Editor's Note: The following article is a description of a rather intense scene involving piercing, needles and blood. You've been warned!
It was about eleven thirty when we arrived, and the play party was going full swing. The dungeon was crowded. I greeted several friends while we looked for suitable play space.
My tormenter that evening, K, asked me something about needles, and I smiled. I am fascinated by that particular type of pain, and replied that I thought it would be a fine idea. I’ve done some play with needles, commonly known as “temporary piercing” among people in the BDSM scene. The business end of hypodermic needles are most often used to pierce the skin: sometimes in decorative patterns, sometimes simply to bring forth blood and to play with the pain pf penetration.
K really wanted the flat body board suspended from chains in the middle of the floor for our play. K began her setup, pulling a series of small white boxes from her worryingly small toy bag, and casually mentioned that she was in possession of quite a few needles.
And she was feeling particularly generous tonight.
I removed my clothing, moving to lay face down on the chilly board. “Wait, ” she said, and I paused in my decent. Hands in the hair on the back of my head rough demanding kisses send my head spinning, my lips parting to admit her tongue, cunningly capturing my bottom lip between sharp teeth. That moment, and then there is no doubt It Had Begun.
There were thumb cuffs, secured to both opposable digits, serrated edges nibbling on the sensitive web of skin between thumb and index finger. My special blanket, one I took with me for post-scene come-down, came in quite handy, rolled up to form a pillow. I settled into the table breathing deeply to relax. Alcohol prep to my arm, from elbow to just past the armpit. The tearing sounds of the first hypodermic needle wrapper and in the corner of my eye, the chilly gleam of steel approaching my willing skin. The push, lanced with heat, my breath, a sharp intake, and the needle is in my skin. A wound, a long push, a second wound making me shiver. Stillness. A second needle, maybe two inches away from the first, and the pain is greater this time.
I wince, but lay still. It seems to be taking so long for the dart to traverse the layers of skin it violates. Third needle and I realize that she is using almost the whole of the length of the needle to spear my flesh. Unlike most other piercings I have had done to me, the majority of her needles are in under my skin; only the cap and a small segment of the tip protrudes.
Seven more needles and the web of serpentine pain extends from near elbow to past my shoulder, under my arms. I monitor my breathing carefully, as I do so automatically. A spool of bright orange cord, thin yet strong, now sits beside my head. K unwound a section of it, looping it and placing the first loop over the first needle. Working deftly, she laced the orange cord and wound it over and under each needle, forming a latticework that contrasts beautifully with my brown skin as it embraced my flesh. She pulled on the needles and re-ignited them to a little song of pain. Threading the ends of the cord through the conveniently placed slots that pierce the table, winding them about, she has now secured me to the board with little room to move. That is, if I want my flesh to remain intact.
She moves to the other side of the table, I turn my head to follow her. The cold cleansing again. I feel the needles on my left side. Ten in all. Will she do the same on the right side? The first needle on the right side goes in so slowly!
I wail under my breath. My voice begins to give out and my moans have an odd unmodulated sound to them. Fifth needle, under my arm and fuck fuck fuck why does it hurt so much? I start to shake. Needle pain is both easy and difficult for me to process. The invasion is so personal and makes me feel terribly vulnerable and naked in an emotional way and I start shaking my head to clear it. Then still, still, still, totally still as the eighteenth needle traverses my skin. Too close, too close and her breath now in my ear is a smiling hum drawing my focus.
Aeric Meredith-Goujon www.aericmg.com
“Do you feel me inside of you?”
A tear escapes my eye
…yes – I – do – feel – that – you – yes…
But all I can do is nod mutely.
The orange cord, again looped and threaded and woven and now I am tied by my own flesh, from both arms to the table.
The twenty-first needle is on the left side again, starting below the shoulder blade. Are these deeper, or is the quality of the skin there just different? Flesh shaking, but in small areas, for all the world like a horse twitching off an errant fly. The needles bite on the way in. “Three more…” she purrs and I count as the next three needles slide into my side. From right beneath my armpit, down my side, at my waist, pierced through the skin on my hip. I bite on the blanket, screaming. Breathing. Six needles now on the left ribcage. Her lacing more rapid this time, pulling, movement limited further. She says something about my legs and my mind drifts further away.
On to the right side. I am shaking, the first real tears beginning. The pain is wicked, elusive. It won’t be channeled. I resist and kick, toes curling as I try to process the pain by hurting my feet on the unyielding board. That pain, at least, I have control of and I try to offset the pain K orchestrates with the discomfort of a thwack with my foot. All I get is an odd ripple effect that takes my mind further out. I listen to the needles as they push through skin, through flesh. Listen, listen, listen and feel breathe take it in, let it pull you, and I drift.
My throat is raw, I must have been screaming.
Six more needles, six more crosses lacing with orange cord and I am tied, arms and torso, down to the table.
She stood in front of me; I strained to look up. She smiled. “You look beautiful.” I so wanted to reply in kind, how lovely she looked tormenting me, but I was not in the most articulate place. I smiled. Another kiss … how wonderful…I pull on the cords, testing my limits – about two inches in each direction.
My head rests on the blanket, now damp with tears.
Her voice in my ear again.
“These are going to be hard. But I know you can take them for me, that you won’t disappoint me.” A kiss to my ear.
Disappoint? No, no never serpent whispersong in my head. The Me who craves absorption in the will of another is fully awake, the singing of thirty-two needles providing counterpoint to its aria.
Hard. Yes.
I shout my pain as the first needle enters the back of my calf. Below the soft fold behind the knee. Hard muscles, thin skin combine to brilliant effect.
I scream to god, shit, to all of them I can name
- Lord Ganesha– Shiva –Isis – Damballah – Jesus – Allah – Ra – Osirus – hail- Mary – full – of – grace – O – Kali –motherfucker …
…and it is in.
I fall limply back to the table. Dimly I perceive people looking. Someone murmurs and K glances up, smiling with a barely perceptible nod towards those watching the scene. There are people here. I’d forgotten.
What do they see?
The back of my left leg becomes a nexus of pain. Excruciating. I feel it in my chest. Building up. No longer can I move to shake it off. Ah, no, no, no, I will not be able to take any more
Please, please...
She is back in my head, whispering, “Three more…you are doing so well”
All right then the three more and they are fast and I have decided, “Quiet, quiet, silence, eat this pain, this gift, swallow it,” and so I do not shout, I breathe a decision to be silent and the pain moves to my fingertips.
Quiet moans, sighs, and breathe, how beatific to take that pain silently breathing through the shuddering pain.
I shift my leg. The orange cord, looped, crisscrossed, threaded, tied and only one limb left, that is mine. I wriggle it feebly in its last moment of freedom.
The forty-third needle was inside before I knew it. I could not say the same for needles forty-four through fifty-two. With each one, she fucked my skin, a violent steel prick taking away my autonomy bringing me closer to immobilization. I could smell her smiling and hear her drinking the bright pain that dripped from my body like so much sado-psychic nourishment.
I counted down the last five needles and I breathed and shook through them. Yes, yes, yes, all over now, I am laced down fully. The last ten needles are looped and threaded, tying me to the table. Dimly, I wonder if Gulliver was so helplessly aroused in his Lilliputian bondage as I am now.
Probably so…I mused…
I pulled gently on the cords then shuddered and sighed as K ran a fingernail along the capped edge of the needles in my right arm, then along the raised skin that hid the impervious metal. I laughed shakily.
My body was at her disposal.
Cold. Cold, cold, cold, is the aluminum cane. Cold and heavy. Unyielding to any vibration as it impacts the back of my legs, the curve of my ass, and oh no girl, you are not going anywhere. The needles, they are the most efficient bondage I have experienced. So simple. Wanna wriggle? Wanna protest and struggle? Go right ahead…what? You can only move two inches? Poor baby….better to lay still then. – I giggle madly to myself. The pain has nowhere to go but in. Gut, head, belly, cunt, ass, all ring with the depth of the beating. Swoon to the sting of a carbon fiber cane that wakes a girl up. Quiet, quiet, silent peace then howls and minute wriggles. Yes, that hurts, oh yes, it does. Wooden something, something, something, on a pass in front of me. I see it is a wooden spatula spanking my backside.
Ahhh yes, that is the yesnononoyes.
gone gone gone….
Then the bang.
I turn my head and catch a glimpse of the slightly curved rubber tube...solid black...thick, flexible rubber wrapping, thud, kicking, hammering rubber all across my ass, along the back of the thighs, oh please, please.
Her vice, not really asking, but demanding with her cruel and gracious smile
“Five more for me, OK?”
Of course, K…It seems so little to ask
and
five
four
three
two
one
My head hits the wet blanket. Tears and a leaky nose have soaked it.
Cutting the laces away. I stretch as I regain my limbs.
Skin alive. Yes alive
and
still
impaled.
Rended one hundred and four times.
Thing about needles: eventually, they need to come out.
K takes them out in the order of insertion.
I bleed.
Ten needles leave twenty wounds weeping brightly. How thoughtful of her to cleanse the wounds with alcohol. Always thinking of my well-being. I will confess to a less than gracious response to her thoughtfulness as I swore from the chemical sting.
“Goddammit! That fucking hurts!!!”
She laughs.
I am dazed by her extravagant cruelty.
Right side now. Some of the needles seem to be getting stuck on the way out. I fret. More pain in the aftermath of such pains…it is not until the third set of needles that the idea blossoms in my mind that she is deliberately hurting me in the removal of the needles. Tilting the needle so that the beveled point slices a bit on the way out. Breathtaking wickedness. Such elaborate cruelty.
I cry. I cry and writhe, pussy wet with frustration and arousal, as those last needles on the back of my legs are pulled. She is ruthless with those. Some yanked fast, leaving a meteor shower across my tightly screwed shut eyelids, and some are pulled at an angle and twisted. I’m grinding my teeth into shards as I try not to scream, but then give up.
I watch as bloody tissue is pressed again and again against my skin.
We realize the dungeon is practically empty. All players have left.
The clean-up crew tries to be nice, but they want to leave too. Two women, clad head to foot in supple black hides, nod approvingly as K gathers her things together.
“That was beautiful to watch…totally old school. Thanks for sharing that.”
K smiles. I grin insanely, still whirling and twisted. What does that mean exactly? K turns to them.
“Thank you…how could it be otherwise, when I have such beauty to work with?” I blush despite myself…dazed, tear-streaked, weak-limbed, but oh yes, in that moment, I did feel beautiful.
I start to come down from the warmth of the scene and the cold eats at me. Coherent enough to drive? Of course. I have to be. I pull myself together enough to navigate.
Our one regret: no red meat available upon getting back. Some fruit, a few chocolate truffles and a glass of red wine will suffice and nicely compliments the warmth from the heat of her Jacuzzi. We sink in, chatting about all sorts of things, and I can’t even think to myself how alive and wonderful I feel.
Settling down, coming down. By 4 a.m. it was quite time for sleeping. Curled in the blankets, between the parted curtains, the City sprawls before of my sleepy gaze, an incandescent tapestry flowing all about the landscape.
“Yes.” I thought. “Yes, yes, yes.”
For many months afterwards, the parallel double-dot scars down the backs of both of my legs drew attention. Though an unexpected echo of the play that had passed between K and myself, I was pleased to carry these tokens as they slowly backed away into memory, and faded.