I had a call out of the blue from an old friend, Mandy, a couple of weeks ago. She had moved to Spain a few years earlier and, although I knew she'd returned to the UK, I hadn't seen or heard from her for a while. We had a lot of catching up to do so we arranged to meet the following Friday for dinner and cocktails.
Over The Knee Anthology
We had a lovely night swapping news and gossip. After several cocktails I told her about the story I'd just submitted to my publisher for a spanking anthology. Mandy raised her eyebrows at me and drawled, "Spanking anthology?" She didn't know about my venture into erotic romance.
I grinned back at her. "Yes, it's an erotic love story and it's packed full of kinky sex."
She immediately demanded to know all the details and so I gave her a rough outline of the story. When she started laughing I stopped and frowned. "What's so funny? It's an erotic romance not a comedy."
When she finally stopped laughing Mandy told me about the new job she'd landed after she had returned from Spain. I wasn't sure what that had to do with my story, but I listened silently as she told me about the stuffy corporate bank she worked at now. It was highly competitive and some of her colleagues were very distant and unfriendly. Especially her boss who, according to Mandy, was a rude, cantankerous and bad tempered woman who seemed to believe that she was a superior human being to her colleagues. Mandy hated her, but could only grit her teeth and try to work with her as best she could.
Despite the chilly atmosphere created by certain people, Mandy became friendly with an analyst called Rachel. They soon started meeting up after work and became close. One day Rachel asked Mandy to go with her to a fetish club. She'd been desperate to go for years but had never plucked up the courage until now. But she didn't want to go on her own which is where Mandy came in. At this point Mandy started grinning again.
"What?" I asked, not yet understanding what was coming next.
"Well, we went and you'll never guess who we saw there?"
Baffled, I shook my head.
Mandy's eyes sparkled with mischief as she said, "Molly, bloody, Smith."
"Who?" Was I supposed to who that was? And then the penny dropped. "Your boss?" Mandy's grin stretched wide across her face. "Yep. And, you'll never guess what?"
"What?"
"Miss Bossy Bitch was tied up, gagged and being flogged by a seriously mean-looking Dom."
And that's when I understood why Mandy had started laughing when I'd told her what my story was about.
"Oh my God. Did she see you?"
"Oh yeah, and her face was a picture," grinned Mandy, clearly enjoying herself. "And do you know what? She's been quite cordial to me since then. Funny that."
I must admit I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall the first time they'd faced each other at work after that night. There's nothing wrong with being into BDSM and there's certainly no law against it, but I am aware that a lot of corporate institutions still have very out-dated views on anything that falls outside what they perceive as 'normal'. I know Mandy would never say or do anything to put Rachel's job at risk, but Rachel probably doesn't know that. At least she is now being more civil to my friend.
In my story, Kneel For you, which is part of Totally Bound's new spanking anthology called Over the Knee, Kirsten bumps into her colleague Eddie at a BDSM club. But that's where the similarities between Mandy's story and mine end. Kirsten is on an assignment and visits a BDSM club purely for research. At least that what she tells her friend who goes with her. When she sees Eddie and discovers that he is a Dungeon Monitor at the club he offers to help her with her research in more ways than one and she soon ends up over his knee.
Finally, if you should ever attend a kinky event or BDSM club and see someone you know, don't worry. It's highly likely that they'll be there for the same reasons as you.
Bio for Katy Swann:
Katy Swann is in her forties and lives near London, UK with her husband, three children and two cats. Katy writes BDSM romance with an emphasis on D/s. She finds the D/s dynamic the most exciting and erotic aspect of BDSM although a good spanking or flogging comes a close second. Her books are first and foremost love stories with a large dose of D/s and kinky sex.
The Boundaries Trilogy (To Love and Submit, To Love and Trust & To Love and Obey) was published in December 2013 and was her first release. She is currently working on a new series of standalone BDSM romance novels called Dominion.
Coffee, chocolate and cats are her favourite things and are often close by when she sits down to write.
Buy Link: https://www.totallybound.com/book/over-the-knee