Sometimes Lion is a worry wart. Mostly he worries about me. He thinks he doesn’t make me happy. He thinks I will leave him. He thinks I’ll stop playing with him. He thinks he disappoints me. None of these things is true.

There is a problem, however, when I try to reassure him about disappointing me as far as playing is concerned. Yesterday he was not in the mood for play. I was trying my best to arouse him and when I finally asked about Mr. Weenie’s lack of interest, he finally said he wasn’t in the mood. I wondered why he didn’t tell me. We could have avoided my wondering if I was doing something wrong and his feeling bad for not getting aroused. Clearly we still have some communication issues. When he said he hoped I wasn’t disappointed I wondered why I would be disappointed. Now here’s the problem part. We don’t play for me. We play for him. And when I say that he assumes I’m doing something I don’t want to do and I don’t have any fun. Blah, blah, blah. And I don’t mean it that way. I just mean that I have no expectations, no anticipation that I will be turned on, no goal for myself other than making Lion feel good (or bad depending on the type of play). So the only disappointment I could ever feel is with myself. I didn’t do a good enough job to make him feel good (or bad). But if he tells me ahead of time that it’s basically a waste of time to try to play, then I am forewarned. I could always say, “Too bad. I set this time aside for you and you damn well better enjoy yourself.” But I’m more likely to give him a rain check and try again another time. Do I think I’ve dodged a bullet when he says he’s not in the mood? I’m sure there have probably been times when I wasn’t really in the mood at the same time and was thankful we didn’t play, but I don’t look at it as a chore that needs to be done. Besides, I love “just” snuggling with him.

So, in review, Lion makes me happy. I’m not leaving him. I won’t stop playing with him. He never disappoints me. Any questions? Lion? I didn’t think so.

Yesterday was a rainy, quiet day around here. Mrs. Lion took me down to our dungeon …er playroom and strapped me into the sling. She had been promising to do this and I think she felt a bit badly that it didn’t happen on Saturday. She put very heavy metal clothespins on my balls. I got those items a few years ago. I think they were designed to be desk accessories, but they are effective for CBT. The session didn’t go as well as we would have hoped. It was my fault. I just wasn’t feeling very horny or, for that matter, interested in sensation play.

In that ideal dommy/subby world, the bottom should always be ready for a good butt whipping, anal intrusion, or other sensation play. In the real world that just isn’t true. In my case, I think I need to be horny first. Sexual arousal is the precursor to wanting my ass whipped, pegging, or other play. If I’m not able to be turned on, I probably won’t be when the clothespins start biting my balls. I realize that this isn’t necessarily the same for others who bottom. But I believe the root of enforced chastity and other power exchange activities have a sexual base.

On Saturday night Mrs. Lion edged me. The last edging went a bit too far and I had a ruined orgasm. I didn’t drip semen, but I felt the unmistakable sensations of an oncoming orgasm. It could be that I was taken to the very edge of that sexual chasm but I didn’t fall; so close I was sure I was past the point of no return.  It’s true, as Mrs. Lion reported, that I did feel myself trying to have an erection yesterday morning. Later, in the sling, I got hard but I just didn’t feel the usual need to go further and further toward the orgasmic light.

It might have been due to the near miss on Saturday. Or, it could be my sexual rhythm at a low point. I just don’t know. Enforced chastity has focused both Mrs. Lion and I on my sexual state. We are in the third year of reporting and dissecting every sexual event we have. I am the object of intense sexual observation and introspection. A day like yesterday when I was just not in the mood seems to require in depth analysis. In a relationship where my sexuality remained in my control, losing interest for a day or two would mean nothing. In fact, my partner might consider it a sort of vacation from my usual horniness.

But in my current situation, a day when I was not sufficiently aroused by activities I am known to love, makes me wonder and worry about whether this loss of interest has a meaning beyond an unaroused Sunday afternoon. Mrs. Lion appears unruffled by my lack of interest. Is she just being kind? Have I caused her to question her ability to turn me on? Will this spoil future opportunities to take field trips to the playroom? Am I just overthinking a day when I just didn’t feel turned on?

I think this sort of self doubt is a byproduct of enforced chastity. Since my penis is locked up and I have extremely limited opportunities for sexual expression, I’m supposed to be at attention and ready any time the cage comes off. Yesterday it came off and I just wasn’t in the mood. Is this a byproduct of the ruined orgasm? I don’t know. But I want to encourage Mrs. Lion to find me ready, willing, and able whenever she wants me that way. I don’t want her to get the idea that I need less frequent stimulation. After all, doesn’t abstinence make the hard grow harder? I’m hoping that today is another day where I am back to my normal, horny self. I’m also hoping Mrs. Lion will unlock me to find out.

Well, our day got away from us yesterday. Our errands took longer than expected. Lion has been experimenting with a new cooking technique which works well, but still causes a little anxiety.[Lion — It’s sous-vide. I wrote about it in this morning’s post.] He’s afraid to trust that the food will not get ruined. Needless to say, we didn’t play during the day. Dinner was a little later than usual and that delayed other things.

By the time we were settled in, it was already late and I think Lion was actually a bit surprised that I unlocked him at all. I apologized for not playing earlier and said he should at least be unlocked for a while. Of course, as I stroked him he got hard immediately. It was obvious he wasn’t upset about not playing. I decided to jump between his legs and torment him with my mouth. I edged him a bunch of times and then went a little too far. He said it felt like a ruined orgasm although nothing more than precum came out. He was judging it by the tense muscles in his legs.

Offhandedly, I remarked that it’s a good thing he didn’t earn pennies for having ruined orgasms. He told me I could give him a penny if I wanted to. Of course I could. But I was kidding. A little while later he asked if I was upset at him for having a ruined orgasm. Not only was I not upset at him (he can’t control when I push him too far), but I also was not upset at myself as I usually am for pushing him too far. Why not? I don’t know. Maybe 2.0 doesn’t sweat the small stuff. There are plenty of other times to edge him. Ruined orgasms don’t seem to have a lasting effect on him anyway. As a matter of fact, later on, he said he was trying to get hard in his cage.

But I wondered if he had really been worried that I was upset, so I asked. He said he was a little worried. Joking about the penny was the first time I’d ever mentioned it being his fault. I’ve always taken the blame. I pushed too far. I should have stopped. I was playing with fire. Me. Not him. So I told him he didn’t have to be worried. He said he’s always worried when it comes to me. We’ll have to work on that. There’s no need to worry about me and my reactions.

If 2.0 ever decides to train him to resist an orgasm, she may give him a penny for failing, but she’d also give him a learning curve. I’m not saying that training will ever happen, but she certainly won’t spring it on him at the last minute. 1…2…3…awwww, too bad. You get a penny. Nope. He’ll know in advance exactly what is expected of him. And he will probably fail the first few times. Nobody’s perfect. That’s why it’s called training.

steak dinner
This is one of the steaks I cooked for dinner last night. Using a modernist technique, the meat is perfectly cooked with no well done or too-rare areas.

As I’m sure you know, Mrs. Lion and I do a lot more than enforced chastity and FLR. We have our everyday lives that we enjoy as well. One of the things I particularly like to do is to cook. I also love new things and adventures. Until a few weeks ago I confined my cooking to very traditional methods. In fact, I wasn’t aware that there was anything newer than the microwave oven. It turns out that in 1966 a completely new way of cooking was developed by modernist chefs. These people represented a small minority of professional chefs who experimented with completely new ways to prepare food. They used laboratory equipment, liquid nitrogen, and other exotica to add a modern twist to food.

Anyway, in 1966 a chef in France obtained a laboratory water bath. This is a device that circulated water kept at a precise temperature; accurate to a fraction of a degree. He used this to cook food, first sealed in a vacuum bag at the exact temperature he wanted the food to reach when it was done. He called this process sous-vide. This method completely changes the way food it prepared. It is the only way to cook a steak the same color top to bottom, end to end.

A few weeks ago Amazon had a daily bargain featuring a sous-vide circulating immersion heater. I looked up some information on sous-vide at chefsteps.com. The steak recipe fascinated me. So, I ordered the device. The way you use it defies common sense. We got some prime New York strip steaks (impossible to buy anywhere but Costco). Following the scary directions, I placed the meat in Foodsaver bags along with some butter. I then vacuum-sealed the bags with the steak. The sous-vide circulating immersion heater was set to 135 deg. F. This creates the nice medium rare steak in the picture above. I put the bags into a container (12 qt food storage container) filled with water being maintained at exactly 135 deg. Here’s the very weird part. We left the steaks in the sous-vide bath for almost two hours. I kept looking at the $30 worth of steak sitting in that water bath wondering if I lost my mind.

When the two hours had passed, I put the grey-looking steaks on the barbecue grill for 90 seconds a side. That’s it. The result is in the picture. The  steak was better than any I have had in a restaurant, including Broadway Joe’s in Manhattan and Peter Luger’s in Brooklyn. Those are two of the best steakhouses on earth. I’m proud of myself for venturing into the weird world of modernist cooking. We were rewarded with a spectacular dinner at home.

This form of cooking is fairly new in the U.S. Well, not new in many Michelin starred restaurants. They have been using this technique for decades. It’s only in the last few years that affordable home units became available. We did pork chops too and they were good, but I need to tweak the cooking temperature a bit. Sous-vide is supposed to do fish better than any other method of preparation. We will try it on some nice Alaskan salmon soon.

So why are you seeing this in the Male Chastity Journal? Because it is a cool discovery I am proud to share. Also, if you are here for more than just sexual information, you might be happy to find out about sous-vide and another dimension of my life. If not, C’est la guerre.