deigja (cool name, by the way, o' Euro-maid) does a really excellent job of highlighting one of the odd advantages of a D/s or M/s relationship: they are the occasion for unprecedented conversations. We more-or-less back into our vanilla relationships which often go south because each party operates under the assumption that "everybody knows" all the important stuff already (everybody knows what it means when you dress like that, everybody knows what it means when he says "if you want," everybody knows what it means when you say "we need to talk"). But we often don't know and we're too damned prideful or scared to admit it, so we stumble into hurt and disappointment without ever quite figuring out why.

The sheer uniqueness of these relationships makes open, honest, fearless, continual communication absolutely essential, and modestly more likely than you'll find elsewhere.

You don't need to say everything, or to decide everything, right now. But you do need to establish ground rules that foster trust and communication. By all means, create (and practice) safewords or circuit-breakers. "Blue, blue, blue" might well means "stop immediately!" Set it, then test it within a day, then test it again. You need to have confidence that it will work. Similar, chipmunk has a circuit-breaker; an agreement that if things seem to be spiraling, she can immediately invoke a sort of cooling-off period that allows us both to re-center and remember how deep our devotion is. Likewise, you might agree that when he commands "tell me what you're thinking," you're required to speak honestly and he's required to accept your comments without dispute.

All of which is important if you aspire to a relationship that endures and strengthens you both. If the goal is just to make a stranger cry or get some sort of notch in your gun belt, that's a different matter.

Verbosely,

S.