First Top

Yesterday I had my first topping session with Sis. I decided that I wanted to do a wax play scene, with a little ice play as well, and Daddy agreed, and asked if it was alright if he co-topped.

I have to admit, I'm a little disappointed with the scene. I'm glad that I had Daddy to help teach me things, because I am seriously out of practice with topping. Hell, I think I'm out of practice in general, to be perfectly honest. I didn't have more than a general plan going into the scene, and it turns out that I'm not as great at thinking on the fly as I used to, so I ended up just repeating moves to extend the scene. At a few points, I was just mirroring Daddy, because I didn't really have anything else in my mind to do. Worse, Apparently I'd not remembered a few important limits, which could have derailed the entire scene.

But on the plus side, it seems that Sis definitely enjoyed the scene, she was quite happy to have some messy, way fun, so I was quite happy at that outcome at least. As first scenes go, at least the bottom was happy and got what she wanted out of it, so in that sense it was a very successful scene.

In the spirit of trying to discard my perfectionism, I am merely going to say that yesterday's sessions showed simply that I'm at the beginning of my training as a Top. I think I've learned some very important things, not least of which is that I need to plan scenes in much more detail if I'm planning to go for long scenes. Also, I need to work a lot more on concentrating on my partner's limits - there's no excuse for forgetting about limits, they should be foremost in a Top's mind.

Documenting The House

Since I set up the wiki, me and Daddy have continued to talk about our plans for it.

Now that we have Sis, the way the world sees us, and the way we see ourselves has begun to shift. We've now become more of a Leather House than the couple we used to. We're starting to look at now documenting our lives, so that new members can learn about our house.

A lot of the old Leather Houses used to have House Manuals, books that would document the way the house works. They'd write down all the rituals of the house, the hierarchy, everything the house was would be in that book. These days, of course, we've improved our technology. We have our own house network, including a perfectly functional server.

So, we've started to turn our little Wiki into  true House Manual. It's small now, because our House hasn't really had a great deal of rules and rituals. I wonder how much that will change now that we have a place to put them? I guess time will tell...

Like a Boss

I officially started off the next stage of my development as a Leather Boy last weekend.

I've been talking about forming a formal topping relationship with Sis, and this weekend me and Sis actually sat down, after she and Daddy had finished their negotiations, to negotiate how our relationship was going to work, with Daddy along side us to help us and to add his input.

It's actually been quite some time since I've been through a full negotiation, so I was really glad that Daddy was there to guide everything. When me and Sis first talked about a possible Sirship, we were a little vague since I hadn't really had much thought put into it, but I was much better prepared this time around. I made it clear that I wanted this relationship to sort of be a Dom internship - That I would start learning the skills of being a Dominant under the Tutelage of Daddy, and Sis would be my bottom during this tutelage. In return, Sis stated that she wanted to have the opportunity to have a more touchy relationship with me, since this is something that she's not getting a lot of with Daddy.

While Daddy and Sis's renegotiation didn't take that much time at all, Our negotiation took a lot longer, and that's probably because it was really a three-way negotiation - Sis is Daddy's pet, so anything we negotiated really had to go through him as well. But in the end, I'm really happy with the way it all shook out - I get to start taking a real and genuine step towards being a more skilled Leather boy, I get to be closer to my Daddy since he's now effectively taking me on as protégée, and I get to have a closer relationship with Sis.

Oh, and we decided on titles for each other. I'm Boss, Sis is Girl. So I'm in a new relationship LIKE A BOSS.

As serious as negotiation get, you can't take this stuff too seriously.

Sharing Sirship

So, Sister has been integrating more and more into our household the last couple of months, enough now that I've had to do some real thinking about where I want to fit into the hierarchy.

I mean, I've gotten past my previous issues. I'm feeling a lot more confident in my standing, but now that I'm getting more comfortable with Sister being around, and feeling more confident in being above her in the hierarchy, there's a new decision to me made - Am I just an adjunct to Daddy and Sis's relationship, or do I want to fully participate? In short, am I just Daddy's Boy, or am I also Sister's Master?

And let's be honest here, it's not a decision I can take lightly. I already worry about not meeting Daddy's expectations as a Boy, there's a lot of times where I feel inadequate, where I feel I'm not reaching his high expectations. But making the choice to take an active role in his Slave's development is an entirely new level, one that I'll admit I'm a little scared of taking on.

Part of that is just a fear of change, and I have a handle on that. But I'm also not all that confident in being a Sir, it's not something I've really considered for a lot of my relationship with Daddy. I like where our relationship stands at the moment, it really does feel like a brother/sister relationship.

Then again, I guess at some point this Boy has to take on grownup responsibilities, and frankly I think I'd be failing Daddy a lot more if I refused to grow as a person simply because I was afraid of a little extra responsibility. I need to accept that part of being a Leather boy is to embrace that feeling of responsibility, to give back and be willing to guide. This really feels like a path that I need to take, for my own development if for nothing else.

I'm going to continue this tomorrow, because I did promise Daddy I'd talk about what this responsibility all means, but I think tonight I needed to take the opportunity to really commit to this.

Jealousy

It can be surprising how easily you fall back on insecurity.

Recently, I've been noticing that I've been getting very... resentful of Sis. Not because anything she did annoyed me, or that she was being malicious or anything. Hell, Sis has been the very model of a good slave since Daddy had taken her in. She does all her chores without prompting, she picks up on Daddy's desires and remembers them, she's been entirely respectful...

In fact, that's kind of the problem. I compare her performance to mine on the service front and I tend to find myself lacking. I've never had another sub to directly compare performance against, and suddenly, all my childhood insecurities flared right back up again. What if I'm not good enough? What if Daddy decides that Sis is a better sub than me? WHAT IF SHE GETS PROMOTED OVER ME?!?!?!

I'd talked with Daddy a little about this, and he pointed out the obvious - that Sis has a completely different role to me, has a completely different life path to me, and more importantly, that we are skilled in completely different ways - Yes, she does a much better job on the housework, but the fact I've been around for almost 6 years now means I do have a much better handle on how to handle Daddy. As Daddy points out, "You're stuck with me, whether you like it or not!", so the insecurity is completely unfounded.

It also made me admit something that I've been loathe to admit to myself for quite some time - that I'm actually intensely competitive. I like being the best at things, even if I'm not exactly driven to improve myself in the normal sense. It's why I enjoy my job so much - I'm very good at what I do, everyone know it and asks me for advice. I feel safe and secure when I'm "Rocking my KPIs", as my psych called it. But all of a sudden, I'm being reminded that no, I'm actually not the best at chores and housework. I just have to remind myself that that's okay. And who knows, maybe channel that competitiveness to become a better person.

Learning to boot.

Today, we had a boot blacker named Alex come over to our house to teach me and Sis about boot blacking. I gotta admit, it's a beautiful thing watching Alex black boots, and watching just how much effort and love he puts into his boots.

I was quite glad to get instructed because while my father taught me basic boot blacking, and I knew the basic principles behind making shoes look pretty, my skills were, sadly, not really all that up to scratch.

For those who might be reading, the basic steps:

1) Using a toothbrush or a finger, rub the boot polish over the shoe, making sure to get into every little crevice.
2) Let the polish sit for a few minutes.
3) Use a boot brush and spit to buff the polish to a reasonable shine.
4) Use a fine cloth (or some nylon pantyhose), lightly but vigorously rub the shoe all over to get a truly decent shine.

While I knew enough about the first 3 steps, I hadn't really realised the benefits of step 4 until I saw the results Alex got. Also, I've always been a bit weird about using spit as polish (I usually tried to use water instead), but I gotta admit, it gives superior results. I feel like I know a whole lot more about how to take proper care of boots

Although I do think I'm going to need to replace my boots shortly - They've served me well, but sadly I haven't been so good with giving them the love back, and it shows. But at least I know I can make Daddy's shoes last as long as possible, and I plan to make sure those skills are put into action.

All in all, a very productive lesson, and I'm very grateful for Alex's tutelage.

Talking about it

So, it happens.

Me and Sister have been interacting more and more, and while we've been getting along famously, there have been some... miscommunications. Most recently, I'd been starting to get a little uncomfortable with the way Sister had been touching and acting towards me. I was pretty sure it was just an intimacy mismatch - she was acting a little more intimate towards me than I felt comfortable with, but it had been going on for a while before I realised why I was feeling uncomfortable.

So, yesterday I decided to talk to her about it. I let her know that I wasn't comfortable with the level of intimacy. I was hoping that it would be a nice, easy discussion. But the conversation clearly triggered something with her, and she started crying.

And that's when things got a little awkward. I was trying to figure out what had gone wrong, why she'd suddenly broken down, but I think I was making a few mistakes along the way, and I couldn't help her calm down enough, in fact, I think I may have exacerbated the situation. It took Daddy intervening to resolve the situation to any degree, but to be honest I'm kicking myself a bit that I couldn't handle it myself.

But at least I got my point across. It shows I have a little way to go too - I really need to learn to identify behaviour that makes me uncomfortable much earlier, because confronting people after the fact is clearly not the best way to deal with this sort of thing. So, hey, a learning experience for us all, I guess...

Finding Service

Recently, me and Daddy have been talking about the services I give to him.

With Sister now being around our house more often, she's started to take over the cleaning of the house. This is leading to a few awkward issues, because part of my service to Daddy is taking care of the basic chores, such as putting the dishes in the dishwasher, and doing the laundry.

But, as has been a constant issue, I'm not good at doing these things unprompted. I'm so often not present, away in my head playing video games, or in one of my other hobbies, that I don't tend to get around to doing these chores until I'm asked. Sister is not the same - she's engaged in service for most of her attention, so she  sees something that needs to be done and does it straight away. Whereas in my case, service tends to happen when Daddy breaks me out of my attention, and points out those chores to me.

This often means that my chores are done long before I'd normally do them at the end of the night. Not an ideal situation.

But this is something that we've been dealing with for years. It's always been the case that I don't do things unless prompted (sometimes prompted several times), and I can't compete in service against someone who has the presence of mind to do things without asking.

Daddy has been talking about perhaps moving my chores to Sister instead, and to be honest that makes me a little anxious. When he mentioned it to me previously I reacted almost violently to it. The reason, really, is that I also want service in my life. Those little chores I do, even though they're not much, are as much about me serving Daddy.

And yes, there's plenty of other services I do. The fact that I work, in a job that earns a lot of money, is just one of those services, but it doesn't feel like service to me. I'd be doing it regardless of whether it benefited Daddy. And as a result of that feeling, I don't tend to feel like I'm in service to Daddy unless it's something I do for him at home.

Now that I've had some time to think about it, though, there are other things that I can do that help Daddy, perhaps even more than chores. Things like going out and doing food shopping, things like chauffeuring Daddy to events, like cleaning his car... The big things that I do for him that aren't exactly regular, but are there when Daddy needs them. The things that me being an able-bodied person means I'm able to do for him, saving him the energy to do things that he wants and needs to do more.

I think it's clear that I have to play to my strengths here. I'm just not going to be the sort of service sub that can be set up and left to their own devices. I think instead, I need to focus on being the sort of service sub that is able to get up and do things when instructed. I can do that, I've done that before. It means that I'm the go-to person when things need to be done now, rather than the person in the background that gets things done without thinking. The concierge, rather than the dogsbody, if that makes sense.

Perhaps that's a better way of distributing the service duties in a fair manner. As long as there's things that do need doing right now, and they happen frequently enough, I think I could be satisfied with that sort of arrangement. What I want is the feeling that I'm serving Daddy, and I want to do things often enough that I don't feel like I'm abandoning Daddy. I think I can go back to Daddy on this.

Screams are Not for Me

So, I've got something of a confession to make. I can't deal with screaming.

It's something I've struggled with for quite a number of years. For most people, of course, feeling uncomfortable around people screaming is a perfectly ordinary and desired reaction - when people scream, that usually means they're in trouble.

But that's not so much the case when you're a kinkster.

Because screams happen a lot at our gatherings, and in our homes, and they're not typically signs of distress. Indeed, for a lot of kinksters, they're a sign of getting exactly what they want. Screams of pain, of delight, they're all a part of our lifestyle.

But I don't deal with them very well.

It's reached it's biggest point now that Sister has started hanging around the house more, and Daddy has started playing with her more often. Sister has a much bigger appetite for pain than I ever did, and it means that Daddy can push harder than he'd normally do with myself or other partners. And she's not the kind of painslut that goes all stoic. No, she cries out, she screams, she yells.

And that makes it really difficult to stay present when the two are playing. It takes me back to bad times with my parents. It takes me back to times where I've been smacked or belted because I've done something wrong, and that is not a place where I want to go. Even writing this, I'm having to write around the emotions, because I don't really want to accidentally slip into those memories. It's a bad place. Worse, as I start getting closer to those memories, I start getting anxious about other sound, like impact noises, I start desperately needing to get away, because my calm's been broken, and I need to go somewhere where there's no kinky noises to put the shield back up.

So, if you see me in a quiet corner at an event, or at a kink party, or you see me being really uncomfortable, this is probably why. I do want to be part of events, and this reaction makes things hard for me. Feel free to distract me, or take me away from the scene, take me to another part of the party where I can talk with others and not be around the violent sounds. I'll be grateful, and you might just have saved my sanity for another night.

Shoulders to cry on

Of course, there's more to being a big brother than playing games with your little sister.

Daddy has been dealing with some traumas from his past life, and things came to the boil last night. It's a horrible place to be in, having experienced this particular trauma myself. At times like these, you become really vulnerable, so Daddy wanted to hide with me in his room, but didn't want to hide what was happening from Sis, so asked me to let her know.

So, I went out to Sis, and told her that Daddy was having some big issues, and that she doesn't need to worry about it, but Daddy didn't want to hide it from her. This caused her some serious distress, as far as I can tell because she felt a desperate need to do something about what Daddy was experiencing, but felt like Daddy was holding her at arm's length.

Sis has been struggling with this concept, and I understand the difficulties. One of the hardest things to accept  is that there isn't always a way to take pain away from the people you love. It's a hard lesson, and one that took me a very long time to learn. And it still hurts sometimes, to see Daddy in such pain, to see all the struggles that he goes through everyday.


But that's not my job, and it won't be Sis's, either. I can't take away Daddy's pain, and Daddy neither wants that nor accepts that. Our job is to help Daddy through the pain, to be there when he needs us, to be the hug he needs, to be a shoulder to cry on if he needs it, and, occasionally, to remind him that it's okay to be in pain, and that we're here for him.

I spent some time being her shoulder to cry on, and helped her through her own crisis. It's a hard place to be in, but I know what it's like, and I wanted her to understand that the fact that I get to be Daddy's shoulder right now is just a matter of seniority, not anything wrong with her, and that she needs to realise that she's not going to be able to magically fix Daddy's issues with the world, and she just has to be able to support him, instead. Hopefully she'll realise that with time. And then, I went back to Daddy's room, and made sure that support was there for him right there and then.