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.