Kinky Holidays

I've never been on a vanilla type holiday with a kinky friend before. I've been on kinky holidays, most notably to Florida Moonshine last year, and on kinky weekends away but not on a "normal" holiday with a fellow kinkster.

This changed last week when I went on a last minute week away to Greece with my lovely friend Sarah. There were indications of the way things were going to pan out right from the start of the week. Soon after take off I started flicking through the in flight magazine. An article called "Six Of The Best", adverts for products called "Bad Gal" and "Hairbrush Hits"... was this a magazine designed specifically to startle kinky girls? Then one of the programmes on the TV service referenced "kinky quiche". What sort of flight were we on? And more to the point, what on earth is kinky quiche?

The mystery of the kinky quiche was never fully solved, and we landed, picked up an extremely decrepit hire car and headed to our apartment complex. On the way, Sarah got very overexcited as we passed a large shop called My Uniform, complete with a window display of all sorts of uniforms. I was driving so couldn't look that closely, but she reliably informed me that there was nothing that looked like school uniform, but that there was a very nice maid's outfit that was sparking her interest. After we had checked in, we heading off to the supermarket for the important things we would need to sustain us throughout our holiday (the main three being tonic to go with the duty free gin, tzatziki and Toblerone). There, as we were browsing, the most wonderful sign greeted us:

I'm not sure what an "Underware Shock" is. Is it realising you have the wrong knickers on? Or none at all? Is it the pain you feel every time fresh cane stripes rubbing against your clothes? Of course, there is an argument that is is merely a poor translation and should actually read "Underwear, Socks" but I prefer my theories.

Now neither Sarah or I would claim to be particularly switchy, but something about being in each other's company with available implements to hand seemed to "turn" us, and there were several wallopings given and received during the course of the week. She, it turns out, is really rather good at hand spanking. I, being absolutely useless in this particular field stuck to using her hairbrush. And don't worry, it's a plastic one, so is not as ouchy as many fellow members of its species.

One thing that Greece is well known for is its crafts, both woodwork and leatherwork. A browse of the local town one day led us to find the most beautiful wooden paddles (sorry, cheeseboards). We couldn't help but purchase one each. A second trip to the supermarket (we'd run out of gin. Oh, and Toblerone...) turned up a whole host of fly swats in pretty colours. And a final shopping trip for gifts saw me impulsively purchase a beautiful large olive wood spoon. Unfortunately a little too impulsively, as the spoon has a flaw in the ladle part. Some research that evening, though, led us to find that the handle is long enough and sturdy enough to be used as quite an effective spanking implement in its own right.

Thank you to Sarah for her wonderful company on holiday, and providing me such an appealing target for my spanking practice!

In Praise Of Tops

It's a hard life being a top. And I don't mean that sarcastically fo once. From the other end of the stick, so to speak, it really does seem to me like it's a hard job to be a top. You need to balance a scene perfectly. There is a fine line between pushing someone's limits and pushing them beyond their limits, between a scene being at the pinnacle of where it can be and going a little too far. Reading mood is critical, understanding circumstances, judging tolerance, especially when the person you could beat extremely hard three weeks ago is now crying at a hand spanking. Remembering limits that may seem bizarre and strange, but also, if broken, have the potential to turn a scene or even a friendship, sour very quickly.

How much more difficult, is it then, being a top in a group scene where the varying limits of the people involved are enough to make your head spin. How do you deal with all of those limits while still keeping coherency in a scene but making it a good experience for everyone? It's very hard.

I felt particular for Abel and HH at the Yorkshire school over Easter weekend. Apart from the usual "some knickers up/some knickers down", "can't be hit in X place/likes being hit in X place" sort of differences, the setting of the scene bought its own specific limits for me. One is around showering. While I would like to try the whole cold shower thing, never having done it, it's a very, very brave person indeed that messes with my OCD morning shower routine. Basically if I can't shower, properly, in the order I need to, in the morning, before I get dressed, I'm liable to have a bit of a meltdown, and certainly will need to wash every stitch of clothing I'm wearing at the earliest possible point. (Yes, I'm aware I need help!) I totally forgot to mention this until the day before when we were discussing the scene. Doubtless this threw their planning out, but they still managed to conduct the "morning showers" in such a way that 21st century Eliane avoided mental health breakdown and 19th century Louisa was still very much in evidence.

Another difficulty came around the actual activities we had to fulfil. 1824 schools were boring. Lots of reading, writing and rote learning. As a dyslexic (albeit a mild one), some of these tasks can pose small issues that would not cause me problems in daily life, but might well cause me to be punished in 1824, with the potential of reviving too many bad memories of school days pre-diagnosis when I was told off frequently for my "carelessness" when copying from the board, or my "lack of concentration" when forgetting something I'd just been told.

Knowing the approximate format of what we'd be doing, I warned the guys in advance that while I was more than happy to take part in these activities, undue criticism for things I genuinely couldn't help may well result in Eliane being distressed rather than Louisa. Once more, I was impressed at how well they worked these foibles into the scene. I was not punished unduly harshly for my total inability to recall anything about what I had just read out loud, and the trips between masters were organised in such a way that while I still had to do the copying out task, it was not actually going to be reviewed by anyone, therefore removing the need for anyone to beat Louisa for accidentally writing "anal" instead of "and" when doing this task (write anal and and in cursive script and see how easy it is to get the two mixed up).

The amount of care and forethought that HH and Abel had obviously put into the planning to make sure that we all had an experience we could enjoy while still taking into account our "eccentricities" (I speak only of myself!) brought home to me once more how lucky I am to play with people (and not just the two already mentioned) who put such thought, effort and planning into scenes, to make sure that they are the best possible. So (just this once!) let's give those mean, horrid tops a few minutes of praise. Only a few mind you, we wouldn't want them to be getting ideas!