"Yes" to the question that will change your life forever. You have spent countless hours formulating this question, waiting for the right time to pose it. Today was the day, and you summoned your courage to ask: "Will you join me in making what we have online a reality, little one?" "Yes, master," she replied, and now the enormity of those two words struggles to register in your consciousness.

Your lives online have been good. You have spent more hours together connected by a stream of electrons and copper wire than you dare calculate.

Now all that is about to change, and you try to fathom the hundreds of ways it will impact both of your lives. There are plans to be made, planes to catch, furniture to rearrange, new jobs, old jobs, and paper delivery to cancel. The thought of your submissive
packing up his or her entire life and moving across the country to be with you fills you with elation and anxiety.

She said, "Yes." How on Earth are you going to do this?

From Fantasy to Reality:

Take a deep breath and gather your wits about you. There are a few things you need to be aware of and may not have considered if this is your first experience.

In comparison with real-life, online D/s relationships are actually much easier to maintain in many ways. After all, you are together only a few hours a day. You do not actually experience many of the little things that cause irritation in real life relationships such as a toilet seat left up or toothpaste squeezed from the center of the tube, his snoring, or her stockings hung from the shower curtain rod.

You are about to experience first-hand all those quirks that couples must adjust to when they first come together. Recognizing that you will both need an adjustment period is an important first step in forging your new lives together.

This adjustment period should be the time for easing into your new roles as well as getting to know each other on a completely different level. Do not expect too much too soon.

There is no rush

---you have your entire lives to build the type of relationship you desire.

So What Should I Expect?

Dramatic change brings stress. The more planning ahead you do, the less stress you will encounter.

Work out the details together as much as possible. Agree upon duties each will have in the mundane chores that go with maintaining a household. If your submissive is moving to your area, do as much as you can to ease the burden, such as sending want ads well ahead of time, change of address information, and plane or other transportation arrangements.

If possible, travel to her or his location and make the drive/flight with them.

Once you are together in your home, set aside some time to review the dynamics of your relationship. Certain things you may wish to include may have been simply impossible online, so your submissive needs to know right up front any new rules. We recommend in the beginning that both of you have a place set aside as a "safe zone"

---a room or corner where one or both of you can retreat when you need a temporary reprieve from the responsibilities of owning and being owned.

We all have times when the weight of the world lands on our shoulders and need a short break. Being responsible for the life of another person is going to affect you in ways you probably cannot imagine. Feeling the need for a break on occasion to re-center yourself in not a setback and it is not a sign of weakness; it is a fact of life.

Your submissive is probably going to depend heavily on you for emotional support in the beginning.

Not that she or he does not already, but even more so in this new situation. She or he may be in a strange city with no friends, no job yet, and lacking in social support. Make the effort to lend extra support and encouragement during this time. Get out and do things. Sightsee, go on job interviews together, and introduce them to your friends. Go on dates!

In time your submissive will settle comfortably into the new surroundings and your efforts can make the process significantly easier.

During the adjustment period, make allowances for struggles. That does not mean that you suspend all of your previously agreed-upon rules.

You both will need the continuity and reassurance those things bring to a D/s relationship. Be consistent, but recognize that there will be times when you may need to offer a little lenience, patience, and understanding.

Practice your communication skills:

You have a whole new set of things to learn now, such as those involuntary non-verbal signs of joy, disappointment, frustration, and confusion. Pay attention to their body language as well as yours. About 80% of our communication with each other is by means other than words. If you are unsure about something, ask--we don't always interpret those signs accurately at first.

Let your submissive build her nest.

Your submissive will probably adjust more quickly if you permit them some freedom in setting up the household. Curtains, furniture arrangement, nick-knacks, color schemes, and bed linens are some possible ways to allow them to satisfy this need. You both will benefit from being able to blend your surroundings, like your relationship, into something that represents what you are together, not just as individuals.

Where the Rubber Hits the Road:

Now more than ever, you are going to come face to face with the limits of your own knowledge and experience.

Without a doubt, you have picked up a lot of very useful information about your submissive during the time leading up to this transition to real life. It has given you a chance to explore fantasies together safely, to try a few things on for size without any risk of physical harm. All that is about to change.

Now you are not just describing how you are going to flog her backside and bind her body, but doing it.

That takes practice. All those lovely ideas you talked about are a lot harder to make happen in three dimensions. If you have never swung a flogger before, never tied a half-hitch knot, or slipped clamps over nipples, you are going to need to turn off the TV and start learning.

You first need to know how to do something in theory before you can apply that theory to your sub's tender flesh.

Select an activity and read as much as you can find on the topic in books and web pages. Talk to other dominants you may know who have actual experience. Once you understand how it is done, its effects, and safety precautions, you will need to put that knowledge to use. Practice makes perfect, and you simply cannot practice enough when it comes to the tools of our lifestyle. You need to get used to the feel of the flogger in your hand and develop your aim. You will need to practice those bondage knots so that you can secure your treasure safely. All of the physical practices that go along with our lifestyle are designed for psychological, as well as physical impact. These you need to be familiar with those aspects, too.

Don't try to be too much too soon.

Even if you have practical experience, your submissive may not. If you both do, you have not yet shared those experiences together, so there is potential to overwhelm your submissive and make mistakes because you don't know his or her body yet.

Take things slowly at first, introducing no more than one new activity with each session.

Ask for some sort of feedback so you will know whether you are in the zone--enough stimulation to produce the erotic effects you desire, but not so intense so as to be unpleasant. With a couple of sessions behind you, you'll learn how much is enough and what you both enjoy. This applies for each new practice you incorporate.

Submissives being submissives, they tend to expect their dominant to know what she or he is doing.

It is up to you to ensure that you do before you attempt anything. Be honest. If you do not have any practical experience with something, let them know. Together you can learn, but keep in mind that, at first, your submissive may be a little uneasy about being your Guinea pig. Ample preparation and attention to safety will help ease their concerns. If you have never been a submissive, it can be difficult to imagine just how much trust your submissive places in you when surrendering his or her very life into your hands.

A Touchy Subject:

As much as we do not believe it will happen, there is always the chance that things between the two of you will not work out as you had hoped.

In addition to the substantial emotional issues that go along with such a realization, you, as the dominant, have certain responsibilities with regard to what will happen to your submissive. No matter who does the moving--the submissive to be with the dominant or vice versa--the dom has a moral responsibility to ensure that neither is left destitute and stranded.

The submissive may choose to return from whence he or she came.

If so, you have an obligation to help do that, just as you helped when your submissive packed up his or her life to join you. I know of more than one instance where a dishonorable dominant simply discarded a submissive, leaving her with no money, no place to live, and no friends to whom she could turn. This is despicable and cowardly--dominants cannot just absolve themselves of their responsibilities because those responsibilities may be difficult or unpleasant.

There is no dishonour is realizing that you both have made a mistake.

D/s relationships suffer from the same failures as do vanilla ones. If you have both made a genuine but unsuccessful effort to resolve your difficulties, you will need to find the courage to face reality and, hopefully, part as friends, wiser for your experiences. Your
measure as a dominant is not defined by how well you can swing a crop, but by how honorably you handle your life and the life of your submissive. There is no sense in remaining in a mismatched relationship purely out of a misplaced sense of duty.

Parting Words:

Life is not like cyber. It is extremely unlikely that you will be able to pick up in real life where you left off in Cyberland.

A major reason for frustration and disappointment is the delusion couples often have that things will be just as they were online.

In many ways they will be, but in many more they will not. You are both faced with a challenge: a much larger number of attempts to move from virtual- time to real-time fail than succeed.

Why? Unrealistic expectations, for one.

Reality cannot compete with the fantasy you have created in your mind. You can increase the odds of your success by recognizing, discussing, and preparing for the challenges you both will face.