Wishes Part 2

So I mentioned last week that I got one of my wishes when one of the other ladies did a walk-on during my session. One of my other wishes is to get a play piercing from Mistress Savannah.

I already have several piercings; nose, navel, and multiple ear piercings. Each one I got at a significant moment in my life. A break-up, a personal break through, a significant life change. I should have realized earlier that I enjoyed pain, when I kept marking special moments with piercings. But I didn't. At least, not consciously.

Each time I got pierced, I was afraid it would hurt horribly. Each time, it was much easier than I expected.

Now, don't think I just want to get pierced at random by someone I don't know. I want it to be Savannah who pierces me; she and I began working at the Gates at the same time, and we've watched each other change and grow as we've worked here. She's important to me. Having her hold the needle would mean something.

I'd like it to happen in session. Because that feels right. Working at the Gates has been a big change for me. It's only in the last few years that I've realized I was into BDSM. Only in the last year that I've played hard. And only in the last seven months that I've worked at the Gates. I feel like now is an important moment in my life. I'm stronger than I've ever been, I know my own boundaries, and I've taken so much pain. It's hard to get upset over small things when you've been caned and flogged and paddled on a regular basis until you can't sit without wincing.

I'm also beginning to switch. This is a big deal. It's a huge leap in confidence for me. I never trusted myself to know how much to hurt someone else before. I also must confess that, when I was a kid, I wanted to hurt people, and it scared me. I shied away from it. I didn't trust myself. Now, I do. Now that I've been on the other side of it, I feel comfortable switching.

So, flux and change. I'm at another significant moment in my life. And I'd like to do a piercing with Savannah to commemorate it.

I already have everything pierced that I want pierced. So this one wouldn't be for adornment. I hadn't even thought about it until I saw Tina walk into the kitchen with a play piercing in her back. Savannah had done it during session, and I had this sudden rush of envy and found myself thinking, "I want to do that!"

I told her that today, and she was delighted. I hope it happens.

Pictures

Pictures are pretty important in this business. Often, pictures are the deciding factor for a client when they're booking a session. Which means that having good pictures is a worthwhile investment.

My first set of pics were done by a dom friend of mine. He wasn't all that into photography, but he was very good at directing me into good poses. I'm rather fond of those photos. Here's one I really liked:



My second set of photos were professionally done by Tommy Cuellar over at Glowstar Studios. Those were a blast. Mistress Ai Li helped out, and you can see her in a few:



Last week my boyfriend and I decided to take some photos. Here's one of my favorites:



And yes, the main point of this post was to show you some of my favorite pictures. I would go into more analysis and explain why I like each shot, and what's good about them, and how the first two are far more subby than that last one... but I just realized I have a session to get ready for in half an hour. So, no analysis for now.

Hope you like the pictures!

Wishes

Today I got one of my wishes: having a walk-on from one of the other women in the house.

That may not seem like a really big wish, but it's not something I get often. Usually, in my sessions, it's just the client (a dom) and me. From what I've seen it's much more common to get a walk on with a submissive client. Walk-ons do cost an additional $20-$40 depending on how long a walk-on it is (10-20 minutes).

But my client today was one of my favorites. He's a regular, and I see him once or twice a month. So, when one of the other women said she'd really love to do a walk-on, I told her I'd ask him. I felt comfortable bringing it up with him, since we've played together so often. He agreed. (Yay!)

The scenario was that I was his erring wife, and he was punishing me because he'd realized I was having an affair. He comes home early and catches me getting ready to meet my lover. He punishes me (spanking and flogging) until I start to confess that I'm involved with another woman, and that I'm introducing her to BDSM. Then Stella (the other woman, who doesn't have a profile at the Gates yet, but will soon) comes in. He punishes both of us, making me spank her, and then making her spank me.

It was a lot of fun. He's a great person to role-play with, and she took to it as well. Plus, I got to practice spanking and flogging, which is always fun. (Have I mentioned I've been feeling more toppy lately? Because I have.)

So I got one of my wishes today.

Let's Talk About Marking Fees

Something I wish I'd known before.

As a submissive (at least up until this point - that's actually changing, but I'll save that for a later entry when I feel like talking about it) I have to deal with the issue of marks. Bruises.

Before I did this professionally, it was different. Any marks I got were purely from fun, purely from play. I was proud to carry those marks, and it was no big deal if they lasted a few days or a week. And I did play pretty hard. One night, coming home from a club, the friend I'd gone with took one look at my ass and said, "You're not sitting on that." He made me lie on my stomach in the back seat. Then he bought me ice packs at a Rite Aid. He slathered some Traumeel on my ass (by the way, I totally recommend the stuff - it has arnica and calendula in it, and it really helps with the bruising). He also put some neosporin on the cuts on my upper back; I'd gotten into some edge play that night, and had a lovely criss-crossing of slashes on my right shoulder.

It took me about a week and a half to heal from that. And I heal quickly.

But, professionally, I can't afford to have bruises for long. It compromises my ability to take sessions. Clients don't usually want to see bruises from prior sessions. And if I'm already bruised, I can't take as much.

Also, I can't ever let go as much at work as I can during my personal play. I have to watch my boundaries. I have to make sure the client doesn't overstep. While a lot of clients are great and fun to play with, some aren't. Some push. Some don't want to take no for an answer. I can't tell you how many clients have complained about my no breast play rule. And tried to push the boundary.

Also, some clients don't know how it feels. They've never had it done to them. So, sometimes, they hit harder than they should. They don't realize how much it hurts or how much damage it causes. I had a client tell me that it shouldn't matter how hard he canes me, that if I'd just put some echinacea on it, it would go away (he meant arnica, and no, it doesn't work that way).

So, marking fees. Not standard up here. I remember seeing the website for a dungeon in LA that said a client must pay a $100 marking deposit before a session with a submissive. If he marked her, she kept it. If he didn't, he got it back. Originally, I thought this was a great idea. But I don't anymore.

Remember Mr. Cane-too-hard from two paragraphs ago? He offered a marking fee to cane me. Sage, who runs the Gates, told me to insist on a minimum of $300. I did, he reluctantly agreed. And then he caned the shit out of me. It was clear that he didn't care how much he hurt me, or how bad his aim was. I'd never before cried during session. I'd also never before yelled at a client. But I did both with him. Because he really hurt me. And he felt entitled to do so because he'd paid his $300 fee. He didn't care that his aim was bad.

I ended up with massive bruising from that session. All over my ass and down the back of my thigh from the cane. I also had bruises on my rib cage from where the flogger wrapped around (this, by the way, is bad technique - you're not supposed to let it wrap around, but he didn't care). I had bruising on my inner thighs, again from the flogger.

It took over two weeks to heal, and it hurt a lot in the interim. I sat on ice pack for two days. I used my Traumeel salve and Traumeel pills. I used Bromelain (great for bruises). I took excellent care of myself. And it still took two weeks for the bruises to heal. I wish I'd gotten a picture of the damage, but I didn't. I did show it to friends at a party, who were horrified. I showed it to my roommate, who was beyond horrified. I showed it to my boyfriend a few days later; I think he wanted to deck the dude. Heck, I wanted to deck the dude, and I'm not like that.

The thing was that for Mr.Cane-too-hard, I wasn't a person. I was a doll or a canvas. He paid for me, he got to hit me and hurt me as much as he wanted. At least in his mind. He got to bruise me as much as he wanted, and it didn't matter that I had to deal with the pain for a week after, and the marks for two. It didn't matter that the damage he did caused me to lose out on income. It didn't matter that my body was exhausted by the process of healing all that damage. It didn't matter. He paid his marking fee and he felt entitled to mark me. As much as he wanted.

I won't do marking fees anymore. I won't do marking deposits. I won't do sessions that will mark me. I've heard the argument that, if you call it a deposit, it won't be the same. The client won't feel so entitled. But I don't think that one word makes enough of a difference. And the idea of giving the deposit back at the end of a session if there are no bruises sounds really good, but isn't. The problem is, bruises don't always show up that quickly. It can take hours or a day for the bruise to blossom. My ass can be red right after session, and purple by the next morning.

In an ideal world, marking fees would work. But they don't.

A Question of Audience

I realize that I haven't known who I'm writing this for. I never really made that a clear decision. If it's for potential clients, then that limits what I want to write about. That keeps me from talking about the negatives. That prevents me from talking about the behind the scenes moments, like hanging out in the kitchen with the other women at the Gates and talking about our lives.

If I'm writing for other people already in the scene... well, quite frankly, that intimidates me. I'm no expert. I've been working as a professional submissive for six months, but there's still so much for me to learn. Heck, I only really started learning knots today. I worry that people more experienced than I am will be critical.

If I'm writing this for people totally unfamiliar with the scene... well, that actually sounds like a lot of fun. But it might alienate either of the two potential audiences I've already mentioned.

I'm clearly not writing this solely for myself. If I were, it wouldn't be on the web.

There is value to knowing your audience. But trying to tailor to a specific audience, to pander... not so good.

I think I'm going to write this to the sort of person I was a year ago. To someone intrigued by the whole idea, but unfamiliar and unaware. A year ago, I never would have guessed I'd be working at a BDSM house. I'd been flogged a few times by a friend. I'd been tied down during sex with a boyfriend. I'd bitten and been bitten. But that was about the extent of it.

So I'm writing to me. And I'm going to talk about the things I would have wanted to know, or that I wish I'd known before.

Valentine's Special

Just a quick note here: The Gates is having a special all throughout the month of February. Get $20 off any session of an hour or more.

So, if you've been curious, wanted to try a session at a Dungeon with a dominatrix or a submissive, or know of someone who would love to do so, now is the time.

I'll add here that we love to see women or couples. This is the sort of thing you could do with your sweetie, particularly if you've been interested in BDSM but not had much experience or practice.

Looking back... my college boyfriend and I got each other professional massages for Valentine's day once upon a time, which was nice. But I think something like this might have been better. I knew enough, then, to know that I liked being tied down. He knew it, too, and was willing to try it, but we didn't really know where to go from there. I'd have loved sessioning with an experienced professional who could help us see the different directions we could take it.

I think that exploring our sexuality together, playing with kink and sensuality and romantic identity would have been a perfect Valentine's Day. Far better than the standard, and standardized, box of chocolates and bouquet of flowers. That would be a Valentine's Day that left you with something new, something beautiful that you didn't have before.