Red

Things have been very busy in our household lately.

My Owner and I have been busy revamping a lot of things around the house. I've actually really enjoyed all the cleaning and re-organizing and such. There has also been some discussion around the types of domestic service that Syr will likely begin introducing into our day to day life - which is interesting, and kind of exciting.

But, my main reason for writing is to process something that happened yesterday.

Syr and I were bantering, and playing a bit, there were kisses and a bit of the fun kind of bratting (on my part, obviously) and some struggling (also on my part), and we were having fun. But, at a certain point, Syr decided it was time for it to stop so She did what She often does in these sort of moments and stops everything with a bit of intentional pain.

This was not a disciplinary sort of thing. It was a show of power, so to speak. She has used this same method many times and what usually happens is that She makes me physically uncomfortable, somewhat unexpectedly. Whether it be pulling my hair in the not fun place, or squeezing a body part very hard or some such, but when I complain, She doesn't stop - instead, She holds the position and maintains the pain level, reminding me to breathe. This is a very effective way for Her to remind me that ultimately, She is in control. It is never physically pleasant, but at a certain point, usually shortly after She reminds me to breathe, I just sort of melt. I soften into it. I surrender. Afterwards, I usually feel soft and compliant.

But, yesterday morning, the method She chose - most conveniently, was to bite me... on my cheek.  It's not like She's never bitten me before. And it wasn't a chomp. It was more like a bite-hold, where Her teeth hold a steady pressure. And, like usual, I was not liking the sensation. I was whimpering and asking Her to stop, as I usually do. But She reminded me to breathe.  And instead of softening, I was still feeling the bad kind of pain. I wasn't melting. I wasn't relaxing. Something about this particular spot, or my headspace at the time, made me feel panicky. I wasn't sure if I was just panicking because I wasn't in control or if I was panicking because it hurt. But I started to get really mad at Her for doing it to me. This is the opposite reaction that I usually have. I didn't communicate any of that. I just started to freak out. I started crying and then I tried to push Her away.

She stopped and pulled me close, holding me tightly while I cried and kept trying to push Her away. As I started to calm down, She asked very compassionately... "Honey, why didn't you call 'red'"?

I just told Her I didn't know.

We talked about it at length after, and off and on throughout the day. I'm still not sure if I would have really been able to identify what was happening to me soon enough to call out a safeword. But, we also realized as we talked that I really never safeword. It's not that I've never hit a limit in a scene... and it's also not that I've been in the habit of letting myself get beyond reasonable limits. Partly, it's that I've tended to only play very hard with people I know very, very well and who know me (and my responses and reactions) very, very well - so before I get too close to my absolute stopping point, the person inflicting the pain reads me and knows it's time to stop. So, I suppose, in that way, I just haven't had to worry about it very much.

But, partly, I think I also have a bit of a block about calling a safeword. I trust my Owner, implicitly. I know She would  never do anything intended to harm me... ever. So, generally I push through any emotional or mental resistance and I just submit to whatever is happening. But, also, I have a very manipulative and controlling personality - or I know I have the capacity to be. So I don't know that I trust myself not to safeword just to get out of something unpleasant. I don't think I'd do that... but I don't necessarily trust myself not to...

So we talked a lot about that and also about the idea of using a medium sorta safeword like yellow where I can let Her know there's a problem. And we talked about how I do need to take responsibility if I feel my headspace shifting to something so negative and that I need to safeword in those situations because She has no way to know, ESPECIALLY because our play often includes some bratting and/or resistance from me.  But Syr also spent a lot of time reassuring me that She would never ever take it personally if I safeword or if I have a problem with something. I know that, logically, but it was very reassuring to hear it.

I'm still not entirely sure what the solution is, exactly, but to get some more experience safewording (hopefully yellow and not red - LOL).  But I do feel very comforted following all our discussion about it. If my block was due to some sort of self-consciousness, I feel like we probably worked through anything that might have caused that. So, that's progress. I don't see us running into situations like this very often. We don't play with very heavy S/M most of the time. There are some edgy things we include in our play, but rarely anything particularly extreme. However, there are obviously little odd things that can come up now and then, like they did yesterday), that we both need to be aware of and prepared for.  In that way, this was probably a really good learning experience.