Fire Flogged!

Following Fulani’s post about our holiday, I’ve been asked what it feels like to be flogged by fire. I wonder how people guessed I might know the answer to that? It’s an interesting question. Of course, we take thorough precautions when playing with fire, and have an extinguisher ready, as well as lots of cold water to treat any burns with, a first aid kit and my own first aid trained Fulani. I have to strip, as clothes could cause serious burns if they caught alight. Don’t try this stuff if you don’t know what you’re doing, please. A recent domestic accidental burn has left me even more careful as the pain was ridiculously high and has left a nasty scar.
What does it feel like? Well, an ordinary flogger is quite thuddy and hard, but a fire flogger is surprisingly lightweight. When used correctly, it hits the skin very quickly, and for this reason, believe it or not, doesn’t hurt. It’s an interesting experience. You feel the flogger, and feel the heat, but it glances over the skin so fast that, although I have in the past been convinced that there would be marks or burns, fire flogging has never damaged my skin or even left a red mark. I am so confident I’ve recommended to friends to try it. One of those friends is in the pictures in the last post. He loved it! You feel a stingy glow and of course the excitement (biggest BDSM tool being the brain) work wonders. We have been known, after doing a demo, to disappear for a while on our own. Over to your imagination now!

VelvetTripp

What we did on our holiday

We’re back.

We spent some time a week or so ago at one of the few contemporary stone circles in the UK – it was a pagan gathering at a circle Velvet helped build, about 10 years ago. Those present included quite a few of the others who helped built it and some of our friends. Here’s a picture of the circle, and the roundhouse also on the site:

Various pagan-type things happened at the gathering – drinking, mainly (the ‘temple drink’ that made its way repeatedly around the group was a potent vodka/blackcurrant mix) but also drumming in the roundhouse, making flutes (we didn’t), supurb guitarwork, sitting around fires, a couple getting handfasted, and just hanging out and talking about stuff. And drinking. Beyond that, we discovered various little-known provisions of English law, such as that you can legally bury up to two bodies in your back garden – it’s only a third body that makes it technically a cemetary, which requires a licence.

Various other things that you read in some upcoming fiction might or might not have happened. Professional writers do employ a certain amount of creative licence.

The other thing that happened was fire. The previous post showed you the implements of fire. Here are some of the results. Below is what you can do with six feet of kelvar rope:

This was on a time exposure, obviously, but it was still quite hot. That’s Fulani spinning it. And also him with a fire-flogger, about to beat some poor victim with an ass hanging out invitingly…

The pics (while much reduced) are courtesy of a professional photographer who was there, Chris Cafferkey, who has some of our previous fire art available in much higher resolution in the fire gallery on her website.

There are some other pics of the firewhip and suchlike but they’re on Fulani’s other blog, Fulanismut – along with Part II of a completely unrelated story about sexual encounters in the course of a music festival. Yes, the point is to make you check out the other blog as well. But go with it, the Fulanismut blog has some interesting weirdness on it.

Getting on with things

We haven’t been posting as much as usual on here over the last few weeks. We’ve been getting on with other things that have turned out to be a little time-consuming.

Fulani wrote a novella. Currently being considered by a publisher, we’ll see how that goes.

He also, bearing in mind we’re at a pagan camp for the next few days, got round to making a firewhip. Pagan camps is where we do bits of fireplay and we wanted something new this time. Frankly, we were going to buy a firewhip but the companies we tend to use for fire performance equipment were out of stock.

It looks crude, because it is, but it does crack. Loudly.

Hone-made firewhip

Apart from that we have things we’re used before: the fire flogger and the fire rope. If you want to see older pics of these things in use, they’re on a post ‘Playing with Fire’ we did back in January (opens in a new window). We should have some new pics in a couple of weeks…

The flogger is the only one of these things that can be used on actual humans, of course. And while it’s scary for the person being flogged, the logic of it is that the flames brush across the skin so quickly, because it has to spin fast, that the heat is much less significant than the sound of flames roaring as it travels through the air and the whole headspace of having it done. Once the thing is alight, you have to keep it spinning otherwise anyone holding it will get their hand burned off. For the person being flogged, hair, obviously, does need to be wetted down (on fact we usually damp down the skin as well) and long hair kept well out of the way…

The rope is far to large and unwieldy to be used in play, though it does make for pretty pictures. And the whip should, in theory, not just crack but send a small ball of fire off the tip when it cracks. Again it’s for performance rather than play. Probably.

Home-made fire flogger

Fire rope

Safety stuff. We don’t use these things without a good space (usually around 10 metres) between ‘performer’ and anyone watching, and we do have a safety spotter and fire extinguishers to hand. If necessary we wet down the ground where the things are being used as well. These are not toys for playing with anywhere other than outdoors with a lot of space around.

Apart from that, we’ve been out and about doing fun things at clubs, and playing at home since Velvet decided we no longer need a separate guest bedroom (she kept cracking her shins on the corner of the bed, so it’s been replaced with a fold-out sofabed) and cleared room in there so it could come back into use as a private playspace.

Oh, and Fulani did write at least the first part of a story based on the fact it’s now the music festival season. But you’ll have to go to his other blog to read it – called ‘The Museum of Deviant Dreams, on the Fulanismut blog (opens in new window). Maybe the second part will get written while we’re away…

Congratulations to Xcite Books!

The pic on the left is Hazel Cushion, founder of Xcite Books, accepting the ETO Best Erotic Book Brand award 2011. Xcite Books is an erotic imprint of Accent Press, a UK publishing company founded by Hazel Cushion. Accent Press as a whole publish quite a range, from crime thrillers to business and management books to erotica, with the erotica running under the Xcite label. Hazel herself has also previously won a Women in Publishing Award and was ‘Entrepreneur of the Year’ in 2004, only a year after she started the company.

Hazel started Accent Press – Xcite is an Accent Press imprint – in 2003 after completing an MA in Creative Writing when her triplets were five years old. Commenting on this latest award Hazel said, “I’m so proud of Xcite – it’s a wonderful range but its success comes from the quality of our authors and editors.”

The ETO (stands for ‘Erotic Trade Only’) is the UK’s annual adult industry trade show. It took place last week (26-27 June) and no, we don’t have a complete list of who won which of the 22 awards given out across all the categories!

Oh yeah – and we both write for Xcite. But then you already knew that, didn’t you.