…confessions

So what is a Dominant to do? Your sub writes a long, searingly honest post about her deepest fantasies, and you’re not in them. Particularly gnawing at me, as she talk about the theoretical pure dominant, was this passage:

Would he/she push me the way I need to be? Would he/she send me to the edge and push me even farther? Would he/she punish me for not doing as I’m told? Would he/she follow through on every desire no matter how dark they may be for me?

In some ways, it is impossible for me not to read a criticisms in these words. At the same time, the things that hurts the most, is the use of the word need. A need is not being met. It’s a pretty stinging thought. I know Mina took the time to write an additional comment, largely for my own sake, about what this post meant, about how this is a not a desire necessarily meant to be fulfilled, but at the same time, she reaching out for a need.

At the moment the post was written, and I was the first to read, I wrote my own comment, trying to get a sense of stability. We certainly talked about it that night, with a conversation that seemed to end on an ellipsis. I was surprised by her assumption that my fantasy life fixates on having a complimentary version of her own, on having “pure sub” of mine, when in fact I run in the opposite direction, if not the opposite extreme. In my case, that is not where my mind goes.

I lapsed a bit into explaining my personality. I am the type of person who likes to be really good at a lot of things, but I don’t really feel the need to be an expert at them. I prefer Renaissance Man as a kidn description, though “jack of all trades, master of none” is probably more apt. I enjoy my dominance, and any sex I have will have that flavor to it. I enjoy spanking her, I enjoy tying her up, and I enjoy them on their own. But, I am not, by nature, a pure dominant. I have to live with the things the dominant does the morning after. And in those moments, where she is obviously curling up, and obviously not happy with what is happening, I see the woman I love, who will still need to feel that love, instead of a bratty submissive in need of discipline.

My reactions the following morning were all over the place. I wanted to sulk. I wanted to give her the first caning of her life, and making sure that it fixated on the small of her back till it bled. I wanted to her to have a wound, not just a bruise, to last through her procedure next week, so that when she is lying on the table she will have that ache to concentrate on instead of what the doctors are doing. I wanted to beat this attitude out of her. But what was that, if not a reaction to her post? How is that really setting the table, and being the Dominant?

And then I think of the longer view, and of the interlopers who have crept into our life through the back door on Twitter, or email, or chat. Like C, like S, like Gabriel, who is no longer in our life. I see this need she articulated subconsciously reaching out, finding people who can give her that unfiltered Dominance. I think of her self-flagellation once she gets caught, and how she wonders out loud why she sabotages her relationships. I also wonder if this what our whole life has in store, peaceable life punctuated by bitter disappointments, and dark secrets being revealed.

But then, what if this is merely a way to provoke the Dominant? When she took her public collar off, she was rewarded with a brutal cropping. Even then, though, I was deeply conflicted administering it. The human wanted to reach out, to understand what was wrong, what I was failing to do, and the Dominant simply saw a submissive who needed discipline. That day, the Dominant won out, and I labored through the doubts tearing me up. I remember reading her post at her disappointment that her submission was being reduced to pain, and how it was about more than that. I tried, in the future, to focus on servitude more. I bought more weapons, and I have developed a great fondness for bondage tape, in fact.

But, in the end, I am what I am. I am someone who treasures the woman first. I read the work of other Dominants online, the ones who really push their subs, and I find myself repelled, not by their actions, but by their psychology. There is a mix between de-humanization and compartmentalization that my brain cannot comprehend. I can’t separate out the human from the submissive, and I cannot shut off my conscience and simply torture someone, nor can I find the desire to do so. I am not struggling with dark desires inside me, I am struggling with their absence.

There are things that I simply don’t crave. I don’t crave her ass. I’ve had it, and to me, anal sex is more about proving a point than that it is something I have a special enjoyment of. I don’t enjoy her humiliation. I don’t enjoy the things I think of as mine being shared with another. In the end, I cannot change the essence of my nature, and nor do I want to.

So, instead, I sit with an unsolvable problem. I envy her place in this in a lot of ways. I think it would be much easier to be the submissive, and simply have to not say no. It is a desperate high-wire act to be a dominant, to have to answer for her well-being, your satisfaction, and why the ideas were even in your head, and why they appealed to you. There is that confidence that you know what you are doing, and that ever-present risk of going too far, or getting that sarcastic snort of “Really? You want that?”. It always seems easier to be the one who just doesn’t say no.

When my fantasies center more on someone sexually aggressive, or who initiates the action with me, that is something she can easily fulfill, if she chooses, and something I could not fulfill with someone else, without devoting a lot of energy elsewhere. When her fantasies center on a ruthless Dominant, it is not something I can fulfill, because I have hit my limit, and I think she could more easily fulfill with someone else.

So what’s my confession?

That I am scared.

As a man, as dominant, as a fiancee, as everything I am, I am afraid to lose it all. I see danger in so many places, and I feel vulnerable. I feel threatened by her desires that I can’t fill, and threatened by what seems a world full of predators who would happily want to step in for me. I am afraid of the day the guy who is better than me finally comes along. I react with gut-twisting terror as other people clinically dissect our situation, and determine that, yep, she would need a proper dom to really fill these shadowy needs. I can see that I am not enough.

I make friends with the fear. It is part of me, it is part of what drives me. The fear will always be a part of me, as much as the love and the hope. After all, if I were not afraid to lose what I have, would it be worth having?