Shadow Lane 2014, Part 1 (Friday)

Home again from yet another amazing party weekend. I have had a full night of sleep (after three nights of very little) and I'm unpacked, so I'm trying to collect my scattered thoughts into a proper chronicle before I start forgetting things. So, the usual caveat: If I get things out of order, or I forget to mention a scene or a significant encounter, please forgive me. There's just so much to remember. And I will edit and recount as I go along, if people remind me of something I missed.

Also, I don't wish to ignore the elephant in the room, so I will acknowledge it and move on. Our community has been experiencing an unusual amount of strife and sadness over the past year -- relationships ending, friendships severing, divisiveness and anger, reputations tarnished. No, I'm not going into specifics, but there are at least four separate situations. I have firmly maintained a status of Switzerland in all of them. I love many of the people involved and I don't wish to choose sides. So for the purposes of this blog, I will simply mention that I was aware of them and a couple of times it made me sad, but I don't want to focus on any of that for now. I just want to bask in the good stuff, because there was a great deal of that.

Thursday night was the usual insanity, doing all the last-minute stuff. Plus I barely slept; there was actually a fire in an apartment on my street that night, with engines and helicopters and throngs of people. It was out in an hour, but I am mortally terrified of fire, so my heart pounded for at least an hour after that. But despite that, Friday morning went smoothly and John and I had a good trip to Vegas. We were settled into our room by a little after 3:00, but didn't seek out anyone. I needed to decompress from the drive and sleep a bit, so I could start fresh at the vendor fair that evening.

Here's our hotel room view!

The ballroom was the usual whirlwind of hugs and kisses and excited greetings. So many people! John wanted to get something to eat from the hors d'oeuvres buffet, but I wasn't ready to sit yet; I wanted to make my rounds. So he sat and chatted while I ran around greeting old friends and new ones. If I try to start naming names, I'll forget someone, so I won't even try. But I do have to mention one: I was busy introducing myself to a new-to-the-party couple, when I glanced sideways and saw my beloved Michael (InspectHerHide on FetLife) standing off to the side just watching, waiting for me. I gasped, then, not wanting to be rude, I sputtered to the new people, "It's-really-nice-to-meet-you-I'll-see-you-later-so-sorry-please-forgive-me!" They laughed, and I turned and ran right into Michael's arms as he hoisted me into the air. 

As the vendor fair was winding down, Michael wanted to whisk me off for my first scene of the party. There were a few suite parties going on that night, so I checked in with John to find out where he was headed, and then we went off to Michael's room, where he gave me the most delicious warmup-for-the-weekend spanking, mostly with his hand, but also incorporating a little light strapping and belting too. I was all wound up, my mind and mouth running in fifteen different directions (first night-itis), but when our scene was over, I was mellow, calmed down and centered. We cuddled for a while, reconnecting (hadn't seen him since 50 Freaks last February), and then headed for Joe (DrLectr's) suite.

That first night felt a bit scattered, as we didn't know who was where. We wandered back and forth from 560 to 960, continuing our greetings. There was a clash in scheduling at midnight, unfortunately -- 960 was having a pizza party, and 560 was having a Midnight Flogging with multiple tops and bottoms. Well, I couldn't miss the latter, since I'd requested it! They'd had one on Thursday, but I asked Joe if they could have Part 2 on Friday night, and he happily complied. So at midnight, several women stripped down in varying degrees and lined up along both sides of Joe's bed, facing the center, while the floggers (Fineous, Joe, FLAPaddler, SDSpanko and others) took up a rotation with us. Several women came and went and came back again (Mir, Mercy, Kelley, Corrie to name a few), but SpankCake and I were permanent fixtures, next to one another, lasting for the whole thing. So lovely, feeling all the different sensations and techniques!

After a while, the men stopped rotating as much and settled into places; the flogger behind me was a new guy, very attractive, and a damn good flogger, too. Turns out this was his second party and I'd met him briefly two years prior, but I didn't remember that at first, so, during a pause in the action, I swiveled my head around, stuck out my hand and said, "Hi, I'm Erica, nice to meet you!" He laughed, shook my hand and introduced himself (he is "TailGator" on FetLife"), then he leaned down and whispered to me, "I had no idea it was you -- all I saw was this incredibly cute and spankable bottom, and I had been working on you for at least 10 minutes before I realized, 'Oh my god, this is Erica!'" So sweet! I made sure to give him a warm hug when I finally stood back up, and he said he'd love to spank me sometime this weekend. I said absolutely, yes. I know some photos were taken, but I have no idea by whom. Hopefully I will be able to access one.

I honestly cannot remember if this came before or after the flogging, but at one point I was sitting in the main room chatting with John and SC, and KinkyCoach wandered over and sat next to us. I met him for the first time at the last SL party and enjoyed him so much, so I was eager to have some time with him again. I got up, sat at his feet on the carpet and leaned my head into his head, and he proceeded to massage my neck and shoulders and caress my hair. This scene is full of men with the most amazing hands... Before I could drift into spaciness, he leaned down and asked, "Can I borrow you for a few minutes?" Yes! I told John where I was going, and we headed to KC's room, which was just a few doors down. There we had a delicious scene, and I attained further evidence about just how ridiculously high a tolerance the skin on my bottom has attained. After three days of intense spanking/strapping/flogging etc., my butt is unmarked -- sore, but nearly as pristine as it was before the weekend. However, KC gave me just a few light slaps to the front of my right thigh, and it almost immediately bloomed into bruises! I think it may have actually startled him and he moved to the left, but went much lighter. More on him later... we had a second scene on Sunday that was one of the funniest I've ever had at a party. :-)

These parties are notorious for people pulling all-nighters, but I am not one of them -- I must have sleep. That said, John and I stayed up later this weekend than usual; each night we got to bed around 4:00 a.m. Friday night, finally reluctantly dragged ourselves out of the suite -- there were two more full days ahead, after all. I'd had three scenes to get me started -- lots more to come!