Sometimes Very regularly I find myself buying books less for their literary merit than for their likely potential to inspire pervy thoughts. They don’t necessarily have to be kinky per se – a mere glimmer of a governess, a schoolroom, a reformatory, a country house is more than enough.

One such recent acquisition was “The Scandal of the Season” by Sophie Gee. It’s a fun read, and well-researched. And it’s set amidst the partying upper classes of early eighteenth century England; a couple of snippets have duly obliged on the kink-inspiring front. Take the following:

Jervas turned back to his paper. “Another slave run away in London”, he announced as her turned to the public notices.

The young lady’s description was printed in full; a reward offered. I drifted in familiar directions as it occurred to me that her punishment once found might make for a rather interesting scene. Maids, too, must have absconded on a regular basis, to be soundly thrashed on their return.

And then there was the chapter set in a masked ball, during which the characters flirted outrageously with one another. The following email exchange with Haron, over the course of about half an hour, shows how much fun we have bouncing ideas around between the two of us …

Abel: Two girls at the ball misbehave, perhaps giggly on wine at their first ball. The master of the house takes them aside, to his library, lectures them and informs them that he is to thrash them with his riding crop. Without, of course, knowing who they are… And then they take off their masks ready for their punishment….

Haron: I like! They don’t need to take off the masks, either. And I love the idea of them meeting him at social events later in the year, and knowing what he’d done, while he has no idea!

Abel: I prefer the idea of him having their masks taken off…. And finding that one was some incredibly important daughter of some grand Duke. The seeing-him-but-him-not-knowing would come when he asked one of them to dance at a future ball, not recognising her because she was in a different outfit and mask…

Abel: And I’m now rather thinking that one of them might be the youthful daughter of one of the gentleman’s former lovers… Or that one of the misbehaving guests might be dressed for the Ball as a boy: the host would have no idea that she was a girl until the mask came off…