Do they really notice...

Or even care? 'They' being men in this case. Us girlies obviously spend a lot of time before a scene thinking about what we're going to wear, how to do our hair and which underwear will go best. Thing is I didn't use to spend quite long thinking about it - I had one set of black quite nice H&M bra and pants and the rest were plain cotton and slightly stretched. I have distinct memories of heading back to the house of my first kinky boyfriend after training having not had a shower and wearing a sexy line in trackies and sports vest. He obsessed over me, was desperate to see me, wanted more than I could ever have given. More bizarrely he continued to obsess over me long after we split up.

So I guess what I'm asking is do men actually like the effort? Do you find us sexier in matching lingerie, corsetted and made-up. When you lift our skirts is it more exciting to find pretty lacy knickers or would faded baggy ones actually be fine?

Strange mood

I'm thinking about the Great Halls of ancient warriors. Braziers lit, ornate hangings on the wall, long feasting tables with wooden benches, probably a roast pig or four. A triumphant local Chieftain or petty King, probably some minstrels playing something warlike with lots of drums. One by one the hostages taken to ensure the good behaviour of the kingdoms he has defeated are presented to him by his arms men. The weeping daughter of the old king he defeated on the first stay, the proud wife of another, the aging mother of a third. Then comes one with whom he is more personally acquainted - the sister of the ruler of the last kingdom to fall. She spits in his face, as defiant as she had been leading her brother's men during those last bitter days of conquest after an arrow to the shoulder took him out of action. It had only been the threat to raze her people's visit that had forced the final surrender. Looking down at her the victor could not decide whether he might have been wiser to take her meeker sister as his hostage or whether this woman might finally provide him with some sport...

I'm also thinking about custard. I have this sudden huge urge for raspberry and blackberry crumble with custard. Unfortunately I have neither raspberries, blackberries nor custard, which is a great shame. I did have a very yummy dinner though (nom!)

I'm also thinking about the boy interest and him being far away. We found a very nice castle to explore last time I visited and I was very disappointed when he refused to spank me when I bent over a four poster bed in a turret room (no windows - just stone gaps - very exciting!) and pulled my knickers down. Apparently it was too risky in an English Heritage property...my argument is that there were all of about four people there. Later on he did deal with me in a little nook off the gun room for being cheeky and misbehaving - it's a hard life! Comedy picture to follow once I can be bothered to upload it from my phone.

I have just been watching Glee - it is possibly the best thing ever. I wish my colleagues would just burst into random tuneful singing every ten minutes as it would make the working day much more interesting. Nine to five life seems to be taking it's toll right now - my boss is being a psycho, I'm bored and it's February and thus extra miserable. I have to go somewhere really dangerous in a few weeks when I'd wanted to see the boy and am not too impressed. Rapidly reaching the conclusion that work does send the brain to sleep.

Am loving my burlesque course (nipple tassels next week!) with our fabulous teacher. It's fun and no one takes it too seriously...and I'm sure learning 4 ways to remove a pair of gloves, 2 ways to remove stockings with a chair and two ways without will come in useful at some point! It's all rather fabulous and la-di-da as have just got back from doing my panto in Ireland. I want sparkling lights, screaming children, wonderful people and the chance to drink and dance until the wee hours to go on and on...

So raise a glass to fun, fabulousness, kinky day dreaming and surreality.

Less random posts to follow when I am in a less flippant mood :)

Sunday Night Blues

I have the Sunday night blues, a bad case of them. No one likes Mondays but I don't remember the impending sense of doom hitting quite so brutally on Sunday nights a year or two ago. I'm happier in my job than I was back then (still frequently bored but at least it's worthwhile) and generally a pretty happy bunny so think it must be a bit of a reflection of the pattern that my life's taking right now. Weekend are either taken up with fabulous kinky fun and events, seeing the boy interest or putting on a show with fabulous people. Hence Sunday nights being a bit of a nadir. I'm played out, on my own with a cold bedroom and mounting pile of washing. Usually some cleaning to do. Tired knowing there's a week ahead that will be less fun and more lonely.

Votes for a 5 day weekend and 2 day week everybody?!

Have a funny phone and story to tell from weekend with the boy interest but should probably go to bed or will be grumpy and tired at work tomorrow :( Hope everyone has had much fun and fabulousness :)

Sweet girl, action girl

A vanilla friend once jokingly said that my problem was that I wasn't sure if I wanted to be Lara Croft or Legally Blonde. At the time I was frantically trying on dresses for a black tie dinner in the forty minute gap between racing on the river and having to jump on a bus to go rock climbing for the weekend. The girly part of me demanded trying on virtually every dress in multiple shops despite the incident taking place during my sylph like days when everything fitted, no questions asked. The action girl was getting impatient, thus trying to save time (if you've never seen someone in the stylish combo of a pink frilly dress teamed with waterproof trousers and walking boots you're missing out) and fretting about whether there would be time to pick up new batteries for my head torch or not. My poor friend was trying to ensure that we made the bus and I had something to wear for the dinner the following night, whilst gently suggesting we did really need to pick up some lunch before leaving.

It does sometimes feel like I have two contrasting personalities that want completely different things. So much so that what makes one happy makes the other edgy. Part of me wants fifties dresses, big petticoats, nice kitchenware and frilly knickers and another part of me wants to trek to Everest Base Camp, raft the Nile, push my body until I scream and is happiest in trackies and a hoodie. On the scene the dichotomy raises it's head as well - sometimes I am in evangelical 'good girl' mode and generally want to please people, look pretty and am a generally mellow happy thing and sometimes I want to battle with the tops, pain, starkness and rebellion. We all have different aspects to our personalities and there are lots of subsets to the sweet and action versions of me but sometimes it does seem very pronounced. What's frustrating is that sometimes I can't really control which head space I get into and that's really frustrating.

Right now I feel equally torn about what to save money I don't have for. Part of me is fawning over What Katie Did's adorable pink lace Sarah range for their new spring collection, flowery Vivien of Holloway Dresses and fabulous Mary Green 7 Deadly Sins knickers in pink silk. I am busy totting up what I could afford when if I gave up what (probably eating). Another part of me is plotting my first proper trip in a couple of years this summer and unsure about whether I fancy trekking in Nepal and Tibet, rafting, mountain biking and diving in Central America or climbing and safariing in Africa. I suspect the next few months are going to consist of a battle of wills as I attempt not to spend savings for the summer on more knickers...otherwise it'll be Bognor Regis...or Watford. And there are so many less silly adrenaline sports to be done there...and I'll have to take more then 2 pairs of knickers!

On another note I'm off down South to see the boy interest for the weekend and my case probably displays the disparity in my tastes rather well - in a carry on size bag I have succeeded in packing a corset, pretty underwear and 3 pairs of stockings alongside a ginormous pair of walking boots, thick socks and my favourite trackies...me...complex...never!

Click Conundrums

When I talk about kink I talk a lot about the elusive ‘click’. Click is what makes you instantly warm to someone and thus find yourself giggling over your sixth cocktail and a plate of tapas hours into what was meant to be a quick drink. Or when you start chatting to someone and discover that you both stayed at the same backpackers’ hostel in a tiny African village, have a mutual obsession with Starbucks skinny caramel macchiatos, fancy dress and masochistic attitude towards sports. You just get each other.

Click’s even more important when it comes to playmates – I mean if you’re going to put yourself in the hands of someone you initially don’t know well feeling comfortable is key. In the misty past at my first munch I met someone who went on to be a fabulous long term playmate. He was wearing a red sweater with a shirt beneath that somehow reminded me of Christopher Robin (I never told him that) and I was painfully embarrassed and somewhat weirded out by the greasy men who kept perving on me. There was something vaguely dangerous about him that I liked and he was bemused that I knew what I wanted so young, I think we both saw the other as a challenge. We played scenes I still fantasise about fairly regularly for almost a year until his girlfriend banned him from seeing me (obviously despite never having had sex we’d clicked a bit too much).

It applies in groups too. There are people that you instantly connect with and others that you don’t. In any friendship group some people are closer than others, and over time you grow closer to people that aren’t instant clicks – that’s natural. I can remember thinking that a girl who became one of my best friends was an awful suck-up for coming along to watch us race when she hadn’t made the crew in my first year and was constantly sidling up to the captain. She hated me for being faster than her and I secretly thought she was a bit weak for not being able to push but we ended up becoming best friends and going travelling together. A few years later she’s reverted to being a bit wet but it doesn’t mean we’re not still good friends – I just wouldn’t call her in a real crisis anymore because right now we don’t ‘get’ each other.

The difficult thing is the ‘anti-click’, people that just irritate you. We all encounter them and most of us have at least one in our group of close friends. Generally the peace is kept but every now and again there’s an almighty row – usually when someone says what they actually think. I know for a fact that certain acquaintances view me as an ‘anti-click’ (the interesting thing being that it’s not always mutual) but in the case of the clever ones I may not have a clue. Ultimately we all want to be happy and thus sometimes it’s better just to keep the peace.

This raises interesting issues when examined in the context of the scene and social interactions. Click in a group scene is fabulous – two subs in collusion don’t double the trouble for the top, the effect is definitely exponential as you collectively turn the crank and wind them up. Albino deer in the wilds of the English countryside, Sir Gooseberry Chicken, purple fairy cakes – all manner of fun and amusing things happen when click works in a group scene, and if you’re lucky the resulting chaos and consequences are even better.

What about ‘anti-click’ in a group though? It’s all very well tolerating someone you just don’t particularly get on with at group dinners, birthdays and so on but dealing with it in a bdsm scene moves into different territory. It can come out in tension between characters in a role-play or a total fail of the ability to let go and enjoy a scene, as truthfully none of us like to be vulnerable around those we aren’t sure about. Or things can just not work as well as they might, which in a way is even worse and you’re left feeling like a bad person because someone’s having the affect on you. Ultimately it’s a tricky one because not liking someone and thus not wanting to do something inherently sexual with them does not make you mean or a failed player but it can feel that way, especially if you feel bad for letting others down. It’s especially difficult if naturally you want to like and be nice everyone, so on one level it’s fine and on another it’s really not. I think the difficult bit is finding the line and working out how to keep your unicycle from wobbling too far to one side.

Mermaid

Pearlescent, almost ethereal she lay,
Dark hair pooling around her shoulders;
Slight like silver birch or willow;
Skin pale and perfect as a dove.

She looked like a mermaid he’d said
That first day they’d met in the rain,
Struggling with a pile of library books;
Damp hair whipping in her face.

Tea in a non-descript café
With chintzy cups and chipped plates,
Scones with cream and raspberry jam
As red as blood. Her blood.

She’d cried the first time he’d hurt her,
That innocent, sunny afternoon
Sobbed that hers that would never return;
She’d blossomed as his teeth drew blood.

Her patterned duvet soaked up the tears
The first time he’d promised to make her scream;
Piles of dusty books and dirty plates
Offset the midnight leather, dark against her pale skin.

Philosophy blended with sodomy that fall,
He made her read de Sade and believe
Bound and blind in her university room.
He’d take her finger from her shaking hand.

She feared and cherished his whippings,
The marks he left adorning her body
For days at a time when she was good;
He made her beg him to hurt her.

Pearlescent, almost ethereal she lay,
Dark hair pooling around her shoulders;
Slight like silver birch or willow;
Skin pale and perfect as a dove,
Streaked with marks as red as blood.

The audition pt1

Lavina fumbled nervously with the strings of her corset in dressing room, aware that she could hear him pacing impatiently next door. Although she had only just met Mr Thomas she already had the distinct impression that he was not the type of man who appreciated being kept waiting. She'd got that much from their conversation about her audition over the phone, three outfits, an address and the quiet suggestion that he would not tolerate timewasters. Timewasters? Lavina hoped she wouldn't be one of those, she'd never done anything quite like this before but surely she could? It wasn't as if she had much choice.

Anxiously she eyed herself in the mirror and managed a small smile. Shiny black stilettos with straps that criss-crossed up her calves, black bra and silk bloomers offset by a tiny waist-cincher corset and blonde hair tied loosely back - surely she'd do. His smile as she sashayed into the room was appreciative, eyeing her up and down before as she stood before him trying to disguise her nerves. He ran his hands down her body, got her to slowly turn, placed his hand on her back and adjusted her stance to push her breasts forward and nodded.

"Good, next one." He said, gesturing back into the changing room. Lavina wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not, she'd thought he might at least like to...never mind. Carefully she unlaced the corset and wriggled out of the other things, folding them neatly beside her bag. The next outfit was perhaps her favourite, a waist cincher with matching bra and fifties knickers in black and peach satin overlaid with soft delicate lace. Less dramatic than the corset but perhaps more her. She picked fully fashioned seamed stockings to finish the outfit off and the 5 and a half inch heels she could barely walk in. Carefully she applied another coat of deep red lipstick and let her hair fall down her back. Surely this would get more of a reaction?

Mr Thomas smiled as he sat in the lounge, he could hear the girl pattering about next door. He liked that she was anxious, liked that she wanted to please. This one definitely had potential, it was just a matter of unlocking it, seeing how far he could make her go. He looked up and hid a laugh, she was tottering in the most ridiculous pair of shoes he'd seen in a while; clearly designed for horizontal rather than vertical wear. This time he allowed himself to touch her a little more, getting a feel for the merchandise as Bartholomew would say. Then he smoothed her hair back, patted her on the backside and pointed her back to the dressing room. After the final change, that was when the fun would begin and he wanted her to feel nervous.

Lavina slipped into the black polka dot corselette and clipped the suspenders to the stockings she'd been wearing before. It wasn't as if he was taking any notice anyway, she thought angrily to herself, flicked her hair over her shoulder and stalked back next door. The inspection process was quicker this time, probably because he wanted to move onto examining other things she thought cynically. He noted the glimmer of defiance in her face and was inwardly pleased, after all the feisty ones always were more fun.

Saying nothing he took her wrist and led her next door into the bedroom. Lavina blushed as he questioned exactly what her experience was, she'd been spanked of course? Yes, and rather more than that she admitted unwillingly, staring at the floor and grinding out her speech. She'd heard about his business through a friend and fancied having a go, the play with her ex had hurt but been...exciting. She hated her job and was bored, with any luck this would prove a suitable alternative. As he tapped his riding crop against his thigh, fixed her with a determined stare and grasped her wrist with an iron grip she wasn't so sure...

To be continued (soon this time - I promise!)