At A Glance
When	It just happened
Artist	Didier Suarez
Studio	Enigma
Location	San Diego

Friday night, I got my second set of 4 10g outer labia piercings. Didier, at Enigma, did them, but it's been kind of a tag-team effort.

Here's some background: The whole point of the project is to create a physical connection between me and the man to whom I belong, while I am away from him. We lived in Austin, and he still does. We have a committed Master/slave relationship with which I am very comfortable, thank you, (and yes I do have self worth and feel that I am an effective, active human being who can make my own decisions, so don't worry about me). Then I moved to Minneapolis for a year, and it was hard to be apart. We started thinking about chastity piercings, and it just seemed like the perfect way to feel his hand on me, all the time, despite the distance, and a meaningful way to express the dynamics of our kind of relationship. So I got 4 10g rings done by Derek Lowe at St. Sabrina's. Derek was great and you can read about the experience on BME if you want (I think I called it Chastity starter kit).

And then I spent the next year healing those piercings – cross-country plane trips for business: bad; health problems: bad; but mostly NOT LISTENING to my piercer about what jewelry to have: bad. I did salt soaks, I cleaned, I wore cotton seamless underwear, I took my vitamins, but still...

I should not have insisted on wearing rings in those new piercings. Derek told me and I should have listened. Those things flopped around like Dumbo's ears, getting twisted and pulled and making granulomas and just hanging too damn heavy for healing.

Okay, so, it took a long time to heal. I moved to San Diego for another year-long internship. The project must go on, so Derek recommended Didier.

And then I needed a pelvic MRI. I questioned my MD to see if was really necessary to remove the jewelry, and she said that my bellybutton could stay in, but the genital jewelry would skew the results. Didier took the rings out the night before, and put in new barbells the morning after. Let me tell you, those holes closed down to I think 18g (well, maybe 16) and stretching unhealed flesh back to 10 was not fun. Didier was really patient through all my whining. And bonus stretched my very very old clit hood piercing up to 12g ring.

And then I needed surgery. Again, I asked if I had to take the bars out, and again the answer was yes, but a kind of vague one. One person said it was because I would be burned if they had to defibulate me, another person said if that happened, burns would be the least of my worries. A third person said it was just policy and procedure. Someone else said they would get in the way of the surgery – the most reasonable explanation, I think.

I tried to find monofilament to put in as a temporary placeholder. You'd think in a place as fishing crazy as San Diego it would be easy to find, but I just didn't want to buy 100 feet of it and couldn't find any smaller quantities. It was pretty funny trying to find a way to explain what I wanted and why, though. No, I wasn't going after a tuna. Um, well, I need to sterilize it. Why? Uhmmm....just 'cuz.

Eventually, Corey, who works at Enigma, took out the piercings and put in some mono-filament, and then Matt, also an Enigma employee, put the jewelry back in while I was still flying from my pain meds after surgery. All I can say, having at this point sampled the skills of every single Enigma employee, is that they are all professional, warm, skilled, and just plain nice human beings.

All of this background, just to say – I got my second set of 4 10g outer labia piercings by Didier this past Friday, and damn, did he do a good job. We started off by replacing the barbells with continuous rings in the healed piercings and autoclaving the barbells to use in the new. Sir and I had wanted the new holes to go above and below the old ones, but Didier convinced us that my anatomy wasn't really built for that, and he placed them between and above the old ones instead. Part of the project involves the eventual addition of a curved hasp lock, so we tried to figure out how the new group of rings would work to hold the lock close to my body. Didier said that he could create a slave ring doodad that would hook on to a barbell in my clit hood and go around the lock as an anchor. That sounded like it would work, so I think that's what we'll do, once everything is healed and all the new rings are in place. Of course, it took about a day for it to dawn on me - the implications of this new arrangement: my clit hood attached to something that will move around when I walk. Should be interesting!

Then, time for the piercings. I had been reminding myself that I like pain, and that I can choose to perceive it as a kind of bright light flash, and transform it into something good, but my anxiety level hit the roof. Didier talked me down with breathing and settling into a balance between our pacing, leading by following, in breath-hissing out breath, in breath, and pierce while I hissed out. That hissing kind of breath really helped. I don't think I yelled or scared the folks in the waiting room at all – and I was worried about that. I also worried that I was taking up too much time, but I was reassured about that too. It takes as long as it takes, I guess. All in all, I was in there for an hour and a half for jewelry changing, marking, discussing, and piercing. Seems like the piercing itself couldn't have taken more than 15 minutes, if I count maybe 6 breaths for each of the 4 holes, and maybe a brief pause for swearing when the bars went through.

I am really pleased with the results. Hardly any swelling. A little bleeding the first night, but almost no pain. I could even sleep with my legs together! I'm thinking I might be able to go running later in the week. I haven't done much to them except squirt some saline solution (preservative-free eye stuff), and take a shower.

I posted some pics to BME too - with lock and without.

The moral of this story is Listen To Your Piercer! Healing with barbells is a night and day experience. They just stay put – no twisting or pinching. Plus, I'm physically healthier now. I think this time, I'll be healed in a few months, not a whole year.

And, in 6 months, I'll be moving back home – back to Austin and to Sir. And the saga will continue there –new jewelry, more piercings if needed, and the lock clicking closed.

I would love to hear from anyone else who is doing this! Thanks!