Camp Crucible Part 3 – Scening Is Believing

Up to this point, I have observed my policy of avoiding overly racy narrative. I don’t feel I have the talent to write good pornography (that is NOT an oxymoron), and in general, you want to think about what your family might say if they blunder onto your blog. So anything that might cause shame or embarrassment is best avoided.

Now I am essentially breaking that rule. I still believe this is not pornographic, but I feel the need to warn you that reading further may result in at least mild embarrassment. Yours, that is, not mine.

And I have no shame. I gave that up for Lent about 40 years ago.

So onward…

Up until camp, I had only scened with Mistress. I know her style and what to expect to some extent. I know that she will push my limits, but never to the point of my having to safe out. She has an uncanny ability to read my body and its language, to know when I have had enough and the scene should end. I have never regretted putting myself in her hands. Camp would not change this but it would introduce me to another delightful Domme and a completely different style of play.

It would also teach me just how differently scenes can end and how indelible the impressions they leave can be.

When you attend Camp, you have the option to buy your way out of doing chores. The cost of camp is reduced for campers who volunteer to do certain tasks like serving meals, driving camp taxis and other such things. I bought out of chores for this my first year because I wanted to immerse myself in the atmosphere and delve deeply into pony head space without having to worry about a work schedule. Now that I have done that, I will do chores when I go to camp (note I did not say ‘if I go to camp’). Mistress was doing chores this year as a dungeon monitor on Friday evening. There wasn’t much for this pony to do between dinner and midnight snack, so eventually I chose to take a hike to the upper dungeon and visit with her.

When I walked in the door the first thing I saw was a man in a set of stocks. Apparently he had asked Mistress to secure him in them. He didn’t think to specify for how long, however, and he found himself confined for quite some time. “This is an example of poor negotiation,” Mistress told me with that evil grin of hers. I watched for a few minutes as the poor man changed positions frequently, trying to find one that would relieve his discomfort only to discover that stress positions are just that; stressful.

One station over from him I saw two stunningly beautiful women – one a Domme and the other her sub - just finishing a scene with a man who had been lashed to a St. Andrew’s Cross. How best to describe them; diminutive, slender, each with a sharp glint in her eye that spoke of a no-nonsense character. One had the bearing of a cat and the other the mischievous inclinations of a bespectacled fox. Both wore long coats that lent an air of severity to their demeanor.

Their scene had concluded and the aftercare the Domme was giving was an impressive mixture of compassion, love and pure enjoyment of a moment. Just prior to this, the man had been enduring a somewhat spectacular flogging and was slowly coming down as he sat wrapped in a blanket and sitting in a chair. The Domme, whose name I later learned was Madame Adria, sat at eye level and smiled into his eyes as she checked in to see how he was doing. I found myself impressed not only by this scene but by the chops she displayed while wielding her implements.

Mme. Adria was friendly and had a ready smile that broadened when Mistress asked for Her assistance with the man in the stocks. I’m not sure about the details, but it seems that the rules had been renegotiated. I may be wrong, but apparently it was decided that getting out of the stocks would require that the poor subbie scream like a girl. To push him to that point, Mme. Adria administered a wicked stick. Have you ever seen a wicked stick? There isn’t much to look at. It’s basically a wire less than one foot in length and Mme. Adria knew how to make it sting. She would draw it back with one hand while holding an end with the other hand. Then she would release it with a snap against the sub’s naked flesh. She went up and down his legs and all over his exposed buttocks much to his distress and her evil glee.

Well, not just her glee. Frankly, the lot of us were enjoying this. Yours truly was pressed into service by Mistress when the sub began pushing the stocks around in an effort to escape his torture. It became my job to foot the base and prevent it from moving. That avenue of relief denied to him, the sub began attempting to scream in the manner demanded for release. I couldn’t help but notice how much fun Mme. Adria was having tormenting this guy. Her laugh was audible all over the dungeon, its lilt carrying above all the other noises in the giant room. And it was infectious. Even the sub found his sense of humor once he met criteria for release and was freed from the stocks.

I was impressed and I wanted to play with these fascinating people I had just met. I mentioned this to Mistress as we headed down to HQ for midnight snack, but then started focusing on socializing and the pony show. I didn’t want to get marked up before the show so any play sessions would have to wait until after lunch on Sunday.

Protocol can be a real assistance to a submissive, especially a relatively new submissive. I had never asked a Domme other than Mistress for a play session and I had no idea how to go about it. The answer turned out to be very simple in this context. I put the request to my Mistress and she would ask Mme. Adria about it. The following day, after we had finished choreographing my dance number for the pony show, Mistress and I were walking back to our cabin. The path took us past the lower dungeon (called Hell by the camp). Sitting there on the porch in the sun and watching her sub get a righteous caning sat Mme. Adria In a flash, Mistress took me by the bridle and led me over for introductions. She told Mme. Adria that I had been quite taken with her scene the night before and wondered if I might not be able to arrange a play session with her for Sunday at some point after the pony show. Mme. Adria looked me up and down and then smiled in a manner that made me back up reflexively. After all, I was in pony space still and some things are a matter of instinct. She agreed to set a time for a play session, looking more than a little delighted at the prospect and Mistress led me back to the cabin.

The next twenty-four hours would leave a lot of scope for those who enjoy a good mind fuck – if you’ll excuse the term. It’s common in the scene for the practice of playing with someone psychologically. The scene, after all, is not just a matter of floggers, whips, rope, bondage and physicality. It’s also about the more subtle and very powerful way in which the human mind responds to the atmosphere in which it finds itself. The truly artistic Dominant can turn a willing submissive inside out before the physical scene even starts, leaving all sorts of possibilities wide open for exploration. Other submissives will often lend a hand.

For example…

When NorthernBelle heard about my play date, she gushed, “Oh my GOD she s so EVIL! I’ve played with her before and you are so DOOMED! You’re going to LOVE it!”

That’s not a contradictory statement. It just reads that way.

Once the pony show was over and lunch had passed, Mistress and I began to talk about the play session scheduled for that evening. I was to present myself in the upper dungeon at 10:30 p.m. showered, shaved and in readiness. That much we knew, but I couldn’t help but wonder how the process of negotiation would unfold. Mistress and I talk a lot and often the subject turns to negotiation. For us it’s a subtle process involving questions, answers and thought. We may not be discussing a particular scene or even pony play at the time, but limits, tastes and other information of that sort will get passed back and forth to be filed for future reference. A discreet negotiating session was a new concept to me and I asked when I should speak to Mme. Adria about it. “You won’t,” Mistress said, “You will speak to me about it and I will discuss it with her.”

Protocol.

So Mistress and I talked for a while about what I was hoping to get out of the play session and what I wanted to avoid. It’s a good idea to go into a scene with these sorts of issues laid out in your mind. Without some sort of map – even a sketchy one – it is difficult to determine if the scene worked for you. And right away, I started working against my own interests. I wanted to limit the time the scene would take. Mistress turned that idea down by firmly stating that a scene takes what time it takes and putting an artificial limit on time was a great way to scuttle the experience.

No time limit. Check.

Next, I began to detail the implements that scared me the most. I have no experience with canes or paddles and the thought of someone taking one of those out and whacking me with it…

Well…

Wait a minute. Maybe I should be facing fears like that by not putting limits on the implements Mme. Adria could use. I could always safe out if I needed to. And besides, I didn’t remember seeing anything other than floggers and whips in her collection. So I decided not to limit the implements that she could use. I didn’t want to stifle her creativity.

In the end, the only limits I placed on the session were the hard limits that Mistress is already well aware of. No electricity, no breath play, no intentional cutting or puncturing of my skin. In all, pretty basic stuff. Besides, I noted, Mistress would be there to protect me. “No,” she said, “I’m going to be there to watch!”

Oh.

Finally we talked about an appropriate safe word. I had intended to use ‘red’ as my safe word, but Mistress reminded me of the safe word from the Temple of Aphrodite, which is Athena. As a pony, I am dedicated to Aphrodite though my Wiccan patron deity is Anubis. He doesn’t seem to mind. My tack has roses and myrtle leaves tooled into the belt because those plants are sacred to Aphrodite. Our stable is called Aphrodite’s Meadow. Mistress is a priestess of Aphrodite. Athena as a safe word made perfect sense.

Mistress again told me when to make an appearance at the upper dungeon and added that, should I see her talking with Mme. Adria, I should take that as a cue to be somewhere else. We walked to HQ together and got separated in the hubbub. I settled in to watch the slide show that was playing on a big screen. The pony show was the theme of the evening and I got engrossed but not so lost that I forgot the time. I could see Mistress and Mme. Adria in a corner talking quietly but intently and avoided that corner of the room. In fact, I did all in my power to keep from looking in that general direction. Eventually, I had to leave. It was after 10:00 p.m. after all.

A brisk walk the long way around brought me to the upper dungeon a couple minutes early. Mistress and Mme. Adria had not yet arrived but were not far behind me. Mme. Adria approached me with a smile that said, “I have plans for you.” And indeed, she did.

“I’ve never played with a pony before,” she said. I can’t recall exact words beyond that, but she made it clear that she wanted me to dispose with human language and respond with whinnies, nickers and other such pony noises. I confess I hadn’t stopped to think that the Domme might want to get a thing or two out of this scene as badly as I did. Okay, a shared experience it would be. I was happy to be a pony for this session and readily agreed. I was allowed my safe word only, but that would be enough for me.

The details worked out, Mme. Adria turned to Mistress and said, “Well, La Dresseuse, I think your pony is just a bit overdressed!” That was my cue to strip naked. The scene was underway.

I had asked to be bound to the St. Andrew’s Cross with grip cuffs to prevent me from getting away. In addition, Mme. Aria asked if I wanted to be blindfolded. While the thought hadn’t occurred to me before that moment, it made perfect sense. There was a lot going on in the dungeon and while noise was no problem for me, being able to see what was going on elsewhere would no doubt distract me. I opted for the blindfold and did not regret my decision.

I have little experience with bondage, but what experience I do have has been good. I can’t rationalize it, but there is something about being dependent on another that is particularly erotic for me. This arrangement had me half standing and half hanging by my wrists while still able to hang on to padded handles with my arms outstretched. Mme. Adria put the cuffs on my wrists while she talked softly to me, showing me her various implements and noting that one of them was made of horsehide. Gulp.

After I was secured to the cross and unable to see, I heard and felt Mme. Adria lean into me. She put her mouth next to my ear and asked me to tell her my safe word. Reflexively, I replied, “Red.”

Oops.

“Oh! I was told that it was Athena!”

“Yes! It’s Athena!” I said. There was a light moment of laughter and some reference to a sub who was already distracted before the scene really got going, but we got the safe word down and agreed upon.

I was nervous and they were enjoying it. Okay, let’s be honest, so was I.

Then the sensations started. Slowly Mme. Adria began moving her hands up and down my body tracing my contours with just her fingertips. She went up and down my back and legs and then around my sides to the front finding every ticklish spot in the process. “It’s funny,” she said, “but most people think torture always involves pain.” I was in trouble. Clearly, Mistress had told her all about my ticklish nature and was probably sitting in her chair pointing out the extra sensitive spots! She was going to have a lot of fun. A few minutes of this treatment had me so wound up that I could have taken just about any form of punishment in stride. I forgot my pony nature until I heard Mme. Adria observe, “I don’t think that’s how ponies giggle, is it?” That was gentle talk reminding me that I was not following the rules of the scene. I had to think fast to come up with a giggle that sounded like a pony. To the best of my knowledge, bio-horses don’t giggle. Still, whatever I managed seemed to satisfy the requirement. And it took an unbelievable amount of concentration to manage that giggle for any amount of time.

Then I felt the unmistakable sensation of leather strips brushing gently up and down my back. As she slowly moved the flogger around allowing me to feel its cool, soft texture on my skin, she leaned into my ear once again and said, “I killed one of your kind to make this.” A shiver ran down my spine as the first gentle strokes fell across my back and I nickered softly. Mme. Adria took quite a long time to warm me up and I found myself dropping more and more deeply into pony head space. That had never happened to me in dungeon play before, but I found myself enjoying it.

The flogging continued with intermittent moments of soft or scratchy cool down that had me riding a roller coaster of sensation and emotion. Fear had long since flown out the window because the sense of fun in the scene was palpable. Perhaps it also had something to do with the unusual rules we were following. But although fear may depart, trepidation will hang around for a long time. Mistress took part silently as did a number of my friends who happened to pass through the dungeon. At one point, Stormy came in. Mistress silently signaled to him to whinny. Remember that rule I mentioned in an earlier post? I immediately responded with a whinny of my own. Other ponies were recruited to the same purpose and on the occasions that I didn’t hear or failed to respond, Mme. Adria gave me an extra hard whack with the flogger. So this scene really turned into a community event. Not that I minded. For starters, I had no idea until after the fact. But any measure of fun is made that much better if your friends can take part. And of course, things can turn on a dime.

Which they did. Sort of.

You see, being attached to a St. Andrew’s Cross essentially put me into a stress position. After some time standing there bearing up to the impact of Mme. Adria's floggers, my knees began to get numb. The resultant twitching proved insufficient to stem off restless legs and eventually I attempted to relieve the discomfort by quickly lifting my left leg while bending at the knee. That’s when I felt my foot make contact with something.

Or someone. There was a long silence. Then I heard what I was afraid I’d hear. “Your pony kicked me!” said Mme. Adria with as much outrage as she could muster. I put it that way because this little wrinkle in the plot gave her the sort of opportunity that any Domme with an evil streak dreams of. A good excuse for punishment. She decided that something would have to be done to teach me a lesson about manners. And what a lesson she devised.

She reached down and took hold of the offending foot, bending it backward toward my back as though to put a shoe on it. She held it as securely as any farrier could and I knew there would be no escape. I would have to endure whatever was coming next. I expected something hard and smacky would crack across the bottom of my foot causing me some degree of agony.

That would have been easier than what actually happened. Mme. Adria started tickling my foot. Now there is no part of my body more violently ticklish than the soles of my feet and when she started in with those fingers of hers, I thought I was going to die. Immediately I went into full panic mode trying to escape. But the cross and the grip cuffs saw to it that I would stay right where I was. I struggled not only against the bonds but (unbelievably) with my concentration as I continued to whinny my responses. No matter how difficult it became, I still had to obey the rules. Unable to get away and just about ready to collapse from the intense tickling my foot was getting, I grabbed a hold of the grip cuffs and hung from them as I stamped my right foot on the floor. By that point, I had attracted some attention and several friends were in hysterics watching this scene.

When Mme. Adria Finally relented, I was drained and exhausted. The scene concluded very soon after. I was taken down from the cross and assisted into a chair. She sat in front of me just as I had seen her do on Friday night and looked at me intently with a broad smile on her face. For some reason, I couldn’t look her straight in the eye. It wasn’t fear that got in the way; it was what I can only describe as profound respect. I was still in pony head space and direct eye contact is confrontational to ponies. I had enjoyed this scene and she certainly seemed to enjoy me.

I sat quietly for a few minutes as I slowly came up from pony space. As the room started to make sense to me again, I began to giggle. This time it was a human giggle and it was quite uncontrollable. It got others giggling around me and took quite a while to subside. This had been fun; a lot of fun. I had some respectable stripes on my back and even more on my butt. Mme. Adria had been particularly fascinated with my butt, at one point exclaiming, “How could I not be when it jiggles like this?”

Thinking back on it, my session with Mme. Adria was a wonderful time. It was about fun, laughter and exquisitely evil torments of mind and body. It doesn’t make sense to anyone who is not of this little world that is the BDSM community, but it does to me.

My session with Mistress the following night would be a different story altogether. It would be equally as good for me and in some ways many times more powerful. It can’t be compared to my time with Madame Adria. The atmosphere with Mistress was different, and probably because of our longstanding relationship, a great deal more intimate. The result of which would be startling, unexpected and deeply moving.

But you’ll have to wait for the next installment for the details.