A Message To Tops Out There

You know how in some movies, there's this girl--
She's fat, she's ugly, she's downcast; she's made fun of, mocked, humiliated and berated?
I was that girl.

I was called stupid. I was called fat, ugly, awkward, and ditzy. I was told I looked like a boy. I was told I had funny teeth. I was told I had a weird face. I was told all the other girls were prettier than me, that of all the girls in the class, I was the ugliest.
Ugly. Stupid. Fat. Ugly.
I was an embarrassment. Unworthy of friends. Unworthy of respect. Unworthy of anything but ridicule.

I grew up. My face changed.
I look in the mirror now, and I know, on some level, that I am not ugly.
I also know--deep in my heart I know it--that looks have nothing to do with love, or respect, or worth.

But I cannot change the lessons of the past. The lines are etched in the soul, little scratches made not with a pen--my implement of power of today--but with harsh words, and the grating laughter of everyone around you.
The scratches bleed.
Not a lot. Tiny drops of blood that fall like tears. But enough to stain. Eventually, the scratches are deep enough to form scar tissue.
You grow up, you cut the scar tissue away...but the skin beneath will never be the same. The lines etched with shame are carved too deep for any amount of healing to reach. Smiles become your mask, to hide your disfigurement.
You laugh. You amuse. You try to entertain.
But in the back of your mind, you wonder...are they laughing with you? Or at you?
Will you ever be anything other than an object of pity?

Weeks ago, I went to a party. I had a clear expectation in my head that I would get some play. I didn't know how, or from whom...but the expectation was there. Perhaps that was presumptuous of me.
The party went on, and I realized my chances of getting any kind of play were growing dim.
A male friend was there, a well-reputed, well-respected Dom. He saw how unhappy I was. He asked me what I wanted. I was honest with him: I wanted a spanking.
He offered to give me one.

I argued with him about it for a while. There wasn't enough space; there wasn't enough time; there wasn't enough freedom in the room for two people to engage in their own little scene. But the real reason why I was arguing with him was this: I thought he was offering to spank me as a favor. Not because he wanted to, but because he was willing to indulge me.
If there is such thing as a pity fuck, then there is such thing as a pity D/s scene...and I was afraid this was it.

Perhaps it was the look in his eyes that finally told me he was serious about wanting to spank me. Or perhaps I just really, really wanted it, enough to throw dignity to the wind and accept a pity pounding. Most likely it was a mixture of the two. But in the end, I did get my spanking.
He leaned me against the wall, I lifted my skirt, and it was the best spanking I could ask for, exactly what I needed. Not too heavy--I still needed to drive home--and not too light. It was the perfect balance of sting and slack, bite and bend. It was full of gooey satisfaction, and I thanked him afterwards for his consideration.

But I still wondered, walking through the parking lot on my way to my car: had he really wanted to spank me? Had he done it to please him as well as me? Or had he done it simply to do me a favor?
Had I been his "good deed" of the day?

I know--
I know, because I keep telling myself--
I know he wanted to spank me, and wasn't just doing me a "good deed." I know because of the light I saw in his eyes; and because, when I think about it rationally, this man is not a man who would do anything he didn't want to do, even to do someone else a favor.
Even give a girl a spanking.
But the self-doubt, the shame, the disbelief...it runs deep. Shame, like water, can cut through the strongest bedrock, the deepest conviction. It can seep into the smallest corners of the heart, until every bit of confidence has been washed away.

Some of us need to be told that you want to play with us; you want to slap us, spank us, do nasty and delicious things to us, make us cringe and squeal and flinch and moan, because if you do not tell us, we will not assume.
And even when you do tell us, we will assume you are lying. Because you cannot possibly want to play with us. How can you want to play with us? Ugly, fat, awkward, us?
That is what some of us masochists tell ourselves.

At least, that is what this masochist sometimes tells herself.
I am working on this. I am.
But sometimes it feels like the work will never be done.