Beholder

Those who say that cameras steal the soul have not been photographed by Rossetti. Every click nourishes my ego, my vanity and I return home having scrolled through glimpses of her captures feeling like I'm walking on clouds. Seen through the lens, seen through someone else's eyes my body is a canvas for the play of light and shadow. It becomes a thing of beauty, I become a piece of art.As confident a swagger and bright a mood as if I'd just had a play session.

Perhaps there are similarities. Planning and executing a photo shoot is not dissimilar from running a scene: set up needs to be done, consideration given to physicality (if anything I am more body-focused before a shoot than before a scene, when playing I am in motion, in control and in flux, when photographed I am static and the results will last for longer. The power play is more subtle than garish tales of casting couches but it is there nonetheless. I present myself for the consumption of the camera and my body tells stories with the shapes it casts in the light. There is an intimacy to it, as she moves and poses me - doll like - into just the right position for each shot. The odd command: "stay right there" or exclamation "beautiful".

One of the advantages of androgyny is a playing with a chameleon palette of gender and sexuality. We did two main sets, both of which are designed to capture my androgyny and the contrast of curves and cut in my physique. The first was a geisha style shot, full white makeup and slicked back darkened hair with skin revealed around a descending kimono. I clasped my hands to my chest, fingers hidden in long sleeves, to create a line that might have been breasts or might have been pectoral muscles. My shoulders and back are now defined enough under good light to cause a second glance, and I hoped to capture some of the expression of Onngata or perhaps a "forced feminisation".

The second was a series of nudes. I wanted "muscle" shots to capture the definition and sculpting that I've been working so hard on for something like the past two years. This was my first set of styled studio nudes for a long time, we try to work with more classical "masculine" poses so I end up flexing and tensing a lot to get the best out of my shape. This one was more focused on lines and angles than on a story as such so we set up with dark fabrics for background contrast and well trained light to pick out the edges of my muscles.

I love the act of being photographed. Spending a day getting in and out of costume and makeup and running through different poses and portraits is a luxury: photos capture moments stolen from the real world, in which I can be glamorous and untouchable, beautiful and unreal. It is also a performance, and I always enjoy slipping out of myself and adopting a role. I once had a rather rude comment on some dating website that the photos I'd uploaded couldn't possibly be of the same person. I was quite proud of that and took it as an unwitting (there was little witty about the turn of phrase used) compliment: that I have that flexibility in presentation. There is pleasure in this kind of masquerade. Yes, I dissemble to perform and yet no lie is ever completely dishonest. There are grains of truth in each post I adopt. I take a portion of myself that I want to express and the idea is held it in place with each click of the button.

Photographs are not merely private games to idle away a rainy day or a tool to massage my ego after a week of minor (and major) irritations. They are marks of progress and reminders for my future when I no longer look like this. They are also collaborations that I am proud of, something I have made of myself, for myself - like my body and my life, they represent the control I have over my identity and sense of self. And of course, they are beautiful things in and of themselves.

Actions speak louder

The practical to balance out the theory from my mummification session with Boy Wonder.

It starts with a (small) glass of wine for both of us, and a quiet chat. A standard run down just to sift out anything I might have missed in our email exchanges. It's also time to gauge his responses, his eagerness, his desire and his nerves - how he is right now as opposed to how he presents himself or how he thinks he is. As I talk, I can feel myself held at the ready. My speech is low and calm. I'm already starting to talk less and I can feel the need to shut up pressing against me. Words are in the way.

In mostly silence, I take him in hand. I like stripping people, or forcing them to strip. The control over their state and method of undress is part of the preparation, the transformation from their day-to-day selves into the thing they will become which belongs to me. A physical and mental disrobing, redressing the imbalance. They move from control of themselves to being controlled by me. Plus I like to watch, to touch the skin as it becomes exposed. Inspecting the smooth flesh as it is revealed, the smell of them and sometimes even the taste.

Once done, I blindfold him and give him earplugs to wear. The more of the outside world I shut out, the more inside his own head he will become and also the more reliant upon me. Once the blindfold goes on I've forgotten about him as a person. There are no eyes to catch mine, no face to empathise with - and in this is the essence of my power exchange: I am real, he is not. A living toy. Warm flesh that breathes and responds to my touch. Something to care for, to manage and control. To use and abuse as I see fit and put away.

The wrapping completes the process the undressing started. This is actually hard work: the roll is heavy and a bit unwieldy and the pallet wrap sticks to itself so I go slowly. The room is warm and I divest myself of clothes as I go along, amused that he cannot see me strip. Control resides in what we do not allow others to have, even if they do not know they are being denied it. The things I am keeping to myself, keeping from him are pieces of power: glimpses of my body, his sight, sound. All feelings and sensations that he cannot have because they are mine. I hoard them like a dragon sitting on gold and they nourish my domination.

I work piecemeal - doing sections of his body, bit by bit turning him from person to thing. Arms go first so that hands and fingers become mitts of shiny black plastic. Then the chest, taking care to keep the scissors just near enough so that he can feel the flick of the cold metal, but not so close as to actually cut. Threatened violence is almost always more frightening than violence delivered. The knowledge that I could do something, should I wish to, fills me up with a shudder of pleasure. He's flopping slightly, hopefully sinking down lower into space as I wrap him tightly. I take a sheet of wrap and pull it taut against his mouth and nose, holding tight. The shock makes him go rigid against me as I count in my head before puncturing a hole with my fingers, letting him suck them briefly before finishing the job.

It takes a time to do mummification, and I enjoy taking my time. The leisure of being in control is an abiding pleasure. There is no need to rush, because the time frame is my own. We stop when I am bored. For now, I am having fun. I have learnt, and am perhaps still learning, that I find a lot of sexual satisfaction in patient and detailed control. The kinky equivalent of a house of cards. Lining everything up just so. Then admiring what I have created. A shiny cocoon, the central portion raising and falling. A collar round the neck, almost ironic, for such ownership would surely be conferred on a person rather than the object in front of me? I've him around, on his side in a Z shape, and the plastic is pulled taut over him bottom (he has a lovely bottom) which presents an irresistible target for a few blows. I worm my fingers against the plastic, making a hole for a vibe to warm him up then a lubed plug to slide into him before I wrap him up again and roll him onto his back. I cut a space near his hard cock and pull it out from the plastic. It is exposed and vulnerable outside of the wrapping. Lube, condom and a vibrating cock ring create a fuck toy in waiting.

So I wait.

I like the contrasting mixture of distance and intimacy in mummification (contrast is something I seem to enjoy as a dominant as well as a submissive). I am very close to him, physically, but the distance in power is immense. He is passive, waiting. Every now and then he will shudder or utter a little moan that I know reflects desire to be touched and used. I parcel out my attentions as if he was a bird on a lure, keeping him circling, not coming in to ground. Unsatisfied and therefore in need.

Eventually, I fuck him. This pristine object created for my use. And it is use. No doubt he feels pleasure, and so he should, but that is not my concern. I am enjoying selfishness. Similarly, later on when he's unwrapped and rested, I tie him up, beat him a little then fuck him with a strap-on. The urge to take and to take over his body is a wordless, thoughtless (but not and never careless) act.

I used to feel edgy about being quiet when I play - both as a submissive and a dominant. But I'm more used to it now. it's part of how I play and something the switch doesn't change. Talking comes from the wrong part of my brain, the intellectual, rational social part has been done. Now is the gut response, animal instinct and a cool, hard, acquisitive drive. Time spent talking is time I'm not concentrating, not enjoying, not focusing my attentions, on what is at hand. Oftentimes excessive talking can represent or create anxiety, there's a power in letting the silence fill up the room and just be bodies in free fall.

I do, of course, love words. But not wordiness. TLDR. Finding the correct word, being precise, saying what you mean and meaning (truly meaning and understanding) what you say is very important. Clarity and purpose in language is close to being a fetish. But so is context. Dirty talk can be hot, I know, from my own submission, and hearing the dominant speak is important to feel connected to them. But it's a tool, to be used sparingly. Less is more. Especially with praise. Use too often and they become background noise. The words that do come out are not idle chatter but bright, sharp bullets fired from my subconscious. Things that need to be articulated, not merely filling, obliterating, the silence.

Falling asleep, arms wrapped around his chained form. A light kiss on the shoulder is a goodnight kiss and worth a thousand words.

For a boy's eye view, go here.

Confidence is a preference for the habitual voyeur...

In discussion with Majeste over IM and we agreed that the most important thing to giving a good dominant scene was confidence. In yourself (as a person, as a dominant person), in your physical skill set, in your subject and being able to manage whatever they or the situation might throw at you.

If I have a recurring problem or blocker as a dominant is that I am cautious. I tend to go in slowly and gently, both with the play itself and with selecting partners. I know what is driving this, the thing that drives almost all barriers to progress: fear. Fear that I will actually hurt someone. Fear that I won't be good enough or interesting enough or exciting enough.

The cure for fear? Confidence. Easy to say.

Last night was a wonderful example of how confidence operates, different aspects that come together and really make a scene work. I had my first actual play session with Boy Wonder and am walking with a spring in my step, grinning wolfishly whilst replaying that expression of bleary eyed joy on his face.

I'm going to use this post to run through the practicalities of scene arrangement, then run through the scene proper in another. This is because the two headspaces are very different and distinct to me. There was a sense in which, once everything had been done and put into place, the scene itself happened on rails: naturally, fluidly and working out better than I had anticipated. I am reasonably convinced that this was because I'd put in the groundwork to really think about what I wanted to deliver.

We've been in very casual public play contact then in spiralling diary re-scheduling since Christmas and I was both excited but at the same time concerned: new play partners create new sets of working parameters and I always feel that it is more likely that something will "go wrong" in this situation. Fear. Not mind-numbing amounts of terror, but some fear nonetheless.

I combat fear (garner confidence) by taking control, which is a nice dominant trait (the alternative when I'm submitting is completely ceding control - I am a control freak either way I switch, it seems). The first thing was the recognition that he wanted me and was excited, and when a good looking boy wants to play with you, there's a burst of confidence right there. Add to that the fact he was also somewhat nervous too. Good. That means I'm worth being nervous about - games of pain and power involve ensuring that the submissive is at least a little twitchy about what might happen. It's a balancing act of excitement: to keep them agitated but not in complete call-the-police panic.

We'd been in email conversation and I had a rough idea of what I wanted to do - make a mummification fucktoy. It was a good choice for a first time because it's "quiet" submission know and love mummification: restrictive bondage and objectification are two very big buttons for me as a dominant (it's controlling, depersonalising and dismissive - what's there not to like?). It was also something he'd never done before so that meant I could take a cherry and had no comparisons that could be drawn. All bonus points.

Next stage was space. Preparing a space to play is a therapeutic exercise in itself. The area needs to be clean and attractive (lit candles, fresh sheets, no dirty socks on the floor). Playing in my own house is not ideal, frankly - it's the space where I live my "normal" life and I am always hesitant about inviting people back because it is a soft space, full of the noise and chatter of the complete me rather than the part of me I might want to present. Also, I share a house, so I am not in full control of the entire space, which means play happens in my bedroom. Again, not ideal. Bedrooms can imply human warmth, intimacy and loving sex which are things that I might not always want to convey, especially when the plan for the scene is objectification.

Then I laid out the toys, making sure that everything I needed was ready and to hand, including the vitally important pallet wrap and the less obviously important but really useful fluffy towel and bottle of water. Finally, I prepared myself. I made sure I had a good half an hour to sit down and to run through in my mind what I was going to do. Little things like making sure I was comfortable in what I was wearing, apply perfume. Relax.

The doorbell rang. I felt prepared. Walking slowly to the door with a slink to my hips and a half-smile. My mind slipped from "concerned preparation mode" and into "dominant" space. I was ready.

Game on...

1,001 nights

That's it. As of midnight tonight I'll have outdone Scheherazade, as well as being eight times longer than De Sade.

It has been a thousand and one days since I started this blog. So worth going to the beginning and seeing how the experiment has unfolded, thanking those involved (you know who you are) especially those who, however fleeting, allowed me to experience some very valuable "first times".

It hasn't been without it's problems or challenges, but the old adage does hold true. And I have no regrets - even the things that have hurt me the most are memories that make me who I am, and instances that have taught me how to do better next time, how to be better next time.

Over coffee this morning, with Rossetti and Dandy, I realised that this blog is one of my proudest accomplishments to date. Not just the words I've written but what they represent: my own personal journey of discovery, the amazing people I've met, self-awareness and, yes, self worth. A massive step-change in my understanding and enjoyment of my body, my sexuality and my life. I honestly believe that I am a different, stronger and ultimately better person than when I put fingers to keyboard back in 2008.

I am more me.

In light of this, I'm going to restate my original intentions.

This is a place marker in this blog. It's still an online diary of sex and sexuality, but there's other things too. Not quite life, love and the kitchen sink but "how I fuck" has surprised me in terms of the material and thoughts it generates.

I'm a queer woman in my early thirties. I'm fortunate to live in the world's greatest playground. I do B, D, S and M but I'm still working out what that means. As an aide memoir and exercise in understanding I write about what I do and how it felt. I hope to never stop learning.

I remain honest about what I share here. I look forward to meeting you.

Rabbit hole

I'm helping out Different Drummer with a hypnosis project on pain. By "helping out" I mean that we're meeting up once a week, he's putting me in trance and we're seeing how my pain responses can be turned off.

What I hadn't expected was quite how easy and how needed going into a trance state was. I know I'm a bit tired and run down at the moment, I'm expending a lot of energy both on work and my kink (totally worth it!) but what I'm not getting is much down-time. Domination is energy intensive, like working out, it makes you feel energised in the sense that you are stronger, sharper and powerful. But it's also tiring. A good sort of tired, and you have the satisfaction of having built or created something, yet tired all the same.

Permission to turn off is rare in any case in kinky or vanilla situations. When was the last time you actually took a break from doing anything? To drop everything and let go, relax, ignore all anxieties or concerns is a luxury. Not falling asleep, killing time or passing out. Not waiting for something, anything to happen. Doing nothing.

It's been a while since I've been anywhere deep and quiet, inside myself. The room is quiet. I'm laid down on my bed and listening to his voice which is strong and low. Familiar too. Safe. I've done this before, I know how it works. That's both a positive and negative point. I can hear the familiar ticks in his voice, in how he is guiding me down using repetition, the lowering of timbre on certain words, the pacing and timing. On the other hand, knowing how it works doesn't stop something from working, if anything, it's like going through a house you've visited before. It makes the journey less strange and of course, I want to go on the journey.

So there I am. Bottoming out.

Eyes closed. Breathing regular and slow. Feeling the air loop around on itself and inside me, forever and ever like a lemniscate. Holding pattern in the blackness of Infinity. I shut out the chatter and let my mind filter around, images flicker like a broken cinema behind the lids of my eyelids. I try not to focus on any particular thought, just let them flow over - the flotsam and jetsam of the day, ready to be washed over.

Suggestions within his voice trigger responses within me, key words: heavy, light, down, warm, relax. They are keys that turn in locks, dropping me down another level, then another, then another. My body gets heavy quickly - feet and legs first, sinking into the mattress. Trance state is safe space. It is not, however, empty space. There are places within myself that I can explore. The first ones are familiar from my own meditation practice, but beyond them there are more and they feel intensely personal, secret and also surprising. They are new, and thinking about them, how they looked, smelt and felt to the touch of my mind's fingers I wonder where they came from, these spaces inside are part of me, I created them.

I'm floating in a deep pool carved from a black volcanic glass, lined with fragrant magnolia flowers. I look up to the ceiling to the starry sky which is also the firing neurones and constellations of my own mind. A staircase opens up, next to an old fashioned grandfather clock (it is, in fact a clock that my grandfather made for me). The water pours lazily down the slick steps and I half float, half walk down the glass steps, holding carefully to the black iron wrought handles. Into a gigantic, fleshy heart. Which is my heart. I push at the beating, bloodied matter and it opens easily. It is warm, but not unpleasantly so. There's a sort of bed or couch, complete with cushions, in one corner so I curl up on it and watch the blood pulse in and out of my heart, to different bits of my body as my arm becomes deadened according to the suggestions from Different Drummer. It feels cold and light, I have an image of a skeletal hand, shedding fine grains of white sand. Lost to me. I take up it's image in my mind - a tarot card with a hand of glory picture and walk down to the next room.

An attic in the basement. Old fashioned furniture covered in dust sheets - a bedstead, mirror and some other shapes out into the darkness. The room is cool and has no visible walls or ceiling. the floor is littered with shop mannequin parts. Arms. Legs. Heads. Torsos. My absent body, that I have abstracted from myself, to view from afar.

He pinches my hand. I know he is pinching my hand because eventually I recognise the twist of the flesh. Then it hurts. A little. But not before. My skin has that ghostly numb quality to it. Internally, I smile. First step taken. Looking forward to more.

Doing girls

"Why do you play with girls?"

A question I ponder every now and then, especially in conversations with Majeste. Something that struck me once again, last night over dinner with a prospective new (female) play partner. We discussed the anxieties and challenges of forming connections and meaningful relationships with women. We both have poor experiences of women, well, girls, from our school days. The sort of ongoing, oppressively vindictive, back-stabbing campaigns of fair weather friends, lies, secrets and bitchy bullying that never made its way into Mallory Towers. The conceit, often expressed and supported by society at large that women are "not nice" or "out to get you." There is a belief that women are unable to co-operate, certainly not with each other, and that women will lie to your face then smile about it. We did joke that men were also often out to get you, they just were more open and honest about it.

So how can that formulate into the desire to play with women? For her, it was because she finds women attractive, more so than men. For me it is part of an ongoing process over the years of Dealing With Women. The first step is making friends with women: aside from a couple of close friends from my University days most of my friendships have been with men. The Ladies Who have been a fundamental part of this, they have taught me how to relate to women as a grown-up, not as a schoolgirl, they have also taught me what adult sexual exploration and friendship can look like. They have taught me to appreciate and understand female flesh and female company without feeling awkward or out of place, or wondering where the catch is. And that women in a group can be powerful, supportive of each other and neither catty nor fluffy. I owe them rather a lot, come to think of it.

Because I enjoy bodies and because variety in bodies is an important part of my development as a dominant, women are an important part of my nutritionally balanced sexual diet. On one hand, that does sound rather callous, as if I am including people solely as "tick box" participants in my own personal experiments. There is a little of that, perhaps, but I still find them attractive, it's just I'm currently stearing towards variety in a deliberate quest to understand more about myself, my play and BDSM in general. First and foremost I find particular people attractive, regardless of their gender. At the moment, I have a reasonably fifty fifty balance of male and female partners. What they have in common is me, and that they are striking in some way: beautiful and different.

Language makes a bid to be noticed in my conversations surrounding gender and dominance. For example, I will use the word "girls" specifically in the sense that my male submissive partners are "boys". In almost any other context I would avoid calling a woman a girl. A diminutive makes them softer, more open, a little less-than but with the emphasis on the kinds of support and input they require from me. Perhaps it also makes them less scary? By making women my de-personified, sexual toys they do not cause any of the anxieties I might otherwise hold. On the other hand, I do the same thing with "boys" rather than "men". The linguistic knack of making smaller is a common trope for all sorts of power plays, and is a dominant feature rather than a "playing with women" feature.

The discussion turned naturally toward sexual and kinky identity and the difficulty of labels when one finds people attractive as people, rather than as male, female, gay or straight. I'm not gay. I'm not really bisexual in the sense that when in those rare moments when I imagine my future life partner they are male. I've taken to identifying as queer because it covers the multitude of sins, personal and political, that I like to indulge in whilst also clearly stating "not straight". I'm also prone to outbursts of masculinity and androgyny at the same time as being absolutely comfortable and, certainly in the past couple of years, confident in my female body.

As reminded by Hedwig today, the gender-flip/queer aspect is quite heavy in my play. I wondered briefly whether I dominate girls as a woman or as a man, but then remembered I hold equally powerful masculine submissive fantasies, that centered around being the teenage male bottom. I think it is possible that my flexibility on this front is what enables me to enjoy playing with such a variety of people in different ways, it's certainly something that Spirit has mentioned when we've discussed how our power dynamic might operate.

Ultimately, I am a queer woman. Sitting in the middle. Playing with that which takes my fancy in ways that utilise power tropes drawn from all angles of the gender sphere.

As my thoughts meandered around, I started to feel that my presupposed and perceived differences between dominating women rather than dominating men were actually few, far between and relatively superficial when compared to the difference between dominating person A and person B. Eventually, I boiled it down to two clear, discernable differences between my feelings about playing with men and playing with women. One is familiarity. I have much more experience with male bodies. Women's bodies are still new and strange to me, despite having one of my own - and I am slowly, slowly learning that my own remembered sensations are not always the best guidelines for how someone else might respond. This makes women both nerve wracking and also exciting.

The second is about switching. I find it a lot easier to dominate women than to submit to them, which is interesting. I've had a lot of fun bottoming to women - Spiral springs to mind rather ferociously, as is her wont, ditto Rossetti. But being dominated was always a psychological and emotional challenge. Having thought about it for quite a long time, I'm convinced that the major stumbling block in my sexual relationship with Majeste was that the submissive that I was then just didn't sit at all well, with her very clear and strong sense of femaleness which went hand in hand with her dominance. What I'm not sure about is why this might be.

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps on some subconscious level, part of me is still anxious about how I relate to women, especially emotionally. By remaining dominant towards them I maintain control and therefore safe. And with even more "perhaps-ing" involved could the fact that, in my mind's eye, I do not view women as potential future life partners mean that the deep-down emotional connection that is part of my submission is wary of them or entirely absent?

I'm very uncertain about these sorts of ideas - they strike me as explanations or reasons for something that is basically unreasonable: desire. They are also based on a very low sample of the human population: those people I've fucked. It's fair to say that actually I find relatively few people attractive and even less of those people are kinky or interested in me. Plus, I'm still exploring. Just because I have yet to develop a serious emotional attachment to either a woman or, to date, a submissive (of any gender) doesn't mean I won't.

Time will tell. In the meantime, more input required.

Pieces of bodies

I am fortunate to have a number of very attractive and interesting people to play with. Curiously (or perhaps not, I've found that a high proportion of those who are obviously good looking are also over-anxious about their looks) there is also a preponderance of body-consciousness. So much so that some of my recent feedback emails have included worries about how they looked whilst I was dominating them, including to the extent that this distracts from their libido or ability to enjoy being in subspace.

Some of this post is taken from replies I've sent to them. Reassurances that took a curious turn because they were less about the "there, there" and more about my own analysis on how I see the submissives I'm playing with, when I'm playing with them.

I don't see bodies the way their owners do. No-one ever does, we are always far more critical of our own physicality, more painfully aware of its flaws than any outsider. We perceive the minute errors and imperfections. Those watching only see the whole, which is unknown, new and thus unfamiliar carrying with it no judgement of good or bad.

There is a huge difference between how I see the person over dinner, enjoying their blushes. eye shimmers or cheeky grins as I do my preliminary pre-play discussions and how I see the thing laid out for me to play with. Those words are important. My dominance de-personalises: it makes objects for my affection. The things that carried them from the restaurant to my bedroom - who they are, how they laugh, the way they look down when embarrassed, their wicked sense of humour, fine turn of phrase. These things all evaporate and become vapour which is held in a place where I can smell it and bring it to mind but does not always connect directly to what is in front of me. They are not that person, not entirely. They are what is left when they have given part of their will, their personhood over to me.

They are a landscape of beautiful, available, responsive flesh. Not a body, but body parts. Often segmented by rope, latex, leather or chain. Bits are removed - eyes taken with blindfolds, mouths blocked with gags. The angles might be wrong: bent double over spanking benches or spread out in a cross or coiled in a hog-tie. When I play, I see shapes.

Sometimes I do stop and stare at what is in front of me and grin because it is pretty, it is wonderful but it's not an aesthetic that would sell perfume. It's heaps of matter. And it's mine. That sense of ownership, although transient, is still powerful. And it engenders a kind of hunger to consume, to make happen, to impose upon. Once I'm in domspace I'm not looking at a submissive in the same way that I would if they were moving towards me across a dance floor. Here, it is a conduit for reactions and responses to what I am doing, a space for me to demonstrate power.

When they are strapped down and I'm about to play, I don't think about their looks except as a memory. That decision on how hot they were was made when we first met, when I first decided I liked the look of you. All the judgement calls and thoughts on who they are and whether I think that they are pretty were done back when they were a person. Now they are my thing. A beautiful thing, but still a thing. Without a face, without will and perhaps without a voice. You are skin, muscles, flesh and bone that I can make dance.

I no longer see the boy or girl whose hand I perhaps held an hour or so ago. Although I remember them and smile.

I see this. Skin that goes pink and shivvered into goosebumps. Tattoos that raise with sensitivity. Purple lines that bloomed into being. Sweat. Hair falling over the pillow in a halo. The contrast of skin against the bonds. The lips of labia swelling, getting wet and firm. Internal muscles parting and softening as I press through them. The way a chest rises and falls. Nipples blooming pink and rising. Cocks hardening and twitching. Veins. A mouth that opened and gave little gasps as I pushed against you. Tiny little whimpers and knuckles that go white. A knot in the underside of a shoulderblade massaged away with my hands. Feet, pointing or crossing onto each other. Fingers clenching and unclenching.

Parts. Beautiful, expressive parts.

The submissive body is fractured into pieces and I play with it like a cat with a willing mouse until I am done. They become whole again only when we're done. Aftercare is like the process of putting us both back together again: it's not just about the submissive coming out of subspace and back to themselves, it's also about me coming down from domspace (even as I write I note that subspace is "down" and domspace is "up") and connecting with them again as a person, a friend and a lover.

Heart / Strings

The problem with no-strings attached relationships is exactly that. No strings. No expectations. You can't berate casual partners for not dropping everything to come and be at your bedside on a whim when they are half way across town doing something else. Strings entangle, they make knots, and they pull. They pull both ways. Without them, there is less stress and worry. For the most part, "no strings" is good - it fits in with how busy I am, and how busy those I'm playing with are. Sometimes it smarts a little, when I can't instantly get what I want but I appreciate the fact this means I do not have to deliver at all times, either. A cancelled date or two just need to be shrugged off because in the grand scheme of things I am not the most important thing in their life. And neither are they to me.

Which isn't to say that my relationships are not important. They are and I care an awful lot about those under my auspices, but I am also trying to be easy going. A light touch. This all works very well when everyone is happy and not very much in need of anything deeper: it's fun, delicious and friendly. The drive for these types of relationships is self-imposed. Partly to give me physical and mental space and partly to protect myself and those I'm playing with from the encumberance of serious, weighty emotional entanglements. I know that my lovers' hearts belong to other people, and I know that my heart is not (not yet, not quite) ready to fall in love again.

But it has recovered enough for me to feel the absence of love.

Maybe it's because Valentines Day is approaching, and I'm a sucker for annual marketing schemes. Perhaps because a number of friends of mine are variously falling in, falling out or generally being in love. It's in the air. More and more I keep getting a twinge of wishing that there were more strings. Wanting to have someone who is mine, there for me, but not really feeling capable of getting it just yet. It's quite frustrating.

Dominance has its own set of anxieties. The worry about being "good enough" still persists but in a different kind to its submissive sibling, especially when you are playing with people who are not exclusive to you and who you don't see very often. There is a limit on what you can do, when and how much. It affects the quality and type of dominance, making it focus much more around the scene itself and then retreating back to almost nothing at other times.

The freedom of loose, unaffiliated exchange is also a freedom from the comfort, reassurance and solace of bonds and ties. Each time I play a scene I feel as if I am starting from scratch, on some level. Consent is given (and taken) for the first and last time every single time. I feel as if I need to improve on the last time we played, to reassert my will, my dominance, because it isn't an "always on" scenario. And that's just the physical side. I feel less sure about my ability to dig deeper into my dominance and their submission when levels of consent are always flickering - when they are only mine whilst they are there, laid out, naked.

And don't get me wrong, I love those times and the recent moments of submission that have been offered to me over the past few weeks have been beautiful. But like an explorer seeing the edges of a new land, I feel as if there's more to be found. Bigger highs. Deeper space.

No requirements outside of the scene itself means that emotions stay transient, and to a certain extent, abstract. Aftermaths are about feedback messages, memories and thoughts of what to do with them next time. All of these things are good and make me smile, but I'm starting to see how they could be better. A lot of my play is about the doing and less about feelings, especially deep, lasting emotions. Especially love. The dominant I want to become wants to play in those waters of the heart. The dominant I am right now, isn't ready and more to the point would do more harm than good by playing there.

Doesn't stop me wanting it though.

"Just" sex

Assisted by Spirit who is attempting to "corrupt" me into the ways of group orgies and stranger sex. I went along to the AbFab swingers club on Friday night, and she acted as tour guide. I've been to a couple of swingers clubs before, but usually on their fetish/BDSM nights and because they were the only play club in town. Since moving down to London I've been spoilt for choice between clubs and house parties, so haven't felt the need to venture into those territories.

One of my things to do for 2011 was group sex and anonymous fucking. To date, I've had fifteen sexual partners, that is, people I've fucked or been fucked by. I've never had sex with more than two other people at the same time and have not really experienced the fleeting affair of a one night stand. I wanted to test out where my tastes lie these days, especially with the more grabby, toppy mentality I have. I know I enjoy sex as part of my kink, but what about as a sole activity?

Generally I fuck - or more often than not masturbate following play or sexualised BDSM activities. I haven't "just" had sex for a while, and certainly I select partners to play with rather than neccesarily have sex with. But I know people, Spirit in particular, as well as Dandy and Captain who really enjoy just finding someone and fucking them. I feel almost as if I have a very good understanding of kink and fetish, but only a limited knowledge of sex. It's only in the past few years that I've really become aware of how my body works and understanding its (my) needs, responses and desires. I wondered whether I could enjoy the pure physicality of sex without the intellectual or formal set up of a D/s scenario or the straps, bonds and pain of play.

By the time the evening rolled round I was nervous about what was going to happen, it was exciting to feel the flickers of anticipation in my stomach over something new and yet undiscovered. I think that the idea of going out to find someone to fuck was the most curious sensation. There was a thrill of the hunt, combined with a worry about attractiveness or quality. I suppose that I am so used to knowing who I will be fucking or playing with in advance of a night out - and often going to clubs with them. In this case it would be a complete stranger, who I would probably never see again. A body. We got ready at her house in a strange variation of a Girls' Night Out: make up, dance music, lube, dildos. We took some MDMA, which I haven't had in a while but soon recalled the familiar and deeply pleasant tingling sensations: I much prefer chem to alcohol for nights out and have had some very good experiences of both sex and play. I had managed to locate my one pair of high heels, used for doll play and bondage, and one dress that was sufficiently "sexy" by vanilla assumptions (it turns out I have no skirts or skimpy tops that aren't rubber or PVC which was deemed too scary).

We arrived and staff were very friendly and welcoming, put our stuff in the lockers and went on a tour - Spirit knew the place quite well and had been giving me advice on what we might do on the taxi there. The venue itself was not quite what I'd anticipated. I think I was expecting a sort of hotel, instead it was a large complex that had many rooms, public and private, a swimming pool and a rather cute dungeon created from converted stable areas. The entire thing was connected by various covered walkways. We walked around and attempted to gauge the crowd. It was generally older than we were, and we were the only two women together, the mix seemed to be mostly single men, with some couples. Eventually, and after a good-humoured chat about my fussiness over appearance, we spotted a likely looking chap, very much my type - broad shouldered, muscular and with good skin. We chatted briefly, then Spirit did a quick negotiation, not entirely unlike a pre-play chitchat, and headed to one of the public rooms.

A crowd of around nine or so people gathered, some of them very close: one strange, smiling man had to be swatted from stroking my naked shoulders. It was strange to have voyeurs who were looking at our bodies rather than the sort of play we were doing. It felt pornographic, and a little sleazy if I'm being honest. Not uncomfortably so, and in many respects it felt exactly right. We fucked, in a variety of arrangements, and in different spaces: the room, a pool, a private room where Spirit used a strap-on to DP me and we could watch the resulting shapes in the mirror on the ceiling.

I'm actually struggling somewhat to describe the experiences without sounding like I'm damning with faint praise. It was very easy. There was no nervousness but equally, there was no adrenaline - I didn't feel on edge or cresting any particular wave. Which in and of itself was pleasurable. It was strangely relaxing actually, and it was good but I guess it lacked the intensity and connection of BDSM. I did find myself overlaying D/s connotations over the whole night, but perhaps because I am kinky that it just going to happen wherever I am, and especially in a sexual context. I really loved having Spirit with me: we're becoming very good friends and I felt that night we shared an adventure, bonding. Plus I like fucking / being fucked by her in that no-nonsense style she has, where a half grin turns the right hand corner of her mouth upwards into a smirk. I liked that we had selected a man from the offerings, it didn't feel precisely empowering, but it did feel in control, and perhaps appealed to my dominant nature. The admiring glances we got were pleasant but I suspect that if any two women were naked at that point, there would have been the same amount of goggled-eyed attention. There was a certain sense of being the entertainment, but again that had a controlling aspect to it - we decided who we were fucking, where and how. We asked him what he wanted one or two times but generally he went where he was put. It's likely that I called him a "good boy" but I can't remember whether I did or not. Reflex.

He had a good manner to him and I did enjoy his body: strong arms and well-built pecs that were nice to touch or lean against. He had a big cock, which was a pleasant surprise for both of us. He worked up a sweat, I quite like the smell of fresh, male sweat, the effort and implications of it. He was gentle, considerate and powerful in equal measure, although to be honest by the time they penetrated me, especially once we'd gotten to the DP, I was only paying scant attention to the precise realities of the experience - the next day I actually had to be reminded of that moment and it was only the memory of looking upwards into the mirror and seeing her behind me as I fucked him from on top. Moments flickered into moments and the night is now a string of vignettes in my mind. Pool. Dungeon. Corridors.

I let go, in a way I haven't done for a long time. There was no pressure to perform. Just an enjoyment of bodies. Bottoming out and sinking into my own world of slightly abstracted flesh: floating in myself and at the end of my buzzing nerve receptors. High, yes, and enjoying that, but calm and blissed out. There was not much kissing, or foreplay between him and myself, though plenty between myself and Spirit which reflected our connection. He was there because we wanted to be fucked. Myself in particular. I was looking to be physically exhausted and worn out by the effort of it and to by able to fall into the black hole of tired sensation. I didn't want the paraphernalia of "making love" or the end point produced by orgasm. Those are private things that had no place here.

Later, we chatted over tea from Styrofoam cups, sharing a little more about our fetishes and predilections. He had a glint in his eyes which made me peg him for a submissive, especially when later we discussed water sports, but that might just have been me overlaying my own desires upon him. Which perhaps he was doing to us. I left happy, with a glow probably equal parts exercise and E, and feeling as though I'd really accomplished part what I set out to do I was very satisfied with that as a start.

X as in "fox"

I had an alphabet poster as a small child, with pictures of objects and items whose first letter began with the appropriate symbol. Except for "X" which read "X as in fox" with a picture of the animal, grinning slyly underneath. Smug at having snuck in there rather than at the more expected "F". A mixture of both secretive and sticking out like a sore thumb. Not following the rules and being noticed and special because of it.

The controversial status of the cross carries on beyond childhood challenges and into adulthood. X-rated. X marks the spot. Put your X in the box. We talk about our "exes, those lost lovers still attached by virtue of a letter. X is always transgressive, things blocked out or under erasure - a replacement for a word that cannot be spoken in polite company, or something that is unknown. We try and resolve X in equations. It is also, and at the same time, bold and definitive. X is X is X. A known unknowable within maths, language and society. A placeholder that is a signifier in and of itself. An X is traditionally as good as a signature for those without writing - even now, Xs are commonly used to signify where one should sign documents. X crosses out that which went before and puts itself in the foreground.

Foxes and Xs go hand-in-hand. Mysterious, chimerical, refusing to be pinned down or to ascribe themselves to any sort of fixed position. Strange, curious and fascinating. They resist gender stereotyping and appear male, female and many things in between. Foxes get around, linguistically and literally: almost every culture has a story about a fox. They are hard to eradicate. They are also, like Xs, sexual. Fox sounds a bit like "fucks", and along with their trademark scent there is something a little dirty, a bit of the earth about them.

This is all a rather roundabout way of saying that I've solved my problem with femdom titles, as well as decided on my next tattoo.

Responsibility twist

I've been thinking a lot about responsibility recently. It can be a bit of a dreaded "r" word, and one that I sometimes came into contact with when negotiating with prospective dominant partners. They worried about the "responsibility" of ownership, the perceived stresses and onuses of being the top in a D/s relationship, of whatever kind. I'm finding myself coming face to face with a turned table version of conversations I have in the past, as a submissive asking for particular things. This role reversal is one of the more wryly amusing and ironic parts of this current bump in my learning curve.

Responsibility a double-edged sword - it gives the thrill and excitement and rush that produces domspace, the feeling that I can do what I want, that every twitch, moan and groan is because of me. But it doesn't just happen automatically (sadly) I need to work at it - to make sure that the cruelty is intended and not just haphazard, to give "good" pain, to be able to read their body and interpret what they want, what they need. It's a funny position to be in, because whilst I'm not a service top I still need to pay attention to what submissives are interested in. To allow them to let go, to push them down into that subspace and make them helpless I must take responsibility for them. Even something as simple as putting on a blindfold means taking responsibility for being their eyes.

Responsibility makes domination work. It drives the power trip I feel when I take charge of someone else's physicality. It's about accepting that my duty, as a dominant is to "care" for those submissives under my control. Care can mean a lot of things. Loving and caring is a nice, soft phrase associated with family domesticity, caretaking is more impersonal, something done to an object or building, a care-giver works to support someone who has particular needs or perhaps is a child.

Caring means knowing and knowledge is power, which is the root of domination. See how neatly that works?

Giving good domination is about not being frightened about what you do or how much you care. Fear is the enemy of caring. It's the anxiety that is caused by this notion of responsibility: the worry that you've taken on too much of it, that you will fuck up, that it will eat all of your time and life and you will be nothing more than a husk. It's the sort of idea that is traditionally ascribed to men in relationships (and from this you can get the whiff of underlying gendered tension that crops up in a lot of BDSM interactions) that bottoms are "hard work" and that "hard work" is somehow bad, which I suppose it is, if you aren't interested or enjoying the process.

Which I am. As well as all the time also working out what I want, and how best to deliver it.