I’m still so bruised. I keep going to the bathroom and seeing my thighs and come out with my pants down to show him. Eep! He says it makes his dick twitch. Bastard.

It’s supposed to rain overnight and all morning. I wish. We’ve been busting our tails all week. All work and no play makes me cranky, I admit. It also makes me skinny, which I keep reminding myself. Shut up and work.

I can’t believe July is almost over. I have all these folders full of images on my computer, by month. I AM NOT READY FOR MONTH 8. SORRY. We have to start panicking over fucking winter any moment now, and I’m barely dealing with all the harvest from the damn garden. Farming is fucking hard work, in case anyone wondered.

But still. Please let it rain? I need a morning off.

When he tells me he’s going to do something, I almost always object.

Ack! No. Eep. Please.

I don’t want to do it.

Really, who would?!

But when he asks me why, the answer always surprises me.

I can tell him three thousand ways about why it won’t work, why it is wrong, and a better way to do it.

I argue about the method, but never about the fact.

The fact is that he is going to accomplish what he sets out to do.

That he lets me discuss the method? Whatever.

I screech when he’s going to write something on me. He asks why? Oh. Blue ink doesn’t go well with red rope. Okay. So he writes whatever he set out to write in a color that doesn’t squick me.

Huh.

I hear those three words a lot. A LOT.

They sound so simple, don’t they?

What they mean is that I have about 2.2 seconds to be naked, on my back, legs up in the air and ready to be fucked.

He actually doesn’t care if I’m wet or not.

If I am, he likes it.

If I’m not, he likes that, too.

Ever since Master Magnum asked me about the Nuts and Bolts, I keep wondering what ones we have. None! I don’t know what he’s talking about. I have so few rules and rituals.

But then I noticed that when M. was playing with me yesterday, he makes sure my hands are open. No clinched fists allowed, ever, no matter what he’s doing. I kept noticing them, and what a mind fuck. Sometimes it’s really, really, really hard to open my hands, but when I do, it’s visible to us both how accepting I am of whatever he does.

He doesn’t have to remind me to open them very often because I just do it, but I notice them a lot.

It’s raining, it’s pouring. No one in this house is snoring.

We’ve been all productive all day. Catholic guilt satisfied.

It’s pouring rain outside. Even if we have a thousand things that must be done out there, we can’t do them when it’s raining. Dang.

It’s Friday. Isn’t it practically the law to have fun on Friday?

It’s a warm rain, even.

My hair was down, but it’s up again. I wonder if he’ll have me take it down?

He had me make a pitcher of Blue Hawaiis. Mmm.

He bought me a chocolate bar last night that is really, really good. But it’s so rich that it’s going to last a really long time. Yay.

I was pretty sure this week that we’d never find the right balance again. I get that way when I’m broken, I know. The end of the world! Nothing will ever be better!

I think he fucked me for all of last Sunday. I mean all. day. long. with the fucking and the fucking and the fucking. No coming for me. Boo.

Then we spent the week working hard. I didn’t have a drop of libido.

Wednesday night, he thought we’d play in the evening, but I know that never happens. He’s tired, I’m tired, we open some wine, we go to sleep, which is exactly what happened.

Today, though, he just totally flipped the switch. Where I thought I was broken, I wasn’t. He had me outside, in the hood, on the balcony and did a million things this morning. There are lots of smutty smut photos on the camera.

Then he stuck me in the tub, told me to make myself all clean and pretty, and took me out this evening. We went to a farmery sort of thing — how to grow grapes. But since he’d told me to wear my hair down and wear a dress, he took me out to dinner at a really cute and yummy place near there. It’s been a long time since we’ve dressed up and gone out to eat. It was lovely.

I felt cute in the dress. Still do, actually. I may wear it forever! It used to be skin tight on me. I don’t remember where we bought it, but I remember feeling skinny when I could wear this size (a 6) and it’s loose on me today. I hope the pictures look as skinny as I feel. (Eh. Not sure. Boo.) He says I’m losing weight on my face, too, which I’m very psyched for.

(I saw muscle definition in my arms the other day!)

(I hope he lets me come soon. Jesus.)

He tells me I’m doing really well.

That I’m being what he wants.

I’m finding it really hard.

I’m struggling, a lot.

I want the attention, but then it’s all too much.

He says we’ll get there.

I was sitting on the couch waiting for M. to assemble whatever the hell he was going to beat me with yesterday, and looked over to my crazy corner. I love it. It’s so me. I’m happy happy sitting in my chair, I’m happy when I see it.

Calling it the crazy corner makes me laugh. I often feel pretty crazy. Sitting quietly, watching him collect things to beat me with, and looking forward to it? Yeah, crazy. Also, hot.

I’m covered in bruises, front and back, but he decided my tits were pretty okay so tied me to the post and beat them for a while. I did fine until the clover clamps came out, and then I lost it.

He let me down and then fucked me for a solid hour, I swear, until the heat and humidity got unbearable.

He said he’d finish last night, but of course a million things happened instead, like his mother being re-admitted to the hospital from the nursing home, this time with pneumonia, so off to town we went.

Today is miserably hot and sticky too, but he says we are working outside anyway. No fucking around today. (maybe I can talk him into retreating to the bedroom for an afternoon siesta?)

I am asking, with respect, for you input. The simple would be some protocols you have that enforce your feelings, enrich your experience, and for these alone I’ll be grateful. Anything more would be a blessing, and I would count it as such.

From Master Magnum, who certainly gave me a lot to think about.

First off, I think we work at this point just because we’ve been progressively learning to live with each other for 20 years. He’s certainly been heading in a particular direction, but getting there has been a pretty long and twisty road. But that would be my first piece of advice: know where you want to go, and keep that destination in mind while you make decisions. It’s really easy to get off course. One of the things M.’s done as well is to keep my hands off of the steering wheel. It makes for a much smoother ride when I’m not trying to jerk it away. It’s not that I’m incapable of driving when he needs or wants me to for specific things, but the direction is his.

I wouldn’t think you need to be different than who you are to make it work. M. lets all of his personality show. He’s not some stainless steel caricature of a “Master”. He sings on his tractor. He reads trashy SF. He obsesses about peak oil and really shouldn’t talk about politics after he’s had a couple of drinks. He’s shy around strangers, sometimes socially awkward. You know, he’s human. I always said that belonging to a mere human (and a male one at that!) was the ultimate in submission. He’s bumped us into some walls, made plenty of mistakes, as have I, of course. Mere humans — I like that, though.

I think some of the structure and framework around my submission helps keep it grounded for me. I don’t have many rules, but I follow the ones I have, like writing in this blasted journal three times a week.

I’m not sure what else, but I’ll think about it. I think M. will as well. I’m sort of intrigued to watch what you do! It sounds like you two could really make something awesome happen, and how cool that she found you again. When I first moved in here and M. went to work and I was home all alone, I used to go through old porn magazines he had in boxes in his closet from the 60s and 70s. I could always spot his personal ads, every single time.

I walked around naked with just Crocs and a hat doing chores in the rain this morning. It was absolutely lovely, and it’s supposed to go on all day today.

We have lovely left-overs to eat today, so not a lot of cooking needs to go on.

M.’s mother has been moved to a rehab facility and is basically a vegetable, we realized yesterday. We won’t need daily hospital visits anymore, and are talking about what to do about long-term places and her house. Dementia is such an awful thing. Jesus I don’t want to live out the last of my life that way.

Rain, rain, rain. It’s just lovely, cooling off. We still have the air running in the bedroom, too, with nice crisp clean sheets. I love that.

I have about a million pictures on both cameras, but our internet connect is so damn sucky that the thought of processing them makes me want to run and hide.

I haven’t a clue what’s on the agenda today, but I bet it’s going to be fun and interesting. Yay.