Voice

We've been very consistent with our "walking regimen." It is really good for us physically and emotionally. We've gradually worked our way up to walking 4-1/4 miles a day. As it has gotten warmer and warmer this summer, we've taken to waiting until the sun goes down and walking in the twilight and into the darkness. The challenge is that there are some places along our route that are purely dark.


So, I went digging and found the headlamps that I bought about five years ago when Master and I travelled west and spent some time at Valley View Hot Springs. I don't think we ever used them on that trip, and they've sat on a shelf in the garage for years. They aren't very "sexy," and the technology is way out of date, but they do the job. Or at least, they did the job, until we dropped one on the pavement and broke it . Shortly after we broke that one, we also had the second one die due to battery issues, and so we finished the last lap in the dark. It was a little iffy but not awful. Of course, He had His eye on new ones, for sale in the Smoky Mountain Knife Works catalog for only $9.99, and He told me to order those. T wanted one too, so the next day, I went ahead and ordered three. They'll be here in a couple of days. In the meantime, we are down to only one lamp.



So, last night when we got ready to go walking, He asked me it I was going to go get the headlamp. I told Him I thought we'd done OK without it, and so maybe not. He looked at me and said, "Well if we don't need them, why did you order new ones?"

I was just a little flabbergasted. "Because You told me to," I replied. "Somehow, 'No Sir, I don't think we need any lamps' just didn't seem like the correct response. It never even occured to me to try to put that statement together in my head, let alone say it out loud."

It is the kind of story that revolves around a very sort of commonplace event in the course of our lives, but it got me thinking about what I do and don't say, and how. I remember, very clearly, in the early years of our relationship, that He and I would have periodic episodes that would end up with us furious with one another. Sometimes, in the heat of one of those confrontations, He'd leave. On other occasions, I'd take off in a blind rage/panic; usually walking just as fast as I could go; without any destination in mind; simply intent on getting away. It would seem reasonable to guess that such volcanic battles would be ABOUT something, but it was almost always the case that I'd say some relatively inconsequential thing that wasn't carefully phrased, or that just sounded wrong in His ears, and we'd be off to the races.

Eventually, I learned the "voice" that pleased Him; the sound that made things go smoothly. It really was a matter of trial and error; and careful observation. Learning, as I went along, what worked and what didn't.

There is a subset of the BDSM community where people focus on voice and speech patterns. There are all kinds of protocols for teaching a slave to speak in particular patterns and tones; in ways that are pleasing to the Dominant partner; and that serve to create a mindfulness. We've never engaged in that sort of formal practice, and yet it is the clear fact that, after so many years, there are ways of thinking and speaking that are simply not part of my repertoire with Master. We obviously did it without actually DOING it.

swan