I know the ritual of being punished by you off by heart. I knew it after the first time we enacted it. When you stood with me in the room and told me what to do to prepare myself for you. Draw the curtains, you said, turn on the bedside lamp. Talking me through every little thing that I must do.
I removed my clothes item by item until I was naked and unadorned. I bent over with my hands on the bed. You told me exactly what you needed of me. What was expected of me. I did it. And I remembered.
Now when you need to punish me you don't have to give that same guidance over again. You don't have to walk me through it step by step. It's enough for you to tell me to go to the bedroom. To get ready for a spanking.
I don't remember because you punish me often. You don't. It is a mercifully rare thing between us. But five times in total now I have earned a punishment spanking, and each of those occasions is seared into my memory. That, in part, is the purpose, is it not? The memory should stick. It should stay with me and help me to be better.
So this time I go to the bedroom alone, ahead of you. I draw the curtains. I turn off the bedside lamp. And as I do I am already being punished. Just knowing that I have disappointed you, that I have made this necessary, that I am having to enact this ritual with you again because of the way I have behaved... that is punishment. To say nothing of what I know is coming.
I shed my skirt. Roll down and strip away my tights. Remove my blouse and the thin vest top underneath. I take out my earrings, and remove the bracelet from around my wrist. I must be naked for punishment spankings, but I always leave the bracelet until last. It is yours. Your gift to me. A simple leather circlet that is your symbol of ownership. I place it carefully on the bedside table, and then I am naked entirely.
It will be a few minutes before you arrive, but I get into position. Even though you cannot see me bent over and waiting, I feel as though you'll know if I linger. If I wait until I hear you approaching the door of our bedroom before I bend over and take my place. So I put myself there now, at the foot of the bed, hands planted and feet shoulder-width apart. I wait.
The waiting, I sometimes think, is the most difficult part. When it is a maintenance spanking rather than a punishment I wait with excitement, my stomach fluttering giddily. The same kind of excitement I feel just before we make love, or when you kiss me on the lips. A maintenance spanking is similar to those things: it is joyful and shared - a way for you to use your hands or your belt to remind me of my submission to you, of my position as your wife. It is a kind thing. Sometimes it is even tender.
But with a punishment spanking I know you won't be gentle. That makes the waiting terrible. There is nothing to do but stand there, braced and ready, reflecting on the things that I have done to let you down. I am alone with my sins. I am naked. Without the bracelet I hardly feel like yours, and that is a difficult thing to swallow.
Standing there I can feel myself sweating. My stomach roils. My legs tremble slightly and I am too, too aware of the carpet underneath the bare soles of my feet. I feel small and stripped and vulnerable, like I always do when I've done something wrong.
In this case it was to do with my food, again. I skipped lunch. I wasn't hungry and I had chores to complete - I would eat later, before you got home. That was what I told myself, and I told myself it long enough for food to slip my mind altogether.
And that's bad. It's bad because it's a Rule. One of the dozen Rules we agreed to not long after we married. They are simple enough: I must meditate each day, keep the house neat and tidy, look after myself and my body. They are rules designed to keep me in my place, healthy and obedient. It took a lot of talking to arrive at them, but when we finally did I couldn't have felt more loved or more cared for.
I wonder how other couples manage without constraints. It must feel so directionless, I think, to have a relationship where neither person is the magnetic north of the other. Where neither sets rules nor obeys them. My friends sometimes talk about sharing burdens, having equal relationships. Equal. To me that feels worse than nothing.
You love me. I know that. I know it in my brain and I feel it in every atom of my body. You show that love by kissing me, holding me, providing for me. And, naturally, by punishing me when I break one of our Rules. I am, after all, yours to punish.
I adjust my stance a little, moving my feet fractionally further apart. I am determined not to move at all once you arrive in the bedroom and begin my punishment in earnest. I won't move an inch, no matter how much it hurts, no matter if my legs start to cramp. It matters, I know, how I take my punishment. Will I kick and whine and protest, or will I take it stoically, humbly, my head lowered, fully aware that I deserve everything that comes to me?
There's another reason to take it as gracefully as I can: doing so will mean that you have no reason to extend my punishment. It will show that I am contrite, and that I have learned my lesson. That I am ready to make amends, to take the pain you think I deserve.
I hear you on the stairs. Slow footsteps. Swallowing my nerves, I look straight down at the bed, at my hands braced against the wooden frame. Will you use your belt this time? Probably. When you asked me whether I had eaten lunch that day I hesitated for a moment, and stuttered over my reply. I was not honest - not as honest as I could have been at least. That in and of itself deserves the belt.
The door opens. I do not move. I am a statue, poised and waiting. In my head I can see how I must look to you: a slender, pale, small creature, braced against the bed, her bottom naked and bared. As vulnerable and submissive as I can make myself. Perfectly still. Waiting.
