The mornin' sun is shinin' like a red rubber ball

Every opportunity i had to gather loose nickels and dimes, i took. A cousin taught me the trick of checking the coin return slot of pay phones for overlooked booty. My father instructed me on walking with my eyes trained to the sidewalk so as not to miss the orphaned pieces of silver currency. Everywhere i turned, an opportunity for treasure hunting arose. But it wasn't these doubloons i sought, rather what i could turn them into. Rubber balls.

Stationed at the entrance to every grocery store sat a formation of coin-operated vending machines ready to convert my foraging into bouncing grenades (i remember when they introduced the ultra-industrial grade bouncing material). These i would then, in an instant that seemed to last shorter than the time it took to crank the coin through the machine, fling at some unknowing third grade girl whose unfortunate reward had been my recent unabiding and antagonizing attention. The toy would fall into the hands of the authorities, and i would be made to wonder how i might ever get it back.

I remember the first time i noticed the image of silencing a female. It came from a Superman cartoon where Lois had bungled her way into the baddies lair, yet again, only to be helplessly bound at the ankles and wrists. Covering her mouth, the gangsters had wrapped a strip of cloth around her head, pulling it tight between her lips. The word "silencing" is misleading. In fact, it's dishonest. A girl gagged like this is most certainly not quiet. In fact, she becomes a rather interactive stimulant with her abductor, pleading with ever more vigor through the material stuffed between her teeth. Her muffled desperation, a signifier that her fate is out of her hands, immediately ignited a furnace inside of me.

She may be offering all of the riches in the world, a song that soothes the hardest of souls, the secrets to Shangri-La, it doesn't matter. Her attempts at persuading her captor are thwarted. Her voice has been altered, like the liberty of her body - taken completely from her. She can only communicate in moans, contorted eyebrows, violent head shakes, wildly enlarged eyes. Even at a young age, i recognized the excitement this polemic offered, and saw her ministrations as a root cause for arousal.

I experienced a harmonious symbiosis while watching the "gimp" scene in Pulp Fiction. It was my initial foray into the use of my long lost toy as a gagging implement, which had i not had my many loyal years with the rubber ball i may not have emerged unscathed from the experience. Later, when i saw a shiny red rubber orb pinched between the voluptuous lips of a gorgeous female bondage model, i felt a punch to the stomach and head of massive, massive desire that capitalized on my youthful obsession. I was hooked. I've said this in many different ways before, but this image fulfilled an appetite i didn't even know existed.

Singlehandedly, i find the gag to be the most direct and dramatic way to begin a scene. Removing the girl of the ability to speak is an incredibly breathtaking experience, but also risky. Safewords are short circuited, some other form of communication (hand signal, blink code, etc.) must be employed. Also, long term dispatch of a ballgag leads to severe cramping of the jaw, which surprised me at first, but i have come to learn that this area of the body is one of the most tender and sensitive (and least forgiving) that those who engage in SM utilize.

I prefer scenes wherein the girl opens her mouth in anticipation of the gag, or better, gags herself, as opposed to forcibly being shoved in. Watching as she accepts the intruder, and then the straps get pulled behind her head and buckled, i am witnessing a compounded image of the girl's submission. She's transforming her face into a symbol of one whose rights are slowly being stripped from her. Undeniably, I regard this look as a thing of beauty, even more so as a string of saliva drips from her oral cavity, despite its twisted and grotesque characteristics.

I can't wait for the next opportunity to impede.