It's the little things...

When I was younger I had a mentor who had one particular rant that he subjected my compatriots and I to on a regular basis. There were many variations, but the gist was that big things are made up of little things, and that we should pay very close attention to the little things.

When writing stories, I know that many times the things I work the hardest on and are often the most proud of are very small things that the readers take for granted or don't even notice. They are normally very small things that set the scene just right, but seem insignificant to the end product.

When reading stories by other authors, there are times that very small things can hit me between the eyes like a sledgehammer, resonating deeply and sticking with me for years even if the rest of the story fades. For example, years and years ago I read a story by (I think) Daria Little which I don't even remember the name of. There was one particular line that stands out in my mind even today. It was a story of a woman remembering her first spanking as a girl, and went something like "...out of the blue one day Dr. Spock became Dr. Spank..." This is a humorous example, though probably more so to me because when I was growing up both spanking and Dr. Spock were normal parts of childhood.

My topic is simple. What small (unique) turn of phrase or simple image do you remember from a spanking story that set your pulse racing, caused you to blush or burst out laughing from remembered embarrassment, or in some other way made the entire story come alive for you in a very personal way?

There's an article written for Bared Affair by Goodgulf I think, which purports to be an interview with actress Bonnie Franklin who played the mother of characters played by Valerie Bertinelli and Mackenzie Phillips in the US sitcom One Day at a Time. She says that the girls often behave like genuine teenage sisters and sometimes things can get out of hand and when that happens it 'pants down and over the knee for a good hot bottom'. For some reason that one phrase has stayed with me ever since I read the story.

I don't agree with the premise that the little things are isolated. I think they are the visible evidence of the invisible work that the author has put into the story, but may not have explicitly stated. That said, there are plenty in several great stories but one that comes to mind is from the combined efforts of IMreadonly and Watcher. I think the story is called "Over for the Summer." The line is just perfect and says so much.

"I don't think you'll consider yourself hard done by if she gives you a quick spanking." This is said to a grown woman in regards to going across her niece's knee. The Aunt who says this line just knows that the main character will go along with it even though this is the first day of her visit and they haven't belabored the subject of a an adult woman receiving a steady diet of corporal punishment during her stay with family.

It takes a real understanding of character and situation to nail stuff like this and it's always great when an author(or in this case, authors) can deliver like that.

In Oh Brother by Minidancer Chloe is removed from a forbidden party by her step-brother. She is taken home and spanked by hand and hairbrush. The spanking scene includes my all-time favorite descriptive paragraph of corporal punishment:

"Soon she wasn't just wriggling but pedaling thin air, with legs akimbo, as fire exploded in her backside. Gasps and sobs mingled into one rousing chorus of misery, orchestrated by the rhythm of the brush. The smooth flesh of her cute derrière turned a deep scarlet, each hot cheek an incandescent flag of shame."

"legs akimbo" I laughed out loud when I first read those words and I still chuckle even now. A spanking, with over 25,000 such punishments in the library, isn't an easy scene to describe with originality but this paragraph makes the meting out of justice come vibrantly alive. I wish I could write like this.

I have two particularly memorable ones to share,
The first was from many years ago, from my pre internet lurking-in-bookshops phase, coming from an now forgotten story where the male top muses:

"With strong bones supporting plenty of padding and plentiful nerve endings the female bottom was ideally designed by the Creator to maintain the balance of authority between the sexes."

And the other, far more recently, OK, it's probably just a temporary favourite, from Neil's very amusing 'Sandra, Bingo & the Van Man':
"Love is never having to say there's no more sausages" which works (for me anyway) in more than one way.

One of the first openly erotic spanking scenes in literature I ever came across, in my teenage years, was in that classic of 18th-c English erotica, 'Fanny Hill'. Fanny is a London prostitute, and one of her clients, a Mr Barville, turns out to be a switch: he likes to be birched, and then to birch. After Fanny's birched him thoroughly, much to his satisfaction, it's her turn:

"... and now, taking hold of the rod, rather wantoned with me, in gentle inflictions on those tender trembling masses of my flesh behind, than in any way hurt them, till by degrees, he began to tingle them with smarter lashes, so as to provoke a red colour into them - which I knew, as well by the flagrant glow I felt there, as by his telling me, they now emulated the native roses of my other cheeks."

The phrase "those tender trembling masses of my flesh behind" particularly stimulated my imagination - among other things....

Much as I truly enjoyed the description of the spanking, and I know what Mini meant by it, "legs akimbo" is not a thing. The term "akimbo" can only be attributed (or applied) to arms and the term means hands on hips and arms bent outward at the elbows. Still, "legs akimbo" is a very descriptive phrase. Perhaps there can be a new, or additional definition of "akimbo".