Marie-Louise bent over and placed her hands on the seat of the chair. John wrapped his arm around her middle. Despite the fact that he was using his belt, he never wanted his girl to feel that he was far from her. He wanted her to feel his touch, so that she would not feel abandoned.

John raised the belt and brought it down across her bottom. It covered both cheeks with a loud CRACK and she jumped. His arm held her in place. He chose a slow steady rhythm and brought the belt down on her bottom and sit-spot until Marie-Louise was bawling. He dropped the belt to the floor, stood her upright and lowered her underpants. John sat down in the chair, pulled Marie-Louise across his lap and finished with his hand.

“You SPANK are my SPANK girl SPANK. You matter SPANK to me SPANK SPANK. You are important SPANK SPANK, you do not SPANK need to hurt yourself SPANK SPANK, you do not SPANK need to test SPANK my SPANK love SPANK. No matter SPANK how big SPANK you think SPANK you may be SPANK SPANK, you are always SPANK small enough to be SPANK in this SPANK position. SPANK. Do you understand me SPANK SPANK?”

Marie-Louise was barely able to answer. “yessirrrrrrrr.”

John continued to slowly spank Marie-Louise until her sobbing had her feeling like the little girl that he knew she needed to be at the moment.

Marie-Louise cried. All of her feelings of insecurity, all of her fears about growing up, all of her years of not knowing what it was to truly be loved poured out of her. She had been holding it in for so long that she didn’t know it was possible for it to come out, but he had helped her bring them out. Her Honey. Her Honey had found a way to get through the stubbornness and find the slutty but obedient girl. Her Honey knew what she needed and he helped her grow. Her Honey.

As she lay across his lap, years of tears and frustration came pouring out. She had not noticed when he stopped spanking her, she only knew that for the first time in her life, she truly felt safe. A small smile came to her lips, because she knew that she was home.

“Noooooooo mooooooooooooooooorrrrrrrrrreeee pllllleeeeaaaassseeee!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, absolutely certain that I was going to have no voice at all tomorrow.

He stopped and looked at me with those dark gray eyes, the rest of him all thoughtful and boyish, almost benign in faded jeans and a plain black t-shirt . . . except for the wicked rubber strap in his hand. “How many strokes did I say I was going to give you when we started this, sweetie?” came the inevitable, deep velvet question.

I was panting, no longer able to draw a full breath – shuddering and crying and shaking and wishing – beyond anything else at that particular moment in my life – that he would relent from what he had said . . . just this once.

But I should have known better. John did not hand out punishments lightly, and thus his punishments were pretty heavy. When I agreed to belong to him – in a surprisingly casual exchange that he somehow turned into an impromptu cermony involving a certain amount of a good white wine and him claiming every inch of my body, mind, and soul as his to care for and protect (even from myself) – I knew that it would be forever, with or without the mumbled words of a cleric or civil servant.

And I knew that it would often be very hard to accept exactly what belonging to him meant, elementally, to each of us.

To me, it meant that I gifted him with my obedience. I don’t follow anyone blindly – even him – and I don’t give myself easily, and John knows that. But when it comes down to it, my take on things is not always the most pragmatic or practical, and I have never known him to set a rule that I considered to be frivilous or spiteful.

To John, it meant that he could indulge himself sexually with me in any way he preferred – but always with an eye to me and my well-being, of course – even when he was waling the tar out of me. He assumed the mantle of responsibility for me and to me as if he had been born to it, peeping into all areas of my life, but choosing his targets with a wisdom I had come to have a great respect for, even prior to our arrangement.

John had been my hovering best friend since before high school – always mature beyond his years while I seemed stuck at adolescence, and sometimes much, much younger. He’d always been there for me – often rolling his eyes at my antics or quietly restraining multiple rounds of “I told you so’s” – through innumerable illnesses and boyfriends and two deadbeat husbands.