Hold On

From my experience at Dirty Things...

He told me to go tie myself up. I scurried off, happy to have the practice, and wanting to try something new.

I used my gifted red rope, along with a length of swapped black rope, for my chest harness. I used my gifted raw hemp for the hip harness (which included a crotch line for extra fun). I cinched to the hip piece and looped around my legs as I had done before. I added all the lifting lines before I began my ascent, just as I had practiced.

But next was where things changed. I added a fourth lifting line to a new point, the one he had suggested some time ago. I lifted myself, lowered my chest, and floated above the world, my body weight resting solely on my hips. My arms could almost graze the floor.

I lifted my chest back up, re-secured the line, and lowered a leg. I discarded the long chest rope and switched it out with a shorter from the leg on the ground. I moved the new chest rope to the side, lifted myself once more, and floated sideways. I drifted, sunk into this new feeling.

I again resettled my leg and moved the chest line. Securing the rope to the back of the harness, I floated half sideways, half face down. I absorbed this new position, and its different set of strains.

Feeling the time had come to stop, I lowered myself down, sat, and coiled my ropes. I wondered if I could, somehow, perform the transitions without lowering my leg. I promised myself I would practice this new sequence again, soon.

My things packed away, and the night nearing at its end, I found him unraveling his tie. He asked if I was ready. I informed him we had no time, that the night had left us. That was, unless he wanted to do something "fast and furious". He smiled at the comment. He went to the organizers to ask a question.

I sat and lounged and talked, letting myself wind down. He came back and spoke to another. He stood behind me. And then his rope was around me.

With one quick cinch, and my instant inhale of breath, I understood what was about to happen. I quickly flung my glasses away, caught by another who held them til the end. He cinched my chest again, and again, and again. He pressed into my body with his boot, first at my back, then on my chest. He forced my torso down onto my crossed legs. He then pushed my chest down to the ground. He grabbed my leg and wrapped the rope around it thrice. He pulled tight and cinch my leg to my chest.

All the while, whenever his body came close to mine, I leaned into him. I rubbed my cheek, my shoulder, my hand onto any part of him that was near me. And he caressed me with his hand, his hair, and his rope.

With my body secured, he held me, brushed my face, and said, "We don't have time for me to ease this in, so I'm going to push it." He counted 1, 2, 3. He struck my sternum, a warm glow now living in my chest. "Hold on to that for a while." And he held me.

After a moment, he began unwinding the ropes. Even with the strands flowing off my body, I felt the glow still in my chest. Even as we sat, cuddling, happy to be with one another, if only for a moment, I felt it. On the drive home. As I slipped into bed. As I write this, I still feel it.

It is caring, affection, friendship, connection. I hold on to who I am, who we are, all that has happened before, and all that is yet to be.