On 24/7

24/7. It means the power dynamic never turns off. Even if we wanted it to, I don’t think it possibly could, for us.

So if she’s the Mistress and I’m the slave, 24/7, what is it that I do in that time?

No, I don’t actively do “slave-y things” all the time. I have to sleep, after all, and even if I’m leashed to the bondage bed—I’m still asleep and not actively doing a whole lot.

So what does 24/7 mean then, as far as external factors, and not just how we process our relationship internally?

Well, a big part of it is availability. If I’m sleeping, she’s still able to wake me up and tell me to do something. Frequently she chooses to not do that. But that’s her choice, not mine. There are other situations where I might seem unavailable where she more frequently chooses to interrupt. It’s like an on-call situation. It means when she yells, “Slave!” I answer instantly, not at my convenience.

It means our rules are in effect 24/7, as are some of our protocols (the rest are in effect whenever we’re not in vanilla company, which is most of the time). If vanillas aren’t around, I need her permission to use the furniture or be in a not-kneeling position on the floor just the same at 3AM as at 3PM. It means that her will affects what I do during any hour of the day.

It means other guidelines are in effect 24/7. Uniform code is uniform code no matter the time, and it was laid out with that in mind.

It means that in some ways, there aren’t really days off. She often allows things to lighten my workload when I don’t feel well, but that is at her discretion. Tired, sick, moody, chronic issue flare-up—doesn’t turn off the dynamic, doesn’t turn off rules or protocols or guidelines. And if she still wants a chore done or sex had, I still have to do as she says.

I do spend a lot of time actively providing service. Cooking. Cleaning. Organizing. Hosting. Cats to care for, coffee to make. Then there are tasks she expects that might not fall under service, but still take time. Daily slave journal entries, weekly events, and more. That active time probably adds up to about a forty hour a week job in itself. Keeping track of it all is a task unto itself.

While a lot of expectations are laid out in our contract, there are also things that happen too incidentally to put in there, and there’s keeping track of things in the moment, the schedule things repeat on, the times and dates.

So basically I view 24/7 (as opposed to a part-time dynamic) as partially about availability and the time range on rules, protocols, and guidelines, and I view it as a likely bigger time investment in general.