Chain of Fools

So k and I had this really sensual and amazing scene on friday, and I've been just floating on air ever since, mind dizzy with possibilities.

What we did was, I twined a thin steel chain with tiny links around her waist and dipping into her most sensitive areas (am I allowed to use my usual filthy language in this blog I wonder?). Anyhow, imagine this picture, but without the layer of black clothing...



Anyhow, it was something that I've dreamed about and written about a little, and doing it was just so hot and so fraught with meaning and feeling and all that, I just don't even have the words for it.

But I know what you're thinking: all I did was type words on a screen and read the words she typed back. It's not like we were really doing anything. And of course you'd be right. But it's not that simple. There are twists to it...

The first twist is that, when it's actually happening, it feels incredibly real. Sure my fingers are flying over the keys and I'm sitting in a chair at a desk, but as far as my mind is concerned, I'm there with her and it's like her scent and her taste and the texture of her skin are so immediate, so proximate.

The second twist is that, afterwards, when remembering the scene, I don't remember sitting at a desk typing, I remember what was constructed in my head, the scene we played out together. So, for all intents and purposes, I have a real memory. That only leaves this little space in between the time when we're typing the scene and the time when I first recall it - that's the only space in which its 'realness' is fluid. And usually I'm so flooded with emotions (and ummm... sometimes busy cleaning up) that I don't really notice.

So when it comes to a scene like the one we had, you realize what a romantic medium cybersex is. I try to imagine doing this thing with the chains in real life, sort of taking a step back from the scene, and I bet it could be very hot with some forethought and good planning, and doubtless the emotional side of it would have been just as strong. But could it have attained that perfect pristineness? Nah, probably there would have been a lot of "hey lift your butt again for me, I don't quite have this threaded correctly" and "ouch that's pinching," etc, etc. That's what happens in real life, and the other is what happens in romanticized fiction.

Now here's the big overarching poing though: the real world and the fictive world are parallel entities. I mean, that's why we read novels and listen to stories and go to movies and everything. And why we write novels and tell stories and make movies. We're trying to say something about our existence, the way the world works, the way we are connected to each other. Even in a throwaway science fiction book or a by-the-numbers slasher movie, the connection is implicit - to follow the narrative is to be inside a life and find its parallels with your own. In cyber, the participants have choices about the level of interpenetration between online and r/l. My k and I have chosen to be honest with each other about r/l stuff, and we're able to slide very easily from the quotidian to the erotic... but even if we didn't, the connection we make and the feelings we arouse in our scenes would still be real. More real (at least to me) than those prompted by books or film.

So I really feel like I've placed those chains on k, and all the symbolism and emotion that goes with that threatens to burst my heart at times. It surges beyond the confines of the computer and informs my real life. I'm a different - better - person because of her. The bond between us is strong. I miss looking into her eyes when she's not here, even though I've only ever seen those eyes in dreams.

I say Dom-ato, you say Dom-ahto

So as I mentioned in the previous post, I tried a whole lot of different D/s things when I first encountered the chat rooms. Some I liked, some I definitely didn't, some just didn't do much for me one way or the other. The main thing I discovered is that the real excitement for me is all in the sub's surrender: that sweet liquid submission, the shining energy in acquiescence, the feeling that her will is melting into mine - subsumed into me in some semi-magical way. That's what really gets my motor running.

And luckily, with the right partner (and I've certainly found the right partner), that's the one aspect of D/s that I think translates really well into cyberspace. As long as you can express yourself well with words, pay some attention to the rhythm of the other person, and have a good imagination, you can get a lot out of it. Well, I definitely have. And the chatrooms have enough people in them that some others must be getting something out of it too, right?

Anyhow, I admit I'm a trifle squeamish when it comes to the more S/M, pain-related elements of D/s play. I love to administer a good spanking, pinch a nipple, maybe nibble a little too hard on various sensitive areas ... but that's about as far as I'll go. People that like the harder stuff, more power to em, of course, but it's not my bag. Ditto for the extreme humiliation scenarios.

Now I did try these things out in cyber. The nice thing about typing words on a screen is that you can attempt things that would be much more difficult to negotiate in real life, and of course with less possibility for an unrecoverable fiasco. Anyhow, I learned pretty quickly what I do like, and I've stuck with it ever since.

The other part of the online D/s world that I tend to stay away from is the extreme (some might even say anal-retentive) formality. This one is a harder issue to unpack, but I think it really just boils down to a personal preference. Now the first time I was called "Sir" in a chatroom, and figured out the capital-letter stuff, etc, I thought it was sort of cute and fun. It has its childish side, and I think that one of the ways I was able to justify separating my r/l and online life in those early days was the sense that online D/s was just a game. It has a bunch of arbitrary rules about how everyone's supposed to act, things you're supposed to say, ways of showing respect, etc. And of course most of the rooms had borderline-control-freak rules about what would get you kicked out. Yes, I'm well aware that D/s is all about power, but come on people, lighten up!

Again, nothing against people who are into all that. It has its time and place, and I still get a kick out of some of the formal stuff (though I admit that the Gor people mostly make me stifle giggles). I know a lot of people need that formality and predictability in their lives, and a D/s room's a great place to get it. Just not a big deal to me. If my name doesn't get capitalized, I'm not losing any sleep over it. In fact, I'm probably not even noticing it.

So at some point, I decided that I'm what's sometimes referred to as a "Sensual Dom." I kind of like that description, even though I get the sense that it's used in a semi-pejorative way by other Doms sometimes. I'm sticking to my style cuz I like it, and of course because what could be wrong with a style that helped me ensnare my tasty little k?

some boring history

I never thought I'd go to a chatroom. I'd heard of them, of course, but couldn't imagine having a conversation like that. But one thing led to another - I started looking at bulletin-board sites on D/s (maybe I'll get into why at some point in the future) starting me thinking in that direction, and finally one day I took the plunge and tried MSN chat.

So I guess my transition was typical. Tried just chatting, which was fun, then stumbled into a scening room or two (actually the first open cybering rooms I went to were vanilla ones). I saw how arousing a high-quality scene could be, and I thought I could be good at it. So one day I took the plunge: sexed up my profile and went a-trolling.

At one time or another, I'm sure I tried all the kinds of rooms there were on MSN. I really got into the D/s rooms the most, though. Something really struck a chord in me there - and it wasn't only that the average scener in a D/s room was better at it than in a vanilla room. The dominant side of me started to wake up and rub the sleep out of its eyes, I guess.

I explored a lot of things, discovered my likes and dislikes within D/s, made a whole lot of friends. I was excited by the possibilities of online life, and how much fun it was to mess around in the rooms, whether cybering or not. I found places where I was welcome and people knew me, and (most flattering of all), I had a reputation for being someone good to scene with.

So that became pretty much what I did. Back when MSN had open chat, there were always new people, and regulars would always come back, and I was having a blast. Never entered my mind to collar one woman and spend all my time with just her (though I thought some of the collared relationships were really great). I got a charge out of doing online the kinds of stuff that I would never do in real life.

Anyhow, I already said that I was making friends, right? Well I ended up getting very close to a handful of them, and I'd actually make time between sweaty bouts of cybersex to chat about day-to-day stuff. What's more, I actually found myself enjoying that part of the conversation just as much. I know, crazy, eh?

And this one gal in particular caught my eye. Not only was she the best I'd ever played with (just amazing with words, so sensual and focused on detail, really able to communicate the psychological space she was in), but she was brilliant and charming and dorky-in-the-cutest-way. We started talking about all kinds of stuff, and I started to feel the kinds of emotions that made me question my decision to 'play the field' in the chatrooms.

But as luck would have it, another Dom swept her off her feet and collared her while I was still trying to sort things out. OK, I told myself, here's a big test: just how important was the friendship side of things?

So somehow we kept on talking and being pals, even while she was with this other Dom. I kept on playing too, of course, and shrugged off any notions that I wanted to be in a permanent kind of D/s relationship. I tried a few times to watch her scene in the rooms, just because I missed her unique way with words, but I couldn't watch long. I didn't want to admit my jealousy, so just kept on being friends with her and kept on playing with other subbies in the rooms.

Then things dissolved between her and that Dom, and I was introduced to a new experience: being really close friends with someone who I could also cyber with. Wow, that's a great thing. I mean a really great thing. But beyond that, there was the fact that it was her. k, I'm talking about, in case I haven't made that clear. Don't get me wrong, I was still having fun playing with other women online too, but our times together were special and grew more and more so as we got closer.

At the same time, I remember promising myself that I was online just to have fun and play around, not to have a serious relationship. In retrospect I was pretty much fooling myself. I had genuinely great cybersex with others, but I knew in my heart that k was on another level.

So after a while I asked her. She wasn't ready yet ... ok ... I could deal with that. I started playing with others a whole lot less frequently, and I actually started to feel guilty about it afterwards, incredible though it seemed.

Then there was a sort of ... hm, well an "intermission" ... maybe I'll talk about that on here someday, but not today. Basically I let k down as a friend, and I think I timed it about as badly as I could possibly have done. We worked through it (most of the work on her side) and emerged stronger friends than ever, I think. Took a few months, but it was would have been worth ten times that. It was during this intermission time that I realized how deep my feelings were for her.

Slowly but surely, we worked our way into what we've got going now. When the collar subject came up again a couple weeks ago, I tried to woo her again. I quite literally held my breath as the little thingy at the bottom of the IM box said "k is typing a message." And I got my "yes," and the world seemed to shift to a brighter pallette of colors, and every cell in my body did a little dance, and I've been just delirious and drunk on her ever since. [insert gigantic insanely-grinning smiley here]

some first thoughts

Well, I mean this blog to be a journal of my story as an online Dom. I know there are plenty of people out there who don't believe such an animal exists, or that we're all fakers, or that we can't possibly be dominant unless we are real-time lifestylers or whatever. I don't know about that, really. Perhaps this journal will help me sort those issues out.

I know that I certainly feel like a Dom online, and that's become especially true in the last
few days, since my beloved and constantly-amazing k has made me immensely happy by accepting my collar (that would be Sept 7, 2005, for anyone keeping track). Those feelings carry over into "real life." Actually it seems to me that real emotions, like those I have for k, are part of real life, period. They don't disappear when I switch off the computer, nor are they compartmentalized in a separate area of my brain.

But it is true that I operate in a different mode when I don't have that bluish phosphorescent glow on my face. I don't think of my online life as being a game, but no matter how real it gets, "regular real life" has more tangibility - that's not quite the right word, but it's a start. I know that k and I are never going to settle down and pick out china and struggle to pay the mortgage, and in fact chances are that I'll never see her face-to-face. There are certain topics that we might tiptoe around when we chat, and there are lots of subjects that never come up, because we're not truly sharing a life together in the usual sense. But on the other hand, all sorts of stuff does come up. Stuff that I've only told her about. Things that only my very closest r/l friends know. And, incredibly, random stuff that only pops into my head because of her.

I guess one way to demarcate things is to say that I consider k to be a great friend, first and foremost. By far the closest friend among those I've only met online, and much closer than most in my real life that I consider friends. So in this way, under the "friendship" heading, I think of her as being part of my real life.

When it comes to online play, the "scenes" we do ... that's where there's a slight distance, a level of abstraction. I mean, how can there not be, when we're typing words on a page and not really feeling and smelling and tasting each other? (actually, one of the most incredible things is how very real the scenes are to me when they are happening. I totally lose myself in the action - this is something that is a rarity for me online, but it happens with k every damned time. Magic. Anyhow, it's only afterwards, cleaning up various bodily fluids from nearby surfaces, when that slight distance kicks in, in memory.) So: real life friend, cyber-only lover.

But do you see how crazy that is? I don't need to tell anyone that emotions and sex are all bound up together in crazy deep complex ways. The thing is: I don't consider this seeming contradiction to be a problem. I really don't. It's different, that's for sure. Different from any other relationship I've been in. But it's thrilling and exciting and wonderful every day. I have complete faith that, should some kind of complication arise from the weirdness, our bond is strong enough to take it. We are smart enough and in-touch enough with our own feelings to work it out.

And anyway, five days and no problems so far! In fact, nothing but bliss and warmth and laughter and desire and stunning awesomeness.

Thanks my beautiful and wonderful and surprising k.

Dominant Seventh