It didn’t take long for me to realize that I was coming home.
I handed the slave working the registration table my license. As she skimmed her list, ticking my name off, she said, “I haven’t seen you in a while. You haven’t even written.”
My breath caught in my throat. I remembered her now. We’d met at a munch shortly before I’d dropped off the scene. She was part of a poly power exchange triad (MMF) whose dynamics fascinated me. She was intelligent, interesting, and superlatively social.
“My life has been crazy. We’ve both been insanely busy.” And though it was true (I’ve been swamped with school, Skyspook with work), my face burned with shame. I felt like the child who always had something more important to do on holidays, the child the family hadn’t seen for years.
My shame dissipated in an instant as she smiled warmly at me and handed me my event badge. “It’s good to see you again.”
*
A great number of events exist within the pansexual BDSM community that are focused on “play.” For the uninitiated, play typically consists of a variety of kinky activities, most traditionally forms of bondage, beating, or sensation induction or deprivation (play can but does not necessarily include sexual intercourse). Classes at a typical BDSM convention will focus on techniques for play consisting of how-to instruction for activities like flogging, wrestling/takedowns, fisting, knot tying, or fire play.
Power Exchange Summit (PXS) is not like this. Instead of focusing on play, PXS focuses on relationships. Instead of what we do, PXS is most concerned with who we are.
*
After boi kris’s brilliant keynote address (entitled “Not a Keynote”), I suddenly found my voice. “Skyspook, I want you to be selfish sometimes.”
It was the tip of the sentiment but the sum total of what I could manage as the need washed over me. I want something to burn inside you. I want to be what you need, to be utterly indispensable. I want to give you all the things you’d never usually dare ask for. I want you to want me. I want you to use me.
“I am, and I will be. I’m working on it,” he said in his usual measured way. I felt an empty ache in my chest, frustrated in my inability to distill what I felt into words.
We stopped by the vendors, picked up two white chocolate covered cookie dough brains at the candy table so we could om nom nom them together like zombies in love. To my delight, a delicate purple leather collar with a heart cameo caught Skyspook’s eye, and within minutes, I was wearing it around my neck. A red leather pouch with a pair of nipple clamps. A lock and key.
My friend Sika chuckled at me as I stroked my new collar. “You’re adorable when you preen.”
Later Skyspook and I grabbed lunch at a fried chicken place. While I was sitting at the table to save our place, Skyspook was approached by the girl working the counter. “Tell your lady friend I like her necklace.”