lion wearing a bib
This is Lion’s new spanking preventer. Mrs. Lion ordered him a couple of lobster bibs he can wear to catch those nasty drips. It saved him from a spanking the first night he wore it.

One of Lion’s rules is that he shouldn’t be a messy eater. Since I’ve decided that all punishment swats should be the same intensity, I thought I’d do something nice for Lion’s food spilling habit.

Several years ago, I arranged for Lion to have a two pound lobster for his birthday dinner. He was very excited when he saw it. Like a kid in a lobster store. Cracking open a lobster is messy work. Bits of shell often fly. Lobster juice drips everywhere. We were surprised the restaurant didn’t supply a lobster bib. When Lion had lobster another time, he was still sans bib. I told him it was too bad he didn’t have his own.

Well, the other day, I was jokingly looking on Amazon for bibs. Most of them are bibs for feeding adults who have become incapacitated in some way. But this was supposed to be a funny surprise. Then I found the lobster bibs. Score!

Lion thought the package was something he ordered so he opened it. When I got home, I asked if he had fun spoiling his surprise. He didn’t seem very happy with the bibs. He asked if he had to wear them.

I thought he’d be happy to have a way to keep himself clean while eating. He didn’t want to have to wear them. Since it was a joke, it wasn’t a rule to use them. If he wants to be punished for spilling when he now has a way to avoid it, I don’t mind. More punishment practice for me.

When he came to the table for dinner, he had one on. And it literally saved his butt. He spilled soup on himself. Well, on the bib. I think he sees the benefits of a silly lobster bib joke. He doesn’t have to wear it, but it certainly has the ability to save Mr. Lion.

These dark days of winter put me in a reflective mood. When I wake in the dark, cold predawn hours, my mind drifts back to earlier days. I’ve been “out” as a kinky man for over thirty years. As far back as I can remember, I’ve always found power exchange arousing. Of course, as a small boy I had no idea what this was all about. However, even at the tender age of nine, years before I discovered masturbation, I would get hard thinking about being tied up or spanked. I suppose you might see this as an indication of my true nature. Maybe it was.

My pre-dawn thoughts fast forwarded to just after I divorced my ex. It was the late eighties and I was young and very horny. I soon met a woman and we began living together a very short time after we met. I never married her. For the first time I talked about my interest in sexual power exchange.

She was incredibly bright with an IQ north of 180. It didn’t take her long to find some books and gain a very good understanding of the necessary techniques. I read up as well. We weren’t sure who should top or bottom. So we tried both. It turned out that we were naturals as tops. But it didn’t take long before I ended up as the permanent bottom. After I topped her, for the next day or two she was in a foul mood. We finally decided it was because bottoming just didn’t suit her. I, on the other hand, loved it.

While we were together, that’s how it went. She applied her vast intellect to inventing ways to torture me. It was all very intense. I’ll never forget one evening when she had me tied spread-eagle, face-down on the bed. She had been using a riding crop on my bottom. She stopped. A few seconds later, I could feel her massaging my balls. I got hard at once. She commented that I liked it. I agreed. Then she stopped. A couple of minutes later my balls were on fire. That was my first experience with Ben Gay. I hated it. She liked that. It wasn’t my last ball massage from her.

You’d think that based on all this that I am 100 percent bottom. After we parted, I got involved with the local S/M community. After attending a few meetings, it became obvious that the guys who identified as bottoms were a sad group. I didn’t want to be like that!

So, I rebranded myself as a top. Wow! Women chased me. I had no idea that so many females wanted to be tied up and whipped. My sex life was spectacular. From time to time I would bottom to a female top, frequently, she would also bottm to me. In Internet terms we were switches. However, back in the old days, very few people self-identified as tops or bottoms. Almost everyone switched.

I became pretty well known and taught workshops in various domly arts. In the early 90’s I acquired a female slave. That’s another story for another time. I suppose being a 24/7 Master is the pinnacle of topping. My slave knew I liked to bottom sometimes and never held that against me. That relationship ended after a decade.

Right about then I met Mrs. Lion. I had been thinking about my twenty years as a top and my year as a bottom. I realized I had much more fun being the bottom. After we knew each other a little while, I asked the future Mrs. Lion to spank me. She did. It took a while before I could feel it, but she is a great student and learned to give me a good sting. Now, her spankings are legendary.

She wasn’t really into it. So, after a while the play stopped. Meanwhile, we got married. Even without the play I was very happy. It’s a total joy to be with her. She is truly my soulmate. Three years ago, we started enforced chastity. We also started playing again. You know the rest if you have been reading the blog.

As my mind fast-forwarded to the present, I realized that something amazing happened to me. I transformed from a top with occasional bottoming, to a lifestyle bottom. What’s more, I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

Just as my alarm went off, I was thinking about my self image as a full time bottom/submissive. I’m still uncomfortable with that label. I can’t decide if my discomfort is my ego or recognition that the switch isn’t dead.

It’s finally Thursday. I’ve been thinking it was Thursday all week. Now it feels like Friday. It’s not because I was trying to hurry the week along. Lion leaves on another business trip Sunday. I don’t like when he’s gone. I’m lonely without him. It will be worse this time. He usually leaves on Monday. This time I’ll have all day Sunday without him. Yuck!

Last night we didn’t play. We were both tired and out of it. Lion snoozed a bit so he felt better. I didn’t so I was still out of it. I probably could have played with him but I just want to get better and I figured I still needed rest. We just held hands.

On a normal day, I realize how lucky I am to have Lion. Some days, it completely baffles me how I got so lucky. I mean, if you think about it, there are millions of people out there. How do you find “the one” out of all of them? And it’s not like he’s just someone who’s good enough to marry. He’s the one I’m supposed to be with. Even after all these years, it still feels right. Actually, it feels perfect.

We have had our disagreements over the years. I’ve usually clammed up and let him win by default. But they haven’t even been big disagreements. We didn’t have many problems when he was out of work. Yes, we had financial problems. I mean relationship problems. We just navigated through it. It wasn’t his fault. Things rarely are his fault or my fault. We just don’t relate that way. Instead of saying, “You forgot to do this”, we figure out how to fix the problem.

Rolling with the punches may not seem to fit in with FLR. It all depends on what the rules are. Forgetting to take the garbage out or not making dinner are not rules. They’re chores that we both share equally. Can I make a rule that says it’s Lion’s job to take out the garbage? Yup. And he would go along with it. But who broke my legs? Why can’t I take out the garbage? Not that I’m saying I should be the one who always takes out the garbage. We’re doing perfectly fine ignoring it till one of us cracks and takes it out. It’s not that we’re each hoping the other does it. Why doesn’t he/she just take this out already? It’s more of a time and attitude issue. I don’t have time or energy to take it out. Maybe later. And then one of us is surprised when it’s gone.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that I am extremely lucky to have Lion. He worries that I’ll find someone else better for me. I don’t see that happening. It doesn’t really matter anyway. I’m not looking. I’ve got my soulmate.

I sometimes suggest a post to read that might interest Mrs. Lion.  I thought about it and realized it’s interesting what I don’t suggest. I tend to point her at posts about spanking and strict domestic discipline. The conversations I have about the material I read, invariably centers on spanking as the punishment of choice. Last night she served it up again. I got some food on my shirt and was rewarded with four very hard swats with one of her most vicious paddles. In fact, I begged her to stop. I looked at her and plaintively said, “Please.” She did stop. I don’t think my begging was the reason. She told me that she had planned to provide less swats with more power. I could feel the sting for hours. I really hate spilling food.

If you consider punishment a meal, it generally has at least two courses. The “appetizer” is the scolding. This is when the disciplining wife verbally informs her husband how she feels about the offending behavior. This is generally done with the male in the spanking position. Some women start with a first course of spanking. After it is determined that the male understands he did something wrong, she stops and scolds him. When she is done, she informs him that he will now be punished. She spanks him until she is satisfied he understands how she feels and will not repeat the offense.

The spanking, of course, is the entree. I never discuss “dessert” with Mrs. Lion. This is often fifteen minutes of corner time with the male standing in a corner or against a wall holding a coin up with his nose. He isn’t permitted to touch his bottom or move away. If the coin drops, the spanking is repeated in its entirety. Some disciplining wives give “writing assignments.” The male must write a phrase like “I will always remember to wait for my wife  to eat before I do.” over and over. Often he has to sit on a scratchy surface that will amplify the results of his spanking. If he doesn’t complete the assignment neatly and for the full number of repetitions, he must do it all again.

Sometimes, for less serious offenses, he gets a “soaping.” That is when his wife thoroughly wets a bar of soap, rubs it everywhere in his mouth, and then makes him hold the bar in his mouth for at least 15 minutes. Yuck!

There’s a good reason that I don’t discuss this with Mrs. Lion: I absolutely don’t want these things happening to me. Even though a spanking hurts horribly, I do get a little sexual thrill at the thought. There is no such thrill when I consider other childish punishments. I don’t want to suffer any of them. I imagine I feel about those the same way other people feel about spanking.

Maybe Mrs. Lion prefers simple meal. A filling main course served to me is sufficient for her. So far it has served her well. She has expressed some interest in finding a substitute for spanking when it comes to lesser offenses. For example, when I forgot to wear my training collar, she decided to zap me with it as a way to punish me for forgetting to wear it. The first time she tried it, I didn’t get much of a message. It could be she needs to apply a higher setting, or maybe try another non-spanking punishment.

The idea of the punishment fitting the crime has a sort of symmetry to it. I have an idea and I don’t want to give my lioness a thought I will have a lot of time to regret. Let’s just say that there is a very unpleasant way to deal with me eating first. Yuck! Now I’m not suggesting that Mrs. Lion change her approach to discipline. I’ve assiduously avoided making that suggestion for a long time. For the record, I’m not making it now. However, when it comes to the punishment menu, I don’t get to select the items I want. She orders for me.

[Mrs. Lion — We have a board around here somewhere with the same scratchy material that is on some of our paddles. I wondered recently where it wandered off to, but I didn’t actually look for it. Lion used to sit on it after a play spanking to accentuate the pain. And we bought Ivory soap several years ago specifically for Lion’s mouth. I just found the last bar on Sunday with the idea of using it in the shower for its intended purpose. However, if Lion feels the need for a soapy dessert, I can certainly give it to him.]