SpankA2Z Blog Hop: I is for...Intensity.

Intensity.

That sexy glint in a man's eye when he's hurting you... you know it, he knows it, and you both know he's not going to stop until he decides you've had enough - until your panties are soaked and you're begging him to with your eyes.

The timbre of his voice when he gives you an order, you hesitate, and he says, "Now."

That split second of time in between when the cane strikes your flesh and the pain hits.

How hard you come when he's been keeping you on the brink for what feels like forever and then finally gives you permission.

The peak of the burn in your clit when he's swiped it with Tiger Balm just before taking you out for dinner.

Intensity. I love it.

#SpankA2Z The letter F is for... Face Slapping.

I must admit I started this month's blog hop A-Z challenge with no clear idea of whether or not I'd even stick to any kind of theme... but, as is so often the case, one seems to be appearing without my conscious involvement.

Where I am at this point in my life and development is leading me to a lot of self-reflection and exploration, and I suppose it's therefore logical that at least some of that would make it into this, my blog. 

Some authors put on a 'face' for their readers/fans, and every word they say on social media is carefully constructed, designed to increase sales and strengthen their specifically chosen image.

I'm not one of those authors.

In this, as in real life, I tell it like it is. I'm just me. Yes, I write fiction, but that's pretty much where any exaggeration, bending of the truth or just plain fantasy begins and ends - and even then, I can't hide myself. I wouldn't want to.

With that being said, this blog challenge is also making me start to explore subjects I hadn't really considered thinking about before. And I'm enjoying it. 

In real life, I like to experiment... one of my favourite mottos is: I'll try anything once. Twice if it hurts. And I don't shy away from many of the more extreme BDSM practices, even though most of them will never make it into my books, which are, after all, primarily romantic spanking erotica. I wouldn't want to frighten anyone. 

However, this isn't one of my books, this is my blog, so I think it's a great place for me to a) examine my own opinions on some of these practices and b) get your opinion on them. I do like to hear what others think about stuff - I'm a very curious little Tabby-Cat, after all.

Which brings us to today's post: face slapping.

I chose this subject because it absolutely fascinates me. And it does so because I'm so incredibly ambivalent about it. 

If I'm watching a movie, and a guy slaps a girl in the face, my instant gut reaction is a mixture of disgust and horror. How fucking dare he? It's violent, it's derogatory, it's insulting.

But it's for those exact same reasons that, when a Dom does it to me (when I'm in the right headspace, mind you, not just coming up to me and whacking me across the face while I'm washing up), I melt. It puts me into the most submissive but most liberating frame of mind - one I'm not even sure I can explain properly. 

I'm forced to ask myself: why? It's not the most painful thing anyone can do to me, nor the most insulting, nor even the most humiliating. But for me personally, it's just so incredibly taboo.

It goes against everything I've been taught as a girl who was born in the late twentieth century and now lives as an adult in the twenty-first. It goes against everything the man who's hitting me has been taught. It's Just. Not. Done. Men who do that are scorned and reviled (and believe me, I am not advocating it unless done with full consent and prior discussion within a D/s or DD or whatever relationship), and seeing a man slap a woman hard across the face is (and should be) enough to have any sane onlooker calling the police.

And still I get off on it when it's done to me. 

Case in point: I just searched and searched for an image to insert here - an image where a girl/woman is having her face slapped. I would have settled for a nice old picture; a movie still perhaps, from back in the day when it wasn't quite as taboo to slap (or spank) your woman - but I came up completely empty. There are, on the other hand, loads of pictures of men being slapped in the face. By both men and women.

Was there ever a better illustration of a double standard? I have never, ever, ever slapped a man - or a woman, come to think of it - across the face or anywhere else, for that matter. No doubt it's partly because I'm naturally submissive and a pacifist, but it's also because I have respect. I respect people - even in a vanilla setting. I've had partners cheat, say horrible things, mistreat me terribly, and still I've never even considered slapping them. 

So seeing a woman do it to her boyfriend or husband provokes the same reaction in me as it does when the genders are reversed... revulsion. Physical violence should never be the answer - to anything.

Well, at least, not without consent.

What are your thoughts? Is it something of a trigger for you? Do you like the thought - or, for my fellow lifestylers, do you enjoy it being done to you (in the relevant setting, of course).

Please feel free to comment away - and don't forget to hop on over to the other blogs. 

~ Tabby x

E is for... Edging!

Edging: keeping yourself on the brink of coming but not actually getting there (yet)... I don't think there are many things out there which are more erotic, agonising or delicious.

After all, the best things cum to those who wait...

Even better is when it's done to you.

Picture it... You're nearly there. You can feel yourself tense, the sensations are building, you're gripping the sheets and you're so, so close...

He's watching you intently, noting every nuance in your expression, hearing every gasp and moan as you start to beg him for permission - to please let you come, please, please, you'll do anything - and there it is: that flash of a sadistic glimmer in his eyes even as his fingers/dick/whatever the fuck is getting you off right now don't ease up,..

"No."

Your body obeys even as your first thought is of what will happen if you don't... if you can't help yourself, if you lose control. 

That only makes it worse - that threat of punishment - but you manage to hold off, to exert every last ounce of self control you possess - and then...

...it starts all over again.

Just... nommy.

D is for... Discipline, of course!

"Go and put on the punishment dress." His voice is soft but stern - there will be no argument.

I freeze for the briefest second as my heart begins to pound in my chest and my pulse quickens. "Yes Sir." The words come out without conscious thought, it's an automatic submissive reaction, one I couldn't stop if I tried.

"Good girl."

It's a ritual; one he chose and and I agreed to. The punishment dress - well, really it's a very short silk nightie - hangs in the bathroom, as a constant reminder that I'd better behave myself, otherwise I'll be putting it on. Whenever he chooses to, he'll tell me to do just that, and from that moment on I have ten minutes to 'prepare myself' - have a last cig before I die, visit the bathroom, do whatever I need to do be ready for my discipline and get into the right headspace.

As soon as I've swallowed hard and managed to regain control over my breathing, I head for the balcony and light up, closing my eyes and appreciating the heady mixture of terror and excitement coursing through me.

On my way back to the bathroom to put on the nightie, he glances up from the couch. "Hurry up," he says.

"But you said I get ten minutes!" There's a definite whine in my voice - not to mention the fact that I'm protesting - and I don't miss the instant flicker of disapproval in his eyes.  

Sometimes I really don't think before I open my mouth.

"For that you're getting an extra one."

"Yes, Sir." I'm meek again, mentally kicking myself, already feeling guilty for my protest.

The nightie is made of silk and as it whispers over my otherwise bare skin, I try unsuccessfully to stop the goosebumps springing up all over my body. By the time I've gone into the playroom, my knees feel like water.

I kneel and bow my head, not knowing how long I'll be there, waiting. Six full-force strokes of the genuine, heavy, painful-as-all-fuck prison strap, plus one for my stupid outburst. Idiot.

He has the brown one. Lucky me. Used to make hardened 

criminals yield... now about to be used on a little girl in a silk nightie. 

Seven strokes of anything don't sound like much, and I can certainly take more, but these will be different. Full-force means they will be delivered on my bare bottom as hard as the man can hit. He was in the military. He's huge. He can hit hard. And this is a real, genuine prison strap, made of thick, heavy leather. Each stroke covers almost my entire ass, and it feels as though I'm being branded with a smouldering iron.

No warm up. No comfort - well, at least not during my punishment. If I'm good and take it stoically, he might toss the strap aside afterwards and plunge himself into my wetness, hard and fast, using me for his pleasure, not allowing me release. If, on the other hand, it gets to me emotionally and I'm sobbing with contrition, he might help me up and comfort me - after I've taken all seven strokes, that is. Not before.

Behind me I hear the door open, and a trickle of terrified excitement slips from my core. 

Discipline always does this to me.

***

Hope you liked my real account of a session I had... one of many. Please feel free to comment and don't forget to visit the other #SpankA2Z blog hop participants!

~ Tabby x

     

June A-Z Spanking Challenge - C is for CUDDLING!

Welcome to my post for today... and thanks so much for commenting so far. I've been busy these last couple of days but I took a break from doing some very naughty things with a new play partner to blog about today's word: cuddling.

It's so often underestimated but cuddling plays such a huge role in any relationship - especially one with a DD or D/s element.

I like to use the expression 'light and shade' - and that goes for everything, in all aspects of life. There can be no joy without sadness, no highs without lows and no pain without pleasure... at least, not for me. The experience of one greatly enhances our appreciation of the other.

As some of you may already know, I've moved back to Germany for a couple of months. It's where I was born and, even though I didn't grow up there, I did spend my teenage years and my early twenties there. I still have family here and it seemed like the next logical step - hadn't seen my Mum for a year and a half, for one thing, and after 6 months in Thailand, I really really missed some typically 'German' things  - cleanliness, for example, and potatoes. lol.

Anyway, I'm a little painslut and I write (and edit) spanking/bdsm books full-time. I love it, but it does have one downside - if I'm not 'getting any', the frustration builds quickly. So while I'm not looking for Mr Right or a committed relationship, I am certainly open to meeting a friendly local sadist to meet up with when I reach that point when I can't sit still or concentrate on my work because all I want to do is be used, hurt, spanked and just plain dominated until I'm a little puddle on the floor, 'weeping from both ends'.

So I put out some feelers and found someone far more quickly than I'd anticipated. And when I told him I still needed to write a blog entry, and he told me I'd better do it otherwise I'd be in Big Trouble, the first word I associated with 'C' was cuddling.

I've played with a number of different Tops, Doms and real, honest-to-god-he-can-only-get-hard-if- he's-really-really-hurting-me Sadists, and while they're all different, most of them don't really cuddle. Of course it depends on the relationship, but I'm talking purely from a play perspective.

So when I got talking online to this guy, whom we shall affectionately refer to as Sir B, we chatted about everything under the sun and, of course, pain... the delivery thereof and the light and shade I was talking about earlier. On that subject, he said something which fascinated me:

"Do you know what I really like to do? Apply light and shade simultaneously. I love to cuddle someone and hurt them at the same time... and comfort them while I'm doing it. Doesn't mean I ease up on the pain, though."


Right there, I melted. The little masochist inside me who craves being hurt by a man who gets off on the look in my eyes when I'm suffering for him just dripped into a little puddle of goo.

But this blog is about cuddling. Long story short, I met up with him. And yeah... he's a Cuddler. With a deliberate capital C. I couldn't believe that this huge bear of  a man (and he's tall AND broad) could be so gentle. Funny. Easygoing. We met in public (as you do) and went to a museum and out for some food and talked and laughed and chatted, and there were brief glimpses of his dominant side - but only in the sense that he likes certain things done a certain way and is quick to tell me so.

Even so, I kept looking at him and finding it hard to picture 'playing' with him... hard to imagine that he had a sadistic bone in his body.

Until I found myself in his arms, being cuddled, his fingers twisting my nipple until I could barely stand it, and he was whispering comforting, sweet nothings in my ear even as he twisted harder... 

Like this post? Please check back tomorrow for the big D word and don't forget to hop on along to the other wonderful participants in this blog hop.

Hugs,

~ Tabby.

Fiction vs Reality, Or Passion vs Business

It's a fine line.

Way back, years and years ago, when I first started writing spanking stories, I had never actually experienced it for myself. I'd read about it - LOTS, and fantasised about it even more than that, but had I ever really been slung across someone's knee and had the brat spanked right out of me?

Nope.

Then I discovered the BDSM scene. I discovered real life kinksters. I met them at parties, talked to them, watched them play, let them do nasty, delicious things to me. I even married one - I signed my slave contract to him before I signed the marriage certificate. The marriage has since ended but luckily my new experiences did not.

I had a lot of experiences. Spanking, obviously, with every implement I could think of (and many I hadn't even imagined before, like liquorice. I'm serious. It HURTS!) - and so much more. Needles, medical staples, cutting with a razor blade, cutting with a scalpel, edge play, knife play, fire play, electro play, breath play, sutures, wax play, orgasm control, orgasm denial, forced orgasms, bondage, rope suspension, corsetry, fire flogging, cupping, fire cupping, TENS units, clamps... the list goes on and on and on. I do have a few hard limits, but not very many. Not really.

So it's only natural that I want to incorporate at least some of these experiences into my writing.

Now I don't know exactly how many of my fellow authors live the lifestyle. I know some of them definitely do, and some of them have even more experience than I do. I also know some of them are right where I was ten years ago; a surface vanilla with deep, dark fantasies I had yet to fulfill. And these people have one thing in common; they write my favourite books in the genre. Not just because I'm lucky enough to be able to call them my friends, but because there is an element of truth in what they write; an element of realism. I adored their books before I ever chatted to them. It was only later that I discovered that, as well as being amazing authors, they are amazing people with a real passion for spanking, ageplay and/or BDSM.

There's a saying: 'write what you know.' I call bullshit on that, because many authors would be severely restricted in their content if they were to abide by that rule. Did J.R.R. Tolkien ever MEET a hobbit? Did Lewis Carroll really fall down the rabbit hole? I doubt it. As Oscar Wilde said, "One's real life is so often the life that one does not lead."

However, I do ask that people write what they're passionate about. Lately, more and more people have been admitting to writing certain genres because 'they sell well'.

Writing fiction is an art form. It's a passion. It's a dream. It's something you do because you can't not. It shouldn't be dragged down to the level of business copywriting, or sponsored blog entries, surely? There's marketing writing (which I'm not bashing, I've done it) and then there's fiction writing. You do the first, usually, because you have bills to pay. You do the second because you feel compelled to tell a story.

If you hate scary stories, don't write them. If fantasy fiction makes you yawn and you never read it, don't bother trying to write it. Write what fires YOU inside; because only then can you deliver a great experience to the readers.

"Whenever I want to read a good book, I write a good book. I've never not been writing." ~ Gore Vidal

To all my fellow lovers of good quality spanking/BDSM erotica out there, I can't promise you won't mistakenly pick up a book written by someone who churned out what they thought would sell. However, I can - and DO - promise you that that will never be the case with any of my books.
Sharing Silver was the first contemporary BDSM book I wrote. Many readers will undoubtedly find it 'too heavy'. But I hope there are some out there who will enjoy it. Who want to find out what fireplay feels like. What being auctioned off to someone feels like. What being truly submissive feels like.

And to those readers I say, keep your eyes peeled for my next books. I have many stories to tell and, while they may never make the best-seller lists, they will always be true to my own fantasies and experiences.

Now I'd like to hear your thoughts. Do you care whether an author is passionate about their chosen subject matter? Do you think you can tell? Please feel free to comment away. :)

A sore bottom sharpens the focus!

I went out on Saturday night and got a chance to play with someone I hadn't in a while (with D.'s permission, of course!).

Whilst the atmosphere could have been a tad more conducive to my headspace, (I was unceremoniously bent over the kitchen table in the middle of a roaring party with a tray of tempting cakes right under my nose), I certainly enjoyed it.

Various types of crops, canes and a flogger were applied vigorously to my backside and I typically found myself stamping my feet, growling and generally being a little brat, until my hair was yanked and a spare crop shoved between my teeth in order to shut me up.

As is so often the case when I play with this guy, it became a battle of wills - would he get tired first or would I break and use the safeword?

I think he knew I had won this round when he looked around to check whether I was okay and saw me happily munching on a doughnut. What can I say? It certainly tasted better than the crop!

Unlike those pretty, pale-bottomed girls you see in most spanking movies, I very rarely mark, even when receiving full-force strokes of implements. However, I was delighted on Sunday when I inspected myself in the mirror and saw a couple of lovely purple bruises and even a few cane tracks on my upper thighs. Even better than that, it is now Tuesday and sitting is still a tad uncomfortable.

Nothing quite like a sore bottom to sharpen your focus, is there?