Dark Odyssey, day two…

Day two of the Dark Odyssey event and frankly, it is pretty great.

My sleep patterns are crazy! My dreams are even crazier…last night involved a complicated play involving a friend of mine attempting to fuck me up the ass behind every door in the room of a 56 room Victorian mansion..yesh. It was, at the very least, a vivid fucking dream.

Lord.

There are fewer things more surreal than walking through a hotel ballroom and knowing a scant few days before, the inhabitants had no idea that, only days later, well over eight hundred kinksters, newbies to veterans, would come together to meet up, hook up, hang out, and in some cases….get hooked up and hung from their very skin…

My first class on “Diplomacy and Tact in D/S” was on the opening round of classes. I was nervous because it is the top of the event, most folks aren’t even here yet, I’m up against some pretty zesty competition…all this. Yet, hey, I had a wonderful group of people who came to listen and to share their own experiences.

It was fantastic.

Despite my intense fretting, I felt very good about the class.

I would like to personally thank all of the people who came to that first class, and who came up afterwards to express their enjoyment of it.

It is tough to put yourself out there again and again. To me, it feels like a tightrope walk with the stakes being an embarrassing splat and leaving people feeling as though the one thing I cannot give back to them, their time, wasn’t well spent.

I am feeling grateful that people take the time to not only come to listen to my ideas and also share their own experiences. And I am SUPREMELY grateful to the people who, after the class, came up to express their thanks and enjoyment…and those who, throughout the day, came up with a smile and shared that they enjoyed the class. Those moments are our compensation for our work.

And for that I am profoundy appreciative.

I did some networking with some folks I knew from Twitter, and I find it miraculous how the camaraderie of that fucking network has, universally, translated to my meeting wonderful people.

And then to see them play.

It is always thrilling to walk into a play party and watch the myriad ways people play, from brand newbies performing tentative spanks in a shadowy corner to a woman in an inverted 2-point suspension on a winch… blissed out…to the acrid nose-wrinkling stink of burned hair from fire play to the burst of raw energy as flesh-hooks pull a woman five feet from the floor…a Wendy without a Peter Pan, flying flying flying amidst a circle of smiling friends and admirers.

There is a wistful feeling in watching so much energy exchanged when you are solo…but it is still fascinating to be able to share the joy and pain and joyous pain of those fortunate enough be able to play in this dark fantasyland.

I’m a little lonely today.

Isn’t it odd how, even with so many smiling people around, loneliness can still creep in with prickly little claws that eke out glittering lachrymal tribute, when you least expect it…?

Now. Let’s see if I have the smile left in me to venture forth into the late night Dungeon…