Out of nowhere, awry
The picture above was shot this summer in Banff, Alberta, in a room at the Fairmont Banff Springs. This was the first time I’ve tied Danielle, and while she was lovely and accommodating and someone I very much look forward to getting rope on again, this session ended up being one of the scarier moments I’ve had, tying.
We’d talked, the three of us, about setting up a shoot while we were all in Banff. Danielle has experience being tied, and she’d seen pictures of a previous shoot I’d done with kk the last time he’d visited Toronto. My first and amazingly successful attempts at suspension; I was VERY glad he was there to document that. A good night, and some great images came of it. After that night we both knew we wanted to have him shoot my ropework again, sometime. Following some lengthy Skype and Twitter conversations, and juggling work schedules while in Banff, we finally found a time when the three of us could be in a room together. A quick check-in was had, quality of light was judged, and we were underway.
Things were progressing nicely, many MANY pictures were being taken in the moment by Kris, Danielle’s partner. This particular image was taken early on in the process.
As I layered more and more rope on Danielle, I noticed she was getting quieter. Kris was shooting away, moving around us both. I kept talking as I tied, wanting to keep myself connected with her and Kris, shifting her when I needed it. I didn’t take her silence for much other than probably the enjoyment of being tied (which she’d told me she experiences, sensationally speaking) and perhaps a little bit of rope headspace (which we’d not talked much about, but didn’t strike me as surprising). It was only when, after about 15? 20? minutes of tying (oh how time flies) she spoke up softly, with a little bit of shakiness in her voice, to tell us that she was having a hard time hearing what we were saying and that she was starting to white out.
That’s the first time I heard THAT expression – “white out”. She described it later as if someone has stuffed cotton in her ears, and as though the edges of her vision were slowly being speckled with white dots. At the time, all I could think of was getting her out of the ropes as quickly as possible.
I kept one hand steady on her at all times, and used the other hand to undo the last series of knots & wraps I’d laid down. There’d been no work done on her legs, so it was easy enough – although to me it seemed like it took FOREVER – to get the more intricate parts of the chest harness I’d put her in undone. My tone of voice changed, there were fewer silences in what I was saying as I worked to constantly keep her awake and aware. Kris fed her sips of water or ginger ale, keeping her focused on him as well as I got all the ropes off her as fast as I could.
Once everything was off we sat on the bed and talked about what happened. I kept touching her & connected with her to make sure she was all the way back. After a while, and I can’t remember how long exactly, she stood up, got dressed, and we talked some more. Thankfully It didn’t take long for her to come all the way back, and then all was good.
We exchanged some messages later, through email, Facebook chats. Sort of a post-mortem about the session. Those conversations were amazingly beneficial and educational for me, both in terms of letting me be more comfortable with how fast I can get someone out of bondage, if the situation requires it, and also the tendency for a bottom to try to tough out a situation for fear of seeming less-than-capable. That’s something I’ll need to look out for more, in the future.
Has anyone else experienced this kind of white-out? As I said, it’s the first I’d heard of it. There were a lot of things that could have contributed to Danielle experiencing it – lack of sleep, a minor cold, the altitude in Banff – but I’m wondering if it’s a more well-known reaction. Any thoughts and comments would be appreciated.
