Returning to kink... but with changes?
Yesterday was Easter so Lent ended. All of the things I gave up I enjoyed again, including kink.
I've not done anything kinky for a while, and was enjoying the time off. I've felt unenthused about a lot of my kink recently and having a break from having to think about my identity and the confusion I've felt over it has been welcome. mistress_jadis thought that taking a break applied to her also, but I don't feel any need to cut myself off from playing with her. Things seem to flow very easily and comfortably, and there is a pronounced lack of identity confusion around her.
So I went into Carisbrook, and when I found myself in the cell after my shower I felt entirely calm.
We started with a paddle and a strap, which as I have discovered seem to be more difficult to take than many implements that are ostensibly "harder". Somehow they seem to hurt more than canes and singletails that can easily lead to impressive marks and blood. Or maybe it's a matter of them coming at the beginning of play when I'm in a different headspace. I was quite pleased that I managed to wear a gag for quite a long time without freaking out and getting that uncomfortable "choking but not actually choking" feeling.
Then it was onto canes. I think she used three or four different canes, one of which broke whilst being used. Some wold say that she broke on cane on my backside, and they would be right. But I also like to think that I broke the cane. I liked feeling that I was stronger than the cane. Behold, I am Iron Slave, vanquisher of canes.
OK, it's silly, but thinking that set up the next set of strokes from one of the fearsome dragon canes (though I was a pretty poor judge of what hurts more given my state of mind at the time.)
Having broken one cane, I was determined to see out whatever caning she had to dish out. For the fourth set of twelve strokes, I psyched myself up as she was getting her next cane and spent almost the entire caning time staring myself down in the mirror and making growling noises. I later said that I was wearing my angry slave face. Not anger at her of course, and in fact I decided that angry was probably the wrong word. It was more a sense of determination to keep going. There would be no packing it in. She reached 48 strokes done in four sets, and had set down the canes ready to move onto something else. But I wanted more. I wanted to make 50, a nice round number. She decided that if we were going in sets of 12, then the next stop was 60, so 60 it was. The last 12 were quickly and intensely done with a bit more grim growling and then we took some time coming down. It was quiet, and we enjoyed the silence.
Afterwards as I was having my post session shower, I could actually feel the two sides of my bottom swollen up so much that they were touching each other, and I getting up and sitting down is still a sensitive proposition 24 hours later.
There was also flogging with "the flogger of one thousand bees" and what felt like an extended period of singletailing. The single tail on numerous occasions knocked me forward and forced me to drag myself back up, and then one stroke to my back, whether it was harder or not, pulled me right off my feet and left me collapsed on the floor. Mistress Jadis held me as I gasped for breath and as some of my muscles involuntarily spasmed. My body was freaking out in a way I cannot recall experiencing before. There was a spooky silence as I slowly came back into the room, my mouth gaping open, my head slowly becoming able to turn around slightly, and my eyes wide.
Once I was back, she told me she wanted six more, and I gave her six more.
It was a very intense session, and I was happy that after two years, the two of us could still make new breakthroughs.
My identity as a sub is something I have been questioning recently. I've had a long time to think about it, and I still haven't figured it out, but I have figured out some individual things.
I've found myself seeing how other subs behave and felt completely disconnected from it. This probably has a lot to do with my dissatisfaction with the sub label. Well I am a sub, but I may just have to find a way to define the term that adequately describes me. I'm not snivelly sub, I'm not grovelly sub, I'm not "give up decision making capabilities in all aspects of my life sub", but from time to time I may be iron sub.
This sense of disconnection from the behaviour of others and the dynamic between other dommes and subs may also be traced in part to the fact that there are a lot of people that I either don't know or don't believe. If I don't know them, I'm not likely to trust them to respect who I am in a kink or vanilla context. As for believing them, it's not that I don't believe they are who they say they are, it's just that I don't believe it has any application to me. It's not a personal commentary on them
It could be that my public kink appearances will drop off a bit. It could be that I don't play with as many people. It could be that I give my toppy side more latitude to play (there can be service in topping after all.)
I may not be what I was, I may not be what others expect, I may have to be very careful about who I play with and how, and I may have a lot more to figure out. But I will be around to do so in one way or another.