Vulnerable and submissive

I've been thinking about vulnerability lately. About me and the fact that I'm extremely vulnerable, and how I've worked my whole adult life towards letting go of the shame over that. And about how I need Mistress to function and feel safe.

I'm raised in a culture that promotes individualism and self-reliance. Being dependent is a bad thing, even in families or children towards adults. There's no room for weakness or being less than a productive, self-motivated, self-reliant adult. Everybody is not only equal in worth, but equal in responsibility and agency.

In a lot of ways, that's great. It's result of a society with a long democratic tradition, without war or slavery, where people of all classes can have an education, a vote, and a voice. A society which strives toward equality, both between the sexes and regarding class and heritage. Everybody is a free agent, everybody should be able to act in society on equal terms, and everybody is expected to do that.

Only, I don't want to.

And that's a problem for me. There's no safe guards for a person who tends to bend over backwards to please, who wants to be led, who wants to follow orders and let go of responsibility. There's no role in the society I live in where that's okay.

Except, of course, this one; property of my partner. Not that it's accepted in society at large, but at least I've got it. We can make our own world, here in our family, where me and Mistress knows I'm hers and nothing else. No one around us will confirm that, even know it exists, but we will, and that's enough.

Or, not no one - there are people out there who knows and accepts and confirm. We don't see them as much as we'd like, but they exist and that makes a big difference.

Still. Vulnerability. I've protected myself for as long as I can remember. Being inclined to obey every person with a certain aura, a certain way of speaking and acting, is dangerous. Both insofar that if that person isn't a very good one, you might get hurt. But also simply because it's embarassing. It's out of the norm. It's interpreted as weakness by others, and even ridiculed. So I don't do it.

I've avoided that kind of person the best I've could, or rather been circling around them, going away and coming back, going away and coming back. I've developed a whole host of deflecting strategies, quipping jokes and always having a snappy reply. Never give in, never lose face, never let anyone see your weakness.

Yeah. It's a bother.

And then Mistress came along, and I don't have to do it anymore. I can submit and lose prestige and  be weak and malleable and submissive to my hearts content, 'cause no one can hurt me. No one is going to take advantage of me or lead me to something I don't want, because I'm hers. She'll protect me. I'll never betray her or disappoint her or leave her or break her trust, which mean no one will be able to make me do anything that would lead to that - and so I'm safe.

But no, I'm not okay without her. I'm not a fully functioning adult on my own. I'm only that because I'm hers. Not so much for what she does, but for what it means to me. With her, as hers, I'm safe. Without it, I'm not.

And I'm okay with that. 

A cold, a sandwich and being good enough

I never feel less like a slave then when I'm sick. I get all grumpy and touchy and angsty. Being sick triggers bad memories and brings out a lot of tjhe dysfunctionals sides of me. I've been down with a bad cold this whole week, and Mistress' has been a saint about it. I still can't shake the grumpiness though.

And I feel like a failure because I don't do anything useful at home. And she doesn't find me sexy (for some reason snot and a fever is not a turn on it seems) nor does she want to hurt me or play with me. She just manouveurs around me, where I'm slumped in a corner of the couch surrounded by used tissue papers.

Or well, I have been doing some things this week too, ironically a lot more than I ever did the whole of last year. I've vacuumed some of the floors, I've left and picked up the kid at pre-school, and I've managed to get dinner on the table for her and the kid (okay, once that was arranged by me calling ahead to the local pizza-place and she picking the pizzas up on her way home from the bus stop, but still - I orchestrated the process).

And I've made ice-cream two days in a row, but I'm pretty sure that doesn't count since I only made it for myself because well, I don't really think anyone should eat something I make right now unless they intentionally want the cold virus from hell, and I also ate it all  both days. But then again, it meant I ate something, points for that.

This morning Mistress had made her usual heroic morning routine and served me tea and sandwich in the living room. This isn't even a special "oh my poor baby is sick" kind of thing, it's our standard morning routine (I'll blog about our mornings one of these days...). Anyway. The sandwich today was for some reason white bread with cold meatballs and mayo.

As the first thing in the morning. When I have a sore throat and no sense of smell nor appetite. And don't even like meatballs in the first place, if they're not homemade, and never cold and never ever on a sandwich.

We haven't had time to discuss it, and I'm honestly afraid to ask, but I guess she had some kind of idea behind it. If she was inclined that way I would have guessed it to be some sort of sadistic, hard-ass test of my obedience. But she doesn't have a habit of doing those kinds of things, and my being grumpy sick and sniffling doesn't really bring forth the creative sadist in her. I think she just had meatballs left over, wanted them eaten, and had one herself and made one for me.

Anyway, I had no idea what to do. I mean, there's no really recommended way to say to your Owner "Hey, I don't like this sandwich, make me another one!". The obvious would of course be to discreetly go and make another one myself. But there's a reason I get served breakfast on the couch, and that reason is four years old and grumpy and clingy in the morning.

Everything goes much easier if I serve as kid-anchor and make sure she gets something inside her, and in the meantime Mistress gets to eat breakfast in peace in the kitchen and usually works at the same time. The whole point of feeding us in the living room is so that she can have some uninterrupted peace and quite with her breakfast and her computer. Me going out there making noise and either having the kid in tow or having her yelling loudly to me from across the apartment would kind of negate that. 

I could have just eaten it of course. But no, really, I couldn't. I'm sure Mistress could have made me eat it, no doubts about that, but of my own volition, just because it was laying there beside my cup of tea? No. No way.

In the end Mistress popped her head in to check on us presumably when she had finished her breakfast, looked at me, looked at the sandwich, looked at me again in a way that made my inside kind of cringe, and said "I'll just go make you another one, should I?" And she did, and I happily ate the cheese sandwich she brought and felt more than usually sheepish.

And no, I don't think I'm much of a slave when I'm sick, nor much of a housewife or for that matter not all that great as a wife either, on any scale. But the good thing is that that doesn't matter. Because no matter what, I'm still her property, and that I'm amazingly awesome as. Even when my nose is running and I'm a picky eater. 

Getting hooked

When we went to bed last night we followed our usual ritual; I ask for permission before going into the bed and curling up on her arm. She lifted the leash that is fastened on the bed head to snap it on to my collar, but I was feeling a little bratty, a little restless and wistful so I made a move as if to avoid it. She recognised my mood, as she always does. Sometimes she ignores it, trusting in me to deal with it myself without becoming a nuisance to her. Sometimes she deals with it for me.

This time, she answered my unspoken plea for dominance and attention. As usual, as soon as I get the reaction I was fishing for I deeply regret it. Instead of hooking the leash to my collar, she signalled to me to be still, and fastened the snap hook in my nose. It's a strong and thin hook, and it hurt, a lot. My whole body tensed up, and it was almost impossible for me not to flail about.

She told me to be still, and went on reading her book. I stayed perfectly still on her arm, tense as a bowstring, intensely focused on the the pain in my nose. But as these things always go, eventually the panic and hyper-focus and impulse to get away drifted away. It was as it was, and I was going to endure what she choose to give me, and obey her. I started to relax, and at last I curled up to her, still hooked by my nose, and took my usual position by her side. As soon as she felt me giving in, she turned to me and unhooked me, putting the snap hook at the collar instead.

I curled up close to her, and the last thing I said before "good night" was "thank you, Mistress".

Insufferable-ness

When we stopped cuddling on the mattress on the floor in front of a Buffy Season 4-episode this evening, and Mistress was about to get up, she first gave me a set of hard slaps on my butt, that I had conveniently positioned beside her.

"Mmm..." I said, "that diminishes tomorrows insufferable-ness from my side with at least... oh, 0.6 percent.."
She briskly administered a few more, and I admitted that it summed up to at least a whole percent or something. Then she had to walk the dog, and left me to my own devices.

This whole topping from the bottom thing, manipulating the Owner in to punishment and sexy torture by being bratty and challenging? It really doesn't work here. Mistress is no good at bottoming from the top! She just wont play along... *pouts*

Ah well. I'm guessing I'm in for a real sever beating any day now, whether I want it or not and whether I'm insufferably bratty or not, anyway. Just as soon as Mistress has slept a few proper nights without being woken by the little one umptheenth times in a row. And since we're at Mistress' parents place over the weekend, that will most probably happen sooner rather than later.

I love that she can make me heel and behave. And I love that she doesn't have to prove to me that she can.

 

Surrendering

We role-played yesterday. It's kind of funny, that it's the same word, but I'm really not meaning in the bedroom-sexy variety. We actually do very little role-play in the bedroom. Instead it was table-top role-playing, a rather new game called "Heroic Role-Playing", depicting the X-men 'verse.

All the characters are teenage mutants (though not ninja turtles) and have recently discovered their abilities and are now training at the "Xaviers' Institute of Higher Learning". In short, we play superhero wannabees, sitting around our friends living room table, eating big amounts of candy and laughing a lot. A role-playing fan fiction, one might say.

My character is a stereotypical cheerleader from North Cal, blonde with big boobs who likes skinny dipping and sleeping in peoples laps. She also turns in to a feral cat-like creature whenever she gets upset or angry.

This time the game actually did touch upon one of my kinks, though. My character, like all the others for that matter, struggles with controlling her power, and hers is mostly troublesome when in the same room as Wolverine. That character is a teacher at the school, so breaking out in claws and snarling every time he entered a room was becoming a problem. Also, she almost ripped the head off a random guy who was groping her at a night club.

The game master decided to resolve the issue by letting Wolvering lock himself in a room together with my character Cas, and attack her. Cas flew at him, and well, one can say we tried out the gaming system and practised the fighting-by-rolling-dices. Of course, my character got her butt royally kicked, not the least because Wolverine has rejuvenating powers and healed every injury immediately while Cas has a very human tendency to bruise and get exhausted. Eventually she was laying panting on the floor, gave up and her claws retracted. Problem solved by fisticuffs.

Now, let's not analyse this scene from a feminist perspective, because from that point of view, it's horrible. The woman who can't control herself, and need a stronger man to control her? Yeah, we've heard it before. But I can't help it. I like this scenario. It might even be called a theme of mine.

I love the idea of being forced to surrender. I love the insecurity in a power struggle, the idea of trying to hold my own and failing, and especially to someone who is "good", someone who doesn't really want to injure, just conquer. Having someone else take control, and keep control, by force of will or physical strength is... a good feeling.

I like submitting too. I like giving myself over. I like the real deal of a mutual relationship were every ones' needs are met and I'm respected as a person. I think I need that in real life. But in Fantasyland? I'm being held captive and wrestled to the ground, or stared down by a will stronger than my own. In Fantasyland, I'm freed from responsibility and choice, and I don't have to defeat my own inner turmoil and ambivalence, because someone stronger than me does it for me.

Of course, the problem is that most people who can do that is not people I really want should do that, because it's not safe. Nor does most people care to do it, because it's a hell of a lot of work. I like the idea of being forced to surrender to authority. The problem is that "authority" usually doesn't give a damn about me, and wouldn't want me afterwards.

One of the reasons I live a happier life now than ten years ago or so, is the security that comes with being owned. I've already been conquered. Our relationship isn't in the unsure, power-struggle phase of conquering and surrender, we're way past that. And while it would be nice to experience that excitement again, it was also a lot of angst and drama and arguing and crying and doubts, out here in real life with real people, and that I don't miss. What we have now, though, gives me a security and safety that means I don't have to defend myself all the time from authority. Also, it's a lot easier for other people to show me who's boss and let me know I'm not in charge, when I'm not fighting tooth and nail, with every available mean, to prove them wrong.

But that scenario, that little peace of interaction, always resonates within me. I seek it out when I can, and I enjoy it, even if it's just a game and a fantasy. It's not sexual as such, it's more... intriguing. It feels good, and fun, and a little tingly. It's not masturbation fodder, but I keep going over it in my mind, and it makes me feel good.

I don't think the tension and the dynamic went by unnoticed by the rest of the gang either. It was quite obvious that there was going to be a showdown, and I got the impression that everybody wanted that played out. And in the middle of the scene, while I and the game-master was story-telling what our respective characters was doing, one of my friends shoves her phone in my face and says. "Remember that it's this guy we're talking about!"

Yeah. Well... maybe a little masturbation fodder. Just a little bit. Hot damn!

A real dominant?

 Mistress took a test on OKCupid to see if she's really dominant. She was. The result read "You scored 95% on Dominance, higher than 100% of your peers." Yeah. I could've told her.

(Well, actually, I asked her to take it. It was fun.)