Stress and Relief

(I'm posting Valentine's Day next. OUT OF ORDER. CALL THE POLICE*.) 

Updated, due to some poor wording that upon re-reading kind of made me sound like a bitch.

Well, I'm blog posting again. It's been a while, I know. I'm very sorry for not having been diligent. I've just been very busy recently, and rather overwhelmed. In addition to working on several long term projects, I'm getting ready to leave home for six weeks. I've been gone for this long once, but the whole thought is very intimidating. As much as I know that I'll have a remarkable time, I tend to get very nervous before trips. There's so much that needs to be planned and organized, and if I'm being honest, I'm still very bad at that. As babyish as it sounds for someone who likes to fancy herself a strong and independent woman, I feel a preemptive sadness about leaving Malignus if I let myself. Before I left for July Crimson Moon, I got so upset about it that I almost didn't want to leave at all.

This morning, I had a few pieces of news that made me more stressed out. I knew that later that day, I was going to do something that I was nervous about because it involved confrontation. The day started the way that they usually do, despite this. Malignus and I spent time together before he had to leave for work. Then he started to get his power cables together to take his laptop and phone charger with him to work. Then he gave me a fairly strong swat with the bunch of cables. I very nearly cried.

"Did that hurt?" he asked.

"Yes, Sir," I said.

"Come here, I'm going to even it out." I walked over to the bed and plopped on it with my bottom up. "Well, take your pants down!"

"You gave me the last one over my pants, though!" I protested.

"Are you arguing with me?" he asked very seriously.

"Yes," I admitted, feeling very sheepish. I pulled my pants down and tried very hard to get in position. I knew under various layers of stuff that I really, really wanted to be spanked. I was stressed out, and spanking is the greatest stress relief possible in my life. I just couldn't find submission through all the nonsense that was worrying my brain. It took me a good minute before I finally accepted the fact that I was going to be spanked. Even then, I didn't do the best job of taking it, wiggling and protesting for the ten strokes which followed. I fell out of position at one point and had to be coaxed back where I belonged. I was crying and struggling, even though there was nothing particularly challenging about the spanking compared to others.

"This last one is going to be hard. Do you understand?" Malignus asked me. I couldn't catch my breath from crying. "Yes, Sir?" he prompted. I just lay there, not yet ready to answer. Finally, I did, and I was met with a very hard stroke which pushed me to cry even more.

"Come here," Malignus instructed, beckoning me to sit next him on the edge of the bed. I pulled up my panties but abandoned my pants and I sat down. He wrapped me in a hug that filled me with a sense of safety and comfort that I've rarely ever known outside of the spanking world. I clung to him. Then he said "I'm going to hit you some more." This time, I tried to accept and did a better job of being resigned. He raised his hand and began to smack the fronts of my thighs. This is a very sensitive area, and one which makes me feel particularly submissive. I know that while he hit me quite a few times, none of them were particularly hard compared to what I was used to, but I sobbed. Everything in my existence was about crying and continuing to cling to him. It was in that moment that I realized that I needed this. I needed to get the stress out of my body. I needed to let go. I needed to trust him to do what was best for me and fight against this. All these feelings fueled me to cry more and more, until he stopped and I found myself nearly hyperventilating. I held my breath for a second as he stroked my back and then gently and comfortingly rubbed my thighs, then returned to a fairly normal breathing pace. "Have you returned to that place of calm?" he asked and I affirmed: "Yes, Sir." "Good girl," he praised, and I basked in this for a moment. Once I was feeling safe and good, he told me to get up and started to put pillows in position for an OTK spanking. "We'll finish this up with something nicer for you," he told me. He didn't grab an implement, and that made me feel very relaxed and loved.

I kicked my panties all the way off without really knowing why, but probably on some internal level because I wanted to feel very vulnerable, then I got over his lap. The spanking was not too hard, not too fast and made me feel very, very comforted. Still, at one point, when he picked up the intensity a bit, I started to struggle and protest. "This is still a spanking, Alex," he reminded me, and I tried to be passive. I was never really as successful at it as I would have liked to have been, but that feeling of being loved, of being elevated and safe and relaxed kept coming back and it was wonderful. "Do you want to decide how hard you're spanked?" he asked me.

"No, Sir," I responded.

"Do you want to decide how long your spanking lasts?"

"No, Sir."

From there on out, I managed to remain relaxed, although the time wasn't substantial. When we finished and Malignus hugged me again, I felt much better. I know that it's my responsibility to take care of my own stress, but there's just something wonderful about the feeling when someone chooses to step in. I'm a very luck girl to be loved as much as I am. :)

*Note- Please do not actually call the police. Reporting a false emergency is a crime. 

Intimacy, Vulnerability, Safety

On Thursday night, after Malignus and I had returned home from the various things we'd done that day, he called me into the bedroom. His tone was very gentle, but the words that he chose left no room for confusion. "Come into the bedroom and shut the door," is Malignus for "it's time for a spanking."

It was the 31st, and therefore time to finish up the remaining spankings from New Years. There were five days worth of spanking left to be accounted for. Instead of grabbing a handful of random implements like he did last time, though, this time, Malignus was simply holding one: the hairbrush.

This particular hairbrush is a formidable adversary. It's an antique, oval shaped brown ebony hairbrush that WearYouOut gave to me as a gift, and it's as solid as a rock. It has a fairly small spanking surface compared to some other hairbrushes. Being totally honest, it's probably my favorite implement that is currently in our collection. Hairbrush spankings just feel right to me. They work perfectly for OTK and they have the traditional and domestic feeling that I really prefer over the more BDSM-y feeling implements. There's also the fact that a hairbrush was the first implement which I was spanked with all those years ago, which gives it the highest level of familiarity to me. This particular hairbrush is a favorite because while it's very emotionally comfortable for me, it hurts like a sonofabitch. It's one of the most severe OTK implements that we own. I'm all about the combination of feeling emotionally comfortable while being physically pushed towards my limits, and this is an implement which works well for that.

The hairbrush in question is balanced on my back after PTL and Heather Green gave me my first ever spanking with it at Shadowlane.

As warm as my feelings are towards that hairbrush, it certainly causes my stomach to flop whenever it's about to be used. The idea of getting five sets of 67 swats with it was a little intimidating, to say the least. Still, I was excited. I really wanted a spanking. It had been absolutely freezing outside that night: -32F after the windchill and I had been outdoors and walking through the snow far more than I would have preferred to. I felt chilled to the bone. I could think of nothing that would warm me like a spanking would.

Malignus sat down on the bed and set out pillows for my face as I bared myself for the spanking. I was wearing layers to protect from the cold: jeans under a sweater dress. I decided to take my jeans all the way off, then pulled down my panties and gathered my dress at my waist. Then I got over his lap. Malignus rubbed my back gently for a moment and then announced: "I'm going to spank you now."

The first line of conversation during a spanking starts the tone of the scene for me. "Hold still, I'm gonna hit you with stuff" is the start of a lighthearted or arbitrary spanking. "Why are you getting this spanking, Alex?" leaves no question in my mind that the spanking to follow will be chastising. "I'm going to spank you now" makes me feel instantly submissive. In the context of a scene, just hearing the word "spank" sends a shiver down my spine. It makes the spanking feel very real right away, and gives me a sense of safety and security. The calm and confident assurance that I'm going to be spanked makes aware that while the spanking is something that I personally desired, it's happening because it was decided by him, and that's a feeling that gives me a lot of comfort.

The spanking itself was hard, and it hurt in a way that only a spanking given to me by Malignus with that particular hairbrush has ever hurt. It's a deep penetrating hurt which buzzes and sparks and burns. As often happens, I met the beginning of the spanking with some resistance: mostly whining and wailing sounds and some wiggling. At one point, when I became particularly vocal, Malignus reminded me that "it's supposed to hurt." In some contexts, that sounds trite, almost mocking. Here, it was reassuring and gave me a positive reminder of what I wanted from the spanking. I wanted it to hurt. It wouldn't be a "real" spanking if it didn't. I tried to focus on that fact, instead of on the areas of my mind which wanted to escape from the pain, which didn't want to accept the spanking.

After what felt like a long time, Malignus stopped and told me that we were 3/5ths of the way through the spanking. It felt to me as if the entire thing should have been done by then, but this information gave me a feeling of resignation. Following this, we had a conversation which made me feel significantly more vulnerable, but also very safe and submissive. He asked me if I wanted the rest of the spanking to be on my bare bottom or if I'd rather redress. He assured me that the rest of the spanking would be with the hairbrush, and reminded me of just how much that hurt. I knew what I wanted: that I really did want to be bare and vulnerable and that I wanted the spanking to hurt as much as possible. The trouble was in saying this. Malignus gave me as long as I needed to "really think about what I was saying" and gently rubbed my back as I thought. This pushed me over some sort of edge. I felt the rest of my resistance crumbling, and with it, a lot of the stress that had accumulated through regular every day life. I started to cry. There was something different about starting to cry during a part of a spanking that wasn't physically painful. It felt...pure. I felt genuine with myself, like I wasn't keeping anything back. It was at that point that I asked to be spanked on the bare, so he began to spank me again.

I perceived the next "set" as being much harder than those that had come before, but this was probably because of my mental and emotional state. I tried hard to represent the submission that I was feeling internally in the way that I was responding, but I'm not sure if I did this ideally or not. I know that I cried, and I cried away all the things that were feeling wrong in me. When the fourth set was finished, Malignus told me that he'd be finishing up with his hand. Hand spanking is the most intimate thing for me. I obviously don't mean this in a sexual way, but I feel the strongest connection, the most closeness and the strongest form of physical communication from an OTK spanking with just a hand. This was perfect then. When he finished the final set, we exchanged our final "Happy New Years!" statements, although I hardly remember this. He then went on to spank me more, just because he felt like it.

When it was finished, I felt positively edified. It's the only word I have for it. I felt like I'd not just spewed out all the stress that was in me in the form of tears on my pillow, but I'd instead replaced it with some sort of tranquility and a renewal of strength. I know that this might sound almost silly, but it was a profound experience for me.

It's really wonderful to be loved.