Dear Doc;
Trish asked me to relay my post-January reactions from my first meeting with you. This surprised me, because for me, the culmination of the wait and the anticipation, the nervousness and the excitement, reached a grand achievement on that inwardly hot Saturday back in January. That was what I came for, and that is what I got.
But in sitting down to answer these requests, I have come to realize something poignant. The journey I proposed was not one of a simple experience or a single night. Yes, to me, that is what I expected, but it appears that those who have read my "negotiations" with you and my synopsis of that weekend, knew better than I.
For your readers to understand this, I must explain briefly a little more about myself and my view of this world we live in, like it or not. If you aren't interested, skip this part -- but you won't comprehend what I say as well afterwards.
I am not the type to leave chance to the wind, without choosing to do so. I am not one to hold my opinion as truth simply because it is mine. I am not made of the stuff that requires all items be in order for me to feel fully secure. I have opinions, and know they are just that. I do not apologize for them -- well, I do, but shouldn't. But I love how life teaches us beyond our opinions and into truth, if we don't hang on quite too tightly to what we think we already know.
At the same time, I do feel better and more secure when all items are in order -- or wonderfully chaotic as though strewn about by a great divine artist. I love surprises and spontaneity. And I rely on the instincts and opinions and expectations that I do have. I must, to survive in our world. I try to use them as tools, like a telescope or magnifying glass serves to find what we would not otherwise see, or sunglasses that filter out UV rays so we can open our eyes wider and see that much more... until someone intensifies the magnification or opens a window and suddenly more exists to change my view.
When I was blessed enough to find you and we struck a path together, I had a high and low set of expectations for our meeting. I expected one meeting. I expected one experience, one weekend, and only one quite severe spanking. I expected a night listening to the magic of Yo-Yo Ma, knowing that later I would pine over my own lost talents in reflection of such a show of skill. I expected to be impressed by such a colorful and intense man as I'd found in this Doc Tsai. I expected to go home again. I expected to want to return, and I expected not to return.
That was all, but what was it? For I also expected, decidedly and purposefully so, a very severe spanking that would have me questioning my own sanity. I expected an experience that, in the very least, would mark me on the outside for many days to come, and mark me on the inside with little finger grooves where I tried to hang on to my sense of control or apathy, but was forcibly dragged from them nonetheless. I needed this experience, whether or not it was to be the "worst spanking I'd ever received", or the "most pain I'd ever felt". I needed a moment in time, lost from myself and into myself, within the safety provided by a gentleman I trusted more than one should before meeting a stranger, but a man I did trust because of your incredible intelligence, your innate strength around what a spanking can be, most importantly, your honesty -- sharp and soothing, clear and frightening. And simply because I do, after all, trust my own instincts and opinions.
I had very high expectations of this single weekend. But I only expected a single experience, and its effects to kick me out of my introspective quagmire for at least a page in my life. To experience life, even mine, again for a moment to remember. A cap on the spanking memories. A grand finale to say that I had done the deed, come out the other side, and had a story I would tell no one but would relive for years to come. A jarring of the heart. A stirring of the soul.
So, when Trish asked for a report to end the negotiation narrative, I was perplexed. Did I not write in detail of the experience? Did I not share the agony, the brilliant pain, the fierce fire that burned my skin and my flesh and my mind and my heart?
Did I not express how well you brought me to my sought-after level of torment and beyond? What else was there to express? Was this not the culmination, as I entitled the writing? Was this not exactly what we'd worked for, in its entirety -- that one and single experience?
No, and that is what Trish saw, and that is what I missed until now.
Not that I required more experiences to finalize or grow. But that the effects of that single experience have branched out from that weekend to fill the holes and soften the edges and soothe the harshness of my inner, jagged fissures like a blanket of snow over desert landscape. I had spoken for so long in our negotiations about the depth and roots of spanking in my life -- what it means to me and what it can do to me -- to leave my explanation at the physical level or the glory of that one moment, this, as it turns out, was not enough.
So.
I will try to express, but I fear my words will not justify their own existence.
The trip to see you was a culmination, but more than that. Yes, it peaked and went higher than I'd hoped in intensity and pain. Yes, it fulfilled me like a rainbow the day a blind man regains his sight. Yes, during that experience, I walked with you to the edges of my endurance, and then you dragged me kicking and resistant, past.
But afterwards, when I settled into that quirky but comfortable round bed of yours, I was at home. Not there in your loft, but with myself. A screaming voice inside was silent, partly stunned, and mostly satiated. I could hear the quietness within me, the stillness, and that was amazing. The pain reverberated for many days in my mind, but the echoes brought with them ripples of quiet and calm, rather than noise and spinning.
This trip was more than a culmination, it was a clarification. Setting me back in balance and with keener, more relaxed vision. It was a certification, like a badge not of courage but of acceptance of my own limitations and how the experiences in life are bigger and can be better yet than we can handle. It was an open door and the first step through. It was a kiss of vibrance along the skin of a dreary soul.
There is a kind of pain that serves to heal, to challenge, to reset the broken bone. There is a place that hides deep down that can only be reached when you no longer want it. That night, back in January, took me to that place. I was no longer the strong one, or the competent one, or the fearless one. I was afraid. I was undone. I was weak. And when that breaking of my strongholds of endurance was over, I lay in your quirky round bed, and it was me there. All of me, good and bad, full and brought together and reconnected. What is wrong with having weakness? Is it not worse to deny ourselves all of who we truly are?
These past several months since have served to expand my freedom. In great part due to our growing friendship and the connection to the incomparable Sarah. But the path I walk on now, at times edging forward and at times racing on with arms wide... this path was paved by that experience back in January, when I was tied down, bent and bared, and driven past frenzy with a pain so quickly severe and so immediately deep that I had no chance to stay ahead of it. A pain that stripped me of everything but the rawness of my inner being.
It settled. It settled down inside me that night, and remained -- not flighty like the fun of a one-night stand. Its far-reaching effects remain even today, dimmer and stretched, but strong enough to step on.
Since then, I've had lots of play. The pretense of discipline and the punitive play at the parties, and the experiences we've had in between have all been wonderful in their own way. I had two other very serious spankings at Sarah and your hands, which met a different set of needs and desires. Each experience has served to broaden my horizons and not just strengthen, but bring out the flavor of my own soul. Each has its place and its differing accomplishment. The spanking in January could not have replaced the discipline I received just a couple weeks ago, or vice versa.
But, in a way, that first spanking was the open door, and set the stage. That pain was severe and quick, driving me back and out, and suddenly I was safe to do more. This was not just a culmination; it was a conquest, a victorious conquest of the presentation by what lay beneath, of the standards by the singular reality of singed flesh and mind and spirit. It was our conquest.
Ah, but I am not quite finished.
The other part of that Saturday back in January was not the pain, but you. This man I trusted -- this man I believed in enough to place in his hands my safety, my life, and most importantly my dream. And when I was driven past that endurance, you kept on. And when I lay exhausted and raw, you saw me. You didn't flinch or falter, and you didn't fade. You could have. You could have disappeared, or patted me on the head afterwards and let me drown in my memories... but you didn't, you hung on and let me rest instead in your arms.
This is why I was safe. As a human that needed a place to be safe, and some help to get there... you allowed yourself your own fulfillment down the same path you drove me, and experienced it by my side. And because you are the kind of gentleman not to let a lady flounder without a lifeline, you remained. You didn't mind seeing me at my most raw, and still treated me as special after you'd taken the piece of hide you needed from me.
I would tell every living being out there that they are safe with you. Safe, because you will take them where they really want to go. Safe, because you are honest enough to know what you want yourself and won't go forward unless the two paths connect. And safe, because you care about them and their well-being enough to hold them as the experience settles down inside.
Oh, that magnificent agony. Eight months later, and I remember, like the scent of clouds or the taste of passion. That glorious pain. Thank you, thank you, thank you, for such an exquisite experience. Thank you.
Yours for the taking, in pleasure or pain,
Satia