It has been a very long time since I’ve posted here. I’m sure many of you thought I had abandoned the blog, and effectively I had, but that was never my intent.
I’ve been very busy lately with work and life issues, working on a side project of my own, and playing video games to distract myself, and while I’ve written the starts of several posts at this point, I never managed to press ‘Publish’ because I was discontent with the results.
I’m not gone, and I am beginning a process of refocusing my life and how I live it.
I’ve been complacent in too many areas of my life lately. I’ve been making progress on some things, but for most, I’ve let them slide and just allowed myself to live with things as they are. I resolve to stop that (again) and to take a more active role in my own destiny.
Funny, isn’t it? The big, bad Dom-type was drifting. Isn’t that supposed to be the last thing that a D-type would do?
Each person’s Dominance is unique, and each is a journey. My own journey has taken many turns over the course of the past couple of years – most of which I did not anticipate.
This is a source of tremendous anxiety for me.
I do not fetishize control, but Control is the thing that lets me be a Dom in this world. Control is the thing that reinforces my power, that gives life to my Will. Control is the thing that allows me to tame the chaos of my mind and live a successful life.
But it’s fucking boring.
I’m a dichotomy and I contradict myself all the damned time. I have a consistent set of values and desires, but there are things in my mind that get in the way when I try to enact them sometimes.
Lately, my life has been largely out of my control, and that has been a source of tremendous anxiety for me – but also joy. While control allows me to accurately (for the most part) predict how the events of my life will unfold, it also completely removes the ability for anything to surprise me, and it can be exhausting to try to force things to fit when that is a state to which they do not naturally gravitate.
I’ve had literally weeks where I was almost paralyzed with fear concerning a couple of lawsuits in which I have been involved over the past several years. But I’ve also recently had moments where I was comfortable enough to completely let go and allow the Primal in me to come out – something that has not happened in a decade or more.
Just last night, I attended a kink event with my girlfriend and I made a horrible misjudgment. I think it’s fair to say that I know her better than anyone else, but I erred, and not in a small way.
There are those of you out there who read this and already think that I’m too soft to be a ‘True Dom’ – and this is going to reinforce those beliefs.
I fucked up.
I take responsibility for my lack of preparation, my lack of empathy, and my disturbingly effective emotional distancing coping techniques.
I entered into a highly emotional situation without the ability to access my own emotions or to empathize with my girlfriend, and I made a huge miscalculation.
And that is precisely the correct word to use here, for my actions were calculated and predicated on years of experience that I have and she does not. I embarrassed her in a public setting in front of people that she very much cares for how they view her by treating her as if she should have known things that I never showed her.
And so, the evening fell apart, and when things were at their bleakest, I did too. Spectacularly, and in a way that has not happened for more than decade.
I relived moments that I wish I could forget. I went to the place in my mind where control is fiction and I didn’t possess control even over my own body. I went so deep that I actually caused myself to vomit – no mean feat when I’d not eaten anything all day.
But there is catharsis in surrender – as any s-type can tell you – and as I once lived myself.
When I broke, she came to help me.
I cannot possibly overstate the significance of that to me.
The big, bad, Dom-type was quite literally a blubbering idiot in the corner, and his protective and nurturing and beautiful girlfriend and submissive-in-training took control for a moment and gave me the strength to allow my mind to find the coping mechanisms that evolved in me over the years and Control came back. Briefly, and without form, but it came back.
I wrote once before on this blog that I thought I had finally found the love of my life, but it turned out to be untrue.
I have been reluctant to make the same sorts of claims with this relationship, largely because I did not see it coming the last time, and I didn’t want to jinx this time, but after weathering the battle and experiences of last night, I think it’s safe to say that this is the most stable and mature and balanced relationship that I’ve ever had.
We struggle with D/s.
This is my fault, not hers. She wants it, and I have a very hard time presenting things to her because I do not want to insult her by treating her like she knows nothing, but in so doing, I do her a massive disservice. How can one learn if no one is willing to teach? Sure, books exist, resources are available on the ever-mighty Internet, and there are even classes that you can take, but ultimately, at the end of the day, our D/s is between us, and it’s not every Dom in the world that she needs to cater to, just me. And there is no manual for me on the Internet – the closest you’ll find is this blog, or the defunct one I wrote years and years ago – so how I can I expect her to know what to do if I don’t show her?
This is a journey. I don’t want the same type of D/s that I’ve had in the past, but I haven’t yet formulated what it is that I do want, and until I do that, we’re going to flounder.
So, this is where I cast off the worries of the lawsuits that have since been settled (and very recently – I literally just signed papers to settle one case on Thursday) and I recommit myself to my life, my love, my joy, my friends, my family, and my community.
More posts will be forthcoming.
I threw out the 500 words a day goal when my life became overwhelming a couple of months ago, but I’m reinstating it now.
If I have time to play video games, I have time to write.
NaNoWriMo will be taking a back seat to the other parts of my life this year, but my circle of friends is widening, and my relationship with the woman who I intend to keep for the rest of my life is only beginning to really solidify – despite months of growing and a nearly complete merging of our lives.
I love my girl. I hurt her, and I cast myself into Hell for doing so.
Punishment is always a part of D/s relationships, but last night we both punished ourselves to an extent that I could never replicate. The worst punishments always come from within, don’t they?
Rant is a name that I took when I started this, and it’s not a bad one. It’s short, easy to say and remember, and accurately reflects the mindset that I was in when I began this particular journey, but it doesn’t quite fit any more.
This is not a rant. This is not a lesson. This is a confession and commitment.
I shall return. One small step at a time, I shall return.
I started writing this piece some time ago, as with many of my entries, but most of the ideas expressed herein remain true to the form they took when I first began to approach the idea.
I suppose that’s a good sign. But things have also evolved a bit, and that’s a good sign as well.
I can also now say that I may finally have arrived as a minor internet celebrity – about a week or so ago I received my first marriage proposal through the blog email address.
I responded to the person with a personal email declining her (or his) very gracious offer, and I won’t further belabor the issue, but I thought it worth mentioning as it has been on my mind when I think of the blog.
The Internet is a strange place…
But this is a piece about control, and the Internet is quite clearly outside of the control of anyone.
Hail Eris!
Part of living in human society means that you have to surrender control of some aspects of your life to other people, processes, governments, corporations… entities beyond your influence.
No matter how much one embodies the qualities of Dominance or how much of the Domliest Dom of them all you may be, there are parts of your life that are not yours to control.
As you might imagine, for a control freak like me, sometimes this causes hiccups for me.
It’s always part of a bargain though… Control is yours, like anything else, and you are coerced, compelled, or even just sometimes asked to trade it away for other things. You trade some of your personal liberties for safety when you agree to abide by the laws that we have in place to prevent crimes of property. I give control over my ability to drive my car when and how I want to in order to have access to the public roadways. These are mostly things that we’re used to and things that don’t intrude upon our thoughts very often, so it’s not as if I feel their loss most of the time.
Right now I’m having a bit of an issue though.
I’m too attached to my job.
One of the ways in which I’ve always been able to exert more control over my life is through practising the concepts of non-attachment. If I don’t become attached to things, people, concepts, preconceived notions.. well, then they can’t be used to control me.
But I’m not perfect.
It’s almost always been the case that I’ve had a great deal of liberty with respect to my job. My skills are in high demand, and there are more jobs to be had for people with my abilities than there are people with my abilities, so I’ve always had the freedom to just quit and find another job – generally equally as good, often actually better.
I don’t even really like my job. It’s not particularly important work that I do, but it pays well, and that’s part of the problem. I could be doing something more meaningful or more interesting, but if I were, I’d have to give up some of the ability to control my own life and choices that I’m provided by having access to more money.
I also have a lot of schedule flexibility with my job. I could take a more interesting job somewhere that would probably pay me as much, or at least a similar enough amount that I wouldn’t feel the loss of the income too acutely, but if I were to do so, I’d lose some of my ability to control my schedule.
On the surface, these are good things. I have the ability to control my schedule and I make enough money at my job that I’m able to finance the things that I want to do when I exercise that schedule flexibility. I can, quite literally, do almost anything that I want to, almost any time that I want.
That is a huge amount of control for one person to have, and I’ve become quite attached to it, and it’s beginning to make my unhappy.
That’s what attachment is, you see – it’s unhappiness. When you become attached to something, you vest your future happiness in having that thing be present, and when that future is threatened, you become paralysed in your attempts to hold on to it.
So – I’m too attached to my job, and this is starting to become a problem because when you fear the loss of something, you will do things that you wouldn’t ordinarily do in order to keep it.
My boss is a particularly loathsome type of individual. She is operating at the level of her incompetence, and because I have held positions in other companies which are directly superior to her current position, because I am older than she is, and because I occupy a higher pay grade than she does, she feels extremely threatened by my existence. I am reasonably certain that she has tried to have me fired or transferred more than once, but unfortunately for her, the company puts as much or more value on me than they do her, so we are stuck at an impasse.
Add to this the fact that she is extremely passive aggressive and completely incapable of dealing with someone who is very open and assertive like myself, and we end up with the situation we have now where she avoids me in person, talks about me behind my back, and attempts to undermine my authority and position through subterfuge.
I must admit, I do experience a small amount of schadenfreude every time I hear about one of her efforts to undermine me going awry, but the fact of the matter is that none of this shit should be happening in the first place. I am her most capable employee, a natural leader who chooses not to lead in the office setting because I have no patience for the political games, and I would be more than happy to let her take credit for all of my successes if she would only get the fuck out of my way and let me succeed.
But… personal success is the only kind she has ever known and she clings to it like sinking ship because she is in charge of too many people and too many projects to actually be able to do the job and I made the mistake of offering to help.
And I really was offering to help.
I do not have to be Dominant in every aspect of my life.
In fact, coming out of a 24/7 TPE relationship that ended and finding myself in one that is more egalitarian, I am finding that I actually like not having to make all of the decisions, not having to lead every charge, not having to always be certain of everything. I still naturally stand in front, and I always (much to the chagrin of those who know me) speak up when I feel that I am right, and these are not things that I can or am willing to change about myself.
And so – every day at my job has become a new alpha contest with my boss.
The worst of it is, I want her to win.
I want her to take control, but I’m not going to just roll over and let her have it.
I recently re-took ‘The BDSM test’ and was slightly surprised to find that alongside the top two categories for which I am rated (Dominance and Bondage-giver) I am also extremely highly rated as Primal(hunter).
I don’t really think of myself in such a way, but when I allow myself to observe my interactions with other people, I can see it.
I naturally stand taller around people when I want them to listen to me.
I have a resonant voice and I’m not afraid to use it.
And, apparently, while I’m willing to acknowledge another as Alpha, I’m not willing to simply roll over and let an unqualified person take the mantle. In this case, the mantle was never mine, and I never (and still don’t) wanted it. She became my manager because my manager left the company, and she inherited me.
I don’t know how this situation will resolve itself.
In the past, being unattached to my job, I would simply leave in a situation like this – washing my hands of the issue, metaphorically speaking, and letting the incompetent lead the incompetent. But now, I’m attached to this job. I am not willing to so easily give it up, and while I do strongly believe that happiness can be achieved through non-attachment, I also believe that some things are worth holding on to and fighting for.
I may be making a terrible decision here, but I’m going to hold on to this job, and I don’t think the intolerable situation between my boss and I will resolve itself until one or the other of us leaves the company through choice or force, and I don’t intend to be the one to flinch here.
I am Rant.
I am usually happy, and I am usually able to let the detritus of life slide off my back, but this time I’m feeling ornery.
Nearly everyone is a hypocrite, if you look close enough, or pay enough attention, but I have one issue on which I am a planet-sized hypocrite of the worst kind.
Forgiveness.
I preach forgiveness.
I literally proselytize the virtues of forgiveness. I attempt to convert the unwashed masses to my own personal religion of sorts. I tell anyone who will listen that the path to happiness can be found by forgiving others and letting go of your own expectations. I tell people that you can walk the path to happiness by doing your best and then allowing whatever happens to happen without prejudice or expectation. And as an example of this, I tend to point to myself.
I have all sorts of stresses in my life. I’m a single parent, I have constant physical pain, I have a career that can be demanding at times, I live in one of the most expensive places to live in the world, and I have relationships with other people, so I am constantly affected by the things that affect them. Compounded, it would be rather easy to allow these stresses to overwhelm me. Each individual thing is something easy enough to cope with, but all together, the weight of this burden could crush me. No one would fault me for wanting to wallow in it, and from time to time I have.
But that is not my hypocrisy.
I point at myself and I say, “I am happier now than I have been at any other time in my life, because I stay in the now and I don’t worry too much about tomorrow. I plan, I am prepared to deal with eventualities, foreseeable and unforeseen, not because I worry about them, but because I have the basics covered and I believe in my own ability to deal with things as they occur.”
I give myself as an example to others, saying things like, “let go of your expectations and be present in the now and you will be happier for it.”
And yet… forgiveness…
I’ve mostly forgiven or forgotten things that affect me in life. I’ve forgiven Simone for tossing me out. I’ve forgiven my ex-wife for leaving me for another man. Although I won’t ever forget it, I have forgiven the people that molested me as a teenager. I have even forgiven my ex-wife’s boyfriend, the guy that she left me for and is still dating, though I did want to ask him for a very long time, “did you know that she was married when you fucked her?” So… I guess there is a kernel of bitterness there still, but I’ve had a conversation with the man and I didn’t jump down his throat for it, so I think I can safely say that I’m mostly past all of that now.
But my father… him I have not forgiven. I have not forgotten that he took advantage of me when I was most vulnerable, that he stole from me when I could least afford it, or that he has simply never been there for me except when it served his own narcissistic purposes. That is my hypocrisy and that is the burden that I can never seem to unload. And I would really like to…
Most of the time he won’t even admit that he has done anything wrong. I don’t mean just as it pertains to my life, but in other aspects of his life as well. He has done criminal things to his friends, he has manufactured issues in order to avoid other problems. He lies, he cheats, and he steals. And yet, he lives in total denial of it all, and perhaps that is the most galling thing. If he would apologize to me, I would forgive him, but I should be able to forgive him without the apology, because I know it will never come.
I know, without a doubt, that the times that I get struck down, the times that I lose sight of my goals and get stuck in problems that I can’t let go, most of those things would disappear or at least be drastically diminished if I could let go of this one last thing… I know that I would be happier and I would be more capable of dealing with the setbacks and holding to my non-attachment practices, if I could just let go of this one. last. thing.
And yet…
And yet, I haven’t been able to do that yet.
I deal with my father when it is required of me. I am civil to him, if a bit cold. I make sure that my daughters know him and are involved in his life. His birthday was this month, and I had them call him to wish him a Happy Birthday, nevermind the fact that he doesn’t do the same. Without me reminding him about their birthdays, he would forget them completely, and he has, more often than not. I got used to him forgetting mine, but the way he drifts into and out of my children’s lives bothers me. It shouldn’t. I should accept that is how he is, and I should just be grateful for the things that he does remember, but this bitterness will not budge.
And so, I am a hypocrite.
Perhaps someday I shall not be, but for now, I still can’t completely let go.
I am Rant, and maybe someday I will be everything I want to be, but for now, I do the best I can.
Over the weekend I ran across this – Letting Go of Attachment – and I recognized in it a philosophy that I have been trying, not always with the greatest of success, to implement for my own life.
I have to wonder how Lori Deschene and Leo Babauta would feel about being linked to a site run by a BDSM Dom who named himself Rant and started this blog as a place to complain about what he saw as problems in a community that he had turned his back on, returned to, and found lacking… but the truth is that I find them to be inspiring, and in the very short time that I’ve been writing I’ve changed my outlook on so many things, just from putting the words out there and listening to the thoughts of others.
You may have some questions about how it’s possible that I, admittedly a Dom, possibly a control freak, could possibly hope to live without attachment. It seems antithetical to the very mantle which I’ve just taken up, does it not? I mean, the essence of Domination is control, and my own personal road to happiness was rocky and uncertain until I embraced that mindset for myself again and accepted my Dominant nature. How could those two things possibly coexist in the same person?
Perhaps they are not as incompatible as they might at first seem…
Ever since I first read Leaves of Grass in high school, this has been a favorite passage of mine, from Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then, I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Even as a teenager, I understood and related to those words as part of the complex structure that makes up me and I have used them as a balm over the years to quiet my worried mind.
My personal journey to get to where I am in life now has been interesting, but I am finally and quite possibly for the first time in my life, happy.
I’ve studied many religions, practiced several, sought wisdom in self-help books and the writings of others. I have been through individual therapy, group therapy, couples’ therapy, and psychiatric assistance. I have used drugs, both natural and synthetic, prescribed for me or found through illicit channels. I have done yoga, exercise, meditation, hypnosis, and attempted to express myself in art. I have retreated into virtual worlds and even made my own. I have worked as a video game programmer, for a private investigator, and even as a sex worker. I have cleaved to my family and ostracized myself from them. I have told the fortunes of others and cast rods to divine my own future. I have been married, twice. I have had several intimate relationships and lots and lots of sex. I have driven fast cars and ridden running horses. I have tried almost everything that anyone has ever suggested to me as a way to become enlightened, to lift my dark spirit and to try to find happiness. It does not surprise me at all, today, that none of those things worked for me.
I am a Dominant. I am an atheist. I am a pacifist. I am a father and a guide and a feminist. I am worthy of being loved and I love myself. I am calm.
Throughout all of those experiences that I detail above I fought my inner self. I denied my feelings and persecuted myself, borrowing the Catholic guilt that I was raised with to hold my own desires at bay… I told myself that the me who desired to Dominate was wrong. That each person is his own individual and it was wrong for me to want to have that authority over another. I found myself submitting to others, not in the BDSM sense, but in a very real-world sense, all of the time. I did not have the confidence to stand up for my feelings because they were wrong. I hated myself for these horrible thoughts that I had about what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be.
How did I resolve that with letting go?
I stepped away from myself and looked at the dynamic.
I let go of my self hatred. I let go of the assumed societal restrictions on permitted thoughts and desires and I accepted myself and my ‘dark’ side. I have no desire to hurt anyone, quite the opposite, actually. I have no desire to injure anyone, I have no desire to inflict unwanted pain, but there is also the pain that reminds you that you are alive and the pain the brings with it the intense emotional release that I got when I submitted to Simone. There is such a thing as an embrace of pain that frees you from other pains.
I was molested as a young man. It was no one in my family, and indeed, they still don’t know that it occurred and if this ever gets linked back to me and placed in front of them a great many uncomfortable discussions will likely result, but it happened and it turned me into a brooding, angry, anti-social young man for a long time. Simone’s compassionate brutality helped me to face my demons and reclaim for me the things that were taken from me. Some of them, anyway.
I Dominate those that give themselves to me willingly. I will not accept submission from someone who is incapable of understanding what they are doing and I will not attempt to hold anyone who does not wish to be with me any longer or even those who can no longer benefit from doing so, whether they choose to see it or not.
This is a very scary thing.
Strong is the impulse to hold on, to claim a lover as mine and mine alone, but I know that I cannot be all things to all people, and no one person can be all things to me. To truly open my heart, I must accept that now, in this time, at this place, this person is trusting me with herself and the joy that brings me is incomprehensible. The joy that I feel when given that trust and that submission cannot be measured, and there is nothing wrong with me for feeling that way, just as there is nothing wrong with her for wanting to give herself to me in such a way. These are maladaptive behaviors, perhaps. They may be remnants of a primitive psychology, or they may simply be facets of a larger gem, I don’t know, but I want to know, and I will never give up exploring, and yet for now, right now, accepting is good enough.
Yes, I get off on having a pretty girl sit at my feet and lean on my leg and look up at me through long eyelashes with doe eyes and say, “yes, Sir.” If I believed in any gods, I would invoke them now to prove the conviction behind my thought. Once I thought that this made me a monster. Once I thought that this meant that there is something wrong with me, but there is not.
I am a kind Master, and a brutal lover, and a king of my own domain, and the confidence that I have to be those things, and to love myself for them comes from letting go of everything, even those lovers and that domain itself, because wherever I am, it is with me, and whoever they be, I am loved. And I am happy.
I am firmly Dominant in my role today, and assertive in every aspect of my life, but I was not born that way. Some people are, but I was made this way by circumstance.
Life pushed me into the crucible and burned away all of the pieces of me that were not who I am today. I can remember them, and I cherish the memories, but I would not go back.
I’ve known Doms who never switch. They are firmly rooted in their role and they’ve never walked outside of it; they’ve never desired to, never been so compelled, or never experimented. Some of these men (and women) achieve the proper level of respect and care even without having ever experienced what it is like to live on the other side of the power dynamic, but I do sometimes wonder if the ‘bad’ Doms out there fail because they don’t know what it is like to surrender.
I did. Once.
I remember what it was like, and I can put myself into a sub’s shoes.
Simone was tall, strikingly beautiful, powerful, intimidating, and brutal. She had an olive complexion, but her hair was platinum, not from age but choice. Her eyes were ice.. a blue/gray that pulled your soul into them the moment they locked on to you. In her platform stilettos she was easily half a foot taller than I am, and I’m six feet tall.
She was my first and only Domme, and I was devoted to her. She was titanic; she was superciliousness personified; and she scared the shit out of me.
I was but a young buck, and she was twice my age and infinitely more experienced than I was in love, life, and limerence. She introduced that term to me. I had no idea how smitten I was, but she showed me what it means to belong to someone completely.
Limerence is an uncommon term, so rather than make you go look it up I’ll tell you what it means to me. It is something like infatuation on steroids. It is the feeling you get when you can’t imagine being apart from someone, when you believe that you love them and you want them to love you back so badly that you can’t imagine life without them. It is devotion to a degree that is almost incomprehensible. It does not imply any reflexivity in feeling; it only describes this – often unrequited – love and devotion from the perspective of the afflicted. It’s probably close the feeling that a sub has for her first Dom, and ‘afflicted’ is a good word to describe it.
Limerence was definitely what I felt for Simone and she knew it. I was a puppy and she was Empress. She saw something in me though, and I don’t know how or why, but she knew that despite my groveling and my desire to please her, I was not a submissive at heart. She saw the pieces of me that I was showing her as weakness and she saw my inner strength and she quite literally beat the weakness out of me, or perhaps she forced me to beat it out of myself…
I had belonged to Simone for a few months. She had trained me to dominate other women, and I became quite good at it, from a very surface level, at least. She used me to dominate others through her influence, but I could never imagine using those same skills and roles with her.
I was devoted to her. I tried to anticipate her desires and I would try to fulfill them before she even knew she had them. I considered myself a success when she didn’t notice the things that I was doing for her. As time went on, I took it upon myself to do more and more for her, to make life easier for her in any way that I could. Eventually, I overstepped and the dynamic changed.
Simone ran a modeling and talent agency. She was a Harvard Business School graduate and has a large class ring that she usually kept on a chain around her neck. She had been slightly larger when she was in school, and it was loose on her finger now. She had a large office with glossy black floors and glass walls and floor to ceiling windows on the ninth floor. She had a large glass and steel desk and there was only the one chair – her chair. When she met clients, she would use a conference room, but when she met employees, we would have to stand while she sat. There was a chaise lounge on an animal skin rug under some bookshelves in the corner and a small wet bar near there, but no other furnishings in the room, and it was not a small room.
She summoned me to her office just before sunset. Her window faced the ocean, and at this time of day the sun was positioned almost directly behind her as I walked into the office and approached her desk. She often chose that time of day to meet employees and people who she wanted to intimidate. Even in the conference rooms she would sit with her back to the window and let people sit opposite her so that the sun shined in their eyes.
I walked into her office as I had many times before. She was still sitting when I walked in, which was not common, but not unheard of either. I could not see the expression on her face because of the sun behind her. I walked up to a position a few feet from the center of her desk and stood at parade rest as I was expected to do.
“You have been busy, toy.”
“Mistress?”
“Pura tells me that you have been managing things behind the scenes for me. She says that when Stark canceled her shoot while I was in St. Kitts that you handled the equipment rental, rescheduled the shoot, collected the cancellation fee, and even negotiated a higher rate for the re-shoot based on the short term for rescheduling.”
I couldn’t help myself, I swelled a bit with pride. I think I even stood straighter and puffed my chest out a bit.
“Yes, Mistress.”
She got out of her chair and stood. I still couldn’t make out any details of her expression or tell exactly what she was wearing because while she blocked the sun as she stood, she was still silhouetted against the bright background. I could, however, tell that she was wearing a filmy robe or gown, as the sun was now shining through the sheer fabric and showing the amazing curves of her body. I couldn’t help myself, I got hard.
She walked around the side of her desk to stand just in front of it, to the side – at my left, but I kept my face forward and did not track her as she walked, as I knew would be expected of me.
“Front.”
I pivoted on my heel and faced her, took two steps forward so that I was within two feet of her and stood there, still rigidly facing forward, but from this position I could see how she was attired.
She wore an ankle-length sheer black robe, open in the front, sheer thigh high stockings with a garter belt, black with seams up the back and folded at the top, the garter belt of black satin and lace with a bright purple bow right in front. She also had on a matching bra, and the chain with her ring hung from her neck. She wore no panties and had on no other jewelry. Her makeup had run, as if she had been crying.
When I saw the evidence of tears I immediately felt sympathetic, and it was everything I could to to remain silent.
She raised her right arm, palm down and I knelt before her and looked at her shoes as that gesture indicated I should. They were platform stilettos, at least seven inches high, glossy, black, with buckles on the straps around her ankles.
“Take off your shirt.”
I did not look up or say a word as I began unbuttoning my shirt. I could tell that she was doing something with her hands, but I could not see what. Once I’d finished unbuttoning my shirt, I removed it, folded it and set it on the ground beside me to my right, between my body and her desk.
I didn’t see it coming.
The back of her right hand, with her ring now on her middle finger, connected with my temple HARD. I knew that she had broken skin with the blow, and I staggered a bit, my left hand coming down on the floor to keep myself from going fully prostrate. I righted myself quickly and went back to kneeling with my head down, and a single drop of blood hit the floor under me. I could feel the blood starting to clot already. It was a shallow cut, but I was definitely cut. Mistress Simone had never drawn blood before that I had seen, with myself or anyone that I had witnessed. She lifted her right leg and put the point of her stiletto into my chest, just below my collarbone on the left side, opposite to the cut on my head, and pushed, lightly at first, and then with more force.
I had not been commanded to move, so I resisted the pressure, the tip of her heel digging into my skin, near the point of breaking skin.
“I want you to fall, toy.”
As soon as I heard that, I stopped resisting the pressure and fell back on top of my own legs. A small spot of blood had developed on my chest. Her heels were sharp!
“Prostrate yourself, slave.”
I did as commanded, turned over on to my belly and lay flat on the floor with my face down, head pointed towards her and my arms wide out at my sides.
She walked to my left side and then stepped onto the back of my left hand with her heel. She did not allow her full body weight to crush the bones in my hand, but the pain was exquisite. As she increased the pressure and I could start to feel the skin tear, I could not help but let out a forceful breath. There was no vocalization, but she was aware that the pain was affecting me.
She took her foot off of my hand and disappeared behind me where I could not see her any longer.
“You have thoughts, slave?”
“Yes, Mistress. Did this slave do something to offend You, Mistress?”
“Do not answer to that title, you are no slave!” Her voice was hoarse, emotional, something I’d not heard from her before.
I was frankly shocked by this. I had no idea how to react, so I did the best I could come up with at the time.
“This slave wants only to serve his Mistress…”
“SILENCE!”
I almost heard, rather than felt, the whip across the top of my shoulder-blades. This was the bullwhip, and it did not crack above my skin, but rather it slapped me in a very inexpert strike across the shoulders. Mistress Simone never used the full-length bullwhip to strike people, but she was a master at its use. This fact, combined with the blood that was now leaking from my body in three places told me that something was very wrong.
“Pura! Come in here now!”
Pura, one of Mistress Simone’s models and a friend of mine had apparently been waiting just outside the door, because she hurried in on short, quick steps when Mistress Simone summoned her. I was still facing the floor, so I could not see to tell for certain that it was her, but I had no reason to believe otherwise.
“Yes, Mistress.” Pura was clearly scared out of her mind, and upon hearing her voice, I now was sure that it was her who was in the room with us.
“On your knees, Pura.” There was kindness in Mistress’s voice now, and I heard Pura’s feet shuffle as she assumed the required position.
“Sit on your heels, Rant.” All the kindness that had been there was gone now.
I pulled my arms in, did a push-up to raise my body from the sleek black floor and then sat back onto my heels, so that I was nearly kneeling as I had been before, but a few feet further back and down from where I had been.
“Are you an obedient slave, Rant?”
“Mistress, I do not know how to answer that.”
“It was not a trick question, Rant.”
“Mistress, with all due respect, you ordered me to not answer to the title ‘slave’ just now and told me that I was not one. With this information, I do not know how to answer Mistress’s question.”
“Now is not the time to be a brat, Rant.”
“Mistress…”
The crack of the whip in the air right beside my ear was almost deafening, and silenced me immediately.
“SILENCE! You will disregard what I said previously and you will answer the question now. Are you an obedient slave, Rant?”
“I live to serve, Mistress.”
“I…” she said, mocking me. “where is this ‘I’ that you are speaking of?”
“Forgive this slave, Mistress. This slave momentarily forgot” the crack of the whip beside my ear once more silenced me.
“That’s right! You forgot! Now be silent until I give you the right to speak again.”
I almost said, “Yes, Mistress” but caught myself. I was feeling very off balance.
“Pura, are you an obedient slave?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“To whom are you obedient, slave Pura?”
“To you and no other, Mistress.”
“Then why did you follow slave Rant’s direction while I was away?!”
“I… this slave does not know, Mistress.”
Mistress Simone walked around to stand behind Pura.
“Rant. Stand.” I stood.
She pointed to the ground at her right foot. “Heel.”
I walked to stand where she pointed.
“Pura, disrobe.”
Pura removed her top, exposing an opaque lilac bra with black polka dots and started to stand so that she could remove her skirt.
“No, I’ve changed my mind. Kneel and remove your bra.”
Pura took off her bra as she was kneeling, and placed her bra on top of her top, which she had folded and placed to her side.
Mistress Simone put the whip into my hand and stepped away from me.
“Pura, you have obeyed the commands of another Master without my permission and for this you must be punished,” Mistress Simone stated, coldly and without any trace of emotion.
“Rant, strike her.”
I looked at her, questions in my eyes. I didn’t know what to do. This was all very uncomfortable and foreign. Never had we done something so cold, so brutal.
“Do you know how to use the bullwhip, slave?” she asked me.
“This slave is well versed in the use of the bullwhip, Mistress, but never has this slave turned one on a human before.”
“Well, there is no time like the present. Hit her with the fucking whip!”
Pura was crying now, sobbing openly and only through the strongest of will had she not collapsed.
I was raised on a horse ranch, and we also raised steers for beef from time to time, so I did actually know how to use the whip. I thought that I might be able to feather the strike so that it wouldn’t hurt Pura too badly, so I gave it an attempt.
My strike was too soft. There was virtually no sound from the impact, and it did not strike hard enough to welt, but Pura still screamed when it struck her and doubled over. I felt horrible… beyond horrible.
Mistress Simone walked over next to me to examine the angle and my strike. Pura had recovered and was kneeling again, tears streaming down her face, but she made no more audible sobs.
“Again. Properly this time.”
“Mistress…” I didn’t see it coming this time either. Again, she backhanded me across the face with her ring. This time I did fall to my knee. Mistress Simone glared at me silently as I stood back up and squared my stance, letting the end of the whip drop to my side.
“Again.”
I looked into her eyes. They were colder than I had ever seen them, but I could feel the fire building in my own as I met her stare and started my wind-up.
“Hurricane,” I said, and I dropped the whip, crossing my arms in front of my chest and wincing just a bit as the skin around my cut pulled.
“Pura, you’re dismissed.” Simone said in a softer voice.
Pura jumped to her feet, bowed to Simone, and walked out as quickly as she could manage in her heels, leaving her bra and top behind on the floor.
“Took you long enough…” Simone said once Pura was out the door.
“What?” I managed to get out with all of the eloquence of a newborn yak before Simone grabbed the sides of my head and kissed me more passionately than I had ever been kissed to that point in my life. I just let it happen, and then began to return it as my body started reacting to the urgency she put forth. She grasped at my hard cock through my slacks, pulling on it, and eventually using one hand to pull on my waistband while shoving the other down my pants to grasp my cock directly, low on the shaft, just above my scrotum. She squeezed hard, all the while I was kissing her, and I hadn’t even realized that I had moved my own hands up to cup her right breast in my left hand and firmly grasp her hair right at the base of her neck with my right.
She thrust a finger down under my scrotum and then pulled back, squeezing my balls painfully. I disengaged from my kiss, dropped my hands and undid my belt and waistband, letting my pants drop and slipping off my shoes while trying, unsuccessfully thanks to the body of my Domme pressed up against me, to step out of my pants as well.
There I stood, socks on my feet, pants around my ankles, shoes to the side of me, my erection fully engorged and out in front of me. Simone took a step back, away from me, and then swatted my erect cock with her hand as she turned around and walked towards her desk, dropping the robe she had been wearing as she did, exposing her naked ass in all of its glory. When she arrived there, she spread her legs out just beyond shoulder width, placed her forearms on her desk and raised her ass at me, looking back over her shoulder at me with a smile that touched her eyes as well as her lips.
No command had been given, but I’d used the safeword and we were in uncharted territory here. According to protocol, we should be physically apart or at best touching non-sexually and discussing what went wrong, but the urgency in her eyes and in my groin was more powerful than protocol and I was clearly not in distress aside from my throbbing erection that demanded satisfaction.
I stepped out of my pants, took a step forward, raised my left foot to remove my sock, repeated the same maneuver for the right and squared myself behind Simone, placing my left hand on her left hip and using my right to guide my cock into her very wet pussy from behind her. She moaned with delight, letting her voice rise in a way that almost seemed submissive, and in a tone that I’d never heard from her before.
In her heels, she was slightly too tall for me to be able to easily pull off fucking her from that position, but once I’d slid my cock as deeply as I could and grasped her right hip with my right hand, I forgot about logistics entirely and let my mind go completely.
I plunged deeply into her then pulled back, trying to get a feel for the length of stroke that this position was going to allow for me and then began increasing the force with which I was hitting her as I thrust back in for each stroke. Eventually, as I made the rhythm, I realized that we were both crying out each time I would thrust, and without thinking I let go with my right hand, brought it back and smacked her on the ass with the next thrust, leaving a harsh red handprint on her olive skin and I couldn’t contain myself any longer.
I started to reflexively query, “May I..” but I only got that far before I began to ejaculate, and I grabbed her hips hard, pulling her onto my throbbing cock as I ejaculated into her pussy.
Immediately following my orgasm, I stood down onto my soles from the balls of my feet as I had been, and I released her hips, letting her down as well.
“Mistress, I’m…” she turned and silenced me by placing her index finger on my lips.
“Stop, Rant. I haven’t cum that many times and with such force in all my life. But you are a miserable slave.”
“I’m…”
“No more… did you spill your seed inside of me, Rant?”
“Yes, Mistress.”
“Well, you’re going to lap it up now then,” she said as she walked over to the chaise and laid back.
“With pleasure, Mistress,” I said as I moved over and knelt between her legs to comply.
Once again, I let my mind go and before I realized what had happened, I had two of my fingers deep inside her while I was working over her clitoris with my tongue and she was shuddering and moaning as she squirted all over my chin and chest.
“Jesus, Rant,” she said as she caught her breath, “I think you may be better at that than anyone in the world.”
“Thank you, Mistress.”
“Now go wipe yourself off with your clothes and then come up here so that I can lay my head on your chest.”
I did as she commanded, and she positioned her body against mine, tracing shapes on my chest with her fingers as she lay there.
“You need to stop calling me Mistress when we’re in private, Rant. You’re a terrible slave.”
“Yes, Mistr… Simone.”
“I appreciate what you did while I was away, but you understand that I can’t have the others believing that you can usurp my authority when I’m away.”
“I wasn’t trying…”
“Hush, I know. You just don’t have a helpless compliant slave in you anywhere, Rant. You’re obviously a Top. Why did you do it?”
“I’m not…”
“Stop denying it. You know it as well as I do, and I’ve known it for a long time. Long before this. But I still don’t know why you did it.”
“Because I love you.”
She got very serious, very suddenly.
“No you don’t, Rant. And this is very important for you to understand. I don’t love you either.”
“But… I…”
“No!” She sat up so that she could look me directly in the eyes. “You have never experienced anything this intense before, I get that. You tried very hard to give me everything that you are, and you couldn’t and that’s not because you love me or because of any emotional connection at all. This is a shared fantasy. You used the safeword so we are not in scene right now, and it’s very important that you believe me on this. You are not my slave anymore in the way that you were, but you are still my employee and my property and I’m going to task you. Look up the word ‘limerence’ and write me a 500 word essay on what it means to you and have it on my desk by 9:00am tomorrow.”
“Okay, but I really do…”
“Shut up, Rant. You don’t know what you’re talking about, and you nearly fucked up my whole enterprise as a result. I like you, and if I didn’t, I’d have Brand beat you and put you out on your ass, but you’re going to do as I say and you’re going to have to make this up to Pura somehow.”
“Okay… Yes, I feel horrible.”
“Don’t, she loves that shit, but you’re going to be docked a week’s vacation and it’s going to go to her. And you’ll still call me Mistress in front of the others, but when we’re alone, you may call me Simone.”
“Yes, Mistr.. Simone.”
She moved with blinding agility and threw her leg over me, coming to rest straddling my chest and rested her hands on my shoulders so that her breasts hung just over my head.
“Now… Do you think you could Top me, Rant?” she said with a mischievous smile that positively cause her eyes to glow.