the experience of strangers, 6: the beginnings of obedience

He is teaching me how to skim the pool.

Interestingly, I’ve never lived in a house with a pool, never had the experience of maintaining and cleaning one. It’s not a complicated task, though a bit strenuous, involving a net attached to a telescoping pole. Extending the pole across to the middle takes some strength, and doing the whole pool is a bit of a workout.

But the real challenge is in how Master Z keeps me while doing it — I am still wearing my cream linen business suit, without a blouse.

Thankfully he has set out a pair of white boat shoe loafers at the edge of the patio for me to slip into, so I’m not dangerously navigating the pool edges in high heels. The boat shoes are men’s and a size too big, but for now they’ll do.

Of course, as I stretch the net over the water, I have to lean over. As I do, my breasts promptly bound out from the panels of my suit jacket like melons rolling off the fruit stand. I skim the surface, straighten up, pulling my jacket lapel panels to cover me again, inadequately, as it is still loose and open. I skim another patch of water, leaning over, and once again, my boobs fall bouncing out.

Master Z sits in a patio chair my an umbrella table and watches my distress with a certain kind of pleasure. I expect him to say, “Leave them out,” but he doesn’t, apparently enjoying my repeated struggle for propriety in the midst of absurdity.

I pause my skimming, turn to him, my breasts momentarily tucked back into bed, and ask, “How long did it take you to dream this up?”

---

My question is as much rhetorical as it is sardonic — as it is testing. Will he allow me a touch of sarcastic sass?

He offers me no answer, just a dominant smile. He’ll give me a little rope, it seems. I expect there will be a limit to that.

Finishing my work on the pool should be an accomplishment. In fact, the pool was pristine before I started. Not a leaf or dead mosquito to be found. The task, I realize, was designed intentionally designed to be futile. At least for today. Perhaps in coming days my pool-skimming will have more real need.

Daily tasks can be a form of debasement. By being made to do things that are unnecessary, I am subtly conditioned to think I am unnecessary; by performing tasks that have no real value, I identify myself as having no value. I don’t know if this is what Master Z intends for all my chores, but maybe.

This is a particular awareness in these short-term arrangements: Master Z, last week, didn’t have anyone to perform these tasks, and he apparently survived just fine. I am not necessary to his life.

---

It’s my nature constantly to try to decipher what a man is doing with me, what his strategy is, what’s the pattern he is pursuing. Maybe some submissives simply march in step, obey each new task or service, and leave it at that. I need to know what and why.

With Master Z, I am wondering if his supervising me cleaning the pool is his usual practice — if he will be present as I clean toilets, scrub the kitchen floor, and type up notes. I also wonder if today is simply a run-through of all of it, a training “sampler,” each task to be done individually on subsequent days. He doesn’t tell me so, and I don’t ask.

I further wonder if none of these tasks actually need to be done, if, like skimming the crystal waters of the pool, they are just futile efforts to take something already done and do them again.

I think of these things.

---

What I’ve learned, somewhat painfully, is that while I may secretly indulge my need to know and understand, I cannot afford to hesitate when he gives me an order. I must not pause to think through his private intentions in any particular instruction before responding to him.

A dom likes to know he commands you, and any hesitation on your part is seen as a decision within you whether to obey him or not. A pause is considered defiance, and that’s likely to end up in pain and suffering. And so I’ve adopted the mantra: “Obey now, think later.” I still ponder and wonder and think — but I channel that into other times of reflection.

Even so, there always seems to be an inevitable moment of challenge. I am an experienced submissive, have done this before, have been trained and tamed multiple times, and yet there’s a point with any new dominant where something rises up within me and protests. For me, it’s subconscious, unintentional, but still very present. It’s a moment when I, through some resistance of my body and spirit, say “no” to the dom, “you can’t have me.” It has nothing to do with whether I like him or not, whether I am willing in concept to be in slavery to him. I suppose its human nature.

But it just happens, a volcano moment erupting.

---

Master Z, poolside, tells me to bring him a a water with ice. “Tonic water,” he says, “with a slice of lime.”

“Yes, sir,” I say. This is not a volcano moment. Not yet. Without a moment of pause, I leave for the house.

He calls after me: “And put on your heels again.”

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Randomly it occurs to me there’s a moral conundrum I hadn’t thought of before. Maybe its his intention to always have me in a professional business outfit every time I skim the pool, but will there be other pool times and what do I wear then?

Mistress Amanda, of course, forbids me from underwear. No exceptions. But does a bikini top and bottom count as a bra and panty?

Oddly, I don’t recall this ever coming up. Maybe it did, but I forget. We have no pool in Colorado, and our activities haven’t included a lake front or beach or oceanside. I sunbathe on our back patio, of course, but Amanda has me do so nude. Otherwise, to keep cool, I wear a short, loose sun dress.

So are a bikini top and bottom considered bra and panty? Are they allowed or forbidden?

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I find limes in the kitchen, make slices, fill an ice bucket with cubes, and bring it all to the wet bar in his den. His den is a collection of memorabilia, pictures of family once upon a time, and books of several persuasions — psychology, military history, and corporate management. The room is wood-paneled and carpeted with oriental area rugs, making it feel cozy. This is his inner sanctum, for sure, and for a moment here, I feel inside him, even though he remains, for the most part, a stranger.

He has relocated to the middle level of the deck and sits at a table under a patio umbrella, in a deck chair.

My heels clack across the deck as I serve him his tonic-and-lime on a silver tray. He takes it, and I stand back, putting the tray on the table, hands to my side as I await my next instruction.

“I want you, Shae,” he says, “to suck my cock.”