Margins and Discipline

This entry was written in bits throughout the week and as such, some of it no longer reflects my current feelings. But I got in trouble for not posting, so here it is:

Preface (written June 8th, the day after I saw master)

I sat on the porch swing this morning and rocked back and forth untl I was nauseous from the motion and the heat. My best friend came out with two glasses of cheap, fruity wine. We didn’t talk but she took the seat next to me and we swayed as the chilled wine moistened our lips, the sun lightened our hair and the wind touched the hems of our dresses and made them flit around our knees. Youth is so beautiful; the very idea of it slipping away makes me want to mourn it with the same fervor as if it had already passed. It’s narcissistic and selfish but I can’t help but love it, even to the point where I am missing it preemptively. I’m at this wonderful stage of my life, where I’m free to try anything that I want and I don’t have any major social obligations to tie me down.

It is this very reasoning that makes me paradoxically torn about this whole business of a D/s relationship. It’s something I’ve always wanted to try and now I have my chance to live it. However, I am terrified that it is something that will tie me down. Literally and figuratively.

I feel awful writing this because it is by no means a reflection of how I feel towards Master himself. In so little time, I care about him deeply. However, having never been in any relationship before, I have no frame of reference; I’m not sure where vanilla expectations end and where D/s expectations begin. In watching vanilla relationships, I can clearly see that power dynamics exist—and have to exist, in order to achieve balance—but the exchanges are just subtle, unspoken, and in some cases, shifting. This observation forces me to wonder if simply taking on a more submissive role in a vanilla relationship would satisfy me and if I could just be happy with bedroom-submission instead of lifestyle-submission. It’s impossible to know, without more exploration, if the submissive me is the real me, or a phase of me that I have to temporarily unleash before I can understand who I really am.

In the present moment, however, I am happy. I am excited. I enjoy the time I spend with Master and miss him greatly when we are apart. I just feel anxious and guilty because in some ways, I feel like I am taking advantage of Master’s kindness and patience, as I explore and discover where I belong on the spectrum. It seems grotesquely unfair that he has to deal with my uncertainty. He has been already been so good to me; so tolerant and understanding—that beyond my anxiety about getting emotionally hurt—I’m also terrified that I’m going to hurt and disappoint him.

Portions for Foxes (written over the week)

I wasn’t in a very submissive mind frame when on Thursday night, I made the trip to see Master. One of his rules was not to wear pants in his presence and I thought about this as I made my way to the bus station, wearing the leggings and long tunic I had been wearing the whole day. In my eyes it was impractical to wear a skirt on a three and a half hour bus ride and the idea of wearing a dress while travelling alone at night didn’t sit well with me. However, out of respect for his rules, I could have at least asked him for permission to wear leggings. But I didn’t. I was worried that I would displease him, but at the end of it, I didn’t want to ask for permission only to be denied. I’m sure he noticed but didn’t say anything. My thoughts are so muddled up sometimes: I want to be dominated but I don’t want to surrender little freedoms. I’ve resisted authority my entire life, I’ve been raised with so much freedom and the opportunity to make unquestioned decisions, that despite my yearning to submit to someone, I sometimes can’t even bear the idea of the shift from fantasy to reality.

The next day with master was full of slip-ups. I wasn’t trying to be bratty but I wasn’t going out of my way to be a good sub either. Don’t get me wrong, I really wanted to see Master. I mean, I changed around my schedule to see him; I missed my friend’s engagement party so I could spend Thursday night with him, even though I knew he’d likely want to get to bed early. He didn’t tell me to—I just did so I could be with him for one night more. So yes, I wanted to see him but I couldn’t get into a steady submissive frame of mind. As such, on Friday I kept speaking out of line and not really thinking of or being aware of my place. Nonetheless, Master was very patient, and kept pointing out my slip-ups and absentmindedness without punishing me.

I was grateful for this leniency. Usually gratitude pushes me to be a better person. Instead, I continued to be dazed and just lack awareness in what was going on. At previous meals, Master has given me permission to eat and drink freely and I guess I never really understood what the implications of what it meant to not be given that freedom. On Friday night, Master did not give me that permission but I kept absentmindedly taking sips from my drink. He had to tell me multiple times to stop and wait until I was given permission.

I wasn’t trying to purposely piss him off, but sometimes in life, it doesn’t matter if you aren’t trying to be rude or malicious, sometimes not doing your best—not even trying—is malicious. So Master got upset with me and told me to leave the restaurant and approach three people on the street and tell them that Master says I’ve been a very bad girl. I was mortified. Absolutely mortified. I sat there and looked at him in disbelief and gave him what he calls my puppy-dog eyes. He told me to leave.

I eventually did. For awhile, I wandered up and down the crowded streets. I hadn’t even done anything crazy yet but people on patios were looking at me, probably because of my all too apparent look of distress. I’m not very good at hiding my expressions. It took me awhile before I finally mustered up some courage to complete my task. A man in his 30s walked by. He was walking briskly, like he had somewhere to go, so I chose him. He didn’t even stop as I approached him, and as he walked by I muttered my line very quickly to him. I thought for a minute he didn’t hear, but he turned back to look at me in confusion. Living in big cities, you always get the occasional crazy who wanders up to you and says random things that make you feel very uncomfortable. It was humiliating being one of those crazies. Here I was—attractive, reasonably dressed, seemingly normal—making nice, vanilla folk uncomfortable on the street.

I was not looking forward to doing this again. The next man I chose was probably in his 50s, slightly balding. He didn’t look particularly friendly, but a lot of the people walking were part of groups or couples and I really didn’t want to draw the kind of attention. He was sort of meandering so I couldn’t just spit my line out quickly. He paused in his walk to listen to me and sort of opened his much as if to say something. Then he just sort of shook his head and continued to walk on. I didn’t watch him. I’m sure he glanced back a few times, but I really didn’t want to see his expression.

I waited, looking for another potential but no one came along and I had had enough, so I went back inside and told Master what I had done. He was not impressed that I hadn’t managed to do three and sent me back out again, much to my dismay. You’d be surprised at how few single men are wandering around on Friday evening because it took awhile for anyone to come by.

Finally two young guys came by, probably high school seniors or college kids. I went up to them and delivered my line. One of them laughed. The other asked if I needed a spanking. I freaked out and said ‘no’. They seemed confused as to whether I was trying to flirt or if I was just an unbalanced random. I quickly said, ‘Umm, that’s all.’ and started walking in the opposite direction they were coming from. Unfortunately, the restaurant that Master was waiting for me at was in the direction they were walking, so I had to wait a few minutes before I could turn around and rush back to the restaurant, trying to hide amongst other people so they wouldn’t turn around and think I was following them.

Maybe it was exacerbated by my paranoia, but people in the patios lining the street were definitely looking at me. Understandably, I guess. I mean I was pacing up and down the side-walk, looking ever so hesitant and picking on random men to talk to. Maybe if I hadn’t looked so horrified I wouldn’t have drawn attention but I really couldn’t help it. I went back to find Master and he didn’t seem pleased or forgiving, although I had completed my task.

He told me that the next time I just disregarded his rules he would put a sign on me and put me out on a street corner. I didn’t have anything to say. Even if I did, I would have kept my mouth shut. I felt terrible. Not only because of the embarrassment but just because he was so displeased with me. I’m mostly sensible and kind and try to resolve trouble instead of making it, so I was angry at myself. Then I got angry for being angry at myself. In my head, I suddenly asked myself what I was doing…why was I even upset for upsetting this man? Why did it even matter? I couldn’t really understand or justify it, but in the end it did matter to me.

Even though he held my hand as we walked through the streets, I felt ashamed of myself for displeasing him. On the walk back to the car, I started to tear up. It’s just who I am: constantly emotional. I'm one of those people who everyone goes to for all their problems and I'm in a career where it's easy to get emotionally involved. As such, because I'm always putting up emoitonal barriers, I find that when I don't have to think about putting up a front, like with Master, I'm excessively emotional.

He told me that he wasn’t angry, just disappointed and told me to stop worrying, my punishment was over, and that he hoped I had learned my lesson. However, to me, disappointment is far worse than anger. At least when someone is angry, you see the emotion and when this emotion is spent, a new calmness emerges. With disappointment, even when the upset parties claim to be appeased, disappointment tends to colour the way they interact with you and subsequently treat you. Anger tends to peak and resolve. Disappointment lingers.

It did linger. Although my punishment was over, Master did continue to tell me on the car-ride home how upset he was, and how he had just wanted to slap me in front of all those people. He played with me a little and it felt so dirty because I didn’t deserve that—the comfort of his fingers in me, juxtaposed with his disapproval and my shame, made me feel sick.

As we approached his place, he told me to do something to show that I was sorry and to prove my submission to him. I couldn’t think of anything and it’s because I didn’t know what kinds of things he meant. I thought he wanted some huge and elaborate gesture and I couldn’t formulate a grandiose plan in my head. I asked him to explain what he meant. He told me that I could kiss his hand, or put my head on his shoulder. I felt very overwhelmed in that moment. Such little gestures were all that he desired to show my submission to him. Sometimes, I build it all up in my head and get scared by how exacting and dominating he might turn out to be, and I get very upset and scared and think I can’t handle any of it, but instead, he always turns out to be firm but fair.

After we got back, Master put my collar and cuffs on sent me to the corner store to fetch something. I was initially rather self conscious, especially since the store was surprisingly busy and there was a line. However, I ended up conversing with the woman ahead of me in line. It was more awkward to try to hide my cuffs, so I didn’t. At most, she glanced at them but had a normal conversation with me. I think that in being unabashed, I definitely created less reason for her mind to wander than if I had seemed distressed or embarrassed.

When I got back to Master’s place, I stripped naked and he put me in bondage. He blindfolded me, tied my feet together and bound my hands behind my back before dragging me to the bed and laying me on my stomach. He then tied my arms together above my elbows, and my thighs together and then joined my wrist bindings to the bindings around my ankles, so that my legs were up in the air. I had to push back my shoulder blades to alleviate the tension of the rope around my upper arms. He left me like this for some time. Time stops having meaning when you don’t even have a timeframe to expect. If someone tells you they’ll be back in 10 minutes, your internal clock turns on its timer. When you are given nothing to work with, minutes and hours no longer matter. You start waiting for an indefinite event, an inconceivable endpoint. Chronology is lost.

When I next felt his touch, it was so cold it made me shiver. He rolled the ice in his hand down my back, across the cheeks of my bum, between them, around my rectum and left it in the crack to melt. He rolled another cube down my back, between my shoulder blades, down my spine. Another across the insides of my thigh, around the lips of my cunt, along the clitoris, into my vagina—as I moaned and squealed from the cold—and he let it melt inside of me. More ice came; he rolled me onto my side and traced the cubes along my breasts and stomach, until I was trembling, along my genitals again, until they were cold and tingling. Sliding the ice along the outer curves, until he was ready to, with a swift and unexpected motion, push the pieces into my cunt, so that my own wetness could mingle with the melting ice.

The Morning After

In the morning, Master and I cuddled and kissed. He pulled me onto his lap and spanked me until my bum was flushed and tender. He had bitten and marked one of my ass cheeks the day before, and it was still bruised and sore. He has a way of moving me around, where he holds on between my legs and lifts, and turns, and manipulates me, and my stomach surges with excitement in feeling so powerless and tiny.

After he had played we me again, he led me to the bathroom. I was very nervous because in previous days, he had talked at length about bad experiences with cold pools, and had smirked at me when he told me how terrible it was to just get dunked repeatedly into cold water. I had gone to bed, wearing only my wristcuffs and a chain-collar and so this was all I was wearing when I was led to the shower.

He gestured for me to get into the bathtub and snapped once, so that I was kneeling. I braced myself as I waited in horror, for the torrent of freezing water to assault me. However, the water that covered my face and breasts was warm. He undressed and got in the shower too, and he began to bathe me. His hands were so tender as they ran over my breasts, my back, my stomach and thighs, lathering me before the stream of water hit me. He ran his hands gently through my hair, massaging my scalp before moving the nozzle over my head and holding me as the water poured over my head and rolled along my skin. I hate how I look right after a shower; all red and wrinkly, dishevelled and non-presentable. As I mentioned earlier, I'm vain and proud and like to have my space to get ready and make myself look nice before I go out in public. I try not to take showers when people are around, so that I don't have to deal with the awkwardness of seeing someone in the hallway as I go to my room. So, obviously, bathing with master made me feel pretty vulnerable. However, to be cared for by him, even in this state, makes me feel very special and very grateful to him.

After my wash, it was my turn to bathe him. He snapped once, and I knelt in the bathtub. He turned his back to me and I lathered his legs, his ass, his back. He has a wonderful body but I’m not sure when I’m allowed to touch him. When he's cuddling me in bed, it seems that I am often given liberty with my hands and allowed to explore and touch him. However, sometimes when he's playing with me and I try to hold him, he tells me that he is holding me and that I'm not to hold him. However, there have been no explicit rules about when I am and not allowed to do it, which has--I suspect, intentionally--created uncertainty on my part about how I am allowed to act and react. As such, I relish the moments where I know that I am allowed to touch him and explore his body. After I was done with his back, he turned around, and I lathered his stomach, and chest, and penis before he stepped into the water and let it wash all the soap away.

After he had rinsed, he started filling the tub. He sat down and motioned for me to sit in front of him. We sat in the warm water as he held me, fondled me, and splashed me. It was comforting, just to sit there, between his legs, with his arms around me.

Finally, he told me to drain the water, and after I stood up, he dried me off and dried himself off. He calls me his doll, and I certainly feel like it. I feel like a beloved little doll. When I was little it was my favourite dolls that I would toss around and play with heavily. The same dolls that would get into adventures that got them battered and made their stuffing spill out with wear, were the same lucky dolls that went everywhere with me, had their hair brushed, slept in my bed and were best loved. I feel like one of those dolls right now, and it makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

We didn’t do too much for the rest of the day after our shower. We just hung around and talked. We made sandwiches and master put my plate on the floor as he played on the computer. I didn't touch any of the food this time without his permission and probably won't for a very long time.