Somehow, he’d expected… more.

Bertie supposed it had been a pretty good day, on the whole. He’d had the day free from work, and had been able to spend the morning cleaning house – his girlfriend Rachel had even helped with the dusting, which was more than he’d come to expect from her in the seven years they’d lived together.

When the hottest part of the day had passed, they’d walked down to the Botanical Gardens together, strolled along the lake, and grabbed dinner at that new Korean restaurant on their way back to the apartment. He could still feel the tingle in his legs from all that walking, and it felt like an accomplishment in its own right.

It was the night of Bertie’s thirty-fifth birthday. That had to be some kind of milestone, right?

And Rachel hadn’t acknowledged it once.

He’d told her that he was exhausted and had gone to bed early, but he couldn’t sleep. For almost two hours he’d been lying awake, listening to the sound of the cooling wind and the traffic outside the bedroom window, but mostly listening to Rachel.

At first, it was the chair in front of their shared computer squeaking periodically. She’d grown fond of a certain cyberpunk RPG she’d picked up a few months back – she’d been so engrossed in it that she hadn’t noticed when Bertie had retired. The game itself was quiet though – Rachel must be wearing her headphones.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Bertie opened his eyes. He hadn’t fallen asleep – he didn’t feel at all rested – but he’d clearly lost track of time. He had grown so accustomed to the background noise that he’d missed Rachel shutting off the laptop and approaching the bedroom door.

He squinted to see her in the doorway, stripped down to a tank top and boy shorts. She must have changed into her nightclothes before he’d gone to bed, but he couldn’t remember when that had been.

She rolled into the bed beside him, resting her head on his chest.

“Honey,” she tried again, “Do you remember what you said when I asked you what you wanted for your birthday this year?”

So she had remembered that it was his birthday.  

“No. I didn’t ask for anything, did I?”

“What you said was ‘nothing could beat my birthday from last year’. Do you remember that?”

How could he forget? He’d slept in late and woken to the smell of Rachel cooking brownies. He would have sworn that he was still asleep and dreaming but for the fact that the batch had been tiny and she told him he could have only the one, and only just before they went to see a movie.

It wasn’t a good movie, but once the edible kicked in it didn’t have to be. Afterward, they did a little shopping downtown, and Rachel bought them some pillows to replace the flattened pair at the head of their bed – where they spent the rest of the day and well into the evening. It was the best birthday he could remember, and he’d told her as much. Maybe that was the problem.

“How was I supposed to follow that up?” Rachel asked. “For four years, it didn’t look like we were going to make it. I’d made those plans in the meantime, everything I was going to do once we made up, for good, I mean, and last year… that was last year. I could have used some ideas this time.”

Bertie felt a brief rush of shame. She’d wanted to do something to mark the year after all – and she could have used his help. As if he could have come up with something to top the previous year!

She nestled into his chest. “Is there still something you want to do for your birthday?”

 “I’m still a bit peckish from the walk,” he mused, reaching down her to her bare legs and giving her a squeeze, “What about some all-you-can-eat thighs?”

“I don’t know… you’d have to be pretty hungry.”

She lifted one short, stocky leg to demonstrate. There was, as she implied, quite a lot of meat on that cut.

He shook his head. “I don’t have that kind of energy tonight. Maybe later this week.” He shifted his weight, ready to turn on his side, but she still met his eyes.

“I might have had something else in mind. Something a little more… traditional.”

“Tradition—“ he started, and stopped. Her faint grin told him exactly what she was thinking. “Come on, it’s been like three times.”

“For you! It’s been five for me – I counted, by the way – and one of those was on your birthday as I remember.”

He remembered that year fondly. “Ah, right. That was my second-best-ever birthday, you know.”

“You brat! What do you say, then?”

Bertie bit his lip. He’d told her that he didn’t have much energy left, and that was true – but this was probably his last shot at some sexy fun on his birthday.

For a given value of ‘fun’, of course.

“Okay, sweetie” he conceded, “may I have my birthday present, please?”

Rachel sat up with evident glee.

“Oh, yes. But first I want you to stand up. I want to unwrap this present myself.”

Bertie wasn’t sure if this meant that he was going to receive the present, or if he was the present. Ignoring the mixed metaphor, he rolled off the bed, raising his arms in a familiar pose. Rachel’s hands slipped under his shirt and pulled it up and over his head – and then stopped.

“Need a hand?” asked Bertie, his voice muffled by the fabric covering his face. She wasn’t going to be able to take it off without help, or at least another foot of height.

When Rachel didn’t answer, he took his shirt off himself, only to find Rachel had dropped down to her knees in front of him, grinning wickedly.

“Uh, honey… what are you doing?”

“Like I said,” she reminded him, “I’m unwrapping.” She slid his boxers down slowly from his waist, his skin crackling with static as the cotton pants traveled to the floor. The stimulation was exquisite, and his breath caught in his throat.

Maybe if he asked, he could still turn this into a blowjob…

“Are you ready for your spanking, birthday boy?”

Maybe if he’d asked.

She reclined back onto the bed, using one arm for support as she found a comfortable seating pose. When she patted her thighs, he knew he was seeing his last chance to back out.

Bertie laid himself down over her waiting lap.

He winced in anticipation. The first swat, contrary to popular wisdom, was not always the hardest, but in his experience it would come as a shock to the system in any case. He knew he was clenching, but he couldn’t help himself.

To his surprise, she reached down and rested her hands on his bare butt. Gently, she started to massage his cheeks.

Managing to find his voice, he asked, “What are you doing back there, honey?”

“Can’t I appreciate my boyfriend’s body? It looks like you’ve plumped up just a bit,” she added with an affectionate squeeze.

Bertie made a note to stop sampling the chocolate croissants at the café. He’d already suspected the same when he’d started to have trouble putting on his belt.

Rachel continued to lovingly knead his buns as the minutes passed. Pressed against her soft thighs, he couldn’t deny he was enjoying her ministrations – to the point of getting frustratedly hard – but he wondered how long she intended to keep this up.

“Rachel? I have to work in the morning.”

“Oh, in a hurry, are we?”

He knew it was the wrong thing to say – and that she’d been waiting for him to say it. The resulting slap caught him off-guard just the same, and he grimaced with the sting. His impatience was going to cost him.

Evidently satisfied, Rachel continued.

“Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow!”

“Oh, hush, sweetie. It’s like you’ve never had a spanking before.”

“I was –ow! Expecting more of a warm-up!”

“It’s an expedited warm-up,” she scoffed, but it felt like she held pack on the next swat. Even still, he couldn’t help twisting in her lap as his ass began to heat up.

Rachel grunted. “Bertie, I’m not big enough to hold you down. Either hold still, or I’m going to have to bend you over the edge of the bed. Which is it?”

Either way, he knew he’d be going to bed on a sore backside, but in only one of those choices did he get to stay cushioned against her thighs.

“I’ll stay still,” he muttered.

“I’m sure you will. If you need to tap out…”

Bertie gritted his teeth. He had a safe word, not that he’d ever had to use it, but it was there. Yes, part of the reason he hadn’t exercise it was stereotypical, stubborn male pride. He wasn’t above it, and he’d earned himself more than one smacked bottom because of it.

But there was also an emotional rush - a catharsis - that came when the spanking was over and he knew that he’d endured it. He’d already come this far.

“No, honey,” he managed, “please finish it.”

 “Ooh, I like the sound of that. But finish what?”

He blushed. “Please finish my spanking.”

“I think I will. Take a peek under your pillow.”

Bertie rolled onto his side, reaching for the closer pillow, dreading what he might find. He expected the hairbrush – it tended to be Rachel’s go-to implement when she wanted to leave an impression.

Instead, he found something he hadn’t seen in years.

They’d never settled on a place to keep their “toys”. Most of their spanking implements were ordinary household objects, and went back to that role after use. Since they didn’t have a ping-pong table, though, he’d thought the paddle had been lost years ago – and yet, here it was.

Rachel sensed his trepidation. “It’s not going to be too hard for you, is it?”

It had been a few years since he’d felt the touch of that paddle, but he didn’t have fond memories. It was incredibly loud and burned like a sonofabitch.

But that same fear that made him hesitant was also… kind of a turn-on.

“Tell you what,” said Rachel, still waiting, “Raise that bum of yours when you’re ready to start—“

He must have surprised her with how quickly he responded. Better to act now than waste time wallowing in indecision, he decided. And evidently, Rachel felt the same.

The blow from the paddle forced him back down into her lap so fast it knocked the breath from him. The sting set in immediately, and it was every bit as bad as he’d remembered.

“One…” he muttered through gritted teeth. She hadn’t said that he needed to count them, but it gave him a sense of control. He pushed himself back up.

“Two!” This time he held.

“Three!” Once more her lap cushioned his landing. Her warm skin comforted him, but he wasn’t ready to bow out, despite the fire she was starting in his hindquarters.

He took the first ten swats as stoically as possible. By the eleventh, he started to worry that he was in over his head. At fifteen, a bead of moisture dropped from the end of his nose onto the bedsheets.

Rachel didn’t notice.

Bertie counted the sixteenth and seventeenth in his head. At this point, the swats began to come lighter, with more time spaced between them.

Eighteen.

Nineteen.

Twenty.

She stopped and started rubbing his aching ass with the paddle.

“Honey…”

He squeaked, “Yes, Rachel?”

“You’ve gotten very quiet.”

She made it sound like teasing, but her concern was just below the surface. Even if his face was turned away from her, she was reading his body language and didn’t like what she saw.

“I’m fine. It’s supposed to hurt—“

“Bertie, before you finish that thought, remember this is supposed to be a fun spanking. I’m not doing this to hurt you. If the paddle is too much, just tell me.”

He bit his tongue.

She sighed. “Bertie, is this a pride thing?”

“What if it was?”

“Then I might start to think you need a real spanking.”

He wasn’t sure what constituted a “real” spanking in this case, but he suspected that it would be even less enjoyable than what he was feeling at the moment. He took a deep breath and pushed from his knees again, waiting for the next strike.

“Just --“ he licked his lip, “is it okay if we sprint to the finish line? Okay?”

She didn’t look convinced. After considering for a moment, she gently pushed him back down against her thigh.

“Hold on, honey.”

He felt immediate regret for his decision. Without the second or so in between swats, there was no room for the heat radiating from his butt to disperse, and the sting built up all the faster. Twenty-one. Twenty-two. Twenty-three. Twenty-four…

She was holding back from where she'd started. As if it mattered.

He lost count. Somewhere after twenty-five, his self-control cracked. He managed to keep himself from kicking out in pain, but his lips broke open in a strangled cry.

Rachel didn’t stop this time. Instead, she rolled her hip to the right, just slightly, and flexed her leg with the same movement. The same leg that Bertie’s cock was pressed against.

It was a trick she hadn’t practiced in a few years. But the effect was immediate – even as the fire below continued to blaze, Bertie sprang to attention. He tried to look behind him, catch the expression on her face. Did she know what she was doing?

“Twenty-seven,” she prompted. “Twenty-eight…”

Muscle memory was taking over. Each crack reverberated through his body, pushing him against her, and he couldn’t stop himself from rubbing furiously against her thigh.

He could feel the pressure building, and not even his cries, even louder now, were relieving it. He swore to himself that he was going to hang on.

“Thirty. Thirty-one. Thirty-two…” The blows were sharper now, and building.

“Uh—“

The last of his composure slipped away with a groan as he erupted over her knee. Bright spots danced across his vision.

She tapped the paddle against his butt three more times, then helped him stagger to his feet. The moment he stood up, the blood rushed back to his battered haunches, and he hissed louder than he would have liked.

Rachel glanced at the splatter on her leg and sighed. “I should make you clean this up, you know.”

Still bathing in the afterglow, Bertie took her words as instruction. To her surprise, he knelt down beside the bed and started to lick his own cum from her thigh.

The taste wasn’t as strong as he would have imagined, but his mouth rebelled from the texture. He gagged for a minute as Rachel laughed and reached for a tissue from the bedside table.

“It takes some getting used to,” she said with a knowing wink. “Come on back to bed.”

“I don’t think I…” he cleared his throat, “I don’t think I’m ready to go again. Tonight, I mean.”

“I know. But tomorrow’s a new day.”

“Tomorrow?”

“If you’re good.”

He rolled into bed beside her, wincing as his ass made contact with the mattress. No way was he going to be able to sleep on his back.

Her body met his, her back against his chest.

“Happy birthday, sweetie.”