Saturday 29 March 2014

Saturday Spankings - Spanking the Scullery Maid

Yay! It's the weekend! The sun in shining, the birds are chirping, the clocks go forward this weekend* - Spring most definitely has sprung.

And, of course, it's time for another Saturday Spankings excerpt.



Following directly on from last week, Violet the scullery maid is about to undergo a spanking from her employer, Lord Hardcastle after being caught in incriminating circumstances in the kitchen. As he doesn't seem at all angry when he tells Violet to go over his lap, she dares to hope that his good mood will result in a less severe punishment. That might be incredibly wishful thinking on her part...

His Lordship might not be angry but he certainly wasn’t going to be gentle on Violet’s poor backside.  
Her dress and petticoats gave her bottom some protection but every swat of his Lordship’s hand sent a new wave of pain.  
She managed not to kick or scream but she couldn’t prevent the tears streaming down her face or the sobs of pain that she tried to choke back. As she lay across his thighs, she felt his hard hand smack her again and again across every inch of her buttocks.  
He did not stop after a couple of swats as Violet had hoped he might. Rather he spanked her again and again until her beleaguered bottom felt as though it were on fire.

Hope you enjoyed it. If you haven't bought His Lordship's Apprentice yet, please do! It's available from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Barnes & Noble and Blushing Books.

If you have bought it, please let me know and tell me what you thought.

Remember to check out all the other great spanking excerpts on the Saturday Spankings blog list.


*If you're in the UK, that is. If you're American, you did it a couple of weeks ago. As anyone who works in an international environment will know, this lag is a total pain in the arse but there's no one way to reconcile it short of the USA changing its date to that of the UK's (unlikely) or us changing ours to second Sunday of March which would be weird and unnatural and wrong**. What kind of madness would follow? Moving to Mother's Day*** to May, maybe?

** I don't really think this. If I ruled the world (and I think I should), I'd abolish daylight-saving time altogether.

*** Oh yeah, it's Mother's Day in the UK this weekend, too.

Friday 28 March 2014

'Safe and Tame' Fifty Shades Movie

Yesterday, I speculated that next year's Fifty Shades of Grey movie will concentrate less on sex and more on plot.

Seems like I may have been bang on the money. If by plot you mean "making moon-eyes at each other, in between helicopter rides and job interviews". Which sounds like a fair synopsis of the first book, to be fair.


The Guardian ran a story on Wednesday saying that test audiences found the movie 'surprisingly tame'. (Mind you, the article also referred to Anastasia as a "willing, well-remunerated sex-slave" which would suggest that the writer hasn't actually read any of the books himself.)


It's too early to know whether any spanking will make it into the film. There's surprisingly little of it in mainstream movies. (Well, surprising to me but my perspective may be a little skewed.) I doubt anyone's shocked that Universal plan to play it safe. We'll have to wait until Valentines Day next year to see if any of the movie's intended audience are happy with the result.





Thursday 27 March 2014

Fifty Shades Darker: The Infographic

As a teeny, tiny minnow in the Erotic Romance pond, I am of course very well aware of E L James whose "Fifty Shades of Grey"  trilogy spans the metaphoric pond like a big fishy Colossus.

Not too many authors in our genre get their works read out by Charles Dance or feature in major UK supermarket's Christmas ads.

It was the perfect Christmas. The kids played with their toys while Gran read about butt plugs and anal beads.

I'm not going to rubbish E L James's work. There  are far too many people doing that already. I am a bit baffled as to why it's being made into a movie, though.

It seems to me that the reasons why the books were so popular was because they were books. I'm clearly not the only person who likes my smut to be directly fed into my brain via the printed page.

Changing the books to films seems to be missing the point entirely. It's like remaking The Full Monty with female strippers or replacing the puppets in Avenue Q with human actors.

Although, obviously I appreciate that films with sex in them are jolly popular. What with arty films like Lars Von Triers Nymphomaniac at one end and at the other, films which contain nothing but sex. Porn films are very popular, I'm given to understand. They built a whole industry on it.

It's possible that Fifty Shades of Grey: The Motion Picture will work by concentrating less on the sex and more on the plot.This would be a terrible idea because while E L James is pretty good at writing sex scenes, her plots are rubbish.

It wasn't even necessary to have much a plot, really. Two people meet, fall in love, overcome emotional difficulties together. Boom. Sorted.

Except that for some reason, James felt it necessary to pepper the books with fight scenes, car chases, escaped mental patients and kidnapping attempts. This is especially true in the second book of the series, Fifty Shades Darker. James seems seems to think that every single scene should take place immediately after the last one so they all happen at an alarming breakneck speed. It's not quite '24' but early morning fleeing from gun-toting madwomen are sort of forgotten by mid-afternoon because three other unlikely plot points have occurred since then.

I have, for reasons of science, I have cobbled together a timeline to illustrate my point.

As you can see, it all starts off pretty quietly as Anastasia mopes about at the beginning of the book following her break-up with Christian Grey at the end of the last one. But by Friday our happy pair are back together and everything becomes a big ol' mishmash of sex, violence and vulgar displays of wealth.

I present to you, Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fifty Shades Darker Infographic. Enjoy.



(Click on the image to see it in all it's mad technicolour glory)

Saturday 22 March 2014

Saturday Spankings - Across his Lordship's lap.


I enjoyed #SatSpanks so much last week, I figured I'd come back and do it all again.

Thank you so much for all your lovely comments and responses last week. Especially since I had annoying tool of the devil - Captcha - activated without realising it which meant you had to go to extra effort to do so. I appreciate you all squinting at the little boxes, thinking "Is that a B or a 3? Wait, is it a stray cat hair on my monitor?"

I dearly hope that I have got it sorted this week. I work in IT, you know. It shouldn't be beyond me.



The below snippet is from my book, His Lordship's Apprentice and follows on directly from last week's. Having been caught in somewhat incriminating circumstances by her employer, Violet the scullery maid is about to pay the price.

Violet’s heart was racing. 
Having been at the receiving end of Lord Hardcastle’s discipline once before, she really didn’t want to be subjected to it again quite so soon. 
There was no cane this time which was a blessing. However, lying across his Lordship’s lap felt like a far more intimate proposition than bending over his desk as she had last time.

Still, there was no helping it, thought Violet and she lay across Lord Hardcastle’s lap as directed. He seems in a good humour, she thought to herself. Perhaps the spanking would not be that hard. 
She realised the error of that supposition at the first swat.
Thanks for stopping by. It's been lovely. We must do this again sometime.

And remember to check out the other blogs on the list!

Wednesday 19 March 2014

Spanking Romance Review - The Bossman

I put on my Reviewer Hat earlier this week (it's fabulous by the way - all glitter and ostrich feathers) and wrote a review of Renee Rose's amazing new book "The Bossman" for Spanking Romance Review.

From my review...
"The relationship between the two heroes is cute and their dialogue is completely natural and frequently fun. It is easy to understand why these two people would be attracted to one another – despite Sophie’s entirely understandable reservations."

Please go check out the whole thing!

Lovely fella. Oddly shiny tie, though.


Sunday 16 March 2014

Thanks, Google!

You know how writing can sometimes lead you to make the odd Google search like "Gay pubs in Victorian London"? And sometimes Google doesn't return anything particularly useful but points you to an Armstrong and Miller comedy sketch which cheers you up immensely instead?

Here's that sketch. It is no way relevant to anything and I'm fairly certain watching it doesn't constitute productive research.


Talking of searches, I realised the other day the thesaurus I use records everything I search for. My searches in the last five months (since I began writing spanking romance) have apparently included the following:

anus, britches, cleft, cunt, drawers, fuck, fucked, make love, naughty, orgasmic, panties, pants, pudenda, pussy, screwed, slap, slit, vagina, whore

I swear my computer must think I'm twelve.

Saturday 15 March 2014

Saturday Spanks!

Well, this is all very exciting. My first ever participation in the Saturday Spanking bloghop.


I am sure you are all familiar with what's involved. That's probably why you're here in the first place (hello!) but just in case anyone isn't in the know, SatSpanks is a weekly opportunity for spanking authors to post 8 lines from one of their books and for spanking readers to hop about the place reading all those lovely snippets.

My extract is from my book His Lordship's Apprentice (available from all good retailers, folks!).

Violet Plover, a scullery maid has been caught by her employer, Lord Hardcastle stealing wine from the kitchen. Her attempt to avoid being caught by hiding in the tiny wine cupboard didn't work as well as she hoped.

Lord Hardcastle peered inside the wine cupboard. “How on earth did you manage to fit in there?” he asked. “I appreciate that there isn’t much of you but even so... that cupboard’s tiny, I can barely fit my foot in there.” 
Violet shrugged slightly, “I’ve always been good at fitting into small spaces - I am unbeatable at Hide and Seek.” 
Lord Hardcastle laughed, “I bet you are.” 
“Anyway” he continued with the air of a man who has business to attend to, “Let’s get this over with.” He seated himself on a nearby kitchen chair and patted his lap. 
“My Lord?” 
“Oh come now, Violet, you don’t think you are going to get away without being punished for this, do you? I have caught you red-handed and now intend to see to it that your bottom ends up the same colour.”

Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and remember to check out all the Saturday Spanking links in the linky list below.

Tuesday 11 March 2014

Give me an 'S'!

I recently read 'Humbled' by Renee Rose which is great spanking romance set during the French Revolution.

I am going to talk in depth about some of my favourite spanking stories in some forthcoming posts.

This post isn't a review, though. This is just me picking up on something that I found a bit weird in 'Humbled' which was the main characters making reference to the Marquis de Sade in a "Hey you think his stuff's sexy? We should totally try that!" kind of way


This is also reflected in one of the reviews on Blushing Books where the reviewer mentions it: "Marquis de Sade, of whom I am a HUGE fan. When you finish this one, get some of his tales and have some Revolutionary French fun too!"

Clearly I have been reading all the wrong kinds of Marquis de Sade books. The stuff of his I've read seems to be less about sexy spankings and more about women being repeatedly punched in the face and then set upon by dogs.

I gave up on The 120 Days of Sodom fairly early on. I think it was the description of the President de Curval as having 
"an immense orifice whose enormous diameter, odour and colour bore a closer resemblance to the depths of a well-freighted privy than to an asshole"
that convinced me pretty quickly that the book was not for me.

I did manage to read 'Justine' which effectively parodies the idea of a young, naive innocent being preyed upon corrupt people by ramping it up to eleven on the crazy scale. Justine keeps trying to get rescued by people she thinks will help her. And without fail, every damn one of them is a violent, incest-committing, murderous psychopath. What are the chances? She escapes, comes across a seemingly nice person who offers to assist and - wouldn't you just know it - he turns out to be all about raping and murdering everyone as well. And then talking about it at length. Every one of these villains spends about ten pages droning on to Justine how normal laws don't apply to them because they're part of a higher order and above the judgement of God or something.Their self-absorption is even more offensive
than the other stuff.

Not only that, but when there IS a chance to mention some sex, de Sade just sort of infuriatingly skips over it. At one point Justine is hiding in some bushes following one of her routine escapes from certain death when she spies Count Bressac and his footman. "Come dear," says Count Bressac to his servant. "My detestable aunt will not hinder us now in our sweet pleasures!"


"Justine was very curious and did not avoid seeing their actions; and right before her eyes, she was witness to a scene which she found very singular, and could not make out."


Seriously, de Sade, that's your gay sex scene? It's rubbish.

But, hey, who wants to waste time on attractive young men making out with one another when there's torture and attempted murder to be cracking on with?

I don't doubt that the Marquis de Sade has been hugely influential. He put the 'S' in BDSM, after all. But I think he may be misrepresented. His characters are less about kinky domination and submissiveness and more about total frothing batshit insanity. 


Which is fine, obviously, if you're into that sort of thing.

Sunday 9 March 2014

His Lordship's Apprentice - Caned in the Study

Below is an extract from my book, "His Lordship's Apprentice" which is available from all these lovely places:

Blushing Books
Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk
Barnes & Noble

Why not buy it from all four and quadruple your enjoyment? (Disclaimer: There's a possibility this will not actually quadruple your pleasure. Only mine. Perhaps buy it once and then read it four times instead.)

The story is set in Victorian London and following an unfortunate incident in the dining room, scullery maid Violet has been summoned to the study of her boss, Lord Hardcastle.


Lord Hardcastle rose from behind his desk as Dawkins and Violet entered the room.

"Thank you, Dawkins. That will be all."

If Dawkins was ruffled by this instruction, he didn't show it. It was, of course, a butler's job to remain unruffled.

"Very well, my Lord." Dawkins bowed slightly and exited the room, leaving Violet alone with Lord Hardcastle.

Lord Hardcastle turned to Violet. "Very well," he said. "To business. Your name's Violet Plover, is that correct? I understand that you have been in my service for two months."

"Yes, my Lord," Violet replied. Her nervousness rendered her throat so dry that she could barely speak at all. Was that a sufficient response? Should she provide more information when addressing a lord or speak as little as possible? She honestly had no idea. Much as she had been warned that Lord Hardcastle was highly irregular compared to other men of his station, she hadn't imagined that a scullery maid such as herself would have to interact with his Lordship face to face. Certainly not this soon. Ah well, it hardly mattered now. She fully expected to be fired without a reference and doubted she would need to interact with the nobility again.

"Well, Violet," continued Lord Hardcastle, oblivious to Violet's internal panic. "Firstly, I want to thank you for the swift way you dealt with my escaped dove. I should not have left her on the table like that and it was understandable that you disturbed her. You dealt with the recapture very professionally. I was impressed. She is a trained bird and very valuable. I should have hated to see her injured or upset. Thank you."

Violet stared at Lord Hardcastle in shock. This was not what she had anticipated.

"However," Lord Hardcastle continued. "There are standards of behaviour – and of course, language – we uphold to in this house. I reserve the right to entertain visitors in my own home without them being subjected to the kind of words that would shock a sailor."

Violet's heart sunk once more. "I am very sorry, my Lord," she mumbled.

"I am sure you are," responded Lord Hardcastle. "I am also sure you are a valuable member of staff here. I have no desire to terminate your employment over this incident. However, you will be punished."

"Yes, my Lord."

"I'll offer you the choice, Violet. Either you can forfeit a day's wages or submit to a spanking."

Violet's head was a confusion of different emotions. While she was elated that she still had a job, she was truly terrified at the prospect of being physically punished by Lord Hardcastle, but what choice did she have? She could not afford to lose a day's wages; her family was relying on her.

 "I will take the spanking, my Lord."

"Very well," Lord Hardcastle replied. He walked to the corner of the room and to Violet's wide–eyed horror, removed a long thin cane from the umbrella stand.

"Bend over the desk," he instructed.

Violet walked to the desk; her body felt as though it were full of lead. She was shaking so much that her teeth were chattering. She leant over the wide desk as instructed.

"Hold on to the far edge," said Lord Hardcastle.

She gripped the edge of the desk and turned her face to the side. Lord Hardcastle laid the cane on the desk and stood behind her. Violet hardly had time to wonder why he had put the cane down before she felt the sharp sting of Lord Hardcastle's hand as it struck her buttocks. The covering of her skirt and petticoat offered her some protection, but she could still feel the force of the blow that left her bottom feeling red–hot.

Lord Hardcastle then continued with a volley of swats to her rear, covering every square inch of her bottom so that her backside smarted from the very top to the crease at the bottom where her buttocks met her thighs. Violet had managed not to scream or move from her position across his desk. Tears were running freely down her face as her bottom throbbed in pain.


She realised his Lordship had stopped spanking and thought for one glorious moment that the punishment might be over. Then out of the corner of her eye, she saw him lean across and pick up the cane.

"You are doing very well, Violet," said Lord Hardcastle. "Four strokes of the cane and then it will be over."

Four strokes? How bad can it be?

The first cut of the cane answered that question. It whistled through the air and landed at the highest part of Violet's buttocks, hitting both cheeks with an almost unbearable force.  It took all of Violet's strength not to leap from the desk and hop around the study in agony.  She would not, she vowed to herself. His Lordship had offered her the chance to redeem herself and she was determined not to jeopardise it. She steeled herself for the next stroke of the cane, which came down quickly an inch below the first. Her bottom throbbed so much that it felt like it had its own pulse. The pain was excruciating. The third stroke hit just below the second one. Violet sobbed into Lord Hardcastle's desk as she continued to grip it tightly. Lord Hardcastle took a step back in order to administer the last stroke of the cane. She heard the cane whistle through the air for the fourth time and then it hit the delicate part of her buttocks just above her legs. Every stroke of the cane had made its mark on her backside through the fabric of her maid's uniform. Violet felt them just as keenly as if they had been applied directly to the skin itself.

"You took your punishment well," said Lord Hardcastle. "Well done. You may get up now." He walked across the room and rang a small bell attached to the wall. Violet hadn't moved from her position across the desk. Her tears were still flowing freely and the pain in her throbbing buttocks made her disinclined to move at all. "Violet, I have called Dawkins to come and collect you and take you back downstairs. I suggest that you get up now as you may not want him to see you in your current position."

Violet stood as directed and once again tried to wipe her tears with the heel of her hand. Lord Hardcastle passed her his handkerchief.

When Dawkins arrived, Lord Hardcastle spoke to him directly. "Violet and I have spoken. Rest assured the matter is now resolved. No further admonishments are required regarding the matter."

"Of course, my Lord," replied Dawkins.

"I believe you told me that Violet is currently a scullery rather than upstairs maid, and that she wouldn't normally be clearing up the dining room?"

"That is correct, sir," replied Dawkins. "Apologies, there were... extenuating circumstances."

"Not at all, not at all." Lord Hardcastle waved away Dawkins' apology. "I think Violet is eminently well suited to upstairs work. Please ensure that she is promoted to parlour maid immediately and that this is reflected in her weekly wage packet."

"Very good, my Lord."

Violet followed Dawkins downstairs, her mind reeling.

On the one hand, she had just received the most brutal correction of her life at the hands of Lord Hardcastle. The pain was like nothing she'd ever experienced before. Just walking down the corridor caused her petticoats to rub against her bruised bottom in a way that was almost unbearable. On the other hand however, Lord Hardcastle had made it clear that he did not retain any ill will; he had thanked her for recapturing his dove and most astounding of all, he had promoted her to parlour maid and ensured that she would get an increase in her salary to boot.
Despite the pain in her bottom, despite the humiliation of being bent over Lord Hardcastle's desk and spanked and caned like a naughty schoolchild, Violet's main feelings at that moment were of gratitude and relief.

Saturday 8 March 2014

Spanking for Laughs

Yesterday I mentioned that I have a love for the sort of spanking cartoons that used to appear in 'racy' humour magazines in the 1950s and 60s. So today I thought I would share a few of my favourites with you.

These have all been taken from The Chicago Spanking Review which takes a pretty obsessive approach to collecting and cataloging such things. (That's in no way a criticism.)

I'm not saying these are the most hilarious things ever. I doubt anyone ever rolled on the floor wiping the tears from their eyes at a caption from one of these things. They are silly and sweet and kind of sexy if you're into that kind of thing. Which clearly I am.





Friday 7 March 2014

Sex with Buffy

The world's first motion picture,  L'Arrivée d'un Train à la Ciotat  was first shown to cinema audiences in 1895. It was quickly followed a year later by the world's first porn film. Because basically, mankind looks at a shiny new invention and thinks, how can we make it more about sex? 

I didn't get online until the late 1990s (due to being broke rather than any reluctance to embrace new technologies) and the speed at which I embraced the technological wonder of the world wide web as a medium for smut was equally as rapid.


'Spanking' wasn't the first thing I typed into whatever crazy old worlde non-Google search engine I was using back then, It was, actually, "Hattytown". This was a TV show which, whenever I mentioned it, brought no recognition from whoever I was speaking to. I was beginning to think I'd dreamed it. The Internet backed me up and secured its place in my heart as a nostalgia peddler.



'Spanking' probably wasn't the second thing either but it was definitely on the short list.

And once, I did start looking, it was clear that the Internet was a truly marvellous invention indeed. One of the first images I remember finding was this Van Heusen's shirt ad.


Oh, yes. I thought. There are riches to be found here. Because one one person's outdated 1950's clothing ad is another person's porn.


I've never liked actual porn to be honest. Once there are real people involved, I think embarrassment outweighs any titillation. If it's going to be visual then drawings can be nice - I have a particular fondness for all those 1950s spanking cartoons - but ideally I want my porn to come via the written word.


Discovering the world of Fan Fiction was a breakthrough. Finding out that there were whole swathes of people who would dedicate time to writing scenarios in which other people's fictional characters shagged - and occasionally spanked - one another was a revelation. Although God knows, how many hours I spent reading the stuff.


I was a huge Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan so pretty much all the fan fiction I read was Buffy-related. It varied hugely of course. A lot of it was pretty much unreadable. Some of it was fantastic though.

When I started thinking about Buffy fanfic, the first name which sprang to mind was Nautibitz. Terrible pen name but great writer. I have no idea what she is doing with her time now but I hope she is still writing in some other capacity and under a less daft-sounding name. Unless, of course, Nautibitz actually was her real name, in which case I take back everything I said.


I was delighted to find that all her stuff is neatly archived and still available for anyone who wants to check it out - www.nautibitz.com. It probably helps if you're a Buffy fan. Not least, because it helps you appreciate just how spot on she gets the voices of all the characters. All her stuff was about Spike and Buffy getting together. The two characters eventually DID get together in the show in Season 6 but it was rubbish, quite frankly. They should have got Nautibitz to write those episodes. She'd have nailed it perfectly.


Here's an extract from my favourite story In Heat:

She sat up, the dream before her in all its Technicolor detail. A sex dream.
A dream of sex.
Starring her ...and Spike.
She felt her inner muscles clench and release.
"Oh," she said shakily, riding out the last exquisite wave of her very first multiple orgasm.
Suddenly, the door to her room flew open. Spike, fully dressed, stood there panting. "What's wrong?"
She stared at him aghast, paralyzed with... embarrassment? Or was it lust? Her voice cracked a hoarse "Huh?"
He looked around the room, bewildered. "You yelled my name not two seconds ago. Sounded panicked. I was downstairs, and..." He focused on her moonlit form and his body language loosened. "You're naked."
She looked down at her bare breasts and jerked the sheet up. Her mind tried to work frantically. "I had a dream."
He moved towards her, sensing something... interesting. "What kind of dream, exactly?"
"No kind!" she cried. "No kind of dream. A bad, bad--"
He came closer.
"Just-- Don't..." She held up her hand, Supremes-style. "Go!"
His nostrils flared. There was a fascinating blend of fluids on that hand. "Go? ...Or don't go?"
Buffy took a deep breath, gathering her wits and her resolve. "Go. Please go."
The room was heavy with her arousal. The last thing he wanted to do was leave. "You sure?"
"Spike!" Her voice cracked again.
He chuckled softly. "Alright, Slayer. But you better tell me all about this dream in the morning."
Lifting a brow, he added, "Smells like fun." 

Wednesday 5 March 2014

Hello!

Well, hello there. Come in. Make yourself comfortable. Cup of tea? Maybe a mini-twix? (Well I say, 'twix' but they're actually Sainsbury's own pretend twixes because I think the biscuit tastes nicer.)

As of last weekend, I became a published author of spanking fiction. My first book, His Lordship's Apprentice was published by Blushing Books.



You'd think my life would have been a whirlwind of excitement, glamour and mild sexual fetishism since then but, nah, not so much. Largely, because I haven't actually told anyone I've written it. 

I'm not ashamed of it - I'm rather fond of it in fact. But I think the half dozen or so opportunities I find for the protagonist to spank the heroine's bottom rather gives away more about my own sexual fantasies than I want my real-life friends and family to know about. And there's sex in it. Penises* and everything. (Although I have been advised by my publishers to try to make it hotter next time. "Don't be afraid to be a little less restrained; remember, you are writing for an erotica market and it's OK to be a little more descriptive, or frank with your language." they said.)

So I'm quietly checking my Amazon rankings (without the slightest clue what they mean with regard to actual book sales) and writing the next spanking novel which I am tentatively calling "Like the Lightning" because it's both a quote from Romeo & Juliet and a cunning reference to the hero's work with electricity.  Given that I've been told to be less restrained in my sex scenes, expect even more penises next time. Well the same number of penises** but described in greater detail and more enthusiastically employed.

Please go read the first chapter of my book on Blushing Books website. (You get slightly more of it there than if you get a free Kindle sample from Amazon. That one cuts you off before the first spanking.) And then go buy it for actual cash money if you like. If you're a fan of short, sweet romantic fiction set in late Victorian London with a load of spankings and numerous references to magic tricks and London landmarks then it's incredibly fortunate you stopped by. Bit of a lucky coincidence really.

* Well, one penis.
** Still one penis.