Hardwired For Hardware

Years ago I had a very unique and private photography job. I trekked into Washington, DC to an old row house just on the outskirts of the city. A significantly older woman than I was expecting answered. When she saw me she greeted me in but also expressed that I was much younger than she thought.

After some small talk she said in a completely serious tone, “Can you just make this chastity belt look sexy?”

She was referring to the pictures I was preparing to take for her.

For an older woman, I had to give it to her, she still had amazing breasts (which I later learned were well paid for!).

We’d only just begun our photo session when I saw behind her a man walk through the room. Dressed in business attire and striding past as if he didn’t see us. I never even heard him walk into the room, which could all be explained due to the fact that this was all on her computer screen.

“There’s a man…on…your computer,” I said hesitantly with a nod toward her monitor.

She looked over her bare shoulder and exclaimed, “Oh! That’s my Master. Don’t let him see you! These pictures are a surprise for him.”

She scurried to the computer after throwing a silk robe on and had me take a seat in the corner out of line of sight from the webcam. Once they were done chatting we spoke a bit more.

“So…is he away on business or something?” I asked quizzically.

“Something like that,” she smirked and said.

“Oh you’re blushing like a school-girl…what aren’t you telling me?” I goaded her.

“Well he’s not away on business. He lives overseas. We communicate via webcam,” she replied. 

Fascinating. I needed to hear more.

“We’ve been together for 10 years now and we’ve never met face to face,” the woman went on.

I was shocked to hear this. Ten years and they’d never once met?! This was mind-blowing to me. She said that they had talked about meeting a few years ago but that she had backed out with the jitters. Apparently he was “happily” married for half the time of their D/s relationship before his wife caught on to what was happening and filed for divorce.

In their arrangement they left their webcams running 24/7. If he didn’t want her to see anything on his end he just covered it up, but it was always on. She heard his wife and him have sex, argue, saw him fuck other women (namely his secretary) and more. Some of this voyeurism had been consensual, some obviously had not been.

She was essentially a part of their lives without being seen or heard. She on the other hand was never to turn her cam off or cover it. She wasn’t allowed to sleep with other men, and she was to subject herself to his will via cam whenever he wanted. Were she to be asleep he would call her on her phone and command her to the computer. Sometimes he’d order her to clubs for play (just to have her recount her experience) or find other men online and arrange for them to have sessions on cam with her, all taking his requests and direction on how to handle her. In her own words “always including his fetish of gloves”.

“When was the last time you actually felt a man’s touch…in the flesh,” I asked her wide-eyed.

“Ten years, 7 months.”

Wow. How could she commit herself so wholeheartedly to a man she had never met? A man who had never touched her skin? A man who was on a time difference equal to a part-time shift? I was amazed.

“When we met online, it was instant sparks. After months of talking online and on the phone when he asked me to give myself to him properly…I did so without question,” she added.

And she had been doing so for over 3,000 long days. He held the key to her chastity that he had sent to her from overseas and she had not been unlocked for any unauthorized reason.

All of this was so hard for me to believe because I am a firm believer that online play is never a substitute for the real thing. I’ve always felt that it cheapened the experience of real time actions, that it was a gimp excuse for not being able to handle the real thing. But the woman I saw standing before me did not seem socially inept. She was well rounded, had lots of real time experience to boast about, and wasn’t confused about her position with her Master, in fact she was proud, and most of all was happy with her relationship.

I was genuinely impressed.

I’ve been subjected to a slew of real time submissives who didn’t have the integrity that she exhibited for a man who she had never even held in her arms.

I may stand corrected that webcam play isn’t all bad. For some D/s couples it’s a perfect mix between reality and a part of her life that doesn’t need broadcasting. She is perfectly content on serving her Master in any and every way he demands. She renewed my faith in submissives I believe truly serves only for their Dominant’s happiness.

With real time play there’s traveling time, dinners out together, club prices, excessive equipment and accessories, time spent at events while meeting people, and other unforeseen “real life” interruptions…it definitely adds a certain appeal to something web-exclusive. And while it’s not for me, it isn’t as one-dimensional as I had previously pegged it. 

Maybe I’ll leave my own webcam on a little more often….

About the Author

d20domme is unapologetically kinky after over 10 years in the community. She is known as pint-height, poly(androus), plus-size, POC, 24/7 Femdom who knows what she wants and will use her craft in mindfuckery and persuasive viper tongue to get it. Her main kink is normalizing kinky lifestyles across the board and thus she can often be found writing on her blog From Mundane To Mistress, chatting away on podcasts, teaching classes, demos, or presenting locally in the Washington, DC area, New York, and sometimes across the pond in Europe.