Bowing to The Path

Sometimes what comes along in the day to day business of slavery is annoying, irritating, frustrating, aggravating, or simply boring. The act of having taken His collar did not remove from me the impulse toward self-will that drives all those other emotional responses when I am thwarted in my own desires of the moment. He can be demanding for reasons that make no reasonable sense, in ways that drive me just wild. Sometimes, I believe He is inconsiderate and rude, simply because He can be -- purely to assert His control, and it makes me nuts. In those moments, when I most want to shriek my fury, I find it is the deepest part of my slave self that leads me to the calm of the bow... Here is where I find it necessary to remember to follow the path I've chosen, for I am slave even when Master is an unreasonable oaf... I do not need a reason to follow. I need only to follow.

swan

Migraine Monster From Hell

Beginning just before lunch yesterday, I found myself in the grip of a major migraine headache. It started softly and quietly, and I didn't pay much attention at first.

I've come to not fear these monsters as I once did. I have chemical allies that keep most of these hideous attacks at bay, and I rarely suffer a serious bout that really knocks me out. With daily doses of Topamax, probably 85-90% of all the headaches that I once had never occur at all. If I do get one, I fall back on a medication, called Amerge, that typically ends an attack in 30-45 minutes. I tend to dislike taking Amerge because it has side effects that are uncomfortable and that make it difficult for me to continue on with my regular activities (it causes me to feel freezing cold and devastatingly sleepy), but it does forestall the agony of the headache so it is a reasonable trade off if it gets right down to it.

Yesterday, however, was not within the range of my usual experience. Maybe it was the advance of a major transitional spring weather front through our region. Maybe it is the still shifting hormonal balance as my body adjusts to the new post-hysterectomy reality. Maybe it is the fact that I have been reducing the levels of my Topamax to see if I couldn't wean myself off the medication altogether now that I no longer cope with estrogen variances month to month as a migraine triggering mechanism. Who knows? Whatever was going on, my head started to hurt just before lunch. Not terribly, but noticeably. This in spite of the fact that I'd gotten up feeling really well in the morning.

So, I took some tylenol with my lunch -- hoping to forestall any advance to more serious problems, and hoping to avoid having to go to the heavy hitting migraine medicine. No dice. I got a little bit of a back off, but by 2:00 when my planning time rolled around, I knew I was in trouble. So, I gave in and took an Amerge, and went to the teachers' lounge and laid down on the couch there -- and went sound asleep. Half an hour later, when the end of the day announcements started, I was groggy, and in serious pain. Not a good sign; and not the usual pattern either. Generally, Amerge and sleep knock the headaches right out.

I stumbled through dismissal. Got the kids on their way. Put in my obligatory time after school and dragged myself to my car to try and get home. Thank goodness there was plenty of cloud cover and no bright sun to contend with. Still groggy from the drug, my drive home was both miserable and probably less than safe, but I made it. Reeling, feeling nauseous, I stumbled into the house, stripped out of my clothes and crawled into bed -- and dropped into a fitful sleep. The meeting that I was supposed to attend with Master was obviously a no go.

At 6:00, thinking that my head would explode from the pressure, I took a second dose of the medication (the maximum allowable in a 24-hour period), and unable to eat or drink anything at all, stumbled back to bed where I thrashed and flailed in a daze of blazing pain.

At 8:00, with my head still continuing to pound, and the levels of misery still escalating, I was beginning to panic. Normally, I would expect relief from the first dose of the medication, but certainly the second would have knocked the pain. This time there was not only no relief, but things were getting worse and worse. I called a substitute to take my classes and called my school principal to tell her that I would not be at school in the morning. I contemplated calling an ambulance, wondering if perhaps I was suffering something besides simply a migraine. I found an ice pack. I considered whether there was any arsenic in the house...

Eventually, Master came home from His meeting, convinced me to try some Advil (4 tablets and not the 28 that I suggested -- He reminded me that even with a headache I could still be paddled!). Sometime in the night, the weather front passed and the headache subsided, leaving me simultaneously exhausted and relieved. I curled, finally, into His chest and slept the dreamless sleep that the waning drugs leave me with. No place to go this morning was a welcome gift as I was certainly in no shape to move and groove with rooms full of adolescent and pre-adolescent youngsters first thing. The fuzziness is slowly subsiding and I am finding myself, glad to be alive.

How devastating though, to find oneself leveled so suddenly by forces unseen and so nebulous as the approaching weather. Even as I struggle to regain my health and vitality, to return to the routines that give shape and joy to our lives and our relating, it is daunting and scary to know that the vagaries of the weather can knock me out from afar and keep me muddled and mewling in my bed for hours and days, and that not all the medical science at my disposal can save me or keep me upright. Damn and double damn!

Ah well, back to it. Keep on working at it. Keep on trying. Human it would seem. The fictions that they write about the lifestyle never seem to take into account all these wicked frailties that beset us. And no wonder. Little romance in the puking realities of migraines, in the stark nakedness of post-surgical scars, in the dim, grimmness of weak humans struggling up from sick beds to simply make it through the next hour or the next day. How much more attractive the ever virile, ever lovely heroes and heroines of the lusty porn industry. Too bad we can't live in that world forever...

swan

Remembering in Springtime...

It was just about four years ago that I got on a plane from Denver to Cincinnati to spend a week with Master and T. It was spring break for me, and it was approximately three months before my eventual relocation to Cincinnati to live. Until that time, we'd visited for the occasional weekend now and then, but we'd never had extended time to spend together. Too, this trip, I was traveling alone, without my husband. Our spring vacations from our different teaching assignments did not match, and so he was not able to travel with me -- I was on my own.

To say that I was excited and anticipating the time would be a vast understatement. Master and I had gotten into spending long stretches of time on the phone in the late evenings by this time, and the agony of being apart was growing with each passing day. A whole week together seemed an unimaginable luxury.

I know it might seem odd, but I was a terrible innocent as I stepped on that plane. I had no real sense of what it was that I was flying into. I knew the hunger that had grown between us across the miles that separated us. I knew that we would surely indulge in the kind of SM play that, until now, we'd only talked about. I knew that we'd discussed the possibility of a switching, although I surely was not at all certain about the reality of that as an actual fact. I had no inkling at all, at that juncture, of the depth to which He and I would eventually go with that aspect of our relating. I only knew that He quite naturally answered something in me that had long sought a response. And, if I was naive from the SM side of things, I was even more so from the sexual side of things. We'd had so little chance, before this to experiment, to connect, to actually find our way together as a couple sexually. I wondered what we would come to be with one another, given time to explore that part of our relationship. Then, too, I had no idea how all of that would work out between the three of us. We'd talked about the idea of polyamory. We'd agreed to that as path. As a concept, it made sense, but it was all new. Actually doing it, however, was a little daunting. How exactly was I going to walk into the home of my dear friends, and my deepest loves, and simply be as I hoped I would be -- loving but not getting stuck in the patterns of thinking and feeling that I'd been taught all my life. I was breathless, scared, and amazed with the vistas that were open before me... It was a very long plane ride.

That week became, for us, a honeymoon of sorts. Thanks to the wonderful giving heart of T, Master and I loved the week away, played voraciously, walked and talked and explored like the starving lovers that we were. I cooked in T's kitchen each evening, we took lunches to her each day at work, she and I shopped for goodies that I could take back to my kids at school, and about Wednesday, He and I started to mourn the approach of the end of the week. It was an amazing, sensual, hot, fabulous whirl. It laid groundwork for our eventual coming together. It gave us some patterning for our future. It gave us much needed sustenance for the three months that were yet ahead of us before we could truly come together to live as family. It remains as treasured memory of a shining time that will forever be held as a precious beginning. Whenever we get to feeling tired, stressed, pressed to the limit, and bored with the realities of our sometimes oh-so-daily feeling routines, we pull out the remembrance of that fleeting week when we came together for the first time as lovers and dwelt magically together in a gossamer web of innocence and wonderment and pure joyful abandonment.

swan

Sugasm #27

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Sadist Taking What is His

He began with His hand, spanking hard, pausing occasionally to stroke the curves as if remembering; reminding Himself of what was His. Rolled into His chest, I held on, clinging to the one solid reality in my universe; focusing on His presence, His warmth, His rhythms -- trying to ride the waves that He was unleashing on me.

Hand spanking doesn't usually last. For us, it is usually a brief passage, but this morning it went on and on, stroking fire into my flesh; setting the stage and evoking the mood.

With time, I reached the point of quivering anticipation and He left me. Seeking. I waited. He returned with cuffs and straps to bind me into place under His power and for His desire.

Restrained and positioned, I learned my fate: leather tawse, paddle, whip...

His pleasure. One hundred strokes with each implement -- broken into sets of twenty-five.

The tawse first; heavy and sharp. Double thicknesses of heavy hide, measuring an inch and a half in width, and split at the end. Eliciting gasps along with the first welts and blood. "I love you, Sir. I love you, Sir. I love you, Sir!" My mantra as the blows fell everywhere. Before this, the bleeding would have brought things to a halt, but He went and found the box of bandaids and patched the wounds and went right on. Twenty-five, and twenty-five, and twenty-five, and twenty-five again.

A short respite as my breathing slowed a bit, and then He brought out a large, heavy wooden, sport paddle. The burn of wood combined with the pounding impact of weight, and a size that leaves no escape. The first twenty-five strokes were like being beaten with a board. Gasps turned to shrieks and then to sobs and begging. More bandaids as the blood began to splash and splatter. For the second set, He switched to the Jokari paddle; just as heavy, but slightly smaller in terms of area. Did He alternate between the two? I don't remember. The paddling left deep bruises across my ass and thighs.

Two hundred strokes into our session, it was time for His whips. Two of them: One is constructed of a supple leather with a soft suede tip. It stings when it lands and raises lurid wedge shaped welts with every strike. The other is a five-foot, 24-plait singletail whip, given Him as a birthday gift two years ago. Its cracker burns like liquid fire, leaving bright red lines wherever it lands. Beginning with the rubber whip, He alternated sets of twenty-five strokes as my body jerked, and the breath tore from my lungs. The pain was simply layered too richly for me to sort or comprehend by that time...

And then it was over. I'd come through it all. He released my bonds. Lifted my sore and bruised body onto His and let me love Him. Secure and reassured, it was a good morning, a good day, a good night...

The masochist needs the sadist to take what can only be offered. It is a duality that cannot be realized in the singular.

swan

Someones to care for me

In 51 years of living, I've never had anyone take care of me, like Master and T do. I have always had to do the taking care of. It is my natural instinct and first move and absolute assumption.

These last few months have been hard. Between feeling crappy and facing the loss of my job (and potentially my career) as my school closes, I've been an absolute mess. And I am not good at asking for or accepting help or support. I simply go inside and try and tough it out. It is the pattern of a lifetime. I don't expect that anyone will be there, and so I don't look for it. Still.

Then... A new teaching position appeared. Wonderfully. A really good one. That is a much better match for my talents and style and personality. There have been some issues in terms of salary, but we've figured we could work with it. I have wanted this spot so much, but the negotiations have been sort of tricky. Master has been right there -- coaching and advising and cheering. And T has been pulling for me and rooting for me and waiting with baited breath for the final word. I have never, ever had anyone to care for me like this.

Today, I have accepted the new position. I am thrilled. We are thrilled. It is good. And I am in tears for how well cared for I have been through the entire ordeal.

swan

You are Better than Me

There are parts of my life about which I am utterly secure and supremely confident. In my classroom, I am completely comfortable, relaxed, and at ease. I understand the dynamics, and I am certain of my skills. I believe, absolutely, that I can and will be able to handle what is required of me in that environment.

Likewise, I have great faith in my ability to "read" people and interpret situations. I've got great radar and real skill at figuring out what motivates people to act the way they do most of the time. I may be quiet in most social settings, but I am seldom at a loss for understanding what is going on around me. Most often (if I have my druthers in a social environment), you'll find me quietly observing the swirl from the edge. I like it like that.

I've lived more than a few years. Made tough choices -- not all of them wise. Taken some bumps. Had my share of disasters and disappointments. Like most women of "a certain age" I've earned my gray hairs and my battle scars. I'm not some flighty, flirty, delicate youngster with an unformed ego that can't take a blow without crumpling.

But, damn, I'm not unshakeable. I am a masochist and I am a slave. Those are not simply labels. The words describe a level of personal self-knowing and self-acceptance that has not come easily. Embracing that self was not a smooth or simple process from the beginning, and living with the truth of that reality is not always straightforward for me. I wish it were.

I think Poiesia captures some of what goes on for me. There is great freedom, great affirmation, great liberation, and great power in finally knowing and owning this part of who I am; in recognizing it, in making the life choices that bring it to fruition in my world. All of that is good and positive and valuable, and I do not regret any of the choices that have brought me to this place -- would not change any of it.

But it is not always easy. Or even often easy. And, because we are not blessed with a vibrant or active local lifestyle community, except for the "voices" that pour forth from the words that appear on the computer screen, I live that choice without others to model it, to share it, to compare notes with, to simply lean on in the moments when I falter or doubt or am afraid. Our family lives in nearly total isolation as far as our orientation is concerned. There are some "kinky" folks in our area, but they are mostly not available to us for a variety of reasons.

That's hard. One of the great advantages to community is the ability to learn and share and support -- up close and personal. But honestly, there are days (when I am feeling wobbly and less than sure of myself), when I know -- KNOW for an absolute, incontrovertible fact that every single one of the masochists that writes in this medium, and every slave is better at this whole business than I am.

There is no logic to that. It is the game that I run down on myself in my own head. When I'm feeling sane and centered, I understand that. I know this is not a contest, and that I only need to please the One I serve. I realize that comparisons based on imaginings are silly and foolish and the stuff that makes for craziness, but I seem bent on a crazy path these days.

So, I convince myself that I am just no good. Not what is wanted or needed. That there are lots and lots of willing and able others just waiting in the wings to take my place. And then I tell myself that since I am no good, that is what should happen after all. It is a spiral that leads ever downward.

No one does this to me. It is the darkness of late winter and the cumulative effect of too much time spent alone with my own thoughts. Perhaps it is partly hormonal. I cannot tell. All I know is that I seem inclined to take bits and pieces of this and that, and string it together in an emotional stew that just gets wilder and wilder until it finally boils over into some terrible mess.

Perhaps, as He assures me, it will get better as I continue to heal and get stronger and we can return to our once customary patterns. Perhaps then I will feel assured that I am not "losing" my orientation to all of this and somehow reneging on a promise made. In the meantime, just know that you quite often appear "better than me."

swan