My book reviewed!

No, not the new one, the old one. :-)  Katerina, of the new site Bottoms Up Book Review, just made "What Happens to Naughty Girls?" her review #21. She wrote up a lovely, complimentary piece on it, which you can check out here.

I really like the style in which she reviews. She gives a synopsis, then shares what she likes (or doesn't like) about the book. Following that is an excerpt of decent enough length to pique interest, and then she concludes with a few more of her thoughts.

This book was pretty much an indulgence for me. I knew it wouldn't have mass appeal, because it was too limited -- it was M/F only, and I put myself in nearly every story. So, even though the situations were varied, there was a certain sameness about it, I think. You either liked my style or you didn't. It didn't sell much, and I didn't expect it to. But perhaps this review will finally nudge it over the 200 mark! (It's sold 198 to date.)

Thank you, Katerina! ♥

Celebration time!

We have everything we need, right?

An awesome top with a hard hand and a bagful of toys -- check!

A cheeky brat girl -- check!

And champagne -- check!

What are we celebrating, you ask. CreateSpace finally accepted my @#$%ing book cover, that's what!! :-D  Those numbnuts -- gawd, the aggravation they put Zelle and me through!

They rejected the first version with a generic message about "live elements" being outside the image area. No details. Zelle took great pains to make damn sure the second version was even more perfect than the first one... and they rejected it with the same generic message. This time, I was pissed. I knew they were jacking me around, trying to wear me down so I'd order their premium services. Not gonna happen, guys. You're messing with the wrong woman.

I wrote to them and called their 800 number, saying I needed more information, needed them to tell me exactly what needed fixing. This morning, they wrote back to me, and hallelujah, they gave me a precise direction. Itty bitty minor thing. Nitpickers.

Zelle was leaving for vacation tonight, so I didn't want to bug her with this. I figured I'd wait until she was back home. But she wrote to me, asking if they'd OKd it, and I couldn't lie. I told her what was going on and said she should forget about it for now, go have fun and we'd deal with it later. Bless her heart, she insisted that if they did tell me what to fix, I should send it to her immediately.

So I forwarded her their instructions this morning, and within a half-hour, she had it back to me. I not only resubmitted the cover a third time, I called the 800 number again. Told them it was coming and I didn't want another rejection. The guy hemmed and hawed, said they check it thoroughly each time, because Point A could be fixed but in the process, throw Point B off. Fine, whatever... I said OK, but if there IS something wrong with this one, I want specifics right off the bat, no generics. And could they process this faster?

He said he didn't think that could be done, but I'd get my answer within 24-48 hours. But then after our conversation, he wrote to me to follow up (they'd never done that before) and said he'd spoken with the techs. I heard from them in four hours, telling me Congratulations, all looks good and it's time for me to order a proof.

YAHOO!!

I got that message about an hour before New Guy showed up -- how perfect! No fun celebrating alone, is there?

As it happened, a dear friend had given me a bottle of pink champagne a while back, but I rarely drink, so it sat in my fridge waiting for a special occasion. This was it! But first things first, of course.

NG got a brand new Smart Phone, so he was experimenting with taking video on his phone while spanking/strapping me. We got some cute stuff -- it jumps all over the place, but still fun. I guess it takes some superhuman dexterity to hold a cell phone camera steady and whale on someone's a$% at the same time! :-D

Oh, he was in good form tonight, let me tell you. He was strapping me so quickly, I couldn't catch my breath, so I yelped, "Hey! What's your hurry??" He then slowed waaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyy dowwwwwwwwwwwnnnnn. "Is that better?"

"No! Why does everything have to be so black or white with you tops?" I snapped.

WHACK!!!!!  "Everything is red with us." (groan)

Once he decided I was well done, it was champagne time. Did I mention that I rarely drink? A few of you have seen me after I have a glass or so of alcohol. It is utterly ridiculous -- I have the tolerance of a three-year-old. I start giggling and stumbling over my words and I get light-headed right away. As I did tonight. Not drunk... it's not enough to get me drunk. Just with a little buzz. Just enough to have lots and lots of fun.

Well, until I laughed at NG and called him silly one too many times.

Wow. Round #2 was something else. It's all a blur, but I know it hurt. I know it was measured and well paced and it went back and forth from tender to tough and back again. I know I took a very long time to come back down to earth.

I know it was completely wonderful.

"Am I still silly?"
"No....."

Interesting... I don't know if it was subspace, or alcohol space, or a combination of the two. It's not something I would want to make a habit of, but for tonight, with my joy over the book cover, it felt just right.

So is my bottom as pink as the champagne? I'd already faded... phooey.

But I will definitely feel this one tomorrow. Lucky me.

So now, I have ordered a proof. They are shipping it to me this week. I need to review it thoroughly, check all the elements inside and out. And if (I hope I hope I hope, fingers and toes crossed) everything is OK, I let them know, and the book goes on sale.

I'm so close. Can't believe it.

Thank you, Zelle. Thank you, everyone who has been so supportive and encouraging through all this. And thank you, NG. I'm over the moon that I got to celebrate with you. :-)

As if it weren't hot enough...

... no, this isn't a post to complain about the heat again. I've already been told if I don't knock that off, someone is coming over to cool my jets. :-)

I'm talking about Weeds. I know, I'm way behind on this, since the scene I'm discussing was from Season 6, back in October 2010. But I'm renting the show on Netflix and just saw that episode, ironically titled "Gentle Puppies," last night.

Obviously, if you haven't watched the show, you won't know what I'm talking about. But I will assume the show has a large enough fan base. Besides, even if you don't follow it, no doubt you've heard about the spanking scene(s).

I'm about to commit scene sacrilege once again. Back in Season 4, there was an OTK spanking scene between Mary-Louise Parker's character Nancy Botwin and the devastatingly sexy Demian Bichir's character Esteban. The buildup to it was charming, I admit, and it was definitely not faked -- good pullover, he pushed up her dress, you saw hand-to-bottom contact. But his technique was lame, lame, lame. His arm looked spastic and stiff and he landed in the same spot over and over. People were cheering about what a great spanking scene this was, how fabulous it is to see an OTK spanking on mainstream TV, etc. I guess I'm jaded. I give them an A for effort and intent. But is it all that great? IMO, no.

If there's anyone left in the spanko world who hasn't watched the Season 4 spanking, you can see it here.

However, the scene from Season 6 is what resonated with me. It was edgy. It was rough. And it was @#$%ing HOT.

Nancy, bored and frustrated, on the run and stuck in a podunk town, goes to a bar looking for trouble. She antagonizes the hunky bartender/owner, wandering behind the bar to help herself to a shot, taking the "No Ladies at the Bar" sign down from the wall and tossing it to the floor, lighting up a cigarette although no smoking is allowed.

Unfortunately, the scene in its entirety, once up on YouTube, has been taken down. I did some searching online and found the full scene, but it was on PornHub and one has to put up with in-your-face graphic photos and ads in order to view the clip, so I am not posting it here, sorry. However, a brief clip of the buildup is still on YouTube, and it's plenty hot on its own.



I don't know about anyone else, but I find this even hotter than the buildup with Nancy and Esteban. The hair grab. The look on her face when the lock on the door clicks into place. And while the clip ends before the action, I will tell you that what followed included his belt striking her bare bottom, and then his kissing and biting the red stripes. After that... well. :-)~~~~~

So, fellow Weeds lovers, what do you think? Which scene did you prefer? Why? Granted, the first scene was much more traditional, which is great. I just can't get past his crappy technique. It's too bad, because I love a spanking scene where both participants are equally attractive and sexy, and that certainly was the case here. But that second scene... something about it. You could feel the tension crackling in the air. The way he glared at her. His calm voice when he says, "You don't listen." Brrrrrrrr.....

Oh, and the actor in the bar scene is Mark-Paul Gosselaar, who used to be on Saved By the Bell. He certainly has grown up, hasn't he?

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take another cold shower.

Random crankiness

I am hot. No, that isn't bragging, that is complaining. I don't like being hot. It makes me very crabby. So, since I don't have one specific focus this evening, I'm just going to bitch about everything that's irritating me. Y'all OK with that?

Yesterday late afternoon, we had a split-second power outage; my computer shut down and then restarted. I held my breath, waiting to see if anything got corrupted, but it didn't. So I went on with what I was doing, and then noticed I was uncomfortably warm. Warmer than usual. When it gets up in the 90s, my building's A/C system can't keep up, so it tends to be kind of warm in here anyway. But now it was really warm.

So I stuck my hand in front of the vent. Hot air was gushing out. @#$%&!!!...the A/C must have flipped a circuit or something with that brief power blip. We go through this at least twice every summer -- the system is old. The good news (if you want to call it that) is, it affects ALL of us in the building, including the manager. So it gets attention ASAP.

I opened the windows, turned on my fans and shut off all the lights. I took a dip in the pool. I sat around naked all evening. The temp went up to about 82 degrees in my living room. Not very comfortable. I was glad this happened on a Tuesday, not a Monday.

This morning, it was blowing cooler again. Now my apartment is about 76. OK, I'd prefer 72, but I'll take it.

On to the latest with my book. I sent the cover and interior file to CreateSpace (CS) toward the end of last week, awaiting their approval. On Friday, they wrote to me, saying the interior formatting had been approved, but the cover had not. Then they gave me some vague reason about how "an element on the back cover was outside of the live graphic area and could get trimmed off in production." Well, that tells me nothing. What element? Where? How much? I couldn't see how it could be anything egregious. I know Zelle had taken great pains to follow their guidelines to the millimeter.

So I joined the CS Community, read some posts on the various forums and learned something rather quickly: CS isn't much help when you want to do things yourself. They want you to buy their premium services (help with editing, layout, designing, etc.) and they reject a ridiculous amount of covers at first submission. Fortunately, there are some very nice people on there who have learned the system and they avail themselves to the newbies for advice.

Sure enough, I started a thread about what had happened, and one man wrote to me privately, suggested I send him the PDF and he'd look at it. Within an hour, I heard back from him. He'd taken the time and effort to make a diagram for me, with blue lines and red lines and exact measurements, showing me exactly what he'd found. There it was... at the bottom left, the last line of text was dipping very slightly outside of the live area. That was it.

What, CS couldn't have told me that??? Argh. Thank goodness for the kindness of strangers.

So I sheepishly and apologetically forwarded all this info and the guy's diagram to Zelle, who said she'd do the necessary tweaking. As soon as I get that adjusted file back in my hot little hands, I'm resubmitting it, and if they give me any static about it this time, I'm going to raise hell. Because I know it will be perfect and they're just giving me the business because I won't buy their super deluxe "we'll hold your hand through everything" package.

Well, I'm not alone in being hot, at least. Some of my friends on FetLife today were saying they wished they had a harem of male slaves to feed them Sno-Cones and frozen grapes. That made me think of a fun and fond memory from years ago, when I was around 40. I was at my gym, and speaking of malfunctioning A/C, theirs wasn't working well that day and the air on the top floor was still and very warm. Unfortunately, that floor was where they had the cardio equipment.

Bracing myself, making sure my water bottle was full, I got onto a Stairmaster and within minutes, felt like I was going to pass out. There wasn't anyone else on the other machines, and Tony, one of the trainers, was wandering around, picking up the newspapers people had left behind. As he approached me, he smiled, said hi and asked how I was doing, did I need anything, did I have enough water, etc.

"Well, since you asked," I panted, "how about if you just stand there and fan me with those papers?"

I was kidding. I was flirting. I didn't expect him to DO it. But he did. He stood next to me for a half-hour, fanning me with newspapers and chatting with me. People laughed when they saw what he was doing, but he didn't stop.

What a sweetie! And lord, was that boy easy on the eyes. He was in his late 20s and looked like a cross between Justin Kirk (the actor who plays Andy on Weeds) and Leonardo DiCaprio.

As I savored this memory, it occurred to me that there was probably no freaking way something like that would happen now. Bleah. Ageing blows.

Why is it that my post-spanking bliss can't last for more than a day, dammit? I mean, Monday night and a good deal of Tuesday, I was a happy camper. By last night, I was right back to Ground Cranky. When I remarked to NG on Monday night about how I felt like I spend half my life waiting for something or another, he gave me a swat and gently said, "You can't have instant gratification on everything, Miss Erica." Now I ask you, do you think that's what I expect? Really? Harrummmph. I protested that I don't get instant gratification on anything! OK, so maybe that's not true either. Christ, I really am over-the-top irritable, aren't I...

Enough already. I'll end on a positive note. I got some work today from a client I haven't heard from in months. I had a kick-ass workout at the gym tonight. I was called a "cheeky monkey" on FetLife today; that made me giggle. It's the little things, folks. I'm really not all that hard to please, despite evidence to the contrary. :-) Like I said, I just hate being hot.

Ah. I feel cleansed now.

What I need

I didn't know I needed to play extra hard tonight. I didn't know I needed to cry, to sob, to absorb pain willingly and want more. I had no idea.

But it doesn't matter. He knew.

I don't know how he does it. How he reads me so thoroughly. Even from the start, with the OTK warmup. As he ramped up the intensity, I squirmed, but my mind was screaming, "Harder, oh please, harder!" I almost blurted that out, but I didn't want to top from the bottom. Not tonight. So I arched upward to meet his hand.

And then, as if he'd read my mind, he ramped it up even more. "Yes," I whispered, "yes, yes!" That may sound strange. But it wasn't a porn-star, fake-orgasm "yes." It was real. It was pure delight in what my body was experiencing.

I didn't feel like sassing, protesting or goading. All I wanted was to feel. To take whatever he wanted to give.

Once I was positioned over the ottoman, the strap, belt and paddle burned fiercely. One strike made me pull back sharply, crouch down onto my heels, gasping from the pain. He gave me a moment to recover. Then, a split second before I knew I was ready to reassume the position, he calmly said, "Get back up there." I did.

"You need this, don't you," he said, bringing the belt down. "Don't you!"

"Yes," I cried. "Yes!" Tears came. Didn't matter. They felt cleansing. I buried my face in the pillow and hunkered down for the duration.

He'd pause, gently touch and tease me with the implements, caress me with his hand. But I knew more was coming. I waited.

When it happened, my brain screamed, "I can't, I can't!" But then, almost as if it were another person outside of me, I practically heard, "You can. Take it. TAKE IT. You want it. You need it. He knows." And I did.

After a particularly long flurry, I was panting, sobbing, feeling like I was on fire. He paused. In my hazy, spacy state, the only thought that came to me was, "Oh... he's not done, is he? I need more. Just a little more. Finish me. Finish me, please."

And then he said, "I don't think we're quite done here, are we?"

How did he know? I shook my head vigorously. "No."

Not much more. Just ten. Then it was lotion and soothing, while I wept for a long time. I didn't want to stop. They were good tears. I trusted him with all my heart and let him watch me be vulnerable. He broke me down and then put me back together. New and improved. Blissful.

"How do you do that," I murmured. "How do you know when I need more?"

"How do you take more?" he asked. I don't know. I just do. I guess he just knows, too. Knows me.

I don't always want it to be that ferociously intense. But when I do, he knows.

I am so, so lucky.