Tale or Tail?

A page from Serpieri's Obssession. View more here.

Serpieri's graphic novel series Morbus Gravis kept a place of pride on my bookshelf for six years before I read them all. If you've seen them, or any image of Serpieri's heroine Druuna, you'll understand. What does plot matter, even when the plot involves drooling multi-penised horny mutants, when the artistry is an ode to the main character's glorious backside? Several other volumes, such as Obsession, Druuna X, and Druuna X 2, were published just of Serpieri's artwork of this ample goddess, justifying my inattention to the graphic novels.

Now, if it takes me the better side of a decade to getting around to reading the non-juicy bits of a graphic novel series, can you imagine how long it takes me to read the entirety of a blue piece of fiction? I am definitely guilty of reading only the "good parts," leaving the rest, often including character development and plot, for some other time, also known as never o'clock.

I would write more fiction if I treated it as I did my erotic reading. I get so caught up in the wheres and whys, even the last names, whether they're mentioned or not, that I never get to write those "good parts." I've started so many stories that I think would be really fantastic if I could just finish them. The naughty parts would be all the better for the care and attention I put into the reason for the scene, the mental space of the characters, the exact shade of grass outside the window. And why? Why? I'm an avid reader and writer, whether I ever finish anything or not, and if I don't bother with the pages before the panties come down, why do I think anyone else will take the time to get to know the tale before the tail?

I started writing a handful of stories based on the suggestions you shared with me over the past week. If I ever actually finish anything, I'll start posting them on the Naughty Abby site. That's the plan, anyway. What I wonder is, should I mark off the good parts so no one misses anything in the scrolling? How important is plot in a spanking story? And is that really what I'm writing? Perhaps that's the real trouble. I haven't decided whether I'm writing literature with a bit of spanking, or spanking with a bit of literature. Is there a place for me in this genre? Does anyone care about punishment with plot?

This one was always my favorite. Wonderfully unsettling.

Subject Me

I've had trouble writing lately. I'm not out of ideas. In terms of fiction, I have countless documents consisting of one to three paragraphs, stories with intent but not content. For the blog, it's not as if the subject of spanking is suddenly uninspiring. I have so much I want to write about for you: the auditory experience of spanking, the notion of violence in what we do, the surprise places one finds corporal punishment--the all-too brief beating of the Russian prostitute in the video-game inspired action film Hitman comes to mind.

No, the ideas are in plenitude. What lacks, what I lack, is ambition. I want to write. I do. I want to "be a writer." However, dear reader, I'm having trouble doing the actual writing. I was briefly inspired by the list of crimes and punishments posted above, as found on a random Flickr page. It got me to start this post, all the way up to the phrase "dear reader," at which point I walked away, wandered into the kitchen, and forgot about writing entirely. It's now two days later and I'm back at it, but it's really more of a "yes I'm still out here" post than it is one of reflection or eroticism.

That said, I wonder if your ideas would benefit me. Get me back into finishing fiction, or inspire brief sexy tales to be told for your more... um... immediate enjoyment. Mr. W is working all weekend. Send me your story ideas, and perhaps I'll finally write something worthy of calling myself a writer, not just a naked blogger. My bottom is taking a break from taking requests. Subject my hands to your wishes.

Unsolicited Nakedness

from photographer Spencer Tunick's Amsterdam shoot

I've become comfortable here. Comfortable spilling mental viscera onto the virtual page. Comfortable as part of the community, despite historically, in Groucho Marx fashion, refusing to belong to any group that would have me as a member. Comfortable in sharing my fetish, my fantasies, even my face. These comforts are the product of time, trust, and an ever growing comfort in being myself. If I were uncomfortable in any of these things, this blog would have faded to silence long ago.

My persistent nakedness, however, surprises me constantly. It is the result of being comfortable, yes, but it catches me when I'm not expecting it. I am Eve with short-term memory loss. At ease with my bare flesh, I take a bite of the apple, and oh-my-goodness I'm naked in front of God and everybody. Then the taste of the apple fades, and I am again posting screenshots and video of my backside, occasionally including the camera angle I call the "up-my-guts" shot, for all the world to see.

I had two moments this week when I realized that perhaps not everyone is expecting this unsolicited nakedness. The first was in an email, when I found myself using the phrase "unsolicited nakedness" for the first time, after writing something akin to "I was going to send you this, but--" I realized that perhaps not everyone wants an email full of porn. The second was in conversation with a friend who sought out the Naughty Abby site after I'd confessed my activities of late, and he commented, "It's all there, isn't it? Black bar and everything." He was referencing the picture I have illustrating one of the videos. To titillate, I'd included one of the "up-my-guts" screen captures, but to be tasteful (ha!), I slapped a black bar over the pink parts. My friend's comment was comic, but it also held a morsel of apple-flavored truth. Maybe everyone I know doesn't actually need to see my guts, or even the unclothed parts that hold them in.

I know this doesn't hold true for everyone. My visitor stats are heightened for about a week every time I post even a short clip. At this point, except for the stray or accidental reader, any nakedness you find here is by implied solicitation. You know that I'm going to bare something, my heart or brain or bottom, and sometimes you'll get all three. The trouble is that by becoming so comfortable here, I want to share this world with everyone--and not everyone is a part of this world. The very word spanking is unsolicited nakedness for some. When I first started The Little Red Schoolhouse, one of my constant struggles was balancing the girl who loved submitting to a spanking and the woman who needed to be in charge. Now that I feel like I've found that balance, it's about how much I can really be that person. I'm learning when it's time to eat the apple and when it's time to forget its taste.

Spanking Abby, The Blog

I came home from work the other day to the most wonderful surprise--even better than the new spanking horse and umbrella stand full of canes that greeted me when I walked through the front door. Mr. Williams has started his own blog!

He found the most perfect picture to start it off, which I've copied here because I'm jealous that he found it first. Terrible beast that he is, he also created a poll for which implement should be used for my next spanking! I'm intrigued to see what he'll do with the blog in the future. Will my take on each of my spankings and punishments be countered with a description and perspective of his own? Will I get to know even better what he's up to when I'm not around? Will I get to know my own bottom even better than I do now, thanks to my own blog and the appearance of cameras in my life?

From some of our first flirtations as booksellers together, spanking has been our favorite subject. It was in the subtle and not-so-subtle conversations between helping customers at the Information desk. It was in the finding of intriguing titles, especially those by the ubiquitous Anonymous, that gave us both shivers and caused us to turn to each other with heat in our eyes, amongst other parts. It was even in late night drives through the less savory parts of town, at that time Los Angeles, in search of that one book or magazine or implement that would turn us from intimate friends to permanent partners in fetishism and in life. It took three thousand-mile moves and a few years in between, but we found that final connection in the bands we now both wear on our left hands. So what is left after all that time and conversation and discovery?

The world, it seems. My blog has enabled me to learn so much about myself. Surely he's learned a thing or two as well about myself, us, and our relationship with this thing we do. I'm excited to have the opportunity to learn from his written thoughts as well. The hands sometimes express what the tongue cannot or did not expect to say. As long as his hands continue to say the most important things on my backside.

Spanking Abby. The other side of the coin.

Julie's Sixteenth Birthday

Number 36 on the list of worst album covers ever. Number 1 on Julie's list of worst birthdays ever.

One of my favorite newsletters seemingly has nothing to do with spanking, believe it or not. It hails from Very Short List and often contains pop cultural gems, such as this list from a newspaper in Florida featuring the top fifty worst album covers ever. But as tends to happen with most things, there's always a way to tie a subject back to spanking, and this list was no exception. I just knew there would be something I could post here, and sure enough, number 36 did not let me down. "Julie's Sixteenth Birthday." Her worst birthday ever? Apparently!

I've been trying to come up with a story behing the image. Is that her dad? Her older brother? Her uncle? I figure Julie went to the pub to celebrate her birthday, but got caught. The man in the picture is trying to explain to her that beer and cigarettes are for grown-ups, not sixteen year olds. He's taken them away from her and is now explaining that just because she thinks she's grown up now, she really isn't, and sixteen isn't too old for a spanking.

In my version, Julie's family knows the pub owner, who doesn't mind when she's bent over the piano bench behind her and strange-hat-man takes off his belt. In an alternate version, she's made to lean over the table (elbows on the table being perfectly acceptable for this position) and the entire pub is offered a few swats at her. Birthday spanking, indeed! Poor Julie. Little did she know when she posed for this picture that she would be blogged about thirty years later by a dirty-minded girl like me. Not to mention retroactively spanked most unrelentlessly...