Being open and with friends

We had friends over this weekend, two whole families actually. Two couples with their kids came and stayed the night and it was really nice. Even more special since we're all doing BDSM. Not together, that is, there were no play and no overt dominance going on at all.

But there's something about hanging out with people I can be open with that matters a lot to me. It's not that I say or do anything in particular. It's just that I'm more comfortable, more myself. More in love with Mistress, too. Knowing that I don't have to hide makes a big difference, even if the hiding usually isn't all that taxing.

I guess it's like getting out of uncomfortable clothes. It's one thing to stand it when you have to wear them all the time, but when you can take them off for a while it feels really really good.

"What is your favorite sort of interaction with your Mistress?"

Yey! I got a question from ancilla_ksst, thanks! My favourite sort of interaction with Mistress?

Honestly - when she's fucking me. :-) That's my very favourite thing, much the same way that my favourite food is chocolate and my favourite place is on vacation. I like pleasure and sensation and indulgence, and being fucked gives me all of that.

Most days we don't do that, however, because well, life and tired and time and things. So on a typical weekday when we both have been working we don't really get to spend much time with each other until little S is asleep. We usually cuddle up on the sofa, and I rest with my head on her shoulder. She pets my hair, and everything is nice and soft and safe. That's good too.

And then when we go to bed and say good night I lay on her arm and she holds my wrist in her hand and we're close together and drift off to sleep. That's good to.

I think I simply like to cuddle a lot. 

Assignment

Mistress is reading bedtime story to little S, and she gave me a few assignments to do while she was occupied. One was writing a blog entry, about whatever I wanted. Another was laying out three things she could hit me with and three things she could use to penetrate me with.

I love that. I get to choose the things I like and hope for, but I can't make her use any one thing or influence how she uses it.

She used the carpet beater on me yesterday. Ingeniously she varied the padding on me instead of the power of her strokes to serve as warm up. Well, at first she hit me with my trousers down but apparently I whimpered to much so she put them back on, and then something else - my dressing gown I think. Or maybe a blanket. And hit me full force for a while, which hurt but only just. She removed on thing at a time until she was down to bare skin again and by then I was all mellow and floaty.

Also, she used my own breathing technique on me, making me exhale and then not inhale until she told me to. I teach patients that to calm down and lessen anxiety, but counting seconds by hits with a carpet beater was not part of the original instructions. Worked very well, though.

Today we've been all kinds om jittery. I have what feels like bruises, but nothing shows, and I think we were both touched in our hearts. After reconnecting through pain and dominance we both have a need for cuddling and reassurance and just being close.

Unfortunately what was on the agenda was taking turns parenting a needy, hyper active and extremly jealous six year old. We both love her, deeply and dearly, but I think if a space ship had landed and asked to abduct her for a couple of hours, with a solemn promise of returning her unharmed and with a wiped memory, we just might have agreed.

The trick is to keep staying connected. To keep taking all the chances we get. It's hard, because it's so painful to get separated when we've been reunited. But the alternative, staying apart and distant from eachother, is frankly not acceptable.



Also, new rule. Or deal. Or experiment or whatever. When we are separated overnight, usually because Mistress travels for work, when we're reunited we wont argue. There's an arguing ban. No discussions, no conflicts, no solving of anything whatsoever. Twelve hours onwards from reuniting we are to swollow and accept anything and everything from eachother and forgive every wrong, look beyond every mistake and turn the other cheek at every slight. We're so damn nervy and twitchy and prone to conflict and crisis when we've been apart - if we could just keep quite and sit still for a day or so, I think it would spare us a lot of grief. So we'll try this radical, rather unflexible approach and see what happens.

And Mistress has formulated a goal that she shall beat me as soon as possible when she gets home, and at least withing 48 hours. We usually go sweet reunion --> horrible argument --> making up -->spanking. It would be nice if we could by pass those two in the middle.

Trust (and crying and misunderstandings and a water crisis).

Yesterday when I was snot-crying into my pillow my mind was filled with very real thoughts about our relationship being over. I didn't see any way forward at that moment, and even though part of me knew I was being very much overly dramatic another part was very very sincere in the idea of "this is it - I can't go forward from here".

When we were arguing, or rather trying to solve things instead of arguing, I hugged Mistress, rested my head against her chest and asked "Can I trust you?". Meaning "I want to trust you, no matter what, I don't care what just happened, I don't care about our problems - if you say you'll be there, I'll believe you, and everything else will take care of itself. Just tell me I can trust you, and I will."

That's what I meant, and that's what I was expecting an answer to. That was, however, not how she interpreted the question, and she answered, calmly and with sincerity: "No".

So there. For me, that was kind of it. I tore lose, told her she made me panic and that I couldn't believe she just said that. She changed the subject and went to check on some practicality. I told her to go to Hell, ran upstairs, slammed the door, threw myself on the bed and cried.

For me, her answer was practically the same as thrusting a divorce paper under my nose. If she herself says I can't trust her - how can I? And if I can't trust her, if she doesn't even bother about trying to behave in a way that I can trust, if she just disregard that as something unimportant, how can I submit to her? And I know, by now, that any other type relationship will dry up and go stale very fast for me. But the thing is that I have absolutely nowhere to go.

It doesn't matter how mad or sad or frustrated or heartbroken she makes me. I can't imagine a life without her, either emotionally or in a practical sense. All my dreams, all my hopes and plans and ideas, are tied to her. Everything I want to do, I want to do together with her. The idea of doing anything without her felt lika a vast, black gulf opening before me.

But on the other hand there were those words: "Can I trust you?" "No."

Well, she followed me after a few minutes, laid herself literary atop of me, like a rather heavy duvet (heavy for a duvet, that is - she's not that heavy for a human). She hugged me and said she wanted to make things better, and that whatever I had heard or interpreted was wrong and that I could trust that she loved me and wanted me and would always do her best to take her of me. That made it kind of better.

And right around when I had stopped bawling my eyes out our time was up and little S was tired of waiting and came upstairs. Like any jealous and possessive six-year-old she did her very best to not only lay on top of us but also slide herself down between us, so that the mommy-hug became two mommies hugging her, instead of two adults hugging eachother. Ah well.

The crux of the matter is I guess what it was Mistress answered to. I asked a very broad question, concerning our whole relationship, my whole existance almost. She answered a very narrow specific question regarding the immediate situation.

When we came home the water was frozen. This is our first winter in this house, and it has so far been a very mild one. We've been gone for a week, and during this week it has suddenly gotten cold. There's a cable that needs to be plugged in so that the water in the pipes doesn't freeze, and we hadn't done that, and so their was no water in the house.

This was quite easily resolved by plugging in the cable and waiting a while, but before we figured it all out and solved it, Mistress got really tense. It had been bad winter weather on the drive home too, and she really doesn't like that either. In the end she had a fit, she talked to little S in an angry voice, hit herself in the head with her fist, and stormed off. I freaked out and got very angry (also pouty and moody) and it was when we tried to resolve this everything went from bad to worse.

So when I asked can I trust you, Mistress heard: "Can I trust you to never be stressed out over a crisis again? Can I trust you to never lose your temper, have a fit an storm off?". And she answered very truthfully: No. Because even she really tries, and even if she agress that it was unneccesary and wish she had kept her cool, she can't promise me it wont happen again. Honestly, it has happened on a regular basis since I've known her, so it's pretty much the other way around; no matter how hard she tries, she most probably will do it again.

The question, then, is; can I trust her? Can I trust her, even though she throws fits when she gets stresses, even though she hits herself in the head when she gets overwhelmed, even though she answers literarily to a loaded question in the middle of a relational crisis without regards to hwo that answer might be interpreted? Can I trust her, when this is who she is and how she will behave?

Yes, absolutely. Everyday, for the rest of my life. I don't care what idiotic things she says when she's lost her theory of mind due to stress. I trust her.

I belong to her, and I trust.

Looking back and feeling loved

It's ten years ago now that me and Mistress moved in together. Or it will be, in a week or so. I remember Christmas 2005, it was horrible. Our poly triad was in it's death throes and I was so utterly miserable, with almost every aspect of my life. It was that Christmas I decided I would spend a week at my mothers' home and not talk to either of them, Mistress or my boyfriend/then-Master.

After a few days I missed her. I didn't miss him. And that was kind of it. It still took me about two weeks after that to actually make up my mind and say something about it. Two absolutely miserable weeks. And then one night me and him were laying in bed, he tried to have sex with me, I pushed him away and he started to cry. And I said I wanted to break up with him, that it was over. I don't remember everything we said, but I remember the despair. And that he said he would kill himself, and I said alright, if you do that I'll kill myself to. Come on, let's do it. He didn't, obviously, and I guess we fell asleep after that.

I left as soon as I could, but there were a lot of agonising moments before we were finally separated. Packing up stuff, moving, seeing each other and not talking. The bleak despair of it all. And Mistress, suffering from our agony and afraid I think that I would leave her too - and yet by my side, all the time, supporting me.

I moved in with her, and I remember that we both agreed that it would be best for me to get my own place somewhere, to land on my feet and be self sufficient before we could build a life togehter. It sounded so wise and thoughtful and right. But I didn't want to be anywhere except exactly where she was, so that didn't happen. In March 2006 she proposed to me and I said yes, and we lived in her apartment until she bought us a bigger one in June that year.

We got married in August 2007, little S was conceived during the fall of 2008, with a lot of frustrating trips to the hospital, and she was born in August 2009. We moved again in the summer of 2010, to a three bedroom apartment in the same city.

I began my studies in psychology that same year me and Mistress moved in together, my first term started in January 2006. I took a slightly involuntary break in 2008 because I wanted to change schools to my home town to get out of commuting and hade to wait for a spot to open up in the right term in my new school. And then I took some more leave because of little S. In the end, I didn't graduate until the spring of 2013.

What we didn't know until the fall of 2012 was that I have ADHD. It's a bit strange now to think back and realise how different we would have looked at things if we knew. But we didn't, and we made the best decisions we could with what we knew. I got sick from exhaustion, from trying to be a good mom to a high need baby and successfull at a demanding education and managing all of the life stresses that everyone has to handle. I'm quite a bit worse at that than most people, however, and by the summer of 2012, I was in a really really bad shape. We were training to become therapists in school by then, and I remember that my first patient was in much better shape than I was (though I never told anyone in school (and of course didn't say anything to my patient)).

I got medication and eventually an ADHD-diagnosis and medication for that too, just in time to save the paper I had to write for my Masters degree. And I got my degree as a psychologist. Then I didn't get a job. It was actually a really good time, the summer and fall of 2013. I didn't do much, I mostly recuperated. Eventually I got a job, but in a different part of the country, and my heroic family moved with me in the summer of 2014 for a year in exile. And in the summer of 2015 I was done, got my license and a job back home again. And here we are now.

It's been quite a ride these last ten years. And all this time, in all the ups and downs and varying circumstances, Mistress has been with me. She has kept me, in all the meanings of the word. She has her job, and even though it's stressfull and bad and she's not appreciated as she should be (because of patriarchy and misogynistic pricks for bosses) at times, it's also fun I think, and the job itself seems to suit her. It's paid our bills all this time, she has supported me through school (I've worked some, and have student loans, but it's a pittance compared to her contribution) and we would never been able to afford going to school with a kid without her income.

And she's loved me. Every day. A few days ago we discussed that I can take critique in a better way now (even if I'm still bad at it). And I realised that one important thing is that now, at 35, I've lived more years in a loving, supporting environment, than I did in the suppressive, hateful one I grew up in. It's much easier admitting mistakes when it's finally sunk in that it wont mean being ridiculed. I'm loved. No matter what happens in the future, I know I'm loved.

(Also, spanked and controlled and fucked. That's good stuff to.)

Life by the woods

We had a lovely day today. Both at home, little S at day camp petting horses and bunnies. We put up some shelves and curtains, and took a walk in our woods. Had lunch in front of the teve, and then some spanking and sex. I was pretty much spent after that and haven't done much of anything afterwards. Mistress went to get little S, they're getting sushi dinner at a shopping mall and I'm supposed to go get something for myself about now. I'll do that, anytime now.

We have woods. We took a walk together in our woods. That we own. It's marvellous, amazing. We've lived here for two months now, but this was actually the first time we had the opportunity to explore together. It's not like we've bought all that much, it took us about 45 minutes to go around the perimeter of the woods We have some fields too, and a big outhouse. There will be horses there, eventually, and chickens and maybe sheep. Or miniature cows, who knows, it might happen. For now, it's still empty.

We have this beautiful big timber two storey house, with tile stoves and a huge kitchen range. We've bought another car, and we have to drive little S twenty minutes to her school, and I have ten minutes drive to the train station and then about twenty more minutes to work. If we run out of milk we have to take our coffee black, and when we realised to our horror that we had run out of coffee before guests arrived we had to text them and ask them to buy some on the way, because a round trip to the store takes about an hour all in all. It's not all that convenient.

But it's beautiful and it's quiet and even when we had a whole family with little kids staying the night it didn't seem crowded. We have neighbours, the house is in the center of an old farm village, but we can't hear them and there's almost no cars going past. We here the neighbours' chickens, and cows and horses, and sometimes the ravens talking about raven things across the fields. And the wind in the birches. But that's about it.

I think we'll be happy here.

The house.

View from the balcony.

Shame

Shame is one of the most destructive feelings I know. A lot of the crap that has happened to me, and most of all the crap that I have been instrumental in allowing to happen, has been caused by shame.

And I'm ashamed all the time. Or at least very often. For a very long time in my youth I didn't have any memories. Every time something would pop up in my mind, there would be something shameful associated with it, and I would immediately shut it down. That feeling, that dread coursing through the body, the wish to disappear, to cease existing, it's awful. At times, it has controlled my life.

I have two major things I'm ashamed of, and one is not being liked. I grew up knowing I wasn't loved (as an adult, I've started to think that I probably was, but that can't change my experience as a kid), and I was bullied in school on top of that. I had two best friends, both of whom betrayed me horribly, first one at twelve and the next one at fourteen, and contributed to the bullying. So that's one. The other one is not being good enough.

I have ADHD, but no one knew that. I grew up trying harder than everyone around me, and still coming up short. I was always late, didn't do the things I was supposed to, forgot stuff, didn't clean up after myself, made a mess, broke stuff, and so on. I was constantly not living up to the expectations from people around me - people like my parents and teachers, who saw a smart, talented, charming kid who for some reason just didn't seem to care or try very hard. While, at the same time, I was working like crazy to get through each day, and not letting anyone see that I was struggling. Because of shame.

If I hadn't been ashamed, maybe someone would have known what my life was really like. Maybe I could have told an adult about the bullying. Maybe I could have explained that I did my very best and still couldn't manage to do homework - that I did care, a lot, but just couldn't make it work. If I hadn't been ashamed. But I was ashamed, and I much preferred being labelled lazy and unambitious than having people know I couldn't do it.

And that haunts me still.

I've been sick lately, on top of my ongoing issues with mental fatigue and burn out. I'm getting better, but it's a bumpy road, as always. Mistress has taken two day off of work and we've gone to her parents for a mini vacation. Today I took little S on a shopping trip so that Mistress could get some time for herself and work, and after lunch I accompanied my mother in law to the vet with one of the dogs, a big rottweiler that doesn't particularly like other dogs and last time had made a big fuss while waiting for the vet. I'm pretty proud of how I handled it, there was no wrestling matches or incessant barking this time, but after that and picking up som groceries, I was pretty much wiped. I spent the afternoon in bed, and at dinner time I was all kinds of woozy, feeling sick and dizzy and thinking I wouldn't survive the evening.

On top of that, Mistress had asked me earlier to take care of little S after dinner so that she could work some more, and it made me rather panicky, because I really didn't think I would be up for it. And again, that made me overwhelmed with shame.

Every time I'm asked, especially by Mistress, to do something that is beyond what I can do without feeling seriously ill or paying a heavy price afterwards I get terribly ashamed. I'm awashed in it.

In the end I did take care of little S while Mistress worked, we had a nice time playing a game on the iPad together, and it wasn't so difficult. It helped that little S was in a good mood and stayed focused on the game.

And then eventually the day was over with little S going to bed downstairs with grandma, and I started to relax and feel like maybe, maybe I was okay, maybe I had made it. And the first thing Mistress says to me is along the lines of "oh, we said we should work tonight, we need to do that thing with the survey job".

And at that point my head exploded. The shame got to me, the camel's back was broken by the last straw, the last drop made the glass of water overflow in a cascade of liquid anguish all over the kitchen floor, and I could feel my brain changing gears in to crazy mood.

Because in my mind her even suggesting that I would be up for anything more strenous at that point ment I must be a total failure. A let down. Not good enough. That nothing I had done, nothing I had achieved or managed or made myself do had been worth anything. No matter how hard I strain and press myself, it's not even close to being enough. I'll never be enough. I'll never do enough. I can't be good enough, I can't be loved or worthy of love, I can't achieve anything that makes me fit to even live and breath, I haven't earned my keep, neither as her wife, her property nor even as a human being. I need to work 'til I drop and die and be done with it, because nothing else will cut it.

So yeah. It wasn't a great conversation starter, as such. To my credit, all I said was that I wasn't up for it, that I was hurt and upset that she suggested it, and that I wanted to go lay down in the bedroom, alone. That might not sound like a very tempered or reasonable response but compared to what my brain was screaming at me, I was positively cheerful.

And then I did just that, went and laid down, and instead of rehashing every slight and every shameful moment and debating with myself whether I was right to be hurt or not, I did a mindfulness-exercise, a simple but thorough body scan. I can do that now, that's pretty cool actually, even with my mind on fire with anguish and panic and shame I can redirect my consious focus on something of my own choosing.

The feelings are still there, the discomfort and panic and adrenalin surge through the body, but I can still focus my attention on my left toe, my left foot, the leg, the knee and so on. It takes about twenty minutes to go through the whole body, and by then the panic has subsided, the raging fires of despair has died from lack of things to devour, and everythings a little more settled. It's a neat trick.

We talked about it, of course, afterwards, and we'll figure something out. But shame. I hate it. It's the least constructive thing ever. I'm working on it.

The tough and the weak

I miss her. Insanely. I cried today when I finally got to see her on the webcam. I can't remember if I've ever acutally cried from missing her before. And in a way it made it easier. It's not as hard and difficult when I don't have to be strong and brave and tough it out.

This time I don't have to. I don't have to be as strong, because the work isn't as hard. I don't have to go to school or be at home all day alone with the kid, and I'm not even half as tired as I used to be just a little while ago. For the first time in a long while it's not unusual for me to get through a normal day and not be crushed by fatigue and despair some time after dinner.

And I don't have to be as brave, because finally (finally!) both me and the people around me have a realistic view of what I can and can't do (okay, everyone except for my mom, but I'll leave her out of this...). No one is expecting me to not be a wreck when Mistress finally gets home. It's part of the equation. I don't have to feel guilty, and I don't have to hide it. It's okay, it can be what it is.

I'm not normal. I wish I was, or at least that the things that makes my life difficult could be toned down a little, but I'm not. What's new and exciting and uplifting is that I no longer have to act as if I'm normal, and I'm no longer expected to react as if I was. How I'm in fact wired, what really happens with me and my brain, is taken into account now. There's no longer this glaring mismatch between the map (how everybody else works) and reality (how I react in real life).

Which means I can skip the brave face and stay vulnerable. Stay present. Stay in touch with my emotions. And that is so much less work than dealing with the side-effects of the brave-face-approach. The brave face means walls and detachments, means self-sufficiency and loneliness, means independence and distance.

I hate the brave face. I love the privilege of weakness and dependence and softness and crying after Mistress because I miss her so so much, and I need her so so much. I love the freedom that comes with the luxury of openness and vulnerability and honesty and humility. I'm allowed to miss her. I'm allowed the weakness that comes with that feeling now, when I don't have to perform to the utmost of my ability at all times any longer.

I still have to tough it out, though, because today is Tuesday and she'll be home Friday afternoon. Two days down, three more to go. 

General weirdness

We actually do have sex and stuff. Kinky sex to. And we're good, relationship-wise. Everythings good(ish). "As well as can be expected under the circumstances" have been my standard reply for the last five years, and it's still true. The circumstances at this particular time being my fucked up brain and it's inability to get better at the rate I want it to.

I've applied for a job I really want, and they haven't gotten back to me, and I lay awake some nights before going to sleep and worry about never getting an employment. But that's nothing new.

All is well, the kid thrive and Mistress isn't hating her job at the moment. She's even getting home earlier today and picks up little S on her way home, yey!

I've been feeling weird all week, and finally realised it's because I upped my dosage of methylfenidat (ADHD-meds) and that caused some weird sensations. Like all the hair standing up all over my body. Some sort of itchy feeling under the skin, all over. And an inability to relax but at the same time extreme exhaustion. Also, I've been doing some funny thing with my teeth, pressing the lower jaw forward so that the lower front teeth are constantly pushing at the upper front teeth. As if I've been going around all week trying to create an under bite by shear force. It wasn't unpleasant, necessarily, not all the time, but it was extremely unsettling and annoying. I lowered the dose yesterday, and now I'm back to being normally exhausted and dim-witted.

Why can't I get to functional normally without feeling high or hyper? Meh. I was enjoying waking up in the morning with a fully awake and functioning brain. Now it's soon 10 AM, and I still feel like a zombie. A sleepy, dazed zombie. Bleergh. I want it all. I want to wake up and being awake, I want to have the energy to go to the gym, make lunch, fill the dishwasher and still be able to form coherent sentences over dinner. But I don't want to go around gnashing my teeth and feeling high all the time.

And I must admit all these weird feelings and health issues makes the O/p-part of things fall into the background a bit. Mistress is my rock, my best friend, my sanity in all this. She owns me, sure, but I know that. It's not something I spend a lot of time thinking about right now. It's just there, thankfully, making me feel connected and present and as a real person even when I have a lot of reasons to feel like I'm a figment of imagination, drifting alone in the darkness of space. I'm real and I'm here, 'cause I'm hers.

And tonight we're having tacos in front of the telly with the kid spilling salsa over the sofa and me and Mistress cuddling a little behind her back. Just because stuff feels weird inside my brain it doesn't mean that's what the world actually looks like.

A seminar about a theoretical construct about D/s

I went to a lecture/workshop-thingy last week, I've been meaning to blog about it but not gotten around to it yet. Not really sure what to write anyway. The subject was "24/7 D/s from a non-sexual perspective". Not to mean that it's about asexual power exchange relationships, but about discussing the aspects of the dynamic that isn't about the sexual side of things.

So far so good. Since this was a regular work night and it was an hours drive to get there, I was a bit wary, however. I couldn't help but have misgivings about getting there and then spending my whole night becoming aggravated about people saying stupid things that would imply that me and my relationship doesn't exist. In that case, I would rather sit at home and cuddle with Mistress.

I'm perfectly okay with a speaker directing his or her focus on something that isn't relevant for me - but there's a real risk at these sort of occassions that I'll be told I'm not even real. That, for example, it's imperative to have a safe word, for everyone, or that it's really the submissive person in the relationship that actually has the power. Or that of course anyone can leave whenever they want. And so on. I even wrote a question to the organisers to have my fears laid to rest, which I got. And then I felt kind of silly. Maybe I was overreacting, or have been to tainted by Fetlife.

But honestly I don't think so. I've been to workshops and classes before. And there's a Swedish BDSM-community too, pre-dating Fetlife quite a bit, and there's the same discourse there. And of course everyone can discuss what they like - I'm just not always up for listening to it.

Anyway, the actual lecture didn't even touch upon my sensitive spots, so in the end it was much ado about nothing. The speaker, a middle aged man who was the dominant one in his relationship and had his young girlfriend there with him, had an idea about how D/s-relationship is built up, which was an okay and at times interesting construct.

 Unfortunately he choose to introduce the whole topic with a comparison with his view of vanilla relationship structures, which was a bit bad taste partly because his first words had been about how he never had been in one, and also because it was so clearly an attempt at "oh, look, over there is 'them' and we do it better!". And not the least because he pointed out getting kids and having joint economy as hallmarks of vanilla relationships, completely overlooking the fact that kids might be relevant for people in power exchange too.

Oh, and yes, he read an essay aloud about the norms regarding vanilla dating, continuously interpreting the patriarchal norms that makes the men into the subject and the active party in the mating ritual in a light as if that meant it was the women who had the power "because she just stands there, she is the one who accepts or rejects". Yeah.

My friend I. very promptly brought forward the concept of "slut shaming" and explained the norms that restricts women's choices and actions. The reason women doesn't usually ask a man out isn't because she holds the power - it's because if she does, she has immediately excluded herself from the cathegory "respectable women" and instead become a slut, a whore, not suitable for dating anyway (but possibly suitable for rape). It is about power - but the other way around.

This rather unfortunate example of cluelessness made the first 20 minutes of the evening a bit embarrassing and uncomfortable, but it did get better. As soon as the topic changed from Gender Issues 101 and vanilla-bashing, and he started to present his actual theory, it became a bit more interesting (and a lot less cringe-worthy). 

The idea, in it's simplest form, was that D/s-relationships stand on four baseic building blocks- identifying needs and wants, "the magic", communication and trust. On that base, it is possible to add other blocks, like rituals, disciplin, rules, kinky sex, lust, order, service and so on. Possible, but not necessary (which I think makes a good point - especially after what a child ridden waste land the last years have been when it comes to the BDSM part of me and Mistress...) And on top of that comes what the lecturer choose to call life goals, but I would rather describe in my own mind as "valued direction". Not goals as such, but more important things one might want to strive for in life. Becoming a better person in specific ways, living a meaningful life, those sorts of things.

And well, yes, so far so good. I actually think there is some merit to this idea. I'm pretty sure most of it has been said before in one way or another, but collecting knowledge and presenting it in a cohesive way is important in it's on right.

Is the basis for all power exchange relationships identifying needs and wants, "magic", communication and trust?

I don't know. Maybe. I agree that it's all important things. A problem I see with this model though is that it was described as the basis that is layed down in the beginning, and then it's done. You need to have it there, but it was kind of put as if once it was established, you could go on to other things.

But honestly, me and Mistress has been openly in love since 2003 and married for almost six years now, and we're still constantly circling back to those things. It's in no way a done deal or a basis for our relationship we can always rely on. We rekindle the magic every week, blowing on the embers and trying to get a flame going. We're constantly exploring our needs and wants and trying to, and at times failing to, communicate with each other. And in all honestly -trust is the biggest issue for us, all the time.

Do you really want me? I think every argument or fight we've ever had has had that as the basis, the note that is always carried through every hurtful word and every angry stare. "Do you really want me? Am I really good enough for you? Really, really? Can I trust you not to find me to lacking and abandoning me?"

But the idea that the middle block of rituals and rules and hot steamy sex is optional and can be removed without necessarily damaging the foundation - I liked that. It was an image that resonates with my experience. The actual relationship is there, whether we have time to act on the power imbalance or not. Sometimes the fancy stuff simply can't be fitted in - that doesn't mean we're not we any more. We're just a bit more boring.

I love high protocol. I love orders and rituals. I hope to have a lot of those things in my life over time. But maybe not right now, when we're building a family. We have a long life ahead of us. There'll be plenty of time for Mistress to teach me fancy slave positions.

And the importance of valued direction I liked to. In a way I think that was a big part of what was lacking for me in my former relationship. That, and of course that I was in love with Mistress... But if I look only at me and my ex and accept the fact that it wouldn't have worked out anyway (because I really don't think it would have) I think the fact that my life was put on hold was an important aspect for me.

I wasn't happy with him, in the sense that the life we led didn't make me happy. I loved him, but living with him made me miserable. We were poor. I worked a lot, mostly night shift, and he was in charge of the money but spent them on junk food, his Coca-Cola-addiction and technical gadgets. I was constantly stressed out about money, at the same time that I actually worked and made a decent salary. We ate junk, and I gained tons of weight. Stress, night job and junk food combined with no exercise whatsoever because of lack of money, time and opportunities made horrible things with my health.

At it's worse, I weighed over 100 kg. I eventually rectified that, on my own and with the support of Mistress, when we were still in the poly-tryad, but he never helped or did anything to make it easier for me.

I had a job without prospects. I had no direction in life. And he made it clear that when he was done with med-school I was supposed to go where he got a job, no matter where that was, and that if we ever got a kid, he had no plans to share parenting equally or sacrifice his career for his kids. None of that was okay with me or my values or my goals in life.

With Mistress, we have so many plans. Before her, my future was blank to me, empty and black. Now - we have tons of dreams and plans. Living with her has made me secure enough to dare to voice my desire to write fiction. She encourages me to take the time to do that. She's supported me, emotionally and financially, through the whole of my university education. She made me get my drivers license. She got me a dog. And a kid. We're living a life, we're going forward, we share dreams and hopes and plans.

We have shared values, and I do think that is super important. Not only that I get to move towards things that are intrinsically valuable to me, but that she is aware of what is valuable to her in her life, and that our values match. I don't think this really has anything to do with the power dynamic between us - but it do have a lot to do with us being able to live happily ever after together. 

She hearts me!

I just realised I wanted to show off the beautiful heart I got a week ago. It still shows, and a bit of the heart is itching when it's healing.

Service?

The other night, Mistress granted me the privilege of going to a workshop about service. It really was a privilege,  since she let me go away rather late in the evening while she stayed at home working and being responsible adult at home while the kid was sleeping. Actually, I had to ditch her before the kid was sleeping, leaving her to do the whole bedtime ritual all by herself, while I gallivanted away in the car.

I was actually a bit nervous, since I had to drive 60 miles to get there and more importantly home again late at night. I recruited my friend I. and sneakily convinced her that even though it was very good and noble of her to stay at home studying for exams, it was a much better idea to go to BDSM-workshops with me.

And it really was (at least for me, but then again, I didn't have any exam-studying-plans). I'm never really been comfortable with the concept of "service", which is one reason I wanted to go, and I actually did come home with a few thoughts in my head that I didn't have before. I think I broadened the concept a lot.

When I've read others referring to service, I've always read it in the context of doing things above and beyond the usual. It's about keeping an extra eye on things, about doing things extra good, or in a special way. The "clean a toilet with a toothbrush"-example did occur yesterday too.

And... no. There's simply no room for that in our life. We're both working full tilt as it is, there's nothing more to give. I could "service" her right now of course, I'm sitting her writing a blog while she's paying bills, and I could be up vacuuming instead. Or I don't know... sort her sock drawer?

But I don't do that. Because there's no end to it. There's no point where the work ends. There's no point where I can sit down and relax and say that "yeah, now I've done enough! Now she'll be pleased with me!". She's pleased with me a lot of times for all kinds of reasons. But if I tried to outwork the workload and do above and beyond what she could wish for, I would break.

In fact, I did break. I broke down completely, that was kind of the deal with last year. I tried my absolute hardest to be the best mom, the best wife, the best student, and I didn't give my self any slack and I was constantly on my own case about not being good enough, and I tried and tried and tried, and the more I tried and the more I failed and the more I berated myself the more desperate I became and the less resources I had left to do anything with. And I didn't stop doing it that way until I was in so bad a shape that I couldn't lift a fork and eat lunch because I couldn't decide how to cut a sausage.

But the workshop yesterday gave me more faith in the belief that I do service Mistress. I do. Just not in the more common houseworky sort of way.

I'm devoted to her. I'm absolutely loyal to her. I'm completely invested in our relationship. She's the top of my priorities, if I have any alternative I always choose the one I think that she'd prefer. She's the centre of my life. I always want to be of service to her.

Sometimes she uses me in an outright manner, she exercises her authority and tells me to do things. I love that, that's easy. I love getting her tea or her slippers or go get the laundry. Sometimes my appallingly bad working memory fails me and I have to do a few false starts before I get it right, but that doesn't mean I don't want to do it. She doesn't do this all that often, honestly I think it doesn't occur to her mostly, but when she does I like it.

But there's also more subtle ways that I relate to her that might be called service, in a very broad definition of the term. I service her, one could say, by letting her control me. By gracefully and without a fuss constantly report my whereabouts and plans and actions and travels to her, so that she'll always know where to find me. By never making definite plans with anyone without checking in with her first. By presenting things to her in a manner that makes it clear that the decision is up to her, that I'm merely presenting alternatives.

By now, all those things are second nature to me - but seeing them in the light of "service" made me feel a little better about myself. After all, I could act in other ways. Those other ways would have consequences, bad once, but that doesn't mean I can't give myself credit for making wise decisions and behaving well. 

An even more convoluted way of looking at it is the things I don't do, and where the refraining in itself can be considered service, as sorts. I try very hard not to lash out at her when I'm upset. Sometimes I  fail, but nowadays I often succeed. Not because she'll punish me otherwise, but because I hurt and upset her, and I contribute much more to our relationship if I keep calm and, in all honesty, shut up.

I also refrain from second guessing her, barging in when she gives signs of insecurity and doubt, or trying to "help out" if I think she can't handle something. Again, not always, but most of the time, I succeed. Oddly enough, a lot of my "service" consists of not doing things. First, do no harm.


---

And then I had to go to bed. This continues therefore the day after.

Today, I had very clear orders to fix a few errands at the pharmacy and the bank, leave and pick up little S, and have lunch, and nothing else. When I asked, she agreed to me studying for no more than an hour. And when she left in the morning, she agreed in letting me clear the dishes after breakfast, since she was in a hurry. So today, I'm obeying her and servicing her by reading a new Kelley Armstrong-novel on the iPad, and drinking tea in front of the telly. The doing as she tells me to part is obedience. The doing it with grace and without fuss is service. In a way.

Grandpa's got cancer

Mistress took little S and went to her parents for a couple of days. I thought I would love the time home alone, relieved from duties and stress. I hate it. Come back! All I do is long for the two of them.

So this was very good for me. It's good to miss people sometimes.

Unfortunately, yesterday Mistress' father got his diagnosis - the prostate cancer has spread to the skeleton. The doc who told him said the prognoses was "good" but a short web-search indicates a lifespan of one or two years and a painful death.

Little S is going to lose her grandpa. My beloved mother-in-law is going to lose her spouse of forty plus years. And of course, Mistress is going to lose her father. And it's not going to be pretty. It's an ugly disease, and he's not a well-balanced man at the best of times. He's prone to rumination and angst, he has a nasty tendency to spread his bad mood around with snarky comments and petty meanness, and he tends to drink to relieve anxiety. He's already lashed out at Mistress a couple of times for things he feels she's done him wrong over the years (mostly a slammed door a couple of years ago - I have no idea what that's about, it's a really strange thing to be hung up about), and my fear is that it'll only get worse.

I wish I could help him. I wish I could help her. I wish I could make it all better.

And I'm dreading the day little S will realise grandpa has cancer and is going to die. She's already crying about cancer and dying (not to mention losing limbs - she's got a lot of existential angst for a three year old), and I so wish I could tell her that we will all live together for ever.

But we wont, and the scary truth is that yes, she could die, her moms could die, everyone around her could die. We most probably wont, but yes, we could. And I really really don't want to have that conversation - or rather, I'd really want a way to comfort her afterwards when she's inconsolable.

We have a shaky Christian faith, both me and Mistress, we choose to get married in a church and to baptise our kid, we both went through with confirmation as teenagers (even though my atheistic dad said that if I only did it for the presents, I could get presents anyway....). We want to believe there's something after death, we want to believe we're not separated forever. But... We're both also scientists. It's hard to believe without proof. It's hard to trust and find comfort in something a part of you say is bullshit.

I do believe in a soul. I do believe in a benevolent, loving God. And I very strongly believe in offering my kid something besides "nah, we're all gonna die and that's that, buck up kid!" when she's torn in pieces by despair and separation anxiety.

Making it easier

We had an interesting talk yesterday. We had finally gotten into bed at night, after Mistress had started answering work emails after brushing her teeth. I waited for her with a book on the sofa while she worked, and when I realised I was really tired I meekly asked her if it wasn't time for bed soon. She agreed and shut down the computer and we crawled in to bed. But then she commented on the fact that she'd started working late in the evening, and mentioned that I'd been sitting there and seemed to have had a good time too, or something similar.

And that made me freak.

Not that bad of a freaking, actually, I got a bad feeling in my stomach and a lingering panic, but I didn't do or say anything disrespectful or hasty. We explored together what it was that had made me uncomfortable, and after a while I realised it was mostly that the idea that she thought everything was "okay" with me (in the sense that I agreed on her decision to start working late at night) made me feel responsible for her.

Like if I didn't like it I should make sure to let her know that. While on the other hand she really doesn't want that from me, and I was going in the other direction - dutifully trying to accept Mistress' decision and doing the best of the situation instead of trying to control it or sway her in one way or another.

She admitted that yes, if I had seemed genuinely distressed she would have stopped, for my sake, because she didn't want me to suffer over it. But that wouldn't have been what she wanted. She reassured me that she had loved to be able to write those email without worrying about me, and that I had no responsibility whatsoever for whether she did it or not.

Somehow this made everything okay for me again. I wasn't responsible for her. She wasn't looking to me for approval. I didn't have a duty to her to approve or disapprove of her actions.

And the most important thing was something she said at the end of the conversation: "This time you did make my life easier."

It's something I've said that I don't do. Warmer, nicer, more loving, more interesting, more meaningful, yes, all of those, but not easier. I often perceive myself as a lot of work for Mistress, like a loved but somewhat annoying pet. I would dearly love to be of service, to be able to lighten her load, to be able to do just that - make her life easier. It's just that I know that I often isn't even close, and I'm okay with that. I know she loves me for me. But still. This one time I obviously did just that. And it feels so so good.

Getting what I want

Yestarday, I begged, literary begged, Mistress to be spanked. "Or whatever, it doesn't have to be spanking - just hurt me! Please, please, please, Mistress?". This was after we had gone to bed, I was tense and worked up and worrying about my upcoming exam and just generally feeling out of sorts.

Mistress sighed and said, that no, she wasn't going to. She was tired, and she didn't want to. She was however, going to do it "tomorrow". I refrained from growling about how much I cared about "tomorrow" and said "yes Mistress!" instead, which usually is the safer choice. We cuddled, and she stroked me and petted me until I was all blissed out by good feelings and felt very calm and satisfied anyway, without any pain whatsoever.

Then, today, I sat through my exam in the morning (the last one I'll ever take hopefully) and when I came home we cuddled, and after a while Mistress said that she was planning to beat me. And I cuddled up to her and asked if we couldn't just "cuddle without clothes on for a while" first (read "instead").

Mistress said she didn't feel like taking her clothes off, it felt like to much work and I threw a pillow at her... And then I proposed that it was fine if we just cuddled, it was perfectly good even with clothes. I snuggled up to her, and whispered in to her arm that honestly, I was feeling a bit afraid and really didn't felt like being spanked any more. "That's ok" she answered "you don't have to feel like it."

And then she made me lay on my stomach on the bed, taped my arms and legs to the bedposts and beat me with the tawse and then, grumbling over not being able to draw blood, she switched to the horse whip. Oh, and she stuffed a gag ball in my mouth too, "so I don't have to worry about you disturbing the neighbours".

Yeah. It really doesn't matter whether I feel like it or not. And the secret? The moment she said that I was instantly horny and so very, very submissive. That's the best part of it. That I can't decide what she'll do and when she'll do it. On the one hand, I really do want the things I ask for, and really don't want the things I'm afraid of or don't want, but on the other hand, what I most of all want is to not being able or allowed to decide that. I guess that's kind of a win-win for both of us.

She did drew blood, eventually. She likes to stop at that point. For me, I'm so far gone by then that she could go on forever as far as I'm concerned. Times stops and everything is an endless, hurtful, wonderful, all encompassing now. I guess that's the part I'm longing for when I'm begging her to beat me.

(The exam? I think it went just fine. They usually do.)

A love letter, of sorts (or two)

As usual, I got a text from Mistress this morning, when she was on her bus commuting to work and I had just dropped off little S at the pre-school.

"Hi there sweetie!" it said, "Thank you for a great weekend. I hope leaving little S will go well, and I'm glad we have a plan to solve this. If you'd get the idea to unload the car, the big bag is filled with clean clothes, and the small one is laundry. I love you so much! Thank you for being in my life, my wonderful slut. Kisses!"

And I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. There's so much in this that speaks about how wonderfully lucky I am. There's no pressure there to unload the car, or doing any other housework. This is pure information, no unspoken expectation. I know she'll think I'm just as wonderful whether there's bags still in the car tonight or not. And even more, I know she knows why I expectations like that is a bad idea, why me doing things like that can't be taken for granted. She knows that, she knows me, and she loves me all the same.

On the other hand, she's not taking for granted the things I do accomplish either. She mentions leaving little S as a special chore, not something that I of course should do. I get to go home and do things in my own pace while she sits on a bumpy bus on her way to the office, and she still doesn't take for granted that I drop off the kid on the way home.

And we have a plan. Our kid is not feeling well, and we have a shared view of the problem and we've made a plan to sort it out, and I relax and lean back and know she's there. I can always depend on her putting us first, putting family first, and I'm never alone.

And in all of this, she thanks me for a great weekend and for being in her life. I'm the one who should be grateful. Or maybe we should just both be, not to each other but to the Universe (or God if you will) that allowed us to find each other and be together. She's the centre of my world, she's the planet I'm happily orbiting, and I love her so much. Knowing she loves me back makes me go all tingly.

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.

 

A tired little one

This week, Christmas break was over with a vengeance, and our ordinary lifes fell on top of us like a ton of bricks...

Mostly on top of the little one though. We started to suspect it the whole of December, but now it's painfully obvious - she's not coping well with the long days at the pre-school. She's stressed out and exhausted. Our guess is that she's doing fine when she's there, and only showing her fatigue at home, which isn't that unusual for kids.

She's not sleeping well, or enough. She's throwing tantrums every day, over the smallest things, and becomes inconsolable every now and then. She can't sit at her chair and eat with spoon and fork any more, she sits in a lap and we feed her - something she didn't even want us to when she was a baby. And she's three and a half now.  She cries every morning, and sometimes when she's dropped off, over not wanting to go. She wants to stay at home. When we get home at dinner time, she's grey-faced and her eyes are almost dead, she's immobile (and this is a kid that's ordinarily never still) and all she wants to do is sit in a lap with her blanky and pacifier and watch the telly. This is not a healthy way of being for her.

We've been referred to a child psychologist and we're waiting to hear from them. And I've booked a conference with one of the staff at the pre-school this Tuesday, to start discussing what they see and inform them of the change we're seeing.

This week has been a somber one for us. It's no fun when one of our little family isn't feeling well. Especially not when it's our precious daughter. Of course, the obvious solution is to shorten her days, but we can't do that. She started to go full days (9-4.30) this fall, and we need to keep working full time both of us this spring too. We can't afford for Mistress to work less (not without selling the car and perhaps moving, at least) and we both want to prioritise me graduating this summer, so that I can get a job and earn money. When that's accomplished, we can probably both start working part-time, and the problem will go away (at least until she starts school...). But this spring, we need it to work out for her.

Parenting can really put a damper on anything kinky or sexy or even slightly romantic. When little S isn't okay, we have one problem, and one problem only. The rest of life mostly has to wait.

Fighting - not fighting

We had a fight, or almost a fight, this morning. A very typical situation, Mistress were going to take little S to the supermarket, little S refused to put any clothes on and ran around the living room naked, we aborted the mission and had some coffee and donuts instead, and afterwards we semi-tricked her into clothes by offering her the too big Pippi Longstrump-t-shirt we got her this summer.

I was deftly and sneakily pulling a pair of underwear on her legs while distracting her with small talk when Mistress interrupted me and wanted me to wait while she got the pair little S started the day wearing, instead of putting on a new pair.

And I flipped. Because... I was doing my best. Because I was almost succeeding. Because I was pretty sure that the delay would mean little S would go back to dancing naked around the living room, and I frankly didn't have the energy or focus to manage to lure her in once more. Because I had been so proud in knowing I was helping, that I was contributing, that I could feel like a competent mom and an asset to the family, and because it hurt me that 1) it wasn't good enough and 2) I wouldn't be allowed to succeed.

Mistress was forcing me to failure, and then, in my minds eye, I was sure she would be angry and irritated with both me and little S, and I would feel guilty for not being able to fix it. And also, the pressure of the thought of having to once again run around chasing a little naked someone and trying to dress her (like putting a hysterical octopus down a net with big holes in it without any arms sticking out...) felt like it was crushing me. In an instant I was convinced that it would end with Mistress angry and me crushed, broken down, laying on the living room floor crying, a failure both as a mother, a wife and her property.

So I snarked at her that couldn't she pleeease not bother just this once and let me do my thing? Or something to that effect. And Mistress got angry and pointed out "all the things I haven't said anything about!" which made me feel like a complete failure at everything, and sent me spiralling down an emotional chasm of raging fury and despair. Mistress jumped down her own dark well in the same instant, and well... here we go again.

Only, we didn't. We didn't yell or accuse or acted out. We tried talking, in intervals between getting little S ready and prepared to go out the door, and in the end I stalked off to go sulk on the bed. Before she left, Mistress came in and looked at me and said: "I know your feelings are hurt and that you're angry. But I'm going to give you an order now. I want you to get dressed and put your running shoes on and go out for a jog, and when you get inside again I want you to take a shower. And I want you to start now."

And I did. It was possible, even if my hurt feelings felt like a lead weight in my chest. And after running a while I sent Mistress a text, and she texted me back. And all is right in the world again. And soon they'll be coming home, so I'll go make pancakes now. And we're so frikkin awesome to save this, to not destroy the whole day, to actually keep our heads even when the hearts are screaming in terror.

She's my Mistress. And I'm so incredibly proud of her, and of being allowed to be hers.

The good and the bad

Laying in a dark room without any input and no ability to do anything made wonderful things for my brain. My stomach tried to kill me (or at least it felt like it) and there was a period of six hours or so when that seemed like a good idea because I felt so horrible, but well, my brain obviously liked it. Nothing like a bout of calici virus to cure exhaustion and stress symptoms.

Mistress commented on it just now, and said something along the lines of that even if it had been hard on her, taking care of a first sick and then bored three year old, while tending her own stomach bug, if it was this good for me she might make me do it again. Not the calici part, just the "laying in a dark room for two days"-part.

I think that's a great idea, except that maybe it's not her and mine time together that should go to that, but my school/recuperating-time, that between nine and four when the little one is at preschool. I do try to do things I know will make me feel better, all the time, but usually I probably put to much active stuff into the schedule. That has it's reasons though, because if I was just laying in bed in a dark room without calici, my ruminations start. I have to balance the exhaustion part against the depression part of the problem - my brain is hyperactive, if I don't get any stimuli from the outside, it makes up it's own, and it's usually unpleasant.

One thing is that I'm consciously training the ability to be still without rumination, to be present and aware, by different exercises in mindfulness. I'm better at it now, but I have a life long training of doing the exact opposite, so results are so so at best.

Another thing is that Mistress can have the same effect on me that a severe stomach bug has... (Love you, darling!) She can make me present in the moment, focused on her and the here-and-now. Laying in the bed all by my self or laying in the bed because she ordered me to it, in a position she ordered me to, or bound by her physically, is two totally different experiences.

When she makes me do it, my focus is on obeying, and on her. My mind goes blank, or at least relaxes. The thoughts don't go away, usually, but they fade in to the background. It's not constant activity any more, it's just being there. I love it, but I can't achieve it on my own.

It's a state of awareness that can come when she ties me up, usually in the moment when I realise I can't get away, when the last knot is tied and I can see and feel that all the ends of the rope are out of my reach.  It's like my whole being relaxes - body and mind. It happens during beatings too, somewhere halfway when I stop struggling and relax in to the pain, and it usually lingers afterwards.

 I think it could probably happen at other times too, or I know it can, any time she exerts her power over me. In our day to day life that isn't to often, but sometimes on the couch when we watch television she'll grab my hair or put an arm or a hand around my throat, and I get that relaxed, aware, present feeling.

Right now I'm grateful our little family isn't puking our guts up any more, and that we seem to have a good chance of a relaxing weekend. There's a lot of misery around me, from the small stuff (our dog has chronic kidney problems we're trying to sort out) the personal impending doom-stuff (my father in law has prostate cancer, we'll know this Friday it it has spread to the skeleton, and we're all in different degrees of low-key terror) to the distant but unthinkable that happened in Connecticut.

But no. Right this minute I'm laying in bed with my beloved wife and Owner, we're going to have a whole night together for the first time in several days, and our daughter is thank God healthy and well looked-after downstairs by Grandma. This is good, and I'm going to let it be good, in this minute. That will have to be enough for now.