Conflict resolution

I'm making progress.
I seem to be making progress.
I'm being creative and have made progress.

No, this time I'm not talking about the situation with the sadist. Although that is coming along well. Today, we each, independently, were feeling that we missed my serving him. You know, the whole D/s thing? We miss it. We both miss it. It's not that I don't still have that sense of submission underlying everything. But we haven't been interacting that way. And we both miss it.

Which is good.
We are in synch.
We are working together.

Nothing is guaranteed. And the fiend is still very worried that I am overestimating the character and depth of his feelings for me. And therefore that I am misrepresenting him here, and that you all are thinking it is more than it is. He repeated that it is somewhere in the middle of the scale. I really do think that's about where it is, with the bottom being a view of me as something to be used and discarded and the top being some grand romantic passion. Because of the way I write, because of my own romanticism, it could easily come out sounding more than that. But it's not. As I said to him tonight, I'm not expecting a Valentine's Day card. Which is true. But he is very intense, and whatever he does is very intense, and the way I write is very intense, so between us things can easily seem more than they are.

But that's not what this post is about.
It's about the cats.

You remember.
Ketzel and Marko?
Those 2 sweet kitties who like to curl up and lick each other?

Ha!
Not bloody likely.
And there has actually been a bit of blood.
There have been ongoing hostilities for over a year.

They generally occur around two activities.
Meals.
And my bedtime.

That Keztel. She is incredibly territorial. They used to both sleep with me. Or they each would at different times of the night, or on different nights. But lately, Keztel has made it quite clear that I belong to her. In her mind, I belong to her and the bedroom belongs to her and the bed belongs to her and if she has plopped herself down with me then Marko can just forget even coming into the room, let alone getting on the bed.

It used to be ok if he got up there with me first. She would come in later, sniff a bit, and then lie down on the other side of me, each hard against a leg. Sandwiching me. Such a pleasure. But the last time that happened, after Ketzel came up, she gave him the evil eye and he left.

I was very sad.
I love them both.
But Ketzel has this almost desperate neediness.
And possessiveness.

It was bad enough that they would fight. Physically fight. Which upset and worried me. But the final straw was when I couldn't sleep through the night because of growling and hissing and fighting at 2 am. A few nights ago I gave up, gathered my cell pone and my pillow, and went downstairs to the dungeon to sleep. On the futon. Ketzel rarely comes down there. Once I settled down, I slept through the night.

Obviously, this can't go on.
I can't let one stubborn ball of fur drive me out of my own room.
My own bed.

So the next night, I shut the door.
I didn't hear any yowling.
And I slept through the night.
The next morning, I found but one tiny turdlet as a symbol of her displeasure and of a tussle between them.

So for now, that's the new rule.
No kitties in the bed.
My allergist should be delighted.

The other move has been to play with Marko right after I feed him, which means he is less likely to come up and get in Ketzel's face or try to commit bestial incest. That has been working pretty well, too.

Still, it all takes a lot of work.
Balancing time.
Balancing attention.
Playing with Marko.
Snuggling with Ketzel.
Ignoring their scratching at the door.

It's worth it, though.
A truce by default.
Maybe if they don't fight for a long time,
they'll remember that they love each other.
Or used to.

[I had to pause in my writing. I'm on the couch. Ketzel wanted to crawl into my lap. She's so cute when she wants to crawl into my lap. Unfortunately, the aptly named laptop was already in my lap. I can't say I won. I can't even say the laptop won. She just changed her mind. It's pretty pathetic when I'm submissive even to my own cat!]

There's no more to tell, anyway.
Peace is possible.
With work,
with commitment,
peace is possible.

Relationships can be restored.
Isn't that nice to know?