Serving my Master at Antwerp’s Leather Pride

Still flying from last weekend’s trip in Antwerp. The Leather & Fetish Pride Belgium has just finished, it’s been the first event I have attended as a collared slave, enjoying the atmosphere while making my best in serving my Master, a weekend of 24×7 that allowed me to enjoy both the Darklands and the fabulous The Boots. I’ve been happily diving in the subspace the whole weekend!

Since London last year quite a few things have happened, that one was my last party being an unleashed wild pig, going around as a lone wolf chasing sheeps. I am now collared, earned with pain and hard work in a pair of very intense sessions in Barcelona with my Master.

I’m very ritualistic. After expressing my strong desire of starting to embrace some traditions, my Master gave me John D. Weal’s book The Leatherman’s Protocol Handbook, a special birthday present that included a paper where my Master had written a few first rules that I was going to learn and follow each time we would meet, and I felt very happy and committed to this.

The book, besides the special meaning it has to me as a gift from my Master, turned to be a revelation, as it explains the context for the Old Guard protocols. While reading it I could finally understand many aspects that I wasn’t aware and related to human structures based on hierarchy: despite the influence comes from the military background of those gay men returning from the II World War, I could correlate easily the same dynamics with martial arts, an area I explored a few years ago, with similitude in regards of ranges, training methods, the secrecy around techniques and how they are transmitted between members of a House that have earned their place and trust among peers.

The book includes also a vast section collecting the rules governing social gatherings as per author’s experience, with lots of details about some of the low and high protocols, so I was eager to learn those that my Master had selected as the foundation of our M/s relationship, having memorized them and having put them in practice each time we’ve met. And Antwerp was going to be the place to put them into play, to make Master proud of his slave.

But maybe now, looking back, I think I was naïve expecting that I would find lots of people attending Darklands in this old tradition mindset. Don’t get me wrong, at the end the story was there in the play space created between the two of us, which is what matters, and still we could see some other guys having that similar experience themselves, which was refreshing. But Darklands was mostly a commercial event, a fair where the big providers were selling our dreams and fantasies, and the beautiful people would shine and show off.

Of course there was space for the talent, with and area of bondage demos, and a boot cleaning service done by real professionals, the bootblacks, that were competing for the 1st contest of bootblacks in Europe. I was impressed by the hundreds of things they were carrying to deliver a proper service, I had been fantasizing recently with the idea of learning to clean boots properly and those guys left me a bit intimidated and thinking that I better continue with other ways of serving like my massages. Being a bootblack is, at the end, a profession with serious skills to be learned.

The Puppeteer was a nice surprise, a suspension performance of great rapport between the rope rigger and his boy, it was so beautiful and intense that I only can recommend following this amazing guy and his boy and make sure you enjoy the show if you are around next time.

Discovering The Boots was definitely one of those things long desired and that didn’t disappoint at all. A real perl that survives time, and hopefully for more years to come, with 5 or 6 floors of filthy places to play, including a cross, a motorbike that has been ridden in different ways for which was made, wet play area and quite a few spaces with slings, very comfortable ones by the way. I would recommend bringing your own stirrups for the full comfort, however the slings were so comfortable that even without them I could relax and enjoy while lying my feet on the chains. Specially remarkable the top floor, with a sling on top of a grave, an unexpected macabre touch perfect for those with a twisted sense of humour.

I will always remember this first trip to Antwerp for many moments, from the private scenes within the walls of the apartment, to the fisting flight experienced on a very comfortable sling in the basement of The Boots in an intense connection, and for the Mr Leather Belgium election, a great show, in a big stage with great ceremony, very impressive when all the Misters and puppies were called into stage to acknowledge the moment. But above all of this, I will always keep in my memory the non-stop trip to subspace with my Master that made me feel so fulfilled, happy and grateful.