The Dictionary, Page Eight

Service is the word for today.  A dominant commits to a submissive; and a submissive submits service to the dominant.  The commitment of a dominant is negotiated before the collaring, for years or for months or for as long as it takes to get something you both can live with.  If you've read about Mr Grey and Anastasia in the famous trilogy of highly-contested alternative relationships, you know that it takes a full three novels for the negotiations to complete in Fifty Shades of Grey: this is not something that takes place in a week.  Negotiations take time.  Frankly, in any successful marriage they take the entirety of the couple's lives together.  If my partner ever stops negotiating, in other words, I'll know that we are finished with each other.

What is negotiated?  The service one performs for the other.  The word "service" is a tricky word: the submissive serves the dominant's wishes of course; we look forward to it.  But the dominant also serves the fantasy of the submissive.  The dominant controls a scene so that, from what he has come to learn about his girl, he can create and re-create the right fantasy.  And when not in scene, the dominant serves the greater good of the relationship by learning more, while the submissive serves the greater good of the relationship by opening to new possibilities more.  There is a mutuality of serving in a good relationship between dom and sub.

[This "mutuality" would sound alien to a Gorean master, or to anyone who "owns" the submissive in a 24/7 exchange.  The kinds of relationships where "rights" and "safe words" don't necessarily get discussed.  But those aren't the relationships I concern myself with, here:  here, relationships are mutually beneficial, are mutually rewarding, and are mutually uplifting to a state of higher understanding.  Higher pleasure.  Higher love.  Deeper intimacy.  Harder truths and control over those truths to the safety and benefit of each person.]

There is no service without negotiation.  There is no negotiation without curiosity.  There is no curiosity without love.  These ideas are interconnected and travel together like a group of good friends on an adventure.  They take care of each other.  They make sure nobody loses a wallet or forgets a purse, and they make sure you come home with good pictures.  Good memories.  Just precisely, absolutely what you wanted to remember forever, why you embarked upon the trip to begin with.  I am in love; and I am curious about my love; and I ask how best I may please my love; and I see what I can do; and then my service (whether it be to learn, to speak, to remain silent, or to give space; whether it be to bring food, to bring friends, to bring entertainment, or to bring in the bags from the car) comes naturally.  I have a few ideas of how I may serve.  I also have a sense of when it is phoney and when something else is really in order.  I always ask, though, because I want to get it right and the one I serve is going to tell me the right way in the end.

There are minimum requirements, of course.  There is a good sleep.  There is proper food.  There is proper physical activity contributing to good health.  In the vanilla world, people believe they can function (and they do, to low standards) on poor sleep and a poor diet and too much caffeine and alcohol.  In my reality, though, such is impossible.  In my reality, top-notch service from me comes from top-notch self-care, self-love, and self-discipline.  Good health.  A commitment on my part to always give my best, not my compromised.

Bondage Part One: Captivity

What I know comes from my many Second Life years of experience and observation: I'm not the quick study that people think I am.  I've been around the block once or twice!  What I've never been, though, in all my years of Second Life... is real.  Exploring the D/s lifestyle is making me get real, now.  It's making me take relationships seriously.  It's making me give (and expect) a deeper honesty about human interaction.  Frankly, it's carrying over into RL also.  This is a very positive journey for me.   Bondage is on my mind, lately, and so into the dark we go.  The first landing:  Captivity.  The word alone conjures an adequate darkness for my taste, but it's no good (I've found) if a person can't feel it.  Really feel it.

In Second Life, I've had my senses trained to expect some pretty fine things.  Not necessarily expensive, but fine in the strict sense.  Craft, care, time, nothing rushed...  Shade Fantasy Outfitters gives good equipment.  Good imagination.  Good feeling.  It has the old-world feel (built especially for Medieval and Gorean sims I expect... but any dungeon would benefit); it has the tried-and-true positions that don't look noobish in the least; and you know these aren't free.  They aren't expensive, either.  High quality, low cost.  The pictures that result (because why bother if you aren't going to retain a keepsake for future enjoyment in a solitary moment?) give you a fighting chance for realism.

And the more that I experiment (privately) with this equipment, the more I begin to understand the idea of "virtual pain".  What it represents.  What it symbolizes.  I begin to understand the idea of "virtual captivity", what it represents and symbolizes.   I still have not got past my roleplay urges and inclinations... I have roleplayed for many years in a virtual environment and have gotten fairly good at inventing thought-provoking images (where once it used to terrify me, the idea of contributing to a play with more experienced people).  I want to "get real" but I want that time to think before throwing my gambit, which roleplay affords me.  And now I begin to understand what the D/s community refer to as "scening" -- it's never explicitly been explained to me but I now imagine it is a created scene, a mood built around one driving action that requires preparation, consideration, and readiness.  And the scene plays out.  And then there is the aftermath... I mean, "care".

My years in roleplay might reasonably serve me quite well when I get to the point where scening is available to me; if I can get REAL.   Realistic props and enclosures make it work for me -- so kudos are also due Van Auster and his store POST for being the high-quality texturing guru that makes me never want to leave my POST home. And as a final note, since we're prop-talking, Xanxan Jervil  makes phenomenal collars and cuffs with some good original animations.  Submission is good with the right equipment moving my body, and the textures that make me feel the bondage-chains.