love

… apply liberally.

Off High Street, down a narrow twisted cobbled alley barely wide enough for a pony trap, a turquoise door propped open beckoned the footsore weary tourist with the promise of an adventure. Gleaming in the late afternoon rays, the gaily painted easel with the large red arrows pointed the way to Curio & Osities Antiques.

“Daddy? Do we have time to go shopping there?”
Erik Jorgensen gave his new bride Lisle an indulgent smile. “I thought my little girl wanted an ice cream?”
“I do, Daddy, pistachio and caramel sea salt, but I wanna see what cool stuff they have. Please?”
“Alright, but you still owe me ten spanks for going over your stuffie budget. Money isn’t mined by dwarves you know.”
Lisle made a disgruntled face. “I know that! Everyone knows that money is farmed by unicorns!” She squealed and raced down the alley after he playfully swatted the back of her frilly purple skirt.
Following at a more leisurely pace, Erik couldn’t help laughing at his little girl’s antics. The honeymoon thus far had been a wondrous romp between amazing sex, scintillating history and more discipline than he could ever have believed possible. While Lisle was a thoroughly modern professional woman who enjoyed a good stiff drink and a cigar after work, little girl loved nothing more than laying over her Daddy’s knee being soundly spanked.
Bratty or obedient, it didn’t matter, little girl took great pains in plotting her next session. Erik certainly had no objections, and in fact, allowed her to fill the toy chest with carefully curated implements. For her, spanking wasn’t a black and white issue for punishing misdeeds, but so enjoyable, she insisted on bending over at every opportunity. Her favorite saying was: ‘Daddy, if it’s not pink, don’t stop to think.’
By the time he wandered into the brightly lit shop with that indefinable odor of old stuff, little girl was already out of right; although he could hear her sighs and excited exclamations. Examining a bin of etchings, he didn’t bat an eye when she came rushing up at full tilt, blond ponytail snapping behind her.
“Daddy, Daddy! Look what I found? Look. Look.”
Seeing the quirky expression on the proprietress’ face, Erick sent her a short nod and gave full attention to his wife. “What did Daddy say about inside voices, little girl?”
Scuffing her shoe, she pouted very briefly then held out the object she was clutching. “I’m sorry, Daddy. I got so excited I forgot.”
“I accept your apology, however that will be ten more spanks for your total.”
“Okay,” She shrugged. “See?”
He plucked the item from her hand and turned it over several times admiring the craftsmanship. He addressed the owner who was clearly fascinated by the conversation. “What can you tell me about this piece?”
Visibly collecting herself, she replied without hesitation, “That is an early 19th-century ebony and ivory hairbrush from Spain. The bristles are boar and was likely part of a bridal trousseau. It’s quite unique having the ivory inlays in the handle. Most brushes are either one or the other.”
Erik smacked lightly upon his palm. “It has a nice heft and impact.”
Lisle tugged on his jacket sleeve and whispered in his ear.
“Pardon me. My little girl would like to know if there is somewhere more private we can test before purchasing.” He smiled at his blushing bride of one week and lowered his voice. “She’s very picky about spanking implements.”
With noticeable concern, the woman asked Lisle if she was okay. Color suffused her face as well, when the reply was a forthright and blunt, “I am fine, thank you. I need to know how the brush feels on my bare bottom first, before Daddy buys it for me.”
Bemused and bit bewildered, the owner nevertheless didn’t want to lose the sale, so she led them to her back office, and closed the door once they were inside. Erik and Lisle listened for her footsteps to fade.
“What do you bet she’ll sneak back to listen, Daddy?”
“Your ass.”
Giggling with happiness, little girl draped herself over his lap, and fidgeted while he raised up her skirt and drew down her sparkly heart panties. “There will be twenty spanks now. If you like this brush, it’s way over budget, it will be one hundred and fifty later at the hotel before dinner.”
“Yes, Daddy. You may fire when ready.”
The smooth patina of the ebony wood impacted little girl’s bare bottom with a loud ‘splat’. Erik laid the first ten down the right buttock, from crown to crease. “How does that feel?”
“Good. It smarts a lot though.”
“Excellent. The last ten will be harder.”
And they were. Crisp cracks, unmistakable for anything other than a spanking, rang out in the room. The brush sank in the buttery flesh and bounced back with a soft recoil.
“I want it, Daddy. I’ll gladly pay the price tonight. One hundred and fifty strokes as hard as the last one.”
After purchasing the brush, and watching the owner lick her lips when little girl told her ‘it’s not polite to eavesdrop’, Erik towed Lisle out of the shop before anything more was said… or done.
“She needed a spanking, Daddy.”
“Do you want me to go back?”
Lisle pondered for a moment and then said with a thoughtful expression, “As much as I think she deserves it, I want you all to myself. For now.”
A very happy little girl skipped back up the stone alley hand-in-hand with the bestest Daddy ever.

For Time Magazine, May 29th, 2017, Ada Calhoun wrote an essay called Searching for a soul mate is futile. The ideal partner is the one you create. Based upon her book, Wedding Toasts I’ll Never Give, in her essay she uses quotes and commentary to advance the idea that even if soulmates exist, they do not happen in a blaze of light but rather by hard work over decades. [All italics in blockquotes mine]

The concept [of soulmates] dates back at least to Plato’s Symposium. Zeus, seeking to humble humans, split us in half, forcing us to wander in search of our other half: “So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of man.” While romantic, this has done an awful lot of damage — creating impossible-to-meet expectations, making people think that a happy, healthy relationship isn’t good enough, tricking people into holding out for “the one.”

[J.R.R. Tolkien] acknowledged that soul mates are pretty good in theory: “In such great inevitable love, often love at first sight, we catch a vision, I suppose, of marriage as it should have been in an unfallen world.” “Only a very wise man at the end of his life could make a sound judgment concerning whom, amongst the total possible chances, he ought most profitably to have married. Nearly all marriages, even happy ones, are mistakes: in the sense that almost certainly (in a more perfect world, or even with a little more care in this very imperfect one) both partners might have found more suitable mates.” Tolkien blamed our “soul mates” obsession on the Romantic chivalric tradition: “Its weakness is, of course, that it began as an artificial courtly game, a way of enjoying love for its own sake. . . It takes, or at any rate has in the past taken, the young man’s eye off women as they are” — that is, “companions in shipwreck not guiding stars.”

[Ada Calhoun] I love that: companions in shipwreck. True soul mates are made, not born. This tracks with what I see in long marriages. It took time for many of even the most loving couples to feel like kindred spirits. It wasn’t something that happened in the first hour, or even in the first year. It took time, and patience, and commitment.

Our old notion of soul mates is not helpful. “The ‘real soul-mate,’” Tolkien wrote, “is the one you are actually married to.”

As a writer of spanking fiction, the soulmate meme is a quite handy one to utilize. The valiant and virile knight storming the citadel and ~~capturing~~ rescuing the dainty and virginal princess from the clutches of the wicked fill-in-blank villain. The hardened and stoic loner melted by the bratty runaway. The overworked executive swept away by the dangerous and mysterious sugar daddy. The list is infinite.

Ada’s point however, is that waiting for your soulmate to arrive on a white horse; or show up on time for a first date, is not a strategy likely to succeed for a lifetime. No matter how many points of compatibility the online dating site promises, or how many ‘perfect’ matches align with your stars, receiving a rose means nothing in the long term. You have to create love out of lust and household chores.

The flip side of course, is that if it were that simple to create a soulmate, then there wouldn’t be so many divorces. Sometimes marriage can’t be salvaged. Sometimes the reasons for getting married created a situation where soulmates were never even possible. Sometimes, out of the millions of possible soulmates, the partner chosen wasn’t the right one and moving on is the best thing to do. Staying married to someone who is not a partner in any sense should not preclude starting over and searching again.

What about D/s then? Was kink part of the initial lust that attracted you to your current partner? When did you feel that they were the “one”? What I find so fascinating about D/s is how often it comes on later in life, either with the first soulmate, or after ending sometimes multiple marriages and/or relationships. It seems to me that those people who are inclined to D/s and spanking, are much more determined to seek out compatible partners than those who drift along in a vanilla haze.

If you are not currently in a D/s marriage, but wish to be, then all the time in the world will not be enough if your partner is not interested. Believe it or not, there are those that aren’t attracted to spanking. I know, seems inconceivable that if asked, someone would turn down the opportunity to spank their spouse; but in that case, a little judicious research and show-and-tell, may tip the scales in favor of a trial run. If you have a stable marriage/relationship with your partner(s), then an open and honest dialogue about your desire to spank or submit to a spanking, may be the start of something special. If the answer is still no, then is the rest of the package worth keeping? That is a decision only you can make.

So, as Ada states, can you create a soulmate in D/s through ‘time, and patience, and commitment’? Duh! Of course you can! Just shake the stardust from your eyes, unfurl the mainsail and steer clear of the rocks.

Spank Me Hard! … Please?

In case of an emergency…

… apply liberally.

The SoulMate app