greyleather:

Water is such a romanticized substance. We’re born in it. We yearn to be by it. We thrive on it, we crave it, we wither without it. Water is a substance that life requires, and removed from it we crumble away physically and metaphorically.

Water is dangerous. We drown in it; lungs foaming and filling as we struggle for breath and find only liquid. We consume to much of it and we drink ourselves to death, cells swelling and organs failing as they’re overwhelmed by sheer volume of life-sustaining water. It terrifies us when we see murky depths that hide the unknown, holding the fear of unseen enemies.

A man I played with was terrified of water, so his desire was to overcome that fear by careful, managed exposure to it in a safe environment, controlled by someone he trusted implicitly. At first it was kneeling in the water, head bowed and eyes closed as I praised him for being brave. Then it was laying in the water, his head in my lap and closed eyes staring blindly at the sky, learning to trust that I’d keep him safe in what was, to him, being surrounded in an alien, terrifying world. Then, when I thought he was ready and I was confident enough in myself to control him, lowering his face into the water.

At first it was just his chin submerged, then his face, and finally his whole head. If he flinched, he was chastised. If he was confident - real or faked, it’s all the same thing in the end - then he was praised lavishly and rewarded with pleasure. To crouch at his back and run my hands over his wet skin, tousling his wet hair and smelling the scent of tart chlorine on his skin - something unimaginable only weeks earlier - was, to me, one of the proudest moments I’ve ever had in my time as a dominant.

Being dominant isn’t always all about raw sex. Sometimes it’s just about being someone’s source of confidence as they’re learning to find their own.

(Source: latenightdeelight, via transcendisco)