Special Words

http://pervertedimp.com/2012/10/04/special-words/

The Only Constant is Change

Lots of stuff on my mind today. I’ll break it up into two short posts and one long post.

First things first. I now have all my ebooks up on the Erotica Collections Page. And they are all available in print over at HP Magcloud. I’ll be doing an anthology of all of them soon, as well.

I sent an email to my best friend this week entitled: The only constant is change. Things are changing in my world again, and not all of it is mine to tell. So, I’ll stick to what is. Schedules have been rearranged and I’m back to my old night with him. I always liked the reasoning for having had that night. Go home with him after playing at practice. And I agree, that some nights, having to go home to an empty bed has been quite hard. So, that will be nice to have again.

It also means a night to myself once a week (and one for himself, too). Which I haven’t had in quite some time. I’m told this is bad(that I haven’t had one). I know I’m not taking care of myself as well as I should be. Sure, I have tons of time alone during the week, when I’m not working on a day. But I generally spend that time on the computer and/or in front of the TV. And while this is fun, and productive, it’s not especially healthy, or care-taking. So, my plan, as of now, is to spend time taking care of myself. To spend time walking around in parks out of doors. To take a few bubble baths. To find somewhere I can go stargazing. To relax, unplug and unwind.

I saw a meme the other day about things not to say to an artist. One of them was about how nice it must be not to have to work. I admit, I’m far more lazy than most artists, and with all the stress and crazy going on in my life, writing has been far harder than it ought to be, and I’m doing far less that I want to be. So, I’m hoping to find my center again, and get the creative juices flowing more easily. As well as, have more energy to put into my relationships, and life in general.

What’ve You Got To Lose?

A journal entry from earlier this week:

The longer you’ve been around, the more you have to lose. As wife, before girlfriends exist, you have everything. All the love, time, attention, interest. Then comes girlfriend, and love multiplies, but time and attention are divided, and if you’re lucky, interest gets multiplied by the extra energy. Sometimes, though, NRE can make it feel like she gets more and you get less. It can take time to rebalance.

The cycle continues for girlfriend. You get all you can until second girlfriend arrives. Then, by the needs of reality, time and attention are further divided, love is multiplied, and interest fluctuates, hopefully ending up in the positive direction. As more partners are added, balance gets harder to maintain, and needs and wants are weighed more carefully.

One ripple causes waves throughout, and if it starts as a wave, storms can appear. Tidal pools of spiraling emotions, pulling everyone down until someone catches a life-preserver and pulls the rest back up.

So, how do you survive the divisions? By enjoying that which is multiplied. By believing the benefits outweigh the cost. By being heard, even when you don’t get everything you want. By being gracious, compassionate, compersive and by compromising. Life is a state of constant change, you have to keep up and ask for the love and support you need to do so.

 

This is relevant in two, completely opposite directions in my life right now. One, hubby is down to just me. This makes the time he has to spend with me greater, though my availability has not truly changed. It may, if needed, or as schedules naturally morph over time and situation. But he and I must find a new balance, as he will be home for time I’ve previously spent alone, and he may find a desire for more of my time than he currently has.

Two, he is up to a wife and four girlfriends, and his wife is changing to day shifts next week. For a while now, most of the time divided by him, has been time she is usually at work. Now, though, it won’t be, and I imagine she is feeling the sting sharper for the amount of time she now has available and the huge chunks of it already scheduled with us. So, we look for balance, not only of time between the five of us, but of place, to give her space in her home.

We don’t have answers for any of this, yet. But we are all committed to making it work. For the love we all share, and the community we are creating together, makes us all stronger and better, and fills our lives with incredible joy.

Regaining Balance

I don’t know where to start. It’s been a week of crazy ups and downs. Excellent times together, and painful moments, too. Through it all, communication. Keep talking, keep expressing, keep feeling, keep reacting, keep it honest and open. We had great moments of connection. A wonderful flight on Saturday. Cuddle-nap-play time on Monday. And last night was the topper. That’s really what I want to talk about today. Conversations were all finding stabilization. Worry was hanging about. I was feeling a bit wobbly before practice. Okay and “fine” but not great.

Class is almost over, I’ve been fidgeting. Glancing at the clock, wondering if he’s upstairs. Worried about him. She says it’s all good now, toy seems happy, but what about him? He arrives with the tote and sits just outside the door. Looks happy, but class isn’t done. Patience. And clapping. Up for hugs, he’s grinning and wandering about greeting. I’m petting toy when I notice him at the table, looking over the new stun gun. Panic, I run around and jump onto the bed, hiding behind the crowd. Laughter and this is pointed out to him.

Come here.

Whimpering, I get up and walk to the edge of the bed.

Down.

I hop off the bed. He crackles it and I jerk away in fear, breath already quickening.

Down.

I kneel in front of him, too terrified to put my hands where they belong, but my knees are spread properly. I hope this is good enough and he doesn’t object. He crackles it some more and I jerk away against the bed, whimpering.

You ready?

I calm my breathing, steadying on the trundle. He snaps it by my ear and I lose calm, gasping in panic, trying to get a grip.

If you let me do it, then I get to zap her. He points up to a bystander. There’s some discussion and the crowd agrees this is what she said.

You ready?

No, Sir.

Do you want to do this?

Yes, Sir.

He shocks my leg light and and I squeak. Then harder and harder til I squeal. But it’s not as bad as it sounds. It never is.

Ready? He pulls it away for a gap.

Steady my breathing, grab the trundle. Yes Sir.

Shock and scream and jerk. He giggles.

Miss me?

Yes, Sir.

The bystander tries it after I explain the pain isn’t the bad part. Then he asks toy. She’s not ready. He crackles it at me and I whimper and cringe. Toy looks scared. More crackling, more whimpers.

I’ll torment your Miss, til you say yes.

He starts zapping the top and inner thighs. Making me jerk and squeal.

Don’t you want to, toy?

Finally a yes. He gives her a taste. Not too bad. Just scary.

Back to me. Crackle and zap. Squeal and cringe. He grabs my foot, I’m panicking nearly to tears.

Hey, what about the shock collar? They try to put that on someone, but terror is enough, no shocks needed. Stray comment inspires him.

Stick out your tongue.

What??? Oh gods.

Stick out your tongue. All the way. All The Way.

Shaking, whimpering, leaning back.

Do you want to do this? Will you let me do this?

If you really want to, Sir, but I’d prefer you didn’t.

He giggles happily and someone suggest the nose and I rock all the way back to the floor at his laughter.

He lets me back up and crackles it a bit more for effect, then presses it against a breast and makes me look down at it. I don’t want to take my eyes off his. But eventually his command is forceful enough and I look down. He presses the button, but nothing. I whimper and he turns on the flashlight, I still cringe. A couple more crackles, a couple more whimpers and he’s done with that for the night.

He wanders off and I catch my breath. Scared to get up, still keeping tabs on him. He starts practicing on the wall. Toy wants beat and she wants practice. Hook them up and head over to get them started. Find some floggers, trade him for the ones he had.

And then I’m tossed up to the wall. Shirt pulled up and off. I slip my bra off to join it. No cross. I don’t have an anchor point. I fold my arms under my breasts and wait, about six inches from the wall. He starts out hard, but not too hard. I’m already high on fear, so I adjust into the floggers quickly. It’s harder to move with the beat like this, but I sway a little. Grunting into the hits, squealing at the harder ones. I fall into breathing before too long, quiet pain space. Until the six-count brings me back out with a squeal. The tips break through my concentration. I hit the wall and then back to my stance. He comes in and out. Hard, softer, tips, thud. It sends me higher.

The deerskin comes out. Huge thud, pounding me solid. So good. I breathe in and out with the hits. Relaxing, comforting. I am breathing with him now. And he starts making huge swings. Harder, but not tipping. I’m rocking with each stroke. Heaven.

Rubber mops now. Starting with thud. Solid, slightly stingy thud. It takes me a bit to get back from the grunts to the breathing. I find myself turning, favoring my left shoulder as it stings more. I try to stay straight, give him a flat target. My hands come up, cradling my chest, anchoring to myself. I’m not going to give in. Tonight, I’m breaking through the barriers of pain, and he is right there with me, not pushing too hard or too fast. I find the rhythm, tapping my foot and breathing with the strikes. Six count knocks me to the floor again, back up quickly. He stays with me. Stingy for a while, screams down to breathing. Pounding, thudding, stinging. It doesn’t matter anymore. Breathing, rocking, turning. Occasional screams just punctuate the scene.

Then his bare hands slam down on tender skin, pounding me to the ground in screams of pain. I try to get up, but he has followed me and I collapse, tears breaking free. The pounding continues and I crawl onto his lap, clinging to his leg through the tears. Eventually, I break through that barrier too, and we readjust, me a ball on the floor, him sitting beside me, pounding away with bare palms. I breathe with the hits, occasionally trying to adjust my body. Elbow not quite comfy, but it’s the best I can do. Head down, no, cement bad. Just maintain. Solid hits stinging my skin. Breathing through solid hits, squeals on sharp smacks. Pounding me down to a puddle of meat.

His hand in my hair, he pulls my face into his lap. My arms around his legs and I sink. The feel of him, the smell of him, the comfort of him. My glasses come off, and I anchor to him. Breathing, I can feel him breathing. Hearts beating. Reality slowly returns. I hear talking above me. Eventually he pulls me up.

How are you?

I smile a spacy smile. Very good.

Is that what you needed?

Yes, Sir. Thank you.

You’re welcome.

We both need to recover. Sitting next to each other, watching the room. Glowing, the energy and the happy still filling every ounce of me. Even as I finally return to the world and go take a look at hubby’s rig.

An excellent night, amazing play, and it pulled me right into balance. It was full of the love and energy and wonderful connection we share. Nothing else mattered during the flogging. It was us, sharing with each other. And when we came up, our other loved ones were right there, surrounding us. It truly was, exactly what I needed.

Broken Not Fragile

One of the first times I answered “the heath question” before playing with someone, that’s what I said. I’m not fragile, but I am broken. I have RA, so I have fussy joints. Hubby has a badly injured back. He has had surgery twice in the last two years. Toy has a myriad of problems, treatable and mysterious. And we all get injured, ill or just plain exhausted. So, what then? What do you do when your play partner, your loved one, is not feeling up to snuff?

He once asked me if I could be happy not being suspended by him for a whole year (at the time he was suspending me three nights a week), and suggested that such could be the case some day due to health. Now, I have not gone a full year between suspensions, but often it is months. And yes, I’m still quite happy with him. It isn’t about what we do together, but more about being together.

There is a lot of service in my submission to him, so taking care of him when he’s not feeling well comes naturally. I’m not really the maternal type, but fetching food, giving massages, just sitting and stroking his hair, all feel good to me. Hubby and I are making time to take care of each other more now, too. We plan out our date nights, but sometimes, one or both of us is feeling rough, and we just take care of one another in the same way.

Toy has a unique way of taking care of the sick. She likes to be the Get-Well Fairy and goes to the store and drops of little bags of whatever is needed or wanted. She likes to help people out, and even remembers to let us help her when she’s ill, too. She does ask for help when she really needs it, but sometimes we have to push past her reflexive “I got this, guys.”

So, this is all good and nice and happy. What about the parts I don’t do so well? This is two-fold for me. One, I don’t take care of myself. Two, I over-protect those I love. So, let’s take these in backwards order because the one leads into the other.

Over-protectiveness. If someone is not quite up to their full health, or feeling tired or sore, I assume the role of care taker. Which isn’t a bad thing, but it also means I don’t ask them for anything I might want. I feel that their health is more important and it would be selfish to ask for anything. This happens a lot on Wednesdays. If he comes in late from work and looking worn out or complaining of headache or pain, I won’t ask to play, even if it has been on my mind all day. I don’t want to push him if he’s not up to it, I don’t want him to feel bad for saying no, or make himself feel worse by saying yes. I’m taking away his ability to make that decision for himself by not asking. Bad me. There’s a bit more baggage around that one than just health issues, but that’s not today’s topic.

So, that also leads into not taking care of myself. Just because the desire mentioned above is a want instead of a need (I hesitate to call anything defined as play or sex a need), doesn’t mean I shouldn’t have it. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t ask for it. I don’t often ask for things I want, because, I tell myself, I don’t really Need them. I put those I care about first, my assumed responsibilities second, and myself third. It’s why I stopped Tai Chi and Yoga, it’s one of the reasons why I can’t get back into kneeling regularly. Those things all came to be “about me.” I’m doing them for myself, so they aren’t as important as the things I’m doing for others.* The only thing that over-rules that is exhaustion. I do veg on the couch when I’m too tired to do anything else, until I fall asleep. With taking on a second job recently, exhaustion is winning out more, and the second job is taking all the time usually reserved for “my things.” Only illness and injury slowed me down this week and did not provide for productive “me time,” and I took extra shifts to make up the missed days. So much to do, it’s hard to find the proper balance.

 

 

*As I reread this, I decided some extra discussion was, perhaps needed, to define how this ritual came to be “about me.” Roughly a year and a half ago, he asked me to kneel for him, to get up to thirty minutes a day and to reflect on our relationship during this time. Tai Chi and Yoga became part of this ritual to take care of myself, to be healthy for him. I wrote a post about this just a few weeks ago, about what I could do to reclaim this habit. However, the changes in our relationship, and the problems I had with the kneeling, and my efforts to overcome them, have cast this ritual in a different light. Yes, once upon a time, he asked me to do it. But it no longer feels like a part of our exchange. It is something I do to center myself, or to take care of myself. Not something I do for him. And so, when I fail to do it, it’s just one more thing I don’t do for myself because I don’t have or make the time after everything else I put first.

Rope Scenes

I’ve posted a lot about rope. About why I like it, what I like about it, about scenes I’ve had with it, about buying it, about learning to tie it. There have been a lot of classes on rope lately, with more coming up, especially at COPE in September. The most recent was on Eeling. And he said he learned more about me by attending than about the subject, because he and I don’t play like that. Way back when we first met, he challenged me to get out of a tie, but not since. Our scenes are about other things that escape. So, it brought to mind today, what kinds of rope scenes are there, what kinds do I enjoy, and what do I get out of the different kinds?

Suspension is one, well, two really. There are high-flying suspensions, and there are static.

High-flying suspensions I have written about a few times, describing particular scenes or the freedom in it. The care for comfort of the tie, and the attention to detail of the rigging are very important. Swinging from a point 15-20′ in the air by thin ropes tied around the body is a feeling like no other I’ve ever experienced. We compare it to a swing set of childhood, or a roller coaster ride. But it is so much more than the first, and so much more sensual than the second. It is about trust and control. Giving it all to the person tying and flying you. One mistake and bad things could happen. But when it’s done right, with care and attention. The energy, the joy, the sense of freedom, is incredible. The dizziness from spinning well worth the feeling of the spin. The rope marks can last for days, bright red lines where the ropes lay, holding you in the sky. And for me, the scene doesn’t end when I’m back on the ground. I float as he unties, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, leaving burns with the lines. And then I sink back down to earth, surrounded by the rope, coiling it up, breathing it in. Landing mentally, only when it is all put away again.

Static suspensions share a lot of the same sensations and feelings with high-flying ones. But they tend to be more sensual for me. More about the rope touching and holding. More about the feel of him close to me, often playing with me while I’m suspended. Static lends to deeper space, less wide-eyed excitement. I sink into rope space whenever I am tied, but when left to hang in it, my mind sinks deeper into my body. Feeling everything. And floats out to him, feeling the energy and the exchange.

A similar state is achieved through floor scenes. When he ties me, not to a suspension point, but into a ball, or a hog-tie or some such, self-contained tie. These, though, have me grounded, literally, and mentally. I am not floating away, finding the freedom of being suspended. I am tied into myself, molded into the shape he wishes. I am made vulnerable in a completely different way. No longer is my life hanging by a thread, but rather, I am at his mercy. I am where and what he wants me to be. I am bound and helpless, and available for whatever he wants to do, with less safety concerns to distract. (Yes, there are always safety concerns, but not maintaining steady breathing, or a numb limb isn’t going to end a ground scene nearly as quickly as a suspension.) Floor scenes can be as simple as tying and leaving to melt, whether in a ball on the floor, or walking around with just the upper body bound. Or tying and then tormenting – whips, floggers, paddles, pinches, nipple clamps, tickling, what have you. A fully sensual and power exchange scene for me.

Coming off floor scenes, there are bed scenes. Tied down to a bed, for sex and torment. To be tied completely open and vulnerable. These have a different feel from ground scenes, for various reasons. One, obviously, if the intent is sex, is quite a bit different than the above feelings. But the other, for torment, is still different, too. Tied in a ground tie, immobilized and tormented is one thing. Often you can’t see what’s coming, or you can curl and squirm at the very least. Tied out spread eagle, unable to even pretend you can protect or defend yourself. Waiting, watching, often enduring torment that you can do nothing about. It is a similar, but uniquely delicious space. For me, there is far less sinking into the rope in these scenes. Sometimes I use pulling on the rope to process the pain, or as a focus point, but these scenes do not take me to rope space nearly as much as a ground tie.

The last type, I want to talk about is what sparked this post. Eeling. Getting out of the rope you were put in. I used to do this type of scene with the other a lot, or folks on the crew, just playing around when we were bored. See how long it took to escape a particular tie. Or tie myself up so the other could watch me escape. Or be tied up and left to escape on my own. Or one particular friend like to keep adding rope as I would untie the first few. These were interesting scenes for me. Scenes of challenge. I like challenges, challenging myself, being challenged. The ties were puzzles to be solved. And learned from. I love learning, too. I started learning suspension ties by untying them. I learned a lot about floor and bed ties by untying myself. There was discussion about what about eeling turns eels on, and about the rollercoaster that eeling scenes can be. For me – the joy of being tied, the thrill of the challenge set before me, the frustration of a difficult (or improbable to escape) tie, the thrill of getting a knot undone or getting some slack, the frustration that it did no good, continuing on to either end with the satisfaction of escaping, or the arousal of surrender. These scenes can be very tricky. The frustration can overwhelm, or the eel can cause themselves physical injury, or panic can set in (especially when combined with abandonment). But if the balance can be maintained, the frustration can be channeled and the panic controlled, and injury avoided, I enjoy these scenes very much if it is what the top is also after. I am not one to get out of any rope put on me just to see if I can. I like being in it far too much for that.

Are there any other types you enjoy? Do you have a favorite? What about the different types do you like?