having been unowned and without a regular play partner for a couple of months now, i find that one of the things i miss most of all is orgasm control.

orgasm control has been a significant feature of my last two bdsm relationships. well actually i've only had two bdsm relationships, so orgasm control has been a significant feature of all of my bdsm relationships.

i don't like devices - at least not the ones designed for the male anatomy, some of the ones designed for the female anatomy are quite pretty. my experience of chastity and orgasm control has been based on the honour system - they told me what to do and i did it, or what not to do and i didn't do it, as the case may be. and i loved it, and i miss it.

it's not that i don't enjoy orgasms, i love them. but for me nothing quite matches the intensity of that moment when one is right on the edge of orgasm, begging for release, and not knowing whether it will or will not be granted.

now that i have no one to do it for me, i find myself reduced to doing it for myself, with the aid of a timer. the timer is set for a short period of time, and if unable to achieve orgasm within that period, i stop when the timer goes off. next time i increase the time a little. when the inevitable happens, and i finally achieve orgasm, i'll start reducing the time again.

someone - probably more than one someone actually - has observed that no sadist is as inventive in thinking up ways to torment masochists as masochists themselves.

it's not nearly as much fun as having someone else do it for me, but it will have to do until that someone comes along.

now excuse me please, i have a date with a stop-watch ...

the temptation is strong to make some grand gesture. tear down profiles, throw away dresses and make-up, cut my hair. i resist party because i would probably regret it, and partly because i've never been very impressed when others have done similar. too often i've sighed, shook my head, and rolled my eyes, dismissing someone's announcement that they are leaving 'the scene' as drama and attention seeking. but seeking attention isn't always a bad thing. there's nothing wrong with seeking the attention, support, and comfort of our friends when we need it. nothing wrong with asking our friends to reassure us that yes, they really would miss us if we were not around.

it's easy to dismiss someone else's pain when you're not feeling it. shared pain, if nothing else, teaches sympathy.

nevertheless, if and when i decide to go, i don't think i'll be making any grand gestures. i think i'd rather slip away quietly. if anyone's going to notice, let them notice because i'm not there, not because i shouted about it.

i haven't dressed in almost three weeks now.

no i haven't been running around naked. it's a bit cold for that. i mean i have not dressed 'en femme'. my pretty dresses, bras, panties, stockings and heels have remained unworn, my make-up has remained unused. i haven't even shaved my legs, and normally i hate having hairy legs.

i'm finding it difficult to be enthusiastic about anything right now, difficult to motivate myself to make an effort. tomorrow, however, is nimhneach. halloween nimhneach, at that, and my return to nimhneach after missing it last month for the first time since it moved to the academy. and i have a new dress to wear.

where did i leave that razor?

given the afore-mentioned scarcity of dominant women, i've been lucky to have met, played with, and become friends with, quite a few dominant women these last few years.

it hasn't been entirely a matter of luck, of course. i think i can claim to be a pretty good sub. and i've been persistent. no i don't mean i've made a nuisance of myself. i'm not one of those people who sends the same message to every woman who gives the least hint that she might be dominant - or in some cases, even to those who don't. no by being persistent i mean that i've kept going to munches, workshops, parties and events, even when i was feeling discouraged and had to force myself to keep going.  i've networked. if good luck found me, it found me because i put myself in its path.

it's been the proverbial roller-coaster of a ride. if i may be forgiven for mixing my metaphors, it's also been somewhat like riding a horse, including being thrown off a couple of times and forcing myself to climb back in the saddle.

i've had some mind-blowing experiences. i've been flogged, whipped, paddled, caned, and spanked. i've experienced clamps, clothes pegs, bondage, cbt, strap-ons and anal hooks. i've had 105 needles stuck in my back, and i've looked into my Domme's eyes as she stuck needles in my breast. i've been bound to a-frames and crosses and walked naked through woods. i've experienced tease and denial and orgasm control.

there has been pain, not all of it pleasurable, and not all of it physical. i've fallen in love and i've hurt like hell when that love was unrequited. looking back, if i could have seen the future, i'm not sure that i would have done anything differently. even knowing the pain that lay ahead, i'm not sure that i would have chosen to avoid it, if doing so meant sacrificing the good times, the positive experiences, the friendships that i made and the lessons that i learned along the way.

but now that i find myself facing again that same choice, do i have i have it in me to start over again? the metaphorical horse stands there before me, huffing. is she apologising for having thrown me, or laughing at me? is she inviting me to climb back in the saddle, or daring me to? do i have the strength to accept the challenge one more time?

it is my misfortune to be primarily attracted to dominant women.

ok that's not entirely accurate. i find many submissive women very attractive too. but submissive women want to be dominated. duh! and while i quite enjoy giving a flogging, and think i might rather enjoy tying someone up and sticking needles in them too, should the opportunity arise, those are, for me, temporary diversions. my primary need is to submit.

case in point. recently at a party i flogged a submissive female friend. and it was great, it was a lot of fun, and it was quite erotic. afterwards, she went outside for a smoke. i don't smoke but i went with her - i'm not a flog 'em and leave 'em kinda girl. as she sat smoking, i sat at her feet and she stroked my hair. it wasn't something i planned, wasn't something i decided to do, it just happened. i flog someone and then the switch flips, and i find myself at their feet. i become even more submissive than usual. it's as though a balance has been disturbed and needs to be put right.

but i digress. why do i say it is a misfortune to be primarily attracted to dominant women? because dominant women are rare. very rare. and to compound the issue, it's seems i'm also primarily monogamous. i have tried poly and it has not worked for me. i'm not knocking it if it works for you, but it hasn't worked for me. and unattached dominant women? they're pretty much non-existent.

i'm screwed. and not in a good way.

and so i find myself alone again. without a Domme, without a lover, and, in a separate and unrelated development, about to become without a house-mate and in search of a new home.

i'm feeling lost, abandoned, sad, angry, confused and scared. there are times when i'm doing mundane, ordinary things, at the supermarket or on my lunch-time walk in the park, and i feel i cannot take another step, i just want to lie down right there where i am, curl up and cry my eyes out.

and while all this turmoil churns below the surface, life must go on, work must be done, money must be earned, bills must be paid. i go through my days smiling and nodding, while inside i'm screaming.

i miss her cunt.

i miss other things. many things. but when i lie awake at night, it's thoughts of my tongue in her cunt that haunt me.

i remember sliding down between her legs, kissing her belly and thighs. my lips brushing her labia, my tongue pressed against her clit. i hold it there, not moving, feeling her writhe under me, and then begin to lick. long, slow, gentle licks, quick flicks of the tongue, and sometimes just holding still, letting her move against me.

her fingers tangle in my hair, her legs wrap around my neck, her hips thrust up to meet me, she pants and moans and finally cries out in ecstasy, shuddering, and i rejoice.

i miss her.

good party last night. small crowd but fun all the same. got put over a big strong man's knee, spanked, paddled with a hair-brush, and caned! and i got several hugs from a pretty girl too! what more could a girl ask for? well quite a bit to be honest. like not having to go home alone afterwards, to an empty house, and an empty bed. ah well, such is life.

really can't remember now the order in which things happened on saturday night. i flogged two lovely ladies. quite different experiences because one of the two doesn't like much pain and i'm always conscious of the need to be quite gentle with her. the other enjoys a higher level of pain, though of course i still had to be careful not to hurt her any more than she wanted to be hurt.

we also had a bit of an impromptu needle-play workshop. i got to stick needles in someone for the first time, as well as having needles stuck in me.

the highpoint of the night - in more ways than one - was being tied to the cross. not a saint andrew's cross, but a tall crucifixion-style cross. the feeling is difficult to describe. it wasn't painful or even uncomfortable, my weight was well-supported and evenly distributed, none of the hanging by the arms that makes real crucifixion so painful. but i felt completely helpless and vulnerable, bound naked to the cross - especially when Domina started wrapping cord around my most sensitive bits!

later on friday evening, after the flogging demo, Domina tied me up and took me out to the hallway for some 'impact play' - slapping me, shoving me up against the wall, forcing me to the floor, kicking me and dragging me across the floor.

i'm aware this may sound quite brutal to some people, but it really wasn't. i didn't suffer any injuries other than some slight bruising. it was in fact a very pleasurable and erotic experience. i felt helpless, vulnerable, controlled, and i loved it!

what an amazing weekend that was! i'm still a bit dizzy from all the excitement, and having a little difficulty putting my memories and feelings into words! i don't think i can describe the weekend in one blog post, i think i'll try to take it one scene at a time.

things got off to an interesting start on friday evening when i was sent to my room to strip for the flogging demo! i've stripped at parties before of course, but being sent to my room to strip and then having to walk back naked into a room full of fully dressed people was a new experience! it was embarrassing and humiliating and yet somehow liberating and empowering all at the same time! i was actually a little disappointed afterwards when Domina told me to go put some clothes on after the demo!

just back from the belfast munch. i love belfast munches. they're held in a restaurant on a week night, which makes for a quieter, more chatty social occasion than a weekend pub-based munch.

what a weekend that was! a lovely quiet night in with Domina on friday, watching a movie, and then off to twisted leprechaun on saturday! we went to Ropemarks rope bondage workshop and Scott Smith's cbt workshop in the morning. the rope workshop was a lot of fun, the cbt workshop was a bit scary! was funny to see all the women gathering around watching the demonstration with great interest, while the guys cowered in the corners cringing!

after a nice lunch with friends we went to Boss Bondage's play piercing workshop in the afternoon. it was Domina's first experience of needle play and she loved it. it was a first for me too - i've had needles in my back, bum, and back of my thighs before, but this was the first time i'd had them in my breast. it was a very different experience to be able to see the needles going in, and to be able to look into Domina's eyes as they went in.

after dinner and a little nap we went to the twisted leprechaun play party. i got spanked and flogged and led around on a collar and leash with my hands tied behind my back - a long-standing fantasy finally come true!

was at the launch party for 'secret garden' last night. had a great time, caught up with some old friends and met some lovely new people. was sorry to have to leave early, don't you just hate it when work gets in the way of having fun! t-girls in dublin have a very promising new resource - and no i'm not saying that just because the organiser happens to be a friend! :)

check it out: http://sites.google.com/site/gssecretgarden/home

well that wasn't the smartest thing i ever did. i should have known better. i did know better. i let my desire for play override my caution, and i'm lucky there were no serious consequences.

i met a guy at a party who told me he was into rubber-band bondage and cbt, and i let him do it to me.

the session started with me being ordered to strip naked - always fun when everyone else is fully clothed! the bondage consisted of a chain of rubber bands tied around my wrists and ankles, over my shoulders and under my crotch. this was quite enjoyable, although i would have enjoyed it just as much, perhaps more, with some nice rope. the tightly-stretched chain of rubber bands did afford my play-partner lots of opportunities for twanging them against my skin, though, which he seemed to relish, and which left some impressive and long-lasting marks on my skin.

the cbt consisted of wrapping rubber bands tightly around my scrotum and penis.

in fairness to myself, i did ask the question: "you can get those off quickly if you need to, can't you?" my mistake lay in accepting his assurance that he could. he could not. it took far too long to remove the tightly-wrapped bands, and all the while i was in significant pain, and not the good kind.

eventually, all the bands were removed - or so i thought. i dressed and continued to party. i suggested to my play partner that if he was going to continue with this kind of play, having safety sheers at hand might be a good idea. thinking about it now, i'm not sure how easy it would be to remove tightly-wrapped rubber bands even with safety shears, but to anyone who might be thinking of trying this, i'd say have some means of getting the rubber bands off quickly or don't do it.

time passed. my play-partner left the party. i was still feeling quite sore, but put it down to the after effects of the play. i thought i'd got twanged a bit down there or perhaps scratched a bit during the removal of the bands. it was only when i went to urinate that i discovered two rubber bands still tightly wrapped around my penis, just behind the glans!

stop laughing! it's not funny! ok maybe it is now, but it wasn't at the time. i was not laughing while i spent a painful, embarrassing, and scary couple of minutes struggling to remove the two tightly-wrapped bands, while i worried about the potential effects of long-term restriction of blood to the glans, and wondered how i would explain this if i ended up in a & e.

a little while ago i cleared my list of fetishes on fetlife. i didn't like being reminded of things that me and a certain someone had done together, and would never do again, or had planned to do, and now never would. but life, as they say, goes on, and a good slut doesn't stay unowned for long!

i'm now 'under consideration' by the very wonderful DominaCat and She has expressed an interest in learning what makes me tick, so i am busily going through fetlife's list of popular fetishes, adding the ones that appeal to me. i'm so far either into or curious about all but three of the top forty. i'm a little surprised and slightly disappointed to find myself so conventional in my unconventionality! and there was me thinking i was special!

anyway, the three that i'm not into are fisting, voyeurism, and role play. fisting ... um, let's just not go there, ok? voyeurism ... i'd rather play than watch others play, thank you very much! role play ... i had to stop and think about this one. there is undoubtedly an element of role play about what i do. but it's implicit, spontaneous, unscripted. i don't enjoy formal, explicit, planned role play, the kind where i'm supposed to invent a character, and a back story, and a setting, which is probably what most people understand by the term.

i am very much enjoying the process of opening up, of revealing to Domina what makes me tick, what pushes my buttons. submission is, for me, fundamentally about trust, about surrendering control, about allowing oneself to be vulnerable. and that applies at least as much, perhaps more so, to emotional and psychological vulnerability as it does to physical vulnerability.

there may, perhaps, be explanations for all the blank profiles on social networking sites, other than the obvious ones of laziness, lack of imagination, and dishonesty.

it's not always easy to express oneself. there's a cost, and not just in terms of time and effort, or the struggle that it can be for some of us to find the right words. there's an emotional investment. we hang a piece of our souls out there for everyone to see. if it is mocked, rejected, or just ignored, we hurt.

and yet some of us are driven to do it. probably for the same reason we carved our names in our desks at school. probably for the same reason our ancestors drew pictures on the walls of caves. we are driven to tell someone: "i, too, am here. this is what i think. this is what i feel. this is who i am."

fortunately not all of us insist that you agree with us.

the blindfold leaves me in darkness, helpless, dependent on Her for guidance. She is gentle at first, Her hands soft against my skin as She undresses me, unwrapping Her new toy.

She fastens something around my penis. i can't see what it is. She tells me it's a tens unit. i can barely feel it at first. when She turns the power up, the pain is intense. i crouch on the floor, crying out. She turns it down again. She leads me to the spanking bench and tells me to bend over.

the pain of the paddle striking my bare bottom is almost more than i can bear. She laughs with delight when i whimper. the whip is less painful, but more frightening. i know how much more it can hurt if She chooses to strike harder.

She leads me across the room and cuffs my wrists and ankles to the wall, facing out. She applies weighted clamps to my nipples. i beg Her to take them off. eventually, She does. i'm crying, behind the blindfold my eyes are wet with tears. She flogs my tender nipples and my testicles. when i close my legs in a vain attempt to protect myself, She orders me to spread them and i obey. She tells me to choose, nipples or testicles? i choose nipples. in truth, tender as they are now, one hurts about as much as the other.

and then it is over and She is gentle again, wrapping me in a blanket and playing with my hair as i lie with my head in Her lap, at peace at last.

i had another response to my personal ad today. someone wanted to know if i'd like to be put across his knee for some bare-bottomed spanking.

this one actually got my hopes up for a minute, because over-the-knee, bare-bottom spanking is yummy.

so i checked out his profile.

yeah, you guessed it. completely blank profile.

it's enough to make a girl want to give up in despair.

a week has passed now since i posted a personal ad on fetlife. the response has not been encouraging. i've had only three responses, none of which interested me in the slightest.

the temptation to give up, to withdraw, is quite strong, but i'm resisting.

it's not just the discouragement engendered by the low volume and poor quality of the responses. there's also the fear of what happens if / when i do find someone. will it work out this time? will i be able to cope if it doesn't?

and yet i go on because ... well really what else is there to do? sit at home alone? that would merely be to exchange the risk of acute emotional pain for the certainty of chronic emotional pain.

but that's focussing on the negative. let's rather say that i go on because the rewards are worth it. not just the sensations of play, the endorphin highs, but the rewards of intimacy and companionship.

somewhere out there is the one who wants me as much as i want her. i owe it to us both to keep searching until we find each other.

it used to be so simple. i was submissive. all i needed to do was cling to an a-frame, look pretty, and moan sweetly.

ok, yes, there's more to it than that. being submissive, surrendering trust and control to another, is not an easy thing to do. it can be emotionally draining. and there are things you need to learn. being conscious of your own physical well-being, are you having circulation problems, breathing difficulties, becoming dehydrated or exhausted, and maintaining communication with your Dom/me, making sure your Dom/me knows what He or She needs to know about what is happening to you.

but it's relatively simple in contrast to all the things a good Dom/me needs to know. how to tie some one up without cutting off circulation or pinching nerves, how to flog someone without risk of injury, etc.

it quite surprised me to discover how much i enjoyed flogging. and now i'm beginning to think that i just might enjoy rope bondage as a top too. have i gone over to the dark side? i don't think so. while i'm enjoying the flogging and curious about rope, i don't really feel any desire to be the one in control, at least not after my partner steps down from the a-frame or is released from the ropes.

giving a flogging is fun. tying someone up is beginning to look more interesting than i thought it would. but nothing, so far, compares to the buzz i get from being the one getting tied up and flogged. i'm not going over to the dark side just yet. it's kinda fun testing the waters, though.

i got to flog the very lovely L again on saturday night.

i'm finding i'm enjoying flogging a lot. it's an absorbing activity. i become very focused on the person i'm flogging and how they're reacting, and everything else fades into the background. much as it does when i'm receiving a flogging.

i got to receive a flogging too, from the wonderful DC, and enjoyed that very much also. it was only my third session so far this year. i hope it will prove to the the first of many with her.

i also got to experience electro-play again. at first it was quite painful, but later became very enjoyable, if somewhat frustrating. i was quite close to orgasm, i think, but only close! i have never experienced a public orgasm. it's a fantasy, but for now at least it seems destined to remain just a fantasy.

i was going to begin this post by wondering if we kinksters experience a more intense emotional life than our less kinky fellow human beings. then i got to thinking that it might be arrogant to assume that we, or more specifically i, experience anything more intensely than anyone else. can we ever really know what someone else is feeling?

and then i realised that it doesn't really matter. all that really matters is how intense the experience is to us and to the person or persons with whom we are sharing that experience. how it compares or contrasts with someone else's experience of something different is not important.

so i will leave comparisons aside. let's just say that some of the things we do arouse intense physical and emotional responses. when we surrender ourselves to another, put our trust in another, give up control to another, a powerful bond is formed.

and it hurts like hell when that bond is broken.

we are left facing the age-old question, is it better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all?

it's an unanswerable question, of course. those who have loved will never know what it might have been to have never loved, and those who never love will never know what it might have been to love.

or as Aslan says in 'Prince Caspian': "We can never know what would have happened, Lucy. But what will happen is another matter entirely."

The power of submission lies not in the ability to kneel before another, to give over one's body or the wearing of a collar. The power of submission can be found only in the heart of one who gives her love to another freely, knowing what joy and pain will come from it. ~Unknown Author

i am now the proud owner of my very own flogger. i bought it from Jack's Floggers (www.jacksfloggers.co.uk). it's his 'standard chunky flogger with black chap suede falls', item code SF01. J owns a couple of these, and i've both used them and had them used on me, so i knew what to expect - a nice well made flogger, a good all-rounder that can be used gently for warming up and with a bit more power behind the swing for some more 'serious' play. i got to both use it and have it used on me at nimhneach on saturday, i was very happy with the results and so, they tell me, where my play partners on the night. thank you, all, it was a pleasure and an honour to flog / be flogged by you.