Contract Modifications

by Tigger
copyright 2002

 

Introductions and Ramblings:

Why am I writing this introduction? Self consciousness? Maybe. Self promotion? Probably. Mostly, however, I think as a bit of a warning to those who haven't read my 'early-period' stuff and think of me predominantly as Aunt Jane's biographer. And maybe something in the way of an explanation, so that you know why I wrote the story, and to some extent, what I am trying to do with the story.

The story has, as a significant thematic element, Female Dominance/Male Submission, but having said that, what I sought to write was a love story.

Some stories start, and never finish, dying at some point, unlamented, with the crash of a hard-drive or some such thing. Some stories, all but write themselves, and are shot into the ether almost before the idea is fully formed in the author's mind (note to personal muse - a few more of that latter type would definitely be appreciated - please.) Most stories, however, take a reasonable amount of time (measured in weeks or sometimes months) to flesh out, plot, polish and finish - usually almost NEVER to the author's satisfaction.

And others, sit on your hard-drive, mocking you, daring you to come back and try to finish them, all but LAUGHING at you when you give up, yet again. Stories that, for all you might wish it, you cannot NOT write. Stories that bug you SO much, that at some point - maybe once or twice - you even try to drag the bloody thing to Uncle Bill's Recycle Bin, or Uncle Stevie's Trash Can.

And then, drag it back out because either you can't let it go, or it won't let YOU go.

This story is just such a torment. The earliest date I can find for it is more than two years ago - almost three. And now, it's finished.

I think.

Part of the reason it took so long is that it is not a comfortable story, and also, at least in part, because in the past couple of years, what appears (to me, at least) to be an increasing number of the genre's readership have become rather outspoken and forceful against the authoritarian Female Domination sub-genre.

Anyway, my story is thematically Femdom. It was one of those stories that refused to go unwritten, and is, in many ways, a return to my authorial roots.

My first attempts at writing, other than 'school-stuff', were erotica. What motivated me to write was a book entitled "My Darling Dominatrix", by Grant Antrews, published by Masquerade Books, currently out of print.

In the story, the male lead falls in love with a woman, who happens to be a dominatrix. The story details him learning to deal with that aspect of her personality, paying a heavy price in terms of pain and humiliation in the process of becoming her consort. In the end, tragedy overtakes them just as she realizes she truly trusts his love and therefore, she doesn't need to 'test' him to that high a degree any longer. After the buildup of the story, to reach that cusp of 'true love', only to deal with what followed . . . well, I found it emotionally devastating.

Many parts of that story are, as my old math textbooks used to say, 'left to the reader'. In other words, Mr. Antrews set the scene, delved into motivations and the anticipatory emotions of the players, and then faded to black, often hinting at what happened in the following scenes by describing what the submissive had to go through in 'recovery', and how the dominant women reacted to his injury(ies). All in all, not a comforting or comfortable story.

And yet, as a former high school and collegiate athlete, I could understand the determination to accept, confront and fight through the pain in order to achieve the overriding goal. I must admit that I don't understand - at all - the concept of the 'pleasure of pain' for it's own sake, but I do understand the satisfaction of overcoming such obstacles and being able to say (smugly) 'been there, done that, and can you say the same? Thought not.'.

However, I felt the need to 'understand' more, so I started off writing for myself the 'missing' pieces - fitting into the faded out sections, bits and pieces that were, as much as I could, consistent with the rest of the story. From there, I 'extended' the story to scenes not included in the story but that seemed, in my mind, to fit where the characters were going. This may be, btw, where my tendency to 'finish' 'incomplete' stories developed.

As a result, when I stepped out on my own to write my own stories, they were also Female Dominant/male submissive Dominance and Submission (D/s) stories. Over time, these stories evolved into what I called "Loving D/s", in that there was a strong undercurrent of love - agape, eros or hopefully, both - between the protagonists. In my view, the only way to trust another person that much is to love them, and the only way to love them that much is to trust them. That's a personal perspective, I've met people who don't feel that way - people for whom D/s play is a natural high and a good way to get off, but as I said, that's personal.

As my writing developed, my stories often included cross-dressing as a sub-theme, but only as because that seemed to fit in with main story's plot, such as the story "Mistress is Pregnant" in which she forces him into female dress in an attempt to run him off. Cross-dressing was, therefore, the 'big-gun' in those stories - the humiliating demand that ultimately proved the depth and truth of the knight-errant's devotion to the lady. In fact, at the time (early 1990's to 1995 or so) all the fiction I saw that included any type of cross-dressing had a strong D/s, humiliation focus to the story - probably because I was reading them in D/s oriented newsgroups, bulletin boards and later, websites.

It wasn't until I wrote "Loving a Witch" that I realized that there was a whole genre of fiction that might see such things as other than a 'trial by fire', and instead as something devoutly to be desired in and for itself. I was chatting with someone and told him that, as much as I'd been asked to write a sequel to 'Witch', I just couldn't seem to find something that added to the tale. He replied that since I had already 'TG-ed' the hero, there wasn't much else I could do to him. My response was something along the lines of "What the heck is TG-ed?"

With that simple question, I found a wider answer than I had, at first, expected. Still, in my view, the greater preponderance of what I found was still hard-over humiliation oriented - in this society, surrendering one's 'manhood' is culturally perceived as humiliating. I mean, the original Seasons of Change, and Adventures of Samantha, are based on forced femme - the male surrenders and in so doing, becomes feminized. In my experience with the genre, it wasn't until Fictionmania, and later StorySite, that the so-called 'sweet-and-sentimental' stories came into ascendency.

With that ascendency, it is my perception that there has been something of a backlash, most likely from a huge change in the readership and readership demographics, against D/s, FemDom, 'forced-femme' stories. In large part, I suspect, this is because these stories involve men being forced into roles that caricature what many of our readers personally dream of and aspire to themselves. In many of these stories, the cross-dressed submissive is demeaned with gross exaggerations of what many would wish for themselves, were it not so 'over the top'.

Thinking about this, I have developed the theory that another key reason for this backlash is that such stories, as fantasies, divorce themselves from the true dynamic of a Real Life, BDSM, D/s relationship. You don't see the 'loving' part of Loving D/s in these stories. You don't hear the careful, often very detailed pre-scene negotiations about what the submissive can and cannot handle, nor see the careful preparations to assure safety nor feel the nurturing after-scene-care that brings both dominant and submissive safely back into real-world equality and friendship.

All you get in this type of story is 'just the good stuff'. You see the whips and the chains, you hear the insults and the threats, you 'smell' the leather and the rubber, and you feel the handcuffs and the harsh bite of the lash. And then, like a premature climax, the story is over. "Wham-bam, thank you, Reader."

If you're lucky.

Which leads to a key issue for me - without the 'loving' part, what you see in such stories isn't really about Dominance and submission. In most of the stories, it's about unrealistic fantasy, or it is about destructive abuse.

My view of Female Dominance is much different than that, of course. In many ways, I see it is as a way to really know how to please the woman. I mean, hey, she's giving the orders, right? Why would she tell the submissive to do something that doesn't feel good to her? Why would the submissive do it, other than as a way to be closer to her? The key point is that just like any other relationship, there is a dynamic, a shared experience that requires both of them, working together, for good things to happen. And what makes it work best is love.

In all my stories, including the D/s stories, the glue that holds things together is love. Jane loves her boys, even when she's tormenting them. Mellisande loves her man, even when she's using her witchcraft to transform him or tease him. Even Sam(antha) (in my reading of the story and in the way I finished it) was loved, otherwise the women wouldn't have been so hurt by his callous behavior, nor would he have sacrificed himself (in my conclusion) to save one of their number.

This is all leading up to my newest story, Contract Modifications. As I noted above, it is a strongly FemDom-based story, and it has both the 'bad' and the 'good' of that genre intertwined into it. However, the underlying core of what I'm working with in the story are people who care about others, and about themselves.

Is it a 'kinky' story? Yes, it is.

Does it involve humiliation and non-consensual pain inflicted on an innocent? Yes, it does, and on some 'not-so-innocents', too.

However, those things, like killing someone in a murder mystery, are necessary to the creating the story, but just as in the case of the murder, they are NOT the story. Every 'cozy-murder' novel starts with somebody getting murdered, but the author always gets past that messy little necessity as quickly and as neatly as possible, so he/she could get on with the real story. That's what I've tried to do here - get past the non-consensual, demeaning, but plot-development-necessary stuff as quickly as the story allows, and then on with the 'knight-in-shining-satin' serving his Lady Fair stuff.

Anyway, you've been 'warned'. Having said that, I hope you'll give the story a chance, and more, I hope that, in the end, that you'll find it was well worth your time.

Tigger

 

 

 

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© 2002 by Tigger. All Rights Reserved. These documents (including, without limitation, all articles, text, images, logos, compilation design) may printed for personal use only. No portion of these documents may be stored electronically, distributed electronically, or otherwise made available without express written consent of the copyright holder.