“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?”

Winston thought. “By making him suffer,” he said.

“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.”

excerpted from the book

1984

by George Orwell

Perhaps this is where the rubber meets the road in being owned.  There certainly have been times where my Owner has seen it fit to cause me pure suffering.  He has done things to me that had I been given a choice, I definitely would have opted out of;  safe-worded out of even. 

There is pain that is the good, wet, squishy kind of pain, and then there is just pure pain.  There is humiliation that is the fun, hot, sexy, cunt-soaking kind of humiliation, and then there is just painfully embarrassing oh-my-god-I-just-want-to-hide! humiliation.

Master knows this difference.  The difference between my willing obedience and the sort of obedience where I will not easily go.  It is forced on me.  It is taken from me.  And I know there are a host of folks out there who disbelieve this is possible, but believe you me, it is.

Master and I were having a discussion the other day.  I said that all the things he does to me, I allow it, but hate admitting that some of it turns me on.  His reply:

“That’s utter bullshit; you don’t “allow” anything.  You don’t make anything like a conscious decision to “allow” anything.  I swat your will away and I do what I want.  I neutralize any sense of control you would otherwise have.  I take all the control.  And… for the record… it really doesn’t matter if you admit it turns you on.”

After which he said that he wished I were there right then.  He’d have me sleep on the floor next to his bed.

Upon hearing and absorbing all of this I remember I started crying.  I felt he was being cruel.  He was totally discounting me, my will, and my feelings. 

“So quiet.  So wanting.  So sad that you cannot sleep on the floor here for me.  You want that, don’t you?”

That’s when I said, “So cruel you are.” 

But he insisted.  “Answer my question.”

“I would want to sleep in the bed with you…”

“That isn’t the question.  Answer my question.”

“But if being there meant sleeping on the floor tonight, then yes, I would want that.”

“Right.”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”

“I really do think I am too benevolent.”

I later told him he stripped me verbally that night.  He agreed, that from time to time, like a dirty floor, the wax has to be stripped off and fresh wax applied.  I, of course, wanted to know what the wax was. 

“The wax is a lot of things.  Or… the impurities in the wax are a lot of little things:  equality, complacency, conservatism. “

He said he stripped me “Mostly to reinforce the reality that you are mine.  That I own you.  It means something to be property.”

And with that he tucked me into bed, restrained tightly with wrist linked to wrist, ankle linked to ankle, for a long night’s sleep as a very owned slave. 

I think about this from time to time and it makes me realize what it means to be powerless.  He holds all the cards.  My only recourse would be to run far away.  And yet, he is with me in my head.  There really is power in stripping down and rebuilding one’s thoughts.  Brainwashing?  Definitely.  Powerful?  You betcha.

I relinquish my power willingly, or so I think.  Master says he just takes it.  This is something I am going to be thinking about more and more.