Edited by Rosmarina (whose advice and assistance are much appreciated)
Please do not reproduce this story without permission.
== Chapter 12 ==
When I woke in the morning Chloe still had her arms around me. It seemed that we were both so emotionally and physically drained that we had slept the whole night through without moving around at all and we were still in the same position in which we went to sleep. I didn't want to disturb my friend, so I lay still, enjoying the softness and warmth of her naked body against mine. I tried to remember all the things we had talked about last night. As I thought it over I had more and more confidence that my friend was willing to seriously consider joining me in slavery under my Master's control.
I felt so much love for her.
While I lay there my mind was just drifting and after some time I recalled how it had been for me after I first met Master in person. That first meeting had been a wonderful experience, and by the end of that first few days we'd spent together I knew that I wanted to be with him permanently as soon as that could be arranged.
At subsequent meetings, and in our ongoing correspondence and phone conversations, we discussed every aspect of what we both needed and expected. For example, I've used the word *slave* here but of course I don't mean slave in the sense of someone who is forced to be in a situation where they are brutally exploited against their will. Nothing was done to me against my will. Sir knew very well what I wanted and also what still scared me. He knew all about my desires, fears, fantasies, experiences, disappointments, dreams, fetishes, phobias, and all the rest. It's absolutely essential that a dominant know his submissive deeply and intimately if he's going to make all decisions for her.
I knew Master would only make decisions that were in my own best interests, even if I did not agree. The reason I use the term *slave* is that I had voluntarily given Master the authority to do whatever he wanted to me or with me. We discussed at length if there should be any limits on his authority but I insisted that I wanted there to be none. I had no fear he would misuse his power to hurt me or injure me or otherwise do me any real harm. I was prepared to accept some pain, suffering and discomfort if he wished, but Master knew I was not really a pain slut and that my desires were much more in the direction of servitude, degradation and humiliation. In other words it's very much the psychological stuff that gets me hot, not being beaten or tortured.
In order to submit completely to my Master, as I agreed to do, I had to have total and absolute confidence in him and I do and always will have that. He has earned it, and has never done anything to make me doubt his total commitment to looking after me and training me to be exactly as both he and I desired. I could not accept a life of slavery unless I had a very deep trust in my Owner that was absolutely unshakable. I knew that this was one important issue over which Chloe still struggled.
The many discussions I had with Master concluded with the decision that I would accept a place in his life as defined by our mutual agreement. On that basis my place would be as his slave. And that meant I would belong to him literally, I would accept whatever decisions he made for me regardless, and I would obey him absolutely. I could discuss anything with Master (with his agreement) and I retained my own life to the extent that I was (initially) still able to work, still meet my friends for coffee, still read what I wished, and in many other ways my life was not that different to anyone else. The main difference was that I always considered myself to be under my Master's control. I could do things I knew he was happy for me to do without prior arrangement, but at any time and for any reason he could instruct me to do otherwise and I would accept that he had the right to do so.
The things I was allowed to do without discussion were mostly very mundane things like going to work, having some time to myself to read, access the internet or telephone, and so on. But all of these activities were conducted within a set routine. For example, in the early days, when I was still working, Master knew when I had to leave for work and he knew when I was expected home. When I walked in the door after work each day at the same time I knew I was to strip naked immediately and to crawl to his feet and report to him. I was not allowed to vary this routine without permission.
If I wanted to do anything out of my usual routine I had to ask him in advance. Also no matter what I was doing I would always put Master's needs and desires first. If I was reading or spending time on anything else for my own pleasure and Master wanted my attention I would immediately drop what I was doing and attend to him. If I wanted to meet a friend for coffee after work I had to arrange that before hand with Master, and if he told me that he wanted me to come straight home instead my plans just had to be changed. I enjoyed having a routine and I never felt that what he asked of me was unreasonable, so if my plans had to be changed to accommodate him I knew where my priorities lay. I was owned and I did as I was told.
I could talk to Master about my feelings and desires at the appropriate time as we had a routine time each day when I could do so, but if after I'd talked to him and he did not agree I would obey him regardless. Ultimately he had the final say regardless of whether I was happy with his decision or not. I was to act according to his instructions without question once he had made a final decision.
I trusted that his decision was best even if I could not understand why at the time. At first I did sometimes wonder why Master would not agree to some request or other and occasionally I felt it was unfair of him not to do so, but I always came to see that he had a reason for his decision and usually it was for the best. So after awhile I learned to accept that Master's decisions were as good as and often better than my own, and I was happy and secure in my servitude. This was exactly the kind of life I had always wanted as long as I could remember. I had not forgotten how hard a struggle I'd had to find someone with the integrity, intelligence and determination to take control of me. I never ever took Master's presence in my life for granted as so often happens in *normal* relationships.
When I say that I had always dreamed of a life of slavery that might sound strange to you, but for as long as I can remember I had always yearned to be under the control of a strong but safe pair of hands even as a little girl. I did not know the term slavery when I was too young to understand such things, but I know had fantasies about being restrained, dominated and controlled by someone who had absolute power over me. I think that the word slavery captures the essence of what was in my dreams once the element of forced exploitation is removed. It also had nothing to do with sex as when I first began to have these thoughts I didn't really understand what sex was at all.
My dreams of being controlled and having to serve some powerful figure have always seemed to be an integral part of my personality, but I can't really say where such ideas came from. I was certainly too young when I first had such thoughts to have been influenced by books or movies or any other outside source. At that age my only reading was picture books and I don't think I'd ever seen a movie where the heroine was tied up or anything like that. I really doubt that I would have understood such images or concepts even if I had. My dreams of submission (as I much later found out it was called) were something that has always been within me.
It took me many years before I could begin to really come to terms with my desires or even partly understood how they might become a reality. I think it's just an innate part of who I am.
My friend Chloe told me that she too had always had such desires. Like most teenage girls we used to spend hours talking about our dreams and fantasies. The big difference for us was that unlike most girls our age who dreamed of meeting a handsome doctor who would sweep them off their feet, Chloe and I always wanted to be under the control of a powerful man who would treat us in just the way we needed. The harsher and more extreme the control that was imposed on us the more exciting we found the idea to be, so it was not something that was done to us entirely against our will. We actually yearned to find ourselves in such a situation and would get aroused at the very idea.
We were acutely aware that our dreams were not conventional ones like those other girls we knew had in their heads, and this was a major factor in us becoming best friends and why we were so close. No one else we knew would have understood the desires we already realised were generally regarded as bizarre at the very least and as depraved at worst. So I had long known that my friend and I shared dreams and desires that we could only fully discuss with each other.
Once I'd found that person I had always dreamed of in the form of my Master, it was not the way these things are presented in BDSM novels (like "Story of O" and such) where my life was one long period of sexual abuse. I was not put in a dungeon and made to serve an unending succession of men I did not even know. It was nothing like that. Well, maybe there were occasional times which were a little like that! But Master didn't have a dungeon or a remote and forbidding chateau. My dreams were never full of such romantic nonsense anyway. I was quite realistic in how I thought I wanted to live even if some of the details were rather unconventional to say the least.