[How do you feel about animals?]

grissom_tm is used with love and permission as is Hank

She pushes her bare toes into Hank’s side. He is warm and his fur is slick and smooth against her skin. The dog looks up at her and swipes his tongue over her toes before resuming his prone position on the rug. There are two dog dishes in her kitchen, one for food and one for water. Sometimes she fills them up even on the days that Hank isn’t there. She’s fallen very easily into the habit of having an animal around the house, particularly given that she never had animals before this. So many people have allergies and those were never part of anyone’s fantasies.

She kneads along the dog’s backbone with her toes, returning her attention to the file she is reading. She has patients now, not clients and it’s a huge change but like Hank, not an unwelcome one. Of course she’s had a bit more time to adjust to the career change. A cold, wet nose nudges at the arch of her foot, unexpectedly shattering the silence with a laugh that comes from deep within her. She smiles, leaning over to run her hand against the grain of his fur then smoothing it back again. He makes a groaning-grumbling noise that she’s come to realize is a sound of pleasure. She thinks she should have picked up on that one a lot sooner considering her previous career.

“Come on, he’s still in the shower. He’ll never know,” Heather whispers conspiratorially to the dog as she gets to her feet. They both pad into the kitchen, Hank’s nails clicking on the tile floor. He already knows where they’re headed and arrives before she does, nudging at the pantry door. She trails her fingertips over his back—he’s just the right height to do so—and opens the pantry door.

Hank is on his third dog treat when she gets caught red handed. Gil doesn’t say anything, just raises an eyebrow and grins a bit. He joins them at the pantry, hands rubbing over Hank’s head but he’s looking at her.

“I see Hank is as spoiled here as I am.”
“I’m working on my nurturing skills,” she responds. He’s not around too much, only a couple of days a week—Hank a bit more if he’s working overtime. She’s become his designated buddy—but it is enough that they, as well, have fallen into a comfortable place.

“I’m going to rest for a few hours. Would you care to join me?” Gil asks, his hand stilling on the top of Hank’s head.

“I could use a nap.”

They’re comfortable here and together but she knows Gil needs control in his life more than he ever has. There are few things she can do for him but letting him have this space where he has complete control is one of them.

[There are some that only employ words for the purpose of disguising their thoughts. – Voltaire]

I’m in the business of illusion. Nothing is what it seems. The submissive have the power and the dominants are the puppets. It takes a very skilled dominatrix to look behind the words and see the thoughts. I suppose it seems trite and crass to explain that in my world no does not always mean no. Sometimes no is part of the fantasy. Many men when put under a whip will yell the words no and scream ‘not again’. However, that’s merely one facet of the fantasy; if a dominatrix stops there than she’s failed to fulfill the client’s wishes. More often than not, clients come to me and they don’t understand themselves what their fantasies are, or they are ashamed to voice them. In our society much of what I deal in daily is considered taboo. Therefore men feel ‘dirty’ or ‘bad’ when they want to dominate a women or they feel weak and enmasuclated if they wish to be dominated. I take their words, see beneath them to the thoughts they disguise and I uncover those thoughts, give them a safe place to voice them so that they may truly live out their fantasies.

[Fearless]

She’s a tower of strength; a fortress that life has battered itself upon and come up lacking. She knows some of the things that she did after her daughter’s death were reckless but they weren’t done fearlessly. Every breath, every action, every moment stank with fear. She just needed and wanted more than she feared.

She coerced and she flirted. She manipulated and charmed but it wasn’t until he was tied to the truck that cold, hard fear grabbed hold of her. She pushed forward, hand curled around the shaft of the whip. She thought the first strike would banish the fear and when it didn’t she thought by the tenth. She kept hitting and flaying. Crimson stained his skin and splattered hers but no matter how hard she whipped him, the fear wouldn’t go away. And then Gil was there. With one word, he managed what all the whip lashes in the world couldn’t. The fear melted away, he took the responsibility from her, the fear from her and replaced it with acceptance and something as close to love as she’s ever felt but she was never fearless, not until he took her control away.

{I’m Here Because}

I’m here because I lost my daughter a year ago. She and I weren’t really on the best of terms and sadly it has occurred to me that that is something of a cliché, regardless of how true it was. Zoe was in college when it happened and I was maintaining my life. I thought she was safe but I was so very wrong. I lost her and I turned all my considerable energy and attention toward catching the man that killed her, or at least toward helping the authorities catch him. By itself, it might have been an admirable goal but I took revenge too far, twisting it until it was vengeance and I learned there is no vengeance for such a heinous act. Nothing I could do to that man would ever bring Zoe back and it took a very dear friend to show me that. One might assume after that I would turn my recovery toward something more positive. One would be very wrong in making that assumption.

Two and a half weeks ago I sold a man the right to kill me. He had fantasies about killing women and I gave him permission to fulfill that fantasy. However, I found once embroiled in the act, I couldn’t allow it happen. I stopped him and most days I’m grateful that I did. Again, due to the intervention of the same friend, I’ve been allowed visitation with my granddaughter. So far it appears to be going well and there are intentions of continuing the visitation. However, I’m not a fool and I’ve still enough of the ‘bad’ days to realize I need some help. I can’t get through this or over this alone.