Spank me, already!

This is a lesson in "be careful what you ask for."

My recent birthday had passed, and still no commemorative spankings. First a day or two, and then some more. We were creeping up on almost a week gone by, and not even something as much as a swat had materialized. My girl, apparently flummoxed (but not physically, as we've established) came to me.

"Why haven't we done your birthday spankings yet?"

"We haven't? Are you sure?"

"Stop...seriously, when are we going to attend to them?"

"Sounds like someone is rather wound up with excitement."

"No, not really. I'd just rather get them over with."

To the attending audience, this is NOT the tone in which you want to leave your dominant when it comes to presenting your perception of a celebratory ritual. You want your Top to believe you are excited, enthralled, rapt with enthusiasm. You do NOT want him to hear you approach the upcoming spectacle with a detached "get on with it" attitude. That sounds diffused, lacking emotion. It's likely he'll do something to reinvigorate the bottom. And that is precisely what i did.

A few days after her initial cross-examinating questions, i stationed myself into the bedroom and laid out several implements. I called her into the bedroom (a routine that hasn't, perhaps surprisingly, grown tiresome). Spread across the bed was a hairbrush, a rattan cane, and the floor hockey stick from my youth.

"You get to eliminate one of these. The other two will administer my birthday spankings."

Predictably (pssst...the game is and has always been rigged), she eliminated the hockey stick. This didn't surprise me. I knew how much she hated that device. And frankly, i relished the notion of even presenting it as a possible tool for her to choose to slap the back of her prone ass. However, tactically, she chose to endure the flat wooden hairbrush, and the thin wisp of the rattan cane.

Ladies and gentleman of the jury, i present to you the evidence that shows the defendant was fully aware of how many strokes were to be administered across her backside. She knew that i had progressed another year, and that this number which was to be articulated in blows upon her ass was a number much higher than her weekly maintenance spankings. Yet, she still chose two implements that would impart upon her flesh the most damage, and subsequent corporal markings. I ask you, the gallant jury, if she knew what the outcome would be, why would she choose the hair brush and the cane?

Here's where the scenario gets an added injection of predicament. I had recently purchased for her a delectable penis-shaped gag. Knowing her proclivity for oral release, i thought it prudent and helpful that her mouth get outfitted with this newest obstruction. Perceptibly beneficial for her, she would have something to channel the energy she incurs when i rain blows upon her ass, and benefiting me, i would be able to think about her mouth stuffed with rigid, rubber cock while i thrashed her. The defendant and the prosecutor both win. One thing about this new penis gag is that it wasn't the most expensive, and thus not the best designed gag, so in order to keep it firmly set in her mouth, removing the ability for her to spit the gag out (which she loves doing just to get my grit). To compensate for its design flaw, i had to latch it to the tightest possible belt hole. I didn't expect her to try to use her hands to undo, but just to be safe, i threaded one of her brass padlocks we use on her collar through the accompanying locking ring, securing it firm and deep into her mouth (when it was finally removed, a trail of teethmarks had been cut into it by how tightly she bit into it for relief).

What followed has been told many times on this site (if we're going by "spanking" as a label, it has been applied 36 times), so you'll forgive me if i attempt to not avoid redundancy.

More importantly, actually, is not what happened during the spankings. Although, they were brutal, and there was at one point where the reddened flesh of her backside did start to bleed a tiny amount, what is more important is the beautiful bruising that blossomed across her cheeks.

If i had to pick a favorite part of my birthday spankings, the application of them would definitely be up there, but wouldn't win the top accolade. That honor would fall upon the markings and the evolution they make over time. My girl takes a great deal of pride in the physical evidence of what she endured, and being a former cutter, she gains peace from watching how her body heals itself. To me, as i get to see clear, vivid and bold stripes morph into a flowing cloud of dark, violet coloration, ringed with a hue of amber shading, i'm touched by the meaningfulness of this symbol. This is our union, our intimacy. Our love and trust gets set with a vivid stroke, and over time, as we pass through life, in and out of physical contact, that love and trust transforms. This spot where i've touched her with a calculated firmness at first expressed a flash sensation, but over time, it becomes merely tender - this too represents our love and intimacy. We are very tender towards eachother, despite what it may sound like through the writing on this black background. We have some very flashy, kinky and outrageous moments, but the baseline of our relationship and our dynamic is our mutual tenderness.

By now, you might be wondering "Uhm, where's the part where Deity demonstrates how this is an example of being careful what you wish for?". Yes. Sorry about that. I'll get right on it.

It just so happens that three days after the administration of the birthday spankings, my girl had a burlesque gig. Coincidentally, the bruising following such a beating reaches its peak exactly three days after. On the day of her gig, she came to me in the morning, and asked if i'd take a look at her ass. Members of the jury, you don't need to ask me to do that, i do it all of the time - but i digress...

"Looks great, darlin. Those are coming along nicely."

"That's not why i wanted you to look."

"Then why did you, sugarpuss?"

"Because i'm dancing tonight, and there's no way i can cover this up!"

"But don't you have that body makeup stuff? That should do the trick."

She looked at me for a moment, stunned by my complete lack of concern at her position. Then stomped off. The day passed, and the evening arrived. We transported her gear to the bar where she was performing. I kissed her and wished her good luck, then found a seat inside the small auditorium, in order to watch the show.

When it finally came time for her performance, i was very excited because she had been working very hard on this number, and had made an assortment of adjustments to it that i think the audience was going to go crazy for. She looked gorgeous, and her stripping and choreography did in fact get the crowd going. All the hooting and hollering was exciting. The music reached the point where she pulled off one of her naughtiest reveals - basically, she turns her back to the audience, and with her feather fans, slowly flutters them up to reveal her beautiful, alabaster backside.

The audience went mad.

I, however, had a very different and unexpected reaction. She was absolutely correct, the body makeup didn't do the trick, and staring me right in the eyes were the two sizable, oval bruises stretched across her buttocks. And for some reason, i turned red. I can't really explain why. No one in the audience necessarily knew i was her man, and it isn't certain they connected the contusions with any brutal act. Nonetheless, i felt a twinge of guilt.

After the show, i congratulated her on her wonderful performance, and asked why she didn't use the body makeup.

"I DID use it. I applied three coats!"

Perhaps that's the amount i should've applied to my own previously reddened cheeks.

Alone again, naturally

I wouldn't call it a malaise. Nor would i categorize it as a depression. More accurately, it could be labeled a disconnection. I had allowed myself to step away from a hard-earned, annual tradition of complete self-involvement, only to fool myself to accept normal conventions as the way to connect and stay in contact with the world.

Some highfalutin' language that signifies nothing? Understood. Essentially what i'm trying to offer you, the reader, is that recently i endured an annual, somewhat taxing episode, but one that shouldn't ultimately have been so taxing.

I celebrated a birthday.

I turned another year older. I aged. I advanced my years on this rock. And before any of you think that it is the superficial click on the aging odometer that troubles me, i assure you the advancing years excites me. I look forward to the days i'm 80 and i have decades of experience and knowledge under my belt that i can wield, flaunt and offer to others. My conflict with the occasion of my birthday is an existential one that has been trotted out on these pages before.

I'm rabidly anti-materialistic. I'm so opposed to rampant, errant consumption just for the sole reason that one in the affluent Western world can, that sometimes i experience heavily crippling periods when the invitation/encouragement to massively inhale material goods falls specifically and festively on my chest. Such is the case with my birthday.

On this day, everyone conventionally wishes that you get spoiled on your happy, unique, special day (aka. rained upon by material excess) and that all your dreams and wishes are fulfilled (aka. you get every meaningless trinket you've been coveting over the last six months). These folks are not to blame, for in the Western world, this is how they've been taught to celebrate their birthdays from the earliest stages of their life. As fortunate inhabitants of the affluent hemispheres, we grow accustomed to having lavish parties tossed in commemoration of us having made it from the harrowing age of six to the exacting age of seven. During these parties, we are the center of attention, and not just the foci, but in fact the target of numerous piles of toys and presents as if to say "This is your reward - these plastic tchotkes - for enduring that difficult (yet sheltered) life of your childhood."

At a very early age, i realized that this mode of celebration didn't fit me at all. In fact, my entire relationship with my birthday caused a great deal of discombobulation with my social compatriots. As each year passed, i found myself wanting to conceal the actual day i was born from those i knew. I took great care in obscuring the date when it came up in conversation, because i truly didn't want the prescribed manner that one celebrates the day of their birth applied to mine. I wanted to be left alone. I didn't want to be spoiled, and i didn't want a bunch of semi-sincere well wishers patsying me with their aplomb.

What i wanted was to be alone. Here is the root of my life's philosophy. We ARE alone. All of us. This is not meant in a way to shock and stir the senses. It is merely my attempt to label the reality we all live. Being alone is neither good nor bad. It just...is. No matter how close i feel to anyone - my girl, my dearest friends, my family - my experiences and how i perceive the world is solely mine. I cannot know what an apple tastes like to you as you crunch your teeth into the chunky, juicy flesh, nor can you ever know how that same apple tastes like to me. All of this is my own provenance.

I realized this in my college years, and i was able to self-prescribe the proper medication to handle my birthdays: for 24 hours, i would vanish. I would disappear. Be nowhere near a phone, or a computer. I would only be with myself. The first year i followed through with this, i got on a bus, whose destination i didn't know, and 16 hours later found myself in another state with no idea how i'd get back. The next year, i spent the entire day in a bathtub in one of those pay-by-the-hour motels, occasionally adding hot water to the mix. The following year - easily my favorite - i walked 35 miles along a two lane country highway. There is nothing like being on a darkened road at 3AM, just walking, by yourself. I can still vividly remember my encounter with the amazing sensation of mist sizzling on the high-tension power lines overhead, stopping to look up at this sight, buzzed from the abstract reality of it all.

Somehow, in recent years, i got away from this practice. It's largely my girl's fault. She was the first person i'd ever met who i actually didn't mind spending time with on my birthday. The more of them we celebrated together, the further i moved away from this model of pure isolation. Unfortunately, this year it caught up with me. My psyche had grown thirsty, and needed severe re-hydration. Even the promise of our traditional administration of a number of strokes* across my girl's backside to correspond with the age i turned that year wasn't enough to keep at bay those severe anti-materialistic demons. Thankfully, i remembered how to get back to that place where it was just me, by myself, isolated, on my birthday.

I'm not normal, i understand that. Who has such a convoluted, existential struggle about something as simple as one's birthday? It's just one day out of the year, just go get some cake, blow out the candles, and open your presents. It doesn't need to be so difficult. I understand this perspective, and i have faced many perplexing questions all around the theme of "Why do you have to be so weird?", followed by my favorite "Why do you have to take things so seriously?".

The answer to both questions is the same: because that is who i am.


*Stay tuned for my post where i go into more details about that spanking my girl endured, and the unforeseen consequences...