We've Had Company

We've had company this week.



They go home tomorrow.



We'll be back in a day or two.



swan

Blood

In Goethe's poem, Faust, our hero enters into a pact with the evil powers, represented in the poem by Mephistopheles, the emissary of hell. Faust strikes a bargain with Mephistopheles, signing the deed with his own blood. Faust, in the beginning, considers it all a great joke. It is Mephistopheles who describes how seriously this particular bargain really is: "Blood is a very special fluid.”

Blood is a very special fluid.

Blood has been on my mind more and more in the last few weeks.

I've been remembering that, in the early days, when I was just beginning to explore BDSM, there was a woman Dominant with whom I played just a bit. In the "negotiation" stage of our relating, she asked if I had any limits. I don't recall what all I told her, but I very clearly remember going immediately to, "I don't want to bleed."

Of course, that mindset evolved. Not with her, but surely as Master and I became partners. I most definitely have bled for Him; in a variety of ways. Most significantly, of course, was the ritual cutting that left His initials on my back. We captured the blood flowing from those cuts on white silk handkerchiefs, and mounted and framed them. That "blood" became, for us a very evocative piece of art. Clearly, the "limit" of wanting to not bleed was vanquished in the connecting to Master.

Here lately, He's been talking now and then, about re-doing the cutting. It has faded. Part of me wishes He'd decide. The experience was so intense, but it was also a hugely bonding time for me. Everytime He gets close to deciding, He backs away. It is faded, but still visible. Not yet.

Too, I've developed a number of weakened places on my butt that frequently break and bleed in sessions. I can't tell it. It doesn't hurt any more than anything else He might be doing. But I do think that my bleeding impacts on Him. I think it is hard for Him to see me bleeding and not become concerned that I am being harmed.

Of course, for all of us, during our adult years, there is the regular reality of menstrual blood. I battled my own periodic flow of blood for years and years. It was never an easy, simple passage for me. I bled profusely, and there was never a single "feminine hygiene" product that I ever found which wasn't, ultimately, defeated by my bloody femininity.

We are currently involved with a group of young marketing professionals who are donating hours and significant talent to help create a new marketing strategy for Master's agency. They've put us through all sorts of exercises to try and define the "marketing equity" for the agency. It is like a one-line catch phrase that is supposed to define the "product." One of the very dapper young guys is a marketing "whiz" for Proctor and Gamble's Tampax line. He, in an effort to illustrate to us what "product equity" was, explained that the equity for Tampax is "white panties." That simple. That's what they sell.

Now, I've got to tell you that in the grip of my raging bleeding days, white panties weren't the goal. I never imagined that there might be a feminine hygiene product that would give me something so unobtainable as "white panties. I tried Tampax. I used the biggest, hunkiest sanitary pad known to man (I called them 5-day, turtle neck, sanitary pads), and I went through cases of Insteads. Nothing kept me "white." I'd have been happy to achieve something like "not publicly embarrasing." Hemohrragic bleeding is an ugly thing.

And I would give anything -- ANYTHING -- to have it all back. That battle was central to the business of being female. Without the blood, I'm terribly "neat and tidy," but essentially sexless. I'd happily bleed again if I could have my sexuality back.

Which is, at the heart of it all, I think what makes me contemplate what it would mean to create bleeding for myself. Yes, I do obsess these days on cutting. On bleeding. Would bleeding restore me to some deeper, more essential, important sense of being a woman? Or would it simply end up being some disappointing, grand-standing bullshit call for attention? So far, it has been my inability to answer that question that has kept me from checking it out. That, and the belief that He'd react badly to me going that way.

Still, late at night, in the dark, I wonder about the nature of blood. It is, after all, a very special fluid.

swan

Color My World

Just over a week ago, we had the carpets professionally cleaned in both our condos. Since we had to move darn near everything out to have that work done, T and I got to talking about how it would be "easy" to paint the relatively empty rooms.

We've lived in these places for almost six years now, and they were still sporting the same plain old off-white paint that they had when we moved in. There were plenty of dings and marks on all the walls, and the places were just starting to look dingy.

Neither T nor I are fans of the basic white wall. Given our preferences, we'd have painted top to bottom within the first year of residence here. Himself however was just fine and happy with our pristine white walls. No matter how we tried to talk to Him about the notion of painting four or five years ago, His response was a firm and definitive "no." And around here, a "no" from Himself is the end of the conversation. So, our walls have remained plain white.

This last week, however, when the question of painting came up, He gave the go-ahead. You could have knocked me over. Still, knocked over or not, it didn't take the two of us very long to pick some likely paint colors, and the very next day, I was at the Home Depot purchasing the paint and needed tools/supplies.

Painting slave was born. We talked it over and decided that it really wasn't wise for T to try and paint as her knees are not at all good. So, I've painted and painted and painted. Got my place "finished" yesterday, and planned to move and do T's side of the household today. She took today and tomorrow off from work, and we discussed the possibility that perhaps she could do the base level trim if she simply "scooted" around the perimeter of the rooms on her backside. With that agreement in place, I hauled the ladder and other assorted crap next door, and she and I worked like fiends. She painted low and I painted high. When we finished all the "cut" work, I started in to roll paint onto the walls. We worked all day long, but tonight, both our places are freshly painted and looking great.

Even Master -- He who has held out for white walls all these many years, likes the new, fresh, clean look. The painting slaves are tired out. But it is all good.

swan

Stirrings

I have stirrings.

Faint and whispery and not very consistent or reliable, but there nonetheless.

In the quietest depths of my mind, and in my long silenced loins, there are the undeniable rumblings of sexual wishing and desire. What is more, those stirrings are the familiar longings that I remember from what seems a long time ago.

I am finding myself thinking about asking Him for bits of His time so that I can get spanked. I was ready for that this morning -- but He was already wrapped up in a thousand busy details by the time He got back from T. So, not today... but soon, perhaps: a day when it will be OK to ask for what I am starting to need more and more.

I am caught up in dark fantasies that revolve around our light and stingy leather tawse, and the requirement that I hold my place, stay open, and ask Him to strap my pussy -- again and again and again.

More and more, my house is full of furniture that suggests places to get spanked, and positions for spanking, and opportunities for spanking.

These days, I am inside my head, trying to figure out what to do about the difficult reality that I often don't "like" the hurting that comes from what He wants to do. That is my continual dilemma -- the hurting that I crave hurts, and hurting makes me sad and angry in the event. Still, the cravings are there and, seemingly, growing. For Him, the problem is that He loves me, and He hurts me, and I get frustrated and angry and weepy, and He loves me, and... He used to not care whether I "liked" it or not, but things have become more complicated between us in some ways.

For all of that, I feel cautiously joyful and hopeful. Is it possible to be cautiously joyful? I feel lively and awake. I haven't been asleep, like Rip Van Winkle, for decades, but I've been sleep-walking through my life for way too long. Waking up feels really good.

swan

Strange Search Engine Visits

Here's another sort of odd artifact of our preoccupation with our statistics: every now and then someone comes in via a keyword search that is just weird. Like this one from yesterday:

church whores caught on tap bdsm

OK. Say what? Not only does that make me wonder what on earth this person was thinking, but it makes me terribly curious as to how that sort of weird search string brings people to us -- and where exactly does it land them?

So, I went and looked. To tell the truth, I can't exactly see where that search takes the searcher. The set of entries that come up given that set of search terms don't really seem to match in any very exact way with the "spirit" of that particular search. The closest thing is probably this discussion of marriage and marriage vows:

Marriage--Thoughts

Oh well. One more person to add to that group of folks that I imagine in my mind who sometimes stumble onto our site and get way more than they bargained for.

swan

The "P" Word

Yesterday was difficult for me and (I think) for Him.

We're connecting with some people who are pretty new to the lifestyle. In just a few days, we'll be coming together to spend some time with each other, and while we'll be doing some "vanilla" entertainment sorts of things, our time together will assuredly involve varieties of BDSM "play." All good.

I, unfortunately, got tangled up in language on Saturday night. In a phone conversation they mentioned that she was hoping to be punished alongside me. Now, to be fair, they are recently evolved from a strictly Domestic Discipline model to BDSM, and for them, I think spanking = punishment. They do not distinguish between erotic spanking and punishment.

I do. Distinguish.

Just the word, "punishment," is enough to put me into a full-on panic. My stomach twists and begins to churn, I break out in a sweat, and my head pounds as the blood roars in my ears. Punishment, in my world, is not erotic and not hot. It is brutal and miserable and horrific. Mention "punishment," and my one semi-rational thought is likely to be about how I might get away -- not, of course, that that would be an option in the event.

The whole idea of an unearned, undeserved punishment sent me into a total crazy, rage. The thought that I'd be punished simply because someone else thought that might be "entertaining," or "hot," left me shaking with a nasty mixture of fear and anger. I believe that Master tried to explain to me that this was all likely about "semantics," but I couldn't hear the logic of that over the shrieking in my head. I didn't sleep for hours and hours after we went off to bed, and the dark of the night thoughts that stomped through my head were far from serene or graceful. The truth is, that for at least part of that time, I was contemplating what sort of wickedness I might engage in so that, at least, when it came to it, the punishment might feel less unjust.

I did finally fall into an exhausted sleep, and I was just a bit calmer when the morning came, but still far from settled. We did manage to make love in the early morning hours, but I couldn't shake the repeating drumbeat in my mind: "unfair, unfair, unfair, unfair." I know that the nature of what it is that we do is such that He gets to decide what to do according to His whims and moods, but there is a part of me that expects Him to protect me from everyone else. I trust Him to have my best interests at heart, and so it is possible for me to go with Him where I wouldn't otherwise. It may not be appropriate or legitimate, but I want Him to step up when someone else comes up with some wild scheme, and say, "this is mine, and that won't be happening." And so, along with fear and hurt and anger, was the added misery of my unstated expectations going unmet.

Sheesh! What a mess! When it all boiled over, He just wasn't that sympathetic. He figured it had been dealt with, and couldn't comprehend what I was so wound up about. To Him, I think it felt like an attack, and that never goes well. I very quickly "got" that there was no moving forward with the whole business, and went off to get breakfast and get started on the work of the day. We simply sank into a tense and unhappy silence. Eventually, I worked my way through it all; probably the adrenaline wore off, and I calmed down. I found Him, apologized, and asked if it were possible to begin again. The answer came in the affirmative, and things settled back into some sort of reasonable place again. By the time we headed for bed last night, we'd found our footing again, and were able to be affectionate and playful with one another. What a huge relief.

Today, is better. I'm calmer and reassured. He's off to work, and I am off to continue my efforts to paint the entire domestic universe.

swan

What's in a Name?

I haven't always been "swan." Actually my swan moniker came about in response to a moment of lighthearted teasing that happened between Master, T, and I many years ago.

I don't remember the exact details anymore. It is probably sufficient that I'd been doing something around the house that required a degree of brute force and muscling. I'm a tall one, and capable of being fairly physically strong. I might have been moving furniture, or lifting something up onto a shelf, or repairing something around the house... Whatever it was, Master, upon hearing about my exploits, exclaimed, "That's my big, strong, German girl!"

Given that descriptor, I quipped that maybe I'd just change my name to "Ahhhnold."

T and I giggled at the joke, and at Master's obvious chagrin at the prospect. He thought for just a moment and then restated the situation:

"You are nothing like Arnold Schwarzenneger. You are my tall, beautiful swan." And so it is that I've remained "swan" ever since.

I was remembering my Ahhhnold incarnation yesterday as I worked to prepare the house for having the carpets cleaned today.

My condo has some issues related to a fire that occured in the building just a few weeks after we moved in here years ago. The condo that belongs to Master and T was close enough to the unit where the fire occured that they sustained significant smoke damage. Insurance paid to have their place completely cleaned -- ducts, carpets, upholstery, clothing -- the whole business. On the other hand, the adjustors insisted that there was no need for any of that in my place (one unit further from the fire, although in the same building). Over the years, it has become clear that that assessment was simply wrong. There is black soot at the edge of all my carpeting and a nasty, sooty black discharge from every heat vent. Finally, after battling the problem for over five years, we decided that there was no option but to have the ducts and carpets cleaned professionally. Today is the day. Which means that yesterday was spent moving EVERYTHING out of here to the garage so that the carpet cleaners can have a clear shot at the project. EVERYTHING! Chairs, benches, tables, exercise gear, electronics, the entertainment center -- it is all stacked in the garage, filling the space entirely. There is practically nothing left inside the house.

Clearly, the Ahhhnold side of me is still there, waiting to be called forth when the need arises. That isn't a bad thing after all.

swan