It has been a very, very big weekend. I had a friend visiting from London over the weekend and he stayed with me in my college room (which isn't very big to start with), so I spent most of Saturday entertaining him. Then on Saturday night I had a formal dinner at my College to which I had invited my London friend plus another three couples - all Australians living in London whom I had known for a long time - who came up for the night. After the formal dinner, there was the drinks at the pub and catching up that went on until 2am in the morning. This morning there we all had breakfast followed by sightseeing around the town until almost 5pm this afternoon and it was not until 6pm until I finally arrived home.
At the moment I feel quite tired and worn out. I had a really fun time during the weekend and it was so wonderful to see so many of my good friends here in the College. If anything, it felt surreal to be surrounded by so many Australians in England and it was certainly a remainder of my pre-student life of the law, law parties and the general social life of the legal profession.
As I was walking home to my College, I thought about the two seemingly diametrically opposed elements of my life: the submissive slave on the one hand and the confident, dominant commercial litigator on the other hand. To be honest, sometimes it does feel like a hard balancing act and it is not easy to simply transition from one "role" to the other role. But it can be done and it is done. Both roles are equally parts of my personality and both roles are equally me, what is important is how I choose to use and display each party of my personality.
For all intents and purposes during this weekend I was the "normal" me to my person: the same humour, the same sensitivity, the same types of jokes, the same charm. I was in fact the regular person my friends know and (I hope) like! And of course this was not an act, because I behaved in the way I genuinely feel and way I genuinely am.
Underneath however, in a private world that only I knew, I was still 457 and I was still obeying Master's commands. When Master ordered me to do so, I did not wear underwear. I still checked in with Master every morning. I still reported to Master at night (in this case to explain why I could not be online). I still responded to Master's txt messages as soon as I received them.
Balancing the dynamic can at times be difficult and frustrating, but this is part of the challenge of being a slave. No matter how controlling a Master may be or how utterly submissive the slave; there will always arise situations in which the slave must manage his relationships with the rest of the world to some extent.
I am very lucky in that my Master continues to encourage me to pursue my chosen career paths, my Master encourages my vanilla lifestyle and friendships and believes that this is important to me. Learning to balance the vanilla world with my slavery is an important lesson to learn and this weekend gave me a chance to experience how I might do that in a rather intense situation. No doubt I will have many more experiences like this, and so I feel quite pleased I was able to come out of it okay.
My strategy is to acknowledge that there is a small part of my inner being that, no matter what the circumstances or situation I am in, will always be reserved for Master. The part of me that even when I am required to be my most dominant - for example, cross-examining a hostile witness in Court - that will still be submissive to my Master.
I think that slavery must be, on one level at least, pragmatic and I am pleased that my Master acknowledges that. A slave can demonstrate dominant traits, and in fact a Master may require a slave to do so. The goal of the slave is to secure his Master's pleasure and to make Master's life as comfortable as possible. Therefore, one of the tasks that may fall to a slave is to take care of a particular problem for Master and that may require the slave to exercise dominance, determination and persistence to achieve a result for Master.
For example, say Master has asked me to obtain for him a certain book on sailing. The book may be out of print; it may require me to take phone calls to a retailer to obtain a copy of the book. The retailer might not be particularly inefficient so I might be required to argue and express my displeasure at the poor customer service received from the retailer. I might have to express annoyance and threaten to complain to ensure that the outcome Master requires is obtained. A good slave can do this, because a good slave knows that what matter's to Master is the ultimate outcome.
In my opinion, a good slave, motivated to ensure the best outcome for his Master, will be willing to exercise his own dominant abilities to secure that outcome. I do not need to run back to Master to tell him what has happened so that Master can fight his own battles. I, as a slave, can (where appropriate) fight Master's battles for him so that he doesn't have to waste his precious time on minutia or trivial affairs. A Master must be able to know and rely on the fact that his slave is always in his corner, always fighting for his Master's best interests, always putting his Master first no matter what the circumstances.
So therefore I believe a slave can exercise dominant qualities. But, the significant and overriding comment always though is that a slave would never, under any circumstances exercise dominant qualities to his Master. To do so would shatter the fundamental relationship between Master and slave and is completely incompatible with the special bond between Master and slave.
When a slave exercises dominant qualities, he does so out of ultimate submission to his Master, because he is using those dominant qualities in furtherance of achieving his Master's pleasure. The slave is dominant to achieve the outcome the Master requires. The slave is never dominant for his own purposes, only for the Master's purposes.
This time next week I will be serving in Master's physical presence. I am nervous but extremely excited. I am nervous, not because I am worried, but because I care and want to do a terrific job. I cannot wait to meet Master and I think this will be a long week until Sunday morning. Thankfully it is only 7 sleeps to go!
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