Weightless

The mirror confirms the activities of last night: bottom is still pink, tender to the touch, small bruise from the paddle forming on my right cheek. I don't bruise easily; there was some power behind those four punishing swings. Enough power to make my hands fly away from the wall and lean my weight against him while I caught my breath and whimpered.

"Take a deep breath," he said when my hands returned to the wall. I obeyed, dragging the air through my open mouth, feeling the worry ease out of my forehead. "And another," he said. And I took another, steadying myself and regaining my focus.

It took all of my willpower to stand there and wait for the next smack, knowing how much it would hurt. His forearm against my ribs, cupping a breast reassuringly, helped me through it.

You see, those four smacks weren't meant for pleasure: four strokes of the heavy paddle, for the four times he's had to remind me of completing the same task. I deserved it. And he told me what to expect days before. I won't say that it was just as hard for him to deliver them as it was for me to receive them, but I know it wasn't easy.

It's been a rough week here at Pink Headquarters. A very rough week. I didn't realize how much stress I was feeling until shortly before he was due to arrive. I didn't want him to come. I didn't want to face the punishment on top of all of the other things that had been going on, thinking that the paddle would just add to the overall crappiness that I was feeling.

But I should have known. I should've known that my head would clear afterwards and that I could much better deal with things once the matter of my discipline was out of the way. It's amazing, "this thing we do". My stress was like a physical presence; my burdens weighed so heavily. And yet, those ten minutes (yes, it took 10 minutes) of leaning against the wall, intimately dealing with one of my discrepancies, somehow eased the weight of the week.

There were two people in that room. One of those people felt let down, and the other felt guilty for making him feel that way. But when they emerged, it was clear: let's start again; all is forgiven.