Q is for Quality vs Quantity

I can’t believe I just gave Nick an abridged version of my quality versus quantity speech. Usually I prefer quality over quantity, a hand-picked few over an abundance. Fashion and food come to mind, especially food. My favorite treat used to be a mini macaron with zero-calories green tea, while dreaming about a bagel, slathered in cream cheese, with two thick slices of smoked salmon, washed down with cappuccino, three sugars please. Aldous joked I had a stomach the size of a walnut. Sigh, not anymore.

Spanking is a different beast. While quality, as a derivative of experience, undeniably matters, I will always choose a long and painful session with a hairbrush over a short and painful best of six with a cane. Why? Cane is meant to punish, not to deliver to the promised land. And it’s the promised land, the elusive cloud nine that I crave.

 The familiar sounds behind my back confirm why the unexpected pause. Nick’s shirt rustles as he pulls it free. Oxfords hit the wooden floor. The metal buckle of his belt catches the open zipper. He balances on one foot while taking the socks off, but falls on the edge of the bed.

“What if someone walks in?” I am still bent over two pillows.

“Who would dare to walk in on us in our bedroom? Come here,” he offers me his hand. 

“Our bedroom?” I gasp.

“Of course. We’re home, silly.”

It’s dark but I recognize the tall silhouette of a Tiffany lamp, the stack of books with a thick tome of unopened Iliad on top, the perpetually dripping bottle of lube, and the permanent stain from it, burned onto the lacquered surface. That’s Nick’s nightstand. The pillows smell of lavender oil he massaged me with last night. The hum of the oscillating fan by the window mixes with the thumping music from across the hall. The wave of cold air soothes my ever-burning skin.

I scoot closer. Nick has his bare feet propped on the blue velvet bench, the same bench I dreamed so many times he would bend me over. He folded the barber strop, reducing the length in half, into a short-range tool of the trade with more bark than bite. That’s all we need: more bark than bite. He taps his own thigh with this makeshift paddle a few times. At first gently, hesitantly, then with the force, the way he would slap me: through ouches and sighs. 

Pleased with the result, Nick pats his knee—the universal sign of invitation—with a playful smile and unleashes the twang. 

“I ain’t got no time, young lady. Quit itchin’ and bitchin’.” Nick rubs himself to relieve his own itch or for the sheer theatrics of the obscene gesture. “Hop on the Fairyland express, with the stops at Two doz’n, Four doz’n, and Six doz’n, if y’all will behave yourself all along.”