"This is not a game"

That is what he said, when he accepted me into his service. That it was not a game to him and that he believed I felt the same way.

He was right.
I do feel the same way.

For many people, it is a game, and that's fine. We are all free to define - to live - our relationships in our own ways. In whatever way is meaningful for the people involved. But for me, it has never been a game.

The philosopher used to speak of the game. And maybe that was one of the many problems we had. To him it was a game, and then a game that became too easy an escape from the thesis, and then a game that became too demanding. because to me it was not a game. I'm too suggestible, too susceptible, and too potentially submissive not to fall headlong down the rabbit hole.

I never was very good at watching where I was going.

To me, saying that it isn't a game means that it isn't something that can be turned on and off. It is always there. It is always there when I am relating to my Master in any way, and it is always there inside me.

Always.

It's not that I don't stop thinking about him, the way one doesn't stop thinking about a new lover. It's that I always feel his control over my life. He doesn't tell me how many peas I may have with my dinner, but he might just as well. I breathe him in with the air that fills my lungs, even when we are not together. He has taken me and changed me and encouraged me and praised me and pushed me and defined me because he owns me in some deep psychological way that enriches us both.

I am not his slave. But when I begged to serve him, and agreed to his terms, at that point the decision was made. There is no negotiation. There is no safe word. The only choices are yes to everything or good-bye.

I cannot live with good-bye.

So it is all in his hands. And as I am his treasure, he works very hard at taking me where he wants to go, making me into what he wants me to be, and making me want what he has wanted all along, without sending me running. I am his pet. I am his creation. I am his Galatea, and his ongoing project is to slowly, carefully, mold me according to the blueprint he has been designing and redesigning for nearly 2 years.

All this is as an introduction to a comment I made on DiscerningDom's post Who's in Charge? It's not that I disagree with him. Rather, my Master and I are living a different sort of life. Obviously, it suits the sadist, who set the rules. As it turns out, it is also what I have spent my life looking for. Except I didn't know it.

Interesting. I like to think - I tell myself - that at any time I can say "No." That at any time I can stand up and say "No. Enough. You've gone too far."

But I find I can't. I truly can't. A switch flicked in my head. I will always kneel, I will always yield, I will always obey, I will always accept.

I think that is why, for us, this is not a game. It is a relationship. Where the delicate dance comes is in his own delicate control of the situation. For yes, he truly is in control. But he is like a sailor, reading the wind, trying to push his boat to go as fast as possible in the most dangerous weather without wrecking on the rocks. He knows that the boat will go where he sends it, but that if he miscalculates the boat will be destroyed. He has patched it up before, but doesn't want to risk being left with nothing but memories and broken bits of wood.

I am now that boat.

Yes, he flogged my pussy

There, does that excite you? The thought of me lying there, lying on my back, knees up, knees parted, holding my legs open as he brought the falls down on my inner thighs and my outer labia and then right on my clitoris, does that excite you?

It hurt.
It definitely hurt.
But it could have hurt a whole lot more.

He flogged my ass first, and my back, hard. I could tell there was force in the swing of his arm. He flogged my buttocks and up over my ass and down onto the backs of my thighs and even some on my back, and yes. It hurt. But not that much. He flogged me but he didn't have to hold back to protect me because he had already taken the steps to protect me when he designed this beautiful, gentle, soft brown and bright turquoise flogger.

Before he left, my beloved Master said that I could blog about his visit. So take the above as my blogging about the visit. Because honestly, I have no desire to say anything more than that.

Yesterday, not for the first time, I wrote that he is not my lover. But today... I'll happily put on display his sadism and my submission and his manipulations and my capitulations. But our intimacy?

I can't even dance around my memories of our hour together without choking on tears that rise in my throat and sting my eyes like sweet, intoxicating Cointreau. These belong to me. To me and to him. To us, for there is an Us, however unconventional our form of us-ness may be.

I said to him - I belonged to you from the moment you discovered me.
I said - I had no choice.
I said - neither one of us had a choice.

He didn't argue.

Sweet Suffering - coming soon to a dungeon near you

"I want to take my time with you."

Tomorrow.
Sunday.
He will probably be here on Sunday.
To use me.
He wants to use me.

And he will schedule it so he can take his time with me.

Every time I repeat that phrase to myself, my cunt curls up in a tight little ball and shudders in fear and ecstasy. A lover would say: "I want us to have plenty of time together. I want to be able to luxuriate in the time we have together. A long, loving, sensuous orgasmic afternoon enjoying each other's bodies and minds."

My Master is not my lover.
My Master is my Owner.
I am his property, and he wants to get the most out of me.

But that's not the image that really comes to mind...
I see myself as his captive.
I see myself as his prisoner.
I see myself as his victim.
I see an ancient, dank castle,
a dungeon of stones and heavy wooden beams.
I see iron chains.
I see implements of pain.
I see myself naked,
weeping,
pleading,
suffering,
submitting,
accepting,
serving,
sucking,
I hear my screams.
I hear his roars.
I moan,
He growls,
I choke,
He cums.
His large hands compress my windpipe,
His strong fingers squeeze my nipples,
His sharp teeth pierce my neck,
His determined arm brings the cane
crashing down on my burning butt
as he tries to restrain
his urge to destroy.

Such fantasies...

of leather straps, chafing ropes, binding me to a worn wooden table, my panicked eyes searching his for a sign of mercy while knowing there will be none. This time there will be time. Time for the flogger. Time for the knife. Time for the thing I'm not allowed to mention even to him. Time for us to go to those places it isn't safe to go. Time for me to lie there alone after he is gone, bags of frozen peas layered on my beaten bottom and cubes of ice pressed to my bitten mouth. Time for the tears to dry. Time for the flush to recede. Time for me to be presentable, with one more day yet of recovery before returning to work so I can settle back down in my desk chair without grunting and muttering "ouch!" each time I do.

He will take his time with me.
Using me.
Tormenting me.
Manipulating me.
Changing me.

Protecting me.

He knows the dangers. The sadist will arrive in shackles of his own. I am his pet. I am his treasure. What we have is much too special. And so he will keep me safe.

More or less...

Time to serve

We have a 3-day weekend coming up in the US.
I need it.
Time to rest.
Time to sleep.
Time to think.
Time to serve my Master.

Time to have time to serve my Master.
Time to yield further than a half hour permits.

It's not just a matter of how much he can do to me in 30 minutes, or 60 minutes, or more. How much he can take from me. How much I can do for him. It's how much he can transform me. How deeply I can sink into the world he creates within the walls of his ownership that shut out everything but him.

I almost used that Capitalize-the-Master protocol that I - that we - always avoid.

How deeply I can sink into the world he creates within the walls of his ownership that shut out everything but Him.

HIM.

Nothing will exist but HIM.

He has a thing for green...

The longer I am with him at any one time, the more reality shifts.
A half hour.
An hour.
Has it ever been an hour and a half?
Well yes, and longer, in a way,
in an odd way,
on an afternoon and into an evening...

I've never written about that here. It was an adventure.

We're now talking about another adventure. A bigger adventure. An adventure we had hoped would happen last year although there was very little chance it would. An adventure that just might happen this year... or maybe we are just talking about what we wish might happen this year if this thing came to pass that probably won't come to pass except that he gave me the dates when there is the slightest chance he would take me away with him and then teased me that now I wouldn't be able to think of anything else when in fact he didn't want me to be able to think of anything else so that I would rain fantasies into his Inbox of what I would do, what he would do, what we would do should he take me away with him and stash me in a hotel room for a night to be on hand and at cock and moaning beneath the flogger whenever he wanted to take advantage of my mind and my body and my service and my obedience.

If.

For now, there is a 3-day weekend.
And he will visit this weekend.
And I will serve him this weekend.
And he will see what remains from the caning.
And I will return to that place
where nothing exists
but the world he creates
and I will yield
everything.

No exposure for my bruised, beaten buttocks

I admit to a small measure of disappointment.

I didn't get to try out any of those clever comebacks to explain the now yellowing bruises that still decorate my derrière. The only clothes I removed for this pre-colonoscopy office visit were my shoes and my belt prior to the weigh-in. The only aspects of my physical function that were checked were my blood pressure, temperature, lungs, and heart.

As for the doctor... you know, I think she would have handled whatever I chose to say without blinking and without judgment. Still, I'm happier not having to test her.

Of course, there are more chances in the weeks and months to come.

In the end, though (ouch!), it is only about belonging to my Master.
About serving him.
About pleasing him.
About obeying him.
About yielding to him.

And about the extraordinary sense of safety and security I get from complete submission.

My butt still hurts
a week after it was beaten.
And I rejoice in every pang.

Bruises, doctor? What bruises?

In meting out punishment, the gods rival my sadistic Master in both efficiency and cruelty. Or perhaps they were accomplices in this one.

A colonoscopy is recommended at age 50, and thus, a number of years ago, it was recommended to me. I'm a big believer in not putting off required tests - as long as they are to be done on someone else. Plus, circumstances required me to submit to a number of such nasty procedures in my earlier decades and, as we all know by now, I am not a masochist.

So I kept forgetting to make the appointment.
For 11 years.
Even after hearing first hand testimony that having a long tube stuck up one's anus is nowhere near as painful as it used to be.

Then suddenly this Spring I decided it was time to schedule a whole list of overdue tests and exams. Including this one. So 2 days from now, this Tuesday, I have a preliminary appointment with the doctor who will do the deed. I suspect she'll take a history, explain the procedure, and inspect my butt.

Ah yes.
My butt.
My poor, tender, beaten butt.

I've been lucky until now. The few times I've seen a doctor soon after an encounter with the fiend, the marks were either in places not relevant to that particular specialty or easily identifiable as love bites, so no questions were asked. This time, however, my bottom will most definitely be on view, decorated with an exquisite lattice of lingering pink welts and finger paintings of purple, black and green.

So what do I say?

Once, a long time ago, my headache doctor expressed concern about some bruises he observed on I'm not sure what portion of my body. He looked rather dubious when I told him the truth - that I bruise very easily and have a tendency to walk into things. However, there is no way I can blame the multicolor masterpiece that is my ass on my lack of depth perception.

Obviously, this is some cosmic punishment for not having had the colonoscopy done 11 years ago, back when I was having neither sex nor spankings. Though perhaps now I'd be due for another one.

I can't win.

Meanwhile - any suggestions?
What do you say?

Recovering

I suspect I misunderstood him.
I often do.
I ascribe kindness where there is only egotism.

When he sent me to bed, which was precisely what I needed, he probably just wanted to shut me up after reading my immoderate outpouring of distress. However, whether he cared about my state of exhaustion and emotions or not, his words did make me feel taken care of, so I suppose that counts for something.

I slept heavily and well, and the lunatic cats, culprits these last few weeks for part of my misery, were both on the bed with me this morning in an unusual state of peaceful co-existence.

In my continuing struggle to recover from the horror of Wednesday's sadistic punishment - which I know could have been so much worse - I wished I had a ritual to help cleanse me and free me and return me to a state of devotion and submission and arousal. So he ordered me to design some rituals and to consult with him for suggestions. Having been giving some guidance for the first one, and feeling so much better after hours and hours of sleep, I went down to the room - to his room - in hopes of receiving inspiration.

I stood there in the room and almost choked.
Fear and anger.
Hunger and pain.
The walls held my screams and my tears.
They dripped with the blood
ripped from my lip
by the jaws of the beast.
I fled
and wrote my Master,
proposing an exorcism.
He proposed a chat.

I won't share our conversation. And really, I'm not sure that its content quite explains the change that came over me. He didn't say all that much. I think it was my own words, my own explorations, that brought me back to his feet and reawakened my cunt and for the first time gave me pleasure in the abstract art that covers my buttocks. Parallel slashes of persistent red alternating with amorphous areas of black and green. Pain after three days that matches what I usually feel immediately after. All that, plus the realization that I shouldn't want more but I do. As long as it comes without the anger. The fury. The outrage that I should have risked the uncontrollable release of the beast from the chains against which the creature had been pulling for weeks and months and perhaps even a year.

The risk is clear to me now.
I was so close to running from him.
I was so close to saying it's gone.
There's nothing left.
And now I'm so close to saying yes.
Enjoy me as you will.
Without limits.
So seductive.
And such a bad idea.
For both of us.

So yes.
I see the risk now.
Full in my face.

But I was also reminded of the emptiness should I flee, and I felt so alive again once the clamps were removed from my heart. So I will redouble my efforts to be obedient, and accept that belonging to this brilliant monster of a man is the best life I could ever hope for. No matter the struggle. No matter the danger.

And now it's back to work.
I have a ritual to write.
A ritual to perform.
And a swollen, begging pussy to ignore.

Aftercare

I'm exhausted. Pieces of me
threaten to detach and float away
as I fight the allure of zero gravity.
I'm coming apart. Insanity beckons.
I crave the asylum of collapse
even as I fear banishment.
Face the feelings, he invites.
The dam breaks,
and with 5 short words,
he cares for the wounded.

Chastisement

My ass is hot and striped, swollen and pulsing with pain and regret.

Don't get all excited.
There is nothing sexy about it.
I violated one of the few, standing rules.
I inadequately performed a task.
I lit the fuse of his anger,
an explosion looking for an excuse.
I opened the door to actions that were banned.
The punishment was delivered,
and I came face to face with the beast.
I never want to meet him again.

Now, a day later, I am shaken and in pain.
There are marks that show an animal was here.
I'm inclined to hide under the bed.
But we will make our way back.
Slowly, cautiously, rebuilding,
we will make our way back.

He likes my labia as they are, thank you

In his comment on yesterday's post Portion control - pain by the ounce, Charlie asked a question he has raised previously as well:

Has he talked about marking you as his property at some point? My sub wears a couple of labia rings.

Short answer: No.
He has not.

The longer answer is rather more complicated, and touches on the frustration I sometimes feel when writing here.

Now of course, above all else, I write here for myself. Setting things down organizes my thoughts, and gives me a chance to document my personal development as well as what have been 2 very important relationships. I do also think I have something different to say about what a D/s relationship can be like. About what any relationship can be like. About different ways of looking at the world and love and... I was going to say power, but I think it's not so much about power as it is about giving and yielding and teaching and communicating and so much more.

I often think that some of my readers just don't get it.

I admit that I'm used to that in my life. I often think that I see things so differently from most people that my attempts at conveying my own perspective just makes others think I'm crazy. Perhaps that is a sign of my failure as an artist - or if not my failure exactly then a sign that I have far to go in translating my vision into a language others can understand. It's as if I persist in speaking an unpredictable mix of French and Swedish while those around me speak only English.

However, I keep on trying.

I sigh, and then keep on trying.

It is hard for you all not to see my relationship with the sadist through the prisms of your own relationships. Or at least through the prisms of what you read about most BDSM relationships. After all, what else do you know? In fact, I was quite puzzled myself in my early days with my demon muse as to what it was he wanted from me. And we still puzzle and frustrate each other as the months go on.

The thing you need to understand is that he is not like most people. And certainly not like most doms.

Remember that in the beginning I usually did refer to him as my demon muse. My muse. He found me on FetLife and was attracted to me by my writing - both by what it said about me and by the writing itself. That is why he wanted me. To write for him - and to be the writer he knew I could be. The rest came as rather a surprise.

As you know from references I have made elsewhere, I am not alone in his collection. I only know a little about the others. Each of us gives him things he needs and serves him in different ways. But, as he has told me numerous times, I give him something no one else can.

My mind.

I am his treasure, his prize possession, and what drives him into a fury is a perception that I am wasting my talents and not treating my art with respect. That is why he has beaten me for typos and for writing a bad sonnet.

Yes, he thinks I am beautiful, and he has taught me to see myself the same way. Yes, he enjoys my body, and the ways that I serve his pleasure. But the link between us, the place where it started, the place where we are bound to each other, is in the world of the mind. Of thought. Of art. Of poetry. Of beauty and metaphor and intellect.

He is in truth the sexiest man I have ever known. But what sealed my doom, what made me realize I was in danger of falling in love with him, was the message in which he referred to both Shakespeare and James Joyce's Ulysses. After that, I didn't have a chance.

So what does this have to do with Charlie's question?

1. My Master doesn't have to mark my body to prove that he owns me. He has made his mark on my mind and deep into my soul. That is more than enough

2. He quite enjoys my body as it is. My mouth. My breasts. My pussy. My butt. The soft, round mound of my belly. Why would he alter them?

3. I admit that I sometimes think of being branded with his initial. But when I do, it is perhaps more for the sake of the ritual than for any physical proof that this body I inhabit belongs to him. And rituals are very powerful for us both. There was one he had me perform, which I never wrote about here, which marked me psychologically in a far deeper way that could any piece of metal driven through a piece of skin.

Tattoos and brands and collars and piercings have meaning for others and that is fine. We all organize our relationships our own way - which is a point I often try to make. A BDSM relationship, however you live it, is still above all a relationship and must be lived by rules that work for the parties involved. There is no Central Committee (thank goodness!) to tell us how what positions we must assume, what forms of address we must use, what punishments are designated for which misbehaviours, and how we may enjoy each other's bodies.

The challenge for you here is to suspend what you know about relationships and try to see things through my eyes. I am not saying that what we do is better. But it is different. He is different. What we give each other is different. What we learn from each other is different - because yes, of course, he learns from me, too.

If what you read here makes you look at your own lives a little differently, that's ok. If you just think I'm totally nuts but it amuses you to read my ramblings, that's ok, too. It's quite likely what I've said here makes no sense whatsoever - I'm very tired and (as is often the case) didn't think things out before I sat down to write. All I ask is that you try to listen to what I'm saying and to open your mind to a different way of thinking.

Portion control - pain by the ounce

He doesn't hurt me any more.
At least for now, he doesn't hurt me any more.
He's a sadist, and he isn't hurting me.
He's protecting me.

He's driving me nuts.

He's being cautious.
He's being wise.

He will, I think, return to his former ways in a measured manner, increasing the pressure of his nipple twists a quarter notch at a time, upping the impact of his almost affectionate smacks on my ass, now no more than a potch in tukhes or two, until they leave my bottom hot and angry red. He will, he may, I hope someday take up again that beautiful turquoise and brown flogger that I lay out for every visit and for weeks has remained untouched.

I'm not a masochist.
I agree with his assertion that I'm not a masochist.

He knows me better than I know myself, and he definitely knows some masochists, so if he says I'm not one than of course I'm not. But I fear that his attempts at protecting me from his most dangerous urges - and he is protecting me, in the fiercest way - will drive me to beg him to subject me to something we both know I don't want.

I am his treasure.
He will protect his property.

But meanwhile, I am possessed by ever darker fantasies of protracted canings and gang rapes of my butt hole and a knife... its point... a delicate trail of beads of blood...

My Master's Caress

Touch me.
You touch me.

Fuck me with with your fingers.
Kiss me with your mind.
Stroke me with your metaphors.
Brand me with your eyes.
Bind me with my love for you.
Rape me with your smile.
Everything I am is yours.
Pussy, heart, and soul are yours.
Let me spend my life as yours
and bless me with your flame.

Safe in the den of the beast

His touch was so soft.
His mouth so sweet and gentle.
And his eyes...

If it weren't for the nature of our relationship, if it weren't for the features of our lives, I would say they were loving.

I melted.
I swam.
I hypnotized myself.

I am so suggestible
so susceptible
I take myself places with almost no effort on his part.

A word, a look, a touch, I am a feather. Blow on me, softly send your breath over me, and I will go in the direction you have chosen.

I think there are different kinds of subspace. We usually think of it as coming from the endorphins of pain. But I think there is another road, a magic door, an entrance to that mystic place from happy, loving ecstasy.

For me, it is a place of both beauty and truth.
Sometimes the truth can be frightening.

I was there, in that place, looking in his eyes, being in his eyes, when he stood me in front of the beautiful, dark truth, emblazoned on the wall. A truth that I already know. I know - I know - that I would do anything he wanted me to.

I struggled. I struggled, as he has been struggling this last week with his own truths and hungers. I struggled with what I have known all along, since the day that he found me.

"Yes," I said, in resignation and love.

I thought this meant I was in danger.
It could mean I am in danger.
But no.
I am his treasure.
He has made a vow.

He will protect me.

He will protect me.

Warning

Don't say that word.
Don't say it.
Don't name that thing,
that implement, that
item of every day use.
Words have power.
They sharpen desire.
They slash at restraint.
Don't feed the danger.
Don't say its name.

Don't say that word.
Don't say it.
Don't name that force,
that juice that can run
toasters and fill you with pain.
Words have power.
They swallow intentions.
They weaken control.
Don't feed the danger.
Don't say its name.

Don't say that word.
Don't say it.
Don't name the beast,
that dark monster that
once loosed can never be caged.
Words have power.
They turn the room to red.
They transform the soul.
Don't feed the danger.
Don't say its name.

Don't.
Just don't.

Lycanthropy

Werewolves roam suburban streets.
Spring has trumped the moon.
Hunger drives them day and night
April, May, and June.

If they sleep, their dreams play host
to fantasies so stark
they vomit, and don't dare to boast
of bodies in the park.

So think before you venture forth
to darkened road or field
for should you meet a fearsome beast
there's no choice but to yield.

Household Tips for Submissives

An occasional feature of submission & metaphor.


Dear Oatmeal Girl,

My Master makes me serve his cock while he sits in my dad's old Eames chair. Or maybe ersatz Eames chair. It doesn't really matter. The point is... how can I clean cum off black leather?

-- The World's Greatest Cocksucker


Dear TWG Cocksucker,

Hell if I know.
Maybe my readers can help.
Ideas, anyone?

-- o.g.

Sleepless in Silver Spring

Yes, I know I've been quiet. There have been major cat problems, leading to a largely sleepless week. Growling and hissing in the middle of the night, night after night. Now Ketzel is on Buspar, which is used to treat aggression in cats. It's made a difference, except that now she is leery of my getting anywhere near her head since I've been rubbing it into the inside of her ear in the form of a cream.

Saturday was totally lost as I slept on and off all day. Well, not totally lost as Friday night and Saturday the sadist and I collaborated on some very inspirational writing. And then Saturday night there was a party and yesterday I did some other writing, and really, none of this is making for a very sexy post, is it?

He came to visit today, and there are some issues which I can't talk about. I didn't even ask if I could talk about them. They are personal and difficult and a blog is all well and good but what really matters is our relationship and not everything can be lived naked on a stage. And no, we didn't fight, he's not mad at me, and it's not whatever else you are thinking, either, and eventually we'll get it sorted out. But meanwhile I'm tired of crying.

Who would imagine that a sadist could have such sweet kisses...