The Crown & Home Cooking

It was a Tuesday, but not a #PunishTuesday.

I came home and I don’t think he’d left the bed since I went to work that morning. It’s his vacation and I want him to rest, but like many humans with a streak of perfectionism, idleness is deleterious to his emotional well being. As a person with a chronic physical ailment, not having the energy to do things is an all too common experience for him.

For myself, my mood has slipped a notch since the last week of October. What is generally the favourite part of the year for me has been marred by a heavy measure of frustration, anxiety and sadness over various things. It’s given me less time to notice that Wildcard’s been a bit droopy too.
He’s not been on the outs, health wise, but my persistent battery at the norms of looking the other way in the Montreal BDSM scene when someone is (allegedly, always ALLEDGEDLY) sexually assaulted has been his burden to carry as well as mine. It’s really hard, you push and push and people call you a hysteric, a liar and a monster.

I mad November about inaction and self care.  If he was too under the weather too cook I’d let him rest. I’d bought piles of vegetables the night before and went about sorting out the long skinny egg plants, enoki mushrooms, bright crisp carrots and all the appropriate other things for putting together a stir fry. By the time I was sectioning the eggplant into neat diagonals, he’d rallied.

I still helped him, asking questions every step of the way, while he added other things to the process, mincing and mashing garlic, creating two bowls of fresh and savoury vegetables and tofu on rice.

Afterwards, we cuddled up on the couch for Netflix & “The Crown”

I’ve been watching The Crown, and intensely self-indulgent Netflix series about the early reign of Queen Elizabeth II. It is of course, very obviously one of those made-by-math stories, like House of Cards was a product of looking at how popular Kevin Spacey and the original series was. I am being pandered to with lush, vintage sets and darling but relatable female characters.
Someone crunched the numbers regarding who was spending their time on The Kings Speech and Downton Abby, and decided that what we needed was to feel intimately the challenges of a woman who wears fabulous clothes, is waited on hand and foot and wants her husband to kneel to her.

I do not mind. It is good to be pandered to.

I think that the series occasionally suffers from attempting to worship everything it touches with a reverence that occasionally shades to the absurd. I also feel a little odd being presented with a real (living) person’s life, as an object of objectified and packaged desire. But there hasn’t been any sharp notes from the Queen’s press office about depicting her husband as a fuck object, so I can assume she is unruffled by this love letter to the monarchy even if the Royal Consort’s body is being showcased as a perk of the job.

It is not a femdom story with whips and chains and beatings. But it is a meaningful examination of women and power, and this is something missing from contemporary femdom. Everyine talks about making your sub happy, but very little time is taken to look at a femdom’s personal complexities and vulnerabilities.
That night’s episode was about feeling empowered and rife with little femdom hat tips and jokes, as we watch the new Queen get a measure of control in her intimate life and the subtle yet central role she plays in sustaining her government. For a while we forgot our respective black moods, and the post show cuddling turned to kissing and giggling.

Femdom life is like that. I don’t know anyone who really has orderly protocol 24/7. I know FLRs where she has ultimate say, but even so, there is more of moody cooking and cuddles on the couch than titles and slave positions.

It’s a good life, if you can find it.

A Sex Shop Date With Wildcard

sushiLast Saturday, Wildcard identified my doldrums as needing fixing, s we went out to watch Dr. Strange and then gorge on sushi, the latter activity almost  meaning a visit to the nearby sex shop, called “Romance“.

Every relationship has its rituals. I have an undying love for salmon, particularly raw or smoked. Wildcard has a tradition of eating his feelings in delicious all you can eat buffet omnoms. Having a favourite fishing hole, and being fond of me, he shared the location and now we make monthly pilgrimages. Faces get stuffed, then we invariably go sex toy shopping.

At first the shopping trips were an accidental extension of geography. The store just happens to be between us and where we always park. Honestly, showing up there started with very little expectation other than having a giggle at the hilari-bad porn DVDs.

This branch is open absurdly late, which was probably the first draw.  Plus, in addition to the breast shaped macaroni and strawberry flavoured lube (euch), they have an upstairs BDSM and fetish section. It’s an Adult Novelty style shop, but it is more than dick hats and copies of Pink Eye 2.

Still, why pay the markup?

You might wonder our motive for being there. After all, it is never going to be as cheap as shopping online. No brick and mortar store is going to beat a fresh-from-the-warehouse site like pinkcherry.ca in cost. If I want a bouquet of a half dozen riding crops,  I will never argue meatspace is cheaper.

I keep going back to Romance, because they beat even my favourite online retailers in immediate customer engagement. The staff cares about and is knowledgeable about all their stock. And, while online sites offer reviews, at a certain point you can’t beat actually touching the merchandise.

Going Hands On

Does it bounce well in the hand with a fleshy weight? How strong are the stitches in the leather? Can you slap it against your thigh to feel the thud or the sting? How does it stand up to my personal tastes? You can tell right away what will and won’t work for you.

For example, this time I wanted a cock ring for Wildcard. We’ve basically maxed out on vibes and insertables, but I wanted to take my teasing game a little further and make his erections more persistent.

Sure cock rings are a cheap grab. They seldom cost more than $20, unless you are moving into the territory of elaborate gilded ornaments. Still, I could have bought multiples online for the price of the one I got.  I paid the store markup because I wanted to actually handle the products properly, and get Wildcard’s immediate feedback. After all it was his penis about to be cinched.

At Romance, anything is available for reasonable in store testing, and I had six or so different sizes and models to play with and figure out which was best. Otherwise, I would either need to borrow a friend’s personal items (assuming I knew someone who did have one), or try my luck with buying before I try. Why gamble and create waste?

Curation Matters

Romance doesn’t stock the super high end, gold plated luxury brands, and while they have a few of the lower quality toys, they are carefully screened for skin safe material. The quality and price point runs a range, but nothing will cause a rash. They have recognizable brands, like Tantus, and various versions of the standards in less recognized brands: glass, masturbation sleeves, bullet vibes, etc… Nonetheless they have their share of the cheap quality stuff.

However, what makes me trust in the quality of their offerings are how they handle duds and poor purchases and how they constantly make purchasing a conversation.

corsetback

For example last shopping trip, I impulse bought a Music Legs branded corset back fishnet tights set. That’s not a band I’d expect much from, but even so, the quality was terrible, neither matching the claimed colours on the package, nor coming laced. Indeed the wretched things gave you your lace as a single length of uncut ribbon- unacceptable for an item fragile enough that the first wearing was likely the last.

Online shopping, you write an irate review, and maybe process a return with shipping at your own expense. The smaller ones have time to address you complaints, but there’s a lot more time and distance involved. Here, you get the immediate feedback and from the staff, checking if it was a one off and pulling the defective product, as well as making a note to discuss the problem with the supplier.

And their relationship building also works in the opposite direction. I admit a certain degree of entertainment in getting a post purchase inquiry into the effectiveness of other toys. As much as they are ready to take unsolicited feedback, when you shop they ask questions- and if they know you bought something in the past, they ask you about what your experience was.

So in all, I might buy most of my toys online or seek out pervertables from cooking supply and hardware stores, but the post sushi sex shop date isn’t going to stop any time soon.


Disclosure: I affiliated with pinkcherry after I realized I was giving them a bunch of business from simply bulk ordering cheapo toys and talking about it. Romance and Priape offer no compensation for being mentioned. The sushi pic is free stock photography from clker.com

 

Femdom Life: NO-vember Begins

A sleepy femdom made out of free clip art.November is prostate cancer and men’s health, diabetes and national novel writing month. It’s also the first quiet period I’ve had in a long time. Thus begins the month of Pearl Not Doing Things.

A major vanilla project I’m working on has started to wind down. I’ve dealt with the whole (alleged) serial rapist in the community and pitched a friend from my social group for less severe but definitely horrible things. Those of you that follow me on social media know it was an intense experience that drained a lot of my energy. That and I’ve got one of those persistent low grade health thingees that I need to spend some Canadian Healthcare on. And I was a bridesmaid, which did not entirely agree with me for various reasons mostly to do with being surrounded by happy other people’s families makes me sad mine sucks.

My job has suffered around all that, and I kind of need to focus harder on it. Bleh.

That being said, it hasn’t been all bad. Phantom review sent me a lovely package. You guys were incredibly supportive through the Herr Kommandandt thing and made a serious difference to getting the word out.

But I’m very, very tired, so I am taking the remainder of this month to catch up. I’ll still be on social media but I am adamantly refusing to organize any parties outside the pre-scheduled monthly munch, or worry about accomplishing anything with any sort of plan, deadline or performance expectation. Of course 99% of this is just removing hiatus guilt, since this blog has never been on any sort of sensible schedule, but I’m hoping to do crafts, read novels and if I write or make art, have it be for fun.

Although a part of me is super excited to start cleaning my apartment. Because of course that’s the kind of weirdo I am.

Oh and I want to make more time to actually have sex and less time to writing about it, or scolding people for being terrible about consent.

… I freely admit that about a week in and I’m still getting “omg I need to be USEFUL” jitters and trying to find something to plan and work on.