My butt meets Shakespeare. My belly meets the knife.

He has many ways of torturing me.

Today, he came by for 5 minutes.
A suddenly discovered 5 minutes snatched from a busy schedule.
A serendipitous 5 minutes when he found himself passing nearby.

He looked at me.
He touched me.
He bent me over the corner of the navy blue sofa.
He spanked me with a paperback copy of a Shakespeare comedy.
He showed me the knife for the very first time.
My belly met the tip.

He didn't cut me.
He just scared me.
Which was the whole point, I think.
He was teaching me something.
And this time the lesson was very clear.

Then he very deliberately pressed a big red button and gave me an assignment to phone him and tell him something that had me sobbing hysterically into his voice mail until the time ran out. I don't even know when the time ran out. I was crying so hard and begging and pleading and professing my love that I never heard when the time ran out.

And it was exactly what I needed. It served his purpose, it advanced my training, he was ever so pleased. But it also gave me the catharsis I needed after the shock of being laid off.

As I have said elsewhere, I do not take well to rejection.
Of any sort.
It is a very weak spot for me.
Whether deliberately or not,
the fiend gave me an outlet for the violence of my anguish.

I am sure he would deny that this played any part in his stopping by or in the little scene he chose to play out. I am sure he would insist that it was just a mini-version of a long-planned next step in my training. And it is true that he does meticulously plan my progress and becomes quite annoyed should any circumstance disrupt the progress of said plan. Nevertheless, this was not the first time that something purported to have been designed to serve his needs managed to help me as well.

Felicitous accidents do happen.
I'll leave it at that.

Redundant

re-dun-dant [ri-duhn-duhnt]

–adjective

1. characterized by verbosity or unnecessary repetition in expressing ideas; prolix: a redundant style.
2. being in excess; exceeding what is usual or natural: a redundant part.
3. having some unusual or extra part or feature.
4. characterized by superabundance or superfluity: lush, redundant vegetation.
5. Engineering - (of a structural member) not necessary for resisting statically determined stresses.
6. Linguistics - characterized by redundancy; predictable.
7. Computers - containing more bits or characters than are required, as a parity bit inserted for checking purposes.
8. Chiefly British - removed or laid off from a job.

It all comes down to the same thing, really.

Excess.
Like an appendix.
Or a second car you rarely use and can't afford
Not needed.

In which case, in these tight economic times, if you are wise and responsible, you jettison the extra weight that is slowing you down, that is costing you money, that no longer has a function because you are changing direction and redesigning the carriage and mixing way too many metaphors - which all translates as my having been laid off today because they are indeed eliminating my position.

This sounds a lot more bitter than I actually am. If I weren't in such serious economic difficulties I wouldn't care at all. I have felt there was not much more I could learn there and no new place for me in any growth plans. I was feeling a strong urge to be home, to spend my days reading and writing and playing music and exercising and, always, through everything, serving the sadist.

Except there is of course this little issue of paying the bills.

So given that I am still getting over this truly awful, I am really quite cheerful. The fiend was very sweet about it. All he has to say are just a few words but that are always the right words. He knows me so well, and knows just the right way to take care of me. He offered to help me develop a schedule for my days which I know I need to do.

And I know, too, that a big reason why I don't feel so devastated by this latest in a lifetime of layoffs is that he has made me feel so strong and confident and good about myself that I don't take this as any kind of judgment on my worth. And I feel good about myself not just because he values me but because he has taught me to value myself - insisted on pain of bodily harm that I had better value myself! And I do. Not just because of threats, but because he has taught me and convinced me.

Meanwhile, there is a good chance (I'm holding my breath) that I may have a new housemate come September, which will make my finances a little less awful than they might otherwise be. And I get paid through the end of that month, after which unemployment kicks in. Of course, it will be almost completely devoured by payments for heath insurance, which I absolutely cannot give up. But somehow I will manage.

Somehow.

Now if only I could sell 8 stories a day...

Excuses, excuses

Sorry for the silence.

Less than a day after getting home from vacation, I came down with a bad cold. A REALLY bad cold. A nonstop dripping and sleeping cold, turning the skin around my nose as red and sore as my butt after being spanked with the hairbrush.

Speaking of spanking...

The sadist is not at all happy with the current state of my health. He specifically told me that he does not appreciate people returning from vacation thoroughly exhausted and unable to serve him. The irony of it all is that, unlike most of my cabin mates, I was ever so responsible about going to bed at a reasonable hour. There was just that one morning at 3 am...

And here I am sick.
Home from work 2 days so far.
Sleeping.
Snuffling.
And contagious.

The sadist was all set to visit today.
All set to launch the next phase of my training.
All set to...

Let's just say that it was going to hurt.
Which scares me.
And makes me leave large gooey wet spots on the sheets.

Weird, no?

Precious ambivalence.

Oatmeal Girl gets a glowing review, OR Structural Analysis of Literary Technique in Smut

There are three main stages to being an author:

1. writing
2. being published
3. being reviewed
   

Note that only the first stage is presented in an active verb form. Writing may be a struggle, but theoretically it is something over which the author has control. The other two are in the hands of the fates or the gods or the vagaries of the business.

In the case of my story that was published in the anthology Best S&M Erotica Volume 3: Still More Extreme Stories of Still More Extreme Sex, the writing was the easy part. It burst out of me in response to an assignment from the sadist, which in turn was a response to a poem which you can read here. Even being published was relatively easy, as Chris had invited me to submit something for the collection, and when my initial attempts at writing failed I asked if he would take this piece instead. I was too naive to be as worried as I should have been about whether it would be accepted or not.

Which brings us to the review.
For yes, there is now a review.
A quite glorious review
by Sharazade
which praises the book as a whole
and has some extra nice things to say about me.

It feels funny writing that here. It makes me feel shy... even though I know that I need to publicize the book and I do know that my story is good, and I quite agree with Shar's observations.

Anyway.

Please do go over to her blog and read the review. She is remarkably intelligent and perceptive and on its own the article makes great reading.

(Of course, I left out the fourth stage. Being read. Shar's review is her testimony to my having been read. It is her own way of saying "Good girl." And we all know how I like being called a good girl...)

Mostly home

I am back.
I am happy.
I am tired and scuzzy and happy.

(Hmm... what will one of those automatic translation programs make of "scuzzy"?)

It was very hard to leave. For a week every year, my friends and I live in a place outside of time and space. We live together in the same room, we eat together, we dance together, and - oh, ever so important - we make music together. What we have there is our only reality.

At least, it used to be that way.
Technology always gets the last word.
Meaning that now there are lots of words that weren't there before.
E-mails and texts.
Skype to friends abroad.
The New York Times on line.
Repertoire CDs downloaded to ubiquitous laptops.
Photos posted to Facebook the morning after.

And messages to my Master.

Saying what I'm doing.
Saying how I'm feeling.
Saying I'll obey him.
Saying that I love him.

So all that time, in that very special place, I swam in being his and glowed my secret smile.

And now, although sad that it is over, I am happy to be near to him again.

And so the next phase of my training commences.
He says it will be difficult.
His words frighten me.
And my panties are suddenly wet.

Leave of Absence

I'm going on vacation for a week.
Going away.

And it's because of all the preparations and complications that I haven't been writing. Because everything is ok. Everything is lovely. Lovely and different and beautiful and happy.

However, I won't leave you without some reading material. Sharazade (a new friend) will be publishing an interview with M. Christian, the writer and editor who so kindly included me in Best S/M Erotica Vol. 3. This will be followed by a review of the book, including of my own little contribution, which she claims to have liked. You can read about her plans and general take on anthologies here.

Finally, I'll leave you with this little tidbit - or tit-bit, as the case may be. My dear sadist surprised me with a last minute lunchtime visit - the second one this week. I knelt naked before him, down between his legs, my head bobbing up and down as I made love to his cock and sucked him - truly sucked him - in those special ways that only his precious treasure knows.

I was such a good girl today.

And at certain points in his own vacation in the coming week, he will be overtaken by thoughts of his own good girl and her profusion of red waves billowing up and down over his very happy cock.

Cold - and hot

The new fridge arrived.
The delivery men easily got the old one out.
They easily got the new one in.
They turned it on.
And soon it was cold.

I cleaned up the floor.
I washed out the water pitcher.
I took another shower.
I shaved my pussy so it was sweet and smooth.

Then the sadist arrived.
I met him naked at the door.
He ordered me downstairs.
He made me wait for him in the closet.
Where it was dark.
Where it was scary.
Then he opened the door.
And it wasn't scary any more.
And I turned him on.
And soon he was hot.
And his kisses were gentle.
And his smile was sweet.
And he came with a roar.
And happiness filled the room.

Not a bad day after all.
Right?