dream a little dream

I'm exhausted and stressed...working long and crazy hours as the clock winds down to a major deadline at the end of the week. I'm usually very good at managing my stress but at times like these, when my work virtually eliminates my free time, stress starts to take effect. I'm having trouble sleeping and last night was the worst. The hours ticked by as I lay futilely trying to turn off my mind and get some rest. I was up half the night and woke very early from a dream that that made it hard to get back to sleep...it had aroused me so much and set my mind spinning the moment that consciousness crept in. I spent another couple of hours in tormented wakefulness lamenting my rule that restricts personal playtime without express permission...

That dream was so hard to get out of my head and still has some effect on me as I think about it now. I'd come home from work late, having forgotten to call and my Ma'am was waiting for me. But this version of Ma'am was very different – she was....stern....unrelenting. There the moment I walked in the door, ordering me to my knees to receive my service collar. She delivered a most effective scolding for my negligence as I knelt in the foyer and fairly dragged me into the bedroom by my hair when she had said her piece. Once there she pushed me firmly over the side of the bed and held me down with her knee, face planted in the mattress and bottom raised up, as she yanked my jeans down in record time. And then her belt was in her hand and she beat me so hard and fast that I almost couldn't keep up the proper count.

But Ma'am was not yet done with me – she'd decided that day that I needed to begin training and put me through unfamiliar paces for what seemed like hours. She watched me complete instruction after instruction, providing instant and painful correction each time I hesitated or failed to follow her instruction as expected. As I repeated my motions over and over, each time seeking to improve upon the last attempt, I lost myself in my tasks and achieved a grace I never thought I could possess. Finally she was satisfied, proud of and pleased with her girl, and by way of reward she took me roughly in the way she knows I like best and told me to cum for her...

Ah, this dream is so very telling...stress brings out my rougher side. It reveals the desire to lose myself in my submission and intensifies my ever present yearnings for control and discipline...I'm looking forward to my dreams tonight. :)

the currency of punishment

A new disciplinary policy went into effect this weekend – a system to track and provide correction for my smaller transgressions, those that Ma'am feels need to be dealt with yet do not warrant a strapping. The policy was inspired by a blog post we found on the web that Ma'am took a particular liking to.

Glass pebbles and stars have now become the currency of my punishment. In the middle of our living room an empty vase stands, flanked by two smaller vessels containing blue glass pebbles and translucent yellow stars. Each pebble placed in the vase will represent one firm swat to my bottom, earned by misconduct, improper focus, lapses of attention, or when Ma'am feels I am in need of a reminder. The little glass stars represent amnesty. If I am lucky enough to earn one of those, I may, with Ma'am's permission, remove a pebble from the vase and be forgiven a swat I'd previously earned.

It's a pretty arrangement with a less than pretty side. When I look at it, I don't see a jumble of pretty colored glass but a reminder to be well behaved and appropriately obedient. But I am reminded that my Ma'am loves me enough to provide discipline and additional motivation when I need it. And once the vase is no longer empty... I will be reminded of the ways I need to improve and that I do, in fact, need my Ma'am's discipline.

I wonder what my Ma'am sees when she looks upon the pebbles and stars?

disciplinary fantasies

Last Tuesday, Ma'am sent me to work in my street collar. It was a punishment day and her intent was to ensure I achieved the proper attitude of contrition as it had been quite a while since that punishment had been earned. She wanted me to remember and to reinforce my state of mindfulness. Wearing her collar did it's intended job...frequently throughout the day my thoughts turned toward the “memory lapse” that led to the evening's business and my continued reflections on hidden motivations and leniency.

But what was unexpected were the little snippets of fantasy that came to me throughout the day. All were related to discipline – receiving a firm scolding as I knelt before my Ma'am, looking up into her eyes from my position on the floor; being thrown over her knee without warning for a spanking so hard and fast that proper counting is an impossibility; displaying my hot and reddened bottom for her with my panties half mast and jeans around my ankles.... Each of these moments pulled me from my sense of contrition into a place made more of excitement and arousal – which, I think, is not precisely the effect that Ma'am wanted to evoke.

Disciplinary fantasies, of course, are quite a different thing than punishment. They are uncolored by the emotion punishment brings with it as a matter of course. Within the framework of actual punishment my pleasant little daytime fantasies would not be arousing at all. Quite the opposite, in fact.

What this seems to tell me, though, is that my craving for more regular discipline and tighter control is something that continually lurks just below the surface of my mind. And if I'm not careful and diligent, it is very likely that these desires will continue to lead me off the path of obedience.

a changed girl

There is always a somber note to a day spent in preparation for an evening punishment and today is no exception. Ma'am has placed me in her collar today while she works to help ensure my focus on her and the area where I have recently been found in need of some additional assistance and motivation to improve – a lack of attention to detail that has persisted despite several reminders and a reprimand. And while I also have work today, my other hours will contain a bit of necessary reflection and tasks in preparation of her arrival home to my full and all encompassing attention. I will be dressed and in position when she arrives, dinner will be in the oven, and her paddle within easy reach so that the bit of business that we have to attend to can be dispatched at her pleasure with the minimum of fuss.

I have faced this wait before but today has already proven to be different. I am not nervous and I am not fretting over my mistakes. I have not punished myself for my deficiency but wait patiently to face what will come with the grace of acceptance and a willingness to embrace Ma'am's discipline as a tool for learning.

This wait is different because I am different. My emotions and my thoughts are not the same as those I felt when I last faced punishment – back in December when I was still laboring under some ill conceived notions and was, despite his having released me, still Sir S's girl in some respects. I have traveled a somewhat rocky emotional path since then but I have learned and I have grown more than I thought was possible in such a short period of time. Tuesday's misstep provided a crucial bit of learning and opened my eyes to what is hopefully the last way that I have sabotaged my submission.

Today, just days past my 7 month anniversary in her service, I am unequivocally Ma'am's girl. I submit to her in her own right, no longer as a by product of my submission to another. My daily mantra begins “I submit to my Ma'am for I am hers...” and while these words used to serve partially as a reminder for me, the meaning is different now. They are a statement of fact – I am fully hers and I have finally allowed myself to fully submit. When I speak these words now, they are affirmation of my devotion and joy that I may call this special woman Ma'am.

I believe I now have a richer understanding of what it means to submit. And I feel as if I have finally moved out of the infancy of my submission and can more rightfully call myself a girl.