In the labyrinth of my twenty-seventh year, I found myself on an unpredictable journey of self-exploration. As a queer non-binary individual hailing from the vibrant streets of Cape Town, South Africa, I wore the colours of my identity with an audacious grin. I was neither here nor there; I was everywhere, none bound by gender but by the pulsating tunes that spilled from a Thursday night drum circle. This is a story that traces the delicate line between submission and freedom, an intimate dance in the throes of self-love, discovery, and liberation.
I met Them on one of these drumming nights, my senses drowned in the rhythmic symphony. Dark and intoxicating, their eyes held promises of twisted pleasure and rawness. This electrifying person whose gender remained unassigned in my mind became my key to a world between the lines. The thought of surrender to this magnetically spellbinding and mysterious entity was uncharted territory for me. There was an illicit thrill in relinquishing control, in the submission and trusting of oneself. A paradox presented itself, a shared commitment between two souls – consenting to be grounded, to serve and be served, to connect.
In the tempest of this journey, there was an urgent whisper of fear, the natural human response to stepping into an unfamiliar territory. Yet, within the embrace of vulnerability, submission revealed an aspect of freedom I hadn't quite experienced before. It was a conscious surrendering, a wilful giving of power and control, a dance between dominance and submission that stirred a deeply rooted, forgotten freedom. The melding of our spirits in passionate exchanges released an unconstrained honesty, an authenticity that transcended the ordinary. Through this exploratory dance, freedom emerged from the corners where it previously cowered.
One night, I watched Them with the soft illumination of anticipation dancing in their eyes; they handed me a small package wrapped in old newspaper. "Click and enjoy," they said, a slight smirk washing over their face. As I unfolded it, I found an old-school film camera inside. The idea was to capture our intimate moments in all their raw, unfiltered beauty. Each click, each snap was a story in itself. And then, we swapped roles; I led, they submitted. The liberty and the exhilaration that flowed within that change were boundless. Our bodies spoke unfamiliar languages, and yet we understood them all too well. We birthed a binary where there was none, created our yes and no, our stop and go.
Through our journey in submission, I understood Freedom. She wasn't a runaway girl sprinting towards an unseen horizon but a sensuous dancer oscillating between the notes of giving and taking, loving and withdrawing. The power of submission unfurled my own strengths and exposed my vulnerabilities. It was a liberation from rigid societal norms, from conformities, from the barricades of my own apprehensions. Caught in the intoxicating whirlwind of submission and dominance, I discovered a freedom that I never knew existed within me. In the chaotic beauty and the authentic rawness of this relationship, submission and freedom were no longer opponents; rather, they had become inexplicably intertwined, dancing the harmonious rhythm of life together.
