Chapter Two
THE NAMES OF THE GAMES

Sadism and Masochism were words I'd never even spoken before the age of 25. I'd read them, maybe even heard them said at work; sniggered about in the nudge-nudge wink-wink way people do. Certainly at that time the sort of games Malc and I occasionally played weren't sadistic or masochistic in the Sunday newspaper sense of the words. Starting out with the purely practical need to get a better balance of physical power between us, the new alternatives we discovered opened up a whole new ball-game (if you'll excuse the expression). So, is tying somebody down and tickling them until they beg for mercy or will agree to anything sadism? Is agreeing to have it done to you masochism? If you say so ... that's what we were by natural instinct. If you disapprove ... that's your problem. If you think we should be sent to prison for doing something we mutually enjoy in the privacy of our own homes ... then stop reading this book.

Assuming you're still there ... what's your opinion on tying somebody down and bringing them to orgasm five times over a period of three hours or maybe less? Is that torture and sexual abuse? Can you imagine the headlines in the NEWS OF THE WORLD? Well, it became one of my favourite games on a slow Sunday when the kids were off with their grandparents for the weekend.

Other words like fetish and perversion gave us the same problems in the early days. I looked them up in a dictionary but the definitions didn't seem to relate to anything we liked to do in bed. Fetishes like stiletto heels and fishnet tights, nun's outfits made in black latex or grown men wearing girls school gym slips were clichés we discovered in soft porn magazines the first time we went to Amsterdam for a weekend. They didn't appeal to us but we thought 'Live and let live'. No, in our early days of self-discovery we derived innocent fetishistic pleasures unconsciously. For example Malcolm's greasy garage overalls with his wide leather belt and high lace-up boots turned me on more than his satin shirts and blue suede shoes at the local hop. When I first went on the back of his motorbike (He'd had one since he was 16) I wore one of his old leather jackets. Snuggling up against his leather shoulders and nice round butt gave me a thrill that I didn't identify as even sexual ... it was just exciting. I think the words sensual and erotic are often much more appropriate than sexual. For Malcolm and me to work out a way to discuss things together we found we needed to learn a whole new vocabulary and un-learn a whole load of prejudicial meanings that have been imposed on words.

If leather and boots are a fetish, by the time I got my own jacket and boots so I could go for weekends on the bike with Malc I was well on the road to hell ... because in them I even turned me on let alone Big M! And not only leather but wet weather gear too. Climbing off the back of the bike after a ride through the rain with Malc dressed up like a plastic spaceman ... we were both so turned on we could have rolled around on the garage floor having rampant sex if it'd been physically possible in all that gear. The frustration of having to peel it all off before we could get at each other was terrible. By the time we got to bed or into the shower the main turn-on imagery was lying wet and limp by the back door. So, “Fetish is as Fetish does” as sister Ethel might say if she had any imagination.

Is having sex with your clothes on Kinky? Somehow when I was young I thought is was ... unless you had nowhere to go except the cinema car park. When I first talked to Malc about it he agreed that somehow he'd grown up thinking that to have proper sex you needed to be naked. First time we had sex together in full leather and boots it was fantastic beyond belief. It was in a tent on the Yorkshire Moors and it was a very cold wet night ... so that made it OK. After that we tried it once in our bedroom and felt stupid.

Now rubber was a different story. Long before it became fashionable and Madonna wore it I think Malc was attracted to it. He had waders and oilskins to go fishing in as well as his bike waterproofs. For his wind surfing and snorkeling he had a wet-suit before I met him. Then came his yen to take up deep water diving. It didn't strike me until the first time I saw the Avon dry-suit catalogue how sexy men look totally encased in thick rubber ... preferably black. After the diving course when he suggested he should get his own suit I thought ... to hell with the expense, think about the possibilities offered by having one on hand on dry land. Specially when I went to the diving centre with him and saw what was involved in neck entry as opposed to zip entry. All the struggling and pushing and pulling to get into it, and it being almost impossible to get out again without outside help. Right there in the shop seeing Malc totally imprisoned inside the thick rubber casing made my innocent heart flutter. I can tell you I could hardly wait for him to get it home.

People who don't know what I'm talking about kink-wise often ask how it can be sexy if you can't get at the essential equipment. Well first of all, if I can't get at it, neither can he ( for more about Chastity Belt games see page 35 ). And when he's in no position to push me off, it's amazing what you can do with ice, a hair dryer and a vibrating Pifco massager (Whenever we see one at a Car Boot sale we buy it - they're the best sex toy ever produced).

'Bondage' is another word that always causes a stir but most people don't really know what it actually means. Bondage when I was at school was something Shylock yattered on about in Shakespeare. In the Bible people always seemed to be getting themselves into or out of bondage, and in the NEWS OF THE WORLD a bondage shock horror story is anything from a fully furnished dungeon in the basement to a roll of cellotape in a bedside table drawer. There's a lot of confusion in the public mind about what exactly Bondage involves. It's a conveniently vague taboo for The Establishment and Customs Inspectors to maintain without having to be specific or even logical.

We still didn't consider we were seriously into Bondage when Malcolm and I had already learned from experience that rope is less messy than cellotape; cotton rope leaves less marks than hemp AND the knots don't slip like they do with nylon cord. It was much later in our development that we switched permanently to using leather strips which we first saw at the annual BIZARRE BAZAAR in New York ... but that was years later and gets a chapter to itself so let's stick to the subject of the names of the games.

In our early days of discovery without access to information, we discussed between ourselves whether or not such 'exotic' sex games might be addictive and we might lose the ability to enjoy the simple pleasures of kissing and cuddling and good old straight forward humping. Well, we still don't know the answer to that one ... but how many other couples who've been together for 27 years play erotic games regularly at least twice a week ... sometimes 12 hours at a stretch? You tell me. If we cut down on the actual intercourse that might originally have been to do with birth control or because it was so exhausting with Malcolm exclusively in the driver's seat. Anyway I'm turned 50 ... but then again Vera's nearly 70 and she still gets a little whirl when she needs it. I don't think SM or Bondage sex are any more addictive than arcade video games. It's all a matter of degree and intelligence. For some people even Bingo becomes obsessive and wrecks their home life.

Still on the subject of our vocabulary of eroticism: Pain as a game takes a bit more explaining. We eventually came to the conclusion that Malc has always been some sort of masochist. Well, you don't leave a warm bed at five o'clock in the morning to go fishing when you're 12 years old if you're normal, do you. Enjoying physical pain and discomfort in Malc's case ranged from boxing, wrestling and running (until he tore a tendon) at school, through motorcycling in all weathers as a teenager to deep diving off a North Sea Oil Rig in winter. That all involved degrees of self-induced discomfort ... whether consciously or unconsciously is another matter. I suppose physical self-challenge can become a fetish if you get off on it (As an American friend of ours might say “Tell THAT to the Marines”). What would you call a man who works out with weights till his whole body is trembling and he's almost crying with the strain on his muscles?; He-Man or Pervert? So here's a scoop for the Daily Mirror Sports Page ... in our bedroom for the past six years we've had an elaborate and expensive home exercise construction called Super Gym. It fills half the room with posts, pulleys, weights, traction benches and push-up/pull down bars with grab handles and suspension points. Well I wasn't the one who decided to add lockable wrist and ankle straps at strategic points. I wasn't the one who set a tough exercise program and asked me to make sure he did it all ... “and maybe more”! What sort of a game would you call that? Kinky? Perverted? At 45 his body looks great and he feels great ... believe you me. OK it was my surprise idea that he'd do his chosen exercise program every day wearing his silver plastic sweat suit. I love to watch him sweat and strain and cuss. I tell him it's his full body condom. He gets so mad ... but a deal's a deal. I lay and watch as he does his exercises ... and we both get the benefit from them.

Erotic games involving deliberately inflicting pain, like everything else we do, grew naturally out of experiments. Having discovered what turned Malc on it was only right that he should be free to get his own back and spring a few surprises on me. Almost the first time I let him give me the cellotape treatment I thought I'd made a serious miscalculation. When I was all spread-eagled and vulnerable he announced that he'd bought a new whip that he wanted to try. We were still only at the slap and tickle stage then ... and although we hadn't got into gags at that time he improvised something and left me helpless and fuming ... but somehow deep down I knew we had too good a relationship for him to push it too far. Back he came saying that he'd have to blindfold me as well before he used the whip. I heard the swish and braced myself ... the devil had bought a aerosol can of whipped cream which he proceeded to squirt all over my helpless naked body ... rub it around ... and then lick it off. Gagged and blindfolded I was in seventh heaven. I couldn't have let him do all that to me if I'd been free to fight him off. You see, it may sound terrible or wonderful to you or just plain silly ... but we like it.

END CHAPTER 2

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