Oh, right. I went away to my family’s house for the holidays. Then I came back.
Good story!

I’m kidding, I’m kidding. There’s more to the story than that!

Being with my family of origin is hard. My mother and I have had a difficult relationship for my entire life. Sometimes I just think I’ll never go visit them again, but since my mother is in poor health and my oldest brother just passed away, I knew it was the right thing to do.

The visit was really stressful, though. My mother and I quarreled a lot, she didn’t let me do anything, she said awkward things all the time (like asking me if I was saving it for marriage!) and I was reminded of all the reasons I left home at such a tender young age in the first place. Plus, I attended my brother’s memorial service, which was extremely bittersweet. I had already found closure for myself, but it hurt to see so many other people suffering and there were instances of prejudice against the HIV positive expressed *during the service* which really boiled my blood.

There were also awkward spanko moments- my family members mainly bought me practical gifts, and practical gifts for a woman tend to be kitchen things where I come from. I got ANOTHER rubber spatula (this one did go in the kitchen, but it was still awkward) and I got another wooden spoon. I have a lot of wooden spoons. Malignus doesn’t like me using them in the kitchen because he doesn’t want them to absorb germs or something like that. Basically, I am pretty sure he just wants to keep them all for spanking me. Besides, the spoon I got from the family is a really beauty from a spanking perspective: nice, long handle, perfectly flat back, smooth, strong beech wood.

Yep: I’m aware that this is the most ridiculous photo of me I’ve ever posted to this blog!

Then there was the gift exchange with my cousin, who bought me a set of FIVE hairbrushes. My mom said “Oh good! Alex can really use those! I’ve bought more hairbrushes for that girl than anyone needs in a life time and yet they always end up lost or broken.” Broken, yes, Mom. Into pieces. On my ass. But you don’t need to know that!

Then there was the awkward conversation in which my surviving brother attempted to convince me that I should use a bathbrush in the shower because they feel really nice and offered to buy me one. No. Bathbrushes DO NOT feel really nice. They feel like death. Like every swat is taking minutes off my lifespan. I don’t care how they feel in the shower: if it’s in my shower, it’s in my house and THAT’S BAD!

Finally, there were the little things: the fact that I notice awkward spanking related things EVERYWHERE and want to giggle or make an awkward face and can’t in vanilla company:

I’m wearing these to get spanked sometime!

Beside all this, I had trouble sleeping and I really missed Malignus. It certainly made me appreciate just how wonderful my life here is, though. I’m able to truly be myself at all times and I’m with someone who loves me for exactly that, not for who I pretend to be or who I change myself into. That in and of itself is more than I ever dreamed of. Add in the fact that we have a lot of fun together, I get to cook and clean, and I get a good spanking almost every day and I’m made aware that I’m pretty much the luckiest girl in Spankingland.

Coming home on Tuesday to this was just lovely. There really aren’t words for how nice it was. When I was a girl and I was obsessed with Roald Dahl’s book, Boy, there was a section that I enjoyed that didn’t have any beatings in it. This was where Dahl discussed the joy of going home from school for the summer holidays. I specifically remember him saying something along the lines of “The feeling is incredible and can’t be understood except by someone who has lived in an oppressive environment and then gone back to a place of freedom. It was almost worth going away to school just to experience the joy of being away from it.” I always liked imagining what that would be like: to leave my normal and unenjoyable childhood and go to a place of freedom. Leaving my family’s home to go back to my new adult life reminded me of that. It’s a very pleasant thing, getting to experience the stuff you’ve always wanted! 😀

On Tuesday, after Malignus picked me up from the airport, we got a pizza and went home to watch the first two Rocky movies (which I’d never seen before, despite being a film aficionado.) After the second movie, it was late and I was tired, plus I still had a lot of residual stress from the past week built up in my system. I asked Malignus is he was going to spank me that night, since I usually go across his lap before going to bed, and he said “a little bit.” I was kind of imagining a firm but not miserable hand-spanking based on that response. I was alright with that: I hadn’t been spanked for nine whole days! Better ease back into it, right?

Then I saw him coming into the bedroom with my new spoon. He had swatted me with it earlier and it had made me howl. My stomach dropped. This reflected in a very sad look on my face. Malignus asked me if I was scared about how much the spanking would hurt and I replied that I was. “You should be,” he said. He’s very encouraging. 😛

I bared my bottom and got in position over his lap and he asked me if I wanted a warm up. I gave the most heartfelt and earnest rendition of “Yes, please, Sir!” ever heard by man, I’m pretty sure. Warmups are kind of a luxury for me, and I hadn’t really been expecting one, but the idea sounded so nice.

Then Malignus said “Too bad!” and started laying into me. Then I started howling. It would probably not have been a very pretty thing to listen to. The stupid thing was agonizingly painful and it kept falling with an extremely fast pacing. It hurt so much that I very quickly began to sob. The spanking just kept going, though, without any sign that the pace was slowing. He spanked me very thoroughly: as is usual, he didn’t spare my thighs in the least, and this time he put considerable time and attention into beating my sit-spots. He eventually stopped with the spoon and spent a while spanking me firmly but much more slowly with his hand while my cries began to quiet. It took me a little bit after the spanking finished to stop crying, but my stress and tension had been replaced with a remarkable sense of calm and security. Laying over the lap of the man I love with a bruised, swollen bottom throbbing with pain, I felt like I had no reason to be anything but content and joyful. Very shortly thereafter, I lay in bed with my head resting on his chest and fell asleep.

Because I went directly to bed, I did not photograph my butt when it was properly marked, but I woke up looking like this:

My life rocks.