I chose to be true to my own feelings, feelings that began emerging some time ago, and then became undeniable. I chose also to be true to my own ideas, and to accept the fact that ideas and opinions can change.

Having been submissive all my life, I always believed that if I could just find the right D/s relationship and sex life, everything would be straightened out not just with my sexual needs but also with deeper emotional needs.

And oh, how I tried to make that true. I tried to convince myself. I tried to convince everyone else. Sometimes I think my D/s relationship really was all I hoped it would be — briefly, and fleetingly. The rest of my time has been spent waiting for something to materialize that I have finally concluded cannot, for me, exist outside of fantasy.

This all sounds very serious and dire, but it isn’t, really. My marriage is not ending — in fact, my husband and I are as in love as ever. We are just taking a break (which likely will become permanent) from being a high protocol couple. We are also taking a break from other aspects of our D/s relationship that I, over time, came to find stifling and limiting.

People in the D/s world like to say that submission is not limiting, that the greatest freedom can be found in total submission. I suppose that in some ways, for some people, this is true. If a sub is capable of submitting completely to a Master, in every way, she gains freedom from having to make decisions. Her only jobs are to submit and to please her Master. That kind of freedom was very attractive to me, until I tried to do that lifestyle and ultimately found it wanting.

I guess my personality and my will are just too strong. Submission began to chafe some time ago, and over time it was rubbing me raw.

In desperation, I considered leaving my marriage. It seemed the only solution to my being trapped in a situation (largely of my own making) that could not be undone. Considering this was agony, because I love my husband so much.

But recently, I made a good decision — the decision to communicate. I sat down with him for a no-holds-barred talk in which I stated that my needs weren’t what I originally thought they were, and I was sorry. I said if he wanted to leave me, I would understand. But I wanted to at least give him the choice, rather than just deciding for him.

He responded in an amazingly beautiful way — indicating he wouldn’t even consider leaving me, and reaffirming how completely unconditional his love for me is.

Of course, he still wants to engage in some D/s activity, and we are negotiating that. The fact remains that he is Dominant and yes, I am submissive. I cannot deny that all of the fodder of my fantasies consists of non-consensual sex and humiliation. I know what turns me on. But it just seems impossible to translate it into real life.

Am I still a “Consensual Slave?” I honestly don’t know right now. We agreed I would still address him as “Sir” or “Master” — I am comfortable with that — but I am now making my own decisions and setting my own boundaries with respect to our activities. Perhaps I am not a slave — perhaps I have crossed the line from slave to sub, and a very independent sub at that. I guess I had better look into calling myself something else on the Internet…I don’t know what, yet.

In the meantime, I will continue to write about my feelings, something I think is especially important during this transitional period in my D/s life.

I hope my readers don’t feel betrayed my exit from slavehood. I hope you can understand that whatever I am, I need to be that, and not something else. Thank you for your support.

I’m trying to get over it.

Right now I have a cold, and Master has just gone out to buy me some cough drops. When I had a urinary tract infection recently, he went out and got me cranberry juice, then took me to the Doctor the next day.

Yesterday afternoon I was trying to rest but couldn’t because of coughing, and he brought me hot peppermint tea. He also whipped my pants down and licked my pussy for both our pleasure — not to bring me to orgasm, but just to provide some good feelings for a while. Later, he made us pancakes for dinner so I would have something soft to eat and a treat to temporarily take my mind off the cold. What a wonderful man!

So what am I uneasy about?

In a nutshell, his taking care of me. Even though I love all the attention lavished on me in a scene, I grow uncomfortable when it’s there for some other reason, such as illness. Underneath all of it is a feeling of not deserving, of needing to be independent, and last but not least, needing to serve my Dom, not have him serve me.

But therein lies the answer. He is not serving me. I wish I could get that through my head! He is taking care of his cherished property, which is a completely normal and understandable thing to do.

As for the other thoughts…well, maybe I’m not entirely comfortable with his help on a human level. In fact, I’m sure it’s tied up with issues from my childhood.

I won’t go into those, but the fact is, everyone deserves to be taken care of at some point or another. Why should I be an exception? If Master wants to bring me cough drops and tea and make pancakes, then who am I to gainsay him?

I wish I could write some neat little paragraph resolving this post, but unfortunately, I can’t, because the issue is currently unresolved. When Master takes care of me, I feel loved, but that feeling is tinged with guilt, and with that strange “don’t deserve, don’t deserve, don’t deserve” voice whispering in my head.

I need to feel better about myself.

Naturally, this made me a bit sad. Not because I was losing a follower — followers come and go — but because a friend was cutting herself off from me because my life appeared to be too happy.

Another follower recently tweeted, “You have the best life!” and while I have a very good life in many respects, it is certainly no bed of roses. So, after some consideration, I’ve decided to write a post dispelling some of the illusion.

First of all, the reason I write mostly happy tweets is that a string of down-in-the-dumps tweets is no fun to follow (in my opinion). Sometimes if I’m feeling down I’ll tweet about it, and I love the support and digital hugs I get. But the vast majority of the time I remain silent about the darker side of my life because my intention is to brighten people’s days, not drag them down.

Believe me, if I tweeted every time I felt bad, my negative tweets would soon far outnumber my positive ones. It’s sad, but true. Although there is some real happiness in my life, there is probably even more difficulty.

I have Type I Bipolar Disorder with Psychotic Features and have been in a depression for over a year now. At times it has been severe enough to conjure up suicidal feelings.

I currently take six different medications to try to cope with the disease, every one of which is necessary to keep me going.

On any given day, I accomplish the following: eat breakfast, do the dishes, meditate, catch up reading tweets & stuff, maybe read a book, eat lunch, take a nap, have a snack, take a shower, catch up reading more tweets & stuff, eat dinner, meditate again, spend the evening with Master, go to bed. This is about all I have the energy to do.

Yes, Master commands me to suck his cock during the day and turns me over his knee for a spanking. Yes, we follow protocols such as me saying affirmations and kissing his feet. But these only take a short amount of time. The rest of the time, for me, usually stretches out like an endless, bleak road to nowhere.

Sometimes I help Master with his business. A few times a week I go to my local Buddhist centre. Sometimes I crochet, or bake something.

But that’s about it! I would love to be able to do more. I’d love to be able to resume exercising, for example. I mean for heaven’s sake, I wrote three articles on slave exercise! But at present, I’m afraid that if I try to fit exercise in on top of the meditation, I won’t be able to do it all, and the meditation is proving extremely valuable for my mental health.

Master and I have financial difficulties. I won’t go into detail, but we, like many others, were hit hard by the recession. I am not yet legal to work in Canada, so I can’t contribute to the household income in any substantial way (nor do I have the energy to, anyway). We have to scrimp and save and carefully allocate every dollar in order to meet our regular expenses and my medical expenses. If we’re lucky, we may eat out once a month. Master’s clothes are getting holes in them. We don’t want to live like this forever, obviously, but it’s our reality right now.

I have immigration problems. Well, not really problems, but the process of my immigration to Canada is dragging out forever — waaay longer than I ever expected it to. In the meantime, I am a non-person in a strange country. I have no driver’s license, no bank account, no real address. All I have are a U.S. passport and a Canadian marriage certificate to give testament to my current situation. Needless to say, this is all very stressful, which I don’t need in my condition.

So. We have the most important thing — love. And we have tons and tons of that. I never dreamed I would be in a relationship as great as this one. But to be honest, right now, that and my Buddhist practice are about all I have. Everything else seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.

I hate to be a downer, but hopefully this one blog post will get “being a downer” out of the way so I can continue to write my happy tweets on Twitter. I love my ConsensualSlave twitter account because it encourages me to focus on the positive, and share it with the world. I may be momentarily negative there, but never in any serious way. And that’s the way I like it.

I’ll save the heavy stuff for my Master’s arms and my Psychiatrist’s office. In my opinion, that’s where it belongs.

People subscribe to my blog and/or my tweets because they want to read about BDSM from the perspective of a Lifestyle couple. So that is what I give them, plain and simple.

Often, when we hug at home, we lift up our shirts so we can have the more intimate contact of skin on skin. I rarely wear a bra, so I can feel my breasts crushed against his warm, pleasantly hairy chest as we hold each other.

There is a simple power in the sensations I feel when I lie next to my Master in bed, our limbs entwined, my breasts pressed against his rib cage. His arm is around me. I feel safe. And I can feel his heartbeat next to mine.

I almost feel as if our hearts themselves are connecting — I feel a love flow between us that seems almost tangible in those moments. Such is the electric power of skin on skin.

The very first night we were together, we fell asleep in a similar position, our bodies entwined, his cock in my hand. We fit together like two pieces of a puzzle, and it just felt right. Like coming home.

Sometimes, when one of us is upset and in need of comfort, we get in bed and hold each other that way. I know when my heart is aching, it feels soothing to get it as close as possible to Master’s.

There is a whole range of sensations two people can give each other, especially in a BDSM relationship. I have felt both exquisite pleasure and exquisite pain at the hands of my Master. But I think my favourite sensation of all just might be…skin on skin.

The above disclaimer, or similar ones, are found at the beginning of many BDSM erotic novels.

And it irritates the hell out of me.

Why? Because I don’t believe we should limit ourselves by saying a real life BDSM relationship cannot exist the way it would in our fantasies. The disclaimer seems to say we are expecting too much in our fantasies, and that reality just can’t be like that.

Well, after a couple of years in a full time Master/slave relationship, I’m here to say: they’re wrong!

Mostly.

I will concede that my relationship differs from erotic fantasy in some aspects. But the basic fabric of it is not different. My Master and I still thoroughly believe in the romance and power of a full time M/s relationship. And we believe it is totally achievable in real life.

Having said that, I would be remiss if I didn’t admit that although I think we usually live up to our own fantasy, there are some ways in which we differ from the usual fantasy depicted in a BDSM novel.

They are:

1) The sub is less perfect.

Subs in novels often seem to submit better and more consistently than I do. Sure, they may struggle sometimes, but in the end their need to submit always wins the day. For me, that isn’t the case.

I can be willful, stubborn, and fiercely independent. There are times when I very firmly argue back when given an order.

But although that may not be what I initially expected of myself, nevertheless it is who I am, and my Master and I have both come to accept this dimension in our relationship.

This is not to say that I don’t submit — I am very submissive and usually obey my Master without question. But unlike a novel heroine, I don’t always obey my Master without question.

And if you ask us, that’s okay.

2) The Master is less perfect.

First, I want to say that I respect my Master utterly and I think he does a great job, especially considering some of the curve balls I throw his way.

But he is unlike the Doms in most novels in several ways.

First, he doesn’t always know what to do. Doms in novels seem to always have everything planned out, or if they don’t, they can come up with a plan on a moment’s notice. They always seem to know exactly what is right for the sub, usually without having to ask. And they have perfect aim with canes and single tail whips.

My Master doesn’t always know what to do. And I love that about him. Initially, I had some different expectations, but as time has gone on, I realize I wouldn’t want him any other way than how he is. So again, my fantasy is my reality — my sometimes spacy Master, who cannot read my mind and does not know how to use a single tail whip is indeed the Master of my dreams.

I am not an easy slave to own, largely because of my health conditions. The condition I have that most affects our interaction and play is Bipolar Disorder, with medication side effects from Bipolar Disorder coming in a close second. There are times when I can’t play, times when I can’t serve in the usual ways, and my Master has to be sensitive to when I really can’t do something and when I just don’t want to do it.

We have to be ruthlessly honest with each other to get through it all, but that, actually, is a characteristic that almost all fictional BDSM relationships have — total honesty. Perhaps the authors, in writing their disclaimers, are saying that total honesty is not realistic. I don’t know. But for us, it is. It’s our lifeline.

So. In some ways we match the fictional ideal, and in some ways we don’t.

But I still say the BDSM relationship of everyone’s fantasies is possible, if we are lucky enough to find the right person. It is not just a pipe dream — it is a goal to aspire to.

I wish everyone all the best in finding the relationship that brings their fantasies to life in the real world.

Actually, for me, the fear/craving phenomenon extends beyond being hit with nasty implements into any kind of nasty hit — knowing my Master is about to smack my pussy hard with his bare hand produces the same feeling in me as knowing he is about to hit me with “the cord” (a small, wicked flogger I made out of phone cords) or some other dangerously painful object.

I think it is simply the anticipation of pain, true pain, that does it for me. And when I say “does it,” I don’t mean that it turns me on in a conventional sense. Rather, it gives me a confusing jumble of feelings, of which arousal is only one.

Another part of the jumble is an adrenaline rush that brings me totally into the moment, my attention glued in horrified fascination to whatever is about to happen to me. Yet another feeling is fear, and the desire to run away or get out of the beating or punishment somehow. The vast majority of the time I willfully override this wish because I know I deserve the punishment, or I know it will please my Master to give me the beating. I remind myself that I am not going to sustain any real injury, only pain, and somehow that gets me through without losing my dignity and whining. Most of the time.

The fear never completely goes away, though. I think that’s what maintains an interesting contrast before, during, and after a beating for me — although there is a part of me that wants to run away, there is another part of me that is drawn to the scene like a moth to a flame. Even though I know it will hurt, a part of me wants him to do it.

I think this is the same fundamental part of me that wishes to be dominated, and to submit. Accepting pain with grace is an act of submission for me because, unlike some masochists, I don’t usually derive pleasure from pain. I do, however, derive pleasure from submitting, and on the rare occasions when pain transmutes to pleasure, I feel it was worth whatever it took to get there.

One thing I always feel when he is beating me is alive. Even if I don’t get turned on during all of our beatings, I still feel totally focused, totally present in the moment. The pain does this to me like nothing else can. Perhaps it is this feeling of total aliveness that I am craving when I crave a beating. I don’t really know. But I’m definitely craving something.

I once read someone’s description of anal sex in which they described it as “deliciously awful.” I’ve loved and used that phrase to refer to many things ever since, because so much of my D/s life is a study in delicious awfulness.

When it comes to nasty, painful hits, I’d have to say I find them more awful than delicious. That’s the reason they still work as punishments for me. But every time I’m dreading the searing pain about to come…a little part of me wants it…with a traitorous craving that defines me as a true masochist.

Actually, I shouldn’t really call it “hair pulling.” It’s not as if my Master just comes up out of nowhere and yanks on my hair out of sadistic glee. Rather, he controls me by my hair, and this deeply arouses both of us.

This is somewhat surprising. I’ve always had a sensitive scalp. I used to cry and cry when my mom would comb the tangles out of my hair after a bath, and I haven’t really outgrown that sensitivity the way a lot of people do. One of the reasons I’ve had short hair repeatedly is that I hate the feeling of combing out tangles or blow-drying my hair when it wants to tangle.

However, when Master grabs me by the hair, it’s a whole different experience. It’s not that it isn’t painful — it often is — it’s just that it calls to something primal in me.

Have men controlled women by the hair for centuries? Is this why it makes me want to submit like a kitten grabbed by the scruff of the neck? I don’t know. But the instant he takes hold of my hair and begins to move my head in any direction, I feel deeply submissive.

We have recently adopted a Gorean leading position in which he motions with his right hand and I bend over, placing my head in range for him to grab my hair. He then leads me wherever he wants.

There is something delightfully humiliating about trying to keep up with him, wincing in pain as we go from room to room. And when we reach our destination and he throws me down on the bed, couch, or floor, I feel thoroughly conquered.

We have also begun using hair-control as a signal that rough oral sex is about to start. If he grabs my hair and says, “on your knees,” I know a serious throat-fucking will ensue. In contrast, if he merely snaps his fingers and does not grab me by the hair, I know the oral sex required of me by protocol will be of a more controlled, gentle variety.

Sometimes, lately, my hair gets in the way during sex. For example, he will put his elbows down on it when he isn’t pulling it intentionally.

These incidents can be quite painful for me, and in my frustration I sometimes think that perhaps I ought to just hack all my hair off again.

But I don’t think he would let me. Every time he grabs me by it intentionally, we’re both glad it’s there.

Typically, I’ve directed these men to sites like CollarMe.com and Bondage.com, where they can search for the submissive woman of their dreams. But more than once, I’ve thought that I’ve been remiss in not stating that (if the relationship is to last for any length of time) there’s a lot more to being a Dom than just finding a submissive woman and…well…dominating her.

So, I thought I’d do a little writing on what I think are some characteristics of a good Dom — some solid traits that, if exhibited, are likely to lead to a successful, long-lasting relationship. After spending some time pondering the issue, I’ve come up with three “A’s” that I think make a good Dom. First, a successful Dom is altruistic. Second, he is attentive. And third, he is authentic.

He is Altruistic

For those readers who don’t know what altruism is, it is the placement of the good of the many above the good of the self. It is often used in descriptions of heroes and others who have sacrificed for the welfare of others.

At first, this idea seems to run counterintuitive to the Master/slave, or Dom/sub relationship. The relationship is about the Dom’s needs, right? Well, it is, but the important thing to understand is that the Dom’s needs aren’t, and can’t be, all the relationship is about, if it is to survive.

The Dom is in charge of the relationship. I think this is the most important point to keep in mind. The Dom has to make decisions that will keep the relationship itself healthy, positive and enjoyable for both partners. Why? Well, even though most subs are very self-sacrificing by nature, there is a point at which subs cannot function — when they no longer want to serve a particular person or be in a particular relationship because — yes — their needs are not being met.

Subs have needs. It’s just a basic fact. Every human being has needs, and those needs go beyond the basic needs for food and shelter. Human beings have a need for attention; for interaction. And subs, no matter what anyone likes to think, are no exception.

Also, the sub’s needs go beyond just the need to please and serve the Dom. At first, it may seem as simple as that, but anyone who has been in a real D/s relationship will tell you it is not. Subs are self-sacrificing, often to a fault, but they are not completely selfless. I don’t think any sub wants to serve in a relationship where they are consistently taken advantage of and ignored.

There are plenty of marriages out there in which vanilla women are taken advantage of and ignored. And I’m afraid some of the kinds of men who take advantage of women might think they can just find a submissive woman and all their problems will automatically be solved. But this isn’t the case.

A relationship involves two people, and for it to be successful, both parties have to be happy. So, for the Dom, who is in charge of keeping the relationship healthy, the goal is to keep both parties healthy and happy.

Now, this, unfortunately, isn’t quite as simple as it sounds. Why? Because a submissive woman is a lot different psychologically from a woman who is not submissive. A submissive woman really does need to serve and please her Dom in order to be happy. She does not want to be worshipped, or specifically catered to. The vast majority of the time, she wants to do whatever the Dom wants her to do, and then bask in his pleasure.

So, any Dom who tries to treat a sub with kid gloves, or who goes out of his way to please her, is not going to be a truly successful Dom.

What is the key to being successful at meeting both partners’ needs?

The Dom must place his wants and needs first at all times except when to do so will interfere with the overall welfare of the submissive or the relationship. And in order to do this, the Dom must use the tools of being attentive and authentic.

He is Attentive

I’ve talked a fair bit about the Dom’s job in a D/s relationship, but what is the submissive’s job? What is it up to the submissive to do in order to insure a successful relationship? Two things: follow orders, and communicate. That’s it. That’s all. Now, in following orders, the submissive has a big job, because she will often be working hard and sacrificing her own comfort to bring the Dominant all kinds of pleasure. So her load is not easier than the Dom’s, it is just simpler.

In her communication, she must be completely open. This is the area where she must be permitted the latitude to displease the Dominant. If she cannot tell the truth for fear of displeasing the Dominant, then the communication of the entire relationship breaks down. So, she needs to be able to voice her feelings honestly, with the understanding that the power, and the final say, still belong to the Dom.

What is the Dom’s job here? It is to listen to her, attentively. It is to pay attention to what she is communicating, so that he can ensure her overall welfare and therefore, the welfare of the relationship.

If the couple are engaging in S&M play, for example, the Dom must be very attentive to how the sub is doing. If she is bound, he should check her hands and feet periodically for circulation. He should monitor her responses and watch for altered states of consciousness, in which there can be great danger because she could stop being able to feel pain and no longer be able to provide feedback. If a Dom just goes on blindly whipping a sub, for example, and she has gone into an altered state of consciousness, he could injure her simply because he didn’t notice she was no longer responsive.

If the sub is upset, it is up to her to tell the Dom. It is then up to the Dom to decide what to do, but not until he has listened thoroughly, and attentively, to what the sub has to say. If there is a problem in their protocols or way of relating, they need to get to the bottom of it so it can be fixed.

This is definitely not to say that the Dom should cater to the sub. The sub is not in charge of the relationship. But the Dom should take the sub’s feelings into account when making decisions.

Finally, it is worth saying that the Dom must continue to be attentive to the sub even when the sub is gagged or under speech restrictions, and can no longer verbally communicate. Speech restrictions can be a welcome break for both parties, and can cut down on unnecessary communication if it has become a problem in a scene or at other times. But just because a sub can’t speak does not mean she is to be ignored. Even if you are “ignoring” her as part of play, you still need to be aware at all times of where she is and how she is doing.

He is Authentic

Trust is the foundation upon which any relationship is built, but it is especially important in the D/s relationship. At times during scening, for example, the sub may literally be placing her life in the Dom’s hands. And outside of scening, she is placing decisions in the Dom’s hands. She is supposed to communicate and give her input, but all final decisions are his and in most D/s relationships, she is expected to abide by them. This is very difficult to do if she does not trust him implicitly.

So, first and foremost, when I talk about authenticity, I am talking about honesty. A Dom, upon first meeting a sub face-to-face or online, must be completely honest about his level of experience and what he is looking for. The last thing you want to have happen is to be caught in a lie; this can destroy all the trust in a relationship like a nuclear weapon can destroy a city, and just as fast. What is the best way never to get caught in a lie? Don’t lie. It’s as simple as that.

What else do I mean by being authentic? I mean letting the sub see your pleasure. Most subs live to please their Doms. From the simple words, “well done” to your moans of pleasure during a blow job, your expressions are like food, water, and air to the sub, and are essential to the thriving of your relationship. If the sub feels completely ignored, she will eventually wither. Some people might disagree with me, but I think it is a fact. No sub can live in a relationship perpetually, trying to please a Dom who never seems pleased.

Praise your sub openly, honestly, and often. This is usually all we want or need in return for our giving. We don’t expect you to reciprocate — in fact, if you do, it totally unbalances us. But we do hope you will appreciate us, authentically.

I could go on in much more depth and detail about all of the things that make a good Dom, but I think I’ve covered the essentials. If I’ve left anything out, I trust my readers will let me know in comments.

So, my male followers who now want a submissive female: they are out there, waiting to be found. But unless the relationship they find is with a good Dom, they will not stay in it for long.

Avoid heartache and disappointment: be altruistic, attentive, and authentic. The payoffs will be beyond your wildest dreams.

That’s what bondage is all about, really. When a sub submits to bondage, he or she gives up all physical control of an encounter to the Dom. The sub is showing an enormous amount of trust — trust that the Dom will not truly harm them in their helplessness. Even if there is an agreed-upon safe word, the sub has no real guarantee that the Dom will heed it (although past experience and knowledge of the Dom’s character do, of course, come into play).

Despite the fact that I’ve been in a live-in Master/slave relationship for over two years now, I’ve only been truly helpless a couple of times. The tethers we have in the bedroom now are at each corner of the bed, connected to cuffs. But it’s been a long time since those tethers were drawn as tight as possible.

Right now, I can even scratch my nose if it itches. And this length of tether on my wrist cuffs also negates the true effectiveness of the bondage — I could remove the cuffs with my teeth, if I chose.

Spread-eagle, also, is not a good bondage position for sex. The angle of penetration is very shallow and there definitely can’t be any pounding. So, we’ve used spread-eagle (front and back) mostly for S&M play.

A few times we’ve cuffed my wrists to my ankles. Nice, and it has a lot of possibilities I think we have yet to explore, but unless we learn to do rope bondage or get some locking cuffs, it still lacks some lustre for me, because I could undo the ankle cuffs with my hands and then use my hands to undo the cuffs on each other. Therefore, I am not truly bound, except by my Master’s will.

Mental/psychological bondage, or, as it is called in John Norman’s Gor novels, “binding by the Master’s will,” is when the sub is ordered to hold a certain position, such as hands clasped behind the head, under the threat of punishment if the position is broken. I would say this type of bondage is by far the most common one my Master and I use, and I’d include a lot of our physical bondage in this category as well, because I can free myself from so many of our current bondage arrangements.

Mental bondage is not without its advantages. It is quick, and can be a powerful turn-on for me, because when I am in mental bondage, I know I am truly submitting. Even if my Master has not bound me physically, I know that to break position means physical punishment. So, in a way, I am bound in body as well as in spirit.

That said, there really is no substitute for true, physical bondage. The few times I’ve been truly helpless have been the fulfillment of a delicious dream for me.

I long to be bound in an unforgiving position and used hard, or taken to the edge of orgasm and back multiple times before finally being allowed to come. I long to be beaten in strict bondage. I long, really, to let go of all control in a way that mental bondage, no matter how exacting, just can’t allow.

Why have my Master and I not explored this avenue further? Well, for a number of reasons, first and foremost that unfortunately, I have been ill for a large portion of our time together. When I have been suffering in the highs, lows, and mixed states of Bipolar Disorder, we have often had to cut back on D/s activities.

When I have been well enough to participate in strict bondage, we just haven’t gotten around to trying it, for one reason or another. One thing that can happen is we start experimenting with a bondage position, and then Master gets excited and has to fuck me, and then we don’t get back to what we were doing.

We’ve talked about having some “experimental bondage” sessions, outside of sexual scenes, in which I may even be dressed in exercise clothing to try to make fucking me less appealing. But somehow we’ve never gotten around to having one of these sessions.

Personally, I think we need new equipment. I would love it if we had locking wrist and ankle cuffs, to begin with, and possibly even some padlocks to lock sets of cuffs together in a way I could not undo. We don’t have a spreader bar, and I think it would be nice to have one.

As I sit here writing this, it occurs to me that I need to make bondage and S&M equipment much more of a financial priority, because I long to use it so desperately. It is probably more important than pedicures or books — I can do my own toenails and go to the library. Hmm.

But as things stand now, my loss of control is managed from somewhere in my imagination, rather than somewhere in the physical world. It’s good, but I know it could be better.