So I took khatsha to the New England Erotic Hypnosis Unconference 7. As my friend abbystract would say, this was a Good Life Decision. NEEHU is amazing no matter what, but if you can swing it, I recommend bringing a super sexy and charming hypnofetishist partner.
The particular joy of it for me was seeing it through her eyes, a whole world of hot possibilities and things to learn about. To go from thinking she was literally the only one with those kind of perverted fantasies (no thanks to Fetlife blocking "hypnosis" from search results!) to being in a dungeon for four days with 150 hypnokinksters, well, that was awesome just to stand next to.
First we flew, from Italy and Switzerland respectively, to England for Lee Allure's London Hypnosis Workshop, which was spectacular on its own and a great chance for me to introduce her to my English kinkster friends.
Lee lectured to a living room of about 30 people, and led us through many great exercises, such as a mutual trance. Especially Lee's demo with lizzydoll was scorchingly hot, and so was the play party on Saturday night, where among many tricks and games I made khatsha believe she was running around naked. Interestingly, that is how that evening has been encoded in her memory.
On Sunday I had a scene I'd been planning for ages with FeminineLogic, my Birmingham Skype playmate, where everything I said would be perceived as outrageous innuendo, which went wonderfully with her natural raunchiness and great laugh. But just as memorable for me was having disgusting fried food items at a chip shop with khatsha and FeminineLogic, driving around Croydon and Battersea, singing the Kinks in the car, sitting on the floor of the Travelodge room and drinking blackberry wine, and having the full monty english breakfast in an ancient pub.
After a nice few days in Boston recharging, we were delighted to ride to Connecticut on Thursday with JasmineFairy and DeviantSimian, two of my favourite hypno people from my Boston days.
In my 3rd year, the dungeon of The Society in Hartford, CT is starting to feel positively homey, though it was fun to imagine it as a newcomer - it looks like a real estate office where a Halloween party planner cleared out the furniture and overcommitted to a Salem witch trial theme, complete with lots of wooden furniture with straps. I loved walking around the dungeon and introducing khatsha to all my hypnofriends, many of whom, like Chewtoy and Wiseguy, she was super excited to meet from their online activity. A part I didn't love: pointing out the people who have consent violation accusations against them.
Over the four days, some of the best moments were the most spontaneous, like when we were all sitting around in the lounge area and Pinky blew soap bubbles at khatsha, and I started telling her that with every bubble that hit her, she'd feel a burst of pleasure, and get more bubbly and silly with each bubble. Pinky turned it into a co-topping scene, blowing lots and lots of bubbles into khatsha's face, which she caught with childlike joy. Pinky started to tease her that there were no more bubbles left at one point. Though we laughed at her reaction, khatsha told me later that she'd experienced genuine pain and sorrow at that idea. A good lesson: even if the vulnerability is meant to be silly and artificial, feelings still need to be taken seriously.
Our class was scheduled for 9 a.m. on Saturday - my first time ever presenting at NEEHU! Here is the class description:
Resistance is Useless: The Pleasures of Struggling and Losing
For some hypnotic subjects and their hypnotists, the most delicious thing
is the struggle: struggling not to go into trance, to resist temptation, to
escape ridiculous and humiliating hypnotic predicaments. In this class I
will present totally devious hypnotic suggestions, involving both external
and internal battles of will (which I cheat to win!). They will have your
partner saying "I hate you!" in the warmest possible way...
To my surprise, despite the early hour we had practically a full classroom! I'm really grateful that people made it - khatsha gave everyone swiss chocolate as a thank you for waking up. All of my evil suggestions went beautifully, and khatsha got solid laughs with her clever strategies for resistance. For example, at one point I made her say the word "broccoli" every time she thought of a penis. It's my sexy/mean version of "don't think of a white bear". But khatsha, using her hacker problem-solving, realized that it would only be triggered if she stopped thinking about penis, and then thought about them again. And so she set her mind to only think about a penis.
khatsha didn't want to be considered a co-presenter, out of nerves, but rather wanted to think of herself as demo bottom, despite her critical role in the planning. However she changed her tune when she heard presenters get free "American pizza!" In any case she very much earned the title.
(other American delicacies she was excited to try on this trip: cream soda, Stouffer's Microwave Macaroni and Cheese, the corn dog, Butterfinger, and Twinkies. I tried to warn her about the Twinkies!)
Disaster struck on Saturday afternoon, in the form of a cold. That I got. OH NO!!! Exhausted, I missed all of Saturday afternoon and evening (except for the play party), and all of Sunday until the closing ceremonies! I lay in my hotel bed, writhing in a spicy broth of self pity. Why me? Why does it have to be NEEHU??
I made it to so few classes that I can appreciate them individually. Lee and Hypnosaurus's Trance-formation Combat was an unforgettable display of primeval savagery, as Hypnosaurus and AshcatRed struggled on the carpet for 90 seconds that left them both covered with bruises and scratches. The other combatants were spectacular too, but one of the most thrilling and sexy sights at the conference for me was Hypnosaurus kneeling shirtless at Lee's feet, in trance, her leaning down from her chair to murmur the instructions to turn him into a brave, territorial velociraptor. And Lee's expression of fascinated glee as her dinosaur went into battle.
I saw the confusion play class by the always dashing, always twisted D'Atargnan, and khatsha and I connected beautifully in LordPercival's Rope as Connection class. Though I was mostly out of it due to the cold, I liked Ariadne's Creative Inductions class, where attendees tranced each other with dollar store items chosen out of a bag. I sent khatsha to ZanyM's hypnotic breathplay class, knowing it would blow her away, and it did - man it was fun splitting up and then comparing notes later. Finally, the mentored practice was a fantastic idea, and I got to fulfill my ambition of getting feedback on my technique, from someone I'm a big fan of SpiralTurquoise.
As usual, I suffer looking at all the fantastic classes I missed, but I'm glad I prioritized hanging out with friends. But there wasn't - nearly - enough of everything!!
I saved up my energy and rallied for the saturday night play party, which was a feast for the senses of hypnotic sexiness. Something cool was happening in every corner of the dungeon - not to mention the big public medical experimentation scene happening in the middle, with men and women in lab coats sticking various probes into two moaning naked women lying on tables, noting their reactions on clipboards and cracking jokes.
I got to play with CalamityBrain in the dungeon, a big improvement over Skype! We did some old favourites, like Zeno's Orgasm (that one is my favourite, definitely not hers), and some new and very hot suggestions afforded by being there in person. Later in the evening there was a moment where I and Ariadne were hypnotizing Calamity by lifting and dropping her own boobs - one person per boob.
khatsha got some good play too with various folks, which was really fun for me because I got to hear about other tops' approaches. Then she joined me to go find GleefulAbandon for a scene that was one of my top fantasies. I sat in a comfy chair and they sat on the floor at my feet together, and we started a three-way negotiation. At one point, khatsha said, "Hey, I'm not so sure about that. I don't want to do anything with imagery of damaging my brain." Not having any idea what she was talking about, I said, "Ok, for sure, I'll keep that in mind. But - why?" It turned out she had heard misheard me saying "co-bottoming" as "lobotomy". As in, "are you ok with a lobotomy scene?" This is NEEHU, where if you think you hear that, you have to take it seriously!
After we cleared that up, I had khatsha and GleefulAbandon look into each other's eyes, and I told them to look for signs of trance beginning in each other, and to feel them mirrored in their own body and face. I was beside myself looking back and forth as they quickly, inevitably dropped.
Later we did some of my more intricate pleasure triggers, and it was fascinating how their brains interpreted them differently. Then khatsha and I were both giving GleefulAbandon pleasure, just by stroking her hand, and we looked at each other and realized we absolutely hadn't negotiated anything beyond this even though things were getting hot as hell. Since they were both newly fractionated and fuzzy it wouldn't be ok to negotiate more. I play with lots of consent red tape, but sometimes it hurts! Still an amazing memory.
Another dream come true: getting to know Wiseguy and Dani. Actually, again, this is all khatsha's doing. She went up to him in the hall and said, "I just did my first hypnotic handshake, and I don't see what's so great about it. It's so slow!"
He boggled at her for a second. I boggled at her for a second.
Finally I said to Wiseguy, "You have to realize, she's a pickup artist of hypnotists. You're experiencing her game."
Luckily he laughed, and of course dropped her swiftly with a handshake. Then later, invited us to tag along to dinner! Amazing southern-style BBQ, slopped onto paper placemats.
It meant a lot to be able to chat and ask lots of questions, since Wiseguy and Dani were the first example I'd ever seen of a long term hypnotic couple, years ago at a Mind Play launch event in Massachussetts. So much about how they interacted stuck with me, especially how post-hypnotic triggers could deepen with years of reinforcement, and be a natural and daily part of a relationship. We also talked about building community, something Wiseguy has been central to all along.
I'm so glad I made it to the hotel pool, a Sunday night tradition, and (eventually) to the Dunkin' Donuts breakfast on Monday. We got to spend more time with CalamityBrain on the way back to the over-the-top Cambridge B&B I booked (oh the floral wallpaper! Sat and forever am at work here! Gilmore Girls fans, anyone?), but not before sampling the very American delights of a Hartford Buffalo Wild Wings.
Then there was more wonderful time with just me and khatsha, a few days in Boston and London heavily emphasizing the sins of Lust, Gluttony and Sloth. Again, some of the best memories are the simplest, like showing her Labyrinth on a laptop in Logan Airport, watching her eyes get bigger and bigger at certain scenes. Many of my readers can guess which ones. (by the way I asked, "So did you identify with Sarah?" She said, "Actually, with Sir Didymus!")
Part of why this took so long to finish is that I've been trying to come up with some conclusion that goes deeper than, "yay NEEHU!" and "yay having a partner!"
About the latter: even though every year has been life-changingly amazing, if you read between the lines of my previous NEEHU posts I certainly had my moments of wallflowerism, and tended to retire early - one night I got invited to a suite party, knocked on the door, and had someone say, "we're busy in here!" and close it in my face. I went back to my room and consoled myself with Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt using my old roommates Netflix password. Later that night, my roommate got lucky. So, this year was a lot better. (I got lucky! With khatsha!)
But it was also a reinforcement to me to not be afraid to make big plans, and have big hopes: just because I look forward to something for months, doesn't mean it won't happen, and be fucking awesome. (and worrying about something like getting a cold won't stop it, but it also doesn't have to ruin things) Don't lower your expectations. And work to make these hopes come true: setting up all those planes and rides and six different hotel rooms was so intimidating - not to mention betting a lot on a relatively new relationship - but we did it, and we got the reward.
And in just weeks I'm heading back to North America. This is just the beginning.
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