Wall

"Wall."

Who knew such a mundane word could be so thrilling. I heard it yesterday in response to being just a teeny tiny bit cheeky.

And ended up with a whip mark running down my back. That reminded me all day of what happens when you're just a teeny tiny bit cheeky.

It was later, much later, I heard it again. And even though I knew I was going to be whipped, I had no idea how much, what with or even what I could take.

So I stood in front of the wall, grey painted brick and I composed myself, readied myself. Sensei cracked the whip nowhere near me and I squeaked. The adrenaline and fear exploding from me as what I was expecting with all my being didn't happen.

Then it did. yobi strike after yobi strike, slow to start, building up to a constant rhythm that had me flinching. The slapping burn becoming more and more painful until I contemplated shouting up but I didn't and it stopped and the relief was immense, the gentle burning on my shoulders and back felt like I was leaning against a radiator on a winter's day. It was good, mellow, warming.

The first strike with the first of a series of paracord whips of different lengths was a relief of sharp sting against the burning throbbing backdrop of pain. The relief didn't last long as more and more stripes of sting decorated my back. I'd been freestanding but I ended up leaning my hands against the wall by this point, the cold hard brick helping me to focus, to ground myself against the pain.

I was aware of so much yet floating free. I could hear the voices in the background, the gasps, the appreciative murmurs, but I was focused in on the whip strikes and the bricks of the wall. The whip changed. Each length made the strike heavier, dig deeper.

My noises came more frequently, louder, more visceral. I couldn't hold it in any more.

The worst was when Sensei cracked the whip and not on me, the booming sound and the deflation of expectation was scary, each time he didn't hit me but hit the air instead I felt a jolt of fear because I didn't know what would come next. That tension of waiting was delicious torment but so much harder to take than the strikes to my flesh, they struck deep to the heart of me and set off terrified jolts of imagined things to come through my mind.

When I heard the words. 'she's tough, isn't she?' I beamed with pride. Even more so when Sensei agreed and I heard my husband adding his praise to the pile. My back burned, stung, ached, screamed with pain but I smiled sappily at the wall- my new best friend- as the praise filled me, lifted me, buoyed me on. I think I went further because of it. Those positive words fired me on.

It was around this point my knees started to go with every strike. Even more so when the 5 foot was introduced, wrapping around to bite into the soft flesh of my chest leaving marks that look like I got into an altercation with Wolverine.

Each stroke of the whip, each crack and thud echoed through the whole of my body. My breathing was heavy and measured, my knees kept going on the strikes, I couldn't stop that reaction, no matter how hard I tried to stand tall, to be still.

At some point, Sensei said 'Say, When.' A terribly British thing to say, generally in reference to how much tea you want poured into a cup. It made me smile.

'Oh, I will.' I replied to a responding wave of chuckling. I was hurting, oh was I hurting but I wanted more, needed more, craved more.

And I got it.

To be truthful I was relieved when the paracord assault on my back stopped. I was getting a little light headed and I wasn't sure I could take more or if my knees would keep holding me up. The only thing holding me up then was Wall, hard, strong, true and happy to be gripped onto.

Then Sensei got his brand new leather whip and changed the impact area, so my poor butt and lower back got the bite of this little dragontail. A different impact again, stingier over a wider surface, thumpy but not as heavy as the pararcord whip. He kept hitting the same place over and over and over and I said 'When' as the focused strikes became too much for the small space on my left buttock.

'That's a shame, I was just going to hand him this' Kev said and I looked over my shoulder to see him passing our new dragon tail down to Sensei. Our dragon tail we've called Smaug.

'Oh, okay then.'

I wasn't going to say no. The weight, the strike, the precision, the noise, the sting of that whipping, whapping behemoth of a dragon tail across my bum was delightfully, wickedly, evily painful and as I hammered the wall Sensei asked if I was tapping out and I was.

And that's when he tagged in my husband who focused on my behind with his wicked paddle, spiked side and not and his handmade beautiful paracord flogger named Thud which whipped and hit and stung in such a beautiful rhythm that I came. I'm pretty certain anyone left in the place knew what had happened too. How can pain become such ecstatic pleasure? I don't know and to be fair at the time I didn't much care. Pain coalesces and becomes pleasurable intensity inside of me.

After as I sat, spaced out, sipping a drink, feeling everything contract and throb, my back, my bum, my chest, I smiled. In a happy little place where nothing could hurt me, upset me, make me feel bad. I was in a place where I was content, my mind was quiet and I could still feel the sting and imagine the crack of the whip, experience the impact of the spiked paddle on my flesh, relive the constant flogging that culminated the experience of pain with such explosive effect.

And all with my friend 'Wall' who saw it all, who stood tall and didn't mind when I dug my nails in as the pain got too much.

I love wall.