Feral Swan

I am pretty sure that I am not the only one who is "like this," although I might be the most difficult and/or challenging of all the women I am familiar with. I can see it as I watch Him ponder the path to take with me. I know that He questions exactly how far to push things; exactly what would be "good," and what would begin to seem "abusive," or "harmful." I can, in my reasonable and sensible moments, empathize with the challenge and complexity of attempting to manage and ride herd on a volatile and emotionally labile creature such as I have become in the last couple of years. I honestly don't know how the Man does it, and there is a part of me that fully understands why so many so-called "Dominants" stick to the relatively hormonally-stable twenty-somethings when they go shopping for potential submissive candidates of the female persuasion.

The dilemma is this: I am still driven, at some essential place by the part of me that remains masochistic and that needs to know I belong to Him. That is the elemental core of my selfhood. It was who and what I was when He and I first connected, and it remains. I am mature enough and self-disciplined enough to not require continual reinforcement, or any sort of formalized ritual, or signal from Him to maintain that awareness within my thinking. It simply is the reality of who I am and who we are together. With that said, however, if it is left unexercised in any concrete way for a significant period of time, I can begin to feel tense, wobbly, stressed, attenuated. It is as if there is a depletion of my spirit that cannot be answered if those bits of me are not acknowledged and "touched" somehow on a fairly regular basis. On the other hand, as I have lost a good part of the more overtly "pleasure" parts of my sexual responsiveness (and entered a state that is sort of like permanent PMS), I have struggled much more to accommodate the masochistic side. The "bargain" is not as balanced, and I can get to feeling that it is pretty unfair that there should be so much of it on the pain side and so little on the pleasure side. I go to the well pretty frequently and come up "dry." That can get frustrating after awhile. I've sort of quit grieving, and mostly, I don't think about what I don't have too much. Still, there are times when I get moody and fussy, and downright pissed off about it all.

It is, I suspect, a hell of a lot easier (if you are a sadist) to hurt someone who is going to get off on it than it is to hurt someone who is going to wail and mourn and curse the unfairness of the whole business -- especially if you really love and care for that person. When you are dealing with that "mourning" thing for lengthy stretches, it can be pretty daunting; nevermind that the one who is doing the mourning is simultaneously speculating that they might just need you to hurt them in exactly the ways that they are railing against. It must be terribly challenging to charge ahead, as a Dominant, with whippings, and paddlings, and switchings, and all manner of evil whatnot, secure in the judgement that it is good for a partner who dissolves into a puddle of hysterical "goo" at the mere mention of such torments. The whole notion of "consent" becomes strained at that point.

Both He and I know, intellectually, how this works between us. I've described the process and the struggle as clearly as I know how, and He is an accomplished pratctitioner, and a very keen observer of my responses and reactions. Knowing what is probably true and understanding how it probably works is one thing. Actually confronting it and pushing on through all of that, day after day, is an entirely different proposition.

It really is like having a wild, untamed, entirely unpredictable creature in your household. He must feel like every encounter is a complete gamble -- no telling what might happen. Even if He asks me how I am, I often cannot give Him much in the way of concrete information. I may have a sense of feeling somewhat stressed or "wobbly," but I am generally totally unsure as to whether the wobbles will be lessened or increased by us playing. I have become a flighty and unpredictable, wild and feral, skittish creature.

We've made so many adjustments for this aging business -- for the shifts and changes that we are both encountering with our years. Still I want to stay lively and sexy and hopeful and open for Him. I need this interraction. It hasn't gone away, simply become more difficult. I growl more than I used to. Somehow I have to find a way to make that growling be a good thing.

swan