Grateful

Sir and Sub Brother had their date night tonight (eventually I’ll write about our date night system… We basically have a set up so everyone gets one-on -one time with everyone else a couple times a month.)

I was supposed to wash my laundry and feed myself while they were gone (for four hours, so it wasn’t really that big a challenge).

I didn’t.

OMG, you totally didn’t see that coming, did you???  It’s like… Shadow was supposed to do chores.  PLOT TWIST!  She didn’t get them done!  Ammirite?

So… They get back about an hour ago and I have… not done laundry… haven’t eaten… and am starting to blood sugar crash and feeling ill and miserable.

Sir is in the living room asking me what I got done… we’re discussing the lack of food and laundry… he sends Sub Brother into the kitchen, he looks at me with a serious face and says, “Go upstairs.”

I literally felt like a blast of snow hit my whole body, like tiny frozen stinging pinpricks all over my skin. My breath got shallow and my stomach felt like I had swallowed a stone.  I started to turn to go upstairs. I thought I was going to be punished. And… the thing is… as unpleasant as that was… it didn’t occur to me to… argue, or negotiate, or beg, or complain… I was just going to accept it. Because that’s who we are. Because that’s who I am and what I’ve given Sir, and he’d left orders for me and I hadn’t followed them and… that’s how it works.

But that panic response must have shown on my face because Sir grabbed me and said, “For your laundry.  Get your laundry started, then you’re going to eat.”

Oh.

So I went upstairs to get my laundry, but my close call left me feeling very… subdued.  And it made me think about what punishment means to us, and how different it is from what so many people assume – what so many people actually do when they say they do “punishment.”

And the scare knocked me out of my funk pretty well, I got two loads of laundry carried downstairs, carried up another load that was waiting in the laundry room, folded a load of towels, and scraped together a dinner for myself.

Sir played with me and with Sub Brother a bit ago. Now we’re cuddling on the couch.

I still feel subdued, I catch myself holding my chin down, focusing my eyes down.

I feel humble, and grateful.

And I realized that… through speaking about my mistakes tonight, and in our play… Sir never makes me feel… less than him. If I make a mistake somehow he can be disappointed in my choices, but never makes himself seem superior to me, even if he punishes me.  He doesn’t shame me or belittle me or make me feel inferior or fragile.

When we play, he never makes me feel ashamed or guilty. I never realized how much shaming and guilt are such a part of so many people’s sexual repertoire. So many people I’ve been with (men and women) are just so… shaming.  And it’s so normal in our sexual culture.  But Sir never does that.

If I respond to something he does, he smiles.  He says, “Good girl.”

I had a boyfriend who used to call me “greedy” (in a light tone I’m sure he thought was sexy) whenever I’d respond during intimate touching.  I started getting up and walking away when he would say it.  He never did understand why I hated it.

I’ve been called “naughty girl” (as if that’s a sexy thing) for responding during sex.

I hate the shaming about pleasure (or pain).  I never realized how completely I hated it until I was with someone who didn’t do it.

To be fair, Michael didn’t make me feel shamed in sex.  Just in everything else.  But Sir… he never does.

I expected to be punished tonight.

I wasn’t.

But I’m grateful for a Sir who can simultaneously make me fear punishment and not feel ashamed of earning it.

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