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.

Thank You and Good Night

Whew - not much to say about this one - except thanks...

Mass De-lurk Day

Bonnie Burns over at My Bottom Smarts has declared this "Mass Spanko De-Lurk Day" and has asked all of us spanko bloggers to encourage as many people as possible to "come into the light," if only for a moment. Specifically, she'd like everyone who can possibly bear to to post a comment to one of today's messages. And if you see this late, post a comment anyway!

Bonnie herself can be found over at bottomsmarts.blogspot.com. In honor of, or support of, Bonnie's de-lurk day, I offer the following tale:


Lurker's Birthday

Julie and I bought a new computer this weekend and some of the software was already loaded, so I poked around a bit to see what we'd got. That's when I came across a folder called WordPad-Diary. Who could resist?

When I found this entry, I had to show it to Julie right away and I knew we'd be posting it before too long. Hope someone out there at SSS is as interested as we are.

***

Dear Diary (it said),

I was sitting at my computer tonight, happily cruising my favorite website, when the doorbell rang. I looked out and there was a policewoman with a respectable-looking couple, so I opened the door.

"Internet police, ma'am, may we come in?" Since they were in already, it wasn't much of a question.

"Who?" I asked. I didn't even know the Internet had police. I looked at the couple she had brought with her - a tall Anglo woman, maybe a banker or real estate agent, and a quiet, heavy-set Hispanic man. Respectable, you know? Like someone from church. The officer was a short woman, not much taller than me but with muscles where I'm round, so she did look like she could handle herself.

"Internet police," she repeated. "You've been lurking on the SSS news group for one year as of 8:00 this evening, without posting."

"Would there be something wrong with that?" I asked defensively, trying to cover my shock. "There's nothing wrong with listening." I was hoping that I was not admitting anything, without saying something really stupid, and I like the term "listening" better than "lurking" anyway. After all, SSS was on my screen in the bedroom at this very moment so I couldn't very well pretend I'd never been there.

"Well, people are free to listen but responses are what feed our writers, as I think you know."

"Lots of people respond!" I countered, realizing too late that I should just keep my mouth shut. So I'm a slow learner, I've had this problem all my life - keeping my mouth shut, I mean.

"That's not the issue here," I was told. "Lurking without posting may not exceed one year in duration. It's in the bylaws... certainly you've read the bylaws?"

"Yes, well, um, I was going to, I've been waiting until they're posted again."

"They're posted regularly, ma'am. And they specifically state that the duration of lurking may not exceed 365 consecutive calendar days, exclusive of February 29th."

"Okay, so what? You're going to kick me off? You're going to de-lurk me?" I tried to sound a lot braver than I felt. I did not really want to be exposed to the world of SSS and I certainly didn't want to be kicked off. I was hoping they'd give me a choice, I could make up a name and come out if I had to.

"Not exactly. We consider this to be your news group birthday and are here to treat it as such. This is Deborah and this is Jorge," she waved, indicating her companions.

My jaw fell to the floor. "I don't think so!" I demanded, "Get out of my apartment!"

Officer Brunswick, as her badge identified her, seemed unmoved. She flipped open a small notebook.

"On February 17th, you copied a story from the board to other electronic medium. This was specifically and explicitly forbidden by the author. The evidence, we believe, is on your hard drive at this very moment. Do any of the following phrases sound familiar to you? 'Listen here, little missy... who do you think... you won't be sitting... how dare you... if I ever... won't forget this one'?"

I got an icy feeling across my seat. There were more than a few stories like that on my hard drive. I never had any idea it was against the law.

"Everyone does that," I stated definitively. "You can't single me out."

"Perhaps people do. We'll not argue that point. As far as singling people out, we are prepared to make you a test case for Internet property rights." As a wave of horror swept over me she verbalized my very thoughts - "You can see yourself on AP top stories - with a photo, perhaps."

Instinctively I covered my bottom with both hands and pushed it as far away from this trio as it could get. Tears sprang to my eyes. I could not have people know about me, I'm not the type to be famous, much less infamous.

"So, shall we see you in court - and on My Yahoo 'Stories of the Hour'?" Brunswick asked.

"Or?" I half-wailed, half-moaned. She waved again to Deborah and Jorge.

They didn't look wicked - more serious, disapproving, perhaps, and a little disappointed. My mind spun as I tried to figure out what could be going on. As I said, Deborah was tall and Anglo and looked very competent and respectable. She wasn't in any kind of scary or sexy costume, just a woman going to work. At an office.

I say an office because Jorge probably works outdoors. He had a deep tan and very hard hands, I couldn't help but notice. His shoulders looked like he did a lot of lifting and not weight-lifting, work lifting, I mean. His middle looked liked he had lifted a few beers in his time as well. His clothes were clean and not worn, even though they didn't look new, so he looked dressed up, especially his shirt, which was orange and red with a Latin-western design. He still had most of his thick dark hair and his sideburns were way too long. I couldn't help but notice that behind the requisite oversized belt buckle was a wide, heavy, and somewhat overworked leather belt.

I thought of the stories I had most often cruised and a light went on. I almost laughed! These two were supposed to be my parents, me their daughter. What was funny about it is that my father was born in California and works in a bank (I probably thought of one of his co-workers, seeing Deborah) and my mother is a housewife, as short and plumper than I am. She's the one from Mexico and only works a few days a week, at the market. It was almost like they'd gotten my parents reversed.

Then the unfunny thought occurred to me - what always, always went on in these stories. I felt that exact sensation they always describe - a combination of glistening excitement and abject fear. I thought instantly about what panties I had on - clean, at least, even if they did lack sex appeal. Why I should worry about appealing to these people, I don't know. Why I even went along with it, I don't know. I guess in a way I wanted to. A year of reading these stories had gotten me more than ready.

Even as I thought back to a story or two, Jorge went over to my couch and sat down like he owned the place. His legs were well out in from of him and he looked like he was on a throne. Without a word he patted his solid thighs and motioned me over with a look. For some reason I drifted in his direction.

As soon as I got close his arm caught me under the seat and in an instant I was across his lap. I thought of hot stories with belts and switches and very embarrassing positions and hoped and prayed this wasn't one of those. I really didn't want that, I really, really didn't. Thankfully I still had my jeans up when he smacked me the first time.

"So, little lady, you know it all now, do you?" he started. I didn't answer as much harder smacks fell on my seat. I could feel how easily he was spanking me and already it hurt. I felt sticky from the whole situation and that made me feel dirty. Feeling dirty always makes me feel like I should be spanked, which didn't make me feel any less sticky.

The spanks got hard and he'd just started. I tried to take it.

"Maybe one more lesson might still teach you something," he told me, spanking quickly.

"Umpft," I responded. "Umpft, umpft, umpft."

When I read these stories, I always imagine that I'd get extra swats because my seat is big, not one of these "his large hand covered her entire bottom" types. It's not a good feeling, exactly, but it does excite me in a weird way, that I would have to be spanked all the more. But he was spanking just in a few spots and I found myself starting to fight him, I had to. Already I was crying some and it didn't look like he was going to let up. I asked, begged, cried for him to stop.

"Oh, no, chiquita, you still have much to learn," he assured me but he did start moving around. I was so embarrassed by how many places he could fit his hand on the target I was giving him. Through my jeans it didn't really sting but it hurt! I was really getting so sore and I begged some more, until I thought of the fact that when he did stop, my pants were coming down! I was in no shape to be seen, I'd die! I quickly switched to "sorry's" and tried to be more compliant. But it was so hard with him spanking me like that!

He seemed to have found the softest parts and was staying in those few spots. I couldn't help kicking and even swinging my arm but he didn't even notice. He held me across the back like I was a child, and where his arm held me, I didn't move a bit. His soft, firm voice kept reassuring me how much better I was getting with every painful spank. Finally he stopped but only to reach for the top of my jeans. I was sweaty and more, I was crying with pain and sobbing with embarrassment and I felt so sorry for all those girls I had read about and envied. My squirms were in a way that was probably turning him on, even though he'd stopped spanking me.

I have never been more relieved than when the hand at the top of my jeans pulled me off his lap.

"Do you think you can be good now?" he asked very seriously. I assured him I would, that I'd be very, very good and that I was very sorry and sorry he had had to spank me. He just told me to remember that it could always happen again.

I had fallen out of half of my bra and turned away to fix it and to give myself a chance to regain my composure and stop crying. If he'd sent me to the corner I'd have gone gratefully but that was not in store for me.

Deborah spoke with authority as she stated "We'll be wanting some privacy, I believe." She opened her purse and withdrew a wooden hairbrush and the scenario seemed chillingly familiar. "Will you wait for me in your room?" she asked, but it wasn't a question.

I was half glad to get out of there, in fact I closed the door behind me, I was so out of it, but on the other hand I was all the more scared and very sore already. Deborah opened the door and came in, closing it again behind her. The hairbrush, of course, was still in her hand.

"Are you going to take those down, or am I?" she asked menacingly. By now I knew I had no choice around here, so I did what she wanted, except slowly.

She sat.

"If I have to take those down for you, you are going to be the sorriest young lady in this city tonight," she predicted. I started crying again but at least the door was closed. I squeezed my legs together in fear and before I could move she stood up and wrapped an arm around my waist. "Oh, so that's how it'll be, will it?"

"No! No!" I cried, oblivious to the two outside, "I'll do it!"

"Too late," she informed me and my seat was bare and I was back facing downward. "Missy, you have just made a very, very big mistake." Deborah slapped me hard right where I was sorest and I howled. "Stop that!" she commanded. "Settle down!" A rain of spanks fell on my unprotected seat, right on the bare skin. They hurt!

She eased up some until I did settle down and finally she stopped all together. I couldn't resist a little breath of relief. "I don't want to do this at all," she lied, "and I am certainly going to make sure that I only have to do this once! And as for that foolishness about your panties, you know what I'm going to do about that!"

I was begging and "please'ing" and asking her not to but it didn't seem to make any difference. I guess I should have known but at the time I thought it was worth trying. Deborah waited and waited but then finally asked if I was ready to get the hairbrush. Of course I said no but she repeated herself exactly and followed it with, "That's two." I gulped hard, knowing I'd have to say it. Then she was already repeating, "Anna, are you ready to have me spank you with my hairbrush?" again. I said "Yes, yes!" trying to interrupt her but still she said, "That's three."

What happened after that I can hardly describe, not that I've forgotten a minute of it. She spanked with a snap that made each and every swat go right through me - I couldn't believe something could hurt that much! She did kind of the same thing as Jorge, spanking those few bad spots at first for a long time, then moving around. When she got low and kind of inside my cheek, I begged her, "not there, pleaseeee not there!"

She assured me that I would be spanked there and gave me a bunch right there to prove it and then another big bunch just on the other side. She promised me that "every square inch of my bottom" was going to get "every swat I had earned for it." At that point I just had to give up, I couldn't fight her anymore. I just lay across her lap and sobbed, bouncing from the reflex to her terrible stinging snaps.

I guess I would have been done then if I had cooperated better, because she finally stopped. She told me again how much she hated to do this and patted me with the brush. I jumped, even though it was light, and she sort of laughed at me. She said she didn't appreciate my making her job harder with my foolishness about my panties. She put her hand on the cheek away from her and smoothed it upward, pulling it flat down below. "And now I am going to make you very sorry you didn't cooperate when you needed to," she informed me.

"I AM sorry!" I protested but to no avail. I started struggling again but she had me completely under control. And it was true, I was sorry, sorry I hadn't pulled down my panties, sorry I needed to be spanked, sorry I read all those stories and got soft feeling while all those poor girls got spanked. I tried to tell her but she was having none of it.

"You're not sorry yet, not by a long way. You just think you are but just wait until I've really spanked you," she threatened. She pulled my cheek up again and started spanking, just in that one spot. Hard and stingy both at once and I was already soooo sore! Then she moved to the other side and I had to get each of the swats again over there!

My breathing was both panting and sobbing, I thought I would hyperventilate but she held me while I calmed down. She reached up and stroked my hair but then, with a voice that chilled me, she asked, "How old are you, Anna?"

I knew what that meant and I started sobbing again but this time she just waited. And waited. I told her, "Twenty four."

"Twenty," she said, tapping my bottom. "Four."

"And! How many times did I have to ask if you were ready?"

"Nooooooooo!" I wailed, "Owwwwwwww!" as she brought the brush down hard, "Two. Two!" I insisted and I thought I was being fair.

Those swats were so much harder! I couldn't believe the earlier ones weren't the hardest she could spank - though at least these didn't snap like the ones I'd already had. She counted out the twenty-four very hard swats - twenty-four on each side! I should have been done but she repeated her question.

"How many times did I have to ask if you were ready?"

"Three," I sobbed piteously. I didn't even care anymore, this spanking would never be over. Then she swatted me and I started caring again. She repeated her first two sets, acting like she hadn't already given them to me - and then, then! This new mom they'd given me spanked out a third set right in the middle! I couldn't even fight her, I just had to lie there jerking back and forth and crying and being very, very sorry.

She had spanked me for so long that when she was done I didn't really believe it. She let me lie there and cry and then slump down between her legs and cry some more. After a while she stood me up, handed me my poodle from my bed and stood me in the corner, where I leaned with my head against the wall.

After a long time I looked around and she was still sitting there. She got up and found me my robe and put it around me, then led me out to where the others were still waiting.

They stood up and Jorge looked at me sympathetically, I thought. As well he should. Deborah got her purse and at long last the dreaded hairbrush disappeared from sight.

"We'll be going - for now," Brunswick warned. "You had best de-lurk quickly."

I immediately agreed, trying to look contrite and sincere. Once the door was closed, I headed right back to the computer. So I had to stand, I probably sit too much anyway. What I need to do, I figured, was find just the right stories. No telling when they'd be back and I certainly wasn't going to read the by-laws. Now let's see, there was one about a handsome sheik.....

***

Julie looked at me speculatively. "Do you think this policy has ever encouraged anyone to respond, instead of just listening?"

"NOOO!" we laughed in unison.

Saying "No"

One more of many interesting experiences from this last ShadowLane party – the experience of trying to say no. I’m sure more than a few women can recite my pontifications of giving a nice, direct, no-excuses “no” to a guy they don’t want to play with. And I’m sure when I’m on my soapbox I make it sound like I think it’s easy – though I know it’s not. Now I’m not saying that this was at all the same situation, but I did get a first-hand example of how hard it can be to say no, especially to say no very directly.

We were at a party Sunday afternoon down at Danny’s and he had quite a nice crowd gathered, including several people I didn’t know. This surprised me a little because I’m used to having gotten used to seeing most everyone by then – obviously I wasn’t paying enough attention Saturday at the banquet.

One woman I didn’t recognize was over between the bed and the bathroom – tall, fashionably short blonde hair, business suit, chunky heels – and she was already tall. Okay, I admit, I had a good idea that she was a top but as attractive as she was I figured I could let her tell me that. Oh, and the big F/M party had just gotten out, so that sort of underscored my impression.

I am not good at initiating one-on-one conversations – I know it’s hard for a lot of people, and I’m one of them – but I did manage to get her name and ascertain that she was having a good time or some such lame thing. We drifted toward the door of the suite – and the munchies – and she introduced me to her husband (I was not surprised) and he was likewise tall, attractive, mid-thirties, Texan. I congratulated their Longhorns for beating us in the Rose Bowl but they weren't big college football fans.

Never one to give up, I contrived to be in her area a little later and somehow managed to say something that allowed my to segue appropriately into “Are you interested in playing?” and – as I could have predicted, and with perfect control, she responded “Are you?”

So, okay, I’m not stupid, I have this situation pretty completely figured out, so I say, “Well, are you a bottom?” and as I’d expect, she says “No – do you bottom?”

Okay, let me explain that first, I have a tremendous weakness for attractive women; second, I try to be complimentary and supportive of everyone whenever possible; and third, I have not only respect but admiration for the woman tops I have met (more on that in another post someday, maybe soon). So, in short, saying no to this lovely lady was not something that came easily to me – in fact, in this case it did not come at all.

“Or not in public?” she offered as my mouth moved with no reasonable speech coming out. What I was thinking was “how do I say very definitely “no” without rejecting how she plays or who she is as a person?” Now you can say, don’t be silly, people understand – but I was operating on 4 hours of sleep for every 20 hours of super-high-pitched erotic excitement – times three or four by now.

“Or not...” Honestly, I forget what other excuse/offer she provided me with. By this time I did manage to say “Ah, no.” I did manage to save a little face because some attractive young woman was trying to drag me off to some other party emergency which, of course, was of no consequence.

So like I said, this was in no way like a woman trying to tell one man no while keeping herself open to approaches by other men – in this case I was clearly declining her mode of play and not the woman herself. But even so I did realize how difficult it is. (And I might mention that, naturally, as a guy top I don’t have a lot of experience saying “no” except in answer to “Aren’t you going to stop?” or “That’ll be okay, wouldn’t it?”)

Afterward, of course, all the best responses occurred to me, like “You make it a very attractive offer, but no, I don’t;” or “Well, no, I don’t, but if I ever do, I’ll be sure to check back with you,” so maybe next time I’ll be a little better prepared.

I was telling one woman about this and she asked “So you haven’t ever been spanked?” and I felt it only fair to explain – I have switched, some, with some – not even all – of the women I’ve been in long-term relationships with – which I guess, strictly speaking, was one reason I was hesitant to answer “Do you?” with a flat-out “no,” without adding a disclaimer like the guy at the end of the TV ads for McDonald’s new Monopoly game:

“Your chance of winning varies with participation. Contestants must agree to living arrangements and work out personality issues, if any. My right to the left side of the bed is non-negotiable. No purchase is necessary to win and does not affect your chance of winning. Offer is void where prohibited and in Puritanical states and states of mind or elsewhere if illegal, taxed, licensed, or freakishly abnormal, although highly immoral or just downright kinky is still okay.”

My Stories

So here's something I'm actually pretty pumped about – after a lot of years of wanting to I have finally arranged to get some of my stories on-line. I never did work out getting my own website and I don't really want to use the one provided by my ISP, so I've put them up on Blogger. They're at Matt Anglen's Spanking Stories.

Over the past few years, with the thoughts of posting, publishing, or otherwise getting my stories read, I got them all pretty well organized into volumes, and made a table of contents describing the earlier ones and all, then printed off some booklets for my friends. One book is pure fiction and then the rest are in chronological order. The first ones were easy because everything had been prepared to be posted somewhere, which I did back in 1998-2000. Somewhere after that, however, I had a lot of works that weren't quite in publishable form and an awful lot more that was in pretty bad shape – imbedded in e-mails and all. But I did eventually extract about half of this and organize it as well.

Of my best, organized stuff I have about 100 stories. Mostly all by me, with influences of my partners or sometimes written by them influenced by me. But in any case, I'm sure reading 100 of my stories, if anyone ever tried it, would be like reading 100 Agatha Christies – even if you like them it gets old fast. So what I decided to do was make a "permanent" and "rotating" collection. I picked about 20 stories that I thought best represented my oeuvre to have up all the time and then I'm going to put up 6-12 stories for a month apiece. Then after a year I'm going to start over. I know better than to commit to write so much as a single good story between now and then – sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.

So it was sort of funny, trying to choose these 20 stories – basically because I wanted to choose 50, and maybe I should have posted all 50 of the better ones and just left them up, because I do really like about half of them and have gotten really positive feedback on them. But I cut it down to 22 or something and I'll spread the remaining best ones out over the coming months. Something else that was funny was looking at the dates – my most prolific time was 1995 – 2002 and then I have three recent stories that I think turned out well. All the time I've been living with Cat, however – what happened there? Well, what really happened was that I've been trying to put together a novel, and write chapters, with minimal success. But any writing I have been doing, I've tried to fit it into one of the frameworks I had in mind, making the individual pieces less suitable as a stand-alone story. Third, my earliest stuff is a lot more vulgar than the recent works, even discussing the same situations – because prior to 1998 or so, stories were basically targeted at men buying printed erotica, so that was the only model I knew, while once I got on-line, I discovered a female audience that appreciated a little more discretion.

Another interesting thing (to me), though, was re-reading some of these stories. Some are written to be funny, some are written to catch a particular feeling from a particular moment, but a lot of them are largely written to be hot, and they are, if I do say so myself. In other words, I was a little surprised how hot I still found them to be, after having had them around for years.

Anyway, you shouldn't even be reading this, you should be over there, reading those – so I won't keep you – but I hope you enjoy them!

An Ideal Fourteen Inches

Not as an endowment, of course – my God! Other than visually, perhaps, would a woman have a use for a man that big? Let's just say that I don't know, obviously...
No, what fourteen inches is ideal for, it seems, is good over-the-knee spanking implements, at least for me. As they get shorter they tend to lose effectiveness in that, basically, it seems like my hand gets in the way and I fear that I'm striking as much with my knuckles as my toy. If they get longer, they get harder to control – at least that's the first problem. Fourteen inches for otk seems just right. (Just right for me, Cat likes a twelve-inch limit for toys she uses otk).

This determination does become important, actually. You may be thinking it'd be best to just try something out and see, or hold it in your hand and guess, either one of which would work fine. Where this leads to trouble, though, is when I purchase a lot of "pervertibles" on-line, with little more than the seller's description of it.

Pervertibles, says David Stein, are everyday objects converted to nefarious purposes, primarily for spanking and BDSM. Hairbrushes, belts, and wooden spoons – and I have literally dozens of each – are high on the list of spanking toys, while other objects might be for restraint or touch/sensation play. I suppose a feather duster isn't a pervertible when used on your lover, unless you tie them up first, possibly with pantyhose...

And let's just say I have a lot of pervertibles, having gone through a stage of collecting – or merely accumulating – them, with a lot of help from E-bay and internet shopping. Most of these objects cost literally a dollar or so, definitely under five – plus five to seven dollars for shipping. Now, a dollar I can waste, I'll just buy one less bottle of water – but eight or ten gets a little steep.

Hairbrushes don't range up to fourteen inches, and I have a very short, very thick one that is very popular, but it's an exception. The better ones might make nine inches and normally I find less than eight a little disappointing. I ordered a maple "cookie paddle" which I believe was listed at about seven inches and looked quite promising but really arrived seeming more like six-and-a-half and, while cute, is not useful like I had hoped.
Cooking spoons are the ones where this really comes into play. I've seen some lovely spoons advertised made of great woods and supporting wonderful causes, but they're only eight inches long, which for a spoon is too short. The magic of a spoon, besides the fact that it lives in plain sight, is that the length and speed makes up for the low weight. Once again, we have a beautiful one (from a shop on Venice Beach) that's ten inches and lacks a lot of persuasiveness.

The "other" reason fourteen inches is ideal, however, is because of the "other" pervertible. One year as a safety award the now-defunct company I worked for gave out briefcase-style carry-alls. I usually find these awards to be useless, but keep them anyway, and in this case I'm glad I did. Besides numerous zippered compartments on the outside which I have yet to use, the bag has three large zippered sections. The first section is divided as if for files, perfect for separating paddles. The second section has interior zippered pockets – I used to keep my thumbcuffs in there (note, thumbcuffs do not qualify as a pervertible) and is a good big pocket for a large pile of smackers. Then there's a third pocket which is expandable (and always stuffed, it seems) where I mostly keep restraints and sensation toys, soft stuff and lotions, plus sometimes nice objects that I don't want scratched.

Longer toys can get folded or rolled and put in there but I've found that I don't really like to do this – they often come out bent or curled. And despite what we learned in geometry, the diagonal on this case is barely longer than the legal-sized width, so angling toys seldom helps.

I had a second victory when I was packing for an overnight trip. I don't really have a suitable small bag for my clothes and things – the next one up is a full-sized suitcase. However, this suitcase is about 15" x 24" inside, so I can perfectly fit the toy bag on one half and have the other half for clothes and shaving stuff. Along the top I run all the longer toys that I don't want rolled or folded – a strap that doubles to 18 inches, a shoehorn, backscratcher, and short looped cane, Cat's favorite narrow "Ladies' Strap," my own long narrow stinging strap, a faux birch, rubber loopy, paintstick, rawhide lace flogger and the like. Oh by the way, over half of which are pervertibles.
Maybe I can put up some pictures – with all the time I've put into pervertibles, I ought to be able to get a few posts out of it.

Carry On!

Okay, I promised something a bit lighter this time:


Carry On!

Has anyone tried to get on a plane lately? I think a lot of the security panic is passe, and now these guards / inspectors / whatever are just plain bored, nosey, and looking to hassle paying customers. Case in point - I try to board with a perfectly harmless carry-on, it’s a normal size, it can easily be stowed in the overhead bin or under the seat in front of me. And what do I get? First it’s x-rayed, then grabbed off the conveyor by a woman wanting to search it by hand. Of course, the search is optional - I can always walk to JFK, if I’d prefer.

“You don’t have any checked luggage, sir?” Unaccustomed as I am to this mode of address, she must mean me.

“No, just this.”

“I see....”

“Is there a problem?”

“You don’t have any shirts with a collar,” she points out. Somehow, this sartorial faux pas has her at a loss.

“Vacation, you know,” I explain politely.

“But you have four neckties.” Forty thousand airport workers, I get a budding Agatha Christie. “You could tie up a flight attendant.”

“Mmmm. Been known to happen.” Not the response she was looking for. Better not joke around too much. “I wear them as a belt.”

“But you have a belt. Four, in fact. A brown one...” Yes, my thick wide western-style belt. “Two black...” One elegant, one casual... “And a red one?” Her eyebrow arches into her bangs.

“That’s a leash.”

“I see,” she repeats, and what she sees is my hairbrush. Holding it dangerously, she stares pointedly at my head. Hey, I'm not bald! Of course, the bristles are longer than my hair is...

Choosing her battles, she retreats, and returns the hairbrush to its rightful place. “Only one of these gloves?” Now she’s come up with a thin leather glove, right-handed.

“Yes. It’s for golf. Or - baseball? Maybe weightlifting.” Stick to the vacation motif, I tell myself.

“One plastic coat hanger,” she continues. There appears to be a pattern.

“For my bowling shirt,” I supply cheerfully.

“And it looks like someone lost a sandal,” she informs me helpfully, holding up one woman’s sandal - straight, flat, wood, rubber soled, and mateless.

“Yes - I’ll bet she regrets it already.” I look full at her, challenging her to challenge me.

Before she has the chance to do so, the gate agent stalks over.

“Tanya, is he clear or not? I want to close the door and go have a smoke.”

“He’s alright,” Ms. Backpack Cop concedes.

“Then stop being a brat and let him on the plane.” If it weren’t for nicotine, I’d probably still be there, discussing the brands of lotion I’m carrying. Yes, I need all six.

Grudgingly, she repacks my carry-on.

“You’ve made a wise choice, young lady,” I reassure her, but she doesn’t seem mollified.

“You’re all set,” she declares, glaring at me one last time. I return her look expectantly. “Sir.” She slides my pack gingerly across the table, as if it might bite her. Always a chance, I suppose. “Have a good flight.”

“Have a good stay,” I offer with a smile.

“Oh and sir?” It’s easy once you get used to saying it. It’s my turn to arch an eyebrow. “Round-trip ticket?”

“Sunday night return. Are they searching the outgoing passengers these days?” Even with the Fourth of July warnings, that seems excessive.

“New policy, maybe. Just a precaution. I’ll see you get through.”