Deakbreakers

 My focus has not been obtaining a new partner. Between the obligations to my children, forging a life alone, grieving, and the responsibilities of my new financial circumstances, I move between those parts of my life with little time to think about the fact that I am alone. 

It gets to me in circumstances like yesterday, my son's graduation from a master's degree and the fact that it was a bittersweet day without my son's dad being there. It gets to me in circumstances where there might be a rupture in the children's lives and I don't have someone to help to carry the load.

I happened to catch Jack Kornfield talking about Ram Dass in an episode that came on in the car this morning and I was reminded to put down the load, to let go, to recognise that some loads are not mine to carry.

I've been a listener all my life but in the past months I have become a talker, and we become talkers when we are processing life circumstances, as I am now.

I read somewhere that the research shows that better than talking is writing and I have an encrypted online journal, set up for me by a friend. He can read there himself if he wants, and I don't mind at all if he does. He's a therapist, encourages me from time to time to keep writing there, and has an innate understanding that it helps me to write.

My therapist friend is kinky, a dominant but very much a man of his time where he understands that the cultural norms have changed kink, so he talks about preferences over rules, and he has an overarching looking out for me approach as opposed to saying, 'I want you to...' or 'You should...'. Rather he just encourages and offers suggestions.

Our relationship was formal - professional - until very recently when the therapy ended officially after two sessions where the trance work was phenomenally successful. So now, we're back to friends, just friends, and what flavour that will be, I don't know, but I like that he is there in the background of my life. 

He has strongly encouraged that I go to rope classes and I will soon. The kinky side of me is very much there still and I look forward to it, as soon as I can find mental space for it.

Of my suitors there is one that stands out. He is kind, intelligent, well educated, had a good career, still does a little work, is generous and sweet with me. He has opinions and preferences, but he aims to work in. I research the films available on a certain night for example and it's clear to me his preferences and I accede to those preferences. 'Good choice,' he will say, although it is his choice actually.

I don't mind this at all about him, it makes me smile and feel warm, but I cannot for the life of me, get him to be assertive with my body - like take me over to the wall and kiss me passionately. Were he to do this, I think he might be the man for me, but he doesn't do that and thus I am confused and quite unsure. I do not have the slightest idea what to do about this and yes, I have talked about it. It is, unfortunately, a deal breaker for me. I wonder if he might understand what I mean about a 'dealbreaker' and I wonder why he won't respond to my statements that I need touch and affection in my life at the least.

We did end the relationship some time ago over this matter but stayed friends.  He dates but I get the sense he is still after me and in some way, I am still after him, if he could just commit to an understanding of my needs. 

I think it may be chalk and cheese, highlighting the need for a kinky man in my life and that I must not settle for less. This is life, not a life I chose but one into which I was born.

Active Submission

 I heard a woman say on a podcast that she realized she was submissive when she identified with the submissive in all the BDSM/D/s/kink stories she read. It's the same for me and was that way from an early age.

In my marriage, I do, and always have provided service. I do this willingly enough. I am a pretty good cook. There are no complaints. I whizz through laundry and like to keep a house clean and organized. So, that's just the way I am.

When I was talking through a little detail for a written Contract with Daniel, a kink educator, he suggested I come up with something else, something more meaningful for the dynamic. So, we settled on me turning down the bed; that is, taking off all the cushions and extra pillows and turning down the bed. It's a small thing but I like to do it and he notices that I do it, what it represents, and he appreciates it.

Our lives didn't allow for a lot more add on, since pretty much all the service kind of activities of our lives are done by me anyway, and I am quick to help him with, say, stacking wood in winter, or gathering leaves in Autumn. This is especially the case now that he is on a chemotherapy type of drug which does sap his energy.

As I listened to the podcast of the 24/7 dynamic couple, I realized that we do pretty much all that they do on a day-to-day level. I am given tasks to do that I do well, and that he doesn't want to do or feels I could do better. We have been together so long that this developed into a groove that requires no discussion. 

I will ask his opinion about certain decisions and keep him abreast of matters but not always, because he doesn't necessarily want to know. Sometimes, he will say, 'why are you asking me this?' in a way that means, 'that is your province and I trust you to make the right selection.'

Daniel thought my husband should have a tracker on me. We both didn't see that as a form of communication that was ideal for us. I say when I am leaving the house and roughly when I am coming back. I might say, 'I am going to the supermarket' or I am going to Book Club'. I don't ask permission for these things, but I do inform. If I wanted to go on a girls' weekend or to a retreat, that I would definitely seek his approval to do.

Last night, I reached for some Kit Kat (a chocolate bar in Australia) and he asked me, 'Did you ask permission?' I smiled and said, 'May I please have permission for some more, Sir?' and he broke off a bar and handed it to me. I love this sort of thing.

This past weekend, he created a Friday rule too. That made my heart sing. I have to ask for something each Friday which becomes a weekend activity. He added in, 'If you don't come and ask, you'll get a beating. Got it?' I did get it. I have a love/hate relationship with spanking. I really do remind myself to be careful what I wish for.

Which leads me to say, it's just not enough for me to have this undercurrent of roles in our lives. I like to feel it more, in a literal sense. He knows this, and also that the feeling he provides, when he chooses to provide it, can test me.

My awareness of my own Self only grows, and I was aware on the weekend that I overreacted to being spanked hard and fast such that I couldn't get on top of my breathing. For the first time ever, I swallowed in some weird way where a sharp pain travelled up into my nose and I said, 'please, I need to stand'. He thought I was just being a whimp and said, 'no' but I said, 'please, it's my nose'. 

He consoled me and that should have been the end of the story, but my sense of Self, or ego, or my uppitiness or whatever you want to call it, got in the way and I became wordy and critical. So, he did too. 

This led to a waste of time back and forth which only ended when I said, 'Okay, I know I am bad.' 'Get that idea out of your head. You are not bad,' he said. This led me to say, 'I'm sorry. I overreacted.'

That night as we cuddled together just before sleep I said, 'I am sorry for today. You should probably spank me for it.' (This isn't a habit of mine - this is progress!)

He said, 'I appreciate your words, cindi.' We fell asleep in one another's arms.

I slept all night, but I was aware of my ass, in a way only a submissive can be. I woke aware of a sense of gentleness and calmness within me.

I know I need a period of training to get back into the lifestyle in a complete way and I do consider what happened just a bleep; not a setback, just me fully accepting my rightful place and associated behavior again. 

In another circumstance this past weekend I said to him, 'Please, Sir, could you go slower' and he liked that; made note to me that it was a good thing I did that.

So, I think this is a go-er for us, quite suddenly. I think we can build momentum from here. I am miles more aware and willing to be an active submissive now and for us, that's a good thing.

Getting between a woman and her shoes

In pursuit of gifts for my mother to give to her family, a task I do for her so that she is less anxious about the holiday season, I came across hardtofind.com and on that site I happened to spot a pair of sandals that seemed to fit the bill for me for summer. They are white and tan, casual, with a bit of European flair.

I've been vacillating over them for a few weeks.  On occasion I enquire as to my husband's opinion of something I see online but he's currently working extremely long hours, so I decided to ask the opinion of a male online friend. That is, I sent a link to a picture of the shoe and asked if he liked them. He has a tendency to use one word responses and the word he chose was 'Nope'. I immediately shot back, ' Why don't you like them?' He explained that the shoe had a wedge and hence he didn't like the shoe. 'No wedges,' he said. (see what I mean about the responses?)

I had to absorb this information. I rather like espadrilles. You see countless pairs on the feet of women in France and Spain and they have always conjured for me that continental feel. Of course, as I thought about it some more, it made sense that he didn't like female shoes with a wedge shape. He likes all things hyper- feminine and whilst I would argue that my espadrilles can look quite feminine, they don't have the ultra-feminine look that he admires.

Just now, this morning, as flat chat as I am, I couldn't help myself. I simply had to do a review of my shoes. Sure, probably most of my shoes would absolutely pass the 'no wedges' test, but several of them would not. Almost unknowingly I had bought over the past years several shoes and sandals with a wedge.

I can only say that there must be an awful lot of wedge style shoes about that it seemed okay to me, or perhaps I was trying to tend towards a more casual style. I've so often been accused of being 'elegant', as if I am a bit too dressed up for the modern age and I think this might have influenced me to choose wedge style shoes at times for fear of being too dressed up in other styles.

For the first half day after this conversation, this friend of mine who is so inclined to make statements as if he is Moses on the hill issuing an edict, had me really irritated. Just because he didn't go for shoes with a wedge for girls shouldn't influence me! But, here's the truth. He had me rethinking the way I wear shoes and the way I put together outfits. Was I dressing to please some sense of how I should dress according to the overall public sensibility who surely don't really give a damn about my choices, or was I dressing to please myself?

I am most authentically myself not only in dresses and skirts but also in a style that resonates with me - good quality items of a relatively dateless style and feminine footwear. When I truly assessed the situation beautiful shoes are gathering dust in my wardrobe whilst I swan about mostly in casual footwear, attempting the 'dressed down' look. (And, by the way, it's not a money thing. The 'dressed down' look can be just as, if not more, expensive than the more 'dressed up' look.)

Here's part B of the truth too. I actually love it when a man steps up and says what he likes. I am way more comfortable with an edict than no edict. I'd almost love to be able to report that I don't care what he thinks about wedges. The facts are that I know myself so much better than that. You know what I am going to say, don't you? Yep. I won't be buying those shoes at hardtofind., nor any other wedge shaped shoes from now on. (Damn, but I am so easily lead!)

Being my best

It made me smile to read the article Beware of These 10 Habit Loopholes as You Head to the Thanksgiving Feast because this is a big part of what my mentoring relationship is about, holding my feet to the fire, ensuring that I stick with my goals and not make silly excuses.

In essence,  a good eating plan will enable you lose weight quite easily. It's almost painless to lose weight so long as you make healthy choices and avoid all the empty calories such as cake and chocolate. It's not a fast way to lose weight, for me, but it is an effective and healthy way to lose weight without much pain.

Of course, we all enjoy our little indulgences and there are so many reasons we give ourselves to indulge. 'Tomorrow I'll be good', or 'But, it's a gluten free cookie'. Number 4 in the article, the 'lack of control' loophole made me wince because I used that excuse recently to no good effect. I received absolutely no sympathy whatsoever and the repercussions made it clear that it would be unwise to ever use it again. He works on the model that in this matter he has to be cruel to be kind, and over time, I came to see that he was right. I was using a bunch of loopholes in my thinking to justify my poor choices which kept me unable to lose the 4 kilos I wanted to lose.

When I stand on the scales and see the number slowly reducing over time, I am reminded that my thought processes have gradually adjusted to take account of good choices he insists I make. I haven't managed to get through a week without using up my sweets allowance (meagre as it is) but I have managed to stay within the allowance and that is a good thing.

Our habits do tend to define us. We drink a soda perhaps and think nothing of it. Yet, the evidence is in that being a soda drinker is as dangerous to one's health as being a smoker. Coca Cola won't tell you this and nor will the supermarkets who sell it to you. It's absolutely frightening how huge the sale of soft drinks is in Australia and I would take a guess it is worse in the United States. Unless we stop and think about what we do we are just pawns in their game. Soft drink is like drinking poison. It will take years off your life expectancy.

The mentoring process over the past few months has been a huge wake up call for me as I begin to see how mentoring, or shall we call it 'the dominant taking a stand to assist the submissive with her goals plan' can be incredibly effective. Not only can this relationship be applied to healthy food choices but could in effect be used to assist her (or him) with just about any other goal.

I rarely get to bed on time and thus often don't get enough sleep, and I can't seem to establish an effective daily writing plan which really irks me and holds me back from achieving my goals. I begin to see how profound it would be in my life to have someone devise rules for me to which I must abide. I've tended to think of myself as a relatively/reasonably disciplined person and yet I am beginning to see that there is a great deal of untapped potential in my day(s). I've considered much of my submissive mindset from an erotic perspective, but if I am honest I have to admit that I would respond to dominance in many other ways as well.

My mentor is strict but he knows he has to be strict, with me at least. I've been grumpy at times with the lengths to which he will go to ensure my co-operation but I have come to see that he has been altering my patterns, using his control to shift my thinking to a more effective path. It hasn't been easy to admit that I need some assistance with my daily life but it is crystal clear that I do well with a boss, and a strict boss at that.

Bimbo vacation

Rules are rules and cindi broke a rule. Or, to be more exact she did something as if she was entitled. This isn't tolerated. It's sloppy, muddle-headed thinking and it needs to be corrected. Or, to put it another way, cindi needs to be punished. Isn't that the really authentic way of putting it? Why wrap it up in pretty paper and call it a 'correction' when it is severe discipline designed to transform the bimbo's state of mind? No props for a considerable length of time. No opportunity for her mood to be elevated in ways with which she is so familiar. No limits. No rules. Reign the hutzpah in.

She was sitting there yesterday feeling sad sack miserable, as she was meant to do, when she realized that she still had her paws. Those bimbo paws could still be manicured, even on 'vacation'. Bimbo did indeed have a way of picking herself up off the floor. This thought energized her immediately.

At the new salon, where she has only been a few times, the man took her paws in his hands and in the best English he could muster he told her her paws were beautiful. 'Beautiful nails', he said. He pointed to the woman at the far end of the room, as if to ask if she did them. 'Yes, they were a new set two weeks ago. She did a great job.' 'No cut, right?' he said and cindi immediately agreed that she didn't want them cut. Even his filing was very light, she noticed.

The woman came to watch for a time. 'Beautiful nails,' she said to the bimbo. 'You very careful. Beautiful'. She beckoned cindi to change chairs where she applied the polish and once she had put on the top layer she produced a card and put it in cindi's bag. 'You come every two weeks and I keep nails beautiful. Gel refill normally $30 but for you, $25.'

cindi did understand that she wasn't the only doll in town to be given such a card, yet she also realized that in the eyes of this couple, she had passed the test. She had earned her long nails because she had shown she could look after them and 'be careful' as she had been told when they had finally agreed to give cindi a new, longer set on the previous visit. Praise. cindi needed that.

She had earned the praise, just as she had earned the vacation. It all comes down to behaviour and choices, cindi realized. cindi simply needs to choose carefully.

Arousal from spanking

Relationships adapt, change and evolve over time. My feelings about being spanked have evolved as well and that bothers me a bit. Spanking is where it all started for me. As a little girl I'd come across a disciplinary scene in a novel and I would stop breathing, dog ear the page and return to it endlessly; play it out in my mind when I was alone in my bed and the lights were out.

Spanking is how I engaged my husband in a power exchange with me. We tried a number of different techniques and I have vivid memories of some of them. He was aroused by spanking from the outset but I think he was also aroused by the happy girl that came about after the spanking. He'd often push me far beyond where I wanted to go and I'd hang onto various little phrases that my mentor used. 'It will be over soon', I'd repeat to myself and this seemed to allow me to bunker down into the spanking. Sucking and biting a ball gag or cock gag helped a great deal and being restrained was often the perfect scenario for me, allowing me to take more than I normally could and to experience that intense sense of 'letting go' and catharsis.

For some time we had a 'black book' and he wrote down any sort of behaviour of mine over the week that he didn't appreciate. I remember saying something cheeky during one disciplinary spanking and he said immediately 'five more whacks'. It was a crop he'd been using and the five fast whacks delivered produced five angry weals which instinctively had me deciding to move away. 'Did I give you permission to move?' he barked. It stopped me in my tracks and I regained my position,  not wanting any more, a little frightened to disobey, flustered but aroused by it all too, of course.

Since the break of those sorts of situations and scenarios I'm having trouble returning to the sorts of games that he wants to now play. I think he feels that I need to be spanked for my own good and for the sake of us, but something holds me back. I give myself messages to 'let go' and just accept but there is a real rebellion going on in my head.

I wonder about this rebellion. Am I sub-consciously thinking, 'You've been absent for a long time. What makes you think you can just return when it suits you?' Physically, I am not enjoying it. There is more annoyance in the smacks or the sting of the paddle, a rising of umbrage, and I can't settle into it. He hates that I can't settle into it and he tends to stop, upset with me. Maybe, some would say, he should just keep going and get it over with, but he's reluctant to cause any undue harm to my state of mind.

He's suggested we return to the 'black book' and whilst I am not someone who enjoys having my little failings documented and dealt with, maybe that's best, at least for now. It's not that I am not aroused by the thoughts of spankings, or talking about them and so on. Perhaps I don't care for the fact that he wants to make them the so called 'sexually arousing spanking', as in spank a bit and rub a bit and touch a bit. That's just not working at the moment for me.

Maybe, I have gone so far down the 'rules' path this year that the need is there to go further. I've been introduced to rules and corrected for breaking them enough times that this sort of 'person of authority' in my life who can dictate the rules for me seems perfectly natural now. Maybe he's right about the 'black book' but maybe rather than him decide arbitrarily that I did something he doesn't care for, it should be a fairly fair system where the rules are determined in advance. If 'no talking back' is a rule, then fine, I'll embrace the rule, eventually.

It's all rather new and different and I can't quite get a handle on my own thinking about it all. It's like there has a been a bit of loosening of the wires of my brain and my thinking is altering, and what arouses me is altering. It's the tighter grip that my brain is processing as arousing rather than the physical sensation of being spanked. It's as if that is now something that isn't so much foreplay for me but something delivered for other reasons. There has been arousal in both methods but somehow the arousal is the end result of this sort of power over me in my life now, something more serious and sophisticated perhaps...

Correction

I can't help but notice that the recent post entitled Being Corrected has been read by a considerably larger number of people than usually read my posts. My little journal is for a select audience on the whole. At first, I thought it related to the fact that people might be curious as to what I was writing about these days, but each day the tally for that particular post climbs higher and I am forced to conclude that the issue of being corrected in a power exchange is of particular interest to people. So let's explore that some more.

For me, there's a fun side to correction and a very serious side at the same time. It was during the process of wanting to understand more about the process of correction and aftercare of a scene, or a longer experience, that I came across this piece of excellent writing about after care. It was fascinating to read about the situation where a woman might orgasm during rape and that this does not represent consent in any way. Clarisse Thorn and links to other women writers on the subject from her blog can give much more insight to this issue than I can, so I won't say any more about that, except to say that the body can definitely defy the brain. We can be turned on by issues that upset us or challenge us or even issues or experiences that we hate.

I've written recently about serious struggle in terms of being corrected and I don't think being corrected is ever going to be a 'piece of cake' for me. (pun intended, because is a banned substance) It doesn't strike me as being an easy thing to have someone insist that the way you've done things in the past won't be how you'll be doing them from now on. If you take food as an example, it's no small thing to train someone (be they dietitian, personal trainer, doctor or dominant) to stop eating sugar, or to eat it very rarely and only in small quantities. It isn't easy being told that you can either have a slice of cake on your birthday or something you've been wanting for quite some time. There's a choice, but there are still very strict limits imposed. Basically, at the end of the day, you can't have any cake on your birthday, is the way that game plays out.

Such situations and corrections that relate to daily regimin and rules can be challenging and even quite anger inducing. As I know dominance it's all about getting compliance which is another way of saying that it's all about achieving goals. One way or the other, goals will be achieved. It's not something that I choose to write about in detail in the journal but nasty deeds were done and clever tricks were devised to ensure my compliance on this matter (seriously limited sugar intake) and that resulted in a week where I experienced a gamut of emotions from arousal to extreme anger. Not only was I experiencing distress such that old habits were being dumped (and I choose that word with intention) but it was clear that this was arousing to both parties. I was mystified at my reaction, deep arousal at the same time as I was furious, but there it was and it could not be denied.

I think some of us can handle our kink with scenes and go about our lives until the next scene, and some of us want something more consistent than that. I've found that I enjoy and appreciate a more consistent sort of control exerted over me and this can be achieved in several ways; in some ways, the more the better.

I've been negotiating with my husband a stronger, tighter relationship. We've nearly at the end of one stage of our lives and onto another where we have more flexibility and freedom to pursue our own relationship. I have not enjoyed his absence in my personal life. It has been close to unbearable and I have expressed my needs.

It was interesting and hopeful for me to realize in our discussion that he is not entirely short of ideas at all. Something came up about my wardrobe. I think he may have said, 'Do I interfere with your purchases?' and I said, 'Well, I'd like you to be more involved, actually. I'd like you to notice things. I like it when you give me your input or choose something yourself.' And, he said, without drawing breath, 'Well, if that's what you want, you can call me and ask permission before you make a purchase. How do you like that?' It stopped me in my tracks. Did I want that? 'Or,' I responded, 'I could keep the ticket on things and I could show you a purchase and if you didn't like it, I could take it back.' There it was again, that sense of 'I like this/I don't like this'. I adore to be controlled but my instincts tell me to hold onto a bit of control too.

We have this situation, my Internet teacher and I, where, from time to time, it comes up in conversation as to whether he's too strict. If I am a bit 'sixs and sevens' he might ask if he is too strict, and I finally got up the nerve recently to type back that yes, sometimes he was. That's the part of me that wants to hold onto some control because in fact, he's not too strict at all. He's firm, yes. But, where the f**k would we be if he wasn't? If I could guarantee that I know what is good for me all the time, then he's too strict, but alas, I can't guarantee it at all.

As previously noted, after this  week long, dramatic, exhausting 'correction' I found myself exploring aftercare. Shouldn't I be getting something more than a pat on the head? Hour by hour I came to see that I was simply trying to control the 'after the correction' experience too. I had completed the correction, got some praise for it and now it was over. Oh. So, that's the way corrections go. No. Big. Deal. Part of the deal.

Let's be clear here. I long for a sense of containment and connection. Nothing brings more joy and bliss into my life than to feel the sort of emotional response where I feel love and respect for someone such that my whole body and soul resonates with the thrill of being alive and living this life. In order to achieve it I need to 'let go' and just let the control wash over me - my mind, my body, my whole life. Correction is part of the deal. It's arousing, it's confronting. It's an essential part of what I want.

Being corrected

After all this time, I still can't quite believe that I'm the sort of person that needs a boss. The evidence is indisputable, the behaviours so instinctual, and yet, it sometimes feels unbelievable to me, like a dream, like I'm talking about somebody else.

I read just before a quote on tumblr: 'The grip may be loose, but it is there, and it is a constant.' It's a very nice sentiment but it doesn't serve me that well. I once believed that it is entirely enough, maybe even too much, but it's not, for me. I do best with rules, even if I'm not always sure that I like the rules.

The truth is that I am indeed the sort of person that does well, and struggles, with tighter control than that. Erotically, psychologically, tight control is enticing. Egoistically, this same tight control that seems to be a very good fit, confounds me, because I am not, and never was, especially comfortable with the notion of correction. Oh sure, correction can be arousing but it is also deeply challenging. There's that distinct part of my brain that wants to say, 'Just who do you think you are?!'

For several days I've asked myself 'Why?' Why is it that I am so profoundly challenged by being corrected, really brought to task for something? I can only answer that I don't like making mistakes. I don't like being called on my mistakes. My sense of self demands that I do things well, but flaws, human flaws that we all have, weaknesses and limitations, prevent me from always achieving my best. This seems reasonable to me but quite unreasonable, of course, to a boss. He wants more.

Sometimes, I simply don't do my best. Sometimes, I wing it. Sometimes, I grab that little treat, even if I am not entitled to it. Or, I dilly dally. Or, I don't give a task the importance it (or someone else thinks it) deserves. To put it simply, I please myself, which is not conducive to having a boss.

I wrestle with this. I know I want a boss, but a boss corrects, which means I have to 'pull my head out of my ass' long enought to recognize that what I do, or don't do, is the problem. If I want a boss, and  I do, I have to conform, do things his way, and not my own.

This is all commonsense, BDSM 101. Still, it's fun to plant bombs under his chair, in my mind. I'm not the only one doing that, right?

The power exchange dynamic

No matter how well trained we are or how disciplined we are or how accommodating we are, there are going to be moments when things don't go as well as one would like, and I think an exploration of those difficult moments enables one to gauge the dynamic and see just how it works.

In some weeks or even months now I have only had one difficult day. It happened about two weeks ago now. To set it up, it was the first day of the last term of the academic year. I was under some pressure. My husband had wanted to stay an extra day in the country, which was fine except that it put me in a situation where I had to scramble to get in an academic task by the deadline of midnight that same day, and my son was in a similar boat.

So, on the Tuesday when I awoke I was tired (we'd done a lot of physical work in the past three days) and possibly I was not emotionally prepared for the tasks ahead of me - getting sons to train/school etc. How about I got ready fast, my husband suggested as I crawled out of bed, and we'd take the boy to school and then I could drop him off to the office in town on my way to the market?

It set me off. I said something along the lines of "All you have to do is prepare yourself. I have responsibilities and I can't get ready for the day right now. I can't guarantee I will be ready by 8.15 am." Something like that. I was clearly not myself because he came out to the kitchen and offered to take the boy to the train but I declined that offer. Anyways, he can do a good job of cajoling me in such a mood and I can do a decent job of recovering from a setback and we were on our way to the city bright and early with me driving. All good.

We weren't far from home, going around the edge of a park when it was obvious I had to stop. Two enormous trucks had entered the narrow street and I couldn't pass. My husband was immediately agitated and started barking orders about what I was to do about it. I was agitated that he was barking orders. In such a situation it pays to stay very quiet but as I have explained in some detail already, I hadn't woken up in the most bimbo of moods. I didn't really understand what he wanted me to do in the dilemma until I gathered he wanted me to reverse into a driveway as he was beckoning both the truck drivers on.

So, once I could follow what he wanted me to do, and I accept that I was probably making the odd suggestion of my own which isn't something I usually do, I backed into the driveway. However, he was continuing to freak out, and I could only think that somehow, if it is really possible to do so, I was backing into the driveway wrong.

So the trucks moved, we passed, I went into silent mode biting my bottom lip in order to settle myself and he continued to rant on about what I had done wrong, how I hadn't listened and so forth. He's good at recognizing what he did later in the day these days but in the spur of the moment he can remain defensive and he continued to defend how that all had gone down. I stayed as silent as I could but he goads me to talk in these situations and ultimately I said something like "You are all grown up now. You have to learn to get control of your emotions!" Anyways, he was ready to settle down but I wasn't and when I let him out in town he wanted it all to be settled, but all I could manage was "Look, we're sweet, I really have to get out of the bus lane now."

Once I was on my own I headed to a cafe and had a strong black coffee and settled myself: sent a cajoling text, because I did recognize that there is a way to handle these situations and that wasn't it. Later in the day he sent one back and later that night he suggested that I probably haven't been spanked enough; that spankings settle me. Duh!

I've explained endlessly that I talk with someone about my submissive side and that our conversations always have a particular pattern. I'm on the bottom. On this day, I wouldn't say that I was dominant at all but I was very unsettled at the beginning, middle and end of it. I suggested that I sensed something was up with him. What a classic case of transference of which I was completely unaware!!It was me that was unsettled; me that was feeling particularly guilty.

He was slow in his responses, probably sitting there in front of his electrical device thinking "What the f...?". I must say he did a sterling job of keeping his wits about him, ensuring that I understood that he wasn't going to budge or allow me the slightest leeway in the dynamic we share. Ultimately he accused me of not following the guidelines as laid out (How does he know???) and bid me a good afternoon. The guilt was super thick now; embedded into the brain.

I sat there for a bit, wondering how the hell this day had gone so wrong. Then, I did what I know to do pretty well these days. I pulled my socks up, got back to bimbo business as I know to do, got on with my daily tasks both in and outside of the house, made dinner and prepared myself to be charming, gracious, obedient and in my place again. That worked. That suits everybody.

I thought about all this and recognized that I don't have control and nor do I want control. I'm not necessarily that nice when I have more control than suits me. My relationships don't work that way, and they certainly don't work well for me that way. I pondered. What if I'd got the upper hand in these situations that day? What if either one of them, or both of them had not prevailed? What a total mess that would be; what an unmitigated disaster!!

A great deal of my 'training' has been learning about how to interact with a dominant man and I would suggest that the best way to do that is with a great deal of intelligence, restraint, discipline and respect. Apologies are sometimes in order on either or both sides of the coin. I'm not suggesting anything different but I am noting that a dominant must ensure he prevail. Control is paramount for the good order of the relationship.

Dress code

As a woman interested in fashion and an admirer of beautiful things, I acquired a relatively large wardrobe. As a woman who desired that sense of being owned to the point of adoring the object state, it wasn't going to be possible to hold onto that expansive wardrobe.

I divested myself of many articles of clothing and it felt ever so much better. But, what happened to me over the next few years is what happens to all of us if you aren't careful. Your wardrobe, your house and your life becomes uncomfortably filled with new things. I'd experience the pleasure of buying a beautiful scarf perhaps, only to feel low when I put it away with the many other beautiful scarves in my collection. Did I really need to buy another?

In fact, what had happened to me was that I had embraced the idea of having a wardrobe of clothing and accessories in good working order - not too little and not too much - but I had failed to take on part B of the dress code - that a purchase of a cardigan, say, meant that I needed to give away a cardigan I already had. To put it another way, if my cardigans were all still loved and in good working order, why was I buying another?

Sometimes, I see a bargain out there, a dress that is so well priced and flattering that I purchase it on the spare of the moment. The task in that case is to go home and find a dress to give away that this new purchase will replace. At times, this throws me into a bit of a state. I have to really search my wardrobe to locate something that is ready to be removed from the wardrobe. So far, I have always located an item because if I don't locate an item, back to the store the new dress must go. That's the rule.

Once upon a time, I would have found this dress code rule onerous and unpleasant. It would not have turned me on and I'd have felt resentful and underprivileged. Not any more. I thrive on my dress code, luxuriate in the time taken to consider an addition to the wardrobe and often discover that in the few days taken to consider the item I decide that it is an unnecessary purchase and one that I can certainly do without. If I do decide I want it and purchase the garment, it is with clear intention and understanding that the garment is needed, much loved and desired, and will be worn more or less immediately.

As time has gone  by I've realized that I honestly do thrive under control and my dress code is an important aspect of that control. It takes me deep into the object state which for me is very much desired.

Rules

As you might have gathered by now, my abilities to lead are somewhat limited. I prefer garnering co-operation rather than actually telling someone what to do. However, I have two dogs. Well, in fact, the family has two dogs but they consider me the person on whom they should rely. It may well be that they just see me as a more senior member of their dog pack rather than their owner. Certainly, I am the person who mostly feeds them and walks them and when I go out in the car for short periods of time, they accompany me. Apparently, the male dog sits and whimpers should I not be able to take him, regardless of the fact that he has other human company with him at home.

I'm happy to look after them and I try to walk the line of looking after them well but not spoiling them and allowing them to display bad behavior. They are very possessive and protective of me and unfortunately they are inclined to chase after people around me in the park to let them know that they can't do anything to me. I growl at them every time and tell them not to do it but on one level, I get why they do it. I try to be strict and I try to ensure that they behave well but they are, at the end of the day, two prissy little white dogs.

For nearly three years I have been trying to teach them that they may never go to the toilet in my house. They understand this rule. They really, really do. However, when it is raining, and it has rained a lot this winter, they conveniently forget this rule and go and find some quiet place to urinate. Maybe they both do this or maybe only one of them does this dastardly deed. I can't prove anything at all. So, I become very, very angry with them and take them to the spot and rub their noses in it and my anger with them has them running for their dog door and out into the safety of the backyard.

I try to make a big deal of it so that their tiny little brains might register that it isn't worth being naughty. However, when it suits them, they go and do it all over again as if none of those smacks, or my anger, or those hours spent outside in disgrace matter to them at all. They'd rather avoid the rain and accept the consequences later. And there's nothing kinky about this; there's no upside to getting into trouble. They don't on any level enjoy the consequences. They just choose to ignore the fact that there will be consequences.

As I am sure you have guessed such an occurrence has just occurred. I was beside myself with anger. They are in no doubt that they are in disgrace. However, should I let them in and they want to urinate and outside it is raining, they are likely to do it all over again. They are creatures of comfort; whatever suits them!

Some rules are really not meant to be broken. Some rules must stand. Some rules are integral to the functioning of people and that is all there is to that. I'm meant to be the authority figure here and if I say there's no urinating in my house, I mean it! So, why do they take it with a grain of salt???

Disobedience doesn't pay

Why are they looking so glum, so worried?

Well, they were put to bed in the usual way, tucked in, the light put out and told to go straight to sleep. But, once they heard Matron's steps walk down the passage and the door of her bedroom close, they oh so quietly began gathering the food and drink they had been hoarding for the past week.

Joan had bought  the sweets in town last Saturday and Mildred had saved the cake her mother had sent her, to share with her friends for their planned midnight feast. Patricia's contribution had been to buy a bottle of lemonade after her hockey game against the other local grammar school in a nearby town. She'd rushed to the store and purchased it before the bus departed back to school. It had been daring of her and her heart was racing the whole time.

The girls sat down in the middle of the room on the rug, smiling deviously at their cunning to have mastered the plan but when Sarah quietly brought from behind her back a small bottle of Vodka the girls could not contain their squeals of glee. Oh!, the naughtiest of them all, sexy Sarah had been given the remains of the bottle of Vodka by a boy she sometimes met behind the boat sheds for a pash and she had saved it for this special occasion.

They were so enjoying themselves, gobbling down the cake, and having swigs of the contraband alcohol that they hadn't heard anything in the hall at all. Suddenly, the door opened and the light was flung on.

"What is the meaning of this?" Matron wanted to know. "You girls will pay with your hides for this flaunting of school rules!

The girls suddenly weren't so happy. Sarah tried to hide the vodka bottle behind her back.

"Sarah, bring your hands where I can see them," Matron demanded.

Sarah had no choice but to obey.

"Alcohol!! Not in my dormitories, young lady. I shall see to it that the Master gives you all a very sound hiding. Go and wait outside his office at once!"

And, so there the young ladies sat, waiting for the Master to receive them.

The Matron had needed to get him out of bed since for once he had decided to have an early night. He wasn't happy and the scowl on his face as he made his way past them to his office assured the girls that they would not be sitting so comfortably again for at least a week.

Poor Sarah, the girl to the far right, the one sitting a bit separate to the others, would take her turn last, as one might have predicted.

The procurement of alcohol was strictly against school rules and it had meant that the Master had needed to telephone Sarah's father and inform him of the situation. They had a choice in such situations - either a week's suspension from school or an extra twelve of the cane. Her father wasted no time in choosing an extra dozen stripes for his daughter  and recommended that they not be forgettable. The Master assured him that Sarah would not forget the disciplinary session for some time to come.

And, so we leave the girls to contemplate the Master's disappointment in their behavior and to ponder the veracity of their ill-conceived plan. How much better it would have been to be good and simply obey.

Mantras

I have been trying to use mantras to assist me with my personal goals. I use a few mantras but right now I am focusing on one in particular:

I easily resist the temptation to eat empty foods.

What I mean by "empty foods" is any food that doesn't do me any good; that is not nutritious. This pretty much excludes all sugary foods, which happen to be my downfall.

I also read recently that you should try to live your life as if your guru or mentor or the special person in your life (whoever that may be to you) were watching you. As you open the fridge and reach for that chocolate bar and break off a piece, imagine that person watching you and perhaps it will have you returning the chocolate bar to the fridge and closing it tight.

A few months ago, I went to the fridge and picked up a chocolate bar. It was very cold and hard and as I broke into it, I broke a nail and that was a double dose of guilt for me. I made my way soon thereafter to the nail salon and it happened to be the Filipino man that day that beckoned me to sit down.

"Oh, what has happened here? How did this happen?"

Please don't ever count on me to lie for you because I suck at that.

"Well, I was breaking off a piece of chocolate, actually."

He didn't say anything but his silence and the look of disapproval on his face said it all. I had been bad.

The mantra is going quite well. It has saved me from a sugary fate any number of times in the past week or so. But, honestly, I can't think of anything better than the dominant saying,

"No sugar without express permission."

That's something I really could completely respect (even though it may be best for him to follow up regularly...)

Rules

Like millions of other people, I woke up to some advice from WebMD - "Shrink your plate and lose the weight". Um, I think it might be a bit late now for that gem. Our Christmas dinner plates were humongous - turkey and ham, a variety of vegetables, gravy and cranberry sauce, followed by a home made pudding, with cream and ice-cream. The saving grace was that apart from the odd gent who chewed on a turkey bone later in the evening, we skipped the evening meal. It's breakfast time now and I still have no desire to eat anything.

But, the point made by those wise WebMD people is not lost on me. If you want to lose weight, you have to keep the calorie consumption down whereby you are expending more energy than you are taking calories in, and that is all there really is to that. It requires discipline and commitment and you have to keep giving yourself the right internal messages, motivating yourself to stay on course. The scales don't lie.

I have to admit that I am not an especially disciplined person. I get things done. I accept responsibility, but I rail against it too . Take, for example, this writing course that I am doing. The first subject of the Masters was challenging but well within my comfort zone. I could 'bullshit' my way through it. Whilst there were some rules, I guess, I wasn't especially aware of them in any sort of intense way and being out of the academic scene for decades and having nothing to lose,  I did my own thing and discovered that it was entirely satisfactory. I found out a couple of days ago that I even got a Distinction. At first, I wondered if it was a D in the sense of A, B, C or D but then I looked at the number and realized it was a D for Distinction and that pleased me.

Now, I never intended to do Journalism next because I figured that probably was not a subject I could 'bullshit' by way through, but that was all I could do over the summer period according to their timetable and so I enrolled. There was no getting around doing the subject. I had to get through the subject. From minute one, I was concerned. The tutor had put up a great many rules and appeared rigid and even anal-retentive. Fun and laughs between the group on the discussion board were going to be scarce, I could tell.

Along I went, until on week 2 I got back some negative feedback (almost all of us did). I had gone over the word limit and I wasn't to do that again! And, I had not referenced my reading adequately. He needed evidence, he said, that I had done all my reading. Wow!

You would think by now I would be used to a man telling me what to do but in truth, I was affronted. I wrote to Bart. What did he make of it all?? I got back a response telling me that he had had tutors like this before and to do what he said, as he said. There was no other way, said Bart.

But, "the girl" in me just couldn't let it go. I wrote to the tutor and said that I appreciated the feedback but it was a pity he was late with the feedback because the next assignment had been submitted and I didn't have a chance to do anything about it now. He wrote back with more complaints (in other words, that no matter what I said he would have an answer for it) and when I responded to that, he wrote back to say that basically, he was the boss and to do things his way but if I wanted to resubmit, he was giving me "the chance" to do so. Hmmmm. Polite negotiation seemed to work...

So, I did that and thanked him profusely and wished him a 'Merry Chistmas' and I noticed that once I had submitted to his authority and accepted his word as law, the exchanges were a little lighter and brighter and quite possibly, we had forged a better working relationship. He was still going to demand  that things be done well and to the letter (as he should) but perhaps there was a better spirit of co-operation on both sides of the ledger.

Being told what to do is something that I like and that I don't like. I do bristle against authority really at the same time as I have enormous respect for it. I do best with structure and with a boss and with expectations. I rise to that.

And so, here I am on Boxing Day early morning watching the sun come up over the lake, sitting at my computer and surrounded by the reading of my next assignment, which I know I must reference in my response. I must do that and so, I shall. Lessons must be learned to advance.

What never ceases to amaze me is that if you are truly blessed, you will come across tutors/bosses/mentors/people in your life who will not only demand that you must do something their way, but they will leave you feeling that you  want to do something their way - not just to please them but because their way has become your way. That's gold.

Asking

When it comes to his business affairs my husband is a micro manager. He is currently editing, drafting and correcting papers in relation to an agreement and trust me when I say that no stone will be left unturned. He will do it and he will do it to the best of his abilities, ensuring that every fact and condition and point is properly stated. His ability to give his complete focus to a task is something you really have to see to believe.

Leading his business life this way depletes him of any desire to micromanage me, and generally speaking that is a good thing because I don't think I would like that level of micromanagement directed at me. If he sees I am doing something in a certain way and he doesn't approve, he tells me but he definitely does not want to have to keep tabs on me. The last thing he needs or wants is to think, "Hmmmm, I wonder if cindi did this and that today, I better go check..." That is just too much like hard work.

Of course, if the dominant person in the equation does not engage adequately with the submissive, something is lost. As Sir J said recently, if it matters to you (you = the dominant), it will matter to her too. I am hoping that once this business deal is wrapped up he can engage with me more and remind me what is important to him and then whatever that is, it will be important to me too. I am rather well trained to obey these days (!) so Sir J's equation makes total sense to me.

All this being the case, it can be necessary for the submissive to make her own rituals and/or rules. Well, perhaps I should back up and say that I do have rules in a general sense. I am expected to maintain our lives in all ways unrelated to business affairs, so one could break that down to say that I tend to the house, the family, the food, the garden and social activities and so on, but it is enough I think to state that the expectation is that I will tend to our non-business affairs, as well as take care of myself and take care of my husband too (and of course the children).

When you have a submissive state of mind, and you want to feel that submission not just in the bedroom but in the core of you, and not just every now and again but many times a day, this can be a problem. Efficiency to please your Owner is fine but it is simply not enough.

I have had a lot of resistance to asking for things for various reasons but I am now finding asking for things a comfort for the above reasons. Asking reminds me of my place and when I feel my place, I feel good.

As I said before, I do the homely things. I cook the meals. Every now and again, it pays for me to put that time into some other activity on a given day. I could easily just dial for some Chinese food and go and collect it but I take pleasure these days in going to my husband's study and saying, "May we please have some take out food tonight? I have to do (this or that)." This pleases him. "Of course," he will say because if I ask nicely for things and the request is within his power, he won't deny it. It gives me a little tingle and that is what I look for; the little tingles in my day.

I am currently considering what else I may ask for: other ways that I can incorporate asking into my day. Would anyone care to share with me what they ask for?