Core

Sometimes during sex I see images in my eyelids. Most recently it was a mosaic of turquoise, rippling like stained glass under water. For a time it was a bare cherry tree, Japanese brush strokes stark against an expanse of white. When I was younger, I saw a ship with golden sails, distant against a gray horizon. I was often overcome with the beauty of the visions, but I never lost my place, my rhythm, or my partner. I've never been overcome with the occurences inside my own eyes.

During a spanking, I see the swing of my husband's arm in the corner of my eye. I see the rumpled tan of the comforter on bed, the speckled plaster on the library walls, the grain in the wood of the desk. If I'm bent over, wrists to ankles and hair in my eyes, I see glimpses of my bare toes curled or my reflection in the patent leather of my Mary Janes. I may see tears gather on the hardwood floor. I am present, whether I am counting or squirming or stamping my foot in defiance. I am anxiously awaiting that one stroke that takes me from wanton to weeping. I wouldn't miss that moment for anything--

anything, except, apparently, for a blinding white light.

The last time we played, I missed the ending of my punishment. It had been about a month since my last spanking, so we were at it for a while. A long warm up led to one of my more intense strappings, the leather strap being my current fantasy implement of choice. We experimented with our three barber strops, each of different weight and texture, the results of which remain in violet outline upon my bottom a week later. By the time I goaded him into caning me, the scene could have been over. Instead, I began describing what might happen next, the stripes as they would appear on my already terribly pink flesh, the way I might cry out, the way it might make me come.

In moments, the strokes were raining upon my upturned backside. Firmly, not viciously but controlled, stern and agonizing. I remember flashes of pain unlike anything I'd experienced before, fascinating even now both because they hurt like nothing else ever had and because I was so aroused.

I don't like pain. I struggled with this statement for years, not understanding what I was, what I wanted, until very recently. I had even, for a while, settled with the invented term "self-sadist" rather than call myself a masochist, because it is so very much not what I am or what punishment is about for me. Experiencing pleasure at what was surely one of my most painful experiences of punishment was terrifying and overwhelming and exhilarating. And then it was over.

Afterwards, I knew I had been thrashed. I had bruised my sternum on the edge of the desk and a seemingly brutal diagonal welt across the crease of my left bottom cheek was proof of just how much I had thrown myself out of target. My thighs were sticky and the source throbbed in time with my racing heart. I've never missed an orgasm before, nevermind the last strokes of a caning, but this time, all I could remember was white lightning. He held me and I tried to remember, but all I had was an intense sensation of bliss and burning and blankness.

I've gone back to that moment countless times in the past week. I keep thinking the initial shock of the experience will pale to a more exact memory of what I felt there at the end, but all I am left with is a craving to experience it again. I'm afraid of myself a bit for this. I know I've been wanting to go farther, into the extremes of what we do, deeper into the dark places. I'd never have thought that the deepest, darkest core of me was so filled with light. I want more.