Sore bum

It's been a while since I had a proper caning - by which I mean delivered because I actually deserved it. For that matter, it's been a while since I was in trouble.

I can now confirm that yes, I still hate having to stay still and quiet for a caning (thin walls...). And I still hate being in trouble. But? I still love knowing that M will hold me to account when I deserve it. And I still love the stinging, burning, throbbing, tingling lines across my bum, afterwards.

Serenity made a post recently about there being an important distinction between enjoying the knowledge that you do something, without actually enjoying doing it. It definitely applies here.

Merry Christmas

One of my unofficial Christmas presents this year has been a re-activation, if you will, of M taking a more active role in keeping me on the straight and narrow. I've had some rules over the last few months (maintaining a bedtime routine, needing separate permissions for masturbating and orgasming, being naked when we're at home without guests) but calling me to account for them hasn't gone as we planned as it turns out that I will just let it slide, and slide, and slide. I also decided to give myself a star chart for December around some household chores, more to get some sense of how often they're done, but it's acted a bit as a motivator as well.

So since the 24th I've had to finish my bedtime routine and then bend over the end of the bed and wait for him. He's now the one who decides how many stars I deserve, and he also decides whether to get an implement out or not.

Given that we've only been doing this for three days so far, it's not very promising that I've already been spanked twice, although fortunately only mildly. The first time was on the first night, a few relatively light swats with his belt I think mostly to get my attention and to reinforce that he can spank me even if I haven't been naughty. But last night I got some swats from our heavier, scarier paddle for forgetting to do my physio exercises (um, forgetting for a week, actually). Nowhere near as devastating as it can be, just hard enough make my body jerk in response and my breath huff out and my hands to grip the bedclothes harder and my brain to ask why I was so stupid as to not do the exercises.

One thing's for sure, it's a definite incentive to make sure I do them today. I do not want to give him reason to use it any harder!

(I'm writing this whilst taking a break from writing out 100 lines for him, by the way. Not punishment lines, 'just' reinforcement lines. Unfortunately my hand's still as sore as though they were punishment lines :-( And the kicker is I already did them last week but I'd remembered what he'd dictated the line to be just slightly differently from what he'd actually said and now I have to re-do them!)

School

There hasn't been much talk here recently about school, so I suppose I should say something. It's going okay - I'm enjoying the subjects a lot more this term as they're all my choices with no more compulsory ones. I've got some of my grades back for the mini tests I took before Christmas. None of them count towards our degrees, they're just to help us check how much we have understood the compulsory material. In statistics I got 6/11 - rather annoyed about this as you may recall that I got 8/10 in the mini test five weeks before. Interestingly at the start of this term they put the results online with explanations next to each one you got wrong, and I saw I'd got the first six right and the last five wrong. I think my brain gave out...

I also got my mark back for another course (I can't tell you what without worrying that I'd compromise my anonymity, it's a relatively unusual degree and a relatively unusual course and there weren't that many of us taking it), but all I know is that I got a B - I don't know how many of the 25 questions I got right or which ones I got wrong - I'm a bit annoyed about this, actually, although the grade itself is okay.

I've another test waiting for me to remember to collect it from the office, and have yet to hear about another test or the essay I wrote.

For those of you who might be interested, M and I agreed that anything under 50% or a C grade would necessitate a discussion - not necessarily a punishment because it would depend on the circumstances, but I would need to explain what had happened and what steps I would be taking to improve.

To be honest I haven't really been spanked all that much recently. I got a strapping last Tuesday for losing my temper and acting on it - I felt completely horrible, I do have a temper and it does get the better of me, but not usually to the point where I do something foolish. I felt so ashamed already, and then M said, in his 'disappointed' tone of voice that it wasn't really the kind of behaviour he wanted people to see from his girl, and I just wanted to curl up and die.

But apart from that, and a token spanking on Saturday night (one minute late to bed last week plus forgot to wash my face before going to bed one night), I can't actually remember the last time I was spanked. But I hasten to add that this is because my mind is so taken up with my new classes and so forth that everything else is slipping, and not because it was actually that long ago!

Disobedient

I mentioned last week that over Christmas I had a bout of feeling cut loose, disconnected, not grounded, because my rules didn't apply when I was with M. We're now tentatively feeling our way towards putting some in place. In the mean time we've managed to work our way back to feeling connected with each other and grounded in our roles and responsibilities.

A large part of this reconnecting and re-grounding (for me at least) happened last night. When M, feeling that I was once more sufficiently reconnected and grounded to appreciate the importance, brought up my behaviour on New Year's Eve and New Year's day.

On New Year's Eve I woke up feeling anxious and disconnected (yes, I know I'm using this word a lot but it's the right one). It's a long-standing rule that M has access to any part of me whenever and wherever he wants. Normally I very much enjoy this rule and certainly feeling his hand slip inside my pyjama trousers while we're waking up in the morning is hardly a new experience. But on this morning I was about as far from a submissive headspace as it's possible to get. Part of me was still remembering my rules and knew I had to put my hands behind me and open my legs, to give him unrestricted access. The rest of me was resentfully wondering who the hell he thought he was to touch me like that. I managed to work myself up into such a state that within a few minutes I had to tell him that I felt violated.

We stopped and cuddled and talked. I cried. M spent a lot of time reassuring me. Towards the end of the conversation I rather hesitantly asked if I could have some rules for the day, as I felt they would help me to feel more connected and also reassure me that I was his as I'd begun to feel like I wasn't.

Among my rules, we agreed that while visiting a friend's house for the New Year's Eve party I was not allowed on furniture without permission. This included chairs, the arms of sofas, and so forth. I was permitted to sit on the floor, on stairs or on other people. I specifically asked for this rule, as it has previously made me feel extremely owned and submissive to his authority.

As we were getting dressed M also decided that I was to wear something around my neck all day. It would have to be something acceptable in general public as we would be out for most of the day, so he tied one of his ties around my neck. I was already dressed and the shirt I was wearing did not have a collar. Then I realised that none of the shirts I had with me were appropriate to wear with ties. I grew very unhappy with this and also within minutes felt like it was suffocating me although it wasn't at all tight. Looking back on it now I realise that the feeling was essentially a negative response to the loss of freedom that the tie symbollised. It didn't stay symbollic for long, though - I looked up at M from my position on the floor, gathering together the things I needed for the day, and said "I'm not wearing this any more." And took it off and threw it on the floor.

We have a rule that if M puts something on me or in me, it stays there until he decides it comes off/out again.

I also did not replace it with anything, not even a necklace, despite M having just told me I was to have something around my neck all day, and so spent the rest of the day (until 4am the next morning, in fact) with a naked neck.

When I was yanking the tie off I suppose part of me did realise that what I was doing was naughty, but I didn't stop to consider this at all. In fact it wasn't until M sat me down yesterday and walked me through what happened, that I realised the full import of what I'd done.

Later that afternoon we were at the party at our friend's house, and M came through to find me sitting on a sofa and chatting with another friend. Several conversations later I wandered out to find him again, having just remembered that I was not supposed to sit on the furniture. I don't remember exactly what I said, but it was along the lines of "I've been sitting on the furniture, I've only just realised and I don't know how many times I've broken the rule." It didn't seem particularly important to me, it never occurred to me that I might get into trouble over it. I continued to use the furniture normally for the rest of the night. I completely failed to spot M's small comments and looks of disappointment.

Looking back on it now I find it difficult to believe how far I'd drifted away from my usual attentive, submissive thought patterns. At one point I commented to M that I'd kept using the furniture even after I'd remembered that I wasn't supposed to, because it genuinely hadn't seemed like a big deal and I really didn't think he cared (as opposed to trying to get a reaction from him, in which case I'd usually tell him that I was thinking of doing something naughty in order to get a reaction, rather than actually doing it. Normally I'm a pretty good girl...).

So yesterday, off and on through the day, M and I talked about this. And in the evening when my housemates had gone out, he punished me.

A couple of months ago we went to a fetish fair and picked up a small rubber paddle with a tire tread pattern down one side. It was small and heavy and when he'd tried it on my hand in the market, I'd thought I'd quite like it. Unfortunately I'd learnt the opposite almost as soon as we'd got home and after that first experiment had declared it "awful" and "horrible" and hidden it behind all the other toys. Well, because this was a serious punishment for a serious transgression, M used it. Between its effects and my suddenly overwhelming guilt at being such a Bad Girl (I don't normally think of it as Bad, in my head 'Bad' translates to 'irredeemable' and 'not to be bothered with'. We tend to talk about me being naughty), I couldn't stop crying. At one point I was nearly hysterical, despite M not actually using very much force - I've certainly had much harder play spankings - and he had to pause and make me have a drink to get me to calm down. After the paddle M had used the cane but only lightly, stinging little cuts that I hate. I was frantically wriggling to avoid them, and crying as hard as ever. And then it got worse.

I'd confessed to him earlier that for me anal play is very much about power exchange and, if it's my anus, about his control over me (I can't believe I'm writing about this). And that on the rare occasions when he's pressed a butt plug into me, it's very effectively focussed my attention on the fact that he's in charge, and I'm not. So I was still crying my eyes out when he ordered me over some pillows on the bed, and started applying lubricant to my anus. And then used the force of my sobs to help press the plug all the way in, before coming back up the bed and taking me into his arms.

Eventually the hysterical crying stopped and we talked for a bit, but I still felt so much guilt that I was convinced I couldn't live with myself (somewhat melodramatic, I know). Eventually I wound up asking M for some more strokes of the cane - but fiercer, harder ones that bite in and where the pain keeps building for several seconds after the stroke lands. He agreed but the plug had to stay in for them and I think I took another five or six. I was reduced to tears again at the first stroke, but at least I felt that I was "properly" paying for my sins.

The worst thing was that between my renewed crying and the involuntary clenching of my bottom from the pain of the cane, I started panicking that the plug was going to fall out. But I'm not allowed to break position or put a hand back while I'm being punished. I got half way out of position before I remembered and then the disapproval in his voice as he told me to get back into position (he rarely has to) set me off wailing even more, even as I tried to explain about the plug. He held it in with one hand while using the cane in the other to whack the tops of my thighs. Which was awful. But the most awful moment, worse than the pain, worse than the shame of having been so disobedient, the most embarrassing and humiliating moment of the whole thing was when he took the plug out again afterwards.

M spent a lot of time after that reassuring me that I was forgiven, that I was loved, that I was still his and he wasn't giving up on me. The little girl even came out for a bit (although she couldn't suck her thumb, as she couldn't breathe through her nose!) and cried about how sorry she was that she'd been so naughty. I don't know why it's different, as that's what the 'big me' had been crying about already, but it is different and it does help when she can come out and be reassured and loved as well.

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I took three more strokes before we went to bed that night - I asked M for them, counting and thanking him for each one and saying "I will be a good girl this week". They hurt, and I loved them, and I didn't even want to rub aftewards. M had great fun making me roll over to lie on my back and listening to the noises I made as my sore bottom made contact with the sheets. There were no marks this morning but every time I scooted forward on my seat for the first few hours, I'd let out an involuntary little yelp and M would laugh.

And if I'm to fulfil that promise, to be M's good girl this week, I have to get my skates on and get to bed.

Progress tests

I've mentioned before that my course makes progress tests available so that students can check whether they've understood the material or not. These tests are optional and do not count towards the final grade. In fact, the course organisers will not even see the individual results, only aggregated ones.

Of course, for me, these tests are not optional, M expects me to take all of them and let him know how I've done.

During the last week of term I had five progress tests to do and an essay to hand in. Of course I was obsessing about the essay, what with it being the first one I'd written in four years, and also one of the progress tests had to be taken during a seminar session so I had to revise for that one first. The other ones were available online and you just took them when you liked before they wer taken down agin.

Most of the test were due in by mid-day on the last day of term, Friday, but one of them was going to be kept up until the following Tuesday. Then I was talking to some fellow students about another one, that was worrying me because I was aware I didn't understand the material as well as I might, and one girl said that it was going to be up until Monday so I'd have extra time to study.

Foolish me, I didn't check for myself.

With relief I focused on the other tests and left the two mentioned above until after all the earlier deadlines had been met.

You can see where this is going, can't you.

On Sunday I took the progress test that was going to be up until Tuesday. On Monday morning M double-checked with me how much work I had to do and I said I just had one more test to do before lunchtime and then I was done.

Then I went online and found that it wasn't there.

Then I checked my email and discovered it had actually been taken down on Friday.

Then M paddled me.



It's taken me a while to blog about it because I still feel ashamed about how I behaved during the punishment. Yes, he was wielding the paddle with some force, and no warm-up, and the paddle is evil, thick wood with holes drilled through. But I think really my inability to stay in place was tied up with the guilt and shame I was feeling for dropping the ball so badly. I wriggled and squirmed and howled and generally carried on like he was killing me. And then I managed to wriggle out of position and just could not talk myself back into it. Which of course just made me feel worse, like I was compounding my crime by being deliberately disobedient - except that I didn't want to be.

M's forgiven me for missing the test, and didn't really seem to mind me trying my darnedest to get away from the resulting punishment (I suppose on one level it means he was spanking me "hard enough"!), but I can't shake the guilt. I'm also still exploring some thoughts brought up by these events, as it's the first time, I think, that I've taken absolutely no pleasure at all from any aspect of a punishment. Normally even if I'm hating a punishment part of me is grateful to be receiving it because I know I deserve it and then the slate will be wiped clean. This time the only thought I had was to get away, get away (I'm beginning to sound like he beat the living daylights out of me, he really didn't I don't think I received more than ten or twelve strokes).

I don't know how to resolve how I'm feeling about this.

Something else I'm always in trouble for

Very soon after starting this punishment, I thought with envy of the lines Iris had to write recently, simply because hers was so much shorter. This is now what happens when I break my rule through carelessness - 50 lines each time. At the moment I'm just about able to write them faster than I'm earning them, and it's definitely a strong incentive to be more careful. Half way through this lot today I wanted to text M and whine about how long the line was, but my finely-honed sense of self-preservation saved me.

Sorry about the awful picture quality, I've lost my proper camera.