supplicium post mortem

Don’t you wish you could do that more often? I can think of several conversations, subsequently requiring mind-bleach, which wouldn’t have got to that stage if I’d been able to safeword, lol.

As previously discussed, I’ve never really played with safewords. This isn’t out of any philosophical stance, but simply because they proved extraneous in my play relationship and in the few scenes I did outside that relationship. Another common practice that has never quite entered my play is the warm-up. This probably has to do with the fact that when I play, it is always–through role–real, in which case a warm-up would seem at cross-purposes, and thus on some level probably pervy. I think, perhaps, I have been missing something.

I’ve no idea why, but this morning popped into my head a memory of a trip to the doctor for planters warts. This would have been just after I met M, probably just after my first trip to Englandland to visit him (three weeks of a dark December in Surrey). Planters warts are a painful and difficult-to-eradicate infection usually in the sole of your foot, in my case in the flesh of my heel. You have to soak your foot twice a day, scrape with a razor blade down to the roots of the thing, and then staunch the blood with a salicylic acid preparation. (Sorry, graphic part over.) Let us simply say that in addition to the expected kinds of pain, I was experiencing considerable discomfort during that trip.

Eventually I broke down and visited the doctor. Doc confirmed that it had gone beyond the soak&scrape stage and that the only solution now would be to freeze them off with liquid nitrogen. He warned me: this could get quite painful, and I should let him know if I needed him to stop. I, overflowing with confidence borne of newly discovered tgi play, told him it was fine. I gave him my stoic face. He put my bare foot up on the table and took out something that looked like a blowtorch. I blanched.

Ok, he said, I’m just going to keep on with this until you tell me to stop. It’s not going to hurt at first, but then it’s going to start hurting and keep getting worse.

Me: Sure.

Doc: Oh, and you should know that the pain is going to keep increasing for a while even after I stop, so you should tell me to stop before it’s at the absolute limit. K?

Me: (gulp, nod)

This was an interesting exercise: to safeword, but to have to safeword before you’d reached your limit. You didn’t want to do it too soon, because then the treatment wouldn’t be as effective, but if you left it too late, you might find yourself in an agony you didn’t want at all. It was, intellectually, quite hot.

I saw you reading a magazine, your sleeves rolled up, waiting for the allergy shots to take, or whatever it is that they do. You wore black, your hair held off your face with sunglasses, cross visible when I looked too far down your top. You almost scowled at your reading, as is your fashion, even for glossy girl mags. Your skirt came just below the knee. I wanted to lift it, expose those legs of yours, and touch that bottom. Allergy jabs in the arm are tosh, as I’ve always said. A girl Casey’s age ought to have them in her bottom, and when it was time to have it looked at, the nurse would lift her skirt right there in the waiting room, and only return her knickers when everything was clear.

I saw you waiting at that Japanese massage place. Is that spot in your lower back still putting off enough heat to fry an egg? Oh, I know, you’re not tense; you’ve been carrying a heavy bag. Those girls can walk on your back all day long, but we both know something different is required to correct the holding in.

I saw you in the waiting room on that day you want to forget, waiting for that tosser of a social worker to stop diddling you about. I saw you even then. I see you even now. Don’t worry, Sweetheart, really…truly… Has anyone ever mentioned that you have the most beautiful nose?

Come write your own missed connection – real or fantasy, who will know? Post the link today (Wednesday) here or on Twitter (@caseydamnmorgan). What is Midweek Missed Connections?

Check out other missed connections this week:

• PapaTomLA
• Travis King