I know that it is no way for a grown up to behave but I have some sympathy for this sleeping lady.

I am certain that any Top worth his salt will scoop her up in his arms and put her to bed. He will in no way be tempted by her lowered knickers.

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This is the post I thought I would never have the courage to write, but then I never thought I would have the strength to do what it is I am writing about.

This blog has always been about reaching out to someone like me and I want to write what is happening, not because I have to or because I owe it to anyone but because this is a record of my exploration of submission. Now I am stepping off a cliff to do find a life where I can submit so I must write about this moment.

In my bio it says that everything I say is true, I just do not say everything.

I am married, have been for years. My husband, I shall call him Simon (which is not his name) has fully known all about everything I do, every step of the way and I have always done everything with his full knowledge and support.

If you are still reading and want to know more, I should like to tell the whole story.

We met when I was in my early twenties. I had been married before (really, a tragic story and I can’t go there now) and Simon was perfect. He is kind, very intelligent, loving, full of hope and kind to children and animals. I knew I needed someone who was into TTWD and so early in our relationship we explored spanking. I left out a paddle hairbrush as a test and he knew exactly what it was for. We talked in detail and he exceeded my expectations by producing a cane that he had bought some years earlier in the hopes of using it on a girl- and there I was. And we explored and it was good.

We dated, we loved, and we got married. Then several things happened. Six miscarriages – we have no children. I will not dwell on the horror of that sentence, other than to say it was and remains a special form of hell that I would wish on no one.

And the spanking, the structure, the submission dwindled and stopped. I begged him for it, we fought over it. He could not, would not spank me. He would not take any role of authority; he would not and could not even consider it. I felt angry at first (we had had obey in the marriage vows- but there was nothing for me to obey) and then I fell adrift and then into depression. At some later date I will write about this time, about how it affected me because I think other women go through it.

I found myself one January evening on the internet – it had been three months since my final miscarriage of twins whose heartbeats faded away to nothing leaving me with a memory that still makes me shake. I was full of grief- all alone in it. Simon could not grieve with me. I understand that- he had not been pregnant, he had not been floored by morning sickness; he had not felt his body shift and change. He had not had the body that was scrutinised and later cut to remove the tiny corpses. I don’t want to talk about that any more.

There was a site which I had looked at a thousand times before and this one dark, cold lonely night, I commented. One comment, I played. I hid. I smiled. It grew feelings in me that I had not felt for years. I told Simon as he sat next to me. He smiled as I did. He loved me. I fell in love and he helped me. He installed Skype on my computer and later showed me how to buy the airline tickets and drove me to the airport. It hurts to write this. I want to stop.

I fell in love. I did not mean to. Simon and I went to marriage counselling. We discussed my “needs” how he could not fulfil them (this was non-negotiable by now- he was very clear on this. It makes me feel nauseous to remember how he described it) and how I needed them. He was clear it was vital for me to carry on with my other relationship. He loved me. I loved him. I asked how I could help him and he said by ironing his shirts and not being upset when he had to work late. I complied, ironically that compliance gave neither of us any joy.

My external  relationship failed due to distance and the fact that I am married.

I tried to live without submission and without all the things I write about here and I crumbled. I wrote this post. I met Horrid. My husband saw the bruises and shook his head. This is what my obsession had led me to. He did not understand those bruises were all wrong- they merely confirmed all his beliefs about why he would never spank me again and why he would not even express an opinion- he would not be like that man.

I met Dexter. I started to have feelings for Dexter. I did not mean to and I won’t discuss those feelings on here, not in detail. I want to see how we might grow without me taking a seat in the Directors chair.

Simon and I staggered on. On the 23^rd of December we decided to divorce. I am leaving this wonderful, kind, loving man who was prepared to do anything to care for my happiness and who still is. It was a mutual decision. I cried, he did not but he held me as I did. We spent Christmas Day together, just the two of us and on Boxing Day I went to his family party, silent about our divorce, knowing that he would be telling them next week so as not to disrupt Christmas.

I am breaking us up to be single. I am leaving security and being cared for. I am utterly terrified about money and I have no idea how I am going to survive this. I do not know how to start again on my own.

I am losing so many friends, who he is telling tonight about my affairs, and so I will be a villain, because I am a villain. My mother can hardly look at me. I have made his mother cry.

I care deeply for Dexter. I do not know what will happen with us. I hope something good- I believe it might.

I am walking away from the cave and the fire. I am walking naked and alone into the night. This is everything I am taught not to do. This is a terrible, destructive act.

But I have to. I have to try to live the life I want. I have to be with a man that I can submit to. I have to explore all the joy and peace I find from a loving, discipline relationship. I will not write in twenty years time that I am filled with regret.

This may be the worst mistake of my life. It may be the best decision I ever make. But now, I am very scared, in pain and tired.  I love Simon, he loves me. He cares for me and looks after me and I am throwing that away for a risk.

I don’t understand how I can risk everything for a life where I can submit and explore everything I write about here. I don’t understand how I cannot take that risk. I don’t understand how love cannot be enough. I don’t understand why I have to be so brave in order to allow myself to be vulnerable.

There, now I have told you.  I had to tell you because this moment is everything this blog is about.

Bloody hell, I am terrified.

Would you like another?

Somewhere in the air, over the Atlantic, I lost my breath.

And I found a guiding principle.

It is one whose power I cannot explain and whose origin I can only imagine. It is, nevertheless, inviolate.

I will reveal it in time, but it seems important to detail, first, what preceded the revelation.

The plane was on a flight path from London to Atlanta.

My senses were heightened already, as they always are after time spent abroad.

The sole male flight attendant approaching my seat, soon after the plane gained height, gave every appearance of being a strictly professional type as he saw to the needs of other passengers; yet, when he served me, he smiled warmly and even initiated some light and teasing banter.

I can never resist.

I return all smiles directed toward me.

I consistently rise to the invitation to charm. Effortlessly.

My attention, I confess, was diverted, but not so much that I could fail to take appreciative notice of his eyes, his lips, his voice. All passed muster, with grace to spare, for a man mature enough to have raised young adults of his own, at least.

He passed on then. To engage others, for all I knew.

Sky miles later, he returned with my favorite drink in hand, unbidden. And he said a curious thing: He identified me with the town where I live.

Now, it is a small place. This was, then, no random conversational point that happened to include a well-known geographical location. This was, surely, no casual reference guilessly uttered to enhance polite conversation.

This was a signal. He had gone a step beyond and he was publishing the fact.

I was first surprised, then intrigued, then set off-balance.

Did he anticipate a reaction? And, if so, what did he hope it might be?

Suddenly I was reduced to an emotional age much younger than my parents could have biologically credited.

I offer this information not so much because it has overwhelming relevance to my story — although I recognize it was not wasted in setting the scene — but, rather, as a second explanation for the fact that I was still breathing normally.

For, once again, my attention had simply been diverted.

Others whose job was to see to my comfort came and went, politely and without connection, throughout the flight.

And then it was he who was moving toward me once more, at long last — a simple drinks cart, stacked high, obscuring most of my view as I tried in vain to search his face and read his expectations, so that I might fulfill them precisely as a good girl should.

But aware that he might glance my way and take note of my confusion and its resulting tension, I lowered my gaze hurriedly to the book whose theme I could no longer recall.

And suddenly he was beside me in the close confines of the cabin. Had I first turned my head and, then, leaned forward only inches beyond a hands-breadth, my face would have brushed against the fabric-draped, flesh-covered, boned ridge below his waist. As it was, when I had accomplished the first movement with grace, I began an upward sweep of my eyes instead.

His face, of course, was my ultimate sighted destination. It would tell me, surely, if I should be silent. If I should be haughty. If I should be innocent. If I should be appalled. If I should be amused. If I should be engaged.

The rich potential for communication died a quiet death, however.

Because as I raised my gaze, my eyes, my brain, my heart and every nerve ending in my body took full notice of  the inch-wide, supple, buttery-leather black belt riding masterfully just above the subtle male curve of his hip.

And I literally could not breathe.

Had he pushed the fully-laden cart far away, slowly unbuckled the strap, drawn it with full authority from the wide black loops, doubled it over with a firm plan in mind, kissed it down across my thighs and then ordered me — in measured tones — to rise and stand in the plane’s aisle and offer my bottom cheeks to its stinging embrace, I could not physically have breathed a word  –  either of  protest or acquiescence.

But he did none of those things.

He placed a drink on my tray and silently moved on instead.

And I never saw him again.

Except in my mind.

It is there that two images — blended — are a constant.

One is of his belt that took my breath away. And does, even yet.

But this is the revelation: the other is of his hand … and it is the truly enduring and powerful one.

I cannot fully, or even adequately, describe his slender fingers or the firm palm or the finely-boned front feature by feature, line by line, curve by curve, skin tone by skin tone for you. But I can tell you this … although I cannot determine with precision the moment I knew it first: His hand was beautiful.

And it is the beautiful hand, I know now in principle, that is essential to winning my highly disciplined heart. The hand that brands me must be a work of art.

For discipline delivered by an ugly hand would be for me, quite simply, a very ugly thing indeed.

Would you like another?