Google Gets it Wrong, a Rebuttal

Googling "dominant submissive relationships" turns up this article at AssociatedContent.com, a sort of YouTube for amateur writers: The Dominant Submissive Relationship: Who is Really in Control? The author doesn't seem to have an insider's view of D/s, so I was moved to comment. Then I was moved to post that comment on my neglected blog...

As a man with experience in the dominant side of D/s romance, I'm moved to comment -- especially as, at this moment, this article is the first result on google for "dominant submissive relationships". First, "D/s Relationship" is a topic only somewhat narrower than "Romantic Relationship". There are D/s contexts that involve no sexual kinks, others that only express D/s in the bedroom, D/s partners who don't name their roles, highly stylized "master/slave" arrangements, and innumerable variations. Ms. Williams necessarily generalizes in such a short article, emphasizing relationships that involve kink.

Williams opens with a key point, that a D/s relationship is consensual and must meet the needs of both partners to succeed. However, her treatment of "boundaries" describes a negotiation more common to egalitarian kink-lovers negotiating a play session, or "scene". Those of us who engage in "lifestyle" D/s, where the power dynamic extends beyond the bedroom, often aspire to a no-limits relationship, where a dom continually coaxes and pushes his/her sub into unexplored territory over time. We realize that our partners do in practice have limits that vary from day to day, and work with them. Also, many sub-identified folks gravitate naturally to the interests and kinks of their partners, as their most fulfilling experience is gratifying a partner. To me, one of the most appealing aspects of D/s is the profound intimacy that results from the continual crossing of boundaries.

On the issue of safewords, too much is made of the power that a sub gains therefrom. A lot of D/s behavior promotes intense sexual arousal and sometimes altered states of awareness, and such experience can mask a sub's need to ask for help or invoke a safeword. It is *always* a dom's responsibility to look out for his partner, and avoid pushing her too far; this can be challenging as doms also experience altered awareness. Also, many subs have to be *taught* to observe themselves and use a safeword in trial-run settings, because it doesn't come naturally to them, especially those who are motivated by pleasing a dom.

On the topic of asking to be released, D/s relationships are like egalitarian ones, they are consensual in a western society; either partner is legally empowered to end a relationship. However, as the evidence from lasting abusive vanilla relationships shows, ending a relationship-gone-bad where partners have unequal power can be extremely difficult -- some abuse victims lose their lives long after realizing their partner is dangerous. Emotionally healthy doms and subs desire mutually fulfilling relationships, and can realize when the time has come to end a romance, but emotional healthiness is far from universal!

Williams concludes, "the submissive ... truly holds the most control." I respectfully disagree, and believe that most doms would be unhappy with a sub who held that view, and that most subs would be unhappy if they felt that way. A sub has a voice, and may have a veto, but is not writing the legislation. In some cases, a veto may be overridden. That could cross the line into abuse, or it might benefit the relationship.

Will & Associates, Consultants

A short play, based on events of late...

Lights up. Will, bespectacled, sits behind a large oak desk, piled with papers and binders. A luxurious easy chair sits empty in front of the desk. A grandfather clock stands alone across the stage. Will thumbs through a binder in his lap, as if looking for something important. After a minute, a deep, authoritative, gentle male voice booms from offstage.

Hermes: Will, you available?
Will: Looks up. G'day Hermes, what can I do for The Group?
Hermes: Let me introduce you to a wonderful girl. Smart, spunky, insightful, pretty, petite, warm, kinky, submissive... I could go on.
Pauses. Get to know her a bit, let us know what you think.

A girl in a conservative black dress and heels enters the office, and takes a seat in the easy chair. She and Will begin to speak in murmurs, nodding often. Lights low, spotlight on clock. The clock winds through a dozen or more hours. Lights up.

Hermes: Will, got a moment? What do you think?
Will: Astonished. Oh my gods! I could be... happy?
Hermes: I withheld one detail, Will.
Will: Confident. I'm sure I can handle it -- teach her, overlook it, find a spell...
Hermes: Will, you can't have her. We assigned her to someone else ages ago. Just wanted your expert opinion as to whether she's ready.
Will: Gasps and coughs. Pensive. She's... she's ready.
Hermes: Your standard consulting fee applies. Bill us at your leisure. We'll do as always -- pay you in karma for your next lifetime.
Will: Faraway. Thanks... thanks, guys.

Lights fade to black.

Will Returns

Here I am, writing again. Here I am, alone again, with but words and a notion of readers for company. I am back. Back in the state of mind in which I started this blog: hungry, ravenous, baffled on the matter of feeding my need, feeling all too acutely the yawning gap in my psyche, my center, which my subgirl would occupy, if only my collar encircled her pretty, delectable neck.

Amanda, the gal I had "collared" prior to my writing hiatus, moved out of my apartment twenty-two days ago. But she took off the collar well over a year ago. What kind of a dom lives with a vanilla girl for more than a year and keeps no other kink partners? A lonely, frustrated, conflicted one. Or an injured one, needing a crutch to make any forward motion.

The gap in my center grows. Sections of substance bordering it calve away into its abyss, silently. Like the glaciers of our early 21st Century world, the matter of my mind is renewed at times by hope and imagination, yet eroded steadily further by time spent not giving my gifts; gifts to a girl, gifts to the world.

I indulge one escapist fantasy, over and over. That I am allowed to relive the summer and autumn that Thea and I passed in each other's intense, consuming company... over and over.

Training a Sub Captain

Now I understand why the notion that "a dom trains his sub" has never resonated with me. Even though I am building a D/s relationship with a woman who'd never fantasized about it, much less sought it out, I can't say that. Granted, I'm not far more experienced as a dom than she is as a sub, but I have been making a study of D/s for some years. Yet lately, I feel like I'm the one in training.

A dom's goal is to paint whatever he likes on the canvas of his girl's body and psyche; not to hold back; to demand of her everything she has and then some, whenever he wants it. And any subgirl has tethers by which she can be lead; and cleats around which new tow lines can be secured. However, he must learn her lines of control before she can be drawn into the depths that the pair wish to dive together.

A week ago, after Amanda had suffered a meltdown that resulted in her first demonstration of brattiness, I told her in direct terms and a crisp tone, Don't be submissive for me. You can only truly do it for yourself. If it doesn't lie within you, we can't be partners. By the next morning, she'd located the engine within herself that seeks such an intense expression of love, and within a few days she was habitually offering herself to me to be used, whenever she felt that she had something to give. The girl had opened her vessel to me.

Since then it's become apparent that I am not familiar with the entire control panel of this sub. In fact, Amanda's been trying to show me her controls for some weeks, and I haven't fully absorbed her gesticulations. In short, she needs warmth and charm and encouragement to be driven at maximum pace and depth. In my first D/s romance, I found myself naturally cold and unforgiving with my girl during scenes, and she had enjoyed the contrast of intense closeness and icy distance. Amanda has no lead labeled "cold and commanding"; she feels disconnected from me when I try to grasp her that way.

I so need her to give herself to me, to yield control when we are together, to want to be used thoroughly in a sexual context, to need me to hurt her when we make love, to struggle and just barely stay afloat when I top her. Her gift of herself and her ordeal are the things that turn me on of late. But I must coax her to those experiences by the technique that most compells her. And I must defer icy ferocity until I have shown her how to like it by introducing it in spoonfuls over time.

This morning Amanda, feeling an assertive mood, said to me, I think I've come into your life to make you into a good dom. You're not wiggling out of this situation until you get there! On the day that I finally earn a captain's insignia, and gain a mastery of her that makes her feel that I am doing precisely the right thing when I am doing exactly what I want, I can only hope that she doesn't slip out to sea in the dead of night!

It's Not About Me

What is the point of all this? It's a question that Amanda, with her not-so-kinky, not-so-submissive history, asks me often, in different ways. Even though she asks me to lead her into submission virtually every day, guided by some unspoken force in her psyche, still she wants to know why I want this, why people do this, where the path will lead.

Does romantic dominance stem in me from a need for power that has not been satisfied outside of romance? Do submissives seek doms because they cannot create lives as independent beings? Does this type of relationship lead to abuse? I have repeatedly answered those questions for myself in the negative, but they should be re-posed.

Amanda conceives of herself as a student of giving, but has yet to embrace the moniker "submissive", although last week she accepted herself as a kinky "bottom" for the first time—a fact evident to me for weeks. Giving is her new euphemism for submitting, so this morning I wrote "GIVING SLUT" across her chest in permanent marker—backwards so that she could read it in the mirror, and she loved it.

Regardless of her self-identity, I expect Amanda to be focused on my state, my needs, my desires. That said, I don't feel that I uniquely deserve the unblinking attention of another person. Dominance isn't an aspect of ego; it's a personality trait, a sexual orientation, a romantic need. My D/s relationship isn't about me, the dom. It's about us: her need to give, constantly and intensely—to extremes; my need to direct, to challenge, to own her time and energy, to feel a deep freedom in her presence.

But is it OK if she believes it's about me? Indeed... most of the time. It won't work if she believes it's about her, which Amanda sometimes falls into, partly owing to the tremendous amount of energy I'm focusing to draw her into my world, and down to her knees before me. I'm divided as to how much to encourage her to believe it's about us. That's more palatable to her skeptical egalitarian side, and I value her insights on our dynamics, but I am our guide, as well as hers. I'm the one who most looks out into the world and charts our course. Perhaps those moments when I most need her to act as if it's about us are my patches of doubt, when I lack the self-confidence to say, You are mine, no matter how you feel in this instant, and you will learn to submit in your own time. And remarkable girl that she is, she rallies in those straits, finds a new way to give herself to me, and so reinforces us.

Unifying the Self, Stratifying the Duet

Amanda moved in with me last weekend! She was planning to move anyway, and we were spending so much time together that it seemed impractical to do anything else. The move itself was exhausting, but bonding. We goofed around a lot while packing before really putting our heads and backs into it. At one point in the proceedings, Amanda was flitting around her dishevelled space in a sexy bat costume, black fishnets, and fuchsia blindfold. Ya, we do know how to have fun!

The day we completed the move we went shopping for a new collar, something she can wear almost anywhere. We both liked a matte black piece about three quarters of an inch wide with two straps joined by a ring that rests over the throat. When we returned to our apartment, she was aching badly from all the box-heaving and stair-climbing. I drew her a hot bath with lavender essence, undressed her long, thin body, and put her to soak in the steaming, scented water. I sat alongside the tub while she dissolved in the heat, and composed her a fantasy about a romantic sailing cruise along the Atlantic seaboard. At length I helped her out of the tub, into PJs and into bed. When she was comfortable, I crouched beside and over her, and addressed her softly in my Dom voice, Welcome home, girl. I retrieved from my pocket the collar and a tiny gold-paper box which I'd wrapped the collar around when I pocketed it. The box represents the space that I have promised to hold for her creativity, her artistic expression, within our D/s context. One of us usually carries that box when we are together. I showed her the box first, and laid it at the base of her neck. Next I showed her the collar for a moment, to let her take it in and embrace it. Then I buckled it around her long neck, and something magical happened...

Amanda and I each have a strong, articulate egalitarian self, and a powerful, hungry D/s self. To each other, we call my dom "Will", and her sub "Amanda", and we use each other's real names for the egalitarian selves. The flow of power and attention within each person between the egalitarian and D/s selves is fascinating to observe. In my case, I had waged an internal power struggle for years. The egal guy suppressed the dom, irrationally fearful that openly seeking D/s could preclude taking a leadership role in my field. My romantic life shut down during that period. But finally, the dom persevered; he's more self-assured, and more aware of what I need to be whole and at peace. Unexpectedly, I am no longer driven by my egal self, though I still appear to be him outwardly, and he's vital to my equilibrium.

Amanda had barely touched her submissive self when we met, but Will calls to her, and she walks towards him as if he were irresistible. Her egalitarian gal, who is far more verbal that her subgirl, asks great questions, raises concerns, and often challenges me to I explain D/s precepts in egalitarian terms. She even called it off between us at one point early in our dating engagement. Yet despite all her egalitarian bewilderment, Amanda keeps giving herself to me, in some new way, every day. Her subgirl is clearly the more potent force in her psyche, though at present she's substantially subconscious, or non-verbal. I read the submissive girl by her action, and the short phrases she whispers when the subgirl gains access to the voice.

That evening, lying in my bed, in what is now our apartment, wearing what we call "our collar", she entreated me in a sensuous, breathless alto something she'd never said before, Will? ... Take me with you.

As I once struggled to do, Amanda is beginning to unify her submissive and egalitarian facets, so that she can flow her attention between them at will. My own effort to unify my dominant and egalitarian aspects continues; at this juncture I need to re-nourish my egalitarian self, in a quandary these days about issues external to our relationship. I seek to gradually deepen the stratification of our D/s duet, to a more intense and fulfilling dynamic. It seems to me that unity of the self is a prerequisite for the dichotomy we desire in our romance.

Teaching the Components of D/s

Lately I am not posting about the D/s lifestyle as often, because I am joyfully and thankfully practicing it. This play/work is with a beginner subgirl, and I am no more than a beginning-intermediate student of D/s myself, so we are teaching each other how to learn this art of relationship.

Amanda has different responses to the various aspects of D/s. Her submissive self is new to her, more subconscious than on-her-mind, though it drives her deeper into the confines of my arms every day. Her enjoyment of intense sensation, painful or pleasurable, is equally new. I've discovered that she can absorb more of the experience of submission if I separate it into its components: bondage play, sensation/punishment play, and psychological D/s. I try to create a little of each form every day, gradually building the intensity in each space. As she grows accustomed to these aspects, I will begin to combine them in increasingly elaborate scenes.

The other morning, I hogtied her for the first time (wrists bound behind back, ankles bound, then wrists attached to ankles), but left her ungagged and told her that I would not punish her. She relaxed into the restraints immediately, and enjoyed the experience immensely. She smiled broadly from an I-don't-want-to-admit-this face as she told me this. I was delighted; the first two times she'd been bound I'd also punished her, which distracted her from really exploring the sensations of bondage. I rolled her onto one side and kissed her sweetly, then pushed my fingers between her soaking labia and began gently massaging her clit. She was thrilled. The next time we do this I am going to challenge her to sit up in a hips-on-heels pose. Hmmm...

Amanda came to me with a relatively low tolerance for sustained bare-handed spanking. I love to punish my girl this way, and for that matter, with stinging slaps all over her body. (This is erotic punishment, not a disciplinary activity.) But Amanda is new to this, and, by habit, associates the sensation of pain with a difficult emotional state. She has been persistently seeking a way to embrace my regular spankings since I started serving them. First she asked for more time to breathe and recover between hard whacks. I agreed, and during the pauses, I would soothe her burning skin. That helped, and then she hit upon the idea of being caressed very gently between smacks, with slow-motion fingertips barely touching her skin. She loved that, and began to enjoy the striking contrast of the high-velocity hand with the tender one. With this approach, we've been pushing her pleasure/pain edge gradually outward. I derive a lot of joy from holding her close with one arm and spanking her with the opposite hand. As she faces away from me for the treatment, she can't see the light in my face, so we've been finding ways to connect face-to-face during this play, like standing in front of a mirror.

Amanda's verbal self is her egalitarian self, so when I speak to her as her dom, she reflexively responds as a vanilla girl. The effect is not what I intend; the vanilla girl misapprehends the D/s sensibility. A few nights ago I decided to try a different tack to reach her submissive persona. I pushed her onto the couch, spread her legs apart, crouched over her, and gently commanded, Close your eyes, girl. I unzipped the fleece jacket she wore to bare her pretty chest and belly. I began speaking to her in my soft, insistent dom voice. I asked her questions: How do you feel? Who am I? What do you want? She responded in a languid tone, lower than her conversational pitch, and with fewer words. In answer to the latter question, she said simply, I want what you want.

Amanda Is Wearing Will's Collar

A girl, who is working across town as I write this, is wearing my collar. It is an extraordinary thing, for both of us. A girl is wearing my collar. I am asking a girl to be mine, my bedroom bottom, my spirited companion, my submissive partner. For those readers who have wondered why I haven't written for the past three weeks, now you know.

I have told Heidi, my close subgirl friend, that during a scene of SM, I love to make my partner suffer, but that I need her to embrace it. She responded that a submissive woman can be taught to enjoy pain, and she urges me to seek a girl with whom I have strong click, and not require that all prospects be true masochists. I seem to have taken her advice to its logical extreme. When my first date with Amanda began on a Friday night in late January, she could only have been described as vanilla and egalitarian. She'd had no experience of bondage or SM, and no clear pointers to them among her fantasies.

Yet on that very evening, after I told her, I'm kinky; very kinky, and gone on to explain what a lifestyle dom is, I began helping her over to my side of the fence. In the warm gray confines of the backseat of my sedan after an evening of dance and a midnight snack, I held her by the hair, put my hand around her throat, pinched her nipples, spanked her lightly, and penetrated her sopping wet vagina with two fingers. She laughed, which she does so readily, and marvelled that she enjoyed it.

Since that moment, events have unfolded which are unprecedented in either of our lives. I orchestrated, on her prompting, the most intense, most delightful SM scene of my life with her one morning. The following night, I shaved her crotch, slowly and meticulously, while she reclined in the bathtub. She wore my collar, unconcealed, to a dance one night, and to a bar the next. When we parted last night, she wore the collar home. She reports being constantly wet since the first night we spent together. I verify that manually as often as possible.

What has motivated a vanilla girl to turn towards dark sex and ownership by a domguy with a lifestyle orientation? What has motivated that dom to mine the unexplored depths of an egalitarian soul? The answer is simple: incredible click. I have never experienced so much sync with a girl. Each of us sees, and celebrates, all facets of the other. We are a roaming improv comedy team when together, constantly cracking each other up. We are both intense personalities that love to drink from the firehose of another's intensity. We can each talk candidly about the interior workings, the subtle tendencies, of the rational and emotional minds. We dance like one fluid, exotic animal with four legs. We find it almost impossible to separate ourselves; we met on my birthday last Wednesday to dance to a samba band, and remained in each other's company for ninety-six consecutive hours.

Amanda is more submissive to me every day. I have pushed her, as a dom will, and with each shove not only does she yield, but her apparent limits dissolve, even when we've not reached them, and re-emerge on a new perimeter. Will she surrender everything to me? Can she trust so deeply that she becomes the possession that I cannot cherish enough? Can she receive the overwhelming sensation through which I often express my love for my subgirl? We are bound to know the answers, and soon.

A Girl Puts a Gun to my Head

A funny thing happened the other day. A disturbing thing. Sabrina, the submissive girl I dated last fall, threatened—I think—to out me in a public forum. You know it was a mistake to date someone when she does that.

Sabrina had made me a gift, a compact photo album filled with pictures from our rendezvous on the shore in November, and words that painted the story of our relationship. It's beautiful. She's very talented at that sort of work. When she first presented it to me, I asked, Do you really want me to have this? I knew she'd poured her heart into its pages, and had done it more for herself than for me.

In early January, she asked for it back. She had ceased talking to me the week before, suspending the friendly link we kept up during the weeks after our split. I told her that the album meant something to me, that I would return it, but would like her to revisit her request in a month, and let me keep it in the meantime. I knew that she would want it no matter how much time passed, but I wanted her to know that the good times we had were special to me. Of course, she flatly demanded that I return it immediately. I reluctantly agreed.

This question arose in conversation with a friend yesterday evening: Why is it that people who love each other don't continue to be caring in the wake of a breakup? In all the relationships I've had over the past ten years, I've tried, or at least wanted, to be amicable with exes, to stay connected to a degree. After all, I loved them for, I hoped, something within them. In the case of Nell, the vanilla gal with whom I've been on-and-off over the past three-plus years, that effort essentially extended our love affair, albeit on different grounds. Instead of nights in bed, we passed evenings on the phone.

In the conversation last night, with a new female friend with whom I've found plenty of chemistry, I composed an explanation as to why people loathe the ones they once loved. A personality is a pile of patterns which seeks a context in which those patterns are fulfilling. It's a simplistic, and cynical, construct. And yes, it applies to me, thoroughly. When a context in which you felt fulfilled falls apart, its participants mean precious little. Other, and self, are then sensed with bitterness, disgust. All of them failed you.

I did not return the photo album to Sabrina promptly. Perhaps that was selfish. She contacted me again last week, seething. I asked if she'd be willing to photograph the album when she received it and send me the shots, as she has a nice digital camera and I do not. Her reply: I do not wish you to have ANY connection to that album. To any of my emotions. IT IS MINE. I created it. I spent the money for it. DO NOT make me call you out for it in a public forum. I WILL.

She will what? Does she threaten to finger the blogger known as Will, or the man behind the blog, or both in the same sentence? Regardless, she's complicated the issue. I already had every intention of granting her request. Now, she's hand-crafted a power struggle. And now, as I reflect on this moment and those past, I strain to not hate myself for having loved her.

D/s Breaks Down

I have a friend, Heidi, on the other side of the country. She's a subgirl my age, with a vanilla ex and a young child. She's a writer; she's a dancer; she's a feminist. She's really, really submissive; she wants to be owned. And she's in love.

In love with a man far away, in space, and in circumstance. I haven't seen them together, so I can only read him through her. But he's her dom, so he comes through, quite clearly. He wants her, needs her, as much as she him. Wants to love her, control her, own her, keep her. It's a D/s love story, unfolding before my eyes. And now tearing.

His circumstance kept him from a promise to her, an important one. And that development portends the end of the romance as they know it, of gazing into each other's eyes, of nestling a submissive soul within a dominant one. They are still in love, still speaking, still walking through the motions of a dom-on-sub duet. But his dominance, her submission, have faltered. The power exchange has short-circuited. Now they are friends, with intermittent D/s play, yet no practice by which to elaborate their love.

Heidi is of two minds now. An essentially independent, egalitarian perspective, and a largely dependent, submissive one. The rift in the relationship has become a canyon within herself. She knows it's over; she's sure there is some way to continue. She wants to meet someone local; she can't conceive of loving anyone else. She realizes his circumstance won't change in a tolerable breadth of time; she believes he cannot sustain his present state of affairs indefinitely. Into this breach I see her fall, to then scale one side or the other, over and over.

To my mind, she has now one act, one motion, which she can effect with her submissive and egalitarian minds in unison. She can accept his failure; accept that the power dynamic has flatlined. She can submit to reality, vanilla and unfulfilling though it may be.

The Wheel, a Dream

A single subgirl recounted to me this dream she recently had. I've embellished the simple sketch she gave me, and she approved this telling of it. The dream touched me, and I imagine it captures the experience of many submissive women...

Last night I was pretty downhearted before turning in. It was raining hard. I fell asleep with the window open, more than a crack.

I found myself walking though an open doorway into a dark room. A single beam of cold, white light shone from overhead on a large, high, wooden wheel in the middle of the room. The dark wood of its stout spokes and deep rim seemed ancient, blackened by long-extinct fires. Hanging from four points on the rim were pairs of long, black straps, reaching down with an idle hunger.

Standing in the shadow near the wheel was a faceless man—a still, soulless entity. He was tall, with broad, bare shoulders, and thick, open hands waiting at his sides. I continued my slow, quiet steps through the darkness, compelled to see, to touch, to smell the weathered oak of the still, mysterious wheel. The man held himself motionless in the gloom.

Entering the light, as if penetrating a veil, I met the wheel, and extended my hands out and up along two rough spokes to reach the sturdy rim. I rested one cheek against the spoke directly in front of my face, and pressed it gently onto the cool, hard wood. My breasts, belly, and hips sought the support of other spokes, and the hub. I waited, enthralled. The man moved, reaching my side in two strides.

He grasped one outstretched wrist, pulled it forcefully around the rim several inches, and knotted the ends of a strong, soft leather strap around it tightly. I did not move. He positioned and tied in my other wrist. I began to feel my heart working in my chest. He took one ankle in a tight grip, drew it out to the rim, and snugged another strap around it. Weight shifted onto my wrists. He seized the other leg, and finished anchoring me to the wheel, still clad in my white top, black skirt, stockings, and heels. I was vulnerable, and eager.

From behind me, the man reached around to my belly and closed his two hands on the fabric of my tank top. He yanked a tear in it, then tore apart the clingy white cotton. He gathered up the flagging material at my back and jerked ferociously on it, snapping its straps on my shoulders. He then ripped open the seam of my skirt and whisked it away. He pulled the pumps from my feet, and rent the stockings from my legs. Only a stretch of my back remained shrouded, in my long dark-brown locks. He took the hair in one hand, and flung it over my shoulder. Now I was naked, free, wholly exposed. The man spoke not a word, refusing to ease my beating heart and vague apprehension.

He left my side and vanished into the shadows. Then he returned, clutching something long and black and supple in one hand. He lingered at my side a moment, where I could see him from the corner of one eye, then he stepped directly behind me. Somehow, I knew what to expect, but could not prepare myself for it. I heard a swish in the air, and then a terrifying, deafening smack below my ears coupled with an impact on my shoulder. Then my back was burning. I convulsed, and buried my face in one shoulder, gasping. My hair eclipsed the other side of my face, and draped over my clenched chest. He paused.

The sensation warmed me as the line of impact cooled. The next lash, foretold by another swish, struck across my buttocks, a little harder, I thought. It was invigorating. The blows came faster, on the small of my back, my shoulders, my butt, my thighs, my calves. The places he struck felt hot, aroused. He was precise, never striking the same skin twice. A single stroke wrapped around my ribcage, and stung my breast. I became intoxicated, and dared only shallow, infrequent breaths. The blows reverberated through my whole body and into the wheel. My heart thudded quickly, beating out of sync with the whip's rhythm.

The speed of his whip steadily increased. The blows were heavier, searing. He took no pauses, but quickened his pace. Now I could no longer breathe, there wasn't time between the lashes. Desperation spread from the back of my mind to the depth of my heart. All intrigue with the feel of the whip vanished into the horror of its bite. I felt warm rivulets creeping thickly, darkly from my scalding back down my sides. I saw one lengthen from my shoulder down onto my breast. The trickle of blood reached my nipple, where a droplet grew on the edge of emptiness, then fell. I couldn't cry out; I was weakening, slipping towards a chasm that I sensed was beyond measure.

Then a voice thundered through the room. The lashes ceased. I turned the voice over in my mind. It was a sonorous, familiar, enveloping baritone. Stop! It had commanded. It shouted again, Let her go! She belongs to me!

The whip was still. My body still shuddered with the anxious thrashing of my heart. I lifted my head out of my shoulder, and with one eye could discern a man silhouetted in the doorway behind me. He stepped into the room purposefully, urgently, boots knocking on the hard floor. Just before his face came into view at my side, I woke up.

This Kink Is OK: The Scene Costume

Blast, it's been weeks since I wrote something sexy, let alone kinky. I haven't been doing my job! I hope this will make it up to you...

A "scene" is kinky jargon for a play session, typically involving bondage, physical and mental sadomasochism, and sex. A scene can last minutes, or hours. I suppose one could go on for days. (I have some ideas about that!) Often times, the dom means to test and expand the emotional and physical limits of his sub with a scene. It is one of the defining activities of a D/s relationship. It is the Dark Sex.

There is no particular format for a scene. If anything, a great scene is a departure from anything that has gone before between the partners. But I keep returning in my mind to a point of embarcation, a pre-scene routine, wherein my subgirl dons, or is pressed into, a very specific costume, in which she awaits her trial. Here are the elements of this vision...

The skin. Her skin is its natural tone; I won't require or permit my subgirl to bathe in radiation or shower in chemicals to alter her complexion. Fair shades, if that is what she was born with, show off marks nicely. Her body hair is completely waxed.

The jewelry. I like piercings; no, I love them. They should only be installed by a professional, and we both should know ahead of the procedure what the healing time and daily care are to be. I would have my subgirl acquire these over a long time, each marking a milestone in the romance. Starting at the top... Her earlobes would carry small, pretty studs, something that lies more or less flat on the lobe; no dangly earrings that could catch on something and tear her pretty ears. The septum of her nose would bear a delicate silver ring, possibly attached to a removable chain that dips across her cheek and links to one ear stud. Her tongue would be fitted with a stud. Her nipples would be pierced horizontally, for the placement of barbells or rings. Finally, her clitoral hood would be spiked with a stud, which may be pulled to expose the clit easily.

The collar. A scene collar is different from an everyday, or symbolic, collar. It is high, restricting movement to some extent, and it offers multiple attachment points, usually stainless steel rings. It is not tight, since it encircles the throat, but it may be uncomfortable. If it is, no matter; that sensation will be the least of her worries before long!

The corset. A proper corset is custom made. The underbust style is what I have in mind, leaving her breasts fully exposed. The garment not only shapes her figure towards the hourglass, it forces her to maintain good posture and shortens the depth of her breathing. Its color might be a deep purple or blue.

The heels. Her feet rest in stiletto heels at least four inches high, depending on what her foot can accommodate. I'm looking for an effect beyond the common do-me shoe. I like a sandal style with the sides and toes open, and leather strands that entwine the lower calf.

The cuffs. Her wrists and ankles are embraced with delicate leather cuffs, with rings that allow her limbs to be secured to, well, anything!

The gag. While she's waiting for events to unfold, I don't really want her posing nosy questions about my plans. Hence, the gag. Lately I'm very partial to the wide diameter ring gag, the sort that allows unimpeded use of her mouth and throat. But a large ball gag is also very attractive, especially when mounted in a head harness.

The blindfold. I normally like to see her eyes, with their longing, their fear, their pain, their ecstasy. But if I am preparing something special for her in the scene to come, something new to her, I wouldn't want to spoil the surprise. A simple dark cloth is sufficient.

The anal plug. My girl will wear a butt plug fairly often, as a pelvic reminder of what she is and who she serves. It stays in as she prepares for the scene.

The placeholder. Unlike so many men, I enjoy a relaxed vagina, as my equipment is sensitive and, dare I say, extensive. She would therefore insert a cylindrical object with a diameter not less than two inches, and a shape that keeps it in place if she is standing. A small glass bottle with a conical top, pressed into her with the top pointing out, does the trick nicely. If it starts to slip out, she only need grab her sphincter to draw it back inside.

And that, my friends, is her scene costume. You might think that getting into it constitutes a scene in itself, so I should note that I would only require the full getup once she'd become accustomed to, and fond of, each of its components.

Brilliant Blogging: D/s Gems

I've just added a list of links to my sidebar titled Brilliant Blogging, in which I point to specific posts by D/s bloggers that resonate with or fascinate me.

I invite readers to suggest items for this list, from their personal blogs or elsewhere. I've begun reading through the archives of the better known D/s blogs for gems, but lend me a hand here!

Also, I've added the plain text of my email address to my sidebar blurb, after hearing that my spam-resistant email link wasn't working in some cases.

Learning the Submissive Mind

My greatest joy of late is the friendly and longish conversations I've been having with three subgirls, two of whom are bloggers. In talking with them, and reflecting on my previous D/s romances, I've realized that I am not as familiar as I need to be with the patterns of a subgirl's mind; with, as James Spader's character in Secretary phrases it, What goes on inside that head of yours? I'm especially aware of this in light of the pain I've catalyzed, or perhaps outright caused, in my first two D/s relationships.

As a novice dom, who hadn't yet absorbed the impact I have on my submissive partner, I was irresponsible; lost in my own experience of power and freedom. As the leader of the relationship, the dom ought to take a deep interest in the state of mind he induces in his sub, take responsibility for it, and discuss it with her.

One of my new pals has just come out to herself, as not only a submissive woman, but one seeking a lifestyle D/s relationship. I've received the honor of being the first person with whom she's discussed her submissive self and experiences. She's quite a compelling gal, in both kinky and vanilla terms. Her hunger for a dom is strong, and pent-up. She describes herself as having had to be her own dom for years, and hating that. She's asked me to consider being her first intentional dom, in a dating context, with no expectation of a long-term link. But I'm uncertain that it's fair to be her dominant partner, if I am not inclined towards her as a life partner, which is what each of us really wants.

Another of my new friends offered me some insight on this issue. She wrote, Your first dom is like a first love, maybe even moreso. It's really damaging to lose that. [With a girl you believe is not the one,] you'll tend to want to hang on to her even as you come to know you want to move on. (I had this exact experience with my first subgirl.) My friend continued, Every relationship is a risk, but if you know it's going to end in hurt, why do it? I countered, Well, people date vanilla for practice! She replied, You could date for practice, but if you start doing D/s, not just for play, but really doing it, it's more than dating. It's training her to adore you and worship you.

Her last point is what had eluded me about the mind of a subgirl: for her, the dom becomes a deity, the relationship a sacred compact. I have felt this with both of the subgals I dated, and I didn't know how to handle it, partly because I didn't expect it, partly because I wasn't wholly invested in either relationship.

I have to confess an ambivalence pattern in my past D/s relationships. I pull the girl in, push her away, and repeat. The feelings that drive both motions are authentic; I'm attracted to her, connected, fascinated; I feel we're not right for each other, we're not aligned in age, or passions, or worldview. My problem has been that I could not resolve to cease, nor to commit. But how is it that I am faced with these stark choices before I am ready for them? For me, a subgirl has a gravity that is intense. I so long to have control of a woman that I love. When a girl offers me her submission, it is virtually irresistible.

A submissive woman also seems to love being swept up and carried off. In the presence of an attractive dominant man who has ridden up to her side, she is prone to giving herself to the ride; she is loathe to chart a course collaboratively, or yank back the reins. This is true for at least two of my new friends, and both of my previous submissive loves.

I think I owe Sabrina, the subgirl I dated this Fall, an apology. She clearly stated that she wanted a long-term engagement, and I was pretty sure we weren't a lifemate match. I told her I was interested in a be-in-the-moment affair from which we could both learn and grow. One of us, particularly I, should have said, Ok, we're not aligned on intent, let's build a friendship. Worse, I presumed that I could teach her skills which I perceived her to lack. A dom loves to instruct, but the savvy teacher discerns what his student is ready to learn, and helps her find it within herself. The Latin root of education means to draw out, after all. I can only ask that she forgive me for failing to dominate myself, and so falling towards her submissive gravity with no thought for landing.

Journey of the Boy Who Would Be Will

My young adulthood was atypical, and would not predict the dom identity where I've ended up. I didn't head off to college at age 18, preferring to strike out on my own, for a college town in the Midwest. From age 19, I hung with young Unitarian-Universalists (a liberal, non-dogmatic niche of Protestants), and then New Age dancers who congregated at barefoot boogies. The membership of these communities was a mix of idealists, misfits, and earthy-crunchy folk. The ideas of the women's movement were strong among them, and as a result, I developed the feminine side of my personality far more than the masculine during this period, which lasted a long twelve years.

I wore my hair long. I wore colorful clothes. I dined vegetarian. I envisioned egalitarian partnership, and egalitarian structures in the workplace. I mused on the moral authority of women, imagined what society would be like with fully half its leaders, in business and government, as females. I was vaguely drawn to socialist concepts, and communitarian principles. I meandered, without a calling, attending college part time before choosing to teach myself a marketable skillset. I lived in a small college town in New England for seven years, then a small shore town on the California coast in striking distance of San Francisco for five more. I joined a men's group, and became close friends with a very smart, talented, endearing gay man.

I knew, during much of this period, that I longed to bind my lover. While exploring porn on the Internet for the first time twelve years ago (having not looked at print erotica for some years) I felt an unexpected fit of ferocity when I made myself come. Suddenly, the lovely, bare model was an undeserving bitch whom I passionately hated and loved in the same instant. When, during my most serious relationship of that era, I offered to tie my lover for sex, she declined, saying she would need to feel really safe with me to do that. I never brought it up again.

Eight years ago, I began to cultivate a vision and resolved to start a company; I took up a calling as a creator. I recruited co-founders, wrote a business plan, and eventually we raised a decent chunk of money. It was hell. It was a painful pursuit for one lacking a strong masculine persona. The ordeal forced my masculine identity forward and exercised it, though not in time to repair the flaws the company crystallized while growing without a strong, capable leader. Enmired in a miserable triangle with my co-founders, I left. I returned to the East, to a city. I resolved to embody my male strength, my latent power. I heaved my entire being away from the feminine. I cut my hair, changed my dress, shifted my worldview to the center. I began celebrating the masculine impetus to risk, to explore, to invent, to understand. Within months I was dating and dominating a submissive woman, and loving it like I'd never loved any romance.

At that point, five years ago, I came to the fork in the trail. I was faced squarely with my need for a submissive lover, and my real desire for a deep romance. I was also struck hard by the strangeness of it. I didn't want to join a subculture! I didn't believe a talented, motivated, empowered woman could be a completely compliant romantic partner. Having mounted the hilltop of my masculinity, here loomed a more daunting peak. I have taken five years to scale it, passing long stretches stalled on its steep slopes. And I am still unsteady in my boots at this altitude.

I've felt a profound craving all my life, or at least since adolescence, for a very intense romantic link. I remember getting hooked on the concepts in Richard Bach's bestselling Bridge Across Forever, about his search for a soulmate and attempt to make one woman that. It's a how-to manual for dysfunctional relationship, I later realized. From late in my egalitarian era until I embraced lifestyle D/s, I worked on not needing someone so much, without great success, though I performed solos rather than duets for the great majority of those years. In claiming my lifestyle-dom self, I've reclaimed my belief in, my need for, intense intimacy—a merging of souls. I cannot achieve that in a vanilla/egalitarian context, or even a bedroom bondage one. I've tried; I break down and withdraw.

If you'd told me one year ago that I'd be seeking lifestyle D/s, let alone blogging about it, I'd have laughed and waved you off. Then, as I started this blog, I delved into the dynamic of my first D/s romance, where we were only intentionally dom & sub in the bedroom, and discovered that we were in those roles much of the time, that they were what let us reach the depth that we did, what kept my desire for her constant. Late in the relationship, she wanted less D/s. Sure enough, I broke down, I withdrew. I still feel terrible for that. Could I have not lead her into a D/s dynamic to meet both our needs? At that point in my life, no.

Now I know, I accept, that I cannot be fully myself while that place in my heart-mind reserved for my subgirl goes unoccupied. I have much to offer to the world, and to experience from it, beyond my partnership with her, and I have pursued those avocations relentlessly. They do not for a fulfilled Will make. I need the girl. I need her easy, submissive presence. I need her stillness in residence at the center of my heart. I am not a dom without her, I am merely a man.

I wish you a fulfilling New Year, my reader! Oh, and if you've spoken with that girl recently, could you ask her to get in touch?

Wherefore this Blog? Addendum

In my previous effort to construct a response to this question, I omitted the keystone. Why am I writing all the details of my personal life and publicly unspoken desires on this universally accessible page?

To make the acquaintance of those of like mind and kindred spirit.

I put ink to this page because I will not walk this unfamiliar route alone farther. I invite comment from and epistolary exchange with anyone for whom my words resonate—of any persuasion, not simply subgirls seeking a domguy. I'm particularly keen to earn the ear of other loving doms; those beginning the path, as am I; those who know it well, yet make themselves students of it anew each day; those pondering its bends and pitches and asking themselves whether to put foot to its ground.

I am Will, a writer. If you read me, pray write me.

Wherefore this Blog?

So what is this blog really about?

To be honest, I began the Journey of Will inspired to craft a billboard-sized personal ad. I'm lost in the mad throng of dashing fakers and would-be men and assorted nuts at online dating sites. My mind cannot speak, nor my heart sing, in those venues. So here I am in the theater of the street, reading aloud a tell-all journal of my will to love. Is it pathetic, or heroic?

I've been told I come across as cocky in writing. I've been called insensitive by people close to me for striding so easily from Nell to Sabrina to Wendy. I've received a great many compliments and thank-yous for sharing this sojourn in detail. I'm more worried by the criticism than I am buoyed by the acclaim. My self-doubt feels suddenly six feet deep. Standing at 6'1", I can barely see over the top of it. Is that chagrin, or humility?

I see now that I write as much to exorcise my shame, for wanting a submissive partner, for hiding so long from that desire, for failing to muster my considerable talent in service of lasting love, for meandering thus far in my mission to contribute something unique and valuable to humanity. I write of my misgivings, as much as my gifts.

So impatient am I with myself, so thirsty for a companion on this journey, that I have lately taken up with yet another vanilla girl, Wendy. She's a delightful lady; smart, grounded, articulate, self-possessed. She's accepting of my whole persona. But she has no profound need to lend herself to my control, to find fulfillment in my pleasure and contentment. In other words, she can't travel with Will, she can only watch him trudge past. Am I writing of conquests, or a quest for love?

I wonder what this blog is really about...

Wendy Surrenders

Wendy is an old friend, five feet high and lovely, with a blazing smile, wide and intrigued blue-green eyes, and a tangle of blonde-brown curls falling onto light-olive shoulders. She's a fabulous dance partner, one of my faves; we first met on the dance floor. We had dated briefly five-plus years ago, and stopped when she stated clearly that she was seeking a long-term and family kind of partner. At that point, I wasn't.

I went to a dance on Friday evening, an event that I used to attend regularly, but haven't been to in three years. Feeling the need for exercise and recreation beyond long walks, I've started going again. When I arrived at 10:30, there was Wendy, mixing it up on the floor with some guy I didn't recognize. Hm, maybe she's got a boyfriend, I thought. I certainly wouldn't have expected her to be single after all this time. I stretched and warmed up, and took in the scene. The DJ seemed competent, the crowd was a good size for the room and grooving contentedly. I noticed one other favorite partner of mine on the floor. Wendy continued her sensuous duet with her partner. I moved alone to find my rhythm and inspiration. I kept an eye out for Wendy's availability, and felt a little twinge of jealousy as her entanglement lengthened. Finally a moment and a tune presented themselves, and I recruited her to the smooth, blonde-wood floor out of a conversation she was engaged in at the edge. The duet clicked; our chemistry sparked. I lead her through turns and lifts and dips. We flashed smiles and poses at each other. The fire between us built; I began to sense that I could playfully add some dominant energy to our motion. I lead a turn with two hands and then pinned her arms gently behind her back. I caught her hair in my hand, something I'd never tried in a dance before. She recognized the gestures, and accepted them with a smile.

The end of the dance found the two of us re-entwined, and catching up on each other's news of the preceding three years. The fellow she'd been slow-dancing with turned out to be nothing more than a favored dance friend who's married. When she asked me what's new in my life, I paused. My mind raced. Should I tell her? Can I trust her? I wanted to. I've always been very fond of Wendy, and I hate being in the closet, especially with friends. I wasn't about to burst into my story among the milling dancers. Do want to go get a drink? She agreed.

Chatting on the way down the street to an all-night diner, she told me she'd become a fan of David Deida, who writes about masculine and feminine dynamics in relationships. She said he describes three stages of male-female partnerships: in the first stage, the male dominates without question; in the second, the two partners negotiate as equals; and in the third, the two partners negotiate specifically to achieve an exchange of power where the male leads and the female surrenders. She enthused that she was embracing her feminine, learning surrender, and seeking a non-egalitarian romance. I was delighted to hear this. Coming out to her wouldn't be as hard as I thought! After we sat down and made up our minds on what to order, it was my turn. Have you ever seen the movie Secretary? She said no, so I outlined the story. What to say next? I fidgeted with my fork. That's the kind of relationship I'm seeking; where I have control, pretty much all the time. I want to be the leader of my lover. She liked that turn of phrase. She was wholly accepting. She admired my self-confidence. So we talked. And talked. I asked if she'd ever tried bondage or SM play, and she reported that she'd gone as far as buying rope with a guy, but not had the chance to use it. As the hour closed in on 3am and I felt disconcerted by the idea of departing her presence, I suggested that we retire to her condo in the suburbs and continue the friendly conversation amidst pillows and blankets. She agreed.

On arriving, she gave me a tour of her lovely three-story home with its silky new wood floors and charming household appointments. Then we tucked ourselves into bed, and resumed the conversation where we left off. Both of us were fatigued from dancing and tired from the hour, but neither was sleepy, nor terribly horny either. I talked much of my journey into D/s. She spoke of her journey beyond egalitarian partnership, and classified herself as "somewhere between vanilla and chocolate". When she accepted my invitation to curl up alongside me and take my shoulder for her pillow, I realized that she was offering her feminine surrender to me, intentionally. Our agenda was in my hands, though I knew she had limits. I reflected on this power I'd acquired. I must set the pace of intimacy appropriately for us both. I must probe for her limits most gently. At length we extinguished the bedside lamp, and still we talked. Finally, as dawn's early light filtered through the trees and curtains, we began to doze. Some uncountable number of moments after she'd rolled onto her side and I'd spooned myself around her cozily and dozed off again, her exposed neck became too tantalizing to neglect any longer. I lifted my teeth to her warm flesh and began to sink soft bites into her skin, pausing occasionally to season the area with a kiss. She greeted this news of my hunger for her with a warm, Mmmmmmm...

Dawn gave way to day's broad light and we continued to kiss, and snuggle, and doze for the entire morning and part of the afternoon. I soon pulled off my shirt, then directed her to remove her own. Spooning her again, I stared eagerly over her shoulder into the sculpture of his and hers arms framing breasts beneath neck. I carefully turned up my power, and explored her capacity to submit. Clearly, she did not want to be slapped or spanked. She enjoyed being bitten, softly. At the height of our light play, I straddled her hips, and pinned her wrists at her sides under my shins. She gazed up at me intently, and I told her to close her eyes, and part her lips. I traced the shapes in her face with my fingers, threaded my fingers into her hair and clenched my fist, pulled thoughtfully on her generous nipples, contained the urge to strike her that took hold of my hand, absorbed the vision of this surrendered soul. I know that I can take you if I wish, girl. She expected me to strip her bare and penetrate her in that moment, desired it. I could not. She cannot submit the way I desire, embrace pain, give up all control whenever I crave it. Yet I felt so warm towards her, so grateful to have gained the trust of a lady. I wanted to reward her. I released her and settled my body back alongside her, embracing her. I smiled and informed her, You are a lady. A lady must wait.

"What Qualifies You to Be a Dom?"

Browsing the kinky personals online recently, I came across this comment that a submissive woman in Virginia had attached to her profile...

When I first joined I received over 100 emails in the first 36 hours. I patiently read them all, and to those that I liked (about 30) I wrote back simply asking what qualified them to make the assertions they did. Things like what qualified them to train me, be my master, or "teach" me. It seemed like a normal and valid question to ask for qualifications. But WOW, not one replied. Are dominant men so insecure they can't be asked for more than [an expectation of] blind faith to [themselves]?

She poses a very good question! The dominant partner in a D/s relationship is obligated to choreograph their dance, and lead his follower. This is not a trivial responsibility. How would I articulate my expertise as a domguy to a seeking subgirl?

I might start by reframing the question to: What qualifies you as a romantic partner? I couldn't say whether that's a principal aspect of the D/s dynamic she's seeking, as she classifies herself as a "slave", but it is for me. As a romantic partner, I possess maturity, self-awareness, curiosity about my partner, sensitivity to her, capacity for connection, depth of heart, creativity, the ability to learn and adapt, humility...

And all that's not to say that I'm the wholly competent romantic counterpart. After all, none of my duets to date have lasted until death did us part!

As a dominant partner, I don't believe in "training" my sub. D/s interaction isn't a repertoire of dog stunts! Each of us must learn the other's psychological and emotional terrain, and so gain the other's trust. To my mind, what qualifies me as a dom is mindfulness of my responsibilities to my sub: To offer her opportunities to serve and submit that are calibrated to the moment and our connection in it. To learn where her emotional limits are, and tread lightly at those borders, but with an eye to exploring beyond them. To suggest behaviors that will benefit her general well-being. To demonstrate my joy in her cooperation and good-faith efforts. To present my occasional disappointment gently. To punish willfulness fairly and clearly.

Yet if I'm faithful to these obligations, that's still not enough. What qualifies me most to be the leader of my lover? The profound love and peace I can feel, and share, with the right submissive companion.

Caley is a Friend of Mine

A few weeks ago, a reader who called herself Dichotomy left a supportive comment on one of my posts. Her name on the comment was linked to a blogger.com ID, which I followed to find her blog. Here was a single subgirl in Toronto, blogging about her dual life: lifestyle submissive behind closed doors; adroit, responsible project manager to the world at large. On her blog, she calls herself Caley.

I dropped her a note of thanks, and she began chatting with me from work when spare moments presented themselves. Happily, such moments have been ample. She's become a real friend; my first friend on this side of the kinky fence. I've turned to her a couple of times now, needing an ear.

The other day, she wrote a brief article about being a lifestyle, as opposed to bedroom, submissive:

To know that the decisions in your life will be made by someone else who has your best interest at heart is very freeing. You would think that it wasn't, but it is. It brings a sensation of freedom. It also provides a sense of responsibility as you do everything in your power to live up to the expectations that he has for you.

The post touched me. I still find it strange that I want this in a partner. I still question how a smart, self-assured woman could honestly desire to live this way, to give me control all the time. I still wonder whether I have the strength to direct such a girl effectively. It's heartwarming to hear that this isn't an adolescent male fantasy, that there are women who are fulfilled by such an arrangement, that a girl could really need to give herself to me.

I'm grateful for your friendship Caley, and for your exposition of your submissive soul.

I Have Admirers!

Publicizing The Journey of Will is a slow process. I'm slowly hunting for the cool bloggers and site directories, at least those that would like my style... Any suggestions would be gratefully accepted!

So far, I've been linked by...

Myths & Metawhores, a stylish blog by a subgirl in England
Balancing Within, a blog by a single subgirl in Toronto
Craving His Touch, a blog by a subgirl
Married Man's F***toy, a high-intensity blog by an owned subgirl
Hopelessly Bad, a blog by a single subgirl
Bedroom Whips, a blog by a Master/slave couple
A Slave's Heart, a beautifully crafted resource and blog
DungeonNet, a rich catalog of BDSM sites
Mistress Milliscent, a blog by a pro Domme in the Pacific Northwest
Speaking of Submission, a blog by a switchgirl

Adrift on the Blue of Life

I have so much to write, yet nothing to say. I feel empty, adrift. Sabrina came to visit last weekend, Thursday afternoon to Tuesday morning. It was a very intense, even overwrought, period. Then Wednesday evening, I ended our dating relationship. Today is Friday, and I see nothing but gentle, green-gray swells, in all directions, to the horizon. It is a familiar vista.

We fought. We snuggled. We talked. We dined. We walked. We lay in bed a lot. We watched Secretary. She wore my collar. She took it off. I put her in the corner for being a brat. She thanked me for punishing her. I tied her to the bed and gagged her, and whipped her bottom with a belt. I bound her with colorful webbing and rope. We did not have sex, though she tried to insist, and I tried to comply. I became furious with her lack of deference, her willfulness, her agenda. She called a safeword, for emotional rather than physical distress. I was sick with a cold the entire time. She began to pack her things to leave early, three separate times, but ended up staying an extra day. She was elated when she headed home. I was drained after she left.

Thursday afternoon, while cuddling after fighting after she arrived, I told her that we should create a written charter for our relationship, an agreement about what we were pursuing, what were our common needs, what would each role require. Before I gave her my collar, I wanted to craft our charter. I suggested beginning work on it Friday morning, since it would be a serious and possibly lengthy task. She seemed lukewarm to the idea.

The most tender moment of the weekend, for me, was watching Secretary, Thursday evening. We set her laptop on the bed, and she lay with her head in my lap for most of the picture. She was naked and collarless, and I clad in fleece pants and a black tee-shirt. I loved the film. It's a genuine love story, full of affection for its characters. At one point, he (the dom), backing away from their connection, exclaims, We can't do this twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week! She counters, with total sincerity, Why not! I had to smile at the filmmakers' implicit endorsement of my lifestyle. Eventually, I was moved to tears. (Though I found the climactic sequence, in which she adheres to one spot in his office for a month without his company, to be absurd and distracting.)

After it ended, I continued to cry softly. Sabrina held me, but was puzzled, maybe uncomfortable. I hunger for that bond the actors portrayed so eloquently. Bri and I don't have that, fond of her though I am. I so wanted to see my collar around her throat in that moment that I ran to the next room for it, and buckled it onto her without ceremony. She was such a lovely sight, then: nude in my bed, clad only in the purple, soft leather.

So what happened between that moment and Wednesday? We never wrote our charter. We struggled with the very different immediate needs each had brought to the other. We both seek a lasting, monogamous partnership with the right person within a few years, but we imagine alternate paths to achieving that. She desires a boyfriend in an exclusive arrangement. I wish a dating partner, non-exclusively, until the depth of the connection demands otherwise. As long as she was not mine, she said, though she meant I was not hers, she could not feel safe. It was clear that submitting emotionally to me was painful. She argued with me constantly about the rules I asked her to live by. She would top from the bottom, though I believe she didn't intend to. At one point some time ago, I even asked if she was really a bedroom sub, rather than a lifestyle sub. She assured me emphatically that she was the latter.

I seem to have a habit of falling for girls who are not right for me. Sabrina is charming and deep. She has the rare capacity to connect with another soul; she thirsts for it. So do I. How could I not love her? I could tell early on that we would not be compatible partners, but I let myself be charmed, and enjoyed charming her in turn, and there we were, involved. She's the first self-identified submissive woman I've met, face-to-face. Suddenly I had someone to share my hidden self with, someone who would think it compelling, natural, desirable. How could I refuse that? And at the same time it was so obvious to me that we were mismatched. I was strained by ambivalence. I told her exactly how I felt, and often. My divergent feelings both stoked her fear, and made her resolve to work harder for my unavailable commitment.

Now the collar I bought for her is buckled around the oaken arm of the futon-couch on which we lay together, and on which I now sit... alone, writing.

The Fetish Holiday

Thanksgiving weekend was intense. I was in Sabrina's neck of the woods, visiting family. We got together each evening, but had no indoor options, since her household isn't conducive to the way we like to spend time together, and I was staying with family. We spent a lot of time huddled in automobiles.

Thanksgiving night we parked at a church, a nice change of scene from the previous evening's strip-mall site. That evening I was emotionally exhausted, and she talked me into letting her pleasure herself, even though she hadn't performed the requisite exercise that day. (She claimed a raincheck from earlier in the week.) But I didn't really want her to play, and the red strap I'd wrapped round her wrists made it more difficult. Eventually she gave up in the face of my passive disinterest. Thus I discovered that I don't always have to put my foot down when she agitates for something I don't approve of.

Friday night we pulled into a public park, the site of her regular weekend exercise walks. When we arrived, I felt very disconnected from her. We'd just had tea and dessert (we split a particularly decadent brownie sundae) with a close friend of hers. The conversation had sputtered, and I was left asking myself why I was passing time with college students gossiping about their friends. But before we'd sat long in the front seats, she'd climbed into my lap, and I'd dug into her bra and begun pinching her, and she thanking me. I do love this girl.

Saturday we'd reserved the entire day to ourselves. We made an early start, striking out for a nearby town which offered a unique concession: a fetish boutique. We sought items from the following shopping list: collar, wrist and ankle cuffs, ball gag, nipple clamps, butt plug. I'd already made a trip to a mountaineering store for colorful rope to bind her wrists, ankles, and crotch. (Somehow I forgot rope for her breasts, which I'm off to procure today!)

Climbing in to the car that morning, I saw her in daylight for the first time in three weeks. She was lovely, blue eyes bright, smiling, with a touch of flattering makeup, and a cute outfit that emphasized her ample bust in a demure way. Sabrina is a cutie. After our stop at the new age grocery store, we took a stroll around the block, settling our nerves for the unprecedented shopping spree ahead of us. Neither of us had ever been to see a fetish monger.

The storefront was on a less thriving end of the town's retail strip, amidst cheap Chinese food and downscale hair salons. From the car, the window display looked reassuring, presenting a variety of lingerie in leather, latex, and lace. The room behind seemed well-lit and stocked with an abundance of the same wares. On the sidewalk, as we neared the door on foot, Sabrina looked up at me, nervous, but eager. I'm so scared! I smiled down on her, and assured her cheerfully, Me too! As we arrived at the door, a man walking from the other direction reached it first, entered, and held the door for us. Stepping inside, we gazed around the large room. It was filled with clothing racks standing on a dark gray carpet, a cash register on a small table, and little else.

The man, short, goateed, and gray haired, was standing near the store clerk, a scruffy fellow late in his forties with a weathered face under a close-cropped beard and a very evident, yet thin, strap around his thick neck. The gray-haired man, evidently the proprietor, addressed us: Have you been here before? When informed no, he continued, You look familiar! That did little to put us at ease, but he pressed no further, retiring to an office in back, and the clerk informed us that a room of shoes was to be found at the back of the shop on the right, and a chamber of toys was adjacent to it, on the left. I lead the way to the footwear, hoping to find some shelter from the welcoming committee.

The scruffy clerk followed us into the shoe room, despite my best attempt to imitate a disinterested browser. We gazed at a wall of provocative footwear, or really, toe-to-thigh-wear. The clerk inquired, as clerks are wont, Is there anything in particular you're looking for? There wasn't, of course, we came for the toys. After idly admiring the very-high-heeled ladies' shoes for some moments more, we returned to the main room and crossed to the doorway of the toy room, which a curtain blocked. I held the heavy fabric back for Sabrina.

We entered a dimly-lit room whose walls were lined with display cases. No illumination shone from overhead; the lighting within the cases was the sole source. Scruffy followed us as before, which prompted us to hushed tones when commenting on the sights before us. We began a tour of the room, going counter-clockwise from the door. Within, on, and over the cases on the walls were most of the tools we'd seen in our internet research: collars, gags, wrist and ankle cuffs, clamps, blindfolds, hoods, breast presses, floggers of all sorts, canes, crops, vibrators, et al. We completed our circuit nervously, as Scruffy made the odd comment about the selection, and even smacked a crop against his hand at an inopportune moment.

Then there was nothing left to do but leave or dive in, so I gamely and nonchalantly turned to him and asked to look at the ball gags. I was impressed—no, relieved—by my self-possessed demeanor and lack of fumbling for words. He took out a key and unlocked the case and I asked about the hardness of the gag-balls and pointed out models I thought attractive. At length we selected one with a pretty mottled-purple ball and three-piece leather strap linked by rectangular rings. One down, four to go!

We continued with cuffs, and, disliking the heavy, imposing style of their leather offerings, we selected a simple, neoprene-lined, velcro-fastened pair, despite Scruffy's effort to apprise us of the virtues of the leather items. In collars, we found a lovely lavender-purple piece comprised of a wideish strap that rests over the throat and a narrow strap that wraps around it, fastened by six rivets, and buckles in the back. Secured between the straps is a two-part silver ring that whispers in metallic tones when she walks. It was our favorite purchase of the day. For nipple clamps, a long debate ended in the selection of a Y-style set, with three adjustable tweezer pincers. Alas, they did not have a suitable anal plug, one of Sabrina's priorities, in stock. The ones they did have were too narrow for her tastes.

As we took a last look around the room to be certain that nothing intriguing had escaped notice, my eyes fell on an open attaché case in the corner, filled with dark foam padding protecting some sort of tool kit. On closer inspection, I recognized a violet wand system, an electroplay toy often featured on SM porn sites. I knew that it induces a static electric shock, but I had never seen one up close before. I do love the effect it seems to have on fetish models, so I announced to Sabrina what it was. Scruffy chimed in, It's a very fun toy! I can give you a demo if you like. I jumped at the offer. That would be great! He folded up the case and lead us into the better-lit shoe room, where he set it on the floor and plugged it in. He proceeded to illustrate, on my exposed forearm, the myriad attachments: Bulbs of all shapes, a fluorescent light tube, a mylar flogger, a glass rake, a spur-like implement, an extension that lets the holder himself become a spark generator. It was fascinating. Sabrina, skittish girl that she is, was terrified, backed off ten feet, and refused to come any closer despite my entreaties. The sensation was like a sustained static shock: sharp, buzzy, pinpointed, and anywhere from mild and distracting to intense and alarming. A neon-colored arc of plasma performs a fluid, angular dance between the surface of the bulb attachments and the zap point on the skin. Now if only I could find a girl who could explain what it feels like when applied to the clit!

After settling up, we sauntered down the street arm in arm, a black bag filled with socially unacceptable devices swinging from my hand. I felt an unusual sensation in my belly, and realized I'd just released my abdominal muscles; I'd been holding them tight the entire time we were in the store!

An Evening with Sabrina

Sabrina parked her Camry on the brightly-lit thoroughfare outside the trendy suburban cafe. It was the night before Thanksgiving; we were a few miles from her home. I ran my fingers gently from her forehead back through her hair. I have something for you, girl. Close your eyes. She looked at me nervously. Close your eyes, love. You'll like it. She complied reluctantly. I thrust my hand into the pocket of my fleece jacket and retrieved the 5-foot length of 3/4-inch webbing which I'd picked out at EMS the day before. It was a vibrant dark red. I'd bought it specifically to bind her wrists, but had discovered another use. (Webbing is wider than rope and flat and thus easier on the circulation.) Put your head down, girl. I laid the strap across the back of her neck, tugging her hair gently out from underneath it. I placed two fingers under her chin and raised her head. I adjusted the two lengths descending from her shoulders to be uneven, and began to tie a necktie knot. Left over right, twice; under the loop; through the cross piece; tighten the knot; slip the knot higher. I admired my handiwork. Open your eyes, love. She gazed up into the rearview mirror, and recoiled. Noo! It looks like a leash! It's too obvious! I disagreed. It looks like tie, love. It looks great with your red top! She balked. We went back and forth. I became frustrated with the power struggle—argument sucks a great deal of energy from me, but I wasn't going to yield. Suddenly, during a lull after several minutes of argument, she gave in, and we left her auto and ventured into the cafe.

Inside the cafe, over tea and hot chocolate on a couch against the wall, she presented me with a tiny, multicolored gift bag. Within was a book of her graphic art, a project which I knew she'd been working on, for me. I reached in and carefully withdrew the small, thick booklet. The cover was masterful, bearing the title "A Different Love Story". On each hard paperboard page of the book was a photo she'd taken of us during our rendezvous on the shore three weeks before. Inscribed around the photos in longhand was the story of our romance. It was beautiful, and poignant. What we meant to her was clear and bright on the pages. I was taken aback, unprepared for the intensity of her focus on me. Are you sure you want me to have this? She turned away, hurt, believing I was rejecting her gift, and her love. At length I pulled her back, apologized, told her how surprised I'd felt, how unworthy.

The cafe shut down. We went for a drive, ending up in the parking lot of a strip mall. We retreated to the back seat. She wanted to cuddle; I wanted to play the dom. It escaped me that we'd been apart for the past three weeks and that she needed reacquaintance time. She cringed when I slapped her, tensed when I pinched her. Despite her fear, her sex drive ultimately kicked in, and she wanted to play with herself; she wanted to come. I wouldn't permit her; she's not allowed to unless she has walked that day. She got terribly wound up. I took pity on her at length, and decided to grant her a different experience. With one hand, I undid my belt, unzipped my slacks, and withdrew my erection from the bikini underwear keeping it in submission. In the darkness, she didn't see me do this, even though her head was cradled in my other hand, looking up at me. Then I grasped her hair and turned her head towards my crotch. Immediately she opened her mouth and began to sample my offering. At first I gave her some freedom to explore my length. It's so big, she marveled, unable to take more than half of my post between her small jaws. I tightened my grasp on her hair, determined to control my experience of her oral cavity. Relax your head, girl. Let me direct your movement. I began pulling her head up and letting it drop slowly back down. Gradually, she relaxed to my direction, and the feeling was marvelous. It was as if I was massaging myself with a very different sort of hand, at my pace, with my depth of stroke. I'd never felt so excited by oral sex! Although I could have come, I didn't feel that the setting was right, and orgasm leaves me quite vulnerable emotionally, I was still protecting myself in that respect.

When she stopped her car in front of my sister's house to drop me off, I pulled her face to mine by the leash-necktie, and we kissed. Then I reached for the tie knot, and she put her head down and pulled away. Now she didn't want me to take it off.

Sabrina Gets Some Sexercise

Sabrina, the often-sassy young subgirl I've begun dating, hates to exercise. To add insult to injury, she has a sweet tooth resembling an elephant tusk, and favors the anti-depressant effects of chocolate over those of exertion.

Before we'd even met face-to-face, I asked her to eliminate sweets from her diet, and her faithfulness and self-discipline in this trial has been remarkable. All the more so because her home environment is vaguely hostile to her good intentions; her housemate is always concocting ice-cream cake or chocolate-chip cookies. That miserable female is deserving of far worse discipline than Sabrina has ever earned.

Only once has Sabrina given in to the temptations posed by her household nemesis, consuming three home-baked cookies in a twelve-hour period. Though I was mildly disappointed to learn this, I was pleased that she both came clean and resolved to backslide no further. I imposed no immediate sentence, and the very next day, a means to punish the infraction presented itself. A birthday party was thrown, for which her housemate had prepared a decadent cake. Sabrina asked me before the party if she could partake of the dessert—something I usually permit—and was quickly told no. She sighed, but appreciated my ruling as just. When the cake was cut, the server neglected to ask what size piece she would like; instead, she was blindsided by the huge slice that landed on her plate, and thus tormented contemplating the confection at close range. When she recounted this scene, I was thoroughly amused, and she seemed to enjoy the irony as well.

So you see, my girl has considerable will-power. However she has not learned to marshal it in support of regular exercise. She claims to regard the hour that I wish her to spend on each of three days a week strolling at a brisk pace to be an unvarnished waste of time. One Saturday, after driving to the park near her house to walk her laps, and finding it crowded, she promptly turned on her heel for home, later complaining that she would feel "claustrophobic" amidst so many people. That truly annoyed me. This weekend, since she had found no time to walk during the week, I directed her to plan two ninety-minute walks. She protested this assignment vociferously and bitterly.

Sabrina has a very high sex drive. She brings herself to orgasm as many as three times a day, every day. During our weekend together, I'd discovered that she becomes a bit distressed if I order her to stop "playing". I enjoy her angst in that situation very much. Wednesday last week, she mentioned that I had not been showing my dom on the phone as often as I had been before our weekend. Some minutes later, as we were preparing to wrap up the call, I realized that she was "playing," and, dropping into my dom self, I ordered her to cease, and not play again until I authorized it. She became rather upset, as she was quite wound up, and hoping to release her tension before heading out for the evening. Be careful what you wish for, girl. You might get it! I continued to deny her permission to play for the next three days, simply for the pleasure of controlling her sexuality. Her not inconsiderable will-power served her well here again.

The following Saturday, she did take a long walk, and I came along by phone to lend moral support. Her route took an hour plus, and covered a steep incline near its terminus. I was pleased, but not wholly satisfied, since a further twenty minutes of walking was on order. I reminded her afterward that a full ninety minutes was required of her on Sunday. She again protested, asserting that an outing planned with family would keep her on her feet all day. My patience with her whining now wore through. I would devise some punishment should she not comply. I would not be thwarted on this most basic of requirements, fitness.

The very first time I ever punished her at long distance, I cut contact for a day. She'd accepted the rationale for the punishment, but resented the loss of contact deeply. It pushed her abandonment buttons hard; it frightened her. Even days afterwards, she clung to her resentment. I don't believe ceasing contact was at all unreasonable under the circumstances, but it didn't work well in her case.

That Saturday evening, the beginning of her fourth day without permission to release herself, the obvious solution finally struck me: exchange sex for exercise! I was delighted; hadn't I read of such schemes before? I telephoned her. You may play, but only in my presence or on the phone with me, on any day that you walk. She argued, and I repeated, for the umpteenth time, my rationale for taking long walks. Logic was of little effect, but I was not interested in her approval, only her compliance. She went to bed grumpy.

The very next morning, as I was beginning this blog post, she rang me before eleven. Sure enough, she was heading to the car, dressed in her workout clothes. She knew I had a party to attend, and sought my company during her walk before I had to leave. I chatted with her during the first of six laps, then took leave to shower and dress for my event. I rejoined her just before she began the final lap. She sounded exhausted, but resolute. She reported, in a breathless voice, that she was walking far more slowly on this last circuit, and sounded genuinely relieved when her car came into sight. An soon as she plunked herself down in the carseat, she began to dwell on her reward.

I was so very pleased with her, and pleased with myself for clearing a path through her resistance. My pleasure came through on the phone, and she basked in it. I had a glow for the rest of the day, and she couldn't think of anything but what would ensue by phone when I returned from the party...

It is the most precious moment in a D/s relationship; when a subgirl reaches far beyond her comfort zone to please her dom, and in so doing, both delights and benefits herself. It reveals the force that love exerts on one who is open to it, and the poetry of motion in wielding love both forcefully and wisely.

Reflections on a Young Connection

For the past few weeks, I've been discovering who I truly am in a D/s context... I should say, facets of who I am. It's thrilling, fascinating, bewildering, even a little stressful! And it's been natural, organic, authentic. Behavior which would be inconceivable in any other context, and which I was taught to avoid from earliest lessons, flows forth easily. This echoes is my head wherever I am now: Yes, I am a dom!

Yesterday, as I introduced myself to someone in a vanilla situation, using my everyday name, I thought, Was that accurate? Should I have used 'Will'? Suddenly, I am leading a double life. I don't want to. I want to wear an armband with the yin/yang triskellion, sew a patch onto my shoulder bag, wear a pendant, something... I want to approach the lovely, graceful, intelligent-looking girls that I occasionally see on the street to inquire respectfully, Ma'am, please forgive my intrusion, but may I ask—are you kinky?

Sabrina and I each seem to have struck a chord with the other. She is my first intentional D/s relationship, and I love being a girl's dom, and sometimes mentor. I feel much freer, more capable, than with a vanilla girl. I'm sharing places within myself which I've never shared, places I wasn't sure I'd ever be able to share. It's so satisfying; such a relief; so bonding. Sabrina's young, and I seem to be (forgive my immodesty) the first mature, self-aware, romantically curious guy that she's dated. She's a bit starry-eyed; I have to wonder when she's going to descend to a more grounded perspective!

When I began this blog a couple months ago, it wasn't entirely clear to me that I am a lifestyle dom, as opposed to a bedroom top. I've clarified that one, for sure; I don't want to borrow a subgirl, I want to own her. I've found that I'm very demanding of my girl. In Sabrina's case, I require that she do things which are good for her, e.g. cut her sugar intake, and go for walks to get exercise. She's complained, in a childlike manner, about some of the demands, and that prompts more demands—that she be respectful, thankful, deferential. We're long distance, so we're on the phone and IM day-to-day. D/s exchange by phone pales in contrast with reality; you lose a lot when you can't see your love's face. Taking demands by phone seems trying for her; she often fights them.

My skeptic tugs at the petals of our budding romance. Our age difference is great, our stages of life very different. She is committed to her present locale for a year and a half, a region I would be hard pressed to relocate to. I desire my partner to be a lady: poised, self-aware, graceful, self-possessed. I need an intellectual peer some of the time. I seek a girl with a developed kinesthetic sense. Those characteristics may be in her future. I only hope that I am not too critical of Sabrina in the present.

I share my skeptic with her too, and then she questions why she should accept my demands, should invest in us, if we are likely to amount to "nothing". I counter that life never offers an all-or-naught proposition. I exhort her to embrace our relationship as I do: for the pleasures of now, for self knowledge, for exploring the slopes of relationship. I assure her that, no matter what the future holds, I will be there for her, I will love her. We have this uncomfortable discussion, over and over.

A D/s Date with Sabrina

Sabrina is a twenty-one year old spark plug: 5'4, busty, auburn hair streaked blond that just covers the back of her neck, and a pretty and inviting smile that breaks easily from her appealing lips. And Sabrina possesses the most flirty, hungry, deep and clear blue eyes I have ever gazed into.

We met two Saturdays ago at noon, at the appointed spot, a tea house in a picturesque shore town. We pulled into the parking lot simultaneously, a sign of sync which was to come. When I looked into her face for the first time across the top of my car as she climbed out of hers, I was quick to issue an opinion: Hey, you're a cutie! I felt suddenly comfortable and confident, and intrigued. She acted, as she'd warned me she would, shyly, making eye contact timidly, and then looking away. We greeted each other with a warm and simple hug.

Proceeding to the tea shop, I held the door for her. Inside, as we waited to be seated amidst their retail section, I gave her a little space, and reviewed the imported goodies offered. Once seated at a table by a window, waiting for our order of tea, soup, and homemade bread, I caught a different expression in her occasional shy glances up at me, one that read, Will you kiss me? I engaged her: I saw that flirty look!

Needless to say, we clicked. And there is far too much to say about the weekend for a single blog post. So what follows is a series of short clips from my two days in her charming company...

We sat at the end of a wide, stone-paved jetty, huddled together against the stiff, cool breeze under a clear sky and blazing autumn sun. I ran my hand up into her hair and closed my fingers, grasping her lightly, but in a clear gesture of dominance. I looked seriously into her eyes. You are beautiful, Sabrina. She looked down, uncomfortable. Tell me that: "I'm beautiful." She demurred. I twisted my clenched hand to point her face towards mine. Tell me, girl. She mumbled, Beautiful... I persisted: Two words: "I'm beautiful." Tell me! She gave a little. Mm beautiful. I tightened my grip slightly. Two words! She yielded. I'm beautiful. I concurred, You are beautiful, girl. I pulled her gently towards me then, and we kissed.

Sabrina lay on the hotel bed, her head and shoulders in my cross-legged lap, a book of her graphic art open and facing us against her inclined thighs. I turned the page, and began to study the next image. Her work is intricate, enchanting, and like nothing I'd ever seen before; collages of her own words, personal photos, ornate paper, and more. She's been working since adolescence, for almost a decade. It reveals her mind and heart, more quickly and deeply than spoken words could. As the pages told her story, my admiration and tenderness for her grew, and with it my thirst for connection and intimate expression. Seeing you like this, on these pages—your heart, your self-knowledge—makes me want you. Wanting you, I want to hit you, to slap your face. When I love a girl, I long to slap her. I caressed her scalp as I spoke, looking down into her eager blue eyes. After another few pages, we paused, and I stroked her face and neck, massaged her shoulders, cradled and surveyed her breasts through her velvet tank top. I ran the fingers of my right hand into her hair to shift her head to that side of my lap, turned her face so that her left cheek was leaning into my belly, and brought my left hand down flat and hard across her right cheek, sounding a sharp smack. She blinked hard and winced as my hand landed, then looked up at me for reassurance. I looked warmly at her, smiling softly. Was that OK, love? In a small voice, she whispered, Thank you... After a moment's pause to let her catch her breath, I retightened my grasp on her hair, and slapped her again. I love you, Sabrina.

We lay together on the cover-stripped bed. Her black PJs clung invitingly to her form and scooped low at the neck, offering her ample cleavage for perusal. I reclined in a fitted black tee-shirt and artsy, colorful striped pants, which she thought garish, and teased me about all evening. We cuddled. It was quickly evident that she could be as pushy in person as she had been at times on the phone. She wanted to get naked, to fondle me, to be spanked, to go down on me... All of which I felt unsuitable for the first night. I had been clear: no scenes, no sex. She pleaded again, Can't I touch you just a little? Again she reached for my crotch. I met her hand three-quarters of the way and clenched it. I will put you back in the corner, girl! She whined, Noo! Just minutes before, she had returned from her first stint of corner time, where I'd placed her for the very same infraction. She had moaned about how cold and lonely it was, and I'd draped a jacket over her shoulders in sympathy. I'd enjoyed taking her there, leaning her shoulders into the converging walls, putting her head down, ordering her to keep her hands behind her back. Now she surreptitiously reached for my genitals yet again, her eyes and smile mischievous. Her hand found its target. Apparently, the corner hadn't been cold and lonely enough. I pushed her away from me, and scrambled off the bed. Come with me! She huddled into a ball on the mattress, and began to whine petulantly, Nooo! Pleeease! I was genuinely irritated now. I took her hand to get her up and she pulled it away, twice. I grabbed her hair and pulled her to a sitting position, then tugged her off the bed. After situating her between the walls, I tugged her pajama bottoms to her ankles, rendering her completely bare below the waist. Now I want you to be cold, bitch! Thoroughly distressed, she continued her moaning and bratting while cornered, but obeyed my orders to correct herself whenever she began to violate my corner protocol. Head down... Hands behind your back... Stand up... I sat on the bed, one foot up, arms around my raised knee, authentically disappointed and perplexed. I don't enjoy this. You're no good to me in the corner, girl. At length I brought her back to the bed. Some time later, I noticed her start to reach for me again, then suddenly stop herself, as a brief look of concern flashed across her face. I was pleased, and smiled broadly, Well done. Good girl! I stroked her forehead appreciatively.

With two fingers, I pulled the neckline of her black pajama top down past her left breast. I gazed thoughtfully at the firm, high mound, capped with a broad, red-brown nipple. Even reclining, her bust held its shape. I circled the dome with my palm, converged on the nipple with my fingers, and began to pinch. The discomfort grew on her face, and became a moan. I ceased, lifted my hand, tightened it into a plank, and let it fall. Her dense tissue absorbed the impact with a satisfying shudder. I tried it again, harder. I could feel no sign of her ribcage under my tense fingers, only full, tender flesh. It was a delightful sensation, and I continued to increase the force and frequency of the slap. Her skin became sore, and she began to cry Ow! after each smack. I reveled in her torment. Wanting to go a little easy for her first breast spanking, I stopped before long, and soothed her aching boob with my hand, then brought my lips to her nipple to reward her resilience. When my eyes came close, I could see, in the dim light, a small field of red spots in the place where most of the blows had landed. Her skin was much more fragile than I had imagined. I marked you a little, I reported. Your skin is very sensitive. She looked down. Oh... Cool! She admired my handiwork. I think that will clear up quickly, I opined. I hope it stays for a little while, she countered. I like wearing your marks!

We were parked at the shore in my car, looking down one beach through the front window, and another through the back. The autumn air outside was cool, but the sun warmed the gray interior through a clear sky. I got out, closed the door, walked around to the passenger side, opened the backseat door, and climbed in next to her, pulling the door shut. She sat up to make room for me, then lay back down, placing her head in my lap. Her stomach had been aching that afternoon, but lying down dissipated the pain. We sat there, parked at the beach, keeping company, for the entire afternoon and well past dark. She wore a knitted scarf, baby blue with streaks of silver thread. It was wrapped almost twice around her throat, the two ends trailing away through her cleavage. The pale blue cords beckoned my hands. I collected them in my left hand, and gently tugged. The scarf did not tighten around her throat much; the pressure was mostly transferred to the back of her neck, lifting her head. I released her. Is that too tight? She shook her head no. I pulled again at the scarf, lifting her skull well clear of my lap. Can you breathe OK? She whispered a calm Yeah. I held her there for a few moments, enjoying the look of her neck in the scarf in my grip. I set her back down, and deliberately tightened the scarf, pulling on the two ends where they crossed behind her head. I slipped a finger under the wool at her carotid artery, checking the constriction. It was merely snug. I lifted her head off my lap again, and glared into her wide blue eyes. You're a pretty little bitch, girl. Without hesitation, she responded, I'm your bitch, Sir. I let her head down again, and took a sample of her hair in my right hand. Open your mouth, girl. She complied, and I fed her the first two fingers of my left hand. Slowly I slid them down her tongue, and into her throat, until she gagged. I withdrew my fingers, savoring her expression of surprise. I pushed the fingers to her lips again, and penetrated her throat more quickly this time, reaching deeper. She gagged with a cough, and her look darkened. A third time I forced my fingers past her tongue, pressing down into her gullet as far as I could. She coughed my fingers out again, with an expression of authentic disgust and displeasure. I basked in it. Did you like that, love? As she replied, her expression softened. I like pleasing you.

On the morning after the second night of our tryst, we returned to the beach with her camera. She set it on a four-foot-high seawall at the end of the parking lot and trained it on me, who was standing on a rock ledge that would be underwater at high tide, the seascape behind me. Setting the timer, she popped out from behind the Canon and skittered over to my side. We repeated this dance several times, smiling into the lens, gazing at each other, looking out to sea, kissing, ... It was a sweet farewell to each other and the idyllic setting.

Going to Meet a Subgirl

This weekend, I'm off to meet a reader of this blog. She's a young, submissive woman who lives more than half a day's drive from here, so we've arranged to rendezvous halfway, in a picturesque shore town. We're both excited, and nervous.

She wrote me a couple weeks ago with appreciation for my efforts with pen and slate. (I actually write TJoW on a tablet pc, using an electronic pen!) Apparently, I am not immune to flattery. I thanked her and posed a question, and before long we were chatting away in IM.

We've been sharing connected and often intense time on the phone since then. The intensity has derived from sharing D/s stories, both anecdotes from history and fantasies. I'm planning to recount a story from her experience (she's cleared me to do so) here in the near future; it's very hot.

I've also given her some direction, which she eagerly embraced. I hesitated to write that, as I would counsel readers not to begin the activities of a D/s relationship at a distance. My guidance wasn't sexual in nature, and it was around an issue that she was wrestling with already. She's done well with it, and we have both enjoyed this simple act of power exchange.

We both crave a deeper D/s duet when we meet. But we will not play, nor have sex. It's not time. (OK, I would suppose we'll flirt, lots.) Knowing someone in person is different than knowing her electronically. I so look forward to learning the landscape of a thoughtful, heartful woman who happens to be a subgirl. She's an artist, and I've asked her to bring a collection of her work and give me a guided tour of it.

Saying no to scene and sex at this point isn't simply a page in the best practices manual. I can't get deeply engaged with a girl unless I can talk to her. And to me, talking means long, profound, intricate interchange; about the essence of human experience, about the future rushing madly towards us, about the self, the soul, the miracle of consciousness. If she likes this sort of intercourse, she's in for a treat!

Face-to-face, our click won't be precisely the same, and it will thrive or sputter on grounds where we haven't yet set foot. Is our undeniable virtual closeness authentic? Surely it is. But when we open the firehose of variables that is two bodies attempting their first dance of presence, the model that each of us keeps in mind on the other must surely shift.

From Virtuality to Reality, a Reader's Tale

There are, sadly, a lot of charming misogynists out there. Jason Fortuny unearthed quite a number of them, amidst a shovelful of not-so-charming ones, when he collected the responses to a rather extreme personal ad, purportedly from a submissive woman seeking play partners, and posted them to a very public website. This episode reverberated around the net, with most commentators taking Fortuny to task for maliciously publishing email that was sent with a presumption of privacy. Reading the responses, I see an all-too-real niche of the male spectrum, one mostly hidden, which is disturbing and frequently dangerous.

A reader of this blog wrote me recently for advice, worried that she'd done the wrong thing by walking away from a dom she'd enjoyed engaging online who had proposed an unusual initial face-to-face scenario. She'd experienced strong IM and phone chemistry with the guy, and was intrigued to meet him, but balked at his first-date proposal. She backed away altogether when he proposed to punish her reticence by insisting that she do a webcam session for him. I told her emphatically that she had done the right thing.

Safe procedure when meeting someone for the first time is to do it on a vanilla basis, in a public place, and perhaps even take a cab home. Regardless of D/s content in their virtual interaction, the dom has no inherent privilege to require anything of her in real life, not even attire. (If she wants input on dress, let her ask. Even then, feeling comfortable is her priority.) Proposing any kind of a scene for the first date, no matter how mild, should raise a red flag, and the dom certainly hasn't gained the privilege of punishing her for resisting. She definitely doesn't want to be on cam for someone she doesn't know, let alone in a compromising position. A cam session could be recorded... and posted to YouTube!

Were I the sub, I would learn the dom's full name and home number before the first meeting. Asking to share driver's licenses when we convene would be a good sanity check. And somewhere in the vanilla getting-to-know-you process, I would ask a lot of questions about background, and legal entanglements. Asking the same questions at different times in different ways can be revealing.

My philosophy is that the foundation of a D/s relationship is a loving, egalitarian connection. You start as equals. How unequal you become inside the romance is up to both, and it may vary over time. Not everyone seems to share this concept, but for a "loving dom" I believe it is essential. A sub has to be genuinely and expertly cared for by someone with whom she is going to be totally helpless. She must take the time it takes to be convinced of that care!

Early in and throughout the D/s relationship, my role as the dom includes demonstrating and honing my care of my subgirl. Not simply before and during scenes, but every minute we're together.

This Dom Will Weep

I drove across town last night to meet an old friend for dinner at the charming pub around the corner from her place. I looked forward to my customary glass of Murphy's stout and their uncommonly delectable fish and chips. On my way over, I felt a bit glum, as I do when I peer back into the past decade. It seems a litany of chances missed, especially for relationship. Why is it that I didn't realize that I should pursue D/s romances? Why didn't I post personal ads seeking a bondage lover? Why did I hide from myself so doggedly? It sums to a long spell of loneliness.

When I parked outside her tiny first-floor urban condo, my companion hadn't yet returned from her afternoon errand to Target for new-home goodies. I stood outside on the sidewalk for a few minutes, then waited in my silver Saturn, sheltered from the cool autumn air and gusty breeze. Peter Gabriel kept me company.

Love, I get so lost sometimes
Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart
...
In your eyes; the light, the heat in your eyes...

Listening to his words, I began to see the faces and eyes of the women I've truly loved, and lost. Two wide, longing blue eyes. Then a pair of mischievous, faraway brown eyes. I saw only four faces, the last belonging to Thea. Thea, my first subgirl. Thea, whom I'd become incredibly close to, though I hadn't meant to. Thea, the girl I tried to replace with every relationship that came after. Thea, whom I sought out anew last summer, after my father died. Thea, whom I showed this blog to. Thea, who cut off contact with me after our last meeting, when we snuggled and began to play our SM duet on her bed. Thea... I began to sob.

In the very next song, Peter wails,

Wear your inside out
Dreaming of mercy
In your daddy's arms again

I saw her head and shoulders cradled in my arms and lap, my fingers gently tracing the curves and lines of her face, her wounded, hopeful brown eyes peering up at me in gratitude. My tears burst noiseless fireworks from the streetlights and occasional passing headlights. I covered my eyes then, spreading a thumb and two fingers across my forehead.

How Can a Man Not Be a Dom?

I walk the streets of this city, people-watching. I observe couples, parties of men, clusters of women, women alone. I know they are all, most probably, vanilla. I cannot understand it. How can a relationship be complete without D/s, at least in the bedroom? Why wouldn't any man ask for his lover's submission, at least on occasion?

I greatly enjoy the loving, egalitarian foundation of a d/s relationship, as manifested in contemplative conversation about life, the universe, everything, and in simple, quiet moments together. This is the energy that predominates during my hours with a girl. Yet I love the freedom to turn on a dime into a fierce, ravenous minotaur, the freedom to make a metaphorical meal of my lover. And I, for one, need the intermediate phase, wherein I require my lover's obedience with little more than a look and a word, yet can accept her respectful questioning of my direction, and amend myself when she makes a point I hadn't considered.

Why are not more men—most men—like me? Why do they not seek a safe venue with a sweetheart for the expression of their dark side, their male aggression, their lust for power. It's so thrilling and satisfying! And so inherently masculine. There is virtually no other stage for this drama in our society. Contact sports like football and rugby are performed by few men beyond college age.

Sadly, perhaps there is another stage: the abusive domestic relationship. It's a common, and altogether non-consensual, form of domination. It isn't satisfying to either partner, to say the least, and it damages both. According to the website EndAbuse.org, a study by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that In the year 2001, over half a million (588,490) American women were victims of nonfatal violence committed by an intimate partner. I believe that excludes verbal abuse, which is presumably far more prevalent.

What would our society be like if colleges and community centers offered classes in "Loving, Consensual Domination & Submission for Couples"? The coursework could consist entirely of non-sexual D/s exercises and role-playing. Pupils would sample both roles. The power and grace of each role, and the magic intimacy of the D/s duet, would be the focus of the curriculum. Would such a class simply freak out most vanilla pedestrians, or might it help them harness the whole of human nature in service of fulfillment and connection in their lives?

This Kink Is OK: The Collar

Here's another installment in the So what are you into? serial...

For as long as I can remember, since well before I knew anything about kink, the sight of a choker necklace on a woman has been riveting to me. My earliest memory of the choker is from a western film I saw as a child. Two young ladies enter a saloon, dressed to the nines of the nineteenth century (which, now that I reflect on it, would have included a nice tight corset); each is wearing a black silk choker with a small jewel dangling at the throat. My eyes darted from one neck to the other; I could barely bring myself to admire their lovely faces.

The choker is, sadly, not a common form of adornment, but I stare whenever I see one. At the theater a week ago, a young woman in the audience sitting nearby was wearing a black choker so wide that I mistook it for a lifestyle collar at first, until I was finally able to get a look at the clasp. I don't know how she would have looked to me without it, but as she was, I wanted her.

So you see, I have a natural affinity for the collar. When I have a partner, she will wear one, always. At home it will be a prominent piece, but attractive; black is perhaps a little too heavy and ominous for daily wear. I love the thought of Nell (my close vanilla friend) in a wide, white leather collar with a large silver ring swinging at her throat. On the street my girl would wear something more like a choker, with the buckle or clasp in the back, and a pretty bauble adorning the front. During a scene, I might place her in a high, thick neck restraint, which constrains her head movement. It will have many rings so that I can anchor her in place, in the middle of the room, for instance.

The collar that I secure on a subgirl's neck can have many meanings. Early in a romance, it's a prop which she wears only when we're together. It helps her be mindful of her role. When we meet for a date, whether we're going out or staying in, I bring it and lovingly fasten it on her. It's a gentle ritual marking a transition from vanilla to D/s sensibility.

Once a romance has evolved into a committed partnership, the collar is the symbol of commitment; naturally she must wear it continually. I expect to marry a partner eventually, but the collar means more to me than the rings would. I would even remove our rings before beginning some scenes, to suspend the egalitarian bond which they represent.

Another possible use of the collar is to unite a young submissive who craves control and guidance with a mentor during a period when the sub/protege is not romantically or submissively entangled with anyone. In this context, the collar represents protection and platonic love, rather than erotic and emotional ownership.

I have few visions more consistently satisfying than that of my subgirl and I walking on a busy city street, her hand tucked into the crook of my arm, her head high as she looks to me and begins to speak, her lovely, prominent collar wrapped snugly around her delicate throat and shifting ever so subtly as she says, Sir, did you see that ... ?

The Gravity of the Subgirl

She kneels before me on the dirt path, pale face upturned, lips barely parted. I thread the silver-gray strap between the back of her neck and her auburn hair. I buckle it snugly at her throat. I clip a rectangular ring, which I can grasp with my whole hand, into the collar. I lift it, and she rises nervously to her feet. I lead her, my fist clenching the ring directly in front of her throat, deeper into the woods.

Such is the image that dominates my daydreams of late. The face in the picture belongs to a real woman, a subgirl I've been speaking with recently. At some length, actually. The rest of the short film is but a fantasy. I have not met her face to face. I do not know yet whether this sequence constitutes a mere idea, or a plan.

I am reminded by our conversation that a subgirl possesses a quality like no other beast in the human forest. A gravity, a potent grace. She is a pure energy eager to be harnessed by another force. She is a body that has opened itself, unzipped the skin from shoulders to pelvis and swung back the ribs, to reveal a human soul in all its fragility and curiosity; in all its thirst for contact with another soul.

I am discerning, calculating, skeptical. Not walled off, but my gate is well-kept. I endeavor to observe myself from a little distance; adopt a rational perspective on Will. These sound practices begin to break down in the presence of a kneeling subgirl. Her gravity alters my course; her grace draws my attention. The limitless possibilities of harnessing her energy play in my mind's eye. The vague apparition of her vulnerable human soul, beyond the shelter of its body, awaiting contact, transfixes me.

Blinking and shaking my head, I wonder, Who dominates whom? In the simple mechanics of our relationship, I will take the wheel. But amidst its energetic infrastructure, the picture looks rather different. Perhaps we each submit, in different ways, to a stronger force: the craving for contact, for love.

In many ways, this subgirl and I would not appear to be a match. But my discernment of those ways makes little thrust against her gravity thus far. And although much younger, her ease with her identity seems greater than my comfort in mine. My creative effort has alternately roared and coughed during the past decade. (So confounding has that aspect of life been of late that this blog is, for the moment, my singular point of effect in the world.) She, in contrast, has steadily pursued an artistic avocation since childhood, creating a remarkable body of work.

As we speak, we draw closer. And the gravity which we both feel thus increases. We have not met; I suppose that could shift everything... out of orbit, or past the event horizon—the point of no return.

Raising the D/s Relationship

I mean raising in the sense of a barn raising; a community effort to build an important space. This is a skill I may possess intuitively, but I've never exercised it intentionally, so how do I master it? I'll start by writing...

I don't believe for a minute that a sub needs to be "trained", and is then ready to serve any master. Every dom is his own terrain, which must be learned by her as she traverses it. Every sub is her own labyrinth, which must be mapped by him for his passage. How then does each explore and map the land of the other, and adapt to it?

Both must learn what each is seeking in the other's terrain. This is a loving relationship; we're here to fulfill each other, so what does fulfillment mean to each? How do I gain by dominating? What does she crave from it? How deep does the feeling go? Is this exchange of power an experiment, an escape, or does it stem from deeply-rooted self-knowledge?

Writing focuses the mind to actualize elusive thoughts. Let us create a written charter together, with equal input. Strangers always begin a romance on egalitarian ground; let us create anchor points thereon. Despite the strong stratification in the D/s dynamic, the partners are fundamentally equals. (Note to subs seeking a loving dom: avoid anyone who doesn't believe that!)

Let both partners begin a journal. Let each periodically document how they do feel and how they wish to; what they have given and gained; what turn of events they imagine to be around the corner. Let each read the other's journal, and try restating their partner's words in their own. Let each learn the mind of the other.

Let the D/s dynamic in the relationship warm up slowly, as with a scene. My sub should not be under intense, immediate pressure at the beginning to conform to all my desires for her. Trust has to build before natural, self-protective emotional resistance dissolves. Ultimately, I'd like my sub to dress a certain way in the house (no, I'm not the nude & collar & cuffs type), another way on the street, wear her hair just so, keep herself waxed, and get some piercings. These are patterns to adopt gradually. I desire a largely vanilla dynamic much of the time (I want her obedience, but not without question), with the option to pull the curtain back on my fierce dom self in any given moment. But early on, she might benefit from some signals that I intend to expose the dom. And we both benefit if she can flag her level of readiness. She won't always be able to be completely given over to me.

I fear this article is incomplete... I will add more as it occurs to me, or as others point things out.

Another Night with Nell

Nell is a brat. A vanilla brat. She and I established this the other night on the stage that is her bed. In a moment of exasperation, when our chemistry sputtered, I called her a brat, and she embraced the label heartily. I'm I brat, she began announcing, in a delighted tone with a big smile, at odd intervals throughout our evening of erotic treats.

I love Nell. She is my best friend-with-benefits; actually my only one. However, a vanilla brat is a consternating entity in my world view. She cannot be properly punished for her attitudes and reach a revelation as to the error of her ways. Nell tolerates very modest kink before converting into a clam; welting her shapely backside is out of the question. So I turn to the only device in my kinkster's bag that remains: a chilled scapula bone pointed in her general direction, and held very still. It works, but the cold shoulder is just as icy to the one who wears it.

Thus ours is an oscillating system. We experience moments of click, immediately followed by moments of no-click... perhaps you could call it click...clang. Having named this phenomenon, we seem more at ease with it; the clang isn't as jarring. Still, her ebullient brat troubles me. I want my lover to be obedient. Her dictionary apparently excludes 'obey' and all derivatives.

Nonetheless, I delight in acting at the playhouse of her apartment. Or even on the street outside it. We met that night for supper and ostensibly some baseball at her friendly neighborhood pub. (Yes, I am a baseball fan. This town is nuts about the game; I got sucked in despite my resistance. No, I do not watch entire contests night after night.) As soon as we reached the street after celebrating the defeat of the Yankees by the Tigers, I planted my lips across her mouth and hooked my hand under the crotch of her jeans. As she was digging for her keys at the door of her apartment building, I unbuttoned and unzipped the jeans.

Once inside her den, I quickly doffed my shoes and socks, then marched her into the bedroom and efficiently stripped off her black tank top while she was standing, her low-rise jeans once she sat on the bed, and her lavender panties as soon as she stretched out on the bedspread. Sitting on the mattress, fully clothed, I pulled the naked Nell into my lap, and treated my hands and lips to the delights of her light-brown, bare extent. After a while, I became agitated by the confines of my dress, so I rose, unsheathed my legs from gabardine slacks, and yanked down my royal blue cotton bikini. My shirttails shrouded my loins. I brought my hips to her face, which she'd laid on its cheek near the edge of the bed. I covered her eyes with my hand, and caressed her lips with my erect, probing force. Her mouth yielded, accepting my hardened, yet delicate, length into her mouth. Her fingers traced and cradled the base of my force and its tender eggs. Then she noticed.

What did you do? she demanded, a smile breaking across her face as it pulled away from the meal of my manhood to see clearly. You shaved! I can't believe it! The hair had grown back to a few eighths of an inch by this point, but my loins still appeared quite denuded. Now I unbuttoned my yellow-cream shirt, threw off my t-shirt, and stretched out beside her for some full-body snuggling.

Having embraced and exposed my dom self since we'd last been together, it was somehow easier to be a mostly vanilla lover with her that night. And she had an easier time accepting my verbal direction. She was easily persuaded, for instance, to let me clear-cut her own undergrowth. After a little cajoling, she retrieved her electric shears and a sheet. She spread the sheet out on the bed, spread herself out on the sheet, and spread her legs as the shears clacked on and intoned a warm, sonorous hum. I began taking cautious strokes at her very curly lower locks. I wielded the tool with decreasing tentativeness over the ensuing 20 minutes. When finished, I ordered her into the shower to wash away the detrius.

She emerged and returned to the bed, and I began acquainting myself with her lovely, sculpted vulva, which I parted to take in her delicate, small inner labia, and generous, prominent clit. I gently drew back the hood of the clit, exposing to the air her moist pink button. When I stroked it most lightly, she exclaimed, Hey, don't do that! That's like touching someone's eyeball! Then I tried smacking her vulva. It made a delightful soft slapping sound, and she responded with alarm, but was able to take it. Alas, after a very few whacks, she reached saturation, became grumpy, and accused me of poor technique. Click...clang!

The first electric toy had whet her appetite for another, and out came her Wahl two-speed massager. First I pressed it's buzzing knob into her clit as she coached me on the technique, then she relieved me of the device so I could penetrate her with two fingers while she riveted herself with the machine. I kissed and coaxed away her mild panic as she gathered steam, and she tensed her thighs, back, and butt to amplify the sensations. I coached her to breathe, breathe, and as she resumed breathing, she came.

During most of this evening I experienced deep emotional warmth for Nell, but comparatively little sexual arousal after my initial enthusiasm. When I get excited and caught up in my lover, I want to strike her, hurt her. Nothing stokes my fire, once ignited, like her reaction to pain. I want to be very fierce, slapping her face, her breasts, pinching her nipples, biting her tongue. Before I penetrate her, I want to smack her crotch to a friendly shade of pink. When I'm thrusting up into her, I want to batter her with words. And I want her to prove her love for me; to relax and suffer my fury gracefully, not writhe, or try to push me back, or break down, or freeze up. Nell does all of those things if I try any of those kinks with her. It's so disappointing; my ardor cools.

In the middle of the night after we'd been asleep awhile, the ardor returned. I kissed her awake, then slapped her, hard. She took it. What a gratifying feeling. I straddled her, forced her legs apart, spit upon my hand and prepared my primed phallus with saliva, and pushed into her depth abruptly, insistently. I felt the scratch of her newly razed skin against mine. When she did not comply with a demand that she keep her legs spread wide, I hauled her knees up to her shoulders. I took her as I wished to, instead of as she wished. But the tension within her grew as she awoke, robbing her of the grace I needed to sense to continue. My ardor cooled again.

So it goes with my dear, bratty, vanilla friend. Click...clang!

Power, Love, or Clairvoyance?

I submit that D/s is a practice in pursuit of love. Power exchange, or the agreement to surrender to another's will, is a tool, a device, a system. It is not a purpose. I know there are doms who don't feel this way; I would not term them "loving doms". I regard their path and motives with suspicion. Modest power is easily attained, one way or another. Intimacy is not so trivially reached by grasping. Love is a worthy goal, challenging, vexing, heart-breaking.

My own heart has developed a new crack of late. Last week, I blindly rekindled the tinder with an old flame. She is a girl who I've long thought I truly loved. One whom I rarely allowed to see that love when we were together. That insight has been a burden to me. I've felt I owed her something. We began meeting, platonically, a couple months ago. We still clicked, and sparked.

A week ago, I chose to open myself to her... wide. How our relationship years before had changed me. How I had newly begun this path of self-discovery as a dom. How I had started this blog, and felt the torrent of ideas and emotions pouring down onto pages. We dined, shared dessert and a drink, returned to her apartment. She wanted to read me; I wanted to be read. While she did, I retired to the only other room, the bedroom, parked myself on the bed with a book, and waited, anxiously.

After a while, she joined me on the bed. We talked, but little. We began playing hand games, something we'd done many times years ago. She rolled into me, we embraced, and for a few moments I experienced such bliss. She was again in my arms, near to me, tender with me. Eventually, I caressed her face, her lips, let my fingers slide into her mouth. As I did, we slid easily into SM play.

I shifted my palm under her chin, gently pulled her head back, held her, contained her, gathered her for a journey. Then I kissed her, and ...

Now I wish I had not. I cannot recount those hours for you, my reader; I wish they had been a dream only, like so many dreams of her before them. When the night grew late, we rose, shared a drink, she read some more of me. I pointed out a favorite story. We embraced again, then I readied myself to leave.

As soon as I pulled shut the door of my car I realized that the wide, soft gray boundary we'd been traversing, between romance and platonia, had collapsed into a fine, sharp edge. We would now either be pulled together to inseparability, or yanked back apart to a distance that would permit virtually no contact. We could not simply be pals. I saw a stark choice: 1) Cease. 2) Commit. I was shaken; I was unprepared for this juncture.

The next day I drove into the time-worn mountains not far from here to spend the weekend with my best friend, Tom. (He recently dated a kinky girl, and tormented her only with the fact that dominating her held no appeal for him!) I briefed him on my turn of amorous events, and the crossroads where I stood. His steady presence was reassuring. I began to navigate my heart, gingerly, towards the choice to Commit. The following afternoon, after an arduous and visually stunning hike with Tom up the run of a rocky creek, I phoned my rekindled flame.

She said, simply, that she wanted no contact with me for a period of a month or more. I was stunned. I had no response. I related some thoughts that had congealed during the two days since we'd reignited. She had no response to them. We hung up.

I am bewildered, hurt, angry. I don't know that we'll ever speak again. I wonder whether she thirsted to do unto me what she felt I did unto her years ago. I want to lie in wait for her and pounce, confining her until she truly knows the warmth of my embrace. But all that matters little.

I have power with her. When she is in my presence, I can draw her into my arms. When she is in my arms, I can draw her into submission. And I love her. I love those aspects I know, those which she reveals. I know she has others, but they are hidden to me; I cannot love what I cannot fathom.

That is how I fail her. She demands not merely my power and my love, but my clairvoyance. My knowledge of her whole self. Knowledge which I do not have, and which she will not impart. For the loving dom, power is not enough. But, at times, neither is love. Sometimes, you have to simply know everything.

Spirit Freed, Hunger Renewed, a Flag Flies

Now... I am tense, anxious. I wake early, belly churning, dreams of a girl out of memory's reach, but still reverberating in my lower viscera. I am hungry, without relent, without repast. My craving is for her. She is not here, not known, not even visible.

I remember the feelings of giddy fear I endured as an older boy and a young man. Before I had tasted the flesh of women, and while I took the first timid bites. The mouth, the neck, the nipples, the furrows, the toes. The mind, the heart, the womb. I was crazed then, too; my psyche easily felled by simple words. It was a time of confusion, one that stretched perhaps longer for me than other more cocksure males. Finally in my middle thirties I wrestled my beast of angst to the ground. Then I strangled it.

There would be no more search for true love. There would be no soulmate. There might be a business partner, bed mate, and co-parent; if—and only if—an adult female could sustain an acceptable distance most of the time. She would come close only when I beckoned her, share "us", then return to the periphery of my attention. That is the only way I could conceive of a marriage. I had no capacity for sustained intimacy, for easy companionship. I found it distracting, dominating.

Suddenly, I am returned to that earlier turmoil of anticipation and fear. My inner ring has been cracked open. Rent by the gentle presence of that most powerful of females, the submissive. I kept the breach in check for some years, but I knew it was opened. I felt my soul stealing out through the gap. I understood it would resume the hunt of my youth. Now it has. I am again undone by my empty, yawning gut. I am hunting the subgirl.

At night, approaching my bed for rest, I can feel her with me, if not touch her. I silently call her to come in, ask her to undress, order her to lie back and place her legs apart. As I descend to the bed, I squeeze her thigh fondly, survey her breast with my palm, grasp the back of her scalp, turn her face up to mine, and bask in her glow. Curling around a spare pillow, I am entwined with her, we kiss, I pinch her nipple, cradle her bottom, slip my fingers to her deep portal. My hunger momentarily perplexed by the motion of chewing, I sleep... uneasily.

By day, I can smell her on the wind, in faint flickering wafts of imagination. They tease my starving heart. I cannot fathom how to locate her. How to lure her to within a distance from which I might glimpse a fleeting form, detect a track in soft earth. I daydream, devising simple games to play once she is in my sight but not yet my clutches: trust-falls, blind-folded walks, tests of exertion.

These words are my flag, this site my pole. The pole looks comically stunted at this early juncture. How to raise it so that she might hope to see it? I am so ravenous, I can think of nothing else.

This Kink Is OK: Slapping Her Face

"What are you into?" is a common question put to kinky people. I feel I owe my readers an answer. Rather than give you a long, dry list, I thought I'd post something substantive about each, and spread my kinks over many posts. "Leave your audience wanting more," as they say...

Slapping the face of your subgirl is a controversial one. For some subs, it's a hard limit, because it's so shocking and humiliating. And it's usually loud, especially to her! For girls that hate it, it can only be used as a discipline measure. You might get away with it in a scene if you give her some warning, and don't try it more than she can take, like once, lightly.

I simply love smacking my subgirl across the cheek. There are few ways of putting her in her place so simply and directly, and demonstrating her helplessness. It also creates connection, because I can look into her eyes as I do it. That link will only break momentarily when my hand lands. When she looks back at me in shock, I can gaze at her empathetically, or cruelly, depending on the context.

Slapping her face goes hand in glove with holding her by the hair. I place my hand on the back of her neck, gently, sweetly, then slide my fingers up into her locks, caressing her, until my palm is cradling her skull. Then I close my fingers slowly until I've grasped a great quantity of her hair. Now I've got control of her head, the most significant part of her body. I can immobilize it, or direct her movement. It's a tremendous display of my dominance to hold her by the hair and then slap her repeatedly, all the while gazing fondly into her eyes. It says, I love you and I will do as I wish with you.

That's precisely the reason we're together!

Thinking of Thea

The most rewarding relationship I've ever had was a kinky one, five years ago, Thea. Dense, jet-black hair past her pale shoulders, soft, searching brown eyes. A wise and tender girl, and sad. I'd never before experienced such click, and such power, with a woman. I've been thinking about her, daily, ever since. I've gotten back in touch recently; I think that's been one of the catalyzing events for this blog.

I still haven't fully sorted out why we parted. I called it off rather suddenly, when I became frustrated over a point of contention that kept raising its head. I think she was conflicted about being my sub as much as I privately craved. She wanted less SM late in our relationship. And I was at a loss as to how to combine the power she turned over to me with my own. I didn't feel powerful at that point in my life. If you don't feel it, it's terribly hard to wield correctly.

The catalyst to our split was another go-round on a long-standing disagreement, her point of view vs. mine. I felt she was asking me to excise a part of myself which didn't impact her. She felt I was disrespecting and disregarding her. I was exasperated when she brought it up again, though she spoke in a very meek tone. It was a dispute not soluble in a vessel of logic. Now I wish I'd tried responding as her dom:

My love, we cannot resolve this by further discussion. We will therefore do X, and I assure you it has no negative consequence for you. If you continue to protest, I will discipline you in a way you will find distasteful. I will not permit discord to fray our tapestry.

I'm not sure how she would have reacted. I'm not certain that disciplining her would have worked. She had never stated that she wanted a dom out of bed. But she loved me. And for that, she might have acceded to my will. Now I realize that I had a final card to play, but now is too late.

Now I am shaking my head to clear it of might-have-beens...

I don't know if you'll ever read this, Thea. If you do, know that I love you still, as my sister, my old friend from lives past. Your love cracked open the shell around my soul, at such a deep place that I didn't discover the gap until years later, until now. If or when you are ever in deep need, I will be there with you.

A Dom's Rite of Passage

I shaved my loins this morning, and belly and chest for good measure. I look to myself like an exotic animal, and nothing that would roam this far north of the Tropic of Cancer. I'm not sure if it's sexy; maybe it'll grow on me, as it were. It does make my manhood look longer. (That won't be motivation to remain bare; I look like the average porn star when roused.) When the scrotum contracts it's not that appealing. I'll say more when I find out how it looks when I'm erect. For the moment, I'm thinking of it as a rite of passage. I am no longer hiding from myself. I will be what I am, and discover all that is within me.

On females, I like, I expect, the presentation of bare skin. Waxed, in fact. I used to enjoy a little underarm hair on a girl, as it mirrored the hidden pube, but no longer. Wax it all, preferably with my help, so I can bask in her torture, comfort her, and then reward her. If I decide to stay bare, I'll opt for waxing, myself. Stubble is prickly, and wielding a razor is a dull chore.

I shaved by trimming it down with scissors and a comb, then got in the shower, lathered up with Tom's of Maine bar soap with Aloe (I think), and started running a double-bladed razor down my belly. It took quite a while. Lather, stroke-stroke-stroke, rinse razor, stroke-stroke-stroke, rinse all, repeat. For such relatively bald creatures, we still host a lush plantation of follicles. I massaged a liberal quantity of Cetaphil into the skin after it completely dried. So far there's no sign of irritation at all.

I wonder what subgirls think of this. Feel free to comment (and please note your gender, orientation, and D/s role, if any).

A Dom? Am I Really Up to This?

I once read the opinion of another dom that the ratio of genuine doms to genuine subs is 1:10. I've no idea if that's the reality, though Different Loving does find a similar disparity for female dommes and male subs. If you reflect on dominant personalities in society, the gap makes sense. Not all that many individuals desire and can handle high-level responsibility at a company or in government. Few choose to start their own business and fewer still are successful. (I've started two businesses and have yet to win in the way I define it. I'm working on a third.) Humanity is largely a herd.

I began pondering this after reading Quacks Like a Dom... at DomSubFriends.com. The article makes the point that many BDSM-community doms have found a stage on which to act dominant, and hide their lack of capacity and control in everyday life. I don't participate in "the scene", so I can't corroborate that, but the technique of finding a side-show venue to replace the real-world playhouse is one I've seen in other communities.

I also have to wonder to what extent many so-called submissives have adopted that mindset as a signal flare, hoping for rescue from themselves. The number of obese subgirls I've seen on one alternative dating site gives me serious pause. Obesity is generally linked with low self-esteem, and that brings a host of other problems. D/s is about building relationship, cultivating erotic and spiritual intimacy. Self-esteem is pre-requisite for that journey. It's not something one should achieve from the attention of any single person.

I've no intent to hide from real life, even if I do believe The System is flawed. But neither am I drawn to all the trappings and duties of success. My sister's young family of four is decidedly above average, and they keep themselves thoroughly busy. But it often seems to me that they are pursuing a path simply because it is wide, straight, and under their feet. Although both have MBAs from prestigious schools, neither has expressed an interest in founding a company or participating in a startup. They're both middle-managers for huge corporations. Their life and aspirations seem a bit hollow to me.

I've cut my own path, and it hasn't been easy. I'm largely self-educated, and entirely self-motivated. I've learned that genuine leaders are rare; that if you want effective leadership, by far the fastest means to it is to be it yourself, even if you have to learn as you fly. And I suppose that's what I'm up to here: Exploring what it means to be the leader of my lover's life, as well as my own, understanding what is required of me therein, and taking an inventory of myself on that account. I think I'm up to it, but that's not enough. I have to know.

Taking the Girl

She sat on the bed, legs crossed, nude. Her jet-black hair shrouded her shoulders. The bedsheets were stripped to the bed's edge, draping onto the floor. She waited, eyes big. I returned to the bed from the closet, bearing gifts. I perched on the mattress close behind her. Arms back, I whispered. She slowly drew her elbows out and swept her wrists back, bringing her forearms together at the small of her back. I looped the terrycloth bathrobe tie twice around her forearms, wrapped the ends crosswise around the loops, and knotted it. I eased her onto her back, placing a pillow under her shoulders, so that her head would fall back onto the mattress.

When I started trying SM play, I intuited that the experience would be more intense and overwhelming to my sub if she felt reclined to where her hips were above her head. One subgirl actually pointed out to me that I was doing this during one of our frequent conversations about the scenes we played. Letting her head fall back was a way of reclining her.

She breathed deeply, yet quietly. I shifted my perch down the bed, and admired her crossed legs. I looped a narrow leather belt around one ankle, then again around both ankles. I passed the belt through its buckle and pulled it very tight, pushing the crosspiece onto the leather until it found a hole in the strap. I tucked the end into its keeper. Now she was mine: skin bare, thighs spread, arms secure.

A female bound so presents a delightful range of possibilities. She can be punished where she lies, sat up, flipped over and used from behind, carried across the room, or left to simmer in her own juices. I chose the first of these.

I began by kissing her mouth, gently, sweetly, so as not to betray the ferocity burning inside me. Tenderly, I whispered, I want to hurt you, sweetheart. I set the fingertips of my right hand lightly upon her left breast and brought my fingers together gently, converging on the nipple. I repeated the motion for a while, then took the erect nipple between my thumb & forefinger, caressing it in short strokes. Then I pinched it firmly, with rapidly increasing pressure. A look of concern spread over her face. I pulled the nip away from her chest. A quiet moan turned into a small shout as I drew the delicate red bud away from her body. Then I took her other nipple with my free hand and pulled it the same way to compound her distress. Shortly I released them, and kissed each nip, soothing it with my tongue, circling slowly. She sighed in relief. Then I bit suddenly. She gasped an alarmed OW.

Growing tired of the simplicity of her breasts, I ran my right hand down her belly to her parted legs. I massaged her silky labial folds, enjoying the slippery sensation on my fingers, and began kissing her trembling lips again. Sympathetically, I queried, I'm so sorry sweetheart... did I hurt you? Her abdomen was heaving gently now with anxious breath. She knew better than to reply, but sighed appreciatively. I pushed my second and third fingers into her warm depth, and began to massage the roof of the tunnel. Gradually, I stilled my hand to a spot where I could feel her pubic bone at my fingertips, and I pressed into it. Firm pressure became hard. Hard gave way to intense. She cried now with every breath leaving her throat. I was pleased by the look of distress and fear on her face. I gazed placidly into her eyes and she looked back, searching for mercy. You are mine and you will obey me, I asserted in a tone sharp but soft. I relaxed the pressure, withdrew my fingers, toyed with the swollen node at the head of her succulent flower. The distress eased from her face, but the fear remained.

Holding her gaze, I ordered softly, Open your mouth. She parted her lips slightly. Open your mouth! I commanded crossly. She let her jaw drop. I slid my fingers, still wet with her lubricant, onto her tongue. I knew she hated to taste herself. Her face wrinkled in disgust. I pushed farther down her tongue, stopping just shy of the point where she would gag. She relaxed her mouth, accepting the pungent penetration. I rocked my fingers sideways across her tongue, cleaning them, then withdrew them. I kissed her again. You're a good girl, love. I paused. Now give me your tongue.

Tentatively, the pink muscle grew from her lips. It was barely damp; pain and fear had drained her mouth of saliva. Give it to me, I coaxed, until she extended it an inch and a half from her parched lips. I grasped it between my thumb and the first knuckle of my forefinger. I squeezed suddenly and hard, knowing that it would instinctively recoil. She gave a sharp cry, and pulled my fingers to her teeth before escaping from my grip. I put my face to hers again, whispering, I love you, sweetheart... I love hurting you.

I caressed her face then, stroking lightly at the creases of tension, dispelling her angst. Her expression softened into impassivity, though her belly still heaved. She was open to me. Open to her torment. Awaiting more.

Willful Vanilla Nell

My last girlfriend, Nell, is still one of my closest friends. She's decidedly vanilla, if open-minded and mocha-colored. Her personality is not as strong as mine, but she's a willful girl, and frequently bratty, though in a charming way. She's also really needy, at least with me. She's cute, too; 5'7, thin, bright smile, and sparkly blue-green eyes. She's a willing bedmate, with small perky breasts, a flat tummy, and elegant pink lines in the lips between her legs. If only she would keep the bushes trimmed!

She's been cheer-leading me since I told her I was considering launching The Journey of Will, even though I've told her I may not tell her where to find it! I don't entirely trust her not to let slip that she knows this domguy who writes a blog called...

Since she's vanilla; I can't apply dom techniques to quiet her brattiness and soften her willfulness. Nor can I train her to keep secrets. But she's not so vanilla that she won't get a sharp spanking if I visit her place and she demands that I kiss her (knowing full well where that would lead), even though we've agreed that we should no longer share a bed, and that she should start trying to date better candidates for her tastes.

In our erotic excursions, I've not only spanked her, I've also slapped her face, bitten her tongue, pinched her nipples and breasts, slapped and pinched her labia, bound her ankles together, called her many names, and narrated countless SM fantasies in baroque detail. But she has a low pain threshold and barely tolerates it, often getting overwhelmed and folding up or starting to cry when I up the intensity level just a little. I feel bad that I'm taking advantage of her to express my kinks. Despite our sexual incompatibility, she still loves me immensely.

I've also been relatively dominant with her outside the bedroom. I love to give her my insight, and tell her what to do; I think she needs the guidance. (She argues and applies little of it, and only after repeated prodding. Willful.) Talking with her the other night about lifestyle D/s, she said she's been puzzled by my earlier assertions that I don't want a 24/7 sub. From her perspective, I seemed oriented towards just that!

We've gone through periods since we officially broke up three years ago when we talked by phone every night, but saw each other rarely. We've helped each other get through a couple of tough years.

She asked me to get together this weekend, but I don't think that's a good idea... I'm so wound up with my dom-self discovery process these days that I'm sure I would jump her, spank her, and take her. I find her very attractive, and she likes attracting me, even though she knows it's going to hurt. I guess she must have a little masochistic streak! Or maybe not; she's just addicted to the intimacy.

But right now, I'm addicted to the fantasy of a much different, deeper, darker form of intimacy.

A Dom? How Did I Come to Be That?

On some evenings, when alone with a book on theoretical physics, I suspend belief in causality. Things just are the way they are. One moment is not really connected to the next. Time is an illusion.

But that is a poor anecdote to spin when asked how I became a dominant type. Surely, since my orientation isn't normal, as if there is such a thing, there must be an explanation for my behavior.

I shall try to confabulate one for you. Let's start with my mother's father. He was a strict disciplinarian to her, though tender with his wife, but I don't believe he actually beat my mother as a child. But he did abuse her psychologically; her expression was stifled. My mother didn't venture very far into the world on her own; indeed, she was living at home when she got married, at age 35. At that time, it was a late age to marry.

Her husband, my father, was an extremely gentle man. Unfailingly warm and kind. Good-natured and easy-going. A good soul, but not terribly motivated, and lacking an ambitious bone anywhere in his body. Leading the family fell to my mom, who had strong role models for that in her parents. Lead she did. Controlling she became, bit by bit. As an adolescent, my mother and I fought constantly, and bitterly. The discord bled over into the whole family. It ended when I left home at 18, not for college, but for independent life in a small college town, far away.

My parents' model of a relationship didn't suit me. Despite wandering in search of self-discovery for an excessive period of ten years, a leader was not what I required in a romantic partner. I did not date domineering women, but then, I did not date many women at all. I didn't find great comfort in female companionship, in fact I typically withdrew into myself after the liaisons formed. I didn't feel safe. The girl would usually end the affair.

Finally, in my early thirties, I encountered a style of relationship that drew me out, instead of driving me in. She was gentle, soft-spoken, and sexually submissive. Beyond the bedroom, she was happy to let me lead, and bend to many of my quirks. She rarely badgered or teased me, and where she did make her feelings known, I felt inclined to gradually accommodate her. Considering that she was finalizing a divorce with her husband of many years, she fell in love with me remarkably quickly.

Had I gained my mother's domineering qualities by osmosis, and been unable to see them all this time? Had my disgust with the futile power struggle I waged with her as a child made me suitable only to a woman who would grant me her power? Or had years of unsatisfying romances interrupting long periods of solitude made me determined to bend a woman's heart to my will?

The universe is simply there; I just am this. There is no verifiable explanation.

The Subgirl of my Dreams

Cue a romantic soundtrack... perhaps a string quartet. Something lilting and wistful, and hopeful, very hopeful.

After three years of not dating—excepting occasional visits to the tiny condo of my vanilla, albeit experimental, former girlfriend—I am out on the hunt again. This time vanilla girls are not targets, comely and abundant though they may be. Now I want a gal who knows she's submissive, who viscerally craves the enveloping love of a strong and loving domguy.

I had begun to give up on romance. Looking back on my vanilla history, I'm hard pressed to point to any entanglement that was both rewarding and lasting. Even the "lasting" ones weren't very. I began to think that I just wasn't wired correctly for long-term, live-in partnership. Actually, that may well be the case for long-term, live-in, vanilla situations. Were I to hold the reins of the household, well, that's a horse of a different color.

On to the subject at hand. Ahem. My dreamsub. Let's see...

She's brilliant, a contributor to the world with her mind and wits. She devours information in her areas of intellectual interest. She's articulate, deft with the language, and delights in deep conversation. She's funny, verbally and intellectually playful. She's philosophical, cognizant of the contradictions of human experience. She's not afraid to wax romantic or cynical.

My dream subgirl is petite to average height, and thin, but not skinny. I'm able to lift and carry her. (I'm tall, but not particularly burly.) She's a doll, her smile lights up the room and warms my face. Her eyes twinkle. She's curvy enough, but not voluptuous. One or two loops of hemp around a breast are sufficient.

She's graceful and agile. She has some training in dance or athletics. She carries herself proudly and elegantly. She has a strong sense of rhythm. She can boogie. If she doesn't already know how to partner dance, she wants to learn. She loves going for long walks.

This girl has an independent mind. She uncovers poignant insights about people and events. She presents to the world a strong and self-assured nature. She isn't afraid to spar with her dom, to challenge him to actualize himself. She's occasionally willful but not really bratty.

She's profoundly submissive. Practicing D/s ignites fire in her heart and belly, and arcs of electricity with her partner. Actively submitting to her dom is an incredible thrill, whether he's playing with her, asking her to expand herself, or simply requesting a hug. She wants to expand her submission to every minute she's with him, but gradually, as their trust builds. She is acutely attuned to his joy and contentment in her presence. She's constantly flirty and primed for erotic entanglement.

This sub is mid-twenties to early thirties, and childless. She's precocious, the peer of much older people. She's open to having children, but not determined to do so.

She's artistic, she paints or draws. She's talented at whatever she engages. She's healthy, and health-conscious, but not fanatical. She likes dark beer and fine chocolate. She doesn't require a steady diet of pop-culture entertainment, she picks and chooses her inputs.

The girl has great parents, who are still together. She's out to her family and some friends. They're used to the fact that she calls her boyfriend "Sir"; they find it endearing.

Do you, dear reader, know a girl like this? If so, could you kindly point her to this blog? I would be forever in your debt...

Of Ignorance and Anger

It was a serious mistake.

Early in my first D/s romance, on a lazy weekday morning in early summer, when neither of us had to work 'til late, we cuddled after waking and then dropped into SM space once again. She lay face-up on the bed in my city studio apartment. I crouched across her, almost embracing her. I don't remember how it started. Then I was spanking her breasts with my taught bare hand. Beating them, really. Hard... much too hard.

I was not a good dom with her. When we came together, we both brought pungent bitterness from life. She from her divorce-in-progress, I from my split with a company I had founded. We were both angry and bewildered, betrayed. She turned her anger inward, I turned mine out. My warmth for her was hot and cold, I would pull her in, then push her away. She accepted this, though it was hurtful. I knew virtually nothing about the art of erotic punishment, the practice of domination and submission. Neither did she, but we both sought a conduit for connection that would bypass our anger, or at least channel it.

She had a very high pain threshold. Once she burned her instep on a backyard firework around the Forth of July. It was a device that lights up and spins, and sometimes takes unexpected zigzags. It zipped over to her foot. She told me that when it landed, it produced an intense, familiar sensation, one that she couldn't quite place at first. Then she realized, Oh... it's pain!

My hand was landing on her chest with a thump rather than a smack. My phalanges and tarsals were finding her ribs and sternum. The tenderness of flesh was nowhere to be found in the impact. I was summoning anger to power the blows, forcing my hand down to her chest with effort. I labored to produce each strike. My face was drawn back in a wince. Her face lit up with shock. She gasped and gasped. I don't remember how it ended. My desperation passed, or she signaled me to stop. Her chest was red, but not brightly so. The tension faded.

Often when we were together, I was unconsciously inspired, even intoxicated, by the feeling that I can do what I will with this woman. That she is bound to me, that our relationship is all in my hands. That I could hold her close, and then hold her at bay, with equal force of grip. Only once during our time together did she push me away, and then I pulled her back. But I wasn't ready for this kind of power. I wasn't secure in myself. I had never imagined possessing someone emotionally the way I did her. I did not know how to teach her to be mine. I did not know how to love a submissive woman.

We lay on the bed for a while, recovering from the fury of the scene. She seemed fine; we were both relieved. She got up and went into the bathroom. Then she made a small, terrified noise. I went to her. There, in the mirror over the sink, were her breasts, covered with nickel- and dime-sized purple marks. She was appalled, and ashamed. I was worried. It didn't look too bad, but it was quite clear she'd been beaten.

She sunk into despair. She'd let herself become a battered woman, she said. I was pained, anxious that I'd permanently bruised our budding romance. We dressed, and I took her around the corner for some tea. We sat on the steps of a nearby brownstone, sipping earl grey and nibbling a blueberry scone. I tried to comfort her, to say I knew it was wrong. I was confused. Part of me had admired the results of my handiwork, and knew it wasn't serious. More of me was aware that we'd come dangerously close to the edge of some precipice I'd never visited.

This was the one time she pushed me away. I worked to pull her back over the course of a week. A few days after the beating, we met before an evening dance, and went for a walk. We walked in a graveyard in an otherwise urban setting. She was still withdrawn, our chemistry didn't spark. I was gentle, subtly beckoning her to return. The next time we met, we both lit up as soon as we set eyes on each other. Relief and warmth shined upon us. We embraced gently, surely, and walked together again.

I had no anger towards her when I beat her that morning; it was an experiment, as emotional as physical. I never hit her in anger. I only ever became angry with her once. And that time, I ran from her. I ran away for good.

And that... that was a greater mistake.

Letter to a Subgirl

This is a letter I penned recently to a single submissive woman desiring a 24/7 "total power exchange" relationship whose online profile I admired...

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Dear Subgirl,

I found your profile before I joined here; it was one of the few that motivated me to sign up. When I finally took the plunge, your profile had disappeared. I crossed my fingers that you'd resurface. I'm glad you came back.

Your profile's long and thoughtful description of your motivations and needs is refreshing and touching. I find the contrast of your confident, busy, professional, vanilla self, with your private, viscerally submissive nature to be compelling. It resonates with me, as I too play host to a collection of contradictions, some of which are apparent to friends and family, others not.

My profile doesn't describe me as ultimately seeking a 24/7 engagement, but I do desire something more than bedroom-only. I wouldn't choose the burden of all the many small decisions that a relationship must make, day-to-day -- that would just slow us down. I need a collaborator, someone who can concoct her own analysis and articulate it. And rearticulate it if I didn't follow! I need the benefit of her wisdom, as well as her deference and endorsement. Certainly disputes must be resolved; it is my role to do so, and equitably.

For me, D/s is a path into a profound bond with a woman. A challenging path, emotionally, psychologically, physically, sexually. Each partner steps away from the middle ground that dominates a vanilla relationship, creating a uniting tension between the two. Their respective roles are more separated than the vanilla style, but their intimacy is far greater. Maintaining this tension requires real effort, and occasionally you need to relax it and just share the middle ground for a time.

I don't show my Dom nature to people I'm not intimate with, so you won't see him clearly in correspondence, nor in a first meeting. I like to play non-sexual D/s games when first exploring that energy, though my experience of D/s is strongly connected to my sexuality.

I hope I've not written too much too soon; I love to reveal myself.

Warm Regards,

Will

---

I've not yet heard back, though I did receive a hint that she intends to reply...

Further D/s Reading

I spend a lot of time at my local Barnes & Noble, mostly in the science section, which is quite good. On the evening before I created The Journey of Will, I thought I'd amble over to the sex stacks, to see what they have on BDSM. I looked at every title in the stack... nothing!

Then I realized that the section might commence at the bottom of the stack to the left. There was one title: Different Loving, authors Brame, Brame, Jacobs. It has a striking image of the thigh-high, spike-heeled boots of a Domme on the cover. I looked at the publication year... 1991. That could be out of date, even quaint, I thought. I brought it to a chair, trying not to look too surreptitious, and opened to the table of contents. (Always read the table of contents first and carefully when you crack a work of non-fiction!)

It's a very readable tome, with summary coverage of many kinks. I particularly enjoyed the Lifestyle D/s section, which had fascinating interviews with both members of one couple, and a self-described slave girl in an active relationship.

---

Well, it's not exactly reading, but the most remarkable bondage imagery I've come across is produced by Kink.com in San Fran. The sets are lavish, the models lovely, the rigging exquisite, and the toys diverse. They claim to make the models actually come on camera, which given some of the tools and techniques they use, is hard to dismiss out of hand! They have a vast offering of free images and video clips at FreeHardcore.com. It's geared towards a male audience (I wonder how many vanilla guys eat this up), but I suspect sub women would find it intriguing and sexy, as much of it has a very authentic quality. It's a wonderful source of ideas for play. Not for the faint of heart or moralistic of mind!

---

I'll add to this post as I come across other good non-fiction sources on this topic...

The Emotional Landscape of Dark Sex

I recently joined an "alternative lifestyles" dating site. What a mind opening experience! In corresponding with other members there, I've had the opportunity to pen some thoughts about the emotional experience of dominating a girl who has offered me her submission. I thought I'd share them with you...

The act of dominating my subgirl stokes a fire in my belly and behind my eyes. I feel it as I write this. When I'm face to face with her, imposing my will, that heat is layered with a fear of the forbidden—Don't hit her, and a lust for the same—Show her no mercy. Those forces seem to balance within me, but foment a choppy inland sea which demands effort to navigate. The collage of sensation and emotion is otherworldly, encompassing my notion of what she experiences, nerves ringing in the hand that strikes her, the sound of her cries, the search for what I will do next, the sense of freedom to do as I please, the responsibility for her well-being.

Possessing a subgirl means taking good care of her, every minute we're together, no matter what the context. This means far more than basic devotion. I impose emotionally and physically difficult circumstances on her that she would not choose in my absence, often incorporating humiliation and pain. These present the opportunity for transcendence, and she needs both my freely-given love and my certain faith in her to come through the challenges she faces. I am fascinated by her journey into fear and suffering, and her eventual victory over them, and the deep bond between us that stems therefrom. It's a Passion Play, in Christian terminology.

During our play she encounters two broad categories of feeling: pleasure, which is largely physical, and discomfort, which yields an emotional response beyond a certain threshold. The intensity and proportions of pleasure and discomfort are varied depending on the reason for playing...

In loving play, I'm metaphorically feeding her a large, gourmet fudge sundae one bite at a time. It's utterly pleasurable and delicious. Any emotional discomfort is unintentional. If she likes intense stimulation, spanking or pinching or what have you, I'll not deny her such nuts and whipped cream. She might be bound to heighten her arousal, and this could induce limited emotional discomfort, but not enough to be distracting. My goal is to give her orgasms, hopefully by the dozen, until she is exhausted. My pleasure in this play is her pleasure, plus that which I may draw from her soft skin and two pairs of wet lips.

In training play, my favorite form, the physical pleasure is moderated, and the emotional discomfort is cranked up. Her situation will be simultaneously difficult and exciting for her; she hates it and she loves it. The contrast of the two feelings, one principally emotional, the other physical, composes a complex symphony in her mind and body. Ideally, she will experience an emotional release, like sobbing or trembling or laughing, and a sexual release. This is a profoundly cathartic form of play. The emotional discomfort is induced by pain or humiliation or strenuous exertion. To accept it she must swim deeper into her submissive nature. During training play, I may make use of her for my own sexual gratification, typically adding to her pleasure quotient. My pleasure in this play is her predicament and conflicting sensations, and my control of her feelings and experience.

In punishment play, which she won't think of as play at all, any pleasure is unintended; intense emotional discomfort is the point. She will remember the lesson long afterwards. Punishment of this sort is never meted out without good cause and a clear explication to her of it. Humiliation (which may amuse me), uncomfortable bondage with sensory deprivation for an extended period, and corporal punishment of a variety she detests are ways of inducing appropriate distress. The cold shoulder is another, but it is as painful to give as to receive. The emotional impact of punishment may outlast the activity; she may sulk afterwards. If she does, I leave her in a light hogtie to be alone with her thoughts until the funk passes. My pleasure in this play is in her deserved torment and her submission to her ordeal.

An Erotic Style, or a Lifestyle?

I've known I wanted kink in my love life for ten years now. But I've been dating vanilla girls who didn't want to be restrained and whacked, let alone made subservient, during sex. Some years ago, I happened into a romance with a gal I met at a dance weekend, and she wanted to be treated harshly on the bed. She didn't tell me, but it didn't take me long to figure it out. A pinch or two is all you need to season the stew.

Our D/s play began and ended at the bedroom door, mostly. The energy did spill over from time to time. We had an easy flow between playful companionship and the tense turmoil of our lovemaking. But it never crossed my mind while we were together that I could want her submission in every moment of our combination.

My first exposure to so-called "lifestyle" or "24/7" D/s relationships was probably a "master/slave" configuration. It's a sexy fantasy, owning the life of your romantic interest, but when I try to imagine it in the real world, I think, "How totally weird!" Naked and chained whenever she's at home? Her every move dictated by her master? Housework and more housework? It's one thing to have sexual favors at beck and call, but this all seems a bit tedious. Smart is sexy in my book. Where in all that service does she get to exercise her most important asset... her mind?

But a large portion of lifestyle D/s relationships, maybe the great majority, aren't master/slave at all. The flavor varies in each pair, but this silent majority create partnerships in which the D/s tension is ever-present, but not the controlling dynamic of most moments. The dom may choose to take full manual control of his sub at any moment. But usually they've got more pressing affairs to attend to, like making dinner, or going to the movies, or planning a vacation.

When I realized that, the lifestyle concept started to resonate with me. One gal's profile on a dating site, which described her as ultimately seeking a lifestyle situation, sounded particularly grounded...

Most adults work, have family, and daily obligations, whether they are in a D/s relationship or vanilla. Those things will never cease to exist. I am a professional and work full time, generally keeping myself pretty busy ...

And for her, it's not about play parties and fantasy worlds...

For me, D/s is ... a sacred, private, and intimate union between two people. It exists whether they are in a room full of strangers doing normal everyday things, with only the two of them knowing [the truth of their roles], or whether they are having an intense session in the privacy of their own home. D/s does not leave the heart and mind, no matter what the circumstance.

And she points out that there are other essential dynamics in a relationship...

You have a sense of humor and know how to relax and laugh, understanding that life is short and there is fun to be had! You understand that being kind and tender in the right moments does not negate the fact you are the authority figure or that she is beneath you, rather it makes the foundation more solid, and your roles more concrete.

Reading her words, I honestly begin to tremble. The cynic in me asks, is such a relationship even remotely possible, isn't it just another perfect-love fantasy? And my romantic self embraces it perhaps too whole-heartedly, the way I used to embrace the notion of one's True Soulmate promoted by Richard Bach in The Bridge Across Forever, which I now regard as a manual for building unhealthy relationships.

The truth must fall to the middle ground, as it ever falls. But though a D/s lifestyle can't be perfect, perhaps it can be far better than the intimacy I've known.

I am Will. I Crave Dark Sex.

My name is Will. I dwell in an American city east of the Mississippi, north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I am thirty-something. I have no sweetheart; I live alone. I'm hoping to change that.

I am a so-called "dominant male". At least I think I am. The term refers to sexuality, but it's incomplete. I'm a dominant heterosexual male; a loving dominant heterosexual male. Now it's getting cumbersome. I'll try to come up with a better moniker.

I'm not merely into "kinky sex". Plenty of ordinary men tie up a lover for a little variation in the bedroom. Maybe spank her, bite her. Good old fashioned rough sex. They get what they came for, as it were, and they leave it at that. That's just the tip of my iceberg. I want more from my lover, much more. It's a little scary to me.

I want control of my lover. In the bedroom, always, and perhaps beyond it as well. I can't get that close to a girl who willfully rolls around in our relationship like a loose cannon on deck. I can become unfathomably close to a girl who knows she needs to be tied down while aboard and embraces it.

As for sexual practice, I relish sadomasochism. I am not a sadist! What's the difference? Sadomasochism (SM) is a consensual duet, and for me it's grounded in romance and intimacy. Sadism is common cruelty, inflicted on an unwilling victim. It's a pathology. SM promotes personal growth. Sadism destroys psyches, and lives.

There are a lot more latent and practicing sadists in the world than sadomasochists. A lot. Unfortunately, a great many unalloyed sadists masquerade as SM practitioners. More on that soon...

I'm writing to describe how I discovered this about myself, how I am discovering it. Simply stated, this is a sex blog. I'm not here to write erotica, others can do better. I'm writing to explain or explore what Dark Sex means to me. My experience, my philosophy, my aspirations, my path, my mistakes, my losses. The unexamined life is not worth living, it is said.

I don't plan to "come out" to the world with this. It isn't socially acceptable. I have two young nieces who I love to play with. I am anything but a danger to them; SM has nothing whatsoever to do with children. But my sister and brother-in-law might question my suitability as a childhood companion if they knew this side of me. One day I hope to have a position of influence in my chosen vocation. A public face. I might want to be a sexual liberation activist, but for now I will be an anonymous one.

Well, I do have a profile on an alternative lifestyles dating site. With a picture, of my face. I'm not sure I'll leave it there. In fact, I'm sure I'll take it down at some point. Look for the cute smiling guy with the nicely written profile that has almost no references to sexual practices. That's me. I'm looking for love, true love. And sex, lots of Dark Sex.