Zille Defeu’s Fetish Fantasies

A few months ago, a dear friend of mine interviewed me for a paper he’s working on. I had posted this back when this blog was actually over in Livejournal, but I’ve been thinking about it again, and I just talked with that friend, M., last night, and so I wanted to repost it, because I really like it and I think it shares a great deal about me….

M: I’ll start off the title of the study — it’s called Crossing the Line: The Phenomenon of Altered States of Consciousness in BDSM Play and the research is designed to explore the alerted states of consciousness of individuals involved in BDSM play. And I think I am going to go ahead and start with the first question….

Zille: Absolutely.

M: Please describe in as much detail as possible an altered state of consciousness you experienced in a BDSM scene.

Zille: (Said slowly with serious thought) I guess the choice is which one … I guess the most immediate and extreme example I can give is from a scene that I had a little over a month ago now and this was a very unusual scene for me, because my Master and I do … well (she speeds up when she says) what I love is role-play … um, like, “headmaster and schoolgirl.” And you know … (trails off) so, normally that’s what I want the most. Like, he would just like to bend me over the bed and beat me and have sex with me, and everyone would go home happy. But I really get into, um, role-playing, so he was doing that and every time he does that I kind of know it’s for me. Not that he minds doing it … But that day I did not want role-play. We started doing it, and I found my role limiting, I … just really needed to be beaten…. I will skip how we got to the beating except that I started being very, um … unlike myself. I … I was talking back, I was being naughty as opposed to obedient, I was doing everything within my power to kind of say, “beat me, please, for a long period of time.” Um, and … when he stared doing it … now I say this is completely unusual scene … so I didn’t actually go off into what they call, “subspace,” but, I was in a place where … (pause) you know normally when you’re hit it … it hurts, um, which seems, you know, obvious, but every single masochist I know, the first time they had a scene, you know in their heads they had thought about it and fantasized being beaten and it didn’t hurt. I mean it hurt, and that turned them on, but when the actual, first time happened, everyone, everyone I’ve talked to said they had the reaction of, “Oh fuck – that hurts!” and so … I mean even when you’ve been playing for years and years you know that first time that the cane, or the hand or the belt hits you there’s kind of that experience of like, “Oh, yeah that hurts, I forgot about that!” (laughs) But this time I was not getting that at all – I was craving it and needing it so much that I was just able to handle these now ever increasing amounts of pain (because as I was getting hit I was getting more sensitized) and he was trying to hold me down and I was trying to squirm away, he was just grabbing the nearest thing and um … I just got to this place where I could accept so much pain and I needed it … so much … and I know that doesn’t seem like an altered state, but for me a lot of the time there’s this whole thing of having to process the pain, and work through it and accept it. This, this time I was so … gone into my own need that … um … there was no having to deal with accepting the pain. There was just a feeling of, “Do it again! Now! Harder!” And that is, is for me, an extremely altered state.

M: hmmm

Zille: Um … it was … it was a place of pure need. Desperate need, even.

M: Mmm-hmmm

Zille: And, uh, it actually go to the point where he had to essentially safe word and say, “You know we have to get you not to squirm around, because I’m afraid I’m going to injure you.” Um … and then after that we … we cuddled and talked and we, you know, got all on the same page and then he put me over the bed and, and gave me the most serious beating of my life. And it was … amazing … I wish I could tell you more about my head space then.

M: umm hum

Zille: But (long pause) it was…. (sigh)

M: Can we try if possible to return to it and kind of slow it down.

Zille: Uh huh.

M: And I’d like for you to describe the emotional state and the physical state, sensations, images, anything that came up for you during the actual beating, if possible.

Zille: When I’m being beaten … I … you know I don’t have images really, um, I don’t think like I normally think, which is normally very full of images … I, I actually get to the place that is not dissimilar from when I was a competitive figure skater, and I was out competing. When you go out on the ice to compete … you get into this … quiet … calm … almost, “center of storm” kind of place

M: Mmmm

Zille: And … and in that space it’s no matter, you know, no matter how much noise is going on around you – like the music you are listening to for cues. It’s a, it’s a place of quiet and … and security even, even in the midst of the fear … and I … I am always amazed that those two spaces are exactly the same for me. Um, it’s … it’s just the … the most … it’s the most quiet space. And I can be screaming my head off while being beaten, but it’s quiet inside my head. So there isn’t that much imagery, I mean maybe, maybe there’s imagery in the form of how the sensation goes through my body….

M: Tell me more about the sensation.

Zille: (long pause where she closes her eyes) Well, obviously it depends on the different implements … um … the one that is the most profound for me is the cane. Of course it’s gonna be kind of hard to find anything that’s more profound for anymore, because it’s such an intense instrument. Although I also have an emotional connection with it, which is that no one else has caned me before, and so a caning for, for me and my master is as intimate as sex. Um … and I mean all of our play, but maybe this is even more intimate than sex. The sensation … and here when I describe the sensation, I’m probably going to be quoting stuff I read and gone “okay that’s how to describe it”, because it’s very hard to put it into words … but basically the sensation starts with anticipation, the … the waiting for the strike is as much a part of the strike as the strike itself. You can be horny, you can feel fear, adrenaline coursing through your body. You want to tense up and you have to fight the tension because you know it will be worse for you if you tense up. Um, so there’s the experience of feeling your muscles tense and trying to relax them … (pause) then you hear the sound … sometimes before it hits you and, and then the, the adrenalin just goes shooting up. When the cane hits supposedly there’s supposed to be an instant of no pain before all of a sudden the pain rushes up. Hmmm … that actually I have never experienced, really. I feel the strike immediately, then there is pain rushing up, more intense pain – but I always feel (long pause) … the thud of the blow … um (long pause) you know, the feeling of something hitting you and that, that reverberation … that that energy moving through your body.

M: Mm hmmm

Zille: Um, then the … the … and … (struggling for words) that’s painful, but not as much as painful as the pain that follows, which comes up a bit like a heat, a really painful burning heat, um … and it’s not dissimilar to when you’ve had clamps put on and the clamps are taken off – it’s blood rushing back into the area. And it’s also your body experiencing shock, um at the blow, but it doesn’t stay localized. A … a cane stroke for me never is just in the spot that I am hit, it always radiates throughout my entire being.

M: Hmmm

Zille: Um … more, increasingly more so, as the beating progresses. Um, yeah I … I think I’ve…. Ask me another question.

M: Ok, well actually let’s move to the second question which was: Please describe in as much detail as possible what factors were present that allowed you to experience this altered state in that scene.

Zille: (pause) That’s a good one. I think for me there had been a certain amount of frustration because we hadn’t played for a while, so there had been this building need for the, for the beating. Um … and as I say it really took me by surprise – I ended up having to spend a long time thinking about it, and analyzing it afterwards. So I kind of went into it completely unaware of … of just how deep seated that need was.

M: Yeah, I want to hear more about that need.

Zille: (pause) Here’s where I am gong to be less coherent …

M: Good! (laughs)

Zille: Because it’s hard to verbalize it, for me masochism is something (sigh, pause, sigh) … that … is … is very unspoken and very hard, not for me to admit to, but I don’t understand it … in myself yet. And so, getting my needs met … is … is … is harder because I don’t know how to ask for them all the time. Um, those needs … (pause, sigh) It’s like you get this antsy-ness in, in your core, like a … like an itch.

M: Mmmhmm

Zille: But obviously way more profound than an itch! It’s this … (sigh, long pause) it’s this feeling of not being fulfilled. Of not being able to experience satisfaction, until the beating happens with all of its rewards. Such as the sensation of pain and working through pain, uh, the adrenaline rush, the pride of taking a beating well, um, the intimacy with your partner. I mean there’s just so many rewards that comes with taking a beating, and so my need is so multi-layered … um … that you know it’s a, it’s a very intangible thing because it’s made of so many little parts.

M: Mmmhmm

Zille: Um, which direction do you want to go with that?

M: I would be really curious about, um how the quality of the relationship contributed to your ability to enter that space.

Zille: OH! (exhales) … I couldn’t get to that space without this relationship! (laughs) I never fully realized myself as a masochist until this relationship and until indeed the first time he used the cane on me, was, in my mind, the first time I really truly came forward from being a person who fantasized about pain to a person who was a true masochist. Which just adds to the intensity of course to every caning … ever since, and in fact I … I don’t know when I’ll be ready to be caned by a person who isn’t him. So the relationship brings security … um, a need to, what’s the word … renew itself. A beating is a renewal saying, “Yes, I am interested in this and you’re interested in this,” and that’s a big connection for us. Um … (pause) the … the relationship … I trust him utterly, completely … and … and you know – evidence of how I can trust him is that when he was afraid he was going to injure me he stopped the scene, so that he could get into a better place to hurt me (which, to someone who doesn’t understand it that just sounds ridiculous) but I know that he will not injure me. I know with every fiber of my being and therefore, for the first time, I’ve been able to completely trust someone and (said slowly with emphasis)) relax. That’s the thing, that’s … that’s the thing – I have to be able to relax to accept it. Um, I have to let go of my controlling, my very controlling nature. And, you know if I’m … I’m thinking “Oh, this could have been done better,” or “Oh, he’s doing it wrong,” then I cannot be in a place to accept the pain. I have to be in a place where I just let go of everything … and … that actually brings it back to skating in a way, because when you got out there to compete, all your practice … you know, you know, even though you’re very controlled and even when you’re being beaten –for me it’s very seldom that I’m tied down and I’m fully out of control, you know, I have to hold myself still for it, so physically there’s control, it’s mentally you have to let go and just say, “Ok, this is happening, and I have these certain things to do but otherwise I am not in control of what happens.” If I did not have that space with him then I would not be able to experience the incredible sensations … mental and physical that … .that, he makes happen in my body….

M: Actually I think we might be … we’re actually very close to the end of the interview!

Zille: Well, that’s too bad – I could go for a few more hours! (laughs)

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