Well, my week has calmed down…a bit, which allows me to move from overwhelm to self-reflection.

In the quiet, I think about how eagerly I take on Master’s assignments. Even if I struggle with an assignment, my eagerness doesn’t necessarily wane.

He gave me the assignment of a daily task earlier this year with no requirement for reporting. I attempted to do on my own, but it quickly waned. When the assignment came up again a couple of months ago, I was the one who requested to do reports because it is easier for me to fulfill assignments when I know I have to write a report. He expressed a bit of reluctance, which I attributed to Him not wanting to micromanage this part of my life. He, however, knew it would help me and so reporting became part of the assignment.

I’m looking back through my e-mail to see when my reports stopped. I knew I’d stopped them, but I couldn’t remember when. The last report was the week I started my new client (which has dominated my time since). Hmmm…

What is surprising to me is how casually and unconsciously I dropped the reporting (and then eventually the daily task) when I approach all other assignments so eagerly.

Master may be sadistic, but he is not mean. If I’d gone to Him and talked about being overwhelmed, I know He would consider my request for some adjustment. He might deny any adjustment to the requirements of the assignment, but He would hear me out.

Instead, my will wandered in and just took over. I judged what were my priorities and what I could handle.

When He told me I would be punished for not fulfilling the assignment, I froze. I felt both the anger of “doesn’t He understand how much I’m dealing with right now” and disbelief and sadness that I’d treated an assignment so cavalierly. When I’m feeling two opposing feelings at the same time, I freeze (and get quiet).

The fact that He’s holding me accountable for this and intends to punish me makes my pussy wet…not in anticipation of the punishment but that it is a reminder that I’m His. I feel peace under His direction, and I’m glad that I can rest in that – even when I wander off for a moment.

My day sucked.

Besides dealing with all hell breaking loose with one of my work clients (not my fault, but yet-another-problem with the project we’re working on), I have an impending punishment on my mind.

Master brought my attention yesterday to my slacking off in a particular area – weekly reports on instituting daily activities into my life.

I assumed my current life circumstances (a new, big work project) and also the fact that I took the leap into a huge, personal change that we’ve been discussing for a long (long) time would be sufficient explanation. Master deemed these excuses…and my punishment – whatever He decides it to be – will be a factor of how many days I slacked off times the number of excuses I gave for not doing it.

At some level, I get it…and I can’t really argue with his rationale (nor his high expectations of me). But adding punishment to the mix just feels like the straw that is going to break my back right now.

He said I could talk freely on this blog (that my explaining my reasons wouldn’t multiply my punishment), but I’m having a hard time writing all that I am thinking in this public forum. I want to yell and kick and scream and cry “not fair!”

Sometimes I hate how well Master knows me. He sees my struggles and understands yet waits for me to punch out of the paper bag world I’m in.

Since my punishment on Saturday, I’ve been noticing a new feeling.

I shared with Master the next day that I’m not sure I’ve felt this feeling before. I described it to him as new level of contentment. The past couple of days, I still find myself fishing for the right word(s). I even turned to the dictionary to help me out.

The best word I came up with is docile. In reading the definition of docile, words like “willing to be led” and “yielding control” resonated.

In anticipation of my punishment, I wrote how I longed for Him to beat my will out of me. After writing that post I had epiphanies about compliance vs. submission.

When He commanded me to lay on the bed face down, I silently said to myself, “Be open.” I knew what was about to happen was going to be a new level of intensity and pain. I didn’t want to just comply with my punishment. I wanted to submit and be open to receive it fully.

When He suggested that 100 lashes might be too much, I silently agreed. That sounded like a lot. He’s given me 25 swats before with a body brush I own and that seemed like it would never end.

So, I laid there centering myself as He prepared me. I didn’t focus on past experience or even try to anticipate how it would be…I just focused on surrendering.

When He was finished and he was putting the collar on me, I do remember wondering if it was over. I felt like I could take more. That is why I was surprised when he eventually told me I’d taken 115 lashes. It didn’t feel like that much. It felt like only the beginning…

…and I say that not wishing I’d received more that day. It wasn’t a hungry, sub frenzy reaction of wanting more right then right now. It was a calm, centered reaction knowing that I am capable of handling this – that I can let Him take me to new levels of intensity and pain and trust my well-being in His capable hands. It was a glimpse into the places He’d take me if I’d surrender my will…and how much I would enjoy those places.

Punishment can be seen as a type of aversion therapy: associate an unpleasant experience with a behavior in order to stop the behavior. I’m seeing my punishment as having an opposite effect: if I don’t change my behavior of hiding and not being emotionally transparent with Master, then I won’t get to experience the wonderful place and feeling where Master took me on Saturday.

Master took me someplace new with my punishment. Since discovering my submissiveness, I’ve also embraced that I’m a masochist. I’ve enjoyed the mix of pleasure and pain that Master inflicts on me. But this was new; this was different. Master said maybe he’s flipped a switch, and I think he has….in more ways than one.

My mind seems to have switched from wondering what I’d give up if I let go of my control to wondering what I will miss if I don’t.

“There are many things on my agenda today. First, go sit on the bed,” He says.

I go into the bedroom and sit on the bed. He enters the room with a bag, sets it down and starts to open it while he declares. “Today is punishment day.”

My pussy immediately tingles. Punishing a masochist with pain is an interesting paradox.

He blindfolds me, and then tells me to lay face down on the bed with my hands just at the edge of the bed. I hear him jingling items around until he walks to my hands and starts to cuff them. He also places a bar in between the cuffs.

The tail of the blindfold has fallen over my mouth. With my head close to the bed, I start to have a bit of trouble breathing. He asks me if I can breathe, but I manage to move the blindfold away from my mouth with a few strategic open and closings of my mouth.

He spreads my legs. He lubes my ass and works an object into it. Many things can remind me that I’m owned, but having Him play with or fuck my ass is near – if not at the top – of the list. In order to let Him in fully, I have to let go. Relaxing my sphincter puts my whole body into a very receptive state.

He caresses my body while He tells me a bit of His thinking. He was trying to decide how many lashes: 25 seemed like too few and 100 seemed a bit much. He suggests the number will be something in between…and tells me that I don’t have to keep count because He predicts I’ll be too overwhelmed to do so.

The first lashes start. I want to keep count, but lose my place after about 4. I know it is important to keep my legs spread, and I feel grateful for the bar between my arms to help me keep them in place. I’m writhing, and the lashes are painful. Then one hits right at the small of my back and top of my buttocks. It’s the one that sends me over the edge to crying.

He alternates between what feels like a flogger and what feels like a cane (although I’m not sure exactly what instruments He’s using). The stings on top of the tender skin from the flogger feels almost unbearable. I grab the bedding with my fists and mouth, trying to diffuse the pain. When I let the bedding out of my mouth and gasp for breath, I feel the drool running out of my mouth.

He tells me to turn over, and helps me maneuver the spreader bar to do so. I keep my legs open although I fear that my pussy is next. Instead, He starts swatting my nipples. I don’t have time to warn Him that something is wrong with my left nipple. He hits it and I scream while starting to curl up into a ball. He commands, “Keep your legs open!” In between sobs and trying to catch my breath, I say that I have to tell Him something. It’s hard to put together the words, but I manage to spit out that the left one has a small tear or something near the nipple ring. I’ve been soaking it in salt water, but it is not healed yet. He works around it with subsequent lashes, although he does end up hitting it again. These are the only two times I move my hands and legs from their assigned positions.

Before I know it, He is lashing my pussy. He’s using the cane-like device, and the pain is intense. He comments that I like it, and I do in way that I’m still trying to comprehend.

As He finishes, he asks, “The next time…will you talk instead of reacting?”

I say yes but it kind of eeks out and doesn’t match my conviction, so I repeat louder, “Yes.”

He has me sit up. I hear rustling. He then comes up behind me on the bed, and pulls my hair to the side. I feel the collar around my neck and take a deep breath. I take several more as he works to lock it. I feel His hand brush my hair lightly in circular motions as he turns the wrench. I couldn’t be happier.

I looked in the mirror as I was cleaning myself up after sex. I just smiled. I’ve often told Master that when I look in the mirror, the person I see isn’t how I see myself in my mind. Wearing His collar starts to change that. I look and feel more of who I am when wearing it.

Sitting on the couch in the living room afterwards, I asked, “Did you count?”

“Yes,” He replied.

“How many?”

“115″

I keep reaching for His collar. I’m still without it. I’m not sure Master’s intention was to keep it off me this long, but our schedules have been crazy lately for spending time together. Maybe it is intentional, though. The longer I’m without His collar, the more I’m appreciating it.

I traveled this weekend to see my Mom for Mother’s Day. My sister and I came together. The collar sets the security scanner off, so I have to be wanded when it is locked. Since I’m not wearing it right now, I didn’t have to worry about that this weekend.

When I’m traveling by myself, it doesn’t feel like a big deal that the collar sets off the security alarm. The first time it happened, I just smiled. I then knew on the way back I’d just have to expect it.

This trip would have been the first time traveling with someone else where I would have been wanded…and with my sister no less.

My sister knows I’m submissive. I told her years ago when I was doing online personal ads on alt.com during a time when I was released from Master. I wanted to be able to tell her when I was going out with someone new in case I needed to call someone for safety purposes. She was pretty open and accepting. I think in her mind it is just bedroom games. I imagine her having a very negative reaction to the whole idea of slavery.

When I was first collared, I worried about her reactions to it. I figured she would know it was a D/s collar right away, although how she would know this I’m not sure. We never really talk about D/s, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t investigate it on her own.

She did notice the collar when I first started wearing it. She mentioned that it was unusual, but didn’t say anything more. She didn’t ask where I got it or why I was wearing it.

If I’d been wearing His collar this weekend and it’d set the security alarm off at the airport, she would have asked more questions. Instead of being relieved at averting her questions, though, it just made me a little sad. I’d rather be wearing it than not. Plus I’m realizing I don’t feel anxiety about her reaction anymore. Simply it doesn’t matter what her reaction is because I proudly wear His collar.

I’m really looking forward to wearing it again.