Dear reader, we should now discuss my state of mind after that spanking, for I was deeply troubled. After lunch, I began to recollect. How could I accept what Ulrike did to me in the morning? Let me pass on the enema: an undignified procedure, sure, but it had cured the hang-over. Besides, my private parts had by then no mystery for Ulrike, and it was not my first enema from her anyway. But the spanking! How did I allow her to spank me?

My mother used to spank me, and did so, though infrequently, into my teenage years. Not that she was an unkind woman, but she considered her duty to raise us in discipline. In two occasions she threatened me with the carpet beater: when she caught me masturbating when I was 13 or 14, and when I joked about some religious issue—I recall the threat of corporal punishment but not the particular religious issue it was about… I think she meant it. She definitely did not want to risk me living the life of a sinner, and salvation would be worth a red and achy behind.

Moving to the big city (well, big, all is relative, Linz is not Vienna, and Vienna is not Paris or London, but I digress) was an occasion for me to leave my mother’s watch. I did not escape her to have in Ulrike a second mother who would watch my movements and beat me! As I was thinking so, my anger was roused.

And her finger into my vagina, checking my virginity! Granted, if I had been penetrated, I would be at risk of pregnancy or some disease, and would need to seek medical help immediately. But I would have known if I had been, wouldn’t I? She had thought maybe I would have been drugged or too drunk to remember. But, hey, in that case, with that damn hymen of mine, I would have bled, wouldn’t I? Didn’t she rather think I would have lied to her by omission and not mention intercourse, knowing it had happened? But then, how was it her business to check?

I could not help thinking at that point that my mother would have probably used the carpet-beater on me if I had been the girl I saw getting fucked at the party and she had learned it had happened—it would have been my fault for getting drunk. Society has a way to blame victims.

I was furious at Ulrike, furious at my mother. And then I thought that Ulrike had not spanked me for sexuality, but for getting into a car driven by a drunk boy. That definitely was unwise. Ulrike had lost her parents due to drink-driving, she could have lost me as well. And it’s not like she had coerced me into accepting a spanking—she had asked me if I needed one, and I had acquiesced. I could not blame her for doing what she had told me she would do and that I had accepted she would do. And then my anger abated.

These thoughts circulated in my brain as I was trying to work on my classes on Sunday afternoon. They came back to me during lectures the next day. This went on for another day. On Tuesday evening, I came to Ulrike crying, and kissed her on the mouth.

After dinner, Ulrike washed me, as usual if she thought of licking me.

“What a cute derrière.

— I’m sure I’m still bruised.

— There are faint traces. Maria, are you still angry about me for spanking you?

— No, even though I’m still uncomfortable with it. And also about how you… you know, checked me.

— Maria. I was just afraid you had been drugged and raped and were too ashamed to say it. I wanted to know if I had to arrange an emergency visit to a family planning center.”

She was now drying me.

“Do you want to join me in bed?

— Yes.”

I later learned the phrase “make-up sex”, but that’s exactly what happened that evening. Maybe I was crazy. Maybe I was not.