Votive offerings

What goes around comes around. And when you offer something up, it can return to you tenfold, in an unexpected way. As part of Barelesque, a fundraising event for the excellent Albert Kennedy Trust, I donated a session of my services up for auction. I couldn't have hoped for a better recipient, in all my wildest dreams. Smart, beautiful and elegant, with a blush that rose pinkly from the centre of her cleavage like the rising dawn, thus earning her moniker. Perfect.

After a couple of email exchanges a date was booked. Something classic, dinner, drinks then to hers for kink. Blush and I met for a coffee a few days beforehand to check that all was well, we talked about many things before circling towards specifics. The less I know someone the more I tend to plan in advance, marshaling my forces around what might work best for them, all the more so when the activity is paid for. I allayed her concerns about "pleasing me", reassuring her that I never did anything I didn't want to, one of the benefits of being a dominant. Similarly, I attempted to put her at ease with regards to protocol and doing things right, remembering my own anxieties around my own acts of submission and the "correct" ways of being. There is a lot of joy to be had in being the dominant that you at one time wanted for yourself, you feel as if you are fulfilling a part of your own needs through the mirror of another's body, another's desire. And that's all without even counting the pleasure in domination itself.

We met for dinner and talked. With nights like this I always enjoy making each moment part of a greater game. Dominance is, in many ways, all about focus and making someone feel special. Very few people ever pay much particular attention to each other, so when it does happen it can be very powerful. I flirted with her over dinner, listening to what she said, as I picked out little phrases or comments of hers, filing certain reactions away for later. I watched her response, afterwards, as we shared drinks in a cocktail bar, batting off the unwanted affections or vanilla reactions of men in suits. I knew that she was watching me, but that also I was, in a way, taking care of her. She was under my protection, so the verbal sparring I engaged in was for her benefit as well as mine. I exercised my power in simple, little things. Decisions about where to go and when, taking the lead without ever needing to exert myself.

When you meet a submissive who is in tune with your dominance, everything becomes very easy. Like a dance partner who already knows the steps and the music, you can move together in a way that is natural, and not forced. Part of this is attraction, which was there and more so, but there's something else, something deeper. I've been attracted to people who I could not play with, or people who wanted to dominate me when I didn't wish to be dominated. The balance between the D and the s is delicate but, when tasted, very moreish. I was lucky. We were a fit. I held out my hand for her to take and she did. So we danced.

I stripped her down and pushed her onto the bed, tying her arms and legs down before running my hands over the exposed, gorgeous flesh. This is the moment I always relish, when things are about to start. She waits and I wait and we are bodies held in motion, like breath before an exhalation. I start slow, because some things are worth savouring. A week or so earlier she had bought me a set of metal chopsticks - she knows my tastes - for my birthday. Unbeknownst to her, the packaging hid their wickedly sharp points. I made her keenly aware of this, returning her gift to her. The points traced red, red lines in her skin, with a faint scratching sound from the microscopic tears as I moved up and down. Every now and then I pulled myself back from the hypnotic absorption that is found in tracing along someone else's desire. I watched her face, eyes closed, mouth slightly parted. I listened for those gasps of pain, the little moans of happiness as she fell into the floating space of masochism.

After a while, I lit a lot of candles. I had promised her, and myself, fire. This year will be a lot about fire, and I'm looking forward to doing more. I lay candles upon her reddened skin, pouring wax along the edges I had already cut with the chopsticks. Again, I lost myself in the motion of what I was doing, the control of wave upon wave of gently rising sensation. I could feel it, through her warm skin and into my own fingertips. I could feel, through that connection of dominant to submissive, and through the hundred, thousand little tweaks and movements she was making. I grinned to myself as only a switch can - I know what that feels like. And I'm doing it to you. And you want me to, badly. It's like sadism squared. A double whammy of a power exchange.

The best kind of dominance, for me, is one in which the submissive comes to me willingly, wanting to be taken, to be cared for, to be controlled. A conversation with Majeste from long ago filters through my mind as I write this: "you come to me on your knees or you do not come at all." I do not want to take an inch more than is given to me - I would rather leave someone wanting more than angry, hurt or upset because I did too much. And certainly I will push for more, but that is part of the deal with submission, my role is to know when to push and how.

Later, by email, she talked to me of how my style was different to others she had experienced, and how she had been pleasantly surprised by my lack of force. I can certainly use force, if I want to, and sometimes a fight is part of a good scene. But better than force, better than the threat of violence, is not having to lift a finger. That is where power lies. In the power that is offered up to you, as the dominant. I do not need to take my dominance in that way, nor do I need to physically make a submissive do anything: they offer it up to me.

And I accept.