Out of the Shadows. Senta Holland

and free, I will have to continue to take this risk.

      So I looked at my Nai, not my Nai yet in so many words, in fact I didn’t even know the word Nai yet, and what it means, I looked at the bed, the white sheets which might become my burial shroud, and the dark carved wood which might become my coffin, and then I looked at my Nai again. He smiled then said, a little more strongly: ‘Go and take a shower’. He looked very beautiful, and I had a good feeling. But of course you can never ever, ever know.

      I took a last look into his eyes, I felt a connection, but I also knew that, ultimately, there is no connection that you can trust, and I looked at the risk and I looked at myself and I gave my soul a little nudge: this moment, if I have to? Am I ready? Yes. I am ready to die.

      I am here! I am here! With him! With an intelligent, sensitive, secure male Dom who looks into my eyes to turn my body into spicy banana goo. And now I was going to feel the delirious sweetness.

      He looked around the room and put his bag on a stand. I was getting really curious about that bag. A little old backpack, a bit torn at the edges. He slowly undid the clasp, it was an old clasp and stuck for a moment in rusty hinges. Then he slid both hands in and widened the opening, just enough to take out the first of many treasures. That bag looked so small but it turned out to be a bottomless trove of delights.

      The first thing he took out was a long, long rope of sky blue material. I remembered how he had talked about it over dinner, over his spicy dish and my cooked flowers, with the lights drowning themselves in the river behind him, how he had said that the best material for bondage that he knew were the silk and high-tech fibre ties that he used for flying high in the air with just the support of a little engine, his body harnessed in just such a blue leash. I liked the image of him flying in the air, tied the way I would like to be.

      He laid them out on the white white bed.

      Then he ran his fingers down my spine, the first touch.

      Less than a day since I arrived here. And I already was at the heart of things.

       My Nai’s desire

      I always knew exactly how precious it was.

      And how unlikely.

      To have found someone whose desires matched my own.

      Not in the sense that they were exactly the same, of course not. There were many areas of difficult compromises.

      But in the sense that when we played he was fulfilling his desires just as I was fulfilling mine, by fulfilling mine.

      What we played exactly, the exact actions and practices evolved slowly over time.

      The first few times were like very tentative sketches. We did a few things straight away that we both loved. We did not do many other things for a long time.

      But what was right there, right from the first moment, was the matching of desire.

      This was my true sexuality, my true life.

      And it was his.

      I knew that very soon, before I even touched him. It was like meeting someone who speaks your own, very rare and secret language.

       The curious backpack

      The backpack was old. A little torn at the top, where you had to draw a string together to keep it closed, and with rough edges that showed a pinkish colour underneath the black skin.

      It was the backpack he carried on the night when I first met him. When he had looked so much like a man who had remained behind from former times.

      He told me later: ‘I was very surprised, on the first night, when you said you would have sex with me’.

      ‘But,’ I said, ‘but you had your backpack.’

      ‘Oh yes,’ he said, ‘always keep the doors open.’

      It was a lot to carry just for an open door.

      And then there were the freshly cut bamboo sticks. He had cut them that day in his garden.

      All the objects in the pack had been put carefully together. They were both a snapshot through the layers of that moment in his life and a collection from his whole history in BDSM.

      There were soft scarves, some with a whip or a flogger wrapped inside them, there were laundry clips and suction tubes, there was a heavy collar and a furry blindfold. There was a strong little paddle.

      And – he had an old well-used belt. Yes he did! I shivered with excitement and recognition when I first saw it.

      It was wide, and thick, and softened with usage.

      He saw how I looked at it.

      In that moment we passed an invisible threshold.

      It was a moment of extraordinary electricity, miles of film footage of possible scenarios raced past our eyes. Then we connected again, very directly, in this moment.

      He picked the belt up and held it in front of me.

      I was lying on the bed in the retro-colonial room, looking up at him, half curious, half seductive.

      When he showed me the belt, I slipped off the edge of the bed so that I knelt and presented my bottom.

      I was already naked.

      He was still dressed.

      I looked up at the belt, mesmerised with all the possibilities and meaning. I felt his hand on my head, pushing me towards it. He was a little rougher now, just a little.

      I submitted and followed him until my face touched the worn leather.

      Then I stuck my tongue out and licked it. I licked it from the end where it was already disintegrating a little, slow wide strokes with my tongue towards the buckle. I trembled with adoration and submission. He caught me by my hair, pulling my head up slowly and powerfully so that I had to lick the entire length of his belt.

      Even through my own shivers I could feel him shake, too, his whole body shook as he held me and held up the belt for me to lick and then kiss.

      It was a moment of great luminosity, come to shine into our shadow lives.

      I started to cry and pushed my face into the sheets, still shaking.

      Then I felt the cool leather slide onto my back, curling up like a snake. My Nai arranged its coils into perfect positions while my skin yearned for its touch.

      ‘Hold still,’ he said.

      As if I could have done anything else!!

      He stood and looked at me, for a long time. I carried his belt on my naked back, the instrument of my future pain and humiliation. Strongly desired, by him and by me.

      I held my own breath and only heard his. I, a warm living woman, was the image from his dreams.

      It took a long time, in that first session, before I was allowed to feel his belt.

      First, as he always would in the future, he told me I would get spanked by his bare hand. A lover’s hand. He slipped the belt off my back, he wanted me naked and vulnerable all over my body.

      I pushed my ass in the air, quiet, quiet, quivering in quiet. This waiting and submission was so sweet.

      All the sensors in my skin expanded. It made me exquisitely sensitive. For what was to come.

      Even then, he caught me off guard. He didn’t like me to be prepared. He enjoyed that last little edge, where I wasn’t able to give my spanking to him, where he overwhelmed me with it.

      He was a true connoisseur of spanking.

      Maybe he also waited because he knew he was on the threshold of showing himself, as he really was. The first stroke was incontrovertible proof of his unacceptable and savage desires. Maybe he was assaulted by doubt and fear.

      Just like me.

      And as the object