A moment of spontaneity

Friday night was not my finest moment. I was weighted down with a combination of illness, late and long working hours plus the knowledge that dinner with Mr Smith was precisely and only that: a meal and company.

Dinner with someone with whom you have effectively broken up with is never a pleasant situation, but in the curious way of BDSM and multiple relationships we still have a friendship and still have some dates in the diary for kinky activities. However, the heart of our connection is gone and that made me more mad, sad and annoying to be around than I might have otherwise thought. The knowledge that he was going home to his wife, that I was going home to myself made me feel lonely. Added to this, in one of those twists of fate I seem to trip over quite often, my decision to stop the D/s connection has actually made things better with his wife and his ability to see other casual lovers. Now, I have no interest in being either a casual lover nor his wife so there was little point in getting all dog in the manger over things but it certainly made me feel as if the universe was playing tricks.

So, feeling heavy hearted and in need of some diverting I checked OKCupid and replied to a few messages. Arriving home, it became clear that one of my responses was from someone quite close by. We arranged to meet the next day. If nothing else, it would give me something to do that wasn't connected with anything that had gone before, which was what I needed then and there.

I had no expectations. I had made no plans. I had nothing in my bag beyond my keys and purse. He arrived and we chatted, slowly, strangely, I warmed to him. His smell was right, his physicality had the right sort of shape for me to sit just so, arrange myself near him in a way that was pleasing and extremely comfortable and comforting to my animal hindbrain. We stayed for a drink. Then another. Then another. We talked about all the usual nerd dating things. Then we began talking kink, and things got even more interesting.

"I want to take you home, but I don't want to have sex with you."

I raise an eyebrow at a sentence I've never heard before. He's adamant, however. And his assertiveness is striking - an unseen thread of steel through this soft-lipped boy with the high cheekbones and giggly laugh. It flashes for a moment, in the way that desire does, rippling and turning the evening from a nice dinner that would see me home alone but well-flirted with into something else.

We went back to his house and lay on his sofa, kissing for hours like teenagers whilst watching True Blood and commenting on what we were watching. It felt intimate and familiar, yet I couldn't remember the last time I'd had such an easy ride, to be able to just hang about without feeling the need to do anything much. The knowledge that I wasn't going to embark on three or four hours of heavy play was both a relief and a source of slightly comedic consternation - after all, if we weren't here for sex, what were we here for?

To get to know me better.

I don't know what made him decide to say that, then and there. Something in what I said about my life, my partners, the scene has set him down that particular thought path. Or perhaps something in him, a desire clearly stated, to wait, to hold something back, to take time. The natural response of a pervert is to push - to tease out from people things they see they find difficult. So in that moment he stopped being just a boy from the internet and became a pervert.

We went to bed, and my theory was confirmed - he's a switch as well. After a pleasing amount of appreciative noises over my naked body we started to fool around a little and talked a lot. About sexual encounters past and hoped for, fantasies and desires, lovers long gone and recent heartbreaks. All the while he stroked me, running fingers and kisses up and down whichever piece of skin came to nearest contact with him. All throughout, he kept gently reminding me that we were not going to have sex - made all the more deliciously frustrating by the discovery that he had a large cock. Equally, his own obvious frustrations made me interested in the background to this self-denial. Eventually I announced my intention to orgasm, and he watched, still stroking my skin, pouring filth in my ear with a low whisper that made me gasp, shatteringly to a climax. He held me close. We fell asleep.

In the morning, he brought me tea in bed and we played around more - showing each other our particular tweaks and sensitivities. He took me by the hand and led me to the shower, I washed his hair and he pressed his fingers inside my cunt. We dried each other off and I got dressed and left with his phone number.

I am still wrapped up in that hazy cloud of sexuality made all the better by not concerning myself with what happens next. Yes, I would like to see him again. But also yes, I would like to take things slowly and without the need to assert myself in any particular role or power exchange with regards to him, or indeed anyone for rather a while.

Changes in circumstances

This month has seen a few changes in my life and lifestyle, and whilst I have been the instigator of most of them, they aren't exactly making me happy.

I started a new job which is exciting but involves very long hours resulting in little time during the week to go on dates, attend munches and by the time the weekend arrives I am rather tired. I'm hoping that this will settle down once I get to grips with everything, but for the moment, I am very much work rather than play - this has it's own attendant problems. I feel disconnected from the scene, especially given my prior levels of involvement and I miss people who I used to see more often. I'm in a more "formal" environment which means that the day-to-day perversity levels are lower and I am certainly in the deeper waters of the vanilla subculture - though that itself might give some useful and interesting insights.

Following on from my reduced social time, in some respects, is the change in my relationships. My partners colour a lot of what I do kinkwise, so I imagine it will come as no surprise that the lack of content on the blog has been driven by, well, a lack of content. I am, it appears, single, once more.

Mannequin, Fenrir and I had a good (though sad and somewhat wistful from my point of view) conversation a few weeks ago in which she was going to be exclusively his. I know that this is something she really wanted, and from what I hear on the kinky grapevine, she's well cared for and enjoying herself. I miss her, although at the same time there is a certain sense of relief - throughout our relationship there was a strain caused by the disconnect between what she wanted and what I was capable of delivering. Ultimately, she wanted a cis-male partner and all the strap-ons in the world will not change this fact. Writing that sentence felt strange, as if there was something to blame for one person's particular preference, which of course, there is not. And honestly, I like male bodies too, and enjoy having them around.

The strangeness is all in myself. It's not a fault of either of us, just the simple fact that having started down the road of D/s with her it has come to an end. All the feelings of ownership, control and self-worth deriving from that power exchange have stopped because of being unable to be the right kind of dominant person, and I wouldn't want to be that person, because that would mean not being me. It is a curious feeling. Wanting something is never reason or justification enough for it to be able to happen. Some things just don't work out. And that's life.

Which brings me on to Mr Smith. There have been various points in our relationship where it felt that the D/s was creating a difficult push/pull for him with respect to how we worked compared to his marriage and other lovers. D/s is a very different place to either of these things. We were not casual Friday night affairs, and neither was I ever going to be the most important woman in the world to him (that would be his wife). Those two poles were markers of where our relationship sits - somewhere in the middle, slightly uneasily.

On the one hand, he craves submissive satisfaction, the control and order that comes with a set of protocol, the firm guiding hand and the patient caring tones of one who owns. He would come to me and be placed outside of the world for an evening, be allowed to let go and bottom out and be put through his paces.

All of those things I was able to make time to deliver, but he was struggling in fulfilling his side of the deal. The things that I needed - the level of service I required from him once he was away from me. Now, these are important to me for a number of reasons - first they make it into a genuine relationship. We have contact outside of our play-dates, talk about our lives, share notes and thoughts, meet for coffee, lunches and similar. They are the surrounding elements that make me feel like a partner, rather than a pro domme. As I reminded him in the heat of an angry exchange - I have no problem with delivering a session in an allotted time and having no call upon him outside of that. But I require paying.

I want D/s relationships. This means that, as a dominant, there are things that the submissive must do for me. Not just kneeling and giving head, or doing all the kinky sex stuff that they want to do anyway. Things that are just for me. Day to day things that are embedded in their life and make me part of their world, just as they become part of mine. Now, this will; never be done "right" straight away - there's always going to be give and take. The training process involves an element of "getting better" and I had no expectations of instant perfection and enjoyed the correcting procedure. It was when things started to be forgotten, or half done, or rules were only part remembered that I began to get worried. Rather than supporting him, the training process became an additional stress - a thing that "didn't get done" and then was an extra weight in his busy and stressful life. And in my busy and stressful life. It was made worse, in many respects, by the fact that we are friends, so in tandem with this I was meeting him to try and help him resolve issues in his marriage - the stress of which, and the sexual absences within it I felt was contributing to his overall unhappiness and reliance on me.

This had the difficult effect of making me feel like part prostitute, part marriage counsellor. Again, all roles I can fulfill, but I'd like to be paid for them, really. What I wasn't getting were the things I needed, and constantly demanding them was making me feel angry towards him. In the end, we have decided to remove the D/s element from our relationship. I place no requirements or protocol on him, we see each other if and when we can and we do what we feel like when we do see each other. We fuck a lot, and it's good sex - but it's not particularly kinky and therefore for me, it is not deeply connected. And I miss that. I miss the intensity and the desire for intensity. I no longer look at him and think "mine" - though I do think "my friend" or "the boy I'm fucking"

I'm pleased with how amicable and straight-forward most of these parting conversations were - admittedly the situation with Mannequin and Fenrir was easier because it felt much more like a D/s handover, whereas with Mr Smith the lack of communication between his wife and myself means I have concerns over whether he is being adequately cared for outwith my patronage. I am also very conscious of theses absences in my life and the loneliness that this has created in me.

I'm working through it. Certainly the world is a calmer place, I'm not upset per se, and I've removed a lot of anxieties by having these conversations and changing these relationships. But I've also removed a lot of good stuff (admittedly, potential good stuff that wasn't working). And that makes my life much emptier. I'm trying to work out what I need to fill it.

Where have all the single men gone?

Last night saw another of my (now almost famous) failed attempts to have an orgy in a sex club. I strongly suspect that this is pretty much the equivalent of being unable to arrange a piss up in a brewery. I put it down to two main factors - the first is about my feelings in sex clubs as opposed to play clubs, the second about attaining my personal sexual and aesthetic preference.

Take the sex club / play club distinction, fortunately this club (Kinky Salon London) is one of the better clubs that blur the lines between the two, so I feel comfortable exploring my "kink" for transactional vanilla sex here. I do struggle with "stranger sex" - I am dreadfully fascinated and turned on by it: it's something I keep coming to clubs like this to try and try again. I enjoy the liberation in the idea and the simplicity in bodies, fucking. To be able to let go, bottom out, tune everything else down to white noise and just experience the sensation of other people giving pleasure to me.

The venue is lovingly decorated and everyone has fun outfits and there are smiles all round. There's dungeon kit: experimentation and playfulness is encouraged and I certainly entertained myself by tying a friend of mine down onto a rocking horse rack. However, there was no denying that the majority of activity was fucking, and without the regimen offered by D/s protocol I can find myself somewhat at a loss in what to do, and more importantly, who to do it with. Given that, I'd rather set my stall on having a lot of "just sex" - perhaps scuppering myself with expectations. In retrospect I should have kept to my natural environment and packed a bunch of toys then loitered by the rack all night doing awful things to kinksters I knew.

I'm a female top and I find it relatively easy to secure female partners at an event like this. Quite aside from the fact that there are a few women at the club that I know (some of whom I first met at the ladies only hen night, and I've become friends with since) there are far more available, interested and openly "up for it" women than men. Case in point: I strap-on within a few minutes of the playroom opening and ask who wants to be fucked. A smiling woman shouts "me!" and I help her onto the bed, fucking her whilst her female partner licked her clit. The gasps and writhing was gratifying and I enjoyed creating those sensations, the transitory pleasure of it and the act of give and take.

I started to look around for another encounter, leading Mr Smith by the hand as we walked the room. My desire was for another man for a mFm threesome. As I looked around, I saw a lot of male/female couples and a lot of women but very, very few single men, fewer still that I was interested in. The most attractive men there (and being honest, I am exceptionally picky) were with their equally attractive female partners and became quickly "busy" either with another woman or another couple. And even had they not been already engaged - and quite a few seemed to have arrangements already in place -I am uncertain what the etiquette is for approaching a couple with the intent to only fuck one of them, but suspect it's probably rude.

This lack of men is proving to be an ongoing issue for myself and Mr Smith. We initially thought that one had been located - even briefed prior to arrival, but then he arrived with a girl in tow and whilst he seemed keen in general he left early to go to another party. I'm choosing not to take this personally. So eventually, after some pleasant chats with friends we left. And I'm left with a rather worrying thought.

With the notable exception of a small number of my friends: where are all the cute, kinky single men?

Talking to Mr Smith (a classic example of my woe; attractive and we're good match, however he is married and I have no intention of fucking with that) and looking around at munches, clubs and events and you would be forgiven for thinking that the scene was entirely populated by attractive young women in fetching outfits. Perhaps it is because they are the most noticeable, but I suspect that it is, in fact, that they are more comfortable making themselves noticed - whereas single men do not. Here are some of my more general thoughts on why. Another, more worrying thought was around how the scene, and indeed how society itself, reacts to the single man: note that I'm now moving on to more broader areas and not talking about that club night superficially which actually does a damn good job of standing head and shoulders above the behaviours and attitudes of many sex clubs.

There's been a lot of conversations about the different treatment and expectations towards men and women in sex clubs and the fetish scene. There are higher prices for single men in many clubs, some clubs do not let men in until later on and there is a real wariness even amongst the nicest of young men around being "that guy". In tandem to these practical and social exclusions there is also a lack of perceived opportunity. The play balance in clubs is strongly towards girl-on-girl, girl-on-boy or girl-boy-girl sex. That's a lot of girls and not a lot of boys. I know no woman who would not play with or touch another woman and I'm not prepared to call women more "naturally" bisexual because that is a ghastly bag of assumptions. What women are, is socialised to be more bisexual - women fucking each other is is accepted to the point of expected, especially for male pleasure. Bisexual men are made invisible, or in the cases of a few ghastly swinging clubs, actively discouraged. Shame on them.

What do these two things have in common with a notable lack of available men in the scene? Well, for a start, women are occupied with each other or with known partners. I imagine that many new men will come to an event, hang around on the sidelines and then leave - unable to make a connection because of this sense of exclusion. Secondly, the various other barriers to attendance mean that many men may never make it into the scene at all until they secure a girlfriends or partner who can then act as a safety net against any potential accusations of being that guy. Add to this the difficulty that many men feel around presenting themselves as sexual anyway and I'm starting to wonder perhaps all of these potential kinky chaps are at home, fantasising about it but unable to come out and play.