storm

She feels his displeasure like the ozone following a thunderstorm, unseen waves traveling across the city to her heart, pounding against her again and again. She doesn’t understand it, but she knows it’s there, she feels it and tastes it and smells it all around her. IM’s go unanswered. Her heart-sister has left. Slaves come and they go, they are only slaves, after all! Yet this is so much more than roleplay. Or is it? It that all that she is, in the end? A player, an actress with ridiculous expectations? Can she give so much, sacrifice so much, only to be rendered meaningless in the blink of an eye? The risk is far too great.

Her heart aches with confusion and fear. He is unhappy with her for neglecting her blog, yet what can she write? Her feelings do not always translate to words. Her thoughts come as pictures, colors, impressions and intuition. Communication is important, he says, and she knows this is true. Even so, sometimes she just -can’t-.

The accusing voice in her head nags, “Will you still be a slave when you are truly treated like a slave, a mere possession that doesn’t matter, an occasional amusement that is readily replaced? Can you fight the fear and sadness and even anger, lay them at his feet and submit to his will, even if that means being kicked away?” But she knows that it’s not about “being a slave.” It’s not about options. She knows there is no hope. It’s in her blood and bones. It’s not what she does, it’s what she is.

How does that quote go again? Something about never making someone a priority when you will never be more than an option to them? A slave cannot listen to things like that and expect to remain sane.

And so the storm rages on.

 

Spinning my wheels

There’s a lot of stress right now in my RL, both at work and at home. When I finally get some time to myself at the end of the day I don’t feel much like being social. I don’t go into SL much these days, although I try to catch up on the weekends. I’m trying to get more efficient at work so I don’t have to bring so much of it home with me, which should lessen the stress there. There’s not much within my control on the home front, which has always made SL an important escape for me. It’s so much more than a game. It’s people and places that mean a lot to me, it’s my recreation and my socialization, it’s one of the very few places where I can just be myself. So anyway,  Salernum is busy with preparation for the Reap festival. My Master is busy with, well, everything. There’s nothing really happening as far as M/s for me right now, and since I’m not feeling social enough to roleplay much there’s just not much reason for me to go in. I lose myself in old games, where I shoot orcs and bite  people and yes, even blow stuff up. Could somebody please pass me the Prozac?

 

Call me shallow

Sex is important to me. It’s an important part of who I am as a woman and who I am as a slave. It’s an integral part of Gorean slavery, itself. It’s important to me in real life, and it’s important to me in on-line relationships.

There, I said it.

With regards to the various forms of cyber sex, both men and women have said things to me like, “oh, I can take it or leave it,” “it’s not a big thing for me,” “it doesn’t really matter,” etc., etc.  I end up feeling like I should apologize for wanting it, craving it, needing it. For being a real slut with a very real fire in her belly. Or maybe I should be ashamed or embarrassed or something.  I dunno.  The truth is, it’s something I revel in. I just don’t feel the least bit bad about that at all.

It’s great fun when it’s roleplay, a battle of wits and words, purely IC and nothing more. It can be mind-blowing with someone you care for a great deal. It can be an out-of-body experience, or a  devastating encounter, or at it’s worst, actually boring. It’s a way to play, a way to laugh, a way to experience that power exchange, a way to share deeply intimate aspects of yourself, a way to love and feel loved. It can even be a way to express anger, or to share sorrow, to apologize, or to comfort. It can mean nothing at all. It can be profound. It can strip away the facade that protects our emotions, leaving us vulnerable and exposed. For me, those possibilities exist both in real life and in SL, or anywhere else in cyberspace. Sex is physical, yes, obviously, but it’s also in the brain. It’s about words, creativity, imagination. It’s about taking the time to create that experience for someone else, even when it’s just the short “has her swiftly” sort of post that makes me laugh. It’s about knowing that someone else is taking the time to create that experience for you. It’s knowing that for that brief (or not so brief!) amount of time, your partner has found you worthy of their undivided attention. Within the M/s relationship it makes me feel more tightly bound to my Master, more dependent upon him, more completely and utterly owned. He alone controls when or if he will use me, or allow anyone else to use me, or deny me altogether, at his whim. It’s a privilege, never a right. I can hope for it and beg for it, but I dare not ever expect it. If he does use me I feel beautiful, desirable, wanted and cared for, sometimes even loved….all of which, I know, are foolish things to imagine.  I know very well that to him it can mean nothing more than just a way to pass the time.

Yes of course there are many other ways to express and experience all of these things. I know that, for many people, sex in any form other than real life is ridiculous at best, and disgusting at worst. I get that, I really do. 

It’s just really important to me.

 

 ”I would spread the cloths under your feet: But I, being poor, have only my dreams; I have spread my dreams under your feet, Tread softly because you tread on my dreams” 

 -William Butler Yeats

 

tempest

I’ve been riding a wave emotionally these past couple of weeks, as I near the 6-month mark in his collar. Fighting my fear by withdrawing, sometimes consciously, mostly without even realizing I’m doing it. I’ve been hesitant to get involved in the city, to take the risk of growing attached to a place again, to this place. Salernum is all wrapped up with who he is. Loving him, loving this place, loving this steel I wear around my neck, it’s all rolled together. I never wanted to feel these things again. Oh wait, that’s not true, I wanted to feel them, but now that it’s come I’ve panicked.

I’ve realized that even though I was a slave before I came to my Master, I’ve still had to give up a great deal to be his slave. I may not have given up freedom in Gorean society, but there are a lot of other sorts of freedoms, dreams, and possibilities that I’ve laid at his feet and then scared, tried to snatch back from him. At the same time I’ve been given freedoms I’m unaccustomed to, and have not known quite what to do with myself. 

I’ve finally finally come to understand that I have to give up all of my preconceptions. My smug self-knowledge,  my beliefs re: what a good slave is, my opinions re: what a good Master for me should be like, the many forms love can take, the many forms M/s relationships can take. I’ve had to learn to really believe that it’s not okay to judge myself as pleasing or not pleasing, because only he can make that decision (still working on this one). That it’s not okay for me to punish myself, or continue to punish myself, if I don’t feel that he’s punished me enough for my short-comings (still working on this one, too). I’ve had to deal with the idea that what I perceive as short-comings might not be so awful in his eyes, and perhaps other aspects of my attitude  *do* need some adjustment. I’ve had to figure out what to do with this huge anger and fear inside me that’s been eating me alive. As always, when things get uncomfortable I tear myself apart.

And the anger! Anger is such an uncomfortable emotion for me! I am ashamed to feel it and I don’t know what to do with it. Since I’m no longer able to get away with turning it in on myself most of the time, I haven’t quite figured out what to do with those bad feelings. I’ve wanted  to act out sexually, hunting men and knocking them down and gobbling them up without whispering a word. I’ve actually been doing stupid little bratty things, things I have never done before, just to see if he would notice and see how angry I was. Then I beat myself up for acting so ridiculously, to somehow atone for that anger, atone for being such an emotional mess. If he won’t punish me for being a stupid angry fool, then I’ll just have to do it myself, and that will get rid of all the bad feelings, right?

Well….not so much.

I thought hard about running. Really hard. It felt like I was close to the point of having to make some serious decisions about staying or going. Then he called me on it, on my anger and the distance I was putting between us and all the rest of it. Not angrily, not with some huge punishment, but simply by laying the cards on the table. I crumbled, broke down and told him everything, all the ugly thoughts and feelings that have been running around inside my head and all the fear. Ugh, that was so hard and humiliating. He said that I had a choice to make between continuing to be furious and miserable, or letting him help me.  I couldn’t really imagine exactly how he could help me, but I closed my eyes and tried hard to just trust and I begged. I bellied at his feet and I begged him for help. 

Then somehow over the next few days, and I can’t quite verbalize exactly how, I began to feel better. Safer. Happier. I was able to play in the city instead of trailing around at his feet, and truly have fun. It was something in how he spoke to me, not the words exactly, but his manner. Something in his attitude, which was as firm as ever, yet very reassuring to me. I think that for the first time I was able to get a glimpse of my true value to him, something whose existence I had doubted. I am beginning to feel some joy in my collar again. It was such a relief to have taken the risk of telling him all of it, no matter the consequences, and his calm, incredibly patient  acceptance of all my turmoil. He could have just smacked me down, taken his collar off my neck and walked away from me. Many men would have, with good reason. But he didn’t. I’m still there at his feet, still locked in his steel.

It’s funny, but sometimes haven been given the opportunity to make a decision, to really look at your options and choose with full knowledge the course that’s best for you, can bring a great sense of peace. Even if you choose the path that you were already on. I feel myself moving from a sense of being trapped and scared to one of being free…free in my collar.  

I am still full of a jumble of intense feelings, things that are difficult to put to words, but now they are far more peaceful and bright and promising. Today I started sketching out some ideas for a new altered art project. Paper and paint, texture and color are great ways to express those wordless feelings and to celebrate joy.