NURSE JONES

From Nurse Jones: a posted nonpost

  
From: [email protected] 
Subject: From Nurse Jones: a posted nonpost 
Date: 3 Nov 92 18:03:34 GMT 
Sender: [email protected] 

From Nurse Jones, 

[This is something I wrote way back before I lost my first account. 
The wizvax number is defunct, BTW. Despite what I say in the next few 
paragraphs, it's okay to post this now. Neets finally told Tom, so 
it's not a secret anymore.] 

                           Spring, 1992 

An unposted post. You'll know why when you read it. As if wizvax and 
ASB weren't "underground" enough without an additional layer of 
privacy being added. E-mail responses welcome at 
[email protected]. 

I'm going to send this to a few people that I have private addresses 
for, and hope they will pass it on and start sort of an e-chain 
letter. At least ASB people will understand why I'm not posting so 
much lately. I apologize for not having a more complete ASB mailing 
list. If you get this second-hand, it's disorganization, not 
cliqueishness. 

Some day, I may be able to post it publically, and that will be cause 
for great rejoicing. If that day ever comes, raise your glass to Anita 
and me, and to Tom, and to Jay. We'll be celebrating. Until then, feel 
free to forward it to anyone, but please, please don't post it. 

Warm fuzzies to all, Margaret 

                          -*- 

[WordStar tells me I wrote 3 pages of turgid amateur philosophizing 
followed by 27 pages describing a 'scene.' Sorry. I get excited 
sometimes. Search for the next "-*-" symbol to skip the part where I 
try to understand myself.] Why do we do this? 

Is it because we want it all? Is there a personality type that "wants 
it all?" 

Is it this: when sex first reared its ugly head (actually it wasn't 
nearly as ugly as my mother said it would be) it was all very nice but 
maybe it left us hungering for something more? Do I have an addictive 
personality? Or do I just want MORE? There should have been roses? 

Or is it this: do "normal" people have full satisfying sex lives? Are 
we compensating for the lack of something? Something they can achieve 
without resorting to the things we do? 

Or what? 

I have never thought much about it, but if I analyze MY gut feeIings, 
I realize that I am operating under the assumption that "their" 
("normal" people's) sex lives are less fulfilling than "ours" because 
they are afraid to find their own limits. Afraid to raise the cup to 
their lips. Afraid to look in the magic mirror. Afraid to DO what they 
secretly want. I admit I think a lot about sex. It's a major thing in 
my life. And I feel sorry for people that don't enjoy it enough to 
"want it all." It's like some part of them is missing, that they can't 
this urgency to have everything. 

Or maybe it isn't that part of them is missing. Maybe something in me 
has been magnified all out of proportion. 

If that's so, I think the part that's magnified is a kind of greed. To 
have it all. 

And I think "they" are in a trap. You're going to think I'm nuts for 
quoting someone as crazy as Wilhelm Reich, but: 

From "The Emotional Plague" in "The Murder of Christ" (1953):     
    "Wherever we turn we find man running 
    around in circles as if trapped and searching for the exit in vain 
    and in desperation .... It IS possible to get out of a trap....The 
    Trap is man's emotional structure, his character structure.... 
    ...the only thing to do in order to get out of the trap is to know 
    the trap and to find the exit. Everything else is utterly useless: 
    Singing hymns about the suffering in the trap, as the enslaved Negro 
    does; or making poems about the beauty of freedom outside of the 
    trap, dreamed of within the trap, or promising life outside the trap 
    after death, as Catholocism promises its congregations.... One can 
    decorate the trap to make life more comfortable in it. This is done 
    by the Michaelangelos and the Shakespeares and the Goethes. One can 
    invent makeshift contraptions to secure longer life in the trap. 
    This is done by the great scientists and physicians.... 
       The crucial point is and still remains: to find the exit out of 
    the trap. WHERE IS THE EXIT INTO THE ENDLESS OPEN SPACE? .... THE 
    EXIT IS CLEARLY VISIBLE TO ALL TRAPPED IN THE HOLE. YET NOBODY SEEMS 
    TO SEE IT." (Reich's emphasis, BTW) 


Everybody, and this means you, because you're still here, reading 
this, and me, because I'm writing about it: everybody sees and ignores 
the exit. You are looking at it right now, in the words I write, and 
you are ignoring it. It's safer that way. There I go, sounding as 
crazy as Wilhelm Reich. If you don't know what I'm talking about, this 
won't make a lot of sense to you. 

In a few minutes you will stop reading this; you might go back to your 
"real job" shuffling papers, or you might mow the lawn. Whatever. When 
you do, ask yourself: do I feel trapped? Do I feel The Trap? Do I see 
it around me? Don't wait. Ask now. 

But you didn't did you? 

I can't blame you. It's a spot that the eyes naturally shy away from. 
Like the sun. 

People like "us" -- people that do what we do, they are motivated to 
explore their limits out of a vague intuition, an awareness that The 
Trap exists. At least we have that. This isn't a reason for 
complacency, but at least we know there are bars. The door may be 
unlocked, swinging open, we may be afraid to look at the exit, to walk 
through it, but at least we feel the limits and push them. "They" 
don't even do that. That's what I think of "them" and "us". 

We may be rattling the bars of an unlocked cage, but at least we 
rattle. 

Maybe that's just another clever way of ignoring the open door we are 
all afraid of. Maybe I think too much. 

But then again "they" probably feel sorry for people like us: I'm sure 
"they" have a mental caricature of "us" as shallow and obsessive about 
physical relationships, and they are blithely confident that they have 
deeper, more spiritually meaningful relationships without the 
assistance of battery- operated appliances and leather. And _I_ think 
that they probably haven't scratched the surface of their own psyches 
and would be afraid to look behind the curtain if they knew it was 
there. 

But then "they" would react to a comment like that and say that they 
simply aren't interested in "that kind" of sex. And they would think 
that I *am* because I have some deep seated neurosis that derives from 
a childhood incident involving a trainload of cigars going into a 
tunnel. Or not going into a tunnel, as the case may be. 

It's an important question, and like most questions, it isn't answered 
just by taking sides. 

So it's "them" and "us." 
    And I don't know why they do what they do 
            any more than I know why I do what I do. 

Then, there's Anita and me. SM is very different from bondage. I don't 
know why she does it, either. And neither does she. 

Which is what this post is *really* about. Except that it won't be a 
post, not for a long time. I wrote it hoping I might find a way to 
post it publically, but when I got to the end... 

                            -*- 

We all sat out in the early Spring sun and watched while Jay 
demonstrated his skill with leather by making cuffs and a collar and a 
chastity belt and a few other goodies for Anita out of cowhide. 

Those few days of warmth felt soooo good on my skin after the Winter. 
Even this far south, where winters are mild, Spring brings something 
special. We had had a lot of rain, and then suddenly, miraculously, 
one Saturday it was clear and warm enough to sit out in the yard with 
practically nothing on. It was one of those days when your skin drinks 
in the sun. 

Jay's fast with the leather. It took him an afternoon to make an 
entire leather wardrobe. Well, there isn't much to this particular 
wardrobe, granted. Plus, he had many of the straps cut and buckles and 
d-rings sewn on already. Most of the rest was rivets. Tom and I just 
watched. We set up our lawn furniture in front of the garage doors so 
we could drink our drinks and soak in the sun and see into the 
workshop where Jay has his bench. 

I think Anita had plans to just sit on the lounger and turn even 
browner and show off her mile-long legs (the bitch), but when he 
finished the first wrist cuff, he gave it to her with some neatsfoot 
oil and wax and told her to start softening it up. 

He didn't ask her the way he normally would have. He's usually quiet 
and polite, but he was just that little bit firm with her when he told 
her to "get to work" softening the leather. She kind of looked at him 
funny, as if she were taking note of the change of attitude, but he 
looked right back at her and smiled his little smile; she opened the 
can of oil without looking down and I thought there was going to be a 
standoff. She was *supposed* to be the bottom. We had all agreed. 

But then she smiled and turned to her work and made like a busy little 
bee. He kept looking at her, and she looked up after a few seconds and 
looked around at the three of us just watching her, and blushed and 
went back to rubbing the leather furiously. 

I mean, after all, she *was* bottoming. This time she was the only one 
with no clothse on. Although my swimsuit, the half that I was wearing, 
well, there isn't very much of it, either. But our woods are private. 

Anita doesn't blush very easily, not nearly as easily as I do, but 
she's so beautiful when she does, she can make you melt. If it were 
easy to make her blush, I'd be dreaming up ways to do it all the time. 

Later, Jay asked her and Tom if they wanted a gag. "Gag?" she said, 
"Gag? We don' need no esteenking gag..." And that became a running 
...er, standing joke all weekend, until we were all sick of it. 

I love the smell of Spring. There's something sensuous about a warm 
breeze on your skin. And the occasional whiff of neatsfoot oil and 
leather does things to me, too. It's been almost a year since we 
started the month of The List. This time last year, I was trying to 
sublet the old appartment and get the hell out of Chicago. It seems 
like so long ago. 

Long enough that my dirty little mind seems to have developed an 
automatic response to the smell of neatsfoot oil, although it feels 
like my body is the part responding. Well. Certain carefully selected 
parts of my body. Down in sporting goods. I only associate That Smell 
with one thing, and that's You Know What. That Feeling. 

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell? 

                           -*- 

My swimsuit bottom doesn't really have very much of a back to it, and 
when we got up to go inside there was this checkerboard pattern 
impressed all over my backside from the lounger. Anita grabbed me 
there, the letch, and offered to massage it away. 

She's such a card. 
     She has nice strong hands, though... 

                           -*- 

A week later. It has turned chilly again... 

I have no explanation for the difference between Anita and me. I'm 
really into bondage, not pain -- except that pain sometimes defines 
the limits of restraint. I've asked, and Anita doesn't really have a 
good concise reason. If I can't explain my own perversions, why should 
I expect her to be able to. She says she likes being the center of 
attention, and there's a certain pride in the amazement that she sees 
in other peoples' faces at the amount of punishment she takes, and the 
warmth and attention afterward is very nice, but all that is 
secondary. 

Bondage is intimately intertwined with sex in my head. She says that 
she's different; SM isn't closely tied to sex for her, although it is 
_like_ sex in its intensity. She says that she didn't have a 
particularly great childhood, but she wasn't abused, and, although she 
was disciplined, she really doesn't think that is related to her um, 
sadomasochistic (why does that word seem so clinical when you spell it 
out?) leanings. I believe her. I dunno. 

You're going to think this is crazy, but I'm something of a bigot: I 
think she should be like me and develop a taste for bondage. I just 
can't leave her alone. I'm always trying to persuade her. Like my 
mother is always trying to make me be like her. 

I guess you just have to let people be different and admit you won't 
understand it sometimes. 

But now, something has happened, and I have to try to understand it. 

One way for me to understand something is to write about it. 

Anyway, what all this is leading up to is that I asked her if she had 
ever tried combining sex and SM. The way Jay and I do with bondage. 
She said no, idiot. Tom can't use a whip at the same time they make 
love. 

Duh, I said. 

Well, it would take three people, and she hadn't really ever been in a 
situation where the chemistry was right before. 

So I just looked at her as if to say, "Yes? And...?" 

"Okay: until now," she said. Which was why I asked the smartass in the 
first place, of course. I just wish I had known what I was getting 
into. 

So a few weeks later, we did it. 

The only place big enough to swing a whip is our living room. The 
three of us (Tom, Jay, and I) agreed that in front of the fireplace 
would be best. The trouble was, there was nothing to hang onto -- or 
um, from -- but the mantle and that's too close to the fire and too 
low. The living room wall by the fireplace is about 18 feet wide (I 
just now measured), so the adjacent walls on either side of the 
fireplace wall are that far apart. 

Jay put eye rings in the "studs" in those walls and in the ceiling so 
she could be "strung up" out in the middle of the room, facing the 
fireplace. He used something called a studfinder. Hmm. 

Nevermind. Too easy. Besides, this isn't supposed to be a funny post 
and you know how I am once I get started... 

Anyway, she ended up looking like a fly spreadeagled in the middle of 
a spider web, but still standing on her feet. 

But that all came later. And she didn't know what to expect. She just 
knew she had a safeword and the rest was up to us. And she knew that 
the week before, we had made a collar and cuffs and a few other 
leather accessories that you won't find outside San Francisco. Where 
you can get anything. I mean, where else can you find a Big and Tall 
Sex Aids Shoppe? 

                          -*- 

When it was my turn to run Anita's life for a few hours, I wanted to 
make the most of it. We had mapped out an overall strategy that had 
Jay making the leather bits, me kind of "preparing" her like a 
matador's assistant, and then Tom and I together at the exciting 
conclusion. I kind of thought that left Jay out, but he said that 
fitting a woman with Anita's legs for a leather g-string was 
definitely NOT being left out. 

And when it was my turn, I had her all to myself for a couple of 
hours. I played with her like a toy, and she did whatever I wanted. It 
was Like having a big doll. Shame on me, at my age. I guess I wasn't a 
very stern top. I'm too polite. I asked her to please not talk unless 
it was to use her safeword. A top shouldn't use the word "please," I 
suppose. But she was very tolerant of me. 

We took a shower together. We have one of those big walk-in showers, 
and we made it all steamy and then got in and shut the door. I suppose 
that as top, I should have been the washee rather than the washer, but 
I just wanted to put my hands on her body. She's so hard and smooth. I 
don't remember if I've told you, but she's an intense, thin, hyper 
kind of person. She's almost skinny; you can see her ribs. I thought I 
had pretty good legs, especially in heels, but her legs are simply 
unbelievable. When she shows them off, men don't see anything else. 
Even *I* find them attractive. I mean, sometimes I will _envy_ another 
woman for some aspect of her looks, and I'd be abnormal if I didn't 
envy Anita her legs, but I'm also *attracted* to her. I mean, 
sexually, I see the point of legs. Sorry, to go on about it, but this 
is a different feeling for me to have toward another woman, finding 
her physically attractive in more than an aesthetic sense. 

Anyway, we took a shower together, partly so I could feel her body. I 
asked her to flex her thighs for me. They are like rocks. I can feel 
and see individual muscles. Like in an anatomical model. I'm sure if I 
ran and got Gray's Anatomy I could identify them. I don't know...it 
was just sexy to run my hand over those cords and ripples, all smooth 
and soapy and brown. She has dark, olive skin. She looked stunning 
against the white tiles. 

This part is kind of embarrassing to admit. I mean, you know about my 
pubic hair. How we (Jay and I) keep it plucked. It was embarrassing at 
first, and it still is sometimes when Anita or Tom sees me. But I 
think it is sexy. And I know Jay does, too. I mean, he likes it enough 
to do all that touchup work three times a week. (I shouldn't tell you 
this, but sometimes I _read_ while he plucks. Do you think the magic 
is going?) Usually we talk. A few weeks ago we made up ribald verses 
for that poem about "Dangerous Maggie Jones" while he plucked. 

Anyway, Anita had told me that she had shaved a few times for Tom, so 
I figured what the heck. 

Well, okay, I wanted to feel her against me. Just pressed against me, 
and naked the same way I am down there. That's such a silly, trivial 
thing to want, but I guess I really do "want it all" and I am 
basically a selfish person. I mean, what if I were to wake up one 
night 60 years from now and still be wondering what it would have been 
like to feel her soft nakedness against my own? Still, it was selfish, 
I know, especially since she will have a few weeks of stubble to deal 
with. But I shaved her. She didn't particularly want me to, but I did. 

I gave her the chance to stop me, but she didn't, so I guess it was 
okay. 

She has --had-- rather more pubic hair than I. I mean, well, it was 
just more *extensive* than mine used to be. Not that she was *hairy* 
or anything, it's just that after I had finished, the difference was 
very striking. It looked like her navel had somehow moved up and left 
this big, blank expanse of nakedness down there. 

I don't know why I'm going on about this. She just looked different. 

She looked Very Naked. 

Before, she was just nude. After ... the word 'naked' is supposed to 
convey something different. It's so easy to gloss over such a word 
without thinking, and I don't want you to. Naked is definitely the 
right the word, though. 

I've already said Anita doesn't embarrass very easily. I was kind of 
hoping this would push her buttons, but I don't think it did, even 
when Tom and Jay saw her later. 

But she looked naked after. And it gave me kind of a thrill to think 
that *I* made her that way. That I had changed her that way and she 
had let me. And she couldn't undo it afterward, either. 

When I soaped her -- well, we were both kind of playing with the soap 
at the time -- she didn't know what I was going to do. I think she was 
just enjoying the sensations. (Smirk) I *know* she was; so was I. But 
that's ALL she was doing. I, on the other hand, was also thinking 
about what I was going to try to do next. Anyway, we both got a little 
soapy and a little, um, excited. I mean, I put my fingers inside her 
and explored her, and all the while I was thinking about the fact that 
I was going to try and shave her, and wondering how she would react 
and if she would let me. 

God, this is so weird. I was just sitting here thinking, "I don't 
believe I'm writing this down for ASB," when I realized that what was 
*really* unbelievable was what I did in the first place. I mean, she's 
a *woman* and I had my *fingers* inside her and played games with her 
the same way Jay does with me. Right there in our shower. Jay and I 
have done this so often in the same shower, I kept having the vague 
feeling: there really ought to be a penis here somewhere amongst all 
the soap and slithery bits. 

It was nice. Being kissed under the shower by someone whose hair 
washes down between your faces and neither of you cares, and the water 
is running between you and ... 

Ahem. 

So anyway, when I had her all soapy I turned my back to her to get the 
razor from the soapdish on the wall. When I reached for it she saw 
what I was going to do and reached past my shoulder and put her hand 
over mine, I think to stop me. But her front was pressed against my 
back, and for a few minutes we lost interest in the razor, just 
feeling each other's bodies. She nestled her chin against my neck and 
shoulder and pressed the side of her face against mine; when she put 
her arms around my front and ran her hands over my body, I had a WEIRD 
experience. 

Have you ever been cuddling someone and just enjoying the warmth and 
intimacy and then had the sudden intuition that something completely 
foreign was going on in their head? That they were looking at you, 
touching you, experiencing you in a way that was different, almost 
alien, and unlike what was going on in your own head? And that they 
knew it and they were hiding it from you? That it was supposed to be 
their own private secret? Almost as though you suddenly realized your 
lover was a vampire, and they wanted something more than simple 
affection. 

Well, she wanted something else, and she was getting it. 

That's what I caught Anita doing. Not that it was scary, or even 
sneaky, but she was definitely doing it. 

She was using me. 

When she stood behind me and ran her hands over my body, down my 
front, touching me, I had the distinct feeling that she was using my 
body as though it were her *own*. 

I mean that literally: I could *tell* as she ran her hands over me 
that she was deliberately imagining she was feeling her own body 
instead of mine. Suddenly, I just KNEW that she had mentally stepped 
into my body and was pretending, feeling what it is like to be me 
touching *me*. It was as though my body was stuck onto the front of 
hers, substituting my contours for hers. It was so *personal*; it was 
the way I touch myself sometimes, in private, or --rarely-- the way I 
might touch myself for Jay when he thinks I don't know he's watching. 

When I realized what she was doing to me, it almost felt like a 
violation; it was just so intimate, so personal, the way she did it. 
Yet she didn't do a single thing that I could object to; it's just 
that I could tell EXACTLY what she was thinking, imagining. 

She slid her right hand down *there*, where I am hairless, feeling to 
see what it was like, and her left hand held my breast. But NOT the 
way you would touch someone else's body to make them feel good. It was 
the way you would touch your *own* body, to make *yourself* feel good. 

Anyway, I *almost* felt violated when she used me that way. Almost. 
But it was a good kind of violation, the kind Jay will sometimes 
"commit." So I felt a little violated, and I knew what she was doing, 
and I let her. I almost stopped her at first, but I caught myself and 
let her -- I guess because I love her. In fact,I helped her. I put my 
hands over hers and guided her over my body, moving our hands the way 
I might move my own in private. 

It was a delicate, fragile, moment. I didn't want her to know I knew 
what she was doing. 

I'm so glad I reacted that way. If you read to the end of this post, 
you'll understand why I wish she could step into my body for just a 
little while. 

But she stopped doing it after a few minutes. I could tell, I swear, 
the very second she stopped imagining my body was hers. Something 
about her touch changed. I don't believe in ESP, but sometimes you can 
just tell. 

Anyway, then she bit my ear and I laughed, and the spell was broken, 
and I turned around to face her, and I told her what I thought she had 
been doing and she DID blush. And smile. She's beautiful when she 
blushes. I know I've said that before, but she is. 

When I turned to face her ... I don't know, there is just something 
intimate and nice about standing close to Anita and looking down at 
our bodies touching. Jay is so wonderful to give me this. 

Then she reached over my shoulder again and got the razor and gave it 
to me like she was presenting me with a rose. 

I knelt and went to work making her as smooth as I am. With a few 
recreational rest stops along the way. We used a lot of Nurse Jones' 
Miracle Hormone Restorative and Topical Aphrodisiac Skin Cream 
(actually Unicure hair/skin conditioner). 

The feeling of our bodies all soapy against each other in the shower 
was a miracle. Well, *I* think it was worth it, although it's Anita 
that has to put up with stubble. I gave her a present of a bottle of 
conditioner to soften it. God, you're going to think I own stock in it 
or something, but it IS great stuff, and it will soften the stubble. 
And it's so cheap, even a midwesterner can waste it without feeling 
guilty. And it's fun to put on. I love to ... well, that's a bit off 
the subject. 

Anyway, we kind of melded there in the shower. And a few other places 
along the way. The feel of our bodies, even dried off, after 
marinating in skin conditioner... um .... 

Ahem. 

That's a bit off the subject, too. 

Where was I? 

I don't believe I can get all squirmy from just writing about Neets 
and then rereading what I just wrote. 

Ahem. Back to business. 

Ah, hell. I'll be right back. 

                             -*- 

Okay, I'm back. 

We were in the shower, and all that time it kept coming back to me and 
I would remember that what I was *really* doing was preparing Anita to 
be whipped by Tom. Like I was preparing a matador to go out into the 
bullring and risk getting gored. It is so foreign to me, the way she 
thinks. Whipping is so foreign. I keep saying that it is brutal. I 
keep coming up against this wall of non-understanding, and vering off 
into repetition as though restating my own attitudes could somehow 
help me to understand hers. 

It isn't play. It isn't fun. It isn't something I can pass off. 

It hurts. It is brutal. It is like going back in time to the days of 
Christ and seeing a roman slave being punished for real. I mean really 
for real. I simply can't reconcile the concept of consensuality with 
that kind of pain. I don't know what made me think of a roman slave; 
maybe that she looks Italian. At a gut level, I can't think of it as 
consensual, even though I know intellectually that it IS. In fact, she 
not only consents, she initiates... 

Still, we had fun in the shower. As the time got nearer, though, she 
became more and more subdued. She wasn't talking anyway, because I had 
told her not to (and *I* was the top, such a big shot, I was) but she 
also stopped smiling and became more passive. 

After we showered, she sat at the vanity (Jay calls it my workbench) 
while I blow-dried her hair. I wish I had hair like hers. I've always 
envied people with soft hair, hair that, when it is brushed and clean 
will blow in breezes and layers of it will slide past each other like 
silk. She has hair like that. Dark brown and luscious, with rainbow 
highlights like the grooves on a record. I kind of like playing with 
it. I teased it a little and brushed it back in a lion's mane. She 
looked great. 

All during this time, I didn't say a word to her. I was having fun 
playing with her as though she were a doll, and I thought she was 
getting into it, too. She became more and more quiet, and I 
interpereted that as concentration on the process -- a process that 
for me was very erotic. The only sounds were the hairbrush in her 
hair, the clink and rattle of bottles, our breathing. For me it was a 
moment of erotic intimacy, but now I realize she wasn't feeling the 
same things I was. She was going into a completely different head 
space. 

So I put her makeup on. And I (for once) didn't take the time to put 
any on myself. I just worked on her. The mirror is one of those that 
sits on a little stand on the vanity. She started out staring into it 
as though she were interested in what I was doing to her face, but 
later when I moved the mirror she kept staring at the same empty 
place. 

I gave my own hair a quick shot with the blow dryer. It's so short it 
only takes a second. I was standing next to her, my thighs touching 
her, and she slid her arm between my legs and hugged my thigh to her 
as though it were a teddy bear, but she didn't look up at me; she just 
kept staring at the place where the mirror had been. 

Her upper arm, the way it pressed against my ... um ... me, down 
there, was very ... well I thought she was being intentionally 
seductive. Now, I don't think so. 

    By that time, she was really still and subdued. She seemed like 
she was retreating inside herself. She barely reacted to me, and I 
finally began to notice. I lifted her chin to make her meet my eyes, 
and she did, but her smile was gone, and I felt like I had become 
separated from her by what was about to happen. 

Still, I made her face perfect. Lip liner, lipstick, every detail 
absolutely perfect. A technical masterpiece. Preparation for the Big 
Show. A noble gesture before sacrificing one's self. Ave Caesar. We 
who are about to cry salute you .... 

I wanted it to be a sensual experience for her, me putting on her 
lipstick. I kissed her before I started. It *was* sensual for *me* but 
she wasn't even there anymore. I just hadn't realized it yet. 

Those of you that kept up with the hypnosis thread may remember that 
Jay played with my head to make me react in interesting ways to 
putting on my own lipstick. He gives me a refresher course, now and 
then. Hypnosis is like that, by the way. The major drawback is the 
time it takes. You have to do it over and over and it takes forever to 
get there in the first place. 

Anyway, my lipstick feels like it is going on in two places: my lips, 
and, well, My Lips. That simple act is an erotically charged one for 
me. Jay says that even from the outside he can see what happens in my 
head; he watches my face, sometimes, when I put on my face in the 
morning before work. He comes in, brings his coffee, pulls up a chair, 
and watches me. Is that kinky, or what? I really love it when he 
watches me. It's hard not to smile sometimes. 

Anyway, I wanted it to be erotic for Anita, but she didn't react. 

She became malleable, even more doll-like as I continued. It's not 
easy to put lipstick on someone if she's not helping. 

If I gently pulled her arm to get her to stand, she stood. If I 
pressed her shoulder to get her to sit, she sat. When I put her new 
polished leather cuffs on her wrists and ankles, she was passive; her 
wrists were limp, her hands resting in her lap. 

At the Valdosta party she must have been like that too, but I was too 
preoccupied with my own emotions to realize it. She goes somewhere 
deep inside herself as the time nears. 

The trouble was, my job as "assistant top" was to get her really 
turned on before the whipping started. I started on her in the shower, 
and mostly succeeded in getting myself really turned on. The idea was 
to make it a sexual SM experience. She has said several times that SM 
is sex-like, but it has always been separate. The plan was to bring SM 
and sex together, but I don't know if it worked, exactly. I suppose it 
did, insofar as it could have. 

I guess I had her pretty turned on in the shower; at least, I 
*thought* she was almost over the edge. But she seemed to turn into a 
robot after that, and there I was, left with my motor running. By the 
time I was through with her makeup she was almost not there anymore. 
*I* was the one that was *ready*. Not for being whipped, though. Not 
me. 

I took her arm and she let herself be led out into the bedroom. She 
was completely passive. I don't know what was going on in her head. 
She's the only person I've ever seen whipped. Maybe I would retreat 
inside myself, too, but then the sensory experience is (or ought to 
be) the whole point rather than something to retreat from. Maybe one 
of you experts knows. Some ASB readers report "going away" mentally 
during a scene.... 

Anita doesn't go away, though. She remembers it all as though she were 
a passive observer. Afterward, she can recount the whole sequence of 
events as though it had no effect whatsoever on her. 

When I lit the candles and turned out the bathroom light I realized 
that the whole house was dark except for candlelight. There is a 
transom over the bedroom door, and there was no light coming through 
from the living room where Jay and Tom were waiting. The house was 
silent, too. I could hear the occasional crack of burning firewood 
echoing in the living room, but there was no music. Just silence and 
darkness. 

Anyway, I put her on the bed, and there in the candlelight we had our 
second homosexual (there, I said it) encounter. I did for her what she 
had done for me a few weeks before. (I posted publically about that. 
Subject heading: The List, Column 3, parts a and b.) 

I don't know what the hell happened. I had planned to bring her to the 
brink of orgasm and then take her out to the living room to be strung 
up for Tom, where I would "finish her off" during the whipping. That 
was supposed to be the plan. 

It was the first time I have ever done this, though, and it was too 
much for me all at once. Too much for everyone. Plus, I didn't get a 
lot of feedback from her; she was passive, kind of like an Italian 
Barbie doll. I sat her on the bed, she sat. I pushed her back against 
the pillows, she reclined. I lifted her legs onto the bed, she lay 
there staring at the ceiling. 

I laid my body down on top of hers. I pressed myself against her. The 
feeling of her hairless sex against mine was wonderful and new. I 
tried ... well ... positions. That would press us, you know ... 
together. She later said she was aware of everything in every detail, 
but at the time I wondered if anyone at all was home upstairs. 

What a staircase, though. I understand better now why men like to feel 
our bodies against theirs. I'll have to write my e-consultant and bi- 
guru and ask her about the technical aspects of this. Do those strap-
on or double-ended gizmos work? I always assumed they would be 
artificial and awkward and frustrating. I'm rethinking a lot of 
things, now. I can see how normal people become perverts. A step at a 
time. It's easy. 

I felt a bit like a necrophiliac, kissing her lips. I couldn't bring 
her to life, though. I slid down and kissed her *there* and still got 
no reaction. So I just experimented. She was completely passive; my 
toy to play with. She had let me separate her legs without even 
seeming to notice. I tasted her. At first she tasted like conditioner 
but I persevered. 

(I SWEAR I don't own stock...but I bet I could write a helluva script 
for a commercial...8) 

She seemed to remain unresponsive. That was the first time she had had 
a woman do that for her. You'd think she would have taken note of the 
occasion. And it was my first time, too, doing it. I did all the 
things that I would have liked, and I tried to imagine myself being 
passive and unresponsive like that, and how I would feel and how long 
it would take Jay to make me respond in spite of myself. I looked up 
at her: nothing. Well, almost nothing: she was looking at me, as 
though she had noticed I was there, but that was all. 

I kept at it. I really wanted to get through to her. I got a vibrator 
out and went to work. No dice. She seemed to drift further away. I was 
doing better with the um, personal touch. At least when I put the 
vibrator aside, her eyes focused on me again. After a while. 

My motor was running at top RPM's, and she was in slow motion. 

She really didn't react much at all, and I really tried. I wasn't 
teasing her, I was trying to get a reaction out of her. Her hips moved 
a few times, and I think it was in response to me, but I'm not really 
sure. It was a kind of slow pulsing motion. And after a while when I 
looked up at her face she was kind of straining. Kind of. She had 
lifted her head up to look down at me, and was making these little 
spasmodic nodding motions as though it was a strain to keep her head 
off the pillow. Or as if I was getting through. 

I took that as encouragement; at least she was moving. After a while, 
she put her hand in my hair and made a soft noise. "Nnnnnnnh!" about 
describes it. I didn't know what to think. Finally, I started talking. 
I asked her what she wanted, what I could do. What I should do. 

Great top I make, huh? "What do I do next?" 

She wasn't the old Anita any more. She was scaring me, almost. It was 
as though she was sedated or something. Patients on thorazine act like 
that. I asked her if she wanted me to stop, and after a pause she 
shook her head in slow motion and pressed me against her slightly with 
her hand. 

I expect that most of the ASB gallery is leaning over my shoulder 
hoping I'll report anatomically correct details about what it is like 
to *give* oral sex for the first time. Well, it wasn't what you would 
expect. Or even hope for. I started out gently, seducing the way I 
would like to be seduced. Nibbling, testing, tasting, working up to 
the fun bits, you know the kind of thing. 

It would have made perfect sense if it had been me. 

But my, um, end of things could only have been made fun and exciting 
if I had been able to excite Anita. I wanted to drive her crazy, and I 
did all the stuff that would have driven me crazy. I kept looking up 
to check, and she just kept giving me that glazed, out-of-focus look. 

I kept thinking, "Jesus. What gives?" I mean, she gets incredibly 
turned on when she's turning *me* on. I was focusing ALL my attention 
on her, trying to turn her on, and I was getting nowhere. I'll admit 
I'm new to this kind of thing, but *I* would have been airborne if she 
had done to me what I did to her. Even for a first timer, I couldn't 
be *that* incompetent. I mean, I know where the buttons are. My 
central control panel is more or less the same model. 

Finally, after a while, I realized that even though she hadn't changed 
position or expression, even though she was still just looking at me 
without any obvious external reaction, she had started vibrating. 
Every muscle in her body was flexed and she was vibrating. 
Occasionally she would give a minute twitch. I swear, she hadn't moved 
an inch, and you'd never know she wasn't still completely passive, but 
she was stiff and hard and vibrating with effort. 

So I think to myself, "Aha!" She's just introverted. Something 
important's going on in there somewhere. All systems go. We're gonna 
make it, Houston. Liftoff any minute. 

I want you to know, my excuse for stopping was that I was SUPPOSED to 
stop. This is not my fault. I feel horribly guilty about it, but I was 
supposed to take her right to the edge and leave her there, twitching. 
That was The Plan. The stupid Plan. 

Eventually, she WAS twitching and breathing raggedly, but her face was 
nearly expressionless. She was staring down at me intently, with that 
same subtle but definite urgency that I saw at Valdosta during her 
whipping. She was expecting something from me. She was developing that 
look of extreme need. I was sure that inside her head she was very 
near the edge. I would have been stuck to the ceiling long ago. 

Then her breath caught, and I had the impression she was having an 
orgasm. I stopped. She made that little "Nnnnh!" noise again, as 
though she was about to say, "No!" and her hand, still in my hair, 
clutched at me. Her growing expression of urgency became even more 
urgent. I interpreted that little noise as, "No! Don't Stop!" So, 
insensitive idiot that I am, I started teasing her. Testing, taking 
her a little further, pulling back. 

I mean really: I thought I was reading her correctly. I thought I had 
her right on the edge. I mean her reaction to me seemed so intense, 
what would *you* have thought? She was *vibrating*, for chrissakes! 
You're going to think I'm a really insensitive bitch when you read the 
punchline. If I ever post this. If I do, I deserve it; whatever you 
say, I deserve it. 

My only excuse is that I didn't know what I was doing. I was like a 
stupid teenager without a drivers license, showing off in the driveway 
by revving the engine of her father's car. Without knowing a damn 
thing about the car. Whether it had oil in it, whether it was in gear, 
anything. Just looking around to see if the neighbors had noticed how 
grown up I was. 

Stupid. 

So I kept revving her engine, teasing her. At least I thought I was 
teasing her. She got more and more twitchy and strained looking, and 
she began losing motor control. She let go of my hair and started 
acting almost the way I do if I'm slipping over the edge. Shuddering, 
gasping, panting, twitching, looking almost panicked, looking around 
like she had suddenly discovered the bed was floating in the middle of 
the ocean instead of in the bedroom where it belonged. 

She didn't look at me, though. She was looking around the room like 
she couldn't see me or the room; like I had suddenly turned invisible 
and she was panicked by the fact that I had dissappeared and something 
strange was happening to her. Like she was seeing something different 
than I was seeing. 

And all the while, I was thinking, "Cool. She has really cool orgasms. 
This is going to be REALLY something. She's going to go off like a 
rocket." 
Split here for anon.penet 48Kbyte limit 
************************************************** 
Subject: jones.66.B  Idiot. 

So I picked that moment to take her into the living room. I figured 
she was ready. I stopped everything and told her to sit up on the edge 
of the bed. 

She just laid there moving spasmodically. It wasn't like an epileptic 
fit or anything. She just looked a lot like I feel when I'm about to 
have an orgasm. So I sat next to her at the head of the bed and put my 
arm around her shoulders and helped her to a sitting position. She was 
still passive, still twitching, but she sat where I sat her. When I 
pulled her legs to the side of the bed, she stayed where I put her, 
unresisting. 

I told her to stand up. She didn't. She sat there like a big doll, too 
big for me to lift. I told her again, and she just looked at me like I 
had started speaking chinese. And she kept right on twitching. 

I took her head between my hands and held her face so that she _had_ 
to look into my eyes. And told her again: "Anita. You have to stand up 
now!" I was smiling to myself during all this, thinking, "God, I wish 
I could keep going that long without losing the edge." I would have 
been half-playacting if I were behaving like Anita, and I interpereted 
what she did on those terms. 

Stupid idiot. 

But when I held her face between my hands, she finally focused on me. 
In an instant, she changed; I could see recognition and hunger in her 
face. She grabbed my head the same way I was holding hers, and she 
kissed me. She practically threw herself at me. She's strong. A LOT 
stronger than I. She went at me like a starving madwoman at a bowl of 
food, grabbing my head and crushing her lips against mine, trying to 
press herself against me, making little desperate moaning noises. 

It was over in seconds, though. I jerked away at the suddenness of her 
near-attack and she fell off the bed. She slid to her knees on the 
floor and threw her arms around my thighs and caught me and hugged 
herself against me, holding her cheek against my stomach like a five- 
year old that didn't want to leave her mommy on the first day at 
summer camp. She really hung on tight. I didn't even TRY to pry her 
loose. She's too strong. 

I stood there like that for a few minutes, watching the candlelight on 
her hair, stroking her head and wondering what she was going to do 
next; she didn't do anything but relax gradually. Eventually, I took 
her arms and tried to get her to stand up. Which she did, again 
passive, obedient, robot-like. But a defective, twitchy robot. She 
crossed her arms in front of her breasts as though she were cold. It 
was NOT cold. The heat was turned up to 80. 

So I got out the little polished leather g-string that Jay had made. 
All part of the plan. It was to protect her during the whipping that 
Tom was going to give her. 

Whipping. I STILL can't get used to that word when it's applied to 
someone I love. I react to it every time I type it. This isn't daddy 
swatting the behind for a childhood infraction. I mean whipping. It is 
so brutal sounding, that word, and the act is as brutal as the word 
sounds. 

Whipping. 

To whip. 

But she not only endures it, she is drawn toward it. Somehow, her 
wanting it makes it less brutal, but if it weren't for that it would 
be frightening. 

No, that's nonsense. It IS frightening. It IS brutal. Her wanting it 
just makes it more confusing, not less frightening. 

I have to keep reminding myself that she asks for this. She endures 
it, puts it to sleep, and it's over. Then she waits while the sleeping 
worm grows and wakens inside her and a month or two later she wants it 
again. 

Anyway, I put the g-string on her to protect her. I thought I was 
being sexy and toppish when I made it extra tight. It is just a little 
shaped piece of leather, cut and wet-molded to fit her contours, then 
dried and oiled. It has three thin leather shoelace-like strands that 
tie in the back; the strands bit into her hips, tight and unforgiving, 
the way some of Jay's toys are on me. 

I tied it around her waist and pulled the crotch piece up over the 
waist band in back and cinched it down tight and tied it. It was Very 
Tight. 

She looked in amazement at the leather piece covering her crotch as 
though she had never seen it before; she looked at me with a kind of 
befuddled expression and then she looked back at the g-string; she 
plucked weakly at it, not really trying to get it off; she looked like 
she was just trying to understand what it was. 

I put on one of Jay's shirts and some heels so I would be tall enough 
to kiss her. When I came out of the closet, she was still looking down 
at the g-string. I looked at the both of us in the mirror on the 
closet door, standing side by side. She was calm and remote, and I was 
a disaster; my hair was mussed, my lips were bruised-looking, and I 
was red-faced and blotchy the way I get when I'm turned very on. 

I gave her one last kiss before I led her out to the living room. She 
liked the kiss, I think. It distracted her from the g-string, anyway. 

                                -*- 

She looked dazed and disoriented when I led her out. I literally 
pulled her to the living room: I took her hand and pulled until she 
started walking. The hallway was dark after the candle-lit bedroom, 
but the living room was more brightly lit by the firelight and more 
candles. 

They had lit candles everywhere. 

It's a big, cavernous room; away from the firelight it would have been 
chilly and gloomy if not for the candles. Big candles, little candles, 
candles on the mantle and the windowsills and tables; candles in faery 
lights, candles in glass chimneys, candles in candleholders and 
candelabras, on candlestands, reflected in the windows. Constellations 
of candles. Jay and Tom had been busy. 

I watched her distant-seeming candle-lit reflection in the picture 
window as she wandered hesitantly into the room; for a moment the 
window frame became the proscenium of a dimly-lit and silent aquarium-
like world with tiny reflected actors moving on a murky puppet-stage, 
playing out an ancient drama of obscure meaning and alien purpose, 
important only to the players, only for the moment. Her reflection 
looked around inside the insubstantial little window-world as though 
it was unfamiliar. I wanted to intrude, to remind her that we had made 
love to each other right there on the sofa just a few weeks before, 
but I did nothing. I could see myself in the background, watching, a 
bit player in the drama. 

She seemed to be playing the part of someone who had slept for a 
hundred years and awakened in a strange house; she gave the impression 
of having acted out this play a thousand times in a thousand strange 
houses. As though she had grown to accept her dazed bewilderment as 
the normal way of things. 

The sofa was already moved back out of the way, and there was a big 
cleared place in front of the fireplace. Big enough to swing a whip. 

Dazed as she seemed, she knew her part: where to go and what to do. 
Still looking around as though she had never seen the room before, she 
walked to the cleared place in the center of the tableau and held her 
wrist cuffs up in the air like a child waiting to have a pullover 
sweater put on. Even with her arms in the air, she looked blandly 
around, sightseeing, seemingly unconcerned with everything. She looked 
into the window reflection, and for a moment it seemed that her 
character was looking out at the audience, staring directly at me, but 
then her gaze wandered idly over the rest of the room, and I was left 
wondering if she had seen me after all. 

Then the other characters were galvanized into action. Tom was 
accustomed to this dazed behaviour. He turned her face to the fire and 
snapped her wrists to the ends of the ropes that were looped through 
the eyebolts in the walls and ceiling. Jay had made these handy little 
gizmos like they put on tent ropes to tighten them; the gizmo just 
slides along the rope and it tightens, so easy and quick. Like a stage 
magician preparing for a trick, Tom pulled her arms straight out 
toward the upper corners of the room. Her legs he separated as much as 
he could and still allow her to stand, one rope on each ankle. There 
were two ropes on each wrist: one to the wall, one to the ceiling. 

She continued to sight-see, seemingly unaware of the ropes, looking 
back over her shoulders at the room. She was a fly caught in a nylon 
spiderweb, still passive, still seeming not to care that there was a 
spider. 

Even bewildered she was magnificent, standing there; I guess it was 
partly her legs, they are so long and straight and ... well, proud. 
You can tell I am impressed with them, I know, but you should see 
them. She looked around, idly curious about her surroundings, but 
unconcerned with what she saw. An odd and contradictory mixture of 
offhand disregard and dazed vulnerability. She looked as though she 
owned the room but had never seen it before. And through all this, she 
was still giving the occasional twitch. 

Tom and Jay looked at me and suddenly, it was my cue to go onstage. 

I went over to her and gave her another kiss, sticking to The Plan. It 
was a really lewd kiss, too. I put my hand on her crotch and held her 
while I pressed myself against her. I kept at her, rubbing myself and 
my hand against her, doing my best to keep her on the edge. Her 
breathing was still ragged, she was still twitching. I was pretty 
twitchy myself, actually. 

I don't know if she was just nervous from anticipation or if she was 
as horny as I was, but she *was* agitated. And it sounds like a 
contradiction to say this, but she was agitated and passive at the 
same time. Her face was relaxed and expressionless but she pressed her 
hips against my hand, and her body against mine. When I backed away, 
her hips continued pulsing slightly on their own. I don't know if the 
boys noticed, it was such a slight, slow motion. But at the same time, 
she went back to staring passively at the fire, the wall in front of 
her, and at me. She looked at me the same way she looked at the wall 
and the fire: with a kind of blank animal curiosity, her pelvis still 
moving slightly as though it were independent of her. 

Tom took the whip off the mantle. It was a different one, different 
from the one he had used in Valdosta. It had a long, thin, tapered, 
more flexible handle and had just one thin strap on the end instead of 
all the thick ones the other had. This one didn't make the spectacular 
swooshing noises that the big one did, either, and he didn't swing it 
as hard. 

Anita's eyes passed over Tom and the whip with that same blank, mildly 
curious stare. Still sightseeing. 

Then, when he swung the whip through the air, the sound captured her 
full attention immediately. She stopped looking around and kept her 
eyes on him. When he walked behind her back she followed him with her 
eyes, straining and twisting to see over her shoulders. 

She was like the proverbial bird watching the proverbial snake. Except 
it wasn't so proverbial. Some part of her had suddenly become very 
awake. Funny, though: the sight of the whip didn't do it; it was the 
sound that changed her. It was an animal's reaction, as if only 
certain things computed. The sound was what mattered. It was the thing 
that came just before the pain. The thing that connected directly to 
her. 

Tom stood off to one side, and she closed her eyes and clenched her 
fists. She had done neither at the Valdosta party. He swung the whip 
through the air again and she caught her breath and tensed against the 
ropes in anticipation of the pain, but he didn't hit her. Just 
testing. 

It makes a quieter, sharper, almost whistling kind of noise, this 
whip. The other was spectacularly noisy. He had to hit her hard with 
the other whip to leave marks, and she could stand it without much 
more than a widening of the eyes every time it landed. It seemed like 
he was being much more careful with this one, careful to be precise 
and to not hit too hard. 

But the very first time he hit her, she cried out. He hit her across 
the stomach. He didn't look like he was hitting her very hard at all, 
but there were thin, white marks that turned into dark pink welts. 

He hit her across the front of the thighs several times. She didn't 
actually cry out after the first stroke, but she made noises in her 
throat that she was trying very hard to suppress, little squealing 
noises. She didn't need to keep quiet; we are isolated in the middle 
of ten acres of woods. But she did. Habit, maybe. 

Her teeth were clenched and her eyes squinched shut, and she tried to 
pull back away from the whip every time that whistling noise came. It 
was an involuntary motion, I think. She never pulled away from the 
other whip at the Valdosta party. Intellectually, she must have known 
she couldn't get away by jerking back like that, but I don't think her 
intellect was in the driver's seat. 

Several times she made an ineffectual running motion with her spread- 
eagled feet pulling against the ropes, stamping her feet impotently in 
an effort to back away from the pain. 

And all the while she made these little squealing noises in her 
throat. Several times, a squeal turned into a half-gasp, half-cry, and 
Tom would give her a few extra seconds to collect herself and she 
would get in a few extra pants. Then the whip noise would come back 
again and her breath would catch and she would try to hold it back but 
still she would squeal deep in her thoat when it hit. 

After a few minutes, she was criscrossed from her stomach to her knees 
with thin red welts. The leather g-string kept the whip from hitting 
her there, but there were welts all around. 

God this is hard to write about. I'm trying to be clinical, but this 
was hurting her. I really care about her, and I have no right to 
interfere in something she feels is such a ... necessary (?) part of 
her life. I don't even know how to describe what she does, let alone 
know how to explain WHY she does it. It hurt me to see her anticipate 
the pain and flinch away and pull against the ropes. Maybe she wasn't 
trying to get away, maybe she just needed something substantial to 
pull against, and it was the ropes. I don't know. 

The thing was, it HURT her. Everything she did, every motion, every 
noise said it hurt. Her buttocks and thighs flexed; her toes curled 
under. I could see the web of her pectoral muscles tensing across her 
upper chest, tendons in her neck and arms. No play acting, no show put 
on for the partygoers. I didn't like it. At all. The Valdosta party 
was disturbing, but sexy. This time, I couldn't think of anything but 
the fact that it was really hurting her. The contained, suppressed, 
clench- teethed squealing noises she made weren't the kind an actress 
would make in the movies. They weren't theatrical or dramatic enough. 
She wasn't doing theatre. It really really hurt. 

At that point, Tom paused and nodded to me. It was a prearranged 
signal: I was supposed to try and bring her to orgasm while he 
continued. I was in such a daze from watching her that he had to poke 
me with his whip to get my attention and I jumped almost as though he 
had hit me with it. 

I didn't even know if I could touch her without hurting her. She 
settled down and relaxed a little during the lapse in the whipping; I 
kissed her, trying to touch just her face. I didn't even want to 
*look* at her front below the waist. 

Her reaction to being kissed was completely different from the way she 
was at the Valdosta party. She pressed herself against me, hungry and 
demanding. I don't think she cared about the welts. It seemed to me at 
the time that she wasn't even aware that it was me, but she says she 
was aware of everything. Her hands opened to reach for me; if they had 
been free she would have grabbed at me again. 

I returned her kiss as best I could, but when I stopped she went 
zombie again and lost interest in everything. 

Tom cut the leather laces that held the g-string in place and I knelt 
in front of her. Right in front of my nose there were indentations 
left on her stomach where the knots in the laces had been, where her 
pubic hair had been. Even the laces and the edges of the g-string left 
an impression, they had been so tight. Pointlessly, I kissed those 
places and wondered how in hell oral sex -- or for that matter 
anything else I could do -- could compete with that whip for her 
attention. I didn't see how she could even be aware I was there. I 
kissed her there anyway, and felt her hips pulse against me. She knew 
I existed, at least. 

I had just started when he hit her breasts with the whip and she cried 
out loud for the second time that night. Then, between pants, she made 
a sound, it sounded like a word but it wasn't her safeword. I couldn't 
make it out, but Tom responded with something wrapped in a wet 
washcloth; he put it in her mouth for her to bite on. And the next 
time the whip hit her she screamed into that wash cloth. Not quite a 
scream, but an animal squeal. It's hard to describe. Have you ever 
heard a pig being slaughtered? Probably not. They're so afraid of 
dying. I had a pet pig once: Imelda. She got too big and they killed 
her while I was at summer camp so I didn't have to hear her. But I've 
heard others. They're a lot smarter than dogs. They know about dying. 
You can tell they know from their voices. But it wasn't really like 
that, anyway. And I don't mean to compare Anita to a pig, it's just 
that sound... 

She was crying. In the bathroom, playing games, I had put mascara on 
her and it was running down her cheeks, getting in her eyes. I took 
off my shirt and tried to wipe her eyes. And her nose. Stupid of me to 
put on mascara, I never think ahead. I just wanted to make her all 
pretty and perfect for the big scene. Silly. 

Silly, stupid, idiot. 

Tom was very methodical. Her entire front was crisscrossed from neck 
to knees before he went around to her left side and started on her 
back. 

And there I was thinking I could perform daring feats of cunnilingus. 

Well, I tried, I really tried. But I was (am) totally confused by 
Anita. A few weeks before, she had made my first experience with her a 
wonderful, special thing. But this whipping scene was a disaster. Even 
so, she later said it was good for her, more than she had hoped for. 
Now, as I write this, I know what she meant, but I'm still just as 
confused as I was then. 

As Tom continued the whipping, I tried to turn her on. I think he 
lightened up a little to let her achieve some kind of balance between 
the pain and my pathetic attempts to bring her to orgasm. She *was* 
responding to me, I know: her hips started moving again. 

After he stopped hitting her breasts and upper torso, and started on 
her back, she stopped making those muffled scream noises into the 
thing in her mouth and her hips definitely started to move in response 
to me. He wasn't hitting her as hard, or she had gotten used to it, or 
something. 

Twice, she stopped moving and pressed against me, straining, holding 
her breath, trying. Then she would have to give up and start breathing 
again and her breath would whoosh out and she would suck in air in 
great gulps around that thing between her teeth -- it wasn't a "bit" 
since it wasn't held there by anything, but it looked like one, a 
cloth-wrapped rubber bit. 

Once she had focused on what I was doing, Tom stepped up the whipping 
a little, keeping her attention divided between the whip and me. Her 
hips moved, sometimes rythmically, sometimes spasmodically, and she 
flinched every time the whip struck. 

It wasn't like it had been at the Valdosta party. 

The two of them weren't nearly as organized as they had been before; 
her breathing wasn't synchronized with the whip at all. Sometimes it 
would land after she had exhaled and she would gasp and pull in a 
sharp breath and then go back to panting; sometimes it would land when 
she had her lungs full and she would let out a muffled, high-pitched, 
"Aaaahh!" 

When she wasn't screaming she was crying. Those sounds were so 
pitiful. Tears were running down her face the whole time, and I just 
couldn't stand it. The noises she made got inside me. I wanted it to 
stop and I wanted to take care of her, but I kept thinking, forcing 
myself to remember that she had done this many many times before and 
that I had no right to interfere, that I didn't know enough to know if 
she *wanted* me to interfere, that I might do more harm than good and 
ruin something for her. 

I tried to make her focus on what I was doing rather than the whip, 
but he just kept hitting her and hitting her and hitting her. It 
wasn't a competition: if it had been, he could have won with no 
trouble at all. He was just trying to achieve some sort of balance 
between us. Maybe his judgement was good. I don't know. At the time, I 
just wanted him to stop. I don't think I like SM very much. 

He worked his way down her back to her knees. I have to give him 
credit for precision. He knows exactly how hard to hit her, and the 
whip landed exactly where he wanted it to. He says he cut her with 
that same whip a couple of times, years ago, when he was learning how 
to give her what she wants. Whatever that is. He says she has always 
been willing to go further than he. 

Anyway, he is very precise with it. When the whip reached her hips, it 
was very close to my face, but he didn't touch me. 

Except once, and that wasn't his fault, and he didn't hit my face. 

Finally, he had covered her entire body with welts, from her shoulders 
to her knees. He was working his way back up her back, crisscrossing 
his tracks with harder strokes when I just couldn't take it any more. 
She was screaming into the bit at almost every breath whether he had 
hit her or not, and I thought she was hyperventilating and she STILL 
wouldn't use her safeword. 

Tom says she has never used it. 

I once heard a rabbit killed by a 22 rifle. One of those Indiana good 
ol' boys demonstrating his masculinity for me. It screamed and 
screamed and wouldn't stop. It sounded like a human being. I don't 
know if you've ever heard a rabbit die that way, but it sounds human. 
Much more so than a pig. And it knows what has happened to it. It is 
in horrible pain, and hysterical, and out of control, and afraid and 
dying, and it knows it. I covered my ears and screamed myself to make 
the noise stop while he went and killed it the rest of the way. I 
couldn't watch. I never spoke to him again. I never even looked at him 
again; passing in the halls at school, I stayed on the opposite side. 
It was silly to be so upset over a rabbit, but he didn't have to shoot 
it. I asked him not to. He could have left it. 

I hate farms. I hate farming. I hate farmers. No, I don't. I'm just 
glad I left. 

The noises that Anita was making didn't sound like that, but I had the 
same near-hysterical reaction. I just couldn't take it. I was crying 
and confused and I couldn't stand the sounds she was making and I 
wanted to protect her. Between two strokes of the whip, the idiot in 
me came to a sudden, ill-timed last-second realization: if I didn't do 
something RIGHT NOW before the VERY NEXT stroke of the whip, he would 
hit her again and it would be my fault. For some reason, through some 
twisted logic, it came to me that through my own inaction *I* was just 
as responsible for her pain as Tom and that was all that mattered. 

In that last split second, I hugged my arms around her hips and 
pressed my cheek against her front and said, "Oh, stop, please just 
stop." It came out as a nearly-inaudible squeak because I was kind of 
crying myself. I don't even know if anyone heard me. 

Idiot. Inaudible or not, before the words were half out of my mouth, 
the whip had landed on the back of my left hand and across my right 
forearm. It wasn't Tom's fault. My timing was just bad. 

I let out a pretty loud squeal myself, then. 

The mark is gone now, a few days later, but it hurt like hell. I hung 
on, though, I'm proud to say. It burned so, I was sure it had cut me. 
I even thought I felt blood run down my hand, but I didn't look; I 
just hung on. It was my imagination, but it *really* hurt. 

I was kneeling there hugging her and crying and Jay asked me if I was 
allright and I just said, "Make it stop, just make it stop." 

But it was already over, and the two of us were just there, panting. I 
was so confused I didn't know if he had stopped, or even if he *would* 
stop; I had my useless little fists clenched tight, pressed against 
her backside and against the pain in case he hit me again. But of 
course he had stopped; he, at least, had his wits about him. 

So there she was, hanging onto the ropes, and I was kneeling and 
hugging myself to her hips, holding on for dear life; we must have 
looked like Laurel and Hardy hanging from a twentieth story window 
ledge. 

I hadn't even had time to adjust to the sudden quiet when I realized 
Anita was still pressing her hips rhythmically against me and making 
little urgent panting noises behind that bit. I unclenched my fists 
and was beginning to think maybe it was all over when she spit out the 
bit and swallowed convulsively and said to me, "Hurry! Oh, God, 
hurry!" 

I looked up and realized that I was the one she was talking to, and 
that I was still right in the middle of something that somehow, 
despite all that had happened, was still going on. It wasn't over. 

I reacted instinctively and with mindless obedience, probably the way 
a marine drill sargeant would want his recruits to react. My mind was 
completely empty and I simply couldn't think of anything else to do. I 
turned back to her and continued. I was afraid I had ruined it for her 
and I didn't know what the hell to do so I just kept on. At least the 
whipping had stopped. She was frantic. She pressed herself against me 
and twice more her breathing stopped while she strained and quivered 
and then gave up, gasping to catch her breath. 

The third time was the end for her. Her breath was coming in loud, 
rythmic, rasping gulps, and suddenly she took a huge breath and froze. 

I continued; slowly her back arched and her feet left the floor. She 
went rigid with effort, pulling in all directions at once, suspended 
there in the middle of the room from the ropes that held her, trying. 

You see, Anita has never had an orgasm. 

Ever. 

                            -*- 

After an eternity suspended on the edge, she made a noise. I'm not 
sure, but I think she said the word "No!" 

I'm not sure because it was so long and drawn out. At least, if I were 
to try to write the sound, it would start with the letter "N". And if 
it was a "No," it was the single saddest word I've ever heard in my 
life. 

It started as a tiny n-shaped squeak and turned into a thin dispairing 
wail and grew louder and louder. In a single breath the word 
metamorphosed into a cry of dismay and dissappointment and finally 
decayed into unrestrained tears and sobbing. 

By the time it was out, it wasn't even a word anymore. 

She was crying. And as she cried, she collapsed slowly into the ropes, 
sagging, head hanging, her body giving up piece by piece, her mind 
unable to hold it together any longer. At the end of that long, drawn 
out sound, she was just hanging there, beaten, making little out-of- 
breath squeaks like a baby that has exhausted it's lungs in the effort 
of crying. When a baby fills it's lungs for that second cry, you can 
tell it's going to really cut loose. So it was with Anita. She drew in 
another huge deep breath and started bawling, loud and long and in 
earnest. I guess "wracked by sobs" describes it, trite as it sounds. 
Everything sounds trite. I'm sitting here crying at my keyboard, 
remembering, trying to write it down, and there aren't any words. I 
tried big important words like "agony" and it sounded trite. I'm 
sorry. The best I can do is to write the details, and you'll have to 
try and guess the big words. I'm sorry. I can't do her justice. I just 
can't tell you how hard she tried. 

I was stunned, openmouthed, kneeling there looking up at her like an 
idiot. We were all stunned. She was just hanging there, sobbing. 
Suddenly, she was no longer proud and magnificent with long, straight 
thighs; she was hanging, knock-kneed and limp. She wasn't holding 
anything back. No words, nothing but loud shuddering wails and sobs 
and frustration and anguish. 

When I say loud, I mean loud. No midwestern restraint here. No concern 
that the neighbors might hear. 

Jay and Tom went immediately to unclip her from the ropes. In their 
concern they unhooked her arms first, and they had to catch her as she 
fell backwards to the floor. She was on her back, with her hands over 
her face, sobbing with her legs still held apart by the ropes snapped 
to her ankles. Finally, I woke up and helped Jay free her the rest of 
the way. 

She curled into a fetal position and kept right on crying. So loud. It 
seemed like an eternity before she would even acknowledge our presence 
by accepting a kleenex. 

Her lower lip was bleeding, too. As she fell back I caught a glimpse 
of it. She was a mess by the time she would let us clean her up; she 
had smeared blood all over. The next day her lip was swollen, as 
though she had been in a fight. It wasn't a serious cut, nothing to be 
worried about. 

She looks awful, but she's physically okay. 

All systems go, Houston. 

Shit. What a fiasco. I feel like such a shit. Such a little shit. I 
had teased her. Or I had _thought_ I was teasing her. I never got her 
anywhere near the edge. Later, when we were alone, she said it was 
wonderful. That I was wonderful. She sounded so sad when she said 
that. She meant it, but it sounded so sad. I want so much to believe 
her. But I'm sure she told me I was wonderful in the same tone of 
voice she uses to tell Tom he's wonderful afterward. 

But I wonder, if I hadn't stopped Tom, if just maybe.... How was I to 
know? It's not my fault. 

She had never told anyone. I didn't know it at the time. Tom still 
doesn't. That's why you may never read these words. I wrote them for 
ASB, but they may never be posted there. If you ever see them appear, 
you'll know something has happened to change things. 

Eventually, she settled down a bit. I sat with her head in my lap for 
a while and Tom and Jay made some hot chocolate and moved the sofa 
back up to the fireplace. We got her onto it, I put more of that 
miraculous skin/hair conditioner on her welts. All over her. Those 
marks lasted days, and they were almost everywhere below her neck. The 
next day, there were even a few little scabs where the skin was nearly 
broken, oozing serous fluid. Tom comes so close. He goes as far as he 
dares, and it's never enough for her. There's got to be another way. 

I'm all mixed up. I keep going round and round. I feel guilty about 
her, and my guilt is in proportion to the intensity of the whipping 
she took, and the emotional frustration she feels. I didn't cause 
either, but I feel guilty anyway because I teased her; mostly I feel 
guilty because I can have orgasms and she can't, and because I love 
her. 

You're going to think I'm two inches deep. I've said I love Anita, and 
I've only known her a few months. I knew Jay a year before I would use 
the "L" word. It's not the same as with Jay, and it may fade as 
quickly as it came, but I do love her. If I were giving advice (which 
I love to do, except to myself) I would say it's too soon; I would say 
it can't mean anything, not yet. 

I've never in my life plunged ahead recklessly. I've always held back, 
uncertain, midwestern, afraid of being hurt, afraid of declaring 
myself, afraid of looking foolish, afraid to lose what I have by 
grabbing for more. Cautious. Certain that if I want it there must be 
some good reason that I shouldn't have it. 

I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not like this, not really, but I 
wanted -- really wanted -- to be reckless with Anita. And I was, and 
I'm glad. I guess that's the exit from of Wilhelm Reich's Trap: going 
ahead and doing it. It feels good when you do. Like a breath of Spring 
air after the Winter. 

Trouble is, when you act that way, you never know what you're getting 
into. I STILL don't know, and I STILL don't care. I'm going to go on 
being reckless. I still love her. 

I love her. I love Jay, too, and I love him more, insofar as such 
things can be compared, but I love her. Flash in the pan or not, 
infatuation or not, it doesn't matter right now, and right now is all 
that matters. It's all we ever have. The future, the past, they are 
all theory compared to the fact of the present. 

So okay, I love her, and right now I'm sorry I teased her, but I'm 
beginning to think that maybe that doesn't matter, either. 

Because here's the irony: she didn't even perceive it as teasing. In 
her mind, the fact that she didn't achieve an orgasm is normal, it's 
her problem, her inability. Teasing? That's just another thing that 
other people enjoy that doesn't work on her. Why should she mind it? 
No loss, and who knows, maybe it would have worked. Worth a try, she 
says. 

Being kept at the edge is perfectly normal for her. Teasing? She's 
never been anything BUT frustrated. She CAN'T be teased sexually 
because she doesn't know what release is. 

She said, Teasing? You think THAT was teasing? She smiled at the 
thought. It was such a sad little smile. And she tried to make a joke 
out of it by adopting a mexican accent and mimicking that worn out 
line from the old Bogart movie, the one we had been laughing at a week 
before: "Badges? We don't need no esteenking badges..." It had gotten 
so anything in a mexican accent was funny. 

"Teeesing? Djou thin' tha' huas teeeesing?" 

She smiled, but it was such a sad little smile. I tried to smile, too. 

The whipping is something she wants, and I guess I don't feel guilty 
about that, but I wonder now if it isn't more than a simple choice of 
life style. I hesitate to call it a symptom, but.... 

Do you think that there is a kind of release in being whipped until 
something finally breaks in you, until your body takes over and you 
are finally too weak to hold back the scream? Do you think that is how 
she finds the release she is looking for? Is possible that it isn't 
the pain she wants, but the final release that comes when that scream 
is finally torn from her? Is she escaping from something? 

At that moment, is she standing in the open door of The Trap, holding 
the bars on either side, screaming into the endless open space? 

Is she finding what we are all looking for, even though she's never 
had what she wants most? 

Or is she confronting what we all fear? 

She wanted something from me at the Valdosta party. I thought it was 
just a kiss. She tried to grab something from me this last night. If I 
could give it to her I would, if there were only something I could 
give her beyond love. It doesn't seem like enough. 

She wants something. She really wants something. 

Maybe we all do and only some of us have the courage to take it. 

                             -*- 

What a night. Hours and hours of cuddling. Until she had cried herself 
to sleep. Tom said that this had never happened before. She has 
trouble having orgasms, he said, but this was not her usual reaction. 
He said. 

The next day, we talked, but the night before, I was just baffled. 

She cried, I was baffled. 

Then she told me, and I cried, and she was baffled. Why should you 
cry, she asks. I don't know. Don't women cry when they find out their 
soldier lovers will be coming home with one leg? A part missing? Isn't 
that what we're supposed to do? Isn't that what's expected of us? 
That's how I felt. She sounded so hopeless, even I was convinced -- at 
the time -- that she would be that way for the rest of her life. And 
I'm generally pretty optimistic. Well, you have to be if you're a 
nurse. 

And she has never told Tom. I was tempted at first to try and persuade 
her to tell him so that he would know there was a problem he has to 
help her deal with. 

My feeling was: Dammit, *some*body's got to do *some*thing. 

But she has to be the judge. It's not my place to interfere. She 
doesn't know how he would handle it. All these years of faking it. 
Suddenly she tells him he's not a good enough lover to give her an 
orgasm and never has been. 

Of course she wouldn't put it that way, but he might SEE it that way. 
What would he do? Maybe their relationship isn't stable enough to 
handle it. Maybe he would resent the years of deception more than the 
implication of inadequacy. Maybe he would feel he didn't have her 
trust and she didn't deserve his. 

She has to judge. 

In the beginning, she says, it was just easier to fake it rather than 
deal with it, and she hadn't planned on marrying him at first. And 
now.... 

He knows that it is hard for her to have an orgasm. But he thinks that 
sometimes -- rarely -- she manages to achieve one with him. She can't 
bear to hurt him, so sometimes she just decides that it's time to fake 
it again. He's so happy when she has an "orgasm" that she can't bear 
to tell him that even those rare events are faked. They have been 
getting rarer, she says. 

She makes love with him and she knows from the beginning that there is 
no hope, that she will lie to him in order to avoid hurting him. Lie 
to him at the one moment when she most wants to tell the truth, lie to 
him at the one moment when she most needs him, lie to him when he is 
most vulnerable, most trusting. 

That's the heartbreaking part. That's the part that makes me cry for 
her. To hear her, so calm, telling how each time she fakes it she 
makes the decision knowing she will have to pretend to share his joy 
afterward; at the ONE time that they should be at their closest, 
truest, most intimate, she is left alone and has to hide even her 
tears from him. 

She says that sometimes she can't keep a lid on it. Sometimes it just 
gets away from her; then she pretends she's crying because she's so 
happy. 

"I'm good at that," she says. 

And she hasn't even the vestige of a hope that she will ever really 
have an orgasm. 

But she tries so hard, and seems to come so close. She's seen me. She 
knows what it must be like, so she isn't insulated by ignorance, and 
she is so tantalized she is denied even the anesthesia of 
indifference. 

But no orgasm. No release. No communication, no sympathy and no 
understanding. No hope. And on top of all that, she has to pretend 
that none of it is happening. 

So she is left with nothing. Nothing at all. It all runs through her 
fingers like sand. 

She seems so sad and vulnerable sometimes, it would be easy to assume 
that she is a "bottom". I guess she is, in some technical sense. 

Somehow, I had assumed that Tom, as the "top," was the dominant figure 
in their relationship. But he whips her because she wants him to. He 
only whips her as hard as he dares to, never as hard as she thinks she 
wants. He would do almost anything for her -- anything but really hurt 
her. 

He's not the top, really. But neither is she. She just seems to be 
pushing her way through life at her own frantic pace, dragging Tom 
along behind her for as long as he can hang on. 

She cares about him, she doesn't want to hurt him, but at every step 
she seems to be leaving him further behind. At least it seems that way 
to me. But what do I know? I've only known her a few months, and 
they've been together for years. 

Not that Tom is by any means a weak person. It's just that his 
strengths don't seem to be the strengths that can help her. Sometimes 
he doesn't know what to do, but his helplessness isn't weakness. 

I've never been a strong person; I don't know what she sees in me. 
Maybe she isn't looking for strength. 

That night, when I couldn't give her an orgasm, she felt it was okay 
to let out all those years of frustration. I've never heard a person 
wail like that. Not relatives in the hospital waiting room, not 
anyone. She wanted so much to let it all out, and she finally could do 
it without hurting Tom. And I guess it *is* best to start our 
relationship off without any deception. I wouldn't want her to lie to 
me about this to keep from hurting me. I don't think she would, 
anyway. She's learned that lesson. 

So now there's one person who knows this. Me. One person she can talk 
to. Me. Maybe that's what she sees in me. 

I've known two other women that were non-orgasmic. They blamed it on 
the insensitivity of their husbands, and they were probably right. I 
don't think that's the problem here. Tom would -- does -- do anything 
for her. He would give her anything he is able to give. And he's not 
insensitive. 

It's so easy to believe what you want to believe. He wants to believe 
her when she says she had an orgasm. I know how he feels; I wanted so 
much to believe her when she told me the teasing didn't matter, that 
it was good for her. But I know what she meant. She told me that to 
make me feel better about it. It was true, the teasing didn't matter, 
but she didn't mean it when she said it was good for her. Not really. 
It may have been as good as it gets for her, but it wasn't good. 

I am going to ask Jay if he would mind if Anita and I stayed together 
for a night. If she could "sleep over." I'd like to wake up next to 
her, just once. She's going to see how Tom feels about that, too. 

Besides, just maybe, without the whip, in a bed, private and cosy.... 

But I'm afraid there's more to it than that. It won't be that simple. 

She likes giving me pleasure, she said. That was a thrill for her. She 
says my facial expressions were eloquent. In fact, she wants to have a 
videotape of me. A sort of vicarious orgasm. I have to think about 
that. It's such a sad thing to ask. 

But our first time, if I had known about her problem, I don't know how 
I would have felt. Would I have felt guilty enjoying something that is 
denied her? Would I have felt I was rubbing salt on her wound by 
having orgasms when she couldn't? Would I have been able to enjoy it? 
Or would I have tried even harder to give her what she wanted, what 
she needed? Would *I* have faked an orgasm to bring vicarious pleasure 
to her? What will happen when that situation arises, as it is sure to 
do in the next few weeks? 

Sounds like an old fashioned cliffhanger. Stay tuned 'till next 
week... 

Maybe a therapist...? I've never been close to anyone that went to a 
therapist. Close emotionally, I mean. Everybody in Indiana that I knew 
that needed a therapist was too macho to go to one. Or too inhibited 
or too ashamed. I'll talk some more to her. I mentioned it once, and 
she got impatient and said she had tried "all that" and it was a total 
disaster. I don't know why yet. I'll try again later. It's hard for me 
not to nag. 

So another month or so will go by, now, and she will want to be 
whipped again. To be covered with red welts and cherished afterward. 

Well, dissappointed readers-in-search-of-erotica: What is the right 
question to ask? Is it: 

          Why do we do this? 

I think Anita has a better reason than most of us could give. 
She doesn't know what that reason is, though. Does any of us? 

Anyone out there know? Anyone? 

Someone once said I was like a child playing in a sexual sandbox. 

Nurse Jones, 
  Seems to have gotten 
    sand in her eyes; tears raining, 
       melt her new castle. 

PS. I sent this unpost to Anita and she said she could only read half 
of it, and she doesn't want to add anything. But she sent back a poem 
that warmed me: 

        What did I know 
        thinking myself 
        able to go 
        alone all the way. 

                Robt. Creely 



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