Killishandra said:Now that's interesting! Because my thoughts would be that I would never want the Mistress to top the Master. I'm not even sure why I'm so hung up on that, and perhaps I shouldn't be, but I guess in the end I really want a fantastically dominant man to serve and that image would be shattered if he was being topped by another female. Even if the female was my Mistress. I could handle if they were both Doms and neither topped the other, but I think if they were in a relationship then one would be exerting at least a little dominance over the other.
At the risk of hijacking my own thread, I can tell you why it's important to me. I have too many female friends who have been hurt, both physically and emotionally, by asshole vanilla men. A big chunk of my need to serve women is a desire to make this never happen again. Seeing a man treating a woman I care about cruelly really pushes my buttons, and even if I understand intellectually that it's in the context of a consensual D/s relationship, I still have that visceral reaction.
As a result, I am very leery and distrustful when I meet men who style themselves as Doms. It takes me time to learn to trust that they are the real deal, and not just users or abusers hiding behind a kinky label. This isn't fair, but it's the way I'm wired.
I've never thought about being used to train a Dom and experiencing the slow transfer of power as he grows into his dominance. *shiver*
Is that a good shiver, or a bad one?
In all seriousness, though, my formative RL D/s relationship was with a woman who had started out as a sub/slave, and matured into her Dominant self. Her experience on the both ends of the flogger was very helpful to me as I learned about myself and my submission. According to her and her friends, she was a very different kind of sub than me--a SAM and a pain-slut, by her own admission, whereas I tend to be more stoic and service-oriented--but I felt safer knowing that she never asked of me anything she hadn't experienced herself first.
From a fantasy standpoint, I've always been fascinated by highly ritualized forms of slavery and service, including and especially extended and formal training methods. This may be because I grew up Episcopalian, the church that offers all pomp, pageantry and ritual of Catholicism, but less than half the guilt! The Marketplace books offer a variety of training programs for slaves, within the context of a very formalized secret society of slave-owners.
Please let me know if/when you write that novella. (I know it will be about a Domme not a Dom, but I would still find that amazingly erotic. What a wonderful idea for a story! I've yet to read one like that.)
Ok, you'll be the very first to get a proof copy. Be looking for it in your email about...2009. Or maybe 2011. Or maybe a just little after that...