callsigncharlie:

littlepetimp:

All too rare are the Masters for whom “training” means something more than giving orders and correcting compliance. A sadly small percentage of the Masters i know savors the often delicately balanced orchestrations by which a slave does truly develop a deeper level of surrender under Their direction. These Masters delight in devising subtle situations and conversations that challenge and guide us. They watch us closely to see how we wrestle with our inner struggles with surrender and then determine the best way to coax, tease, kiss, lure, argue, reason, support, reinforce, hurt, or love us onward past our sticking points and into doing or accepting exactly what They want from us… AND, making us love them for it! This is the REAL craft of “slave-training,” and lucky is the slave who comes to the attention of these rare Masters. Bonding with these Masters is vastly accelerated for us, and we often feel close to helpless before Them….

— Guy Baldwin, M.S., SlaveCraft

I have a Master like this. I can’t speak to the ‘rare’ part of the quote above, because I simply can’t claim knowledge of the majority of Dominants out there, but in all other respects I truly feel the author was entirely right. In many respects submission would be easy if it were nothing more than a matter of knowing the rules, following them, and being punished if I fail somehow. But our relationship is not like that. Instead our relationship is what has allowed me to move from identifying as someone who submits to discovering that I am someone who is, at heart, a slave - and beyond that, someone who derives no greater joy or fulfillment from giving myself wholly to the task of serving and pleasing another.

Sir is incredibly talented at getting inside me, often in ways I never anticipated or expected, and of pulling things out of me that I never imagined existed. Through carefully-constructed conversations, activities, or just random, offhand comments that are worded just right, Sir always seems to have the ability to get inside me in just the right way at just the right time. 

He claims that much of what he does is based on instinct and not through planning. To me, that speaks even more highly of him. He has a natural talent and skill for dominance that others might have to work for, yet it often seems effortless to him. He is observant and as a result he knows me well. He has managed to find paths inside me that I’ve kept closed to everyone for a long, long time. Where no paths existed, he has forged new ones. He once told me that he wanted to attain a perfect understanding of me. Given how well I know myself, I consider that a daunting task. Yet somehow, he’s well on his way.

I’m a master at self-protection, at keeping walls up against the world in order to keep myself safe. Slowly and methodically Sir has broken through each and every one - not always through force, but often through all the means mentioned above. Different tactics at different times, and always just the right thing at the right time, such that I find myself giving him more before I really realize what I’m doing. Given my proclivity for self-protection, I should resent him for the speed and ease with which he’s managed to get past those walls. I am incredibly bound to him now - I feel that leash of his reach deep inside me and wrap around my core. I am intensely, achingly vulnerable to him as a result. I should resent him for all of that - and I do find it terrifying - but it’s also an indescribable joy. Yes, I feel helpless before him - and rather than running in fear from such a level of exposure, I find myself reveling in it.

What I’ve given him, he hasn’t taken from me. Instead he has helped me peel back the layers to expose and discover the slave inside. I’ve always been one for relentless self-reflection, yet the things I’ve learned about myself through our interaction have been staggering. As I continue to be bound to him, the deeper I fall into slavehood, the journey continues to be a process of self-discovery and revelation - one which couldn’t happen without him. 

I have a Master like the one described above. I count myself incredibly blessed. 

Beautiful. I hope this can be seen as true for dommes too.

I too hope it goes for dommes too.