It’s 9 am, and for the first time in a while I don’t have an early morning meeting. So, it is a little bit of a lazy morning here in bed.

I wake up with a low grade anxiety (although I’m sleeping OK). Master feels far away right now, even though he’s not really. We played Word with Friends this morning and exchanged a quick message about a game that just finished. He’s here, in my life and has never gone away, despite the times I push him away.

My eyes well up with tears…every time we’ve expressed that we’ve been on the verge of ending our relationship (i.e. no contact – I’m done), it’s been because I pushed. I expressed that my needs weren’t being met, and he gets to the point where he says what else can he do. My biggest fear is that he’ll go away and I push him to that point and he thinks about it but never does.

This is what happens…I explode and then I get to this point…where I feel incredibly guilty…guilty for all I put him through (or anyone through, really). I just want to curl up in his arms and say, “I’m sorry.” If only sorry were the magic word to make all this fear go away.

I just read kaya’s latest blog entry. She mentioned that her Master is traveling, and they are not in contact very often at the moment. When they do talk, he sounds displeased. She talked about her usual reaction to his displeasure (which goes to almost non-functioning), and how he needs her to function, especially while he is away. She ended the passage, “Who wants to own a bitch, right?” Yes, who wants to own a bitch.

All he’s ever asked of me, really, is to take care of myself. To treat myself with the respect and care that I want for myself. To offer Him the best of me. And I twist that around in my head to mean he doesn’t care, he doesn’t want me, that I am no good, that I am not worthy, that I am less than <insert some external measurement>.

He gives me so much, and it goes into a sinkhole…and I ask for more: more attention, more dominance, more reassurance. Pretty demanding for a submissive…

I got Master a ball gag for Christmas. He’d pointed me to a web site when giving me His wish list, and said, “Anything from here.”

It was quite the experience shopping for toys for Him…knowing full well that I am the recipient of any selected toy. Picking your own torture device is quite the head trip! I told Him I didn’t think I was brave enough to purchases the most extreme toys, yet I found myself fascinated by them and wondering what they would indeed feel like.

I’d “wrapped” the gag with an undershirt I’d also purchased for Him. (He opened the undershirt gift first, then I asked Him to take the undershirt out of the box where He found the ball gag.) Interestingly, I was infinitely more comfortable shopping in the adult toy store asking, “Where are the ball gags?” than I was asking, “Where is the men’s underwear?” in the high-end department store.

He said He got hard just looking at it! He was a bit surprised this is what I got. I’ve always expressed an aversion to breath play, and early on in our relationship I shared how uncomfortable looking ball gags looked. I worried that I would panic and not be able to breathe.

That aversion has definitely been subsiding, though. I love burying my face into Master’s chest while He’s fucking me and feeling that moment of suffocation. I’ve grown more fascinated with ball gags while watching kink.com videos. I’d started fantasizing and longing for knowing what being fucked while wearing one felt like.

I went to the bathroom before He fucked me that day. As I wiped, I realized I was already sopping wet. He was hard, and I was wet…obviously we were both turned on by the thought of me being gagged!

I wondered how I would ask to cum while being gagged. Turns out, mumbling in the context of being gagged is quite understandable.

He warmed me up with some nipple play. He slapped my breasts hard, and I almost came just from that! I begged Him to let me cum, and He withheld permission momentarily. I wonder if I would have been punished for cumming just from having my breasts slapped. It took all of my energy to wait for permission.

With the gag on, I was surprised how quickly my level of surrender deepened. I felt myself open up to Him in a way and to a level I have not felt yet. I had the wherewithal to ask permission to cum as required but wave after wave of orgasm came over me. Instead of fearing being out of control, I relished the shift – where His movements and His commands controlled my body.

Interestingly enough, I have now been working out with a personal trainer for six months now. In the past couple of weeks, I noticed that I passed a milestone I didn’t even I know I’d hit, and that is I feel so much more in control of my body. I notice it when I walk, when I go to sit down and even when Master is fucking me. My strength to hold positions has greatly improved.

What’s even more interesting and curious to me is that just as I feel more in control of my body, I have a deeper experience of surrendering to Him.

It’s easy to think of a submissive as selfless. She (or he) submits to a Dominant and opens herself up to do with as He will. Wouldn’t that be the very definition of selfless?

In the early days of a D/s relationship, it’s playful and fun. “Oh, you want to tie me up! Sure!,” you agree and take your first baby steps into giving up control. The flush of tapping into a dormant, unexpressed part of yourself is exhilarating. It’s such a thrill you begin to think you’ve hit the pinnacle.

Play then evolves to be more intense. A skilled Dominant eases you into it. Nervous butterflies in your stomach create an illusory feeling of giving up control, when really He still needs to hear the word, “Yes,” to push your limits.

Pain starts equaling pleasure, and the line between the two is so blurry you start to wonder if they ever really existed separately. You plead, “Yes, I want to be your slave,” as you crave more intensity and more control.

Now, the “play” starts taking forms you don’t feel like in the moment. “I want to masturbate now!,” you say to yourself yet He’s pre-occupied with something else at the moment and not focused on granting you permission. You’re excited to have His cock in your pussy, but He wants to fuck you in the ass…and you don’t feel like it today. You want current life circumstances to be different than they are, yet He’s the one in charge of the path.

“But what about my needs?,” you cry to yourself as you punish Him with your silence, aloofness or lashing out. “He’s so selfish to not think of me!”

And then it hits you like a 2×4…who’s being selfish? Who’s the one who wanted to relinquish control? Who was the one who wanted to serve Him and His needs?

And then you realize that throwing a tantrum (even an internal one) is acting like a toddler. Maybe that’s an appropriate stage for a sub to go through on her way to slavery. But it would be just that – a stage…one that she needs to grow out of…

“Are you crying?” He asks. We’re on the phone, so He only has the sound of my voice to go on.

“No,” I swallow. Obviously not very good at hiding.

Sometimes my feelings can turn in an instant. It scares me actually. Probably scares Him, too…or at the very least catches Him off guard.

I feel like I’m in an emotional fun house where everywhere I turn there is some distortion or illusion to play tricks on my mind. I’m trying to keep my bearings and distinguish between what is in the present and what is the past intruding on the present. But sometimes I really can’t tell the difference.

I feel like I’m doing the right things: going to therapy, taking my medication, journaling, etc. Nothing, though, seems to be the right tool to extract this pain.

Master has known at a high level what has been going on – or an inkling I should say. Old habits of minimizing a pain I’ve lived with for as long as I can remember kick in. I share a little, but I haven’t shared more (until recently) for several reasons.

One is that I’m embarrassed. That might seem like an odd reason – to be embarrassed by my pain. There are many nuances that contribute to that embarrassment, but they all add up to embarrassment.

Another reason is that I’m angry. I feel like if I let it out that I will go psycho bitch on everyone around me. Years and years of anger are built up behind an arrow, and I’m afraid of letting go of the bow and forcing that pain on others.

The last reason is that I just feel hopeless. I’ve let this pain out before only to have nothing really change. What’s the use? It’s better just to keep it inside and try to figure out how to cope.

He inadvertently steps on these landmines. Present day events taking the energetic shape and form of my past. Here I am in the fun house. I can see the pattern. I’m aware enough to know what from my past is coming up. But that’s as far as I can separate the two. The feelings come up, the panic sets in and I want to run, hide, escape…anything to not be in pain.

I feel him pull back. He’s probably trying to give me the space to deal. I’m pulling away, but I want him near so when he pulls back the panic gets worse. I want him to take control of the situation, to pull me out of my corner and just not let me push him away. Don’t let me get away with it. Don’t let my petulance rule. Don’t let my distorted view win. Tell me what is real and what is not. Help me understand the difference.  In the absence of this, I’m left trying to interpret what is going on in your head and the situation that brought us here. In the vacuum of silence, I conclude that it is me who is broken and that however I reacted drove you away. I watch you move on, creating a life that doesn’t include me. I’m never out of the picture but always in the background. The pain hardens into beliefs that I’m not worthy, that I’m not lovable, that I’m not good enough. Throughout the years, I beg to find evidence to the contrary. My vision is blurred, however, and I see everything through the lens of this pain.

I spiral downward and land in the next, present moment. I have moments of lucidity. It’s in those moments that I decide to clam up. It’s not fair that He has to deal with all of this. I try to focus on us and the light He brings into my life. I try to use it as a beacon, something to get my bearings and stay focused in the right direction. The fog rolls in, though, and everything gets blurry again.

I had a dream last night that Master was lying on the bed with His legs open. I went straight to suck on His dick then realized that I didn’t ask permission to suck it. I stopped and asked, and He told me to proceed. I was sucking when He told me that I needed to get Him off three times with just my mouth. I was sucking when I dozed off. Master wasn’t happy, and I was wondering if He was going to punish me for that. I think that dream was just emphasizing how tired I am at the moment from working long hours. I did think it was interesting, however, that I was worried about displeasing Master even in my sleep.

I shared this dream with Master this morning. He replied that He wouldn’t be unhappy with me for falling asleep if I was truly that tired. His response itself didn’t surprise me, but the contrast of my feeling in the dream and His response did.

Master can push me and expect a lot from me, but He always has my best interest at heart. He would not demand something of me that would be for His pleasure at the expense to my true needs (like sleep). Even if He pushed me beyond those needs for a moment in time, it would be with a greater purpose in mind. The feeling I had in the dream is not one that comes from Master but from myself. I am the one that pushes myself to serve others at the expense of my own needs.

I worry so much about not living up to people’s standards and expectations of me. One mistake – in my mind – wipes out anything I’ve done well. I often find myself trying to guess what will please someone because if asking what they would like would be failing to anticipate what they need. It seems silly even typing this out (nobody is a mind reader!), but it is what is going on in my head often times. Even the logic that nobody is a mind reader sways me from this deep-seated need to please and be perfect.

When I first started exploring my submissiveness, I was very confused about this need to please and my submissiveness. Was I being submissive in all situations? Was it a misplaced, and I needed to discern when/where to be submissive? Or was it just my nature to serve and I couldn’t help but act this way? In essence, was it all one in the same?

It’s clear to me now that they are not the same. One is surrendering to serve someone you trust, who has your best interest at heart. The other is borne out of a belief that you are not enough and struggling to fill a hole inside of yourself.

The difference is clearer to me, although filling that hole is difficult. Maybe it is not a matter of filling the hole but dissolving the belief and changing the premise of being good enough. The one thing that is true is that another – not even a Master – can fill it.

“You cannot change your destination overnight, but you can change your direction overnight.” ~Jim Rohn

I’ve been intending to write a year in review blog…well…since the end of the year. I hadn’t done so because as I looked back on all the changes I’ve made in the past year and how different my life looks now, I wasn’t sure how I could summarize it in a blog post that wasn’t a mile long. Pretty soon, it is not going to be a year in review blog entry, so here it goes…

A year in review you’d think would start with January, but I actually consider that my year started with my collaring a year ago November. In the days before it happened (when the collar was in my possession but not yet locked), I wasn’t sure I was ready. I wanted to be collared so bad, but in those last moments I truly wondered if I could surrender. I wrote to Master an e-mail titled, “break my will” where I thought the only way I could cross to the other side would be to have Him take (what I thought was) the last bit of resistance by force. He did lock the collar (and not by force)…and the journey to break my will began.

The collar not only symbolizes us taking one step closer to His complete ownership over me, but personally I took it as making a commitment to be who I am – to express my authenticity more fully. In the days before He locked it, I truly wondered if I was worthy to wear His collar. I knew there were still so many ways of being that were my way of hiding – and as much as I’ve longed to come out of hiding – that part of me that is ever vigilant about whether it is safe or not often kept me scared enough to let it be a dream and not to act on it.

I saw my collaring as a marker of the beginning of internal changes now manifesting on the outside. For example, at the same time that Master collared me, I told Him I was thinking of re-doing my living room (selling all the old and buying new). He just chuckled at my sudden urge to make changes. I thought it was a leap to correlate the changes, but in hindsight, the urge to have my physical surroundings change makes perfect sense.

I set out to make other physical changes but quickly ran into roadblocks. As is usual for me, I’d step out and encounter something that set off my internal safety alarms. I’d then run back and hide in an attempt to control my world. I look back on the e-mails and some of the journal entries about conversations with Master in the first half of last year, and all of it was an exercise in stepping out in trust. I look back at the individual conversations and see the theme of what was going on inside. I started to reveal to Master what I thought were the ugly parts of me…things that I thought would surely somehow prove I’m not worthy to be His (and even times when I pushed to prove how worthy I was). It was a wall I’d built and chipped away at, but I’d not been doing all the things I needed to do to tear the wall down. I finally figured out that Master wasn’t going to be able to tear down the wall. I had to dismantle it. I had to let Him in.

So, I took even more steps. Once I’d decided that it was all up to me, I took them one by one. I’d been taking tiny steps all along, but these were bigger steps. The initial, big steps were hard. I cried with each one – only because doubt surfaced, and I asked myself if I had it in me to really do this. By July, I’d put all the pieces in place and now it was time to just put one foot in from of the other.

The last half of the year seemed to fly by. Once I had momentum, all the moving parts started to work in harmony. I’ve been taking better care of health; I’m losing weight; my business is flourishing, and I’m finding my sweet spot with work projects that make work less drudgery. I’m being more open and transparent with Master, and – in turn – with others in my life. I’m feeling more comfortable and at peace with myself, and the urge to hide is fading away.

I knew I was opening up – even blossoming – but little did I know how far down the path toward slavery I’d come. This past year I’ve also been on the path to giving up control over my sexuality. It felt like fun games to be on restriction, to only cum in ways He told me to (like when playing with my nipples). I’d have days on restriction and days off restriction. Then one day in October, He told me to “Cum,” and I did – my body responded automatically to His command. It was quite a shock to me at first, and now – months later and having to ask permission for every single orgasm, I feel peace.

Having Master control my sexuality in this way feels like the most natural thing in the world, and I feel more myself now with this and all the other changes in my life than I did a year ago. Within His control, I feel the most free I’ve ever felt.

Just as I’d say my year began with my collaring, I feel like it ends here in mid-February. Two years ago this month, Master reclaimed me as His. We’ve both known through the years that at some level I am His. We’ve had lots of ups and downs over the years, but two years ago we both decided to dive in again. Little did I know two years ago that I’d be where I am now.

This year has been pretty incredible, and yet – I feel the best is yet to come.

The day after I wrote “breaking my will” to Master, He came over. We spent the afternoon together…having sex interlaced with a deep discussion of how I felt lost and stuck.

“You still can control; you just don’t want to,” He tells me. I knew deep down what He was saying was true, but it was nothing like how I was feeling at this point in time.

I had a few orgasms asking for permission to cum each time and then He told me to cum. My body responded and came – seemingly bypassing my brain again. I started to cry and lamented out loud, “What is happening to me?”

He let me cry, providing that energetic shield of love and support to allow me to fully experience the feelings.

When I calmed down, He asked, “Do you feel damaged?”

“No…I wonder if I’m being brainwashed,” I replied. As much as I desire this, the part that worries and protects me from “being tricked” has been surfacing.

He laid on top of me as He has done so many times over the years. Not once has His weight on top of me been an issue…until that day. He was fucking me, and the weight of His body started to feel like it was crushing me. I couldn’t breathe and started hyperventilating. I felt like He was sinking into me. I was letting Him in at every level – physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually – and I panicked like I was suffocating. He got off me, and I’m crying loudly and trying to catch my breath. He caressed me, and I slowly calmed down. When I’ve finally caught my breath, and I’m breathing as normally as possible, He tells me how hard my crying made Him. Hearing that comforted me because I realized I wasn’t falling apart; I was falling right into Him.

“I feel like I’m dying,” I say.

“Do you feel like you’ll go away?” He asks.

“No, I feel like a part of me is dying.” I answer.

“Is that a good thing?”

“Yes.”

“What will happen when that part dies?”

“Well, I don’t know if this fits your definition, but I’ll be your slave.”

He started fucking me again, and I started hyperventilating again. I asked Him not to get off me completely, although He did rise up enough not to be resting on my chest. I was trying not to push the panic away…to just let it be there.

After resting in each other’s arms for a while, we got up off the bed. He did say that once I’ve calmed down and accepted this, I’d be His slave. It was hard to believe I might be close. As much as I’ve wanted to rush the process in the past, I was getting the importance and significance of being in this moment, and my need to rush it had receded.

As He left, He told me I was now on masturbation restriction – that I would have to ask permission each and every time I wanted to masturbate. He explained how this would require forethought on my part to get permission – say before bedtime.

I smiled and for the first time in the weeks since cumming on command, I felt an inner calm.

This is an e-mail I sent to Master sharing with him my internal struggles about cumming on command…

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I shared that I had a tough time last weekend, and you asked me why it was so tough. It’s hard for me to pinpoint. I know that during the weekend my attitude was, “Fuck it!” and I just proceeded to do what I thought I wanted. Of course, I didn’t feel good at the end.

It seems cliche to say I was grabbing for control (although eating disorders have a lot to do with that). I have felt lost since cumming on command. Actually, I’ve felt schizophrenic. On one hand, I am calm and fine; on the other, I am panicking. At any one moment, I can be feeling one or the other. I feel like I’ve been teetering on the line of two worlds…with the question, “Which one am I going to choose?

The part of me that panics is not worried about the idea of cumming on command, but the experience was totally different than what I expected. It was so…automatic. My brain was thinking, “I’m not ready yet,” and my body said differently. In some ways, it felt like I wasn’t even there…but it was me…and it just ends up being so confusing.

It’s easy to get caught up in the romantic notions of surrendering…”my will is His will.” Even in the vanilla world, mushy notions of being one with your partner is the stuff of wedding vows and Hallmark cards. Yet now – having had a taste of truly surrendering my will – I shake my head a bit that people (including me) don’t seem to understand the depth of what they are asking for when they say that. Don’t get me wrong, the idea is no less beautiful or no less desired – it is just one thing to think you want to be One with someone and another to experience it.

On other slave blogs or posts to groups on FetLife there is talk about ideas like, “Am I really a slave?” These conversations often center around the fact that in our society, a person cannot be legally owned by another. So really, if a slave decided, “This is it. I don’t want to play anymore” there is nothing legally binding a person to stay. What strikes me about these conversations is that it seems wonderful to create a world where your will becomes another’s but really…isn’t this just a world we create that is separate from reality?

I’ve been happily going down this path toward slavery, and I do so badly want my will to be broken. Yet, I realize now that I always thought that my choice would still be involved. I thought that breaking my will would involve me somehow aligning my choices with yours but – that as much as we could fantasize about me being owned by You – that as a human in a free society my brain would still have to make the conscious choice to do as You say or be as You want me to be. You could command me to do certain things, but – in the end – I would still have to make the choice to follow.

So when my body obeyed and my mind seemed to be bypassed, I was stunned. And then when I masturbated and couldn’t cum or just had weak orgasms, I really panicked. My brain is thinking one thing, and my body is doing another. It’s scary…and it’s nothing like how I thought breaking my will would look like.

I write a weekly update to Master summarizing my progress on certain, ongoing assignments. It is also a place where I can let him know how I am doing (good or not so good).

After I had trouble cumming at all on my own after cumming on command, I had an assignment to masturbate every day for one week. Orgasms weren’t required, just to enjoy the experience. This is an excerpt from an update on that assignment…

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Like I said on the phone, my masturbation Wednesday and Thursday didn’t yield any orgasms. My masturbation sessions were short the past two days. On Wednesday, I did pull out the vibrator. I got aroused immediately (very wet). I felt myself come up to the edge very quickly and then fizzled again. I know orgasm is not the goal of this assignment, but it is very frustrating to be so aroused so quickly and then have the climax be so anti-climatic. Thursday night, I really wasn’t in the mood to masturbate. I played with my nipples for about 5 minutes before falling asleep. It will probably be something similar tonight.

I’ve been journaling this week, but – kind of like masturbating and not climaxing – it doesn’t seem to bring me the relief I’d like. I kind of feel lifeless – neither upset or excited…just apathy. It’s actually hard to pinpoint any one feeling, which is frustrating unto itself. The best words I can come up with are stunned and disoriented. I honestly feel lost, and I’m not quite sure how to deal with this….