She couldn't get free and struggling wasn't going to do any good. She saw the woman walk over to the rack of implements and select a long wooden paddle. She struggled a little harder against the bonds. "I thought you weren't going to hurt me?"
Turning with the paddle held across her chest like a batter would a baseball bat about to bunt, she advanced on Dina with slow and deliberate steps. "Fear limits what you can know."
"What?"
"That which you fear can hide from you that which is the truth. Fear the truth? The truth is pushed away. But then you live a lie."
"But…" She fell silent, wondering if the woman was whacky, but somehow feeling she was way beyond Dina's comprehension.
"Have you ever been spanked?"
"Sure, by my parents." She was shaking with uncertainty.
Melissa stopped near her head.
Dina could not look up without causing pain in her neck and shoulders. The most she could see was the woman's legs parted – commanding and confident. Her hips and crotch were at eye level.
"No man or woman has ever spanked you?"
"No." She watched the woman move to her side. She tensed.
"I wouldn't do that."
"Huh?"
"You're tensing."
Dina tried to relax. "What are you going to do?"
The woman didn't answer with words. The paddle smacked down onto her shorts, stinging her butt cheeks.
Dina gasped in shock, but then realized the swat had not been painful. That wasn't so bad. She felt helpless, though, and pulled at the restraints.
"You cannot get free. Understand this and let go."
She felt some panic then that was instantly banished with the next swat. Stinging a little, it still did not hurt. Several more spanks came down and Dina grunted with the mild impacts, welcoming the sting as a relief from being bound. It was out of her control, but she wasn't being harmed. She could do nothing but accept what was coming. She let her head hang and accepted the swats.
After a moment of swats, there was a pause.
She sighed, understanding it was over.
Another swat fell, hard. Not injuriously hard, but enough to sting a little more. She gasped in surprise. Then a finger was trailing up the backside of her thigh – soft and delicate. The difference was at once shocking and exciting. She found herself trembling at the contrast. Another finger was felt, and tingles ran up her legs and blood rushed to her head.
The fingers left.
Dina relaxed, savoring the sensation of sting and the memory of the fingers.
A swat landed hard on her ass and she gasped, crying out.
The hand returned, all five fingers this time. The tips lightly stroked up and down the back of her bare leg.
The moan that escaped Dina's throat was a surprise. Suddenly, she found herself laughing in relief. She wasn't going to be hurt here and she couldn't escape the spankings because she was restrained. She let go and laughed.
Melissa stepped around to her side so she could turn her head and look up at her. "See? Nothing to it. How do you feel?"
"Helpless, but safe."
The woman nodded. "Many find it sets them free. Without any control to get in the way, they surrender and enjoy the experience. Given in love, this can be incredibly sexual. Not all who come here like to be spanked, but some do. With surrender comes trust – and trust is the greatest social quality we can give to one another outside of love. And, in fact, trust is integral to love. If you can't trust someone, you can't know them. If you can't know them…" She bent down to begin undoing the restraints. "Then you certainly can't love them."
"You have to spank someone to love them?"
Melissa looked amused. "No, that's not what I said. Spanking is just a way to demonstrate trust. Surrendering to another person is a way to put yourself in their hands. What they do with that surrender determines the quality of that relationship. Do they abuse it? Then the relationship would not be about love, but domination."
Dina stood after the last bonds were released. "I've heard about doms and subs. People in it claim that true love is expressed in dominating—"
Melissa's face turned angry. "Told you by those who abuse the subs. And from subs who are so emotionally destroyed that the abuse is all they have in their empty lives."
"But they claim to really love—"
"They claim it because in their distorted view, they truly believe it is love. Their capacity for love depends on their cruelty. There is no cruelty in love. Destroying another's emotional stability to place it under your command is nothing but cruelty and the worst form of mental rape."
"I'm sorry, I—"
Melissa folded her arms and looked away. "I'm not mad at you, child. Some people cannot be convinced of anything. They claim to be open-minded, but are closed to anything that challenges their status quo. The hate that results when you mention anything against them is as if from Satan himself."
Dina looked at the barrel and the paddle. "This is not a sin?"
One sensual eyebrow climbed one side of Melissa's face. She handed her the paddle and indicated she go replace it on the rack. "Tell you what, girl. You find a passage in the Bible that says what I just did is damnable, and I'll buy you a new car."
The woman's confidence told Dina she wouldn't be getting a new car, no matter how hard she looked.
It was with thoughts of this kind that she left and later went to church.
CHAPTER 4
"Have you ever been spanked?" Dina said to Josh. She was driving them to church.
"As a kid, about nine years old was the last time—"
"No, I meant as an adult."
"Oh, like BDSM stuff?" He wrinkled his nose. "Nah. I'm not into that."
"I don't mean all hardcore and everything, just a little spanking—"
He shook his head. "No. Are you suggesting something here? I don't go for that sickness."
Great. How did my attempts differ from Melissa's? I try and it's a failure. Melissa just whispers a few words and everything makes sense. What the hell? Dina said nothing more; she knew Josh, and his tone said he wouldn't budge. Had Melissa been right? Some people were so closed-minded they were beyond reason?
They were early enough to pick their own seats and they sat on the left side. As the place filled, an old woman named Margaret came in, cane in hand. She looked down their aisle at the very small space between Dina and the man next to her.
Dina waved her in and squeezed closer to Josh to make room for her.
The woman sat, white hair done up in a style not seen for decades. "Thank you Dina. You're such a sweet girl."
The sermon was about giving oneself in helping others – about how to be a servant to your neighbor without being a slave.
At the end, Dina was about bursting with anticipation. She was annoyed at the mingle and crowd, and just wanted to get to the door so she could ask Pastor Mann her question. She had rehearsed it the entire sermon.
Finally reaching the door, she stood beside Josh as he shook hands with Caleb.
"Nice to see you again… Mr. and Mrs. Lewis, right?"
"Good memory," Josh said.
Dina drew in breath and then her carefully rehearsed question evaporated from her mind like a drop of water on hot pavement in the summer sun. "Pastor…?"
"Yes? Tina, was it?"
"Dina." She saw the pastor's wife, Olivia, elbow him in the side.
Caleb smiled, easy and relaxed, but his eyes were intense and lit from within by passion and confidence. "I'm sorry Dina. I'll try to remember. You have a question?"
"Yes… I…"
"Go on."
"If something isn't in the Bible, is it a sin?"
He stood up straight, a thoughtful look on his face. "You mean, if it isn't mentioned as a sin?"
She laughed nervously. "Right, sorry."
He frowned. "That's quite a serious question." He looked at the people beginning to line up behind her. "That probably deserves more time than I can g
ive at the moment. But in short, it depends. Would you like to talk about it later?"
She nodded.
He pursed his lips. "I can make some time next Sunday after the service."
"Okay." She felt a little nervous. Was he disapproving of the question?
He nodded and touched both their shoulders. "See you next week."
~ ~ ~
Dina's week was filled with thoughts fueled by a new nightly ritual. Before going to sleep, she picked up her Bible.
"Just reading," she said to Josh. He had asked what she was doing.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye – his look of what are you up to? "Something bugging you?"
He was sensitive to her like that and she loved him for it. "Sometimes I wonder if our culture has covered over the word of God."
"Huh? How?"
"Well… Like the Baptists. Some of them believe dancing is a sin. But David danced around before the ark of the covenant."
He grunted. "But they're Baptists."
"So is it a sin or not?"
"That's why you asked Pastor Mann about—"
"Yes."
"So you're looking to see if you can find out about dancing?"
"What? No. I was just using that as an example."
"So what are you looking for?" He seemed irritated as if she wasn't answering him.
She sighed. "I'm not sure. But I thought I would read the gospels because that's where Jesus talks directly."
"We know what He taught."
"Do we?"
"Of course, we were both raised and taught in the church."
"So we know what the church taught us."
"It's the same thing."
She put the Bible down. "Is it? Did Jesus ever say dancing was a sin?"
"Not that I recall." Josh was not ignorant and was fairly well-read in the scriptures.
"But the Baptist church teaches it is."
"Hmm."
"And all those Baptists believe it."
"I'm sure some don't."
"But some do. Isn't that a perversion of the message?"
Josh went silent. It was a sign from him he was thinking and had nothing to say against the thought.
Wow, did I just pull a Melissa Strauss on him? Feeling more confident, she picked up her Bible and started reading again.
~ ~ ~
On Friday, she was back to being frustrated. So many unanswered questions arose that she felt more helpless than before. It's not that the Bible was confusing her, but so much of what she had been taught appeared to be taken from portions not related to the ministry of Jesus and extrapolated into a code of conduct that bore little relation to the good news of the message.
She sipped her coffee. "I guess I'll hobble off to work."
Josh shook his head. "I told you that stuff would make you old."
Suddenly overwhelmed with frustration, she snapped at him. "Nowhere in the Bible does it say drinking coffee is a sin."
He looked shocked and held up his hands. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold on there. I didn't say it was. I was just kidding around with you."
Dina felt her shoulders slump. They felt tense. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean that."
He placed his hand on hers at the kitchen table. "Drink up. Even if I don't drink it, I hope it makes you feel better."
And that was another reason she loved him so much. She smiled, ashamed at her outburst, and placed her other hand over his. "I love you."
He got up and kissed her forehead through her bangs. "Love you, too."
They went their separate ways to work.
~ ~ ~
Saturday filled Dina with energy in anticipation of her talking to Pastor Caleb the next day. She arrived at the Strauss residence with determination.
Melissa opened the side door and startled her.
Dina said, "Oh. I thought Sebastian would open it."
The woman pursed her lips. "He's on vacation. And then I remember every year how much he does. It helps his salary review for raises and I believe he takes his vacation right before the review on purpose."
She scurried in past her and down the hall. She didn't know how to answer the woman. She felt a pang of disappointment at not seeing Sebastian there letting her in. He smelled so good and was terribly handsome…
She set about cleaning the dungeon – as she thought of it - as if her effort would speed the day along.
Melissa came down and watched her when she was using the orbital. It made her nervous. When she clicked the machine off, Melissa shook her head.
"I just came to watch you clean."
"Oh." She turned the thing back on and tried to hurry. She tried not to look at the woman leaning up against the arm of one of the leather couches.
How does she pose so feminine like that? I need to practice. She felt as if she had missed some kind of secret girl-meeting earlier in life about how to pose.
She finished and came back out into the room. She played with her fingers. "I'm going to shower."
Melissa said nothing, just nodded.
Dina cooled in the shower and calmed herself. She still felt anxious over the next day and her meeting with Pastor Mann.
She was wholly unprepared for the disaster about to broadside her world.
~ ~ ~
When Dina came out of the bathroom, Melissa was still in the main room, sitting on the couch.
"Oh, hi. I'm all done."
The woman nodded. "You do a fine job. Sebastian mentioned you talked about a uniform?"
"Oh… yes, I didn't know if I was supposed to wear one."
"You can if you want to. We can provide you with one next week."
Dina wasn't sure if she was supposed to refuse or accept. Sebastian had said they would be amused. Did they think she wanted a uniform? Or did they think she needed one? Unsure as to what might please Melissa, she said, "Okay."
"You appear troubled?"
She put down her carry bag on the couch. "I'm sort of looking forward to meeting with Pastor Mann tomorrow. I had a question about some things not being in the Bible."
The woman nodded slowly. "Having to do with what happens here?"
Dina blushed. Then she nodded. "I…" But she didn't know how to finish.
"Don't fear the unknown, girl. It is good to have a curious mind willing to look for the truth. But don't look to satisfy yourself, look to find the truth."
She nodded. "The truth."
"Be careful, too. Be prepared to find something you might have wanted to avoid."
"How? Isn't the truth something we should all know?"
"Many cannot handle the truth. They pay lip service to it but fight against the truth as hard as they should fight against Satan."
"I've been searching the Bible all week, and I think I have more questions now than before."
The woman rose. "Does it have to do with last week and your spanking?"
Dina felt very embarrassed and knew she turned red again. She nodded.
"You found you liked it, but that it conflicts with what you think you know?"
"Yes, and my husband didn't seem to want to talk about it. He automatically thought it was all sick."
"Did you tell him you were spanked?"
"No, I just brought up the topic."
"Come, let me advance for you last week's demonstration."
Dina felt a slight thrill run through her. "Oh?"
"Come." Melissa waved her fingers in a grasping motion, palm up.
"Well, okay."
They stood at the barrel. The woman looked at her with a tilted head. "Take off your shorts."
"My shorts?" Her eyes got big.
"Yes. You can leave your panties on."
"But…"
"Remember that being bound as you had been was about trust?"
"Yes."
"This is also trust. Do you trust me enough to remove your clothing? I will not make fun of you."
Dina looked around. She unbuttoned her shorts and let them fall.
&nbs
p; "Very good. Now lay on the barrel." She walked over to the rack and selected a short handle with some soft leather straps on it.
She came back and knelt to fasten the restraints. "Nudity or partial nudity is a symbol of revealing your innermost self. Your clothing acts as covers for your vulnerability to your fears. Many people use clothing to express themselves in ways that portray them as something they are not."
The memory of the previous week simultaneously thrilled Dina and relaxed her. She wasn't scared, though she knew there would be some sting. Even then, her heart rate increased. It was a delicious dichotomy that had her grinning.
"The spanking you took last week bothered you?"
"Sort of. I was reading all week to see if I could find anything about it. About the only thing mentioned was sexual immorality."
Melissa smiled from her squatting position. "Ahh… I have a feeling you will be learning about porneia."
"Porn?"
"No, porneia, the Greek term translated as sexual immorality."
"The Bible really mentions porn?"
"No, though the word derives from it. I'll let the pastor do his job and illuminate you." She stood.
Dina wondered what was going to happen and gasped when Melissa yanked down her panties. She kept pulling and yanking until they were stretched wide at her knees. "I… Uhhh…"
A hand fell lightly to her butt cheek and rested there. It moved caressingly. "Don't worry. You will not be harmed." The hand left.
Dina tried to breathe normally, not knowing when the slap was coming or if the hand would return. Or would it be the fingers?
The whip came down, slapping leather strips to her exposed ass in a flaring sting of widespread pain.
She gasped. It stung, but didn't hurt.
"Do you wish your husband would do this to you?"
"Yes." She did, too. She wondered that the woman had figured her out so neatly.
The whip came down three more times, relatively hard but not hard enough to hurt.
Dina was squirming.
Melissa walked over to the rack and selected a huge hand-held massager. It was a heavy looking thing with a cord for power.
Love and Liberation: A Christian Wife's Journey Into Sexual Freedom Page 4
