MY PEOPLE, HER PEOPLE – the femdom ball

“How many goodly creatures are there here!

How beauteous mankind is!

O brave new world,

That has such people in it!”

Shakespeare – The Tempest

How wonderful that one of London’s most ancient livery halls should open its doors to this event; the stained glass saints looking down on as diverse and sexually adventurous a gathering as could be imagined. I admire them for doing so and like that I live in a country where that can happen.

I had been nervous about going, I am of a generation and background where difference has always been suppressed and hidden away, unspoken of. I remember my father frowning at men with long hair in the sixties; “they look like girls,” he would mutter under his breath, part angry, part perplexed. My life-long suppression, or at least concealment, of my own difference seems a natural consequence of this upbringing, one whose walls I am only now dismantling, brick by nervous brick.

What would my father have thought of last night? I think the anger would have gone; he’s mellowed with age and only the French really upset him now (Oh, and parking attendants) but he would have been no less perplexed: the beautiful dominant Mistresses in silk and lace, pulling along their meekly hooded male slaves on leads; the smart looking young man whose tight leather outfit exposed his recently caned backside; the cross dressing, middle aged men transformed into Sissy Maids by their organza ball gowns and careful makeup; all these wonderfully diverse people were rejoicing in their difference, and the opportunity to express it, in ways he would have found hard to understand.

But what a brave new world I have discovered, that has such people in it.

As the evening continued and again and again people said “Oh, so you’re Bibulous One; I love your blog,” I started to feel a little more comfortable in this world; comfortable enough to tell my story to those who asked about my kinks: the story of thirty years of hitting myself, the strangeness of that act making me think myself perverted, before finally seeing my first Mistress; the story of two vanilla marriages and a lifetime of trying to do what my upbringing told me was The Right Thing.

I realised, in the end, that this was my world.

I realised, in the end, that these were my people.

And their evident acceptance, indeed their joy, at who they are made me more comfortable with who I am.

What then of the main event? Of Mistress Elita and her performance at the piano. She was, of course amazing, her fingers flying though a succession of pieces of escalating drama and complexity. A beautiful redhead in a green gown turned the pages for her. During one piece, a tattooed hunk of a man, naked but for a tiny posing pouch, appeared from behind the piano and unlaced Elita’s gown while she was playing, leaving her in beautiful lingerie, her perfect breasts naked. It was quite a vision. She seemed dwarfed by the piano and dwarfed by the swirling ebbs and flows of the music. At times it seemed to posses her.

I was undone by the fact she played in bare feet; undone, because she had told me why she does so. In bare feet she becomes again the young girl practising at home, and the terror of the audience recedes. Never before have I been so conscious of the paradox that is Elita: the dominant mistress and the masochistic submissive; the strong woman and the vulnerable girl. She is indeed a wonder and, at the end, in that way that only a truly gifted performer can achieve, she held us all motionless in the palm of her hand, only allowing us the release of applause when she was good and ready to do so.

She had been very nervous before the event, and it was clear that having friends round her helped: the Hunk was Luke Hardy, a porn actor she has shot with many times; the beautiful redhead was Anna Donovan, a Submissive escort and a close friend. Performing in this room full of strangers, she had wanted to be surrounded by her people.

After the event, thinking back to her encouragement for me to attend, the way she sought me out during the evening and the note of gratitude she sent afterwards, I realised a rather beautiful and touching thing:

I had been her people too.

At first, I felt awkward but was liking this look by the end