Open

Captain and I managed to meet up last night for some much-needed mutual stress relief. I am always amazed how good the world looks on the other side of a decent fuck: I'm grinning and swaggering down the road in yesterday's clothes with some new red marks on my wrists. The world exploded in springtime pathetic fallacy, skies going from the rainclouds of twenty-four hours earlier to sunshine, blue overhead and pink cherry blossom lined roads. Not trying to suggest that the power of my sexuality has weather changing properties, but that with one thing and another, the world is looking like a better place. Captain is onboard with attempting a D/s scenario that suits us both and takes into account schedules and the mutual desire for both of us to play with other people.

And I have content. Am content. Good thoughts of last night.

I take my clothes off and lie face down on the bed as instructed. I rest my head on my crossed arms, smelling clean sheets. I close my eyes. I often prefer not to see what's going on, enjoying not-knowing, the tang of anticipation. Absorbing it all. He fits a metal spider gag in my mouth, there's the sharp taste of steel, the pleasing sensation of being strapped in. I play with it a little with my tongue and teeth, experimenting with how much space I can occupy, what is open and what is closed. To me and to him. Obviously, I can't close my mouth, but the gag is not especially wide and fairly comfortable, I still have a lot of movement with my lips and jaw. I rest my head back on my arms and wait for the first drops of saliva. Relishing it when it comes, those cold gobbets of myself, falling out of my control. I love that moment, like a small release of self.

His body presses on mine. He's clothed, smelling as much of cotton as the sheets. Hands run over me whilst he does this, smooth over my skin, my bottom, legs, shoulders. A pause to grab my breasts and press against the piercings. I wriggle a little, contentedly, it feels good to be touched. To be taken. Rope goes around my ankles, and my legs are bent towards my head, the rope pulled taut and bound at the top of the bed at a bit of an angle. Rope too, around my wrists, wound around several times to form secure bonds then my arms are stretched back behind me, tied off at the foot of the bed. I'm splayed out, cunt open, back arched, bottom raised a little to compensate for the pull on my limbs. I hear the rustle of plastic, and rubber-coated fingers press into my cunt, I push back against them, eager for the sensation. He plays with my clit for a moment or so and I moan gratefully, before pausing to spit on my arsehole, then rub the moisture in with cunt-lubed fingers. It's a hotter, tighter feeling, but no less needed. The spit sends a shudder through me, as practical as it is dehumanising, a bit rough and ready, without fuss.

Which is how he fucks me. Cunt first, pressing deep so I gasp, quiet first, then louder yelps as he takes what he wants, as much as he wants. And I want him so much for it. A pause whilst he pulls out. His cock pushes against my arsehole and he whispers a warning in my ear before fucking hard. I shriek, loving the intensity, the force of him, relishing the deep, broad notes of pain, of pleasure of pain that becomes pleasure and vice-versa. After a while, he stops. Moves away.

A smell fills the air, menthol. I open one eye, curious. A tube of deep heat. Then I start to worry. He presses something hard and rubber inside my arse. I don't feel the cream instantly, it takes a moment or two, and I'm distracted by the inflation of the plug penetrating me. The pleasant sensation of fullness starts to become uncomfortable, swollen, unnatural. Then the spreading warmth. That curious cold heat of menthol. It's just on the good side of stinging, like into a too-hot bath, or a spicy curry - an intensity that raises the stakes without really causing pain. I settle into it. He turns off the lights. I wait in the dark.

I imagine myself being found like this, constrained yet exposed. In the middle of use, but left for whatever reason. An unattended object, waiting to be fucked. I smile, crooked against the gag. The lights go on and he comes around to my face, pushing his cock into my open mouth. I suck and lick him contentedly, happy to please, an oral thank-you. Another hole filled. Another wedge of satisfaction. A bit more fucked. He moves back to my cunt, using me until he comes, then wrapping his arms around me, done. I mumble a "thank you" through my open mouth, another grin.

Tension mounting

I now understand the meaning of crying from frustration. Because last night, that's exactly what I did. Having had a annoying day at work I already had a coiled up, angry feeling inside and desperately needed to blow off some steam. Then I ended up sat in front of my lap top, realising that I had nothing to write about. No new news. Plenty of complicated theory stuff floating around in my mind but I just didn't have the clarity or desire to be able to write it, my brain just wasn't interested. My body was practically on strike, refusing to respond to any personal ministrations. I wasn't aware that it was possible to become bored of masturbation, but apparently so. To tears, in fact.

It's a wretched feeling, sexual frustration. Particularly kinky sexual frustration. Casual sex won't do at the best of times, it really won't do now. It wouldn't fill the breach, only emphasise it, like empty calories. I need the empty headspace, intensity and physical impact of BDSM. I want to be able to cry, scream and vent, to let everything out, preferably into the echoing, cloying presence of a tight rubber mask. I'm fussy and very picky about the sort of play I want and this only increases when I'm suffering from a lack. Like a craving that can only be satisfied by a specific item. I'm similar with food, having gone through Lent without sweet things I can't countenance breaking my fast with anything other than the finest chocolate that boutique providers can offer. I want my desire to be fulfilled by something worthy of the need.

Part of my problem is time. I don't have a lot of it, and without time and effort it's almost impossible to develop the type of relationship required to deliver good kinky sex, especially the sort where you can drop a phone call, have them arrive in an hour and leave a few hours later with no emotional hang ups. I also have my own misgivings as to just how healthy or satisfying that kind of situation is. The other is expectation. It's been a few months now since The Photographer left and I still miss the routine of regular, reliable kinky sex. I can be a creature of habit, and some are hard to break. I'm craving my fix, confused as well as annoyed at the lack.

It is quite possible that the next person I play with may well be met with an explosion. Forewarned is forearmed.

Walk tall

Just a brief point on high heels. Having practiced and practiced and practiced I am now at the stage where I no longer fall over.

However, neither do I appear to look especially sexy:

"You're still galumphing"

Am I?

I thought I was sashaying. Or maybe strutting.

The problem is, unless I actively devote every neurone in my brain to paying attention to walking in heels I appear to just settle into my standard, normal, getting from A to B pace. I am coming to the conclusion that heel wearing is a bit like language acquisition, if you haven't got it by a certain point you never will.

Back to the drawing board...

Love your vagina

For the past few weeks I have been rendered into mute horror and stormy rage over a particular advertising campaign. The love your vagina campaign. You must have seen it - large posters full of pink, purple and glitzy bits of fluff, diamante or ribbons spelling out the cutesy irritating names that women are taught to call their genitalia. I am taken with a massive urge to print out enormous A1 posters full of black, curly hair and daubs of red blood which spell out the word "cunt". We cannot possibly love our vaginas whilst we continue to view them in diminutive, prettified and unrealistic terms. That is not love, that is not even acceptance. That is trying to make parts of us go away, to reduce them to metaphor, to weaken and dilute them until they are as socially palatable and "feminized" as big tits, bland expressions, long hair and passive behaviour.

I have no issue with what individual women chose to call bits of their bodies. Equally I have no issue with what individual women chose to look like. Assuming that those are real choices. Assuming that those choices aren't made because of the crushing tidal wave of opinion over how women should look and how women should talk about their own bodies. Advertising campaigns like this do not free women to talk about themselves - they narrow the goalposts by expressing only the soft pink, flowery language. They make women into girls. Cunt into fu-fu. And that is not acceptable.

Now, I love language. I love variety and difference in language, the way that it allows us to express ourselves in a wide range of ways and how it gives us our identities. Which is why this feminising lexicon needs not to be shut down, but blown open. So, I heartily encourage you to add to the campaign by entering the word "cunt" on the website. When I typed it in, it had a pleasing 912 votes. Unlike "pum pum", "nether petals" or "twinkle". I can barely write these with a straight face. I know that they are silly words, funny words and that they make you giggle. There's nothing wrong with being funny. What is wrong is only having joke words, only feeling able to use silly language.

Which is strange, because it's not a silly product. It is, in fact, a product that requires the women who use it to have a more hands-on and grown-up approach to the cunt. The product in question is the Mooncup, a sanitary device - even that phrase makes me shudder, implying as it does that periods are unsanitary, so lets try that again - a gizmo for collecting menstrual blood. The Mooncup is a good product: it's much better for the body, and the environment, and the wallet, than tampons, encourages people to be less squeamish about an entirely normal biological process. Plus you can do cool things like monitor how much blood your body produces over a few hours or in the course of your cycle, which is a handy thing to know.

I've actually ordered one, so I'll let you know how it goes. I'd usually avoid buying any product whose advertising campaign annoys me so much, but tampon adverts also make me want to punch things and they haven't yet had the ovaries to put the word "vagina" on anything. Which is at least a start.

Strike whilst the iron is hot

"Have you read my latest blog post?"

He shakes his head.

Damn. That means I'm going to have to explain myself from scratch. I've gotten terribly used to being able to communicate with partners through this medium, like opening up my brain letting them take the thoughts then using it as a starting point. It's probably a bad habit. On the other hand, it's one that has always generated a lot of interesting conversations and ensuing exciting evenings in. Like a lot of bad habits, I suppose.

Captain and I are having takeaway. There's beer, which is good. I'm a long way down the first pint before I'm really able to start the conversation. I'm nervous, naturally. Vulnerable. There's something I want, and he's got the ability to say "no". It's about my feelings, which makes it worse. But then again, I'd kick myself for missing this opportunity - fortuitous that he emailed yesterday afternoon, responding to my mildly tremulous "I miss you" message. There's no time like the present. I take some more sips of beer and remind myself that I am a grown-up and that the longer I don't say anything the longer things will remain unsaid and thereby unclear.

I talk. I say that I want a "proper" D/s connection with him, to put what we are doing into a process, a context. Fuck it. A relationship. We talked about what that might mean, what sort of commitment it might entail. A couple of things became obvious, one was that he seemed interested, which was good and got rid of my initial worry. Yet also reticent, and the reason for this didn't seem to have anything to do with me, and a lot to do with where he was in his life and what he could offer. What struck me as interesting was how he described his concerns - that he felt in a D/s relationship the onus and bulk of the effort would lie with him as the Dominant, that he didn't have a lot of time and was worried about meeting my "needs", which he assumed would increase the moment we put a D/s hat on it. Whereas I wasn't especially interested in changing much of what we actually did - more time and attention would of course be lovely, but that is the case regardless. He was concerned with practicalities, whereas for me, they were already in place. What I was talking about was less tangible.

I want a sense of belonging. An arrangement that matches my feelings. A situation in which my desire to see him, and to play with him was part of something more than mutually enjoyable transaction. I wanted a reason for what we were doing, space for my brain as well as my body. A D/s situation will allow me to move beyond a place in which I control myself, handing over parts on an adhoc basis, and one in which the control is elsewhere. Outwardly, it's unlikely that anyone else would ever see the difference. I don't want or need 24/7 micromanagement, I can mostly look after myself. There are things I want. But they are not time-consuming. A few simple rules to live by and I can maintain my own submission. That's what trust and power exchange stand for in my mind. I want to have that little secret, hot and wet inside of me where no-one can really see, that says I am his to do with as he wants. In essence, it is not a change of behaviour, more a change of view. However, as I pointed out to him, there's no point me having these thoughts and feelings if he doesn't want to share in them, otherwise I'm essentially masturbating and using our interactions as a prop. Pleasurable, but not as good as it could be.

And I always want to do better.

I've left him to think about it. Having said everything that needed to be said, I'll see what the response is. I feel as if a weight has gone from my shoulders, there's relief, if nothing else. I'll be sad if he comes back with a "no", of course, but I'll be better for knowing where I stand and able to go on to explore with other people. If he says "yes" that's when the fun really starts.

The intimacy twitch

A number of things have happened to me over the past week which have forced me to re-evaluate where I stand on sex, intimacy and relationships. So, not much, then. It's part of the reason why I haven't posted in a while - I've been turning things over in my mind and just when I thought things were clear they changed. This is quite annoying as I usually pride myself on being fairly methodical, on knowing my own mind and desires. Sadly, I appear to be rather changeable and unpredictable at the moment, which is leaving me surprised and confused, in turns, at my own responses to situations.

Here's a brief run-down of what's been happening. I'm hoping that the process of actually writing this all down might give me more direction. I've been seeing Captain for a few months now. I like him, I love his kink, the way he plays and the places that takes me. We see each other semi-regularly: once a week or so. I'd like to do more more, but it's a time issue, more so than a lack of willingness (I believe). I am, however, disconcerted by the lack of any handle or signifier over these interactions. I hate the idea of being "friends with benefits" - it's cold, dull and smacks of waiting for better things to come along. I'd rather not be a time-filler: hopefully, I'm not. He's been pretty clear that he doesn't want to have a boyfriend/girlfriend relationship. Which leaves, from my point of view, an unspoken D/s arrangement. And that unspoken aspect is driving me a little nuts. I feel insecure, unsafe. Hanging on a limb.

This is generally fine - most of the time I like being able to come and go as a please and, the desire for more kinky sex notwithstanding, I'm able to do so. But two things have changed. The first, is the realisation this morning that I miss him. I didn't see him last weekend which was unusual and I felt the lack today. The second is that I don't want to have sex with anyone else. I spent part of the weekend with Knight of Wands and whilst lying next to him, his arms around me, was fine and I enjoyed the human comfort of another body my muscles twitched and part of me froze. I know myself (now) to be both monogamous and somewhat territorial on my own behalf. If I'm with someone, I'm with them and I have clear boundaries on how I relate to others. This usually boiled down to enjoying playing, flirting and being tied up by other people in specific and pre-planned circumstances, but not having sex with them.

I have a backdrop of exciting play offers, including some pet play, time with Mr and Mrs Magpie and a proposed double dom sessions from Majeste and Spiral as well as an upcoming rope bondage class with Hedwig. I'm keen to pursue all of these offers and none of them make me bristle, pause or panic. Because they are players I know and can interact with on a "pure" play level - we will enjoy ourselves, a lot in some cases - I don't connect with them emotionally and that's a good thing. It keeps it simple. This isn't to say I don't like them nor that the play is not intense. But they are not lovers, or partners. They are players and I love them for that. They also don't give me the "intimacy twitch" that I experienced with Knight of Wands, experienced so obviously that he laughed at me for it, for the way my body expresses itself in capital letters, even when I'm not saying a word. Add to this, I met up with another friend last night and we ate, drank and were merry. Then discussed kink. Then kissed. It was a very good kiss, the sort that I have been lacking, we held hands. I'd be lacking that as well. But the desire for anything more, or what that more might have been was nebulous and confused, to say the least. I'm still not certain where it was all coming from and though I'm neither guilty nor sorry I did it, it was all very unexpected. We're meeting for coffee in a couple of weeks and will discuss. It's clear that I needed the kiss in the same way that I need the play partners and couldn't cope with the soft embrace of an early morning sleepy sexual encounter.

What I've come to realise is that I'm now obviously viewing Captain as my major partner, without actually getting everything I would want from that kind of relationship. Including clarity on whether or not we have a relationship and if we do, what it entails. This means we need a conversation. And that may well go down like a ton of bricks. However, I refuse to be embarrassed about how I'm feeling, and if it fucks things up, then so be it. With any luck, though, we can both be grown up about where we are and what we want and come to some sort of arrangement. I don't want to stop seeing him, but equally, I need an easy life at the moment. With a lot of filthy sex.

Here's hoping.

Archetypes Part 2

Another day, another doll. This one's a classic: the French Maid. The request comes from Captain, who is hosting a party and needs appropriate accessories. As well as someone to fetch and carry drinks, one assumes. Though I'm not entirely sure how much work will actually get done once I'm wearing something that looks like this or this or (heaven forfend) this. He's picking the outfit, not me, although we have narrowed it down to the two extremes of either distressingly frou frou and femme or rubber. Personally, I'd prefer the rubber. Which almost certainly means I'll be wearing more frills than a bad-taste bridesmaid.

The Maid takes me to two places, when I think of her, which rather neatly divide along the lines outlined above. So let's look at the Frou Frou Maid and the Rubber Maid. The first is replete (in my mind) with bad french accents circa Allo Allo and hen parties stocked from Ann Summers, that bastion of English high street "naughtiness". It's that element of being "naughty" and British seaside postcard sexual humour, that I'm hoping this doll will help me explore. There may well be giggling involved. I'm quite looking forward to injecting some silliness into the project, which whilst being very enjoyable has hardly been precisely funny. The second is the fetish aspect. The Maid is fetishised both as a outfit/uniform and as a practice, there are a number of professional fetish maid services (some supply maids, some train people as maids). Additionally she is very common in Sissy circles, combining elements of feminisation, submission, service and petticoat punishment all wrapped up in a clearly defined character role. It's little wonder that the Maid is so popular.

I do have a slight concern, however. Given all the possible doll outfits, this was the one I felt strongly was the "least me" and I think that the forced feminisation aside the service element is problematic. The Maid rarely to serves in a conventional scenario, instead it's usually as a trope for D/s play. Having a servant makes the dominant a de-facto Lord or Lady, reinforcing their dominant position, and providing a framework in which the power exchange can operate. The Maid is here to "work", yet, the service is almost always sexual - whether directly through performing sex acts or by watching the wearer perform tasks around the house in a suitably deferential manner, probably requiring punishment at some point.

On a personal level, I simply don't find service sexy. I cannot imagine anything especially erotic about washing the dishes. I understand the desire to serve, to do things to make your partner happy, often things that you might not especially enjoy. But there's a difference between enduring something because it is difficult (heavy CP, long-term bondage) and because it is boringly hum-drum. I wash dishes every day. I do the laundry. I make my bed. They are activities to be gotten out of the way so that the rest of life can occur. They are not tasks I wish to linger over.

I'll admit to being caught in something of a quandary, because I do also derive some enjoyment from doing those things for other people. I'm house-proud, I like cooking for people and for them to have a nice, clean bed with fresh sheets to sleep in. This pride, is not sexual, and neither is it especially part of a power exchange (certainly not with my friends) I don't do it because I defer to them, I do it because I want to give them those things. I realise how finely this is sliced, how easy it is to draw a link between my the non-sexual desire to please and the sexual desire to please and assume that they are part of the same thing. Yet they are not.

The Maid's costume expressly shows me how they are not. I can do all of those things naturally and normally. If I did all of those things whilst wearing a Maid's outfit I would feel like a fool. It draws attention, unwelcome attention, to the act of service. It makes service sexy. The sexualisation of traditional "female work" is something that naturally troubles me. From a political point of view, I do find the idea that female automatically equals submissive difficult (even though I am a female submissive) and I worry that the Maid plays into this stereotype. Of course, the point of the Maid is that she is a stereotype, and exploring stereotypes is one way of understanding them as long as the background and motivation is explicit. In this way, I'm assuming that my own appreciation for what I am doing will negate any worries on the evening.

Aside from all this, there is the importance of context. It's a party, after all. The point is to enjoy myself (and entertain others, so I'm sure my exhibitionism will get a good showing). In this situation I am adopting a role for an evening, rather than an ongoing D/s service situation I'm agreeing to. The former allows for a light-hearted play-acting, the latter, less so. I am knowingly playing the fool, as it were. Because this doll is also about fun. Whether rubber or otherwise, I get to enact all those comedy British memes of sexuality, becoming part of the joke rather than the butt of it. Which is rather the point, I feel. We can be serious about sex without being po-faced, amused by things that are cute and pretty, be silly for an evening and just let go. Crack a smile.

I like making people smile. If I can make them wet or hard at the same time, so much the better.