Yes and No (4): wasn’t it supposed to hurt more?

There had been eight months of build-up by this point.  For the first month since learning of his existence I’d thought I may be in love with him, for several more I’d felt abandoned and bewildered, and for the others he was a curious ellipsis in my dating trials.  And now he would finally become a reality.

He told me to give him time to shower and change before I arrived at the hotel, so it was already past eight when I arrived at the Sheraton on Garden Street.  I warned him against the blown-up doll house ambiance, but he was insistent on a Sheraton due to a discount he received at the branch of hotels.

Ooh, sexy, I love dollhouses

I wore black pants under my knee-length black halter wrap dress.  My crimson wool coat, instead of drawing their attention, allowed me to pass the front desk without asking for his room to be rung.  I’d been disproportionately worried about this happening, lest it signify they thought me a hooker or one-night stand.

I looked for the public restroom on the ground floor and went in to remove my pad.  I still hadn’t decided what was worse, to have an accident without any leak protection or not to have an accident but be caught wearing a foot-long pad by a man eager to undress me.  I prayed to whatever good spirits floated about that my pelvic muscle would behave.

I’d called him on his cell phone in advance to find out what room he was in and followed his instructions on leaving the elevator, paused a few seconds before ringing the door bell and turned my back to the door.  This could be interpreted as rude perhaps, but I was instinctively afraid to see him, well-aware I knew him in one sense yet unable to say how this would translate in person. The door didn’t open immediately because I hadn’t called from below, but when it did open, I closed my eyes, wanting to return to the safety of phone land.

“Well hello, baby girl.”  It was the same voice I’d heard countless times, minus the static and phone to my ear.  Reassured by this, I finally let myself turn my body towards his, though I made sure to look to the floor.

“Look at me.”

“Okay, I can do this,” I told myself, and suddenly there he was and I understood, the bastard had directed me to an outdated photo.  With more than twenty pounds added since that time, he was puffy, fleshy, and very pink, like sensitive new skin, the tone his penis might take on when filled with blood.  Eeks.  He’d warned me that his favorite dish to prepare was ham wrapped in bacon, but it seems he had adopted the color of this beloved meal.  Hidden by flesh were beady eyes that seemed too small for his face.  His long nose remained unmasked by flesh but looked too narrow next to his full cheeks and bore a distinct knob at its end I hadn’t caught in the photo.  Beneath this rested the pouty, sullen mouth of a child; even as it curled into a smile, it puckered as if tasting something sharp.  And atop the pink and the pout sprouted an unexpected cluster of grey and white, which didn’t bother me in itself but did make obvious the passage of time since the photo I’d been shown.  No, this information didn’t strike me all at once: my vision was not so quick, nor had it ever been, I imagine.  My memory now pieces together the fragmented features like a jigsaw, marveling over the outcome.

What took no time to process, however, was that he repulsed me.  It wasn’t supposed to be like this, he wasn’t supposed to look like this.  I felt queasy.  But what did I expect?  Even in that first wave of shock, I resisted my reaction by chiding myself: Whose fault was it but my own that I was in this situation?

As if there were still a question which direction I should turn, he gathered me up, leading me into the room and closing the door behind us.  A few feet from the door, I crumbled onto the floor, exhausted already by disappointment, and hid my face in the folds of my coat.  He walked over to my bundle of red and black and enveloped me.  “It’s all right, baby girl.  It’s just me.”  And as long as I kept my eyes closed, it was all right; it was the voice I had known all those months before.  He pulled my coat off and set it on the bed.  He returned and kissed me on the forehead, then lifted my chin to kiss my cheeks and mouth.  He led me to the bed, where I untied my dress and slipped it off, as if on auto-pilot.  He pulled down my pants and then my underwear, free of its pad.  He lay back on the bed and I unzipped his pants and took his penis in my mouth, which he accepted for several moments before pushing me away.

“Kneel facing the wall and don’t make a sound,” he said.  I did as I was told, relieved my face would be hidden.  I heard him walk to his bag, unzip it, and take something out.  A moment later, he held my loose hair in a tight knot by my neck.  He grazed the leather riding crop across my back and my hairs tingled.  Then I received a sharp slap from the riding crop.  It was my first experience with such utensils or accessories, but I’d been struck with rattan canes as a child and had bawled each time from the swelling welts.  This sting was nothing compared to what I’d remembered; my eyes weren’t even watering.  Either the rattan was more effective at delivering blows or my mother was fiercer than Jeff or the MS had dulled my ability to feel the smack.  How silly, to be disappointed it didn’t hurt more, but that’s what I felt.  It felt like a game suddenly.  Pretend pain.  Was this a toy riding crop or the real thing?  Hadn’t there been broken skin and blood let in the Story of O?

I spoke up, “I can handle more, you know,” but he told me to shut up.  Was I meant to feign agony or was it really going to get worse?  Didn’t he know I wasn’t an actress and couldn’t be relied on to make a scene when I wasn’t provoked to make one?

He must have sensed my waning interest in the crop because he twisted my shoulders with both hands and smacked my face.  Yes, that was more like it.  That hurt.  He pulled me by the hair onto my feet and down again onto the bed, the silly blown-up dollhouse bed with its wallpaper sheets and lace canopy.  But at least I knew he could hurt me.  It was nothing to be truly afraid of; we had a safe word.  He’d chosen it: “Oakland,” where he lived.  I would have preferred to have just had “no” as our safe word, but it seems that he wanted me to say no even when I didn’t quite mean it yet.  No didn’t actually mean no in some circles.

My introduction to BDSM wasn’t a complete failure.  I did fear his touching me, that was true, but not because I was afraid he would hurt me, only because I wasn’t attracted to him.  And I could rationalize to myself that being with this man who repulsed me was against my will, hence he was in control, I had no choice.  Or if this wasn’t quite true, at least my cringing was real.  The slaps and the pathetic nature of our interaction did make me doubt my worth just long enough for me to wonder if I should feel grateful this man was letting me be with him, if I was the one who wasn’t good enough.

I was clearly thinking too much, but then it was necessary under the circumstances to manufacture arousal.  As it was, the evening would have been an interesting, if awkward, charade, if only I had the courage to accept failure.  But accepting failure and admitting it were quite different.

P.S. “Hit me baby one more time.” (Britney Spears, by old Russian women)

[Continued here]

Tags: arousal, attraction, BDSM, beating, bladder problems, blow job, britney spears, clothing, control free will, corporal punishment, dating, dollhouse, face slap, fear, hit me baby, hooker, hotel, incontinence, lying, misleading photo, MS, multiple sclerosis, naked, needy, pain, pee pad, prostitute, rattan cane, relationships, repulsion, riding crop, S&M, self-worth, story of O, submission, undressing, welts