Snapshots from a very good night
The Magician and I had coinciding kink energies last night. And thus, our first really long, in-depth playing session for maybe as much as a year. I am still rather all of a glow. 
Some memories from the night:
Early in the evening, before going out to a pub to meet friends, lying in each other’s arms and sharing some fantasies. My energies were greater than his and I had a lot of pent-up kinky thoughts to express, so I scattered ideas like flowers on him, while he growled in appreciation and stroked and held me tightly. Some of those ideas may come back to haunt me. I do hope so. 
One idea which hit both of our buttons was for him to dress me up more often. The Magician is an artist, with a strong aesthetic sense, and a huge kink for decoration as well as giving orders. I only had one outfit to wear for an evening out in the pub with friends and I was wearing it, but I asked him to tell me how to do my hair and he did so gleefully, and also chose a coat for me to borrow from him. I’m looking forward to when my wardrobe recovers from my change of shape more thoroughly so that he can do more than that! But doing my hair (two plaits) under his orders was delightful, as was walking to the pub feeling that sense of having pleased him and demonstrated my submission to him, in a way that we both knew about and no one else did.
The pub time was wonderful. Excellent beer, super friends. Perhaps the Magician and I were a little more snuggled up even than usual. And he kept playing with my plaits.
He was low on energy again when we arrived home. I stroked him and cuddled him and he let me kneel before him and take his boots off and kiss his feet. He stroked my hair and called me a good girl *and* a good boy, which pleased me mightily.
His energies revived a little later. I don’t have the order of events entirely clear in my mind. I recall him holding me down by my wrists and kissing me ruthlessly. Several times, as I kept asking him (very politely) to do it again. I remember him scratching me hard along my lower back, and telling me exactly how it felt – too distant to be pain, just pleasure and the knowledge that he could hurt me more whenever he wanted to. That hit me hard and wonderfully – I remember moaning just from being told (accurately) what I was feeling, understood and controlled and led to that extent.
I remember him telling me to struggle and try to get away from him. I remember feeling a little uneasy about trying, because the concept of wanting to felt so alien. I struggled hard because he had told me to, though. I remember the relief when he told me I could stop. This may not always work so well if I continue to do press-ups and lift weights.
I remember the moment when he commanded me to feel my nipples pinched as though held by rings, and flicked the rings he had created in my mind until I cried out.
I remember the moment when he collared me, and the immense sense of peace and belonging and sheer joy that it gave me. And a similar feeling when he put me immediately on my chain lead, and hauled me up by it on to the bed and wrapped the chain around me.
I remember giving him a shoulder and back massage when his energies flagged again, and the delight and warmth of knowing I was serving him well and giving him pleasure and relief. I remember sending him energy all along his spine, and the satisfaction of knowing that it was helping, at least a little.
I remember drinking water, desperately thirsty, out of a bottle he held to my mouth.
I remember asking permission to use the bathroom, and walking there upright and unusually gracefully before him, determined to show pride in myself as his slave.
I remember finishing and being told to wait kneeling on the bathroom floor, and then being dragged, crawling by my collar back to the bedroom. I really don’t know which of the two ways of travelling I enjoyed the most.
I remember the longest, firmest hand-spanking I’ve had so far. No triggers, just a glorious amount of pain. I remember after 24, expressing a tentative wish for him to make me cry. He made the next 24 much harder. I didn’t cry outright, but I was definitely tearful by the end. I could have taken far more, but as our first deep session for so long, he was careful not to push me too hard. And my bottom is still a bit sore today, so yay.
I remember throughout his calm, firm, loving voice – though touched at times with a deliciously cruel amusement at my predicament, and especially at how completely he controlled and owned me. Those times carried with them an intimacy I can’t quite put into words.
I remember him inducing me, finally, to pleasure myself, while he fucked my brain with his words and held me close, and made sure I didn’t come for him until he gave me permission.
I remember being, erm, somewhat noisy. I hope his neighbours don’t mind too much. I was careful, as I always do now, to draw some power from the orgasm back into myself. As in my masturbation healing exercise, D/S for me is very much now a matter of sharing and transforming power and increasing the power that each of us has. Especially (but definitely not exclusively!) I think, the Sub.
And then he brought me gently back to the surface, and we cuddled a great deal. And I noticed how wild my plaits had become and how my hair generally kept getting in the way, and observed to our mutual amusement that while I find my submissiveness very much in joyful obedience and surrender, my hair is a *total* brat.
And today my wonderful Magician is nursing me through very bad period, and making art. And we’re both hoping that we’ll have coinciding energies again for something similarly deep nice and soon. And maybe some new things from the fantasies we shared earlier in the evening.
And today, when I’m not doubled-up in pain (damn menstrual cramps!) I’m feeling a discernable satisfaction, pride and joy in how well last night went. Little or no self-disgust or unease or feeling powerless or triggered. This is huge progress, and exactly how I want to be feeling the day after a night like that. Hooray for me, and hooray for the Magician.
Now, I wonder if I can possibly persuade him to distract me from the period pain for a while.
A bad-ish week, and a useful realisation
I’ve not had the best of weeks. Various stressful stuff has happened, the worst of which was a few hours last Monday during which the Magician wasn’t answering his phone (for the 3 1/2 hours after he’d asked for an alarm call), which is basically unheard of. Both the Magician’s extremely sensible boyfriend and I were more than half-fearing the worst.
Thank all the Gods (and believe me, I have been!), he was just out for the count with a bad cold, and managed to sleep through 15 missed calls when ordinarily he would be woken by the second ring of the first one. As soon as he did woke up, he looked at his phone, saw the missed calls, and phoned me immediately to reassure me. He’s been fantastic all week, completely understanding and patient with me crying all over him in relief, and determined to finally give his boyfriend (who lives nearer him than I do) a spare key in case anything like this happens again!
A couple of days ago I was hit by a wave of anxiety and exhaustion, and I’m fairly sure it was the recoil from all that. It’s still kicking my ass quite thoroughly, which is frustrating as it’s slowed down my physical progress quite considerably!
For some reason my self-esteem is also especially low at the moment – more back to how it used to be a year ago, with a great deal of body insecurity. Five years ago I was noticeably underweight, three years ago I was thin-ish, and now, a medication change later, I’m really quite plump. It’s led to a noticeable improvement in my physical health, and both my partners regard my new shape as a definite plus (especially in the bottom department!), but it’s still breaking my brain rather. It’s also very expensive in clothes!
Ah well. Ultimately, the medication I’m on which has led to the weight gain has done me a fantastic amount of good, my health has improved, and I can probably live with the patriarchy disapproving of my figure! It’s just a matter of overcoming the cognitive dissonance, and finding other ways of expressing my poly-genderedness (now I can’t be androgynous anymore), and making sure that those around me respect and honour the fact that I’m not really a cis woman, even if I look like one – and even when I’m wearing long flowing dresses and flowers in my hair!
While I’m talking about stresses, I’ve learned a new emergency coping mechanism over the last few months – and completed the realisations behind it last night – for occasions when people are angry with me or dislike me, and when they are angry with or dislike people I love.
None of those are circumstances I cope well with. I tend to head straight into panic, even if rationally it’s not something I need to get het up about, and in the case of people I care about disliking each other, while it’s sad, it’s not that much my business.
Looking back to my upbringing, however, it makes a sort of sense.
I grew up in an environment where punishments were grossly disproportionate. Emotional and physical abuse was the result of minor bits of misbehaviour, and even, sometimes, of no misbehaviour at all. At the same time, at school people disliking me led to them bullying me and encouraging others to do so. Meanwhile, when I was an adolescent, if my family disliked or disapproved of anyone I cared about, they usually made it as difficult as possible for me to see them – at the very least they would hold being forbidden to see them as a threat to get me to fall in line.
Throughout my childhood and some of my adolescence, people being angry with me or disliking me really did frequently lead to me being severely harmed. And as some of that harm was coming from my family, and including character assassination, on some level I genuinely feared that they might take my life. After all, their constant implication was regret that I was born. They didn’t intend that, but that’s *exactly* what it felt like. There’s a reason why I had (and sometimes still have) a recurring dream of my family having me executed, or approving of me being executed by some other body.
When someone is angry with me or dislikes me, I genuinely have a visceral fear that I will be harmed, possibly severely, and might even be killed. When someone is angry with or dislikes one of my loved ones, I have that fear for them, and also fear that I will be forced to no longer be close to them.
This is obviously a problem, because people have every right to be angry with others and like whom they choose! And I am angry with lots of people at various times, and dislike some, and on no account wish actual harm on any of them. I’m not sure I even wish harm on David Cameron or George Osborne, and that really is saying something!
The coping mechanism I’m developing for all this is twofold. Firstly, it is a matter of realising that it comes from my childhood, not from anything real in my life now. Secondly, I keep reiterating to myself, over and over again, words to this effect: “this does not mean that they are going to harm me/my loved one. I/my loved one is in no danger from them”. It sounds *ridiculous*, I know. It kind of is. But as soon as I start doing that, it shifts things in my brain sufficiently that I can let good sense and compassion and reality work their way in, and can approach the situation in a way that is healthy and useful and sensible. It makes apologising (where that’s appropriate) much easier, and it makes me feel much less panicky and ill!
I’m not sure quite what the point is of this post, except to express and discuss some of what day-to-day recovery looks like. It looks like fluctuations in mood and energy, depending on all sorts of factors. It looks like facing up to constant vulnerability, and trying as much as possible to have compassion for myself while doing so. And it looks like daily, gradual, determined persistence, locating, mostly one at a time, where all the tripwires and traps in my brain are left over from my childhood, and finding ways to dismantle them. Sometimes this happens on a daily basis. Sometimes I’m lucky and a whole load of traps both become visible and dismantle themselves all at once. Mostly it’s just a matter of lots of work, patience, time and energy. And step by step, little by little, I am making progress and getting there.
Also, a note on rage
I was reading more of Healing Sex yesterday, in particular what to do about triggers during sexual activity.
Both during sexual activity and at other times, the most common trigger for me to get at the moment is rage.
This isn’t surprising. I have a *huge* amount of rage and anger stored up from when I was a child. Most of it I turned into anxiety or depression, or bottled it within my body where it contributed to my disabilities and generally high state of physical tension. We all find ways of coping with abuse, and with being taught by abusers that certain emotions aren’t acceptable, and that was mine. I’m not at all an angry person in the way that I interact with people as an adult. But the rage is still there, stored up – and hurting me. And making it harder for me to express legitimate anger when I experience it now.
I think there will come a point where sexual and/or kink activity can be part of healing from that. At the moment, it very much isn’t – and I’m especially scared of hitting some of that anger while topping, for obvious reasons. I have a clearer idea of the kind of Dom I want to be now – one whose power shows in calm, in focus, in quiet control. Very much a benevolent sadism! The Magician’s domminess is very much of that ilk, and it’s what I find sexiest, as well as most accessible from my own character. I think it will dovetail rather beautifully with the Warrior’s cheerful, hedonistic submissiveness, too! It’s also, I note, the most clear and thorough contrast with the total, vicious lack of control that I experienced from my abusers. That is, unsurprisingly, very important to me.
So! One of the things I am working on at the moment is finding ways of expressing and channeling my anger in ways that are satisfying but also non-harmful to myself and others. And, where at all possible, actively helpful!
I’ve had some lovely suggestions from various friends of mine, including sword-fighting with the Magician (he has some LARP swords, and is a fine swordsman himself ), learning to bake bread, vicious cleaning in the bathroom, helping the Warrior with throwing bottles into a recycling skip, primal screaming, and getting one of those elasticated stress balls. Practising my jabs and crosses and kicks for the forthcoming acting challenge may also help. I’ve also had hitting (sturdy) trees with sticks suggested to me. I’m less convinced about the last of those, and will at least need to ask permission from the tree before I do it, and thank it afterwards! Maybe one or two might be okay with that though.
I’ll see how things go. It is very nice to have some ideas to be going on with (though I’m certainly up for more suggestions!) I think that expressing my stored up rage – both as it arises from triggering, and, where I can, as I deliberately seek out new layers of it – is one of the most important healing activities that I can be doing. Wish me luck?
A physical challenge ahead…
I have a new, fun challenge ahead of me.
In a month-and-a-bit, I will be spending the weekend away with the Warrior and some mutual friends, reading through and acting out scripts of a certain tv series of which I am very fond.
I shall be playing an exceedingly active, athletic character, who has a great of fighting to do. She’s also US American and I’m, well, not.
Acting is something that’s hugely important to me, and these play-readings are a uniquely accessible way for me to get to do it, without the long rehearsal and performance process of stage acting (as an amateur or otherwise) that has generally proven destructive for my health. Over the last 2-3 years, however, my acting has been weaker than it used to be. Less emotionally engaged, less nuanced – just… well, less. And it would be very good for me to be able to redeem myself at this weekend.
So, I have the acting to work on. And I have the accent to work on, at least to get it to a point where it’s not actively painful for the one American person who’s going to be there!
And, perhaps above all, I need to work physically, to get myself to a stage both where I can deliver the kind of performance I want to, and not find myself utterly wrecked after the weekend.
There’s a limit to what I’ll be able to do – I’m disabled, dyspraxic and funny-jointed. But with gentle, firm, sensible dedication, I think I can get myself at least a bit more flexible, focused and fit before mid-November.
So! I think that means daily yoga, a little bit of weight-training at least a couple of times a week, walking when I feel up to it, and getting plenty of rest. Plus persuading the Warrior and the Magician to give me massages! I shall also practise the jabs, crosses and little bit of kicking that I learned during an abortive attempt to learn kickboxing a few years ago.
If any of you have other suggestions, I should be very glad to hear them!
I am also wondering whether I can bring in the Magician to help me with this. Even more so having watched this glorious clip from a video by Dreams of Spanking. Real, consensual, loving discipline and D/S from two singularly gorgeous performers. I am entirely endeared, and looking forward very much to the full video! And in the meantime, yes. If the Magician and I are both up for it, some motivational discipline from him could be just what I need.
And oh my am I happy that this is an option after all I’ve been going through. Hooray for healing.
On stringed instruments, spanking and joyful masochism.
Learning to love being spanked, as a switch, has been a hard thing for me. I was smacked as a child, usually on the bottom, and it caused me real, especially sexual trauma. One of the many reasons why I am passionately opposed to all forms of CP against actual children – it’s not that being smacked turned me into a spanko, it’s that being smacked (along with the rest of the abuse) has been a real obstacle to developing my sexuality in the way that I want to. And that’s just not fair!
I had been fascinated with consensual, adult CP for some time as a Dom, and had caned and paddled the Warrior on many occasions before the Magician and I got together. Meeting and getting together with the Magician gave me a means of finally exploring my submissive side, and it’s been wonderful, not to mention amazingly good for me. The first time we tried some very light spanking on my bottom, however, I became massively triggered, distressed and panicky. Naturally we stopped immediately, and he gave me all of the support, care and love I could want. I was determined to persist, however, and find a way to enjoy this side of myself, free of the flashbacks and intrusive thoughts that my childhood makes me prone to.
It took determination, patience and intelligence from both of us, but these days most of those obstacles have gone, and for the most part, spanking from the Magician is something I utterly love. Well, not necessarily always at the time, but afterwards at least.
It has only just occurred to me, however, that there was something from my youth that I have been consistently tapping into when enjoying spanking, as well as other forms of pain play (scratching and hair-pulling, especially) that the Magician and I indulge in.
I’ve been a stringed instrument player since I was a small child. During my teens, I was a jazz double bass player of some skill. At gigs, in that delightful mindspace that one enters when the music flows through you and all is adrenaline and energy and glory, I would play and play and ride past what was often quite intense pain that the playing invoked. On at least one occasion, literally until my fingers (specifically the index finger on my right hand) bled. I wore the blisters and the soreness as a badge of honour afterwards, and somehow the pain was just another, beautiful element of the general delight that a good gig gave me.
To my regret, I’m no longer a double bass player – it’s a frightfully impractical instrument when you have ME and back problems! But I am learning the ukulele at the moment, and as I type this my fingers of my left hand are stinging and aching and… it’s rather fantastic.
It reminds me too of sore feet when I’m well enough to go on long walks. Of the scratches on my hands when scrambling on rocks. The kinds of pain that come as a welcome intensifier of joyful, life-affirming activities. The kind of masochism that is absolutely about being strong and creative and delighting in the world around me. I usually regard myself as a sadist, a dominant and a submissive in terms of my sexuality. But I really do have a masochistic streak as well. And it lies so close to a lot of the healthiest parts of my brain, that this may help me spread that healthiness around all sorts of bits of me.
I admit I am also wondering whether, at some point, the Magician might be up for a scene that involves me practising my uke under his orders. I could see that being a quite ridiculous amount of fun. I shall have to ask him.
Referring to my partners :-)
“My Dom” and “my Sub” seems inadequate. Not least because that is so very, very far from being all of who they each are to me. They are my life-partners, and my Sub is also my spouse.
I have been indulging in an awful lot of myths and fairy tales lately. My head is full of the imagery. And so, at least for now, I shall name my Dom “the Magician”, and my Sub “the Warrior”. My Sub is a very gentle man indeed, but there is something of the Warrior about him nevertheless, especially the Warrior on an heroic quest. And it nicely subverts that frustrating (and inaccurate) idea of the male Sub as weak or pathetic. My Sub is anything but that.
So! Magician and Warrior it is. At least for now.
Mountains, blackout curtain and finding my wings
I’ve recently returned from a glorious holiday to a mountainous region of the UK, with my Dom, my Sub and some friends.
I had little sexual energy. But one evening when some of the stress of the last few months was getting to me, my Dom and I both found some kink energy from somewhere, and got to work.
He tied my wrists with strips of blackout curtain (which I thoroughly recommend as a bondage material, incidentally!) and took out his rather pleasing paddle brush. He warmed me up gently and kindly and thoroughly, told me not to bother counting, and by the time he started to strike with real toughness, I was ready to take anything, and relishing every hard bite of the brush.
My usual image for subspace is that of falling into the sea, deeper and deeper and deeper. It’s a gorgeous image, and one that my Dom encourages, hypnotising me by sending me down beneath the waves and telling me to breathe in the water until I am part of the sea, indistinguishable from it, utterly in his power.
I love it. Naturally.
But I have read so many accounts of bottoms/Subs taking wing, soaring with pain and pleasure, and this I had never experienced. Until last week. It’s what I needed – the holiday as a whole was very much about finding my wings, about feeling free in all that I do and am.
I started to rise up into the air with the spanking. And when my Dom put down the brush and started to dig his nails hard into my sore and throbbing bottom, I shot up and flew. It wasn’t pain, it was lines of brilliant cold fire across my tender places, and it was beautiful.
He wrapped me in his arms, and I continued to fly, quietly, for perhaps another ten minutes, while he tethered me and caressed me. He apologised profusely that one scratch had inadvertently drawn blood – not the kind of mistake he usually makes – and worried that once I had come down I would be unhappy about it. I wasn’t. It’s not something I’d want him to make a habit of, and did occasion a sneaky trip down into the lounge of the cottage we were renting to retrieve some antiseptic cream! But I wore that scratch like a private badge of honour for days afterwards. Although not as proudly as my pink and glowing bottom that evening. And tensions ages long had fallen from me as I rose into the air, and didn’t come back.
For anyone who’s not seen it yet, Pandora Blake has a wonderful post from a few days ago, about storing emotions in the body, and the therapeutic power of spanking. It’s something I can definitely vouch for! I have to be careful when trying to find that place, given my background. But consensual, enthusiastic D/S, as a free adult sharing my power with my Dom… so very much yes. Gloriously therapeutic. Although, as my Dom rightly said, that’s not actually why we’re doing it. More a happy side-effect.
My wings are growing. Not just in terms of my kink energy! They are growing in all areas of my life, and it’s wonderful.
Now, if I can get some Dom energy myself at some point, that would be rather wonderful too.
Self-love
I glory in my long legs, my fleshy thighs, my delicate wrists, my large, slender, practical hands.
I glory in my body hair, thicker and longer and darker than that of many cis men I know, especially on my calves.
I glory in my silly, wobbly, bumpy ankles that mean I can put my feet and all sorts of improbable positions, and which are terribly useful for scrambling on rocks.
I glory in my abundant, round, beautiful bottom. I glory in my tiny, pert little breasts, and my soft white belly.
I glory in my high neck, and my big brown eyes, and my ludicrously tiny nose.
I glory in my hair, dark brown and black and reddish and silver.
I glory in the way my arms and nose freckle in the sunshine.
I glory in my sweat, my dirt, my essence.
I’m an androgynous gentleman in formal wear and a topper.
I’m a femme hippy in pretty dresses with my hair flowing halfway down my back.
I’m a practical folky type in combats and bunches and a slightly goth-y utility belt.
And sometimes, like today, I’m bed-ridden, in pyjamas and a hair-scarf and smudgy glasses.
Healing myself, moving forward, they depend on looking at who I am and going, yes. This person is me. This person is beautiful. This person is lovable. And, yes, this person is sexy.
So much for the person in the mirror. Exploring what lies inside myself – that’s harder. That’s much, much harder to love. The emotions, the sensations, the thoughts, the inner workings and decisions and fluids and muscles and churnings that feel disgusting, wrong, unworthy, shameful, embarrassing. But starting with the exterior is helpful. And, yes, is something I can glory in.
The rest? They will come.
Healing with masturbation
I’ve been reading bits of the book “Healing Sex: A Mind-Body Approach to Healing Sexual Trauma”, by Staci Haines. Which I highly recommend, I might add, though I’ve not gone beyond the first couple of chapters yet.
One of the first exercises given in the book is an exploration of self-touching, and of giving oneself patience and compassion as you invoke your own sexual power.
The phrase “sexual power” associated with my body’s pleasure responses is one that felt totally alien to me when I first read about it. I’ve always associated sexual arousal and pleasure with *lacking* power – with having it taken away from me without my consent, as well as with consensual fantasies of sexual submission.
Which would be one reason why I have great difficulty reaching orgasm when not in a submissive situation, of course. Dominance, for me, has always been about giving pleasure, and submission about receiving it. Which isn’t a bad starting place, but both dominance and submission can be so much richer and more varied than that!
When I first tried the exercise, I had to use all of my self-compassion and patience to stay with the concept of arousal = my sexual power, and not be deflected by intrusive thoughts, flashbacks, a sense of disempowerment, panic, shame and self-disgust.
I kept with it. I rocked my pelvis. I enjoyed lying on a hard floor with a pillow beneath my head.
Then I thought about grounding with the Earth, about making myself safe. About making the space around me sacred.
Then something interesting happened. Something that I can’t describe fully, and should not in a public space even if I could. Something private. But suffice to say that I had a Visitor. Wild, benign and, well, rather masculine.
My orgasm, when it came, was fierce and beautiful. And, for the first time in my life, it made me feel more, not less powerful. More, not less safe. More, not less loving of my body and my pleasure responses.
So, that was interesting.
Since then, I’ve done my best to keep practising the lesson I learned that day.
And something very interesting that emerged not long after was that I can keep that sense of empowerment *even when my fantasies are submissive*. My arousal, my orgasm – these are powerful things that I own. In submission I give power to a Dom (real or imaginary!), but I then receive my own sexual power back tenfold. D/s is about *sharing* power. Playing with the exceedingly sexy idea of it all going one way, but in reality, ideally, enhancing and celebrating the sexual power of everybody involved.
I’m still, at the time of writing this, not really in a good space for having sex with either of my partners. Especially, though this may sound counter-intuitive, my sub. I don’t feel able to dominate yet, nor to have much in the way of non-D/s sex. It may sound odd that I’ve found my power in submissive fantasies and have yet to find any in dominance or “vanilla”. Actually I think that it makes perfect sense. I have found my sexual power, and started to enjoy it and relish it. This is a huge step forward. But *trusting* it… that’s another matter entirely. I’m still scared of that power, and especially scared of letting it loose with another person. In submission, most of the control of the situation goes to my Dom. Who is exceedingly trustworthy. In dominance and in non-D/s sexual activity, I have some or all of the control myself. And that’s something I’m really not ready for yet.
In the past – in all of my sexually active past, in fact – I’ve repressed my fears about all of this, and thus managed to engage in all sorts of activities that now seem absolutely terrifying. Realising that I was abused has made me confront all of this. It’s a very slow learning curve. Though I am very glad that my sub does have another partner who has no such problems!
*sighs* Well. One step at a time.
And I should read and learn from more of the “Healing Sex” book. And continue to work on all of this.
Little by little, step by step, I will get there.
