Sometimes my lovers ask me about my particular affinity for men's belts, why sometimes I wear a wide men's dress belt over my dress or under my clothes, next to my skin, why sometimes when I lounge around the house I have a men's belt wrapped four times around my ankle and buckled tightly at the first hole—why, indeed, there are certain Wednesday nights where I have worn the same odd anklet, over very provocative heels, in public, though it gets me odd stares. The case of the dog collar I sometimes wear when someone is dominating me is easier to deduce, though it too is fashioned from a men's belt.

The fact is, I don't wear a men's belt to remind me of my late father, who in fact preferred suspenders, nor because I find it fashionable. I wear it because it reminds me, in a strange way, of my love for my sister and her protective guidance. I feel her strong hands around my waist when that belt is under my dress, or holding up my skirt. When I visit her, she never mentions it, but she sees that I'm still wearing it, and I think she can tell that it says "I love you."

I don't tell many people the story. I think I will tell it to the woman I marry, so that she knows why it is my sister that walks me down the aisle and gives me away, and why, in fact, I am almost never without a black leather belt on my person.

But to you, because you asked so nicely, and because I'm drunk, I will tell a little of it.

The story begins on a rainy Wednesday night, in the days when, invariably, I got a spanking on Wednesday night.

Mom and Dad had left for an extended series of digs in the old Etruscan lands in Central Italy, when I was seventeen—Dad, never to return alive. Mom would be gone, in total, five years. Molly had been twenty-three, so naturally she'd been left in charge. I think Dad had told her she could spank me, but perhaps she merely knew that she would have to, allowed or not.

Time had passed, and I had graduated high school. I was twenty-one now and desperately trying to move out. Molly treated me like I was still a child, spanked me for such a little thing as leaving food in the sink drain, still refused to let me wear leggings or jeans, and never let me raise my voice to her.

In those days I had my own car, her beat up old Chevy that Mom and Dad had put in my name right before they left, but I was on her insurance: to be sure, this made me learn to be a good driver out of fear, but it also gave her grounds to dictate when I could and could not drive—that, and of course the fact that she could paddle me quite hard if I took the car out when it was off-limits.

I assumed she knew about my midnight tampon run. That was what she had waited to Wednesday night to spank me about. I'd needed one quite badly and she'd only had pads. So, and I thought I'd done it in secret, I ran to the 24 hour pharmacy long about 12, come back before 1, and thought that was an end of it.

Wednesday night spankings were a different affair than her on-the-spot punishments. If she caught me red-handed she would make me grip my ankles, pull down my panties herself, and spank me with her hand until she thought I'd learned my lesson.

Wednesday night at six, though, I would have to strip down completely and join her on the couch with whatever instrument she had chosen. Usually she told me on Monday or Tuesday what I would be getting spanked with on Wednesday, and it did not pay to be wrong come Wednesday at six. I would hand her the ping pong paddle, hairbrush, backscratcher, rubber spatula or even more outlandish and painful things like a short strip of a cut-up leather belt, my old violin bow, or a short length of PEX sink hose about as big around as my pinky.

Then I would tell her I was ready, without whining or delaying, and climb of my own volition on to her lap, one hand cupped over my privates and one hand tucked under my stomach and chest,so that I would be ass-up where she could hit me at her convenience.

If I did everything perfectly, she would never go too hard on me on Wednesday night. Once I had broken a vase and she had given me over two dozen strokes of the leather on the spot, bent over with my skirt up and my panties down. Wednesday sometimes it was as little as five with the leather, ten with the ping-pong paddle or perhaps seven with the hairbrush.

But I would have to count, and say I was sorry after every one.

Sometimes I'd get something wrong. The wrong instrument, or I'd be late, or I'd whine or delay, or ask her what this spanking was about—that was never discussed, I was expected to know. On those occasions, she would make me fetch something higher on her hierarchy of pain and suffering, and thrash me a good ten, fifteen, sometimes even twenty strokes with it—usually until the point I was actually bawling.

Then, whether it had been a light few swats or a real whipping with the leather, then came the worst part of all. Instead of blessed solitude in a corner, or going to my room without dinner, she would just make me sit in her lap, stung though it may, and tell her in my own words how I was going to be a better girl in the next seven days. When this was done, she was no longer mad. She would hug and embrace me, and make me dinner—I never cooked on Wednesday night—and then we often watched a movie. Sometimes by this time I had forgiven her enough to cuddle up next to her—she always encouraged it. No matter how bad the spanking was, she always at least made me dinner.

That Wednesday, though, I messed up in every way. I had hoped to avoid the worst implement—my violin bow. I thought if she saw that I had brought the sink hose—which she considered worse, having clearly never been hit with the back of a violin bow—she'd respect that I'd brought her more than what she'd asked for, and use it instead.

"This is not what I asked for. I know exactly what you're trying to do, Margaret. You like this better than the violin bow, yes? You think I can't tell? Well, I can. Go get me the ping pong paddle and the leather strip, and then you can see how you like the sink hose after that. Then I think you need to learn what Mom did to me when I was younger."

I whined, predictably, and for the first time in my life, she bolted upright and slapped me squarely across the mouth, quite firmly.

"I'm going to get inventive with you tonight, bitch," my sister said, and sent me to get the other instruments. I brought back the ping pong paddle, the leather strip, and, as I understood this to be the last thing that would be used on me, the violin bow.

"No, the bow will not be neccessary. What I'm going to do to you now is precision work. Get on my lap," she said, flatly, as I handed her the other two instruments. "If you want the bow so badly you can do it to yourself later. Right now it is time for these."

I cupped my hand to cover myself, kneeled next to her on the couch, and laid down, awkwardly pinning my other arm underneath me.

"Maggie, you're going down a self-destructive road." She put her hand between my shoulder blades and put some pressure on my back with it. You want to test me and test me, but I'm the one who's working two jobs and sheltering you from the world every day. You want to leave but you have no idea where to go. Twice we've spoken about college. Do you understand that I will let you go through college right here, in our house, and feed you and clothe you?"

I didn't dare say that no, I hadn't understood that.

"I have offered twice. Soon it's not going to be an offer, it's going to be simply what happens. You are very silly, and I could see you going to prison or sucking a dick that has something on it that doesn't come off. I'm working my ass off" (and here she smacked me good with her bare hand) "for you to reward me like this? Directionless, constantly smoking weed and doing god knows what else, with the money that Mom and Dad left in your account? You know what, I don't want to hear any sorrys tonight. You're gonna thank me for every stroke. When we're done, we're going to take five minutes and eat some of the casserole that's in the oven, and then I'm going to give you a taste of the old fashioned punishment that you need to be grateful no one ever used on you yet. I'm going to start now. I trust you know what to do."

She began with the ping pong paddle. Now, this wasn't too bad in the grand scheme. A bare hand was actually more embarassing to me, though perhaps not quite as painful. It was a dull thud on the ass.

"One. Thank you," I said, humiliated to have to thank her for causing me pain.

"Two. Thank you."

And so on, fifteen firm strokes with that paddle, fifteen thank you's.

"You're going to say that from now on, is that understood? And the day will come when you actually thank me for the way I raised you."

I sighed. "Yes, ma'am."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes, Molly."

Next she did something I didn't expect. She put her left hand back onto me, to keep me in place, then shifted under me slightly. I realized she was stretching out her other arm to reach something, which left only one conclusion. One other thing had been on the couch, the spray bottle used to keep the cat off the houseplants. She removed her hand from my back, and I heard her twist the nozzle. Then, with a "squeak, squeak, squeak," there came the stinging cold of her spritzing my reddened ass with it.

"This makes it sting more," she said, matter-of-factly.

I wasn't sure if I was supposed to thank her, but something inside me said I'd better. "Thank you."

"You are welcome. Start from zero if you like."

I didn't say anything. I was feeling as humiliated as I ever had in my life. I wanted to run but I knew how much worse it could get.

She smacked me hard with the leather strap right at the middle of my right cheek where she had worked thoroughly with the paddle. It hurt like it never had.

"One, thank you," I said, though I'd rather have said "eat shit and die."

She began this round exactly as she'd begun with the paddle, and moved in the same pattern. First the center, then low on the thigh—she scarcely bothered with my left cheek and leg, which were too close to her for any real action—then high, almost in the small of my back. She worked a circle on each of these, to cover the area thoroughly.

Finally, I said "seventeen, thank you." By this time I had bypassed crying and was straight to the little panting breaths that follow an hour of sobbing. Tears flowed of their own accord at intervals.

"Is there anywhere I missed?"

"I don't think so," I said, with a catch in my voice.

"Then prepare yourself. You may make any sound you please during this. I'm not such a monster as to think you will want to count for this. And it may take time for you to thank me."

She sprayed my ass again, prodded me briefly with her finger, finding me quite tender, and then went to work with the piece of PEX.

Now, this is a weird material, a little hard, a little soft, flexible but unyielding. I think it took the place of the old rattan canes they used to spank schoolboys with.

The first stripe was high on the ass. I yelled. No matter, we were in a big house far from the road, with privacy walls of hundred-year-old apple trees between us and the nearest neighbors along the road, and a wide lake between us and town in the back. The name of the lake was one of the words Mom never let me say. It was the name of a tribe who'd died here. I could have screamed at the top of my lungs, or fired a gun. No one would have heard—it would have reverberated once around this house in the shape of a ski lodge, then died down without ever making it to another ear besides my sister's.

The second stripe was low on the thigh. It was worse. I had yelled already, I didn't want to push my luck. I did not yell again.

The third was the worst. It was when it really sunk in, I think, that this was what was happening, and that I wasn't about to be done. I yelped a little. She had hit me right in the bull's-eye on my cherry-red ass cheek.

Next she turned the hose sideways and hit me two strokes perpendicular to the first two, letting the flexible tubing find the curve of my body, such that I'm sure there was a red stripe from my thigh to my back. I hyperventilated.

I think she knew she had found some kind of limit. She hesitated.

I panted and panted. "Five," I said, as it was the only word that could express the pain of those strokes. I panted a moment longer. "Thuh-thuh-thuh-thank you, Molly."

"You're welcome. You can be done with this part. Get up."

I stood, panting and letting hot tears run down my face and onto my chest.

"Go put on your bathrobe. We won't hurry through dinner. The next part is not so bad. I'd find it comforting, actually, but it will be hard for you this first time."

I went and got my soft fleece robe. I didn't bother with the big Chinese frog knot that would hold it closed in the front. I walked back down to the living room, where my sister had plated up a rice casserole, a kind I'd never seen her make, the kind, in fact, that Mom made every Christmas Eve.

She put a pillow down before I could volunteer to sit down and punish my ruined ass with the hard wood of the chair.

"I'm sorry I ran to town to get tampons in the middle of the night."

My sister regarded me. Her big green eyes looked just as sad as ever. "That I forgive you. I didn't know, but the time is coming when I will have to allow you to run to town whenever you want. You're growing up, dummy. I can't keep this up forever and I just... I have to make it count while I can still raise you."

"You didn't know?"

"Margaret Applegarten, how many times do you think I've ever spent long hours secretly watching you? You don't think I sleep?" She smiled, mysteriously. "I spank you every Wednesday to remind you that I can. You've been doing better, but I don't want you to slip up. So I remind you. Usually I make it just a taste of what it could be. A few swats. But I don't let you clown on me. You need to grow just a bit more self control. One day you're going to thank me for that self control, you know that?"

I grunted.

"You clowned hard tonight, and you didn't take out the trash this week. So yes, I'm still going to give you an..." she stifled the word she was going to say. "An old-fashioned punishment. But I promise to use it on you only in extremis, and I earnestly believe that I'll never have to. Do you know what that means, 'in extremis?' Say it like you would for Mom."

I didn't want to, so I looked down. I didn't put my chin up proudly like when I was a little girl and Mom asked me the dictionary definition of a word. I had been proud to know things, then. But these days it seemed like every knew thing I knew only brought pain.

"In extremis," I muttered, letting my hair flop across my left eye. "Adverb. From the Latin, 'in the extreme.' Meaning, in the most extreme case, or in the most perilous and extraordinary of circumstances."

"You could list the forms of a first and second declension adjective like 'extremis' before you were ten. I'm sure you've forgotten. I have, fuck. Mom can have Latin. But you knew. I don't want you to think you're a baby. Nothing I ask of you is beyond you, Margaret Applegarten."

We ate, heartily. I think I had burned more calories passively taking that spanking than I had in many days of sitting on my ass at the computer, on the Usenet, what we had back then before DARPA and Berkely merged their nets to form the internet we know. I ate perhaps fully half the casserole.

She led me out onto the back deck. I noticed she had the spray bottle in one hand and a hairbrush in the other. I mentally prepared myself to bend over. But she did something that stunned me.

She gathered up my messy, wavy hair behind my head and sprayed it until it was almost sopping wet. Then she began to brush, and brush, until it hung at my back, almost heavy and, I imagined, beautiful, though it was the color of the darkness.

In the distance, town was where the beads on this necklace of lights thickened up a little, got closer together and larger. Below us the dinghy's sail, loose, flapped idly in a night breeze.

She was leaning against the railing in front of me, her whole back facing me, a kind of vulnerability we don't show each other. "Tomorrow we'll sail to town after breakfast, leave the boat at the park and run some errands. I want you to come with me to campus, of your own volition, and sign up for the ACT. I won't punish you if you don't."

I said nothing. I had no intention, at that time, of going to college. High school had been bad enough.

Next, she led me by the hand to the bathroom. Here, I was sure, something vile was to happen to me. She showed me a rubber bag like a hot water bottle. In fact it was a hot water bottle. It had a hose attached to it, which was crimped with a plastic clip, and at the end was something shaped like a baseball bat, if a baseball bat were somewhat square, seen from the end. It had holes in it for the water to come out.

"Is that going...?"

"In your ass. It's going to fill you up with rather warm water. You'll want to spray it all out at once. You're going to have some cramps. Then you're going to hold it a while and let it ache, and then when your time is up, you get to sit on the pot and shortly you'll feel like a new woman. If I were very mean, I'd use soap and you'd feel like you were shitting your lungs out. But this is just a taste. It'll just be quite warm and it will come out fast and it will be quite a lot to have in your small intestine at once, for someone who's never had it. I used to get it once in a while, if I'd been very bad, but more often if I was constipated. Now I do it to myself once in a while, and I'm not really sure why, except maybe I find it a little relaxing."

"I don't... want it," I said, a little sharply.

"Tough tits." She slapped me, not firmly, across the mouth. "You want to learn the lesson. If you bend over now and be a good girl I can promise you, you can choose never to have it again, with your actions. Because you're learning self-control even now. You're not dancing around, you're not screaming and shouting. Do you want this to be the last time the enema ever gets used on you?"

My tears were flowing again, a little. I was deeply horrified by the contraption about to be plugged into my body like a live wire. I suspected the water wasn't "rather warm," it was "hot." I felt trapped, but I felt... I felt like she believed in me. I felt like maybe, I could choose.

I kneeled on the towel she had laid down, and then put my tits on the ground, leaving my ass wide open for whatever came next. It felt humiliating, terrifying, but oddly... erotic?

I felt something. Vaseline jelly, being spread around on my puckered anus. Then... oh. She pushed her finger into me, just a little, just enough to spread vaseline into the opening a little.

Then there was something hard pressing against the hole, and, in a moment of indescribable emotion, I actually felt myself push against it and let it in.

I had never felt anything inside me in that way. I wriggled a little, feeling it.

"I'm going to hang this bag up above you, and then I'm going to release the clamp. I want you to breathe in whatever way you have to, but focus on your breathing. It will help you through. If you hold it the first try, you're bigger than I was at your age. Breathe."

There was a loud click from up above me.

Water was shooting into me! Suddenly I felt very badly that I had to push, that I had to spray it out like diarrhea. I focused on clenching around that baseball bat in my asshole. I was met with great pressure in the opposite direction.

I was aware that my face was flushed and that I was straining.

Suddenly Molly was on her knees in front of me. She brushed my hair back over my ears, took my face in her hands and said "breathe. Breathe. You're learning the lesson right now. Just breathe and soon punishment will be over."

I felt suddenly like I earnestly deserved the pressure inside of me, that I would deserve the soapy water she had mentioned, right then. This was what bad girls deserved. She had been teaching me self control with her weekly punishment, and I had been stubborn with her. I had been... a bad girl.

"Breathe!"

Suddenly, I inhaled deeply and the pressure was perfectly manageable. I panted a little when it became unbearable again, and there I was, taking my punishment in my ass like a good girl. The breathing came somehow between the pain, and the reflex to push, so that I could hold off that reflex, take it like I was supposed to.

I realized that I was quite bloated around the time that a gurgling came from the bag.

She got up and pulled the nozzle out of me, then told me to stand. "Slowly," she said. "The pressure will change; just keep breathing and hold it in. Go over in the corner and think about what you did, and feel the cramps and just hold it. I'll tell you when you can get on the toilet."

"Thank you," I said, in a small voice.

I stood up and instantly almost sprayed the water everywhere. Suddenly it felt like the whole weight of however much water was inside my bloated gut, perhaps a half-quart in reality, was pressing against my anus in a way that I had never felt.

I hyperventilated.

But I did not release a drop.

In the corner, I wondered a little about my "perfect sister," standing in the same corner full of soapsuds and crying. That was almost inconceivable. Even the thought of her doing this voluntarily out of some masochism—I could not imagine it. I cradled my stomach like a pregnant woman, found myself, for some reason, covering my privates again. I was ashamed.

Time lost all meaning. The cramps came in waves, but that was the only progress from moment to moment. At last, she told me I'd held it for seven minutes, and that I could sit on the toilet. She left.

I found myself having violent diarrhea on the pot, still, for some reason, covering myself from the world.

Finally I felt empty, wiped, and got up. When she heard the flush, she reentered.

"How was that?"

"Difficult." I was beyond tears at this point.

"You did very well. I fully believe that if you ever deserve that again... you will ask for it."

"I don't understand."

"The self control you show every week when you bring me the tool I asked for, and let me hit you with it; that will come to spread through your life and let you rule yourself the way I rule you. You're doing so well already."

She embraced me, then led me by the hand.

The next day I was turning everything that had happened that night over and over in my head, trying to make sense of my sister's affection and brutal punishments, when I heard her call from the living room.

"Come get on my lap for just a moment."

I feared another spanking but somehow, I got up the willpower to go and get on her lap. She pushed my dress up and gave me a playful swat on my ass.

"Good girl, you're learning to do what I say. Do you want me to spank you every week still?"

I realized that I had just gotten voluntarily in her lap. "No, thank you. Maybe some Wednesdays when I need it."

"Alright then. But to remind you that I can spank you whenever I feel like it, I'm going to have you wear a belt that I can take off and strap you with whenever you need it, for just a little while, a few weeks, maybe."

"Thank you, Molly."

"You can wear it however you want when we're home alone here. Under your dress, wrapped around your wrist, wrapped around your ankle... just so that I know where it is. In public probably just wear it as a belt."

"Yes, ma'am."

"And I fully believe if you can't help yourself from doing something where I can't see you, you'll come back to me and give me your belt and ask for it."

I doubted it, but this seemed like a good deal.

She let me get up, and showed me the belt. It was a black men's dress belt. I spent a little while thinking about how to wear it, and settled on making a kind of anklet of it, the way she had said, four times, and then it buckled at the first hole. I felt a little like a prisoner, but she looked at me and smiled.

"That'll never be an ankle monitor, little sister. Wear it with honor, you decide whether it gets used on you. But remember, that's what's waiting for you if you do wrong."

I got in her lap and told her what a good girl I would be that day. She smiled and kissed my eyes.