Wisdom To Know The Difference

Six weeks ago I wrote of My anticipation before a work trip that would allow Me to spend 24 hours with My special boy john, while Chloe his Madame was away on a tropical cruise.**  It was tricky for Me to fly (carry-ons only) with colleagues to headquarters Thursday morning for a very short overnight trip, and squeeze in a kinky play date that night while we all stayed at the same hotel and travelled in a pack. I had expended political capital to take some PTO and reserve a later flight back so that john and I could have Friday together. Things were popping in the office, but My boss was gracious about respecting My plans.

I had sent a FedX of important kink toys to john to transport from his side, and he had sent Me one of the two keys to his chastity cage lock. It was a bit nerve wracking, but both packages reached their destinations in time.

I got lucky and unexpectedly My boss travelled a day early, another colleague had a family emergency, so there was only one colleague to travel with. My Uber didn't show up when I left home, and I barely made the flight after being pulled aside so that TSA could decide for itself that the lavender bath salts john would be using in My pamper session were not actually explosives. So far so good.

I had extensively war-gamed the hotel check-in process, trying to figure out how to get a room both away from the colleagues and at the end of a hall to minimize the likelihood of a kinky-noises complaint. I knew I couldn't put a note into the corporate travel system and I didn't trust a call to the concierge to be handled discretely, just as a I didn't dare FedX the box to the hotel. It was all very stealthy. I had made it a point to graciously invite My colleague to precede Me through doors as we worked our way across the country, so that when we reached the hotel check-in, she was accustomed to Me waving her on... so I could hang back and scope out the situation.

The fates were with Me. She went to the left end of a long counter in a very open atrium where voices don't carry. I beelined to the extreme opposite end and in the process, caught the eye of a sweet young, seemingly gay man behind the counter who I felt would be the most sympathetic to My impeding request. As I caught his eye, I slightly waved him to the far end of the counter and asked if he would be available to help Me with a special request. He tripped on the carpet and said yes at the same time. With one eye discretely on My colleague just out of earshot, I quickly leaned in conspiratorially and said:

"That lady with the red hair is My work colleague. I like her very much but I need you to very discretely give Me a room as far away from her as possible and ideally at the end of the hall. Because I have a Life."

The young man readily caught My drift and played along, "You and me both, Sister!"

"Wonderful. Thank you so *very* much!  This is the name of My boss who has already checked in," I said as I discretely and quickly slid a piece of paper over the counter to him, "I need you to keep Me away from him to. And don't let My colleague know where the room is."  I smiled winningly.

The young man was clearly enjoying this. I was pleased and relieved that My past experience with gay men responding supportively to a Female Dominant was holding true. He asked several follow up questions about room location and I let him know My activities might be both loud and somewhat unusual, and I would just hate to disturb other guests in any way. This took his engagement in the conspiracy to a much higher level.

When it was all over, I had a room six floors above any colleague, in a laughably isolated location in the oddly shaped building. You literally could not get any further from the elevators. It was also a major upgrade.  Half of a suite, the other half unoccupied. I was actually behind two key controlled doors and had My own sliding door leading to a furnished patio overlooking the river.  It was fantastic.  I wanted so much to do Terrible Things to john out there.

All the logistical complications I had  foreseen continued to work themselves out, in that magical way One can never summon on command. The work meeting ran on time. The work dinner gathering was close to the hotel so john could easily converge with Me. The work dinner broke up early and transport was fast, so I had nearly the whole evening free.

There was only one teensy-weensy glitch in this otherwise perfect unfolding. john never made it.

He had mentioned pain several days previously and I had recommended he see a doctor about it. But Madame was out of the country, john was locked in chastity, and he didn't want to non-consensually expose vanilla medical staff to his chastity device, so he waited. But by the morning of My departure, he was in extremis. While I could not speak for Madame, I said that if he were Mine, I would want him to break chastity and seek help for what had clearly become a medically emergent condition.  And that is what he did. 

So as I spent the night in My posh, kink-friendly hotel room gazing out at the river across My 12th floor hotel patio, john was home recuperating in painkiller la-la land.

Last week I posted about My excitement over a new boy, wonderful in every way I could identify after a month of correspondence and three dates. This week that boy has vanished, as the enthusiastic, long-pent-up ones so often do. It is another case of everything great, except for just that one little thing in the showing-up department.

I wasn't thrilled in either case. I hate when I invest significant time and energy in an undertaking, really get My hopes up good, and it doesn't come to fruition. I just hate being disappointed.  But it happens sometimes. Interestingly, I handle it better now that I am a Dominant.  Being in the lifestyle gives us a vocabulary for control and gives us people and situations that invite, even necessitate, explicit talk about control and power. Being kinky makes power visible in My life, it gives Me X-ray vision to see it.  And as a result, I have a much clearer sense now about what is in My control and what isn't.  And though genuinely disappointed, I handle the disappointments better because I know now when to let go. Knowing how to have total control when I want it frees Me from reflexively wanting it and unthinkingly clinging to it.  It comes back to the serenity prayer. Being Dominantly kinky has given Me much more of "the Wisdom to know the difference."

Sweet john felt absolutely terrible about the necessity of cancelling, of course, and I found Myself in an unfamiliar city alone on a blustery Friday. It was a dear thing that he provided tour organizer service for Me, researching on the fly, figuring out what it made sense to do with the time and the logistics of navigating city, baggage, and airport departure. My dear boy couldn't be with Me in body, but I felt close to him nonetheless as I toured the historic district, sharing updates with him along the way, knowing he had walked the same route himself. A week later, the FedX of toys was back in My hands having never been opened. And the chastity key I had been wearing remains here, where it joins the small pile of other john momentoes, mostly short pieces of rattan that have broken off the canes he has made and I have used to whip him.

Perhaps one day, that story will be told.

** Chloe has mentioned planning for this play date in Her blog, and all arrangements were made with Her generous consent and blessing.

Excitement

All this garden talk is functioning as a form of self-distraction from My excitement at having met a new boy. It is early days for him individually, as well as for U/us as a pair, but I'm feeling some unexpected and different feels about the new start this time around.

I love New Relationship Energy (NRE), truly I do, but it's like an angora sweater for Me. NRE both feels wonderful and makes Me antsy-itchy, unable to block out the sensations. Patience is not necessarily My long suit, and getting to know someone new is absolutely a process that takes time... particularly when there are children, a new job, and it's the holidays. That he seems to feel similarly impatient makes Me feel wonderful, but doesn't make the itchy go away. NRE has a certain hungry, devouring quality to it, a desire to just be voracious about the deliciousness until desire is satiated. It's annoying.  Fantastically wonderful, precisely what I want, and simultaneously also really fscking unbearably *annoying* at the same time.

I feel like a five year old demanding My toy be returned.  NOW!!  I'm not entirely comfortable with that on some level. I like to think I'm a level-headed, reasonable person. Something about NRE feels deeply unreasonable.  Primal. And let's be honest, it's sufficiently early days that I am still trying to make a good impression, to build a base of trust. It isn't prudent to let the voracious Beast be seen yet.  It's enough that the rattling of Beast chains can be faintly heard from a comfortable distance.

Come closer, little boy. Nothing's going to hurt you.

The boy is on work travel right now, and I had him text Me a photo of him kneeling in a far away hotel room, to please Me fundamentally, and to give us both a feeling of connection. The first photo he sent had a look of deep intensity and concentration on his face. I had him take a second - smiling - and I'm enjoying flipping back and forth between them.  It's a kind of emotional parallax, for he is, of course, fully and completely himself in both.

Last spring, I gave up on one of the portals where I had a profile, then in August, I posted a new non-profile there... a summary of the things I find Myself saying to all the boys I meet online who aren't sound prospects. The profile of Me turned into The World According to Me. I figured by not trying to attract, I would discourage the many, and only a few worthies would surmount the hurdle.  I even specified they must read and report on a specific book before I would proceed with them.  This new boy is one of only three thus far to read the book, and the only one to submit a typed and thoughtful book report. It's become clear he has been watching Me for a while online, he has remarked upon the changes in the changed profile and he has remarked upon photos posted to another portal which were later removed. I'm glad he has been very deliberate and I'm glad he has taken the time to reflect on My writing for a number of months.  I wanted an earnest prospect, and I have one.  I am pleased.

I've had him do a little service for Me already, some schlepping, some vacuuming and sweeping.  It's much more fun than usual, because he is motivated and he is FAST.  It's like the scene in Mary Poppins where the nursery cleans itself while Mary sings. It's that feeling of driving a sportscar I have written about.  The concept of boy as force multiplier appeals to him, and he had said he believes I am worthy of having My force multiplied.

If Santa leaves nothing under the tree for Me, but the new boy pans out, I will have gotten everything I wanted for Christmas.

In the past, I might not have written that. I might have been afraid to jinx it.  But living out loud is working for Me, and I'm not going back.

Kiss My Two Lips

The riotous tulip bulb acquisition process went to the next level today at the garden center. Stopped by to get a wreath and wandered pleasurably among the holiday tents until coming to a screeching halt in a tent filled entirely with infinite varieties of tulips bulbs. Lovely, unusual things with fringe, peony-like petals, multiple colors, interesting shapes.  They say that every gardener with 10 feet wants 10 acres, and it's absolutely true that the longer I am at My beloved Better Home and Garden and Dungeon, the more I yearn for more land.  It makes Me crazy that the neighbor has four times the yard and wants nothing but grass! With another 25 bulbs in the equation, the need for hardware cloth to avoid squirrel scavenging is now acute. Then again, wouldn't it be a beautiful extravagance to force a few of these glorious bulbs at a time, all through the winter?

The amaryllis bulb has survived shock and sent up a strong shoot. I'm babying it with trips to the sunshine, and so doing has Me lusting after a bay window in the living room.  Definitely on the nice-to-have list, below the must-have: two west-facing upstairs windows that actually close properly.

It was a pleasure to hang from the front door My new holiday swag wreath of conifers, accented with boxwood and some berries. The plan is to visit My wreath lady at market on Saturday morning and acquire the main wreath of conifer and magnolia, so the swag can hang inside and give Me fragrance.  I confess to persistent illicit fantasies of skulking about the jurisdiction at midnight, snips in hand, swiping sprigs of holly and other desirable decoratives.  I rely upon the Saturday market to keep Me an honest Woman.

Bedding the Garden

It's November-ish here at last this weekend in the mid-Atlantic.  Yesterday I made a trip to garden center and came home with not only the two bags of organic manure I needed  (bio accumulation, folks!), but also a bunch of free burlap bags and about 60 crocus bulbs.

Without really meaning to, I've gone bulb crazy in the last week.  First, I went next door to where My now-departed elderly neighbor had a bed of fantastic, deep velvety purple bearded iris, just down slope from the dogwood. The new owner wants only the ideal suburban grass lawn, and has sadly pulled out the beautiful rose bushes, mowing over the iris patch all season long.  It was hard to watch, but I held My tongue and arranged to "help" achieve his lawn goals by pulling the bulbs in the fall. On hands and knees, I combed through the grass and assorted weeds and found eight spears that are clearly iris.  The bulbs were right at the surface where I didn't expect them.  Aren't they supposed to be about 6" under?  Oh, well, it's a well established and successful patch.  Now they have a new home in a large galvanized tub, and I hope that in spring they will bloom again gloriously for Me, in memory of the elder gentleman I barely met.  For this act of purely selfish transplantation alone, the new owner now introduces Me as an environmentalist.

Then I broke up two bulbs of hardneck garlic and planted the cloves, in hope of spring garlic scapes and expanding over several years to achieve total garlic self-sufficiency, on par with Italian grandmothers of the Old Country. Once I discovered the hardnecks last year, I immediately spurned their fractious soft-necked relatives. The garlic are sort of scattered around wherever I could find room in the existing containers, and I have no idea how this experiment might work out.  But this is the fun of gardening, sometimes you just try and see what Life wants to do with your efforts.

As I planted the garlic, I came across three different places in which a brown, softly bark-y little bulb had already put up a 6" green shoot.  Absolutely no idea what these are.  I suspect squirrels have buried them for safe keeping.  It's not impossible the squirrels are redistributing a pile of small tulip bulbs from 18 months ago, but the foliage seems too reedy for a tulip. I know of no tree that drops a nut like this. So it's take-a-photo and show it to the next master gardener I see at the market. Whatever they are, they are sturdy little buggers, putting out no roots yet.  I have dug them up and re-positioned several times, with zero ill effects.

Finally, the crocus. I got a bag of 25 mixed white, yellow, purple, and purple striped.  Then another 35 of two kinds with purple stripes.  I wanted more yellow for contrast, but sold out.  There are now two large enamel pans planted, each with holes punched in the bottom.  One is a lovely white oval with black handles, the other was once the drawer of iris-neighbor's old fridge, and I pulled it from the trash for its obvious utility as a container.  They are now in the yard, with hole-punched ends aimed down grade, and folds of netting over top to stop squirrel raids until I can get some proper bulb-protecting wire grid. The bulbs had all sprouted in the bin at the store so I may very well have 60 crocus with My Christmas amaryllis.

Despite all this planting effort, I have very much put the garden to bed for the winter. Nearly everything that won't winter over - or has proven itself unworthy of the valuable limited real estate (I'm looking at you, ever expanding strawberries!) - is gone.  Many containers have been emptied, the soil broken up, root detrius combed out, organic matter will be stirred in soon so it can rest all winter. The chard has been positioned under a line tied off to the fence corners, allowing Me to tarp the containers during an overnight cold snap. My main concern at this point is that the burlap lining the metal wire containers is failing suddenly, all at once, so that the plants cannot get a good drink of water and the soil is running off.  I need to pull two rosemary, re-line with fresh burlap, and re-plant quickly.  Transplant shock plus a cold snap might do them in, and I was very fortunate all three wintered over last year.  The three lavender were not so lucky.  The big chard needs it too, but I think his days are numbered anyway, so I'm not going to bother.

Hopefully, come spring, the yard will be leveled and it will be possible to install permanent raised beds, putting the container approach into My urban brownfield of a backyard.  I suspect the neighbors do not love this front yard vegetable container garden but, hey, that's where the sun is.  Sharing herbs and tomatoes has thus far staved off a revolt, and it does give everyone in the neighborhood something to jaw about over the fences.

Pain, Pain, Go Away

It happens sometimes that I wake up in pain. If I'm unlucky, it persists through the day, the night, and into the next. This is the legacy of a cartoonish fall a few years back that would have been a sure winner on a funny home videos show.

Massage has made all the difference in My recovery and is the most important element of My day to day comfort.  I like to have new boys talk to Me while they massage whatever I extend, so that I can assess their instincts and skill.  It's curious to observe whether My body's opinion about a boy matches the conclusion of My analytical mind. A long-term boy would surely be dispatched to some attend semi-pro classes. Sometimes I can look back and recall the moment when I heard a click or snap in My body and thought, "Uh-oh". Sometimes it's, "Hmmm, maybe throwing those two big bags of topsoil in the trunk Myself wasn't such a hot idea." Sometimes, I just slept wrong or sat at the computer too many hours.  Sometimes the pain is a house pet that comes and goes at will.

This need for pain management nicely tees up a core challenge for Dominants... accepting the limits of our power and control.  We don't really have total control of much in the grand scheme of things, but people on both sides of the slash get a lot out of the fiction that we do, and out of the process of making the world bend.  At M/s conferences, there is sometimes a class on how to deal with situations in which the Dominant falls ill, needs surgery, or is otherwise unable to sustain the previously-normal degree of visible control  in the relationship.

It's a somewhat different thing, though, to have to surface the issue early in the get-to-know you process. The illusion of power doesn't get the chance to take hold, and that can be a bit more reality than many new-ish boys are ready to cope with.  As I live with the pain, I'm coming to accept it as just another facet of reality. As the acceptance happens, I'm more comfortable presenting it when it arises. We're all middle aged, everyone has something by now, this is My piece of it. I'm hopeful that the pain also has the effect of weeding out earlier the boys whom time would show to be unsuited, leaving only the gems.

We Midwesterners like to think we are made of hardy, tough stock. No whining. Soldier on. But I found this mindset doesn't actually work very well in a D/s dynamic. I really can't swing a flogger when I'm in pain, and it's not in anyone's best interest to try. Hiding pain is seldom successful and creates a question about what else I might be trying to hide.  Yet announcing this physical weakness doesn't mesh smoothly with My self image as a with-it Dominant, or what I believe most boys are hoping for.  I had to get to the point of having compassion - for My pain, My need to complain more than I think I should, for the body that is no longer resilient in the ways I took for granted - before I could accept it enough to make it an oh-by-the-way when talking to a new boy.

Pain management has taught Me to ask for and better receive service.  It has cut some of those Midwestern roots of self-sufficiency out from under Me, and put more focus on community, another fine Midwestern virtue.  Service meant less when it was limited to things like serving tea. I like tea, but its absence meant little to Me, so its appearance didn't mean a great deal more.  But to have an important service provided, something I can't actually do for Myself, something like massage for pain relief, that's a different thing.  It requires Me to be fully aware of My vulnerabilities, to admit them in the moment (Dominants love doing that), ask for help (another favorite Dominant pass time), and to trust someone to meet a need I would prefer to not even have. It requires Me to do several things I'd rather not, in order to receive a wonderful experience I do very much want.  In fact, I find now that the emotional significance of the service I receive is directly proportional to how much vulnerability I am willing to share.

After all, what can you really give the person who has everything?

I can't say I have enjoyed the process as it unfolded, but I like where it has taken Me.

Sweet Irony

On the slaveofmistress-s blog, SOS' spring post about not ironing his Mistress' clothing got Me thinking about how I would react in the same circumstances.  I love ironing.  It's meditative and an unusually primal feeling, one that carries a lot of happy in it. I've even toyed with acquiring some of the old cast iron irons, and fantasized about using them instead of My delightful Rowenta.  When I visit Mount Vernon and other historic homesteads, I am always particularly fascinated by the laundry house.  When I'm feeling nesty and have a little free time, I enjoy ironing My collection of linen tea towels, folding and stacking them neatly all together, far away from their lesser cotton bretheren.  Last time I got so in the zone that I ironed the linen sheets.  I enjoy laundry generally, perhaps because I lived over 15 years in a 4th floor walkup without a washer/dryer.  There's just something so comfortable and homey about the faint sounds of My little euro, front loading w/d set, whirring away.

Only one boy has ever attempted My laundry and it wasn't successful, despite clear instructions, since he insisted on loading the washer too tightly, using too much bleach, as well as occasionally melting My spandex clothes in a too-hot dryer.  As you might imagine, he's gone now.  I have developed a progression of tasks I train with a new boy, usually sweeping/vacuum first, then dishes. Only after trust is very well established will I ever again let a new boy upgrade My iOS. Laundry is about the last task I would entrust, not just because of the financial impact of errors, but because I'm a very sensual person, and I choose My garments first on the basis of fabric.  If a garment does not have a nice feel on My delicate skin, I don't even consider taking it into the dressing room. Silks, wools, cashmere, pima cotton, linen of every application I can find... My carefully chosen fabrics give Me a lot of pleasure, and I want them baby-ed to stay that way.

I haven't seen the post on how Mistress S handled SOS's failure to iron Her work clothes two mornings in a row. It would be a big deal to Me. I have a bit of a linen fetish and slipping into a pretty linen blouse in the summer, fresh and crisply ironed, is a rare form of delight.  Sliding in between two ironed linen sheets for the first time is such a feeling of joy and well-being. I don't care to be called a Queen, but ironed linen sheets make Me feel like Royalty indeed.  When I go to kinky camp, I love walking around wearing nothing but a large, gossamer piece of pretty linen, which doubles as clothing, towel, and all purpose, poolside accessory. If I had instructed that a linen blouse be ironed and ready for Me to wear to work, and was disappointed, yes, that would be a non-trivial problem for the boy responsible.

Someone once asked Me what is My personal definition of luxury.  I have long answered that it is visits to pristine tropical beaches and custom made clothing/shoes.  Both of those fantasy images assume ironing... the linen dress and deck towel at the beach, the custom linen blouses.  I will even admit to lusting over a Miele mangle. No room for it, of course. But a wonderful boy who loves to serve Me, to whom I could entrust My laundry, and even My ironing... now that would indeed be luxury of the highest order.

Anticipation

I'm going to see My special boy this week, it's a rare treat, one for which I am grateful to his Madame. Like most rare treats, there are costs, there are risks, gratification is delayed, and I'll be hungry for it again soon after.  I just finished boxing up some toys I want at hand, several things one doesn't take in a carry-on, and certainly not when traveling with colleagues.

I like to walk into a situation fully prepared, able to accomplish My goals and riff easily when I choose. That's often not possible outside home and My local, familiar dungeon.  In these places, I know the equipment and environment, so I know how to plan.  Being a Dominant is far more about MacGyver engineering than I would have guessed at the outset: "I want to hit him with this, there, so how do I affix him to that or that, when I have only this, this, and this to work with?"  Conference dungeons and especially hotel rooms are the epitome of the challenge. When's the last time *you* stayed in a hotel room that had actual legs on the bed, suitable for bondage? Nope. Solid bottoms, solid headboards have become the norm. And then there's the noise.  In a kink conference hotel, whacking and screaming is fine and dandy, but otherwise? That calls for quiet, effective toys and a good gag.  So in the face of the uncertain environment, I want a few key toys that are already extensions of My body, whose behaviour I can predict.

I have something like a pleasant form of performance anxiety before a visit with My special boy. I love the feeling of all cylinders firing, I want the scene to go well, I want to feel that chemistry and have something spark. I want us to connect with Joy in each other, in the ways that only happen with him, and float afterward as long as it will last.  Lather, rinse, repeat, if at all possible. That's a tall order, and I hate to lose time or focus on fixing physics gone awry. It's all on Me as the Dominant to make it a success, and yet, holding on tight doesn't actually work. There has to be room to co-create the scene, I have to allow a flow, I can't get so caught up in the responsibility and technical challenges that I stop being present.  Because it's all about being in the moment, the shared moment, together.

What I can control least is My headspace on the day, and that has everything to do with what play will succeed. Work is crazy of late, and the days running up to our visit will be particularly so.  I will be tired from travel, and I hope that when we finally connect, there will be energy to do more than fall asleep together.  It's OK if that happens, breakfast beatings are a fine way to start the day too.  But I still want our night to be as I envision.

When I started being publicly kinky some time ago, I wanted to Do Things, things that no one in My life was inclined to let Me do.  I wanted to hit people, and initially, didn't care who it was, provided they consented. Now I can hit as many people as I can schedule. and what matters is who.  It's funny that I stopped being vanilla, came out as kinky, became a heavy player, and at some point I got so kinky, I fell off the end of the spectrum and in a way, landed back at vanilla.  It's all about the relationship again.

So I box up the toys and send it to him. The boy says it is safe to use his office address, and I trust him to assess those risks accurately, I also trust him not to open the box. Sure, he is smart enough to possibly get away with it.  But W/we both enjoy the anticipation, and I don't think he would spoil it for Me, spoil it for U/us.  A label eludes us, but an us there certainly is.

There's a package headed  to Me as well, tiny, but powerful.  Here's hoping that all packages reach their destinations and converge as planned.

TSPD

Sounds of Autumn: After Care

Laughter is the best medicine.

The Sounds of Autumn

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WinterFire's Gifts

DO WinterFire was very good for Me last February, as I met two good boys there.  One was a local musician (single and poly) dipping his toe into subbing, and though he is so heavily scheduled with gigs that he visits seldom, when he is present, he is the most heartfelt houseboy.  On his first visit, I started him off with dishes, scantily clad in black and wearing an apron.  When finished, he approached as directed, announced the task complete, and I inspected his work, finding with great pleasure that all the dishes were indeed properly washed and rinsed. This is no small matter, it amazes Me how many men cannot wash dishes without specific training.  When I returned to where he waited kneeling, and said I wanted him next to wash the kitchen floor, he smiled and exclaimed with evident delight, "Oh, wonderful!  I was HOPING You would say that!!".  It was such a breath of fresh air to feel a boy so relishing his service, rather than tolerating it in a transparent effort to get his agenda met.

The second boy is in a poly marriage.  We met through a third party by happenstance, clicked in the way that sometimes happens, and within a few weeks, we had taken up.  It has been a bumpy ride for reasons that relate to the inner workings of that marriage. It has been both tremendously challenging and very rewarding. In time I have come to consider him a pet rather than a submissive, but nonetheless, W/we engage on his pressing life issues. Current challenges, surfacing and processing old traumas that contribute to those challenges, so he can take today on its own terms, mindfully. Though we are not at a point where it makes sense to require a promise that he obey Me in all things, as a practical matter he does essentially obey, even if it is couched more as advice which he consistently chooses to follow.  We are in a fuzzy area but for reasons surpassing understanding, it works.

The takeaway for the blogosphere is this:  when a kinky couple decides to be poly, that's not the end of the conversation.  They need to really nail down the level of involvement they expect. In our case, the wife probably thought that when they agreed to be "poly" she consented to an occasional fuck buddy and play at parties, but not an actual parallel relationship... but hubby didn't realize that was a constraint and he gravitated to a "girlfriend" who turned out to be a Dominant who has expectations that sometimes conflict with wife's historically safe assumptions about hubby's constant availability to her.  So at each step, watch out for un-acknowledged power dynamics in your poly primary, folks.

As My friend Master Dylan observed, sometimes the Universe sends us not the relationship we want but what we actually need.  It's been very gratifying to feel I am providing sound leadership to My pet, guiding him to grow personally and in relationships and at work, watching him transition from late boyhood into actual adulthood.  It has also been very useful to go through that effort, and find it gives Me the ability to take stock, see how far I have come in My own growth, and appreciate who I have become. There's a way in which being his Dominant has consolidated Me as a Dominant.

I took pet to the Master slave Conference, and he made uniformly positive impressions on people whose opinions I trust.  He mastered personal anxieties about being at public events, he engaged, was sociable, and generally exhibited a new and markedly higher level of self-acceptance than he possessed six months earlier, and all this accomplished in a very difficult personal environment for him.  I just could not have been any prouder.  The marital issues are independent of Me in most ways and may very well continue, so I have no illusions that pet can become the primary relationship I ultimately want to find.  Thankfully, I think both pet and his partner have grasped that I'm not trying to break them up, and in fact, realize now that I would consider that a very bad outcome for everyone. It feels good knowing we have come through that particular set of Class IV rapids.

Nonetheless, I still have a boy in service on any given day far less than I would like.  Time is our most valuable commodity, and time is where all rubber hits every road.  I still want a boy whose time is maximally available to Me and so I found Myself returning to a particular kink portal, after swearing off it last spring. As I debated the wisdom of reversing course, I decided there was no reason to think the portal is different than before, but I could choose to be otherwise.  So I took down My former profile, and posted something of a manifesto.  It is a summation of what I believe and what I have wished the boys I met there already understood.  I did this fully expecting almost no one would trouble to read it, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity to educate the few who are thirsty to understand what a real world Female Dominant would want.  There are times I do howl at the moon, and this was one of them. The gap between fantasy and reality is so huge for most boys, and while I haven't minded explaining these things one-on-one, it is the slow boat to China.

So imagine My surprise when My educational profile - put up with truly no intention of attracting anyone, and primarily the goal of scaring off the clueless hoardes - began producing better inquiries than ever before.  Not many, but few of high quality, which is precisely My goal. And as an added bonus, I have received a significant number of messages from boys saying that he recognizes he can't meet My requirements (geography, single, etc.) but he wanted to thank Me and wish Me well, because he learned a great deal of value. I'm particularly hearing this from married boys, who have always been the thorniest cases.  It's amazing how that Zen thing works, when you stop trying so hard to get where you want to go, and by letting go, you get there after all.  Indeed, sometimes the Universe gives us what we need.

And last night I had a funny little note of closure, as I have lately been feeling the absence of a primary and committed boy, pondering My un-coupled-ness, My mother came to visit.  And with no prior warning, she showed up with a bequest from My grandmother who died last fall.  It turns out that Grandma left me a little solitaire ring, very 1920s.  It was given by *her* grandmother to the eldest granddaughter, and now My grandma had carried on the tradition and planned for it to come to Me. We don't even know the first name of the great-great-grand involved, we will have to research it.  And I had absolutely no idea at all this ring or tradition even existed. So at a time when I am much feeling My singleness and the absence of prospects, I find Myself holding unexpectedly a ring given with love across five generations, a ring that looks very like an engagement ring.  It feels distinctly like encouragement.

The Ten-Thousand-Mile Only

I have been stuck on the Memphis, darling question I posed to Myself in September:  how can there be room in My D/s-M/s dynamic for the kind of tenderness I know I want?   Doesn’t taking that much control for Myself mean giving up on tenderness?  I acknowledged in September there was only one boy with whom I thought it was possible and so, how fitting that he unknowingly provided Me some answers at WinterFire.

I’ve known j for two years, see him only at events twice a year when his wonderful and generous partner shares him with Me, and from the first meeting, his presence has caused My vision of what I want in a partner and a submissive to snap into focus.  It also has given Me confidence that what I long for does concretely exist in the world, is not merely a figment of My hothouse imagination.  I’ve taken to using his image when I am frustrated with a boy and questioning whether he is a viable partner.  I picture how j would handle the situation and then compare the two responses to help Me spot and articulate what is bothering Me.  This patented WWJD technique has allowed Me to identify a critical parameter of service that I have always wanted, but never thought to actually specify:  good cheer.

We were cuddling in bed after Saturday’s lunch, during which he had graciously shared a few sips of Jamison’s to help Me cope with polar-vortex-induced asthma. As we lay relaxing back at the hotel, in the early stages of afternoon flirty-nappy foreplay, My tummy began to make ominous noises and knot painfully.  I nudged his hand faintly and he intuited My meaning, laying the warmth of his lovely strong paw lightly on My belly to provide comfort, a completely still, steady touch. A presence, really. He spoke, before I did, to observe that lunch had not agreed with Me. As I relaxed into the warmth of his hand, and marveled at how unexpected and wonderful it felt to have My discomfort acknowledged and cared for in this way, I noticed he briefly removed his hand, wiggled his fingers, and returned it to the same place on My belly.  The second time it happened, I assumed his hand was cramping or needed a stretch. After the fifth time, My curiosity could not be contained and I reached out from the depths of the sphere of comfort he had wrapped Me in, to inquire what he was doing to Me.

As a Dominant, I expect to know what is being done to My body, and to have My body touched only with express consent.  It's pretty damned important to Me, actually, so there was something a little strange - even unnerving - for Me, in the awareness that I did not know what his hand was up to as it touched Me.

I cannot recall the words of the answer because they were surprised right out of Me. This man-boy-dog I adore let Me know that he was actively pulling the pain out of Me with his hand and dispersing it away from Me by wiggling his fingers to release it. I hadn’t even copped to feeling sick - I was struggling as I always do with admitting such infirmities - and he was already trying to heal Me?  It blew Me away.  There have been moments in My life when I have felt My boundaries expand in a special-effects kind of way, a visual Doppler effect from where they were to somewhere new on a distant horizon.  Like the first time I hit a boy in the dungeon as hard as I ever wanted to hit anyone, and he told Me that on a scale of 0-10, I was only at a 3. This was one of those moments... j opened up a horizon’s worth of space in My dominance.  A new spaciousness in which I can relax more as a Dominant, be softer and more trusting and even vulnerable.  It’s a place I’ve wanted to go, and not known how to reach.

After only a few more minutes, I actually did become briefly and acutely ill, and j said he was sorry he wasn’t able to fix it for Me.  I suspect he may have chalked it up to a silly woo-woo thing tried and failed; part of what made it all so surprising is he's been consistently clear that he's not a woo-woo person in the first place. But I actually considered he had rendered a great service.  At minimum, he completely removed any woe-is-me emotional angst around the illness experience, and I am woo-woo enough to believe that he did lessen the pain and helped it resolve more quickly.  Looking back today, I am struck by how odd it was to have been so ill in the middle of a four day event, and then completely forget that it happened, with no adverse affect on the rest of the experience, as if it never happened at all. I attribute that ease to his presence and his…. service.  He didn’t fail to take away My illness, he succeeded in giving Me the best case scenario of being ill at the event.  j’s partner had set up a system whereby he could be rewarded for good service with a token, and I gave him a token specifically for this spontaneous service of nurturing. I suspect he was surprised. Once again, his presence has allowed Me to understand something I want but have not previously been able to name.  His actions also spoke to My Memphis, darling question… the answer is that it’s not about the dynamic, it’s about the person.  A good partner, a loving partner, will be tender in the way I need, the D/s dynamic doesn’t take that away. I don’t need to change the dynamic; I need to choose the right person to share it.

On Sunday, I dropped in on Dr. Ruthie’s trauma class, which was fantastic. I really only went because I was trying to schedule something with Dr. Ruthie and I thought catching them after class would help with scheduling. So I slipped in the back halfway through and resolved to remain unobtrusively until it ended.  The class turned out to be sort of a guided group meditation, in which they asked us to reflect upon a traumatic event, identify the body part affected, think about what color the trauma is, what texture it is… consider what lie the trauma told Me about My pleasure and write the lie the trauma told Me down on a full-sized piece of pristine white paper. Then ask Myself:  When did I first hear this lie? Did the person who told the lie have Mbest interests at heart? Who else has been told this lie?  What I would want them to know about the lie? What would I like them to tell Me that I need to know about the lie? And eventually: cross out the lie the trauma told Me on the piece of paper.  Cross it out and replace it with another message. As I reflected on these questions in a meditative state, tears streamed down My face, and I unexpectedly grappled with something I lost at a specific point in time, something I had the sense I knew was lost  and wanted to reclaim but couldn’t begin to name. And here’s the new message I came up with:

Pleasure is innocent, safe, and easy.

It occurs to Me that My Dominance is partly a response to the lie of trauma.  Don't get me wrong. I’m sure I will remain a Sadist and a Dominant; I know that’s core to Me.  But how I go about it, that is inflected by personal experiences. What I’m feeling today is that the Memphis, Darling question… the fingers wiggling unbidden to disperse My pain… and re-discovered truth under the lie… all have a great deal to do with each other.  Some people talk about abundance, and some years back I found that a useful construct… no need to work so hard at getting what I need, because there’s no scarcity, all I need to do is be present and be open to what is all around Me.  I feel today, though, that abundance was just the start.

It feels now more like the special kind of breathing I do in singing lessons… exhale using every muscle of My thorax, abdomen, back, and pelvic floor.  Insisting on pressing out every molecule of the breath, and then relaxing all those muscles so profoundly that when the air rushes in - as it must thanks to the laws of physics - it is effortless.  It is not mere abundance.  It is an Inevitability.

I don’t have to try so hard for pleasure.  It certainly needn’t be work. I don’t have to hold the control if I don’t really want it right now. I certainly don’t have to modify how I do Dominance in an effort to make spontaneous things happen. (Control of spontaneous things? Did I think that was even a choice?)  I can leave more space for Memphis, Darling.  And even if I don’t, there will be huge-small acts of profound kindness because kindness is an inevitability. Communication - that topic of countless books and hours of classes and loads of considered effort - can be the lightest, most whispy indicator of what I need and still sufficient for tenderness and nurturing and pleasure to flow inevitably to Me.

I pointed to Gatsby in the last post, boats borne back ceaselessly into the past.  In this moment, I am borne way back to My religiously-infused upbringing:  Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you.  

I never bought that as a kid. 

I remember, in fact, the child equivalent of being cynical about it from an early age, even resentful, because there were big things asked for, prayed for, in childhood that never came.  Monday: Dear Lord, please make it rain so that our crops don’t die and our animals won't starve. Tuesday: Dear Lord, please make it rain… Wednesday: Dear Lord, please make it rain…

Maybe part of what I have brought Myself to through Dominance is a felt sense, a faith, that asking does lead to receiving.  And the magical part is that in Dominance, the asking can be as simple as the nudge of a hand, or snap of fingers, a look, or sometimes, with the right person, the asking is so minute that it feels like I didn’t ask at all. It becomes fulfillment of a wish I barely heard Myself making.  

The poet Mary Oliver writes:

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to crawl on your knees for a hundred miles, repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

               

The poet David Whyte says that word “only” is the pivotal word in Mary Oliver's whole (longer) poem.  He calls it the ten-thousand-mile only, because listening to the wisdom of the body is hard for us all. I have worked on it a lot, for quite a while now. I feel like in the middle of all the kinky fun, I somehow did that at WinterFire. I had a breakthrough in just letting the soft animal of My body love what it loves.  

I have a funny feeling something has opened that will allow new things to happen. I love the sense of anticipation for what might come next.  Stay tuned.