moved in, and paddled for good measure

Last weekend (1 week ago today, actually), I got moved in with T. It went well, though it took much longer than I had anticipated; it had been 7 years since I’d moved, and I either accumulated much more stuff than I thought I had, or I disremembered how long moving took. Perhaps a combination of both.

Now both I and my stuff are happily ensconced in T.’s little house, and we’re currently trying to find places to put everything so that the house doesn’t resemble one of those “My Loved One Is A Hoarder” houses on Oprah, where there’s just one itty-bitty, teeny-tiny pathway from the front door to each room, bordered by towering piles of Useless Stuff. 

(Right now there’s one medium-sized path from the front door to the dining room and through to the kitchen, but we’re gradually putting stuff where it belongs, and intend to have the living room actually resemble a living room by the time the weekend is over. I forsee many trips to Goodwill to ditch duplicates of everything but the coffeemaker [because when the primary coffeemaker breaks, you want the backup coffeemaker RIGHT THERE and ready, man!], as well as ditching other stuff that we never really needed in the first place.) 

(I’m getting a little obsessed with paring way down and living much more simply, with way less stuff, but this blog isn’t the place to discuss it.) 

Having everything all ajumble and askew has had us both kind of discombobulated, and I realized the other day that I was just tense as hell and wishing firey death on the other drivers on the highway (while I occasionally swear at the other drivers, I don’t wish that they would burn in hell, and that’s what I was doing the other day, when they weren’t doing anything other than trying to merge).  When I’m tense and snappish like that, what often makes me feel much, MUCH better is getting my ass beaten well and thoroughly. When T. came home from work, I told him, “I think I need to be beaten…are you up for that?” He was, let me say, MORE than up for that. 

He had me lie on my stomach across the bed, tied my wrists together over my head (but didn’t tie them TO anything, since I’m still dealing with some intermittent pins and needles from my wrist tendinitis), and  beat my ass, legs, and upper back/shoulders with a variety of things, including a couple of different floggers (I love love LOVE the soft deerskin flogger, because I don’t like it when a flogging stings, but I do love hard, thuddy impact), a yardstick (ow ow OWIE), and a big huge paddle (the kind that’s intended for some sort of game — not ping-pong, because the paddle is even bigger than a ping-pong paddle, and all wood). 

The last time that T. used that paddle on me was probably a year ago, and it hurt so badly that I almost stopped the scene (instead, I just asked him to not use the paddle, which he readily complied with). So when T. pulled out the paddle this time, I muttered about not liking it and it hurt too much (I’m so very NOT a pain slut), but I didn’t ask him not to use it.

He was kneeling on the bed next to me, and he swatted my ass with the paddle, not hard but not lightly (medium, I suppose), and I yelped, and so he kneeled up and whacked his own ass, HARD, with the paddle. He looked at me and said, “That’s not bad,” and swatted me again — but still only medium. 

After a while, he told me to roll over onto my back, and then he tied my wrists to the bedframe so that I wouldn’t use them to protect my boobs. He flogged my boobs, belly, and my legs and whacked them lightly with the yardstick. I don’t remember him using the paddle on any part of my front, and I told him later that he could have used the paddle on my boobs (because they can take a lot of rough treatment).

Eventually we were finished, and I was all endorphin-addled and delightfully sore. There was sex (yay, sex!), and we fell asleep, waking up in a panic two hours later, because it was 10:30 p.m. and we hadn’t intended to sleep that long (or at all). Dinner was had, and I shuffled back to bed while T. stayed up later, doing his night-owl activities. 

I slept SO well that night, and was in a great mood the next day. Ah, the wondrous powers of a good beating. 

Tonight there’s a play party, held by a recently formed local group, and we’re planning to go. We’ve talked about doing a scene tonight where another femdom and I co-top T., because he really enjoys bottoming to someone who plays HARD, and I still am not totally comfortable playing as hard as T. likes (although I’m getting more used to it). And this other femdom loves playing hard, and rarely gets a chance to do so, simply because she doesn’t know any subs/bottoms who like it that hard.

So if she wants to co-top T. with me, it sounds like a win-win-win.  

(And *that*, in a nutshell, is how I would define my switchiness, if asked. Thursday I got a good beating, and tonight I’m dishing one out.  Life is good.) 

Now to unpack more boxes…. 

 

my boundaries ruffle some feathers

I was listening to an older podcast episode by Graydancer (Ropecast, which is a kick-ass podcast, and I highly recommend it) that featured an interview with Instant Expert, who talked about how NOT to be a dominant; that is, bad behavior that doms (or wanna-be doms) exhibit. One of the things he mentioned was the touchy-feely, “everybody hugs!” atmosphere that many BDSM groups seem to have, and how that can be an area in which people end up violating others’ boundaries.

I have really narrow boundaries. I don’t like it when people assume that my physical space — and my physical body — can be impinged upon freely. I’m not anti-hugging, but I’m also not the type of person who self-describes as “Oh, I’m a HUGGER!” I will happily hug people to whom I feel close. I’m not, however, very keen on hugging someone who I just met. (Sometimes, when I have an obvious, instant connection with someone new, then a hug when we part is something that feels right. But, for the post part, I don’t like hugging new people.)

Frankly, I’m uncomfortable with giving up my personal bubble to people I don’t know. I won’t go so far as to call it a violation, but it sure is an imposition.

Back to the touchy-feely BDSM group. I understand why BDSM groups might be more physically affectionate — there tends to be more acceptance of bodies of any size, obviously there are genuine friendships and other relationships between group members, and, well, what we do *is* very physical and very revealing. If someone is brave enough to literally bare it all at a party, and is willing to engage in extremely intimate activities in front of other people, a sense of closeness with that person can develop, which might naturally be expressed via hugs and other physical contact. (I think, however, that that sense of closeness can be artificial, particularly if it’s based solely on “I’ve seen her get flogged while she was nekkid! Whoo!”)

I went to a play party a couple of weeks ago, thrown by a BDSM group that I was meeting for the first time. Everyone was very nice and welcoming, and the party was a great time. When we were leaving, however, and saying our goodbyes, I said goodbye to a male dom who had been part of a larger group of people I was making idle chit-chat with. We didn’t even talk one-on-one, and, in truth, I don’t think we were actually introduced to each other. Anyway, I said goodbye to him, standing 4-5 feet away, and he immediately threw his arms wide, stepped forward, and hugged me, while saying, “This is a huggy group; we all hug here!”

I wanted to step on his toes.

I’m aware that I tend to have a larger personal bubble than many people do (is 50 feet too much? what?), but I’m still tired of people getting annoyed when I sidestep physical contact that *I* didn’t initiate. If someone comes up behind me and starts massaging my shoulders, I am going to flinch. I guarantee it. And 9 times out of 10, I’m going to step away, and politely decline. (This massage-your-shoulders thing seems to be almost exclusively the domain of male doms. Sorry to generalize, but I’ve never had a femdom or a male or female sub come up and try to rub my shoulders.)

When I do that — when I choose to maintain my boundaries — the person inevitably looks wounded. And I just want to say, “Give me a break! *I* wasn’t the one who violated *your* personal bubble!”

One of the rules of BDSM etiquette (such as it is) states that You Do Not Touch Other People’s Stuff Without Permission. And “stuff” includes toys, rope — and *people,* as in, don’t touch someone else’s sub/slave. But that rule seems to be broken frequently when it comes to single female subs, perhaps because they don’t “belong” to anyone (which is bullshit, but I think that might need to be a whole other entry). And because I’m a female switch, I seem to fall into that category, too (though I’m not single, which brings up another passel of questions).

Bah.

 

the drug-free cure for insomnia

There are several BDSM organizations within a 2-hour drive of my fair city, and I’m discovering that it’s well worth the gas (even at over $3/gallon — ouch) to check them out.

T. and I went to another group’s party last night — a group that he had been to before, but I hadn’t, although I’d met some of the members at various BDSM events over the past couple of years. It was a fantastic time. Everyone was really friendly and welcoming and warm, which managed to ease some of the jitters I get with new people.

Almost everyone was having such a good time being social that T. and I were one of only TWO couples who actually played in the dungeon. I got my ass beaten well and thoroughly — it’s definitely sore today. But good sore. Oh yes. When we came back to the social area, someone said, “THERE you two are — we thought you’d already left!” And I said, “Yeah, we were playing in the dungeon, because this is a PLAY party!” Fortunately everyone laughed, which is good, because I had intended it as a quip, but as soon as it left my mouth, I was afraid it would sound snotty.

After the group’s official party hours ended, “house rules” apply, which generally means that people can engage in types of play which aren’t allowed during the official party hours (bloodplay, etc.), and that people who are finished playing and who aren’t going to drive are welcome to have an alcoholic beverage. Well, no one else was playing, so there was no extreme play going on, but one fellow had brought some very good beer, and offered it around. As I’m not known to pass up good beer, I had just one, because even though I had eaten after playing, I was still a little endorphin-buzzed and didn’t want to make myself sick with an overload of intoxicants.

(Seriously, the kind of endorphin buzz I get after a serious flogging is akin to — and sometimes stronger than — a few glasses of wine, or a few beers. So more than one beer would have been tantamount to getting bombed. NOT what I wanted. So, just one beer.)

Between the excellent flogging I got, and having one tasty beer, I slept extremely well last night. It should be a prescription for insomniacs: take one flogging and one beer, and call me in the morning.