My Father's Daughter. But MaxEarnest's Girl

I'm sort of amazed to look at where I've come in the last year.  A funny turning point is that I did a summer-camp-for-grown-ups last summer that was all about 'inner-child' stuff, and the staff member I was paired with kind of blew me off.  She didn't meet with me and didn't meet and finally made an appointment and didn't show.  (She also wasn't reading the stuff I was writing, as she was supposed to--in a list of my mother's flaws, I mentioned that my mom had had bulimia and this person responded to the list"did you mother have issues with food?")  I thought about leaving and then refused to let her treat me like that any more.  I made the summer-camp people change plans to accommodate my needs.  When they said they wouldn't I said they needed to because they'd fucked up.  When they said I was having trust issues, I said "OK, I have trust issues, so act in a trustworthy way."  In retrospect, it was probably as valuable a lesson as I could have gotten.  When I set those limits, two other staff members really stepped up for me and I got a lot of what I wanted.  I think that is the moment that I really did begin to say "you can't treat me like that" and mean it.  And I had to mean it for it to mean anything.

My dad never hit me or abused me in a physical way, but he would get critical in ways that were devastating, and so I monitored my own behaviour so much, and also everything in the general environment.  My dad once told me I had "betrayed" him because he really hated a movie I recommended.  And in this year, I've started to see my dad as really damaged.  And started to let go of having a close relationship with him.  Maybe in a few years I can have a little more, but at the moment, I don't want to be around him if he is going to be so self-centered that he refuses to try to not hurt me.

And then I left my father's house to come to my home and see Maxearnest.  My identity is shifting.  I'm not Daddy's Girl anymore.  I'm sure issues will come up at some point, but they are not as salient.  I'm Maxearnest's beloved young slave girl.  There is a freedom and a joy there.  He makes me happy.  This feels like home. 

I trust him enough that I could just relax with him and literally fall when he shifted me and let him catch me. I didn't even tense up.  I'm sure there's a metaphor there as well.

We were having a very intimate conversation about my dad and kink and that my dad's criticism is probably what led me towards kink.  And all that is probably true.  And 10 years ago, I tried to analyze the criticism away and avoid the kink.  But now, I sort of feel like the kink was the silver lining.  Yeah, it sucked.  But look at this gift I got out of it?

I wouldn't change anything in my life, or at least nothing big--I'd still change the 2000 election--because it led me here.  And I'm so very happy.

Of course, I read the Newsweek article, and it is interesting.  But a huge difference with my experience because with Maxearnest, I'm taking responsibility for my desire.  I kneel at his feet or for him often.  He almost never orders me to kneel, but I sense that he likes it when I do.  And there's something very calming about it.  And then he usually pets and cherishes me and I look up at his strong hands and handsome face and I feel so very safe and adored and all is right in the world.  There is something about kneeling for him that is so very freeing.

Today he asked me if I needed to be used harder and I said yes, even though it scares me.  But I do.  He has been so very tender and gentle with me, and I love it.  I feel like an aquifer, just absorbing his love and his cherishing.  But then, there is that wild animal that needs to be pushed, controlled, taken.  I need to suffer for Maxearnest, to make the power about something more than rhetoric.  It calms that shrew beating in my breast.  And it makes me wet.

Life has always seemed about trade-offs.  How lucky that I don't have to pick one or the other.  I am getting it all.

Borrowing Trouble

I have a few quotidian concerns about MaxEarnest and me.  Will he like Seattle?  Will we work together in everyday time?  

But my biggest concern is more existential.  My young-girl is about 12.  Very sexual, almost insatiable.  That side of me wants to be adored and used and to please.  I'm also very naive and very trusting.  And Maxearnest and I just fit together so beautiful.  He delights in that side of me and cherishes that side and takes such wonderful, wonderful care of me.

I have this fear though, which is unknowable and probably irrational.  I feel like that side of me is being seen and recognized and is living in a way I've never really lived.  What if that side of me starts to grow up?  If my young girl went from 12 to 13, Maxearnest and I would probably fall apart.  I'm not at all rebellious.  I'm trusting and delight in having someone to care for me.  I have little lapses of discipline, like where I let go of a wrist when I'm scared and I don't maintain control, but I want to please Maxearnest and they are things I'm learning to be better on.  I also have moments where I don't necessarily want to obey because something hurts, it's hard and I'll think "why do I have to do that; I wish I didn't have to."  But I do obey.

But what if in nurturing that side of me, that side starts to grow up and become more like a teenager?  Maxearnest told me that he wants my erotic life to be focused around him, so I haven't opened a naughty novella since we were together in Iceland, and I am fine with that.  But then I read a review of a new naughty novel and part of me wanted to read it.  And I can't.  I'm not allowed to.  I'm actually fine with that.  I would so much rather live the life I'm living, worthy of being turned into its own naughty novel, than read about someone else's fantasies, but what if I read about another book in a few years and really want to read it?  I'm sure if it were really important to me, I mean really, Maxearnest would find a way to make it work.  But what if I become rebellious?  What if something hurts, really hurts, and I think "I wish I didn't have to do that" and then part of me says "you don't have to."

I have this deep feeling that if I ever lied to Maxearnest about anything important (I could dissemble about a present for him, or something like that), it would really hurt our relationship.  Even if he never found out, it would really hurt us. One of the things that is so magical between us is how well he can read my emotions, and how he uses that to make me happier than I'd ever imagined I could be.  Why can I even fear that someday I'd risk that for a little rebellious independence?  But I've read so much about so many women being unhappy in relationships in the 50s and 60s and earlier, and even now.  I don't understand how if they were being loved and cherished, they wouldn't obey.  But an awful lot of women found that to be an untenable situation.  I know is some ways this is different, but in some ways it isn't.  I guess I just want this moment to never end and I'm scared it could.

There's no way of stopping time.  There's no use borrowing trouble and worrying about the future.  But it is sad to think that I might grow in a way that would wreck the best thing that has happened to me.

A Traditional Housewife: Part 2

I’ve staying with Dotty this week, and it has been really, really hard!  She works 12-16 hour days, so I stay home, just like a traditional housewife, and I get some work done and it is OK, but, wow, would it have sucked to have this as a life.  I had quite a bit of work to do, but since I was on vacation, that meant 4 hours a day.  And then I’d shop for her, cook for her, clean the house for her.  She invited friends over and at one point wasn’t there to great them and I had to play hostess to her friends when I didn’t know where she was.  One night, she didn’t get home until midnight, when she said she’d be home “in a couple of hours” at 6.  I had a plate of food waiting in the fridge but she’d snacked at work. 

I felt a lot of the resentments that I read from women in the early 1960s.  When I took care of my dad when he was ill, I felt really fulfilled.  I made a difference for him and I loved taking care of him.  But with Dotty, I felt lonely and neglected and taken for granted because I have no social life here (my cell phone doesn't work where she lives--only Verizon works) and at the end of the day, I want her to notice what I did to make her house nicer and ask about my day and she is too tired.

And here’s the thing: Dotty is one of the most lovely, thoughtful people I know.  But work is eating her alive.  She is ‘only’ scheduled to work 9 hours a day, but that’s my equivalent of billable hours.  And, of course, I make a third of what I could so that I don't have that stress. It seems possible that in 6 months, she’ll be down to working maybe 60 hours a week, but right now, I’d say she’s working closer to 100.  She needs a ‘housewife,’ but it would be a pretty grim, isolated and lonely existence for anyone depending on her for a partnership. 

Dotty is stretched to the breaking point.  I can feel the stress.  She feels 10 years older than when I saw her in January.   I’m scared for her--I don’t know how she can keep up the life she is living. But she only gets 10 vacation days this year, and they have already been scheduled for a cousin’s wedding and to visit her parents.  (I cannot even imagine a life where I only got 10 vacation days a year.) But it made me realize that much of the traditional male/female issues can be accredited to the shitty working conditions in this country.  There are no gender issues with Dotty and myself.  There’s just the fact that she is horribly overworked and I’m staying in a community I don’t know, in a home where I’m a guest, trying to take a little of the stress off her shoulders.

But clearly, we need better conditions for the people who work full time as well.

Taxonomy and Reality

Maxearnest sent me a sweet e-mail today:  "My sweet slave girl.  This is worth reading."

It touched me deeply he sent this because this was very close to some things I've told him.  He affirmed for me that we are 'real' (even if, deep down, I feel like we're real for us, but not for most of the kink world out there.  But I don't care.  Some to define "Us" with is all I've ever wanted.)

It also highlighted how important taxonomy is.  As we name things, we define them.  The nomenclature of kink shapes desire and power.  Maxearnest is very clear on the difference between submissive and slave. And he clearly thinks I'm a slave, and that clearly delighted and surprised him.  I think he feels a slave is more valuable than a submissive.  And I'm happy to be his slave.  But I'm hesitant to use that language here because I feel like most readers would say I'm not a 'real' slave.  (And, in all honesty, Maxearnest and I only spent a week together.  We probably average 2 hours a day on Skype, but Skype is not real life and we both know it.  It will be another month before Maxearnest and I start to see how we are in quotidian life.)

In terms of taxonomy, all that matters to me, of course, is that Maxearnest and I are on the same page.  We're not a 'property' relationship.  Part of me belongs to Maxearnest, but he is also very aware (and very supportive of) the part of me that is not submissive. Although maybe that side is a little more submissive than I thought--I certainly appreciate nudging and am willing to defer to wisdom.  Over time, I could see myself depending on him more and more.

Last week I had a really cool week at work.  I got to present to about 1000 people over the course of two days and it went so very well. I was glowing, and Maxearnest could see how happy it made me and he said something like "I'm not the only thing that makes you happy."  And that is true, although I think the good things at work make me much happier than they would have before Maxearnest was in my life.  Before, I felt this underlying emptiness.  There was a John-shaped hole in my life, but it wasn't necessarily John--it was having a partner to share with.  Now I just thank my lucky stars instead of wishing on them.

What amazes me is that my relationship with Maxearnest, where I am freely accepting becoming his slave, as defined by him, is that it is all about receiving more gifts; it doesn't feel like I'm giving anything up.  He pushes me some, but rarely to the point where I go numb or just hate it.  It is almost always sexy.  He likes to see me aching with hunger, not quaking with dread.  And, honestly, I am a little harder core than I've admitted.  I've always said I wasn't a masochist, but I don't think that is actually true.  I think I kind of knew it, but really didn't feel like the men I was seeing were safe for me.

And where I think Maxearnest differs from almost all other Masters is that he is very happy for me to have a part of my life that isn't as his slave.  Work is mine.  I have friends.  If, for some reason, I ever had to give up my work, that would be a decision we made together.  Even little things, like drug--I told him that I wanted equal say in any drugs we did, and that was no problem.  He didn't insist on his right as a master to get me high.  I don't think most 'real' 'slaves' would say "I won't give up my work and we have to talk about drugs before we do them."  But I'm real to Maxearnest.  Just like the velveteen bunny. He wants me to do the things that make me happy.  Maxearnest knows I'm greedy for life.  I want more sex, more kink, yes.  But I also want more experiences from wind in my hair to kudos at work.  Making music, being heard and laughing together. And then crawling to his feet and waiting for his command.

Empathy

Maxearnest just continually surprises me in these amazing, giving ways.

I went in to work today early for a meeting, which cut our time short this morning.  When I get to work, it turns out the guy I was supposed to meet was cancelling, but he e-mailed the secretary at 11pm last night (instead of calling me to let me know) and the secretary didn't get in until after our meeting was supposed to happen.  So I told Maxearnest I was frustrated.  And he just said he was sorry for my frustration and that the guy who cancelled shouldn't have.  But that was such a gift to me.  It felt like he cared.  This is the professional side of me, not at my best--in a bit of a self-righteous snit.  And he still cares.

All my life, my dad has lectured me that I shouldn't get annoyed when people do things like that, or far worse--malicious things--I'm always the one that was 'fun to tease' and so it was like I asked for it--even when I came home with a broken arm from getting beaten up by bigger kids, it was always my fault.  

I do think empathy is where my dad just fails.  In many ways, he's a good man.  He tries to do what is right, but he is defining what is right by this 1960s-EST-Me self-centeredness.  He just doesn't think about other people. At all.  Eventually, I learned to try and stop getting empathy from my dad.  Except when I'd need it most.  Then I'd slip and try and get it.  But it was futile and I mostly learned better.

But I still missed it.

And here is Maxearnest just empathizing with me.  Over something little, something silly, something I probably would be a better person if I didn't let it annoy me.  And the fact that he can give me that gift is just so embracing.

Gifts

Let's be honest; being happy is boring to write about, as Tolstoy so tersely explained. And I am happy.  My angst is even getting smaller and less interesting.  I could write a salacious blog about sex as Maxearnest is really so creative, but that just isn't my style. I'm sure I'd gain a wider audience, but I feel like it would make what we do less intimate, less joyful.

I have noticed an interesting change in my thinking.  Until Maxearnest, I have always felt like submission was a gift, and I felt that way because I was doing a lot of things that weren't good for me.  Some of it was linked to kink; some of it was just linked to being taken for granted.  I remember, I was with the ex when I read "What Shamu Taught Me About A Happy Marriage" and I took it to heart; I started thanking him when he (occasionally) did something to help around the house.  One day he said "I'm glad you're thanking me for helping with the dishes because it means you realize the housework is all your responsibility."  I would like to say I broke up with him that day, but I didn't.  (Do I need to mention that I covered half the finances but ended up handling all the bills, shopping, cooking, cleaning and laundry.  The only thing he ever did was take out the trash.)  I was willing to try and make that work (and we had sex that was similarly skewed towards being all about his needs with no concern for mine) because I viewed being submissive as a gift.  I viewed it, frankly, as drawing the very short end of the stick in the relationship department, but I didn't want to lie about who I was.  

With Maxearnest, this has changed.  I feel like his dominance is a huge gift to me.  Just enormous.  He is constantly taking how I feel into account.  More than that.  I get the sense that if I'm hungry to submit, and he's not, he's just happy to talk or be gentle, he'll find a way to satisfy my hunger--let me feel submissive, even if he's not necessarily in a sexual mood.  He is making sure both our needs are met, and my needs are half of that.  Fortunately, our needs are very compatible.  But sometimes only one of us is feeling it.  And if I'm very, very tired, or feeling a little off, he'll be gentle with me, even if he might prefer something rougher, stronger, more visceral.  He cares more about me than about what kinky thing we'll do that day, and he wants me to be happier for being with him than without him.  Dominance doesn't just mean he gets whatever he wants when he wants it.  It is a responsibility he has to be wise and not just selfish.

I feel kind of silly saying this, but I never really thought that would happen. 

Interestingly, Maxearnest feel like my submission is a gift to him.  He cherishes it.  

So we have a relationship where both of us feels like we're both receiving a wonderful gift from the other.  That is a beautiful thing to me.

I'm so very happy.  Boring (to write a blog) but happy!

Numbing pain, obedience and love

Of all the things that Maxearnest likes to do with me, there is one I just hate.  Hate.  Hate, hate, hate hate.  They are these little black silicon pads with sharp points he has me put in my shoes, then stand and walk.  I hate them.  They make me feet not quite fit in my shoe, so there is pain all over, especially in my pinky toes, which end up feeling a little crushed and on an angle.  The top of my feet feel pushed.  And of course they push the bottom where I'm standing.

They numb me out.  They make me hate being submissive.  They make me wish I were normal, so I didn't have to endure this thing that just feels like it crushes my spirit, for what--why does he want me to be that unhappy?  They make me feel like I have to earn love for what I do, with my pain, instead of just being loved regardless.  They make me question why I've accepted the entire D/s realm.  They remind me of the ex and all the things I've endured.  I hate them. There is no aspect of them that I like nor do I see any advantage.  But I have obeyed and rebelled only with my eyes and Maxearnest is certainly aware when I'm not happy.

I don't like being humbled.  But I accept it.  And it makes me wet.  (Maxearnest would never humiliate me.  Even if I did something wrong, and he punished me for it, he'd tell me I disappointed him, but he would never call me stupid, or worthless or ugly anything like that.  He'd say that I needed discipline and accepting my punishment would make me his good girl again.)  But he does humble me.  And it is hard for me.  But it doesn't make me hate being a submissive.  It doesn't make me question my decision to embrace submission.
Intellectually, I wish I didn't like to be objectified.  But truth be told, I want to be objectified.  And then cherished and petted and loved.

There are days my nipples hurt for hours afterwards.  I can feel them, not just being tender, but hurting.  Sometimes it is distracting at work to feel my nipples against my bra.  A little reminder all day of what we did that morning.  I can't run for a stoplight, because they hurt.  But it is also a little hot.

When I'm being spanked, there are times I don't know how I can handle any more.  But it still makes me wet.  And when it is done, I'm so glad.  But I also think I could have handled a little more and wonder if I was too much of a wuss.

There's pain that pinches, pain that stings, pain that thuds, and pain that constricts.  There's pain that challenges, pain that seduces, pain that opens me up and makes me more vulnerable and pain that shuts me down and makes me clench, just waiting for it to be over.  Those little black pads are pain that makes me clench, feel worthless and, truth be told, a little hopeless.  I have accepted my lot.  But those black pads make me sad at what my lot is.

He has only done it thrice, because he knows how much I hate them.

But today, we were talking afterwards.  And he could see it in my face, how much I hated those little devious things.  But we talked and I told him how they made me feel.  At first, he wanted me to accept that it is his right.  And I told him it was, and I would do my best to endure.  But as we talked I became a little more articulate about how I felt, and I think it made him sad; he doesn't want me to feel that way, ever.  He said we wouldn't use them on Skype any more.  And I started to tear up.  Part of me didn't want to accept his gift--it felt so lovely, so loving, so kind and generous that he would give up something he enjoys just because I hate it.  He has imposed a hard limit on us, which is that I should never feel like I'm unloved, ever.   I have accepted that I will do things that are hard; we both know that.  But he doesn't want me to feel like I have to earn love.  And if I do feel like I have to earn love, then he will stop.  At least for now.  Maybe when he is here, we'll experiment some more.  But for the time being, I am so very touched.