The View from the Back - a Tale of Two Spankings

We are back from our holiday.  I can't believe it's over so quickly.  All I know is that we were in dire need of a break away, and time on our own.

Once again, many thanks to you all for your prayers and support for our little grandson during the time he was in the special baby care unit.  Our daughter has been unwell too, whilst we were away.  I am happy to report that Beau is now doing great, and is always hungry!  Mum is recovering and is now feeling better too. I've had so many emails and good wishes from everyone I feel truly humbled.  Thank you all!

So now.  Yet again, hurricanes have swept the Starsong landscape.

  

They have been whirling around all summer, and I thought that maybe, just maybe, I had gotten away with it, and escaped off on holiday relatively unscathed.  Alas, pride comes before a fall.  Not that I ever need the 'pride' part.  I can fall quite successfully without that.

Remember how I joked happily about what sort of implement we could take for use in a cabin on a cruise ship?  And how Dan ridiculed my scarlet silken flogger and said I would have to come up with something else?  Well neither of us could think of a single quiet implement aside from a Loopy Johnny or a plastic coathanger - and you can forget those as far as I am concerned!  So there!

But hey!  We were on holiday.  We were going to have a great time and not worry about such things as discipline.  And a bit of play couldn't cause that much noise could it?

And I can tell you quite categorically that when Dan bought a new leather belt from a small roadside vendor at our first port of call, I was very happy to help him pick out a dark brown one, beautifully braided and very fashionable.  I believe I even joked and grinned at him as I swished it playfully through the air......  

***********

I know that people have often written about a couple or even three spankings, and discussed them, and compared them, or explained about them.  So nothing new there.  But I am going to share the 'light-hearted, play spanking' first of all, instead of the other way around.  Because that's the order they came in.

We set off on a Tuesday afternoon.  We didn't have far to travel to board the ship, and having heard all about people's ten hour journeys, we were grateful and smug that we lived only a half hour from the port.

We had booked the holiday a mere two weeks before we set off, so we had no great expectations about our cabin, but we were pleasantly surprised when we were shown to a cabin for four people and told that the cruise line had been happy just to sail with a full complement of passengers and fill any empty cabins. It was lovely and roomy and we had four wardrobes!  Imagine!  And lots of coathangers too! (No, not plastic ones!)  And it was an outside cabin and wasn't right down in the bowels of the ship - so everything was off to a good start.

It was our fourth time on this particular ship, so we know her well, and were soon right at home.  Some of the members of the crew even remembered us from last time, and that was two years ago.

All was going well.  We had been travelling for two days and it was Thursday. Spanky Thursday!  Yea!

  

We had had an interesting walk around our first port of call and seen all the sights (it was only a small town) and returned to the ship for lunch.  I sat on the bed and pouted hopefully at Dan.  He started to tease me and amid shrieks of laughter to divest me of my jeans and knickers, all the while telling me that we mustn't make a noise in case we were overheard by the people on either side of us, or our cabin steward who was always lurking outside.

It developed into a bit of a farce.  We were hopeless.

The beds were of the 'single' variety, and so I lay over the bottom of Dan's and he rubbed my cheeks and then gave me an almighty slap that ricocheted around the walls.  Believe me the echoes just went on and on. I was practically on my knees on the floor, and I just sank down on to my haunches, my eyes wide and my heart in my mouth.

Dan stopped and listened.  Nothing.  

However, just to be on the safe side he instructed me to get up off the floor and lean over the back of a small easy chair, putting my hands on the seat. Why he thought that would make it any less noisy, who knows?!

I shuffled around for a bit trying to get comfortable and leaned over.  It wasn't easy because I was on tip-toe.  However, at last I was in position.

So he continued.

Slap, slap, slap.  Slap, slap, slap.

It was like a machine gun!  

Dan panicked when he thought he heard footsteps outside and went and put his ear to the door.

The next thing I knew was that he had grabbed my arm and dragged me into the bathroom.

Now, in the main, the bathrooms aboard cruise ships are on the small side. Add to that the fact that this one only had a shower, and was on the inside (which most of them are) Dan and I were practically nose to nose.  To compound it all I started to giggle.  Loudly. But the best was yet to come.

Dan pushed me down and told me to grasp the toilet seat with both hands and bend over.  There was just enough room that way, for him to get up a bit of a swing.

But every time he spanked, my body was pushed forward, and my head had a tendency to go down the toilet.  Or it would have if I hadn't put the seat down first! It was hopeless.

Eventually we were both laughing so much we had to give up.  I think it is the funniest spanking I've ever had to date.

We decided to go for another walk around the town, and the minute we opened our door our cabin steward was there asking if everything was okay, and wishing us a good day!

If only he had known just how good our day was! Perhaps he really had been listening outside all along!

The next couple of days passed uneventfully.  We had a day at sea, and a day in port.

Then...

Bitch/troll stretched, yawned and got silently to her feet.  Looking neither left nor right, she made straight for the jugular.

I've tried to explain this feeling before, when all your good mood drains quickly and completely away, without warning, and leaves you feeling depressed, down and as flat as a tyre with a nail in it.

Perhaps had we been at home I would've grabbed Dan and implored him to deal with the situation, but as we were at the pinnacle of our holiday, and had two days in St Petersburg, which has always been on our 'Bucket List' I decided to try to ignore my gloomy miserable state, and soldier onwards.

Bad idea.  Very bad.  On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say it was one of my worst decisions ever.  

All I can advise you is that if you ever find yourself in a similar state, to tell your husband how you feel immediately.  Do not wait a minute.  As soon as that gun goes off, leave the starting grid, paddle in hand!

I am not proud of myself for how I acted that day.  It is one thing to try to advise someone else in a similar position to take action in one way or another, but let's face it, we rarely listen to our own inner voices when they are offering good advice.  So I probably would've gone my own sweet way regardless.  I don't know.  I just thank heaven that Dan is the man he is, and was able to pull me, pull us, back from the brink.

St Petersburg is incredible.  You always get two days there, as there is quite simply so much to see and do. Two days aren't enough, but we filled them with activities. Once we had managed to queue our way through passport control and the non-smiling Russian ladies who stamped and re-stamped our passports that is.

The city is a mixture of faded (and not so faded) grandeur, much of it in various stages or restoration, and monstrous concrete appartment blocks that are not only left over from the times when Communism ruled with an iron fist, but new ones that even at this moment are continuing to be built along exactly the same lines.  Ugliness you cannot imagine.

Apart from one street full of 'designer' shops, there are very few shops.  No large supermarkets, just one or two small, grim food or clothing stores.  Oh, and a new Ikea built on the extreme outskirts of town.

No wonder all the rich Russians are buying up London!

However, I digress.

So we went to visit the Hermitage on the first day. We weren't allowed cameras unless we paid an extra amount, and were told that even if we had them we would be unlikely to get near enough to the paintings, or indeed to anything, to photograph it.  It was all lies, but then, who were we to argue. We bought a glossy book instead at an exorbitant cost, which was probably the plan in the first place.

The Palace itself was an assault on the senses.  It is magnificent.  No wonder the poor peasants on the outside revolted back in those fateful times.  The riches cannot be explained.  Especially the 'gold room'.  You have to see it yourself to understand. Then in the evening we went to a performance of Russian dancing (Cossacks) in a theatre in the middle of St Petersburg which had once been a brothel club for Russian Officers. Don't even ask me to describe the place!  But the colours were so vibrant and the music and dancing filled with electric energy. Really wonderful.

You must be wondering how and why everything fell apart.  The trouble with bitch/trolls is that they creep out silently, and lie in wait for the moment when you are at your most vulnerable.  Then they strike.

We were already pretty tired by the previous day's activities when we were forced to get up at 6am in order for the coaches to leave at 7.30am for the Catherine Palace, which is just outside of St Petersburg, and where we were scheduled to spend the day.  

It was tipping it down with rain, and grey and dreary. It was still raining when we reached our destination. I went through my bag and triumphantly produced one of those little collapsible umbrellas.  I felt pleased because Dan had left his at home by mistake.

The only snag with an umbrella is that Dan has to hold it.  There is no debating who is best at keeping it level and over the both of us.  He always has to have the umbrella.

Initially it seemed okay.

But then it wasn't.

Dan wasn't doing too well with it, it doesn't have the stability of his large golf umbrella, and lots of the time I was only partly covered, and the rain kept dripping down my neck.  I could feel myself getting annoyed. But then I wanted to keep stopping to take photographs, and Dan kept walking on ahead, and both me and the camera were getting wet through.  I called several times for him to stop and wait for me, but he didn't want to get too far from our guide and the rest of the group.

I think it was about at this point that Bitch/troll struck.

I was just furious.  Sooner than catch up with Dan I sulked and hung back on purpose.  When we entered the Palace and had to give in our coats at the cloakroom I told Dan that if he wanted the umbrella he could jolly well keep it, and I marched off and did my best to ignore him for the entire visit around the Palace which took nearly two hours. So we had this situation of Dan up front with the majority of the group and hanging on to every word the guide was telling them, and me at the back of the group, taking my photos and doing my best to avoid all eye contact.

Even when the inside tour had finished and we collected our coats, I left him to retrieve the stupid umbrella and marched off outside on my own.

The gardens were so beautiful.  Autumn in Russia is ahead of England and the trees were turning colour. The rain stopped and even the sky cleared a little. We could have had such a lovely time, but I was so intent on being angry that I continued to stay at the back and simmer.

I was practically that last person in the group and easily two hundred yards from everyone else.  I stopped and took a couple of pictures and then stood and looked at a beautiful maple tree decked out in autumn foliage.  

It was incredible.  We don't have many such trees in England, and I so wanted to stand hand in hand with Dan and enjoy it.  But he was miles up ahead.  I felt very sad.  I turned around and a friend we had met on the ship suddenly appeared at my elbow.  

Before I go on, I just want to tell you that we often get on well with other couples on holiday.  It's pleasant to sit of an evening, and chat over a cocktail, or just sit and drink a beer at a bar.

We really got on very well with this particular couple. We were teasing each other and bragging about how long we had been together.  Dan boasted that we had been married for 36 years.  We all raised our glasses. Then the elder of the two told us that they had been together for 42 years.  So we raised our glasses again, clinking away.  They were very interesting people, and we shared the same type of humour. They were both a older than us, but it didn't seem to matter a bit.  The elder one's name was Steven, and the younger one's name was Tom.

Steven was long retired, at 73 and had been a London builder and property developer.  Tom was, like me, just retired and had been a history teacher.

We had one particularly hilarious conversation where Steven was describing how he had been called in to renovate a certain property, only to find out that it was a 'dungeon'.  I was so intrigued that I asked him all about it and he had us laughing till tears ran down our cheeks.  I told him I hadn't thought they existed outside of books, and he informed me that there were lots! Dan was rendered quite speechless once or twice.  He told me afterwards that he was terrified I was going to tell them something I shouldn't!

Anyway,Tom and I stood together admiring the maple.  We were standing quite close, and I knew he could see that my eyes were full of tears which I was doing my best to blink back.  He was a very kind and perceptive type of man. He looked ahead, quite a way off now, to where the rest of the group were, and then looked back at me.  

"You know," he observed, "sometimes the view is much better from the back."

He smiled kindly at me and we walked onwards together, gradually catching everyone up.

***********

It wasn't finished.  I knew it couldn't be until there was atonement.  

We had eaten an uncomfortable dinner; conversation was stilted and cold, and we eventually decided we were too tired to go to a show or sit up late sipping cocktails and listening to the Jazz trio.  

Dan put the TV on in our cabin and sat and drank three or four glasses of Scotch, and I put my nightie on and tried to read. I felt so miserable and very unhappy, both with myself and with the situation I had caused virtually single-handed.

Suddenly Dan leapt to his feet and went to the wardrobe.  He turned around, slammed the door, and came towards me with his new leather belt clasped firmly in his hand.  He was very angry.

"You can get up and go bend over that chair right now.  We're going to settle this.  I am so sick and tired of the way you treat me.  It's a wonder my neck isn't bleeding, you've pecked at it so much.  I can tell you that I am not standing for it one minute longer!"

He was brandishing the belt and yelling at me.  

I put my Kindle down, looked up and him, and started to cry.

"No I won't.  I refuse.  You're not coming near me with that thing!"

I promptly burst into tears.

"You want to know something?" I told him, "I think this is the end.  I think we are finished.  I think we should just give up and go our separate ways.  I can't live like this any more."

Dan sank down on to the bed in front of my and let the belt fall to the floor. The look on his face was one I never want to see again.

"All we do is rub each other the wrong way.  We just don't seem to get on like we used to.  What's the point of living like this to the end of our days?"

I sobbed and sobbed.

"But, Ami, where would you go?"

"I don't know!" I wailed. "I just know I feel I've tried everything.  And nothing seems to work.  It seems to work for other people, but not for us.  I want to give more of myself, I truly do.  I hate being this horrible shrewish person who just wants to be spiteful and hurtful all the time.  But I need some feedback from you.  I'm just worn out trying to do it all alone. 

"To tell you the truth, Dan, I need you to show me more affection than you do.  I need a bit of praise from time to time.  I need the occasional hug and for you to hold my hand sometimes.  You have such a stiff, cold exterior.  You may not mean to come across like that, but you do, and I can't do this any more like this.  I need to feel cherished.  And I don't.  I'm fed up of being treated like an Arab wife!"

If I were to write down everything we said it would be as long as a book.  We talked for two hours at least. We didn't shout, we weren't disparaging to one another, we just talked as honestly as we could.

It was very hard.  It was the hardest, yet probably the most truthful, conversation we have had since way back at the beginning.  The shutters were down, the floodgates were opened, our souls were bared to each other in a way I hadn't thought possible.  It was excruciating.  Yet it was necessary. When you're at the bottom, the only way is up.

It is interesting to reflect what an influence our parents have on us.  Mine were very "touchy feely", not afraid to show their emotions.  Our household was loud in every way - laughter, anger, affection, tears, etc. Dan's household was very different.  His father was quiet and controlling.  And I don't mean that in a good way.  I never saw his father hug his mother or give her ass a quick slap or show any affection.  He was a very good father, and I liked him a lot, but he was about as opposite from mine as chalk and cheese.  

Right back at the beginning of our relationship Dan wouldn't be comfortable with me showing him affection in front of either my parents or his.  If I went to snuggle up to him on the sofa he would pull away. He never, ever kissed me in public.  So gradually, over the years, I learned to bottle up my emotions, to keep kissing and snuggling for our private time, to give off a calm and placid exterior, when inside I was seething with the very emotions I was trying to keep down.  No wonder I had such terrible temper tantrums during the early years of our marriage.  I think I can understand that now.

We sat and discussed what we both wanted and needed.  We discussed everything, from sex to spanking, to retirement and downsizing, to commitment and communication.  Everything!

When we were finished talking, Dan picked up his belt from where it lay on the floor.  He didn't tell me, he 'asked' me to bend over the chair. He intended to spank me and I understood that I had earned such a spanking. We couldn't move on until; but at least he wasn't angry any more. I think he would've been prepared to wait all night if I hadn't been immediately obedient.  But I was humbled by the fact that he didn't issue an order - he asked, and I consented.

After an initial fumble with the belt due to its being very stiff, he doubled it and holding the buckle, wrapped it around his hand.  There was no warm up. I suppose he gave me about twenty very hard spanks? swats? I don't know what you call them with a belt?  I do know that I felt every one.  I think I managed six before the sobs started in earnest.  It was a strange feeling, nothing like the leather paddle.  The thickness of the belt ensured that it had a capacity to 'thud' down on my backside.  I only just managed to make it through. I was very glad when it was over.

We made love passionately, each wanting to give more than take.  I know that we both fell asleep in the one bed and it was some time later, during the night, when I crawled out to visit the bathroom and that I returned to creep into my own bed.  We were emotionally and in my case, physically, exhausted.

We both have to work at this.  We are not going to change overnight.  I have to get a hold of my temper and not take everything so 'personally'.  Dan is working hard to be more affectionate.

He is trying very hard.  He has even slapped my bottom once or twice playfully, which is a completely new thing for him.  He seems to be more attentive and open - although no hand holding yet.  

He got up the other morning completely out of the blue and brought back the rose paddle and gave me a good reminder of how he felt things should be proceeding. And as for me, I am doing my best to tell him if I feel upset about something, before it escalates out of hand.  So we talk it over and he helps me decide how to deal with my feelings.  It's early days, but so far it's working.  

As I said, it's so easy to be able to issue advice to others, yet when it comes to yourself, you often can't see the wood for the trees.  There is so much undergrowth to battle your way through!  But a forest is made up of many different types of trees, and in order to break clear of that canopy at the top, the trees have been growing for a very long time.

Since we got home I often think of that piece of advice I was given when admiring the maple, "Sometimes the view is much better from the back," and I know Tom wasn't really referring to our sightseeing group, or to the tree.