Having journaled out all my experiences in excruciating detail, I’m ready to write a sorta-kinda-recap post about my Entranced 2018! Oh man, where to start? I met so many excellent new humans; I hung out with old friends; I actually formed connections with folks who had been on my radar for a long time (cough @dommestic); and I spent time with some very dear folks. (To anyone I met and didn't spend enough time with: you're great! Next con, please?! I'm looking at you, @ultinath / @ringofkees / @thesecretsubject.)
I shared some great meals (mmm, pupusas!) and multiple times just tripped and fell into a fascinating conversation full of delightful folks. I had loud and exuberant social gatherings, and quiet cuddles in darkened rooms with a bunch of friends who came out to keep us company when @silentstream9 had a migraine, and they were all amazing. Thank you, con attendees, for being your vibrant and excellent selves <3 In particular, the folks I didn't particularly scene with/don't mention elsewhere here but who I was so happy to meet/interact with at con: @sleepnowkay @undersleeper @girlfurniture @sebsteerpike @deeperforme @khatsha @thehypnobunny @mr-ackerman @enscenic and I'm sure many more who I'm forgetting cuz my brain is still a little hazy. Love to you all!
I had a bunch of delightful scenes/hypnotic interactions that put the "play" in "play". Thank you for your silliness and your "yes, and" and for exploring with me! @spiralturquoise, @silentstream9, @bunbunlittleone, @the-inquisition-scmh (LICK THE TONGS!), @meltinggoldanddippingthingsinit (“In case of emergency, break arms!”), @tennfan2, @lily-ackerman, @arihi (FUCK YOUR CREEPY TINY HAND!), and probably many more. (Particularly great memory: @daja-the-hypnokitten being self-destructive enough to ask for a trigger where she'd feel a wave of arousal not just when I made a pun, but any time I told a bad joke, full stop. You damn fool <3 )
I did a bunch of science--and not just the kind that results in people having orgasms :P I helped some people explore trance or arousal or other hypnotic effects that they were curious about, and some grade-A humans helped me with the same, and venture further and further out of the gate on my wobbly little hypnotic subject training wheels. Thank you to everyone who trusted me to 'tist them through new things; it's an honor and a privilege! (Shout outs: @ab0ut---blank, @dommestic, and others.) And thank you to everyone who tranced me, who was gentle with me and made me feel safe, who helped me keep discovering thing about myself: @tennfan2 & @zanythoughts (y’all are the dream team!), @lily-ackerman (such good hypnotist persona keep goooinnng), @ellaenchanting (you’re fuckin’ great at this, my dear), @spiralturquoise, and @bunbunlittleone (your tits... so hypnotic...).
I didn’t get to many classes because I’m a hot mess--though @ellaenchanting‘s and @dommestic‘s Finding your G Spot was fuckin’ delightful--but I learned so much random and excellent stuff just by being around all you damn talented goobers. Thank you for all the stuff you teach me!
I nominally co-hosted the Girl Flirt dinner with @ellaenchanting, by which I mean, Ella did all the logistical stuff and I stuck around for moral support and people-herding and gave a silly keynote. Thank you so so much to everyone who came out (snerk) for that--it was such a warm, supportive, goofy, and joyous environment! It was the very definition of femme empowerment, and I was so delighted to see all of the excellent florting that went on. (And to everyone who sent me adorable notes--I still have them, and will treasure them forever!)
I taught two classes to fuckin' packed rooms--I'm still confused about how this happened, but I'm super into it. Thank you to my excellent demo bottoms--@ellaenchanting for sharing her brain and subject-y insights (and real talk, for teaching me about 25% of that class material), and @lily-ackerman for being such a sport (and soft target) and letting me give her screaming orgasms in front of a roomful of people. Very very unf. Did I say "unf"? I meant educational. Clearly.
This Entranced was the best I've ever felt about these classes--and the best I've ever felt presenting, full stop. Maybe it was the sweet spot of having taught these classes enough? Maybe it was the general vibes of love and support that let me really own it? Whatever it was, y'all were excellent audiences and it was a pleasure yammering at you.
I got to scheme with a bunch of great folks to kidnap our dear friend @tennfan2 trance him within an inch of his life, and take him to dinner--pretty much the ideal evening! (Remember kids: hypnosis is bullshit.)
I did a lottttt of delightful trance-pouncing. Let this be a lesson to all of you: never shake hands with a hypnotist. (One of my proudest moments of con was, after @zanythoughts and @tennfan2 did a delightful dual on me, thanking them both with a firm handshake... and then dropping them both at the same time. If that's not peak hypnotist trolling, I don’t know what is.)
I got to do some smokin' hot play with some smokin' hot humans. To anyone I smooched or got sexy with, to anyone who let my play with their arousal: unf. Y'all are spectacular. I will ahem, "treasure" these memories. Shout outs to @bunbunlittleone, @the-inquisition-scmh (LICK THE TONGS!), @dommestic (I have a longer response to your amazeballs recap in the works but let’s just say it was abso-fuckin’-lutely delightful), <a seven-foot tall hottie in a trenchcoat who shall remain nameless>, @silentstream9 (because of course <3), @lily-ackerman (quote-unquote “aftercare”), @jungle4566 (who read a piece of mine so excellently at Hysterical Literature), @meltinggoldanddippingthingsinit, @ellaenchanting, and @daja-the-hypnokitten.
I had a lot of feelings--anxiety about doing all the things, worries about "getting it right" and not letting people down, big social overwhelmsedness, complicated feelings about myself as a subject, top drop... So sometimes I hid in my room and napped. Sometimes I got blubbery. Thank you to the folks who let me cry on them: you are all absorbant sweethearts! (Thank you, too, to everyone who's been talking frankly about this part of their con, the part that usually stays under wraps. The more we talk about this, the less bad people will feel about these feelings and the more we'll all be able to ask for help! So keep doing what you're doing!)
I had one scene in particular that really threw me for a loop. It was hypnotic roleplay of a dubiously consensual encounter (and my first CNC-like thing evar), and afterwards I was just overwhelmed with... I don't even know. The skeezy feeling of having worn that skeezy skin? The guilt of having done those things to my partner, even though she'd fully and continuously consented to them? The fear that I could maybe become that character? So thank you to @silentstream9 for holding my hand through that and reminding me that I'm not a bad person, and thank you to everyone who was gentle with me sunday evening and helped me be a human again.
And speaking of Stream: happy two years, my love <3
Basically: there were ups and downs, because cons are fuckin' ROLLERCOASTERS; but the highs were so damn high, and the lows were managable because I had people holding me through them. Thank you for everything, Entranced: the people and the memories and the growth and the science and the joy. I don't know what's next, but I'm excited to see what we as a community do from here.
So much of how I learned was playing with bottoms years more experienced than me, walking me through the steps of their fetish. Sometimes they quite literally took me by the hand and lead my first experiences with it through their perceptions, what they loved about it and why. How to grip/hold/strike/take in the ways they knew and perceived as I was discovering what my own ideas and relationship to it could be. I have always preferred this method if for nothing else than for the intimacy of this shared experience first through their eyes. This lesson started the same way.
He had me sit astride his chest, a position I had not taken with him before (though a position I knew from experience that I loved), and so already the atmosphere was charged with unfamiliar proximity. He laid out the rules of the game clearly and carefully while my hand fumbled cautiously around his throat, feeling blindly at the musculature and trying to understand the layout of the delicate tissue beneath.
Keep pressure off the front of the throat.
Just use the fingertips. It doesn’t take much so don’t press down too firmly or vital structures could be damaged.
Speaking would be difficult and distracting so this would be done silently.
Redness in the eyes means broken blood vessels and is a bad sign, so be alert for it.
Listen for breathing to help indicate state change.
Watch for the tap out on the bed; that will come right before blacking out.
Don’t hold on for too long.
This was my first time even seeing the thing. ‘Too long’ was an amorphous idea that only he clearly could conceptualize. It was a game of trust he said, and I agreed because I was putting a lot of trust in him. To know himself. To know me. To pace us both with what he could actually take safely. To guide me through something dangerous no matter how careful you were. How careful you arguably could be when you were just learning the thing.
I trusted him I told myself, wondering in the back of my mind the entire time if I should. If this was what it felt like for him when he let go and trusted me. I reminded myself that I was Topping him in this moment but it didn’t help. It felt like we were both in his hands. I pushed the cognitive dissonance to the back of my mind as I focused on his eyes. He was gazing up at me, silent with expectation. Perfectly passive. Waiting for me to begin or to safe-word out. It had taken convincing to get me even this far but now that I was here, all I felt was how much I cared for them and who we were in this moment, and my protective instincts did a flip that was still unfamiliar to me at that time. My grip tightened with vicious intent, in my mind showing him the depth of my affection.
There was nothing at first. We simply sat sharing the silence of the room, our breathing out of cadence, my hand around his throat and our eyes searching each other. I know in retrospect (understanding about what it was like for him I garnered later that I will add for the sake of this narrative) that I was missing the first signs of the edges of his vision blurring. I was a hypnotist looking for signs of trance--the small tells of the way the light leaving the eyes as someone dulls to the world outside their focus. This was different. It wasn’t awareness draining away so much as systems losing power and left drifting where they’d last been dropped. His gaze wasn’t going to dull and his face wouldn’t suddenly shift in the way I was accustomed. It would remain fixed as if it had simply forgotten to update and drifted that way in a void.
Physiologically, by the time he was starting to really feel the edges of his vision darkening and threatening to tunnel, I could even untrained notice the shift in his breathing. His eyelids sagging. his gaze wandering away from directly engaged with mine while making small sounds I could feel first under my hand before I heard them. I couldn’t monitor his breathing’s pace accurately even with my hand on his neck, my own was quickening as I watched his eyes start widen and then drift.
His strike on the bed was more of a flop; weak and disorganized. He’d waited until nearly the last minute--perhaps testing how far and long I would go if he didn’t interrupt me, perhaps showing me how much he wanted this from me and with me, perhaps just savoring the feeling, I sadly don’t know now--and connection to his arm had become distant and difficult to make more than dreamlike contact with. It was such a fumbling tap that told me, if I didn’t stop on my own, he’d be unable to break the contact himself at this point. All the strength was gone from him and he was teetering on the edge of consciousness under my light grip. This was new. Every kind of play I’d done before this had been so psychological. The fully realized feeling of, in that moment, holding my partner at my physical mercy was sharp, salient, and nipped at things buried in the back of my mind, trained away from addressing consciously.
My grip felt stiff as I forced it to relax. I watched as he came rushing back to himself, eyes rolling with effort to regain focus and making a small gasp of awareness returning. I felt him shift under me, reconnecting to his body as blood rushed back to his brain, biological functions kicking back online.
The details after blur. I know there was chatter between us. I know that I was both filled with nervous awe and excited nerdy energy of the new thing experienced and shared and that I shifted between these two prevailing emotions rapidly. I don’t know if that was directly after. The timing of these things shuffles after a memory ages a few years.
In my memory now, most central is the feeling of holding him. Collapsing atop him so that as much contact could be made as possible between us. Of checking in and getting the reassurance I needed right then (and of how amusing he found my anxiety at the time despite the fact that he’d been the one choked). Of my fear that always came when I felt that aggression under the surface in me back in those days, even if it had never been acted upon. And of beginning again.
There was a lot of experimentation that visit. A lot of personal and formative growth for me as a Dom was seeded there. It’s however the sharp illustration in that moment of depth of trust though that I have always sought in power exchange, and how it runs both ways, that keeps me lingering on that exchange specifically.
I'm poaching someone else's question- What is one of your favorite hypnosis memories?
I’ll poach a similar story then in response ;)
I’d been doing hypnosis and having great success of various levels just figuring out how to create phenomena in my subjects given time and sheer repetition if all else failed, but some of the things that hypnosis can do–especially if you’re lucky and have really excellent subjects–looks SO much like make believe. I knew that I wanted desperately to believe it was all real and so my own judgement was impaired. I knew that quite a few of my subjects wanted desperately for what we were doing to be real, and the rest were likely to just want to make me happy (or get off on the fantasy of what we were doing), so they were instantly suspect to me.
My own experiences had never created high levels of crazy phenomena that hypnosis can have for a great variety of reasons, the least of which was I didn’t get hypnotized regularly with someone whom I had the chance to develop good rapport and trust with, and without a naturally submissive nature nothing was making that leap in my brain to allow anything really magical to happen. I was pretty convinced that most of the best parts of trance were just my subject sweetly pulling my leg for our mutual benefit. It was crushing and sad but I loved what we did too much to really let it slow me down.
Enter @tennfan2, my friend of a great many years at that point (though only for vanilla hypnosis, completely cut out of my kinky side ‘for reasons’). This was someone who I trusted very much, in part because we’d had many discussions talking about how this was and only could be vanilla for us (uh huh…). However, we only talked now and again separated by months or even a year or two of time. It was always like picking up where we left off when we did catch up so rapport was still strong as ever but I wasn’t becoming any better of a subject any time soon this way (and we were growing up in our own lives, but our friendship was ever frozen at the point we’d met–but that’s a story for another time). I was exhausted from my college, which was always nutballs, and in a really bad place at the time, and my good friend took the opportunity to be the hypnotist for once. It was the only time someone helped me achieve amnesia.
I still don’t remember any part of the beginning, and the start of that night is a massive blur. I do remember realizing my eyes were open and I was laying in bed staring at my dresser. Odd thoughts kept flitting through my mind but it seemed normal when you’re just waking up in the middle of the night in a light dream state. I’d at this point completely lost any awareness of tennfan2′s voice and therefore become completely non-responsive. He had to call me back (in a little bit of a panic I recall, poor thing), and I almost didn’t answer I was so confused why someone would be calling that late at night.
When I answered he pulled the re-induction trigger almost instantly. It was a fantastic sense of deja vu but really, truly something that I had completely lost track of. It was the first time I got to experience what I had seen my subjects experiencing. It proved that all of this really was and could be that real and that knowledge was the BEST feeling in the world. I mull that memory over so fondly and so frequently, and I love that I got to share it specifically with tennfan2.
(This one… Is a true story. What did YOU do last night?)
–
Words have power. The simplest phrases can turn the tone of an experience in a moment.
As she is touching my breasts, caressing me as we lay in bed together, I find a very clear desire in my head, sharp and cutting through the late-night haze.
And in that moment, I am overcome with the sense of power to take what I want.
“I want you to be *obsessed* with my pleasure.”
She is not expecting it; I feel her body twist and convulse against me and the thrill of it hummed in my belly like a drug. I can’t stop. I don’t want to. Ever.
“My pleasure is the single important thing to you right now. Giving me pleasure is so deeply ingrained as a part of you. Feeling my responses and reactions is what you were *made* for.”
Her touch is becoming more and more desperate. I’m getting off on how much I can twist her will. So is she.
“Everything about this experience of giving me pleasure fulfills and satisfies the deepest parts of you. You were made to please me. You were always meant to please me.”
She is shaking, a little. Her fingers are becoming more enthusiastic. She’s struggling to keep it feeling good for me with so much intensity in her own mind. I know all of this without words.
“The best part is that this is a learning process, learning how to better bring me pleasure. A learning process with moments of extreme intensity, and moments of a more quiet, slow burn… That ebb and flow is just so perfect and embeds itself inside of you so you can better focus on pleasing me…”
This forces her to stay in the experience even when I stop talking to enjoy the pleasure she is bringing me.
…I am fucking close. I can’t stop strings of words from coming out to bend her further.
But I know tonight I won’t get there without her mouth.
I grab her head and shove her whole body down the bed and between my thighs. She is breathing heavy on my cunt, so excited.
Her tongue is so very sweet…
I’m going to cum from my favorite toy tonight
My favorite toy that wants nothing more than to give me pleasure
…That I will make to later BE NOTHING but giving me pleasure
“My orgasm is what you live for right now,” I tell her, and that’s it, she’s slowing to my favorite tease with her tongue, “Because my orgasm is the most perfect way of giving me pleasure and that is the most important thing for you… And when it comes you will feel it in your whole being…”
I need to stop talking to cum… Starting to lose focus myself… Scratching her neck. Face. Head. Want to hurt her. Want to keep her as engaged as her brain can handle.
“You are keeping yourself in trance for me with your own tongue… Focusing on that rhythm… on the feeling that gives me… until you bring me to that point…”
So, so fucking good.
And eventually, she got her reward. The most important thing in her world for that moment.
My control, my pleasure, my training, my orgasm.
–
cc will have instructions to read this, and potentially other things I give her periodically to remind her of her place. She *will* be trained into my personal pleasure toy. And training never ends…
