the marks of a slave

Well, I can see where someone maybe fell in love with their mentor and then had that kind of relationship -- where creativity and love intertwined. I just never had anyone like that.

ding ding ding

(though we actually stand on more equal footing since we were the same age and at similar levels of accomplishment)
 
Eastern Sun~ I have been reading your thread for about a week now... I am almost halfway through it but I just had to stop and tell you how amazing and inspiring you writing is to me! I have just finally decided to embrace my desires to be submissive. I have always been drawn to this lifestyle and never had the courage. While I am not a slave or have had a physical D/s relationship yet. Your thread has inspired me so much and really caused me to look deep inside to really see the whys of what I want to do. I am so looking forward to finishing this thread and being able to keep current. Thank you so much for your writing!
 
So, running the risk of too much information, I'll just explain that we met at work about 28 years ago, and he was in charge of training me. So from the very first days we knew each other, he has been involved in "how" I do what I do.

In fact, my first major project as a young woman was a wedding gift he gave to me (i.e. he booked a program that only I would be able to direct).

When we moved to NYC, I did not take jobs that he did not approve of (one of which would have probably launched an independent career for me, and which he readily admits made him feel insecure at the time).

In the business we created together, he was Artistic Director, and I was Executive Director. He was the idea man, I handled logistics.

At one point right before our children were born (coinciding with my trip to "The Little Mermaid" and the depth of my identification with a heroine who had given up her voice for the love of her prince), I decided that I needed to find out what my own creative vision was.

Within a couple of years, I was pregnant with a group of funded grants that demanded his time and energy in the service of creative projects he ultimately had no interest in.

Crisis. After a serious power struggle, we resolved ourselves in this M/s framework.

And, here we are today.

Within the M/s framework, we have experienced a wide range of variables when it comes to "my career." I have stopped working altogether. I have worked on my own projects during my own time (which kept them small). I have worked under his direction; and I have assisted him in his work, even directing him in a theatrical production.

But, last year, I created a new business of my own. And I have been protecting it against his influence with a vehemence that doesn't really make sense, given the respect I have for him as both an artist and a director.

Keeping "the right frame of mind" to sustain the M/s relationship has already cut into time and focus I would otherwise turn towards this new business. Now - maybe that's all right. He's very supportive of the work I do; the hurricane has disrupted everyone's lives; and it's hard to know where all this will ultimately settle.

Maybe the scope of my work will be defined by the time I have to give to it. Maybe I'll emphasize one aspect over another because of his perception of which one will be a better business choice (i.e. more profitable - that is one of my weak points, and his input could be very valuable). Maybe a portion of the time I am spending on this project of mine will be spent on that project of his - so we can both develop simultaneously.

These are not bad choices. But they all require me to let go of my own agenda, and allow him to influence the course of my work. I used to do that without hesitation, but in the last few years, I have grown attached to my own projects. And I'm protecting them with territorial ferocity.


Oh, see influence and control are two completely different things, in my world.

I gather influence from ALL around me. From the end customer. From T. From M. I commit to other people's ideas of how it should work just to prove them wrong and only to prove myself wrong instead.

I've run into the periodic conflict with M, who would love it if I made the same money some other way. I've sometimes let it tweak my path, but usually not, depending on what the bottom line is.

I've been better off every time I threw any kind of an originality/maverick/I-thought of-every-bit-of-this impulse aside and stayed open to those influences.
 
It sounds like he was more controlling the logistics of your creative work than the nature of the work itself, although of course the work itself would be affected as well.
 
Control - (noun)

1. the power to influence or direct people's behavior or the course of events
2. the ability to manage a machine or other moving object
3. the restriction of an action, tendency or other phenomenon
4. the power to restrain something, especially one's own emotions or actions
5. a means of limiting or regulating something
6. the base from which a system or activity is directed

Control - (verb)

1. determine the behavior or supervise the running of
2. maintain influence or authority over
3. limit the level, intensity, or numbers of
4. remain calm and reasonable despite provocation
5. regulate

"to be in control" - able to direct a situation, person or activity
"out of control" - no longer possible to manage
"under control" - being dealt with successfully and competently


I don't mean to get semantic, but I had to take another look at what "control" actually means.
 
On Sunday morning, he reintroduced proactive service as the ultimate goal.
"You need to be able to do what is required without being told to."

Proactive service without obedience is meaningless.
But obedience without proactive service is tiresome.

He wants to be pleasantly surprised.
 
From his perspective, things have not changed that dramatically. I am now spending too much time thinking and writing about service (here on the forum) . . . time that would be better spent serving.

Hmm...what else can I say?

C'mon peeps! Help me out here.

...I'm waiting...

***********************************

(He came in - read my first paragraph - nodded - took my reading glasses - added the rest - laughed - and left.

I'm just going to sit here a little while longer before I go downstairs. :eek:)
 
From his perspective, things have not changed that dramatically. I am now spending too much time thinking and writing about service (here on the forum) . . . time that would be better spent serving.

Hmm...what else can I say?

C'mon peeps! Help me out here.

...I'm waiting...

***********************************

(He came in - read my first paragraph - nodded - took my reading glasses - added the rest - laughed - and left.

I'm just going to sit here a little while longer before I go downstairs. :eek:)

Well I said you should schedule time for service! ;) I'm with Keroin though. Your life is interesting and I love this thread but I think I'm not so qualified to give advice. :heart:
 
re: romantic D/s

On Sunday morning, he reintroduced proactive service as the ultimate goal.
"You need to be able to do what is required without being told to."

Proactive service without obedience is meaningless.
But obedience without proactive service is tiresome.

He wants to be pleasantly surprised.

Nobody has ever gotten needs met by expecting the other partner to become a mindreader.
 
Nobody has ever gotten needs met by expecting the other partner to become a mindreader.

That's true. But when you know someone really well, it's nice to wake up to a cup of coffee or a blow job just the way you like it.
 
That's true. But when you know someone really well, it's nice to wake up to a cup of coffee or a blow job just the way you like it.

That's definitely true... but then, aren't those needs already known because they were made known earlier?
 
That's definitely true... but then, aren't those needs already known because they were made known earlier?

Yes. You're making me think of what a Chinese father once told me about his expectations of his son's academic performance . . .

Whenever his son makes a mistake on a test, he asks "did your teacher teach you this material?" (His son usually says, "yes.") "Then why didn't you know it?"

And that is the question, isn't it?

If we have been taught, shown, experienced, or told something . . . anything . . .

why don't we always know it in the time and place we need to know it?

I contemplated this for a few years, and could only conclude that my mental distractions are numerous and carry a force of their own. So I started meditating which helped . . . a lot.

With my increased work load, I stopped finding the time for regular meditation.
 
Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

It's a bit of a relief, to be honest.
 
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Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

sexual reward?
 
Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

It's a bit of a relief, to be honest.

No real comment on your sitch, just resonated funny with me:

I have become a creature Ayn Rand would be proud of, while still deriving creative pleasure from my work - I constantly get in trouble when my ego gets in the way, and smarter when I go back to the question of $$$. I'll scope out some competition's voice sample, and then I'm left in the dumps - she sounds like Ann Bancroft and I sound like...Sarah Vowell! And then I get stuck in a giant morass of trying to deliver my least hypnonasal performance...losing money and sanity for days. DAYS. Turning into a creature I don't like very well staring at waveforms and reading the same thing over and over and over.

when truly...truly...not one client of mine gives a flying fuck.

Whenever I go wandering off into the forest of cost inefficiency, it's a dumb ego mistake.
 
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Yesterday, we discussed the possibility that my newly formed company should probably take a back seat to his company due to its relative (i.e. lack of) profit margin. I genuinely agreed.

So, in return for sexual reward, it seems I am willing to let go of my personal ambition.

It's a bit of a relief, to be honest.

How are things for you guys post-hurricane? I should have asked earlier. I guess sometimes I forget my Lit friends exist in the real world. ;) Seriously, though, hope you all are hanging in there.

No real comment on your sitch, just resonated funny with me:

I have become a creature Ayn Rand would be proud of, while still deriving creative pleasure from my work - I constantly get in trouble when my ego gets in the way, and smarter when I go back to the question of $$$. I'll scope out some competition's voice sample, and then I'm left in the dumps - she sounds like Ann Bancroft and I sound like...Sarah Vowell! And then I get stuck in a giant morass of trying to deliver my least hypnonasal performance...

when truly...truly...not one client of mine gives a flying fuck.

Whenever I go wandering off into the forest of cost inefficiency, it's a dumb ego mistake.

Off topic but I've always wished I sounded like Sarah Vowell. I feel like some of these This American Life voices were made in a factory! They're just so perfectly unique and "off" in the best way.
 
I wish I could honestly say that I have no idea what you're talking about here.

It's about making stuff to make money and its pitfalls. Sometimes when you're making some kind of creative output it's for the love of the idea. Sometimes it's about profit, without making something horrible. But when you're making something and you are working very very very hard...then sometimes examining your own motives yields answers that aren't necessarily flattering either - like wanting to stroke your ego, be validated by praise from other people, feel like you're sexy....in a way sometimes money is a pure motivation, and sometimes when the cost/benefit ratios are off you have a kind of "duh" moment of enlightenment.
 
sexual reward?

Yes, there are times when I feel sexual pleasure in slavery, which then serves as a reward for certain behaviors. I don't always feel pleasure, and a lack of pleasure is woven into my slavery too. It creates a reward/punishment system that has proven to be a very effective means of changing my behavior.
 
No real comment on your sitch, just resonated funny with me:

I have become a creature Ayn Rand would be proud of, while still deriving creative pleasure from my work - I constantly get in trouble when my ego gets in the way, and smarter when I go back to the question of $$$. I'll scope out some competition's voice sample, and then I'm left in the dumps - she sounds like Ann Bancroft and I sound like...Sarah Vowell! And then I get stuck in a giant morass of trying to deliver my least hypnonasal performance...losing money and sanity for days. DAYS. Turning into a creature I don't like very well staring at waveforms and reading the same thing over and over and over.

when truly...truly...not one client of mine gives a flying fuck.

Whenever I go wandering off into the forest of cost inefficiency, it's a dumb ego mistake.

Yeah, it's easy to lose track of what's important when the ego gets involved - especially in those moments when I'm comparing myself to someone else. No matter which way I go - up or down - I'm always on the wrong track.

(I've seen those waveforms, too. I've tried to record myself singing with myself. What an exercise in self-loathing/self-love that can become!)

Raised by hippies, I am so anti-money I don't know how to reasonably engage with it. I operate on 0 balances, and then volunteer my time. This is the behavior he hopes to change.
 
But when you're making something and you are working very very very hard...then sometimes examining your own motives yields answers that aren't necessarily flattering either - like wanting to stroke your ego, be validated by praise from other people, feel like you're sexy....in a way sometimes money is a pure motivation, and sometimes when the cost/benefit ratios are off you have a kind of "duh" moment of enlightenment.

:eek:

(I sometimes go back and re-read this thread, and I can't tell you the number of times I have noticed how brilliant you are - hitting the nail right on the head - and then watched as I walked determinedly in the other direction. Though I am not always able to look in the direction you're pointing, cause I'm just uncomfortable with what I think I'll see, I have been able to look back later.

I just wanted to tell you that. Cause I'm going to walk in the other direction now...)
 
How are things for you guys post-hurricane?

We're ok, though one of our schools down in lower Manhattan has not been deemed safe to enter yet. An underground parking garage across the street filled with water and the cars just started floating to the surface. No one knows what impact the water, the fuel and the bobbing cars had on the foundation of the skyscraper above it.

The whole city is exhausted and on edge, facing circumstances they haven't known before. For most of us, not much has really changed; and it's hard to justify these feelings. But everyone I know is re-examining their priorities.
 
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