R/L: Dear You / being exposed, feeling seen

This was written as (and shared with him first, of course) a “letter” to my husband, processing a spanking he gave me a week ago Saturday. He said he wouldn’t mind if I shared it here and I felt it fit nicely with the anecdote at the end because it’s an illustration of an example of what I am talking about. I’ve experienced a few other moments of this feeling I describe, and maybe I’ll write about them someday.

This is about being seen, not just someone physically noticing you’re there with their eyes, but seeing inside of you, to the core of who you are, your vulnerabilities, your insecurities. Being seen like this is a form of knowing someone. To me, it feels like a form of love, a way of loving (and I don’t mean romantic love).

It’s a retelling – but not in story form or even as a reporting – about an intimate, close, hot, intense, beautiful moment between my husband and I.

o0o

Dear You,

Last Saturday, when you sent me that text, I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect since you said you’d had a fantasy. I suppose I was expecting, fully, something…sex motivated. But it was coming fully from you and unprompted, so I was excited either way. I did not expect to feel punished, chastised, or possessed, not that that’s a statement of complaint at all. Being fully from you, I wanted to hear you and be present. 

I don’t remember word-for-word, so I hope I capture the gist here. At first, hearing you tell me you felt neglected and like I’d forgotten you love me and are right here in front of me and also here to spank me and you were going to remind me tonight, stung. I was caught off guard and felt a little like it was an unfair characterization, but that was just initial defense I think. It doesn’t matter that I didn’t intend for you to feel neglected or forgotten about, it was clearly how you felt and how my preoccupation with what’s going on, made you feel. All I could do was look at my feet as you spoke. I was (and am) feeling emotionally raw enough that it didn’t take much.

Do you know how in my head you were? Deep. You surprised me, in the best possible way, but then I was a bit scared because I didn’t know what to expect again. I know I’ve been preoccupied but I also know I’ve been desperately trying to connect with both you and myself and it’s all felt out of reach, too far away. I know if I had said something, you would have stopped, but it felt…right. This isn’t something we really do, engage with spanking in this way, but it immediately put me at ease to know it was coming from you and it was clearly something you were taking seriously. My only goal became hearing and seeing you and accepting this spanking with grace. With my submission.

I suppose starting with a hard hand spanking that was very much not a warm-up didn’t surprise me, but it was so hard, I was worried about you choosing implements! My shorts were too short and I never felt like I got the protection of layers – not that it matters. Being stood up to have them taken down to my ankles, to watch you select an implement, see you choose the ebony…

That you went for the ebony hairbrush on your own, when you don’t prefer it, and know the effect it has on me, made me nervous – for good reason, of course. I knew how it would feel, that I’d lose control, that it would hurt. I wanted to be good and obedient and take this spanking – this punishment – that was from you, for how my behavior had made you feel. I wanted you to hurt me. 

The ebony always makes me struggle. It always makes me kick. I was going to break at some point anyway – the emotional rawness of the last two months, and that moment, catching up to me, but when I struggled and you held me tighter, and said (almost too softly), “I know”…that’s when I did. It was still a difficult spanking for me to take but that’s the moment I lost control and any resistance left, broke. I think you felt that, but I’m glad you didn’t stop right away. It reinforced that I was not in control and this was your spanking to give.

I know it wasn’t anger, but it felt like possession and I liked that. I liked that it came fully from you. I liked that it was you showing you knew me, my head, my sense of self. It felt like you saw I was struggling and floundering with my emotional state and you reached out, offering me the rescue of taking control, offering to help balance me.

Having to take your belt off and hand it to you, knowing you’d be thrashing my already stinging bottom with it, was heady as fuck. Being strapped after the hairbrush always hurts more, because of how wood stings the skin on top of leaving a deep ache. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to take it for you. Moving to the strap and allowing me to lay down, helped. 

Although I knew it was coming, because of your text, feeling your finger – cool from the lube – pressing into me, still surprised me. Perhaps that always will and perhaps it’s a good thing. Nothing makes me feel as though I can’t hide, as that. It’s comforting, grounding, and a very tangible sense of giving up physical control. I was grateful you started with a small plug, because it had been a while, but it would have also felt right if you’d gone straight to the larger one and I felt the discomfort of that. I suppose I should have expected more spanking once the plug was in, but that’s not something we do a lot of either, so it was a less familiar sensation.

It’s always embarrassing for me when you remove the smaller plug (or, well, your finger) to replace it with something larger. Something I will feel even more. Something to make me feel full and very aware of my bottom. I even wanted the mild discomfort of feeling you press it into me, slowly but firmly, reminding me who was in control.

Although it was an explicit acknowledgement of the kink non-monogamous part of our relationship, feeling you press the plug into me, telling me I can do this with other people, that someone else can press their finger or a plug into my bottom, and you’re happy for that, that you won’t be jealous, as long as you know, made me feel as though I belong to you. Not owned, but rather that we’ve given ourselves to each other in this way; this home base that we maintain and nurture, to come back to even when there’s others. This was a reminder of that. Not that I’d forgotten, but reminding ourselves of this first is part of nurturing us. The reminder that there can be others only made me feel closer to you, made me feel loved by you.

It felt like you were explicitly acknowledging and showing that commitment, in this moment. Being told that there were also some things that I only do at home, though, unless you specifically tell me to, well…honestly, I think this was the hottest spanking you’ve ever given me. There’s a contradiction there, because I felt punished, but because the sense of discipline that involves being seen so thoroughly is at the core of my kink and that is also the core of my sexuality, I can’t divorce the two. I know it’s often frustrating when spanking is not sexual for me, and discipline isn’t really in the moment, but this is how to access the parts of me that can see it that way. Also, though these moments with you were decidedly more sexual, they still felt a part of the whole, the discipline, not about the sexual part.

Taking you into my mouth after being told to get on my knees, while my bottom ached from beating and was full from a plug you pressed inside of me, had me at my most submissive. Hearing you tell me, while I was full of you, that you might tell me to do this with someone else, sent my head spinning. I had accepted my punishment, I wanted to, and feeling in service to you was part of that, however brief it was. The casualness of having my pajamas put back on, my sore and full bottom patted, and going to watch TV with you on the couch in our living room like any other night, had me feeling deeply content.

I won’t call it play or a scene or whatever, but doing this thing with you, in this moment, seeing it come from you so completely, and seeing your confidence in doing all of it, made me feel closer to you than I have in a very long time.

I love you. Thank you.

M

When someone knows you well enough, that looking you in your eyes and asking if you believe some behavior of yours was right or appropriate, is enough to make you cry, that’s a powerful thing. When they say they hope you correct it/don’t repeat it, not because they’re asking you to, but because it’s the right thing to do, and all you can do is cry while your face flushes, and you look at your lap, and nod, and they don’t even have to say anything because they already know your answer. When simply pointing out that they saw it, know it’s not indicative of the kind of person you want to be, and say it to your face, not with even a sliver of judgement, but simple knowledge of it, is enough. They need not even scold you, all they have to do is bring your own behavior and your disappointment in yourself, to the surface, so you can’t hide from it. It’s not about them having authority over you at all, but rather their ability to see your insecurities, expose them, hold them, and ideally – put them back together.

Not a finger needs to be lifted for discipline, to be felt. There need not be rules or a formal dynamic, there only need be connection. For me, spanking is an important component of the discipline I seek, but the realization that it’s just as much – if not more – about psychological and emotional vulnerability first, is what creates both the possibility for the physical, and also creates the risk. Big risk = big reward, but it also means a greater chance for harm if the risk is miscalculated. That has driven my hesitancy, nay, avoidance, of seeking it out at all for nearly my entire life.

I avoided it so thoroughly that I barely have the vocabulary to talk about it, even with close friends. It’s been seen as an attempt to hide things, but the reality is, I am so slowly learning how to engage with this part of my kink that I only just feel competent to talk about it. And it’s a part of me!

But that’s the hunt, right? For me. That’s what I want. I want to be seen in this way that exposes me to someone with whom that exposure is safe.

But is it worth the risk? I think I was brave (or stupid/foolish?) enough, once, after a very long time, to think so. Now, I’m not sure. I don’t mean like I’ve described with my husband above, which was a unique moment that I will cherish forever – whether or not we can capture it again in the future, but with others.

Anyway, that’s what’s on my mind – my mind that is both racing with anxiety these days and frozen with fear lately. My mind that is desperate for connection and feeling grief and loss and also pride because I am also temporarily solo-parenting through it all, and I am doing a good job.

I’m here – I’m around, I guess.

-M