Funny about service: it is one of the more complex and intimate aspects of power exchange and also one of the most basic. I am, and always have been, service oriented. Since childhood I did whatever I could to be entertaining to my parents, to be pleasing to my teachers. I found that necessary and fulfilling. In high school, once we started experimenting with substances a little ahead of our chronological legality, I was the one who learned how to mix dozens of drinks and played “bartender” at the cool kid’s parties. Being cool, being funny, being useful, this was a way for me to guarantee a comfortable social place and to meet that need to be pleasing.

One of the first reactions triggered by my first encounter with kink, “rough sex” and submission was what seemed to me then a rather fucked non-sequitur. The man who’d just performed upon my hapless body Things That Seemed Terrible, said Bad Words of Cruelty, and all without asking, became my focus in a way that drove me to confused, overloaded distraction. I fell over myself trying to figure out how to engage his attention, please him sexually, take whatever he was dishing out and, in return, wait on him hand and foot. Unthinkingly. Reflexively.

Fast-forward to today where I have now processed 18 years of thinking about and unpacking that interaction and actively seeking out the energetic counterpart to my desire to be pleasing, my need to serve. For about 15 of those years I’ve spent a great deal of time engaged in internal discourse about what all of this pomp and circumstance means, and written and spoken for countless hours about it all. But sometimes it just takes something as simple as a glass of water to underscore how complex a texture yet how simply reinforced a power dynamic can be. (more…)

There is little within the BDSM and Leather community circles that I take seriously serious, and that is not because I am irreverent about everything.

OK well maybe it is, a bit.

And maybe it is because fringe communities so often be takin’ so much so got-dammed seriously, I do not see that the weight of my intensity needs to be added to the creaking, smoking, swaying pile of egos, protocols, rituals, labels, factions, fictions and fooliganism that is a preexisting condition for so many subcultures. We perverts are far, far from immune from this. Lord Ganesha knows I have my pet peeves and I’ve been vocal about some of ‘em. And I am quite diplomatic about not baring my teeth and shredding-to-bone some trends and behaviours I find personally…well…absurd. Some of that is because, apparently, some people actually listen to what I have to say and believe it or not, while I am enamoured with being honest? I don’t see the need to stomp on the toes of others in order to make my own positions clear.

But I’m-a riff on something because it is relevant to some shit I’ve been mulling, and wish to share, and I want you to grok the context.

(more…)

I swear on Ganesha’s mighty trunk I am really pushing myself on this one.

Leave it to The Dominant Guy to bring up and toy with one of my more…sensitive personal areas. This is going to get punny in a second because the area I’m talking about is the DMZ. The punanni, snatch, cunt, mouse (that one’s for my Swedish peeps) pussy, vajayjay, nappy dugout…I could go on but I’m just stalling and since I now HAVE to write this post, in the words of Lady Macbeth “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well  / It were done quickly…”

So, somehow or other in conversation arose the issue of the particular sent of …uh. You know. One of those words I just used to describe genitals and stuff. Now, to be fair, there was no pejorative in these discussions at all. The pejorative slipped in (god this whole post is a vast, lurching, leering double entendre…christ) when I realised my triggers around personal scent, etc, were firing left right and center.

Years back, during a scene, I had my dominant lean in and whisper lasciviously that he could “smell my wet pussy” and I started to cry. Of course that wasn’t his intended reaction so the scene was diverted for a while while we figured out what my issue was. It was that I had no association with people scenting body odor and having that be something fucking awesome. On days when I myself can smell my own …er…you know, things and stuff…it is usually because I’m ovulating and it…um. I tend to get…

**deep breath**

Oh, The Dominant Guy…you are lucky you’re irresistible. This is awful!!

(more…)

I typically become profoundly uncomfortable when I cannot craft my thoughts or feelings into words. This becomes especially irritating when someone asks me how I am feeling, what I am thinking, and I am nonplussed and vacant, ready with neither quick quip nor reasoned, seasoned response. The capacity to think quickly and clearly is one of the aspects of my “me-ness” in which I have always taken great pride. To have that erode, or vanish completely is jarring, to say the least.

I found myself repeatedly in this position when I was visiting with The Dominant Guy, watching him watching me mull some simple question he had just asked concerning my state of mind, ofttimes my response being a rather goofy smile, and a response somewhere within the coherency range of “Well…um…I…I’m just so happy to be here, sir.”

Interestingly enough, and contrary to what I thought might happen, the “aftermath” of my (finally! OMG for the love of Ganesha!) being able to spend time with The Dominant Guy was…anti-climactic.

Wonderfully so.

I didn’t even cry when we parted ways. And as the days have rolled into a couple of weeks now. I’m still marveling at how so many of the things that fretted me were non-issues. Attempting to divine or determine how such things as chemistry and interpersonal interactions MIGHT unfold is an amazing, singing dancing Busby Berkeley level technicolor musical of hubris Because? As much confidence as I have in how well I know myself, what I need and what I want and how I think things will unfold? There’s always an outcome I’d not anticipated.

And I am finding of late those unanticipated bends in the road are the doozies.

And I am finding of late that, when I stop thinking about them, when I let my mind grow still? I remember the quiet moments of tranquil peace I found when I was in service. Those moments when I knew I was where I was supposed to be. Those moments when I knew I was, within myself, at home. Nothing can shake me.

I will share that I took a couple of hits in my forward momentum. Well-meaning friends and bystanders who would share their concerns that I was setting myself up for failure. That my expectations were too high. That, if it all collapsed in a Walpurgisnacht Bonfire of Epic Vanities, that the resultant conflagration would immolate any and everything in its vicinity.

“I’m just afraid you’ll be let-down”

“No one could live up to the expectations you’ve set.”

“But you’re monogamous. You deserve better than to have to share someone.”

“I hope you are taking care of yourself. I worry about you!”

and these were the more straightforward slow seep tentacles of “concern.” Mostly? That slid off of my back, so much fear and hesitation contained within them. Everyone has their own motives for casting shade or “sharing” their “pragmatic” points of view.

I won’t second-guess ‘em.

Not my job.

I will say that, despite an occasional cold shiver? They didn’t touch me deeply because I knew. I knew what I felt, and in the week we were together, I knew even more deeply how he felt, and what he wanted, and these things were similar.

I did have some trepidations, yep. Fears around what it would be like to spend time with him AND Mrs. The Dominant Guy. That was a big one. This wasn’t a feature of my fresh-faced submissive fantasies. This was real, and kind of scary, and an exercise in absolute trust in myself and in that fact that whatever the outcome? It would be what was right. The best, and only thing I could do was to remain present, in the moment, be who I was, and have these discussions with transparency and openness.

And you know what? No one died. I didn’t implode, and to be honest it was rather a relief to begin this part of the process…everyone checking everyone else out…and to realize that it was alright. More than alright. It was pretty damned cool. We have a similar sense of humor and I felt quite at ease. It was cool that she was so cool, and there was no stiltedness, awkwardness, nuttin’. I’ll even take in stride that she totally threw me under the bus sans hesitation. OK, sure, I was being a bit sassy and bantering with The Dominant Guy over dinner, and at one point she casually glanced over at him, eyes sparkling, inclined her head in my direction and said “You gonna let her talk to you like that?” which of course resulted in corrective measures to adjust my behaviour being taken. I think it involved poking. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: watch out for female switches. Wily, lethal creatures, to a one! I enjoyed my time with her, with him, and with them, and that was really an unexpected epiphany.

Seeing them together, rather than throwing me into some paroxysm of soul-numbing jealousy, in fact had a somewhat different effect. I found I was not overwhelmingly jealous, however I did feel envy. Wanting to also have something beautiful, something you observe others enjoying, is different from jealously wanting to take that which others have. And even my jealous feelings were relieved of their barbs and gently worked free once I shared them with him. He has the ability to disarm my well-crafted emotional smart-bombs and return them to their more inert facets, and then I am able to see the root of my ebbs and flows.

Do you know how powerful it is to look into someone’s eyes and have them tell you that they want all of you….all of it…and to believe it?

I am, every day, surprised at how the context of my desire to submit to him, and the mutual desire we have to explore this relationship embraces more of my daily walk as time unspools.

Surprised, delighted, and quietly, violently, elegantly, simmering with joy.

SO, OK, if you’re still worried about me? Knock yourself out. But rest assured, I don’t worry about a single fucking thing because I know what I want. I know what he wants. And I know who I am.

Thanks to the flagrant awesomeness of photographer Michele Serchuk, this photo will be a part of the SEAF 2011. Graydancer’s pretty lucky, huh…?

by Michele Serchuk

I’m in on a bomb-ass collaboration with WritingHannah. She put together a bunch of YouTube, Blog and Twitter gals getting Medieval on “Love“.

Enjoy!! And please take a sec to click below to “Digg” it, kthxbai!

I certainly do not submit explicitly for delicious gourmet chocolates.

However, if TheDominantGuy wants to give me a beautiful and delicious confection, I am not going to let that impede my service.

He purchased the pink leopard-print chocolate for Mrs. TheDominantGuy. Holy crap seriously, it is really good chocolate.

This week was…is…has been a revelation. Unexpected in how wonderful it can be when I think a bit less and remain in my present space. Remarkable in that I certainly did not expect to find myself exploring…happily exploring a relationship where the explorations include very frank exchanges over supper with the wife of the guy I’ve spent the past few days happily trotting around with in an obedient, blissful haze.

Yeah, see this just goes to show? Expertise at predicting the future ain’t my forté.

What I can tell you is that I am at peace. I am unexpectedly happy. And I plan on working on keeping out of my own way. One of the remarkable things about my journey of late is that the less I hold onto my thoughts about what I insist I need to have, I find remarkable surprises in unexpected places. Vulnerability, connection, peace so profound I find myself now and then halting in my tracks, caught between laughing and tears.

I’ve rarely felt such ease in not knowing what lies ahead. It is remarkably liberating to experience peace within the comforting arms of…well, of uncertainty.  Because all I really can ever know is what is happening right now.

And now.

If I make peace with the fact that I have no idea what awaits me,  isn’t my  adventure all the sweeter?

Sweeter and wilder and delicious. Much like the chocolate which even now is melting a bit on my tongue.  Bittersweet. And gorgeous.

I didn’t break down crying. There were no other witnesses. I felt no cosmic upheaval. It was the middle of the afternoon in the middle of the country and I was in the middle of his dining room, in the middle of errands. We had been taking, since the day before, about expectations. He had asked me what I hoped to experience during this time we had together, as busy as it was going to be.

At one point I’d had a whole lot of ideas about this.

At this point, I had very few.

I’d been doing so much work to release expectations around seeing him after what felt like an eternity between skin-to-skin meetings that, when he put that question before me plainly, I was more than a bit surprised to realize… I did not have much left that I sought.

Time with him. Being able to feel what it was like to be in one another’s presence. To see how the dynamic breathed when it was in another dimension beside the mental and spiritual. To have touch also present in the physical realm. To be of service…

“…and to offer you myself in service. Not, like, in some big deal thing or something, I…”

why is this so hard…

“I want to know what that feels like, to be collared and in service. And to know that is what you want, too.”

I had no idea what this was gonna look like. Or how it would go down, frankly. I own my own personal, formal collar. One that I found after many years of searching, one that is unique and perfect for me. I keep it with me on my travels and it is a talisman for me of my own journey towards service, submission and slavery. A fetish in the true original sense of the word. My ethos embraces the idea that I, as a slave, will offer that symbol of my submission to the person to whom I would offer myself, my life.

But this wasn’t that situation. (more…)