Well. Y'know. I wussed out.
It was over in about three minutes.
























Damn you! You believed that, didn't you? I can't believe you believed me. Sheesh.

What can I say. It was amazing.

First off, the site was perfect for our purposes. I've got a great St. Andrew's Cross myself, but I sort of feel goofy playing at home. About four feet from the cross is my messy desk. Should I clean my desk before I have a boy over? Will it be distracting to him to be reading through my printouts on 'How to Configure Microsoft Entourage for POP Accounts' and the like as I'm securing him to my cross? But having the whole thing go down at El Mirage was perfect. I didn't have to worry about music or lighting or anything. The semi-privacy (as opposed to privacy) worked pretty well. Props all round.

The narrative was much the way I imagined it would be. ARt employed some truly daft (daft is Scots vernacular for stupid; the kids say 'stoopid' to mean something that's smart, sexy, and done well; I bet that 'stoopid' will soon be going the way of 'fly'; I'm going to start using 'daft' to mean 'stoopid'; when the check out boy at the Wawa tells you what your wearing is 'Way daft, Dude!', well then you can just thank Singletails for keeping you ahead of the curve on the the verbal hijinx of American Youth Subculture) change-ups. He did a really cool thing with his flogger, grasping the handle in one hand and the ends of the tails in the other, and pulling it taught so it snapped against my back. Really effective. I'm boosting that move.

The transition from floggers to whips was accomplished by way of a nice quirt. It worked really well. I use an amazing braided cat I picked up at Letherwerks in Fort Leatherdale. The guy working in the store when I bought it said 'That looks so mean! Don't come near me with that.' Wrong. It's truly been one of my most popular implements, even with first timers. And it leaves these great cat-scratch-like marks.

So what was the whipping like? Here's something that never occured to me... I don't know which was more intense: when the whip connected or when it cracked harmlessly behind me. Both worked to get my endorphins pumping. When the whip connects, you feel the sensation a split second after your brain has registered the sound of the crack. In the midst of a scene, that split second seems... well... you could be reading a paragraph of Proust in that time according to your cognitive clock. Thus, a crack is as good as a cut, as both cue your brain. ARt was totally (wonderfully) unpredictable, too. There was no pattern, no crack-crack-crack-connect.

I was really, really, really noisy. ARt referred to this as 'responsive.' I bellowed. I wailed. I would feel the next sound sort of percolating up from deep within me (here comes a 'GaaAAAWWWWWW!, now a 'YOoooooOOOooOOOooOOO!'). These sounds came from deep, deep within me. Sounds that I always wanted to make, but never did.

Oh I cried alright. Heartily and mightily. Heaving sobs. But with no proximate cause! It wasn't like, I would flash on missing my sister and start to cry. Not a bit. I would just start to cry. For nothing and everything. I've never cried like that. When I was a little boy, I would cry mostly to signal to the adults around me that something was wrong. I remember once my Dad hit me in the head (accidentally: mine was not a Great Santini upbringing) with the door of the refrigerator. He opened it, and I was on the floor. it didn't hurt, but then he said, "Well, he should have moved." I started wailing and made for the open arms of my sister. My father was mortified, he thought it was the dog's head he had hit, and not the fruit of his loins. His mortification and contrition were what I wanted from him, and my crying was how I got it. This was not only without cause, but it was without any message I was sending out to the world. It was just pure release. Laughing and crying are the same thing. I would weave seamlessly between the two, often not sure which was which. Amazing.

I didn't want it to be over. I hoped every stroke would be the last. ARt came up close and said, "Are you ready for your final ten?" I said, "Let's go on a some more and see where we end up." In other words, "No." Then, he started.

I've never used The Final Ten. I always thought it was a little gimmicky. Uh uh. It works brilliantly. The Top tells the bottom, "Ten more. You count. And only count the ones you want to make count." So it's a challenge. Just like in games boys play ("Punch me as hard as you can. You call that a punch? That's not a punch. C'mon. Punch me.") But, it gives the bottom an opportunity to demonstrate his fortitude, and the opportunity to reclaim that is important when you've spent the last hour tied powerlessly to a cross while another man beats you bloody. In other words, "I can take it." Similarly, it's a way of regaining control at the same time. I could have shouted out "Ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-four-three-two-one! Thank you, Sir!" and it would have been all over. FYI: I didn't.

Did I ever feel the endorphins! Like an electric current flowing through me. They have the added benefit of shutting down higher brain functions. So I just was. Present, and in the moment. Probably a rare--and possibly a unique--time in my entire life on this plane.

After he cleaned me up (the application of rubbing alcohol was by far the least enjoyable sensation of the entire evening), ARt asked me what time it was. I truly had no idea. Were we at it for twenty minutes or four hours? I couldn't say. It had been two hours. ARt said, "It's time that you just offer up to the Universe." Yeah, but not quite. It's two hours during which I was the Universe. I was the spinning of planets on their axes. I was the slow rotation of planets around stars. I was a comet moving through the void. I was the timeless forward movement of photons through space. I was a solar flare. I was sheer happenstance. I just was, even though I could very well not have been. The radical contingency and absurdity of Being.

Will I do it again? Probably. Not for a while, though. I'm grieving a little loss today. Sort of like the loss of virginity. I've compassed a great mystery. I've been there. I've done that. Never again will I have the opportunity to stand on that threshold and without word or thought just step through. I worry that 'Next Time' will bring with it the Imp of the Connoisseur, that I'll compare and contrast, and I'll be right back in the barren realm of of the Cogito. Or worse, go on the endless quest to 'up the ante.'

Here's the alternative: it's about connection and intimacy. Even though ARt is in many ways a stranger to me, he and I have a bond. I remember in the workshop, he looked at me throwing his signal whip for the 16th time in my life, beamed, and said, "You're a Natural." Watching him, the ken of how to throw found it's way into my muscles and sinews. Throwing a whip is something that your body learns how to do. I can see someone do a throw, and then I'll know how to do it. I couldn't describe the 'How To' of it. Suddenly, you just can do it when a minute ago, you couldn't. ARt gave me that gift. And, after the workshop, he checked in. We met up for dinner. He examined and admired my newly acquired whips. I emailed him about my trepidation when, after months of punishing shrubbery, I wondered if I was ready to whip a man. Or if I would ever be. When I did it for the first time, that beautiful evening in the eternal summer of Southeast Florida, in the garage playspace of a guy I had chatted with on AOL, ARt was right there with me (not physically present), cooly commenting and cheering me on. At Inferno, he introduced me to men who were the best in the world. And during my Initiation Ceremony, he opened my hand and put into it the most incredible whip I think I will ever own, then gently closed my fingers around it. I can't pick out the moment at which my back belonged to ARt, but that certainly came to be. By luck, I also like him. He's smart, honorable, sexy, admired by men of substance and worth, intuitive. He knows who he is. So, if and when I meet another man with a whip, with whom I feel a similar depth and sweetness, and if I decide that I want to have that man become a part of me, inextricably woven into the fiber of my being, then yeah, I'll do it again.






Huh. Four voice messages on my cell phone. One from a 646 number. Could it be Schlitz? I shouldn't get my hopes up.