Playing with people

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


"This is how missionary sex works, right?"


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


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

Playing with masculinity - Daddy and boy

This post is about personas and the fantasies they come from and create. It's about the kind of roles I adopt and channel within my dominance, but also my life. I am quite clear within myself that these states of being are not "alternative personalities" as such. Nor are they characters or games to play. It is strongly linked to The Doll Project, yet very much a dominant variant. The personas are an assemblage of thoughts, feelings and desires that are all part of the complete me. But just as one day I might be feeling "happy" so too I can spend a day feeling "boyish". Gender as an emotion.

Recently I'm veering further and further into masculine modes of power and sexuality. I've long known that my looks allow me to flirt heavily with presentations of androgyny and masculinity but there's a point where you realise that it's not about dress-up. There's more going on. Much more.

Let's take it from the top, because this is going to get complicated. There's a healthy amount of female Daddy play in the scene I inhabit, a Goldilocks just-right quantity to make it common enough so I don't have to explain myself with footnotes, but rare enough to stand out as a unique feature. Naturally, I have to be special. But it's not about doing something because no-one else does. That's nice, but the real joy has been in finding a mode of play that feels, well, normal.

Take clothes, for instance. I'm a tomboy. This rubs up against a lot of notions of how I should present myself as a dominant and a woman. I like to have a lot of useful space between myself and images / archetypes of traditional female dominance, many of which hold very little appeal to me and in fact are often downright off putting.

Daddy doesn't dress up, or at least, not in anything that I don't feel absolutely comfortable and very much "me" in (more thoughts on dominance and clothes are here). I wear a lot of vest tops. They show off my arms nicely and the shape of the clothes is often quite key to feeling in the right head-space. Some mornings I wake up femme and have to wear a dress or skirt. These days I'm more and more masculine.

I like Daddy play a lot, it fits in well with a lot of my dominant qualities. The "firm but fair" attitude, protection and patronage, strength tempered with care. Daddy knows best. The ways of being and doing I find quite easy - a coaching attitude, kindly but steely. The D/s writes itself. The challenge I'm finding (interestingly) is in S&M and sexualised play. For some reason fucking feels strange. It might be because one of the people I'm playing with is very new to me and also female. Sex always comes much later in those relationships. Perhaps due to my sexual (fucking) experiences being weighted heavily towards men, my play experience however contains a lot more women - I can still quite easily separate the two and for me a good D/s session can often be better than "straight" fucking, which has it's own pleasurable intimacy but nothing like the power trip and frisson that a strong pain scene can offer, for example.

So far, so sadistic. And pain-delivery actions such as beatings, especially spanking and other types of CP come quite easily to the Daddy persona. It allows me to put my hands all over their bodies (which I enjoy) without stripping down myself - which in a way would shatter the illusion. I may have a lean and muscular female body but it is still very obviously female. And part of me wants to keep the mystery going for as long as possible. The clothing also keeps a power imbalance going - I keep clothed, they are stripped. That said, it's not actually terribly serious. I laugh when I do it and Daddy is a fun role to play, there's a joy to it, in the way it operates, which I'm still finding out a lot about and these are just my first real responses. I'm looking forward to seeing where it might take me. Already I can see a lot of possibilities. For example, despite the common assumption of Daddy-little-girl it's also something I can see myself enjoying doing with boys as well both boys as boys and girls dressed as boys - I told you it was going to get complicated.

Now I've mentioned boys, there's a flip-side to dominant masculinity. I love playing the role of a sexualised male predator. Specifically a sleazy, nasty teenage boy predator. This role has no problem with fucking, and indeed seems to require rather a lot of it. As cruel as Daddy is kind, as selfish as Daddy is supportive. He is a nasty piece of work. I am really rather fond of him. Like the boy your mother always warned you about, he has a kind of glamour to him. I find it interesting that I want to be him, to use this model to fuck other people with. Particularly men. Particularly nice, well brought up young men of the sort who might have flirted with homosexuality but never found the right, gamine-faced boy to take them there.

What is it about this that works? I'm tempted to snicker and say what is it about this that doesn't work? But that would be the teenage boy talking. It sparked alive (very brightly) when I went to the cinema with Mr Smith and Dandy. I found myself walking between them, they were both dapper and well-turned out in suits, looking suave from days in the office. I was in jeans, a boy's T-shirt with an Atari logo and trainers. I felt for all the world like the teenage son of two gay dads. Incest fantasies and 90s pop band references aside the sensation was powerful, funny, sexual and very, very attractive. The liberation and gender/sexual fuckery of all those tropes within three bodies that I felt I knew well (theirs and mine). It was quite a rush. And one I'd rather like to consummate at some point. Somehow. Maybe not with those two as the compatability only really exists in my head.

I've made a partial start, spending yesterday morning in vest top and comic-book patterned y-fronts shaking my arse seductively in the general direction of a slightly paternal (and slightly disarmed) Mr Smith. It was a strange but pleasant switch-y moment, albeit very topping from the bottom to get him back into bed and entertaining me. It's also a move which signals a pleasant step-change in our relationship, that I can express my other types of desires, especially for the more rough and tumble sort of kinky sex, without feeling as if I'm loosing my dominant belle dame sans merci cool. Replacing it with the lithe limbed and frisky hipped cool of a yet-to-be-named teenager.

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.

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.

A matter of bodies

"So, what do you like about women's bodies?"

I pause for longer than is probably acceptable in polite society, she laughs. One of those full throated, hearty rich laughs I have come to love, that come straight from somewhere real, the kind of laugh that makes you sit up and take notice and hope you can make it happen again.

"What on earth are you doing with me?" She laughs again at the strange look on my face, half aghast at any offence I might have caused, half confused.

"I think you're hot. And beautiful. I don't think it's because you are a woman."

I might have put my foot in it again, that's a common theme for whenever I open my mouth. We talk some more, I try and explain. I think she still thinks me strange and perhaps I am, but I don't mind. I've been trying to think of a decent answer. Majeste shook her head between laughing and said it was because I was straight, but I do want her and she's nothing if not womanly. Very womanly. So what is going on here?

There's something to do with shape, I know that. I like that she is bigger and stronger than me. I love it when she hugs me, I feel wrapped up and enveloped in her warmth.With all of my partners I have been drawn to the way they made me feel both vulnerable and protected. Knowing they could pick me up to hurt me or to shield me from something. There's a lure of strength, for both dominant and submissive partners - I like submissives who are stronger than me also, because they can protect me (again) and because the submission is somehow more powerful when they are giving up all of their force and allowing someone physically weaker to hurt them.

I think it would be difficult to avoid talking about pure body-chemistry when discussing gender and desire. That bog-standard Darwinistic desire to breed. Are my ovaries merely crying out in the darkness for a decent chromosome match? Obviously there's no such response here, but there is a sexual desire, so the two are clearly not always the same thing. It's hard to tell what proportion of my attraction to previous partners has been based on hormones - there have been many, many studies in the area and it's frankly a minefield of social prejudices - especially given that I'm not actually that interested in having children.

Finally, I have to acknowledge that I do find women's bodies curious and strange, despite, or perhaps because, I have one of my own and I know how odd my own sexual reactions can be. I expect them to be as odd as I am. Certainly the majority of my lovers have been male, so I have a feel for the male body, what it likes, how it smells when aroused, how it feels. I associate it more naturally with sex. I'm habituated to it. It's worth stating for the record that, in general, I don't feel especially sexually attracted to women's bodies. I am more likely to have my head turned by a man, if I am likely to have my head turned at all. I generally don't feel sexually attracted to a lot of people, I have refined taste (or, more likely, I'm fussy).

Really, there are thousands of little, tiny things that draw me to someone. I can see that someone is or isn't attractive, and that's usually aesthetic. I can see whether they look good, strong or healthy and that's a biological judgement call. Lots of things catch my eye, the sound of a voice, smell, the way they hold their hands just so. Clothing is a big part - buckles, heavy jewellery, tattoos even, little signs that they might be kinky. Which is when it really hits. When they ping onto my radar. Knowing that I could want to hurt them or for them to hurt me; to be under my control or to cede control to them. That's the sexual drive but it's not because they are women or because they are men - it's because I'm kinky and there's something in them that calls out to that kinkiness.

That's what shines through here I think. Her body is part of her kinkiness, just like the bodies of my other lovers have been a part of their sexuality, the instrument on which it was played.

Shock and awe

Over the past couple of months I have been meeting and talking more and more with Majeste, with a view to us developing a D/s relationship. It's been a process that has revealed a lot of nervousness and skittishness that I hadn't really been aware of particularly around certain areas of my sexuality and emotional outlook.

I've always put the word "kinky" before "bisexual" when in a situation where labels were required. I'd usually go on to elaborate - and to ensure I sounded appropriately right on and bohemian - that it is more important that my partner is kinky than they are either male or female. In a sense, this is true. I need to have kinky sex partners. However, the vast majority of my ongoing play partners and certainly all of my long-term relationships have been with men. I could never see myself settling down with another woman in a loving, sexual relationship. And I hate to admit it, because to me, being able to say that I am bisexual means that I never had to admit that my desire turned on gendered lines. I wonder if it does? On a day to day basis, men turn my head more than women do. Yet women do. But my desire to fuck someone is not the same as my desire to say hello to them in the morning and make them a cup of coffee then discuss the day. There's a difference between the animal lust and of wanting to have that specific person around for more than a few hours.

I've never wanted to play the gender card and had often argued at length in discussions that started "men do X and women do Y" because I thought that they were grossly stereotypical and paved with socially conditioned truisms. But I'm finding that there is a difference. For me, the difference is exactly that - in the sense of difference because I feel that the relationship we are negotiating is in a new and strange (perhaps queer would be an appropriate term here) place compared to my previous ones. Relationship is the key word here - the decision to make something ongoing and to create parameters for interaction. Rules of engagement. For the first time, I'm doing this with a woman and the process feels different - I'm trying to work out whether this is because she is a woman or simply because she is new. I feel as if I might be making crass, sweeping comparisons here, but perhaps every relationship and ever interaction is new and deserving of being discussed in this light, but because when we do not see the difference so easily we do not take the time.

So let's take some time. Why is this valuable and worth pursuing, why am I finding it "new" and why has the process been difficult? Start at the end, to ring the changes. It's been a challenge because both of us have brought nerves to the table. I've been nervous because of her passion and intensity, which is exhilarating because it is an obvious and strong desire for me (clearly very flattering) but also frightening because I do not know whether I will live up to these expectations. It's been scary because of how she plays - a new area of balancing fear and pain that I've never done before and thinking about it makes my legs curl up on the chair like a teenage girl watching a horror movie. For her, she is returning to BDSM after a long gap, and has worries about skills with implements which are not helped by my own internet published range of experience. She's been worried about being a "good enough" Domme for me. Which is also extremely flattering.

It's fascinating for me to see the other side of the coin - the Domme twitches rather than just my submissive tics. It's also been a process of helping each other along with this, of talking and clarifying through many emails, texts and sundry other online media about what we meant by this. It has also included a lot of checking in, of making sure that one or the other was ok. For once I do not feel like the solely emotionally inclined member of the relationships - no longer was it like pulling teeth to get the other person to say they were feeling anything. Again, I feel a terrible stereotype coming along but we talked as much in terms of desire and we did in feelings. But feelings are part of our shared D/s desires: fear, protection, care, adoration, objectification. These are all emotional at their core, and whilst I was initially thrown by these conversations, finding them a bit much, a bit overwhelming (mostly because I wasn't used to having a dialogue about this, normally it's me, monologuing here) having spoken about it and been very forthcoming I now understand more about where we are both coming from and feel more at ease.

A lot of this is the shock of the new. For both of us. That drawn out process of getting to know someone new and trusting them enough to let go and to trust in their response. That they won't freak out. That they will take you places and bring you back. That they will not hate you afterward or want to call the police. That they will still be happy with you even though you did something "wrong" or stupid. We put a lot of ourselves on the line when we get into a power exchange and you need to trust you'll get all of it back plus have an amazing experience.

For me, a lot of the new is because she is a woman with whom I am seeking an ongoing power exchange relationship and I have never done this with a woman. I've played with women, many of them more than once, but we've never formulated an ongoing dialogue or attempted to make space in each other's lives. She's a woman and I'm interacting with her in a new way, for me, in a space previously only occupied by men. Until very recently been much more of a boy's girl - often to the extent of being an actual tomboy - I still do not feel entirely comfortable in the presence of other women. I particularly do not know how to interact with women on a "relationship level" so things like being taken out and wined and dined by her put me on the back foot. It is a new thing. It is exciting and an adventure. It also leaves me without a roadmap.

Finally, but not least. The value. It's all about her, really. She has the ability to make me feel both intensely awkward and uncomfortable, then reassured and looked after. She makes me wanted to the point of feeling frighteningly under the spotlight of her desire. She is without doubt a very powerful, dominating presence - in a way entirely unique and special to her - which forms a large part of the attraction. I fear her, sometimes, I am drawn to her, often. She is quite, quite magnetic.

Twenty four long hours

Dinner last night with the kinky ladies, Spiral, Painted Lady, Mrs Magpie and Majeste were all in attendance. We had a good catch up, mostly revolving around each other then, planning our next play day, and wondering how many other women we could invite to the party. We also balanced our diaries, and I was able to come away with a handful of exciting dates for the future.

I turned up a little stressed - running a late due to work and generally feeling somewhat behind the times due to my laptop dying over the weekend (I am still in mourning and have yet to be able to go shopping for a replacement - this will, after all, likely be the most significant relationship of my next three years). Fortunately, at least one thing was in place - what I needed to wear, and how I was to behave. Majeste, as a "taster" had requested a little bit of the doll. We were both concerned over being to overt about doing a scene or anything over dinner, so we settled on protocol. I asked for some rules of engagement, she sent them over:

I will wear heels
I will not touch, kiss or greet her on arrival
I can flirt with her during dinner
She will not flirt with me during dinner
I will wear something that is reminiscent of the Secretary Doll
I will drink what she drinks, what she orders or pours for me
I will sit across from her at dinner
I will walk behind her at all times

Rather than being stressful, they codified my behaviour, gave me limits in which to operate. What I was going to wear was decided for me, alongside other social interactions. My evening was made easier, simpler. It also gave me an opportunity to show off, to show what I was made of, at least. I like getting dressed up and being taken out, especially when, the next morning I get a flattering and complimentary email about my behaviour, a desire to fuck me with a fist full of lube, which gave me the usual fear/excitement I've come to associate with her. We're planning a classic date - dinner and a movie - and the soft kisses alongside stern rules received before leaving to catch the train home give me something contradictory to remember her by. I love pleasant contradictions.

Message from Captain once I'd landed back to head over to his to provide some lip service, so I grinned to myself and turned around to head out again, always happy to pick up some mid-week action. Which was not to be. Despite phone calls and angry buzzer pressing he'd managed to fall asleep between my setting off and arrival (next time I'm going to request he sends a car for me and that I have a set of keys). So it was home again, after hanging around in the cold waiting for a bus, heated with the rage of my internal fuming, as anyone who follows my Twitter will have noticed. Not made much more mollified by getting an apology phone call just as I was drifting off to sleep.

The morning found me distressed, still grumpy and very horny. Three orgasms later, the final one against the cold press of a glass dildo to compensate for my feelings of incompleteness and to enjoy the wet/smooth dynamic. I tried to work out what to do next. I knew, really, that it was an accident, but still felt let down by it. We had a few text exchanges in which I expressed displeasure and then I had a thought that made me smile. Homework for Dominants: something to make me feel better.

In this case, he came up with a kinky shopping and clubbing trip to Europe. And plenty of rubber. We then spent the rest of the day planning his future exploits in the blogosphere and things for his flatwarming, so all in all I feel like I'm in a whirlwind of BDSM. Which is no bad thing.

Yellow belly

I have a confession to make. I'm a coward. I am terribly risk averse and have a rather practical mind which means that whilst others are stripping off and running naked into fountains I am standing around holding the towels, worrying about chest infections and water-borne diseases.

I'm currently enjoying a series of email offers from various potential play partners and whilst I love getting my fingers dirty with other people's fantasies, when it comes to actually doing them I can get cold feet where certain sorts of play are concerned. The main area of concern is public play. By which, I mean play in the vanilla sphere, where one might get caught not only by random passers-by but by levels of authority. To be specific, Majeste wants to take me out to a well-known department store and fuck me in the changing rooms. Now, I am very keen to play with her (even though or perhaps because she scares me) so the content of the play is fine and dandy. It's the public element that has me worried.

I can easily wrap this up in a desire not to expose the public to BDSM, because I am firmly of the opinion that the only spectators to any sort of sexual act should be consenting parties. But that's not the whole truth. The truth is that I am terrified of being caught. I'm a good girl, you see. I try and do the right thing, to be well behaved, to be polite. I don't want to break the rules. I'll feel guilty. Worse, I don't want to get caught breaking the rules. I'll be embarrassed. Worse still, I'm terrified of what might happen if we got found out. Would we be arrested? Would there be charges? Would I have to tell my mother?

I realise that there is a thrill here, an attraction. There's a part of me that wants to do it simply because it does scare me. I want to go through the process of being scared, the feeling and the adrenaline and come out the other side stronger, because I faced my fears, to experience the high of getting away with it. I want to be brave. I also don't want to let Majeste down, because on a certain level, a denial of someone's fantasies can come across as a denial of them, because fantasies are so personal. I know how difficult I have found it in the past when partners have been unwilling to participate in my fantasies.

I normally enjoy responding to the desire of others. Not just because pleasing people is satisfying but because they take me to strange places, expose me to new things. This means that sometimes I end up doing things that I would not enjoy in and of themselves but do end up enjoying because my partner derives pleasure from them. This is even more powerful when they are things I really don't like doing. It's easy to "submit" to something you enjoy, after all. This is where the D/s comes in and where my brain takes the lead. Submission is not merely about physical endurance, it's about psychological barriers, willpower, acts of control and self control. Which means that a lot of it is about me and what I do and don't want to do. It is only when I'm confronted with something I find personally difficult or challenging that I feel I am really submitting.

When it works, when it works well, when I'm with someone who knows me and can handle me correctly, I can find the pleasure in my own personal hell. In this instance, the overcoming of the fear of being caught in order to merely go through the act would be just the first step. Finding actual pleasure whilst being used in this way - not from being fucked and spacing out on sensation - but from dropping my own boundaries to facilitate the desire of someone else would be a wonderful moment of submission.

Fingers crossed.

Girl on girl on girl on... Part 3

It's the weekend. I'm in a room full of other women in various states of undress and I've gotten to the not-quite-sleepy but very serene state. The pain has receded, that part is over. I've an undercurrent of unsated desire - Hedwig claims she can smell me and I'm not about to deny it. I've gone kittenish, curling up by the heater, lapping water lazily from a bowl that someone has kindly provided. Using my hands doesn't feel right and I roll my fingers into my palms.

Hedwig starts to tie me up. Plain, undyed hemp in neat coils, the mark of someone who knows their craft. I find being put into rope bondage very meditative. I like to think I'm a good rope bunny: I'm long and lean and reasonably flexible (not quite enough for Captain, but then, there's always further that one can go). The important thing is to relax soft muscles and loose limbs can be pulled into better positions. Also, don't try and "help". Move if you are told to move, but otherwise let yourself be wound around. I like to flex a little once they are done, test the rotation and give of the bonds, especially if suspended and I can spin on a heel or similar. But this is floor work, and I'm becoming gradually more enclosed. Arms tied behind my head, elbows spread like a sun lounger catching rays. A harness around my breasts, squeezing them into flat points of pleasant pressure. One leg gets bent, ankle to hip then coiled round and round and round in beautiful, intricate flow of rope and knots. The other leg goes up into a ballet point, I giggle a little as a piece of rope goes through my toes, but otherwise I am content to be silent, smiling hazily. The more I'm tied, the more relaxed I become - it's permission not to engage, and I find myself shutting down a little, as if covered with a duvet and lain down in a darkened room to fall asleep.

There's a strength and expertise in her ropework that I wasn't expecting. I knew she was good, but not this good. I can tell, because she has a definite and defined style, which I am able to appreciate from close quarters: her attitude is controlled but also artistic, making something pretty, creating something. She's quick and doesn't hesitate much, or pause, instead deftly wrapping rope around me in long fluid movements. The rope is firm and well-placed (no flaccid, floppy bands that need to be tightened later!). Instead, when she is done, there is an engaging lattice structure. I feel like a mermaid, caught in a net. A silly, grinning mermaid, all spaced out.

Girl on girl on girl on... Part 2

"Shut up. Don't say anything"

I'm scared. I can feel a ball of panic rising in my throat and I bite my lip. Majeste scares me. This sudden turn from the jovial banter we'd been enjoying whilst I curled on the floor watching the other women play. The gentle nudge and calm decision "I'll play with you now", the pride and flush of happiness, at being the one who was picked (and this from someone who was always last against the wall at games and an awkward teen). Those things are gone. Now there is this. The press of her face right against mine and the hiss of her command as one hand grasps my face and with the other clamps a peg onto my nipples. Inside, I scream. I hate pegs. Especially on my nipples, where the metal piercings seem to make everything more sensitive, reminding me of the fragility of my extremities. I've had a couple of nipple injuries over the years and the memory stays with me, making me flinch at the thought. I wince at the white-hot crush as the pegs go on, that specific pain that slows to an aching throb which is broad but never dull and never goes away, never fades, but peaks and troughs as if the brain is only able to process so much at once. Then there's the knowledge that they will hurt more when they come off. I'm also scared of pegs. Scared of them being pulled off by violent hands, visions of ripping flesh, blood. She's stronger than me. Much. I'm strapped to a chair, ankles, wrists and a leather band around my chest. I feel weak, captive. Frightened.

Being unable to make any noise has a number of effects. First, it makes the pain worse. It makes it worse because there is nowhere for it to go - I can't let it out. Second, it makes me further beholden to Majeste, in order behave, to be the good girl I need to be, not only must I take this pain that I hate but I must be quiet too. Finally it makes what we are doing private, secret and a little bit more frightening. Her voice is insistent, focused, pushing me to comply with pain in silent suffering, like the cruel bully who does not wish to attract attention. My entire body is clenched with the effort of being quiet. I shake and tears prick my eyes. I want to cry, to demonstrate to her how much this is costing me, how good I am being, but I can't. The tears would involve noises. And I have to be quiet.

"Beg me to take it off." My mind does cartwheels. I'm stuck. I can't do this. I shake my head, teeth gritted like a non-compliant torture victim. Which I am. I know that I'm behaving badly, but I can't help myself. I still can't beg. Not even for a release that I genuinely crave. It would be a giving-in, a collapse, rather than a submission. The submission is in offering myself to her, in taking the pain. To ask for respite would be an admission that I am not good enough, not strong enough, not worth anything. I want to be brave. But I'm scared and I hurt. I shake my head again and she presses down. I see blackness beneath my tightly closed eyelids, feeling like my lungs are two balloons about to pop with the screams they contain. I'm conflicted and that doesn't help my fear: she clearly wants me to beg, but I can't do it and remain honest, it would be a fake begging, a begging staged for her benefit rather than one that came from a real place. And she deserves better than that. I'm better than that.

Eventually, somehow (pain play makes my brain hazy) it does stop. There is the softness of her flesh as she holds me to her and I feel safe once again, she is my rescuer, just as she was my persecutor only moments ago. Her hair falls against my bare skin in light touches like the brush of a flogger. As she unties me I cling to her, coming back to myself, feeling sorry that I couldn't give more, take more. Then there's the rush. The heady relief and realisation that the pain is over, that it's done, that I am released. I grin. She grins. I thank her. We kiss.

Girl on girl on girl on.... Part 1

I've been encouraged by Hedwig (amidst lots of lovely praise) to give a bit more breathing room in my posts. So you get two write-ups from the Ladies Dungeon Day, rather than one.

We kick off with a journey. As all good adventures do, though this one involved lots of black coffee to get me up before noon on a weekend. Each of us had brought something along that we especially liked. I had a violet wand and black pallet wrap, Mrs Magpie was sporting a fetching red mac and carrying a latex catsuit, Hedwig had oodles of hemp and Spiral was wheeling an enormous suitcase and pool cue bag that probably contained everything hitty, thuddy and snappy item in the world. We were all quite over-excited and managed to clear an entire carriage with our discussion topics before arriving. Start as you mean to go on, one supposes. It's a rare moment that catches me so comfortable in a group of women, especially women I haven't already known for years and years. But, like the get-to-know-you-dinner a few weeks ago, we were very relaxed with each other. There was a lot of giggles, smirks and snickers. I was personally assured by Spiral that my silly grin at her lugging a large suitcase would garner retribution.

We met up with Majeste, Painted Lady and another two ladies after arriving at the dungeon, (which we got into only once a kind soul came out to collect us from milling about and destroying country cottage holiday home prices with our London pervert attitudes). It was a lovely space - very well equipped, and a cosy size which meant that we ended up sat in a circle, looking a lot like a fucked-up WI meeting. Especially given that between us we had brought enough snacks and drinks to host a country fayre. I was initially worried that there might be a hesitancy to get started, something I've encountered before in group play with relative strangers, however Spiral offered to show someone how to tie a hogtie, I volunteered and stripped off then we were away.

I had worried that it might be difficult to relax or to get into anything approaching a good headspace, but once the clothes were off and the rope was on I flopped contentedly onto the padded floor, letting the conversation circle around me, as if it came from far away. A ball gag and blindfold helped me fall further down and I found myself in a very comfortable and warm space. Not precisely submissive, but limber and happy to be moved one way or another. If I were a doll it was a rag-doll, floppy and without much form. Petted and played with like a favoured toy.

After a while, enough time for my face to be in a pool of my own cooling saliva - something that always kicks me into submissive mode - Spiral picked me up and strapped me to a chair, legs spread, still blind and gagged. Then the pain started. Light at first, soft and exploratory almost, brushes of a flogger, taps with some kind of paddle (I'm slightly convinced, from waffle-patterned red marks that this may have been a ping-pong bat, but haven't pinged her to check). They got harder and more stingy as time went on, she interspersed this with a Hitachi against my cunt, which had the effect of tempering the blows. The two worked in concert - the drive to orgasm and pleasure from the Hitachi (a relatively new experience having been so used to it as a torture device) gave me a rounded, building "high" which allowed me to coast on the pain. Similarly, the heat and stings from the pain made the pleasure better, stronger. I let my head loll a little and went where she took me, carried away. There were a couple of difficult moments had me jolt with panic - clothes pegs on the inner thighs were unexpected and threw me totally, unable to cope with them and having to shake my head violently, which made me feel a little unhappy at having to say "no". But the anxiety was fleeting, much less stressful or unhappy-making than I have experienced in one-on-one situations. I suppose this was part driven by the way she was handling me, lots of pauses to check I was ok, plenty of hair fluffing and holding my head to her, letting me breathe out some of the pain. The other was the context of the group experience itself. There was an eroticism in the air, the light noises of other women in pain or pleasure, the murmur of conversation, the silence of concentration gave the space a focus. The knowledge that others were there, engaged in their own games or possibly watching ours, with no one person belonging or particular to another gave a sense of balance and safety. Much as I love firm and complicated hierarchies, that afternoon gave me an appreciation for a different sort of dynamic, one that was both more flexible and self-determined. No-one was "taken", everyone offered up, whether it was their skills as a top or their bodies as a bottom, the space felt very giving.

I am extremely loathe to put this down to the fact that we were all women, but I am sure that this single gendered space had an effect on how we played. Maybe not because we were all possessing of a uterus, because that is bonkers, but because it gave us a group identity. Perhaps it was the acknowledgement of equals, perhaps it was that we more or less felt the same about how we wanted the day to pan out, perhaps it was that women do play with women in a certain way which is different to how men play with women. I'm not experienced enough with this type of dynamic to say for sure. I know that there isn't one way of playing that women adopt - each of the three tops I played with had their own very specific flavour and I responded to all three in different ways, meaning that I don't submit to women in a particular way either. I'm not entirely convinced that I responded to them "as women" in that sense, certainly I didn't feel as if being hit by a woman was particularly different from being hit by a man. The differences were very minor and generally unconnected to any sense of D/s. Some were quite welcome in fact - it's nice being clasped against soft breasts when you are crying or shaking with pain, for example. Very soothing.

I'm starting to think that my BDSM is very gender-blind, and this certainly adds more grist to that mill - certainly I've found that the more I play with people the less interested I am in their gender than in how they play and what dynamics we create.

Strap-on perspectives

Some more thoughts about threesomes and power dynamics after the weekend. I've had chance to think a bit more on how it worked and how it felt. One of the most interesting points was that of agency, and how my personal levels of control altered over the morning. At first, I was playing a very submissive role, letting both Captain and Maple move me around, put me in place. This worked very well with how I wanted to be that morning - passive, receptive, a doll-like offering up of myself, letting my body be manipulated for the pleasure of others. Exactly the sort of safe and comfortable submissive space that I naturally veer towards. No speech. No initiative. Riding the waves of external desire.

She suggested the strap-on, he put it on me, tying me in to the thick leather straps, adjusting the rubber cock and holding me in position, to fuck her whilst he fucked me. Every now and then he would take hold of my hips and press me into her a little faster. It felt a little as if he was fucking her through me - I was a tool or a toy that he was using on her. I started to come out of my morning reverie and really pay attention to what was going on, moving beyond just the warm empty space of my own body. It was a little like waking up. Changing from one state to another, from being very fluid and liquid and becoming more solid, more present. Little things at first, a slight adjustment of position, whereas normally I would wait until someone moved me. Reaching out to touch her, to talk to her, check whether she was ok with my first, uncertain, initial thrusts. I watched her, rather than looking at her. Enjoying the feelings I was giving her, and feeling as if I was giving those feelings rather than him through me. I felt a change in the balance of power with him also, as we exchanged looks over her body as she started to moan, like two diners about to eat a much anticipated meal. I smiled at him, eyes looking at him in a way I would not have normally done. I felt very relaxed, comfortable in what I was doing, keen to do more. An active participant instead of a plaything.

Part of this was about becoming accustomed to the strap-on, as well as the dynamic. The lack of feedback was very strange, but despite that I could imagine (especially given that I was also being fucked at the time) how it felt. I started to get more involved, to hold her, move her hips against mine, grab her shoulders or move her legs to get a better angle. I started to feel more in control, more toppy, more involved in managing her feelings rather than letting her take her pleasure. It wasn't about feeling like a boy, or feeling like the strap-on was "mine" or a part of me. I didn't feel a gender switch, just a BDSM switch. The strap-on was certainly part of how I felt, but only insomuch as it was a tool for me to be on top - I've felt similar reactions to using a violet wand or a vibrator on someone or even fucking cowgirl stye. It was about doing unto rather than being done, about moving from a state of absenting control to accepting it.

The power balance shifted, I realise now, with the presence of a third person. And underneath all of that was an increase in my own confidence in my interactions with Captain. I generally feel less nervous about what he wants and needs and can start to take the initiative without worrying I'll upset the dynamic. When I play I like to able to anticipate as well as respond - to be able to give pleasure without always being told exactly what to do, but that takes time. And this was one of those times. I came out of my perma-passive state and into something that more closely reassembles myself and was still desired, still exciting - more so by being desired by two people. I'd let go a little, I suppose, and it felt good. We'd increased the borders in which we play, and I like having room to manoeuvre. I moved from only ever being his toy to use to playing with someone together. And I'm pretty keen to do it again.

Cherries

Three in a bed. Not the most comfortable of sleeping positions, neither physically nor emotionally. My thoughts turned what should have been a rather cosy experience (three drunken kinksters collapsed in a heap) into a long dark night of the sofa as my subconscious kept flickering back to my last experience of how three was a crowd. How hard and uncomfortable it was the last time I shared a man with another woman, even though we were never in the same space like this. In fact, it was a totally different set of people and circumstances, but I couldn't sleep and fretted over my own insecurities and uncertainties. The difficulty was, in part, over the lack of clarity in who was here with who and why. I felt little or no sense of place or understanding of what my relationship was with my bedmates, which reminded me in an odd way of how uncertain and thereby unhappy I had been in the poly relationship with The Photographer. Connections made by the brain in the middle of the night are rarely logical or designed to give you an easy time. Having put two and two together and made about twenty-three I was fairly all over the place and upset.

Captain collected me from the corridor in the early hours, having worked myself up into a state and contemplating getting the first tube home to get myself back to a secure place. He hugged me and I came back to bed. I lay there, still uncertain, still feeling a little lost, but comforted nonetheless by his body next to mine. The assurance of the flesh. I slept.

The morning proved my fears and worries wrong. By a country mile. His hand rested on my bottom as I came to, I naturally rose to meet it, widening my legs a little as his fingers parted my cunt. He moved to slide his cock inside me and I held my breath, wondering whether we would disturb Maple as she lay sleeping, whether our fucking would disturb or upset her. Feeling a strange guilt and also a little jitter of excitement, the exhibitionist in me thrilling to the close quarters. After a short while I realised she was awake, he was able to stretch out an arm and bring the two of us closer together. She was smiling, sleepy and beautiful. Relaxed. My concern ebbed away. She wasn't here to usurp me, but to be with me. I wasn't the one in the way or the one to be pushed aside and abandonned, but to be part of it.

Something in my brain clicked. I was going to enjoy this.

My tongue on her clit. Pierced. The taste of metal was pleasing against the soft, wetness of her cunt, as was feeling her move against my mouth, hearing her moan. Captain fucked me. I licked her. Smiling as I did so, something in the pit of my stomach urging her to orgasm with a need that easily outstripped my own desire for satisfaction. Because this was satisfaction, the ability to arouse someone like this with only the lightest flicker of my tongue.

She didn't want him to fuck her. She wanted me to do it with a strap on. And that made me feel about a mile tall. Heady with the pride of it. I was grinning as I slid the rubber cock into her, feeling my way blind, unsure at first but then surprisingly quickly getting into it as we moved positions about, all three of us. There was a moment, perfect and entire, as she used the hitachi to bring herself off whilst I was still inside her. I watched her face, rapt. And a bit smug.

I was enamoured with the entire situation. With the easy comfort and confidence of it. With the way all three of us interacted, the toppy rush as Captain and I fucked her. With the fact that she let me do this as a first. A first for all three of us, as it turned out. My first time fucking a woman like that, her first time also. His first time with two women.

I nestled in Captain's arms as she went to put the kettle on. As sure and satisfied with where we were as last night I had been unsure and restless. We drank tea and got dressed lazily, heading out together for breakfast. Each of us having popped a cherry from each other.

A Valentine's to remember.

Ladies who... Part 1

I had a really good night out with some of the ladies with whom are plotting a women-only dungeon romp in a couple of weeks. I think we may have disturbed and upset the snooty french waiter who was supposed to be attending to us in the restaurant with our discussion topics although maybe he was just naturally that rude. The group was a mix of folk I already knew and had played with before: Hedwig and Painted Lady alongside some people who I knew less well or even not at all (Spiral and Majeste).

The topics were many, varied and wide-ranging. There was the practical - whether or not we wanted to bring knives to the venue, how many different colours of pallet wrap we had between us and who wanted to be top, middle or bottom. Then the philosophical - whether identity, particularly gender and sexual identity was inherent or constructed, whether there was a "core identity", the nature/nurture debate. Then the political - how we defined ourselves and lived our lives as women, as sex-positive, feminist and kinky women, as queers, mothers, child-free, bisexuals, lesbians, "misc" (that's me, by the way).

What really struck me was how quickly and how easily we gelled as a group. I'm almost always nervous about meetings of womenfolk, possibly due to teenage issues at school, and am therefore relieved and gladdened when such an event turns out positive. Everyone was very relaxed and comfortable with each other, almost from the get-go. This meant, amongst other things, that there was an awful lot of honesty flung around, questions asked and answered without fluster or fumble, about the most private of matters. We spoke bluntly about play, what we liked, what we didn't, what worked and what didn't. We spoke about desires and worries. We laughed a lot.

Something that Majeste has really stuck in my head, it was about group dynamics with respect to play and how having a focus on the group, rather than one particular object of attraction, would lead to better play. A more mix-and-match session instead of people paired off with their partners, which is certainly something that has happened to me before. This time, I think it will be very different, not only because the group is comprised of non-couples, but I also think that it will be interesting to see how a group of women play together.

Kitty and puppy

The efforts of our joint profile appear to be bearing fruit, last night The Photographer and I went out to a small kinky gathering with New Friends - we got on really well, and had a very switchy night of deciding who we were going to do next. They introduced us both to a fantastic piece of electronic kit which had a series of remotely activated pads. These were placed on the girl's labia, either side of the clitoris. The warm-up was a firm but gently vibrating sensation, which was very pleasant, and then as the current increased it became sharper, more like the feel of a violet wand, but still with the vibration underneath the electricity so even at higher levels the pain was intermingled with definite, and intimate pleasure.

The Photographer was seconded to button pushing and took great delight in doing so, but it was a little as if he had sidelined himself from the action, or fallen into his more customary role as amused but detached dom. Given the fact that he doesn't get to submit as often as I do, and that turn about is fair play I decided that really he shouldn't be left out and that he should wear the collar for the rest of the night. On hands and knees in tight pvc trousers and later on, even less, hooked to a lead he made a wonderful gift of a puppy to our recent acquaintances, the female half was especially delighted, and amusement was had when we realised that Kitty (pet name from her other half) had a puppy. Who was, as usual wonderfully well behaved, even when strapped to a bench and the electrical pads placed on the top of his penis and at the base of his balls. Then the button pushed. Mercilessly.

The three of us spent quite a while alternately petting and abusing him, until he was quite spaced out and staring, glazed and smiling into space. At which point, we changed location to the St Andrew's Cross and I got to spend a bit of time glazed and smiling as I was flogged and had my nipple piercings toyed with at length. Puppy stayed firmly on the floor, his tongue industriously investigating the potential of Kitty's stockings to everyone's delight.

What was especially nice was the level of sexualised contact, and strong mutual attraction. Lots of kissing, groping, licking and alternating dynamics which were very exciting. Although an element of Britishness (perhaps?) prevented us from inviting them back to ours for a "coffee" afterwards, I'm sure that future encounters, now the ice has been broken, will see us being a little less coy.

Joint venture

The Photographer and I have recently set our stall out as wanting to play more together, co-subbing for want of a better word. We had a great experience with Lovely Couple and are hoping to secure some more fun and games. Thus far, as with the hunt for the Hot Bi Babe (male) either the universe has a lack of such people, or we are looking in the wrong places. Optimistically I'm hoping it's the latter, although willing to concede it might be the former. Given the general mood of heternormativity within the kinky circles I'm travelling in the types of responses we are getting seem par for the course: cuckold fantasists, "porn" directors, and a lot of don't-touch-me whereby the respondent indicates that they do want to play with a couple but don't want to lay a finger (or vice versa) on the male part of the equation. Which puts paid to any boy-on-boy fellatio daydreams that either myself or The Photographer might have.

Part of it is that we are not looking for sex, specifically. We're looking for play. Straight vanilla fucking (with or without a total stranger) holds no interest for me, and besides, no wives to swap here. But we are interested in a sexualised context, a powerplay of desire and manipulation where we each get to be objects or tools of attraction, service and need. Like most things BDSM it's about a mental attitude, and that is, I suppose what we are searching for: like-minded folk, and given that we are all specialists, with our perfect kink playing out in our minds, there is going to be a lot of non-overlap. And oh, there certainly is.

That said, we do have a number of potential offers on the table. Welsh Dom has made me excited enough to clap my hands by proposing a weekend in a horsebox for the pair of us, which is probably not a November activity, so we have plenty of time to chat. And buy tack. Additionally, a couple of charming young men have answered my rallying call for finding terrible things to do to my partner in crime and we are hovering at the diary point with them.

One of the things I enjoy so much about team games is the added sense of confidence and excitement I get in actively seeking new opportunities. Having someone else to perve and plan with is a wonderful aphrodisiac, and knowing that I won't be traipsing over to God-knows-where by myself is always a plus. Then there is the sensation of sharing, in a very different sense to poly, or to watching him play with someone else in a club. Of co-existing, as equals in a similar headspace, similarly confined and constrained.

WLTM

Human interactions are always a constant source of fascination to me, perhaps I missed my calling as a social anthropologist, although that said, it is only a very narrow field of activity that concerns me here. What the Americans (and we British, lately, it would appear) call "dating". I am making a bid to have the much lovelier word "courting" reintroduced but have thus far failed to make substantial inroads.

To make it perfectly plain, I neither court nor date in a vanilla context. Hand on heart, I have learned my lesson in attempting any form of conversion and the vital importance of being explicit up front. For all parties, it's for the best. But this post is not about me (for once) it instead concerns the complexity of finding a Dom who is interested in playing with men as well as women (ok, perhaps it is a little bit about me).

I've come across an interesting phenomenon (amidst the men actually looking for couples or the male half of a couple looking for, well, other couples), the ones which seem to have at their core the desire to attract women, rather than men in a curious version of girl-kissing-gets-the-boys. These are the men who want to cuckold other men, humiliating them in the process of fucking their wife or partner. Of course, there is nothing wrong with this fantasy in and of itself, but it works in a way which isolates and sidelines the submissive male to a voyeur at best and an unwanted, unnecessary third wheel at worst. It is a very specific desire and drive which is different from wanting to play with another man: here the male submission is not a thing-in-itself but rather a vehicle through which the woman is the target. There's an old fashioned-ness to it and certainly the lover placing horns on the sad defeated male has hundreds of years of precedent, and it is, to my mind, absolutely heterosexual.

Suffice to say, that the hunt for hot bi men to bully The Photographer continues...

Experienced

I haven't really been seeing anyone even semi-seriously except for The Photographer, partly because, well, I'm very fond of him, but also because I haven't had an awful lot of spare time and when I do have some free, he's top of my list. The more we do together, the better it gets, and the more close I feel to him. However, that doesn't mean that I don't want to see other people, it has just made me a little bit more picky, which again, is probably a good thing. When I first returned to BDSM after my "vanilla period" as it could be called, there was an enthusiasm to go everywhere at once and I was probably just fortunate in finding Ethical Hedonist and fortunate too in how much I enjoyed his time and company as well as playing with him.

A friend of mine (only slightly tongue in cheek) referred to it as my "selection box" of men, and yes, despite the odd foray into girls, most recently courtesy of Kiss Curls, I appear to still mostly be a man's woman. I am, of course, open to offers. A selection box? Perhaps, certainly I do look for a unique side to potential partners, but then that might be because I look for smart, interesting folk in general who are all likely to have their own specific flavour, as it were.

I feel ready to start a new stage of exploration then, where I'm actively looking to try specific things with specific people. There is no end point to these experiments because that implies there's a goal or a finish line, I don't think it's quite that clear cut. There is a school of thought that we as a society, specifically western society, is becoming tired of commodity and looking more for an "experience". We want something to sense, feel and remember, rather than use, throw away and forget about. Although there is an argument that experiences can themselves become commodities, experiences have a transient nature and generate close connection between participants, particularly in a BDSM context, which runs counter to the uniformity of commodities. Commodities are always the same, by their very nature they are standardised items. A scene shared between two (or more) people can never be re-experienced except in memory, and even then bits will be missing, others added.

An experience also has that crucial feature that the Marxist commodity lacks: connection to the moment and mode of production - indeed, it is a product of the people, the place, the actions, and therefore links all of these together in a special way. It cannot be re-made or re-produced anymore than water can run uphill so it is irreplaceable. A moment in time. I suppose that is to me the part that especially attracts me to BDSM, the ability to conjure and to participate in these sudden acts of violent tenderness, tender violence. A break from the usual. An experience.

Jobs for the boys

Perhaps I have been lucky, and that luck has lead me to become a little greedy. The Photographer is a bisexual switch. This gives us both a lot of flexibility in play, and also in idle (and not so idle) fantasies. It has made me extremely curious as to what could be done with another bi switch male, and so locating such a person has become a small obsession of mine. Or perhaps rather ours, as I think it's safe to say that we are both quite keen on this.

There appears to be a certain hesitancy amongst men to play with other men, excluding the gay contingent obviously, yet performing girl-on-girl is considered as much a part of the female submissive's arsenal as collar wearing and kneeling. I've had a few reasons bandied about as to why this should be so, starting with the knee-jerk "but I'm straight". I find it interesting that BDSM could produce heteronormativity to such an extent. After all, it's just a body: it can give and receive pleasure. How is oral sex from a man different to a woman, surely it might be better given that they have more direct appreciation for how that feels?

Other ideas in the mix include the fact that women are "naturally" more disposed to touch each other. Which sounds like cultural conditioning at best and a big bag of tosh at worst. We are going to run into a lot of trouble if we start to cling to what is "natural" and what is not, starting with PVC and moving onwards. The societal influence is one that is perhaps worth thinking about however; that men appear to be made to feel uncomfortable and even embarrassed by considering other men as sexual beings or viewing them in a sexual way, unless they are actually gay. Which is a little sad, when you think about it, though all of that tension must go somewhere and probably accounts for interest in aggressive sports. It would perhaps be nice to channel that energy into a more productive (productive for me, anyhow) context.

I can understand the angle "I tried it a few times and didn't like it", but to not try at all seems a little feeble. Generally speaking, I'm in favour of anything that adds variety to my life, and it's not as if I'm proposing anything that I'd be unwilling to do myself. We're in a fortunate position of all being adults who understand that fucking someone, or even simply playing with them, does not indicate a lifelong committment or a need to go out and pick curtains together. Mix it up a little, gentlemen, you might like it.