Each year on the 31st December, Jem and I sit down together to review the James Household punishment book. It’s a kind of annual appraisal looking at all of the things that went down that year. It’s not dissimilar, in its way, to the ancient Sumerian tradition that used to take place between a priest and the emperor each New Year’s Eve. The emperor would be led outside of the city walls, stripped of his vestiges of state, and made to kneel before the priest. The priest would slap the emperor with a glove, humiliate him, and force him to confess his sins. The emperor was required to explain all of the unworthy things that he had done in the previous twelve months, and then would be made to re-enact the mythical dual between Marduk and Tiamat. Marduk, according to the Enuma Elish (the Sumerian creation myth), was the God of all Gods, the original concept of ‘hero.’ He slayed the all-powerful dragon-God, Tiamat, and used her remains to create the world.
The emperor was required to live and behave like Marduk in exchange for sovereignty. Anything that he did during the year that was considered to be beneath Marduk’s standards, must be confessed. The emperor was then free to start the new year afresh, and to confront the issues of state safe in the knowledge that he was a good emperor, and that in spite of his power, he was tempered by the expectation that his words and actions must live up to those of the mighty Marduk. This, experts believe, is the origin of our New Year’s Resolutions.
However, as I am no Sumerian emperor, and Jem- despite his wisdom - is certainly no priest, we hold our special ceremony in the sitting room over a bottle of something splendid. The intention is to look back, with good grace and a keen sense of humour on the twelve months previous. We also use this time to re-evaluate that which is important to our special relationship, and to set personal as well as couple targets for the New Year. Like true spankos though, these are no wishy-washy modern incarnations of New Year’s Resolutions. No. Absolutely not. Our annual aims and objectives come complete with built-in accountability, discipline, and the obligatory corporal punishment for failures. For one of us, anyway.
Now, this may sound ‘unfair’ to the uninitiated, however it has served our eleven-year plus relationship very well indeed. In reality, my behaviour in both my personal and professional lives, is the root cause of around 98 percent of everything that could be improved within the context of our relationship. I am the rumbustious, driven, high-energy, megalomaniac, who frankly needs reigning-in every now and then (daily). Conservatively. Jeremy has the undisputed advantage of an additional seventeen trips around the sun, as well as being calm, affable, and polite by nature. He’s the perfect foil, so that I don’t spontaneously combust either at work or in the home. His assured guidance, love, care - and especially his correction - is essential to keeping my feet on the ground, my vivaciousness harnessed, and above all directed towards good.
That’s not to say he’s always in the right. He’d be the first to admit that he makes mistakes. Though, I hardly notice his occasional rain shower, compared with the ocean of catastrophe that I can regularly be found orchestrating. He’s honest and open about wrong-doing and mistakes that he has made. He has achieved something in life which I can barely imagine: He doesn’t need to be punished or disciplined in any way for his faults, he does this himself. My understanding, inadequate as it is, is that he has attained a level of maturity whereby knowing that he got something wrong is punishment enough and he somehow uses this to better inform future actions. I don’t suppose for one moment that I’ll ever attain such lofty heights, but I certainly admire this about my Head of House. Even if I have no idea how it works. I cannot tell whether it is only maturity, or whether it also has something to do with being male. In any case, his unassuming, natural authority makes it very easy for me to admit to errors, and to place trust in both his judgement and the disciplinary framework which he provides. Frankly, I’d be half the woman I could be without it. I simply don’t operate within vanilla relationships; I just don’t turn up. Tried that. Failed, miserably. I require structure, clear boundaries, targets, mentorship, and punishment when necessary, for poor performance. Sport used to provide a lot of these things for me, and I did lots of it! However, as the body grows older, and the mind grows wiser, games are no longer enough or so I find. Character forming yes, but ultimately, I’m after self-mastery. This will not be found solely at the end of a game of cricket.
So, on the 31st December 2019, we sat together and opened the punishment book. I was invited to read aloud. It didn’t disappoint. Indeed, when I came to write ‘SIX OF THE BEST 2019’, I had plenty of material to choose from. I could almost have written ‘TWELVE OF THE BEST’, I am borderline ashamed to say. Highlights included the time when I was caned by accident - one of Jem’s most famous mistakes as my disciplinarian. I was due a maintenance thrashing, but it had been a long time, and he had genuinely forgotten the protocol. So, I wound up with a caning I wasn’t due! There was also the missed Comedy Store slot, and the raspberry-bucca flavoured Chicken Pizza saga - one of my all-time favourites. Simultaneously, there was the Marathon Madness, which I am seriously embarrassed about, not to mention more lateness in London, thanks to the wretched 7 Dials (Google Maps it!) A ridiculous round-a-bout in central London, always confuses me, and invariably makes me late for important meetings when I’m in town.
All in all 2019 had been a turbulent year and a serious amount of proper discipline had been handed down.
“What do you make of that, young lady?” Jem enquired when I had finished reading the year’s charge sheet.
“Pretty bloody appalling,” I replied with an embarrassed half-smile.
“It’s not funny, madame! You’ve had a nightmare of a year.”
“Yes, sir. I know…”
“Don’t give me ‘yes, sir’ and I want to know what you’re smirking about.”
“It’s not a smirk, it’s an embarrassed smile.”
“Miss. James, I’m warning you.”
“Sir, I’m serious. Hear me out.”
“No. Not before you charge our glasses, anyway.”
“Yes, sir. Of course.” I said fetching the Sauvignon out of the wine cooler, and refreshing first his, and then my glass.
“So,” he began, tartly, “little Miss smirky pants. Tell me, what it is that you find so amusing.”
“Well, sir… I guess target setting for 2020 is going to be extremely easy. I don’t see how I could possibly do any worse next year! That’s something to be glad about, isn’t it?”
“Hmmmm. I’m not convinced, James.”
“But, sir…”
“That’s the first thing I’m going to ban for 2020.”
“What?”
“‘But, sir,’ you only ever come out with utter tripe after you say that. So, write this down… Jacqui is forbidden from using the expression ‘but sir’ for the year. Failure to comply will result in disciplinary measures.”
“Alright, I happen to agree with you. Nothing has ever gone well for me after I have invoked its usage. Fine. ‘But sir’ has been assigned to the scrap heap. Anything else my Lord and Master would care to ban this New Year’s Eve?” I said rolling my eyes for Queen and country.
“Eye rolling and impertinence.”
“Define impertinence, too general.”
“Anything which I deem to be excessively bold, brazen or cheeky.”
“Despot!”
“A prime example, Miss James. Bedroom Now!”
That is the one phrase that freezes me whatever I am doing or saying. No matter what the circumstances, ‘bedroom now’ is an absolute in our house. It is a command. There are very few of these in the context of our relationship, but this is one. It is the chief one. This is Jem’s device to facilitate an immediate change of course. I’ve never once disobeyed this instruction or even hesitated. As you probably already know, I am not the most obedient girlfriend on the planet - I’m ‘aspiring’ to obedience. However, this is the phrase, it is the baseline, and I hope I never fail to follow this instruction.
“Yes, sir.” I replied, placing my wine glass on the coffee table. Everything south of my waist instantly tensed as I made my way along the corridor to the master bedroom. I wasn’t at all sure what I had done wrong, but I was certain that it would very shortly be pointed out to me.
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