Owned

It's about being owned. It's about today and being owned today, but it's also about tomorrow. It's about being owned tomorrow and every day after that. It's about what happens next month and in the spring when He moves in. It's about when we're married and all of the years after that.

It's about what it means to be owned every day, every minute of every day for the rest of my life. It's about not knowing what that means. It's about control and not knowing where this is going. It's about the suggestion of more, the threat of more.

It's about not knowing if I can breathe, and not knowing why I wanted to get into this in the first place. It's about wondering what was so bad about being unowned, unaware of this life that I'm now living. It's about thinking that I could go back to vanilla life and unsatisfactory sex and closed-off emotions if I wanted to. It's about the possibility of escape and the impossibility of return.  

It's not about love or about safety or about security.  It's not about what I've grown accustomed to.  It's about making the choice to give up all choices.  It's about being completely owned.

Update

A curious commenter asked recently about His efforts to arrange an...arrangement with another submissive woman.  You may recall that at first he assigned me with the task of finding her, which led me to several interesting places on the web but not to success.  I managed to encounter more dominants (who already had partners) who wanted to meet up with me (even though I already have a partner).  I was very frustrated with the effort and it was weighing pretty heavily on me.  So he decided to take over.  

It was difficult for me to admit defeat, but I really was at a loss as to what to do.  I don't know how to approach women and I really wasn't having any success.  By giving the task up to Him, he asked that I trust him and place the responsibility totally in his hands.

I had a bit of difficulty with that, though, as it turned out.  I wanted to be involved and he promised that I would be, but I just couldn't catch my balance.  I didn't want to control the situation and exercise this massive supervisory veto power over every step he took, but I was also fearful of what could happen without my knowledge.  Additionally, I didn't want him to communicate a different goal to whoever he talked to.  I have a very specific feeling about what I want us to get out of this experience and what I am looking to avoid, but I couldn't let go and trust him to find the right person.

He talked to several people online, including one very lovely girl who we both liked but the situation just didn't come to fruition.  I involved myself in the communications with her and I hope that I didn't scare her away, but I just don't know how to be in this circumstance.  

Obviously, this has been anxiety-producing for me.  Just the other night, I had a nightmare that I found pictures of Him with another submissive on her MySpace page.  Of course it was just a dream and that dream girl (with the huge boobs!) is not real, but it has been on my mind.  So I'm not hesitant to tell you that I'm a bit relieved that the effort has stalled as of late.  He and I are still on the look-out for the right person, but I think it's going to result from meeting people in our community and getting to know them rather than a forced search for someone.  

I'm hopeful to find the right person who will share not only one passionate night with us, but who can also share a part of our lives for a time.  I'm not discouraged because I know that my patience will be rewarded.  In the meantime, I am working on trusting him and building our relationship.  The stronger and more grounded we are, the better an experience this will be in the long run.

Anon, thanks for your questions.  Anyone else have anything that they need answered?  ;-)

Party

I am very private about my relationship (except, oddly, in keeping this blog). I have told one of my real life friends a tiny bit about my relationship, but I don't think he really got it. I think things are better that way because I don't know how I'd even start to explain things the way they actually are.

I have wonderful commenters and fellow-bloggers who really get where I am coming from. There are several of you in particular who really understand and who are going through the same experiences - the exact same ones, imagine - but I won't embarass you by mentioning you by name. Just know that I love reading your blogs and feel better because you understand the beautiful and the ugly parts of my life.

That said, I don't have any real friends in "the lifestyle." Those aren't sarcastic quotes, but more illustrative of what my view on community and BDSM has been since I started with Him, which is to say that I have no view of community and BDSM. I've been with Him for a year and never once have I thought that anyone else besides the two of us is part of what we do and there has been no stopping this once we began. It's funny, because I see new submissives commonly asking others online for tips on how to start this, and I'm never able to give advice. I don't know how to start. I didn't plan this. It just happened. Submission just happens.

I'm owned and what we do may look like M/s or D/s or whatever, but we don't put labels on it. I've never waded into all of those internet arguments about whose relationship is more real than anyone else's, or whether my lack of a safeword is abuse, or whether we've negotiated and contracted every last detail of this crazy journey that we've been on. (Answers: (1) my relationship is real and the rest of you can figure out your own relationships, (2) I don't have a safeword and I'm not abused and I like it that way, and (3) no negotiations and no acronyms and it's scary/wonderful that way.)

Anyway, my therapist thinks that I need to have friends in "the lifestyle," not because I need to go to a workshop to learn how to be spanked (which I don't and I'm strenuously against more classes, as if I didn't spend the first 25 years of my life locked in a classroom), but because I need people in my life who accept my relationship and don't need it explained to them. People who just get it.

So! He and I will be going to our first party this weekend at the invitation of the owners of a local dungeon. I'm intimidated as hell by the people because I'm sure I'll come off as young and naive and won't have an answer to the questions about how long I've been part of "the scene." (Answer: For about 10 minutes.) And more importantly, I have sexy lingerie but no actual fetish wear. What am I supposed to wear?!?

Mine

I was kneeling before Him in the living room, working his cock slowly in my mouth. I was focusing very intently on him and only him, his pleasure, his little moans. As I serviced him, he started pulling on my hair and pushing my face down onto his cock more roughly. He was getting more excited and his mean streak was coming out. I could see it behind his eyes.

"You had better keep that up because you're going to work on my cock all night."

I looked up at him through my hair with a surprised look in my eyes.

"Oh, don't worry. I'll feed you dinner. But after that, you're going to be right back on your knees. You think you eat for free around here? You have to find a way to earn your keep, you know."

I looked down, ashamed. His words echoed in my ears: "earn your keep." I tried to push the thoughts out of my mind and focus on the task at hand, but he was not done.

"You are such a little whore. Look how much you love doing that." I continued, sure that if I showed how his words affected me, he would only taunt me further. He pulled me up on his lap and had me fuck him. He didn't seem to care if I came. He was using my body for his pleasure only.

He pulled me close and tugged on the hair at the nape of my neck. He growled in my ear: "I knew what a kind of girl you were from the moment I saw you."

Foolishly, I asked, "What kind of girl am I?" I don't know why I asked this. I knew what kind of mood he was in. I knew what he would say. But there was a part of me that wondered what kind of girl I was then and what kind of girl I have become, and whether I could bear to see how he saw me. Whether I could bear the changes.

"A dirty girl. I knew you were a dirty little girl from the moment I met you." I shook my head, tried to deny it. "I knew you would let me fuck you as soon as I wanted. I knew you would let me do all of these things to you."

"No...," I protested weakly. He just held me tight to him as he bounced me up and down on his cock, faster and faster. He was hurting my neck with the force he was using to pull my hair.

Right before he came, he hissed in my ear: "I know I would own you and that I'd make you my whore. I always knew."

Awoken

I got into my pajamas and brushed my teeth. The lights were already dimmed in my apartment and I was getting ready for bed. I brushed my hair and put moisturizer on my face. I settled under the covers with the air conditioner blowing toward the bed so I could fall asleep in cool comfort. I waited for Him to call to put me to bed.

And I waited.

And I waited.

Over the next two hours, I tossed and turned in bed. I got up and opened the windows, got back into bed, got up to close the windows, got back into bed. I went out to the couch to see if I could sleep there before slinking back into the bedroom. I checked my phone obsessively.

I started thinking about those people who have blood clots lurking in their bodies and how those blood clots move to their brains and they drop dead without warning. I started worrying about blood clots lurking in my body. I was fretting over all of the things that could kill me suddenly, immediately as I lay in bed. I was spinning out of control and why, oh why wouldn't He call?

Finally, at 1:30, He called. He had fallen asleep early and had accidentally missed my bedtime.

I was so upset by the time he called that I had a panic attack. That hasn't happened in a very long time and it was a frightening development. There was a time, more than seven years ago, when I had panic attacks every day. I was completely crippled by them. My life narrowed to the time between these attacks, minus the time anticipating an attack, minus the time to recover from an attack. I remember that year as one of constant, crushing anxiety. Almost all of my recollections from that year involve the bedroom in my campus apartment: me pacing the small space between the computer desk and the bed and the door, phone clasped to my ear, desperately pleading for someone to help me deal with the unbelievable pain.

In any case, this was just one panic attack. One. It did not recur in the following days and I feel just as strong as ever. The amazing thing about the experience was the way that He helped me through it. In the old days, I was so frustrated by my panic attacks because no one seemed to know how to help, especially not my boyfriend at the time. I was desperate for someone to just comfort me, or reassure me or something I couldn't then describe.

Who knew that being owned would give me the perfect tools to battle the devastation of a panic attack? My owner reassured me on every front - that I am owned, that I am loved, that he is taking care of me, that everything will be okay - and I believed him with all of my heart. After the panic subsided and I was left feeling depleted and tired, he had me continue to breathe deep and cuddle with my favorite stuffed animal so that I could relax. He stayed on the phone with me until I was nearly asleep and then quietly told me that he loved me.

I mumbled groggily, "I love my owner," before I put the phone down and finally drifted off to sleep.

Floating

After the ups and downs of August, September has settled into a predictable rhythm. Not that predictability is bad. If anything, I'm a creature of habit and ritual. I am happy to be back at balance with Him.

What does balance look like for us? Sometimes it can look awfully vanilla, like a Saturday afternoon at Target buying new hand towels for my apartment or a quiet dinner at our favorite local Chinese place. Later, behind closed doors, there will be pulled hair and tears and commands. But for a time, we look like any other couple you'd see. That ordinariness is soothing after some of the tumultuous times that we have had lately.

I like to hide in our vanilla facade sometimes. I like to think that there is nothing deviant or unusual about us. I don't know why, but I like spending my weekend doing things that I can actually tell my coworkers about on Monday.

I am looking forward to fall and our anniversary. I am looking forward to the cool, crisp evenings like the evening of our first encounter. It turned cool as we touched for the first time, and the breeze blew in the open windows. There was rain and beautiful lightning. It was the last gasp before the cold.

We fell in love in the cold and I cannot wait to be back there again. I cannot wait for the long, dark nights huddled in my bed with Him. I am desperate for the silence of winter, the weekends snowed inside, completely buffeted from the outside world. That is what I wish for from Him more than anything - solace, complete isolation, being wrapped warm in his control. As the months tick by, I imagine myself completely encased in cotton, as if I am packed away. I cannot hear or move. I can see the bright white all around me. Everything is quiet.

I am not done with this space, not even close. I know that I have updated less frequently and I will get back on track soon. For now, know that I am well and that I am happy. Trust that we are still on our path and we are in lockstep, going wherever we are headed.

Doppelganger

I think that He knows me better than anyone else in the world. And I like to think that I know more about him than anyone else, but there is still a part of him that is hidden from me. It is the deepest, most darkly sadistic version of himself, the part that he is hesitant to show me for fear that I will be too afraid of what I see.

Often when we are in the heat of the moment, he is coolly dispassionate. He steps back and surveys my naked body, he applies the belt strategically, he pauses. He is calm and professorial is his demeanor. He is having fun and, most importantly, he is completely collected.

In contrast, the other version of him is absolutely wild. It is unhinged, manic, rabid. I can tell when the other him has come out when I see his eyes. They are full of rage and hunger. They make me instantly afraid - of where the man I know has gone, of whether this other version of him will know where to stop, of my own capacity to take what he has to give. Sometimes I think that I can coax the reasonable, rational version of him out from behind the monster, but often that only makes him more excited. When he sees that his prey is scared and flailing, begging for mercy, he only sinks his teeth in more deeply and holds on more tightly.

Last Friday, I encountered this version of him unexpectedly. I was sucking his cock in the living room when he pulled me up roughly by my hair. I saw that evil glint in his eyes and I knew. I knew as he pushed me over the couch and fucked me hard, clawing at my back. I knew as he forced his cock into my mouth and choked me without mercy. I knew as he knocked me to the ground and hit me that he was out. There would be no caging him until he had his release.

Only after bending my legs back and fucking me until I cried and we both came did he relent. Then he went back into hiding, behind the calm facade of my owner. He lays there quietly, waiting for his chance to come out again.

Locked From the Inside

You know you can leave if you want, even though I don't think you want to leave.  There's still a door but it's locked from the inside.

You're like a puppy who sees an open front door.  You get excited and you think you'll be free and you run out of the door.  But you come running back after five steps outside.  You want to be home and safe and you can't handle being free.    

You wouldn't make it one day on the outside.  You'd come running right back inside like that puppy.  

I know you like to think that you can leave if you want.  I'm not going to physically hold you or stop you.  But it's not me that's keeping you by my side.  

The old you is dead and you can't get her back.  Even if you left, even if you thought you were free, you'd never be able to be the old you ever again.  I'll own you forever.  You'll never be free.     

Coming Out of the Silence

For a day or so after our intense argument early in the week, I was mostly quiet.  I agreed with Him and generally went along with everything without complaint.  I was still a bit scared of the man that I saw that night.  I wasn't sure how to mesh that person with the sweet man who chauffeured me to a doctor's appointment, who made me coffee each morning, and who held my hand as we watched a scary movie.  If anything, I thought maybe I had made part of that experience up, or that I had read the situation incorrectly?  Because people certainly don't go from pinning down their girlfriends and telling them that they cannot ever leave to being sweet overnight, right?

I found myself thinking about what I should do at the end of the week.  I could keep my intentions to myself and just head home, I could change my locks and drop off of the face of the earth.  I love Him, but I thought thought I was supposed to be able to leave if I wanted.  I thought that was the only rule.  In our 24/7 dynamic, I thought that the choice to leave, to say "I withdraw my consent," was the only rule that we still had.  I thought it was my last line of defense.  But he wouldn't let me exercise it, so I didn't know where I stood.  

We talked about it eventually.  I told him how scared I was, how I didn't understand why what he did was okay.  He recognized that it was an intense experience, but he didn't think anything was ever going to be normal with us.  We could never just walk away from each other.  We could never just put one another down and pretend like it didn't affect us to the very core level.  He is right about that.  

I told him that I didn't know how to process what had happened, only that I knew what he had done would have been unacceptable for anyone else's boyfriend.  If one of my girlfriends came to me with this story (...all of it...), I'd probably tell her to run away.  I kept feeling like that for days, focusing on the paradigm of the controlling boyfriend, until he stopped me short.  

"I'm not your boyfriend.  I OWN you.  I know what is best for you and I will do whatever I want with you.  Do you understand that now?"

I need to stop thinking of him as my boyfriend.  That's what he is to the outside world, to the people at work and my family.  But he's not my boyfriend, not really.  I've been thinking a lot about the public/private aspects of our relationship and the cognitive dissonance that that divide causes for me.  I remember all of the times when friends who know me as a Type A in-charge woman joked about how I probably wear the pants in the relationship while I looked down and he gripped the back of my neck tighter and tighter.  We always laugh that off, but I'm a little bit sick of behaving one way in public and another way in private.  

I used to think that part of the allure of my submission and all that comes with it is that it is taboo and wrong.  I thought that I was thrilled by my little secret and even worried a bit about the lustre wearing off as the taboos became an acceptable part of my life.  But that's not the case at all.  The ruse of the "secret life" is exhausting and I hate it.  I want to be who I am with him all of the time.  I want to stop worrying about playing to my audience.  I want for him to really be my owner 24/7 and I want people to know.  

I've ventured off topic, but I feel like this is an important point.  I got past the drama of that evening and we are back to normal.  I did not leave and he will be letting himself into my apartment tonight as usual.  But we are also back to keeping our relationship silent out of fear of whatever is out there.  Out of our own desire for privacy, sure, but also out of a desire not to face the judgment of the world that tells us that what we are doing is wrong.       

Silence

I haven't written during the past week. I spent the whole week at home with Him. I've thought about sharing this experience all week, but I hesitated because of how complicated it was for me. It was intense, and my account doesn't really do justice to what happened. This is only part of the story:

Early in the week, I got upset about something. I listened to his apology, but I couldn't get past it. I sat on the bed next to him with my knees pulled up to my chest. He tried to touch me but I brushed him off. He wanted me to lay down next to him, but I didn't want to be held or to look at him.

I wanted to leave. I mean, I thought I did. I wanted to be in my car, driving away. I wanted to sit alone and think. I wanted to be inside myself for a while so I could figure out how to come back to him.

I told him that I wanted to go and I moved to the edge of the bed. He put his hand on the back of my neck and squeezed. "You don't want to go. You want to stay here with me," he said quietly under his breath.

"No, I want to go. I want to be by myself," I mumbled. I could hear the waver in my own voice.

He shook his head. He tightened his grip on my neck and tilted my face so that he could look me in the eye. I looked away, anywhere so he couldn't see into me. I could feel his eyes on me anyway.

"Stop that," I said, covering my eyes with my hands.

"Stop what?," he asked as he continued to burn his way inside of me.

"Your eyes...stop that!," I cried. I tried to twist away from him. He just pressed down on the back of my neck until my forehead pressed against the mattress.

His breath was hot against my ear. "You want to go home and be by yourself?" I nodded. I was too scared to speak. "You want to be free?" I didn't move. I was too confused. "Or do you want to be owned by someone else?," he hissed as he gripped the back of my neck so hard that I cried out. "You're not going anywhere tonight. You're going to brush you teeth and then I'm going to put you to bed."

I sobbed with my face pressed into the mattress. He stroked the back of my head as I cried and murmured in my ear. He told me all the things we would do that week. He was suddenly being so sweet, I almost forgot that he was holding me down by my neck.

After he let me sit up, I moved to the edge of the bed again. I wasn't sure what I wanted anymore, but the fact that he wouldn't let me go made me want to leave all the more. I stood up and he grabbed my wrist to pull me back down onto the bed. He sat on top of me and held my wrists down.

"I told you, you're not leaving. You need to be here with me," he said, his eyes dark with anger. My wrists hurt and I struggled against him. "It will stop hurting if you stop struggling," he warned.

He slid down to lay next to me, resting his hand on the front of my neck. Tears were running down the sides of my face. I stared straight up at the ceiling and tried not to look at him. "I think I want to go," I whined.

"You think you want to?," he asked.

"I don't know...I think so...," I trailed off.

He slapped my face hard three times. "NO, you don't," he said with a great deal of force. "I can't be without you tonight."

I sat quietly for a long time and let him hold me. I wanted to be upset, but I could feel my resolve slipping away. He was right - I shouldn't be alone and it was too late for me to drive. Maybe I could just stay that one night...

He pulled me closer and I melted into him a bit. "That's a good kitten." I closed my eyes and felt the great draw of inertia. I could just lay there. It would be so easy.

"I want to make love to you," he whispered. He pulled up my nightgown. I squeezed my eyes shut as he felt between my legs. I was completely soaked, against all reason. He wrapped my legs around his waist and started fucking me gently.

I sobbed as he started thrusting into me with more force. I clung to him and he let me blubber against his shoulder. We came together in great shuddering gasps and fell back onto the pillows together.

I felt so wrung out. I let him lead me into the bathroom, where he watched me brush my teeth. Then he led me back into the bedroom and tucked me into bed. He turned off the light and shut the door behind him. I closed my eyes and fell asleep.