From the Top Shelf - Concertina III

In the second half of her book, Concertina, Susan Winemaker describes her relationship with a lover and former client. This excerpt is about a game that he invented. 

The idea was simple to begin with, but it evolved into an enduring and intricate dialogue, an art form. We took turns waiting on the landing at the top of the stairs, naked on all fours and completely still. He chose that position because of its submissiveness, its exposure, and for its beauty and elegance. It was a statement of readiness and willingness; it was an offering of openness.

Whoever was home first the following evening would text the other to say so. They in turn had to say when they'd be back and text again when they were exactly ten minutes away, at which point the other would get into position.

It was me who arrived home first the following day. When I received the ten minutes text, I removed my bathrobe and folded it under my knees to protect them from the hardwood floor when I got down on all fours. I dropped my head, hung my ankles over the top step, and waited. And discovered the challenge of staying perfectly still for even one minute. Try it and you'll know what I mean... My knees were hurting and so was my back and I was getting bored by the time I heard the key turn in the lock and then it was my heart thrown open. Interesting how his presence changed everything. I forgot my physical discomfort, I stopped waiting, and my self-consciousness became intense, acute. He slipped off his shoes as quietly as a thief, and then I heard his trousers rub and the stairs creak as he climbed closer, closer, out of step with the wild drumbeat of my heart, the flow of thoughts in my head. What does he see?  What does he think?  What's he going to do?  Is he pleased?  I did not move.
.
.
.
A couple of days later the vision I saw at the top of the stairs was his firm bottom, his broad back dipping, and his intense stillness.  He was so severely silent, and the vision so startling, so powerful, that it's branded in my mind. He turned himself into a gift that evening, a statue, an entree, a feast for my eyes. I saw my lover supplicating and offering himself to me---and that was enough. I didn't want to do anything. I really didn't, but he was waiting, and I knew what that was like.

I climbed the stairs and then I saw he was biting the handle of a whip and two clothes pegs were clamped on his nipples and there was a strawberry on his back. My lover was an artist. My lover made this effort just for me. It was beautiful and I thought: people should see this vision of a lover's sheer effort.

But he was waiting. I could do whatever I wanted to do to him, but he'd suggested the whip. So he wanted to be whipped by me, or for me, because he thought it would please me? Does he want pain or does he want to show me that he'll hurt for me? It was too confusing. He wants me to be myself but he wants the self to be a Mistress, to be strong, sexual and persuasive; a vixen, a vision, the one who can fix him.

I'd never whipped him before because the whip left marks. I bit the berry and took the whip from his mouth and gave him a fruity kiss. I teased him and prepared him with the suede tails of the whip before I swiveled and got ready to strike him with full force. I saw his effort not to move. I was still wearing my coat and the neighbors were downstairs. I snapped my wrist like a lion tamer and landed one heavy lash across his bare ass. The adrenaline, not knowing how he'd react, the sound of the smack, my expert aim were but brief rewards before the tidal wave of his roar. He sounded so angry and resentful, and that in turn made me angry and resentful; I was not his foe and he'd turned on me again. He gives me the power and then he yanks it away. Who put the whip there in the first place? I was upset, but I leaned over his body and kissed his moist neck, and at the exact same time we whispered, "Thank you." and it was over for the night.

Do you think you might try that game, or some variation of it?

From the Top Shelf - Concertina II

From Concertina  The life and loves of a dominatrix, by Susan Winemaker, this passage might make you think. In fact, I would like to hear your opinion of it.

Mistress Anna tells about one unusual and client, a television presenter who had never visited the same dominatrix twice until he met her. They go out to dinner after his second session with her, and he tells her a little about his childhood liking for physical pain and rituals of self-flagellation.

"When I was twenty-four and in New York I came across a fetish magazine purely by accident and I was shocked to see pictures of women whipping men. It was a revelation  that you could actually pay someone to beat you, that there was a service for that sort of thing, and that other people had the same desires..."

That night he slept at my flat. He couldn't quite get over the bemusement of being in the flat of a dominatrix. Look: she reads, she has a blue fridge and cupboards, a tennis racquet in the corner of her bedroom, a worn pair of ballet slippers by the fireplace, a cute pillow on the bed embroidered with a different name. All the evidence of daily existence seemed to upset his imagination.

He wanted to spank me. He said he had a long-term girlfriend, they were on the rocks, but she loved being spanked and he was rather good at it. There was something sexy and sassy about pulling down my own pretty knickers as if to say, okay, let's see what you can do because I can take what I give. So he spanked me, not one, twice, but three times too hard. It didn't arouse me, but I could handle it. But when he unbuckled his belt and pulled it off his trousers, I thought: I don't really need to do this. And pulled up my knickers.

So what do you think of crossing the line and becoming intimate with your disciplinarian? What about going even further and wanting to spank her?

A few weeks later they meet for a third time, and Mistress Anna attempts to recreate his childhood ritual of self-whipping in the woods.

It was dusk when he arrived. He wanted to talk for a few minutes before we began. He asked me for a cigarette... He was stalling, nervous and worried that he wouldn't be able to lose himself in the role after seeing me out of context. I wasn't worried; I was a professional and I had something very special in store.

It was dark and quiet in that North London suburb by the time he was naked, gagged and blindfolded... He was aroused and in role when I led him to his shoes and instructed him to put them on. By the time I opened the cottage door and he felt the evening air, he'd figured it out and began shaking in resistance as well as muttering through the gag.

"Trust me," I whispered soothingly in his ear. "No one will see you and no one will hear you. We're alone in the woods."

I had, with fading confidence, to shove him, gently but firmly, across the garden towards a tree. I tied him to the tree, his back facing me, and tried to ignore his jerks and trembles. We kept a birch in the dungeon. Not until then had I had the occasion to use it. I warmed his bottom with the tips of the twigs before I raised my right arm to flagellate him.

I thrashed him a few times without satisfaction, for his shivers had intensified to the point of crisis and I stopped. I untied him and got him back indoors as quickly as possible while whispering words meant to reassure. I shut the door behind us and removed his gag and blindfold. Without looking up, like a petrified child, he made straight for a corner of the room, faced it, and heaved quietly.

I felt pretty awful and pretty stupid. He had malaria, but how was I to know.  More that I'd trespassed into his past for the sake of aesthetics and style without carrying a roadmap, I apologized, and it took another cigarette and a shot of cognac, which I keep in the dungeon, before he felt ready to resume--indoors.

   Stay tuned. There's one more instalment coming up next week.

From the Top Shelf - Concertina

I recently finished reading Concertina, The life and loves of a dominatrix, by Susan Winemaker.  Susan becomes a domme to help pay the bills, and has no deep commitment to or love for the role. It seems to be just a job, and she has little enthusiasm for the work, but she learns the techniques and becomes quite good at what she does.  Here's how she describes it:

One can only get good at it by doing it again and again. After learning the basics: how to use a whip, handle a cane, tie a tight knot...how to construct a beginning, middle and climax, then it's time to edit and refine the act. And I relished the flexing of my voice, using it in seductive and poignant ways. I learned how to cause a tremor with a whisper, to assail and assault through my tone, to recognize and hypnotise a man in the dark...

The power of words. The power of silence...

Now, if it was corporal punishment he wanted, I could spend long, lazy minutes engrossed in the minutiae, the rhythms and endless variations of touch and tempo. I'd put him over the whipping bench or over my knee and begin stroking his bare bottom, teasing him, warming him up. I magnified my caresses, stroked, strummed, kneaded and slapped in soft staccato. When done to music, the whole room vibrated to the act. The slaps get louder, harder, sharper; and my hand burns. He's my instrument, and I play him and compose.  

Susan writes beautifully, and evokes the emotion behind the action, and captures details and nuances that bring the scenes to life. Throughout the book the author describes various scenes she has with her clients, and spanking is only occasionally featured.  This adds variety to the book but those other activities are outside the scope of this blog. I will, however, share a spanking scene with you next time.