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…

“Bend over,” He says.

I comply, but I’m screaming, “No” on the inside.

He starts spanking me with his hands and with a brush I hate. It seems to hurt even more since I don’t want it. He then takes the riding crop and whips the shaft across my back and ass. He pauses at one point and says while looking at my ass, “You’ve gained weight.”

I raise up to 3/4 standing and blurt out, “You’re going to bring that up NOW?” He pushes my back guiding me back down to the bed. I want to get up and storm out of the room. Instead, I start crying into the bed.

He grabs my hair and says, “Remember the punishment you’re due? Should I punish you today?”

“No!,” I say emphatically. WTF? With all I’ve been through lately, He decides NOW is a good time to punish me (for an offense that is almost two years old by the way).

He enters me from behind and says, “You’re wet.” My body is saying something completely different from my mind, and I’m mad about that.

“Get up on the bed, face down.” He spreads my ass cheeks and makes a pleasing noise. I know He is contemplating fucking me in the ass.

“I don’t want to be fucked in the ass today,” I blurt out knowing I probably just sealed my fate. But at that point I start feeling like I have nothing to lose. I don’t want it! And I want Him to know it!

“What do you want?” He asks.

“To take a nap,” I reply.

He applies lube to my ass and then insert His fingers. He fingers me for a while, then slips another finger in my pussy and starts fucking me with His fingers.

I feel the orgasm well up inside me. I try to figure out if I can squelch it…not give Him the satisfaction of making me cum. I hold on until I can’t hold on any longer. I ask to cum. I don’t want to ask, but I can’t NOT ask. Something else inside me is overriding my will, and I’m so mad. He says, “Yes, cum” and I do…three times.

He tells me to turn over. I don’t want to face Him. I don’t want to look Him in the face. He drapes himself over me. My arms are raised above my head. “Put your arms around me,” He says. The wall I’m trying to hold up is crumbling, and I’m mad at Him about that.

“Why are you crying?” He asks in between soft kisses on my cheek, “Just to make me hot?”

“I’m just one big NO right now,” I whimper.

I am holding my breath in between shallow gasps. It’s a signature trademark of me trying to hold it all in. He puts his mouth right up to my ear and whispers emphatically, “Let go. Let go.”

I fish for the words. I’d rather just run. He rises above me with a smirk on His face. “I want to rip that smirk off your face,” I say to start.

“Why? He asks. “This smirk isn’t what you think it is,” He continues.

“I want you to take me seriously,” I declare.

“And you don’t think I take you seriously,” He responds.

“I hate it when you’re right,” I add.

“Why?” He asks.

“Because I don’t want to be wrong.”

“My being right doesn’t make you wrong,” He states. I don’t know whether to feel relieved or more mad.

Whispering again in my ear, He asks, “Who do you belong to?”

“To you. To you, Sir,” I answer.

“And I will always take care of you,” He declares.

I want to believe that, and yet I have such trouble letting that sink in.

My resistance crumbles with every orgasm. I ride the edge of orgasm, begging Him to tell me when to cum for Him.

When we are done, I curl up to lay in the crook of His arm. “You may take a nap now,” He says.

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 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….

Sometimes I fantasize about being a brat. I want to stomp and scream and say, “no!” as loud as I can.

I also fantasize about Master taking me forcefully when I’m acting like this (pulling me by my hair, grabbing my neck or otherwise giving me some physical jolt to complement His powerful presence). He hears my no but does not take it for an answer.

I don’t imagine acting this way all the time. It’s more that I want the experience of it. I want to feel His No overpowering my own.

I often swallow saying the word no…and not just with Master. I have a hard time saying it in all areas of my life. Psychological explanations abound but this reluctance to say no often seems mixed up and at odds with my instinct to serve.

I know Master doesn’t like the word no. It’s not that I’ve never said it to Him, but I’ve come to believe it is an off-limit word, and I just don’t let myself go there.

If I feel a “no” welling up (not necessarily the word…but the general feeling), I first clam up and – if the energy is strong enough – I might start crying (although I try harder than usual to hold it in).

So, instead of saying no, I pull inside and brood while complying on the outside.

When a no just can’t be held in and it bursts out, it always seems to be more powerful than I intended. I find myself apologizing for coming off so strong and crawl back inside.

I fantasize about letting go of worry and to stop trying to manage these feelings from the inside anymore. But as much as I want to have the freedom to let go, I also want to feel His presence over me telling me to “Stop it!” or just plain “No.”

Last week, Master brought over the movie “American Pimp” for us to watch together. It stirred many feelings in me that I had a hard time articulating while Master was here. I wrote to him later saying I was struggling and asking myself, “Do I want to be an object or not?” Master replied and asked if I’d decided one way or another. My reply to him is below.

Did I resolve what seems to have been a lifelong struggle for me?

Why is this a lifelong struggle? This conundrum seems to be born directly out of being molested.

In the mind of an 8 year old girl…I was having fun being led down a path…following him in exploration. The day I stood up and said, “No” to going with him one time, he went away (which I didn’t intend). I came up against something I said no to, and what I thought was special went away.

I honestly don’t know how my uncle viewed me, but over the years the belief ingrained in my head was “I was just an object to him. I thought I was special, but I was just an object.”

My body and my mind are at odds when it comes to this. I’d say my body craves being an object, and my mind has a reflexive safety mechanism warning of danger.

I keep thinking if I could just pick one, then the struggle will end. But it is like a ball of knotted up yarn…every time I pull a string to try to unravel it, the knot just gets tighter.

So parts of the movie took me back to those old feelings, and my “what the hell are you doing?” thoughts got kind of loud inside me.

I’ve lived my life trying to just keep these two parts in some sort of equilibrium. The one way I’ve known how to do that is to not explore any one side too far….to stuff feelings and keep desires safe in my fantasies.

I want nothing more than to be your cherished object…your prized possession. I just want to figure out how to uninstall the old alarm system.

I am collared, but right now I am not wearing His collar.

As he was leaving Wednesday night, he removed it from my neck and walked out the door.

My heart immediately sank and tears welled up in my eyes. “This scares me,” I said as he put it in His pocket. All I could think about was the conversation we had after the act for which I’m being punished. I expressed my anger and fears to Him, and he said, “You only need to worry if I rip the collar off your neck myself.” And here…it was happening (maybe not ripping but…).

About a month ago, I got mad during one of Master’s visit. He didn’t know it because my tendency is to just withdraw and get stoic when I’m mad. I didn’t express it while he was here. After he left, though, I started to let it out. I was so mad that I took advantage of the fact that the collar is broken and not locked at the moment, and I ripped it off my neck.

I thought of going into detail here on the blog about what happened and why it happened (my reasons). I’m very good at recounting and reliving the stories (over and over again). I know why it happened is not an excuse for what happened, and telling the story is dwelling on the details instead of facing the issue at hand.

Rather than trusting Master with my feelings and being transparent about how I was doing and what I was thinking, I withdrew. I didn’t want him to see this “ugly” side of me, and I took control. I chose to rely on ingrained, habitual ways of dealing with what feels like overwhelming emotion (and pain) rather than being in the moment and trusting that both of us could handle it.

It took me two days to even tell him I was mad (and during this time, I left the collar off). When I ripped it off my neck, I did so knowing the feeling was temporary and not some statement of not wanting to be His collared submissive. I wanted to feel better in that moment. A lot of my old habits are about that…feeling better in the moment without regard for longer term consequences.

When I finally did share that I was mad, I knew I couldn’t hide what I had done with the collar. Technically, I could have gotten away with not sharing it with Him, but I would have known. I felt very guilty for treating something I treasure so cavalierly.

For the past two days, I’ve found myself reaching for the clasp of my collar. I didn’t realize what a habit it has become to reach for and rub it in my everyday activities. I like rubbing the clasp as a reminder that I’m His.

The first morning without it, I looked in the mirror before I left for my meeting. I felt naked without it. I wondered if the people I was meeting with would notice it was gone. I was so worried six months ago when I was being collared about people noticing it and thinking it was an odd necklace. Now I wondered if they’d notice my unusal necklace was gone…and kind of wishing they did notice…like noticing someone is out of sorts and asking them if something is wrong.

I rub my bare neck and realize how sobering not wearing His collar is. At some level, I’ll always be His (collared or not) but I don’t want to just be His. I want to fully blossom and be the slave I am meant to be. I want to serve Him in all the ways I know are possible.

…and I can’t do that when I hide.

I’m a big fan of LOST. One of the many, many things I enjoy about it is the theme of free will.

This final season has so many good episodes, but my favorite so far I’d have to say is “Ab Aeterno.” I’ve watched it several times already, and I always dwell on this scene.

Jacob: “When [the people I bring] get [to the island], their past doesn’t matter. … [They died here, and I didn't help them] because I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them. It’s all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything. Why should I have to step in?”

I read a few slave blogs. At first, I drank them up and saw them as kind of a manual for how slavery is. I read entries about Masters who overpower their slaves when they exert their will. I started wanting that. I thought maybe that was the key to pushing my will aside and becoming Master’s slave. The day before Master collared me, I wasn’t sure if I was ready for the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world. I pleaded with him to break my will. I figured the only way I would give it up it is to have it taken from me.

He took my request to break my will seriously, but he won’t break it the way I think I want it broken.

From Day One, he has always told me I have a choice. There are times I’ve thought I understood this over the years, but I don’t always remember it. It’s a little too easy to think that just because he’s my Master that that single choice to submit to Him is the only choice I have to make.

As much as I value my submissiveness, I also value my independence. As I shared in this blog post, it’s what driven me to become a very successful businesswoman, to be a risk taker and to be persistent on this journey to discover and be who I am.

I wouldn’t thrive in a relationship where my will was taken by consensual force. It might look like I was submitting, but I’d really just be complying.

He could have been the one sitting on the beach speaking the words that Jacob spoke…and he’s expressed that to me in one way or the other over the years. I always think I get it, and I do understand it…but surrendering seems harder to do.

I feel like I’m on the verge of one of the most important choices of my life. At the very least, I’m at a huge fork in the road. The choice is very clear, and I know what I want. It’s not even a question of which choice I want to make. The final step is to make it. Yet, I hesitate and wish in all sorts of insidious ways that He’d make it for me.

In a recent post, I wrote how I’m still struggling to sort out my instinct to serve and submit from my habit to please at the expense of myself.

The word “compliance” popped into my head a few days after I wrote that post, and the light bulbs started to go on.

As a child, compliance could have been my middle name…at least that is how it looked on the outside. On the inside I was the rebellious child. I might look like I was conforming but really I was just trying to get whomever (usually parents) off my back. I didn’t really act out my rebellion in many overt ways, but I created a distance (and to some extent isolation) so that I felt the freedom I wanted to feel.

I got rewarded for my compliance, and I enjoyed the praise. I felt like I’d figured out the magic formula: I could comply and be the good girl and get their positive attention while not really giving in and doing my own thing, even if it was only in my mind.

There was a flaw in my magic formula, though. While I’d figured out how to please them and still not give in, I also felt invisible. I often felt like my parents didn’t get me or understood my point of view. Sometimes I’d get quite angry or sad and stew about how they didn’t understand me (which I’m sure you can only imagine how that was exacerbated by regular teenage angst as I grew). Instead of expressing myself, though, I kept quiet. I’d comply and retreat further in my world.

Without them knowing, I’d do my own thing. I figured what they didn’t know didn’t hurt them, and I could easily show compliance if I needed to. For many years, I thought I’d pulled the wool over their eyes. My mother has told me now as an adult that she knew I’d say one thing to her and do another. I was never really a bad kid, so for her it was a matter of picking her battles. Could she force me to do something if I was being so willful?

I felt such relief when Master first uttered the word submissive to me. For a woman who fights between wanting to be seen and feeling invisible, I felt both seen and heard in a way I’d never felt before. It’s been easy to associate all my past people-pleasing behavior to my submissiveness, but – for the first time – I’m starting to distinguish between how I comply vs. how I submit.