Kai Under Observation (First Scene)

An excerpt from Kai’s personal journal, 8/23/09:

When I think about this week, it is less linear and more a set of impressions. We are in bed together, laughing. I’m tied to a $1000 table, bound shibari-style and being tortured until I think I will die. I am feeling leather cracking across my back as E Nomine drowns my voice. I am curled up in his lap with a collar—my collar—locked around my neck. He is massaging oil into my back. I’m naked under a blanket and we’re curled up on the couch together watching X-Men 3. We sleep late. We hold each other in the dark and have sex in the morning.

The first time DW and I played was predicated on a half-serious exchange over the internet when we were on opposite ends of the world. I had not been sexually attracted to him in college and never would have seen him as a play partner, but our recent conversations had indicated that over the years he had accumulated a collection of both toys and experiences, and it was more difficult to not be interested than to say yes to the offer. Additionally, I liked the idea of playing with someone who knew what they were doing; I had played with an inexperienced domme before, and though I had enjoyed it I had not had enough trust in her abilities for me to completely relax. There is a difference between trusting your partner and trusting that they know what they’re doing. I didn’t know how far I would be comfortable going in a scene with DW, but over the course of our conversations I decided that at least he knew how to run a scene and use the toys and tools in his arsenal. The invitation was in April. The play-date was set for August.

I returned to the U.S. at the end of July and spent a few weeks visiting friends in various cities. On one of these occasions, a friend and I went together to a favorite kink store of mine. I like my kink stores to have a certain amount of seriousness to them, and this place—a BDSM shop filled with durable leather goods—fit the bill. I wasn’t there for any real purpose, but in the end I bought a new collar. Thick, soft leather, red and black, built to be used. Three O-rings and a place to put a lock. This is the collar in the photo. DW and I did not buy it together, and so it was more my collar than anyone else’s, but I decided that I would bring it with me when I went to see him.

My visit to DW’s place lasted a week. A day or two before we had our scene, we surprised ourselves again by beginning a sexual relationship. This is significant, since as I’ve said before I’ve never had a play partner who was also a sexual partner. But here we were with this plan to run a scene together, and yet we ended up having sex first.

This could have been a disaster. It wasn’t. Nothing was awkward afterwards, no plans were shelved, and the next day he showed me his collection of toys. He had just moved, and all of his gear was still housed in a large, black duffel bag. Out came the leather floggers, which he had made himself—three in all, one quite long, one a bit less so, and one very small to be used on the inner thighs. Out came the dragon-tail whip, also home-made—a single, unbraided tail designed to sting. Out came cuffs for wrists and ankles, pinwheels, scarves. Lengths of white rope. A blindfold. Nipple clamps. A vibrator. And there was a box, locked. That was the violet wand and all its attachments, which frightened me; he held my hand and showed me how it worked, and though it still made me uncomfortable I could appreciate what it was for. He put the box away. I named it the Tesla Box.

Not many of these were used the night that we played. We didn’t know each other as scene partners, and even with cumulative hours of discussion behind us we still had to feel each other out. We both had experience, but we were new to each other, which made this a beginning scene. He took my collar—he liked it—and locked it around my neck. From then on, I came to think of it as our collar… even though I had bought it independent of him. I figured if this was the only time we ever played I could wear the collar ornamentally afterwards, but doubted I would do another scene with it. It was still my collar, but in locking it on me he claimed it a little bit, too. Clothing had been a matter of some debate in the initial stages; however, in light of the unexpected turn our relationship to each other had taken, it no longer seemed at all awkward to strip down to panties in front of him. He tied me into a rope harness—a simple diamond pattern—and showed me how a vibrator tucked into the rope on my stomach would send vibrations all the way down to the knot between my legs. He tied me down on the table and let the vibrator run while he covered my eyes with scarves and teased me with the pinwheel and his lips and teeth. He told me about how he liked to observe me. Learn me. I will always like this about him, how he will gauge a partner in order to understand what they like, then give or withhold as he sees fit. It is an informed give-and-take; what I do and don’t receive from him is a controlled distribution of information that he has put the time into gathering. Everyone should be so lucky, to have a partner who can do this.

When he was satisfied with what was accomplished on the table, he tied me to a chair, breasts against the wood, and flogged me. I have always liked flogging. It’s probably the thing I like best in BDSM play. I will probably write an entry entirely dedicated to flogging, but because I am clearly not very good at telling brief stories I will save it for another occasion. Sometimes, I am very quiet when being struck. Not this time. I shouted at each impact, and was glad for the music that was playing (though I had doubts that it would completely mask my voice). Sometimes he would stop and stroke my back and my face. I would rest my head against him. And then the blows would resume.

He laid me down on the floor when we were done. He put scented oil in a bowl and massaged it into my back. I didn’t quite enter sub-space with him—he was too new a partner, and I had been learning over the past few years not to hand over complete trust too quickly—but it was still calming to be held afterwards. Necessary. We curled up on the couch and picked a stupid-but-fun movie to watch and made our way back to real-people-world.

I slept next to him and knew that he would be there when I woke up.

During the week I was there, we played only this one time. Leaving, when the week was up, was punishingly difficult.

When I went back to Japan a few weeks later, it was worse.