A better start this time...

The further I go into my adult life (by numerical standards, I still refuse to completely grow up) I realize I have fewer and fewer friends. Six years of marriage and 3 kids, and I feel we have almost no “couple friends”. They are the needle in a haystack where both my husband and I connect on any level with two people who also are married and have children. Rare. I’m also realizing how artificial some of our friendships can be. How little time and reason we have to build friendships in our vanilla life where they matter on a level completely beyond “let’s have dinner and grab a movie because we have basic things in common.”

We have really only been in the local scene for several months. I’m amazed at the strength of relationships and attachments I find myself building. I have never been someone who “attached” to people, especially other women. Guys were easier as friends because they required so little of me emotionally. Only months into this “lifestyle” I find myself building confidences that I absolutely trust and respect. This lifestyle almost demands it. It’s hard to build friendships, to discuss and share the depth of emotion surrounding us, to play together, learn together and grow together without building bonds beyond those that would be obligatory and basic. I know there are many who try, and likely succeed in making this NOT about emotion, or connection, but I’m thrilled to realize that isn’t for me. I went that route, the difference when I’m open to real friendship and trust is like the difference between a tomato out the garden and a grocery store tomato in January…One barely reminiscent of the other, and lacking whole lot of complexity and flavor.

I think it must be a hard fight, a real choice to participate in this lifestyle without depth. I know I came in not sure I could trust. Hurt, scared, confused. I came in sure it would take years to build any trust in anyone. But try as I might, I couldn’t hold on to that. The lifestyle gently took me by the hand, and showed me if I wanted to truly grow, I HAD to trust. I couldn’t trust superficially. When you ask someone to show you what a choke feels like, you have to be sure you trust them. You can’t always take permission back in time. You can’t always watch your own back; especially if that’s the place you are being bitten. Even if you don’t WANT to need it, you sometimes need someone next to you to pat your hair after a hard drop…because you can’t always pat your own hair and calm yourself in the ways you want to. I’m so grateful that this time around, I met the people who could grab that trust when offered and staple it back to my leg while I moaned in all the right ways. I’m so grateful I have found friends who hurt, hug, cuddle, and show me that giggles in response to pain, are about as normal as wanting pain anyway, so why not giggle as loud as possible? Friends who want my reactions, my emotions, and even gasp the drama of my past. Someone once discussed with me how drama gets a bad rap. There is certainly unnecessary drama, but there is also GOOD drama. Drama brought by all the intricacies of all our minds, emotions and feeling. Interactions between people naturally create drama to be dealt with. It’s not all bad; it means we care for each other, about each other. When a friend says, “I won’t let you fail”…what better drama is there than that? I will take that drama with a bowl of popcorn and a cozy blanket to wrap myself in anytime.

I came back to this lifestyle after almost 10 years away from it. So hurt the first time, emotionally and physically, I thought there was no safe way to be part of it for me. I am SO happy to be back. It’s not an easy process…feeling like that “broken” one. Carefully disclosing pieces of my history to those I play with, caught somewhere between fearing rejection from them for being too “complicated” and wishing I was strong enough to REALLY feel that if they can’t handle me they don’t deserve me. But here I am, trusting people. Who’d a thought? And here I am, thanking the ones who showed me I can, trying to show others THEY can. I never intended to be a role model, and I don’t want that now, but what I do want is to just show that for me, it’s time to end the quiet. So thank you to those who have showed me I can share this. I love you all.

I’ll call him R. Not cause I’m afraid of him anymore or want to protect him or myself…just because his name doesn’t really matter. His name doesn’t matter anymore than mine does. This story plays out all over our community in any number of ways, everyday. Some different than mine, some the similar, all of them though, woefully kept quiet. Till one day someone says, I was abused, misused, mistreated and then others…too many others…say, yeah, me too. So here is my version.

This is my story of misuse. It might cause others to trigger or recall their own stories of abuse, and misuse. I welcome anyone who wants to talk to me about what they have been through or where they have been. But please read forward with care if you are likely to trigger on stories of abuse.

R came highly recommended. He wasn’t someone I randomly picked out of a pool of Dom’s. I thought I was so smart. I got to know a couple who worked in a local group. Told them my situation, told them I wanted to learn, that this was something in me, a part of me, and I wanted to explore it. They nodded and yes’d me, and told me how smart I was for looking for a teacher, not some young stud who would be all about the sexual side of BDSM. They said for a girl in her early 20’s, I was wise beyond my years. I had heard that my whole damn life and too easily believed them, and their own wisdom in recommending a Dom who was 40 years my senior. They listed his experience and accomplishments and how long he had been in the lifestyle. They were significant to my starry eyed, idealistic and yes, a bit romantic young self. I was told and it was reinforced how lucky I was he was willing to take a sub who was so young and inexperienced. Lucky me. So very lucky 
R and I carefully negotiated a contract. I was allowed to lay out anything that was a hard limit. However since I knew nothing, what could I really lay out? I had almost zero knowledge of the depths of BDSM. I laid out that I’d rather there was no sex, and that I didn’t want to be “covered” in bruises. Naïve? Hell yes, but so be it. Those were my conditions, and we set forth on our merry way to explore my limits and likes as he said.

He started slow. (sarcasm, get use to it) I think it was 3 sessions in (so the second week) before he broke out a bamboo cane and worked me shoulder to knee with it for 30-45 minutes. I recall vividly what it was like to drive home with my clothing sticking to the ooze that caning creates. Not blood. But that ooze of blisters created and immediately opened. It dried to my sweater and pants and required me to peel them gently away from skin while I ran a shower. I remember standing there, looking at the shower, not sure what the hell to do. Clearly I needed a shower, but I was miserable and not at all sure I had the mental capacity left in me to decide even if a hot or a cold shower would hurt less. I went with luke warm. It hurt like a mother fucker. According to R, mental capacity was what separated a submissive from a student. A submissive had the actual mental capacity to take and process pain without feedback to the Dom. In simpler terms, keep the whining and crying to yourself. If you want to be “real” shut the hell up. Your verbal response is not required and in fact, strongly discouraged. Well in that shower, my mental capacity was clearly elsewhere. I remember how weak I felt as my crying echoed off the tiny bathroom walls. It was a scene that would replay itself over the coming 4 months, twice a week, like clockwork. So much for no “all over” bruising right?

Communication guidelines were established early. Basically R spent part of his day, twice a week working with me. That was a significant time commitment on his part. A further time commitment to then communicate on those sessions was not something he could regularly tolerate. He requested that any little piddly suggestions I had, like hey I asked at one point that you not bruise me head to toe, were communicated to him via e-mail. He would get to those when he had the time and felt up to it. I would wait patiently for his responses, such as, bruising as a result of tools, did not really fall under bruising. If I did not want bruising from tools, I should have listed those tools as a hard limit in my contract. I had not said canes were a hard limit, therefore the bruising as a result of a cane, was not a limit either. Hmm. Okay. I knew no better. He said canes couldn’t be used without bruising so it was only “logical” that if I accepted caning, I also accepted the heavy bruising they imparted.

R was really fond of caning. I would guess over the course of our 4 month “relationship” he broke on average of one cane a week over my back side. Not every session…only every other! The sound and feel of a cane pulled so far back it whips and snaps against you is not one you typically take silently…but of course I did…cause I was real damn it. (Sarcasm, are you use to it yet?) I also learned quickly tears, even silent ones, caused him to lash out in disappointment at me. R expressed disappointment by pushing me indifferent ways, so I could prove my submission. Pushing me in ways I had no idea I should have been listing as hard limits, because I didn’t know anything about them when we wrote the contract. Each of these pushes that I later expressed discomfort in (by e-mail of course) were quickly rebuffed as “not listed in the contract”…

Things I failed, as a brand new subbie, to list in my contact included fun things like blood play…or blood “art” as R liked to call it. Blood art started shortly after R moved me from standing on the floor, arms tied above my head to a rafter, to standing on two stools arms tied above my head to a rafter. The second or third time in this position, R had been gradually tying the rope that held my hands to the rafter looser and looser. It meant I had a little play back and forth as he hit me. I had to have some balance, but, because I was actually tied, a weeble could wobble, but it wouldn’t fall down. It would however, move about quite a bit, making sure it stayed on the stools. Moving targets are, I would guess, harder to hit. Frustrating for poor R I guess. It made him hit harder, and consequently, me to whimper, just a tiny bit. When I heard the small click of him laying the cane on his desk behind me, I knew an “opportunity to be real” was coming, and I was grateful I had not eaten before or the sense of anxiousness washing over me would surely have left me with an empty stomach anyway. I looked down to see a sheet of poster board slide between my two stools and as he circled to stand in front of me, he didn’t even look up. He held tiny nail scissors in his hand and perfunctorily clipped 6 downward V’s in me. Two on my right inner thigh, two on my left inner thigh, and then pausing just for a second as my knees gave out and I hung by my wrists, he pulled my labia tight and clipped one V on each side. To this day, I have no idea how long I would hang, unable for my knees to support me each time he did this. Mentally, this wasn’t even the hardest thing he did, but it wrecked me. Blood drops hitting a sheet of stiff, laminated poster board in a small room were like hail on a tin roof to me. He would sometimes just sit behind me, silent. He would sometimes just sit in front of me, and shift the poster board with his foot after each series of drips. He would intermittently wipe me with alcohol to prolong the period of time before they would clot. I forgot to say, no blood play. I don’t forget that anymore.

One thing I didn’t forget though was sex. Remember that? I said it. It was listed as “no penetration” in the contract. He worded it so sterile and proper-like. What I didn’t know was all the ways I could make a contract that states so little, basically “null”. I would say about 2 months into our sessions, he began drawing on me. That can be hot right? I guess it could be. What isn’t as hot is when he starts a session by circling, highlighting, commenting and critiquing each part of your body, the way they are lacking, they ways they fall short, what they should look like, and how sad it is that I was created how I was. Not hot at all. Sorta shitty actually. It also meant that each area he wrote on, was covered in non-washable marker and that provided areas for him to concentrate on with whips, straps and canes. They were like emotional and physical bull-eyes. Each swat, sting and welt to my breasts a reminder of all the ways they were imperfect. Each bruise and mark to my thighs a reinforcement of his negativity. Hours later, a final souvenir as I attempted to removed marker under layers of sensitive bruising and welts so I could try to forget his cutting words. Words can hurt. We all know that. I would guess it was the second time he drew on me, he casually lifted an arm, stopping to hold the cap to a bright red marker in front of my mouth and said, “Hold it”. I held it. He told me to. About 10 minutes later, I felt his finger tips enter me slowly anally and then were quickly followed by the marker itself. I spit the marker cap from my mouth, tears sprang to my eyes, and I pushed to try to remove the marker. He held in place, clearly ready for that move. I sputtered unintelligible sounds and noises, trying to get out verbally the line he had crossed for me emotionally and physically. He held the marker in and swatted me across the small of my back with a thick cane 3 or 4 times telling me to shut up. I did, but he worked the small of my back with the cane anyway. My back swelled and turned purple and it was actually hard to get urine out for nearly a week. When I could, it was often pink. When I told him, he said it was me being dramatic. I had no idea till then that feeling emotional impacted your ability to urinate…he taught me so much.

Clearly a sternly worded E-MAIL was in order here…and he got one. His brief response was that I had rendered the no penetration clause “null and void” by allowing oral penetration of an object in session. It was my choice. It was then his to exploit…and he did.

I’m sure with just the brief view of the highlights; many can fill in the low lights of this relationship. There was no aftercare. Not “poor” aftercare, there was just none. He would let me down from the tied position, and tell me to sit. I would sit on the stool and he would spend some time giving me feedback. Feedback consisted of him listing everything I did flat our wrong, the multitude of things I did poorly, many things I just “couldn’t seem to learn” and always a few dozen, you still disappointment me by doing “X” statement. He would often just need a break to sit at his desk for a few minutes to ponder if I was even worth his time. He would verbally discuss with himself out loud if it was worth his time to have me come back again, because I was such a slow learner, and making no attempt at real submission to him. I was a fake; I clearly did not even want to try to be “real”. But in the end it was always him being clear that he wasn’t a quitter and he would keep trying. Then a quick, “Dress and go. I’ll see you Thursday,” and I was allowed to leave. My walk down the staircase leaving his office was always the same. Shaky, one stair at a time, with the tears starting about ½ way down. Hysterics and dry heaving by the time I reached the car. Sit there…in his parking lot for about 30 minutes till I gathered the resolve to head home and care for myself. Always, start a shower and then a slow, very painful strip out of my clothing. Survey the damage front and back. Enter the shower carefully with spray adjusted to hit areas that were not open or heavily bruised so the stream of water could gently stream over the worst areas…cleaning them, but not adding insult to injury. Insults to injury were the areas I had to use a rough sponge on to remove the damn marker. Those were bad. After the shower, and tending anything open, I would immediately sit at my computer and begin my follow up e-mail. I learned quickly that it could wait till morning, when I could think straight, he would think it not important enough to address at all. Never mind that most evenings after a session I would have preferred to curl into a ball and cry and come down…there wasn’t time for that. There was time for tending the aftermath, an e-mail, filling ice packs and then some Nyquil to get me to sleep.

This was my introduction to this lifestyle. There was no care. There was no trust. There was little consent beyond my showing up over and over. For R, consent was when he opened the door and I was there. There was no growth for me as a person, or in my kink. Our sessions were not about me. At all. There was almost no respect for me as a person, physically, mentally or emotionally. In retrospect, that is starkly obvious.

How did it end? It ended with bronchitis. Yes. Bronchitis. Standing on two stools, barely able to breathe, being beaten with, of course, a cane. His collar, which I had never asked for, or agreed to, but which was strapped around my neck anyway, wrapped around my neck, making it harder to breathe it seemed. The room closing in and me being dizzy and asking for a break. Him, ignoring me. It continued with me starting to cry and hyper ventilating. Him, continuing to hit me harder and harder, completely ignoring my panic. He snapped the cane he was working with and then crossed to his desk and picked up a pair of scissors, and inserted them vaginally, and started massaging my clit while I was crying. In a moment of complete clarity, seeming brought on by lack of oxygen, I said, Red. It was in the contract.
He ignored me.
I said, Red.
He ignored me.
I said, Red.
He ignored me, but did remove the scissors. He then proceeded to bite me. Clamping down, over and over, the length of each arm, and leg in 4-6 neat rows per limb. Wrist to shoulder, ankle to hip bone. My entire torso, often tearing his teeth back and forth. I completely shut down and mentally left. I have no idea how long he did that. I have no idea how many times he bit me. I know at some point I felt him shaking me roughly, and then untying my hands. I know that evening I fell from the stools, and felt acutely aware of the way the floor vibrated as he walked away from me. I felt my bundle of clothing hit me in face as I lay on the floor. With strength from somewhere we all store a little bit extra I think, I stood, dropping my clothes to the floor in a pile, and with one hand, started to unbuckle the collar around my neck. He stepped forward, grabbing a handful of my hair and pulled me close to him, and then put one hand on my shoulder and tried to push me down to a kneel while growling at me to be a real sub for ONCE. I had never knelt for him. I had never knelt for anyone. I wasn’t about to start now. Perhaps again oxygen deprivation, perhaps something more was finally clicking, but my hands removed his from my body, and the collar from my neck in the blink of an eye. I over hand threw the collar directly at him and watched it bounce off his startled face. Imagine that…a little strength in me after all! I picked up my pile of clothes and walked out naked, dressing in the essentials as I walked down his staircase. There were no tears in the car. There was no dry heaving. That came when I got home, curled on my furry bathmat, unable to even move with the exception of the sobs wracking my body.

Sobbing because I wasn’t enough. Pretty fucked up right? When the mental game in our lifestyle turns playing on submissive’s want to please, it becomes a dangerous game indeed. It’s a hard question, which hurts more, the mental/emotional? The physical? Certainly most would say one is more visual than the other. Others who have seen a sub in a trigger response from abuse might argue that those can be pretty darn visual too. Those who have held someone in panic or waited for someone who has detached to come back to reality would certain say there can be some visuals that are more powerful than a bruise or welt. A bruise or welt fades with time, and is gone. The spirit with which it was placed though, can last infinitely longer.

The spirit with which we dance through this lifestyle demands certain rules. The rules are fluid though, and can vary greatly from person to person, and more dramatically from couple to couple.
So now that I’m back here, learning this life so differently, what are the rules? What are my rules, what do I want, what am I looking for? I have no fucking idea. I only know this much. My rules. MY way. I think that’s as good a place to start as any.