Trapdoor

I like to think that people can't see into me. As a schoolgirl I worried that people might have some way of seeing into my thoughts but as an adult I've worked on the basis that if I held up a very good veneer there was no way they could know what I was really thinking. I have come to realize that I haven't fooled all of the people. I've left little hints along the way, I think, less and less prepared to hide in real life all the aspects of me that I've shared in this journal. I've allowed them glimpses of me in all my complexity.

There were only two of us left at the table when a friend needed to share an aspect of her life. I listened. I'm pretty good at listening and people know that about me. Somehow in the process of telling me her little problem she turned the spotlight onto me.

"I've thought several times that you're looking for something. There are little things over time that you've said and it makes me feel that you are on some sort of journey and you are looking for something."

I smiled. I contemplated how much to say and deemed it dangerous territory.

"Yes, I am on a journey. I am looking for something," I said. Then, I allowed the silence to sit there between us.

"Well, I hope you find it," she replied.

"Thank you," I said.

She's a polite woman and knowing she'd gone as far as she could possibly go on this day the conversation reverted to another topic without a beat missed.

Of course, I know enough to be able to say here that I'm not on a journey really; that the peace and joy I seek in my life is already there within me. That's the philosophy and I try to embrace it. I really do. It's quite exhausting to always been in journey mode; to always have a pack on your back and to have to traverse one more mountain before resting for the day.

For whatever reason, I'm looking for the trapdoor. I'm looking for other station platforms. I'm not a Harry Potter fan but the very first movie thrilled me. To think that there was a secret level at the train station that no-one knew about except the Hogwarts' students. How brilliant a thought is that!? To think that you can walk into a cupboard and enter another world like the children in The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe is captivating to me.

Some days I wonder if I am less interested in a serious power exchange relationship and more interested in being transported to a magical place. It's no co-incidence, I think, that I took to a new bimbo language like a duck to water, or that I totally embrace losing my mind and thinking like an object.

When I first met my husband he was a young man with a vision for his life. He was going places in every way and it seemed like it would be a very exciting ride. I knew myself well enough even back then to know that without a guide I might not go places. But, with someone assuring me that I was safe, there would be nothing to hold me back.

These days, I am more curious than I have ever been in my life. I've that writer's interest in 'the story' now and I want people to feed me with their tales; their thoughts, their disappointments and hopes. I want to know it all. I want to make sense of it in some ways through my own writing. Stories teach us, heal us and encourage us to live life to the full; to know more about our selves.

In a very vital and enduring way, I haven't changed at all. At heart I am still a very little girl, wanting to be shown the trapdoor; the way into a world of wonder and enchantment.  I have been very fortunate in my life to have the 'little girl' embraced; for men to see that I may adore slutty sex but in the mix is a little girl, willing to be led, to be scolded and chastised. Within my heart and my mind the little girl endures full of faith and trust; willing to do as told, blithely led to places she has never been before; a little scared at times but completely certain she doesn't want to miss the ride; a good girl but prepared to take a risk to experience the wonders of what lies beneath the trap door.

I am very lucky to say that I've been shown what lies beneath the trap door enough times to say that it is heavenly down there; that the Dark Lord may be scary but that the fear invigorates the little girl; entices her; thrills her to the core. The journey into her own desires is one she would not miss for all the tea in China. And, that's what I can't tell my friend. It must remain our secret.

Spanking desires

In the past week or so I've read rather a lot of material about spanking and I've watched several little clips that have turned up on tumblr sites that I follow. It's a desire of mine that has returned with some gusto and is pervading my mind on a regular basis at the moment.

On Saturday I asked my husband if we could return to a more disciplinary approach in our relationship. That is, could I ask that he think about when a spanking might be in order. He was all right with that and later in the day just before we left to go out and have a bite to eat for a late lunch he called me into the bedroom. He ordered me over a chair and he spanked me.

Unfortunately, it didn't do what I hoped it would do. His mind rather quickly wandered to pleasure, which is fine of course, except that I think I've been craving the positive effects of a sound thrashing for such a long time the light spanking just didn't do the job. In fact, it frustrated me intensely.

I watched a clip, all put on for the camera of course, where the girl got a spanking over her jeans at school and then a bare bottom spanking at home for getting in trouble at school. The wooden paddle left her with bruises and one can imagine that three days later she'd have more bruising still, making sitting down rather a chore.

I want (well not want, but crave) a spanking that takes me into a sub-space sort of mode. I want the sort of spanking that leaves me clutching at the ropes in some vain attempt to unattach myself and flee. I want to feel that sense of joie de vivre I experience after a sound spanking; that feeling of love not just for my husband but for the whole world; that full body orgasm that makes me high as a kite on life. I want it to feel more than a bit uncomfortable when I sit. Do I want to experience the pain of a spanking? I actually don't. Do I crave a tear producing spanking? I really do.

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.

Feminist theory and submission

Immersed in academia, social theories and discourse as I am at the moment there is no doubt that I can have moments when my reading has an effect on me and my submissive bent. Take, for example, my required reading on  Feminist Conflict Theory and the notion that without economic power women are at the mercy of men.

The greater women's economic power is relative to men's and the more women control their own lives, the greater their access will be to other sources of value in stratified social systems, especially honor and prestige, political power and ideological support for their rights.

For decades, the notion of pooling our funds has been comfortable for me. Well, I tell a lie. It's been relatively comfortable for me to pool the funds. I come from a line of women that were strong willed and independent. My grandmother and mother, with the support of their husbands, ran businesses and had access to their own funds without needing to ask anyone for permission. I haven't always agreed with my husband's decisions concerning finances and at times I have sincerely doubted them. But, I have always signed my name on the dotted line when he asked me to, and to this day I give him my trust and understanding that he'll do what is best for us. I want to underscore the word trust because at the end of the day this is what it all boils down to and this is what he demands.

We are in transition mode at the moment as a couple. Matters in his court have been finalized to the extent that he has more to offer me in terms of time and attention and whilst this is indeed what I want, there's a little part of my brain that says things like "You can't just switch me on and off like a tap. I'm going to need a little bit of time to get used to this" and "I don't think you've quite taken in and acknowledged in a way that I think adequate just how much I suffered through this ordeal".

He's not liking this transition and wants to move on straight away to the next era. He wants the compliant girl back; the one with generosity of spirit, a strong and indomitable sense of trust and a willingness to drive on. I'm getting there. I think I just want to be assured of his co-operation to take my requests very seriously. I. do. mean. to. have. my. renovations. I. am. not. kidding. around.

In one part of my brain I feel like a bit of a fool. I mean, I have no economic power over my own life at all. Sure, I can go and buy a dress this moment and he won't blink but I mean economic power to make bigger decisions than that. Well, actually, I do have a little nest egg, a gift, and I'm happy to give it all to the renovation process. I have said this many times. Yet, it doesn't make the process any faster. It. is. simply. not. in. my. job. description. I'm meant to wait patiently.

I'm at the tail end of my Masters program now. I'm no dummie on any level (except that I consider myself a bimbo dumdum dolli, of course) but not even a Ph.D or a Nobel Prize in Literature for that matter is going to make any difference at all. Major financial decisions in my life are made on my behalf.

I've a friend whose husband recently advised her that he was leaving the family. He's a doctor who suddenly decided he doesn't want to be an esteemed doctor any more and he doesn't want a family either. To hell with the fact that she gave up her medical career to bring up the three children due to his workaholism and that she is no longer registered to practice. He wants her off the (figurative) pay roll and wants her to get a job. My age, she's applied for well over 100 jobs since his notification of the end of their relationship and still no luck. Marriages fail. Partners move on. And yet, I live with complete faith and assurance (as did she) that my husband would never fail me. It's not what Feminist Conflict Theory would advise!

But, this is all too much thinki. We go on as we have gone on for a very long time. He's the boss and now that the business crisis has been averted he wants the dumdum dolli back; the woman who has complete faith and trust; the woman who is thrilled to be in that 'ole submissive groove; the fucktoy.  

It's completely true that what we do and the way we do it can't and won't change and nor should it, necessarily. Still, there are days when I feel I have no alternative but to turn off my academic/thinking brain and just follow my instincts, because what we do doesn't always make logical sense.

Luck

If you go back to the time when I began writing in this  journal I talked a lot about love because I believe that, for me, it's the central emotion of my life; the driver.

I've had a few discussions with people of late that make it rather clear that some Dominants are possibly less concerned with feelings of love than they are with a sense of being admired and being obeyed. I take this on advisement.

Since in our 37 years together my husband and I have both spat out rather nasty sentiments to one another about the other and are still here to tell the tale, I continue to think that it is love that has ultimately sustained us.

Let me be clear. You don't live 37 years with a person putting them on a pedestal and pretending that they are something incredibly special. We are all human and we all make mistakes. I've made my share of mistakes or missteps and so has he. We've acknowledged them. We've driven on.

Now, what do I prefer? I prefer the state of play where he makes the running. I prefer the state of play where he dominates me as per his whim (and my need) and makes love to me on a regular basis. I prefer him to be engaged and I prefer the mindset wherein I think he's the best thing since sliced bread. Sometimes I do (think he's the best thing since sliced bread) and sometimes I don't. I think he'd have a similar feeling about me, if you asked him. Sometimes, he tells me, he thinks he's got God's gift to men and sometimes he'd happily trade me in. This is life. I accept it for what it is.

You'd not be a reader here of any length if you didn't understand that the past couple of years have been tough. I didn't become a submissive woman in the last shower. I've had this state of mind for a long time, even if it wasn't as overtly expressed as it has been of more recent times. You'd also not have read much of this journal if you didn't understand that I luxuriate in the submissive mindset and that most of all I want to feel owned.

It's hard to feel owned when your owner is completely immersed in various issues separate to you and outside of you. It's hard to feel owned if your owner doesn't claim you. Yes, 37 years later I need to be claimed. I need to know categorically and on a regular basis that I am owned.

The truth is that I almost came to have acceptance of the fact that my husband had changed for good. The love and commitment was still there on some level but there was a definite disconnect. I'd express in words and actions that I felt abandoned and that I thought he was depressed, but it seemed clear he was not available to me or to my words. I simply had to do the best I could on my own. I could feel myself going through the stages of grief, revisiting over and over the state of anger. How could this happen to us?

This morning he came to me early in the day whilst I was seeing the boys off for the day to say that he was coming to the market with me. We used to do this on Tuesdays, but several months ago he stopped making himself available for this and I simply went on doing the weekly ritual on my own. He was slightly bossy about this, encouraging me to get ready quickly.

After months and months of leaving me to my own devises 99% of the time, I was a little resistant. Nonetheless, we were on the road early and as we walked through the open-air market he was making his wise-cracks, threatening this and that and generally pushing me around in his own inimitable style. Yes, I was smiling (I'm that ridiculously happy to be dominated at the worse of times...) but I told him that he couldn't just start doing what he hadn't done for months and think I'd just pick up where we left off. He assured me I was wrong and somehow I sensed within myself some hope; some flickering of the man I once knew.

When we'd bought fish, meat, bread and cheese, we stopped off at our regular Italian cafe for morning tea and we didn't leave until well into the lunch hour. We talked and talked and talked.

There's no doubt that he felt threatened by the nasty men related to a business deal and no doubt also that he refused to be intimated by them or to allow them to entirely have their way. It took precedence over his existence and it sent our marriage into a tail spin. I understand his convictions and I understood that the dilemma had made him, quite literally, sick. And yet, I missed him and the aroused husband I once knew so badly that I simply couldn't endure it indefinitely.

Whilst it isn't exactly over, he made his final decisions in the past 24 hours and it appears that it is the relief of coming to those decisions (not perfect but perfect enough in his mind to be an acceptable outcome) that allows him to get up and fight back for his marriage; to reclaim that softly spoken, sweet and submissive woman he called his own.

The desire to be an owned girl is so great that it takes little more than him expressing his ownership for me to feel a great deal better than I have in a long time. I can't deny that admiration and obedience play a role here. I don't want to just love him. I want him to be my owner. I want him to claim me in any number of ways. I want to belong to him. I want that ownership to be overtly expressed.

I've nothing more to report than this experience today. I don't know what will happen tomorrow. My experience of life is that it does not go forth making straight lines. Alas, I am familiar with the roller coaster ride of life. Yet, I felt today that there was hope that the worst may be over.

In my younger days I spent many weeks in a hospital attached to tubes and when I left a very dear nurse said to me that I'd paid my dues. I'd had my share of bad luck with my health, she said, and wouldn't see the inside of a hospital again for a very long time. It turns out she was right.

Perhaps, my luck has turned again.

Julius Caesar and The Dark Lord

The reason why Shakespeare has endured through the generations is that he was a master at understanding the many faces of people; the public face and the private face. He shows us Julius Caesar, for example, as a great Emperor; brave and strong. Caesar is acutely aware of his public image and even amongst friends he doesn't let his guard down. In Act 2, Scene 2 we see a different side to Caesar; a man afraid of the thunder and lightening. He is a mortal with fears.

When Calpurnia, his wife, arrives on the scene she does not speak full of deference for him. She doesn't refer to him as 'My Lord' but rather banters back and forth with him 'as a wife'. She has an opinion (that he should not go to the Senate that day) and she doesn't pussy foot around about sharing it with him. He is prepared to acquiesce to her until Decius convinces him that Calpurnia interpreted her dream incorrectly and then off Caesar goes to his death.

I was thinking about this scene this morning when it occurred to me that the sort of sex we have in a power exchange sort of way is perhaps more formal or more 'the public face' than the private face. We're more likely to say "Yes, Sir" than "Yes, husband". We're more likely to recognize that one person has the authority over the other than the sort of sexual encounter we might have where we are two people making love to one another; equals.

As Shakespeare knew hundreds of years ago, we have more than one face. We all need to show our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses, our fears and worries to the other. If the public world demands that we show no weakness, for fear of being vanquished, then at home with our beloved, we need to show him or her other aspects of our personality. This is what it is to be human and no agreed dynamic between two people can work satisfactorily if we aren't prepared to sometimes change roles: for the leader to show vulnerability or for the follower to come up with the strength to see them both through on a rough day. This is life.

Yet, I confess, I am who I am and I consistently seek opportunities to feel 'the gain' that comes from the power exchange dynamic. I don't look to lead overall. Like Calpurnia, if I feel strongly enough, I'll make my claim as to the fitness of things, but I don't want control and feel restless with control. I want to be led and never more than in the process of making love. For whatever reason I want to feel the poor Maiden at the mercy of the tyrannical Dark Lord.

Writing to learn what we have to say

My grandmother on my mother's side had eight children. She lost two of them - one to a road accident and the other to cancer. I have a strong memory of hearing her say that her dream would be to live in a lighthouse. I imagined she meant that people weren't likely to travel to the lighthouse and climb all those stairs and thus she'd be able to spend some time on her own.

I had a very strong relationship with her. She tried to teach me about Catholicism. She'd put my hair in rags to create a head of curls. When I stayed with her in the city where she ran a business she'd take me to the best department store and tell the woman in charge of the handkerchief counter that her grand daughter required a dozen new handkerchiefs. I'm not sure if she meant to but she trained me to have a discerning eye for quality items.  Most of all, she was available to talk to me and to a  child that is worth gold.

I've been required to write a short story and I chose to write about my parents before they got married. Interestingly, I included my grandfather into the story but there is no mention of my grandmother. Well, she was not integral to the story plot, you see. It was not an easy story to write but ultimately the theme of the story took shape. I explore the notion that those who have had some sort of a similar experience in earlier life may be well suited to harmonious matrimony.

As well, I wanted to say something about education in that era. I wanted to demonstrate how there were (are?) so many other ways to have a happy and successful life than to be educated and to have a professional life. I wanted particularly to say something about doing things well - that no matter what a person does, the important thing is to do it well and to the best of one's ability. I didn't know that was what I wanted to say until the story finally took shape. This is the writing process sometimes. We write to find out what we want and need to write.

To return to where I began in this writing moment of mine, I desperately need time alone, just like my grandmother. As I sit here on Monday morning at the end of the dining table the dull and dreary weekend has been overtaken by life-giving sunshine streaming down onto the papers beside me, casting shadows on the keys over which I spread my fingers.

My troubled mind is settling. I'm not exactly 'at peace' but I feel calm. I ask myself what set me off. What rattled me so?  My needs are not dissipating with age. My lust remains strong. My desire for connection is as strong as it has ever been. I yearn for physicality. I use my plugs because I must. They provide me a strong and immediate source of comfort. My body and mind were designed for use. I was meant to be submissive to a loving dominant. I desire guidance and support. I long for someone to maintain my sense of stability with his assurances that all is under control regardless of which way the winds blow. I look to rise up. I want to percolate up in a bubble of pleasure and joy - delighted to be alive on this day with this man.

In my marriage vows I said "for better, for worse". This is what we as people do. We marry with hope in our hearts that we will go on loving and being loved until the last day. My determination to honor my vows are currently at odds with my spirit's need to rise up and to seek succor; serenity. It is all boiling down, it seems to me, to my husband's ability to join me in seeking the sun. I cannot remain in some Scottish lair; the bog. I wither there. My spirit is trapped there. I must rise up and smell the roses. He is welcome to come with me but he must know, categorically so, that it is simply not possible for me to sit in the mud any more. If necessary, I will save myself.