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First I have to say I adore my friends. They're important to me and I love having them in my life. It helps that they think I'm sexy as soft moonlight sparkling on the water. When they say smart, they giggle as they add sarcastic, witty, intelligent, and a challenge. I am Beloved and it feels wonderful.
My friends keep me honest and humble. They call me on my arrogance and push me when I'm slow to make a decision. It's not that I'm a mule, but they whisper about stubborn and red-heads with tempers. I keep reminding them I can hear them. When I start to be self-critical, they don't lift me up with affirmations, they hit me with the clue by fours. Aren't I lucky?
They tease me that I get my argumentative style from too much Law & Order as they shove me over on the couch to watch it. Even when I disagree and debate that my style is my own and I use it in my undergrad studies. I love that my friends have the same interests as me even when they threaten me with dire punishments...as if I'd run.
The small things round out my life. My animals bring me quiet joy. Writing reveals more about me than I sometimes care to admit. Researching deeper into the craft fills my soul and lets me gift myself to others. I read for quiet pleasure, for the joy of traveling while never leaving and for the pain of school work. As in all things in life, you have to take the good with the bad.
I'm an open book with hidden verses. Dragons dance with the moonlight under the blackthorn bushes. Sparkling moonlight beckons you to join the dance. The dragons wink and the blackthorn whispers with the wind. I am moonlight and the way is open.
Ideal Person: What I'm looking for... Someone who wants to form a long term relationship, who's openly polyamorous or poly-friendly. Since I switch, I don't have a preference for which end of the flogger I'm on, but I do look for confident, aggressive partners on both sides. I want someone that makes me think, that challenges me as a person, not just someone to play with and forget about. I could go into a long list of will do and won't do...but that just sets boundaries that are arbitrary and take away the fun of discovery. Do you think you fit? Drop me a line and we'll see.
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Beraking Rant, News at 11:00
We're taking a break from the regularly scheduled trip report to engage in a digression that does have some relation to what I'm writing up in the next section. I took a break from writing to check my mail and the following question popped up. Below it is my response:
R1 wrote:
>Some neat ideas, R2. I especially like the "Pls ask me to play
>one". I've noticed at the last couple parties, several have not even worn
>name tags. I realize that sometimes they fall off, but I don't understand
>why one would not want to be identifiable?
It's not being identifiable that's the problem.
I dislike having to "declare" who and what I am by picking colored nametags that indicate top/bottom/switch that locks me into a certain category and allows assumptions about who/what I am. They often short circuit getting to know someone, really know them, and what they like or don't like.
Saying I'm a top or a bottom or a switch says *NOTHING* about who I am or how I play or what I might enjoy. If I choose "top"...and suddenly someone walks in the door
who makes me all swoony and wanting to bottom, do I have to go get another color and slap it on? Because he may just assume I don't want to play on the bottom since I'm flagging top. If I choose switch, people assume I'm undecided or new and can't make up my mind or know next to nothing. If I flag bottom, other bottoms looking to play with glance over me without a second look, simply because of the way the badges are colored.
As for names alone, well, I will periodically list different names to avoid the eventual "Oh, that's moonlight. She's into X, Y, and Z" reputation that's inevitable. Like most things in the BDSM community, name tags (and color coded ones in particular) get shortened down into some sort of code, rather than a simple name badge. They make the person into a collection of labels.
Is that the fault of the tag? No. It's the fault of the people who allow it to happen and make assumptions and it gets lumped into "I hate tags at events" for shorthand.
If you want to know who I am....*ASK* me. If you want to know what I do....*ASK* me. Aren't we supposed to be communicating, first and foremost, rather than assuming we know who and what a person is?
***end email***
The problem with the nametags at this particular social are that they are color coded as follows:
Red - Top/Dominant
Red/Blue - Switch/Undecided
Blue - Bottom/Submissive
(And, just as a note....I am *NOT* undecided, thank you very much. I'm greedy. So piss off.)
Yes...I'm one of the evil people that despise nametags as shorthand. I don't believe that it's a problem with the tags in and of themselves. It's that the tags have a whole lot of labels, baggage, and assumptions stacked onto one sticky little piece of paper and I refuse to color code myself to make it easier for someone else to figure out if I'm of the "appropriate" orientation to play with.
You know what? My status as a top/bottom/switch doesn't tell you whether I'm an "appropriate" partner. It doesn't tell you squat about me. If you want to know who I am and what I do, just friggin' *ASK* already. Open your mouth and form words like "Hi. My name is Jason. I saw you across the room and wondered if you might be interested in getting to know each other a bit." I don't bite. Honest. Well...unless you ask.
Y'know what? If you can't walk up to me and view me as a person *outside* of your ability to swing leather at me or my ability to swing leather at you...I don't want to know you. You don't qualify as "acceptable" as a play partner for *ME*.
This shorthand has become shorthand at most pansexual events and it drives me batty. I'd love to play at them. (Yeah, you read that right. Me, who doesn't do stuff in public would like to play at them.) But the overall feeling I end up with at such events is that I'm a slab of meat being evaluated for whether I can stand still and take a beating in the appropriately cute, submissive, helpless way that they expect.
Y'know what? I'm not cute and helpless. I can pick up those floggers you're holding so sloppily and show you a thing or two. I can handle that knife you're waving around without scaring the horses. I'm a she wolf that can defend herself and her family who also *chooses* to submit to someone worthy of that. I am not a slab of meat.
I don't play with people I haven't talked to before. I don't play with people who don't view me as a person. I'm better than that and I deserve more. Why don't the rest of you out there who let your labels speak for you, sometimes falsely.
You know what? M. and I did not talk much about what we were going to do. We didn't talk about limits. We didn't talk about safewords. I didn't have one. He knew that I could possibly become non-verbal depending on what he did and the state of mind I was in. *BUT*...and this is a big one...we spent months talking to each other online. And he got to know me as a real, live human being over the course of two evenings, sitting at a table next to him before he *ever* picked up a toy or used his hand on me. The world did not shatter. It did not break. And he never came close to needing any of those things. He could tell by reactions where I was and backed off when it started to get too intense. He learned as he went.
Does that break a lot of "rules" that are pushed and foisted off in pansexual groups? Yes. You bet it does. But there is *NO* replacing knowing your partner and how to read them with simple rules and labels and color codes.
Some days, I wonder if the fanaticism surrounding "Safe, Sane, and Consensual" is a direct result of looking at people simply as bodies rather than as partners in a dance.
Do I play as often as other people? No. Have I had the bad experiences that other people have fairly frequently? Hell no! I play with people I trust who know me, and you can't do that in one glance at a nametag.
What we do is an erotic dance between two people, regardless of whether they later end up in bed. It's an energetic exchange, a sharing of the soul of a top and the soul of a bottom, geared towards uniting into one greater whole.
Until you reach the mind and the soul and join in that dance, you're just playing. |
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Are you a man, or are you a mouse? (Part 2)
When it's one on one, it becomes a bit more difficult. As a general rule, I'm very careful about eye contact. (We're heading for a bit of woo woo now…bear with me…) One of the skills that I have is being able to "read" people through their eyes. To an extent, anyway. I've trained to be able to focus, connect, and share bits of myself and energy with other people and allow them to do the same. Therefore, when I'm looking at someone (in general), I tend to focus on the bridge of the nose or their mouths if they're talking. It avoids being too intrusive without permission.
When it happens to be someone I'm attracted to, it's a little more hairy. That connection allows not only for me to see bits of them, but for them to see bits of me, depending on how perceptive they are. It's the proverbial gazes meeting from across the room sort of thing. I am far more likely to continually drop my gaze around men that are attractive to prevent that accidental moment of connection. It's not enough, to just focus on the bridge of the nose.
All of this adds up to a general sense of discomfort around particular men. And, when I feel uncomfortable, I tend to pull back and try to avoid the situation entirely. That discomfort gets translated, I think, into the timid that my friend picked up on. The truth of the matter is…I've never learned how to interact with men as anything other than one of the guys. I work in a male dominated industry and am surrounded by them day in and day out. I have to drop some of the feminine aspects of myself in order to actually function. I become a gender neutral person at work.
Despite the best efforts of several of my women friends, I appear to have a somewhat ambiguous relationship with my own gender at times. I'm a bit heavy on male hormones and light on female ones when it comes to my body chemistry. I've been called butch often enough that people are shocked when they actually meet me and find out that I look fairly feminine. (For better or worse, there's no hiding my chest for starters.)
Because I don't really view myself as all that feminine, it's not really possible to my mind that these men that appeal to me will actually respond. I'm not terribly feminine on most days, even when I try to be, which is what I've come to expect them to want. Someone who's their own height, someone they can't pick up and toss around who's not cute in that oh so feminine, girly way…that's not what they're supposed to want. They're supposed to pick the women that I end up with as friends. Smaller, more graceful, classically beautiful, cultured, with wide ranging interests. Not the gawky, geeky, graceless person that I am.
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Are you a man, or are you a mouse? (Part I)
Well, ok. For starters, I'm a woman. But I suspect that's picking at nits to avoid actually taking a look at how I deal with men in general. Actually, no. I don't want to deal with men in general. I can deal with men in general just fine. They're like anyone else on the face of the planet. My problem seems to be with men who are either in a position of power/respect who have something I may want or need or men that I find attractive. The one possible exception to this is when I find myself in a new situation around new people that I feel a need to not make an idiot of myself in front of.
The word of choice that was offered up by a friend recently: timid.
Not submissive. Not subservient. Not anything resembling the often aggressive person I am amongst men and women that are classed as "friend". Timid.
Now, granted. The friend that came up with it quite likely falls into all three categories. I'd just met him that weekend, I do find him attractive, and I'm just not going to go down the last choice's road as I'm not quite sure where it would lead. Better to not go down it at the moment. We can stash that away for much later, thank you.
I'd like to think that when we were all sitting around in a group of people that I wasn't being particularly self-conscious of myself. There was random chatter going on that I thought I was participating in, and I know that at one point I was flirting with M. Not the behaviors of a timid person. However, when left alone to be one on one with my new friend, I'm quite certain that I looked like I'd grown three heads and clammed up quite nicely. There were, admittedly, some other things going on that night and the following one that left me feeling somewhat off to begin with, but I'm not sure how much that affected my general behavior.
I'll readily admit to feeling like I have two left feet around a lot of men. I grew up a tomboy, one of the guys, and I focused so heavily on swimming, that I never dated in high school until late into my senior year. I didn't have time, by my own choice to be involved in the activities that I was, to learn the ins and outs of dating behavior and the particular dance that goes along with it in the formative time when most people experiment, get their heart crushed, and learn to pick themselves back up and move on.
Several years into college, I made several attempts to ask guys out and was turned down flat. Nicely, as they were friends who cared enough not to utterly destroy someone who had taken the time to get to know them and become a part of their lives, but it was still a rejection. Easy enough to handle in the long run, but it did start the rather negative associations I have with interacting with men I find attractive. One was still hung up on an old girlfriend and the other was in and out of a relationship with a rather volatile woman and we never quite managed to get enough time to actually try dating between their breakups.
Then, along comes the entrance into BDSM and the wonderful dance that dominants and submissives do when they're first investigating each other as partners. I will admit to being able to handle THIS particular dance much better. I've learned to flag interest in particular ways, to read whether the other person is interested or not, and meander my way through negotiations pretty well. The problem here is that most of those techniques don't really work outside of that setting so well.
It's also where I've had some spectacular flops when it comes to relationships and having learned that most men just aren't really interested in the person known as moonlight. I've gotten my fair share of interest from a wide variety of people, yes. But they're generally not compatible with me for anything other than friendship. A lot of them are submissives themselves, who read my writings or run into me online where I do come across much more aggressively than in real life and think that maybe I'm dominant enough to want a sub. Flagging as a switch probably doesn't help that a whole lot, but it is what it is.
Invariably, the men I'm MOST attracted to are usually out of reach for one reason or another. At least in my mind, if not in truth. Because they are out of reach, it becomes necessary for me to actually prevent them from knowing that I'm attracted to them so they don't get offended at the interest.
I can do that in a variety of different ways, depending on the attraction, how perceptive they are regarding particular energy movements, and how many other people are around. Sometimes it works better than others. In some cases, it just means never really being alone with them. Other people as buffers, when used naturally and seamlessly, are difficult to spot. With the hustle and bustle of several other friends around, it's easy to deflect any slippages through joking around or sometimes overly exaggerated responses if it's caught.
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Nightscapes I
Light flares out of the darkness as she lights the first candle. She sets the tall pillar down to let the wax pool inside and lights a dozen more. All the colors of the rainbow, sitting in a neat line just waiting to be called on.
Her hair brushed over him as she checked on the bindings around his wrists. Firm. Secure. No escape. His fingers were still warm as she entwined hers with them for a moment. Just as his eyes closed she let go of his hands, dragging her nails roughly down his arms leaving dark red streaks on the pale skin.
Slipping one leg across his body, she straddled his hips, gripping his sides with her knees as she leaned over to nip one nipple then the other. From beside the bed she pulled out a set of clover clamps and secured them against his skin, letting them just barely squeeze against his nipples for now.
Picking up one of the candles she slowly tipped it, watching the pain blossom in his eyes as she drizzled the heated wax over is skin.
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Nightscapes: Introduction
What would you do if dreams started to have a reality all their own? If the people in them started stepping out of your dreams and into your life? It's not as silly as it sounds. You see, the people of my dreams are coming to life around me. And I can't decide if this is frightening or not. They're strange....alien people that I don't know...and yet I'm becoming more like them. Where does reality end? Where do dreams begin?
It's getting harder and harder to go to sleep. My dreams are filled with things that I want but can't have. And it's getting harder to leave the dreams in the morning. They call to me, trying to pull me back down into the murky darkness where they live and breathe. They want me. The question is...do I want them?
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Smile for the Camera!
Recently I was sitting around talking to some friends online about what kinds of poses I should use in some pictures that I was going to have taken. Now, these pictures were going to be used specifically to ramp a couple of people up. Said friend said to make sure that I got one of me masturbating.
You want to see something hysterically funny, suggest that to me. I turn into a stark, raving prude. "I couldn't POSSIBLY do that!" "Oh my god...No way!"
My friend, who's vanilla, got goggle eyed at this and said, "You mean I've done something that you haven't??" or something along those lines.
Of course, being who I am, I decided to turn introspective and write about it in order to figure out just what the issue really is.
The very odd thing about all of this is I would have no problem with a picture of me getting my partner off. Now, this may not sound like a really big deal to most of you, but it kind of bugs me. I pride myself on not being overly prudish or frigid. Sure there are things that I won't do, but this seems like such a minor thing when you look at it.
I would guess that most of the folks that catch have been ordered to masturbate in front of their partner at least once in their lives. (Maybe that's an overestimation and I just assume that people do.) I've been ordered to do it over the phone, though never in person for some reason.
There does appear to be a common thread in what makes me uncomfortable enough to want to sink through the floor in embarrassment. Being the focus of attention. Whether it's being the focus of attention for pictures, the focus of attention for a dom, me being the focus of my own attention, whatever. It's disturbing to me and makes me want to disappear into the crowd.
I'd call it a passing phase or one that I'm learning to work with, except it's been around for a very long time, now. A constant companion, you might say. In classes, it takes me a while to actually speak up and venture forth with an opinion because the class turns around and looks and the professor challenges that opinion. With people I'm just meeting for the first time (or even the second or third) I often come across as aloof and distant despite trying for a friendly demeanor.
I shouldn't be surprised that this crosses over into my kinked life, I suppose. A part of me would love to be able to flaunt myself around like other folks or to get up in front of a crowd and scene without feeling like I've grown three heads, added about 800 pounds, and that everyone's staring and laughing. Logically, I know that only a part of that crowd out there is watching. Of that part, a smaller portion is intently watching. I also know that the likelihood of someone sitting there going "Ewww...gross!" is somewhere between slim and none.
People who've known me for years (online or off, take your pick) find it hard to believe that I'm shy, that I have an aversion to being the center of attention. In safe surroundings, I don't have to worry about things. Friends accept me for who I am, yet I still believe that if they saw it all, they'd leave.
Maybe that's an element of it, too. Trust. There are damn few people in this world that I trust not to cause me pain. (The bad kind, ok?) Even fewer of those that I let see the deep, dark inner places where the inner serial killer lurks, where the sub that thinks she's lower than dirt lurks, where all the pain and hurt lurk that I've pushed down and away so that people can't poke at it. Except for me. It's ok if I poke at it as a reminder that it's there, as a reminder of why I shouldn't trust people, why I shouldn't let them get close.
Perhaps it's wise not to trust an entire room of people when you only know a small handful of the people there. Perhaps it's wise not to call attention to yourself needlessly. Or, perhaps it's just letting fear rule your life. Something to think about...
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And Family
For some reason it's always late at night when I sit down to write. Or when the unstoppable urge to bare myself to the world at large hits. Since I seem unable to exercise any type of control at all over this strange exhibitionistic streak I seem to have, it's time for another journey through what passes for the hills and valleys of my brain.
The last day or so has been one of strange changes and odd realizations. What are those you ask? Well. Let me tell you about them. (Run while you can...)
First and foremost in my brain is how people can delude themselves. Into deciding that they know what's good for them and what's bad for them. Into thinking that they know the reasonings behind another person's actions without knowing or asking, leading themselves into assumptions that are often wildly mistaken. Sometimes amusingly so.
As an example. Today is the first day of the rest of my online life without certain staples that have been present in the past. This is a good thing, since it provides more time and room for personal growth. It's also somewhat sad as the reasons for that change were somewhat avoidable. For many people, the idea of chosen family, kith, and kin are very strong. What's done to one is done to all. And when one member of the family is violated, the rest of the family will respond. Not in anger. Not in hatred. But in a simple protective mode.
What outsiders don't often understand is that to such families, Duty, Honor, and Clan mean something. Family may fight and feud and try to kill each other in and amongst themselves...however, that doesn't mean that any outsider can wander along and try to hurt a family member. That's bound to bring about a strong united front.
What's unfortunate is that a strong, united front with deliberate actions is often mistaken for "acting in anger" or "without thought". I can assure those people that have made the assumption that I acted in anger and without thought that they are mistaken. Every comment that I have made in the last 24 hours has been thought out and planned. The consequences of those comments and statements, and the actions that went wit them, were well known before the first comment was made. The decision to comment was not made in haste or anger. It was a thought out response to an attack on a family member.
Which leads us to the concepts of Duty, Honor, and Clan themselves. What are they? Why are they so important? And why is it so difficult to comprehend that those three concepts lead to reasoned application of "force" (for many values of force) and not acting in haste or anger?
Starting with Clan....Clan is a group of people, at its simplest. But it's far more than that. A Clan is a group of people that have close ties to one another. They care about the ins and outs of each other lives. They often interfere and nag the other Clan members. No one's business is ever entirely private in a Clan. It's a noisy, busy, nosey family. One comprised of close ties between members with a variety of natures. Love, religion, initiation, adoption, the list goes on. Clan, and in particular Chosen Family, can be closer than blood kin are.
Even if you don't speak for years at a time, Chosen Family can pick up where they left off and carry on from there. You're never entirely alone when you are Clan. You may *WISH* you were, but that's a horse of a different color entirely.
And that brings us to Duty and Honor. When you accept the bonds of Family or Clan, you gain the benefits that come with it. Companionship, support, love, caring...the list goes on. But with those benefits come obligations and duties as well. To provide the same back to your Family. To protect the Family. To defend the Family from outsiders when necessary. To not do so brings dishonor not only to yourself and your vows but to the Clan as well. And what are we without honor or our word? Something lesser for certain.
Now. I know that many of you reading this are starting to scream "CULT BEHAVIOR!!" To the extent that any closely tied group can be compared to that, I suppose you may have a point. But I also will vehemently disagree that such behavior is always categorically bad. We cannot exist without ties to other people. We interact with them on a daily basis. Unless you're a sociopath incapable of forming bonds with other people, they will happen.
And so, today, I have the support of my Clan...my Chosen Family...who understand the actions that I've taken in the last 24 hours. Actions that were a long time coming. Actions that have closed certain doors permanently. And opened up entirely different ones. Growth and progress.
And Family.
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Images of Submission XIII: Challenge
I am wild. I am free. I am glory and I am power. Will you enjoy that I am a challenge or will you try to break me and have your own way? Others before you have tried. Others before you have failed. In the end, I cannot be broken to saddle so easily. But a softly whispered word, a touch here or there at the right place and time…those will bring me to you far faster than any challenge to who I am ever will. I am the lightning strike and the whirlwind, fierce and wild. I will test boundaries. I will find my limits and yours. And, in the end, I will challenge myself to accept your will over mine. |
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Images of Submission XII: Courage
The demons rise out of the Shadow, taunting, degrading, trying to turn me from where I want to go. Not good enough, not pretty enough, just not enough. Yet, still I put one foot in front of the other, sometimes with pushing and prodding from others to keep going, but always moving forward. The courage to face the Shadow, to tell it to go away and stop harassing me. Accepting the Shadow as a part of me that will always exist and acknowledging the strength that keeps me from running. To be different, to believe you can do what you want and society be damned takes courage. It takes drive and determination. And it takes confronting accepted limits and boundaries, transgressing them in one great act of defiance. |
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Images of Submission XI: Power
Could you crush me with a look? A word? Send my world into a headlong spin? The power to control my world, the power to curb me when I am difficult, the power to spur me on when I fall behind. Can you do that without lifting a hand to me? Without striking me? Can you bend my will around to yours by making me want what you desire? There is where power lies. Not in force, not in pain, but in making me crave what you want. In making me change without breaking me. In allowing me to grow while guiding that growth in the direction you choose. |
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Moonlit Pain
Even here, from this distance, I can feel the pain in you. The dull ache of careless words and actions from others that have left you wounded. The ache grows as I listen to your words, wanting to ease what grows around my heart, presses down on it, squeezes until every beat spreads agony through my veins. What is this hold you have over me? It makes no sense. I believe, deep in my heart, that it's only me that feels these ties. It's not possible that they bind both of us. You're like the moon, shining down on the still earth below. So far...so different...so beautiful.
Yes, beautiful. Not a word used to describe men, often. But it suits you. Yes, handsome and attractive and all those words too, but beautiful most of all, because you're unique.
Too perfect. Too masculine. Too erotic. Too much of what I've spent time looking and wishing for. Right there. In front of me. Too beautiful for words. Too much to ever dare reaching out for.
Too many times before reaching out brought laughter. How could you think you're the one? You're not pretty enough. You're not good enough. Not thin enough. Not smart enough. Not interesting enough. Too shy. Too quiet to be noticed. Too smart. Too aggressive. Not feminine enough.
Not for someone like him.
Do you know the sight of you makes me weep? For what I want? For what I think I can't have? And yet I can't do anything *but* look, again and again, for the joy it brings. Even knowing it's out of my reach. The bittersweet ache that echos your own pain blossoms and burns through every inch of me when we talk, when we flirt, when we tease.
Every day brings me a step closer, shows me another layer, gives me another glimpse beyond what you present to the world. And, being who I am, I want to make you happy. I want to please you. I want to hear the small endearments that you sometimes use. I try to guard my heart, keep it tucked away from all of this. It's not smart to expose it so...it's not smart to be so affected by you.
But I am who I am and something in me responds this way to something within you. I don't ask for it. It just comes. And, in the end, I will offer it with no strings. I always do. In whatever manner it can be appreciated and accepted, painful as that may be for my heart. Someday, perhaps, I will learn to choose more wisely. Until then, I can only go where I'm led.
And so I ache, here in the moonlight.
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Evolution Part II (Written March, 2003)
And, to be honest, spectacle is probably a fairly accurate word. Imagine, if you will...a darkened room, a frame to attach the victi....er...subjects to, one male and one female submissive, one female switch (who doesn't normally play in front of people), and one domme who is all about the spectacle and amusement. Add in one tarp, four toybags, and 150 roses. Oh. And a large room full of spectators.
So, after laying everything out, I stand back and look at the leather display and turn to UltraD0mme to say, "You know...we could take over a small third-world country with all this." The response of which is to get a grin and a cuff handed to me.
After getting kyl and nanon hooked up to the frame, I backed off and was trying to figure out where I'd be out of the way enough to still be useful at helping whenever UltraD0mme needed something. I quickly discovered, however, that this wasn't part of the plan. UltraD0mme told me to pick up a flogger to warm one of them up with.
Now...I will admit that I know the business end of a flogger from the handle and that I have some ability to wield one since I've been playing with them for quite a while. I am not, however, used to applying them to actual living targets. (Usually *I* am the target.) I tried to make some noise about how it probably wasn't a good idea for me to actually *hit* someone with it since I'd probably do it badly and hurt them.
UltraD0mme's response was to hand me a flogger made of deer hide. Ok. I got the point. I'm not *that* dense. Usually. Really. Why are you all looking at me like that?
And, during the warmup with a variety of different floggers, I really didn't do that badly. Once I got my sleeve out of the way. I really don't recommend bat wing sleeves and floggers if you're planning on playing. They're a problem.
I did have a moment's panic when there *was* a badly placed stroke. That was always my biggest fear in getting up and topping someone, regardless of whether it was public or private. But, you know...it's survivable. Check in, find out what happened, that they're ok...move on. I may have even made it look like I knew what I was doing.
There was a scene going on behind us, I know. But what surprised me later was the fact that after a certain point, I didn't notice everyone standing around and watching. I'm not sure how many people were there...but the place was pretty full since it was the Mardi Gras party.
Once kyl and nanon were warmed up, UltraD0mme and I started pulling roses out of the bucket beside the frame. I don't know how many people there had seen UltraDomme do this before, but for me it was a first. Did you know that roses can explode?
I mean...not like a mine explode...but if you let them open for a day or so, when you hit someone with them the blossoms just fly apart with a sort of thudpop sound? I'm not sure *what* I thought would happen when I hit someone with them, but it wasn't that. Petals were falling everywhere.
How often is it that you get to make a *HUGE* mess at a social? I'd thought that the thorns on the stems would leave horrible punctures and scratches, too...but they don't. I mean, I'm * very* sure it hurt after a while, from the sounds that N was making. And there were welts and scratches, too.
I also discovered that I have a somewhat cruel side. I stopped in the middle at one point and tapped kyl in the nose with a rose long enough to ask him if this counted as stopping and smelling the roses.
He had the grace to mostly not laugh. Though that would have been ok too.
Of course, UltraDomme had to get in a couple comments about my style. *SHE* had a leather glove on. Me, I just had double layered latex to try to avoid some of the thorns that had been missed when the bottom couple of inches got stripped.
I ask you...is it *fair* to tell someone they hit like a girl? What else *could* I do but show UltraD0mme that I can hit hard? Wouldn't you? Apparently I improved after that. Well, til we switched subs again. nanon had been making quite a bit of noise so maybe I *was* slacking off on her just a little bit. I'm a wimp, really. Not at all sadistic. (You're all looking at me strangely again...)
Well, when UltraD0mme told me I was hitting like a girl again, nanon ended up making the cutest yowling noise. Really.
We ended up keeping two roses out for later. Though, before we were done, kyl and nanon both had roses that hadn't exploded (the heads had popped off instead) stuck into the backs of their thongs.
I hadn't understood, before this started, why such a large tarp had been needed. After looking around at the wreckage, though, it became clear. There were rose petals *everywhere*.
And, after we got everything cleaned up, aftercared, sprayed with New Skin, and generally back to some semblance of normal, we gave nanon and kyl each a rose.
In their teeth.
To be carried around that way until they were told they could remove them.
*Heh*
After stepping outside, I ran into my friend that I'd spoken with from the year before. He asked me if I'd remembered the conversation we'd had about more leather being needed to actually get up and top. I said yes, I did and asked why.
He just grinned, looked me up and down, and told me that he didn't see any hide nor hair of leather to be had tonight. I asked if the shoes counted, but he told me no since I'd not been wearing them during the scene itself.
And I guess he was right.
Evolution in action.
moonlight - with many thanks to UltraD0mme, kyl, and nanon for letting her play too... |
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Evolution Part I (Written March, 2003)
'Round about a year ago, I had the amusing opportunity to help Tiger top a friend of ours at the social that we were regularly going to. This turned out to be one of the last of the munches that we would attended together.
Afterwards another friend that was there walked up to me and was joking about how I was starting to wear more leather and act more "toppish". I think, at the time, I was wearing leather boots and a leather vest. My reply to him was that eventually, as time went on, I'd collect more leather and eventually be dressed head to foot in it. It gave me enough attitude that I'd *then* be able to top someone by myself because I'd have enough 'tude to pull it off.
For reasons surrounding a couple of events in the area and the press that it was drawing, the friends that I normally went to FLOG with decided that it would behoove everyone to keep a low profile for a while. And for the better part of a year, we didn't go.
Last September, Tiger moved back to Canada. Much to everyone's dismay. Including my own, which is why I've been out of contact with a lot of people since then. But, even caterpillars emerge from their cocoons eventually.
A week ago, apparently, was my time. Last Friday I was sitting at work trying to figure out what to do for the weekend when I got a message from UltraD0mme, telling me about her plans for the following evening and asked if I wanted to come watch. After much debating over whether I had time or not due to a test I had last week, I finally decided that I'd go. So, after work, I packed, piled the dog in the car and headed across the state for what would turn into a bigger adventure than I'd planned.
One completely closed off interstate later, I arrived (to the tune of an hour and a half later than I'd planned). Still, not too bad for a last minute decision to drive 4 hours with no prep time.
Now, I am *not* the most fashion conscious person in the world. Normally, I need to plan what I'm going to wear to these things and take extra stuff in case I'm given a fashion ticket by UltraD0mme and told to go change. For once, however, I was off the hook. I'd been shopping recently and bought a lot of what I called "frou-frou girly clothes"...something I almost never do. I was able to grab the bag and just make due with it. And, apparently, I've been learning because I didn't get *one* bad comment from any of them and several compliments.
I suspect, however, that I could have been wearing a bag and I would have gotten the same. You see, I'd gotten a new shirt to wear out to events like this. It's long and flowing with big bat wing sleeves like you see on medieval dresses. Black. And almost utterly sheer. Just enough material to cover. I'd gotten a black and red bra to go with it...only discovering when I put it on that it was also a push up bra. Enter, one woman with a shelf.
With a long black lace skirt and suede ankle boots with 3-inch heels, I looked right smart, I did.
So. Off we all go to the social.
I was surprised that people there remembered me, to be quite honest. It's a fairly large event, compared to what I'm used to, and it'd been almost exactly a year to the day since I'd been there. But, sure enough, people did. A couple came up and asked if I was from KC and where was the gentleman with the silver claws that I generally came with.
I told them that he'd had to move back to Canada, but was appropriately terrorizing vast new quantities of people with them, and much laughter was had by all. Now, I could say that I handled this all with grand style.
But, I didn't. You see, FLOG was one of those things that I've only ever gone to with Tiger. Everything about it has those memories attached. And having people ask about him was difficult. I'd known going in that eventually, if I wanted to go back to attending the social, I'd have to get around that somehow.
But I really hadn't expected it to be *quite* as hard as it was. Tiger'd told UltraD0mme that I wasn't allowed to sit in a corner and not talk to people...but for a while, I needed to just sit and try to collect myself. I came fairly close to getting up and going outside to try to bum a cigarette off of K and N (who I was also there with), and I don't smoke. They'd have looked at me like I'd grown three heads, but it seemed like a moderately good idea at the time.
But, before I could do it, kyl and nanon wander back in and start collecting stuff for the scene that they're doing with UltraD0mme...the one I'd come to watch. Before they all trundle up, though, UltraD0mme comes over and says that Bear was not feeling like helping her and did I want to come up and help.
Without thinking or asking what that entailed, I said sure. I've been the "Lovely Assistant George" enough to be able to handle it. But...I really *should* know better with this group of friends. There's no "lovely assistant" position that I've noticed. You're up in front and participating.
Whoops. Miscalculation on my part. And here I'd just been thinking I was going to get to watch the spectacle.
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The Fear Inside
I recently made a comment to several people about often being scared of the men that I was attracted to. This received a fair amount of puzzlement from them and we proceeded to try to tease out the whys of that. Why was I scared of them?
Hmm. Easier to start somewhere else and work backwards...
Why am I attracted to certain types of men? (Maybe this direction isn't easier after all...) The men that I am attracted to share certain traits and temperaments. First, they are dominant in some aspect of their lives. Or, at the least, usually in relation to me. (Switches count....even some submissive men...go figure.) Sexually, I am submissive. I may like to dom outside of the bedroom (and sometimes within it), but at some point with the right partner, my brain will click over and I'm gone.
I process fear and pain through that sexual submission. This is why I don't often bottom to women. (At all?) There's no sexual attraction for me to run the pain and fear down to the submissive part of my brain so that I can process it and go through to the other side.
I am, I will admit, an adrenaline junkie. I enjoy the rush. But I am disinclined to do things like skydiving or bungee jumping to get the high. Too dangerous. Instead, I get that rush by finding men that can drive the fear and pain through me like a blade to the gut. I want to have my brain twisted inside and out, torn down, exposed and played with until I'm so far gone that I can't think. And it takes a particular type of man to do that. One that I trust *AND* one that can scare me while keeping the trust in place that he'll push me back out the other side in some semblance of a whole person again.
So. The problem?
I'm rather bad at picking the men that can do it.
I will admit to being responsible for the bad mistakes that I've had happen in the past. They were my choices. Mine alone. But they've also made me rather gunshy on picking out new partners that can do this. *THAT* is where the fear is. Not that they can scare me...but that they can take me to that point and, if I've chosen badly, leave me there and laugh at my stupidity in trusting them. Laugh at me and reject me as being pathetic for having thought that they could ever be interested in someone like me.
I know that, somewhere, there's a way around this. But I'll be damned if I can find it. It's somewhat compounded by the fact that I generally don't play this way outside of a long term relationship because of the way I'm wired. To get that deep into my brain, you have to stick around a while after it.
It's interesting to see where are fears *really* are and how they get expressed.
Now I just have to figure out where to find the men that fit the bill.....I know you're out there somewhere.
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Cruel Lust
That's an odd phrase, don't you think? Cruel Lust. It popped up in an e-mail exchange I was having one day and I just sat there staring. It had completely caught my attention. It may be the almost perfect description of something I search for day in and day out.
It's started me thinking about what it is that I need way deep down in the core of who I am. And what I see staring back at me is rather surprising. It's been a very long time since I've seen that look. Lust, yes. Cruelty, yes. Even glee by making me squirm and yell and from hurting me. But there's a particular look that is "cruel lust" and it's something that I need.
The hard part is figuring exactly what it is. There's a certain primal feeling to it that strikes hard and deep into the non-rational part of the brain. Lust is a similar feeling with no true rhyme or reason as to why it strikes you. It manages to sink itself into you, though, until the logical, rational part of your brain goes to sleep so that the hindbrain can take over.
But it's more than just pure lust. There is a look in the eyes that blazes out speaking of sex and violence and the erotic. It's a connection that's made between the animal side of two people. Maybe it's the bloodlust that we haven't quite gotten rid of from that time before we evolved into rational creatures. Maybe it's the need to struggle against one another until one or the other is victorious and proves their dominance, for that moment, over another person. Forcing them to submit to whatever they choose.
Does the need to submit make one a submissive? Does the need to dominate make one a dominant? Or are there other qualities that create those two types of people? There is a need in side of me to submit. But it's surrounded by something wild and untamable that needs to fight…that needs to be forced down time and again. It wants to push back until that glow comes onto the face of my partner…that cruel lust…that bloodlust to force me around to their will and then take…whatever it is they're after.
But, does that truly make me a submissive? I want to eventually submit to the will of someone else. Once they prove they can force the issue. But I also want to be able to push against that when I want. Sometimes I WANT to push someone into that reaction. But a good submissive doesn't do that. They do what their dominant wants. They don't snarl, they don't get moody, they don't talk back, and they certainly don't push and push and push until their dominant goes over that delicious edge.
I want the reactions I want…and when I want them.
Cruel lust…cinching down a corset until it's closed, rather than leaving an inch or two gap in the back, just because those strong, strong hands can. Because he wants to. Because he knows it's painful and I can't hardly breath from it. Cruelty for cruelty's sake…but cruelty that inspires lust. Allowing me to preen and pose while watching that hungry look grow and grow until there isn't a rational thought in his head, only the pure animal drive to take.
Cruel lust…taking what I fear and using it against me. Because he enjoys the taste of the fear. Knowing that I just can't quite put aside the nagging doubt that this could be the last thing I ever do if I've picked badly. Playing on that doubt because it arouses him to see the internal conflict now that it's too late to escape.
Cruel lust…pushing me over the limit of the pain I can take just to hear the frantic screams and watch the struggle to get away from the lash.
Cruel lust… |
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Images of Submission X: The Dance
A swing here, an arch there. The sudden crack of a blacksnake punctuated by the yelping scream of the target. Action. Reaction. Point. Counterpoint. Each step we take between us causes a ripple of reaction from us both until our movements, our actions, our energy flows like one being united in a dance. A pleading look from me, the soft rake of your hand through my hair. The sudden squeeze of your hand, my release to fly where you lead. Action. Reaction. Point. Counterpoint. Until there is nothing but the Dance. |
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Images of Submission IX: Control
Control is an illusion. It’s a battle of energy and of wills where someone wins and someone loses. In losing, though, comes the freedom to slip out of the controls that daily life places on us to try to restrain who we are and force us into nice little automatons and consumers. Real control, when it’s wielded, prevents the thought from even slipping out from under it from occurring. A single word can come crashing down and bring an abrupt halt and compliance in the required direction…that is control. I give up the right to control in exchange for the freedom of being controlled, directed, pampered, and alive. I brush up against the boundaries that you’ve set, pressing lightly against your will and your desires to see if they can contain me and am content when I find that they do. |
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Images of Submission VIII: Love
Can there be a greater expression of love than to offer oneself up to the desires and whims of another person, knowing that they intend to hurt you? Or to take what is offered and playing that person like the delicate instrument that they are, bringing them to the brink of madness and ecstasy? Love is giving of oneself to fulfill the needs of one’s partners. |
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Images of Submission VII: Transformation
We are always becoming. Change and evolution stalks each step that we take, each new partner we interact with. We learn, we grow, we transform from the timid, quaking neophyte starting to embrace the inner shadow that sets them apart, makes them unique to the bold, brash person that has wound their way through the thorns and uncertainty to emerge on the other side in control of who they are and what they want. We learn to bend, to flex, to wrap ourselves around the idea that we can be who WE choose to be rather than what society tells us to be. If we choose to submit, we submit. If we choose to dominate, we do that too. We are always becoming, until the day we die. |
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Images of Submission VI: Dark
Out of the night, we come, out of the dark. From the shadowed doorways and recesses to play and scream under the moon. The shadows we live in reflect the shadows inside, the spots where we deviate from the people around us, the places where we transgress the rules. From those shadows come the desires to control or be controlled in a world that demands we be individuals in charge of ourselves. From those shadows comes the desire to hurt others and make them scream in a blend of pain and pleasure or the desire to be hurt until the pain drives us into another place, another time, where there is only feeling and where we cannot be numb. Decadence. Debauchery. Decay. The womb and tomb of our lives exists in the shadows and in the dark where we play. |
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Images of Submission V: Dangerous
Take me to the very edge of the cliff and let me look over. Keep me safe in your grasp but make me believe you’ll push me over. Can I trust you? I think I can. But there’s always that little niggling question that you like to foster. Will there be a next time? Or will this be the last time? Play with my brain and make me believe. Bring me out on the other side, safe, but make me doubt just a bit when you twist me around to your will. Sadist. Cruel. Dominating. |
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Images of Submission IV: Sensual
The small little things that reinforce our positions when out amongst the crowds of people keep that fluttering, sensual eroticism alive until we’re alone. The brush of a thumb along the nape of my neck. Your fingers in my hair, gripping for just a moment before letting go or shaking my head just a little bit. A look from across the table or room that tells me soon I will be under your control and begging you for something. Kissing that spot on my neck where you’ve left me bruised and near bloody in the past from your bites. All of the subtle little reminders create a sensual haze that blurs the boundaries of everyday life and keeps that small frission of submission burning brightly inside. |
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Images of Submission III: Pliant
I want to answer but I can’t. You ask me over and over again what it is that I want, punctuating the question with pain. Pain enough to drive any answer that I was forming out of my head again until you ask the question again. I want you. I need you. And yet even if you weren’t being cruel and enjoying the dilemma I find myself in, I still would not be able to answer. I don’t know what you desire. I know you can see the struggle to find a way out, enjoy the confusion to find the right answer. And I know you enjoy it, enjoy placing me in that spot to watch me twist and struggle. I give myself over to you knowing that you will place me in such a spot for your amusement. Mine is to accept the torment, accept the pain, accept your decision. |
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Images of Submission II: Ecstasy
The thoughts have stilled in her head. The resistance has quieted into acceptance. There is only the ability to feel and experience and respond to her partner as he strokes her, as he caresses her, as he hurts her. There is a union of spirit between the two where she has gone. In that place she weeps for joy, shrieks until pain becomes pleasure and the two cannot be separated, and in that place all is experience and desire. |
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Images of Submission I: Awe
Too many days in our lives go by without seeing or feeling something that brings us into a state of awe. We’re forgetting what that feels like. When I am with the right partner, there is a sense of wonder and amazement and gratitude all rolled into one feeling, one spot within me that makes me want to sit and stare like a child looking up at the great, vast field of stars and bask. To be able to sit and watch my partner while he sleeps or rests or goes about his day brings a sense of childlike wonder that he has picked me…perhaps just for the evening or perhaps for longer... to control, to play as his instrument, to join in the subtle dance of dominance and submission. |
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| Age: 25 |
| Montréal,
Canada |
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