I’ve just re-read Emma Jane’s post describing the astonishing experience that she and Catherine went through last Thursday night – and I’m shaking slightly. (Don’t read it if you’re of a nervous disposition. Actually, do. It demands to be read – perhaps the edgiest post you’ll ever find on a kinky blog).

It’s some of the details that really get to me. The image of them kneeling as their captors hooded them from behind. Having their hands bound behind their backs for four hours. The disorientation of staring into bright lights, unable to see their inquisitor. EJ’s repeated recitation of Kipling’s “If…” to help to pull her through.

And then the waterboarding: the climax of the proceedings. My girls were, quite literally, tortured. [No imitation 'water bondage', this: have no doubt that this was the real procedure save only for the context - they were in those surroundings, ultimately, through personal choice, not seeking to avoid disclosing  genuinely significant information to enemy captors].

As ever, writing about things helps me process, understand my own feelings. That’s what this post is about.

By the time they were en route to their doom, I knew a fair amount about what was going to happen to the girls – more, actually, by then, than they did themselves. Being honest, I was scared about what was going to take place, much as they had chosen to do this; irrationally worried – although I knew they would be in no actual danger. Haron, at the end of the telephone for half an hour or more, was wonderful at letting me talk through my feelings and reach a state of surprising calm. And that remained: through a business meeting, through a journey to the station, through my train ride home. Until, that is, I made the mistake of reading the Wikipedia article about waterboarding. I was nearly sick.

At  home, as the clock ticked well past midnight, I couldn’t sleep, knowing some of what they must be going through at the time, far away. And my self-inflicted mental torture? That was in a warm, comfortable house. They were actually facing the reality – and knowing that it was self-inflicted, that they had chosen to do this, would scarcely make it any easier at the time: when the water started pouring, it would be real.  I hadn’t expected to hear from them until the following lunchtime; that texts from each of them, buzzing with the excitement that I hoped they’d derive from what happened, arrived near-simultaneously shortly before 3am was a truly blessed relief.

Now, this stuff really isn’t my personal kink – and not just because of the lack of spanking. In my scene world, limits are discussed, safewords agreed, and the ‘informed consent’ is based on a pretty clear view of what’s involved. That’s not how Thursday worked. Rather, the ‘informed’ part seemed more to be that ‘the people concerned are safe and trustworthy’; the consent, to whatever it was that their tormentors decided to do to them within the agreed timeframe. Not specifying limits, not having a safeword – that formed part of the consent; the lack of their discussion was, therefore, something active not passive.  It took some considerable mental struggle for me to understand this: it’s so alien to my personal play preferences. (And I know, even as I write that, that ‘play’ – or even ‘scene’ – somehow feels too trivial, lightweight a word for this particular event).

The lack of limits? That comes down to trust in those running the scene not to do anything that they know would go beyond that with which you (real you, back in the cold light of day not merely ‘you helped by the  adrenaline of the scene’) would be happy – rather than simply pushing your boundaries very, very hard. The act of stating hard limits almost implies that the individual is explicitly consenting to the things that stay off the list – asking for them, even – and is undermining the very premise of the scene.

The absence of any safeword? I guess I best understand the justification – for the person on the receiving end – as follows: “having a safeword means I can stop the scene at any time; I therefore always retain a degree of power over what’s happening at every point, and sometimes that’s exactly what I don’t want.” It’s more than merely “I’ll be in too deep a headspace to ever use it anyway”. It requires absolute trust and absolute confidence in the top’s knowledge of what’s safe and ability to sense if anything is amiss. It’s the ultimate ceding of control.

This stuff is far outside my own comfort zone, and isn’t how I’d personally choose to play – but I can see why others might. Intellectually, I’m reconciled to it as a framework that works for other people – as it did for Catherine and Emma Jane. Emotionally, the reality of knowing what was done to my girls – particularly, specifically the waterboarding – still makes me shudder  (no matter how hard I try not to, no matter how safe the context, no matter their fundamental consent to the situation which led them there, no matter their reactions to it.).

Ultimately, I admire my girlfriends’ torturers for having the sheer audacity to conceive something like this, for inspiring such trust, and for their skill in running it safely. As for Catherine and Emma Jane: I have the most wonderful girlfriends imaginable.