I confess to being a bit of an adrenaline junkie. I love the rush of a hard-driving experience. Whether it's working out, dancing all night or topping one of my submissives, I revel in breakthrough moments when pure, overwhelming intensity washes over everything. Getting swept up in a whirlwind of energy, yet never losing control completely as one spirals through pleasure and pain.

The charge that comes with dominating is often not a directly physically-induced sensation. Much of it depends on establishing a good connection with the slave. Being highly attuned to the permutations of their masochistic and submissive leanings as we act them out. The pleasure I derive is almost like a contact high. It's being there psychically, so that I also ride out the peaks and valleys of their journey.

For me, being a sadist is not about remaining the outsider, simply observing the pain of another. I like to call myself a sadomasochist because the word blends the twin concepts of sadism and masochism, hinting at their yin-yang duality. When I am guiding a scene and a space of ecstatic SM is created -- be it from physical or psychological torment -- I am immersed in a way that is bigger than any individual self, and in this sense I am both sadist and masochist.

I have always had sadistic inclinations, but I have not always known how to deal with them in a healthy way. I remember making my little brother stand on a stool to reach up for something in the cupboard, just so I could pull it out from under him and watch him fall. I remember seeing how many times I could bring my little sister to tears, then console her, then bring her back to tears again. I remember verbally castigating my older brother countless times for what I perceived of as his emotional weakness.

I am not proud of these childish forays, when I was still finding my moral compass. I did not know how to be a decent sadist -- certainly never heard of safe, sane and consensual! I only knew that it sometimes felt good to be mean, but that it also made me feel like there was something wrong with me. At the worst of times, I felt rotten to the core. Sadly, conventional society provided very few pointers.

Back then I was an angry kid, frustrated at a world that just didn't seem to fit me, particularly in my sense of gender-power relations or sexuality. How could I know then that there was a perfect place for me? That one day I could be happy playing "mean" to people I genuinely care about. And that afterwards they wouldn't try to make me feel guilty for these darker instincts, but would applaud me and pay tribute to me for my talents. I count my lucky stars :-)