It’s amazing how much of a charge I get from being told I’m a good girl (in scene, that is, though I like it in vanilla settings as well, though not in the same way).

The group had a party last night, which was small — maybe 15 people (we usually have 20-25). Everyone played at one point or another, and the group of people that was there last night was a group that generally gets along really well, so it was a good, mellow evening.

*I* was in a feisty mood, full of energy, and I wanted to play. Mostly, I really wanted to sub, to be told what to do, to be ordered around and have to forcibly squelch my feisty-ness. I was bouncing around — literally, I was hopping up and down at one point, b/c I felt like I was going to burst open with all the energy I had — and after we had been there for an hour or more, I was ready to get down to business, damn it. T., on the other hand, has a habit of getting to a party and flip-flopping on whether he wants to top or bottom (he’s a switch, too, and while that’s often fun as hell, it can also be frustrating), or whether he even wants to play at all.

And that’s what he did last night. He went from maybe wanting to top, to wanting to bottom, to maybe not wanting to play because he was tired, to wanting to bottom, to maybe wanting to top if I had something specific in mind that I wanted him to do. (Fortunately, I did.) I told him that I really just wanted to be ordered around, to be told what to do — to be *made* to obey — and that must have made something in his brain go BING!, because he said, “Ordered around? Like….a pony?”

Which made me go SPROING, and I asked, “Did you bring the bridle?” He said hell yeah, he did. And we suddenly had a plan.

So he got me all rigged up, bit and bridle and bondage mittens (because horses don’t have *hands,* he informed me), and he led me around the dungeon and then marked out a large circle and had me practice my gaits, etc. And, like I said at the beginning, I get SUCH a charge out of being told I’m a good girl.

No one else in our group does ponyplay — or, at least, not at our parties — so we had a bit of attention from interested onlookers. Which is a little unnerving to me, but I really *do* get into a different headspace when I have the bit and bridle on — a headspace where everything is much simpler, reduced down to commands and flicks from the riding crop and praise when I get it right — so it was easier to tune out the onlookers than it normally is for me.

After a while, I was hot and sweaty and needed to take out my contacts, and that kind of knocked me out of my pony headspace, and T. was hungry, so we mutually agreed we were done with the pony stuff. But he still had out all his equipment, and the floggers lying on the ground just kept calling out to me. When we play, if he’s the top, he doesn’t normally flog/paddle/whip me. At least, not as the “main event,” so to speak. Sometimes he’ll throw in a little flogging, or spank me a few times with his hand, but it’s just sort of an accessory. And he also has never really flogged me hard, despite me saying I want it, and I can take it, and he can trust me to tell him if it’s too much.

Anyway. I asked him if he would flog me, if he had enough energy left in him to beat my ass. And he readily agreed, which made me pretty happy. He started out easy, which is what you should do, and then built up to a moderate level. I waved him around to my front side to talk to me, and I said that I would absolutely, absolutely tell him if it got to be too much, too painful, so if he wanted to go harder, he could.

Sometimes, a good beating is just what I need. I understand the cathartic effect of medieval priests engaging in self-flagellation, believe me. In a way, it’s like the ponyplay, or at least one facet of it. Everything reduces down to the sensation, and then, for me, it’s a question of being able to take it, to ride it out and see what’s on the other side. There’s actually a great sense of clarity when all you can focus on is the sharp sting of a rubber flogger, or the heavy thud of a deerskin flogger. And then the endorphin rush is just spectacular. I get all fuzzy-headed and endorphin-stupid after a good beating. It’s better than drugs.

Back to the beating at hand. If you rank a flogging on a scale from 1 to 5, where 1 is easy and gentle, and 5 is “stop right the hell NOW,” a really skilled flogger will take their bottom up to *almost* 5, but never quite. T., in the past, has always stayed around a 2, occasionally straying into 2.5 or 3. Last night, he finally worked up past 3, and almost hit 5 when he pulled out a wooden paddle and whacked my ass with it. Then he switched back to the floggers for a while — at one point he had 2 floggers out and was doing some Florentine flogging, which was awesome — and then the paddle again, which really fucking hurt. (Yes, I *know* that’s the point.) I finally had to tell him that I couldn’t handle the paddle any more, but the floggers were still okay.

I don’t think he ever got as close to a 5 with the floggers as he did with the paddle, but he had some nice, nice 4s. And I was, in fact, spectacularly endorphin-stupid when he was finished. It was great.

On the way home, he said that he *really* enjoyed the pony play, and was glad that I stuck with his flip-flopping long enough for him to get into a toppy headspace. And then he said, “I was SO glad that you asked me to flog you — I’ve never really gone that hard on anyone, but I felt safe enough knowing that you would tell me if it was too much, so I could just let go.”

And I told him that that’s a big part of what BDSM is about for me — being able to explore the emotions and sensations that really don’t have any other outlet in the rest of our daily lives. And, even though he’s been active in the BDSM lifestyle for a long time, I don’t think he had really considered that viewpoint.