Rope

There are so many different ways to bind someone - leather collars and cuffs, metal restraints, spreader bars, chains, a combination of any of the above. And then there is rope...

Treated hemp happens to be my favorite, although the feel of silk or bamboo rope on bare skin is lovely. But the softer, gentler types of rope just don't appear to be as serious in their intent as hemp can be. It's a personal preference and certainly there are ways to bind limbs and body just as effectively with silk as with hemp.

There is just something so infinitely seductive about the rough smoothness of hemp coils settling on your skin. Being bound in hemp makes me think of being hugged by a python - an embrace that is at once strong, reassuring and dangerous.

I've escaped from rope countless times, but I prefer escaping from synthetics or the softer rope types. Hemp is just too inviting, I want to prolong its bonds not leave them.

Rope is a pleasure and a challenge at once. I'm not as limber as I'd like and yet, with rope, there's always the temptation to bend further, to fold myself into its strands, to forget that limbs fall asleep. Bending and twisting when I'm being tied is something my body does without any commands from me.

I hate being blindfolded but when I'm being tied, I almost always self-blind. I do not want anything to distract me from the physical sensation of rope on my skin. I'll close my eyes, I'll tune out all sounds but the sound of rope rustling against itself or against J's hands. All my senses are tuned to the sensation of being bound. It's incomparable to anything else.

When being tied for actual bondage rather than practice or decorative play, there always comes a moment when I am sufficiently bound to relax into the ropes. That moment is magical. It's like holding your breath and then letting it go and feeling your lungs settle into the safety of your rib cage. The blending of bondage and safety is intoxicating and that's when I start to float.

I've never taken mind-altering drugs, but I would imagine that floating in rope is similar to letting your mind go under the influence of drugs. There's a sense of being suspended between reality and dream, a feeling of weightlessness and languor. It's a sensation I have not experienced to the same degree under any other circumstances.

And then there's playing while bound in rope, but that's a topic for another post.

Pain

I'm fascinated by pain. Physical pain.

Self-inflicted pain is finite, at least it is for me. There's only so far I can go in hurting myself before I stop. I suspect that I stop well before the point where I would invoke my safeword, but then with myself there's no pride in continuing. I already know just how much of a coward I am so there's no fooling anyone or pretending to be someone I'm not.

What I find more intriguing is pain inflicted by others whether with or without my consent.

When someone bumps into me or steps on my foot or when I walk into the edge of a table, my instinct is to hit back, to return the favor. I don't, of course, but there's restraint involved with not lashing out in response. This kind of pain is not welcome and it enrages me to suffer it. I view it as a personal affront even if I am the klutz who walked into the same damn protruding corner yet again.

Then there's pain that I consent to receiving. And this is where pride comes in. I'm not too proud to scream and cry and even ask for it to stop. But I won't use my safeword because I hate admitting defeat and until I've said "red" somehow I haven't surrendered. It's an illusion of semantics, I realize that. Of course, I do.

And sometimes I can't help but wonder just how far I can be pushed before pride yields to cowardliness, before pain becomes more intolerable than loss of face and that hated word emerges amid screams. I'm torn between wanting to find out and wanting to preserve the illusion, if only to myself, that I won't reach that point.

J knows me well and after years of playing on and off, He can read my body. He doesn't push me to the limit. He has His reasons and I've learned not to question Him when He is Milord. I do enough questioning when He's just J.

He pushed me to the breaking point once, years ago, very deliberately. To show me that He can. Since that one time, He was always the one to draw the line, to stop the scene. He knows how much I can take and I know that He's holding back, but do I want Him to stop? To find out exactly where I would draw the line if I held the pen in my hand?

I don't think so... for the simple reason that I trust Him more than I trust myself.

Apology

Life has been filled with things not suitable for this particular blog so instead, here's a quick little sketch that I've unearthed in my files.


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The door opens with a soft whine and she tenses, pulling on the bonds without thinking. She cannot see the person walking in, chained as she is facing the wall, but she knows it's him. His voice is soft and comes from so far away that she decides he must be standing right in the doorway.

"Are you ready to apologize?"

There's silence as she bites her lip, barely suppressing a sob and yet unwilling to speak. She doesn't dare admit that she no longer remembers the verbal transgression for which she's being punished. The details fled her mind almost the moment he left her alone; the moment her mind began to drift. This must be what being high on drugs is like, she remembers thinking absently.

His return now has pulled her back to reality but the resurfacing is abrupt and jars her into tensing and feeling stupidly self-conscious. How ridiculous since he's seen it all. Still, being on display and yet unable to see in return is excruciating. One of those things she doesn't think she'll ever get used to.

"Very well..."

She gasps softly, tightening her muscles in a wordless plea for him to stay, to not leave her alone again. Like an air bubble, the safeword floats to her lips and she grits her teeth, savagely clenching her jaws, swallowing it before it can escape. The door clicks shut again and she slumps against the wall, resting her burning cheek against its rough, cool expanse.

Her arms are chained to bolts above her, spread at the same wide angle as her legs which are chained to the floorboards. On a bed, she'd be spread-eagled, beguilingly inviting. But instead, she's on her feet, stretching up, naked except for her ever present fuck-me heels and black, thigh high stockings.

A sigh that ends in a plaintive, barely audible moan brings tears to her eyes, but before the treacherous tokens of weakness can roll down her cheeks, she hears an unmistakable swishing sound. She has less than a millisecond to react before the rush of air is followed by the feel and sound of a heavy, multi-stranded flogger striking bare flesh. Her gasp seems unnaturally loud but on its heels comes another strike and now the tears flow freely.

Tears of relief and submission; tears of apology.

The show

A little sketch for the enjoyment of the voyeurs out there...

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When she enters the playspace, every head turns. People involved in their own scenes pause for a moment to watch the petite form moving through the parting crowd. Barely five feet tall, she carries herself with the unconscious bearing of an ice princess. Head held high, her posture is imperiously straight through the line of a bare back. In the dimly lit playspace sudden snatches of light dance on her pierced nipples as she walks.

The eyes that follow her take in the firm buttocks framed by a black web of a gossamer thin thong and the taut legs encased in silky black thigh-high stockings. Six inch heels click a staccato of control through the hushed space. Silently, she moves through the little groups of watchers and players, clearly one of them but different enough for their gazes to trail after her in curious fascination.

Even more jarring than the sudden jolt of energy created by her entrance, is the leash snaking from the tight black collar encircling her slender throat. The man holding the other end of it is almost an afterthought in her wake. And yet, a single glance at his calm and impassive face makes it clear that this strange and beguiling creature belongs to him. And now the eyes are on both of them, slipping from one to the other, as if attempting to discern the meaning of the unlikely pairing.

She stops under a recently vacated suspension frame and gracefully sinks to her knees, her hands resting palms up on her thighs, her face lifted up to him in rapt attention. The men in the room watch him; envious questions clear in the barely concealed curiosity. Who is he? What has he done to get her, to tame her?

His eyes give nothing away as he drops the lead into her lap and steps back. She shudders, but doesn’t move; continuing to watch him from her position on the floor.

His lips part as he speaks to her but neither his face nor her expression reveals the content of his message. In response, she reaches for his hand and bows her head briefly, kissing his fingers. Still on her knees, she leans back, lifting her arms and stretching until she’s resting on her back on the floor. Her body arches up, in a graceful backward bow, arms crossing at the wrists, continuing the line of her back, palms still facing up. It is a pose of aching vulnerability and surrender.

He moves to stand astride her, his boots framing her waist, engendering a cascade of shivers down the slender frame beneath him. The silent audience watches as his hands deftly work on the wooden beams above him. Soon, various lengths of colorful hemp hang down and once again his lips part, issuing further commands.

The motionless body tenses and changes shape, moving gracefully into the strands of rope, accepting their captivity. His hands skate over her, forming loops and ties and twists until suddenly, with a final tug, she’s flying. A suspended study of shifting form and beauty; a macabre vision of requited love and trust and submission.

The flogger swishes through the air, greeting the waiting flesh and the audience sighs in appreciation. The show has begun.

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Longing...

Last night I saw a movie. It was the second time for this particular movie but it didn't get any better. It's poorly made and the acting is mostly horrendous with a few bright spots that do not unfortunately manage to salvage it. I wasn't watching it for the acting though, I was watching it for the content. I was watching it because I wanted to feel part of it.

I've written before about my love/hate relationship with the book Story of O. On my other blog, in the list of books you'll note that I recently read the sequel, Return to the Chateau. Don't bother picking it up, it's not worth the hour or two you'd spend leafing through it. Story of O is intriguing, puzzling, infuriating, and ultimately unfulfilling, but it's still worth reading. Return to the Chateau is none of those things. Instead, it's a shining example of why "quit while you're ahead" is such an enduring phrase.

I just cannot seem to reconcile myself with the lack of well-written books on the subject of BDSM and D/s specifically. Story of O, for all its failings, is beautifully written and I only regret that I'm unable to read it in the original. But it's the exception rather than the rule and I've lost count of how many books I've picked up and forced myself to slog through only to find that my original assessment was correct and they weren't worth reading. So why do I keep trying?

To say that I'm a masochist would be too simple of an explanation and it would also be wrong. I may be something of a masochist when it comes to physical pain, but not when it comes to reading badly written books. That's not masochism, it's an exercise in boredom and frustration.

I keep trying because I haven't lost hope of finding a book that combines both beautiful language and an engaging and believable story. I long for a story that I can read and relate to. One that can excite and touch me. What I wouldn't give for a story that inflames the senses and quickens the breathing. A story that makes you want to recreate the words in real life.

I long to find a book that speaks to me but instead I keep coming across crippled stories. They seduce me with a lovely and engaging premise as a skeleton but the body is so grotesque and misshapen, one loses sight of what's underneath.

Reading these novels and stories, all I can think is, "can it really be this bad?" and often I will find myself flipping back to the cover, to the brief snippet of the skeleton that deceived me into buying the book. Most of the time, I want to forget what I read; to flush the terrible writing from my mind and start again with just the snippet and the hope of something good to come, but it's no use. Some of the worst ones stay with me the longest and then I wonder, "could I have done better?"

Perhaps one of these days I'll do it... one of these days, I'll take the snippet and create my own body on that lovely and engaging skeleton.

I want...

... to love and be loved in return.

... to trust; completely, absolutely, and with no reservations.

... to be challenged and rise to the challenges, again and again.

... to dissolve in surrender.

... to feel my heart expand and my thoughts quiet each time I kneel in submission.

... to be pushed further than I thought possible and watch the barriers crumble.

... to bend and be molded but never broken.

... to forgive and be forgiven.

... to accept and learn and to be understood and accepted in return.

... to be achingly vulnerable and to feel safe.

I want it all. I want to be His.

What's in a bow?

Sometimes I will come upon my cat, Lily, sitting still as a statue, watching the world. And in those times, although I know I should just leave her be, I cannot resist petting her. Without fail, when she sees my hand reaching toward her, she will bow her head in the most achingly graceful arch, facing down, exposing the back of her neck to my touch, showing me that she trusts me not to hurt her.

I watch her as my fingers stroke the soft fur, eliciting purrs of contentment and I think of how like me she is at these times. Looking at her I can see myself as I kneel or sit at J's feet, my legs curled under me, my cheek resting on his knee. I can imagine his hand reaching over, almost absentmindedly, to stroke my hair and the nape of my neck.

It is when his touch is at its gentlest, his fingers barely skimming over my curls that I feel my heart expand with love and trust for him. And yet, that same light stroke takes on a whole new meaning when his fingers occasionally tighten on the back of my head; a silent reminder that whatever else I may be, I am his submissive.

He is so many things to me - my lover, my partner, my friend, my Dom. Isn't it strange that all of these come together in such an innocuously vanilla gesture as a gentle caress?

I bow before you, Milord.

Tell me a story...

Fiction or reality? Does it even matter?
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“Tell me a story,” she says.

I gaze at her levelly and she lowers her eyes to the steaming mug of tea before her. She’s fidgeting, playing with the wooden stir in her fingers, twisting the string of the teabag tighter and tighter around the stir, strangling it in her nervousness.

I wait for her to meet my eyes. I’ve learned to be patient. Took me long enough.

Finally she looks up; her cheeks flushing slightly in affront at my continued silence. What did she think, I’ll just launch into a bawdy tale like a drunken bard?

“What kind of story?” I ask softly, leaning a bit toward her, mindful of the potential audience in the otherwise buzzing coffee shop. We’re sitting at a tiny table wedged in the corner. She is facing me, her back to the commotion while I’m facing the rest of the shop, watching her while gauging who might be paying more attention to our conversation than to his own latte.

“You know…” she fidgets with the cup some more, then, as if realizing what she’s doing, folds her hands in front of her on the beat up and scarred wooden surface. “Tell me about…” she stumbles over the unfamiliar words, “about your Dom.” The word, so laden with meaning when it falls from my lips, in her mangled speech sounds almost cartoonish.

“What about my Dom?” I hide a smile. I know I’m tormenting her. I know exactly what she wants but I pay dearly for the story itself, the least I can do is extract a little tribute from her for living vicariously.

Her cheeks flame even more and she opens her mouth, then closes it. She lacks the deviant vocabulary to conjure up the words. And just like that, in the face of her distress, I relent and reach across the table to cover her tightly clasped hands with one of mine. The hand that wears his ring adorned with Kanji characters for pain and devotion.

“It’s ok,” I give her fingers a gentle squeeze, “I’m just teasing you.”

A story... What haven't I told her yet? My mind is sifting through the possibilities as I idly scan the shop. Just as my eyes are about to return to her, I catch a lascivious gaze of a portly, middle-aged man one table over. His eyes are vague behind the glassy sheen as he stares at her bent head and my hand over hers. Slowly I slide my stocking-clad legs in their knee-high six inch heel black boots from under the tiny table and leisurely cross them. Stifling a wide grin, I watch as his entire face slackens, gaze darting between my face, the table and my legs. Men can be such fun.

"All right," I say, as I refocus on her face, “I’ll tell you a story.”

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The sky has been threatening rain all day and each distant, mocking rumble of thunder resonates in my already aching and heavy head. I spent the entire day jittery and increasingly frustrated. Days ruptured by a bang of one disaster can sometimes be better than those punctured by a slew of miniature mishaps. Like this day has been so far. The frustration just keeps cranking up, like a plastic washer inexpertly tightened, more and more, until it cracks with a resounding pop.

Except that I don’t crack. I just seethe, irritation radiating from me in spiky waves. I’m trying to keep the lid on, but it’s useless. I’m going to explode; it’s just a question of when.

When I get to his house, the windows are dark and I wonder if something is finally going right. Maybe he’s out and I can have a few minutes to myself to regroup. I’m already fishing for the spare key in my purse when the hall light goes on.

“Fuck,” I mutter under my breath as the door swings open. I’m still trying to rearrange the mutinous expression on my face into an appropriately submissive one when he appears in the doorway. He takes one look at my clenched fists, the tight jaw, and slightly flushed face and I can see his expression altering in response.

I’m about to brush past him into the house but his hand is already outstretched to stop me.

“If you don’t want to be here, go home.” The chilly tone is achingly familiar. This is my last chance to snap out of it and behave, but I’m too far gone. Instead of apologizing, I push his hand out of the way and take a step inside.

The door slides shut behind me and in the next moment my breath exits in a startled whoosh as I’m slammed against the wall. His palm on the back of my head saves me from a nasty bump but even as I'm thinking that what I did was stupid and I must apologize, I can already feel his fingers tangling in the short curls, tightening painfully, holding my face up.

An explosion of pain, heat and sound greets me as his free hand leaves an angry red imprint on my cheek. I gasp but the hand is already coming back, backhanding me across the other side, the titanium band of his ring delivering an additional punch. That’s going to leave marks, I think vaguely before the dam breaks and a guttural sob escapes my clenched jaws, followed by a torrent of tears.

I slide down the wall as he takes a step back. His hand is still in my hair but he allows me to sink to my knees right there in the hall. My arms wrap around his legs, my face buried in his sneakers as I sob. My entire body is shuddering and shaking as the poisons leach from it, dissolving in my tears, in my submission to him.

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“But…”

I look up and meet her eyes. “But?”

“I don’t understand,” she is silent for a moment, trying to fit my world within the confines of hers. “Did you want him to hit you?” She stops, as if gauging my silence and tries again, “wouldn’t it be better if you just sat down and told him about your bad day?”

I look at her in silence, wondering how the hell one explains the inexplicable.

“I’m sorry,” she shakes her head, “It’s your business, I just,” she inhales sharply, “I just don’t get it.”

I shrug, “sometimes, neither do I.”

I look up at the tastefully beige paneling on the ceiling, my left hand drifting unconsciously to my throat, to the coolness of a collar encircling it. Finally I meet her eyes again.

“I need walls, something immovable to push against, something to struggle with,” I pause, “someone to keep me in control, stronger than me, willing to stand up to me when I am as I was that night I just told you about.”

I stop for a moment, considering my words carefully.

“Imagine a wave breaking against a large, jagged rock, then rolling back, gathering strength, before rushing to the rock again. It’s an endless, macabre dance. The wave is powerful in her own right. It will sweep boats out to sea, it will lift plants and hurl sea creatures about, but it will keep breaking on the rock because that’s what it needs to regroup, marshal its resources and renew its strength.” I pause as I see her nodding slowly.

“He’s my rock,” I say softly. “He’s the outlet for my energy and strength and fury. The rock doesn’t bend to the wave and he doesn’t bend to me, not when he knows that what I need is a solid wall to break against.”

“Tell me more…”

I incline my head slightly in a mock courtly bow, “As you wish…”

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To be continued...

Submission v. surrender

J and I have a turbulent relationship - off and on, close and far, practically vanilla or almost entirely D/s - we've done it all. Life hasn't quite cooperated but that's a story for another post, perhaps one for my other blog. I mention it here only because as J and I are now trying to slowly figure out where we're going and how to combine a "vanilla" existence with our D/s roles, I find myself revisiting and reviewing some D/s concepts that I haven't thought about for a while.

I've been thinking about submission and surrender. Is there a difference between the two? And if there is, what is it?

First, the stark and somewhat unimaginative definitions.

From Merriam-Webster:

submission

• the condition of being submissive, humble, or compliant;
• an act of submitting to the authority or control of another;
• to submit: to defer to or consent to abide by the opinion or authority of another.

surrender

• to yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand;
• to give (oneself) up into the power of another especially as a prisoner.

Now, my take on it...

For me, surrender is flat and uni dimensional. Surrender is the end state - you fight or you resist or you persevere in something and then you surrender. You give up. It's the last stop and that may be exactly where you want to go. If surrender is your goal, then you reach it and you're happy. In a struggle, if the struggle is to end, one party will ultimately surrender and that act ends the struggle. It's the final act after which the play is over.

Submission on the other hand is ongoing. It's not a single action or an end result, rather, it's a process. It's gradual and it deepens as it grows. Occasionally, it will reach a plateau and you'll find yourself coasting for a while before the next challenge comes. But if it stops growing and you find yourself in a rut, it can often be a sign that you're with the wrong person.

The most rewarding submission is layered. On top are the simple acts that require only the mildest degree of consent. These are the things you'll do even if they weren't being asked of you, things that don't require true submission but require merely the wish to please. Once you descend past those top layers though, what is asked of you will test your trust in the one asking and your continued willingness to submit to his wishes.

Submission requires constant renewal of consent. You always have the freedom to choose whether or not you'll submit and it's a choice you'll make over and over again.

And as for the definition of submission from Merriam-Webster... I can tell you that I'm neither humble nor particularly compliant. Being humble or compliant are great qualities for surrender, but not for submission. Submission requires inner strength and power and resilience. A doormat is not submissive, a doormat is compliant. Submission that costs you little to give is worth little to the recipient.

In the end, the shortest definitive difference is this...

Surrender can be coerced, submission cannot.

Intro

Pain and Devotion... the four Kanji characters for those two words are engraved on a simple titanium ring I wear. A ring I take off only if I absolutely have to.

Pain and Devotion... Until I met J. I never thought of the two as connected. In fact, if pressed, I would have said that they cannot coexist. But then until I met J. I would have said that submission is for the weak and freedom in captivity is an oxymoron. How one-sided those views seem today.

So, what is this blog about? It's about me or rather, a dimension of me. A dimension that most people I interact with on a daily basis don't know about and would be very surprised by if they did. If you know me in my 'vanilla' life and have stumbled onto this blog, now might be a good time to stop reading and pretend you never saw this page. If you know me in the 'lifestyle', as Janna, or if you don't know me at all, then keep reading.

This blog is about me, my thoughts, my fears, my wishes, and my submission to J.