Bend Over Jessica

Have you ever been so frightened in a play session that you really feel you’re going to really be harmed but at the same time, are so horribly turned on and feeling so submissive that you really don’t care?

I have, a few times; only, I hasten to add, with people that I trust implicitly. Because I know that whatever happens, firstly, no serious harm will come to me, even though it might hurt an awful lot and secondly, none of the people I do serious and complex fear play with are dangerous in that sense. They are controlled. They can be totally fucking terrifying, but it’s controlled.

I first experienced real fear playing with HWMBO, in a now-notorious incident where with him as a medieval lord and me as an innocent maiden accused of witchcraft, and being tied to a tree in the garden at midnight in February to be ‘flayed alive’, I really thought he was going to do it. And the scary thing was, I didn’t care. I wanted him to.

Fear play is exactly that, when the boundaries between fantasy and reality blur so much that you lose sight of the fact that you are ‘playing’ and it suddenly becomes scary. Your heart pounds, you flush with fear, your pulse speeds up, you are like a wary animal. And the good dom can take this fear, harness it and drive you on to ecstasy through it, using your emotional terror to enhance and build on the physical and mental sensations that they are inducing in you. For a submissive, it’s the ultimate kick, the opium rush of playing and it can be physical, such as taking a very hard beating or mental, where you genuinely feel that you will crack and break before the dominants gaze. And frequently, you do.

Which is why it’s scary – it is a complete and utter loss of control. You, an independent adult, have nothing but terror. And somewhere, in that fear, you find pleasure……

I had this with my gangster scene with The Lover in New York. Partly because he was so controlled, I was terrified from the start. We travelled separately to the restaurant and getting into the role, I felt my heart starting to race as I contemplated being caught out in duplicity. Even as I sat down and kissed him, he seemed distant and as I sipped from my glass of champagne and asked him how his week had been, I felt my palms slide on my glass, which were slick with sweat.

When he calmly asked me why I’d been seen by an informant at the 57th Police Precinct, I nearly choked on my drink. I lowered my eyes, felt myself stutter, wriggled in my seat. My excuses seemed pathetic. I knew he knew. He knew I knew he knew. So all that remained was to consider how he was going to punish me, how much it would hurt and whether I’d be allowed a second chance or if it was curtains for me. Dinner seemed interminable, the delicious food ashes in my mouth, the fine wine like a Last Supper.

Put in cold text, my fears seem irrational, melodramatic, pathetic even. But at that time, I really believed it. It was fear play at its best, dramatic, controlled, meaningful, pointed – deadly. By the time we got to the hotel room, I was in tears before he’d laid a finger on me. And the pleading, tearful, meek, obedient behaviour came without any problems on my part, because I was afraid. Really really afraid.

There are only a few people that I will allow to see this part of me. Because in it, I am vulnerable. I am alone. And when I break, when I beg, when I cry, I need to be caught. If I crash down to earth alone, the consequences can be terrible – you feel like nothing, like one of the most pathetic things that ever crawled upon the surface of the earth. And to overcome the enormity of this feeling, you need to be with a dom who understands how you feel and can ride with you, not giving way and letting you get away from the feelings but making you confront them and helping you enjoy them, after the fear has been controlled, to gain intense and almost orgiastic pleasure.

This isn’t the kind of play I can do every day. It isn’t even the type of play I can do once a month. It’s a rare treat, one to be savoured and enjoyed whilst confronting your darkest submissive fantasies. But when it works and it works well, the roller-coaster of emotion is such that you achieve a plateau of perfect pleasure.

Then, like oysters, the taste lingers. And a part of you, just a small part, longs for the next time you’ll be broken.