February 21, 2012

it had an alright day today. it's coworkers offered some comradely  and support that made it feel better about an issue with it's supervisor yesterday. That doesn't change the frustrating situation, but... at least it feels less foolish. That aside, it is looking forward to having it's phone this afternoon. ^_^ it is REALLY looking forward to that. it saw Mistress' comment yesterday, and it is relieved that She feels the same. it understands the eagerness, particularly after having so much distance without phones. it feels much the same way and really looks forward to seeing Her.

Now... it was going to finish a story.

The ending of things in that unhealthy poly-archy... it learned about a month in, that the concept of live in submission was simply out of the question. That was a tough overarching bit of knowledge for it... Because submission is not something it feels is best enjoyed from permanent distance. The simple fact was that while the alpha appreciated it's submission and enjoyed using it... She was quite happy with her master, and had no real desire for more, in reality given the choice she would have opted for monogamy with him, but that was unrealistic given that he was currently in an open marriage... yes, an additional complication it did not mention earlier due to a surprising lack of overall relevance.

The alpha had a surprising number of moments in which she either had unrealistic expectations, or just plain went off the deep end for seemingly no reason at all -largely in part to her unhealthy primary relationship (his feelings did not match hers). On many occasions she would get so upset, so openly, and so visibly that her master would step in and tell her to cool down, often trying to teach her to control her temper. While that is a noble cause, it does not necessarily feel that a relationship should be the place to learn anger management... and it did not enjoy being the punching bag during lessons.

On one occasion, it was told to stay the weekend in their home, while they and the other sub did other things. This was already a bit of a smack to the face because it had done nothing to merit isolation (it only got to see them on weekends due to distance), they simply decided they were going to focus on the other sub, because the head of house felt that she 'needed' extra attention exclusively. The thing that it has learned, personally, and from the advice of, well, EVERYONE IT KNOWS WHO HAS MAINTAINED POLY (lol) is that jealousy is a very real thing. And everyone has it. It's an unavoidable human emotion, the trick is what we do with it; learning to communicate effectively, not to bottle it up. Kink-friendly psych experts agree that the bottled up, hidden jealousy turns into something much worse. That said, the situation admittedly made it feel a bit jealous. But, it was fine with that, as by this time it had already understood that the mechanics or the relationship were going to be lopsided towards the younger female (this was a few weeks after she had caused the birthday punishment). Anyways, it was instructed to come to the house, and given a list of chores to perform while they were away. it cleaned all the dishes, took out all the trash, dusted, did laundry, and proceeded to mow the lawn... it had never mowed a lawn before, it had never needed to. But it was determined to make the best of the situation and enjoy it's role. They called this a test to see if it enjoyed the 'service' capacity of submission. To some extent, it does, but.. this experience left a bad taste in it's mouth...

it found the lawnmower after being verbally chewed out over the phone (for not knowing where they kept their lawnmower), and quickly learned how the thing worked. it began to work at the lawn, which was literally grown past it's knees over the entire front yard. This took hours, the lawn wasn't too big, but it was working with a tiny and unreliable electrical lawnmower. it finally had the main lawn done, and moved to do the side lawn, when it hit a snag. By 'snag' it means a hidden sprinkler head. When a lawn is literally more than two feet tall (meriting several fines from the city), you really can't see these things. So, it hit the sprinkler head, took the sprinkler head clean off, and found itself basking in a freezing cold geyser that shot about 15 feet straight up, with no idea of how to remedy the problem. it panicked. it ran inside, and called the alpha for suggestions... the alpha proceeded to debase it for a good five minutes before one of the neighbors knocked on the door with tools and helped it shut the water off.

After this, the alpha changed her tune, it seemed that her master was unhappy with her response, she urged it to go inside and take a shower, as it was now covered in mud and grass. That would have been much easier to do if the water didn't need to be turned off. Afterwards, she told it to simply lock up and go home, indicating that it couldn't be trusted. it had already performed it's other tasks for the weekend, and was not welcome to dinner... again, it understands punishments as training tools, but as it turns out, the alpha had no idea where sprinkler heads were either, nor any idea how to fix the situation. Rather than keeping a cool head, or even trying to calm it down to improve the situation, she jumped straight to insults and anger. it worries when it sees overly intense or inappropriate gestures of domination because of memories like these.

On a day to day basis, it would keep communication with the alpha (as it's trainer), and often provide encouragement for her. Every now and then, there would be more important conversations handled while at work via email (it's work situation at the time allowed for this). And every now and then, there would be a disagreement, etc. On one day, it indicated that it was having some difficulty with things in the relationship, and based on a suggestion from the head of house(her master, her primary), it asked for some time to discuss these things with her face to face after work. She declined this, and insisted that it explain the matters immediately via email. it took painstaking effort to structure it's thoughts in as useful a manner as it could, to make them as helpful and as friendly as it could.

The alpha laid in. Hard. So hard that it made a point then and there to officially step outside of training. it replied and said that it needed some time to process what had been said, and what had happened. That it could not handle the conversation in it's current capacity, and that it was removing itself from the conversation.  The head of house requested a copy of the communications shortly thereafter. He apologized for the incident and her behavior, ad suggested giving her some time. it waited a week, considered things, and not understanding that a D\s relationship should be much healthier and happier than this, it contacted the head of house again. He indicated that she missed it, and that she had cooled down and wanted to apologize for flying off the handle. He indicated that it should call her at a given time, and attempt to resolve things to move them forward. He told it that it was behaving wisely, and showing maturity, and told it that she had come to realize that she really did want to collar it as a personal submissive.

it called her the next day at an arranged time, it shyly began the conversation, being welcoming and giving her the opportunity to say what she needed. She told it that it made too many mistakes. She told it that it wasn't submissive. She told it that the issues it had experienced with her were entirely it's fault. Every one of them. She told it that it should make itself worthwhile before it attempts submission again. She told it that it was of no interest to her, that she was disgusted by it, and then she hung up.

it texted the head of household to inform him of the surprising results. it had barely said a few words the entire conversation with her, and it was in shock. The head of household expressed surprise and shock. He apologized and told it that he had no idea that she felt that way, and that he thought she really wanted it.

As it turns out, the head of household knew exactly what she wanted. They had spoken two days prior, and when she told him that she didn't want a submissive of her own, he came to it and built it up. He deliberately set it up to fail grandly, encouraged it, and got it's hopes up to watch it crash and burn. it learned that he later had a few chuckles about that.

The situation ending was a good thing. The way that things happened was hugely damaging to it's psyche. it left the community almost entirely for a solid year. If these were the sorts of people that the community endorsed, it wanted no part of that. it had surrendered itself for the better part of a year, and after being emotionally beaten and abused, it's limits had been violated, and it was thrown out. The head of household mentioned in these entries goes by the name of Kodiak or 'Kodiak Trainer', and is still an attendee of some events where he knows that one of the community elders(elder not to be confused with leader, this is one of the strongly respected old guard folks) won't see him... He has been told not to show up to community events, under heavy threat by them, but he still shows his face where he feels safe.

There are more incidents and stories it could provide from that time, most of which are unpleasant. it does not choose to dwell on those things, but it tries to dwell on the lessons and what positive memories it can salvage from such a period of it's life. That's just how life goes, and how it survives.