the “Ma’am” experiment

It lasted one day.

To be clear, my point was a specific situation in the vanilla public, one that happens all the time. In many public instances it becomes awkward for my dominant to be addressed by me as “Master” or “Mistress.” People don’t know what to do with it.

In those contexts Master McKenna wishes me to address him as “Sir” instead. It’s an accepted term in the vanilla business world from an assistant to her boss, yet serves the dual purpose of also being my submissive acknowledgment of his dominance over me. This is true in some of his board meetings — indeed at the retreat with the “nonprofit” group — where my reference to him as “Master” would be jarring and awkward in front of people who don’t know. “Sir” is a more agile term.

Likewise with Amanda, so I thought, in business meetings with her vanilla clients. If I were to address her then as “Mistress,” it would be confusing to people, perhaps bringing our personal life into the air in ways that are off-putting. So, my equivalent solution, what I proposed, was to address her as “Ma’am.”

Well, many of you have pointed out that “Sir” and “Ma’am” are not equivalent terms — that “Ma’am” has the connotation of an older woman. I know the connotation is there. Indeed this has been a discussion for me and Amanda before. This is not our first rodeo to lasso this term.

This morning as I held the coffee tray, Amanda poured her dollop of milk into her mug, looked at me, and said, “Let’s not do the “ma’am” thing, after all. I changed my mind.”

I nodded.

“Your thoughts?”

I explained my rationale as I just did above. “But I understand. Others agree with you. But in those vanilla situations, then what should I call you?”

“‘Goddess, ruler of my life’ should do it,” she joked.

I shook my head at her. “Seriously.”

“‘Amanda’ works just fine.”

Experiment ended.

word studies

I wrestle sometimes with the way particular words are used, especially in the context of D/s understanding. Occasionally I like to post something about my musings on the meaning of these words. I realize many people are not so interested, but I hope followers can indulge my interest here…

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Lifestyle

I use this word all the time, but only because I have to.

“Lifestyle” sometimes carries the sense of a wealthy, lavish existence. In certain uses it connotes artistic choices of decor and style. It’s also an overused advertising word. In all of these cases, “lifestyle” suggests superficiality.

Also, the word “lifestyle” implies a casual, maybe trendy choice — “we like being outdoors and have an active lifestyle” or “we’ve decided to adopt an eco-friendly lifestyle.”

Of course, D/s lifestyle is not superficial nor casual nor trendy. It’s a serious and hard choice to live in a different relational structure, a demanding (often) 24/7 commitment, and a radical departure from normal life.

And more to the point — D/s is a relationship not a lifestyle. In the vanilla world, newlyweds don’t say, “We decided to live a married lifestyle.” Marriage is to be an intimate relationship of the highest order, and “lifestyle” cheapens it.

Yet “lifestyle” says a bunch of stuff very succinctly. It is by definition “a mode of living,” and for the most part that’s how I use it. D/s is a different mode of living from other vanilla modes of living.

I can’t get away from using “lifestyle,” but I still wrestle with it every time.

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Shame

In therapy, it is now commonly thought that “shame” is about one perceiving oneself as unworthy. This has been spearheaded by the work of Brene Brown, which has influenced my sessions with my therapist — who has in turn influenced me.

In that pantheon of “bad feeling” definitions, guilt is when you are literally responsible (“I shot the sheriff”). Shame is when you see yourself as faulty (“I am deficient; I am bad”). Humiliation is the experience of being seen or viewed by others as you are being disgraced. Embarrassment is a fleeting, often accidental, experience of being exposed — as when your bikini strap breaks at the beach. (I hate it when that happens!)

A further helpful distinction is that humiliation is more about the situation you’re in and shame is more about who you are.

Therapists’ counsel is to avoid self-shaming language and negative thinking. I agree with that, and for a long time in my blog-writing I avoided using the word “shame.”

However, I have started to use it again, and here’s why.

Outside of the counseling context, “shame” is also an emotion of deep intensity. In my slave experiences, “embarrassment” is rarely appropriate because my situations are not fleeting or accidental and the emotion the word suggests is too mild. I go often to the word “humiliation,” which is more apt. But at times there’s another level beyond humiliation, and it feels like it needs another gear. It’s then I need the word “shame.”

(As an aside, I think that in the D/s world, there are simply not enough words for these experiences. “Humiliation” carries much of the load, but is overkill in some cases, and insufficient in others. There are words like “abasement” and “ignominy,” which I use sometimes but are more archaic and less known. It is said that in certain Scandinavian native languages there are more than 300 words referring to “snow.” I don’t need 300 but it would be nice to have at least five words for “humiliation.”)

There’s another point to be made: in D/s, a slave is both highly valued and deeply disgraced at the same time. I agree that a slave should never feel unworthy; to the contrary, she is seen as being extraordinary in the life of D/s. But what she is — a woman kept, a woman used — is also a status of disgrace, and it’s appropriate for her to wear that as “shame.”

An example: I think of my experiences being made topless in the house around our handyman, Blake. My reaction to that goes deeper than just the sense of his visually feasting on my breasts. That much is humiliation. But in those situations he knows I am bared to him because I am an adult woman who is owned and kept as a slave. He knows my breasts are naked for him because of what I am. In this case, “shame” is the word that more fully expresses it.

“Shame” is a necessary word sometimes.

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Normals

There are two words/phrases I’ve recently coined, and this is one.

In my usage, “normals” is a stand-in for “vanilla people,” those who lead non-D/s lives — ordinary people doing normal things.

Some have commented that by using the word “normals” in my writing I am suggesting that being a submissive is “abnormal.” No, that’s not my belief nor my intent. “Normals” is simply a statistical reality. More people are not submissive than those who are, and they are the norm.

Likewise, only two percent of the world population are redheads like me. The norm is for people to have black or brown hair — they are the “normals” because that’s what’s statistically most common. It doesn’t mean that as a redhead I am defective.

(However, what are the stats about a woman like me being both a redhead and a submissive? That makes me unusual for sure, though Mistress A would quickly say, “Don’t get too full of yourself, Shae. It doesn’t mean you’re special.” OK, then.)

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Deep Submissive

The other phrase I’ve coined recently is “deep submissive.” I use this as a noun, describing one who is extremely submissive by nature. I am a deep submissive. (Duh.)

This is a term of degree and type. There are submissives of all kinds. I sometimes use the phrases “curious submissive,” “casual submissive,” and “role-play submissive.” A “deep submissive” refers to those of us who have an intensely strong need to live submissively.

For a deep submissive, the D/s life is not a casual or experimental thing. It is an immersive existence. The deep submissive is wired differently in how she experiences life and in the kinds of relationships she needs. For the deep submissive, submissiveness is part of her sexual orientation. For her, being dominated is not just a wish but a desperation, not just a desire but a need.

“Deep submissive” is one who seeks to live deeply embedded in a life of being dominated.

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That’s all, folks.

sub-slave

Another “scintillating” word-study from sub-slave Shae.

I have taken recently to calling myself a “sub-slave.” I am doing so for a few reasons, which I thought I’d share here. I probably picked up this term from somewhere, but if so I don’t remember.

Using the term “slave” within the D/s and BDSM communities, it seems to me, is common and perfectly accurate. Amanda calls me “her slave,” among other lovely, humiliating things, and I refer to myself that way in conversation with her. It is what I am.

But in written and spoken communication with people outside the lifestyle, the term “slave,” obviously, carries other associations and baggage. Namely, the tragic context of racism — the history of people owning slaves and the continuing social and institutional enslavement of African-Americans in the U.S. And also the horrible context of the sex trafficking industry. In both of these realities, the term “slave” is loaded with real tragedy and trauma.

I don’t want my lifestyle slavery to be linked to or confused with those things. My slavery is a completely different context. Notably, my slavery is what I have chosen and what is, in its own way, consensual.

This leads me to use this phrase “sub-slave” in more of my writing. “Sub” shades the meaning of “slave” as something other than those social wrongs. It suggests “submissive” and helps a bit to put it in the context of D/s. In fact, another term I’m going to is “D/s slavery.” It is useful sometimes in stating the proper context.

What I don’t want to do, though, is soften the impression to others of what it means to be someone’s sub-slave or D/s slave. I am still a slave, and in a fairly extreme way — it isn’t a term of endearment or a kinky role I play for an hour. It is a diminished human status in relation to another, 24/7.

Also, I can’t quite abandon the blunt term “sex slave.” Again, in the context of lifestyle people, this is what I am and what I am called. There, it is especially pejorative, as everyone knows that in D/s a slave is not only used sexually — saying “sex slave” is taking the already-reduced dignity of “slave” and reducing it further, to one who is used only and constantly for sex by others. So “sex slave” is particularly effective sometimes, a very targeted, deeper humiliation.

I will continue to use all terms in my writing. This is not a moral high ground for me. I’m not suggesting we all run to these new terms. I read all of these words in others’ writing, and they are perfectly acceptable to me. Words — all words — have meaning and purpose. We need to use them.

But this is something that I just want to be sensitive to. As you read my words here, and as I more often use “sub-slave” and “D/s slave,” now you know why.

woman. girl. child.

This is a slight musing, perhaps, not worth a lot of time. Maybe it’s something of a word analysis, though not quite my other word-study postings — “whore” https://slaveshae.wordpress.com/2019/02/11/whore/ and “slut” https://slaveshae.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/slut/ and“cocksucker’ http://’https://slaveshae.wordpress.com/2019/05/05/cocksucker/ Not teasing here, but perhaps I should put my word-studies in a separate menu.

When I was first acquired by Amanda, in our first week together she told me that she considered me a woman, not a child, and that she was not looking to me to be “her child” in any way.

I didn’t quite understand what she meant at first.

She said that sometimes a domme-sub relationship fell into a child-parent thing. She said that was even more likely given that I had two dominants over me, male and female. She wasn’t speaking for Master K — I remember her saying , “He might call you ‘baby child’ for all I know” — but she said, for her, she saw me as an adult, a woman who was her submissive, slave. “It means more to me,” she said, “that you are an adult woman who has sacrificed herself to slavery under me. We are both adult women, doing this together.”

So sometimes she says things that make me want to follow her to the end of the earth.

I write lots of things down — thoughts, comments, ideas — in my diary, and this was one. And now I have come across this again, and it gives me some reason to muse on it.

In my writings about my slavery to Mistress and Master, I know I have sometimes used “parent” imagery, as that is part of what I feel in certain situations. Perhaps I should be more careful of that, but the nature of submission is one of diminishment, a lower status, and possibly as a child to an adult.

Let me pause and say that there are those in relationships with significant others, in partnerships, and in marriages, who use endearing terminology together, and I am not judging or commenting on that. In my vanilla life, I was in a relationship once where my boyfriend started referring to me as “baby girl.” I’m not saying I loved that, but it was his term of fondness for me (and I put up with it). But that is between one and another in a romantic or love relationship, and even in cases where such relationships are D/s. I’m sure not assailing those preferences and choices. (I listen to an erotica blog where the woman co-host refers to her husband co-host as “Big Daddy,” and I find that really cute and sexy.)

But in my world, this becomes an interesting conversation. In fact, Master K doesn’t refer to me as “baby” or “child.” And, as I mentioned, Amanda seems to fiercely defend me in some feminist context as a “woman” — one she joyously dominates into utter and abandoned submission.

The interesting middle ground is when I am called “girl.” I am “slave girl,” “my girl,” and “sub girl,” by Master and Mistress quite frequently. I know in a vanilla world of political correctness, this is not acceptable, and I actually respect that. And so, I don’t think any of the women in Amanda’s office should be referred to as “girl” any more than that any of the men should be referred to as “boy.” But of course, in this my alternative lifestyle of submission and slavery, there are no such constraints. I accept the terminology. I am called far “worse” things. And the term “girl” often gives me submissive feelings.

The thing is, there really isn’t much of an option between “slave” and “girl for Mater and Mistress.” In public, where the term “slave” is probably offensive and at least awkward, what else conveys a sense of hierarchy and submission?

So, when Master K introduces me to someone as “his slave girl,” part of me (still) blushes to be identified publicly as a slave, yet another part of me thrills by him saying I am his. And when Amanda tells others I am “her girl,” I know the code: to public others, it means I am her girlfriend or her lover, and to those in the know it means I am her slave.

Whether I am “woman” or “girl” or “slave,” the terminology puts me in bed with her. In that, I am hers. And to me there is absolutely no offense in that.

cocksucker

As you know, I sometimes write about words — names — I am called (see my posts “whore” and “slut”). It’s been pointed out to me that in many D/s relationships such names are used benevolently, erotically, even lovingly. I’m glad for that. But in the brand of sub-slavery I’m in, such words are used derogatorily by intention, as an expression of dominance by naming me in a certain way. It’s a verbal form of making me assume a slave position. I feel the humiliation of it but also submissively respond to it sexually. I absorb it into the soup that is my special pot of slavery. But the names still have their effects.

One way I cope with these names is to examine them as words and meanings. Often I find there is some literal truth to them, and in some strange way, that lessens their sting.

I’ve come to think that the shame of many names and labels fired at me does not come from my slave life but from my vanilla life and a mindset I was fed growing up. For example, growing up as a girl in church, chastity was preached constantly and the worst unforgivable sin a girl could commit was sex. Sleeping around was unconscionable. I wrote before about a girl in high school who called me a slut. The word in my vanilla life carried a weight of shame. And still does. This is not about my submissiveness and slavery. It comes from before.

In fact, all women who have a sex life do have various partners over time and the word “slut,” though derogatory in intent, is literally true in the sense of its definition, once you examine it. Apart from the nasty intent, it really is a legitimate epithet.

So. The other day I was called a “cocksucker.”

I won’t go into details of the situation, but I’ll say it did not come from Master or Mistress (who have every right to call me whatever they want), and neither of them were present. It came from the outside and was a name applied to me specifically in the sexual sense.

In fact the word “cocksucker” has two meanings — the sexual act it literally depicts and also as a description of character, “a mean or contemptible person.” Later it occurred to me that the man who called me this was, in the very act of doing so, a mean, contemptible person.

Well. The truth of the matter is that I am a cocksucker. As I’ve shared here, I do perform fellatio on Master, and in fact, as you know, has me on speed dial for that. And I know it’s hard to believe, but — shockers! — I also perform oral sex on other men too, as I am provided for and am told to. And I confess it’s been going on for years. I know the intent of the name-calling was to diminish me, but in fact it’s true of me — and, frankly, billions-plus other women around the world.

There was some ambiguity in the situation. I wasn’t sure if the person was expressing this as a form of dominance over me or just as a vanilla heckling me. The distinction matters, for if it’s a dominant, I am to submit, within reason and some rules that are vague to me. If he’s not dominant, just a guy, then I perhaps have a range of other responses.

Being a good (cocksucking) slave girl, I submitted.

Since then, I’ve replayed that incident in my mind. He seemed to know of me through Master K, so I assumed I needed to “submit within reason.” That was probably the right thing to do. But I’ve fantasized about a range of other responses to this man’s comment: “So you’re the little cocksucker, aren’t you?”

(Looking him squarely in the eye) “Thank, you. Yes, I am. And I’m really, really good at it.” (Smile.)

“Yes. It’s fun, as I’m sure you know.”

But I then tried to figure a proper response as a “woman of elegance.” Perhaps:

“Yes, I am, but only to men who are worthy of owning me.”

Still working on that.

***

Side account: Amanda and I had coffee at the cafe Saturday morning as usual. I told her about this incident. She was outraged.

“I wouldn’t have allowed him to get away with that,” she said.

“I didn’t know how to respond.”

“No, not you. Me. If I had been there, he wouldn’t have gotten away with that.”

“What would you have done?”

“Castration comes to mind.”

I felt thrilled and warmed by her protection of me.

“Kevin will be incensed,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“Shae, when you’re with us, we have the right to subjugate you. Even call you names. But you know the context for that. You trust our dominance of you. Sometimes when our lifestyle friends are present, we allow them to subjugate you. But it’s in our presence, and again you have a context for that. It’s part of our training of you. But when someone, a stranger to you, encounters you alone in public, he has no right to address you that way.”

This is an understanding I didn’t have before. Still learning this slave thing.

***

Truth is, I really love sucking a man’s cock. I just do. I think a man’s penis is the most amazing thing. The biology of it is miraculous.

I enjoy it when Master calls me “Maura.” My middle name as our code word. I tingle as I drop to my knees. My mouth waters. My pussy gets wet.

The experience of it is sensual in a half dozen different ways. He starts out soft in my mouth, but then grows hard as I go down on him. His penis is smallish at first, limp, but then grows in girth and presence to stretch my lips. His cock is wrinkled and ridged, then becomes taught and smooth, slipping across my tongue. It’s an astonishing experience, shock and awe, every time.

It’s astonishing with him, and also with other men as I am shared. Every man is different, of course, and that adds to the mystery. I don’t respond to random cocks or pictures of cocks or disembodied cocks popping out of holes in the wall. I want to look into the man’s eyes before I go down on him. And then his cock is all the more delicious.

Sometimes a man will come on my face, which apparently is a thing. But usually he comes in my mouth. That’s what I love. I love how sometimes it shoots into the back of my throat like sniper fire and other times it slowly oozes out thickly onto my tongue, like foamy toothpaste. It’s warm as it enters me, comforting and soothing. Every man tastes different, of course, and I know many women don’t like the taste. It’s acquired, for sure, but I love its varying degrees of bitter and salty and acrid and sweet. The combinations are endless even when from the same man.

I don’t believe I have any particular technique that is special. I don’t really know how men evaluate me in the blowjob competition. I don’t really care. I tend to think that what matters most is a man knowing I love having his cock in my mouth. I think a man appreciates that my desire is not just in getting him off but in savoring the experience of getting there. I think a man ultimately prefers a woman who worships his manhood rather than just services it.

monday, more practice

I don’t intend to report each and every day of my life, but there are two continuing stories — Mistress Amanda and Master K — that some readers have asked about, so I’ll update you on these, which is my story Monday.

Mistress Amanda ran a higher fever on Sunday evening, and the flu took her fully during the night. I set my alarms very couple of hours to attend to her, and during her sweats applied cool wet towels to her face and neck, or else during chills held her within a blanket when she shivered furiously. I looked in on her again very early Monday morning, and she was sleeping soundly. Just with the back of my hand at her forehead, I could tell her fever had broken, and she would be taking the day sleeping and replenishing her strength. I expected she’d be needing some soup near lunchtime, and I checked to make sure we had some.

Meanwhile, Master K had, on Sunday night, informed me I would be needed for another practice session Monday morning. Again, coffee at 5:30 and me ready and waiting at 6:00, same businessy attire. I would be tired from my night with Mistress, but then again, I would be up at 4:30 for Amanda anyway, so this was no special hardship, although I would not be at my sexual best with Master K. Again I showered and primped and forced my hair into some kind of shape. Like most gingers, my hair can look luxuriously great or sadly horrible, and there’s not much in-between. So I attempt hair therapy on the fly, and it winds up looking, at 6:00 a.m., as if it once was luxuriously great some eight hours before. Not so much now.

We like to think that there’s something about ourselves, even in slavery, that our masters find special and lovely and appealing about us even on bad hair mornings. Probably not so much. We are instead a set of sex holes, and if there were other slave girls present in the house, we’d all be somewhat interchangeable. At these times, it really isn’t about hair, but about the orifice of my mouth wrapping around Master’s organ, and giving him the pleasure of lips, cheeks, and a wet tongue. Still, I hope for a measure of special attention, a flicker of enjoyment about me, maybe for my mind and creativity. But my clever wit and way with words are not so captivating when I am ballgagged or am squatting with a cock in my mouth. So it is.

So I practiced with him. I had done my homework, so my squatting with my skirt up was solid, my technique of keeping his pants dry was flawless, and I stuck my dismount — getting him tucked away, zipped up, with me standing a couple yards away facing him and feigning business. Again, he timed it such that he didn’t ejaculate.

He nodded, pleased.

He then moved to the desk chair. He sat, then said, “Maura,” and I came around the desk and knelt between his legs. This time I was on my knees, as there didn’t seem any place for my legs if I tried squatting. Apparently that was right, as his sitting position required me to lean over his lap and mouth him from above his crotch. There were some starts and stops in this routine as well, but I figured it out, and managed to do well enough. It was more of a challenge getting him all put away, given that he was sitting, but I developed a technique for that, which was to make pants space at the beginning when I was pulling him out. My “dismount” here involved standing, smoothing my skirt, and attending to something behind him, and his chair and desk — in this case adjusting window blinds in the bay window. It will be different in other places, of course, but I will have to be ready when called on to figure out what that business can be.

That was it. No ejaculation, no savoring of his cum in my mouth. I must have been showing my disappointment, because he said, “When I give that to you, it will be another level of things for you. It can be a mess. You have to get this other technique down first.”

So I have completed the written exam successfully. Now I have to excel in the orals.

There is in all of this a feeling of excitement, anticipation, and desire. And also humiliation. He is the Cowboy perhaps, but I’m not his first slave rodeo. He knows exactly what he’s doing to me. He’s roping me with his own cowboy techniques. And meanwhile, I‘m aware my life has been reduced to practicing for a sequence of quickie fellatios.

“Thank you, Sir,” I said. And he was then off to work at his regular time.

I returned to Mistress Amanda, and she was sleeping soundly, thank God. I climbed into bed with her.

whore

The other day I was called a whore.

I am called many things in my slave life, sometimes objectifying words and phrases that, when said in a certain tone, can actually be endearing. Master sometimes calls me his “fuck toy,” and in his delivery, it can be tender. In another context it is literally true. And then in other situations he and others use the same phrase with me in ways that are intentionally objectifying. And that’s OK with me too — I submit to it.

When you are a slave, when you live as the human property of another, verbal degradation is sometimes (often) part of the slave experience. You expect it and you accept it and you are objectified. It sparks your submissive feelings. Often I am aroused by such things. Sometimes I regret that I am aroused by such things.

So being called a whore by this man was not to me offensive per se, though it was somewhat unexpected given he was a stranger to me, raw as it was delivered, and harsh given some of the details and circumstances of the moment. But they really don’t matter.

I am also a writer, which means I am fascinated by words and their meanings. And being called a whore by this man prompted me to think about several things. Maybe this won’t seem interesting to you, but in any case, I shall ramble:

The word “whore” literally means a “promiscuous woman or prostitute.” The word “promiscuous” means “indiscriminate mingling or association, especially having sexual relations with a number of partners on a casual basis.” Those are the established meanings.

And here’s the thing: most of those definitions are actually true of me. I am shared sexually with others on “a casual basis.” My slavery  is social, through my Master, and involves something akin to “indiscriminate mingling.” I am used for lots of sex, quite frankly, giving truth to the word “promiscuous.” The part that isn’t quite true is “prostitute” — I do not take money for what I am and do.

I have at times assumed some self-justification in the fact that as a slave my sexual life is not my own, that in a sense I am made to be promiscuous. But more recently I have come to feel a bit guilty about that assumption. To say I am forced to have sex isn’t really true. Yes and no. My original agreement to become a slave was consent for everything that it requires of me. And there are always options for me to say no. But I don’t say no. And, in fact, I enjoy my life of slavery, my life of so-called promiscuity — not every situation or moment or order or sexual act, but most of it I like, if not truly adore.

I was flash-backing  about my life, the times before I got into active submission and before entering into the slave life. I was an independent professional woman who acted freely. I was never a social butterfly, but I did have relationships, and frankly slept with multiple people. So was I promiscuous? Is there a specific number of sexual experiences one is allowed before the term “whore” becomes appropriate? Is it four, ten, twenty? How do we calculate at what point I actually become a whore?

I went back to memories of high school and college: how we as girls created hierarchies of classmates, categorizing ourselves into groups — girls who were popular, girls who were pretty, girls who were fun, girls who weren’t virgins, and then girls who slept around. This became a social ladder, and we all spent obscene amounts of emotional energy obsessing over where we were on it, aware the worst thing would be the lowest rung, and to be called a “slut.”

So do we — do I — do the same thing now? After all, it’s a bit ridiculous for me as a real slave to put myself on a ladder above that of a prostitute. She sells her body, yes, but then I’ve given away my body. Is there really a moral difference there between a sex worker and a sex slave?

The interesting thing about the incident (and from my point of view there really was no incident) was what happened after.

The situation was a business meeting with a number of Master’s colleagues and an outside agency. Master brought me in as an assistant for the meeting because his usual assistant, Karyn, was ill with the flu. He brings me in sometimes. Now Master’s lifestyle, and my enslavement to him, are common knowledge among his colleagues, and to some extent to the outside partners and agencies he works with. He is a very public person about all of this. And some from this outside agency had this same knowledge. But I am there as his assistant. This is business.

The man who called me a whore was from the outside agency. He’s maybe 25 or so, and very bright, but clearly full of himself. I was in the meeting room placing reports at each seat around the table. Hardly anyone was there yet. This young businessman was trying to be jokey with one of his agency buddies. And he said loudly to his buddy, intentionally so I could hear, “She’s his little whore.”

So, again, I am used to be called things like that. I’ve been called a whore many times and will be called a whore many more times. And as I’ve said, maybe I really am, definitionally, a whore. That’s all OK. And I knew what the young man was trying to do — to present himself as included in the circle of Master’s friends who are in the know about me. It was narcissistic of him, but that’s pretty common.

In the back in the coffee area was Mr. Karras. I’ve written about him before. He’s a long-time close friend and associate of Master Michael. He’s at the Skyway house all the time and he’s had me at different times.

Mr. Karras heard the whole thing.

A moment later, with coffee in hand, Mr. Karras walked over to the young man and his associate, gently but firmly put his hand at the back of the young man’s neck, and said, “Son, she is Michael’s pride and joy. What Shea has chosen to be to him is no business of yours. You have not been included in his circle, and if I hear anything like that from you again, I’ll make sure you never will be.”

Right. He did that.

Like I say, I was not actually offended by being called a whore. But what Mr. Karras said was pretty amazing.

After all that transpired, I looked at Mr. Karras across the room and mouthed the words, “Thank you.”

He nodded back with a crusty smile.

And for the rest of the day I was walking on sunshine.