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.

Tricky Pervertables

I've often daydreamed about a world where spankos took up enough of the market that pervertables marketed themselves towards us. Imagine a world where you could read the blurb on the back of the a hairbrush and have it point out that besides having high quality bristles for hair brushing, the spanking surface on the back is made of durable wood for an excellent combination of sting and thud.

Alas, this isn't the case. No one seems to want to admit why, exactly, people prefer wooden spoons to the plastics and silicone coated one (I'm not even ALLOWED to use wooden spoons in the kitchen!) and the world seems to think that there are people who wash themselves with brushes in the shower (weird).

There is, however, some marketing being done to spanko bottoms in a very tricky way. The people who make pervertables are trying to sell more by subtly convincing us that they won't be so bad. The first time I noticed this trend was when I saw a particular bathbrush show up on several people's fetlife profiles. I recently purchased this for five dollars at Walmart:

The sticker reads "Soft and Cruelty Free!"

No. Incorrect. I haven't been hit with it yet, but I know for a fact that bathbrushes are neither of those things. I don't think someone could make a bathbrush spanking nice if they tried.

I noticed the next one in a local cooking store and made a very scrunchy face indeed at the false advertising:

The brand on this wooden turner is "SoftWorks." This doesn't even make sense. It doesn't have a soft and cushy handle. It isn't meant to be used on something soft. It's wood, for the love of all that is reasonable! Wood isn't soft. I suppose wood chips could be soft, the kind one would use to line a rabbit hutch or something, but that's the only time that wood can ever be described as anything other than hard.

Finally, my spanko-sister, PeachyKeane, sent me this as part of a care package:

I understand that this is a plastic hairbrush, but that doesn't make it ouchless. If I've learned one thing in my spankolife, it's that anything with a handle can be used for spanking and anything that can be used for spanking can be made to hurt. Even things that technically can't be used for spanking (like a dishtowel) can be made to hurt. Don't fall for this trap. I bet it can still be ouchful.

It's a pretty clever method of increasing sales, though. A female bottom in the market for a brush for her hair could very well want to pick one that can't also be used on her poor, innocent bottom. In the past, I've avoided this by choosing pink and girly hairbrushes that Tops wouldn't want to touch. I've heard that other girls enjoy those entirely round brushes that have no spanking surface at all. Now that I've purchased four bathbrushes, when I put them all next to each other, the one that tells me it's cruelty free DOES seem a little less terrifying. I'm not buying the "soft" wood, though. Screw you, wooden spoons. I've had more than enough of you recently! (Does this attitude come from a recent experience that has left me with residual soreness? Why yes it does.)

First Party: Final Chapter

A couple more stories from the party, then tomorrow, we move on to other topics in Spankingland. Besides the sjambok, another one of the "scary" implements that was brought to the cabin was TNSpanker's cricket bat. I was offered a go at being hit with it on the first night, but, as previously mentioned, I was liquored up and I'm not permitted to play with people I don't know when I've been drinking . This rule is especially important when the fact that I'm a lightweight (in terms of alcohol) is considered. Because of this, I only drank on the first night, and on the second night, I was ready to experience the cricket bat. It had to be located first, because apparently my request to be hit with horrible things interfered with some of the other girls' plan to hide horrible things. I wasn't given that memo and ended up getting them (mainly Megan) in a boatload of trouble later on. Anyway, TNS hit me with the cricket bat a few times and it was kind of awesome. It was just thud, and the thrill of being hit with a large, blunt object hadn't gone away just because I'd been beaten with a tree earlier in the day. I actually really enjoyed it. Then Malignus hit me with it three times and I screamed a lot. Then he hit my thigh with it and I think I stopped having bones for a minute and collapsed into a pile of mush on the back of the couch until he hugged me back to life. Don't worry: the whole thing happened under a doctor's supervision. The risk of SBD was managed!

Yep: I uploaded the same photo twice. You guys can deal. Anyway, the cricket bat was like a paddle that had been taking the same drugs that the cane that grew into the sjambok took. When I told Serious_Face that I'd been spanked with one, he was a combination of excited and pissed. Apparently it was something he'd always fantasized about doing to a girl but had never actually done because he thought it was "too extreme." It's not, by the way. It's extremely scary and extremely awesome, but not "too" anything.

Later that night, I went downstairs with Drlectr to have a quiet conversation (because there was a lot of spanking going on in the main room and spanking distracts me quite a bit when I'm trying to talk) and it ended with me asking him to spank me. It was an incredibly nice scene. I think about it and my eyes get kind of glossy for a second before I say "it was niiiiiiiice." It was fairly long (I think: I lose track of time pretty quickly under these circumstances) and it was all hand-spanking on my bare bottom, which is my favorite of all possible things. He was really good at what he did: he varied speed and tempo and intensity in a way that made me simultaneously relaxed, happy and chock full of endorphins.

Most spanko girls who hang out with me have probably heard me bitch about the fact that I don't usually experience the endorphin side of things unless I'm getting positively murdered, and even then, I don't have a traditional subspace experience. I did once after Malignus gave me an extended hand-spanking after I'd had a very thorough spanking indeed a few hours earlier, and another time, I got kind of "high" from a fairly gentle spanking and walked around with a pillow in my mouth after like that was normal. But my normal experience involves me crying and wailing a lot during a spanking and only feeling typical "good" feelings while basking in it afterwards. This time, things lined up right so that I got a lot of endorphines. A lot. I made a lot of noise during the spanking, but it was pretty much just moaning. I'd imagine that it sounded pretty sexual to anyone listening. It wasn't sexual for me, but I don't really have a word for what it was. It was really, really enjoyable. It hurt in a way that didn't feel like pain, even though I was aware that I was in pain. I drifted and had a very loose connection with my body and with reality. It was very lovely indeed.

At the end of the day, I was very sore and very warm and happy.

Malignus gave me a bedtime spanking shortly thereafter which only heightened my snuggly spaciness. There was only one thing not right with the world as I fell asleep with my head against his chest: the next day, ellee and YS were leaving. We were all technically supposed to be leaving, but Drlectr and Megan had arranged for us to have the cabin for an extra night and quite a number of us were staying.

The next morning, I slept in pretty late. It was glorious: I'd been a little sick this entire time and I'd had trouble sleeping. I even slept through Malignus giving ellee a fairly hardcore caning not that far outside my door. I've clearly made some progress with being freaked out by hearing other people being spanked. :P Soon, the reality that ellee and YS were going home soon was being drilled into me by YS scolding ellee to get her stuff ready and into the car. SAD! There was something that I wanted to do before ellee was tragically pulled from me by circumstance.

ellee is really good at comforting. One of the nights I had a temporary episode of "teh sad" and I ended up crying to her about something (once in a while, I can be a woman. Sue me.) and I was kind of amazed by how awesome she was at making me feel better. When she was hugging my head and being a warm and affectionate presence, I was able to quickly cope with the stuff that was making me have said sad and get back to being all happy-faced. So, once I was awake, I asked Malignus to quickly do a science experiment and see if I was well enough to be spanked (between the soreness and the sickness). This science was conducted with that big-ass spoon in the above photo, which is named Fluffy!® I was really, really sore: about halfway through, Malignus asked me if I wanted him to spank my thighs and I gave a very genuine "YES" that wasn't driven by submission in the least. It was because they had gotten much less abuse than my bottom had during that particular weekend. The thigh swats actually hurt A LOT less than the ones on my bottom had, and that's impressive, because my thighs are very pain sensitive (all that constant hitting hasn't made them any less) and I still have more self preservation about them than most other parts of my body. The science proved that I was still spankable.

Once that was established, I asked Malignus to give me a spanking like he would at home. As a general rule, he doesn't give out "real" or "full" beatings at parties: it's not the right environment for it. Besides, a girl is going to want to play more and doesn't want to be so sore she can't move (except maybe me. Because I'm insane like that.) The thing I wanted, however, was for ellee to give me moral support during the spanking. It sounded like it would be awesome. Both Malignus and ellee agreed to this.

This was hanging in our room in the cabin! So appropriate!

So, Malignus spanked me crazy hard with a feared and detested wooden spoon named Jenny and ellee snuggled my face and told me what a good girl I was, and how submissively I was taking my beating and how much everyone loved me. It might sound kind of dumb, but it was totally awesome. Her praise and comfort lifted me up and made me want to take more and take it well. I'm not going to lie: earlier today, when I was getting a spanking for saying that we could use magic to turn HeatherFeather's dog into a cat, I started thinking about that earlier scene and the way ellee made me feel and it helped me to not focus on processing the spanking as it was happening and therefore allowed me to take it with less resistance. Basically: I love ellee and everything to do with her.

Eventually, though, she and YS had to leave. I started suffering from ellee drop right away. Fortunately, there were other awesome people still at the party. It was during this time that I got spanked by Latte. That was very enjoyable and had several particularly cool things about it. For one, she's left handed. I've always wanted to be spanked by a left handed top. Besides the fun and excitement in something being different and in facing the other way while over her lap, there's the fact that she favored the opposite side than everyone else had, which helped to even out the symmetry of things. She was also a very good spanker: she spanked me with "good girl" implements at a nice pace for quite a long time and it was really relaxing and enjoyable. I sometimes mock lighter implements because I've always kind of assumed that if someone was going to give a "kind" spanking, they would use their hand. I kind of neglected the fact that most Tops hands eventually become tired and sore. I also sometimes forget that Tops can feel pain. :P

A little while after Latte had finished spanking me, Megan decided that she wanted to do so as well, and let me know by pulling me over her lap.

I didn't know if Megan wanted her face shown or not, and it was late at night so I erred on the side of caution.

Megan's spanking alternated between being nice and relaxing and hard and very stingy. You can see in the photo that I'm all kinds of marked up- you can even make out the sjambok bruising on my thighs. She actually made me tear up a little at one point, while making me coo and relax at other points in the same scene. It was all kinds of fun.

That night, we watched the Oscars and The Tree of Life didn't win anything, so I became sort of irate and yelled quite a bit about how Terrance Malick is a god among men and the politics of the Academy are corrupt and dumb. Also, somehow, this happened:

Poor, mistreated Alex! The night then went on to include a lot of chilling and some unforgettable ridiculosity, sponsored by Malibu.

The next morning, we got up, cleaned out the cabin and then went to take a walk through the surrounding town and get some breakfast. The meal was enjoyable, and the town was adorable! Megan bought me some candy in a chocolate store, we had a really tasty meal, I got to hug this stuffed dog:

TNSpanker finagled things so that I got to see this bear:

Ten and I learned about what makes a good belt when we visited a leatherworker's shop (I am still pretty sure the answer to that is that you season it with the screams and tears of many girls):

I look kinda awful here. I was pretty sleep deprived and sad that the weekend was ending.

and I thought this sign was funny:

After sad farewells in the parking lot, Malignus and I hit the road for what turned out to be an 18 hour trip home. Just in case anyone was wondering, an 18 hour car ride isn't exactly what one wants to do when one has a really freaking sore bottom. Ugggggh. It felt like it lasted forever.

So, I've finally finished telling the tale of my adventures. It only took me a really long time! I'm sorry a few days passed between posts because my life got a bit busy, and I'm sorry that this post is so hella long: I wanted to get the rest of the story told in one post like I said I could!

Regular programming begins again tomorrow. Stay tuned!

First Party: Chapter 3

Sometime after what shall forever be referred to as "The Bunny Incident," YS, Ten, Drlectr and Malignus were hanging out with ellee and I in the downstairs common area (AKA "ellee and Alex's Coloring Area") and more spanking fun was had. I have trouble identifying the order of events at this point, but there were several very fun scenes: at one point, ellee, Ten and I were in a row bent over the pool table as Malignus and YS spanked us with their belts. They both have very well-worn belts, and they were using them in a most enjoyable way (that is to say, not murdering us!) and as one of them worked their way down the line, the three of us yelped like some kind of cute musical instrument.

I think next was when Ten spanked ellee, taking her "being spanked by a girl" cherry. That was an adorable scene, and I really enjoyed watching Ten's toppy side. She was supposedly spanking ellee for taking 90 seconds too long to get YS a beer earlier in the afternoon, and she made her count to 90 strokes, but she kept losing count and those in the audience kept tricking her into saying lower numbers. At one point, Ten started over from the start. I like spankings with "audience participation" like that. Lots of fun. Plus, ellee is seriously the cutest spankee I've ever seen. She squeaks and squeals and wiggles and I am in love with her butt.

Observe!

Cutest ever! Photo of ellee used with permission

Malignus also demonstrated the horrors of Jenny to all the girls (you can see the marks on ellee above). Here are mine:

Aaaaand here's my favorite photo ever! Look at Malignus in the background being all full of sadistic pride and joy! That horrible thing in his hand is Jenny, btw.

Later, we attended a wedding that was held in the cabin and officiated by Megan. It was a really moving ceremony, and included "You may now spank the bride!" I look forward to when the day comes that I get spanked in my wedding dress. In the meantime, it was awesome fun to attend a wedding without putting on pants.

Later that night, I got "caught up with" regarding the bunny incident. I got a short but thorough caning. There was something really enjoyable about hanging out with friends and then being marched downstairs into the other room to get spanked. It felt like the world was right: we all knew what we did and no one was judging us. In fact, they were listening at the top of stairs as I was crying out and yelping. When I came back up they were laughing and smiling and such things. For some reason, that was the time when I was the most aware of this feeling in the cabin.

That evening, I got to have some topping fun with ellee:

She was wearing her famous Nintendo panties and I was wearing a Miffy shirt and we both had bows on, so you can rest assured that it was the cutest scene evar.

Later that night, YS spanked Ten for a long time and it made his hand explode horribly! I'd only seen this happen to this scale once before, and it took like, a week to get there.

It was a good thing it happened on the last night, though, because otherwise it would have been sad rest of the party for him. It did mean that I didn't get spanked by him as much as I'd like to, but I'll be visiting them in the future and I'm sure that will mean lots of spanking time. :D

There's still a little more to be said for what happened that night, but I'll hopefully be able to finish the rest of the stories tomorrow in Chapter 4. I hope you're not bored yet!