Drop

A conversation the other day led me to ponder the nature of "drop". It's sort of an accepted part of what we do, but it's not often something we talk about, or at least that I remember having many conversations about.
As I've talked about before, I always used to think that I couldn't "get" drop, as I didn't seem to get those endorphin highs that some people have, and drop was all about the come down from the endorphin high.

Over time I've realised that whether or not I experience an endorphin high (and that question is still open to debate) I most certainly do experience drop after playing. For me it's very much an emotional reaction, and can vary from feeling a bit down the day after I've played, to full blown emotional meltdown, tears, depression, the works. It's generally linked to the intensity of a scene - the more intense something is, the worse the drop, and things like weekend role plays or weekends away with friends have the biggest effect. I become very emotionally vulnerable when it's over, and I'm "coming down" from all my fun. And I may well stay like that for a good couple of days. Being able to distract myself with other things will sometimes help, though not always. In a Harry Potter dementor sort of a way chocolate helps. Talking through experiences with friends who shared them also helps, but isn't always possible. Sometimes I just need to go with it and wallow.

For me, nasty though it is, drop is the price I pay for the fun I have, and it's a price that I'm willing to pay. At least for now. Who knows, I may decide in the future that I can't cope with the aftermath anymore.

I'm interested to hear what other people think about drop, (and I fully acknowledge that it's not just a phenomenon that affects bottoms, tops get drop too). Do you suffer from drop? Is it an acceptable price to pay? How much is too much? Does experiencing drop afterwards take away from the enjoyment of playing in the first place? What do you do to combat the drop? Feel free to share your thoughts.

What I Did On My Holidays

Well, to be honest, I didn't do much at all. I read lots and swam lots, and slept lots. And that's about it. One day I did do something, which was to go to La Granja, a country estate in the hills, which still has the large Hacienda style house open to the public, and dressed in a turn of the century (as in 19th/20th!) style.

It's nice to know that even abroad, there were proper measures in places for keeping the young ladies of the house is order:

The carpet beaters hanging ready for the maids who have done the ironing wrong.

The wooden spoons displayed on the wall to remind the kitchen girls to keep their minds on the job.

And any suggestions as to what this is on the bed, would be welcome!

Loving The Lurkers

As it's Love Our Lurkers Day V, the tradition started by Bonnie where we invite people who may lurk in the background to come out of the blog closet and say hi.

Given that my poor blog is sorely neglected at the moment, I probably haven't got any lurkers, or indeed readers left, but if you are out there, and fancy saying hi (and you can say just that if you want!) I'd love to hear from you.

You never know what you can start from saying hi. I have my wonderful group of friends today because I said hi on a blog.

So if you do happen to have dropped by, give me a wave. You never know, it might even give me the kick up the pants I need to write another post!

Eliane

Sunshine

It's not like I'm updating enough at the moment for my absence to make the slightest difference to anything, but I thought that I'd take a few minutes to gloat about the fact that I will not be posting for the next week as I'll be of doing precisely nothing in the sun for a week.
Well, that's not entirely true. I'm taking a pile of books and plan to swim lots and read lots, but apart from that I won't be doing much. No phone, no internet access, no twitter, no facebook, certainly no work. Bliss.

I also realised today that I haven't had a full week off in a year - even Florida was only six days, and one of those was spent travelling. (And wonderful though Florida and FMS were, they couldn't be described as relaxing.)

So hopefully I'll be back in a week's time, relaxed, no longer full of cold and crap, ready to face my incredibly busy last part of the year, and with a notebook full of kinky stories to write up. That's the plan at any rate.

Stubborn To The Point Of Stupid

As you may have noticed from some of my recent posts, I've been in a bit of a strange mood when playing recently. Even my biggest fans will concede that I have something of a stubborn streak. In my defence there are very many situation where I'm not in the slightest bit stubborn, and will happily concede to other people in the interests of peace and harmony all round. That's something I learnt growing up with a younger sibling.

To be honest, I don't think I've historically been particularly stubborn when being spanked - I can't cope well enough with the pain to be stubborn – I have to give in once it reaches a certain level.
That seems to have changed recently though, and I have been finding myself in a worryingly stubborn state of mind while playing. On the one hand it is exhilarating to be in a place where I'm just mentally going “f*** you, there's no way I'm giving in to you.” but on the other hand, my judgement as to what I can (and should) take seems to be somewhat impaired.

The last couple of times I've played, first when I was beaten to tears over a marshmallow , and then when I played a scene where I was a reformatory girl with an attitude problem , I have some doubts that I would have safeworded. Well, I'm sure I would have eventually, but probably well past the point of safety, and of what I actually wanted to take. In short, I was being stubborn to the point of being stupid. I was very fortunate enough that I was playing with two sensible and sane tops who were responsible enough to stop the scene at the point where it should have stopped, rather than waiting for me to do so at some unspecified point in the future when I have beaten well past my normal tolerance level.

I'm grateful to both of them for that, especially as in one case the person in question then had to endure my extended gloat about having “won”. The thing is, though, that I shouldn't have to rely on other people to be my safety net. Responsible play is the not just up to the top to ensure. It's up to both parties. I was lucky that they can judge me well enough to call time. If I play with people who are not able to judge me well enough and I still persist in this ridiculous stubbornness, I may well end up with more than I bargained for.

The only problem is that I don't know how to get out of this stubborn mind set... maybe the fact that I'm unlikely to be playing much (if at all) over the next couple of months due to various vanilla things happening, might just snap me out of it. Let's hope so for my bum's sake!

To P-Star and Pickle

I probably wibble on far too much about how lucky I am, but I'm about to again, so feel free to skip on to another post.

I had some friends to stay last night. They are dear and close friends, and the occasion was a celebration of us having known each other for ten years. It was even sweeter as the opportunities to get together like that nowadays are fewer than they were.

We had a great evening reminiscing, trying to list out all the trips that we've been on together over the years (which took a while, there's been a few!), looked through old photographs, decided that we all looked a lot younger ten years ago, and generally had a really nice time.

What made it really wonderful though is that the evening progressed, the talk became more frank, and we started talking about what was going on in certain specific aspects of our lives. Now both these friends know about my kink. One of them was the first person I came out to, and asked advice from, as she's kinky herself, the other I told about six months later, when I was really starting to meet people and actually play. They have both been endlessly supportive, and more than that, interested in the new interests in my life. I think we pushed it to a new level last night though – I ended up both showing them various photos of my marked bottom, and then showing them spanking porn on my PC!

Many of you would probably think that should friends photos of your cane marks is stepping over the line rather, and of course it would have been if forced them to look, but in the end it was pretty much the other way round, they forced me to show them! But even though I'm not going to make a habit of showing those sorts of photos to them, it's great to know that I can, that they aren't offended, or disturbed, and that we can have the conversations about anything, be it a trip to Spain seven years ago, or my play date the week before. For me it means our friendship will only get deeper as the years go on, as there's not need for any of us to keep secrets from each other.

As you can see, I am very lucky to have friends like those, who know both my past and my present. Pickle and Pornstar, you rock :-D

An Unreformed Reformatory Girl

I got sent to see the governor today. No bloody surprise really. I suppose the only surprise is that it took them that long. They say I'm lippy, and don't show respect, and don't act contritely. Well, what do they expect?! They show no bloody respect to me, so why the hell should I show them any back? As for contrition – well I did what I did because people were bloody stupid. If you're going to leave your car doors unlocked and your windows open, don't expect me not to take the opportunity. And don't expect me to feel sorry about it either. Idiots.

So they finally got fed up today. I suppose they'd done pretty well. I mean, I'd been there for two weeks before they got that mad with me. I was lounging outside his office door when he turned up. I don't think he was that impressed. Started going on about bad attitude and standing up straight, and blah, blah, blah. I switched off halfway through. He was also blathering on about how “in the old days” (I mean, what is he, 80?!) I would have been birched on arrival and that would have made me behave and seriously, shut up already, mate, you're boring me!

I got ordered into his office, and he lectured me some more about how I'm going to leave it more contrite and better behaved, then he made me take off my skirt, bend over and he tied my legs down. He started in on me with a slipper. He was probably lecturing me, but I was filtering it out. Why listen to crap when you don't have to? I mean, yeah, it hurt, and I probably showed it did as well, but just because something hurts, it doesn't mean I'm going to change. He put down the stupid slipper and got out some massive strap that he called the reformatory strap. Then he asked me how many I'd been given last time I'd been thrashed by the guards. Well, if the doddery old fool can't be bothered to look in the record books, I certainly can't be bothered to tell him the right answer. He's one of those sadistic bastards that would go “Well, last time you got X, so I'm going to double it.”

I think I judged it about right. There was no way I was going to tell him the truth, which was 24. I thought about going for 6, but reckoned that would be shooting a bit low and he'd just beat me for lying. So instead I chose 12 and that he seemed to believe it. So he gave me 12 with this massive strap. Actually he gave me more, because I moved. Whatever. Of course I bloody moved. It f****** hurt. Idiot.

Apparently I wasn't showing any contrition so he swapped to some “XH” tawse, whatever that is. Of course I wasn't showing any contrition. Do you really think that thrashing me is going to get me to show any?! I tell you what, 12 with that tawse was bloody horrible as well, but I don't give in that easily. I'm not some mealy mouthed mouse like some of the girls, practically offering to lick the dirt of the guards feet. Sod off.

He reckoned he still wasn't getting through to me, which is fair enough, because he wasn't, so he moved onto the cane. I was jumping up every other stroke this time, he was laying it on thick, but I could still barely bring myself to be civil. I got 18 in total. I can still feel the stripes as I write this now. As I was bent over, he told me that he didn't think I looked so big and clever from where he was standing. That's all he knows. All my mates think I'm really brave for standing up to the bastards in charge, and for not crying when he was beating me. I'm a real heroine to them, and I love it.

He finished off by lecturing me (again!) and telling me that if my attitude and behaviour didn't improve then the next step would be for him to tie me down in front of the whole reformatory, and give me fifty strokes of the birch. Then “all the girls who admire me now would see how feeble I really was when I was crying my way through a punishment.” Yeah. Whatever. He doesn't understand us at all. You'd think after working here for so bloody long he might, but no. If I ended up being birched in front of all the girls, I'd dine out on that for months, no matter how badly I took it. Well, not exactly dine, give how rotten the refectory food is, but you know what I mean. So yeah, bring it on, Mr Governor man. I'm a leader here after two weeks. There's no way you're bringing me down.