This is an entry from my private journal on June 18, 2006. It was during a time that I was yearning for an outlet to express my submissiveness. Master was in my life as a friend but we were not actively engaging in our dynamic. (I contend it has always been there, although there have been times when it was suppressed or dormant.) I’d had experiences with other Dominants, and I was trying to reconcile my deep-seated need with my experiences.

I was remembering this period of time the other day when Master and I were talking about  the ways in which submissives try to fulfill this need when they don’t have a Master at that moment. Some women try to give themselves that physical sensation by attempting to restrain themselves or inflicting pain on themselves. I admit to having tried that but I realize that my deep down need was more emotional than physical.

During this time in 2006, I felt lost and I was yearning to just be told what to do. It is the core need that I ache for sometimes (even now). When this need is not being fulfilled, I can feel myself going crazy a bit. It can be very frustrating because there is really no way to fulfill this need on my own (i.e. telling myself what to do). And, it is not just anyone that can fulfill it (in fact, I’ll rebel to most people telling me what to do). It’s a need really only a Master – my Master – can fulfill.

~~~~~~~~~~

I don’t know how to integrate this part of me [my submissiveness] into my life. I don’t know how to live peacefully with it. I feel like it is a caged animal that – when let out – I have no control over. I let Him (generic Him) have control…because he was the one saying it was OK to let it out…and then he leaves…doesn’t stick around…treats it like a playful moment. Ah…isn’t that fun and exciting. It is…but I’m not satisfied with a moment. I need more…I need it consistently…I need it deeper…I need it to the core of my being…and yet I’m only felt with a taste…left with these feelings…alone…for me to figure out what to do. I’m lost without his direction.

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.

I read this on libby’s blog today, and I decided to answer the questions for myself.

1. I hate it when…He tells me to do something, and I get nervous about doing whatever it is right and end up doing it awkwardly.

2. I fear…ending up alone with no family of my own (husband/children).

3. I need…reassurance. This could apply to lots of things, not just D/s. I guess at some level, I’m always doubting myself, so I look for reassurance outside of myself.

4. I want to meet…Princess Donna of kink.com.

5. I’m hungry for…opportunities to serve Him.

6. I love it when…He commands me to do something.

7. I’m afraid of…other people’s judgment of me (particularly of those close to me).

8. I want to get…a larger dildo for my ass stretching, maybe one that vibrates.

9. I can…have multiple, squirting orgasms (and have started to have them on command).

10. I can’t…(yet) contort myself into the flexible positions that Master and I would like my body to be able to do.

11. I’m nervous to…have sex with multiple people at the same time (say in a party that Master has arranged) but want this fantasy to come true very badly.

12. I’m happy when…I have a task or assignment to work on for Master.

13. I’m sad when…the circumstances of my life don’t look the way I want them to, and it looks hopeless to change.

14. I love watching…videos Master picks for me to watch and sharing my reactions (good and bad) with Him.

15. I love listening to…Master cum, especially when He grabs my hair and He utters the sounds close to my ear.

16. I’m looking forward to…when pain = pleasure.

17. I like waking up to…Master rolling on top of me when I’m asleep and being roused by Him starting to fuck me.

18. I’m glad that…Master and I resumed our sexual relationship two years ago and that we are going down the path to being Master/slave.

19. I’m disappointed that…our relationship took so many turns over the past 15 years. Sometimes it’s hard not to think of that time as wasted time. But all the self-knowledge that I acquired over this 15 years was required before I could go down this path to Master/slave with Him.

20. I wish I could…share openly with people all of the wonderful things about my M/s relationship and all the profound things I’m learning about myself by going down this path to slavery. I wish BDSM wasn’t a taboo subject and that people were more open to the world of possibilities and self-knowledge that walking down this path allows.

Today I was thinking about how people looking at BDSM from the outside often have trouble distinguishing why this is different from abuse or may be horrified at women or men subjugating themselves to another like we do. Actually, it is just not those outside the lifestyle; people opening up this part of themselves for the first time are often battling their desires with cultural norms and trying to define the difference for themselves.

I, too, have struggled with this concept. More so when I first claimed my submissiveness, although the feeling has cropped up at points over the years as I continue to peel the layers of self-knowledge.

As I was driving today, I realized it could not be more crystal clear that this thing we do (TTWD) is not even close to abuse or being treated less than another.

This weekend, Master and I had a deep, emotional conversation – one in which He was holding up the mirror to some of my behaviors and helping me sort out complicated feelings I was having. He was blunt and honest with me in a way I think most people avoid (even when they’re close). At the end of it, He asked me if He was too tough – trying to gauge my reaction and not wanting to push me over some edge. I assured Him he was not too tough, although I’m sure that was difficult to discern through my tears.

As I reflected on that conversation today, I realized there was no way I could be “less than” in this relationship. If anything, being in this relationship demands that I express myself fully. I can’t be “less than” with Him. Well, I could but our relationship would hit some ceiling that would eventually prove dissatisfactory for one or both of us.

This is not a one-way street. I think that being your full self is expected of Him, too – and any Dominant/Master and submissive/slave. Yes, the power structure puts the decision-making into one person’s hands but that in no way suggests that the other is “less” because of it. If anything, the only way this kind of power structure works is if both people open themselves up and be all that they are meant to be.

There was a time when I equated being vulnerable with being hurt. When I’d make myself vulnerable, I’d almost immediately panic and start anticipating or seeing hurt around me. I’m now starting to equate vulnerability with safety, comfort and love. There may be pain as the old beliefs break up and fall apart, but there is no fear because I know who has my back (and my front and my top and my bottom …the person who owns all of me).

“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.

Do you ever have a WTF moment when doing this thing we do (TTWD)?

I’d asked Master earlier this week if I could watch the live show Orgasmageddon on hogtied.com today and masturbate while doing so. He granted permission, and I was so horny the past couple of days in anticipation.

I did watch it today, and I enjoyed it. I thought I might try to be a third-party participant by masturbating during the show. I started out that way but mid-way through I stopped and just watched. I was fascinated.

I told Master in a report afterwards…

On one hand, I could definitely seeing myself and my body getting to [the point of being able to orgasm over and over]; on the other I was just in awe…like I was watching some super athletes and thinking, “Wouldn’t that be cool” but not really thinking *I* could do that.

I purchased a month’s subscription to Hogtied to watch this event, so I viewed a couple of more videos after it was done. I’d never seen Felony before (who was in today’s show), so I looked for other videos with her. I stumbled upon this one of her in what they termed a category 5 suspension.

I watched it with a strange mix of being really turned on and disbelief that she was enduring this. He fucked her in her pussy and in her ass while pulling on the rope. I watched her eyes as he moved her around into position to fuck her, and I noticed how big her eyes got. She was obviously supported by the rope; but he whipped her around, and it looked like she was going to fall (and I think she had that feeling, too). I was having a hard time imagining being in a state where I could orgasm while tied up like that. At the end, they did let her hang there in suspension, with her being held up by the rope on her neck and the rope on her ankles.

This video has been sitting with me all the rest of the day. Sometimes when I’m watching these videos, I imagine vanilla folks watching this and being disgusted or otherwise judgmental…thinking it was abuse. It made me think of how far I’ve come in accepting the part of me that craves this kind pain and pleasure and also wonder how far I’ll go in exploring it.

For a brief moment, though, as I contemplated all of this – in that nexus of disbelief and being turned on – I had one of those “WTF am I doing going down this path?” moments. Sometimes I have to pinch myself as I travel down the rabbit hole…

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

~~~~~~~~~~

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 posted to FetLife last night asking about others’ experiences/reactions to cumming on command.

I got so mad at one response where the guy liked it and wanted more “stories.” This is my life, dammit!…not some show for your entertainment.

I was getting dressed this morning and sat down on the bed for a moment. “What am I feeling?” I asked myself.

Stunned…and I feel turned around. I’ve fantasized about our wills becoming one, but I didn’t realize this is what it meant.

Nothing/emptiness – that empty feeling after He fucked me to more orgasms than I thought were possible. He’s touching that place that I’ve longed for Him to touch. I find myself feeling very passive…let Him reach that place. My job is to be open and to let Him in.

Being an object – part of me fears my brain is being bypassed. I know it is not in this case but this experience is making me rethink what it means to be an object. I guess there’s an implication with the word object that an object is inanimate. As His object, I am not inanimate at all…I am an extension of Him…an object as valuable to His being as His own soul. Object is sometimes used to mean lack of worth, and this is not the case at all. The sheer intimacy of it makes it valuable…to both of us.

I understand my will vs. His will and Master/slave in a totally different way after this experience. I didn’t expect Him to be in me like this. I’m not panicking that it happened; I’m just trying to orient myself. I always figured aligning our wills (more specifically mine to His) would always be about me making a choice to follow Him. The idea that my responses, my actions would be so automatic, so part of the very fabric of my being…didn’t occur to me.

…and now the fact that I’m having a hard time cumming on my own…it is just jarring to be on the other side of this and trying to orient myself to an idea I had no idea was the intended outcome.

It’s been two-and-a-half weeks since Master commanded me to cum. Afterwards, He took me off restriction but I asked to be kept on. I have not had an orgasm on my own since.

He did fuck me this last Friday. I came, but it felt difficult. He gave me permission to cum wihtout asking while He was inside me. I’m not sure if it counts as on my own, but it felt like I was still under His control and only having orgasms when He says.

I asked to masturbate today. He granted it, and now I can’t cum. I get to the edge, and I fizzle.

I feel numb. I’m not sure how I feel about cumming on command.

When it happened, I remember feeling surprise. I held my breath for a moment. As I close my eyes now, I see me as if I were a spectator watching Master fuck me. I distinctly remember thinking, “What is my pussy doing?” as if I were asking about another woman next to me.

I just look at “her” in amazement. “How did she do that?,” I wonder. “How did she let Him do that?” like she has something special about her that I do not…but I covet her ability, and I envy her.

How can I be having these thoughts and feelings about me? I’m looking at her like she has some special skill that I don’t have…except it was me that experienced this. The one who has the ability to do this is me.