Where We Find Grace | free spanking story

Grace lies beside her husband in bed, listening to the slow, even cadence of his breathing. The rhythm is so familiar to her after so many years, and often she finds that her breathing matches his own, as if their hearts beat in harmony.

Under the blankets they are spooning, her buttocks tucked into his pelvis, thigh against thigh, legs intertwined. His head rests against her shoulder, and one of his arms is flung across her hip, possessive even in sleep. Carefully, to avoid waking him, Grace brings his hand to her lips, kissing it slowly, devotedly, before lowering it to her breast and cupping it there.

This is the hand that spanked and punished her, only hours before. She smiles at the memory- a smile that is a mysterious amalgam of pleasure and respect. Once, he asked her to describe how she felt when he spanked her, but she only blushed and lowered her eyes. How could she explain what she cannot understand herself, let alone articulate?

She only knows that she feels safe with him, that within the protection he offers she enjoys a freedom she had only imagined before she met him. In fact, the freedom Grace enjoys is twofold, both positive and negative. She is freed from the doubt and fears that weakened her for so long, and he has freed her to discover herself and her strength.

Obedience- once she thought this was a complicated word, fraught with hidden, negative meanings, and in truth, with another man, obedience might well have been impossible, or destructive. But her husband's integrity, love and respect for her have made submission easy, natural, even. Grace feels such a sense of rightness when she follows her heart and obeys him. And they have built a good marriage- strong, solid, loving.

Hugging his arm more tightly to her breast, she remembers the early years. Soon after they became lovers he warned her that he would spank her when she misbehaved. Even now Grace can recall the heat in her belly, her embarrassment, but the sense of homecoming she felt, hearing those words. She smiles to herself in the darkness of the bedroom, remembering how she challenged him, waiting to see if he was a man of his word.

He was. And is, still. The hairbrush that he spanked her with that first night rests on her night table, a potent symbol of his authority and her submission. Grace reaches for the hairbrush in the darkness and brings it to her lips, imagining that she can still feel the heat lingering there.

Not that her submission came easily- it has been a series of small steps, missteps, and the occasional leap of faith. Sometimes she was angry and resistant, early in their marriage, but the resistance was a product of her own fears.

For the longest time she had wanted to write, and shyly she'd shared some of her stories with him, shared her dreams of being published, if only she had the time to commit to the hard work of writing. Truthfully, though, she'd been content for the dream to be just that-afraid of putting her talent to the test, afraid to find out that she wasn't very good, after all.

And then one day he came home and told her to quit her job as a nurse and pursue her writing full time. Grace smiles ruefully, hugging her husband's arm tighter, remembering her resistance. "How can you expect me to be dependent on you? How can you expect me not to have my own money?" she'd raged, fearing dependence, fearing failure.

"Why won't you trust me to take care of you? Why won't you trust your own talent?" he'd replied.

He spanked her long and hard that night, until the tears streamed down her cheeks and she promised to obey him. The bruises lasted a week, but the anger was gone with the punishment, dissolved with her tears.

The next year was a tough one, what with her husband working two jobs to pay the bills while she stayed home and wrote. Now they joke about it and call this time "the year of Kraft Dinner." Sometimes he looked so worn and exhausted, but he never complained. He did spank her, though, on the days when she didn't keep to the writing schedule they'd set up together, or when she wanted to give up in frustration.

All the sacrifices were worth it, he said, hugging her to him when she showed him that first acceptance letter. The pride and love shone fiercely in his eyes. That was the moment that Grace finally, honestly, believed that his dominance wasn't selfishness, but selflessness, and faith in her- that her submission wasn't constraint but freedom. Obedience came very easily after that, for the most part.