Bent but not….
Broken. Maybe.

(*Note: I am starting this on Friday, September 26. I’m noting that, because I imagine this one will take *hours* to get through)

I want to talk about going somewhere hard. About going to that edge of a place where – if I had a safeword – I’d consider using it, if I were coherent enough. I want to talk about doing that with C.

I’ve had a couple experiences with that in my life. Both with M., and both in bad ways.

Have you ever had a full-size wooden boat oar swung at your ass with mostly full strength, without warm-up or time to mentally prepare? I have. It was one of the most unpleasant experiences of my life. It was one of the few times that I’ve “gone down” (meaning, lost my footing and/or balance). It was an emotionally ugly moment in my life, and because he did it on a “dare” (he was being goaded), I learned a valuable lesson about where his definition of dominant and my definition of dominant parted ways. Had he not left me alone at that point – if he had continued to hit me – I’d have ended the relationship on the spot – not because it hurt bad and I didn’t like it. But because it hurt bad, I didn’t like it, and his reason for doing it was childish and immature, and later – when he explained it away by saying it was his sadistic streak (he didn’t have one or, if he did, that was the only time I ever saw it in four years), I lost a lot of respect for him. It wasn’t the *act* itself that pushed me to that edge – it was adolescent behavior. While the friends who “goaded” him into it laughed after he’d done it, he laughed with them, while picking me up off the floor. I pushed him away. He was, in that moment, lost to me as a dominant, and became every vanilla boyfriend I’d ever had… showing off for his buddies.

The other time – not surprisingly, at the same house as the first – was during and after a scene that I found out just before we did (we had planned to play all weekend, but right before we did, he told me this news) was going to be a punishment, not a scene. The punishment was for what he considered to be an infraction (and I, being the “good little submissive” figured I deserved) of protocol (which we didn’t have). It was a yearly gathering of friends, and that morning, I called him a “dork” (which was his actual nickname, by the way, and something that I called him often without his disapproval – he seemed to be proud of it) in front of a dominant that he respected. I was immediately reprimanded, and – this is important here – forgiven – for the “offense” (which had never been an offense before). That night, as I was preparing to go into the “dungeon” and play, he said that he was going to be punishing me for that. I didn’t say anything about his forgiving me (I was a trusting lil thing), and I just figured it would make him feel better – so what the hell? It was the longest half hour of my life. Every minute of that scene hurt – more mentally than physically – and when he finally released me from the cuffs, I quickly picked up the toys and disappeared out of that room and back into the kitchen. I sat down at the counter and cried. And cried. And cried. Half an hour later, when he finally appeared beside me (I don’t know what he was doing. Getting pats on the back? Who knows), I wouldn’t let him touch me. I shook his hand off every time he tried, and finally went into our bedroom and shut the door to get away from him. It took me well over a week to get past that little debacle.

Both of these examples are good for showing two things:
First, consistency is essential.
And second, communication is the key.

Now, on the other hand, these are bad examples of going to “the edge”. Taking me to that “edge” was neither on his mind – nor discussed prior to these “scenes” – and after they were over, I felt broken.

I don’t want to feel broken. I want to feel like the last wall of my resistance has been broken. There’s a very big difference there.

C talks about wanting to make me cry. I think I can honestly say that I have only cried one time during a scene since I started doing this. I don’t know if that’s an internal part of me that blocks that, or if I just haven’t been pushed to the limit physically. Probably a little of both. I dislike pain. I really do. I’m not a masochist. Submitting to pain, though, is what *does it* for me. I figure, eventually, the desire to submit to it will be over-ridden by the “ouch” factor, and that’s the point where the “last wall” will come down.

It took a long time to put those walls up. And I’ll be the first to admit that a couple of them probably got thrown up by the two incidents I detailed above. That’s not C’s fault, nor is it his responsibility to *have* to tear them down. But he wants them down. And so do I. And I’m woman enough to admit that I don’t know how else to *get* them down.

C knows about the two episodes above. I don’t know if I went into as much detail when I told him as I did here, but if he gets a little more insight into the “wall building”, mores the better. I think (there I go, thinking again. Once of these days, my “supposing” and “thinking I know” how C feels about stuff is gonna get me in trouble….too bad I’m not a brat *chuckle*) that C’s very aware of the fact that I *have* been broken, and I’m pretty sure that he’s aiming at the same goal that I am. And – here I go supposing – I think he’s probably a little wary about going too far.

Thing is, I don’t *want* him to worry about that, and I’m not sure how to make him stop.

It’s rare to see C lose control. I’ve seen him angry. I’ve seen him hurt. But I’ve never seen him lose control, which is one reason that I trust him like I do. If he does do it, it’s the exception, not the norm. Dominants have walls too. And I believe (He’ll tell me if I’m wrong. I know he will *chuckle*, if for no other reason to hear me say “I was wrong”. He loves hearing it as much as I hate saying it) that he holds a lot of himself back when we *do* get the opportunity to play. And again, I don’t want him to do that. We both want the intimacy that taking down *all* the walls would bring, but I think we both have trepidations on how we’re going to get there.
I imagine that this is going to be one of the *big* topics when he gets home. Of all that I’ve written here, this is perhaps the most unspoken and the most on-our-minds when we discuss our D/s relationship.

I’m probably not quite done with this, but I took a few notes on things to come back to. Will do them separate from this, so that I can keep the issues straight *grin*.