Coming Out

Maggie stood at the window, watching the snow falling outside. She was so deep in thought that she barely noticed when Tricia came up behind her and wrapped her arms around her.

"Wow, look at it out there," Tricia said, "I'm glad we're in here all warm."

"Yeah," Maggie replied, distractedly.

"Something on your mind I should know about," Tricia asked.

"Huh? Oh, sorry Trish, just lost in the moment," Maggie said, turning around in Tricia's arms and hugging her.

Tricia returned the hug. "Ahhh, that's better. So what had you so distracted? Anything I can help you with?"

Maggie thought about it for the briefest second, but decided against confessing what was on her mind. "Nah, I was just staring out into the snow. I'm definitely glad I'm in here with you."

"Good," Tricia beamed, "let's get the fire built up and have a nice erotic evening. I want to do wonderfully lascivious things to you."

She led Maggie by the hand over to the fireplace where she threw a few more heavy logs on the fire. The logs hissed and crackled, shooting sparks up the chimney. With that done, she turned back to Maggie, and started unbuttoning Maggie's blouse. Maggie followed suit and started undressing Tricia. Soon they were in a tangled embrace on the floor, clothes forgotten as they reveled in each others' bodies, kissing and stroking every exposed area. Their lust grew and they ravished each other, finally lying in a heap, breathless and exhausted. They slept where they were, in each others' arms.

Maggie awoke in the first pale gray light of early morning. She smiled, remembering their lovemaking the night before, but then she remembered what had preceded it, and the smile left her face. She hated lying to Tricia, and not saying anything was the same as lying, but she hadn't thought that the time was right. The thoughts had been in her mind her whole life, as long as the knowledge that she liked girls, but somehow it wasn't something she could talk about. How could she just come out and tell Trish that what she wanted was to be spanked? What if Trish thought she was crazy or sick for wanting that, and didn't want to have anything to do with her because of it? She couldn't imagine not having Trish in her life, not seeing her as they woke up together every morning. That was too much to risk, so she stayed quiet about what she fantasized about constantly. It wasn't that she wasn't satisfied with what she had, she wanted Trish, needed Trish, but she wanted and needed to be spanked too. She wanted Trish to put her over her knee, bare her bottom and spank her. When she fantasized about it, she had incredible orgasms with little effort. Then she would feel guilty because she couldn't share any of her fantasies with the woman she wanted to spend her life with.

She rolled over to look at Trish and wondered how to tell her this deepest, darkest secret. She was still so confused about herself that she wasn't sure she could tell anybody else. She sat up, hugging her knees to her chest, and didn't do anything to stop the flow of tears that started rolling down her face. She cried out her fears silently.

"Hey babe, what's the matter," Trish asked as she sat up next to Maggie.

"Um.....uh, it's nothing, just hormones probably," Maggie stammered. She gave Trish a half smile.

Trish rubbed Maggie's back. "Okay, if you say so. You'd tell me if it was anything important though, right?"

"Yeah, I'll let you know if it's something important," Maggie replied softly as she snuggled into Trish's arms. It felt right, being there, so safe in her arms, and she just couldn't say the words which could make it all go away.

Not yet, maybe not ever.

*************

A week later, Maggie wrote her heart out into her journal.

January 10, 1986

As different as being gay made me feel when I was young, wanting to be spanked makes me feel like a freak. I've never known anybody else who wanted the same thing. Trish could never love me if she knew. How could she? I'm willing to give up this fantasy if it means keeping Trish in my life. Maybe some day when we're old and gray and it doesn't matter anymore, I'll have the courage to say the words, but until then the only thing I can do is write them in here.

Dearest Trish,

I've never known how to tell you my biggest secret, showing you the darkest part of my soul. Please don't hate me for what I'm going to say. I've always had this need in me, for something that may seem a little strange. I have fantasies about it and now they include you. I want you to spank me, not because I'm "bad", but because I think it would be the sexiest thing in the world. I want to be over your knee, with you spanking my bare bottom. I want to surrender all control and be at your mercy. I want you to not think of me as some sick person because of this. I want so many things, but I'd give them up for you, if you asked.

Love, Maggie

Oh, how I wish I could say those words, she thought to herself, as she stopped writing. Maggie jumped when she heard the front door open. She slammed the journal shut and ran to greet Tricia.

"Wow, you're already home! How'd you manage that," Tricia asked.

"I snuck out early," Maggie grinned, "wasn't anything to stay there for anyway, and I wanted to be with you."

"Ooh, flattery will get you all kinds of interesting places," Trish said, doing her Groucho Marx imitation with her eyebrows.

"That's what I was hoping for," Maggie laughed, "I was thinking we'd go for Chinese take-out, rent a couple movies, come home and make out on the couch like a couple teenagers. Sound good," Maggie asked as she moved closer and closer to Trish, her voice getting huskier and softer the closer she got.

"Sounds perfect," Trish breathed as their lips met.

They kissed long and hard. The seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes lost meaning. When they finally parted, they were breathless and a bit dazed.

"If that's the kind of welcome home I get when you come home early, maybe you should come home early every day," Trish laughed softly, "Better yet, quit your job and become a kept woman. I promise to keep you."

Maggie giggled. "I like the sound of that, but I'd get bored and fat. You wouldn't want me to get fat now, would you?"

Trish looked Maggie square in the eye. "I would want you and love you if you were fat or were missing part of your body. I love you for the you inside, not what your outside looks like. I just consider it a bonus that you're cute besides," she added with a grin.

Maggie hugged her tight. But could you love me if you found out out I was a freak, she thought to herself.

"Okay," she said finally, "Let's get this show on the road. I'm starved!"

Later, the empty Chinese food containers were strewn across the coffee table, an empty wine bottle next to them, along with with the video boxes. Maggie and Trish were camped out on the couch, mildly drunk, watching a movie. Their making out had segued into Maggie leaning against Trish, dozing more than watching.

"Boy, I wish I could get lucky enough to get what I want like she did," Maggie mumbled, half asleep.

"What, babe," Trish asked.

"The woman in the movie, she got what she'd always wanted," Maggie said, still sleepily.

"You've got what you want. You've got me, a good job, and we've got this house," Trish said, "What else is there?"

"I know all that. You're everything a girl could want. I'd just like it if you could.......", her words trailing off as she fell deeply asleep.

The next morning Maggie awoke on the couch, with a fuzzy feeling in her head and no Trish next to her. She panicked for a moment, but then saw Trish sitting across from her on the chair, reading.

"Hey, what are you reading that's more interesting than being over here with me," Maggie asked, rubbing her eyes.

"After what you said last night I didn't sleep much. I wondered what was missing from your life, and then I found this," Trish held up Maggie's journal.

Maggie's head spun, more from realization than a hangover. She'd left the journal out on the desk the day before, and now Trish had found it and was reading it. Every dark secret and thought she had ever had was in that book.

"What did you find out," Maggie asked hesitantly, afraid of the answer. She braced herself to hear what she'd been dreading.

"Well, I found out that you don't trust me," Trish said.

"I do trust you! I love you," Maggie exclaimed. This wasn't what she had expected to hear, and she barely knew what to say.

"Then why couldn't you tell me what was in your heart, and why have you been lying to me? Why did I have to read your journal to find out who you really are," Trish said, an edge to her voice.

"I....I was afraid. I didn't want to lose you, and I thought that if you knew, you'd leave me," Maggie said mournfully.

"So instead of trusting what we have together, you decided to keep things to yourself. You don't have any faith in me as a partner if you thought I'd be shallow enough to just leave you over something like that. You have no idea how much that hurts," Trish said.

When she looked up, Maggie saw tears in Trish's eyes. Maggie swallowed hard past the lump forming in her throat. "Trish, I'm sorry, I never meant for it to seem like I didn't trust you. I didn't have faith in myself, because I've always felt like a freak because of it. When you feel like that, the last thing you want to do is to proclaim it, even to the one person who means everything to you. Forgive me?"

Trish put the journal down. "Eventually, but not right now. Everything I believed in, everything I thought we had, is in doubt right now. What other things haven't you told me? After sleeping with you and loving you for three years, I find out that there's something fundamental that's missing from your life, and I thought we could tell each other everything. What else haven't you trusted me with? I have to think about some things, so I'm going out for a while. We'll talk when I come back."

Maggie panicked for real then. "You are coming back though, right? You won't just leave for good. Promise?"

Trish got up to leave, and looked sadly at Maggie. "I said I'd be back. The fact that you felt you had to ask proves what I said before. You really don't have any faith in me."

Trish walked out the room, and Maggie shouted after her. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean it!" She broke down in sobs, sure that she had ruined everything. Maggie didn't move from the couch all day. Distraught and lonely, she cried off and on while clutching a pillow to her chest, and when she wasn't crying she was thinking. She thought about how she had misjudged what Trish's reaction would be to what she had kept hidden, and wondered how she could've been so wrong. She hadn't doubted Trish's love, but she had always thought that there were things that even love couldn't fix.

The shadows grew long in the living room as the day wore on, and still no Trish. Maggie considered the idea that Trish wouldn't be able to forgive her. She'd said she'd come back and that they'd talk, but that didn't mean that Trish would be willing to stay with her. She had to do something drastic to make it up to Trish, to make everything right again, and she had an idea. She just wasn't sure that Trish would go for it. She hoped she would, because it was probably the only chance they had left.

Maggie didn't remember falling asleep, but the next thing she knew, she awoke to see Trish sitting on the chair across from her again.

Maggie jumped up, ran over to Trish, and threw her arms around her. "Oh Trish, I missed you, I'm sorry, I was a complete idiot, and it'll never happen again," she said in a jumble of words and tears.

Trish pulled back out of the embrace a little, but only to look at Maggie. The look Maggie saw in Trish's eyes was softer than she'd seen earlier, and not as pained. It gave her the courage to say what she needed to say next.

"I've been thinking of how to make this up to you. I was awful, and I feel guilty as hell about it. I never meant to hurt you. I should be punished," Maggie said seriously.

Trish looked at Maggie with a questioning expression on her face. "How should I punish you? In your journal you said you couldn't see getting spanked for being bad."

Maggie took a deep breath. "I know, and I still don't, not normally. This is different. I almost destroyed the one thing in this world that means the most to me. I feel so bad, you have no idea how bad. I need to get past this guilt, if you're willing to help me. I want us to be what we were, what we can be in the future, which is maybe more than we ever have been. I want to be with you for the rest of my life, and I want you to forgive me. It's the only way I can think of to make amends."

Trish didn't say anything, and Maggie held her breath. Everything hinged on Trish's reaction. Their love, their future, all hung in the balance. Maggie closed her eyes, almost ready to go down in crushing defeat, losing all.

"Okay."

Maggie's eyes flew open. "Okay? You said okay? Oh Trish, you have no idea how happy you've made me! I couldn't stand the thought of losing you, and I was so sure I had!" She knelt between Trish's legs, and threw herself into Trish's arms. Trish held Maggie, and talked softly into Maggie's hair. "I'm not sure I understand all of this yet, but I think that if we're going to get past this and get on with our life together, which I want more than anything, punishing you seems like out best option. I'm not doing it for revenge or to hurt you. You know that, right?"

Maggie pulled back a little, tears in her eyes. "I know, and I wouldn't ever think that. You're doing it because I screwed up by not trusting you, and I deserve whatever I get. I shouldn't have kept it from you. I'm just so relieved that you're willing to do this so that we can go back to the way things were."

Trish laughed. "Oh, we'll never go back to the way things were. You won't be keeping things from me anymore, and besides, I now know this amazing thing about you. It makes me curious, and I want to learn what I can if it's going to be a part of our lives. I may not understand it, but the idea of it doesn't freak me out. As hot as sex is for us already, if this makes it even better, then I'm all for it."

Maggie knelt there, mouth agape. She couldn't believe she was hearing what Trish was saying. This was the stuff of daydreams and first star wishes. She had never thought it could really happen.

Trish looked at her questioningly. "I thought you'd want this."

Maggie snapped out of her shock. "I do! I'm just stunned that you've accepted it so easily! I've had my whole life to think about it, and you've only had what, twelve hours? I never imagined it was possible."

"It's possible because I love you, and if you were willing to do without it to keep me, the least I can do is try it so that I can keep YOU. I wouldn't want to have you going elsewhere to get what you need."

Maggie smiled. "I'd never go anywhere else, silly. Have I told you lately how much I love you?"

"How about you wait and see how you feel after I punish you. You may not love me so much," Trish laughed.

"If anything, I'll love you more, because you're willing to give this, and us a chance," Maggie said, her voice getting lower.

Trish looked into Maggie's eyes with an assurance that calmed Maggie. "I hate to change the subject, but I think we've talked long enough, don't you think? No need to prolong the inevitable. It's time for your punishment."

Maggie's heart beat faster, and she took a deep breath. "Okay, so what do we do first? I've never done this, you know, even if I have thought about it my whole life."

Trish stood up and pointed. "I want you in the bedroom. If we're going to do this, we might as well do it right."

Maggie jumped up, surprising herself by obeying Trish so quickly. "Yes, Trish. You're the boss," and she ran into the bedroom.

Trish didn't follow right away, so Maggie sat on the edge of their bed and tried to calm down. She'd never been spanked before, and except for what she imagined in her fantasies, she didn't know what to expect. She liked the idea of Trish being in charge, being the boss when it came to spanking. If there was one thing she'd always known, it was that she wanted to be on the receiving end, the one whose bare bottom was spanked and reddened. She knew it would hurt, but she didn't know how much, and she didn't know what Trish was planning to spank her with.

She looked around the room at the huge four-poster bed, and the pictures on the walls, and wondered if what was about to happen to her would make her feel differently about her surroundings and about her life. She was about to be a spanked girl, and a thrill ran through her entire body at the idea of it.

Trish walked into the room then, interrupting Maggie's reverie. It seemed to Maggie that the atmosphere was instantly charged because of Trish's presence and she felt Trish's command of the situation.

"Okay, take off your pants and panties," Trish announced.

Maggie's eyes got big at the pronouncement, and she swallowed hard, but she did as she was told, leaving her sweatpants and her panties in a heap on the floor. She grasped the hem of her sweatshirt to take it off too, but Trish reached out and stopped her. "I don't want you to think about sex during this, so leave the shirt on. This is punishment, not fun" Trish said seriously. "I want you concentrating on why you're getting punished and not on what's going on between your legs."

Maggie blushed crimson, flustered that Trish could realize just what all of it meant to her. She stammered in embarrassment, but stopped when nothing she said came out intelligibly.

"Stand at the foot of the bed, facing it, and bend over," Trish decreed, pointing at the spot.

Maggie's legs felt weak suddenly. Now that the moment of truth was actually upon her, she lost some of the courage she'd had when she'd agreed to be punished. She stood at the foot of the bed, and as she bent over, she felt more exposed and vulnerable than she ever had in her life. Her bare bottom felt like some enormous target that had a bull's-eye painted on it. Panic gripped her, and she squeaked as she felt Trish come up behind her and place her leg behind both of Maggie's, effectively trapping her.

The helplessness was almost too much, and she fought not to struggle. She didn't want Trish to think she was trying to chicken out of the deal. Her breath left her as she felt the first smack against her left cheek. She couldn't tell what had smacked her, but she knew it wasn't Trish's hand. It was harder and more concentrated than a hand would be.

It almost felt anti-climactic to Maggie. She barely felt it, at first. The sting spread slowly, deceptively making her think that it wouldn't be so bad. She still wondered what it was that Trish was spanking her with. She wanted to look back, but she wasn't sure if she should. She was obviously in enough trouble without adding to it. The second smack landed and stung a bit more than the first, but she still thought she could handle it. She wasn't expecting what happened next though. Trish let loose with a volley of spanks, fast and furious, which had Maggie yelping and trying in vain to escape the blows. She was trapped by Trish's leg against both of hers, and bent over the way she was, she could barely even wiggle, let along move enough to evade the punishment.

Trish kept spanking in silence. Maggie could tell that she was still angry with her, so she remained wordless, just allowing her cries to speak for her. She wanted things to be over with, but knew that it was not her place to ask for it. Trish was in charge, and only she could say when this would be over, when Maggie would be forgiven.

Maggie had no idea of the number of strokes she had endured by then, all she knew was that her bottom burned and stung terribly. She didn't know how much more she could take. She hadn't started crying, she was still struggling against the spanks, even though she knew she deserved every one of them. She didn't know why she couldn't give in, couldn't surrender to Trish and the punishment, especially since it was all she'd ever wanted, to give up control to someone else. All she could think about was the pain, not how sorry she was that she'd hurt Trish. She couldn't focus, hell, she could barely even breathe.