Warning... whining, insecurity approaching...

What follows is a bit of a pity party... no sex, no humor, no little pearls of wisdom... just me indulging in a little storm of self doubt.  I wrote it this weekend... I actually, sort of feel better about it... or maybe I just managed to shove the crazy lady into a box for a while...

Here I am with a wonderful offer of support and friendship in my inbox.  And strangely... or perhaps not so strangely... I find myself at a loss for words.  Not that I don't appreciate the offer.  I do.  I just have doubts and shyness... I start to wonder what I have to bring to this friendship table.  I tend to be the passive person in relationships... All my life I made friends... and then lost them... I don't seem to know how to maintain this thing, to keep pedaling... injecting the necessary energy or whatever... the momentum fades and the frequency of exchanges slows and sputters... and then I realize how many people I have started out with that sort of disappeared into the great and mysterious wasteland that is the interwebs...

And, at times, I begin to wonder if it is me.  If there is some truth to my self doubts... that my social shyness, my awkwardness puts people off or even worse offends them.  The crazy lady inside my head mutters that people really don't like me.  I know she is not often truthful.  I know I should not listen to her... but she makes me doubt... and I withdraw.

Work lately has not helped a lot.  The middle manager immediately above me is unpredictable.  One day he will ignore my cheerful ‘good morning’… the next he will chide me for not saying ‘good morning’… the next his “good morning” will be surly or sarcastic.  I find myself cringing when I see him arrive in the morning. 

I do know I had inadvertently gotten involved in a nasty bit of in house politics.  Some dim bulb had actually been stupid enough to leave some nude pictures up on a student used computer… After hours, but still way inappropriate for the setting… I mean it was a fucking school.  I mentioned it to someone.  That someone told the principal.  They found out who it had been and a guy got fired.  Not my intention… but I was sort of the whistle blower… and now I am very much persona non grata among a very large clique at work.  So the sense of being excluded and ignored has gotten worse… and the crazy lady in my head may not be too far off the mark when she says… “He hates you.”

Another person who I really thought of as a friend… someone who used to email me frequently… wrote a whole book with me… helped me to edit… who actually taught me what chatting was… who was there when Master and I took our first baby steps down the rabbit hole that is M/s… and listened and advised and supported…  suddenly just stopped communicating with me.  I still talk with her Master/husband nearly weekly… but she refuses to respond to my greetings or emails… she just vanished.  He says it is not me… it is her… but all this makes me wonder… what I did or did not do.  What is wrong with me?  And again the crazy lady hisses and claws at the bars of her cage.

I know I am not social… but I get lonely.  I know I do very poorly in groups.  I have shit hearing.  If more than one person is talking at a time, I am totally lost.  If there is loud music… not only can I hear nothing at all… and it hurts my ears.  I am shy.  I am nervous.  I tend to talk too much about all the wrong things.  I tell too many stories.  I reveal too much about myself too early… and then I get embarrassed and withdraw.  I feel disconnected… like I am behind an invisible wall…  I once said… “I love people.  I just don’t like being around them.”  But that is not really true.  I am really afraid… afraid of rejection… afraid it is really me… true that people don’t like me because there is something wrong with me…

Company sent packing

First before we return to the drama at hand, it is questions month and Aisha did ask:

So - are you saying that you all literally only have sex in the shower?

And the answer to that question is... No, that would be silly.  Sometimes the hot water runs out.  In all honesty, while the sex does always start in the shower, lots of the time it ends up somewhere else... after the hot water runs out.



Now we return to the drama at hand... where were we??? Oh yes...

INTERMISSION… INTRUSSION… MASTER NOTICED MY EXPRESSION… INSTINCTIVELY SENSING MY VENTURE INTO SELF DISGUST… AND DEMANDED MY ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY… after an extended period of attitude adjustment I am allowed to finally return to this… hopefully in a somewhat better emotional space.

“What are you writing?”

I froze and stared fixedly at the screen of  my computer, blinking back tears and guilt.  I know I am wallowing… I know I am on some level exaggerating and perhaps even luxuriating in my misery.

“Um… my journal.”  My voice is soft and neutral in direct contrast to my flushed face, wet eyes and pouting lips.

He laughs at my evasive answer.

“M’ere” 

Master speak for ‘come here now’.  Generally this is an invitation and a command to climb into his lap and face him nose to nose.  It’s a place where evasiveness cannot work.  He knows it.  I know it.  But it can be a place of refuge as well and as I settle into his lap, I lean forward and hide my face into the crook of his neck.

His voice vibrates up and through me… “What are you writing in your journal?”

I press my face even more firmly into his neck and say nothing.  But he does not relent.  He just sits there waiting… and waiting… and waiting.  And finally I mumble something vaguely incoherent about yesterday and the conversation in the shower.  I finally touch upon the “smell” comment and about how when he says things like this it makes me feel dirty and makes me worry that something is wrong with me.

And I get up from his lap and get my computer and read from my journal the last passage I had written, where I confess that I have gotten obsessive about washing and wiping myself to the point of self injury.  I have trouble getting the words out and choke…

And he says it again…

“M’ere.”

And this time as I climb into his lap, he grips the front of my robe and shakes me with each word…

“I. DO. NOT. THINK. YOU. ARE. DISGUSTING. OR. DIRTY. OR. GROSS… I. LOVE. YOU.” 

Then he goes onto explain that asses are for shitting and cannot help but start to smell of shit… apparently no matter how obsessively the washing and wiping of said ass is. 

I stare back at him, listening, translating… my eyes narrowed and lips sealed.  Okayyyy… so Master thinks everybody in the world is disgusting, dirty and gross.  Somehow I do not find much solace in this fact.  I never smell shit when I am around people unless there is shit there.  (I know what shit smells like… remember I help toilet incontinent people at work on a regular basis.)  But I do know I don’t have a very sensitive sense of smell…perhaps from said toileting or perhaps just because the universe has some sense of pity. 

But none of this gives me any relief from the disturbing suspicion that I am disgusting, dirty and gross…

I mutter at him… “You don’t ever smell like shit.”  And I should know… I make a regular habit of shoving my face into his crotch. 

He laughs and answers me… “Maybe because I wipe until I bleed too.”  And for a moment we both dissolve in a fit of giggles at how bizarre this conversation is.

Part of me wonders… which of us is more crazy?  Master who smells shit that is not there or me that does not smell shit that is.

Master comments at the expression on my face and says that the crazy lady is very much in evidence… and I counter that we have not gone for a walk in over a week and it has been months since any kind of real spanking session or bondage or kink.  He argues that hasn’t been that long. 

But we did end up going for a nice long walk at the mall this morning before all the stores opened.  Master made a real point of forcing me to walk (more accurately practically run) up and down all the stairs over and over and over until I was puffing and warm and sweaty.

And the spanking and subsequent kinky forced masturbation session this afternoon was very, very good for my attitude.  But I think we will need more before the crazy lady crawls back into her cage.

Therapy…

I have been getting the ‘m’ere’ command nearly every time I stand up and walk by him.  He is monitoring my progress very carefully.  He definitely did not enjoy his little visit with the crazy lady.  She definitely ain’t no princess.

She even has a strange growly voice.  Master says he might need to perform an exorcism before my head spins around and I puke green stuff on him. 

I have been checked up upon regularly… stalked practically.  The “what are you doing” query filtering through the house each time I am out of sight. 

“Laundry, cleaning kitchen, bathroom…”  Any increasingly, rather than be asked I am volunteering, “Going down to do laundry…”  “Next I was going to do some stuff in kitchen.”  Proactively keeping him informed of my itinerary through the house, a few “If that would be okays or with your permissions” thrown in here or there. 

The leash is definitely shorter…

We've got company...

What follows is an account of a visit from the crazy lady... I wish I was still menstruating, I could use it as an excuse...  

As I return to this, reread it to see if I want to share it… it occurs to me that it sounds like this seems a bigger issue than it probably truly is.  I know it is a recurrent thing, a rut we fall into.  And when my mood is sour and wanders into the dark side, when all the glasses are half empty instead of half full, when all things are measured in terms of what they lack rather than what they have… it is then that the little things, the occasional things seem bigger, seem constant, and seem unbearable.

Looking at this now, with different vision I can see how the madness had consumed me once again.  I can see how the crazy lady had gotten out of her cage…

“Let’s take a shower.”

And the sense of predictable inevitability of my life made me sigh… a deep, long breath of sadness, frustration, suppressed rage that literally shook me.  I did not want to take a shower, did not want the same, the routine, the predictability, the mechanical… I wondered if I could just endure it or if I had to force it… to somehow, hope against hope, dredge up some kind of sexual response to this weekly Saturday morning hygiene fuck… I toy with the temptation to fake an orgasm but I have promised to stop this devious behavior.

I cannot help myself and as we stand side by side, brushing our teeth, the first step in dance that has become so entrenched that I could choreograph it… the sense of unbearable routine, the endless cycle of life, the mind numbing treadmill… that I cannot help but ask, “Does it ever feel like this is just one more thing to get through, something that must be done, like taking vitamins or brushing your teeth… something we have to do because we know it is good for us… even if it is not particularly enjoyable?”

He gives me a look, the “shit, she is starting to bitch about stuff” kind of look… and he grabs my nipple and pinches it hard, making my face squinch up and my eyes water. 

“You are being a brat.”

“I am telling you how I feel.  It feels like brushing teeth… something that must be done in order for your mouth to feel good and avoid cavities.”

Again he hurts me and says the word brat.

I get the message and stop talking.  But it is too late… he knows of the bitter brew that has filled me up.  He talks as we wash, “I want to have sex on week nights too… but it always ends up with one or both of us falling asleep… but we could take a shower on a work night too sometimes…”

And the idea of somehow just moving the same predictable dance to a Thursday or Wednesday night nearly crushes my soul and I start a kind of drunken, defeated giggling.  He gives me a sharp look and grips me again, pinching and pulling again and again the word “brat” rings in my ears. 

I blurt out, almost like the pressure on my flesh has squeezed the words out, “That is like someone saying, “I don’t like meatloaf.”  And the response being well we could try eating meatloaf somewhere else, like in the car or on the deck.”

And it is sadly true… I don’t like meatloaf… I mean shower sex.  It may have had its attraction, its moments of erotic fun once… but when it is the only thing on the menu… it is hard to work up any kind of response beyond fatigue and boredom.  There is no foreplay, unless of course you include tooth brushing or the one or two perfunctory swats one receives as one is getting in under the water… I enjoy sucking cock, but it does not arouse me sexually… and once he bends me over the position is strenuous and angled to almost systematically avoid contact with any of the “good places”.  And the water runs down into my nose and eyes and ears.  I could not come like this if I tried and I have long since stopped trying.    

He does not even let go of me now, but I am reckless, brave and foolish.  I give him a dark, challenging look, ready to lose my nipple rather than give ground on this.  I grimly assert… “I don’t like it in the shower.”

And he does this thing… says this thing he has said many times before… a gross, humiliating thing… “I am not going to fuck you without a shower, not when you smell like ass.”  He says that… makes those disgusted comments about me smelling.  I know I am not dirty… in fact, after years of those kinds of words, I think I perhaps wash my crotch and butt more obsessively than any other person.  I will scrub at myself till I bleed sometimes.  I wash myself and rub with baby wipes… every time I pee or poop.  I will wipe until there is streaks of red on the paper.  I sniff at my hands and the paper… paranoid… disgusted with myself.

INTERMISSION… INTRUSSION… MASTER NOTICED MY EXPRESSION… INSTINCTIVELY SENSING MY VENTURE INTO SELF DISGUST… AND DEMANDED MY ATTENTION IMMEDIATELY…

Crazy lady

Wednesday was like many before and likely the same as many to follow. But all the day long, I felt different inside. I was not comfortable in my submission. I have the urge to resist, to kick his ass into next week. It was not the same as the resistance that comes with wanting to make sure the limits are there, that he is strong enough to contain me. It was the genuine impulse to take him on and prove to him that he was not strong enough.

It scared me. I fought the impulse, but he could the flames leap up in my eyes, the tightening of my muscles. He saw me start to lift my hands and push them down again as I mastered the impulse. I wonder if somewhere deep inside his fight or flight reflexes were triggered. I wonder if he knew what kind of danger he was treading so close to. I wonder if he experienced the same little rushes of fear.

I don’t want the freedom… not really. But lately I am the crazy lady gnawing at the bars of my cage.

I don’t know if it was the series of ‘no’s’ that have emphasized my sense of isolation. Or the stress I have been swallowing down by the gallon at work. I know that the shock of terror I experienced when he did that sneak attack that night knocked down a lot of my carefully constructed internal walls. The crazy lady was loose, prowling through my psyche, clouding my perceptions.

I bit him that night. To give myself credit, it was not the savage, primitive, go for the throat and drink down his blood chomp that my gut was hungering for. It was just a nip, a kind of ‘look out, she has sharp teeth’ kind of a warning… playful like… but he was not having any of it.

And he is strong enough to physically dominate me. I am submissive enough to pull my punches, to not quite bite hard, to grudgingly comply even when I am sneering and baring my teeth, I will turn and submit to his punishments. But I don’t feel it. I don’t feel sorry. I don’t regret my actions. I send looks over my shoulder, clear, unequivocal looks of ‘go ahead, do your worst, you can’t really touch this, really make me give a flying fuck’.

Yet there is this other part of me, panicked, fearful, needy, weak and profoundly ashamed… I don’t want this rebellion, not really; but I can’t seem to relax, trust, enjoy. There is the irrational wish that he could do something to fix this, some external application to fix this internal disorganization. But the more he exerts his dominion, the more I resist. And I am not at all confident that in this battle anyone can win. I think everyone will lose.

Last night I choked on the word ‘Master’. He did the usual, kicked my chair and gave me the expectant look. I know I am supposed to say, ‘Yes, Master, is there anything I can do for you?” It is our first and oldest ritual. He kicked and I choked. He was shocked and hurt.

“You deliberately did that. You did that on purpose!”

But, you know I inhaled, I formed the words in my mind, I tried to say them and they got stuck in my throat. I was as shocked as he was. I tried to explain, to cry out my sadness but the words were confused and the tears would not come. I don’t know why I am feeling this way.

He ordered me to come and sit in his lap, to talk to him about this but I don’t have a clue as to what is going on for me. He asked a hundred questions, about food, about sleep, about work, about sex… he even asked if this was hormonal, some ten year late echo of menopause. And all he got was sad, defeated, ‘I don’t know’s. He asked if I needed more hugs, more mushy snuggles and attention or harsher, crueler, longer punishments and I said, “Yes”. He laughed and held me close for a long time.

And when I finished my bedtime routines and knelt at his feet, he delayed releasing me to go down to his bed, telling me to wait, looking down at me thoughtfully. Finally he reached down and tenderly gathered my hair into his fist and twisted my head back, forcing me to arch my back. The only thing that kept me from falling was my desperate grip on the front of his shirt. He leaned down and began to bite and kiss my neck, not hard, not painful and for some totally inexplicable reason it tickled. It tickled like crazy and I could not help but squirm and giggle.

He tightened his grip of my hair, pulled me even further out of balance and pushed it further, growling, scrubbing his whisker stubble against my neck, ears and chest, making motor boats, biting, tickling until I was screaming with uncontrollable laughter. He kept me like that until I was weak, my belly aching from laughing, my face wet with tears. And you know, even though I could not cry, could not find my tears… the laughter loosened some of the tension in my gut, freed some of my fears and doubts.

This morning he is extra attentive, extra watchful… his eyes sharp and gauging. He is taking my measure and I sense he is making his plans.

And today is a new day. Work has gradually been getting better, getting less stressful. Being a duck has been helpful. Now I need to focus on what I am here at home, while I am his.

Just a moody bitch

“What is up with you?”

“Nothing major, just been in a bit of a funk… just moody bitch. I am fine.”

He stares at me, his eyes narrowed. “I’ve been worried about you.”

My eyes waver… this breakfast time grilling has been getting to be a pain in the ass lately. I know I have not been in control of myself as much lately. I have been distant, loose, irritable, not particularly horny. I’ve been bucking and fighting the leash lately. Even pain has not been welcome. And last night, when he could not get much of a rise out of me… just monosyllabic mmm hmms and mmm mmms to his questions, he tried to spank me, grabbing me on the couch, lifting my legs up into my most hated position. All he got was a flash of rebellious anger. I fought him hard, resisting and he could tell from my grim angry expressions he was getting nowhere fast. I was not laughing or moaning… I was not even crying out in pain… all he was getting is snarls. He did not persist and perhaps it was a wise choice. It is fun to fantasize about being forced, being broken down, but I think I would have just lost it. He ended up letting me go and to his surprise I marched downstairs and stripped and threw myself face down on his bed.

He stood there and finally asked, “Why are you doing that?”

And I growled out between clenched teeth, “If you want to hit me, I prefer it this way… not on that fucking couch.”

He beat me for a while but then he stopped and began to rub my feet and legs, exploring for pressure points. And I almost instantly melted… we talked for a while… and it was all going good but the sadist in Master cannot resist the opportunity to strike and stir up a calm, relaxed target and just as we are about to move on to dinner he hit me… hard with the heavy leather strap, hard enough to lift me right up off the bed in shock and outrage. All the fight and anger bubbled back up to the top once more. I cry out, “Why do you have to do that? I was just starting to feel good.” He just laughed and hit me one more time to prove he could.

The rest of the evening I was still quiet, still distant, still irritable. We ended up going for a walk and I did not talk much. Master talked and talked about his work, this lock here, that fire alarm thing there… but I have to confess I did not listen that carefully. I was lost all up inside my head, wondering why I was not enjoying it so much. I do know I am not trying all that hard and I got to thinking about that, how I had written in my journal about six months ago that I had to “Master” myself… that he was not going to do it and my submission had to come from within…

Excerpted from my journal 10/09
Mastering myself… the phrase keeps coming up in my thoughts.

I remember how I had used the metaphor that the ropes I feel binding me feel too loose, that I must move carefully, even hold them trapped against my body to feel them, to keep them from slipping away. And I know this is true, that he is not sure about this and his lack of confidence stems from his fear that if he asks too much, pushes too hard, strikes too cruelly he will somehow damage it, lose it, and with it, lose this sense of ownership that he is becoming accustomed to, addicted to. I find myself reassuring him, praising his tentative assertions over me, gently encouraging him that I am not fragile, that I can bear the weight of his ownership.

So I cannot rebel, I cannot protest, I cannot indulge in even a moment of doubt. I must show only strength and determined submission. I cannot shirk a single duty, disobey a single directive. I can only show a slave’s face and a slave’s heart to my Master, a slave spirit that glories in every gesture of assertion, every nuance of control. I must Master myself.

I must create my own set of chains, bind myself to him. He is not going to “force” me. I have to shackle my own heart and lay it at his feet. He is not going to hold the key or keep me captive. I can throw off the chains at any time. He will be my owner only if I keep making the choice to be his property. And if I chose to free myself, to untangle myself from this web of my own making, I do not know if either of us could survive. We each have tasted this intoxicating thing, the exchange of power. I am not sure I could survive without it, without being owned by him.

…That was six months ago, and lately I think I need him to step up more… I am not sure exactly what I want him to do… but I want him to do something. And I sure as hell don’t feel like Mastering myself right now.

And he has been doing more, stepping into the vacuum of me pulling back, taking more control. He is more confident. He knows now that it is durable and lasting and that he cannot lose it by doing too much. And mostly I am very happy with that (and I ought to be fucking ecstatic… and perhaps I will be tomorrow or the next day), but there are these low points, moments of depression and less than stellar attitude. I mean I do it, I do obey, I do all assigned tasks promptly and thoroughly… it just does not feel fulfilling. And when I finish I don’t have this sense of accomplishment. I am busy all day and in the end I have this false sense that I have been spinning my tires all day.

In that last post there was this dumb question, “If you were a crayon what color would you be?” and I must confess saying that I would be the shit brown one… and that is so out of character for me… normally I would be the glow in the dark one with pink sparkles!!! Yay!!! Whoop-de-fucking-do!!! Like I said… shit brown.

And this morning he sat there, interrogating me about my mood. Then he said this thing that totally pissed me off. He said he was going to work on this thing he has been procrastinating about for weeks and months but because I was acting the way I was he was worried and didn't. This is a half done job that sits in the middle of our lives and rubs our noses in our short comings. It pissed me off because he has been finding excuses to avoid doing that for fucking EVAR and how DARE he use me and my temporary moody bitch thing as one more excuse. That was total bullshit. I just sat and stared at him with this horribly pained and angry screwed up forehead, narrowed eyes and squinched up lips, struggling to keep the words inside… and he said “Okay, spit it out.”

I protested that I hated that he used me for an excuse for something he has not been doing. I said it respectfully and he owned that he has been finding all kinds of excuses and but then deftly turned it back onto me, dropping the mention of the undone work and focusing on my mood, grilling me about what I was going to do today. He gave me a couple of assignments.

They were terribly onerous… go to IKEA and walk around the whole store. Oh ouch, ouch, ouch. Buy a knife sharpener, any kind. Buy him a new pillow. (I sort of melted down on that last one… they have wayyyy too many kinds of pillows and I was convinced that I would get the wrong one and get chastised. In my mood I could not even begin to conceive of being verbally berated.) Master kind of boggled and said, “Then don’t buy a pillow.” But once I calmed down I went down and looked at the labels on his old pillow and armed with more information I got a little more confident.

He told me to go to the downtown leather store… (forgets name) but once again I start to freak out… “Downtown???? I hate to drive to down town…. Please could I go to Tandy??? Please, please, please???? It is close to IKEA… I can go to both… pullleeeaaaaasssse?” And because he is controlling and not a total bastard, he said okay.

So I went to IKEA and bought both the knife sharpener and the pillow… and some more wooden hangers and a light and a pillow for me. At Tandy I got a quarter of thick black split… (suede on both sides) and some D-rings, buckles and Chicago screws. I am going to try and make bondage wrist and ankle cuffs and a play collar. (Post script… after working for a day and another trip to Tandy… it is clear I am going to have to learn how to do rivets… the Chicago screws are just too long… crap. Once I get it figured out I will post a “crafty” how make’m post.)

A handful of unfinished rattan canes and a long narrow spanking stick I had ordered off the interwebs came in the mail in the afternoon.

The kitchen table was layered up with loot when he got home. And the first thing he did was force me to my knees, pushing my face clear down to the floor. (mmm... yes Master, step right up... don't take any bullshit from the moody bitch.) And now a day or so later I am doing better... I am in a slightly better mood. At least it felt like I am accomplishing somethings. And we did manage to test out the new spanking sticks. And this time the application did wonders in helping me adjust my attitude.

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.