Riding the edge play…

[Warning: if you have an issue with pointiy things, this post may be triggery]

“When you breathe out, it doesn’t hurt.”

It’s Friday night, at a private play party. I’m mid scene with Rob. Well, closer to the beginning. We sit in the kitchen facing one another. I am staring at him intently, trying to breathe. I feel a sharp pinch over my right breast and quickly breathe out.

One more pinch. Ow. *Fuck.* I forgot to breath out that time.
I let out a wince.

“It’s ok. I got you. Just breathe.”

“Well, tell me when I need to breathe out, next time, ok?”

“Ok, then.. Breathe in.”

I do.

“And out…”

I exhale… one more shock of pain mixed with a small endorphin rush…

Wash. rinse. repeat.

I try not to think. If I think about it, then I’ll freak out. If I freak out, it will hurt more.

I bring myself into my body, forcing the hamster wheel that is my brain to stop spinning. I breathe when he tells me to, letting the pain out with each exhale. My head feels light on my shoulders. After five or so passes, he pulls his hand away from my chest, and sits back to admire his work. I can’t see what he’s looking at. It’s too high up on my pectoral. A few people are peering at us over the kitchen island in morbid curiosity.

At my request, someone hands me a compact mirror, and finally I can survey the damage. There it is… a 21 gage needle neatly woven into my skin. I count six small folds of skin stretching over that tiny needle.

My needle phobia is pretty well documented, and this my latest effort to leave it behind. I first came across needles as a form of play a few years ago, when I accidently walked in on a piercing scene at a party in Boston. I took one look at what was happening, turned pale as a sheet and left the room as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.

Later that night, my then housemate poked me on the shoulder.

“Hey, Sascha! Check it out!”

I turned around to see her topless, sporting two needles stuck through her chest. I nearly died.
“Why the hell are you showing me that?!”
“Mostly to get that reaction.”
“You bitch.”

God, I miss living with her.

Rob is reaching back into his bag in search of another needle of the same gage. He’s being nice and using the smaller ones. The higher the gage, the thinner the needle. We lock eyes once again.

“Ok, listen.” Rob tells me “That stuff I told you about breathing is bullshit. It doesn’t work. I just needed to get you to focus. Here’s a technique that really works. I need you to ground yourself. Your feet need to create a strong connection with the floor. Take the pain, take the energy, and just ground it out.”

I plant my feet as best I can, pretending to sprout roots from the balls and heels of my feet.

Rob holds removes the needle from the casing in front of my nose. The play party is noisy, full of laughter and loud conversation… not good for my ADD addled brain. I kick two people out of the kitchen chatting loudly about their favorite beer.

“I need you to look at me.”
Rob’s voice echoes in my ears. His hand is still on my chest.
“You are going to relax. Feel your eyes blink and get heavy. Let the voices around you slowly fade away until there is nothing but my voice.”
The voices fade but don’t disappear. I remember that bothered me… but in retrospect, the only voice I recall is Rob’s.

I let the rush from my head flow into the floor through my feet. Once again, I feel a pinch. this time over my left breast. Then another one, more intense than the first. And a third. My whole body is tingling now… my head feels ready to float away from my body.

“Stay grounded.”

I’m staring into space. The kitchen has all but faded into peripheral vision. I vaguely sense someone standing to the right of my vision… Yuri, a pretty Russian who I had flirted with earlier. It’s surprising to sense him standing there watching. Before we started, he insisted that he couldn’t stand needles. Didn’t like them, didn’t get them. Now he’s transfixed.

Wow… He’s being *really* mean Yuri Muses to no one in particular.

Then to me, in Russian You like this?

Yes. I respond. A lot. Don’t ask me to explain.

“Focus.”

I let Yuri disappear too. The details here get hazy. I wince every now and again, and Rob stops to press his hand to my chest, sending warmth through the latex and into my sternum. I am a river of pure sensation, as I take each twist of the needle and let it pulse through me. Just as I feel ready to explode, Rob steps back again. This pattern is different from the first… The skin has been twisted around the needle to look like the teeth of a zipper pull.

Just as I’m about to get up, Rob pulls out another needle.

“Another one?!”
“Last one, I promise. You ready?”
I nod in compliance.
“Now, you are going to enjoy this last one. Each time the needle goes through, you will feel nothing but pleasure.”
And so begins round three. And, sure enough, my body is determined to enjoy itself. The needle goes in and out once, and I smile. The smile becomes a grin. The grin spreads so far across my face that my cheeks grow sore.

And suddenly, the last needle is in, but the scene isn’t over. Rob is now standing over me, focusing all of his intensity to a single point… me. All of the energy that had built up over the course ripples through me in waves. It takes me a good couple of hours to come down. The needles come out at some point. The aftercare is kind of hazy too. When I finally do come back to planet earth, my body decides to shut down, and I pass out on the couch.

This is the first time I let someone take me that far over my edge. Not only did I let Rob take me over my limits, but I did so with a smile on my face. If that’s not something to be proud of, I don’t know what is.

I showed off my marks to Calico yesterday. Piercing scenes leave the most interesting marks, neat little patchworks of dots.
“You know,” She said “Normal people don’t do that.”
“I’m not normal.”
“I know… but… I mean, normal people just go in and out once with a 25 gage needle.”
“Oh. Really? What does that mean?”
“It means you’re on, like, level three level of toughness.”

That made me stand up a little taller.

~ by Sascha on March 26, 2008.