Crazy lady

Last night was Friday night. Friday was the last day alone before I go back to work. Yes, I have the weekend to go, but I have a lot planned and these last two days will fly by… and add in the fact that Master is home and lately has been all up in my grill, teasing, tormenting and mind fucking me relentlessly.

Add to that this bit a strange mood place I have found myself in recently. And if I stand way back and take a serious objective view of things… it is my usual restless, nothing feels quite right, I want something but can’t quite figure out what that something is. It is an uncomfortable place that characterizes my mild brief bouts of depression. They don’t usually last long, never more than a few days but during these times I can get a little lost. I thrash around mentally and emotionally, reaching out for things and then snatching my hand back. I don’t eat healthy because nothing appeals to me until I am too hungry to think rationally and then make poor choices. I find it hard to become sexually aroused, over analyzing the situations and sensations, too busy thinking about what feels wrong rather than what feels right.

That characterizes it completely… the focus on what is wrong rather than focusing on what feels right.

And yesterday afternoon I did another kind of awkward desperate thing. I had been indulging that ‘afraid’ feeling all week, afraid to trust Master to know exactly what is right for me because I cannot figure out that for myself. But, I wanted… wanted… something? Anyway I did this silly thing. I got dressed up in a very silly costume before Master got home. I showered and put on this all pink outfit, baby pink tights, a matching pink skin tight little tank top, and a cute tiny little pink sequined micro-mini skirt. I put my hair in two little pony tails and tied matching pink ribbons on each. I looked very silly. I knew that Master would either laugh himself crazy or get pissed… pissed because he would feel like I was trying to “make something happen”… and I told myself that even if nothing happened, I could handle it… that just dressing up was the goal… not expecting Master to do anything. (Yeah… right… like I was in any way really in control of my emotions.)

Well, when Master got home, he did laugh. And asked me “…what the hell?” He grabbed my pony tails and forced me to arch back as he grabbed and pinched my nipples through my tank top.

I gasped and giggled. “I don’t know. I’ve been in a kind of a weird mood. I just felt like it. I figured I was either going to have a lot fun or get in a lot of trouble… one or the other.”

He gave me a vicious pinch and twist, making me convulse and agreed.

But then he did not really do anything. He sat in his big chair and fell asleep. And as I watched his eyes drooping lower and lower, I asked respectfully if he would like me to wake him up at any particular time and he mumbled, “’bout an hour.”

I was up, in a lacy white apron, putting together the last few things for dinner, when he woke up. He came out and gave me the usual appreciative swat for finding me doing his favorite thing, cooking for him. And as the last few things were just finishing up, he sat down at his computer and logged onto a game. I took a deep patient breath, reminding myself that when I am in a better, more confident place that this action, this casual disregard for the fact that I am working for him, the selfish indulgence in gaming while I worked tended to tickle my slave persona. But lately I have been hating that game, hating at the way it seems to interrupt his plans to do something, anything, and it takes him away from me. That game has begun to symbolize the procrastination that plagues both of us. But I sucked it up, finished dinner and arranged the serving dishes.

I announced that dinner was ready and asked Master if he would like me to dish up a plate for him, but he stayed sitting at the computer. He said, still staring at the screen, “No, I will get my own.” And that made sense because we were having homemade turkey and black bean chili and Master prefers to put his own condiments on, the diced onion and he always adds more chili powder.

I stand in the kitchen for a few minutes staring at the food and at him still playing the game. Finally I ask, “Would it be okay if I go ahead and dish myself up?”

He did not look up from the computer, “Sure, go ahead.”

I am almost finished eating before he gets up. His first reaction after looking at the food, carefully laid out waiting for him, is to snarl, a deep low growl of dissatisfaction, a sound that always makes my heart sink… something is wrong. His voice carries from the kitchen, “Next time don’t cut the cornbread in such small squares.”

Shit. “Yes, Master. I will be more careful next time. Sorry.” Shit, nothing is ever perfect. And normally this would not grate quite so unbearably, but today …today it just sickens me. The food in my mouth turns to dust and I blink back tears. Nothing is ever quite good enough.

He brings his plate out and sits down. He tells me that the chili is very good and he clearly enjoys his dinner but it is too late, his praise does little to sooth me. I sit, wooden, numb, struggling with the growing sense of dissatisfaction, with him, with myself, with everything. Once again, nothing feels right and yet… I want… I want something but I can’t figure out what.

When he finishes eating, he grabs my empty dishes and carries them to the kitchen with his. And I retreat into my computer. I mindlessly play game after game of solitaire… blank, bland, dull, sad, angry, black… And we don’t speak. He could tell I was “in a bad mood”. God I hate that phrase, that bland, empty phrase that comes nowhere near to describe the place I am at. And he is not magic, he is not a mind reader and I think he is hesitant to push at me at those times. He does not quite trust this thing, this commitment to obey and when he senses me straying emotionally, rather than react quickly, I think he hesitates.

I sit there, with my computer in my lap… a wall between me and the world. And I know that this retreat is not helping. I know I need to put down the fucking computer, to stand up… I know if I just move around he will respond, he will stand up too. But what if he didn’t, what if he just didn’t? I am too caught up in it to trust. And I sit there.

He just sits there, flicking through channels, but I am not looking at the television.

And the tension builds inside me… growing and growing. Master and I have a name for when I get angry, just get irrational and start blaming him for my internal states… we call it the “crazy lady”. She is part of me. There is never a time when she completely goes away, but most of the time… months at a time… she is carefully locked up in a little cage in the back of my mind. I am very, very careful not to talk with her. She never has anything good to say. She is all about what is wrong with me, wrong with him, wrong with everything. She delights in misery. And she has managed to gnaw through the bars and was completely running rampant through my distorted thinking.

Bedtime rolls around and I decide to take my anger and go away with it, to finally go downstairs and try to sleep. But I do not do it right… I do not do it according to ritual. I go into my room and strip off the pink ribbons, strip off the pink clothing… deciding to present myself to him nude to kneel and ask permission to go to sleep. Normally I am always fully dressed as I kneel, and this nakedness is a taunt… or perhaps a cry for help. But I never even get back to where he is sitting. He is up. He follows me into my room and reaches for me. But I cannot bear his touch, and I shrink away, when his lips touch mine, I twist my head away.

He demands to know what is the matter. And the crazy lady mutters, “You do this, you follow me, start something but then you stop, you never finish, It is never enough. It is okay. You are tired. Don’t bother.” Master’s eyes darken and narrow. He pushes me down on the bed and I fight him, protesting, telling him that he does not have to do this. He holds me down, his hands hard and strong, and I lay there panting with rage, glaring at him. And because the crazy lady is in control of my body and mind, because I am a prisoner of my own fears… and because she is the very embodiment of fear and can’t trust, she hates this, hates him and especially hates me. She mutters up at him, “You are boring.” It isn’t true. They are just words that had provoked him in the past, a remembered taunt calculated to stab at his ego, to hurt.

Master has had enough. He lunges up, grabs at my legs to lift them up into the same stringent position that he had beaten me in a week ago. And the memory of that pain flooded through me, and I stiffen and twist in panic. And I am nude and on my bed, he can’t keep me from turning. He pins me down on my belly, trapping one foot between his legs and holding the other in his iron hard hand. He starts to spank me with his one free hand. Hard, punishing blows, that make me gasp and clench my teeth. I squirm and try to crawl away, but I don’t really want to escape… not really. Enough of me wants this, wants to feel this, wants to be forced that I can’t really kick and really use all my strength against him. He spanks me until I stop squirming. I don’t really scream or cry… and I certainly don’t laugh. I have no joy in me. All I can feel is a dull simmering resentment and a profound sense of sadness.

He stops and lets me go… and I lay there with my ass on fire but my body is still tense, my eyes wet with held in tears, my fists still clenched in the sheets. His next words do not thrill me. He orders me to go to bed, to go down stairs and get out my vibrator and masturbate. He is probably right, an orgasm would most likely take the edge off my anger, help me calm down… but the very idea of trying to relax enough to become aroused… to let go of my fears and turn off the hiss and cackle of the doubts that fill my head feels impossible. But there is no disobeying and I get up and scurry down the stairs to his bed.

He stands over me, watching and I feel the weight of his eyes, his anger. It takes a long time for it to even start feeling good and I am very conscious of his impatience. After maybe ten, fifteen minutes he growls at me, “Come, damn it, or do you want another spanking?”

And I cry out, panting with effort, “It just doesn’t work like that.” My whole body is tense, rigid, quivering with effort. I am coated with sweat. I am practically savaging my poor numb clit with that vibrator. I pant, sucking deep lungfuls of air in, hyperventilating and once my body is full of oxygen and then hold it, curling up and straining. I count inside my head, telling myself I can do this, I will do this… count backwards from ten. I try over and over, desperate to do this… to come. And finally my mind stops its struggle against my body, finally my nerve endings cannot resist and I feel the deep warm rush of my orgasm starting and I groan out to him, “Coming, coming now…” and as it crashes over me, the sudden rush of pleasure, I buck and cry out. It is harsh and long, it consumes the last dregs of my energy. I barely have the strength to put the vibrator over up on the shelf over my head and I curl up on my side, my back to him… panting like I have run a marathon, soaked with sweat.

I think he has some thought of continuing, to hurt me again, or to push at me, to interrogate me to see if I am still filled with rage and rebellion, to see if I am still going to fight him. He asks me if I am satisfied… and instead of answering properly, I fire back, “Are you?” My voice is still dark with rage. He moves toward me suddenly, and I huddle up into a smaller ball and whimper. He stands over me and then says in a soft voice, “You are worn out.” And he walks away, leaving me alone in the dark. And he is right, I am exhausted. The weight of my mood and the fatigue from my exertions combine with the endorphins of my orgasm. It is a potent cocktail. I fall asleep quickly.

As usual, Master comes to bed long after I am asleep. I have no memory of that. The reassuring warmth of his body is next to me when I awake, and I instinctively move closer to him, sliding closer until I touch, a hip, a foot. Just the small contact that lets me know he is there and I lay there for a long time, thinking about the night before.

I know that it is me, me and this mood I have sunk into. I know that as much as I wish he had the power to save me from this, he cannot do that. No one has the strength to do that. In fact it is not about strength, if he pushed or pulled, it would only push or pull me deeper into it. The only one that can help me out of this entanglement, this maze, this swamp is me. I know this and the first step out is to own that fact.

I come upstairs. And when he wakes up and sits down in his big chair with his first cup of coffee, I beg permission to crawl into his lap. It is how we heal these hurts. I crawl into his lap and press my face into the corner of his neck and we talk.

He says that the crazy lady was in charge “all night” last night. And I protest; I own that I have been in a strange mood, restless… a little depressed… but it was not the crazy lady that put on the pink clothing. Putting on the pink clothing was a futile attempt to try and keep the crazy lady away. I say that the crazy lady did not completely take over until after dinner, when I was sitting there with my computer.

“She was deliberately trying to make me angry.”

I sit, snuggled close and safe in his arms. I think and I think. I pull back and look at him, frowning with concentration. He laughs, “You know it is true.”

And I slowly nod. “Yeah, you know, when I went into my room, I was telling myself that I was just getting ready for bed, that I just needed to take my grumpy, unsatisfied, bitchy self downstairs far away from you before I got worse… but you know… taking off my clothing… I was going to come out like that, kneel and ask to go to bed naked… and that was deliberate. So yes, you are right, I was going to do that to piss you off. If you had not followed me into my room, I would have come out looking for trouble.”

And we had a better day. We made love and I was able to relax and it is amazing how much easier it is when my mind is not at war with my body. And it is amazing how that kind of physical connection can enhance our emotional connection. We are talking. I am working very hard at being aware and functioning with intent, and not listening to my doubts so much.

I am still assailed by waves of dissatisfaction. I tend to keep analyzing what he is and is not doing, the crazy lady growls and mutters from her cage in the back of my mind. But I am doing my best to own that it is my issue and not blame him for being himself. I tell myself that the while the “crazy lady” is part of me, she is not the only part. She is not even a very big part, and if I keep calm, keep rational, don’t feed her… she will become smaller and smaller.