Did ya miss me?

I haven’t blogged for a little over a month, so I have a lot of catching up to do. Honestly? What with the insanity around the midterms, mass shootings, displays of antisemitism, and lately, the horrendous fires in my state (still burning), I haven’t really felt the kink mojo. It’s hard to be lighthearted and funny and flippant when it feels like everything around you is devolving into a massive sinkhole of shit. This has been me:

(OK, my boobs aren’t that big. But whatever.)

However, life goes on and I need to remind myself of that. So here I am.

And I got to play again last week, thank you very much! Much needed stress release! Mr. Woodland paid me another visit, last Thursday (you know, after the Thousand Oaks shooting, but before the Woolsey fire exploded). This time he showed up with his toy bag. Uh-oh.

But never fear, the good Mr. W. started me off with a proper warm-up. At some point, this exchange happened:

Him: Do you prefer your underwear up or down?
Me: That’s up to you.

Although it was more like “That’s up to y—,” because I didn’t even have the word “you” out of my mouth when my panties were unceremoniously yanked to my thighs.

“Well, that was an easy decision,” he said. Humph.

Warm-up passed in the blink of an eye, it seemed. “Time for some implements,” he announced. “Get up, please.”

Well, at least he said please.

We moved to my ottoman, and he said, “Set this up the way you want it.” I protested, “Why me? You set it up last time, so you’d have room to swing.” “Fine,” he said, and nudged it a few inches with his foot — which then sent the cushions askew. “Well, now it’s crooked!” I huffed, leaning down to straighten it.

“I have a belt in my hand,” he said. “Is this really a good time to be a smart-ass?” (What better time is there?)

And so the strapping ensued. At a good breaking point, he went to get his bag. “Let’s see what I’ve got for you in this bag of treats,” he grinned.

I sweetly requested a Snickers bar. He didn’t have any.

I then got to meet several of the items in his bag, including a tawse, some sort of leather thing, and a very thin, light wooden paddle. “This is a sting-y little bastard,” he commented about the latter. “Kind of like you?” I commented in return. He sighed. “That wasn’t smart.”

It was worth it, though. 😀

More chit-chat:

Him: Well, that’s about all I can use for now. The rest [of the bag’s contents] is wood.
Me: (sighing) What’s wrong with you?
Him: I like wood!
Me: That’s what she said.

Damn, did we play hard. I could feel the strength he was putting into it, and I was drinking it in like a freaking desert in a rainstorm. I just wanted more, more, and more. Even the tawse. Normally, I’m leery about those suckers. I have had experiences in the past where one of those skinny little tails snaps into nooks and crannies that I really, really don’t want getting snapped — and I damn near go through the ceiling. But then I took a deep breath and remembered.

He knows what he’s doing.

So much so that when he seemed to be wrapping things up, I blurted, “Are you done??”

“You want more?” he asked.

“Um… maybe?”

He laughed. “Be careful what you wish for…”

Holy crap. That last round pushed my endurance, for sure. I quickly realized my error of not tossing a pillow on the carpet before we started. First, because I was scraping my elbows along the carpet as I leaned over the ottoman. Not my choice of pain. And second, because I didn’t have anything to scream into. And sometimes, you know, I just have to scream. So I ended up clamping both hands over my mouth and screaming into my palms. And all the while, I could feel the stress flowing out my pores, out of my limbs, out of my head. Magic. So lovely when I can just put myself into a man’s hands and know I’m safe. As Mr. W. says on his Fet profile, he might hurt, but he doesn’t harm. Knowing that makes such a difference.

He was impressed. “You can take one hell of a spanking, Erica,” he said. Despite the fact that I was limp as a dishrag and so sub-spacey I could barely think, I managed to croak out, “You know, this is all your fault.”

“Really? How’s that?”

“Because,” I squeaked, “if you hadn’t made me wait three weeks for this, I wouldn’t have been so fucking needy!!”

I wish I could have seen the look on his face at that. “Ah… well, I think we’ll have to address that next time.” Yeah, you think?

(I was kidding, of course. I am responsible for my own stress management; no one else. But a helping hand — or strap, paddle, etc. — is most welcome.)

And so we wound down. Then, I heard the two words that always melt me into the final oblivion:

“Good girl.” Of all the sweet phrases we love to hear, I think that’s one of the sweetest. Right up there with “That’s my girl.” 🙂

He hung out with me for a while, but had to get going before the traffic got bad (or worse, really, since L.A. traffic is pretty much always bad now). Have no idea what our schedules will bring over the upcoming holiday weeks… but I hope I get to see him again before 2018 is over.

As soon as he was gone, I thought, “Oh, damn! Pictures!” So, since I was still in living color, I grabbed my phone and tried to take a mirror selfie in the bathroom. I’m embarrassed to admit how many attempts it took to get this:

I still didn’t like it, but all the physical cogitations were making my back and neck ache worse than my butt. So I broke out the old-school digital camera and timer, and tried a different angle in the living room. Unfortunately, the lighting there didn’t show the red very well. But you get the idea.

I slept well that night. Sadly, the next day brought all new stress when the damned Woolsey fire blew up and I was worried about my stepmother in Thousand Oaks (all turned out well for her, thank goodness — she was without power for a couple of days, but didn’t have to evacuate). But such is life.

What else is going on… oh, yeah. Did I mention that my Twitter account was frozen for a week? “But, Erica,” I can hear you all crying, “what horrible, egregious, terrible thing did you tweet to earn this extreme penalty??” I called Tomi Lahren a bimbo.

(Never heard of Tomi Lahren? All you need to know about her is that she’s the millennial version of Ann Coulter. And if perchance you don’t know who Ann Coulter is — consider yourself fortunate.)

Let’s review. I’ve been insulted on Twitter over everything from my age (“granny porn”) to my body (“a poor man’s Olive Oyl”) to my face (I was likened to the character “Hatchet-face” from the movie Cry-Baby. Google her) to my background (“stupid @#$%ing Hollywood Jew). I’ve been threatened (“I’d love to watch you getting gang-raped”). But my saying “bimbo” is “hateful conduct”?? Yeah, Twitter. Bite me.

So, when my time in Twitter Jail was up, I put on my prison-stripe panties, brought out the trusty digital camera again, and took this, which I posted the day I came back:

I hash-tagged it #FuckCensorship. 🙂 Interestingly, I did not get reported and penalized for it. Imagine that.

(whew) Anyway. Work continues to be busy, for which I am grateful, not only for the bill paying but for the distraction. Crazy times, y’all.

Final thought — I wish I could hug every single firefighter in California right now. ♥ ♥ ♥

A pet peeve about a pet peeve

What’s our pet peeve when it comes to scene pictures, kids? People who cut off the watermark of professional photos and repost them without providing any kind of credit for where they came from. This, of course, is rampant in the Tumblr blogs, on FetLife, and yes, even on Twitter.

But what really annoys the bejesus out of me? When people steal a photo, post it like it’s their own, and then make up some stupid, cheesy caption to go with it — one that has absolutely nothing to do with the original picture. They make up names, scenarios, etc. Really, do they think they’re fooling anyone? (sigh) I guess they are, when the viewers aren’t in the industry. But anyone who has even a passing familiarity with spanking videos knows when a picture is from a professional shoot.

Last week, one of my friends on FetLife alerted all of us to a Twitter poster whose entire feed was stolen pictures with cheeseball captions. She asked us all to tell him to knock it off and if he didn’t, to report him. So I went to look at this guy’s feed. Sure enough, nothing but pictures taken from various video productions, all with captions hashtagged #SpankingFamily. Scrolled down and voila! There I was, with Alex and Paul. So I commented to the guy, told him that if he wanted to make up scenarios, he should do it with his own damn pictures and stop stealing them. Several other people jumped on him as well. And then? Next time I checked, not only were the photos gone, but the guy’s page was gone too. Good riddance. If only all the others were that easily vanquished.

Those captions really irk me. I mean, for one thing, they’re usually corny to the point of being vomit-worthy. But also, it irks me that the poster thinks the viewers are that stupid.

I especially like some of the captions I’ve seen with stolen pictures of me. One read something along the lines of, “MILF Betty Sue thought she was too old for a spanking. She soon realized the error of her ways!”

Oh, go fuck yourself sideways with a 2 x 4.

My favorite was one from years ago, on FetLife. This guy had posted a picture of Sierra Salem from when she was living with Dallas, standing in front of the fireplace mantel with a bright red backside. Then the clown captioned it with something like, “Barbara learned that bad grades at school would earn her a dose of Daddy’s strap.” Oh, FFS…

I commented on the picture, “This is Sierra Salem, not Barbara. She’s not in school, and this is Dallas’s photo. I don’t think he’d appreciate you appropriating it.”

You’d think the guy would take it down, right? No… he comes back with this: “I know it’s Sierra. Her real name is Barbara and Dallas gave me special permission to spank her.”

Are you kidding me?? How stupid do you think I am, fool? I shot with Sierra. I traveled with her, sat next to her on long plane flights. I shared a hotel room with her. Do you really think I don’t know what her real name is? It ain’t Barbara.

So I did the only thing I could do — I wrote to Dallas and alerted him to the photo and its comments. You can bet that joker took it down after Dallas had a few words with him. :-Þ

Look, I know there are tons of photos floating around out there that have long since had their credits cut off and people who are new may see them and have no clue where they’re from, so they just repost them. That can’t be helped. But please, y’all. If you have any sort of idea where a picture is from, who is in it, etc., credit it properly. Do not cut the identifying watermarks off. And for the love of God, don’t make up those stupid captions. Here’s a thought — take your own freaking pictures, and then you can caption them any cornball way your little heart desires. Fair?

**rant over**

Play at last! Play at last!

And it’s about damn time! How long has it been, a year? Okay, okay, just a month and a half. (I’m not counting the double session I had with Alex a couple of weeks ago, because that was so light and playful.) But it feels like forever. Steve used to say that I needed spanking like I need oxygen. A bit of an exaggeration, but you know, sometimes…

I have Mr. Woodland’s permission to link to his FetLife page, so if any of you are members, you can read about him here. Our first time together one on one was fabulous, I thought.

He came by around 2:30. I’d been working since 8:00 on my various projects, so it was a good time to take a break. We slipped easily into conversation and I think close to two hours went by before we even mentioned playing. I like him; we seem to be on the same page about a lot of things, both scene-wise and everything else-wise. Because we’d played before, there wasn’t that first-time awkwardness, that shy dance of wonder and anxiety (Is this going to be great? Or is this gonna suck??). Finally, we began.

I had told him I hadn’t had any sort of intense play since Shadow Lane, so he very kindly and considerately started with a light warm-up. Of course, I appreciated that… but I wasn’t about to let him know that. 😀 So when he paused and asked how I was doing, I said, “I’m sorry… did I give you the impression that I enjoy tickling?”

“What was that? Excuse me?” And there it was, he went right into sputtering incredulous top mode. “I’m trying to be a gentleman, giving you a warm-up because you haven’t played for a while, and you tell me I’m tickling you??”

Yup. Game on, honey. I couldn’t answer him, as I was giggling too hard.

So much for warm-up, and things escalated quickly. But you know what? I soaked it all up like a sponge. A happy, eager, thirsty sponge. My skin, my body, my psyche craved it, couldn’t get enough of it. Gimme gimme gimme. At one point, he paused again, blew out a breath and said, “Wow. I just gave you ten of my hardest and all I’m getting from you is a purr.”

That’s me — happy kitty.

He said he was going to have to bring some of his toys next time (Next time? YES!), and then I had to open my big stupid yap and say, “I have some toys!”

“Well, go get some!”

(Damn, I missed my opportunity to answer, “Make me.”)

I scrambled up, went into the bedroom, collected two OTK implements — my Lexan paddle and a small leather one — and brought them to him. Aaaaand that’s when I realized that I had been plenty tenderized by his hand and now these damn things hurt like a mother.

“Still tickling?” he taunted. Uh… no. But I was still enjoying it. He said he was going to dub the Lexan paddle the “tickle monster.” Har har har.

I had mentioned earlier that I loved strappings with a man’s belt over my ottoman, and while we were in the middle of hurts-so-good hell, I said “We can do that next time, maybe?”

“Hell, no!” was his answer. “Let’s do it now!”

Oy. Again, me and my big mouth.

I’m always a tad leery when I’m about to be strapped by a top for the first time. I love, love, love a leather belt. I love the feel, I love the sound, I love the imagery. However… a lot of people can’t do it right. They can’t control the strap — they’re too high, they’re too low, they wrap, they hit the right cheek over and over and not the left, etc. And it ends up being rather unpleasant. I get so tense, wondering when the misfires are going to hit, I can’t relax and sink into it.

Not so this time.

Holy crap. This man is magic with a belt. Spot on every single strike. Even knows the trick of switching sides so each cheek gets equal brunt. I forgot about bratting and blurted, “You’re so good at this!!” For a brief while, my whole world shut down and focused on his belt and nothing else. Gone was the stress, the work, the political quagmire, the losses I’ve endured lately, the money worries, all of it. Just the bliss of impact, of endorphins, of pleasureful pain. I seem to recall murmuring at some point, “You are making me so happy right now.” He has joined the ranks, in my mind, of the top strappers I know — Dr. Lectr, Paul Kennedy, InspectHerHide, and a few others.

But of course, my true colors never fully disappear. He had decided I was getting forty more, twenty on each side. When he was finished with the first twenty and switched sides, once again he teased, “How’s that tickling feel now?”

To which I replied, “Oh, fuck off.”

“Oooh, bad idea,” he said. “You just got ten more.” And he delivered; no breaks for an excited utterance. :-Þ  First the original twenty more planned, and then an additional five on each side. Can I take a moment and admit how utterly fucking hot that was?? (sigh)

This picture does not do the redness justice, at all. But y’all get the idea.

He stayed for a while longer, we talked some more, but then reluctantly I had to get back to work (and he had to get on the freeway at rush hour, which sucked, but he seemed to take it in stride). The rest of my evening, it was hard to focus on work, but I had to force myself to, even though I was feeling blissed out and giddy. Slept like a baby. And sang in the car today on my way to get a hair cut. I haven’t done that for a long-ass time. Funny how kinky people are. Most people get like this after they get laid; I do after an ass-whooping.

Our consensus was, “Why did we wait so long to do this, and let’s not wait too long to do it again!” I hope he had as good a time as I did. 🙂 Thank you, Mr. W.

If at first you don’t succeed…

… fuck it up one more time. Oh wait, that’s not how it goes. Well, something like that. Keep trying, in other words. Eventually, hopefully, something will happen.

So earlier this week, I got a message from a guy on FetLife. Local, wrote a nice note, interesting in spanking. Also tickling, which is not my thing. But I figured since he was polite, I’d be polite back, and wrote my own nice note in return. Figured that was it, but he kept writing, so we exchanged a few messages.

I thought, maybe? Who knows. He seemed smart and interesting. But a couple of things were bothering me. One, he had no profile filled out, only a lot of different quotes. He had no pictures of himself, only one of his arm. And he wrote in slash/speak.

For those who aren’t familiar, it’s a D/s protocol. The dominants refer to themselves in upper case, and the subs in lower case. The dominant will write Me and My and so forth capitalized, whereas the sub writes their name in lower case, “i” in lower case, etc. And if they are talking about both people? Slashes. W/we. O/our. Etc.

If, and I mean IF, you are in a relationship with that dynamic, and both parties are good with it, it’s fine. But if you’re talking to a stranger who doesn’t necessarily subscribe to that protocol, you shouldn’t assume to use it. It’s annoying and distracting, and comes off as arrogant and pretentious to someone like me who isn’t into it.

So I kidded him about it. He said I was bratting (which I was). Meanwhile, we had established that our schedules were opposite, we lived far from each other, I hate phone calls and he hates texting. It wasn’t looking good. But you know, desperate times. I tried one more time. I said that I’m a writer/editor, and it offends my sensibilities to see otherwise good writing hacked up with a bunch of slashes and unnecessary capitalizations, or improper lower casing. That I don’t respect capital letters; I respect people. And I added a smiley face to soften it.

On Thursday night, he wrote back. One portion read, “I don’t care what you think about capitalization, little one. Deal with it.” He added a winky face. It didn’t help. All that resonated was “I don’t care what you think.” And at this point, I was a stranger. I was not his “little one.” I was done.

I wrote a polite note back, saying that I didn’t think we were compatible, there were too many differences in what we seek, but I wished him luck and thanked him for the outreach.

His last communication to me read: “Very well, young lady. I’m not one to jump through hoops nor am I one to change My ways just to get into a lovely woman’s panties. Be good.” Sheesh. At least he didn’t call me a girl.

However, this mini-saga has a good ending. I was so damn frustrated after three days of wasting time with this exchange, and left at square one once again. I was sick to death of all work and no play. So I got up my nerve, and contacted someone I’ve known for some time, who is local, but so far we have only played with each other at 50 Freaks and Shadow Lane. And every time we do, we have a great time, and say “We should get together in L.A.!” and then promptly forget about it until the next party. I decided to put myself out there and ask him if he wanted to play.

I wrote a nice message, saying that I was dealing with a dearth of play lately, and while I didn’t have the time or desire to go through the whole vetting process of finding a new play partner, it sure would be fun if I had a local friend with whom I could get together, hang out and play when it suited our busy schedules. I said that he and I had already played, we knew we had good chemistry, the trust factor had already been established, so this could be mutually beneficial. What were his thoughts on making this happen?

Within minutes, he replied. “My thoughts? Count me in! When are you available?”

So, long story short, he’s coming over this Tuesday afternoon. I am slam-jammed with work and truth be told, I am not available, but screw it. I need this. My mental and emotional health need this. I’ll get the work done somehow, and if I skip the gym, screw that too. My body needs a different kind of workout right now. 😀

I guess I should thank Mr. Slash/Speak. If I hadn’t had the encounter with him, I don’t think I would have had the frustration-fueled nerve to put myself out to this other man.

Fingers crossed that it doesn’t fall through. Wish me luck.

Catching up a bit

Aside from the op-ed post that I copied and pasted last week, I haven’t written for a while. Couple of reasons: one, I’ve been too freaking busy with work. And two: what with all the godawful stuff going on in reality, it felt somewhat disingenuous and forced to post about happy spanky stuff. But life goes on. So I figured it was time to update just a little.

In the past couple of weeks, we’ve had two birthdays — John’s and mine. I had a bit of a struggle with mine, as just a few days before, my play partner and I had officially ended things and I was dealing with residual sadness. But John went all out to make it a happy time for me, starting with flowers a week early and then taking me to Walt Disney Concert Hall for the L.A. Philharmonic on the actual birth date. I’d never been there before, so it was quite the adventure. The architecture of the place is pretty bizarre (oh hell, it’s just plain ugly), but the auditorium itself is breathtaking and the acoustics are perfect.

My birthday flowers:

Full house at the Concert Hall:

We got all dressed up, and later went out for a nice dinner. It was a lovely birthday.

I got some cool presents too — lots of Beatles stuff! A Beatles clock from Lily Starr, a HELP! placard from Alex and Paul, and coffee table books and a poster from another friend (I’m not sure which name to use for her, so I’ll leave that blank).

Last week, I got to have a fun little adventure. Alex contacted me and said one of her clients wanted to do a double session with her and me. I’ve shot custom videos for her, but had never participated in one of her sessions before, so I was game. Her client was from out of town and had booked up a bunch of sessions with several of her friends, so mine was in the middle of three last Wednesday. I hadn’t seen Alex since Shadow Lane, and Paul since a couple of months before that, so it was great to see them again, even though I didn’t get to talk with them too long. Alex’s client was into role-play and we did two half-hour scenes; he turned out to be a lot of fun and I enjoyed myself a great deal.

Even better? Catching up with Alex, I finally got pictures from her birthday party last July!

Before this photo was taken, I had been trying to launch myself onto a floating pool swan… and fell over off the side of it, getting thoroughly dunked. I blame my innate clumsiness, and the vodka-spiked lemonade might have had something to do with it also. Anyway, I was hanging in the background while Alex was taking pictures, and she called out, “Erica, get in the picture. I don’t care if your hair is wet!” So here we are: Alex, me, Ulf, Lizzy McAllister, and Maddy Marks. Happy bunch!

And here’s a really nice shot of John and me, with downtown L.A. behind us:

Fun times. Anyway, work-wise, I dealt with famine for the first half of this year and now I am feasting to the point of gluttony. I get stressed when I feel like I can’t control my workload, but I’d rather be busy than not. Other stuff keeps coming up, appointments need to be made, but I’ll take care of them one at a time in the order of importance. One friend has been asking to meet me for coffee for the past several weeks, and I’ve put him off so many times, apologetically, that I finally decided I’m never going to find time, so I just have to make time. We’re meeting up tomorrow afternoon and catching up. Oh, and I have to break away on occasion to work out.

I miss playing. A lot. But I suppose the other advantage of being busy with work (other than the money) is that I don’t have much time to dwell on it. Even if I did have a play partner right now, I don’t think I’d have time to play with him! (sigh) So, that’s all on hold for now. Life feels a bit unbalanced, but things have a way of righting themselves. I am just going to plow on and hope for the best.

And hey, it’s almost the holidays! (Oh, fuck…)

Onward… where to, I’m not sure

So here I am, staring another birthday in the face. Didn’t I just have one of the damn things? Look, I enjoy birthday festivities as much as the next attention whore hog, but I can do without this ageing business.

And — confession time. I don’t have a birthday spanking to look forward to. Because as it happens, I do not have a play partner at this time.

I feel kind of ridiculous and thought perhaps if I just didn’t talk about it, people would forget that big announcement I made a few posts back. I thought about deleting it, but I really didn’t want to. That would be denying it ever happened, and it did. And it was lovely and lots of fun, however brief.

Please don’t ask me for details… it is what it is. I will tell you this much. I have not lost a friend. Ulf is a dear, kind-hearted and special man I am privileged to know and who I hope to keep in my life for a good long time, as my friend, part of my chosen family.

It just seems he’s not meant to be my play partner.

So. Once again, I am adrift in spanko land. And you know what? I’m tired of looking. I’m not going to make a thing out of finding another partner. If it happens, it happens. But the process can be so damned disheartening and frustrating, and many times, the best relationships have happened organically and not when I was specifically seeking them. So I won’t.

Of course I will miss regular play. I’m not going to kid myself and say no big deal, I won’t miss it, I’m busy, I’m working, I spend weekends with John, spanking isn’t everything, so on and so forth. It’s a huge part of me and I feel a sadness, an emptiness when I don’t have it in my life. However, I would rather go without it than to settle for anything less than what fulfills me. I’m not going to play with just anyone, simply for the sake of feeling a hand on my butt. I need the connection. I need the trust and chemistry and the humor and the attraction and all those wonderful things that come together to make the potent cocktail that sends me into bliss.

In recent times, I’ve befriended a couple of lovely young women on FetLife — very young (early twenties). Both have been lucky enough to have positive and caring early experiences with good men, which is so very important. Both are eager sponges, wanting to soak up everything about this kink and learn about where they fit in all of this, and with whom. One of them recently told me that she was concerned it wouldn’t always be this good, and she was setting the bar too high. “It can’t always be this perfect, can it?” she asked.

In a word, no. Nothing is always wonderful. Even chocolate cake isn’t always wonderful. (Come on, you know you’ve had a dry piece or two in your lifetime.) Yes, spanking is readily available pretty much anywhere if you look for it. So is chocolate. But sometimes you get See’s or Godiva… and sometimes you get Russell Stover’s. Don’t settle for the latter. It just makes you want the former even more.

This is what I said to both these women — I told them they were given a very special gift, getting to play with good partners early on. They would go on to have a lot of experiences with many different people, if they kept on this path, and not all of them would be so hot. BUT… they would always have a benchmark. They would always know how it was supposed to feel when it’s right. And when it wasn’t, they wouldn’t have to question themselves. No. I don’t like this. Doesn’t feel right. Next.

Well, guess what. I’m taking my own advice, because I too have benchmarks. I have had some incredible play partners. I have had dozens — hell, hundreds — of positive experiences. And yeah, I’ve had some really crappy, unsatisfying, and even a few traumatic ones as well. But they were anomalies. And I knew there was something better, something worth waiting for. Because when it happened, when all those elusive factors came together and made for that connection, it was blissful. Quality over quantity.

Recently, a good friend asked me how I deal with all the losses of play partners I’ve had over the years — how could I stand having my heart broken again and again? I told her that’s the risk you take. It’s an unusual relationship, often times a fleeting one. And yes, it hurts to open my heart, give my trust, and put my body and soul in a man’s hands, only to have him go away. But the alternative is not playing. The alternative is not experiencing the closeness, the intensity, the magic. And that’s worse. That’s so empty.

Yup, I know there are those who think I’m too picky. That I have too many hard limits, my play focus is too narrow, I should open myself up to more experiences and some different types of people, should experiment more, should be more scene-inclusive, blah blah blah. Yeah, maybe. But you know what?

That’s right. Screw this whole PC thing that says we’re supposed to embrace all varieties of our kink. That we’re supposed to “evolve” — implication being that if your scene tastes don’t broaden, you’re a dinosaur. Well, call me Erica-sauras. Or sore-ass. Whatever. I’m too old for this shit, y’all. I’ve tried other stuff. I tried to push my square peg self into some other round kinks and just got scraped and chafed and miserable. I have been doing this long enough… I know who I am. I know what I like, I know what works for me and what does not. I know where my comfort zones are. I get to say I don’t like stuff and I don’t want it. That doesn’t mean I don’t accept when others do it. People are welcome to do their own consensual kinky-fuckery. But acknowledging/accepting it and embracing it are very different things. For example? The recent Shadow Lane party and the extreme scene I mentioned that was stopped. It’s. A. Spanking. Party. If a man wants to kick and stomp on a woman while wearing heavy boots, and she wants him to kick and stomp on her while he’s wearing heavy boots, fine. They can knock themselves out… at a dungeon. Not at a spanking party. I don’t want to see it, and I shouldn’t have to.

If I were younger, newer, then I’d say sure, experiment. But I’ve done that. Sometimes I wish I did like more varieties of play — I’d certainly have more opportunities for fulfillment. But we are who we are.

So, here’s what I do want.

I am a bottom, a strong woman who happens to enjoy the power exchange of being spanked by a man. I am not someone who needs to be held accountable, except in a playful realm — I hold myself accountable. I am a living, breathing human — I am not an object. I am not something to be owned and controlled. Yes, you can push me, test my limits. You can break down my walls, break through my defenses, touch my soft center. But you do not get to break me. Don’t break my heart or my trust. Be my friend and give me loving firmness. Make me sting, make me sore, but don’t harm me. I can take a lot of pain from you if it is done with caring and proper technique. But if you slap/strike anything other than my butt/thighs, you will not like my reaction. You want to punch/kick something? Go to the gym, and stay the hell away from me.

Make me laugh, and let me make you laugh. There is great joy in what we do; it is not a dark and serious thing. Embrace it with me.

Yes, I like playing with younger men. Enough with the cougar crap and other ageist insults. I’m not a predatory beast. I’m a woman who is young at heart and in mind, in good shape, and I just happen to relate well to people who are younger than I am — both male and female.

And for sweet Christ’s sake — don’t disappear, don’t ghost. I have seen more damn disappearing acts than the Magic Castle, and I’m tired of them. Yes, I get that lives are busy. Mine is too. I don’t ask for much of your time and attention. I just want to know you are in my life and you care, and know in my heart of hearts that I will see you, get to spend some time with you, sooner or later. Shoot me a text or a tweet when life is crazy. It takes seconds.

I guess time will tell if my dream play partner will materialize. Meanwhile, life goes on. John is making a big fuss over my birthday and I love him for it. He’s already sent me beautiful flowers, and this Saturday (the actual birthday), he’s taking me to the Walt Disney Concert Hall to hear a live performance of Mozart’s Requiem. I have never been to this particular venue, and I love classical music, so this is a huge treat.

So, like I said, onward. I am a bit melancholy, a bit adrift, but I am okay. It is what it is. And life has a way of surprising me when I least expect it. We shall see.