Claiming Raven

And here we are. The moment is at hand and I am the dom and I must lead. Fuck, being the dom is not all peaches and cream or as I would have it chocolate and more chocolate.

"Raven, are you going to kneel for me? Will you call me 'master'?" She has a thing about that and I don't know what it is, even now, because we'd avoided it. I had. I like that feeling when a woman says "master" to me even in play online. And there go my wafer credentials revoked once and for all. Raven didn't know even now if that was possible for her and me asking, that was a definite push...but notice all you wafers, that I asked. That is not something you should demand and the reason is simple. Even if she agrees and lets you demand it, that sort of surrender simply isn't possible. You cannot revoke your individuality just because someone wants to fuck you in the ass. If all you want is the sex, hookers exist who will do it all, for a price and neither of you are raped either physically or emotionally and everyone walks away whole. Right there is my rationale for legalizing prostitution, I have others, ask.

Her eyes flicker but she doesn't look away. She shakes her head and my heart sinks but her voice yanks at my attention and her words throw me a life line.

"I don't know." She speaks, bleakness in her tone. Then she smiles and that flinty resolve glints in her eyes. She's recognized the moment and that I have pulled back the curtain and exposed the situation. She respects that and I feel the glee she feels from that respect. I echo that glee in my own, dom, way. She nods once. "That's why we're here, you're right."

And there it is, right there. Everything I know about ds is in that single line. "You're right." I am whole. I have recognition and she has finally said "You are dom" in a way that touches and brands me.

"I'm not leaving my husband, although last week I would have, for a nickel." I don't think Australia has nickels so she has gotten that expression from me. She smiles and suddenly all the strangeness and the concomitant import of this moment recedes...it cannot vanish but it can retreat into its little hovel with its paucity of importance and wait for the adults to finishing fucking. The next step in our relationship may be unknown and even difficult or worse heartbreaking but in that moment, that flickering second when she smiled at me, I wanted her. So I said so.

"I want you."

Her eyes go closed.

"God, Clark, how can you do that to me?" She shakes her head. "Every bloody time." She glances around. "Cunt surge. I am certainly wet for you now, you fucker."

There's something else she taught me about ds. Being submissive is not being obsequious. She is no one's lickspittle, that is not necessary to be a "good" submissive. What is more, the dom does not define her submission, she does. My job has always been to enforce it but also with the right to push her limits, but only when she wanted them pushed. The trick is to know that when I refuse her if it is because she shouldn't have it, I'm teasing her or because I am encountering my own limits with her and I must decide whether to challenge them or not.

So she can call me "fucker" and register that she has distaste for what I push her to do, but also register that she's strong enough to do it and retain her integrity and identity intact. That commentary is for all the wafers reading this or you kindergarten ds-ers who think that violence has anything to do with this thing of ours and no, not the Mafia. If you get this far and don't lose focus because I didn't bend her over the table and fuck her cunt the moment she appeared, thanks for your patience. Don't worry, that's what she wanted too so she has likely skipped this entire soliloquy to the part where at least I kiss her. (I keep saying that because well, I like to think I have something to say but recognize, well, I might be full of crap.)

I don't even know if the kiss will allow us to go on, much less allow us to address that central issue of what do we do next? At some point a ds relationship ends. Ignoramus that I am, I think it's because the soft limits have all been pushed as far as they can be for the sub and so there is nothing else for the dom to do but rehash old issues. Both stop feeling, and stop feeling "it".

For a dom, I'm doing a shitty job of focusing on my sub. This was supposed to be all about us and our meeting and instead it's all about my personal collision with ds and with Raven in particular. So, recognizing this, I signal for Ellen to bring us the check. I don't remember them bringing the food or eating it. We got to this point without my mind registering much of anything but this inner world where ds happens, between the ears. If you still think sex is all about tits, ass, cunt, and cock—notice guys how we are outnumbered—then nothing else here will make sense. Go, do, see but don't draw any conclusions yet.

With the check taken care of, I rose from my chair, keeping Raven's hand in mine, keeping that skin on skin contact, the newest addition to our connection. She didn't speak but remained quietly focused like a debutante at her coming out cotillion. I felt it then, the slurry of emotions that comes with that sort of focus from a woman of her stature and abilities, intelligence and character.

I hesitated, standing still with her hand in mine. I stared down at Raven and her eyes dropped, her head bowed ever so slightly and I saw it clearly, her subtle but clear submission, the feeling that she did not fight, the need to be that with me. I had feared this moment of all the many moments made real by my imagination, this one would be totally new to me. Here it was, Raven's submission like a jewel made of glass that I could shatter with a flawed response. Her silence was so arousing, to know the brilliance of her voice and her mind in the usual cataract of words was stilled by that feeling swelling up in her chest and that I did it, I altered her state as they say and that I had control of her to that little but important extent...that always rattled when the internet bridged us and I knew that when the moment appeared, it'd be a whole different thing.

It was.

I felt it like a pain in my chest, but not the sort of pain that means 911, the US call for help. It was the pain that said, "Pay attention, dummy, and don't fuck this up!" I waited a beat too long and any "normal" woman would have looked up at me to see what the fuck was the problem but Raven just stood there her eyes cast down so I saw the delicate color on her eye lids, matching her fingernail polish, the brown that highlighted her blue eyes that I loved, she'd let me pick the fingernail polish the first time and that was it, the dark blue that made my breath catch.

I squeezed her hand.

"Come along, Raven." I said. I should have said more, told her what I was thinking, let her know what I had in mind but it was so simple, so, so vanilla, I couldn't do it. I just led her out of the atrium into the lobby of the hotel. She followed behind me but once through the tables I pulled her even with me and pulled my hand from hers and put it at the small of her back. She slipped both hands onto my arm and clung to me. I swear I felt a tremor in her body but it might just have been her breathing changing. She pressed her forehead against my shoulder and I thought I'd died that little death and fucking missed it!

Focus.

I'd reconnoitered and found an empty meeting room with chairs stacked and a closed door but not locked. I guided her towards it and inside. It is an unusual feeling, that you can have your way with a woman, that she has submitted herself to your will but if you take too rambunctious advantage of that, you lose it...it's like a hummingbird has landed on your shoulder and you can't just act like it means nothing and keep things the same. I turned us into the to the little alcove to the left, a private space for us. I put my back to the corner and turned her to face me.

"This is it, Raven," I said, my voice twanging with tension. "The kiss, the kiss that tells us if we part or go to your room. If we both feel it, then we take another step, and then another...no, fuck, that's wrong, if we both feel it, we fly together." I smiled and my face felt all plastic and stiff. I wanted to relax but there was no hope of that. Eight months of her online, and I had my hands on her waist and her hands lay against my chest, compliant. Her silence unnerved me as it always did when a woman went silent, but not in that desperate way I remembered. This made me want to smoother her in kisses and growl that she was mine and mine and mine. That word, "mine" in the context of d/s means more than the simple idea of mercantile or commercial ownership...it's not a transfer of ownership, it is an agreement to protect her and to provide her pleasure.

The brutes who cruise that world using ds to disguise their brutish ways know nothing of this moment and have likely never had it or imagined it. They are colorblind in the Impressionist gallery in the museum. I leaned down. She felt my approach, the shift in my chest against her hands. Her chin lifted and her eyes finally met mine. The silence was profound and I felt this was my whole world, that moment her lips parted and touched mine.

All this time, all those words shared, exchanged, consumed like consommé, condensed down into this tender moment. I heard her sigh, felt her hands slide up my chest and around my neck, like water defying gravity. My hands moved around her waist and locked around her. Her tongue touched my lips and I wanted to consume her for real. I felt it. That thrill that made me know this wasn't just an academic thing, made of dried words and good punctuation. Raven was real. She was here, now, folding into my arms like a fog in an Ozark mountain hollar. I felt her in my arms and the kiss grew deep and true for me, filling me with that satisfaction that consummates a connection, our connection. Rejoice!

Then I felt her stop.

My heart clinched. I think it actually stopped. I think I was dead for a moment because when her lips left mine all I thought was that she'd felt some snarling discord and she was flinching away, away from my lips, away from my arms, her hands trailing over me like regret itself. Raven stepped back, one step then two. I stared at her full of chagrin and disbelief, I feared she was going to turn and walk away without a word but she didn't. She wasn't smiling. She looked so serious, her eyes lowered, her hands drifting down to her sides.

She knelt.

Very slowly, she bent her knees and descended. Her balance shifted and she put out a hand to my thigh to steady herself. The feeling of it on my leg sent a jolt of energy through my body. Raven, this stupendous woman filled with life and experience and intelligence, she was kneeling to me, right there in our little corner of reality.

Her two knees touched the carpet and her body continued its slow crumple until she was bent over her knees, her head on the floor, but then she shifted and moved her forehead to touch the tips of my gay shoes. Her hair covered my feet, her arms folded in over her chest and she went still.

"I am yours." She whispered so softly I dared not believe it. I couldn't breathe.

Now, for all you vanilla wafers reading this, this is not what you think it is...she is not being degraded, though she does like that...nor is she being reduced or lessened. When a submissive bows, it is a sign of respect, a tantalizing hint of the recognition of her dom, as her dom, the one who has agreed to protect her and give her that subtle pleasure that submission offers, and she has chosen him. Submission in Raven is this thing, this recognition, but too, it is the feeling that is attached to me, caused by me, flowing from me to her and this moment acknowledged that and that it made her helpless and she wanted to be helpless in that flow of emotion that she drew from me.

I stared down at her.

Fuck, we never talked about this. This wasn't in the manual. My lips burned and I wanted to feel her lips again, to open her mouth with my tongue and fill her with my passion...but I couldn't move! I was frozen in place. I'd put out a hand to the wall to my left to keep from falling over. She didn't move. Her black skirt covered her legs, puffing out around her so that she looked like she emerged from a black pool, her bare arms white against it.

Words.

That was it! Words! My words, the little insignificant things on the computer screen that got us here, to this moment. She doesn't like my poetry, I thought wryly and that seemed to relax me for some strange reason, strange because I had to find the right words, and couldn't go all syrupy and gushy. Dom this woman, now. I know, "dom" isn't really a verb, but it is now, I said so.

I slid down the wall, my knees not being as dependable as they once were, until I was squatting before her, my knees to each side of her elegantly bent body. I touched her hair, stroking it. I needed a command.

"Raven, my Raven, look at me." I whispered.

She had to raise up then, to let me have her deep blue eyes. She sat up and we made the connection, her eyes on me.

"Yes, Sir." She said softly.

I shuddered. Okay, sure, you might think it was the fact I'm 58 and squatting, so my old bones were bitching, but no, that wasn't it. Bite me. I'm in pretty good shape for a writer. I'm usually as active as carpet, I call it contemplation and Aristotle thought that was the highest aspiration of the human being. At least someone didn't think I was just lazy.

"I accept." I said. "I accept you, on your knees, for me, now, now I know you are mine...for real."

She smiled.

"Help me up." She said with that smile she has that tells of many more meanings and deeper significance that you best not mistake or miss because it is fleeting and precious so you only have this chance and then it's gone. Don't flub it.

I stood, knees hurting but doing as they were bid, for once. Raven lifted both her hands and together we raised her up. She shifted against me, her head cocked back, her intent unmistakable. I kissed her and this time, there was nothing tentative about it, from either of us. Her mouth opened, my mouth opened, her tongue met mine, introduced itself and then twined with mine. One hand, my right I think, slid down her back and cupped her ass, pulling her against me. Her hands clung to my shoulders. The kiss deepened and then she sighed.

Our lips parted and she looked up at me, her eyes glowing.

"I am yours." She whispered. "Take me, please, Sir."

For you vanilla wafers, "Sir" is a sign of respect, but also reserved for the one person you submit to, a clue, a hint but also a commitment that deigns to designate you as her dom. It is the explicit word that says "I submit" but also, "I submit to you" and finally, "Command me." Yes, dickheads, all of that is contained in that simple word.

Acceptance.

You have me. I am in your control. You may use me for your pleasure. Do with me as you wish, take your pleasure from me and I will feel my secret satisfaction, from your use of me, from the pleasure you gain from me, because no one can share this with me and you deign to give it to me. That was Raven, how she explained herself in her plain English, staccato and brilliant at once. She told me and we spoke of it, wrote of it and now, here in this moment, I felt it, all she had said appeared and enveloped me.

Her pleasure and mine flowed together like green and blue paint spilled together on a white floor, blending but in that moment, still separate. If you have never felt someone kneel to you, to submit to your will, to your control, for the express purpose of giving you pleasure, of becoming your pleasure, then you have no idea what this is like, what these words mean, what that moment felt like! Nothing can match it, nothing!

The closest thing might be the feeling of being a parent except the progeny that has such devotion doesn't give a shit about your pleasure and will surely try your patience and drive you to your wit's end. They had no choice. You bring your progeny into the world and you owe them and they owe you nothing, so you must build that debt so they don't ignore you when you can't walk straight any more.

With a submissive, it is all choice, her choice, her decision, her acceptance of you. There is no obligation, no hook, no binding, nothing that means she must submit. It is her need finding you and choosing you from the billion souls in the world, plucking you out of the miasma and saying, "I choose you."

"Raven." I started and words failed me. I crushed her against me, pulling her into my arms to hide my inarticulate torpor. I sighed with the feeling of her body against mine but it wasn't merely the feel of her made real after reams of words and time and attention. No, it was the way she nestled into my arms, shifting in bits to make the right connection, to get her body pressed against mine in just the right way. It felt like I had been completed and she was that missing part of me, fitting against me.

I kissed the top of her head and when she shuddered, I felt it, like I was shuddering but it wasn't me, it was her, all her, her body against mine. She pressed her face against my chest. When she spoke it was muffled and my poor ears didn't get her words but I intuited the meaning. Still, I made her repeat it.

"What, Raven? Say it again so I can understand you."

"Please, Sir, take me. Have me." She whispered her voice scraping against me, leaving me raw as paint stripped wood.

These moments are dangerous, for a dom, because they threaten your sanity, inviting you to step out of the moment and try to reach your submissive and draw her up and out of that place where she is. Don't. She's there for a reason and perhaps the reason is as individual as the woman but if she's there, submitting to you, she has her reasons, even if you don't understand them.

Gently I pushed her away until she stood before me, head slightly bowed, eyes down again, so I could see her eyeshadowed eye lids. I let her stand alone for a moment then I offered her my hand, low, in her down field of vision. She looked up at me at that moment and then put her hand in mine. I led her out of our little sanctuary to the elevators. The meeting was over. Raven was mine. Now, it was time to claim her.

Raven Unveiled

The elevator arrived and we stepped into the cramped dimness of it. We were alone but for a young woman in a business suit, pinstriped pants and blazer and the white blouse. She caught me inspecting her. She smiled at me, pulling my eyes to her.

"Forgot something. Feel like an idiot. Everyone is waiting for me." She punched her floor. Five. I was lucky, I hadn't thought to touch the register. Raven, knowing I didn't know her floor reached out and touched eight with her right hand, her left clasped in mine. I felt conspicuous, like I had "Dom" written on my forehead and my intentions for Raven, her body, her cunt, my cunt they were all plain and evident, clear to anyone looking at us. My erection surely helped. I stared at the young blond woman to see if her eyes were going to dip down and check my crotch. She didn't, glancing at the floor register as we ascended before glancing back at me, doing this several times before the door opened. She hesitated, not moving for a moment before stepping through the doors. She stopped and looked back at me and for a moment I thought I saw an expression of longing in her eyes. She saw a woman huddled against me, waiting, willing and ready to be claimed, to be taken, to be used. The young woman longed for that but had no idea how to get there from where she stood, so she stood outside of our little world and stared as the door closed and we were lifted away. Surely I was just projecting, right?