Caned and corrected

My butt hurts. The caning yesterday was not administered for his pleasure. The caning was punishment and correction. I am supposed to be prepared to do something whenever he visits, but he hadn't called upon me to do it for a long time. I got lazy. I let it slide. And this time - on a Saturday, when there was more time - I was expected to produce. And couldn't.

So I was caned.

The strip of wood that is used as a cane is not your standard rounded implement. It is a nasty nasty thing, re-dedicated to sadistic and educational use from its normal function. And it has different surfaces. There is a flat side and a rounded side and then the two evil aspects: the two edges where the round part intersects the flat part and a ragged, sharp tip at one end. The tip with which he cut his initial into the top of my left buttock.

Perhaps "cut" is the wrong word, and too provocative a word, considering the reaction to my mentions of the knife - the knife which, in fact, I have never seen. So let us, perhaps, call it a scratch. A deep scratch. A scratch that did not, you will be reassured, cause blood to run down my ample ass.

I was happy when he marked me. I felt it, I knew what he was doing, and I was happy. It hurt, and I was happy. The last old marks were long gone, and I missed them.

And the caning?

Well, you can't ever really be happy about a caning, unless you are a masochist and crave the pain. Which I don't. But I was grateful for the punishment.

I'm sure I have talked about this before. This curious dichotomy. I can't say that I like being caned. But I like having been caned. I am grateful for the punishment. I am grateful for a way by which my wrong can be dealt with and the slate wiped clean. He gets to express his anger and disappointment and I get to suffer and cry out my grief at having let him down.

I am grateful that it is punishment and correction. It is expected to make a difference. It is a stage in my continuing education and development. I love that idea. There is something so positive about it.

I love the chance to demonstrate my submission.

[Pause to wince and readjust my position. The pain is in the muscle, not just in the flesh, and the muscle is pulsing. Caning - the gift that keeps on giving.]

I take the required position on the bed, my ass presented for castigation. The cane strikes. Eventually the accumulated pain makes me collapse down off my knees, flat on the bed. I am struggling with the pain. But - and this is where I am so proud of myself - I immediately, without hesitation, rise back up on my knees, head down, back arched, ass raised, and prepare for the next blow. I don't know how long it will last. It's usually not for all that long, but however long it is, I will cooperate. It's part of the deal.

And that, perhaps, is one reason I love having been caned. Because it says something. It says that we have these roles. Not roles like parts in a play - this is not a game, this is not just some form of sexual diversion. We have roles with respect to each other, we have positions in this relationship. Mine is at his feet. Mine is looking up at him with gratitude for everything he has given me, has taught me, has showered on me to make me worthy of being his. To make me into what he is convinced I can be. Not just the best cock-sucker this side of the Mississippi, not just yet another submissive to fall in love with him and sing his praises - albeit praises better worded, I'm sure, than those offered by any of the others past, present, and future. But what he is convinced I can be as a poet, as a woman, as a person who can embrace her beauty and her talent and her brain and accept her own worth. I am learning to see in myself what he sees, and to walk in the light of his amazing comprehension of who and what I am. All of it.

The blows from his cane, the bruises a beating leaves, the lingering pain that causes me to wince today every time I sit down and rise up... these are as nothing compared to the inner pain and bruises from all those who don't understand me, who don't see my beauty, and who are left befuddled and impatient by the way my brain behaves. My poet's brain.

And finally, the caning makes me feel secure. Safe. It has to do with our roles again, but somehow more, and I'm not sure that I can elucidate what I mean. It's a security that comes from his having the right - which I ceded to him - to train me and mold me, to punish me and correct me. I feel safer from having someone else be in charge of me. I am no longer wandering lost. Like a dog who appreciates being able to retreat to his crate at night, I embrace the safety of my metaphorical cage, and have a clearer idea of who I am because of it.

The sun has set, my brain is growing cloudier, and I fear my ideas have become less distinct as well. Plus it's time to feed the cats and pay the bills. I sit beside Marko when he eats. On the floor. I will wince when I sit down and wince again when I haul myself up. But each time, deep inside, as deep as the muscles that still suffer from the sadist's cane, I will smile with gratitude that my Master has taken me as his.

And that he considers me worth punishing and correcting.