Letting Go.....

When I wrote my last post, (and for a short time I really thought it was!) little could I imagine the changes about to come into force in the Starsong household.

But first, I want to thank everyone who has taken the time and trouble to email me with encouragement, blessings and advice.  You have been superb!  It's times like these when you think you are on something akin to a treadmill that you need someone else to say "Hey Ami, it's okay, we've all been there at some time or other.  Just go with the flow, and don't worry about it."

I did, of course, worry.  Who wouldn't?

I was the little bird who had stepped off the branch fluttering her wings for all she was worth, and those wings weren't strong enough to hold me up.  I needed Starman to dash out and grab me by the scruff of my feathery neck, and either pull me back, or preferably, to lift me up and fly with me.  

It wasn't happening, and I just watched as the ground got closer and closer and I knew I was going to be squidged!  

The strange thing about it was that I had been given the best bit of advice ever!  

"....from one control freak to another; do you see how much you try to control EVERYTHING in your interactions with your guy?  I have to laugh...bc I have been there.  Your "helpful" comments and suggestions and complaints are underneath ALL about controlling him, the spanking, the how, when, why.  You subtly convey little confidence in his ability to figure things out, to get it "right" to not do the wrong things.  You will have to take that risk and let him think for himself, try things, make his mistakes, if you want to empower him while you surrender your grip on that control."

I replied with "How do you ever learn to release this control?  As hard as I try the worse I get!  What if he doesn't bother?  What if he just lets things slide back to how they were before?"

The answer to that was "You do it by letting go of that grip....prying your fingers free, one finger at a time.."

Thank you Sara.  

I DID IT!!!

It was a bit like a "Superman" moment.  You know the one - where Lois Lane lets go, and as she falls, frantic and screaming, Clarke Kent zips into a telephone kiosk, rapidly changes clothes, and then zooms out and catches her neatly, just a few feet above the ground!

It's been a pretty 's....y' week.  

Somehow, last Thursday's spanking didn't 'hit the spot'.  Even my nemesis, the snappy little spatula, did nothing to pull me out of the dark hole in which I'd buried myself.  

We went away for a long weekend early last Friday morning.  We went to France with a group of friends to celebrate the birthday of one of the husbands.  We didn't have to do any driving - another couple volunteered, and I have to admit that both of us nodded off several times in the back of the car.  It was wonderful not having to worry about maps or road signs for once.  

The two hotels we stayed in, on the Friday and Saturday nights, were like old friends revisited.  The rooms charming and comfortable, the meals superb and of course, of the non-fattening variety!  I kept my alcoholic consumption tightly under control and for the main dinner on Saturday night I only drank one gin and tonic, and one glass of white wine.  Even Starman was impressed by my restraint.

But by Sunday morning I was marching purposefully around the bedroom opening and closing drawers and looking in our overnight bags as if inspiration was going to leap out at me.

I even resorted to Willie's trick with the plastic coated coat-hanger.  But after the third shriek, which was enough to waken the dead and dislocate Starman's thigh as I leapt to my feet, we gave up on that idea.  (Willie is forever "mammoth hide" in our eyes!)

So I remained unspanked and rapidly coming apart at the seams.

The week trudged on until yesterday (Wednesday).  Starman said that he had never seen Bitch/troll in such an ascendant for a very long time! 

We sat eating breakfast and he asked me what I was doing all day.  When I hesitated he told me that he had a list of things.  My ears flattened against my head.  I hadn't had a list for more years than I can remember.  What sort of a list? I wondered.  

"I want to go to the hardware store (the one like a miniature warehouse) for some light bulbs to replace the ones in the kitchen that keep going pop; then we need to go to the Mill (right across the other side of the county!) to get some salt for the water softener."

I didn't want to go.  I had acres of laundry to sift through, plus ironing, plus I wanted to do some baking.  But no, I had to go thirty miles just to save a few pounds on salt!  And to cap it all, his mother called in and sat drinking coffee without a care in the world and all I did was fidget and wish we could get off. Eventually she mentioned the fact that I seemed on edge, and Starman told her that we were actually about to go out.  That, of course, made me feel guilty.  Which was exactly what he intended.

I never knew I could pout, but believe me, I am now a practised 'pouter' and can pout with the best of them!

I pouted all round the hardware store, even when we were discussing buying some new garden furniture.  I pouted my way back into the car, and I pouted all the way to the little town where the Mill is located.  Starman had never been there before and we didn't know where the Mill was.  We stopped in the square and there in front of us was a shop called Quilters' Haven.  I got out of the car so quickly that I almost forgot to undo my seatbelt.  I told Starman I would visit the shop and find out where the Mill was at the same time.

What a wonderful place.  I decided then and there I would make a quilt.  I bought all the basics like a cutting mat and a cutting wheel.  Then I bought a brilliant book called the Civil War Sampler that details how to make a quilt with lots of references to the American Civil War.  For the first time in a week I felt my spirits rise.  I didn't forget to ask the directions of the Mill.  We were able to go get our twenty sacks of salt - and even I had to admit that £3.00 off each bag was a substantial saving.

We travelled back across country and stopped in another little old town to have soup and toasted rolls for lunch.  It was very civilised.  We even chatted for the first time that day!

It was late afternoon by the time we arrived home.  I made a quick tea, straight from the freezer (fish and chips) and Starman made a blazing log fire in the woodburner.  

We settled down on a sofa each and he watched the news and I read the newpaper.  

I always go to bed earlier than him, but I did rouse from sleep enough to feel him snuggle up to my back and his arm wrap around me giving me a quick stroke and a cuddle before I drifted back into the land of nod.

I woke up early, about 6.30.  Starman was still asleep and I lay watching some white puffy clouds skate across a blue sky.  Wow!  That woke me up!  I lay there until about 7.00 and then as I heard Starman rousing I decided to get up and make him his tea.  I knew we had a builder coming for the day and that he would want to be up and showered by 8.00.  But when I returned with our drinks Starman was still lingering.  

"The builder's ill - he won't be coming till next week" I was informed.

He lay and looked at me.  I was sitting up propped against the headboard sipping my coffee.  My heart began to beat just a little faster.

"Oh."

"These friends of yours, who you chat to, they all do this do they?"

Now I could have been bolshy and asked him what he was referring to, but somehow I thought better of it.  To be frank I was astounded at his opening words.

"Yes they do.  Some of them have been living in this thing for years.  If you read the blogs you would know them."

"I don't want to read the blogs, but that doesn't mean I'm not interested."

"I can always print some out for you to read - if you want.  Some wives read them to their husbands" I offered.  He didn't say yes or no, but his next words nearly made me spit my coffee out all over the duvet.

"Do any of the blogs discuss what implements we husbands can use?"

I was choking so hard that I couldn't talk for a bit.  "They all use different ones.  What one person finds hard, another person finds easy to cope with.  It seems that you can get used to just one if it is used all the time."  My cheeks were going red, but I had waited a long time for a conversation like this.

"Oh."  Starman was thinking - always a bad sign.  "Well I think you and I had better have a little meeting hadn't we?  I think it's somewhat overdue, don't you?  You wanted to talk, so we're going to."

My breathing had increased to the 'getting breathless, nearly hyperventilating' pitch.  I wasn't sure what was happening.  I had purposely not mentioned a single thing this morning (really, I hadn't had time to, but I was determined to heed everyone's advice for once in my life) and now all of a sudden I felt things were moving rather quicker than I had anticipated.

"Get you kit off and go get a couple of implements from the drawer."  Starman  spoke quite firmly and determinedly.  "And don't bother with the spatula - it's obviously past its 'use by' date."

I skittered across the bedroom and grabbed the hairbrush and the leather paddle.

"It's a bit cold to take my nightie off" I told Starman, throwing them down on the bed next to him.  "Can't I keep it on for once?"

Help!  His look was enough.  I hastily removed it, glaring at him, nipples rapidly looking like chapel-hatpegs.

"Hmm, where do you want me?" I gasped.

Starman sat up in his usual position.  Well, he wasn't intending to move away from the warm covers.  Then he pulled me down across his lap so that I just managed not to hang over the edge.  I hastily pulled a pillow down and put my hands under it.  Something told me I might need to keep them out of the way.  

"Are you going to give me a warm up?" I croaked.

"I most certainly am" Starman replied.

So he did.  

My once chilly bottom gradually got hotter and hotter.  And then Starman began to talk.  You can call it lecture if you like - I was told to shut up and listen and only answer questions when asked.  I wasn't too sure about this.  I was still coming to terms with it all.

Starman asked me more questions about Dd than he has ever, ever asked.  I felt as if I was being cross examined in a court room.  At one point I tried to crane my head around to look at him.  But it was very difficult and he landed such a heck of a smack across my bottom cheeks that I asked him if he was using his fists.  He informed me that he was just using the flat of his hand.  All I can say is that his hand suddenly seems so much stronger than it ever used to!  

This went on for some time.  I can't remember everything we discussed.  I had edged forward somewhat and was staring at the side of the bed and the floorboards, my chin resting on the pillow.  I do remember that he was impressed that some people have been living this dynamic for years and that even they have the occasional hiccup, and I do remember seeing him nod sagely, out of the corner of my eye.  I also remember that he wanted to know in quite some detail about the 'different types of spanking'. 

He wasn't rubbing me in between spanks like he usually does.  I was okay, but only just able to cope with it.  The talking helped, because I focussed on that and not the spanks themselves.  

I didn't detect the move from hand to paddle.  But I felt it.  He wasn't playing around this time!  I knew I was beginning to kick.  It was reflex.  I moved forward a little more and he pulled me back and lifted my butt slightly and landed a few on the backs of my thighs, and then moved to my sit spots.  

The transition from paddle to hairbrush was one I will never forget.  He was the only one speaking now.  

"If I could have had this discussion with you yesterday I would have!  Even my mother noticed your attitude.  I was very angry with you Ami.  I can tell you here and now we are NOT going back to how things used to be.  I will add spanks on to the end of this maintenance thing EVERY time I think you need them."

He was punctuating his words with spanks.  I was very glad I had the pillow.  I behaved just like the women in some of these little spanking stories and yelled out how sorry I was several times.  I was crying very hard.

He stopped.

"Are you okay?" he asked me.

"Yes" I replied tearfully.

He began again.  (Where was the man who was nervous of hurting me and didn't like to see me cry?!!)

He continued to lecture.

I continued to sob.  He peppered my bottom all over and I held my hands under that pillow by sheer willpower.

He slowed, and came to a halt.  I wondered if it was over at last.

"I am going to give you four more" he informed me.  "The first two are for maintenance - to give you something to think about for the rest of the week."

If I had thought he was spanking hard before they were nothing compared to these two.  I think it is at this point you resign yourself to smothering in the pillow or waking the entire living world up to the fact that you are getting a spanking.

"And these two are for attitude" I was told.  "Don't you EVER act like this with me.  I HATED it!"

Oh dear!  

I just lay there.  He had to help me up.  I sat on his knees with my head tucked in his chest until I had calmed down.

I think my first thoughts and feelings were of such immense relief that I was almost light-headed.  Although the light-headedness could have come from my head ending up with my nose nearly on the floorboards at one point as I tried to escape the HH.

He then put me back over his lap.  I was really worried that there was going to be another session, but he simply rubbed my bottom gently.  In future I will remember to have some arnica next to the bed!  It was very soothing.  And one type of rub led to another.....

So I'm writing this still suffused with endorphins.  I still can't get my head around today's events.  I feel as if I have travelled 306 degrees in an instant.  I had just hoped for a tiny bit more.  Just a little longer.  Just a little harder.  That would have been fine.  But now?  Now I have a burgeoning HOH!  And he wants to know about more implements?!!!  What have I done?!!!

I know - I'll blame it all on Mick.  He once said in one of his posts, that SUDDENLY THE HUSBAND GETS IT!  And then there's no holding him back!  And then the wife wonders exactly what she has asked for..........

Well hugs everyone.  Me and my little blue tail are signing off for today.  But somehow, knowing bad, bad Ami, I suspect there will be many more adventures ahead.

PS  Aha Lillie!  Is this divine retribution?!  Just because of Sean Connery?!  (I told Starman about your one or two "incidents" when you got spanked in the beginning - he was most impressed with Ian!  I should have kept it all to myself!  I've let loose a tiger!