This is our take on the traditional “maintenance” spanking that some like to engage in. Unlike maintenance spankings, however, these aren’t intended to address any particular disciplinary issues. They’re disciplinary in style, but they’re not punishment. That’s why we decided on the term reassurance, because they’re intended to reassure Sparkle that I’m there to spank her when she needs, whether she actually needs it at that moment or not.

Basically, once each week (Sunday to Saturday), Sparkle must put on a particular short black tennis-type skirt that she has.

No underwear is to be worn. The top is left to her choice and has ranged from a tight t-shirt to one of my dress shirts to a heavy sweater. She then must pick an implement (without repeating too frequently) and come ask me for a spanking with it. When to deliver the spanking is up to me, and if its not immediately, she continues to wear that outfit and goes about her routine until I tell her its time for the spanking.

Spanking time is generally initially indicated by my going to get one of our oak dining room chairs and carrying it into the family room. The spankings almost always start with Sparkle going across my lap while sitting on this chair, having her skirt flipped up, and getting a hard hand spanking (no gentle warmups here). Next comes the chosen implement. Assuming its suitable for OTK, we move straight to that. If its not, Sparkle then stands and places her hands on the seat of the chair for the implement spanking. After the spanking is over, I usually rub her bottom a bit before holding her on my lap and cuddling her briefly. Then, she has to go sit at her computer and write a blog entry about the spanking. Usually. Depending on what the night’s schedule is like or what else she’s working on, I do allow her to postpone the writing until later in the night or even the next day, but she has to ask first.

We do occasionally miss weeks due to schedules and such, but we try to be as consistent as we can.

As is probably apparent from both our blogs, spankings are more often for fun than punishment in this house. Sure, Sparkle does get punished occasionally, but truth be told, she’s honestly very well behaved…most of the time. I’m also a fairly, as our friend Iris put it to me recently, “indulgent” top. As I told her at the time, I’m not sure whether or not that’s a good reputation to have, but c’est la vie.

I should also note that Sparkle and I have a very healthy and active spanking and sex life, especially considering that we have a 3 year old (we do both work from home and she does go to pre-school, so that may make some difference).

I mention this last part only to make it clear that we’re not at a point in our relationship where we’ve lost the “spark”. We still very much enjoy playing with each other (in whatever form that may take), and while we occasionally have “dry spells” due to busy schedules, visiting family, lack of energy or whatnot, they’re usually very brief (such as a week or less) in nature.

Why then did we decide on implementing a very structured, formalized system for a weekly spanking when Sparkle may get spanked every other night of the week as well?

Part of it is because it is structured and formalized. We’ve never had any sort of consistent ritual for our spankings, even punishments. I generally prefer to go with the moment and/or with what seems appropriate for any given situation, be it punishment or play. Thus, the idea of having a ritual was (and still is) intriguing when we first started talking about this in September.

It also helps ensure that even during dry spells and busy times, Sparkle gets at least one spanking each week. This ties in with what I said back in the first paragraph about it being a reassurance to Sparkle that I’ll spank her when she needs it. Even in busy times (assuming we’re home and don’t have non-kinky house guests), we make the time for these spankings. Because they have a ritualized structure, they’re relatively short in duration and not tied into a larger scene or foreplay situation and thus can fit into a busy schedule easier without feeling like we’re cutting playtime short.

Since we’ve started this experiment, Sparkle’s obviously written quite extensively about what they mean to her through her post-spanking blog entries. Several times, however, she’s asked (in posts, comments and other venues) me what they mean to me, and I’ve always avoided answering that. This is mostly due to the fact that beyond the ritual issue I explained above, I honestly didn’t know until I’d been through the process a few times.

Last night, however, it became clear (though I’d been slowly realizing this for a couple weeks already).

For last night’s spanking, Sparkle chose one of our bent-handled bath brushes (the type that are mostly just an oversized hairbrush). She doesn’t like brushes in any form. A couple of weeks ago, she chose the rubber paddle, which she’s not fond of either.

After I finished giving her a very vigorous and painful bathbrushing (where I really had to struggle to keep her on my lap and she kicked and bucked), she asked me again what I got out of these, and I was finally able to answer her.

For me, its a very good feeling indeed to know that Sparkle trusts me enough to go select an implement she hates and ask me to spank her with, knowing its going to be a hard and painful spanking in a position she finds uncomfortable. To know she trusts me to hurt her without hurting her. To know that she wants me to spank her because I enjoy it, even if she doesn’t entirely enjoy every spanking I give her.

And that’s what is reassuring to me.