Latex fetish bondage, fucking the cum out of him with dildos, & edging -An October Visit to Silver (Part II)

Part 2 of my trip to further claim Silver, body, mind, heart and soul. If you are looking for part 1 you can find it here.

He bought the latex sleep sack off etsy to celebrate his promotion. It’s one of those things that only exist in the realm of perverse desires and has no practical use, neck to toe swaddling, sleeves inside to hold the victim even more immobile. Etsy is a wonderland of bespoke sex toys, both as a sole shop front for many small fetish ateliers, and a never ending fetish fair artisan’s alley where you can browse established makers together and make comparisons.

The sleep sack was fairly cooperative to wrangle, thinner latex that didn’t fight too much to get him in- if I were honest he could probably have sized down, but it’s a good thing to have a bit of stretch. And hey, my lithe man is in a bulk stage of putting muscle back after covid closures carved him down into non-gym access size. It certainly was tight enough to do its job making him feel restrained. 

This was only one of several purchases- he also got me the most lovely underbust corset and pencil skirt combination from libidex and an experimental pair of stockings by the same maker (and gloves, which I got distracted and forgot to put on). I made him help me into the skirt, which even if covid has given me ten pounds from lack of walking, still squeezes up nicely. Squuuuish. ^_^

If you saw me naked, you would realize I am magnificently formed around a small waist and hips that occupy the size realm of things that influence the tides. Pencil skirts, tight tailoring and things that stretch and cling are the only solution other than custom tailoring to avoid all that vanishing into my clothing. This skirt plays into my strengths completely.

So, you can imagine I occupied that nicely empowered zone of knowing I looked sexy as hell. The stockings, alas, were a miss. In the first place I have 0 idea what possessed the designer to put the seam in the front. The cuban heel reinforcement suffered what a lot of socks do and sat too low on my foot- I’m a large 9 or a small 10 and all socks seem cut for a 7 by default. Meanwhile the top band did not flatter. These were not stay ups, so they wanted to roll down, but also somehow dig into and deliver up the fat of my thighs like whipped cream busting out a piping bag.

That is to say it still looked delicious, it just also looked clumsy.

Only after I was cinched and lovingly glossed was it time to slide him into his own restraints. Feet first, then with those settled, rolled over and arms thrust into those sleeves inside, before the back zipper pulls him from naked man into a sleek grey package.

Yum. Now to play with him…

Read more

Belated Easter Beatings!

A pen ink cartoon of a bondage bunny
I think he just realized where I hid the egg…

Covid19 happened over the course of a period that took out Silver’s Birthday and killed any possible chance of seeing him over the Easter long weekend. What was supposed to be a femdom romp about his apartment became yearning over webcam.

I had hoped to hide his orgasm in the form of an egg and bind him up in an adorable bunny costume, but that was not to be. And thus, an illustration.

(Yes I know my art is bad! I bought an anatomy book for my birthday, jeeze!)

My Property Fills and Sucks At My Command

He’s bent over the table, the largely featureless black dildo well engulfed into his mouth, base steadied with one hand while the other edges himself at my command. Around his waist, straps further anchor an inflatable plug, sitting with a ring set such around the root of his cock and behind his balls that both are delivered up invitingly.

Silver is American and lives somewhere in awkward, but plausible visit distance from my own base in Vancouver. This was perfectly ok for a weekend long visit, until Covid19 happened.

The border has sealed itself to non-essential travel and it is thus months before we can expect to satisfy our mutual yearnings. A global pandemic doesn’t care for young love, much less the kind that stubbornly won’t call him my boyfriend but uses the L word, and professes to own him.

Pretty much from the word go, or honestly beforehand hand, based on his behaviour, he handed control of his orgasms to me. For Silver this has a distinct psychological effect, taking him from a dry sort of delivery of witticisms and reserved fiestiness to a more open and needy state. Both versions blush easy, but Priapus doesn’t have anything on the eager, thick erections a week or two of nothing but edging gives him.

Covid19 nailed both of us at about the same time, despite being apart long enough to have gotten it from separate sources, and what had supposed to be a little interlude ending in an orgasm at the end of March hit a hiccup where lust wasn’t really something either of us was inclined to feel. Now it has passed through and so a game I had started in mid-March got an extension.

He has dutifully banged out over 10k words in the last short span, the price to be set for consideration for an orgasm. I am happy with him.

I told him that regardless of completion of the goal, on Sunday he would be filled up at both ends and edging – I prefer tasks like this, that help improve my property but also aren’t a chance to fail as much as a chance to succeed. In the meantime, after we cleared our respective cases of Covid19 he has been locked in a cycle of getting turned on by me and edging himself silly.

I test him with sadistic talk, asking what if I didn’t let him come until quarantine was lifted? We don’t know when that is, and the border prevents even the least contact until then, so we are already luridly imagining that intense moment. Until then I am using technology to social distance, amused by my governments explicit suggestions that you can still be together, even apart through video chat.

My remote control ravaging of his body is the patriotic thing to do.

Read more

Silver, Before I Kissed Him

Before the aesthetic of New Years Eve demanded a kiss, we had a first play date.

My first time in your apartment, I have teased you with a simple key necklace through the morning and previous night. I wonder now about my choice to play with you, as you whisk me away after social brunch in your car, but I have always had the ability to make adventures out of even mishaps. If it goes wrong I will laugh later.

It does not go wrong.

The purpose of this is couched light and easy, a bit of beating for me to blow off steam, nice and casual.

Getting to know you this way, you want ritual and you bring out bits of fantasy I didn’t ask for, but do not mind: submissive posing and acting just so. You kneel beside the couch, not on it until I pull you up, like you were a pet someone else house broke to have such good manners. When you do that I briefly imagine what other hands you were under where you learned that, like a third time shelter rescue with an inexplicable fear of orange shirts.

This is not the first time a partner came so pre-set, but I don’t find it as off putting as it had been with him.

I told you to wear a belt I could beat you with. You want to have tea for me, waiting on any little desire that you can please me with. You are more desperate for me to give you my needs than you are for an orgasm.

Meticulous control. You need to perform with a constance, like a shark always swimming forward. I hold a brief bit of intimidation in my head- two perfectionists squaring off, wondering if my skill will be disappointing, and I find the core of control in me, and with it confidence. Men seldom scare me.

I ask you if I should just follow my instincts or take things one step at a time, and you pick the first option. Good.

That’s probably the moment that undoes you, later, when you literally and metaphorically fell for me.

Down, your back on the carpet and I straddle you. I don’t think you have ever been touched that much by a woman. Pressing, seeking, exploring. Your hands are freezing and I put one to my neck and one to the dip of my waist.

I massage you and your back pops like firecrackers on a string. Your nose hovers inches from mine, but I won’t kiss you this time. Your body is mine now, and you have never been an object of this kind of desire before.

You stand in the trance of your own amazement, and although I do beat you, there is a moment that surprises us both where in our place on the floor the caress of my body against yours nestles the shaft of my tall, sleek black boot against your groin.

You press and are lost, rubbing, begging to come. I am a little flabbergasted at how early you move for this and tell you- ok but if you come, there goes your submissive feelings and I am not done beating you up. Was that what you wanted?

The possibility changes your intent, so you prove yourself a liar instead. He who said he was “not really a masochist” is back, bent over his cool granite counter and starting to shiver as my hits take your down yet further. You love this and the pain. You pass a test you didn’t know I set for you. I need you to want it.

I prefer masochists who get hard from my torture. I have never been attracted to the ones who endure just out of service.

And, a surprise: You bought a crop for me to use on you and almost sheepishly suggest it is available. I am perplexed of what to make of this. You are like a cork pushing back up against the water, a buoyant thrust back into my hand.

Normally I toss anyone who tries to back lead out with the brats. But… this is a lot more anticipation of what is incredibly useful, with the reassurance of an optimism you say you don’t understand. I don’t understand it, I am pessimistic and holding my needs and full self with guarded care.

I have a tiny little orgasm grinding and straddling you. So be it, this desire. I want you.

I offer you an orgasm, opening my sheer blouse. My breasts are, I wonder, an allure or just a way to show you another intimacy? There is a language here. 

I see your cock for the first time and you are notably pleased at my declaration of enjoyment, “oh my!”

We have not still kissed and I am sprawling on your carpet while you kneel. I touch myself, mostly those freed breasts. I wonder to your thoughts.

Later you will tell me you shocked yourself, at the electric moment when, earlier, you ground yourself against me, then met my eyes, saw not just my consent but enthusiasm, and from thence you were lost.

This is something incredibly new to you.

Aftercare has a stiffness to it. If we had opened with an elegance where you had knelt and cleaned my boots with all the polish and charm in the world… Here, when you are unsettled and I am still holding you, I find more I approve of, and more of what I need.

We have a simple dinner you buy me. I let you do what I usually won’t let, paying. You want to give and give. When we discussed this when I propositioned you, because of the ridiculous world we live in, although you didn’t ask, past experiences told me to tell you up front I wasn’t a pro dom.

My transportation home is delayed by the wet weather so you take me the three hours drive home, then back. I almost say no, but catch that before it lets me say otherwise. Three hours of pelting rain discussing old sci fi and fantasy. This is probably more open than you have been with anyone in a long time.

I think I like you as a person, at least the parts I have met, or easily sussed out, for all you hide them behind a seamless sheet of smooth granite. But I am still playing wait and see at this time and later months will take things further.

#Service4Pearl: Candidates And Tea Interviews

Outside of a few “oh dear god!” offers, and a few people who were on slightly the wrong page (looking for naked service more so than obedient service) but were not bad for wanting something different, three people who responded to my ad have stuck around enough to consider them as possibles.

I’ll be explicit about my expectations, I am looking for a unicorn scenario- a man or woman I can be friends with who wants as close as exactly what I want without requiring much in the way of compromise, but is also not looking for an intimate relationship. Needless to say there wasn’t much in the way of female identified interest to my ad, but that’s okay. I am happy to look within my social group for a lady who thinks wearing a frilly maid costume is her idea of a good time.

Qualifications That Matter Include:

  • Playful and imaginative
  • Does not sincerely believe in FemSup or “Always On” BDSM, where the Dom really is better the sub.
  • Actually into what I want and not putting up with this to get a dom, any dom
  • Will get along with everyone else (Wildcard, friends)
  • Fits into my surprisingly busy life

I screened people by asking them about their expectations- people who were strongly fixated on the obviously sexual aspects of service were gently dissuaded/politely rejected, while I talked back and forth with people who seemed more on the same page. I was also careful of people who redirected “What do you want?” back to “Whatever Miss wants!”, because contrary to it making them seem extra submissive, it hints that the person isn’t really sure about their needs.

That left me with three guys, listed in no particular order.

Catbus is so named because of a typo, cat for car, giving us a running joke about his favourite means of transportation. He’s the only one I met in person, but he’s very shy. I feel like he’s cool, but anything is going to take him getting a chance to warm up. However he’s a creative type and I bet he’d integrate well into our larger social circle. He is mostly hampered from his BDSM explorations by an evening job that inverts his social life into being a lost morning person.

We met up on a little tea place near McGill, which had the advantage of being open at all hours, tasty and away from either of our residences or work places while easy to find. I had a salted caramel cupcake and a vanilla bourbon rooibos. Numbers were exchanged, though he’s very hard to read because of the aforementioned shyness.

Classic is significantly older, and does not live in Montreal proper. He seems perfectly balanced about it, but is only in town to care for his elderly parents. We may have an issue purely based on scheduling, even before discovering if we have any degree of play compatibility. I’m also not 100% sure he is not in fact married and leaving that detail off the table, a fact that is a problem only in the sense that I don’t want to be up in someone else’s unhealthy dynamic.

Excellent potential to be my own personal Carson, one supposes.

Shoez is a foot fetishist sub, which is not uncommon. He does seem okay with the idea of not putting his mouth on my feet, and might be workable as a boot black boy, sock darner and underfootman (heh) based on how he expresses himself. However he’s very into superfluous capitalizations, so we’ll see if he can stop referring to me as “You”, which doesn’t doesn’t sound respectful to me but like someone’s all “Oh. It’s YOU.” with that sort of careful enunciation that ends with “I said GOOD DAY!”.

We’ll see if he can drop the superfluous fet speak or if it is too engrained in his desires to be purged, and whether this will end with drooly pumps.

Meanwhile of course Gentleman is contemplating setting up some sort of duplex for an upstairs/downstairs kitty maids residence scenario. Would that be living in a cat house or a cat shelter?

 

Femdom Spanking Practice

Wildcard and I have a more or less weekly thing, Punish Tuesdays, set up to make sure we have some sort of anchor for our dynamic. Last Tuesday was spanking practice, a well needed session for me as well as him. He’s been complaining lately that I still have a habit of going from 0 to 100, warm up or not. What better way than a lesson for both of us, lots of practice for me and an extra long hand and belt spanking for him.

I started by having him strip absolutely naked, not even a collar, and lie face down on the bed. I started bare hand, alternating right and left, building up an even blotch of pink. It didn’t take too long to get the area toasty, but rather than switching straight to heavier toys I decided to go for an endurance run.

Of course, naughty boy that he is, Wildcard started humping the blanket under him, all furtive. I don’t think he thinks I noticed him wiggling just a little.

Some times when I spank him, I have him on all fours and reach around to milk his cock with my free hand. I like the sensation of control and how velvety soft he is under my smack-warmed hand. Other time he goes over my lap and I trap his package between my thighs. There’s no hiding when he starts to hump then!

I think I set a record for longest warm up yet, but after I’d maxed out the weight and hit of palm strikes I still wasn’t done abusing his poor bottom and it was time to get some serious swatting practice in on his bare behind. I selected his more supple belt, the thick one without the extra ridge, because although its gentler last play party the main problem I had was the belt twisting during swing.

This time there weren’t any edge strikes, just a merciless rain down on his cheeks. I was feeling extra cruel, so I couldn’t resist lightly striping his thighs as well. Every time I struck, he kicked, but he knew he was helpless to whatever I decided to do. I’m the boss, after all. >:)

We have a rule that I instituted: If you miss, you have to give it another shot. Since Wildcard and I are both of unusually nervous dispositions, it helps to have a re-enforcement to get you to be confident enough to try again when you inevitably do a wrap around strike or pop them somewhere unintentional but tender. A couple of miss-strikes on his tail bone got me thinking and I grabbed a pack of washable markers and started documented the stroke count on his back… and drew a heart shaped pattern on his lower back to identify the nono zone.

I didn’t stop hitting until I was confident that I’d gotten in all the practice I could that day. After his behind was a deep shade of red- but no bruises, shows what a good warm up can do. He squirmed around a lot and then looked at me with big, hopeful eyes. Could he get a reward?

Sweet almond oil is my lube of choice for handling him, but no sooner had I stroked him into a proper erection but he was begging for more. A slim little plug for his extremely tight ass, lubed up and shoved home. Yum. Stuffed and hard, that didn’t feel like enough, so I brought out the hitachi for extra omph. Pressed up against him, I took my time with his cock until he was screaming and swearing when he came. Someone gets quite the naughty mouth when it’s good.

After, he was just sprawled out, totally drained, while I snapped a few pictures of him for my private gallery: body flopped, sweaty, plug still in his ass and his cock still thick and fat on his belly in a puddle of cum.

We finished up Tueday with bath time, putting him in the tub and using the shower hose to wash him all clean, soaping and scrubbing until we were ready to snuggle up under the covers and sleep. Me, I can’t wait until next spanking practice session. What do you think guys, more quality time with the belt, or shall I work on my riding crop?

Wildcard’s Submission: A History

So a couple of days ago Wildcard suggested that he was warming up to the idea of being my part time submissive. Our relationship has always not quite fit into people’s expectations of me, and for us, something that I’m okay with, but leads to no end of boggling on the part of people who think in terms of binaries and hierarchies. I spend a lot of time correcting people who ask “so he’s your sub…?” or lifting the jaws off of floors of people who see him in dom mode after seeing him as naked vulnerable man because a surprising quantity of people don’t believe in switches.

Wildcard broached the subject of a power dynamic when we first became a couple, as an assumption that he had that it was a requirement. Obviously *the* Miss Pearl needs a sub to be happy, right? And if he wanted to be a fixture in my life that was required and no asking for what he wanted either (because topping from the bottom!). I did the sensible thing and took him on a crash course on enthusiastic consent, veto-ing the whole no limits thing before it started. In the manner of pansexual people explaining their interests, I don’t fall in love with sexual orientations, I fall in love with people.

Some of his assumptions were understandable. Prior to me, while he was awash in submissive leaning ladies flirting at him, femdoms appear to be a coy bunch and the sum total of his experience was a professional dominant who did a bang up job of introducing him to impact play, but obviously couldn’t be expected to do more than that.

After a rough couple of weeks in that period, when I was caressing and holding him him after an evening of caretaking, he softly piped up that being my pet, you know… didn’t sound that bad. For me this wasn’t quite good enough. I like fake non-con, struggling, etc… but I sure as heck cannot handle real reluctance and told him that much. Actually I did the wibbly lower lip thing and sniffled, but you can pretend I had a non-emotional, frank and considerate discussion on power exchange like people seem to imagine I have.

Wildcard is happy in scene based, limited power exchange, and that’s been that. He made a few attempts to dom me and I utterly failed to to respond in a way he could work with, and the longer we’ve been together the more he’s had to admit that he just can’t see me as that sort of role. For me its surprisingly hard to give up a part of him, even the dominant part that I’m only dog in the mangering. Call it my control freak nature- I don’t provide that outet but it feels like a loss for me to not have access to it. But, for him he’s admitted that I make him feel submissive in a way nobody else does.

But of his own volition he’s now expressed an interest in more formalized submission in his life- still not 24/7, but certainly ever encroaching into what we do together. We shall see what will become of this.

Light BDSM With A Lover

“If you wanted to torment me, blindfold me and tie me to the bed and force me to have an orgasm with the (Hitachi Knockoff) vibrator, I wouldn’t mind,” the request is made as coyly and casually as he can manage, couched in terms that let him pretend he’s not asking for a very specific scenario.

He doesn’t like to ask for things- but then again, neither do I. For me, I deal with it by hinting, coaxing or just flat out taking. He’d been toying with trying to seduce me, little misbehaviours and touches for the last day or so. I’d noticed, but I’d been careful about the bait- he’s been under the weather and I’ve started to second guess myself, not sure if he’s doing this courting because he’s ready or because he feels like he should be ready because he cares about me. (Holy first world problems, Batman!)

At times like this, my body is at once throbbingly libidinal and jealously guarding that same energy. I certainly wanted sex. I’d spent the morning of that day intermittently wandering out onto the sun warmed back balcony, looking at down at where a pair of young men were pulling apart a brick patio- gloves, t-shirts and well fitted jeans on slender, muscular bodies. They didn’t seem to notice that I noticed them, the handsome one in the grey shirt, kneeling and pulling up red rectangles from the spring damp ground.

I thought about something cliche, taking him for an anonymous fuck that made him feel used, working out the logistics in my head: the condoms, the communication, the nail scratches on his work dirtied skin. Then I put these thoughts out of my head because something, beyond the challenge of the chase, is off. I don’t typically tell Wildcard about these momentary distractions because I don’t know how to convey that when given a sexual choice that doesn’t mean  either/or but also, I still want him more. The presence of attractive men makes me grumpy that they are not him, and I don’t like admitting that. Given free reign to fuck any man I want, I find myself recoiling, not even mustering up the enthusiasm to flirt. Even weirdly resentful.

But that night, after a morning of fuzzy headed domestic productivity and little in the way of writing, I’ve put those thoughts away. I feel, and dismiss, the sort of pressure that suggests a migraine is looming, a throb in my sinuses and behind my right eye. I’ve been moody again, slow moving and prone to looks of introspective sadness that leave him asking: “What’s wrong? is there anything I can do?”

He feels responsible when I look that way, like he has to find out how to take me out of my head and back into the moment. It’s the sort of relationship thing you discover is important when you’re an adult. But my mood is my mood, and I don’t want to deal with that, for the moment, and so I find the wound up cloak of my aggressiveness, the thing that blankets comfortably around me when I dominate. Casually, I select a candle from where it’s resting in the clutter on his bureau and tell him to take off his shirt. White paraffin lit with a red lighter is then tipped over his bare back.

The little drops cast a shadow before they land, making it easy to guess where you’ll see a splat materialize. I test them on the back of my hand, and pepper him with wax drops. I know he likes the sharp, quick and hot pain on his skin. It’s a cheap trick, but all fetishes are cheap tricks and easy shots, the sex version of knowing where someone hides their spare key so you can rifle through their home unmolested.

His back is like leather, for whatever reason, probably just one of those genetic quirks. When we were first discovering each other’s bodies I wanted to hurt him, to see if he could deal with my level of sadism, and sunk my sharp nails next to his spine. He gave a deep sigh and relaxed, his taut shoulders loosening. For Wildcard, that was just the right amount of pressure to deal with his constant knotted state.

Watching the wax fall, it lands clear and hardens in white, fuzzy edged blots. He shifts a little, and I know he’s enjoying it. This is light BDSM, nothing terrible or complicated, no fearsome scourges or complicated rigging. He’s not even tied down at this point, although his arms are held up and well out of the way, but his head’s going to the right place. It is, as it should be.

When he drops, it’s always very subtle and achingly vulnerable. He lets the tightness of his body’s assembled parts relax and folds down, head dipping and nuzzling against me. His large eyes will half lid- decadent, his guard down. I flick and peel most of the wax off his back and make him stand to brush the rest off, and I can feel the lightest pressure of the connection I’ve just built.

If you were into woo, or magic or tantra, there would be some poetic insertion here about energy, or sacredness, or waking the goddess in me. I’m an atheist and left stumbling around with half remembered undergrad psychology lectures and the sort of inaccurate drug metaphors that hint the closest I’ve been to getting high is wrinkling my nose at someone else’s pot smoke.

Nonetheless, I feel in control, and push him back onto the bed, climbing on top, my eyes meeting his as my hands find and capture his wrists to pin him. He doesn’t like meeting my gaze when I get like this, as much as he likes the dominant part of me- it’s like looking directly into a light.

I tease him that I’ve never really hurt him, and he tells me that just my eyes are scary. He knows I can be mean, but I never force him past what he can handle, and yet the way my eyes look are a reminder that this rigidity is always there.

Wildcard’s a switch- he knows what it’s like from the other side. He’s made those eyes at me and dealt with the fact that I don’t look away and I don’t inherently find I want to, not with anyone. We navigate it as a power game. I know from experience with him that one session like this will discharge his submission and he’ll flip the other way, joking about spanking me and possibly doing his best to make that happen. I look forward to the play scraps in the future, but tonight, wriggling up against him, I can feel the hints that he’s aroused by what we’re doing and still hoping for the reward he hinted for before we started.

I tease him, threatening to not carry it out, tasting the power to say no, but I enjoy it, tying my soft red scarf over his eyes and buckling him into dark leather cuffs and clipping those above his head so his cock is mine to tease. We use slippery, cool lube from the pharmacy, Life brand “Intimate Fluid”, less viscous than ordinary KY, trickling it into my palm and in a wet glaze over his penis, pink and shiny like he’s just pulled out of my cunt or he’s breaking a world record for volume in pre-cum. I use my hand first, before I find the toy. I watch him wriggle and tell him I miss seeing his vulnerable eyes, now hidden away under the scarf and he tries to assure me I can still see his mouth.

The strong pulse of the wand works best squashed flat against the middle of his penis, my other hand curved to cup around, so I can feel the tremors and better jerk him up and down. When he comes he utters three sounds, starting with “Oh…” the two other words too garbled to make out.

When we started doing this he used to utter “Oh fuck!” just as semen started to fountain. Like he was holding a particularly awkward and fragile object that just slipped his grip, or he was startled to suddenly be aware he’d came under these circumstances, his whole body jerking forwards. I don’t know if he’s consciously decided to change what he says, but it’s the selfsame ejection of warm cum, three strings spurting, onto his furred stomach and my fingers.

I let him relax, and sort out the business of the cuffs that are holding his wrists. Kleenex blots away the evidence except for a little residue, and I wash my now slimy hands as lube and cum cool and curdle. The icky part of sex- but not a bad part. Sex is not supposed to be sterile or dignified.

He wants to be a good lover, so he does his best to try to make me come, touching and stroking my body, bringing his mouth and tongue to my nipples. He knows how to do this, but I never got rid of the migraine. Instead we talk a bit, and then my headache spikes and it’s his turn to dig into my back, massaging until the stab behind the eyes fades.

Tomorrow, he’ll help make me come, selfless about his own pleasure as the wave pattern of my own orgasm builds and my mind still carrying the lingering traces of the things I did the night before, but right now he gives me what I need in the moment and exactly what I want. The pain in my head fades and in the dimmed lights, bouyed by the warmth and the weight of the blankets, I sleep with him, in his bed, nested like lego bricks.

BDSM can be a lot of things for people: structure, an escape, release or catharsis, a way to be someone or something different. For me, it’s intimacy.