Not Vulnerable

I’m an introverted Midwesterner from a conservative family with predominantly Scandinavian heritage. We pride ourselves on our stoicism. Heaven forbid we ever get too loud, too drunk, too angry, or appear to enjoy ourselves too much. We cry at appropriate moments (funerals, sad movies, when our hometown heroes come back from the war). 

Exuberant joy is certainly acceptable, but we try to be sensible about it.

All of this, plus my own personal aversion to sharing too much (a boundary I’m tentatively trying to push with this blog), means I usually keep a short leash on my emotions. I don’t let people get too terribly close. I act like I always have it together, so much so that people who have known me for awhile are generally surprised when I seem upset. 

The above is not necessarily a complaint, I like having it together and being relied upon. I still have fun and can get loud (often when naked), but on a spectrum of personalities, I would say I’m a bit reserved.

The above is just a tiny bit of background for the conversation relayed here and what you’ll read below.

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He pulled out the toys, one by one. Giving my arm a little flick with the soft leather flogger, jingling the nipple clamps with bells (pink!) on the end, one eyebrow raised, a mischievous little smile on his lips. Neither of us knew if I’d find this stuff ridiculous or fascinating. I wanted to find it fascinating, I’d been imagining what treasures this trunk would hold for weeks. While my eyes lit up at the blindfold, the cuffs, the black paddle with the little nubs all over it, I have to admit the pink jingling clamps just made me giggle.

I admired all the pieces and then we started talking about other things, doing other things, and the toys went back in their box.

Until later.

I was face down, ass up, when I heard him step back and open the box. I felt him standing beside me, slipping the fingers of one hand down to toy with my clit then “Whack!” the other hand slapped the black paddle (what else could it be?) down hard on my ass.

‘Ouch!’ I thought. But also, ‘hmmm….’

He’d hit me three or four times then rub his hand over the hot spot, saying nice things in my ear, all the while playing my pussy like an instrument with his other hand, then “Whack!”  Again and again and again. I wanted to come, or run away, but also to stay put and see how much I could take.

I came, hard, a few times. I sucked his cock while he was paddling me, and while he was soothing the burn, and while his fingers were bringing me to the brink and over the edge. I sucked his cock and took the whacks, and shouted and screamed and I didn’t love it, I loved the “good girls” and the soothing strokes and his fingers inside me and his hard cock in my mouth but I didn’t love the pain.

I didn’t love the pain, but I loved the heat, the sound of the paddle hitting my flesh, the jumpy feel I got when he’d sooth his hand over it, or kiss it. I loved the taking of each smack and then pushing my ass back for more to prove to myself that I could.

When I finally felt like I was going to have to stop, that I really couldn’t take any more, I was tired and spent and it really, really DID hurt, and I just couldn’t fucking take it any more for fuck’s sake what was I doing, some little part of me broke open and I started crying, hard. I’d been panting and shouting and it wasn’t that big of a leap for my vocal chords but it was a big leap for the girl who keeps a tight lid on her emotions. I started crying and pulled away and he put the paddle down and he pulled me in and told me what a good girl I was and wiped my tears and kissed my eyelids and my cheeks and my forehead and held me close and I couldn’t stop.

I lay down in the crook of his shoulder with his arms around me and cried and blubbered on about, well, I don’t know what. But he just kissed the top of my head and stroked my arm and, God, it was bliss.

When this happened, we’d been meeting up on weekends for a month or so under what became a FWB arrangement, I guess (we started with the benefits, then became friends). Maybe that’s why it was OK for me to go here with him. I wasn’t worried about what he thought of me outside of the bedroom or if his friends would like me or if we had the same taste in music or if he liked me more than I liked him or any of that.

Maybe someday I hope to find someone who can make me cry and come and laugh. Who can also have a nice conversation with my grandmother or put up with my friends. But, in the meantime, this experience was a true revelation. I felt a hundred times lighter every time I sat down over the next week and felt the tenderness on my ass cheek. I couldn’t stop looking at the bruise.

If you had asked me six months prior to this night if I was into spanking or pain during sex I’d have said “no way.” I think I’ve changed my tune. Not because of the cause, the pain still hurts, but because of the aftermath. That release. It was a kind of orgasm. It felt really, really good to be vulnerable for once. To be messy and fallen apart. It felt safe.

I will forever be indebted to him for showing me that.