Bertie awoke to the smell of fresh coffee. Ignoring the early hour and his own internal screaming to stay in bed, he pushed the covers aside and followed the sweet smell wafting out of the apartment kitchen.

He was surprised to find Rachel there, in the dim light from the coffeemaker - still in the clothes she’d worn yesterday, her eyes sunken and lined. She jumped a bit in her chair when she saw him coming, having clearly not expected company.

And he hadn’t been expecting her – she’d told him that she was working up north until the afternoon.

“Hey,” she said weakly.

“Hey… Honey, it’s three thirty in the morning.”

Rachel nodded. “I know. I got back from the station about five hours ago. I left you a message, but you were already asleep.”

She took a sip of her coffee, her slim hands clawing at the mug.

“I have something to ask you, Bertie, but it’s a big ask and there’s a lot I should tell you first. It’s been spinning around in my head since I got home and I need you to listen to me before you judge. Can you do that?”

This was already a lot to take in minutes after waking.

“Did you make enough coffee for two?” asked Bertie.

“…Yeah.”

He took a minute to fix himself a cup, drawing a heady breath of Irish cream, and joined her at the table. Rachel fidgeted – she may have been preparing for this speech, but she she’d been discovered before she had a chance to rehearse.

She sighed. “My boss spanked me at work. Three months ago.”

Bertie stayed in silence, the darkness of the room covering for him.

“How… why…?” he tried.

“I fucked up, Bertie. I kept bugging them to play some of my old tracks on the radio, and the station manager came all the way down to tell me to knock it off. I got mad and then he said some things that were…”

She gestured incoherently into the empty air. But Bertie knew his girlfriend, and the things that were most likely to set her off.

“…unkind but accurate?”

“Yeah. I blew up, said I deserved better. He said the only thing I deserved was a good spanking. And after I calmed down, I decided he was right.” She was blushing, still embarrassed. “It wasn’t a fun spanking, Bertie. I got the full bad girl treatment – the lecture, pants around my ankles, kicking and crying.

“That wasn’t the end of it, either. I had to work at the kid’s table for three months to learn the job from the ground up. It was embarrassing, but I was kind of enjoying it… until one of my new coworkers found out why I was with them…”

Her story continued, but Bertie’s head was already swimming from the revelation. Rachel had been withdrawn for months, and Bertie had just made peace with the idea that he wouldn’t know why until she was willing to tell him. And now that she had…

“Couldn’t you—?” he interrupted, and then stopped himself.

“Do what, quit? I mean, it’s not like I’ve never taken a spanking before. It just seemed like the path of least resistance.“

“Couldn’t you come to me?”

Rachel bit her lip and then took a sip of her coffee.

“These last few years, even when we haven’t been getting along, you’ve supported me. Emotionally. Financially. But I’m almost forty years old, Bertie, and I can’t keep depending on you to solve my problems for me. Sometimes that means I have to do things the hard way.”

His ears burning, Bertie fought the urge to turn away. The words, “after all I’ve done for you”, sat on his lips…

And he bit his tongue. He knew Rachel. She wasn’t ungrateful, but she was saying what should have been obvious – that no matter how good his intentions, he couldn’t always be there to help her.

Rachel continued, “It’s like… back when I was first on my own, I knew in my head what I was supposed to do, but I had no self-discipline.  I made a lot of mistakes. So when a man came along and said he’d take care of me the way I couldn’t take care of myself… I let him. It seemed like a fair trade for the occasional night in the corner.

"It wasn’t a sex thing then. More like … atonement. I mean, I know it was a turn-on for some people, but I didn’t really enjoy getting spanked. I just thought that it was something I needed.”

Something she needed.

Bertie had felt the same until very recently. Until the fear of a spanking-celibate lifestyle had made him question why he felt he needed so badly. As if, like Rachel, he imagined it addressed some deep-seated pathological need, that without the release of pain and powerlessness he was living half a life.

The truth, however he chose to tell it, was that spanking was something he got off on. Everything else was gloss.

Rachel continued, “I thought I’d outgrown that way of thinking, but one note of criticism and I… I took the spanking. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you what was happening, but there wasn’t time and I didn’t think you would accept my choice.”

“Probably not,” Bertie conceded. “So if it wasn’t a sex thing before, what changed?”

“You did.” This time, he was sure that what he was seeing was a smile. “Don’t get me wrong, at first I wasn’t thrilled to be in another relationship where I was getting spanked all the time. But you didn’t treat me like your fuck toy, and that helped. And there’s the other thing.”

“Which is?”

“Nobody else ever wanted me to spank them. Or at least, never trusted me with that kind of judgment or authority. You don’t understand how much that meant, how much I changed because of your trust. I can’t thank you enough, and that’s what makes this so hard.”

Vague. Possibly concerning. “Honey, you don’t have to—“

“Just let me finish, okay? I’ve been on the receiving end of several weeks’ worth of spankings, and now that it’s over I’ve missed being the one to dish them out. I want you back over my knee, I want to smack that butt of yours until it’s red and sore, and I want you to carry me to bed and fuck me silly.”

He felt cold coffee dribbling onto his chest, and Bertie shut his open mouth. Of all the directions this conversation could have taken, this wasn’t one he’d been prepared for. Ignoring the mess, Rachel got up and placed her mug in the sink with a pronounced clink.

“I also realize that I haven’t been honest or forthcoming with you, and if you don’t feel I’ve earned that level of trust back, we can wait. This isn’t about punishment, I want to do this for you… if you’ll let me.”

“I… I have to go to work in an hour, Rachel.”

“And I need some sleep. Let me know when you get home, okay?”

She left the room, pulling at her shirt, her mind finally unburdened. But now that heavy thought lay at Bertie’s feet.

The drought was over. Was he ready?

***

It was hard to concentrate throughout the day at work. Not even the monthly inventory helped to take his mind off of Rachel’s proposal.

“Hazelnut syrup, check. Chocolate hazelnut, need to order. Raspberry syrup? Check. Spankings…”

He caught himself and looked up. His baristas were serving customers. It didn’t seem that anyone had heard.

“Sprinkles…” he corrected, “…need to order.”

The slip-up put him on guard for the rest of the shift. His staff must have assumed he was distracted, probably by something at home.

They were right.

No matter what her silence had cost her, Rachel had broken his trust. She’d made this arrangement at work behind his back, and she’d let another man spank her, something which was supposed to be intimate and shared between them.

Or was it? It was hard to make that argument after Sophie, or Maya, or Sherri or Mika. No, they’d opened that door long ago. And the spankings with those participants had been for fun or at least fun-ishment – he believed Rachel when she said that she never wanted a repeat experience with her boss.

But the disclosure about her past was another matter. On some level he’d always known there was something there – Rachel was four years his senior after all, she’d been almost thirty when they’d started dating – but hearing it confirmed only after ten years together had been a lot to digest.

Maybe he could have asked, at some point – he’d even had a perfect opportunity when he’d stumbled upon her ex’s “play room” at the funeral. But he’d remained willfully ignorant out of concern for Rachel’s feelings, but also to cover his own insecurities as her inexperienced younger partner. He couldn’t blame Rachel for that.

A new thought occurred to him, a new meaning of her confession. Rachel’s boss, her coworker… even her ex, they’d all given their best efforts, but Rachel had taken her licks and gotten back up, more confident and capable than ever before.

Maybe that meant that she wasn’t a submissive anymore, or even a switch. The thought preyed on his mind throughout the drive home, as he undressed, as he showered and trimmed his beard. The balance of power between his girlfriend and himself had changed since the beginning. Was he ready to accept a full reversal?

He thought about re-dressing in his clothes from work, but the smell of stale coffee proved too strong. Wrapping a towel around his waist, he bundled up the clothes and took them to the hamper in the adjoining bedroom.

She was waiting there, seated on the edge of the mattress.

The last of the dye had recently worked its way out of her hair, leaving the salt-and-pepper look that he recognized was here to stay. She was still damp, she must finished bathing only shortly before he arrived home. If she was wearing anything under the red satin bathrobe she’d thrown on, he couldn’t see it.

She hopped off the bed at his arrival.

“I’ve been thinking,” said Rachel quietly, “maybe I was too presumptuous this morning. I hadn’t gotten a lot of sleep, and this is still new—“

She shrieked as he scooped her off of her feet and into his arms. She was such a small woman, to hold such power over him. He kissed her lips, swallowing her muffled shriek.

“It’s okay,” he said.

“Really?”

He nodded. Jostled loose by the sudden movement, his towel slipped. Rachel took a moment to admire the now-naked man holding her.

“So…” She grinned. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“You’re not really going to make me ask for it, are you?”

“I really think I am.”

Bertie’s arms were starting to buckle. He sighed.

“Rachel, my love. Would you do me the honour of putting me over your knee and giving me—" he gulped, but pressed on, “—a spanking?”

“Oh, I’ll give you more than that. But you’ll have to put me down, first.”

He complied eagerly, and she leapt back onto the bed, resting her back against the headboard and beckoning him over her lap with a crooked finger.

Inwardly, he reminded himself that she’d promised to leave him red and sore, even though he’d done nothing to deserve it, nor could he expect to pay her back again, maybe ever.

And to that internal voice, he said: So?

Seeing that she was seated comfortably, he stretched out across her strong and well-cushioned thighs, feeling the familiar touch of her arm across his back, her far hand wrapped around his midsection. The other hand…

The other hand splashed down upon his flank with a resounding smack. It was a familiar feeling but new each time, how the sound would linger and echo in the room and only afterward would he begin to feel the hot spot where her palm had struck him. Her arm was raised again.

Swing. Smack. Sting. Repeat.

She’d left a patina of handprints over his cheeks before he started to twitch with each strike. He couldn’t tell if she was starting to spank harder, or if she was just building from the heat she’d already started.

Honestly, he’d never been able to tell the difference.

At that point, he started letting out a little “ooh!” or “ouch!” with each impact, and he could see that little smile of hers in his periphery.

This was the part that she really enjoyed, when Bertie’s brattiness and bravado would start to crack under pressure. He didn’t agree with her preference, but this was when she really got her whole body into the spanking, her hips shifting and her thighs clenching and unclenching against him in a way that never ceased to delight.

“Do you think you’ve had enough?”

She took a break to squeeze his glutes, admiring the colour and shine she’d put into them. He hissed at her touch, but it soon turned to a soothing rub. Maybe he could take a little more.

“I don’t think you’ve had enough, either. Why don’t you go get me my hairbrush?”

The object in question was within reach on the nightstand beside them, but that wasn’t the point. Bertie had to get off of her lap in order to pick it up, then hand it back to her.

This was a part of the ritual that – he wouldn’t say he enjoyed, per se, but that he savoured. Where she’d already wounded his butt and his pride, and he was expected to hand her the means to do more. It was the very essence of power exchange, and it was exhilarating to him.

Rachel, on the other hand, preferred to get this part over with. Giving him only a moment to appreciate what was about to happen, she pulled him back over her knee and immediately went to work with the brush. Bertie kicked and bucked like a brahma bull, but Rachel was a trained rider. By the time she decided she was done, his bottom was all but steaming, and rubbing did little to ease the ache.

“You could have gone a little easier,” he grumbled. “We don’t play as often as we used to.”

“You get mouthy when you think I’m holding back,” she reminded him, massaging her thighs now that they were free of Bertie’s weight.

“Never mind. I believe there was a promise of fucking…?”

“Oh, impatient are we? Maybe I’m not ready for you yet.”

Bertie smirked, thinking that he recognized a prompt when he heard it. Pushing through the burn in his hindquarters, he knelt down on the bed in front of her, pulling her knees apart, dipping his face in between. His first glance proved to be right – she wasn’t wearing anything under her robe.

He stopped short, a finger pressed against his nose.

“Mm-hm. Not until I can feel my legs again. Take a few minutes in the corner.”

He gave her his best puppy-dog stare, but Rachel was unamused, pointing instead to the opposite wall. Bertie sighed and relented, wincing with each step he took toward the spot where the walls met. Without prompting, he steepled his hands over his head and waited.

Minutes passed, the sting in his tail beginning to fade. With nothing but the blank wall to hold his interest, he became acutely aware of every sound in the room – the groan of the laminate beneath his feet, the whisper of air from the vent. A faint creak of bedsprings, as if someone already on top of them was pressing down – and Rachel’s accelerated breathing.

“Honey, are you masturbating to my spanked ass?”

“Not… if you keep talking…”

Her ruse discovered, Rachel had no more reason to keep quiet. A few moments later she came in a loud gasp, which tapered off into a girlish chuckle. It was a sound both silly and profoundly beautiful, and Bertie’s member gave it a standing ovation.

He’d been in this position many times with Rachel, and it shouldn’t bother him that he would continue to be – even when she wasn’t. But that dynamic had changed before, and there was no reason to believe it wouldn’t change again.

“Come here,” said Rachel, her voice thick. “I’ll even let you be on top.”

And that would have to be enough for now.