I’m asked quite regularly what donating actually feels like. Vamps have asked me this, prospective donors have asked me this as well, as have interested outsiders. Even amongst donors we ask each other this, most recently in a post on blackswanhaven. One thing is sure: it is very difficult to describe this feeling. What words can you use to describe something which is so out of the ordinary? This is an attempt at such a description.

Perhaps it’s easiest to say what it isn’t: it isn’t painful, in particular when i’m relaxed and comfortable. There’s a slight pain at the moment of the actual cutting, but that is negligible: there is far more pain in biting into a sour candy or in unfolding from a seat which you’ve been in for an hour or two than in the cutting or in being stuck with a butterfly needle. It follows that it is clearly not masochistic, there’s just no significant pain in it. Heck, i am a masochist, i enjoy and get turned on by receiving pain from a sadist, but donating does nothing for me on that level.

It is also not sexual. There is a certain flush which runs through the body, it’s almost certain that my blood-vessels dilate slightly, which also happens in sexual encounters, but that’s where the similarity ends. There is no arousal, no getting turned on, no rising waves of pleasure. There is certainly no climax and orgasm, and personally i find attempts to describe the experience as “orgasmic” to be fairly ludicrous. Though here i have to admit that i’ve wondered what might happen if i got to donate larger amounts. Last year i sometimes donated psi in such amounts that i was left twitching and shivering, and i wonder what would happen if a sang could just drink from me until they are truly sated. But that would be a risky experiment at best, and when i donate psi these days it is never to that extreme.

So what is it like? I feel a little bit nervous, a little bit excited. Asking “do you want to feed today?” is always a little nerve-racking. Is it not presumptuous to ask like that? Is it not embarrassing that i desire it so much? There’s the annoying details, disinfecting (if the vamp insists – their lips and tongue and saliva will be all over the wound in a minute, disinfecting the skin is slightly useless), preparing blades, bandaging (though usually i prefer to have fresh cuts uncovered, able to breathe). When all is prepared, finding a position which is comfortable for both. I like to be able to watch as they cut, and to be able to see them as they drink, but that is not really necessary.

The cutting is, as i’ve said, pretty much painless. My blood wells out, and both the vampire and i are transfixed. Then they move forwards, their lips touch my skin, their tongue dips into the blood, licks, they start drinking. And that is when it happens, that feeling which i find so difficult to describe, the thing which is unique to donoring, the thing which i love so much about it. There is a pull, like somebody gently tugging on a handful of hair, but that pull goes right through my body. It draws me, i loosen up, there is a kind of shift, the resistance goes, and i’m being drawn into the vamp. I’m drunk, not from the outside, but from the inside.

But, this is another difficult part, this feeling is not physical. It might just be a psychological effect, but i don’t really believe that. This sensation is something on the same level as the psi-energy which the psi-vamps draw. And i have no adequate words to describe it, to describe what it feels like as it is drawn from me. A light golden tickle, a soft sparkling mist, a coruscation of different touches, each experienced lightly, as my brain tries to translate the non-physical experience into something physical which it can understand. It is gentle and fills me with wonder.

Then, all to soon, it is over. As the vampire stops feeding, as this draw ends, i kind of sink into myself. My mind is clear, calm, at peace. If i can, i like to just curl up where i am. I like to be huggled, kept warm, cradled. This is, i think, the moment when i feel most vulnerable, when i need to put myself back together, turn my inside the right way out. But it is also the most intimate, the most relaxed. I can talk of anything with the vamp, floating on a cloud of gentle relaxed comfort.

But then, see, that is how it feels for me. For other donors it will surely feel different, and how it feels for me has also evolved over time and with experience. And this is also only a best effort, the description feels inadequate at best, misleading at worst. But it’s all i can manage tonight.

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