic violence victim (yes, we've been having fun joking about A. slapping me around -- not that domestic violence is anything to joke about!)

Everyone from the doctors to my family were amazed. A. figures I used up one of my nine lives (I think that makes four left). We can't decide if I was unlucky because I fell or lucky because the damage was so minor. I mean, I wasn't even that sore the next day like I expected to be. Though the vertigo has kept me from moving much -- both because moving aggravates it and because the medicine to treat it makes me very sleepy.

In some ways, the fall has actually been a good thing. It's been a reminder that I'm not as fragile as I sometimes feel. I've also stopped getting that sharp, icky feeling in my sternum that I had been getting lately when I thought of pain (a good thing for my spanking mojo!). And it seems to have actually relieved some of the chronic pain in my tailbone so that I've been able to lay on my back for the first time in awhile. It's all so very yin and yang, ya know?

And to top it all off, my neck and shoulder, which my massage therapist spent a lot of time working on during my session, felt great the next day. Now that's a good session!

I have some funny, kinky moments that A. and I had in the ER to share with you, dear reader, but I'll leave that for a later post.

I'm gonna get spanked...

...in about two hours (stupid late flight). Well, if he's up to it after flying for nineteen hours or so.

I'm a little tired too at the moment. I've been working on all kinds of things to prepare for A.'s arrival -- a few kinky things included -- and I'm starting to wear down a bit. But I've actually had energy to do some things before A. comes. That's right. No blood clots in my lungs. No fickle spanking mojo. No stubborn UTIs. This time just lots of pent up kinky energy and a tingly bottom (and other parts) hungry for attention. Finally.

Yes, I know it won't last forever. And I have to be careful not to exert myself. Indeed last night A. was reminding me of this. He didn't order or threaten. Just pleaded fervently with me to be careful and please, please not overdo it.

Well, okay, I probably overdid it just a little bit. But not enough to seriously set me back. Though maybe just enough to get spanked for it.

::grin::

Coming out

A few months ago my best friend T. and I were talking about the process we each went through in discovering our core sexuality (homosexuality for him, spanking for me). At one point we began comparing when this exploration took place and he suddenly exclaimed, "oh wow -- you came out the same time I did!"

I had never really thought of my spanko discernment as "coming out" but as I thought about it some more, there were certainly a lot of parallels to the experience gay people have in processing their sexual orientation. Though to be fair, some of my experience also reflected a combination of situations specific to me. But hey, isn't that the way it is for everybody?

I never really dated growing up. As I considered why this was, my first thought was that I was a very devout Evangelical and very adamant about saving myself for marriage. In addition, I was generally too busy with raising my siblings and church activities and school to have much time for it. And besides, I was fat and guys weren't really all that into me.

Yet I knew plenty of other Evangelicals who were just as adamant as I was about sexual abstinence and somehow they managed to date (though I don't doubt that some of them eventually abandoned their refusal to fornicate). Likewise my sister -- the next one down from me who was supposed to help out with babysitting -- also dated (it helped that she started working fast-food when she was 15 and therefore was out of the house a lot more than I was). And though I was fat, there were guys who were into me. It's just that I wasn't really all that into them.

That lack of connection really is what kept me from dating. Like most teenagers, I certainly fantasized about having a boyfriend and doing all those things girlfriends and boyfriends do (with the exception of sex), but that cultural expectation wasn't enough for me to date guys who were very sweet yet lacked that certain something I wasn't even aware yet I wanted.

And, of course, I fantasized a lot about getting spanked. Mostly by a stern but loving father-figure. Which caused me a great deal of angst because I didn't want to marry a guy in order to obtain the father I didn't grow up with. I wanted to be my future husband's partner. I mean, who wants to be married to someone who is a perpetual child? What sort of intellectual and emotional communion can exist in such a relationship?

Eventually Google came along and I found that I could have both: a loving disciplinarian and a partner. I remember those heady early days of exploring my spanking kink. Meeting all sorts of guys to spank me. Suddenly dating was easy. I finally had my first kiss -- at 27 from the first spanko guy I dated. Before I knew it, I was spanking around. I was a spanking slut, even if there was no sex involved.

Yet I worried what my friends might think. It felt weird hiding a whole part of my life -- and an increasingly important one at that -- from my friends and family. Indeed at one point T. complained that I was withdrawing from him, and he was right. I was so afraid I would accidentally spill the beans about my alternative life and I knew he would be horrified to know I was meeting guys off the Internet to spank me.

T. and I are very close. He was actually my sponsor when I converted to Catholicism and in the Byzantine rite I'd chosen, that made him my godfather. My priest even had to make sure that we wouldn't end up married down the line as it would be "awkward." My soon-to-be godfather hadn't come out yet, but like many fag hag relationships, we'd already explored the possibility of marriage and assured my priest there would be no potential bishopic dispensation needed. Looking back I know I was attracted to T. because he's such a natural disciplinarian. But like him, I hadn't come to terms with my own sexuality enough at the time to know the sort of verbal discipline he was so good at was not at all what I wanted. We did know, though, that there wasn't any chemistry even if we didn't know why yet.

In many ways I think the act of delurking on soc.sexuality.spanking five years ago really was a form of coming out, complete with coming out narrative, as it is for so many people introducing themselves in online forums. And the relief and euphoria that accompany finding other people like you probably is similar in some ways to the excitement T. felt when he first started dating and fucking guys, even if it lacks the pain and profound lifestyle change being gay was for my Arab-Catholic godfather.

It's funny but that above linked post, my spanking memoir, is invariably among the most popular pages -- if not the most popular post -- on this blog each day. This post, I suppose, is now a sort of adjunct to it, made possible by five and a half years of hindsight with which to analyze a bit deeper some of the issues I didn't understand quite yet then. Obviously, it was written before I met A. And I've also clearly decided against saving my hymen for a future husband. But then, how I came to that decision and my thoughts on marriage as an institution would be far more appropriate for an entirely different post. Probably on my non-kink blog.

The naughtiest of one all

Sorry to be so quiet this week. Apparently, Vitamin B complex makes me very very sleepy, and I've practically slept the week away.

But yesterday during my INR check, sans the Vitamin B, I wasn't quite so sleepy. When it was super high (4.8), I grinned mischievously at my nurse.

"Uh oh. I guess that makes me naughty," I said. To be fair, it wasn't really my fault but the fault of the antibiotic from the week before that interacted with the Coumadin.

"Yes, now I have to consult with the doctor," Nurse K. replied with mock annoyance.

Now, don't go getting all pervy on me, dear reader. She just meant that she couldn't instruct me on my Coumadin dosage herself because it was in the "panic" range. Really. The computer even highlights it in yellow and says "panic." Though, it's not really "panic" in the ER-get-me-a-shot-of-whatever-stat! way. More like the make-extra-sure-not-to-blow-this-off sort of panic.

At any rate, she couldn't remember what the exact number my INR was so she checked the little machine that sips my blood to see how quickly or slowly my blood is clotting (actually it's a lot like a big glucose meter). After she found it, she started pressing the button several more times.

"Hey, wanna see what everyone else's INR has been today?" She asked. Don't worry, it didn't show who any of those patients were so there was no breech of confidentiality or anything.

3.1...1.7...3.3...3.1...1.9...1.6...4.2

"Wow, so nobody's been therapeutic today," I exclaimed. (Therapeutic is generally between 2.0-3.0, though for some patients it can be between 2.5-3.5.)

"Yes, but yours has been the highest."

"Oh. So I suppose that means I'm the naughtiest one of all."

"Yes, Michelle. You're very, very naughty," Nurse K. said with mock sterness.

Right as she was telling me how naughty I was, one of the other nurses walked by the room.

"Ohhh, now I'm probably going to get in trouble for calling a patient naughty," she fretted.

Which, I suppose, would make me even naughtier for getting my nurse in trouble for having to tell me how naughty I am.

Though any forthcoming spanking for my naughtiness will just have to wait until my INR is lower.

I think the 10 days until A. gets here should be plenty of time. ::grin::

Flipped switch

Wow. Hottest post I've read in a long time. Best orgasm I've had in a long time.

Omg -- I'm becoming a guy! Reading other people's blogs and wanking on a Saturday night!

Seriously, though, while reading that post I was thinking about fucking and being fucked at the same time. Probing and being probed. Whipping and being whipped. Two seemingly contradictory turn-ons simultaneously. I mean, being dominated -- particularly if it involves my ass -- has long been a powerful turn-on. More recently the idea of imposing myself, my raw, rapacious desire and will on another body, is also damn titillating. But to feel them both at the same time...wow. Just wow.

This switching thing is so disorienting, though. I was always so comfortable as the naughty little girl. The emotional terrain familiar. I didn't have to think much about what I felt. Everything was just second nature.

Well, I guess now I'm learning a third. ::grin::

S & M in space

So, I'm in the kitchen making chicken soup tonight with the CBS Evening news on in the background when a story (the link is a video that's preceded by commercial) comes on about how women are now simultaneously commanding the International Space Station and the Space Shuttle (yay feminism!). And they mention one of the magic spanko words: whip. Apparently the Russians gave the female commander of the space station a whip as a symbol of her authority. "Remember, you are the boss," they said as they presented a single-tail.

Now that could make for a very interesting spanking story. A femdom one methinks.

And speaking of femdom, my dommey phase is over for the moment. And my spanking mojo is so back. Just 18 more days. I shall definitely have to be on my best behavior. Or not... ::grin::

The other side

I think I have discovered a cure for my tentative spanking mojo: topping.

As we usually do when A.'s arrival is imminent, we start sharing fantasies that we'd like to act out when he gets here. Granted, half of it we never actually get around to doing, but the planning itself is quite fun. The other day as I was laying in bed and thinking about evil things to do to A., I found myself getting rather aroused as I imagined whipping him. Indeed picturing a bunch of rosey-purple marks welling up on his pasty ass and thighs made me positively wet.

So this is what it's like on the other side.

To be honest, while I have wondered in the past what motivates someone to inflict pain on another, my curiosity rarely extended to a desire to see the view from the other side of the paddle, strap, or cane. Despite a friend's view some years back that the exclusive nature of my role as bottom was "selfish," I've always seen it as a matter of sexual orientation. I've fantasized about getting spanked just about every day of my life since I was six or so. But in all those years I don't think I've ever really fantasized about spanking someone else.

However, as I mentioned back in April, the collusion of chronic illness and A.'s subby moods has brought out an inner domme in me that had not previously existed. And as you can see, now that she's out, she is starting to quite enjoy herself.

For the moment, I may yet wince at the thought of me getting spanked, but I still like the idea of spanking in a general, abstract way. What I've found is that the thought of spanking my partner gives me a personal connection to spanking. Allows me to fantasize about it by proxy as I imagine being the one getting spanked -- sort of like how reading a spanking story works -- without the immediate threat of personally feeling pain. If that makes any sense at all.

I've even figured out how to feed my inner little girl as a top. It started last winter when A. and I had our own Christmas together. I wore a velvet-satin Christmas dress that I made in the early nineties that is not really in style much these days, but always makes me feel very girly. After dinner, when A. said he was feeling subby, I worried that my little girl mood and his subby mood were totally going to clash. However, before I knew it, I started slipping into this demanding, selfish, spoiled little princess. Voila! Princess Natalie was born. And lemme tell ya, she's downright despotic. Perfect for any aspiring masochist.

Maybe it's just the whole yin and yang thing. Maybe it's just that the thought of someone else being spanked is whetting my appetite. But I tell you dear friends, my spanking mojo is becoming less and less tentative. I might -- just might -- even try a little wakin' spankin' tonight before I go to sleep. You could say it's the one way to get a simultaneous view of both sides.

Spanking angst...again

It's been 203 days since I last saw A. That's almost seven months, my friends. If it wasn't for the pictures on my bookshelves and bulletin board, I think I would have forgotten what my beloved even looks like by now. When November 13th rolls around, we will have broken the record for time apart formerly held by the 2004 interlude of 216 days.

But November 13th will be 229 days, so why mention that date rather than November 2nd? Well, that's A's arrival date. Yes, we've finally scrapped together enough money for a transatlantic flight (how on earth have we managed more frequent visits in the past?) and he booked the ticket yesterday morning. There will be cuddling again. Lots of it. And yes, probably some spanking.

It's like life is really starting to feel somewhat normal. Somewhat.

Last week I found myself fantasizing about spanking on a sustained basis again after a month-long hiatus due to yet another bad pain month. By Sunday I was frisky enough to be naughty on the phone with A., earning myself a sort of pseudo-punishment spanking with the ping pong paddle. I was even given a bedtime before he got off the phone to go to bed himself. There in the twilight after saying good night to my sweetie, my fingers wandered. Despite being somewhat nervous that I was still too weak for an orgasm, I went ahead and rubbed and came. And for a moment as I gazed at the graying brick wall outside my patio door, the world felt right again. I was a spanked, disciplined, naughty girl -- the way it's supposed to be.

But then the magic broke. All I could think of was that I'll probably be in the same place five, six months from now: laying on my bed alone in the dark after climbing my way out of the abyss yet again because of another virus or major pain event. It felt daunting. Even a tiny bit hopeless. Any joy spanking had been giving me evaporated.

And it didn't help that the next morning I woke up distressed -- again -- about whether spanking is making these pain events more frequent and more intense by exacerbating the central sensitization at the heart of fibromyalgia. I know I decided awhile back that spanking represents acute pain and that according to at least one study the brain processes chronic and acute pain differently. But, it was just one study. And surgery isn't chronic pain, yet it most definitely exacerbates central sensitization. Yes, I know spanking is nowhere close to surgery. But it is pain. Sometimes a lot of pain. Though, to be fair, the anticoagulants limit just how hard we can play now. So, I dunno. Maybe it all evens out.

I thought I was over all this angsting about returning to spanking after one of these episodes. I thought I'd just learned to accept that I go through them and for awhile afterwards the thought of getting spanked sounds a bit repulsive but I wait it out and then my inner pain slut returns. I must have written about this cycle a gazillion times by now. So why do I feel so afraid this time? So fragile? I mean, I was done being fragile a week or so after having blood clots in my lungs. What was so traumatizing about this time?

I suppose with the clots in my lungs there was some conclusion regarding why I was in so much pain. And now I'm on medication which should keep me from ever getting them again. Not to mention that oddly enough, I actually felt less flu-like than I normally do for the first couple of weeks after the clots.

This time they really don't know what caused that horrific pain at the base of my spine -- so oblivious to potent narcotics -- a month ago. My doctor and I talked about the possibility of endometriosis as the only sort of pattern to it is that it shows up (though not usually as bad) a week or so before my period or whenever I lay on my back (but also at perfectly random times too). So I visited the gynecologist last week, who broke the news that my chances of finding a surgeon willing to do a laproscopy (the only way to definitively diagnose endometriosis, as well as remove endometrial implants) on someone taking Coumadin was slim. And most of the hormonal treatments will make my ME/CFS worse (Eeek! If it gets much worse, someone is going to have to bathe and feed me!). About the only treatment she could recommend was Mirena, a progesterone-only IUD, which for reasons that I don't know how to articulate well, just feels very wrong for me.

But, of course, it may not be endometriosis at all. And it's the mystery of it that feels so scary now. What if I do something that inadvertently causes it to return? What if it returns even if I do nothing? What if -- God forbid! -- it's even worse next time?

Why the hell have the fetish gods played such a cruel joke in giving a chronic pain patient a fetish that involves pain?

No matter how desperately I want them, I know there aren't any easy answers to my questions. Yes, I will get pushed back down into the abyss of illness and pain again. And again I will climb my way back out because it beats staying in the abyss.

But instead of focusing on the inevitable horrors to come, I will chose to live right now. I will revel in the knowledge my dearest is coming in 26 days. I will patiently wait for my spanking mojo to return because it will. And ultimately I'll dive back into living -- including spanking -- as much as I can.

I mean, I can't let the pain win, ya know?

Story: A Grown Man [M/m]

Awhile back Kayley mentioned that M/m stories were connecting with her spanking imagination, which made me exclaim to my computer "omg - me too!" In fact, I thought I was quite odd even among us spanko freaks because I really liked reading M/m stories. But then Mija mentioned on the newsgroup once (or more) that she fantasized about being a naughty boy punished by an older man, and I had that same feeling I had when I first typed spanking into Google. You know, "omg -- I'm not the only one!"

Like Kayley, I suspect what fuels my M/m fantasies are the fact that most spankings in non-kinky fiction are boys being spanked by male teachers and parents. And historically speaking, boys were far more likely to be whipped than girls.

Before I got distracted by what became my research field before I left academia (American Evangelicalism and the Israel-Palestine conflict), I initially wanted to study/teach about the history of childhood in the Middle East. It would have been a brilliant way to read about spanking and get paid/funded for it. And as an undergraduate I took a seminar on the Oregon Trail to get practice using an archive (the Oregon Historical Society archive was -- and still is -- just down the street from me) and wrote my paper on emigrant attitudes towards education and child-rearing -- to practice writing legitimate research papers that fueled my kinky imagination. Despite my prof's concern that I wouldn't find enough to fill a twenty page paper, I found plenty, including the following anecdote from said paper that inspired the story for the 2002 SSS Short Story Contest that follows.

"The journey, however, presented parents with a number
of challenges to maintaining consistency in teaching their
children morals. One particularly devastating challenge was
sickness. Abraham Henry Garrison's father encountered this
difficulty when he became severely ill and was forced to
remain in bed for a significant amount of the trip. Henry
(as he was called), though only fourteen, but also the oldest
child, was required to take on the responsibilities of his
father, particularly in handling livestock. Yet, when he got
into a fight with another boy in their train, his father sought
to punish him because he had always taught Henry not to
fight. However, his father was physically unable to punish
him and so he sought the assistance of the captain of the
wagon train. The captain refused, arguing that the boy with
whom Henry had fought 'had it coming' and also that Henry
was doing the job of a grown man. Henry's father insisted
until the captain finally exclaimed, 'The man that tries to
whip Henry will have me to whip!' leaving Henry's father
helpless and Henry free of punishment." (See Garrison,
Abraham Henry. "Recollections, 1846 (1903)." Mss. 874.
Oregon Historical Society.)

oOo

Story: A Grown Man [M/m]

Henry kept his face turned left where the glow of the fireplace might not discover his bruising eye. Might not betray him to Father, who sat in the rocking chair next to the fireplace. His worn, leather Bible upon his lap.

“Henry -- is something wrong with your neck, Son?”

“No, Father.” Henry shifted his body toward the shadows.

“Son, look at me.” Father sighed as Henry turned. “You’ve been fightin’ again, have ya?”

“Father, I had to. Our family honor was at stake.”

“Oh, I doubt it was in that much trouble.” Father closed the Bible and set it on the table. “I’ve always taught ya not to fight, haven’t I, Son? To use your brains, not your fists…”

“Yes, Sir.” Henry looked down at the floor.

“Off to the barn with you, then.” Father stood up, walked to the kitchen and grabbed the razor strop.

*******

It had been weeks since the Garrisons left Missouri and three days since the wagon train camped along the Platt River. More than half the members were sick with cholera, including Father. For the last two weeks Henry alone had driven the oxen team, saw to the care of the livestock and his siblings. Even cooked the meals.

“You’re a fine lad, Henry,” Captain Pert said as he checked on the families under his command. “Don’t let that Prentiss boy get to you.”

Billy Prentiss, who was two years older, felt compelled to criticize the way Henry fed the livestock. Or loaded the wagon. Or made a stew. Not five minutes after Captain Pert left, Billy stood over Henry as he fed buffalo chips to the fire.

“You use too many chips.”

“How would you know?”

“You want my help, or don’t ya?”

“Not particularly.” Henry continued feeding chips to the fire. Billy glared at Henry. Picked up a buffalo chip.

“Don’t forget this one.” He hurled the dried dung at Henry, who had to step back to catch his balance when it hit his neck. Henry heaved a heavy breath, then turned and landed his fist into Billy’s eye. Then again across his right cheek. Billy fell to the ground and Henry jumped on him with another punch to his right jawline. Not more than two blows later Captain Pert was there to break it up.

“What’s that happening out there?” Father’s weak voice drifted from the wagon.

“Oh, nothing – just a skirmish between the boys.”

“Henry – you are fighting again?”

Henry hung his head as he and the Captain walked to the wagon. His temper had once again subjugated him.

“Captain Pert, I’ve always taught Henry not to fight but I am too sick to punish him – you must for me.”

“No, Billy’s had it coming. Besides, Henry’s been doing the work of a grown man. I can’t whip him.”

“But you must.”

“Look, the man that tries to whip Henry will have to whip me!” With that, Captain Pert left and Henry remained a grown man.

It's LOL!

That's right. It was so popular last year that Bonnie -- clever woman that she is -- decided we should make Love our Lurkers an annual thing. So dear friends, it's your day. The one time when you can bravely (albeit anonymously if you wish) take a stand and say "Visitor 542? Yep, that's me!"

If you're feeling even braver, you can talk a little bit about your own spanking kink, maybe how spanking blogs have fed your fetish, what your favorite implement is, or whatever you like. Or of course, a simple "hiya!" would be just fine too.

So step right up, dear reader. Feel proud of being a spanking blog lurker. Give my comments section some luvin' and bask in the glow of knowing you're more than just a number on my StatCounter graph.

REM cycle spanking

You know how sometimes real life just takes up everything and there's not much room for anything else -- including spanking? Ah, you gasp in shock but you know it happens. Indeed, I feel safe in saying that it happens to even the most die hard spanking-nymphs out there.

At any rate, I've realized what happens when real life steals even that nightly spanking fantasy that usually lulls me to sleep: it gets pushed further into the sleep cycle. And when spanking shows up later in the sleeping cycle, i.e. the noted REM cycle, it's just plain weird.

Normally, I have the odd spanking dream here and there but I've had three in the last week, even though spanking has been the furthest thing from my conscious mind for a good three weeks now. I mean, it still shows up throughout the day, but more from habit. My ears have developed some sort of Pavlovian response in which they immediately perk up the minute they hear words like "spanking", "whipping," "belt," "paddle," etc. And the bedtime spanking fantasy faithfully shows up each night the minute I turn the light out, even if lately it's been quickly discarded.

I told you all about the one I had last Thursday. I had another one earlier this week that I don't remember very well, but the one I had last night was yummy...yet, as my spanking dreams are apt to be, very odd.

It started with me making dinner for my little brother who has Down Syndrome (and who, like all my siblings -- and now a niece -- I look up to). He's outside rambling on about a lot of stuff I wasn't paying attention to because I was watching a black and white movie with Gregory Peck spanking someone, which caused me to burn the chicken nuggets that were to be dinner. Understandable because, you know, Gregory Peck...spanking. I couldn't take my eyes off of it.

Eventually my brother and the chicken nuggets disappear, and I'm sharing the Gregory Peck spanking with assorted, but this time consciously-unknown spanking friends. The improvisational-spanking story theme from last week returned as this group and I started to act out the movie spanking but ended up making a new story of our own with far more spankings. And it was night-time and dark. And then A. showed up and began to tease me about how often I got spanked. As with most dreams, there was more to it, but I can't really remember it all now.

And just like last week, Meals on Wheels pounding at the door woke me from my spanking-filled reverie. Which made the whole thing feel even more surreal.

Once I'd put my meal in the kitchen, taken my morning medications, and laid back down in bed to wait the hour until I could eat (to fully absorb my meds), I probably should not have gone back to sleep as then I end up sleeping too much making it hard to sleep at night. But for the first time since the spanking dream last week, I had a little spanking mojo. Felt a little bit more like I normally do. Decided to take my chances and go back to sleep and see if I could return, even if only sub-consciously, to that core spanko part of me that's been empty these last few weeks.

I wish I could say it worked but, alas, I dreamt that I was at my health clinic and needed to get home but despite numerous attempts at dialing the number for the cab, kept forgetting or losing track of what I was doing (which happens frightfully frequently) while there was a Christmas party going on with pink lighting in the background (which doesn't happen so frequently).

But, who knows? Maybe in a few hours after I've fallen asleep...

A Liberal spanking

This week's cover of The Nation (hat tip to newsgroup reader ngtybtnice) with an amusing picture pertaining to the topic of this blog...

Not particularly fond of either Olbermann or O'Reilly, though I do like The Nation a great deal.

So, liberals spank with rulers, eh? Who knew?

More weird spanking dreams and my funny boy

I think my spanking mojo is returning after my icky two weeks.

I had a dream last night that I was in a sort of auditorium of spankos including friends Mija, Haron, Bailey and lots of people I don't know. And it was like some sort of improvisational spanking story was occurring with a medical bent. Like, it looked like a doctor's office. And I think I was supposed to take my clothes off and put on a gown. Then Aunty Agony came out looking very stern in a gray suit. Except, I've never met her or seen a picture of her so I suspect it was a picture of someone posted on her blog -- that I was reading last night before going to bed. After she came out I think I was about to be laid out on a gurney and spanked, which I was very embarrassed about.

That's when Meals on Wheels knocked on the door and woke me up. It was surreal.

But, I have felt a bit more frisky. Have actually been craving a bit of spanking today. Though I'm probably still too tired for one. Which is fine since A. isn't here.

In fact, today marks six months that we have been apart. It's not the longest we've been apart. That record was set in 2004 when I was last in England that April and we expected I would return in a few months for doctoral studies. My body had other ideas and we didn't see each other until that December when it became clear I was not going to be well enough to go over there and A. would have to come over here if we were ever going to see each other. Now we rely completely on A. coming over here as he's the one who is capable of earning an income and enduring trans-Atlantic travel. So far we've been remarkably lucky considering neither of us makes much money. But there are always lean times, and we make it through those times as best we can.

We're luckier than a lot of people in our situation: we can talk on the phone everyday for free (I have Vonage and he has some sort of funky free deal there). No matter how icky the day has been, he always makes me laugh -- which makes me feel a little better no matter how much pain I'm in or how nauseous I may be. When I started reading about endometriosis a few weeks ago (as this might be what's been causing my pelvic pain) and told him how one of the treatments is with hormones that make women grow facial hair and develop lower voices, he was quite excited. "Cool. I'll get to date the bearded lady from My Name is Earl! And we'll be able to sit and watch football together!" Totally made me giggle as well as feel less fearful of whatever might lie ahead.

Yesterday he talked about the new upcoming Billie Piper show called The Secret Diary of a Call Girl. "Billy Piper in sexy lingerie. Does it get better than that? I mean, monkeys could write the dialogue for that show, and I'd still watch it. In fact, I bet when they pitched the idea and ITV wanted to know about the script they were like, 'it's Billie Piper with a whip. We don't need a script.'" What a funny boy my A. is.

But, alas, he felt differenlty this afternoon. "I take back the part about not needing dialogue." Apparently Billie Piper in sexy lingerie wasn't enough for him. And the dialogue they had was too slick. "I thought she was more sexy in Dr Who."

Hmm...now I'm probably going to dream about Billie Piper and being a bearded lady or something.

Kinky distraction, dissonance and Real Life

Distraction

Help me forget the burn in my hip.
My fingers swollen with hot.
The currents screaming through my body at
An even higher voltage today.
The constant bickering between my muscles and gravity.
The circuits in my brain straining to remember while
My lungs ache with memory
Of books and hiking and driving myself to the store.
My chest tight with reminder that the State declared me useless
And keeps us apart just to be mean.

Lay me over your lap.
Spank my sit spot with the hairbrush
So hard that I finally cry real tears you can finger.

Slam your cane down onto my wide fundament
And make my skin explode with tiny red kisses.

Order me over a hill of pillows and strap me
Until my writhing crumbles it all over the bed.

Spread my cheeks and force your manhood in,
Extracting screams I muffle for fear of the neighbors.

Squeeze my nipples, wet my hungry cunt
And produce at last that long elusive orgasm.

Yes, hurt me, my love, and take my pain away.

When my mother attended my fourth grade Parent-Teacher conference, my teacher greeted her with "Michelle has such an amazing imagination!" I think it had something to do with the fact that no matter what the topic was for our creative writing assignment that week, I always managed to transform the subject into a magical trip through time. And said trip often involved meeting Laura Ingalls Wilder -- though she was lacking the "Wilder" part of her name when I would meet her.

Yes, I was a regular Anne Shirley when it came to utilizing my imagination in an effort to survive an otherwise unbearable home life. Not only did I imagine being friends with one, Laura Ingalls, but I imagined coming across the prairies in a covered wagon, or living in a medieval monastery, or being a pampered princess, or comforted by a guardian angel. And, of course, being the little spanko that I am, every fantasy contained punishment of some sort.

I never did lose that imagination. I continue to live much of my life in fantasy world, though now I have a partner to include in my wicked reveries. Indeed, since he's so far away most of the time, phone calls and fantasies are how we stay close. His absence, the isolation of illness, and my otherwise unbearable physical life make my kinky flights of fancy just as important a tool of survival as they were when I was in fourth grade.

But there are dangers that accompany living in a perpetual kinky mindset, as Sparkle discussed at the Punishment Book recently. I'm not a parent (though did get my share of parenting my siblings and mother when I was a teenager), but over the last few months it has begun to dawn on me that there is value to real life. I spend hours each day laying in bed while not quite sleeping, and my habit from childhood is to retreat into my imaginary punitive worlds. Retreat into the childhood I wish I could have had. But I have a soul, an intellect, a non-kinky mind that also need utilizing. That need to contextualize and process and grow from loss and take advantage of the ability to live the examined life that a career would not have otherwise afforded me. Plus, if I ignore the body I'm in too much, it has a habit of screaming to finally get my attention.

A week and a half ago my right pelvis started screaming bloody murder and there wasn't much anybody could do to make it stop until it suddenly did all on its own -- thank God! Though I then proceeded to sprain my ankle good and proper. I was still physically and emotionally spent from the pelvis agony from before, so the ankle thing has put me into a serious pain deficit. Now when I go to peruse my stock of kinky fantasies to lull me to sleep, it's like thinking about food after Thanksgiving dinner. I've had to rely exclusively on a cocktail of narcotics and Valium to get me to sleep instead (or narcotics and lemon balm tea, which I don't recommend unless you plan to sleep all the next day).

Dissonance

The commandant has made me
His plaything this week.
My tongue still craves
The taste of pain,
But the commandant has left me
Bloated with suffering.

Not only has pain stolen my sleep, comfort, and security on some level (since we don't know what caused the pain, there's a good chance -- not to mention precedent -- that it will return, though hopefully not quite at that level), but it's stolen my fantasy world for awhile. Now I'm left to face life. Real life. The life without A. Without naughty adventures. Life with crutches and a messy apartment (long bureaucratic story: I'm without a caregiver for awhile) and more doctors appointments and books I can't read and a grocery store I can't walk to and nieces and nephews I never get to play with and a social life that consists of me talking to my laptop and the television and a career that's long gone. It means spending time being aware of my body. Observing and letting go of things I've been hanging on to even if I wasn't paying much attention to them. Appreciating who I am instead of trying to be someone who feels more fun or beautiful or...better.

And, well, if reality just gets too beyond my ability to cope, my sister did bring over two whole seasons of the Gilmore Girls. Not quite the same as pretending I'm a recalcitrant but immaculately uniformed schoolgirl, but maybe my sister and I will have more clever conversations after I watch 40-some episodes of witty speed-talking small-town Connecticut lefty chicks. Who knows? There may even be more amusing posts forthcoming... ;-)