My Master. His slave.

Wisely, my Master has pulled back from showering me with expressions of his affection. We had both seen how it triggered a neurotic distancing reaction on my part which nearly destroyed the relationship. (We come up with so many ways to threaten our relationship. Probably because everything we do, as the sadist noted yesterday, is so intense. We don't seem to be capable of anything else.)

So no more playlists of romantic songs.
No more...

I can't reduce the way he was into a simple list. And it's too sad to think about their having been locked up. Although not completely. There was, for example, that Goethe quote he sent me. And there is the way he can be with me, a way that is not new but which now I can see for what it is. My confusion is gone, the back and forth between thinking he had feelings for me and thinking I must be believing my own fantasies. It's not a fantasy. He does have those feelings. But, as he put it, that's just not a way it is safe for him to be with me.

But for all he says that our physical relationship is based solely on his deriving pleasure from me, there are times...

On Tuesday, there were times that he felt like a lover. When he lay beside me on the futon, when our bodies spoke to each other in comfort and desire and delight. When I was on my knees beside him after he came, me on my knees with my arms around him and my head in his lap as he sat in his chair and he stroked my head... gently... at length... with such tenderness...

I felt that.
I felt a closeness.
And it didn't make my head do anything weird.
I felt we were lovers.
I felt we were friends.

And I felt - I knew - I know that he truly is my Master in a way that neither of us can define nor do we need to.

It is true.
It is real.
He is my Master.
I am [and I shiver here at the beauty of it] his slave.
These are not words that have been stuck on us.
These are states of being that we have come to.
Don't try to slot them into Master/slave discussions.
It won't work.
We feel that this is what we are.
We know that this is who we are.
It is not a game.
There is not suddenly a new list of duties and rules.
It just
is.
We are.

This post started out with a different title and a different aim. I had called it "My Master, my lover." But you know, I start writing and I never quite know where I'll end up.

Recipe swap, anyone?