Seven months ago I was an emotional wreck. I was a slave who had just left the service of her first owner and Master, and I was barely managing to keep myself together. The man who had been the center of my universe for over a year, my closest friend, lover and the man who possessed me body and soul, had broken our Master/slave contract. He didn’t have the courage to tell me that he had made his wife, already his collared and owned submissive, his slave as well. I was hundreds of miles away from the kink convention they attended, but I knew something significant had happened. Days later I finally confronted him, barely coherent through my hysterical sobbing. He told me it was only a matter of “semantics,” and perhaps some people would agree. To me, however, our contract was sacred. Those words had become vows that we made to one another. When he broke his word, he broke us. And to make things worse, he went public and spouted vitriol about me on Twitter. I thought the nightmare was never going to end.
Three months passed and Liri, my beautiful amazing girlfriend, hauled me out of the house, insisting that I rejoin the kinky human race again. She was gentle but insistent that I get my needs met, and I was too chicken shit to tell her I was terrified to face a flogger again. Floggers had been my security blanket. The heavy, rhythmic thud of its impact had always calmed me down before, lulling me into a peaceful mental space. I was afraid that a flogger would no longer work on me, that somehow when I became uncollared, I lost the ability to love kink. Liri would tell me later that she was a little nervous about my re-entry too, but that didn’t stop her from tying me to the cross, flogging me, and then making me orgasm in front of a room full of people just to prove a point.
I was a jumble of emotions afterwards, and even though relief and enjoyment were at the forefront, I still cried. There was this point after the scene, when the aftercare was finished and people were packing up gear to head home… that’s when I missed having an owner the most. There was no one to tell me I was a good girl and hold me as I curled up against their chest, no one I could text about my triumph, no one to snap my leash on my collar and lead me out to the car to go home. It wasn’t only that no one I knew wanted a slave, it was that many of my kinky friends didn’t understand what a slave even was. Hell, I was so emotionally wounded that I wasn’t entirely certain myself.
I joked with Nikki that I was waiting for Prince Flogger to rescue me. He’d be single, monogamous (stop laughing), dominant, sadistic and own a full dungeon. He’d pull up in his vintage Camaro, toss me over his shoulder and whisk me away to live happily ever after chained to his bedpost. In my fantasy I wouldn’t have to figure out my slave needs. Prince Flogger would already know because he was the epitome of all that’s Dom-y and good in this kinky world.
As I started my search for Prince Flogger, I was confronted with just how unique my needs were. I was introduced to BDSM with pain being the main aspect of my D/s dynamic. I’m a pain slut it’s true, but through some trial and error, I realized that I also needed the element of domination to my play. It was Liri who pointed out that I required intellectual play as well. A good mind fuck and a flogger wasn’t going to cut it any more. They were great, but it was the day-to-day challenge of tasks and games that made my toes curl with pleasure. It was hard for me to admit, but the more I discovered about what being a slave meant to me, the more I realized that slaves were work. I couldn’t turn off my submission or my need to serve. I needed tasks, challenges, something that kept me mentally occupied as much as I craved to be physically used and beaten.
This was when everything got complicated. I discovered my Boy Scout, who was dominant and kinky, and I was certain that he was my Prince Flogger. In fact, I was insistent that he be my Dom ideal made flesh. There’s no flattering way for me to describe my driving intention to make Boy Scout into what I wanted. I was merciless and pushy in my desire to make him fit this unrealistic fantasy I had, and I did us both a great disservice. I discovered that Prince Flogger wasn’t just a simplistic dream. He was a poisonous illusion planted by a former owner who didn’t want me to move on. Believing that I only wanted Prince F was like saying I only wanted to eat oatmeal cooked by my mama for the rest of my life. I’d never leave Mama’s basement if that was my reality, and I never would have seen Boy Scout for his other incredible qualities that stretched beyond how he chose to apply his belt.
I have no tidy conclusion for this post. My kinky life is in flux as I try to figure out what this new stage of my life means to me and my partners. There are new players, and it appears that my kinky life is going to be as poly as my romantic life is. Boy Scout is a wonderful man, and we have a solid, loving relationship, but we’ve had some tough conversations about our D/s relationship and the direction we’re taking. Or rather, the direction we’re not taking. Yesterday I had the thought that I may never choose to be collared again which I find to be as scary as it is liberating. And Boy Scout may never want to own me, but he’s willing to share this slave with other kinksters and Dominants which is part of why we work so well together.
My journey began with the idea that kink could only be a certain way for me, dictated to me by a man who could only see other relationships as somehow threatening or detracting from us. It was a cage of my own choosing, but it was still a cage. When it blew up, I began looking for the real slave within me to discover what it was that I truly desired in a D/s relationship. It has been through the support and love of some amazing partners that I’m still figuring this out. In fact, it was my non-kinky Zen who inspired the insight to this post. I believe that the best adventures are just around the corner, and I have people in my life who encourage me to seek them. That’s more meaningful to me than any Prince Flogger and his dungeon of one.
