Shadow Lane Party Report, April 2004

On the elevator at the Stardust they have a poster. It says “Joe Blow played $3 and won a $19 Million dollar jackpot!” Below that is a smiling picture of the second-luckiest man in Las Vegas.
I feel like something of a hypocrite. For years I’ve said that it’s not the bottom you spank, it’s the woman. But after a weekend of spanking a bevy of beauties I have to admit that it doesn’t hurt a bit if she’s fantastically good-looking along with being a wonderful person. It’s not that I’m some shallow person who only pays attention to great-looking women - first of all, I know some of them from on-line and I didn’t even know what they looked like when I met them, and secondly, they are smart, nice, and have great smiles, which are things I do look for in a friend. Still it has to be a little more than coincidence - I’ll guiltily admit that much...

Of course KittyCatBrat is to blame, like for everything... there’s nothing like having a cute girlfriend to make other women comfortable around you...

I don’t want to give the impression that this was by any means a typical party for me. I’ve been to several and enjoyed them all, played at some and not at others... so don’t let me sound like this happens all the time...

It was clear from the minute we checked in that this’d be a great party - it was obvious just by looks (or people I remembered from past parties) that everyone on our floor was there for the party - the woman at the desk said we had the floor below and two above as well and I asked her to put us right in the middle which she did. Plus half the floors we weren’t using were on a separate elevator.

Things got off to a fast start Friday night. I’m sure someone or everyone by now has related the story of this gaggle of brats running around trying to smack tops with varying degrees of bravado and success - let me put on the record that Toluca Girl by no means suggested that anyone try to smack Brushman but did they listen? noooooo... meanwhile some guy from the WWII vets association comes by and starts showing us this fraternity/sorority type paddle he has from 1964 or something. I think it was Toluca Girl, who is so sweet, or kinked, or something, lets him give her a smack. Pretty soon he’s giving a smack apiece to all the young brats, at least two of whom are dressed like schoolgirls... for instance, KittyCatBrat’s got her plaid skirt/white shirt and seamed stocking with garters showing... along with an identically dressed Hello Kitty doll hanging from her purse... and I’m thinking they’d better roll the paramedics because in a minute they’re going to have to jump start this guy’s heart... so I wasn’t the only lucky guy there.

oh and Ken and Connie come up and say hi to Erica while I’m standing there - they’re from back East and I assume involved in her video (okay, I was wrong). I don’t think they’re members here so I’ll be kind of vague but they are super nice people.

So of course the bunch of us shift up to Cyril’s as always afterwards since he has always thrown a Friday night couples party... a lot of really terrific regulars were not there and I really missed them but Cyril’s was still the great time it always is. Everyone was there, John and Erica, of course, and Toluca Girl, Anaia, Brushman, Ann, Indy Girl, Cat and me, plus a ton of ShadowLane members... meanwhile Lauren (who I still think of as Krissy Girl) was hosting the newcomers across the hall (next time we’ll make the newcomer’s dinner - really!).

So here’s where I explain that I don’t like to play in public; I never have (played, I mean) and now that I’ve tried it it was just like I expected. However... it is awfully hard to go to the ShadowLane weekend and not play at all... it’s not like most people have a whole lot else on their mind... the last three parties we didn’t play except for with each other which was great except that it put something of a crimp on the private parties which are entirely geared just toward that purpose. And you don’t want to leave with someone and go play for a long time and desert your date at a party (spanking or otherwise) so the only real option left is sort of to play in public.

If you got off to a slow start the first time you did this - or get off to one the first time you try - don’t feel bad. In normal life I am actually a pretty smooth guy - my friends are always amazed at how much I can make an innocent remark sound like a proposition and a proposition sound like an innocent remark... but my first approach was so spectacularly unsuccessful that its only useful purpose was to enormously entertain Erica, who was standing nearby. Once per weekend I try to say something she finds amazingly funny but I did not intend for this to be it...
Okay, I recovered from that. I had plans to play with Ann and Indy Girl later in the weekend and both were about six hours overdue at the time... unfortunately Ann had on a denim skirt that she didn’t want taken up down or off. So I’m wearing out my hand on the back of this while Indy is telling me Ann’s yawning and sticking her tongue out at me - which she denied pretty unconvincingly. Indy had just bought a strap that everyone seemed to like but that didn’t make much more of an impression, nor did Andy’s paddle. All I could think the whole time was “wait until I get you alone, young lady.”

Andy took over on Ann since he’s got a stronger arm. Now this is Indy Girl in real life. You can tell a little on-line but you have to see her to get the full effect. Did I mention it was her new strap that caused all the trouble downstairs at the vendor’s fair? “It has a mind of its own!” she kept saying, but you know what? It didn’t have an arm of its own - someone had to be trying to smack us with it! She is probably the brattiest one of all but instead of jumping around and pointing she just slips in some trouble-making remark and by the time you look over to see who said it she’s sitting there with this beatific smile on her face like she’s contemplating higher things. I guess some of the tops worry about being called unfair and don’t ever get completely convinced that she needs to be spanked but that has never worried me any... by the way she also has this lovely golden skin which would have been a lot more satisfying to get my hands on than the seat of her skirt, which was cut from the same cloth as Ann’s, probably at some major-brat supply store. On the other hand I can certainly sympathize how these women don’t want their skirts up at a big party where they don’t know half of the people. For instance Cat decided to suddenly flood the room with light and everyone - tops and brats - quite rightfully insisted that I had to spank her and even pointing her bottom toward the bathroom didn’t help since there was like a wall-sized mirror there to show everyone from all sides. So Indy aided by her skirt tried to ignore all of my best work and it wasn’t until later that she would admit she was sore at all.

Rather than wait until I get to Sunday night - which could be a long way off - I’ll tell you right now why I don’t like playing at parties. It seems like the spankees spend more time communicating with each other than their spankers - and the same goes for the spankers. It’s almost impossible to get into a position where you can interact at all, and each of you has someone else right in front of you. Plus in private I can dump out my hundred-item toy bag and find out what works and what doesn’t, or play with head space. Both of these I found to be difficult or impossible in public. Okay, enough complaining - every woman I played with was a joy to spank even under the worst conditions (by which I mean Ann on Sunday night) and I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.

By the way I’ve gotten away from using the term “Spanko.” I now think of tops as being Wacko and bottoms as being Whackee.

I’ve been told that some of the party animals stayed up basically all night but somewhere in there I dragged Cat off to our room - actually it was across the hall, having these blocks of rooms is really great - to play and eventually pass out or something... knowing that in the morning I would get to catch up with the irrepressible Ann...

***

It’s bad enough I can’t stay up any later than I do, even for something as great as the party. Actually, for this party my energy was way down (as indicated by how few new people I met Friday night) and I felt like I was running a few hours behind the whole time. But worse than the early bedtime is the early-morning wake-up. So Saturday morning I was awake “bright and early” - except that it wasn’t bright. I usually hit the Hard Rock casino when I’m in Vegas and Cat is sleeping in, but it was raining and I just wasn’t motivated. So I trooped downstairs where a few people living on East Coast time might be having breakfast, ran into a friend and ended up camped out facing the door so we could collect other party-goers.

This only worked a little (and we didn’t see anyone who posts here) but among the people we saw was Dolores Cortez, who used to make videos (and still should, if you ask me - but we’ll see). Even if you’ve seen her videos, you don’t know this woman. She looks like she’s ready to run a marathon which was apparently what she was trying to do and she’s hyperactive to the point that she makes coffee nervous so I have dubbed her the “White Rabbit” because every time I saw her she was saying “I’m late, I’m late for a very important date,” such as to see Father Mike and confess her sins. She must schedule her appointments the same way my doctor’s office does. So despite our best efforts we didn’t quite hook up.

I had promised Lauren that I’d wake Cat up for the 10 o’clock Brat’s Breakfast and we had even packed her beautiful Victoria’s Secret pajamas but I knew chances were slim. I tried again at 10:30 so she could make the second half, which met with similar success. Somewhere in here Ann finally recovered so we made plans to get together. Naturally just as I’m leaving Cat decides to finally wake up and get started on her day.

We’ve just bought the greatest camera - a five megapixel Sony the size of a credit card - and I brought the video camera because we were thinking of staging and taping some scenes, just for fun. At the last minute I left all the lights at home because the car was full enough but we thought we might give it a shot anyway. In any case, I did not, regrettably, get a picture of Ann’s delightful bottom which really belongs here, so I’ll just have to tell you.

Ann’s this petite little thing with a waist I can just about span with my hand if I stretch. This is on top of hips that look like they’ve been spun on a potter’s wheel by a very talented and appreciative artist. I don’t think I know anyone who has such a perfect curve from waist to hip to thigh (though I admit I haven’t kept track).

But like I’ve said, it’s not the bottom you spank, it's the brat… and Ann is the biggest brat! She is always up to something - then she looks at you from under her eyebrows like, guilty but forgivable, you know? You wish! I don’t think she gets forgiven very much and probably hates it if she does.

I don’t know if I should tell this and I usually err on the side of discretion but this one time I’ll make an exception. Ann’s a single mom which I know is hard so I try to provide some moral support which I think really helps. I had helped her break a very bad and dangerous habit with her driving and she’d been doing great for eight months. Then a few weeks back it seems like she had slipped up in a particularly bad way - so I had to punish her before we could play. This is the first time I ever had to do that (and I do not like to) so I took it a little easy on her (though not liking to wasn't why) but she definitely ended up knowing that she didn’t want the full version.

That behind us (or at least behind her, where it ended up) we dug into the toy bag and pulled out a good selection of nice, hard, and downright nasty. Leather seems to be very popular with the whacky’s so we came up with a lot of that, plus a light stinger paddle that last night she was only feeling over her skirt. Feels a lot different without, doesn’t it, Ann? Cat likes a lot of stingy stuff and I have a ton of it but even the things we tried we didn’t use very long because they’re not universally popular. And of course a little bit of rabbit fur before we finished up… finished up with the cane, that is. That’s another of Cat’s favorites and we’re trying to get others to like it as well, I think a couple of women were converted this weekend - Ann at least found out it can be used with a very delicious touch, as long as you’re not on some Czech website…

When I got back Cat was off with Mark and the maid was in the room so I just dumped the toys and headed back to the mixer room which was open from 1-3. Saw Ralph Marvel for the first time since his schedule was running a little later than mine and got to talk with Samantha a bit. She’s an actress so of course I’m immediately interested but then who wouldn’t be, she’s very pretty and very photogenic.

By the time Cat got done with Mark the vendor fair was closing so a group of us - Ralph and Samantha, Mark, Cat and me - headed off to lunch at the café. Ralph regaled us with his stories, starting with filming Samantha’s butt and ending with him having to move from his apartment into more private surroundings. This whole time our waitress is literally trying to top him - threatening him with security for stealing Cat's lettuce, for instance - and worse if he doesn’t behave. Like a lot of these brats, though, she couldn’t hold out and pretty soon was playing the bottom role - that is, until Ann showed up, late. It took some fast talking by Ann to keep the waitress from turning her over and spanking her on the spot - or spots, which had to be sore already. The waitress was in great spirits (along with all of us) and I came right out an invited her to the night’s festivities but she dodged me. She may have been a little self-conscious about her age - she was a grandma, she volunteered - and some of us were a lot younger, so she didn’t realize that she’d fit right in. So we had to leave her behind/alone.

Cat teases me about running my life on such a schedule but usually it works out well. I figured she’d take longer to get ready for dinner than Indy (or anybody) and why should I be bored? So Indy and I planned to get together at 5, giving Cat a head start but leaving her enough time to get ready herself.

Ralph had a session scheduled somewhere so he took off (not that it’s a secret, I just don’t remember who). Indy came over from the slot machines and her minor gambling exploits - the biggest gamble most these women made all weekend was saying “have you started yet?” - and we had nowhere to go, so we figured we’d just head upstairs and have our own party. I think I relate a lot better on this scale (there were six of us) and it really turned out to be the highlight of the weekend.


***

I read Bridget Jones’ Diary (the novel, not her real one) - an average movie but one of the funniest books I’ve ever read - and somewhere in there the male friend tells Bridget, as she’s madly preparing for a dinner party, “they’re coming to see you, not to eat.” I think this is great advice for any “party.”

Saturday afternoon we were at loose ends so we decided to just retire to our room with our lunchtime companions, and despite the impromptu arrangements we really had a great time. Sometimes it’s good to get away from the madness of the big parties.

Mark veered off to his room to get his toy bag, which somewhat surprised me - I wasn’t going to let these four beauties out of my sight without being threatened at gunpoint - and the rest of us settled in for drinks and chat and all until it became obvious who needed to be spanked first. I don’t really know what the wait was for, because Ann always needs a spanking - immediately - but I suppose we wanted to observe the formalities. She had bought a new strap at the afternoon vendor fair - she wanted Indy’s version, she said, but Ian was sold out so she got a little larger one. Of course she had to wave this around until someone - that would have to be me - grabbed it and her and brought the two together properly. She was back to wearing jeans - even her jeans are cute - but whether it was a full 24 hours of playing or just the heavier strap, I was at least able to make some impression. Despite the intimate atmosphere, the girls were still hesitant to be too exposed in front of one another, but at least a bit of the message got through.

Seeing Ann get spanked just made the rest of them jealous - all four of them are completely spoiled, you know - so Samantha was next. I assume you’ve seen her picture from Brushman’s video but in case you haven’t this girl is a delightful little pixie with perfect dramatically arched eyebrows over stunning olive eyes - plus the Jennifer Love Hewitt cleavage that stocked the spank bank of a generation of Party of Five watchers. She’s got this black thing around her waist that’s too wide for a belt and too short for a skirt - they somehow managed to fit some pockets in it so I assume it was the latter. Now, I’ve never played with this young woman before in my life, right? So I figure I’ll start out a little slow - I don’t want to end up in the updated version of “One Guy’s Rules For a ShadowLane Party” - skirt, panties, bare... honestly by the time she gets over my knee this “skirt” is too short to spank on it. No matter - she’s wearing these fantastic tiny-mesh black panties with miniature embroidered roses in pink and light green. If you thought Halle Berry was hot when she won the Academy Award, you’ve got a lot to learn.

So why do women do this? I’m smacking her, I’m getting started - after three swats she’s saying “is that all you’ve got?” We all know the answer to this, don’t we, guys? So I move her over where we can all enjoy this and in a minute she’s putting her hand back and kicking her feet up - Ralph, you really have not taught her very well (yet). And she has this cute trick of putting her feet up and pointing her toes so that they cover her bottom (this would kill me if I tried it). So you’ve got to pin her legs down, keep her hands in check, and leave a hand free to spank her well enough to keep her tongue under control all at the same time. It is a hard life, being a top - next party I’m going to bottom.

Mark comes back so that helps some - he has a lot of cool tools, practically Ian’s whole stock, I think. And Indy needs a spanking - most definitely - though she’s being modest, which limits its effectiveness, but I do my best - plus, after we used her strap so much last night, she deserves to get to try Ann’s - which has a big hole in the end, by the way, I don‘t know why Ian didn‘t fix that. Cat’s still sore from playing with Mark, I guess, so she’s being at least a little more circumspect than the rest.

I must just be too tolerant, but Mark had no intention of spanking Ann over her jeans - they came up with the solution of having her bare butt facing out the window rather than let actual party-goers see it - and he gets out the artillery. Besides the usual he’s got this new narrow rubber strap - both narrow and thick and despite not leaving much of a mark it can go from awful to brutal. Then a cute little see-through Plexiglas ruler-type thing - also narrow and thick - which the women claimed was effective.

Now you might think Indy is not getting spanked enough - Samantha certainly did, since she pointed it out about a dozen times, as did Ann and Cat - but we’d scheduled to meet in private at 5 when this party broke up, so I’ve got one eye on the clock and the other on a handful of toys that will catch her up in no time. Brats for some reason cannot believe that we have it under control.

Amongst these other spankings, I’m still trying to promote the cane as a lovely toy, so I have Cat kneeling on a chair with her skirt raised (and her panties “up”) so that I can cane her alternately nicely and well. She’ll be going along with oooo’s and ahhhh’s and then cry out quite convincingly on the occasional hard stroke. Adorable.

So this is how these women play - one girl’s getting spanked while two others are buzzing around like hummingbirds at a cocaine plantation, claiming I’m not getting enough of a reaction - or that she’s “faking” - while Indy lobs the occasional barb from her moral high ground. And Samantha is giving acting lessons on faces that look convincing. I tell Cat to get out the camera - since I’m tied up with feet, hands, and unstoppable wriggling - but we weren’t actually able to capture any of these prize expressions. I had ridiculously let S choose what I’d spank her with and out of a hundred wicked toys she manages to come up with the one - the fur-lined leather glove - that’s the most difficult to use. According to Cat - and Ann - I have ways of getting through with it, but clearly they didn’t work with this young lady. So we had to resort to some of the other 99.

Five o’clock rolls around but Indy at this moment is working her way through Mark’s (formerly Ian’s) inventory so we don’t break up and shortly thereafter Ralph joins us. Of course you’ve heard Ann’s story of very misplaced star worship - she has no future in Hollywood or politics - and we also thought it would be good to see if he could get more of a reaction out of Indy than I did. I think I managed one “ow,” but I suspect even that was just in pity for me. Like, you know how a woman will fake an orgasm just so you’ll give it up and quit trying (so I’ve heard, I mean). Fortunately, Ralph had better luck or more patience.

By now the camera was already out and I got the greatest picture of Cat, Ann, and Samantha sitting on the bed laughing and cheering Ralph on... it took a few tries - Sam, a natural actress, thinks she has to face all cameras full-on just in case (with a beautiful smile, though) and by the time I got a candid of her Cat was doing the same thing (and equally beautifully) - but the joy these women were showing is just priceless.

Ralph had so much patience with Indy that, with Cat getting another caning and a few more spankings here and there, it’s 6:30 with dinner at 7. Everyone’s sure that they can get ready in half an hour so we break up. Indy still knows she’ll at least be faster than the others so she stays behind so that I can finally give her one good spanking at least.

I wasn’t born yesterday so I know when a woman says she’ll be ready in half an hour it means she wants me to be ready in half an hour and then stand there for an hour while she is “almost” ready. So we got to dinner at eight, but there was still food even if we did have to sit practically outside. Not that brats care for sitting anyway.


*****

So for dinner - we head down right around 8 which is a little late even for us... one approach I’ve taken is to spank Cat every five minutes as she goes over her estimate, but in this case we would have gotten there around ten... and Ken and Connie came out of the elevator at the same time so we went in with them. Ken’s a little tall and slightly slender with dark hair and a beard - if he was in a white coat he would be your mental picture of a psychiatrist. Connie’s got that unusual mix of a light complexion and black hair - a short perm worn off her face that emphasizes her wide eyes and beauty-queen smile (plus one of those soft southern accents, which I always find weird because Virginia isn’t that far south). They’re dressed (very) nicely, like most people - over half - and could be headed to any fairly ritzy banquet in Las Vegas that weekend.

I, one the other hand, being from LA, have an aqua linen shirt and a dark crimson DKNY tie, accompanied by this stunning lady in a black strapless with teal corset lacing up the front - and a matching teal crop. We were not headed to the soccer parents’ gathering next door. I’m not the type to get jealous and I know every guy in the place thought Cat was the cutest little dominatrix they had ever seen or even dreamed of.

Stephanie Locke had apparently sprayed on charcoal rubber latex until she was allowed out in public, plus being quite tall and with her heels on her breasts floated over the crowd like twin disco balls. A petite young woman with a semi-goth, semi-punk attitude walked by in a red rubber skirt so tight that I don’t know how I could breathe. She was with a guy, I don’t know what he looked like. But most people just looked nice.

I mentioned several pages ago that I wasn’t up to this party like most I’ve been to - and by now I know enough people to have a good time anyway though I was disappointed that several of my favorite people weren’t there. My point is that I put more effort into catching up with people I know I bottoms I owe than making too many new friends. Even so, we did manage to befriend one new person, Jim, who was at our table. He was a local who had run a marathon that day rather than playing, so he was a little fresher than the rest of us. Oh and you crazy brats? He made it very clear that the gaggle of you running around smacking your dates was a real thrill - it had been his first night at his first party - and that he had been very jealous. Gino was as late as we were so we sat together like somehow we always do - and I always love his stories of the crazy LA women he seems to attract (for obvious reasons).

The food Friday night had been great - head and shoulders above any previous party I’d been to - and the dinner Saturday night was equally excellent, not that it matters. I think someone described the shenanigans on the dance floor, which was all that was happening on the dance floor - the one weak spot in all of the party arrangements was the banquet music, which was too loud and too old. No one danced virtually all night (also, if you’re trying to visualize this, the lights are up full).

Someone should be spanked for that dessert table - Eve, probably, since Tony has slimmed down and Butch looks like he never eats. From a selection of maybe eight very tempting possibilities we got some cherry-stuffed Black Forest cake and headed over to join this milling, worrying crowd left with nowhere to go in Bob and Ariel's absence. We’ve got a couple of generous offers - Chastenwood with Ann, San Diego Mark’s place on 17 (I think), and Bob the DJ’s (not Saturday night’s DJ, unfortunately) with Connie and Ken. Most of the video crowd seemed to have definite plans (though eventually ended up at Chastenwood) but I think many of the rest of us were in no hurry since we weren’t quite sure where we were going.

Connie was expressing an absolute fascination - a rather morbid fascination you’d almost call it - with the guy she dubbed “Star Trek” guy, since he showed up Friday night in his too-tight uniform. (I’m such a geek I didn’t even recognize it). For the banquet he was in a nice blazer - but then revealed the body harness underneath. It may have created the image he wanted but I think he intimidated a lot of people.

We headed upstairs and here’s a tip if you’re not staying at the hotel - they were checking keys at the elevator lobby and some guy just came up and asked to “draft” upstairs with us, since he was a local. It was no problem for me and it got him upstairs - I hope he didn’t mind that we ditched him, since we were going by our room and not straight to a party.

Actually, rather than bore you with the sparse events of my participation at the excellent and exciting Chastenwood party I will leave that for the many members who played pretty heavily there and save my space for more exciting stuff...


morning came early - really early...

It was really nice all being on the same hallway and I ran down to Lauren’s room with a thank-you card. She said that her room would be open for partiers all afternoon and evening - she really is tremendously generous. This way, people who had to check out by noon (or maybe it was eleven) on Sunday had somewhere to be until they had to head for the airport or wherever.
Somewhere in here I headed downstairs where a lot of people were hanging out while I waited for Cat. Naturally I ran into Indy, who was checked out and leaving at four, and a bunch of other people were around as well. When Cat was only a little bit late, Ken and Connie came by, headed to breakfast/ lunch/ brunch, so we decided to wait for Cat and all go together. The five of us ended up having a very pleasant meal together, though it was kind of low-key since everyone had been up so late the night before.

We got back to the room around 1:30, just about the time housekeeping came by to clean it - and they had no doubt of what was going on on this floor! As she’s coming into our room the maid - an athletic-looking Black woman - is calling back to her co-worker “if you don’t get your butt in gear, I’ll spank YOU” and he’s saying “leave me alone, I’m workin’.” Our original idea was that we’d go down to Lauren’s room for 20 minutes or so while they cleaned the room.
Once we got down to Lauren’s we ended up settling in for a bit - as I said, I was kind of sedate from the late nights and early mornings and I think a lot of other people were, too. We just sort of hung out and watched one of the toppy women demonstrate to Ian the London Tanner how you need to use the occasional petting and patting. He had a very hard time with this concept, it seems. He said something to the effect of “You’re young and attractive, you an do all the petting you want. I’m old and gnarly, I don’t have time for this.” So I guess some of the women got to compare - tops who do and tops who don’t.

Around four it was time for Indy Girl to head for the airport - it’s a quick trip if you have a car and know the way, so we packed her up and she and I buzzed over there where we had to say our goodbyes for the moment... ah well...

The Stardust situation hadn’t changed any when I got back so I went back to Lauren’s where I got into a conversation with a friend of mine, Kate. Kate as in the shrew in need of taming. But of course she’s heard all of that a million times, both the Shakespeare version (where Kate ends up demonstrating her subservience by putting her hand under her husband’s shoe in front of their friends) and the Kiss Me Kate version where I’m sure she doesn’t come out a whole lot better. Kate is cute and smart - a petite blonde who was one of the cute young schoolgirls Friday night - but she likes to be a brat, so she’d been spanked quite a bit. Still, she was up for at least one more though I had to go a little easy. Kate’s got that really pale skin a lot of blondes have that’s almost translucent and on the firm or jiggly question, she’s well-padded but firm. So that was nice.

Kate and I had moved over to the beds - the Stardust suites are big single rooms with a living-room type area and two big queen beds (instead of two rooms) - and soon Cat, Ken, and Connie joined us. I keep saying how worn out we all were - here’s an indication, we started looking for coffee. I think we managed almost one cup of cold coffee but started to brew some more.
Our second wind blew in about the same time as Mark and Ann. There’s a sofa that sits along the foot of both beds (facing away) with about a two-foot path in between and they sat on that, since we had somewhat sprawled across both beds. You’ve all read Ann’s posts, so you know that whenever she says anything she sounds like she’s bratting, and it’s a good bet that she is. At least, whatever she was saying in that bratty-sounding voice of hers sounded like it to me (maybe I was wrong - sorry, Ann). So I reached over the back of the couch and picked her up to put over my knee.

You’ve already heard this part where Ann thought it was so cute that under her jeans she’s got denim panties, too - so she’s pretty well armored. Plus pockets and a wallet or something - but at least I was trying to swat around that. I thought I had a pretty good grip on her but she starts really putting up a fight - I mean, why not? - and all of the sudden Cat and Connie are hollering bloody blue murder. And Ann, I mean, she is really out of control. Now you can imagine, this is every top’s worse nightmare, to go too far and have a woman get hysterical on him - and in front of other people, no less - so I wrap her up so she can’t scratch or kick me, lower her to the floor, and tell her soothingly to calm down. She bolts out of there like a cat out of the car at the vet’s.

Then she jumps up yelling “I got away! I got away!” while I look, understandably, totally confused. Turns out the girls were just encouraging her to get away, while I thought I was supposed to be turning her loose. I TRIED to explain this to her, to no avail. However... I let her up, I didn’t let her out of the room or anything radical like that. So I had to start all over (except for the part about emptying her back pockets...)

Since it’s a kick-back Sunday I’m wearing these olive-colored semi-linen shorts and a cream golf shirt, untucked... even if I’d worn the belt, it’s just a web-type, not a leather one, so I don’t even have that to use... Mark came through though by lending me a hairbrush - everyone at these parties is extremely helpful. Then after I carried Ann over to where she could return it and thank him, and have him use it a bit as well, then set her down... so her multiple layers of denim helped some but not entirely.

Cat and I moved over to the couch where we could talk with Mark and Ann - and let someone else use the bed if they needed it - though there were plenty of chairs, footstools, ottomen, benches - the Stardust really outfitted the room well - though decorating it with Lauren is a hard one to match in any case... while we’re talking to them Ralph shows up and Samantha struts in right behind him. She’s wearing those high rope-soled sandals, you know? and this blue lace top that’s lined so it looks racier than it is - not that it needs to be on her - with these fashionable jeans and NO back pockets, so that’s good. By the way I checked her picture on the ShadowLane website and I think everyone will agree that it doesn’t do her justice at all - in real life she’s much more animated, which doesn’t show there...

I’m not going to go into the whole cigarette story - suffice to say she smokes in a way I don’t approve of. I mean, if she wants her butt to smoke, that’s okay - as long as she’s not smoking her butts. But. Of course she doesn’t listen to me - why should I expect that? So she heads off for a cigarette - with Cat in tow! They know this is bratty, which doesn’t slow them down a bit.
While they’re gone Brushman comes in with TG and Anaia. Soon as he sees me he says “hey, I thought you were going to call us this afternoon and get something together?” I look around - it is obviously past afternoon which I have just realized... to me, in Vegas, it is always about ten o’clock at night. Brushman can tell from the look on my face that I only barely know what time it is - and in my defense that was only a back-up plan if we all couldn’t find anything to do...

So Cat and Samantha come back all giggly (I don’t know what was in that cigarette) and steer pretty clear of the couch where I have not moved from... so I have to get up and go over to them! I tell them one of them needs a spanking right now and Samantha says no - the kind of no that means no, you know? So Cat goes over my knee and up goes her cute little dress so she can learn the dangers of smoking... of course as you can all imagine Cat’s the easiest to spank anyway since I’ve had so much practice... turns out Samantha didn’t want to play in public and who could blame her?

I don’t know if they’ve been there the entire time but Ken and Connie are still over on the bed - or back, whichever - and they’re going to the Bellagio for the famous buffet (since “in real life” it’s past dinnertime). Lauren has thoughtfully provided us with those itty-bitty chocolate chip cookies about the size of a nickel in a bucket about the size they use for the slot machines. Seems that while I was sitting on the couch I had an entire dinner’s worth of those. So we stay behind.

TG is playing with JM’s husband (not a member here) and he’s showing her how a cane works... she seemed to be enjoying herself in some fashion and they’re right in the middle of everything so I watched that. I don’t know who Anaia played with - probably Ralph - but she and Brushman are making sure her well-attended bottom is not bruised or anything... there’s about six to eight couples playing pretty steadily in a space about the size of a family room (if you keep two big beds in your family room).

Ken and Connie come back - of course the Bellagio was fabulous, that’s why it’s famous, though eating a lot when you’re going to be playing is always a dicey proposition. Connie and I have been enjoying each other’s company so we’d like to play but of course she needs time to digest her meal... a consideration that Ken doesn’t have so pretty soon he’s got TG over his knee. They’re on the side of one bed - between the two beds - and Connie is on the other bed, watching them. I go over and ask Connie if she’d like to play, too, and she’s happy to do so.


*****


Connie slid into place as easily as a dance partner and really settled in to enjoy herself. She was wearing this knit navy-blue top and a mid-length white cotton twill skirt and had no reservations at all about it coming up. The combination looked really nice with her dramatic coloring. Connie’s got a kind of peaches-and-cream complexion, accented by a lacy peach thong... she hadn’t been playing all that much, I don’t think, other than with Ken so she was really in the mood for a good, long spanking. Plus, she has a nice smooth curve from the small of her back to the top of her thighs so she really looks great bent straight over like she was right then.

I’d been spanking her for a while with my hand - once again being short on toys - with her propped up on her elbows chattering away to people across the bed - that is, I’ve got her over one knee and she’s lying top half on the bed, bottom half between the beds. She didn’t seem terribly impressed so I was looking for something more to spank her with and someone - maybe Ken - provided a red leather paddle. This gives a nice spanking though I don’t know that it’s much more effective than my hand.

About two feet away, TG is lying across Ken’s lap along the edge of the other bed. Every time I stop for a second to try to upgrade my toys she’s asking “Are you done? Ken says we’ll be done when you’re done. Are you taking a break? We’re taking a break when you’re taking a break.” Who knows, women are social creatures, maybe they get a sense of communion out of this...

Anyway, someone provided an interesting little toy - a little strap of soft plastic, nearly clear, it’s probably silicone-based, so almost like rubber. That worked a little better and kept Connie from getting bored - apparently a difficult task - so we tried that for quite a bit. We also tried water and ice - the ice got a rise out of her, at least - but the whole time she was enjoying the nice steady firm spanking.

I didn’t exactly mention that Connie was the main voice in encouraging Ann to get away from me earlier, but she was. So at some point she tells some unseen brat “Oh, I think I can take him” (which was what she said (incorrectly) about Ann) and tries to get up. I don’t know, maybe these women haven’t discovered the differences between men and women yet, or something. I mean, I know I’m not built like Ralph or Andy but even so, I’ve got a 50-100% weight advantage if nothing else...

Let me digress for a moment. Several parties back I got in this same discussion with a lovely little lady who insisted that it was all a matter of position, balance, and footing, and that from a standing position like we were in it might be impossible to overpower her. I believe this woman weighs 85 pounds and was wearing supremely sexy but rather sheer lingerie. So I put her over my shoulder and spanked her from there and she didn’t have the footing to resist. I don’t know what she thought she was going to do...

In any case, let me explain. I have this wonderful woman over my left leg, not way over like head-down, just level, and my right leg across the back of hers. My arm is basically around her waist. Now I can see how she might think that if she straightens her knees and hips - those are strong muscles - that I’ll let her just walk away. No.

So she continues to get spanked with my hand, the leather paddle which I was sharing with Ken, and this plastic strap. Plus someone had a ping-pong-paddle-shaped paddle with a smiley face on it which turned out to be made out of the cardboard that they use for Kleenex boxes. Whatever. If I’d had a hairbrush or something I could have spanked her for her intolerance about Star Trek guy but I guess that’ll have to wait. I think eventually she’d had enough to last her to the next party and two swats after that I stopped.

So Ken and TG stopped, too. I keep planning to play with T-Girl but we really haven’t had it work out yet - she gets pretty busy at these parties, maybe that’s it - but in any case, Ken decides that he needs to spank Connie now, which I think everyone saw as perfectly reasonable, so I put TG over my knee. I think she’s Irish - auburn hair and pale skin that’d probably freckle if she sunbaths nude but it’s the first of April so she hasn’t been, even in LA. She’s tall and slender and I was really surprised how light she is. After about four swats Connie decides she’s too sore for this and we have to stop! See, this is just the kind of thing that happens... I don’t know what was up with Connie - I think maybe she got into one of those whackee mindsets where you want to keep going and keep going and then when you stop it turns out to be too much - really she asked for every swat I gave her but two...

It must’ve been getting late because Lauren needed her suite back - fair enough, I’d probably been there half the day or more... so one group of us, anyway, moved down to San Diego Mark’s place on 17. Maybe Mark and Ann got the jump on us or it was because I stopped for my toy bag but when Cat and I showed up with Ken and Connie, I think Mark already had Princess Gail over his knee on the bed. Tony (Gail’s Tony) was there, of course, along with our hosts Mark and Nancy and some new “faces.” Gail was showing off her dramatic figure in a little red cropped-tee and jeans, the jeans really flattering her because they were around her calves. Ann, of course, was overdue for a spanking just by being there.

Since I finally had my toy bag I was showing Ken my evil little rubber loopy thing that I’m always talking about. It’s about as long as a sheet of paper and consists of three light loops of thin rubber hose and the loops are knotted at the end so that there’s a ball about the size you’d make with your thumb and index finger so you have something to hang on to. It’s completely quiet and barely marks if at all but still stings. For example, he smacked Connie, who was sitting on the floor, through her twill skirt and she said “What the hell was that!?!” They’re going on a cruise and need something quiet so I gave it to them, since I buy this hose in 50-foot rolls.

Mark was waling on Gail to little avail (sorry, couldn’t resist) so Ken gave him this thing. I forget the wording of Gail’s comment but “hell-spawn” was definitely in there. Then she blames me for “interfering with a scene” - I pointed out it was Ken, not me - which is a spankable offense. She’s a switch so I guess this was just her invitation but it was returned unopened.
Somehow we got on the subject of spanking a brat with her shoe. Seems pretty reasonable to me, since they’re always kicking them up for you to grab anyway... but this is unanimously banned by the brats, because maybe there’s dog doo on it or something. Two minutes later Ann is making yet another crazy comment and I have to wonder why these brats are so concerned about being spanked with their shoe but are still willing to stick their foot in their mouth every chance they get.

As I said, Ann was overdue so pretty soon a bunch of these brats are tying Mark’s shoelaces to the stool he’s sitting on. This apparently led to some wrestling or something because Gail kept complaining that Mark had pinched her.

If you can stand a little more pontificating on my part... I don’t know if it’s being from California or the time I spend at the theater but I have managed to be around a pretty fair number of scantily-clad women in my life - maybe just because I’ve made it a priority - what I’m getting at is that even though I don’t really consider myself under-sexed, the sight of bare bottoms is not exactly a “climactic” experience for me. But I do realize that there are an unusual number of attractive women throughout these parties virtually nude from waist to toe at one time or another - several times and another, actually. I can imagine that some party-goers find it rather surprising. And even for me, to have Gail come over to where I’m sitting with her jeans down and display her inner thigh so I know that Mark’s pinch still shows, well...

Then the water came out and Nancy and SD Mark managed to soak each other, since they’re both brats... maybe that’s why the police showed up. They demanded to see SD Mark and see some ID and told him to make us keep the noise down but really we were breaking up anyway. Nancy gave me a big hug goodbye and now I was as wet as she was, so it was over my knee for her - she really plays hard but it was the end of the weekend so she certainly didn’t want to hold back...

We went by Mark’s room and rescued Cat... by the time morning came Ann was already at the airport.


I told Ken and Connie I’d be up so I’d take them to the airport even though they didn’t believe me. It’s like eight minutes by car and an hour by shuttle, it seems like. Coming back from the airport I ran into Lauren again, looking sharp in her work-day style clothes - I think they were a sailor motif. She and Gino were getting together for breakfast/ brunch at the cafe and said they’d be happy to have us join them - I think Lauren was on late check-out like we were. I hung around downstairs and said my goodbyes to Toluca Girl, Brushman, and Anaia and then chatted with Tony and Eve and finally Ralph and Samantha before they started their shoot for their perfectly-cast video “Heart-Attack-Prone Men and Their Heart-Stopping Women.”
Lunch was such fun - or whatever meal it was... that’s the only time you really get to talk to anybody. Another guy joined us but I don’t know if he wants his name mentioned. Surprising the things you can find out about people even after several parties together...

The weekend was just about over and it was finally time for me to get spanked. I don’t know if any of you know Jean Nevada - about 20 miles outside of town, gasoline over $2.50 a gallon - ouch ouch ouch! Thank God I didn’t wait till Baker...


next installment in six months...

Rose Bowl Bet

Cat and I got together with Iris recently, after several tries and schedule conflicts. In this case “getting together” consisted of lunch at Mimi’s Café followed by sitting talking in the Appleby’s bar. While that may not sound too exciting, it actually was! Iris is cute and nice and a friend, and it’s very relaxing to be able to discuss scene stuff face-to-face with someone of a similar mindset without waiting for the next party. We also all claimed to welcome the opportunity to talk about non-scene stuff but while we did delve a lot deeper into personal issues than you typically would with someone less... shall we say “sympathetic? we didn’t actually get very far afield.

Somewhat recently Iris left a long-term disciplinary relationship though I won’t repeat the details from her blog here. Fortunately, partly because we’re in Los Angeles, she’s recently been able to rely on a friend, Fireman Chris, to keep herself on track.

Fireman Chris is a great guy and a lot of fun and we really like his lovely wife sparkle as well – I guess she doesn’t capitalize her name, like e e cummings. An added cool thing about Chris is that he’s a fellow USC alum so we cheer for the same team, recently featured in the Rose Bowl back on New Year’s. While Chris and many like-minded Angelenos are Trojan fans, Iris is from the lily-pale North and her entire family apparently backs the Big-10 champion, Michigan. So it was natural for them to have a bet on the game – which Chris describes here:

http://firemnchris.blogspot.com/2007/01/rose-bowl-and-rosy-bottoms.html .

Iris describes her recent interactions with Chris here:

http://www.punishmentbook.org/2007/01/be_careful_what.html#more though she barely mentions the bet, which is unfortunate, because hearing her tell the story in real life is an experience not to be missed – at least for me, having watched the Rose Bowl and knowing the progression of the scores. And she obviously remembers very well the panic she was feeling while watching the game with her family, who must have wondered a bit about her sudden obsessive interest in the final margin! Maybe we can get her to tell her side of the story here, or on her own blog, using OMG’s to reflect how wide her eyes got just relating the story to us, over a month later. Settling the bet must have made a significant impression on her, since she rose up out of her chair every time she described watching another USC touchdown, even from 2,000 miles away.

Making the Switch – Some Techniques of Leadership

A friend of mine, a wonderful toppy lady who occasionally finds her wonderfully toned little bottom over my knee, was mentioning that she wanted to provide some help to women who were trying to switch from bottoms to tops. I had often thought that an essay on some of the differences between the Martian and Vesuvian personalities, as they've become known, would be helpful in giving women some insight on the male perspective. However, that essay, or series, has not come together very far to date and in lieu of those, I am going to comment on leadership. Some aspects of leadership work very well for tops and I think it could be very effective for a woman to adopt some of these behaviors when she is, for want of a better phrase, "in the role" of a top.

If you're a lady wanting to be more toppy in your play – or, more likely, asked to take on the top role occasionally, you're likely to need to, somewhat ironically, adopt some of the behaviors you have teased your partner about in the past. If these behaviors are too foreign to you you'll want to revert to your natural personality as soon as your scene is over, but for the duration of the scene, you'll want to act in certain ways as your normally-toppy partner does naturally (this is why I recommend that a scene have a fixed length, be it two hours or a three-day weekend). The Big Three are Rules, Orders, and Decisions. And who knows? You may even enjoy, briefly, being on the other side of Rule Number 1, which we all know is, "The Top is always right, the bottom is Always spanked."

(Quick disclaimer here – none of this stuff is terribly original, though nothing is directly plagiarized. Let's just say I based it on "undocumented research.")

Moving past "The Top makes the rules," let's take a less definite situation, such as a group of peers and look at the leader-to-be, or leader-wannabe, who we've all experienced at some point in our life. How does the leader-wannabe try to take control of the peer group? First, the leader-wannbe knows the rules, the Top knows the rules. The Top may choose to point out breaches in the rules, or not – but the Top is always aware of them. Rules are how non-leaders dictate the actions of others – and selective use of the rules is how they direct others into following their wishes.

"The Rules" extends past guidelines for behavior to encompass things like procedures, rituals, and, most importantly, schedules. Cat calls me "Mr. Schedule" because I have a schedule for everything (at least in my head), I'm aware of the time (which she is not), and I have things planned out. A leader-wannabe is acutely aware of the schedule, which was set by someone in control, and the Top sets and follows the schedule. Being a Top is about control, and schedules are the harness with which a Top controls time. With which you control time.

Now in order to have a schedule you will need to have a plan, which requires some forethought – but as a Top you're putting in a lot of forethought anyway. I personally feel that input from the bottom should be provided as long before or after a scene as possible, and negotiations or directions during a scene should be kept to a minimum. As a Top, you want to be prepared – and once you're prepared it's easy to develop expectations of how things will play out which – viola – becomes your schedule.

Similarly, you will need to be able to exactly remember any procedures and rituals. If the bottom is expected to dress a certain way or position themselves a certain way, to recite certain things, use proper forms of address, etc. you will have to catch any deviations. And, depending on how you play and how much it gets into more of a D/s scene, you might have procedures for cleaning the kitchen, doing the laundry, hygiene, sexual attention, or basically whatever. These are easiest to remember if 1) they are highly specific and 2) you determined them yourself. If you decide you prefer to be called Ms. Patricia instead of Goddess, it's going to be very simple to pick up on any slips (plus you'll get your kitchen cleaned the right way).

None of this means that you have to do it without assistance. If you want to make your man memorize some feminist dreck, you don't have to memorize it, too – you can just read along. Anything you might have trouble remembering, write it down – this controls it all the more, makes it all the more specific, precise and rigid.

Since I'm writing to switches, I'm not going to discuss things like excuses for forgetting which, if you're feeling merciful, can be ignored, even though it's a pretty clear sign that previous "memory helpers" were either insufficient or have lapsed in their effectiveness.

Let's proceed to Item Number 2, then maybe I can come back and pull it all together. The leader-wannabe further simulates control by telling others what they are supposed to do now, even (or especially) when they were going to do it anyway. This certainly reduces the chance of being contradicted! As a Top, this will also allow you to create a (partial) illusion of control – telling your partner to shower, or dress, or get themselves or the two of you a snack – even plopping them down in front of the TV while you do something else, like shower, dress, or get yourself or the two of you a snack.

It's okay if you preface all these directives with "Why don't you..." or "How about if you..." – I do that all the time, to avoid intimidating or antagonizing people. In your Top role, however, you'll want to make it clear that that's just a speech mannerism, not an invitation for discussion.

In addition to orders about everyday activities, it's most effective to be very specific – where do you want your bottom and how – bent over, kneeling, on the couch – where? "On the bed, underwear at mid-thigh, head there, knees there" is a very toppy-sounding directive, as well as "We're going to see "Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood – put on your striped boxers, jeans, and your thick brown belt." In the Advanced Class, we'll have you making him change or remove said boxers in front of you.

Topic number three is Decisions. You can tell from Topics 1 and 2 that you've made a lot of decisions already, and now it's time to make the rest of them – yes, all of them. And I hate to tell you, but you, as the Top, are responsible – fully responsible – for all of them, even the wrong ones. Brats always think the rule is "The Top is never wrong." That's not exactly right. The real rule is, "The Top knows this is the best they can do."

This, ultimately, is what the Top provides (besides swats) – responsibility. The bottom is free from worry about what will happen, what they will have to do, if things go wrong. The Top chooses an action, proceeds with it, and deals with the outcome (by making another choice). The bottom's just there to be spanked whether things go right or wrong.

This is not to say that the Top makes choices in a vacuum. The Top may decide "We'll go grab some Chinese food at 6 PM" but only because you knows that your partner likes, or at least tolerates, Chinese food and you scheduled lunch at 12. You may decide to use the cane last because it's hardest on the bottom's skin, or choose to dress the bottom up like a schoolgirl because you know that's what your partner enjoys.

Here's the secret to making decisions: "Ya-Ya Sisterhood" stinks, even if you're a woman, so when you get back someone's going to have to be spanked. And it's not going to be you, is it? You chose it because you thought you'd enjoy it (and because you wanted to torture your partner). How were you supposed to know? Reviews aren't always right. The price of having someone else to decide is allowing them to make mistakes. That spoon left huge purple bruises, a lot of them, all over? They fade, next time you'll know and decide whether to do it again or not. Neighbors overheard you playing in the garage? Face up to them, shun them, or lie – you can't take it back now, the only way is forward.

(I just have to throw in here that I have a few really surprising stories about taking responsibility, much too long and mundane for this space.)

The Top is always answering the questions "What are we doing and when are we doing it?" You may or may not answer "Why are we doing that (now)?" or "Why are we doing that that way?" But the first two decisions are what you provide as a Top, what you relieve the bottom of – the decisions of what, when, and exactly how.

I felt like if I started with this statement it would intimidate people and they would stop reading, while now I hope that it's a lot easier to absorb: The Top develops a desired vision of the future and proceeds to create that future. After accepting a lot of input, You will choose what You want to happen during a scene and then You will play out that scene as, or pretty much as, You intended. You will enjoy it and your partner will love it.


Okay, here's the post-script from my friend who reviewed this: she wants me to be sure to point out that, while these tips may be helpful in acting out a scene your partner will appreciate, a woman needs to pursue her own erotic pleasure from being on top, having her partner's buns, as well as everything else, at her disposal. While the full charge and flow of eroticism and energy may not happen the first time a woman tops, it is what she should strive for as scenes progress.

Old-Fashioned Family Values

From Yahoo! News:

A float depicting U.S. President George W. Bush being spanked by the Statue Of Liberty passes by during the Rose Monday carnival parade in Mainz, western Germany, on Monday, Feb. 19, 2007. Thousands of spectators attended the traditional street carnival parade in the state of Rhineland-Palatinates's capital. (AP Photo/Bernd Kammerer)
http://news.yahoo.com/photo/070219/481/kmz10202191246
--

Watching a Punishment

Okay, by now it's clear to everyone that I am a lousy blogger, I and totally not the "once a day" type about this or anything (I've often thought that being the once-a-day type would make my life a lot easier...). But I've also decided not to be too hard on myself, that's just how I am, and now I will dive back in and try to get back into it... I have tried to sit down and write at different times lately and basically came away with nothing, or very little.

One problem is that I always want to write so much, and don't just dash something off and post it, when I probably should...

The second problem is that I always want to wander off into some deep meaning out of every experience, while I know anyone reading this would be happy just to hear a recounting of what's going on... so I'm trying for some balance here – I promise I'll at least get one story told, within the musings...

Today's musing – having been to two amazing parties in two weekends leaves me way too much to choose from – is a rather guarded foray into uncomfortable territory. Actually, what it is about is "uncomfortable territory." I suspect very many people in the scene experience this – they read, see, or hear something that evokes a physical reaction – okay, turns them on, usually enormously – while the civilized part of their brain is saying "I shouldn't be feeling this, I shouldn't be liking this." Assuming that most everyone knows what I mean, I am certainly not going to cite all the examples that have happened to me over a long and happy life, but let's just say that it tends to be something too severe or too explicit or mixed with elements I'd rather not even read about. Yes, for me, it's almost always reading. I've never been much of a watcher – I don't watch videos and seldom watch others play, though at times scenes in mainstream movies are a little surprisingly breathtaking.

That deeper subject is a pretty big leap from the scene I'm about to relate, the subject just came to mind while I was remembering it. As I said, I've been to two great parties (which I'll have to report on). A lot of times party play is a lot different from relationship play or arranged-meeting play and these parties really underscored this fact. With the exception of one woman, I had no scenes arranged, had not promised to correct any behavior, had no pre-discussed D/s plans. And the parties played out the same way – we'd be hanging out with friends, it would be convenient (at last!) to play, and we'd do so – sometimes moving off to our suite, more often not. My partners, facing multiple opportunities to play, almost exclusively wanted to be spanked by hand which, despite the fact that I have an arsenal to attract UN weapons inspectors, I really enjoy. Now, I know some (okay, most) of these women enjoy scenarios, role-play and actual discipline and sometimes more, but that wasn't what this was about this time around.

One of the women, however – a stunning young lady – professed an absence of interest in punishment scenes altogether – maybe more of a submissive type approach, where play is not dictated by real or imagined behavior. This is something I'm trying to get a better handle on lately because I'd like to play more with submissive women. At one point I had her over my lap in a suite party, moderately spanking the amazing hills of her lovely bottom, and someone asked what she had done.

"Some girls are spanked because they're naughty," I explained, "And some are naughty because they are spanked." Later she heartily agreed with this assessment.

The combined effect of this string of comfortable, straightforward scenes sort of left me with the impression that I was really more comfortable with this friendly, non-critical type of play. While I am always told that I scold effectively and can sound quite threatening with complete naturalness, I do always worry that the criticism, appropriate or exaggerated, can leave my partner feeling rejected or deficient rather than cared for.

We were anxious to see each other again and looked forward to the next weekend's party which we would both be attending. Once there someone lost no time in taking her aside and warming her thoroughly but this only fueled her desire. Soon she was standing next to my chair and, after the previous weekend's familiarity, I put my hand on the back of her knee and slid it upward under her flowing skirt, encountering the lovely curve of her bottom long before the waistband of her panties. I asked if I should bring anything and she said "Cat."

We had discussed this the previous weekend so I wasn't surprised; we'd tried to set something up but the timing can always be difficult and honestly it's not worth it to force it, it's better to wait. Now you have to keep in mind that while Cat's been there when I'm playing with some interested young lady, she hasn't actually played with anyone other than me in literally a year – though she is starting to develop an interest again. The situation wasn't really right at that moment, so the two of us went off alone.

Dispensing with the "you've been a naughty girl" and jumping straight to the "okay, young lady, you love this and you know it" I had her over my knee right away and the conventional phrase is that it didn't take long to get her well-spanked. And that might even be true, but I definitely spanked for a good long time while she had only lacy black cheek-baring panties for protection – or modesty, at least. Even so, that's never really the full experience, is it? So down they came, toward whatever end...

Now there are all kinds of great bottoms to spank – some are soft and white as a cloud, some are firm as an Olympic hurdler's. The first can sting my hand like the wickedest light strap and the later can resist with the thud of a frat paddle and of course there's a wide, wide spectrum in between. Her pale cheeks – she colors very little at all – were a pair of lovely cushions over a firm substructure.

Then she said "Spank me hard."

I want a woman to enjoy a spanking so typically I spank firmly, deliberately, making up in length what I don't provide in power – but this is a personal choice. If it's harder spanking she wants, it's harder spanking she shall get, and she did. Of course, in the moment it's a little hard to use any sense... and I mean either of us... but she soaked up everything I gave her, clearly enjoying it despite occasional "reservations," and her enjoyment built and waned as the spanking went on unabated. It's a little harder to pick a good place to stop when the scene is completely unmotivated – or, that is, unmotivated by behavior. And I'm sure it's hard for my partners, as well, having no idea why I chose that moment to stop – and they seldom ask me to go on, maybe figuring I'm tired? Maybe I should suggest a break and see if they want to start over...

Anyway, I eased to a stop and she'd apparently had enough for the moment... a hug and a kiss, resisted mauling her or consuming her whole (had to leave some for Cat...)

Basically impossible, though, no matter what your favorite headspace, to be at a spanking party without being taken to task for some wrong-doing... I'll let Cat describe the whole dice game that led up to it but the short story is our wild child found herself bent over the end of the couch while Cat wielded the "For the Little Dear with the Bare Behind" paddle. Meanwhile I'm sitting on the couch so her gorgeous curls, clenching fingers, and pleading mouth and eyes are practically in my lap... ten slow swats which seemed like very little relative to how I'd spanked her but clearly she felt it profoundly. She was clearly anxious for it to be over long before it was and was greatly relieved when she'd gotten to the end of her count.

Much as I like to see women enjoy themselves, I still found this tremendously exciting. The pseudo-non-consensual nature of it, the difficulty she had absorbing it, the inevitability of the count (no matter how short)...

Okay, I guess everyone in the scene got over being uncomfortable with enjoying punishment scenes a long time ago – just like I did. So long ago, in fact, that I found it very interesting to re-travel that long-forgotten road.

Now as for other "uncomfortable territory" – that'll have to wait for another post!

Cold Turkey

I imagine that some readers of this blog are so young – over 18, I certainly hope, though I seldom say too much that's too explicit – but young enough that they remember using the family internet connection under their parents' watchful eye. I can imagine that in some cases that's pretty difficult – not wanting pages in the history but not wanting to suspiciously clear the history, following links so that at least addresses don't appear in the address bar, not saving the many text files or pictures that you'd prefer to. Parental oversight of internet activity is only something I've encountered when I've checked my e-mail from my mom's retirement apartment.
(by the way, having my mom, whom I do love dearly, watch me navigate the 'net is, unbelievably, even worse than having her navigate while I drive – why did you go there? It let you do that? I didn't know it would let you do that... I can't believe it let you do that, I never knew it would let you do that...)

But a close second to parental oversight is having the kids here for the holidays. At least I can dump the history and cache, the hell with suspicion. And I have a DVD writer so I can easily write out all of my scene files to DVD, lock it up, delete the files from the hard drive, and empty the recycle bin. Check anything I log into and make sure I haven't set it up to log me in automatically. Make sure nothing too obscene is listed in any of the applications' "recently used files" lists. And so on, though as I said, the least of my worries.

Then it's the five days of togetherness with cold-turkey withdrawal for three of my favorite activities – writing, reading, and corresponding. Though it goes far beyond feeling slightly (or wholly) out of touch. First of all, the teenagers have no desire for my 24/7 attention or activities – especially two of them who have strict limits on how much interpersonal interaction they can stand in any 24, 48, or 72-hour period. Exceed these limits and they either withdraw non-negotiably or break down physically. So I do come up with a fair amount of free time.

I hate to call myself a writer, since I only do it as a hobby, only write scene material, and only get it posted, never "published." But "as a writer" I always, always feel behind. Thinking takes minutes; writing takes hours or days. Thinking can occur at any time; writing, for me, requires a concentrated, seldom-interrupted block. Having five days (I took Wednesday off) without work would normally seem like a great time to "catch up" if that's at all possible, and some of the mountain of writing I'd like to do – and not only writing but on-line reading that I also can't always keep up with. Some of it's writing – stories and essays – and some is correspondence and dialogue and chatting, which can also be a little hard to keep up with, due to conflicting schedules and all.

Much as I love my kids – I'd much rather have them here every second weekend, if they still lived in town – having them here for all of my holiday and vacation time can be a bit taxing.

So if you're in an unfortunate situation – still sharing a computer with your parents, for instance, regardless of your age – you have my sympathy. But don't feel like you're alone. While I had a great Thanksgiving with much to be thankful for (including coming up with a Christmas present for my hard-to-buy-for youngest) I am still jumping back into things feeling five days farther behind than ever!

The Young and the Responsible

LibraryGirl and I were discussing ages – some women want their partner to set up all sorts of rules and monitor them or, in my experience, the women want to set the rules and have their partners monitor and enforce them. In several ways this is like being a child, say under 12 for a convenient marker – no responsibility for one’s self, no decisions, just stay within the rules. And without going into detail here (later, probably), that’s asking a lot of your partner if you’re trying to do this on a 24/7 basis.

LG isn’t like that – she wants to make her own decisions and such but not actually have responsibility for her life, like a teenager. If she’s got a job and money she can spend it all on CD’s and DVD’s (not that she does) and hair thingees and non-necessities. Ideally, to her, the rent is paid and the grocery shopping done and as long as she cleans up after her snacks all should be well and good. This isn’t only like a teenager, it’s also like a cat – or at least our/ her cats, which are the only ones I have experience with. She is like them in a lot of ways. And like an awful lot of people, she’d rather give up all kinds of material things if it means she can live modestly where she wants, do what she wants, and work when she wants. And if you have a partner who feels the same way you can put together something that works this way, sometimes.

My Permanent Age

I’ve always said (correctly or not) that women mature but men are born to an age and are that age all their lives – in my case early to mid 30’s. When I was younger – say mid 20’s – people actually said I looked good for my age, assuming that I was in my 30’s. And I can look back and see that for a lot of years that was the spot where I was heading my life – job – check; house – check; family – check; boredom – uncheck. Not really looking for a new car every two years, a good golf game, and a big 401k. Maybe, of course, it’s just not yet, and I’ll get there later. But the period of my life I was heading for completely skipped college or a young-twenties social life and headed to that nice orderly spot even back before I got out of grade school – really. I’m not basing this whole theory on one closely observed individual, however – we all know guys who will always be 17-19 even as they approach 50; other friends of mine (mostly at my work) were in their mid-50’s, mentally, when they got out of college – eager to have their retirement plan well-stocked, making purchases with an eye toward this TV or this couch being the last one they ever have to buy. And yes, I realize that a lot of the difference between men and women is that men don’t hear their biological clock, or recognize it as such; babies at 70 or 80 seem to be more the mark of a true champion than a symptom of dementia.

What I did to get to be old before my time, maybe I’ll get into later.

Too Responsible

I’m smart, very smart, LG is too, and while you’re growing up being smart seems to be everything to parents and teachers and you get a lot of positive reinforcement. And it becomes your identity, especially if you’re like me and you are nothing but smart – but whether you have other talents or not, being very smart defines you at that age, if not others.

And with smart comes responsibility for your actions, and usually a great willingness to recognize and accept this responsibility. I’ve let go of most of my grievances from that age, really, but now that it comes up I guess it still annoys me that you get this level of responsibility but no authority at all; no opportunity. I envied the big dumb guys who could make their living, have cars and apartments, without finishing high school while I had to wait through four years of college. A high IQ can get you a minimum wage job at age 16 but it doesn’t help – all it does is restrict your hours because you can’t afford to miss classes. If I had my way, though I never will, smart kids could get good $10 an hour jobs part time starting in early high school. Anyway.

I’m not saying that other kids don’t get punished – you came home late, you went too far, you should have known better – but all that happens to them is that they get punished, grounded, yelled at, lectured, whatever. But when you’re smart it goes beyond that – the parents or teachers also withdraw the approval of what makes you special to them – being so smart, always being right, being a good thinker, being a miniature adult. But if you screw up, you’re not just inattentive or forgetful, you’re defiant or disobedient. And the worst part is that this is true – I knew I was coming home late (so playing dumb makes me a liar, to boot), I knew I wasn’t supposed to cross the freeway (using an underpass, or a culvert, but still, I was in second grade). They were right, I was being defiant or disobedient. Maybe (looking back and guessing, I have no training in this and am just thinking off the top of my head) because I wanted the authority that went with my responsibility. Hey, why shouldn’t I decide when I come home or how far I go, since I’m basically a small adult?

Okay so they were right and I was wrong – a 60, or 90, or 120 pound “mental adult” cannot safely do the things a 20-year-old can. And they were wrong in expecting me to act with the responsibility of a 20-year-old (30, whatever) when my world was that of an 8 or 12 or 16-year-old.

We’ve all seen the Marx Brothers movie where Karl (he was the serious one with the beard) says “From each according to their ability, to each according to their need.” While this statement has its merits and represents a good ideal, it hasn’t proved very practical in, well, practice, not in general society. And it might make a good theory for raising kids – who doesn’t try to match what they do for their kids to each kid’s needs? But in certain ways it sort of sucks. I sort of prefer the Gospel passage (no, I’m not going to look it up) “To him much has been given, much will be expected.” Okay, parents, you want to expect a lot from me, what are you giving me? And don’t give me that “smart genes” crap, I mean what are you giving me lately?

So my point in all this blather is that it’s very easy for a smart, serious kid to miss childhood altogether – or at least an important part of it: carelessness without serious consequence. Your ice cream drips, so your clothes have to be washed. Is that better or worse than going through life making sure your ice cream never drips? Being able to foresee every likely problem and failure – and trying to mitigate it in advance – means you miss a lot of fun to avoid the occasional scraped knee. Scrapes might be one-for-one or two-for-one, but you can get a lot of thrills before you break your arm and the cast would have come off a long time ago. In fact, if I’d screwed up and robbed a bank, or gotten caught doing some of the things I really did do, I’d have gotten out of jail twenty years ago last month. And maybe I would have lost my right to vote in the last presidential election, as my mother used to warn, I believe. Oh boy oh joy, dodged a bullet with that one.

Now I'm not totally blaming my parents and teachers here – they couldn't have prevented it if they tried (though I don't really remember them saying "maybe you should try to be less responsible..."). We bring it on ourselves – maybe because we think that taking responsibility will lead to authority, or maybe just because we can't help it. In fact, if I was going to blame anyone, it'd be me, except...

Blaming Myself

Up till a certain number of years ago, I used to look back in horror at some of the things I did, in high school, at jobs, in college, in my first years working as a professional. And probably back into junior high school. Generally immature things, usually initiated in an attempt to be funny, to impress a girl, or as the result of an enormous amount of drinking. And according to Maxim, I had done everything wrong in the social department. Then at some point I realized that they were giving advice to guys in their mid-twenties – even though it included how to select a great video game – while I had been making these mistakes in my teens. Frequently (unfortunately, not limited to) my early teens – honestly. So no wonder. I looked around at some of the guys I knew who were younger than me at the time – say I was getting close to 30 – and realized that in a lot of cases they were years older than I had been when I tried to do some of these things – like, rent an apartment, at 17 – not everything went smoothly (though I did get one). Trying to switch from a blue-collar/ union upbringing to a white collar/ management perspective and playing office politics at 21. And I would have recovered, over the years, from those mistakes, had I stopped making new ones...

But in any case, at some point I decided to stop blaming myself – or start forgiving myself – or letting go of the stuff I had done but had stopped doing. Or did a lot less regularly. The stuff I haven't stopped doing, well, you have to learn to live with what you can't rise above, as Bruce Springsteen said.

I'm not famous – maybe I wish I was, but I'm not – I haven't even done a ShadowLane video and I certainly didn't do one twenty years ago, right after I got out of the reform school I didn't go to, which I'm sort of glad of because my hair in 1986 is not something I want to be remembered by. Somewhere around then I had about a three-inch high flat top and some other time I had sort of a pseudo-mohawk, or a faux-hawk. If those tapes had been made, though, I guess I'd have to get over it. And I sort of have to wonder what Madonna thinks (not of me, I already know that) when she reinvents herself and has the power to drive the definition of cool away from her old self, but in doing so makes her old self look all the more dated, ridiculous, and foolish. Does she shudder at every old picture or Sean Penn movie, does she just avoid them (hard to do), or does she just accept that at one time she sang "Lucky Star" and "Holiday" like Tiffany, or was too obviously provocative with "Like a Prayer/Virgin?" Does she say "that was another person?"

I went back to my hometown after I'd finished college and started making some serious money and walking the streets like I always had I almost told myself "there is no way the you you are now came out of here. How did that happen?" (a lot of generosity by a lot of people was a big part of it).

Writing this and looking it over, I can see that I overcame some obstacles just to get to a point where I was a self-sustaining, contributing, productive human being, which at one time was my goal – or at least my next goal. And yet, being a critical thinker, for many years when I looked back all I could see was the mistakes and the embarrassments – the person I was thinking most critically of was myself.

Where does this bring us?

When I was young I was too old, my expectations were way too high, and I had to learn to accept that I hadn't met those or even more modest expectations without feeling like a perennial failure. I'm not sure I missed feeling like a teenager or being one but I can see how I could have. I'm not really trying to get back to that stage of my life but in some sense I never left it, either.

Nice of you to have read this far to see how this ties into the spanking scene, but I treat spanking, at least most of it, like play. And I treat a lot of sex like play. Chasing, laughing, mock threats, throwing Cat around. Starting with clothes on. Who ever starts a seduction in clothes except a couple of horny teenagers? And I don't mean fancy lingerie, I mean jeans and t-shirts. I like making out under clothes – why? Because you're not supposed to, you're stealing a moment, it's something you do when people might walk by any moment. Smacking a bottom (once) – everybody does it, and no one's supposed to – she always looks shocked and insulted and embarrassed. Oh, sure, there's the running around the house naked, but that's for weekends when you have absolutely no plans before 8 PM like a kid whose parents are out of town. There were things I was supposed to get done last weekend – adult things, grocery shopping, organizing – but hey, there was no one here to make me do it. So – no.

I've always said the sexiest thing about a woman is enthusiasm, and that's what I love about spanko women – they're always (or so often) anxious to play – or play again. You can play for half an hour and fifteen minutes later just a sidelong glance and it's off to the races – like a couple of teenagers. And everything else takes a back seat. Except that I no longer have a car with a back seat you can play in, let alone make love in, though now the minivan does have some possibilities.

Another way that spanking is like teen sex, in a great way, is its (supposed) secrecy. If you're adults, married, living together, dating or whatever, if you've got a door to close and you're having sex no one says you shouldn't. How fun is that? But start spanking and all of the sudden you're doing something you don't want everyone to know about (even if they do). You hide it from the kids, you hide it from your parents, you try to hide it from the neighbors probably with no success, but you try. Is it dirty? Maybe. But at the very least it's covert. You're in a restaurant or a movie, pick any adult couple and you can say "He's going to take her home and make love to her." Ho-hum. "But you – I'm going to take you home and blister your bottom." Now you've got a secret. And if it's not so secret, who cares? Did suspicious parents, knowing teachers, and a Verizon-Network style crowd of onlookers ever keep us from mauling each other? Think not.

So that's where I am – it needs to be fun. Mistakes need to be free of serious consequences. It's better when it's something we're not supposed to be doing. And we're in too big of a hurry to change into pj's, brush our teeth, feed the cats, check the locks, start the dishwasher, and turn out the lights. Now. Quick. While maybe nobody's looking.