Here's what came out.
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It's been a week and I feel like I'm still processing DO. Thanks to everyone who's been around while I processed.
The main thing that's come out of it all for me is the idea of suffering.
I had an amazing scene. It was great. I was happy. I felt used in a good way.
But I still felt open.
Ever get your hair done or blow dry your hair??
These days they always say to finish with cold water/air. See, the warm water/air opens up the follicles on your hair. The cold helps close the cuticle, sealing in whatever you've done.
I came back to my hotel room post scene and I felt like that open cuticle. I'd had my scene/treatment, but I was still open.
And I didn't know how to close it.
I stumbled around in a haze. I ended up at cigars boots and chocolate searching for something. A dear friend offered me a puff on his cigar. I mistook the gesture as him wanting to ash on me. I said I was on the edge of a really submissive head space and him ashing on my would probably drop me pretty hard. He said he was down for that and that he had canes.
A little ash, a trip to retrieve a toy bag, and down to the dungeon we go.
At first I couldn't get comfortable. I was flat on a table and just nothing was right. Then I tried standing and laying the top half of my body on the table. It let me get more physical contact and I thought that's what I was missing.
But something was still not right. Nothing I could do would make it right. And then the tears came. Not the pretty crying, mind you. I'm talking about full on sobs/not able to communicate.
But the joy of playing with a dear old friend was that he held me till I was done, packed up our stuff, and took my outside for a couple of drags off his cigarette.
It was outside the holiday inn that cool night that it finally came to me: suffering.
I'm a masochist. I like pain. It gets me hot.
But that's just for fun.
What really seems to fulfill me is suffering. Not in general, but for someone.
And it just clicked. I want to take more pain than I enjoy cause it makes someone else happy. I like being on orgasm restriction because I'm suffering for someone else's pleasure.
And on Sunday afternoon, I didn't feel as if I'd suffered enough. I'd built it up in my head and I was prepared to lay and be flayed open physically, mentally, or emotionally for his pleasure.
And that's one of the issues I see sometimes with distance/online. I talk a big game and the text covers atoms were hot and heavy. But in hindsight, the scene we had was just the scene we needed to have. We were feeling each other out, re-learning how we fit together. It wasn't a first scene, it wasn't an 100th scene, it was someplace in the middle, where it belonged.
So now what?
I took a class with Miss Amy from Seattle on teaching from below, ie communication. One of the things she said was that we have to be with our partners where they are that day, and that that can change day to day. I've been realizing that I need to treat myself the same way. This realization around suffering was kind of huge. Over the course of the weekend, I took many layers off and when I went to put the, back on, I'd lost the one that hid that concept from me.
So I'm really not the same person I was before.
And it'll take time to figure out this new me.
