After Bruce and I married, I quit working at the hospital and went to school full time. That was at his request – “I make enough so that you never have to work if you don’t want to.” I wanted to have something to fall back on, just in case. BUT I wanted to spend as much time as possible with my new husband and my son. So I arranged my school schedule for class in the morning, while Hank (my son) was in nursery school, leaving me time to study in the afternoon (Hank took long naps) and evenings free to spend with my husband. Of course, it didn’t always work out that way, but for the most part it worked for the 3 of us.
My husband was a kind, loving man who really, really cared about his neighbors, his community and mankind in general. And Bruce loved his work, but sometimes he didn’t love the company he worked for. He was legal counsel for labor relations and he couldn’t understand how the company he was working for could treat its dedicated employees the way they were trying to do. He would come home and discuss contracts with me, a working class girl who had strong feelings about injustice. Since I was not familiar with the workings of the law, Bruce had to break things down to explain. Many times this would clarify things in his mind. And sometimes my horrified expression when he explained something was enough to make him go back to the table with a different contract. And the tension in his work usually caused flair-ups of his gastric complaints.
About 18 months into our marriage, Bruce came home early, angry. It had already been a difficult day for me. Hank was running a fever so I couldn’t take him to school, which meant I had had to cut class. He’d been difficult to get down for a nap and I was about exhausted. Bruce was throwing things around and cursing very loudly.
“Honey, what’s wrong ?” I asked. He didn’t answer. He just kept kicking at things, picked his briefcase up and slammed it back down. The noise from that made me jump, and of course, woke the baby. That did it for me. I was angry. I went in and settled Hank back down, then came out and closed the door behind me. Bruce was still banging around.
“Bruce, stop it! Now!” He just glared at me. “Bruce, I swear to God, if you wake the baby again, I’m going to paddle you !”
That stopped him. “And how, pray tell, do you intend to do that?” he asked in the nastiest, most sarcastic tone of voice he’d ever used with me since the day we met. He did have a point, though. I stand less than five feet tall, but I’m rather stocky, weighing in at 130 lbs. He, on the other hand, was 6’4″ tall and weighed, at his heaviest, 200lbs. When we argued, which wasn’t tremendously frequent, we looked rather like an English Bulldog and a Great Dane fighting. However, I was younger and much more active than he was. I grew up with 3 brothers who were wrestlers. I spent my days toting a 40lb toddler and flipping heavier patients. AND I was angry.
Unfortunately when Bruce made his comment, he was standing directly in front of our open bedroom door. I pushed him through it and closed it behind me. He’d already taken off his jacket and tie – they were two of the things he’d been throwing. “Take off your pants.” I told him, glaring at him.
“Go to hell,” he said. And I launched myself at him. I pushed him on the bed, not a difficult task since bed caught him at knee level, and straddled his chest. He kept trying to buck me off while I undid his belt and his pants, but I was hanging on like a leech. I stood up just as he went up for one more buck. The unexpected freedom of movement meant he landed harder than he’d expected and managed to knock the wind out of himself. I took advantage, sat on the edge of the bed, and pulled him quickly over my lap. I pushed his pants down around his ankles and pinned his legs between mine. I applied my hand three or four times to the seat of his boxers as he struggled, but it stung my hand too much. I noticed the toe of my soft, flexible slipper peeking out from under the bed and I reached down for it. Once I had it in hand, I slid his boxers down his hips. “Mel, no!” he cried. Too late. I applied that slipper 20 times to his backside, not tremendously hard strokes, but enough to sting. His cheeks were a very warm pink.
After about the 16th stroke, he began crying. Loud sobs, the way a child cries. The kind that tear at your heart. When I stopped, I pulled him up and laid him, face down on the bed. I got my hand cream and rubbed it over his warm bottom, trying to soothe away the hurt I’d done. I removed his shoes and socks, pulled his pants and boxers off the rest of the way. Bruce continued to cry into the pillows. I pulled a sheet from the closet and laid it over him. Then I went into the bathroom.
As I mentioned before, Bruce’s gastric complaints reappeared whenever he had problems on the job. No ulcers, but a definitively upset intestinal system. He couldn’t eat properly and he became constipated. But he would never say anything. I would do things like get glycerin suppositories and leave them by the bathroom sink. But he wouldn’t use them. I bought an enema bag and left it out for him to see, but he didn’t take the hint. Asking him point blank only got me an “I’m fine. Don’t worry.” But I’d still hear him straining in the mornings as I was getting dressed. It was the enema bag I went for this time.
I mixed a warm solution of water and a bit of mild soap and filled the bag. I checked my nails to make sure they were close-clipped with no sharp edges. I grabbed the bag and the KY jelly and walked back into the bedroom.
Bruce was still laying on the bed with his face buried in the pillow. His crying had changed to the hurt, hiccuppy sounds that are the aftermath of torrential tears. I hung the bag by its hook on the bedpost (ever wonder if that was the original purpose of bedposts?) and set the jelly down on the table.
“Bruce?”
I heard a muffled “What?”
“Pick your head, sweetheart.”
He picked it up and the first thing he saw was the enema bag. He turned to me, wide eyed. “Why, Mel? Isn’t it enough that you spanked me like a child? Do you have to punish me like this, too?”
“Oh, baby, I’m sorry,” I said, caressing his face and pushing his hair back off his forehead. “This isn’t a punishment. It’s an assist. You need it. Are you not constipated?”
His face turned red. “How did you know?”
“I know.” I pulled the sheet back. His bottom was nearly back to normal color and just the tiniest bit warm when I touched it. “Come on. Over my lap. I did promise.”
Bruce sat up, and winced when his bottom came in contact with the coverlet. But he arranged himself over my lap. I grabbed the pillow off the bed and put it down on the floor.
“Rest your head and shoulders on that, love.” I put some jelly on my fingers and rubbed them together to warm it. “Remember how this goes? I’m going to lubricate you, ok?” At his nod, I placed my finger against his anus, and pressed a little. My finger slid in easily and I moved it in and out a little, and twisted it a bit to make sure every nook was well lubricated. Then I slowly slid my finger out. “Ready for the nozzle? Ok.” I gently inserted the nozzle and reached to undo the clip. As the water began to flow, I kept one hand on the tube so I could control the flow or stop it at any given moment. The other hand massaged the small of Bruce’s back. “Let me know if you start to cramp, honey. Now, would you like to tell me what that was all about?”
With warm water flowing into his backside and a loving hand stroking his skin, my husband poured out all that had been troubling him over the last several months. When he’d taken the full enema and I’d clamped the tube and removed the nozzle, he stayed over my knees for another 15 minutes and let me continue to soothe him. I let him up to expel it and cleaned the equipment I’d used. I went back out into the living room to straighten the mess that he’d made of it. Then I sat down on the couch with a book. But I wasn’t reading. When Bruce came out of the bedroom, he found tears running down my face.
He sat down next to me, wincing slightly when he did, and pulled me into his arms. “Oh God, Bruce. I don’t ever want to do that again.”
“What, Mel? Spank me or give me an enema? Better not be the second one. I believe, if I keep working like this, I may have to keep you around just for that. As for the spanking, well, maybe I deserved it.”
“No, honey. You didn’t deserve it. You can do me later if it’ll make you feel better.”
“An eye for an eye, huh? Well I may “do” you, but spank you? No. Besides, you’d enjoy it too much.”
At that, I looked up at him. He was grinning from ear to ear. I giggled. He pressed my face back against his shoulder.
“Let me explain something to you, Melli. What you saw out here was the destructive release of rage and frustration. Not a good thing. When we fought and you paddled me – what did you use anyway – you let me release all those feelings in a less destructive manner. Albeit, not one I would have chose, but it worked. And I needed it as much as I needed the enema.”
We continued to talk – about his need for release, how we both could help with that, etc.
And we settled into, well, I can’t call it a routine … more of a game. A very loving, comfortable, pleasurable game. We had several signals. If Bruce wanted an enema (or I wanted to give him one), the bag would be hung up on the towel rack in the master bath. (We tried hanging it on the bed post, but were a little embarrassed when my mother came to visit and saw it hanging there.) We both reserved the right to say no, but we never did. If Bruce felt the need for “release”, he’d come in and slam his briefcase down, which would send me into “mother with a naughty boy” mode. I’d warm his bottom for him and he’d cry it out. Sometimes enemas were involved, sometimes not. But invariably every one of these scenarios would end in bed.
A brief note, though. Enema giving & receiving were only a small part of our 14 year love affair. We involved enemas in our loveplay perhaps once a month. On the other hand, we made love daily, sometimes more often. And we played other games (nothing too kinky – Bruce just liked my nurse’s uniform).
