I heard the garage door open as I was relaxing on the couch. It was a little later than normal for her to arrive home but that wasn't unusual for a MD resident. After a time, I heard the door to the garage open and close. As was our custom, we did not speak and she immediately went to the bedroom to remove her clothing.
She joined me on the couch, naked except for a light robe. She laid down with her head on my lap and curled up into a fetal position. I started stroking her cheek and hair and she cuddled into me as much as possible.
"Were you a bad girl today?" She nodded. "Were you a very bad girl today?" Again, she nodded. I continued to stroke and caress her for a time before deciding to take action. "Go to the punishment room." She immediately got up and went to the spare bedroom.
There were two rooms in the house that we used for our BDSM activities, the punishment room and the dungeon (basement). We had only been living together as Master and slave for 5 years but in that time we had equipped both rooms well. We mostly used the dungeon for "pleasure"; severe activities that fed her masochism and my sadism. The punishment room was only equipped with a variety of corporal punishment instruments, a bed, some gags and some restraints. In both spaces, she would adopt a rigidly submissive posture and attitude upon entering. Outside of those spaces we would mostly adopt the roles of peers unless I would signal otherwise with a word or tone.
By nodding to my question about "very bad" she was signaling to me that she had had a stressful day and was asking me for "release." In truth, she was rarely "bad" and very rarely "very bad." But punishment was her vehicle for releasing stress, either through crying (rare) or subspace (less rare). Since I prohibited any form of intoxicants or drugs and she had no capacity for sexual response, punishment was virtually the only "self-help" method available to her.
The age difference between us was significant. She was just starting her career as a physician and I was retired. But the difference suited us well; she longed for someone to replace the father that had ignored her as a child except to administer spankings. My love for her was both romantic and paternal.
I considered the parameters for this evening's "punishment." I needed to choose a position, bindings (if any), and instruments. The punishment room was only used for traditional corporal punishments: spankings, belt whippings, caning. And the only body parts involved were the ass and back of the legs. "Very bad" signaled that she needed to have some stress relief which meant that the goal was crying or subspace. Subspace limited the positions to those where she could be supported when nearly unconscious. In most cases, that meant face down on the bed with her head turned to the side.
We discovered subspace by accident. I was administering a severe caning when she suddenly became unresponsive. Her eyes were open only slightly and tears were gently escaping. She appeared to be unconscious and I thought she had fainted from the pain. But she would react very slightly to the blows and some weird sounds would come from her throat. We later decided that she had entered subspace and it became a desirable goal for our sessions.