Cigar On The Porch

Oh, man.  The last time we have done any serious ash tray training was probably back in June.  It’s not that it hasn’t been on our minds or anything, because we’ve been talking about it a lot, but, I’ve been too sick to really work with Master Pravus on ash tray training until maybe a month ago, and then there was so much going on that we didn’t have time to do it.  A few nights ago we came home from BINGO, and there was about an hour before bed.  Master Pravus decided that he wanted to have a cigar with me on the porch.  I had tweaked my knee (really not a big deal) a few days ago, so he told me to bring a chair to sit on because he didn’t want me to kneel for another day or two while it healed.

I brought my chair and I sat down.  Master even put his jacket on me too as it was cold outside.  I sat with my hands out in front of me the way he showed me to do so a few months ago.  We chatted a bit about random things while he smoked his cigar.  It was dark outside, but a clear night.

After a while, he had enough ash to flick into my open hand.  I put my hands still and I waited, a bit jumpy.  Before he even tapped the cigar, I jumped a little and Master could tell I was panicking.  He told me to take a few seconds, relax and take some deep breaths.  I did.  He tried to flick the ash into my hands, but it wasn’t quite ready yet.  I jumped again.  I don’t know why, but I was having a really hard time sitting still.  The cigar was a really big one, and it was kind of threatening looking at it.  Master Pravus tried a third time to tap the ash into my hands, and this time, I jumped again, despite my best efforts and I dropped the ash he had flicked off the edge of his cigar.

We went in the house and I told Master I felt absolutely awful about failing.  We had not done any cigar or cigarette play in a while, and I also had never, ever dropped the ash.  He admitted that he thought there were a bunch of reasons why tonight didn’t go well.

• I was amped up on caffeine
• He hadn’t had me kneel, or sitting on the ground, and he thought that was fucking with my headspace
• We hadn’t done any ashtray practice in a long while and when we did it before he had started at cigarettes and worked our way up to cigars so that I was less scared
• It had just been too long

Master Pravus told me not to feel awful, because sometimes these things happen.  He told me he’ll start me off with a cigarette again and we’ll work our way back up.  It had been about nine months after all.  The thing which hurts the most is that I just fucking panicked.  We have done this many times before, and I have never, ever dropped the ash even if I did flinch a little bit in the beginning.  Master Pravus is right though, there were a number of things likely affecting this particular run.  I’m glad he won’t give up on me.  I want to make him proud and I can’t wait until he tries with me again.