Ow, ow, ow.

Well hurrah,  I'm back in the world of the internet, having finally admitted defeat and gone to buy a new netbook.  (Don't worry, I'll still be able to eat, credit cards are wonderful things, especially at the end of the month!).  My return to the blogsphere coincides happily with playtime, so I have something to write about.  Now isn't that fortuitous?

Yesterday I was in the mood for really vicious play.  I wanted to cry, and feel small, and feel defeated and beaten.  And I said so, on Twitter.  So victorian boy said, why didn't I just pop over then?  So I said, ok, and can I bring my laptop so you can rescue my files?

Off I toddled for spanking and technical assistance.  I don't want to give you the impression that I'm completely technophobic.  I can in fact manage most of my own computer-y problems.  But when confronted with endless blank screens or boxes with blue writing, I quail at the idea of messing around with the innards of my laptop.  And anyway, I wasn't taking it to just a *boy* - if he's an engineer it's acceptable.  I just don't know any girl engineers.  But you don't want to know about my skewed feminist issues regarding help with techie stuff, you want the good shit.


Victorian boy always comments that I go very subby very quickly.  Which I guess is true.  At the start of play, it's a bit like I don't want to let on how much I want it.  Probably because I'm very careful with 'want' vs 'need'.  'Wanting' things is fine, but 'needing' is not.  I try not to need a great deal, really.  And yes, I know that's not the optimum state of healthy mind - I'm a work in progress!   So I often brat a bit (not a lot!), and make whoever it is push me around a little, to try to avoid feeling like I'm flinging myself pathetically across someone's knee!  Yesterday, the being a little bit difficult routine included deliberately putting my pants on under my suspender belt - I've had some awesome laughs before watching boys try to work out how to get them off.  Unfortunately, victorian boy appeared to have experienced this trick before, and the bastard made me take them off myself.

Being difficult melted away when he put me over his knee for a hand spanking to start off.  I know, just a hand, right?  I always seem to take a really long time to acclimatise to the pain, so once someone starts hitting me, I find it hard to continue being difficult.  After that I don't really remember much about what got used.  Apart from the ginger.  That I remember.

It's pretty normal for me to have no idea what actually happened, specifically, in a scene.  I remember the way it made me feel.  My memory, short and long term, is terrible at the best of times, so it doesn't worry me.  What I remember yesterday was feeling really, really hard done by.  It felt horribly unfair.  Victorian boy had managed to turn himself into an extremely vicious bastard.  Although I started out bratty, I was soon trying really hard to do what I was told.  Which was an unrelenting litany of 'be quiet' and 'stay still'.  Two things I have real trouble with!  But I was trying.  I thought I was trying as hard as I could, which made it all the more horrible when I got more, or worse, for not succeeding.  (I just have to add here, as an aside, this was an awesome scene.  I can't quite bring myself to say 'enjoy', but it was good.  In case you're worrying that it wasn't.)

I remember at one point being under his feet as a footstool, and being unexpectedly hit with something hard and wooden-feeling.  I quite like footstool-time - I don't have a problem with not wriggling, and it's quite restful.  When he hit me, I was as certain as I could possibly be that I didn't move.  So being told to get back into position, and punished for moving, made me cry with frustration, and rage, and fear, because if I didn't know what I was supposed to do, how could I do it?

Corner time induced very unnerving feelings.  Normally I don't mind being in a corner, although it's not my favourite thing!  But I was in a shivery, weepy, fragile state, and being left on my own (even though he never left the room), felt horrible.  All I wanted was a cuddle, or even a gentle touch.  It took all my self control not to try to snuggle when he came near me.  Kudos to tops, to be honest.  I'm pretty sure if the roles were reversed I wouldn't be able to stop myself from going in to make sure everything was ok, and breaking the mood.

I was longing for it to be over far before it was.  I've never felt that subby before, which I suppose is what kept me going.  And a little shred of pride.  He finished off by caning me quite a lot, which, as ever, I didn't take well.  I felt like a beaten up puppy - I was flinching away from every stroke, whimpering and crying.  They just seemed to keep coming.  And the unfairness kept coming too.  If I didn't count loud enough, or I lost count, he started over.  Or decided that I could have another six.  The feeling of thinking you're at breaking point but hearing someone say that they're not quite satisfied yet is indescribable.  It's taking me back there just thinking about it.

Obviously, when it was all over, I did my usual clinging and crying.  Victorian boy gets the brunt of this, because nobody else I've played with has taken me such strange places in my head.  A few times during the scene, particularly when I was shaking in the corner, I did wonder whether one of us should stop it.  Was it safe?  I worry about things like this because I know what horrible things I can do to my head on my own, never mind with someone else helping!

Thankfully, I'm learning that, for me at least, it doesn't work like that.  Being broken down and defeated in play makes me pop up stronger in real life.  I've had some horrible shit going down this week at work.  I've been working insanely long days, leaving barely time for food or sleep.  I won't go into detail, but the nutshell story is that my head is making me do something for the benefit of the school's position in league tables which hugely fucks with children's futures.  I feel powerless and trapped.  Kind of how I felt yesterday, in play.

It's a wonderful thing to be able to let those emotions go in a scene.  I think that part of the reason I went so deep was because my scene emotions mirrored my real life ones pretty clearly.  At the end of the day, I suppose it doesn't matter so much why.  What's important is that I drove away feeling on top of the world.  And certainly strong enough, and empowered enough, to take on a dozen headteachers with misguided motives!