The Tragedy of E
This time I’m going all the way back to the time when I discovered Mrs Silks chat room and held my nerve long enough to stay there. It’s a time that can’t be disentangled from E and the effects she had on my development. Over a long period of years there were many downs alongside the ups which make this a hard piece to write fairly because some of those who made themselves known from reading my memoriam piece for Mrs Silk may recognise E, even with few clues.
Part of my job in the early to mid-90’s was developing the technologies of the Internet as we now know it. I had access to the very earliest NCSA Mosaic browser to help test the underlying communications. I still marvel at how the WWW has grown, there were fewer than 20 public web servers in the world at that time.
Only a few years later there were thousands and in amongst them was a place to get certain individuals very tingly and apprehensive, Mrs Silks.

From what I remember my thoughts and ideas of what I was and what I wanted were very mixed up. To dress and act feminine, but only so far. To be submissive to a female, but only so far. All quite laughable now but so earnestly and innocently hoped for along with dozens of similar others on that platform.
My first problem was in how to behave to flag my presence. Some subs have no problem dropping in to private conversation with a domme without a by your leave and generally it’s not a good approach. That’s not me, I need permission and I’m too tied up in confusion to ask for permission. Sat quietly observing the working of the room I got my fair share of “twoo doms” sliding in to private chat.
In the end I gave up on my hopes of some domme metaphorically sidling up to me and fishing me out of the sea. I decided just to have fun in the chat room. And here was another lesson for later. When I can’t be bothered to be on best behaviour in order to impress and instead just enjoy myself, there’s a chance things might happen.
And they did. E was the doyenne of the chat room. She was the queen of the room with a group of a few other females. She was lively, witty and intelligent. She could be thoroughly withering and disparaging – a survival attribute I discovered most females require in order to last in that type of environment.
She inserted herself in private chat and started a multi-year roller-coaster.
Online and long distance relationships are part and parcel of social interactions these days, back then, they were a kind of absurdity.
We were heading in to verdant green pastures, looking to meet up etc and then – Bang !! she disappeared. I spent a frantic week terrified something had happened to her and with that sinking feeling in the heart and stomach. Then, there was a tearful email. She’d taken a work contract abroad for a few months.
It was a pattern to be repeated, fearful of commitment she would stretch until the emotional elastic snapped and she’d run away. Outside of this the intellectual and emotional compatibility was very high. We could talk about the Arts for days and she really gobsmacked me by being quite fanatical about cricket. I kept believing that we would smooth out these crises and be able to move beyond them.
To a degree we did smooth them out – once. Just enough to agree a meet over a weekend. I was scared witless in that no one had ever seen me in a dress before. Experiencing absolute fear when I heard her knock on the hotel door. I then proceeded to learn about one major aspect of my interaction with the submissive role – I go introverted, incapable of speech and articulation. She took that as rejection, especially when it lasted in to the following day and I couldn’t explain that I was actually blown away.
She ran off home, PDQ.
Lessons. Lessons. Lessons.
What I learned about my own reactions stood me in good stead with later relationships in that I could talk about them and warn of them before they asserted.
I learned the difference between a dominant and a top. She was most definitely a top and could not concentrate in a way that you find dominants can.
The first big ending came from a betrayal. I had some tickets for an event months in advance when she booked herself another contract abroad. She explicitly said that the contract ended the week before. Nearer the time, I asked when she was coming back and she gave a date two weeks after the event. Cautiously I asked if the contract had been extended and she blithely replied that this had always been the end date. I made no issue of it but it was the start of a drifting apart.
A chance exchange on messenger brought her back in to my life a few years later. My reaction a bit like Pavlov’s dogs. Once again the patterns were repeated, a building up of emotional intensity punctured the moment she feared her next step would be commitment. Again, I ran out of energy to keep on trying.

The final chapter was a few years later when she again popped up on messenger. She was a complication in that I now had a mistress. She said she wanted nothing more than friendship and didn’t want to transcend boundaries. It worked for a while until she became jealous of my mistress. I cut her off dead at that point, I should have done it sooner.
I was involved with her off and on for around 15 years. The early promise of compatibility wasted in our own frailties and insecurities that we couldn’t communicate to each other. That taught me the essential nature of communication which worked for me in later years. On her reappearances in my life I never detected her address those insecurities.
When I first encountered the muse of Mrs Silks chat room she was the fantasy domme for most of the room. I found a lot of reality with her that blew away many of the worst of the fantasy myths. Yet, I grew and evolved where she didn’t and couldn’t.
If she ever popped up again I’d have to fight against that Pavlovian response even though I know she would have nothing to offer. I couldn’t enter that time warp she would want to inhabit, I’ve gone to places she could never imagine and I have further to go ….
…. but that first encounter of what passed for FemDom, it’s still a powerful pull of a memory of someone who held my heart in their fingers for a long time …..
December 20, 2018 @ 5:54 pm
EB
December 20, 2018 @ 6:01 pm
Now there’s a Silks name I’d long since forgotten. Would have happily left it in the memory sink hole.
December 18, 2018 @ 7:42 pm
It is lovely reading all of this melody, quite a find and a pleasure to read and listen to an intelligent and open soul with BDSM running as a thread through it all.
S
December 18, 2018 @ 7:51 pm
Thank you very much.
Quite a few have made themselves known as former members of Silks, though not with their old room names. It’s apparent just how much that place meant. All of them have blossomed in D/s and some transition. That’s our common legacy of Silks, it changed our lives.
I’m pleased that you’ve found posts here that you can enjoy and relate to. That’s all I want from writing here.
melody xx
December 18, 2018 @ 7:25 pm
Goodness, that is a long time ago then, I was there before her and knew her well. Lots of lovely memories of Her and many others, it was an exciting and fascinating place, all of life, BDSM, Art and cricket as you say, it will be and is missed.
S
December 18, 2018 @ 7:33 pm
A very long time ago, when the room was a complete free for all. Perhaps as far back as ’96.
December 18, 2018 @ 7:14 pm
Catherine…..
December 18, 2018 @ 7:20 pm
Lol … Long before Catherine, though I chatted a lot with her. Still exchange the odd email.
No more guessing – discretion xx
December 18, 2018 @ 7:05 pm
As a regular in Silks for a long time, I wonder who the mysterious “E” was….Evette?
S
December 18, 2018 @ 7:10 pm
You minx, I won’t get in to that game, only to say that the “E” does not relate to a chatroom name. 😉😊
melody xx
November 29, 2018 @ 10:16 pm
This was a fascinating read. I had forgotten about the early primitive-ness of computing. My company had e-mail which was in company only (we’d call it intranet now) – I did have a flirt on that at one time …
Gosh yeah I could relate to being jerked around by people too – I’m a bit inclined to give too many second chances and make excuses for people’s bad behaviour.
Thought provoking insights as ever melody and it’s much appreciated that you shine such a bright light on your journey, its pitfalls and triumphs.
November 30, 2018 @ 1:15 am
Thank you, Posy.
That one turned out to be the triumph perpetually about to come off that was forever dashed.
When your hopes and dreams are that strongly invested you do rather conjure up all the excuses you can.
melody xx
November 28, 2018 @ 5:30 pm
Thank you Melody for writing that. Painful to read of the tortuous times you have had. To be strung along like that was so cruel. I was just so shy I could barely speak to a woman. I never went on a chat room because I didn’t have a computer.
November 28, 2018 @ 5:36 pm
Thank you Pons for reading and commenting. It was a time of change, instead of being too nervous to speak to a woman in a pub or club, you had the option to be too nervous to speak to several online 😂
melody xx
November 28, 2018 @ 1:06 pm
What an insightful post. I was pondering the other day on the effects of sub frenzy in my own life, I was panting and frenzied in my need and that powered me to escape my difficult relationship with my husband but left me open to being used by and using others. Thankfully I had a Dom capable of the focus I needed to help me develop the necessary survival skills whilst also being mature enough to allow me the space to explore and grow.
Our relationship is now one of mutual love and respect and is unlike any other I have ever had. I am truly grateful to Him.
I so enjoy reading your posts Melody and would love to chat sometime.
November 28, 2018 @ 1:25 pm
If I look back, I’d say that the roller coaster with E provided me with enough experience of what leads to sub disappointment and potentially that frenzy, That being followed by two dommes who have protected me whilst showing me how to explore and grow.
I’m moderately convinced that I only know how special the relationships can be by dint of riding that roller coaster.
You’re always welcome in my DMs. If you fancy something more tangible, you’re not that far down the M5, so long as you don’t expect me in a skirt or dress 👌💋🌹
melody xx
November 28, 2018 @ 12:51 pm
I found this fascinating – to be involved right at the start of the internet is really mind blowing. I was a programmer and in 1996 my company sent me on a trip where I had to find out how the internet could help our business. I could see then it was about to explode and because of how my brain works understood a little as to how it was going to change life as we knew it. Indeed it did for me- it was via the internet that I found my birth family.
I think it is very hard for young people today to understand chatting with someone online in those days was the strangest thing. The connection would grow but often the people had never seen or spoken to each other. It was like writing letters but immediate.
I too had a Pavlov dog experience with the guy on my blog i refer to as Vic – I think it was my man who finally got me over it.
Thought provoking post x
November 28, 2018 @ 1:07 pm
Thanks May. I didn’t want to boast but did want to give the impression of how rare a place like Mrs Silks was in its time.
At the time of the alpha version of that NCSA browser the dominant tools were UseNET and Gopher. I showed my CTO the capabilities of this browser thingy and his response ? “It’ll never take off” 😂🤣 – Always sticks in the memory, that one.
You picked up on so much. Connecting with people you’d never seen or spoken to was like writing a letter with them looking over your shoulder as you wrote it. All this at a time when most people didn’t have mobile phones and text was an expensive flight of fancy.
Perhaps one of the big changes in psyche for those of us there was finding emotional attachments, even dependencies, on someone we’d never met.
Lovely comment xx
November 28, 2018 @ 12:07 pm
A beautiful description of ‘struck dumb’ and all the push /pull of finding our way in an already crazy world ….
November 28, 2018 @ 12:22 pm
Basically we were both ill equipped to handle this. My later relationships benefited from these experiences, I never got a hint that she ever changed. If she had, it’s possible we might have made a go of it at some point.
xx