A good number of people I know have no clue as to my full name, since I never introduce myself by it. But that doesn't mean that I don't like my name; I do. I think it's pretty, and it's very unusual. I've heard my mother recount tales of how she agonized endlessly over what to call her baby girl. Finally she settled on Gwendolyn. It's Welsch, meaning "the moon" or "white circle", and she thought it would be perfect for her little princess.
At A Glance Author Gwenn Contact Gwenn@bme.anon IAM mythernal When It just happened Artist Chris and Scott Studio Need A New Hole (Tecumseh location) Location Windsor, ON When I was six or eight, a cheesy and short-lived game came out, its advertising directed right at me. It was called "Pretty Pretty Princess" and I just had to have it. When I opened up the box, I found that I could choose which princess to be as I went around the board collecting and adorning myself with plastic jewelry. One of the character choices? Pretty Princess Gwendolyn.
That had to be the start of a trend. After that I was interested for a long time in everything medieval princess. I especially loved the RenFair and the intricate costumes that some people wore. When I got to be around 14, I got rid of the unicorns decorating my room, but I still loved those costumes and got one of my own, complete with a beautiful "push-n-squosh" corset.
More recently, I saw the corset being applied in a much different sense. When I got my tongue pierced at 17, there was a calendar up in the piercing shop that had on its cover the back of a girl with rings pierced through her skin and ribbons laced through, giving the effect of a corset. My first reaction?
"Sick!"
But, as I visited the shop more often and saw the picture again and again, I started to change my opinion.
"Actually, that's kinda hot ..."
I stumbled upon BME a few months later and saw other girls' corset piercings, which sparked the idea to get my own. I started doing some research and found that while most of the pictures I'd seen were done with either standard CBRs or specialized D-rings, these would all likely reject and were therefore temporary. Are you kidding me? All that pain and money for a temporary piercing? I wanted mine forever. I realized that the piercing would need to be done with surface bars to have a chance of healing.
I brought it up with one piercer, and he was psyched to do the procedure on me. I was happy because he promised to do it cheaply and he was telling me everything I wanted to hear: "Yes, we can have it done by the middle of June." "Yes, you will definitely be able to keep them." But my apprehension started to grow as I realized that he actually had very little idea of how the procedure should be done. When I called one day to check on the status of my jewelry and he was downright rude to me, I decided to take my business elsewhere.
I decided to have Chris from Need A New Hole do the piercing instead. I went in several times to discuss placement, procedure, and pricing with him. He was also excited about the project but he seemed a lot more knowledgeable and I was totally comfortable with him. Eventually he told me that my jewelry would be done on Wednesday. I was so excited. I had to work that day but thought that if I got there just as the shop opened, I could squeeze it in. As I walked through the door, however, Chris recognized me.
"Gwenn, you're gonna hate my guts."
It appears that the guy making the jewelry had only finished six of my desired eight surface bars. Even though we were only doing four at a time, he didn't want to hand them over until he could be sure that all of them were perfect and matching. I was disappointed but I appreciated the fact that they wanted everything to be perfect for me. I told Chris that I would be back the next Tuesday, when I didn't have to work.
When Tuesday came around, I got up in the morning and got ready to go. Then I got my nails done to engage Princess Mode. This time I called ahead to make sure everything was set. He said that we were good to go and that his boss, Scott, who usually pierces at the other studio downtown, wanted to come and watch. I told him that was fine and gave him an ETA of an hour. I crossed the border with no problems and got to the shop right on schedule.
Scott hadn't arrived yet so Chris had me pull up my shirt and he measured off how much space he had to work with, then toyed with different placement options on a sheet of paper. We decided that since I wanted them to have a "cinched" appearance with the middle two set in a bit from the top and bottom sets, we would do the middle ones first so that I could start wearing ribbons in them right away. By the time we got a general idea of what I wanted, Scott had walked in, so we ran the ideas by him. Looks good, let's start marking!
I took my shirt off and Chris cleaned my back. Then I stood there for a good 45 minutes or an hour while Chris marked my back and Scott argued that it wasn't straight and had him redo it. At first this bothered me, but as time went on I was really glad Scott was there. He was obviously a perfectionist, and since this is my biggest and most in-depth mod thus far, I definitely appreciated perfection. Once they got it right I looked at it and didn't like it. Oops. I thought the two sides were too close together and I asked them to redraw farther apart. Chris didn't grumble and they spent more time redrawing.
I had gotten so used to standing there being marked that it came as a bit of a surprise when we were actually ready to pierce. I was asked to lie down and the guys decided that they would both do a piercing at the same time so that I would only have to endure it twice instead of four times. It was at this time that I officially got nervous.
They debated using clamps. Chris said it wouldn't work but Scott wanted to try. So he grabbed my skin in a clamp and it hurt! Suddenly the clamp slipped off and both guys agreed it would have to be freehanded. I didn't mind one way or the other, so I just laid my head down on my shirt and tried to concentrate on deep even breathing.
The tandem-piercing thing apparently didn't quite work out. Chris did both the piercings on my left, and Scott did both the piercings on my right, but they were not done in sync. And they all HURT. They were done slower than any other piercing I've had, and so I would feel the needle poke my skin at one side (not too bad) then slice through one or two layers of flesh in the middle (increasing pain), and finally pierce through the other side (ouch!!). The first one was the worst. Something went wrong with it and I think the jewelry wasn't lying correctly. I couldn't exactly see, so while I'm not entirely sure what was going on, it really hurt as they tried to move it into place. I won't say I didn't cry at least a little, but the guys were wonderful about it. The kept telling me how great I was doing and promising that it was "almost done".
Finally we really WERE done. Since the last two weren't as painful, I was smiling. I stood up and Scott attempted to clean the marks off my back. Then I walked over to the mirror and craned my neck to look at my new piercings. Perfect. Chris told me once again to come back whenever I got the chance so that he could keep an eye on them and clean them for me. I had a short chat with another girl and her boyfriend that had walked in. She showed me a scar from a surface piercing she used to have; I hope that I fare better. I waited around a few minutes lifting up my shirt for a few more people that came in (everyone was impressed), paid, tipped, and left.
Right now, I am most concerned about healing. Eventually I want to show them off, but we decided not to stress the new holes by clipping the rings on and off of them and lacing up today. I know that the pain of today will eventually be forgotten when my corset is complete and my inner princess shines through :)