And, while I like the fun aspect of it, and can’t complain at how it seems to have pepped up our bedroom activities, I can’t help craving something a little more. Do I mean more? Or do I mean different? I don’t know.
The thing is, I’m not good with stress. In my day job, I have to model absolute patience and absolute tolerance, but this has always made Dan laugh because he knows that I’m actually extremely impatient and intolerant a lot of the time. I nearly ruined our relationship in the first year of marriage by constantly blowing my stack over the slightest little thing. I kept blaming him for everything – if I couldn’t find the scissors, he must have put them in the wrong place, though half the time it was me who’d done it.
I did this so often that we ended up having a blazing row that must have kept the neighbours awake, with him threatening to move into the section house. Since then, I’ve tried to work on my temper, but I’m not sure my strategy of passive-aggressive stomping around and silent moodiness is really the best one.
Ever since he spanked me on our wedding anniversa
ry, I’ve had this mad fantasy about him doing it as a genuine punishment. Not in an overbearing, patriarchal sort of way, but from a desire to help me overcome my faults and be a better person. Loving discipline, if that makes any sense at all. I’m tired of feeling guilty about my outbursts, or simmering and keeping all the resentment and irritation inside me. Perhaps, if he spanked it out of me, I’d be able to address my petty annoyances with openness and honesty, like a proper adult. Not that I’ve ever felt like a proper adult. Does anyone, ever? I constantly feel that events are spiralling out of my control and I want someone to take that control for me. I want it to be him.
But I’m afraid to broach the subject with him. I think he’ll feel weird about it. So I’ve kept it to myself so far.
I’ve ordered a book, though. The Guiding Hand – A Disciplinary Manual for Loving Husbands. Sounds like some kind of crackpot 50s-throwback thing, doesn’t it? But the blurb alone turned me on so much I had to order it.
17 July
So my new book arrived and it’s fascinating. I can’t stop reading it.
I mean, I fundamentally disagree with nearly all of what the author thinks about male and female roles; a lot of it’s horrifically sexist, not to mention homophobic, but if you pretend it’s a manual for any dominant person and their lover – instead of traditional heterosexual married couples – it starts to make a bit of sense.
I would die if anyone caught me with it but I just can’t put it down. I’m so conflicted, it’s as if I have an even split down the middle of me. There’s Pip the right-on youth worker and Pip the submissive wifey. Oh, God, I really can’t do this.
I’m going to have to put the book away and forget about it.
It’s just a fantasy.
That’s all.
20 July
Oh, bugger.
Dan has found the book.
Everything had been going so well, too. We had the best night last night, and he actually used his new belt on me.
We went out for drinks with friends and were both in a very happy, high, flirty mood all evening. I couldn’t help teasing him and making cheeky little remarks and there came a moment, halfway through the final drink, when he leaned into me and said, right into my ear, ‘My belt’s coming out when I get you home, missy.’
It was ridiculously exciting. I bit my lip and clenched everything in my effort not to squeal. I made puppy-dog eyes at him, as if begging him to reconsider, but I had to tone it down a bit in case people cottoned on.
He laughed and squeezed my knee and said no more about it, but the promise was so heavy in the air that I could barely swallow the last inch of my wine and longed for all the goodbyes to be over with, quickly, so we could get home.
As soon as we were through the door, he had me up against the hall wall, his hand braced above my head, his forehead almost touching mine.
‘Someone’s been begging for a belting,’ he said softly. ‘Haven’t they?’
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ I said, coyly over-dramatic, the situation making my face burn.
‘Yes, you do, you minx.’
He held me by my chin and took a fierce kiss from me until I nearly lost the use of my legs and slid down the wall like a person in a cartoon.
‘Go on,’ he said, releasing me. ‘Get those jeans down and bend over the arm of the sofa.’
I stared at him, joyously open-mouthed.
‘Now!’ he ordered.
I scampered off at the double, and, shivering inside, unbuttoned and lowered the jeans. Once they were mussed around my ankles, I bent over the arm of the chair, presenting my bottom in its sensible M&S cotton knickers.