A Very Long Walk

I'm back!
FINALLY!
I've never let this blog sit around uncared for for such a long time. I finally have the basic pieces of my life in order now, though: my house is nearly unpacked, I have most of the furniture that I require and all of my appliances, my cats are happily adjusted to the new home and, perhaps most importantly, I finally have internet. It took them two weeks to get around to setting it up. It was ridiculous. I got tremendously behind on everything that I needed to do, since nearly all of it involves being online.
I'm finally getting caught up now. It's very time consuming.

But life is good.

Paul and I are growing into a comfortable lifestyle as things get settled. Like everyone else in the world, we spend most of our days doing our respective jobs, but we both do large parts of that from home so we spend a lot of time together. I make dinner nearly every night and do lots of baking, which makes me happy. Between work and chores and making cookies, there's time for me to do the silly things that I like, such as drawing with sidewalk chalk, chasing my cats around and doing craft projects such as making foxes out of paper.

Two dozen cookies from scratch, one dozen foxes from construction paper

After I made them, Paul used string to carefully hang them from the weeping branches of the tree in our yard, whose trunk is wrapped with tiny, solar powered Christmas lights. Our mail box is matte black, so I color on it with the sidewalk chalk. We have a pumpkin on our stoop and yellow flowers growing in a planter. It's so incredibly obvious that I live here. It's a very happy house.

Paul and I have grown very comfortably into having D/s as part of our daily lives instead of maintaining a long distance relationship, probably partially because the foundation that we built during the time that we were long distance was so strong. Aiding in the ease of this transition is the fact that we both have a very strong and well defined idea of what we want from one such relationship and that those ideas are very much in line (see also, our compatibility). I'm sure that being seriously in love doesn't hurt, either.

Just as our daily life has become very domesticated, our daily kink life has, too, in a way that I find infinitely comforting. Spanking fits into our daily life seamlessly. It's the most natural thing in the world. Our bedtime ritual involves me getting spanked each night as a re-affirmative act, but spankings just happen throughout the day, too, whether it's taking a break from work for spontaneous play or setting time aside to address something more serious.

Interestingly, now that I'm living in a location where I have a lot more kinky friends and scene activities to participate in, I've found myself much more involved and interested in my vanilla life. I've been reconnecting with old friends, doing personal writing projects, doing craft projects, doing more baking and more experimental cooking and just generally rediscovering interests that I had put aside.

One thing that I really like is walking. That sounds like a very lame thing to like, doesn't it? I do, though. In college, Zeki and I used to walk huge distances, sometimes passing through two or three towns, or even out of the county. We'd talk and share stories. Some of our best mutual ideas were fostered during these walks. Other days, I would walk by myself, usually on a shady trail that followed the Bronx River. I would get deeply involved in daydreaming and often make up spanking stories in my head or review others that I really enjoyed, sometimes from films, sometimes from my own limited experiences with SF.

The other day I decided to go take a walk, since I needed to talk to someone on the phone I get antsy when I'm just sitting still when I'm on the phone. Paul was working in the study, so I told him I'd be back shortly. I did plan to be back shortly. Maybe I didn't really plan at all, because I was wearing jelly flip-flops and I didn't have any water with me and it was a particularly dry, hot day. None the less, my conversation ended pretty quickly, but I kept walking for a while, daydreaming happily like I used to do. I realized that I was walking in the direction of a particular major road where Target is located, and I decided that it would be neat if I walked all the way there. It's about a mile away from my house, so it was certainly feasible-- I've done 8 - 10 mile walks in the past. I needed to go there anyway, and I estimated that I was about halfway there already. I'd walk the rest of the way, get the hangers I needed and then walk home.

Unfortunately, I wasn't actually walking the way that I thought I was.

Two miles later, I was hot, dehydrated and tired. My feet were incredibly sore and seriously blistered. I decided that I needed to give up and turn around.

I tried to walk home, but I got about six blocks before I realized that there was no way I could possibly do that. I was tired. I needed a drink. This was a stupid idea.

I slowly began to realize how poorly I had planned this. Why did I think it was a good idea to walk in the heat without water or proper shoes? I hadn't even told Paul where I was going, and he was under the impression I was going to be back shortly. I realized that I'd been gone for nearly an hour. Under the strap of my sandal, my feet looked like they were about to bleed.

It was then that I realized I was going to have to ask Paul to come get me in the car. It was also then that I realized that I was probably going to be in pretty serious trouble. Taking care of myself is pretty much rule #1. This was a serious failure in that department.

Well, fuck.

Paul agreed to come get me without really saying anything about it, but as soon as I got into the car, I knew that he was seriously displeased with me.

"Are you mad?" I asked, my voice small and meek.
"You're going to be punished when we get home" was his only response. We drove back in silence. I could do nothing but think about how thoughtless this had been. I'd interrupted Paul's working. I had entirely failed at taking care of myself. Tears ran down my face, and I sniffled a bit.

As soon as we got in the door, Paul turned to me and said "Go to your room." I went into our bedroom and flopped on the bed. I didn't want to stand up. My feet hurt too much. I was hot. I was tired. I was in big, big trouble. I lay there like a lump, doing an activity which really can't be described as anything but "sulking." In the seeming eternity (but actually one or two minutes) before Paul came in I could hear him moving around in the kitchen. Then I heard the sound of a cabinet being opened and shut again, and my heart began to pound.

There's a shallow, white cabinet in the kitchen. It's separated from the other kitchen cupboards and obviously original to the house, but it's only about three inches deep. I'm not sure what it was used for, but it's become the official storage place for some of our meanest implements.

I wanted to mope about the fact that I was about to be seriously corrected, but I couldn't bring myself to. I knew that I deserved it. Still, my tummy hurt.

Paul finally came into the room holding a cane. I had sort of known that was going to be the end of this story from the moment that I realized that I had messed up so badly, but the reality of the situation was sinking in very quickly.

In addition to feeling upset about how thoughtless my actions were, I had been really focused on worrying that Paul was mad at me for inconveniencing him. Having to stop your work to go rescue a silly girl who got herself into a mess is bound to annoy anyone. But once he began to scold me, I realized that he was much more upset about the fact that something bad could have happened to me. I felt very loved as he lectured me about thinking before I did things and taking care of myself. I could feel how precious I am to him, and how he won't let any harm come to me, even through my own poor judgement.

Then he ordered me over the bed and began to spank me. While technically a warmup, he started hard and furiously. In my tired, vulnerable state, I pretty instantly started to sob hard, offering absolutely no emotional resistance to the spanking. I needed it. I knew that.

I felt impossibly sore after the warm up, but this was probably mostly because of my mental state at the time. Then Paul ordered me to kneel up on the bed, which I did quickly. I kept my feet off the edge of the bed because they had gotten filthy as I was walking around on the dusty sidewalks in flip flops. Paul noticed this, too, and said "You'll clean your feet after this," which I quietly affirmed through my tears. "Get down on your elbows," he told me, and this made me cry harder, but I did as I was told. This position means only one thing: strokes to the tender area where my thighs and bottom meet. Paul then tapped my bottom with the cane before simply saying "Ten."

The first stroke startled me into some sort of clarity for a second, although after the initial crack, during that long moment when the pain begins to built and develop, I felt overtaken by hurting and began to cry again. The next two or three were quickly paced-- no time for one to finish building before the next and I could make no attempt at processing them. I wailed. After five strokes, he gave me a little break, pressing his hand against the welts in the same motion that I do when a beating is over. The pressure seems to hold the pain in for a moment. I caught my breath, but didn't slow my sobbing.

The next two strokes were to that aforementioned tender area. I did my best not to yell, but I felt an overpowering warmth: burning, biting, pinching, gnawing heat. The rest of the strokes came in quick succession, and after each one, my cries became louder and more desperate.

It's a very good thing that we live in a house instead of an apartment. I'm....noisy.

When the whole thing was over, Paul immediately sat down on the bed and pulled me onto his lap, holding me close to him. I wiped tears all over my face in some attempt of cleaning myself up and apologized over and over. He stroked my hair and told me he forgave me.

Part of our protocol surrounding scenes is that I always thank him for spanking me. This is something that I initiated because it makes me feel very submissive in the best way. After being soundly punished I felt a bit shy to say this this time, but I managed it out in a coy whisper. "Good girl," he told me, kissing my forehead. I sat there on his lap for a long time, entirely vulnerable, my bottom aching and burning but my tears drying. I felt lucky to be so loved. I was filled with contentment.

Finally, I felt calm enough to get up and get myself properly cleaned up. I rinsed my feet off and then climbed into a cool bath, the water still feeling tingly and antagonistic against my welts. I was glad, though. I didn't want them to be fully soothed. I didn't stop to take a picture of the lines, but they were impressive: perfectly parallel and close enough together that they very nearly touched, but not quite.

Anyway, I'm back now. I'll be updating one to two times a week, as I used to. I've missed writing, and I hope you've missed reading.♥