L is for Labels

Dear diary,

It's been four days since I saw Nick last time, still not a word. It looks ridiculously like ghosting, not sure if he is aware of the term. He doesn't seem like a person who would disappear from your life without saying goodbye. I should probably stop mentioning his name in this diary. I worked hard enough to keep my life private in this corner of the world. One word or one picture, and I can say goodbye to my peace and quiet.

No matter what will happen, I'm grateful for these two days. It felt so much longer, when in fact we had only two nights to ourselves. I was shocked how different he was from his public image. Don't get me wrong, Nick is a highly likable person, no matter what the circumstances are. But in the bedroom, he would shed his authoritative armour as fast as he shed his clothes. With me, he wanted to follow, not to lead. And I was comfortable telling him what I wanted.

I heard about powerful men turning submissive behind the closed door, a known trope. Seeing one in real life was an out of body experience. Nick adamantly preferred to kick back and enjoy the view. I probably went on top more times than in ten years with Aldous. This doesn't mean Nick was lazy in bed. No, he was the most generous lover, yummy cummies abound. I could see how he earned his nickname in college, Gentle Nick. With his head between one lucky girl's legs.

The only time I saw the other side of him was on the second night, in the pagoda at the beach. He pushed hard but, thankfully, backed out with grace, when he saw how vulnerable I was. I wasn't ready. I'm still not ready to hand over the reins. For me it would be five steps back, when in fact, in my ideal fantasy world, it will be ten steps forward. 

Oddly enough, in that awkward conversation we both mentioned giving and receiving, acknowledging the liquidity of power exchange. What really puts one on either side of the slash? It's not who puts what in where, and not who yields the leash, but the puppet and the puppeteer, even for a few hours at a time. 

It's not coincidental that Aldous avoided the use of labels like a plague, when it came to our relationship. I always defended him to others, a very few of those who knew bits and pieces, always insisted that our relationship was consensual. But looking back and analyzing, was it really? Aldous was a master of blurring the line, toeing the line. At the end the tables turned, the same words, camel's back, played in my head, when he disregarded my consent, plain and simple.

In the years after Aldous, I immersed myself in the vanilla world and vanilla relationships, with a rare exception of Uncle Ar and my hairbrush. And after a while, I became more selective in bruising my cervix department.

Could it be that there is a middle ground between the two worlds,  the vanilla one and the kink one? Is it possible to enjoy all the benefits of a vanilla relationship but kick it up a notch or two or a hundred when the mood strikes? To satisfy those pesky unexplainable needs? The same as one encounter with Uncle Ar, when clearly he was very much in control, driving the message home, but the message was articulated by yours truly. If I would dare to use any labels, does it make Uncle Ar a Service Dom? Or in Nick's case, a Pleasure Dom? 

Am I onto something? Isn't it what so many women want, someone to take over the control but in a perfectly prescribed way? Reign me in at my command! 

All hail Pleasure Doms! Damn labels…