Mistress

I'm currently delving into the world of other people's open relationships because the latest addition to my fold is a wedded chap. More on him and how that's working out later, this post is about words and contexts.

A Mistress is the female lover of a married man. It's also a popular title for a dominant woman. In this situation I am both at the same time, and once again looking at my own thoughts on this particular term of address. It's not as perfect for me as Fox, but I have found myself revelling in it a little - I'm smirking to myself when I roll the word around my head - and so I set to wondering why.

I've always been extremely careful of how I mediate and control relationships where there are other significant others. I don't play without the explicit consent - in writing would be ideal - of the other parties. Although I accept that it is not my direct responsibility if someone else chooses to cheat, if I know they using me to do so then I would not be able to derive any enjoyment or satisfaction from the experience. Since I could never trust or respect someone who chose to cheat they would make poor partners for me anyway.

There is another angle of course. My own ghastly experiences of feeling fucked over by an unseen force outwith my control during my last major break-up means I'm wary of the dangers posed by multiple connections and the minefield of potential communication and emotional complexity. Add in any sort of D/s power dynamic and the danger of someone ending up failing to serve two masters increases.

Aside from clarity and good diary management in this situation there are two points that turn these troubles around. First, and most important I know that the consent has been given by his wife and that she is also engaged in her own kinky explorations. It would be harder, I think, to feel comfortable if someone else's partner merely approved and turned a blind eye. The more open, the more honest the better and the safer. Second, he is submissive to me. He actively sought me out as a dominant woman because he wanted someone with whom to explore his submissive side, which he doesn't really get elsewhere. Aside from the natural power that this gives me over him, it's important (as with any of my partners) that I occupy a particular space - whilst in discussion with Majeste I called it "The only X that does Y". It gives me clarity, direction and security. All of which are necessary to form the bedrock of domination.

I find that I am deriving all of the advantages of the Mistress position with none of my perceived drawbacks. There is a sense of relief over the understanding that this relationship will not be my Next Big Thing. Like with Ten, where we both know that the future holds naught but delicious dalliances - there is none of the attendant stress that can come with open-ended situations. We can both simply enjoy what we are doing. The removal of prospects for domestic emotional entanglements allows me to concentrate my attentions, and affections to kink, kink and more kink (as well as nice sunny afternoons in the park). It's fun. I get to play a star role in someone else's (sex) life, participating in the icing and ignoring the cake - there are dinners, dates, drinks and hotel rooms. There are no shared laundry lists or any of the many daily requirements of a deep, committed relationship.

I turn up every once in a while, a fleeting apparition whose arrival is (hopefully) hotly anticipated. I can be mysterious, dangerous and dashing. Those women for whom poems were written, or the historic legion of "other women" who crop up time and time again with trappings of sexual power, writing themselves into legend. As you can tell, I'm certainly enjoying romantic thoughts of entering into a grand tradition of seduction, assuming that one is technically allowed to call it seduction when the fucking has already happened.

Master of ceremonies

I've been building up to last weekend for longer than I thought. One of those nights when there's a much needed outpouring of emotion and physicality. I practically run to the venue, feeling my heart beat in my rib cage like it wanted to be free. Which was what I needed. A space to vent. Room to spread out wide and be a big animal. Unlike the compressed anger of my last public play venture this was vastly more positive. All the pre-play exuberance combined with an almost childish excitement for a party.

Well planned private parties are the ultimate safe space to let go. Whilst I tend not to be overly concerned by embarrassment for my sake I do often hold back in public because of other people. Not tonight. The theme and tone allows me as much scope as I want and I feel like I've been let loose. The sense of liberation continues throughout the night, I can't wipe a slightly crazed-with-happiness grin off my face and every now and then a shot of euphoria courses through me.

I'd planned the main event, an onstage scene / ritual with Mannequin, everything else I intended to take it as it comes. Total hedonism was my only goal, to do and behave exactly as I felt like whilst inspiring others to do the same. I'd chosen to "be" Ishtar / Astarte and I had no intention of letting the side down.

First. Outfit. That's important, there's an element of capturing a spirit, embodying something primal and other. To take off (and of) myself: revealing something else. To shock, yes, but to captivate, titillate and entertain also. I have a job to do, yet it's not work at all, but play. I'm here to make sure everyone revels in the night. Stripped to the waist, draped in gold and red silk, my face, torso and arms dripping in liberal amounts of fake blood made from honey that I encourage those present to lick from my skin. I grab a glass of wine from Ringmaster who's dressed as Bacchus, annoint people with blood and we toast to the night to come.

I dance. I love dancing. My body needs to move and move with others. I'm working up to something. There's a dervish-like necessity in what I'm doing, spinning around as the beat inside my rib cage intensifies. And I want to take everyone with me. Grabbing arms and pulling them towards me as I spin. Encouraging as many people as possible to dance with me, to pull them away from the bar and from chatting and into the main space.

When the time comes I know it's time and it's only in that moment that I realise quite how much I've been wanting and needing this, like all my coils and springs have just been released. Tension uncurls. I spring. A nod to my wingmen, Dandy and Fenrir and we're off. Grabbing Mannequin, hearing her squeal, and with satisfaction we jump on the stage and the lights hit me.

Everything feels like it's happening at once.

This is the first time ever that I have deliberately put an overt, explicit element of ritual into my shows. There's usually a sense in which all of my public performances are a personal ritual of some kind but this was different. I needed the crowd. Not just in the way that an exhibitionist needs a crowd but I needed them to watch, to witness, to shout back at me, to acknowledge what was being done and to join in. I remember bits of what I did. Not everything by any means and with none of the clarity or detail of more delicate, private play.

I got a massive head rush. Then this tingling, surging sense of eyes being on me and willing me forward. I roar at the crowd in some kind of address and hear them cheer back. There's an energy in the room and it's not just the buzz of performance spaces, or the heat of sex and sexuality. Power. Echoing back and forth. Calling on them to stop gaping and join in. A call to arms, a call to the spirit of the bacchanal that we are invoking. And I'm saying something as I fuck her but I can't remember what, but I can feel the press and pull of bodies as more are gathered from those onlookers able to step up and into the lights. Spirit steps up behind me and I feel her fuck me whilst I fuck the girl and every now and then I catch the eyes of those up there with me but mostly I just move and feel and listen to the moans. A jug of wine was emptied on all of us. I think I laughed.

Above all, above everything it felt right, it felt easy and it was fun. Cake was thrown (mostly at Captain, who ate it) and the so any conceit of pretension blown out of the water, which was perfect. This wasn't a "serious" sex ritual. This was a free flowing of fucking, affection and bodies. Hands. Lips. Mouths. Cocks. Cunts. And cake.

Later. Showered of cake, wine and honey-blood so I could provide less sticky after-care to Mannequin. Four of us naked in a pile on a sheepskin rug curled up like animals, limbs wrapped around limbs. Content.

Playthings, playspaces and playtime

It's been some time since I last did a proper update so I'm going to try and gather up my thoughts on what's been happening recently. It's been overall very good, aside from the situation with my mother, so good that I've been much more busy doing things than I have had time to write about them. Can't complain.

I'm obviously leaning towards "chocolate box" tactics as a vanilla friend kindly put it, when describing my sex life. Whether or not the sex and candy reference is appropriate, what I absolutely am doing is more people, and a variety of people at that. A lot of them are new (or newish) either to me or to the scene as a whole, so there's a steep learning curve as we discover their bodies. I currently have an interesting spread of boys I play with sporadically and a girl I see quite often.

At the moment, my D/s "core" is fulfilled by Mannequin. I'm fortunate that she is quite so conscientious, well behaved and self-managing, because I don't actually have a lot of free time for kink these days. Someone commented recently via email that they were amazed I got so much done, as it were. She and I work well together, in a way that surprised me by being quite so easy going - I think I'd expected any relationship with another woman to be hard work, but it's quite the reverse. Possibly because of my differing attitudes to boys and girls.

Needless to say, because of our connection - she is absolutely my girl when I think about her - I'm learning a lot more about Mannequin and by association, the style of play that she evokes in me. It's a reciprocal thing, albeit one in which I make the decisions. Like looking at a beautiful painting and deciding where to put it in the house based on its attributes. Currently our play is much "deeper" than anything else I'm doing, which is only right and proper. I'm very comfortable and familiar with her body and so can push her that bit more, that bit further each time we do play.

Then the boys. It's been commented that I'm harder on boys than girls, as a dominant I am certainly more physically minded with them. I suspect that is in part due to the fact that I know them less well, which leads me down the "top" rather than "dominant" path and makes my play a little cooler and less affectionate - although the whole belle dame sans merci attitude does make me feel pretty damn hot, frankly.

Space plays a part, when I play at my house it creates a certain kind of scene. As I rule, I will never invite new people back to my house. It's a privileged space, and also one in which I ad lib more often, partly because I feel safer and am likely to be there with a plaything I'm more comfortable pressing harder or in curious, unplanned ways. I know that if - to take a random example - I were to spy a large amount of fresh ginger in the shop as I hunted out something for dinner for Mannequin and myself, I could head home, tie her up and insert a carefully prepared piece to entertain me as I cooked. Domestic Goddess, indeed.

When I move outside my own home and use a studio or, better, play in public where I can show off my playthings, I tend to be more planned and orchestrated. I can also be more removed, or adopt a role that is nastier, less connected to the dailiness of myself. I spent a few hours with Boy Wonder in Captain's studio exploring stress bondage and a lot of strap-on fucking. II found myself wishing for a proper, heavy wooden yoke or set of stocks to deliver the type of endurance play I wanted. In the end I used a metal bar and some rope to spread his arms, placing lit candles on upturned palms then sitting back and enjoying the view. There's a great pleasure to be had in relaxing when someone else is in their own personalised discomfort, and they are going through it just for you. As with the figging, I find that the sort of sadism where you set something up then watch it unfurl is wonderfully decadent.

Sex itself is an interesting one. Every now and then I will feel horny, but I can satisfy this in a number of ways, not least masturbation (I remain my own greatest lover, I'm sure most people are) I am finding that these days I need penetrative sex a lot less than I did a year or so ago - I'm not sure where that is coming from, whether it's because of the dominance, because I'm doing a lot of the fucking (with my hands or with strap-ons) which satisfies just as much though in a different way. It's also perhaps that my sexual desire, always strange and curious, is sated by BDSM. Control works as well as fucking, for example. Denying someone else sex becomes sex in and of itself. I recently played with someone who I knew wanted to fuck me, and I had no real desire to do so, but I did enjoy my power over them, my ability to hurt them. I especially enjoyed the escalation of pain, controlling his movements and positions, but most of all, the power trip that came with the fact that he had come to me to give those things. The physical exertion of hitting him was, for me, akin to the physical exertion and satisfaction of fucking.

And finally, well, I don't want to get ahead of myself, but I am rather looking forward to a hotel booked for next week...

Family matters

An otherwise amazing week spent having lunch, dinner and play sessions with perverts was marred by my brave but possibly stupid decision to tell my Mother that I was queer. I've previously steered clear of revealing anything but the most unavoidable details of my sex life or sexuality with my parents, they met The Photographer once or twice very much as a "boyfriend" and were given the briefest details on polyamory because it was better than the running theory that he was married and we were "carrying on" behind her back.

As a family we're generally rather private about our private lives. But we are also honest and respectful of people's feelings and place in the world. Which meant that when I thought that Mannequin might be joining a few friends who were having drinks with my mother and I it became necessary to have a conversation. The alternatives were unpalatable. To say nothing and hope Mannequin would play along would have been cowardly. To request her to do so, would be worse. To spring it upon my mum with no warning would have been cruel and potentially embarrassing and introduce her as a "friend" when she is more than that would be an outright lie. I can't lie like that. It's a denial of who we both were and show a terrible lack of respect to her, to myself and my desires and also to my mother. Frankly I dislike introducing my pet as a girlfriend, but there are levels of public social acceptability and meaningfulness. When I say "pet" in a BDSM situation, people will understand the connection, when I say "girlfriend" in a vanilla situation they will at least appreciate the relationship as a sexual, intimate one.

So I told her that I was dating a woman. And she seemed to take it well enough, initially. I answered a few questions about bisexuality, about my potential life choices, including the fact that I see myself settling down with a man. We went out, we had a few drinks - in the end Mannequin couldn't join us, and everything seemed fine.

The next evening, after a day when there was something of a slight cloud over our Mother's Day time spent together we talked more. She wasn't happy. She was struggling with herself and her own sense of being liberal against the weight of the knowledge that I was sexually attracted to women - it not only upset her, she confessed it repulsed her and that the thought of seeing me kiss another woman made her feel sick. That hit hard. It hit hard not because of what she was saying, I knew that she was unhappy that she felt those things about me, but because I had upset her by telling her a truth about myself. That the person I was made her feel sick.

We talked long into the night. Good things and bad. About how much we loved each other. About the differences between us both, the life experience I have had compared to her. That happiness was important and she wanted to say that whatever made me happy was fine, but couldn't. That she knew she would tell no-one what I had told her, for fear that they would think badly of me. The confusion felt over how she could accept anyone else on the planet being gay. Except me. Because I am fiercely loved, like many children are. But to my mother, who is infertile, I will always be the child she struggled so hard for and never thought she could have - I am adopted and my adoption process was not easy or kind on my parents.

What I told her shocked her, and knocked her view of me off-kilter. It also made her feel bad about herself and scuppered her view of who she was. We talked and although I never really recovered from the cold, hard fist that balled in my stomach when she told me that she felt sick over my sexuality. I know that she wants to be comfortable with the situation, and that fact makes me feel immensely proud of her.

It's just as well I didn't tell her about anything else.

Fuck back in anger

In my travels through Kinksville, I've been all kinds of horny, but rarely angry at the same time. The closest I can remember is experiencing a pent up sexual frustration with Captain, about a year ago. That was a submissive need to be used, to be taken, to be fucked: to have an emptiness filled. This was almost precisely the reverse.

I was at a club, with Mannequin and a number of The Collective. We were very much in public and something in me had just snapped. I needed to use, to take, to fuck. To let all my frustration and annoyance boil over inside me and vent out into someone else's body. It wasn't passion, or sexual desire as such, it was about power. I absolutely needed to exert myself over her. Not play, certainly not my usual, planned, coolly methodical and detailed play.

Every single part of me was screaming out to do something violent. I was vaguely aware, through the heat of it, of an audience and could maintain a certain dark humour to the edge in my voice thanks to the role - I was taking the part of a military rakish cad, and she was my doxy. I barked for kit -for all the kit, any of the kit. And for my girl who was in easy reach, although her corset made me wish I'd bought it for her so I could just take a knife, cut the fiddly cords and throw the thing over my shoulder.

I pushed her down, hard against the bed, pulling off the rest of her clothes and unbuckling the thick leather belt from my waist, feeling the heavy weight of it against my hands. I hit her raised bottom with it, feeling her jerk back a little. That felt good. More than good. It felt right. There was something about the whole combination - my savage urges, her willingness to accept them. Even how we both looked enhanced the mood: her vulnerable and feminine in strips of lacy cotton, me strapped down and boyish in white vest, braces, big black boots. I looked and felt like an utter bastard and was relishing every moment.

A few blows with the belt and that was as close to foreplay as I got. Dildo went in the strap-on harness I'd fortunately had the presence of mind to put on before leaving the house. Lube. Condom. Her cunt. Fucking. Fucking until my legs were tired of fucking and I needed to drag her into an alcove and procure Boy Wonder to fuck her against the cold, dirty brick. Not til she was satisfied, but until I was.

Thinking back, there was nothing nice about what I did. Ringmaster turned around to me later and said "That wasn't for her. That was for you." He was right. It was about use. About what I wanted, and what I took. Like pounding the pavement on a hard run following a bad day, there's an exhilaration in getting it out, but also a self-centered-ness. Something you do for yourself.

It wasn't even about an urge to hurt her specifically - in the sort of mood I was in I'd have ripped or punched any soft target. Hurting her was better than hurting anyone else though. Safer and more satisfying. Not only because I knew my passion would fall on appreciative ground, but because she wasn't the cause of my frustration - she wasn't being punished. I was using her to make me feel better. And that was what we both wanted.

The day after, sated, tired. I lay in the sunshine on her lap and she fed me grapes. I've got an email in my inbox full of appreciation for what I did. The thrill of behaving like that and getting thanked for it.

I am a lucky bastard, and no mistake.

Boy troubles

Hi, I'm electronic doll. And I have a boy problem.

Turning the events of last weekend over in my mind now that I'm a little more able to express them without just repeatedly typing the words "I am an idiot" over and over again.

Friday evening. Happy and high from a small but perfectly formed play session with Mannequin, I unexpectedly happened upon Dandy playing intently with a roped-up submissive. I reacted by telling him to "fuck off" then storming out the building leaving confused friends in my wake.

The trouble wasn't what had just happened on the night, although it was an unpleasant surprise. It was my own understanding of where we were, and how my hopes and expectations caused miscommunication. The day before we'd had a classic "let's be friends" conversation. I explained my frustrations over lack of play and how I was having to quash and control my nascent feelings for him. He was clearly very unhappy and dealing with the emotional fallout from his previous relationship. We then discussed how he didn't want sex, intimacy or play or really any human contact beyond a hug. We hugged, we held hands. Then (crucially) we kissed, which broke all the circuits created by our conversation.

I'll admit to being confused. I'll also admit that my feelings for him meant that I probably erred on the optimistic "he actually wants me really" side rather than the "that was just a kiss" side. I let myself believe what I wanted to believe. I allowed myself to be let down. I do it a lot. We've talked since and cleared the air, although the hangover of feelings remains and I'm waiting for it to die down.

In the meantime, I have a problem. It's a very specific boy problem. I have always had it and probably always will. There is no known cure, and it can cause the world of difficulties on the kinky circuit: I get attached. Easily. To certain kinds of boys.

Here's how it works. I know that the person I will settle down with, for love and for keeps, is going to be male. It will also be one person - although we might chose to be open I know that emotionally I am not poly. The problem only occurs if I am single and available. If I already have a specific partner who fits my parameters or if I'm still feeling sore over the loss of a previous one, then, swan-like, I won't be interested in forming a serious bond with another until the feelings for them have faded.

I have a very particular type that clicks very strongly. I know them by their smell, I can track them down the street. Dandy falls squarely into that type. One of my long-term exes met at him and said "It's like looking in a mirror." At least I'm consistent. Something about them screams in my hind brain as being right for me and I need to have them. They are quite rare - to date I've met four or five - which might account for the ferocity of my response when I do find them.

When it happens, it happens. I can feel it happening. There's usually a point where I can back off, but generally, I don't, because that would be going everything that I want to do right there and then. And I'm only flesh and blood. So we fuck, or in certain instances, a kiss is enough. And it happens. Chemical reaction. Magic. Physical desire and lust at first but it will blossom into something else if allowed to do so. It will become a beautiful thing. If it can.

But if those feelings have nowhere to go I will get angry and frustrated. This is when it become really ugly. This is where I stop being rational and start to need very clear rules of engagement or the part of me that is deeply animal, into territorial pissing and obstinately uncivilised will get very angry. This is where D/s helps, actually, because it means I can sit down and agree with them what we are doing, how often and where. As long as there is clarity, I can manage. And this is how The Photographer and I mediated our relationship. And also how it broke down, because the weight of what I wanted was too much for what he had to give.

Rightly or wrongly, I size this sort of man (more than other men, and more than women) up as future partners. And I do not want to share them emotionally. This means that there is more stress, more pressure on my interactions with them. More capacity for emotional investment and, when it goes wrong, for unhappiness. Sometimes I despair a little because it makes life difficult and complicated. However, it is just how I am and frankly, can't be helped. It's also the side of me that makes me passionate, energised and, eventually, when it works, deeply, wholly and utterly in love.

I'm now firmly in an "off phase" at the moment, sulking and glowering a little until I've sorted myself out from this latest failure. It will fade, I know. And there will be others, I know. Especially with the Spring weather wrapping itself around my heart and my cunt in such a way that each bouncing step is getting nearer and nearer to a predator's click on the pavement.

Dedicated follower of fashion

"Fashions fade, but only style remains."

I'm always going to support a woman who favoured androgynous styles. There are fashions (popular styles and practices) in BDSM as in everywhere else. Tastes change as time goes on, not only in fetish wear but in what people do, how they do it and with what.

There is a current yen for Ultra Violence in public play, particularly scenes that resemble, and in some cases are, "proper" fights: grappling, wrestling, punching, kicking and martial arts. Ultra Violence is a very showy form of BDSM, and as an exhibitionist I can fully understand the attraction. It's big, loud and brash, it looks terrifying and makes everyone feel hopped up on adrenaline as well as feeling like they are in Fight Club.

Now, I perform violence when I do live torture shows and I have been known to enjoy struggle play. But those are much more about the illusion or threat of violence. It is very rare that I hit or am hit with anything like full force. In private, I don't actually play especially hard as my first preference. Generally, I like the more D/s aspects of care and control. When it comes to pain delivery I tend to go for very focused and detailed "sharp" pains such as needles or electricity. So whilst UV is on my kinky spectrum, it's not my number one priority.

There's an anxiety from certain quarters (warranted or not) about the safety of UV and following from this, some criticism of how younger members of the scene are playing and allowing others to play - I include myself in this since I've had such comments directed at groups I'm involved in. I'll admit that I have also been a little unnerved at the prevalence of such play, especially when it seems to involve blows that are not pulled and using techniques that stem from combat training rather than play techniques.

However, UV is an exciting form of play, and given that nothing we do in BDSM (or in life) is without risk, what exactly is the problem here, if everyone is consenting - is it just another in the long list of things that we have done to upset our elders and supposed betters on the scene or do we risk overlooking a serious concern in favour of turning into yet another Old Guard vs New Guard false binary debate?

I've outlined the attractions of UV, so here's some of the problems. I think we need to be mindful of the way that this can make the scene can look to outsiders. This is something of a concern, because attracting and maintaining new blood (and new, male submissive blood in particular) is an ongoing issue. This isn't to say that we should reign in our passions or our predilections because of fear of what other people might say, but it is worth bearing the "trend factor" in mind when you are dealing with new folk. Or indeed if you are new (hi!) and you see/hear about it.

The problem with trends is that whenever something is a la mode, it becomes common to talk about and to display it in public. It becomes representative of the scene as a whole. It can even be a major part of what the scene is and there is a danger that something which is simply The New Black becomes a shibboleth for entry into Kinksville. This could be true of any sort of play, not just UV - and it marks certain sorts of play as "better" than others (which, unless we are talking about genuine and real safety concerns, doesn't exist). So if the cycle of trend makes something out to be the be all and end all, then there's an issue. There's nothing more damaging for the scene, and by extension for ourselves, as making people feel excluded because they don't play hard enough, heavy enough or in X or Y fashion.

The second point is more related to the type of BDSM that UV represents. Excessive force is dangerous, especially martial arts or fighting styles - that's what they are for. They are not designed for play, they are designed for hurting people. When it comes to any sort of heavy, fast, violent play (of which UV is only one) things can go wrong and people can get actually hurt. So, knowing that, and being a bunch of responsible, peer-supportive type kinksters, what do we do?

I've had innumerable conversations about UV and recently organised a small peer learning workshop with martial artists and stage combat practitioners. Now, we didn't reach any grand or dizzying conclusions beyond anything you might know yourself, but the event was well worth doing because it reinforced some points I've suspected:

People are squishy and vulnerable. Oh how true this is! There's nothing like a room of perverts with mixed fighting skills to show you just how many ways there are to really hurt someone. And these aren't "just" punches and kicks, these are broken bones, broken backs and going-to-a-hospital-in-a-hurry injuries. More to the point, even amongst the four of us, there was extra-ordinary variation in where and how the same action hurt, or didn't hurt, how it could be done or if it could be done at all.

Combat training that teaches you to kill people is dangerous. I did say they weren't ground breaking conclusions. But it's always worth checking the obvious. And we decided that some things are just not safe in a play context and cannot be made sufficiently safe. There is a school of thought that all risk can be mitigated, and whilst that is true, we do not all have multi-million pound budgets and sometimes the reward is not worth the effort needed. We worked on ways to deliver the same result in different ways.

Violence - and simulated violence - is hard to do even if you know how to do it properly. We all warmed up, stretched, talked through what we were doing and knew what we were doing. We still made mistakes. We forgot things that we had been taught. We landed funny. We hit harder than we should have done and began to react in "non-play" ways: this was especially the case when we got "in the zone", which is precisely the sort of situation that is likely to occur in play - adrenaline and excitement can take over even the most careful, controlled and experienced person.

Your environment and your partner will be as much, if not more, of a factor than you. We were working in an extremely controlled and safe situation. During a scene it is unlikely that there will have been, as in this case, step by step discussion of what is going to happen, your partner will not know everything you are going to do. You will not know everything about how they will react, and even if you have prepared the space yourself you may not be aware of all environmental factors.