Fancy Dress

I’ve come to fetishize business wear. I know the scene is all about latex and leather, but my idea of BDSM-appropriate clothing is silk and cotton and the only leather is in my shoes or my belt.

Well, not really fetishize, because that would imply any kind of business wear or formal wear did the job for me. No, I’m fetishizing business and formal-wear when my wife and I wear them.

I think it’s a side-effect of both of us being the kinds of people who didn’t really dress up before this year. My wife was married in a simple white dress she borrowed from a friend when we eloped, and when I worked in a business setting, I bought my dress clothes from whatever mass-market store sold them. For most of my life, I was quite content to wear jeans and tee-shirts. I never really cared about clothes. I never really cared about my appearance.

Now…I see getting dressed up in a suit and tie — in the right circumstances, certainly as not part of the everyday grind — to be an act of submission to my wife. I remember a few months ago, she told me how hot I looked wearing suits to work and to various functions down here, so when she flew in, I made sure I looked perfect when I picked her up: hair cut short, no facial hair, nails trimmed and shaped, and a nice suit, pressed and drycleaned, with a silk tie, expensive shirt, nice black leather shoes…

I dressed up because she liked it. I dressed up because it pleased her. I could have gotten out of bed, showered, shaved and popped into some shorts and a tee — it’s South Florida, it certainly would have been more comfortable — but I wanted to show my devotion. I wanted to spend time. Everything had to be wrinkle-free, everything had to shine and look impeccable. My face had to be smooth, my hair perfect. I had to smell fresh and clean and perfumed. I had to spend an hour and a half getting ready, because that’s how much time she deserved — she deserved perfection, and nothing less.

We went to a banquet a few weeks ago when she was down, and it was the same way. There was something ritualistic about it — showering, making sure everything was perfect. She wore a beautiful dress and put on her makeup and looked like a million bucks. How could I look any less? How could I let her down? She’s been transforming herself, through tasteful makeup and affordable dresses and sexy shoes, and even though she doesn’t look like a dominatrix in that business-wear, there’s something unspeakably sexy — the red of her lips, the black of her mascara, the way I’m afraid to kiss her for fear I’ll introduce some flaw into the understated blush of her cheeks. The way expensive dress wear clings to her instead of sags like her old clothes, the way she carries herself. Power. Self-assurance. Confidence. Oh…she’s got it all. It makes me dizzy.

I never used to get regular haircuts or wear product in my hair; I wore cheap cologne. I wore cheap clothes. I didn’t care about my skin care. Now…now, everything has to be perfect when I’m in her presence. I fantasize about being able to afford a bespoke suit. Cufflinks.

I buy issues of GQ and Esquire and fantasize about wearing those suits. Wearing them for her. Showing her my love through my attention to myself. By the way I care for her property.

Because there’s something about my suits — the nice ones I wear now, that I spend all that money to maintain — there’s something about the ritual about getting dressed, that makes me feel strong. Handsome. Powerful. People treat you differently in a good suit, and you hold yourself differently. There’s a way of carrying yourself. A way of moving. I feel like more of a man, more of a powerful, type-A-man, in my suits.

And so, when I’m in my suits, I feel like I’m falling that much further for her. I feel like I’m stronger, so my submission is truer. How could she ever want to dominate a weak man who didn’t care about himself? What’s the point? A man who doesn’t care about himself doesn’t care who controls him. But a strong man — a man who spends time on himself, who builds himself up — that’s a suitable subject for a dominant woman to control. A man who spends that much time on cultivating that image, his submission has value. His submission has worth. It’s deserving of effort, to break a man like that.

I dream of wearing my first bespoke suit. An expensive shirt, the collar so crisp it could cut skin. A marvelous silk tie I have my eye on. My hair, perfectly cut and waxed, my skin flawless and smooth and smelling like expensive cologne — but just the right amount, so that she gets its scent only when she moves in close, to whisper curses in my ear. And me on my knees, my tie in her hand, taut, my throat constricted as she pulls on it, and I look up at her in awe. Her opening it all up, peeling me out of it, hurting and cutting and stroking me, aware that it was all for her, aware of how much work I put into it, appreciative of my dedication.

All for her. Every inch of my clothes and my appearance a testimony to my love for her, every minute spent a minute — in its own way — of worshipping her. Of recreating myself into an object worthy of her attention and love and cruelty.

The Best of the first 100…

I have posted here a hundred times since I started this blog in August. And I realize, wow, it must be hard for a new person starting to read this to get a handle on all of the best posts, and to filter out the worst, most navel-gazey ones. And I say that because, you know, I may or may not have drunkenly given one of my good friends the address to the site last night when we talked about S&M. Maybe. After swearing her to secrecy. Because I won’t even be living down here anymore. And because I figure if I’m going to try to get into a public scene up north, I need to start by being honest with at least somebody about this.

So, in belated honor of my first hundred posts, and in an effort to make our history with BDSM a little less of a grind to get through, I present to you the five best posts of the first one hundred. If you’re new and want to know what I think are the five most important posts to read — or you’re that friend I gave this blog address to and don’t want to have to slog through 114 posts.

45 Days In
The first post. A good intro.

Zero to Sixty
A history of how we got from vanilla couple to D/s relationship, and it leads directly into 45 days, above.

The Blood Is The Life/
My wife and I experiment with bloodplay and knives for the first time. My favorite post because it’s probably one of my favorite sex experiences, ever.

Thank You, Ma’am
I spend a lot of time on this blog trying to understand why I went from a guy who’s sexually submissive to…well, a giant slut for pain, and this post — one of the first — comes darn close to sketching out the progression.

The Nicest Humiliation Ever
Or, how I stopped worry and learned to love my penis, thanks to my wife and a particularly intense D/S scene.

Also, these posts are all over the place, timewise, which I think is good because you can start hopping around after using them as markers in our growth.

For the record, WordPress says our top five posts are:
How to Push Your Husband Into Switching
Erotica-Porn-and-Femdom
Variations On a Theme: It’s About Her
The Sound of Her Voice
I Want to Disappear

I promise to post something with more substance tomorrow. Really.

Real-Life BDSM Cohabitation Means Big Choices

I’m swamped with getting ready to move, applying for my career’s certification in my new state, studying for exams, closing up things at work, and dealing with my pseudo-ADD which results in everything being last minute for me no matter how much time I have to prepare. There’s just too much going on and not enough time to do it. But I do have time to talk to my wife, and think about the future, and all of the things that are going to change.

First of all, there’s the fact that my wife and I will have the first chance to join a public scene together. I don’t know about the BDSM scene in the mid-atlantic region — Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, DC — or how friendly it is to married, middle-aged couples. (God, we really are middle-aged, aren’t we? Mid-thirties, right? Wow.) I don’t know if there are any good courses on whipping or play offered anywhere, any good fun clubs to go to, or any people to meet in our area. I don’t know of any munches.

More than that, I don’t know if we want to go to any. I made a statement in my last post’s comments that basically went like this: I’m much more at ease being “publicly” dominated than I am being publicly beaten, because submission is something I am (for want of a better phrase) hardwired to do. Whereas, masochism is like…it’s a sex act. Flat-out, being beaten is a frankly explicit sex act. Being publicly dominated would be like taking off a mask in front of a select few people. Being publicly beaten would be like having a group of people watch me get fucked.

Further — I don’t know if my submissiveness would extend to other people. I just don’t know how I’d act around other people. My urge to be socially dominant recedes around my wife, but will it stay in the background in public? Will I be the worst sub ever if we go out to play? Will our dynamic change? I’m so socially aggressive and dominant, and I don’t know if those instincts will ruin the vibe with my Mistress if we’re around others. I don’t know if I can sustain my submission in a crowd in the same way I can in private. I mean, I’m not talking about sassing her back or challenging her — I’d never dream of that — but in private, she’s my world. My personality becomes something small and obedient. But in public — I’m so loud, so in the forefront.

We know two couples that talk about being kinky up there. Do we come out to them? What will that entail? Will it change the dynamics of our friendships with them if they know we’re fellow travelers?

And how do we sustain the physicality? My wife and I are used to people giving us private time because we live apart. People volunteer to watch the baby. They give us space. And when she comes down here, we have whole weekends to play alone. Up there, we’re not going to get special privileges anymore. And we’ll have to arrange our play around our little girl. And we might be living with my wife’s parents while we start out until we find a place, which means even further complications.

And more than that, are we going to be able to keep it special? Will we take it for granted that we’re around each other? Will kink become something we put on the back burner because we’re around each other all of the time?

And if we want to keep it in the forefront, how do we manage her dominance and my submission so that it’s ever-present but not something everybody is going to notice? How do we move it up a notch, make it more powerful, make me more submissive and her more dominant?

I know communication will help us navigate this, and I know we have great lines of communication. Fantastic lines, frankly. But it’s time to put it all into action — time to walk the walk instead of talk the talk. Kink has become this wonderful facet of our life — a major facet that has improved our outlook and our intimacy and brought us closer together. But here’s where the hard choices start happening. Here’s where we have to make it work for longer than a weekend.

I don’t know, I just wanted to unload that. Thanks for listening.

Paradoxical Part II: A New Ending

So what do we do with our heroic narrative if it usurped by submission? By the fact that our tormentor is the one we love? What do we do to resolve the conflict, to present a close to the story that is our scene? Where is the moment of crisis? Where is the crescendo? Where does it all come together? The normal heroic narrative requires us to overcome our debasement and suffering, not revel in it.

For instance, take “Lethal Weapon.” Naked Mel Gibson is chained to a shower head which pours water over his body. He is tortured by Mr. Joshua and Endo (played by ’80s action character actor Al Leong.) Voltage is coursed through his body, his muscles tighten and relax as he is electrified, over and over again, when not being beaten. At the end of the torture, Our Hero is strung up, limp, beaten. “Take him outside, Endo,” says the antagonist.

And then! And then, Our Hero springs to life, wraps his legs around Endo’s neck and then snaps his head to the left, leaving him dead. He pulls himself free to wreak murderous vengeance on the bad guys.

That’s how it ends in movies. But I’m a submissive masochist — there is no cathartic murder at the end of my torture — the one hurting me is the one who loves me. There is no bloody vengeance, no reckoning where I make my will known by writing it in blood across the silver screen. In effect, I am part of a torture scene with no conclusion, no moment of release, no denouement.

Right?

I say there is another way to end the scene. I say that our heroism can be taken and turned to other uses. Our survival — our struggle — as submissive masochists funneled into another, different ending to the narrative.

Imagine:

My wife has me tied to a pair of boards crossed like an “x”. Rough hemp secures my wrists and ankles to the wood. I am naked. She tortures me with belt, flogger, crop, and switch, until my body is madman’s scribbling of welts and bloody gashes. She punches my arms, smacks my face, pulls my hair. She bleeds me with a knife, burns me with hot wax and candle flame, clamps my cock and nipples, and chokes me with my collar, pulling on it so I can’t breath.

In the beginning, I thought this was about information, but it’s not - she has me in a ballgag half of the time. Even if I wanted to talk, to give up the secret I think she wants, I couldn’t, because she has me gagged until she decides she wants to hear my cries.

“Break,” she says. “Break for me.”

Never, I say.

“You’re so strong. You’re so tough. You’ve nothing left to prove. But…there is nowhere for you to run. No one for you to run to — but me. Nobody is going to save you. Nobody is going to love you like I do. Look how much I love you?” And she dips her finger into my blood and licks it. Her blue eyes dance. “Everybody thinks love is easy, but true love is the strength and will to be cruel. And so who loves you more than me? Nobody. Ever…”

I can’t look at her.

“Say my name, and the pain ends.”

I shake my head. Exhausted. I will not break.

“I’m not ever going to break you totally, that’s why this final element has to be your choice. You’ve taken what I have to give you, suffered every stroke and lash and humiliation. You’ve nothing left to prove to anyone. So that leaves us here: with me, hurting you. You, tied to that wood, bleeding, suffering. But it can end. If you choose me. If you say my name. If you say, “Please, I’m yours, take me down,” I’ll unstrap you, I’ll clean you off, and you can lay next to me. I’ll take care of you. You’ll never be my equal, but I will be such a kind master. There are certainly worse forms of ownership. So say it…”

No.

“Say my name. Choose me. Choose what I have to offer. Surrender. Give up. You’ll always have the knowledge that you never broke — that inch of yours that never broke — but everything, even that inch — will be mine. Think of what I’m offering you.” She runs her finger down my chest, across my thigh, to my cock. “Pleasure. Plain. No doubt. No worries. Just me, owning you, from now until eternity. True fucking love, love so strong it hurts you and makes you beg.”

I shake my head again, weaker.

“Say my name. Say that you’re my slave. This isn’t me forcing you, this is you choosing. The act of a free man…” She smiles, her eyes flash, and she adds quietly, “…the last free act of a free man. After this … pleasure and slavery. And purpose.”

She strokes me with one hand while her other twists my nipple. “Choose. Say my name, and you can be mine forever.”

I lift my head up to shake it — but when my tired glance meets her gaze, I realize I don’t want to fight — I want to be owned. I choke it out. Her name. My cock thickens in my submission, throbs with my new purpose.

“I didn’t hear you, slave.” She says as she leans in to kiss me. Her lips graze mine, just out of reach. “What are you? Who am I? What’s your choice?”

“I…I’m your slave. Mistress. I choose you.”

Yes, I think I can live with that ending to those kinds of stories.

The Fix

Wife: So I was talking to Tracy, and her husband is having problems with his ex-wife again. I said to myself, “Thank God that B doesn’t have an ex wife. Thank God I’ve been his one and only, and there’s no baggage.” I don’t know if I could handle it.

Me: Well, there’s baggage, but no kids. Or ex-wives.

Wife: I can’t imagine being with anyone else, or ever leaving you.

Me: I can’t imagine ever leaving you, dear.

Well, duh, of course not. Even if you strip away love and affection and companionship, of which there is plenty, there’s an 800 lb. gorilla in the room, and that gorilla is: You are the only woman who could ever dominate me. You are the only woman who has seen my naked need to submit and become a worm, to become dirt, to become nothing or less than nothing — if that’s possible. I could never find another you.

I don’t know how a slave could. I’m sure many have had to, but I’ve only read one blog that really ever deals with the collapse of that D/s relationship, and God help me, I don’t know if I could handle it. The flip side of the trust you put in a woman that allows you to open yourself up — to let her sodomize you, to let her bleed you like a side of beef, to let her punch and smack and whip you — is the vulnerability that comes with, “If this woman ever decides not to love me, she will have seen me at my meekest. My weakest. My most fragile. She will have compromised me in a way that I may never recover from.”

I don’t trust anyone enough to let them stick something in my ass, but I trust my wife that much. I don’t trust anyone to touch my neck with a naked knife, but I trust my wife, without hesitation.

And that’s the flip side — I don’t know if I could ever trust someone else enough to do those things. At least, not without my wife there, to watch over me. If my wife ever left me, I don’t know how the hell I’d meet someone and build up a relationship in a realistic amount of time in order to let them dominate and beat me. I don’t know who would want me. I don’t know how to approach a dominant woman, or how to make her see me as strong and simultaneously submissive. I think, if faced with putting all of myself out there like that, I may just give up on this wonderful life I live and recede into bored and tortured vanilla existence.

I mean, I read Unspeakable Axe talk about what it’s like to find that other half, and I think, “Jesus, that guy is good looking and clever, and he has a tough time finding a domme. I’m middle-aged. (Technically.) I’d never survive. I’d be forced to pay for it, and not from the expensive, pretty pro-dommes either — the cut-rate ones, who demand tribute in phone cards and gift certificates to Dollar King, and who look like a mean version of Flo from ‘Alice.’ She’d be saying things like, “Kiss my grits, slave,” and I’d have to say, “I don’t even know where your grits are, ma’am…” And it would just be awkward like that.

Which leads me to the final reason why I’m bound so tightly now — my wife has my fix. She’s the only woman I trust. The only woman strong enough. The only woman intriguing enough. She’s the only source for what I need, what I’ve learned I have to have. She’s my dealer, and I’m just a junkie, only my drug of choice is her: her power, her control, her domination and the pain she metes out. I’m dependent on her, even if we strip away the love and devotion and fact that we’re best friends — at this point, I’m hooked. If you strip away the romance and mutual respect, there’s still that left: my naked, hungry, junkie need for her.

Luckily, I can pay for that fix. With love. With devotion. And once in a while, when she sees how needy I am, with my fear. Those are all forms of tribute she accepts, and I gladly give them.

A Letter For My Mistress

My wife demanded that I write a wish-list of what kind of debased acts of sado-masochism and submission I want to get up to once we’re living in the same house. In fact, this post — which I will send to her via email, as well — is the only way I get to come tonight. I get to have an orgasm if I send her my wish list. We just spent the last hour on the phone discussing how our D/s and S&M activities are going to work when we live in the same house again, and we’re both revved up, so if you don’t want to read about a sub’s daydreams, hie thee forth to another blog and don’t follow the link.

I Have Disabled WordPress’ new feature…

WordPress has a new feature where they link to possibly related blog entries from other blogs. I don’t know when they activated it, but when I checked on new responses by Mrs.Keeper and Axe tonight, I noticed the function for the first time.

Now, if this function were linking me to other BDSM blogs, this would be fine. But a quick glance at the other blogs revealed that one of them was a Christian blog, another about knitting, and I didn’t bother to look at the third.

If you have come to this BDSM blog via one of those links, I apologize, and urge you to quickly link away if tales of domination and submission don’t float your boat.

On a related note, I also want to apologize to all of the people who have been searching out “Coconut Creme Cake” and somehow clicking into this blog. I don’t know why it’s coming up in your search results, but about once a day I get somebody linking in looking for coconut cake recipes. I do have a fantastic recipe for coconut cake, which I will post soon just to make this up to you.

You Can’t Have It Both Ways…

Unspeakable Axe has a good post about what some dommes want over at his blog today. On a related note, my wife and I spent an hour this morning chatting about yesterday’s post.

Amongst other things, she specifically said she wanted our debate over our future to remain free from the baggage of our BDSM relationship. “I don’t want you to argue with me as my slave, I want you to argue with me as my husband. I don’t want to dominate you into a decision, because it would be coercive, and it would make our Mistress/slave dynamic…impure. Wrong, somehow.”

She mentioned in passing that she hadn’t realized how deep my submissive urges ran. “Is that bad?” I asked.

“Nooo…” She said hesitantly. “But I do want you to…how do I put this? I want you to put up a fight. I want you to resist. I want to conquer you. I don’t want you just to curl up and surrender, I like a challenge.”

“So,” I said quietly, “You want me to fight?”

“I’m just saying…the fun is in breaking you, right?”

(I don’t know if I have all of the words right, but that’s the gist of the conversation.)

Now, if she wants me to fight, I’m happy to fight. If she wants me to be combative, hey, I’ll see what I can do. Anything for Mistress. But the problem with these dominant women who want to break a dominant man is that I spend my days being a Type-A, competitive, guy. I like the taste of blood, so to speak. I get off on crushing the opposition. (Get off. Nothing makes me hornier than beating someone. I mean, after one victory a couple years ago, I could have used my cock to jackhammer through concrete.) I’m downright bipolar about this — Darryl Zero-esque, so uncomfortable in my own skin sometimes that I don’t want to talk to the local Chinese place to order take-out, but at work — I break my back. I work hard. And I like to win.

I mean, sure, when I come home, I want to curl up at my lady’s feet, but that means it’s one or the other — you can choose between column A or column B, but I don’t know if you can order something unique. And… I’m really worried that the ass-kicking column is a bit too combative. Too competitive. I’m worried that I won’t be able to find a middle-ground, between abuse-hungry slave and competitive bastard. And, if I can be a little bit cocky — hey, you opened up the door when you asked for the fighter, sweetie — I’m afraid she’ll be biting off more than she can chew.

So what does she want? Does she really want the challenge, or does she want the teddy-bear? And if she wants something in-between, can I somehow find it in me to give it to her?

It’s hard to admit…

I have the chance to get a job I’ve wanted for a long while. My wife wants me to move back North. Our views are in total conflict on this. I really believe that staying here is possibly the best thing, she really believes the North is where our future is at.

We’ve been…debating this. Vigorously. Often. It’s resulted in tears on her part, anger on mine, her hurting me, me hurting her. It’s been, for want of a better word, a fight.

And it’s hard. So hard to fight her. So hard to resist her will. Every time we go back and forth, the cracked part of me that desires her will — needs her will — in order to make me whole again, that part quails at the thought of resisting her desires. I want to obey. I want to submit. I want to surrender. It would be so fucking sweet to stop fighting and resisting and thinking and just slide into that warm, safe place where she makes all the decisions.

It’s times like this where I know in my heart that if our life allowed it, I would happily be a lifestyle submissive. I have it in me to give up completely to her. To surrender, totally. To let her control be total.

I honestly don’t know what to do. The longer I fight her, the stronger the voice in my head gets telling me to give in. I’ve never been in a situation like this before in our relationship since we started BDSM, where she and I are in direct opposition to each other, where one of us has to win and one of us has to lose, where there’s no compromise, and our future is at stake — the direction the next few years will take is up in the air. Because I know we’re two equals fighting, but on another level, she is my Mistress and I am a fucking slave and I know my place.

Is this weird? Do I have bad boundaries? Or is it natural, due to the intimacy of a power exchange in a marriage, in an intense love affair like ours has been for eight months, for there to be bleed-off into our day-time lives? For me to want to submit everywhere, not just in the bedroom?

Whole Again, A Romantic Dream

I was thinking today, that on some level I’ve been broken all of my life. That there’s a hole in my heart or my soul, that it’s been cracked or fractured since before I was born. I cannot be truly happy — like I am when I submit — by myself. I cannot be truly satisfied, like I am after a BDSM scene, without being compromised and abused.

I was sexually insatiable, and have been since…Lord, I don’t know when. Before we discovered BDSM — before we discovered ourselves as people into BDSM — my wife used to get upset about it. “I can’t satisfy you,” she’d say. “It hurts me that when we’re done making love and I’m sated, you’re ready for something else. It’s like I can never fill up the hole inside you.”

That hole inside me was my submission. That hole needed someone else to fill it with their power and their presence and with pain and pleasure. I can be happy without submitting — I got by for 33 years, after all — I can live a pretty full life, but I will always be hollow and…and….partial…without it.

That part of me is empty without a master. A mistress. Whatever the word is.

The switching we’ve done lately proved that to me. I liked the power, I liked the control, and I liked making my wife happy. But I was never whole during it. And if I’m going to admit something to you, to me, and to my wife, in the back of my head, I always wanted to return to this…to submission and masochism and being whole again.

I keep hearing people talk about better worlds, where sexism is a thing of the past and kink is simply accepted for what it is, all of those dreams we all have, but if I can be selfish for a moment, my better world is one where being a slave is acceptable. (And by that I mean a BDSM slave. Fuck classical definitions of slavery, they’re fucked up and nobody wants to be a part of them, no matter what they may say.)

In this place, I could live my life as my wife’s pet at home and it wouldn’t affect how I raise my child, or getting up and going to work, or what people thought of me. In this fantastic, non-existent fantasy land, I would be whole and fulfilled all of the time. That part of me, the broken part of me that’s got a crack in it that can only be filled by another’s will, that part of me would be fixed in this world, because I could live my life in open service with no social cost. I could be honest: I am her pet. Her slave. I could wear a collar openly. People would understand how fucking broken and wrecked and hollow I am without a presence there to prop me up. Her presence. They would know, without prejudice, that I simply need a dominant, and accept that without one I’m just kind of missing something. Something small…something I can get by without…but without which, I’m simply not whole.

But I am happy with the world I’m in, because when my wife dominates me, for those precious few hours, I am whole. I am filled. I am sated. I have never felt that in all of my life until we started playing with D/s, and I have yearned for it since I was too young to even know what sex is. For those hours, I am whole and happy and joyful.