On the Bare, is a collection of M/f spanking stories by expert metaphorical fustigator, Fiona Locke.  It re-energizes that old-fashioned spirit of bare bottom domestic justice for wayward young ladies while also leaving them sighing with very soggy knickers.  I must confess to strong sympathies for those better days when gentlemen took it as their duty  -- as well as their pleasure -- to spank their female enamorata. 

In point of fact, I am equally sure that just as many, or more, male behinds were discretely disciplined with relish by stern ladies.  No one gets spanked enough these days if you ask me, and I cannot imagine anyone who would not benefit by a visit to Ms. Locke’s spanking world.

Ms Locke’s spankers in On the Bare apply palms, canes, paddles and other implements to the smooth, round, firm, warm (though soon to be warmer) luscious rears of girls, Ms Locke being something of a cheek connoisseur.  It’s not so much her description of the targets for punishment, as the way their owners feel about having them bared and spanked.  In “Kissing the Gunner’s Daughter” a girl is caned while wearing a pair of boy’s trousers that she donned as a disguise.  Clearly the pants give her as much of a charge under her dashing lieutenant’s discipline as the caning itself.

 As Locke’s story “The Woodshed” illustrates, she even has a deadpan sense of humor about spanking equipment. Her bratty heroine finds herself on a shopping expedition to a garden center.  Her master needs her to test just the right sort of birch trees to put in at his estate. Locke has created a lush treasury of disciplinary dalliance.  It is a world in which the old balance between male and female seems decisively one-sided.  As a feminist, however, I can say there is nothing here to protest.

First, the spankings may not always “look” consensual at first blush, but in all cases the lady has engineered her situation to wind up studying the carpet next to her lover’s knee. In “Damsel in Distress” the central character devotes endless amounts of time and energy getting the spanking she very much deserves even if the punishment is a bit more than she expected.  Well, a spanking should be, shouldn’t it? Likewise, when a character in the story “The Good Old Days” must be caned on national television for her role in a historical series, she is delighted to take her stripes as they mark the rise in her acting career.  After all Britons are itching to bring back the cane and birch, aren’t they?

More to the point, what is really outstanding about “On the Bare” is that every single spanking is unique. Each story has its own sensibility from the grim futurist story “The Improvement Session” to “Just Another Story” about an authoress of kink who finally admits she wants to be spanked as “research.”  Some of the spankees feel guilty while others are just plain horny for some slap and tickle.  For some it’s a rite of passage whereas others get the ordeal they expect plus something more.  That something is a new erotic choice, getting spanked.  Ms. Locke seems to say, “Try it…what could it hurt?”  What indeed?

Her wonderfully detailed descriptions suggest that Ms. Locke is clearly a devoted recipient of the lingering burn and deep throb from the spank and cane. I presume so because she so ably describes the throb of a large red handprint on a girlish bottom cheek.  What is more, she has a real sense of humor about all this recreational/correctional/educational/sensual spanking that is genuinely funny while at no time reducing the sharp sting of each truly hard, well-deserved smack.

Ms. Locke writes in a clear, agile, effortless English that is a joy to read.  Like most authors of BDSM erotica, her dialogue is a tiny bit stiff. Then again perhaps she is appealing to a broader readership given that the vanilla world seems to think spanking enthusiasts actually talk in this sort of schoolmarmese between bottom blisterings. I am very sure Ms Locke knows better from direct experience.