Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Whatever Happened to the Cyclist Girl?

Whatever happened to Josephine? A reader asked me that recently, after I very briefly mentioned her in part three of my behind-the-scenes report on Mood Pictures. Those who have been following the blog for a while will know that the subject of the inquiry is a kinky friend of mine, whom I've done some private play with over the years. I wrote about her a couple of times:

The Perils of Josephine
Careless Cyclist Caned
Conventional Weekend
School Report Time
The Fantasy of Real Life

The short answer to the question is that Josephine and I are still good friends and still in contact, but we don't play together anymore. The reasons for this are a bit more difficult to put into words. Basically, we have both moved on in different directions. She's a bottom, I'm a top, and we both have a fondness for hard, painful CP. But beyond that, our kinks were always quite different, and these differences have grown over time as each of us developed. Eventually, we realised that we had taken the play relationship between us as far as we could, that there wasn't really anything more we could explore together, and that it was time for the two of us to go our separate ways.

It was not a conscious decision as much as a discovery with hindsight, after we had drifted apart over a period of time - and found that, truth be told, we didn't feel an overwhelming urge to get back together. So we said: "Alright, it was great while it lasted, and there are some truly special memories, but we are both looking for something else now - let's say goodbye and wish each other well." We parted on good terms and are pretty busy with our own activities these days. We are on the phone semi-regularly to chat and find out what the other one is doing, but it's been a few months since I last saw Josephine in person.

The last time we played was half a year ago - actually, only a week or so after my post The Fantasy of Real Life. Josephine had finished her first semester of economics and performed below her expectations in the exams. It fell to me, as her "motivational coach", to give her the six canings for the six written tests, with the number of strokes determined by the formula we had agreed on. In a nice turn of symmetry, she'd had two good grades, two mediocre ones and two that were decidedly unsatisfactory.


(Picture courtesy of Spanking Photography)

We ended up doing four of those sessions eventually, but they were overshadowed by a nagging feeling that had already been there the last couple of times when I spanked her - the feeling that, somehow, it simply wasn't as exciting as it used to be. Neither of us was fully "there" in spirit and there was a growing sense of simply going through the motions, accompanied by the knowledge that the problem was more fundamental than just a series of bad days. The truth was, we had lost the interest in playing with each other. We had both felt like that for a while and silently hoped that it would change, but it had become impossible to ignore. After the fourth exam caning, we had to take a longer break because of our respective schedules, anyway. When we got in touch again after a few weeks, we agreed that it was a good time to call it quits and move on.

It very much felt like the right thing and we didn't have any second thoughts afterwards. The bottom line was, even if we rediscovered the spark between us, there wasn't really anything left to do - we had already exhausted most of the fantasies and scenarios where our two kinks overlapped, and both of us wanted to go on to other things which we couldn't get from each other. Therefore, it was a natural and largely painless parting of ways. Of course, there was some sadness about the fact that our path together had come to an end. But it wasn't like we were giving up on each other prematurely. Our play relationship had simply run its course, we had explored all the avenues, and now it was over. The overwhelming feeling was one of looking back happily, with gratitude and a bit of nostalgia, but without regret.

Well, almost without regret - the one thing that annoyed me was that the relationship had "fizzled out", so to speak, instead of ending with a proper occasion. But alas, episodes in our lives don't usually have neat, crisp endings. The same goes for epochs in history - we only construct their boundaries with hindsight, which is part of my job as a historian. I wanted such a boundary, saying: "From here on, Josephine and I went separate ways." I wondered if we should play one last time, as a celebratory farewell of sorts. We would wrap up the exam punishments, and then I would blog about it... But obviously, that wasn't a very compelling rationale for intimate, kinky play. Yes, the top in me disliked the "loose end" of not finishing my stint as motivational coach with all six sessions. But there simply was no point to it anymore. We had lost the desire for it.

So I came to terms with the "fuzzy" ending. What really mattered was that it had been a good phase of our lives, one that left us both with fond memories. Maybe if I write about some of them here, it will be the proper celebratory farewell I wished for. I think it's a good idea, at what I feel is an appropriate point in time. In another post, the final one in the Josephine saga, I will tell you how the two of us met, how we started playing, what we found out about each other and about ourselves along the way, what worked for us and what didn't... The full historical overview, if you will, and a prequel to The Perils of Josephine. Stay tuned for that next week.

4 comments:

SPANKEDHORTIC said...

What a shame but C'est la vie or as the French say, That's life.

Prefectdt

Anonymous said...

After being celibate for a couple of years, I'm currently dating seriously again. The girl I'm dating is pretty open-minded, but she's not into CP. However, the relationship is growing and changing, so I hope we may include some elements as time goes on. So far, it's limited to light spanking while having sex, but it's a start.

Life is constant movement.

Kami Robertson said...

It will never cease to amaze me how little emotional you can be about those things. Or how very rational. Probably both. First very rational then little emotional...or something like.

I'm not saying it's bad or good. I don't judge, it just amaze me. Suppose I would like to be less emotional myself...

Still I'm glad you both used the time you had properly :)

Ludwig said...

Smallhanded: Ah yes, the old dream of "educating a vanilla". I have my serious doubts about the feasibility of this and about how far it can (or should) really go, but I send you my best wishes. At the end of the day, I suppose it depends on your own individual taste in spanking (where does it fit between mainstream and utter, depraved perversion?), and on how regular an obsession the subject is on your own life.

In any case, I was delighted to see you commenting again. It's been a long time.

Kami: I wouldn't say that I'm "little emotional". Actually, and generally speaking, I'm a very emotional guy, very passionate and involved with people, subjects and causes I care about. I get angry, I get sad, I cry, I cuddle, I fall in love, I can get intensely sentimental and nostalgic... After all, I'm an INFJ, not an INTJ like many other tops - which means I am more on the "feeling" than on the "thinking" side, even though I'm pretty close to the edge between the two when I do the Myers-Briggs test.

But yeah, I combine that strong emotion with a similarly strong rational side, with a determination for self-control and with frequent, conscious self-analysis. It's what INFJ "Counsellor" personality types usually do, and I fit that description pretty well. So you may not see the emotion all that obviously, and people who don't know me intimately often see only the rational, analytical, reserved side (actually, it looked like that to Josephine, too, when she first met me).

Regarding the end of my play relationship with Josephine, you have to keep several things in mind. First off, I'm writing about things that happened almost half a year ago, so there is quite a bit of distance and reflection in it already. Moreover, it was a parting on good terms, we are still friends and we still talk every now and then, so it's not like we have completely lost each other.

We simply don't play with each other anymore, because we have both moved on, on that level, and in different directions. However, each of us has other, new things in our lives now, new friends and adventures, kinky and otherwise. So we're fine and neither of us is really missing anything. Those old days are gone, and that's okay - I enjoyed them and I look back on them very fondly, but I wouldn't want to go back. I'm very happy where I am now, and when I look at Josephine, I believe she feels the same way.

I am pretty emotional about it, actually, it's just that the good emotions far, far outweigh the bad ones.