Two good friends of mine had been together as dominant and submissive for just about a year. They really were a good match, everybody that knew them agreed. But I knew from confidences on both sides that there were little glitches in their perfect life. Nothing that threatened their relationship or the foundation of their agreement but little things that made the way they had chosen to live with one another less profound.
Anna, for that is her name, would often be sad and when I asked her about what was the matter she would deny anything was wrong. One day, when I pressed her more than usual, she gave up and told me.
"You remember I told you I have this block in my head about letting him fuck me in the ass."
I remembered. Oddly, she would give her entire trust to her dominant partner on much kinkier practices. She let him bend her over his knee and spank her like a disobedient child, and let him fuck her raw right after. I knew from Mark that she had made anal sex one of their limits. One mind you, she had just about handful of things she did not want to approach with him. Mark had been patient because he cared deeply for her and knew she was not just trying to impose it on him. Despite his assumed role in their sex games, he did not want to hurt her.
But according to Anna, Mark was dismayed by her unwillingness to push her limitations. She said that in a way she knew he was right, that it was senseless for her to expect a dominant man to bend over backwards over her limits and that her demands lessened the gift of her submission to him. She felt very badly at the thought that she was sabotaging the fullness of what to her was an important part of his sexual expression. But at the same time, she was paralysed, unable to set foot on the path to learning how to overcome her sexual taboos to please him.
I did not know what to say to her. I knew from other times we had discussed sexual issues that she was enjoying her submission to Mark immensely. I also knew that Mark could be very exacting, always finding the crack in his partner's state of mind to make bondage and humiliation seem more significant, almost mythical. He always played safe but knew how to make the most of every shred of shared intimacy, sexual or not. He must have wanted to break down her resistance very badly and it was reasonable to assume that if he had not cracked her limits wide open it was not because he could not do so. That he did not only showed how responsible he felt about the long term dimension of the relationship.
I asked Anna what stopped her, really. As any sub, she had overcome a great many obstacles on her road to submission. She had to accept inner feelings that were in complete contradiction with her own self-image. She had to struggle with the idea that, loving what she did, she was still a respectable woman. What made those last frontiers she had erected different than the rest? She did not want to tell me, or maybe she did not want to hear herself say it out loud, but as I kept badgering her over it, the cat finally came out of the bag.
"I can't do anything, it's up to him to break my limits!" She looked taken aback by her own admission and that's the way I felt too. We knew she had subconsciously assumed that Mark would take the responsibility and this was the first clue that she had actually been sending him the wrong signal. That, in fact, she would like him to force her to surrender the last pieces of herself to him. She reddened, looking like first cousin to a beet.
"You have to tell Mark about this" I said to her. "No, I can't!" "You've let him see so much of you that you would have preferred remained hidden and in the end you were happy that you did. You can tell him, and you should. The man has seen you at your most vulnerable and still loves you."
I knew I had put the finger on it, as soon as I said it. Well almost. It was not his love she was worried about, but his respect. She had held back these last shreds of innocence because she was afraid of losing both her self-respect and his if she did not have concrete proof that she behaved like a decent woman. She followed my train of thought and it showed on her face. I did not want her to guess how ridiculous it sounded, but I am sure she knew. She just could not help it. She looked a bit shocked to understand her own rationalisation. After all that she had given up of herself to Mark for safekeeping, and to their mutual satisfaction, she was in fact afraid he would fail her. So she would not give him last remainder of herself, could not bring herself to trust him fully, and that's where she was failing him.
The discussion abated and we left it alone for the moment. But I knew, just because she had not told me not to breathe a word to anyone, that a part of her wanted my own special kind of help. Mark, as any gentleman, was a bit reluctant to broach the subject with me. But I had information he wanted. I told him what had transpired with Anna, that she could not tell him. He was relieved but at the same time a bit disturbed that Anna had such ambiguous feelings. He felt she should be able to trust him. I replied to him that in a way she did, she trusted him to help her. We agreed on that, and sincerely Anna had. She was just unable to make the first step. I did not ask what he would do, but I knew he had a plan and that he was terribly excited about it. So I was reassured on Anna's behalf and satisfied that I had acted on good intentions with only the best of results.
Later on I was able to get a pretty good picture of what that plan entailed and how it had played out from piecing back confidences from both of them.
Anna went to bed early one evening. Mark brought her one of those herbal teas she likes so much. She felt asleep almost instantly. .