The Spanking Writers

Sunday wasn’t really a Sunday for me this past weekend – given that it’s a business day in predominately-Islamic Egypt. As a result, rather enjoying a day of rest, I found myself in the office.

How to stop feeling sorry-for-myself, especially when faced with a succession of cheerful tweets about folks’ fun on their days off in the UK and US? Partly, the cynical tactic: thinking of the money I was earning and the fun I could have spending it if, as I’m contemplating, I head off to South-East Asia over the Christmas period.

That still didn’t work, so more creative tactics were called for. Over the morning coffee break, I moved into schoolmaster mode. This was no longer a training course, but a weekend detention; the delegates no longer senior managers but a room full of boarding school girls. Their friends and classmates would be enjoying a lie-in, before wandering into the local town later for a weekly taste of freedom. Yet this group? Up at the usual early hour; in their neatly-ironed (and especially carefully-inspected) uniforms; copying page upon page by hand from the dullest books in the library, each wondering whether her name was on the list of those worst-offenders who’d be called into the headmaster’s study at the end of the morning to be caned.

Frankly, it didn’t really work: as soon as I walked back into the classroom to be faced by a nearly-all-male group of middle-aged senior managers from across north Africa, the fantasy was unsustainable. But it did rather bring a smile to my face for a few moments…

My favourite room in the world? The library at Trinity College Dublin – now made even more special as the setting for Casey Morgan’s quite brilliant story in our charity anthology. (As co-editor, I shouldn’t really pick favourites from the many wonderful pieces of writing we brought together – but, honestly, “The Library” is the best piece of spanking fiction I’ve ever read).

Last weekend, I was fortunate enough to visit its twenty-first century equivalent – the Bibliotheca Alexandria. You may well know that, as well as being home to the great lighthouse (one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World), the Egyptian coastal town was home to perhaps the greatest library of the ancient world. Nine years ago, its modern successor opened to great acclaim.

Sadly, photographs simply can’t do justice to the main reading room – it’s too long, too sweeping, too tall – although the snaps here give something of an impression. But it’s utterly, utterly breathtaking: the sort of place that leaves one’s jaw literally aching as it drops. (The last time that happened for me was my first glimpse of Sydney Opera House; before that the Christ statue in Rio and the Treasury at Petra. This place really is in that league).

I felt bad perverting it, but you know me… For hidden in the vaults must surely be vault upon vault of the Pharoahs’ papyrus punishment books? Female criminals tied publicly in the sunshine to thick stone pillars and whipped; daughters of the ruling classes permitted the privacy of a private flogging – but with the number of strokes doubled compared to their commoner equivalents. Maids in Cleopatra’s royal palace, birched after dinner as their ruler looked on.

If you’re ever passing through the area… Unlikely, perhaps. But five-odd hot hours there and back on the Cairo-Alexandria Desert Road were a small price to pay to see a true wonder of the modern world. Whether or not the punishment records actually exist…

There are a few books I’ve read over the years that have truly captivated me beyond any others. “The Great Indian Novel”; “Gilead”; “Middlesex”; “Captain Corelli’s Mandolin” spring to mind.

And now I can add another to the best-loved list, perhaps almost the very top of it: the freshly-published debut novel by Erica Morgenstern: “The Night Circus”, which I finished a week or so ago.

Ever read a book, love it, then read it again immediately from cover to cover? That.

“The circus arrives without warning.” It’s about magic; about love; about a challenge – a girl and her father, a boy plucked from an orphanage and his tutor. Some readers here might even find that hot, although there’s no kink involved.

It’s about destiny:

“I am tired of trying to hold things together that cannot be held,” Celia says when he approaches her. “Trying to control what cannot be controlled. I am tired of denying myself what I want for fear of breaking things I cannot fix. They will break no matter what we do.”

It’s about storytelling:

“There are no more battles between good and evil, no monsters to slay, no maidens in need of rescue. Most maidens are perfectly capable of rescuing themselves, at least the ones worth something, in any case… And there never are really endings, happy or otherwise.”

It’s erotic, usually implicitly, on one occasion not quite so:

While she undoes button after button, he pulls blindly at fastenings and ribbons, refusing to take his lips from hers. The meticulously constructed gown collapses into a puddle around her feet. Wrapping the unbound laces of her corset around his wrists, [he] pulls her down to the floor with him.”

And them, with fingers stained from a fallen ink bottle, he makes love to her, “leaving faint traces of ink” marking his naked girl.

And it’s utterly, utterly brilliant.

Read it. Read it now. Please?

“I would dearly love to read the reactions, the observations, of each and every person who walks through the gates of Le Cirque des Rêves, to know what they see and hear and feel… We add our own stories, each visitor, each visit, each night spent at the circus. I suppose there will never be a lack of things to say, of stories to be told and shared.”

For all I’ve whinged on Twitter and Facebook about my current trip to Egypt, I’ve actually had a rather good time. Bar one or two minor logistical mishaps – which could happen anywhere in the world – everything’s run remarkably smoothly. Indeed, I’ve been reminded why I’m so fond of the Middle East and North Africa: I used to love exploring this part of the world, and even studied Arabic at night school for a couple of years.

I might also, I confess, have had rather improper thoughts about one of my course delegates during the four days she spent in my classroom last week. The lass in question was three years into her career: bright, sharp, keen, and rather gorgeous. Not that I teasted her, flirted with her at all; not that she reciprocated.

Now I’m far too proper to cross any lines in such circumstances, even had I felt that doing so would actually have been welcomed. So I confined myself – as one does – to thinking up scenarios in which young May might end up being spanked.

The end-of-course exam on Thursday presented the perfect excuse. She’d mentioned at lunch that she still lived at home; her father would have heard about the exam earlier in the week, and would have made a knowing comment: “You understand how important it is that you do well…”

She did, of course. Memories of the time when she’d flunked an exam in her first year at Uni were all too painfully etched into her mind: the one and only time he’d whipped her in front of her younger sisters, her lesson serving as an exemplary punishment.

This time around, she’d have been focused on passing with flying colours: after all, a respected professional qualification is worth attaining so early in one’s career. Each night of the week, she’d spurned requests from friends to meet up, heading instead to her room to study the set textbook.

Only, on the eve of the exam, she’d started to feel confident in her mastery of the material. She’d started to miss her social life. She’d told her family she’d be upstairs studying… and then the lure of Twitter and the web had proved too attractive.

Her father had knocked before entering, as he always did – but then he never waited for more than a moment before walking in. And when he’d found her sprawled on her bed, phone in hand, her textbook unopened on the floor on the opposite side of the room… Well, a girl would have found that she was never to old to be put over daddy’s knees whilst she still lived under his roof, and would have been reminded that his hand hurt just as much as any belt.

–

She passed the exam, of course. Top of the class, as I’d rather suspected she would be. I was the grateful recipient of a lovely hug when she learnt her result. Just goes to show how spankings (even imaginary ones!) can help a girl, really, doesn’t it…?

Whilst I was updating the blogroll over the weekend, I also found time to play a little…

As you’ll doubtless appreciate, this blog’s always adamantly insisted on being ‘literary’ – that is, we don’t ever post naughty photographs. And, frankly, when I take shots of girls I’ve just spanked, privacy is all-important: unless they want to post copies on their own blogs, the images will only ever be for private consumption.

That said, I enjoy looking at online photos of the naughtier variety as much as the next man or woman. So I’ve had a little experiment, and come up with the Spanking Writers “Tumblr” site.

There’s a somewhat eclectic selection there, of images reblogged from other Tumblr pages. It’s definitely NSFW, and not all directly spanking-related. I’ve got no intention of updating it on anything like a regular basis, but I will add to the five or so pages of images already there whenever something new on Tumblr catches my eye. Feel free to pop over and have a look. I’m curious to know if my tastes and yours align.

It struck me that, having written about my new canes from Prysm a little while back, it might be fun to see which makers / companies people really rate when it comes to c.p. implements.

Here are a few of my favourites, all of whom I’ve bought from personally and am happy to endorse – and who now appear on our newly-updated blogroll:

• For tawses and straps: I particularly rate two makers – first, our friend The London Tanner: Ian makes fabulous implements. Then there’s the always-excellent MC Customs. And for authentic school tawses, eBay’s the place to be – especially, the selection offered from time-to-time by the Church Antique Centre in Crieff.
• For canes: Prysm, Maui Kink, Can-iac and Quality Control. Jack’s Floggers are also recommended (although try finding them at places such as the LAM; I never managed to get a reply to my requests to buy their canes online).
• For paddles: you know, I could do with a recommendation! I have a fair few of them (OK, a dozen or so, of slightly differing shapes and weights, with holes and without), but I’m not sure I do have what I’d describe as a good, solid, American high school paddle in my collection!
• For hairbrushes: it just has to be Mason Pearson – although, bizarrely, I found the most gorgeous cheap brush in Claire’s Accessories when Emma Jane and I were on holiday in Belgium last month, which was very robust but not too severe, and worked rather beautifully

Any other recommendations? And for any other items (I don’t have favourites for whips, crops or the like, for example). And if you happen to make nice implements yourself and want to plug them, feel free!

Morning. Hope everyone’s having a good weekend!

Thanks to all of you who commented and emailed with suggestions last week when I canvassed input to help me update the Spanking Writers blogroll. The new, improved list can be found in the left-hand column of the blog on its home page – hope you like it! I’ve taken most of the suggestions I received on board (although not quite all), and have added a few other sites I’ve been meaning to link to for a while.

Happy browsing… let me know if you discover anything new that you especially like! (And if you think there are still any great sites out there that I’m missing – bearing in mind the links are to sites that are primary literary, non-commercial and /F in nature – I’d welcome any further suggestions).

My current hotel suite (how posh am I?!) has a huge balcony. I’m tucked at one end of the building, so it’s really scarcely overlooked from the rest of the rooms or the grounds down below – but one can certainly catch sight of the swimming pool from the railings. My mind wanders…

A young woman sits on the sofa in the living room, looking nervous – as well she might, for her behaviour down by the pool has been such that her partner has sent her to wait for him upstairs. She knows from the look he gave her and his tone of voice that a punishment is inevitable.

What she doesn’t suspect, when he finally arrives – having left her for just long enough to contemplate, for anger to give way to regret – is that he’ll take her out onto the balcony to deal with her, having first taken the punishment strap from the bedside table.

“You can’t… Please…”

“Outside. Now.”

She’s still wearing her swimming costume, underneath the long T-shirt they’d bought as a holiday souvenir the day before. The warm air of the Middle Eastern afternoon hits her as she steps outdoors. She dreads his next instruction, knowing what it will be: “Strip.”

“But people might see. They might hear…”

“Now.” His tone broached no possibility that he might relent. Foreseeing the consequences of arguing further, she followed his instructions – surprisingly shy before him now, never mind conscious of the fellow guests downstairs.

He moves a chair to one side: “Then bend over the table, and reach out to hold the sides.” It’s at just the right height, if she stands on tiptoe: it occurs to her to realise that he would have noticed that, sized it up, as soon as they’d arrived the previous day

He brings the first six strokes down quickly, hard – no warm-up here for her punishment, no words of consolation. And then he starts to talk, softly, calmly, caringly, as he slowly continues to whip her. Tells her that he loves her; that he was ashamed of her conduct; that girls who behave like that need to learn a lesson for their own good; that he knows the marks will be visible beneath her swimsuit the following day, and that she is the only person to blame for that; that if people see or hear her being dealt with, they’ll realise how much he cares for her; that he’s lucky to have her.

And when he’s finished – when she’s marked to his satisfaction, when her writhing has given in to tearful compliance, when her bottom is so sore that she winces at even the lightest contact – his hand parts her thighs and reaches between her legs. She shudders, wet to his forceful touch: ready and willing for what will inevitably come next…

A few months back, I decided that it really was time for me to have a set of custom-made canes, to adorn the wonderful whip rack that Cath gave me last Christmas, which hangs in pride of place in the bedroom.

I did a fair amount of research before placing my order, wanting something special, and finally settled on an American company, Prysm. Their website was intriguing:

We use only top quality Indonesian (lunchi) Kooboo rattan for our handcrafted canes. Kooboo rattan is the most consistently sized and has the best flex available. The rattan has been left in its natural state, with the bark intact.

What makes our rattan canes the ultimate? Our PATENTED Oil Filled Process. You can expect excellence in appearance, flexibility, and overall superior quality performance with an extended life distinguishing them from common water processed rattan canes.

Item received may not look exactly as shown due to the inherent nature of being a handmade natural material/product.

So, I wrote:

I wondered if you could confirm a price for a set of six canes, all with a black braid handle, one in each thickness from junior up to the 16-17mm size, each 30 inches long, shipped to the UK. (Having them all the same length is really important!)

After a friendly correspondence, the order was placed, and soon after they arrived. Slightly strangely, customs hadn’t asked for their usual import fees: perhaps they realised that there were girls out there needing beating, and waved the package through accordingly.

I gave Haron one whack with each cane when they first arrived – and, memorably, bruised my own left hand with the heaviest one when I tried to assess their weight! All six are beautifully balanced and perfectly weighted; just the right length, and (much as they’re less conventional in school scenes) I do prefer straight-handled canes. The lightest one is remarkably whippy; the thickest two are really only for those who enjoy more thuddy implements.

They came into their own last Friday, on the eve of my current sojourn in Egypt… My really rather lovely play partner for the evening was stripped naked at the foot of the staircase, then taken upstairs and made to select a cane from the rack for her beating. She (rather bravely) chose the third heaviest; I decided that we’d better use the one either side of that in weight, too, to make sure she’d made the most appropriate choice, and made her bend over the end of the bed.

Before the evening was out, mind, all six had been used – hard, enthusiastically – and her backside and thighs (both front and back) were beautifully striped. Oh, and the XH Lochgelly and a slipper or two may have made an appearance in the midst of proceedings, too! (The effects apparently lasted well into the following day, when a DM revealed that it was hurting to sit on even the soft seats that she’d chosen in a pub for lunch!). It was truly lovely play; I hope it’ll be repeated as soon as my travels permit.

Nearly three hours into a four-and-a-half hour flight to Cairo, late on Saturday night. They’ve dimmed the cabin lights; we’re due to land well after midnight (hey, BA, thanks for the delay!), and many of the passengers are sleeping.

The lass in the row behind, travelling with her parents, is clearly following the route map on the seatback screen in front of her, as she’s counting down the remaining time with frustrating regularity: “Two hours left… and hour-and-three-quarters left… ninety minutes left.” That’s interspersed with regular repetition of a phrase that’s landed certain girls of my acquaintance in trouble in the past: “Are we there yet?”

I can’t help but imagine the solution – the chief purser on board arriving next to her chair, pulling her unceremoniously to her feet and leading her off to the galley at the rear of the plane. The sound of a hard hand spanking would echo up the aisles; for the remainder of the flight, all we’d hear would be the occasional sniffle.

Eighty minutes left… frankly, I wish the staff would get on with it. Otherwise I may well throttle her…

PS I do realise that I may be being a little hypocritical condemning her behaviour on the plane whilst I’m the one sitting here typing naughty things into my laptop. Guilty as charged, m’lord. But at least I’m doing it quietly!