Sometimes things have to make a complete circle before you can understand them for what they really are. This is the third, and final, part to this trilogy. I didn't realize when I wrote the second part, that it was not the end of this story, it was in fact the beginning. This part is dedicated to my family....elle, mystaka, dagney, kiten, ash...and LAR^, the one who helped me become what I am today. I love you all, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for what you have given me.
* * *
I sat on the porch, shivering and looking out into the cold, still night. A glance at my watch told me it was 3 am. I couldn't sleep, I had been restlessly pacing all night. Something was nagging at me, something I couldn't identify. I wouldn't sleep until I did.
I was home again....alone. The loneliness was more complete this time, more real. I had met someone, a wonderful someone, and we had been through an amazing discovery together, and here I was again; alone and insecure. I closed my eyes and shivered, the thoughts and feelings of the my journey so far rushing through my head and making me feel oddly content.
A pickup with a horse trailer turned the corner of the dead street, its headlight startling me out of my thoughts. I watched it slowly pull out, a lone horse stomping impatiently in the trailer. Seeing a horse doesn't always shift my mind to my Jewel, but this instance, did. I missed her. I missed our friendship, our bond. I missed going out in the cold early mornings with a sugar cube nestled in my mittened hand, seeing how her eyes lit up when I offered her the crystal cubed sweet. I missed the void in my loneliness that she had filled.
Just like I was now missing L^. I sighed sleepily and shivered, heading into the house and crawling under the warm covers of my down comforter. The shakes didn't go away, nor did sleep come. Not that night.
* * *
"When I met you....we DID bond" I inquired quietly, "you don't disagree with that, do you?"
L^ didn't pause as he answered "Oh, no question we bonded, love....Deeply."
I nodded to myself, not sure where my thoughts were going. I had bonded with my Jewel, hadn't I? That bond had been real, no question about it. Very real. Very right. The nagging questions broke through the fog in my head, and I frowned to myself before hesitatingly typing it out, before I lost my nerve.
"Did we bond on purely a friendship level....or did we bond on a Dom/sub level. I'm beginning to think it was the former." I continued. It came out as a statement more so than a question.
I bit my lip, tears stinging my eyes, unsure of what was going on. I had been so happy, everything had felt so RIGHT. Where had that come from?
A pause, then his answer blinked back at me, assuring me that we had bonded, that he loved me...
but that I was right.
I was right. Oh how I hated being right sometimes.
* * *
Tears spilled down my cheeks, blurring my vision. I wiped them away impatiently, my fingers dancing across the keys. I shared everything with him, telling him not what I wanted to be telling him, but what I needed to say. I told him how much our time together had helped me grow. I had met him as a shy, damaged young woman with this silly notion of submissiveness stuck in her mind. I told him how he had helped me grow into so much more. Patiently ignoring my mistakes for the sake of my exploration. Calmly letting my hysterics pass without judgment. Gently nudging me in directions that he knew and understood from experience when I wanted to go in direction that my naive enthusiasm insisted were the right ones. Holding my hand when I failed and telling me it was all right, but never holding back the honesty, never sugarcoating the truth. He helped me open up, to knock down the very wall that held me back from being everything I could be. I would never be lonely again, because he would always stand by me. Nothing could change that. It was right, was how things were meant to be.
I told him how I couldn't share him, couldn't be secure in a relationship that lacked exclusivity. Jewel had always belonged exclusively to me. She would let people touch her, be near her...but I was the only one that could keep my hand on her quivering coat for more than a few fleeting moments, the only one who could cup her smooth as silk nose in my hands and feel her hot breath on my palms. I always took comfort in this fact, took comfort in knowing that even when childhood friends came and went, even when I didn't belong in a group, or was left behind for newer and more interesting people...that my Jewel was always exclusively mine, and I hers. It was a deeply bedded need, the base of my security. At times I felt it was a selfish need, to not want to share, or not be able to share. I tried though...no one can say I never tried.
I remember how I felt before I met L^ in person. I was so out of sorts, so insecure, because I really didn't have anything to base any of my feelings on, from the very simple sensations of just playing casually with another, to the very deep relationship that we had formed. I didn't really KNOW how I felt about anything, I knew how I thought I felt. I realized now, sitting here blinking back tears at the computer screen, that thinking and knowing are two very different things. Just as I had thought that it was right to try and own my Jewel, but knowing at the same time that there was no worse move to make.
My mind wandered to that moment when He had buckled the collar on my neck. "Is this what you want?" He had asked. The very same question my daddy had asked me oh, so long ago, a little girl gripping the bars of a steel pen and staring into the twinkling eyes of her dream. Yes, it was what I had wanted then, it was still what I wanted, on an adult level. The question that should have been asked, though, was if it was right.
We talked, my Dom and I. We opened our hearts and we bonded, again. This time, we asked the right questions.
* * *
Sometimes, in the eyes of a child, wishes were horses, and mine, well, mine was called Jewel.
I realize now that I had what I needed to be everything I wanted to be. I BELONG, I belong as a submissive, and L^ had helped me to discover that I really am a submissive. I had nothing to base that claim on before I had met L^. Nothing. Just my wishes, and my hopes. He took my collar and gave it meaning by making it truly mine. By opening doors I had refused to open, by making me face hurts and failures I had refused to face. He introduced me to myself, collared me to my submission, took two parts of me and made them a whole, a stronger whole.
I ran my fingers over that collar again. Twinkling crystals embedded in velvet covered leather. It was my collar, it belonged to me, was a symbol of the start of something so wonderful, so right, that it could not be owned by anyone other than me, not just yet. I had thought that L^ had taken something of mine and given it meaning of his own, but I couldn't have been more wrong. He had taken something of mine, alright, but he had not made it his own. He had taken two halves, one in each hand. One half was a little girl, scared to open up and let others in, clinging on to a past that was damaging everything she could be. A child with a dream, a wish. He had taken her hand and introduced her to the young woman he had helped that child become. A woman whom he had shown had potential and was worthwhile. A submissive at the very beginning of her journey.
I was not ready to serve a Master, not yet ready to be collared. I was ready to embrace that journey, to become the strong person I needed to be before I could give myself entirely, truly, to serve another. L^ had taken these two halves, and made them a whole. A complete person, the little girl with the wish, and the young woman with the dream. Proving to me who I was, and pointing me to the nearest star. He would always be my mentor, and stand by my side, but he had released me, for it was what was right.
I can honestly say that this is the hardest decision I have ever made, but in my growth, I have gained a stronger friendship with someone that I truly adore. We have evolved, not parted. I will look back on this time, someday, and remember. Remember the one I first called Sir, showing me it was all right to reach out, and to stand out here, on my own.
xoxo, serijules