The ever-wonderful Emma Jane and Catherine threw the most wonderful housewarming party on Saturday – a “Famous Five” themed event, described in more detail in a lovely post on EJ’s blog.
Late-ish in the evening, after much fun play during the day, EJ (aka George, or Georgina) found herself led upstairs by HH (Uncle Quentin) and yours truly (her tutor) to play a short scene. As she describes it on her blog:
I had the upper hand of knowing the back story. Of Mr Rowland spying on Uncle Quentin’s work and George finding him snooping where he shouldn’t. In essence she was being punished for her rudeness to her tutor but refused to apologise. It was a lovely scene with all the righteousness in the world on my side, Uncle Quentin being strict but fair and Mr Rowland being very mean.
There’s always a wonderful dynamic when the three of us play together, and this was no exception. Such scenes always seem to make me extra-mean, too – albeit on this occasion, even a fairly light whacking was enough to be cruel given the state of EJ’s backside from her play early in the afternoon. And having suggested to HH beforehand that a hand-strapping with my new light(ish) tawse might be in order as the main part of the punishment, I was happy to take a back seat and let him do the honours, knowing how much that works for the two of them and enjoying watching EJ’s face as she took the six painful strokes.
What was strange, though, was that my character was clearly something of a villain. George may have been rude – but her allegations that I was spying on her father were (as I understood the back story) actually true. It was hugely disorientating in the scene. I’m used to my characters having having clearly-defined authority, being in the right about the girl’s misconduct, and being justified in administering the punishment – or, very occasionally, simply being utterly and callously mean and cruel (say, as an evil prison guard, pimp or kidnapper).
The latter option really wasn’t appropriate with these characters. Yet I couldn’t slot completely comfortably into the former either – the tutor’s spying on Quentin meaning that my character’s hold on the moral high ground was tenuous, to say the least. Spanking a girl, when you know she’s in the right – and you’re not actually playing a dark, abusive scene? It was perhaps the first time I’d come across that in a roleplay; I wonder whether it’s actually really possible to do convincingly and well?
You managed to do it very convincingly indeed! Was a lovely scene. As for the tawse; lighter yes, but that made it whippier 😉
X
Thanks
And I did like seeing that tawse in action on your hands – the short, lighter-weight, single-tailed and whippier strap was very different than the longer, two- or three- tailed, denser H or XHs that made up my collection until I got that one a few weeks back. Your reactions were quite adorable 😉
RP – isn’t the trick to find in your character, how he/she believes in the justice of the action. To work from the self-justification and find something in yourself that approximates that reasoning ?
Nic – if, indeed, the character is interested in ‘justice’, rather than just being cruel! Answer: yes, I’m sure it is, in theory – but I guess some characters are harder to get into the headspace with than others. As EJ said, I did manage, but it was a close-run thing!
Abel – Wasn’t intended as a criticism – just a muse about how far we can extend ourselves beyond our natural ‘niceness’ and what helps
Don’t worry, didn’t take it as a criticism at all!
(And who says I have any natural ‘niceness’ anyway?!!)