To be delighted

 I've been hungry for something lately, hungry for a dive into my own darker desires. Alone for an evening I turned onto 'Fifty Shades of Grey'. It was late and I was tired so I flipped forward, looking for scenes that might scratch the itch.

He's taken on a novice. She hasn't even thought about what he has been fixating on his whole life so it's a pretty hard sell. I think watching this time I was mostly aware of his frustration, and his patience. But how, with all that attention, could one not be entranced, even just a little?

This morning, I wondered how I might find some little morsel, a bite for my starving soul, when the thought occurred that I might go back to a time on this journal. I chose September 2009 and reading there I realized immediately that it was the interconnection with another person, the dance, that delighted me; a sweet morsel to have with one's chai tea, you know?

Delight. That's what I once had. And how delicious it was.

Dracula and his victim

In  a power exchange there is the possibility for an infinite amount of control; an infinite amount of transformation. Once the trust is established and secured there is endless opportunity to explore the energy created from giving to another and taking from another.

An article I read recently about Dracula referred to "an uncanny collaboration between vampire and female victims" and those words spoke to me because it isn't true that one person takes and the other gives in some neat formula. The word "collaboration" is what is important here.

When I first read about submission I took umbrage at the word 'service'. I'd been serving my family's needs for quite some time on an hour by hour basis so I didn't feel that my innate desire to express my submissive nature related to wanting to serve. To the contrary, my inclinations were to receive: to receive love, attention, affection. I'm not adverse to being spoiled.

I think I missed an important factor in the power dynamic there. When you burrow deep down into a sense of comfort in the dynamic the desire to serve, to please, to impress and to make happy abounds. It is simply there. This desire compounds and grows as the dynamic shifts into a smooth running gear; when the resistance is very low and one's place well understood, accepted and enjoyed.

This sense of wanting to please the other opens pathways previously unconsidered. I want to show that pathway and yet it is so difficult to demonstrate the process on a web journal page. The '"victim" discovers, to her surprise, that what the "vampire" wants is what she wants as well but I can't express that in any other way, I strongly suspect, other than with dialogue. Only the dialogue can express the perfect synergy of the vampire and his victim; the mutual feeding taking place.

The connection between them is so great that the two minds merge. The "victim" is reliant on the energy of the vampire and gives of herself freely. The giving of herself is, in fact, more than a gift; a sacrifice. She gives happily; readily; consistently. She gets off on giving not because she is the good submissive (although hopefully she has become that too) but because his darkest urges and desires have become her darkest urges and desires.

This is to imply that "Dracula" is dark (bad) and the "female victim" the light (good) - that one entity has influence over the other and undue influence at that. I've not a doubt that "Dracula" has powers of persuasion difficult for the female victim to ignore or deflect. She is drawn to him; helplessly. Yet, I'm not convinced that hidden below the surface of the "victim" is the not the already present desire to be fed off; the desire to be made to do Dracula's bidding. Perhaps it is possible that "the victim" lured Dracula to do his worst.  What would the feminist readings of this story make of that, I wonder. 

Entrapment

I have always felt a close attachment to males; not just to my husband but to many men in my life: my father, my brother, my ballet master and any one else who would allow me to get close. I have tended to make attachments to men and to get great succor out of knowing their minds. Frankly, I just enjoy their conversation and being around them.

I've tended to worry about this because unlike so many other women I know, I have preferred male to female company. One of the difficulties about marriage for me has been this assumption that underlies my life that I should be forging close relationships with women and not men.

This year, perhaps for the first time in my life really, I have really embraced my time with women. I regularly (weekly) have a coffee with two groups of women, at least, and I find this time incredibly comforting. We tend to laugh a lot. We tend to support one another through whatever the issue of the day happens to be and we are incredibly kind to one another. That is what I love about the time with them. It is not at all demanding and we provide care and approval for one another. As I said to my husband earlier today, they have all had such interesting lives and even though many of them are retired now, (I am the youngest member of my yoga group) they certainly have not retired from life. All their minds are as sharp as a tack and they have embraced me into their little circle as if they have known me all their lives.

This morning, seeing that I was clearly not myself, my husband hugged me and told me that I just need "to relax". I tried to explain to him that men sometimes made it hard for a woman to relax. They expected so much of women. They expected them to take on the worries and needs of men and at the very same moment, relax. I suggested that this was why women found women; perhaps why women entered lesbian relationships late in life sometimes; because they just needed to live life in a more relaxed environment.

I don't think I could be any more clear about the fact that my goal in life is to live it cerebrally and contentedly. I have always aimed to get to a place where the real world mattered much less. I don't mean that I don't care about what happens in the world because I do care very much. I mean that I look for a state of internal peace and a sense of satisfaction with life. I have always believed that we live in our head and that life is what we make of it. We must choose to be happy. We must embrace life and live it well. We only have one life so far as I know.

I believe that men gravitate towards women, towards having one woman to call their own not just because they need a mate to go through life with, but because women instinctively understand this about life. Women hold the keys to a peaceful state and men instinctively get it that to find joy they may need a woman to take them there. Of course, not all women know this and men can be disappointed when they realize this.

There are moments when the going gets too rough around men; the men I choose. They tend to be demanding men; men who ask a lot of women; who worry a bone better than I ever will; men for whom enough will never be enough. They exhaust me; frustrate me; make me question my tenacity and strength. Of course, I cannot live without them. They provide me with what I need in a way that a woman could never do. They call on something within that is intensely feminine and I need that.

My oldest son, who is inclined to write words on cards that bring tears to my eyes repeatedly said this to me on this most recent Mother's Day: "You were always there for me and I will always be there for you."

That is it. Perhaps it is one of my few strengths that I endure; that I go on loving and giving in all circumstances; that I just won't give up; on anyone or anything and certainly not in finding the joy in life. I am emotional. There is just no doubt about that. But, it is seen by only a chosen few - those who read here make up the vast majority. To the rest of the world I am "ethereal".

I have been fortunate to experience true and good friends who seem to innately know how to companion me on my journey. I think they see this gritty side of me: the side that exhibits distress but refuses to give up on a situation and rather than offering me advice, they simply sit beside me (figuratively speaking). I've felt their presence in my life lately even when we have not actually spoken and I have understood when their upset on my behalf has caused their opinions to spill over and be expressed. They know, bless them, that they cannot 'save' me because I respond to my own instincts at the end of the day.

Some one said something to me last night. He said that he knew what he was doing. Such supreme confidence! It impressed me at a moment when I needed to be impressed. And, as I write these words, I feel satisfied to add that I know what I am doing too. My inner compass drives me forward into terrain that is not at all easily navigated.

All I can say for certain is that I both lust for a settled mind at the very same moment that I lust for the company of men who can make that goal so hard to attain. A perfect world would be to live with the company of men and to also have a settled mind. Alas, I am drawn to emotional men; demanding men; wonderful and vibrant men. Poor me. Lucky me.

Reeling in Agnes

For some weeks now, the idea of expressing ideas in the form of an essay or post or article has not held much appeal, whilst the idea of expressing ideas through stories has held plenty of appeal. In a scene or a story there is so much to be said about how I feel about how a submissive girl responds to the energy a dominant man brings to her. I know that I should explore characters who don't respond the way I might respond but I feel that this is the way it is for so many of us. The girl goes about her life and something about the way she acts, or moves, or looks or observes the world gives a dominant man some sort of inkling that she is the kind of girl that he is looking for/appreciates.

I'm not altogether sure that a girl with a submissive nature is out on the prowl in quite the same way that the man keeps his antenna up. She's more inclined to go about her business, I think, and if something comes across her path that interests her, she notices and enjoys. It is a rare day in her life when she actually makes a move. At least, that's what I think. I'm not at all the sort of girl to make a move but I'm mature enough these days to not be shy about noticing men about me; to enjoy watching them in action.

Australian men of a certain age can be extraordinarily handsome. I was in the supermarket choosing vegetables in the past few days when a man of mid 30s perhaps, came in my direction. They tend not to be able to shop without making a call. "Honey, did you want the flat leafed parsley or the regular?" And so, he was on the phone when I spied him. A dishy, wide eyed, clean skinned, well built hunk of a guy in a lovely striped suit. In my younger days, I might have ensured he didn't catch me checking him out, but I felt not a tinge of embarrassment when we caught eyes and it was evident I was enjoying the scenery. It was something about the way he walked in as if he owned the environment about him; as if the store were there for his private convenience.

My oldest son is just like that. There really is not an environment which he doesn't own for the time that he is there. Whether it be a small town in Mexico or a golf course in Dubbo, whilst he is there, he dominates the space; enjoys it, makes use of it and leaves his presence felt. He oozes a sense of self and a special quality that life is for living. He takes those in his company along for the ride and whilst they are with him, they feel a certain kind of pleasure that he has graced them with his company. I don't say this because he is my son. I have nothing to do with it at all. He was born this way.

I feel sure that I married the man I did because I responded to his energy for life. He had no sense of fear. He didn't know where he was going but he knew that he was on his way. Thirty years later, he remains enthusiastic about so much. Everything is achievable and solvable and setbacks are merely that. "Leave it to beaver," he says, and I do.

My females characters are especially vulnerable to men who wish to "feed" on submissive girls like them because they are so easily infected by their assertiveness, their charisma and their ability to engineer a situation. A man taking the initiative is exactly what turns submissive girls on and so you might buy them a cup of coffee and suddenly whisk them off to show them your etchings before they can stop themselves to say "no". They are intoxicated by a show of force, or at least an assumption that they will follow along. Something in the pit of their stomach says, "I can't pass this up. This is just too delicious. This is just way too much fun..."

The girl in the upcoming scene, Agnes, is in a terribly vulnerable position. Frederick is much more mature, worldly and sophisticated. He is older; more than capable of getting what he wants and she truly does want to explore what he is offering. But, is she just another feather in his cap; another notch on his belt? Is he merely hungry and looking for a meal to nourish himself before he moves on again or is he genuinely interested in her as an individual?

I certainly don't think that submissive girls walk about looking for "the one" necessarily, but no girl wants to feel that she is being 'used' in the sense of 'used up'. She doesn't want to feel like a dill when a few dates, weeks or months later, he says, "it's not you, it's me/you're too good for me", and so she tempers her own appetite for dishy, dominant men with a sense to hold back: look and see.

And so for Agnes it is one step forward and two steps back as Frederick tries to overcome her 'thinking' brain and appeal to the hidden desires below the surface. He seems to have played his cards just right - given her enough time to digest the pros and cons - to have her eating out of his hands.

I am delighted to say that you not only have Agnes' version of events now but those of Frederick. Frankly, sometimes I am just appalled at how manipulative dominant men can be!

The Spider and the fly

"Do you feel trapped?" he asked her.

"Uh huh"

"Do you feel caught?"

"Uh huh"

"What image does this evoke for you?"

"I'm the fly and you are the spider."

So, she knew, he thought. She knew all along. And, yet she came into the parlor, all the time. Sometimes, she didn't even wait for him to invite her. She just waltzed straight in, as he preferred. He wanted a willing captive in her own demise.

"You struggled at first, my dear. You pretended that you didn't want to get caught."

She opened her mouth to speak.

"Don't deny it now. Just listen."

She closed her mouth.

"And, the more that you struggled, the more tangled you got...

She blushed to her toes. My God!

...the tighter your constriction...

She was loving this (but could he read her mind?)

...And, you really began to enjoy it, didn't you, my darling?...

Oh gosh, he could.

...The web cocoons the object you have become...

Oh yes, it does!

...a silky cocoon...

Deliciously so.

...and now you are completely covered. Metamorphed."

How lovely!



"'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the Spider to the Fly."

"Lead the way. I'm right behind you," she replied.