Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica

In case you haven't caught any of the marketing blitz, Rachel Kramer Bussel has recently published a collection of short spanking stories for spankos and written by spankos. Titled Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica, it offers a wide diversity of short stories that describe the breadth of the adult spanking fetish.

Spanked: Red-Cheeked Erotica is available in the fine bookstores that carry erotica and titles from Cleis Press, as well as through Amazon - both the print version and the Kindle version are available. (Thank you, Cleis Press, for the Kindle version!) For more about the book, its stories and the authors, visit Rachel Kramer Bussel's blog and follow along on its virtual book tour. Tomorrow the tour stops at All Things Spanking, with Viviane's Sex Carnival to follow.

As I expected from a survey of spanking stories, not all of them are to my taste. I'm jealous of people who find all good porn to be sexy. I wish I could join those noble ranks, but my body just can't be that interested, even if my mind is.

Of course, many of them fit both body and mind perfectly, and all of them are articulate examples of the common themes we see in spanking fantasies. I suppose I should mention a few. Betty Crocker Gone Bad by Alison Tyler is a domestic discipline fantasy come to life. Game, Set, Match by Sage Vivant expresses the lust of femdom relationships to near perfection. Page by Page by Laura Bacchi breathes with the dreams and fears of those who perform as a top or bottom for a fee. Pre-Party by Thomas S. Roche might represent how all of us who aspire to sophistication might prepare for a fetish ball and Daddy's Girl by Teresa Noelle Roberts brings consensual age play to life.

Then there is Pink Cheeks by Fiona Locke.

Some kinksters actually met on the legendary newsgroups of old. (I suppose they still do!) In dark University computer labs, we'd download posts into our Unix-based Pine e-mail programs. There were anonymous re-mailers to protect our identities from stodgy IT departments and physics professors. In 1995, I mourned the day that the Finnish server anon.penet.fi was driven into the ground by an abuser of its service and the Church of Scientology. Other secretive fetishists had home computers where dial-up access to AOL was provided at an hourly rate, and the purists counted the seconds it took for software to download posts before the user could disconnect and start reading. I had to become one of these thrifty misers after the death of penet.fi. I stayed up studying until my roommate was asleep and furtively downloaded, read, commented and uploaded, all the while praying she didn't wake up to see what I was doing at the computer after midnight.

The Internet was amazing. At 18, somewhat geeky and in love with computers, math and college, I discovered alt.sex.stories and read voraciously. Everything - the good, the bad, the ugly, the disturbing, the fanciful, the frank and the enlightening. Curiosity and a growing recognition of the filth that permeated that group led me to alt.sex.bondage. It was there that I discovered that kink wasn't just a part of the imagination - that people really did this! And by early 1994 I had found and was reading alt.sex.spanking. I stayed with the group through its migration to soc.sexuality.spanking a few years later.

I first posted (with penet.fi) in December of 1994, then more regularly through 1995. At the same time, a continent away, my future husband was also posting in that newsgroup. Curiously, we didn't connect then - I mistook a friendship for a serious relationship and he had incorrectly concluded I was significantly older than he. (Actually, he's older than I am by 28 days.) It took us until December of 1997 for an awareness of the other's existence to turn into an interest in the other's existence.

Fourteen years later I still occasionally scan the group through Google. Once in awhile, I find posters there who remind me of my own journey of self-discovery. I see people I know and recognize - some of them are even programmed into my cell phone. Indeed, I'm closer to the alums of that group than I am to my high school graduating classmates.

All in all, I have fond memories from the newsgroups - flirtations, education, community awareness, romance.

Locke seems intimately aware of the possibilities in her story. Here follows an excerpt, provided with permission.

"Victorian schoolmaster," I say in an awed whisper.

Charles gives me the evil grin he signs all his posts with. It's far more effective in person. "Pink Cheeks," he replies.

I giggle, hearing my moniker aloud for the first time.

"This is no laughing matter, young lady," he says sternly.

My reply is automatic. "No, sir." It's how I've addressed him in writing numerous times. But actually saying it to him...I'm trembling with fear, anticipation, ecstasy, and a thousand other things there are no emoticons to express.

"You know what you need."

I'm not sure if it's a question or a statement, but I know how I'm meant to respond in any case. "Yes, sir," I whisper.

"Good girl."

A palpable silence follows. Enough time for all to become clear. 'Victorian Schoolmaster' began posting to the group a few weeks after I did. So he must have known all along. That was months ago. I quiver at the thought. How many hundreds of posts have I made in that time? How many fantasies have I described in explicit detail? Worst of all--how many of his stories have I gushed over, declaring them my favorite masturbation aids?

I look up to see Charles peering intently at me, reading my thoughts.

"Oh, yes, my dear," he says with deep satisfaction. "I know all about your kinky little mind. I know about your hot buttons and trigger words. And I intend to make full use of that knowledge." He pauses before adding, "You've earned yourself a sound spanking, young lady, and you're about to learn what a well-smacked bottom feels like. You naughty, naughty little girl."

The words nail me one by one. He's a fantasy come to life before my eyes. I'd even been tempted to write about him on the newsgroup--a fantasy about my handsome coworker with the vivid blue eyes--but something held me back. Now I'm immensely relieved about that.

With slow deliberation he indicates the chair and I chew my lip. I know what he wants and I know better than to pretend I don't. Obediently, I place the chair in the center of the room and return to stand in front of Charles, my head down.

"Now then, little miss," he says, eyeing me sternly, just like the Victorian schoolmaster he plays so well online. "I think you know what comes next."

I do. As if in a dream, he seats himself in the austere chair, his trousers taut over firm muscular thighs. I stare at his lap, dizzy....

"Naughty little girls," Charles says, "who read naughty little stories deserve to have their naughty little bottoms smacked."

I shudder at the words, blood rushing loudly in my ears as my heart hammers in my chest.

He caresses my bottom and I writhe over his knees, imagining his approval as he sees the panties I've described on the newsgroup. The ones that make me feel like a schoolgirl again. Without a word, he slips his fingers into the waistband of my white cotton knickers, pulling them down to expose me. I flush with embarrassment, my face burning.

Now his palm rests on my bare skin. The stifling room drops twenty degrees as the erotic dread consumes me. Helpless, I shiver and lie trembling across his thighs. For a moment--just a moment--I want to leap up and run. Call it off, scurry away, and hide forever. But I know I won't. I can't.

"Discipline, Emma," my stern schoolmaster says, "is something you clearly need. And I intend to teach you a firm lesson. You've had this punishment coming for a long time."

Yes. Please.