At A Glance
Author	Asurfael
Contact	asurfael@asurfael.net
IAM	Asurfael
When	A week ago

I had been interested in play piercing for a good while. I had gotten some permanent piercings just out of the urge to get a piercing anyway, and I had felt the urge to pierce something permanently myself. I however wasn't comfortable with that, mostly because of the classic "what if I screw up?" So then I was asked so send in a video for a documentary about body modifications and rituals, and I jumped at the chance. It was a perfect excuse! However, I didn't want my first time play piercing to be on the video. I wanted to know what it was about first.

So I went to the pharmacy to buy needles. I wanted to see the needles before buying them, so I made up this bullshit story about wanting to make a necklace with a needle in the design - the lady bought it, and seemed relieved that I wasn't asking for needles for any more devious purposes. So she showed me some needles. I had originally thought about 16 or 18 gauge needles, but looking at those I felt my courage creep it's way down to my socks, and I felt rather disheartened. So cautiously I said that the 16 gauge needles look a bit too big... She offered me 22 or 24 gauge needles, but I asked to see the 20 gauge ones instead. Those were perfect. They were big enough not to look completely pathetic, and I figured they'd be okay.

So I bought a package of the needles and walked out of the pharmacy. Then I realized I had only bought ten of them. I didn't want to go back to the same pharmacy to buy more needles, so I went to the pharmacy a block away and asked for twenty more of them. I was given them, although this time with the "get the hell away from here, junkie" kind of look. This investment cost me a bit over 3 euros in total.

I got back home, and spent the evening doing my usual stuff, with the needles in their sterilized packages in my top drawer. When I finally was thinking about going to bed I decided to try that first. I was at the shower and just itching to see how the 20 gauge needles would feel like.

So I got out of the shower and washed my hands with antibacterial soap. I didn't want to dry out my skin with antiseptics - I trusted that my body would be able to defend itself against the bacteria on the skin, especially since most of the foreign ones had probably just been washed out. So I took a needle out of its package, and stared at it for a while. It didn't seem too threatening. I decided to try it out on a spot on my forearm I had abused with knives and needles previously in my life - at least I knew what it felt like with those, and I figured the needle shouldn't be much worse.

In a way though it was. I had always been terribly afraid of needles, and whilst I had somewhat gotten used to them with piercing purposes after having fainted once, injection needles still crept the hell out of me after my stay at the hospital when I was 14. I tried to kill myself with drugs that would slowly destroy the liver, and my liver values were closely monitored. I had several vials worth of blood taken out of me, one after another, until my arm was really sore. After all, I might have needed a liver transplant as soon as possible if the values came out too high (I was lucky, by some miracle the medicine hadn't absorbed as well as it should). I had an IV on my forearm, although on the left hand (I was going to pierce the right because I'm left handed). After I got rid of the IV the catheter was still left at place. Once a nurse tried to take the blood samples through that. That ended up with a "Don't look, your blanket's covered in blood, this didn't work, sorry. " Probably needless to say that the thought of having needles through my arm didn't exactly bring back fond memories.

Also the old scars were one difficulty. I really wanted to pierce through the forearm, but any abuse on my forearm sorely reminded me of the times when I'd cut myself to feel better. In a way, even if now years later I'd want to play pierce to explore myself and to "reward" myself with that, if you may, it created a sort of a dilemma. Am I sure I'm doing this because I want to play pierce myself, and because I feel positively about it? Or am I just starting the old habit of abusing my body again? Especially since I've been completely stressed out and depressed lately. Was it just an easy way out of that? Is it just a part of the continuum with the old bad habits I had somewhat picked up again (drinking, smoking, drugs)? Some of my behaviour had been erratic to say the least, like getting into a car whose driver was drunk to smoke a bong in the middle of the woods. Was I feeling suicidal again?

Those were the silly things I kept asking myself. I knew that I wasn't trying to just hurt myself. I knew that I didn't feel suicidal, I hadn't felt like that for years. But somehow it just reminded me of the old situations I used to be in. These were a bigger obstacle than the 20g needles. After all, I had had over twice as big needles put through me. And that night, I felt I needed to do it now or never. I was done with my excuses.

In the end the needle was an easy thing. I pushed it through slowly, waiting for the pain to set in. It didn't. I just saw the needle slide gently through my soft skin. It slid easily between the skin and the muscle, and when I pointed it up a bit it came through the skin on the other side as easily as it had went in. That simple? A huge relief set over me, and I felt a tiny bit light headed simply because it didn't hurt (and because I hadn't eaten in maybe nine hours). In a way I would have expected something that was far worse. At the same time I was a bit disappointed though just because it didn't hurt.

So I decided to put another one through right next to the first one. It went in almost as painlessly as the first one, but a bit after middle way through I could feel it puncture something more solid. It felt like a vein being punctured, kind of like when they take blood samples. This wasn't a pleasant feeling to say the least, and I almost felt like pulling the needle out instead of pushing it through. While I was happy with the pain reaction this caused, I wasn't happy thinking about a needle going through a vein on my forearm. This all flowed through in my thoughs in what must've been half a second, and after that, feeling determined, I just pushed it through with an insane feeling of having achieved something. However I hadn't eaten and it was past 5 A.M. after staying awake for the night, and whilst it didn't feel bad I figured it'd be better to play it safe than sorry. If I'd faint there would be nobody around to do anything about it. As I had already done what I wa nted to do with this, I decided to give it a rest.

So I sat there for a while staring at those two needles on my forearm. The skin right next to the needles was swelling up a bit. I was fascinated by the sight. So I decided to take a few quick webcam shots of it... And so I did. After that looking at the swelling I decided it was the time to take the needles out. I did. With the first one the entry hole bled a little. With the second one I had indeed apparently punctured a smallish vein. Immediately when I took it out I got blood running down my arm. That was the most gratifying part of the experience for me, somehow. I watched in fascination as the blood flowed down my arm without getting sick, only getting slight flashes of the last time blood ran down my arm like that. I looked at the scars left from razors, needles, whatever sharp I got to scratch my skin with when I was younger, and smiled. The new blood washed the old sins away.

I took a couple of more pictures of the blood, and after marvelling at it until the blood was dry I went to the bathroom and soaked the blood off my arm with mild antiseptics. I came back, and noticed a bit of blood on the floor right next to the chair. I wiped it off. I edited and uploaded the pictures I had taken, and after that went to bed. I kept trying to stare at the needle holes even if it was almost too dark to see them. My first play piercing experience had been a very careful one, but it had also indeed been a successful one. I was proud of myself, and it took a while to fall asleep, thinking about future play piercing projects.