Enslaved

I've entered into arrangements with men before. I've never before entered into one quite like this, however. I've known my Master for several years, longer than I knew my ex-husband before we began to live together and longer even than I knew him before we were married.

Within that time, I've come to trust and admire and adore my Sir as I have no other person. We have the usual lover-associated feelings I imagine everyone else in love has - physical attraction, the trust and intensity that I know accompanies many D/s relationships. He is also my best friend, and has been so, has seen me through so much.

He is my steadfast ally, the keeper of my many secrets and secret fears, and I owe him the sort of fealty owed to one who has saved your life on many levels. I suspect he may know me in some ways better than I know myself. However, I know the dark places he has saved me from, the places I take myself mentally when I'm feeling afraid and alone in the world. In my most lost moments, going through a bitter divorce and custody battle and in danger of losing it, turning to things that would have harmed me further and possibly guaranteed the loss of my child, it was his hand that came in and stopped me from destroying myself and everything important to me.

There have been days I stayed in bed the entire day grieving the state of my life, unable to present myself at work - my Sir has stayed with me for hours, comforting me as I cried with words of encouragement, or informing me of hard truths I needed to face in order to pick myself up again.

Though he knew I would have done anything asked of me, he asked for nothing during those early times. I owe this man everything, and can never repay him.

With these thoughts and emotions flowing through my mind and heart, I knelt in front of him, reading aloud my promises from the contract he wrote for us. Our favorite music was playing, artists we both love, lyrics we've sent to each other to read that we thought expressed our love and emotions best. He braided my long hair as he sat behind me, weaving a leather whip remnant through it to tie it up and out of the way, lovingly and gently kissing my shoulder now and then as I read, stopping me at points to ask if I understood, to clarify his meaning of specific points.

Leaning over me, next, he read his promises and vows - my heart skipping with happiness at each intonation of his voice that I love to hear so much. He wore his glasses to read, and I find him so sexy, so much my daddy when he wears those, he may as well have been reading me a night time story about a princess and her Master. My skin shivered with response as he'd bend over to read in my ear.

He told me how much he loved me, how pleased he was to have me as his, how long he had wanted this for us. As always, I felt inept and tongue-tied in his presence, giddy as an idiot, feeling about as un-womanly as I could be... I always feel like a girl around him, shy and unable to believe that he's chosen me, knowing my flaws as he does. He always knows the right things to say, the right way to put them - while I express myself best in writing.

A small part of me dwelled on my fears, in the middle of my solemn and serious joy and sense of fulfillment in the moment. As right as everything felt, I was agreeing to let him do anything he chose to me. He can mark me, with a brand or a bruise if he decides. He can punish me if I'm disobedient or careless. I no longer have a safeword, although I've never used one with him before, it's absence is almost a presence of it's own.

My fears, however aren't truly about a fear of Him. My Master has always been good to me, I know and have experienced what he wants and it's always been what is in the long run best for me, the things that keep me safe and untroubled. My legitimate fears were about my own potential for error.

What if I let him down, disappoint him and he regrets taking me on? He knows I'm compliant sexually. What woman wouldn't be - he's tender and intense and sexy and thrilling ...? Those things are easy for me with him, he can bring me to a state where anything he desired I'd give. Pain is erotic to me, so I don't fear that so much - I know he won't do anything I won't be able to fine a way to endure and probably enjoy, even it it's only the enjoyment of surrendering to him.

It's my independence and my will that will be tricky. Those are the areas where my obedience is an effort at times. I have to learn to think of him first, learn to hesitate and ask for permission, rather than act in certain situations. I have to stop relying on my own preferences and my own wish to avoid reviewing my actions and feelings, interpreting my behavior. I need to realize and accept there are some choices and decisions I'm no longer allowed to make on my own.

The Contract

Even after our decision was made to begin a formal M/s relationship, there was still the matter of the contract we would sign, what we would agree to.

My Master, of course, would design and present the contract to me, and accept input, answer questions etc, but the final decision on how, when and the manner of implementation would be his.

I cannot say that there were surprises in it. I know the basics, as everyone does. He is my Master, this is about power exchange and all the things that go along with it, the safeguards, the consent, the defining and spelling out of the agreements. I suppose you could call it a "beginner" contract, a starter of sorts.

What surprised me, was the emotional reaction I had to reading his words. I was touched, humbled, honored, amazed at the time, effort and energy he put into writing it. I haven't had anyone ever do anything similar for me before. It was a clear indication to me of his seriousness about us, and his love for me.

One would think after years of daily caring and contact that I would know, and understand. On some level I did. He has written to me of his love, shown me with his caresses of his care, with his intensity of his passion, and I can see in his eyes that he knows me and accepts me and my needs, my flaws, that despite how and what I am he does not turn his eyes from me.

This was just different for me. The contract demonstrates his desire to be bound to me, for the term of the contract at least. It illustrates the claim he makes on my will, my soul, my body. I suppose that's it. I have felt loved by him, desired, comforted and controlled. This is a claim of ownership that extends beyond lust and love and to me that is more romantic and fulfilling than any other vow or declaration could be.

Decision

I am soon to be a nation of one, sole subject and slave to my Sir, who has decided it is time to make me his completely. I feel as if I'm an orphan about to be adopted, a lost pet in a shelter about to go home.

Until a few months ago, I was unaware of this longing. My Sir, shortly after we met years ago, never described me in terms of slavery. He mentioned former slaves, discussed the concept of slavery hypothetically, but I felt that my own level of submissive capabilities not only fell short of what was required of a slave, but that he did not desire such a creature in his life. I put it out of my mind for us.

I don't think I've ever been involved with anyone who is as obsessed with me as I am with him. I'm not certain obsession is the correct word. The only thing close to it I've experienced is the intense mutual interest of getting to know my newborn children, the innocent co-dependence of having another in your head constantly, the missing sensations when apart, the completeness, bordering on relief of being together.

Of course it's very very different in many other ways - but it just calls to my mind the sudden knowledge of complete and full connectedness to another I experienced when I became a mother. I'd never felt that for any adult before now.

So, almost by accident I learned that he did want this kind of closeness with me. The discussion of a contract arose several months ago, I had asked if he'd considered one, because I really wanted to understand what he expects of me. He said he only used them with slaves, and I immediately felt the awkwardness I've felt in the past - one time in particular when I'd practically begged him to collar me and he gently redirected me off the subject.

However this time, he inquired if I felt I was ready. And at the time, in that moment, I was certain yes, before my logic and doubt and worry began to set in.

I felt fear of failing at a higher standard of accountability. A fear of some potential loss of the relationship entirely if I didn't meet expectations, an acceleration of a certain end. Commitments in my past have always been the beginning of the end, the moment when one turns from being one thing into another, that always, always culminates in a parting, and where the common denominator is me.

Finally, though, after reviewing our history, and realizing I couldn't imagine any other resolution of our fates, nor can I imagine a future he is not a part of... I decided if he felt I was ready, then I am and let go of my fear.

I agreed without reservation to become his slave.

Love and Submission Part III

In the first two entries about this topic (inspired by other blogs I read, links to which are available on the first entry), I discussed my thoughts on D/s experienced entirely as a non-love, non-romantic response, purely submissive, without the requirement of the will or knowing involvement of the dominant. My second entry was about the connection between love and D/s, whether D/s can work without love, or in my case, I question whether love works without D/s.

I have found myself in love, of course without an overt D/s component, but for me the elements are already there in every love. I always have tried to shape myself into what I believe the loved one wanted me to be, in an effort to please them, to connect better. We all want to put our best foot forward in any new relationship, to impress and woo the other. I suppose you can view submission as the willingness to take that a few steps further.

I think that is where it becomes tricky. Is D/s possible in the context of intimacy without love at all? I still believe so. Respect is necessary, trust is necessary, but I don't believe love is.

This has come up in my own relationship with my Sir, because I certainly was submissive to him long before I knew him well enough to love him. Love has made our connection deeper and more interesting, more passionate. But it is the trust and the respect I harbor that has enabled me to submit and then to love him.

I can submit casually, more of a bottoming than submission I suppose, to any dominant if I choose to in a playing context. I will leave them in control of the pace, the order, the intensity of sensations or activity. Just as I can submit to an authority at work and enjoy that same thing, functioning within a structure set up for me. None of that requires love, although on some level there needs to be respect and basic trust.

But the deeper levels of emotionally submitting, not just giving my body over to someone to play with, but allowing them access to my mind and being vulnerable does not come easy. Letting someone hurt my body is nothing. Opening up to allow them to possibly hurt my heart, or my ego, or even damage my mental health is another. My Sir has taught me to be more cautious, to be more careful even in casual play, before I trust someone simply because we're in public and "what could go wrong"?

My Sir recognizes that I used to give my body easily, even while clinging to my will. I think he has at times suspected I took him casually, before he learned to see through my feigned indifference and emotional removal. His response has been to show me consistently and steadily that he is there, an unchanging and unwavering force in my life.

I often read about women not hearing back from their doms, going for days or weeks with no contact, feeling ignored or anxious when they write or text. While I have endured times of less frequent contact with my Sir, it has been well over a year since I've felt the panic and wondering, the constant anxiety of separation, of worry over whether he cared or would be there for me. Despite our not living together and our distance from each other, his presence and control is with me continuously.

This sense of security and the freeing lack of concern about where I stand with him is only made possible through trust. This is why he is the only one in the world who knows who I am, that I write this blog. I can open up here anonymously, but no one in my life, not even my kinky friends, know who I am. I am not Lyla on FetLife.

It's taken us a long time to get to the point we are now, mainly because of my past, in particular my experience with my ex-husband. Along the way there has been a great deal of balancing between us, he has even had to extend trust to me first in some ways, before I would take the next step and give him a little more. I read in another post, the comment that you are trusting your Dominant, as he is trusting you with his desires, and that's entirely true. I think D/s relationships are inherently more risky, we are more vulnerable with this type of exposure of our selves than most people have to be to achieve intimacy, especially if we've suffered at all because of our proclivities.

I think that's another reason I see so much more willingness to compromise between those who are in D/s relationships. An example is the number of people who are doing D/s long distance or who are in open or polyamorous relationships.

It's not simply about being more open because you are kinky. It's about understanding the rarity of finding someone who pairs up with your needs, and for me at least, the kind of love I feel for my Sir is based on making him happy. If that happiness included his involvement with another, I would be more understanding than I think I've been in other relationships because I know how difficult it can be to find these things in others, to find someone who pushes your buttons in the right ways and who is also responsible and sane.

I also trust absolutely that my Sir has my best interests at heart. Unlike others I've known, he engages in the introspection necessary to evaluate his own motives and needs, and weigh them against mine. Not much about him is transparent to me, but even I can see how he has slowly and steadily taken me down a path I know he foresaw months before we got there. I appreciate that time, because it has made him familiar and comfortable to me, made my slow relinquishment seem natural. And while I love and crave the feeling of being made to do things, he knows better that there are some places I might have gone too early, that would have made me feel unsettled, rather than at ease with what we are.

So while, yes, I love my Sir, it is not that which binds me to him and inspires my submission, but the confidence I have in him, the trust that he knows where he wants us to be, and that I can let go and give him the reins for both of us.

Love and Submission Part II

In my first blog on this topic, I wrote about situations where D/s has existed for me without the knowledge of the dominant individual, without there being a love or romantic aspect to the relationship, and with the feelings of submission and attention being the only end or reward.

I realize this isn't the case for most people, or doesn't seem to be. I think for most, submission and D/s are a sexual kink, something that only works within the context of an intimate relationship.

I recognize now, that while I can have a D/s experience or encounter or elements of submission outside of a love context, I do not think I can experience true love outside of a D/s context. The act of serving another, of being helpful and nurturing and caretaking is what inspires emotion in me.

This has made motherhood rewarding for me, knowing that someone else needs me, that they appreciate or enjoy what I do for them, that I am making my children's lives better by the things I do. I personally know self-proclaimed "service" submissives who make special shopping trips to buy things to prepare for dinner for their dominants, who don't derive the same gratification for doing for their own children. I don't get that. To me, serving the needs of those I love, whether a child or a Master is fulfilling - not always in the same way, maybe the difference between one kind of meal and another, but the contentment and satisfaction, the heart-fullness is the same.

As far as romantic relationships go it's been more complicated. I have often sought out dominant men as lovers, however, these encounters did not always result in long lasting relationships because of that lack of will or desire to dominate that others discussed (see my earlier blog on this for links). It was never enough for me to just be involved romantically or sexually with someone who was naturally dominant. I wanted to be pushed, and molded and made to do things I did not want to do.

One relationship in particular comes to mind, for I think he was a natural dominant, but had no idea what he was interested in was D/s, or if it was he did not share this with me. He did refer to me once, I heard later, to his friends as kinky, so perhaps he knew more than I thought, but we never discussed what we were doing at all, let alone in D/s or kinky terms. He tied me up for sex, he ordered me to strip for him, told me when to move and when to not move...but my willfulness in other areas, the things I did for attention, knowing he wouldn't like them, hoping he'd punish me and tell me I was his and that I was forbidden to do them any longer, that he wanted to control me outside the bedroom ... these things drove him away. My childishness and inability to understand and communicate what I wanted, why I was doing these things, lost the relationship.

I was heartbroken. The intensity between us made it difficult for me to get over him the way I normally had with other relationships. So I deliberately steered away from any repetition of that kind of intensity and ended up married to the wrong, albeit safe person. My needs for caretaking and nurturing were met, as I viewed him in most ways as another child. However, my sexual desire and interest in him dissolved. I assumed it was age - I was 30 - and that those feelings were just something that disappeared when you got older.

To be honest, my life felt more sane, more in control that way for awhile. I felt I'd finally grown up - and I had all the responsibility to prove it, as he assumed very little, allowing me to take care of everything, finances, the house, planning, being the grown up. He on occasion would exert his authority as the man of the house I suppose, but my response was only resentment because I didn't feel he was entitled to this control or authority because I was the one making the money and doing the housework and raising the kids while he lived a comparatively stress free life.

To me, the only reason for this resentment is the lack of his will and intent. Had he been different, had the life we lived been in the context of a D/s construct, I would have contentedly done the same things, viewed my work as service, viewed his handing over the tasks I did as an honor, rather than as a sign of his inability to do them himself.

Our marriage began to dissolve, as I began, for a variety of reasons, to awaken from this frozen state I'd tolerated. I realized abruptly how utterly lonely I was. Being alone began to be more appealing than being lonely in a marriage. I began to develop crushes on characters in books I read, for God's sake - all these feelings I didn't feel for him, I felt for imaginary others.

We began to discuss our problems and attended some group seminars and in one of them the topic of sexuality came up. For the first time I described to him what I liked. He did some research and told me I was submissive. We began to play at this. Just hearing the word "submissive", just the idea that I had this label to put to myself and my desires was life changing. I was in a constant state of arousal, it was as though I were a teenager.

He really didn't have to do anything other than demand sex, and my mind did the rest - I called myself a slave, considered him my Master, my mind dwelt on the knowledge that he could do anything he wanted to me, that he owned me. I honestly have no idea what went on in his mind. It honestly didn't matter, I was having a fantasy and he was going along with it and it worked at first.

However, for me a huge part of this, at least in the realm of intimacy is sacrifice, being made to do things because someone else wants them. I really related to the other posts, in the sense of wanting, at some point an acknowledgement of your submission, a demand of it, a pushing or luring.

This kind of thing requires a certain type of intellect. This is not a caveman thing. My dear husband was a pretty simple, basic person with very uncomplicated needs. This is how he could remain married for years in what he experienced as bliss, to a woman who was suffering a soul death. Without his desire for my submission, a need to impose his will onto me, we failed.

It was the introduction of discipline and pain into the mix that did it. I wanted to be spanked, punished. I wanted rules, limits. He began by making me go to church - something he'd never had any interest in during the prior years of our marriage. I believe now he was hoping Jesus could cure me. I went to church, soaking my panties as I repeated in my mind that I was there as an act of submission to my Master.

Ultimately though, in our seeking (read: my seeking) out of others to guide us in our exploration - and by others I mean community, not individuals - we fell apart. I wanted to run headlong into the bdsm scene, relieved to find there were others like me, my family. He was appalled. We would look at a scene underway, my mind reeling as I saw a woman spread out and helpless upon a cross, her body writhing under a whip, focusing on her bound wrists and spread legs, imagining myself in her position, my husband wielding the whip, whispering to me to relax, encouraging me to take more for him, stroking my body and telling me I WOULD take more for him. My husband saw only a man torturing a woman. He was repulsed by me.

The rejection of one's mind is far worse than the rejection of one's body. To know, finally, that what he loved and wanted from me was only my body and my paper doll wifely-ness, not my submission, not my will, not to know me fully and completely as a person was only a revisiting of my anguish months earlier. I'd taken a risk, exposed my parts to him as I had never done to anyone and he was unable to love me.

Love and Submission Part I

I'll start this out by saying I'm jumping on the bandwagon, as there has been a running theme among several other bloggers on submission and love. lil at Submissive Sanctuary wrote about her feeling at times as if she only wants to submit to her husband on her terms, and cited several other blog posts that related to the subject of love and this other crazy little thing called submission.

I had read some of these blog posts already, and as often happens I am either struck with recognition of myself in the words and experiences of others, or given a deeper insight at least into how this works for other people. In greengirl's blog What I Wonder, she wrote about submission being the end in and of itself, whether its just a response to dominance or if it is or should be an end, something one does without needing that acknowledgement or awareness or initiation of the other. I found I related to this perspective quite a bit, that it is an end in itself.

Greengirl inspired Aisha to write this post, where she mentions the need for there to be an awareness or willingness of the other to dominate, which I'm not entirely certain I agree with in all cases. I have experienced both ends of the spectrum, with a dominant personality who unknowingly inspires submissive reactions, as well as those who knowingly impose their will.

This has become a chain of sorts, as sin has written a post as well, which is the one that convinced me I really wanted to weigh in with my perspective. She mentioned marriages that have become D/s and been altered or improved and I do have some experience in that as well.

I am submissive generally and somewhat indiscriminately. It's a part of myself I'm uncomfortable with and that I try to hide in most circumstances. I think the discomfort with it is that I always perceived it as a need for attention, not for submission. I didn't know the word submissive existed until a few years ago, was unaware that it was a verb, or a personality characteristic. My need for attention is something I felt ashamed of, in part because I've done some really stupid things to get it.

I like to help people, to make their lives better, to please. This manifests and has manifested all of my life, in school, at work. Whether the authority figure was a professor, a director or a boss I always sought approval, and even more, to be special and closer to that person in authority than any of the other students, workers, actors etc.

I do this furtively as I of course resist the impression of being a brown noser or attempting to be the teachers pet, and it's never been for any kind of personal gain with regard to getting some kind of privilege others don't. It's just been a desire for closeness and connection with a dominant authority, even if that other one is unaware of it, and even if it is only within the parameters of that situation.

Submission of this sort is not sexual at all, but it's another kind of satisfaction. I enjoy nurturing, helping, doing things for others. This helps me be a better mother, and a better employee and friend - when I feel safe enough to do and be this way for people.

I have had bad experiences, mostly with employers because there isn't that reciprocity and loyalty - I've found you can do the best job you can, work very hard at your job and still be abused. I think for some reason the type of personality who best inspires that brand of "submissive" behavior at work is also the type of personality who tends to be a bit abrasive and dismissive. I've had bosses with terrible tempers, who enjoyed venting their anger and taking it out on everyone. For awhile I'd be the one who could calm them, fix their problem, be the only one NOT being attacked - however this kind of special status is only temporary. One minute you walk on water, the next, no matter how hard you try to fix things for them, they eventually turn their ire onto you.

But I have found the same physical reactions in these kind of "D/s" work relationships as in love relationships. Heart pounding, stomach nervous and anxiousness, a keen awareness of the comings and goings of the boss, almost a telepathic ability to read the mood and predict how the day will go, just based on what time they arrive in the morning.

So I would disagree with the concept that in all circumstances the dominant needs to be willing to participate in this kind of exchange, or that there needs to be love involved in D/s. There are some personalities which are so strong and dominant by nature, and some circumstances that are so inherently skewed with regard to power, that for me at least, they will pull out submissive responses and reactions.

These aren't sexual responses, but they provide some level of excitement, a sense of fulfillment in my day, as well as a set of walls - a space where this experience is played out, but also a space that can be left at the end of the day to provide a reprieve. This is true whether it's a workplace, or a classroom, or a church turned community theater space.