Feeling happy

I played with Lydia tonight. Much bondage, breathplay, nipple torture, hot wax and flogging was involved. It was the kind of play that gets me spacey almost immediately. The kind where I can channel the pain through a sense of shared connection. The kind where it hurts but feels so good and so right.

Right now all I want to do is collapse on the couch and drink wine, so this post will be short. I’ll simply share an image that captures an element of what play can be. There was no rope bondage in my case (although lots of leather belts and plastic wrap) but this has that sense of tension and connection that means so much to me.

ConnectionI’m afraid I don’t have an original source for this. I found it via the Alternative Femdom tumblr.

A spring garden with Lydia

I should start this post with a warning: It features images from a piecing session I did with Lydia a few weeks ago. So if you wish to avoid image of naked needled me, then I’d suggestion not clicking any of the links below.

The negotiation for our play was – as usual – very short. I think I said “How about doing some piercing?” and she said “Sure.” That was job done. We’re not big on complicated scripts. I like being surprised and giving Lydia scope for her devilish imagination. A piercing session gives her that ample scope, as she has shown in the past (e.g. here, here and here). In this case she created a decorative piercing all across and down my back. She said the layout and design was inspired by the idea of a walk in a spring garden.

You can see the top part of the design in this shot here and from another angle here. Not content with decorating the top of my back she also planted some needles in my butt, seen in this long torso shot and this close-up. The round design on my butt cheeks is known as a button and is particularly painful. The shafts of the needles cross each other and trap flesh in between. This means any kind of movement pinches and squeezes nerves between needles and creates very intense sensations. Moving around wasn’t really on my agenda, but apparently it was on Lydia’s, as piercing was followed by hitting, and striking, and prodding. That tended to produce a few wiggles.

The marks left when everything had been removed were particularly impressive. I loved the patterns created in the skin. In total I think we used around 120 needles with a gauge varying between 25 down to 18. It wasn’t one of the most intense piercing sessions we’ve ever done from a pure pain perspective. However, it was one of the most meditative, focused and aesthetically pleasing.

Lady LydiaPhotograph of Lydia is by Mandy McGee photography.

Scream therapy

I’m safely back in Seattle after flying back late on Sunday night. I finished the trip with a bang, or possibly that should be a thwack, by playing with the beautiful Domina Ai-Li on Sunday afternoon. It was another really fun session. Playing fairly heavy on consecutive days creates some interesting dilemmas, as dommes do love to poke, prod and generally work over any bruises they spot from the previous day!

In my previous post I commented on the role the eyes can play in a scene. Today I’m going to go a couple of inches lower and talk about the throat. It’s not a body part that gets mentioned often, but I think it definitely played a role in my session with Ai-Li. I had a slightly sore throat when we started (probably as a result of too much drinking and talking in busy bars) and yelling and screaming in pain didn’t help matters. I have a tendency to do that when someone beats the inside of my thighs particularly hard. As a result I tried to bite back my yells to be kinder to my throat, and that in turn seemed to lower my pain tolerance. I think vocalizing is a way to release tension and push through tough situations. It lets me be free and simply express what I feel. Trying to hold it back makes it harder for me to take pain and therefore increases its apparent intensity. So I guess it you want to make it tougher for a submissive, tell him or her to shut the hell up.

Of course if you want to let someone scream but not scare the neighbors into calling the cops, a gag is always a good alternative. It doesn’t give you silence, but does muffle yells while still allowing a healthy moan.

GagAtTheReadyI’m afraid I don’t know who the above domme is. If you do then feel free to enlighten me via the comments.

A visual connection

I was lucky enough to get to play with Domina Yuki today. She’s a very talented domme and as usual it was a great session with lots of groans, screams and whimpers. I can only hope the soundproofing in our playspace was good.

One thing I found particularly interesting was my emotional reaction to a whipping. I was lying face down on padded bench to receive it, looking to one side as she hit me with a heavy leather whip. To start with I was looking directly at her and the whipping felt incredibly intimate. Our only contact was the strands of the whip, and yet it felt like a caress. As others might feel about an intimate hug or a kiss, I felt about watching her swing this whip against me. It was almost a sexual experience.

After a number of strokes she moved around to my other side, where I couldn’t see her, and that changed the dynamic dramatically. Suddenly it was a challenge. I had to focus inside of myself and push through. The endorphins continued to flow but rather than being in an intimate situation I felt objectified. I could no longer project my feelings towards her and had to turn inward instead. I’m sure the strength of the blows were no different, yet they felt harder.

In hindsight the experience was a fascinating insight into the role of the brain in modifying pain and the way we can contextualize powerful sensations. It was almost a childlike reaction – sadistic peak-a-boo. Intellectually I always knew I was being hit by Mistress Yuki, but only when I could see her did it take on a different meaning.

Blindfold

Snaps from SF

On my recent trip to San Francisco I was lucky enough to play with both Domina Yuki and Domina Ai-Li. Sadly we were too busy having fun (masochistically speaking) to take a lot of photographs, but Domina Yuki did snap a couple of shots of some CBT play we did. Those not afraid of pictures of naked boy bits can see one shot here and a close-up here.

She managed to create a really interesting set-up. The balls were pulled down and out by clips and twine attached to the chair I was sitting on. Then the nipple clamps were attached to clips on the head of the cock. This put everything into tension and, in a particularly devious touch, that tension changed as my physical arousal changed. The result was a sadistic perpetual motion machine: Softness -> pulled nipples -> pain -> stimulation -> errection -> less tension -> less pain -> softness. It’s an endless masochistic cycle, with the added factor of a talented lady squeezing, slapping and pinching all manner of sensitive body parts. Being caned on my inner thigh in that set-up certainly caught my attention.

I can’t leave a post with only shots of my naked scrawny ass, so here’s a beautiful and striking image from Domina Yuki’s tumblr.

Domina Yuki

Less is more

I had an unusual session with Lydia last night. It was mostly focused on piercing, which certainly isn’t unusual, as anyone who has read my past session posts will know. What was different about this one was that no bondage was involved. I don’t think I can remember the last time that happened. We typically don’t make bondage a focus, but it’s almost always in the mix somewhere. In this case I was lying, sitting and standing at different times, but never restrained.

The psychological effect it created surprised me. It made our play feel more intimate. Practically speaking, based on what got stuck into which body parts, it was no different to many past sessions. It wasn’t like we were physically closer than usual, or interacted particularly differently. Yet it seems that bondage has a much stronger objectifying aspect than I’d previously realized. Someone tied down is being acted on, even if they agreed to be there. Being free to move but choosing not to triggered a sense of cooperation, which in turn created togetherness and intimacy.

This may be old news to many of you, but it was a surprising revelation to me. I always thought bondage was a fun addition to a scene. I never realized that taking it away could also add to the experience.

Grabbed by the throatI’m afraid I don’t have a source for this image. There’s no bondage, but I always find being grabbed by the throat is a very intimate yet controlling act.

Bondage with Lydia

I’ve done a poor job of documenting my own sessions in the past months. Either we’ve not remembered to snap photographs, or I’ve not got around to editing and publishing them. For example, I had a magical session with Lydia yesterday evening. Many clips and clamps were applied to a wide variety of body parts. I discovered that clothespins on the earlobe don’t really hurt while they’re on, or even when they come off, but it does hurt like hell if somebody squeezes the earlobe immediately after taking them off. Lydia played me like an odd kind of musical instrument. Remove a clip, then press or squeeze hard, and see what strange sounds emerge. Unfortunately I didn’t think to use a camera or a microphone to record the results for posterity.

Our play from a couple of weeks ago (which I mentioned in this prior post) did result in a few photographs, so I can at least share those. Although everything started very playfully, we eventually segued into some bondage, breathplay and CBT. You can see some good shots of the bondage here, here and here. It was very effective as it not only held me but also hugged me. Sometimes I can almost forget I’m tied up, but not this time. Even in subspace I was very aware of its taut loops around me.

Lydia also grabbed some close up shots of the cock bondage and the nipple clamps. The nipple torture looks more painful, but it was actually the rope loops around the head of the cock that really caught my attention. Nipple clamps tend to hurt going on and coming off, but aren’t too bad in between. With the cock there’s a lot more skin and flesh moving around, getting painfully trapped between rope coils as things expand and contract. Just when I thought I’d adjusted to it, something would move and an entirely new set of nerves would get pulled into the scene. It turns out to be particularly hard not to move when a sadist is pinching your nipples and cutting off the oxygen with plastic wrap.

It’d be a shame to have a post with only shots of my naked ass in it, so here’s a far more attractive one of Lydia. It’s pretty much the exact view I had yesterday, even down to the top she’s wearing. I don’t have a soundtrack to go with it, but imagine moans with an English accent and some gleeful laughter and you’d be most of the way there.

Lady Lydia

Photograph of Lydia is by Mandy McGee photography.

Sugar and spice and everything nice

I almost kicked a dominatrix in the ankle tonight. I managed to resist the urge, but I think I would have been justified. After all, she started it.

I was playing with Lydia, and having a lot of fun while she channeled her 8 year old self. There was lots of pushing and prodding and teasing and laughing going on. She has no problem reaching her inner-child, and that’s one mean little girl. Gleeful laughter while something gets pinched is pretty common. In this case she was pulling me around via some tightly attached nipple clamps and making me second guess when she was going to move. It was so fun and so childlike I almost reverted to my inner 8 year old and gave her a kick on the ankle in revenge. Fortunately my outer middle-aged person was smart enough to realize that kicking someone who has your nipples at their mercy is a bad move. Particularly when she’s wearing boots and you’re bare foot.

This image doesn’t bear much relationship to our activities tonight. No strap-on’s were involved. However, that stuck out tongue does put me in mind of children in the playground and playful teasing. Although I’m not sure how playful he’s feeling at this moment.

TongueOut

This is from the Strapon Tales site. I found it on the Seductive Domme tumblr.

The healing power (or not) of BDSM

As I mentioned in previous posts, I was in San Francisco a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately, the day before I flew down, a nasty bug hit me. It wasn’t enough to knock me out entirely, but it did leave me feeling pretty rotten. That presented a conundrum. Normally if I’m sick I don’t play. Bottoming in a scene takes a lot of energy, which I don’t have if I’m unwell. I want to ensure that I’m warm, rested and hydrated, not naked, beaten and sweaty. However, in this case I had a limited window of opportunity. I’d set up sessions with Mistress Yuki and Mistress Ai-Li, and I was only in town for a handful of days. I didn’t want to miss out on getting together, and I didn’t want to mess them around by cancelling. They were happy to deal with the less than healthy me, but how would I cope?

In the end I came up with what I thought was a cunning plan: I’d try and make my reactions to the session work for me. Specifically, I’d try and use the endorphins generated to power through my vacation. I normally have a post session buzz than can last for hours or even days. So I figured I’d leave my body to fight the nasty virus, while I floated through the trip on a BDSM induced high. I’d still have the symptoms, but maybe I just wouldn’t care.

With my cunning plan in place, the next question was: What type of session should it be? Ideally it needed to be something calm, meditative and involve a lot of lying down on my part. I wanted the endorphins, but I also had a sore throat, so anything involving heavy pain and screaming was a non-starter. Given a fuzzy stuffy head, heavy breathplay was out, as was any kind of gag. Ultimately I decided piercing was the perfect solution. Painful and ritualistic enough to get me juiced with all the right brain chemicals, but not extreme enough to stress my body or drain my energy.

Unfortunately, I’m sad to say that while the theory might have sounded good, in practice my plan was slightly less cunning that I had originally thought. On the plus side, the immediate reaction was all I had hoped for. Mistress Yuki and Mistress Ai-Li did a brilliant job and I left appropriately floaty. That lasted for several hours and allowed me to do typical vacation stuff with my friends. At that point, I then crashed, and crashed hard. It wasn’t sub drop. I guess it was virus drop. Or getting-needles-through-the-genitals-while-sick drop. I basically ended up wiped out for 48 hours, and feeling worse than I had before the session. Just to double check my data, I ran the whole experiment again a few days later and got exactly the same results. Great for the few hours while the initial endorphin hit lasts, terrible after that.

In conclusion I’d suggest that if you’re sick and have a critical job interview or task to accomplish, then BDSM may help. Get yourself tied and tortured in your preferred fashion immediately beforehand, and you’ll float through feeling great. But if your goal is simply to get better as fast as possible, I’d avoid getting down with your kinky self. That is unless your kink involves warm drinks, restful naps and watching daytime TV on your couch.

Photograph by Peter Coulson

This image is by the Australian photographer Peter Coulson. I do have some personal shots taken from my San Francisco sessions that I’ll put together for a later post.

Gulliver’s Travels

Last week I mentioned a piercing session I’d done with Lydia featuring a fair number of needles. This week I bring you a few photographs from the session. If you’re at all squeamish about piercings or naked gentleman bits, then I’d suggest not clicking on the image links. Both elements feature heavily. On the plus side, there is a sexy picture to finish.

The original plan A for the session was to do a butterfly boarding. We’d done this before, back in 2011, in one of the first sessions I documented. Unfortunately, Lydia couldn’t track down any foam board at short notice. Ever creative, she moved onto a plan B of using my body as the board. Specifically my thighs and stomach. The idea was to pierce through the genitals and then through the torso skin, stitching everything into place with needles. That sounded good in theory, but several painful minutes demonstrated it didn’t work well in practice. The needles tended to pull out too easily. Fortunately, it was a case of third time lucky, as plan C was a striking success. This stuck to using my body as the board, but combined pairs of needles acting as anchor points with cords to stretch everything into place.

This top shot and this side shot show the arrangement pretty clearly. It led to a fascinating headspace, as every small movement pulled at different needles and communicated sensation across my body. Piercing always makes me floaty and the bondage elements of this approach pushed me deeper into that subspace. It also created an interesting feedback loop. Arousal pulled at the needles and, masochist that I am, that made me more aroused, which pulled the needles even more painfully. Lydia always likes to layer sensation, so the nipples also got involved, with cord running from them down via a belly piercing to the top of the cock. You can see the nipple piercing here and a torso view here. That connection across the body brought my breathing into the picture, each breath pulling at the taut cord and signalling down to the needles in their sensitive homes. Very intense but equally stimulating.

I’m always happy and laughing at the end of a scene, but in this case I was particularly amused when it came time to take everything out and I could examine the arrangement more closely. It put me in mind of the famous scene in Gulliver’s travels when he visits Lilliput and gets tied down on the beach. Except instead of Gulliver and ropes there’s my cock and a lot of frayed cords. It’s not really how Swift first imagined it, but possibly my genitals might pull off the role better than Jack Black did.

Given all the naked me in the image links, it feels only fair to finish with someone who’s not only far more photogenic but also responsible for conceiving and executing the scene. This is the wonderful Lydia, taken from her new and excitingly revamped website.

Lady Lydia