by Mrs. Darling
Eventually I’m helped out and wrapped in a fresh towel. The scent of him and our laundry soap helps me smile again as he tucks me into bed, damp and naked, hair soaking, between the crisp sheets.
After feeling a kiss at my temple I barely register the sound of Leo running a shower for himself in the dead of night before I drift off to a dreamless sleep.
I awake; the sun is wrong. Fumbling for my phone I let out a gasp of pain. Every inch of me throbs. I fight through the soreness while hearing Leo talk to Emily through the closed bedroom door. I finally get to my phone and see the time. Holy crap. Ten fifteen.
I start to call for Leo but stop to evaluate my body first. I limp into the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror. My hair is a monstrosity of gigantic proportions only achieved by sleeping on wet, untended to extensions.
I grab one of the dozen bands strewn around the beach house and throw my coif into a big sloppy bun atop my head. My body is riddled with tiny bruises all over: by my armpits, my inner and outer thighs, calves, breasts. How am I gonna wear a bathing suit like this? Sighing, I move to the toilet to relieve my bladder.
I am unable to contain the scream of pain that comes. I don’t feel cut or torn, it isn’t a stinging pain, but I feel swollen and shut and as predicted, destroyed. I hear a gentle knock at the bathroom door and am glad I closed it in the first place.
“Chlo, you ok?” I hear Leo through the thin door dividing us.
Meagerly, “Hey Sir, I’m fine. I’ll be out in a minute.”
Leo says no more but I can sense him still standing there wanting to check on me, to fix me, to help his wife and encourage me to talk to him. He eventually leaves giving me the privacy I seek. I clean myself up, stifling my groan when wiping, and wash my hands. I brush my teeth and splash the cold water on my face a few times. Looking at myself clearer, into my familiar ocean blue eyes, I see myself for who I am today.
An attractive, kind, smart woman who decided to sign her body over to another human being (a sadist) for training and use. I am conflicted for the first time since bringing this into our lives. Is this who I am? Is this normal? Is there something wrong with me? To want this? To enjoy this? I fight back the prickle of tears and go to the bedroom, dressing in sweat clothes, not bothering with a bra or underwear that would surely press into my soreness.
Taking several deep breaths before opening the door to the rest of the house I plaster on a smile and join my family in the real world ready for the day off to recoup and reflect.
“Subspace. Subdrop.” Leo says to me a day and a half later.
The words carry a tinge of familiarity but I can’t put my finger on exactly what they mean. I’ve probably come across them in books and research but they don’t have a meaning to me. Yet.
“Huh?” I ask, looking across the bed where I am propped up under covers and reading a piece of carefree chick lit that doesn’t make mention of Dominants or power exchange or anything BDSM related.
I have continued serving as Leo’s submissive but the three of us Donnovans have been homebodies; the mister has been overly gentle and helpful.
I’ve been thinking about the decision I’ll make soon. Once the winter holidays are over our D/s contract and the one year lease on our marriage will be up. What am I going to do? I am utterly clueless.
Over the past two days I have withdrawn inside of myself. I feel too exposed. Too vulnerable. Too... I dunno. Too attached I guess. I’m frightened. Of myself. Of Leo. Of our lifestyle. Of ending our marriage. Of staying in our marriage. Of how good it felt to be devoured the other night. That shit scared me. Bad.
I tab the corner of my library book to save my place and look to Leo. He’s sitting shirtless, looking innocent and charming in just his red plaid boxers. He could never hurt me.
Then I remember the ache in my heart that day in Atlanta. Sure he could hurt me. He has in the past. He passes me the tablet from his hands; I browse through the couple of web pages he has opened.
Sure enough here it is in more places than I could ever have the time to look over. What I experienced the other night is sometimes referred to as “subspace.” It’s the result of a body becoming so overwhelmed with adrenalin and an endorphin rush that it reaches a heightened space of consciousness. Many describe it as a feeling of floating, or a trance, or an inability to typically function.
Afterwards, it’s possible to experience “subdrop” and apparently that’s what I am living now. After those hyper-intense feelings flood out of you and your body adjusts to the real world again it can lead to temporary depression or a crash of sorts.
As I read on, I am in some way relieved to know that this is a normal reaction to BDSM play. I realize there is still so much I don’t know about what we are doing and while we are each doing things as responsibly as possible, we need advice. Help. Camaraderie.
“Leo?” I ask not moving my attention from the page I am skimming and hearing him say, “Hmmm?” I continue.
“I wanna meet others. Other people who do this. I think we need help or advice or whatever. I want other submissives I can talk to about this stuff. Whatcha think?” I ask, turning my gaze to him across from me.
When his eyes meet mine, as always, I feel him reading my soul through the gaze.
Unwavering I hold his stare and after a minute he replies gently, “Sure darlin. I’ll set up a profile on that social networking site we keep coming across in our research. Sound good?”
I give a faint smile and tell him sure and hand his tablet back. I turn away from him and lay down straight under the covers as more tears begin to fall. Mr. Donnovan makes no move to make me stop or explain the crying; only acknowledging me with a light hand on my hip. I fall asleep like that, with a still aching crotch, reading lamp still on, silent teardrops amassing on my pillow and my husband letting me know he is right there if I need him.
A week later and I feel like a new woman. I take several days to work out of the funk of subdrop and emerge as happy and horny and excited to serve as before. Eventually I pull out the yellow sticky note Leo left on my library book with a website, log-in, and password written in his fast handwriting that I’d recognize anywhere. Ready to return to the world of D/s I log in during Emily’s nap.
The black screen of the BDSM social networking site pops up and I begin to navigate it. There are photos everywhere I look of lean women stretched out with rope and exposed genitals and latex clothes being worn from head to toe. I spend a half-hour familiarizing myself and decide to update our profile before doing much else. There are a ton of options to describe yourself. I pause a bunch to tab over to a new search page and read on words that aren’t familiar.
I do some reading on the difference between Dominant and submissive versus Master and slave and am left with not much of a better understanding than when I started. Slave. I shiver at the thought and for the first time in a long time remember The Sex Slave.
I continue creating our online fetish persona. I don’t want pictures of our faces posted but I want an avatar photo of something other than the default one. I pull out my posture collar and strap it on, feeling my body react to the pleasure of its tightness and familiarity, and use my phone to first snap and then upload a picture of the leather strap upon my neck, my almost-white hair framing it prettily, making a lovely contrast. I make it our profile picture and decide to leave my collar on for the rest of nap time. It feels so right there.
I narrow us down. I list us as married. Monogamous. Dominant and submissive. Heterosexual (I pause to run off and search of some of the other options that were listed; I honestly had no idea there were so many other sexual orientations). I know now and am glad for the education. I look at the suggested reasons for being here on the website. I click: Events. Friends. Mentoring. Education.
After filling out the profile I get lost in a sea of stories and images that are completely surreal to me. There is a whole world out there of “other” people. People like me. People like Leo. People like us. We aren�
�t alone. We aren’t unusual. We aren’t freaks.
Thousands of people are listed in this very city. Men and women who understand this. I choke back surprised tears from the overwhelming community. A website full of people accepting this life. It’s a safe haven.
I start to get nervous about the idea. Can we actually go out in public and meet these people? How do we talk to them? What do we say? Will they judge us? What if we aren’t acting in proper “protocol?” Do we call every man “sir” and every woman “ma’am” just like in the rest of the world? I can’t imagine how nervous I’d be.
I hear Emily awake and close the laptop, remove my collar, and try to shut down the questions racing through my brain.
“Vegas.” Leo says with a certainty, fork paused midair holding a bite of my almost-famous baked ziti.
I wait for him to continue his thought. I’ve been texting him since nap, expressing my nerves about the idea of going out into the local BDSM community. Emily is taking her pasta and smearing it into her high-chair table, turning it into mush.
I continue to eat the plate of home cooked comfort and Leo speaks between bites.
“So when we go to Vegas after Thanksgiving we can see if there is one of those ‘munches’ where kinky people eat dinner together or maybe even a local dungeon to check out. We can go together and nobody will know us and if we don’t like it, we leave. Maybe then it’ll be easier to go out here once we get back. What do ya think?”
I smile for the first time since nap, happy to have a resolution that puts me at ease, and raise my cold bottle of beer.
“To Vegas!” I cheer.
The Mister clinks his bottle to mine and gives a devious grin in agreement.
“To Vegas.”
That night when the house goes quiet and we are alone as husband and wife, Leo dominates my senses. He blindfolds me, makes me listen to a strip of duct tape stretch out over my mouth, then puts earplugs in my ears. He binds me, removing any opportunity for me to move to touch him.
Leo Donnovan uses his darling wife’s body as the body of a whore (his whore): spanking and pinching, biting hard until my muffled scream could almost break through, penetrating each hole at his desire. Inside this place of no senses, I live inside my own mind.
My mind brings me back for the second time today to the place where it all began.
I fantasize that I am a sex slave. Owned by a Master, used up, tied down, as bound in body and spirit as possible. I picture myself naked and exposed and vulnerable in a dungeon somewhere, my Dominant doing these things to me giving no regard for decency.
With no way of asking permission to orgasm and in the depths that is subspace I come. I lose count of the number of times. The first thing I realize after being untied and brought slowly back to reality is the hot, soaked sheet I am laying on. The second is the weight of my husband’s strength embracing me.
I’m so safe. I’m home.
That’s the thing about BDSM. It can become more than just foreplay to great sex. When the right people come together it becomes almost a spiritual experience. Two souls connecting, reading each other; a giving and taking that is at the same time entirely selfish and selfless.
I give my body over to my Dominant in the bedroom and in day to day life. In turn, he takes away all of my responsibility and all of the worries that accompany.
He fulfills his desires as a sadist and at the same time empties me out as the masochist I realize I may be.
He thinks of what is best for me and his household all the time first. He can only accomplish that because I think of him first. All the time. I hope it would go without saying that each of us put our child before anything in the world but I will add it in to avoid any confusion. Emily comes first in our life. Then Leo comes into consideration first for me and I come first for Leo.
I can best describe our power exchange, both in the sadomasochist play and in our Dominant/submissive dynamic as this:
Remember the trust building activity from vacation bible school or maybe a high school retreat? The one where two people stand lined up, one in front of the other. The person in front is instructed to stand straight and slowly lean backwards, letting themselves fall, trusting the person in back to catch them before falling on their butt.
This is the life we live in Total Power Exchange. Leo is in back, steady, waiting, certain, powerful, in control, ready to grab me and keep me from crashing. I am the one falling, giving complete blind trust over to somebody fallible, somebody who makes mistakes, and giving them the trust and responsibility that is my entire self.
We live mid-fall day in and day out, giving the other the trust and responsibility we each thrive under. I am constantly falling into his arms. He is constantly prepared to catch me. Each moment of my new life I feel able to let go of all constraints and be free.
But the whole while, try as you might to not doubt, you will still wonder what the pavement feels like if you are unceremoniously dropped.
I am falling backwards with entire trust into Leo Donnovan’s arms. Could this possibly be the thing to move us forward? Or will it leave me hurting in a way I can’t even imagine? I dunno. I just don’t know.
Chapter Eleven: Sin City
Grandma Larchmont and I divide the Thanksgiving menu and she hosts the meal at her small condo in town. Turkey day is as simple as it gets. Leo watches football with my mom’s current beau de jour. Mom and I trade places between the kitchen and tending to Emily and a good time is had by all. Now the dishes are all cleared and the bags loaded. I blubber the whole trade off of Emily to her grandmother who shoos me away as if she can’t remember what it is like to leave a baby for the first time on a trip away.
Leo and I will be gone for four nights. We need it. I need it. I wipe my face dry, kiss Emily a dozen times, thank my mother a dozen times, and turn away.
Climbing into the car I wave good-bye to my girls until Leo drives out of sight. It brings us to the airport where we find a bar and promptly scour the internet to find a Vegas BDSM jaunt. I sip a chilled martini to try and calm my nerves.
“All I’m finding are swinger’s clubs,” Leo whispers to me, taking a sip of his coffee. He hands the tablet to me as an unspoken order: find something. After thoroughly searching I succeed. A small “alternative lifestyle club” off the beaten path. I mean, it’s Las Vegas, right? I was bound to come up with some option.
“Look at this Mister. I found it.” I nudge Leo.
He nudges back teasingly, “Whatcha got darlin?”
I hold up the screen for us, clicking on the “Dungeon Rules” tab, and read:
1. No cell phones or recording devices of any kind allowed on premise. There are lockers available for use. Please lock your cell phone up.
2. No touching of any person without their permission.
3. Do not touch property that doesn’t belong to you, with the exception of what is provided by the proprietor.
4. “No” means “no.”
5. “Yellow” and “red” are house safe words.
6. Dungeon Monitors or “DM’s” are available at all times. Contact one if you need help or have concerns. They will be wearing DM armbands.
7. Do not interrupt another scene, including being too close to personal space or making loud noises nearby.
8. Condoms are required for any penetration and are available at every station.
9. Please clean up after yourself.
10. There is a zero tolerance policy for drinking or drugs. Play sober or go home.
“Holy shit. Leo. Can we really do this?” I ask with disbelief. My eyes are wide and jaw dropped, heart racing about the idea of going out into public and potentially having sex in front of others. I am petrified and turning tingly.
Leo reaches over and lifts my jaw gently closed, kissing me on the forehead. He moves back to bring our faces an inch apart, his hazel eyes sparkling at my blues.
“Hell yes, darling. We can. And we will.”
We land on time and gather
our carry-ons, calling to check on Mom and Emily (I can practically hear my mother rolling her eyes at me as she answers my myriad of questions about the day so far) and we go to wait for our bags to arrive at the baggage claim.
Leo stands behind me, his entire body pressed against mine, and the feeling of him against my rear mingles with the slight buzz from my earlier cocktails. It has me giddy to get started with the weekend of sin.
Looking for the suitcases, surrounded by those who just shared our flight, I feel my husband shift, dig in his carry on, and from behind me I feel my leather collar strap tight around my neck. I couldn’t be more frozen in shock if he had pulled my skirt up for all to see.
From the back of my ear I hear quietly, “Calm yourself, Chloe. Nobody knows us here. You are my submissive and I will adorn you as I like. Unless I remove your collar for showering, this will remain on you until you come back to this airport. Do you understand my darlin?”
Looking around to the people surrounding us, all of them entirely ignoring us, I manage to speak into the air in front of me just loud enough for the Mister to hear.
“Yes.”
“Good,” he whispers. “But you’re gonna pay for forgetting to call me ‘Sir’ as soon as we get to the hotel.”
He’s suddenly gone from behind me, leaving a cool absence against my skin, moving casually to get our luggage that I had all but forgotten. Feeling like I have a neon sign on my neck proclaiming “I am a kinky slut,” I am escorted by my husband to the line of taxis waiting to direct us to the finest oversized hotel on the strip.