Domination & Submission: The BDSM Relationship Handbook (22 page)

“The
meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: if
there is any reaction, both are transformed.”

-
- Carl Jung

Nothing strikes fear into our hearts like the
prospect of meeting someone who is important to us for the very first
time.  The list of anxieties that can threaten to turn this event into a
nightmare is practically
infinite
, the chief among them being:
What
if I don’t live up to his or her expectations?
  Fear of the unknown,
dreading the inevitable awkwardness, concerns for safety, and even uncertainty about
the possibility of intimacy or sex can make any first meeting a harrowing
experience, even for someone who has been through it many times previously.
 We may never be able to completely get rid of those butterflies in your
stomach, but there
are
some things you can do to get them flying in
formation long enough to survive that first meeting. 

First meetings can be
particularly
tricky for
Dominants and submissives, for the simple reason that it’s often difficult to
know just how much of your D/s side is appropriate for this get-together. 
You don’t want to conceal what is undeniably an integral part of your core
personality, but you also shouldn’t want to exceed the boundaries of propriety,
frighten the other person, or endanger yourself in any way.  What you’re
left with is a delicate balancing act between
revealing who you
are, and
imposing yourself
upon the person you’re meeting. 

An
imposition
occurs when someone feels
pressured or obligated to
act or make a hasty decision
based upon your
revelations or behavior.  To understand the difference between the two,
consider how a Dominant might choose to conduct himself at a first meeting with
a submissive.  He can choose to
reveal himself
by his mannerisms or
by discussing the fact that he is a Dominant, or he can
impose himself
on the other person by unwisely attempting to
dominate her
at this first
encounter.  The former is a
revelation
; the latter, an
imposition
. 
His date may be a submissive,
but she is not his submissive
.  
Even if a submissive is normally attracted to this sort of dominant behavior,
she may not appreciate being placed in a position of
having to decide how to
react
to his attempt at asserting himself in such a fashion this early in
the process.

Feeling
imposed upon
may be an
uncomfortable
feeling
, but it is of relatively
minor
consequence compared to the
very real danger that
some
submissives may face in the event that a
Dominant unwisely asserts himself in a way that oversteps the boundaries of
everyday etiquette and lifestyle protocol.  A submissive can sometimes
find herself in a potentially dangerous first meeting scenario where her usual
good judgment and survival instincts are swept aside when she is caught up in
the overwhelming emotions of the moment. 

How do you know if you are about to do something
potentially stupid and dangerous? 
Here’s how:
  If you’re
considering a mid-meeting
change to your original plan
for how things
were supposed to go, then this would be a good time to take a couple of deep
breaths, count to ten slowly, and remind yourself that there were some very
good reasons for the original plan.  One of those reasons was to protect
you from your own emotionally compromised judgment and impulsivity.  No
matter how badly you may
want
to turn off your phone and follow him back
to his hotel for a good spanking, odds are that if it wasn’t part of the
original plan, it’s
probably not a good idea.
 At times like that,
it might be a good time to say, “I love you, but
not
in an
I-want-to-be-featured-on-an-Investigation-Discovery-episode
kind of way.”

First meetings can come in a variety of flavors, and
your strategies for surviving them depends a lot upon what kind of first
meeting you’re considering.  By the way, when I say
surviving
, I
generally mean
getting through the meeting with your dignity intact
, but
we’ll be discussing the other kind later in this chapter as well.  First
meetings typically fall into five categories:  imaginary, serendipitous,
acquainting, hook-up, and transitional.

The Imaginary First Meeting

The imaginary first meeting is a first meeting that
never happens, for whatever reason.  It is neither inherently a
good
thing, nor a
bad
thing.  It is what it is.  It is almost
always idealized in our minds as the coming together of two souls in a perfect
alignment of love, lust, libido, laughter and any other sexy, happy “L” words
we can think of.  The truth, however, is that the real thing
rarely
lives
up to the fantasies that we’ve built up in our heads.   Some people
in certain circumstances should be willing to acknowledge the fact that an
imaginary first meeting is all that they can realistically hope for. 
Others sometimes go through with a real-life first meeting only to find
themselves wishing that they had kept things virtual or long-distance. 
And then, there are those who
attempt
to meet someone in real-life, but
the encounter remains imaginary
despite
their best efforts.  You
may count me as someone who has found himself in
all
of these scenarios
at one point or another, but the most interesting experience involved my
attempt to arrange what I had hoped would be a
transitional
first
meeting but, instead, ended up being mostly an
imaginary
one.

Her screen name was
Sensual
.   Just
that
.  There were none of the numbers, extraneous letters, or silly
modifiers that are tacked on to a name these days to differentiate a person
from the thousands of other people using the same or a similar name.  We
were among the earliest adopters of internet chat and for all I knew she may have
been the very
first
Sensual.  She was an intelligent and funny
redheaded submissive with piercing blue eyes and the most adorable
freckles.  In other words, she had all the qualities that can effortlessly
turn my legs to Jell-O.  I didn’t know much else about her at first, but
we grew incredibly close over the course of the next several months as we went
from text chats to trading photographs and spending hours on the
telephone.  That, in itself, was quickly becoming somewhat problematic,
since she lived in Washington State and I was serving in the Army, stationed in
Germany at the time.  This was long before the era of cheap long-distance
plans or the advent of internet voice calling and, as a result, I was beginning
to see phone bills (which included a pricy data plan) from Deutsche Telekom in
excess of a
thousand dollars per month.
  Clearly, we wouldn’t be
able to keep doing that for much longer.  We would either have to scale
back our relationship or take it a step forward, and neither of us was willing
to step back. 

I started making plans for what would be our first
meeting.  Once we agreed upon a date, I got approved for two weeks of
leave.  On the first day of my leave, I drove two hours to Frankfurt’s
Rhein-Main Air Force Base (which today no longer exists) and hopped aboard an
Air Force C-5A Galaxy headed for McChord Air Force Base (now known as Joint
Base Lewis-McChord) which is near Tacoma, Washington.  The flight, which
was 5200 miles as the crow flies but
not
, apparently, as the Air Force
flies
was mind-numbingly long and excruciatingly
uncomfortable.    

I arrived in Washington State at mid-day, and took a
taxi to my hotel in the center of the city.  From the hotel room, I called
Sensual
(who lived fifteen minutes away) to let her know that I had
arrived, and to inform her where I was staying.  I explained that I needed
a shower and a short nap, but would meet her for dinner downstairs, in the
hotel’s very nice restaurant at 7 PM.  We lingered for another thirty
minutes on the phone like the star-struck lovers we were, tittering in complete
and utter disbelief at the notion that we were
finally
about to meet
each other in real life.  We had talked about this for
months
, and
now it was really about to
happen
.

At the appointed hour, I went downstairs to the
restaurant, where I lingered in the waiting area for twenty minutes before
finally agreeing to be seated at a table.  I told the waiter that I was
expecting someone, and he responded a sly grin and a wink.  It was an intimate
little place, so I was fairly certain that I’d be able to spot her as soon as
she arrived.  Today, just about everyone has a cell phone, so it’s hard to
imagine just sitting alone in a restaurant for an hour waiting -
hoping
- that someone shows up, without trying to
do something about it
. 
But this was before cell phones were commonly available; there wasn’t a whole
lot I
could
do, other than drop a quarter into the lobby pay phone in an
attempt to call her, which I eventually did.  There was no answer, which
only served to give me false hope that perhaps she’d been delayed, and was now
on her way.  Finally, after almost ninety minutes of waiting, I gave up
hope and ordered a meal, which I consumed alone as I juggled equal portions of
anger, concern and gloom.

I went back to my hotel room, frustrated and angry,
and attempted to call her again.  This time the phone was answered, and on
the other end of the line, she was
sobbing.
  My anger instantly
melted away as she tearfully told me about driving to the hotel and
experiencing a debilitating anxiety attack which made it impossible for her to
get out of the car.  After sitting in her vehicle in front of the hotel
for close to an hour, she then circled the block several times before finally
just returning home.  She begged for my forgiveness, and promised to see
me after she got off work the following day.  Thinking that perhaps
meeting in a
hotel
might have contributed to her anxiety, I suggested
meeting at 7 PM at a nearby Irish pub which had caught my eye along the route
from the airport to the hotel.  She said she knew the place, and promised
to be there
without fail
.  I was cautiously hopeful once again.

I spent most of the day meandering through this
strange new city, exploring its nooks and crannies and taking in the sights at
its quaint, bustling harbor.  As the sun sank into the sea, I treated
myself to a light but tasty dinner at the Oyster House as I watched the fishing
boats returning for the evening.  I went back to my hotel to shower and
prepare to go out again.  As a final precaution, I called
Sensual
to confirm the time and place of our meeting, and to verify that she still
intended to be there. 
“I’ll be there, my Love,”
she assured me, “
with
bells on!”
 I smiled, and my
cautious optimism
took an
immediate turn towards
buoyant expectation.

The Irish pub was, in a word,
amazing.
 
It oozed with Gaelic charm, boasting a huge selection of Irish brews, friendly
barmaids, and even a talented musical trio that played lively Irish tunes
throughout the evening.  It might have been the perfect evening, if only
my date had shown up.  Fortunately, the cheery music and their selection
of superb beers were sufficiently good to keep me from wallowing in self-pity
for very long.  Some five hours later, I staggered back to my hotel in a
pretty decent mood, considering the fact that I’d used up my vacation time,
spent a great deal of money, and flown over five thousand miles to be stood up,
not just once,
but twice by the same woman.
 

When I opened the door to my hotel room, the
telephone was ringing.  I answered, and once again, she was sobbing. 
This time around, I was far less inclined to be as sympathetic as I had been
the previous evening.  I knew better than to attempt to have any kind of a
coherent conversation with her while I was both highly annoyed
and
drunk, so I stopped her in mid-explanation.  I said,
“Hush.
 
Obviously, this trip was a
huge
mistake
.  I’m sorry things
didn’t work out, but
I’m done here.
  I’ll be flying out tomorrow on
the 2 PM flight to Germany.  Have a nice life.” 
Click.
    

The following day, I checked out of the hotel and
made my way back to the passenger terminal at McChord Air Force Base to check
in for my return flight to Germany.  I still had a few hours to kill
before boarding time, and spent much of it in quiet contemplation of my own
incredible stupidity.  Eventually, an announcement was made that it was
time to board the aircraft.  I gathered my things, stuffed them into my
carry-on bag and stood up, only to suddenly find myself standing face-to-face
with the very woman I’d flown so far to meet.  We stood like that,
silently looking into each other’s eyes for what seemed like an eternity before
either of us uttered a single word. 

“Hi,” she said.

“Hi,” I replied.  I floundered for something
remotely intelligent to say, but all I could seem to manage was, “You’re...
beautiful!”  I took her hands in mine.

She blushed crimson red and dropped her eyes for a
moment.  She said, “I... was so afraid... that you would be disappointed
with me.  It
paralyzed
me.  I am
so
sorry.  I
never meant to hurt you.  I
do
love you.”

I nodded.  I told her,
“I love you too.”
 

A long and awkward silenced followed, during which
neither of us knew what to say next.  The final call for boarding was announced
and I said, “I really have to go now.” 

She nodded.  We kissed.  I flew
away.  We never spoke again.

The Serendipitous First Meeting

The serendipitous first meeting is one that occurs
without any prior thought or planning.  That isn’t to say that you may not
have
wanted
it to happen; it just means that
you didn’t expect it
to happen, or at the very least, you didn’t expect it to happen
when, where
or how
it
happened.   Frankly, this is a pretty
rare
occurrence. 
It happens
so rarely
, in fact, that it almost never fails to arouse
someone’s
suspicion that it may not have been as random as it appears at first
blush.  Nevertheless, these things
do
happen, typically when the
two individuals live in the same region or have the same circle of friends and
associates.  People who are part of the BDSM lifestyle tend to be a fairly
small and insular group, even if it happens to be spread over a large
geographical area.  It isn’t uncommon, therefore, to attend a lifestyle
social or fetish event and serendipitously run into people there whom you’ve
been dying to meet for quite some time.  When you
do
, be sure to
tell them that you’ve always wanted to meet them; even if they are
rock-stars. 
It’ll probably make their day.

If a serendipitous first meeting happens to you, you
should treat it like the
priceless gift
that it truly is.  After
all, it isn’t every day that you get to meet someone whom you’ve always wanted
to meet, without having to put any real effort into making it happen, or even having
to go through the pre-meeting anxieties that you’d typically have to
endure.  You need to decide fairly quickly whether you want to see this
person again and, if so, how best to make it happen.  This may turn out to
be your one and only chance to not only make a good impression, but to lay the
groundwork for a second meeting that is planned, rather than accidental, and
better suited to getting further acquainted.

The Acquainting First Meeting

The acquainting first meeting is one that occurs
when two people decide to meet in order to simply get to know one another a
little better.  It’s one way of saying
I don’t know you, and I’m not
even sure I want to know you, but I’m certainly willing to meet you to explore
the possibility.
  The nice thing about the acquainting first meeting
is expectations are typically kept low or nonexistent and, consequently, it
usually isn’t terribly hard to
exceed
them.  This can be a
very
good thing
for people whose anxieties are rooted in a fear of having to
live up to someone else’s expectations. 

When it comes to the acquainting first meeting, it
is important to remember that
you don’t really know anything about
the
person
whom you are about to meet for the first time.  That means if
you happen to be considering a get-together of this sort, the safety
precautions on the following pages are
especially for you.
  True,
the odds of that person being a psychopath are
extremely low
but, then
again, you’ve probably bought lottery tickets on slimmer chances of
winning. 
Think
about that.

The keys to a executing a successful acquainting
meeting are: keeping expectations realistic, avoiding misunderstandings,
staying safe (which we’ll discuss at length later in this chapter), having fun,
and having a plan for success
as well
as failure.  Keeping
expectations realistic and avoiding misunderstandings go hand-in-hand.  To
that end, it may sometimes be necessary to explicitly spell things out for the
person you’re about to meet by saying,
“I just want to be sure that we both
understand that this is just lunch.  No pressure.  It’s not a
hook-up.” 
 The discomfort of having to say such a thing prior to
the meeting is
minimal
compared to the discomfort you
could feel
later
if it turns out that the two of you had differing notions concerning the
purpose of the meeting.