In the beginning, Master asked before He did things. We were still feeling each other out. Still learning where the boundaries (or lack thereof) were. Still figuring out when we could stretch and what was too far. And He asked before trying things out on me.

Somewhere along the line, He stopped asking. Instead He would tell me. Telling me before became telling me while He was doing it and eventually that went away as well. Sometimes I have warning. Master orders me into cuffs or sends me off to get whatever it is He wants to use. But more often than not He’s slapping the cuffs on me Himself. Retrieving His toys while I’m waiting patiently (not so much) where ever He left me.

I noticed each transition and I balked at each one. I don’t mind change so much. Change is also good a lot of the time. But I can’t always see the good right away. I usually start by seeing the scary.

Change, in a nutshell, is scary.

The same goes for change in myself, I think. I start to see things changing – my opinions, my approaches to things, my attitude, my behaviors, my personality, etc. – and I get scared. Often I revert to whatever it was I was doing before and hope that Master didn’t see the change and like it. And then I sit and think about the change for days on end. Wondering. Watching.

Was it a good change? Should I keep doing it? Will Master be pleased by it? But the biggest thing that worries me is, does this mean I’m no longer myself? If suddenly I behave more, am I losing myself? If I stop protesting things that scare me or embarrass me, does that change who I am? If I give up the stranglehold I have on being seen as “normal” by society’s view (Yes, I have deluded myself into believing that vanilla people see me that way.), am I still me? The same me, not a lesser form of me?

Change is a good thing. Until it’s not.

I don’t know when it happened. Somewhere along the line, I seriously started to hate being punished. Being yelled at. Being treated roughly because of anger and not because we just wanted to have rough sex.

When we first started, I was all about it. In its place, that is. Punishment is part and parcel to the whole slave gig. It’s inevitable. Slaves, being imperfect creatures, get into trouble. Trouble leads to punishment. It is what it is. Accept it. And I did. Acceptance, in the beginning, was easy.

Somewhere along the line, I lost the ability to just bend over and take what was coming to me. Graceful submission? Haha… not from this little slave girl. You want me to submit? You better fight for it! You want to punish me? I better agree I deserve to be punished! This relationship has become more of a battle between two headstrong, stubborn, opposing forces than a Master and slave. Libras aren’t supposed to be stubborn! (Master’s a Libra, not me)

At the same time, I was pushing Him to be harder on me. Punish me more. Hold a tighter grip on my collar. Humble me more. I’m the one who lost the will to do the things I was supposed to be doing, but He was at fault. I’m the one who was stepping out of line on almost a regular basis, yet I held Him accountable. The very things I was in a funk about, I wanted more of. And I was blind to the fact that this was all me.

Last night, I don’t remember what about (we were slightly inebriated), but I was irritated. I went into the kitchen and pretended to have something to do so He wouldn’t see the look on my face and ask me what was wrong. What was wrong, I knew, was stupid and it wasn’t worth a fight. And then, in the brief silence in the running dialog in my head between my stubborn, childish self and the rest of me, little miss slave rayne piped up and said, “But isn’t that His right?” Stubborn, childish rayne was stunned into silence for a moment and little miss slave rayne said, “That is His right.” I seem to remember stubborn, childish rayne trying to protest further and little miss slave rayne just continued to repeat her new mantra. By the time I sat back down in the office little miss slave rayne had won. And I started thinking about how difficult I’ve been making things.