When things got "worse"…

So then there was the second half of the night.  I didn’t expect there to be a second half, to be honest.  I went over to W’s after being at the Other Guy’s, after having gotten my butt spanked pretty well, feeling a little buzzy, a little self-satisfied, maybe even smug.  I’d done it—asked for exactly what I wanted, orchestrated it, gotten exactly the amount I wanted, left without having given up any of my control or myself.   That’s what I’d wanted, right?
Hmm. Maybe not.
Maybe that was part of what I wanted, to see if I could do it, see if I could control a boy, even while he thought he was controlling me. Smugness…yes, that’s what I felt.
That, and sassiness.
I have different reactions to different kinds of scenes.  For instance, W and I did a beautiful scene that was fairly intense, but instead of being wiped out after, I was flying, aggressive and sassy and wanting to attack him (in fact did pretty much that, pushing him back on the floor and kissing on him, rubbing myself against him, teasing and playing with him in a way that is not my usual way of reacting, so much so that he remarked on it.) Other times I curl into a ball in his lap, or put myself at his feet, wanting nothing so much as to feel his hand on my head, his fingers in my hair, to know that I am cared for, that I am back home and safe.
This time, I was definitely feeling up and sassy when I arrived at W’s.  My plan was to work on a computer project with him, sort of vanilla after my lil spanking scene.  W took one look at my red butt (and maybe my attitude) and had other ideas. So much for me being in control anymore.
Damn how that man can strip me bare emotionally, laying me open and vulnerable.  It’s been a week or more now, and much has happened since then and now, but I can feel myself getting wet just remembering the way he took a few pictures and then, without so much as a by-your-leave, guided me into his front room, bent me over his couch, tied me down and gave me a proper spanking.  The kind I couldn’t escape from, the kind that left me with no control, that reminded me who was really in control, every minute, the kind that didn’t stop until he was ready to stop, even when I went through the “oh this is nice and oh yumm! orgasm! ” phase into panic mode, where I was fighting mindlessly, heedlessly, just trying to escape the blows. God I love that place.  I love it that he takes me there, that he pushes me there, that he doesn’t give in, that he doesn’t let me have control.   And sure, I love it when he stops, when I am panting and gasping and sniffling and he is holding me and I know everything is all right again, but that first part…that is an incredible edge to be on.
As I have intimated here before, I have some abuse in my past, an early, ill-advised marriage to a man that lost control when he drank and “knocked me around.”  Nothing brutal, but aggressive and frightening coming from a 6’3” 190 lb man when I am 5’3” and weighed about 90 lbs.  It was my utter helplessness—and his loss of control—that terrified me so much during those episodes.   I could not get away, I could not stop him or change the way it would end, once it started. I was helpless and defenseless against his larger size and aggression, and I learned quickly that fighting back only resulted in things getting worse.
When I started all this stuff, I recognized what I was doing, the edge I was playing on.  I recognized and am not afraid to admit (no matter how non-fucking-PC it is) that there were aspects of his aggression that attracted me, that excited me.  I didn’t know any better.   I didn’t know about consensuality, I didn’t know about BDSM, I only knew that his aggression fed something in me that I liked to feel.  Thank goodness I recognized that it was unhealthy before I was seriously hurt, and left him behind to enter into a very vanilla, very conventional marriage.   I tried to mold myself into the “perfect wife” that I assumed was what was necessary in order to have a “safe” (read non-violent) marriage.  And it worked, for the most part.  What didn’t work was that I was restless, I was discontent, I was unsatisfied. I didn’t know how to assuage those feelings, I didn’t know where they stemmed from, until I discovered BDSM, and found that edge again in a safe environment.
In the beginning, it was absolutely imperative that I have some level of control…I wanted to be tied, I wanted to be hurt, but I wanted to know I could get loose, get away, say stop, if I got scared.  I liked circling the perimeter of that particular edge, but wasn’t ready to fling myself off it yet.   Contributing to that was that I didn’t completely trust my partner not to lose control—not because he ever had, I know one of the subconscious reasons I “chose” him was because he was always in such control of himself (opposite of the first one)—but because, with my history, trusting in someone else’s self-control did not come easily.  I never lost that fear, really, until I started playing with W.
And that is the strange part in all this.  Because it is in those moments when we are playing, when I fight, when I am beyond thought, when I am in pain and fear of more pain, and he pushes just that much farther…when his aggression comes to the forefront, when I feel his heat, his desire to subjugate, to conquer, and he is holding me down and no longer playing in this “safe” place…it is in those moments that I fly free, that I leap from the edge and soar, flying in the face of my fear.