Fifty. After the dishes

The paddle hangs on a hook behind the bedroom door, where my dressing gown used to hang. Leather, with a loop, about twenty dollars online. The door always stands open against the wall, so guests never see it. My husband sees it every night when he comes in to switch off the light.

That Tuesday he got home at twenty to nine instead of eight and hadn't texted. I didn't ask where he'd been. I knew: kept late, phone in his bag, forgot. That part doesn't matter. What matters is that for forty minutes I sat looking at a dinner going cold and a phone with nothing on it.

He sat down, I put his plate in front of him. I said, without looking up from mine:

“Fifty. After the dishes.”

He set down his fork.

“Yes, Mistress.”

And picked it up again. Ate everything. That's a rule too: punishment doesn't cancel dinner, and dinner doesn't cancel punishment.

The dishes

He took a long time. Usually ten minutes; that night, twenty-five. I sat in the living room with my laptop and listened to the water: running, stopping, running again. He was washing things twice. I didn't hurry him. Waiting works better than leather, and he knows it, so he drags it out himself — to put off the start and to make it last. Same thing.

I bought the paddle a month after he asked me, himself, to punish him. Before that it was the belt, but the belt is a thing for his trousers: in the morning he buckled it on and went to work. I didn't like the instrument leaving the house with him. The paddle stays here, on its hook, waiting for its Tuesday.

Then the water stopped, and he stood in the bedroom doorway. In nothing but the thong, the black one I picked for weekdays. The cage was on, as always. During a spanking it matters more: everything that happens to him under the paddle stays inside the steel and has nowhere to go.

My lap

I sat on the edge of the bed and took the paddle off its hook without standing — it's within reach, that's how I chose the spot. He came over and lay across my knees. Eighty kilos, a grown man, settling belly-down on my thighs and lowering his head to the bedspread. Feet on the floor, palms on the floor. I'm a small woman, a size eight, and every time he lies down I feel how much of him there is.

I pulled the thong down myself, to mid-thigh and no further. That way he feels it on his legs the whole time, which is a separate shame, and I leave him that one. The steel of the cage pressed into my leg, warm. I put my palm on his skin — still cool — and said:

“Count.”

The first stroke. He breathed into the bedspread:

“One. Thank you, Mistress.”

A stroke doesn't count until he has thanked me. I wait as long as it takes, and I don't hit. Once he lost it at forty-one, said “forty-three”, and we started from one. He hasn't lost it since. Fifty is our minimum. Anything less he doesn't consider punishment himself; he says he doesn't get there. I've never asked where.

The first ten he said evenly, like dictating an address. At twenty his voice dropped. Between strokes I put my palm on the heat and hold it for about three seconds. Not stroking. Holding. He goes still under my hand as if that was what he'd been waiting for, not the paddle. Maybe it is. I feel the skin pulse under my palm, his stomach trembling on my knees, his breath in the bedspread — and the cage shifting. There's nothing he can do about that. I could, and I don't.

By thirty he was pausing before each “thank you”. I waited. Thirty-five. Thirty-six. He didn't thank me for thirty-seven straight away, and I held the paddle in the air until I heard it. I was wet — from the weight, from the sound, from the fact that I decide when. I wasn't going to do anything about it that night. Punishment is his evening, not mine.

After forty I took my hand away. Only the paddle, evenly, one interval. He wasn't trembling any more, he was humming, low, and the bedspread under his face was soaked. The fiftieth I gave a little harder, so the number would stay with him.

“Fifty. Thank you, Mistress.”

A voice from the very bottom; I only hear that one here.

Closed

I don't get up straight away. I laid the paddle on the bed, put both palms on his back and said:

“Done. Closed.”

He lay there another minute. Then he slid down onto the floor, onto his knees, and kissed my hand — the right one, the one that had hit him. I took his chin and lifted his face. Wet. I said, in the ordinary voice I use to ask for the salt:

“Put the kettle on.”

He got up and went to the kitchen — thong round his thighs, backside red, walking carefully. I hung the paddle back on its hook. From that second it was an ordinary Tuesday evening. I don't bring up the forty minutes; he doesn't explain them. That is the clean slate: I have no right to remind him, he has no right to justify himself. It all stayed on his skin, and it will fade in four days or so. In meetings he'll be sitting down slowly.

He brought my tea into the living room, set it down and stood beside me. I told him to sit. He sat on the floor by the armchair, not on a chair, and I watched him fail to find a position: not on his heels, not on his side either. In the end he lay on his stomach on the rug, chin on his folded arms, and watched the screen from below. We got through half an episode. Once I let my hand drop and rested it on his shoulder; he tilted his head and pressed his cheek against it. Not a word about an hour earlier.

He slept on his stomach. In the night I woke, put my palm on his backside — hot through the blanket — and held it the same three seconds. He didn't wake, only breathed out.

In the morning he sat at the table on the very edge of the chair, slightly sideways. I poured his coffee myself. He looked at the cup, then at me, and said “thank you” once more, without a number. I nodded. The bedroom door stood open against the wall.

• Name the number and the time before you begin. “Fifty. After the dishes” — and not another word until the bedroom.
• He counts and he thanks you. A stroke without a “thank you” doesn't count; if he loses the count, start from one.
• Your palm between strokes. Three seconds, no stroking. He will remember it longer than the paddle.
• Close it out loud: “Done. Closed.” After that the reason no longer exists, for you or for him.
• Straight afterwards, something ordinary. Tea, dishes, a series. Let the evening carry on without a debrief.