Neck

I approach Him from behind. He sits at the table facing away from me. He is preoccupied by what he is reading. He is not paying attention to me right now.

I creep up behind him, slowly. I pause for a moment to stare at the back of his neck above his collar. I am drawn to this exposed piece of skin.

I lean down and gently brush my lips against the back of his neck. He shudders, raising his shoulders slightly before sighing and leaning back against me. I snake my arms around his shoulders and bury my face in the back of his neck.

As I nuzzle his neck, I breathe him in. I take deep breaths and hold his scent in my nose for as long as I can. I want to remember his scent, I want to carry it with me when I have to go out into the world without him.

He touches my arms lightly and brings me around to sit on his lap. I sink against him as he sighs, "My little Kitten." I rest my head against his shoulder and close my eyes as he cradles me in his arms.

I am not sleepy, but I find myself drifting away as he rocks me back and forth in his arms. We are quiet, for the moment.

Descent

I knelt before Him. He pushed me down onto all fours and held out his cock. "Here, come and get it." I opened my mouth to take him and he stepped backward. I crawled forward and opened my mouth again, only to have him step backward again. I crawled halfway across the room after him before he let me take him in my mouth. "I love to see you crawling like that, all hungry for my cock," he smiled.

He rocked his hips as I sucked on him, thrusting gently into my mouth and guiding my head. He was letting me control the speed and the tempo for the time being, and I was able to look up at him as I worked. But after a few minutes, he gripped my hair more firmly and started fucking my face more quickly.

I started to gag and pull back, but he wasn't letting me go anywhere. I scrambled from my kneeling position and back onto my ass, but he just held my head back and leaned forward until his cock was deep in my throat. I couldn't control anything at that point. My mouth was held open and he kept plunging his cock as deep as he could. I was gagging, but he wasn't letting up.

As I choked and sputtered, I tried to lean back to get away from him. He wasn't stopping, so he kept thrusting forward as I leaned back and back and back. At one point, I was lying flat on my back and he was crouched on top of me, still fucking my mouth. My arms were pinned under his legs and I could do nothing but flail my legs.

He seemed to relish my position because, between gagging and choking, I noticed that he was still smiling. My eyes were wide and I was trying to breathe, but he enjoyed every moment more than the one before. When he saw the surprised look on my face, he said slyly, "I feel like I just captured my prey and now you can't get away." I whimpered and he kept fucking my face. I could not resist. I could not do anything.

Trouble, Part III

He put me up against the wall as soon as we were alone together. He groped me roughly and taunted me - did my guests know what He was doing to me as soon as they left? What would they think of me if they knew?

He forced me down to my knees and fucked my face roughly, bruising my upper lip with the force of his thrusts. I tried to pull away, but he just pulled my hair harder and kept me on his cock.

"Up," he said as he used my hair to pull me to a standing position. He led me into the bedroom, detouring through the dining room to pick up the paddle from where I had placed it on the table. As we entered the bedroom, he shoved me hard and I went flying forward onto the bed. I was surprised, and as I hesitated with fear he pulled my dress up over my head and my panties down to my ankles.

"Do you want your punishment now, or later at my house?," he asked diplomatically.

"Now, please," I said immediately. I had been waiting all week. I had to get this over with.

"All of it now?"

"Yes, sir."

He stood back and I braced myself. I gripped the sheets on the bed and squeezed my eyes shut. He started paddling me, slowly building up the force he was using, until I was crying and writhing on the bed. He came over and laid next to me, petting my already-sore ass with the furry side of the paddle. I was taking large, gulping breaths and trying not to sob too loudly. I wanted to take my punishment like a good girl.

"What did you learn this week, Kitten?," he asked. I looked up at him through my hair.

"To tell you everything. To trust you. To think of you first always."

"That's right, what else?"

"That you control everything and that I'm not free."

"Yes," he sighed and he got up to start paddling me again. He hit me in time with his words. "And...no...more...lunches...without...asking...me...first."

"Yes sir, yes," I cried. He pulled me up off of the bed by my hair and deposited me in a pile at his feet. I was woozy from the paddling. I clung to his legs, unable to kneel on my own.

He picked up something off of my dresser and held his hands behind my back. He told me to pick a hand - one would mean 10 more hits and the other would mean 20 more. I reached out my hand and lightly tapped his right hand before sinking to the ground.

"Ten more, Kitten, then you're done." He helped me back onto the bed and I laid there like a rag doll. I just needed to breathe to be able to get through this. If I could just keep breathing...

He gave me ten more hits with the paddle. Then he curled up next to me, lightly tracing his fingers over the bruises blooming on my ass. I felt safe and comforted by him, and any doubts that I had about my transgressions and my rules were gone. My mind was clear and we were starting a new day.

An hour later, in the car to his house, I dozed lightly in the front seat of the car. He kept his hand on my leg and, when we got to the house, he picked me up and carried me inside.

First

We kissed as we sat on my couch, those slow, lingering kisses, the ones without any urgency. He slid his fingers into my panties. I was already soaked for him.

I pulled him into the bedroom. It was dark except for the streetlight poring in the open window. I slipped my dress over my head and laid my body on top of his, feeling him underneath my skin.

As we kissed and touched, as he fingered me and made me come, as I took his cock in my mouth...all of these feelings came flooding back. The dark room, the open window with the cool breeze blowing in, the unhurried exploration of each others bodies. It felt like the first time.

"I knew I was going to own you the first time I touched you," He whispered to me in the dark. "I knew you would be mine."

I whispered back to him, because to speak aloud would break the spell: "How did you know?"

He laughed quietly and slid his fingers into me again. I arched my back and opened my legs even more for him. "I was always meant to own you. And I always will."

Office

I sit in my office and try to work, but I am distracted. I am thinking about the paddle that I bought this morning. It is my bag, nestled there where no one can see it. I am thinking about my new rules and how I will handle them in the future.

My cheeks are already burning in anticipation of the punishment that I will face tomorrow night. The anticipation is the worst. He has grown calm and determined about my punishment in the last few days. He is not angry, but he is serious about what happened and ensuring that it never happens again. He is serious that I learn my lesson and that I take on the new burdens that he has set out for me.

I wonder how many hits with the paddle I will receive, then I quickly put this thought out of my mind. I must remember to breathe, I must repeat my rules to myself to keep calm, but I cannot panic. I cannot worry about how much more of the pain I will have to bear.

I receive an e-mail from my friend Anne, who wants to meet me for drinks after work next week. I am ready for this. I do not respond right away. Instead, I forward her e-mail to Him and ask if it is okay for me to meet with her. I wait impatiently, drumming my fingers on my desk as I will him to respond that I may.

I sit there, waiting, wondering, worrying, anticipating, fretting, dreaming.

My assistant comes into my office from the outer office area with a file for my meeting and I put all of these thoughts away. I close my e-mail and hope that there will be a response from him when I return. I stand up behind my desk and straighten my hair in an attempt to look pulled together, like the serious businesswoman that I am supposed to be. I take the file and, stepping over my bag with the paddle in it, I head toward my meeting.

Trouble, Part II

I don't know what I was thinking when I accepted a last-minute lunch invitation from my friend Paul. I wasn't thinking, actually. While I consider Paul to be a platonic friend because we have known each other for 8 years, that has not always been the case. We were lovers, briefly, five or six years ago. When our affair fizzled out, we reverted to being just friends again.

But He is wary of Paul and does not like that we remain in contact. So later that afternoon when I told him over the phone about my lunch, he got very quiet. He ended the call quickly, but I thought I was in the clear.

Until the e-mails started coming through. "You really enjoy your freedom, don't you? You may have less of it very soon."

And: "You'll be dealt with accordingly."

And: "I am not pleased at all."

He commanded me to get a paddle before he saw me over the weekend. More shockingly, he canceled our meeting that night. I would be forced to stay home and think about what I had done and contemplate how I had forced him to implement new stricter rules.

When I arrived home that night, He was waiting in his car outside my building. It was a wonderful surprise after a harrowing day. "I knew that you shouldn't be alone tonight," he whispered into my hair as I hugged him. "I knew my kitten needed me with her tonight."

As we talked inside, he laid out my new rules and restrictions. He will monitor my phone use when in his presence and review all texts and e-mails that I receive or send during that time. He set out specific instructions for my conduct with my friends, including remaining by his side or at his feet and deferring to him before I speak. He required me to come to him for approval for all social engagements, no matter how innocent. And I was not to see Paul again.

"That's not fair," I said quietly, twisting my hands in my lap and staring at the floor as I knelt at his feet. "He's my friend. Nothing happened. It's not fair."

He sat there passively with a benevolent look on his face. "I know," he said with a hint of false sympathy. "It isn't fair. But that is the way that it is going to be."

I cried and protested for a while longer. I could see how things would go in the worst scenario: I would alienate Paul completely, I'd lose my other friends under the weight of his restrictions. I would cease to be a grown woman who decides what she can do and when. I would be turned into a child who must ask permission to go outside to play with her friends and He would become the parent who would have the power to say no and keep me inside.

"Kitten, do you accept your new rules?," he asked. I continued to look at the ground and mumbled a reluctant yes. "No, you have to really accept them. I'm not convinced that you understand why you need this."

"I don't need this!," I exclaimed. "I'm a good girl! I didn't do anything with Paul!"

"It's not about that. It is about you needing more discipline in your life." He paused. "You feel pretty free most of the time, don't you?"

"Yes," I said flatly. (Had he been reading my blog?)

"You're freer than a lot of other girls out there. It's getting in the way of your training. I need to hold you on a tighter leash and I need you to feel me there with you always. I need you not to forget that you're owned...ever."

"Well, what about my friend Ted? I kissed him during freshman year of college! I think it was with tongue!," I roared incredulously. "That was ten years ago, but are you going to forbid me from seeing him too?"

"No, Kitten, you know that I'm fair with you. As long as you don't give me a reason to doubt you," he smiled. "I need you to look me in the eye and accept your rules."

"Or what? What's the other option?"

"There is no other option," he said.

I started crying, feeling truly trapped for the first time. I thought that I could work my way out of this situation, or play to his forgiving nature. But he wasn't budging. It wasn't even the punishment that I had coming. I would worry about that later. It was the prospect of spending the rest of my life like this, being shut in a series of progressively smaller cages.

He cupped my chin in his hand and forced me to look up at him. "You want submission when it's easy. When it's convenient for you?" I opened my mouth to protest then quickly closed it. He was right. "Now do you see that accepting this will be good for you? You need to learn this lesson."

I took a deep breath and nodded. I looked right at him and said, "I accept."

There was a heaviness in my heart as he held me and told me that I was a good girl for accepting the new rules. I pouted for the rest of the night and cried again before bed that night. I slept fitfully. But I woke cradled in his arms, and everything felt safe and right again.

Trouble

Are there scarier words in a submissive's world than "you will be dealt with accordingly?"

Maybe these words. An e-mail from earlier today, when I messed up big time:

You have an assignment. There is no choice but to follow these orders.

You have today after work and tomorrow to get it done. Find that sex shop near your job. Get a paddle. Any paddle.......and have it ready.

Also an enema.....

Have both of those things ready for me to use this weekend. I know it's not much time, but that's the way it's going to be.

Got it?

Yes, Sir.

Pet

I was kneeling between his legs. He was stretched out on the bed, waiting for me to take his cock in my mouth. "Down," he coaxed, pushing on the back of my head, "down."

I lowered my head under pressure from his hand. "Good," he patted my head, "that's a good dog."

I froze, mid-suck. Did he just call me a dog? No, couldn't be. I chose to ignore it and kept sucking.

"Now, sit up," he cooed. I looked up at him with questioning eyes. "Sit up like a good dog."

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment. I had to obey but I didn't understand what he was doing. I sat up anyway and squeezed my hands together to manage the tension.

"See? You are a good dog!," he exclaimed with mock enthusiasm. I shook my head, still not sure what he was doing, aside from humiliating me. "Back down," he said and I lowered my head.

As I continued to suck him, he rubbed the back of my head and cooed some more about what a good dog I was for him. I sat up abruptly.

"I'm not a dog," I said with some hesitation. It seemed silly to have to assert such a thing about myself.

"Of course you are," he said with a frustrating lilt to his voice. "You sit up, you beg, you roll over-"

My hands flew up to my ears. "I'm not a dog!," I said louder, cutting him off from his list of my canine attributes. I couldn't listen to him recount all of the things that I do that, now that I thought about it, sounded awfully a lot like the things dogs do.

"Down," he said quickly, and I ducked my head down to his cock. He chuckled to himself and patted me on the head again. Dammit, I thought. I obeyed his command just like a dog. Oh god.

I started sniffling as I sucked his cock, not wanting to believe that he thought I was an animal. Not willing to admit that I act just like one. Tears dripped down my face as I started quietly crying.

"What's wrong?," he asked.

I looked up and mumbled, "I'm not a dog," through my sobs.

"Oh, yes you are," he said quietly.

"No, I'm a girl," I said, quietly at first. I kept repeating it to myself. "I'm a girl, I'm a girl, I'm a girl..." I kept up this mantra as I tried to block out all of the thoughts about the commands that I follow like a dog, the crawling on the floor, the begging. Was I trying to convince him that I was a girl or convince myself?

He pushed my head back down onto his cock and I managed to suck his cock. I stopped sniffling and was finally able to make him come in my mouth. It seemed like a hollow victory, since I had been so humiliated in the process.

He pulled me up next to him when I was finished. He nuzzled my neck and held me close, but I felt detached. I didn't know what to think of what just happened. He whispered in my ear: "Kitten, you're whatever I want you to be."

Freedom

Any situation in which some individuals prevent others from engaging in the process of inquiry is one of violence. The means used are not important; to alienate human beings from their own decision making is to change them into objects. - Paulo Friere

We were discussing the status of my training and my occasional habit of treating my submission, as He says, "like something that can be put down when it is inconvenient." I know that he was only being constructive in his criticism, but that evaluation really hurt. I take my submission very seriously and have never thought that I could just put it down and pick it back up at will. But He sees more than I do, and if he is dissatisfied by my behavior from time to time, then that is what matters. I am sure that his perception on this issue is affected by my recent behavior with my friends, but I don't want this to turn into a regular habit for me. I have to fix this before it becomes a more serious issue.

I have been thinking about why I would treat my submission as something more casual than it is, even unconsciously. I have thought about my restrictions and compared them to the restrictions of many of the subs that I know - in comparison, I have it very easy. I get up every day whenever I want, choose my own clothes for the day, make my way to work and continue to make thousands of little decisions for myself throughout the day. If I am not set to see him that day, I make my way home, eat a dinner of my own choosing, and just make sure that I am in bed by my bedtime. If I do see him, I am subject to his commands and demands, but that is the case only two or three times a week. I am always subject to my general rules, but the proscriptions on my daily activities are minimal.

I told him that this may be why I am too casual about my submission sometimes. I feel free most of the time. I do not identify as a slave and there are times when I feel like I can do whatever I want. Most of the time, I can do whatever I want.

But when I told him this, he laughed quietly. "What?," I asked, wondering what was so funny.

"That you think you get to do whatever you want, Kitten," he said.

"But I do! I can wear whatever I want and go see my friends whenever I want and...," I trailed off as he shot me a look.

"You go to work and do your job. That's the only thing you're free to do. Everything else you do because I let you." I stared at him with my mouth slightly open, trying to understand what he was saying. He grabbed the back of my neck and brought my face close to his for emphasis. "You go see your little friends," he sneered, "and you think you have control but you don't. I let you go see them, but don't forget that that can stop at any time. I can stop any of this at any time. What you wear, what you eat, who you see, who you e-mail...I control all of it."

"But...," I stammered, "you wouldn't stop me from seeing my friends, would you?"

"Just try me. Then you'll know exactly how not free you are."

I think I have freedom but I don't really. This feeling that I carry with me throughout the day as I make all of my little decisions is just an illusion. All of those little things are inconsequential, anyway. I may feel important that I can choose between wearing a skirt and pants to work in the morning, but when it comes down to it, I have no control where it really matters. I am owned and I cannot lose sight of that. I cannot forget that, even though he is not there holding the back of my neck at all times, that I am completely under his control.

Friends

About a year ago, I spent a long weekend with my two best friends. I have known these friends for over ten years and count them among the closest people in my life. That weekend we spent together marked the endpoint of a long summer spent together, traveling together, taking trips to the beach, going to parties and concerts, and generally enjoying each others company. The final weekend of that summer, we planned to attend an outdoor music festival. We were going to see my all-time favorite band, one that I had not been able to see perform live because of their overwhelming popularity and the scarcity of (affordable) tickets to their shows.

So, that beautiful Saturday afternoon, we set out for the show. We were in high spirits. I was relaxed and tanned from long days at the Cape. I was still entangled in a relationship of sorts with D., but at that moment I had resolved to draw things to a close. I had enjoyed our time together, but I was starting to feel like I either wanted to be in a real relationship or be by myself. I was ready to be by myself for a change.

I was at the height of my confidence on that day. I had everything that I wanted. I mingled among my friends and the crowd at the festival, sure of my every movement. For once, I didn't care who was looking at me or what other people thought. For once, I was without anxiety about my appearance or my mannerisms. For once, I laughed with the kind of abandon that I had admired in those pretty girls in my high school class, the ones who were effortlessly unselfconscious.

I was finally self-sufficient. After years of bad relationships and bad roommates, I was living on my own and taking care of myself. I didn't need anyone. I had my friends and I had this moment and that was all I needed. I was never more independent in my life.

I met Him the next day.

When I think about my best friends, I remember that moment, that singularity. I remember the feeling of control and independence and I connect that feeling to my time with them. They know me as that independent girl, they always have. They couldn't possibly know that, even though I felt wonderful that day, there was always something missing in my life. They couldn't know that behind the bravado was a girl who was faltering under the weight of her independence. They have never seen the vulnerable girl that I am with Him, the little girl that he takes care of.

So when I spend time with Him and with my friends, there are always problems. I forget my place and my submission starts to fade into the background. The cognitive dissonance between the independent girl that I portray to the outside world and the vulnerable girl I truly am becomes too loud for me to bear. He reminds me of his ownership, often cruelly, during these times but that only makes me more confused. I don't know who to be. I don't know who I am.

I don't want to stop seeing my friends because I fuck up every time I am around them. I am not willing to sacrifice what I think will be lifelong friendships because I am worried that I cannot submit and be the person that they have known. I have to find a solution to this problem, but that solution must put Him first and firmly establish that I am owned above all else. He expects that and I cannot disappoint him any more. My time with my friends is the last place where I have held onto my view of my independent self. It is the place that I hold onto it the strongest because that independence forms so much of the girl they know. If I can't let go of this, I will not have truly submitted to him. It is what is keeping me from moving forward. He is going to think up some strategies for dealing with this situation in the future because, as things stand, my balance between my friends and my submission is very badly off.