The Stone Shelter

 

I wear two rings on my left hand now.  Two identical steel rings with intertwining dragons engraved around them.  One was bought with the intent that it would be on my finger, symbolizing a leash or leader.  The other was bought with the intent that it would be on her finger, symbolizing my collar.  The two identical to symbolize the connection between us.

 

I ordered them in January.

 

They arrived on Sunday.

 

Yes, I know the mail doesn't run on Sunday.  But, since my mailbox is over a block away, and I don't get around as well as I once did, and since I don't get that much in the bad news box anymore anyway, I only ever limp down to get it each Sunday.

 

I had forgotten them, so much had transpired since I ordered them, until I saw that package in the bad news box.

 

I considered sending the package back, unopened.

 

I considered throwing it away, unopened.

 

Instead, I opened the package and put both rings on my ring finger of my left hand.

 

But, why?

 

Not, as most might think to remind me of her.  No.

 

I wear them both to remind myself that no one wears my collar other than myself.  To remind myself that connection does not exist except for between the space between those two dragon carved steel rings on my finger.  That no one else is truly mine.  Nor am I theirs.  Each of us belong only to self, no matter what actions she might portray now that she has deigned to get back in touch.

 

Do I still love her?  Yes.

Will I still be here for her should she need or just want me?  Yes.

Will I believe that we are anything more to each other than we are to anyone else? 

 

Not until she kneels before my feet and takes the ring finger of my left hand between her lips to draw these rings off into her mouth and spit them in my upturned palm before raising her trembling hand to allow me to slip my symbolic collar on her finger, and then allow her to slide the one symbolizing my leash back on my finger.  Then, and only then, will I accept her as mine and me as hers again.

 

 

 

 

“A person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” – Dale Carnegie.

Lately, it seems that this one has come back to me in one iteration or another until I have finally taken the hint and tried to chase the thought down in my maze of a mind.  Submissives that object to one name, label, title, or another.  A conversation with someone from another site about just how big a deal it may or may not be to lie about one's name.  So many, may conversations from disparate directions and about so many disparate facets that all boil down to one thing...

 

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." ~ Wm. Shakespeare

 

Turning back the hands of time on the way-back machine, I was about twelve years old and was just hanging out at the local concrete swimming hole, waiting for my parents to make the two-mile drive out into the country to pick me up. I was, as was usually the case, the only one there except the combination lifeguard and swimming instructor who happened to be a junior high coach and science teacher during the school year.

And I had been curious for something long enough that I just could not contain it any longer.

"Coach? Your first name is Luther, right?"

He paused and gave me a look. However, lightning didn't come from the heavens and a tidal pool didn't form to suck me under.

"Yes," he said dangerously. "Yes, it is."

"Then why does everyone call you 'Scooter?'" I blurted.

I doubt anyone much younger, and quite a few my age, would understand just how fraught a minefield I was tip-toeing... no, that I was skipping through. In those days, in that place, it was questionable at best to use any adult's first name, even if they gave you permission. A teacher, much less a coach? If you were one of the unfortunate few to learn their first name, those syllables had damn sure never touch your lips!

Much less a nickname?!

Oh, yes. There was a reason that we used to understand just why ancient man had believed so firmly in the wrath of gods. We saw a not-much-diminished version every day in our own educational pantheon.

And coaches were very much the gods, greater and lesser, of war.

Anyone much younger and quite a few my age might not understand the danger I was courting, but I assuredly did. I rushed on in the hopes of at the least getting my question out before being rendered unconscious.

"What I mean is, your name is not 'Scooter.' It's 'Luther.' Why do they call you something that isn't your name? Why do you let them rather than making them call you by your right name?"

I watched the storm clouds in his eyes disperse as he studied me and saw the, as yet, scrawny little neurasthenic git who had been the natural prey of the corn-fed bully boys for the entirety of his school career. Who had never been called anything pleasant, that wasn't intended to be a cut of some form.

"It's a nickname," he said.

"But, nicknames are bad."

"Sometimes," he said gently. "But, sometimes they show that person has seen you more clearly than your birth name would."

I really, really did NOT like that explanation.  Not after the shit names that had been piled on me!  And he could tell.

"You'll understand someday," he told me.

My mother arrived just then and saved me from further folly as my blood boiled in my veins. What he had just said to me was not far removed from the hated "You'll understand when you are older." Which was tantamount to telling me that I couldn't possibly understand now.

At the risk of being misconstrued as sounding a trumpet fanfare to announce my greatness, I'd tested out on a collegiate reading level four years earlier, and the math and analytics just two years after that. I didn't just think, I knew that I was the smartest motherfucker in that damn pool. And even he had admitted, on no few occasions, that I was "the damn dumbest smartest kid I've ever even heard of!"

I understood plenty! It wasn't my damn fault if no one would bother to explain the shit that just didn't make any sense.

But, my chance to try to choke the answers out of him (and probably be piledriven into unconsciousness, if not drowned) faded as I swallowed the temper that had gotten me into far too much trouble over the years and used every lesson I had gleaned to control my smart mouth that had likewise caused no end of pain and misery. After all, I still had the rest of the summer at that pool and then fall and spring in athletics (but I prayed not his science class) when I would be subject to his "tender mercies."

As it happened, he was right. Two years later, I did earn a nickname that I not only enjoyed but reveled in. Given to me by, ironically, another coach. And I rather quickly wanted to be identified by this new name I had been given. That resonated with who I... maybe not who I was yet, but who I was becoming. Who I wanted to be.

Nine months later, though, shit got confusing again as I somehow got pinned with another, very different, nickname.

The really strange part... while it mortified the part of my personality that so adored the first nickname, there was another part of me that was pleased to be recognized and reveled in this new name.

Over the next several years, I came very, very close to developing something akin to a multiple personality disorder. I wore three very different names; the one hung on me at birth and two nicknames. Wore them proudly. Resonated to them.

And the people I interacted with could call out the various aspects of my personality depending on which of my names they used. Not quite flipping a switch. But, definitely shifting the wiring if I wasn't too resistant to it. It was still my choice to be who they were calling me to be. I wasn't quite so far gone as that. As more than a fair few found when they attempted to call on my gentler side after pushing me past the point of endurance, to where I no longer felt they deserved that gentler side.

Life rolled on, as it has a tendency to do. I graduated from the small bowl that I was considered a big fish in and got pitched out into the ocean.

I lost both of my names I'd earned and was reduced once more to the one inscribed on my toe tag when I slid feet first onto this carousel. It... chafed. It was something very like a spiritual wound.

Only...

Only when I splashed back into the fishbowl... or ran into another fish that had shared it with me as we tried to navigate the much larger ocean... I would be awarded my old name, my old identity, once more. Not because of anything new I had done. But, a reminiscence of what I had been and done. And, that chafed too.

Who gave a shit the road I had walked, run, slid, and skidded down (more than once on my face) to get to that point? I was doing bigger and better things now!

But, they either couldn't or wouldn't see it.

Whatever I was becoming, they could only see... could only let me be... what I had been.

Eventually, I picked up other names. More than a few titles. And each recognized what I was in that moment in some way. A few what "they" wanted me to be, which gave me the choice of filling that role or not. But, most some semblance of seeing the true me and what I already had become.

"Friend" was something of a tough one, I will admit. So many people toss that off so blithely when what they mean is what I would accord "acquaintance." Others use it to describe what I would call "lover."

"Lover" though is another tricky one. Is it possible to be a platonic lover? Or is sexual consummation inherent in the label? Some would have it one way and others the other. Is this a label, a noun, or is it a verb, a call to action?

"Husband" is used as a label, as a noun, but isn't it really a verb? Does one deserve that accolade through merely standing and saying a few words and slipping a ring on her finger (or through her nose) or through the actions that they undertake from that point on?

"Sir..."

As a wee lad, only knee-high to a grasshopper, I was taught to use "Sir" and "Ma'am" as a sign of respect to anyone who was my elder. Even, and perhaps especially, when I did not see just what beyond the fact that they had survived for a longer time might have merited it.

As I grew older, it became almost an epithet, spat at some instructor or supervisor that shouldn't have been in charge of a worm wrestle. In effect saying, "I hear you, jackass. Now get the fuck out of the damn way and let me see if I can figure out a way to make your latest mental abortion actually workable outside of your ivory fucking tower."

And I grew to be disgusted by the people who craved to be called that. I didn't... did most assuredly NOT... want to be lumped in with those self-important little assholes who were nobody by their own merits other than the shine of brown on their nose.

Many were the times that I stole the old saying from my childhood best friend's father, a former Marine Drill Instructor turned Baptist Minister. (And we did NOT see the same side of him on Saturday Night as his congregation did on Sunday Morning, let me tell you!) "Do not 'sir' me, boy. I actually work for a living."

"Mister" was another one that just... felt wrong. At first, it was my father's name, and I would look around to see if he was coming up behind me to whack me on the back of the head with his college class ring.

Later on, it also came to be something along the lines as an epithet as I noticed that so very many people demanded it without making even the slightest stride to deserve it. And the ones who did truly deserve it, in my eyes, either didn't care or actively dissuaded me from using it.

I came to quash calling me "Mister" almost as assiduously as I did calling me "Sir," baring written requirements in my job description to do so.

"Boss..." Oh, fuck no. Nope. Nope. Nope. McNopester. Bad enough that little self-important potentates who believed "The Golden Rule" meant "he who has the gold makes the rules" would often times demand this either in addition to or in lieu of "Sir" or "Mister." But, I also worked detention units for a long, long time. And I saw the sneer in their eyes even when it didn't quite reach their lips when some convict pissant would sling that title at another little pissant that was only different in the cut and color of his uniform and the fact that s/he could go home after eight hours.

And then there were the... softer, the gentler names.

I was bred, born, and raised in the south. Texas, in point of fact. And in these parts, no one thinks... or at least did then... about using "sugar," "honey," and so forth. Even when it is some stranger that you don't even know. These days, a man won't use them when talking to a woman so much anymore unless he knows her really well and "has a claim," but the women still use them to men, women, and children with no real thought on anyone's part.

It's a culture thing. And growing up in that culture, I learned to just shrug it off the way one does a period on a printed sentence. You almost notice the lack more than when it is present.

"Sweetie" for some reason will send me absolutely straight up the fucking wall, however. "Sweet (insert name, nickname, label, or title)" is one thing if it is as "pillow talk." I can even take "Sweetheart" if I look and can gauge just how it's meant. But, "sweetie?" Oh, fuck no. I'll write you a special dispensation and allow you to call me "Sir," Ma'am, as a special favor.

"Cutie..." Ok, do you want me to get out the anal probe, bend you over your desk, rip your panties off to cram them in your mouth, and see just how cute you think I am in about two-point-five minutes? Will you scream "cutie!" at that point?

Ngah!

However...

However, I recognize that these are just my own personal foibles. So, I generally allow most people who don't know me from Adam's Son to get away with it. Twice. At which point, I would remind them that they have my name right there on the little piece of paper in front of them. And it's not all that hard to pronounce since my parents didn't name me "Kummanayawannabanga."

At the same time that all of this was going on "out in the world," I was enduring a sexual awakening that made me aware that there just isn't really a whole lot of submit in me there either.

The thing is, it all happened in face to face situations and organically. There wasn't really a point or purpose behind labeling just what was going on. Because we were much, much too busy doing it to spend time talking about it beyond "more of that" or "nope, let's not do that again!" And, rarely (very rarely), "hey, why don't we try (insert whatever kink here)."  Rarely, because, again, I didn't see a whole lot of point in talking when we could be doing and would just try it.

Calling me a specific name, nickname, label, or title... Eh. My philosophy was that if she could still make more than inarticulate sounds in the moment, I wasn't doing something right. And kissing and heavy petting should be enough to get us headed that way with no more words necessary than "No" where applicable to change directions.

And outside of the moment... nonverbals were much more potent than the words. The look on her face, in her eyes. The body posture. The timbre of her voice, even (or especially) if it was quiet, inarticulate sounds. The scent of her in the air. The feel of her before my hands even touched her that resonated through the space between us that whatever had come before and whatever might come after, right in that moment, she was mine in a profoundly simple way. Mine to do with, to, and for as I pleased. (At least until, and unless, I tromped on a hidden land mine in her psyche.)

But, there should be... at least I think... some interaction outside of sexual acts if the relationship is to be anything other than mutual masturbation using each other's bodies.

What do you call each other then?

Honestly, I didn't really care. Not so long as it was said with the proper respect and affection, even deference in most cases, that I expected from my then partner. My name from my birth certificate worked fine. And I would accept most nicknames. (Except for one that absolutely could not seem to get it through her head that "sweetie" was unacceptable! And in a voice that made Fran Drescher sound lyrical! Fuck!)

What did I call them?

With very rare exceptions (outside of the bedroom) what they named themselves.

Some of that may have been that... Well, truth be told I just wasn't that heavily invested in any of them up until the woman I nicknamed Love and eventually married.

How did she get the nickname "Love?" Because she was the embodiment of love to me. She was the first time I really felt it all.

Agape, I knew. I had been steeped in that from birth.

Philautia, I struggled with. I had my ups and downs with whether I was acceptable. Still do from time to time. But, for the most part, I figured I was who and what I was, and that was alright. And when it wasn't, it was my job to get better. To get it right.

Storge, ayup. Even when I didn't like them very much, I still loved my family.

Philia? You bet. Once I considered someone a friend, it took a lot to shake me.

Ludus? I was apparently a Master of Ludus, of playful flirting, almost from birth without ever recognizing it. (Eight "girlfriends" according to Mom [or "other members of the tricycle street gang" according to Dad] before I started to school.) I couldn't say just how many times someone... Mom, Sis, Love... someone (usually female) would tease me about how big a flirt I was. (And laugh harder as I scratched my head trying to figure out just what I had missed.)

Eros... Eros was a little trickier. I was raised believing it was wrong. That lust was wrong. Then, I had it, and if this was wrong, I wasn't sure I wanted to be right! And, pretty much went on to prove that what I was originally taught was correct, since once Eros entered the picture for me, everything else went right out the fucking window. I could count the number of decent conversations I had with someone I was also sexually entangled with on one hand...

... prior to Love walking in.

She was the first time I figured out I could be friends with someone I was also fucking. That I could value her mind, her conversation and still want to do debauched things to her body. She brought all six of the loves I had thought I had understood into a sharper focus.

And introduced me to the last, the one I had been missing. Pragma.

I had also thought I had some inkling of the enduring love that is Pragma before that. I had even offered to "grow old with" someone no less than three times prior to Love, in three failed engagements.

But, I didn't really know just what that looked like. Not in my soul. I could see old couples holding hands or leaning against each other on a park bench, and smile indulgently when she (whichever of the shes it was at the time) would squeal and whisper about how cute and how that would be us in X years or whatever.

I did not, however, fully grok that we would both age like that. In my soul, I saw us, X years later, exactly as we were in the moment. With maybe a little sprinkling of grey hairs to mark the passage of time.

And, even with Love, I didn't see it all exactly as it panned out. Among other things, I thought we would have more time together.

But, it didn't fucking matter! Even if I had seen every single moment exactly as it came to pass, I would have jumped on this fucking roller coaster anyway! Because whatever came to pass, I knew I wanted to experience it with her by my side. And me by hers.

That is why I called... why I call her "Love."

Why, yes. As a matter of fact, I did get laid after I explained it to her when she asked. But, I don't really see why you ask since all but the last couple of years, we were perfectly matched in my satyriasis and her nymphomania. And were only betrayed then not by her desire, but by her physiological capabilities.

But, what did she call me?

A lot of things over the years, actually. Most unworthy of note and a few that were downright embarrassing.

But, most often, she called me "Daddy."

The thing is, I didn't really know anything about DD/lg. I did know quite a bit about BDSM along with other sex-related scenarios since I had actively studied them, both for my own hyper-interests and with an eye to becoming a sex therapist. And we... I almost said "used," but we didn't really so much "use" BDSM so much as we just were who and what we were and some of that was various aspects of the scene either continually or from time to time.

But, again, I didn't really need to know about DD/lg. Not really. It wouldn't have changed anything if we'd each had our own textbook and made notes in the margins. It was who I was and who she was and who we were to each other, together. It was organic.

I said, "organic!" Not, "orgasmic."

Although,... yeah. It was that, too.

And I don't think it would have really changed anything if she'd never called me "Daddy." We still would have been who and what we were.

Then... the bitch up and died without my permission.

But, I've talked about that ad nauseam elsewhere.

And about how four months later someone showed up and managed to pick her way through the shattered shards of my heart to make herself a little fucking nest.

And started me down the road of LDR for the first time. Everything up to this point had been face-to-face, organic interaction. This was... new territory to me. Very much terra incognito.

Words, I came to figure out, eventually, were much more important when words were all you have.

The thing is... the labels and titles still didn't mean much to me. Not really. I saw us as what I saw us as. I acted as myself and saw how she acted towards me. Er... well, I didn't see, exactly. I interpreted it based on the text words we shared back and forth. We never cammed and she only shared nine pictures in total actually of herself.

We did talk on the phone, yes. Not as much as I would have liked. But, we did.

However, our primary method of exchange were stark black letters on a white screen, devoid of any meaning beyond definition, context, and inference. No "non-verbal" cues to help a poor practiced Dom, but neophyte as far as LDR, out.

Is it possible that I took things to mean something other than what she meant as she said them? Abso-fucking-lutely.

But, for nine roller-coaster months, I acted as a Daddy Dom towards her and felt her little respond to me.

Until one night, we were talking on the phone. Nothing sexual. Just talking about life, the universe, and everything as we linked music back and forth at each other over the computer.

I had read something in a forum post (on another website) that had resonated with me, and I brought it up. In the post, submissive women were lamenting "so-called Alpha Doms" that would message them as a first interaction calling them "slave" or "slut," telling them what would be done to them, how they would be used, and what title they would call their new (insert title here).

The thing is... I don't know. I had some questions about just whether I might be a Dominant at all if that happy horseshit was how these "players" rolled.

Everything I had ever experienced had come about organically, remember. And for me, what had worked was... different.

I didn't just slip the leash off my demons and turn them loose to look for an appropriate playground. Instead, I let the leash play out until they found the fenceline of her submission (whichever her we might be discussing), and then, if the Hell inside her was a decent enough size to allow it, I would slip the leash and let my demons play in her playground.

The only name I would give "her" to use was the one from my birth certificate. Any other nicknames, labels, or titles were her responsibility to come up with. An indication of how I resonated with her. The mark of, not only her consent, but just how deep her submission to me went.

And, for the most part, the names she preferred to be called were likewise her responsibility. At first. The name she gave me to use for her was all that would be used, until and unless we became close enough that I saw inside her something else.

I would... Or rather, my demons would press against the fenceline of her submission. I would try out the usual suspects. But, not in the way those poor women were lamenting in that forum thread! And not first rattle out of the cracker jack box!

And I rarely ever just called her "slut." It was always "MY slut" when I used it. Or perhaps, "my sweet slut." Or "my sexy slut." The "my" was not optional for me, the rest of the endearing adjectives were interchangeable and implied by tone of voice when they were left out.

"Bitch" was Love's favorite. But, similarly, "my bitch."

And, of course, others. Both with Love and with others. Until I found the crystalline resonance that would strike the purest note with their need.

But, never before I saw them naked, much less even knew their first name! What the fuck?! Really?

And it was on my mind that night as I sat on the phone and talked with the woman who identified as a submissive and a little on those same boards. Who I had been acting as a Daddy Dom towards and had been acting as a little towards me from everything I knew or had been able to learn.

I only got so far;

"So, I was reading something on the boards that I disagreed with. I don't think it's the Dominant's place to say what title the submissive will give him. Or his responsibility."

Right there, out of the blue, she interrupted me. Yelling at me over the phone.

"You are not my Daddy! You are not my Dom! You are no kind of Dominant at all!"

I've discussed that elsewhere. And the rest of the conversation. I won't belabor it here as the only reason I mention it is that I did take away a very important lesson.

Maybe it is or isn't so important to have the labels and titles spoken aloud (or typed) to mark the Dynamic. But, having them refuted is definitely a mark of what the Dynamic isn't.  A refutation of consent.

And leads to some confusion about just what the hell the Dynamic is if it's not that when it has all the earmarks of it other than the title or label.

And I don't know. There was some small part of me that wondered if she was addressing the very point that I hadn't been allowed to mention. That perhaps a submissive might feel the very opposite of what I did, that it was my responsibility to give her the freedom of what to call me, once I identified what her resonance frequency was.

I also mentioned elsewhere that I moved on somewhat, but not really. That I did play with others while still maintaining her as the priority in my life when she could deign to drop back by my life. Each of them, I allowed to pick the title or the name they would accord me, categorize just how my demon resonated with the hell inside them.

At the time, the particular title or label accorded just didn't matter to me. It wasn't one of the rules that I chose to be responsible for and keep track of. In other words, I was much more interested in them and in us than some ego stroke from a mere, ephemeral title, label, name, or nickname.

However, something bothered me. Something bothered me very much. And it took me a while to chase it down.

The woman who I called "Little One" for a long time had never called me anything. Not at any time. Not even my given name.

But, why?  Why did that bother me so much?

There was no one else on the line during our phone calls. Every word she spoke had to be to me, didn't it? No one else was privy to our emails. Every word she typed to me had to be to me, didn't it?

Or did it?

You see, six months after we met... after six months of leading me to believe that I was the only person she was talking to... she came clean to me that there had been someone else the entire time, dating from before me. That she wore someone else's collar on her hear and soul.  That she had lied to me. Deceived me. Manipulated me.

Arguably, I probably should have cut myself loose from that entanglement at that point. But, for whatever reason, I didn't.

And, to this day, she does not understand that my problem is not, was not, has never been that there was someone else. It was that she baldfaced lied about it. She didn't "compartmentalize." She didn't "just not share this, but kept it secret." She bald-faced lied when she said "there is not anyone else." Period.

But, that's not the point here.

The point is that there was someone else she was talking to. At least one other person. How could I know that she was really talking to me? Even when I was the one on the other end of the phone, how could I know that in her mind she was not talking to him? Or an interchangeable fantasy man that was both and neither? How could I know that she wasn't just typing up a message and then copying and pasting it to both... or each... of us?

Speaking to someone face to face, you can see their eyes. You can see them looking at you. You can see when they are seeing you and when they aren't.

What gives that same indication when speaking over the phone? Or via text?

When we are born, we are given a name. And that name becomes our handle. It is what is used to tug our attention this direction or that.

More than that, however, it becomes a symbol of who we are. When someone uses it, it is a mark that they see us, that we matter.

Nicknames can take the place of our name. Some for a reason, others for a season. And still others we wear for the rest of our lives.

Labels and titles... I don't know. I really don't. I understand that they are part of this Dynamic that we all share an interest in, to a greater or lesser extent. But, I've worn titles and labels for a time, both in this Dynamic and in the larger world. And, with very few exceptions, they've felt... hollow. Like a uniform, I suppose.

"Sir" has become more acceptable to me. At least so long as it is accompanied by the appropriate respect that I can see and hear, that I can feel. With no rolled eyes. But, am I "Sir?" What about the last guy she called "Sir?" What about the next? If I resonate with her that way, then okay. But, I'm not sure it resonates with me. Not in any lasting and meaningful way.

"Daddy" on the other hand has a very meaningful connotation for me. And is not one I can, or I think should, allow to be demeaned by allowing anyone else to use it so freely. Not with me. They would be trying on a dead woman's clothes. And it would not be fair to either them or me for me to allow them to try to make me see Love in them.

"Master..." likewise, I have come to discover, has a very specific resonance with me. It is... or feels like it should be... a bond tantamount to marriage. Perhaps even beyond marriage. Connotations of "'til death do we part." I can't... **I** can't go there if it is just in play.  I can't go there and then watch the person who called me that slip away without wondering if it was ever real. And, so, I can't go there until and unless I know that it is a forever kind of deal.

"Mentor," "Maestro," "Professor,"... eh. These all have a connotation of a limited nature for me. A contractual bond, which after a certain date will no longer exist. Which even "friendship" cannot extend past. You have finished my class, your training. But, you can never be anything more than my former student. Else, it would violate a, probably obscure, point of ethics with me.

And I know... I do know... that this is all just personal foibles. And ones that are most decidedly not typically shared by the community at large.

And that, I think, is the point. Humans have a need to categorize, to label, to slot neatly into this or that area. And I don't know. I've come to find out the hard way that words are important. That the wrong word at the right time can break a heart and the right word at the right time can mend one. That this is even truer when all you have are words in stark black and white on a screen than when whispered down a phone line.

And I think...

No, I know that for me, a name is the most important word in our arsenal.

You can call me NoOneofConsequence. Or NoC works too.

Unless I have chosen to give you my true name in private. And then you can use that. But, only in the same privacy I gave it to you, please.

Hell, you can even choose to try to fit me with a nickname if you think you've got a good one. But, it had better be a good one, or I will make you pay if you continue to use it over my objections.

And thus we end another long and rambling blog that probably was of less consequence than the author's pseudonym to all but a very few.

But, if you made it this far, and have a thought... some light to shed... on the use of names, nicknames, titles, or labels, then please do feel free to share them with us below or with me through a message above.

I have discussed elsewhere that I am a Daddy Dom.

Actually, a very wise young woman pointed out that in reality, my natural level is Master, but that my...eh... "lowest setting" is Daddy.  And, looking back across my checkered past, I am forced to agree that she had a point.  While I don't actively press for full TPE, I do have a tendency to... mmm... lean just a little further that direction than the agreed upon dynamic.  Not press, really.  But, go right to the edge of her submission and test the fence, if you will.

But, this isn't about my Master tendencies, but about my inner Daddy.

And about one specific aspect in particular.

I love to read aloud to children.  Always have.

Many, many blue moons ago, Love worked for a relatively well-known bookseller in their children's section.  And she came up with an idea that I'm still not quite certain if it was genius or purely intended to pay me back for something.

The idea was that children would be invited to a "Bedtime Story."  Despite the fact that it would be in the afternoon rather than the evening, they would put on their pajamas and bring their "Big People" to the store to have someone (and it doesn't take any particular astuteness to figure out just who she had in mind with this particular brainstorm), also dressed in pajamas, read one of the books from the shelves to them.

As I say, it may very well have been genius.  Whichever storybook that I read did actually sell several copies that day.

However, Love had a sense of humor that was every bit as wicked and vile as mine (albeit much funnier).  And I am all but certain that her main rationale was to pay me back for something I had done somewhere.

First of all, I do not wear pajamas.  Never could stand the damn things.  I can't even abide underwear when I'm trying to sleep.  Au Naturale.  Commando.  Nekkid.  Nude.  That is all.  Oh, I might try to wear something when we had company.  But, invariably, whatever I started off wearing was going to be removed (in my sleep, mind you) and end up swinging from the ceiling fan before morning.  (Which led to no little embarrassment and much hilarity when we did have company as I'm also Hell on the covers.)

So, the first step was to find me something to wear up there since my version of pajamas would get the cops called.  And rightfully so.

I did not see the first damn thing wrong with my suggestion of the Union Jack thermal underwear suit.  It fits the modicum of decency required, even if it is technically underwear.  But, I was (unfairly, I thought) shouted down.

Instead, she went shopping.

And I learned a very valuable lesson.  If she's shopping for herself, fine.  She can go alone.  If she's shopping for the house or something, fine.  She can go alone.  If she's shopping for me, and she has a sense of humor that matches (and overmatches) mine, oh, fuck no!  I want to see this shit before it gets purchased and brought home.

(I would insert a "grumpy face" picture here if I could figure out how to do it.)

And, to make matters even worse, when I showed up looking like an absolute fruit, the bitch had called the news station and they were there with a fucking camera crew!

I looked over at my delicate blushing flower and I was worried for a moment that she was going to give herself an aneurysm trying to contain her laughter. 

And, yes.  She did pay when I got her home.  For hours.  And enjoyed every moment.  That's the problem with a slave/little/submissive/bottom with S.A.M. (smart-ass masochist) tendencies.  Sometimes the only way to actually punish them is to withhold the punishment.  But, what fun would that be for me?

But, I digress.

I did that once per week for... mmm... three months?  The kids dug it. By probably the third week, we had to calm their asses down as the jockeying to see who got to sit next to me with a couple trying to sit in my lap would threaten to break out into violence.

And despite being sure that she was fucking with me, I did enjoy it too.  (Except for those stupid pajamas she would buy a new set of each week that were progressively more and more outrageous.) 

The bookstore loved it because their sales of the particular books I would read soared.

Love absolutely loved it. Not least because the moment we would hit the door at the house and close it behind us, I would rip those stupid damn pajamas off, tear hers from her body, and proceed to punish her in all the best ways.

But, even the best things must eventually end.  I was working full time as a detention "Control Officer" and also working on my M.Ed.  I had to miss one reading and then another.  And another.  And the people filling in for me... Well, they just didn't have it.  Sales died.  The children stopped coming.

I did get some very nice Christmas cards from a few of the kids that Christmas.  I'm not sure just what else might have been in those cards, but I suspect it was from their mothers as Love never gave me a single one still in the envelope.

But!

But, where Love actually got the idea was that often at night, when she was having trouble getting to sleep, I would either make up a story on the fly or read something aloud to her as she lay with her hand and head on my chest, her fingers threading through my fur and her thumb teasing her lips, but not quite sucking it.  As she phrased it, "her happy place."

Ok.  I will go ahead and just reiterate my admission here that I can be more than a bit thick.  Despite this, and several other earmarks, it never dawned on me that I might have been Daddy to Love's little.  (Despite, you may or may not recall from a previous post, her actually calling me "Daddy.")

But, the reason it never dawned on me was that it never occurred to me to ask the question!  I was who and what I was.  She was who and what she was.  We did what worked for us and didn't worry about labeling jackshit.

It wasn't until four months after her death, almost five, during a discussion with the woman I came to call Little One for a while, that I even recall hearing the term DD/lg.  And proceeded to look into it.  Primarily to disprove her laughing assertion that I am a Daddy Dom to the core.

And made her laugh even harder when I came back with a checklist that could have been written from observing my personality and argued, "Well, shit!  Seventy-five percent of this is just being a decent, caring person and a good friend!"

Yes.  I already admitted I can be a bit dense.  It took her the better part of a week to explain to me that most people just don't see the world the same way I do, and wouldn't act in these ways for anyone they weren't seriously entangled with.  And even then, it's a rare thing for them to be quite so... so... prototypical about it.

Sex was an easy one.  If I engage in a sexual relationship of some type with a little, then I am definitely treading into Daddy territory.  That just made fucking sense.

However, I stand by my assertion that checking up on someone, harassing someone about their self-care, particularly when they are going through a rough patch, is just being a decent, caring human being! 

"Did you eat?  No.  REAL food?" 

"Are you drinking some water?" 

"Have you done your exercise today?" 

"Have you taken your medicine?" 

"Do you need/want to talk about it?" 

None of that says Daddy to me, even when done to a little.  Even if doing these things do pile drive her into little space when she is sick or hurting, it is not me taking her there, but herself and her situation.  I'm just being me, trying to be a compassionate human being, and caring friend.

Then, there is a grey, murky middle in between those two points.  And I have had to understand, and own, that I can be easily manipulated into treading into Daddy territory when a little reaches out to me and their need resonates with my subconscious Daddy tendencies.   And it has gotten me in trouble more than a few times over the years.  Both in real life (ask me no questions about the beauty pageant winner that stayed with us for three days unless you really, really want to know) and over these here infernal-nets.

Most of them, I thought I had gotten a pretty good handle on at this point.  If nothing else, "I am not your Daddy" cuts out all the confusion with clear and concise communication.  Or should.  I certainly thought it would. But, I recognize that actions speak louder than words.  And I own that I have to tread carefully because even though my words say "Not Daddy" my actions may be singing a siren song to her little ears.

But, the major stumbling block, and one that caused some serious issues a couple... or, I guess, three months ago, was me reading aloud to people. And the thing is, I was seriously not trying to play in someone else's sandbox. I was not trying to be Daddy. Arguably, I was just being an attention whore. Maybe... just maybe... a Sitter. (Is that a thing? That should be a thing.)

But, I bought myself a little recorder for Christmas. Or, looked at another way, I bought the littles I WAS involved with a recorder since the purpose was to record myself reading and send them the recordings.

Only, I branched out and wandered a little far afield without meaning to give offense. See, I had friends who were also littles. But, they were not MY little. They had Daddies.

Any road, starting seven days before Christmas, I would find a Christmassy story and record myself reading it. A few per day. Each of MY girls that were littles would get one that was just for them. Then, there would be one that everyone, all four of the littles I was involved with AND all of my friends who happened to also be littles would get. Whether they happened to have a Daddy or not.

They were nothing dirty! Not even for my precious flowers I was involved with on some level. They were children's stories. Hell, I even sent my sister a couple of them.

(Don't... just do NOT... go there.)

And everything seemed fine. Very gracious thanks. More than a little giggling and kicking the bed in glee, which is better than any applause to my ears!

And then, about a week or two after the last one was sent, I start hearing that I was not only in someone else's sandbox, but using their pail and shovel.

Uh. Wha-...?

But, that was just the beginning. Then, I started hearing that I had somehow given my littles' favorite dolly to someone else to play with.

Ok. I admit I might have handled the one better than "So, should I use a handwritten note to get my smokes at the smoke shop so the gal behind the counter doesn't get to hear my voice either?!" But, I really didn't care for just how the tone of that particular conversation was heading. Not least because that particular individual was adamant that she would not tell me her name, nor show me a picture that revealed her face. (Everything else, mind you. But, not the face.) Not to mention she knew damn well that she wasn't the only one, and that I was friends with all the others.

I don't know. As I say, my intent was certainly not to cause anyone any issue or piss on anyone's fencepost. It was... I don't know. Less a Christmas Gift and more a Christmas Card? And, Love hadn't minded sharing my voice with others. For example, the children (and their mothers) at the bookstore.

It more than perplexed me. It baffled me. I could have seen the issue if there had been anything sexual, but "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" and (the abso-fucking-lutely hilarious) "'Twas the Night After Christmas?" (Those were, of course, sent Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.)

Hell, man! One person I sent them to was a dude and fellow Daddy Dom! And I don't swing southpaw and neither did he!

Still don't know what the lesson might have been there, but I consider it learned. I don't do recordings of me reading anymore except for one person. And, I honestly couldn't say just why I'm still doing them for her. Water under the bridge, hell. That bridge got washed away.

But, for whatever reason, once per day, she gets a recording of me reading a chapter from whatever book I'm on. And that may be all the communication from either of us that day.

As for the rest of the littles... claimed or unclaimed. Well, when I hear them talking about wanting a bedtime story, I keep my mouth shut now.

Unless what passes for my sense of humor escapes me. And then, I send them this.

But, no more bedtime stories for me. Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Say goodnight, Gracie!

"Goodnight, Gracie!"

On Oct. 5, 2017, I woke to find my wife dead.
On Oct. 27, 2017, my father called to tell me his wife had just died.
Just minutes short of Father's Day, 2018, the assisted living facility we had put my father in called to let us know he was gone.
Three people who had been at my birthday shindig in 2017 couldn't make it for 2018.

In my misspent, checkered youth, I'd wasted no little time, money, and energy thinking I'd wanted to be a counselor.  Despite it not being the specialization I'd chosen for myself, I did have to sit through... I don't even remember how many seminars on grief counseling.  Both during my time as a quasi-professional student and then as a professional career type when I decided I really should see what I could do about paying all these student loans back.

And, I thought... I really did think... I knew everything there was to know about grief, dealing with grief, helping others to deal with grief.  After all, I had studied it intensely.  Had even experienced it myself with the loss of very many people variously dear to me over the years, including my mother, prior to what would come to be marked down as "The Year of Hell."

Boy, was I ever fucking wrong.

Grief, it seemed, was not merely additive.  It was exponentially cumulative. 

Dealing with one loss with a stretch of time before the next was... well, it was a big deal.  But, it was infinitely doable.  Having another piled on before the last was fully grokked... I categorically refuse to watch any movie with the characters stranded in the middle of the ocean with no land, no hope of salvation, anywhere in sight.  Because I know, all too well, just what the fuck that feels like.  To peer around, looking for a shore, some sense of safety, to attempt to make for... only to see another giant swell coming at your bobbing head to sweep you under.

Oh, but wait.  It just got better.

There was a person.  No.  A Person.

At the risk of stepping on anyone's personal belief system, I do happen to believe in Soul Mates.  However, not exactly as Plato described.  No.  What he described is a Flame Twin.  Which, I wasn't quite certain that I believed in.  Until I met her.

My wife was my Soul Mate.  I didn't just believe it.  I knew it.  There was a balls to bone resonance from the moment we first met that whispered, "this one is important." 

We both fought it at first.  After all, I was engaged to be married to another woman.  One that I did not love.  Not as I should have to be considering such a commitment.  But, I was tired of being alone.  And it was the next logical step now that I was a college graduate and career personage along the path to the white picket fence, 2.5 kids, and a dog.

And she was married to another man.  One that she did not love, but she had been afraid of being alone and so had settled for the best she had thought she could hope for.  Had raised the two kids, along with several dogs.  But, the white paint was chipped and faded on the fence missing more pickets than it yet held.

I fought harder than she did.  I left her.  Some might say I abandoned her.  I say I left because I loved her and thought I was doing the best I could for her to leave her to the husband she had chosen almost two decades earlier and the two children that were almost, but not quite, grown.

The silly wench packed her bags and chased after me.  ***sigh***  Try to do something right for some people...

I can't regret that she did.  Not even after living through the pain twenty-five years later of holding her still, cold, empty chrysalis in my arms as I screamed my rage and pain at the walls, at the Heavens, at her...

At the time, I told myself, quite firmly, that she had been my Soul Mate.  That I wouldn't have another.  I couldn't. Those came one per customer. That the best I could hope for might be a companion.  But, even there...  I knew the pain of holding the body of someone I loved after their soul had transitioned.  Could I go through that again?  Or, much more likely, could I be selfish enough to ask someone I cared about to go through that with me?  If I really cared about them, how could I ask that?  And if I didn't care that they suffered, if they didn't care enough to suffer as I had, then what was the point?

I settled in to wait out my own days condemned to this miserable ball of rock floating through lonely empty space.  Not just believing, but knowing, that love was only ever to be a memory, a memory of the woman I nicknamed Love, for me.

Then, I met her.  Or, rather, she showed up and wouldn't take the fucking hint and go away again.

And, ow.  Fuck. 

If meeting Love was a balls to bone whispering resonance, then meeting Little One was a soul-searing scream.

And it just did not make any fucking sense.  Not one single bit.  After all, I'd had my soulmate.  I'd had my shot at happiness.  So, who the fuck was this bitch that seemed to be edging her out as she nestled in to make herself comfortable amongst the shards of my shattered heart?

That was the point that I came to understand... to believe... in the concept of Flame Twin, what Plato was actually talking about.  And came to a better understanding of Soul Mates. Plural.

I came to realize... to believe... that we each have many potential Soul Mates.  Some we never meet.  Some we pass by, unaware of each other beyond a snag of our attention that we don't take the time to fully investigate.  Some we feel the pull of completely, but set aside for a variety of reasons. Perhaps because we don't believe. Perhaps because we are afraid. Perhaps because we are pledged to another and, unlike some (many, it sometimes seems), actually intend to keep the promises that we make rather than let them dribble from our fingers, an empty waste intended only to garner what we want before ignoring them when they become inconvenient.

But, the important point was that there is actually not just one soulmate to a customer, but many potentials, if we are only open to the possibilities presented by accepting the person before us as they are.

Flame Twins, now... Those are, whether fortunately or unfortunately, only one per customer. Fortunately, because Holy fuckin' Hell, the shitstorm, when you do find them, only to find they are still wearin' their runnin' shoes, or when you have to deal with the fact that Flame Twins are typically NOT going to be good romantic partners for each other very often only after becoming romantically invested, is a raging bonfire of soul-scorching pain. Unfortunately, because if there were more than one, as there are with potential Soul Mates, then... Well, what's the point in dwelling on that since there aren't. And, shit. If there were more than one, that could also mean more than just the one shitstorm. Never mind. I retract the "unfortunately" upon more mature reflection.

Through a concatenation of factors that are largely irrelevant to the point and purpose of this piece (as much as I ever have one), I turned elsewhere to meet the reawakened needs that this Person, my Flame Twin, seemed to be either incapable or unwilling to as she dabbled with people (and People) that may or may not have been her Soul Mates.

I found someone who whispered a resonance with my body. Someone I could use, but more often be used by, to sate the purely physiological needs. It was rather empty as there were no brains or hearts involved, but pure gonadal satiation.

I met another who strummed my heart. She had the potential to be more. She had the potential to be another Soul Mate. She felt it, even as I did, and both of us fought against it, for our own reasons. Yet, we were caught up in the swirl of the madness.

Yet another managed to captivate my mind, though my heart was safe due to not only my guarding it, but her refusal to give me enough of herself to wend her way between the shards to join the other two who had managed to find their way there.

And all the while the flickering flame of my soul's twin danced just close enough to almost touch before leaping further away once more.

Shit happened (as it has a tendency to do) and I lost, was abandoned by, all four.

Now, the curious thing... I was hit just as hard with the loss of each as if I were holding their empty shell in my arms and howling at the roof and the Heavens beyond.

And in a very real sense, I was.

I was mourning the person that they were to me. While they yet still walk this plane of existence, the person they were to me no longer exists. Not in my world.

I was mourning the passing of the person I was to them. While I yet still shamble around, tending to the four-footed roommates that often seem bent on disproving my belief in my Dominance in between tip-tapping on the keyboard as if I had something to say that might be relevant to anyone other than my own scattered mind, the person that I was to them doesn't yet live in this beating heart, in this mind. And won't again. Even if I were to meet someone else, were to become something to someone more than words in a blog, it wouldn't be the same person I was to each of them, any more than I was the same person to each of them, or to Love.

I was mourning the passing of the couple we were together, of us as an existent force that had the potential to shape the world, whether large or small. Although we both still exist, we are no longer "we." And whether the changes we might have affected would have shaped a larger world than just our own, "we" will no longer.

Now, some would say that I tried to move on too quickly. That I had not sufficiently dealt with my grief from losing so many people that meant so much to me just bam-bam-bam, each before I had time to do more than lick my wounds from the previous blow dealt. They would argue that I had turned my attention from my grief, had hidden from it, and allowed the wounds to not only remain unhealed but to fester.

Others would question the efficacy of the attachment I felt to the four as they were Long Distance Relationships whom I'd never met face to face, never touched, never breathed the same air. How I could possibly compare the grief I felt at each successive blow to the grief I had felt when holding Love, the woman I had married, the woman who had worn my collar, who's skin I had touched (and much, much more) many, many times over two and a half decades.

I don't know how to answer those questions. Questions that I have asked myself repeatedly over the last four weeks. Perhaps "they" are right. Perhaps "they" are wrong.

Perhaps "I love you" is just another way of saying "you are my bottle of booze and I'm an alcoholic."

What I do know, what I had to come to understand and fully internalize is that the way I feel is just that; the way I feel. Right or wrong don't enter into it. What someone else may, or may not, feel or think of how I feel doesn't enter into it.

And the grief was real for me. Continues to be.

And no one else, no matter how well-meaning, can change that.

Some might say that I was unfair to the four because I couldn't really give any my full attention. Some might say that I was unfair to the latter three as I maintained Little One, my Twin Flame, as my priority... when she could deign to set aside her other people (and People) to grace me with her presence. Perhaps they are correct, despite my insistence to the latter three that the only way they could play in her sandbox was to acknowledge and accept that it was her sandbox. While she didn't care to know, and so I didn't waste her "precious" time and energy with the burden of knowing that she neither required nor wanted, the others all knew that someone else existed. Even if only one amongst them, the one who was/is/could have been a potential SoulMate, knew just how many.

The conclusion I have come to is that it was unfair, to not only them but myself, because there might just have been a point that the burden of my grief was already crushing me down from the height I might have reached with any, either singly or as things occurred.

But, however it all came tumbling down, I grieved. I grieve still. For Love lost. For Flame, still flickering and twinkling in the distance. For CockSlut who gave freely of her body even as she took as much as I would allow from mine. For Heart who still tests the sounds of my strings from time to time to check my tune. For Mind who found my garden too confining. For Father who isn't around to whack the back of my head with his college class ring. And for his wife with her constant badgering and harassment to forget a lifetime of conditioning to NOT bother my father and call him more often...

 

And each, whether they still breath or not, has required of me the same stages of growth.

Shock.
Denial.
Anger.
Bargaining.
Depression.
Testing.
Acceptance.

Oh, yes. In addition to quite a bit of time (and money... and energy) studying this shit, I've been fair innundated with books and pamphlets (not to mention sign up sheets for group therapy sessions for $$$) to deal with the grief from each of the three deaths.

But, I can be a tad bit slow... or at least fragmented and tangential. And it was only today as I idly thumbed through yet another book as I waited for the bitch who seems bent on disproving whether I'm the Dominant or whether she is my Mistress to finish finding the perfect blade of grass to shit on (despite my urging her to hurry the fuck up, shitting on command seems to be beyond our reach after eight years), did it dawn on me that I was having to go through the exact same shit for the people who were still alive but done with me as I was for the people who had died.

And proceeded to bang my head against the top of the dishwasher in lieu of a desk.

I don't know. I don't have any idea if anybody else on the face of this miserable ball of rock spinning through space has ever felt the dissolution of a relationship as if it were a death. I don't know if I would have made the connection except that I was sitting there idly thumbing through "Journeying Through Grief Book Three; Finding Hope and Healing" as Daisy checked out the current issue of "Doggie World" thinking not of Love, Dad, or Ruth, but of the precious flowers that had left my garden barren and weed-choked when they uprooted themselves.

And I don't know but what the people who might say that I tried to move on too fast wouldn't be right. That I am, in effect, grieving those four not only for themselves and what we were as a ghost, a spectral shadow of Love.

But, whether they are right or wrong, I do know a bit more on the subject than the average schlub. And from several different disciplines and philosophies. Perhaps even enough to maybe wreak a little order on the chaos now that the random number generator I got issued instead of a brain is a bit clearer.

First and foremost, I need time. Time to set my own house in order before I invite anyone else inside for so much as tea and biscuits. Or maybe chips and dips. Much less chains and whips. Time to tend my garden, to pluck the weeds and overgrowth. Time to till and prepare the soil that is me.

Getting back to basics, one particular discipline that I was a one time student of held that the head should rule the heart and together guide the body.

I only sipped the kool-aid, however. But, didn't inhale.

Why in the hell should the monkey-brain swinging from the cage bars of neurosis, fears, anxieties, and "thou shoulds't not" get all the say?

Not that listening to the hedonistic body with it's "if it feels good, let's do some more of that shit" is much better.

The heart... ***sigh*** The heart wants what the heart wants. And sometimes what the heart wants isn't going to be any better for us in the long run.

So, no. I came to the conclusion long ago that each has its part to play. The ability to fight lies in the body. The will to fight, in the heart. The knowledge of when, where, and how best to is (or should be) in the head. The trained head. Trained to ignore the Monkey Brain that says we can't do it, okay we can do it, but we can't do it right, okay we can do it right, but we can't do it good enough.

But, as Tina might ask... What's love got to do with it?

Sing it, Anna Mae!

Well, that answer came from a musician who stopped by to check the tune of my heartstrings.

I had made a mistake... No. I had made The Mistake when I tried to quench, quell, ignore, or otherwise deny love. The love that I felt, the love that I still feel, is real.

I admit that several times in the last year, five months, and twenty-two days if I'd had it within my purview to raise the dead, I would have chosen Alfred Lord Tennyson purely for the pleasure of kicking him in the nuts.

Hey, Alfred! Why don't you peel apart my ass cheeks and lick the gooey chocolatey center? "...better to have loved and lost..." Fuck you and the printing press that churned out your drivel! Try it, motherfucker! Talk to me from the center of a scorched plain where you are the only fucking survivor!

 

***cough***

 

Um... yeah. So, those stages of grief? I have found that they aren't necessarily in any order and just because I've managed to wend my way down to bargaining, testing, or depression doesn't mean I can't get whipsawed back to anger in a heartbeat if triggered.

**blush**

But, what I was saying before MonkeyBrain slipped out of its cage and ran amok was that I had made a mistake in trying to deal with my pain and grief when I tried to attack it by choosing to see love as a weed that had to be uprooted from my garden.

The love Love taught me to experience, to really feel for the first time was real. Still is. Is still present. It isn't a weed to be plucked from my garden. Nor is it in any way spectral, despite her transition from this existence to her next reality.

I can grieve her. But, it would be a mistake to grieve that love since it is still very real, still very here. It is part of me. It was essential to me becoming who I am. While I might still exist as some me, I wouldn't be me sitting here if not for that love.

The love I felt for Little One, that I still feel, is real as well, even if I sometimes question if she was. I can grieve the loss of her, the loss of the me I was with her, for her but it would be a mistake to deny the love, to try to uproot it as if it were an unsightly weed. Even if it was... is... only a form of addiction, still I wouldn't be the me I've grown into without it.

I sit and look across my garden, at the delicate flowers that yet remain amongst the bramble and weeds... the flame rose, the lily, the tulip, the daisy, the... okay, so the pitcher plant looks a little more obscene, but no less beautiful for that, and belongs no less.

I yet have work to do before planting season. But, I know... I understand... I grok that the flowers that remain, even though they are no longer the people they symbolized, belong there.

And perhaps... just perhaps... once I have done the necessary work, once I have pulled all the weeds and mended and tended the soil, made it fertile once more...

But, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. Or, at least, of myself.

Any road, that's what is on my mind tonight as I sip my Carlo Rossi Sangria and puff my way through packs of Djarum Blacks.

***shrug***

Not sure there was any point in publishing a weed-choked garden of such mixed metaphors.

Only, maybe... just maybe... somewhere on the other side of The Cage there is someone who is, even now, wrestling with just how they let go of their love, or maybe their addiction, to some Demoted Dom or sacked submissive. And maybe, just maybe, something in my bramble-filled ramble might give them an inspiration, or at least a glimmer of an idea, to tend their own garden.

Or maybe I'm just full of shit.

Then again, shit does make excellent fertilizer...