I think all men, with a need for maternal discipline, have childhood memories if some incident or series of incidents that made being spanked by a woman such a poignant need for the rest of their lives. For me it was my early seventies first grade teacher, Mrs. Holes. She was a very sweet woman--tall, with a shapely figure and dressed all winter in one long, swanky sweater or another, jeans, and chic boots. She'd also wear a long gypsy necklace gifted to her from her Italian grandmother. I'd see her get out of her VW Bug in the morning and wind and jangle her own hippie path down the parking lot to the school entrance. She looked like that Seuss character in The Cat in the Hat.
We loved her because she'd kneel to talk to each of us individually at some point in each period of the day. She’d look warmly into the little boy or girl's eyes while he or she awkwardly recited the alphabet. It provided a cocoon of intimacy and caring that would send my heart racing in her presence when my turn came. I remember trying mightily once with some simple arithmetic problems in order to please her. I had gotten everything backwards, but she just smiled and held my wrist lightly with her hand. I nearly fainted in a swoon.
Mrs. Holes would also discipline us with same loving care. I remember she often sent one naughty boy or other to stand in the corner. She would resume teaching the class, but keep a close eye on the chastised youngster to make sure he or she, usually he, didn't move an inch. If the boy moved slightly, she'd sigh and move over, adjusting his head so his nose was firmly in the corner and his eyes staring directly into the monotonous prism. When the punishment was over, she would escort the miscreant youngster back to his desk. He would always look drained, weak and hesitant from the experience.
Another day, a particularly rowdy boy, who disregarded her three times, was actually taken by Mrs. Holes into her little office sequester in the front of the class and spanked him. We were all straight as a pin behind our desks. It was a relatively brief, albeit, quite brisk, spanking and we didn't hear a sound from the boy. But when they emerged and she helped him to his desk, we could all see he was crying in the quiet manner boys have in such situations. She retrieved a Kleenex from her desk and held it to his nose. He blew and she deposited it into her wastepaper basket. Two weeks later that same boy's mother died in a car accident. The faculty was looking for Mrs. Holes desperately because no one wanted to be the bad messenger. Her face blanched at the news and then she took him by the hand into her office to tell him the sad news. I got out of my desk and peaked. She was rocking the bawling, frightened youngster pressed to her breast.
The first time she disciplined me I was with a friend kicking a soccer ball against the wall of the school, an explicitly forbidden activity. I don't know why I did this. I guess I felt loose and limber. Or maybe I just wanted her to discipline me. A whistle blew sharply and it turned my head right around. It was Mrs. Holes! The other boy kept kicking the ball against the wall. She walked straight up to us; only she didn't jangle and groove this time. She was very angry, flat-footed and fast. She was wearing a very long, purple scarf with stars and crazy smiling moons. My friend was put in one corner of the building, and then she came back to me and escorted me to the other end. She put me right into that corner. She adjusted my head, scolding all the while.
"You're usually such a sweet boy. How could you do such a thing, Carl? I'm very disappointed in you. If I were your mother, I'd give you a good spanking and send you to bed without supper," She was kneeling, making sure my posture was perfect. I love you, but discipline is the highest form of love and that form of love is required this instant. "Now, don't move an inch. You can at least be well behaved when I'm punishing you! Think about what a bad boy you've been and how you've disappointed me." She moved away a distance to watch us both.
I thought about how I'd disappointed Mrs. Holes with my face to the wall. My muscles ached. My eyes watered. I felt shame, and then I felt I was in some void, falling. I moved an inch. Mrs. Holes was there in an instant.
"You moved, dear. Do you want to stay after school and stand in the corner?" She repositioned me. The remainder of those 40 minutes felt like an eternity. My head and eyes were hot despite the unforgiving winter wind. I began to feel myself falling in the void again. What if Mrs. Hole didn't love me anymore? -- Falling, falling, falling. Time had stopped. I felt very strange and began to cry. The tears scalded. I felt Mrs. Holes' presence behind me disappear. First she released the other boy, but I wasn't aware of it. When she reached me she knelt and was startled when she saw my tear-stained face. "You're crying." She looked into my eyes with her beautiful, doe eyes, now all love and forgiveness. She pulled my wet face to her breasts. It felt lovely. I cried louder and she hugged me very close. Her sweater was soft and downy. She smelled of vanilla.
"I should've known, Carl, that you would've let all sorts fears loose in the corner. You're too sensitive for that kind of discipline. I'm sorry. I should've taken you into my office after school and where we'd have some privacy--spanked you, and been done with it. I've wanted to have a heart to heart with you for months. But here we are." Her earrings tinkled in her mild apology.
It had begun to snow and the flakes were melting into her hair and on my face. She was still kneeling before me. Her warm coat enveloped us both, flapping in the arctic wind. "Have you learned your lesson?" I nodded. Like so many kids I went from hell to heaven in seconds flat. "That's the important thing. I think you were naughty because you wanted my attention. She clasped my shoulders with her hands and looked soulfully into my eyes. Her eyes were two lovely ponds after a New England snow. Your parents are getting divorced?" I grasped her gypsy necklace in a panic. My mother, in fact, had moved out the day before. A large swirling snowflake touched my right eyelash and melted into my fresh tears.
She held me close again. "We shall be special friends, Carl. I know how divorce can turn a boy's world upside down. You can help me clean up each afternoon and we can talk. But if you're naughty again, you will be disciplined. In these difficult times for you, I'm going to make sure that you always know I care enough to discipline you. You'll feel happier with the limits I set for you. In the event you misbehave, corner time will only be for twenty minutes after class. I'll touch your shoulder from time to time, so you won't have scary thoughts of abandonment. She kissed my cheek. From a distance, a classmate told me we looked like just her kneeling with her coat extended in a circumstance, talking down into her self-made hole. Then he saw my little boots and knew we were two individuals in conference.
The divorce was hard, and Mrs. Holes often escorted me into the corner. Although I became anxious, she stayed nearby and frequently touched my shoulder reassuringly. Although she often gave my bottom a little spank when my corner time was over, she never put me over her lap for a proper spanking. I guess rumors had reached her of my father's violence toward my mother on a couple of occasions. And yet I never felt more loved. The last day of school, she plugged in her phonograph and played the Elton John hit, "Crocodile Rock." The class went nuts.
I stayed in touch with Mrs. Holes through the years. We exchanged Xmas cards and I visited her a few times. When I started college, she sent me a card congratulating me. "Study Carl, I don't want to have to come over there and spank you." The words thrilled me. If only...
The last time I saw her, we met for the Fourth of July at her townhouse where she and her husband lived by a lake. This was in Pennsylvania and Mennonite country. Instead of fireworks, the people would line the crazy eight lake with candles. It was very beautiful. I rented a rowboat on the other shore and paddled across the water to her dock where she was waiting. She waved at me. She was so beautiful--tall, cascading hair, some of it gray now. But her lovely eyes were radiant.
We sat on the dock and talked, then she took me in her house. Her husband was doing his chores. I looked around. She had thousands of books. D.H Lawrence, Simone De Beauvoir, Hanna Arendt. She had a Masters in English. She patted the seat next to her on the couch. "Why doesn't your husband join us?" I asked. "Because he loves me so much, he volunteered to clean up for your visit."
Silence.
She toyed with her necklace and arched her foot. It was a very cozy townhouse. Gustav Klimt paintings adorned the walls. A cello in its open case leaned against the wall in the ocher light of the burning twilight. A Grandma Moses winterlude painting met my eyes halfway up the stairs: the one with children skating and making snowmen.
Mrs. Holes looked at me. “I want to tell you something very personal, Carl. When I was 12, I had a dream. I was a holy woman in a sacred place and there was a long procession of men before me. They would kneel and place their heads upon my lap one by one, frequently with their ear to my womb. I would urge them to confess their sins, stroking their hair. Some of them had done awful things and it took a long time for them to tell me. I would tuck their faces up and look in their eyes. They'd finally tell me what they did between sobs, even wailing. When they finished and I was convinced they were truly sorry, I would forgive them and bless them with water from a clay pitcher. It was a beautiful dream. When I awoke, my head was humming. I knew my mission in life."
"What's that?" I asked.
"Carl, do you know why my husband and I are so close? It's because I discipline him. It used to be for when he was naughty. But I still spank him every Saturday morning. It's a very loving spanking--and thorough. His bottom is bright pink and very warm when I'm finished and my hand is tingling. But it's not punishment. It helps Rick feel more bonded to me. There's no loneliness, only our intimacy and the world." Rick crossed my vision with a bucket of suds and a floor brush. He looked very happy. She resumed. "After the spanking, he gets 20 minutes in the corner. The corner always bothered him. So, periodically I touch his shoulder to--reassure him that he hasn't been abandoned. That he's not going to fall into an abyss of wantonness and isolation." She touched my arm and smiled. "I think you understand that feeling, Carl... Anyway, after the discipline, he runs off to the florist to buy me flowers: different arrangement each week. Once, he arrived at the florist and found it shuttered. There had been a cold snap and someone had left the window open and the flowers had died. So Rick brought a barrel of peaches into the bedroom.
Every day he tries in some way to make me feel special and unique. His heart melts constantly when I'm near. I can feel it. Even our pulse is in synchrony: just like a baby in his or her mother's womb. But remember, a spanking marriage may initially be a kind of regression, but it becomes a bridge to maturity and consideration. Do you how wonderful that is for a woman? A mature man who is always mindful of her needs?"
"Yes." I stammered.
"Carl, you must find a woman who will spank you. One who will give you limits and help you find that organic connection to life that a man feels when he has properly loved a woman and submitted to her discipline. I think you felt it in 1st grade... " Many boys like you were in my first-grade classes. They'd look up me up, confused and shaken after a divorce, even a stint in jail for one. They're always like a sea tossed ship and suddenly, I give them the insight to find the correct woman. In a year or less, they're anchored over a caring woman's lap having their bottoms spanked by an excellent woman until they weep. Everything is safe and warm again. I've helped dozens of my former students find a woman who will bond to them in that special way of hugs and discipline and trust. They bring back flowers to their wives after their Saturday morning spankings and try to brighten her morning. I can help you, Carl. When you make love to a disciplinary wife, it's the sweetest feeling--like the ebb and flow of the tide. You're both two different and complementary aspects of the same elemental movement."
Bob Dylan's endless love song/dirge to the love of his life, Sara, "Sad Eyed Lady of the Low Lands" was playing on her turntable. Mrs. Holes' lovely crossed leg slowly swung and her sandal slapped her heel while the ceiling fan above whirred. I was paralyzed and embarrassed by our talk.
Six months later, I was in a bar pounding beers with my newspaper colleagues I work with. I was thumbing through the paper. I was with the tough guys from my paper--the crime desk. They have a lot of macho affectations. One fellow was droning on about his hunting trip. He said: "I got nothing all weekend. Every time I came upon a glade and saw a deer, she'd hear my breathing, or a snapped twig and dart off. When I was driving home, guess what? I saw the most beautiful deer eating grass just yards from the New Jersey Turnpike. I eased my truck to a stop and gently climbed out of my car. Now get this, this Bambi looked over and actually moved closer to me, looking at me with those trusting eyes. Shot her through the heart. She was dead before she hit the ground. I strapped her to the top of the truck and drove off. Guys in SUVs were honking and giving me the thumbs up as they passed. I felt like Conan the Barbarian!"
I tried to ignore him. Then this caught my eye in the obituaries. My blood turned to ice. "Mrs. Audrey Holes...1st grade teacher from... philanthropist… died.... aneurysm...leaving behind her husband of thirty years..."
I felt like I was shot through the heart. I left the bar--"Where's he going?" one of my manly shouted. "We've got to toughen him up--crying about a deer."
I went out into the frigid winds like someone mortally wounded. I wended down the street. The bleak wind howled, carrying me a few steps, seemingly. "Oh, the wind in my heart," I sobbed. I felt I was falling and falling without restraint. I heard the radio someplace far off play the latest news about Iraq. I passed the SUVs along the curb and cursed them. What would I do? I dated lots of women my age, but only she understood me: my dear, dear friend. And now this sweet angel was gone. Perhaps she was lifted through some timeless light and commended to heaven. I remembered our talk by the water with the flotillas of lit candles on the lake. I remembered her dream where she blessed the lost men. Now, her time, the early seventies felt impossibly distant. Innocence was so long ago: long before SUVs, long before unremitting wars, the greed and the materialism. It was a long, long time ago--long before my star of Bethlehem was torn down.
But I found my shooting star. I sat behind her on the bed moments ago and brushed her long, auburn hair thinking of how I could make her happy the next day. Mrs. Holes, with her exquisite sensitivity was the conduit that enabled me to eventually see the holiness in all women. That was the key to my marrying this wonderful woman. Tomorrow morning is Saturday and she will spank my bare bottom over her lap, probably to punish me for some transgression, for I am still a naughty boy. She'll have tears standing in her eyes, as I will also when I stand before her in the immediate aftermath of the spanking. They will tears of joy. I'll be sent to the corner to reflect on my naughty behavior. When this happens she will stay in the bedroom with me and touch my shoulder from time to time to reassure me.