The Queen's Chair

One of my classmates in graduate school is a very accomplished pro-domme, who recently opened her studio/dungeon space to us for summer readings.  We go once or twice a month and read things that we're working on, mostly for classmate feedback and to get some experience reading our work aloud.  Most of the people attending know what she does for a living, so the suspension gear and the locked black cabinets didn't take anyone by surprise.  

However, while she did a pretty good job of clearing the space of anything that might freak out the newbies, there were little telltale signs that I picked out immediately.  If I hadn't known she was a pro-domme, these things would have clued me in:

1.  Her houseboy, dressed in street clothes, was stationed in the kitchen to keep our drinks refreshed and serve us appetizers.  While people thought he was just a friend or boyfriend of hers, I could tell from his submissive demeanor and his dropped eyes exactly what his status was.

2.  The space was spotless.  Immaculate.  Like someone, perhaps a someone dressed in nothing but sissy maid gear, had gone over every inch of the floor and counter space with a scrubbing sponge.  

3.  She had a chair at the front of the room which we were supposed to sit in when we were reading in front of the crowd.  No one really looked closely at the chair except for me.  I think she had it custom-made, because I've never seen one quite like that, but the chair was split along the base to allow for someone, perhaps that same someone in sissy maid gear, to kneel below it and perhaps offer up his mouth for.....what, I wonder?  Worship and adoration?  I giggled to myself as I watched my classmates going up to read, with absolutely no idea what that chair is usually used for.  

After the reading, I had a really pleasant conversation with her, just the usual shop talk exchanged between two women who like to be on top.  At some point, I think we're going to try and have dinner together -- we've met casually before at grad school functions, but we've never been in close proximity, so we haven't had a chance to get to know each other.  She seems like my sort of person though -- strong, confident, comfortable in her own skin.  She has a certain serenity about her that I like.

In other news, I've been having such a good time with my little pet that I have hardly thought about writing this blog.  We've been having a leisurely summer, with little day trips on the weekends, nice dinners out together, and plenty of time pulling out our favorite toys.  I'm happy to report that I'm in a healthy D/s relationship at last -- so healthy, in fact, that D/s is definitely not the focal point all the time.  (Side note:  While some people can certainly live 24/7, I find that things work out much better when you find the blend that's right for you -- and 24/7 is not right for me.  I like an equal at the dinner table, to share my thoughts with.)  We have a lot in common beyond our sexual compatibility, and I think both of us were pleasantly surprised by how things have blossomed in the last few months.  A connection like this is rare, and I am definitely doing what I can to nurture and protect it.

I can't wait for school to be over

I'm just starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel: my extremely busy spring semester at school has one week left, and I only have 1 more novel to read, 2 small reaction papers to write, 2 more critiques to finish, and 1 longer essay to finish. I know that sounds like a lot, but it is dramatically less than I've had all semester. I've scaled a mountain of work, and now I feel like I'm beginning to hit the down-slope.

Which means: I can have more time to play with my very favorite boy, and I can see kinkster friends again, and I can have something resembling a life for three short months.

In terms of creative work, this has been an interesting semester. It is the first time my sexual identity has really started to bleed over into my creative work, in some interesting ways. My misadventures of January seem to have inspired an interesting project, inspired somewhat by the surrealist (and masochistic) work of Bruno Schulz. However, instead of Schulz writing about Dominant women, a Dominant woman (moi) is writing about masochistic/submissive men. Schulz's muse (whom he often named 'Undula') now has her chance to speak. She's not exactly waxing poetical about submissive men. Instead, I'm writing about their elusiveness -- their emotional advance-and-retreat, the way they long for a stronger, more powerful woman but at the same time, they secretly loathe her.

I was on the receiving end of this in January: a masochist who wants to be dressed/made into a woman but also hates women (and hates himself). I realized after our brief, disastrous affair was over that his fetish was actually part-hate, part-love, and that perhaps this is what many fetishes do -- they combine dread and longing in a powerful, volatile way. People cannot resist what they desire, but they must rebel against it, undermine it, and even destroy it. What is upsetting and frustrating about this is the involvement of another person -- in this case, me -- who genuinely seeks connection and a relationship, not the satisfaction of mere fetish. I certainly have my fetishes, the symbols or objects that arouse me, and I certainly won't deny that there's a mixture of desire and dread in it for me, as well. But ultimately, I don't forget I'm exploring that with another person, a person whose humanity I still cherish and value. I happen to know the difference between a fetish and a man; sadly I ran across a man who conflated the fetish and the woman, and then couldn't deal with the woman in the end.

I also re-learned a lesson New York city teaches me over and over: look at what someone does, not what they say. People are so self-deluded they'll tell themselves (and, by extension, you) anything in order to squeeze themselves into a new, convenient, desired identity. But the trail is there, the crumbs have been dropped, if only you'll be smart enough to pick them up and follow them back to the truth.

What's lovely about my little pet is that he is exactly who he says he is. He doesn't have some secret other life that he's keeping from me, he comes to me exactly as he is, and we explore and experience that together. I have let him know how much I appreciate that -- in fact, I think my recent little misadventure had one and only one purpose: to prepare me for my pet, to make me ready to appreciate just how fantastic he is.

And perhaps the other, less direct purpose is this creative work -- it all came together in such an interesting way. First, the bad experience in January. Then, I read Bruno Schulz in February and started taking notes and writing bits of text. I also created a pastiche work based on Venus in Furs, Schulz's art, and some sketches by Max Ernst. Still working on all this -- and can't wait for the summer to have time to finish it -- and meanwhile, I'm doing a paper on the feminist writing of Christa Wolf.

Away sick, coming back around

I've been sick for the last two weeks -- basically, since the week after my pet's birthday, when I got the flu. At one point, I was running a high fever for several days, with shooting pain in my neck and back. I finally had enough energy to go to the ER. I wanted a test to make sure I didn't have viral meningitis and just had the flu -- which is what they confirmed. I was really relieved. I don't get sick very often, but every few years, I get a bad case of the flu and it takes 2-3 weeks to get over it. I even had a flu shot this year, but so much for that!

I'm still got a bit of a cough, but no other symptoms. I missed the Club Fem play party this month (where I was supposed to give a presentation, no less) and spent a lot of my time in bed. I had to keep my work absences down to a minimum, so I was coming straight home after work and school and getting into bed with a dose of Tylenol PM. Not very fun.

My little pet boy was wonderful, however. He's taken care of me every weekend that I've been sick. We live about an hour away from each other, so I have to take the train out to him, but once I get there, he's been fantastic. Very sweet and patient with me, even as I'm coughing all night and feeling low-energy. We haven't played as much as I would have liked, but I haven't been completely dead from the waist down. I managed to feel a little more frisky this weekend -- I think his presence probably had something to do with that.

I still feel, though, like I'm waking up from a coma or something. Still trying to get my energy level back up to what it was. I hope by the end of this week I'll be completely back to normal.

Happy Birthday, little pet

Today is my little pet's birthday, so I'm going out to his house to make him dinner. Yes, Lola does occasionally cook. When I lived overseas, I cooked a lot more often because I had more time and I enjoyed making Western food. I generally think of cooking as something men should be doing (for me), but I will sometimes cook for someone, if he particularly deserves it.

After the cooking, there will be a lot of playing. We just recently set up a harness under his bed so I can tie him to it, and my pet took to bondage like a duck to water. His eyes light up when I tie him down.

I've been incredibly busy lately, finishing up work for school and getting a huge project done at work. I hope to write more next week, but for now, this is as much of an update as I have time for.

But to my favorite, well-cherished and spoiled little pet: happy birthday. All your sweetness, patience and obedience has made me very fond of you. You're a unique and fantastic boy.

Fantasy v. reality

Everyone comes to this lifestyle by a different path. Mine has not always been linear, but there has always been a forward momentum to it -- I have never really had any significant periods of time where I retreated back into vanilla for too long. If I dated vanilla, it was out of sadness or disappointment in the submissive men I had been dating previously. It wasn't because I wanted to date vanilla.

So, I was looking at the Elise Sutton website today and thinking about fantasy versus reality. I would say 90% of the submissive men I've dated up until this point in my life had a problem reconciling fantasy and reality. To wit: they were always disappointed by reality because they expected it to be too much like fantasy, even if they didn't want to admit that's what they were doing. I've been involved with some very intelligent, self-aware men, who should definitely know better, and yet they couldn't get past their online-inspired fantasies of female domination.

And what's interesting is how Dominant women -- like Elise Sutton and even yours truly, really -- both contribute to that problem even as we try to solve it. We're online, writing about ourselves, seeking partners, providing a construct of our identities made in our words that submissive men take literally. However, what else am I supposed to do? I'm a writer, after all, and I can't exactly walk down to the BDSM bar down the street and meet a nice guy. (Thanks Rudy Giuliani, for making the law tough on kinky folk.) So, I go online, although drastically less than ever before.

But I really do think the problem would exist even if the Internet didn't exist. The Internet is not the cause of our problems, it merely amplifies them. It reflects us back to ourselves as we sometimes are, unflattering though that might be, and if we find we don't like what we're seeing, perhaps we should start with that.

For me, that was a realization that I won't trust men who approach me solely on the internet. You need to experience me in person, you need to know me as an every-day entity, not just some idea in your head of a red-headed Southern vixen with a whip in her hand. I mean, I am that person, but not the way you define it. Its the way I define it, and if you can't live with that, I don't really want you in my world.

I also want to know that a man has a healthy relationship between what he thinks about when he's not with me, and how he feels about what we are doing. I approach sex very much as a process to build intimacy, not an end in its own right. If it isn't perfect every single time, I don't freak out, and my boy can't freak out either. He needs to realize I can't be 100% on all the time, sometimes I'm tired and I just want a foot rub and a hot shower, and that to me is sexual intimacy for the night. But people who spend the majority of their time online, in fantasy mode, are really not able to see that.

Fantasy is there to inspire you, to give you ideas, to make life worth living -- but that's just it. You've got to live life, not live it in your head. If you spend all your time thinking about serving a woman, and no time actually serving the women around you, you are no closer than you were when you fired up your computer and went online to stare at femdom porn. And I, for one, can't use you.

If you want the rainbow

So, I've started loaning my coworker my DVDs of the British TV series, "The Office." I couldn't believe she hadn't seen it and it makes our working life difficult, because I can't do my impeccable David Brent impression for her. ("If you want the rainbow, you've got to put up with the rain -- do you know which philosopher said that? Dolly Parton! And people say she's just a big pair of tits!") But we are redressing the imbalance, and I can call her extension up sometimes and mutter "yer a cock, yer a cock!" and now she understands.

That has nothing whatsoever to do with kink, but it does explain why, after I've done something particularly good, I sometimes crack, "And people think I'm just a big pair of tits!"

I think I got on this topic because it did rain particularly hard this morning. I'm really just free-associating here. I don't think I can keep a blog unless it blends my offbeat personality with my sexual orientation, so there will just have to be moments of levity, folks.

Tonight we have a little informal graduate student contest: we all meet at a bar after class and everyone contributes a 300-word story on a particular topic. This week's theme is "wolf boys" -- left deliberately vague so you can interpret it as you will. I'm planning to write 300 words of plushie porn. The cheaper the shots you take, the more likely you are to get the votes that make your story the best of the night. Explicit sexual content, slapstick humor, bad puns, smack-talking: these are the ingredients of a winning story. Perhaps I'll post the results of my efforts here.

In other news, it looks like I'll be doing a sissy training demo for ClubFem in April. I'm excited about that, because it gives me an opportunity to talk about why I love sissy-training as well as allowing me to create an environment where I have a room full of sissy boys doing my bidding. My goal is to make it pleasurable, even for the women who aren't into sissies necessarily -- they'll enjoy the service they're getting even if they aren't turned on by boys in frilly clothes. Not every boy can give you what you need, but in the world we're trying to build, the boys should be at least useful on a basic level to every woman in the room. So, the whole thing will take place in the midst of a Victorian tea. Little sissy maids will walk around and provide food, drink and attention. I have about a month to pull it all together, so I'm sure I'll be writing out my ideas here.

Anticipation

I had a critique last night, for a piece of creative writing I've been working on. The work is relatively fresh and challenging for me -- I've essentially been using the energy from a recent incident in my life to fuel a story which is ostensibly about something else. And in struggling to talk about these things, a lot of unexpected twists emerged. My instructor last night pointed out a lot of the potentials of this work I hadn't quite seen yet.

The story explores what it means to have a fetish, whether it is possible to love someone as a result of pursuing that fetish, what it means to lose that love, how people manipulate their own memories and experiences in order to persuade other people, and it mixes in race and gender in ways I didn't anticipate when I started. I also flirt, very openly, with the fact that this story -- or some parts of it -- may be my own experiences. The instructor warned me about the ramifications of that, even as he suggested that it was intriguing. I learned the most from him about what was working in the story by what he warned me about -- the warnings were a sign to me that I was onto something potentially dangerous, which is what I want.

Afterwards, I went out with two of my favorite classmates and we had a long, interesting conversation. Both of them are gay men, and they got me talking about sadism. We got into the specifics of what I enjoy about inflicting pain. It was strange to describe it in such detail -- the tingle in your hand when it slaps skin, the eroticism of someone gasping in pain, the desperate, lost, dependent quality of a man who both longs for and fears you putting nipple clamps on him (or taking them off), the sight of him bent over for you, the knowledge that you could do it harder and he would take it happily, the freedom of being cruel when cruelty is so forbidden to women socially. In some ways, I can't even put words to the way I'm feeling when I'm being sadistic -- it is probably one of the moments in my life when I am the most wordless. I act, I don't speak very much.

I came home to find a sweet little note from my pet telling me that he missed me. Those small little gestures of longing and vulnerability are exciting -- knowing that he can't wait to serve me again adds a little spring to my step that I wouldn't otherwise have. Feeling that hunger to use him again soon, and knowing that I will see him in a few days. The anticipation is an important part of the fun.

Fantastic weekend

I had a surprisingly good weekend. I say 'surprisingly' because, at the start of it, I was not feeling very well. My menstrual cycle, about half of the time, is quite painful, and I woke up on Saturday in a good deal of pain. I spent a good chunk of the day wrapped around my heating pad, feeling sorry for myself.

However, Domme duty calls, so I rallied, packed up my stuff, and met my little pet for dinner before the ClubFem play party. One of the wonderful things about my pet is that he's very thoughtful, and he showed up with flowers for me, and a fantastic present: a pink riding crop he bought me, from an equestrian outfitter. If he's trying to stay in his favored position at the end of my leash, he's doing a very good job so far.

We had dinner and then went early to the party to help the Headmistress set up. I helped lace another Domme into her corset, ordered a few boys around, and got changed myself. Since I wasn't feeling that well, I didn't dress up as much as I wanted to, but the power surge of so many eager little submissive boys definitely improved my mood. By the time I got dressed, I was feeling a lot sassier. I wore a black bustier under a sheer top, a miniskirt with a slit up the side, and black suede platform boots. And I made my pet wear his special little ruffled panties, as well as my collar and pink leash. That was a particular honor for him -- one that he thanked me for profusely.

The party was a lot of fun -- especially towards the end, when the masochists started lining up for me. I haven't been able to let my inner sadist out that much in a good long while, and it felt incredible. The Headmistress loaned me one of her boys, who can really take a beating, and I used a new red-and-black flogger on him which is particularly nasty. I made him bellow quite nicely, and left him with some nice purple welts along his hips and ass. I also just let myself go -- I went into that floating, happy, sadistic headspace, and I can tell from the soreness in my biceps that I really used nearly my full strength.

At one point, after I'd beat the Headmistress's boy, I turned around and saw a number of eager, slightly terrified little boys' faces. Some of them are probably less interested in me than they were -- because now they know I can really pack a wallop. But a few of them are a little more interested -- for the very same reason!

And now my pet knows just what I'm capable of. He's not a masochist, so I would really never do that to him, but he does know he'll get punished if he doesn't obey. It isn't a bad thing for him to see just how much power and authority I can have when I want it.

On the train home, he gave me the other half of what I need -- cuddling and service. And then the next morning I woke up and got the pampering I deserve. We put his foot-worshiping skills to good use once again, among other things. He knows I'm quite pleased with him so far.

So yes, I'm a little smug and happy today. People ask me how my weekend was, and I can't answer them honestly -- I can't exactly say, "Well, I spanked four or five boys this weekend, and really beat the hell out of one of them, got my feet worshiped, used my little pet as much as I wanted, and generally feel quite rested, thank you." But when I say, "my weekend was quite nice, thanks for asking", all of that contentment is definitely in my voice.

Foot worship

I got my feet worshiped by my little pet last night. He cooked me dinner, bathed my feet carefully in hot water, and then as a reward I let him worship. It turns out this is a particular strength for him -- it was one of the best foot-worshiping sessions I've ever had. I was close to orgasm by the end of it, seriously. He'll be doing that a lot more often.

And now back to reality - work. Although I'm working towards being 'my own boss' someday, I'm still somewhat at the mercy of academic forces above me. My current higher-up is a woman, a woman who really does not know how to wield power effectively and fairly. She's too critical at the wrong moments and she leaves the running of the office solely in my hands, but fails to appreciate just how often I protect her back for her. You should never have someone do your job for you, and then get snippy with them about the work they're doing. It is a dangerous combination.

I had a meeting with a mentor of mine yesterday, though, and he reminded me that I work only for myself, for the pleasure of financing my artistic work. Remembering that makes it easier to let the little stupid things go. I have a lot in the works, and if I just keep focused on that, I should move forward fairly steadily over the next two years. This job will eventually be a distant memory.

Meanwhile, I'll be taking my little pet on his little pink leash to a play party this weekend, and that should be fun. I love the happy look he gets on his face when I snap that leash on.

all work and no play

I've had an unusually high amount of work the past few days, and I spent the weekend holed up in my apartment, writing an assignment for grad school.

I didn't even get to play with my pet -- he came to see me for dinner, but I had to send him home at midnight so I could get some sleep and keep working the next day. Of course, being denied the ability to play made playing the only thing I could think about. I've turned in my assignment, I've got a bag packed, and I'm off to see my little pet tonight.

The assignment was difficult for me -- it is the first time I've tried to bring my sexuality so much into my creative writing. I dredged up memories and experiences from years ago, in an effort to also address and deal with things that happened to me recently. I went back and wrote about the first time a submissive boy broke my heart. That moment reverberates off the other disappointments I've had since then, creating a little echo chamber of discomfort that isn't easy to live with. I felt a little bit like some parts of my psyche were melting down. I felt emotionally disheveled.

In the end, though, I think this is good for my writing. I remember once, when I was a college student, I worked for a poet as her personal assistant. She had this poem that seemed to be about a relationship ending between two people, but she told me that the energy behind the poem came from a miscarriage she'd had, not a breakup. And I found that so fascinating, that you can take one kind of pain and make it over into something more universal. Not everyone can relate to that moment when a submissive boy withdraws his consent to you, leaving you feeling powerless and stripped. But people can relate to other kinds of loss, so it is a matter of translating that experience into something more recognizable to the world at large.

The work is turned in, however, and now I get to play tonight.

The New York Post Hates Dominant Women

Every so often, the New York Post just can't help itself: they get obsessed with writing about us weird, kinky types. And predictably, they write about Dominant women doing something to submissive men because -- shock! horror! -- this is the most subversive thing they can think of.

There were two stories last week: here and here. Predictably, both are from male perspectives, two men who pursue Dominant women and are -- of course! -- married. One was that college professor who was nearly strangled to death by a pro-domme, and now of course everyone knows who he is, so he swears up and down that he's giving it up for good (yeah, right). The other is a UWS "professional" who conceals his desires from his wife and has a "relationship" with a Domme. I feel really bad for that Domme -- she's getting the short end of the stick, and if you happen upon this blog and read this, honey, let me tell you something: you really don't have to settle for some closeted married dude. There are plenty of single, submissive men, too. You have your choice of them, not the other way around. You should never take one who is anything less than what you want.

The writers of both articles -- Samuel Goldsmith and Joshua Rhett Miller -- seem absolutely unconcerned about including Female perspectives on this lifestyle in their articles, and almost exclusively quote men. This is completely typical of the Post -- they are usually creaming their pants to write smack-talk about Dommes, either professionals or not. Almost as if Sam and Josh have an axe to grind, you know? What happened, boys -- Mommy didn't spank you enough?

Domme as leitmotif

I'm taking a literature seminar this semester, and right now, we're reading Bruno Schulz's Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. Schulz is a Polish writer, a bit of a surrealist, who converted the strange and fantastical symbols of his own personal mythology into a couple of really beautiful books. Schulz was also a devoted reader of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the man who wrote Venus in Furs (and from whom the term 'masochist' derives). It is clear when you read Schulz that he, like Sacher-Masoch had a fascination with Dominant women -- they are one of his primary leitmotifs, in the figure of Adela, a recurring character, among many others. Anyway, I'm reading along at the beginning, and I come to this passage. In it, the narrator is reading passages from a spiritual masterpiece he calls only The Book:

"A certain Mme Magda Wang, tethered by the train of her gown, declared above a modest decolletage that she frowned on manly determination and principles and that she specialized in breaking the strongest characters. (Here, with a slight kick of her small foot, she rearranged the train of her gown.) There were methods, she continued through clenched teeth, infallible methods she could not divulge here, referring the readers to her memoirs, entitled The Purple Days (published by the Institute of Anthroposophy in Budapest); in them, she listed the results of her experiences in the Colonies with the "dressage" of men (this last word underlined by an ironic flash of her eyes). And strangely enough, that slovenly and loose-tongued lady seemed to be sure of the approval of those about whom she spoke so cynically, and in the peculiar confusion of her words one felt that their meaning had mysteriously shifted and that we had moved to a totally different sphere, where the compass worked back to front.

This was the last page of The Book, and it left me peculiarly dizzy, filled with a mixture of longing and excitement."

Sounds like a Domme to me! My homework just got a lot more fun.

Here's a sample of the artwork Bruno Schulz included with his work:

Who are you, anyway?

The least attractive thing that submissive guys do when they're trying to attract a Mistress is the one-line email that says something like, "I live near you and I want to talk."

There are variations on this email: "I read your profile/blog and I think we should talk," or "I really like what you have to say and I think we should talk", etc.

But basically this message is extremely arrogant. I call this the "I want this, so you have to give it to me" school of submissive men. Just because they sit around in their apartments jerking off to the idea of Dominant women somehow means that when they encounter a real one, we should be obligated to deal with them.

Dealing with men who believe their desires are the most important thing in the world and should be addressed right away is something that I have to put up with every day -- in my vanilla life. I absolutely do not tolerate it behind the closed doors of my private, Domme-centric world. The fact is, I don't care. I just don't care. As I say so often to men, only your mother thinks you're that special.

Who are you, anyway? One line about how you want to talk to me tells me absolutely nothing about whether or not I want to talk to you. Do you have skills I'm particularly in need of? (Like, can you scrub a toilet so clean it makes the angels sigh?) Do you connect with my writing in some particular and interesting way, and can you talk about that intelligently? (Cannot stress that one enough.) Have you fully confronted your own selfish male upbringing, systematically learning how to be selfless, emotionally open, communicative, nurturing, sweet-natured and docile? Because that's what I want. And I really don't care that much (read: at all) about what you want.

Weekend Update

After a very satisfying weekend -- including an overnight visit with a very special little pet, you know who you are -- I still have another day off tomorrow. I should really be getting more work done, but I admit, I've been spoiling myself this weekend. I needed a few days off.

I had an afternoon coffee with the Headmistress of ClubFemNYC, the organization to which I belong. She's such an amazingly gracious and wonderful person. I felt instantly at home with her, from the moment we met. Sometimes people and situations come into your life at precisely the perfect moment, and that's how I'm feeling about ClubFem. I've spent too long looking for the right boy online, when the online environment is a place that breeds the kind of bad behavior I want to avoid. I've never been more clear in my life about what I want than I am these days -- and never so determined not to compromise that, or myself. ClubFem absolutely provides the right support system for that. I had almost forgotten how vital it is to socialize with other Dommes -- they remind me of what I am, and how important it is to safeguard and honor that.

Anyway, a few hours with the Headmistress, and I was feeling very good about where I am right now, very clear-headed and happy. We talked about our plans for a training academy for submissives who want to learn how to really attract the right mistress, and I agreed to take on some of the logistical organizing of this -- I'll be really curious to see if any boys have what it takes to make it through. If they do, they'll have the approval of at least five formidable Dominant women, and I'm sure our references will certainly count for something. We each will take turns training one boy, he'll get a different Domme each month to teach him skills he needs to learn. I don't know -- if a guy approached me and he had the approval of five Dommes and had been trained in almost everything I liked, that would really make me sit up and take notice. That's like a dream-submissive right there.

What Dominant girls dream

I had an erotic Domme dream last night.

I was at a play party -- the space looked like a club I used to know in Brooklyn, a big warehouse-type space painted white on the floors and walls. There were people everywhere, Dommes and their boys, doing whatever they felt like doing. For some reason, I was on a raised platform above everyone else. There was a large, velvet sofa on the platform, and seated on it was a boy. He wore nothing but a pair of boxer-briefs, and I was sitting in his lap, in a corset and a skirt. He was staring up at me in complete fascination, desire and submission. His hands were cuffed, the cuffs were attached to long chains, and the chains were fastened to iron rings on either side of the sofa. He could move around on the sofa, but he couldn't leave that platform unless I unlocked the cuffs. He was my prisoner, and we both knew it.

At the start of the dream, I was murmuring in his ear. No one is here, I told him, just you and me. Don't pay any attention to what's around you. And it really did feel as if the rest of the people in the room dropped away, and we were all alone in that space. I made him lie on his back, and I explored his body. He was totally silent, except his breathing changed when I teased him, but he worked very hard not to lose control, because he knew I would punish him if I was denied one second of access to my toy. Occasionally I would dig my nails into some part of his body and ask him, "To whom does this ____ (nipple, cock, arm, etc.) belong?" And he would respond, "That ____ belongs to you, Ma'am." His voice trembled, and I could see it was so hard for him to restrain himself. Sometimes his hands twitched -- he wanted to touch me, he wanted unfettered access to me, but he didn't dare. He knew he was only there to be used.

Watching him struggling with his desire made me so incredibly wet, but I kept exploring him and delaying my own orgasm for a little while. I liked the fact that we were becoming more and more indiscreet in front of everyone -- I still had some sense that we were being watched, that people were hypnotized by the dynamic between us. I knew there were probably a lot of submissive men in that room who were jealous of my toy, and wished they could be in his place. And I would look at him and realize that he was probably the best toy in the room -- something about the sweet look in his face and his incredible obedience just melted me. I licked him, I stroked him, I spanked him sometimes. I watched him struggle not to lose control of himself, so that he could continue to be available to me.

And that was it. Of course, like many dreams, the climax was imminent, but didn't happen in the dream. I woke up for that. I was so close to orgasm it really took me about 30 seconds. Such a fantastic wake-up call.

The Importance of Being Stevie

So, the Night of a Thousand Stevies event is coming up on May 9th, and I am already planning my costume. I'm organizing a merry little band of gypsy women for this event, but I intend to look respectably Domme-like. The photo above is what I'm basing my look on, complete with a velvet stovepipe hat, a brocade coat, feathers, a corset underneath, a monocle (she doesn't have one, but I feel like I need one), and the most amazing pair of velvet platform boots I can track down on this planet of ours.

It is a good thing I have three months, because I can do this right. I have a coworker who is also planning an outfit, to complement mine -- she's wearing all white, in Stevie's ballet-inspired phase. We're going to look like Good and Evil, hand in hand. We've started scouring vintage shops, the City Opera thrift store, a variety of really silly (but really fun) online fantasy-shops, as well as every kinky store in Manhattan. I will know where to buy ostrich feathers when I get done with this project, I can tell you that. I'll be able to make a glitter tambourine in less than a day. It may not seem like it, but this is crucial Domme stuff. Nobody should try topping a boy unless she knows how to be the Gold Dust Woman.

I'm just sayin'.

Domme Group last night

The Dommes' Group that I went to last night was the absolute shot of positivity in the arm that I needed. It was so nice to be part of a community again. The women were all very cool, and it felt empowering to be around such like-minded, good people.

And yes, there were hopeful single boys. I had a lovely talk with one of them. He was gracious, sweet, polite and respectful: something that gave me encouragement that there are good submissive boys out there. No one is perfect, certainly, but knowing how to treat a Mistress is essential to ever successfully attracting one. If you can't even manage to be respectful in a conversation, you are not ready.

Last night also reminded me that I am still firmly in control of this process. I felt like I was back in my element. For me perhaps the most powerful part of the evening was hearing the older women reinforce what I already knew, but their experience gives them a steadiness that I am still learning to achieve.

There was also a married couple there. The woman wore a key around her neck - a sure sign that she's got her husband locked in chastity. It touched me to see a successful, smart couple like that out in the world, making it work. There were other, older couples in attendance who've been together for several decades, and that also touched me. You can get very downtrodden in this lifestyle, thinking that things will always be fleeting and short-lived, that people will only disappoint you and that the voiced devotion of submissive boys is only that -- voiced, not real. To see people making it work was a kind of encouragement I didn't even know that I needed. After the last few months, especially, I needed to see that -- it moved me almost to tears.

They have a play party coming up, and I also got invitations to other events. Getting out there seems to be a vast improvement for me right now. I might even be able to put my sissy-training skills to work again someday.

Unbelievable

So, I just had the fastest failed IM-chat with a submissive boy yet on record. It took him days to finally log on and IM me, which should have been a sign he didn't take this seriously.

He finally gets around to it, though, and I agree to talk to him. Within a few minutes, we're having what I consider to be a polite, get-to-know-you conversation. This is not, in my opinion, a moment when you start telling me intimate sexual details just yet. And that's because A) I haven't asked you for them, and B) dude, I'm not here to be your wank-off material. (Can you already see where this is going?) Anyway, he brings up my being from the South first and foremost, and makes a crack about me knowing a thing or two about slavery because of that.

Oh no, you didn't.

Ok, dude, the suffering and enslavement of many unwilling people for hundreds of years and the fun, consensual, and safe enslavement of willing boys are NOT the same thing. One has a particularly painful cultural legacy for millions of people, and the other is something many people enjoy, and to conflate them is not particularly a good way to kick off a conversation with a stranger you are hopefully trying to impress.

Anyway, I tried to be light and polite in my redirection of the conversation to better topics.

We start talking about how he hasn't been in the lifestyle for awhile. I am already getting a bad vibe -- this guy sounds like a bit of a wannabe -- but I try and work with it. I ask him what he did in the meantime. His response: something about working/dating and the line "And masturbating to the idea of being someone's property." Then an "Oops!" and a smiley-face-with-cheeky-tongue.

Dude, fuck off. You are so obviously trying to chat up a Domme for your own personal kicks. You have no interest in me, or getting to know me, or respecting me. I called him out -- I basically told him "Let's try and observe some ground rules about when we start talking about sexual subjects." You will not believe what that wanker responded with: he starts ranting about the South, about how we're still lynching people, etc. And he ended with the retort, "Please go back."

My response: "You are certainly giving me a reason to."

Good luck to that stupid fucker -- he's going to need it.

Dusty in Memphis

This morning, I woke up and wanted Dusty Springfield. Specifically her album "Dusty in Memphis", which is one of the more sublime things on the planet. My parents had an old vinyl copy of that record, and we used to blast it through the house when I was a child. (And this was actually in Memphis where I grew up, so that also makes it special.)

I have these songs I call my little "Domme soundtrack." All female singers, women I find particularly poignant or strong or sympathetic. Sometimes I like something really big and loud: The Gossip's "Fire With Fire," for example, or PJ Harvey. Sometimes I get playful about it -- Nina Simone's "Do I Move You?", which is a great song to tie a boy up to. There's always a healthy dose of Stevie Nicks, The Pretenders, Joan Jett, Grace Slick, Siouxsie, Annie Lennox, and Aretha. The boys have all their silly rock stars to relate to, and I have my moments rocking out to old Eurythmics songs.

Today, Dusty's "Don't Forget About Me" is on the list -- I'm feeling that song, big time. Also "I Don't Want to Hear It Anymore" -- especially this part: Ain't it sad, said the woman down the hall/That when a nice girl falls in love/Ain't it just too bad that she had to fall/For a boy who doesn't care for her at all?

I think I'm just feeling the weight of one too many stupid boys I let waste my time.

To quote another Dusty song (this one written by Carole King): There's so few men nowadays/Who understand the soul of a woman/Now they're always on the take and they're/Never giving, never offering a helping hand.

Fucking hell yeah.

I know I won't hold this forever. I hold it for a while, in order to get myself over it, and then I let it go when the time is right. I trust myself to know when that time comes. I'm glad, in a way, because this means I don't take things lightly -- I don't let myself feel something for someone unless I really mean it. Just because that person didn't deserve it doesn't diminish the nobility of feeling that way in the first place. I'm happy I'm not a person who takes love lightly. But I also don't take myself lightly, and I won't stand for anything less than what I deserve.

Thank God for Dusty in Memphis.

Open Letter

Open letter to submissive men (a few in particular are in my head as I write this):

If you are really and truly serious about serving a Woman, you need to confront your selfish behavior. This is the first step -- everything else that you're doing (jerking off to videos, wasting the time of honest Dommes like me, buying kit you never use, wasting the time of honest Dommes, cruising the websites of pro-Dommes or OWK picture sites, wasting the time of honest Dommes, etc.) are things you are doing only for yourself. While you might be fantasizing about the idea of being at my service, I am actually interested in you really being at my service. So, you need to ask yourself: do you want it to be only in your mind or do you really want to do the work to make it happen in reality? Because, I hate to break this to you, but it is work. It isn't easy, it isn't just like the fantasies you spend 99% of your life considering. There are times when I am going to be really displeased with you, and you have to deal with that. If you run away and avoid me, that makes things significantly worse -- you are the furthest away from true submissiveness when you avoid the reality of a pissed-off Domme. When you run away like that, you are being an asshole, not a submissive.

Unfortunately, your biology makes you a little slow to understand your own emotions and, in particular, the emotional responses of Women to you. Emotional logic is murky, it doesn't follow rational, consistent rules. But there are some general principles.

1. When in doubt, face the facts and apologize. Seriously, is an apology really all that bad? Being wrong isn't a sign of weakness -- it is just an inevitable fact of being alive. I lived in an Asian country for 2 years and you really can't function unless you learn the art of the apology. Even if I didn't think I actually did anything, I'd still apologize -- it smoothes the way for a conversation. I often found that if I apologized, I'd get an apology in return -- very rarely is an apology truly one-sided, since most conflict requires two parties.

You show that you are serious about serving a Woman when you can get down on your knees and apologize. You are reversing your life-long path of selfishness when you learn to apologize. You are truly serving her when you apologize. Get over yourself, and apologize.

2. If you say you're going to do something, do it, or explain why you can't. I can't tell you the number of times someone has told me he'll do something, and then, when the moment of truth comes, there is nothing but silence. The boy is MIA -- and I know exactly what he's doing. He's off being afraid, doubting himself, doubting that this is what he wants, freaking out over one thing or another. That's fine -- I can't argue with a moment of doubt. What I can argue with, however, is not communicating about it. All you have to say is, "I'm having trouble; I'm scared." And then, we can either talk about it, or I can let you deal with it on your own. But to say nothing, to simply avoid a Dominant Woman -- that's an insult. You disrespect Her when you cut Her out of the loop like that.

Consider the fact that you might actually feel better if you share it with Her openly. Your vulnerability and your lack of control is not a threat to me -- if anything, I find it attractive. I find it compelling and interesting if you can share that with me, and if you will trust me enough to work through it with me. You can't figure these things out on your own -- you need help. It might turn out that My experience and My wisdom might be the thing you need. What have you got to lose, really?

3. Realize the facts: there are more submissive men than there are Dominant Women. If you waste my time, I'm moving on. I will not linger on you. I have the luxury and the privilege of infinite choice. I do not have to put up with your bullshit. No matter what your mother told you, you are really not so unique and so special that I have to wait on you to get a clue. Even for vanilla women, this is pretty true -- we can get sex any time we want it, but our power is that we don't really need it. (Also, the power of batteries makes you a little inessential.) Mental health professionals will tell you that men suffer without a parter, Women cope and move on. So, this means you need to get your shit together, because your window of opportunity with a Dominant woman is short-lived. If you show Her during that time that you will only give her grief and selfish behavior, She's learned what She needs to know about you, and She's out the door. Take advantage of the moment you're given, and show Her that you deserve Her attention. Otherwise, expect to be forgotten quickly.

4. If you want a second chance, earn a second chance. I have noticed that there's a pattern with submissive boys -- they fuck up, and then they come back with some half-hearted attempt to see if I've changed my mind about them. Sometimes it takes days, weeks, or months, but nearly all of them seek me out at some point, and make some pathetic attempt to regain my attention. Sometimes, they send me a passive little IM or text message. Sometimes, a little one-line email that they think will soften me up. Please refer above to the line about how only your mother thinks you're that special. I don't ever grant a second chance unless I'm seeing that someone has made a concerted, real effort to show me that actual change has taken place: he has realized his mistake, taken steps to get his head in order, made a heartfelt and sincere attempt to show me this change and it seems possible that his bullshit might not happen again. I can tell you that this happens only about 1% of the time, despite the fact that I make it clear that I will grant earned second chances. So few boys actually earn them -- they labor under the mistaken delusion that they deserve them.

So there you go -- the four things I wish submissive men would truly understand and incorporate into their emotional sense of themselves. I'm sure I could come up with hundreds of others, but that's what stands out tonight. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled about writing this entry -- I would much rather just get down to the very fun business of using you for my own pleasure. This is all time I could have spent getting a foot massage or training a bath slave. The world would be a much better place if somebody reads this tonight and gets over himself, for once and for all.

Empty nest

Today was a fantastic day, in terms of my regular, ol' vanilla life. I got a lot of work done, I moved a couple of projects forward, I got a lot of satisfaction out of what I was doing. I had a meeting at the end of the day with two male colleagues who joked around with me about my tendency to be "bossy." (Both of them were quick to point out that my being "bossy" is one of the best things about me.) It feels really good to own that, and feel absolutely no need to apologize.

The only thing missing is the lack of a boy when I walk through the door. I need to be greeted by a boy on his knees, wearing an outfit I've asked him to wear, with a glass of bordeaux in his hand for me and a shy, hopeful smile on his face. I need a grateful mouth kissing my boots. I need a little househusband who makes my dinner. I've had this before and it was wonderful -- I'm looking forward to having it again. But that's a massive privilege to bestow that upon someone, and I will keep my solitude until I find someone worthy of that.

Tomorrow night is the Domme Women's group I'm attending, and I'm looking forward to seeing whether anyone interesting turns up. I'm learning that patience and poise is an essential right now -- people reveal to you who they are through their behavior, not their words, so you must have the patience to wait and see. That's the way for most things, but even more so when dealing with submissive men.

Converting the vanilla boys

In my regular, working life, I am in contact with the occasional vanilla man. (I laugh that I type 'occasional' -- the world is full of too many vanilla men, really, and not enough submissive boys.) Every now and then, I meet a boy that I wish I could convert -- he seems like he'd really take to it, if he could just get his head around the whole thing. So many men are conditioned to think of themselves in such conservative terms, as these unemotional, rational, powerful creatures who need no one and take what they want. And the reality (as I experience it) is vastly different -- I find men to be much weaker and far more confused about themselves than they want to admit. Vanilla men get very threatened by what I want to do with them sexually -- especially when you mention the strap-on. Expect them to head for the door when you bring that up!

But yeah, I still try sometimes. I hint, I insinuate, sometimes I come right out and tell them I'd like to fuck them up the ass. Imagine that for a moment: a red-headed, busty girl in a bar that you're chatting up in the hopes of a quick fuck tells you, instead, that she'd really like to be the one to fuck you up the ass. Probably all submissive men are reading this, so there's much swooning going on at that idea, but you should see the looks I usually get from vanilla boys. Talk about shock and awe.

Tonight I'm here, all tucked up in bed in my very un-Domme flannel pajamas, when I get a phone call. A guy in grad school with me, who has developed a bit of ....shall we say, a flirtation with your very own Ms. Lola. He's got that all-American frat boy thing going on, and seems like the last person you'd find begging to wear my panties and be chained to my bed. And yet, he made a special point to call me to ask why I didn't come out with the rest of the students from class tonight. I did once get a little too intoxicated and tell him that, indeed, I have been known to flog a few fellows and yes, I do have a couple of silicone dildos I'd prefer to use on him, rather than myself. We laughed it off the next day and haven't talked about it since. But: he calls me sometimes. I wonder if he's hoping I have a few drinks and bring up those silicone dildos again.

I won't do it, of course. It would be too much of a power struggle with him, and that's his issue, not mine. For the moment I keep the upper hand by not giving him anything, but still being the person he unaccountably feels the urge to call when he's out with other students.

Interesting.

One Domme, one city

I just recently had a month long affair with someone that required me to write a lot about myself, particularly my thoughts about the kink and my identity within that, and it made me realize that I do really enjoy that kind of writing. It is nice to air out that side of myself from time to time.

Unfortunately, that affair fell apart before it really even got off the ground, and now I'm once again in search of a partner -- the right partner this time. I'm looking for a boy to have as my very own, but finding the right boy takes time and patience. There will be some near-misses, some wasted time, and a little frustration along the way. My hope is that in recording this, beyond simply satisfying myself it will teach submissive men how to behave with respect to a Dominant woman -- in a truly selfless and service-oriented way, in a way that honors the Woman at the center of their lives. And hell yeah, maybe I'll get a few fawning readers out of it.

I've been in this lifestyle for a while, in one way or another. I think I've avoided the more formal scene-oriented groups because I've been afraid it reduced me too much to just my sexual orientation, despite the many other things in my life. Hey, I've even flirted with the idea of having a vanilla relationship, now and again. (Never works!) But I know what I like -- even if I try to think my way out of it, my body knows what it likes. There's no denying that, beyond a certain point. And I do want to find someone who is as comfortable with himself as I am with myself. I'm a little tired of the shy boys who skulk around on the internet and don't have the courage to pursue a real-time, honest relationship.

This past weekend, I spanked a firefighter and cleaned all my kit. I've recently come into possession of a really nice hood I'd love to use on someone, someday. Hooding is a new interest for me -- I didn't really get it before, but now I do. It deprives a boy completely of all outside stimuli, and he can lie there, trussed up and waiting for whenever I feel like getting back to him. The power in that is quite intoxicating. I also signed myself up for a local women's group, and we'll see what kind of people I meet there.

So this is a definitely positive start, which I need right now.