Mary and Daphne #190

Childhood, work, and lifestyle discipline marriages have something in common: rules get made, but even rules once rigidly enforced very often stop getting enforced until even the person who made the rule forgets there was ever a rule. In such a way, rules get unmade. Like Mary’s rule about bedtime.

Mary never made me have a bedtime until I quit my job. It was part of her whole you-will-not-live-like-a-teen-on-permanent-summer-vacation-staying-up-til-three-and-sleeping-in-til-noon thing. I can’t deny the logic of it because that’s very much a thing I would do despite knowing it’s unhealthy and would make it harder to go back to work (which was the plan at the time) and school (which was the plan later). Something also about how that sleep schedule put me in a foul mood, but she might have meant fowl mood cuz she said I was being an irritable goose. I don’t think geese are irritable; that’s just their normal, and Mary shouldn’t project human standards of behavior onto geese or geese behaviors onto me. Goose are gonna geese, which is a point but not my main one.

On that sleep schedule, I was definitely irritable some days, plus tired. Mary would wanna do something and I wouldn’t cuz I was tired; plus the crabbiness, which I now admit despite at the time redirecting Mary’s allegation to all the evidence of my equanimity and grace; plus it not being very healthy, which all added up to me putting up only a minor fuss about having a bedtime. I wasn’t so much opposed to going to bed at a certain time, but getting out of bed at a certain time is just so hateful to my soul. Which isn’t over dramatic; I have a very delicate soul. But Mary was right.

Knowing she was right two years ago, however, is not the same as agreeing she was right this week when she noticed that at some point, we both stopped paying attention to the bedtime rule. Forgot about it, actually. And I don’t think it’s fair to equate noncompliance with a rule both of us forgot about to rule breaking. That’s unconstitutional, I think, or should be. Problem being, 50% of the people who live in our house are 100% of the people who decide what the rules are and who broke them, and it’s not me.

“I don’t need a bedtime,” I explained to Her Royal Tyranny.

“It helped last time,” she unhelpfully pointed out.

“Things were different then.”

“This isn’t even a strict bedtime, Daffy. Ten o’clock on weekdays, midnight on weekends, or when I go to bed, whichever is later. You hardly ever stay up past that anyway.”

Separate issue, how the hell is it that I’m usually too tired to stay up for Saturday Night Live, but my parents – who are twice my age – aren’t? What the hell happens in your thirties, and what the hell happens in your sixties? I demand linearity! Stupid universe making no sense and stuff…

But to Mary, I only said, “It’s the principle of the thing.”

“Daffy, it’s bedtime.”

“No.” Did my whole body just shudder? Prancing right over that verbal Rubicon

“Excuse me?”

Yeah, Mary, you should excuse yourself! Not that ever in a bajillion years would I ever cross that chasm and actually, ya know, say that or even think it too loudly.

“Not until you debate the principle.” Yeah, justify yourself, lady! No more free rides! I’m not oppositional! You are! Really! … And stuff.

Either she’s a sorceress (that’s the leading theory) who can fast forward time, or I blacked out. I was sitting on the couch; the coffee table was in front of me; I was wearing pants and underwear; I heccin wasn’t upside down. I remember all those parts.

Short of sorcery or unconsciousness, how else to explain how I came to find myself holding on to Mary’s calf with her foot propped on the coffee table, wearing no pants, wearing no panties, and – o yeah! – heccin upside down over Mary’s knee and not able to describe the sequence of events that got me there?!?

It’s very alarming. Really. I mean, awesome that she can manhandle me like that (another foot and I’m climb her like a tree), but very alarming. I hate being turned over her knee when she’s got it propped on something. Leaves me just dangling there with my hands and feet off the floor like I’m a … spanked thirty-something. Really.

“You wanna debate the principle,” she said as she broke all of Robert’s Rules of Order, the first one of which is don’t slap your opponent’s butt. I say she said it because she wasn’t asking. Purely a rhetorical question. Mary, for all her superlatives, is not a good debater. If she couldn’t cut off debate by doing what she was doing, she’d have to rely on logic and argument, and here’s what she came up with: “I’ll principle you until you can’t sit for a week.”

“What does that even mean!? Ow ow owowowowow ouch stop it!”

“It’s been too long since you went to bed with a sore butt.” SMACKSMACKSMACKSMACK. She’s going to get tennis elbow one of these days.

“Has not! Marrrrry! Stop!”

“How’s this for a debate: you’re the subby little girl. I’m the one in charge. Little girls have bedtimes.”

“I’mNotALittleGirl!”

“Calm down, hold still, and listen (SMACK).” See, the woman has insufficient powers of logic. Would you calm down and hold still if you were getting stung by bees? Of course not! And we were past bee territory after the first sixty smacks. And where the heck does her energy come from!?! Mayhaps from a healthy sleep schedule … dammit.

“You. Are. My. Little. Girl. And. If. I. Say. It’s. Bed. Time. Then. It’s Bed. Time.”

“(Sniffle). Let me – ow! – go! I – shouldn’t – eep! – hafta – yipe!” Robert’s Rules of Order also say you need to let your opponent finish. My Mary is no parliamentarian.

“How are you still arguing with me?”

“This is (snurfle) ridiculous!”

“I’ll tell you what’s ridiculous.”

“Of course you will.”

Well, that was probably the bravest and dumbest thing I’ve ever said. And here I thought that was as fast and hard as her hand could go. Check that off – ow! – as the new thing I – snoozer muffin! – learned today.

“What’s ridiculous is you telling me no. Are you allowed to just say no when I give you a rule or tell you to do something?”

“No.”

“What happens when you tell me no?” Is she still being rhetorical? SMACK “What happens if you disobey?”

“I get in trouble oof ouch Mary!”

“A little girls in trouble get their bare bottoms spanked and sent to bed with sore heinies.”

“Mar-ar-rrry!” I hope her hand hurts tomorrow … No, I don’t. I like her and stuff.

“I can keep spanking your butt.”

“I’ll go to bed! I wanna go to bed!”

“Is that why you’re about to go to bed as soon as I let you down?”

“No.”

“Then why?”

“Cuz you said!”

“Because I am in charge of you. You, little girl, are not.” She punctuated that with a thunderspank to each cheek and set me back on my feet, whence I proceeded to hold my butt and do the Snoopy dance. It was very dignified, in case you hear rumors to the contrary.

“I don’t know any big girls that hold their butts and do the spanky dance,” Mary who’s mean to me said. “In fact, I don’t any big girls who get bare bottom spankings turned over a knee with their big girl hands and feet flailing in midair.”

Robert’s Rules of Order probably say something about being a sore winner, and so do I. “(Sniffle) Don’t be a sore winner,” I said with my classic sniffle-mumble combo.

She reached out, pulled me close, held me with one hand around my shoulder and one on my butt, and – rude much? – kissed me on the temple, squeezed a cheek, and whispered, “I didn’t win, Daffodil, because it was never a contest.” And if she thought that kissing me again would stop me from throwing a full-blown hissy fit, then she was right, is what she was. But it would’ve been very dignified. Really.

“Do you have a bedtime,” she asked me.

“Yes.”

“When is it?”

“When you say.”

“Good girl.” Holy heckety heck she thinks I’m a good girl! Validation! That’s all I ever wanted, and I choose to think of it as sweet rather than pathetic, and more importantly, so does Mary.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, baby. And you got your consequence and all’s forgiven. But don’t think I won’t make your butt glow in the dark if bedtime becomes an issue.”

“I know.” At least she didn’t make me cry. Got that going for me.

“Besides, if you go to bed after me that means I don’t get to spend as much time with you in my arms.”

Welp, scratch that. Gonna cry.

You don’t have to.

Nope; gotta.

But they don’t have to be big tears.

Deal.

“(Tiny sob). (Sound of watering eyes spilling over). (Pathetic mewl).”

“O my goodness, where are these tears coming from?” Her thumb wiped aways the few tears.

“(Snurfle).”

“I think they’re coming from an overtired little girl. C’mon – let’s go wash your pretty face and put you to bed.”

She took my hand and led me up the stairs, prompting me to ask, “Did you see where my pants went?”

“No. We’ll find them tomorrow. You put up quite the struggle. Something you wanna talk about?”

Yep, when resist a spanking, that’s a sign I need to emote. When I meekly accept it, all is well with the world we’ve created for ourselves. Totally normal. Really.

“No.” We were in the bathroom, and she wet a washcloth for me.

“No, there’s nothing you wanna talk about, or no, there’s nothing you need to talk about? Look up for me.” She wiped the tear streaks away. “There’s my pretty girl.”

“I’ll try to be a better submissive for you.”

“Daphne Ann,” Mary said all serious like (like seriously? Yeah, for serious), “you are the very best submissive there is. Needing a reminder who’s in charge doesn’t change that.” She handed me the washcloth. “Honk.”

“I never honk. (HONK! HONNNKKK! tiny honk).”

“All done. Got put that in the hamper and pick out a sleepy time diaper while I use the potty.”

“Um, what if you did that and I peed first?” Asking for a friend who had to pee.

“You don’t need the potty.”

“Um, I do, though.”

“My submissive little girl,” Mary said, slowly enunciating the words, “doesn’t need the potty tonight. Go pick out some huggies, and I’ll be right out to diaper you for bed. You can piddle a puddle in your pampers as soon as the last tape is closed.”

“But …”

“Go be my good girl who obeys.”

“O-okay.” Yeah, I’m gonna sleep great with all these conflicted feels. Dammit.