I’m back from approximately 11,587 adventures that have left me away from home and mostly off the internet for a long time. Paul is in England and I’m back in Los Angeles, so for the time being, we aren’t shooting anything for Northern Spanking or our other forthcoming projects, which means that I have a little bit more free time than I usually do. I spent the morning catching up on email, and I have my House Boy coming to do chores this afternoon. I decided that it would be really nice to get back into blogging, if I can. Blogging used to be such a habit for me, but when I start again, it never sticks. It makes sense. My life is full to the brim with travel, producing and appearing in videos, doing sessions, going to events and spending time with partners and friends. It gets overwhelming pretty often, and during times when it isn’t, I feel the need to unplug and just enjoy being with people. At the same time, I love being able to share my stories and come home from my trips with something that all of you can enjoy, too.

So, let’s try again. Maybe this will be an isolated post, or maybe it won’t. We’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?

Working backwards in terms of places I’ve been recently, I arrived home from Denver the other night. Denver, of course, is where I go to shoot for the Real Spankings sites, and to visit my BFF, Amoni, who lives out there.

I shoot for Real Spankings a couple of times a year, generally speaking. It used to be more often than that when I lived in the midwest and had a life that it was easier to sneak away from. Real Spankings was one of the first spanking websites that I ever looked at when I was starting to explore what the internet had to offer– I think this is the case for many people. I remember being totally enamored with it, and I know that lots of aspects of it made an imprint on the way that my fetish developed.

The first times that I went out and shot for their site were nerve wracking but extremely exciting. I was such a fan girl, having watched these videos for years and years at this point. Real Spankings has a very particular aesthetic, and even though the location where they shoot has moved a lot of times, they’ve kept the look of the spaces consistent with the same furniture, wardrobe et cetera. It was a really immersive experience to then be able to walk directly into that world and be a part of it. The first time I wore the Real Spankings Institute uniform I felt like I was going to die from excitement.

Besides all the giddiness I had about participating in something that I’ve loved for a long time, there was a huge level of apprehension surrounding those first couple of shoots because, uh, the spankings on those sites are really hard. I remember wondering if I was going to be able to take it. It felt kind of like an ultimate test to me. At the time, I was playing really hard on a regular basis though, so I had a lot of confidence in my ability to endure. I was right– it was a painful experience, of course, but a very positive one and I was eager to repeat it.

The first two or even three times that I shot for Real Spankings, Michael Masterson wasn’t there. He was on a hiatus from appearing on film. The first time that I went out and met him was a really, really big deal for me. He was one of the first video Tops that I really fixated on, and I was both worried about making myself look stupid in front of him and I had more than a little healthy fear of getting spanked by him.

One of the ways that I’ve been most fortunate in my adventures exploring the world of spanking is the fact that the majority of the people that I was a fan of before meeting turned out to be genuinely amazing in real life. Sometimes I take a step back from my life and think about how surprised the younger version of myself would be by the adventures that I’m having and the wonderful people I get to spend time with. While I was in Denver, I had a moment like this. I realized that I was texting my partner, Paul Kennedy, to tell him about the great day that I had with my friend, Michael Masterson. I can’t imagine how badly it would have blown my mind to have known that this was going to end up being my life.

Anyway, in the present, I have become really close friends with Michael, and shooting for RS has remained something really special for me. It’s a space where I enjoy pushing myself, and Michael is one of the people who I trust the most to push me.

The idea of limits within a spanking scene is something that can be tricky. The more calloused side of myself sometimes hears someone (or even myself) say “I can’t take that” and thinks “well, what’s going to happen? Are you going to burst into flames?” For a long time, I thought that setting limits was a weakness and I did very little of that. There were things that I wasn’t going to seek out, but I was generally happy to take what I was given.

Then, I went through a period of time where I became very emotionally vulnerable and I came to understand the limits that people set for themselves quite a lot more. I struggled to relax and let things happen to me because I was afraid of getting hurt. This was something that colored my life for a long time, and which I’ve only recently been able to fully shake off. Even during the time that I was most protective and concerned, I felt totally safe and happy to push myself when shooting for RS. I’ve always felt so safe and emotionally comfortable there. I know that the spankings I’m going to get are going to hurt and leave me feeling sore, but I also know that I’m going to be safe and secure while it’s happening and that no one is going to do me any harm. This allows me to just be the person that I am and enjoy what we’re doing.

Basically, they’ve created an environment that makes me want to give it my all, to keep pushing myself and to make something that I really love and value.

All this said, a side effect of this environment is that I can let my headspace be really…real. I can let myself get really worked up over the spankings that I’m going to get because I know just how much they’re going to hurt. I always plan these trips pretty far in advance, and there’s a slow building of anticipation as the date approaches. I’ll be talking about my upcoming plans and I’ll mention going to go shoot for Real Spankings with *just a twinge* of nervousness about what that means: it’s still really far off at this point.

As my trip to Denver was getting closer and closer, I started thinking more and more about what was looming in my future and I started building it up in my head. I started remembering particularly hard spankings that I got in the past. I started remembering them really vividly, and these memories made my heart pound. There were times when I got spanked really, really hard. I was crying and struggling and deep in the headspace of being punished. Remembering these things nervously and knowing that they’re in the future as well as the past is an intense headspace experience for me. It creates just the right kind of fear. I have to really trust someone to feel the right kind of fear before a scene, but when I do, it makes the whole experience feel so authentic and all encompassing for me. For a scene to be totally gratifying for me, it has to build up this way.

By the time that I flew into Denver, I had worked myself up over this quite a lot.

My girlfriend, Adriana Evans, was already in Denver. We were going to be shooting together the next day. I’ve gotten to see Adriana a lot recently and I’ve been totally spoiled by it. She’s one of my favorite people in the world and we always have so much fun together. Being with her makes me feel really young and lighthearted. We got to hang out with Michael before shoot day, and had lots of fun.

The next day was time to shoot, at which point I was full of (enjoyable) nervous energy. It was so much fun to get to share this experience with Adriana, who totally gets me and who was greatly contributing to my headspace. She’s also just the best. I love doing anything with her.

We shot six scenes this day, and they built up in terms of toughness. The first scene was hand only, and I got to be a pervy voyeur while Adriana got spanked, so that was lots of fun. The next two scenes were harder: we both got strapped in both of them. Michael got the tops of my thighs a little bit with the second strap and I was a very sorry girl indeed. Listening to Adriana get her punishment and holding her wrists while she did it was very headspacey for me, too. These two scenes left me crying out and squirming around a little bit, but I was able to take them fairly well.

We were halfway through, but I knew that the second half was going to be more than a bit harder to take.
That didn’t mean it wasn’t fun, though! We got to do a scene where we wore the famous Real Spankings dropseat pajamas: one of the only  things that I really remember watching but never had a chance to actually wear.

We took our dress up games too far, and got the belt. (This scene includes something special and exciting, too, that is right up Adriana’s alley, haha). We got to cuddle each other afterwards and enjoy a nice, lovey moment:

Real talk: this scene was hard and I was really struggling to be good during it. Michael’s belt isn’t just a normal belt. It’s crazy thick and very serious business and it always makes me particularly sorry. We got belted standing and bending over, which is a position that I struggle to maintain. I have to pay attention to keeping myself upright, which makes it harder for me to get into my totally passive headspace and prevents me from blocking out the pain a little with this. My butt was hot and my skin felt swollen and sore by the time this was done. I was close to crying, but not exactly there. Fortunately, I had Adriana to give me a bunch of cuddles, because I knew what was coming next: paddling.

Every time I come to shoot for Real Spankings, I get a school paddling. It’s just a fact of life. It’s ten swats, and I’m always telling myself “anyone can take ten swats of anything” when I become nervous. But those swats count. The whole thing is such an experience…it really feels like I’m actually getting punished at school. It’s (almost always) over jeans, which gives a certain level of protection and creates verisimilitude, but it also means that the swats can be that much harder. I used to be scared of getting paddle swats because I didn’t know what it would feel like…and now I’m scared of them because I do. There’s nothing else in the world that feels the same way. It’s this sudden an inescapable pain that comes with so much *force*. It feels like I’m going to go flying across the room. The sound is so loud, too, and the louder something is, the scarier it is. But it isn’t just sound: these swats are the kind of thing that you feel for a long time after the scene.

I managed to keep myself from getting *too* worked up this time. Sometimes, I get so deeply into my headspace that I start feeling lightheaded (I love it). I was feeling a little sweaty though, and my heart was definitely pounding. To make matters worse, Adriana got paddled first. Which is fair to her, really, since I’ve been paddled way more often than she has and that’s the way it’s supposed to work, right? The more experienced friend is the one who has to listen and worry?

I was very worried. The swats sounded hard and loud and Adriana was practically yelling by the end.

I was very hesitant as I got up and got in position for my paddling. I felt like I could look over to Adriana for support but I was too focused on what was going on inside my head for that. It was just as hard as I was worried it would be. I *did* yell, and probably sounded truly pathetic, to be perfectly honest. I fell deep into the emotional space of having been punished (even though it obviously wasn’t real) and felt very sore and sorry by the time it was over. But I didn’t cry. I was close, but not exactly there.

I usually cry whenever I shoot for Real Spankings, but sometimes I don’t– it just depends. I was in a pretty good emotional space and not carrying around baggage that I needed to get out, and I was well rested and surrounded by friends, so any tears that were going to come would just be from headspace and, yep, pain, not from me letting go of things I was carrying around (which sometimes happens in my life, and is honestly a great thing for me).

The last scene of the day was a school girl one, and it started out lighthearted and fun but as soon as I got the first smack with a heavy wooden ruler, I realized just how sore and busted my butt was and I immediately felt tears building. It had been a long day and my butt was really feeling it. Even though it didn’t really fit the scene, I felt comfortable to just let go and fall into that and I started crying. I honestly would have been disappointed if I hadn’t. This was the final piece of making the whole thing truly intense.

At the end of the scene, I got six strokes with a heavy yard stick and six with the cane and I just sobbed the whole time. Because spankings hurt, and what else are you supposed to do? I felt a little hazy afterwards: that’s a lot of adrenaline and endorphins, but I felt good. My needs were met, and I knew that the videos we had filmed were going to be great. Plus, I had gotten to share all these intense scenes with Adriana and Michael, two people I just adore.

My job is hard and demanding, but damn, it’s great sometimes. :3

We finished off our visit with a quick trip to Red Rocks:

That night, I went to Amoni’s house, where I immediately went to her freezer and stole an ice pack. I was definitely bruised and marked and it really did hurt to sit. It was great.

I was only in Denver for a day and a half after that, and I spent most of the time just hanging out with Amoni (and petting her really cute dog):

I also got to go see the Mountain Goats the next night, but this is Alex in Spankingland, not Alex in Indie Music Land so I won’t go into it too much. Suffice to say, it was a brilliant show and I had an amazing time.

The next morning I had to get up early to head back to LA. I was still very tender as I sat on the flight home!