Why I Hate Doms

1 - They're such unbelievable assholes.

       I saw this guy once who had his "slave" eating her food out of a dog food bowl.  (Naturally, me being me, I couldn't stop myself from observing, "Just a thought - If you want a dog, go buy a flippin dog."  That was probably time-I-almost-got-my-ass-kicked-number-227.)

2 - They're not really Doms.

       "Oh, is that too hard? - am I hurting you?  I'm sorry!"

       Sheesh.  (Jack---rolling eyes)

3 - They're so pretentious.

       They dress in all this leather stuff, and call themselves names like "Lord Dragondick".  Give me a break.  Again, me being me, if some guy is actually a big enough idiot to introduce himself to me like that, I usually can't resist laughing and saying something like, "Really?  Your mom named you that?"

4 - So many of them are fat.

       Okay, maybe I just don't like fat people.

5 - They're clueless.

       I don't mean to be a snob (I just am), but the sad fact is that most self-styled "Doms" don't have a flippin' clue regarding what Dominance/submission is all about.  I really much prefer girls who haven't previously been in D/s relationships, because if they have, they usually come with a bunch of insane baggage that needs to be unlearned - i.e., all the idiotic crap that was instilled in them by Doms they'd been with.

       All right, end of rant - Hey, thanks for listening!  Have a splendiferous day.

Ash Wednesday

       I could always tell by the way she approached me whenever Helen wanted to ask me something, but - for some silly reason - was a little afraid to do so.

       I was reading on the sofa when she knelt on the floor beside me, head bowed, took my hand and rubbed it nervously between both of her own.  "Can I ask you something?"

       "I think you just did."

       Helen, who was more indulgent of my weak humor than most, smiled and simply replied, "Something else."

       "Ohhh.  Sure, go ahead."  I never really understood her apprehensiveness about asking me certain things, as it never upset me in any way for her to simply pose a question.

       After lifting her face to smile at me, she turned it back down, and increased the rate of her hand massage.  "I was wondering...Could you...Would you mind taking me to church tomorrow?"  Explanitorially, she added, "It's Ash Wednesday."

       I gave her a kind of puzzled, furrowed brow look, but answered.  "Absolutely.  That's not a problem."

       She beamed another smile up at me, then kissed the hand she had in custody, and said, "Thank you."

       Because I'm a relentless snoop, I asked her, "Is this coming from anyplace in particular, or...?"

       The rate of hand rubbing picked up again, and the beaming smile became a blinking-on-and-off one.  Still, straightly enough, she replied, "I've just been feeling like going to church lately, and I thought Ash Wednesday might be a good time."  She bit her lower lip.

       "Okay.  So what's the problem?  What are you looking so nervous about?"

       She looked away, in a variety of directions, before mustering a reply.  "I'm...Well, what if...What if I started going to church, and it became something..."  She searched for a word, but failed to find it.  Happens to me, too.

       Fortunately, I've got reasonably good intuition, and can work fairly well off a limited number of clues.  I smiled softly at her and suggested, "What?  You're afraid you might turn from your wicked ways...and that might affect our relationship?"

       She merely nodded in reply.  Helen was never one for long, detailed answers.

       My smile broadened a bit, and I told her, "Jeez, Helen, I don't think I'm likely to begrudge God taking you away from me, if it comes to that."

       Helen frowned, then piped up, "Can I ask you something else?"

       "Well, you're nearing the daily question limit, but, all right."

       "Do you believe in God?"

       "Absolutely.  But I don't really know Him."  I let that hang in the air a second or two, then grinned and added, "Maybe I'm afraid if I really got to know Him...He might take you away from me."

       She launched herself up off the floor, into my arms, and hugged me tightly to her.  She whispered in my ear, "You're so good to me."

       My reply was, "Actually, sweetheart, I think the truth is that it's God who's too good to all of us.  Me, I'm just occasionally mildly thoughtful.  But, thanks for the kind words all the same."

       It made Helen happy to attend Ash Wednesday Mass the next day.  And that made me happy.  I didn't mind the service either, come to think of it.

       And, as things turned out, I doubt rather seriously that it was God who ended up taking her away from me.

Pieces of April

       This is the only story I ever told that left my therapist - who, frighteningly enough, was a redhead herself - feeling more satisfied than disgruntled at the end of a session.  It's true what they say, you know.  Redheads are bad luck.

"I've got pieces of April,

  I keep 'em in a memory bouquet..." - Three Dog Night

            When I was in fifth grade, my best friend was this girl named April.  We’d been in the same classes since third grade, but somehow we didn’t really start hanging out together a lot until fifth grade.  April was super smart.  And I guess I was almost smart enough to keep up with her, so she liked talking with me, just because everything she said didn’t sail ten feet over my head.  I couldn’t really keep up with her though.  She talked about God all the time – asked questions that I never heard anyone else ask till I was taking philosophy and religion classes in college.  She was 10 years old, and she was trying to figure out God, for Christ’s sake.

            She had red hair and lots of freckles, and wore these really big glasses.  Not thick, just really big around her eyes.  I remember she had a very throaty laugh – very Demi Moore.

             Anyway, what happened was…she got cancer.  Brain cancer.  I don’t remember how I found out, all I really remember is that she just stopped coming to school sometime in February.  Well, after a few weeks, I finally got my mom to find out where April lived, and take me to visit her.

            She’d had an operation by then, and her head was all shaved, all her pretty, red hair was gone.  And she was very pale – I’d never seen anyone’s skin that color.  It was almost a grey color.  A pallor.  She was happy to see me – she told me she’d been excited ever since her mom told her that I wanted to come over.  She talked my ears off for like an hour or something.

            I can’t remember a word she said.  Because the whole time I was sitting there, I was scared to death.  It was just the look of her.  I didn’t want to have to see her like that.  I couldn’t wait to get out of there.  I was just sitting there waiting for my mom to come in and say it was time to go.

             Boy, it’s really incredible how big a jerk you can be even when you’re only 10 years old.  I never went to visit April again – even though when I left that day I’d told her, yeah, sure, I’ll come back.  And I knew I was lying when I said it.  I knew I was never going to set foot in that Goddamned room ever again.  I just wanted to get the hell out of there.

            Finally, a few months later – it was summer, school was already out – I did ask my mom if she’d take me to see April again.  She told me April had already died.  She'd died, more precisely, of a brain hemorrhage.  In fact, that's how I learned, at the ripe old age of 10, the definition of the word "hemorrhage".  It has ever since been one of my least favorite, or most disliked, words in the English language.

            Well, of course, then I realized what an asshole, jerk, scumbag, asshole, son of a bitch I was.  I thought about April sitting there in her bed, in her room, wondering why I never came to see her again.  And the bad part – the really awful part – was thinking that maybe she thought I didn’t care, that I didn’t like her that much.  Jesus, I hope she didn’t think that.  Because that wasn’t it.  I was just scared.  I was scared, God damn it.  I’d never had anybody die on me before.  But I did care – I did.  I loved her.  As much as you can do that when you’re 10 years old.  I thought about how good I’d always felt being with her, just listening to her.  I loved her.  Even though I didn’t realize it till afterwards…till after she was Goddamned dead.  I loved her, but I left her alone…to die.

            I told myself, after that, that I wouldn’t be afraid anymore.  Or, well, maybe not that I wouldn’t be afraid, but that I wouldn’t ever let the fear keep me away from being with somebody.

            I don’t know why I told you that.  But anyway, if you ever start thinking about me like I’m some kind of hero or something – don’t – I’m not.  I’m just a stupid kid, who owes about a million apologies to a couple of dead girls.

            And that, boys and girls, is (in a roundabout, twisting way, no doubt) how I, one night many years later, came to be hanging off the edge of a roof, with one arm wrapped around Linda, and the other wrapped around an attic air-exhaust vent pipe.

            But that, of course, is another story, for another time...