Mellita, domi adsum – Honey, I’m home.

When I read persephone's column about the new developments in her life since her dominant partner has moved in with her, I was reminded about how much routine and ritual has come about in my life since I started sharing my domestic arrangements with Michael (pseudonym alert).

Friday afternoons are my favourite part of my week. I finish classes around 3:30 and I head home straight from campus. There's a little town just outside the city I live in that has a grocery store right off the highway and I stop to pick up the week's supplies. We used to meet downtown on Friday evenings for dinner but that's given way to meeting at home. Usually, I'm through the door about 90 minutes before I can expect Michael. It's a heavenly part of my week.

Michael kept up his housekeeping service when we moved in together and she usually comes on Friday mornings. I come into a house with freshly vacuumed floors and sinks that sparkle. Groceries away, start dinner and it's time to relax. Friday night is our time together. The rest of the weekend might be consumed with domestic errands, hockey games, catching up with friends and fulfilling social obligations but Friday night is ours.

Gesture is a powerful means of communication. Think about all the times we use it to convey meaning to another. A crook of the finger than says "Come here." A shake of the head that says "No."; the nod that says "Yes, I understand" when listening to a friend. The traffic cop's palm out "Stop" interplayed with his "waving" you through the intersection. As children, we learn to speak "gesture' as well as we learned to speak our native tongue.

Some gestures, repeated in the same place, under the same circumstances, become ritual. They speak of much larger concepts, things that if you were to write them out in their totality, would consume pages and pages of text. For the yogi, nyasa or the deliberate gestures of practice are a means of anchoring commitment to the greater goal of unity. It's part of what transforms yoga from mere exercise into a spiritual practice that elevates the physical body and acknowledges its natural divinity.

Both Michael and I were raised in the Roman Catholic faith and I think that's one of the reasons ritual speaks so strongly to both of us. On some level, I think our attraction to BDSM practices is largely a reflection of our joint appreciation for ritual in our life. And slowly, over the months, I've noticed that we're starting to develop patterns in our interactions with one another.

Friday night is our night to reconnect. I'm very much the little seductress. Heels, stockings, corsetry, sheer, body skimming, tight, plunging, revealing is the dress of the day. This is the dance of tease and mutual seduction. Our reunion as lovers is a playful event. We laugh a lot Friday nights. Our play has a lighthearted, joyous flavour to it. And while I'm often bound or somehow restrained at some point in our play, I've noticed that I'm never spanked on Friday nights. I don't want to be spanked and he's never even mentioned it. Tears don't fit the mood of Friday nights.

Sunday nights are a different story. I'm more likely to be completely naked, completely exposed to my lover. This is where I offer my vulnerability and remind us both of how much I need him. I need to weep on Sunday nights. I crave the more demanding mood of my lover, the sense of urgency that exists between us. Nothing is held back and Friday night's playfulness has given way to a different, more intense, deeper need to connect. I need to replenish myself in him, fill myself enough to hold me over the coming days. He needs to claim me as his own. We're only going to spend four nights apart but it always looms like a chasm before me. I need a safe place to release the sorrow of leaving him and our beautiful home again. It's not pain that I seek on Sundays; it's the cleansing flow of tears and the tenderness that follows that will sustain me in the coming week.

And so it moves, week in and week out. Is it predictable? It's become that way. Is it boring? I don't think so. Michael is the head of our little household. That was a decision we made jointly some time ago, to our mutual desire and satisfaction. Our little private rituals are a shorthand way for us to communicate some of these very large and abstract concepts to one another. There's something about this ritualized aspect of our sexuality that elevates our connection from being mere sex to the loftier dimension of sacred communication.

Our rituals, as a couple, have deepened our relationship. While my responses towards him might be characterized as submissive in nature, it's just an expression of the greater submission inside our relationship. The rituals reinforce and illuminate things that are important to us but aren't necessarily easily expressed in words.

I left home this morning with the intensity of last night communion fresh in my mind. I feel connected and secure and already, I'm looking forward to the play and joy that will come on Friday when I'm home again.

~~doll~~

Note to reader: This is a part of a writing assignment given to me by my boyfriend when I was struggling with writer's block. He gave me a list of Latin phrases and expressions to use as inspirational fodder. This is one from that series.