Where have I been?

You might well ask, I know my posting is often erratic, but it has been more than two weeks. No, it is not just that my (now advanced) age is showing and I am losing my marbles, at least I hope not!

The truth of the matter is that life has been more hectic than usual on work and home fronts. At work there have been three of my colleagues off sick or on holiday and me needing to cover for them and there is the usual year end panic to spend the last remaining budget that we have and the paperwork that is needed to achieve that.

On the home front, well there have been a number of family birthdays (7 out of my 8 immediate family members have their birthdays between mid October and Christmas), the fact that my mother has been ill for a while and last if not least it is of course also 'the season to be jolly', or not in my case as I find Christmas really stressful and upsetting. More so as we will be spending it in the Motherland so have needed to organise accommodation and flights for us all.

Christmas used to be a magical time for me when I was a kid, I loved it. But now it always seems to make me feel a total failure, everyone around me seems to be playing happy families and my kids cannot. So of course I try to make everything perfect and spoil them ridiculously to make up for this "failure of mine" and then feel exhausted, exploited and taken for granted. Maybe Scrooge was onto something.

On the BDSM front things are looking up a bit, I won't go into details for now, but what I can say is that I am both learning a lot about myself and enjoying it greatly. It is allowing me to release inhibitions that have been with me forever and that is a really good thing.

Hope that the run up to Christmas is smooth going for you all. I hope to post again before Christmas, but please do not hold your collective breaths.

Hil

One year older ...

... and not a bit wiser or sensible!

But hey, I am enjoying all of that irresponsibility.

Life is mostly calm, only 2 out of 3 daughters have broken up with their boyfriends (OK then one boyfriend reconsidered and now they are all loved dovey again)! But despite these "disasters" all three of them remembered to call me to wish me a Happy Birthday, and on the actual day and I did not have to remind them, yippee.

I had a great meal out yesterday with friends (only one piece of cake was eaten, but it was my birthday!) and my house is now filled with some gorgeous flowers and some fantastic red vases which match my new kitchen perfectly.

I have been working hard on positive reinforcement to start dealing with my issues around my appearance. It is coming together slowly, but then the damage was done over a number of years so it will take a while to reprogramme.

However, I have saved the best news for last, I have after a break of far too many months, started running again (so far runs of 2.5km, 1.6km, 2.5km, 3.2km and 5km in the last week or so). This is thanks to some serious inspiration or was that incentives provided by a new Dom friend (you know who you are - thank you) and have also started back at the gym. So life is really feeling much better, the endorphin rush I get from exercise is almost, but not quite as good as the one from a serious spanking session! That said I'd take a good spanking over a run any time!!

Hil

LOL - Love Our Lurkers

Dear All

Bonnie over at My Bottom Smarts has designated yesterday/today as Love Our Lurkers Day, so I'd like to join in too. Even if you do not usually comment I'd love you to leave a short message introducing yourself.

Thanks and keep on reading.

Hil
-x-

Cravings

Swan of the Herons wrote a great post a few days back about her "needing" to be spanked and it pretty much sums up my current feelings on the matter. It seems that the more days that go by since the last time, OK it is now 50 days, but who is counting, the more that I crave it, the more that I obsess about it.

Mental cravings I can cope with but this physical craving is weird, like an itch I just cannot scratch, I just cannot get my head around it. I also find myself dreaming about a birthday spanking a la Morningstar, (at least) one swat for each of my soon to be 42 years, must be the one and only time I'd want to be double that!

Hil

Well I'm learning, that is one positive thing ...

Life has been a bit of a rollercoaster over the last couple of weeks, ups and downs coming from all directions, some expected and some not.

Sure it has been really hard but it has also been enlightening, it has forced me to confront some things about myself that I thought I had "done and dusted".

I have written here about learning to like myself for the first time and it is true that I have made amazing progress on this front. I used to have such a negative view of myself that it was veering towards the minum infinity end of the scale, now it is just creeping back into positive figures. One of the major pluses is the acceptance and even celebration of my particular kinks. I have come to understand that I "need" these in my life, even if it meant sacrificing someone I cared for very much. This is a major, major part of accepting the real me.

But, and I have realised that this is a BIG but, I still have major insecurities when it comes to my physical appearance, these insecurities caused me to make some really bad decisions over the last week. Decisions which showed me that I was verging on the paranoid. Decisions which showed me that I still have a long way to go in this area.

OK after a number of years of therapy I know where this comes from. Throughout the majority of my school life I was extremely badly bullied. The girls who were the main ring leaders were part of the "in-crowd", they were pretty and thin. I was not, but I was smarter than they were. So they could not "get" me for being stupid as I could outclass them in every academic subject you could care to think of.

So instead they "got" me for being fat, for being ugly, for wearing glasses, you name it every part of my body was "assassinated" in some way. When I "refused" to rise to the bait and pretended that I did not care they would physically bully me, pulling my clothes about or covering them in chalk dust and making me look as untidy as possible. They would keep me out of the classroom at break or lunch time so that I always had to rush to collect my stuff after the bell had rung and was thus always being accused by the teachers of being scruffy, disorganised and constantly late for lessons.

When I was 18 the brother of my best-friends' boyfriend got drunk and tried to persuade me to let him grope me and sleep with him. I told him that if he was really interested in me he could ask me that question again, when he was sober and he professing "undying" love for me agreed to meet me two nights later, in the pub which my friends and I used to frequent. Of course he did not turn up that night nor the next three nights, so I was right, I knew I was not attractive to "men".

When I was 21 I got my first serious boyfriend, we met in the amateur operatics society where I had a lot of fun flirting with this "tall, dark, handsome pirate" whilst I was in character as "one of the damsels-in-distress". This on-stage flirting turned into a real relationship off stage and I was really flattered when he dumped his girlfriend so he could go out with me. We were together for 3 1/2 years and he did introduce me to sex, but only sex with the light off. The trouble was that he had a "thing" for rescuing damsels and during this time he had affairs with two other women, one of whom was old enough to be my mother .

He begged me to forgive him each time and promised that he would not do it again, but then told me that although he had not initially had a problem with my "size" that he did actually have a "minor" issue with it. Of course this completely knocked my confidence and I forgave him and took him back. Finally, I realised that this was not a healthy relationship for me and that as he did not want children and I did that I had to get out.

Not long after this, with my self-image at an all time low, I met the man who would become my husband. He had so many "issues" himself it was not true, but believing that I did not deserve to have someone decent and being sure that no other man would want me I agreed to marry him. Things, as I have written in earlier posts, went downhill from there and my self-image continued to spiral down with them.

After a long, long struggle, involving his alcoholism, his court cases, my breakdown and thoughts of suicide, and much, much more. I finally managed to extricate myself from the mess which he had dragged me into, divorce him and rise "phoenix-like" from the ashes.

Like the phoenix I too have changed at least from the outside point of view, I have lost weight, got my teeth straightened, started running etc but these have not altered the way that I see myself, inside I still see that fat/ugly girl that was bullied all those years ago and who believed what they said.

No matter how many times people, even those I trust, tell me that I am fine, that I have fanstastic eyes, a great bust, a spankable backside etc, I cannot believe them. I can believe that they like my intelligence, my sense of humour, my bank balance etc but I cannot believe that they really like how I look. Anyone who does must be certifiable (call the men in white coats) or their motives are suspect (they want my brain for medical science, or just want sex) or they are just far to nice to tell me the truth (okay you guys know who you are). Whatever, they cannot possibly want to date me, can they?

The answer is, yes a few actually might want that and I need to learn to believe them and not to push them away with my paranoia. If only it were that simple.

OK, it is not simple, but I am sure as hell going to work at it.

... or maybe not

I am such a fool

Every cloud has a silver lining ...

Well as I said my life was moving in a positive direction, but I did not know exactly how positive. Just when you think that you have everything"under control", and you know how much I like to do that, things take an unexpected turn.

I have been registered on a couple of BDSM dating sites, well a girl's gotta try hasn't she, for a few weeks now. As is the norm even with vanilla dating 95% of the people who have contacted me have a) not actually read my profile, b) despite that they still profess their undying love for me or c) are not even remotely like the sort of man I am looking for. For the remaining 5% most have actually read the profile and write to say that they liked it or make a small comment, sometimes I have exchanged a few e-mails with them or chatted online but none of them so far have really fitted the bill, nor have I fitted theirs. So while chatting with like minded kinksters is nice I have pretty much resigned myself to the fact that I will not find anyone and that actually I am OK with that because it is so much nice living just with me now I like myself more.

It seems that the gods were smiling on me as pretty much as soon as I decided that being single again was a great idea, I got a contact from someone, really, truly, different. What he wrote to me was completely unlike any response I had received before and actually sent shivers running up and down my spine, something about not only what he was writing but the way that he was saying it leaped out from the page. Sure he had read my profile, but he had also analysed it in a really detailed way and wrote to argue a "couple of philosophical points" in it with me and to tell me what her really thought I meant when I wrote it. Wow and double wow, I thought, and wrote back.

Over the next day or so we had an extensive e-mail exchange and I really enjoyed the good natured "sparring", his teasing of me and his sense of humour which really seemed to match mine. Considering that he was doing all that "stuff" on many and varied topics in a language which is not his native tongue is all the more surprising.

We swapped Messenger IDs and chatted on-line about very many things, we found so much that we have in common both with our kinks and our vanilla lives and then we talked on the phone for 9 hours straight, all through the night until the next morning. The best thing is that he lives just 45 minutes drive south of me.

I have to admit to a "mild" obsession with the movie Mamma Mia, OK I just love that movie and have been to see it twice in the cinema, have the DVD on pre-order and have been trying to find an excuse to see it again. Sadly for him the poor guy had mentioned that he liked ABBA, so I decided that this was of course THE perfect excuse, also he had not heard of the movie at all so clearly needed to be "educated". He also decided that I need some "education" in German, so naturally the perfect solution was to go and see Mamma Mia but in German!

In person he was even more charming and we did have a lovely evening, he loved the movie too.

It is early days yet, but I can tell you I cannot wipe the smile off my face.

Hil

All Change

To all that read here regularly I am sorry that I have not been posting much, many things are in a great state of flux at the moment.

To all who don't read here, hey, you don't know what you are missing !!

As you all know I have been on a voyage of discovery and it seems that I have finally arrived to the place where I have come to both accept and start to like myself, kinks and all.

Unfortunately in the course of this voyage the things which I have realised that I need to have in my life, specifically from my partner are things that Andrew cannot and never will be able to give me; Safety, Dominance, Control and feeding of my masochistic tendencies.

Thus, finally we have parted ways as I did not feel that I really could continue to "pay" daily for the fact that I did not love him enough to give up these things that he could not give to me. Nor could he really cope with the reality of polyamory, as no matter what I would say he would always consider himself to be second best and that is not a role which he wanted to take. Thus I felt it would be better if I were to "free" him to walk another path, not the one with me where his "inadequacies" would be shoved in his face daily.

I am sad in some ways, because he is very hurt and understandably so, but glad in others because I had to invest a huge amount of one-sided effort into the relationship in order to make it work. He has helped me find my way to the path, that I am now happily following, and for that I am extremely grateful, but it is time for us to go our separate ways and move on.

Things for me continue to move in a positive direction, but more of that another day, for now I'll just end with a public thank-you to Andrew for helping me to find myself and to express my regrets that he lost me in the process.

Hil

Life, the Universe and Everything ...

I am a great fan of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I am fast approaching the age which is the Ultimate Answer to the Question of "Life, the Universe and Everything".

So, I have been seeing if I can come up with my own answer to that question, I mean if a bunch of mice can manage it surely I can too. What does Life, the Universe and Everything mean for me?

In the past I would have found it so easy to answer the above question:

Life, the Universe and Everything = my children

And even now of course they are clearly the most important part of it, indeed life revolves around them (as does the Universe and Everything, at least as far as they, themselves are concerned!). Now instead of having removed myself completely from that equation I would now probably say it was something like this:

Life, the Universe and Everything = my children + me

Sure, most of what I have done and will continue to do, at least for the next few years until they complete university and leave the nest (please God!) involves making sure that they are happy, have the best start possible in life, a good education and a loving home (open 24/7, all mod cons and maid service available naturally, ha!). But in addition to all that I have been starting to think about what I want, for me, both in this transition phase while they are still growing and in the long term.

The path I have been following since the revelations of the summer has been quite rocky, I've had to face up to, my "darker" side, to the impact that the needs of this newly understood side has had on those close to me and to the challenges of actually allowing myself to admit to these needs.

Why is that a challenge, well I have spent the last 20 or so years doing things for everyone else (kids, partners, ex-husband, my family, his family, friends etc) and putting myself last in the list and it feels a bit weird to "see" my name so near the top of that same list now and not to associate this with any feelings of guilt. It is hard to explain why I used to feel guilty about doing things for myself, but I did, I suppose it was wrapped up in my total lack of self-confidence and self-worth, I was so awful that I did not deserve to do anything good for me so that if I did then I felt guilty. Stupid really, but that was really how I felt.

However, I do not feel like that now, I will always put my children, at least while they are still children, first, but now I come a close second!

Now I am happy and comfortable to be me, I have accepted who I am, warts and all and I am at peace with that. Even though I now understand what, or actually who, it is I need and I have written a number of posts over the last few months explaining this, I realise that (at least at the moment) I can actually live with the distinct probability that I will not find him. I think I can actually be happy just to be me and to LIKE being me.

Liking myself is such a weird feeling, I could really get used to it!

So perhaps 42 (years) is after all the answer, the answer to when one understands "Life, the Universe and Everything".

So long and thanks for all the FISH (Freindship In the Syber Hemispere!)

Hil

P.S. OK it's cyber but it didn't fit, call it artistic license!

P.P.S I'm not leaving either, I'll be back soon.

I'm back or rather we are ...

... the bug and I, it has me good and proper in its grip. Oh it is so clever, during the day it just raises its ugly head a few times but come the night I cough so much I even wake myself up, which is a serious pain as I find it near impossible to get to sleep because I am coughing too much, grrrr!

Life is weird at the moment a big mix of positives and negatives:

+ I have realised that for the first time in a long time, actually, the first time ever, I am actually comfortable being me, warts and all.


- Things are not going well with Andrew, OK so I only have myself to blame, but it is hard going.

- Due to various reasons (e.g. needing to spend one week in three out of the country for work), I have reluctantly decided to send my little one to boarding school like his sisters next year. So we went to visit a prospective school whilst on holiday, we both liked the place and the close, warm family atmosphere and the child led educational philosphies they follow. So he spent a couple of taster days and one night there and not only did he love it to bits, they also loved him to bits. They have very small classes so he will get all the individual attention he needs to reach his considerable potential, he is one seriously smart cookie e.g. he has a reading/spelling age of 11 and he is not yet 7 and his current school cannot really stretch him as he is so far in advance of all his classmates and they have to teach to their level and not his. The new school has less kids in the whole school than his current school has in just his own year group and they only have a dozen or so kids who actually board. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming and just like a close knit family so I know he will be fine and get enough attention. In fact, he is absolutely thrilled and keeps telling everyone about it. However, his mother is not coping well despite knowing all this, knowing that there are good reasons for him to go, because he is after all still my 'baby'.


+ 2 of my kids have had their birthdays and I managed to "get" my youngest by turning up with the complete family and a birthday cake or two and throwing a surprise party at her school, she had thought I was at home in Germany. You should have seen her face, priceless!

- my search for a new partner is not going well, I am probably too picky and demanding, but I suppose it is early days, there are some weirdos out there though!! (Anyone who knows a nice dominant guy who likes to spank and would love to take care of a mad rocket scientist, please could you point them in my direction (;-))

+ even though the lovely Bill has left Germany now, he might just have to pop back here for a quick visit to tie off all the lose ends, yay!

- Well I am off to cough myself to sleep once more and to try to drown the bug in cough syrup! Watch out he doesn't get you too...

Hil

Holiday Blues

No I've not disappeared, I'm just on holiday. Having lots of fun with my niece who is a cutie pie. The only trouble is I've developed a nasty cough which I just cannot shake. Why do I always get sick on my holidays, it is not fair, grr, whinge, whinge.

More as soon as I am back, if the cough doesn't get me of course!

Hil

Random Musings and Sadness

Andrew is having a hard time coping with the new dynamics in our relationship, he does not like the fact that I am no longer mothering him and he most definitely does not like that I am seeing other men, even though at the moment it is not for anything long term. So he is being exceeding unpleasant to me at the moment. He spends every evening going round in circles explaining how it is all my fault that I need a dominant (I know this) and that I have ruined his dreams of marriage etc, etc (I know this too). He wants to spend hours repeating the same discussions about how in theory the relationship will work if I bring a new partner into the dynamic. I say there is no point in talking theory as a) I do not have someone yet (and probably never will) and b) the actual dynamic will depend on the individual so there is no point in wasting time worrying about it until it happens. I know he is hurting but I do not know how to handle all this, it just feels like I am having salt rubbed into an open wound again and again.

In addition to that September is always a difficult month for me as it is the anniversary of my father's death. This year marks 15 years since he died and I can hardly believe how much has changed since then. In 1993 I was the mother of a 11 month old baby girl and was 4th months pregnant with my second child. Now I am the mother of 4 with my oldest about to turn 16.

How my father would have loved to see my children grow up, he was crazy about my first born and spoiled her rotten, he would not let me push her in her stroller when he was about, he insisted on pushing his granddaughter himself, sometimes even my mother could not get a look in!

As I have written before one of the things that I particularly need in a partner is someone who makes me feel safe and secure, I need to have boundaries to push against to be sure that they are there, consequences when I break the rules and someone else to take the reigns out of my hands so I can rest. All these things define safety for me. For my children and Andrew I am the person who fulfils that role, I make them feel safe, I organise their lives, make sure everything runs smoothly and that they want for nothing. As the oldest child I also feel that it is my role to also take care of my mother and my "little" sister (OK so she is nearly 39 but she is still my baby sister) and her family and to protect them all. But I have no-one to do that for me. I have to fight my own battles, I have to be constantly on guard and I never have any down time. Someone always needs something from me.

Yesterday with all of this sadness and hurt rolling around in my head and more than a few tears rolling down my cheeks I realised that the last time I actually felt safe was in September 1993 when my father was still alive. He was the person whom I trusted to protect me from harm even though I was a 25-year-old woman and mother of (nearly) 2 then. I'm nearly 42 now and have survived for fifteen years without him but I still have such a strong need to find someone else who can make me feel that way again. Silly isn't it.

Got Spanked - Hooray

As you know I am currently dealing with a serious obsession about spanking, yes I know that I want a full time Dominant Sadist to take me on, but as I said in the short term I'd make do with a damn good spanking.

Thus after all the upsets of last week with my problems with the "less than honest" Mike I'll now have to eat at least some of my words (only the small ones OK, nothing too major or indigestible) and admit that internet dating sites also can have their good points. On one of these I have recently "met" an American guy who is working temporarily in a city about a half hour drive south of me. He was clear in his profile that he did not want a permanent relationship, and as he has to return home to the States that would not be possible anyway, but he clearly has a sense of humour so I sent him a cheeky e-mail asking if he'd like to spank me. Outrageous behaviour I know, but a girl's gotta try!

We exchanged a number of e-mails and found that we share a similar sense of humour and work in similar professions. I directed him to the blog as a good place to get to know me and he was very complimentary about it. Well I'm a sucker for a compliment so we decided that it would be fun to meet for dinner and a chat.

Although I do have vanilla friends that know about my lifestyle I really would like to have "real" rather than cyber friend to talk about BDSM things with, in addition advice from an exerienced Dom is always useful. He had galantly offered to actually spank me in one e-mail as he said that "I was clearly a Damsel-in-Distress" and a good Knight "could not let a lady suffer now could he"! However, we decided to see how we got on before deciding whether we would play a little together.

Well, we had dinner yesterday evening and it was lovely. He was a perfect gentleman, not only did he hold the umbrella over my head as we walked as it was raining he also paid for dinner, which I was not expecting and opened the car door for me to get in. I cannot rememer the last time I have been with such an attentive gentleman.

We did hit it off after I got past my usual shyness and he agreed to take me home and administer the spanking that I have been craving for some time. He was kind and gentle (apart from the spanking bit at which he was very proficcient!) and really helped to put me at my ease. I was nervous as anything as this was only the second "play" session of my life.

As I said he was an excellent spanker, and also a very "caring" and sensual sadist who made sure that I was coping with everything and was not too nervous. He easily managed to get me into "masochist subspace heaven" and I spaced out for a while. Sadly several of my implements did not fare so well and will not live to see another spanking. I really need to order some better quality ones as long as I do not have to visit the German Customs Office again (see here for that story)!

I very much enjoyed our play time and the time he took with the aftercare and snuggling afterwards. It is a shame that they have found someone to do his job here permanently, I'd love him to stay nearby. Nevertheless, I hope we can meet again before he has to return to other side of the pond.

Thank you Bill, you have restored my faith in man-kind.

Hil

Important Petition

Dear Readers

Raheretic from The Heron Clan, has in a recent post drawn my attention to a petition to have the DSM which identifies anyone who enjoys BDSM or even "just"adult consensual spanking and Domestic Discipline as having a "mental disorder", changed. Please see the above linked post and the quoted text below. I would encourage all of my readers to sign the petition, you can hide your name from display in the petition if you wish.

"The NCSF, National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, that advocacy arm of the BDSM and polyamory community, is mounting a campaign to influence the A.P.A. to change the DSM to conform to empirical research, and abandon the stigma and ignorance based biases it has relied on in its past pronouncements about BDSM. NCSF has done an excellent job in laying out the case for how inappropriate this is in their "White Paper" on this topic.

There is a petition to the A.P.A. to change how it deals with our lifestyle. Please sign the petition urging the A.P.A. to make this change."

Hil

Where am I ?

Good question, huh!

It is easily answered in the literal sense as I am sitting at my laptop which is in my kitchen, in my house, which is located in a small village in the middle of Germany, Europe, the World!

In the metaphysical sense is is anything but simple, and I do not know the answer to that question at all. After a lot of soul searching, much thought and a fair few posts, I have finally decided where to go next. The trouble is how to get there. If any of you happen to have a map showing me the correct / easiest / shortest way that would be extremely helpful.

In the short term my need to get spanked, to defuse some of the building stress, is what seems to be mostly on my mind, in truth I am totally obsessing about it. I was helping friends to move house yesterday and whilst moving one of the bags I managed to whip myself on the ear with an old riding whip, I know must have been really clever to achieve this by accident, you had to be there!!! It of course hurt like mad but sadly it drew my attention towards the whip and thus I spent the next few hours fantasising about it being applied to my backside, aaahhh, help someone!

On the other hand obsessing about spanking has had some benefits as it has managed to take my mind off the upset caused by Mike last week and the court case against my ex which is coming up next week.

The trouble is the long term, I know that it is not just about spanking, it is much, much more than that, I really need to find that dominant, controlling man. I really, really need to find someone to submit to, to set boundaries, to give me a place where I feel safe.

And there is the rub, all this "stuff" that I need makes "dating" much more difficult, it makes you much more vulnerable and more open to hurt because you need to expose your "soft underbelly", at least a bit. How do you do this and avoid the Mikes of this world at the same time? Answers on a postcard please ...


... on the other hand getting spanked right now would let the pressure off a bit, wouldn't it!

Submissive ≠ Stupid

I am absolutely hopping mad at the moment, it seems that there are some people out there that seem to think that because I am a submissive that I am also stupid.

For these particular idiots I have a special news flash ...

SUBMISSIVE DOES NOT EQUAL STUPID !

If I am going to meet in person someone that I have first met on the internet then obviously, I am going to take certain precautions to ensure my own safety. Firstly I am going to use a safecall for the actual meeting so that if I do not check in with a friend by a certain time then that friend is going to call the Police and give them all the details about the meeting place. Secondly, before (and after) I get to that point I will also use all my considerable resources (and modesty!) to verify that the person who I am meeting/have met is who they say they are and that the information that they provide to me is accurate. This is common sense if you are a woman, especially one trying to find a BDSM based relationship at the "wrong" end of the whip.

Suffice it to say that I have been chatting to someone online and by phone for a couple of weeks and I actually met him in person when on business in London last week. He seemed very nice, although a little older than the photo on the website (should have rung warning bells perhaps, but middle aged men can be so vain at times). We talked for a while and he did demonstrate that he understood the sort of relationship dynamics that I was looking for (you know the ones!), having had a relationship like that before. So after a pleasant evening, with a teensy bit of spanking, albeit over clothes, thrown in, we agreed to see each other again.

He explained at some length then and subsequently over the phone, that his life was rather busy at present, but that he was working on freeing up some more time to enjoy himself and also a potential partner. All very promising I hear you say, but, I have a suspicious, some may say devious mind and thus continued the online researching which I had started before we met.

Well to cut a long story short this research led me to a "minor" inaccuracy in his story. Well minor to the extent that he seems to have "forgotten" when describing his family to mention that he has a daughter. In truth, actually he told me that he did not have any children and shared with me an extremely moving story about his previous girlfriend who had aborted their child leaving him devastated.

To be fair this whole story may not have been either a lie or an embellishment, he might not actually have a daughter. The trouble is if he doesn't have one then he is instead lying on Ebay where he is selling the car he "bought for his daughter in May" because she has "gone back to college".

Actually it does not matter, either way he is a liar and is thus not to be trusted.

So to steal a phrase from a popular British quiz show,

"Mike, you are the Weakest Link, Goodbye".

Where to next - part 3 - Masochism

To paraphrase the famous Bard, "to spank or not to spank that is the question ..."

At the end of the last part of this saga I wrote that I believed that if I found a partner with that "dominant" streak that I could live without the spanking part. However, a close friend of mine, on reading that post in the blog challenged me, over a nice cup of Yorkshire Tea (best kind of tea in the world!), to tell him if that was really true. Apparently when I talk about spanking in both forms, both the disciplinary mode and the "masochist subspace" version, it is clear that I am very passionate about the benefits of the whole experience and sort of glow with a sort of inner contentment. Thus he was not sure that I really could do without something that he said seems to feed my "inner self" so deeply.

I have struggled with this question over the last few weeks, on the one hand, I do actually think it is true that I could probably live without it, BUT that said, in true "having it all" mode, I would obviously like to have both dominance and spanking! A girls gotta try, hasn't she, who says I can't have my cake AND eat it!

I have been thinking hard about this over the last week or so and the best sort of explanation that I can come up with is the following.

On an intellectual level I can easily rationalise giving up spanking if I have a true dominant to care for me and direct my life. The trouble is that I have come to realise more and more in the last few days that my need to be spanked is also very strongly rooted in the physical and emotional levels.

I need the emotional connection that a good spanking gives, I need to know that my partner cares for me so much that they set the boundaries, make sure that they are enforced and should it be necessary to "give up their time" to administer any necessary discipline. I want to be able to push at these boundaries and feel that they are safe and secure around me, protecting me.

On the physical level, the true masochist in me I suppose I would have to say, has been experiencing a real physical yearning or craving to be spanked. Naturally I have had intellectual or emotional cravings, as a chocoholic having tried a number of unsuccessful diets it is hard not to, but this is the first time I have felt such a deep truly physical yearning. It is like a sort of dull ache, an itch that you cannot scratch, that just does not go away, it just sits there growing steadily, especially when I am feeling stressed or upset. I feel like a bottle of Coke that someone is shaking, they are shaking it oh so gently, but I know that eventually I am going to explode unless someone takes off the lid and allows the pressure to dissipate.

So, can I really live without being spanked?

The answer, I suppose is, probably not, especially if I do not want to make a mess on the carpet!

Where to next - part 2 - Dominance

Dominance, what does it mean? Well Dictionary.com gives the following definition:

dom·i·nance ,noun

1.	rule; control; authority; ascendancy.

2.	the condition of being dominant.

3.	Psychology. the disposition of an individual to assert control in dealing with others.

Point 3 just about sums it up for me "the disposition of an individual to assert control in dealing with others". How do I know, well because I have met Raheretic and there is just "something" about a true dominant which allows you to know with absolute certainty that he is a dominant and has a "disposition-to-assert-control". He has a tangible presence, an attitude and bearing rather than a physical presence which just lets you know this. It is not a sort of "malign" influence where you feel unexpectedly frightened in his presence, actually you do not at all feel that way, in fact you feel completely secure. I'm sure most women have met men who frightened them or made them really uncomfortable, yet there was no real overt reason for this to be so, it was not like this at all.

Until this point I can say that I had never met a true dominant. During all of our IM, phone and e-mail contact with the Herons there was just "something" about Raheretic that I could not explain. One way to explain it is that I never really used the designation "Sir" to refer to Andrew, it has always seemed a little silly, theatrical or OTT for me, but, I found that in my head I wanted to say "Sir" when I talked to Raheretic, even though I did not do so out loud because at that time it still seemed a little strange to me.

One one of our first evenings in an attempt to improve his techniques Andrew asked to try out several of Raheretic's paddles. It was a bizarre situation for me, the first time, excepting my regular visits to German saunas which are clothes free, where I had ever been either naked in front of "strangers" or spanked in public. Andrew and Raheretic discussed spanking techniques and demonstrated upon me while I was lying over Andrew's knee. Then Raheretic told me to stand up and bend over the bench, he explained that when he was in charge I was to do exactly what he said, I was to stand where he said, do as I was told immediately and was not to speak or move unless he gave me permission. I then got to sample a number of different paddles, though I am not really sure which ones as I could not see!. The paddling was exceedingly painful and it was all I could do to hang onto the bench and stand still, I was clutching the bench for dear life until my knuckles were white. But it just did not occur to me to move, painful as it was, I would not have done so because Raheretic had told me not to. It was as simple as that.

The following night I got to experience Swan's beloved flogging frame, it is a great piece of design, has both artistic form and function as both an item of furniture and an instrument of torture, which as an engineer I appreciated greatly. Actually as a masochist I appreciated it's functional form a great deal too!

First Raheretic gave Swan a flogging which she has described here better than I ever could. It was incredible to see their chemistry, their closeness, their togetherness in action, their love for each other just radiated out into the room. This was amazing but I experienced something I did not expect, I have never seen anyone else spanked/flogged and even though Swan seemed to be enjoying it, even revelling in it, I found that I could not watch, I had to close my eyes because it upset me to the point that it made me cry, I can't really explain it other than I felt like it would have been easier for me to have been standing there in her place, taking her pain for her rather than watching her experience it, and I do not mean that I was jealous and wanted to be spanked instead of her, more that I wanted to take away her pain, to "save" her from it, even though I know that she too is a masochist and was enjoying it.

Then it was my turn and I stepped up onto the frame. There were almost no words exchanged between Raheretic and me, I just knew what I was supposed to do, he had told me once the night before and there was no need for him to tell me again, I was just to stand on that frame, keep still and do as I was told.

I know that he went through all manner of implements, floggers, whips, canes, quirts etc of varying weights and designs, he also used I believe a knife and a Wartenburg wheel (at least that is what Andrew told me later), many of them made me want to scream with pain (but I was also aware that I could not do this as it might to upset the neighbours, being quiet was one of the rules that Raheretic had mentioned the night before too), I was sobbing my heart out at several points, crying silently in others, I know that I was holding onto the frame for dear life, one slightly surreal moment was when I realised the downside of perfectly manicured, false nails, they are just not at all sharp and thus you cannot dig them into your palms to help cope with the pain (I know I was really trying!). I also tried most if not all of the pain distraction techniques I had learned whilst in labour having my 4 kids, but the pain was worse than childbirth "au naturelle" and they just did not distract me. But despite all of the above I did not want it to end. I just knew that I was going to stand there and do as He had said, it would not have occurred to me to disobey him in any way. It was not that I would not have dared to because I was frightened, it was just that this was just not an option. I suppose I could have yelled at him to stop, not that he would have done of course as he is a sadist, but I just would not and could not have done so.

I did not know how long it lasted, 30 mins or so was Andrew's estimate. At some point I finally entered what I believe is called "subspace", I could still feel the pain, was still connected to it but at the same time I was floating somewhere up on the ceiling and did NOT want to come down, NO way NO how.

And then suddenly it was over, I recall Raheretic telling me that he thought I had had enough. In my head I was screaming "NO, please DON'T stop" but I could not have verbalised those thoughts even if I had tried. It was the longest, most incredibly painful session I have ever had combined with being the most amazing, mind blowing experience of my entire 41 years. In some ways even more mind blowing than giving birth, because I was not expecting it to be like that.

This is what dominance means to me, it is personality, attitude and presence. After that one 30 minutes I just knew that I wanted, no needed, to have someone in my life who could "do" that to me, to make me feel and act that way.

I am not talking here about the flogging, nor am I implying that I "fell in love" with Raheretic, because I did not (lovely though he is!), I am talking about finally "getting it", finally understanding that what I need in my life is a strong, dominant man.

I struggled with this issue for several days and finally talked it over with Raheretic, telling him that I had realised I finally understood that what I truly crave, a true dominant man to be in control. Even if that man never, ever, spanked me, even though I would be really sad I could live with it, as long as he had that Dominant "je ne sais pas" thing that makes me go weak at the knees when I hear his voice.

That thing that Raheretic has and Andrew does not, that thing that I now know I cannot do without. Sure if he were to be a dominant as well as a sadist who likes to spank then that would be great, as long as he is a Dominant with a capital 'D' then that is OK by me.

Hil

More hurt and upset, why can't life be simple?

Andrew was here briefly over the weekend, coming to collect the kids and accompany them back to school and like the gentleman he is, he offered to spank me. I wasn't sure what to do with that offer as I know that the level of pain I need him to inflict to do me any good is not the level that he is comfortable with, he just likes a little playful light spanking, not the full on flogging that I want. The trouble was that it has been more than 3 weeks since I last had a decent spanking and I was just craving a good long and hard session. In short I just could not say no and in addition a friend had bought me a nice paddle/tawse cross sort of thing as a present from Amsterdam and I wanted to try it out. Well in the past I have said that what I really like is a good hard flogging with style and finesse, but failing that brute force will just have to do. This time it didn't, I do not know whether it was the fact that I haven't been spanked for so long and have gone all wimpy, or that I know that Andrew is really unhappy hurting me or just that my head just isn't right at the moment, but it was a disaster for me, it just left me feeling frustrated, angry and on edge. It was not Andrew's fault at all, I should just have said no.

The trouble is that I have this real physical longing my whole body aches with a craving to be spanked, it isn't just a mental thing it has a huge physical part, like an itch that I can't scratch and it is driving me insane. I was so desperate with this feeling that I even found myself sending an e-mail to a random stranger (on one of the BDSM dating sites that I have joined to look for a new partner) and asking if he wants to give me a damn good spanking, just because he is a dominant, he lives nearby and likes to spank, I must be crazy. The trouble is I am also desperate to be spanked and I do not know what to do.

So Monday morning rolls around, I am stressed because of the failed spanking of Saturday night, but mostly coping and then my stupid ex-husband upsets the apple cart again.

Today the Police took him to court to take out an order banning him from certain dangerous behaviour that he has been indulging in, instead of just accepting the order he decided to fight it, so I am forced to have to fight him in court.

Although they have said I can prepared a written submission for the police to introduce on my behalf they would prefer me to be in court to represent myself and counter any argument he might have. So I have to face him again and I don't think I can. But I want him out of my life and the lives of my children and it seems that the best way for me to ensure this is to go to court, oh hell, I do not want to have to do this, I don't think I am up to it, but what choice do I have? Why can't he just drop dead and make my day.

Finally as not to end on a negative note, I have been chatting (on-line and off) to a lovely British guy called Mike, one of the few sane people that I have met from the above mentioned dating sites, he is sane as he actually read all through my profile and did not just try to send me pictures of his genitalia. So far we seem to be hitting it off, he has listened to me rambling about all my issues, listened to me fantasising about his whips and the like and he does seem to understand where I am coming from. Wish me luck as we try to deepen our friendship.

That's it for now, I'll try to post part 2 of the "Where to now?" on Domination and what it means to me later in the week if real life doesn't get in the way and I have some strength left after writing the letter to the court.

Hil

Where to next ?

So after all the upheaval and soul searching of the last few weeks where exactly do I go from here? I know the "easy" part about what I need in my life to make me feel happy, safe and secure; dominance, control and Masochism (pain), but these are simple words to bandy about but what do they mean in practice, how do or can they fit with my version of real life. As we know real life has a real knack of getting in the way of your desires and my real life is a it more complicated than a lot of peoples, oh for a desert island, a hammock and a bit of peace and quiet!!

In order that I can share with a potential new partner, what all the above means to me I have been thinking around the subjects of Control, Dominance and Masochism as how can I tell them what I need if I do not know myself.

Thus with no further ado I'll move onto my definition of control.

I suppose control is something that I find very important as in the rest of my life I am a total control freak. Perhaps this is why I need so strongly in my private life someone else to be in control. For me having someone in control of me is a real turn on. But they really must be in control and not just because I say so. This was of course how Andrew and I survived, he pretended to be in control and I let him think he was, well some of the time I did, the rest of the time I bottomed from the top or just plain mothered him. This was not a turn on at all as I have already got 4 kids and did not need another. I suppose the est way of summarising this is to say that I do not want the famous sign "I'm the boss in this house and I have my wife's permission to say so" anywhere in my home. I want to know that in my home I am loved and protected by a man who is strong and powerful enough to be in control. He'd need to be pretty strong and powerful to control someone like me

To date I have obviously picked the wrong kind of guys, e.g. my ex-husband could never have been in control of me, he was not capable, it would have most probably have been disastrous for us as a family if I had let him (e.g. he was an alcoholic) and actually he would not have dared anyhow. Andrew though poles apart from my ex, was made for the above sign, he was only the one in control because I let him be. That said we did play a lot of mind games based on control which I did enjoy, e.g he used to insist that I wear a butt plug or no knickers to work if I had misbehaved to remind me "who was the boss". But, the trouble was that I would go along with "his demands" to maintain the fiction of him being in control rather than because I was truly concerned about the consequences if I did not do as I was told. He tried set the "boundaries" for the relationship because I asked him to, but he did not enforce them, well not unless he was really angry with me. On a few occasions as I have recounted before he did actually spank me against my will for whatever transgression, and as he is 6'2" and about 22 stone he was easily able to overpower me and hold me down even when I was kicking and screaming and telling him no. The ironic thing is that these were of course the most erotic times for me, as I felt that even for a short while he would finally turn into a "real" man. The spankings at this time were often more painful too which made it better from that respect too. Unfortunately, as has been pointed out to me by my Raheretic, this was also the time when I was in real danger as it is not smart to allow someone who cannot control their temper to spank you.

What I really need is someone who does all this because he wants it, he sets the boundaries (OK really these are jointly negotiated as every relationship has two parties, but he of course gets the final say), he decides the consequences and carries them out, if necessary. As far as I can see, and understand from talking to other people, these consequences should not usually be necessary if I have a truly dominant man because I will not need to push at the boundaries to test and see if they are secure, I will just know that they are and of course secondly I will not dare as I will know I cannot escape the consequences! Of course there will always be the times when I act like a brat as we all have our off days but with real consequences they should not be too often. Given my masochistic side I would probably want to also get what some people term "good girl" spankings if I have been good or regular "submissive spankings" to remind me who is in charge just so that I do not feel the need to break the rules just to get spanked.

I do fantasise (and have nightmares) about having someone that I trust to give this level of control to. I'd have to trust that person implicitly to give up that control as I could not be happy nor safe and secure if I was not certain that I could trust them to have my best interests at heart. One thing that goes hand in hand with trust in this type of power exchange relationship is respect. This is what what missing in my relationship with Andrew, I trust him implicitly but I do not respect him in a lot of ways, e.g.he is disorganised, has absolutely no common sense, dresses like a tramp, has no practical skills, does not know how to behave in public and is constantly sarcastic particularly to my two older daughters who hate it. Without respect as well as trust there is no point in giving someone else control, especially when you know that you will not face any real consequences if you step out of line.

I suppose a lot of people thing that it is a bit "wimpy" or cowardly or shirking responsibility to want to give control to someone else. But despite and perhaps because I have not followed a traditional role up to now being more "masculine" in perspective being the major bread winner, being a rocket scientist not to mention single parent of 4 etc, etc I do have the traditional view of how it should be inside the home. The man is the boss and takes charge and the woman follows, yes she has a responsibility to speak up and give her opinion/share her experience, provided she does it in a proper manner, she is NOT a doormat but he gets to make the final decision. In addition to that I do find being the man and the woman, the mum and dad all the time is very tiring and I've had to do that through periods of stress that would have floored most people, I suppose I want the chance to relax and take back my traditional feminine role and be the caring, nurturing wife and mother. I know I'll still have to keep the masculine side at work, someone has to pay the bills, and to deal with the kids if they misbehave but the rest of the time I can be a "real" woman.

I suppose in short, damn the feminists, I want men to be allowed to be men without being required to deny their dominant natures and women to be women and allowed not to have to act like men.

Hil

Voyages ctd

As usual real life intervened somewhat as it has a tendency to do and thus the second part of our trip description has been a little delayed, sorry, here it is.

Conversely to the confusion that I have already mentioned that Andrew was suffering, for the first time in a long time I was awash with complete clarity, I could identify at last the "thing" which was missing from my life, the 'attentions' of a true dominant preferably also one who is also a sadist who likes to spank. In short I want to live in a relationship where my partner is the dominant male, where I can not 'top from the bottom' as the saying goes, I enjoy being submissive to a dominant male. If he also likes to spank me to the point where I can enter that blissful state of sub-space again then that would be heaven.

Unfortunately my elation was also becoming tinged with sadness as it was becoming clear that Andrew was not going to be able to be that person. The trouble is that I love Andrew dearly and I did not want to lose him.

Andrew and I talked many times over the next few days and he tried to convince me that he could be more dominant and would practice daily to learn to use the floggers and whips so he could give me "proper" intense spankings. However, I know him well and I was never really convinced that he could or would want to sacrifice the amount of time that he would need to truly become competent with the floggers and whips.

After a lot of soul searching and upset he finally admitted that not only was I right that he would prefer to spend that time on his beloved cars and films, but that he really hates to give me anything more than a little light spanking for fun. He admitted that he really hates inflicting pain on me and that he knows that the only times he has come close to really decent spankings have been when he was very angry with me and was venting his anger on me to some extent. He agreed that his BDSM fantasies are best left on the page or screen and not played out in real life. But, he of course said that he did not want to lose me as he also 'loves me to bits'.

We were both in shock having found at first glance a real show-stopper for our relationship. I was adamant that I could and would not give up the submissive masochist side of me now I had found it and admitted it to myself. Equally there was no way that Andrew was going to be able to provide the counterpoint to that for me.

Raheretic and I talked for along time around and around the subject, and he also recalled and paraphrased something once said to Swan many years ago which she has recounted here, this was basically that "she was a submissive woman, her husband was not a Dominant and one day she would leave her husband and go and find a Dominant". He strongly suspected that I would eventually feel the need to do the same as it was clear that I was never going to be happy in a relationship without a Dominant "of my own" and I was going to have to look elsewhere if I wanted to have that as Andrew was clearly not able to fulfil that role. The possibility of Andrew and I breaking up was not what any of us has envisaged happening during our visit, and the Clan were very distressed by the whole thing, me rushing off and crying in corners did not really help them at all either. I just could not bear the thought of losing Andrew, nor could I know accept that I could not satisfy the submissive-masochist part of me which has been craving attention for so long.

Raheretic and I talked for hours as we made the long drive from the top of Ohio to the bottom, via a very nice Cracker Barrel lunch and a shop in one of the wonderful outlet malls, and he counselled me with very many kind and wise words. He really is a very nice sadist, I promise you! He did, of course, point out one potential solution to my dilemma, polyamory. Before meeting the Clan it would never have occurred to me that I could have both Andrew and a dominant sadist in my life.

However, having spent a week with Raheretic, Swan and T I had a new perspective on life, I had seen first hand what a successful polyamorous relationship could be like. Swan has captured this so well in her post here, and I have seen what a strong family they are, their relationship works so well and it works because they work at it. Perhaps because the dynamics of a polyamorous relationship are so much more complex than a more usual one it is necessary to work at it much more to make it successful, but it also seems that the return from that investment is multiplied many times over, to the power three rather than two.

Looking critically at my relationship with Andrew reflected in the eyes of these three very kind, good and lovely people has enabled me to see some real, mostly unpleasant, home truths about myself. I have spent such a lot of effort to "force" Andrew to fit in the "dominant sadist" box, naturally failing miserably. I have then despised him for his failure to fit. Andrew has tried himself to get into this box, desperate to please me and has been "rewarded" by my mockery of his efforts and his own guilt about failing. This has made us both very unhappy, as I have been in the driving seat in all this I must take the majority of the blame.

So, to cut the rest of the long story short as there were many more hours of discussion, much soul searching, plenty of tears, harsh words, shouting and the like before we reached the end, Andrew has graciously agreed to stay with me and to allow me to follow my crazy dream of finding a second partner who is a Dominant Sadist to fulfil that missing part of my life and spank my backside. I I do find one then we will try to live as a polyamorous triad with me as the pivot point. This is clearly not a simple solution and has required a lot of thought to decide to give it a whirl, I particularly am going to have to put in a great deal of effort to make it work, maybe I will not succeed but I know that I have to try.

Andrew can now stop trying to be what he is not and I can truly appreciate what he does have and not only see what he does not. Andrew has so very many good points which I often ignored in my quest to make him into the "perfect" man. I hope now I can make him happy and not miserable and defensive all the time.

I cannot believe that I am so blessed to have such a man in my life, I do not deserve the deep level of love and commitment that he has shown me, thank you Darling, I will do my best to not disappoint you.

Hil

A Voyage of Discovery

Well there is so much to say about our visit to the Heron's that I do not know where to start, it is all so complicated and emotional so please stay with me as I struggle to put this all into words.

Firstly, it was most of all, a wonderful journey of discovery and I have learned some very valuable lessons about myself, difficult and sometimes painful ones, but all extremely valuable. In all of this I have had the most wonderful mentors in Raheretic, Swan and T and I really do not know how to express my gratitude for all they have taught me, shared with me and endured with me.

So before I go any further, from the bottom of my heart I wish to say a public huge THANK YOU for everything to them all.

Well, how can I explain it, well perhaps I should start right from the beginning, you can read in some of my previous posts about how we initially made contact with the Clan and following this, we had a number of IM and Skype chats which resulted in Andrew finally persuading me to agree to take the guys up on their generous offer of visiting them in the US of A. It has to be said that he was becoming much more interested in the BDSM and polyamory side of life rather than the more vanilla-like DD which we were living. I was more reluctant at first being mostly happy with our DD life, but in the end chatting with all three Herons was so much fun that I decided, 'what the hell' and that I would actually like to meet them in person. So I booked the tickets and a few months later we were "leaving on a jet plane" to visit.

We did a lot of stuff, we shopped, went swimming, visited the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, saw a great baseball game (and Raheretic explained all the rules to me) watched the Olympics on the goggle box, ate wonderful meals made by Swan and T (they are GREAT cooks) and talked, talked, talked.

I also got to experience, from the sharp end, a significant selection from the vast arsenal of "weaponry" which the Clan posses. The first evening it was paddles of every description, the second night it was the fantastically designed flogging frame with a vast selection of floggers, whips and canes, I know not quite what was being used as I obviously could not see! The session seemed to go on for ever, but I did not want it to end, even though it was the most intensely painful experience I have ever had it was also totally and utterly mind blowing. In fact I did not come down from the high for several days. I finally visited that place the "masochists' sub-space" described so well by Swan in several of her posts. Experiencing the attentions of a true Dominant such as Raheretic was incredible, I tell you that I would not have dared to do anything but obey his every command, calling him "Sir" throughout was somehow so natural, nothing like the 'play acting' feeling I have always had when calling Andrew the same.

OMG, I was so elated but at the same time scared, if I could feel like that from such a painful 'beating' then I was finally going to really acknowledged something which I have been hiding from for some time. I am a masochist with a capital 'M', a screaming masochist was how Raheretic described it! The genie was finally out of the bottle, what on earth was I going to do, there was no way I could put him back, so all I could do was ask Raheretic to do it all again the next night of course!

So where was Andrew in all this, well he was watching it all with a view to learning the techniques of how to "successfully flog your woman". The problem was that he is not very dexterous and so was not too successful in his early attempts, becoming disheartened very quickly. All the Clan tried to jolly him along with Raheretic telling of his own early practice attempts involving exploding light-bulbs and much cleaning of dirty whip marks off walls by T. But it was becoming clear that something more fundamental than his two "left hands" was bothering him and that he was confused about the whole situation.

Given that it is now after 1 am, I'll stop here and try to finish the story tomorrow.

Hil

Still here

Just on holiday in the wonderful US of A with the Herons and having a fantastic time. If you can believe it there are all even more lovely in person. Will post more when we get back and I get over the jet lag.

Love to all

Hil

Sadness

There is no other word to express what I am feeling, I am sad, sad to my bones, sad to every atom of my being. After a conversation between Andrew and my ex in which my ex slagged me off for more than a couple of hours with the core of the conversation being that I am "allowing" the authorities to persecute him and take him away from our children because I am not supporting him because basically I am jealous of him because he knows how to "play" with the children and I do not not.

This man could not tell me the names of his childrens' best friends, my son's favourite transformer character, my youngest daughter's favourite song, what my older two daughter's got in their latest tests at school or how many goals they scored in their latest sports match, yet none of this matters because I am jealous as he is "fun" and I am not. He says this is why his children need him, because I do not know how to play with them and am thus depriving them of this fun life which they need.

How can I be jealous of a bankrupt, alcoholic, deluded, ex-con, I can't, well not any more. I used to be jealous of his easy life, he was sitting in his prison cell with his every moment controlled, his meals provided, his washing done, the recreation center with it's pool tables and playstations, the in-cell TV blaring all day. I was at home juggling 4 very upset children and a full time job,not to mention a nervous breakdown. Then when he came out, he had no responsibilities, never had to be Mr Nasty, never had to "challenge" the children in any way so they adored their perfect father and gave me hell. Oh, I did learn from him because of this, I decided that there was no way I was going to do just the responsible stuff with the kids I was also going to do the fun stuff, the swimming, the cycle picnics, being Optimus Prime trying to prevent Megatron from taking over the world, baking and decorating cupcakes, trying to stop the kids from thrashing me too badly on the Wii and not just nagging them to tidy their rooms or do their homework.

Now, I am not jealous, I pity the man, he will never understand what it is to be a real parent, the joy of it all, the highs and the lows. My oldest daughter told me earlier in the summer that she does want to see her Dad, but that he is only a "best friend" sort of person to do nice things with he is not really a parent. I was going to cry at that point having tried so hard to be this fun person too, but then she went on to explain that I am all that and more, because I also do the difficult parenting part too. Many of her friends are apparently jealous of her relationship with me, they cannot and do not talk to their Mums and tell them the sort of important things she tells me. Then she cried and begged me never to leave her. This was because she knows how close I came to suicide a few years ago at the start of all this story. But the truth is that now I could never do that again, how could I ever contemplate missing the rest of her life, how could I not want to stay here to parent such a fantastic girl. How could I not want to stay when my son tells me that even though he loves school " a lot" he doesn't want to go because he loves me too much to be away from me and his heart hurts when he is not with me. No, now I could never do that.

I am so, so sad that this man, their father, will never have this deep level of joy and satisfaction of being a parent. He will only ever understand the transient, short lived, temporary joy of the "fun" in the here-and-now. I am sad that I "picked" such a man as the father of my children, but hell, I also picked me as their mother. Jealous, I have nothing to be jealous of.

Flogging and Blogging

Despite the assurances of the last post that I would post more details of my current emotional turmoil, as per usual, real life got in the way as it inevitably does and my blogging was put on hold. It is with some envy that I read the blogs of Swan and Morningstar for whom the school holidays are the start of, albeit a too short, period of calm, for me it is the opposite as the various boarding schools turf out my children and send them home to Mum. Naturally they are always accompanied by a large amount of dirty washing and a list of all the uniform items that they have either lost or grown out of during the year for me to replace. In order to combat the "post school stress" I took a couple of weeks off and rented a holiday "cottage" in the UK. Thus, I have been gainfully (!?!) employed in seemingly endless cycle of washing, shopping and sewing on those annoying little name labels on the newly bought uniform.

Unfortunately being in the UK also means visits to the children by their father, my ******* ex-husband, and true to form he behaved awfully causing yet more upset and heartbreak for the children and myself. I have decided, finally, to go to court to prevent this from happening again as I just cannot take much more and remain sane.

In all of this mess although Andrew and I did manage to find a few occasions for mostly "stress relief" spankings, it has just not been enough to keep a "lid on it all" and as time has marched on I have found it hard to cope with everything, getting more and more "out of control" which always ends up with me arguing and been generally extremely bitch to Andrew, taking out this stress on him. He in turn has his own problems as he has finally been formally diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome and is needing to come to terms with this, so has not been in the best of moods himself.

So we ended up basically not talking to each other for the last few days. With me going to bed early and him coming later when I am already asleep. He has been threatening me with a "damn good beating" to deal with my unacceptable behaviour but has been unwilling to actually administer it as he was concerned he might go too far as he was so furious with me. I of course have been desperate for that beating, but have been caught up in the familiar catch 22 situation of not knowing how to ask for this without appearing to be in the driving seat, which I (mostly !) try to avoid doing.

Well, finally after a heated telephone call yesterday, where I admit I was trying to push his buttons to get what I was needing, he snapped and told me to get myself home the second my work day ended. Although this was a "Hallelujah" moment I naturally pointed out all the urgent things I had to do before the spanking could take place, like collect our visitor from the airport and get the house ready etc, etc, etc, but Andrew told me, in no uncertain terms, to shut up, get home and adopt the required position. I thought the day would never end the last couple of hours of work seemed to last forever but finally home time came. I rushed downstairs and changed into my kit for the 7 mile cycle ride home.

I was flying through the countryside at a real rate of knots, newly permed hair blowing in the wind, when bang, my rear tyre got a puncture and went instantly flat at the same time a large clap of thunder rumbled over head. There I was, in the middle of open farmland, 5 miles from home, tyre flat as a pancake, stressed as hell and about to get deluged by the imminent thunderstorm. Although I did have a repair kit my pump was kaput and thus I could not inflate the tyre enough to get home. There were also, thankfully - I think - no passing cyclists, as I sure I could not have explained why it was so urgent that I borrow their pumps so I could get home for a good spanking, what the hell is "spanking" in German anyway! I was sure that Andrew was going to be convinced that I would try anything to get out of my well deserved punishment!

In the end my kids rescued me with a replacement bike, I cycled home on this (you would have died laughing if you had seen me as it was a kids bike so I had my knees up by my ears!), shouted at Andrew as I was so stressed and naturally now I was so late I had to rush to the airport with no time for spanking.

Later, though I did try to postpone the session until after I fixed the puncture (the last time I did this was 20 years ago and I knew I'd be stressed by it), I got my come-uppance, the flogging of the subject line. Normally this is not a word I like to use as it somehow sounds too severe, thus I prefer to use spanking, but to be honest it was the most severe "spanking" I have ever had thus really deserves the term "flogging".

Of course I am still stressed but feeling a lot better than I did yesterday, mind you the cycle to work this morning was not a pleasant experience!

Hil

I'm still here, honest, you just can't see me ...

Hi All

I am sorry that I have been away for so long but there has been a lot going on in my life, both inside my head and in reality which has made blogging too difficult for several reasons.

The reality part is a combination of the end of the school term and the chaos that causes when you have 4 kids to sort out (in 2 different countries and 3 different schools) with the usual round of concerts, sports days and exams to manage and the shenanigans of my ex-husband. He has been acting in a manner which at least spectacularly stupid and at worst possibly dangerous and I have had to spend some considerable time ensuring that my children are properly protected from the worst of his actions by numerous consultations with various legal and professional authorities.

This latest incident is just one of a series which is part of an ongoing saga which stretches back more than 5 years, although I am more able to handle the situation now and do not get as upset as I did before, it is nevertheless emotionally and physically draining to have to do it and it leaves me unable to give much energy to anything else. But the next steps are in the hands of the police and the lawyers and for now I can do no more thus I have time to "enjoy" a bit of a breathing space and to deal with the "stuff" inside my head.

So with no further ado I'll move on to that !

As you will have seem from my recent posts I have been struggling to come to terms with some parts of me which have been slowly emerging as Andrew and I have been following our DD path, namely submission and masochism. I have known, since I was in my mid teens, that these parts of me existed but had not been able to acknowledge or admit to them until very recently. As a small aside I can honestly say that "choosing" a relationship where I get regularly spanked had absolutely nothing to do with these masochistic tendencies, in fact they did not enter my head at all, as chronicled earlier in this blog we started DD for completely different reasons.

However, I digress, what has been happening over the last few months is that I have found that this journey seems to be changing my life in a really radical way and this is not because DD/ BDSM is in itself a radical lifestyle, but because it has started to change something much more fundamental within me.

I have spent some considerable time discussing all this with The Heron Clan, mostly because they are wonderfully nice, non judgemental people, who have "been there done that" in the DD/BDSM world but also because they have some real understanding of my issues on a much deeper level coupled with a real gift for mentoring and excellent communication. Swan pointed out to me that I ought to be posting all my conflicts here in the blog, not because I have found answers yet, because I haven't, but because it helps to write it all down, and perhaps it might help me unravel it a bit, a tough task but here goes!

Well what is the problem, let me try to explain...

Although the changes in Andrew's and my life which we wanted to bring about by embarking on this DD path have indeed started to bear fruit the truth is that this new journey has actually started to change my life in a completely unexpected and radical way, not because DD/BDSM is a "radical" lifestyle but because it has started to make me feel that perhaps I am "finally" allowed to do something for me and this is a pretty unusual concept for me.

For most of my adult life I have lived to do things for other people (partners, husband, kids, family, colleagues), sometimes even doing things to them happy even if they did not make me happy. The truth is that I have always put my needs/wants/desires on hold and made sure that their needs/wants/desires were fulfilled. It is what I believe(d) the traditional role of wife and mother was really about, even though I clearly was/am not a typical wife and mother but perhaps even more because I was not. This traditionalist view was also carried through in my beliefs about sex, a woman is supposed to be totally submissive in the bedroom and lie back and think of England she is not supposed to ask for sex and she is definitely not supposed to like pain etc. I have found that actually I am only happy adopting a submissive role in the bedroom and that when forced into a more dominant role with my ex-husband I was really unhappy. Strangely this is one place where I am a reasonably good submissive, if I can just lick that in the rest of my life that would be great!!

I started therapy 5 years ago after a nervous breakdown induced by a very stressful situation caused by my ex-husband, what I thought would be a short term thing to get me through these issues and involve much cursing and swearing about my stupid ex has turned out to be a long term thing where I mostly talked about me and started to finally deal with the very significant issues that I had, irrespective of the stress related to my ex. Most of my problems centered on my extremely negative self image which was deeply ingrained from years and years of bullying at school. Although I am very lucky in that I had and indeed still have a very supportive and loving family, my school environment was extremely abusive, in short a living hell. In short I had believed everything that the bullies had told me about myself and despite outwardly being a confident and happy person, inside I was deeply unhappy and self-loathing.

It was this self-loathing had always meant that I refused to "allow" myself to do anything that was good for me or would make me happy. I hated the fact that I was overweight but could/would not control my eating, indeed I would often deliberately eat the wrong things to "punish" myself and reinforce the view that I was fat, ugly and useless as I had been told for years. Yet I would proclaim to the world that I was happy with my size and it was the rest of society who were wrong and narrow minded, they should love me for who I was on the inside and not what I looked like on the outside, despite the fact that I despised myself.

This "double bluff" worked well for so long that I had managed to convince myself that it was not my problem it was just the world's problem and it was only through the many, many sessions with my patient therapist that I was finally able to first identify this negative record, that was constantly playing in my head, and then counter it's damaging effects. Thus about 18 months ago I finally started to exercise and lose some weight and become much more happy with my body. I even started to really enjoy the exercising, something that I had always considered as a necessary evil before. I get so much satisfaction when I run 5km or have a good session in the gym, things I never thought I could do in a million years, things that the bullies had said I could never do because I was so fat. I will be honest and say that the record is still there, I know it and recognise it for what it is, but sometimes I still have problems not reacting to it. It sometimes tells me for instance that, because I not only enjoy running and the gym but they are also good for me, I am not "allowed" to do them.

I have been battling this mindset for a while and have been working with my therapist on getting used to the idea that I should be "allowed" to do things that make me happy. As I said before I have spent a lot of my life doing things to make other people happy even though, in some cases it did not make me happy or indeed made me very miserable, but I do get great satisfaction, or you could call it "indirect happiness" out of making others happy. However, "direct" happiness, doing things just for me, because I want to, has not been possible, or if possible has been associated with great feelings of guilt, e.g. I cannot go shopping to spend the money (that I alone work hard to earn) on myself unless I really "need" the item, but I can buy totally frivolous things for other people who clearly do not need, nor often in the case of my kids deserve them. I suppose in a warped way doing things to make others happy and at the same time me unhappy has continued to "feed" my need to punish myself because I "know" I am a bad person, I suspect this is why this behaviour has continued for so long.

And so to now, coming to terms with my self image issues when dealing with "normal" things like diet, exercise and body image was one thing but now, starting to deal with much more "not normal", but even deeper and stronger issues like submission and masochism is a whole new ball game. I am already "bad" as I am overweight and cannot control my eating, for example, what must I be because I have a deep desire to be submissive and an enjoyment of pain - crazy, evil, certifiable?

Perversely it is purely because these needs are so strong that I have been forced to address them, now I have taken "it" out of the box, I cannot put "it" back. I have finally to admit that there is something that I want AND need so strongly that I cannot any longer suppress it. I am going to have to "allow" myself to have something that I actually want, because I cannot face the alternative, living without it, this now seems impossible. It is too late to turn back, I am out of control now, even though I am terrified of what the future may hold as Andrew and I continue down this path, I know I cannot go back to life as it was.

So the battle between what I want (the good stuff) and what I am "allowed" to have (the bad stuff) has been raging for a few weeks now. It seems the more I move down the path to what I want towards submission the harder the other good stuff (diet and exercise) becomes to do. I have been eating badly and missing the gym in order to somehow "compensate" for exploring and enjoying the "wanted" submissive and masochistic side of me. It is like I have to do these negative things to balance out the positive ones.

So, this is part one of my current turmoil, I'll try and post the rest in a couple of days, just need to put the washing on and start packing for my holiday which starts on Friday - yippee.

Hil

June is bustin' out all over ...

June is bustin' out all over
The ocean is full of Jacks and Jills (or is that Hils ?!),
With the little tail a-swishing'
Ev'ry lady fish is wishin'
That a male would come
And grab 'er by the gills!

I've always loved the musical Carousel and I realised that one of the verses could sort of be DD related, OK so just indulge me in my fantasy for a minute ... "the little tail", or was that a paddle "a swishin" and the "lady fish wishin' " that she would be grabbed "by the gills" for a swift spanking perhaps!

I wonder what other songs I can adapt for DD, off the top of my head I can think of only one other which is from another musical, Cabaret, "Helga is the baby. I'm just like a father to her. So when she's bad, I spank her. And she's very, very, very, very, very bad"! Sounds like I need to do a bit of Google-ing tonight!! Unless you, dear lurkers, can help me out with some ideas.

June already, nearly half way through the year, where did that almost half year go so far, anyone know, it sort of flew past without me noticing!

Life has once again been a bit challenging, I have been struggling with my submissive urges once again, I seem to go for long periods where I can manage to submit without too much trouble and then, wham, I hit a brick wall, and me submit, no way, no siree!

In a vague attempt to come to terms with my newly emerging persona I discussed the issues surrounding Dominance/submission and their extremely close cousins sadism/masochism with my therapist. I have been struggling to come to terms with the realisation that I should wear both the submissive and masochist "hats". In the surprisingly philosophical interlude which followed this revelation from me, he pointed out to me that these are actually extremely normal, natural states, "never" said I, but "actually yes", said he, "in fact life is a cycle of S/M or D/s". If I had not been lying down (sadly not on the "stereotypical" leather couch, I love leather - but that is another story ho ho!!) at the time I probably would have keeled over in amazement. Natural, normal, NEVER!!! His explanation went something like this...

Let's start with sex ("a very good place to start" as Julie Andrew's would have perhaps said!!) , this is in itself is about an act of dominance on the part of the man and submission for the woman, he has to have enough dominance (fuelled by the hormone testosterone which also of course fuels aggression, without enough of this aggression he just can't keep it up!!) to provide the possibility to 'penetrate' her and she has to submit to such penetration. Then in a further act of sadism the sperm has to "penetrate" the egg which has to submit to this if a new life is to be conceived.

The mother then carries this "foreign being", in her womb for the next 9 months (assuming that all went OK in the previous stage and the egg was not 'running' about the fallopian tubes screaming, "submit, ha, you must be f*****g joking"). The "blissful" state of pregnancy is in itself somewhat masochistic, think morning sickness, heartburn, the little blighter tap dancing on your bladder etc, etc. After all babies are basically extremely effective sadists, "sucking" all they need from the mother (often to her disadvantage, and clearly without her consent!!) in order to give themselves the best start in life.

Finally the mother has to turn from this submissive being, who allows this to take place into a dominant aggressive one, "expelling" the intruder from her body into the world. As a mother of 4 I can tell you that this is the ultimate "masochistic" act and we haven't gone anywhere near breastfeeding yet! I could go on with the theme but I think you get the gist.

In summary, as I guess you'll all need a brief summary after all that philosophising, labelling myself as either or both (submissive and/or masochist) should not be considered as meaning I am mad or bad, I am just part of the natural cycle of life!

Hmmm, food for thought, or what!

Hil