Wiped

Oh. Man.

The plan was that I would head to NYC to go to an end of the year party my softball team is having, and then head over to the Eagle for a GMSMA bar night.

I don't know if either of those things will go down.

I am exhausted today. Just totally wiped out.

Last night, I gave a very hot bear his first whipping. He's from NYC, but we never made it happen when I lived there, and when it would have been oh so convenient. The plan was that he woucl come down for the night, and we'd meet up at the Philadelphia Bondage Club party. And that's what happened.

Yesterday, I was pretty quiet and meditative, preparing myself. Getting into the headspace. I worked my whips out in the yard. My skills are sharp. I have nothing but confidence in my whip work at this point. The technique aspects, that is.

But holding this man in my heart, having the universe receed and having it just be him and me for a while... that's a lifelong endeavor.

However, the best deal he could get on a hotel room was at a Holiday Inn out by the Philadelphia Airport. It was something of a hike for me, but not too bad. I ended up getting there before he did, so I sat in my car listening to REM's Chronic Town. When he showed up, he checked into his room, and then we headed to Philadelphia for a light dinner. The Baron recommended Mandarin Palace, a chinese restaurant at 19th and Chestnut. The Baron recommended it because he said it was quiet (and it was), the food was decent (and it was), and the place is flawlessly decorated, like stepping back into 1965 and visiting a chinese restaurant (and it was... there's gotta be a catalog or something that all that stuff came from).

During dinner, we talked about people we knew in common in NYC. Oddly, our paths never crossed that either of us can remember in the city. Then it was off to the Bondage Club, meeting at the Tannery, one of the best play spaces I've ever seen. Although it's tricky to find.

We arrived pretty early. I scoped out a good spot for us and dropped my toybag. We chatted with the other guys that had shown up, and had our little chat. My Musical Bear had extensive tattoo work on his back. I told him that I'd never whipped ink before. I didn't see that it would be too much of a problem, but I could offer no guarantees. He asked if there would be blood, and I explained that I had no idea. I've drawn blood doing a flogging with doeskin, and at the same time, I whipped a man for two hours, and twenty minutes later, you'd never know I was there. He guessed that he would mark easily.

After more chit chat--particularly with my new best friend in the whole world, the welder guy who runs the Tannnery and makes some amazing equipment to furnish it--we got busy.

The piece I selected was a simple bondage web, strung in a grid on a wooden frame. It was backed with a sort of bondage ladder, angled into each other and joined at the top so it wouldn't fall over. It was secure, and would give Musical Bear some room to move, and something to hold onto.

I restrained him to the web with his hands down at his sides. Then, using my ropes, I wove his feet in place, and also had several ropes lined up along the small of his back, protecting the kidneys. It was really good rope work! (Look at me! Rope Bondage Top!)

Then we started in with the flogging. I had packed my heavy bull skin, my thin stranded kangaroo, and my braided cat whisper whip. I took my time.

Musical Bear was making music in no time. He was so easy to read. The sounds coming from him were so expressive, telling me all I needed to know. He would make this sort of purring moan when he was having a really good time, and offer a sharp, growling exclamation when I was getting to the point where he wasn't.

I love bottoms who vocalize!

Switch ups, change ups, I kept things interesting. Bull skin, 'roo skin, then back to the bull skin. Then came the braided cat. At a halfway point while I was working him with the cat, when we reached a crescendo, I got in close and said, "This is the last stop before we reach our final destination. All ready for that?"

He smiled. "Yes, Sir," he said.

An odd thing while flogging him. What happens to a back that's being flogged is it gets red. I love that, it's like watching the sun coming up. At first, it's just where you laid on your flogger, and then, it blossoms over the expanse of the back. Wonderful to watch.

Well, Musical Bear never got red. At all. I thought perhaps it was obscured by his tattoo, but on closer inspection, there was nothing to show in the un-inked areas, the interstices, shall we say. The flogging is important to prepare the back for the whip. And I wanted to see red to know that I was where I wanted to be. So I flogged and flogged and flogged, but no red.

But then, I noticed that the skin on Musical Bear's back had the look and feel of orange peel (as Joseph Bean described it perfectly in his masterwork on flogging). Musical Bear had skipped red and gone right to orange skin.

Huh. Every back is different.

And then the whipping began.

In the Tannery, with the poured cement floors and the plaster walls, the crack of the whip sounded like a rifle shot. I teased and teased: I would crack the whip inches above his back, and then gently lay on the cracker, barely touching him. The sounds coming out of Musical Bear were glorious, and I watched as he opened up his back and stretched his shoulders towards me, looking for the whip. When I started cracking and connecting, he was so there. So there. Making all those Havin' A Good Time noises. I whipped him for quite a while until I went in, got him some water, and explained how the Ten Count works. ("I want ten more from you. You count, ten down to one, and you only count the ones you want to count. So if you want to count ten-nine-eight-seven-six-five-three-two-one, that's fine. Or we could be here until my arm falls off.)

Oh. And one more thing, I said. After we get to one, you're going to give me one more for Mark. He looked at me questioningly. "Who's Mark?" he asked. "I'll explain it to you in the car," I answered, "but you've gotta give one for Mark."

He was great. He worked the count beautifully. I got in some really really good strokes. It didn't last too long, and neither was it over too quickly, leaving me disappointed. And then I gave him a good one for Mark Collier.

I removed his restraints, and spritzed his back with hydrogen peroxide and witch hazel. Then wrapped him up in my sheet of rawhide and we moved to a nearby mattress on the floor for some of that cuddling that bears do so well.

I didn't draw blood, he had some really beautiful marks, and his tattoo work was fine. Very cool. I am good at this!

I packed up my gear, and we headed to a cozy little cafe I know that's open all night for some lattes and quiche. No we didn't. There's no such place in Philadelphia that I know of. The only place open is a greek diner called Little Pete's, and those tend to be full of noisy, inebriate heterosexuals. So it was back to the Holiday Inn by the airport.

In the car I explained who Mark Collier was, and why it is that every whipping scene I do from here on in will conclude with One for Mark. Musical Bear got it. I got pretty choked up talking about it. I realized that I hadn't done any whipping at Inferno. Or since. This was, in fact, the first whipping I've done since I should have whipped Mark. Damn.

I said goodnight to Musical Bear, took a final look at his back, and hit the road.

The trek was arduous. It was raining. The semis were roaring past me. Insomnia the night before and the excitement of the evening left me exhausted and fighting off fatigue.

Speaking of which, an interesting discovery: when I would feel myself getting tired, I would scream. Loud and long. I did it because I always scream in the car while I'm driving alone; it gives my voice a nice, gravelly phone sex quality. But last night I noticed that screaming also gives you a little hit of adrenaline. "Yeeeaahhhhhhhg!" and I'd perk up.

And, by the time I got off I-95, I was totally riding on fumes. I eschewed the gas station by Musical Bear's hotel ("I'm not gonna pay that much!") but didn't think about the fact that it would be two in the morning when I got off of 95 at the Newtown/Yardley exit, and there wasn't a lot open then. So, I had to make an exhausted watching-the-gas-gauge-needle-every-second trip to Doylestown to find an open gas station.

Finally, I got home. Fed the dog. Walked the dog. Brushed my teeth. Slept like a rock until noon today.

Well, the party for my softball team started fifteen minutes ago. I'll take a shower, get something to eat, do some of my chores around here, and then see if I feel like making a trip to Fun City.

I'm wiped, but in a good way.

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