Round Table Discussion: Role-Playing

Renee Rose kindly invited me to join the Spanking Romance Review Round Table this time. The topic is role-playing, and it was left open as to how we wanted to write about it. I chose to relate a couple of real-life experiences I've had with role-play.

Several other bloggers have joined in this conversation. To see their contributions, check them out here: 

So, here goes.

One would think that because I’ve done videos for the past 13 years, I would be well-versed in role-playing. It’s true in part; I have played a few elaborate roles for films, including a Puritan widow, a saloon owner in the Old West, a psychotherapist, various men’s wives. But for the most part, even in video, I’m usually playing an exaggerated version of myself.

In general, I’d have to say that I’m not that much into role-playing in my personal life. I have no interest in costumes, or in inhabiting a character who isn’t really me. I had to do role-plays with strangers when I worked in a dungeon years ago, and I found them to be awkward and contrived. However, if I know someone well and have that elusive chemistry with them, and can suspend my disbelief and just go with the scenario, a role-play can be extremely delicious indeed.

I have two favorite stories that illustrate the hot side of role-play. The first one happened several years ago, when I had a spanking play partner who was a college professor. He suggested we do a scene where I was a college student and he was my professor, and he’d caught me cheating on a final exam. So I had a choice: take a spanking from him, or he’d report me to the Dean. Formulaic, right? Of course. But it turned out to be one of the most intense scenes I’d ever done.

For one thing, he was completely believable, because he was largely playing himself. And for another, while the “take a spanking or else” formula may be well used, we put a creative spin on it. He gave me a long, hard spanking. First with his hand while I was OTK, and then he bent me over the back of my recliner and whaled on me with a leather paddle until he could sense that I’d had enough. And then, after some corner time, I turned the tables on him -- during aftercare, I seduced him.

Wait a minute -- Erica Scott in corner time?? Yes, really. It’s not my thing, but he made it very sexy. Instead of just leaving me standing there, he’d sneak up behind me, whisper in my ear, pull away, whisper in the other ear. He’d command me to stay still and quiet, threaten me with what he’d do to me next time if he ever caught me cheating again. And when he finally let me out of the corner and had me get lotion, I could feel the power shifting. He was now catering to me, soothing me, and I chose to press the advantage. After all, why would my professor go to all this trouble to comfort me after a punishment, if he weren’t secretly attracted to me?

As I lay over his lap, feeling him knead lotion into my sore bottom, I teased him, goaded him into admitting his attraction. Of course, he didn’t really have to admit it, since I could feel the evidence, hard and insistent, under me. He argued and denied, told me he thought I was a very naughty girl. “You think, you think,” I taunted. “Don’t you ever want to just shut off your head and feel?” “What should I feel?” he asked. “Me,” I replied.

Clothes were fully removed then, and I completed the seduction of my professor, reveling in his vulnerability and release as I gave him my full oral attention. “Are you going to blackmail me now?” he gasped. “Are you going to report me to the Dean?”

“Of course not,” I assured him. “Why would I? I’m just a brat, not malicious. Besides, I can see that I’m going to need more of your counseling in the future.”

“Yes, I believe you are,” he agreed.

Damn, that was fun.

The second story is from 2011 (to all those who already read about this in my blog when it happened, my apologies!). I’d been playing for about six months with a man I referred to as ST. We got together every week in my apartment and we’d forged a trusting relationship. He knew just when he could push my limits a little, but also when it was time to stop. I felt completely safe with him.

Cut to a day when I was perusing FetLife and happened upon a photo from a local man’s profile. It was a professional video shot, for a company that produced various kidnap/abduction clips. In the photo, the handsome (but very sinister-looking) man had a woman in his grasp, with one hand clamped firmly over her mouth. Her eyes, staring at the camera, were wide with terror.

I’d never had any sort of “damsel in distress” fantasies before. But I could not stop staring at that picture.

Finally, I copied and pasted it into my blog, and mused about how hot it would be if a suave intruder broke into my apartment, restrained me and had his way with me. Not with rape, though -- with spanking. “Don’t be afraid, honey,” he’d purr. “It’s only going to hurt for about an hour.” Then he’d hold me down (or tie me up) and force me to take a spanking, until he was good and ready to leave. Consensual non-consent at its finest. Yum.

Blogging about it kind of got it out of my system and I forgot about it -- until ST showed up on Monday. When I opened the door, I smiled and reached out for him, ready to greet him with a big hug as I usually did. He did not smile in return, and he shrugged off my arms. Then he grabbed my hair and steered me into the bedroom. Shocked into speechlessness (yeah, I know...huh? Erica, speechless?), I stumbled along with him.

Wordlessly, he pushed me facedown onto the bed, and before I knew it, he was tying my hands together behind my back. Finally speaking to me, he leaned down and hissed, “Did you really think you could post something like that on your blog and no one would get ideas?”

OK. I knew what was going on here. He was giving me my fantasy. My heart pounded. Somewhere deep within my head, I knew I was perfectly safe. But he was so convincing, and I lost myself in the moment. The fear was an illusion; I knew this wasn’t real, but right now, it felt real.

I stammered a bit, and his fist tightened in my hair. “Did you?”

“I don’t know!” I blurted. “I couldn’t help it! That picture just… sorta did something to me.”

“Yeah, well, now I’m going to do something to you.”  Oh. My. Freaking. GOD.

He pulled off my clothes from the waist down, then tied my ankles together. The spanking that followed was fierce; hard and fast, no warm-up. But my adrenaline and endorphins were soaring so high, I barely registered the pain.

And then the implements came out of his bag. He brushed them against me, taunting me. “Are you scared?” he asked. “Yes,” I murmured. “Good. You should be. Be careful what you wish for.”

Oh, he was good. I couldn’t believe how menacing he could be.  I was scared, and so incredibly aroused.

When he began to strike me with the strap, I whimpered, “Please…” “Please what?” he said, snapping it down again. And again. “Please… don’t hurt me!” I blurted.

“But I want to hurt you,” he hissed in my ear. And then he did. Repeatedly, with several implements. I writhed and moaned and squirmed, but could barely move. I was powerless and at his mercy.

Finally, he paused. “I like hurting you,” he mused. “And you like it too. Don’t you!”

Even as I wept, I nodded my head vigorously. He then finished me off with ten hard paddle strokes, which he made me count out loud.

Then, as quickly as it had begun, it ended. The cruel stranger disappeared, and ST was back, untying me, soothing me, holding me close. He lifted my face to look at him, so I could see his gentle smile. It took a while before my crying and trembling abated. And then, when I could finally speak, my first words were, “Oh, my God… that… that was soooo fucking HOT!!” He laughed. Said he thought so too.

I had been tied up before, but I’d never had it sprung on me like that. It surprised and delighted me how quickly I was able to snap into the role of “spanking victim” and just ride with it. As I’d mentioned before, I couldn’t do this with just anyone. I trusted ST deeply. In our nearly two years of play, he pushed me to the edge several times. But he never let me tumble off the cliff.

But wait, there’s one more twist to this story. The man whose picture I had been perving? Long story shortened, I ended up meeting and befriending him. And several months later, I once again got to act out my fantasy scene. With him. On film. This time, I got to be the woman with the terrified eyes.

Sometimes, I really do like my life. :-)