Getting the Good Out of the Bad

I can’t say it was “bad,” but every so often things don’t go quite as planned, by the Top or bottom.  Something just doesn’t work, you can’t get into headspace, a pain is a bad pain as opposed to the good kind… You know what I mean.
We had that kind of scene last night.
The weirdest part was, he didn’t even realize that the pain wasn’t the okay kind for me.  He knew it was an unpleasant situation – but he puts me in a lot of unpleasant situations. He knew it was uncomfortable, and in time would end up painful – but he puts me in a lot of positions that grow uncomfortable and finally painful. He knew it wasn’t my favorite thing – but he does lots of things that I don’t necessarily like. Most times all those things are expected and part of why I do what I do…it feels so good when it ends, right? LOL But seriously, sometimes there is a kind of odd pleasure in enduring something simply because he wants me to; or in trying to endure it for as long as I can because I know he’s waiting for me to break, and, stubbornly, I resist.
We both like to push at that at times.
I actually thought he knew how bad this particular thing is. I was shocked when I realized, after, that he really had no clue. I mean, it’s really not one of those “extreme” things, and, for most people, is not a big deal. He was shocked that it was that awful for me (though later he said he shouldn’t have been, the clues were there in other times we’ve played, and in how my body reacts to other kinds of play in that area.)  I never said anything because I thought he knew, and was doing it on purpose and, in the headspace we were playing in (mildly punitive) I couldn’t speak up. (Not that I was gagged, but that, in that headspace, I couldn’t speak up with a mild complaint. Even if it wasn’t so mild.)
Until I did, loudly crying out his name, which is usually a “very loud orange” as he calls it.
It was so bad that the entire time it was happening, I was thinking: “I’ve finally found a limit. No more, not ever, period.” I’ve never thought that. I’ve never even considered limits with him, not since the beginning.  No sooner had he released me from it, though, and I was already backing down from that stance. I don’t like to limit him. If he really wants to do a thing to me, I do not want to limit him. Especially with something as innocuous as this.
So what was this horrible-awful-really-bad-terrible-no-good thing?
Clothespins on the tips of my nipples. (And, in this case, connected to a point above by lengths of twine.)
I know, I know. I love clothespins. And zippers! He’s always been downright stunned that I like zippers. So…a clothespin on a nipple? That’s easy-peasy, BDSM 101 stuff, right?
Not so much. It was the thing that almost made me opt out of the rest of the weekend playing with a friend of his that he had brought in specifically to play with and use me one weekend. It’s the one thing that is almost intolerable to me.
“Almost” being the key. And my own stubbornness being another key. And my thinking “He must know how awful this is!” so I never specified how awful it is for me, being yet another. And the fact that he has never played with someone else that has had that adverse a reaction to it–and in fact, has always considered it a “low level” kind of BDSM play–being yet another. (That thing I mentioned in the clothespin piece I linked to up there, about individuals not perceiving pain the same way? Yeah, that.)
Are you seeing what I’m seeing? A whole of lot little things coming together to form the perfect storm: one pissed off, unhappy, not-going-anywhere-good-in-the-scene Jade.
And before you think it: no, it’s not that he doesn’t “know how to put them on right.” He knows very well exactly how to put them on. I just have very very sensitive nipples. (I also think that in his previous experiences with them, he may have run into the exceptions rather than the rule, though, because every female I’ve ever talked to says that clothespins right on the tip are nearly unbearable…but I could be wrong about that.)  And no, it wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention. I take a lot of misery and pain at times. He knows this, and he knows, in that fucked-up way that this works for people like me, that I want to take it. That I may be miserable in the moment, but I don’t want it to end.  As soon as he realized that this was not one of those times, he ended it. (And even so, I did tolerate far longer than I wanted to, because I knew he was enjoying it, and, even in that awful headspace, even in the midst of it, I still wanted him to have that, to be able to enjoy it, in spite of what I was feeling. That, in the end, was the only pleasure that I got out of it. Holding on just one more minute, because he liked it.)  But as soon as I couldn’t tolerate it one minute more, as soon as he realized that it wasn’t the “good pain” that we both enjoy, he stopped things and brought me down.
So, none of this is a reflection on him, or his abilities as a Top, or as my lover, to read things rightly or to act rightly.
It just ended up, accidentally, being a real downer of a scene for me.  I finally did “very loudly orange” out of it, and he took me down, and hugged me, and held me, and eventually fucked me, and it was all okay. Oh, and later he flogged me and made me come, screaming like a banshee, but that was after the Good That Came From the Bad. Well, the orgasms and all that were good too, LOL, and yes, they were a result of us talking about the bad, but it is the communication that came of all this that I’m really referring to when I say the “Good” thing that came of it.
See, I’ve been needing to talk to him about a couple things for awhile, but haven’t found the right way to do it.  That scene–and being unhappy with it–gave me the opening I needed to be able to talk about what’s been bothering me on a wider scale.
We do lots and lots of different stuff, something you’re probably familiar with if you’ve read my blog for any length of time or followed me on Twitter or are friends with me on Fetlife.  But, there are some specific things that W really gets off on, and that are at the “core” of his kink, if you will, just as most of us have core things that fuel WIITWD. Not exactly a fetish, and he does lots and lots of other things too, but kind of his “thing” is predicament-type bondage scenes and devices. Although what we do often leads to sex, or to orgasms in-scene for me, and oftentimes involves him sticking it in occasionally, he doesn’t usually tie me up for sex, or whack at me and fuck me while I’m tied, or use toys on me sexually. He doesn’t actually do a lot of humiliation play (tho it might seem so here, but that’s probably because that tends to get me viscerally, where I live, and so I write about it more often.)  He also doesn’t do a lot of “mixed” scenes, for instance mixing some not-as-severe elements of bondage with different kinds of impact toys or implements, or if he plans to, he usually makes the bondage so severe that we never get to any of that, because I break before we can. He’s kind of a separatist that way. If he’s going to do bondage, he does bondage until I’m wiped out. If he’s going to do impact play, he sets me up for that and does that. But when he does intend to mix them, it usually doesn’t happen, because if he’s going to tie me, he just can’t resist really tying me. And then I (sadly) give out long before he can get to any of the “fun” stuff.  Like shoving things in my holes, or hitting me with toys, or doing other degrading, filthy things to me. The things that I like. As I said one time to him, “If you tied me just a little less severely, you could beat me up more.” LOL
But I was serious.
I’m not complaining; I’ve known all along that this is his kink, and for the most part, I dig it too.  I get off on the severity of predicament bondage, on the mind-fuck of it and the creativity of it. I get off on him getting off on it. And rope, whether severe or mild, really does something to me.
But.  (And here’s where we get to that “needing to share something that’s bothering me” thing…)
As much as I enjoy that…I probably enjoy impact and humiliation play more. For me, what I, personally, like, is a good rough-her-up-smack-her-around-hit-her-with-things scene. I like the immediacy and barely-supressed control of physical violence. I like the feeling of being whipped, flogged, cropped, caned, singletailed, paddled, spanked, etc. I like being tied down for the express purpose of using my holes: mouth, ass and cunt, as receptacles; for cocks, for toys, for objects. I want my holes used and stretched, filled.  I like to be used in other ways – pissed on and in, ejaculated on, made to demean myself by accepting these actions and by being made to do others, pissing on myself or in front of someone, accepting an enema (and either enjoying it or not) touching myself, masturbating, offering my body for use.  I like to be hit, slapped, knocked around and thrown down, then fucked thoroughly while my face is ground into the dirt, or made to withstand a whipping or a beating until I can barely stand up. I like the “basics” of BDSM, you know, a spanking that starts out slow and builds up into a good hard one with hands and wooden spoons and paddles or crops or a flogger, then a nice hard fuck afterwards.
Sometimes, I don’t want to be half-killed in some spectacularly intense bondage scene. Sometimes, I just want to be tied up and fucked. With maybe a little slap-and-tickle thrown in there. 😉  Sometimes I want the rope just to be there because he needs to hold my hands out of the way.  Sometimes I want a good wrestling match in the bed, til we’re both panting and exhausted – and we haven’t even got to the part where he shoves his cock in me.
This is not to say that those things don’t happen (you only have to read back a few months to see that) but…maybe not as often as I, personally, would like. And…I want it to happen more. And I needed to say that to him.
The thing is, we had an issue where I needed something (more D/s interactions when he was away) and, after a lot of us trying to work it out, he finally admitted, “I just can’t do that. It’s not me. If you have to have that, find someone else.” I didn’t know if he meant “instead of” or “in addition to” but either way, that’s not what I want. So…I have to accept that he can’t or won’t do things that way. I love him, and he gives me everything else I need in BDSM, so…there’s the compromise for me. I’d rather live without that (and it isn’t just in the long distance times) than try to find that elsewhere, because I like our balance, our Three, who were are and how we all work together. I don’t want anyone else in the mix. So…I accept that that is not something I can have, and I find other ways to get that need fed (frequent play sessions help, since there are elements of non-physical D/s there, and the physical Domination/subjugation also feeds the need.) And he does know about this need in me, and does, to the limits of his own personal comfort level and abilities in it, try to help me find ways to get that need met.  So there are compensations, and it all balances out.
But having just been through this adjustment in my thinking, and having heard this from him: “It’s just not going to happen,” did make me cautious about saying anything about this other.  I don’t want to hear that again. I don’t want to be told/to know that my needs don’t match, and aren’t going to be met, by him. And that I should get them met elsewhere.
I was a little gunshy about being open about my needs for different kinds of play.
But then the Bad Scene happened, and when I realized that he hadn’t had a clue about how awful that one thing was, I also realized something else:
He’s not a mindreader.
I know, WTF, right? He’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to “know me better than I know myself”! (Gak.) The fact is, he can’t read my mind. Even, sometimes, in the middle of a scene. Or an argument. Or a discussion. And I realized–maybe he doesn’t know that I want to do these other things. That sometimes I miss “BDSM 101” type things. And I realized that even if he did say to me, “You know, I’m really not interested in doing those things,” as he did about the D/s, I–and we–would survive. Because I know him well enough to know that, if he knew how much I wanted and needed something, he would do as much and what he could, and be honest about what he couldn’t or wouldn’t.  I said one time that it is necessary in a relationship to be able to say what we need/want, at the risk of hurting the other person or eliciting an unfavorable response. We have to feel safe enough within the relationship to be able to be honest, or we can never know that we are being honest–either ourselves, or the others in the relationship.  We have that, here. I just forgot about it momentarily. Those clothespins reminded me.
And I got my BDSM 101 flogging.  He even used cuffs! (Or maybe it was 201, because he’s got to throw a little edge in there, yanno? Like, oh, flogging my pussy, too. ~smirk~)