True Punishment

By Lisabet Sarai

There's no warm up, no sexy leather thongs trailed lightly across my bared ass to make me imagine what's to come. He doesn't tease me about what a naughty sub I've been, excitement obvious in his voice despite the mock sternness.

He doesn't speak at all. He simply brings the whip down, fast and deliberate, slicing into my skin and triggering pain that makes me cry out despite my determination to remain quiet.

No reaction from him - just another stroke, precise and vicious, and two lines of fire now searing my butt. This time I choke down my moan – I don't want to make it worse for him – but tears already leak from my eyes. I hate this.

When he beats me in a scene, the pain is real, but pleasure almost drowns it out. Not physical pleasure, at least not at first, but the deep satisfaction that arises from knowing I please him. The sense that we're partners in deviance, that I fulfill his darkest needs, arouses me more than anything else. The beatings we share are sweet and intimate, no matter how extreme his challenges to my endurance.

Today is just the opposite. I've disappointed him, and I know it. Each stroke hurts doubly, because he's not enjoying himself, not at all. He beats me out of a sense of duty, because he is in some sense responsible for correcting my bad behavior. And he has shuttered his mind, disconnected himself from me as he performs this disagreeable task.

The loneliness and the shame are far worse than the whipping itself.

Thirty lashes, he has decreed, and I deserve every one. He hits me like a metronome, like an automaton, the whip each time landing on a new, unpunished area. The pain builds and builds. He adds to it with his apparent disinterest. My cheeks are wet; my cunt is dry. I silently bear it, waiting for this trial to end.

Some submissives, I've read, crave pain for its own sake. Not I. I want his touch, his attention, the sense that his instruments of torture are extensions of his will and desire. If he requires that I suffer, I'll do so with a glad heart, to the utmost of my ability. His lust, his heat, the tenderness he lavishes upon me after he's done his worst, make it all worthwhile. I love to feel his cum spattering my whip-streaked skin, marking me as his. I honestly don't need to climax myself, though he usually ensures that I do. The thrill of surrender is enough.

This, though, is not surrender, though of course he asked my consent after I'd admitted my guilt. I am indeed willing to accept this beating. If I refused to be punished, I would irreversibly damage our relationship. He might even send me away.

That terrible notion makes me forget the pain for a moment, as my mind spirals down into a black pit of loss. I've endangered the magic by disobeying, by being thoughtless and lazy and sneaky. I thought he wouldn't notice if I slipped those oh-so-juicy details about him into my story; I was of course wrong. He pointed out my lack of respect, too. Did I really think I could fool him?

He's not mad at me, not anymore. Too responsible a dominant to beat me in anger, he made me wait for my punishment, contemplating my faults, until he had calmed down. Now I sense only weariness in him, though his strokes are as powerful as ever. Distance yawns between us. His whip chastises my flesh, but his spirit is far, far away.

I'm in agony, my ass and the backs of my thighs so raw that I know I won't sit for days. I can't safeword out of this, though, even if I wanted to. To an outsider this might look like just another S/m game, but we both know better. This is true punishment – the administration of physical discipline, cut off from the emotional connection.

He'll forgive me after this trial, I hope. Our love is strong enough to survive this infraction. My punishment will be prolonged, though. Because I know he won't beat me for his own pleasure until the welts he's creating now have healed. No matter how much I tempt him by being naughty.