Resolve

It has been the loveliest of summers. We've been at the holiday house little more than a week and yet it feels like we have been here all summer. If we open the front doors, and we do, we get lovely breezes from the water and we've not yet had a day that has made life uncomfortable. If it gets too hot we simply get in the old boat and fish out in the middle of the lake, which is much cooler, or we go for a swim in the lake.

We've had company with us the whole time. The last person left a mere hour ago. There has been barely any time to think let alone write, although I've let my mind wander as I've held a lure to catch fish, and caught some, I did!

I have done a little reading: Wayne Dyer's Your Sacred Self, and the novel The Dry. I love Dyer's positivism and the simple statements and suggestions he makes to turn thinking around. I'm smitten too by Jane Harper's ability to create atmosphere and character by using just the right verb. It's inspiring how easily writing can improve for the reader when the writer lets go of adverbs and concentrates on finding the right word to describe the action in the scene. If you are ever looking for a book to describe the Australian countryside in drought, look no futher.

I've not had time to write in this space but nor have I had something worth saying. I did try one day and the attempt is saved in drafts, but it so annoyed me how the writing was inspired by a feeling of anger and that's so last year, that feeling. I don't want that feeling to be part of my new year, so I abandoned it and waited for a feeling that did in fact have an invitation into my life.

Of course, I am going through a 'process' right now, a process that I understood at the outset had long term positives but would have some shaky moments. I'm working on getting closer towards the centre. I'm looking to abandon unhealthy codependence traits and becoming closer to the middle of the range, or to put it another way, a more healthy codependence. I have no goal to alter my innate functioning. That is, I take care of people. I care about people. I'm the follower. That's not going to change. I can't and don't want to will myself to suddenly desire a job at the top of the corporate ladder, for example. I don't seek power, or limelight, although between you and me, I happily daydream of attending (my own) book launch and soaking up my time on the stage!!

It's been lovely lately to note that as I ask for a bit of assistance here and there, or when people ask me what they can do to help, this all seems to flow better. I offer them a job, or ask if they would mind doing something for me, and that's all gone smoothly. It's made my life a dream in that I am no longer feeling that I am slogging through the work, and I no longer feel secretly resentful that they don't do more.

One of the biggest tests of this process that I am in is that the codependent will feel her sense of  inner loneliness return; those same sort of feelings that she felt as a child; the sort of feelings that contributed to making her a codependent desiring to dance with her polar opposite in the first place. For a long time, my sub-conscious held onto the feeling that any behaviour of the other was acceptable, so long as I kept the inner loneliness at bay. The feeling is that strong and frightening; must not be felt at any cost. It took a great deal of research and inner investigation to realize that I could withstand it; that I had to go to the heart of that feeling.

This process, this first part of it, at least, should be done with the aid of a therapist. However, I don't feel I can do that. I feel, and I am bucking the best psychological advice here, that I have to do this alone. Having said that, I do have advice via books and Utube talks that I refer to in order to bolster my resolve. Dyer's book noted above helps me right now. You don't have to fear a lack of approval, he says, because you have a comfort in your own skin that you are on your own spiritual path.

For the first few weeks into the process I think I was probably private and somewhat withdrawn. I think I may have felt that I needed to try as much as I could to concentrate on holding onto my resolve. I wanted to let cindi run free but at the same time I feared what might happen if I did. Like, cindi has no resolve. But, yesterday morning my husband pinned by arms to either side of me while I lay on the bed and bit at my nipple jewellery. I could feel her rise. She has a life of her own that little thing, and my body responded to the force. Oh yes, she was enjoying herself. She liked being taken and used.

I am, in moments, still a little shaky. There is no doubt about that. Rome was not built in a day and one doesn't heal overnight. However, I do feel abundantly healthy right now. Nature has played its part, the lifestyle here, but I do feel better able to calculate what is and is not acceptable; or more aptly, what I will and won't tolerate. cindi is alive, no doubt about it, but she's not so helpless that she can't look out for herself. That's the difference. She won't again choose to dismiss her gut reactions or to rationalize her physiological reactions.

The point, for those struggling to understand what I am on about here, is that the closer you get to the middle of the behavioral spectrum the less inclined you are to going to be to accept, and even desire, the behaviour of those on the highest end of the spectrum, someone operating from self-interest and using various manipulative strategies to get his own way. It's not going to stop you, if you have a disposition such as mine to enjoy interacting with a respectful and polite person who operates on the opposite side of the spectrum, the dominantly inclined. However, your heckles will rise when you are not being treated with respect and civility; kindness; care. A doll's disposition doesn't mean that the requirements of human interaction go out the window; quite the opposite, I would have thought. It's critical, in my experience, to feel a sense of safety in those situations. How else one can let go and be less?

The vulnerability remains. The resolve is well in place. I think that resolve could be equated to self-respect/self esteem. There is a place for ego. It's fine to 'let go', desired in fact, but it's also okay to let self-respect define the limits of that letting go. Anyone who rejects your request for respectful behaviour is simply trying to manipulate your mind.

Praise

It has occurred to me more than once that women enjoy being in an power exchange arrangement for its consistent supply of praise. Okay, there might be struggle but an insightful Top will recognize that after the struggle must come praise.

It has also occurred to me that we are capable of  'snuffing off' praise. It is not that we don't love it but that sometimes praise is almost uncomfortable. We aren't letting the praise fully in. Imagine a scenario where a woman is told she looks pretty. Instead of allowing herself the enjoyment of that inner glow of her efforts being acknowledged she says, "Oh, this old thing. I've had this dress for years." or "My hair isn't quite right though..." Or, whatever. She is not letting the praise in and she isn't giving the giver of the praise the opportunity to see her enjoyment of receiving the praise.

I did something similar recently. All this reviewing of the arts I have been doing in my course has been a huge learning curve for me. In my course we've reviewed books, art, plays, film and even music. It's been wonderful learning but in all cases but one I've had feedback such as "Good, but you could have done this, or you could have contextualized more or I wasn't entirely sure if you enjoyed it..."

In only one module was the feedback quite glowing. In only one module was my work singled out as laudable. And, guess what? That's the feedback that I glossed over; barely registered. (I actually just read over the comments now to check that the tutor said what I thought he said and to take into my soul the praise he was offering.) In terms of the more negative (or I should say, constructive feedback because that is what it was) feedback, I took in every word of that - berated myself for not thinking of it first or having missed something and so on.

I think this is the tendency of the submissive woman. On some level, she isn't entirely sure of herself and even when she gets praise she isn't entirely sure she deserves it or if it is genuine or even if it is appropriate for her to accept the praise.

My boss of a thousand years ago used to say that he didn't praise me because he thought it would go to my head. I heard how he felt about my work and efforts through other people but very rarely did I hear it from him. Even with my mentor, it was another person who knew him who told me how he felt about my efforts and progress more so than directly through him. And, of course, I took the reprimands and his not being happy with me about something much more seriously than I ever took his praise. It's a bit like getting Honours for a subject, let's say 90%, and instead of saying 'Yay,I got a really high score', we say 'I feel like I failed because I missed 10 marks and that's dumb'.

In group meditation class once we were asked to make an effort that week to really accept any praise or compliments that came our way and to take a moment to let that praise in; to be open to it and to acknowledge it. I think that's definitely worth a try.

Still learning

In my last post I made mention of how we have a tendency to think of our lives in story form. After all, a year begins with a sense of hope as to how things will go, there is a middle to the year, but it is not until the year is over that we can assess how things have actually gone and whether the year (the story) was a success or otherwise.

I had in my mind a thought to share my kinky notebook with you in this post and in so doing, to explore all the ways I feel I have grown over the past year. It didn’t work out so well. There is so much detail in that notebook of mine and it was getting ridiculously complicated. I hope you can take me at my word that I have definitely made lots of progress with my submissive state and as well, how I function as a complete human being.

It seems more prudent to write here in my last post of 2010 what I have yet to fully grasp in terms of being a submissive woman. This gives me a focus going into 2011 so that hopefully sometime next year I can report my issue is fully licked.

The biggest issue for me is that I have trouble getting into trouble. I find it damaging to my sense of self as a “good girl”. If I am in trouble, says my complex mind, then I am not perfect and hence I must be bad (and a huge disappointment and deserving of banishment).

This is a long, ongoing saga. I remember Rich (the man who helped me accept my submissive nature a few years ago) saying to me after I had or hadn’t done something or other, that I was a bad girl. I remember how I felt and there was nothing at all erotic about it. I felt awful.

We explored my feelings and I remember telling him that my mother used the word “bad” and still does. “Bad dog!” she will say. I remember asking her not to refer to my oldest son in that way. “You’re a bad boy!” I never get upset with my mother but at the time he was a confused two year old child and his mother was sitting in a hospital with tubes coming out of her. I was upset that I couldn’t care for my son and baby and she was upset that I was ill. She defended herself and I just went into my shell. I have always hated the thought of calling someone “bad” and I didn’t want to ever feel that I was bad. Rich tended to use the word “naughty” after that.

It is the absolute truth that I always wanted to be a good child and I was thought of as a good child. I was the good girl at school and at home and if I had revolutionary thoughts or idea or plans, I kept them to myself and quietly went about achieving my goals in a non-demanding and non-confrontational way.

I loathe being in trouble with my husband and one of my incredibly big breakthroughs is that I am able to say very easily now that “I am sorry”. It was hard to accept the blame for things; to accept my share of wrongdoing; to acknowledge that my lack of control, for example, was responsible for the argument we had.

I’ve always been relatively quick to apologize if you allow me a few minutes, hours or at most a day, depending on the circumstances. I want very much to put an end to the unpleasantness. But, in the heat of the moment, that could be very hard for me to do. On that score, the progress is truly significant.

The issue that remains is that I find myself wanting to avoid unpleasantness altogether. It has seemed to me that if I could just be strong enough to self soothe I could withstand almost any circumstance without sharing it or asking for support or forgiveness (or whatever I needed to share). If I withheld information and purported to be perfectly all right then unpleasantness would be avoided. I wouldn’t be in trouble in any way and I would not have disappointed in any way. I would not be thought of or called “bad”.

Of course, there is a price to pay for such a stand. The connection between the top and bottom is weaker, there is a sense of being a fraud and there is some resentment too that I was allowed to get away with this in the first place. The thinking goes, ‘if he paid a bit more attention, it would be patently obvious that I am not as good as I state. Nobody is that good, for Pete’s sake. Nobody is so self sufficient, least of all a submissive such as me!’

I am encouraged to “let go”. I have said in the past, “but if I let go, if I just naturally say what is on my mind, or if I tell you everything, I’ll be in trouble.” (or words to that effect) The response was quite simply, “Then, be in trouble and take the correction. Dolls learn from correction, don’t they?!”

Dolls do learn from correction, it is true. Yet the issue remains that to be transparent is to reveal myself as the flawed person that I am. I’m not nearly as strong as I’d like to be either but the thinking goes, ‘at least I can learn to be strong and stand on my own two feet, whereas to be so vulnerable, so liable to being hurt and to being rejected and thought of as a disappointment is just too painful’.

The way I tried to reconcile this problem in my mind is to be very mindful of the way that I communicate and I have found this strategy goes a long way. If I want to tell my husband something, or ask for something, or if I want peace to reign but still want to voice an opinion, I do it with a great deal of tact, with diplomacy, at an appropriate time and completely aware that it must sound and seem polite to his ears. If he chides me it takes rather a long time for me to find the courage to try again to be honest with him about my feelings, my needs or thoughts.

Be assured, over the year my life and my relationships are vastly improved. I am very happy. But, I cannot deny that I do withhold certain thoughts and feelings out of a sense that this brings peace and stability. I continue to doubt the thinking that asks the submissive to reveal all to her dominant, to get in trouble, to accept the correction, learn and drive on. I accept it in theory. However, to be considered less than perfect and to risk the abandonment or derision of the dominant is something I continue to find very difficult to do. I know this is not a good thing and somehow rectifying this flawed thinking in my mind is a high priority goal for 2011.

2010 has been a very fruitful and happy year for me. I’m an incredibly lucky girl and I know it. I have a husband I adore and who adores me. I have wonderful friends who support me, inspire me and sustain me. I have a terrific family and I have the opportunity to grow, to learn and to write. Who could ask for more?

May 2011 be a very happy, successful and loving one for you all.Happy New Year!

Approval

It is a great pleasure to be writing the story about Lucille and her experiences at The Training School. There is not much that I enjoy in life more than sitting at the keyboard immersing myself in the lives of characters I have invented. With your indulgence, I am anticipating the story will evolve over a considerable amount of time.

As I write and think about where I want the story to go; what I want to achieve for Lucille and how Nicholas and his employees might achieve that for her, many issues arise for me. In the past day or two I have reflected on the issue of ‘approval’ for we girls, born with a submissive nature.

As a quiet, reflective sort of young girl, I think I could have done with a lot more attention from my father, or an uncle or a grandfather. I remember that I was very sensitive. I didn’t let anyone know about that sensitivity that I can recall, but I took criticism very much to heart and I savoured a compliment.

I remember my mother telling me about a comment made by my Grade 3 teacher. My report was straight As but she said that I was unlikely to achieve that level going forward. I remember being terribly confused. If she had doubts about me, then I presumed that I should have doubts about myself. It kept me working hard, through school and through university and into the next qualification. I had that monkey on my back and I was trying to prove, I think, that her doubts were wrong.

I met a woman a few years ago who went to the same school as my daughter attended and we spoke of the past Headmistress. Apparently, on a particular school day she said to my acquaintance that she would struggle to achieve her goals. She just would not get the marks she needed. The woman told me that this put a fire under her and she committed her working life to proving to the Headmistress that she was wrong about her. She is now a leading pathologist in this large city and when a surgeon needs an urgent and top notch analysis of tissue, he/she has her on call. We girls can be dogged.

A member of my parents’ staff taught me to ride a bike and I remember being very scared, but with his encouragement, his assuring me that I could do it, I did master that bike. And, it felt great! It was a very similar story a few decades later when I learned to ski. I must surely have told that story on the journal. I would never have achieved if not for the one on one, bursting with enthusiasm but rather strict ski instructor who refused to allow me to fail. I think of both men very fondly and it provides me with much evidence that I respond to attention and to a rather stern approach. If he tells me that I can do it, then I can. Lucille is rather like that. She could hide in her shell her whole life if people let her, or, with attention she can shine bright.

Attention, however, is a bit of two edged sword. Attention is a most wondrous thing. It can make you feel that you are walking on air. And as you receive attention, the sort of attention that you have craved your whole life, you find yourself wanting to please. His approval of you basks you in bright, golden light and it is an aphrodisiac; intoxicating and addictive.

But, he does not always approve of you. Sometimes, you are told off, castigated and reprimanded and as incredibly arousing as that can be (this is a very kinky mind talking), it can also be very hurtful. It is a very sad place to be, that doghouse, and I think many submissive girls will climb mountains to be returned to the dominant’s good graces. It can give a girl that push she needs to get on with it and get through her barriers. Or, it can make her retreat – into herself and potentially, away from him.

If she decides to go, it is not because she wishes that. To the contrary, she would adore staying right where she is. But, her sense of self and her sense of identity have been threatened in some way and to protect herself, she feels safest far away.


I have been thinking about this decision; a decision I too have made in the past – to walk away rather than to bear the pain of the disapproval and I offer the reader this thought. A submissive girl puts herself on the line. She offers herself up to the dominant like a tasty and nutritious meal. He can chew on her and savour her and devour her. He can pretty much do whatever he wants with her, to a point.

She will, I believe, do virtually anything he asks of her so long as she feels that he is committed to her. Not necessarily married to her or ‘til death us do part’ committed to her. It may not be a lifelong association, it may not be permanent and it may not be a primary relationship. But, whatever the association, she needs to feel that even when he is disappointed, angry, mad, disapproving or punishing, she is still 'not bad'. Even when he disapproves, he still feels some tenderness towards her. Even when she fails temporarily, she is still fundamentally worth his time and his attention and he remains fond.

When I think back to Michael, who taught me to ride my bike, to the American man who taught me to ski, they transmitted to me a sense that they believed in me. And, I received that message subliminally and that gave me the strength I needed. I felt a sort of fondness. I felt a sort of care. And, that was all I needed to achieve my goals; the goal that they had in fact set for me.

There is no getting around it or over it or under it. A girl has to go through it. She has to find the strength within herself to try – to put herself out there and fly high. And, there is no doubting that men in her life play a very special role. Girls will take the lecture or the disapproval and bounce back up, so long as they feel that they, the very soul and core of them are accepted; never rejected. They need to feel some warmth.

It is an incredibly vulnerable state to be; to recognize the need for approval in oneself. It is not at all an easy place to be and the best advice I can offer the dominant is to dwell on that thought and really consider it. If she struggles, is she perhaps struggling with these feelings that are so very uncomfortable for her? In the hands of the right man armed with knowledge of what makes the submissive woman’s mind tick, there is nothing a submissive woman cannot do.

Hypocrisy

From a child's point of view, there is hypocrisy going on in our lives. There are two standards of behaviour - one for him and one for me - and they don't entirely approve. I think I manage to keep the mood light often enough that they figure I am resilient and so they don't fester about it, but they do take note.

It is family folk lore now - one of those stories that gets repeated over and over - and it has reached a point where even my husband laughs along, so totally outnumbered is he, and it goes like this:

We were on our way up North in the 4 wheel drive - me, my husband, the four kids and my daughter's best friend. (Don't worry - we are never doing that again!) and I think it is time to turn off the highway to a new road. So, I say so. I have, after all, been assigned the role of navigator and map reader:

"Don't tell me to turn off. I know what I'm doing. Don't distract me."

So, we go a bit further along the road into a new situation and my husband figures that he must have missed the turn he wanted. I've been told not to say anything, so I don't.

"That was our turn. Look, you have to tell me when to turn. You're the navigator."

All five children groaned in one "I don't believe it!" moment. And, the rest is history.

I confess that I do struggle with these mood changes; with the very high expectations of me. No matter how out of control he is, how controlling, moody or exasperating, just one incident when I behave badly can set him into a spin. It seems to be a need that I am perfect: perfectly patient, perfectly understanding, perfectly under control, and perfectly willing to accept control.

As we move further along the path of power exchange, he has insisted on more and more control, not just in relation to me but in relation to making decisions. As I tried to explain to him this morning, we now have a situation where all decisions must be approved at the top: not decisions about what I buy in relation to small ticket items such as food or clothing and the like, but everything else.

It can be torture to stand by and watch, for example, our holiday house garden going to rack and ruin because he can't make a decision about a new gardening plan. With authority required at the top, and left to await a decision for long periods of time, huge wads of patience and tolerance are required. The alternative is to try not to let it worry me - to let the garden go to seed rather than rattle his cage. It is sometimes the choice I make but not without a great deal of internal frustration on my part.

And I wonder this: as I come to terms with my own personal needs for control, for containment and peace; as I become more and more the perfect female to go through life with, is a single incident of inability to remain in control of myself, no matter how much he pushes me, being whipped up out of perspective? It certainly seems to me that misbehaviour, such as losing my patience, is now completely unacceptable.

I spoke with an old and trusted friend about my concerns and he wondered if I should try to negotiate: perhaps a punishment to end the matter rather than a more drawn out saga of him feeling angry with me and me suffering a sense of banishment and having displeased. I think that makes sense except for the fact that a man who suffers this sense of displacement when his submissive fails him, even once in the bluest of moons, is not ready to make his peace. It is a deep sense of, at a guess, disloyalty in his mind and he needs time and space.

In fact, my husband explained it rather well to me when he said that he cannot accept the aggression towards him. When he responds to me in the way he does, he does not feel he is being aggressive, yet when I do the same thing, it seems I am. I don't understand that but I am trying to understand it.

My friend said that it is not hypocrisy because my husband is his person and I am mine. It is not hypocritical that I am being held to a higher standard because I asked to be held to a higher standard and if I was not, I would quickly feel short changed.

I don't dispute that I am being held to a higher standard than others at my own request. I certainly can't dispute the upset I cause when I am less than perfect, even if I have been perfect for hundreds of times before that and will be perfect for hundreds of times after that. I don't dispute that my role is to be the most modulated, patient, understanding and caring person that I can possibly be, no matter how prodded and poked and challenged I am in that role. I accept the role. I usually flourish in the role and I have no desire to change the role.

I only ask that the dominant stop and pause for a moment. I ask that he consider the enormous effort his submissive puts in to make his world comfortable, safe and beautiful. She recognizes the importance in his mind that she demonstrate, day after day, her loyalty, faith and love for him in the way she expresses herself and the tasks she does, just as he would wish.

On the rarest of occasions, she will falter. She will make a mistake. The world has not ended. She simply demonstrated that she is made of the same stuff of every other woman on this earth: not Mary Magdalen after all, but a woman of flesh and blood doing her best. It was just a moment - a slip of the tongue; a release of frustration. Your world is still safe. She still respects, reveres and adores you. She will recover and so will you.

Complexity

As I look back on my life so far, I see that I have gravitated to the complex man; very bright, talented, ambitious and somewhat demanding. The boys in my younger days were never right for me; not at all satisfying. Of course, any man, whatever his age, has his limitations and vulnerabilities. We are all human; all more than capable of making a mistake, or displaying poor judgment, from time to time. I worked for a man for several years who demonstrated extraordinary leadership and a flair for business such that he rose to occupy many high positions of leadership. The Queen presented him with an Honor. This is just not my opinion of him.

I became good friends with the man who managed the advertising account for us. He would call me first thing in the morning and ask what the day looked like. He didn't mean the schedule of the day so much as he meant the lay of the land. Was he in a good mood or was it better to wait until tomorrow, was really what he was asking. When I left, this sweet man took me out for dinner to say thank you for my friendship and with a few glasses under his belt he said of my boss, "He can be a statesman like no other man I know. Then, a minute later, he can be a petulant boy." I smiled but of course, I agreed. I had been subject to such mood swings on a daily basis.

My point is that none of us are perfect and all of us are flawed. Every man is a combination of strong and courageous, statesman and strategist and various vulnerabilities and weaknesses. It is all just a matter of degree and various combinations of personality characteristics. The woman who sees in front of her the perfect man has stars in her eyes. He may be the perfect man for her, but he is not a perfect man. I hope the dominant men out there don't think too harshly of me for saying that!

Of course, there really is no perfect woman, either. We do our best, especially women who read here, I suspect, to be sweetness and light, to be helpful and encouraging and to be the kind of women that will arouse our men. We want them to love us, to admire us, to cherish us and support us in our endeavors in life. We aim to be sweet tempered and accepting; to not complain and to be attractive to them. But, of course, we fall short at times. Lack of sleep, worry, overwork and demanding children may have us on edge at times, and time spent with us is not the Heaven that the man had anticipated on the drive home. Shit happens, as the saying goes. Even the best laid plans go awry, sometimes.

My husband is a very complex person and I think, at the end of the day, this is what attracted me to him. He was full of life and zest, had endless opinions on millions of topics, was flexible enough to go with the flow as required, but steadfast in keeping to the road he felt was right. He had flaws, still does, but I felt I was in capable hands and that my complexity might find a home in his. By that I mean, I knew enough about myself to know that I was not 'regular' or 'simple'. "She is very complex, isn't she?" more than one person has said to him over time.

I wonder today, is this what made it work for us all these years? Is the fact that he has been so prepared to accept my complexity, the many shades that make up this woman writing to you, that explains our ability to walk this life together all our adult lives? When I told him, for example, of the doll, he didn't miss a beat. "Hello, dollie ," he said. "Welcome to my bedroom." He loves me, no matter which facet of my personality shows up. Well, that is not strictly true. If the girl who tries bossing him around shows up, she's shown the door, but apart from that...

I do indeed need to be loved for all of me - for the competent adult woman, for the sexual doll, for the little girl who cuddles up on his lap on the couch and repeatedly falls asleep watching the movie, so happy is she to be in that privileged position. I am a woman, a mother, a little girl. I am in need of love, attention and warmth. I want to be made love to regularly, cuddled repeatedly and rebuked when necessary. I want to belong. Yes, I desperately want to belong and to be accepted for the complex person that I am.

Complex people are attracted to complex people, or so it seems to me. I forgive my husband his faults because he forgives me mine. It is the mature thing to do. No one of us is better than another, but the person who can love with all his heart, live and let live, accept and forgive has the head start in life. Once we acknowledge the complexity, that of ourselves and those we love, we can stop concerning ourselves of imperfections in such tall order. What connects us is that we are all human: capable of greatness and failure. Imperfection is a given.

Too Risque

When I was a university student, I met a girl in my course who quickly became a very good friend. When the course was over, we thought we might share a house together and she approached her parents about sharing a house with me. They said that they didn't approve of me. My girlfriend found this laughable. I was, by far, her most conservative friend, who had never broken a law, missed a class, smoked a cigarette, or even considered being naughty in any way. If they didn't approve of me, then she felt certain they would never approve of her living with anyone.

From my perspective, it was a shock to not have their approval. I had always had every one's approval. I truly was a very good girl back in those days.

Today, I was having an online chat with my international friend. She is a darling girl, going out with a lovely man; a conservative man. She didn't think he would approve of us chatting. I suggested he might think I was "too risque; a bad influence." She agreed that he might well think that I was "too risque".

Really? Me?

Well, here's the thing. I love the fact that I might be considered "too risque" these days. Growing up, I never ever thought that anybody would think that I was "too risque". But, look at me now! I have my own blog with a warning on it. Me! How utterly delicious. I'm risque; finally!

I love the world of domination and submission. It is miles more fun than playing golf or bridge, like some of my friends on the ground. The very thought of that bores me to tears. Being risque with you guys is much more fun.

So, it's official. Vesta is risque, and she's loving it.