I think about that word all the time. Need. “I need this, too,” Jack told me. And everything changed. By taking care of me, he was taking care of himself. I don’t think I’d ever tried to envision the situation from a Dom’s point of view before. I was so fucking grateful whenever I found a man who could fulfill my own dark cravings that I forgot the other half of the equation: The fact that I was fulfilling his as well. Nate tried to explain that to me-two sides of the same coin. From Dark Secret Love: A Story of Submission by Allison Tyler

Even though I don’t always think about it, my submission is a need. I do believe at one point when I first began my journey in the lifestyle, I saw it only as a want. Also, like the quote states above, being dominant is very much a need for Daddy as well. Thanks to real life, both of us realized just how much of a need having the power exchange dynamic in our relationship is.

For part of my Berufsorientierungskurs(The class is about what it’s like in a working environment in Germany as well as learning more language skills), everyone in the class had to do a five week internship in a profession that interested them. For me, I chose to do my internship at a local bakery and cake store. I love to bake and I figured why not spend my life doing something I love and the internship is a great way to get a small taste of what it would be like to work as a professional baker. I knew it wouldn’t be easy, but I didn’t realize just how hard it would be.

My schedule changed a lot. I had to be up at 3:30 in the morning, out the door by 4:15 to catch the bus to be at work at five. This meant I was in bed no later than 7:30 in the evening. I worked anywhere from five to nine hours a day and came home covered in pretty much anything you could imagine. Flour. Bread crumbs. Fruit juice and or pieces of fruit. Sugar. Not only was I filthy from head to toe, I was also exhausted. The first week was absolute torture on me. I ached everywhere. I absolutely had no interest in doing anything once I got home. Including being a slave. I couldn’t keep the apartment as clean as I wanted to. I didn’t want to cook. I had very little interest in sex and scening. Daddy completely understood this. He knew how hard I was working and how tired I was. Every time I told Daddy about how bad I felt about not being able to keep up everything like I usually did and that I couldn’t serve Him the way I wanted to and every time He told me He understood and knew once the internship it was over, everything would get back to normal. I noticed how much Daddy was suffering along with me. Not in the same ways, but it was there. He missed the scening, He missed us doing things together, He missed me cuddling with Him in bed after I left in the mornings. He missed how things were. With this, I realized that just as much as my submission is a need for me, that dominance is very much a need for Him. Needless to say, things sucked around here a bit because something we both really need in our lives had to take a back burner for a short time.

Now that my internship is over, things are back to normal. I’m finally catching up on things around the apartment. I’m not falling asleep anymore at 7 pm and am feeling more like my slave self again and Daddy is feeling more like His dominant self again and life is good. This isn’t the first time that we’ve had this problem in our relationship. Life tends to always get in the way, but this is the first time that it’s gone on so long. We also know that in the future there will be more times where life gets in the way and this will happen again.

As I was writing this article, I spent some time reflecting about how things were when I first started out in the lifestyle. Being in a power exchange relationship at the time was more of a want and desire than a need. The more experience I gained, the more it became a need. Then when I met Daddy, the need grew even more. Also writing this article it reinforced that in a power exchange relationship, need falls on both sides of the slashes. Just like I need my slavehood to help me feel whole, Daddy needs His dominance to feel whole as well. It makes me smile to think that something that starts out so small ends up becoming so important.