My First Leather Hood
I sat down on a wooden stool in front of a mirror while Carey stood beside me, loosening the leather lacing and opening up the back of the hood. As he told me what a great piece it was, my attention settled on his hands moving expertly over the leather, hands that had made countless leather strap-on harnesses for queer freaks, kinksters, and porn stars. I had bought a purple one from his Prince series after the musician passed away (you’ll find harnesses like Bowie, Missy, and Janelle also on his site) and had gone in to have it adjusted to fit my small hips. This time I was visiting to try on a coveted sensory deprivation hood. He moved behind me and began to pull the hood down over my face. An anxiety started to build but I quickly re-calibrated my breathing, finding and hanging onto, my calm. Curious about the brand new leather smell flooding my nasal pathways and intoxicating my brain, curious about the total darkness I was now swathed in, the muting of sounds around me, I sat and breathed and experienced this soon-to-be-mine leather hood.
The first hood I ever bought was from Aslan Leather, from cash I made sex working. It was also the first heavy piece of equipment I bought and I knew that hoods were going to play a major part in my kink life and practice. I’ve played with that hood for two decades both personally at queer kink parties, in a long-term switch relationship, and also in many sessions as a pro. I recently introduced it to someone cautious about deep sensory deprivation and as my hands journeyed over the contours of the leather, hot memories returned to me. The way I’ve laced and unlaced it so many times.
How once I removed it from the face of a play partner and she growled, forcing her face back into it’s darkness, an animalistic grunt flaring up from deep inside of her. How it sounds when you’re inside it, how you can hear the laces amplified as they’re threaded through the metal eyes. How nails sound lightly pulled across the padded ear area. How darkness is both terrifyingly small and vast as your secondary senses wake the fuck up, alert. How it can make you feel like an animal, wild and unseeing, unleashed at night, disoriented and uninhibited.
How calm it can also be, especially when I lace the rest of the body into a sleepsack, closing extraneous space by tightening the laces, strapped down tighter to my bondage table with belts or with rope. A cocoon; primordial and anonymous.