Sometimes You Need To Ask

Sometimes you need to ask for what you need. I've tried so hard not to let it all get to me this week. It's just small things, really, if I'm trying to be objective. Some personal stress, a lot of work stress, including having to work damn hard at the same time as my company was basically kicking me in the proverbials twice in as many days. But at the end of the day, none of it is major, I have friends going through much worse things in their lives.
So I've been trying to cope and smile, and put on a brave face, cover up the exhaustion. I was sort of succeeding, until this morning. I needed to leave the house at 7:30, to get in to prepare for the last day of the big meeting I was running. I woke up at 7:45. Those were some very unhappy thoughts passing through my head, when I saw the apparently switched off alarm clock. I felt so, so guilty the whole way to work. Things just kept going wrong the whole day. Most of it was not my fault, or related to my lateness, but that didn't help.

I texted a friend, basically asking for a beating for being so late. And, thank goodness, we were both free that evening. 18 strokes was decreed. (By me.) So that made my meeting even more difficult to concentrate on.
The day went by. In a haze of stress on the one hand and anticipation on the other. Eventually, it was time to go home. An hour and a half later, the fateful time had arrived.

Without very much pause at all, my trousers and knickers were off. I was told that I would be getting 18. They would be hard, and I deserved them. That I was to keep as still as I possibly could, and if I moved, I might get extras. Then he made me bend over the arm of the sofa. He kicked my legs wider and wider, until there was nothing hidden from him. He told me to lower my head, arch my back, stick my bottom out further. I took the first six without moving my feet at all. He was being kind, leaving long pauses between the strokes, letting me count in my own time, so that I had control of the pain. He knows I can't take them fast. Even so, they were hard, and hard to take. My feet were truly rooted to the floor. They could have been trees. I was determined not to move them, or my legs, in any way. To show that I could submit to this, no, that I WANTED to submit to this.
Hugs. Three more. Being told that we were halfway through, and that the next nine would be much harder, to try and make some sort of lasting impression on me. Surviving the next three without moving my feet as well.
More hugs. Being told the last six would be the hardest. That I could move as much as I wanted. But that I had better not dare swear again like I just had done on the eleventh stroke.
I think it was stroke thirteen that truly broke me. The dam broke, and the stress and worry of the past few weeks came flooding out, along with the guilt about this morning. Tears, sobs, not attractive.
Five more, after each one being reminded to present properly, but mostly staying in place. More or less. Being told I was getting one more. Taking it.
Yet more hugs, hugs being the only thing getting me through this. The dam truly breaking, sobbing in his arms. Somehow being bent over for three more (who knows why, because he felt like it, I suppose!)

So, 22. Hard. The welts are a sight to behold. But I needed it, I truly needed it. I don't think I've ever needed a punishment more. Not because of the "crime", per-se, though partly because of that, but to break through that wall and let out all the crap. And I'm lucky I had someone who I trust enough to be able to do that for me. Sometimes you just need to ask...