Goodbye, Kai. Goodbye.

I’ve started writing this a hundred times in my head, trying to frame it.  In the end, it comes down to this.  It’s short, and it’s painful, but it’s true.

I’m saying goodbye to the relationship that we had.

And I’m saying goodbye to the relationship that I thought we would have.

DW and I separated when we left the last apartment we lived in together.  Not out of not wanting the relationship to work, and not out of not caring for each other, but because we reached a point where we needed to make life decisions independent of one another.  I moved to one state, he moved to another.  And we called the relationship ended because we never wanted long-distance.

I’ve never experienced it.

He’s experienced too much of it.

The hardest part to accept in all of this is the way we never successfully built the D/s dynamic that we thought was there.  It was so easy to believe in it, at the beginning.  But I could never explain—or really figure out, truthfully—what I wanted out of being a submissive.  I could never successfully reconcile it with my need to feel like I was on equal footing; like I was a functional, independent adult; like I was worthy of respect.  It came back again and again to trying to get me to pin it down, come up with some cohesive vision of what this all meant to me, of what I wanted.  And I didn’t know, I didn’t know, I didn’t know.  I became afraid of giving the wrong answer.  I became convinced that whatever I tried to convey about it wouldn’t be enough.  I suppose I stopped trying.  I felt judged, even if that wasn’t the truth of things.

When I say goodbye to this thing we never quite had, I wonder if we could have ever successfully made the compromises that we would have needed to make to each other.  I wonder if I could have tried harder to dig through my feelings and my ideologies.  I wonder if he could have brought pieces of what he wanted down to my level and been at all happy.  I wonder if we could have found a place where we understood each other and could share some pieces of the world we stood at the fringes of.

And I wonder how things would have been different if we had been happier in our lives.  If we had both had jobs that we enjoyed and got some satisfaction out of more often than not.  If we had friends who we were ever able to spend time with outside of each other.  If there were other people to talk to.  If we hadn’t grown further and further into hating the town that we lived in.  If there had been something, anything, to inspire me.  Everything around us had stagnated into a sort of blur, though I can only confidently say this about the way I felt about my days.  Perhaps it was different for him.  I loved the time that we spent together.  I loved him.  I think I still do.  I loved his arms around me.  But it felt like we lacked the drive or the energy to really try to make the relationship better than it was.  Fix the places that were cracked, if we wanted to.  It was almost entirely non-sexual by the end of things, and sometimes I felt so safe and comfortable in that and sometimes I wanted to scream because I felt like there was something wrong with me.

I felt safe.

I felt like something was broken and I wasn’t going to get it back.

After over a month on my own, it’s getting easier to imagine that things really could have been different.  I think this might be a comfortable lie that I tell myself, and that if we ever got back together we would try and once again fail to build this dynamic into something that we could both feel whole in.  But it’s harder to tell, with distance.  I can fool myself.  I can feel the rope on my skin and his hands on my wrists and think that it was always possible.  That it should have been possible.  That things really could have been better than they were.

I’m saying goodbye to this thing that we wanted.  That I wanted.  That he wanted.

I’m saying goodbye and it still hurts.

Ka(n)i

I had a sort of assignment from DW yesterday. It wasn’t a real assignment… Rather, I had suggested we do something fun with rope that evening, and he told me that if I could find a pretty tie with instructions we could try it out. That sounded like fun to me, so I got online and started scouring the internet.

…Which is how I discovered that the internet, though occasionally a fine repository for some really stunning shibari photography, is pretty crap at providing decent tutorials without registering for some site membership or another. Many of the tutorials that I found were too basic—simple knots and ties that I know DW has a handle on. And I wanted something pretty. Something new and shiny that we hadn’t done yet.

In the end, I gave up on the internet and pulled DW’s Midori book out of the closet. I’ve read through the entire thing on my own, and he’s had it for years, but we’ve never actually done any of the “projects” in it. (I’m laughing to myself here because I sort of think of it as a how-to arts-and-crafts book. With rope. For grown-ups.) I picked out three that I wanted to try, and when DW didn’t have any preference as to which one we did, I singled one out. I chose the first project in the book: mune nawa and kaikyaku kani (胸縄と開脚蟹, or breast bondage and open-leg crab).

I think both of us were a little disappointed that the internet failed us on this venture, but like I said, we hadn’t actually tried anything in the book yet. Or perhaps he had, but not with me. After all, I’m not the first person he’s ever tied up. Now, there were similarities to things that we’ve done before. The chest harness didn’t feel vastly different from others he’s done on me, and was in fact a little simpler than some. My legs had been tied so that my knees stayed bent the last time we played with rope. But fastening my wrists to the outsides of my calves was new. The brand of immobility was new. I could barely move if I wanted to.

I’m having a hard time writing this entry. I’m having a hard time writing this entry because I don’t think I’m really conveying what I want to. I can walk through this step by step—laying out the ropes, introducing other toys, putting music on—but I feel like it isn’t significant. When I think about last night, I think about the force of DW pulling me forward by the center of the chest harness. I think about his face brushing against mine, his hands pushing my knees apart when I snapped them shut against the flogger or the vibrator, the way his eyes dance when he has me pinned like that. Caught. I watched his eyes while he tortured me, another lesson in what he can do if I don’t finish when he tells me to. I think about how he had the vibrator on me for so long that the skin under it felt numb afterwards. I think about how I perceived everything in half-vision, because I couldn’t keep my hair out of my face or because somehow my visual perception got chopped up when other sensations overran it. I think about vampire gloves biting down on my skin, and how they left a spatter of marks on my left thigh… though they were gone by morning. Imprints of rope inlaid in my skin. The feeling of helplessness. The converse feeling or being completely safe. I think of the color of the light, because the light was yellow and warm. I think of rolling onto my back, because I didn’t have the balance to stay upright anymore.

What I think about is a pile of images and remembered nerve-impulses. And his eyes, lighting up when he looks at me. It’s not really a narrative, as much as I might do to construct it into one. As a narrative, it loses the spirit of the thing. As brief flashes… well, maybe they don’t make a picture for anybody besides me. But I feel it’s truer that way.

What do you do when I tell you to do something?

I try.

And trying isn’t good enough, but I still do it.

And this… this I would do again. I feel like I would do it every day if I could. To be bound down into something beautiful, to watch his face light up as he torments me, to lie in his arms after and feel secure.

Kai (Very) Belatedly Talks About Christmas Presents

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Kai Tied Down

I haven't posted here since November. Long time. I imagine that if I had any readers at any point, they're probably gone now. But... this blog exists for me. For the most part, anyway. And I say "for the most part" because I have an assignment to write today.

In February, DW bought me some hemp rope. My birthday gift. We dyed it together; black for the longest, red for the middle length, green for the shortest. It was a wonderful gift. But, at the same time, I was surprised at it. Maybe even a little sad. Because part of the reason the kink side of our relationship was dropping off was due to issues of time and

energy... and rope isn't exactly a quick and easy toy. Rope takes time. It takes patience. It takes attention to detail. You can't just slip it on and then slip it off when you're done. I loved my gift, but I was afraid that we would never actually use it.

Last night... I don't know what exactly it was that brought about last night. A combination of things, I think. A month ago, while I was waiting in an airport in Salt Lake, I told him that I wanted to have sex with him while tied to the bed. I like the idea of restriction in that context. Only being able to move as much as I'm allowed to move. As much as he allows me to move. Yesterday, I told him that I wanted him to come home, throw me on my back, and have sex with me. That I wanted him to hold me down, hold my legs apart, take me over and over.

He told me no. He had other plans for me.

The funny thing about things like this is that I never expect them to really happen. I can say that I want to be tied down and taken, but part of me always expects it to always be something I say. Potential without action. But I got what I wanted. I got what I wanted.

And it was good. Frustrating. Agonizing. Intense. Something... that was what I needed and wanted but not quite fulfilling because I couldn't push myself past my performance anxiety. Take myself out of my own head enough. Convince my body to do what it was told.

DW tied a harness around my chest in red rope, an inverted five-pointed star. He tied the green rope around each of my legs so that my knees stayed bent. He tied my wrists together above my head, and anchored my wrists and legs to the rings embedded in the bed frame. He leaned over me and told me the rules:

You can't come without permission.

I'm going to do whatever I want.

In unfamiliar physical situations, I'm afraid that my brain goes into too high a state of alert. I'm looking at details. I'm watching him tie the knots, fasten everything into place. In a way, paying too much attention. A situation like this, being held down and open with a scarf over my eyes so I can't see what's coming, I want to be able to let myself go. I need to be able to. But my mind doesn't want to give that up. A few times, I thought I could reach that place, where outside thought disappears and nothing exists outside of us. But my brain, it wants to keep its control. Its alertness. And the moment when it slipped the most was when DW held his face next to mine and told me those rules.

There was ice. Ice shocks me awake. And I couldn't get away from it. It stung the edges of my body--the outsides of my thighs, my side, my face. There was the small flogger that he keeps for close work, the vibrators pushing me into calm, low space even as the ice or the sharp teeth of the pinwheel worked to pull me out of it. Different sensations awaken different things in me, and the blend of the two--calming and arousing vs. sharp and flight-inducing--was simultaneously compelling and torturous. Part of me loved it. Part of me struggled even though my body had nowhere to go. At some point he slid the plug in. Painful at first, but ultimately lost under the vibrations. I opened to it without realizing I opened to it. Shortly after, one of the vibrators was pushed into me. I felt like my body couldn't hold that much. But it could. It did.

Through most of this, I desperately felt like I needed to finish. And this is where the performance anxiety comes in, because even after being granted permission, I couldn't actually do it. My body was aching and I needed it but it would not would not would not let go.

The vibrator came out. The plug came out. He put himself between my legs and slid into me. He undid the anchor ropes that held my legs to the bed frame, but left the green ropes in place, keeping my knees bent. He put a vibrator between us and told me to come. How many times did he tell me? Too many. Too, too many. And still I couldn't. I was locked. He pushed his body into mine and spoke low in my ear, my body pulsed, and still...

There has been an ultimatum of sorts in place between us for some time. If I don't finish during sex, neither will he. Part of the goal is to train me to trigger those muscles at will. To be able to respond to commands. To make it, in the end, easier. But it's so difficult. It felt so agonizingly good, bound down on my back with him moving inside me... but no matter how many times he commanded it, I couldn't finish for him.

And that was more painful than anything.

He gave me an assignment after that. Every two hours today, I will masturbate to orgasm while remembering his voice, telling me to finish. The rest of the assignment was to write this entry. Talking about last night. What happened. What it felt like. And it's hard to describe my feelings, exactly, but I hope that I've done a good job.

(The rope patterns dug into my skin were beautiful. I would wear them for longer if I could.)

I just need to learn how to take that extra step.

Kai Needs to Vent

Yesterday, I did something extremely awkward: I came across the blog of one of DW's former submissives. And, believe it or not, this is the second time I have done this. In both cases, the intent wasn't to snoop or to pry into other people's business; it was more about seeing a name that I recognized or someone that I otherwise knew to be friends with DW, and subsequently clicking on a link because, hey, public blog.

This is how I came to the conclusion that on some days, the internet is really not my friend.

The first time, which happened the better part of a year ago, wasn't a very big deal. Yes, it was a former submissive who was still not at all over him. Yes, it was a person who had trouble dealing with the idea of him having another prospect, and who was trying to get him back while he was actively considering dating me. (I suppose it's important to note that while he and I were pretty committed to being together by that point, it was still long-distance and experimental, and therefore not official.) But the only thing that I actually took issue with was the fact that she still labeled herself online as being owned by him. My main concern that I expressed to him was that I didn't want to have to pretend to share him with someone he wasn't involved with anymore, we discussed it, he talked with her... and the problem was resolved.

This second time was a little different. Because if there's one thing you don't want to see as somebody's girlfriend and/or submissive, it's indications that somebody else has been actively thinking of herself as belonging to your boyfriend and/or Dominant. I'm trying to figure out how to talk about this without being specific, but basically this person made it sound like DW condoned her continuing to act like/talk like his submissive, as well as making it sound like they were playing on the weekend days that he spends with her every now and again. Assertions that she's willing to wait it out until the day they can be together again... that's not so different from Case #1. What's different is seeing indications that this person was willing to actively try to maintain a D/s dynamic with my boyfriend/Dominant WHILE I WAS LIVING WITH HIM.

Obviously, I was upset. What was I supposed to think, seeing these interactions framed as attempts to hold onto the man I've been living with for months? And making it look like he was okay with parts of it, no less. I texted him at work and asked if he was aware of this, and we ended up having a good long talk about it. I was a mess about it for a couple of hours, though. And... it wasn't the general theme of the situation that sucked. It was the specifics.

The really cool thing about blogs is that you get to say whatever you want on them without telling anybody who you are. I think it's awesome for people to have them. I think they're great tools for thinking and examining and venting. But you know... when you've got a public blog and you're writing about specific conversations and interactions with somebody else's SO, I feel like there's some sort of line being crossed. I completely understand not wanting to let go of someone. I nursed a borderline obsessive crush on someone for something like two years, long past the time when I knew that nothing would ever really happen between us, and everyone knew about it. These things happen. We're all people. If all you're doing is talking about how much you miss someone and you wish you were with them etc. and so forth, I get it. It's okay. My problem in the first case was with somebody who was still basically telling people (or at least telling the internet) that DW was still her owner. My problem in the second case was seeing that as of a couple of months ago, somebody (who I've been making an effort to be friends with, incidentally) was somewhat actively trying to maintain a dynamic with my boyfriend that was inappropriate.

And the thing is... at least in Case #2, there honestly isn't any reason for her to not write about that stuff. It's her space. It's her blog. But damnit, it hurt. It made me worry about the safety of my relationship, even though DW has never ever given me a reason not to trust him. But again, it's her space, and there was no reason to expect that I'd see it.

So then we come to another way to look at it: Don't try to maintain inappropriate dynamics with somebody else's SO in the first place.

These are two lessons here that I think can be readily applied to ANYONE who has ever gone through or will ever go through separating from a boyfriend, a girlfriend, a submissive, a Dominant: 1) If they've established a relationship with somebody else, have the grace to respect that fact, and 2) Be aware that if you post something publicly, somebody involved in the situation could very well find it.

And you know... this blog right here? It's public. It's probably not even more difficult to come across than either of the ones I did. So maybe this gets found. Maybe I even take some shit for it. But at the end of the day... this is my venting space.

Maybe Lesson #3 is "Stop clicking links on the internet." >_>

Kai's Journal of Conversational Etiquette

I've been thinking on and off about the appropriateness of asking people about their sex lives. I'm not exactly talking about random people, and I'm not exactly talking about close friends. I'm talking about those people who you've met and talked to before, who you haven't established close ties with, and yet who suddenly jump at you with details about their (and questions/assumptions about your) sex life at the earliest opportunity.

Now, this topic isn't intrinsically kinky; it's something that I'm sure tons of vanilla people end up having to put up with, too. But the situation that *I* was recently involved in was a bit on the kinky side, which is why I figure it can go here.

When I brought this up as a potential entry to DW an hour or so ago, I initially said that while there were some situations in which I was okay talking about my kinks and sexual preferences right off the bat, there were many others wherein I wasn't. He then challenged me to come up with any instances at all in which I'd felt early discussion about such topics was comfortable and acceptable, and I realized that the only ones I could come up with were ones in which it was context-appropriate. For example, I met some good friends of mine through the kink club at my college, and therefore some of the first things I knew about them had to do with things they liked to do in the bedroom. And that was cool, because we were at a meeting for a group that was designed for those sorts of conversations. Similarly, things like invitations to kink events from random people while hanging out at a bar are totally acceptable, because they're not personal. And if a conversation starts out of it... well, there was an evident catalyst, so it's probably all right.

However, if someone who you aren't close to asks out of the blue for advice related to specific sexual situations, it comes off as random at best and creepy at worst. That's the scale for me, at least. And the funny thing is, when I encountered this situation and finally asked the person I was talking to why they thought it was a good idea to ask these things of me, they replied that since we had a mutual friend who was kinky, it was a good bet that I was kinky, too.

Now, this generates a couple of problems. The first problem is that "kinky" is an extremely broad term. Someone who likes getting tied up in bed might not be crazy about humiliation play; someone who likes wax play might be averse to pony play; someone who likes rape play might really hate flogging.... and so on and so forth. Kink is a HUGE category, filled with so many sub-categories that even now I'm coming across kinks and fetishes that I never knew existed. So, even assuming that I *am* kinky, I might very well not be into the same stuff that friend X is into.

This brings me to the second problem, i.e. the fact that I might *not* be kinky at all. If your decision to talk to somebody about your unconventional sex life is based entirely on the fact that you share a "kinky" friend, and said friend usually hangs out with people with similar tastes, you're kind of taking a risk. Although communities do tend to form around common interests, kinks don't exclusively hang out with kinks and vanillas don't exclusively hang out with vanillas. For that matter, as per the previous point, pony play aficionados don't exclusively hang out with other pony play aficionados, etc. etc. etc. So really, it's in your best interest to feel out the situation first and try to gauge whether or not your conversation partner is even interested in talking about sex-related things in the first place; even if they are in fact kinky, they might not want to talk to you about it.

Actually, that last sentence up there is sort of a problem #3. Because, when you get down to it, even if you are in fact talking with someone whose sex-life is outside what is considered "normal," there's no guarantee that they want to share details of that with you (or, for that matter, hear details about yours). Some people are very selective about who they talk to about their preferences, and they probably don't appreciate being pressed for details (e.g. "Do you belong to this kink website?" "Do you know where I can find people who are into X?" "What do you think about Y?"). Likewise, they might not be ready for a conversation beginning with, "I'm really into such-and-so and I can't find anyone else who is."

Again, this all mostly applies to people who aren't close, personal friends, but it can also be applied to situations where maybe you're close friends, but not necessarily the type of friends who talk openly about personal sexual practices. I guess what it all comes down to is: Don't throw this sort of thing at someone who hasn't expressed interest in talking about it. If they're dodging all of your questions or flat-out refusing to answer, chances are they're not comfortable with the conversation.

Kai Under Control

I ended up spending some time yesterday thinking about the control aspect of our relationship. More accurately, I was thinking about the last two entries that DW wrote. For those of you following him, you know that he just posted one entry on scene-building and another on control. For those of you not following him… well, now you know. He spent a good deal of yesterday at work, so while I was home on my own working on whatever it is I work on during the weekends, I was also thinking about some of the things that he said, particularly those which apply to me.

The one that I’m going to talk about now, and one which he and I discussed over dinner yesterday, is the issue of how much control he holds in our relationship. I believe that his characterization of me in his blog is accurate: that I react badly to people trying to control most aspects of my life, and that this is perhaps a defense mechanism. What’s difficult for me is the fact that I want very badly for a D/s relationship between us to work out, yet for whatever reason we are having trouble building it. On my end are the issues of how I perceive attempts to control me. On his end are the issues of time and available energy. It saddens me that he is not always happy with how much control he has, and I want to work on it so that we can get to a point where we can both be happy. Unfortunately, his work keeps him very busy, and there are many days when he just isn’t in the mood to deal with checking up on a submissive to make sure she’s doing what he’s told her to. I understand this, and have no problem with it. But, it does make it harder for me to know what I can do to make it better.

So, when we were at dinner, I gave him a few ideas for aspects of my life that I don’t mind giving over control of. I’m predominantly using my weekdays to work on a novel, as I am still without a real job, so a lot of what I suggested revolved around that. To list:

-Specifically how many hours a day I have to spend writing (I personally shoot for 5-8 under my own supervision)

-What sorts of things it is acceptable to take breaks for (chores? errands? food?)

-How many breaks I can have, and how long they can be

-(I also fielded the possibility that he could give me a certain number of days a week that I would have to wear makeup, though I generally dislike doing so.)

These suggestions are clearly not numerous, but since most of my days are spent writing there aren’t many areas where rules would be applicable. Plus, DW isn’t a fan of arbitrary rules that don’t serve real purposes.

I am still trying to think of other ways I can help, but in the meantime, I hope that he decides to try a couple of my ideas and see how they work. In my experience, you don’t know how something’s going to go until you try… so I guess I just want my opportunity to do that.