Fetish Fleamarket, 2014
I've been a member of HabitRPG for about a year, I guess. It's a cute little game that uses pixel art and fantasy gaming tropes to make you more efficient at getting your shit done, whatever your shit happens to be. It's been very helpful to me.
But I know I've been a member for about a year, because there's a thing sitting at the bottom of my To-Dos in deepest, darkest red: "write about FF14!"
I don't know why it's taken a full year to actually sit down and do it. Understandable that the 2013 Flea which had such intense highs and lows for me would be difficult to write out, but this one? This one was a piece of cake.
Ultimately, it was a very relaxing, pleasant weekend with my new sub. We did stuff, we learned stuff, and holy fuck, did we buy so much stuff! Tiger talks about it like it was one of the best experiences of his young life, and it might well have been. For me, yes, it was lovely, but just one of many very lovely memories I have of the early months of our love. Which is a curiously low-key thing to think about the one con I attend a year!
At one point, we talked to friends of ours who said, "Going to the Flea with a partner is a whole different experience. You have someone with you to navigate the highs and lows." I couldn't agree more. I've been going to this con either solo or . . . how should I put this. Not-solo, but not with ideal partners.
There was the one year I let a sub I hadn't met bring me, and he didn't give me two seconds of alone time but would stare creepily at me when I wanted to decompress in the room. Heavily awkward and uncomfortable.
There was the one year I went with a friend, which was neat but he wasn't a close friend, and we naturally spent a lot of the Flea doing separate things. Mildly awkward, mostly because I felt terrible for him paying for our room and a nice restaurant dinner Saturday night, and I had nothing to give him in exchange except companionship.
There was 2013, where I was thrilled to be finally taking a sub that I knew well! But he wasn't only mine, he was in a throng of friends and I knew he'd be spending a good deal of time with them. Ultimately, I barely saw him and he only once slept in the bed. Awkward and sad, yet saved from being devastating by many excellent things with friends, including being part of a three-Dominants-one-sub impact play scene that I don't think I'll ever forget.
So now, 2014. Tiger had just started working his current catering job. We kept saying, "We'll have fun for whatever part of the Flea we get to actually do together." I was so used to his shitty hotel job, where putting in for a single day off was a giant pain in the ass and would only actually be granted on the Head Chef's whim. Tiger's new kinky catering boss asked him what plans I'd made for the Flea, and he told her about the schedule I always make for all three days. "Oh, have the whole weekend off, then." she said.
Amazing! I really couldn't believe it, I made Tiger repeat those words a few times. We hadn't even considered that possibility, so I hadn't signed him up for any volunteer hours. He decided, rather than sit around at his apartment a mile away from the new Flea hotel site, to just hang around with me while I volunteered. He managed to get officially signed up for a later shift, so he got his free entrance too.
My thing is to volunteer for six hours of Load-In. Get double-credit, so I can get all the stuff (free T-shirt, NELA membership which will get me into The Society sponsorless, admission to the Volunteer Thank-You Playparty at a great local club that I don't get to play in almost ever, etc.) and do it early on Friday so that I don't miss any classes or anything and I'm done with all my volunteering by Friday afternoon and can just relax and enjoy the rest of the Flea.
Load-In feels good. I spent my whole childhood, adolescence and young adulthood helping my ceramic artist Mom set up and break down for all sorts of wholesale art shows, so I'm no stranger to dollies and other wheeled contraptions. For all that the Flea volunteer staff warns you about heavy weight, most of the vendors sell clothing or silicone toys, ropes or shoes or corsets. Super light boxes, in other words. Nothing like hauling around a 3-foot-long ceramic hippo.
Load-In was even better last year, because I had an excitable Tiger capering around and we ended up in a Load-In crew with one of our friends in the scene! It was awesome getting to hang around with her while we waited for the next vendor to pull up. There was a lot of waiting around, actually, I may try to bring some pocket-sized entertainment this time.
We checked out the room vendors and did a little bit of shopping, the first tentative pecks at the giant wad of cash we'd somehow managed to bring to this Flea. I bought a Looper-branded pocket watch, he dashed away and bought Bear Claws. I bought just one more thing, a very long carriage whip (so it is called, but it's much closer to a crop) that has become the first toy I don't ever take with me to playparties and events. Though if we were going to a long play-only event like Dark Odyssey, I'd certainly think about putting it in the car.
Our very first class was The Art of Feminine Dominance by Midori. Well, no wonder Tiger loved it all so much! Midori's an amazing speaker, she's the most charismatic and funny and powerful presenter I've ever seen. In the previous host hotel, they'd open up two giant rooms into one mega-room. She'd fill it, both by reputation and with her gigantic presence somehow anchored in her tiny body.
I actually learned quite a bit about attitude in that class that I do still use. I fully agree with the take-away of that class: a Domme's three best tools are her walk, her look, and her voice.
Afterwards, we stopped by a little bit of the RKO Army performing Rocky Horror, already in progress. But we were far from the screen and the speakers weren't pointed towards our end of the room, so Tiger just found it confusing. We left and got a good night's sleep, after a little trying out the carriage whip.
Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast, we made a beeline for the Pony Paddock. It's a place I love, and it was a joy to do the first tentative Ponyplay training with Tiger. I showed him the way we do the four basic gaits, I tacked him up with my own rope and bit (not the prettiest headstall, but it worked). Even La Dresseuse Maureen was watching as I worked him on the lead line. Like many capricious bio-equines I know, Tiger thought it fun to cut the circle short and try to run me down repeatedly. We laughed a lot, which is not something I'd do in Pony space, but the important thing is that his first experience was a positive one.
I need to figure out subtle things we can do, so that I can get him in Pony headspace without a bridle maybe, and we can train in various parks without upsetting the muggles. I'm going to need to train him and another Pony pretty seriously if I have any hope of successfully presenting a rather different Pony Play class for the 2016 Flea. I hope it gets accepted, I've been thinking about it for months already! I almost put it in for this year, but I decided it needed another year of development.
You know, I'm looking at the Saturday schedule, and I don't think we actually did any of it. We stopped into the Cigars and Chocolate thing, but we didn't bring any cigars or chocolate with us and it was really just a tad too cold to be standing outside for long. I think we spent Saturday wandering around. I know we met up with Elf and capered with her around the Photo Lounge and the Bondage Lounge. I tried to learn an intermediate-ish chest harness and did it really sloppily on Tiger, but he liked it anyways. Any rope on his skin is a good thing.
Mostly, we went shopping. So much shopping! Our first priority was getting him a kilt, and lo and behold, it was a vendor that offered discounts to Load-In volunteers! A good 30 bucks or so got lopped off a $200+ item, and he's been wearing that kilt preeeetty much every day he's not in a kitchen and it's above fifty degrees.
I tried on a corset that managed to give me an hourglass shape(!), but ultimately decided on getting a bunch of toys instead. So we did. Two evil sticks from their original creator (one plain, one with a ball- they make lovely circles and lines, even on Tiger's hard-to-mark flesh!), a flogger with black and purple falls made from a hame (part of a bio-equine carriage harness), a real cat-o-nine-tails that's become the favorite of any sting-adoring person it's been used on (even me), a Celtic knot slapper, and a beautiful long thin-ish real wooden paddle that's become Tiger's favorite. It's the only paddle I own that was crafted as a paddle, not a bath brush or stirring spoon or anything else. We also got quite a bit of thinner rope (the expert riggers I know all use hemp or jute, but I prefer MFP. It's soft and brightly colored.) and one of Midori's books, which has been very helpful in learning how to rig. I'm probably forgetting a few other minor things we bought.
But in one weekend, my toybag transformed from a collection of mostly supercheap/free/repurposed items to a toybag I don't feel ashamed to show off. I know someone who hauls around everything she owns in one giant dufflebag, but I prefer picking and choosing. I like deciding a few hours before a party just what I'll be using for warmups and cooldowns, what will be my major sources of sting and of thud, what special items should I bring for particular subs I've played with before. It's thanks to my sub's amazing generosity last Flea that I can.
We ended up going to Denny's for a cheapish dinner, where we both more or less faceplanted into steaks and shared a hot fudge sundae for dessert. Not the greatest place to go for steak, but all my body was crying out for was MEEEEAAAAAT!
Sunday morning we went to Taoist Tantra, which I found very interesting. Tiger emphatically did not, in fact he shut down entirely. He has a strange attitude towards trying new things: he'll give it one quick try, and if it doesn't come out amazing, he'll immediately shunt into this really angry place. I am trying to patiently help him stick with new things longer, but that class was the first time I saw it. From now on, any energy work classes will be attended by me only!
I got him from sulky back to bouncy fairly quickly after it ended, and he was dazzled by the vibe of the Flea. He started saying hi to total strangers as we passed them in the halls. They gave him confused greetings back, occasionally. And here the differences between us showed. "Don't say hi to strangers! What if they're bad people?" "You mean, like aliums?" "Yes, aliums! What if a 'hello' is all they need to start sucking out your brains?" We got giggly very quickly, both high off the atmosphere.
We did some more shopping, and then made our way to a great doubling-up of things: a Pet Play meetup followed by Littles Playtime, both in the same area. Some of the Littles were there early, which was great for us animals! My kitty-self batted around a Littles' stuffed animal and rested her head on Elf's lap, purring up a storm while she petted me.
Tiger had a great time, too, rolling around with the more rough-and-tumble animals. Occasionally he'd troll them by alternating barking and meowing. At one point, my kitty self (I picture her as an older roly-poly cat, with tuxedo markings) was perched on the chairs, watching the mayhem below. "Are you allowed to be on the furniture?" asked someone. My kitty self paid no attention, but the human-me inside laughed and laughed.
The Littles playtime was fun, too. I was pretty tired by then, so I just colored a bit, but Elf managed to overcome her shyness just enough to get a bunch of kids to play Tag and Red Rover and other cool games. Tiger started to find his Big Brother persona, and I liked the quiet time to color and rest. It was a nice comedown from a happy Flea.
We went right back to Tiger's apartment, and attempted to have a scene with all our new toys. Bad idea! We didn't have the energy, we didn't have any happy chemicals left to be released. It was probably our most mediocre scene, but we flopped into bed and had a glorious nap. After that, dinner and then Tiger drove me home, where I got to catch up on snuggles.
Hopefully, I won't take a whole year to write down the adventures I'm having this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday! This is going to be a good one, they've given lots more time for people to get their Animal and Little on. I may well get stuck in those rooms and barely do any classes. Only two are of immense interest to me, both earlyish on Saturday.
I've got plans to go to Hooters with a few cool guys for Saturday's dinner, and fully expect to just wanna go to bed after that. I haven't heard about any parties, and once again I don't care. (This is awesome, because that used to be the main focus of my Fleas!) It's no longer important because I get to do, oh, at least six local playparties in my regular year. I'm well embedded in the local scene now, and if I had the cash, there'd be a local dungeon (well, sex club really, but they have a few bits of dungeon equipment) that I'd never miss.
Maybe that's the real change. Yes, I didn't spend any time last year looking enviously at the D/s couples and wishing desperately for my Master to be near. But it's very much no longer my one opportunity a year to maybe possibly perhaps have (*gasp*) a scene! And that is such an awesome thing. I hope there's even one day this week where the roads are clear and Tiger has time off, I'd love to give him a pre-Flea beating. Maybe with every single toy we got last year. :D
But I know I've been a member for about a year, because there's a thing sitting at the bottom of my To-Dos in deepest, darkest red: "write about FF14!"
I don't know why it's taken a full year to actually sit down and do it. Understandable that the 2013 Flea which had such intense highs and lows for me would be difficult to write out, but this one? This one was a piece of cake.
Ultimately, it was a very relaxing, pleasant weekend with my new sub. We did stuff, we learned stuff, and holy fuck, did we buy so much stuff! Tiger talks about it like it was one of the best experiences of his young life, and it might well have been. For me, yes, it was lovely, but just one of many very lovely memories I have of the early months of our love. Which is a curiously low-key thing to think about the one con I attend a year!
At one point, we talked to friends of ours who said, "Going to the Flea with a partner is a whole different experience. You have someone with you to navigate the highs and lows." I couldn't agree more. I've been going to this con either solo or . . . how should I put this. Not-solo, but not with ideal partners.
There was the one year I let a sub I hadn't met bring me, and he didn't give me two seconds of alone time but would stare creepily at me when I wanted to decompress in the room. Heavily awkward and uncomfortable.
There was the one year I went with a friend, which was neat but he wasn't a close friend, and we naturally spent a lot of the Flea doing separate things. Mildly awkward, mostly because I felt terrible for him paying for our room and a nice restaurant dinner Saturday night, and I had nothing to give him in exchange except companionship.
There was 2013, where I was thrilled to be finally taking a sub that I knew well! But he wasn't only mine, he was in a throng of friends and I knew he'd be spending a good deal of time with them. Ultimately, I barely saw him and he only once slept in the bed. Awkward and sad, yet saved from being devastating by many excellent things with friends, including being part of a three-Dominants-one-sub impact play scene that I don't think I'll ever forget.
So now, 2014. Tiger had just started working his current catering job. We kept saying, "We'll have fun for whatever part of the Flea we get to actually do together." I was so used to his shitty hotel job, where putting in for a single day off was a giant pain in the ass and would only actually be granted on the Head Chef's whim. Tiger's new kinky catering boss asked him what plans I'd made for the Flea, and he told her about the schedule I always make for all three days. "Oh, have the whole weekend off, then." she said.
Amazing! I really couldn't believe it, I made Tiger repeat those words a few times. We hadn't even considered that possibility, so I hadn't signed him up for any volunteer hours. He decided, rather than sit around at his apartment a mile away from the new Flea hotel site, to just hang around with me while I volunteered. He managed to get officially signed up for a later shift, so he got his free entrance too.
My thing is to volunteer for six hours of Load-In. Get double-credit, so I can get all the stuff (free T-shirt, NELA membership which will get me into The Society sponsorless, admission to the Volunteer Thank-You Playparty at a great local club that I don't get to play in almost ever, etc.) and do it early on Friday so that I don't miss any classes or anything and I'm done with all my volunteering by Friday afternoon and can just relax and enjoy the rest of the Flea.
Load-In feels good. I spent my whole childhood, adolescence and young adulthood helping my ceramic artist Mom set up and break down for all sorts of wholesale art shows, so I'm no stranger to dollies and other wheeled contraptions. For all that the Flea volunteer staff warns you about heavy weight, most of the vendors sell clothing or silicone toys, ropes or shoes or corsets. Super light boxes, in other words. Nothing like hauling around a 3-foot-long ceramic hippo.
Load-In was even better last year, because I had an excitable Tiger capering around and we ended up in a Load-In crew with one of our friends in the scene! It was awesome getting to hang around with her while we waited for the next vendor to pull up. There was a lot of waiting around, actually, I may try to bring some pocket-sized entertainment this time.
We checked out the room vendors and did a little bit of shopping, the first tentative pecks at the giant wad of cash we'd somehow managed to bring to this Flea. I bought a Looper-branded pocket watch, he dashed away and bought Bear Claws. I bought just one more thing, a very long carriage whip (so it is called, but it's much closer to a crop) that has become the first toy I don't ever take with me to playparties and events. Though if we were going to a long play-only event like Dark Odyssey, I'd certainly think about putting it in the car.
Our very first class was The Art of Feminine Dominance by Midori. Well, no wonder Tiger loved it all so much! Midori's an amazing speaker, she's the most charismatic and funny and powerful presenter I've ever seen. In the previous host hotel, they'd open up two giant rooms into one mega-room. She'd fill it, both by reputation and with her gigantic presence somehow anchored in her tiny body.
I actually learned quite a bit about attitude in that class that I do still use. I fully agree with the take-away of that class: a Domme's three best tools are her walk, her look, and her voice.
Afterwards, we stopped by a little bit of the RKO Army performing Rocky Horror, already in progress. But we were far from the screen and the speakers weren't pointed towards our end of the room, so Tiger just found it confusing. We left and got a good night's sleep, after a little trying out the carriage whip.
Saturday, after a leisurely breakfast, we made a beeline for the Pony Paddock. It's a place I love, and it was a joy to do the first tentative Ponyplay training with Tiger. I showed him the way we do the four basic gaits, I tacked him up with my own rope and bit (not the prettiest headstall, but it worked). Even La Dresseuse Maureen was watching as I worked him on the lead line. Like many capricious bio-equines I know, Tiger thought it fun to cut the circle short and try to run me down repeatedly. We laughed a lot, which is not something I'd do in Pony space, but the important thing is that his first experience was a positive one.
I need to figure out subtle things we can do, so that I can get him in Pony headspace without a bridle maybe, and we can train in various parks without upsetting the muggles. I'm going to need to train him and another Pony pretty seriously if I have any hope of successfully presenting a rather different Pony Play class for the 2016 Flea. I hope it gets accepted, I've been thinking about it for months already! I almost put it in for this year, but I decided it needed another year of development.
You know, I'm looking at the Saturday schedule, and I don't think we actually did any of it. We stopped into the Cigars and Chocolate thing, but we didn't bring any cigars or chocolate with us and it was really just a tad too cold to be standing outside for long. I think we spent Saturday wandering around. I know we met up with Elf and capered with her around the Photo Lounge and the Bondage Lounge. I tried to learn an intermediate-ish chest harness and did it really sloppily on Tiger, but he liked it anyways. Any rope on his skin is a good thing.
Mostly, we went shopping. So much shopping! Our first priority was getting him a kilt, and lo and behold, it was a vendor that offered discounts to Load-In volunteers! A good 30 bucks or so got lopped off a $200+ item, and he's been wearing that kilt preeeetty much every day he's not in a kitchen and it's above fifty degrees.
I tried on a corset that managed to give me an hourglass shape(!), but ultimately decided on getting a bunch of toys instead. So we did. Two evil sticks from their original creator (one plain, one with a ball- they make lovely circles and lines, even on Tiger's hard-to-mark flesh!), a flogger with black and purple falls made from a hame (part of a bio-equine carriage harness), a real cat-o-nine-tails that's become the favorite of any sting-adoring person it's been used on (even me), a Celtic knot slapper, and a beautiful long thin-ish real wooden paddle that's become Tiger's favorite. It's the only paddle I own that was crafted as a paddle, not a bath brush or stirring spoon or anything else. We also got quite a bit of thinner rope (the expert riggers I know all use hemp or jute, but I prefer MFP. It's soft and brightly colored.) and one of Midori's books, which has been very helpful in learning how to rig. I'm probably forgetting a few other minor things we bought.
But in one weekend, my toybag transformed from a collection of mostly supercheap/free/repurposed items to a toybag I don't feel ashamed to show off. I know someone who hauls around everything she owns in one giant dufflebag, but I prefer picking and choosing. I like deciding a few hours before a party just what I'll be using for warmups and cooldowns, what will be my major sources of sting and of thud, what special items should I bring for particular subs I've played with before. It's thanks to my sub's amazing generosity last Flea that I can.
We ended up going to Denny's for a cheapish dinner, where we both more or less faceplanted into steaks and shared a hot fudge sundae for dessert. Not the greatest place to go for steak, but all my body was crying out for was MEEEEAAAAAT!
Sunday morning we went to Taoist Tantra, which I found very interesting. Tiger emphatically did not, in fact he shut down entirely. He has a strange attitude towards trying new things: he'll give it one quick try, and if it doesn't come out amazing, he'll immediately shunt into this really angry place. I am trying to patiently help him stick with new things longer, but that class was the first time I saw it. From now on, any energy work classes will be attended by me only!
I got him from sulky back to bouncy fairly quickly after it ended, and he was dazzled by the vibe of the Flea. He started saying hi to total strangers as we passed them in the halls. They gave him confused greetings back, occasionally. And here the differences between us showed. "Don't say hi to strangers! What if they're bad people?" "You mean, like aliums?" "Yes, aliums! What if a 'hello' is all they need to start sucking out your brains?" We got giggly very quickly, both high off the atmosphere.
We did some more shopping, and then made our way to a great doubling-up of things: a Pet Play meetup followed by Littles Playtime, both in the same area. Some of the Littles were there early, which was great for us animals! My kitty-self batted around a Littles' stuffed animal and rested her head on Elf's lap, purring up a storm while she petted me.
Tiger had a great time, too, rolling around with the more rough-and-tumble animals. Occasionally he'd troll them by alternating barking and meowing. At one point, my kitty self (I picture her as an older roly-poly cat, with tuxedo markings) was perched on the chairs, watching the mayhem below. "Are you allowed to be on the furniture?" asked someone. My kitty self paid no attention, but the human-me inside laughed and laughed.
The Littles playtime was fun, too. I was pretty tired by then, so I just colored a bit, but Elf managed to overcome her shyness just enough to get a bunch of kids to play Tag and Red Rover and other cool games. Tiger started to find his Big Brother persona, and I liked the quiet time to color and rest. It was a nice comedown from a happy Flea.
We went right back to Tiger's apartment, and attempted to have a scene with all our new toys. Bad idea! We didn't have the energy, we didn't have any happy chemicals left to be released. It was probably our most mediocre scene, but we flopped into bed and had a glorious nap. After that, dinner and then Tiger drove me home, where I got to catch up on snuggles.
Hopefully, I won't take a whole year to write down the adventures I'm having this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday! This is going to be a good one, they've given lots more time for people to get their Animal and Little on. I may well get stuck in those rooms and barely do any classes. Only two are of immense interest to me, both earlyish on Saturday.
I've got plans to go to Hooters with a few cool guys for Saturday's dinner, and fully expect to just wanna go to bed after that. I haven't heard about any parties, and once again I don't care. (This is awesome, because that used to be the main focus of my Fleas!) It's no longer important because I get to do, oh, at least six local playparties in my regular year. I'm well embedded in the local scene now, and if I had the cash, there'd be a local dungeon (well, sex club really, but they have a few bits of dungeon equipment) that I'd never miss.
Maybe that's the real change. Yes, I didn't spend any time last year looking enviously at the D/s couples and wishing desperately for my Master to be near. But it's very much no longer my one opportunity a year to maybe possibly perhaps have (*gasp*) a scene! And that is such an awesome thing. I hope there's even one day this week where the roads are clear and Tiger has time off, I'd love to give him a pre-Flea beating. Maybe with every single toy we got last year. :D