running away from school

I've just finished reading Sarah Water's new novel The Little Stranger. Set in post-war Warwickshire, it's about the Ayres, an eccentric, old-money family living in decline in a haunted manor house. Like all her writing, it's engaging, atmospheric and spooky, although I remain disappointed that she seems to have moved away from the (slightly trashy, but utterly wonderful) Victorian lesbian stories of her early career and is now a Serious Novelist. I want more Victorian lesbians!

Anyway, historical fiction often gives me ideas for great spanking scenes, and this is proving no exception. I got particularly hot and bothered about this conversation between Roderick Ayres, the heir to the manor, and the family Doctor (who is the book's narrator):

"Did you know I ran away from school when I was a boy?"

I blinked at the change of subject. "No," I said reluctantly, "I didn't know that."

"Oh, yes. They kept it quiet, but I bolted twice. The first time I was only eight or nine; I didn't get far. The second time, though, I was older, maybe thirteen. I just walked out, no-one stopped me. I got as far as the public bar of a hotel. I telephoned Morris, my father's chauffeur, and he came and got me. He was always a pal of mine. He bought me a ham sandwich and a glass of lemonade, and we sat at a table and talked it through..."

Oh, the potential! My mind raced ahead: Morris helping the boy escape, but the two being caught by a member of the family; the chaffeur sacked and the boy whipped. I read on:

"He wanted to take me back to school, but I wouldn't let him. He didn't know what else to do with me, so he brought me back here and gave me to Cook -"

Even better! The image of a big, beefy Cook giving Morris a piece of her mind, telling him to take the boy back to school at once before the Master finds out - but first, he needs to learn he can't come and go from school as he pleases ... Morris giving Roderick a sympathetic look, but not preventing Cook from turning the struggling thirteen-year-old over her knee, and walloping him with her strong, calloused hands.

But Sarah Waters was way ahead of me:

"- and gave me to Cook, and Cook got me quietly up to my mother. They were imagining that Mother would look after me, make things easy with the old man - like mothers do in the pictures and on the stage. But, no: she just told me what a great disappointment I was, and she sent me down to Father, to explain to him for myself what I was doing here. The old man ramped like the devil, of course, and thrashed me - thrashed me right by the open window, where any outdoors servant could have seen." He laughed. "And I had only run away because a boy was thrashing me at school! A beastly boy, he was: Hugh Nash. He used to call me 'Ayres-and-Graces'. But even he had the decency to whip me in private..."

Oh, man. Can you imagine? The graceful window arches framed by willow trees, through which can be glimpsed, across the lawn, the stern figure of Lord Ayres, the tip of the cane flashing in the afternoon sunlight; the boy half-hidden, bent over the arm of a sofa, but his yells drifting out across the park. It would be a beautiful climax to a compelling M/m film, starting with the scene in the prefect's study with Nash which drove him to run away.

It's a good job it would be plagiarism, really, because I can't afford the location or the extras anyway. But my god, it would be gorgeous.

palmadas

The first email Penny sent me was entitled "dates and palms". I don't know quite where to start, she wrote, except to say that palmadas is Spanish for 'spanks', and unlike with our friend the tree who grows the palm before the date, in our case it's the date that comes before the palmadas. I was already captivated by her, but I think being asked out in the form of a kinky, witty multilingual pun would have won my heart regardless.

I only speak a few words of Spanish - I can just about order things in restaurants but I've only spent one week in the country. My other languages are similarly slim - the vestiges of GCSE French, as much Italian as I picked up during a week there with a phrasebook. I have some reading/writing ability with ancient languages but nothing conversational. So to say I have a "language kink" would be disingenuous - I've studied them a certain amount, but always been terribly lazy with them. Having said that, although talent and ability are generally sexy, I find fluency in foreign languages particularly hot.

When Penny sent that email, we had already been circling each other at group gatherings for a few weeks. (By 'circling' I mean talking passionately, flirting outrageously and then breaking off with an abashed, amused glance at each other, remarking that perhaps we should continue this line of conversation in private so as not to annoy everyone else in the room. There may or may not have been some end-of-night kisses thrown into the mix.) But we're both busy, poly people with existing partners and lots of demands on our time, so it took us a while to get round to meeting up. It was quite a big deal for me, and I didn't want to rush things. I've been lucky in finding a number of beautiful, interesting women to bed over the years, but until Penny, there was little crossover between my bisexuality and my submission.

We finally managed to get together in January this year. It was a funny sort of evening - it had already been postponed several times, and we both nearly cancelled on the day due to tiredness and too much work. Eventually I arrived some time after 9pm, and we spent several hours talking over the delicious food she'd prepared, discovering a seemingly limitless number of things we wanted to say to one another.

Eventually, slightly giddy with tiredness and wine and anticipation, we led each other upstairs and into her incredibly cold bedroom. I huddled under the satin eiderdown, chattering bright-eyed as she showed me the contents of her toybox (rope, wrist cuffs, lube, a strap-on harness and two cocks of different sizes) and I unpacked the few toys I'd brought onto the bed, including my black two-tailed tawse. We were both nervous - she has as little experience topping women as I do subbing to them - and there were a few awkward moments where I wasn't sure if anything was going to happen. In the end I can't remember who made the first move. I remember grabbing her smilingly as she stood close to the bed, wrapping my legs gently around her hips and leaning upwards for a kiss, but I'm not sure if that came first or later.

My nerves made me giggly and over-talkative as she instructed me to lie on my front, and started to smack my upturned bottom. My hands and feet were frozen - I tucked them under the eiderdown and concentrated on my quickly-warming bottom. Her hands were smallish and soft, and she spanked me with both of them, experimenting and stroking and telling me all the while how beautiful I was. (I wanted to respond in kind, but just then didn't quite seem the time.) Later she stood me against the wall, wearing only my hold-up stockings, back arched and palms pressed flat against the wall above my head. She had my tawse in her hand, which she flicked again and again against the strip of thigh above my stocking-tops. The sensations were wicked, teasing, unbearably erotic. I wanted her to whip me harder and longer and faster; and I wanted her to turn me around and press me to the wall with a violent kiss, my lips smearing against hers; and I wanted her mouth at my cunt, or mine at hers, I didn't care.

We made love until the small hours of the morning, and then we sat up and talked some more, tucked under the pink satin eiderdown, drinking homemade sloe gin like lesbians in a 1930s film. When we made our giggling way downstairs sometime after 2am to refill our glasses she kissed me, halfway down the stairs, with such intensity that we tangled there for long minutes - until she ordered me to turn over and spanked me, kneeling there on the stairs, her thigh pinning mine to the step and the smacks echoing in the empty house.

I barely snatched a few hours sleep before a laborious commute to work the next day in the freshly frozen snow. It was an unreal, utterly delicious evening, and I very much hoped it wouldn't be our last.

We kept in touch online, neither of us finding the time to write as much as we would like, and a few weeks later I saw her one night at the pub. She walked me home, and, somewhat tipsily, I said what I'd been meaning to say by email: how much I'd enjoyed our play, how tantalising it had been; asking nervously if she would be interested in playing harder. "Longer, yes," she answered, "but I'm not sure I can hit you much harder." Privately, I doubted this, but I didn't want to pressure her - this negotiation was still so new and precious, and neither of us had done anything quite like this before. I didn't want to scare her off by insisting on extreme severity, but I could feel my appetite for being hurt by her intensifying every time we spoke, and I wondered if it would be easily satisfied.

Our negotiation continued by email. I had already expressed wariness at her fantasies which centred around play-punishments; punishment, for me, is either real (and embedded in a secure, trusting power exchange where I have explicity given a person permission to hold me to account in certain areas of my life) or better suited to acting or roleplay. When she asked whether a "fearsome Wodehousian aunt" would make an appealing Domme persona, I replied:

It's a very hot fantasy (c.f. Matrons, Cooks, tweed-clad butch Edwardian chaffeuses [I absolutely adored Wendy Albiston as Baines in the BBC Turn of the Screw) but I think between us that would work best if we were acting/roleplaying? Your presence is very cheering, and if we're being ourselves I think I'd prefer not to have to pretend you were horrible. ;)

When I daydream about you you tend to be inhabiting a governess/lover persona ... doing horrible things to me, pushing my limits, but all with a purring, encouraging sort of attitude - not quite nurturing, but almost. Helping me do my best to please you at the same time as challenging me to endure more, because you want to watch me struggle to be brave. I find the combination of physical nastiness with emotional niceness easier out of character, but I like roleplay BECAUSE it creates a safe space with which to explore the emotionally nasty scenes which are so very hot.

The next time we met up she took me at my word. It was me that suggested she should take me upstairs, but once we were in my small bedroom, surrounded by the Indian fabrics and glowing fairylights adorning the walls, she took quiet control, instructing me to remove my top and kneel for her. She stood on the bed in front of me, seeming impossibly tall and wide-hipped, her eyes drinking me in. I felt myself blushing as I surrendered to her gaze.

When she spanked me, facedown again on the bed, I responded with pure, uncomplicated arousal. Even the sharpest strokes failed to impact on the serenity and certainty of my enjoyment. Part of me wondered what I was doing wrong - where was the edge, the pain, the fear that I am so used to overcoming? - but most of me basked in the delicious sensations of palm kissing flesh. When she straddled my waist, facing my feet, the heavy softness of her thighs pinning me to the bed and the heat radiating from her cunt made my head spin as much as the rapid, double-handed tattoo she beat on my arse.

She tried out my Mason & Pearson - surely there is no implement more erotic in the hands of an elegant woman - and asked after my black tawse, which I regretfully told her must still be in Tom's toybag after our outing to Subversion. In its stead I felt the cool press of my smooth wooden ruler. "Now, minx," she murmured, "I'm going to give you ten, and you're to count them for me. In -" and here she named a language I studied at university, but which has rusted almost beyond repair. I may have yelped with surprise.

"Oh! Er - I really don't think I can do that - I'm sorry, ma'am..." I could feel my cheeks flushing with scholarly embarrassment, aware of her skill with languages and remembering that first email, punning so fluently in Spanish. At the same time, part of my mind flashed back to the hand-cropping last year which so successfully taught me 1-6 in German ...

"Fine." I could sense her amusement. "In French, then." And the first stroke landed.

I gabbled my way through the ten strokes. I can barely remember the pain: the burning shame I felt has entirely overlaid it in my memory. I was blushingly conscious of my poor accent, the awkwardness of my mercis (although she'd explicitly vetoed Madame). My French has gone unused for years, and in the heat of the moment I hesitated more than I should; after huit I got completely stuck, both sets of cheeks flaming and mind appallingly blank. She supplied the next two for me, reinforcing each word with a stinging smack of the ruler, and then made me keep going to douze, which I'm afraid I couldn't remember either. After each one I felt a rush of embarrassed recognition - oh god yes of course - but when put on the spot my memory failed me. It was awful and lovely and deliciously intense.

Later she realised a long-held fantasy of mine by turning me over her knee as she sat up against the wall (my flat has limited OTK options due to lack of suitable chairs, or a bed which is high enough off the floor). Inbetween smacks she smoothed and stroked my bottom and thighs with her soft palms. I was lip-bitingly aware of her warm, naked skin pressing against me, her thighs under my tummy and her ample bosom smooshed deliciously against my back. When she started to spank me with my oval, light wooden paddle I thought I might die of pleasure. I whimpered and moaned, helpless with lust, and as she increased the pace I was aware that rather than shying away from the harder strokes, I was relaxing more deeply into the sensations. My body was feeding on the pain, devouring it. I felt like she could continue paddling me for ever and I could never get enough.

Afterwards, drinking pear cider and laughingly showing her some of my spanking porn collection, she confessed that she'd almost been on autopilot during that spanking. "Does that sound bad? I mean that I was so absorbed in it, the repetition was somehow lulling..." I knew what she meant. It had felt lovely, but there's an emotional edge I'm looking for in CP scenes, a narrative curve which had been there during the embarrassing counting to ten exercise, but less so when it was just spanking for spanking's sake.

I found myself thinking about this a lot after she left the next day. I had asked her to be encouraging, and while she was spanking me she had murmured something like "be brave for me, I know you can take this" - but it had felt slightly odd to hear. Not that the spanking hadn't been firm - I don't think I've ever been spanked so thoroughly with that paddle - but because, for some reason, I didn't need encouragement. I wondered if by asking her to be nurturing I had been going in the wrong direction. She had previously suggested finding reasons to punish me, being terribly strict or shouty, and I had demurred. But perhaps those modes would give me the edge I was looking for?

This whole thought process was complicated by the nagging suspicion that I shouldn't be the one deciding such things - negotiation is all very well and at a purely practical level I do have more experience, but I'm beginning to discover that most of my experience submitting to men, and playing on camera, is irrelevant to the new and exciting world she and I are exploring together. I can't tell how I'm going to react to her, so her input is at least as valuable as mine, and I'm starting to reconsider several of the things I warned her off initially. Sure, they may not have worked well for me in the past, but I'm discovering that playing with Penny works by no rules I'm familiar with; my prior preferences and boundaries don't necessarily apply.

The mini-scene with the French was utterly exhilirating. Using CP as a learning method has always appealed to me - it was a feature of my first relationship with Tom as an undergraduate, and he and I fantasised about me playing a La Maupin sort of role, with him teaching me French and fencing and how to cheat at cards. I love the student/apprentice model of submission, I love learning new things, and CP works astonishingly well for me as a learning tool. (I think I also have a "being tested on things while being punished" kink, as exemplified by this incredibly hot school scene.)

I expressed it to her in email as follows: Humiliation isn't normally my thing, but humility is lovely. I think being tested on things I should bloody well know is the latter, whereas being tested on things (or criticised for) things I couldn't possibly be expected to know is the former. While I love languages, I'm well aware how lazy a student of them I've been; criticism feels decidedly deserved. Her superior skill in languages is extremely hot, and when she puns or calls me pet names in Spanish or Gaelic I feel simultaneously flattered, delighted, and squirmily humbled by not being able to respond in kind.

As we were settling down to sleep in the early hours of last Sunday morning, she rolled over and sleepily informed me, "by the way - the French for six is six. You said seis, which is Spanish."

"Oh," I replied. And with that she curled up again, leaving me blushing anew in the dark.

Enter the Library

We shot this quiet, atmospheric photostory for Northern Spanking on a dreary day in December, wind and rain rattling the windowpanes. Paul Kennedy wanted to take some classic Blushes-style stills and I was lucky enough to be asked along. The shoot took place in a weird, isolated little folly, a steep and ancient spiral staircase at its core, leaning on the edge of the coast over the grey sea. It was freezing at night but it was a magical place to be.

In the quiet of a wet winter afternoon, Michael calls his PA to see him in the library. She adores the dusty smell of the books and the faint, lingering aroma of cigar smoke from many years ago. Inexplicably it arouses her, reminds her of earlier times, times long ago she is too young to have experienced, except in some of the dusty books.



Pandora longs for these rare occasions, when they are alone, when Michael takes extreme advantage of his sexy PA and she lets him, encourages him with her silence and acquiescence. Today it is to be the ruler, the one she found in an antique shop and planted in his desk drawer. Slowly she is made to undress, her expensive underwear serving its purpose as Michael applies the wooden ruler to her tender bottom with vigour.



Upon Michael's desk, her most intimate secrets revealed to his searching gaze, Pandora's afternoon reaches its climax under the kiss of the ancient polished wood, applied expertly to her creamy buttocks. Now she will do anything for Michael, anything, including taking notes for the agenda of his next meeting...

When I saw the story posted with the gallery, I was surprised. While we were shooting I'd had a sense of the understated eroticism of the scene, but it wasn't until I read Lucy's words that I realised how explicitly sensual - and consensual - the scenario was. Strange how you can act out a scene without realising entirely what's happening. I love the resulting photostory though.

a complete cure for OBESITY, HYSTERIA and GOUT

Tom and I have started watching Mad Men; we've only watched the first few episodes, but I'm enjoying it so far. The portrayal of 50s culture is deeply claustrophobic, and really puts paid to the claims that life is worse now than it was then - certainly in terms of social permissiveness, equality and personal freedom.

I was chatting to a friend about it last night, and said I wasn't sure how I felt yet about the character of Peggy (who I still can't stop thinking of as Zoey Bartlet). I'm not finding her crush on Pete at all convincing, as it seemed to me that her reasons for sleeping with him in the first episode were more calculating than that. My friend suggested that rather than being calculating, she probably just slept with him because she was horny, and that she liked the way the show uses Peggy to discuss female sexuality in that era. She told me about the storyline later in the series (spoiler alert!) where Peggy discovers that an electronic "weight loss" machine has secondary benefits in the form of certain vibrations. Hilariously, she then has find a way of raising the topic with her boss, a marketing exec, so he can subtly hint at the machine's other use in the advertising. I can't wait to see this :)

It reminded me of an image NSI's photographer Billy linked the other day:



Of course, no-one could come out and say "stimulates the PELVIC AREA, leaves you feeling REFRESHED and GLOWING" but they got as close as they damn well could in the circumstances. I mean, come on. How many ladies do you think would have ridden this machine side-saddle?

Someone on twitter linked this image of a more explicit Victorian vibrator, but I'm afraid I can't remember who - comment if it was you and I'll credit :)



Unfortunately, I don't think it's historically accurate. But it generates all kinds of interesting images. Imagine the sounds it would make - the hissing of steam, clunking of gears, the grinding of cogs and pumping of pistons ... Fucking machines don't interest me much in general, but a steam-powered one? Oh hell yeah.

spanking as pain relief

Work this week has been hellish. I've been trying to line up enough paid work for the next few weeks that I can cope with losing a regular source of income unexpectedly last week; at the same time, I've had unpaid commitments to get out of the way, and I've been trying to soldier on with preparations for my new site. It's not been easy. At the moment I'm worried about being able to pay the rent, let alone having time/capital to invest in a new business.

Still, there have been upsides. Working for myself full-time again has been a joy, despite the attendant stresses. I really am a strange, proud, intensely independent creature and nothing suits me so well as being my own boss and working in my own space. Plus, I got my first film clip (custom job for a private client) finished this week, which involved learning how to do all sorts of exciting things, including audio editing and mixing. I even had a go at mixing a title theme for these clips. It's not good enough to use for my site, but it was fun to do. (I'm considering commissioning something from a musician friend, but I'm going to look at what's available to license online as well.)

My partners have absolutely shone this week. D. has been on IRC most days, fielding my stress with apparently limitless patience, providing encouragement and support and practical help where he can. He's taken time out of his own schedule to give me server-side help when it turned out the clip was too big for my client to access. (I've learned how to compress it more effectively this afternoon; another useful thing to know). He's jogged me to start work when I was procrastinating, kept me company, kept me sane and kept me motivated.

On Thursday, drowning in work and utterly overwhelmed, I called Tom to let him know I'd have to work late that evening and wouldn't be able to see him. My chronic back pain was flaring up that day - an inevitable result of stress and sleep-deprivation, combined with a non-ideal desk setup at home. (It's currently the best it can be without space for a proper desk; I'm going to sort something more ergonomic out when I move, which will hopefully be soon.) I knew I'd need to work until midnight or even later, so I was fully prepared for him to suggest it made more sense for him to stay at home. Instead, he offered to come round at the end of the night, just to sleep - or earlier, if I wanted, so he could give me a massage and keep me company while I worked.

I jumped at the latter option - being in pain never helps anyone's productivity, and Tom's a good enough amateur masseur to provide relief when my back is unhappy. By the time he arrived at 8pm I'd been doing solid work for a while, and was feeling much calmer. It was good to see him - there was some quite serious hugging when he first got in.

As soon as I'd finished my tea I joined him upstairs. The massage really helped; I could feel the tension start to drain out of me. I'd been thinking all afternoon that a spanking would cap it off perfectly. Being in non-erotic pain lowers my threshold for erotic pain significantly, but if I'm in safe hands and can struggle through it, endorphins are so much better at pain relief than any pharmaceutical alternative.

I hinted as much to Tom, and (although he was feeling pretty rough himself) he agreed. He gets as much out of this kind of therapeutic/practical CP as I do. I think both of us enjoy the everyday aspect to it - the idea that this is a quick, effective solution to certain problems in life - and is honoured to be asked to intervene in that way, and trusted with the task of working with my body while it's this fragile.

I lay over his knee. He pulled my knickers down straight away, and the first few spanks were hard enough to knock the breath out of me. I yelped, and he pulled back a bit, switching to light stinging taps that enabled me to start relaxing. It felt good, but it was tough to take. I was really jumpy, and the problem was that every time I tossed my head or started jumping up, it would strain my back. After a while I mentioned this to Tom. He rested his left hand on the small of my back - his touch was warm and reassuring. The spanks continued hard, but I tried to let his hand calm and ground my body. I think for the next few I just sort of tensed up and groaned, but he stroked me between spanks and murmured "keep breathing deeply, darling" and I felt myself start to physically relax. I took deep breaths, trying to release each shock of pain vocally rather than physically. If I cried out it made it easier to stay still. A few moments later I realised something had shifted in me. I was lying limp over his lap, and although each smack stung like anything, the impact wasn't making my body jerk in response. I whimpered helplessly under the onslaught, but my body stayed still. It was as if the energy of each spank was pooling in me, rather than making a splash.

Afterwards he gathered me up, glowing with pride. I felt pretty good myself. My whole body was relaxed, and the endorphins were buzzing in me, cleansing me. I'd needed it to be hard; a lighter spanking wouldn't have pushed me through the pain into that place of acceptance. For about an hour afterwards my back didn't hurt at all, and it noticably eased things for the rest of the day.

I practically bounced back to work, feeling refreshed and energised. Tom and I both agreed that my life would be so much easier once we're sharing a house, and I can ask for some spanking and time-out whenever I need it (or, if he sees myself working myself up into a big stressy panic, he can intervene).

There are few things more empowering than running my own business. But having supportive, sympathetic, firm Doms on hand to help when it all gets too much certainly makes it easier, and I am very grateful.

categories

Perverts, in my observation, tend towards the geeky. People who like very specific things in a sexual context tend to think in precise ways. We know what we like, and we probably have a rich inner system for categorising the things we like and the things we don't like.

Given my intention to have a wide variety of content on my own site, I'm currently thinking about how to make it easy as possible for people to ignore the stuff they don't like and find the stuff they do. Adele has suggested a checkbox system for the gender of the participants - a form at the top of the page, or on an intro page, inviting people to tick the boxes they want to be able to see, from a choice of M/f, F/f, F/mf, F/m, and possibly M/m (although I'm still struggling to find male tops happy to work with other men). I really like this idea.

My other idea is to tag content in the way one tags blogposts. A movie or photoset would be tagged with a collection of keywords, from different categories - "school", "historical", "tawse", etc. Those keywords could then be typed into a search form. But I don't want keyword search to be the only way users can find content: I also want browsable categories.

Some are obvious: browsing by model and implement, for instance, is fairly standard. But the others are harder. Could I have a "genre" category? What would that include? Historical, school, domestic, judicial ... what would you consider to be the "standard" spanking genres? The problem I run into is that most of my ideas don't neatly fit one of these categories. I suppose a film that bridges two genres could be in both lists, but what about fantastical scenarios? Erotic D/s? Would it be appropriate for me to just invent categories which fit the films I'm making, or would that confuse people?

I can think of plenty of tags which wouldn't fit into a neat category like "genre". Edgy non-consent scenes, for instance. Scenes containing explicit sexual content. Silly or satirical scenes. Romantic stories. Deserved, fair punishments and undeserved, unfair ones. I want to have this sort of category on the site, but I'm not sure how to organise it.

Then there's the problem of scenes-within-a-scene; stories about a character indulging in a fantasy, or reading a story, remembering a past event or daydreaming. I really like this sort of embedded scenario because it allows me to have nasty, horrible things happen to my submissive models, but keep the focus on their desires, keep them humanised with wishes and personalities, rather than just objects to be mistreated. (Even if their wishes involve being objects to be mistreated!) This makes categorising even more complicated: which scene do I tag? The external/real-world scenario, or the inner scenario which everyone is here to see?

You've proved time and again that you are an intelligent, thoughtful bunch; I continue to be impressed with the knowledge and insight which you guys offer in the comments on this blog. So I'm wondering if you can help me with this one. If you were building a multi-genre spanking site, what categories would you use? When you visit a site, what categories do you find most helpful? Any advice or suggestions you have about the best way to approach this would be gratefully received!

Victorian spanking burlesque?

I love these Victorian photos by digitalfailure on flickr (thanks to Chross for the link). They're the only two spanking images in a gallery full of stage and travel photography. Was this a Victorian spanking themed act in a burlesque show? If so, I wish I could have seen it!





I adore the face of the top in these. So strong, so full of character. When I imagine myself over the knee of a strict Victorian ma'am, she often looks something like this.

Ariel Anderssen's Slave Dance

For Valentine's Day I gave Tom a subscription to Restrained Elegance.¹ I gave it to him early the last time he was at mine, so we could look at bondage porn in privacy. I can highly recommend this site. It's not entirely our cup of tea as porn - the bondage and restraint are aesthetically beautiful, but from our point of view they're more "set dressing" for an imagined CP scene than porn in their own right. But the photography is some of the highest calibre I've ever seen, the models are enviably flexible (if all something on the skinny side) and the technical quality of the films is pretty much unrivalled in the spanking scene. In terms of photography, editing, lighting, use of music, these films look more like music videos than what we tend to expect of porn.

My favourite out of all the contents I've seen so far is a short film from 2007 called "Slave Dance", starring Ariel Anderssen (better known to us as Amelia Jane Rutherford). In order to fully explain why I like it so much I have to spoil the "twist", but it's quite an old film, so I hope Ariel and Hywel won't mind.

In May 2007, Ariel entered her probationary period as the Restrained Elegance resident slavegirl. One of her assignments was to create a slave dance incorporating the slavegirl positions she was learning, and displaying her body in as refined and submissive a way as possible. (As Hwyel says ominously at the start of the video, because this is her first assignment it is an "unbound" dance. If she's done a "bound" dance since, it hasn't been released.) Ariel writes,

I loved choreography when I was a dancer, but that was a while ago, and making up a dance from scratch challenged me in a way I wasn't used to. I liked the idea of the dance being slow and ritualistic, the way I could imagine a geisha or a harem-slave performing for an invited audience.

As well as being ballet-trained, she has worked as a professional choreographer in the past - and it shows. Combined with her impressive slave training and Hwyel's production talents, this is one of the most extraordinary pieces of film I have ever seen.

It's short - only 8 minutes 40 seconds. The dance (and the track it's set to) takes less than half that long, but is performed twice. The music is haunting, primal, mystic vocals over industrial bass. Perfect for the context (and reminiscent of the bellydancing music I once saw Niki Flynn dancing to. Is it a standard genre?)



The dance begins in the studio, with a very young looking Ariel wearing her high posture collar and a silk kimono. As she dances, the film cuts between shots of her performing the same dance in four other locations and outfits. Inevitably, knowing Hwyel, she's barefoot in all of them, and may be wearing the collar in all of them, although it's not easy to tell. They were probably all (apart from the studio) filmed at the same location, but the effect enriches the dance enormously. The cuts between shots, in time with the slow, evocative music, add impact to Ariel's movements and display her in a variety of beautiful settings.



After the dance is finished, Hwyel ramps up the tension by putting nipple clamps on Ariel and instructing her to perform the dance again. Ariel is aghast. "I can't dance in these!" she cries desperately, eyes wide with pain. "I can't!" Who cares if she's acting? The effect is primeval. I found myself shuddering with empathy, and my body answered with a tremor of excitement.

The second dance is filmed entirely in the studio. Ariel's face, voice and body are, as ever, amazingly expressive - you can see every wince, hear every caught breath. Her dancing is notably less steady the second time. You can hear her gasp in pain as she stretches. By the time she's halfway through, there's a sheen of sweat on her pretty face, and you can see the pain in her eyes. The most dramatic - and physically taxing - moves come at the most dramatic points in the music, and as she cries out in the new agony inflicted by the new positions, the music swells and surges in perfect counterpoint. The synchrony between dance, sensation and soundtrack means that the music naturally complements the emotional curve of the scene. The last section of the dance is the most physically demanding (and sexually explicit) of all. By the end she is crying and whimpering in pain and effort. The combination of her vulnerability and submissive obedience with her poise, grace and astounding talent as a dancer is incredibly hot. As a dance and a film, this is beautiful and unusual - and, through one simple twist, it becomes one of the most intense D/s scenes I've ever seen on film.

Watching it for the first time, I was breathless, heart pounding, sympathetic tears pricking my eyes. I don't think a porn film has ever made me cry before. But it was also seriously hot.



The dance is just astonishing, showing off her flexibility (and terrifyingly bendy shoulders - I will never be able to manage half of these postures) to extraordinary effect. As dance, as choreography, as cinematography, as an incredibly intense D/s scene - this little film deserves to be famous among kinksters everywhere.

1. Which doesn't seem to have an affiliates scheme; I encourage you to do the same because it's good, not because I have any financial interest in you doing so.

Valentine's Subversion

On Saturday I took Tom to Club Subversion as part of our Valentine's celebration. (We don't take Valentine's that seriously, but I'm a bit soppy about my men and tend to get overexcited about opportunities to spoil them.) The three of us haven't done much fetish clubbing in the last year, we've mostly been too busy. But Tom and I in particular have been playing more than usual lately; I figured that one way or another, we'd probably have fun :)

I didn't even think about my outfit until the day before. This event was vampire-themed ('love at first bite') which, I have to admit, didn't particularly appeal. I considered doing something with devil horns, but eventually decided to ignore the theme and go for an easy, comfortable outfit which would flatter my recent weight gain. I settled on a 'harem girl' look; a beaded veil, flowing sleeves, and a belly dancer's coin belt slung low over transculent trousers slit open on each side. I accessorised with jangly bangles and blackberry nail varnish on my fingers and toes. Tom was doing his customary half-gentleman, half-scoundrel thing in leather trousers, velvet waistcoat and a white dress shirt open at the neck. Whenever he does the "dishevelled formal-wear" thing I always have trouble resisting the urge to lick his collarbones.

It was really great to see people, particularly my friend J whom I haven't seen since the shoot with Zille, and his partner. When we first found them upstairs J was involved in a triple-topping scene, himself and two stylish dommes (whom I think we saw running a classroom scene at my first ever Night of the Cane) attending to a young lady I vaguely know, who looked very pretty strung up on a St Andrew's Cross. A lot of people had done the vamp thing to the nines, and the overall effect was not unlike wandering into a kinky Camarilla event. We had fun watching people and chatting - Subversion is such a friendly, welcoming club there's a danger of spending the whole time talking.

Unfortunately Tom's health was not at its best. He warned me shortly after we settled in that he might not be up to anything energetic, and I was glad to have friends to chat to when he went outside for a bit to clear his head.

So I was surprised and pleased when, a little while later, he whispered that he was inclined to find an available whipping bench and spend some time doing wicked things to me. It was a busy club, but he'd kept an eye on a black padded bench in the corner, and when it was vacated we moved over. All our friends were sitting in clear view of it - I used to feel a bit odd about playing in front of friends rather than strangers, but my exhibitionist streak must have developed, because this time I found the idea actively exciting.

I was kneeling down by the bench, kissing his hand and taking a quiet moment to get in sync with him in the crowded club, when another couple slipped past us and started using the bench. Not much we could do about it: there's always competition for furniture, and the window of opportunity in which we could have challenged their claim passed before it occurred to either of us to try. No big deal, anyway - we'd no doubt find somewhere eventually, even if it wasn't in front of a crowd of people we knew.

We ended up upstairs, being watched by a growing crowd that included J and his partner, but no other familiar faces. I bent over a spanking bench which may well have been the same one we played on last April. Tom removed the jingling coin belt and pulled the loose trousers down to reveal my bottom. He started to whip me, lightly, with one of his little switches. The more we play with these the hornier they make me. Playing in a club, where you can't easily hear each other, is always slightly odd - I feel like my gasps are being drowned in the background noise. I tried to respond physically as much as possible to keep him aware of how I was feeling, and he helped the connection by checking in with me regularly, stroking my hair and whispering things in my ear.

I responded to the whipping with enthusiasm. I was ready for this, I wanted it; I wanted to make him proud. He used the heavy brown tawse on me, which I used to be so scared of but am gradually warming up to. I watched J and his lady drift away from watching us; he bent her over an item of furniture on the other side of the room, and as I was gritting my teeth through the tawse strokes I half-watched him preparing to flog her.

After Tom had warmed up my bottom, he drew me to a kneeling position, and guided me round so I was sitting on the edge of the bench. He told me to put my hands behind my back. "Look at me," he said, and then held my eyes as he proceeded to switch my breasts. I could feel the eyes of all the watchers - and sense the movements of all the figures wandering past, ignoring what was happening. The tip of the switch on the curve of my breasts was sensual and delicious, but he took careful aim and landed several sharp flicks right on my tender, erect nipples. It hurt so much I twisted and cried out, and when my eyes met his again they were fearful. He gave me a few more strokes, just because he could, and then a slow, predatory grin spread across his handsome face.

"Now," he growled, "I'm ready to cane you."

Back over the bench I went, shivering with sensation and anticipation. "I'm going to give you 36 strokes," he told me quietly. "No need to count them. Just keep your bottom pushed out for me, and make sure you return to your position after each stroke."

I devoured that caning. The bench was too short for my arms and body, so to hang onto the other side comfortably my hips were bent, and my bottom jutted vulnerably over my bare feet. (Tom had carefully removed my slippers when one of them threatened to fly off during the switching.) I breathed with the strokes, concentrated on remaining obedient and graceful, on keeping my back arched and my bottom offered up to him submissively. It must have hurt a lot, because halfway through I peeked and realised he was using the Master cane, 12mm of stiff dragon tailored to the needs of Tom's reach and my arse. It has a thick, firm bite that seems to resonate through my pelvis, and it leaves glorious bruises. But I was so aroused, so focussed on being pleasing and taking the strokes well, so utterly subsumed by the moment, that the experience consisted of almost pure pleasure. Or, if pain - and there must have been pain, even if the physical memory has faded - entirely the right kind of pain.

The only blip in an otherwise dreamy scene was when we were interrupted by a random woman who - apparently, although Tom handled it so well I was totally unaware of what was happening at the time - marched into the scene without making eye contact with either of us and started berating Tom for bruising me. That was the first time I realised how hard we were playing, and when I caught sight of the cane he was using. I'd been floating so high I thought he'd been using one of the safe, medium canes, but the knowledge he was bruising me lent an extra frisson to the rest of the caning.

Afterwards I breached all reasonable etiquette by twisting round and kissing him enthusiastically. I perched on my hot, welted bottom on the end of the bench, kissing him deeply, running my hands up and down his back and wrapping my legs around his waist. I was ridiculously turned on. I can't imagine anyone paying attention could have been seriously worried that the scene was nonconsensual!

I was on a high for the rest of the night. I straddled his lap, stealing many more kisses, and persuaded him to lay me across his knees for a warm hand-spanking on my bruised bottom. I could have happily kept playing and playing.

We headed home not long after, as even the best caning can't mend a poorly Dom as well as sleep can. I had beautiful black and purple stripes to match my painted toenails, and after that scene I was more than willing to be taken to bed.

editing: the first hurdle

You know how I've been a bit anxious about whether I'd be able to cope with plunging into the deep end with film editing? Well, over the weekend I defragged my computer, installed my shiny new editing software and on Monday I plunged in. It took me a while to get my head around thinking in three (four?) dimensions at once, but I really enjoyed it. After four hours I'd very nearly finished my first ten-minute clip, which felt like an awfully long time, but the work was so engrossing I didn't really notice time passing.

I did discover, contrary to my habitual multi-tasking ways, that neither my PC nor my brain can cope with doing editing at the same time as anything else. Of course I can't play music - obvious, but it took some getting used to as I normally have music on continually at home. I had to pop out halfway through to pick up some groceries, and my brain was so ensnared in the editing process that I had to come back home twice to collect things I'd forgotten, and then I forgot something else when I headed out in the evening. And my usual habit of having social networking open alongside work proved impossible: I closed all my other applications, and focussed properly. It felt good, though: learning new skills always does, and in this case my mind felt particularly, pleasingly challenged as I tried to simultaneously learn the new software, hold various variables in my head and piece everything together like a 3D jigsaw puzzle. And the sense of achievement when I stopped was immense.

Thanks so much to Michael Stamp for acting as my editing coach while we were working on Acquiescence. If I hadn't spent those days watching someone so experienced at work, I would have had a much more daunting task ahead of me. I like learning new things, and I'm so very grateful to those with the patience to help.

Incidentally, this process has taught me something interesting about how my brain learns best. Here are my ideal learning methods, in order of preference:

1. Attempting something new myself, being in the driving seat, but with someone experienced and patient behind me to answer questions.


2. Poring over someone else's uncompressed project files (or psds, or xhtml/css, or whatever), looking at what tools they used when, googling the things I don't understand and learning new effects I hadn't known before.


3. Plunging in on my own and working it out by ear, googling as I go.


4. Watching, making notes and asking questions while watching someone else work.


5. Reading online tutorials.

In other words, applied > pure, and getting my own hands dirty is better than anything else. In the case of editing, I did (4), then (1), then a tiny amount of (5) before realising it was pointless, then (3).

The other important thing, it seems, is timing. Theoretical learning methods such as (4) and (5) are much more useful if I immediately follow them with something practical. That's true for most people, I think. I was particularly grateful for the excuse (in the form of the re-edit of Acquiescence after the original file was corrupted) to do some more editing with Mr Stamp, a year after my first visit with him. A year is, of course, far too long for any of that information to stay in my head. The second time round it was familiar, and stuck faster. If I hadn't had that refresher course I would have been lost trying to edit on my own.

Tomorrow is scheduled for working on my own projects (hurray!) and I'm looking forward to getting another chunk of editing done (and if not, at least another chunk of learning). I can't wait. Lucy McLean has sensibly pointed out that I won't find the prospect so exciting when I have a backlog of hundreds of videos waiting to be edited, but it seems to me that just means I should enjoy the novelty while it lasts. My backlog is a meagre ten and a bit - enough that I can work up to the more complicated ones slowly, but not so much it seems overwhelming.

I promised myself I'd put filming on hold until I'd proven to myself that the editing was, at least, possible. Well, the software works and my graphical/audio skills seem to be transferrable so far. My relief at discovering that I can, after all my foreground confidence and background anxiety, make it work, is almost euphoric. In a few days I'm going to let myself start plotting my next shoot, but for now the editing joy is more than sufficient. Stretching my brain, learning new skills, realising my vision ... it may yet all go horribly wrong/not be remotely profitable, but right now I'm having too much fun to worry about that!

forced to listen

A few other people have highlighted this recent photostory from Northern Spanking already, but I loved it so much I wanted to give it some space here as well.



Two pale-skinned Celtic beauties, Caroline Grey and Kali Redmond, play sisters who are caught playing "I'll show you mine if you show me yours" in the garden one summer evening. Needless to say, their guardian (Paul Kennedy, who looms pleasingly over Kali's petite frame) is disgusted, and drags them inside for a sound spanking. To heighten the effect, Caroline is made to sit and wait outside the living room, listening to the sounds of her sister's punishment, unable to intervene and knowing it will be her turn soon.



This is a simple but amazingly effective storyline. Listening to a sibling or friend being spanked in a domestic setting is a popular and powerful fantasy. Being forced to watch a fellow miscreant be punished is bad enough - being forced to listen only heightens the fear. Without being able to see what's happening the imagination goes into overdrive. (Which is, I think, one of the reasons why some people prefer audio spanking stories over any other format.)



I adore Caroline's reactions throughout: her face and body language are so expressive. She and Kali look fantastic, and Paul is his usual attractively authoritative self. Between them they create a tense, squirmy atmosphere that sets my tummy fluttering, enhanced by the echoey, ever-so-slightly intimidating domestic set (the same location as Wheatley Manor was filmed, I think?).



Kudos to Northern for producing such an evocative, memorable spanking photostory. I think I'm going to keep on coming back to this one.

self-enhancing energy systems

My personal understanding of polyamory is strongly informed by a epiphany I had a few years ago. I'd just started getting together with D. - we weren't particularly serious yet, but were beginning to get that way. I was still involved in a dalliance with another couple, and was more than half in love with the woman. The point at which I accepted my feelings for her - even as I accepted they weren't reciprocated - energised me in such a way that I found myself more able to fall in love with D. Since then my experiences have backed up my belief that love is self-replicating and synergistic. It is the opposite of zero-sum; love expanding in one point of the network does not lessen the love in the rest of the network, but feed into it. When I am in love with one person, it gives me more loving energy in the rest of my relationships.

Sexual energy works the same way. Partly, the libido is like any other appetite - it is enlivened by exercise. Just as having more love makes you more loving, having more sex makes you more horny.

2010 so far has been the year of new lovers. I really didn't have the time or energy for new romantic entanglements last year, and my vague attempts to sub to a woman without my head breaking continued to be problematic. This year, something seems to have shifted. I'm finding myself with much more energy for new people, and so far all of them are switchy or toppy women. I am massively grateful to Penny D, my co-pioneer in this process, for helping me open the door in my head (and I very much hope she will feature in many of my stories this year). But I didn't expect the explosion of reciprocated interest and opportunity which followed hot on her heels.

This week, then. One of those weeks where intimacy begets intimacy; where electric encounters not only re-energise me (and allow me to feed that energy back to other partners) but in some magical way, seem to directly re-energise everyone else in my network.

It started last Thursday night, with an intense play session with Tom. It was our first for a few weeks, and provided a release for all the desire that had built up during our acting weekend. I spent part of the evening showing him some of the stills from the shoot we did with Zille in December, which re-ignited all sorts of hot memories (and our intense crushes on the lady in question). Then I showed him the two Control and Reform DVDs I've promised to review at some point (soon, I hope!), one of which shows an astounding, severe whipping during which the model, despite her valiant attempts to act unhappy, cannot quite disguise the fact that she is falling deeply into subspace and absorbing the pain with a deep, calm joy. It's not particularly in character but I love the scene almost because of the visible discrepancy between the character's and the actress's reactions.

In bed, I lay on my tummy as he spanked me. It was long gone midnight and we occupied that dreamlike space which seems to wrap around you like a bubble when you're making love in the middle of the night. I dropped so swiftly and deeply into subspace that I remember very little of the scene. I remember the sensation of his hands, each smack far harder than I expected, but so warm and intimate that I was able to stay grounded, react to the pain without fear. He rubbed between each stroke, and I crested wave after wave of sensation. My responses were quiet at first, small gasps of breath, shudders passing through my body. He moved from hand to my wooden ruler - gentle at first, but then biting into the backs of my thighs again and again, the impossibly sharp sensations contrasting with the palpable gentleness of his other hand, resting in the small of my back.

I was convinced that the next implement he used on me was my grown-up leather paddle, and responded as warmly as if it was. I love that paddle, and although it hurts like hell, there's something reassuring about it. It's an adult, sexy implement, very much for play rather than punishment, and however much it hurts I tend to respond more with arousal than distress. I remember, though, when he switched to another, similar implement - heavy leather again, but very different in touch - and I looked over my shoulder and saw the leather paddle in his hand, and the senior brown tawse lying on the bed beside him. The tawse which normally freaks me the hell out, which I cannot take without a huge amount of fuss. I had lifted my hips to meet it, accepted the force of each stroke as it coursed through my body. Which just goes to show how much of this is in the mind.

The next night - Friday - I had a long-awaited date with an elegant lady I first kissed almost six years ago. It's taken us this long to finally hook up properly, and the evening was decadent and genteel: we dressed up in evening wear and Venetian masks, danced together at a late-night gallery opening, and once back at mine she licked champagne off me and called me her nymph. If I was a nymph, she was a goddess: serene, graceful and with a natural dignity and poise. She arranged me to her satisfaction on my hands and knees, and purred over my body, running her manicured hands lightly over my back and bottom. She murmured an arch, rhetorical commentary as her fingers teased and slapped my prominent rump. "Now, how does one go about the spanking of a naughty nymph? Perhaps one might start with a sharp smack here ..." It was light, tantalising, and made me hungry for more.

On Saturday D. came over, and surprised me by obliging my unspoken need for something harder. I can rarely tell when he'll be in the mood to play, and it's usually a delicious surprise when he does. Perhaps I commented on the fine quality of his leather belt earlier in the evening, and put the thought in his head? However it came about, I found myself lying on my tummy again, fresh and naked from my shower, while he ran the doubled belt over my eager skin. Lying flat made the belt easier to take than when he requires I arch my back for it. He started gently enough that I could respond with enthusiasm, but the strokes got harder quickly enough to satisfy my hunger. I found myself yelping and hissing through my teeth as the pace and intensity increased, no longer worrying about expressing my enjoyment, just responding instinctively to the powerful combination of pain and pleasure. His hands on other parts of my body increased my eagerness, and after he'd whipped me to his satisfaction he rolled me over and - another wonderful surprise - licked me until my other craving was sated. By the time he'd finished I felt thoroughly spoiled, and more than ready to return the favour and pamper him in return.

The first few days of this week mostly consisted of work, but last night Tom and I had something to celebrate (good news related to a new business venture of his). I wanted to show him the rest of the stills from the shoot with Zille, knowing what mood it would put us both in. Entrepreneurial excitement spilled over into physical desire. As I was getting into bed I surprised both of us by climbing on top of him for a passionate kiss - which somehow turned into me on my front again, and him switching me with fast, rapid strokes that left me panting. Again, I found myself dropping into that trusting place where my first responses were quiet, breathy; making space for him to hit me harder and faster, saving my yelps for what I knew was to come. He finished with a long series of hard strokes, the thin whippy switch biting into my bottom and thighs with an almost unbearably high-pitched sensation. I let the pain wash over me, neither resisting nor struggling. I'm not sure what I enjoyed more: the knife-sharp, intense switching; the warmth and desire in his voice as he called me his good girl; or my surprise as he drew me into a kneeling position, stood in front of me and aggressively thrust his ready cock into my mouth. As I pleasured him I revelled in the sensations, in my own arousal from the whipping, and in the clear evidence of how much he had enjoyed it.

This is the sex life I missed having last year. I don't expect it to continue uninterrupted, but oh, these little sequences of encounters, each feeding energy back into the next, are truly lovely when they naturally happen this way.

the sentient planet

A little while ago I had an intriguing science fiction dream. I don't normally dream about the future - my dreams normally feature me as I am now in the emotionally-loaded landscapes of my past, like school or old houses.

In my dream, I was one of the colonists on a new planet. The planet seemed like paradise - it was lush, green, perfectly adjusted to human life. But there was something strange about it. We soon realised that this planet took the Gaia principle to extreme proportions. Rather than emanating a vague sense of spiritual presence, as Earth does, this celestial body was fully conscious and fully sapient.

At first we thought we were going mad, until we realised the radiant presence in our minds was the planet, learning to communicate with us. As we started to settle there, it became apparant that the planet was willing to cater to our every need. We never went wanting. Had it been lonely for so long that it wanted to spoil us like a beloved pet? Or had it been inhabited before, until something dreadful happened? We wondered if we would ever find out. It may well not have always been inhabitable by humans. As we learned more about it, it seemed more probable that its balanced atmosphere and gravity were produced in response to our needs.

As we lived together the planet became more and more adept at predicting our needs. It started to provide for us before we even realised we were lacking something. It was a bit creepy, but most of the colonists welcomed it.

Except me. I, being kinky, had all sorts of desires I didn't necessarily want to be realised. In its desire to cater to our every whim, I often found myself violently assaulted by nature. As I was walking through the forests, branches of trees would reach down, sweep me up, and vines would wrap around my limbs to hold me in place while another tree dealt me a stinging whipping with the thin ends of its branches. I couldn't escape. The planet was right: I did want and need to be spanked. But my fantasies are always more extreme than what I wanted to experience in reality. My deepest desires were being plucked out of my brain and imposed on me, whether I wanted them to be or not.

It seemed like a nice place to visit - but I wouldn't want to live there.

bound at the wrists

"Captive...III" by Daniel Ilinca. Model: Aisii

Things I like about this shot include her small, vulnerable breasts, and her unflinching, calm gaze. Her expression is more curious than challenging. It's as if she's saying "Okay, so you've tied me up: cool so far. Now what?"