There’s about a 50 percent chance that, as you read through Switching Plans, you’ll meet Luisa. Here’s what happens when you do:

You feel a little overwhelmed by all of this and sit down on one of the couches, next to a woman with very light brown skin and dark straight hair. She introduces herself as Luisa.

“Hi. I’m Shawn.” You and she shake hands. You notice on her badge that it says she’s a first-time attendee; you’ve been to this party before, although it was almost ten years ago and at a different hotel. “What do you think of the party so far?”

“It’s okay.” She has a vague accent that suggests her first language is Spanish. “I’m here by myself and I don’t know a lot of people.”

“Same here. Have you gotten to play at all?”

“A little. Not as much as I had hoped. But I think it’s my fault for not talking to more people.”

“Well, you’re talking to me.” You smile, and then shoot your shot. “I’d be glad to spank you, if you want.”

Luisa looks you up and down, and seems to make a decision. “Sure. Let’s do it.” A brief pause. “Can we do it in here? No offense, but I just met you.”

“Of course.” You get up and head for one of the bedrooms; she follows. It’s empty, which is a relief; the last thing you want for your first spanking of the weekend is for someone to be watching you.

Before you do anything, you quickly run down your negotiation checklist, making sure she doesn’t have any medical issues you need to know about. She requests the spanking not be bare-bottomed, which is fine with you, and when she takes off her shoes and slacks you get a good look not only at her legs — they are quite nice — but also her backside, covered mostly by plain black hipster-style panties with a white waistband. “Over the knee okay for you?”

She nods. You sit on the bed and pat your left thigh, and she arranges herself over your leg, her upper body on the bed. “Can I touch your back?” you ask. “And your thighs? Not in a sexual way.”

“Yes.” Now that you have Luisa in position she seems a little skittish, so you rub her lower back to help calm her down. Your other hand smooths over the seat of her panties, brushing the tops of her thighs, again to soothe her. She’s attractive, yes, but this is a pickup spanking; you’re not in it to titillate her. “I’m ready,” she says.

You deliver your first swat of the party to the middle of her right cheek. You don’t hit her very hard, but she still jumps a bit. She doesn’t jump when you spank the left side, though, and it’s almost like she relaxes when she realizes this isn’t going to be so bad. You spank her slowly and firmly, making sure your hand stays mostly on the cotton of her panties, although sometimes when you get lower, near her sit-spots, you do touch bare skin.

After about fifty swats, you stop and check in. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah, everything’s good.” She wiggles a little, and it’s almost cute.

“More? Harder?”

“Maybe a little harder, but not too much.”

“I can do that.”

You’ve been giving spankings for a long time, and you know how to modulate your intensity. You dial it up a little more, each spank a nice clean whap! on Luisa’s backside. She occasionally makes a noise of mild discomfort, sort of an “ooh” or “mmm”, but you know you’re not really hurting her.

“More?” “Please.”

I wrote the Luisa scenes toward the end of my actual writing of the book — the thing about interactive fiction is that you really don’t have to write in order — because I wanted there to be some difference between certain choices you make near the start of the story. So far, Luisa has not yet reappeared in other stories, but she still might. You never know.