Pain and Pleasure

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There is a precise mix of pain alternating with pleasure that seems to lead me down in to the Well in a way that nothing else really does.  Certainly, there are ways in which this can and does happen without such stimuli (see Power Play), but there is a rapidity to falling through the layers, a quickening of the entire process when just the right touch is applied.

This is not to say that I am a masochist.  I do masochistic things at times, but my interests fall inside of a fairly narrow range, and pain is not really something that I seek out or desire on a regular basis.  Circumstances are what drive my desires in this area, and most of the time my circumstances allow for my remaining the wimpish thing that I am about pain.  I do not seek pain out; pain must seek me if we are to intersect.

I have recently been thinking about how emotional pain releases us from the bonds of propriety.  Pain is a trigger, a release in many ways, though most of us either fail to perceive it that way, or try to fool ourselves that it is something else (righteousness, anger, our right, etc) .  We have a thousand thoughts a day, ten thousand, about what we should do or not do, what we should express or hold in.  Our outside emotions are ripples on the surface of a lake, while the inner self is like a river dammed, tamed in name, suppressed in reality.  We build that dam ourselves in reaction to our responsibilities, obligations, and social contracts.  We build the dam to protect others, or so we tell ourselves.  The reality is that we build that wall to hide the vulnerable heart that is inside all of us.  That wall is an excellent crutch, but witch each suppression, there is something lost.  We gain security of our hearts, and the wall slowly chips away at us, leaving what we have left to give of ourselves diminished.

Emotional pain can be a trigger, something that causes us to realize, for just that moment, that the social contract is broken, and in that moment we give ourselves permission to express everything that we have held back.  Subconsciously we know there is an opportunity to free ourselves of some of the weight of what is on top of us, and so we throw open the floodgates of emotion in a dizzying, almost delusional display of anger or sadness, pity or hate.  We press in to the self loathing that losing control gives us and pure sense of rightness that we feel.  It hurts the way it would when we were young pressing a loose tooth back and forth and wondering when it would come free.

We will never admit it, perhaps not even to ourselves, but this is good pain.

Physical pain can be very much the same.  Pain can push us, it can weaken our walls, break down our defenses.  Pain can be the last drop of water that breaks down that dam.  Pain, properly applied, can change everything.  You don’t need to be a masochist to figure that out.  For me, there is nothing more, nothing less.  I do not hurt because I wish for damage; I don’t want the pain itself.  The need is beyond that, something that is a part of everyone, and we all find that little slice of masochism in our own way.

And sometimes what we get must simply be enough.
-tiger

Inches or miles, distance twists and separates us…

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This is a bit of a special post, as I am going through some things emotionally and needed to do some introspection in order to quiet the storm.  Writing is a haven for me during times like this, and I felt that it was something worthy to share with all of you.

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A world that works for everyone includes necessarily that we communicate intensely and personally. Sadly, emotions often crowd these communications out, especially when dealing with people absent the social cues that we lean on for in person interactions.

The power of the written word is so great that we sometimes twist the interpretation in order to fuel our own selfish anger, the person on the other side of the screen or at the other end of an email or forum conversation so easily becomes ‘the other’, even someone who claims misunderstanding and then apologizes in ways which we refuse to accept as being honest and personal (and therefore fans our own anger) or worse yet, does it to us, escalating things in ways that we could not have foreseen and seem baffling to us.

We do not have to fall in to that trap, comparing people in our minds to other experiences we have had and/or assuming the worst. Doing that is the way we perpetuate the terrible things that people do and say to each other. All I can say is that I wish there were some magic shortcut to love, some way to stop an argument in its tracks and begin again calm and renewed.

There are solutions; we have mindfulness and love at our disposal any time we wish for them, but only if we are willing to let go of the rewards and righteousness of feeling right and holding anger in our hearts. What we will give up to retain those things seems overwhelmingly great sometimes, and few ever like to lose face so much as to back down from what they committed to in the beginning. Sometimes escalation seems the only way out. This is a trick of the mind, it isn’t true or necessary, and we must take it one battle at a time if we are to be love warriors.

We should consider carefully if what we are doing and saying really contributes, or if it just feeds some feeling in ourselves that is of base nature and does not really give to anyone. We need to look at when we hold up defending (a principle, place, or other) as a right to be destructive to another’s spirit, and remember that, just as there is something tender inside ourselves which can be hurt, there is something just so in the others around us, whether we choose to see it at a given moment or not.

The Elimination of I – Abuse and Conditioning in Relationships

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Back in 2002 the US was still awash in the patriotic fervor that followed the 2001 attacks on Washington and New York. On one of these days I was driving home and listening to Newshour. On this particular day, they were interviewing Marine recruits on Parris Island in South Carolina.

All of the recruits talked about themselves in the distant third person. “This recruit decided she would enlist for a full tour, sir. This recruit’s parents don’t agree with her decision to be in the military, sir, but this recruit believes she is doing what is right sir.”

The military only takes 12 weeks to break a person down to the point where there is no longer enough of an ego barrier for them to be a person in their own mind. This is how basic training works, it is not some whacked out d/s fantasy, it happens every day. To a great degree this is the reason why getting recruits young is so important, weak ego barriers are a hallmark of the level of maturity that you find in 18-23 year old mind (I describe this as simply a stage of maturity, not a judgment on young people). Once this process is complete, trainers inform these young people that they will have the honor of being able to put their life at risk for the country. There are enemies out there, people who are not like us that you, being one of us, can kill and destroy. The country has helped you achieve to this point, you could do nothing without the country. Don’t you owe the country your life?

How this applies to d/s, well I am coming to that. You see, I have had dominants who felt that the way to “make” a good submissive yours is to train them in this manner. This is called training when the government does it, when you are in a cult or are under the misdirection of someone abusive calling themselves a dominant, it is more often called brainwashing. Either way, the main ingredients of the formula tends to be the elimination of ego boundaries in order for the outside influence to convince the person being conditioned that they need the assistance being offered. You have to either put the person through hell, or catch them at just the right moment to get this started. Once started, this process tends to reinforce itself, social pressure being one of the best ways to cause someone to act in a manner consistent to what YOU want. In this case, the best conditioning includes severe social repercussions as well, an isolation worse than that which the person being conditioned is already experiencing.

Isolation and alienation are key to Marine recruits and brainwashees both. The illusion of aloneness in the world, that all things good come from one source or one person makes this process work better. That feeling of social consequence rarely works if loved ones and friends are surrounding the person being worked on, and so those people need to be pushed out one way or another.

It is a little scary how our brains can be so easily fooled, all that intelligence diverted by shortcuts that should not ever have been left there. Then again, if we didn’t have those, there would be no cults, and what kind of fun would we be able to have if we couldn’t watch them going up in flames on tv?

On a more serious note, BDSM can be a dangerous business, especially when things which trigger strong emotional reactions in people occur. There are some that will throw up their hands and say that BDSM constitutes abuse because some people abuse in those situations. Certainly, there is an argument for throwing the baby out with the bath water, but one might say that about any style relationship; abuse happens everywhere that you can look for it. No, I think instead what we are seeing here is a desire to label feelings and actions which do not meet the definition of conservatively acceptable as harmful (there will be a lot more about “normality” later on). As a therapist I used to see said to me many times, “There must be something about this that harms you.” You can guess why I fired him.

The danger here is substantially of the heart. You can see how deep this runs in someone like me, how vulnerable the places are that it can take me. I must be careful to whom I give that power, that depth, and that openness. I’ve been abused, but it was in part because I allowed myself to need too badly what another promised, and I did not take care of myself. Abusers are never in the right, but after a time if one does not learn to protect oneself, the balance of culpability shifts. Forever a victim is a self-fulfilling prophecy, especially when so much love and community support is out there for the taking; one must simply allow oneself to accept the gift of love.

Do you have a story of abuse and recovery in a relationship? I’d love to hear what you might share, as it helps increase my understanding of how others manage and recover. What you have learned could help so many, and I would hope you could open your wounded heart and give of yourself to this cause.

Until next time, there are always choices in life, but the biggest choice, as a dear friend recently reminded me, is between love and fear. Which will you choose?
<3
Tiger

Light Bondage

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What did I know when I was growing up?

I will wait and go in to at a later date the whole idea of how similar our minds really are, but let’s just say that I was, as the Lady Gaga song goes, born this way.  My earliest fantasies were all about being bound, and I didn’t know anything about it at the time.  I can’t point to anything in the area of early exposure except for the things that I did to myself or the situations I put myself in.  There was no exposure to bondage art, pornography, or anything of the sort.  I came up with my desires in a vacuum, essentially, and I certainly can’t explain where they came from, though this is not about that.  This is about what happened after that was already established as a pattern.

I met my first boyfriend when I was still confused about what sexuality  and orientation really were.  Bisexuality as an option hadn’t yet been introduced to me, I’d been told it was a black and white world (you were straight or gay, nothing in between).  As most of my relationships would have as their biggest determining factor, I was attracted to Sean’s mind, his way of thinking, and not particularly by his body.

Sean had seen the way I reacted to the smallest dominant gestures, my willingness to do as I was told without asking questions in gameplay, for example, and the focus with which I followed it thereafter.  I’d likely have shown other signs as well, things that I can’t recall at the moment, but that others clearly picked up on.  Sean was adventurous, interesting, and he was willing to engage in a little bit of light bondage with me.  This more than anything sealed the deal.

What we did back then probably wouldn’t be enough to really get my interest today, but back then it was novel and hugely exciting, it was the first time I would ever really indulge those fantasies and I was captured by it.

And I can still remember that first time, bound spread eagle on the bed with bathrobe ties, having another person touch me, please me, and himself, fully out of my control.

Of course as with anything else, you get to know your partner more over time.  With this relationship and several others, bondage was an introduction, a selling point for the relationship, or a part of the honeymoon period.  When I would realize what was going on, I had gotten committed to the relationship and it was too late to back out in an uncomplicated way.  Of course I didn’t really know what my needs were back then either, but I often felt tricked in to a vanilla relationship (or at best, vanilla with sprinkles on alternating months) with someone who had played around with bondage with me early on.

I’ve rarely been coy about what it is that I like, but in many things, no matter what age we are, we are young.  Experience and patience grows significantly in time, and it has taken me time to learn that not just any freak can be a partner for me, they have to be a very special kind of freak indeed if they are to keep a unicorn from flitting back in to the protective embrace of their forest glade.

Until next time, enjoy your freedom while you have it boys.
<3
Tiger

Power Play

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Submissive men like myself often find themselves in a great dichotomy, living alpha lives in the office, managers, directors, PMs, people who obsess over details of making plans work and having all of the gears mesh while a great weight of responsibility rests on their shoulders.  For many of them, especially those who are submissive in secret, the sneaking away to play servant, boy, slave, or whatever for an evening, a day, a weekend, is the only release they get from the great demanding world that they have committed themselves to.  Though it may seem that way, submission is not an emergency relief valve for an overstressed system.  Submission is a part of the fabric of what makes up these kinds of people, what makes them really tick down at a level so basic that they can only deny who they really are for so long before their needs rise to a level requiring action.

Enjoying dominance is not exactly a new thing for men, we’ve been sneaking around for longer than anyone ever suspected in order to get our needs sated.  Many men find that the only real way they can let go is at the hands of one of the many fine women and men who make it their job to do pay domination work.  Personally, I have never experienced a pay for play session, but I am excellent friends with a number of pro dominants who I know from my photography gigs, and I am certain that all of them would be excellent at what they do, if not better than I might imagine.

I have had a number of amazing dominants over the years, people who fulfilled many of my most dizzying desires.  The thing is, I am still male, and I have a similar set of hormones running through my body and a similar level of training, both culturally and biochemically on how I should make my place in the world.  I am not a “true submissive” who believes his place is always two steps behind and one to the right, silent unless spoken to, and only trustable with the most mundane of tasks.

Now let me stop for a moment and say this:  Do I think it is wrong that some submissives purpose themselves and their lives to their dominants?  No, their lives are their choices.  This sort of service does not to work for me.

I need a soft touch to have my submissive side bloom.  The formation and drawing out of desire, the building want, the achingly delicious craving for my dominant’s attention and approval requires time and effort.  It requires getting to know me, because they amount that you can really make me feel submissive for you is inexorably tied to the amount you can get under my skin and in to my head.

How you accomplish this task escapes me completely.  I have played the dominant role, but I am at best a switch.  What I can do is pidgin domination, I listen and repeat, pressing buttons as best I can, being the considerate service top that I am, but I am hardly more than that.  I’ve called myself 80% submissive in the past, but I think that I might be overstating my ability and level of dominance.  Really, I’m probably 10% dominant at best; I can play the part, but I simply am not the kind of person you need to be to stick that particular role.

Instead of trying to describe the slow process of how one gets to the right buttons to push or the right words to say, I will try to show the things that trigger changes in my feelings and behaviors.  From there we can build up what this sort of dominant behavior really is and what the exchange means.

The best sort of scenes begin with casual teasing, conversation that turns playful, mostly just words but often kinky that leads in the direction of lightly pushing at known buttons just to get me tuned in to my dominant.  Some light embarrassment or gentle humiliation never hurts at this phase, it gives me reason to glance down, to blush, or stutter.  Pushing buttons around my known kinks, having me get flustered, make noises of protest or denial, and then gently challenging me about if I do or do not like that sort of thing and forcing the truth out inches almost always works.  This is an important phase where observation is key, watching my body language as I begin to shift, watching my reactions and tuning based off them.

[…]

She says, “Then we can bat you around the room!”

I flush, “I’m not a toy!”

She looks in to my eyes and says, “You aren’t?”

I squirm, my eyes dropping from hers to the ground as I blush deeply, “W-well I uh…”

[…]

 

This is snipped from the middle of a conversation, but you get the idea, it only takes a few words and looks to change my attitude from that playful and silly place right down in to a sharp falling down in to the first bits of my submission.

It takes little more banter than this, small challenges, eye contact, questions I must answer, before the change makes itself truly felt.  The conversation, the space, and the relationship all begin to turn, shaping themselves to the new power dynamic, and my feelings rapidly move toward a quieter, more submissive space.

She knows she already has me, so she gives me the praise I so desire.  She reaches out and strokes my cheek with her fingertips.  “Such a good boy…”

The cheek she touches is warm in response.  Blushing, I look down.

She keeps up the gentle challenge, we are exploring, she sees she pressed a button and asks, “Embarrassed by my praise, boy?”

There is something tight in my stomach when she calls me boy, it makes me squirm.  I can’t find my voice right away, so I shake my head just a little, following it with a whispered answer, “It just makes me feel um… like… a certain way?”"

This is where she reinforces to me, touches, hugs me, helps me know that, while she is taking me to a dangerous, vulnerable place, that she is also pledging to protect me and bring me back.  This is almost never said with words, but it is nevertheless part of the exchange.  I have to be able to trust her, and the gentleness she shows me between the quiet attacks on my ego boundaries is the vital thing that allows me to relax and believe the promises that they imply.  So little of this is truly accomplished through verbal communication, so much of it is hidden in gestures and touches that from the outside it must seem like magic.  In a way, it is.  She also encourages me out of my clothing, not terribly difficult to do – not that I am experiencing a teenager’s level of raging hormones, but rather there is nothing to hide from her, nothing to be gained by not complying, and she wants it.  That is enough for me, she’s already been setting up my desire to please her.

She tells me what a good boy I am.  I look down and squirm just a little bit, then move my head slightly up again so that I can look at her, “I am, sir?”  She prefers sir, and something special happens in my mind and in that squirmy place in my belly when I say it.  (My love of capable, smart, tomboyish women and female leather daddies is a whole story for later, however.)

I once dated a couple, male submissive, female dominant.  He used to enjoy watching as she dropped me down deep in to the well.  One day when I was recovering he snuggled up close to me and said, “You get so small when you do this,” almost as if there was a physical phenomena that could be observed as I fell in to my private world.  The interesting thing about that is how more than one person has seen it, and they’ve always described it the same way, small.  It is the way I always thought of it too, but I never said it, which makes the observation by others all that much more interesting.

I feel small as she rubs my cheek with her fingertips, just barely touching the warm skin as she says quietly, but not whispering. “Yes,” she says, “you have always been a good boy.”

I close my eyes as she gently strokes my cheek with her thumb, unable to keep from smiling just a little when she does so.  It isn’t long before her thumb traces over my lips, dragging the lower one down into an exaggerated pout for a moment.  It is all I can do to hold still, my body wanting to tremble at the touch, so gentle, yet so intense.  Slowly, my jaw relaxes, and her thumb moves slightly to glide over the ridge of my lower teeth before it slowly moves further, encountering my tongue and sliding over its wet surface.

My tongue shifts, just a little, a soft, tiny whimper escaping me, my eyes squeezing shut even tighter as she strokes the pad of her thumb over it.  My senses are filled with her, my eyes still closed, I sense her pulling the desire up out of me, and it is strong.  My heartbeat is rapid now, my breaths coming in quick, panting little pulls through my nose as a begin to suck gently on that thumb, tongue moving gently under it, rising the smallest bit to meet the digit.

Play your cards right now, and I am yours down to the depths of my heart, I am yours to the very marrow in my bones.  I squirm, I tremble, I whimper, I ache for the dominant who can press these buttons gently and in just the right way.  Command me, take me, conquer me so gently that I offer up everything you wish for and more.

My soft limits begin to evaporate as she moves her thumb, first rubbing it in slow circles over my tongue, then slowly slides it out of my mouth, almost all the way before pressing it back in.  Excitement, alarm, but not the type that would pull me out of the gentle down of the well I have been slowly lowered in to.  I use my lips, my cheeks, my everything to keep the thumb there, blush flushing up over my face, distracting my attention from where it should be.

My eyelids flutter as I hang on the edge between the dream of the well, that safe, private world, and the reality and worries of everyday life.  Somehow she sees it and begins to pull her thumb out and push it back in to my mouth in the slow rhythm that eventually sends my thoughts scattering and focuses me once more on her completely.

Once she has me again, she gently slows the movement, eventually pulling her thumb out.  Wet with my saliva, she slowly drags it down my chin.  Her other hand has been slowly moving up the back of my neck, fingers tracing up and down, rubbing gently to calm and relax me so that when they slide up in to my hair and grasp hold of it, I can’t help but gasp.  My joints feel loose from the sudden change and I am happy to find myself being guided to sit.

She uses my hair like a handle, keeping my eyes pointed in the direction she desires.  My eyes always fall quickly down when I begin to get this way, and I feel excited, aroused, but intensely calm.  Having ADHD means that my mind is never quiet, and I am often intensely bored and searching for stimulation of some sort or another.  Often music or audio books help when I need to concentrate, but nothing focuses me on something, nothing quiets my mind like being in the Well does.  My mind is focused on one person, the roaring chaos of my thoughts tamed while she holds me by my hair and manipulates my head until all I can do is look in to her eyes.  Quietly, adoringly, she says, “Look up.”  The words are spoken like there is a period after each word, like she expects it, like disobeying isn’t even on the menu here.

In her eyes I see all the dark lust in the world reaching for me.  I see a hunger there in the tightness of her pupils, a hunger that shows she will take me and herself to the edge, then drag us back by the sheer force of her will.  I want her, I adore her, and a part of me is just a little bit scared of her.  I close my eyes as she bends close and whispers a single word to my waiting ear, “Mine.”

Her thumb continues tracing slowly, leaving a wet line down to the soft hollow at the base of my throat, the nail dimpling the skin as it presses in lightly.  Fingers spread and she gently takes my throat in her hand, the fingers slowly tightening until my eyes come open wide, gasping suddenly, yet not moving at all.  I am scared, but I am trusting that she knows what she is doing, even as the hand tightens around my throat, even as my breath catches at the compression and barely wheezes out.

She leans in and kisses me while my chest heaves and I struggle to take a breath.  At first I kiss back gently, but as my body begins to demand oxygen, I lose focus and start to struggle, my kiss becoming wild and unguided.

She slowly releases the pressure on my throat, my lungs heave to pull in a much-needed breath.  Her lips still sealed with mine, I pull at her mouth desperately for air, and she provides it.  I am happy to be able to breathe anything at all, my lungs are burning, aching, and the stale, hot breath she gives me is more than satisfying for the moment.  Her hand takes a better grip in my hair to keep my lips against hers and when I finally start to exhale, she breathes it in again, then immediately exhales it for me to rebreathe.  The fourth breathing of the stale air makes me feel dizzy, like I’ve just inhaled nitrous­ at the dentist’s office, but the dentist has never made me feel like this.

At the next exhale she breaks the kiss and is looking me once again in the eyes as I taste fresh air for the first time in a long while.  Her eyes meet mine, though mine wander dazedly for three or four breaths as my head slowly clears.

I feel her breath near my ear as I hear her softly say, “Such a good boy” as my eyes drift closed.  It is better than an orgasm, and she can see that I am emotionally spent.  She pulls my head gently back, then untangles her hand from my hair and puts her arms around me.  There is small talking now, all by her as I just sort of drift.  I don’t react, but there is pleasure when I hear her telling me that I am her good boy, how brave and strong I am.

She lets me stay where I am, down in the well, floating up slowly, drifting.  I shiver and she carefully wraps me in a sheet, just enough to keep in some warmth, then resumes holding me close, whispering gentle, loving encouragement as I slowly break the surface and breathe air equal with hers again.

It will still be a few hours before my eyes stop drifting downward on their own, before my voice wants to carry more than a whisper, but she has delivered on her promise.  We swam out in to the deep water and she carried me back safe.

Enjoy your freedom while it lasts, boys.

<3

Tiger

The Well

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Some submissives talk about subspace, headspace, boy/boi or girl space, pet space, puppy space, kitty space, pony space, and on and on.  Let us just say that there are as many ways to think about the way in which we commit ourselves to thinking in scene or with partners as there are ways to do such things.

I’ve experienced with some of these things; the intense highs and lows of a scene can drag me right in to an alternate thinking space.  The way my mind works when someone is hurting me, when someone is guiding me, when I want to ignore all of my body’s desires to stop and rest when I am being a pony…  In that there are places that my mind goes to allow me to feel good, to feel beauty in my actions, in what I accept, what I want.  It is a lovely, calming feeling, almost like relaxing, almost close to sleep.  The Well is not this.

The Well is something related to that subspace, but much, much deeper.  The well is euphoric, and yet entirely calm, without thought or care of past or future.  The well is being in the here and now.  Inside the Well my partner’s touch has them be able to taste my inner self and feel who and what I am.  The Well is a quiet place, a place without words, and my partner has to shoulder the burden of reading my body in order to sense my emotions and my needs.

A dominant hand touches me, cherishes me, hurts me, pleasures me, guides me.  I sink slowly under their dominance, and the further I go down, the more seductive it becomes.  I want more, always more, quieter, sealing me in silence and dark, dark water.

I am not certain that I can explain precisely what it is like to be in the Well, all I can say is that a piece of it is that same sort of relaxation that one finds peculiar to states receptive of hypnosis.  Another piece of it is that strong submissive desire, adoring, loving, cherishing the one who takes me to this place and gives me this feeling.

The Well is important to me only in that the knowledge of it builds what a dominant partner may do with me, how far they are willing to take me, how deep we truly can go.  Sometimes all I need to brave the deep, deep water is a hand to guide me there, and the promise that they will lead me back again when the time is right.

 

Wounded

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Back in 1999 when I first began putting my thoughts down in something of an online journal, I was fresh off a badly abusive relationship that was masquerading as d&s play and was careening headlong in to another.  I was a riotous confusion of unmet needs, indecipherable feelings, heartache, hurt, and fear.

I had learned what predators were, but I hadn’t learned to avoid their seductive nature.  I found myself on the run all of the time.  As I would say back then, a predator knew me when he saw me, and I could never, ever resist his charms.  They promised things they could never deliver to reel me in.  They promised that I would belong, that I would be treasured and loved.

I will leave the details on some of these relationships brief.  To say that things went poorly would cover it enough for now.  There was damage, and I carried that damage a long way before I figured out a way to have it make me a stronger person.

This isn’t remembered as a particularly good time in my life; for many years I never made any single person fully aware of the hell that I went through.  Perhaps that is an overextension of the truth, a broader generalization than is needed here, but it always seemed when I would reveal some new detail to someone that they would just shake their head and tell me they had no idea that was going on.  As secretive was I was about much of what went on in this relationship, it did have a very large effect on my life and how I thought of myself. I punished myself for being weak and submissive, telling myself that if I had been strong, if I hadn’t desired that, I wouldn’t have been hurt. I wouldn’t have been abused. I wouldn’t have lost my life’s track for the years it took to get rid of him, and the years it took to recover. I made up my mind that the submissive I thought of myself as didn’t exist. Yes, I had those desires, but I wanted it cheap, and I made it so. If I could get a little bit of rough sex, a little bit of bondage now and then, I could limp by. I thought it was enough for me.

Submission.

I am certain I have alluded to it plenty by now, but I will just come out and say plainly that I have changed since I was that young submissive boy.  I was growing in to, growing up to be something, but what was that?  After the dust settled, I wondered if I could still be that person, still do those things I desired, or if the growth spurred by these incidents changed me in a way that was no longer compatible with these things I wanted.  How much of myself had been pared away so that I could present myself as a responsible adult, an acceptable person, not a freak?  How much of the child inside, the one that is at the heart of all of us with its original desire and love for the world and connecting to it, how much of him was left?

You understand here, that like a cat that had been held, smacked, or just mishandled once too often, I wanted to run off to avoid what I thought was the foregone conclusion to any relationship, to dash off to save myself when the tide of feelings would run high and the desires, the urges would begin to rise.  Yet here I was, hurting, vulnerable, laying myself open and asking please, sir, yes, I want more.

So it started in those waning days of summer, the familiar tightness in my stomach that excitement always brought, the little tinglings I would feel in my viscera when the need felt itself called and made its intentions clear. I had built a tall wall around my submissive self, shut it down, shut it in, and while I suffered the shame that many feel in losing control of themselves and doing things unwise born from desires, I never allowed myself to spiral so far down in to self-hatred as to tell myself that my very desires were wrong.  Still, I felt a need to protect the more vulnerable parts of myself, and I did just that.  I didn’t let anyone in, and then I did.

After I was hurt, I never thought that I would really be able to submit to someone again, not fully, not with my whole heart. I turned my life away from that path, anything there would be a waste of effort, with my inability to enter that headspace.

Six months passed, then six more, and I took some tentative steps to start sceneing again. I like that part, the physical actions, the short-term roles. I couldn’t ‘go under’ for someone, but I could make a good show of it. Exhausted at the end of an evening of play, I’d feel satisfied. I’d say it wasn’t enough though.

Boredom and curiosity in all the wrong ways brought me to meet up with a dominant who opened me up like he was a can opener and I was  the can.  For a shining moment, it was as if the last five years hadn’t even happened.  I was saying ‘sir’ within a few hours, and by the end of the week, I was saying ‘master’, which is a particularly difficult one for me, a word that truly makes me cringe. I became this little thing, heart skipping a beat when I’d see him awake, perhaps more than one when he would tease.  I was like a puppet, suddenly dancing under his strings, the tiny movements of his hands carrying me to fulfill on his will.

I spent the first week of this deep in thought. I had rejected my submissive nature, yet, there it was, shoving itself right in my face. I couldn’t deny it, even when I thought it was dead, I knew I had been, but… the reality was that it didn’t go anywhere. I sat on it and let it brood. When I met someone who pushed the right combination of buttons, it simply exploded forth, and left me on my knees.

All right, as an aside here, I know this all sounds pretty crazy, especially if you aren’t in to it.  Sometimes this stuff makes me doubt my own sanity.  I was young, but I was a capable person, well employed for years, holding down two jobs, two houses and a car and with something like 5 or 6 years of therapy under my belt. I should have had the ability to make rational decisions, yet, this horribly attractive thing threw me right off my kilter.

So at least I waited, thought, pondered life while I continued with my life plans.  Life was how life was, and I was forced to take the new with the old so that I could learn the lessons my past had to teach me.  I didn’t want to be under the control of those bad feelings any more, the fear and the bitterness rolling around in my head were too much, and I was no  longer happy to host them.

I would wait to see what direction life would take.  In the blink of an eye, this budding relationship was over (and not terribly amenably), but what I learned while I was there carried on.  I couldn’t cut off that part of myself that had submissive needs, as I became far too dangerous when I went around under the control of that need.

What grows from stories

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One of the more interesting aspects of people who have “alternative” sexual expressions is their desire to share.  Certainly some of my most intense fantasies have sprung from the written word, and there has seemingly never in all the years I have been able to access the internet, a shortage of people willing to share their fantasies with others.

As I’ve said, unicorns figured heavily as a substitute for self in my early submissive feelings, as did stories of the reluctant hero.  Random acts of kindness, this wasn’t a phrase I heard until later in my life, but I enjoyed doing things which I would never see the return from even as a youngster, and always wished that those desires to really be a great person would one day be tested.

My early fantasies were non-consensual to a level that I doubt any sane person would be willing to do in real life, but they often were rooted in the cruelty of children.  Many, truly most, of these fantasies involved being in my school, and being sexually used or abused.  Often the fantasies had aspects of my needing to do a certain thing to avoid having my situation exposed to the larger world, making the humiliation all the worse, as I would have to desire to remain bound as I was.

The cruelty and depravity of these fantasy characters astonishes even me, though somehow it never made the fantasies any less hot.  Reality rarely intruded in to my young fantasies, though admittedly it rarely does intrude in to my adult fantasies either.

These were also some of my first forays in to the idea of being treated in a certain way that I still relate to as submissive.  One was simply being overpowered; this was a fairly easy thing to imagine when I was young, as I was never destined to grow much taller than 5’5″ and was always slight.  Even as an adult, I can put thumb and forefinger around my wrist with room to spare, so you can imagine how small I was in my early teens.  I’ve rarely wanted for someone who couldn’t overpower me, though most were never that brave.

I have loved being physically restrained, and have for as long as I can remember.  The tighter it is, the better.  It isn’t enough to want to be restrained in a sleepsack, I want rope around me too, or belts every six inches, or to be placed in one after another until I can hardly squirm.  It is no wonder that I am such a big fan of vacuum beds.

The other of these ideas was that of being dressed.  Interesting tidbit from interviewing my mother about my and her past was that I found out that her reason for wanting to have my sister and I were based around her thought it would be fun to have kids to dress up.  Whatever way that this maternal influence twisted me, I remain.  I’ve always enjoyed being dressed, being told what to put on, having costumes picked out for me and the like.  I’ve been made to wear all manner of things, I’ve even been shown by one dominant in particular to enjoy being told what color of socks to wear on a given day.  Like the painted toenails, or wearing little decorations picked out for me to tickle another’s fancy, these little secrets have always had an impact far greater than I could ever have imagined.  How could I resist wanting to be dressed up as a pony with ribbons in my hair and beautiful tack decorating my body? How could I resist something that showed me to be what my dominant wants, a proud boy, pony, or captured prince wearing my dominant’s mark the way they wished it seen?

<3

Tiger

Unicorns and wild things

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Between the ages of 9 and 14, before I had found the internet and learned little about my desires, there were those years of awkward exploration that cause us to begin to figure out who we are sexually.   For me, much of that time was spent in the exploration of a private world that only I knew about.

I didn’t know much, but I somehow knew that things for me were… different in a way that I probably shouldn’t share with my peers for being thought odd, or my parents; normal sexual expression in my immediate family was frowned on, and I had a pretty strong feeling that I wasn’t a normal child.  As a kid whose world was upset by moves to various parts of the country multiple times, I didn’t have the  resource of lifelong friends with whom one might safely (albeit with a bit of teasing) share their ideas.

I often attribute the reason that I grew up to become a pony later in life to a story about toy horses.  My sister had a set of these, they were very popular in the 70s and early 80s, heavy plastic horses about 10 inches tall, standing, rearing, pawing the ground.  It wasn’t unusual for girls to have collections of these, and my sister was no different in that aspect.  It was also a time where people were having stronger feelings about gender barriers.  There was a certain understanding that things like horseback riding and loving a giant, yet seemingly gentle animal (hah!) like a horse were ‘girl’ activities.  That I played with my sister’s toys didn’t escape my mother’s notice, and it wasn’t long before I was told that those horse toys were my sister’s and they weren’t for me.  I also had the desire already to serve, a want to clean horse stalls and feed animals, and to drink the luscious, sweet nectar that was grooming a horse and basking in that scent that is unique to equines.  In all of these places I found myself stopped, and I put my desires away.

A desire internalized grows in the way that the roots of a tree will grow around a stone, they find the path of least resistance and, twisting and turning, maneuver around, sometimes in unexpected directions.  For me, I sought the refuge of the unicorn.  I was fascinated, as these mythical creatures were much like the equines that I wished to be near, yet they were intelligent, and had a wildness and power almost beyond imagination.  I dedicated myself to their study, seeking out all manner of books about them.  During that time in my life, the only thing a book needed to have in it to catch my eye and attention was a unicorn, and I’d search for them whenever I got the chance.

It wasn’t long before I put 2 and 2 together and got 694.  Unicorns were proud, wild, strong, good of heart, and often misunderstood.  People hunted them, tried to steal their freedom with the touch of virgin girls or the use of silver to control their bodies and minds.  I was different, a wild, free thing that was so difficult to control that my mother gave up cooking food for me by the age of six because I would only eat what I wanted anyway.  I wasn’t understood, and there were always pressures seemingly allied against me to try and bend my will.  In short, I was clearly one of them.

Of course what I didn’t understand then and do now is that the unicorn was a symbol for myself as a submissive.  I have always been headstrong, yet I have always had the desire to have someone capture me, mold me to their pleasure, control me.  My wildness wasn’t for being captured by traps or hunter’s arrow, no, what was needed was, to borrow from one of endless stories on unicorns that I read in my youth, a net to catch the wind.  What could be ethereal enough to catch and contain me?  Love, the story said, is a net to catch the wind.  Firmness and gentle care in one, someone to hold me their prized and favored possession of all, but someone to posses me nonetheless.

I’ve seen it many times, strong submissives serving dominants who look down at their boy or girl with a glitter in their eye almost like tears – how could one be so lucky as to own the soul of such a creature, tamed at his or her touch, but still wild?  How could one be so fortunate to trace fingers over the raised scar of old wounds and to feel their mark in that flesh?  What could one have done to have providence smile on them so as to have fingers tangled in his or her hair, to be pulled close so that lips almost touch ear, and the whispered word from the possessor, “Mine.”

<3

Tiger

Christmas Eve

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In many ways, winter in the Pacific Northwest is my favorite time of year. It does not get particularly cold here; plenty chilly, dark, and wet, but compared to the winters I grew up with in New England it is positively balmy.

Winters are just cold enough, however, to provide us with a number of opportunities to do things that are not available to us in summer. Bulkier clothing being the norm means that one can be bound under their clothes with their dominant guiding them about and no one would ever be the wiser.

Over the years I have enjoyed a number of these types of scenarios, my favorites tend to involve a jacket with the sleeves tucked in to the pockets over top of a restrictive garment like my Darlex two leg sleepsack or Darlex straitjacket, though it can be as simple as wrists cuffed to a waist belt.

There is a special kind of humiliation involved in avoiding having others know about the state you are in out of social necessity. What we do is not abnormal, not precisely, but we do enjoy acting as if it is in wider society.
Therefore, if you are being walked through the mall with your arms bound, a remote controlled vibrator on or in some sensitive part of your body, and your cock locked in a cage, you will find that there is a strong resistance to doing
anything that might threaten to reveal your situation. In this way, the dominant may find your behavior to be more cooperative and that in the areas of what you can be pushed to do that you are? Well let us say that you are more inclined to be cooperative on things you might normally resist.

It goes something like this:

I’m nervous, and it doesn’t help that she has to pull me out of the car because I can’t use my arms to help brace myself. I look dressed normally, jeans and coat all doing their jobs to hide the Darlex straitjacket I am wearing underneath them, I even have a scarf hiding the posture collar and gag I am wearing.

There isn’t much conversation between the parking garage and the movie theatre, I can’t talk and all she has to say comes through the hand at my back that is guiding me where she wants me to go. We go to the ticket counter, then the snack counter, my eyes darting about as I nervously pant through my nose, worried what each person around me is thinking. Mostly they don’t seem to notice anything, but I feel eyes on me from every direction and my heart beats fast, fluttering like a small bird caught in my chest.

It is also hard to concentrate, so it shouldn’t be surprising that it seems tome that it isn’t long before we are in the theater for our show. She guides me in to the back so that we are sitting in the very last row of a mostly empty theater. We are seeing a movie that is almost through its run, so there are not likely to be many people attending, especially not on Christmas Eve.

She gets met sat down and unzips my jacket enough to keep me from getting too warm while she works. She has a black sheet that she lays over my lap. Underneath, she unbuttons my pants and slides them off. This reveals the bottom part
of the Darlex straitjacket and some rather intimate parts of me that they were hiding, though the sheet keeps things from anyone’s view. The pants go in to her bag, trading places in her hand with rope that she uses for securing my ankles to the underside of the seat. I grunt, and more embarrassingly, cannot seem to help a little whine, though both are very quiet. Even if I am not fully in agreement with this action, there is little that I can do about it just this moment.

After both ankles are secured to either side , she takes another piece of rope and ties my legs at the knee, then twists the rope and winds it around itself until the binding becomes a rope spreader that forces my knees wide. I can’t help but feel more and more vulnerable as she strips away the clothing hiding me and adds to my bondage.

With that done, she reaches under the scarf and unbuckles my gag, taking it away hidden in the cloth that she removes next. I work my jaw a little now that it is free and try to glance down, though the posture collar brings me up short. The theater is dark enough that she seems to think we can get away with leaving the posture collar in sight; it is just plain black leather with no fittings or rings, nothing to catch the light.

Next, she gets herself situated in her seat and removes my jacket the rest of the way. If anyone came close, they would see that I was straitjacketed for sure. Since it is dark and almost no one is here with us, it seems unlikely; she is just doing it to make me squirm now. It makes me shiver just a bit to see how much she enjoys the gentle teasing, the fear and light humiliation that follow, mixed the looks that show her my adoration for her and the trust that I hand over to her, mostly willingly.

What she does next REALLY makes me squirm; she has found the controls for the TENS that is clipped on to the strap on my straitjacket. I have a bullet inside and a monopole cock ring on, and the tingling, jolting sensation going right through my prostate, making me instantly hard, and dripping. There is something fully automatic about the reaction that occurs when electricity is coursing through these parts of my body, and the fact that I have little to no control over it leaves me feeling wildly out of control and hugely turned on.

This theater is equipped with the armrest/beverage holder that you can push up to make two seats in to a love seat sort of configuration. She does just that, snuggling up close to me so she can keep a hand under the sheet to toy with my cock and tease me. I can make noise, but I have to be careful not to let anyone else hear, so it is limited to the soft little gasps and quiet moans that seem only to encourage her to tease me more.

I try my best to concentrate on the movie. Sometimes I think she enjoys that I’m trying to concentrate while she is teasing me, other times she adjusts the controls of the TENS until there is no ignoring her. The posture collar keeps me looking straight ahead with my chin up slightly. What she is doing is kept out of my sight, and at best all I can do is squirm and tug at my bindings. This gets me nowhere.

Before the movie ends, she reconfigures things so that I am back to wearing jeans, wrapped up in my winter jacket, re-gagged with the scarf hiding my neck and face before we leave the theater and head out to the car. When we get home, well when we get home I do not regain my freedom for some time, not until she feels completely satisfied.

So have a happy holiday and whatever you are doing tonight, enjoy yourselves. We certainly are.