capsaicin

This year the chilli plants in my garden seem to be thriving. I have more hot peppers than I know what to do with. I use them in my cooking whenever I can (I love spicy food) but even then, my plants were getting bowed down with unpicked chillies, and I was worried that they'd shrivel up and lose their freshness. So I decided to have a go at making chilli oil.

Life has been a bit of a rollercoaster lately, and between one thing and another I've not had much free time at home. At the weekend, I ended up with a window of free time waiting for my friend to pick me up in the car. After watering my plants I picked the ripest tomatoes, and then decided I had time to harvest my jalapeno peppers and turn them into chilli oil.

The biggest job was chopping and deseeding them. I kept some seeds to add heat to the oil, but removed the pith at the centre of each pepper and separated about half the seeds for storing and planting next year. I'd sterilised my jars and was just getting ready to heat the oil when my friend phoned to tell me he'd be there in a sec. "Do you want to come in for a cup of tea while I finish what I'm doing?" I asked. No, sorry - he had to dash.

So I hastily threw the overnight things I needed in my bag, put the chopped chillies and seeds in separate sandwich bags in the fridge, sealed the sterilised jars and ran out of the door. I'd just have to finish making the oil when I got home the next day. I was in such a hurry that I left my computer switched on.

It wasn't until I was in the car that I discovered my folly: I had forgotten to wash my hands. As we crawled through London traffic I realised my fingertips were covered in capsaicin. Ten minutes into a half-hour drive my hands were starting to feel extremely interesting. I tried wiping them on my jeans, but that didn't help. Then I tried licking my fingertips before wiping them, but that just made my lips and tongue start burning. I amused myself for a little while giving myself capsaicin lipstick, but transferring the chemical to my mouth didn't lessen the pain in my hands - it just spread it around more. My friend laughed at me as I alternately sucked and blew on my fingers, but until we reached his place there was nothing else to be done.

It was simultaneously hilarious and deeply uncomfortable. The burn didn't disappear for hours. As soon as we parked the car I leapt inside and washed my hands thoroughly with liquid soap. That helped a little, but then I had to wash my hair, and the hot water re-activated the toxin until the sting was worse than ever. I ended up sitting next to a saucer of milk and dabbling my fingers in it. I was astonished by how long the sensation lasted.

Of course, from the first moment my fingers started burning, my mind instantly leapt to the kinky implications of the sensation. I've read about using capsaicin as a spanking tool on Thomas' Spanking Exploits, who has written a tutorial on the subject as well as numerous descriptions of scenes and punishments employing the technique.

I think that having capsaicin applied to my bottom would probably be less unpleasant (or at least, more interesting) than having it stuck to my fingers. Even so, it's definitely not something I want. The idea of having something caustic rubbed into punished flesh is horrid, horrid, horrid - reminiscent of Victorian schoolteachers who applied lemon juice to the thighs of their pupils after leaving welts with a ruler, or medieval torturers rubbing salt or vinegar into wounds. Horrid - and yet compelling. I think if I ever played with capsaicin I'd prefer it to be in the type of roleplay where my tormentor is brutal and unfair, and I'm a hapless victim. It's not the kind of punishment I'd ever want to feel like I'd deserved. Although if I was threatened with it as a punishment, it might be a very effective deterrant!

Having said that, during that painful car journey I did find the burn in my hands easier to bear by mentally transferring it to my bottom. So perhaps the idea has erotic potential after all...