“The doors we open and close each day decide the lives we live.”

Master and I had a little spat the other day. It was nothing serious, I don’t even remember what it was about or who started it. One of us snapped at the other, the other snapped back and before the end of it, I was walking away with my little feelings all hurt.

I’ve come a long way in learning how to “fight”. We both have. It’s sad to say that neither of us had a clue how to do that effectively when we first met. But we’re better, the two of us. It’s no longer a character assassination, we aren’t out to wound each other or to “win”. And every spat does not signal the beginning of the end. In other words, there is no reason for me to stomp off and start throwing my clothes in a box simply because we don’t see eye to eye on every subject in the world.

Oh yes, we really were that bad.

Progressive as we have been, I’m still trying to learn an appropriate way to be angry. Slavery and submission complicates what is already a complicated thing, don’t you think?

There is one thing that I do pretty consistently when I’m angry that I really need to stop doing. It’s such a small thing, and probably sounds stupid-silly.

I’ll sneak off to the bathroom without asking. Dumb, right?

I know I’m going to get caught. I know it’s going to piss him off and I know he’ll punish me for it. I know it only makes a bad situation worse.

I know all of that. I do it anyway.

But I feel bad when I do it. I’m not trying to rub disobedience in his face, I don’t *want* to get caught. I don’t want him to catch me. You’ve never seen a faster peer than me in those seconds when I’m trying to get done before he wonders where I went. I don’t want to be punished and I hate hate hate that moment when I’m in there and I hear his footsteps approaching the door and then that quiet knock.

It’s really a god-awful, stomach-sinking feeling.

Then there is The Talk and The Look and The Consequence. It all just makes me want to drop through the floor and die.

Yet, the next time I’m angry or hurt, I’ll do it again.

So this time, after it happened and after I got caught, I took the time where I wasn’t allowed to do anything else (The Consequence) and really tried to examine why I do this, every single time. There had to be a connection, because it’s only that one thing, that one rule that I break.

If it were a matter of simple disobedience, then I’d run around willy-nilly breaking all the rules. But I don’t. No other, except that one.

I’m not deliberately trying to make him angry. There are far more effective ways to do that! And if it were that, I’d flaunt it. I’d strut right past him on my way to the bathroom and slam the door in his face. I don’t do that. I’m furtive and sneaky and wait until he’s in the other room and I have reason to think he’ll be in there long enough that I can get in and out before he notices.

It’s not a matter of trying to snatch back some control either. I could do that in any number of ways that it’d be way more blatant than going pee.

It’s always just that one single thing. I otherwise serve and perform and behave as if nothing had happened. Perhaps with a bit more… oomph? I might be a little more, um, enthusiastic about handing him his coffee cup. I might add some extra-special voice tone to “You’re coffee, Master.”

But other blatant or deliberate acting out just doesn’t happen.

Or so I thought.

I happened to think of another one while I was pondering.

I’ll often, but not always, try to get into bed without getting naked. I’m not always successful in that because if he’s already there and is watching me get into bed, I cannot be deliberately disobedient under his watchful eye. But if he’s not there yet and I’m getting into bed first, I keep as many clothes on as possible.

I’m not supposed to wear clothes to bed.

I remembered that and suddenly it was all clear to me. Because I know exactly why I try and keep my clothes on when I’m angry.

I hate sleeping with any clothes on. I didn’t need that to be a rule in the first place. Clothes make me feel tied up and strangled when I’m sleeping. I slept naked before I met him. I’ll sleep for shit if I have clothes on in bed.

But I’ll try and keep them on because being naked in front of him makes me feel vulnerable.

Anger is a protective emotion. When I feel hurt or afraid, rejected, invalidated (and any one of those can be the result of something that he and I disagree about. Especially considering that, very often, my opinion is dismissed due to being the slave and having to acquiesce to his wishes) anger forms a protective layer to keep from being further exploited or wounded.

I don’t want to let go of that protection. I need to hold on to it until I’ve come to terms with having been overruled, or invalidated. It’s not that I’m pouting or stewing, I’m dealing, but without allowing myself to be “harmed” any more.

Vulnerability, exposing myself (in body or emotions) in front of him, erases anger. I can’t maintain that protective exterior, the anger, when I’m vulnerable. The two emotions just don’t mesh and vulnerability wins out.

If I lose that protective shield before I’ve made my peace with being dismissed/overruled, well I don’t know what will happen. I might implode or something.

So I try and avoid situations with him that put me in a vulnerable position. Like being naked. And, most especially, asking to use the bathroom. I avoid them until I can do them- on my terms.

The reason why asking to use the bathrom makes me feel so vulnerable doesn’t matter, I don’t think. It just does. You’ve no idea how humiliating and degrading it is to have to do that when I’m NOT raw from whatever disagreement we may have had. I… bah… I can’t even explain it.

The goal, that I can see, isn’t in erasing the vulnerability that I feel. In fact, I dare say keeping that vulnerability is important.

The goal is, perhaps, not shutting him out of that. Not wrapping myself up in that protective blanket of anger and excluding him from the process.

Not being vulnerable on my terms- but on his.

I need to not believe that I’m losing something if I let go. That there is nothing to be gained in trying to hold so tight to that control. That I am, in fact, losing something every time I wrap myself up in that security blanket.

Preferably without imploding, though. I have enough to clean as it is.

~cunt

ps. Day 4 with no revenge extracted. I think the statute of limitations is up, don’t you? Too bad so sad!

Kaya and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day

PMS. I have some. At least I think I do. I never keep a schedule of it, I just kind of figure that when I start getting irritated that the people around me are still breathing – I’m close to bleeding.

Yesterday was blechy. Jes has left. Again.

I just can’t keep doing this with her. Everytime something happens that doesn’t please her 100%, she bolts. All I can see in the future is her using that baby as a pawn, a manipulation tool to force me into giving her her way all the time or she’ll take it away.

My gut response is to try and keep myself from bonding any more than I already have with the baby-to-be. Self-protection I guess.

I’m truly thinking about telling her not to come back. And yet… the words stick in my throat because…. the baby bump.

What was the catalyst this time, the horrifically awful event that caused her to run away from the evils of this house?

The end of allowance, and my refusal to do it again at any time in the very near future.

Not just for her. For all three of them. And not because I am determined to “ruin her life”, as she thinks. (As if allowance is the life-ruining factor she needs to be worrying about anyway. Jeezus pleezus.)

Here was the deal with the kids and earning an allowance.

Allowance had stopped working in the way that it was supposed to. It had become a source of fighting, between me and them, between Master and I, and within myself.

Here’re the ways in which it went wrong:

First, there were hassles over what it was supposed to be used for. This was a lot of where Master and I would start to bicker. He felt that it should be used for anything they *wanted*, and while I don’t disagree with that theory, I would tend to disagree with what was a want and what was a need. (Imagine that huh? A slave who wants to haggle over wants and needs. tee hee)

An extension of the ‘wants and needs’ disagreement was that it seemed like I couldn’t buy them something for “just because” without him thinking it should have come out of their allowance. Again, he had legitimate points, but so did I. And unfortunately, the kids had picked up on some of the discord between us about it and were playing that in their favor, the manipulative little monsters.

But these things between him and I were being worked out as we went along. That wasn’t even the reason it all blew up, but it was a mitigating factor in the final decision.

They had a very small, very reasonable, list of chores to earn their allowance. They had to do simple things like make their bed in the morning, put their clothes away, help clean up after supper, take out the trash, yadda yadda yadda.

But all of a sudden, they seemed to think they didn’t have to do anything that wasn’t THEIR chore. There was no spirit of cooperation anymore, no willingness to help someone (me, mostly) do anything. Not that I expect cheers and cartwheels when I ask someone to set the table or dust the living room, they are teenagers after all, but about the 100th time I heard “No. That’s not MY chore.” I’d had enough of it.

If there wasn’t a monetary attachment to doing something, again, they thought they could refuse to do it. Everything I’d ask was answered with “how much will you pay me?”

Uhh. Nothing. That’s how much.

I was in a constant cycle of having to remind them to do their chores, of tracking them down, asking them if they’d done it yet, being told that yeah, they were coming to do it in “five minutes, Mom!” and then, an hour later, the table still isn’t cleared, I’m getting tired, I don’t want to clean the kitchen at 9pm when THEY are ready, finding that they’d “forgotten” to scoop the litter box for 3 days straight, they’d “forgotten” to take the trash out…. blah blah blah and excuse after excuse and wah-wah-wah-wah.

Plus, they’d lost any and all motivation to find other ways to actually earn money. When I was a kid I did all sorts of unpleasant things to earn spending money. I detassled corn in the summer (if you’ve done that, you’ll agree it’s a suck-ass job for a kid), I babysat on the weekends and in the summers instead of hanging out with my friends.I waitressed. For one short and disasterous time over a summer, I delivered pizzas. (Me and directions? Are not friends. I cost that poor restaurant more free pizzas than were paid for I think. I was the worst delivery driver than any delivery driver in the history of ever.)

But I’d mention to them about looking for work like that and they’d sigh and “Nah” and “don’t need to” and “why?”.

And, this is where Jes factored into it the most, what it was being spent on just was burning my ass more and more.

She would save hers until she has enough to make a trip to Wisconsin. Which, on the occasion that the three of them would cooperate so they could go together, I was much more okay with it. The other two kids liked to go down there and spend the weekend with their old friends, too, so they’d all chip in one week’s allowance and that was enough to cover the gas there and back; they’d leave after school on Friday, come home on Sunday, and it was all hunky-fuckin-dory.

I knew where they were and I knew when they were coming home.

Jes doesn’t like doing it that way. She doesn’t want to only have Friday through Sunday. She wants to stay there for a week or two. In order for her to have the gas money without needing her brother’s and sister’s contribution, she has to save all of her allowance for a month. So she was in this cycle of saving for 4 weeks and then taking off for 2 weeks.

Her car, the car we gave her? Needs some work done. We did not give her that car so she could drive it into the ground by zipping off to Wisconsin and Illinois all the damn time. And the fact that we’re struggling to figure out how we’re going to pay for her baby while she’s pissing away money so she can go get laid once a month? Umm. no. There are a lot more important things she needs to be saving her allowance for.

So the whole thing accumulated into one big fight between the kids while we were gone the other night. I heard all about it when we got home and it all started over Jes saying that she wasn’t going to take Am and B-man with her anymore because she doesn’t like having to come home at the end of the weekend. She wants to stay there for that week or two.

And I’d just had enough. Her selfishness and her irresponsibility, on top of all of the other problems with the whole allowance business, on top of the fact that we’re not exactly rolling in the dough anyway and if that sacrifice from us isn’t properly appreciated?? Enough is enough, you know? Seriously.

And I’ve been threatening to do this if things didn’t shape up for quite a few weeks anyway.

So I told them all that I was done. I was done with allowance, done with chore lists, done done done. They can just do without until some of this other stuff improves. Or forever. Whichever comes first.

Am and B-man? They’re not stupid. They knew it was coming and they know why. They heard the warnings, they chose to ignore them, and they get that this is the consequence.

Jes? Not so much. Back to that entitlement syndrome of hers. She thinks that she is earning that money and should be able to do what she wants with it.

She thinks I’m only trying to keep her from seeing the baby daddy (who is still unemployed and has made zero contribution to anything).

She thinks I’m being unfair.

She thinks I don’t want her to have any fun.

She thinks I only want her to sit around the house and be miserable.

She thinks since we gave her that car, she can drive it without oil, drive 3,000 miles on bald tires, and that we shouldn’t say anything. Because it’s hers.

She makes me so tired. One day with her is like two weeks with the other two, I swear.

She doesn’t think she should be still be treated like a child, yet she’s doing *nothing* adult-like in any way whatsoever- nor can I get her to admit that even getting allowance is pretty childish.

She’s still just 17 and lives here and *should* be treated like a child, especially considering that she acts like she’s 12.

Everything is “not fair” or “not my fault!” when it comes to her, and even though it’s not my fault she got pregnant and not fair that we have to pay for it, she’s too stuck on how “not fair” it is that I took allowance away and how it’s “not her fault” that the other two kids have to go to school and can’t take off for weeks at a time.

So she gets pissed, she says she’s going to leave, I tell her to do what she has to do, she calls grandma crying and whining, my mom wires her money- and she leaves.

She writes me this long ass note about how it’s “not fair” (scream) and how she doesn’t want to leave but she doesn’t think I’m being “fair” (scream) and it’s not “her fault” (scream)

Round and round we go. Didn’t we do this same thing last month over something else?? And the month before that?

Fucking tired of it, of her, of the drama. Maybe I’ll take a big ol’ pass on being a grandma after all.

What’s Happenin’?

Today is Master’s birthday. Happy birthday! I have to go to the store to get the fixin’s for his favorite dish (lasagna) and to make a cake. Or maybe I’ll buy a cake. Bakery cakes are so much yummier than Betty Crocker. I have a present for him and a card and fun! Tomorrow night we’re going to a comedy show with some peeps.

I hope I get spanked! Maybe a Birthday Blowjob can be worked in there somewhere too.

It seems kind of ridiculous for me to “offer” a birthday blowjob when he can get a blowjob any ol’ time he wants one, though. It’s like offering an m&m to someone who owns a candy store. :/

Oooooh.. maybe if I smother his cock in frosting and poke a candle in it?

*snicker* Can you imagine the look on his face if I stuffed a birthday candle down his cock? 

Okay. Enough of that. These kind of thoughts don’t usually bode well for me.

I’ve been busy here. Staying out of trouble….. mostly.

I’ve been working on some kinky craft orders. Getting them sent out soon. I’m still selling them if anyone is wondering. Just zip me off an email (kaya at underhishand). Same goes for the clips on a cd, too.

We’ve been remodeling an upstairs bedroom, we have a new dog, the kids never leave the house anymore, I’m struggling with a deep NEED for pain but it’s hiding behind an intense FEAR of pain. The usual stuff.

Master and I got into a little spat Sunday evening. Part of it was pms-fueled, but even at that, I felt like we both handled it all pretty decently. Whereas in the past we might have continued to poke at each other, to fan the flames into a huge blow out, we didn’t do that this time.

I’ve been working on this issue specifically. How to handle being angry with the All-Powerful Owner. It’s such a futile gesture, this business of being angry with him, one that would have me spinning my wheels in frustration. Frustration that heightened the angry emotions, communication would break down, submission took a flying leap out the window, words would be said, accusations, hurt feelings… the works.

In the past, I used being angry as a punishment to those around me. In other relationships, there was a price to pay for pissing me off. And I don’t mean getting pissed off because the cap was left off the toothpaste or some silly shit like that… but really important issues, things that were big to me. If someone (a partner) crossed that line, I’d get mad. And I’d stay mad for.. days. Days upon days upon days.

I can be a bitch (I know. Hard to believe huh? ) and I can be cruel, both with my words and my actions. I’d use that to “punish” the person. The tension in the  house would be insanely intense. It takes a lot of energy to “win” that way. Of course my goal was to get them to think twice the next time they were contemplating crossing the line, MY line, and pissing me off again.

Sad thing is, it worked. On them. It does NOT work on Master.

Imagine my surprise.

It was hard though, because I only knew one way to be angry. That way. The way I’d always done it, the way that had always made me the winner.

That approach is not only damaging in a normal, equal relationship, it’s even worse in a power exchange relationship. I was hardly showing off my submissive colors by setting out to “win” an argument with Master.

I’d like to say that once I made the choice to be a slave and to hand over all control, that it was as simple as handing over the tv remote. But it wasn’t. It’s not. It’s been, and will continue to be, an ongoing process as little pieces are plucked, things that I am not even aware that I’m hanging on to, until it smacks me in the face.

Trying to win an argument is a way of trying to have control. Of course it is. You’d think it would be easy to KNOW that. Maybe it is, intellectually. Not so much though, when you’re in the middle of the argument and what you have to do is quiet down.. and submit.

I have to sit back and examine the beginning of the argument. Give up trying to pinpoint where HE went wrong and ask myself with brutal honesty: “where did I go wrong? How could I have handled that better as a submissive? At what point did *I* try to take control?”

To have to swallow my pride, especially if I am (or feel I am) right and justified in my position, to let go of the anger and the self-righteous attitude? Monumentally difficult. At least, it has been for me.

But, it works. In any relationship, finding what works is the key to making it a success. Master isn’t interested in always being right, or in always overruling me. It’s not a matter of him needing to “win” an argument. It’s really just me being submissive. Even when… especially when… it’s difficult. The harder I fight submission, the harder he pushes to get it.

Maybe I could stand there with my arms crossed and eventually, by sheer stubborness, he’d give up and LET me win. Maybe after that I would make a show of submission by mumbling an empty apology for being a bitch before skipping off on my merry, victorious way. And maybe that wouldn’t do permanent, fundamental damage to the core of us.

Maybe. I’ve done it before.

Or, maybe, after several days of clashing of wills, I’d be the one to give in and give up in the face of his stubborness.. and submit.. but not out of any genuine acquiescence. Out of exhaustion perhaps, or defeatism. And maybe that wouldn’t do any permanent damage either.

I’ve done that before, too.

But you know what happens when I check my ‘stubborn’ at the door? When I remember that I’m a submissive and that this man, who I entrusted my life to, is making the decisions and gets to drive?

Well I’ll tell you what you don’t get. You don’t get damage. You don’t get days of tense, exhausting fighting. You don’t have character assassination as each of you try and gain the upper hand. You don’t end up having said anything that you regret or wish you could take back or have to apologize for. You don’t break anything.

You get appeasement. You get compliance. Tractability, servility, humbleness and humility. And appreciation. I get appreciation. I have a Master who was prepared to fight for what is his.. my submission.. and didn’t have to. Because I willingly offered it, at a time when it was -is- the most difficult for me. I still did not “win”…. but I feel like I did. I didn’t get my way, but I got a hug, I got a kiss, I got a happy Master.

A happy Master makes me a happy slave.

~cunt

Blame the PMS!

“being angry is no excuse for being disrespectful”

First of all, I don’t think I was disrespectful. I think I responded to how I was approached. If I had just walked up to You, out of the blue, and said what I said, THAT would have been disrespectful. Retorting to Your completely rude and insensitive comment was human and emotional and justified. In my opinion.

Besides, You love the feisty side of me, remember? *finger’s crossed*

AND.. You said we’d take the slow road back to complete slave, right now I’m just semi-slave. And semi-slaves are allowed to be bitches. Without punishment. Says so in the rule book.

Plus, You know I’m premenstrual. I swear You pick this week of every month to push my buttons on purpose. Don’t You? You will never be stronger than my PMS. That’s not a challenge, just stating fact..:P

Seriously though, last night really did upset me. I can joke about it today, but I could have cried last night. I felt like I had done sooo much yesterday (and the last few days) to please You and one remark about what I hadn’t done was all it took to erase the proud feelings of being a “good girl”. And I did blow up at You and I am sorry. I didn’t mean to be disrespectful. My feelings were hurt and I responded like any other person would.

Maybe slaves don’t get that luxury. The luxury of spontaneous response.

Yes, I know You didn’t mean to hurt me. I know Your comment in no way undermined everything I had done. That was the pms responding. So… punish my uterus and not me.. hehe.

(On a side note, about spontaneous response. You seem to like my *good* spontaneous responses, so maybe You have to accept the bad ones to keep the good ones. Losing one might include losing the other. Just a thought.)

I am also sorry that I didn’t just take the punishment for being disrespectful. It wasn’t the punishment I was balking at. I know I would have had it done and over with, and it wasn’t even that bad of a thing, but it had become a matter of principle by then. Probably a bit of my pride being stung, along with the fact that I sometimes feel that You “forget” how hard I work and how tired I am and how sleep sometimes needs to be the most important thing in the world. I planted my heels and dug in. Not slavely behavior by any means, but.. if I was perfect.. what would You possibly do with Your time??…;)

I know I didn’t “win”. I know it’s not over.

The slave rests her case.

BTW, I love You!!
kaya