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There could be one person in the crowd, or even one hundred, but right now all that I see is him. He’s tied to St. Andrew’s cross exactly how we had talked about. I grab my tool of choice to warm him up and the intricate dance between dominant and submissive has begun. It’s his first time with any of this. He’s shaking before my hand even touches him. “We’re going to start light and then I’ll amp things up as we go. Anything you don’t like just tell me and it will stop.” I put one hand on his upper back to calm him and with my other I slowly start letting the leather strips fall on his skin. Gently at first so he can recognize the sensation, but things pick up fast. The leather hits his skin exactly how I want it to each time I bring it down. He’s doing beautifully. The energy he expels with each impact I give is practically tangible. He’s tied to the cross but his mind has transitioned into sub space, exactly where he has trusted me to take him and keep him until I decide he’s had enough. I run my hand down his red, marked back taking a few seconds to admire what’s happening between us when she walks onstage. She seems to have a sixth sense that allows her to know the perfect time to step in and ruin things for me.
She’s been drinking, a lot. “What can I do?” she purrs as she mimics the way I’m stroking his back. I’ll give her something simple. Something she can’t fuck up. “Grab the electric wand and work his limbs.” My focus is broken, the energy has shifted, but he has still trusted me with his body and mind and I don’t forget the obligation I have to him for that. She can’t work the wands. I tell her to grab something small that she can handle. My mistake. She came back and immediately whips him as hard as she can. He screams to slow down, he doesn’t like this. I have to keep calm even if I want to scream and throw her off stage already. Her drunk eyes look directly into mine as she slows down exactly like she should have at first. Strike one, and she knows it, but she doesn’t care.
I tell her to back down and observe, she listens. It takes only a few moments for me to get back into the energy field I created for the two of us. My focus fades from her back to him. I barely notice that she has circled around to the opposite side of him. She stands and watches, like she’s supposed to. He’s taken a beating from me and it’s time to slowly bring him back down from the intense subspace he’s in. I turn and walk the ten feet to the table where my tools lay, my head and body is turned away from him for no more than three seconds, but that’s all she needed. I hear him scream. I turn and see her next to him with my large wooden paddle raised all the way above her head. In the amount of time it takes me to scream out, “Grace, no!” she has already struck him on his lower back where his tailbone is.
Impact play 101: Do not make contact with the low back, shoulder blades or any other bone with a hard object or toy.
“Stop it! Take me down! Take me down! I want to be done!” He’s panicking. Her abusive strike to his back has yanked him from the subspace he was in and he begins to shake and pull at his restraints to get out. This isn’t happening. This can’t be happening. I heave my body to cover him from her and tell her to get offstage. She shows no sign of being phased by what she has just done.
I untie his wrists as fast as I can even though it doesn’t feel fast enough. Once his hands are free he rips his blindfold off. He jumps off the cross and runs backstage as the last restraint on his ankle is undone. I run after him. As I run backstage I’m immediately met by her eyes. Staring right into me. Challenging me. What I want to do is tear her to pieces, and she knows it, but he is my priority.
He’s in the fetal position on the backstage couch rocking when I get to him. He just stares into the wall, traumatized by the events that just occurred. I sit next to him and pull him onto my lap and hold his head to my chest like a child. All I can say over and over is, “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry this happened.” I sit with him like this and rock him for what feels like an eternity before he can even speak to me. “Why did she do that? Why would she do that?” I give no excuse for her and assure him she will never be onstage with us again after this.
She’s outside smoking, laughing with a group of people who are completely new to the scene that don’t understand the major trauma she just caused. All they saw was their friend onstage in leather make a man scream out in pain. This is what she is teaching them BDSM is. My blood boils. As I walk up to her I catch the eyes of the experienced who saw what happened. “Deal with her.” is what all their eyes tell me.
“Hey baby, they were just saying what an amazing job we just did onstage.” I am dumbfounded by the audacity she has to say this to me. It’d be easier if I knew she was just ignorant and didn’t understand what she just did because she’s never dominated anyone before, but her eyes tell me she knows exactly what she just did and that she doesn’t care about the consequences. Her friend holds her phone up, “I got a great shot of you!” the screen shows her onstage with the paddle raised, she’s looking directly into the camera. “Send that to me right now! That’s so hot, oh my god.”
She did all this for an instagram post. Is this really my girlfriend? It can’t be. I don’t want it to be. I’m just the stepping stool she needed to get an edgy picture onto instagram. I turn and walk away. “Babe! Come here, what are you doing? What’s wrong?” she’s grabbing me by the waist playfully trying to pull me into her. I pull her hands off me, “Not now, we’ll talk after the last scene.”