What do you say?

Master had His pre-surgical hospital visit yesterday. So I went along. Mostly to be a second set of ears, but also to schlepp all His stuff. The man does not travel lightly: there is His planner (which weighs a ton), and there is the fanny pack (where He stashes the gazillion knives that He would normally carry in His pockets but...).

Anyway, we met first with a nurse who took a medical history and did blood tests and urine sample and got an x-ray done and ran an EKG and... Of course part of all of that is getting the information about who will be able to get information about His medical condition during and after the surgery. That would be: T, of course, and me.

Nurse person is dutifully writing notes, and asks, "T is ?"

Master answers, "she is my wife." At which point the nurse person looks at me and says, "and you are?"

"Family member." I answer. She never blinks. Just calmly records the information on her form. Life goes on.

We get all the stuff done and proceed on to the 3rd floor to meet with the therapy folks. Same song, second verse: first we meet with the occupational therapy lady, who is very cool. Once again we go through the "T is the wife, this is the family member" deal. No sweat. Like most medical professionals, she doesn't care. Doesn't become something that she needs to know.

And then we meet Jennifer, the physical therapist... "T is my wife and this is a "family member." Jennifer (young and intense and bright) looks me up and down quizzically and then peers at me intently and says, "what sort of family member are you?"

Well, what do you say? There just aren't any answers that are going to make real sense given what is likely to transpire once we all get to the hospital in a week and a half. I could say cousin or sister, but the reality is that I don't ACT like a cousin or a sister, so that is just not going to fly.

I looked at the curious Jennifer and said, "I am the other wife."

"OH!'' she said.

End of conversation.

After that, she stuck to knee exercises.

swan

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Responsibility

In recent days I've dreamed several heated confrontations between my ex-husband and myself. Conversations that turn accusatory and crescendo in angry shouts and waving fists.

I know enough "dream theory" to understand that dreams are about "me," and so I am betting that this recent spate of somnolent struggles are about internal stuff that I'm still hanging onto.

Let me see if I can do this definitively --

I left my marriage. I took the actions that led to that outcome. I made the choices and made the decisions and took the turns that brought me inexorably to that point, and I was not unaware of what I was doing.

It was not that I did not hope I could save the marriage somehow, but I knew, with reasonable certainty, that the likelihood was that I would end up losing it along the way. The fact was that I'd come to a point where I'd decided that I would no longer live in denial of who I most deeply was; would no longer live in a marriage that did not meet my most basic needs; would no longer live as "parent" rather than "wife" and "lover."

Through the years leading up to the final move to be with Master and T, I spent much of my free time IM'ing and on the phone with Master and very little of it with my husband. I avoided him if I could. Our life together grew less and less intimate, and much of that was my fault. I simply drew away from him and toward what I wanted. I knew what I was doing was harmful to our relationship, but after years of denying my own needs, I hadn't the character to resist it anymore. I chose for myself.

It is true that in the final year or two of our marriage, he became increasingly "strange," but it is also true that I pushed him away from me and isolated him -- cut him off. A man who spent his adult lifetime depending on me suddenly found that I was no longer "there." No wonder he turned up looking "strange." The increasing weirdness was, to some large degree, probably driven by my withdrawal.

I don't regret the choices. Would make them again. Needed to make them for myself. However, until now, I've not owned the simple fact that I had a marriage that I chose to leave, and that in doing that, I hurt a good and tender man. That is also a reality.

swan

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Biopsy Results

No Cancer!

Nothing.

Clean and Clear...

How many of these have we dodged this year???

We were so busy, we barely had the opportunity to even notice or celebrate or think much about it, but this is such great news and such a relief.

swan

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I'm not Submissive?

Date: Sun Feb 27, 2000 4:11 pm Subject: I'm not really submissive!I've got to confess. I'm not submissive. I'm feisty, opinionated,temperamental, moody, and generally a real handful. I'm also a died-in-the-wool feminist; carried petitions for the ERA back in the days when. Still keep the wallet card with the complete text, and nurture the hope that someday my daughter and grand-daughters will have the same rights that their male counterparts are assured by virtue of being born with a mismatched set of chromosomes!!! Submission is something I do. It's a choice. It's also an act of will and a decision for me every single time. Maybe someday it will get to be a habit and a way of life. Until then, I'll just keep practicing...

That was me. Almost five and one half years ago. Struggling. I didn't come to terms with any of this easily. I fought, and flailed, and ran around in circles, looking desperately for some other "label" for what it was that I was. BECAUSE -- I knew that the WHAT of what I was contradicted and undermined and undercut everything I believed in, and had fought for all my adult life -- everything I had taught my children to be, everything I was.

There is more than stridency in that short bit, written on a listserv that focused on Domestic Discipline (the sanitized and "vanilla-cized" brand of BDSM that I first talked the husband into trying with me early on), there is real fear and panic and a deep knowledge that the path I'd set my feet on would lead to an ultimate clash between the two halves of my "self" that seemed so diametrically opposed. In those early days, I hoped that the mere declaration of the negative could keep the secret locked safely away. I had no real understanding of the dragons I'd unleashed.

Of course, that piece of brave rhetoric was utter bullshit. I was surely submissive. I knew it somewhere in the depths of my heart and soul, else why protest so sincerely? Note that, even then, I never used the more casual, more easily managed, more pedestrian shortening: "sub." For me, it has always been the idea of "submission," and later, "slavery," that drew me and fired my imagination -- and I've always adhered to the formal language even when it scared the willies out of me.

Denying that I was submissive, I nevertheless, studied what "submission" meant. It is simply the way I am about things in general. I tend to want to know what things mean and how things are done, and so I read widely and asked questions and tried to learn how "submission" is done. I came to understand that, while it is true that there were sexual implications and SM implications to the term, there was much more -- that submission implied, at its deepest levels, a desire, and indeed a dedication to serving all the wants of the Dominant One, whatever those might be -- a submissive learned, over time to understand and anticipate and serve with joy and grace and skill in all areas of life, and to elevate that service to the level of "art." I was intrigued and further ensnared and enchanted. Each new bit of information drew me deeper, and there was so much information to be had.

Reading widely, interacting in many different places, I encountered a variety of viewpoints and a wealth of information -- some of it incredibly wise, some of it utterly foolish, much of it somewhere in between. Then, as now, if one typed "spank" or "bondage" or "sadism" or "masochism" or "BDSM" into a search engine on the Internet, the range of information that was likely to come up was highly variable. Not every hit was "reliable" and much sifting and sorting had to be done. Even on the more stable and sane listservs, things could get pretty wild sometimes and there were times when it was downright ugly, especially if one didn't fit the mold -- and quite often, I didn't.

I had one interesting misadventure (or not, depending on your point of view) on a private list owned by Jon Jacobs. Jon is dead now, but he is best known for co-authoring Different Loving. If you talk with anyone "in the life" who knows of Jon, you are likely to elicit an interesting response. Folks seldom reacted "neutrally" to him. He was a BIG personality. Anyway, when I encountered him, he was running a list and chatroom for submissive women called "Submissive Women Speak." I don't think it is in operation anymore -- it fell into some disrepute, largely because many felt they were "betrayed" by the practices used there. I got myself into some trouble there because I was unwilling to follow the "Jon Jacobs says:" party line and was a bit too aggressive in my somewhat vocal dissent... It didn't take me long to get myself thrown out of the place, so I can't speak to the charges that some have leveled against the place. Anyway, I wasn't there too long before information that I'd shared about the nature of my relationship with my husband and the things I wished for and needed led JJ to declare that I was a deeply submissive woman and that my husband was clearly not a Dominant. He told me in no uncertain terms that someday a Dominant man would find me and would take me and that I would leave my husband to go with the Dominant to whom I belonged. That whole exchange scared me half to death and made me furious. I went after the guy with extreme venom and made his life a living hell for the short time I was allowed to remain on the list. It didn't take long for them to eject me from the place...

Our association ended badly, but the prophetic nature of our exchange has stayed in my mind ever since. Now, it is possible that Jacobs used essentially that line with most of the women who came to his site. I don't really know. The fact is that for me, it turned out to be true. I have ever after felt that one of the things that we (experienced lifestylers) do badly for new people coming into "the life" with questions and a desire to explore, is warn them of the potential for major upheaval and change because of the doors that they will open... I have long thought that somehow we need to find a way to post metaphorical signs for visitors to these realms: "THIS WAY THERE BE DRAGONS."

Not that dragons aren't wondrous and magical and mystical beasties... They are all of that and more, and I've enjoyed getting to know mine (most of the time), but a relationship with a dragon can be a costly one. It can mean that you might have to leave the village where you've lived your whole life and give up a whole bunch of comfy stuff that you thought you would always have in your life. Dragons have demanding tastes and interesting lifestyles that don't always accommodate the mundane.

We ought to be more clear about that I think...

swan

Another Scare

Tuesday I had a bladder and prostate biopsy. I'd had a urological exam that appeared suspicious enough that they felt this was necessary and we wanted to get it in before my knee replacement.

It's a pretty simple outpatient surgery. You do get general anesthetic (thank god......you aren't doing this to me with me awake and survive:) You go home an hour later and sleep the rest of the day.....so no big deal....well not usually.

I slept just about around the clock from Tuesday after the procedure until Wednesday morning. I was scheduled to speak at a local conference that morning. I got up early that morning and wrote my speech, cleaned up and was ready to go. I knew I wasn't feeling that great, but what the heck, I imagined it was just lingering after effects of my anesthesia still working its way out of my system. I arrived at the conference center and found myself with an overwhelmingly urgent need to urinate. I tried to make it inside and as I entered the rest room, I lost full bladder control and completely wet myself. The walk back to the car was humiliating. Thank god I encountered no one I knew and the few folks who were in the hall not in sessions acted as though they didn't notice, although you could not have seen me and not known. I went home, showered, and changed. Fortunately the conference host, a Vice President of my Board, whom I certainly didn't want to disappoint, was flexible and worked me into the afternoon schedule and folks seemed to value my presentation. So all was well, except I was exhausted and continued to feel not vibrant. I assumed if I got through the rest of this challenging week I'd rest up this weekend and all would be well. I was having no more continence issues.....likely just some sort of bladder inflamation from the procedure.

The next morning I was supposed to be back at the conference at 8:00. I tried to get up but I couldn't. I was just tired and had no energy. I slept in and finally dragged myself out of bed and went in. The afternoon activity there was an experiential exercise that I really didn't need to participate in, and I felt horribly tired. My Board was meeting at 7:00 that night. I came home about 2:00 and went to sleep for a couple of hours before getting up to eat and get ready to go for the Board meeting. I felt some better after my nap but still was feeling funky. I drove into the meeting with sue. The meeting lasted until 10:00. By the time it was over I felt dreadfully ill. Finally the Board members left. Sue drove me home. I didn't feel well enough to drive. We stopped to pick up some snacks to eat with T on the way home and, watiing for them to be ready to go, I drank about fifty ounces of diet pop and water. I was ravenously thirsty and it seemed like no matter how much I drank I couldn't get satisfied and now I was not needing to urinate. We ate and I collapsed into bed. As the night passed I felt worse and worse. I felt so weak that rolling over in bed felt like a monumental feat. Sue took my temperature in the middle of the night. It was 101.9. She remembered the post-operative directions that if I spiked a temp of over 101 we needed to call them immediately. She did, but it took them 3 hours to respond. She was afraid. I just slept fitfully and from what she tells me whined and fussed. It dawned on us. MY GOD I HAD A POST-OPERATIVE INFECTION.

We spent much of yesterday in a nearby hospital emergency room. They ran tests and give me IV fluids and antibiotics and sent us home finally late last night with oral antibiotics telling us that that should take care of it, but that if I became that ill again to return and they would admit me.

Today I am not entirely well, but I am probably 90% better than I was twenty-four hours ago.

At one point they were imagining hanging me with a diagnosis of toxic septi-semia. We were very worried, knowing that if that had occurred two weeks before a knee replacement, they'd never be able to perform the procedure. Hopefully this is just a blip on radar screen and a further example of the way the gods have chosen to tease and play with us all this year to make our life "interesting."

I promise this Blog is not going to disintegrate into a chronicle of middle-aged health problems. If on the other hand you are reading here with a less than informed or experienced history of BDSM life, you can see that it is not all whips and restraints. We have the same challenges as anyone else.

Thanks again for all the support people have been giving us.

Tom
Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

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Full Moon and Fear and Asking

We sat, late last night, on the patio and watched the full moon rise, golden and glowing. It came up late, probably about 10:30 or 10:45, long past the time when we'd wondered where the heck it was since the sky was clear and sprinkled with stars.

It had been a lovely evening, warm but not terribly humid, which is a rare thing here in Cincy in the summer. We had dinner out on the patio and enjoyed grilling chicken and just the opportunity to sit and visit and talk over the day's goings on with one another.

It is always a surprise to us that, with as many neighbors as we have here in this condominium complex, we are most often the only ones out on the patio in the evenings... we saw a few "walkers," but no one just sitting taking in the sounds of the pond and the frogs and the birds. In one visually poetic moment, just as the twilight faded to black, we watched a young couple walking together with their dog and their "just-walking" young child. They wandered along at that pace that is dictated by having someone in your world who is still consciously learning how to manage the battle with gravity, and we were enchanted watching them. Master commented on how absolutely joyous their life must be, and I wondered if they knew or if they were too busy "doing" it to notice...

We stayed there, mostly just holding one another's hands, watching that moon rise slowly against the bowl of the sky. Master had a bit of His Jameson's -- and then a bit more. Suddenly, what has been unspoken and looming between us, came pouring out: He is afraid of this upcoming surgery. Afraid for Himself, and afraid for us.

We've spoken only of positive and good outcomes until now. To do otherwise is like tempting the fates. He is strong and determined and (as He frequently boasts) not easy to kill. But, we all know that this is a brutal and difficult procedure...being done at a hospital that is not our first choice. Sigh.

On my knees, at His feet, with my arms wrapped around Him, I held my Master, and rocked and stroked and crooned the soft nothings that a woman learns/remembers when they first put a newborn infant in your arms moments after it's birth.

I have no words for this -- no answers -- no guarantees. I know that there is nowhere in my awareness any sense that I am about to suffer great and devastating loss. I am afraid, but I believe it is the fear that one feels for a loved one who is about to face a difficult ordeal. I might be in denial (although I am generally not prone to that) but I do not believe that I've finished this passage yet. I know that I will work and fight for His well-being and healing with every ounce of strength, and I know that T will be right there beside me. Together, we will make sure that He is cared for, responded to, and attended to in every possible way. All that He needs to bring to the table is His indomitable will. Of that I have no lack of confidence. So, if the surgeon has sufficient wisdom and skill and grace, all WILL BE GOOD.

From now until July 8, that is my sincere and humble and continual "ask" to the universe.

swan

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Lurid Fantasies

I am prone to lurid fantasies that are way beyond what I know I can or ever could tolerate should they ever come to be acted out in real life. So when such phantasms begin to inhabit the pathways in my mind, they frighten me. I am inclined to not give voice to them. However, sentencing them to the darkness and the silence does not make them go away -- it feeds them and strengthens them... Until I am helpless with the sheer power of them.

This one has been riding my dreams for a bit now...

"Get up. Go. Find the nipple clamps and come kneel at the side of the bed here next to me." The voice that drives my whole life, drags me, this day from a sound sleep. It is hours before dawn.

I shiver. He knows how I despise the cold. Naked, I obey. I crawl from the warmth of the blankets, away from the comfort of His embrace and search through the drawer where the "toys" are kept. Soon, I find the nipple clamps and return, as commanded, kneel beside Him at the side of the bed, offering the clamps to Him in silence.

Wordlessly, He begins to knead my breasts, cupping them in His hands and squeezing roughly. He pulls and pinches my nipples, twisting and turning them, eliciting gasps as I close my eyes and try to calm my breathing. "Hands behind your head," He tells me. "Eyes on me." I open my eyes and focus on His face, as He continues to torment my already tender nipples. He watches me intently, seeing my passion, and my submission grow. When He judges I've come far enough, He stops and reaches for the clips. First one, then the other, He snaps them into place with a sudden and breathtaking intensity on my throbbing nipples. My hands never move and my eyes stay fixed on His.

"Stand up."

I rise to my feet in front of Him, and He reaches between my legs to feel the heat rising in my sex. Pushing my legs apart, He begins to smack my cunt with sharp, hard swats of his open hand. I gasp in surprise and jump to protect myself. "What are you doing?" The question cuts into my consciousness. "Get back in position," He commands.

I whimper in fear, but know there are no alternatives. He will have what He will have from me. Controlling the urge to deny Him, I return to the position He requires and the spanking resumes. Steady and sharp, the smacks land on my tender pussy lips. Not softly. Not gently. Not building easily. These are the blows of one who owns and intends to make that ownership felt and deeply known.

I grunt and moan and sob. Ultimately, I beg, pleading for it to stop -- please, please, please...

And then it is over. For just a moment. He cradles my shaking, sobbing, utterly spent frame in His strong arms...

And guides me...

Into the stocks. Locking me in place. Head and hands and feet. Stroking my back and butt and thighs and neck. Crooning His love and pleasure and delight in me. Telling me how proud He is of me... just before the cane falls and falls and falls again.

swan

BDSM & Blood Donation???

Master's knee replacement surgery is approaching, and the recommendation from His surgeon was that He do an autologous blood donation for Himself. That was scheduled for this morning, and I accompanied Him to the center so that, should there be any difficulty at all, I could drive home or whatever. Once we got there, we noted signs all over the place saying, "Bring a friend, have them donate too... blah, blah, blah." We hadn't actually considered that possibility, but since I was there, we decided, "what the heck, I might as well go ahead and donate too..."

Well... not that easy.

Seems I have these little, tiny, wiggly veins, AND blood that does exactly what blood is supposed to do -- it CLOTS readily and rapidly. Just try getting blood out of me. Just try!!!

Now, I should mention here that, while I am an avowed and confirmed masochist, I DO NOT DO NEEDLE PLAY. I've never understood this particular kink. Disclaimer duly given. You are forewarned. Those of you who might be squeamish about such things may want to click "next blog" now...

I filled out all the appropriate forms. Answered all the necessary questions. Got the little finger stick. So far, so good. Vital statistics, all fine... Cleared for take-off. Went on back to the little, comfy, nifty reclining blood-donor chair. They put Master in one close by and get Him started. Phlebotomist #1 steps right up and starts perusing the arms for likely looking veins. He scans the left arm carefully, then zips around to the right side and peers intently at that arm for awhile. Finally, after careful consideration, he settles on the best available vein and wraps my arm up in the worlds' tightest tourniquet. I go to town squeezing on the little ball thingy, and he stabs me with the FIRST needle (while I look the other way -- over toward Master who is happily filling His bag with nice, dark, red blood). I hear my guy go, "Hmmmmm...." This is not the sound you want to hear from the person who has just jabbed a needle into your arm, because in any language on the planet that particular "Hmmmmm" translates as "AHHH FUCK, I just missed the damn vein and now I'm gonna hurt this fool while I dig around in here looking to see if by any chance I might accidentally hit it..." Which is exactly what my guy proceeded to do for a good long while before he gave up and called for help: "Joyce, you wanna come pick this up for me?"

Phlebotomist #2 (Joyce I assume) comes scurrying over and picks up where the first yahoo left off, still poking around inside my arm. I am beginning to not have a lot of fun. Somewhere along the line, one of them asks if I've ever donated blood before, to which I reply, "yes-- lots of times." It occurs to me to ask if any of them have ever drawn blood before, but I don't ask it out loud. Eventually, Joyce declares that the vein in question is just not working and pulls the plug, much to my relief. She suggests, somewhat tentatively, that she could try the other arm and see if she could do any better over there. Like a damn fool, I say, "OK -- sure." We shift sides and do the dance again. Problem is that now she is working on my deaf side. And I am shaken. And I am beginning to fall back onto tricks learned in years of SM play to manage the pain and discomfort -- but of course they don't know any of that. It doesn't go a whole lot better on arm number two. We still don't hit it on the first try. We still have to dig around for what seems like forever to get in the vein. She still hurts me A LOT, but we finally do manage to actually get blood to flow from my veins at long last. I almost cry from the relief. Now, I think, all I have to do is lie here and squeeze the ball every five seconds or so, and fill the bag.

Easy -- right? Wrong.

When we finally get the bag full, and that is no easy trick because my blood wants to clot and plug the tubing -- they have to keep messing with the needle; pushing and prodding and twisting to keep things flowing, we still need at least 3 vials of blood for the required tests. Otherwise the donated blood will be unusable. And damn -- the minute they pulled the bag, that was it. No more blood coming down the pike. Twist and turn all you want. That's it. I was in agony with their darn needle in my arm by now. And increasingly, using what I know to do in order to drop into subspace. Unfortunately, subspace does not look "good" to your average garden variety blood bank staff. Add to that the fact that my left side deafness means that I am likely to be unresponsive to many spoken commands anyway and I had them scared shitless at this point.

Imagine my annoyance when all of a sudden 4 or 5 of them descended on my intensely focused hold on subspace to make me "cough" and breath deeply and wiggle my feet and open my eyes and on and on and on... Good grief!!! How's a girl supposed to put up with all of this stuff you are doing without shrieking if you won't let her concentrate???

They got me "back." Damn and double damn. Sadists everywhere! And went after veins in the backs of my hands. Same song, second verse. First one flattened out as soon as they stuck a needle in it. No blood there. Breathe, focus, deeper, deeper, away... Other hand, another try, another vein, more digging, more pain -- are we hurting you? DUH!!!! Finally!!! Enough blood to do whatever they were going to do. All the cuffs off, all the tubes pulled. Bandages everywhere. Master said it looked like a crucifixion.

I figure they will mark my donor record -- "NOT WORTH THE TROUBLE." Not sure how to chalk this one up -- needle play, non-consensual play with unsuspecting "vanilla's?", blood play...

Hmmmm...

swan

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Sunday

I can be a difficult and moody slave sometimes. I try not to go there, but I have not found the key, in all the books I have read, and not on all the lists, and not in any of the blogs either to derailing the little demon moods that come upon me when I am tired and feeling scared and lost and alone in my thoughts. Originally, this blog was to be the place where I was supposed to write and work out a lot of that nonsense, but I get tired of writing it and I can't imagine that it isn't awfully dull to read. Then, too, sometimes, I can go for weeks and months without slipping into a full blown case of the murky icks...

Sunday seems to be the one day of the week when I am most likely to fall into the emotional quicksand. This week, maybe more so than some lately, I was poised for a difficult day. Master and I'd been away for a couple of days at an out of town meeting which had been particularly intense and politically depressing. Getting Him ready to go had been hard work (He does not ever travel lightly), and I was exhausted before we ever left). The first night out of town I slept very badly and only a very few hours, so when it was all over and done with, I arrived home exhausted and worn out.

From the SM side of things, I'd been out in the far edges, feeling alienated and angry. It isn't anything that is easy to explain. These things almost never are. For me, the things that set me off with "bad" SM are almost never what an outside observer might expect or anticipate. They are often seemingly small, innocuous incidents or details that become laden with emotional freight. In this case, I've been all wrapped up over a new paddle. It is really a little bit of a thing -- probably would be inconsequential under any other circumstances, except that it was purchased on-line from a vendor who took damn near forever to deliver the item (and way more than a reasonable number of emails many of which went unanswered -- how rude is that?), then shipped what I think is a substandard piece of crap -- and when it is going to land on my ass, I take the production of substandard crap personally!!! Add this to the fact that this vendor is associated with someone who was wicked to my Dear Master in the past and the whole thing just pisses the hell out of me... From the minute the first crack of that miserable, piece of shit paddle sounded on my butt, I was furious and I haven't calmed down about it yet. I KNOW it is nuts and I can't seem to get over it -- knowing you are nuts does not make for an effective cure generally... This is the sort of female reasoning that just causes Master to shake His head, btw...

So Sunday comes around and everybody here has stuff they like to do... T likes to cook breakfast so we have French toast and stuff like that (but I'd rather have cheeseburgers...), and they both like to watch the Sunday morning TV news shows, so we do that while I scratch and rub Master's back..., and then Master gets on the computer to surf and read and bounce from place to place... During the school year, this would be the time when I would wander off to grade papers and plan and do our laundry... but I don't have any school work to do now. I end up feeling like a third wheel. T has a place to be -- watching her cooking shows and stuff and Master has His stuff to do on-line, and I end up feeling like I just need to do chores as invisibly as I possibly can and not bother anyone because there really seems to be no place where I fit into the routine.

Eventually, Master got around to me this afternoon, and we did have a good session with the vibrator and some low end toys that we haven't played with for a long time: the quirt and a narrow leather strap and a rubber flogger and a braided llama cat and even that evil new paddle at the end. It ended well, with us both reaching orgasm together -- not something that occurs all that often for us.

So smiles were restored.

Slaves and Masters... Sometimes I wonder who has the harder job...

swan

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Oh WOW!

Just got a call from The Heretic, all excited -- seems we've hit "THE BIG TIME!"

http://www.spankingblog.com/2005/06/15/loving-the-whip/

Thank you, SpankBoss...

swan

Echoes from another life...

I have felt awkward contacting you since the new changes in your life because I really don't understand. I am very glad for you that you are happier now but find it difficult to grasp how that can be. I know it is not my business, but rather, your own personal choices and I accept that… Please tell me something about your life now and be patient with me as I try to understand.

Each time I get a message like this from someone that I knew before I made the decision to come and live with Master and T, I am faced with a dilemma and a set of choices.

These are echoes from a life that I left behind me. I made that choice with full knowledge that the break was likely permanent. I knew that there were so many who were dear to me in my former “vanilla” life, who simply would never, ever be able to comprehend the decisions I was making:

• Jeopardizing the marriage I’d lived in for nearly 28 years to create an incomprehensible relationship called “polyamory” with a couple who were themselves married.
  
• Involving myself in BDSM where I would willingly allow myself to get hit and otherwise hurt – isn’t that just abuse?
  
• Submission / slavery – what the heck is that all about? I’m a card-carrying feminist for Pete’s sake!
  
• Leaving friends and family behind to travel halfway across the country to live in a Godforsaken place like Cincinnati…
  
• Giving up a perfectly lovely home that I worked years to fix up and landscape and for what?
  
• Quitting a good job with no promise of another in the place where I was headed…
  

All of those decisions were made almost three years ago and most of the fallout has fallen. I’ve seen the results of the choices I made and settled, for the most part, into my new life here.

Still, every now and then, I’ll get one of these puzzled queries from someone from the past. They come from friends, from former in-laws, from people I once worked with – all folks I have lost touch with one way or another. Somehow, every so often, one of them will surface and ask the questions that must have been gnawing at them all this time – what and how and why?

I am always a bit taken aback. What is it, exactly that these people want to know now? Do I give them some sort of happy chatter that says something like, “I’m good and healthy and happy and well and hope you are too,” or do I take a deep breath and give them some fairly straightforward rendition of the facts? The truth is, I haven’t had a relationship with these people for all these many months. If I give them some sort of glossed over pabulum, they won’t be shocked, but we will still have no relationship, and whatever impetus led them to ask in the first place will be derailed (maybe forever). On the other hand, if I tell them the simple truth, maybe they will turn tail and run – or maybe not. With the facts laid out plainly and openly, my correspondent could maybe decide to take a deep breath, and ask another question or maybe two or three…

I might just gain a friendship renewed.

Sigh…

swan

A swan and 5 Peacocks

We won't be attending any leather events this year. And that fact has us nostalgic for times past, like last year when Master and I were at Thunder in the Mountains (the big leather event held annually in Denver) http://www.thunderinthemountains.com/

I know that many imagine these events and picture the dungeons, and surely that is a big part of the attraction for us. But a weekend at something like Thunder is much more than the play party. It is a chance to be immersed in a culture where kinky people are THE dominant culture, and the vanilla culture, where we normally spend our days, fades away for the duration. Unless you have actually had that experience, it is hard to imagine.

When we all get together in a place where we don't have to be afraid, defended, or defensive -- in an environment where we can simply BE, it is truly magical and joyous.

One of the shiny moments from Thunder last year happened as we were preparing for the evening's doings. Thunder took over the entire six floor hotel, so there was no need to look "normal" anywhere one went in the place, and we all reveled in that freedom. Our room was on the 5th floor, and it seemed that I was continually on the way to the car to fetch something that Master needed and that had not yet been schlepped into the room on any of the previous 857,936 trips that I'd made to our vehicle...

I was all dolled up in fetish gear that left very little to the imagination. Under normal circumstances, I might have been nervous about wandering around by myself, but at Thunder, I knew I was about as safe as I could be. Clearly I belonged to someone, so no one was going to mess with me. I waited for the elevator and when the door opened it was empty. I got in and pushed the button for the ground floor.

At the next floor, the car stopped and the door opened. Five absolutely glorious gay guys decked out in the most outrageous leather got on and the doors closed again. They all looked at me, and I looked at them, and for a minute we all just stood, non-plussed... Then the car burst out into uproarious laughter as we all rejoiced in the simply marvelous wonder of it all -- a swan among so many peacocks...

swan

Link

Age-Related Musings

Seems I’m running into this a lot these last few days. Living and writing in the blogosphere might have something to do with that, especially if you hang out in the kinkier neighborhoods – feels like everyone is younger than me; than us. Now, I just know that isn’t true, but, my goodness, I’m talking sex to people who are years younger than my children!!! And if that isn’t bad enough, these same folks are wondering if people “their parents’ ages are comfortable talking about/thinking about sex!” Ummmmm… excuse me? Am I in the room here?

Then, just last Saturday night, we went, the three of us, to a local comedy club. You see, T, who acts as the social director for our family, seeing to it that The Heretic and I get dragged out into public once in awhile for an “airing out,” had won us some tickets. Now, if there is a single activity on the face of the planet that is guaranteed to make you feel like an “olager” if you are over the age of 30, it is walking into a comedy club. EEEEKKKK.

We dressed up in what Master calls our Poly “bowling club” shirts – polo style shirts with logos that indicate, if you look closely, that the three of us consider ourselves “married.” Arriving at the door of the place, we stood in line with a lively bunch of youngsters, Master leaning on His cane, and shuffled toward the front, where a sign warned ominously that everyone must HAVE THEIR ID READY… Master wasn’t entirely sure when He’d seen His last, and joked that He’d had to surrender it when He’d received His “Golden Buckeye Pass” (the card that the state of Ohio issues to senior citizens to allow them free admission to state parks). Of course, when we arrived at the head of the line, the young fellow checking ID’s just laughed and waved us on in. Sigh… You can’t fool Mother Nature.

Now, for grins, if you want to put a twist in people’s shorts, sit down in the midst of a bunch of too-cool-for-school 20 and 30 something’s as a poly triad family in your late 40’s and 50’s and start holding hands and kissing on each other and make not-so-subtle references to your relationship – just sit back and watch the ripples begin to spread. It wasn’t too long before the tables around us were beginning to do some sincere head scratching… Take that, young whippersnappers!!! Hehehehehehe. Anyway, I digress…

Jokes were about getting along with your parents (or not), the stresses of work and school, dating and getting laid (or not), being newly married and having babies (been there done that)… At least what’s funny at a certain age in life hasn’t changed much.

Anyway, all of this has me thinking about the route I’ve traveled to HERE. Here is a time and a place in my life where I proudly claim the title of submissive and slave, masochist, and poly wife and sister-heart.

I grew up in the 1950’s and 1960’s. I am a product of the women’s liberation movement of that era. We fought our mothers to be able to wear bras and then took a page from our brothers’ books and burned the damn things!

I attended the Colorado School of Mines, studying mining engineering, where I was one of 25 women in a class of 400. I remember, as a freshman purchasing the required uniform for the required physical education class. It included a jock strap. I stood, indignantly, in the middle of the teeming field house at registration, holding the offending item aloft, demanding to know what the hell I was supposed to do with this thing, and making it clear to anyone within ear shot, that I had no intention of paying for something for which I had no earthly use. The cost of the ATHLETIC SUPPORTER was duly subtracted from my bill. And, yes, while I was there at Mines, I learned to blow things up, use a rock hammer, use a surveyor’s level, and program a PDP 11 computer (in Fortran IV – look it up historians).

In the workplace, I did civil engineering drafting, mining engineering mapping, uranium mining and oil and gas land lease work, and a fair amount of survey crew work. I was often the only woman in the office besides the secretary. I got a spanking one time in front of the whole office, by a geologist in his 40’s who just thought it would be fun to see if he could get away with it. The boss’s office was only 20 feet away and his door was wide open. I fought like a wild cat, but stopped short of cold-cocking the bastard… to my everlasting regret. Another time, the marketing guy at a civil engineering firm where I was part of a 7 person drafting/surveying crew walked right past the two secretaries, with a client in tow, and shouted across the drafting room at me, “Hey, Suzie(no one but my Dad has ever called me Suzie – not even Master goes there), bring us some coffee, would ya?” I was livid and blind with rage, but I got up from the plan I was working on and went to get the coffee pot and two mugs. I set the mug down in front of the client, poured his coffee, put the other mug down on the marketing prick’s desk and emptied the pot in his lap. Then I turned around walked out of his office and got my stuff and went home. I figured I’d need a new job, but no one ever said a word and I came back the next day and went right on as if nothing had ever happened. The secretaries got the coffee from then on.

In my generation of women, we paid attention to words. We worked hard to take back the language, to the point of silliness sometimes. Waitress became “waitperson” and we sometimes joked that the person who delivered the letters we got from our parents when we were away at college should maybe be referred to as the “person-person.” When it came time to marry, the debate over whether or not to take our new husband’s names led to all sorts of naming contortions and hyphenation-hideousness. That discussion often led to the musing over whether keeping the name you got at birth was really any better because, after all, that was just the name your mother got from your father when she married him – how far back did a woman have to go to get an “authentic” name? Sigh. We were so awfully serious. And then we had our own sons and daughters and the whole naming issue came up again. With first names and last names… No silly girl names for us – oh no. No Sallies or Suzie’s or Betty’s… Our girls were going to have good solid, serious, sensible names that no one was going to screw with. Good grief!

Raised on Steinhem and the like, I hid the dark dreamings of submissive and masochistic fantasies for years and years. Imagine my chagrin when I began to come to grips publicly with the first inklings of my submissive nature. I struggled mightily to accommodate the very idea of submission as part of who I am. Master still delights in teasing me about those early days as I twisted and turned trying to alternately shake it off like a cobweb one day, and then somehow, squeeze into it and see if it fit the next. Quite a dance it was. I did that dance first and then we tackled the bit about masochism. Too much to take on all at once…

I’ve left behind an awful lot of friends and folks who once were part of my life. They couldn’t see me through the transitions. A bra burner and petition carrier who wears a collar and cuffs just can’t be reconciled in some people’s cosmologies. There are folks who cannot connect those dots.

I’ve gotten older along the path. It takes time to walk the distance. To learn all the lessons and meet all the teachers and fellow travelers. Some days, I get exasperated with young folks who just think it has always been as free and easy as it seems today -- who can’t imagine that there was a time when there were no Internet places, no birth control options, no easy career choices for women, no real decisions to be made about the path of marriage and family and sexuality if you were female… I want to scream at everyone who looks at the conservative takeover happening nowadays, and shrugs as if it doesn’t matter: that there is so much to lose and that going back is really, really, really a bad thing… But then I realize that doing that would just make me sound, well, “old…”

swan

Making the Transition -- part 2

Living a school teacher's life means that my world divides, every year, into two distinct parts -- school time and summer time. Those two parts of the year are as different as can be from one another in terms of the demands on my energies, my time, my focus, my emotions, ... At so many levels, the shift from school to summer means a major shift of gears.

I've struggled this last week with making that shift.

One radical change that occurs at this time of the year is that my focus becomes incredibly much closer to home. Much more "internal" to our family and our own personal set of relationships. While, during the school year, I spend some significant part of my days, as "master" of my world, that ends abruptly when the school year ends.

Here at home, I am owned. I am slave. I belong to The Heretic. That is NOT a bad thing, but it is a major mental shift when it becomes the whole of one's days and nights suddenly. I find I want to be eased into it, reassured about it, touched and "handled" on my way back into it. The emotions that go with making the shift from busy, "in-charge" teacher, to home-body, chief cook and homemaker seem to make me want to curl into a ball and seek out some sort of help in redefining my sense of value and worth. All of the sudden, I find myself feeling uncertain and unsure, not clear how I feel or what I need or what is OK to even ask for...

Has been a difficult few days.

Getting settled down now(got "handled" some this morning), and it will be OK, but oh slaves are tricky critters...

swan

Link

How I Became RAHeretic

Gabriel's recent post, "Pigeonholes are for Pigeons" at www.keeperandkept.blogspot.com reminded me of the genesis of my name RAHeretic.

Early on in my meanderings around in the realm of DD Listservs I found myself on a Listserv which was where I first encountered my swan. It was a rather prolific Listserv, and very heavily moderated by a very domineering moderator, who tended to censor the opinions expressed there and to be very prescriptive and dogmatic about what constituted the "correct" practice of Domestic Discipline. There was only one truly correct way to practice DD and that was the way the Moderator said to.......and BTW she based this expertise on two years of experience with her husband. The list was populated mostly by rank newbies who were feeling rather insecure in their newly found lifestyle. They were comforted by the Moderator's assurance that DD had nothing to do with BDSM.

Part of the Moderator's cyclically pontificating the true and correct practice of DD included a certain style of relating couples must engage in and that spankings could only be for discipline, they were not to be enjoyed or eroticized, and that a really good punishment session might entail 8 swats through jeans. She derided those who did not live their lives as she'd decreed to be the "correct and true" path as "Red-Assed DD-ers."

I entertained this concept for a few weeks with amazement but it wasn't too long before I rebelled. I decided to embrace the term red-assed DD and to vociferously proclaim my Heresy.

I lampooned her as the chief inquisitor of the Inquisition of DD lifetylers whose role was to seek out and banish those whose practice of DD was characterised by having far too much crimson in their nether regions.

I developed the chant of the red-assed DD-ers as they merrily marched off to the inquisition:
"Two, four, six, eight we love to spank and not relate! Eight, six, four, two We're really going to like it too!"

I was branded and of course banished. I was a Heretic. I was, worse yet, a Red-Assed Heretic.

I've proudly been RAHeretic ever since:)

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

Making the Transition

There is a wry bit of humor that goes around in teacher circles. It says that the three best things about teaching are June, July, and August.

I suppose there is something to that. The school year is wearing in many ways: long days that begin at 5:00 AM, and often don't end until 5:00 PM or 6 or 7 or 8 or even later... Weekends that are filled with planning and grading and phone calls to parents. The endless schlepping back and forth of the ubiquitous, heavy teacher bags and boxes full of "stuff." The emotion laden work of wondering how to do the best one can for all the youngsters that come into one's care each year. The mysterious and often incomprehensible snakepit of school politics. Any teacher worth the name ends the school year tattered and frayed, in my experience. June, July, and August are not simply nice benefits -- they are necessities for the sake of health and sanity.

Still, I come to the end of a year, and the children leave, and the grades get figured, and the record cards get filled out, and the room gets (finally) cleaned up and closed up -- and I drag my weary body home at last, and I am left for a few days with a heavy sense of loss and grief that is hard to explain to those who do not do this work... So I hope you will all forgive me, but I need to mourn for the kiddos I spent this year with and who I now need to release to the summer and the teacher who will have them next. I have loved them and they have been "mine" in a very deep and special way. Only teaching has this annual cycle of getting started anew and coming to love intensely and then having to let them go so suddenly over and over. Though I have done it for over a decade, I never ever seem to get the hang of keeping my heart out of harm's way...

I teach junior high age students -- 6th, 7th, and 8th graders. My teaching assignment has me instructing mathematics and computer classes, and I am responsible for a 7th grade homeroom class. It is that homeroom group that gets particularly to feel like "mine." In addition to all the zillion "housekeeping" details of any given day (attendance, and lunch count and the general stuff of a school), anything that they might "get into" around the place comes quickly back into my lap to deal with. They are "my kids" while they are at school.

This year's 7th graders were an "interesting" bunch: a pretty wild group with a number of difficult family situations and some less than charming social behaviors. Many of them were not what you would call "well parented" and they had a "reputation" that preceded them. Ours is a small school and this bunch had driven every teacher crazy from the time they were kindergarteners.

I've always figured that, as a teacher, my first job is to fall in love with every student. If I can find a way to do that, genuinely and honestly, I can almost always seduce them into learning darn near anything -- but these were wild children and I had my doubts. Still... I was determined to convince them that they were good and decent people with the potential to do great things. From the very first, I told them that I liked them and respected them and that I knew they would make me proud of them. I told them that I wanted to be able to brag about them to everyone in the school. We laughed together and were silly at every opportunity. They tried to gnaw my arms off... It was a monumental struggle, but, while I am submissive at home, I am absolutely dominant in my classroom. My wild children snapped and snarled but they began to be gentler with each other and with me by slow degrees.

One day, in mid-winter, we were out on the playground at recess and many of them were playing near the woods. Suddenly there was a micro-burst of wind and I heard the trees begin to pop ominously. I howled at the top of my lungs, "TO ME! TO ME!!!" My kids never hesitated for an instant. They came flying to me as fast as they could run -- as the giant trees crashed onto the playground only a few feet from where they had been playing moments before... Breathless, they huddled around me in a tight pack, and I felt just like a mother wolf, wanting to lick them all and make sure they were all OK... From that day on, I referred to them as "my wolves." (although not to their faces... they would not have understood what a great pack they had become and how much affection that appellation held for me).

The year went on and my wolves grew in knowledge and grace. I began to have people tell me what a nice group they were. I would simply smile and say, "thank you." It is amazing what happens when you tell people that they are good and strong and bright and decent.

Ours is a Catholic school. Each morning we open with prayer in the classroom. I have students lead this practice and exert very little control over it (since I am not myself a Catholic). I do insist that it be respectful, but I allow them to stand or recline around the edges in whatever groupings they choose, and the student leading sets the tone as she or he sees fit. On the last morning, as the youngster leading prayer got it all started by asking the group to stand up to pray, one of the other students looked around the room and said, "Hey! This is our last morning in the 7th grade, here in OUR room... Everybody, make a circle!" To my absolute shock, they said not a word -- simply moved quietly, together and gathered in a group together, and finished their morning prayers as a class. I was in tears before it was over... Amazing.

Later that same day, as it came time to clean out desks and wash desks and stack them all up, I had the group for a very short period of time. Other teachers had claims on them. I listed what we needed to do: take down bulletin boards, clean chalk boards, empty and clean the desks (using my old stand by -- shaving cream), and stack them against a blank wall. We had about 30 minutes time. My kids looked at that list, looked at each other, and went to town. Barely a word was spoken. They filled buckets and pulled staples and moved furniture like pros. It was the most amazing sight. I swear they were communicating by telepathy. In short order the room was down and cleaned and orderly and the floor was swept, too!!! Somewhere someone came up with a deck of cards and a set of poker chips and the whole gang flopped in a circle to play cards. What a great pack they have become.

Have a great summer, kiddos. Be good. Have fun. I will miss you.

Next year there will be new ones to love. Who knows what I will learn from them?

For now I am just awfully tired and awfully proud and still a little sad.

swan

Link

Pussy Whacking

There are days when I feel like just a butt. He spanks and He spanks and then, He spanks some more. It’s not really like that, but well, gosh. Other parts of me sometimes long for a little stimulation.

Dreams to the rescue again. That early morning sleepy dozing, happy, horny kind of erotic dream that can get shared so easily when you are snuggled up against the furry chest of the One who keeps you pulled in safe and protected. That’s how I came to tell my Love about pussy whacking, and how it has come to be a regular part of our erotic play together.

When I first dreamed it there were rules to pussy whacking. It required that I stand in front of Him while He sat on the side of the bed. I would have to spread my legs wide apart and put my hands behind my neck. He would then spank my pussy, between my legs. I would be required to hold still while the spanking went on. If I moved or broke position, there would be a regular paddling as a penalty, and then the pussy whacking would resume. We’ve done that a couple of times and discovered that the biggest issue is that I tend to reach orgasm, fairly quickly. Other times, we do it with me lying on my back.

Always, this is a game that is a wild mix between SM and pure erotic stimuli; between M/s power exchange dynamics and silly love play. It is lighter in some ways than some of the games we play. Maybe, it is the sunny clearing that one finds in the very center of the densest part of the forest of BDSM power exchange dynamics.

swan

Learning to eroticize the Dressage whip

Did I mention that I belong to a sadist? I’m sure that the dressage whip, like lots of other implements, can be used lightly and sensuously to create a range of delightfully erotic stimuli. Anything is possible. My experience with it however had been that it simply hurt like Hell, and, as with so many other of our toy bag goodies, I’d come to hate and fear sessions with the evil dressage whip.

Slaves, however, don’t get to vote on what the toy of the moment is going to be, and the dressage whip would come up on a regular basis. I wanted desperately to find a way to cope with some sort of poise at least.

Then one night, I had this dream: a dream about being whipped with the dressage whip while using my vibrator. Actually, in the dream the whole point of the exercise was that I was required to use the vibrator while being whipped so that I would equate the whipping with erotic pleasure. So, I told my Master about it. I felt very awkward about it, but also felt very turned on by the dream, and very strange about not telling Him. It took Him no time at all to get right to it. There was nothing for it but that we would try this out in real life.

So there I go, face down over some pillows, with my hand-held electric vibrator in place against my clit and my butt high in the air, while my Master used that whip on my ass. Slowly and lightly at first, while the orgasms built, He whipped me. I knew I would be whipped hard when the waves crashed and it scared me terribly and it added to my excitement. I rode that vibrator and He rode me with that whip. I moaned and groaned and whimpered and then crashed over the edge, screaming my pleasure and my fear and my joy. The whip rose and fell over and over and over again until I collapsed in exhaustion unable to even twitch anymore.

Oh Dear. I wonder if this constitutes poise?

swan

In the Dungeon at OLF

Ohio Leather Fest (OLF) is the place where we first met, real-time and, for us it is a place that holds special significance. Too, it is a place for us to play in a “public” setting; a place to be among others who are “like” us. Public play has a special intensity and a special magic. To take what we do for much of the year in private and do it in the company of others gives it a presence and authenticity and validity which transforms it into something deeply and powerfully spiritual for us.

In August of 2003, the OLF dungeon was to be the site where The Heretic and I would play for the first time publicly as declared Master and slave. We’d weathered much together to be able to stand together in that place and we were looking forward to the event with much anticipation.

Then disaster struck. As we loaded our car, preparing to leave to drive to Columbus for the event, the phone rang. Event organizers were calling to tell us that the hotel had cancelled the event’s booking and that they were scrambling to find a place for it to be held. We would have to rebook our rooms in another hotel and they would let us know where the various workshops and play parties would occur -- all this less than twelve hours from the scheduled start of a major leather conference event. We were dumbstruck and heartsick. Still, it was OLF…the event that we look forward to every year, and we’d paid our money. So, we loaded the car and drove to Columbus.

When we arrived, we found that the workshops and play parties were to be held in a musty, rain-soaked, waterlogged, hot, humid, dismal warehouse. Nothing could have been further from the setting we’d envisioned for the debut of our public coming out as Master and slave, but here we were. For years we’d preached that SM was “religion” that, when done right, had the power to transform and transcend time and place. If ever there was a moment when it needed to do that, this was it.

We walked into the dungeon that Friday night with one purpose between us; to play together, and in playing, to come together as one for all to see. It was to bond to one another that we were there that night. He led me to a cross, pulled me to Him, and told me that He would have me and that He would make me burn for Him. I held to Him and knew it would be the most intense night I’d ever spent with Him. I also knew that I would be absolutely safe in His care. He put my cuffs on and fastened me to the cross and then He told me that, tonight, I was free to make as much noise as I liked. For us, this is a rare luxury, as our living circumstances dictate that our play must be somewhat quiet most of the time. He went after me with paddles and straps and that single tail whip of His. I bucked and shrieked and walked that cross all over that dungeon. He brought forth not just marks and tears, but blood and sweat. When, finally, we’d both reached the point of collapse, and He’d taken me down; when we’d cleaned up the area and packed up the toys, we took a bit of a walk around the dungeon – I in just my Heels and my cuffs. I’ve never felt such fierce joy or pride. The crowd parted around us in awe, and I have to say there were no newbies lined up waiting to play with my Master that night…

swan

Paddling Day After Day After Day

I’m a slave who belongs to a sadist. He loves me, but He takes His primary erotic pleasure out of hurting me. It is a simple fact.

He loves paddles.

I hate paddles. Wood paddles are the worst of all. They burn and sting and bruise. I’m a masochist, but I haven’t enough masochistic capital that He can’t trump me. No matter how high I want to push the stakes, He can always go higher – always. That was surely the case with paddling. When we first came together as full time partners, we played everyday, sometimes, two or three times a day, going higher and higher day after day, until finally, I couldn’t go any higher – especially not with those blasted paddles of His. Eventually, I started to balk at the idea of paddling. Started to whine and fuss and wheedle and whine at the very idea of paddling; started to bail out of sessions prematurely and precipitously and often with a good deal of rage.

He was not amused, not at all, and so a new regimen came to be. Each day, I was required to bring Him one of the paddles that I hated worst of all and ask for a paddling: “Please Sir, would you paddle me?” To which He would reply, “I’d be glad to.” I would then be treated to a session of paddling and whipping, administered without any warm-up, that typically involved 4 sets of 25 strokes: paddling, whipping, paddling, whipping. At the end of all of that, I was required to kiss the paddle and thank Him for my spanking.

This regimen went on day after day after day for a period of about 3 months. Although, I had absolute control over the time of day that the paddling occurred each day, I could not duck it altogether and I came to fear it utterly. Each morning, when my eyes would pop open, the first thought that would come into my awareness would be of the impending paddling. It was never far from my consciousness. I struggled and struggled like a wild animal caught in a trap. My mind just would not stop smashing up against the edges of the daily paddlings. Then I broke, gave up and gave in. Maybe I surrendered or maybe I just broke down. Then again, maybe I just wore myself out and ran out of energy to fight it anymore. Whatever it was, I crumbled. It wasn’t pretty and I’m not sure if it was the response He was seeking but from that point on the daily paddlings were scaled back. We still paddle, but on a smaller scale and with less frequency. I now accept them with better grace. I’ll never “like” them I guess, but I understand that they are part of the commitment I’ve made to submit. On the other hand, it seems to me, He supports me differently through them now. Why I’m not sure, but somehow it is as if He sees my brokenness around them and loves it better than He did the rage that went before it.

swan

The Single Tail that I gave Him

It is a powerfully evocative implement…the single tail whip. In the hands of one who knows how to use it well, the single tail can bring forth every sensation from delight to agony, and watching one who uses it with mastery is like seeing the most elegant of ballets.

I knew my Master dreamed of and lusted after owning a fine single tail whip. He’d purchased relatively inexpensive single tail “wannabe” and substitutes, and He’d taken part in a number of workshops with a well-known expert. He was so ready for a real, fine, quality whip of His own, and, of course, someone to use it on…

So I started on a quest to find the whip that would make that dream a reality for Him, so that I might give Him the whip He wanted for His birthday. I called the expert that had given the workshops where my Owner had trained. He gave me the name of a whip maker that he liked, but that person never returned my phone calls -- back to the drawing board. Finally, I tracked down a maker of fine leather toys that I knew and trusted because, well, I’d had personal contact with his handiwork. He didn’t steer me wrong. He spent a lot of time talking to me about what I was looking for, and about my Master – His size and strength and play style. Eventually he made a recommendation and helped me select a whip. It wasn’t inexpensive, but then I knew where the end of that whip was going to be landing, and it didn’t seem prudent to me to go cheap in this instance.

The whip arrived a few weeks before the birthday during what turned out to be some very difficult days for our family. My Master was in a fog of depression and despair. I wasn’t at all sure that by the time the day came to be giving the gift, any of us would care. Maybe I’d spent a lot of money and time all for nothing, but custom made whips are not returnable items and you can’t just give them to your mom for Christmas, so…

I wrapped it up and we sang the happy birthday song and He opened it up and guess what? The fog lifted and the whip was unfurled and – guess who got a birthday whipping?

swan

Switching at Spring Break

Time passed. In time we came to know that our friendship was far more than friendship. One special night in September, 2001, The Heretic and I looked at each other and finally acknowledged the truth – between us there was love.

That earth shaking news created some work to do. Two couples had a lot of shifting to do. As we worked through the issues and emotions of becoming a polyamorous quad, and of moving half of us 1200 miles across the country so we could all live real-time together, we also worked to find ways to spend as much time as possible together in whatever configurations we could manage. One of those efforts led to me spending one joyous spring vacation with The Heretic and T. For The Heretic and I, it became a sort of honeymoon. It also became the occasion for my first, and so far only, switching.

The Heretic has very definite ideas about switching, and a good deal of technical knowledge and expertise. I knew of His passion for this particular esoteric realm of SM play, and I wanted to please Him. Still, as terrified as I’d been of the cane, switches were in a whole other realm of terror.

He took some pity on me. I didn’t have to hunt for my switches by myself. He went with me and helped me select them. We took them home together and He helped me scrub them clean and soak them in warm water in the bathtub. I watched Him as He relished my growing anxiety as the day wore on. Eventually, He took me to Him, undressed me, took me over His knee and gave me a warm up spanking which stunned me in its severity. My butt was on fire and we had not even “begun.” If that was the warm up, how would I ever survive the main event? As He fastened me onto His spanking bench I fought back my panic. I don’t really fit well on the spanking bench to start with – I’m too tall, actually. It is built for little, petite ladies and I’m much too tall. Switching, however, requires restraint, so onto the bench I went.

And it began. White fire. Shriek and run. Impossible! Get away! Anyway you can… Every stroke was pure agony and absolute terror and misery. I begged. I sobbed. I fought like a wild thing against the bonds and the bench and the floor and gravity. He just kept on. I lifted the bench from the floor and set it down on my hand. Eventually I ripped the leather straps loose from their fastenings into the wood. They’ve never been the same. I didn’t get loose, actually, but I tried mightily, with every fiber of my being. There was not one ounce of me that wanted to stay there; that would have stayed there if I could have done otherwise. I have no idea how long it lasted; no idea how it ended; no idea how He felt about it or what He thought of me after it was over. I don’t think He ever told me any of that and I’ve never asked. On a few occasions since, I’ve faced the threat of a switching and it has never failed to reduce me to complete, abject, utter terror. I don’t doubt that someday I will have to go back to the bench for another encounter with a switch. No doubt at all.

swan

Caning Sue

First times are important. When I first came to be spanked by the man who is my Owner and Master, my soul mate and my Love, I was married to another. I’d come, by a long, and not all that unusual route (for those who share this kind of kink), to know my masochistic and submissive side. Like so many women, who find their truth in this life “later” rather than “sooner,” I had commitments and ties that would eventually need to be broken and unbound. But that future was still ahead.

When I found my way onto the Internet, found the world of other spankers and other BDSM’ers, it was as if I’d landed in some magical place I’d never ever dared to imagine. It was in this cyber wonderland that I first met the couple that would eventually turn into the family that now forms the center of my life – The Heretic and T, but again, that future was hidden in the unseen mists of a time still ahead. Lots of across the country emails and IM chatting led to a friendship that eventually led to cross-country traveling to meet at a BDSM conference where we played, did some “technical” training on the use of floggers and other implements, and got our first introduction to a public dungeon. There was some crossover playing between the two couples, but it was pretty limited and at the end of the weekend I was headed home again, still firmly attached to the man I married. But the die was cast. I was snared. We traveled again in the spring and spent a few more days together.

Then the time came for Thunder in the Mountains, a major BDSM event held annually in Denver, Colorado. Several couples made plans to travel and meet there, staying in our home. As the plans began to form, a conversation started, slowly at first, about including, as part of the festivities of the event, The Heretic caning me.

I’d been flogged. I’d been paddled. I was not a total novice by any stretch, but caning just scared the willies out of me, and He knew it. He loved knowing it, and played my fears to a fever pitch. For weeks He teased and tormented me and worried me like a cat plays a mouse. I sweated it and tried to behave with some sort of grace. I tried not to wheedle, whine, or beg, although at one point, He actually made it clear to me that He wished I would.

Eventually, of course, as these things do, the day arrived and the group gathered and the appointed hour arrived. I was all aquiver. The evening progressed and our bunch played and laughed and socialized and nothing at all happened for what seemed like forever. I thought I might just pass out. Or pout myself into a total snit. Finally, He remembered, or maybe He just got around to me, or maybe He figured He’d strung me along long enough. Came and found me and took me to the flogging frame – yes, we had one of those in our home…another long story, and began the long awaited caning. And…

It was the sweetest, gentlest, softest, and most sensuous of sessions. He never once crossed my lines. Never pushed my limits. Never forced me to a place I didn’t want to go. Cared for me and coddled me and babied me through the kindest session I’d ever had.

I was horribly disappointed. All that build up and all that anxiety and all that fear. And He took me as gently as a lover…the first time.

swan

Stories ...

If you grew up, like I did, in the 1950s and 1960s, it was the ubiquitous question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” Girls answered within a pretty narrow range of acceptable choices like nurse and teacher… Rarely, some radical might venture that she wanted to be a doctor or even president, and in those days, there was a dawning tolerance for such audacity.

The question left me mute as far back as I can remember. Oh I understood the career implication, but at some far deeper level, I knew there were other depths to what I wanted to be that had nothing at all to do with what I wanted to do to earn a living. I knew there was something about who and what I was that I could never ever tell anyone else; something that had to do with belonging to someone in a very different and significant way. I knew that the very real answer to the question for me could not be given or understood. I doubted very much that it ever would be.

Today, at 50, I am grown up. A woman with a full history: wife and ex-wife, mother, former corporate executive, spiritual seeker, teacher, volunteer, sometimes political organizer, and dyed-in-wool-wool feminist. I am one of those who know that “ERA” does not just stand for earned run average. I am also, finally, able to proudly say that I am a BDSM masochist and slave and, happily part of a poly triad. It has been a long road with lots learned along the way. I’ve gained and lost, grown and changed.

Probably, I’ve been through hundreds, maybe thousands of spankings in the last two or three years. Every path gets walked step by step but we mark our way by the landmarks. These short essays are the stories of signposts by which my slavery has evolved and grown and come to be known in my heart and mind and body. I’ll put these up in sequence. They really follow each other in time, over some period of time actually… I won’t make you wait. I’ll just stick them up one right after the other. Master put the one called “Finally into Subspace” up already. That one was the last one of the bunch. All of these came ahead of it… So… sit back, if you are reading this thing, stories coming --

swan

Anniversary

Three years ago, the 1200 mile trek from Denver was made for the last time, as we pulled in here -- HOME to begin our lives together at last. All the months of planning and longing and waiting and working came to an end that night as we came together as a family for the first time with flowers and hugs and happy dancing. We celebrate a number of other "anniversaries" throughout the year, but each year, as the first week of June draws to a close, we stop to remember and wonder at the fact that we actually did it -- took the leap into the void, and made a family for ourselves, of ourselves... More love has, indeed, made more love.

swan

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Howling

We sort of snuck up on it yesterday.

I was suffering from a bit of "end of the school year" drop I think -- feeling a little moody and sort of blue.

We'd spanked some in the early morning, although not a lot. I wasn't really "into it," and I let Him know that, although, of course, I submitted to what He chose to give me. I think He was pretty gentle with me, knowing I was struggling, although not certain what the struggle was exactly. I tend to show the emotions even when I don't verbalize them. Paddling simply brings them to the surface and causes them to be shown physically, and while I won't act on the angers and frustrations that can bubble out, I will manifest those feelings in physical ways that He has learned to read.

When that was done, we got ready for sex, which for us, necessitates the installation of the "evil" diaphragm. The doctor that fitted me for the damn thing was quite amused actually. He was pretty darn sure that the odds were that I would not be getting "preggers" at my ADVANCED age. However, neither of us are willing to risk taking a chance on our chances that we won't "get lucky" at this age. So we are conscientious about our birth control practice. Still, getting it ready and in place is not what one can consider a romantic interlude, and following the already difficult SM session ahead of it, I was hardly feeling "sexy" or romantic when we started in... Then to top it all off, this was one of those times when Himself had "trouble," to put it delicately. I rode Him for what seemed like an hour -- it might well have been nearly that long for all I know. I do know that when He finally came (explosively and happily at last), I was drenched in sweat, panting, and exhausted. I told Him later that I was beginning to think that, if He didn't cum soon, I was going to have to just put a pillow over His face, and explain it to the coroner later... Way too tired at that point to do anything about me... And besides we were both starving for breakfast -- time to start the coffee.

Later in the afternoon, we decided to see if we couldn't rectify the imbalance. We've pretty well given up on the hope of vaginal fisting. It just seems too difficult anymore. Hormonal shifts seem to have taken away the lubrication and tissue elasticity that is needed. So we've resigned ourselves to some pretty intense and high-end digital penetration and I've waved good-bye in the rear-view mirror to those glorious, mind-bending orgasms... We poured out a bucket full of lubricant and went after things, starting out slowly. We are trying to learn our way around this whole new body and it is a mystery to us both. Taking a lot more communication. I am having to stay with it a lot more and remember to tell Him what is good and what is not, and He's having to learn to read my responses and listen to what I'm telling Him way more. It is slow going, but we're determined to weather this perimenopause trip together.

So we rocked away and stroked and swam in a sea of lube... Wasn't long and I was humming and moving to a rhythm that He established with every thrust. Soon enough, I was crying for more... more... Uncertain at first, Master asked if I wanted Him to try and push all the way in?

Yes, I told Him. He tried to push past the inner ring of muscle, but encountered resistance and backed off. He told me it was too tight and that He was afraid He'd hurt me. We went back to the primal rhythms we'd found earlier. I was beginning to roar with the tides. And then, I think He felt the change. Maybe something opened. I don't know, but He moved and suddenly He was there. Past the barrier and all the way inside me.

I howled in surprise and fury and terror and joy. We stopped together at the top of the summit, poised for the drop into the roller coaster ride that is fisting. Once the initial shock of full insertion is over, the amazement starts.

I don't usually remember a lot of the details, and that is true about yesterday. I remember Him quieting me several times. I think that I howled or growled or roared with the wild sensations He was causing. Mostly, I gripped Him and rode. Mostly I rejoiced in the pure animal ecstasy of it... Until I couldn't do it anymore. Until I asked Him to let me go, slowly -- please...

And then sobbed and laughed and hugged Him in utter joy...

swan

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How we all met

Hailee asked, a little while back, how we all met. These last few days have been just packed, and I haven't had time to sit and put coherent words together to tell that story. Now though, there seem to be a few quiet moments, so maybe I'll find some time to do that --

Our family came together by "chance" seemingly (if you believe in chance). I don't think any of us really think it was that, looking back now, but at the time, that is what it seemed to be. We were many hundreds of miles apart, and had no knowledge of one another at all.

I lived in Denver, Colorado at the time we first "met." At that time, I'd been married for about 25 years or so to the man who was the father of my two children, and the only man I'd ever been sexually intimate with.

He and I had both been raised Catholic with the usual sort of sexually repressive upbringing, and when our natural adolescent urges met up with the Church injunction against artificial birth control, we found ourselves pregnant and married (in that order) very young. I was just 21 when our son was born, and almost 23 when our daughter followed. I knew very little about who I was when I married, and even less about him. It didn't take me long to figure out that I had sexual appetites that ranged toward what I thought of, at the time, as the "dark" side. It also became very clear, very quickly, that my young husband was not very sexually inventive or adventurous, or actually even "hungry." Over the years, I tried on many occasions to interest him in various kinky fantasies of mine but such overtures always played out badly, and I always ended up feeling dirty and humiliated in the end. Mostly, I just tried to ignore my urges. I had two young children to raise after all, and, as it turned out, my husband was not a terribly effective or reliable wage earner. So I went to college and got my degree, and worked my tail off in the oil and gas and minerals industry. Eventually, all that repressed sexual energy got converted into hard work and paid off in some pretty high powered corporate exectutive positions. But late at night, I'd still lie awake and wish that I had someone to whom I belonged, with whom I could be safe...

And then, one day, I sat down at my new home computer and typed "spanking" into the search engine. One of the things I found were websites and listserves dealing with something called "Domestic Discipline." I timidly showed those to my husband, and he didn't seem quite as weirded out by that idea as he had been with the kinkier stuff. Domestic Discipline was more "acceptable," more "sanitized" than the more garden variety SM I'd always fantasized about... He was willing to sort of accommodate it, although, to tell the truth, I was still doing most of the "driving." We began to participate in a list called 1Household Discipline (which has since gone inactive although the archives remain). I did most of the posting for us both. Later, we also posted at another list -- 1 Domestic Discipline.

Far away, Master was dealing with His own difficult and unhappy marriage. I'll let Him tell what He chooses to about those years, but suffice it to say that His lovely children are the best thing to come out of nearly 30 years of loneliness and frustration with someone who could not seem to love Him at even the most elemental level. Eventually, He went through a painful and devastating divorce which left Him depressed and on the verge of suicide. He has shared some of the story of His adventures with what He calls the "sport fucking" phase of post-divorce life, but eventually, a mutual friend introduced Him to T. That "blind date" turned out to be a gift for us all. They met, talked, and fell quite utterly in love.

Maybe, if we can talk her into it, T will tell some of her history leading to that moment. She'd banged around a lot. Spent time on the old Prodigy BDSM Global list. She'd been around and knew who and what she was and what she would and would not put up with. She had no illusions. She had just about given up on finding "the man of her dreams," and then there was Himself. He was a sad case when she found Him, but T is a bright soul and she soon had Him dragged back from the brink of despair.

And then she got sick. Terribly sick. Horribly, awfully, life-threateningly sick. The earliest inkling that I had of the two of them were occasional posts on the listserve from this terribly frightened and desperate sounding man. He would come home from the hospital late at night and write heart-wrenching posts about this lady that He loved. It would be so clear that the lady was desperately ill, and that there was very little hope for a recovery. I'd read the posts and feel helpless and wordless in the face of His terror and grief. All the usual outpourings of sympathy and support just seemed -- trivial and trite, and so I said nothing.

But, miraculously, one day, the news was better and so was she. Slowly, there was improvement and renewed health and healing. Where there had been no hope, there was dawning joy. His love moved from intensive care and then, finally, came home from the hospital, and got slowly better. Still, I mostly just read what He wrote without comment. He was so taken with another, much more experienced writer on the list, and I was so green and so new, and so overawed with it all.

One day, He posted something about His lady being His collared submissive. That touched off a flurry of stuff on the list. I read, fascinated, but couldn't glean the one basic piece of information that I lacked... Finally, I got up the courage to post the question that I feared would brand me as too naive to be taken seriously be anyone: "would you please explain to me what does it mean: collared submissive?" That simple question was the first direct communication between The Heretic and I. He was most gracious, and I think, delighted to be able to explain. From that moment on, we were wrapped up in ongoing conversation about all sorts of things. I was a willing pupil, and He was an eager teacher.

Eventually, as my husband and I decided to venture further into the realm of BDSM, it was natural to turn to The Heretic and T for guidance and mentoring. We wrote to them off list, asking if they would undertake to advise us. We had in mind that they might offer us a list of reading perhaps, or maybe some good websites we could visit, maybe even a local conference we could attend. Imagine our surprise when they suggested that we come join them for Ohio Leather Fest! EEEEKKKK! It was a 1200 mile drive on the weekend before school started. We said, "yes." I worked to get my classroom ready, piled into the car, drove all night, arrive about noon, slept for a couple hours, and then prepared to meet these "friends" from the Internet for our first ever BDSM conference, our first ever dungeon experience, MY first ever spanking by someone who wasn't my husband -- I was an absolute wild bundle of nerves.

We met them and we loved them. The conversation that started that weekend just never ever ended. We spent a very few, very wild hours at the conference. Too soon, we had to hit the road and drive home to Denver to be ready for the first day of school on Monday morning, but the die was cast. None of us could have guessed that it would lead to our polyamory, although we did talk about poly (in general terms) that weekend.

Soon we were in communication by email and IM and phone whenever we could be. We traveled to visit each other as often as our finances would allow. Talk, talk, talk... Our attachment grew, but Master and I avoided the admission to our deepening affection. We simply did not "go there."

He and T married in the summer of 2001. They planned a reception for September. We decided to travel to be there. And then 9/11 happened and grounded all the planes. Our plans looked like they would be cancelled, but by 9/21, we were together and celebrating with our friends. Late at night, after all the partiers had gone to bed or headed home, He and I sat up on the living room sofa still talking into the wee hours of the morning... Suddenly He looked at me from the far end of the couch and declared, "I love you." My heart stood still in that moment... They were words I thought I would never hear and I was in heaven. He claims I lit up like a Christmas tree. I only know that I was thrilled and overjoyed and absolutely without a clue as to what we would do next. We were, after all, both married... Sigh...

My husband claimed that he was thrilled and happy with it all, had seen it coming and knew it would all be wonderful... that we would just become one big, happy family and it would surely work out...

T was stunned and hurt and angry and well... You name it and she was it...

We had a lot of stuff to work out and wait out and figure out. The feelings we had for each other were not going to simply go away. And neither of us wanted to hurt T any further. We hadn't meant to cause hurt but weren't willing to say "no" to "us" either. We decided to wait.

In November, The Heretic and T moved from one apartment to another. And I was 1200 miles away and no help at all. What could I do? Finally, I hit upon the idea of calling a local caterer and ordering a meal sent to them. Not a "fast food" dinner, but a real homecooked meal... So I got on line and found a local caterer who made roast beef and mashed potatoes and green beans and dessert and salad and rolls... the whole deal... They delivered it to them on the last day of the weekend after they'd been moving all weekend and living on pizza and burgers. When they called me, T was practically in tears. That simple act, of sending real food, made such an impact... and turned the tide. I'd touched my sister's heart in a very real way. T started to say that she thought this whole idea of us becoming one family could maybe work. I've joked ever since that if I'd known, I'd have sent roast beef a whole lot sooner.

Meanwhile, my husband continued to claim that all was well...

We planned to get together at New Year's to make plans. At that time, sitting in the apartment in Cincinnati, we decided we'd move together and try and become a family. And so the decision was made. Still, we hadn't set a date. We got on the plane and headed back to Denver once more, this time, with lots and lots of work ahead of us.

Not long after that, I was IM'ing with The Heretic, explaining how much there was to do before we could actually make the move -- a house to be sold, household goods to be sorted through, and jobs to be given up on one end and found on the other, and so much planning to do. I suggested that perhaps we could be in Cincinnati in two years. The heat coming through my screen was palpable... "Do you think we will live forever? Get here this summer!" He commanded. It was my first real taste of how things would be between us. There would be no hesitation on His part with me. He knew what and who I was in His life and He would have no foolishness about it. And so it came about that the house went on the market in March and was sold and we quit jobs and said goodbye and moved, arriving here in June, one day after school finished in Denver. Master, indeed.

There were ups and downs and adjustments in our first year or so. Coming together as a family was joyous and tumultuous. My husband, it turned out, was not entirely honest in his support for the whole "poly" thing. In fact, through all of our lives together, dishonesty had been a hallmark of his relational style. Not his fault, really -- there are "issues," but in our new, high-intensity, poly household, the stresses became intense and he "cracked." Eventually, in spite of a lot of effort, we couldn't hold on to him. There is some poly community wisdom that says that poly math often means that 2+2=3. For us that turned out to be true. So we are a triad and not a quad. It could be said that was a result of the poly, but I don't really believe that. I think that the poly made the necessity of that clear. It probably should have happened sooner, but we do what we can when the time becomes right.

I'm not sure it that answers the question asked. It is the best I can do this day I think.

swan

OK OK.... So I was Tagged too

Just so sue doesn't think she's one ahead of me:)

Here are my tag responses:)

Have you ever?
snuck out of the house ... It was routine for me my senior year of high school.

gotten lost in your city ... at least once a week. I am the world's most severe directional dyslexic.

seen a shooting star ... yes.

been to any other countries besides Canada ... nope.

had a serious surgery ... yes. There are no minor surgeries if you're the patient.

gone out in public in your pajamas ... yup:)

kissed a stranger... yes.

hugged a stranger...yes.

been in a fist fight... several.

been arrested... no.

laughed and had milk/coke come out of your nose... yes.

pushed all the buttons on an elevator...yes.

swore at your parents... yes.

been in love... yes. so very much......enough for three:)

been close to love...yes.

been to a casino... hell, I got bounced out of one in Las Vegas when I was 13:)

been skydiving... no.

skinny dipped... Last summer Sue took me to Valley View hot springs -- a clothing optional, rustic spot in Colorado's San Luis Valley. We did everything naked for two days including swimming:)

been skinny...when I was 18.

skipped school...yes.

seen a therapist... yes, as well as having a graduate degree to be one:)

done the splits... God no!

played spin the bottle... yes.

gotten stitches... several times.

drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour...yes.

bitten someone ... yup:)

been to Niagara Falls... yes.

gotten the chicken pox... yes.

kissed a member of the opposite sex... yes.

crashed into a friend's car...yes.

been to Japan... no.

ridden in a taxi... yes.

been dumped... yes.

shoplifted... yes.

been fired... yes.

had a crush on someone of the same sex... no.

had feelings for someone who didn't have them back... yes.

gone on a blind date... yes and the last one landed me my T:)

lied to a friend... yes.

had a crush on a teacher... yes.

celebrated Mardi-Gras in new Orleans... no.

been to Europe... no.

slept with a co-worker... well we massaged and spanked and we did actually sleep, we never had intercourse....but it was way close.

been married... yes.

gotten divorced... yes.

had children... yes.

seen someone die... yes.

had a close friend die... yes.

been to Africa... no.

driven over 400 miles in one day... yes -- to spank someone :)

been to US... Yes.

been to Mexico... no.

been to India... no.

been on a plane... yes.

seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show... yes.

thrown up in a bar... yes.

purposely set a part of myself on fire... I've had fireplay performed on me...that's as close as I've come.

eaten sushi... yes, and once was enough.

been skiing/snowboarding... once.

met someone in person from the internet... too many times to count, and spanked lots of them too:) And then there was the Internet catch of all times....my beautiful swan:)

lost a child... no, thank god.

gone to college/university... yes.

graduated college/university... yes....twice:)

fired a gun... yes.

purposely hurt yourself... hmmmmm.......I've spanked myself to see what toys felt like..does that count?

taken painkillers... yes.

been intimate with someone of the same gender... I spanked a guy recently. I wanted to see how different it was for me than spanking women. I met this guy through an online spanking match making program. He came over met us all and I spanked him. I really disliked it and have no intention of going there again.

All the best:)

Tom

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined.

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