In the Doghouse

Okay to all of you whom this concerns, cancel the search parties, I'm okay, I promise.

I've been in the doghouse for the past two days (anybody have a cute royalty-free pic for this they can help me insert, lol?). No one, even my best friends in this lifestyle, have been able to hear from me, since I don't have a deathwish. It's been absolute torture, and as I'm writing this, I feel like I'm about to go out of my mind.

The trouble started with a what-were-you-thinking-oh-wait-do-you-even-have-a-brain type moment (no it IS different than usual, geez!). I had a friend coming over in a couple days that wanted to see my new house, and I was trying to clean up the bathroom so it would be in good condition when she came over. I scooped up everything off the floor, and put it in a pile, intending to put it away soon: his bath toys, a shirt, a towel, a few things he had been playing with, that he had managed to snatch out of the cabinet before I closed it. But as often happens, I got distracted from putting these things away and when Jay came home, there they sat.

I was finishing dinner, so Jay went to put Little Man down to sleep without me, and was passing by the hallway to do so, when something caught his eye that my son had been playing with. "Kay," he said, his arms full of our son, "hand me that, please." I looked where he was clearly pointing to, and I'm pretty sure I went white.

After all my boasting to others on getting rid of all possible wooden "pervertables" that could be used as implements, including our bathbrush and wooden spoons, how in the world had I missed this?! And why was it sitting on the floor in the pile? Why not tie a big bow on it and hand it to him? Geez!

"Hand it to me, Kay."

"No!!" I stated emphatically.

Jay just smiled a little, put down our son, picked up the long, unattached, inch across, 1/4 inch thick, varnished wooden handle to my loofah brush, and then continued on with his task of tucking our son in, leaving me standing there frozen, horrified.

I went back to the kitchen feeling wooden, although my mind raced with anxiety. What was I to do now?

Just then, a friend called, and in a frenzy, I explained my dilemma, and asked for advice. She encouraged me to talk to my husband, to trust his judgment, to not do anything I'd regret later. Ha! No, not really. Neither did the other friend I was texting at the same time either. It was a sister solidarity moment, as I conspired with my friends on the best method to save myself from that evil thing. Not that it was their fault, it was totally me that decided what to do.

I crept downstairs to our bedroom, grabbed it OUT OF HIS IMPLEMENT PILE (eeek!), and hightailed it up the stairs again, hiding it in a cabinet. The plan that I had decided on was to tell him that I had broken it and thrown it away, to gauged how bad the damage would be first, before actually doing it. Then I could decide if to give it back or break it and be rid of the dang thing forever. Maybe the punishment wouldn't be that bad, and it would be worth not having to worry about that thing!

When Jay came up the stairs and asked me to produce it, I gave him the "I broke it" story and listened for the verdict. It was steep, horrible even, but liveable. And as my friend agreed, it was worth not having that thing in the house (I was still on the phone this whole time by the way, and discussing the situation, probably not the brightest idea, in hindsight).

After I hung up the phone, though, to talk to my husband about all this, he totally shocked me. His normal boyish teasing manner had faded, replaced by a dark cloud. He shook his head, sad and confused. "I can't believe you did that," he finally said. "Why didn't you just come talk to me?"

"Wait, you mean you would have listened? But I didn't know I could!"

"We could have discussed it! Instead you did this."

Well, after a few minutes, I was convinced, and I ended up giving it back to him, as well as showing him the loofah sponge I needed it for.  I knew I was in for it, but he wasn't going to tell me anything else until the end of the night. So we ate dinner, watched a few of our shows, and I just tried to put it out of my mind.

We revisited the topic though, as I sat in bed waiting to hear my fate. And that's when the grilling began. He wanted to know who I had been talking to at the time, although he already knew. I told him instead who I had been texting. His face just got more and more serious, as he pointed out that I was lying. I told him that I wasn't, that it was both. He wanted to know what they're opinion on the situation was. I downplayed it, and I could see he didn't believe me. I could also see he was super upset.

He started talking about playing games, and being conspiring, and being conniving, and lying, not once but multiple times...can I point out this is not usually me? I don't have really any secrets from my husband. I talk to him about everything, and by that I mean everything.

I could say that it was an unthinking act of self-preservation. Desperation. Figuring it was better to ask forgiveness later. It didn't seem that huge of a deal.

But it hurt him. It hurt him in way I've rarely seen.  He kept saying I didn't realize how big this really was to him. He trusts me completely. And yet that night, I shook his trust in me.

When I saw how it affected him, I felt crushed. I told him that I wished I could just take it back, that I would have come to him and rationally made my case, like I should have in the first place, that wished I could rewind time.

Jay told me he knew how that felt, that he felt that same way after he made a terrible decision that rocked my trust in him. I was shocked he brought it up, actually. I didn't realize that he had regretted it so much.

He did end up spanking me of course. It hurt a lot, yes, but it was lighter than he could have. The real punishment, he said, would be the next few days.

"I'm not taking away your phone, nor your computer. But you will not contact any DD friend whatsoever for the next two days. I mean it, Kay. No letting them know that you can't contact them either. Don't even try loopholes, because there aren't any that will work. Let me be clear: no calling, texting, emailing, IM-ing, commenting on blogs, posting for friends to see, nothing! Do you understand? Have I made myself clear?"

"Yes."

And then he continued. "I need to be able to trust you. I'm done with the games. This is punishment, Kay; you already agreed it was well-deserved. Now's your chance to show that you are truly sorry, that you learned something. So I want you to obey me, no matter how hard it is."

"Okay, Honey, but please let me just tell my friends what happened! I just know my one friend is going to worry really badly! It's going to drive her crazy, not knowing! It's not fair that you're punishing her too!"

And then I saw it. That grin of his spread across his face, the one that can be best described as diabolical. "Well obviously it's mainly the effect it's going to have on you, but hmmmm, what if I am? Maybe they shouldn't have been encouraging you to conspire and lie and defy me."

"That wasn't what happened! And it was all me! I'm the one that did it, me alone!"

"Yeah you are. But I don't like the united thing. You can downplay it all you want, I've already figured out what happened. I'll even say I'm still undecided of whether I'm going to send a message to her husband about having a little talk, of what happened here tonight. So for more than your sake, I'm really encouraging you, to do the right thing."

UGH! "I still think you're being mean to my friends, they're going to have a hard time with me just ignoring them, after they know what happened! It's not right!"

"Seriously?" It may have been dark, but I'm pretty sure my husband was rolling his eyes. "What, Kay, does your friend think I'm going to kill you? Give me a break, it's two frickin days! And it's not like I'm a monster! What could possibly happen that she'd be so worried? I mean, really!"

I tried to keep my wits admist all his guy logic. "It's just how we are! We're emotional creatures, we support each other through hard times!"

"Yeah, well neither of you are going to die within two days. And you can explain later. Don't do the crime if you don't want to do the time. You can deal without talking. Don't test me on this," he repeated.

I still wasn't happy about it. But with everything he'd given me to think about, I resolved to obey. I felt bad about what I did. I needed to submit to him, no matter how hard it was. And it couldn't be that hard since I was contrite, right?

I thought having my phone would be better than if he had taken it. Nope, it was worse. I truly saw why Jay picked this form of exquisite torture. It would have been no problem to let everyone know, and then just not talked to anybody. But this way, friends texted me and emailed me and called me and left messages wondering what was going on and I couldn't respond. I'd pick up my phone each time, in a mental tug-o-war. I'd remind myself of Jay's hurt expression the night before, and that I was supposed to be rebuilding what was broken yesterday. And I'd reluctantly put the phone back down.

I did think of a really cool loophole though that he hadn't specified. Thankfully my conscience kept me from doing it, since Jay later called me on his break and asked me point blank if I'd contacted even anyone not only who practiced, but anyone who knew about DD. He knows me way too well. He also reminded me that that if I violated these two days, I was looking at "the worst whoopin' you have ever gotten by far."

As of now, I'm almost through Day 2. Although you will read this later (as I'm scheduling it to be posted right after I'm a free woman), I only have like six hours left. ARGGHHH!

And for the record, next time I'll just talk to him. What a mess, that didn't even have to happen! Guess there's something to that whole communication thing, huh?