I recently completed my first successful fly-me-to-you get together. We shared a full day and everything went off without a hitch. But more on that later. Now I want to share an experience I had while waiting for my date.
I came in the night before to meet someone new, had a nice dinner, and met with an old college friend for breakfast. But of course breakfast doesn’t last all day so I found myself with several hours to kill. When planning my stay, I kept these empty hours in mind but didn’t schedule much outside of a little sight seeing. Until, of course, I saw something interesting on my twitter feed. There a gentleman who offers erotic bodywork, much like mine, that piqued my interest so I reached out to see if we could make something work.
Scheduling was easy; we spoke on the phone a bit and I heard all the industry buzzwords I was looking for. Holding space, performative sexuality, receiving versus giving, experiential… though the work I do is often far more play oriented than healing oriented, the crossover is strong and we spoke the same language regarding a sensual touch experience. With some trepidation, I opted to schedule a two hour bondassage session, balancing my nervousness at a new experience with my trust in his professionalism.
I knew going in that there would be a blindfold, headphones, ankle and wrist bonds, some light impact play (nothing too hard, of course) but I didn’t know much else. I knew that the philosophy of bondassage is one of experience and sensation, not of pain or extremes, so I wasn’t *afraid* per se, just a little shy.
Upon arriving at his studio collective, he ushered me in, offered me water and a short conversation, and showed me to the shower where I had a robe waiting for me. During our chat, we recovered some old ground and added a bit about just how sexual I wanted to get (not very), a notification that there would be some anal play (oh. uh. right! ok!), and a reassurance that if anything emotional came up, I was free to feel it in the moment and stop all sensations.
Now you know what I knew going in and I can set the scene: It’s a small room, fairly standard massage room size, it’s warm, it smells neutral, clean, I’m naked under a white Terry cloth robe, nervous as hell, and he gently but firmly tells me to take it off. I don’t take commands very well, as anyone who has met me knows, but I chose to set aside my natural resistance and trust in the experience. I did, after all, choose this, and it would be silly of me to pretend I know better what’s needed than he does. He commanded me to put my hands behind my head and to step wide so my feet were far apart. I am NOT accustomed to assuming such an open and vulnerable pose in front of someone I’ve just met so I already began to feel foolish, scared, and defensive on top of the nerves. But again, I’ve chosen this, I have every reason to believe I am dealing with a professional, so I comply. In addition to the expected wrist and ankle cuffs, he puts on a collar which I also don’t particularly like but, again, this is an experiment, an experience, I chose this, and I can stop anything, any time.
By the time he’s ready to start, I have the most comfortable blackout blindfold I’ve ever felt over my eyes, a bolster under my hips, noise cancelling head phones over my ears, I’m lying spread eagle face down on the table and my hands and feet are tied down. Now begins a game of ‘what is that?’ as I feel a silk scarf, dry brushes, furry mitts, a flogger, leather paddles, massaging hands, electric toothbrushes, and probably some things I’m forgetting roam all over me. Shoulders and back, ok, standard. Butt and thighs, yeah, those are normal places to get touched in a massage. A toothbrush to the underarm! That tickles!! I squirm and laugh. Now just at the very top of my pussy lips, from underneath. That is WEIRD! I’m not a big user of vibrating toys so I don’t associate it with pleasure but it’s intriguing, the prickly sensation and the vibrating ones both together. The flogger is slow, almost more like drumming than a punishment. I kept expecting it to get harder but he keeps it light.
Now the butt stuff. Butt stuff is not foreplay for me. Butt stuff is great when I’m already revved up and just need an extra bump to get over the edge. Butt stuff can be distracting when I’m not already in that headspace. So it was with this. A little warm up, a stainless steel (I’m guessing) hook tied to the collar (so that’s what that was for), and several minutes of distracting, somewhat comical, not great but not uncomfortable stimulation. At one point he rested one of the vibrating toothbrushes on the steel and on several occasions he twanged the string between the hook and the collar. I did find it interesting that with each deep inhale, I could feel the slightest movement, a tightening and release. If you’re into butt stuff, I’ll bet this would be AWESOME. If you’re like me, it’s something I could happily have skipped.
But I’m here to experience and so I did, sometimes gasping, sometimes laughing to myself, sometimes forgetting to breath (before the headphones went on, he set up a nonverbal signal to encourage deep breathing), and the whole time learning.
Once he reached the end of his routine on my back, he untied everything and had me turn over.
I’ll take this moment to mention that at all times, he made small gestures to reassure me that I was in control. He put the cords tying my cuffs to the table in my hands as a way to remind me that I am only tied up because I choose to be. He would occasionally lift the headphones to verbalize a check in. It was clear that he was paying extremely, unwavering, close attention to my nonverbal signals. However I felt about the sensations themselves, his touch was always absolutely perfectly appropriate to it.
Once on my back, I was rebound, this time with my hands above my head, and the sensory play started again. Silk, fur, leather, vibrations and slow massage. And nipple clamps. Fuck the fucking nipple clamps. Fucking fuck.
Up until then, the sensations had been interesting, new, not too intense, sometimes funny, sometimes pretty fucking hot, but nothing like this. Many of my readers know first hand how sensitive my nipples are and how much I guard them, warn against overuse. I am so averse to extreme nipple play that it didn’t even occur to me that I would encounter them. derp. My thoughts went something like this:
What!?! Fuck. No. Nipple clamps? I wasn’t expecting nipple clamps! Why wasn’t I expecting nipple clamps, haha! There was a fucking anal hook but the *nipple clamps* I didn’t expect? lol. Dummy. Those have to go. I should say something. Hang on, let me check in. Send your attention to your nipples…. Does it *hurt*? I mean, it’s fucking intense but does it *hurt*? …..nnnnooooooo? Not yet. Fucking asshole, these gotta go. Do they? I’m here to experience and as long as it doesn’t *hurt*. Does it hurt? Check back in…. The right one is pretty bad. Why am I angry? They aren’t that bad. Why am I so angry? Am I crying!?! Why am I sad! They’re nipple clamps, not sad kittens, why am I sad and crying? Why doesn’t he notice!?! Dummy, he’s a professional, he can see your chin quivering, he knows, he’s just letting me decide. Fuck him. No, he’s doing exactly what he should be which is giving me control. There’s no reason to be angry or sad but you are. Why? Fuck these, they gotta go. WHY AM I SO SAD!?! HOLY MOTHER SHITTING OF GOD HE RIPPED THEM OFF THAT FUCKING HURTS WHAT KIND OF ASSHOLE WHY AM I SAD WHY AM I SO FUCKING ANGRY!!!!!!!!!
I didn’t say anything while they were on for many reasons. I was confused, curious, embarrassed, angry, confused about the other feelings, determined to stay present with this experiment, and my nipples were sending me a shit ton of signals, none of them *pain* but all of them pissed off. I could feel tears soaking into the blindfold and my chin quivering as I tried my damndest to stifle this welter of sudden feelings. All this time he had been ministering pleasant Swedish massage to my lower legs and, if my instincts are correct, watching me for my breaking point, reading me to make sure I got to an edge but didn’t go over.
It was probably only a minute or so between the application of what I would later learn were actually little suction cups and the moment he lifted the headphones but an hour’s worth of feelings ran through me. He asked what I would like us to do in the last fifteen minutes of our session, a gesture I recognized as a professional signal that time was nearly up while simultaneously appreciating how it feels as the client to hear that. I wanted to cry. I wasn’t in pain and he had done nothing traumatic, but some dam had been broken by a pair of stupid little rubber cups. We had started the session talking specifically about feeling free to let out whatever emotions may come. I thought of how I would feel were the roles reversed; how do I feel when a client needs to cry over a lost love, an old memory, the beauty of touch not felt in years? I would want them to feel free and unashamed to cry. So that’s what I said. I said “I think I would like to cry” and his response in that moment was the ultimate sign of a sacred intimate. He said ‘OK’ and simply sat with me. He didn’t make my crying his problem, his solution, or his pride, nor did he run from it. The only other person I know who can do this is Betty Martin. She doesn’t use nipple clamps, she just looks at me and listens.
So I lay on this table, with a stranger touching my forehead and my chest, there with head and heart, hysterically laugh-crying. I always feel silly when I cry for no reason. I am generally a practical person; tears with no sorrow or grief feel foolish, useless, inconvenient, an imposition to whomever happens to be near. Hell, an imposition on myself! When I really cry, I laugh-cry. I once got hit on the head with a basketball in high school gym class and sat on the floor laughing hysterically with tears streaming down for nearly a half hour. It’s always been part of me and a part that I I rarely feel truly free to feel.
It was probably five minutes before the sobbing laughter subsided and I was able to take a few deep, shaky breaths. I felt fucking stoned. Hot and relaxed and stoned off my gourd. Like some kind of huge wave had broken and in it’s wake I lay, shuddering. I wonder if some of my clients feel that way after they orgasm. Like your brain simply doesn’t care for a while.
I wish I had had more time after but SF traffic was crummy and it took me long enough to stumble across the hall and back into the shower. I had enough time to come back to reality and get my breathing back to normal, to thank him for his time and experience, and to catch a taxi to go meet my client. I was so blissed out the evening went by like a breeze, both of us carefree and reveling in each other’s pleasure. The next morning we took a long walk, had a delightful breakfast, and ended our time together with a delicious dish: a little threesome with miss Devorah Reine. But you already knew about that.
I had no expectations of intense emotional release when going in for a kinky massage. I wasn’t sure what I was getting into at all but it opened up an interesting box and raised a few real questions. Why on earth would intense sensation on my nipples bring me immediately and fiercely to an emotional climax like that? What is it about that experience that made me more vulnerable than the spread-eagle bondage position? And why can I cry in front of some people but not others?
A bondassage isn’t something I’d do often, but it is something I’d do again. Even now, six weeks later, the memory of how I felt is strong, though the details fade into the mists of memory. If I were able to go back to the same practitioner, I would show them this, talk about what I found awesome and intense, perhaps even push the envelope of *some* things and maybe back off of others. I am so incredibly delicate before arousal that I’m constantly guiding people to slow down and back off but once the moment arrives, once my entire being is consumed… Well, I suppose I’ll find out eventually what else I like.