The Dictionary, Page Two

Intimacy is a small table, it is true.  Intimacy is also a large dance floor.  Intimacy is a speeding BMW.  Intimacy is a surprise, but it is also expected and waiting where you last found it.

There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so, says Hamlet.  And, I do think.  I count myself queen of all things, and especially all intimate space, and especially all open water, because I imagine all environments occupied by Tasdron already, and his hand already extends to guide me home.

We danced this afternoon.  There were lots of people around, but it felt like we had the entire place to ourselves.  It was relationship-building as well as relationship-affirming as well as relationship-exploring as well as new-things discovering as well as old-things reviewing as well as lots of smiles and a very serious jolt of WOW to contemplate.  A big deal.  It was something intellectual and something seriously emotional. And it was all in public but all in private.  Not a peep leaked out into the world.  And my collar was shielding me against instant messages so my attention was focused.  My attention would be focused anyway because I would never want that awesome man to wait in line.  There is no line he ever needs to wait in, because I run like a maniac to and fro to make sure there is a smooth road ahead, easy curves and lightning straightaways.  I can do that because I work constantly in his service, even when he thinks I'm just quietly delighting in flattery.  If he even thinks that at all.

And this is intimacy to me.  It's a small table where all of this is spread out on it, and to everybody else it just looks like a white table cloth, and to me it looks like the dinner-spread of Marie Antoinette and all the confections she would enjoy at her delicate fingertips.  And to that wonderful man, what lies upon the table is my beating heart.

How high, Sir?

"Obsequious," a word from the latin for compliant and yielding.  It carries a negative connotation in the modern day:  fawning, agreeing without critical thought, giving the illusion of agreement regardless of whether one truly agrees.  "Yes, Sir, how high would you like me to jump?  I will not ask why."

If I were dominant and seeking, I would feel naturally suspicious of a submissive who agreed with everything I said.  It would sound, to me, as though the submissive were kissing my ass for other reasons besides submission.  I would not trust her submission while she was agreeing without critical thought.  Yes, it is good and right that she trust me, if I were dominating her.  Yes, it is good and right that she believe I would not steer her wrong.  But I think I should tire very soon with someone who could not shade my perspective with different colours besides my own shades of grey.

Of course there are dominants who require absolute obedience and unquestioning faith.  Yes means yes and "how high?" is the only acceptable deviation.  Such an attitude reveals the difference between one who owns a slave's unquestioning obedience and one who exchanges power with a submissive otherwise-free-thinking person.   But, I digress.

The real élan, the real finessing, the extra special uniqueness that one submissive is capable of giving that is different from all the rest (and the real reason why she is loved by a dominant in ways that a dominant loves no other) is the way in which she makes compliance seem like right-reason.  Right action.  How "Yes, Sir" can seem perfectly logical and NOT obsequious.  How actions can be  critically considered AND obeyed without question, the opposites erased and replaced by pleasing mystery of the initiated.  The little submissions she performs in her decisions to obey each and every time so that you see (freshly every time) how she submits -- how massively those chains hang from her wrists and ankles and yet how lightly she bears the chains of her submission.

In other words, sounding obsequious is my anxiety, and practicing asserting myself and negotiating is my antidote.  (That is, if I don't already naturally and simply agree.)

Re-mystifying Submission

I experienced something today that drove the point home entirely:  submission is in the mind.  It sounds phoney and insubstantial: but submission is in the mind.  I met a man and we traded a brief private conversation in the middle of a public gathering, and it was enlightening in ways I don't get to feel every day.  He wasn't trying to teach me anything either.  All he did was present me with a conundrum upon which to meditate.   I didn't even particularly understand the conundrum, to be honest.  I felt slightly foolish.  (Hooray for the hanged fool of the tarot!  Once again, I honour thee!)  I understood the picture that came with the conundrum... a bound woman, blindfolded, readied.  I understood the words of the conundrum: imagine a man who knows what to do with such a woman, and who will be unpredictable, and who will be in control, and who (being her dominant) has already established her safety and his sanity.  He's got into my mind and he's making me do things!  The fun isn't lost on me.

"To steepen the learning curve," he said to me, I would have to consider these things.  To consider theoretically, to imagine the conditions, to picture in my mind.  I'm sure all he wanted was for me to acclimatize myself to the possibility of "him", as it were.  It's a nice line.  It's a fun and romantic twist on the meeting of someone new.  "How about it, baby, you and me on a beach far away... picture the possibilities!"  A man could do worse for an opening gambit, especially if he's willing and able to deliver on the temptation.  But nevermind all that:  I have learned something extraordinary.  All of my imagining, all of my steepening, all of my considering, and all of my picturing have fulfilled in one afternoon what legions of men have been unable to accomplish in months of knowing me.  I have chastely, intelligently, experimentally experienced a perfect idea of submission -- a Platonically perfect idea of submission -- in my own mind.  The conundrum:  "How do I make this real?"  And the simple solution:  "It already is."

Symbols and Sensuality, Part 2

Because I am new to this lifestyle -- or, rather, new to the desires and the immersion -- my meditations involve many "before and after" considerations.  Transformation is something I think about.  Who I am.  Where I have been.  Where I am going.  Whom I know.  Whom I admire.  Whom I (would theoretically want nothing more than to) obey.

The transformation from a vanilla mindset to a mindset surrendered to the idea of submission feels thrilling. And I enjoy the longevity of it.  I enjoy that it is not instantaneous.  I enjoy that there are rites of passage.  I enjoy that there are layers to peel from me in order to feel me emerge.  Many writers have explored the symbology of the moth and the bright light as the soul seeking knowledge, the body seeking experience.  I feel like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, stripped of all that kept me earthbound and sluggish, ready to spread my wings and obey the forces of nature that control me.  I want the forces of nature to control me.  I want to feel the power of something stronger remove from me the petty anxieties of a day; making me an outlaw to the normative and stifling rules of society because of how high I can fly, commanded by Him to do so.

It is a tremendous responsibility for a man to dominate a woman.  Sometimes I am in awe of this responsibility (I mean, the "ideal" version... not the pretend version that feels more and more commonplace).  When I imagine the Dominant's role, I imagine a man who strives towards self-Mastery and vast knowledge.  I imagine a man at the top of his game; someone who has invested time, effort, practice, and good conversation in the art of problem-solving and appetite-grooming (both very, very important characteristics in a man, to me).  I imagine that he understands the ways of the female and the male human body; how to heal and how to nourish.  I imagine he has figured out how to get what he wants in life without harming any.  I imagine he has his cool ambition well in hand, and that it balances perfectly with his warm artistic and inventive pursuits.  And, I imagine he is so self-aware that he knows what the merest look he gives can do to me -- wither me to nothing, or lift me to the heavens.

Who am I?  I barely recognize myself anymore.  I am surrounded by butterflies; a white mist in the distance cools the air that I breathe.  My path is straight, true, and yet I flit about like a butterfly to all the different flowers, drunk on possibility.  My eyes rest easily, and I am not afraid of the dark.  I have the power to wound; and I have the ability to feel horribly wounded.  I wish for, instead of the wound, being in the right place surrounded by the right people.  I wish for, instead of the wound, being on the other end of a powerful chain controlled by one who knows himself.  I wish for, instead of the wound, being united in abiding peace with the man who knows how to control the shadows of his appetite, the darkness of mine, and the sweet spring air in the daylight, after.  (This is not to say that I am in a hurry....................................  It is merely that my goal is clearer and clearer; and that the horizon is a beautiful vista, no matter how distant or near to me.)

"cus the best is yet to come"

The really nice DJ is playing Def Leppard's "Armageddon It" at J2D while I'm blogging this.  We're dancing around having a great time; I've just taken some beautiful pictures; I've got some learnings to record; and it's a good day so far.  I've even had lunch.

OK learnings:  I've met people.  I've been talking to people.  It's been enlightening.  My own attitudes and fantasies have shifted considerably since I first began this journal.  I have discovered the difference between a lifestyle and a world of fantasy; between the intensity of a scene and the normalcy of quotidian motions (and the beauty of both).  And that is something subtle but significant to point out.  The scening and the normalcy; the performance and the reality; the act and the genuine.  I have given my all, in my time; I have thrown my heart, soul, blood, and spirit into some phenomenal roleplay.  It is exhausting.  It alters the mind.  It changes the world.  It transforms the body (physically, really, it does!  chemical reactions and oh that sweet look of satisfaction on the face...) and it is its own metamorphosis in toto.  It is exhausting.  A person can't keep up that level of intensity 24/7.  

There is beauty, too, in the day-to-day act of living.  Even in a D/s lifestyle, there is a simple kind of beauty.  It means that the intensity, the honesty, the vulnerability, the whole transformative change from the night before's scene may be now in the past and relegated to the realm of imagination and memory... but now everything that happens subsequently (the brushing of the teeth...  the making of the breakfast... the wandering to the window and looking out at the day with a cup of coffee... the choosing what to wear... the going back to work for the day and the going through motions of basic needs for survival...) everything that happens subsequently is coloured a shade more vibrantly.  Everything smells a little better.  It makes the days of normalcy that much more enjoyable.  Not every day needs to be a scene:  and not ever day needs to be leading up to a scene.  My own identity, my own submission, my own needs and my own fantasies, they still exist and they are still as real to me as anything... even during a peaceful cuppa on the porch.

I have been reading a new book: "50 Shades of Grey" recommended to me by Sir RB.  There's a lot to like about this book but the thing that strikes me most poignantly is during the making of breakfast.  That happens a few times.  (Also happens in the movie "Nine and a Half Weeks" which I enjoyed for similar reasons... the mundane act of breakfast, a calm time, representing the AFTER.)  Breakfast means there was something before it.  Breakfast is symbolic of the beautiful after-ness ("aftermath" has a negative connotation... "after-ness" works here, even though it isn't elegant).  Aftercare can be in the form of breakfast.  Why not.

What do these pictures have to do with this post?  These are shots of the sim J2D (where I'm engrossed in my mentorship).  You wouldn't think this is a D/s lifestyle sim by looking at these pictures.  Dancing around to Ozzy and Linkin Park with DJ Stormy doesn't have anything to do with scening, or with exploring pain boundaries, or with courting a collar, or with negotiating hard limits... Instead, this sim fosters a comfortable, elegant, cozy space to learn and grow and have some fun.  Meet people.  Move slowly.  Get to know each other.  Eventually move into the realm of discussing fantasy.  Eventually move into the realm of exploring those fantasies....  

Discipline as Shaping

It was an awakening to understand the difference between discipline and punishment.  I have long known they were different words.  I have long understood the connotations of each word.  I had even come to accept the common usage of these words in the D/s lifestyle.

And then, listening to Sir Dwight speak about the Master's perspective of pain in discipline and in punishment, suddenly I realized the difference between the two.

And then suddenly I realized how erotic seems this word, "discipline"... and what a killjoy seems the word "punishment".

Suddenly the demarcation sizzled its boundary.

I resist punishment.  I do not remember the last time I have ever required "punishment."  I resist the word so strongly in terms of my own character that I outright reject it.  "Someone who strives so honestly," I think to myself, "surely must not be deserving of censure or punishment."  Because I do strive; and I do care; and I do persist in my seeking.  I do wish to please; and I do wish to make sure that the pleasure I bring is meaningful and lasting.  My heart, in other words, is the heart of a submissive giver.  I come to realize this more and more with each passing day and each key learning.

On the other hand, do I require shaping?  Of course I do.  Do I require a firm hand to guide me? Absolutely, I do.  Do I long for the experience and expertise of a strong Dominant to shape me and guide me?  Without a doubt in my mind.  (And would I be turned-on-and-lit like a Christmas tree if that shaping and guiding involved careful and inventive discipline?  God... yes, yes, yes.)

Am I certain that the frenzy of submission that I feel right now needs to dial down a notch or two before I commit to anything long-term, lest I get myself embroiled in a situation that I wish I hadn't?  You bet.   Because each time I enjoy a "eureka" moment I do frenzy-up and start fingering my collar.  I can feel my knees weaken and my mouth watering.  I can feel all the unruly, undisciplined parts of me begin the cartwheeling and hooplah that make me feel so "out of control".

The irony is, I know I am quite capable of reining in my own bridle.  I know that I am composed, integral.  But what I ache for... what I wish for... what this whole thing is about, really, is to have someone who knows me (me...) well enough that he can do it for me, sometimes.   With elan.