Voodoo Cane Deer

When I first ven­tured out into the fetish com­mu­ni­ty, I’d had no expe­ri­ence with impact play and very lit­tle with pain play. I knew I liked bondage, and that was about it.

That changed pret­ty quick­ly after Sask­ia and KinkyKit­ty­PlayKat intro­duced me to impact play — espe­cial­ly as KKPK began ask­ing me more and more often if she could prac­tice on me with her sin­gle­tail when we got togeth­er for rope prac­tice. I was learn­ing to enjoy the endor­phin rush that came with being spanked or whipped, and I was slow­ly becom­ing aware of the com­plex emo­tion­al chem­istry of con­sent, trust, fear and sur­ren­der that make up pow­er exchange. But I was still puz­zled when I heard of or read about “sub­space” and how awe­some it was.

It turned out there was a good rea­son for that: Try­ing to describe sub­space to some­one who’s nev­er been there is like try­ing to describe drop­ping acid, or maybe an orgasm, to some­one who has nev­er expe­ri­enced either. It’s dif­fer­ent for every­one, but every­one who’s been there knows it when they see it hap­pen­ing to some­one else.

One of the first times Lily and I went to an event at the RACK Room togeth­er, it hap­pened to be my birth­day. I went to the kitchen to fetch us a cou­ple of drinks; mean­while, KKPK spot­ted Lily and asked her if she could give me a birth­day spanking.

I arrived with the drinks, only to be told to strip. All righty then.

Try to Detect It

Before long KKPK had me strung up by the wrists to one of the sus­pen­sion points in the ceil­ing and the birth­day whip­ping com­menced. She start­ed off rel­a­tive­ly gen­tly, snick­ing me with just the tip of the whip’s pop­per and spread­ing the impacts all over my back.

I tried to relax and not waste ener­gy tens­ing up or flinch­ing, work­ing to con­trol my breath­ing the way Sask­ia had taught me. Inhale for a count of five, hold for a count of four, exhale for a count of six. In, hold, out; in, hold, out as the decep­tive­ly qui­et lit­tle cracks droned on and on relentlessly.

After just a few min­utes I was mild­ly sur­prised to find that the steadi­ly paced whip cracks were actu­al­ly becom­ing almost sooth­ing and hyp­not­ic; I began to feel as if I was soak­ing up the pain and sink­ing into it at the same time. The noise in the room began to recede even as my breath­ing seemed to grow in inten­si­ty and pow­er. I start­ed tin­gling, feel­ing the clar­i­ty you get from hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing, but with­out the pan­ic or dis­tress that usu­al­ly accom­pa­nies it.

KKPK sud­den­ly stopped whip­ping me; she and Lily came over to where I dan­gled, won­der­ing why she’d stopped so soon.

Feel­ing my fin­gers for cir­cu­la­tion, KKPK said, “Voodoo cane deer?”

“What?” I said.

“A raf­fle diet,” Lily said. “Jet chick­en or new. Win­some otter rug?”

“Um — it’s kind of noisy in here,” I said. “I can’t hear you very well.”

“Pinky sun?” KKPK asked Lily.

“Deaf lin­ty,” Lily replied, sound­ing amused. They began to untie me.

I start­ed to protest, say­ing we’d bare­ly start­ed and besides, why were they speak­ing gib­ber­ish, but real­ized I did­n’t much care.

(Lily told me lat­er how that con­ver­sa­tion tran­spired from their perspective:

KKPK: “You doing okay in there?”
Me: [noth­ing]
Lily: “You’re awful­ly qui­et; just check­ing on you. Want some water, love?”
Me: [noth­ing]
KKPK: “Think he’s done?”
Lily: “Def­i­nite­ly.”)

I plunked down, real­iz­ing I was wear­ing a goofy grin and that I did­n’t care about that, either.

“I’ll get you some water,” Lily said. She kissed my fore­head and head­ed for the kitchen.

“Wait!” I said, alarmed. “Let me get that!” Dommes sim­ply don’t fetch things for their submissives!

I jumped up and hur­ried past her to the kitchen, saying —

No, wait. I was still sit­ting there with a goofy grin as KinkyKit­ty­PlayKat fin­ished unty­ing my hands.

“You did great,” she said, unwind­ing the last wrap. “I think that’s the most I’ve ever whipped anyone.”

“What; five min­utes?” I final­ly man­aged to say some­thing out loud and some­what lucidly.

“Try 45 min­utes.” She chuckled.

“What!”

I checked my brain’s instant replay. Yep — we’d been bare­ly five min­utes into the whip­ping when KKPK and Lily abrupt­ly decid­ed to stop. Fur­ther­more brain sayeth not.

And yet… I looked at my wrists. They were deeply, clear­ly marked with the hemp I’d just been tied with. I was drip­ping with sweat; my shoul­ders and wrists ached fierce­ly. My body was offer­ing oppos­ing tes­ti­mo­ny from my brain — no way had I got­ten so tired and sore in just five —

YEOWTCH!

KinkyKit­ty­PlayKat had just mist­ed rub­bing alco­hol all over my back and was gen­tly dab­bing it off.

“I said, ‘I need to dis­in­fect your back,’ ” she (appar­ent­ly) repeated.

So I was sweaty, sore and rope­marked — and my back would­n’t have the shriek­ing fan­tods over some anti­sep­tic after only five min­utes of whipping.

It would seem my brain had become a hos­tile witness.

Lily came back with the water and after a few more min­utes, she and KKPK let me stag­ger to my feet and sham­ble into the bath­room. I looked over my shoul­der into the mirror.

My back sport­ed more red marks than a foot­bal play­er’s SATs. I stared, aston­ished, at the mass of raw ham­burg­er. I was cov­ered with bloody welts, my arms were sore from being strung up by my wrists, I ached all over, and my brain still insist­ed I’d been tied up and whipped for only a few minutes.

Fur­ther­more, I felt great. I sur­veyed the tes­ti­mo­ny, think­ing I should at least be a bit fright­ened at my mem­o­ry’s intran­si­gence. My back, arms and shoul­ders were all loud­ly com­plain­ing about the abuse and promis­ing I’d hear from their lawyers. I was sweaty, shaky and woozy.

But I felt won­der­ful. Like I was a kid again, cat­a­pult­ing myself out of bed on a sum­mer morn­ing and rac­ing down the street on my bike. I was young, strong and invin­ci­ble; life was noth­ing but an unfold­ing series of ful­filled promis­es and excit­ing adventures.

So while my brain con­tin­ued stub­born­ly refus­ing to match my body’s tes­ti­mo­ny, I decid­ed it did­n’t know what it was talk­ing about. Or at least that I did­n’t know what it was talk­ing about. Grin­ning, I let Mr. Stu­pid­head do his busi­ness, washed my hands and saun­tered back out of the bath­room. Lily hand­ed me the bot­tle of water again.

“Drink up, Pet. Don’t want you get­ting dehy­drat­ed.” She smiled.

I smiled back and raised the water in an imag­i­nary toast, tak­ing a swig, miss­ing and splat­ter­ing it all over my face and chest. I was sud­den­ly trem­bling as vio­lent­ly as a Miley Cyrus but­tock. The whip­ping, twist­ing and shout­ing were done; appar­ent­ly it was time to shake it up baby now.

Sask­ia was walk­ing by at the moment; she and Lily both frowned at me. “Sit your ass down and eat some­thing right now!” they said in unison.

Okay, so maybe my blood sug­ar was a bit low, too.

I scarfed down some carbs and pro­tein and felt much bet­ter. The shakes stopped, I mean — I already felt great.

It was a big day: My birth­day, a good play par­ty, first time I real­ly went into sub­space. Oh, and Sask­ia and Lily also vol­un­told me to be the Christ­mas tree and sta­pled Christ­mas lights all over my chest.¹

This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Star Trek

Ask 10 kinky peo­ple what sub­space is and you’ll get 15 dif­fer­ent answers. All the way from “They ain’t so sech thang” to “It’s no dif­fer­ent from run­ner’s high” to “It’s the most tran­scen­den­tal thing that ever exist­ed since John Lennon dis­cov­ered LSD.”

Here’s my answer: I have no idea. I’m sure it’s more than my imag­i­na­tion; I’ve expe­ri­enced run­ner’s high, and it’s not run­ner’s high; I’ve nev­er dropped acid, so I have no idea whether it’s transcendental.

I do believe, at least for me, that it starts phys­i­o­log­i­cal­ly — but also that there’s far more to it than that. I expe­ri­ence the anal­gesic eupho­ria you get from a good run­ner’s high, yes, but it’s much more intense. There’s also an aspect that feels hyp­not­ic to me — the steady rhythm of the impact play, the sen­so­ry depri­va­tion of bondage, the soft but com­mand­ing voice of who­ev­er I’m play­ing with.

Lily and I began to gain the rep­u­ta­tion of being heavy play­ers in our area that night. I’ve seen peo­ple take a great deal more pun­ish­ment than I’ve ever sur­vived, but Lily and I con­nect dur­ing play in a way that some­how gives us both enor­mous endurance and me the capac­i­ty to tol­er­ate huge amounts of pain. We also learned I have to be very care­ful who I play with; I get inco­her­ent when I’m in sub­space and am unable to use a safe­word or ask for help. I need to play with peo­ple who me well enough to pro­tect me, or at least have Lily observe and run inter­fer­ence if needed.

All in All I Gotta Say it Was a Good Day

I was sit­ting on the floor short­ly before we left, chat­ting with Sask­ia and Lily. “Well, kids,” Sask­ia said. “Did you have a good tim­m­m­m­m­m­m­m­m­mmKAY???” She poked my arm.

I blinked. “What?”

“For the third time, are you okay?” Lily said. She and Sask­ia were lean­ing for­ward, peer­ing intent­ly at me.

“I’m fine! Why are you star­ing at me?”

“Hun­ny­bun­ny,” Sask­ia said, “you’ve been sit­ting there with your eyes rolled up in your pret­ty lit­tle head.”

“I have not!” I protested.

“I know brain rot when I see it,” Sask­ia inter­rupt­ed. “Lily, don’t let him dri­ve home.”

“Nope,” Lily said grave­ly. So I didn’t.

Yeah; it was a big day. But I still felt great.

1. Stay tuned; I’ll tell you that sto­ry some­time soon.