I serve. He pays.

I remember when I was very stubborn about not letting men pay for me. I remember back in the 70s, between marriages, planning a trip down to DC from Boston to spend the weekend with a guy I had fucked in a little patch of woods near his parents' house because I was turned on by his boots. Now that was a mistake.

But that's another story.

I've made lots of mistakes.

Anyway, he had invited me down to visit, which meant a plane trip. Which he offered to pay for. He was quite insistent. I was more so. This was the 70s. A fierce feminism was rampant, the kind that comes from just having had your eyes opened. And I was right to stand my ground. He wanted to acquire me, stuff me into a predetermined mold. He was on the look-out for a Jewish girl to marry.

I'm glad I escaped the trap.
It didn't take long.

Now, I'm more open-minded about accepting money. About allowing someone pay for me. Partly, it's a practical matter. A healthy, practical outlook learned from my mother (though she didn't realize it) as, with a faraway look and the idealist's emotional catch in her voice, she answered my question "Mom, what's the Communist Manifesto?" with "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."

Seems like a reasonable way to live.
Especially when you're unemployed.

Which all sounds very cold and opportunistic, but in fact I do believe that. Even when I'm not on the receiving end. We have a responsibility to take care of each other. And if we don't, we'll end up paying one way or another in any case. But let's not get into politics now. OK?

I've learned that if someone wants to pay for me, I can accept gracefully and not feel swallowed up. Sometimes, of course, it's wise not to accept. It's an instinctive thing. You know when you need to stand your ground. And sometimes it feels really good when you know you'll split the bill. There's an easy comfort to it.

And then there is the sadist.
He pays for things.
For all sorts of reasons.

It feels like a very open-handed, generous gesture. He tells me to go to a restaurant and says he will pay, partly because he knows I can't really afford it, partly to make what I will taste and hear there a gift, and partly because it creates an odd sort of date, one during which we are only together courtesy of our smart phones. He likes to be generous, and he can afford it.

Sometimes, it is because he is my Master,
and it's the appropriate thing to do.
I belong to him.
I am serving him.
And he makes the arrangements that make it possible.

We didn't get to spend Friday night together after all. The activity that would have made it possible was, in the end, arranged in a way that made it not at all possible. But we are looking forward to a repeat of the night we spent together 11 months ago. The night in the room with white linens, which I never did fully tell you about. A weekend at the end of June.

That time, he gave me a fistful of cash. It covered the hotel room, my gas, my food, a case of water, a bottle of champagne (still keeping cold in the bottom of my fridge), with some twenties left over to make me feel owned and taken care of.

I was very grateful for the left-over cash.
I did not feel cheapened.
I did not feel bought.
I did not feel like a whore.
I felt...

... soft.

Very soft
and very owned
and very, very happy.