A Dom is not just for Christmas. I write this with a degree of hesitancy, mainly because I don't know anybody who might read it. And everyone is different. Ab initio, I'm not seeking answers. Any questions I pose are usually rhetorical. I read lots of debates over whether Doms or subs have it harder. This is not intended to add to those debates. This is my view of elements of the dynamic. Being a Dom is hard. I have the safety and wellbeing of a sub in my hands. Like it or not, that's a fact. The nature of D/s makes it so. That's not to belittle the sub's role; I know nothing about being a sub, other than that I could never cede control. I tried it, many moons ago, so I know I couldn't. That awesome responsibility is not to be underestimated or taken lightly. And it doesn't matter how much experience one has; when I encounter a new sub I know zip, because every single one is different. Everything I know, or think I know, counts for nought. I have an absolute responsibility for everyone who submits to me. That's not being pompous or precious, it's a simple fact. When I take someone to subspace I have responsibility for her, at the time, and for as long as needed afterwards. A Dom is never just for Christmas.

Capricious 

I was just watching a movie - it doesn't matter which one - and it made me realise why my life is so fucked up.

All my life, for as long as I can recall, has been founded on simple beliefs. I believe that people are basically decent and honourable, and that leads to a simple conclusion: when they screw up, and acknowledge it, and start anew, they are worthy of redemption, of a second chance.

It occurred to me, as this movie drew to it's end, that too many of my favourite movies, and my favourite songs, are based on similar themes.

Then it became clear that my life has never followed that pattern. Life isn't fair, you don't get second chances; more often than not, there is no chance of redemption.

Why is this a surprise?  Well, it's not. Life is hard and then you die.  More often than not we labour after the unattainable. That truly is the triumph of hope over expectation

Today has been one of mixed emotions.

1. The overwhelming joy of having both of my boys home, for the wedding tomorrow of my only niece (I have nine nephews; together with my sons we could field a soccer team) where they will be my 'bodyguards' – which ,if you saw them.you'd know, is not too radical an analogy.

2. Something I cannot bring myself to commit to writing, but it made me more sad than I can ever recall being.

I know there are things that I have done right, but the balance of good and bad seems to be too heavily weighted on the bad side.

I think I should probably retreat to a quiet corner to lick the wounds that I feel have been inflicted. It is hard to swallow when the source of immense pride is tarnished, and I cannot understand where I could have gone so wrong.

It's curious, that no matter how long you've known someone, how well you think you know them, you don't.

Every so often you come across something or you hear something or you read something and it strikes you, "well I didn't know that".
 
In a way, it's counter-intuitive, given that at the core, the very foundation of a relationship should be openness and honesty. But of course we only reveal as much of ourselves as we choose to.
Whether it's hard-wired to retain a trace of the enigmatic, or whether it's just human to try to protect ourselves, who knows?

The only thing I know is that every time I try to break away from BDSM, it reels me back in, and I guess it's pretty much universal. I don't know if it's the joy of having made the pieces fit, but there is an irreversible state where a new normality is established that is inescapable.

I thought I'd tentatively start to think about looking for a new relationship and then it occurred to me that I've no idea what sort of person I am looking for.

It would be absurd to seek someone like my past partners. Not because there was anything wrong with them (far from it) but because each of them was so different, so unique; the only common factor is that they are all exes.

Even the reason they are exes doesn't have any commonality.

So I tried to look at it from the opposite direction: what am I not looking for. The same problem. Each of my exes had something that I would have put on a list of 'don't wants'. And yet each of them was so perfect, so beautiful.

So it comes back to the same, broad, description:

• Someone who 'gets' D/s in the same way I do - that it is by nature 24/7.
• 24/7 is how the dynamic works, not how much time you spend together.
• Someone who is submissive to their core.

It's not perfect, but it's a start.

Some time ago I responded to a question “what is vanilla?” My response then seems as relevant today: it is the mask I wear to be acceptable in general society.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be

Musing on the various IDs I used in Yahoo chat rooms.

One of my favourites was 'enigmatic stranger'; It seemed to encompass the spirit of chat.

There was one that, with hindsight, wasn't so clever. 'I can solve all your problems'. I had envisaged a kind of online 'agony aunt' type of thing, since that seemed to be how random chat encounters ended up. Regrettably, I attracted knobs who wanted cash, believing that was the only solution.

Fortunately, Yahoo chat died a death in any form that held its allure before I ran out of novel IDs.

At the end of a week punctuated by the weirdos of the web and where I’ve spent the past couple of days, on and off. helping a friend, where is someone to thrash soundly to release my pent-up aggression? There’s no justice.

Compatibility

Thinking about what goes into a successful relationship, I was tempted by the facetious (resignation perhaps) but in the end I came back to that hoary old chestnut 'compatibility'. Now, I know that there are all sorts of things that might comprise compatibility, but bear with me.

We are told (usually by people who ought to know better) that it is what will sustain the relationship when you're too old/tired/infirm still to be at it like bunnies (or to be swinging the cane; feel free to insert your own preferred activity). Except many people seem to be contentedly carrying on until their dying day.

My best friend and I have had a (nearly) celibate but close relationship lasting longer than the average marriage. I freely concede that separation by 10,000 miles may have helped, but she still declares her love for me (mind you, so has my ex-wife, much to my disturbance).

My conclusion is that I am still none the wiser. But if anyone knows, answers on a postcard...

Elle's journey - part 2

Adam awoke as usual, but different. As usual because Elle was wrapped around him, her right leg hooked over his thigh, arm across his chest back, breasts pressed into his side. The difference from usual was his back, which was sore. Very sore. His left arm was wrapped around Elle, his hand on the small of her back – her perfect, smooth, unmarked back. He bent his head forward and kissed her forehead, wincing slightly as the movement stretched his upper back. He was used to muscular pain from the hours he spent in the gym, but that was a warm, satisfying glow. This hurt.

Elle opened her eyes, they sparkled, she smiled, her lips met his. Hello sexy, she said. She pulled him closer to her, and her soft hand reached around him to gently run over his back, feeling the contusions from her efforts the previous night. Her smile turned into a grin, white teeth bared as she playfully bit his lip and kissed him again. Very gently she disentangled herself from him, and slid her hand round his buttock, turned him over. The sight that greeted her sparked a squeal of delight. His back was a mass of stripes, blackening in some places, raised and angry red in others.

She reached over to the tube of cream that lay beside the bed, and straddling his arse, as she had the previous night to inflict the marks, she slowly, gently, massaged the cream into his tortured back. As she did so, she felt a second thrill from the pain she had caused, and her cunt tingled and moistened. She leaned forward, her naked body gently touching his back, noting with renewed excitement his reaction as her weight pressed into him. Her hand slid over his arse to her cunt, feeling her wetness and slid a finger over her slit. Adam shifted uncomfortably, slightly annoyed at her taking a second pleasure at his pain, but enjoying it at the same time.

He ran through his mind the paradoxes that made up their lives - the pleasure from pain; the celebration of the excitement of each other from the activities that filled their lives and shaped their future. And he realised that the excitement of his girl – HIS girl – wanking over the pain she had caused him excited him even more. That she was wanking on his back, causing renewed pain in the process stirred his cock to life. His arms moved from his sides and slid up to her thighs, stroking and caressing them as she ground her cunt into his butt.

As he did so, he turned slightly, lifting his chest off the bed mad spilling her over off his back. The pressure relieved, his back exploded in pain, causing him to grimace slightly, but he turned over to face her, his hand running over her breasts and down her belly to her hands, both pressed into her groin as she frigged herself. His hand joined hers, feeling the wet softness as he bent over and placed a gentle kiss on her lips, then bit her lip, making her start momentarily. She knew that he was back in control.

He pulled her hands from her cunt, once again controlling her gaze as her eyes were caught by his. She froze briefly, and he had her attention. His hand pushed at the inside of her thighs, and she parted them wide. As he slid across over her, his erect cock brushing the tops of her thighs, his lips moved to kiss her again, her own opening to meet him as his tongue penetrated in a perfect reflection of his vaginal penetration. She gasped slightly as his cock banged into her, striking her cervix as he often did as his sadistic inclination mixed with sexual desire. She lifted her legs to wrap around his arse, to pull him into her and make her cunt more available for his deeper penetration, but as her skin pressed on his bruised skin, he pushed her legs away, reaching instead under her butt and lifting it slightly as he thrust into her.

Again and again, waves of pain from her cunt followed his thrusts, as she spread herself as wide as she could. He leaned over her breasts, his tongue finding a nipple and circling it as his mouth enclosed. She jumped as his teeth bit hard and needle-like pain shot through her chest, making the muscles in her cunt spasm round his cock. She loved the feeling, he loved the feeling. His lips trailed over her upper chest to her shoulders. He kissed tenderly, his mouth running freely, wildly round her neck as she bucked from the thrill. Moving back to her shoulder, he sunk his teeth into the thin flesh over her collar bone, again her cunt spasmed, again she gasped.

His hands slid up from where they had been enwrapping her shoulders, anchoring him to her, and grasped her hair, on both sides of her head. A fistful of golden curls in each hand, he pulled her to him, using the grip to increase the intensity and speed of his fucking. Her eyes were ablaze, fixed on him as the pain of her hair being yanked, her cunt being pounded, the pain in her nipples, mixed with the heat of their oneness. His fucking became frantic, pounding her cunt and her clit as his grip threatened to rip the hair from her head. Her hands slid up over his chest to his nipples, finding them easily, erect from the excitement, she pinched and pulled them, in direct reaction to the pain she was feeling. As his back arched up, she seized the opportunity to life her head, pulling against the restraining force of his grip in her hair, and bit hard on his nipples. He collapsed back onto her chest, now his thrusting reached fever pitch, pounding her cunt faster and faster, showering her face and mouth with wet, passionate kisses.

She felt the paroxysms of pleasure rise within him, as his orgasm built. He was hammering her cunt, and she was responding, her muscles closing around his intrusion. More and more he thrust, she fixed her eyes on his, wanting to see the moment of climax, until with final deep, slower, thrusts, his cum exploded inside her, and he collapsed, panting, onto her chest, holding her tightly as he filled her cunt.

Elle's journey - part 1

Adam began to wonder what he had agreed to. Since they had met, Elle had talked about how she had enjoyed being in control in the past and wanted to try it with Adam at some point. And that point had come.

They both knew it was something that wouldn't be the same as when Adam dominated Elle. At least they suspected so. The dynamic was so natural between them and neither of them even thought about what they did, it just happened, seamlessly, naturally, effortlessly. But Elle had another side to her - what some would call a "nasty" side (at least, those who didn't understand would). Elle like causing pain. It excited her, sexually.

She had a sadistic side that was similar to Adam's, and had periodically exercised it in the past because she'd never had a partner who could control her. Her strong personality was such most men found her overwhelming. It tended either to lead to them being submissive toward her, or if they tried to take a dominant role, to fireworks as both tried to wrestle control from the other. She had no issues with herself. She liked that side of things, and was very in tune with her own desires.

But Adam had rather screwed things up. His overwhelming natural dominance gave her no space for negotiation, nowhere to argue. She was very happy to take her submissive role though, it wasn't an issue and she never felt inclined to fight it. Life was very good, and she was very happy with how things had turned out. But, deep down, she had a hankering to cause pain.

She'd thought about meeting someone else. There were no end of submissive males who would gladly have submitted to her and allowed her to do pretty much anything she wished to them, but that was not what Elle wanted. As their entanglement had developed, Elle had become more and more focused on Adam in her life. Play with others was, as always, a clear option. They continued to talk openly about their life together, and the subject was never closed. They both felt comfortable and secure with one another, and didn't feel that - after so long with the openness - that any purpose would be served in changing the rules of engagement. It remained, "don't ask, don't tell".

Elle knew that in order to do what she wanted, she would have to build up a new friendship with another person, get to know them, and to trust them, so that play could be wide ranging and fulfilling. She knew that if she met someone who declared he had "no limits" that she'd find out as soon as they met that in fact he had lots - and typically it would be "no lasting marks". That was no use to Elle. She very much wanted to cause lasting marks. In the same way that she so often ended a session with Adam bearing his marks proudly, happy when they lasted for days on end - and she did enjoy some of the odd looks she got in the shower at the gym, the only time when the stripes were on display.

But Adam was pondering. He knew he trusted Elle. They had talked about this many times and he knew what she needed. He also knew that he would be able to take whatever she wanted to give. At least he was pretty sure he thought he knew. He'd had plenty of experiences with pain in the past, from being married (he recalled, with slight sadness) to body waxing, and even back to punishments when he was a child. Pain hurt, but not in any intolerable way. And the way he felt towards Elle, he was willing to indulge her to allow her to express her needs. If he lived to regret it, then so be it, but he had to do this at least once.

He lay, silently, on the bed while Elle got herself ready. They had both stripped, as was pretty much the norm whenever they were together, Elle keeping her stockings on as a nod to the preference that Adam, in dominant mode, had expressed early in their entanglement. She climbed astride his back, sliding her nylon-clad legs down the sides of his thighs, resting back on his arse so that her cunt, dampening with anticipation, pressed onto him. She had selected Adam's favourite flogger, the one he used with such skill and to such delicious effect on her. She loved the swish and the thud and the sting as it impacted repeatedly.

She drew the leather fingers of the flogger over Adam's shoulders and down his back, running down his spine to end at her cunt. She dragged it, fondly, up her own body before carelessly flicking it over her shoulder. He arm reached out and back as her eyes focussed on her target over his left shoulder blade. The flogger swished through the air and thudded into his back. He didn't move. No reaction. Elle repeated the move, lifting the flogger high and bringing it down with the full force of her arm. No reaction again, but she noted with pleasure the reddening stripes forming on his skin. His stoicism could not hide the reaction of his skin. She leaned forward and gently caressed the injury and kissed it lightly, the same way that Adam did to her. An acknowledgement that this was an act of devotion, of lust, even of love, of mutual fulfilment.

She shifted position to give herself a line across his right shoulder and swung down, as the reddening wheals began to form, she increased her intensity, hitting harder and harder, delighting in the visual result she was achieving, and enjoying the reactions, almost imperceptible as Adam jumped slightly at the pain inflicted on him. Her hand slid to her cunt and she caressed her clit with one hand as she swung as him with the other. A thrill ran through her as she inflicted increasing pain on the man she adored. Again she shifted position, sliding her stockinged legs across his thighs as she dismounted him/ She turned her attention to his buttocks, giving them a similar treatment to his back.

All the while she frigged her cunt, as her excitement grew, she hit as hard as she could. And still the man she adored took every stroke. She sat in front of him, her cunt in front of his face. He lifted his head and buried it in her dripping wetness, eating her as her stocking-clad legs embraced his head. Her attention turned to the new approach she had gained. With a little more distance, her flailing with the flogger struck his arse with the very tips, stinging as they did, spurring him to increase his penetration into her cunt with his darting tongue as it danced between toying with her labia to flicking her clit, now biting, now sucking, now licking again. She carried on hitting him as he ate her, until she exploded inside. Her orgasm ripping through he body as she clamped her legs round his head and pressed him deeply into her.

Fix me?

I am difficult, curmudgeonly (now there's a word) even.  I had, at one time, figured out my place in the world.  I was even managing my work/life balance.

Now the work bit has gone, along with my balance, and the life bit isn't so easy.

I was having an interesting discussion over the past several days that made me think.  I love things that make me think.  But this discussion went awry when I was being asked to justify myself, which wasn't a problem; I built a career justifying my position and the conclusions I had reached (come to that, my MSc was pretty much the same).

However, I have always prided myself on being able to justify my actions, decisions, position.  Nothing I do is careless or ill-considered.  I enjoy being challenged.  But somewhere along the line, this discussion seemed to me to be moving from the challenging to implicit disbelief in who and what I am.  At this point I realised it was time to 'draw stumps'.

This may have been the actions of a curmudgeon but, in the words of Shirley Conran, “life's too short to stuff mushrooms”.

So no, Chris Martin out of Coldplay,  however hard you try, you won't 'fix me' because I'm not broken.  My dearest friends know this, and anyone who want's to be my friend may have a steep learning curve to ascend.

The End - a story

It was difficult to see where he was going as he stood on the brow of the hill. Not in any literal sense, since he could see further than anyone might imagine, but in a metaphorical sense. The vista that stretched before him was impressive – a vast expanse of valley populated by an infinite number of trees forming a deep green carpet that hugged the valley floor. Or at least what he presumed was the valley floor, since there could have been anything, or nothing, beneath that dense impenetrable canopy.

He had left behind a clear trail that was well-defined and, though not well-trodden, was easily travelled, the surface being primarily weather-smoothed rock with only sparse vegetation. The contrast in the valley was striking.

He didn't want to go on. The valley was impressive, but daunting. He knew that it would be impossible to navigate once under the canopy, and the endless expanse of the valley gave no indication of how far he would have to travel before reaching his destination. Indeed he was unsure of what his destination was. All he knew was that he had to get away, and the difficulty of getting away was that he only had somewhere not to go, but no idea of where to go.

His mind kept focussing on the events that had led him to this place, or rather forced him to this place. He had fled, of course. He knew he had no choice. Well, he had a choice. We all have choices. But he figured that staying was not an option. Facing the music was not something he saw had any purpose on this occasion. Leaving a body behind was callous, he knew that, and especially it broke his heart to leave someone he loved so much. But he knew nobody would understand.

They had been so close for so long, but the games they played had become increasingly edgy. Once the sensations became ordinary, once the thrills became less thrilling, they kept looking for the next one. And so it snowballed, with nothing to stop it. He had often wondered where their lives would end up. He'd figured that either they would find a life together and other aspects of life would fulfil them such that their play became just a normal part of life, or that they would drift apart, or that they would keep pushing to ever greater extremes, seeking the ultimate thrill.

He was unsure if they'd ever really talked about it, unsure how she'd felt. They didn't really talk in that sense, as they'd always been happy to allow their life together to develop naturally, and so long as they were both happy, where was the harm in that? And they had both been happy. They had fun together in the vanilla world – perhaps not a conventional relationship, but then what was conventional these days anyway? They hadn't, either of them, wanted the whole meringue-dress wedding. They just wanted one another. And they wanted their sex life too. That was a fundamental. It wasn't all they were about, but it was very important. As to where it began and ended was always unclear since they seemed to slide seamlessly from play to sex to vanilla life. But it made them both very very happy.

In the end, the path their relationship took was the ever-more-extreme one. They were continually searching for the next thrill, the harder way to do it, the bigger challenge, the more risk. Rather like climbers looking for the next higher, harder peak to scale, they looked for ever more difficult – and dangerous - challenges.

They had discovered breathplay quite late on. It was something they'd not bothered with as it had seemed a little dull, unexciting even. The odd dalliance they'd had didn't especially seem to have much of an effect – it was clearly a dominant act by him, and for her a submissive one, but that was about it. Restricting breathing was nothing more than a control thing. Until they got it right one day.

They had been playing, nothing especially extreme, and it had segued into sex. As he was on top, fucking her, he arched his back and placed his hands round her throat, his thumbs on her windpipe, and pressed. Although most of his weight was taken on his knuckles behind her neck, a lot went onto her throat. As he was pounding her cunt, her breathing blocked, she suddenly seemed to go to a different place and her body exploded in the most incredible orgasm. As he released his grip, and held onto her, she was shaking for several minutes, unable – and unwilling -to stop the wave after wave rushing over her.

When she was finally able to speak, she described the experience as something she had never felt before, and begged him to do it again. And so it became a regular part of their play, as he began to fuck her, so he would press his thumbs into her windpipe, increasing the pressure as he fucked her harder. Until one day. The day. The worst day. The day she didn't come. And she didn't wake up.

He knew nobody would believe him. He knew that people believed that she was an ordinary girl with ordinary sexual tastes. On the odd occasion when friends had seen bruises on her body from their play, a number of them had commented that they thought he was abusing her. Despite her reassurances that this was all perfectly fine, and that she enjoyed a full and varied sex life, that they might not understand, but it was exactly what she wanted, and indeed needed.

As he sat with her in his arms, he wept as he held the woman he had so adored. He had tried to resuscitate her, but to no avail. And by the time he called the ambulance, he knew it was too late, and he also knew what conclusions would be drawn.

He grabbed a few clothes, stuffing them into a bag. He knew he had only a few minutes. As he heard the siren approaching he stepped out into the street, carefully leaving the door ajar. By the time she arrived at the hospital, he was at the airstrip where he kept his light plane. Although it would get him only a short distance, he figured it bought him a little thinking time. Time to work out his next move and where he would go. And so by a combination of planes, trains and ships, he had finally arrived. Where didn't matter. He knew he could never be seen anywhere in the world. He knew he could never return home. He knew he couldn't face life now that his love for a woman had destroyed her. He only wished to have space and time to deal with it in his own way. It mattered not to him what people thought. He didn't expect anyone to understand. He knew that both of them had understood and accepted the risks of what they were doing. But he didn't want to live without her, knowing that he had been the cause of her death.

As he began the walk into the valley from which he would never return, he wept his last tears for the woman he loved. He wept for a love so intense that it had destroyed them both.

It occurred to me that one of the things I've always tried to talk about with anyone with whom I've been involved is what it might mean to be in a relationship with someone who's a bit different from the usual. So I thought it may help others to understand.

First of all, disability isn't a single 'one size fits all description. My first experience of people's ignorance was not long after my diagnosis. I had parked in a disabled bay outside a supermarket. As I walked in, the security guard approached me and pointed out that those bays were only for 'blue badge' holders. I pointed out that I was, and that it was clearly displayed on the dash. Disabled people aren't always obvious; I resisted using a walking stick at first, when I didn't feel I needed it, until my MS nurse told me it was a sign to other people that I may need them to be considerate. I did and they were.

I started dating someone the day after my diagnosis. I didn't want anything to be a surprise so I told her. My symptoms were outwardly minimal, as was my own knowledge of MS; I told her “I don't want to be treated any differently”. When we split two years later, partly due to the fact that she couldn't deal with the way in which a number of relapses had changed my physical abilities, she repeated that to me; I said “No, and I don't want to be, but sometimes I need to be”. I'm unsure whether she 'got it'.

I have always said that I don't expect anyone with whom I'm in a relationship to be my carer; that is still true. Since I've been single I still look after myself. Sure, my family worry a bit more about me, but they more or less leave me alone, because they know I can take care of myself (except my mother, who seems to think I've regressed to a child-like state, but she's learning).

So, how does it affect a D/s relationship?

Think about a 'standard' D/s dynamic. The Dom makes the decisions and the sub does as she's told (broadly; there's no point in going into the specifics of any particular dynamic). If my sub isn't around (or is sick or otherwise indisposed), I'm not going to wait until she's around to do for me. I can look after myself quite well, thank you. I cook and eat, I drink and piss and shit all on my own. Miraculous, I know.

In a D/s relationship the sub does stuff for her Dom because that's who she is, not because her Dom is one thing or another.

Some can handle it, and that's great; some can't and that's fine too. As I drummed into my kids from an early age (although not in this context) “one thing is not better or worse than the other, they're just different”, as are people.