Out of the Shadows. Senta Holland

eye. Desire that will make him act, make me act.

      Shape to create sex and create life.

      I look at him and I see all that. He looks at me and he sees me and sees more than me. He sees the shape I am and the shape I will be. I take all the power that is in his gaze and let it load me up. It fills every pore and atom of my body. It makes the electrons race. They dance and jump and bump into each other. They’re celebrating life with great abandon.

      There is this theory that the shapes your body assumes in yoga positions are shapes of ancient rituals when men and women would slide into the spirits of animals by assuming their forms. The cobra, the lion, the swan. Some people go even further and say that those shapes are already there, waiting for us in the form of hidden energy. They wait, and spring into life when we enter them. Then, these people say, we don’t just assume the shapes of the cobra, the lion, the swan. We become them.

      Maybe the shape of the woman is one such shape. The shape of the woman that I feel now, painted inside the walls of a cave, on the shell of a turtle. My Nai’s gaze is the catalyst that helps me to find it.

      The way I look back at him, with my eyes, with my mind, with my body, transforms him too. He looks, he gets excited by my shape. He is changed, his body is changed, the composition of the chemicals in his brain is changed, the outward shape of his body is changing. This is how he shows his adoration, his devotion. It’s a kind of tribal dance. It’s the Sunday school of the DNA.

      Personally I think, when I can still think, before I melt away, that the positions we assume in sex are maybe just like the yoga positions. They are there, waiting for us, waiting for us to slip into them and then they take us over.

       Power exchange

      I am looking at him.

      No, he is looking at me. And I am taking it in, the way he looks at me.

      There is promise and thrill in this exchange. And a lot of love and trust. I am strong, I am free, I am wild. Just as he, in everything.

      And I am here by my own choice.

      I take in his energy. I let it go down into my very core.

      He can see exactly what is happening. I hold the moment. I am in control. He humbly waits for my decision.

      I choose to surrender.

      Slowly, the balance of power between us shifts.

      I give myself to him. He takes my power from me.

      This is a complex, sophisticated process.

      And it is wonderfully erotic and deeply fulfilling and dizzyingly wild. And it can happen without a word, without touch. Breath by breath.

      I submit. I submit to his domination.

      That is what I want. That is what he wants.

      I am his submissive. Maybe for a lifetime, maybe just for now.

      The tension between us is generating its own charge.

      Submission to him arouses me. This is my true sexuality. Not my social role, not at all, but my sexuality.

      Like many sexual orientations, it needs the right match to thrive.

      Looking at each other, we have found it.

      I am naked.

      He is fully dressed.

      He reaches out towards me.

      He could do so many things to me, right now.

      My submission calls for them. My vagina is opening her soft red mouth.

      I want to yield and I want him to meet my softness with ruthless force.

      I long to be subjected. In my way.

      He touches my hair. Follows the long strands down over my shoulder and to the tip of my breasts. I am still.

      My hands are bound behind my back.

      Safely, in soft wide leather cuffs.

      Securely, I cannot undo them, not that I want to or have ever tried, and I am powerless before my lover.

      My dominant, my Dom.

      He touches me, any way he wants.

      I hold still. He gives, I receive. And I am in his power.

      I don’t know what he is going to do next. And he doesn’t say.

      That is another kind of power.

      He tells me to go down on my knees.

      My vagina gives a satisfied little tug.

      My mind plays with the infinities of erotic subjugation.

      I sigh.

      I kneel on the floor, naked. He stands over me, still fully dressed.

      ‘Look at me,’ he says and slaps me softly in the face. A very light touch, almost a caress but not quite. I understand it perfectly. I should have looked at him without being told. This is part of his discipline. The understanding between us is part of the power exchange. We are very tuned into each other.

      I look up at him.

      My perspective has changed. I am much lower down now. This is my new and rightful place. At his feet.

      I am getting dizzy. I am getting closer to the place of powerlessness, to the place of total yielding.

      He slides his hand over my hair again but this time he grabs it, hard. All the nerve endings on my head start to scream. I have goose bumps all over my skin. He is making his domination physical.

      I look into his eyes the whole time, although mine are filling with tears. He smiles. My subjection has been forced out into the open.

      When he is satisfied, for now, he lets go of my hair and I kneel, hands bound behind my back, head dizzy in more than one way.

      My master’s hands wander to his own body.

      I am getting very moist. I think I know what is going to happen.

      ‘Watch,’ he says.

      I do.

      Slowly, very very slowly, my master is taking off his belt.

      The sound as he undoes the clasp is humiliatingly, exhilaratingly familiar. I couldn’t stop looking if I tried.

      He draws the belt out. Long, wide, well-worn leather. He slowly runs his hand along its length. I’m going to give up breathing.

      He takes a step towards me until he stands so close that his crotch is pressed to my mouth.

      I don’t know what he is going to do. Whatever it is, I will submit.

      He is my master.

      ‘Down,’ he says quietly.

      I understand. I obey.

      I bend forward and lower my head until my face touches the floor, right next to his shoes. My bound hands sink into my back and come to rest on my shoulders.

      Power has been exchanged.

      He is the owner of my body and my soul.

      He will do with me what he wants.

      He may use his belt, on my naked, pale round ass, exposed and presented to him. He may turn round and take me from behind. He may play with the deep band of female arousal that goes from my ass to my clitoris, until I forget my name and even that I used to be a simple human.

      Oh – what is this, exactly? Is there a name?

      People call it BDSM. Yes it’s a Californian committee term.

      I call it my sexuality.

      My true sexuality, hidden under transparent veils.

       The round-the-world ticket

      I only