25

Marked

~ a story ~


Birthdays are always fun at the house. Everyone gathers. We drink. We eat. We laugh. But, most importantly, we all enjoy the show.

We have a little tradition amongst our friends, a rite of passage for each new year of life. One year, one person, one hit.

The funny ones opt for the birthday spankings, the simplest form of our tradition. One-by-one our friends circulate, the birthday boy or girl stands in front, bent over, counting as hits land. There's lots of laughter and everybody, including the birthday boy or girl, has a great time.

But this was my birthday. I wanted something a little different, something special. Still, it would be hard to choose my fate. Celine had an intense display for her twenty third year, twenty three slaps across the face. Taren was just as hardcore. He took twenty-nine punches to the face, stomach, and chest. Not many had the stomach to take a swing, or to watch, but we did anyway.

For my twenty-five strokes, I wanted more meaning, more feeling. After all, it had been a big year for me. Meeting Daniel. Our recent engagement. And my promotion at work. I wanted to mark my years, and, I decided, mark myself.

I sat on the chair in the middle of the room, the small table beside me. The tiny scalpels laid on a sterile sheet. Twenty-five cuts to mark my twenty-five years.

Only three people had the stomach for what I asked them to do: Raquel, my oldest friend in life, Nance, the first person I met when I entered the public kink scene and who'd been my rock during my first difficult days, and Daniel, my love.

The room grew quiet as soon as I sat down. Everyone knew what was about to happen. I made sure to warn the faint of heart to stay away, but everyone remained.

My three stood behind me. Raquel was first.

Before that night, Raquel and Daniel had learned the proper precautions to take from Nance who, among our friends, knew the most about (and presents on) blood play. He also explained to them what I wanted.

Raquel's area was my right shoulder blade. I spied her gloved hand in my periphery as she picked up her scalpel. It didn't shake, not an inch. I could always rely on her to be strong. She cleaned her area, then placed her left hand on my back, steadying myself and herself.

I felt the bite of the blade, the quick scratch of the first mark. Then the second, a little more pain now that my body knew what to expect. The third, as I felt a drop of blood form on the first. The fourth, as I felt the high begin. The fifth, slashing across all four, the hardest mark to take yet.

I gritted my teeth as she worked, breathing, pushing through the pain. Her second set of five she placed beside her first, ticks marking off ten of my years. When Raquel finished, she disposed of her gloves in the waste bin and her scalpel in the sharps container. She came around to my front, knelt, and kissed my forehead. There were tears in her eyes and mine.

Next up was Nance. His marks would be on my left shoulder blade. Just like Raquel, he made his slashes in my flesh, two sets of four upright ticks and their fifth slash across. Disposing of his gloves and scalpel, he too came to my front, knelt down, kissed my forehead, and joined the watching crowd.

I could hear them breathing, but I didn't dare look at them. For me to get through this, for me to truly feel the meaning and weight of this, I remained in myself and saw only my arms or the eyes of my closest friends.

The last to mark me was my Daniel. His marks would be at the top of my back, just below the nape of my neck. As he worked, I thought about our year, thought about the first time I saw him across the room, walking into the lounge. I thought about that first eye contact, the way he made my heart flutter from twenty-five feet away. Our first kiss. Our first scene. Our first fuck.

When Daniel finished his marks and disposed of his scalpel, he pulled out the jar from under the table. Slathering the mixture on my skin, it hurt more than creating the wounds. But it was necessary. I wanted to hold the cuts, wanted to be scarred by this.

The scars were my years. The individuals who made them were my closest friends, the people who I held in my heart.

On my body, I wear my days. In my flesh, I show my years, my life marked.