On Mother's Day, I made my wife breakfast in bed. She had a lazy day to herself, spending most of it upstairs in our room watching TV, while I took care of our son downstairs.
Later in the day, she came downstairs and we all went out to hang out in the back yard.
At one point, she pulled me down for a kiss. I think she could tell that I was really wanting some attention. "Don't worry, we'll play soon," she said.
We had previously discussed the fact that I didn't want her to tell me in advance when we were going to play, since she had often set my expectations and then not followed through. So I really wished that she hadn't said anything at all.
I think she could tell that I was unhappy with what she'd said, so she tried to clarify. "I'm not telling you exactly when, but soon."
The clarification didn't really help; I knew her well enough to know that what she meant was either that night or the next one, so she'd already set my expectations. But she obviously already knew that I was unhappy she'd said something, so I didn't want to make a big deal out of it.
The next day, after I finished work, she seemed to be tired. I suggested that she go upstairs and have some quiet time while I watched our son.
She got up to go upstairs, gave me a kiss, and said somewhat apologetically, "I wish I had enough energy to play tonight."
After she had set my expectations the previous day, I was frustrated, but I was trying not to make a big deal out of it. After all, there was nothing she could have done about it at that point - she couldn't go back and unset the expectations, and I didn't want us to play that night just because she felt sorry for me.
"It's okay, Love. I hope you feel better." I tried to keep the disappointment out of my tone.
I think she could tell I was unhappy, but she just gave me a small smile and then went upstairs to rest.
In retrospect, I probably should have told her how I felt. This is a bad habit of mine: I find it very hard to be selfish, and few things make me feel as selfish as expressing my disappointment in her not doing something that I want, especially when I can see that she's not feeling well. I know that the result of my saying something is just going to be to make her feel bad, and it's not going to change the practical outcome anyway, so why bother? I do know that it's important to make myself express my feelings anyway, because it's important for both of us to be vulnerable with each other and share how we're feeling, even when it doesn't seem like it can't affect the immediate outcome. But it often takes me a little while to get to the point where I realize that something is bothering me enough that I need to say something about it.
That evening, I was going to discover that that actually wasn't the only thing I'd been needing to say something about.
I was still a little upset when she came back downstairs for dinner a couple of hours later, although I was still trying not to show it. As we sat down to eat, I asked her, "Did your rest help?"
She was acting all up-beat, although I felt like she was just trying to cheer me up. "Yeah, it did. I am feeling a bit better."
"Good, I'm glad," I said, without much emotion.
She looked at me. "You okay?"
"Yeah, I'm okay, Love."
She smiled. "Good. Tonight, I want you to take a Viagra."
Unfortunately, after what had happened earlier, I wasn't in the mood to play anymore. I shrugged. "Okay, if you want," I said without much enthusiasm.
"What's wrong?"
"I know you're not feeling up to playing tonight, and I don't want you to play just because you feel bad about disappointing me."
"It's not because I feel bad, I really want to play."
"That's not how you've made me feel, Love. It's like..." I paused for a bit to put my thoughts together in a coherent way. "I want to feel desired. I want to feel like you want me. Right now, I don't feel like that. I feel like you weren't feeling up to playing, but then you saw how disappointed I was, so you're doing it because you feel sorry for me. That's not what I want. Honestly, it completely ruins it for me."
She considered what I'd said, and I could see that she was actively working hard not to react defensively. "Okay, that's fair. I didn't mean to make you feel like that, but I do understand why you do."
"I know you didn't, Love. I've never once felt like you did something to intentionally hurt me. But I'm still really frustrated."
We had a long talk after that, starting right there at dinner and continuing in bed that night. As these conversations sometimes do, we wound up branching out and talking about a number of subjects related to our D/s relationship.
I explained that I really wanted to know that I could please her and to feel desired. That's why I wanted her to be the one to initiate play: for most of our marriage, I had been the one to initiate sex, and she had turned me down often enough that it made me feel undesired. I explained that one of the things I really loved about our recent exploration of kink was that it had finally allowed me to find things that turn her on. I really wanted her to take advantage of the gift of submission that I was offering her, to fully revel in her control over me in a way that made it clear that she valued it and that it brought her pleasure, but I didn't feel like she was really letting herself do that. I'd been trying to encourage her to explore to find more things that she'd enjoy, in the hope of finding something that turned her on enough to overcome any reticence she might feel and allow her to fully embrace her desires. But unfortunately, she always seemed initially hesitant about any new idea, which made me feel like she wasn't as interested as I was in exploring things that she might enjoy.
She explained that one of the reasons why she wasn't really letting herself go was that she was worried about going too far. She didn't want to really hurt me, and she didn't want me to be upset at her. I tried to assuage her concern by asking her what she thought the worst case would be. She said that if I passed out and she had to call 911, she didn't know how she'd explain to the EMTs what was going on. I told her that I knew she could do that if she needed to and that I trusted her to put my life and health ahead of any embarrassment she might feel.
She said that she was worried that she might hit some sort of limit for me. I told her that I think we probably would hit a limit at some point; in fact, I thought that we needed to do that in order to find out where our limits actually were, because we probably had limits that we couldn't know were there until we actually encountered them. I promised her that as long as we did that carefully and together, I would not be upset when that happened.
We agreed that part of the problem was that she was having a hard time trusting that I would actually use my safe-word when I needed to. I told her that the reason I hadn't had to do that yet is that we hadn't hit any real limit yet, but I promised her that I would use it if I needed to. I agreed that I would be extra conservative in deciding when to use my safe-word, to help her gain confidence that I would use it when I needed to.
We also talked about the fact that I felt that she sometimes still exhibited people-pleasing behavior, which was something that she'd really made great strides in over the last year or so. I felt that when she told me that we'd play soon, it was because she saw that I was needing some attention and was thinking more about trying to make me feel better than about the fact that she knew that I didn't want her to tell me in advance when she was planning to play. But she said that she actually was just trying to build my anticipation when she said that. I accepted that, but I gave her another example: she often gave me choices about what we were going to do in a scene. I told her that I would rather that she not ask and just do what she wants, so that I could have confidence that she was doing what she wanted, not what she thought I wanted. I explained that I wanted to be able to trust that when she tells me to do something, that she is doing it because it's what she wants, not because she's trying to find something that I will like. I think we gained some mutual understanding on this issue, but I don't think we fully solved it; it was definitely something that we were going to have to continue working on.
Toward the end of the conversation, she suggested that one good way to decide what to do in a given scene would be to have a suggestion box. The idea would be that I could write down ideas on little pieces of paper and put them in the box, and for scenes where she didn't necessarily have something particular in mind, she could go into the box and pick out one of the suggestions to determine what we would do that night.
"I'm certainly fine with that if you want, Mistress," I replied. "But to me, it's basically the same as you telling me what to do; either way, I don't have control over it. And there are always going to be some activities in the hat that you don't like as well as others, or that you aren't in the mood for that particular day. So I'd generally much rather have you choose, because that way I can be more confident that it's really what you want. But we can certainly do it if you want."
I also had a suggestion for her. "You know, you could also give me challenges. For example, you could tell me that I'm not allowed to cum until I can fuck you long enough for you to cum."
I could see that idea spark her interest. "I would really like you to be able to do that."
"I would too, Mistress."
"So how are you going to make that happen?"
"I can try exercising my PC muscle." It was a technique that I'd heard of but hadn't really been motivated enough to try before.
"Okay. Then I want you doing that every day."
"Yes, Mistress. I'll start right now."
When I was done with my exercises, we curled up in each other's arms and went to sleep. I think we both felt a lot closer from having talked out so many issues that had been affecting us.
The next day, as I was working, my wife sent me a couple of teasing photos of her holding the key to my chastity cage. She got me aroused just thinking about how much she controlled me. Then, like the sadistic Mistress she is, she told me to go back to work.
It took me a few minutes to really get my attention refocused on work.
That afternoon, my wife had an appointment with her therapist. She had told me before the appointment that she was going to be talking with her about her efforts to understand and accept her sadism. After that appointment, I asked her how it had gone.
She said that she'd told her therapist about her concerns about losing control and really hurting me. Her therapist advised her to be self-aware, which I completely agreed with. But she also advised her that when she has negative energy (like when she's stressed or upset about something), she should not take that out on me, because that could lead to abuse.
I was not happy to hear that, because I wanted her to be able to use me as an outlet when she was stressed. We had done that in one of our previous scenes, where she had taken out her frustrations over the covid pandemic on me, and we had both been very satisfied with the outcome. I didn't want her to lose the ability to have that outlet, so I tried to make it clear to her that I didn't think the reason that she wanted to do something really mattered; I said that I thought it would be abuse only if she did something to me without my consent, such as ignoring a safe-word or an agreed-upon limit. I think she understood what I was saying.
After dinner that night, she came up behind me and leaned in to kiss, lick, and nibble on my ear. I shuddered, enjoying the sensation. Then she whispered, "Tonight, after you put [our son] to bed, you are going to take a Viagra, strip, and sit on the floor in our room to wait for me."
"Yes, Mistress." I smiled and luxuriated in her touch for a moment. "Do you want me to put in my dilator early, or should I just skip it tonight?"
She knew my hemorrhoid had been flaring up the previous day. "How's your ass feeling?"
"It's been okay today so far."
"Well, that's good, but I think let's make sure you're all healed. Skip it tonight."
"Yes, Mistress."
"It's really too bad," she said teasingly, "because I was looking forward to pegging you again."
I smiled. "Oh really?"
"Yup. After all, how can I get better at it unless we practice?"
"Good point, Mistress."
She went upstairs to use the bathroom and get ready. I finished cleaning up and then brought our son upstairs to give him a bath. I took a viagra before I put him in the tub, so that it would have time to get into my system. When I'd finished getting him to bed, I came into our room.
