The Struggle

For the past few months, I've been working on a particular skill within the realm of submitting to spankings. I'm very, very good at taking hard spankings with the right atmosphere. The atmosphere, however, has always been highly important for my success with these things. I generally experience these things as if I am being "guided" to a particular headspace and then kept there. I think this is partially because my early spanking experiences were highly directed and I never learned how to create a headspace for myself and partly because when it comes to physical things, I'm far better at passive submission than active submission. Recently, we've been working on my ability to give myself over to a hard spanking without direct assistance.

It is way, way more difficult than it sounded to me in the beginning.

No atmosphere means no phrases of comfort or reaffirmation, no "good girl"s, no questions that focus my mind on submission like "to whom does your body belong?" or "do you want this spanking?" It turns out those things go an extremely long way towards creating a submissive headspace for me.

It also means no warmup. This is the biggest difference between the kinds of non-punitive spankings I was used to getting and the kind that I've been getting recently. A warmup eases me into a scene both physically and mentally. The mental side of it is what's the most important for me. It gives me time to accept the fact that I'm being spanked and slowly start giving myself over to the spanking, suspending my sense of self preservation and surrendering my free will for the time being. It's like slowly inching forward to get wet in a lake before going swimming (this analogy is particularly effective for me because I have a strong fear of water so preparing to submerge myself is far more mental than physical, but I'm sure that it will make at least some sense to others). You take one step, then another step, then another and at first every step makes you gasp from the cold but eventually, you put your head entirely under the water and then you're ready and can swim for however long you want.

Without a warmup and with few words of guidance or correction, I'm more like a cat who has just been dropped into a full tub for her bath than a swimmer slowly preparing to enjoy the water. The first smack hits my bottom and I pretty much immediately start crying out, rolling back and forth on Malignus' lap, yelling in the style that Naomi would call "like a dying monster" and being entirely incapable of keeping position. This is relative to my normal ability to be extremely still: I've seen other girls who simply have to be held down and pinned in place to take a spanking, and recently, I saw one of my friends climb over a couch when her arms were being held down and she was trying to escape swats. The logistics of that maneuver still befuddle me. To my own credit, I will add that I've never put my hand back during a spanking, that I've never gotten off the Top's lap, that I've only kicked a Top in the face twice and that it's been over three years since that time that I broke a lamp. Basically, I'm not horrible, but I try to cling to my resistance as much as possible and relaxing and giving myself over to being spanked isn't the first thing on my mind. In fact, instead of thinking about how much I want to be spanked and how I never want it to end, I find myself latching onto thoughts of how it's too hard, it hurts too much, I can't be still for it and I want it to be over. Not very productive.

That's my brain, basically, when I'm not doing things right.

I've been working on this for a long time, and that's not to say that every spanking I receive is done in this method and intended to work on this. Malignus had told me that I'd been making progress but I personally was getting frustrated with myself: I knew what things I should be doing during a spanking and I just never brought myself to do them.

Last week, we obtained a new implement. Peachy Keane sent it to me as part of a gift box. I've talked about Jenny before: the wooden spatula that Malignus loves and most girls hate. Here's a photo of Jenny, in case anyone wasn't sure what it looked like:

This is Ben, the new implement that scotchgrove had Peachy send us:

At first, I thought it was another Jenny in a different color. They do look the same!

From that angle, they look exactly the same aside from the color difference and the fact that Jenny is well worn. From other angles, the difference is far more noticeable:

Ben is about 1.5 - 1.75 times as thick as Jenny. This was EXTREMELY noticeable the first time I was spanked with it. Jenny was my "warm up" (this was quick and very firm) and then he started to hit me with Ben. I kicked and bucked around and screamed and could barely be kept under basic control. I'm pretty sure that the spanking ended earlier than intended because I was taking it with so little grace and dignity. But geeze! That thing is HORRIBLE. It's the epitome of an awful spoon (you can tell because scotchgrove calls his "the perfect spoon." )

The other day, I got into a mood and I started having a really awful attitude while Malignus and I were trying to get things done in a limited amount of time. I'm really ashamed of the way I acted. I was scolded about my attitude and just a minute later, he asked me something and I responded rudely and immaturely. He then started to scold me very, very harshly. I snapped out of my funk immediately and began to cry guiltily. I was suddenly aware of just how badly I'd been behaving. A minute or so later, he called me into the bedroom. He was sitting on the edge of the bed holding Ben. I felt a mix of terror and relief-- despite my extreme dislike of that implement, I knew that I deserved to be disciplined for my behavior and I wanted him to spank me very hard. Once I had bared my bottom and gotten over his lap, he gave me another stern scolding and then did just that. It felt as though he really laid into me with it (I say this in non-concrete terms because the way that I experience pain during a disciplinary spanking is different than usual and often much more severe). There was no denying the fact that he spanked me very thoroughly, but because of my mindset at the time, I lay quite still and did nothing but cry submissively into my pillow. The spanking finished with corner time followed by a long, comforting hug and a chance for me to behave better. I spent the rest of the afternoon focusing on being cheerful and getting things done, and I was successful at both.

Later, when we were driving in the car to go out to eat, Malignus noted that I had been very still for my spanking. It hadn't even registered to me that I had: I had been focusing on other things. This was important for me because it had reminded me just what I was capable of. When I want to, I can endure anything. This had stopped being a reality for me when I had continuously failed at my earlier attempts to fully submit. That night, Malignus gave me a bedtime spanking with a different spoon. My bottom was still sore from my discipline earlier that day, but I know he didn't spank me as hard or with as fast a pace as he usually does. Still, I was able to channel the same feeling of wanting to be spanked and I successfully gave over to the spanking. I was very proud of myself, indeed, and Malignus told me that he was proud as well.

This post has too many words in it! It needs one of these!

Since then, I've only had one other spanking, which was also with Ben. I took that one similarly well. It's exciting to feel like I'm on a roll and finally mastering something and making real, measurable progress.