Inside, out
I was chatting to Blknight a while ago and we got to comparing different styles of domination. He is very much the physical guy: the kind of Dom who wants to take control via the subbie's body - pushing the physical limits, manipulating by blunt force. Master, on the other hand, is a psychological controller - he pushes me with words and mental images, to the extremes of experience that sensation alone could not induce.
There is a place for both, and as I said to Blknight, a perfect balance is ideal, but probably we all have our predilection to focus on one over the other. For me, there is nothing like the psychological dominance Master uses to control me. Don’t misunderstand: he is undeniably strong and more capable of using force than most. But so much of his power comes from carefully-chosen words, making it seem effortless, and so all the more intoxicating. Anyone can take control with a pair of cuffs and a cane, but to do it just by speaking inspires awe. And it is that emotional effect that is most important for me…. (perhaps because I fear so little physically…?) Being physically controlled is amazing, but the mental control is what makes it real. When Master chooses what he will say - or what he won't - to show dominance over me; or when he uses words to push my limits until I am shaking and sobbing, wide-eyed and enraptured by what he is saying... that’s how he owns me: from the inside, out.
Like Master said, I am an emo slut. I know it’s not the perfect way for a sub to be, so I try and keep it within tolerable levels. Sometimes, though, I fail. I could write about how that lets him down sometimes, but to dwell on that would be making the same mistake even as I apologise for it. Instead, I want to say how that, too, means he owns me so deeply – because I feel so much. That is how his words capture me – by tapping into the parts of me that are most vulnerable, that hurt most easily: my mind and my heart.
It means I am powerfully dependent on him. All my inevitable ups and downs are deeply tied to him, because it is his influence that devastates me or relieves me. Yes, soaring from grief to bliss partially on someone else’s calculation is an agonising way to live – but also a very gratifying one. To borrow someone else’s words I am an “affect junkie”. An addict for intensity. An emo-slut.
Life’s stress can bring me down so low I don’t just want to die – I want to suffer, too. The tension builds up over days and I become muted, flat, and confused. I feel afraid and disoriented. I try and tell myself to keep functioning, but in retrospect I always know I wasn’t – and that regardless of how I try not to bother Master with my frame of mind, it is foolish to think he can’t tell. He can read me effortlessly……. And then eventually, if he decides I am deserving, he takes my body, and hurts me.
He takes me away from my mind and into only my body using physical extremes. It might be partly the endorphins, and partly the sheer cathartic effect of being made to cry and scream, but mostly I think it is the sense of absolute surrender that releases me. When it hurts, I need nothing but to know I am his, and then when it is over, I re-emerge, myself again. My despair disintegrates. It’s like hitting a ‘reset’ switch…. Or like shock therapy.
