Tuesday Advice: Marks without pain??

Okay, admittedly, I’ve often heard questions about how to do play without marks. But I’ve rarely received the reverse. But there’s a first time for everything.

Dear Delilah,

I really like it when my partner leaves marks on me that last a few days, so that I can look at them as they fade and reminisce about the fun we had making them. However, my pain threshold isn’t terribly high and often it hurts too much before we get to the point of bruising. Can you recommend hitting equipment that would be more likely to leave marks? So far we’ve been improvising with hands and belts.

Thanks for your help,
N.

Hey, N. Marks are kind of awesome, aren’t they? A lot of us seem to spend a lot of time and energy avoiding getting them for one reason or another: our partners might get upset, the cashier at the grocery story might think we’re getting abused at home; there’s this doctor’s appointment…but the truth is, for some people, marks are exceedingly powerful and enhance and extend the life of our scenes.

But marks are often also a sign we’ve been through some serious pain; I had some cane marks on my thighs from two weekends ago that spread into huge, purply bruises that lasted nearly two weeks, and let me tell you, earning those HURT.

There are ways, though, to get bruises and other marks without enduring too much.

1. Be in a heightened state of arousal. Often, when I’m done with a certain someone, I have these mysterious bruises on my inner thighs, and sometimes a couple of smaller ones on my outer thighs, too. With a bit of thought, I realized that these were coming from my partner holding, pulling and squeezing my thighs while he’s fucking me. Thighs are pretty easily bruised in general, and yet also have a lot of fatty tissue to protect them; they’re also a good place to get bruised if you want to hide your marks from the everyday world. It’s worth noting that I never notice these injuries as I’m receiving them, only the bruises afterward, which make me smile. Other marks may be possible in the throes of passion: you may find you can take harder bites and harder squeezes (the upper arms are a great place for this) when you’re really turned on and in the moment.

2. Biting. Biting can really really hurt, but it can also be one of the easiest ways to leave a mark. If your partner sucks while biting, or squeezes the flesh between the teeth rather than pressing down with the jaw (a good way to bite hard without leaving marks, btw), you can get a nice mark from it without too much pain. If you don’t want to take biting pain at all, hickeys are another great option: just have your partner clamp on and lamprey away.

3. Brief moments of extreme pain. You’re not going to have a lot of luck leaving marks with bare hand slapping: you have to get really really going before bruising or other lasting marks can happen, and by then you’re probably tapped. Here’s some general rules about marks: 1) you’re more likely to get bruises from thuddy things than from stingy things; 2) the thinner the object, the more likely you’ll get surface welts. So if you want marks but find your pain tolerance lacking for a long session, another option is to put up with a lot of pain just once. A hard cane strike hurts like hell but stops hurting in about 30 seconds. You get a beautiful welt that may or may not bruise. A hard punch (in the buttocks, thighs, upper chest or upper back, please), particularly a dirty one with the knuckle out, will probably raise a bruise and will hurt for a similar amount of time, then have a yummy soreness when you press it for a few days.

Hopefully this helps. Let us know! Send pictures!

To ask a question, email me or comment here!

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Two days later – really? Also, more safeword contingencies.

Went to a marvelous party the other night. Friends abounding, getting naked and fucking with abandon or doing deliciously evil things to one another in an atmosphere akin to Burning Man parties I’ve been to in the past. There’s nothing quite like watching someone get spanked under a shiny-mylar-fringed tent-thing amid color-changing LEDs.

I was exhausted and not much in the mood for anything, except maybe a beating. Getting one, I mean. A friend of mine is a great play partner for this; he and I flirt and kiss a little, but the full sexual spark doesn’t seem to be there: he just enjoys my masochistic side when he’s in that special kind of sadistic mood.

It’s always funny for me to play with casual partners in that kind of setting: I’m always thinking about what they’re doing with the cuffs, what their equipment is like, how well they’re managing my safety, and so on – it’s the curse of the professional. But it’s also fun, and good to see that my choice of partners is usually right-on.

He has a nice collection of non-traditional toys: floggers made of nylon strings, smooth for thuddy impact, braided for brutally stingy. Near the end he unzipped a long case, by which time I was floating in endorphins and adrenaline and was only able to ask, “What’s that?”

“The percussion section!” he quipped.

And the coup de grace: two metal canes about a half-inch thick.

Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch. He told me I didn’t have any marks afterward, but that bruises would probably come up from those canes in a couple of days.

He was right. No, there aren’t pictures.

I was very appreciative, too, of his sensitivity to my safeword problem. It was getting to be too much for me at one point, and he said, “If you need me to ease off, just give me a yellow.” I squirmed, screamed, breathed hard, and finally gasped, “I. CAN’T.”

To his eternal credit, he stopped, checked in, then eased back into the scene.

Sometimes it’s subspace and a desire to please that keeps me from safewording. But sometimes, it’s just plain old stubborn pride. I so appreciate tops who can feel this and navigate it well.

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Play it again, Bill…

Yesterday I had the pleasure of spending the day with one of my favorite clients. Bill (names changed to protect the strange) is a marvelous older gentleman who brings a wealth of intelligence, experience, and humor to our time together, not to mention quite a talent for roleplay and an old-fashioned kind of chivalrous attitude that I’m convinced he obtained during his upbringing in England. He’s an international businessman who dabbled in the theatre, has a fetish for female doctors, and used to be a spook for the CIA. Or so he says.

Our visits always follow the same pattern: I pick him up at his hotel. During the car ride, he reads me the latest masterpiece he has written: always a letter detailing, not the scenario he desires, but the rich backstory of said scenario as told to my character by one of the other, imaginary characters involved. The prison psychologist may write to me, the Chief Warden and Disciplinarian of the Home for Boys, about young Bill’s continued sexually predatory behavior and the likelihood that his treatment with us will end in castration. The young tutor may write to me, the Dean of Boys, about the complex initiation necessary for Bill, a new student. Whatever it is, he reads it in his articulate and sonorous voice, with a tinge of humor, and I laugh at the best bits while I plan my scene with him.

When we get to the space, I change into some version of 1950’s authoritarian fantasy: shortish skirt, blouse unbuttoned just al ittle too low, jacket, severe hair, stockings and high heels. He waits in the room until I come for him, at which point he turns very young and very small, with a pathetic, piping voice. We talk a lot. I urge him to confess whatever his latest infraction is: stealing a female student’s panties, looking up someone’s skirt, masturbating without permission or supervision, lying about same. I spank him over my knee for a little while, then let him fall at my feet on his knees, whimpering and thanking me and kissing my hands. After a little while longer of talking, I take him to the suspension frame, bind his hands, and cane him.

At the end, he falls at my feet again, thanks me, usually tells me he loves me, and then, with a few seconds inbetween, says in his regular voice, “Wonderful,” and starts getting dressed. We begin our post-production discussion right there, no aftercare necessary.

Afterward, we drive to a local restaurant and have lunch together, and talk about everything: the scene, what it is that drives people to different fantasies, relationships, children, politics, feminism. At the end of this last meeting, he told me that his conversations with me are the most open and free conversations he has with anyone.

Yesterday, when he walked me to my car, he told me he had to sing a song before leaving me, which is a frequent occurrence: he’s a veteran of the stage as well as the business world, and our knowledge of old show tunes is similar. He started in on “As Time Goes By,” and was delighted to find that I joined in and knew all the words, even the bridge.

It’s a friendship we have, he and I: a man probably close to 70 and a woman in her mid-thirties; the man paying for very specific types of attention but the woman enjoying his company in any case. It’s amazing, the strange types of intimacy that this work can engender: it’s little wonder to me, complex person that he is, that I probably know more about him than almost anyone in his life, including his doctor girlfriend, his mistresses, his two children, his ex-wife, his colleagues, his friends. We argue about the relative merits of honesty and integration about one’s life and compartmentalization, the path he has chosen. I live a polyamorous life where everyone knows about everyone else; he has a serious girlfriend who doesn’t know about his other dalliances, nor certainly about his visits to me and other dommes. Witnessing the richness of his life, who am I to say which path is better?

One of these days I’ll post his marvelous letters here; they’re pieces of extraordinary imagination and wry expressions of fantasy. For now, though, I’ll simply dedicate this post to Bill, whom I hope to see for many years to come.

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