Tag Archives: training

A quick and dirty primer on quick and dirty bruising

Before I begin, I need to make the disclaimer that I am not a healthcare professional and that any information that I provide here is taken from my personal experience and memory and is entirely fallible.  You should really completely ignore any advice that I give, for the most part.

At some point in nearly every submissive/bottom’s progression through their journey they reach a point where bruises are a badge of honor and they will invariably want to be able to show these off to others either in person or online.

Of course – bruises can also be problematic in other contexts, so please be mindful of this and make sure that everyone involved in the bruising activities is enthusiastically consenting, or just don’t do it.  It can be a big problem if you bruise someone in an area that they cannot easily cover if they have to interact with anyone who does not understand the BDSM lifestyle, so be careful with where you leave marks as well as how.

Bruising occurs because capillaries in the muscle tissue are damaged and bleed into the interstitial tissue and epidermis.  There are six accepted levels of harm for bruising commonly referred to in the medical field (at least in the US, where I reside) where 0 represents light bruising with no lasting damage or potential for lasting damage.  A level 0 bruise may by only barely visible and may not even hurt after the initial impact or it may not be visible at all, subject to being tender to the touch, either symptom is enough to diagnose bruising.

This ranges through level 1, where there is considered to be mild damage to the tissue around the bruise – which, barring complications, will heal on its own in a relatively short period of time.  Levels 2 and 3 involve higher levels of tissue damage, more visible and larger bruises that last for longer periods of time, but again, the expectation is that such things will heal on their own, given time.  Some level 3 bruises and nearly all level 4 bruises are significant enough to cause real harm and may lead to other complications including compartment syndrome (where swelling blood can cut off blood flow to areas of tissue entirely, which could result in tissue death or necrosis) or begin to impact nerve and tendon function in the areas near them.  Level 5 bruises are significant enough that they could overwhelm the body entirely and result in death.

Level 0 and 1 bruises tend to heal fully in about two weeks time in most healthy persons without diabetes or another complication that might result in more tissue damage. Level 2 bruises can last slightly longer and level 3 and up may take months to heal.  Repeated impacts to a bruised area can increase the harm level and keep it ‘active’ for much, much longer, but at the risk of increased tissue damage.

The really big, colorful bruises that most submissives crave to show off are usually level 1 bruises, sometimes level 2.  These are shallow bruises that damage a lot of capillaries and result in a lot of interstitial bleeding, but little actual harm, and most of the time when we’re trying to create bruising, this is the sort of bruising that we are trying to create.

There are several considerations to keep in mind when trying to create bruises:

  1. Deeper impacts create deeper bruises that last longer and produce more tissue damage, but may not be as visible
  2. Contracted muscles will bruise more deeply than relaxed ones and run the risk of doing more damage to tissue that gets compressed between the bone and impact
  3. Bruises at or near the joints are more dangerous and tend to involve ligament, nerve, or other tissue that does not heal as quickly as muscle
  4. Ribs are really easy to crack if you aren’t careful – and the pain of a cracked rib is intense and lasts for a very long time
  5. Just stay away from the head – concussions are serious and unpredictable and potentially life-threatening

So – bearing these things in mind, and with the goal of creating level 1 bruises – very visible, large, and colorful – there are a few things that we can do to improve the chances of them showing up and reduce the chances of there being long term damage to any part of the body.

The first thing to bear in mind is that bruises are caused by damage to capillaries near the surface of the skin.  So – we want to create conditions where it is easy to break these. In an otherwise perfectly healthy person, this means that we want to increase blood flow to the skin, reduce muscle tension, and then to reduce inflammation after the impact.  Inflammation can lead to a lot of the potential complications that can come from severe bruising and reduce the surface area over which the interstitial spreading of the bruise occurs. So.. we want to reduce inflammation while increasing blood flow and damage the tissues nearest to the skin to get the best results.

If you have not read my post on finding subspace, I talk a little bit there about the physiological shifts that can occur when in subspace, and those are – coincidentally? – almost exactly the same as the sort of conditions that are required to make for really nice bruises.

Some other things that can help are to make sure that you are fully hydrated, rested, and relaxed.  If you are the sort to do such things, taking an NSAID in advance – most especially aspirin – can also help, but do be careful about drug interactions and if you are taking any sort of blood thinners (warfarin, etc.) then you should not be trying to bruise yourself at all due to the dangers of increased harm.

Bruising can be more difficult to accomplish for people who have darker skin tones or more developed muscle tone.  It is not that the bruising does not occur, but the visibility of the bruising is reduced. Trying to keep the bruising as shallow as possible can help.  To this end, it can often be useful to slap the skin or repeatedly tap it before attempting to strike with the force required to create a bruise, but when you are actually trying to strike to create the bruise, you want to hit a much narrower/smaller area with a larger force.  The bruise will spread out from the point where the capillaries are damaged.

A technique that I like to employ and have found to be particularly effective with canes, rods, bats, or other blunt instruments of the same sort is to very quickly and repeatedly tap the skin directly where I intend to strike between 5 and 10 times and then to come down on the very same spot once, very hard.  From that point on, more hits to that same area should increase the harm level and amount of bruising fairly significantly. This works well even with my current submissive partner who has darker skin and well developed muscle tone – but was also shown to work well with other partners who had lighter skin and less muscle tone.

However – the most effective and least damaging way to cause bruising is actually suction… fire cupping or even just making hickies will create very visible bruises that are almost purely capillary bursts and involve very little tissue damage beyond that.  But – those are not the kind of bruises that most people want to show off, so we’ve chose to focus mostly on those created by impact play.

So, to recap, the best ways to increase bruise potential are:

  1. Be well hydrated and relaxed
  2. Possibly take aspirin (or another NSAID) in advance – but be careful.  Topically applied aspirin directly on the area to be bruised is also very effective – perhaps even more so than orally administered aspirin
  3. Whatever steps you can take to get to subspace will also likely be very beneficial
  4. Tapping or slapping the area to be bruised will help to increase the visibility and range of the bruise
  5. Consider suction
  6. Avoid the head entirely, the area over the ribs, and all joints – try to confine your strikes to the ‘meatiest’ parts of the body, preferably areas that can be covered by clothing.

As always – think about it before you do anything, don’t trust any single source of unsubstantiated information (including me or this blog), and make sure that you exhaustively cover issues of consent – both with the impact itself and with the likely bruises that will follow.

And then take pictures!  Everyone loves to see pictures of bruises, right?

Fly safe.

  • Rant

My Personal Journey : Part 6

Part 6:  What does it mean to be a slave?

Those of you who know me personally or who have been following along since before I began to recall my origins story may remember a bit of the relationship that Simone and I ultimately ended up having.  She did not exploit me in the same way that the members of the Lodge did, but she did exploit me nonetheless, and in a much more direct way.  The difference, of course, is that I consented to this treatment.

To this day, I do not know if Simone ever really cared for me or not.  She made gestures to indicate that she did at times, and she was incredibly cold and distant at other times, but it didn’t really matter in the beginning, because I was completely smitten.

The first week or so that I was Mistress Simone’s property was a panoply of new experiences for me, the details of which are burned into my mind, but that I really can not recall here without shifting my perception to the point of discomfort.  However, I can paint the broad strokes…

Over the course of several days, Mistress Simone set me up in an apartment, destroyed most of my old clothing and took me shopping to replace them with more suitable things, introduced me to several of her business associates, most of my companion chattel, and even a couple of prospective clients, though I did not know that was who they were at the time.

She introduced me to protocol, proper ways to show submission, posture, bearing, and many of the tools of the trade.  I did not know it at the time, but she was being careful not to mark me.  She taught me both the Top and bottom sides of each interaction, which I thought was completely normal at the time, but have come to understand is completely unique.  It was a whirlwind introduction to the things that would later be expected of me.

She spoke to me a great deal about sex.  She was very interested to hear about my sexual experiences with the Lodge, and I could tell that she was turned on by the ritualistic nature of things and the incorporation of sex as part of that.  I often had a difficult time accurately reading Simone, but I was absolutely certain of her interest in this.   She asked a great deal about my perceptions of various sexual activities, and whether or not I enjoyed doing those things with women or men.  I answered her honestly, though in many cases, I did not really understand the questions that I was answering.

She hit me and made me beg and stepped on me and let me perform cunnilingus on her, but she always stopped me before her orgasm.  I didn’t understand why then, and I’m not entirely sure that I do now. Whereas I was completely baffled then, I am pretty sure that I understand now.  It was a power play.  It was to show me how in control she was, and how – even as I learned what she liked and what she didn’t, becoming much more adept at the act – she maintained that control.

She would often command me to jack off for her, but she warned me that I was to ask her for permission to cum, and that if I were to ejaculate without permission that there would be severe consequences.   I always asked her for permission to cum, but she never gave it (until much later).   I made the mistake once of stopping after asking if I could cum and being told no – but I only made that mistake once.  I never did ejaculate without permission, but I did occasionally become sore.

She spent several hours with me each day.  I felt extremely special.  I could tell that the others were jealous of the attention that I would get, but I would occasionally overhear things like, “he’s just new, the shininess will wear off soon,” or “wait until he pulls his first job and falls flat on his face,” but those things just raised my competitive spirit and furthered my isolationist tendencies – Simone became my entire world.

The psychology of her pitch was impeccable.  She knew that she had me wrapped around her little finger.  I felt like a million bucks, even when I was prostrate on the floor naked for her, licking the bottom (yes, the part that contacts the ground…) of her shoes.  She put me in fancy clothes and a fancy apartment and was introducing me to important people.  It really didn’t matter to me that much that I was getting no actual sex from this – I felt important again, special, unique.  And once I felt all of those things, and I’d been divorced from contact with everyone else in my life, and I was completely and utterly dependent upon her, she told me what she really wanted me to do.

She wanted me to be a prostitute.

I’m not an idiot, and I had picked up along the way that this was what was actually going on behind the scenes, though there were also legitimate photography gigs and convention postings that were happening as well, but I already knew that the core of her business was in the sex trade, and the women that I had seen her dining with when I first encountered her were clients of hers more than friends – and she knew many such women.  She even conducted events specifically targeted at this demographic – sex toy events, wine and cheese events,  anything that would get the abandoned wives of Beverly Hills together…  Her male clients required significantly less maintenance or cost of customer acquisition, but they were also significantly less reliable.  Female clients were almost always return clients…  these were the people to whom I was intended to appeal.

Forewarned of this eventuality, and fully enamored of my new life, I did not hesitate to agree, though in retrospect, I realize that I really did not have much of a choice.   Simone rewarded me with what was at that time the most intense sexual experience of my life.  She was Dominant with me in a way that appealed to me then, but that would result in very different reactions from me now, but she fucked the shit out of me, and while she ordered me to do things to her, she also just used me in ways that still make me pause… and then when she was done, she told me to disappear and clean myself up because I would be seeing my first client in just a few hours.

I was simultaneously excited and about as anxious as I have ever been.

To be continued in Part 7…

My Personal Journey : Part 5

Part 5: A radioactive spider-bite of BDSM goodness

My previous entry ended with the dissolution of my first marriage, my attempt at nomadic existence, and a mad scramble for how to survive in a world where I did not have a mission any longer.

I was, by this time, a graduate of several bachelors programs and fully qualified to seek employment in several potentially lucrative career paths, but I was aimless and adrift and in need of a way to support myself right now – having never lived with uncertainty before, so I took literally the first job I could find with the notion of finding something better while I was working.  That job happened to be as a server at The Cheesecake Factory in Brentwood, California.  Not the city of Brentwood, which is far to the east of where I live now, but the unincorporated area of Los Angeles referred to as Brentwood that sits between the cities of Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.   To call it an affluent neighborhood would be an understatement.

Surrounded by wealth, living without direction, unsure of where I’d be sleeping for the night and hating the fact that a free meal was one of the major selling points for taking the job, I was desperate to find something that would give meaning to my existence again.  I was enrolled in medical school, but I had stopped attending classes, and having lived with a long runway for my entire life – every step was planned, by my own ambition or by those who would see me fulfill visions of their own – I did not know what to do with myself and I didn’t know how to find my own way.

I worked in the day, drank heavily at night, and I became something of a bar rat.  I hate to admit this about myself, but I started to fall back into old patterns of thought and I started viewing people as a means to an end rather than individuals again.  I used the desperate and lonely as a way to have a place to sleep for the night and not have to sleep in my car yet again.   I began to see society as something that I could exploit and all plans for the future fell away as I started living moment-to-moment, selfish and alone.

And yet – despite the rapidly descendant conditions of living that I was abruptly dropped into, I remained competent, preternaturally charming, and sharp as a bone saw.  This resulted in my rapid advancement to the night shift, which while it did bring in larger tips, somewhat diminished my ability to use my charm and wit to secure lodging, so I was leaning more heavily on friends and that did not sit particularly well with me, though I’m not sure why it should feel worse to stay with people who cared for me than those who did not even know me, but that was where I was at that time.

One evening, I had a table with three older women – I say older women because at the time I was in my early 20’s and they were probably all in their mid to late thirties… I suppose I should properly say that I thought of them as cougars, though the term didn’t have that meaning at the time.  They were into their wine to the tune of a bottle apiece and the actual food that they had consumed was pretty light.  They were quite loose with their volume and the content of their conversation… they were all sharing stories of things that they had recently done with their boy-toys, and regaling in the schadenfreude of doing so right under the noses of their husbands.

My moral compass at the time was a little wonky, and to my mind, the stories that I was hearing sounded drastically more appealing than the life that I was living, so I turned my charm and wit into a weapon once again and I began to shamelessly flirt with the women at that table.  I came back to check on them often, moving closer than was strictly necessary, and inviting the touch that I was sure would come – and I was not disappointed.

It was not long before I was telling them my life story, standing at the side of one who had her arm wrapped around my leg while another patted my abdomen or forearm with every other sentence she spoke and the third just sat across the table from me, easy in her seat, eyes burning a hole in my soul.  They were all attractive, but this woman across the table, Simone, was a goddess.  She had a light olive complexion and stunning ice-blue eyes with pure white, long, straight hair.   Her body was lithe and firm, her tits were clearly fake, but not out of proportion with her frame.  She looked like a Patrick Nagel print in negative, brought to life.  But it was the look she gave me that haunted me.

They all seemed to love to hear the story of the country boy who grew up on horseback who was coming to the big city to go to medical school.  They all seemed to want me, not just for my body -which I was quite proud of at the time – but for my story.  They thought me a wholesome and eager, naive young man.  I did not tell them of the Lodge or the fact that the reason I knew this was a compelling story was because I had been honing it night after night for the past month, going after smaller scores.  But something about Simone struck me, and it’s clear to me now that she saw right through me from the very beginning.

Soon it came time for them to leave, and I was by now dodging the harsh stares of my manager anyway, so I was glad to see that they were wrapping things up, but hopeful that this would not be the last I saw of them.  I prepared the check for them and wrote my first name and phone number on the customer copy, placed it in the folio and then walked to their table.  I did not know who among them was to pay the tab, but I presented it to Simone without hesitation – it was really her that I wanted to see the note I’d left.

She gave me her credit card without looking at the bill, and I suppressed the dejected feeling that I have to admit that I felt and took her card back to run it, putting the original note on top of the receipt for her to sign and her credit card, then returned and handed the closed folio to her.  She accepted it, looked inside, pulled out her card and signed the receipt and then handed it all back to me before I could get away.

Certain that my ploy had failed, I took out the customer copy of the receipt that she’d left behind and I crumpled it into the trash.  I finished up the night without much else to speak of, and then spent the night on my friend’s couch once again, certain that I would never see any of them again but still dreaming of the might-have-beens that came with the idea.

You can imagine my surprise when I received a call the next morning.  This was in an era before smartphones, but caller-id was still ubiquitous on the small displays of cell phones of the time and this showed up as “Silver Screen Partners”.  I had no idea what to expect, but I was not expecting what followed.

“Hello Rant, this is Simone.  Do you know who I am?”

I really was not expecting to hear from her, but I did know – immediately –  so I didn’t hesitate, “Yes, I believe I do.”

“Excellent.  I would like you to come to my office for a job interview this afternoon – can you manage that?”

“Wait – now I’m not so sure I do know…”

“Your hearing is not poor, I assume?”

“No.”

“Then you should not doubt it.  Can you make the meeting?  2pm – ” and she gave me an address.

“Yes. I can do that,” I replied, even though I knew it would mean skipping class yet again.

“Good.  Do not be late, and bring your headshots if you have them.”

Now, I had never had any plans of attempting to be an actor or a model, but I did live in LA and work in a restaurant, so I knew what she was asking for, but I did not have any photos of myself, let alone professional headshots.

“Uh, I don’t have any…”

“That’s fine.  Come anyway.  Dress well.”

“Okay, I will be there.”

“Excellent.”  <click>

There was no click, really… phones don’t do that anymore and didn’t even then, but somehow we still get the foley for it in TV shows…

I did my best to make myself presentable, not knowing what to expect.

I arrived at Simone’s building about 15 minutes early, afraid to be late, and I walked into her office lobby to be greeted by a beautiful young lady with visible tattoos on nearly every inch of skin that I could see, and I could see quite a bit of it.  She instructed me to sit and wait and that she’d take me to see Simone – “when Mistress is ready.”

I was a bit less worried about my appearance after seeing Pepper (whose name I would learn later, but it makes it easier to refer to her as such now) – but I was still a bit concerned about it, it was a cheap two-piece suit that fit me poorly, and I was not very comfortable in nice clothes at that time of my life.

Eventually Pepper asked me to follow her, so I did.  I walked into Simone’s office for the first time and was greeted by Simone at the front of her desk, wearing a floor-length diaphanous gown with slits in the sleeves and up the legs and nothing else underneath.

I could feel my lower jaw dropping and I’m pretty sure that my eyes sparked into flame.

Simone controlled the room, to be certain. “Thank you, Pepper.  Please make sure that we’re not bothered until I tell you otherwise.” (See – I told you I would learn that later…)

“Yes, Mistress,” Pepper bowed and backed out of the room to turn and walk back to the front of the office.

“Rant.  Thank you for coming.  Please take a seat,” she gestured to one of the chairs in front of her desk and walked around to sit in her chair behind it as I started to sit in the chair that she indicated.  She was completely comfortable, as if she were actually wearing clothes that I could not see right through.

“Have you ever worked in the film industry? Or as a model?”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Would you like to?”

“I suppose so – I hadn’t really thought about it.”

“Well, that is part of what I do here, but only part of it.  What do you know about BDSM?”

I knew a bit, actually, from my earlier experiences with the Lodge and the Rapture group, but I was not confident enough to speak about it, so I responded, “A little bit.  I know what the letters mean, at least.”

“Oh?  Please tell me.”

I responded without really considering it, “Bondage, discipline, sadism, and masochism.”

“Ah, yes.   You are correct, but you are omitting the most important part.”

“I am?”

“Dominance and submission.”

“Oh yes, I knew that.”

“I’m sure you did.”

“Tell me, Rant.  Are you single now?”

“Yes.”

“How many girlfriends have you had?”

“One.”

“Really?  Perhaps I should rephrase – you’re clearly not as innocent as you claim – how many women have you had sex with?”

“More than one.”

She smiled at me and I knew it was not a smile of mirth, but it made me swoon regardless.

“Do you like to eat pussy?”

I was a little shocked by this question, I must admit.  It was so abrupt – and women did not act like that, in my experience.

“Yes…” I responded, tentatively.

She got up from her desk and went to go sit on the couch that was along the wall of her office, to the side, and then she laid back a bit, spread her legs, and pulled the parts of her gown aside so that I could plainly see her beautiful pussy near the edge of the couch.  Her eyes were locked on me the entire time, and I’m certain that my own gaze was hungry.

“Would you like to eat my pussy?”

“Yes.”

“Then you may do so,” she said, completely matter-of-fact, fully expecting me to comply, and she was not disappointed.

I got up from my chair, walked over to the edge of the couch between her legs, then sank to my knees before her, knelt even lower, and nuzzled my face into her cunt, and began to lick at her with a tender touch.  She threaded her fingers into the hair at the back of my head and pulled me into her after a moment of this, saying, “More pressure.”

I was only happy to comply.

Eventually I brought my hand up, and began to insert a finger into her pussy when she slapped me hard right across the top of my head, “You will ask before you do something like that!”

“Yes, Mistress,” I said, thinking I was being cheeky, and then went back to what I was doing, without the finger.

“I do believe that you are getting the picture now,” she said and sat up straight, pulling herself away from me, but leaving me kneeling between her legs, cunt juice all over my face.

“Where do you live now?”

“Uhm..” I hesitate, not wanting to reveal the fact that I was essentially homeless at the time, “do you mean – where do I get mail?” I ask, timidly.

“Oh.  I see.  I would not have expected that, but it works to both of our advantage, as it happens.”

“It does?”

“I will give you an apartment to live in, and I will make sure that you have adequate care for your needs, and in return for this you will be mine – my slave – and you will do anything I ask of you without hesitation or question.  Do you agree?”

I was not really taking her seriously – I didn’t really understand what she was asking of me yet – but it sounded hot as hell and the idea of having an apartment provided for me, even if it meant that I’d be eating Simone’s pussy every day – or maybe especially if it meant that I’d be eating Mistress Simone’s pussy every day – that sounded very appealing to the me that I was then…

“I do.”

“Excellent.  Now how shall we begin?”

<to be continued in part 6>

Master Rant’s 10 Day Intensive

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve been host to a friend who I met through this site.  She lives quite far away, but we’ve been in contact off and on through email and other online means for well over a year at this point.  I never thought we would actually meet in person, but she decided that she wanted to take a trip to San Francisco and experience what it is like to live the D/s lifestyle for a short period under my thumb.

This is the account of some of what transpired in those ten days.

I don’t think the experience was what either of us had anticipated, but it was certainly valuable for many reasons and I am thankful for the opportunities that it afforded me to grow as well.

Let us call my friend (and I do hope that she is still a friend after all of this) Nicole.  That is not her name, but my name isn’t really Rant either, so this should not be terribly surprising to any of you.

Nicole had no experience with D/s before meeting me – but she had had some experience with kink and there were several things that she wanted to try while with me.  We got to many, but not all of them.  There were also several aspects of what I consider to be important to D/s that she had no experience with and found surprising.   Those are the sorts of things that I am going to focus on for this entry.

Foremost, and although I have tried to cover this in the past, was the assumption on her part that D/s requires sex.  This is most assuredly not the case.  I know of several D/s relationships where sex does not play into things at all, and while I would not call that sort of complete lack of sexual focus normal, there is also nothing abnormal about a relationship with deep D/s elements that contains no sex at all.

We did have sex while she was here, but I’m certain that it was not entirely what she was expecting, because sex is not the focus of D/s for me.

D/s is about power exchange.  It is about the transfer of personal power from one individual to another.  It is about choices and decisions and actions and who controls them.  Sometimes these choices and actions and decisions have to do with things of a sexual nature, but quite often they are much more mundane.

Nicole is from Europe and many of our conflicts probably would have been a bit smoother or not have occurred at all were it not for cultural differences as well as the very new nature of things D/s for her when she found herself in my space and under my control.

In fact, I would go so far as to say that she felt that I was simultaneously not controlling enough in some areas and far too controlling in others.

Everyone does D/s a little differently and places emphasis on different parts of the equation.   I was brought up under a different paradigm than is the current norm, and the key facets of D/s for me are Respect, Devotion, and Service.

Respect is the cornerstone of D/s in my world.   It is something that I expect to be in place always and transgressions are dealt with swiftly and decisively.  I am not physically violent without a tremendous amount of forecasting, but I can and often do change my body language and verbal tone to be quite severe when I feel like I am personally being disrespected, or my submissive trainee is being disrespectful to my property or friends.  Showing me proper Respect is Rule Zero.  It is something that I expect to not have to talk about, and if I do, there is a high likelihood that I will be lecturing you, not just mentioning it out of hand.

Devotion is where I get my kicks.   It is my single biggest fetish.  It is the reason why I do D/s.   I may have a big ego, but I like being worshiped just a little bit – and for more than my body or skills.  I like being thought of as competent and trustworthy, and being Devoted to me is the best way to show me that.

And last, but not least, is Service.  I expect a certain amount of Service to be rendered unto me.  This does not always have to take the typical forms, and sexual service is only one manner of service, and not nearly the most important to me.   I can be rather particular in the ways that I expect Service to be rendered, and that can also be an area of conflict from time to time.

Pain management is a constant struggle for me, and even in a short term visit like the one that Nicole and I planned and executed I can be sidelined by my physical pain issues.  There was one evening in particular while she was here with me where the pain was extreme enough that even conversation was difficult for me.  That isn’t necessarily normal, but it’s not abnormal either.  I would say that I have at least one day a month where things are that bad.

Nicole is a lovely woman, but I think I disappointed her a bit when I showed her some of the non-sexual aspects of D/s and placed those of higher importance than the sexual ones.

She asked me to be true to my older self and not to soften the edges on my High Protocol nature, so I didn’t.

It caused conflict.

Conflict in any relationship is normal, but most people are so enamored of each other and deep into the throes of NRE that they don’t register conflict right away – and Nicole and I had our first conflict within 24 hours of her arrival.  It was jarring for us both, but more so for her, I think.

I also practice ethical non-monogamy, which made for more conflict, as I had to manage the feelings of my current submissive partner as well as Nicole’s own feelings while hosting Nicole for her visit.  The three-way conflict was very minimal, but present.

All told, Nicole was able to check off some of her bucket-list items while she was here and I learned a few important things about myself:

Most surprising to me: Sex is nowhere near as important to me as it once was – even just a year or two ago.

D/s is much more in line with my lifestyle and the way I want to live my life than I’ve admitted in the past.  It has always informed my choices, but now it is much more of a lifestyle choice that I cannot turn away from.

In particular, Discipline is very important to me where it has not always been.

I’m a very physical person – and while this manifests itself sexually, it also manifests itself in other areas, Discipline being chief among them.

I really enjoy public play.  This has not always been the case.  I’ve taken part in various forms of it over the past couple of decades, but I have historically had a strong preference for private play.   I no longer feel that way.  They are balanced for me now.

I still don’t enjoy meting out punishment.  I do it, because Discipline is important to me, but I can spank pretty hard – especially when using a paddle – and I surprised myself with the ferocity of my flogger strikes this time as well.

I know that Nicole learned a great deal about herself too while she was here – but those thoughts are for her and I would do her a disservice to relay them here without her implicit approval.

I doubt very much that she and I will meet again in person – the distance and cost are just too high to make that tenable – this was more of a once-in-a-lifetime sort of thing, and while I know that things did not go exactly the way that she had planned, I do hope that she feels the experience was worth it.

I certainly do.

If ever I found myself with a similar situation in the offering, I would change a few things, but keep most things the same – so I suppose that is as good a measure of the success of things as any other.  I learned and grew and I’m certain that she did too.

I am changing and I continue to change those around me, but I remain Rant.

  • Rant

Control Triptych: Glance

Three Layers of Control: Touch, Voice, Glance

This is the third part in a three part series.  When I am training a new submissive, I rely on three of the five senses to keep her where I want her.  My pieces on Touch and Voice were just previous to this and you may or may not wish to read those before continuing with this.

Glance: a much more subtle approach to the same.

Let me explain a bit about what I mean when I refer to ‘glance’ in this piece.  I really mean any indicator that I give to a submissive that I want her to do something (or not do something) that depends entirely on her seeing me make some sort of visible gesture which is not accompanied by a vocal command or a tactile manipulation.  More often than not, this takes the form of me glancing at her, catching her eye, and then moving my glance towards the position that I wish her to take or the action that I wish her to perform.

This is both the most difficult form of control to get to from a consistency standpoint, and also one of the more dramatic ways to show off the time spent in training and working together.  

Apart from control, which is difficult, the stare can be used to great effect in lots of different ways.  It can be both calming when offered with compassion, or it can ignite the fires of desire if it is made with confidence and intention.

The actual actions involved here are not terribly complex.  In fact, with the right personalities involved, causing action with mere glances is not terribly difficult – it just requires a little bit of mind-reading.

“Saywhatnow?” you ask – I can tell.  

Yes – I am atheist and a technologist and a while there are many other ‘-isms to which I subscribe, I do not believe that actual mind reading is possible.  However, with the right person or the right training or both, you can achieve something that is very close.  The key is to know the person that you are trying to control with your glance.  You can attempt to employ the same techniques against the unknown and they may or may not work – a certain amount of the emotional context with which you will attempt these things is universal – however they will be completely ineffective on the unwilling.  In fact, if you attempt to stare down an unwilling person, you’re more likely to annoy them than anything else.

The idea here is that you need to meet the gaze of your target and do your best to project the thought that you want to convey, and then follow it with some sort of physical cue to reinforce the thought and spur the other party to act.  A stare with no follow up action (which might simply be to briefly look away or smile) will just be interpreted as a stare and is likely to just make people think that you are creepy.

The simplest command that can be issued with the eyes only is the, “come here” or “come hither” stare.  This is more often attributed to women rather than men, and that has a lot to do with the way our society is structured, but I don’t want to be pulled into another feminist rant, so I’ll leave that lay for now.  

The “come hither” stare is exactly what it has been made out to be in popular culture – movies, television shows, and most especially, books.  

Because of this pervasive commonality, a woman can get the attention of nearly any man by simply staring at him, demurely looking away, and then bringing her stare back to the same place.  Most men are going to be almost helpless in their reaction – society has baked this one in for us – at least in the Western world.  They will find themselves compelled to move towards the woman and interact with her.  Depending on the social graces that particular man is endowed with, this may or may not be a good thing.

Again, thanks to the commonality of the above, the reverse is also generally well understood – the ‘go away’ look that can stop a man in his tracks and get him to rethink his move.  

Confident women will often employ both of these together to pick a man out from across the room, hold his attention, and then get him to buy her a drink and try to chat her up.  She’ll pick out the one guy she wants to talk to, give him the ‘come here’ stare, but end up attracting him and both of the guys next to him, necessitating the ‘go away’ stare to the two undesirable candidates.

Most of the glance-based commands that I will give are trained, but they build on the above interactions as a foundation.  The above are things that nearly everyone can understand, and because of that fact, they allow for extension in some ways that are not obvious and many of those things really do feel a bit like mind reading.

The ‘come here’ look has to be modified a bit for my purposes because I’m a man.  I do not think that I am a good enough actor to pull off the demure look-away, but I can do the next best thing… I will lock stares from across the room, hold it for just a bit longer than seems reasonable, and then smile.  Usually that is enough to prompt her to do the demure look-away all on her own.   In the span of mere seconds, without a word, we’ve already begun negotiations.

When I’m working with a submissive who is actually submitting to my Will, I will often employ this to begin – the stare and smile, though sometimes the smile can be a bit more mischievous when given in this context.  I will then follow with a gesture that implies what I desire.

If I look at you, keep my eyes on you, but begin to lower my head – while keeping my my eyes on you – and then nod at the floor in front of me, I expect you to come and stand in front of me.  

If, once you do that, I further nod my head towards the floor at my feet, I expect you kneel for me.

If I glance to my side, I expect you to move to that side of me and lean on me if I’m standing, sit next to me if I’m sitting, or follow me on that side if I’m walking.  If once you reach my side I then nod towards the floor, I will expect you to kneel for me there.  If I nod towards a chair or couch, I expect you to sit there.  If I am sitting and I pat my knee, I expect you to sit on it.

See?  Simple – easy – mostly intuitive.

With some training, it’s easy to cue almost any action with nothing more than a glance.

Even taking things further.. If you are my submissive, I may draw you to me with my eyes, put you on your knees in front of me, and then with a more insistent nod, indicate that I want you to remove my belt, unzip my pants, and start sucking on my cock.

It is quite satisfying to be able to get into someone’s head so much that I can get her to give me a blowjob without ever saying a word, I must admit.

 

An imaginary conversation with a new submissive

Kneel for me. Look into my eyes and try to maintain eye contact for as long as you can. Give me your full attention. Do not speak until I am finished talking. I will let you know when that is.

People are not rational beings. Trust is almost always brittle and ephemeral. This process will be disorienting and frightening for you, but even before we begin, you should know that I am terrified.

Most people cannot do the things that I am going to ask you to do. Most people will break under this sort of stress, and if you break I will be there to help pick up the pieces, but we will go slowly… more slowly than even I think we need to, because if _we_ break, that will be the end of us.

But I trust you, and I trust us. And we are going to forge something unbreakable with that trust.

As we start this, you are going to think that I’m joking. The further along we get, the more doubts you will have – about whether or not I’m joking, about whether or not you can do this, whether or not you really want to do this. You will start to believe that maybe I’m crazy, or that maybe you are. You will question the motivation that brought you to this conclusion from the very beginning. Everything will feel unnatural at first, but I promise you that eventually it will seem second nature.

You are not you anymore. Not when you wear my collar. You are an extension of Me. You exist purely to reinforce my Will and Serve my needs. You will begin to learn the things that I like, not that I merely require. You will begin to anticipate my desires as well as my needs and you will feel incomplete while you know that there is anything that I am missing. The only way to feel complete again is to satisfy those needs and desires, and you will do anything in your power to be complete again.

I’m going to tell you to look into my eyes and tell me that you exist only to please me. You are going to feel silly when you do. You won’t believe it at first. You will hold back a kernel of yourself, a part of your own being, of something that is not Me. You will say the words, and you will want to mean them, but you won’t. Not at first.

I’m going to tell you to look up into my eyes and tell me that you exist only to please me. You are going to bear false witness at first. You will do as I command, but you will withhold a part of yourself. You will think to yourself, “I am choosing to do this. I want to forget myself, to let myself become this vessel for him. I want to stop being myself for a time.” But you won’t quite succeed. Not at first. Because you will have to think about it. Because you will feel insecure. You will feel like you’re acting. You will feel juvenile, pretending, silly. But you will be stepping closer towards being Mine. And once you are Mine, you will be finally Free.

You are not you anymore. Not when you wear my collar. There is one inside of you who has always known that you wanted this. You have been searching for the one who sees this need within you and who can foster it and cherish it and shape it, because you don’t have the knowledge or strength to shape it on your own. There is one inside of you who feels like she is being forced to confront a life that she does not want. You move through life uncertain of your place within it. You know that you belong somewhere, but you haven’t ever really found it.

I can show it to you.

When you wear my collar you are giving yourself to me. Completely. You are not you anymore. You are an extension of my Will and your only purpose will be to Serve my needs and desires – even those that I am not consciously aware of myself. Eventually you will know what I want and need before I do, and you will be there already, ready to provide.

In exchange for this, I will take your burdens. You will be Free. Your only purpose will be to Serve me and you can leave all of the rest of the uncertainty and doubt behind.

While you wear my collar, the rest of the world exists at the periphery, but it is unimportant. You, for as much as you connect to the world, cease to exist and become subsumed within my Will. You can leave doubt and uncertainty behind because they no longer matter. You have only one purpose and you are the very embodiment of that goal. Your mind, your body, your actions – they all become an extension of something outside of yourself. They all become a part of Me.

I will hold you within my Will and keep the world at bay. I will protect your essence and hold it for you so that when you are ready to take up the mantle again, it will be waiting for you, but for this moment, for right now, those things cannot touch you.

I will take your body and I will use it to satisfy my needs and desires. I will protect it and cherish it as I force it to conform to my desire. I will use it to control your mind. I will use it to mold the being inside of you that you give to me. I will hurt it, because positive punishment is faster and more effective at calling attention to undesirable behavior than other methods, and you seek to become the least you can as quickly as possible. You want to vanish within my Will and the fastest, surest way to do that is to call direct, immediate, and shocking attention to anything that is contrary to that goal.

I will hurt you, but I will keep you safe.

I will hurt you, but I will never injure you.

I will flay apart the pieces around the kernel within you that you give to me. I will burn away the pieces that don’t belong. I will leave behind the strength of nature itself. I will find the seed and I will nurture it until the uneasiness is gone, until the part that you held back can’t be seen separately any longer, until you are Free from the disorientation and feelings of silliness or the idea that you’re playing a role. I will break apart the bindings of the world upon this part of you and take it for myself.

You will remain, and the world around you will call upon you as it always has, but for a time, for a moment here and there, I will pull a deeper part of you free from that existence and I will hold it apart from reality, within my own Will.

You can always go back, but while you are Mine, I can show you the freedom that you always knew was hiding from you somewhere.

Okay. I’m done speaking now. Are you ready to begin?

State of the blog

I’ve been maintaining this blog for a year now.  Sometimes it seems much longer, sometimes it seems less, but the reality is that it’s been a year since my first entry (even though I deleted my first entry..) and I’ve been able to manage at least a post or two a month since then.  Sometimes more, sometimes less, but it’s been one of the ways that I’ve kept writing, and I think that writing is a very important part of who I have become.

In that first month, I had only a few page visits per day, most of which were probably me.

In the months that followed, my readership has gone up dramatically, which I’m not entirely certain how to process.  I’m getting thousands of hits per week now, and hundreds per day at seemingly random intervals.  One might think that it’s tied to when I post new entries, but that seems to not be the case all of the time.  Yes, I get a bit of a spike each time I post something new – I guess I can thank rss feeds for that – but I get an even bigger spike whenever Autumn posts something new at servingmaster.com, which I still find amusing and heart-warming at the same time.  And yet, my best day ever seems to not correspond with either of those events, it was just a random Thursday where my site got several hundred hits for no reason that I can think of, but I’m certainly not upset about it.

One of my friends suggested that I should start putting up ads, but I have no desire whatsoever to do that.  I did not begin this as a money-making venture, and I have no need of the couple hundred dollars a month I could make from serving ads here.

Another friend suggested that I should write a book and promote it through the site.  That is something that might someday do – I’ve got several unpublished and unfinished books on my hard drive that could use some attention, but even that seems an unlikely goal when I barely manage to write new entries for the blog itself.

However, all of this aside, one thing I can say about the past year is that I’ve enjoyed the experience and that I have no plans of stopping any time soon.

This is a wordpress site (which should be obvious) and wordpress gives me a bunch of interesting statistics about the site, my visitors, etc.  It should come as no surprise to anyone that most of my page views in the past year have come from referer links on the servingmaster.com site.  However, in the past few months, the number of people coming to my site from Autumn’s has been eclipsed by those coming from google and I seem to also get quite a lot of folks from yahoo.

Even more interesting is the fact that wordpress collates the search terms that lead people to my site.

Back when I first started this site, I did a series of posts that I called ‘unasked questions’ because they were topics related to BDSM that I felt strongly about and that I know many if not most newbies struggle with, but I hadn’t really achieved the sort of penetration that led to people actually asking me questions in email the way that they do now.

It seems that most of the search terms that people use to find my site are about these pages, and oddly, some of them are questions that I have not yet answered, so this year I’m making a pledge to do so.

The top search terms that led people to my site:

  1. limmerent submissive

This is kind of interesting.  This term has led people to my blog more than any other word or phrase for which people can search.  It makes some sense… I mean, I put ‘One Dom’s views on life, love, and limerence’ as the ‘mission statement’ for my blog when I created it, and my third (or fourth, if you happened to be one of the three people that saw my very first entry before I deleted it) blog entry is, itself, a story of my own limerent behavior as a submissive, but look at the word there as I spelled it and then look at the search term.

The search term is a misspelling!

I’ve gone back through my own pages, and I don’t misspell it anywhere that I can see, but somehow, when someone is searching for the misspelled version as above, I must be near the top of the pages that come up – and yet, when I did the search myself, that is not what I found, so this may have to remain a bit of a mystery.

  1. sub drop

This, again, makes sense.  I mention subdrop many times in my entries, and there are quite a few other similar searches that also hit on the same idea: ‘subdrop definition,’ ‘can you have subdrop without a scene,’ ‘sub drop missing your dom,’ ‘when does subdrop happen,’ ‘how to tell your dom you have subdrop,’ ‘ways to avoid sub drop bdsm’ – just to quote a few…

I’ve experienced subdrop.  I’ve witnessed it many times.  I think I address many of these questions already, but just to reiterate:  yes, you can have subdrop without a scene; yes, you can feel subdrop just because you miss your Dom; yes, there are steps that you can take in aftercare and communications to try to stave off subdrop, but no, you probably can’t always completely avoid it altogether if it is something that happens to you; and no, not every sub feels subdrop and there is nothing wrong with you if you don’t.

  1. dom rant

This one is kind of self evident, I think.  I’m kind of surprised that so many people are searching for me directly by name though.  It’s flattering, and also a little bit creepy.

  1. doms training submissive

Now this is also kind of interesting.  I have never written an article about training a new submissive.  I’ve been asked to a number of times.  I’ve started such an article a number of times.  I have several unfinished, unpublished entries that tackle this very topic, but I’ve never actually published one.  There are several variants on this one too: ‘is part of a doms training a submissive to ignore them,’ can i punish my sub with her hard limits,’ and ‘training a submissive before a scene’ just to name a few.

I’m not an expert in how to train a submissive, but one of the reasons why I’ve had such difficulty in writing the article that would satisfy this question is that I think it really depends on the submissive – and in situations where I am giving someone else advice on the Dom as well.  I think that each of these interactions is dependent directly on the people involved and the relationship that you want to have with each other.

If I am able to maintain cold objectivity, this is a much easier process for me, but if I become emotionally entangled, and even more so recently than in the past, the whole notion of submissive training becomes one giant clusterfuck for me.

Who then, am I to advise others on this topic?

I still intend to tackle it at some point, but I need to get my own ducks in a row on this concept before I can have any confidence in advising others.

However, there is one question up there that I absolutely want to tackle right here, and right now.

“Can I punish my sub with her hard limits?”

Absolutely not.

That, my friend, is what we call abuse, and I hope that you get the ostracization you deserve for trying such a thing, if not a full court press on the legal issues you expose yourself to with that.

Hard limits are hard limits for a reason.  Respect them or you disrespect the person and yourself and the entire BDSM community.

  1. subspace (or some variant thereof)

I added the ‘or some variant thereof’ bit myself in case that wasn’t apparent.  There are probably more distinct questions about subspace than anything else, but because each question is unique, the results don’t as easily correlate in the wordpress search terms page, I think.  Some examples:  ‘signs of subspace,’ ‘how do I get to subspace,’ ‘subspace bdsm’, ‘subspace mistress,’ ‘can I get to subspace without pain,’ ‘subspace sex,’ ‘how to get someone into subspace,’ ‘finding subspace,’ ‘subspace definition,’ ‘can your dom put you into subspace with a word,’ ‘ways out of subspace,’ ‘‘subspace commander’.

Obviously, that last one there is my favorite.

I talk a bit about subspace, and what it is, and how one might find oneself there, but it’s only really been the focus of one entry, so it’s a bit interesting that it seems to lead people to me so frequently.

Clearly though, it’s a topic of interest to people, and the more I think about it, the more I realize that it’s something that I should probably be spending more time focusing on in my own personal relationship, so I promise to give this topic some more thought and attention in the coming weeks and months.

Is there something that you are interested in reading about that I didn’t discuss here?

Write to me in the comments, or send me an email.  I try very hard to make certain to answer every legitimate email that I get, though they can sometimes get lost in the spam filter, so if I don’t respond, please take that into consideration or use the Contact Me page – since most of those seem to get through.

Thank you for your attention over the past year, and I look forward to more to come.

I am still Rant, and I’m not going anywhere.

 

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.”