Rope

There are so many different ways to bind someone - leather collars and cuffs, metal restraints, spreader bars, chains, a combination of any of the above. And then there is rope...

Treated hemp happens to be my favorite, although the feel of silk or bamboo rope on bare skin is lovely. But the softer, gentler types of rope just don't appear to be as serious in their intent as hemp can be. It's a personal preference and certainly there are ways to bind limbs and body just as effectively with silk as with hemp.

There is just something so infinitely seductive about the rough smoothness of hemp coils settling on your skin. Being bound in hemp makes me think of being hugged by a python - an embrace that is at once strong, reassuring and dangerous.

I've escaped from rope countless times, but I prefer escaping from synthetics or the softer rope types. Hemp is just too inviting, I want to prolong its bonds not leave them.

Rope is a pleasure and a challenge at once. I'm not as limber as I'd like and yet, with rope, there's always the temptation to bend further, to fold myself into its strands, to forget that limbs fall asleep. Bending and twisting when I'm being tied is something my body does without any commands from me.

I hate being blindfolded but when I'm being tied, I almost always self-blind. I do not want anything to distract me from the physical sensation of rope on my skin. I'll close my eyes, I'll tune out all sounds but the sound of rope rustling against itself or against J's hands. All my senses are tuned to the sensation of being bound. It's incomparable to anything else.

When being tied for actual bondage rather than practice or decorative play, there always comes a moment when I am sufficiently bound to relax into the ropes. That moment is magical. It's like holding your breath and then letting it go and feeling your lungs settle into the safety of your rib cage. The blending of bondage and safety is intoxicating and that's when I start to float.

I've never taken mind-altering drugs, but I would imagine that floating in rope is similar to letting your mind go under the influence of drugs. There's a sense of being suspended between reality and dream, a feeling of weightlessness and languor. It's a sensation I have not experienced to the same degree under any other circumstances.

And then there's playing while bound in rope, but that's a topic for another post.

Pain

I'm fascinated by pain. Physical pain.

Self-inflicted pain is finite, at least it is for me. There's only so far I can go in hurting myself before I stop. I suspect that I stop well before the point where I would invoke my safeword, but then with myself there's no pride in continuing. I already know just how much of a coward I am so there's no fooling anyone or pretending to be someone I'm not.

What I find more intriguing is pain inflicted by others whether with or without my consent.

When someone bumps into me or steps on my foot or when I walk into the edge of a table, my instinct is to hit back, to return the favor. I don't, of course, but there's restraint involved with not lashing out in response. This kind of pain is not welcome and it enrages me to suffer it. I view it as a personal affront even if I am the klutz who walked into the same damn protruding corner yet again.

Then there's pain that I consent to receiving. And this is where pride comes in. I'm not too proud to scream and cry and even ask for it to stop. But I won't use my safeword because I hate admitting defeat and until I've said "red" somehow I haven't surrendered. It's an illusion of semantics, I realize that. Of course, I do.

And sometimes I can't help but wonder just how far I can be pushed before pride yields to cowardliness, before pain becomes more intolerable than loss of face and that hated word emerges amid screams. I'm torn between wanting to find out and wanting to preserve the illusion, if only to myself, that I won't reach that point.

J knows me well and after years of playing on and off, He can read my body. He doesn't push me to the limit. He has His reasons and I've learned not to question Him when He is Milord. I do enough questioning when He's just J.

He pushed me to the breaking point once, years ago, very deliberately. To show me that He can. Since that one time, He was always the one to draw the line, to stop the scene. He knows how much I can take and I know that He's holding back, but do I want Him to stop? To find out exactly where I would draw the line if I held the pen in my hand?

I don't think so... for the simple reason that I trust Him more than I trust myself.