I don't know how long he had me stand in that corner.
It doesn't matter, really.
Like Winston Smith after his turn in Room 101 with O'Brien, I understood what he said was true.
I knew, as a reality that completely washed away my previous shame, that my belly was a beautiful symbol of my femaleness.
I knew, as truth, that my sagging breasts showed that I was a woman in full flower.
I knew, with mathematical certainty, that the cellulite dimples in my big ass were a gorgeous reflection of my ability to survive the harsh winter and still feed my family.
As I stood there in the corner, holding the T-shirt up to put my ass on display, this new reality grew in me. I was crying, my T-shirt sodden with tears, mucus, and drool, but it was tears of joy. The lingering pain in my ass was just a reminder of my beauty and his love.
And so I stood, crying, happy, and above it all, head over heels, crazy, stupid in love.
I have no idea how long I stood there like that. For the first time in my life, I understood what the word "fugue" meant. I was no longer "Annette." I was no longer "Mom." I was Earth Mother. I was Gaia. I was Sex Incarnate.
Above it all, I was beautiful and I was in love.
He brought me back to myself, well, to my new self, with a hand on my elbow and soft words spoken.
"Come with me," he said, gently pulling me. He wasn't forcing, just guiding. I felt an odd lassitude that I attributed to a combination of the pain of the spanking, the release of that body-encompassing orgasm, and my new reality.
I padded along beside him, the chub rub of my inner thighs sliding across each other with the slickness of my natural lubricants.
It felt good.
He walked me into the bedroom, closed the door, and laid his hands on my shoulders to gently turn me to face the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. I watched in that detached, still-in-a-fugue way, as he reached down and started pulling the hem of my T-shirt up. It seemed natural to lift my arms and help him.
I stood in a natural posture, my arms at my sides, aware of him looking into the mirror over my right shoulder, and I looked.
And there it was.
I
was
beautiful. My face was a mess. Mascara streaks ran down both cheeks from eyes red and puffy from my crying. Bulges on each side of my nose showed how badly my sinuses were swollen. My nose was still running like a damn hose and sheets of clear mucus hung from my chin to my breasts. At least I wasn't drooling.
I watched as he leaned forward and whispered into my ear, "You are beautiful."
I leaned my head to the side, offering my neck and throat, and said, "Yes, I am."
As he nuzzled my neck, sending wave after wave of shivers and goosebumps up and down my body, I kept looking at myself in the mirror.
My breasts, shiny from the way my nose kept running, were heavy and sagging, lying on the roundness of my belly. My nipples were hard, round bumps sitting at the top of the cones formed by my dark areolas with the distinct love bumps, the Montgomery's Glands, showing clearly. They were good breasts. Hell, they were beautiful breasts, fit to feed my children and, at need, the rest of my family if the hunt should fail or an early frost should take out the crop.
It was like he could follow my eyes as his hand cupped and lifted my breasts. When he rolled my nipples between his thumb and forefinger I was unable to breathe.
My eyes went to my belly. I realized I would never again be offended if someone asked me if I was pregnant. I
looked
pregnant, say about the eighth month, fully big but not yet quite to wondering if my water would break. It was beautiful. It was Earth Mother, giving birth to a generation. It was perfect femininity. It was the distillation of what it meant to be a woman and I realized in that instant that the core of my "womanness," of my "femaleness," wasn't my face or my breasts or even my pussy. It was my uterus, my womb, deep inside that round belly, the source of the next human being to come into the world.
And I was crying.
"What?" he asked, his hands driving me into despair as they gently caressed the shape of my belly where I would never carry a baby again.
He turned me and held me, his arms holding me close, his hands gentle on my back. He kissed my cheek about a dozen times and asked, "What's wrong?"
I supposed if there had been a psychiatrist handy to administer a quick sanity test, if there is such a thing, I would have come up crazy right then.
I was bawling now, sobbing, great whoops of pain and sorrow ripped from me.
"Mom," he said, pushing me to arm's length, capturing my eyes with his, "What is wrong?"
"You're right," I managed although it should probably be written as, "Y-y-y-y-you'r-r-re r-r-r-r-r-ri-i-i-ite," "I'm beautiful," I got out and then wailed the rest, "but I'm
BARREN
," I finished in a long wail.
He held me then while I wailed my pain and disappointment.
When I finally wound down he pushed me to arm's length.