Scene Failure and the Scary Party Part Two: Aftercare?

I was so angry and hurt and sad that I couldn’t speak. I got out the blanket (purple velvet with a white fleecy inside, I bought it just for our scenes) and climbed into his lap. It’s scary and stupid that I was relying on the same person who’d just fucked me over to help bring me back to life—this system is a mess unless you really play with the right person.

He brushed my hair and said nice things that sounded hollow. He said that he wanted me to be an important person in his life, that he’d find a cute pet name/honorific for me like he has for his wife (To him, she’s The Girl. Which is kind of telling...)

“If you wanted me to be someone important in your life, then why did you treat me like I wasn’t? Why did you act just like I wasn’t even there at all?”

“I want you to know my friends. I guess you should take some time with (Sadist Girl) outside of scenes.”

“You expect me to be friends with someone who just did that to me? I would punch her in the face if I could. And she should at least learn what my fucking NAME IS.”

“But you don’t understand. She plays at a whole different level that you and I do.” He said this with an annoying admiration in his voice.

“You mean a level without negotiation or consent?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

The thing I am tired of finding out is that guys SAY that they want to know what I want, that they want me to voice my concerns and needs. They SAY they believe in talking things through and having a real relationship, but what I keep finding at the core of them (Not ALL of them, to be sure) is a fantasy of no limits, for a sex doll who just shuts the fuck up and does what she’s told and never stops a scene or pipes up with a worry.

Sadist Girl popped back in throughout aftercare. The Man was making an effort to be attentive to me, but she kept asking things like “Where should I take a pussy-eating break? The bathroom?”

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, taking her security armband for safekeeping. Not to be a stick-in-the-mud (Though that seems to be my role in this story.) but at a no-sex party, the answer should have been “Nowhere.” He is truly not awesome with boundaries.

Sadist Girl stopped back in later (Presumably after the pussy-eating) to stand over us and say “Isn’t that adorable. Isn’t that just fucking adorable.”

I guess I should say at this point that I didn’t get the idea that he was attracted to her or anything. She’s trans (I think that’s why he thought we’d like each other, because all queer people are automatically friends somehow) and he seems a little bit overly straight for anyone creatively-gendered. I couldn’t figure out the weird energy between them. It was like he was in her thrall—he acted like a toadie and it’s hard to respect a toadie.

All of this confusion and bad energy was heavy on my heart as we kept kissing and talking and trying to get back to something good. I knew it was over, full of the same dread that I’d had that last day on the couch with Bill, but I didn’t want to give up. I wanted to just blame Sadist Girl or the venue, but was hard to deny that he’d made things the way they were.

I called Sweetie as we were getting ready to leave, trying to figure out what to do. It must have taken enormous strength for her not just to insist that I come home. I feel terrible that she had to experience a call like that.

“Come home with me,” he said as I finished my phone call. And we kissed and pushed and shoved and struggled against each other in the room with the good music.

“See, if you’re angry with me, I want you to be angry. It’s better than when you are all helpless and can barely stand. Then I just don’t know what to say.”

I did like shoving him around but if HELPLESS is a turnoff then a. Why a submissive? and b. Don’t be a douchebag and wreck a scene with some meaningless nonsense that has nothing to do with anything! Is what I wish I’d said.

Sadist Girl came by and he lead her sweetly away by the elbow. The conversation started with “I fucked up,” but I didn’t hear the rest. She came back to pack up her gear and said goodbye without apologizing, so I decided to talk to her about it too.

“I don’t think that I was in a position to really consent. You can’t just change a scene in the middle like that.”

In an authoritative voice she said “Actually, you can. You really need to work on your…”

And I have no idea what she was going to tell me I needed to work on because by the end of the sentence I was snapping at her semi-coherently. I could not believe that this stranger was telling me when I could and could not consent.

“If I were you,” she snarled “I wouldn’t come back to MY place.”

The Man hustled me out the door. I felt so ashamed, behaving like a Real Housewife of BDSM, sniping at another girl at a party and causing a (ha) scene.

Dignity wasn’t happening that night. I yelled at him on the way to the car, all about consent and respect and triggers, balling up my fists and jumping up and down in my pretty red satin heels. 

“GOD DAMMIT.” I snarled “What was I not doing? Why can’t I ever just fucking be enough for somebody.”

I was so lost and frustrated and livid with him for fucking up the worthwhile thing I thought we had.

I have to give him credit for getting in the car with me when I was in that state.

Sometimes my city driving is a little iffy, but on this drive, I had the motherfucking eye of the tiger. I turned up the music, seethed, and drove.

Scene Failure and the Scary Party, Part One

I really wish I’d been telling this story while it was still happy-it would’ve been so much more fun to write. I liked him so much that I was even calling him Emotionally Available Guy in my fb updates. Our first scene together was so close to being my dream come true that it was hard to be myself afterwards—I felt like he could finally be the guy to give me what I needed. Except.

Remember the episode of Doctor Who where the little boy keeps everything he’s afraid of locked in a cabinet in his room? That’s what one of the local play parties has felt like to me for a while—there are no boundaries anywhere, anyone feels free to waltz into any scene they see fit, so I’ve left there on more than one occasion feeling exploited and trampled. On the other hand, it’s also the place where I had my amazing first public scene with Fireguy, so it can’t be all bad.

The Man (as in the Man who brings one down) is the head of security at this venue. I was thinking that being with him would make me safe, rather than realizing that he is part of what makes it so chaotic. I was excited when he invited me, thinking it could help me to heal my creepy feelings about the place. Still, I hemmed and hawed about going, especially when he sprung it on me that his wife (who I didn’t know very well yet) would be going too. She didn’t end up going, and after much coaxing and reassurance, I decided to go, even though I worried that it might be the end for us. I really wanted to spend time with him and I wondered if the badness of the Bad Party was all in my head.

When I first got there, there was already an emergency—a woman had been getting her boobs whipped and she started to bleed, needing stitches. She was all woozy and no one could find the first aid kit. We ran into her in the aftercare room later, asked if she was okay, and for some reason her “I’m happy!” rang hollow, like, really, do we have to put ourselves through this?

As I was signing my waiver, The Man introduced me to Sadist Girl, a member of his security staff, who referred to me annoyingly as “Ribbons,” part of my Fet handle, instead of my real name, which I’d given her. “She knows you from FetLife,” he explained, “and she knows why you’re here.” Cue the foreboding I’m-in-trouble music.

At this point (actually at many points before this night) the horror movie audience would be yelling at the screen: “Get out of the house! Run DOWN the stairs, not up!” But I trusted him and you know what? He smelled really, really good. It’s amazing the lengths I’ll go to for a good man smell, let me tell you. I wanted to please him so that he’d notice me, so he’d really make me someone important in his life, so I’d know that he would stick around.

He led me into a harshly lit red room where people were kind of crowded in, but there was a free spanking bench. I didn’t really care for it because it wasn’t very showoffy/safe and it was away from the really good DJ that usually makes the place bearable. The beginning of the scene wasn’t like the first one or the nice time that we’d had in my living room earlier in the week. He didn’t stop and look into my eyes or ask me what I wanted. He didn’t brush my hair with the brush he’d requested the previous time. He didn’t stop and connect with me at all—it was like I was a chore he had to get through before he could get back to the real fun of working security. I should have stopped the scene or at least moved to another room.

He was complaining about the people talking around us, so I asked if he wanted to move and he said no. He told me to keep my mouth shut even though I’d told him several times that it was a hard limit. I don’t know why, but I kept my mouth shut—I am ashamed of how desperate I was and how much I compromised. I wish I could get in the Sex Tardis and save myself, but it is always too late.

It was an okay scene, if uninspired. Flogging, handcuffs, hairpulling. I had on my shorty pajamas that I always wear and my shirt was pulled up, exposing my nipples. “You’re my sweet girl,” he kept saying, “My good, sweet girl.” I melted. I was so happy in that moment—I’d dreamed of being his and he was saying that I was.

Right about then I heard him talking to Sadist Girl and handing her his soft leather paddle. I don’t know why I said it as okay. It certainly hadn’t been negotiated beforehand or even mentioned as a possibility. I would have said no if I’d been asked outside subspace. I don’t know why I did any of this. He held me tight from the front as she hit me all stingy, not the thuddy the way I like. She slapped around the edges of places so that it was hurtier, the sides of my thighs, the back of my knees. I don’t remember her hitting me in the crotch but it was bleeding after. I liked being tight in The Man’s arms, sobbing and screaming, and I liked feeling like I was giving him what he wanted. Sadist Girl tried hitting me on the bottom of my feet and at least I remembered the word “red” for that. She kept calling me “Ribbons” and it was making me mad. “Why do you say you’re not a masochist, RIBBONS?” “Huh, RIBBONS?

I started to really really not like it so I whispered to him that I wanted to be with just him now. She stopped hitting me but wouldn’t leave. They stood around talking as if I wasn’t there. She was listing off the people she had grudges against, talking about how they’d have to ban them.

I started to feel exposed and violated. I tried to work my shirt down over my breasts even though I was still cuffed. I told him again to get rid of her. He looked annoyed and she looked pissed off but finally went away. I told him to get me out of the handcuffs and I got dressed. I should have left as soon as I could drive, but I didn’t. Even though he’d broken our agreements and ignored my safety, I still wanted to be with him.