I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. Kage was busy, the dungeon full and the more private rooms were turning out to be the same too but then by some weird twist of fate the round room, normally the busiest of all the rooms at partners, was empty.  It’s not actually round at all. It just has a round, raised platform in the middle of it. On 3 sides it has benches, and there are pillars at the four ‘corners’ of the circular bed.

It wasn’t the most perfect location for a flogging but me and Avalon decided to have a go at making it work. After all, a beating is better than no beating wherever it happens!

Avalon hadn’t flogged me before, I was excited to try something new with him. It’s not something I have a huge amount of experience in at all, really. I’m most used to singletails and whips on my back. Although I have had the electro flogger on my back, hard enough to leave some bruising that in itself is a very different sensation than that of a non-electric flogger.

So he showed me his three floggers, different weights and materials and I stripped off and propped myself against the wall. Elbows spread, feet planted firmly, arse stuck out a bit to avoid the bench and my forehead on the back of my hands.  I got as comfortable as I could.

At first I was concentrating on the noises. I could hear the mumble of conversation in the corridor, the fake moans of the porn on the TV and the occasional yelp from one of the other rooms on the floor.  My focus soon changed though, to the brush of soft leather on my back and shoulders. I smiled, I mention the smile because I focused on that for a while. My face stretched in delighted joy. Anticipation is a beautiful thing.

Now, I don’t want Avalon to take this as a challenge, but at first the flogging was so soft and gentle and rhythmic it was lulling me to sleep, in the way a massage might. Even when the tempo and pressure upped a little I was still only getting pleasure. Not that I’m complaining, not at all because that didn’t last awfully long, to be fair. An edge of pain started to creep in as my skin got warmer and his strokes got heavier.

It’s a distance beating, a flogging. Which did feel a little weird at first. I’m used to having Avalon close, a hand on me at all times. So when he stopped using the first warm up flogger and he placed his hand in the middle of my back I did smile. It was good to have that familiar touch.

“Are you okay?” He asked and I mumbled/nodded that I was. It was good to have that moment of being checked in on. It reconnected me to him, not just to the beating slaps of the floggers.

The next flogger was heavier and had a bit more sting, I got a little more vocal, having only mumbled a little ‘til that point. Tender points began to form on my back and direct hits to them brought my disgruntled mewl to the fore. I wasn’t incredibly loud, not as loud as I can be, but I wonder if that is to do with how still I knew I had to be. With impact to the back and shoulders I was very aware that it was all happening close to my face. One false move and I could end up with a face full of flogger.

So I held still. Maybe I held the sound still inside me too?

I was very aware of my breathing. The flogging was quicker, heavier, more painful by this point. I channelled all my energy into remember to breathe deeply in and let long exhalations out. I couldn’t match my breathing to the tempo of the hits but my breaths took in a regular number of slaps as I inhaled and let it out again.

And being aware of my breathing I became aware of a tickling tightness in my chest. A cough was brewing. When Avalon stopped, resting his ice cold hand on my back, I said I needed to take my inhaler. I wanted to halt any possible coughing fit before it started. So there was a short break whilst I took the inhaler and got back into position. Ready to go again.

To be fair, I can’t remember precisely where the floggers changed over. I think this was the point he started to use the latex one. Its sound was harsher than that of the slapping thud of the leather. The sound was like a rustling crisp packet or someone pulling on a rain mac. That amused me for a moment, the image of being hit by a rain mac, because that’s precisely what it sounded like.

Avalon beats to a rhythm. His flogging flowed to a rhythm too, that is in its nature, the timing of the swing. What he did do, either for a rest or to up my tension level was to stop now and then for a while. Those were the most painful moments. Waiting, anticipating. What will come next? Generally, it was a hard thump, but sometimes it was a gentle reintroduction. I couldn’t predict it so I hated those pauses, much in the way I hate canes…with a deep, intense love.

My favourite strikes were the unexpectedly hard ones. The ones that rattled the breath from my body and made me squeak and squeal and oof. I suspect they were his favourite too. As I heard his little amused chuckle after each one.

Sadist.

His cold, cold hand on my back, both a treat and further torture, would bring me back to the realisation it was him, he was there. So did the little chuckles of amusement at my pain. Between those moments there was only me and the floggers, no real awareness of another person there. A disconnect. There is something particularly scary in that, for me. That I am alone, facing this task, taking the pain, isolated in my battle.

His cold touch reminded me that through it all he was there. Which I know sounds obvious, the floggers weren’t flogging on their own like some twisted adult version of that scene in fantasia; but without any hints of his presence, no sound of his breathing, touch of his hand, brush of his clothes against my elbow like there would normally be, it was easy to forget he was there.

I was pleased that the plan included a caning after the flogging. One, because I’m a pain slut and I wanted more, the flogging had just whetted my masochistic appetite but two I needed to feel that connection, to be aware of the sadist there, revelling in my pain.

It isn’t always the case. I’ve had floggings and whippings where when it’s done, it’s done. I don’t need to reconnect. Sometimes it’s because I’ve been talking the whole time, like when I played with Miss T recently and sometimes it’s because I’ve been aware of an audience around me, feeding off my pain.  So that connection has been obvious, I’ve not felt isolated. This time, because we played in a room with no one else around, because the surrounding noises of the porn and people chatting and laughing next door, I needed to connect to wonderfully wicked person dishing out the pain again, to not feel alone.

To clarify, this was all in my little headspace. Avalon was caring, he checked in on me. I didn’t feel neglected in any way at all. He did everything and more to make sure I was okay. I know I have said this already, but I want to be clear. He did all he could to make sure I was fine.

My headspace has been a funny place for the last few weeks. I had a couple of weeks of wonderful excitement and fun for my 40th celebrations but days after that the 1st anniversary of my Dad’s death hit me hard. I’ve been struggling with low mood and the anxieties I work hard to keep at bay have been nibbling away at the barriers I’ve built up. This I feel contributed to this particular sensation of isolation, nothing more.

And it’s only on reflection, as I write this, that I’ve been able to put the sensation into words. At the time I was aware of an unsettledness in the pit of my stomach but I had no idea why and, truthfully, no inclination to question it. I wanted more pain and I wanted it ASAP.

I’m a demanding pain slut at times.

So without much of a break – Sorry, Avalon. I should have checked in on you there, you’d put a lot of work in already!-I  leapt up…well, scrambled in a not so ladylike way…onto the padded bed/platform in the middle of the room.  I asked for guidance as to where to lay.  I have very long legs, so needed to position myself with a good amount of leg overhang so that Avalon could reach the bits he wanted to hit.

I was struck by the warmth of Avalon’s hands as he hit me to warm me up. They had felt wickedly cold whenever he lay one on me as he flogged me but as he warmed up my cold bottom and thighs they felt wonderfully warm. Interesting sensation that had me pondering a while until I was lulled into the rhythm of his hands striking my flesh. I focused intently on each slap pulling myself into the pain, away from distraction and I suppose I reached out in my own way, to re-establish that connection between beater and beatee.

He chose the thick cane first. Pressed it against my flesh ran the tip up and down my thighs to make me giggle, he’s a bugger for that, it is strangely terrifying too because I know it is the build up to pain, oh sweet, evil pain and the anticipation grows with each giggle.

Canes. I hate them. I hate how they hit and it hurts but moments later it’s hurting more and the cane is no longer on that spot. I hate how the pain doesn’t work how it’s expected so my brain just ends up scrambled as the areas not being hit hurt more than the place that is struck but it all hurts in a cacophony of chaos that rages through my head and replaces all thought with screams and sobs of desperation.

And that is why I love to hate them so. They scramble everything. Take away control so completely. Most pain I process. I time my breathing to run with the strikes. I can predict the impact and therefore control (to some extent) my reaction. Of course, once the pain reaches a certain level I can’t do this but with my stupidly high pain tolerance it usually takes a long time to build me up to that point of brain scrambled mess.

But not with a cane.

Avalon’s cane had me scrabbling for comfort within the first few strikes. I was rubbing my hands together, holding my own hand with my own hand to try to seek some way to soothe myself as the pain assaulted me. I was not quiet. The disgruntled mewls I know he loves to hear started almost as soon as the first cane strike landed.

And as my mewls changed to hisses and squeaks, my hands moved to my mouth and I bit at the fleshy part below my thumb on each hand. My feet flapped a bit, then circled.

The cane kept falling.

Harder and quicker and I couldn’t stop my screams and squeals with my fists. I thrashed my head from side to side, held my breath then remembered to breathe.

And the cane kept falling.

I arched my back and lifted up on my elbows, my cries loud and more sob like as I rode the place between craving more and wanting the pain to stop.

The cane stopped.

His hand stroked the bottom of my back and hip. I think he asked if I was okay. I responded…I don’t think I made words. I was busy pulling in breath, calming my heartbeat and preparing myself for more. I knew there would be more. I wanted more, needed more and was petrified to take it.

The whippy thin cane was pressed into the curve of my butt and I groaned. Thinner and lighter! ‘Surely that is nicer than the thick one before!’ you cry. Erm, nope. This cane is vicious. Where the wider one has the soothing thump the thin one is all sting and cut and mounting pain. No relief whatsoever.

Christ, I hate that thing so much I blaspheme. I love it just a vehemently.

Its tip was traced down my warmed, aching thighs and I giggled. My stupid body reacting to the tickling as if this is all some pleasant happiness, worth giggling at when I knew, I knew it was the beginning of something dark and wicked that would try me and hurt me.

Maybe my body wasn’t so stupid. Maybe it was just letting out the giddy happiness I felt at the anticipation of pain. But damn, it still seemed stupid to my brain. The bit of me that is always last to the ‘woo hoo, this is so much fun!’ masochistic pain slut party.

The noise. The noise was distinctly fearful. The heavier cane cut the air with some menace but the thin one split the air with such viciousness it screamed out before I did. The vibration humming constantly around me. My screams—that got so high pitched I didn’t recognise them as my own—blended in with the cries of the air slashed time and again by the falling cane.

Hard and fast, faster and harder, I have no idea if Avalon was really so much more vicious than usual or if it was simply my position, without his comforting other hand on me. I was managing my own panic and not doing so terribly well at it. Screams, sobs, writhing and gasping. I was just desperately clinging on to the knowledge it would stop soon.

It’s a strange paradox that. I do love pain. I was loving it in the moment, my thighs were sticky (and my cheeks did flush hot as I wondered if Avalon would notice) and at no point did I even think to call a halt. I didn’t want to. I was loving it. But also with every strike to my sorest spots I was aching for it to end. As I squeaked and squealed more intensely, showing him just where to hit to illicit the best sounds.

His chuckles were as scary as soothing. I loved pleasing him, wicked sadist, but also tried to not cry out, to not show him my weaknesses. The last vestiges of my control maybe or an incarnation of my brattishness but most likely both with a dash of my own wickedness, wanting to make him work to hear the cries he clearly enjoyed so very much.

I felt taught, drawn tight, about to break. I worried about that, in advance. What if the beating just released all the crap pent up inside? What if I broke down into sobs, the mess of emotion just exploding out with no way for me to stop it? I decided I was overthinking. I wasn’t going to let that fear hold me back. What if it did all explode? I trusted Avalon enough to care for me if that happened.

It didn’t. The grief and emotional pain that had plagued me was forgotten. I was in the moment completely. The tension was all in the moment. It was building to something more, to the crescendo. I could sense that was close. That was the tension holding me so tightly in its grasp. And then the zinging, stinging, crisp, sharp pain stopped.

He reached out and touched me again. I breathed deep. Pulled in air. I had a few moments to prepare myself for the next thing. I took it. Relief mixed with dread anticipation.

Thump. It wasn’t cane, oh sweet relief, it was a ball of directed strength and the contrast to the sting of the last item was ecstasy. I revelled in the hardness, the unforgiving nature. Although I yowled when he hit his favourite points at the bottom of my thighs. I could feel the bruises there already. I knew there were marks.

He moved on, I don’t remember a touch, there might have been, but thought was gone, fight was gone and I was all consumed in reaching the peak.

The teeth of the cudgel like venator drew across my thighs, pulling out a giggle which ended in a moan as the pain flared at its weight. It felt like a treat, in a strange way. The canes were a test of endurance, I had endured, he changed it up with the thumping wooden club and now he was gifting me my favourite.

It is a strange treat, I’ll grant you. Because the strikes with this, were the peak of pain. Bone shakingly intense, each hit an explosion of agony, sweet agony. Followed with the paddle with purpose. I loved its heft, its weight, its thud. With just a little sting, at the tip. That stinging thud on my poor tender, already marked thighs was horrific. I know I screamed, I know he laughed and we both knew it had peaked.

The hits got more gentle and I felt a wrench of disappointment. Part of me wanted more, but part of me nearly always does but most of me knew I’d had enough. I settled into the gentle cooling down, the tension of my body lessening, slowly flowing from terror, torture, trauma into peace.

His touch grounded me, then he sat beside me, watching me recover. We talked. I told him how incredibly mean he’d been. I think I pouted. He told me he’d be nice next time. I begged him not to be.  There were smiles and laughs. Easy camaraderie.

I thoroughly enjoyed our play, thoroughly needed and wanted it. It was a much appreciated oasis break in a desert of tormented anxiety. Unfortunately, I snapped back into that place all too quickly. It’s hard to describe the feeling of always being on the edge of emotion. Edge of anger, despair, sadness, hopelessness but that is where I live right now. It’s like a traumatic ghost of the time I spent last year always on the edge, waiting for the call, for the moment I would know my Dad had died. It’s exhausting.

And I am thankful for every spank, stroke, flog and thump that took me away from that for a while, so very, very thankful.