Theory versus Reality

This blog is largely inspired by two I read yesterday. The first was A Dominant Character’s on Reconceptualizing Dominance. The other was from Green Girl’s What I wonder blog. Both blogs are ~~doll~~ recommended and worth the time it takes to read them.

I have a confession to make. I’m typing this blog wearing jeans and a sweater and winter ankle boots in a café at the edge of campus. Like Green Girl, I don’t run around all day in silk lingerie, stilettos and a dog collar. There is no fur on our floors unless the cat is shedding again and I haven't found the time to vacuum. My boyfriend is more likely to be spotted in a dark coloured tailored suit and a white shirt than a loincloth. Loincloths are so impractical for our Canadian winters and he carries a briefcase not a broadsword.

I’ve been talking with some friends lately about on-line relationships versus real life ones. For the record, I hate that terminology, but I’ve not found a substitute that didn’t feel clumsy. I’ve never had an online sexual/romantic relationship so it’s a bit hard for me to compare the two approaches. If nothing else, having met people who are involved in cyber love affairs has made me appreciate dirty socks on the floor that didn’t quite hit the “basket”. At least I get to plant my cold little feet on his kidneys at 4 in the morning for revenge.

We may be a D/s couple but we’re a couple first. Like all couples, we are constantly negotiating with each other and with life. We have a theory about how our life is supposed to work and then we have the reality. Theory says I’m supposed to cook dinner and have it ready for him when he gets home. I’m good with that. I love cooking. I love cooking for him even more. I get a great deal of pleasure out of making his meals.

And then reality hits. Printer dies before my paper is printed and new ink cartridge is nowhere to be found. I lost the file with my bibliography. The cable guy, who promised faithfully he’d be here by 2, isn’t. The toilet in the guest bath backed up and the cat threw up hair balls all over the shirts he’s going to need for court tomorrow. Welcome to my real life.

Dinner? Whatever he picks up on the way home. Chinese? Greek? I don’t care. Just deal with it because right now, I’m trying to rescue your shirts.

When he gets home, there’s no talk or threat of punishment because his dinner isn’t on the table. He’s grateful for the shirts being rewashed, starched and ironed. He puts the groceries away and feeds the cat while I set the table. This is where our relationship is forged. We might express the nature of our relationship in the bedroom but that’s not where it’s made. It’s made with all the little things. It comes from him getting up early on a Saturday morning and taking my Jeep in for new winter tires without me asking or even thinking about it. It’s about me leaving the dishes so he can watch his hockey game in peace without the whirr of the dishwasher or the clanging of cupboard doors. It’s the dinner table conversation over the day’s headlines.

And when the hockey game is done and the dishes are put away and we’ve both made our way to that sacred space known as the bedroom, this is where our relationship is renewed. Rough, tender, fast, hard, soft, slow, bound, unbound, it doesn’t matter. This is the place where both of us become naked – not in the physical sense although one or both of us may be completely unclothed. No, it’s much deeper than that. This is the place where we drop the masks and the walls. This is where we let ourselves be vulnerable and unguarded. He sees my full personality – the wanton, the lustful, the innocent, the perfectionist, the hedonist. All the dolls are there for him to play with.

This is release and not just the physical release of orgasm. This is the release from expectations and conventions, social roles, obligations. We’ll wake up tomorrow and again be that nice, polite, middle-class professional couple who lives down the hall. But tonight, we are free from everything and everyone save each other.