Safewords and Spankings

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[Yet another excerpt from my work-in-progress novel, Switch. If you haven’t read the previous excerpts, you can find them at https://lacewinter.com/category/novels/switch/. In this scene, Nicholas has just delivered Olivia’s first-ever erotic spanking, and while it thoroughly aroused her (and hurt like hell), it left her confused about her feelings with regard to submission. This gives her an idea, but things never seem to work out quite the way Olivia plans.]

 

“Maybe you should have a safeword,” I said.

“Oh, really? And why is that?”

“Because just maybe I might want to tie you down instead, and spank your bottom. After all, I think you’ve been a very naughty Dom.”

Nicholas laughed. “Naughty? How have I been naughty?”

“Well, to use your own metaphor, you may steer the car and hit the accelerator, but only I have the brake pedal. Well, I’m not the one who put the brakes on just now; that was you. I was ready to press on, but you are the one who slowed things down. So, it seems to me that your foot strayed over the line onto my pedal, and therefore you were out of bounds and deserve a spanking.”

He truly looked amused. I don’t think he took me seriously. Of course, I’m not sure that I was being serious, I was just riffing on his own line, but now that we’d gone there, why not? I tapped his chest with my forefinger.

“So, big boy, what’s it going to be? Will you bend over that bench like a good boy and take the punishment you deserve, or do I need to restrain you?”

“And if I decide not to cooperate, little girl, just how are you going to bend me to your will?”

I took his hand and pulled it between my legs, placing his palm against the heat emanating again through my panties.

“You want this, don’t you?”

A fire gleamed in his eyes, and he didn’t pull his hand away.

“Well, if you harbor any hopes of getting that reward, and make no mistake, it will be a reward, then you had best be a good boy and do as you’re told.”

I couldn’t quite believe my audacity. Did I actually just do that? I sat there, holding his palm against my sex, staring him down, daring him. My heart was beating a hundred times a minute with nervousness and excitement, and I felt something hot pooling down low in my belly. I might have been blushing and sweating a little, because I was pretty sure he could feel the dampness that I just knew had to be soaking through my panties. I didn’t back down, however.

The amusement and fire in his eyes gave way to uncertainty, and then curiosity. He didn’t answer right away, he just sat there, looking me in the eye. He didn’t move his fingers, he just kept his palm still against me, and the heat between us grew nearly unbearable. If he didn’t break soon, then I would.

He broke.

He took a deep breath before speaking, opened his mouth, paused, closed it again, then finally spoke.

“You make a highly convincing argument, little sub, but I am only going along with this because it pleases me to do so, and because it pleases me to please you.”

He stood up, holding me so I didn’t dump onto the floor, then releasing me. I stared up at him with a confidence in my gaze that I didn’t yet feel in my heart.

“What’s your safeword?” I asked him.

“Oh, I don’t think I’m going to need a safeword, do you?”

“You just delivered a fine-sounding lecture about how a submissive retains the ultimate power, but only because he has a safeword. You’re the submissive now, and I’m your Domme, even if only for a few minutes. Do you really wish me to have that much absolute power over you? Because if so, I’m fine with that, but don’t come crying to me when you can’t handle what I dish out.”

His eyes danced with amusement. Of course he thought he was just humoring me.

“Very well. My safeword is obstinate, as in you’re an obstinate little sub who seems to like getting her own way.”

I smiled and followed him back over to the bench where, minutes earlier, he had me tied down and wondering what on earth had gotten into me. He kneeled and bent over the horse, looking just a little uncertain about it once he was in that position. Admittedly, being a big guy, he looked a little funny like that, but I thoroughly enjoyed the sight. I patted his ass affectionately, noticing how firm it felt through his blue jeans.

“Hmm, I think these are going to need to come off. After all, fair is only fair.”

His head whipped around, looking over his shoulder at me. “Oh no, I don’t think so. Don’t you think this is enough?”

“You have a safeword if you don’t like it. Otherwise, boy, I’m calling the shots.”

He scowled, thinking about it, then after a moment reaching to unbuckle his belt.

“Ah-ah. Keep your hands on the bench in front of you, unless you want me to tie them. I’ll take care of that.”

He pulled his hand away, leaning fully over the bench. I stood close behind him, leaning over him so I could get my arms around his hips, and took the belt buckle in my hands. As I undid it, and unbuttoned the fly of his 501s, I was hyper-aware of the closeness of his incredibly sexy ass to my hips. I think I even unconsciously pressed against him a bit. Well, maybe not all that unconsciously. I needed to get this lust under control if I wanted to do this right.

Very carefully I avoided touching him more than I needed to as I slid the jeans over his hips and down around his knees. Well, it seemed our oh-so-dominant Nicholas liked to go commando. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I took a deep breath, feeling almost a little light-headed, looking at that bared male vision before me. No flabbiness on this man, that was for sure. His glutes and quads bespoke a man who either spent much time in the gym, or a lot of time on his feet, using his legs. I bit my bottom lip and reminded myself of my task.

I stood up and knelt one knee on the bench beside Nicholas, leaning down to speak into his ear with one hand on his back.

“Are you ready, not-so-little sub?”

He hung his head, took a deep breath, then replied. “Yes, Mistress.”

Ooh, I liked the sound of that. A little thrill ran through me when he said that. Deeply satisfied, I ran my hand down his back, caressing him, until I felt his shirt end and his bare skin lay under my palm. I pulled his shirt-tail up out of the way, letting it bunch up around his waist, and following the cue from when our positions had been reversed, rubbed his right cheek in a circular motion, preparing him.

“How many spanks do you think you deserve, my sub?”

“As many as Mistress deems appropriate.”

“Good boy.”

I spanked him.

He barely flinched, but oh wow, my palm stung. I ignored the pain, rubbed his cheek, and then spanked the left one. Again, I really felt that in my hand, while he hardly seemed to notice. I didn’t even see much redness on his bottom, just the barest impression. I gave him two more swats, one to each cheek, in fairly quick succession, and then I had to stop.

My hand was on fire. Something was not right in this scenario.

I stood there a minute, shaking out my wrist, until I noticed him looking over his shoulder back at me, a gleam of laughter in his eye.

“Is something wrong, Mistress? Have we begun yet?”

23 thoughts on “Safewords and Spankings”

  4. Ohh, that last sentence really got to me! I hope he gets what his haughty ass deserves. 😉

    A very sexy scene and I love where you’re taking it. Olivia’s voice is strong throughout; something you’ve managed to pull off consistently with each excerpt. Good job there! She’s come a long way since that early scene with Paul. I’m guessing this portion is from the first half (i.e. the part you didn’t have to cut)? Definitely keep doing whatever editing acrobatics you have to do to maintain this momentum.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply ↓

    • Thank you! Yes, this part is roughly in the middle of a pretty long scene (~11K words, which I’m thinking will be split into two chapters) that mostly makes up the first half of Act 2. I need to do a little more development in Act 1 (I like it, but it feels a bit rushed to me in a few spots), and I’m happy with a bit more beyond this scene, but somewhere about the middle of the second half of Act 2 is where things break down. I wrote some very sexy scenes for Act 3, but I’m having trouble making them fit with the overall thrust of the story, and the climax scene is sort of… well, it’s a bit over the top, and there’s a whole bunch that doesn’t neatly tie up into the desired ending. So, yeah, all of Act 3 and about a third of Act 2 needs a complete rethink. I’m also trying to have more of the story happen outside this club (where the present scene takes place), as I wasn’t really setting out to write another BDSM club story (though I do like those), but it sort of naturally fell out that way. I wrote a pair of scenes trying to establish Olivia and Nicholas meeting somewhat randomly in an out-of-context setting, to show Nicholas as more of a well-rounded character who isn’t just 100% Dom and sex fiend all the time, but a guy with a life, a job, vanilla friends and other hobbies and interests, and someone that Olivia could be interested in outside the world of sex and kink. I actually wrote a fantastic scene involving a sailboat race. The problem is, at the end of the day it isn’t feeling like it fits; it feels like something written for another story that I just shoehorned into this one, and so I’m regarding the whole sailboat thread as one of those darlings I’ll probably need to kill. It would probably work better in a mainstream romance. I don’t know — that’s part of the brainstorming I need to do for the rewrite.

      Thank you so much for your kind words about Olivia’s voice. That’s always the fear, isn’t it, that characters will either be inconsistent, or they’ll all start to blend together. I haven’t shown her two best friends, Ashley and Melody, yet, in any of the excerpts, but I’ve tried hard to give them each their own unique voice and characteristics.

      You can probably see the start of some of the eventual conflict developing in this scene.

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      Reply ↓

      • I may be interpreting this all wrong, but it sounds like you might be struggling with whether to make the story more character-driven or plot-driven. I follow a handful of agents on Twitter, and the one I consider my “dream agent” reps a couple of authors whose books I really like (Ok, technically I haven’t read more than a few excerpts from one of the authors, but I can tell she’s right up my alley and I’ve decided to make that my reward for finishing my novel, i.e. taking a week off from writing projects to read her entire series…I digress). One author writes erotic romance while the other writes something between erotica and erotic romance. The thing that differentiates them is that the erotic romance author tends toward character-driven stories that focus almost exclusively on the relationship dynamics, with less attention paid to external plot devices. The other author pulls the lens out a bit further and gives herself a lot more room to play (with more characters and settings that are all interconnected in varying ways).

        I haven’t read your story in its entirety so I could be totally off-base, but it sounds to me like you might be having some trouble figuring out how insulated you want your novel to feel. If the beginning of the story is very sequestered, focusing on character interaction without a lot of external plot, then it might feel a bit out-of-place to all of a sudden yank them out of the club. It’s very possible that I’m just spouting a bunch of stuff that doesn’t apply, but it’s something I’ve had to think a lot about in my current chapter of “The Cabin”, which ended up feeling a little bloated and downright Twilight-Zoney and needed to be reined in.

        I like the idea of Nicholas and Olivia meeting somewhere outside the club, and if your goal is to expand the story within the first act, that would be a really great opportunity to do so. In fact, I highly encourage you to explore this. I recently read an erotic novella that felt very rushed in the first act, and I would’ve liked a bit more (okay, a lot more) character development to justify the protagonists’ feelings and motivations. That could even be a point of contention for them, if Nicholas isn’t the type of guy to have traditional, non-club-based relationships.

        Sometimes endless possibilities can feel just as confining as too few. 😛

        Liked by 1 person

        Reply ↓

        • My first reaction was “no, I’m not struggling with that at all; this is definitely a character-driven story!” But then I thought about it a bit more, and now I’m not sure if you aren’t onto something after all. I need to think about this.

          The opening scenes are all outside the club. What draws Olivia to the club in the first place is that, after her disastrous attempts at trying something a little kinkier with Paul (which you’ve read already), she discusses it with her best friends, one of whom thinks she’s a little weird to want to be spanked, but is supportive anyway, and the other shocks everyone by suggesting she seek out an organization that has safety rules and classes. That leads her to the club (which I’m still trying to find a clever name for), and that’s how she first meets Nicholas, who is perfectly happy in his little world and doesn’t want anyone like Olivia coming along and upsetting his apple cart.

          Argh, now I’m almost tempted to start completely over. 😦

          Liked by 1 person

        • Or not!! It’s entirely possible that I’ve misinterpreted something. Perhaps it’s the exact opposite of what I suggested: that the story begins expansive and then condenses once Olivia becomes embroiled in Nicholas’s world and the club. Does she continue to see friends and family once she becomes Nicholas’s submissive or does he (ahem) dominate the story? What about Paul? Does she reconcile with him at least emotionally, if not sexually?

          The temptation to scrap everything and start over is often a sign that it might be a good idea to step back and work on something else for a bit. Maybe some more poetry or flash fiction for the blog, or maybe focus on “Partners and Crime” and let “Switch” rest until you can come back to it with fresh eyes. Or not. I think there’s something to be said for digging one’s claws into something and refusing to relent until it looks and feels closer to how you want it. Sorry if my assessment threw you off kilter! Again, I haven’t read the whole thing, so it’s very, VERY possible that I don’t know what I’m talking about. I can only speak from the little experience I have working on “The Cabin”, which isn’t finished yet and may end up crashing and burning if I’m not careful. I now completely understand what people mean when they say, “Don’t write short stories as preparation for writing novels.” A novel is a much bigger beast with a lot more pieces to juggle. Bringing them together into a coherent, satisfying ending is a lot harder than it seems when all you have are a few chapters, an outline, and a vague idea of how things should end.

          Let “Switch” breathe if you have to, but don’t give up on it just yet. You’ve got some good bones. Maybe all they need is a bit of rearranging.

          Liked by 1 person

        • Olivia’s conflict really centers around her occasional need to dominate and reconciling that with her perceived identification as submissive. Nicholas, on the other hand, despite a willingness to play along, is not at all submissive, so that’s an extra angle for conflict. Paul does make at least one further appearance in the story, but no, they don’t reconcile. He simply cannot understand this new world that Olivia is entering, and he doesn’t respect the choice to go there.

          I am going to write a couple more poems, I think, some more flash fiction as a mind clearing exercise, and focus on Partners and Crime for the moment. I’m not giving up on Switch; I was just having a moment of despair. Even if I did decide to abandon the story, I could not abandon Olivia — I love her as a character too much. In fact, originally I was writing her in as the heroine in a steampunk romance (and Nicholas was going to be the villain in the story originally. While I did drop that story pretty quickly, I couldn’t drop my lovely protagonist, so I simply modernized her instead. The essential theme of Olivia’s arc, going from someone to whom things happen to someone who makes things happen, didn’t change, though.

          And… writing that ‘theme’ line just now really helped! I had been struggling to boil down the ‘point’ of the story, and I believe I just did it without even really thinking about it. That is going to help me to work out how this story must end. 🙂

          At some point I still want to come back to a steampunk erotic romance in a future story. I think there’s potential there. I’m not sure if that will be next after Switch, though, as I also already have the broad strokes of a two-book (or more) erotic/romantic thriller series (or is that thrilling erotic romance? 😉 ) that has been hanging about in the back of my mind. I even thought of introducing the main character for that series as a minor supporting character in Switch, but in the end decided to keep them separate. I haven’t done any work yet to develop that story; it’s just sitting there waiting for when I’m through with Switch.

          Liked by 1 person

        • Oh, those other stories and characters have such a hard time waiting their turn, don’t they? 😛 I can definitely relate to those moments of despair. It’s so important to remember that they will pass. I’ve gotten pretty good at catching myself in the midst of them and saying, “Time to stop thinking about your story now. Go do something else,” because if I don’t, I might make an impulsive decision and toss the entire project for no good reason.

          Sounds like you’re heading in the right direction, though 🙂 I’m glad you were able to distill your theme there! Sometimes I forget how helpful brainstorming on the page can be.

          I look forward to reading what you come up with in the meantime.

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