Chapter 2: The Beginning
I place the pan of tilapia in the oven as she walks into the kitchen.
"Let me see," I tell her as she approaches.
"My bottom?" she asks.
"Yes. I want to see it."
She gingerly lifts her long gauze-like dress until it is bunched up around her waist and turns her backside to me. Her bottom is bare, as it is always, and it's still red from her early-evening strapping.
"It hurts," she says with a pout.
"Yes, my love," I respond with a smile, hand on my beard. "Punishment spankings are supposed to hurt. And be remembered. I trust I have succeeded?"
She smiles again, bending all the way over so that I can get a better look. She looks the part of the petulant schoolgirl as she stands, bottom pushed out, with her hands on her knees. She looks back up at me. "Yes, you have succeeded. Please don't tell me it hurt you more than it hurt me," she says with a smile.
I laugh. "Oh, no. I am quite sure it hurt you more," I say as I examine her tender bottom. She jumps as I lightly touch the angriest-looking stripe. Then I back away, reminding myself to be gentle.
I carefully lower her dress, and she stands and then turns toward me. "I know it was supposed to hurt," she says, looking me squarely in the eyes as I place my hands on her forearms.
She looks down, gathering her thoughts, and then looks back into my eyes and sighs. "I hated it, but I needed it too," she admits. "You were right in doing this to me. In doing it for me."
Slowly, she leans forward and rests the top of her head on my chest, a sign that I interpret as her happy acceptance of her forced submission, a melting into her role. I stroke her hair and wait until she rises.
"I'm famished," she says when she looks back up to me. "I guess a good beating makes me hungry. The fish must be nearly ready for the sauce I made before our—um—interruption." She smiles at me. "Shall I check it and put the asparagus in?"
I let her take over and watch as she falls gracefully into the role she loves, cooking my dinner, taking care of her man. She moves slowly, perhaps a tad tentatively, but her face is serene.
When dinner is ready and on the table, I pull out her chair and she blushes when she sees the pillow that is resting on her seat. "I thought that might be more comfortable for you than the hard chair," I say as she begins to sit.
She winces as her ass touches the cushion. "Yes, thank you," she says, "my bottom is rather sore."
I sit and we take our meal together, a lovely tilapia in a tomato-based salsa with Kalamata olives and artichoke hearts, with a side of crisp asparagus spears covered in pine nuts. I wait until she has taken a few bites before continuing.
"So, my love, shall we try again?"
She responds with a quizzical look. "Try again?" she asks.
I raise my eyebrows back at her. "Yes," I respond patiently.
"Rather than turning your back to me, which was the final straw by the way, would you like to begin telling me about your day?"
"Oh, that," she replies demurely. "Of course. As you know..." she begins and I spend the next hour listening carefully to her as she tells me about the project she is working on and the numerous delays and frustrations she has recently encountered. I smile and nod and ask questions as she works things out in her head. Finally, when she is finished, I ask one last question. "Will you need to go into the office this weekend?"
"No," she says, drawing out the word, a bit of a hesitation in her voice. "No," she concludes. "I'll manage without. This weekend I am all yours. I wear my anklet without reservation or caveats. This weekend I look forward only to being the source of my man's pleasure."
"Good," I reply. I reach over and touch the fabric of her dress.
"This dress is a special one," I say. "It is one I have not seen you wear in many years. I suppose I had thought you had disposed of it. It is quite worn, but it's still one of my favorites.
"You remember?"
"Remember? But of course, I remember. There are so many memories of you wearing that dress, aren't there?"
Early on, she wore that particular dress frequently. It is, I believe they call it, a carwash skirt, with slats cut up along the bottom, like the multiple chamois strips in an automatic carwash. This variation is a sleeveless animal print dress. It has a simple scoop neck and buttons—twelve—from neckline to bottom. It is made of a soft, crinkly fabric. Back in our earlier days, we called it her slave dress. She was wearing it the first time she made the comment to me that changed our lives.
"Sometimes," she'd said, all those many years ago as she'd sipped a glass of wine after a particularly difficult workweek. "Sometimes, I just want someone to tell me what to do."
I'd laughed it off that first time. My Briana? I could barely imagine her putting up with someone who would try to tell her what to do, much less want it. No way could she mean it. Calm. Competent. Briana never needed anyone to tell her anything. So I let her comment pass as chitchat.
But as the evening wore on, I knew I'd misread her and had made a mistake. I'd felt her disappointment and realized that she had asked me for something very difficult to request, and I had laughed it off. Next time, I would not be caught unprepared.
Over the next couple of months, I watched her closely, probably more closely than I had in years. As usual, my Briana was spunky and feisty. A tease. But she was also sweet and sexy, and she always treated me as a man, as her man. Ours was a relationship based on love and mutual respect. Yes, she could push, and she could sometimes be a bitch—she was, after all, a woman. But she was good to me. And I was good to her as well.
Yet once in a while during those months, I saw the spark of a woman who wanted, not to submit exactly, but to be forced to submit. I saw the dare in her eyes. A sort of "come and get me, if you're man enough" dare. And I decided I was man enough.
So the next time, I was ready. It took awhile for her to give me another clear-cut indication of her needs. Almost six months passed without any type of overt reference. But when she did, she replayed the scene in almost the exact same way as she had the first time. It was again a Friday night. She wore the same animal print carwash dress. She repeated the same line.
"Sometimes," she'd said, eyes downcast, a demure smile on her face. "Sometimes I just need someone to tell me what to do."
That time, though, I'd lifted her chin to force her to look at me. "Young lady," I'd said keeping my voice level as I gave her chin a squeeze between my thumb and forefinger. "Do you realize what you are asking?"
"Yes," she'd answered, her tone eager and excited, like that of a young girl. The smile in her bright eyes was unmistakable.
I ran my finger along her jaw line and down to the hollow of her neck. I paused as she raised her face and closed her eyes, and I rubbed the top of her neckline, hand resting briefly at the luscious mounds that peeked out from under her printed bodice I repeated her request. "You want me to tell you what to do."
"Yes," she nodded.
"Yes, what?" I'd prodded.
She took a deep breath before replying. "Yes, Sir."
"Good girl," I'd said. "Now it's time to set some ground rules."
It's not often that a man gets to demand from the woman he loves everything he can think of. But that night, as we talked, I told her the plan I'd developed over the previous couple of months.
For that one weekend, I'd told her, I would make all the decisions. "Yes," she said, her voice husky in anticipation.
"I will relieve you of all responsibilities, except one," I said. "There is only one thing you must do, one simple rule you must follow."
"Yes," she said again.
