All Trussed Up and No Place to Go

In which The Author’s self-imposed confinement reaches the seven-day mark

In Portion Control I told you how, fearing another run-in with Sue P., I decided to dig my cock harness out from the drawer and wear it for the weekend. I eventually took it off on Monday night. In the meantime (apart from a brief interval here and there) I’ve worn the cock ring pretty much full-time. I’m getting quite used to the latter now. The harness is more difficult to cope with long-term, as it constantly reminds me of my predicament (no pun intended!)

However, I was glad yesterday that I’d decided not to wear it, as I had another of those chance meetings which occur every so often. Last Sunday night, Lynne took into her head to pour a large vodka and Coke into my Netbook. My pal Marc thinks it might be salvageable. but I’m not sure. In the meantime, Rhian has loaned me her laptop, which is what I’m using now. It’s a lot bulkier, much heavier, and far less portable than the Netbook, but at least it works for more than half an hour on a full battery.

So it was that yesterday afternoon, I found myself in Wetherspoon in Aberdare, trying with varying degrees of success to use their wifi. I’d finished typing up the previous entry and was uploading my photos of Blackwood to the Vanishing Valleys project when two young women approached the table. One of them asked if there was a socket she could plug her phone charger into. After shifting the table slightly, we plugged the charger in and they sat opposite me. I was trying to reconnect to the Cloud (which seemed to have lifted temporarily.) After a few minutes, once the second attempt at the upload was underway, we got talking.

The smaller and more talkative of the two was called Becky S. The other was her half-sister Hannah R. We initially chatted about the problems with the Aberdare Wetherspoon WiFi (which works first time in all the other pubs I’ve tried it in) and the conversation went from there.

It turned out that Becky lives in the street where I grew up, two minutes or so from my house. Like Helen R., she’s bringing up her young son on her own. When I outlined the idea behind Vanishing Valleys she got excited. She knows Caegarw (the eastern half of Mountain Ash) very well. Once my new camera is sorted out, she’s offered to show me the old industrial artefacts on the mountainside above the town.

Both of the girls are interested in psychology, and it turned out that we had a lot in common. I showed them the book I’m currently reading – Wiseman, R. (2007) Quirkology: The curious science of everyday lives (London: Macmillan) – and seem to have recruited two new members to the Cosmic Tigger Lending Library.

Then our collective train of thought was suddenly derailed. Actually it wasn’t so much a derailment, more of a head-on collision with a runaway freight service. Having spotted the book, a guy decided to force himself into the conversation, in exactly the way I described in Freaks, Geeks and Space Invaders. He’s younger than me, about the same height and build, with curly dark hair and a full beard. I’ve seen him around town for several months, but we’ve never crossed paths before. I’m glad, in retrospect.

He’s originally from Leeds, apparently. There’s no doubt that he’d be an interesting chap to talk to – he name-checked William Burroughs, Genesis P. Orridge, Robert Anton Wilson, and other counterculture luminaries – if only he’d actually stop for breath! It would be fun to put him and Shanara in a locked room and see who managed to get a word in edgeways first.

Like so many of the weird people I’ve encountered recently, he was showing the telltale signs of drug/alcohol induced mental illness. I believe that we’re all entitled to whatever bizarre opinions we choose to hold, but nobody has any Goddess-given right to impose them on others. Certainly, nobody has the right to approach a group of total strangers and start preaching whatever belief system they subscribe to.

Hannah decided to go to the Ladies’ and left Becky and me in the company of this outwardly amiable, obviously intelligent, but extremely trying nutter. After he told her that she was only wearing make-up because of social pressures, and that she was sacrificing her individuality in order to ‘fit in,’ I could see that Becky was starting to lose patience with him. Meanwhile, like many people with a high IQ but a very low EQ, he simply continued to blather on until he ran out of things to say. He returned to the beer garden and rejoined a couple with whom he’d been drinking and smoking before coming in to use the toilet.

Once he was out of earshot, I put Quirkology away and told the girls, ‘That’s why you should never produce a book in a pub!’ We returned to our previous conversation, and ended up having up what Jeff in work and I used to call a ‘silly afternoon.’ (Rhian and I have them now and again, and they’re usually completely spontaneous as well!)

It didn’t take long for Professor Whitebread (‘I’m a Yorkshireman – I say what I like and I like what I bloody well say!’) to come back. His friends had buggered off, and he was looking for someone else to latch on to. He asked if he could join our table. By now, Rhian’s laptop was back in its case and occupying the fourth chair. I’d almost finished my drink. Becky wasn’t far from finishing hers. Hannah had only just got a fresh one, and had managed to cunningly conceal it behind the menu, leaving her empty glass visible.

I told him that we were just about to make our way home, and he seemed a bit put out. Hannah wasn’t too impressed by the way that I gave him the brush-off, but Becky defended my position, and said that she’d probably have been a bit more ‘direct’. After a while, we decided to get a refill anyway. By now, the loony was sitting at the next table, and muttered something about the Zos Kia Cultus as he left for another smoke. Name-dropping will get you nowhere.

After a while. we went outside so the girls could have a smoke. While we were sitting in the beer garden, Becky said how much she liked my clothes – I was wearing a chunky purple poloneck over a thin purple poloneck, my skinny jeans, and purple gloves. (I noticed that Prof Whitebread hadn’t said anything to me about following the herd!) She said she’d like a sweater similar to it, only in bright pink. She missed her chance, unfortunately. They had a whole range of colours in H&M in Cardiff a few years ago, when I bought mine. I toyed with buying a couple of others, but decided against it at the time.

Now, picture the scene: I’ve been captured by two attractive, intelligent, charming, funny young women; one of them is telling me that she’s into knitwear, and the other did Textiles GCSE and knows how to knit! All of a sudden, the cock ring seemed very much the lesser of two evils. True, it was confining and somewhat uncomfortable (no pain, no gain!) but at least I could get turned on by the mental image of Becky in a chunky sweater. If I’d been wearing the harness, I’d have had no chance of getting an erection. And that, I suppose, is the sign of a true fetishist – just the mental representation of the object is enough to stimulate the neural pathways and cause arousal.

I spent last night with no form of restriction, as that image kept popping up in my mind’s eye. It was the first time for seven days that my genitals had been unbound. However, I’m back in the harness today, just in case Sue P. shows her face at some point and tries to cop another feel. I think that’s going to be my regular regime from now on – cock ring through the week, harness at weekends. And I’m definitely going to ask Sam what happened to our old toy when I see her next.

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Portion Control

In which The Author exercises some self-restraint

When I first started going out with Sam H., I’d already made a lifetime commitment to celibacy. It took her well over two years before she took my virginity, towards the climax of the O. J. Simpson murder trial. We did it the first time in her parents’ bed when they were on holiday. The second time we did it was shortly afterwards, but this time it was different. She raided her mother’s wardrobe for silk scarves, spreadeagled me face-up, and blindfolded and gagged me. Then she buckled a belt tightly around my neck, said ‘This is how you really want it, isn’t it?’, and rode me senseless.

Sam’s latent interest in BDSM was truly awakened that night. For my part, the things I’d been fantasising about for years were actually happening. It wasn’t as though she didn’t know what I was into. Quite some time before, she’d taken me into the Carpenters one Saturday night on a collar and lead. At the time she and her friends were still doing their A levels, so ‘Miss Whiplash’ became the talk of the school on Monday.

In 1996, during the visit to London I mentioned in Elton Dean – Sorely Missed, I decided to stock up for the trip. Before I got on the coach in Cardiff, I visited Rebel Rebel in Cardiff. Run by a couple of gay guys named Tim and Rick, it sells t-shirts, smoking paraphernalia, jewellery, punk/Goth clothing, magazines, and other interesting odds and ends. For example, if you want a speculum (for whatever reason), or a leather parachute enabling you to hang weights from your scrotum, Tim and Rick can probably get one out of the window.

It’s the only place in the city centre that you can have your genitals pierced and/or buy body jewellery, and it used to have a secret room full of bondage gear. Anyway, I used to call in now and again to top up my phone and have a chat, so I knew that they had a pair of ankle-cuffs for sale. They look just like handcuffs, only a bit bigger, linked by a fairly long chain enabling you to walk with difficulty, and they double-lock so that they can’t be accidentally overtightened. I bought them that morning and tucked them in my overnight bag. I already had at least two pairs of handcuffs and a number of collars, so I’d packed some of them as well. Sam had booked three nights at the B&B on Crouch Hill. We hadn’t seen each other for ages. Party on!

When I got to London, I headed straight to Soho. In a little alleyway off Berwick Street, I found a really great sex shop. It was the one I bought my leather mask from, some years later  (see Behind the Mask). I spent some more money there. I picked up a pair of spring-loaded nipple clamps at either end of a piece of chain. When I got to the counter, something else caught my eye. Under the glass desktop was a cock harness. I’d seen them advertised in porn mags over the years, but I’d never seen one in the flesh, so to speak. I’d often wondered what it would be like to wear one.

I’d always been fascinated by what’s known in the scene as CBT (no, not Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy – Cock-and-Ball Torture.) Even when I was in school, walking home, I used to tie the strings of my parka around my penis (inside my trousers, of course.) Now I was confronted by the very thing. It was unusual and rather beautiful, to be honest. It consisted of a T-shaped leather skeleton with four circular steel ribs at intervals. Unlike all the others I’d seen in the adverts, this one had a special feature. The crosspiece, which would be fastened around the base of the scrotum, closed with a padlock. It didn’t just buckle or snap shut. Once the wearer’s manhood was confined in it, it was up to the keyholder to determine the duration of the sentence. After a minute of humming and hah-ing, I decided to buy it as well. I didn’t know what Sam would think of our new toys, but they looked fun.

And they were fun! I won’t go into the sordid details, but we made the most of our time in the B&B. I kept the ankle cuffs (they’re still hanging on the wall in my bedroom), but for some reason Sam hung onto the other things. I once asked her if she still had the harness, and she was rather evasive.

So that was something else I had a taste for. I paid another visit to Rebel Rebel some time later and bought a cock ring. The girl at the counter must have read my mind when I told her what I wanted.

‘I think you’re after something kinky and chunky – studded leather?’ She offered me exactly what she’d suggested – it was about two cm wide, with a row of heavy studs, and two press-fasteners which would allow me to slip it on and off easily. As the ad used to say, that’ll do nicely!

I wore it on and off for the next few years, to work, pubs, gigs, wherever I was. I loved the sensation of having my genitals confined (even in a fairly non-aggressive way). Australian Emma (See From a Land Down Under) thought it was a bracelet when she found it on my bedside cupboard, and wore it for a couple of days. Whenever I put it on, it still brings back memories of her.

I acquired two more harnesses subsequently. I really can’t remember where I bought them. It might have been in London. Maybe on a trip to Bristol. It could conceivably have been Rick and Tim’s place. Anyway, they both follow the same basic design plan as the first one. One has a large metal ring which slips down over the scrotum, and two smaller rings which fit over the shaft. It’s a bit of a bugger to put on, because you have to be unaroused at the time. It can be a bit confusing as well, while you’re trying to figure out how to orientate it.

Ideally I’d need a woman to put it on me. Then I’d be in the Catch-22 situation of having to stay unaroused. Tricky one! I haven’t worn it for ages, because the metal has rusted and needs a good polish. The other one is almost entirely leather, except for the buckles. It has five straps at right angles to the main ‘spine’, one to fasten below the scrotum and the rest enclosing the shaft itself. And that’s why I’m writing this particular entry tonight.

I’m not going to blow my own horn (mainly because I’m not double-jointed!), but some of my friends have told me that by their standards I’m rather well-endowed. They might think that. I couldn’t possibly comment. My cousin Richard M. was responsible, several years ago, for nicknaming me ‘Vlad’ – the Impaler. He’d walked into the Gents’ of the Cambrian when I was communing with Nature and carried tales back to our table.

As always in Aberdare, word gets around. Sam and Gema have also contributed to this general viewpoint. Helen R. mentioned it on Facebook the other day. She reckons Gema came out of our brief relationship ‘mentally scarred’. I replied, ‘I promised to stretch her to the limits. She thought I was only going to teach her how to do cryptic crosswords.’

Anyway, the leather harness made me wonder what I’d done to earn this reputation. There’s enough free play in the straps for me to wear it as an armband if I so wished. I feel the same way when I look at the Ann Summers catalogue and wonder how the hell any guy can be expected to measure up to the plastic specimens on offer. Even so, it’s a very intense experience. I keeps me slightly turned on, and creates an eye-catching bulge in the jeans.

I was wearing it in the Conway one Sunday afternoon when Helen, Linda and Beverly came in. Helen was wearing a rather lovely beaded choker, and kept fiddling with it as we were talking. I find anything to do with women’s necks highly erotic, and she really wasn’t helping the situation. Eventually, I had to say something.

‘Will you please stop playing with your fucking choker, woman?’ I whispered in her ear.

Helen looked upset and asked me why I’d said it.

‘Because you’re turning me on, and I’m wearing a cock harness!’ I didn’t whisper that time.

That brought the conversation to a standstill. Linda and Bev wanted to know more. I had my digital camera with me, so I went to the Gents’ and photographed myself. I don’t think any of them could believe what they were seeing when I returned. I was all trussed up and nowhere to go. I wore it to a gig with Gema and Helen one afternoon a little while later, but they were both so cute and flirtatious that I took it off during a toilet break. I know my own limitations.

About two months ago a blast from the past walked into the Prince of Wales in Aberdare – Sue P. She was a couple of years below me in primary school, the same age as Phil and Gaz. I didn’t know her in school, but I knew her by reputation. Her family were among the original models on which Shameless was based, I think. She’d literally vanished off the radar. I hadn’t even thought about her for years.

Phil had met her previously (of course!) in one pub or another. We were having a pint together when she and the rest of her gang walked in. She made a beeline for us. I was wearing a skirt, and she thought I was the most amazing man she’d ever met. She’s not unattractive – petite and slim, with long dark hair – and intelligent, in a whacked-out kind of way. At first I thought it could be the start of a beautiful friendship.

However, after a few minutes of ‘conversation’ (i.e. listening to her alcohol and/or drug-fuelled monologue) I realised that she was yet another victim of self-induced mental illness. I was hatching an escape plan when she gave me a load of New Age crap about how ‘I could never be a Pisces!’ (I was born on 18 March. Go figure!) When I correctly guessed her birth sign on the second attempt (probability 1/12), I told her that she was talking a crock of shit, made my excuses, and left.

She’s turned up like a bad penny a few times a week since. At least once she’s asked me for my number. I keep telling her my phone’s broken. One day I’ll have to bite the bullet and make something up, just to placate her. I’m not really in the mood for yet another insane woman in my life.

Anyway, last Sunday I was in the White Lion when Sue walked in. She’s had her hair cut short, and it’s black and spiky. She looks pretty great, in fact. But she was already pissed, and had brought her own drink in. I knew that something was going to kick off. I was wearing my skinny jeans, and she commented on them a couple of times. When she was passing the bar she grabbed my crotch and said, ‘Fair play, you’ve got a massive cock!’

I just smiled and said, ‘You should see it when I’m turned on.’

It all got very messy after that, and she ended up being thrown out (literally!) But we crossed paths again on Tuesday, when I was in the Prince with Rhian and Kim L. With no regard for the rest of the customers, she shouted across to me.

‘I liked what I felt the other night. Any chance of another go?’

Er … no. I’m celibate, after all, not fucking desperate!

So, since yesterday lunchtime (not taking any chances on meeting her again) I’ve been wearing the leather harness. I thought that, if she did try to cop another feel, it might scare her off. It felt a bit odd this morning, when my normal waking-up erection was straining at the leash. I have to use the cubicle in the toilet, mainly in case anyone else sees it. Other than that, it’s business as usual. (Oddly, talking of crazy women, Lynne is here for the first time since we fell out before my birthday. We haven’t even made eye contact. I’m in no position to get turned on by her tonight.)

Even so, I must say that the strapped-up tool creates quite an impression when I’m wearing skinny jeans. I wonder if I can persuade Sam to return the first one we had, and then give the key to someone to look after. Apart from a brief period during Jon’s funeral, I’ve been wearing a collar non-stop since 8 July 2011. The harness would be a real endurance test.