All in all, a very good evening — exactly what a fun night at the club is all about. Uh…barring one incident that had the potential of being worse than it ended up.

Sandy went off to play with a new fellow who gave the appearance of being a Dom. A bit comical in demeanor due to his “cool guy” costume but, hey, everyone is wearing a costume of some sort in that place. I don’t know how experienced he was but he seemed to have a very dominant nature and was sure of himself when playing. No problem. However, at one point up on the stage, he tried to do some sort of “pick the girl up” maneuver to put Sandy over his upraised knee. Unfortunately, his acrobatic skills were less than gold medal level (maybe paper medal) and they kind of fell over — loudly. I walked over to where they were to check on her and see if she needed my help but was informed by Sandy that she was fine and that it had been an accident. She had a couple of nasty scrapes from landing funny but nothing more serious. I did wonder if I should have stepped in and stopped the proceedings right then and there but I often leave these decisions to Sandy because I respect the years she’s been in the scene and her judgment about who she does and doesn’t play with.

Other than that hiccup, it was a fun night. Not a huge crowd but a healthy sized group of people all having their own kind of fun. I saw a good number of new people of all ages and a surprising number of people, both men and women, that I would consider attractive. Not bad for an OTK Night that started out with slightly low attendance at the munch. There was a pretty good vibe last night at the club — laid back and relaxed rather than anxious. People were there to play or to observe and seemed to do plenty of both as well as socialize which is a big part of the fun.

I also noticed a few signs up regarding upcoming renovations so stay tuned for that. I have to say that I have noticed the play furniture (benches and such) as being a lot sturdier and cleaner than every before. The stage area has also been redone with a “scaffold” that makes suspension and bondage a little easier and easier for others to watch. I won’t say that these improvements have not been a long time in coming but it seems that an incremental change is under way.

First of all, some business. Sandy and I will be hosting the munch once again at the Moonstruck Diner — on the SW corner of 23rd St and 9th Ave in Manhattan. It starts at 5:30pm and goes to about 7pm when most of us walk over to Paddles (on 26th St. just east of 8th Ave). We meet in the back room near the restrooms and usually have about 20 or so people show up (give or take a few). You can come to the munch without going to Paddles if you so choose but why waste the discount you get for attending the munch.

The munch is useful if you know how to use it correctly. If I show up and just stare at my plate of chicken fingers, I’m not going to get any tips, pointers nor the opportunity to make friends. That’s why your organizers, Sandy and I, are not just there to call ahead to make sure the back room of a diner is available — we’re there to help those people who are new with advice.

I’ll make this last quick point. There are people who don’t like Paddles and are vocal about that fact. However, every single person who goes there has a different experience. I like the place and my wife does, too. We go there and have fun the way we want to have fun — doing it without worrying how it looks to anyone else. That’s our experience and we’re vocal about that fact as well.

And I’ll write a bit of fiction.

Click through to the meat of this post wherein you’ll find a cheerful little fable which I give the working title, “The Foot Comes Down”.

The Foot Comes Down

“Please look at the clock”, I say. “Notice the time?”

“I just have a couple of more things to do before I shut down for the night”.

I get up out of my seat and give you my best glare. Angry yet not furious but conveying as much seriousness as I can inject into the conversation.

“You said that ten minutes ago. Those couple of things have turned into five more things rather quickly. Now shut down your computer and get ready for bed”.

I count to thirty in my head before walking over to your side, taking the mouse out of your hand and beginning the process of closing down your laptop.

“OK, OK — I’ll shut it down”.

I watch as you close down window after window on the desktop in a defiantly slow manner. The air of annoyance is obvious from your body language but you comply. Rules are rules and you were caught pushing against the edges, testing their breaking point — and mine as well. The computer fan finally winds down and the screen goes dark. You turn in your chair and give me a look that I know says, “Happy that I did what you wanted?”

“Stand up, go to the bedroom and take out the cane that you hate the most”.

“What”, you say. “I did what I was told. I shut it down”.

I fold my arms and look you right in the eyes. “After you were reminded more than twice”.

“So…”

“That’s not the rule”, I say. “You are supposed to honor the bed time agreement by yourself without prompting. One reminder is all you get before we go to the harder way of doing things”.

You shift in your seat knowing that the inevitable is coming whether you like it or not. However, the defiance has yet to leave you which is obvious from the look on your face.

“But I did what I was told”, you plead. “I don’t want a caning before bed”.

“You’d get a spanking before bed but it’s too late for that kind of noise in this apartment so the cane it is. Now go get it and get ready”.

You get out of your chair and slowly walk to the bedroom. I go to the kitchen and wash the remaining dishes in the sink before turning off all the lights and going into the bedroom. I see you by the bed side, naked from the waist down, bent over with your palms flat on the mattress. The cane is leaning against the bed beside you. I pick it up and wave it through the air a few times making that swishing noise which I know causes flutters inside you.

“You’re getting a dozen hard strokes before bed. You know why?”

“Because I had to be told more than once to go to bed”.

“That’s right. Now we’ll get this done quickly and then you can get ready to go to sleep”.

I move to the side and place the tip of the cane half way across your bottom, measuring the distance I need for the full stroke. I reach back with the cane and let it fly towards its target. It connects directly across the center and you let our a stifled yelp, conscious of the fact that the neighbors can hear any unusually loud noise. I give you another two strokes in quick succession, one above the first line, one below it. I know that you like a caning slow which allows the effect of each blow to register across your bottom before the next one. However, this is punishment and the way that you might want it to be is not my concern. Nine more strokes of the cane land, each of them with equal force and meant to cause as much pain as I think you deserve. It ends and watch you collapse on the bed, your hands reaching back to rub across the red lines and welts.

I wipe the cane and put it away. I set the alarm, undress and get into bed.

“You have five minutes to get back here and get under the covers starting now”.

I watch you rush off to comply and settle my head down on the pillow for the night.

I honestly don’t even know what this means when it comes to me and my scene life. I never would have considered myself dominant because the BDSM definition of it doesn’t match what my fantasies were growing up. My thoughts were spanking, spanking and more spanking — often traditional in scope. It was nearly always OTK with few implements and none of the real verbal dominance that I find myself engaging in now. If I “dominate” people at all during a scene then it’s either by accident or just what I consider the common sense thing that I should be doing at that moment.

Maybe the energy level isn’t quite there the way it used to be when I was younger but at least I’m not wasting it like I was back then. Two days, two spanko events at the tail end of angst-filled vanilla days. I’m tired but it’s an atom bomb in the face kind of tired — so it’s manageable.

Friday was one of those workdays where the sheer amount of work just builds and builds to a crescendo that never comes. Like most jobs, it ends with a whimper of incompetence that’s more like a fart than a final chord. However, after work, my wife Sandy, Marie and I were off to a private party which was a combination of just hanging out with good friends and spanking. A lot of fun was had and good food eaten but I have to admit that driving there and back in the wee hours of the morning gets to be a bit much. Going to bed at 4am might have seemed like a good idea when I was in college but it pretty much sucks balls now. I’ll do it if it’s the only way that fun can be had but I should remind myself to take a nap at work so I can refresh myself.

Saturday was a day filled with mother tasks. I won’t go into details about her condition but suffice it to say that she is frail and needs to be taken care of. It would be a draining enterprise in any circumstance but made more so because my mother is so disagreeable about everything. Draining.

It was Halloween so I threw on my priest outfit and off we went to Paddles for the Dom/sub Friends All Hallows Eve bash. As an aside, “Dom/sub Friends” has always seemed like an odd name. It sounds like it would be the title of a kid’s show in Hell…but I digress.

Sandy wore two costumes for the evening: A naughty nurse complete with real enema bag (i.e. That Thing) as a kind of belt and this costume called Texas Hold Em which was a western theme with two plastic hands cupping the breasts as if from behind. Amusing. Right off the bat, Sandy and I had what I consider a pretty good scene with her wrists restrained over her head and me caning and spanking her (among other Dommy sorts of things). It’s always a nice compliment to do a scene like that and have someone come up to us afterwards and say, “That was hot”. Yes it was — and feel free to tell your friends about us.

All in all it was a great party with a particularly funny moment. I’m sitting with Marie at one of the few booths that are at Paddles when a couple sits down across from us. She asks Marie how old she is and gets an answer for that but then asks if I’m her real father. Yes, I thought I would escort my daughter to the club to make sure she’s safe and have her dress up in a schoolgirl outfit as well. By the way, I’m a real priest so if you see me spanking this young woman over my knee somewhere in the club, it’s OK. I’m doing it as part of my fatherly and priestly duties.

Halloween’s tomorrow which means that modern version of Trick or Treating, a Halloween party. Either things have gotten too dangerous for kids to go door to door or parents have seen too many Lifetime movies called, “Bring My Daughter Back: The Brandy Kowalski Story”. For adults there’s no other recourse other than a party. Besides a creepy guy who stands outside of elementary schools, there’s nothing worse than an adult going door to door begging for candy. It’s not just pathetic, it’s anger inducing. If he’s that desperate, wouldn’t he be more productive begging for something other than candy? For kinksters, Halloween means going to parties and dressing up only slightly differently than they would on a non-holiday night.

I’m not sure where this is going but I’m going there after the flip.

I’ve recently gotten good use out of a black suit, black shirt and white collar at a couple of spanking parties. My “coming out” as Father Rad was at Shadow Lane and my second appearance as the Kinky Priest was at the SSNY party a couple of weeks back. Honestly, I like the look. It’s intimidating without being all about leather or a whip hanging from a belt. It’s sort of understated and flamboyant all at the same time. Look at me, I’m a priest — now tremble. That’s what it says. Tomorrow night, I think I’ll break it out for one more outing at Paddles and introduce another set of like-minded mutants to my “godliness”.

For a person that says he doesn’t care, I’m somewhat conscious that I’m offending someone by wearing that outfit. I’m sure there are devout Catholics in the BDSM crowd and I wonder sometimes whether I’m going a touch too far. This is probably the reason I don’t carry a Bible or rosaries as props — the outfit is one thing but that might be one step too much. At one point, I was considering the whole Communion kit thing but giving Communion in a BDSM club might be a tad disruptive and certainly more offensive to the religious. So, priest it is at least one more time before I look for a promotion to Bishop or Cardinal.

Anyone going to Paddles tomorrow night is free to ask a fake priest to hear their confession and spank them as penance. If looking at me gives someone a flashback to some nasty thing that happened to them when they were alter boys then I would just remind that person that it wasn’t me and not to take it out on a guy in a costume. If I was bitten by a rat as a kid, I certainly wouldn’t go to Disney World and beat up Mickey. I know the difference.

We needs them.

Let’s say you’re walking down the street and some person catches your eye. You talk and the next thing you know you’re looking at each other both say, “Spanking”. What do you do? Where do you go? One person’s place is next to a pre-school — can’t play there by city ordinance. The other person lives with their mom and a hipster boarder who is always late with his rent check but always finds time to have his scooter waxed — can’t play there either. Hotel? Expensive. Cheap motel near the airport? Beneath you and you’ll probably end up in a voyeur video online unless you cover up those odd holes in the wall across from the bed. Club? No privacy. Face it, your new found spanking acquaintance and any opportunity at fun are now wasted by a distinct lack of anything other than a Starbucks restroom.

Moving right along, let’s say people want to do a role play with all the trappings of a school room. I don’t mean a school room with a giant St. Andrew’s Cross on the far wall. I’m talking authentic. How about a real domestic setting a la a 1950s or perhaps Victorian household? Same goes for medical fetish scenes. Where are you going to find a doctor’s office that looks like a doctor’s office in our world and not like it was designed by Albert Speer in honor of the Nuremberg rallies? The answer to this and many other such questions is “nowhere”.

This is a complete fantasy but having a place like that where people could do elaborate and authentic role play or to use as a set for video shoots would be the top item on my kinky Christmas list. If I was independently wealthy, I probably would go for it. Unfortunately, I’m not even independently poor, I’m dependently destitute. I wonder if I could get a government arts grant to create a “performance space”? Yeah, I’d be using to money to create “community theater” except that in our case, the audience and actors would be limited to a particular group.

I will definitely have to ponder this scam idea further. Hmm, government money to create a play space for spankos. This is smart thinking.

Feeling under the weather really sucks the life out of you especially when blogging about a subject that normally gets you excited. There are a few thing percolating in my head that I don’t think I can expand into something larger so will feature them here on a lazy Sunday filled with Z-Packs, prescription strength cough medicine and football (Giants play tonight opposite the Yankees-Angels).

This is the first weekend in nearly a couple of months where I’m not doing any scene related activities. However, it’s out of necessity rather than by choice. Three weeks ago I caught a cold that lasted gave me the official symptoms for exactly one day. Unfortunately, certain symptoms just lasted and lasted until for about a week, I developed a cough that was nearly constant. It got so bad Friday that after work, I went to the ER and told them what was happening. I didn’t know if it was pneumonia or asthma or mesothelioma  or what — all I knew was that I would get into coughing fits so bad that once I started coughing, I could not catch my breath until I forced myself to stop. The ER was good and efficient and something out of a T.V. show complete with unruly patients, police detectives right out of Central Casting and wise-cracking nurses. In the end and three hours later, I found out it was bronchitis and was sent home with a prescription.

I had been planning on perhaps getting together with someone for play over this weekend but that was not to be. Other than the fact that I have to be careful I’m not still contagious (which is doubtful…I hope), I just don’t have the energy to even think scene related thoughts. A weird forced vacation from the spanking world — can’t wait to get back to work.

The other thing is related to my recent video work for Punished Brats. I was asked how I feel about seeing myself on spanking review sites here or there and if it has a feeling of surreality to it. On one hand it is sort of surreal that I’m alongside some of these other folks from the video world as an “actor” and it is gratifying to see the photos alongside generally positive comments. It is an oddity to think that there are people out there seeing me in those shots or on video saying either, “He seems tough” or “I could do better than that”. At the very least, I’m happy I’m not seeing comments comparing me to Gaston Leroux or Victor Hugo characters (oh, look it up — I had to).

So it’s Sunday and I’m enjoying coffee and getting ready to watch the Jets lose to a team worse than they are. I can hold out the hope that a particular “storied” baseball team goes down for the dirt nap but I’m not holding my breath.

I take umbrage at this characterization. Not that I’m not “dirty” or “old” (well, to me I’m not) or a “man”. It’s just that it makes it seem as if I wasn’t a dirty young man and that my filthiness of mind was some new found thing.

Right off the bat I will state categorically that I was always a perv. As far back as I remember, I was sneaking upskirt glances and allowing my hand or knuckles to ever so gently brush against the backsides of my female classmates. OK, so I was in third or fourth grade when I was doing this but you have to start somewhere. Of course now someone will come along and say they were doing it in first grade and then kindergarten — eventually someone will claim to have been a perverted fetus. Oy, it’s not a competition. When someone jokingly or not so jokingly calls me a “dirty old man”, I feel I should tell them that I’ve spent an entire lifetime being that way. It’s part of who I am. Maybe not a totally pleasant part to some but I try to avoid prudish prigs at all cost.

I can’t say that I was always proud of my perverse outlook. There were many years where I did my best to cover it all up as best I could from friends and family alike. However, it was always there just under the surface whether it related to my spanking desires, my ass obsession or thoughts of all things anal (among about a hundred others). I never was any different than I am now except perhaps not so proud of it as I am now. Call me a “perv” and my response is more likely to be, “You’re fucking right I am”. Actually, I’m ten pervs wrapped up in one with a sprinkling of powdered perv on top just to make it extra vile.

Truth be told, I admit to things now that I never thought I would in previous years for a couple of reasons. First, I honestly have no use for upturned noses nor the people attached to them. Admitting to my perviness is a sure fire way to keep away vermin like that. They don’t like what I like then they can come on over and stuff it up their asses (as long as I’m allowed to watch). Secondly, it’s pure unadulterated marketing and I’m not ashamed to admit it. It’s amazing how many people harbor the same kinks as you have but don’t openly admit them until their antennae pick up signals that there just might be another out there. Being open about it, even embracing the perversions, is a sure fire way to fill up your Inbox with inquiries from curious individuals. Hey, it beats getting no emails at all.

It usually happens on the first day of work after a spanking party, especially one where I had so much fun. It’s that feeling of unreality about what’s going on around me, that sense that I things are a tiny bit off.

I’ve written about the fact that I often feel as if my scene life is more real than my vanilla life. Being able to brush away the patina of dust that I use to hide aspects of my personal life is such a joy and so freeing that it makes applying it again on a Monday morning that much more difficult. It’s often difficult to reconcile my inner self with the outside world because the latter comes across as fake in so many ways. I look at the people around me or read my newsfeeds as I ride into work and both smile about the events of a couple of days ago and shake my head at having to once again enter a world where it all has to stay hidden. I read lots of local news and a lot of that contains entertainment or nightlife features which often describe alcohol-related activities as if these are the be all and end all of exciting socialization. These are the moments that my inner chuckle is most active. I know lots of people who say the same thing but it’s true, I think to myself, “If only these people knew what I was up to on a regular basis — it would blow their minds”.

Spanking is no longer my secret kink, it has become an inseparable part of my life. I love doing it because it’s fun and it’s a turn-on in a dozen different ways — sometimes clumped together into one huge snowball of fulfillment. More than that, vastly more, is the fact that the community itself (and the smaller subset of close friends) is my preferred arena of socializing. Certainly there are offshoots of these that are more or less kinky and sometimes the vanilla/kinky divide closes for a bit but my social life revolves around the spanking community and to me that’s a good thing. I’ve spent a lifetime searching for family. I don’t mean in any formal way or even scene version of a family, I mean people who I feel close to and desire to be around. People who being around makes me feel like going home. I’ve spent a long time looking for this and am finally satisfied that I’ve found it. I’m sure there are people who might consider my words as overstatement but I am entitled to my feelings whether others agree or not.

So I come full circle. I’m sitting in a Starbucks writing this and am about to shut down the computer and head up to work. I don’t feel anxious or nervous about it nor feel that it’s any sort of hardship. What I do feel is that once again I have to slap on the greasepaint and entertain my vanilla life with a performance worthy of the label “normality”. I promise myself that I will pause on a regular basis to allow other and more pleasant thoughts to enter my mind. It’s the only way to keep sane in the obnoxious atmosphere of the vanilla world until the next time I can re-enter my real life — my scene life.