It had been a very dark and giggly night when I returned home. I was still a little giddy from girl talk and too much sugar- at least that was your presumption when you heard the door slam and instead of my customary insistence of immediate attention I careered straight past shouting “Hiiiiiiiiiiiii” as I went.

You leant back in your chair and your eyes narrowed as you watched me. I am a mixture of horribly predictable and terribly unpredictable. After a full day at work and a meal out with friends it is unthinkable that I would not want the type of immediate and definite attention that only you can give me. I would want you to kiss me, to smile at me, to pull me towards you. I should be entangling myself with you at this very moment. You know that my avoidance of you can only bode ill. You decide to wait. You have learned that all things come to he who waits- even if the things in question have no intention whatsoever of that ever happening.

**

I return to you, make removed, hair and teeth brushed. My going out clothes no doubt on the floor somewhere replaced with light pink cotton vest and knickers. I sit on the sofa next to you but without my customary push to be right by your side with one of your arms around me. I am very casual, determinedly so. I smile at you, “Hello you,” I say, “What are we watching?” and I look towards the TV.

I see you raise your eyebrows at me and deduce that this means nothing. I had wondered if the moment I walked in through the door your scary “Detect Stuff I Really Don’t Want You To Know” radar would have gone off and the room would have been filled with sirens and blue flashing lights. I have a smorgasbord of feelings. I feel elation that I have remained uncaught at least four minutes after being near you, I feel slight disappointment that you are not psychic and I feel apprehension about keeping up this super human effort of not telling you everything for very much longer. Fibbing to you feels naughty (which is good) but also it feels frightening, like being alone in the woods at night.

When you hold out a hand for me and I take it, you pull me towards you and I am relieved. I sit in the curve of your left arm as it rests on me, your hand on my bottom. How does it always end up there? I lean my head into your chest and listen to the steady beat of your heart. You kiss the top of my head; I smile and push closer into you.

“So how was your night?” you ask. Curses! I knew this was too good to last. All I have to do is keep my calm and not let on anything is wrong.

“Mmmmm, good thanks.” I squeeze my eyes shut. That was wrong, I know it was wrong, I would never answer like that unless I was trying to hide something. I can’t for the life of me remember how I talk when I am innocent- no! I am innocent now, I cannot remember how I talk when I am free to do as I please, unburdened by your oppressive regime. Everything is your fault; this is only a bad thing because you say that it is. I allow my eyes to open just as I feel your fingers draw light circles on my left bum cheek- I shut them again and lean further into you.

The thing is you very often touch my bum – you do it with great skill and in a variety of ways. The fact that I have possibly the most eclectic and aesthetically pleasing collection of knickers in the Western world is in no way my encouragement of this- it is a happy coincidence. But I know you, I know a little of what you are thinking and sometimes I know that even tiny innocent gestures are designed to make me a little nervous and often that is all it takes.

Not tonight however. I know that somehow I have allowed myself to do something that will get me in Proper Trouble and that admitting it would be not only foolhardy but also would hasten my demise in whatever form you dream up in your dark mind. I will cover my tracks because you are tired and are happy watching a film. It would be most callous to disturb you now.

“Do you not want to tell me about it?”

Do you know? Are you toying with me? No, I decide you are not- all I just have to keep my nerve. This is no time to be weak of spirit.

“It was fun, I had crème brulee for pudding, Amy is going to re-do her kitchen and Justine’s husband is being horrible again. Just girl stuff- you’d be bored. What are we watching?”

I marvel at myself sometimes, that was brilliant. It was succinct, frothy with a little detail, perfect. I should give a class in this.

“So, nothing out of the ordinary happened then? Nothing you need to tell me? Hmmm?” Your voice vibrates through my cheek as I nestle against your check. I squeeze my eyes shut. The sensation feels somehow ominous.

You know, you definitely know. How do you know? Did someone tell on me? Were you on the next table?

“Nothing at all- I could run through all the stuff we talked about- you would just get bored.”

“That was a fib wasn’t it?”

How on earth do you know that?

Sometimes this odd thing happens to me and I get so taken up with not getting caught that it feels like I am right and you are wrong. Even though I did something you have told me that I may not do, everything is your fault for being all suspicious. I am caught up in self righteousness. I am very much going to brazen this out now. The best defence is a good offence.

“No, that was not a fib. I just didn’t want to be dull but if you really want me to I will give you a blow by blow account of the whole evening. Honestly, I was trying to be considerate. Can’t you stop being so ruddy inquisitive all the time?” My tone is snappy and short and above all, it is righteous.

I try to pull away a bit. I am annoyed. I hate myself right now. I hate myself for lying, for being mean, for everything I have done wrong. But I cannot and will not admit this to you or myself. I am miserable but cover it with anger. I feel sick. I want you to leave me alone, I need for you to come and get me. I am stuck. I am silent. I have no idea how or why I get like this.

Every other man that I have ever known would apologise now. I would win. I would be devastated, alone, afraid.

I try to pull away, I want to sit up as that is what self righteous people do- they do not remain calm and lean on the chests of their accusers. I am thwarted in this simple effort by your grip and I feel my momentary grasp of power fly from my fingers.

You do not really move, you just do not release me from your left arm. I push against your chest with my hands but my heart is not really in it. I want you to keep me with you and I want you to make me safe again. I also know that I am scared of what will happen next.

It comes as no surprise when you move me to lie over your lap. I suppose you know I have been lying anyway but when I just go where you put me without the usual theatrics – the cat is out of the bag for sure.

I am so miserable when you start to spank me that it surprises even me. Your hand is always surprisingly strong and hard but it is worse when I am already softened up with guilt. Right from the start you spank me as hard as I have never known you to spank. It shocks me and despite my guilt and my need I buck and scissor and do all I can to escape. At first you do not say a word and spank me over my cotton knickers- two very out of character happenings. I feel my bottom burning and sore right away.

But then you stop.

Your voice is deep and steady and its tone makes my stomach feel like it is dropping from a great height.

“I don’t know what’s got into you this evening. I have no idea what happened when you went out. All I know is that the attitude stops right now and so does the fibbing.”

I hate the word, “Fib”. It makes me feel about four years old and you know it. But what makes me feel even more out of control and humiliated is the way you then raise your knee to lift me and slowly and with great ceremony pull down my knickers. How can one girl be anymore humiliated than I am right now? I search in me for anger and find none. I just want to slide off your lap into the floor and escape into the ground.

But you lock me down with your arm and continue to spank me. You do not scold me, you do not ask me any questions you just spank and spank and spank. I try to sound pitiful but I can’t manage it. I just yelp and shout bits of words. It hurts so much I just want to escape.

At last you stop. I feel swollen, sore, burning, burning scarlet and just want you to comfort me. I wait face down for you to take me into your arms. I am ready for that.

I want for you to welcome me back, to forgive me but I know that if you do I will still be lost. I am silent and do not say a word of this. I just listen. Your hand rests possessively on my bottom, even the light weight of your hand reminds me of how sore it is. I feel the vibration of your voice through your stomach as you speak.

“I have no idea what the problem is with you tonight but I know that there is one. I have no doubt that somehow it will prove to be connected to you having a tough week. I know that it has been hard but you just have to accept that that is the way life is sometimes. There is no excuse ever for fibbing to me.”

With my face still down I murmur “I know.” I was aiming for agreement and reasonable. It sounds whiny and childish. The thing is I do know, I just have no idea how to get back to where we both want me to be. I don’t know how to tell you the truth.

“I know,” you carry on as though I had not spoken, “that something is going on with you. And” your voice raises slightly in volume just a notch over my protests of innocence which I hate myself for making “I know that you are as unhappy as I am about it.”

I suspect that you are about to make me much more unhappy than you are but I keep this observation to myself. Once every now and again I decide to make a sensible choice, just for a change.

I find myself being guided up (moment of relief) from your lap and then over to (desperate feeling of horror) the corner. You place me gently but firmly in the corner, about three feet away from the television with my knickers a distant memory. I hear your voice through my humiliation.

“Tonight you have not only fibbed but you have also spoken to me in a tone that you know I won’t allow. You, young lady, know better than that.” And from there you carry me on your voice, taking me further down into my misery as you tell me off for the horrid way I have behaved. I can only look at the floor and feel utter misery. Just once I try a half hearted and pointless attempt at self defence. You ignore my interruption, “I am not interested in what you have to say. You made your contribution to this evening- look where it got you.”

I look up into the corner. The words, “glum” and then “useless girl” pop into my head- I feel too upset to think in sentences.

I have lied. I have lied to you. I hate liars and I love you. Everything is wrong.

“Little girl you are going to stand right here where I can see your naughty bare bottom until I decide you are ready to not only tell the truth but also to pay for your fibbing.”

I make a little squeal at this and start to turn around to hold onto your shirt. I still can’t look in your eyes. Your words struck home, when you called me “Little” and what you said made me feel about one foot tall. But also the position and the vulnerability, knowing what you can see of me and how I must look and me feeling so, so guilty. It all combined and rolled around and got bigger in my head.

Despite all that I stayed silent. I bite my lip, staring down at your shirt, clenching it in my hot hand. I know you are about to turn me back around. I know that I deserve it.

“You will stay here until you admit what you have lied about and until you tell the truth. After you have done that I will think about what comes next. Hmmm?” The last part was in response to my small noise of distress.

It wasn’t a particularly concerned Hmmm , much more it was an acknowledgment of what you know I felt. I think you knew I would feel just this way from the moment you first tipped me over your knee. You planned to make me feel this way. You are totally disconnected from the distress I feel about this. I want to kick against you for that right now. I love you for that in every other moment of my life.

You put one hand very gently down to my wrist and detach me from your shirt, it doesn’t hurt but it feels like a rejection. I sign as you turn me back to the wall. I wish that I could cry. The tears won’t come- I have no glimpse of any kind of release. You have not said one unnecessary word to me. I understand that you’re not going to engage with me any further, that there is nothing I can say or do to alter your mind. I give up. I suspect you knew that I would.

You leave me there, all alone. You return (I presume although I cannot be sure) to your seat and I hear you turn the television on again. I think you are probably having a drink. I am trying very, very hard to avoid thinking about what you can see. I try to work out what is on the television, hoping so hard it makes my head hurt that whatever programme you watch is so enthralling that your eyes do not slide across to look at me.

This is when the thought or rather the image of how I must look pops unbidden into my head. My toes are pointing into each other, my knees too. My bottom is swollen it is a glowing beacon of embarrassment, a statement of my failure to get my own way. A statement about whom and what I am. My arms are hanging by my sides, limp and awkward. I cannot work out where to put them, they are like a banner, a sign of my futile objections to the position I find myself in. My shoulders and head are down. I feel silly and vulnerable. When it occurs to me that you can see me I squeeze my eyes shut against the thought.

“Please may I…” my voice breaks off but I can’t start this sentence again again, “can I just tell you now?” I hear you mute the TV. Although standing like this is more humiliation than I think I can stand it is easier than looking at you.

I hear you cross the room to collect me. You touch me, a hand on my shoulder, I lean into every sensation of you- like you are the sun, the source of gravity. I gravitate towards you. I feel relief run through me as you touch me, even though I know that I have no control over what will happen to me.

Before you can say anything to me I let the words stumble out. They bang into one another as though they are falling down stairs. “When we were out I was fed up because work has been hard and you have been busy and its been a horrid week and I wanted six glasses of wine but I was driving and could only have one and so when Justine went outside for a smoke I followed her because she was upset and she smoked and I wanted one and so I had one too and I know you said that I couldn’t.”

You stop me by turning me around and the sight of you silences me. I want to reach out and touch the buttons on your shirt. I don’t move at all though. At least I don’t until you put a finger under my chin and tilt my head up to meet your eyes. It takes a while for my eyes to follow and I try to offer a compromise by looking at your mouth. You wait for me to do what I know you want me to do. I look at you. My lips, for some reason, are tight together and pointed to the side.

“How many?” you ask.

“Four,” I say.

*

Smoking is one of those hard line things. I used to smoke but gave up four years before. It had been hard but I had done so without one lapse, until tonight. I asked for your help with it and you did help me. You distracted me – sometimes in ways that made me glare at you and rub my bottom but other times in ways that made me dizzy with satisfaction and joy.

*

“Lets see how we can sort this out then, shall we?”
You ask in a question that is not a question.
I want to argue- I can’t find one word to say.

You tell me off as you fold up your shirt sleeves. You tell me how important honesty is to us, how it is the most important part of us. You tell me how much you love me and how you would do anything for me and I know that this is true. You tell me how much faith you have in me and how every time I deceive you I let you down, I let us down and I let me down.

I feel about one inch tall.

Your blue eyes look straight into mine as very slowly and deliberately you slip your brown leather belt from between the loops in your jeans. I fear a rush of genuine fear go through me. I cannot take my eyes away from what you are doing. My shoulders fall down even lower, I consider following them. I know that you are aware of the affect that you are having.

“I’m scared.” I whisper to you. Neither of us sees the slightest conflict between you being the source of both my fear and my comfort.

“This is going to hurt but you know that I will never harm you.” Your voice is much steadier than mine. I trust you so entirely that this affirmation is all that I need. I know that you know how to do everything that I have ever needed you to do. I just had never even considered that one day I might have needed you to do this. Now- just because the belt is in your hand I believe that this must be exactly what I need or deserve, or something. No matter how I feel about it.

You take my hand in one of yours and lead me to the high backed brown leather chair in the corner of the room. Seeing your authority I follow you. I feel focussed on you as I ignore the belt dangling from your right hand. Standing to my left you guide me over the high and broad arm, it is cushioned and almost comfortable but then you tip me a little further forward and so my feet are off the ground. For a moment I feel a sense of panic and I start to try to shift backwards and to move my legs and feet to gain purchase and escape.

You are so resolute that you simply put one hand on my back and another on my bottom and with gentle but immovable strength place me back where you want me.
With me positioned thus you start to scold me once more. I don’t want this; it makes everything so much worse.

You remind me how much I wanted to stop smoking, how hard it was. You said how proud you had been of me- which made everything else you said so much worse. You told me how all of this was beside the point – I had been given a rule that I would not under any circumstance smoke. Did I remember that? You wait for an answer forcing a miserable and high pitched “Yes, Sir.” from me. My cheeks are burning with shame, at my position, my predicament and at what I know you are holding in your hand.

You then tell how I lied. You pause over the words. I lied. I lied to you. I shake my head a little to get the words out. But still, I lied.

You ask me if I am ready and I have no response to give. I nod. I feel you hook one finger under my chin and bend down and raise my head slightly so that I can see you. “Little girl,” your voice is so deep I can feel it in my stomach, “Do you think that this is the time to be nodding at me?” My voice is a whisper, “No, Sir.” I can hardly bear to look at you. You smile a grave smile and kiss my forehead as you release back to my shame. This is only bearable because you love me.

I curl my toes, I try to relax and I manage for the three seconds it takes for you to find a position and to take careful aim. Each slap of the belt against me burns as it shouts at me of my own shame. Your strokes are slow, measured, calm and constant and seem to go on forever. You do not lecture me, there is no need. Your belt speaks of my regret and your regret. It speaks for us both; it is all we need to say.
The sound of your leather on my skin intimidates me.

The pain builds in a way that takes all my strength not to scream at you to stop.. You take me through fear, shame, and regret; you take me a long way past pain. I feel scorched, I will do anything at all to stop you and there is not one thing that I can do to so much as soften one stroke.

I hear myself start to cry. I feel my shoulders shake. I feel myself released. You do not release my body. On you go, taking me home, driving me back to the sanctuary you offer with your belt.

Eventually, I feel you change position so that you are directly behind me. I hear your zip undo and I hear you adjust your clothing. I know that I need you. I need you to be in me, to be so close to me that there is nothing between us, not a word, not a thought, not a deed.

You tip me higher over the back of the chair, tipping me forward so that I am presented to you. I know it takes very little effort for you to tip me forward so that the smallest bit of privacy I had left is gone. For the first time tonight I don’t care about being exposed. I just want to be wanted by you. I want you to take me with force and with love.

My legs are wide open as you move between them – for just a moment I feel your erection touch my thigh and my stomach contracts with anticipation. You position me with one hand on my hip and suddenly with one smooth long thrust you are deep, deep within me. I feel my breath shoot out of me with a gasp. It does not occur to me to be ashamed of how ready for you I am. With both your hands on my hips you control my movement completely as you pound into me. I can only hold my arms out to steady myself and breathe in time to your movements. I think that I will pass out when I feel your right hand reach around; you find the core of me without hesitation.

As ever you know just how to touch me, the pressure is exquisite, a gentle force and the speed of your fingers matched perfectly to the speed of your thrusts. I would open myself to you completely if I could. There is no part of me that is not yours. The pain of where you have left me welted is made more acute each time you push into me. Your hand is on my left hip controlling me. You share the strength of yourself with me. I shake and buck and arch my back so far up that you catch my shoulder in your right hand and pull in even further onto you as you shake your self into me with a low roar of completion.

Slowly as I return to myself, suddenly aware of my discomfort again. My stomach lurches and drops as I hear you whisper in my ear, “That’s one cigarette paid for. We will do the next one tomorrow, honey.” You kiss my back and I catch sight of your belt left curled on the floor as you reach forward to guide me up at last.