When Breath Play Goes Wrong
Ever since I can remember, I have loved the feel of a hand around my neck. I’ve always hated the feel of a hand on the back of my neck, but wrap a hand around the front, and I’m a goner. It’s not even a dominance thing anymore - it’s more like a controlled sense of comfort.
There was a time when I thought a hand around my neck might be enough to sustain several of my… riskier preferences. Of course, that’s never been true for me, and there must always be more. It’s not safe, and I’m not going to pretend I’ve always been sane about this or indeed about most of my kinks. I’m not a breath player in my mind; it’s that throbbing sound in your ears as someone restricts the bloodflow, and the underlying sense of if they don’t let go, I might never wake up.
The thing is, a lot of emerging kinksters will assume that breathplay is all about choking, and you instantly run into the issue of esophageal pressure and windpipe restriction, and the horrific coughing fits that make you sound like you’ve had a forty-a-day habit since birth. It can put people off pretty quickly, because there’s only a handful of times you want to be all snot, spit, and tears before you’ve even got started. But blood restriction? That’s a whole different ball game, and it’s an addiction. When it goes right, it’s about the only thing that can get me off - autoasphyxia works in a pinch, too.
But what about when it goes wrong?
I’d been with my partner for a few years, and we’d tried a few different things in this direction or that. He wasn’t openly kinky when we met, and it took a lot of talking and reflecting and patience to explore some of my more out-there preferences. Eventually, we both found a mutually enjoyable space in breathplay that allowed us both to feel safe and trusting. He knew I’d let it go on too long if unchecked, and I knew he’d relent before it reached the point I wanted it to.
And so, one very ordinary day, my partner arrived at my house ready for dinner and a quiet night in. We chatted and caught up as normal, and he started to change into his more comfortable attire to settle in for the evening. As he was doing so, I said something or other with a hint of sass, as one does. He gave me the look that I love most, and stepped toward me with his belt in his hand.
I didn’t ever feel the belt touch my neck.
Have you ever seen one of those movie scenes where an explosion goes off, and the sound is muted and distorted, and there’s a slow-motion sense of recovery? That's what I felt.
Crumpled on the floor, with only a high-pitched whistle in my ears, I could see him shouting at me, distress evident in his expression, shaking my shoulder to focus me, and all I could think was ‘My house just exploded. A bomb just exploded in my house.’ I couldn’t make out what he was saying, only that whatever it was was clearly upsetting him.
Feeling started to seep back into my limbs; excessive pain in my leg - which I realised was folded at an ungodly angle beneath me - pain in my ankle, pain in my hips, my ass, and complete numbness everywhere else. I was cold. So very cold. I still couldn’t hear anything, and my vision felt like I was looking through fog.
That must have been the dust from the rubble, right?
But why wasn’t he hurt? Did we need to get out? Was the house safe? It looked okay; glancing around, I couldn’t even see any damage.
Slowly, sound started to creep back in through the muffled ringing.
Could I hear him? I wasn’t sure. Did that mean I wasn’t ok? I was looking at his familiar face, but he sounded… wrong. Like a comedic car horn making the syllables, but his face spelling out a sense of urgency. I was looking at him, but I couldn’t know for sure I was seeing him.
Amy!
Amy, are you ok?
Can you hear me?
And then everything returned to normal almost as quickly. The ringing dissolved into the recognisable timbre of his voice, and I could feel his warm hands on my shoulders like a comfort against the pain in my lower half.
What happened?
My voice was quiet, almost child-like, and the relief in his face when I finally responded made my heart constrict. What had I done to him to make him so deathly pale?
As it turned out, the slightest hint of pressure in just the right place had caused me to instantly pass out. He’d barely touched me when I dropped, unceremoniously folding to the floor like an accordion. I’d blacked out for only seconds, if even that, and the recovery had taken only maybe double that, but for both of us, it felt like an eternity.
His terror at thinking he’d harmed me eventually abated, but the entire evening he kept apologising, and half laughing when I recounted what it felt like for me. The “Wah wah wahhh” as he shouted, the absolute certainty I had that my house had exploded. It took him a long time and a lot of reassurance to be able to look at the experience and laugh. It took even longer for us to approach breathplay with confidence.
It’s never happened since, and I like to think there’s no lasting damage - though it would explain a lot about my terrible short-term memory. While we can laugh about it now, I’m always surprised that I wasn’t the one afraid, even during the coming-to. I was completely separate from myself. Even the limp I had from injuring my leg, and the wonderful bruise on my posterior felt like it wasn’t really my experience.
Believe me, this is not the worst that breath play can go, and perhaps I’ve been lucky in that sense, but nobody is lucky forever. A lot more could have gone wrong in those moments that were too short to even react - I could have broken my leg, or hit my head, or not regained consciousness - I could have suffered hypoxia or epilepsy, I could have swallowed my tongue. Mere moments, barely even a tick of the second hand, and my whole life could have changed drastically, and it could have taken him down with me.
Breathplay might be a rush, but it’s not safe. A lot can go wrong between this breath and the next.
About the Author: DiavalDiablo is a mental auralist with a love of sharp things, including wit, and is considered an "antisocial butterfly".
