Tribute

I'm not sure why I need to do this tonight, but I do, so you'll have to forgive me.

This is a straight-out honest statement. No attempts at being artsy, or literary, or sexy, or provocative, or whatever you keep coming back for. Just a statement.

This man. This man who typed his way into my life for whatever reasons of his own. Yes. He's a sadist. Yes, he's a predator. Yes, he is truly dangerous, and brilliant and creative and funny and perceptive.

But here's the thing. He has done for me what no one else has ever been able to do.

All those things he wrote to me were absolutely true. All those things about my being different and isolated and imprisoned by my difference - all true. What he said there - that didn't change anything. I'm still very different from most people. I am tolerated as much as anything else.

But he taught me to value myself. To make no apologies for who I am. He has made me hold my head up and be proud of my talent, proud of my creativity, proud of my sexiness which I never fully swam in before he showed me who I am. And on top of all that, he has given me structure and direction and discipline. I try not to think of what I might have been and achieved if I had had all that for 2 decades instead of not quite 2 years.

He doesn't read here, so he won't see this. Not that he doesn't know how I value what he has done for me. But I wanted to say it straight out. Here. Just so you all know.

Because of this man, I have grown so much. And I am glad that when I kneel before him I can offer him my strength along with my vulnerability and submission and love.

Thank you, my Master.

Thank you for teaching me to treasure myself.