If You're Going to Pull Rank, You Better Pick Your Battles

Let me give you the TL;DR version of this post:
If you think being the Dom or Master in a relationship means getting to do whatever the fuck you want, you're wrong.
The end.

Too often now I'm encountering men who label themselves Doms or Masters looking for a sub or slave to start a D/s dynamic with, walking around thinking being the person on the "left side of the slash" means they are The King, they give the orders, and whoever is on the "right side of the slash" has to shut up and obey, because that's what D/s is all about.
Shut up and obey—or leave. Them's the breaks, toots.

You know what I tend to call these Domly types? Single.

I understand the desire to want that kind of relationship. I mean, this sounds awesome for the Doms, doesn't it? They get to do whatever they want—order around that sub of theirs however they want—and they don't have to worry a damn bit about her feelings or opinions.
She's a sub, man. She takes orders, she doesn't give 'em. No topping from the bottom around here; nope.

The truth is, being a Dom is hard fucking work.
(I'm not talking here about the Bedroom Dom. I'm talking about the 24/7 "let me into your heart so I can clean shit up in there" Dom. The Dom who makes plans called Sticking Around and Making Changes.)
It takes stamina. It takes tenacity. It takes self-control.
And it takes a lot of self-sacrifice.

Being a Dom means taking time to see to the needs of your sub when you'd rather be off doing other things. She may not know exactly what you meant when you gave her those orders; you'll need to show her. She may not understand what you're trying to say the first time you say it; you'll need to tell her again, and again, until she gets it. She may not always be able to handle things on her own; you'll need to be there for her.
And she will definitely not always do what's right. You'll need to correct her.

Correcting her is not going to be easy, and it sure as hell isn't going to be fun for you. (Let me be clear here: I'm not talking about "funishment." Funishment is fun. Punishment is not. Punishment is reserved for when you're disappointed in her behavior and want it to stop.)
A punishment you make her suffer through will mean suffering for you, too—or it should. It will not be as bad as what she's going through, but it will not fill you with pride or joy.

If you've spent time around kids, you'll know what I'm talking about here. Take a privilege away, like the T.V. or a trip to their favorite ice cream shop...and you're stuck listening to them whine and complain about it for hours on end (plus maybe you wanted to get some of that ice cream, too). Put them in time out? You have to sit there and make sure they fucking stay in time out.
They're crying. They feel awful. You feel awful, too.
Plus you have to deal with the guilt and the frustration and the underlying thoughts of Why do they have to keep doing this? Why can't they just GET it; why can't they just do what I say? What the hell am I doing wrong?

As a Dom, you have to take steps to provide for your sub's needs, and protect her against the things she can't handle—even when that might mean protecting her from herself.
You have to be in charge of the relationship. You have to set goals, and do your best to stick to them—even when things get rough. Even when you don't think she's giving 100% of herself.
You have to live by example, and stand by your word—even if the trust has already started to fade.

There have been times my husband has pulled rank on me, and "played the Dom card." Not often, but during some of the most stressful and life-changing times in our relationship.
Never once did I think he pulled rank for the benefit of his own needs. Every single time he pulled rank and laid down the law, it was because he thought it was for the good of the family, our relationship, or my wellbeing.
It was NEVER done for the benefit of his own selfish desires.

He has asked me to do some pretty major things—make some big fucking sacrifices. They were hard. They were painful; mentally, and sometimes physically.
He didn't feel good about asking me to make these sacrifices. It didn't make him happy. In fact, he felt pretty awful about it.
But he asked me, clarified things to me, and then finally commanded me to do these things because he had decided that's what would be best for us. Not him. Us. Our little nuclear group we call a family.

When he asked me to do these things, could I have said no? Sure. I'm an autonomous person; I always have the choice to say no, to say 'my line is drawn here.' But I knew the consequences of doing that, and the consequences were never worth it.
Saying no was not the right thing to do when, in the back of my mind, I always knew what Husband was trying to make me do was really for the best.

THAT is the hardest part of being a Dom, I think. To make your sub truly believe that what you want from her is actually the best course of action for you all.

I know some Doms and Masters out there make it look easy—and their subs make it look effortless, too. I've seen plenty of slaves gush on and on, in online groups and in person, about how obedient they are, how *slavey* they are, how they would *never* go against their Doms' wishes.

First of all, if it's true, great. But I have a hard time believing they never question or argue with their Doms.
And second of all, of all these slaves who blindly follow their Masters? I have a feeling it took a lot of time and hard work to get there.

It's kind of like looking at a sexy rope bondage photo. Those things are so fucking hot—I mean, I don't enjoy rope, I'm fucking terrified of it in fact, but those photos, man, they are hot—and it looks so easy, doesn't it? Just get a bendy woman, contort her into some weird shape, tie up some rope around her, and voila, you've got yourself a good photo subject. Any old camera will do, right? Who needs to worry about good lighting.
You don't see how many hours upon hours of hard work went into that photo. You don't see the time spent exercising to get that bendy body; the blood and blisters spilled learning the rope skills; the patience and perseverance it took to make the rope itself. You don't know what it took for the people to recover from that photo, either; the aftercare involved.

24/7 D/s relationships, the ones that endure, work the same way. You might see a couple for a few hours at a munch or party: happy, intimate, sharing private energy that's pure, beautiful, and powerful.
You want some of that. You want to share that kind of energy with someone, too.

What you don't see is all the work that went into making that energy, the time it took to create that dynamic. You don't see the sacrifices they both had to make to make that relationship work.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: being a Dom or a Master isn't easy. It's more of a calling, I think. It's a choice for some, but a choice not so easily turned away from. Are there benefits? Sure. Is it often fun, and sexy, and hot as hell? Absolutely.

But if you think being a Dom or a Master in a relationship means getting to do whatever the fuck you want, you're wrong.
The end.

My Submission IS a Gift! On Condition

I'm going to start by saying right off the bat that you can call your submission—or by extension, your submissive's submission—anything you damn well want. You want to call it a gift, fine. You want to call it a loan, also fine. You want to call it the cherry on top of your vanilla ice cream cock, have it at; it really makes no difference in my life.

Ok? Good.

It seems to me lately there is a strong and vocal group on Fetlife who believe that submission is "not a gift." These anti-gifters get very intent on informing people of that so-called fact; especially people—especially subs—who state the opposing view.

The thing is, most of the time they're not arguing philosophy, or sharing ideas. They're mocking and deriding anyone who calls their submission a gift. They hurl insults at these people like they're uneducated rookies—

Let's not even talk about how we treat rookies. Or, let's, but in another post—

and end up in this little circle-jerk of snide contempt. They claim submission is not a gift because gifts are supposed to be given freely, with no expectation of exchange or return...didn't we all know that? If a sub is handing out their submission like candy to a baby, they're doing it wrong. They need to get a clue; go back to the basics.

Well, hate to break it to you guys, but not all gifts come duty-free. There is indeed such a thing as a "gift with strings attached." There is actually a legal term for this: it's called the Conditional Gift.

Conditional Gift: a gift of property which is revocable if the recipient does not fulfill conditions attached to the gift.

The most common example of a Conditional Gift is an engagement ring. In all but a few states, if a man gives his partner an engagement ring but the wedding doesn't happen, his partner is legally obligated to return the ring. It was not given unconditionally, "no strings attached"; it was given on the condition that a marriage takes place.

Another type of Conditional Gift is what often happens in people's wills. They bequeath money to friends or family, but with conditions how the money must be used. It may have to go toward a child attending college, for example, or the purchase of a house. If the money isn't used the way the giver intended, the funds must be returned.

This, my friends, is often what submission is in a D/s dynamic: a Conditional Gift. It is given with the assumption that it will never be returned...so long as the submission is treated the way the submissive needs and desires. In most cases I know of, the submissive wants to be made to feel like their submission is appreciated, respected, and cherished. As long as that happens, it need never end.

The submission need never be "returned" to the submissive.

(And yes, before any of you jump on me, Domination works the same way. No Dom I know is willing to dominate a sub who does not appreciate—or get turned on by—their style of dominance. It's just not fun that way.)

Submission is not a loan, because the truth is, it can never be returned—once given, the time and service spent in submission cannot be taken back. And really, who would want it to work that way? When care and thought is put into submission, it is personalized to the receiver. It cannot be simply handed over to someone else, traded in like a used car.

I have more than one person I submit to in my life—and I do mean in a kinky, D/s way—and they all get different styles, different displays, of my submission. The way I submit to one is not the same way I submit to another; they would not want me to submit to each one of them the exact same way.

And frankly, I wouldn't be able to, even if I tried. My submission is not generic. It changes, depending upon the person.

It is my gift given...conditionally.

I think it's funny how so many people here will jump on dictionary definitions to stand higher atop their soapboxes and claim submission is not a gift. These are often the same people who are sticklers for rules, protocols, and contracts in the D/s dynamic.

Yet if one wants to get all formal and legal, there is a term for what we do, what we submissives give...and the word "loan" isn't in it.

Or it doesn't have to be. If you want to call it a loan, fine. Like I said in the beginning, whatever makes you happy. Just don't try to serve me up a helping of sneers and jeers next time I call my submission a gift. I think this time contract law is on my side.

Here is a gratuitous Big Bang Theory clip, simply because it's so timely and funny:

Tools Are Good. Temperament Is Better.

I'll tell you Cats and Roosters a little secret:
As far as "Domly tools" skills go?
Husband has practically none.

He does not know how to throw a whip fluidly. He does not know how to throw a flogger with mastery. He does not know how to handle rope with the dexterity of an artist.
He knows how to handle a hairbrush, but that's about it.

He uses floggers to make me hurt. He uses rope to tie me down. He doesn't bother with whips at all—why spend the money on a whip, when there's a power cord right fucking there? 

He has a collection of canes, rulers, and sticks he loves to use on me. They are rather simple tools in that they are easy to use, and have a really good Effort:Reaction ratio.
You aim, lift, swing, drop...and the body beneath you is suddenly wailing in agony. Not bad, when you consider all the trouble you can get into with a whip; I don't know a single whip enthusiast alive who's never hit themselves with a whip. Whips are wily toys, and like snakes, they can sometimes bite their charmers.

Husband feels no great urge to learn how to use those toys, because the passion for him is not in the skill. It is in the results.
Is the wife contained? Is she subdued? Is she terrorized? Yes to all three? Then mission accomplished.

He will sometimes cuff me down to the bedpost when he knows he's embarking on a particularly difficult scene with me. I do my best to follow orders, but I'm still human, and when I'm reduced to the mindset of PREY, my instincts usually take over; and those instincts boil down to FIGHT and RUN.
Make no mistake, though, when he cuffs me down, he is doing me a favor. He is being nice, allowing me the freedom within those restraints, because it is ten times harder to control the PREY urges when I'm acting on his voice, and his orders alone.
It is hard. On the other hand, I am well trained.

But GOD there are times when I just want to beg him to put the cuffs on me.

You don't have to be proficient at this-or-that tool in order to be a Dom.
You just have to know how to dominate.

Living With an Anti-Social IMPOSSIBLE Dom

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You Need a Utility Belt

Being a Master/Dom/Toppy type does not mean every scene you do has to be full of SERIOUS TERROR and ALTERED STATE. Sometimes it's just about being fun and silly. Case in point, my time last night:

Him: (whispering gruffly in my ear behind me) Take off your shirt.

Me: (giggling) You sound funny.

Him: I do?

Me: Yes, you sound like Batman.

Him: (Back to gruff voice) That's because I am Batman. Now take off your shirt.

Me: You're silly.

Him: I'm silly, and I'm Batman. Now take off your pants.

Me: I can't have sex with Batman. This is crazy!

Him: You can have sex with Batman if Batman says so. Hold your legs open. Wait for me—don't move! I'm going to get some toys.

Me: Toys?

Him: Batman has aaaalll the toys. Don't move.

(Comes back a few minutes later while I'm stuck with my legs open, laughing on the bed)

Him: Toys.

Me: If you're going to use that thing on me, you'd better use lube.

Him: It's Batlube. And I'll use it if you're good.

Me: This is nuts!

Him: I'm Batman. Spread your ass—ah, good.

Me: It hurts!

Him: Too bad. I'm Batman.

Me: (laughing so hard I can barely speak) I can't relax when I'm laughing this hard!

Him: Not my problem. Batman is working now.

Me: Ow ow ow! What the hell are you doing?

Him: Well I'm not getting lost in a mall. Ray-chel!

Me: Wait, didn't Rachel die at the end of that movie?

Him: You won't die. I promise, and I'm Batman.

Me: You're crazy!

Him: I know, and you love it.

Sexy In His Eyes

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The Voice I Obey

I try very hard to hold my shit together online. Put up a good front, my mother used to say. Fake it till you make it.
For the most part, I think I succeed. Yes, once in a while I will rant, especially during certain times of the month; but overall, I think—these days at least—I keep my personal issues off the screen.
This does not mean I don't have my own personal issues to deal with; my own mental demons.

We all have them, some worse than others. While I know many who can write freely about their demons—often with great eloquence—I am not one of them. It is hard for me to let strangers that deep into my head. Personally, I have never had any good come of it.

Being a submissive in a D/s relationship does not somehow magically heal all my personal issues. The anxiety is still there, the depression, the Voice of Defeat whispering to me that I am not enough, that I will never be enough.

What being a submissive in a D/s relationship means is that my behavior is under someone else's scrutiny and control. I cannot let the Voice of Defeat dictate my actions; I cannot comply when it tells me to give up, don't bother, there's no point, I'll never do it right anyway.

That Voice of Defeat is pretty fucking powerful. Sometimes it doesn't talk at all: sometimes it just screams inside my head.
(Sometimes I think I scream inside the dungeon not out of fear, or pain, but out of triumph: to show myself and the world I can, at the most sublimely painful moments, still hold my own voice, and scream louder than that Other.)

The voice of my Master, while not louder, is always stronger. It always wins.

So while I sometimes want nothing more than to disappear into my own personal cave, I cannot. I am not allowed to. I may still lay low, keep to myself, and maintain a low profile...but I am still acting as a functional human being. Meanwhile, I am getting my shit together, kicking that Voice of Defeat in the larynx and telling it to shut the fuck up while I fake it till I make it.

And you know, sometimes that's the best you can do.

8 Words To Turn Me Into a Blowjob Huntress

"I have a conference call in two minutes."

This is why you don't show your Dom your bruises.

Me: "Look at what you did to me! Look at this!"

Him: "Wow. What about the other leg?"

Me: "It's not nearly as bad, thank God."

Him: "We'll have to do something about this."

Me: "I tried ice already."

Him: "That's not what I meant. They're not symmetrical."

Me: "...What?"

Him: "We need them to be even."

Me: "What? And what do you mean, we?"

Him: "I can't remember what I did to cause that...look, we'll just have to recreate the whole night, and I'll retrace my steps, but everything I did to your left leg I'll do to your right leg, so they'll be even."

Me: "WHAT!"

Him: "You're right, that won't work...I'll just have to find a different way to give you a bruise like that, one that'll match. But there's no way...I might have to work on the first one, you know, to get them all even."

And this is how (if you're not me) you learn to shut up.

Small Insight on How We Communicate

Scene from last night

Me: You could have not given me this nosebleed.

Him: You could have stopped fighting.

Cut Nails and Troublesome Mouth

In the car, driving Husband to the train station, looking over at his hands (cause he has sexy Man Hands):

"Oh, you've cut your nails."

"Yes." (Raises eyebrows.) "Does this give you ideas?"

"Nope. No ideas."

"No ideas—like my hand inside you?"

"No."

"You don't want my hand inside you? Fisting you? In and out, in and out—"

"NO THAT'S QUITE ALL RIGHT THANK YOU."

"I think my nails did give you ideas. I think you do want to get fisted tonight. I think that's why you said something."

"I think you should just keep your hands in your lap, over there, while I'm driving."

"That's not going to happen."

"Then I think from now on I should keep my mouth shut."

"You know that's not going to happen, either...especially not tonight."

Fantasies and Vulnerabilities

Ready to hear something surprising?

After all these years, I'm still shy about sharing a lot of my kinks—even with Husband.

I know, I know, I should get over this. The guy knows me inside and out; he knows me better than I know myself. I should have zero shame in telling him about all my blooming fetishes and fantasies.

But it's hard.

It's hard to take that first step and tell him there's something on my mind I'd like to try. It's hard to lay the script fantasy running through my head at his feet, and wait for his reaction.
It's hard to state out loud to myself, let alone someone else, how perverse some of the erotic scenes in my mind really get.

As a submissive who identifies as prey, it's hard to articulate "I want you to force me to do this for you." After all, if I really wanted to do this for him, wouldn't I just do it? Why should I have to be forced? What kind of submissive does this make me, that I have to be forced into pleasing him?
Wait, if this is my fantasy, and about my pleasure—am I not now topping from the bottom?
That's bad, right?

It's not bad, of course. Fantasies are never bad. Sharing fantasies grants any relationship a new level of truth and vulnerability, which makes it even hotter.
Husband LOVES it when I share my fantasies with him. He loves my kinky little mind. He's told me many times over that my fantasies are more hot and steamy than the stuff that comes out of a teenage boy's wet dream.

He also...he kinda loves forcing me to share my fantasies with him in very great detail. I think he gets off on how embarrassed it makes me. That's one of his fetishes, forcing me to suffer through that kind of humiliation, even as he knows it excites me, too.

There's a certain thrill for me knowing that as soon as I say, "Husband, I have a scene on my mind"—or something to that extent—he's not going to let the matter drop until I've told him exactly what I'm envisioning in my head down to the very last detail. He wants to know the tone of voice I'm hearing him speak; which side of the bed I see him on; which hand I see him using for what kind of play; even where his eyes are looking as he's doing whatever he's doing to me.

Of course, everything that happens during our real scene is up to him.
But in a way, that "real" scene is actually the second scene. The first scene starts as soon as I open my mouth and say "I have a fantasy." I'm forced to present all my inhibitions at his feet, to do with as he will.

Last night Husband and I had an amazing time acting out one of my fantasies. I'm not going to tell you what it was, but I will say (with no small measure of pride) that Husband came twice in fifteen minutes, and he came so hard he had to lie down on the bed for a good long while before his legs were strong enough to walk.
I'm not usually one for post-sex cuddle time but I gotta say, I enjoyed it last night.

Afterward, he hugged me and kissed me over my eyebrow (God I love it when he does that) and reminded me, "You shouldn't hide your fantasies from me. I want to know all of them. I want to know everything that goes on inside your head."
"I know," I replied, burying my head in the crook of his arm. "But it's hard. I'm embarrassed."
"You shouldn't be too embarrassed to tell me," he said. "I love you. You are the hottest woman in the world, and I am so lucky to have you."

That's what it's really all about, isn't it? To be vulnerable in front of another human being, strip down our veneers and cover layers until we expose our most fragile and unguarded selves...and be told we are still precious and beautiful to behold.
We are still appreciated.
We are loved.

The Single Word Command

There are few words that turn me on as much as this one.

Growing up in a religious home and going to a religious school, I was required to wear skirts all the time. The skirts had to be of "modest length," meaning that the hem had to fall below the knee; if the skirt had a slit in it, the slit could not travel above the knee cap.

Not only was I required to wear a skirt, the fashion in my school back then was to wear specific GAP long denim skirts, ones which were extremely narrow. They fell almost to the ankles, and had no slits. We girls did not walk; we shuffled. Opening our legs more than a foot wide was almost impossible.

This curtailed our mobility, obviously. But I think that was part of the point. If you look throughout history, one popular way of controlling women is to take away our ability to move.

In fact, we were taught specific ways on how to move—modestly, of course. We were not supposed to draw attention to ourselves, or do anything that might cause the boys to look upon us for too long; that was immodest. We were not supposed to roll up our skirts, not even in the summer months; that was immodest. We were not supposed to sit with our legs spread apart; that was immodest.

I will never forget the day the principal of the school gave the girls a lesson on how to bend down to pick something up off the floor. The trick, he said, was to bend at the knees, not at the waist. That way you're not presenting an attraction toward any male walking by.
Any woman who's ever tried to stand up from a kneeling position this way wearing a tight skirt knows there's a certain art form to it. It takes practice, and a certain amount of grace. Doing it right will make a woman look downright elegant; doing it wrong will see her planted on her face.

As the framework of my life changed and I began to wear pants more often, it took a surprisingly long time for the wicked thrill to wear off. I was doing something naughty, wearing pants; I could open my legs. 
Part of the pleasure was being able to just fucking walk.
But I still saw opening my legs too wide as something inappropriate and indecent. Girls just did not do that. They did not act that way. Not the good girls, at least.

I did not last as a good girl for very long.

Husband figured out very quickly what the word "open" does to me. He had to break down more than a few inhibitions first, of course. I was still very shy getting naked in front of a man.
I could take a dick down my throat, but parade around with no shirt on in front of a guy? Pfft. No way.
Once he got me naked before him, prone, vulnerable, and he would tell me to open my legs...then the sweet struggle would begin.

I used to refuse to open for him. My refusals were dealt with harshly back then. I was not punished so much as shown, time and again, that my refusals were futile. He would do what he wanted to do to me, and get me what he wanted me to do.
Full stop, the end.

But at the same time, he made me feel gorgeous when I overcame that struggle—even when he had to "help" me do it. He told me over and over again how beautiful I was, how attractive, how sexy, how womanly.
He made me feel comfortable with being proud of those parts of my body.

But the struggle has never really gone away. Neither has the delicious suffering—those moments of panic as I slowly ease my legs open for his stare, knowing I am revealing my most hidden parts, acting the perverse and wanton slut.

It is not just my body he finds attractive. It is the struggle he sees etched across my face, the inner fight waging behind my eyes.
It is a fight I am going to lose, and he is going to win.
With his triumph comes control.

Degradation: YKINMK and That's Okay

Submission. Humiliation. Objectification. Degradation. These are words that get tossed around a lot in the kink scene, but they do not all mean the same thing.

This is my opinion on the matter:
Humiliation is about a Top getting off on a bottom's feelings of awkwardness, embarrassment, and shame. It is about a bottom being made to feel disconcerted, often mortified, and forced to endure a humbling scene for the Top's enjoyment. It is about the bottom providing entertainment through discomfort.

Me? I get off on humiliation.

Objectification is about the Top turning the bottom into an object—table, chair, artistic statue, whatever strikes his/her fancy. It is about the bottom being reduced to nothing more than that object, at least for a time. It is about the bottom being of service as something less than human.

Me? I get off on objectification.

Degradation is about the Top belittling and demeaning the bottom. It is about the bottom being made to feel inferior and disgraceful.

I do not get off on degradation.

The reason why is as simple as it is complicated.
Like many, I had a fucked up childhood. I don't like to get into details, or even talk about it—ever, with anyone—for a whole slew of reasons anyone who has suffered through a fucked up childhood will probably understand. But I will say that for far, far too long, I found life less than livable.

When I got older, I took control of my life, and things got better. But I still lived very...shall we say...fatalistically. I existed day to day, not quite sure when my last day would be, not quite believing the next day would come. I lived with what I considered lofty goals, and took hellish risks, because I wanted my death to mean something.
I wanted my death to be grand...because I didn't think my life meant very much.

It was around the time I met husband that my life began to really mean something. Will I give him all the credit for my improvements, the growth and recovery I went through? No, I will not. I was actively trying to get myself help, and fix myself up, for a fair amount of time before I ever met him. I don't think he ever would've even been interested in me if he hadn't see that strength (and stubbornness) of mine showing through.
But did he help? Hell yes.

He helped me start thinking about what I wanted out of life, what my goals were—because it was okay to make goals, it was okay to bank on a future.

He helped me understand I shouldn't be worrying so much about my grand death, it was my grand life I was supposed to be thinking about.

He made me realize my life had meaning, it had value and worth...and that value had nothing to do with what he thought of me, and everything to do with how I saw myself.

To this day, he reminds me all the time how important I am.
I am his priceless treasure.
I am beautiful beyond words.
He is so thankful he has me in his life.
It's as if I was made just for him.
He's so lucky...the luckiest man in the world.

I think I'm the lucky one. I'm a survivor, and I'm stronger because of it. I have no idea what kind of person I'd be if I hadn't gone through all the things I did...there's no point in wondering about it, because I'll never know. But I do know that everything I've ever been through has led me up to this point—and at this point, I got to say, my life is pretty fucking fantastic.

So no, I am not his worthless slut, or his useless slave, or his stupid cunt, or any of the other derogatory adjectives I hear other people use.

I am his slut, slave, cunt, hole, whipping post...whatever noun he decides strikes up his fancy. I am what he chooses me to be, because I am worthy of this privilege.
And my worth is not cheap.

I am NOT saying people who get off on degradation are doing ANYTHING wrong. This is the sort of thing that is completely subjective, and if you're the kind of person who gets off on it? Go for it.

I AM saying that as much as some people enjoy degradation, other people recoil from it; that it does not have to be an integral part of any power exchange dynamic or scene. That you can be a submissive, but being a submissive doesn't have to make you feel inferior in any way.

Not unless you want it to.

Eyes On The Destination

This morning when I drove Husband to the caltrain station, he and I were the only ones in the car. This is unusual because normally I drive him to the station on the way to driving Son3 to school. But Son3 is on vacation, so today he and I were blissfully alone.

As we were talking, laughing, and talking about the upcoming day, this guy in the car next to me tried to cut me off.
"What the fuck was that," I hollered, swerving quickly to avoid him. "Did you see that? He just tried to cut me off!"
"I saw."
The conversation resumed, I started to relax...and then the guy in the car next to me sped up to move into my lane again, this time succeeding in getting in front of me.
"GODDAMN IT," I yelled. "You are ONE CAR ahead now. Happy? HAPPY?"

"It's Monday morning, and people are stressed out," Husband said. "Their competitive natures come out. I know what that's like. I used to do that."
"You're not like that guy," I said. "You're not an asshole."
"Not an asshole, competitive personality," he corrected me. "The point is not that you are not one car ahead. The point is that he is not one car behind."
"And this makes a difference to you?" I asked incredulously.
"Yes," he said. "It does."
At this point, the guy in the car now one space ahead merged quickly in and out of the lane to get in front of the next car, and I swore in disbelief.
"Asshole," I said under my breath.
"Not asshole," Husband said. "Competitive personality."

As we drove up to the train station, I said, "You know why you're not an asshole? Because you don't mind being behind me. There have been lots of times when you've gone behind me."
"This is true," he said. Then he kissed my forehead and said in my ear, "Because the way to take your ass is from behind. Us people with competitive natures, we always keep in mind where it is we're going."

Why You Shouldn't Call Me

You may end up calling me on a day when Husband is working from home.

He may enter the bedroom as the two of us are talking.

He may then go into the bathroom to pee, leaving the bathroom door OPEN.

I may then start yelling at him for leaving the door open.

You may hear him snap at me for yelling at him.

I may call him a few choice words for being a disgusting pig and barbarian as he starts to walk out of the bedroom.

He may then close the bedroom door...and lock it.

He may then grab the belt from the closet.

You may have to listen to me quickly and profusely apologizing as I try to squirm away.

You may also have to listen to me howling as he starts slapping me with the belt.

You may then hear me call him an ASSHOLE as he starts to walk away.

He may then start slapping me with the belt all over again.

You'll have to listen to me wailing more.

You may then have to give me a few moments to recover before we go on with our conversation.

You might also need a few minutes to recover from your laughter.

And that is why you should never call me.

It's Not Fair

Another personal story because I KNOW HOW ALL OF YOU KINKY FUCKERS LOVE TO LAUGH AT ME.

Most of you already know how apple pie is my go-to get-out-of-jail-free card with Husband.

I do penitance pie with flair.

Well, maybe not free; my ass still gets the comeuppance it deserves. But it's the comeuppance I think it deserves, which is nowhere near the abuse HUSBAND usually thinks it deserves, and while some of you may think that's an underhanded tactic on my part, I say, TOO BAD: when it involves my ability to sit, I'm gonna do whatever I can to facilitate.

Yesterday morning Husband left the house without saying one word to me. From the time he got up, until the moment I dropped him off at the train station—not one word.
I assumed it was because he was furious with me, and I knew why.
It was because he'd had a lot of sodium and MSG in his dinner the night before, and sodium and MSG makes him snore when he sleeps. He ended up snoring so loudly that night, I had to poke him to roll over...over and over again.
It's not my fault if I woke him up.
And it's certainly not my fault that last poke went in his eye.

But, you know, I could understand why he would think differently.
So I decided it was probably in my best interest to bake him an apple pie. I let him know by text.
He was pleased.

When he got home, he found me in the kitchen, preparing dinner. He leaned against the counter and stared at me.

"What?" I asked.
"Nothing," he said. "I just didn't sleep good last night."
"IT'S NOT MY FAULT," I immediately shouted. "YOU are the one who ate that damn MSG soup. You KNOW that stuff makes you snore."
He looked at me like I'd just gone mad. "What?"
"I was trying to sleep too!" I kept yelling. "I have bad aim when I'm half asleep! And YOU kept ME up, too!"
"Wait," he said. "Wait a minute. Did you...did you poke me last night when I was trying to sleep? Was I snoring, and you poked me?"
"...Yeah?" I said. "You mean you don't remember?"
"I had no idea. What do you mean, you have bad aim? Where did you poke me? In my balls?"
"No, in, uh, your shoulder."
"Really. Where did you poke me?"
"I may have kinda slightly got your eye. BUT IT'S NOT MY FAULT."
"It doesn't hurt," he said, touching his eye. "I guess it wasn't as bad as you thought."
"You mean...you really don't remember this at all?...But then why didn't you say anything to me this morning?"
"Cause I was tired and had a sore throat?" He said. "You thought—you thought I was angry at you? Is that why you decided to make me pie?"
I was frowning too deeply to answer at this point. Husband, on the other hand, started laughing uproariously.
"It's different when I make you pie and you're NOT mad at me, you know," I said through gnashed teeth, watching him laugh. "I get brownie points for this."
He stopped laughing long enough to think about that for a moment. "Wait a little longer," he said then. "I'm sure you'll do something I'll be mad at you for." And he started laughing once more.
"THIS IS NOT FAIR," I said.
"Wife," he said, offering me a kiss on the head, "it's not meant to be."

I live under a bus—a bus that right now, tastes like apple pie, and does not give brownie points.
It's not fair.

Time After Time

This past weekend I had one of the most awesome sexy scenes I have ever had with Husband in an open play space. No, scratch that—the most awesome sexy scene. 

And it happened because I was afraid.  

Husband, as many of you know, does not like to socialize. He is decidedly anti-social, in fact. He also does not like to engage in any heavily sexual BDSM in public. Put these two facts together, and you get why he almost never accompanies me to kinky events. 

Which I've learned to accept. It was hard, especially in the beginning; I wanted Husband at my side, all the time, acting as my Dom and Master. But Husband didn't want any part of that, and he didn't see the need, especially after I put down roots in our local community and felt (relatively) safe on my own. 

To be clear, he didn't begrudge me my desire to go to kinky events, and play with others; he didn't try to curb my fun. 

He just didn't want to join me in my revelry. 

I think the last time before this weekend he joined me at a kinky event was back in...November? Since then, I'd been going to kinky events on my own. Sometimes it was just to socialize and see friends....

But other times....

I was having some damn meaningful scenes. 

The kind that stick to your memory long after the marks fade. 

The kind that make you re-think things like likes and fetishes and boundaries. 

The kind that act like stepping stones on your own personal path of life. 

I didn't like it.

I liked the scenes I was having just fine; the scenes themselves were awesome. What I didn't like was that I was beginning to put down stones in the earth that would take me down a path where Husband was not leading me.

Every relationship—vanilla, kinky, monogamous, poly—follows its own path. The trick is to lay down stones wide enough so you can both walk along together. 

Now, in a D/s relationship, the Dom is not so much walking along side the submissive as much as leading the way, setting down the stones, lining the path to make it easier for her to follow. Sometimes the submissive may get scared, or feel like she's been walking for too long, and she'll balk. The Dom will have to give her leash a small yank, just enough to remind her who is controlling her lead. 

But I think any submissive, for the most part, will stay along the path her Dom sets for her, as long as he's not dragging her in the dirt and setting her up for failure. 

But no matter what, every person in the relationship has the responsibility to look where they are going, step where it's safe—and stick together. It is way too easy to get distracted and diverge. 

Now, I had not diverged from Husband. It went nowhere near that far. 

But I had felt my toe slip off the path, and that in and of itself was enough to worry me. 

So we talked. 

"I'm having moments without you," I said. "Ones I really wish you would share with me."

He got it. "Next party, I'm coming with you," he said. "I'm bringing the hitachi, you're getting naked, and I'm going to make you squirt in public."

The scene was with Him, my Top, and my Mistress. It was a fantasy come true for me, to have all three of them torturing me at the same time. 

I had worked out a signal with Husband, to convey to him when things got too much, when my protests were real and not fake; a "yellow" signal, if you will. And he assured me that if someone did something that went "too far," and I gave him the signal, he would call a break to the action. 

What I didn't count on was that the signal didn't apply to him, because I have no safewords with him—not the kind that act as a requirement for him to stop.

So in the course of the scene, as Husband began to torture my right nipple—it is always my right nipple, I have no idea what he has against that poor right nipple—I would give him the signal, he would keep going for another few seconds, and only then, after he'd pushed me off the edge, would he call a break. 

Every time I gave him the signal, he would look into my eyes. He would tell me with his stare that he knew he was the one causing me so much distress, but that, as always, it was up to him to decide when to stop, not me. He has that power as my Master. 

And after a while, I stopped giving him the signal. All communication was being done through our eyes...and in any case, he had made it clear he was going to do whatever the hell he wanted no matter what. 

He made me scream, and come, and squirt, and come again, and scream again. 

Like I said, the most awesome sexy scene ever. 

But it happened because I spoke up when I needed that reconnection. I had begun to feel a space between us—a tiny space, really, just a drop of the entwined hands—but a disconnect none the less. And I didn't want to feel that space get wider. 

The Ferret talked about this eloquently in his own post a while back, titled "It Would Be a Lot Easier For Me If You Didn't Come To This Convention." He writes:

As convenient as it might be to leave her behind...that would create a slow schism between us.

That schism wouldn't be her resentment.

It would be me, evolving in the absence of my wife.

Marriages break apart often not because people were bad for each other, but because people were great for each other when they started and then drifted apart. If you could somehow reset them to the people they were when they made their vows, then they'd still be together.

People change and unfold over time; there's no stopping that. The trick is to change together, to make sure you're working as a team. Relationships are more than just the sum of their parts: there's the energy in the heartbeats between, the force of love you feel for one another. 

I am blessed to have many relationships in my life, and many people I can say I love. But none of them will ever be as important as the one I share with Husband; he is my path and my journey, and the one who guides my way.

And when I start to feel lost, he is the one who calls my name, looks into my eyes, and lets me know: he is there. Not only is he there, he is the one doing my favor by allowing me to walk. 

Should I forget, he will make me crawl. 

He'd Fuck me, He'd Really Fuck Me

"Husband," I said, putting down the book I'd been reading in bed and looking over at him, "if I were in a terrible car accident, burned,
disfigured, lost an eyeball—would you still fuck me?"

"Of course I'd still fuck you," he said, and came over and kissed my nose.

"Thank you," I said, giving him a relieved smile.

"I'd totally fuck you," he said. "I'd fuck your eye socket."

Morning Conversations Around Here

Husband, walking out the door this morning: I forgot to put on my belt.

Me: Which belt?

Husband: The wide black one?

Me, blinking: Should I hide it?

Husband, growling: Only if you want a piece of it.

Me: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED.

Later

Husband: You are so opinionated.

Me: I'm not more opinionated than anyone else, I just can't hide anything on my face. I'm too expressive.

Husband: This is true.

Me: That's why I suck at Poker. If they invented a game where the object was to be honest about the cards in your hand, I'd totally win.

Husband, smiling: There is a game. It's called, "Talk to My Husband."