Wednesday, October 19

Getting over my 'difficulties'

My past few visits to HH have seen me arrive in an odd mood; last weekend was true to form. Despite looking forward to the visit and the weekend of play, despite having discussed scenes in advance, despite knowing on this occasion I was due a punishment as soon as I arrived (and had been worrying appropriately!), despite all this I refused to play. Not in a bratty, whiny way - just in a 'you must be kidding' type of way.

So we chilled for the evening and before bed I got a firm hand spanking which I just about coped with. The next day my punishment was duly delivered and I was as contrite and well disciplined as you can imagine. I had stopped being 'difficult', for a while at least and I felt at peace.

It lasted until bed-time, when HH reminded me that bed time spankings on the day of a punishment are always given with a hairbrush, hard. I tried not to be rebellious about it; I tried to be accepting. But as the hairbrush rained down so hard, biting my skin, I got angry: at the pain, at him, at the world. And semi intentionally went quiet, channelling my anger and frustration into breaking him into stopping. A few more whacks and I was let up. I had succeeded. If I was a clever girl  I'd have been very contrite, realised I got away slightly lighter than I should have and breathed a sigh of relief.

Unfortunately I'm not a clever girl: I stood up in a huff and pulled my knickers and pj bottoms up, without asking permission. (As you may recall from a previous post of mine, the asking of permission is a big deal in our play.) When he sat me on his knee and patiently told me off for being difficult I caved in - admitted that I knew I could manipulate him into stopping, that I was increasingly trying to top from the bottom.

He nodded, then put me back over his knee and hair-brushed me til I begged him to stop. Then hair-brushed me some more, until I was crying limply over his knee, not resisting anymore. To drive the message home he caned me on my thighs.

I really hoped that was the end of my being difficult. Discipline and obedience is my core kink - I can't allow myself to undermine HH's authority (that I imposed on him!) or we'll lose the dynamic that works in this type of play. And in other role pay we do, where I give myself totally to him and get lost in the depths of those feelings.

When we discussed scenes to play the next day this was heavy on my mind. I told him I wanted to be scared, to understand how fully in his power I could be, to beg for mercy and really mean it. I wanted to play with the disobedience and disappointment; my feelings, not his. My kink swings may frustrate him but he didn't feel he needed to make a point of it. Nor does he require my obedience because he wants it, but because he knows it's what I need.

To make it work on that level I wanted to be me in the scene: EJ. However, I knew this would cause a dilemma for HH, as he can't really be truly evil unless he's role-playing someone else. Therefore I suggested that I was to be sent to a master disciplinarian to be taught a lesson - that HH had sent me away to be broken and returned to him with a new attitude.

This led to a very interesting dynamic - I really felt that it wasn't HH I was paying with, especially as he taunted me about 'HH' during the scene. During the final pain and humiliation I actually begged out loud for HH; it was scary and weird all at once.

As he prepared the play room for the scene, I lay on the bed, worrying. I was trying to prepare myself for the pain ahead. Trying to talk myself into an accepting space. I knew if I got angry or defiant in the scene at all the consequences would be horrific.

When the time came he ordered me to strip naked. As I watched nervously, he attached cuffs to my ankles and wrists and a posture collar to my neck. The latter forced me to look up which was particularly cruel; I couldn't hide from his derision.

Upstairs the sight of the wooden pony made me feel ill. For those of you unfamiliar with it, below is an excerpt from the last blog post I wrote about it:

A narrow plank of wood suspended from the ceiling. One at a time we were placed straddling it, legs held apart with a spreader bar, wrists cuffed to an elastic rope above. As the plank was winched higher, our legs were too strained to support us and the pressure between our legs became unbearable.
The elastic above gave false hope. The more you pulled the lower it would drop down giving no relief.

At first the wood between my legs was bearable, eased slightly as I tried to sit back, leaning on my bottom, whilst he twisted and whipped my nipples and breasts. But then he made me sit less comfortably, by attaching clamps to my nipples and dragging me forward. This was the first of many times in the scene that I begged.

I tried hard to bear it - closed my eyes, bit my lips, tugged on the elastic above my head. Until I couldn't stand it anymore and the pain swelled to unbearable depths. (I really have no tolerance for nipple clamps!) At the point my begging became near hysterical he counted down from 20 so slowly it felt like each second was a minute. Finally he released each nipple by pulling the clamp off sharply, to a piercing scream from me; I sobbed pitifully.

When he raised the pony even higher a whole new wave of pain overcame me, my legs straining to tiptoe higher, my arms desperately pulling on the elastic. By the time he let me off the pony he had already broken me. What followed next was just gratuitous pain.

He lay me on my back on the bed, my legs suspended in the air with my ankles chained to the beam above. My thighs were completely exposed, pulled tight and at his full mercy. As he picked up the bean paddle I whimpered in fear. I hate the bean paddle. Imagine a small scale oar, the head about the size of a regular paddle with a longish handle. The head is thin and whippy and very shiny and it feels like the worst combination of a thin leather strap and a wooden paddle.

My fear was not in vain, the paddle whipped down on my thighs and crease until I screamed and sobbed and then could only whimper. In between his hands probed and hurt me with smacks raining down between my legs, on the front of my thighs, my breasts, my face - everywhere was game and I was powerless to stop him.

The final six with the paddle left me a hyperventilating mess. I had to count each stroke but the garbled words could barely be understood. This merely made him laugh. When he stopped he grabbed my face and asked me would I be a better girl for HH in the future. I swore I would, then begged with all my heart to go back to him.

But he wasn't finished yet - one last abuse executed without compassion, that left me under no illusion of who was in charge. My last tears fell quietly as I tried to pretend I wasn't there, that it didn't hurt, that he wasn't destroying me completely.

I eventually got 'HH' back for some much needed cathartic tears and cuddles, and needless to say I wasn't a bit difficult for the rest of the visit. I dread the thought of having to revisit this man, but feel reassured knowing he's there if needed, to help me get over my difficulties...

Tuesday, October 11

A painful review

As those of you who are regular readers of The Spanking Writers will know, Abel is somewhat of a collector of implements. In one of his recent posts he listed a helpful Implement Rollmaker of Honour. Two of the entries in particular caught my eye.

The first was the Claire's Accessories hairbrush which seemed incongruous amongst the others:

"For hairbrushes: it just has to be Mason Pearson – although, bizarrely, I found the most gorgeous cheap brush in Claire’s Accessories when Emma Jane and I were on holiday in Belgium last month, which was very robust but not too severe, and worked rather beautifully"
I had to agree with Abel's assessment, and as you can see below it's a very cute and girly brush, but packed quite a sting and reddened me very nicely!


The second was the list of cane makers:

"For canes: Prysm, Maui KinkCan-iac and Quality Control. Jack’s Floggers are also recommended (although try finding them at places such as the LAM; I never managed to get a reply to my requests to buy their canes online)."

It reminded me I still hadn't tried his new canes from Prysm.


On my next visit we put that to rights, with six strokes of each swiftly delivered, as blogged by Abel. And then once my favourite (read most painful) one had been established I got many more until a full sixty striped me all over!


I hope you readers appreciate the pains I go to to provide detailed reports on new implements!

Monday, October 10

At the moment of truth...

Kami and Abel recently played a very severe scene. (See her account here and his account here and you'll understand how severe.) In it they played one of his stories, 'The Punishment List', where the girl recieved a double caning; as severe as any girl could get.

Chatting to Kami in advance about the scene she had two worries about it: that she wasn't going to be able to take the pain, or that Abel wouldn't be able to go through with giving such a hard caning. In my own mind I thought the former wouldn't be a problem, but I wasn't so sure about the latter.

From my own experience, I know that fear, and the resulting adrenalin, can make you get through anything. My JCPs with Mistress Switch and Mr Allen have taught me that. They don't work without real fear and an unexplainable but resolute need to get through the ordeal. I knew that Kami had both the fear and the need and figured she'd be OK.

But such scenes also don't work without the knowledge that the Top will not stop, no matter how much you scream. Each time I've played with Mistress Switch I've been terrified. At my second JCP I thought I wouldn't survive 6 strokes of her cane, let alone 24. And yet I couldn't have safeworded and had she stopped I'd have been gutted. That was only the second time we'd met and the second time we'd played. My knowledge from the first scene and the lasting stranger element made it work, as well as knowing when she steps up she leaves compassion at the door. (That doesn't mean she leaves safety at the door too!) Her determination made me equally resolute to not to give in either.

When it comes to my own closest play partners, I've always doubted that they could do that do me. They know me too well, care about me too much. (Hence, my uncertainty about Abel and that scene and why I'm as proud of him as I am of Kami.)

Don't misunderstand me, I've played very hard with both HH and Abel, separately and together. (Scenes I've played with both of them like the Workhouse Flogging, might have been the hardest I've played with either of them.)

But because they care about me so much, I have doubted that we could do a JCP scene on the scale of severity like the one with Mistress Switch. Partly cos I wonder if they could actually do it. Watch me suffer like that and not let up at all? But mostly and more importantly, I don't know if I would go through with it.

I know I can take the pain but what would be the point? I'm not a severe physical player; I prefer headspace. My forrays into severe have been out of curiosity and a masochistic need to test my utmost limits. I have nothing to prove to either HH or Abel, or they to me. At the painful moment of truth I think I'd disengage: ask them to stop, tell myself we don't play like this, we don't need this. Or if I didn't give up myself, might feel that I could break them instead; be so piteous, so distraught they couldn't continue.

It's a dilemma I doubt we'll ever answer; I don't really want to prove or disprove any of my hypotheses!

Sunday, October 9

Socially out of my depth?

There have been several posts about social media and kinky life lately. I've held back from commenting on any as I didn't think a mere comment would suffice to explain my views. So these are my own personal thoughts on my online life and the community I'm part of. Those of you who are in the same community, or at least an intersection of it (think Venn diagram), may see it a very different way. That's the thing with online interaction and the use of social media in general; we all approach it from a different direction and want different things from it. What we want even changes through time, circumstance and personal evolution.

When I first came online, in the kinky sense, I wanted to be noticed; by anybody in any way. I made pathetic attempts to comment on the popular blogs and retreated in rejection when no-one replied to them. By the time I set up a Fetlife account I was more sure of myself; I had a few kinky friends to call my own, but I still wanted to be noticed.

So I friended people, including 'personalities' like Mija and  Kami Roberston and Abel, hoping that people would notice me. And finally they did; the day HH messaged me on Fetlife made me feel I'd made it as a fully paid up member of the online scene. (I'm not even going to try to rationalise those intial preoccupations!) 

I started blogging to record my kinky journey but also to join in the blogging community I'd envied for years; to show off the scenes I'd done, to tell the world who I was playing with and eventually even posted pics of myself enjoying my new found confidence in myself. I blogged every day. I wanted to be seen, heard, included in this kinky life I had admired from afar.

But then the blog changed. The more real world people I met, the less I had to write. The deeper my play relationships became the less I needed the attention. Blogging became more about me and my need to process. Of course some motivations remain the same: there's still the 'look at me element', still the joy in readers' comments and the thrill of being linked to from the likes of SpankBoss and Chross.

And then there's Twitter. It too has changed over the two years I've been a member. At first I friended everyone. At first my feed was open, even running on the blog here. Then more and more I found myself talking about real life stuff as many of my Twitter circle blurred into real friendships that justified this change.

But what of all the other people who might be reading? I worried I was over-sharing. Worried I could be too easily identified. I don't work in a liberal industry - my company would easily find reason to fire me if my kinky goings-on became public. And on the personal side of things, it's not that my family aren't loving and supportive: they are when it comes to things they can understand, but some of my vanilla friends who I've explained this to are lost. I can't expect my parents and God forbid my Grandmother having to deal with knowing what I get up to.

So my account is private and I don't allow anyone to follow me I don't know or who hasn't earned my trust in some way. Now my Twitter feed is a smaller circle of friends, whilst Fetlife is the wider circle and the blog is to everyone.

But that means Twitter is now a little micro society all of its own, which comes with its own problems.  The real life worries have migrated to it, and they can be constant. Am I interesting enough? Do people like me, respect me, notice me? Can I keep this mask of wonderfulness up? Can I always portray a well-meaning, kind, generous patient person? And do all that whilst allowing and accepting others to have those same failings.

Rationally, of course not, but yet I still try! Irrationally, the 24/7 on-button causes me a hell of a lot of stress. There are friends in real life that I love very much but I don't spend every waking moment with them, whom I don't share every though. (If we did we'd probably not be friends anymore.) Yet on Twitter we are always interacting. Always sharing; sometimes over-sharing. We take strength from the kind words and advice of people there but then there are times when people damn right annoy us: say something we fundamentally disagree with, perceive that they have made a cutting remark or said something ignorant. The word perceive is important - usually it is we who have the problem; it is who have taken a comment out of context, misinterpreted a tone.

Therefore as much as I love Twitter, I find it a confusing place to be sometimes, find myself out of my depth. Not sure what the rules are but aware enough to know that we're all playing by a unique set that we don't understand and can't share. Rationally I understand should take this knowledge on board and not worry about it so much. But I do.

I find myself judging myself on how interesting I am by the number of responses I get to a tweet. I find myself irrationally angry over a tweet from somewhere I've never met or ridiculously disappointed to hear someone I admire say something I disagree with. I hate the squabbles, passive aggressive tweeting, the duty of following certain people, the perceived rejection of people who don't follow me. Most of all, I hate how seriously I take it, and how it provokes in me the same behaviour that I dislike in others.

Lately I've been asking myself whether Twitter is actually for me? Or is it detrimental to my sanity? There are people I find it difficult to interact with. I like them very much on email, blogs and in real life, yet find myself disliking their Twitter persona. How many people think that of me? Should I just admit defeat; that I'm too sensitive, too reactive, too emotional, take things too personally. (So much so I've actually been banned from Twitter for two weeks until I learn to appreciate it again. A ban given at my request and a mutual concern at how wound up 140 characters was making me!)

And then there's Facebook which often feels less intrusive and far more straightforward; if I accept I'm only sharing 60% of my life on there. I only interact with real life people there. That includes the people I met through kink who are now valid members of my offline life. That's not to say that the kinky friends I don't interact with on there mean any less to me. Some don't have vanilla accounts or vanilla accounts they want to share with me - we're still friends off-line and that's the most important thing.

But I can only include friends who are fully paid up members of my real life.There is no-one on there I worry about my nilla friends and family asking about or wondering if they'll meet them when they come visit. As I moved primarily to be nearer this new(ish) circle of friends, they represent my new life, assure my nilla friends and family (both those aware and unaware of my kink) that I have a full life here. In that context it isn't about kink, it's about people. Therefore I restrict that account to people using their real names, who want to meet my other friends and to be a full part of my life. (Not to mention the privacy issues, which again have been much debated already.) Facebook, for me, is the representation of my complete and vanilla life.

Again I'll pull out the part of that sentence I think is most important: 'for me'. I know other people have different views on Facebook. Many kinky friends have duel accounts (one for kink, one for Nillas) or freely mix vanilla and kinky friends; I respect that.

So am I out of my depth with all this social media jazz? Or to be more literal: am I out of my depth being online so much and putting so much of myself out there? Should I just restrict myself to blogging and being the entertainment at parties? I don't honestly have an answer to that.

The only conclusion I have about social media in the kinky online world is that we should understand that we are all at cross purposes in how we use these tools of interactions. That nobody is right or wrong and we shouldn't apologise for choosing how we interact with different people and circles. Like everything in life mutual respect of other people's choices goes a long way.