Second Person Otk Vignette

You'd said you had to be deprived of your dignity, so I told you to bare yourself. When you hesitated, paralyzed at the threshold of the space you needed to inhabit, I peeled the layers from your suddenly-unsteady body. You leaned on me while I worked. The unfastening, rolling, and tugging took time, time that allowed your modesty to shrivel up and drift on the currents of the ceiling fan and my calm, insistent voice, blowing away out the open window of this mud room. Finally, after what seemed like forever and an instant, you were naked except for the fitness watch you recently started wearing as a protest against weight gain (though, as I tell you at every opportunity, I love your unapologetically feminine figure). I lectured you about a bad habit you'd indulged, the unhealthy one you've wanted to free yourself from, the one you'd asked me through flushed face and glistening eyes to hold you accountable for.

There it was again, your altered face, usually poised, now a cloudscape, your gaze darting anxiously between the solid, simple armless chair bought for this purpose, the small pile of your clothes on a low shelf (we don't leave our clothes on the floor anymore, do we?), and the expanse of back yard through the window screen. Nobody walks through our yard out here; it's so remote that we don't have blinds or curtains on most of the windows. But this open window there and then still added to your embarrassment. You shifted from one foot to the other, not sure where to put your hands.

You craved to be relieved of your composure, so I guided you by a forearm and hip across and into position, then disoriented, vulnerable, the parts of you always protected exposed. I raised one knee and the other, shifting you until your hips and belly found their places on my lap. You wanted this. Remember? Maybe the rush of blood to your head as I turned you topsy turvy over my knee washed away your vision of how it should happen. I heard your watch band scrape on the back of the chair as you looked for a hold there and I felt your other hand gently grab my ankle. You were as close to ready as you'd ever be.

I began, slowly, pausing just long enough between each spank to let your bottom finish its shudder and the hum of the ceiling fan swallow the sound of your comeuppance. After a minute (or an hour; time can be tricky) I paused. You were completely silent and had relaxed, draped across my sturdy lap, your full bottom still pale and smooth. I performed my part in our ritual call-and-response:

"Tell me why you're over my knee."

"You need this, don't you?"

"Ask me for what you need." You answered each in turn, your submissive words and tone a blessing, consent to be taken to the next place.

You'd demanded to lose yourself, so I made it my business to mortify your bottom, taking fuller swings applying my broad palm mercilessly. It only took a few seconds for you to become completely occupied by the pain, your body responding on its own, hips rocking side to side, legs retracting and extending, aligned then apart, your hands freeing themselves from their places, back flexing, your voice climbing some obscure minor scale. I held your flailing form in place and carried on, confident your body would guide me.

Your arm swung around, into the airspace of chastisement, settling your hand, fingers splayed comically, on your backside. You couldn't help it, and I couldn't tolerate it.

"Move.Your.Hand."

You started to speak but it came out as something unintelligible. Then you moved the offending hand away (good girl) but left it unsettled. I gathered your arm, clamping wrist to hip, and got back to our business.

Over the next few minutes, I reduced you to a sobbing, quivering creature. For a brief time but long enough, you lost yourself in the tumbling hydraulic on the other side of the dam.

When your body finally went completely slack and your cries glided down to a soft, constant wail, I knew you'd gotten everything from it. I gently rubbed your back and bottom, waiting for you to catch your breath. I folded you into me, helping you curl shakily up on my lap, head on my shoulder, teary face into my neck. I caressed and praised, smoothed and soothed as we took our time lovingly reassembling you, the you freed of anxiety, self-loathing, guilt, and grief, the you with clear purpose and loving heart.