Saturday Spankings - She felt the sharp sting of Lord Hardcastle’s hand

I really don't think she's learnt her lesson yet. Keep going.

Hello my shiny happy fellow Spankos! Happy weekends to you all.

It's Saturday Spankings bloghop time. Therefore, I will deliver the expected eight lines of spanky, spanky goodness. Let's carry on with parlour maid Violet's first spanking from His Lordship's Apprentice, shall we?

Following some disreputable language in the drawing room, Violet has been told by her employer, Lord Hardcastle, that she is going to be punished with a spanking. His Lordship has just fetched a cane and told Violet to bend over his desk.

Violet walked to the desk; her body felt as though it was 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 which left her bottom feeling red hot.

 And, you know what, yes I think that cane will see some action later on.

Go buy His Lordship's Apprentice now! I guarantee you'll love it.
Even if you don't like sex or spankings or canings or romantic proposals,
you can play your own "Real or Made Up?" game with my various theatre names and Victorian London celebrities.

As always, go and check out all the other awesome Saturday Spankers. (You probably already are, of course. You probably came from one of them. Hell, you probably are one of them.)

Comic Book Love

As I've mentioned before, I love a Mills & Boon romance. Or Harlequins as you Americans call them. Because apparently you want your generic romance books to have a slightly glamorous name rather than sounding like minor characters in a police procedural drama or a firm of unsuccessful Estate Agents.

I'm also a big fan of comics. Or graphic novels if you're the sort of person who gets embarrassed about that sort of thing. So, comics, then.

I talk about my masturbation habits at great length, after all.
I'm not going to get embarrassed by reading picture books on the train.

So when I found out that there was a whole slew of comic books based on Harlequin romance novels, I was absolutely delighted. No, wait, not delighted. What's that other word? Baffled. That's it.

Is there a huge market for this sort of thing? I would have thought that the crossover on the whole Mills & Boon / comics love was fairly minimal. Are they making the things just for me?

In which case you'd think that they'd try a bit harder. Firstly by making them available for a version of the Kindle that I actually have and secondly by not making them so unutterably shit.

They're awful. The illustrations mostly seem to have been slapped together by people with no discernable talent for drawing and a really short deadline.

A  Date with a Billionaire :Girl being hectored by a massive killer doll.
Possibly. Or a badly drawn middle-aged woman.

They're probably not written for me though. They clearly seem to be made by and marketed at the Japanese market. Maybe they have more of a tolerance for hastily cobbled together slapdash stuff like this. There certainly seems to be a lot of it.

You know what though? I'd hate there to be some kind of romance book trend that I'm not part of. Maybe I should start work on the comic book versions of my spanky romance books. Given the standard of the competition, I ought to be able to knock something up in half an hour or so.

Looks like your inflatable woman is deflating there, squire.

Public Wife Private Mistress:
"All we had was legally recognized sex." That old chestnut

Rayanna Jamison's "A Perfect Partnership"

I'm happy to have Rayanna Jamison on my blog promoting her Corbin's Bend book. Not that I've read the thing yet you understand. I'm hopelessly behind on my Corbin's Bend reading at the moment. I'm still on Corbin's Bend 2.6: Livia Grant's Life's Unexpected Gifts.

Rayanna's book is currently patiently waiting on my kindle. So, you know, for all I know, it could be rubbish.

I don't think it will be though. For one thing, it's Rayanna Jamison writing it. And she's a lady who can put together a well crafted erotic romance and no mistake.

And further proof - if further proof were needed - is this very hot excerpt right here:

“Come here, Lannea,” he said sitting on the bed, and patting a spot on the bedcovers beside him. 

“Why did you come here tonight?” It was imperative to him that they opened the lines of conversation at least enough to discuss the spanking he would give her, and the reasons behind it. 

“Because you told me to,” she smirked. 

Oh, now she wanted to brat. Obviously, she didn’t plan on making this easy for him. That was fine. Two could play that game. 

“I gave you a free pass downstairs, to make all the smart ass little remarks you wanted to, and you had nothing to say. Well guess what, we’re upstairs now, and every little comment you make now is going to make your ass smart a little bit more. Your free pass is gone. Are we clear?” 

“Yup,” Lannea breathed, looking a little awed. To be honest, Josiah was feeling a little awed himself. He had no idea where this stuff was coming from- just as he had had no idea where his original threat had came from. 

“Yup is not an acceptable response when I ask you a question Lannea. The proper response would be ‘Yes Sir’.” 

“Yes Sir,” Lannea mumbled, her eyes downcast. 

Josiah frowned. He didn’t like that. He hooked his finger under her chin gently lifting her face until her gaze met his own. 

“That’s my good girl, he said, careful to keep his voice soft and approving. “Now, Once again, why did you come here?” 

“Because…because you said you would spank me if I came, and…it’s been a long time. A really long time,” she admitted, leaning forward to lay her head on his shoulder.
“How long has it been, Lannea? Tell me the truth.” 

“It’s been…probably about three years, since I was in culinary school.” 

Josiah nodded gravely. “You need this pretty badly, don’t you? Probably have for a long time.” 

Her lip quivered, and he wasn’t surprised to see tears forming in the corners of her eyes as she nodded. 

“Tell me Lannea. Say it. I want to hear from you why you need me to spank that perfect little bottom of yours.”

I'm thinking if you haven't already read A Perfect Partnership by now you probably want to. Tell you what, I'll hurry up and read the thing and then we can all discuss it in the comments. Deal?

Synopsis

Josiah Jefferson left the polygamist community he grew up in to make a new home in Corbin's Bend. He wanted to find the one woman he could love and spank for the rest of his life. When a summer storm blows beautiful Lannea Paulsen into his life, he sees it as fate and never looks back.

Lannea Paulsen, better known as Laney to everyone but the stubborn Josiah, has had two goals since she moved to Corbin's Bend last year. Save enough money to buy half of The Ginger Paddle, the sushi restaurant she runs with her cousin, and find a strong dominant man who is willing and ready to take her in hand in every way possible.


When Laney puts the business in jeopardy, Josiah comes to the rescue. One thing leads to another and they find themselves in a tumultuous platonic DD relationship. Sparks fly as they both refuse to admit the depth of their true feelings. Will they settle for less than they desire or will they chase after everything they have ever wanted?


Amazon

Blushing Books

Barnes And Noble

Some Day My Prince Will Come

I went to see Into The Woods this week which despite ticking every one of my movie must-see boxes (Re-interpreted fairytale / Sung-through musical / Has Johnny Depp in it) was all kinds of terrible. A nineteen hour mishmash of incomprehensible plot and terrible songs. Clearly this is just my opinion. Other people (people whose opinions on films I have hitherto had the utmost respect for) seem to think it rather good. (Everyone seems to hate the Annie remake as well which I have been heartily recommending to all and sundry. I feel like I am getting musicals All Wrong at the moment.)

There was one song in Into The Woods I quite liked. This was 'Agony', a tongue-in-cheek number sung by Cinderella's and Rapunzel's princes. It seems quite neat that Disney is parodying the cliched image of its own fairytale princes until you remember that they've done that before, far, far better in Enchanted.

The one on the left is totally channelling H from Steps.

I don't think Disney princes really need taking down a peg or two anyway. It seems to me that they've always had a bit of a rough time of it. Being continually upstaged as they are by those attention-seeking princesses of theirs. The poor prince in Snow White doesn't even get so much as a name, let alone a character arc.

Prince Charming in Cinderella fares little better -  existing as a plot device rather than any kind of fully formed character. At least Sleeping Beauty's Prince Philip got a real name. Even if it is a name he has to share with the Duke of Edinburgh.

When Disney had its second animation wind in the 1980s, the boys started to get more of a look-in with The Little Mermaid's Prince Eric getting some actual lines and personality traits beyond 'marries the heroine', He's probably the first Disney Prince that you'd want to go for a pint with.

Looks like he may have had a few already.

And in Beauty and the Beast, our prince shares not only the billing with his female counterpart but also has an equal share in screentime. The prince is for once allowed to have a fully-formed personality. It is, however, a terrible personality. He's short-tempered, abusive and really quite stupid. Fine figure of a man though. Who wouldn't want to share a bed with an eight foot fur covered beast like him? It'd be like sleeping with a giant cat. Or a bear.

It's such a shame when he gets magicked back into a puny boy-child at the end of the movie. He loses so much girth  generally that I can't help feeling his transformation would be a massive disappointment for a lady.

Girth

And now with the most recent crop of Disney movies, we finally have some Disney princes worth getting excited about. Well, not so much in Frozen where its two male leads, Christof and Hans, are -in the case of one - repeatedly described as 'smelly' and - in the case of the other - (spoiler!) a lying bastard.

However, The Princess and the Frog's Prince Naveen is rather lovely and Tangled's Flynn Rider may be the hottest and charmingest Disney Prince* the studio have come up with yet.

Of course not all male leads are princes. And not all full-length animated films are Disney. There's a whole panoply of male cartoon love interest out there. Below is a list of my top five male animated characters based on - what exactly? Fanciability? Wait a minute, am I objectifying these poor fictional characters? You know I think I might be. I'm a monster.

Li Shang from Mulan

It's easy to be the hottest man in the movie when the rest of the male characters either look like this:

Or are a woman in disguise. Or a lizard.

"Hey! Dragon. Dra-gon, not lizard. I don't do that tongue thing."

And to be honest, Li Shang doesn't come across all that sympathetically in the early part of the movie. He's all moany about the crippling weight of his privileges and the job he got through rampant nepotism. Poor baby. But you know, I grew to like him anyway. He trains up the troops, builds up a bit of a bond with Mulan and refuses to execute her when he finds out her terrible secret. (And you know a reluctance to kill me in cold blood is one of my top ten attributes in a boyfriend.) By the end of the movie, far from being an arrogant bellend, he's a suddenly nervous suitor, so tongue-tied around the girl that he fancies that he blurts out nonsense. And that's always kind of sexy.

Aaron from The Prince of Egypt

See, you'd be spoilt for choice for characters to objectify in DreamWorks' biblical epic The Prince of Egypt what with sexy Moses and sexy Rameses and everything, But it's Moses's brother Aaron who gets to make the list. Partly it's the beard but mostly it's because the character, voiced by Jeff Goldblum, is just basically Jeff Goldblum in animated form. I could listen to Jeff Goldblum say lines like "You did not see because you did not wish to see" in Jeff Goldblum's voice all day.

I'm a godless heathen myself, but I do really like this re-telling of the story of Exodus. I like their commitment to the original biblical source material and I like the fact that they choose to end the story shortly after the parting of the red sea when things do actually seem a little upbeat for the Hebrews. Because, as I understand it, God's chosen people really did have a terrible time of it for quite a while longer.

Flynn Rider from Tangled

He got a brief mention earlier, but lovely bad-boy-turned-good Flynn Rider really does deserve a place on this list. The dashing, dishonest outlaw has some excellent one liners, a dangerously powerful smoulder and a refreshingly dissolute attitude to going out on the lash. "The party lasted an entire week, and honestly, I don't remember most of it."

The makers of Tangled clearly tried to make a movie that would appeal to boys as much as it would to girls with its strong male lead, horse-mounted chase sequences and derring-do. Presumably that was why they titled the film as they did rather than calling it Rapunzel. Unfortunately nobody told the marketing division of Disney this and when the merchandise hit the stores it was the usual Disney princess pink glittery crap sending a clear message to its male audience members: "This film is not for you. It is for people with vaginas. Go and watch that one with planes in it."

Tulio from The Road to El Dorado

Dreamworks' The Road To El Dorado didn't get the recognition it deserved which is a shame because it really is a lot of fun. Plus it has one of animation's sexiest male leads in it. (The second sexiest animated male lead, actually. The number one spot goes to the next entry on the list. This is basically a countdown, you see.)

Spanish conmen, Tulio and Miguel ("Miguel and Tulio! Tulio and Miguel!") go in search of El Dorado, the mysterious city of gold and in the space of one musical number, succeed in finding it. Well, that was easy. What's next, chaps? Ah, fighting over the pretty girl. I see, Carry on.

The pretty girl in question is Chel and I don't want to spoil anything for you but Tulio's the guy she goes for because of course he is. Who wouldn't favour Tulio the sex god over floppy-haired Kenneth Branagh? The scene in which Chel gives Tulio a massage may be the most sexually suggestive scene in any animated film aimed at children ever. And you know me, I pretty much keep a spreadsheet of that sort of thing.

Dean from The Iron Giant

So who's number one in my list of imaginary cartoon boyfriends? Why it's Dean, conceptual artist, Beatnik and understated day-saver from Brad Bird's awesome adaptation of Ted Hughes' book The Iron Man. (They changed the name to the Iron Giant for the movie because apparently there's some other dude called Iron Man and they thought people might get confused.)

Set in the 1950s, the movie reflects the Cold War paranoia of the time, when children were encouraged to 'duck and cover' as a way of avoiding any pesky nuclear bomb blasts.

Nine year old loner, Hogarth, befriends fellow loner, cool sexy Dean who helps him hide his giant killer robot because that's just the kind of cool guy Dean is.  Plus he ends up with Hogarth's mum and I am always biased towards fictional characters who date single mums. Like it gives us non-fictional single mums hope. One day I too will bag my own 1950s Beatnik sculptor, friend to squirrels, kooks and giant killer robots everywhere.

So there you go, that's my possibly-quite-sexist-if-you-think-about-it-so-probably-best-not-to-think-about-it list of the hottest guys in animated movies. I've kept the list to Disney and Disneyish-type American movies aimed at children. There is a whole world of animation from other countries, particularly Japan, which I haven't even attempted to cover because, well you gotta have rules man. Otherwise it's just anarchy.

So let me know what animated character you fancy most? Not least just to reassure me that I'm not the only person over 9 who thinks about these things. My daughter fancied college-age Andy in Toy Story 3 so, you know, I'm definitely not the only weirdo out there. Let me know your choice of fairytale prince in the comments below. As long it isn't either of the princes from Into the Woods, of course. Because if it is, I shall have to mock you.

* Or you know, prince-to-be. If Cinderella can count as a princess, Rider can be a prince, I reckon.

Saturday Spankings - “I will take the spanking, my Lord.”

You two again? It's like you literally never stop doing that.

Happy weekends everyone! Let's carry on where we left off last week shall we? Violet the scullery maid is about to be punished by her employer, Lord Hardcastle. He's offered her the choice of either losing a day's wages or submitting to a spanking. I think we all know how that's going to pan out.

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. She knew she didn’t have a choice. She could not afford to lose a day’s wages; her family were 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.

Available at all good (and some slightly evil) bookshops

And while we're talking about His Lordship's Apprentice, there was a very nice review of it on Charlie J Forrest's blog this week. I think it was nice. It's possible he's taking the piss. Either way, I'm happy. I will take all the reviews I can get. "The kind of book I could see myself recommending to my gran." probably deserves to be a book jacket quote. You know, if my books had jackets.

As always, check out the rest of the Satspankers. They're all marvellous. Almost certainly.

Saturday Spankings - "You will be punished"

New year. Not so new spanking.

Happy Saturday! I haven't been part of the SatSpanks gang for the last couple of weeks. Because of, um, not sure why really. Let's blame Christmas.

But now I'm back and feeling suitably spanky (and Saturday-y). I don't have a book I'm particularly trying to pimp at the moment (I assume you've all bought East End Girl by now) so let's go right back to the very beginning. The very first mention of spanking in my very first book, His Lordship's Apprentice.

Violet the scullery maid inadvertently came out with a few choice expletives when, unbeknownst to her, her boss, Lord Hardcastle and several of his friends were in the same room. She is about to pay the penalty.

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.”

Spankings! Romance! Victorian-style showbiz! More spankings!

Have wonderful, wonderful weekends, everyone. Remember to check out the rest of the SatSpanks posts on the list below.

Good Vibrations

A while back, someone posted the following stats on Facebook showing how frequently people masturbate, broken down by age and sex.

Not very often at all, it turns out. Although in the absence of any other data* it's hard to draw any definite conclusions about this. Maybe most people don't wank much, Or maybe they do and then they get embarrassed and don't admit to it in surveys. Maybe the reason they don't wank much is because they're all busy having kinky animalistic sex and threeways and stuff and they simply don't have the time for a bit of self-pleasuring.

What it did reveal is that I am very much above average in this regard, Coming (ha!) in at the top 1.5 percentile for my age and sex. This really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone given the nature of my usual reading (and writing) matter.

And the thing is, I always thought I was rather good at it. "A considerate and imaginative lover of me" as Caitlin Moran put it in How to be a Woman. Except that for a brief time recently, I wasn't the only person involved in my orgasms and it did rather make me realise that I have been rather selling myself short in the orgasm department. I had lost sight of quite how literally breath-taking, overpowering and oddly twitchy achieving climax could actually be.

Well, I'm back to being the sole caretaker of my sexual pleasure again, and to be honest, I've had to have a bit of a word with myself. "Look here, Etta," I said. "The standard of orgasms round these parts isn't what it could be. There's definitely some room for improvement." Because sometimes you have to be a bit stern about these things.

I own one vibrator, a neon pink rampant rabbit which I bought about ten years ago at an Ann Summers party so the first step in Operation Better Orgasms was to get that out of retirement. Hmm. I can see why the thing got retired almost straightaway, I really didn't get much out of it at all.

It's a bit weird. First of all, is it trying to look like a penis or isn't it?

Aside from the colour, they've clearly tried to make the main shaft look as penis-y as possible what with all the loving attention to detail on the glans and the veins and everything. But if that's the case, what on earth were they thinking with this bit?

I'm all for a bit of clitoral stimulation but was making it look like some kind of massive alien penis parasite really the best design decision? Is it aimed at people with an HR Giger fetish?

The whole "Is it supposed to be like a penis or isn't it?" question comes up again when you consider the thing's settings. Which are 'vibrate' and 'stir'. Neither of which really emulate the behaviour of any penises I've made the acquaintance of.

Not that it needs to be penis-y of course. I am aware that sex toys come in all manner of shapes and sizes. And it really shouldn't matter what the thing looks like as long as it gets the job done. But the thing is, it kind of didn't. The clitoral alien parasite bit was uncomfortably spiky, the 'stir' setting did nothing for me and does anyone else find that all that vibration can get a bit numbing?

Now, it's entirely possible that I was doing it all wrong. I have no idea what I'm doing here, apparently. It is also entirely possible that vibrator technology has moved on apace in the last decade or so. In which case, I probably need to do is invest in a new bit of kit, something a bit more 2015 and in tune with my self-pleasuring needs,

How on earth does one choose a vibrator? The Voluptasse website is showing me a intimidatingly large range of the things. Do I need something knobbly? Or waterproof? Or conical and kind of baffling? It's not like these things can be tried out beforehand. And I don't have the budget to just buy one of each to see which one I like best.

Although that would make for a pretty awesome weekend.

So this is where you come in, my lovely readers. Shower me with your sex toy recommendations. (Was 'shower me' a poor choice of phrase there, do you think? Do we feel a bit grubby now?) I want to benefit from your collective self-pleasuring experience. Please leave your comments below or email me if you feel a bit weird discussing your wanking habits in public.

Because I know there are bigger, better orgasms to be had out there and, quite frankly, I intend to have them.



* Well, there's plenty of other data. It's a whole sex survey. What I mean really is "in the absence of any other data that I can be arsed to go and check"