Tag Archives: D/s

Fighting for the things you love

I am in a relationship. It is a complicated relationship, it is definitely not easy, as no relationships are, but this one is worth fighting for, where I have failed to fight for others in the past.

In the past, I’ve always felt justified in blaming the failure of my relationships on external factors or upon the other person, and yet, I’m almost always the one to call an end to things. Not always, but generally, I’ve been the one to give up.

When my first wife, Sabrina, found religion and started to use it as a weapon against me, I could take it no longer and ended the first real relationship of my life – quickly, mercilessly, and without much regret, but regret and pain are not quite the same thing, and that experience surely did hurt.

I went through a series of short term and nontraditional relationships after that, and in most cases, I was the one to give up when things looked the least bit like they were going to crack, but eventually I was tossed out by Simone and experienced my first case of being the dumped party. It hurt; it scarred me, and every relationship that I have had since then has had to bear the baggage that came with this event. Every time a relationship came close to ending, I feared the upending of my entire life – being thrown out onto the street has a way of refocusing you though…

Despite being somewhat jaded at this point, I decided to once again try to settle in and live life according to the societal norms. I found a new wife, Madison, and we had children together, and no matter how bad things got, I fought to stay in that relationship for the sake of my children. That relationship ended for reasons that were not my choosing.

Then I did the series of short term and nontraditional relationships again – with the same sorts of results for the most part.

The truth is that in all of those cases, there was always a fear that the other person would abandon me, and in most cases that is what actually happened.

In some cases, I pushed things to that conclusion. Consciously and unconsciously, I worked against my own relationships to break them, so that I didn’t have to be hurt when the inevitable abandonment would occur. I could spin it around and say that it was my choice to leave, and in most cases, that is how it would appear to anyone who was not deep within my mind.

In some cases, it really was the other person’s fault. Kendra, for example, was simply batshit crazy, and after spending tens of thousands of dollars to try to get her help and get her life back on track, I simply could no longer afford to keep it up and I told her so.

But my current relationship is different, and very much worth saving.

This is the first time that my partner refused to hear me when I said that it was over.

She has been the first person to see through my bullshit and my baggage and my fear and anxiety and dread and to hold on to the part of me that really does not want her to go.

She is my lighthouse.

She is the blue canary in the outlet by the light switch who watches over me.

She is the one who I want by my side for the rest of my life. Whatever form that takes, she is the one that I always want to come home to, the one that I want to always protect, the one that I want to always have my back.

But in order to do that, I have to clear out this garbage from my past.

I am confronting things about myself that I buried long ago and never wanted to revisit, but those are parts of me and if I do not acknowledge them, they crawl out on their own anyway.

This is a long, painful, and extremely difficult thing for me to do.

I have nightmares almost daily. Even when I am awake and focused on something entirely different, sometimes when I close my eyes, the images that I see on the inside of my eyelids are of inexplicable and horrifying things. I often lie awake at night in the dark and I can feel the demons trying to infect me again, but I have strength, because she is there, sleeping by my side.

I am fighting against myself. I am fighting against the walls that I placed in my own psyche for very good reason, but those walls have to come down and the elements behind them have to be dealt with. I need to re-incorporate those things into my being again. Until I do that, I won’t be whole, and she deserves so much more than a partial boyfriend.

I will kick my own ass so that she can have more of me than anyone ever has. She deserves it, and I want to give it to her.

But when I started this post, I was only meaning to speak in part about my girl and how much she means to me and how much I want to fight for her, because while she may be the most important thing in my life to fight for right now there are going to be many, many, many things that I will have to fight for in the years to come.

I had briefly considered pulling the white male card and just coasting through, hoping that nothing bad happens and nothing touches me, and I am just fucking spoiled to have that option in the first place and I’m a bit disappointed in myself for ever even half-seriously considering it.

I had considered leaving the country. The incoming administration has no love for people like me and the things I represent, but that would be cowardly as well.

I am extremely fortunate. I am not powerless in this world. I do not have much power, but whatever I have I am going to dedicate to fighting for the things in which I believe.

I am donating money now. I will donate time when I am able. I am going to speak of things in my bully pulpit here for as long as I can.

People are people, and until and unless we can recognize that, we may deserve the environmental catastrophe that is coming for us…

But we can, and should, fight against all of those things until they overwhelm us.

My ancestors long fought against impossible odds, and they usually lost, but they won enough that I stand here today, and they kept enough of their values and culture that it is immediately recognizable the world over.

I stand on the shoulders of giants and I stare down the petty and selfish.

I will continue to fight for as long as I can.

Doms are people too

I have been putting this post off for a very long time.  Over the course of the couple years that I’ve had this blog, I have received a number of emails from submissives who want to know if a particular pattern of behavior on the part of their chosen Dominants is abusive or if they have done something wrong or something similar to those lines.  I’ve seen it several times, in slightly different permutations, from several different sources, so I want to make it clear that I’m not singling out any particular email that I may have received recently as the source of this piece.

The question is usually of this form:

“I <used my safeword / cried / didn’t want to do something> and now my Dom is acting cold and distant with me.  Did I do something wrong, or is he being abusive?”

The last portion of the question there is sometimes missing, or slightly perturbed, as in “was he abusing me all along and I just now realize it?” etc…

I almost never have enough information from the email that poses this question to make any sort of determination along those lines, but I do always try to be helpful.

One thing that I think a lot of people miss is that D/s relationships are still relationships and relationships are hard.  Dominants are people too, with our own problems, emotional baggage, and deep histories which sometimes include shame and remorse or things that we just wish we’d had the presence of mind to handle differently at the time.

I don’t have a panacea here.  Some of these situations may be actual abuse.  There is certainly a period of NRE that can mask things that are truly bad, but aside from that, if you normally have a communicative relationship where you can talk about things and express your desire to each other, then incidents like this may just be part and parcel of relationships, though they manifest themselves in strange ways in this particular context.

To offer any advice in this context is a bit controversial, if not entirely ill advised… but this is a persistent question I get, so there is clearly a need for information that is not otherwise being met and I will do my best to address the issue.

The key thing to remember here is that a D/s relationship is still a relationship, and as with all relationships, be they romantic, professional, familial, or something that falls outside of all of those buckets, communication is the most important thing into which you can invest time and energy.

How can you tell if it’s really abuse?  That’s not really an easy thing, but generally if you’re talking about a single incident in what is otherwise a good relationship, I would give your partner the benefit of the doubt – he may just be having a bad day, or you may have hit one of his triggers.  However, if something that makes you uncomfortable repeats, there may be an issue, and this is where you may have to force the point and really talk about it.  Even if it is just a single incident, you need to talk about it, but a pattern of behavior is almost always a deeper issue than a single incident.

If you don’t have the sort of relationship where you can talk about these things, then you have deeper problems.  Aftercare is typically the place where you would talk about these things.  Don’t wait weeks or even days to talk about something that went wrong – talk about it right after it happens, find out where the problem came from, let him know that there is a problem (because he might not even realize it,) and do something to either correct or avoid it for the next time.

I fear that I’ve rambled a bit in this post… the point that I’m trying to get across is that Doms are people too – we have bad days, we have emotional triggers, and sometimes something will happen that causes us to have an abnormal reaction.  There have been times when I’ve hit a trigger of my own that causes me to emotionally retreat without even realizing it.  Usually I can come back around and see things for what they are if I’m given enough time, but in almost all of those cases, a few words or questions from my sub would have brought me there a lot more quickly.

A single bad experience may be bad enough to chuck out the whole affair, but probably isn’t unless things aren’t that good to begin with.  A pattern of bad behavior though – that’s something else, and that’s something that you should not continually put up with.

 

A long time coming

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.

A Call For Leadership

I’ve received a few emails from readers (but surprisingly few visible comments…) about my posts, but my last post on The Feminist Dom seems to have gathered more attention than average.

I suspect that this is due to the current and ongoing focus on the #yesallwomen hashtag and discussion, but since I have neither a facebook nor twitter account, I’m not privy to a great deal of that information.  What I do hear is either picked up by the mainstream media, relayed through friends, or things that I see on fetlife (which is the one ‘social network’ of which I am, nominally, a part.)

The comments to my post have been universally positive, but there was at least one call to action – a reader (I don’t know what gender this person chooses to identify with, so I’ll use the colloquial ‘their’ despite it being grammatically incorrect – forgive me) has stated that in their opinion, I do not go far enough.  I make a bold statement about my beliefs and why I hold them, but it falls short of the force of Will that normally accompanies one of my Rants, and it is not explicit enough to be a call to action.  I have a duty to do more than that, and in my life in meat-space I do, but I can still do more here (and on fetlife as well) so I shall.

 

I am a Dom.  In my case this works for me because I have certain personality traits that facilitate me taking on that role – it is those traits that make me successful and that allow my submissive partner to feel willing to submit to me.  I have never taken the title of Alpha, or even claimed to be a ‘Type-A’ personality, but the truth of the matter is that I have many of the qualities that people look for in a leader.  If you are being true to your own nature and that leads you to take on the role of Dominant, then you do too, and it is directly to you that I am speaking now.

We are almost all the leaders of our peer groups – perhaps in both vanilla and BDSM worlds.

Some of us are the leaders of our communities.

Some of us are leaders in professional organizations.

Some of us are leaders in the workplace.

Some of us are parents.

Some of us are leaders in other contexts as well, but one truth remains even if none of these apply.

All of us, regardless of roles, regardless of gender identification, regardless of personal power – all of us are a role model to someone and there are people who will observe our behavior and incorporate it into what is and is not acceptable in their own minds.

The perpetrators of the vast majority of violence against women or against transgendered people or against any non-dominant group are men.  They’re not all Dominant men, and they’re not all social outliers, most of them are normal in almost every way.  In fact, this is part of the problem.  It is because society as a whole has divorced gender – specifically the male gender – from the problems of repression and gender violence (not all of which is physically violent) that we are in such a state.  It is because we don’t hold men accountable for our own actions.  We laugh things like catcalling off as isolated incidents by ‘other men’ but I’ve met self-proclaimed feminist men who will still ogle women and may even go so far as to say something stupid like ‘Daaayumm’ when they see a woman they find particularly attractive.

There are men who are now trying to ‘opt out’ of the #yesallwomen discussion by saying that it’s is #notallmen who perpetrate these things.  To a certain extent that is true, but like my original Feminist Dom post, it does not go far enough, and to make matters worse, it shifts the blame to the women making the claims.

Victim blaming is evil.

There is more that I could say on that particular trend, but the above line is succinct and sufficient for anyone who is actually rationally part of this discussion.

Sure, I have personally never catcalled at a woman.  I have never groped someone who I wasn’t very sure wanted me to.  I routinely turn down sex when I feel like the person I’m with is not able to give consent.  And yet, I know that in my past I’ve let comments like the illustration above slide without comment, and I need to stop doing that.  Comments like that, those types of actions, they are all hurtful behavior and they need to stop.

That behavior is part of the problem.

Glossing over that behavior is a much larger part of the problem.

One of my favorite movies is The Boondock Saints.  There is a great line at the beginning of the film, when the monsignor is giving his invocation at the beginning of mass and he says, “…we must all fear evil men. But there is another kind of evil which we must fear most, and that is the indifference of good men.

This is where I get personal.

You.  Whoever it is that is reading this right now.  If you are a male Dom, I am specifically calling you out, but you if you identify as a sub or a switch or something else entirely, you are not immune to this either.  This is not because I do not think that women are capable of fighting their own fight, but because for too long we have made it their fight to carry, it never should have been their fight to begin with.  We men are responsible for our own behavior, but I am calling on you to act and to go even further than that.

Do not be a bystander.

Do not perpetuate the oppression that is holding down more than half of our society and making them feel unsafe, unloved, or unwelcome.

If you are playing poker and one of your buddies makes a comment like, “Dayum.. did you see Kim Kardashian’s ass in that dress? I’d tap that.” do not let it stand.  Do not laugh it off, do not agree, do not just let it slide.  That is an inappropriate thing to say and you know it.  What if he was making that comment about your sister, or your daughter?  I omit wife here because I know that would actually turn some of you kinky fuckers on, but that’s not the point and you know it – so don’t do that either.  Don’t dodge an important issue and attempt to deflect with humor.  Yes – that is why humor works – it allows us the ability to talk about things that are otherwise socially unacceptable and it has filled a very important role in its ability to do that since the dawn of civilization but we are on the cusp now.  We can now take this back and actually make a difference.

If we, the leaders in the male community, take this cause up and act with integrity and mindfulness we can change things.

#yesallwomen is not solely a women’s issue.  It’s not even really a people’s issue; it’s a men’s issue.  It is us, the men, who need to step up and make the asinine comments that our brothers have been making since the dawn of time unacceptable.  These are status-raising comments now and that is totally upside down and backwards.  A bigot should not be rewarded for his bigotry.  If we, men, leaders, Doms, stand up and make it known that this type of bullshit will not stand, if we remove and reverse the status-raising effects of these comments that put others down, if we instead make it so that everybody knows that those types of comments are unacceptable and that they lower your status, then we have the power to change this behavior.

We are the leaders of our community and now is the time to act.

The iron is hot and we have the opportunity.

This is a first for me in this blog or any forum at all.

This is a call to action.

This is a call for Leadership.

I am Rant.

Lead with me.

 

Finding subspace

A friend recently asked me to write on two closely related topics: foreplay as it applies to a BDSM scene, and tips for training a newbie submissive from the perspective of a Dominant.

“How are those things related?” you might be tempted to ask…  Well, I’m about to tell you – as I describe the first of these topics and relate it to BDSM specifically.

In vanilla sex, foreplay is useful to ensure that both (all?) participants are physically, emotionally, and psychologically ready for the activity of sex itself.  Granted, this is more often than not given lip service and not really enacted with any vigor or skill, resulting in less than adequate experiences for everyone involved, especially the more submissive partner.  In the vanilla sense, I say ‘submissive’ here to mean the generally less active partner – the one less likely to initiate sexual contact.  For the initiator, his resolve is already firm, his libido is already activated, and foreplay probably seems like an unnecessary waste of time.

We do the same thing in the BDSM world, but we call it warm up instead, and while foreplay may be nice in the vanilla world, warm up in the BDSM world is essential.  Without it, you are putting your submissive at risk of injury in one or more of these arenas.  Nay, that is not quite strong enough… without warm up before enacting the more brutal parts of a scene, if your scene involves physical pain or torture, you will injure her.  Her bruises may heal and she may never let you know the damage to her trust that you caused, but those injuries will linger, and ultimately they will destroy your happiness.  Don’t let that happen to you, and don’t let that happen to the one you protect.

Warm up is a much more appropriate way to describe it than foreplay, even in the vanilla world,  and it may entail many of the same things, depending on the participants and scene.  BDSM scenes are not limited to sexual activities, and indeed may not even include any…  What you are trying to do is not limited to making sure that the submissive is ready for sex and turned on, but you’re also preparing her body physically for the activities at hand, her mind for the assault to her ego that is likely to occur, and her emotions for the departure from normalcy that she is about to encounter.

It has been proven that a submissive who is prepared for punishment will actually undergo changes in her body: more fluid will come to the surface of her skin, her pulse will drop (as opposed to speeding up in someone who is actually scared,) she will breathe deeper and more slowly, more oxygen will get into her blood and therefore to her brain, and often her perceptions of her environment will change, sometimes quite dramatically, sometimes even to the point of hallucinatory detachment or idealization.

This is far more than simple foreplay can possibly accomplish, and we even have a name for this: subspace.  For many submissives – this is the primary draw of submitting.  They are uninterested in the service aspects of it, they literally get high from the activity itself.

Subspace is where the submissive goes when in scene.  It is not a physical place, but it does affect her body in a physical way.  It is not an emotional space, but it does provide for emotional stability.  It is not a psychological space, but it provides for psychological compartmentalization.

There are many paths to subspace.  Warm up is not usually enough to get you there on its own.  Usually finding subspace is something that isn’t achieved until firmly in scene, but the transition can be jarring, or even missed, if you don’t ensure proper warm up has occurred.  I’ve known Doms who devote little or no time to warm up and go straight into scene.  This can work for some people, some of the time, but the one time that you miss it, you cross the line from safe, sane, and consensual and fall into abuse.  For me, it’s simply not worth the risk.

When I am training a submissive, or even when I am interacting with an experienced one, I will watch her.  I want to see her fail to meet my gaze.  I want to see her look down at my feet when I stare into her eyes.  I want to see her round her shoulders and bend her neck towards me.  I want to see her kneel or bow or even just place her forehead into my chest.  I want to hear the meekness in her voice when she addresses me as Sir.  These are not sacrosanct indicators of finding the edges of subspace, and they aren’t even inviolate indicators of submission, but they’re a step in the right direction.

These steps can take hours.  They can begin before you’re together though, and they can wind around vanilla activities.  I am a big fan of eating something, perhaps a full meal, but at least something light, before beginning a scene.  The food energy will help with the physical and mental strain, and the meal itself can provide a bonding opportunity and a place for mental interactions, witty banter, and innuendo – and as any submissive will tell you, the mind is the most important part of her that you can own, for sex or play or any other activity.  Alcohol is not a good idea here though.  It may take off the edge, but it can also lead to physical and psychological changes in both you and your submissive that you should be wary of.  I may drink with partners, but I will never engage in pain play when even the slightest bit intoxicated.

Admittedly, setting aside time for food and drink is not always possible, but there are other ways to encourage the path to subspace.

I watch my submissive, identify her specific submissive behaviors, and then I encourage these things.  I stroke my submissive’s hair.  I talk softly to her.  I remind her of my protection and her safety.  I pet her head and body.   As I can feel her trust building in me, I will be more and more physical.  I will grab her hair.  I will bite her neck, her ear, her shoulder.  I’ll fondle her tits and ass through her clothes, or reach underneath them.  I’ll kiss her, or I’ll grab the sides of her face and force her to meet my eyes, to see the burning desire that lies just underneath.  But these actions, like all actions taken in scene, must adhere to the limits established beforehand.  For some, kissing is out, for others, biting might be, but no matter what the limits, there should be something that you can do here.  If there is not, you probably need to find a different play partner.

I ease her into a place of trust and devotion and when I have that devotion, I am a veritable god.

From this point forward, I am in complete control and we are in scene.  I may grab her by the throat and force her down, I may slap her ass with my hand or a flogger or a crop or a cane.  But I will usually make it explicit through word or action or both that we’re about to begin.  Just that simple vocal recognition is often enough to cause a seasoned submissive to drop into subspace for me.  A newbie could require more care.

If I am not absolutely sure that we are ready, I might ask “are you ready?” and even when I get, “Yes, Sir,” in response, I know that is not quite sufficient. The cue has to be a command – at least for me it does.  Any command here will do: “take off your clothes,” “kneel for me,” “we’re going to begin now,” are all appropriate and can all serve well here.

Excepting the striking, I tend to use most, if not all of the above for foreplay as well as warm up.  In fact, much to my shock and glee, I was recently engaged in simple kinky sex with a submissive and she went rather deep into subspace without any pain of any kind at all.

That is the exception, however, and from this point forward it can still vary widely as to when, how, how deep, or even if a submissive will drop into subspace.

I should probably pause here to note that this is most definitely not the same thing as sub-drop.  Sub-drop is something else entirely, and not at all positive.  I’ll probably devote another entry to it at some point, but just don’t confuse the terms or people will look at you cross-eyed.  Dropping into subspace is good, sub-drop is bad.  Okay then…

Even when beginning your scene, especially if it is with someone new, it behooves one to start out slow.  This slow roll into the scene is what is going to help a new partner or a BDSM newbie ease herself into subspace.  In fact, this is what some Doms refer to when they talk about warm up.  They ignore all of the pre-activity nonsense that I am so keen on and just go straight to the main event, thinking that because their first strike is only at half strength that they are engaging in good warm up practices.

While I agree that this is important, I do not agree that it is sufficient.

My goal as Dominant is to create the best experience possible for all participants.  To some, this marks me a service Top and they think me weak.  I don’t really care.  I do what I do because it suits me, and because it gives me what I need.  I get off on devotion and subservience, not delivering pain.

As I begin to enact the scene, I watch my sub carefully.  I look for the signs of her being in subspace.  I slowly increase the stimulation as I see her move further and further into subspace until I’m sure that she is there.

I look for the altered breathing, the flushed skin, the glazed eyes, changes to the inflection of her voice or the tenor of her movements and moaning.

It takes some practice to recognize, but once I know she’s there, I know that I can do literally anything and it will be experienced in a positive light, so it is well worth pursuing.

Not everyone will agree with me on these points.  Not everyone finds it important to guide his submissive into subspace, and even I don’t find it necessary all of the time, but if you’re going to enact a scene, especially a brutal scene where pain is the primary intoxicant, it really is essential that you understand what you’re doing and how to help her get to where she needs to be in order to take the pain for you.

Let me know if you have questions, I’m happy to answer.

This was meant to educate, I hope you find it useful.

This was not a rant, but I am still Rant.

Rant off.

The Distillation of Rant.

Let us begin at the beginning, shall we?

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.

“You know… I think perhaps I could… Simone.”