Training the Trainer, my novel about a dog/personal trainer who is looking for a dominant partner, is most likely going to be released in time for Frolicon 2022. However, while I wait for a title to strike me for the Kristen story, I spent some time typesetting TtT. If you’re interested, the book checks in at 209 total pages and 22 chapters (although Chapter 22 is pretty short, so it’s really more of an epilogue). It’s also the first book I’ve ever written that has an explicitly trans* character in it, one inspired by a friend/former play partner who did her first ever public scene with me (which was super fun). Right now, I’m working on the back cover copy, and once I have that, I’m going to order a cover for it. I already know exactly what I want the cover to look like; it’s just a matter of finding someone who can make my vision come to life. Hopefully I can use the same artist that did Lessons — I really liked her work — but if not, I’m sure I can find someone.

In typesetting TtT, I ended up reading the book about nine times. (Well, skimming, really.) It was interesting to get back into Grace’s head (Grace is the main character); reading a book that many times is almost like imprinting yourself with it. I’m rather pleased with how I wrote her, and I hope you are too.

Here’s a fun scene from the book:

Grace heard the belt land on the bed, the buckle jingling a bit, and then both of Tim’s hands were on her shoulders, palms warm and massaging on top of the tingling from the belt. He went from pushing with the heels of his hands to lightly dragging his fingers over her skin, and she felt her muscles flutter, along with an accompanying flutter down below. He was extremely good at this, and she really wanted to have sex with him.

Stupid rules.

But she’d obey them. It wasn’t her place not to.

Tim rested his left hand on Grace’s right shoulder, and with the other hand he spanked her left one.

No, not spanked. This was different. He was definitely hitting her — she decided a spanking was just when her ass was involved. His palm was flat and even though he wasn’t hitting her very hard it was still more of a thump than the belt had been, probably because he was following through with his arm.

He hit her several more times on the left side, and then cupped her left shoulder blade and started hitting the right side.

It felt extremely good. Painful, but good.

Before he could ask, she said, “green. More please. And a little harder?”

She imagined Tim nodding, and then he did what she asked. The hits became more intense and she started to feel warm tingles in her shoulder muscles. Each time he paused she murmured “green”, just to make sure he wouldn’t stop.

He didn’t stop. Not for a while. When he did, she imagined her shoulders were red — they were certainly hot and achy. He knelt in front of the bench. “Hey.”

“Hey.” Grace’s voice sounded faraway to her ears. “That was great.”

“I’m glad you liked it.”

She nodded. “Are we done?”

“Do you want to be done?”

“Huh-uh.” She shook her head. “You can hit me some more. I like it.”

He booped her nose and she giggled. “I think I’ll go back to your ass now.”

“Fine by me.”

But after about a minute, when Tim started spanking her again, his hand felt different. More smooth, less warm. Not bad per se; she was still enjoying his bare palm on her back, and the spanks felt nice too. But something was strange.

Then she felt his hand cup the back of her left thigh and she realized her legs were open. “Are you absolutely one hundred percent sure nothing is off limits?”

“Green,” she said. “Nothing off-limits. I’ll say red if I have to.”

“Just checking.”

The next spank made Grace’s whole body jolt, and she realized what was different: Tim was wearing a glove. He spanked her left thigh, then her right, and then right between them.

Grace yelped, but then moaned. She was already so wet from what Tim was doing, and now he was going to spank her there?

His hand fell again.

Yes. He was going to spank her there.

Tim moved back and forth across the tops of Grace’s thighs — left thigh, between, right thigh, between, and so on. She wondered if the glove was wet too, but her brain didn’t have much bandwidth for that; every time his hand landed between her legs her whole body tightened up. She was moaning, even though the spanks to her thighs were harder than ever now, because the other ones felt so good.

So, so good.

And she was getting so, so close.

Tim just had to keep spanking her.