The Sawhorse
…or, right side up

I’ve spoken before about AOL chat rooms, and some of the people I met there. People that I continued to have e-mail or AIM correspondence with, even after I had stopped signing on to AOL. (I still have an AOL account, which I rarely use, except when I travel).

X. was one of those people. (He married a vanilla girl, years after I met him, and his SM and D/s desires went out the window. We talked occasionally after that, but I could feel his spark fading. His screen name is gone now, and I haven’t heard from him in well over two years). I never really had any plans to meet him, although he did invite me to San Diego once when he was there for work. I didn’t go, even though I was single at the time, and could have easily driven down there from Monterey. I think X was one of those people who were a better part of my fantasy experience than he could have ever been real-time. I wanted to keep him where he was for me – and I think ultimately, he wanted that as well.

He developed this entire scenario around an innocuous piece of equipment. He kept coming up with ways to use and abuse a submissive (me, when we were chatting – lol) with just this one thing. .

A sawhorse.

I’m not talking about one of those padded sawhorses you see in BDSM clubs. I’m talking about a plain old everyday sawhorse you can buy at any K-Mart or Home Depot. Sometimes in the scenario, the submissive would be bound to the sawhorse, sometimes not. Mostly, she was cuffed to it with padlocks and chains, and the sawhorse was anchored to the floor. Sometimes, X would have a single tail whip, sometimes nothing at all. But the sawhorse was a symbol to him – and became one to me – of complete vulnerability and openness.

Think about it. A woman bent over a sawhorse – hands and feet close to the four legs. Everything is wide open, the thighs and ass are bared for torture, the breasts are dangling free and easy to pull or manipulate. And of course, the entire genital area is exposed. This was his ultimate fantasy.

The idea of that kind of vulnerability scared the shit out of me when he and I first started talking. But the more he came up with, the more I started to see where he was coming from. This was trust between two people. This was the thrill of not being able to see your torturer, of not knowing what was coming. There was little need for a blindfold, or any serious accoutrement. The potential for mindfuck is incredible. The submissive is aware of everything at once, including the probability that if she moves too much or too far, she’s going to tip the entire thing over and injure herself. The fear factor would be outrageous.

I found him a picture one time online of a woman bent over a sawhorse, exactly as he had described. I kept that picture myself for many years. It became a symbol for me of what kind of relationship I really wanted.

My friend G and I played on a sawhorse at The Power Exchange in San Francisco once. but it wasn’t anything like X described – G and I were friends and were mostly messing around and experimenting with his new-found domishness (which he credits me for. I find that funny), and in a place like the Power Exchange, I wasn’t about to be naked. Other than that, I’ve never had that experience.

As with nearly anything, you have to wonder if the experience could ever match the fantasy.

Hm. I think I know what C’s getting for Christmas….