Submissive styles

A conversation with a friend of mine recently helped me understand one of my own concerns about the type and response to S&M play with Ganymede. She's a switch, like me, and talked about how she "flies" when she is submitting - we spent a while waxing lyrical over the deep joys of letting go, bottoming out, closing your eyes and just being done to - rather in the manner of women discussing cakes they had enjoyed eating. But in this case, our memories of pleasure were laced with current disappointments. Neither of us felt that we were giving our partners the same depth of submission, the same overwhelming sensations or crazy, head swimming, lost-from-the-universe jouissance.

I've used that word deliberately, more on gendered reactions to sex later, hold that thought. Kristeva theorised that jouissance is a type of writing that only women were capable of performing, which interested me in terms of gendered sexual expression in BDSM. Capitalising on previous theories about how men are not taught how to express their sexual side in the way that women are - with the knock-on effect that women are overly sexualised or only valued for their sexuality and men find it hard to express submissive desire because sexual availability is seen as "feminine". This leads us on to the worrying assumption that women are "naturally" submissive, and men are "naturally" dominant. A point which is bunk, pure and simple. However, this is a social perception, and it's also a reflection of how different gender roles are assigned. What this means is that it can often be easier for women to be sexually submissive than men and that whilst many men desire sexual submission it can trigger complications, including a difficulty in "properly" submitting as well as other thoughts on guilt, shame and their own masculinity.


Could it be that men find submission harder than women? Are there tools and techniques we can use to help get over these barriers? Conversation helps. As always. Communicate and try and understand not "what is wrong" but "what submission looks and feels like". It could well be that it's a simple case of different people having different experiences, however it could be that there is something deeper driving it. Gender aside, everyone responds to play differently and that we can't expect others to have matching responses to ours. Pleasure looks different in different bodies. Just as certain people are warmer or cooler on different toys, sensations and situations so too submission looks different in other minds.

Reassuring her helped reassure myself. We both worried that we hadn't been able to give our partners that experience of sub space we ourselves had enjoyed so much and felt like worse dominants for it. But being practical, I know that I am good at what I do, I'm very skilled and experienced in both practical and psychological techniques of control, pleasure and pain. I know my partner, we talk a lot and although we are still relatively knew, I know a lot of his buttons and the more we play, the better we get.

Yet, there is also another factor. Just as dominance is an art that needs to be learnt so is submission. The practice of relinquishing control and thereby generating sexual pleasure is not as innate as some people think. There is a huge gap between the fantasy of doing something and the reality of doing it - or to be more precise, having it done to you. Certainly the desire to do it has to be there in the first place, but a lot of these feelings - physical, mental and emotional - are strange when done for the first time and unfamiliar sensations take some getting used to. The more you do it, the better you get at it and the more deeply you are able to participate. Of course, like natural athletes there are people who are just born to BDSM, who melt under a firm touch or thrill to the feel of twitching flesh under their hands. Their minds and bodies need kink like fish need water. For most people, BDSM can be an exciting addition to their lives, and their sex lives, but it isn't a need, they can - and do - play every now and then with kinky things, but it's icing on the cake. For perverts, it's the cake. And the icing. And the box the cake came in. And the cake shop. 

Ganymede is new to BDSM and D/s relationships with their hurt / comfort equilibrium of power exchange, rules of living and sexual activities that emphasises these power roles. Although we have fallen very easily into this way of living, in many ways this is sometimes not helpful. Not everything we do will be as easy for him, or as "natural" as others. My own experience and desires are only useful to a point because all they really do is outline what I want and what I like. Similarly, because he is new, we have to accept - and anticipate - that he might not be the same kind of submissive as I am. 

To take a simple example, he likes verbal abuse, which I hate, he can grin and say "yes, I am a complete slut." in a way I would never have been able to do. To give a more complex one, the concept of serving me is one that he loves, wholeheartedly, especially sexual service. He is always available for me to fuck, whenever I want, for example. The physicality of this is familiar, he's had sex with people before, the difference is his ability to chose when, who and how, which is now denied to him. The denial is tempered with the fact that he wants to be used in this way. Pain, however, is still relatively unfamiliar, and not as keenly associated with desire. He doesn't have a high pain tolerance. It's something to be used sparingly, and it's something that he suffers through, because I'm a sadist...


But not that much of a sadist that I want my bottom to suffer needlessly. I'm a trainer, first and foremost and that means a reliance on the tools of carrot and stick. In order for me to enjoy what I'm doing, I need to know that he enjoying it, even if he's not enjoying all of it, or even if he is only enjoying it because of the context.
   

Playing with people

As part of the process of training Ganymede, and because (frankly) I'd missed playing with her, I invited Blush over for a BDSM threesome this weekend. Group sex is always a bit of a gamble, group kink is even more so. Not only do you need to have participants who are sexually interested in each other but they also have to by psychologically attuned. I place my bets every time I introduce Ganymede to someone else, it's not just about what affect a new body, a new person might have on him, it's about what effect my playing with that person might have and the fact that whenever you include any additional partners you always change the dynamic.

I had reasonable hopes of good odds on this one. Blush and I have a natural connection, the sadist in me matches perfectly with the masochist in her, and she is a good submissive fit for my dominance. I knew that I was using the often flawed argument of "well, I like both of them, so they must both like each other." Fortunately I was right.

The order of the evening was a long, drawn out session of co-subbing (for them) and co-ordinating wonderful, dreadful things (for me). We relaxed into it, I had all the space and time in the world and no intention of rushing. We met for dinner and drinks and then had coffee and liqueur whilst the heating went on and food was digested at the Citadel of Kink. I was whispering silent noises of happiness at the luxury of being able to do this, without worry of interruption and the level of security and control this had offered me.  It felt like civilisation.

We discussed, briefly, over dinner what people may or may not be interested in doing. Both of them trust me and neither of them wanted to ruin the surprise so I let the conversation linger briefly on what they might expect. All the better to warm up their anticipation.

Once everything else was warmed up, I moved on to play. We opened up one of the boxes of tricks, and I showed Blush all of the new kit I had acquired since we last played together. I had the remarkable fortune of being gifted a very large bag of some very high quality bondage kit, including a couple of pieces that I have only seen rarely. Her eyes widened and she made a pleasing "oooh" sound. Together with Ganymede, I stripped her down, displaying her body for him, removing stockings and suspenders and applying thick, black buckled leather wrist and ankle cuffs, designed for suspension. This set has three large straps and the wrist pieces almost resemble gauntlets or boxing gloves. She ginned widely as they went on. I set the boy to work licking her cunt whilst I blindfolded her and applied a set of clover clamps to her breasts, then used a pinwheel at the top of her cunt, just above where he was licking.

Once he was in place, I stripped him down and spanked his exposed bottom encouragingly. The game of co-subbing is about balance and contact. Keeping both submissives entertained at the right levels so that neither feels "left out" in a way that would be inappropriate - as opposed to, say, a game of abandonment, or cuckolding, or voyeurism. For a dominant, this means twice the work, in theory, but if it works well it is absolutely twice the fun. And of course, I was able to use them both as toys for the other. Hierarchy, spoken or unspoken, is one of the best ways to help frame what you might do. I knew that Blush would recoil at doing anything which was toppy or dominant, but that Ganymede might appreciate being used as a tool of violence. So that was how I arranged the situation. He was my spare pair of hands, a way of acting upon her flesh. She was my way of giving him pleasure, without having to do so myself, and I made her suck his cock whilst I smiled at him from across the room.

There is an absolute joy in making other bodies sing to your tune, to move them this way and the other, leading them on a merry dance through all kinds of pleasures and pain. I clipped them together at the neck, watching them kiss with the satisfaction of the world's greatest pornographer. Personalised sex acts, just for me. I changed their positions, putting his cock inside her and locking her wrists around his back. He fucked. I gagged him and watched his face as she, teasingly, kissed the hardened leather covering his mouth. Finally, I slid a plug inside him and, pressing in with me knee, ground him into her. 


"This is how missionary sex works, right?"


Later, we put a leather arm sleeve on Blush, which arched her back and pressed her breasts out for more torture. I slipped the latex hood onto Ganymede and put him on his back, then made her straddle his face whilst I fucked him. I remember thinking that perhaps this was an ideal girls' night in, with both of us using him for our pleasure and me kissing her whilst I ran my nails down her back, reminding her of their sharpness and cruelty. When he came, he came hard, the orgasm shuddering through his body. Together, Blush and I, smiling, gently removed the hood and held him until he came back to the room, to the world and to himself with a grin so wide it threatened to split his face in half.


Perhaps one of the more intimate moments came later, when, natural as if it had been something we always did, we showered, turned down the bed and all went to sleep together. In the morning, Ganymede tidied, I made breakfast and coffee whilst Blush went out for croissants. We sat together on rugs and cushions and discussed the night before, agreeing to future dates, and future possibilities.

Citadel of Kink

Perverts, as I've said before, are in many ways a subset of geeks. We like strange things, with peculiar names, we spend a lot of money on mysterious sounding and looking "kit", we like the colour black, bandy together in groups to teach each other outre activities and go to odd clubs in odd outfits whilst people give us odd looks on public transport.

Codes and safe spaces are important to geeks and perverts alike. Ways of naming things that make sense to people that are "in the know" and indicate that these things, these places are safe for "people like us". The codes, and the places, are chosen in particular ways, depending on their use.

Recently, I've been looking for a new place to live and have finally found one. I'm in the very happy situation of (finally) being able to have a place just to myself, which means I can select location and all kinds of other details based on exactly what I want - within reason, and budget. Naturally, what I really want is a warehouse conversion apartment with a huge glass wall overlooking the Thames, brick walls and a series of iron girders to tie people to. For the moment and until I have made my fortune in this gold-paved city, I get the one thing every pervert really, really needs.

Privacy.

Domination relies on you being able to exert and manage control. Control of environment is key to giving a safe (regardless of whether it seems safe or not) space for all kinds of play. Simple things like managing temperature, music, where the furniture is, how the kit is laid out, lighting levels. These all create the space for play and having your own place makes all of that much, much easier. In my experience, the harder, heavier and, let's be honest, noisier, the play is going to be, the more privacy and the more control you need to maintain over what's around you. It also means that you can be a bit more adhoc, if suddenly you feel the need to drag a naked submissive, kicking and screaming to the bathroom to drench them in icy water, you can. 

Knowing you are alone in a space can instantly make you feel relaxed, and it's much easier to deliver a good scene if you feel relaxed. When you have a place to yourself it can become "yours", and the sense of ownership and singular ownership at that is something that benefits the dominant persuasion - we like having things to ourselves, like cats with cream. The worry about being interrupted - whether it's someone just knocking on the door to see if you are OK, or being able to overhear conversations in another room - can be seriously scene-breaking to your concentration, especially if you are trying to maintain some kind of mood. It's one thing to manufacture the belief in your submissive or bottom that they might be interrupted, or suddenly exposed, but you need to have control over that exposure. Further, I think it is unfair and to a certain extent a little unethical to make other people participate in kinky activities if they haven't chosen to. Doing things like having a partner on a lead, or kneeling at your feet when you are watching the television can make life with flatmates uncomfortable. No matter how accommodating, lovely or understanding those flatmates are, ultimately they are not in a D/s relationship with your partner.


And that's even assuming that you have the luxury, as I have had for many years, of lovely, understanding flatmates.

There are other things that perverts need, and whilst looking for a place I have made a reasonable list of them. Windows and outdoor areas that aren't overlooked, as few and far neighbours as possible (having people call the police is never good, and the human ear is very well attuned to the noise of other people in pain), strong floors and sturdy ceilings, easily cleaned flooring, good water pressure, interesting cupboards that can be locked from the outside, lots of storage space for all that kit, landlords that are very "hands off", access to the centre of town for clubbing and ease of returning in a taxi. Security is also important, partly because it's always nice to feel safe, but also because it gives a good look and feel to the place. Nothing says "pervert" quite like locks, bars and chains.   

I've lucked out and managed to find a place on the top floor of a building that has no other flats in it, and is on the end of a block. I have my own metal gate, then a door which leads up my own private stairwell and to another door. The windows overlook rooftops. Over here in Kinksville, there is something of a naming convention with our places of residence, that they all have their own little code names to indicate their particular flavour and style of perversion, such as The House Of Rope (THOR). No prizes for guessing who lives there.

So, it is with a happy, and heady grin, looking forward to luring people over for days and nights of terrible things, that I can announce I've got a Citadel Of Kink. Or COK, for short. No sniggering at the back...


...oh, go on then.
 

The words that make you mine

"Tell me what I am, again."

And I do.

It's the words that get him, every time. I swear that with a little more practise, a little more conditioning I could make Ganymede come by lulling him with a litany of filth. Another way that we connect, another way he operates as my mirror. He needs to hear me put him in his place, contextualise him (textualise him) frame those feelings he is experiencing in terms of what he is to me, make that building desire flood out through a stream of consciousness fantasy that is also a reflection of our reality. I talk him to orgasm.


Words bind us. Words define us. They make, take and describe us: literally make copies of ourselves in language. The words we use become our double. And the double up the impact of any sensation we as dominants might wish to create. After all, training is a learning experience and one always follows up the action with the linguistic lesson, you never just tell, you never just do. You show. So as well as what I'm doing, and I'm doing a lot as you may have guessed from the sparse amounts of blogging recently, I'm also putting a lot of work into words. 

We have contractual words. The words that make up our agreement to each other. And words for each other. There are rules for frequency and types of words - I require an email every Monday with what he is up to. There are forbidden words such as Mistress. There are even new words that slip out of our minds and into our tongues and out into the world. Words that neither of us has used in that way for anyone else before. Queen. Feed. Hello. Yes. Words that without context are silly or strange or even - dare I say it? - normal. But to us, for us, they become special. The tone and placement of these words makes them magic, language that is transformative, that flips the switch and says "this place now is a different place". Like putting a collar around his neck, I can do the same with words.  

There's method in my madness. I assure you. But madness in the method. After all, what sane person would want such a thing? What sane person would want me to do such a thing? Yet, he wants it, I want it, we want it. To turn a real, unique and wonderful human being into a toy, a pet, a sexualised automated slave. What I am doing is deep and complicated and a not-very-nice-thing. I'm programming. I'm indoctrinating (again, with the words, to fill with learning). I'm conditioning. And I'm hanging on to the fact that he has consented, that he has offered, that he wants me to do this to him as evidence that I am not entirely cruel or monstrous. 

Partly. Perhaps.

I've yet to really experience that cloud of "dominant guilt" and maybe that's a black mark on my character or maybe my own adventures as a submissive have made me more accepting of suffering in others because I know how much I liked it, needed it, wanted it. There is also another context. What I am doing, although unique to us, is not exactly unique.

Everyone trains everyone else. They just don't always call it that.

The world is full, if you choose to look, and I've looked (oh I've looked!) of all kinds of linguistic experience like this. Training through words, through a re-telling. Of times and places where people have agreed to be reshaped, to be remade. In many instances they have paid for the privilege: think of therapies such as CBT or NLP, or of self-help courses run around retraining your self-image. All kinds of experiences are, in fact, a narrative, with different terminology used to distinguish roles, carve out the insiders from the outsiders, create new ways of looking at the world by renaming. Groups are narratives. Relationships are narratives. A BDSM relationship is a narrative. The distinction is in the kind of story you are telling.

Over coffee with Majeste this weekend she referred to me as Cinderella, in my fairy-tale search for the right one. The collar fitted, I suppose, in the end. But the moment where the metal snaps shut, or the glass slipper slides onto the bare, delicate foot (something I've always found a little chilling, in more ways than one) is exactly the opposite of a Happy Ending. We are at the beginning, and the story has only just started.

In many ways I feel as if this is marking a new phase in my writing. Not only am I writing very much from the top, and with someone who is committed to a long term D/s relationship, but the type of relationship, and the types of experiences we are having are a lot more normalised. Rather than dates or affairs or hotel assignations (wonderful and hedonistic as they were) I have a partner. Not just for an hour or two, or when they have time, or in between other partners. The same has also been true of me, I've been casual with people when perhaps they wanted more. Been less-than when they wanted more. Things have been too hot, too cold and not quite right. Slippers have not fitted.

Instead I have Ganymede. I have a life, or a potential life. One where someone is always my slave. I have a boy who wants me to dominate his thoughts, to own him mind, body and soul. Sometimes the scale of it takes my breath away, because it is epic. I off-handedly referred to D/s as "like love, but harder" to a vanilla friend of mine only later realising that I truly meant it as such. 

Most of this is a very long-winded way of saying that what I'm doing right now is very big, and in many ways very new. Just as Ganymede is new to BDSM I am also new to him, and to the scale of what we are doing to each other, with each other. There's a lot of NRE floating around as well as that crazy, not-real sensation that good, hard D/s does to you anyway. So I'm likely to be updating less frequently. But it's worth it. Trust me.      

Public Outings Part One

I'm running a bit of a blogging backlog at the moment, blame a combination of lack of spare time and Ganymede. The latter is keeping me very happily occupied, however, so I'm certainly not complaining.

Over Easter, a small celebration in the form of a private party for four was arranged with myself and the boy, Mr Smith and Idyll a new female friend who I met at a photoshoot. Unlike the party a few weeks ago, this was (for me at least) going to be more explicitly about play rather than sex, and about experimentation in a private setting. The recent orgy was an excuse to relax into a warm pile of bodies, amongst other things, and concentrate on pure hedonistic experience. This was going to be much more precise. There were a number of things I wanted to get out of the night. The first was to have a fun kinky time with friends, naturally, the second, less obvious one, was to give Ganymede and myself a reasonably safe environment in which we could start doing more public BDSM.

What we have is still very new and that "newness" can sometimes make me feel anxious and wary. This is a hangover from previous, unsecured relationships that always felt on the brink of falling apart (and in the end, did exactly that). We've talked about it and I'm trying to deal with it. We are defined and decided as a D/s relationship, with clear commitment on both sides and with nothing from him to indicate otherwise. However, knowing a thing is safe and always feeling it as such are two different things. One of the things I'm finding about being a dominant within a relationship is the amount of emotional concern you have towards not just your submissive, but towards the D/s relationship itself. Like any caring, loving relationship, you want the best for your partner. The overt power exchange within D/s means that things can become very intense and feelings can get very big very quickly. Emotions are amplified. I've experienced this a lot from the submissive point of view. The dominant one is no less intense but it is very different.

I'm learning to read, and to take control of, a new partner. I need to understand all his wants, to be in touch with his body so I know what those twitches and tics mean. I have a strong protective requirement within my sense of being a dominant - I need to keep my charge safe from harm - all kinds of harm, from feeling sad or lonely through to anyone causing them upset. When things happen that knock him, I get angry, especially if I was unable to prevent it.

Then there is how dominant desire is expressed sexually. You create space and opportunity for submission when you frame the relationship in initial negotiations, but the actual doing-of-it is an ongoing process. Teaching them how to please you, and how to know when they are pleasing you so they feel good about their submission, about what they are offering. Making sure they know that they are good, in the right way, of knowing just when to call them a slut and just when to call them a good boy. The sadistic streak rears up, wanting to hurt them and reconciling that strange, internal conflict of hurt/comfort. I want to do all kinds of ugly, cruel and brutal things to him. I want to hold him tight and whisper sweet filth in his ear whilst I do them. I want to keep him in delirious throes of agony and ecstasy so that he always makes that face at me. The one that looks up towards me with wide eyes and a faraway look in his dilated pupils. I want to fuck him all the time, to physically possess him in that visceral, animal fashion. And when I do take him, I want to control every single moment of that experience and pour my heart, soul and wicked thoughts into every pour of his body, every corner of his mind. And when I'm done with him, after carrying him through to the end I want to pick him up, strap him into a neat bundle and put him to bed safe. I want to do it all again, the next day.

The consequence is that there's a lot going on, there's a lot that I do, a lot to think about, even before I've picked up some rope or a toy. And keeping on top of all of that, and in control of all of that, is sometimes more than enough. Don't get me wrong, the intensity is amazing and I wouldn't be without it for the world. It's also a necessary and natural part of having a new partner. NRE, anyone? And it isn't there all the time, we have wonderful, calm, quiet moments of me drinking tea whilst he kneels at my feet. But it's there a lot, and it's often easier to do it with just the two of us.

I want to play with him with others, to go out together and play with people, to go to clubs and also to allow him to play and fuck other people. And I want to do the same too. Better yet, other people want to play with us, and that gives us a whole new space in which to work with. It makes us an "us" for a start, which is a wonderful thing. And so, playing with a small group of friends seemed ideal.

Idyll and I have never played together before I arranged to meet up for food beforehand so that all four of us could discuss what we may and may not be interested in doing. We had some very good, frank conversations about physical and emotional needs, as well as more of a "getting to know you", which was really nice. Annoyingly, however, the day didn't start very well. Even getting to the meet up was actually more fraught than I would have liked with a combination of minor issues such as lost cinema tickets, delays in people meeting up with each other, and lots of increasingly annoyed text messages back and forth. By the time all four of us met up I was feeling quite tense. Not the best frame of mind to be able to process other people's moods and sexual needs. Both Idyll and Ganymede were tired from a club the night before so their lack of sleep and other post-club hangovers meant that their emotional states pre-play were a major concern of mine. Another, not insignificant factor was any knock on effects and feelings that may be around with Mr Smith and myself. We've talked a lot since we split up and both of us agreed that we had a good enough relationship, and good enough chemistry that we still wanted to play, however you can never tell until you actually start.

It took a long time to get everyone, myself included, to a place where play could really kick off. Once we were all fed and back at the hotel, we all started to become less rattled. Glasses of wine and a few chemical substances helped matters. As did all being indoors, out of the unseasonably cold weather and in the same space - finally. It was actually something of a relief to manage to do that. Even as it was, we spent a lot of time simply talking before anything happened. This is often the case with play parties, even club nights, especially when people are new to each other. The British reserve is still very much in evidence. But unwind we did, and as the hours passed clothes were removed and I was able to place the silver collar around Ganymede's neck, both of us smiling as we did so.

Even now, I cannot remember exactly what kicked the evening off, at what moment my anxiety faded away. Was it starting to get undressed? Was it watching my boy kiss Idyll and feeling absolutely no jealousy whatsoever. More: feeling pleased that she was enjoying him, that he was enjoying her. Of knowing that he was still very much mine, that my need to touch him all the time (just be sure, just to check he is real) won't make me angry or upset when he touches someone else. Quite the reverse. The feeling of pride I had as his fingers slid inside her, as her face lit up at his ministrations, was overwhelming. To have him at my control, at my behest, satisfy someone like an extension of my own dominance, my own abilities and my own pleasure. A marvellously new feeling and unlike any I had ever had before. And one I was to explore all night.

On creating objects for private use

Ganymede, naked, eyes wide open, lips parted. His neck rests against my shoulder as I encircle him in my arms. I'm laid partially on top of him, fingers tracing the already reddened skin on his back. Pinch. Twist. Scratch. I watch his eyes and mouth as I hurt him. Pain sparkles for a certain type of masochist, the sensations are bright and sharp creating curious giggles of surprise and gasps of not-quite-pleasure. It hurts. But it is fun. For both of us. I am learning his specific tells, like a poker player, so I can read him without him having to utter a word. There's the difference between a "good" wince and a "bad" one, for example; his automatic responses compared to ones created deliberately. He raises his hands, as if in defence, but he's not trying to stop me - he just can't help himself. So helping myself to him seems like the most natural thing in the world.

"I want you to make me into a thing. Use me."

My words, from years ago, coming out of his mouth, now. It's a gift. To be able to take someone as you yourself once wanted to be taken, to put them in that exact same mental space which you inhabited. I know what he means when he says those things. I know the desire to be small, helpless, empty and waiting. To want to be filled up with sensation, to have thoughts removed and to bottom out into deep, dark spaces.

Better yet, I know how to do it.

Rubber hood. No eye holes, just a space for a mouth and pinprick nostrils. Tight fitting around the face - anything around the face is more intense - pressing in on all those vital sense organs we use to orientate ourselves to the world. Remove the face, remove the person and their ability to make sense of the world. They can't see you, you can't see them. They become the object, reliant upon you for clues as to what is going on. It's comforting too. Like a blanket on a canary, silence falls and the signal to "not do" is given. Similarly, I am not being watched, the performance aspect of dominance is now based on touch, on timing, not on how I look whilst doing it. Another freedom, this time for me. The smell of rubber starts to fill the room, and I lick the side of his cheek where the black material is starting to warm up. Delicious. A word I've picked up from him, and it's apt.

The process of turning a person with thoughts and feelings into an object can be a slow, deliberate one. Give them time to settle into each layer, each stage of not-being. Then the ball gag. Permission not to speak, the removal of any kind of human communication, that feeling of being full up. The knowledge that very soon saliva will start to build in the mouth and run down the side of the face.

The final touch. A solid, steel collar. I've been eyeing one up in Liberation for around a year now and "casually" (I never do anything casually, I'm dreadfully deliberate to the point of conniving) taking people into the store to walk past it, testing reactions. Some have ignored it, others balked at the weight and the cold of the metal. Ganymede grins when I remove it from the glass case and clip it around his neck, then bites his lip. Another tell. Easy. It sits over the neck of the hood, holding it down.

He's ready for use.

I sit astride his now very hard cock and fuck him. He arches towards me, hips moving to meet me. There are noises from beneath the hood: slow, rattling moans of forced breath, the rasp of frothy saliva, a horses' whinny, small growls he won't remember even making. I can feel the change in his body as he's fucked like this, it's a difference of consistency, of tempo even. There's a physical contradiction occuring whilst he is at one and the same time more relaxed and more tense. The thinking has gone out of the process, there is no deliberation here only animal movement, it's muscle memory and something more. Like the feeling on the dance floor where something else takes control of you and the beats move through you and out of your feet, the palms of your hands and the rhythm of your heart beneath your chest. He moves like that but I call the beat. I take time with him, knowing full well he will orgasm quickly if I chose to let him. I don't. Not quite. A few times I rise up entirely, resting the edge of my clit on the tip of his cock, letting him twitch at the absence of cunt. Hold. Wait. Then press down again, fucking him a little harder than before. I'm toying with him like a cat might with a mouse and the pleasure is in my pleasure at being so free with this body beneath me.

Under the hood he might be anyone. But he is not just anyone. He is mine and there is an overwhelming pleasure in that. The sense of just possession, of absolute right in doing what I am doing and the knowledge that he will thank me for doing it later. When he comes, he comes hard, a sensation he later describes as having an orgasm pulled out of him. I leave him in the hood for a while, to give him space to come out from space. There's nothing quite as jarring as bringing someone up to quickly, you'll give them the scene equivalent of the bends. I hold him next to me, draping a leg over him as I masturbate and bring myself to orgasm, letting him feel it, but not participate.

Later, we talk. We're still trying each other out, learning things. A process I hope never to finish. Each corner of his skin, of his mind I explore in minute detail, paying close attention to what he is saying, what he isn't saying. A language entirely new, but also familiar, as our tastes are so entwined. There's a onanistic satisfaction in this too, that I know the things I like, he is likely to enjoy. Kismet, or something like it. Perfection is a life pursuit and I intend to make him, to make us, my magnum opus.

Poly Means Many: Needs and Wants

Poly Means Many: There are many aspects of polyamory. Each month six bloggers - Amanda Jones, An Open Book, One Sub's Mission, Polyamorous Parenting, Post Modern Sleaze, and Rarely Wears Lipstick - will write about their views on one of them. This month: Needs and Wants.

A well-timed post, given that Ganymede and I have just gone through what an old school kinkster might call "the negotiation phase". Other people might blanch at the level of organisation, bullet points, formalised writing and spreadsheets which are involved in kick-starting a D/s relationship with me. It's a tribute to the (sickening, sickening) level of fit between him and myself that all of this has been reassuring rather than terrifying, powerfully protective instead of creepy and detailed instead of obsessive. We've both been in and out of those "are we, aren't we?" relationships where little clarity was offered and both felt insecure and anxious as a result.

I'm going to sidetrack to a bit of kinky history, just for background. There are old-school ways of forming BDSM relationships, including specific types of collars and collaring processes, such as a "collar of consideration" or "training collar" where someone is given a specific collar by a dominant, usually more workmanlike and less pretty than a "real" collar. This tentative, patient movement towards a D/s relationship is a reflection of previous, formal and hierarchical arrangements where the outward appearance was often very considered and ran according to particular group protocols. I've even heard tell of BDSM subcultures where all dominants must spend a certain number of years as a submissive, regardless of their actual sexual desires in this area, in order to learn what it feels like. As a switch, I approve of this idea, if not of the actual method. Kinksters, like all nerds, have rules about what is and isn't the correct way of behaving. It creates a system where one didn't exists and therefore helps us assert our authority and our right to live the way we want to.

Over time, we have become (slowly) more accepted and (slowly) less closeted and (rapidly) more on the internet, we've become a little more relaxed about these formalities. Or perhaps we've just moved to other, electronic formats. The processes of forming BDSM relationships have changed and the idea that a particular specific set of things must be done in order to be "doing it right" has been, correctly, eroded. However, there are still stages and points in time, as well as tools, which are incredibly valuable to kinksters and I hope will never fall by the wayside.

Lets start with negotiations. It's a great fallacy of BDSM that the dominant decides everything and the submissive has no input. Needs and wants is not, in my experience, a written-in-stone tablet that the dominant presents to the submissive. Perhaps some people do that. I don't. There are some very good negotiation spreadsheets around which are useful for all kinds of kinky encounters. They give long lists of BDSM activities, from physical play to emotional and much more, with space for notes, for colouring in red, amber or green or for detailing whether you want to try something, want to be made to try it, are nervous about it or will stab someone in the eye if they even suggest it. After a few text based exchanges I sent one of these over to Ganymede and we now have a shared document which is a wonderful "what shall I do to you tonight?" menu for me.

In our negotiations, I sent over some very specific points which outline the type of relationship I want, some notes about how I view consent, the kinds of things I like doing and my own personal "wash and care" instructions, a few notes on how to take care of me. Regular feeding, sleeping and fucking are required, along with the ability to make gin and tonic and to only serve me decent coffee. Even if you do like having hot drinks spat in your face countermanding the latter is not encouraged.

I asked him for similar thoughts and then we looked into specifics, or picked out any areas of difference or points that needed expanding upon. We tried to cover as many potential situations as possible. As a dominant I work with rules and protocols to manage our relationship, so that we both know what is expected of each other. The less I can get away with the better, because I don't like having lots of things to remember and I like being able to react based on how we are both feeling at the time. However, there are some rules that need to be agreed upon. The way you decide you are going to approach other people is something that should be tackled as early on in the discussions as possible. Starting with the question: "do you want to be open or non-monogamous?"

For us, it was simple. We have no other partners. We are both very keen on a firm D/s commitment and we are non-monogamous in terms of sexual appetite. We're also open to the possibilities that alternative relationship set-ups might give us in the future, but are conscious of being new to each other. I am keen to keep ourselves to ourselves for a little while on an emotional level, certainly. We know that we are keen to fuck and to play with others, and have already made inroads in arranging this, we also know that another boy would be a good play addition. We're also both very happy spending an afternoon in a sunny coffee shop in Soho deciding who from the passers-by we would corrupt, and how.

For BDSM, the type of D/s relationship can vary massively, and it's good to work that out early too. Not every dominant matches every submissive - far from it. There's a terrible assumption in some circles that just because I like rope, for example, I will like being tied up by anyone. Just like the assumption by well-meaning parents or friends that because a particular chap shares certain interests with me, we would be a lovely couple. So, alongside the obvious things of how you want to spend time together, the sorts of exciting sex and kink you can have, you also need to think about what the power exchange might look and feel like.

One of the best ways I've ever heard of describing a D/s relationship was through the use of avatars to elucidate the type of person you want to be. For me, my dominance is styled around being a "trainer" - I develop submissives into something even better. I'm caring, but firm and I use a lot of small, ongoing behaviour modifications to refine my darlings. I'm also a "Daddy" figure, authoritarian but proud of my charges and loving. When I'm in darker, filthier moods I'm also a "groomer" and a "torturer" I coax and force them into doing all kinds of things. My wants in this is to be a powerful figure within their life who provides support, stability and is served or attended to in turn.

For Ganymede, we are using words like "toy", "object", "pet", "slave" and "boy" - all his words, naturally. From those I'm able to pick up on what he is interested in, the specific sorts of control and ownership that turns him on and makes him happy.

After you've done the negotiations, you create the contract. A solid D/s contract can be many things. At its most basic it gives both (or all, though in this case we are two) parties the opportunity to highlight what they want from the relationship. Needs and wants. What you are looking for, what you can give, what you can't give. This covers a lot of things, time spent with each other, who you want to be for each other, future plans, sexual preferences. BDSM codifies a lot of these in the form of a contract, and some people do indeed write up and sign documents.

My contract is simple, it's designed to be "always on" so not matter what else happens, this basic statement covers who and what we mean to each other. It's also flexible in terms of what it could potentially include, easy to understand and, importantly positive.

You are mine: you will serve and obey me; I will train and look after you
It starts when you accept, it ends when we decide it ends
We will make each other's lives better

The email thread includes all the negotiation emails we've sent backwards and forwards, with the requirement that certain key points are replied to with an agreement or acceptance. One of the reason why I like contracts is the sense of rigor and permanence, which a casual pillow-talk conversation does not, no matter how sleepy and seductive. Things get forgotten, or if half-murmured whilst fucking can be cast as in-the-moment cries of passion, signifying nothing.

The final thing I want to touch on, briefly, is collars. These, or other pieces of significant jewellery, "seal the deal" in many ways. Signs and symbols are important to all kinds of human interactions, and contracts can sometimes seem like words or pixels. A physical reminder of what you have agreed, of what you mean to each other is very potent. The gift, in and of itself, is powerful, it is an endowment, a very solid reflection of what has been agreed. A collar need not be a collar. Ganymede now has a fetching silver chain coiled around his neck. Discrete, but of a solid weave. Given once all the agreements have been made, and representative of them. A little light touch of me upon his neck, glistening in the sun.

Whether or not you are kinky, the important thing about all of this is that genuine, honest conversations have been had and decisions have been made. Together. To my mind, the best relationships are ones in which this negotiation process is never finished, where the conversations about who we are and where we can go continue forever, always learning and always exploring.

I've had situations where it has not been quite so simple, not quite so neat as I'm making out. Either because the conversation never really happened, such as with The Photographer where there was no negotiation, the situation was a done deal and my inexperience didn't prepare me for what was actually being said. That has led me to perhaps be more careful, more clear in my own dealings with people. No bad thing. I've been in situations where I've tried to have conversations and felt ignored or given lip service, where the desire for what I offered was greater than the actual ability to deliver it. I know that my reliance on email can cause confusion for people who are not used to thinking strategically or tactically about relationships, sex and emotions. And situations where the requirement to make time to even have the conversation in the first place was a battle, where documentation was ignored or the entire process caused upset - a failure on all sides.

I've learnt a lot. About myself, about people I have loved and lost. Not everyone will be keen to have these kinds of conversations, not everyone will want to be in a D/s or an open or polyamorous situation. Part of the point of outlining needs and wants is that you are clear in yourself what you want and can explain it to others. The perfect goal is that everyone gets what they want, but an outcome you should steel yourself for is that you do not get what you want but that people are not misled or hurt by the process.

Sounds business-like and transactional? Well, yes. A bit of business nouse goes a long way in creating a bedrock you can benefit from. It doesn't mean that you have to then set up weekly, minuted board meetings for your relationship - although if one party was interested in wearing a pencil skirt and taking dictation that could work for everyone's benefit. What it does give you is a written document - in our case, series of emails and a googledoc spreadsheet - that you have both created together which defines and outlines the edges of your relationship.

Where you go from there, is up to you. But at least things are a lot clearer.