Safe Words

a story, with a lesson built in

By *k

I had been away for a few days, visiting a friend who lived several hundred miles north. My friend and I intended to see some sites in his hometown--and it rained and was cold, and apparently the tourist season had started early because it was very busy. Finally we decided to drive back down to London a day early--and the clutch cable on my friend's car snapped, leaving us stranded in the middle of the English countryside. Finally it was fixed and we drove into London, reuniting me with my Master.

The floor in the flat had been torn up to fix a leak in the plumbing, and the maintenance men had left the floor of half the flat open. Piles of books, magazines, and cds were everywhere. Clothes were strewn about and the flat was generally chaotic. I am a neatness fanatic and after the Trip From Hell I wanted to come home to a safe, warm, neat nest and hide for a bit. Obviously it wasn't going to happen that way. I let go of that, however, in my joy over seeing my beloved Master again (after 4 days away!). Master and I soon were in the middle of a scene involving his favorite "purple hand" crop, a sharply stingy purple crop with a small black leather hand at the end. Normally I love stingy things, but after the vacation I had just had and being separated from my Master I couldn't handle it.

I usually love tingles, so I waited and waited for the tingles to begin to give off their warm radiance. All I got for my patience was sharp, cutting pain. I didn't understand what was happening, why I had suddenly become so sensitive and 'weak'. Master could tell from my body language that I was struggling, and stopped things of his own volition several times, each time encouraging me to call my safeword if I needed it. I refused his offers until, after one particularly painful smack, I rolled over on my side and whimpered.

"kitten," Master said, "Calling your safeword is not disobedient. Rolling out of position is. Get back in position. If you need your safeword then, call it."

I returned halfway into position and blurted out my afeword before I could coax myself any further. I had the security of knowing that whenever I call that word play stops without question, and under that assurance I fell apart. I began to cry and hiccup and got mildly hysterical, while all the while being held and comforted by my Master. After a good number of tears I quieted, and said that I didn't know why I was so tender and sensitive, and couldn't go as far as usual. Master nodded, and said it probably had to do with being so overwrought the last few days and it was nothing to be concerned about. He asked me then why I waited to call my safeword.

"If I call my safeword, then that means I've failed you," I explained. "It means I can't go as far as you want me to go."

Master was horrified by this idea. He explained to me that calling a safeword helps him, every single time I use it, to understand how to make a scene good for me under individual circumstances. This time I was recovering from a great deal of stress and quite a few threatening things, he explained, so this time my limits were different. It is never shameful and it is never a failure and it is never "wrong" to call a safeword. In this instance I was more sensitive than usual because of the stressful vacation, so I needed it, and he needed it, to understand how that was affecting our pleasure. A safeword is a tool, and it only works if you use it. You are not being a "bad subbie" if you call your safeword, you are helping your Dom/me to understand and shape the scene and the pleasure being enjoyed.