Once again the blinky Nightfly writes a message I stongly agree with and want to add my thoughts to. Now why does she keep doing this?

>>> How can you keep giving to someone if you have given everything that you are? <<<

That question has such an obvious answer after you've struggled with the issues and experiences that come up in long-term relationships. On a week to week basis, sometimes on a day to day basis, situations arise in a power relationship where the dominant partner wants you to do (or not to do) something and you don't in the least agree with it. I'm not talking about explicitly sexual experiences (like having your ass split open by a horse's tail butt plug that's way too big for it--g) but mundane, daily requirements. Here's a very recent example. Over the last week I spent an inordinate amount of time doing some fascinating online research. When I do this sort of thing I get totally involved--hours pass by and they seem like minutes. I also tend to become compulsive, especially if the question I am reseraching is one of extreme interest to me, and I try to do the activity every spare minute I get.

Well, two days ago Donald got fed up with it and told me I had to stop because it was eating all of my time and interfering with my outside work as well as my domestic service to him. Giving up that research when I didn't yet have an answer but thought I was very close was extremely hard to do. But even harder was dealing with his demands that I access online services in his way, not mine. This morning, for instance, he told me I could take a couple of minutes to read my email and then I had to do housework. Still having a compulsion hangover (after working this intensively it usually takes me about a week to shake off my desire to be online every minute of the day) I got frightened and upset by the idea that two minutes was all he was going to let me have all day and possibly all he'd let me have on future days as well. How was I possibly going to catch up with the enormous backlog of email and messages I wanted to respond to? How was I ever going to find time to scan the hundreds of messages I had ignored while doing my research? Would correspondents start to hate me because I seemed to be ingoring them? Would I get horribly frustrated by not having a creative, fun outlet?

Those of you who are or who have been slightly addicted to online communication, try to imagine it being completely controlled by someone else, cut off at their will. Imagine not being able to log on whenever you want to log on--even if you expect there is some important email waiting for you, even if you're dying to follow the latest twists in a fascinating thread. So of course, I tried to make a deal with Donald (lord knows, I should know that this doesn't work by now--but I am a slow learner): I asked him to allow me to have just one hour a day to do Internet stuff. He wouldn't buy it, he refused, and he was very stern about the whole thing. I felt so scared and frustrated about the possibility that I was to lose my net outlet that I started to cry very hard and argue very hard all at the same time.

After I had exhausted my short list of nasty names for him, and had every argument I made refuted and every further compromise turned down, I asked him in desperation for something that would help me deal with this impossibly frustrating situation, come to grips with it. He reminded me that everytime I had trusted him before over the last five years, it had all worked out for the best. If I would just trust him and let him decide when I could play on the Internet, everything would work out fine. And that did comfort me a lot, not because I expected I would now be given huge blocks of time, but because I remembered many of the times in the past when trusting him did work out well for me. So I did my housework, and later in the day he gave me a surprisingly generous amount of time, and I was able to read a little and write a little, including this message.

Not getting your way, not getting your will over mundane little things that are, nonetheless, very important to you can be immensely frustrating. This frustration, however you may dislike it, is part and parcel of serving someone to whom you have given yourself absolutely. Sometimes I wish I could have all the good aspects of submission (submitting when I want to submit, having sexy fun scenes everyday) without all the icky aspects (having my Internet time closely controlled) but if it did work that way, then what I would have would not be total submission--it would be something else, and something I don't think I would like.

Nightfly, I liked your suggestions about learning to do new things, learning new ways to serve as part of the perpetual giving of yourself to your master. I don't do a lot of that myself yet, because I had this part of me (creativity, willingness to try new things) stomped on pretty hard in childhood. Even something simple, like cooking something new for my master that I think he might like, is a terribly risky experience for me: I am so terrified of his not being pleased with it, or of his being annoyed at me for ruining his dinner with this new thing. Now Donald doesn't, as a rule, criticize me for trying to please him, this all comes from my past experiences leading me to expect I'll be stomped on for doing something new or helpful or pleasing. Someday, I expect I'll be able to do more of this, but for now, I tend to focus only on meeting his explicit requirements as best I can, and letting him lead in the areas of deeper submission and changing levels or types of service.