The Next Chapter in Our D/s

Where We Are Now

I have sat here this evening, for the last few hours contemplating very carefully where cleo and I are at within our D/s. We have spoken several times recently as she continues to recover from the stroke, about regaining some of the true essence of our personal D/s which, by force of circumstance we had lost this past year or so.

The last few days cleo has been pushing more and more against the sub/slave thing, in a sense testing me, but also telling me that she may be ready now. I believe that the time has come. We are at a position where we could take either of two routes in our lives from here on. The first would simply be to continue as we are, doing the things we do, and simply being cleo and MG, but without too many sparks. If we choose that option I am sure we would be happy, but I am convinced that neither of us would ever be completely fulfilled: we may be happy but not fulfilled. Our needs will never be quenched, and the fact that we agreed to live as Master and slave will take more and more of a back seat.

The fact is that when cleo signed the slave contract with me she agreed to let me decide upon the course which our lives would follow: I accepted the responsibility to always act in her best interests, and up to now since the stroke those best interests have been served by leading a more vanilla lifestyle than a D/s one. There are many factors which have contributed to that decision; for example, for several months after coming out of the hospital she was emotionally quite brittle, and physically quite fragile in many ways too. Spanking, cropping and other forms of physical play were more often than not out of the question, as the results would likely have been pain and anguish rather than pain and pleasure.

Where We Are Going

Just this last few days i can see a change in her, and so, the decision is made: our D/s will now come to the fore again. Of course there are still some things where she is challenged, but i am convinced that with time and a vision of where we are going, they will be overcome, in ways we may not even know yet, but overcome they will be.

It is my intention that we will use the time we have to interact better with each other, and to further extend our D/s within the lifestyle circles that as yet we have not moved within.

I will push cleo from now on, she will accept this course as the choice, and the decision of her Master. Having said that I know that this is the right choice for both of us, and no doubt I will have more to say on this subject as we move forward in the next days, weeks and months.

Catching up....

Well...its been some time since I looked at the Seekers weblog, and much has happened since I last posted in 2005. Let me explain.

In November 2005 my cleo had a stroke. In 5 seconds both our lives were totally turned upside down. All the hopes and dreams we had were gone, and for a few awful moments I thought I was going to have to live without her....all that has been recorded in a blog which I wrote from that day, which, if anyone is interested can be found here .

So, with all that written to cover the last year or more, I have decided that I should return to my blog here, and a more D/s based view, as cleo and I try to return to some kind of more active D/s life. Much remains the same, but there is much that is different also, in that our relationship, as a result of her stroke and subsequent physical challenges has meant that we are less able to be physical, necessitating a need to try and create more of a mental Master/slave bond between us. More of that later....

D/s Seekers Website

The seekers website continues to gain in strength and popularity, and recently achieved the massive milestone of over 100,000 hits since its inception. We are truly proud of what we have created and while we have not had much chance to add new content these last few months I intend very much to start writing articles again, and seeking out new and interesting pieces for inclusion. For those who do not know the website it can be found here. It is our labour of love that we have created over some five years, but is seen by many as a useful resource for things D/s and BDSM.

So, thats where we are, i am already working on some new articles and i shall add them here as well as on Seekers site, but in here too you will find thoughts and observations about D/s, the lifestyle in general and anything else which takes my fancy along the way....

Live8 weekend, and more.

This week has seen the most incredible happenings: its unlikely that anyone in the civilised world has missed the amazing mobilisation of "people power" this weekend with the Live8 concerts, and the astounding cry from the masses to those few people who make the decisions. Never before have we seen such a message as this, sent in such a way. The Make Poverty History campaign has become an almost irresistible force for change, and I am sure that it will create a sort of "new order" in the world.

Politicians are always ready to say "we hear you.. we know what you want...." but frankly, i am not sure they have acted upon those things as much as they should in the past, simply paying lip service to those who have spoken up before . This time, I honestly believe that the method of the message, and the weight with which it has been delivered will make them sit up and take notice: if not, well I fear for the futures of those G8 politicians, because unless they accede to the wishes of the people on this one, their positions ought to become untenable. I do hope that good comes from this weekend.

Apart from that we sat at home and watched the concert last night.. wonderful stuff!
Seems to me that the oldies always perform better than the young pretenders: Paul McCartney, The Who, Sting, Pink Floyd; all manage to sound fresh and enthused, and as for some of the so-called new superbands, I shan't be rushing to the record shops. The young pretenders will always be that: pretenders.. and no more. Give me the oldies every time!!!

Closer to home now: we finally shut the door on the flat we have rented for the last 4 years this weekend. Having bought our house, and moved into it recently, the transfer of stuff from the flat to the house has dragged on longer than we expected, but its all done now. We (cleo and I) have come a long way in this last 4 years, starting a new life at the ages we were, leaving all the things we had worked for in the past, and I am proud to say that whatever life threw at us we have overcome, and we get stronger each day in everything we do. I thank my lucky stars that I found her, because I am happier now than I have ever been in my life. We can look forward to the next few years with optimism and hope, knowing that whatever we do is in our own hands: we are masters of our own destiny. Its a nice thought.

Facing up to Fifty: one year to get fit!

Well, not having blogged here for a while I thought it about time I sort of caught up with the world. Last entry was about giving up smoking, back in April, and here we are end of June, still a non smoker (cleo too). Since that last blog we have all moved into a new house; nothing spectacular, but its ours, and we are working to get it how we want it.

Having beaten the smoking thing, its now about health and fitness for me. So, I have asked my cleo to sort me out a low fat diet (cleo is so much better than me at sorting out those kind of things) which will help me to lose weight and help towards getting fit.

Why???
I am coming up 49, on the 19th July, and I am giving myself one year from then (i.e. till I am 50) to lose weight, get fit, and feel that I may well have improved my life expectancy. Now, I have to say I am a lover of my food..not that I eat huge amounts because I don't, but simply that I like all the bad things: full cream milk, butter, and any number of other really bad stuff that positively screams "heart attack". Well, not me anymore. I intend to get as long a time as possible with my cleo.

I suppose there come moments in our lives when we are forced, through some thing or another, to face our own mortality. I am not sure whether that has happened to me as yet, but I don't think I can afford to leave this getting fit thing any longer, so thats the plan: lose weight, and get fit. We have already started on the low fat thing: summer of course is easy, meat and salads. I guess that the effect of low fat dieting will take a few weeks at least to take some effect, but I will also have begun my exercise regime then too. Quite how and what I will do I don't really know, except we do have a good exercise bike, and a lawn that needs cutting regularly!

More soon.

A Life Change?

Last week, my cleo woke up one morning and declared she was giving up smoking. From that moment she has not had a cigarette. I am so proud of her for that. We went and bought her a supply of nicotine patches, which she is using, but I am amazed how well she has coped with the complete stop!

I started smoking when I was about 12 years old. I am now 48, nearly 49. So I have been a smoker for in excess of 35 years. God knows what that has done to my body over that time. Of late, as we get older, and our mortality creeps up on us, the attitude of "couldn't care less" that we had maybe 30, 20, or even 10 years ago seems to change.

I worked over the weekend, and was thinking about cutting down my smoking....but lets be honest, you can't. Cutting down is not the way. It has to be all or nothing. So, from yesterday, I too have stopped. Now for me to go 24 hours without cigarettes is something else. I don't even have major cravings save a few through the day, but nothing I couldn't handle. This evening, we had the remains of 2 packs of cigarettes here at home, each with a few ciggies left in each. We sat there and crushed them, again something I could never have done a few years ago.

People are driven by many things to give up smoking, whether it be health, their kids, loss of a relative to cancer, and so on. All these things of course have a bearing, but do you know what is the major focus for me? Money. We have been spending anything up to £300 or more a month on cigarettes.....up to now it has not been of any consequence because we both smoked, and we chose to buy those ciggies. In one simple decision we have increased our available income by nearlyy £100 per week.

My focus now is that we can have £300 or more pounds a month to spend on ourselves, the kids and the house: it's that simple. That is what will drive me to remain a non smoker from now on. Of course I will benefit healthwise, and in other ways too I am sure.

There are none so blind as will not see..

I have just read a posting in an MSN group where i am a member.

Entitled "First Meeting" it went like this...

my love my life
my Master ...
i would like all to know that i do not have any sort of permission to write this ...
My Sir/Master and i met online and W/we were going to meet on the 24th of this month. To spend 2 weeks together?
but apparently i have been too demanding and all.
He is going through alot and may have job change /,and a Country change at the
same time ...
my flight and hotel and safe numbers are all intact....
tonight he told me not to come...
i am so devistated ... He was someone i
wanted to be with/explore and enjoy each other...
to Him i once again will
say i tried ... and Sir ... but given a R/L W/we would have been
wonderful?
You have broken my heart once again ...
Good Luck To
You ,,,
thank you for opening my eyes to a world of wonderful/loving/caring
and best of all devoted people...

Now, I am a bit of a cynic. There were several replies to this post saying stuff like "Respect your masters choice" "Trust his judgement" "so sorry to hear of this difficult time for you and your Master.." etc etc

Frankly what a load of crap this is!

This poor girl has just been played good and proper by some uncaring idiot who obviously has no feelings for her or anyone else he might meet.

Those who are true to the tenets of this lifestyle would never contemplate a first meeting to last 2 weeks. The Master should have controlled this, and ensured that no arrangements were made which could not be fulfilled.

Furthermore the submissive, as so often happens, becomes blinded by the need to submit/serve/have a Master etc etc and can see no further than the "roses round the door, perfect D/s lifestyle, story book stuff"

It doesn't happen that way.

I honestly felt like posting on that group thread and saying to these people "wake up and smell the coffee" but felt I didn't want to hurt this person feeling in public more than has already happened. Every day I ask myself, why do people not use the commonsense they were born with?

How often do people who who have entered into a so-called long term, and growing relationship, one which is about to go from online to real life suddenly decide they are going to change jobs, emigrate and totally remove themselves from any contact with the previously sole focus of their attention? Only when their wife/girlfriend found out they were playing online and pulled the plug on the pc, thats when. This guy is not going abroad, his only problems are that he never had any intention of meeting this poor sub, and simply had to find a plausible excuse to get out of it.

Ahh well, as I say. None so blind as those who will not see.

Apathy Rules

I have not felt compelled to write here for a while, as I tend to reserve this space for things which I feel strongly enough about to warrant recording in some way.

Well, now I have something.

When I started out on my exploration of D/s and the internet a few years ago I was very surprised to find how many people were totally unaware of the dangers of arranging one to one meetings with somebody they didn't know, except via a pc screen or phone. There is a way of at least adding some kind of safety net during this type of first meeting , known as a Safecall. The basic idea is that you pass the details of who and where you are meeting to a third party, and they stay in touch with you by phone, at pre arranged or even random times throughout the duration of said meeting. If at any time something is not quite right the third party is under instructions to take such action as they feel necessary to maintain your safety.

3 years ago I set up a little operation to offer safecalls to people. We did a few, but mostly to people we knew, and the idea never really took off, although everyone whom I spoke to said what a great service it was. Anyway, the website has been there all this time, still offering it's good advice to anyone who wanted to read it.

Recently we heard of a good friend who fell foul of a first meeting and ended up in hospital as a result. At the same time, a posting about another incident appeared in an MSN group where I am a member. I decided that I needed to spread the word about safety, specifically first meeting safety and safecalls. So, we redesigned the website, and I set out to begin raising people's awareness of safety issues within the D/s lifestyle again.

This week I have started this process by posting in some 10 MSN groups (including the one which had the post relating to the incident above) whose members total some 8500 supposedly committed and serious D/s lifestylers. I asked that each person who read the post, or looked at the safecall website should reply to my original posting in each group. It is now 48 hours later and I have to report the following: There have been about 15 replies. 9 in one group alone. In another group I was warned off about posting "scare stories" about personal safety as this might cause members to leave, or put them off of using the message boards. Another group decided to remove my post altogether with no explanation.

So, it appears that those who profess to be serious and concerned lifestylers couldn't give a flying f*** about safety. They would rather talk about more interesting things. What I don't quite understand is that they have totally missed the point. One reply suggested that we might scare off new lifestylers by talking about the dangers of first meetings. Frankly I would rather scare someone off than have their death on my conscience because I didnt give them the benefit of the knowledge I have, and help them to create at least a safer meeting than not say anything at all.

My perception of the (predominantly) UK D/s lifestyle participants has dropped considerably in the last forty eight hours. However I am recording these thoughts because I know there will be further episodes as i fully intend to pursue my campaign, and I make no apologies for that. I have decided that i am going to offer Safecall as a service again, this time at no cost (the original idea was to charge for it). I am researching the possibility of making Safecall a charity, on a not for profit basis, funded entirely by donations, and will be approaching such places as ISP's to ask for funding, and to set up a UK wide network of trained safecall Designates in the major cities, who have local knowledge, and access to such things as reputable taxi companies, and who can develop a rapport with local police too.

This is my vision, and I fully intend to see it through.

Watch This Space!!!