"The word for Saturday is AWESOME!!" (High Protocol Femdom Tea Party)

this post is for
nightobeisance
who was with us in spirit

The Predicament "Tableau Vivant"

Last Saturday was MzAntonina's and my formal Femdom Tea Party. You can read about our preparations here and here. You can also read about the sub's side of things in nickzwa's post "A High Protocol FemDom Tea Party From The Eyes Of A slave" (also on this Fetlife thread) in which he writes:

"my personalized copy of the house rules and the protocols i must obey arrives. The document tells me that i will follow each protocol or i will be punished. It explains that my Owner has agreed to everything in the document, the protocols have been negotiated and my limits have been taken into consideration. The protocols demand my full attention and my desire to please demands that i be perfect. im even more nervous now but i have the chance to serve Ma'am and the other Ladies in attendance...

"All that is left to do is prepare. i must practice the slave positions set out in the protocols and remember the rules. i study the document like my life depended on it. i practice standing at attention as i relax in the shower, i practice kneeling as i tie my shoe. im ready, i know i am, i just need to relax now.."

So we'd got the subs in the right mindset, at least!

Sydney had been wild and wet during the week, but the Gods smiled on us and Saturday was dry and sunny, if not exactly warm.

Our Guests were due at "1pm sharp", and guests with subs serving at "12.30 sharp". MzAntonina had spent the morning preparing amazing food, with the help of her partner MacTheKnife and desertstorm, who we asked to attend a little earlier. Under our high protocol system desertstorm became the property of MzAntonina and myself for the day as his Mistress had unfortunately been unable to attend. It was great to see him. It's always nice to borrow him for an event :)

Daddy_K and her boy wolve also arrived early, as they were bringing additional silverware. They both looked stunning, Daddy_K in a great uniform, wolve in formal butler gear - we'd given owners the option of dressing their subs either as maids or butlers, as long as the outfit was black and white, to keep with the Victorian theme.

We'd asked our guests to make an effort, clothing wise. We were definitely off to a great start. MzAntonina wore an amazing Victorian ball gown with royal blue corset and intricate necklace:


I wore a sort of riding Mistress outfit - a Gallery Serpentine corset and jacket over jodhpurs, a YSL white dress shirt and latex riding boots, with a scarlet Fortuny neck scarf. I don't have any photos from the tea party, but I was wearing the same outfit at a play party later, where this photo was taken:


Soon after our other guests with subs arrived: MistressMeg_au and her boy nickzwa, and then Mistress_Tara, with slavegirl_M. I greeted everyone at the door, took the guests to the living room to meet MzAntonina and took the subs to the changing room. nickzwa later wrote:

"We arrive. The Head Mistress Greets Ma'am and myself at the door, Her outfit is stunning and i start to believe we have traveled back in time...

"She shows us inside and shows me where i can change while She invites Ma'am to relax. i am told that i am not on high protocol yet. i may speak freely and join conversation. i am showed the kitchen and the sitting room, where we will be serving the Ladies. i look at the other slaves already busy in the kitchen and breathe a sigh of relief, they all look as nervous as i feel!"

As nickzwa says, we let everyone know the protocols were not in force, and everyone was able to mingle and share a glass of champagne while the subs changed and the other guests arrived. Sol chauffeured Mistress Velvet (from Melbourne) and Ms_Neta (who had flown up from Hobart) over from their B&B. Then MissLis (from Canberra) arrived, and finally Madam Lily, who I'd met through my Fetlife Northern NSW munch group. See what I mean about guests coming from everywhere!

We'd kept the group small due to the venue size .... and to be honest I find these groups work better with a smaller number anyway. We had a ratio of six servers to nine guests (including MzAntonina and myself) and that works quite well.

Suddenly sol called me into the subs' changing room. Oh no! One of his garter belt bits had snapped. While I searched for some safety pins and attached his stocking via them, slavegirl_M mentioned very politely she was somewhat nervous. Aware that nickzwa was also hanging on my answer, I reassured M and said that if it was any comfort half the guests were nervous too!

A little later I said to the servers in the kitchen "look, this is your last moment before the protocols come down ... are you sure you can identify each guest by their preferred name or title?". We went through the list of names and titles typed in large letters on the fridge. MzAntonina and I had upped the ante of the "always use the name of each guest" protocol by throwing a couple of tricky names out. For example, Daddy_K was to be addressed as Sir, and one of the other guests preferred Madam to Mistress.

I quickly scribbled some extra identification points on the list. What I didn't realize was that I made a mistake myself. Two guests I identified by their hats .... one I wrote was wearing a feathered hat with a veil (worn by Mistress Velvet), the other was a rose colored hat worn by Madam Lily. What I didn't realize until later was that Madam Lily's hat (seen below) also had a feather!


When all the servers were ready MzAntonina briefed them on the final service while I told the guests a little about the background of the event, the protocols themselves, and a little about the program.

I spoke a bit about ClubFEM - NSW's inaugural tea party in Dec 2009 (hosted by MissLis, who was present) and then about the ClubFEM - NSW tea party held exactly a year ago. I told how MsGawjusRedhead and I had discussed having an annual event to celebrate the continuing health of all the guests (as several guests had or were facing a battle with cancer), how we had lost MsGawjusRedhead but that it had been important to her that we continue, especially this year to honor the guest who had won her own battle that year and also recently become engaged. As Head Mistress of ClubFEM - NSW I also acknowledged that we had discarded ClubFEM's "no female subs" rule for this event to allow friends and family of MsGawjusRedhead to attend.

I then explained how each of the servers' owners had taken part in the creation of the protocols that were to be enforced during the tea party, how we'd discussed each sub's limits and safewords with their owners, along with (as we knew protocol infractions would be common) various levels of personalized punishment. We gave all our guests tiny note pads, to list those protocol infractions:


I reminded guests that they would need to dismiss each server after a service, and then ran through the program: the serving of tea, savories, sweet pastries etc, more tea, then games and finally punishments before the subs joined us on the floor for aftercare and a debrief.

Before imposing the protocols we brought the servers out for a public inspection. nickzwa later wrote:

"One of our Hostesses was busy organizing the slaves, the other was attending to the guests. it seemed to be all planed out and issues were resolved before they became issues.

"The slaves were ordered to come out to the sitting room and stand for inspection. i stood at attention while each slave was inspected. It was a group effort. Each slave had to pass inspection from every Lady in the room. One slave was punished because he (desertstorm) had a loose thread on his pretty sock, another (wolve) because her bow tie was not straight! High protocol starts with how one presents themselves, nothing but perfection passed inspection"

Sol passed but only because I had explained the wardrobe malfunction!

Service then began. Here's nickzwa again:

"Thought the afternoon i served food and drinks to the Ladies. When i was not serving i was to be standing at attention against the wall with the other slaves. my arms crossed behind my back, my head straight, my eyes down at 45 degrees.

"This was the first time i had been on such strict protocol. i was not allowed to make eye contact with anyone and had to maintain the correct gaze at all times. i stood at attention for long periods of time. my muscles started to ache from being in a constantly stressed position and my vision started to go out of focus as i concentrated on not moving my eyeballs. i found subspace like this. things started to become a blur and time stood still. i could hear the Ladies talking, joking, laughing and telling stories but i was not part of that. When i served i had to do so in the correct way. i had to kneel gracefully and not interrupt the Guests. i was not permitted to speak unless i was offering service or unless i was directly engaged by a Lady"

Here's nickzwa offering service to MistressVelvet:


And desertstorm serving Ms_Neta:


Conversation continued to flow amongst the guests, and there was constant laughter. This was something nickzwa picked up as well:

"i think that was what i wanted most of all for the day. i wanted Ma'am and the other Ladies to have a wonderful time and i felt really good when i saw that They were. i think that was the most important thing to me, and it was what gave me my focus. i had done [well] because everyone was having fun, i felt proud because ... i could feel Ma'am smiling all day and i felt like i had pleased Ma'am because She and the other Ladies had a wonderful day..."

First guests enjoyed MzAntonina's and the servers' savory items: tiny bagels with smoked salmon, tiny chicken and beef pies, just out of the oven savory scones with butter ....

Then scones with peach jam and cream arrived, followed by tiny cupcakes (including gluten free ones for Daddy_K, they were so good) and strawberries dipped in varied types of chocolate:


Then more tea, just before the more formal entertainment part of the afternoon began. We had posted in our invitations that:

"The afternoon will also include:

- Fiendish Games (including some MsGawjusRedhead was very fond of) and Punishments
- Readings of Victorian Pornography
- Lessons in Birching
- Art Lessons (How to Draw A Naked Sub)

The last two were the ones guests had shown most interest in, so our first formal entertainment was a lesson in drawing for our guests. But what subject would echo our Victorian theme? And how could we involve all the servers?

MzAntonina and I had planned a "tableau vivant". Here's Wiki:

"Tableau vivant is French for "living picture." The term describes a striking group of suitably costumed actors or artist's models, carefully posed ... Throughout the duration of the display, the people shown do not speak or move...

"The most recent hey-day of the tableau vivant was the 19th century with virtually nude tableaux vivants or "poses plastiques" providing a form of erotic entertainment"

See where we are going with this?! And our theme? We obviously needed something "historical", so we decided on "The Rape of the Sabine Women":

The Rape of the Sabine Women by Giambologna,
in the Loggia dei Lanzi in Florence.

Wiki notes that:

"it provided a subject for Renaissance and post-Renaissance works of art that combined a suitably inspiring example of the hardihood and courage of ancient Romans with the opportunity to depict multiple figures, including heroically semi-nude figures, in intensely passionate struggle"

So:

• "multiple figures" ... tick

• "semi nude figures" ... tick

• " intensely passionate struggle" ... sure, *evil grin* we could do that :)

As we had Mistress Tara's slavegirl_M present among the servers, we placed her as the center piece, with MacTheKnife and nickzwa at her feet. Below MzAntonina encourages the guests for ideas:


nickzwa later wrote:

"i was not exactly sure what was happening. the art project was being made 2 meters away from me but i was not allowed to move my head to look. A slave girl was used as the center piece, the woman being raped. around her other slaves were being arranged.

"i was called forward. The Ladies decided that i should be in front of the center piece on all fours. without breaking my eye contact restrictions i knelt and put my hands on the floor. i was maneuvered a little bit and then another slave was told to take a pose. he or she, i do not know was told to stand with 1 foot on my back. i am not sure but i think there was another slave standing on my back as well"

He's right, but first wolve is directed to stand behind slavegirl_M. The guests can't express how to the pose right for a few moments, but suddenly wolve gets inspired and goes for the throat:


All the guests collapsed with laughter...

"Help, help", frantically signals slavegirl_M, while desperately trying not to accidentally meet the gaze of any guests and incur a punishment:


Desertstorm now joins the group, one foot on nickzwa, while MzAntonina directs his hand onto slavegirl_M's other breast:


MzAntonina positions their hands cupping the breasts... but then MistressTara helpfully says "she has such big nipples, you should hold them!" so MzAntonina repositions the servers' hands:


Here's the final "Rape of the Sabine women" tableau, featuring wolve, desertstorm, slavegirl_M, nickzwa and MacTheKnife:


nickzwa writes:

"The ladies were to sketch us. i remember the Owner of the center piece yelling at her because her arm moved. The offending arm had to be returned to its correct position immediately because it made the drawing wrong!..

"This was very serious! i could not laugh, to do so would destabilize the tableau and i would be in so much trouble!. It was bad enough that there was someone walking around with a electrical zapping toy trying to make the subbies move..."

That was me, of course :)

As our guests drew, I walked about the tableau with Mistress Tara's subzapper. I first heard of this toy after sol attended MistressTara's "Sadistic play" workshop at The Gathering. I couldn't attend because I was moderating another workshop but sol was full of talk / possibilities re MistressTara's fiendish creation. I'd asked MistressTara to bring it today and the guests had already enjoyed seeing it used on solipsist and wolve.

Now, as I moved quietly around the tableau, none of the subs knew where I'd apply it, and the whole tableau rocked away from me as I walked around and around. Hmmm. How to strike, to cause the most damage. I looked down. Of course! After silently conferring with Mistress Meg I zapped nickzwa on the backside. He flinched and the whole tableau shook. He later wrote:

"Whenever a subbie was zapped i felt the pressure shift on my back. my arms were growing tired and i started to drop lower because the weight on by back kept flinching and jumping and whimpering. i felt a sudden zap on my arse and then another! i felt the entire sculpture move. i was zapped again but i did not flinch ... Then i was told to reposition myself properly. i had lowered myself too much!. i pushed on my arms again and made my back level. it was hard being a table"

I was really delighted to read later that nickzwa enjoyed the tableau and found "it was hard being a table". In fact, nickzwa had been placed in that position at the bottom of the tableau for a very important reason - he had mentioned a particular objectification fantasy in his ClubFEM - NSW server's questionnaire, so I had discussed with his Mistress the possibility of making it come true, although perhaps not in a way nickzwa had visualized!

I was still walking around the tableau looking for good places to strike. "Try the balls" said someone. I could reach nickzwa's .... but "you didn't say WHO's balls" I replied as I inserted the device up the back of desertstorm's skirt. He too flinched and moved forward, and the tableau rocked again.

I moved to the other side. By now I was becoming hyper aware of slavegirl_M's response to my movements. She was breathing fast and flinching away. Now I knew, and her owner Mistress Tara knew, as we'd discussed all this, that the subzapper was only to be used on slavegirl_M for severe punishments. But slavegirlM certainly didn't know that. From her point of view she had a strange dominant roaming around her who may not understand how the toy was usually used. I looked up at Mistress Tara. "The flinching, the scent of fear ... it's intoxicating", I said. She grinned. I touched the underside of M's right arm with a finger tip and the whole tableau nearly toppled...

wolve later wrote:

"This whole scene was just inspired. Fantastic idea! Thank you :D"

while slavegirl _M wrote:

"What a wonderful predicament for me to be in :-) I had a wonderful time. Will we get to see the wonderful artistic hand drawings of this tableau ?"

Absolutely. Our guests each produced a masterpiece, with their 5 minute sketches. However I can't show you all of them because although I took photos of them, I was laughing so hard that most photos are blurred. Here's MistressVelvet's sketch:


And Mistress Tara's:


Mistress Tara very kindly gifted me her drawing so I now have it on the wall at home, to remind me of the day!

We then had a quick birching lesson. I handed out IKEA willow rods and we each created a bundle and tied them with black ribbon, to commemorate MsGawjusRedhead's Black Sash soirees:


We then selected nickzwa as the birching demo bottom. nickzwa wrote of this:

i would hear my name being called and without looking i would follow the voice and either stop and wait for further instruction or complete the task i was given. i had no voice, no will, all that mattered was obeying any direction i was given.

"i was told to stand up against a wall, There was a lesson in birching taking place. The Hostess needed a subject to demonstrate on. i stood in position while The Ladies discussed birching and completed their rods. Ma'am joyfully took a few swings at me with Her new toy and i could hear that She was delighted with it. i was over the moon..."

Here's Mistress Meg trying out her birch rods on nickzwa:


You might wonder why sol was not part of either the tableau or the birching scene. I'd had to send him to bed for a bit, as his back was playing up. He needed some high heels "time out" time. But now it was time for him to return to the tea party, as we wanted to try his birthday cake:


It was a wonderful chocolate birthday cake, covered with silver stars. But my God we were so full! Here desertstorm gives Madam Lily some shoe / foot service while she enjoys her cake:


Our guests were wearing an amazing range of shoes and boots (as well as their stunning corsets and other clothing items) but I think Madam Lily won the Shoe of The Day award .... have a look at her Fet photo of them here:


And then we were really out of time, as everyone had to head home to get ready for Uberplay that evening. We cut out the punishment part so as to have time to thank our wonderful servers:


And have them sit at our feet and enjoy some cake, while we all talked about the afternoon. Don't worry, I've taken home all the notebooks home that the guests wrote their protocol infractions in, and we'll start the next tea party with the punishments left over from the last!

During this final period of aftercare and cake, I took the photo below of Daddy_K and wolve:


I've looked at it a lot since the tea party (in part because they both look so hot) because I feel it sums up everything we were trying to achieve with this event - in this photo, Daddy_K and wolve make D/s look so simple and graceful and right. I wish you could see the extremely contented smile on wolve's face.

Daddy_K later wrote of the tea party:

"thank you to Mz Antonina and Mistress160 for an absolutely wonderfully wicked afternoon (continued into the evening at uber). The company was delightful, the food amazing, the servers exemplary, the entertainment inspired and the venue ... incredible. I met some women I very much look forward to spending more time with and it was, as always, a delight to catch up with those I already knew."

Ms_Neta wrote:

"Mistress 160 and Mz Antonina, I wish to convey my appreciation for all the preparation that went into this Event. The result was outstanding. I thoroughly enjoyed the company, venue, food, conversation and watching the servers doing their utmost not to make mistakes when high protocol commenced.

It was lovely to meet everyone who attended and I look forward to returning next year ... it was an AWESOME afternoon spent in gorgeous company"

While MistressMeg_au posted:

"To MzAntonina and Mistress 160,

"I would not have missed this for the world ! Such glee and laughter from a wonderful group of ladies. The art and games portions were hilarious and the smoothness of operations amazing !! Let's just say this was one of the best run events I have ever been too.

"Being at a high protocol event was a first for me and I cannot stress enough to everyone that is it not as intimidating as you would think. The subs loved it and performed extremely well. Kudos to them for being so very wonderful and willing to achieve the correct headspace needed. This would have been very daunting (especially the inspection that started our afternoon) and they came through with flying colours.

"Ladies, it was amazing. There are not enough words to say how relaxed and free the atmosphere was. To be welcomed into a personal space of such beauty and class really set the tone for the afternoon. It was a group of ladies that could visit, learn, interact and revel in our Dominance. The attention to detail and effort that went into making everyone comfortable and relaxed was outstanding. Our hostesses were on top of things before you could blink an eye.

"Yes there were lessons learnt. Any suggestions were welcomed and the 'aftercare' and feedback at the end of the event gave us lots to talk about and an opportunity to participate in making any future events even more spectacular.

"My word for the day? Awesome. Ok, that is my word for most days but
Saturday was Awesome !!"

Sol said:

"they'll talk about this in the Sydney scene for years!".

LOL. Thanks sol :).

So I think MzAntonina and I did okay with our high protocol tea party. Awesome, indeed....

Thank you:

To our hosts:
MzAntonina and MacTheKnife
for their hospitality and many kindnesses,
for providing such a wonderful venue in their new home,
and for such amazing catering and pampering

To our Guests:
Daddy_K
Ms_ Neta
MissLis
Lily0066
Mistress _Tara
Mistress Velvet
MistressMeg-au

To our wonderful servers:
MacTheKnife
solipsist
desertstorm
wolve
slavegirl_M
nickzwa

To YourMoneyMistress:
for kindly lending us desertstorm :)

To everyone I've quoted,
especially nickzwa who put so
much thought and hard work
into his post
"A High Protocol FemDom Tea Party From The Eyes Of A slave"

and MistressMeg-au
for the quote that inspired the title of this post

Photos:
Ms160
(permissions obtained from all in the photos)
(I think ... LOL ... I've been a bit stressed with sol's
finishing his thesis so please, if I've used a photo that
includes someone without asking your permission,
forgive me and drop me a line!)