PILLION

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“How’d you get a man like that?” Colin’s incredulous co-worker demands, looking at a centrefold-worthy photograph of impossibly handsome Ray (Alexander Skarsgard).

“Well, he says I have an aptitude for devotion,” comes the coy reply.

And so begins the Sub-Dom relationship in Harry Lighton’s PILLION, dubbed a Dom-Com by the oh-so-witty film press.  Colin (Harry Melling) is a barbershop-quartet-singing, pasty-faced virgin picked from obscurity by leather-clad, motorbike-riding, suspiciously tanned Ray, an odd couple if equality and the fair distribution of domestic chores is what you seek, but absolutely ideal for one another if you are au fait with Sub-Dom culture: Ray is a Dominant in search of a Submissive and Colin is… well… Colin is there… and Colin, it turns out, has an aptitude for devotion.

The Sub-Dom relationship is not something we all entirely understand, including Colin’s unwell Mum who asks as her son receives a text message from Ray and rushes away from the extravagantly decorated cake she has prepared for him, “You’ve got to get the food and do the cooking on your own birthday?  Can’t he take you out for dinner?”  And it appears not: Colin will be making the birthday dauphinoise potatoes and he will be lucky to have so much as a bite of them, and only if a morsel drops to the cold, hard floor where he is required to sit and eat and sleep.

But have no fear, Colin’s mum!  Ray does have a secret birthday surprise planned after all, waking him in the middle of the night to whisk him away to a forest and a camping trip with a whole loada other gay Sub-Dom bikers for several days and nights of an orgy!  Yay!  Happiest of birthday orgies to you, Colin!  (And I’d love to have sight of the messages in the WhatsApp group tasked with organising Colin’s birthday orgy.  A pot luck approach would never work, would it?  What if nobody brought the lube?!)

And Colin absolutely loves his birthday surprise (thankfully, after all that planning… “I’ll get the butt-plugs and cock rings, Ray, but can we all chip in for Colin’s arseless chaps?  And who is in charge of the party favours?”) and his Sub-Dom relationship with ravishing Ray is exactly, precisely what he wants and needs… until it isn’t… until he wants just a little more than Ray, entirely committed to his Dom status, is prepared to give.  Maybe Colin could just have a day off?  A night when he is permitted to sleep in the bed?  A kiss?  (Question: do people in real life truly believe kissing to be more intimate than sex, or is this a cinematic convention born of PRETTY WOMAN and we’re just going along with it?  Answers on postcards, please!)

“You know I love you, right?”  Colin dares to ask on a rare occasion when he is permitted into Ray’s bed.

“Yeah, but…”

“But what?”

“That’s not what this is, Colin.  That’s not the point.”

“Isn’t love the whole point?”

“Of what?”

“Of everything.”

Silly Colin, bringing love into the mix.  Silly Colin, wanting more.

The thing about relationships is that their success or otherwise is entirely founded on both parties (or all parties… don’t come for me, throuples and polyamorists!) wanting and consenting to the same thing.  One night stands, summer trysts, lifetime unions and BDSM partnerships are all equally valid provided that’s what everyone understood the relationship to be.  The problem arises when one person thought they were in the midst of an inconsequential fling while the other was sizing up wedding dresses: that is when heartbreak happens.  And it gets very complicated and knotty indeed when both parties thought it was an inconsequential fling when it began, but one of ‘em catches feelz.  (And it is entirely unbearable when both parties agreed to a lifetime union, but one of ‘em releases feelz and loses interest, believe me.)

Ray does try to change, to budge a smidgeon and give Colin what he needs, but he simply can not evolve sufficiently beyond the strict confines and rules of the Sub-Dom relationship.  I think he is too scared to do so. The reality is that while the Sub-Dom relationship is about power dynamics, it is really the Dom who is the weaker party, imo.  It takes significantly greater strength to submit oneself to another’s whim, to trust them with our bodies and our love, than to dominate them.  Poor, beautiful, hella hot hunk Ray is, surprisingly, the weaker party, unable to embrace his vulnerability, unable to trust, unable to love (fully).   

And while Colin may be the one who has to go through rejection and inevitable heartbreak, he knows that pain and sorrow and loss go hand in hand with love (as much with Ray as with his adoring mum who is lost to illness).  You can’t have love in your life without accepting the risk of a broken heart.  And love, as he quite rightly told us, is the whole point.  Of everything. 

And Colin will find another Dom and give it another go.  Why not?  After all, he, like me, has an aptitude for devotion. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Smile, though your heart is aching

Smile, even though it’s breaking

When there are cloud in the sky

You’ll get by

If you smile through your fear and sorrow

Smile and maybe tomorrow

You’ll see the sun come shining through for you.