J- and I knew each other from soc.sexuality.spanking, an online spanking group. I'd make an appreciative comment about one of her posts or she would do the same for me, but we had never met. But I did notice that, in a cyber world that is full of unreliable characters with dubious ideas, she was always solid. Right on the mark. Knowledgeable and obviously very experienced. That experience enabled her to give me an amazing first spanking experience; I’ll always be grateful to her for that.
I should tell you a little about J-. She isn’t just an online persona, of course. She is a vital person with many interests, the mother of two sons, and a world class pervert. She is the publisher of Greenery Press (www.greenerypress.com), source of “reading for the sexually adventurous.” And she is the author of several books, including The Compleat Spanker, a work that I had read with tremendous interest. She is invited to speak all over the country. She is, in short, an established and important person in the national BDSM scene. When we were part of the same conversation online, I took note that this is someone I would like to get to know better.
The next year, I was in Palo Alto over winter break and I invited her to meet me for lunch. The nice restaurant I had in mind was too crowded, so we went around the corner to a hole-in-the-wall place where we each had a wrap and a soda. It was an enjoyable conversation, but it didn't go beyond talk. We even didn’t talk about a possible date. At that point I wasn’t in a position to engage in real spanking—only wanking.
However, when I was wanking, I would sometimes look at the photo of her I’d found in an article about Greenery Press and imagine how I might spank her.
Then it was the following fall, we were still in touch, and I realized I was going to be back in the San Francisco Bay area again. I wrote. She invited me to lunch. I replied that I'd rather spank her. She said “That would be lovely,” and we began making plans.
This was my first experience of pre-scene negotiations. We talked about how she wanted to be spanked; when she wanted to be spanked; implements she liked; and much more. My spanking her was in line with my persona at the time, which was, officially, a top. Of course, this is the easiest role for a novice male to play; it’s the stereotyped role for our gender. And so we agreed on how I would spank her.