The Ritual Chamber

(Finally, the third, last, and longest part of the story of Kaelah's first ever spanking. You can read the first two parts here and here. My text is in normal format, Kaelah's comments are in bold text in square brackets.)

I was the first to enter the room we had prepared for the initiation ritual. While I made sure that all the props were in their place, Kaelah would wait outside for a few more minutes. She was wearing her black Tai Chi suit now and holding a jug of hot water for the opening tea ceremony. Once I had checked everything out, I would call her inside and we would perform the ceremony together, followed by the actual spanking.

[It was my idea that the master should call the aspirant inside once everything was ready. Like starting the ceremony at sunset, this was not only supposed to give the ritual a beautiful frame, it would also give me enough time to feel and memorize that very special day. In the afternoon, when I had that anxiety-attack, I wasn’t sure any more whether this was a good idea. I was afraid that I might panic again if I had to wait outside the chamber for too long. But, much to my own surprise, I was really able to use the time while I was waiting in the anteroom to take that special moment in and to prepare myself for the things to come.]

While my eyes wandered across the ritual chamber, I wondered once again how many other crazed geeks existed who put a similar amount of time and effort into a kinky first time. Some undoubtedly did, but probably not many. I was proud of that, and I wasn't even being more immodest than usual, because most of the interior decoration had been Kaelah's work, not mine. In the middle of the room, we had a ring of 24 candles on the floor. Kaelah had spent a good hour or so, with a metering rule, making sure that they formed an exact circle. [Just like it is described in chapter 3.1 of the article on the Rite of Span’qIng: “In the middle of the chamber, there is a ritual circle consisting of 24 candles. It has a diameter of 2.4 meters. […] The circle must be built by the young Klingon warrior under the supervision of the Master of Ceremonies.” Did anyone really think I had written that detailed description on the ceremony and the duties of both, aspirant and master, just for fun??? Oh, and have I already mentioned that I HATE inaccuracy?]

This ceremonial circle did not just make for a great-looking set piece, it also served as an important visible border, marking the transition between the pre-banter and the initiation itself. When Kaelah stepped inside, she would enter the phase of the ritual thought up entirely by me - where the "arms master" took the lead and she didn't know exactly what was coming.

Inside the circle, there was a sofa stool where the action would take place, suitable for the OTK position and for bending over it. Outside the circle, to the left and right, there were two torches which we would light during the opening and closing ceremonies - not during the spanking itself, so as to not run out of oxygen. There was a full-body mirror on one side of the room, my idea, I thought it would add a nice touch. Finally, on the walls all around us, we had hung inscriptions naming the set of virtues which described the relationship between the arms master and his student and which the student was supposed to attain. The virtues came in four pairs: honesty and openness, honour and respect, trust and responsibility, bravery and pain (or rather, the tolerance of pain).

[The meaning of the ritual words in the context of the ceremony is also explained in the article on the Rite of Span’qIng. However, those words are still important for Ludwig and me today – as cornerstones for our relationship as mates. Some of you might have realised that they were all part of my poem about living as mates...]

Kaelah had written the virtues down in three languages: Klingon, German and English. As Kaelah said, the English translation was there because, if all went well, I might want to write about our scene on the blog and document it with some pictures as well. Which answered the question I would have had, whether she would be comfortable about sharing her story with the readers! [I always had that exhibitionistic streak, obviously… Oh, and in case someone is asking: Yes, I really wrote down the virtues kneeling on a meditation stool and using traditional ink brushes, as required according to the rules of the ritual!]

The candles were already burning, but I still had to light the torches. It took a while until the damn things had properly burst into flames. [Yes, I could hear that from outside the chamber… ;-) ] I then sat down at the table for the tea ceremony. Like the rest of our ritual chamber, it had been decorated in an austere yet festive manner: a candle in the middle, a little stove for the tea, two mugs, two glass plates and two pairs of chopsticks. The plates and the chopsticks were for the Japanese bean paste, called Youkan, that went with the tea ceremony. [Actually, it was supposed to be a Klingon blood bean paste. Have you ever tried to buy Klingon blood beans in a German supermarket? Well, thanks to the influence the Klingon culture had on Japan, I was able to substitute the blood beans with Japanese Azuki bean paste. So, I made Japanese Youkan out of the bean paste for the first time in my life that afternoon (that was one of the few things I didn’t try beforehand), and it really worked!] Last but not least, there was a singing bowl which we would use numerous times during the upcoming ritual. I struck it with the accompanying wooden mallet, signalling to Kaelah that everything was ready and that she should come inside.

Kaelah entered the room, carrying the jug of hot water, closed the door behind her and placed herself opposite me at the table. We were sitting on wooden kneelers, pretty much on the floor. Kaelah proceeded to pour the tea, serving me first. The tea ceremony immediately established our roles as the arms master and the student, but it was also a nice way to have an informal chat right before the actual initiation. I asked Kaelah how she felt now and she replied that she felt okay - calmer and less nervous, in fact, than she would have expected. Meanwhile, we drank the tea and ate the Youkan. The bean paste didn't taste nearly as horrible as Kaelah had described it to me. Actually, I found it rather tasty in its way.

Kaelah was dismayed about the tea rose in my mug not opening properly when the water was poured, despite the fact that she had practiced that part of the ceremony beforehand, just like everything else. I told her not to beat herself up about it - a minor glitch, not that important. She's still annoyed about that tea rose, though. [As I said, I HATE inaccuracy. And of course I had tried out the tea flowers beforehand (how to place them in the mug, how to pour in the water without turning them around…). And then that damn little thing just didn’t open as it was supposed to. Ludwig indeed was very generous about the tea rose. When he realised that I was still annoyed about it a few weeks later, he even helped me to overcome my self-reproach by spanking me for my little faux pas. Ain’t I a lucky girl?]

At the end of the opening ceremony, Kaelah struck the singing bowl, we got up, extinguished the torches and began the initiation proper. To begin with, I instructed her to kneel on the floor and face herself in the mirror. I had intended the full-body mirror for this particular moment, right before the spanking. I thought it would be a nice little touch, heightening the tension and providing some self-reflection, literally as well as figuratively. "Look at yourself" I told Kaelah. "Don't think ahead to what we are going to do, just look at yourself now, and think about how you feel and who you are." While she did so, I stepped inside the ceremonial circle and fetched my instruments, the paddle and the cane. So far, they had been lying behind the sofa stool, somewhat hidden. I now draped them on the stool.

[I should add that the sofa stool upon which Ludwig draped the paddle and the canes – yes, there were two of them - was right in my field of vision when I looked into the mirror! As you might be able to imagine, that made it slightly difficult to just focus on the here and now and not to think about what was lying ahead of me…]

I then asked Kaelah to stand up and come to me inside the circle. While she got up, she accidentally scraped her knee against the mirror with a loud clang - a result of the limited space inside the room, and her own nervousness. Well, I thought to myself, it's good to see that she's getting a little jumpy! [I didn’t just knock my knee against the mirror. Thanks to the small amount of space, I also knocked over one of the candles with my foot. When I saw the mess, I was completely unsure what to do. I would have liked to re-enlighten it to bring the ceremony circle into perfect order again. But the wax was still liquid and it would have taken some time. I had read Ludwig’s accounts of his sessions with Josephine carefully and was afraid, that he would misinterpret my attempt to clean up the mess as disobedience or an attempt to gain time. So I just put the candle back where it belonged and got up as quickly as possible. Then I took off my shoes and put them on the ground outside the circle with the toe-cap pointing to the wall. Now it was really going to happen – I would hand over all control to Ludwig and I would receive my first-ever spanking! I took a deep breath and stepped into the circle fully aware of the very special weight of this specific moment.]

Once she was with me, I showed Kaelah the implements and explained the upcoming sequence to her - we would start with a traditional hand spanking, followed by the paddle, followed by the cane. We would take a short break after each segment and proceed to the next one when, and if, she felt ready. Of course, Kaelah could opt out if she did not want to continue, and she could also call it quits at any time during one of the segments by simply asking me to stop.

[It was only later that I realised we hadn’t made up a safeword! The setting of the ceremony didn’t require one; it was a consensual scenario and the aspirant was supposed to take the spanking without complaints. So it was clear that I wouldn’t use phrases like “Please stop.” if I didn’t really mean it. Interestingly, it stayed like that until today: Ludwig and I still haven’t got an explicit safeword. And we didn’t need one so far. Should I ever need Ludwig to stop in a scene where he might interpret “stop” as a phrase in character, I guess I would just say “safeword”, though. I think that would be absolutely clear. But it was great that the setting of our first play didn’t require me to think about any codes or safewords. I just hoped that I wouldn’t have to ask Ludwig to stop (at least not too soon)…]

As one last buildup step before we got started, though, we performed a trust fall together. [Due to the description of the ritual, performing the trust fall wasn’t mandatory. I didn’t know, whether Ludwig would include my idea. He decided to ask me, if I would like to do it before we started with the spanking. And I told him that I wanted to try it.] A trust fall, as some of you will know from motivational workshops or similar events, is when you deliberately let yourself fall over backwards into the arms of another person, relying on that person to catch you. Kaelah had tried it years ago while she was in a youth group and was eager to give it another go ever since. We both thought that it would make for an interesting and fitting addition to our kinky ritual, so we incorporated it.

[The trust fall wasn’t a problem for me when I was a teenager. But I knew that many adults aren’t able to let themselves fall into someone’s arms without losing their body tension and trying to protect themselves. I had tried to exercise the motion sequence by letting myself fall onto my bed. (Yes, I know that I am a control freak!) But the bed has a wooden frame and I was afraid of hitting my head. So, this didn’t really work and I still wasn’t sure whether I would be able to keep my body tension. When Ludwig told me to let myself fall, I spread my arms, tried to make my whole body as stiff as a board and did as I was told…]

In the center of the room, facing the inscription that read "Trust", Kaelah let herself fall over. I caught her, then we did it a second time. "Do you trust me?" I asked her. "Yes" she replied quietly. [I was very glad when I realised that I could still do the trust fall without trying to keep control. It was a wonderful feeling to be caught by Ludwig. I had never been afraid that he would let me fall, I just wasn’t sure whether I could control my fear. Now I was very glad that I had made the decision to give it a try.]

I ordered Kaelah to get out of her Tai Chi suit, remove both the top and the trousers. [I had expected a kind of gradual build-up (I know, I should have known better…) and was quite unprepared when Ludwig gave me the order to remove the whole suit. But then I thought: Okay, then we’ll do it nearly completely right now, so I don’t have to worry about what is going to come concerning the degree of nakedness.] While she remained in the circle, I put the discarded clothing in a corner of the room. "You don't need that anymore for the time being" I commented. Kaelah was wearing red underwear, and I quietly wondered for a moment if she always wore it underneath her suit during Tai Chi training. [Nope!]

After I sat down on the sofa stool, I instructed Kaelah to face the wall, away from me, so that I could look at her from behind. "Right! Time to get started" I said, clapping my hands in anticipation. "You are going to pull your knickers down now." [Now it was clear, there was DEFINITELY no big build-up concerning the degree of nakedness!] "You are going to do it slowly and consciously." With a smile, I added: "And as of now, you are allowed to think ahead to what we are going to do..." After a moment of hesitation [You told me to do it slowly!], Kaelah pulled down her knickers, revealing her bottom to me for the first time. It was about as well-shaped and spankable as I had imagined it to be - which is to say, pretty damn spankable indeed.

[It was the first time I had undressed myself that way in front of a man! The only thing I had been afraid of was that Ludwig might not like my bottom and legs because of the cellulites I have (like many women). So I had told him about it beforehand. Actually, I had talked about everything that made me feel insecure, like the question of being or not being shaved and so on. Having talked about all those things openly made me feel less insecure when I undressed in front of Ludwig. In fact, I realised that I really trusted him and that therefore besides of all the nervousness involved it felt okay to pull down my knickers and stand in front of him with nothing but my bra on.]

Kaelah went over my knee for the first segment, the most classical of all positions. She placed her hands and elbows on the sofa stool, her feet touched the floor, her legs formed a straight line and her bottom was over my lap and slightly up in the air. I gave her the first smack. “That was a light one” I commented. A second smack, more forceful. “That was medium.” The third one. “That one was hard!” Then I settled into a steady rhythm, towards the lighter end of the spectrum. After some 30 seconds, I stopped and asked Kaelah how she was doing. “I'm still alive!” she giggled. I went on and spanked her for another two or three minutes, increasing the speed and the severity at the end. Kaelah would sometimes squirm lightly, but she made no sound at all. Teeth-clenching reactions. It was the kind I liked best, and knowing Kaelah as well as I did by then, it was exactly what I had expected from her.

[I was glad that you had warned me about handspankings. “It doesn’t look as hard as some spankings with implements, but it can be quite painful”, you told me. And you were right! But I was glad that I could take it without making too much fuss. At least you didn’t have to quit during the very first part, I thought afterwards. I didn’t think very much whether I liked being spanked at that time. I just realised that the feeling was okay, it was painful, but not over the top.]

We made our scheduled break after the hand spanking. Kaelah put her knickers and the top of her Tai Chi suit back on. Then she sat down on the floor while I sat on the sofa stool, and we chatted a bit about the scene so far – how she had found it, whether or not the sensations were similar to what she had imagined. [The breaks and the talk between the segments were important elements, especially since this was my first spanking experience. They gave me time to process all the new impressions, and they made me feel cared for.]

When Kaelah was ready, we continued. She removed the suit top again and I instructed her to kneel on the sofa stool on all fours. “Let's up the ante a little, as far as loss of control is concerned” I said gleefully. “This time, I'm going to pull down your knickers myself.” [Actually, this was the most erotic part of the experience for me! I felt absolutely safe, because you told me what was about to happen. But we had talked about my fear about loss of control before and your words also told me that you were going to challenge my limits a bit. That heightened the anticipation and pushed very special buttons. And I realised that I loved (and still do!) the quadruped position!]

I pulled down Kaelah's knickers, as announced, and started spanking her with the leather paddle. Again, I did a few “test smacks” before settling into a rhythm. It got quite hard towards the end and I could see that Kaelah's spanking-virginal bottom was beginning to turn a deep shade of red. I didn't go overboard in terms of severity, but Kaelah had made it clear before her initiation that she wanted to experience a real, proper, no-nonsense thrashing, and since her reactions so far confirmed to me that she could handle it, I was happy to oblige. There was more squirming, but still barely a sound of pain. I made her count the last dozen swats with the paddle aloud.

[The pain the leather paddle produced was quite similar to how the handspanking felt. You also told me about that when you started the spanking. And you added that the paddle had the great advantage that the spanking didn’t hurt your hand. Poor boy! :-) Honestly, the spanking with the leather paddle seemed to be the less interesting part of the session for me, when I thought about it in advance. But it turned out that I liked the paddle and the pain it produced very much indeed! And I was glad when I found out that I was able to count the strokes during a spanking. Yes, I had wondered beforehand, whether I would be able to focus on counting and whether I would be able to speak in a clear voice during a spanking. You don’t know it when you’re a newbie and haven’t got an idea how it feels like!]

During our second break, I had to bring the two extinguished torches out of the room. There was still a fair bit of smoke coming from them and it was becoming an annoyance. [I was sitting on the floor and suddenly thought: Am I a bit dizzy from the spanking? Everything looks a bit foggy… But then I realised that the torches weren’t fully extinguished and asked you to bring them outside for safety reasons.] “Spanking in dense fog, that is new for me as well...” I muttered. The break took longer than the first one, anyway, because Kaelah asked for more time to mentally prepare herself for the dreaded cane. However, there was never any doubt that she wanted to continue. [I needed a moment to prepare myself, but I didn’t want to wait too long, because I was afraid I might back out then. As I already mentioned I wasn’t sure whether I could take a single stroke (the stories about the cane sounded so horrible!) and I was happy that I had at least gone through part one and two…]

For the caning, I wanted to up the ante even more. “Since this is the grand finale, you are going to take everything off now” I told Kaelah. “Understood?” She nodded. So, after removing her bra and knickers as instructed, she stood before me in her full naked glory. I ordered her to stand up straight and put her hands behind her head. [You also told me to spread my legs a bit!] “You are very beautiful” I said while I took a good long look at her, first from behind, then from the front. After a brief pause, I stepped up to Kaelah, touched her upper left arm which she was holding behind her head, and ran my finger down the side of her body, barely missing her left breast. She didn't say anything, but I could tell that it was having an effect. [I was at least quite irritated. I hadn’t expected something like that and was trying to integrate the situation into my mindset. It was a strange mixture. In my mindset I saw it as a kind of obedience test. That fitted to the master / student scenario. But of course standing like that in front of a man who obviously enjoyed it also raised different thoughts…]

“It's a bit different from being in the sauna, isn't it?” I remarked casually, referring to something Kaelah had said during our first talk, when I asked her if she would have any objections against being naked. Kaelah suppressed a grin. “Yes, a little” she said quietly. [Since I thought of the whole thing as a kind of test, I tried to be really honest with my answer, like we had agreed beforehand. So, I needed a few seconds to think about the question. It’s not completely different, I thought, because being naked is something natural and I feel safe with Ludwig and not very ashamed, almost like being naked in the sauna. But, on the other hand, this was an erotic situation and being naked was a part of that erotic experience, so it somehow was different. And, of course, I usually don’t stand around in a position like that in the sauna! ;-)]

After this brief (and, admittedly, self-indulgent) foreplay, Kaelah bent over the sofa stool for the final segment of her initiation. I announced that I was going to give her four light strokes with the cane, as a first taste, followed by four harder ones. Then, we would take it from there. “Alright?” Kaelah nodded vigorously. I assumed my stance and gave her the first stroke. Kaelah reacted with a slight flinch, but didn't make a sound. [I had expected the pain of the cane to be much worse than the pain the hand and the leather paddle had produced. But since I was warmed up nicely by that point and the stroke was a light one, the pain wasn't nearly as bad as in my imagination. I was a bit stunned and tried to understand what was going on…]

Kaelah did not count the stroke. I waited for a couple of seconds: “Well, that one didn’t count…” “Am I supposed to count already?” asked Kaelah. “Indeed you are” I replied. That trick worked every time. [I assumed that it must have been a slight mistake on your behalf, confusing Klingons with Betazoids. Since I didn’t have to count the strokes from the very beginning during the first and second part of the session and since you didn’t mention anything about it when the third part started, you obviously must have assumed that I had the ability to read your mind… May I add that today, my very first question at the beginning of a spanking usually is: “Do I have to count?”]

So, we started again. Four light cane strokes, then four harder ones. Kaelah was squirming visibly after each one, sometimes throwing her head back a little, but she was still remarkably composed. The latter strokes produced some visible lines on her bottom, over the reddening from the paddle. After inspecting my handiwork, I asked: “So... How many of those do you think you need to feel properly initiated?” Kaelah thought about it for a moment. “Twelve more...?” she suggested tentatively. [I was thinking very hard what could have been the right answer for that question. I didn’t want to look like a wimp, but I didn’t want to overdo it, either, since I didn’t know how much the pain might accumulate after a certain number of strokes. So, I thought that twelve would be an acceptable, round number…] I was silent. [And I started feeling like a wimp!] After a few seconds had passed, Kaelah made another stab: “Was that too little?” I nodded: “Tell you what, let's do sixteen more. That adds up to twenty-four. Two dozen, nice round number, one stroke for each candle on the floor...”

Kaelah was fine with that. I gave her the sixteen, and fairly hard ones at that – after all, I wanted her to feel “properly initiated” afterwards, as promised. Kaelah's squirming got wilder, and I thought that I could hear the occasional gasp of pain, but maybe that was wishful thinking on my part. What a brave girl! Gasps or no gasps, the final caning did produce some nice, vivid welts, and I was happy about that. I certainly wouldn't have to worry that I hadn't done my job right. As for Kaelah, she was most impressive. Which, again, was what I had expected all along.

[It became harder to deal with the strokes when you increased the force. But it was still bearable. I was very happy that I made it through the whole set of strokes without having to quit. And I was more careful at the end of the spanking! Since I had read in your accounts on your sessions with Josephine that you loved to dish out some extra-strokes when a spankee stood up without your permission after a spanking, I obediently waited until you told me to get up. Giving you one excuse for adding more strokes was really enough for the day! ;-)]

When it was all over, I inspected the stripes, then took Kaelah to the mirror so that she could take a look at them herself. [I have to admit that I was quite shocked (not really in a negative way!) when I saw the marks. They told me that the spanking really hadn’t been too soft and that I could be happy with the way I had taken it.] Finally, just like I had done immediately before the ritual, I instructed Kaelah to kneel on the floor and look at herself in the mirror. “Look at yourself now” I said. “Think about how you feel now, and who you are now...”

[I don’t know what I really thought when I was kneeling in front of the mirror. During the whole session, the most interesting development was that I was getting more and more calm and happy with every new step I had successfully taken. That is still a quite typical reaction for me today, although I have experienced a greater variety of different mindsets and reactions by now. What I remember is that I knocked my knee on the mirror again, when I was finally told to stand up…]

I left her alone with her thoughts for a moment. Then she got into her Tai Chi suit again and we sat down on the sofa stool together, talking about how she had found the scene – and how she felt, now that the Big Event had finally happened. [You asked me whether I wanted to start with the second tea ceremony right away or whether I would like to sit on the sofa stool with you for a moment. I realised how much I needed the close contact with you now and decided for the sofa stool. As much as I love rituals, a spanking session without some cuddling (at least at the end) is worth only half as much!] Afterwards, we held the second tea ceremony, which was more informal than the first one, but just as festive.

We took some photographs of Kaelah's bottom while the marks were still fresh and before I put some arnica on them. Then we packed everything up, extinguished the candles and emerged from the ritual chamber. Less than an hour had passed since we entered it, but of course, it seemed much longer. The sun had just disappeared behind the horizon. We spent the rest of the evening talking and cuddling on the sofa in Kaelah's living room. [Yes, the evening was wonderful. And we didn’t only talk and cuddle, I also received my very first erotic kiss on that evening, but that is a different and more private (yes, I really see it like that after all we have just written down here) story! :-)]

It had been an extraordinary day from start to finish, one of the best I could remember. I was so glad that Kaelah had made her big plunge, successfully, that it had gone so well, and that she had chosen me as the one to guide her through it. It was still too good to be true. This gift of trust was awe-inspiring in itself, something I had always dreamed about. The beautiful, inventive setting we then put together and the fact that it all worked out so well when the day came was almost beyond belief. It was, without a doubt, the most special and memorable kinky experience I had ever had. It still is to this day. [It’s the same from my point of view, although we’ve had many more fantastic play sessions by now! But the first time remains something very special and it was as good as even a perfectionist like me could have imagined when asked for the best possible experience when starting to live out one’s kink. And this was just the beginning of a great and crazy journey for two! :-)]