Well, Belara and I have just had a lovely weekend. After 10 months of being together we finally made it up to Birmingham for Rapture. Shifts and circumstances have conspired against us getting up there earlier, much to our detriment I have found.

The weekend started nicely enough at the Shay where we met ppl we knew online but have never met in the flesh. (BTW as far as I'm concerned Frdiay night is the start of the weekend, for those of you who may be a bit confused; old army habit ;) ) As I've found in the past, nice as you think people are online, they generally turn out to be much nicer when you meet them in the flesh and this was certainly the case here. The night went on and people drifted off to get changed and head off to Rapture (YEAH!!) We didn' t need to as we'd pretty much got as ready as we could. BTW, wearing rubber under normal clothing is a decidedly sweaty experience, not that I'm complaining mind you .

So off we trotted to Rapture, my heart beating faster and my mind awhirl as to what it would be like. I should point out at this time that although I've been kinky for years and years this was my first outing to a club. I've been to a private play party, spent a weekend at The Edge (gotta do that again!) but never been to a club.

Entry was pretty much what I expected, "May I check your bag" etc which I had no problems with at all! As they say in Blackadder, security's not a dirty word. While I was showing the doorman the various compartments of my bag (he'd missed a couple so I had to draw his attention to them) Belara was sorting out the tickets which had been prebooked and the ID for our membership. Here we hit a little bit of a snag. We'd brought along my passport and our council tax bill which is in both our names. John got a bit huffy that Belara didn't have any photo id and, though he let us in, made it clear that he would have been much happier if we both had photo id. Now it doesn't say anything in the flyers etc that you need photo id and that a utility bill will do, but it would seem that if you want to get in with the minimum of fuss then photo id is the way to go.

So, coats checked in off I trotted to put take off my jeans and put on my shorts. Five minutes later, I rejoined Belara who instantly demanded that I hand over the keys. At this point, I should clarify that my shorts are of the sort that lock on; at the risk of too much info, without the keys I would be faced with the stark choice of holding my water or soiling myself. So I opened the bag, rooted around and.....uh-oh...where are they??? Panic!!!! Now I was pretty confident that I'd packed them so we found a nice flat surface and emptied the bag. Within 5 minutes, the keys were retrieved from one of the multudious pockets of the bag where I must have put them "for safe keeping."

Heart rates returning to normal, we decided that it would be a good idea to have a little wander around the club and see what was on offer.

Oh.

My.

God.

I've died and gone to heaven. Lovely venue, clean, spacious etc. The kit! Wowee, some of it I could figure out, other bits I could only guess as to how they worked, though their purpose was obvious enough. The bondage bed brought back fond memories of our weekend down at MsDemmie's (must do that again! Oops, that's twice I've said that, anyone would think I was plugging it ;) If I keep this up, I may well end up plugged so I think I'll stop now) and was to see much use through the night though not by us. The dancefloor was the place to be though for my money; I could go on forever about the kit that was there and be really boring about it and not do it justice so I won't. What I will go on about, and unfortunately not do it justice, is the people! Never before have I seen so many people doing what it is that we do with such obvious pleasure. I spent a good amount of time watching what was going on, seeing things that I had no knowledge of. I'd never seen, for example, mental bondage before and there was a very good example of it right there in front of me. Fascinating. Not my cup of tea, at least I think it's no, but it was so good to see the diversity. As I said to someone later, you may well say that you do what we do, but that sure does leave a lot of scope! Of particlar interest to myself was some wonderful rope bondage; that man tied up more than one person through the night and, after talking to him for 30 seconds I was on a promise that he'd gladly secure another willing victim next month. Woohoo!

Belara and I did play, and boy was that good! I didn't really know how I'd react in public. It's not the same as when we play on our own. I hit subspace pretty darned quickly as a rule and that night was no exception. Again at the expense of too much info, we were halfway though the scene when Belara whipped off my blindfold and said, "have a look at that!" To my right, there was a lady getting bound to the spider's web (dunno if that's what it's called but that's what it looks like) upside down! Well if I wasn't in sub space before I certainly was now, what with that lovely vision before me, wondering if that would be possible with a 13 stone bloke, and Belara's lovely flogging I was well away.

Something that was *markedly* different was the end of the scene. Normally I stay in sub space for aaaaaaaaaages. Not so this time. As soon as Belara ended the scene, I was so concerned about giving the kit a good wipe down so that it would be nice for those that followed us and vacating the area as quickly as possible so that others could play that I snapped out of sub space almost instantly. I'm not complaining, you've got to go with the realities of the situation at hand and I had a wonderful time; Belara really knows how to make me fly! Maybe I was a bit overconcious that there were others that wanted on the kit but by the same token I'd want people to get off the kit as soon as they were done as well, so it would be hypocritical indeed to hang around once we were done.

We spent the rest of the evening cirulating, drinking in the sights and chatting to people in general. All in all a wonderfull evening and major kudos to all the people that made it possible. Not just the organisers, who deserve special thanks, but all the people that went! After all, a party's only as good as the people who go, and boy was it a good party.

Saturday saw Belara and I at the Old Orleans where we managed to put more names that we know online to faces with the same result as the munch; the people in the flesh are more wonderfull than their online personas would suggest. You know, you really can't beat real life, well that's my opinion anyway and lord know's I'm an opinionated so and so.

So after talking the ears off of anyone who'd listen to me (apologies to anyone who I bored/offended etc; I was still on a major high after Rapture,) off we toddled to Banbury where we spent a lovely evening with my parents (all together now, AHHHHHH )

Sunday saw a lovely fry up courteousy of my Dad, and then it was off to the BBB which was another first. I've gotta say that it was a lot less crowded than the LFF at Smithys, though I understand that LFF's new venue is more spacious. For my money, the variety of stalls was better too. We spent a couple of hours drooling over various bits of kit, however finacial constraints bit and with a F1 GP to pay for and a holiday in Europe in the summer we really had to restrain ourselves (otherwise I'd have had those cuffs from Quality Control like a shot!) For my money, the highlight of that day was when we found Laurence. It was only then that I realised that the member of Roissy Workshops who I'd thanked for the night when we left Rapture was in fact the Laurence himself. We had a brief chat and I have to say that from the little time we spent with him he struck me as one of those people that I would really like to get to know a lot better. Down to earth, charming, friendly and an all round good egg. Here's to you Laurence

Well that just about wraps up the weekend, if you're still here with me then thank you for reading. I enjoyed writing it and I hope that some people got some enjoyment from reading it. If anything, the last weekend has re-inforced my love of the scene. While Belara and I love playing at home, it's really good fun to share now and again. We've come away with some new ideas for playing and, in time, maybe we'll pay that back by introducing people to new ideas oursleves.

Kind, loving regards,
euan{Bel}