#TBT: Origin of a Sexy Species

There are a lot of rules in this world about who
I am allowed or supposed to be as a woman, a feminist,
a writer, and a sexual creature. I'm making my own rules.
Here are my brains and my butt.

I keep hearing these days that as a culture, we need to stop slut-shaming. I think the intention is good, but I have a real problem with the terminology.When we rally a war cry against slut-shaming, it seems to me that we're saying, "Yes, that's a slut. But don't shame him/her." It's still name-calling, isn't it? Or are we trying to take the term "slut" back and make it mean something feminist? There are all kinds of "shaming" out there now: slut-shaming, fat-shaming, skinny-shaming. Why don't we just work towards the end of shaming in general?

For Throwback Thursday, here's a post from 2009 about how women are told to be sexy (but not TOO sexy) all the time. I've struggled with this throughout my life, even on this blog. As a writer, I often wonder if it's "wrong" of me to also share images of my body. As you'll have noticed from the sidebar, I've re-embraced the Naughty Abby videos Mr. W and I made years ago, and I'm even working on making them available for sale again, as a way of funding my writing. I love sharing every aspect of my passion for spanking, including sharing visuals of the bottom that gets spanked. It's who I am.

Throwback Thursday: Origin of a Sexy Species, April 2, 2009

I have XM radio in my office, but it only gets three music channels - Top 40, hip-hop, and a mix station. The mix station, called Pink Channel Radio, is bearable in regards to music, but every now and again it offers up "life tips for women" from pop doctors and psychologists. They tend to be cringe-worthy on a good day, but today's tip especially irked me.

The subject was feeling sexy. "Show me a woman who feels sexy 24/7, and I'll show you a liar," intoned the condescendingly friendly voice. She went on to explain that feeling sexy is all about self-confidence, and if one is self-confident, then one will naturally feel sexy, look sexy, and be perceived as sexy by others. This isn't bad advice, in general. Self-confidence is fantastic. Feeling sexy is fantastic. Aside, however, from the obvious offense of implying that all women share a desperate need to look, feel, and be perceived as sexy by everyone at all times, this radio blurb assaulted the millions of women - and men - who struggle with their own self-confidence, among other more serious life issues, because of how they are perceived in regards to sex and "sexiness."

So let me get this right, Radio For Women. I need to improve my self-confidence so that I can be sexy, and then once I am sexy, the world can objectify me, ostracize me, or embarrass me, because a sexual woman, and in addition a sexual woman involved in kink, is not the most openly embraced woman in the world. Then, objectified, outcast, and ashamed, I can search deep down for that self-confidence, bring it back to the surface, take pride in who I am and - because, by your own rule, Radio For Women, as a woman I need to be perceived as sexy - fall into the same painful cycle again.

Maybe I'm just a little sensitive right now after reading an insightful blog post from the brilliant and beautiful Miss Tori (and I'm not just saying that because she's a disciplinarian). On her (now defunct) blog La Dolce Tori, she recently wrote about the possibility that the influx of women into the adult industry during the recession could raise acceptance and remove the stigma of being a sex worker. She cited an article from the SF Gate, which stated "In this economy, 'desperate measures are becoming far more acceptable,' said Jonathan Alpert, a New York City-based psychotherapist who's had clients who worked in adult entertainment." Acceptance due to necessity had not occurred to me, and I have found myself hopeful since reading Miss Tori's post. If acceptance of traditional sex work (i.e. "vanilla") becomes commonplace, can the acceptance of fetish work and lifestyle and its practitioners be far behind?

I can admit that I have not experienced hardship because I like to be spanked. However, friends, strangers, and those I admire in the spanking world have experienced far more than hardship, often publically, always unnecessarily. Sex workers of the world, be they providers, pornographers, models or mistresses, have the right to their careers perhaps moreso than anyone else in the world.

Sex work isn't known as the oldest of professions because it was the career nobody wanted or the service nobody sought. I've been reading a vastly entertaining collection of sex trivia called Sexy Origins and Intimate Things by Charles Panati. It light-heartedly traces early prostitution from hunter-gatherer society onward. One theory as to why we, as humans, are essentially constantly "in heat" is because women bartered sex for food and protection for themselves and their children. The men fed and protected the women who remained sexually receptive for the longest periods, thereby essentially creating a race that was ingrained to want sex all the time. The need for sexual satisfaction is literally in our blood.

Why, then, are we outcast when we want to provide sexual satisfaction to others and obtain it for ourselves? Cultures and mores aside, why would we as a society subscribe to the denigration of the men and women who, quite literally, uphold our origin of species? Whether the work is for pay or for pleasure, we are doing what our genes, not our radios, have instructed us to do: be sexy.

Being sexy, in this sense, is not comparable to that of the pop psych radio pop-up. We have long outgrown our need to propagate the species. The fact that we still crave to satiate our sexual needs indicates that somewhere along the way, sex ceased to be about procreation. I think, as you read my blog, we are all in agreement here. The fact that the need for sex did not dissipate, and instead actually took on new forms (balloon fetish, anyone?) indicates that we now require our sexual needs to be met for our own innate human requirements. No assembly necessary, we came as we are and we now want to cum as we are as well.

The key is the fact that those needs are innate. I was born to become a woman who wants a lot of sex and to be spanked to varying degrees quite frequently. I was born to want that mostly from a man, but now and again I have sought a woman in his place. I was born to prefer leather and the cane over hard flat wood. I was born to want to be erotically commanded, reprimanded, commandeered. When I am confident about who I am and how I was born, I am also someone who cannot express this "sexiness" to my family or co-workers or most of my friends. Let me tell you, Radio For Women, when I am feeling sexy, looking sexy, and being perceived by others as sexy, I'm also bent over a solid object and having my ass beaten with any number of implements.

So thank you, Radio For Women, but until this world has changed, I am afraid your advice does not adhere to me, or to any woman, or to anyone. We don't need to be sexy 24/7. We need to be accepted and allowed to live our lives. Offer a tip on that, and maybe I will be more willing to listen to Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" three times in one day. Until then, Top 40 it is for me.

(The Pink Channel does provide a valued and charitable service to breast cancer research and treatment, which is why I am not going to actually send this diatribe to them. Still, I'm fairly sure that when they state that breast cancer affects one in three women, they didn't just mean the vanilla ones or the ones who could grace the pages of Maxim. And no one should be expected to "feel sexy 24/7." Don't give us tips on how to do so, give us tips on how to tell those who expect us to do so to piss off.)

Beneath Braybourne Way - New Fiction Excerpt

Last week, I tried to participate in Three Word Wednesday. The prompts (brutal, clammy, dense) made me think of my basement fantasy, which I'd already been considering expanding into a longer story. I wound up writing over 4,000 words! Only "brutal" appears in the sample below, but all three are included in what I think is going to be the first chapter of a novel or novella I am tentatively calling "Beneath Braybourne Way." I'm sharing my link on 3WW because I'm grateful for the inspirational spark and I want to remind other writers that what you intend to be a short blog post may turn out to be your next (or first) book.

The set-up: Eleanor and Bearded Johnny, quirky adult friends, are exploring the basement of an abandoned house in Portland, Oregon. (The house is based on the house that Mr. W and I first lived in together in Portland.) Johnny wants to film some creepy footage and Eleanor is along for the ride because she has a secret crush on him, but things take an unexpected turn when they find some unusual objects the previous owners must have left behind.

********************

I fidgeted. Johnny noticed and stood up. “I’m sorry,” he said, genuinely. “Does this stuff make you uncomfortable?” He touched my arm and I shivered.

“Only a little,” I answered, unable to meet his eyes, even in the semi-dark. I was embarrassed. “Go ahead, finish.” As he’d comforted me, I’d noticed one other object on the tarp, lying alone. I wanted to see what he’d make of it. “What’s that?” I pointed at the item, all too sure of what it was.

He picked up a slender length of rattan with a crooked handle - a schoolmaster’s cane. I had definitely never seen one of these in person. He brandished it like a sword and swished it through the air. “Well,” he commented, “I have an idea of what this might be used for.” He cleared his throat. “I mean, if this is a dungeon after all.” He grinned. “Funny that you noticed it, considering it was practically in the dark.”

“I’m sure it’s just a walking stick,” I answered. “I was just curious.”

“Oh were you now?” He stepped towards me. “How curious?”

I shook my head. “Not very. I’m ready to go.” I tried to retreat towards the door but he threw down the cane and grabbed my arm.

“Tell me you knew what it was,” he said. “Little Miss History doesn’t recognize a cane when she sees one?” His face was close to me, close enough that between the shadows and the proximity, I couldn’t tell if he was being rude or playful.

I thought I’d try a different tactic. “I knew what it was. How did you?”

He let go and laughed, turning the camera off on his phone and switching to his flashlight app so we could see each other better. “My sister left a historical romance novel on the couch and it must have fallen between the cushions. I found it one day when I was home sick in high school and I flipped through it.”

I smacked him lightly on the arm as if in admonishment. “You were looking for the dirty parts!”

“And I found them! I knew what all of this stuff was, though I’m shocked as hell that this is what we found down here.”

I took a deep breath and found the courage to say it. “I knew what all of it was, too.” I bit my lip, waiting for his response.

To my horror, he laughed again, like this was all the biggest joke. I couldn’t help but wonder if he’d set me up, that he knew about my secret fetish and had done all this to let me know that not only did he not like me, he thought I was a freak. Then he leaned down and picked up the paddle again.

“Do you know what happened to the heroine in that novel when she got caught lying?”

“Don’t you dare!” This time I punched his arm, playfully, but even as I stepped close to him to deliver the hit, he reached around and swatted my backside with the paddle. Surprised, I dropped my phone into the dirt, the flashlight app facing upwards so our faces were cast in unsettling shadows.

“Turn around and bend over,” he said.

I looked up to find his eyes in the dim light.  “I’m not even joking, don’t you dare,” I told him. I wanted him to force me to turn around, to lift the skirt of my sundress and deliver a dozen brutal swats directly to my nearly bare backside. So I said it again. “Don’t you dare.”

In the few months we’d been hanging out together, I’d come to notice he couldn’t resist a challenge. He set his phone down next to mine, flashlight turned upwards. Between the light from the phones, the half-window at the front of the basement, and the open doors at the back, we could see each other well enough. “If you’re not going to turn around yourself,” he began. I squealed as he took me firmly by the shoulder and turned me around and then pushed me down so that I was bent over before him. I could tell that the hem of my dress had ridden well above the line of decency.

We both paused, unsure what to do with ourselves now that we’d gotten ourselves into this position. Either he was going to have to spank me with the paddle, or I was going to have to stand up and leave, pretending that I hadn’t wanted it all along. Before I could make up my mind, he decided for us both. The first swat landed lightly across my backside, barely a bump over my double layers of dress and panties.  Catching up, I remembered that it was supposed to hurt. “Ooh!” I yelped, relieved that we were going to play-act the spanking. Later, we could say that we were just being silly once we’d discovered what the basement had been hiding.

A few more swats landed, each as gentle as the first. I tried to respond with comic book style reactions. A “Smack!” received an “Ow!” in response, a “Pop!” received an “Oof!” A slighter harder “Whack!” received an “Oh no!” I giggled and he laughed back. We were just friends having fun, though I’d been wrong in the backyard when I thought my panties were safe. The play spanking had me dripping wet. I’d been afraid to tell anyone about my secret fantasies, afraid I wouldn’t even like being spanked once it finally happened, but maybe now I’d have the courage.

The smacks of the paddle stopped. I was about to ask if I should stand up when Johnny lifted the skirt of my dress above my waist. He ran his hand over my left butt cheek and then my right, tentatively. I stayed stock still, my eyes closed at his touch. I was terrified to breathe and break the moment, but his hand continued, traveling down one thigh, back up, then down the other. My thigh-high socks had fallen down; I could feel his hand on my skin from the backs of my knees to the small of my back, the thin fabric of my panties the only interruption.

“Johnny?” I whispered.

A Bottom for Breakfast

Mr. W is in charge of sharing amusing images of bottoms with me, and this one is perfect for a Sunday morning!

We have the house to ourselves today. I'm hoping to have some exciting hot-bottom stories to tell you about later this week. Until then, in the spirit of this post, happy smacking and snacking with your bottom of choice!

#TBT: An Easter Tawsing

Happy Easter from 2009 and today!!!

Don't miss the "Easter Egg" link in this post.

Throwback Thursday: A Return to Form and Function,  April 13, 2009


Temporary souvenier handprint from the first strapping, mentioned below, with an antique barber strop on our honeymoon. In pain, I reached out and pressed my arm against our vehicle, as we were outside at night. We took a photo the next morning, when we realized I had left a handprint on the window. I remember us looking at it and Mr. W commenting, "It looks like someone was in distress."

Last night, whilst on my hands and knees and thinking we were about to do something quite different, I found myself receiving a short hand-spanking. It stung, but I became giddy and lightheaded; I'd been thinking of nothing but this for too many days. When it stopped as quickly as it started, I was disappointed, only to realize that Mr. W had paused in order to reach for the long, fur-lined toybox that had gone into hibernation for the first time this winter. The latch opened with a slow metallic pop, but we both knew the meaning behind the rasping snap: "At last, it's spring."


He began to rummage through the box, searching, I supposed, for the perfect implement, but after a few seconds I became curious and peered over the side of the box to watch him. I felt a bit like I was cheating, like it was supposed to be a surprise, but he let me watch, and gauged my reaction when he laid one of the more pliant straps alongside me. Our eyes met, and I cannot say what my gaze held for him. Did he see fear? Trepidation? Lust? I felt a confused mix of all three, remembering both the ecstasy of a long strapping session we'd shared a few years ago, as well as the biting sting of a newly purchased stiff antique barber strop, which he'd tested on me at night on a bluff by the Pacific Ocean, under a million stars with no other lights for miles. I wasn't sure that I was ready quite yet for a strapping, but there was only one way to find out. I braced myself and cried out when it struck me, but oh, was I in heaven.

I'm not sure how long the strapping lasted. A few strokes? A few minutes? I think it was just enough to remind me how much I'd missed it. I never once had that thought I used to have all the time, that question of "Why do I like this?" It was a playful spanking, not one meant for punishment or anyone's enjoyment but our own. Then just as I was falling into the rhythm of the strap, he switched implements and began spanking me with an ovular, flat leather equestrian slapper, one of our first toys, and one we bought within our first few days together in Oregon. I adore this item. When used with enough force, it produces a sensation that causes me to say "Ouch!" or "Ow ow ow!" but it never makes me scream. It's a warm-up toy, a play toy, and a welcome opening or intermission. In this case, it was the intermission between the strap and the tawse.

For the first, and probably last, time ever, I nearly said, "Yaaaay!" when the tawse came out of the box. I have been obsessing about the tawse for weeks and was so relieved to see it rather than the cane or something dastardly and wooden. That last video clip I posted is proof that I am not in love with the sensation of the tawse, and certainly not when it's used as discipline, but I am in love with the scent of it, the weight of it, the idea of it wrapping its fiery tongue across and around the inside of each cheek, making me squirm and cry out and struggle to escape its sting. The sentiment of celebration dissipated the moment he began to use it upon me, but rather than fighting it, I fell straight into the focused mindset of taking each stroke, letting the sting settle, then consciously moving back into position to receive the next one. I squealed and pulled away a bit, don't get me wrong - it was the tawse, after all, even if it wasn't being used as viciously as I've felt it in the past - but I had been craving this so much that I didn't want to miss the experience by fighting it as I normally might have done. Finally, kneeling on the bed, back arched and legs apart, bottom red and hair flying, I felt completely like myself.

I didn't cry until it was over. I hadn't realized I wasn't crying until the spanking had stopped, and then suddenly I was overcome with a rush of tears. They were exhausted but happy tears, not born of pain but of the elation that comes with survival. It wasn't the punishment that I'd survived, however, it was its absence. Now, spring had sprung in bright red and pink blooms across the pale winter expanse of my backside. In years to come, I will happily leave the chasing of eggs and rabbits to my youth and look forward to a new Easter tradition - the Happy Easter Tawsing.

see the original comments on this post here

Sentinel

Ear atop chest I listen for:

a misstep in the march of blood

weakness in the wall of breath

the breach that rends

the everything of you apart from

the everything of me.

Safe, this citadel of cells,

and so I sleep.

A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal

UPDATE: I decided not to do the A to Z Challenge. I'm working on so many projects already and I want my posts to be worthwhile. Check out my April 1st post "A Spanking Alphabet." This doesn't make up for a whole month of posts, but it's a fun way to start the month and the weekend!

I discovered through the blog Infinitesimal Thoughts that today is Theme Reveal day for the annual Blogging from A to Z Challenge. How perfect! I'd just been thinking about finding a challenge that would help me add to the number of posts I publish weekly, but found this by accident while reading through my blog roll. Today is the day that all of the participants are supposed to reveal the theme they will post about, A to Z, in April. Some bloggers might go with a theme they don't normally write about, then post A to Z about that subject. For example, Han at Infinitesimal Thoughts chose Johannes Vermeer. Others who want to keep to their blog's subject will use the A to Z challenge as inspiration for their posts.

I'm going to blog about... Spanking! Surprise!

I'm already pretty happy with the theme of my blog. What I'm excited about is the idea that I will need to post every day (except Sunday), with a post that matches that day's letter. A is for Ass, B is for Bottom, C is for Cane, etc. My two goals are to post more frequently and to bring in new readers. This will help me meet both goals, because I'll get pulled from the list if I miss too many entries. No warning swats, no playful OTK reprimands, it's just straight to bed without supper.

Blogs with adult content are welcome as long as you note "AC" in parentheses after your blog title when you sign up. Sign ups are still open at http://www.a-to-zchallenge.com/.

#TBT: The Monster at the End of this Post

The photos in the below post are the first we ever took of me after a spanking. It's clear that I was a little shy about it, leading up to the pictures at the end rather than putting them at the beginning, as I would now, or even stating proudly that the pics were coming if you scrolled through the post. I'm happy that I no longer consider myself a monster to be hidden away at the end.

#ThrowbackThursday: The Monster at the End of this Post, 8/26/2007

Yahoo's homepage today features this photo of students in uniform with the question, "Are school uniforms harmful or helpful?" The link leads to Yahoo Answers, one of the most terrifying sources of information on the Internet. If you need a question answered by a twelve year old with an attitude and poor spelling, this is the place to go. Needless to say, most of the responses were against uniforms. A few adults chimed in to point out that school is a place to learn, but nobody seemed terribly impressed.

Now, if I was one of the tween or teen students responding, I, too, would have been against being made to wear a uniform, though being a spelling bee champion, I could have made my case more convincingly. In fact, I was part of an anti-dresscode rebellion during my first year of highschool. A male friend was sent home for wearing a skirt. It was the early nineties, after all. We made posters and passed out petitions, telling students that if the boys couldn't wear skirts, soon the girls wouldn't be allowed to wear pants. We won, to a degree. Boys won the rights to wear kilts. Good enough.

This is all so humorous in retrospect, considering I spent a good portion of my weekend putting together a schoolgirl outfit that I could get away with wearing in public. Friday night found the perfect plaid skirt, knee-length, with a slight A-line. I'd have to be ten years younger or thirty years older to have gotten away with pleats. A simple black sweater vest was next. Throw it on over any button-down shirt--instant schoolgirl/librarian (perfect, as I worked in a library in highschool, and still miss it terribly). Oddly enough, the white blouse was more difficult to find. I gave up on the long-sleeved version, especially as I already have a few, and found a very fitted one with adorable puffed sleeves. It could double as a milkmaid blouse, which is fine. Milkmaids need spankings too. New black Mary Janes on Saturday completed the ensemble. Naturally, I already had the white knee socks at home.

This is where Yahoo's question becomes problematic. Whether a school uniform is harmful or helpful really depends on the goal, doesn't it? If my goal was to get a 24-stroke caning with no warm-up, then I'd say the uniform was quite helpful, indeed. However, from a hands-on-my-ankles, tear-drops-on-the-floor perspective, I'd say the outfit was fairly harmful to my poor plump bottom. So it's a toss-up. I had a wonderfully terrible, or terribly wonderful, time of it. So, to sum up: Plaid skirt on sale at Macy's, seventy dollars on debit Mastercard. White schoolgirl-milkmaid blouse, thirty dollars on debit Mastercard. Mary Janes at a terrific price, seventeen dollars on debit Mastercard. A perfectly striped caning from the man who loves me? Priceless.

Halfway through the caning, I was put in the corner while my husband went to find my camera. We've never taken photos of me during or after a punishment before, mostly due to my own self-consciousness. He left such perfect marks, though, that he couldn't resist, and I wasn't exactly about to say no. Halfway through a caning could easily have turned into a third or a fourth of the way through. After we admired the pictures, he encouraged me to post them here. I never planned to share my bountiful bottom on this page, but I do want to show of his handywork.

See how much I love my marks, Sir? Let's hope they like 'em too.

P.S. For those not current on their Sesame Street literature, "The Monster at the End of this Book" was a classic Grover tome, in which the monster at the end of the book turns out to be Grover himself.

My Body His Drum

When it was time, he asked me to lie face down on one side of the bed, naked and trusting, as he readied two slender canes and a short stiff leather whip known as a sjambok.  We'd already discussed the session we were about to commence. It would be different from our usual spanking sessions and we were both excited to try this new experiment in sensation. Despite my body's light trembling, I was thoroughly calm, my usual pre-play anxiety set aside in favor of anticipation.

Placing the canes and whip next to me, he leaned over and stroked my hair, allowing his fingers to comb through the waves. His fingertips rubbed tiny circles over my scalp and the nape of my neck, waking the nerve endings, gently commanding them to welcome his touch. He then moved down my back, first working delicate patterns on the surface of my skin, then sweeping arcs over the musculature with the flat of his palm.


Continuing downwards, he took both cheeks of my buttocks in each hand and squeezed. This part of my body is always ready for his touch, no coaxing needed. I arched my back, presenting my bottom more fully. He kneaded the flesh, switching sides, pressing deeply into the soft, welcoming tissue. Before I was ready for him to end his touches there, he continued the journey down my thighs and calves until he finished at my feet, where he stopped and reached for the sjambok.

The whip picked up where his hands left off, stroking not striking, tracing a path from the soles of my feet back up to my neck then down again. Its journey was meandering, teasing and tickling. Every cell of my body answered yes when he finally asked if I was ready.

Despite the plan, my body expected pain. I tensed, but the sjambok landed lightly and quickly on the lower curve of my backside, then again, and then again. Tap, tap, tap, it struck a dancing rhythm, the leather bouncing off my bottom in teasing wisps. He let the sjambok fall across my flesh as quickly as he could, each stroke blurring into the next, building with intensity as he began to unpredictably allow the whip to fall harder than I expected every few strokes. These blows stung but so quickly merged back into the overall pattern that I began to look forward to the sudden peaks of sensation.

Once my bottom was tingling, he allowed the whip to travel down the backs of my legs, still tapping a steady rhythm, and then to the soles of my feet. He lifted my left foot and placed three firm lines across the arch, then circled his thumb deeply into the flesh, massaging away the sting as quickly as it had come. He repeated the cycle, then used the handle of the sjambok to continue the massage over the sole of the entire foot. I moaned encouragingly. We had not discussed including feet but now I didn't want him to stop. He gently set the left foot down and picked up my right. I wiggled my toes at him in delight and he laughed quietly, teasing and tickling me before letting the sjambok do its work.

Finally the whip traveled back up my legs to its final destination, where after a few more moments of tapping, the rhythm stopped. He set the sjambok down and picked up the canes, taking one in each hand. Tracing patterns with their tips all over the back of my body, he spoke to me in a warm, assuring voice.

"Breathe into the sensation. Long, deep breaths. Sigh, moan, or cry out if you want. Let your voice and your breath flow. Tell me if you want me to go faster or slower. If you want me to go harder or lighter. Feel free to touch yourself. You are welcome to come when you are ready, if you are ready. This is for you."

"Yes, Sir," I breathed, my entire body tingling as he began the tapping rhythm again, this time with the canes falling one after the other after the other, back and forth, percussively coaxing a pink blush to the surface of my skin. I could feel the warmth rising even without seeing the change of tone.

The canes felt completely different from the tapping of the sjambok.  Whereas before I had felt trembling throughout my body as I became more and more open to whatever sensation he was about to bring to me next, there was now no awareness of sensation other than the tingling of the area where the canes were striking. The harder strokes blended seamlessly into the overall pattern he was playing on my flesh and soon I wanted more of them. "Harder, please," I asked.

He allowed the canes to strike with more force. "Let your body move as it wants," he told me. "You may allow your body to meet the canes. Arch, twist, take what you want from the strokes."

I arched my back so that the cane strokes were all landing in the curve between thigh and buttocks. He teased down my thighs and I wiggled, begging the canes to come back to that same spot. The flesh there buzzed with electricity; I could nearly feel sparks with the landing of each cane. He continued to tease, drumming down the backs of my legs quickly, only to return to that same spot that was now sending tendrils of energy to the furthest extremities and deepest recesses of my body.

I slid my right hand beneath my body and between my thighs. I pressed two fingers to the flesh there and found that I was so wet, so ready, that my fingers nearly slipped inside without any further pressure. I adjusted and trapped the tips of my fingers between the bed and my clit. "I'm ready," I urged him. "Harder, faster, please. Please."

He let loose an intense rhythm across my ass and thighs, my body his drum. My head spun, sensing that the blows would have felt like pain on another day or in another body but in this body, today, the canes had both grounded me in pleasure and lifted me into ecstasy. The muscles of my thighs tightened as I felt myself rise towards orgasmic peak.

He noticed the change and directed all of the attention towards my backside. Moments later, I was coming in spasms that shot up into my shoulders and down through the soles of my feet. Every inch of me was trembling as I collapsed atop my hand.

He set the canes down and put one hand on each of my hips, wordlessly directing me to twist and kneel on the edge of the bed, thighs parted. I was still shuddering, unsure how I would take anymore sensation. I craved the firm grasp of his hands on my shoulders, craved being held, centered. When he rested his hands exactly where I wanted them and began to knead the muscles at the top of my spine, I had to ask. "How could you tell I wanted that?"

"I could tell by the way you moved," he answered.

He continued to massage and sooth me until I caught my breath. I nodded and arched again, opening to him. He trailed his hands down my back and stroked the heated backside presented to him. Once more, he asked if I was ready.

I was ready. I was ready to do this every night with him for the rest of our lives.

Spank-tiquing - Brat Party

Superstition Mountains, view from Goldfield Ghost Town

We were trying to go to a few antique malls on the east edge of Mesa , out towards Apache Junction, but as we drove past windows dark and reflective in the bright morning sun, we realized we were an hour too early. At first we thought we'd wait it out, then decided to drive eastward again, just to explore. We were on a road that ran through an expanse of cactus dense as a cornfield when I announced I needed to pee.

We knew we weren't too far from civilization, so we continued onward towards small buildings we could see past the next rise. When we got there, we discovered they weren't real, though they weren't mirages. They were wooden facades, built to look like a small western town, trailers and debris hidden behind them. We laughed and turned left, seeing buildings that looked more substantial nearby.

One of them was an Elks Lodge, closed and of course I couldn't have used it as a rest stop anyway, but on a banner in front of the building was an advertisement for their annual Brat Party. Mr. W saw it too. "Well, looky there," he said, using the cowboy twang we fall into sometimes when we get out past suburbia and into land that's still more old west than new. "A brat party." Visions of bottoms of misbehaved ladies turned over stern knees danced through my head, and surely his, too, but I was the only one to blush at the thought.


Immediately I answered, "Not like that! It couldn't be."

He laughed. "What else could it be?"

My brain was so occupied with thinking that he thought it was a spanking party that I couldn't come up with anything. "Is it short for something they use on horses? Some kind of cowboy thing? I don't know!" There'd been a cowboy on the banner but I knew it couldn't really be a celebration of naughty cowgirls.

He glanced away from the road as we now headed up a hill, seemingly now farther from anywhere I would find a ladies room. "It's not like there's another word that is spelled the same but pronounced differently, is there?" I couldn't think of one. I truly couldn't think of one. He added, "What kind of sausage party were you expecting these cowboys to have?" I thought it was a bad joke and let it go.

Another collection of buildings rose up out of the desert. "I don't know if I'll be able to pee up there," I worried aloud.

"Let's just go see," he said. A sign came into view: Ghost Town 1/2 Mile. This trip was not going as planed. Moments later, we curiously turned in to Goldfield Ghost Town.

It turned out it was a genuine mining town near the Superstition Mountains and the less genuine fabled mine known as the Lost Dutchman. Goldfield was established in 1893 but abandoned by 1926 when it was clear the gold vein had run dry. It had since been turned into a historic stop on the Apache Trail, with restored original buildings now used as museums and gift shops, a tour of the historic Mammoth Gold Mine, and, blessedly, restrooms.

On our way back, we again passed the brat party sign. "I do wonder what that could be," I mentioned.

Mr. W's jaw went momentarily agape, then looked at me with concern. "Yes, I wonder what that could be, at their barbecue. What kind of sausages they might have. At their barbecue."

He shook his head slowly, teasing me, as I turned bright red. "Braawwt," I said.

"I really thought you got it back there when we first drove by, and were just being silly," he laughed.

I started giggling. "Nope. I thought that you thought that - ohmygod. I thought you thought they were having a spanking party at the Elks and I was just like, why would you truly believe that? But I didn't, I didn't..." I was laughing so hard I couldn't catch my breath. When I finally did, I offered my brilliant excuse. "We didn't have bratwursts in New England."

He reached over and took my hand in his. "I'm sure that's a lie. You know you deserve a spanking for this, right? A long, hard spanking."

"Nooooo," I squealed, still giggling. I hadn't laughed like this in a long time. I couldn't believe how ridiculous I'd been, but it was funny and silly and now that I knew the brats at the party were bratwurst sausages, I could be the brat instead. "Pleeeease, you can't spank me for this! We really didn't have bratwurst at our barbecues growing up." I considered adding "We had lobster" but that was really going to get me into trouble for not only being a ditzy brat, but a pretentious one, too.

He returned to his twang. "Well, that's just a damn shame, now, isn't it? For you and yer bottom. I'm going to have to roast it just like those cowboys roasting their bar-b-q meat."

I giggled on and off the whole drive back into town, and by the time we made it to one of the antique malls on our itinerary, I still had tears in my eyes. "I love when I feel like my old silly self," I commented, getting out of the car. He came around and took me in his arms. "I sure love you," he said. Hand in hand, we went inside to see if they might have anything we could use at our own private brat party later on.

A few shots from our stop at the ghost town:

One of the offerings at the shop below,
taken out of context

The General Store at Goldfield Ghost Town, get your
hot sauce and fetishes here

The bordello is a women's history museum, documenting what women's lives were like at the turn of the century in "the old west." It wasn't open yet when we were there, so I didn't get to visit it or find out why there was a cage out front, though I have my ideas. The little chapel at the top of the hill still has Sunday worship services. 

Woman in the Tiger Cage

One of our recent spanking toy shopping trips took us to Smokin' Lingerie, a local adult shop with an interesting selection of spanking, BDSM, and impact play items. To give you an example, in addition to new merchandise, it also has back issues of Janus and videos from Rigid East on VHS. We've been there twice now and I end up wanting everything, even the items I wouldn't normally consider.

This time, I noticed they had a puppy cage, and not the kind you can get at Petsmart. It was large enough to fit a person on their hands and knees or lying down in a curled position. I surprised myself when I said to Mr. W, "I wouldn't mind being in that."


I've never had a desire to be caged, though the fantasy has occurred from time to time. I enjoy power exchange but not power deprivation. Even our wrist and ankle cuffs were purchased with safety in mind and I can escape them in an emergency. When I found myself picturing myself inside the cage, however, a small seed, one that I realize now was planted deep inside me long ago, began to grow.

I saw my first erotic image accidentally and at an early age, young enough that I didn't know what I was seeing. I'd gone along with my dad to the small package store near our house because when I accompanied him, I got a little package of Handi-Snacks cheese and crackers, the kind with the soft orange cheese and the red stick for spreading. It was almost all they sold: beer, wine, liquor, cheese and crackers, magazines.

If I let go of Daddy's hand, I was supposed to stay on the left side of the store. I'd tried and failed to get to the right side a few times, but always had my hand caught at the last moment. "That side is only for grown-ups," I'd been told, but as far as I could tell, except for the cheese and crackers, the whole store was only for grown-ups. Even the MAD magazine that was sold next to the Handi-Snacks at the register seemed like it was for grown-ups. The cartoons on the cover didn't look like the cartoons I watched on Saturday morning at all.

Then one fortuitous evening, it happened. My dad got caught up in his conversation with the clerk, one of Charlie's boys no doubt. Charlie's family owned the liquor store, the convenience store attached, and the creepy laundromat next door, but they were blue collar businessmen. My dad, a truck driver, was always happy to complain about taxes and the cost of gasoline with them.

As they rambled on about something well beyond my interest, I peeked around the corner. More magazines! At home I had drawers full of Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact, Highlights, and Ricky Ranger. Maybe they had a new issue of one of those I could look at while I waited. But no, these were not magazines I'd seen before, not even at the library or the grocery store. They were all about ladies - and the ladies were naked.

Right before my dad realized what I was looking at, one cover in particular caught my eye. As he rounded the corner, I looked up at him, forgetting that I was standing where I wasn't supposed to be. "Daddy, why is that lady in a cage?" I asked.

She was on her hands and knees, hay strewn around her, hair in a mass of wild strawberry blond tangles around her snarling face. She was fierce and beautiful. I didn't think the cage would hold her long.

My dad, like any good parent, grabbed the first answer out of thin air, and I realize now that it's why I've remembered her being in a "tiger cage" all these years, the rational part of my brain not recognizing that there is not necessarily so specific a thing without that particular animal inside it, too. "She's pretending to be a tiger," he told me, gently guiding me back to the front side of the register.

After seeing the puppy cage at Smokin' Lingerie, I couldn't shake the memory of the magazine cover. She was trapped, but I saw strength and power in her, as if she'd allowed herself to be ensnared, as if it was for her own pleasure, not for the owner of the cage. Or perhaps she was the owner of the cage herself. She became an archetype I would compare myself to for decades - the voluptuous woman who appears to be in peril, but remains undeniably strong. I wanted that secret voluptuous tiger woman strength for my own.

I wondered what I would do now as the woman in the tiger cage. I have known the snarl, the primal scream buried deep inside, the rage of a beast who would have stared from the cage, daring viewers to come too close. They would step towards me and I would growl, perhaps even roar, until they retreated, only to pace enticingly, to shake my rump and my mane, to watch and wait, knowing they would return. It was impossible to know which was more fortunate, that they couldn't reach me or I couldn't reach them. But I am not that woman anymore.

Then, as that seed of interest in the cage sprouted, I imagined it filled with soft cushions rather than scattered with hay. I pictured it in light soft but bright enough to read by and a stack of books, notebooks, and pens just outside the bars but well within my reach. I pictured being released and bathed, my hair brushed, the kinks of my muscles massaged away before being returned to my safe haven. The only trouble with this cage is that it's unnecessary. I have all these things and I no longer feel like I'm in danger or a danger to others. No safe haven for me or from me necessary.

I tried to find the magazine online. I wanted to see if the cover lived up to my memory of her, if I'd lived up to the legacy I believed she'd handed me as a child to become a beautiful, terrifying, powerfully submissive and submissively powerful woman. I couldn't find her. After so many years and with no memory of the magazine's name, the woman in the tiger cage would be free to anonymously roam the newsstands of the early eighties in peace.

I came to realize that if we were to have the cage we saw at the sex shop, my secret voluptuous tiger woman strength would be my willingness to go inside it even after how long it's taken for me to become the woman outside the bars. Those bars would at last be tangible - cold, inflexible, locked from the outside, keeping the captive within. So unlike the invisible cages we make for ourselves, the ones we first must see before we can see or be ourselves outside them,

As for her legacy, only now do I see that I built that into my own invisible cage. I stand outside it now, a woman of my own breed with a sharpened nail to pick the lock of any cage that captures me. Sometimes I enjoy climbing inside, but I move to and from each cage in freedom.

My Top 10 Recent Google Searches

In addition to this blog, I'm working on a number of spanking-related projects. For example, I'm working on a collection of erotic poetry (see recent posts Circadian and Afterwards, Across Your Lap for a taste), a novella, some fetish based arts & crafts endeavors, and I'm considering resurrecting the old Naughty Abby videos.

I have a lot I want to blog about as well, but I've been a little off today, restless and unfocused, so when I sat down at my laptop, I found myself Googling something that you wouldn't necessarily think had anything to do with spanking or any of my projects. I realized my searches might make an amusing list, so, in lieu of an essay, story, poem, or observation, here are the top ten odd things I've Googled recently all in the name of spanking, in order of most obviously related to least. This is exactly how I phrased them, according to my Google history.

10. thuddiness - I wasn't sure if I was making up this word as a noun and should find a way to use "thuddy" as an adjective instead, so I searched for popularity of usage.

9. is the red room capitalized - I haven't read the Fifty Shades trilogy, but I'm writing a story where the rooms also have names, so I was curious what E L Fudge did with hers. "Red Room" is capitalized. "The" is not.

8. bdsm novel leash dog - I wanted to write about puppy cages in the context of BDSM and I recalled reading a disturbing novel over a decade ago called Leash, but I couldn't remember the author's name. This seemed like the fastest way to find it - it was, and it was Jane DeLynn. Not recommended for the psychologically squeamish.

7. cum or come in erotica - I'm going to write about this literary quandry here on the blog soon. My Twitter feed is depressingly constantly covered in "cum" but I prefer the less porn-y "come." On that note, follow me on Twitter! I'm @naughtyabbyw.

6. magazine with air force amy on the cover - I'm writing a novella and one of the characters may have purchased magazines featuring adult film actresses and famous Nevada prostitutes in the late 90's or early 2000's. I remembered Air Force Amy from HBO's Cathouse and an episode of Jerry Springer, but I wasn't sure if she was ever on the cover of any magazines or what year that would have been.

5. what adult magazines were in regular circulation in the 1980's/nude woman in tiger cage - These were two separate searches, but technically they were for the same thing. I was hoping to blog about the first cover of an adult magazine I ever saw, so I tried to find the image. I have no idea what magazine it was, or what year. This would have also tied in with the puppy cage mentioned in #8. Neither search was fruitful, but if you search "nude woman in tiger cage" you get an amusing mix of women in cages, nude women, and Nicolas Cage.

4. is alligator or crocodile leather more expensive - Most sources say alligator. You have to know whether your character has expensive shoes, or really expensive shoes.

3. taxidermy sphinx cat - I don't want to give away any spoilers, but this also has something to do with my novella. Fortunately, it has nothing to do with cats.

2. what's that antique glass that's pink - Sometimes when I've been alone too long, I ask Google questions like it's a person. It knew I meant depression glass for my posts about going antiquing with Mr. W, so sometimes this method works.

1. okinawan martial arts emblem - On Sunday night, Mr. W and I were browsing Amazon for massage tables when we realized we hadn't searched Amazon for spanking/BDSM furniture. Amazon quickly gave up on showing us furniture and decided it just wanted us to see the plethora of painful looking romantic fiction e-books it had to offer. We didn't want that kind of pain, Amazon! Mixed sporadically throughout were items that had either "spanking" or "bdsm" in the description. One such item was the "BDSM Symbol 50 Shades Yard Flag."

Neither one of us are especially attached to the insignia, but as a student of media and communications, I found the description frustrating. I understand why or how it could happen, but Fifty Shades isn't exactly a brand that needs free bonus advertising, and as the rest of us know, there are plenty of players who want nothing to do with the franchise but have owned that emblem as part of their identity for years.

When I sat down at my computer today and realized I didn't have the energy for one of my usual posts, I thought I'd write a short post about the garden flag. Then I realized I didn't know much about the history of the BDSM emblem, or "BDSMblem" as I've now seen it referred to, so I thought I should do a little research first. This led to an article that describes What Is and Is Not the BDSMmblem. This article indicates that the above symbol, which is the same as it appears on the garden flag, is actually "the coat of arms of an ancient Okinawan family and has since become the emblem of a form of Okinawan martial arts." This is apparently because the dots are dots and not holes. The BDSMblem is, accordingly, supposed to have holes, not dots.

I proceeded to do additional Google image searches, including "okinawan martial arts emblem," but I never found this exact emblem to be linked to Okinawa or martial arts, although there are similar triple-spoked designs. That is not to say my search was at all thorough. This was curiosity, after all, not academic research. However, as I looked at "okinawan martial arts emblem" on the search page, I laughed as I realized how many absurd phrases I must have Googled recently, and so this post was born.

In addition, Amazon showing us all those e-books made me realize that a vast amount of romantic or erotic fiction is being easily published with clearly not a lot of effort. Much of it is shorter than I realized, and from the descriptions, I could probably put something together pretty quickly without worrying about plot or character development, though I'm two pages in to this novella I keep mentioning and I am definitely worrying about those things. Still, I'm hoping this spring will see me up on Amazon, if only for the practice of putting together an e-book and sharing a longer story with the world. I promise no sphinx cats, or cats of any kind, will be harmed or taxidermied in the process.