Website Review: Mood Castings

[Edit: as of July 2009, this review is no longer accurate. Mood Castings has transformed from a regular paysite, where one membership would give you access to their entire archive, to an "add to cart" shopping site for individual clips. I leave it to you to decide whether it is worth buying their casting videos at this greatly increased price. I must say that, in this current form, I would not have reviewed the site, though.]

[This is one of the pitfalls of reviewing websites: sooner or later, the review will probably be too outdated to be of much value. In this case, the entire business model of the site has changed. Even so, the original review will remain on my blog with this disclaimer attached to it - for "historical purposes".]

Mood Pictures from Hungary claim to produce "the most brutal caning and whipping videos" in the world, and what sounds like a wild boast may actually be close to the truth: other companies offer more in terms of story, sets, acting or intricate psychology, but when it comes to no-holds-barred savage beatings, the Magyars are difficult to surpass. Not a very subtle approach, but if sales and popularity are anything to go by, it seems to work for legions of fans. It all depends on whether you like the really, really harsh stuff, and on how quickly it gets redundant for you (or not).

Severity freaks will also be interested in Mood Castings, a sister site that features - you guessed it - casting sessions with some of the girls who later appear in full-length films. And with loads of other girls who, for some strange reason, never come back. At the time of this writing, there are 46 scenes with as many different victims, with 4 or 5 new clips added every month. The videos are in .wmv format with a resolution of 640 x 480, and there is also a gallery of photo captures for every scene.

Each casting consists of three parts: a short interview, an acting test and a caning, adding up to a total duration of around 10 minutes. The interviews deal with standard questions like: how did you hear about us? Have you ever seen a spanking video? Were you ever spanked before, by a boyfriend, maybe? Why do you want to try this? Most wanna-be-models fall strictly into the "To be honest, I'm here for the money" category, but there are also some genuinly curious and kinky ones. While most answers are predictable, some contain an interesting tidbit.

The acting test involves a short scenario like "student late for lesson", "employee caught looking at porn", that sort of stuff. Most of the scenes are fairly wooden, some are half-decent. They all result in a severe punishment, and that's the main part of the casting, anyway. It is made clear to the girls that they can call it quits at any time, but to be considered for a role in a full-length film, they have to endure 50 strokes of the cane.

Some do, with varying degrees of difficulty. Others give up halfway through or even after a handful of strokes. In any case, the dommes (all clips are FF) don't show mercy just because it is a trial: these are customary Mood-style canings, resulting in vivid welts and broken skin. It's interesting how reactions differ, from totally shell-shocked to quietly determined to almost casual. Sometimes, they are what you would expect after seeing the interview of the girl, and in other cases, the very opposite. Some tough-looking candidates throw the towel very quickly, while others who appeared a lot more meek and delicate come through with remarkable grit. Even in the Mood universe, things aren't all surface.

Afterwards, there is always a little chat. All victims get to answer the age-old "How did you feel?" question, and those who passed the test receive a hearty congratulation. Sometimes, there is relieved laughter or a proud smile, a sense of lightness not uncommon after a severe beating. In most scenes, the conversation is matter-of-fact, "are you up for it again, we will call you".

As a collection of hard canings, the site will satisfy any CP sadist. In so many words, the models look good and the action is hard. In this regard, you are going to like the clips as much (or as little) as Mood's DVD output. Apart from that, there is not much here, but such is the purpose of the site.

The German Lesson

I'll be off on a trip next week, on my way to visit a friend. Posting will continue - I have some stuff written in advance. I'll also sneak in a travel report if I can find the time (in between the various kinky exploits we have planned).

As a an appetizer for you before I depart, here is something from the last time we met. Much too long ago, in the autumn of 2006. You can find my own verbose account of events here. The victim's, as you can well imagine, is more concise (Dances With Werewolves, p.183):

"Soon after [Tom] left, my third German friend, Ludwig, arrived and came straight up to my room. We hung out for a couple of hours and then went out for dinner. The whispered exchange between the guys at reception didn't need translating. Three different guys in as many nights. Ludwig suggested that he storm into the lobby shouting that the American whore in room 310 had stolen his wallet. I was all for it. I was still high from the shoot the day before and the public drama would have rounded off my Germany adventure perfectly. In the end, wiser judgment prevailed. Instead, we had a German lesson in my room that involved a cane and me counting to thirty. I imagined the desk clerks eavesdropping outside, exchanging startled expressions."

Why eavesdrop when you can peep through the keyhole? We're all voyeurs at heart. Now, when we made this video, I had no plans of ever publishing it. I didn't even know that I'd be writing a spanking blog one day. But I figure, now that I have one, why not put the clip on it? Share the visual memories with my esteemed readers (besides, in light of forthcoming events, I wanted to draw first blood from the American bratling, heh heh...). It's not high art, but an innocent little piece of kinky fun, and hopefully, you're going to like it.

Several caveats. First off, the technical quality isn't great. I recorded with my own little camera and didn't even have a tripod, so we put it on a chest of drawers in the room (the black blob at the bottom of the picture). No extra lighting, no fancy equipment of any kind. Secondly, it's just a straightforward punishment scene with "make stuff up as you go" dialogue. So the script is not going to win any awards, because we didn't use one. Third point, I was a bumbling novice as a top and my caning technique was considerably worse than it is now. It didn't exactly suck, but I can't help cringing when I watch this today. On some of the strokes, the accuracy is just shaky.

All that said, it's a free video, isn't it? And noted flaws notwithstanding, a cute little caning scene that was fun to make. My "rowdies who play around with worms" line is a joke about Niki's shoot the day before (don't ask). Then the fish out of the water effect when I switch to German. Niki barely understands half of my disconnected ad-lib ramblings, which makes her both nervous and amused. I like her suppressed grins. Ah, just watch it yourself.

I almost forgot: Niki wants me to emphasize that it was our very first scene together and that she was nervous. That's a good one - she'd already done four Lupus films at the time, and she is nervous about playing with me, the geeky philosopher. Go figure. Freud was right, a woman's mind is inscrutable. Anyway, here is the video:

WMV format, 720 x 576 resolution, 96 MB:
Uploaded.net link

(Click on "Free Download", wait for the counter to count down, then solve the captcha and download the file.)

Severity!

If you have read some of my movie reviews, which include the work of notorious producers like RGE / Lupus and Mood Pictures, you know that I like severe corporal punishment. Both watching it and in my own kinky play. Not all of my sessions include ferocious beatings, mind you. Actually, that is pretty rare and reserved for special occasions. And I like many lighter CP films, too. As much as anyone else, I treasure the personal chemistry, the creativity and imagination behind a scenario, the sizzling intimate athmosphere, the interesting altered mindset we enter. I thoroughly enjoy play that has all of the above without going into harsh territory.

However, to make a scene truly special and memorable, or to place a movie among the greats, I need a proper level of severity in addition to all that. It is one of the prerequisites for perfection. Among other prerequisites, mind you, and not sufficient in itself: as we all know, there is no shortage of undeniably severe CP films that are plain boring. But conversely, you can have wonderful erotic chemistry, an intricate story, sublime acting, sharp dialogue, elaborate sets, props and costumes... And if the action isn't severe, the end result is still a merely good movie for me. Maybe very good, but not quite a classic. So, while severity alone is not sufficient for perfection, it is one necessary element among others for me.

I stress "for me", because all this is a matter of personal taste. It really is. Some people seem to think that it is a question of morals or standards. As a result, the spanking community is burdened with one of its endless and unnecessary debates: the one between "wimps" and "sickos". One side argues that gentle hand spankings are fine and dandy, but punishment resulting in welts and broken skin is disgusting and goes too far. The other side argues that hard play is the only real kind of play, and if you have never been beaten until you bleed, you are not genuinly kinky.

Both standpoints are nonsense, of course, because there simply is no right and wrong here. Severity, or the lack thereof, is not a matter of official norms, but of purely subjective preference. As long as everything is consensual and no permanent damage is done, it's perfectly alright to thrash the living daylights out of someone. On the other hand, if the participants are into it and fulfilled by it, a playful light over the knee spanking is as intense and "real" as any other form of kinky play. It all comes down to individual taste, not objective right or wrong.

Not only is the debate unnecessary, there is also a lot of confusion, because severity is a rather vague term when you come to think of it. Sometimes, I think it's almsot in the same ballpark as "art" - something that seems both highly familiar yet strangely ineffable. Or think about Justice Stewart's immortal line when he was asked to define obscenity: "I know it when I see it!"

As spankos, we profess to be experts on severity. We all think that we know it when we see it. But as soon as we start to talk about it, there is a surprising level of disagreement. That was a severe beating. No, it wasn't. "Tina's Ton Up" contains the most severe CP scene ever filmed. No, it doesn't.

How come? True, some kinky people have more personal experience (or a bigger movie collection) than others. They have a better eye for what is really rough and what isn't. But the main reason, I believe, is that severity is simply a more complex issue than one would initially expect. As is the appeal that it holds for some of us.

As I said, I like the vicious stuff. That's my personal taste. So I've thought a lot about what it is that appeals to me, and why it is so darn exciting. The following exploration is highly subjective. It attempts to describe what severity is for me, not for everyone. However, I believe that a lot of other sadists probably have similar feelings.

Let me start with what severity is not (yeah, philosophers love to do that - ask them for a definition, and they'll begin with some examples of what you aren't looking for): it is not synonymous with physical force. That is the most common misconception. It's true that force is one aspect of severity: there is just something intoxicating about seeing a cane or whip at high speed, a hard-hitting arm in motion, the swishy sound of the implement, the thwack as it strikes its target, the rebound. However, there is more to severity than "velocity of the cane in miles per hour". If there wasn't, we'd be turned on by hitting pillows.

But dummy targets aren't interesting, living and feeling human beings are. Obviously, what excites us is not simply the force of the stroke, it's the result it produces. To start with, there are the marks, an incredibly powerful visual turn-on for me. Stripes are good, welts are better. They are a signal saying, look, there is damage here, there is an effect, something is happening. Now, as any experienced spanko will tell you, the severity of the marks doesn't necessarily give you a clue about the force of the strokes. Some bottoms mark easily, others you can thrash for hours without making any visual impact. So in addition to the severity of the strokes, the physical force, there is a different kind, the severity of the marks or damage. And while the two are causally related, they aren't directly proportional (across different scenes).

Then, there are the reactions of the victim. The squirming and movements, the facial expressions, the moans, yelps, screams and other sounds, maybe tears. In a word, the observable behaviour. Like the marks, the reactions are sensuous turn-ons in their own right, on a pure "sight and sound" level. In addition to that, and more importantly, they give insight into how the victim feels. The latter may seem self-evident (unless you are a behaviorist...). But I emphasize it because this is what really interests a kinky sadist most of all - the subjective experience of the victim, the inner states, that which is not directly observable. The reactions are exciting precisely because they are expressions of pain and suffering.

Some reactions are more severe than others. Again, like the marks, this (third) kind of severity is not directly proportional to the physical force of the chastisement. It is influenced by various individual properties of the victim: pain tolerance, personality, previous kinky experience, mindset on the day, and so forth. I also believe that it depends, to some degree, on the surroundings, the whole scenario, and the relationship between top and bottom - that can affect how painful a punishment seems to you, or how you react.

I find it difficult to describe what, exactly, I consider a "severe" reaction. Just as severity as a whole isn't simply the same as physical force, a severe reaction does not automatically mean loud or excessive. Things aren't so straightforward.

I also find it hard to say which reactions I like best. I suspect that preferences vary not only among different sadists, but also with the same sadist and different victims or scenarios. Most of the time, I find somewhat restrained reactions, like gasps or yelps, to be the most erotic, while extreme screaming tends to irritate me. On the other hand, there are some CP scenes where the victim is screaming like mad, and I think it's just wonderful.

That may seem inconsistent and strange (did so to me for a long time), but it starts to make sense when you consider what I wrote above: that the reactions are not exciting as mere sights and sounds, but as expressions of suffering. So screaming, even though it is loud, isn't all that interesting when you suspect that the victim is hysterical and not actually in a lot of pain. Conversely, suppressed moans are a supreme turn-on if you get the impression that they convey great distress. So it all depends on the victim and the circumstances. I could say: a severe reaction is one that appears to express genuine, severe pain, however that manifests itself in the individual case.

In summary, I've distinguished between three kinds of severity: the severity of the strokes, of the marks, and of the victim's reactions. What do we make of all this? First off, I think it explains a lot of the disagreement about what is or isn't a severe scene, or which one is more severe than another. We simply conflate the three kinds of severity. And even if we don't, we tend to think that they are all directly proportional. "The welts are more extreme, so the beating must have been harder." But this isn't so. The latter two kinds (marks, reactions) are caused by the first (physical force), but their connections are much less rigid than we usually assume. Even experienced spankos, who actually know better, sometimes make this mistake.

Secondly, I believe that we often think of severity in terms of something that comes mostly from the dominant side. After all, the top is the one dishing out the strokes, right? But both the marks and the reactions depend as much on the properties of the victim as they do on the physical force that is applied. So again, while the top is "first" in the chain of events, it takes two to make a scene look and feel severe.

A case could be made that the victim, albeit passive, might actually have a larger part to play than the top. Take three different people and whip them, with exactly the same force. I bet that the severity will not only vary subjectively for them, depending on their individual pain tolerance, experience, condition on the day etc., but also for you because of the different reactions you are getting. You know it's the same force, but the severity feels different somehow.

Finally, we tend to think of severity as something primitive and unrefined. That is certainly true for the dull and over-long "mindless beating" scenarios which revolve only around this one element. They are the antithesis of subtle psychological role-playing. But it doesn't mean that severity as such is devoid of all psychology. Actually, the third and arguably the most interesting kind, the victim's reactions, are all about that. There is an intriguing psychology of pain and sadism. Its very rawness and lack of subtlety can also make high severity a powerful kinky tool. Of course, like any other tool, it will be limited and yield boring results if you use nothing else.

And that is the end of my verbose rambling for the day. At least you know now why I still consider Wild Party one of the most severe CP films I have ever seen - true, there are many with higher velocity canings, but the marks are vicious, and the reactions of the girls are on a plane of intensity that few other videos have reached. A severe video, to me, is one that has all three kinds - force, marks and reactions - at a sufficient level. And the three are progressively more interesting and important, with the reactions being the aspect that probably gets most of my attention, just ahead of the marks.

Now that I've shed some light on what severity is for me, what elements it has and why it is a more complex thing than we usually assume, the next big question would be: why is it exciting in the first place? Where is the appeal? Are people just into mindless brutality, or is there more to it than that? Which leads to the subject of sadism and the psychology of pain. That's the juicy part, actually, and after these long but necessary preliminaries, I'll tackle it - some other time! Stay tuned for more mental masturbation from your friendly neighbourhood sadist.

Movie Review: The Exchange Student

Producer:
Lupus Pictures (released in 2004)

Entire Story In Fewer Words Than Are In This Sentence:
English girl, Czech cane

Victim Appeal:
Are you kidding? This is the first film appearance of Niki Flynn. Not only does this mean that the victim appeal is off the frigging scale, it also makes "The Exchange Student" an important historical document. If you are a fan of hers, you should definitely see this (in the unlikely case that you haven't already). If you are not a fan, then there is something seriously wrong with you and you are different and strange. All your spanko friends think that Niki Flynn is awesome. You have no sense of taste. Get away from my blog.

While the birth of the werewolf is the main attraction here, that is to take nothing away from Denisa Petráková and Eva Šulistová, two brave and pretty girls who turn in good supporting performances.

Gratuitous Sadism:
There is a healthy amount of sadism here, both in the physical and the psychological department. Niki, playing the title role of an English student at a 1930s Czech school, receives the brunt of it. As the movie opens, she meekly enters the headmaster's office where she has been sent for corporal punishment. Little does she know that the guy hanging around there is actually an insurance agent waiting to sell a policy! When he realizes that she is mistaking him for the headmaster, the inventive salesman decides to brighten up his day a bit and canes the girl himself.

Later on, she encounters the deputy director who repeats the chastisement - after all, the headmaster is not around and only the proper authorities are allowed to wield the cane, so the student's protests "("But I've already been punished!") fall on deaf ears. Tough luck. But she also finds a sympathetic ally: when the deputy director learns that the exchange student got in trouble for fighting with other girls who were constantly picking on her, the bullies end up getting their own share of CP action.

Niki gets 25 strokes from the insurance agent turned fake headmaster, and another 12 from the deputy director. The other two girls receive 40 strokes each. The canings are severe, as per the usual Lupus standard, but not ridiculously so. Satisfying welts all around.

Best Reactions:
When it comes to the reactions to the actual punishment, I'd have to pick one of the supporting girls, the blonde "bully" student. Her tears and cries of pain, delivered in the semi-restrained manner I so love, are a solid delight.

However, in terms of acting / reacting to the situation, Niki takes the prize. The buildup of her first caning scene, with the insurance agent, is especially memorable. Her meek deer-in-the-headlights look turns to sheer terror when the agent orders her to take not just the panties, but all her clothes off: "I can't, Sir! Not in front of you! It wouldn't be proper!" Needless to say, the pleas are futile. Later on, another surprise lies in store when she learns that she will get 25 strokes instead of the standard English 6 of the best. Niki protests with a desperate "No, six! Sest! Sest!", and again, her delivery of the scripted dialogue is so effortlessly in-character and intense that it truly elevates the scene.

Best Line:
"All dress must down!" The salesman, explaining the intricacies of the Czech punishment ritual to a rather stunned exchange student. When she doesn't comply immediately, he reiterates: "All! Must! Dress! Down! And now! And schnell!"

Nice Psychological Touch:
There are two aspects of the story which I enjoyed immensely. First, the cunning insurance agent pretending to be the headmaster. Which is a devious little prank in itself, and moreover, he savours every minute of it - forcing the student to strip down completely, ogling her body with unashamed glee, dishing out a rather draconian thrashing. What could be sweeter than the abuse of power? Why, the abuse of pretended power, of course. Afterwards, inspecting her bottom, the salesman cheerfully remarks: "Stripes are really in this year!" Knowing full well that the girl doesn't understand him, anyway.

What I like about this plot twist is how the empathy works both ways. On the one hand, we identify with the agent. Sure, he plays a dirty trick, but who wouldn't? Every CP enthusiast in the world would be tempted, certainly with a girl like Niki. Besides, selling insurance is dull as dishwater, so who wants to begrudge the guy a little fun. On the other hand, even as you giggle at her misfortune, you can't help but feel sympathy for the poor exchange student, too. Especially when she has to go through the ordeal again with the deputy director. Not fair, is it?

But in the end, all this is counterbalanced, to a degree, by the two bullies receiving their well-deserved punishment. Since I'm a fan of comeuppance scenarios, that is the other aspect I particularly liked. Not only does the exchange student get to watch while her tormentors are caned. Afterwards, upon the orders of the deputy director, they kneel in front of their victim and apologize for the pain they have caused. The student, her troubles avenged, sits above the contrite girls in quiet contentment and savours their humiliation with a smug grin. At last, justice has been served.

How Good Is It Really?
Lupus Pictures always deliver good work, and this is one of their finest efforts. The customary love of detail and intensity are all there. The story proves that, with the help of a few creative ideas, you can do something fresh and inspired with a fairly standard schoolgirl setting. In addition to the aforementioned plot twists, we get a flashback sequence of the exchange student being tormented by the other girls, with her talking to the camera. That was a wonderful little gag which brought me flashes of Annie Hall. At the end of the movie, there is even a bit of political satire with Hitler, Chamberlain and the Munich conference.

In short, "The Exchange Student" bristles with ideas, and the chemistry between the players is great, too. Niki Flynn gives her debut, which in itself makes the film worth watching. Compared to her other collaborations with Lupus, this is probably the lightest (in terms of severity) and most light-hearted one (in terms of story). I know, it's a bit of an oxymoron, but what I am trying to say is this: even if you happen to be one of the gentler spankos out there, who doesn't get all misty-eyed and gleeful watching a werewolf-style caning, you should still give this movie a try. It's a classic and there is no excuse for not having seen it.

What You Learned:
"The Exchange Student" is responsible for my long-held erroneous belief that Niki is English. A classic confusion of actress and role that was finally cleared up for me when we became penpals (she's American). And one of the first things I learned then was that it wasn't such a bad blunder, actually - she told me that many people think she is Czech, and that she gets charming emails complimenting her on her English!

Marlene on the Wall

My apologies for the lack of updates in the past ten days, but I had some computer troubles that severely restricted my internet access. It seems to be a common problem for some of us kinky bloggers in recent weeks. But now I'm back on the air, as you could say, and I'll make up for my absence with an increased frequency of posts, to reach my planned June quota. Can't let my beautifully laid out long-term plans be ruined by worldly issues!

So, without further ado, here's something about an interesting mainstream movie. Well, two movies, actually, and neither of them totally mainstream, but see for yourselves...

Bernardo Bertolucci's Last Tango in Paris is on everyone's list of influential erotic cinema masterpieces. Released in 1972, it was groundbreaking and of course highly controversial, paving the way for other films that brought sex and sexual obsession out of the porn ghetto and into the realm of "respectable art". Watching the movie today, one wonders what all the fuss was about. The "explicit" scenes have since been overshadowed by newer, more outrageous breaches of taboo. But more significantly, "Last Tango in Paris" remains a powerful film in its own right and a captivating love story that is at the same time sobering and strangely sweet.

It's interesting to note that, 35 years later, society hasn't made any real progress when it comes to accepting the exploration of sex in art or in the media. Sure, you can show a lot of things that you couldn't have put out there a generation ago. For one thing, music videos, TV series and advertising spots are crammed with tits. Huge, threatening tits! But that's not sex, it's titillation - neat, controlled and commercialized. When it comes to films that openly deal with sex between actual human beings, or even worse, with unusual sexual practices and relationships, we still get the same silly protests and debates. Secretary and Brokeback Mountain come to mind as recent examples, and The Dreamers, another film by Bertolucci.

Coming 30 years after "Last Tango in Paris", "The Dreamers" makes for an interesting companion piece. Both stories are set in the same city and chronicle the sexual (and other) obsessions of characters who try to shut out the world outside, to live only by their own rules. Each time, they fail as reality catches up with them.

The protagonist of "The Dreamers" is Matthew, a young American exchange student who comes to Paris during the turbulent spring of 1968. A shy loner who spends most of his time at the cinema, he becomes friends with Isabelle and her brother Theo, two French students who share his love of the movies. When their parents leave for a month, they invite Matthew to stay at their apartment. He learns of the intimate relationship between the siblings and is pulled into their world. The three seclude themselves from the events outside, and before long, their lives only consist of classic films, sex and conflicting emotions.

Together, the two movies provide an apt illustration of the sexual revolution and how we look back on it today. Where "Last Tango in Paris" was raw and radical, "The Dreamers" is tinted with poignant nostalgia. Overall, the latter work is lighter, more playful. But while "The Dreamers" is not a groundbreaking or important film, it is well worth seeing. I liked it a lot.

There aren't any kinky scenes in it, really, not in the classical sense. But Isabelle and Theo have an interesting game of "Do you dare?" going on, constantly trying to outdo each other. Here is a clip of what the naughty French girl makes her brother do when he loses a movie quiz. I think it's very elegant how she gets two birds with one stone here, savouring the victory over Theo while also shocking (and exciting) her American friend.

How about a spanking movie set in Paris? Anyone up for that? It wouldn't even have to be filmed there, as the story I have in mind is about a bunch of characters totally retreating from the outside world, most of it taking place in a seedy apartment. We just insert some stock footage of the Eiffel tower, and a few lines of dialogue in French. C'est une bonne idee, non?

Conventional Weekend

I spent most of last Friday and Saturday at BoundCon V, the fetish convention in Munich. Josephine was going there as a model and asked me to accompany her and make sure that she is on her best behaviour. While we were still at her flat, I gave her an over the knee hairbrush spanking with that goal in mind, as a precautionary measure. Afterwards, I helped her lacing her corset and promptly managed to remove a large patch of skin from my right index finger in the process. Classic case of rope burn! But at least the corset was as tight and sexy as Josephine wanted it.

This was my first BoundCon, but as returning visitors pointed out to me, everything was a bit bigger and more festive for the fifth year anniversary, with dozens of exhibitors showcasing their wares. Fetish clothes in all shapes and sizes, ropes and cuffs, racks and other torture devices, DVDs and photographs... Actually, only spanking implements seemed to be in short supply. I guess that is why they don't call it WhackedCon. But I finally found a booth where they sold canes, and handpicked five nice and fresh 8mm rattan specimens.

There were bondage shows throughout the day, displaying dozens of different knots and loops and nooses. That is one area I, as a top, admittedly know very little about. It's all still terra incognita to me. Corporal punishment will always remain my central kink, I suspect, but I really want to learn a few of those elaborate bondage tricks one day. If nothing else, to immobilize the victim in a more classy way before I fetch the whip.

The main event on Saturday evening was less successful, though. A few bondage performers attempted a bit of stand-up comedy while tying each other up, and even with all the goodwill in the world, it just wasn't funny. I was sitting at a table and eating a snack, barely watching the show. Halfway through, the audience started getting impatient and the first whistles and boos could be heard. Suddenly, someone at a table to the right of me screamed: "Great show!" A guy at a table to the left: "This is shit!" The other one, on the right: "No, this is total shit!" "Please stop! Have mercy!" "I want my money back!" Stereo heckling, with me sitting in the middle, suppressing a grin while I continued to eat.

The would-be comedians left the stage within half a minute after that. I felt a tad sorry for them, but truth be told, the hecklers had been a lot more entertaining than the show itself.

As for Josephine, she was delightful and charming. We had a great time together. Chatting, meeting a couple of friends, browsing the assortment of wares. And playing around a bit, of course. At one point, I ordered her to kneel on the floor in the restaurant section and left her there for a couple of minutes while I bought some drinks. It was just a spontaneous idea, on a whim. Naturally, such an episode is considerably less interesting at a kinky convention than it would have been, say, in a Glasgow pub. But Josephine still got some bemused looks, and even though it was only "public shame light", I found the experiment interesting. It felt intense, much more so than I would have expected under the "just for a laugh" circumstances. I always regarded myself as a sadist first and foremost, but maybe there is more of the stereotypical control freak top inside of me than I previously thought.

Later on, the newly purchased canes saw some action, too. I always intended to try them out at the first appropriate occasion. After all, Josephine had persuaded one of her photographer friends to get her a model pass, and I was of the opinion that, in return for the free entry and cheaper snacks, she should do a little more than just stand around and look pretty. Besides, when we had dinner, she contaminated my chili with a huge spoonful of noodle salad, so she obviously agreed that a thrashing was needed to round out the evening.

I calmly finished my meal, carefully avoiding the noodles while Josephine watched me with a smug grin. Then I put down the cutlery, grabbed her by the hair and neck, lead her to one of the playrooms and caned her in front of some 15 to 20 intrigued spectators. Josephine had been spanked with others watching, but never in the presence of strangers, let alone an audience of this size. She was absolutely terrified, scared witless, a joy to behold. While I instructed her to pull down her panties and bend over, she meekly mumbled to me that she felt more nervous than before her first ever kinky play. Judging from her goosebumps and trembling, it was no exaggeration.

But Josephine is a brave girl and took her chastisement with admirable composure. Actually, she tried extra hard to remain stock-still and quiet, seeking to save as much of her dignity as possible under all the watchful eyes. I can understand that, but needless to say, I had to give her a reasonably severe punishment for the proper "thou shalt not play around with food" educational effect. I decided that I wouldn't prolong her public ordeal more than necessary and only gave her 15 strokes, but they were all fairly hard. Despite Josephine's best efforts, she was buckling at the kneeds and let out a few loud moans. I noticed a few audience members wincing in sympathy and two subs exchanging admiring looks. It's a pity that Josephine couldn't see it, she was facing the other way to show off her developing welts (and rather absorbed in the pain, almost forgetting about the other people, as she told me afterwards). But she got a round of applause when it was all over, and I was immensely proud of her.

All in all, we had a great weekend. I am very happy for Josephine, she is doing a good job with her economics studies and deserved a bit of a break to recharge the batteries. The exams are a little over a month away now, and I am sure that she will give me more reasons to be proud.