I have so much to say here, and so very little time.  Work has me running crazy, and something is causing me to feel profoundly exhausted.

So this is just a post to say I am still alive, despite whatever demons are feeding on me at night.

Painting by Randis Albion, via Sex in Art.

I was noodling around Amazon.com tonight, looking for some new books to read, when my eye fell on the “active discussion in related forums” list at the bottom of my page.  (Seriously, I have no idea what this is.  The internet has so many weird features these days that I can’t keep up.  Who is using Amazon as a BBS, and why?)

Anyway, the title of the discussion was “Is spanking a lovable or harmful form of disipline?“, and according to the helpful statistics in the sidebar, during the half hour the discussion had been going on, it had garnered 6,000 replies.  My goodness! I thought.  First Amazon decides to sell sex toys, and the next thing you know, people are discussing Domestic Discipline on its forums.  What next?! I clicked on the discussion to discover as-yet-unimagined pros and cons of spanking.

Um.  More perceptive readers will probably have already guessed that the discussion was about whether or not to spank one’s children.  (I probably didn’t pick up on that debate because I take it for granted that the answer is no–at least, not unless one’s children are on the verge of swallowing a gallon of poison as a practical “joke”.)

I’d be tempted to say that that’s all you can find about kink at what the New York Times has called “the world’s general store” . . . but it wouldn’t be true.  You and I know better, don’t we?

Cartoon by the epically perverse Martin van Maele; work and other scant information here, here, here, and here.

Well, not everything.  But when it comes to BDSM, I have to say the internet still rivals most other sources of information.

I was reading Ferns’s Domme Chronicles the other day when I noticed that she seemed to have an interesting new toy.  She was posting pics of recent acquisitions, including these:

“Are those cutting boards?” I asked.  And I asked her how she liked them.

“Yes, indeed!” she answered.  “I am a delicate flower (no, truly) and a decent spanking hurts me more than it hurts him, so I like it quite a bit. It is more solid than a purpose-made paddle, and has the corresponding heavier impact for minimal effort.

“And I like it quite a bit–it is lovely quality, looks beautiful and has a very satisfying slap-thud. I’d say from the sounds that he makes when I use it that it might hurt just a little bit . . . “

All of this sounded excellent to me.  I’m a fan of a satisfying slap-thud myself, and I made sure to draw the post to Robbie’s attention.  Robbie is increasingly in charge of toy-and-costume acquisition, presumably because he does it better than I do, and possibly because if he does it, he can execute quality control. (Not that he’s into control.)

So I wasn’t entirely surprised when, last weekend, I walked into the room I use as my dressing room when I’m at his house and found, waiting for me, an assortment of new toys.  They included:

- the new sharps kit (items from a medical supply store)

- a platinum wig (he says I’m going blonde for the gangbang he is certain I will one day agree to; apparently, he’s ready any time now)

- an unvarnished cutting board

He had gotten himself a cutting board too,  as I found out the next day when he called me to his bedroom and had me assume the spankee position without offering me any explanation.

I got three medium-force thwaps.  I was unsure whether they were punishment for something I’d done?  (I’ve been ranting about my punishment cravings lately.)  Or maybe they were foreplay?  (He did show me, after the thwaps, that he had a fairly significant hard-on.)  Or . . .??

“How was that?” he asked.

“Confusing,” I started.  “I felt like . . . “

Robbie sighed.  I have a tendency to scrutinize my own emotions intensely, in a way that can very occasionally frustrate him.  “Let me clarify the question.  How was that physical sensation?”

“Oh! It felt good.  What was it?”

“The cutting board.”

“I like that.  It’s really nice and thuddy.”

“Like a paddle, right?”

“Yeah, but a paddle has edges–I mean, that has edges too, but with a paddle you’re more likely to get the person with an edge, which stings.  And with that you have a lot more area.  Do you know what I mean?”  I swear, my brain goes out the window as soon as it senses any pain or any rope.

“Yes,” Robbie said drily.  “I know what you mean.”

So.  I’m here to testify that Ferns’s Bread Board Paddle is a great toy.  And also to show you mine . . . I hope you like it.

I couldn’t resist posting this (to me) hilarious snippet from ranat’s blog, beyond the hills.  I think it perfectly captures the hall-of-mirrors transformations that can happen when you open yourself up to The World of Kink.

Her post starts with the realization that she’s has an internal vision of this certain man her whole life, and that the man is herself:

This blog began with that I’m dominant. I could finally admit that. And then that I’m a sadist. It was okay to say that too. Okay, then it became apparent I’m not straight. Oh, and by the way there is a man lurking in my head and he is me. What is this, fucking dominoes? Tip over one and eventually the rest will all fall down? I cannot even comprehend the artistry and subtlety of my self-repression to have so blithely hidden this all from myself for two decades.

I know what she means.  On the other hand, sometimes I really, really like it when the dominoes fall.

Above: Invisible 2, by Tyson McAdoo.

No needle play for us, after all, last weekend.  The friends we invited over for dinner have a newborn–the baby is a month old–and barely have time for kink with each other, much less for kink with friends.  I’m not quite sure what we were thinking about the needle demonstration, but we had a lovely time with our friends, watching them enjoy their new arrival.

These friends have been with us through major thick and thin–with Robbie, especially, since they are closer to him than to me.  I think I’m ready to start writing about that thick and thin, about what some of the fights of the last year(s?) have been about.  It’s not pretty stuff, the past.  But what’s come out of it is better and better.

“Eyes of True“, from Odilia Luzzi’s lovely photoblog, Dreams of Light.

I am headed to see Robbie this weekend and very eager to be there.  My sex drive has returned at at least half-strength, if not more, and I have an urgent need to be with him.  Plus, we have at least a few wicked plans.  I say we, but Robbie seems to be doing most of the planning.  I’m hugely relieved at this.  For past visits Robbie has planned an elaborate schedule of activities, and I panic at the thought of getting it all done as well as worry about how it will go.  This time, he gets to enjoy all the anticipation of things that “I know but you don’t know” (as he likes to sing in a little song he’s made up), but I don’t have to stress about any of them.  It’s as it should be–him in control, me in the dark.

Well, I’m not in the dark about everything.

When we were first getting into BDSM and Robbie and I filled out the requisite checklists about perversions, it turned out that I had a real fascination with needles, knives, and play piercings.  Robbie was extremely cautious about all of these desires; he was happy to hurt me, but very reluctant to injure me, if the distinction makes any sense.  Part of the reluctance stemmed, I think, from some professional medical experience in his past.  But the hearty doctor fetish I have made the whole idea frustratingly hotter.

And here we are, three years down the line, and he’s finally studied up on needle play, asking a very experienced friend of ours for instruction, advice, recommendation on equipment, and an actual demonstration.  We’re having dinner with our friend and his girl this Sunday night.  I’m at once over the moon and terrified.

It so happens that I sliced my hand open by (accidentally) putting it through a glass window pane this summer.  (I tripped on someone’s inconveniently-placed roller skates in the dark, and the rest was pure Marx brothers.)  The masochist in me was pretty thrilled at the resultant blood and the pain, while the rationalist in me said: “You dumb retarded twit, you can’t like it, or people will think it’s self-inflicted!”  Fortunately, the obviously treacherous position of the roller skates exculpated me from charges of self-harm–or so I hope.

But I digress.  My point is that the thing felt deliciously painful until I got to the hospital, where I was scheduled to have a few stitches.  I even remember lying there with my hand elevated, watching the nurse prepare the saline solution, various bandages, the local anaesthetic, and thinking, “Cool!  This is the nearest I’m going to get to needle play for awhile!”

And dammit if it didn’t hurt like a mother.  There was none of the euphoric pain that had come from the slicing cut to my hand.  There was a really nasty pinchy stab, multiplied by about a thousand.  Stingy bitterness.

So, we’ll see on Sunday.  I very much like the thought of being the useful experimental pincushion for Robbie and our friends.  I just hope that the experience is a happy one for all involved, and that the pain is the flying-high kind rather than the hop-on-one-foot-and-swear-a-blue-streak kind.

I’ll try to report back, depending on the scale of my injuries.

High-fashion pics by Philippe Kerlo.

I just got this email from a friend of mine, who is most assuredly grown up.  It read:

The doorbell rang. Three little boys were there.  One said they were starting a friendship club and wanted to know if I wanted to join.  The other asked if there were any little people in the house.  “Kids?” I asked.  “Yeah.”  The first boy repeated the invitation to join their friendship club.  I asked what I had to do.  “Nothing,” he said.  I asked if I had to play with them.  “No, we are just going around to the houses seeing if people want to join our friendship club.”  “Sure, ” I said.  I’m going put it on my resume.

What I want to know is why people don’t do this more often.  Any of you want to be in my friendship club??  We have cookies.

[Hi.  I missed you too.]

The other night Robbie emailed me to tell me that for my next visit, I should plan to bring–sorry, I was required to bring–white cotton schoolgirl panties and hair ribbons.  (“Colors (in priority in case they cost too much to buy all at once): pink, white, red, black and green.”  He is nothing if not precise.)

The requirement that I provide things for Robbie’s increasing interest in costumes (one that I share) was super-hot to me.  The prospect of trying to find ribbons in my new and urban environment, on the other hand, was surprisingly daunting and inspired a fit of hysteria out of all proportion to the task.  (As I’ve noted before, tasks, no matter how small they are, really don’t seem to work well for us at distance; I go into insta-meltdown, and he ends up wondering why something intended to be sexy and fun turns into emotional crisis.)

I still don’t know where I’ll get the ribbon, since I’m thinking that the corner Starbucks and 24-hour CVS, my go-to sources for all that is essential, won’t be of use.  But I’m determined to try to find something for whatever nefarious purposes Robbie has in mind.  I have every intention of being the most irresistible schoolgirl he’s seen in some time.  And I’m hoping if I’m good enough, he might even use a few of the ribbons elsewhere on me (wrists, ankles . . . ).

If, in my fantasies, I live in a seraglio, a shuttered little jewel of a house filled with books, objets d’art, cushions, sinuous women, perfumes, rouge, and large baths, Robbie’s alter ego almost certainly inhabits a lair.  On the floor there are coins and precious metals, jewels (for tempting sheltered young ladies?); on the walls glitter torches and instruments of torment; the place is labyrinthine.  He can plot and plan there, as I can dream and dawdle in my place.

And just as I write him letters, he writes to me.  An email from Robbie this morning turned me on so much—he got under my skin so precisely, with just the exact mixture of objectification and love—that I can’t think of any better way to show him how much I appreciate it than to share it.  And—well—to show him off a little.

He wrote:

Gifted Sera,

I recall that this is a long-time, long, long time original fantasy of yours that we have discussed on more than one very hot occasion (and, early on, been close to being on the brink of once or twice). It seems to be largely the objectification, partly the service and usage, partly the multiple cocks that excite you so much.*

It is obviously a very hot fantasy for us both.**

Getting to a suitably excited, willing and safe and trusting place is the part to work out, one day in the seamy, sexy, slutty everything-you-ever-wanted future that we both say we want and can foresee.

I have lots of fantasies like that–you serving drinks dressed like an exhibitionist slut maid, putting various signs on you for public display or our private pictures, kneeling with a bag as a semen receptacle like in the above picture, glory holes, etcetera–delicious someday corruptions plotted and enjoyed together.

My signage for the blowjob queen bag would, however,  likely be somewhat different.

Something like:

World’s  very best  blowjobs.

Try it and see.

Exclusive offer. Satisfaction guaranteed.

See owner for handling instructions.

And I do think that you are that good. And more.

Love and lust and fantasies galore,

~ R

I keep reading the sign for the bag, and smiling.  That’s exactly what I’d want it to say.  As long as you’ve learned basic instructions for using the toy, you can certainly playing with it for a few minutes.

And I’m curious–if this is your type of thing, what would you want your label (or your lover’s label) to say?

* * *

Note: the above photograph is not a picture of me.  The tempting slut depicted is the lovely and deeply twisted kinkerbelle.  Were I half as brave as she . . . well, I might cum just from thinking about what my life would be like if I were half as brave as she is.

I’m borrowing the picture—and if kink prefers, I’ll happily give it up—because Robbie has seen it and has drawn considerable inspiration from it on multiple occasions, as you can tell from his letter.

* Actually, me + multiple cocks excites him so much.  One is enough, two my limit.

.** Poor man I have hounded him for years, explaining that many things that are hot for me in fantasy terrify me when it comes to living them.  He’s clearly taken that comment to heart.

“You’re my hero,” I said to Robbie, gazing over at his sweat-glazed face.

“Why?” he said.

“Because you’re driving 5 hours each way so I can catch my flight home even though you have strep throat.” That was pretty much it. We’re still working out the logistics of my new home, including trying to figure out new transportation routes from here to there. Apparently, I thought a certain airport was way closer to his house than it actually was.

“Oh, that,” Robbie said glumly. The only time I’ve ever seen him sick is when he has strep, and then he’s sick as a dog. “Well, I don’t know about that, but when I say I’m gonna do something, I do it.”

He looked so serious, and seriously old-fashioned, I burst into (gentle) laughter. “Okay, Duke,” I said.

“What? Dupe?”

“No, Duke. You sound like John Wayne.”

“Oh yeah. Duke.” And he did a dead-on imitation of Wayne. “My favorite are the spanking movies.”

“John Wayne made spanking movies?”

“Yeah, three of ‘em. One of ‘em was him spanking a schoolteacher.”

“Katherine Hepburn?!?!” I asked, shocked, thinking of Rooster Cogburn.

“No, not her. Anyway. They’re pretty funny.”

“Yeah, it’s funny how open they were about that stuff in the 50s.”

Now, I don’t share a lot of submissives’ 1950s nostalgia; I don’t have a 50s fixation, for all kinds of reasons including primarily my college immersion in feminism.

But that doesn’t mean I can’t appreciate John Wayne and Maureen O’Hara as much as the next girl . . .

I made a mental note to look them–and all the other spanking movies–up. Here’s a list for you.

{Oops.  WordPress deleted my list when I went to save the post.  I’m away for a few days, but I’ll put the list and the links in when I’m back!}