Title: Pushing Limits
Author: Julia Talbot
Length: 14 pdf pages, 3500 words.
Publisher: Torquere Press
Genre: m/m BDSM erotica
Rating: C+
Blurb:
Dell loves to push Law’s limits, but Law’s surprised when a trip to a friend’s house results in the best kind of show, with Dell’s friend Jimmy staging a spanking for their pleasure. It certainly makes for a night to remember, but will it be too much to ask Law to do some of the same things?
Review:
Pushing Limits is a short piece of BDSM erotica which I found interesting, but ultimately somewhat unfulfilling. Narrated by novice submissive Law, the first half details Law’s reactions to watching a spanking scene, and the second half shows us what happens when his boyfriend, Dell, escorts him out to one of the private rooms.
The strongest aspect of Pushing Limits for me was the character of Law. His relationship with kinkster Dell is a recent one and he has no prior attraction to or experience of the scene. However, under Dell’s patient guidance, Law is beginning to discover a side of himself he’s never encountered before. Talbot did a great job of showing us Law’s reluctant attraction to the scene, despite his assurance to the reader that he isn’t into kink—merely into the way Dell makes him feel. Of course, in this respect the reader can enjoy understanding more of Law’s desires than he does himself—he’s clearly a natural submissive and is ridiculously excited by everything going on, even if he does find his reactions embarrassing.
At times these reactions do seem rather over the top, and I did chuckle at Law’s claim that he gets hard almost every time Dell calls him “baby”. However, the characterisation is consistent, and Law continues to become over-aroused by almost everything that happens. Watching Teiko kiss the hairbrush he is about to be spanked by is a case in point. There is a telling moment where Law considers if he could ever submit like Teiko, holding back his orgasm on command and calling his Dom “Sir”:
That kind of submission was something I’d read about in the books Dell gave me, or watched in the porn movies he liked. It always made my scalp sweat, like drinking hard tequila on an empty stomach. Was this what Dell wanted? Or did he just want to shock me?
What didn’t work so well for me was the relationship between Dell and Law. With this story being so short and Dell not having many lines, it was hard to get a handle on his character. Clearly he was much more experienced in the scene than Law, but I couldn’t shake off the feeling he was manipulating his new boyfriend in an unfair way. Dell seemed to have a single-minded purpose to push Law’s limits however he felt about the matter. While this might well be what Law had agreed to beforehand, without seeing any form of negotiation between them it did leave me feeling uncomfortable. It didn’t help that we get no sense of their normal lives or their relationship apart from the sexual aspect.
This story should suit anyone who enjoys reading about a novice submissive discovering things for the first time, and who doesn’t mind a rather arrogant Dom. There are no real surprises and the last line fell flat, in my opinion, but it works well enough as a mildly amusing and sexy erotic short.
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