No modifications necessary

I have a really great hairdresser. He does phenomenal things with my long, still naturally red mane. What I really admire is how he listens to my hair. He reads it. He doesn't impose a style on my locks and then cut them into submission. He frees them, encouraging them to be what they really are and bringing out their true, natural beauty.

When I was in second grade, my mom took me to her hairdresser. He cut my hair short, and suddenly - no more curls. They never really came back. I never forgave him, and hairdressers have made me nervous ever since. Now, though, I suddenly have curls again! Even with my hair so long, which should drag out the bounce, I have curls. I watch in fascination as my hair slowly dries after I've washed it. The ends awake into curls that hold their shape throughout the day, and which return after brushing if I wet them down again. No product, no curling iron, nothing. My very own little girl curls.

I have a really great Master. He does phenomenal things with me. One of the many things I admire is that he pursued me for what he saw I truly was. He saw inside me. He saw me as something of value, and he wanted me as his own treasure.

He did not say - oh, here is a marble statue which I will treat as a piece of rough stone to be hacked and chiseled until it becomes the piece of art I have in mind.

He said - ah... here is a beautiful work of art who needs some polishing and minor bits of carving here and there to refine the shape and bring out the beauty inherent in the stone.

And he also said - ah... here is an artist who doesn't know her talent. Here is a girl who doesn't know her beauty. This is a crime. I will take her for my own, and use her for my own pleasure. But in order to get the most out of her, she must come to accept and appreciate her own value.

As I mentioned recently, I'm on a diet. It's a serious health thing. I need to lose weight, limit carbs and especially sugar, exercise more... all the things my doctors have been saying for years. But now I'm getting serious about it. I really do need to be serious about it.

And my Master is helping me.

I ran off to the bookstore today to pick up a particular diet book. I e-mailed the sadist from the car as I prepared to leave the parking structure, saying I was on my way home and would then address a particular assignment he had given me. He replied:

I heard no mention today of exercise. When you get home send me your plan.

Oops. I'd forgotten again. He had brought it up that morning, how he wanted me to do my exercises to accentuate the ravine down my back, aka the champagne channel, which must be made deeper by the time we have our night together. Which gives me 3 weeks. Plus he wanted me to add some exercises to develop the shape of my delicious butt. I had really forgotten about that part! I wrote back:

[she sighs and wrinkles her nose]

I both love and it and hate it when you remind me of things I have forgotten, my Lord. Things that I'm obviously not running to do.

Which is true. I feel a bit petulant, and have the urge to be defensive and make excuses. But I know there are no excuses. I have lost focus, yet again. I've been distracted, been involved with other things, and must - must - do what is required of me.

Which I did do.
And reported back.
And he was pleased.
Yea, verily.

Later, I wrote:

You know what's so great, my Lord, about what you're doing with me and the diet and exercise thing?

You're not making me feel bad about how I look. Of course, all along you've been pushing me to accept that I'm beautiful. But this, specifically, you're not saying I'm fat. You're not saying I'm a lazy slug. You're saying I need to be healthy, to serve you better and because you own me and want - need - your slave to be healthy. Plus there's these little preferences of body form to increase your enjoyment. It's not, my Master, as if you're saying I'm worthless if I don't weigh 110 pounds. And you're not sending me off to get my tits augmented, or any such thing. It all not only makes me feel better, because I'll be healthier, but will also make me feel better about myself in a healthy way.

It's all very positive, my Master.

I am so lucky to belong to you!

He replied:

I never said you weren't a lazy slug.

But quickly followed that with a new message:

Seriously, my goal for you is to maintain both your sexy body and your general health, so there will be fewer occasions when your service is unavailable to me for health reasons. No modifications necessary, except maybe a deeper champagne canal.

Which is the truth. He makes me feel good about myself. He makes me feel wanted. He did not take charge of my eating and such merely to demonstrate his control, but did get involved when there was reason to be concerned and, before that, on a very small scale for the well-defined goal of increasing his pleasure from the use of my body in a very particular way. (He already eats pitted Kalamata olives and tiny grape tomatoes from the trough running down my back, but a deeper channel would certainly be preferable as a vessel for champagne.)

This is but a very concrete and current example of a larger point which I have referred to before. I get very nervous when I hear about a Dom/Master who seems to be pushing submissive/slave into some external mold which just doesn't fit. We all struggle in our relationships - in any relationship, all the way from vanilla ice cream to jalapeño sorbet. We all struggle, some more, some less, whichever side of the power exchange we occupy. No one is perfect. No one. Get that? Even my Master has occasionally apologized, or at least admitted to faulty judgment and taken steps to prevent a recurrence.

We may worship our Masters/Mistresses, but they really are not gods. And it pisses me off when they can't manage enough humility to appreciate the treasure they do have in their submissives or slaves. It pisses me off when I hear of a Dom who is so caught up in his own fantasies of what he wants and is so drunk on his own inflated ego that he pushes his possessions to do things before they are ready while making them feel inadequate for not being able to handle what maybe they just aren't cut out to handle.

I worry.
I really do.
Because we get drunk on our submission.
We lose perspective.
And some of us end up hypnotized into wanting something we really don't want.

Submission can be glorious.
And being a little intoxicated can be a lovely thing.
Just don't get so drunk that you drive off a cliff.
And never forget that you are beautiful.

End of lecture.
Time to put my sexy body to bed.