“Is that the bar thing you were talkingabout?”
“Yes, but for our purposes and your session,” I paused, let go of the bar, and walked to the spanking bench. I gave the frame a pat with my hand and looked at him. “I think that this will be the better suited place for yourexperience.”
He glanced back at the bar before adding, “Yeah, but that bar looks reallycool.”
“I can assure you that it is.” He looked at me and gave me his attention before I continued. “Ryan, given your past, the spanking bench will be more ideal. It will provide you with more security. You won’t feel asexposed.”
He nodded and his eyes found my wall of impact toys. I motioned for him to followme.
“These are all of my impact toys. Each of them have their own mighty abilities and are suited for certainsessions.”
I reached for my deer skin flogger and held my hand under the falls. I encouraged him to touch the falls and explained how this would provide a subtle, but heavier impact than something such as acrop.
“Unless you have an objection, I’d like to use this for yoursession.”
“Okay. This works. So, how long does itlast?”
“I’ll keep a close eye on you, Ryan. We’ll see how things go. Now, remember, you have the control. You have a word that you can say that will cease our play. There will be no hard feelings or ramifications if you need to say it.Understand?”
“Yes. Iunderstand.”
“Did you decide on your word?” Ryan nodded and lowered his eyes to look at theflogger.
“Hairdryer is the word I’d like to use.” Ryan gave me a quick look. “If that’sokay.”
I’ve been around the block enough times with enough bottoms to know that specific safe words are seldomly random chosen words. There was most likely a reason for him to have selected ‘hairdryer.’ I would dig into thistoo.
“Good, Ryan. You may use that word, ofcourse.”
Interesting. The corners of his mouth turned up into a smile and his dimple appeared again. He responded to praise, even theslightest.
“When you come back for the session, and before we begin, I will ask you to repeat that word to me or to notify me if you’d like to change words.” He nodded while I hung the flogger up by the handle’s loop. “Now, one more point of business; hard limits. I know we went back and forth this week via email discussing hard limits and soft limits. Have you thought anymore on hard limits in relation to our impactsession?”
His eyes darted over my shoulder to something on the wall behind me in his gut reaction. He saw something on my wall that he possibly needed to add to his hard limits.Was he brave enough to admit itthough?
“Your hard limit, and soft limits, will change and fluctuate with where you’re at and how comfortable or relaxed you become. There is no time limit for any of this. We go at your pace,Ryan.”
I gave him a moment to let that sink in and hopefully tell me what he saw on my wall. Without looking, I knew some of my longer tools were in the direction that his eyes went to. Since he had no experience as a Top, I knew that what he focused on most likely wasn’t the baby bull whip, or the cane, or the single tail whip. He wouldn’t have had any exposure to those. But, he was familiar with abuse from his parents. There was only one item that I proudly hung on my wall that he probably had experiencewith.
A million bucks said it was one of my favorite impact implements; the leather strap. I always folded it when I used it in play. When I finished with it, I’d use leather cleaner on it and set it over a thick flat hook that came out of thewall.
“Is there anything behind me, Ryan, that you’d like to add to your hard limitlist?”
He shifted on his feet and his eyes fluttered between me and over my shoulder.Come on, Ryan, say it.I had prompted him with the direct question, and now I needed to encourage withunderstanding.
“Many Tops and bottoms, do spend some time reflecting on their list. Take Dominants and submissives, for example. The couple might take a look at each of their lists on a monthly basis, or a quarterly basis, to see if something should be adjusted. Maybe they’ve discovered they need to add something, or they’re ready to move something from their hard limit list to a soft limit.” He nodded and rubbed his stomach; I knew that he was listening. “My point, Ryan, is that it’s not set in stone. You can add something today and remove it whenever you’dlike.”
Come on,Ryan.
“Can—” he started and looked in my direction, but not in theeye.
He looked just below my eyes to keep that safe distance. But he’s touted that he wants something more and to experience deeper bonds. Tops cannot be intimidated by eye contact. But he was on the verge of saying something, and I wanted to encourage it. If I had asked him to look at me, it may send him back to hiscage.
“Can we add that belt thing to my hard limit list?”Hand went to the back of his neck and the hand on his stomach clutched his t-shirt.“Please?”
Yes! He saidit!
“Absolutely,Ryan.”
