The Spanking Writers

I really did want to buy a camel whip when I visited one of the Gulf states recently – having wanted to own one for years, since a rather bizarre episode with a friend’s parents implement collection. My previous trip there had been frustrating – stuck on the edge of town, in a gorgeous hotel but miles from anywhere. But this time? I was bang in the centre of the city. So surely my luck would be in?

Of course, it wasn’t. For as I scanned the streets from my taxis during the trip, not a single shop could be seen with helpful names (“The Whip Bazaar” or “Camels in Trouble”, maybe?). It struck me that I had no idea whatsoever where to look, and I wasn’t exactly going to ask the hotel concierge – “And why do you want one of those, sir? Lots of camels in Oxfordshire, are there?”

More to the point, I suddenly realised that there probably isn’t a huge market for such items. I may picture every street corner with its own camel, ever neighbourhood with weekend camel races, every shopping trip involving a detour to view the latest collection of this season’s new whips. But I’m guessing that your average local resident doesn’t get to see a camel from one year to the next.

How frustrating. I guess I’ll just have to look on eBay… And in any case, I guess the same is true for foreign visitors to the UK. I mean, you can’t just turn up in London and expect to find canes in every store, and if you asked where to buy a school tawse in Edinburgh these days, they’d probably call the police…

A few days ago the postman handed me a parcel: a thin poster tube with something rattling inside. Now, I know what normally comes in poster tubes, but I didn’t remember Abel telling me about buying any implements.

Curiosity burning, I peeled off the tape, prized off the lid, and into my hand slid a peculiar-looking toy. It was a very thin plastic rod with a cord tongue on the end, similar to a dressage whip, though clearly made to use on humans. The thick handle was inscribed with the name: VibraWhip. I also saw a button, which made me realise that this thing a) wanted batteries, b) was pretty weird as far as whips go.

We experimented with it last night. I lay face-down on the bed, and Abel lightly lashed me, first as with a normal plastic whip, then with the buzzing switched on. It’s a pretty pleasant toy, if you like biting sting (and I seemed in the mood for it), though the vibrations add nothing to the impact. Having it drawn over my skin was also vaguely pleasant – more so on the particularly sensitive bits, naturally. Mostly it’s just weird, though.

I could see it being a useful sort of implement in a long sensation-based scene, with the recepient suitably prepared with a variety of other toys – a bit like a pin-wheel, which is not much by itself, but can do a number of exciting things on a caned behind. I can’t see getting much out of the buzzy whip on its own, but I could see it slotting nicely into the rest of our arsenal.

If we figure out the best use for it, I shall report further.

Abel has read somewhere about somebody’s parents putting switches in the freezer before giving a whipping, and how this made the pain particularly awful. Never one to pass up any kinky experimentation, he stuck a few birch twigs in the freezer and crossed his fingers.

Some hours later he invited me to lie face-down on the bed to test the theory of frozen switches. (“Quick, quick! Before they defrost!”) Getting into the spirit of scientific enquiry, I bared my bottom and gritted my teeth.

And what a spectacular failure this experiment has been! Not only were the icicle switches no more painful than usual, I could swear they were more bearable. Normally I find switching very trying, and can hardly ever take more than six or so cuts, but here the sting was quite mild and – dare I confess – pleasant. I encouraged Abel to continue the whipping past the experimental stage, which he did with some force, and although by the end I was quite striped and sore, this wasn’t an ordeal for me, but rather a piquant exercise.

So maybe I’m wrong to call the experiment a failure, after all. I did rather enjoy its results. But the conclusion is the same: putting switches in the freezer doesn’t make them any more fearsome.

And thank goodness for that. Switches are pretty evil without any artificial enhancement.

Matlock Bath, in Derbyshire, is a very strange little place. Developed in the 1800s, it became famous as a spa town after Queen Victoria visited in 1831 – and the town appears to have changed little since, save for the appearance of a quite astounding number of fish and chip shops. The local tourist board would doubtless describe it as ‘evocative of another era’ – the usual shorthand for ‘slightly run-down and very dated’, albeit still a pleasant place in which to pass an hour or two.

We visited a little while back with a group of kinky friends, and popped into the once-grand Hydro – now home to an aquarium and holographic exhibition. As the attraction’s site notes, “Reminders of its former splendor can be seen in the fine stone staircase, the drinking fountain and huge iron girders spanning the thermal pool.” (The slot machines, from which we won the grand total of £2 for a 40p stake, are presumably a more recent addition).

Said fine staircase features a rather lovely cat:

But it’s this type of cat that really caught our eye:

The display helpfully explained the types of knot needed to make the implement (“but don’t try this at home, children”), with a history of its use. I hadn’t known, for example, that floggings aboard ship always took place at the same time – 11am. And have you ever wondered why the tails on some cats are knotted, whilst most are not? It seems that ‘a standard cat o’nine tails had plain rope tails, but if the punishment was for stealing from a fellow shipmate, each tail was knotted at the end and this instrument was known as a “thieves’ cat”’.

Quite what it’s doing in a glass case on the staircase in an old spa is anyone’s guess – were whippings one of the treatments on offer? Were the maids accompanying their Victorian employers to the resort despatched to the Hydro for punishment if they misbehaved? Or, perhaps, were the current owners simply hoping to attract kinky visitors like our group?

Every time I think we must have enough spanking implements, Abel proves me wrong. Sure, we have lots of them, but there’s always a particular thing we don’t own yet, which must be rectified on the spot as soon as the lack is discovered.

A few days ago we were wandering around with Eliane, Emma-Jane and some vanilla company, and we went into a kitchen shop.*

There was a lot of fun stuff there, and among the legitimate kitchen toys Abel picked up a very small, cute and deadly spoon. Hiding from our vanilla companion behind a stack of merchandise, he thwacked it against his hand, swore and added it to the pile of purchases.

When our group reunited, Eliane picked up the little spoon and eyed it with apparent respect.

“This looks very… useful,” she said discreetly. She turned it over and read the label. “It can withstand up to 240C heat!”

“That’s really useful!” I agreed. “It’s good to know you can… cook… at such a high temperature.”

We shared a smile. Our vanilla company were none the wiser.

This did make me wonder how hot a girl’s bottom can get after an enthusiastic spanking, but I’m guessing, the answer is something like “not hot enough to melt the implements”.

*The implement rule covers kitchen utensils: if we don’t own it, Abel needs it.

I’m slightly worried this morning, because yesterday Abel phoned from the foreign city he’s working in, and gleefully informed me that he’d not only found the craft market within the first millisecond of being in town, but he’s also bought a hairbrush and a giant wooden spoon.

Hand-made, I suppose. Um, yay. Go us for supporting local crafts.

Something in his voice told me that I’m going to either hate these things, or loathe them, or maybe despise them.

Strange, strange dream on Tuesday night…

Scene: a large room – a hall, school gymnasium or similar

Furnishings: three whipping benches

The cast: three girls tied tightly over aforementioned benches, three punishment officers, an assembled crowd of onlookers and dignitaries watching proceedings

Props: one birch rod, one cane, one prison strap

Storyline: an experiment is being conducred to assess the efficacy of different implements as a means of punishment. The girls are flogged simultaneously, each receiving 50 strokes with one of the three implements. The punishment officers and others present then discuss their reactions and inspect their marks.

Now I have no idea where or when this was set: sometimes dreams are light on details. But on subsequent reflection, I’m guessing that it must have been a newly-opened Victorian reform school for girls. The master needed to determine how his inmates would be punished, and so decided to conduct a little test with the first three young ladies sent into his care by the courts.

And the dream was quite inconclusive as to the outcome of the research. I’m rather guessing that the cane would have won, but it must have been a close-run thing…

The punishment position in pretty much all of my early spanking fantasies was the ever-so traditional “touching toes” (with just one minor variant: “holding ankles”).

Furniture then started to creep in – always high-backed, plain, wooden chairs. This sort of thing, for example:

My imagined headmasters’ offices then acquired robust old leather sofas (with arms over which girls could bend), and my fantasy housemasters were persuaded to clear the piles of paper from their desks to make space for punished pupils.

But here’s the strangest thing: I honestly can’t recall the last time when, playing a scene, I made a young lady touch her toes (rather than having her bent over a school desk or table or the end of a bed) – partly, I suspect, since many play partners struggle to assume said position comfortably (which, one suspects, was always actually rather its point). And we don’t even own a plain wooden chair. I think it’s time for a return to traditional values… and for a chair-hunting trip around our local antique shops.

Where spanking implements are concerned, I consider myself sufficiently well-educated. I thought, until recently, that I knew every instrument of spanking worth knowing about, at least among what the Western civilisation had to offer.

That was until Mija discovered the “palmer”, which was a medieval education aid. It’s a “stick with a round, flattened head with which to slap students palms.” So, a sort of paddle, but for the hand! I want one.

I was particularly fascinated to find that it’s also called “palmeta” in Spanish and “palmatoria” in Portuguese, which just shows you how international spanking implements were in medieval times.

Excuse me while I picture myself as a medieval young woman who disguises herself as a boy in order to take calligraphy lessons. The master is armed with a palmer, which has a wicked sting, but when I hand out my hand for punishment, my eyes must remain dry. All the boys are looking on to see if I’ll cry from this chastisement. I mustn’t cry; I mustn’t.

Ever since our move to a bigger house in April, we’ve made a point to keep our spanking implements both tidy and accessible. There are the umbrella stands full of canes, there’s a school trunk stuffed with smaller toys, plus a random box or folder here and there.

I was hauling all these nice things out to receieve a kinky friend the other day, and it felt to me like, from a housekeeping point of view, maybe there’s too much stuff here. The trunk definitely doesn’t close as easily as it should. Still, I thought, we can just about manage with the tidy and accessible thing, as long as we remember to put things away.

Then I went under the bed to retrieve my phone charger – and there, staring at me, was a splintery wine crate full of implements. Which I had no idea was there. So it turns out, we have even more than I thought we did, when I thought we maybe had too many.

I’m scared of opening the closet. I’m scared of looking into the wardrobes. You can bet I’m scared of going down into the cellar.

There might be forgotten spanking toys there.

Waiting.

Vengeful.