Tag: lifestyle

whispers to Maria 2: posture training

I move from the conceptual to something very practical — posture training — because this is where Master McKenna starts with his slaves.

He’ll teach you how he wants you to sit and stand and walk.

You may think what’s the point?, as I did, and this etiquette stuff may seem to you so very superficial and archaic, yet this has more layers of significance than you’ll know at first.

On the surface, yes, this is etiquette training. He’ll shape your physical manners to be without “fuss.” Movements are to be spare and economical. He wishes to eliminate all of your extraneous actions and gestures (you’ll be surprised at how many you have).

By the way, do not make the mistake of seeing this as making you robotic. He doesn’t want that. You’ll get to the point where you can do it all fluidly, and it will become second nature, although it feels very unnatural at first.

My advice: give yourself to it, and to him. There are more layers to this than it appears.

While Master M intends real results in your physical bearing and truly wants a slave who is elegant and spare in movement — this training is really about shaping your obedience to him.

These exercises are really a sequence of obediences that begin your journey with him. They aren’t just about posture but about cultivating your subservience. The very superficiality of the posture training is part of it — that even in this you will take his words seriously and obey him.

Know that Master McKenna is a teacher at heart. Make a note: that’s his primary dominant language. And the posture training puts him in a position of teaching you, his dominant professor to your submissive and obedient student.

As a slave, you learn to live “in the background” of your dominant, particularly in the presence of others. You are to be there, present, yet unassuming, not compelling attention.

Posture training is, in a sense, the physical conditioning of you to live and move in an unassuming manner with your master in social settings. He is teaching you to move without fuss, so that you do not attract attention.

This comes into play as he trains you how to walk in connection to him. You’ll learn about the “invisible leash” and intuitively move in a precise four feet behind him and to his side. You’ll learn how to be when he “puts” you somewhere at a conference or board meeting, expecting you to stand, heels together, until he retrieves you and makes you invisibly tethered to him once again.

The point is that in slave life you are not important. Valuable as a slave, but not important as a person in his social circles. In a way, posture training conditions you to be invisible yet present in his world.

Understand it’s a great pleasure to a dominant to have you invisibly attached to him, and for others to see you trained and tamed by his dominance.

Another layer of the posture training is that the final result — your resulting etiquette — becomes his signature for all to see. Be grateful: he could otherwise ink you or brand you with his initials, but instead he has you carry his training everywhere in how you stand, sit, walk.

People notice this in me, that I move this way, and if they know McKenna, they know he’s imprinted me with his dominance.

Not all dominants care about this. Amanda has never been much into it, hasn’t the patience for it, though she appreciates the results that Master M has instilled in me. Previously, though, Master Michael trained me in some similar manners of movement, although they were not as precise as these with Master McKenna.

I think most any dominant you wind up with will appreciate the resulting elegance of your movement that this training produces. They may bristle a bit if they know this is Master M’s “signature,” but they’ll appreciate the look and grace of your bearing as a slave.

I say “any dominant you wind up with,” Maria, not to suggest you won’t be Master M’s ultimate choice. I don’t have any inside information about that. But I’ve been with four dominants in my seven years of D/s, so I’m just saying that whatever your future holds, this training is likely to be valued by others.

You may or may not know about the Gorean tradition in the BDSM world. Gorean culture is based on a series of fantasy novels and has become a kind of mythology for some BDSM practice. One part of it specifically has to do with “slave positions,” which are subservient postures for very specific purposes, often demonstrating extreme subservience or presentation for sexual uses.

I only mention this because Master McKenna’s posture training is kind of a precursor to Gorean slave positions. That said, Master M has not much been given to Gorean practices — he has a more modern dominant style.

I just mention this to let you know that D/s life has a long tradition of training slaves to assume positions and postures. When you feel with Master M that you are in some sort of 1950s etiquette school for society women, just keep in mind things like this are a part of some BDSM practices.

One practical tip for you in posture training: I’d suggest you start an exercise routine that strengthens your thighs. It can be just a minute or two in the morning. Knee bends or something. You’ll find that a lot of posture training puts a strain on your upper legs.

Case in point: the hardest thing for me was learning how to stand from a sitting position, especially when sitting in a deeper and lower cushioned sofa. Before training, I always just sort of wriggled out of it. Very inelegant. I learned instead to do it in two clean movements: first, to re-seat myself (lift my body and forward but then sit again) on the front edge of the cushion, and second, from there to stand in the clean upward motion he desires. Of course, that motion is all about your thighs pushing you up (no hands assisting).

Also, Master will have you in heels a lot of the time. He likes the look. He’ll give you time to condition you into wearing heels for longer periods. (I wear heels, you may have noticed, almost full-time.) My point is that stronger thighs also will help your walking and standing in heels.

Just a tip.

All to say, do take the posture training seriously. On the surface it may seem trivial (at least it did to me), but it has a lot of layers of significance and importance. Master M will be looking at how you handle this training, watching your commitment to him as you learn it.

whispers to Maria 1: finding the submissive within

In a short while I’ll be returning to Master McKenna for a long service time with him. It seems Maria is following the plan we came to a few weeks ago and will be starting back with him right around my first day with him. (I don’t have any sense of Maria’s ongoing issues with her mother, but hopefully she has been able to put those in order. We’ll see.)

I’ve had conversations and email exchanges with Maria over the past year about her submissive journey. I’ve also been working on a “curriculum” of sorts for Master McKenna and the school for submissives he has in mind.

This may be the first of a series of posts I write from the mansion over the next month.

I’ve always known that much of one’s submissive self-discovery doesn’t neatly fit into “if-this-then.” You may be docile in personality, or enjoy serving at social functions, or be an introvert at parties — but none of that necessarily means you are submissive. Likewise, you may be opinionated or outspoken or sassy (like me) — and that doesn’t mean you aren’t submissive. Submissiveness is something deeper and more elusive.

I have told Maria that it’s not as if she can say, if she is like this (fill in the blank), then she is submissive. “Finding the submissive within” doesn’t lend itself to multiple choice in curriculum plans.

I think submissiveness is a kind of attraction to being under the influence of power and being put into a controlled space.

Let me suss that out.

By “attraction,” I don’t mean sexual attraction, though it may include that sometimes. That is, the sexual may be a strong component of attraction (as it is for me) — or not at all part of the equation. Instead, I think instead of attraction as magnetism — the drawing toward something or someone who has a “pull” of dominance.

“Being under the influence of power” is perhaps the most mysterious part of my definition. Submissives desire to be “under” and “consumed by” and “overwhelmed by” the power we are magnetically drawn to. Why, I don’t know. But it’s a feeling of “immersion under power” that submissiveness seems to be about.

When I say “being put in a controlled space,” don’t think of that as a physical space, though the physical can be the symbol or real-life emblem of what this is. (Shea = Cage, just sayin’.) A “controlled space” is more about the relational control of a dominant over a submissive, a special sub-space, a psychological confinement and control. We submissives desire that virtual sense of being contained.

As I’ve told Maria, if she is truly submissive, it isn’t because she feels natural in performing a job of servanthood, doing laundry and folding sheets. It isn’t because she has a quiet, soft-spoken demeanor. And it isn’t because she might on occasion be drawn into the idea of being tied down during sex.

It is because she has inner instincts that draw her to dominant power and being “under.”

I guess my point is that true submissiveness (and dominance) are more complex than the trappings we attach to them and the stereotypes we assign to them.

But if you are truly submissive, you kind of know. You have glimmers of this from your past experience.

For me growing up, it was roleplay with friends in which I always yearned to be the captured damsel. It was the strange but wonderful feeling I got riding my uncle’s combine on the farm. In my teens it was in relationships where I found myself drawn into dominance of others. I experienced it in the presence of horses. In my twenties was when my sense of this actually had a category — “submissiveness as a sexual orientation” — and I understood more of a power dynamic in my relationships, notably in my affair with Chandra.

For Maria, of course, it’s a different set of glimmers and glimpses. These are different for everyone, of course, and many are not events but vague feelings that feel strange but wonderful, relationships that are confounding, emotions which defy explanation.

I’ve encouraged Maria to write these memories down and keep them. There are times in the slave life when you come to the end of yourself and ask, “Why am I doing this again?” It’s then you pull out this reflection and remind yourself of the numinous quality of submissiveness that’s always been within you. This is why.

Another series of conversations I’ve had with Maria has had to do with the form and arrangement of the submissive life she is seeking. In her case, she has had an unusual “front-row seat” in the mansion, around the presence of Master McKenna and his dominance of me.

I have counseled her not to become too enamored of what she’s witnessed. She sees me topless at the copier, on my knees in the Great Room, serving bourbon on a tray while wearing frightfully short skirt, and it all takes her breath away because it suggests the overwhelming power of his dominance and my submissive pleasure in being “confined” by him. She wants that too.

But her employment in the mansion is a day job, and she doesn’t know what it’s like to live in it 24/7. I’ve told her that it sometimes is a challenge waking up into it, opening your eyes in the morning knowing you are a slave and have a slave day ahead. Twenty-four hours is a lot of time to fill, and managing your psyche as a full-time slave is a challenge (and a later unit of the curriculum).

I’m really trying to help Maria think of this two-month trial period more as a time for her to find herself than as an audition for Master McKenna.

I’ve advised her there are other options: part-time arrangements, casual relationships that become defined in terms of dom-sub, session-oriented BDSM. Non-Master McKenna options.

In a way, there are two choices one makes, I’ve said to her: “Do I want to pursue the regular experience of my submissiveness?” and “Do I want to live in it full-time, 24/7?” They both are giant leaps for someone; but the second is maybe the greatest jump off the cliff. Living in slavery 24/7, I’ve said to her, isn’t for the faint of heart.

I’ve shared with her my own story of being in a romantic relationship with a dominant man. I wanted to live with him full-time as his submissive. He rejected that, saying my underlying commitment was to be his wife/partner and not to the life of submission. He knew me well and was right. I was co-mingling romance and D/s and actually wasn’t ready for such a big and utter commitment to a life of slavery. He and I separated, I did a lot of soul-searching, and ultimately came to the decision I needed to serve the submissive within me and commit to it full-time — whomever that might be with. A year later, by chance, this man and I reconnected. That was Master Michael.

I am realizing my role with Maria is not as a teacher but as a kind of background coach. I am the “submissive whisperer” speaking into her ear. I suspect this will be the role I have with others if the school for submissives ever sees th light of day.

Again, the point is that I cannot teach there’s one right way of doing this. There are many ways. What is right for one is not right for another. There’s no curriculum structure that can serve all the variations of submissiveness that people have.

Instead, I have to be the whisperer for each one, speaking into each one’s uniqueness.

Ultimately, the question is “What is the life I seek?”

The reason we entertain this conversation at all is because submissiveness is a real thing within us that, if left unattended, will result in a life of vague unfulfillment. Without it, we will find ourselves in lives that are emptier than we imagined and relationships that are somehow unsatisfying.

True submissiveness is part of our being, not just a momentary rush or fling. We purse “finding the submissive within” because it leads to a kind of self-awareness of who we are and a life that more deeply fulfills us.

Again, that may not be a full-time, 24/7, live-in life of slavery. But it may be a life pursued just as other’s live, say, a life of frequent community service, or a life of faith, or a life of sport, or a life of artistic expression. Being submissive — however we make arrangements for that — is our identity, and we are more fulfilled as persons when we allow that to breathe.

These are some of the things I’ve whispered to Maria.

you might be a submissive if…

Well, you all came up with some great punchlines! I’ve realized I don’t have the skill for this — joke-making. Not like this. But a number of you do. Here’s what you sent in (through comments) so far.

I’ll continue to post new ones here by updating this post. These are great!

Helen
You know you’re a submissive if you tell a partner/friend that you’re in charge of a project and it amuses them…

Dave
You might be a submissive if all your bras still have the pricetags on them because you never get to wear them…

Jo
You might be a submissive when you own bunch of clothespins but no clothesline…

Mister Archie
He submitted a treasure load of these, and you can read them in the comments to my previous post. But there are two that strike close to home in my life and are especially funny to me:

If spankings are a thing that actually happen to you in adult life… you may be a submissive.

If you have to remind yourself NOT to spread your knees, open your mouth, and/or put your hands behind your head when you kneel in church… you may be a submissive.

Again, I’ll keep this post open and will update it.

Thanks for making me laugh. I’ve kind of needed it.

notification

This afternoon Blake had an appointment with me, and I serviced him on my knees. It seems too coincidental that this so soon follows my Friday night punishment, but it was scheduled some time ago.

Mistress was not present, had work to do in her home office.

Blake said, as I walked him into the living room, that “he and his friends had a good time Friday night.” He said it with a slight smile.

“I’m sure you all did,” I replied. That was the only mention.

Mark this as my official notification of said service performed, Mistress Amanda. Your slave girl learned her lesson.

after

The things you do as a submissive, the diminishments and humiliations, are always with you. You will always remember public demonstrations of what you are.

Memories will persist for them too. One gang of boys-to-men will always have this. You allowed yourself to be done that way, diminished in front of stranger-others, and they watched you in your pitiful submission. They will ever see you in the light of a neon bar.

In garish memories, they will always have you. Years from now, one will say to another, “Remember that night?” and they will recall your face, crimson in shame, and remember your sex, bared and glistening-moist below. And they will imagine even more with you in the what-ifs of dreams — you cannot control their story of you.

You will always be that girl.

In the aftermath of Friday night, I have those feelings, but others too. Relief, for one, that my punishment is over. Satisfaction, perhaps, that I hung in there and took it. A quiet joy, even, that I endured a hard thing.

Mistress didn’t give me “time off” on Saturday. She knows that my best therapy is the routine of submissive life. She never shunned me throughout this, a saving grace, but it was lovely nonetheless that we had our normal day of shopping and hiking with me collared and sometimes leashed and calling her “Mistress” now without any edge of trepidation.

BTW, I took some days away from writing. Not as a form of recovery, but just because I was “all wrote out.” Quite separate from my Friday night punishment, I needed to simply put down the proverbial pen for a while…

I sensed Friday night was a new threshold for me.

I don’t mean that I will now be subjected to more bar nights like that one. This was a punishment, unique and rare, and I sure intend not to be guilty again so as to deserve another.

But somehow Friday night was a new doorway for Mistress Amanda and me, a portal into the broader life she seeks for us. Yet I confess I don’t really know the fullness of what that means.

I know it’s not necessarily an escalation of my experiences. I’ve written about that before, against escalation, that D/s is a steady life of a certain kind of relationship, not a series of constantly greater explosions.

But Mistress Amanda’s version of a “steady D/s life” includes “sharing” and it includes “public” and it includes “vanilla.” Those are not explosions to her, just how our D/s life is to be lived. She sees doms and subs as simply different orientations meant to mingle with and be accepted by society.

Friday night was a punishment for me, a rare event not intended to be a part of that “steady D/s life.” Yet I think it demonstrated Mistress’s ability to orchestrate part of her vision for us together. It was our D/s being lived out in public, shared with vanilla joes.

I submitted to it, endured it, survived it. And maybe walked through it into something new.

I have read the comments to my punishment experience Friday night. It seems quite a few are questioning Mistress Amanda in her methods and purpose for my Friday-night punishment.

I think it best that I not get entangled in that debate. She doesn’t need me defending her. But I might share a few after-musings…

I sense that in questioning Mistress Amanda, people are coming to my side, protecting me in light of the ordeal. Thank you for that. Your concerns mean a lot to me… And to that end, I assure you, I’m okay, that while the experience lingers, I’m doing fine and life is back to what it was.

I suspect, though I have no confirmation from her, that more of the evening was pre-planned and orchestrated by her than I knew or ever will know. Again, I don’t know this, but I sense it in retrospect, perhaps from the way she and Connor interacted.

Finally, while I don’t judge Mistress to be at fault for anything Friday night, I do know she would be the first to say that she could have misstepped, taken something too far, been wrong in this or that. She never claims to be perfect. She only asserts the importance of living a life out loud.

I went to church on Sunday. It had nothing to do with my punishment or some need for further atonement. In fact, I have been going to a church for a few weeks now, having found one I sort of like. This has become part of my effort to build a broader life. (I may write about church, or not, perhaps keeping that mostly to myself, much like my working at the ranch with horses.)

However, being at church this Sunday immediately following my Friday punishment brought to mind a phrase in the religious world that I grew up in. It seems especially appropriate here: “It’s Friday but Sunday’s comin’.” I understand the phrase was first coined by an African-America pastor in California in the 1960s or so. The context is the darkness of the Friday of Christ’s crucifixion and the bright Sunday of his resurrection.

I’m not comparing myself to that, of course. It just came to mind. It was an interesting juxtaposition of events for me, my bar punishment Friday night and my church experience Sunday morning.

In the “after” of my Friday night, I realized I had a choice in how to process it. I could continue to feel the humiliation of it. Or I could walk away from it with a sense of accomplishment.

For better or worse, I have done both. As I started this post, I am ever aware of the memory of humiliation that it is for me. That is part of who I am, whether or not I like the recollection. At the same time, sprouting out of the soil of shame are sprigs of pride. I submitted to this and endured it. I was a good submissive, a worthy slave girl, taking my deserved punishment in mind and body. My red cheeks were my badge of courage. Or something like that.

I kind of think that we submissives will always have both our Friday nights and Sunday mornings. Maybe our Friday nights can make us stronger and give greater meaning to our Sunday mornings.

Blake, buddies, bar

I suffered my punishment Friday night. I haven’t wanted to write this, for it’s like reliving it again. But I must, for various reasons. I have to move on. Perhaps the reporting of these events will give me closure…

It’s a sports bar, north and west of downtown Denver. I’ll refrain from disclosing its name and location, but I can say it’s kind of upscale as bars go — Western rustic as everything around here is, but clean and fresh in its way, with a patio terrace facing the mountains.

Mistress and I had been here once before. Blake and his friends gather here many Friday nights after a week of work. Most of them are in the construction business. More on that in a moment.

We pulled into the parking lot around five. It wasn’t that busy. The bar is a bit out of the way up in the foothills, so it doesn’t get after-work traffic, but it still can draw a clientèle on the weekend. I learned later that the Denver basketball team played Thursday night but was off Friday, so maybe that was why it was less crowded.

Fine with me.

In the car, Amanda had reviewed with me what I was required to do. “I’ll lead the conversation,” she’d said. “You’ll get to know the guys. At a some point, I’ll prompt you to speak. Shall I go over what you have to say?”

“No, I memorized it,” I said.

“There are four.”

“I’m well aware — seared into my mind. Trust me, I’m not going to blow this.”

My words were unintentionally ironic. Amanda laughed and was about to make more of a funny from it, but stopped herself, suppressing a smile.

After a few miles, she asked, “Are you nervous?”

“Yes. Extremely.”

“Good.”

“Nice.”

“You’ll get through it.”

I said nothing, steeled within, thinking Mistress Amanda was enjoying this way too much.

The weather had been rainy and cool all day, and though it wasn’t raining when we arrived, the terrace was closed, its patio umbrellas folded and strapped shut.

Mistress had me in a short denim skirt and a light sweater with a deep V-neck, showing some of my cleavage, loose enough for my boobs to roll around underneath. I also wore one of my titanium collars with O-rings, wide like one of the rings of Saturn.

I’ve learned since, Amanda wasn’t sure what she was walking into — in regard to the other patrons and the vibe of the room. She didn’t want to invite an unintended scene, she just wanted to create her own scene somewhat more privately. So, aside from the collar, she toned me down a bit. I wore flats not heels, and she didn’t walk me in on a leash, although I saw she had one in her purse.

Blake and his friends were in a side room that had a long table in the center, which they had reserved and now occupied. Blake and one other of the guys stood as we entered. I saw the two who remained seated exchange a glance and a grin.

So, the gang was Blake, Connor, Tyler, and Jack.

This is how I perceived them at first blush: Connor was built square and solid like a football player, and initiated a lot of the conversation. Jack had an angular frame like Blake, and wore black-rimmed glasses. Tyler wore an orange Denver Broncos T-shirt that showed a little bit of a paunch in front. (For a while, I got Tyler and Jack confused, I think because my stereotype of a financial accountant (Tyler) is of a nerdy guy wearing glasses. In fact it was carpenter Jack who wore the glasses.)

It seemed to me all of them were in their late twenties, and I could sense from their smirks and smiles what I already had assumed — that all knew what I do for Blake.

“Blake’s talked a lot about ya,” Amanda was saying breezily as we sat down. She so easily slips into woo mode, adapting to the style and jargon of whatever room she’s in. “I’ve been meanin’ to do this sooner, but work gets in the way…” She went on for another minute, talking about how nice the bar was, and how we’d been once before, only briefly. She always does this so well, talking awhile to give people time to process her, and us. She paused, taking a breath. “Anywayyy,” she said, drawing out the word, “thanks for letting us crash your party.”

“Been wanting to meet you,” Connor said. “Blake here’s told us things. Just haven’t been sure whether to believe them.”

“Good things, I hope,” Amanda replied.

“Interesting for sure.”

Jack, the guy in glasses, uttered a little laugh, out of the blue. Everyone was smiling. Blake looked over at Amanda, perhaps looking for her approval of his buddies and the setting. I sat subdued, imagining what specifically these guys had been told.

“Well,” Amanda said, “we have no secrets… But I want to know why you wouldn’t believe our Blake here.”

“He has these stories,” Jack blurted out, “about the work he does for people like you. And things with her,” he added, nodding at me.

Blake smiled. I blushed. I did a lot of blushing Friday night.

Connor reached for Blake, next to him, and gripped him by the shoulder. “Blake here doesn’t say much, a man of few words, so when he speaks anything, it’s usually true. But this was so out there, we were wondering… Nice to put faces to rumors,” Connor said. He proved to be articulate and glib, clearly the alpha of their group. We would learn later that he has his own home repair company, employs a few people. He uses Tyler part-time as his financial guy, accountant, or something like that.

The waitress came by. Introduced herself as Missy. “These boys giving you any trouble?” she said to Amanda.

“They a rowdy bunch?”

“Depends on the game,” Jack said.

“They talk it up, but they’re harmless,” Missy replied. “My regulars, every Friday night, just about. What can I get you gals?”

Amanda ordered a beer, I ordered a bourbon. Figured it would help me endure this if I got halfway smashed.

As she was leaving, Missy said, “Let me know if these boys give you any what-for.”

There was some general introductory talk, as Amanda had suggested in the car that there would be. It was Connor who prompted it, asking Amanda about her business. She responded about her online HR company, and they did the CEO thing for awhile. I was aware both Connor and Amanda were the alphas at the table. But they weren’t competing. Nothing much more to say on that, but I could feel it.

Blake spoke too, saying something about Jack: “You remember him.” I nodded, but then felt awkward because I realized he was addressing Amanda. “Helped me with building the dog run.”

Amanda nodded. “Of course. Now I can place you, Jack. Good to see you again.”

Seems that Jack is a freelance carpenter and both Connor and Blake use Jack on projects. So the four of them work somewhat independently but connect in various ways in their work.

There was other conversation, not about me, which I was only too happy for. The guys talked sports awhile, which all went over my head. Amanda said, “I heard the Nuggets won last night.” I looked at her sideways in puzzlement. She knows nothing about sports.

I never initiated any conversation, but responded when asked a question. Frankly, I was struggling to remain present in the moment.

Drinks came, a beer for Amanda, bourbon for me, refills on beers for the guys. My heart sank a little when Amanda ordered an appetizer, and the guys ordered burgers and BBQ chicken. I think I had imagined this would all be done over a single drink, that I’d make my four-part confession speech, and we’d be out of there.

No, this was going to be a long evening.

As a group, the guys seemed a mixture of latent adolescence and young blue-collar professionals. They weren’t offensive in their comments, though suggestive at times with innuendos and inside jokes. Jack was least restrained, a little giggly, often blurting out things. Blake was quiet as always, but smiled and laughed in a way I don’t know him. Tyler was a bit of a cipher to me, but would ask questions later. As a group, within their gang-of-four chemistry, they sometimes gave off a frat-boy jokey vibe. Yet individually, they flashed moments of responsible maturity and seemed like men at the front edge of adult life.

Their conversations droned to a thrum in my background. I wondered if my reality as a submissive woman appealed to them more as smirking boys or as men on the cusp of very adult things.

I don’t mean to drag this out, but it felt dragged out to me, and was part of my experience Friday night. It seemed like forever.

We had finally finished eating. Missy had cleared off our plates and had brought refills of drinks. I had declined another bourbon.

Connor, sipping his beer, said: “Blake has told us about you, but we want to hear more. From you.” Something like that. It opened the door for Amanda to get into it.

(Now that I write this, I realize I may have some of the sequence of these conversations out of order. We may have had some of this discussion during our meal. I suppose it doesn’t matter.)

Amanda spoke about us being in an alternative relationship that was based on dominance and submission. Tyler asked what “alternative” meant. Amanda explained. She didn’t go into us being in a lesbian relationship, I assume because that was fairly obvious — however, Jack would ask about that later. Amanda talked about how we take the life seriously, believe in it as a real hierarchy of roles, and live this way 24/7. How we are wired this way, choose to live differently, and so on and so on…

This conversation about our lifestyle went on a while. But it eventually wound down, and I could tell Amanda was about to invite me, finally, to present my confession.

Suddenly realized I needed another drink. Leaning over to Amanda, I whispered my request, one that I would soon regret.

A smile grew on her face, and she nodded. To my embarrassment, she pulled out my leash from her purse and attached it to my collar. “Shae wants another bourbon,” she announced to the table, “and we probably need to go up to the bar to get it. Connor, would you do the honors?”

Connor nodded with a shit-grin on his face, and Amanda handed him my leash.

The happy-hour and dinnertime crowds had cleared out, and the side room was empty but for us. It was the lull before the late-night drinkers. But the main bar room still had people at tables and booths. So, yes, Conner led me by leash through the maze of tables up to the bar. I could feel people staring. I asked the bartender for a bourbon and stood there waiting, facing Connor a foot away, holding my leash, which now hung in a loop between us.

Connor stared at me with a smile.

“What?” I said, red-faced.

He gave a shake of his head, then said, “This is fascinating.”

We got back to the table. Amanda was holding court. I sipped my bourbon of courage, and she took her time finishing up what she was saying. I know she was giving me time.

Unfortunately, memories like this become very vivid, indelible. I recall it this way:

Amanda said, “So, Shae has something to say. I wanted us all to meet anyway, to meet all of you, Blake’s friends, and this has been so good, but we have another purpose in being with you tonight.” With that, she turned it over to me.

I had rehearsed this over and over, and I had in my mind the four parts of my confession:
What I do for him.
My order to notify.
My failure to notify.
My public apology.

My voice was whispery and hoarse: “As you probably know, for a while now, Blake has had appointments with me. These are times when Mistress Amanda has me… well… service him.”

“Say it for what it is,” Amanda prompted.

I started to turn to her with a glare (this was already hard enough, for god sake), but thought better of it and nodded. “I service him orally.”

“Shae,” Amanda said sternly.

“I give him a blowjob.”

There was some tittering laughter. Big grins. I remember someone said, “Way to go, man,” directed to Blake. At a point, my eyes couldn’t look at anyone directly, and I cast my eyes down, focusing instead at a spot in the middle of the table.

“How often do you suck his dick?” Jack blurted out.

I looked over at Amanda and she, smiling, nodded for me to answer. “About every few weeks,” I said. “Whenever he books his time with me.”

Jack added, “That’s exactly what he said.” He turned to Blake, “So you weren’t blowing smoke, after all.”

“He was getting blown,” Tyler punned, and everyone chuckled.

I glanced sideways at Blake. He too was smiling, probably exulting that his stories about me were being verified. I think I had wondered if he would be embarrassed by this evening too. Maybe I wanted him to be more “in it with me,” sort of like this is something we do and “if you must, guys, now you all know.” That sort of coupled sharing of the experience. Of course, I always want to make everything a relationship, force meaning into it. But Blake Friday night was not like that, showing a different side of him, rather enjoying his conquest, me, in front of his buddies.

I took a gulp of bourbon, and it burned going down. I was blushing deeply, I knew — red-face itself quite a sight, I was sure. I resolved to myself just to get through the rest of my four-point confession.

“Mistress Amanda gave me an order,” I said. I went on to explain my blog. “Her instruction to me was to provide a notification to readers whenever I service Blake.”

Someone interrupted, asking about my blog — Tyler, I think — and if they could read it. Amanda said she would send Connor the link and he could distribute it. (They may be reading this now.)

“So,” I continued, “I failed to notify anyone that I had serviced Blake— ”

“Serviced?” Amanda corrected, again not allowing me euphemisms.

“Had given him a blowjob. The appointment happened a week ago Tuesday, but I hadn’t posted any notification for a full week after. That was a disobedience, wrong of me.”

“Does he come in your mouth or on your face?” Jack interjected rudely.

I breathed in deeply, took some more of my bourbon. Now I wished I’d made it a double. “Either way,” I answered dutifully. “However he wants me.”

“God,” Jack said, “that’s so hot.” He turned to Blake: “You’re such a lucky dude.”

“Don’t I know it!” Blake replied with a chuckle.

I remember there was laughter around and other things said, but I don’t recall the specifics. I had two more points to get to, but the guys perhaps thought that was the all of it, and they went on and on for a while.

Amanda stepped in to redirect. “I require this of her,” she said, again commanding the room, “because it’s part of her slavery to me. It’s what she needs and what she craves. And she loves sucking cock…

I closed my eyes, unable to look at anyone.

“So, there’s more Shae has to tell you…”

So, at this point, I just wanted to plow through to the end. I opened my eyes again and looked up, forcing myself into eye contact. “So I confess that I failed to do the notification. I was wrong. And this is my punishment — to confess all this to you in person. I apologize to you publicly for not notifying everyone of my servicing of Blake.”

It became a blur, and these words may be out of order and maybe not exactly what was said, but I think it was something close to that.

I remember Amanda asking Blake if there was anything he wanted to add.

He looked around the table. “Now do you guys believe me?”

Nods all around, jokey comments and laughs following.

“I have to say,” Blake continued, “that Shae is a pretty good cocksucker.”

“On a scale of…” Tyler started.

“Of five stars,” Jack finished. “Make it one to five stars.”

“Really?” I said aloud. As in, do we have to go there?

Blake thought a moment and finally said, “Four stars.”

“Why four not five?” Tyler probed.

“I want her to keep trying harder.”

Everyone roared. I shook my head, but even I had to smile slightly. I was relieved now. It was over.

Missy came back into the side room. She apologized for not attending to us for a while. “Was on break,” she said. “But anything more I can get you now?”

Connor ordered another beer. I asked for another bourbon. “Maybe I’ll actually taste this one,” I said.

Amanda stood and pulled Missy to the corner of the room to tell her she’d pick up the tab.

Jack, who seemed never to have a thought he didn’t speak out loud, asked, “So are you two lesbians or what?”

“God, Jack,” Connor said. “You don’t ask about one’s orientation.”

“I just did,” he said proudly.

“It’s okay,” I replied, thinking we’d already talked about my cocksucking, so sexual orientation seems like a mild inquisition in comparison. “It’s no secret. I’m bi. Amanda will have to tell about herself.” I looked over at her still talking to Missy in the corner.

“Cool,” Jack said.

“I think we’re all wondering,” Tyler said, “how we can get a piece of this too.”

I hadn’t expected that question, perhaps should have. I knew better than to say no. “You’ll have to ask her,” I finally said.

They had more to ask me, mostly about what it was like being submissive. I knew they were angling for more sexual details. Now I just wanted to get out of there, but managed to find a voice to answer a little, not getting into anything too explicitly.

Amanda was finally done with her unusually long conversation with Missy. Returning to the table, she said, “I’m picking up the tab tonight, guys. This has been most enjoyable.”

Presently, Missy returned with our last-call drinks, and I started in on my third bourbon, more alcohol than I usually have in a night. As Missy left, she closed the sliding doors to the side room.

“There is one more thing,” Amanda announced. “Something Shae does not know about.”

It almost sounded like a final surprise at a birthday party, and I wondered for a moment if she was going to reward me with something for getting through the evening with this gang of four.

“She had four parts to her confession tonight. She got through them and did them well.”

Oddly, Jack started clapping, but the others followed suit. This felt to me cringe-worthy and awkward.

“So,” Amanda went on, “there’s a fifth part to her punishment.” She turned to me. Shae, I want you to arrange yourself across my lap.”

I looked at her in embarrassed horror. “Please no,” I begged in a hushed voice.

“Afraid so, slave-girl.”

“Do we have to do this?” I whispered. “Really?”

“Yes,” she said, her voice low and hard.

Again, I couldn’t raise my eyes to look at anyone. I reached for my bourbon, taking a gulp, then another in quick succession. It would dull my physical pain but not my humiliation. I stood, a bit dizzy now, and somehow slid my body across Amanda’s lap.

“Seven spanks,” she declared, “one for each day you failed to post a notification.”

I heard chairs slide across the floor as the guys stood to get a better look. Someone walked around and stood behind Amanda, watching over her shoulder.

I felt Amanda pull up my denim skirt around my waist. I uttered a warbled, feeble protest. I could feel the air of the room against the back of my thighs.

“No panties,” I remember hearing Jack say.

God. I could feel the slit of my pussy exposed from behind, and knew they all were gazing at it.

Amanda’s flat palm landed against my ass cheeks. I yelped. I realized now the reason for the closed doors.

“Holy shit,” someone said.

There was a second spank, and the guys started counting.

Her hits were not hard, that isn’t her style, but it wasn’t the point. My humiliation was the point — the whole point of the evening. If I ever saw any of them again, and I prayed I wouldn’t, I knew they would see my face and associate it with this moment — this picture of my reddened ass cheeks and my pale pussy lips peeking out.

It was another forever in an evening of forever. Across her lap, looking down, I tried to block it out, futilely trying to memorize the grain of the wood floor.

I will perhaps never understand the flood of different feelings from being spanked. There is something about being an adult woman who is spanked that is utterly humiliating. For it to be done in a public place with others observing turns the humiliation into shame. It’s actually a kind of horror.

Yet for me as a submissive, it is also deeply fulfilling in some mysterious way. It is maybe the perfect nexus of being dominated by another, diminished to this, my bare ass moon-faced to a gang of adult boys. And with this submissive fulfillment comes, strangely, eroticism. I am damnably aroused in this very moment of horror.

So, when later in another time and place someone asks if I like being spanked, how do I answer? It’s horrifying in a way that I would never wish to endure again. It’s a deep humiliation to be an adult woman spanked like a disobedient child in front of a public group of watchers. Yet it arouses me, profoundly, sort of the spark-point of nuclear fission for a submissive like me. And my very arousal from such a humiliating horror becomes itself more deeply shaming.

How do I answer if I like this or not?

As I memorized the bar floor, tears came to my eyes, and I felt myself becoming wet elsewhere as well. I prayed no one would notice.

It was Jack (of course) who noticed. “She likes it. See?”

I wanted to yell out, but I didn’t, having no retort anyway. No I don’t like it, it’s not so simple as that. Yes I do like it, but it’s not so simple as that.

In the meantime my pussy becomes wet, and I have no answer for that either. It’s my submission in liquid form. I can’t help it, I wanted to yell out.

But I just squelched back the tears of my shame and absorbed the remaining spanks of my punishment.

After, she had me stand beside her as she held court at the table. She held my leash. My eyes glistened. She said some things about our life together as dominant and submissive. There were more questions. She made my spanking a teaching moment.

Not that the guys cared much about the philosophy of D/s, but at this point, she had their rapt attention.

I’m still processing what happened Friday night. That is what happened. I don’t yet know what it really means. I think it is a threshold of something beyond what it was.

Certainly I will not forget posting notifications ever again.

about punishment in D/s

Some have asked some questions, so I will try to muster my composed writer’s voice in the midst of this difficult week to explain a few things about “crime and punishment” in D/s “in the way we do it.”

First, I should state clearly what my transgression was: it was not posting a notification on my blog about the last time I had a “date” appointment with Blake. I was required to post when this happened, and this last time I failed to do so.

Second, though I made some excuses with Mistress, I do not deny I deserve to be punished. Further, while I dread this punishment tomorrow night, and it will be horrible to go through, I do not quarrel with Mistress Amanda’s decision to make this my penance.

Third, I wish to make it clear that Mistress Amanda hasn’t ordered me to write any of these recent posts about my punishment. She only has ordered me to post a “notification” when I service Blake, and that can be a brief mention. Writing these posts these past few days has been my way of processing a difficult thing.

BTW, I can tell some are reluctant to “like” these posts about my transgression and punishment, perhaps wary of treading on sensitive nerves. I understand it’s hard to “like” someone’s distress. But I assure you I am okay, and I will get through this. Feel free to “like” or not, as you wish, but know that I will not be further hurt or offended by your comments and questions.

I’m also well aware that for some there is a fascination in this. I understand that. I have lived my slavery out loud and it’s been made public in more and more ways. I never really get used to that, but I’m okay with it, perhaps to the extent that I am somewhat gratified if others’ find some interest and meaning and pleasure in my humiliations.

In our version of the lifestyle, punishment is a serious matter not a fetish-play thing. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with BDSM play in which punishment is staged and simulated for pleasure purposes. But that’s not what we do.

In our lifestyle, punishment is a real consequence of a real transgression, based on some form of disobedience. Any disobedience strikes at the very basis of the D/s arrangement, undermining the tacit agreement that one will submit to another who is dominant. It’s potentially a first step toward the D/s relationship unraveling. So, punishment is administered, not as a fun kink but as an important corrective within the D/s relationship.

For me with Mistress Amanda, true disobedience and resulting punishment have, thankfully, been rare. I wrote about one previous punishment here. There have been others as well, but few and far between. I like being a good girl.

It’s important to note that “transgressions” are not about imperfections or mistakes or errors. Mistress Amanda does not look for little things to call me on. Missing a spot in scrubbing the kitchen floor or not getting her T-shirt white enough in the laundry or my occasional klutziness are not causes for punishment. She doesn’t expect me to be perfect. Thank god.

My previous crime and punishment that I wrote about was a disobedient attitude I displayed to Mistress in a particularly defiant way. This week my transgression was a clear order that I failed to obey. It was a crime of omission — I just forgot to post a notification about my time with Blake — but I accept that by forgetting I was taking Mistress Amanda’s orders for granted, diminishing her ownership of me.

I protested a bit, but in the end I do not quarrel with the charge, the verdict, and my punishment for it.

So, I’ve written about this before: in our version of D/s, a proper punishment is a difficult thing to devise.

For many in the lifestyle, the common method is physical hurt, thus the term “corporal punishment.” But when such things as whipping and pain are themselves forms of pleasure in BDSM, it hardly seems to serve as any real deterrent, as it’s not really much different from the rest of D/s practice.

Another possibility would be some restriction of rights. But as a D/s slave, I have no “rights” to begin with. Perhaps then a restriction of movement — sentencing me to my room, for example. But that seems so “parent-child” (see below). It could be a more formal imprisonment, such as putting me in a cage. But Mistress well knows that being put in a cage would be heaven for me. I’ve actually begged her for it.

All this is just to say that devising proper and effective punishment in D/s is complicated.

Generally, Mistress Amanda has used “withdrawal of relationship” as her punishment of me. This has been a kind of shunning — silence and distance for a long period of time. She knows that this affects me deeply and that it’s very effective.

But Mistress once said that she didn’t like punishments of me that punished her too. Yesterday, she kept her distance from me but so far today, it’s as if everything is normal. We are conversing as before. I am grateful.

It may be that she feels my punishment tomorrow night serves the purpose well enough. It will be a deep humiliation of me. And this will be public in front of a crowd. Ugh.

Which is something that gives Mistress great pleasure.

Finally, I might say that, in general, Mistress has kept crime and punishment on the adult level and hasn’t let it descend into “parent-child” dynamics.

While she may be deeply angry or disappointed with me, she keeps the accusation and verdict phase on the level of adult discourse, civil — offering a presentation of my transgression and providing opportunity to speak. In the court of Amanda, we are both adults.

In it all, I try to keep my adult composure, but it’s hard not to associate adult punishment with childhood experiences. The authority she has over me can’t help but sometimes feel life a parent wielding judgment. I try to keep my adult wits about me, but inevitably tears form.

Still, in this current moment, I accept, as an adult, that I failed in my submission and will incur a punishment. In the meantime, we do the D/s life together as before. Life goes on.

It is an odd thing, I suppose — a forty-something woman pronouncing judgment and punishment upon a thirty-something woman — but it is the power dynamic we are in.

my punishment

At 5:00 last evening, Mistress reconvened with me on the patio. “I gave you a full week to make this right,” she said, “so, I’ve had time to consider your punishment.”

She sat on the cushioned patio rocker. I stood about six feet from her, my hands to my sides. She was not angry, not harsh. Just disappointed. Being a disappointment to her devastates me.

“I think it appropriate,” she continued, “for Blake to be in on your punishment. I am working it out for us to meet him and his friends at their bar. You will tell his friends what you do for him on these dates. You will state this transgression of yours to them all. And you’ll apologize to Blake for your forgetting my order. If they have questions, you will answer them. We will share a drink with them, you will sit quietly, and we will leave when I choose to.”

Red-faced, I nodded but said nothing.

“I’m trying to get this set up for Friday evening.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

For now, I have nothing more to say, but I may post more about this later today.

servicing Blake

This is my official and very belated notice to everyone that a week ago Tuesday, May 9 at around 3:30 p.m., Blake had an appointment with me. Kneeling on our living room floor, I serviced him, taking his cock in my mouth. He ejaculated on my face and tongue, then left.

I apologize to everyone for not reporting this earlier.

Blake has scheduled another appointment with me next week, on Wednesday the 24th at 4:30 p.m.