Have you ever had a day that made you feel as if you were traveling through The Twilight Zone?  You were late – then early – even got the actual day wrong.  Misunderstandings at every turn.  You lost your keys, then found them exactly where you looked a few minutes earlier.  So frustrating and exasperating you just want someone to pull the plug and let you swirl down the rabbit hole.

You tell yourself to count to ten (that’s what my mother always used to say).  Take a deep breath, keep things in perspective.  By the time the day is drawing to a close, all you want is a hot bath, a really expensive glass of wine, and —!

The truth is – at least my truth – to heck with the hot bath and glass of wine.  Isn’t finding your Dominant waiting at home all that is needed?  Being engulfed in the big, reassuring bear hug is certainly welcome.  Seeing him potter around the kitchen to make the obligatory cup of tea, as he orders me to stay on the couch and catch my breath, is endearingly charming.

But it’s all a strange kind of foreplay.

What I am waiting for, counting on, breathlessly need, is what comes after.  We both know it.  Dom and sub going through the required motions as they contemplate what will follow, that tepid ten minutes.  When it starts, when the blindfold slips across my eyes and I feel the fluttering wings of the first butterfly, when I begin to surrender to the sensations of heavenly helplessness when the silk cords tighten around my wrists, the days troubles dissipate and disappear.

It’s just the blackness, the anticipation, the sound of his footfalls as he walks to the locked closet that contains his array of precious implements.  The key turning in the lock, the squeak of the hinges, the rustling around as he determines what will be best for this particular night.

All my senses, every fabric and fibre tuned to him.  The closet door closes.  He is back.  His breath is on my neck.  Time to exorcise the Demons of the Day he whispers.  Water in the middle of a parched desert, a down coat on a snowy day – draw whatever parallel suits your frame of reference. It is the comfort that soothes the suffering soul, and it is, Sigh, Thank You Sir.