Monday, January 18, 2010

Home and needy

I arrived home tonight at around 6:30 and immediately turned on my laptop. It's not as if I had been disconnected while I was gone. Now that I have a BlackBerry, I can bother my sadistic Master anytime I wish with a stream of little e-mails detailing the state of my mind and my body as they both respond to the images with which he supplies me for contemplation and inspiration.

All the visits and activities went well. But there was the odd sense of being 2 people at once... whichever identity was appropriate to the activity, and then, inside, like a warm soothing hot water bottle wrapped in soft flannel, was my submissive self, property of the sadist, dedicated writer, a mind to suck for arousing images and a body to despoil and put to his service.

It felt as if I were always wearing a secret smile.

Along with the now two long stories I am committed to writing over the next couple of months, I am working on a series of pieces on masks - which of necessity is an important image when you are hiding a major part of yourself from most of the people in your life. I'd be grateful for any observations any of you have about how you present yourself to the world (including to people close to you), the efforts you make to hide your other side, and how that makes you feel.

Meanwhile, here I am. Sitting and writing with Marko at my feet. He's happy now. I know how he feels. Thanks to Yahoo IM, I spent a precious half hour back at the sadist's feet, and now I am whole again.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Beautiful experience, written up really inspiringly.

Paul said...

OG, thinking about your question, it seems that I have many personae.
The one that my wife sees, the one I wear with my blood family. My face at the office, my social face and the one I wear for the spiritual side of me
I suspect that it is a slightly different me depending on the blog that I am replying to.
As for my kinky self, only half a dozen people know him and the bloggers that I am close to.
Yet none of this is under conscious
control, there has to be a mental mechanism, there is one exception, I know very well, and regret the need, why I keep my kinky self separate.
I suspect that I'm a very private person, hence the many masks.
Until my fourteenth year I was shuffled around like a parcel in the lost parcel office, for my own sanity I had to obscure the windows to my soul.
This sort of self exam makes me feel quite odd.
Love and warm hugs,
Paul.

Florida Dom said...

Don't most people present a face to the outside world that puts themselves in the best possible light.

And I assume most people in the D/s lifestyle hide that part of them from their vanilla friends.

Will be interested in seeing where you go with this topic.

FD

mamacrow said...

most of my masks are to do with my roles, I think - daughter, mother, wife, daughter in law, sister etc...

and probably another set to do with moods...

i think i prefer to think of them as facets rather than masks.

nbs said...

I love the mental image of you working with Marko at your feet!

I understand the feeling of wearing that secret smile.
There is a grand and precious secret you have inside.. and only two people know.. that sort is one of the best secrets imho.

Now..about the masks...or facets
We all have them and use them everyday, don't we?
Part and parcel of being human.
Nobody sees every facet of another.. and even one very close may be clueless about one particular "mask".
Of course I hide my submissive side at work or around family and friends.. only a few ever really see it and know me as a submissive woman.
For me, it is a special secret that I share with a few.. very few people.
I can't find words for more.. maybe later~~
Welcome back!

Anonymous said...

I check in on your blog daily but have yet to work up the courage to be little more than a lurker...until now. Knowing you were not going to be writing until you returned from your trip has been unbearable! Reading your words reminds me that I am not alone in my feelings, and I relate to so many of the things you say. I am brand new to the D/s lifestyle, and I struggle with the masks. Only one other person knows my submissive self, and I find it thrilling yet lonely. How do you cope when you have trouble expressing yourself? Thankfully, your posts keep me company and say some of the things I want to say...

oatmeal girl said...

Thank you, Anonymous #!, and welcome. I am happy to inspire! Next time you comment, perhaps you could give yourself some sort of name so I will know it's you when you come back.

Paul - Thank you for pointing out that we assume masks even in circumstances where we might assume we were safe to uncover everything, such as when responding to different blogs. And it is, with that, rather an automatic thing, a switch into a different mindset. As for the others, though, I do find myself fighting a temptation to let things slip out. perhaps a little seemingly ironic reference, such as "he needs to be spanked." Always looking both very innocent and very earnest.

Self-exam CAN be scary, and i can imagine that for protection you had to lock your soul away during those tumultuous years. I hope that now you are feeling found.

FD - I think there are 2 separate issues here - trying to present putting oneself in the best possible light, and trying to obscure whole vital aspects of one's personality from people who might not understand or approve. For example, I will be more open about my active involvement with Judaism with certain friends only, who can relate to it better and not think it weird. The others don't think it bad exactly; they just can't relate. However, mentioning my submissive life is not at all an option. Period. It is a huge part of me, my identity suffuses each breath I take, and yet I wear a mask to keep them from glimpsing my reality.

The tricky thing about hiding our kinkiness from our vanilla friends is that if it's just a question of sexual practices, then surely it isn't anyone else's business what we do in our beds and in our minds. But when, as with me, it is a question of a blossoming, a glowing, an enrichment, a freeing of my creative potential by a man who, even as he trains me as a sexual toy for use by him and any others to whom he offers me, is constantly burnishing my self-image, praising me almost with wonderment for my beauty and my mind and my poetry. And all this, plus almost all of my creative outpourings, I have to hide. My happiness leaks through, but I cannot give credit to the one who made me.

mamacrow - for what you describe, facets, identities, these are I think more appropriate terms than masks. Or maybe you could say hats. Masks are meant to hide. Hats denote a job, a function, a status.

nancy - working with Marko at my feet is ok. Working with him wandering around the tiny desk, into the very small space between the back of the laptop and the desk's cubbies, trying to somehow keep writing as this very large cat attempts to walk across the keyboard of my lovely new MacBook Pro, which has already swallowed a fair amount of cat hair... writing today's pain post was quite a challenge.

Anonymous #2 - welcome and thank you so much for speaking up. Reading blogs and eventually commenting helped me so much (and still does) in learning about my own submission.

How do I cope when I have trouble expressing myself? The other day, I was trying to write something to the sadist and just couldn't. I was too overcome with emotion, and for all my fancy words I was completely stuck. He usually understands what's going on, or if his reply indicates that he didn't then I have something to move on from i explaining.

The main thing is, I explore by writing. When I start a post, or even a comment, I don't really know how it will end up until I'm done. As time has gone on, and I've made friends in blogland, I find that I'm less lonely. We create these support groups, and the comments sections become these little communities, little coffee shops where we hang out and check up on each other and feel like we are together.

Thanks to all of you for your comments. I did just write, for the sadist, my first poem on masks and am looking forward to writing more.