I spoke to Mac on Tuesday. I should have mentioned it yesterday. Apart from missing me He is doing fine and He is enjoying the adventure that China can be even if one of the guys He is travelling with is a pain. We were a little quiet with each other, a little bit subdued. I think we were feeling the distance a little sharply. Our conversation ambled along and followed a path I didn't think it was going to take and when it was time to say goodbye, I suddenly felt like I had missed something important. I asked Him if it had been ok. He said that He had gotten to tell me how He was doing and find out how I was doing and tell me that He loved me and that was more than a lot of people have. It made me smile, but it also made me sad. I wanted so much more. Then again, don't I always?

I have been lucky this week. I thought I would have trouble writing, but instead I have had a comment or email each day that has led me onto something to say. I am enjoying looking at us from differing angles to see what I come up with while Mac is away.

There was a question in comments from yesterday, Jesus asked:

Do you have any recommendations on how you began your relationship and how you learned to fit into the roles fully? How does Mac avoid feeling guilty or worried that he's hurting you too much, and how do you maintain a submissive perspective even when you're tempted to be independent?

How Mac and I fitted into our roles is a hard thing to explain. Mac and I were in a D/s friendship for a long time before He decided to make the relationship something more. That may sound a little strange, a D/s friendship, but that is exactly what it was. I submitted to Mac even though we were not lovers. He accepted it before either of us knew that it had a name. All He knew for sure was that I was special and that He should do His best not to hurt me because He felt that it would be too easy to hurt me. All I knew was that His opinion mattered to me a whole lot more than it should. I did my best to make Him pleased with me. (I learnt the laws of rugby for goodness sake.) He did His best to protect me. (No guy dared make a move on me if Mac was around.) If I felt sorry for myself He would verbally smack me in the mouth and tell me to wake up to myself. If I was hurt He held my hand and told me it would be all right. He always did what He thought was best for me. I sometimes hated Him for it. He knew that too, but He never gave in to me.

So I guess you could say that we were already in our 'roles' from the time we met. I think it was not a matter of fitting into roles so much as learning that what we had been taught society expects might not be right for us. Men and women may be equally important, but we are not the same. We have different strengths and different skills and different ways of perceiving things. It is the way it is supposed to be as far as we are concerned. It was a part of what made us compatible. What we had to work out when He took me as His own was how we fit together without giving up who we are. This takes time and a lot of communication (a lot of communication, LOTS of it) and I think we are still working on it. I have to admit though, it hardly feels like work. It is a part of us we enjoy.

How Mac avoids feeling guilty or worried that He has hurt me too much is simple. He doesn't hurt me too much. He stops when He feels it is enough. He doesn't get carried away with it and it doesn't matter how much I beg for more. When He has decided that I have had enough that is it, end of story, nothing more to be said. I can rant and carry on and tell Him I need more and He will just walk away from me. It's His choice, His decision and He makes it conservatively. In other words, He doesn't hurt me very much at all. The bruising is very superficial and comes more from suck/bites then from hitting me. When He makes me bleed it is usually from a quick nip of His teeth. The slaps I take, they sting, but it doesn't take much for that to happen. I doubt He has ever hit me full force. I doubt He ever would.

There was once that Mac hit me hard enough, with a switch thin enough, to make me bleed. I was left marked for well over a week. Mac winced each time He saw those marks and He has never wanted to do it again. I have never asked Him to. I knew it was uncomfortable for Him. I didn't like that discomfort, it made me feel bad so it is best we don't do those things. I don't know if it was guilt He felt, or if it was just the discomfort of seeing my skin so hurt. I never asked. Perhaps I should.

How do I maintain a submissive perspective when I am feeling independent? I guess the answer here is simple too. I don't. I am allowed free reign inside my submission and it gives me all the independence I need. Mac doesn't interfere in my life unless He knows I am on a collision course for trouble that I can't handle. Even then He will just point out where I am headed and let me make my own choice. I don't have to ask permission for anything that doesn't involve Him. I don't have to follow a set of rules. There are things He expects from me, just as there are things that I expect from Him and if the dishes are piling up on the side of the sink, He gets as pissy as I do if the lawn is not mowed. I am not His slave and He doesn't believe in me serving Him for the sake of it. I will serve Him because I want to and He will accept it because it is fine with Him. He doesn't expect it of me or try to force it to be that way.

He is my guide, not my parent. He is there when I need Him to be. He would not try to run my business for me or even tell me how I should run it, but if I came to Him with a problem I was having and asked for His input or how to solve it, He would gladly give me His help. Whenever I have an issue with a friend or on the blog, Mac won't interfere unless I ask Him too. If I bring Him something that He knows I can handle myself, He will roll His eyes and send me on my way. He doesn't let me take advantage of Him. He wants me to be more independent because of Him, not less.

The only time I have trouble with my submission is when I am in full on tantrum mode. It is also the only time Mac really has to assert His dominance. It is usually the only time I will be given a direct order and told without any uncertainty what it is I am expected to do and do now. It can be a simple order such as stop it and go make me a cup of tea. You would be surprised how well that one works. It gives me time to calm down away from Him while knowing that He isn't dismissing me, I will have a chance to talk to Him about it when I bring Him back the tea. Or it could be something that becomes a standing order such as the time I hung up on Him in a snit. He rang me back immediately and told me I was NEVER to hang up on Him again (I haven't.) Or it may be an apology. "You will apologise right now Sarah." (I did.) There has been only the once that I have not immediately obeyed His order. I was always afraid of just what might happen if I did, only this one time I was so caught up in believing that I should get what I want in spite of the way it could hurt us that I pushed the fear aside and kept going after He had said stop. What happened next was so simple it still smarts.

"You cannot decide when you will and wont submit, Sarah. Either you submit to me in everything, or you are not really submitting at all." He said.

All I could do after that was go to my room and sulk and He only let me do that for a little while before He dragged me out of my hiding place and made me smile.


Now I don't know if anything I have said here has helped anyone much but I enjoyed giving myself up to thinking about us for the time that it took.

And right now, that is good for me.