The Morning Ritual (Evolution in M/s)

About three years ago now, I made a post detailing our longtime first thing in the morning ritual. As time went on, I edited it as our ritual evolved and new comments reminded me about the post. About a year ago, we gave our ritual a more major update, and after we settled into it and I remembered the outdated post, I wondered what to do with it. I considered giving it an equally more major edit, but something about this seemed disingenuous. I considered simply writing a new post about the ritual, but that seemed a little redundant; I considered taking the old one down, but this, too, felt inauthentic. This is a conundrum of living a dynamic life while documenting it in a way expected to stay relatively static. Now, I’ve decided to leave the old post be and write this one not as a replacement, but to highlight those changes, how and why our personal ritual has evolved, which might be more important than the details of the ritual at any one point in time. The original post reads:

My alarm goes off. 8:30 as required. I shut it, blink myself awake. I hit the pager transmitter button that will make Mistress’ pager buzz with the message for a leashing related request. My pager—slave bell—unbuzzed by this particular alert, sits nearby.

This has since been shifted back to 8:15 due to timing requirements. We’ve also replaced our pager system with Apple Watches, and since unleashing always happens at the same time anyway, we’ve cut me summoning her, and she simply comes in at 8:17, giving me enough time to come to, shut my alarm, jot in my (newer than the old post) dream journal before I forget, get into position, etc.

I move towards Unleashing Position. Kneeling back on my heels, knees spread, big toes crossed right over left, back straight, with my hair and head out of the way, collar o-ring and thus leash clip in front, leash resting on my upturned palms at the tops of my thighs.

Some mornings, I’m not quite there yet when she comes in, but she’ll unleash me anyway. Other times, she waits. I like it when she waits.

(Un)leashing position remains unchanged. It’s a modification of our usual kneeling position, redesigned for ease of access to the leash. We decided to double down on her waiting/me being properly in position before being unleashed.

As I move, my blanket slips from around me. I sleep leashed on the floor at the foot of the bed; my blanket—slave furs—is warmth, a bit of padding, and my primary bedding, though other things—like an extra blanket, a pillow—phase in and out. It’s pretty comfortable.

Today, air hits my skin as the blanket slips; I’m required to sleep nude and I’m not allowed to touch the thermostat, so I frequently feel a little chilly.

This part is largely unchanged. The only thing I’d add is that I’m now required to sleep with at least one stuffed animal. This came about because after Mistress gifted me one, I slept with it almost every night; eventually, she started to tease me when I didn’t, and, well… a rule was born.

Mistress still gets the house at the temperature she wants and enjoys seeing me undressed on either end of sleep. The leash and the floor are both old components that contribute to our headspace; I love them.

Mistress unleashes me for the day with greetings and asks if I have any questions for her. Since she’s prompted me, I can speak to answer (speak when spoken to). I ask for permission to use the restroom (required if she’s awake and home/with me), in the required format—using may, please, and Mistress. She grants it.

“Thank you, Mistress.” The required response for permission answers, and real gratitude. The same goes for feedback. Unless it would be disruptive to the conversation.

“You’re welcome, slavegirl.” The usual response, and real amusement.

The speech protocol here, long ago tuned to Mistress’ preferences, is unchanged. She modified the bathroom permission slightly so that I can use the bathroom without her permission after our evening inspection (a reflection of our morning one, which I’ll get to), giving her some time to wind down before bed without interruptions from me—but that doesn’t impact our morning ritual, and most of the time, she enjoys me asking as much as I do.

This is where the real update came in, however. Instead of asking me if I have any questions for her, now she just unleashes me and tells me to tidy up my blanket. I fold it up and coil my leash neatly on top of it, moving any other components, so that there’s no more possibility of getting tangled up.

Once that’s done, I retrieve the discipline wand—an implement we chose to reserve for that purpose early on, for clarity, a short, wooden cane/baton/thing—and get into position presenting it.

I also have an old post about our maintenance discipline ritual, with which I faced roughly the same conundrum as I described in the first paragraph here. Our new morning ritual integrates our once weekly maintenance discipline session—a ritual as old as our relationship, dating back to 2017—into every day. Overall, the core of it is still the same, though Mistress decided that for more flexibility on her end, we’d remove the counting part that some may remember.

So, I get into position once again. This one, too, is a variation of our usual kneeling position, so it looks a lot like the unleashing one, except featuring easy access to the wand instead of the leash; my head and eyes are down now.

She takes the wand from me, and beckons me over the bed. Here, she usually inserts a little something like, “Now, I’m gonna beat you, because, well, it’s morningtime.” And then she does.

Maintenance discipline has always been a headspace thing for us. It’s not really about the pain, being hours shorter than at least my idea of a good beating. I also don’t really view it as changing my behavior or being a preventative or keeping me in my place, as there haven’t really been noticeable external changes as the ritual has evolved; punishment has always happened at about a max of three times a year. It’s always been about how we feel, how natural keeping up those external demands feels—and we do both get things out of it.

I try to stay relatively still and quiet, which is both in my nature and made easier by still being pretty sleepy at this point in the morning. Mistress says she usually gives me about fifty strokes, though I definitely had to ask.

When she’s done is now the part where she asks if I have any questions for her, and I ask to go to the bathroom, and the rest of what was detailed above happens.

Previously, she would leave after giving me the permission, freeing me up to just head to the bathroom. Now, though, she stays, invoking the protocols around leaving her presence. Usually, if I want to leave when still in her presence, I have to ask if there’s anything else I can do to be of service—do it—then ask for permission to leave (proper format), and if she says yes, curtsy properly before I leave. But, if she gives me the permission, usually by dismissing me, “You may go,” or such, I can just curtsy and exit. That and the speech restrictions only shut off with rare need in vanilla company. And telling me I may go to the bathroom is permission to do the leaving required to get there, so I just curtsy—a modified version, since I’m still not wearing my uniform yet, that comes later—and slip into the master bathroom. I’m not allowed to lock the door unless there’s company—Mistress likes unfettered access to me—but I don’t mind.

When I’m done with my business, I return to her. I’ve stretched every morning for a long time, of my own volition, to help with my chronic pain and improve my slave positions (all of which are part of our full morning routine, except for some hand signals). Eventually, Mistress started aiming to stretch every morning for her own reasons, and later decided the best way to enforce this for herself was simply to join my preexisting ritual. So, usually in silence, we do some simple stretches on the floor. She’s dressed and often brings in a yoga mat, though.

After the stretching, now, she usually goes off her own. I dress in my exact daily uniform—assigned underclothes, my black shirt and leggings, my purple, pleated, plaid skirt, my Apple Watch. My wedding ring and collar remain from sleep. Then I go about the rest of my morning.

To expand on our first thing in the morning ritual beyond what I outlined in the original post, what I do from here is wash up (after brushing my hair is the part where I put my uniform purple hair bow in), take my morning caffeine supplement, and do some more joyful movement of my own, including a walk around the neighborhood. Normally, I need Mistress’ permission to leave the house, so I don’t just vanish on her, but for my morning walk, I’m allowed to just give her notification that I’m leaving, usually via message. She can track my location via the Apple Watch for safety, and since I’m not gone longer than about twenty minutes, I don’t have to warn her when I’m returning. I’m out the door at about 8:50.

When I get back from my walk, about 9:10, I do morning chores. Make the bed neatly with hospital corners, spritz some linen spray on it. See to the already meowing cats and the plants. Tidy and reset the house for the day. Wake up the house—turn on lights, open windows and blinds. Etc.

About 9:25, I start making breakfast. Currently, Mistress’ standing order is scrambled eggs with wilted spinach, toast, and bacon. I usually end up with something toastlike, some kind of fruit, bacon.

By 9:40, as required, the table is set to Mistress’ preferences, and I use the Walkie Talkie app on my Apple Watch to inform her that breakfast is ready; our pager system was replaced here, too. Then, I get into our waiting position. I stand behind my usual chair, legs together, hands folded behind my back, right over left, right thumb over left thumb, back straight, head and eyes down.

Mistress comes down, checks my position and the table, and then usually gives me permission to sit. I’m not allowed to sit on the furniture in her presence or ask to (except for the bed—to keep things flowing during certain activities—and in vanilla company), but she usually likes me to sit at the table with her, so she can easily see me. Sometimes she lets me eat on the floor, though.

We eat and chat. For a while, we had a mini meeting about our plans for the day, mostly filling in a little whiteboard kept near the dining table, and checking those tasks off at our dinner meeting, but it was a little redundant with our other check ins, so we’re back to chatting.

When we’re done, Mistress goes off to do her own thing, and I clean up the dining room and kitchen. When I’m finished, I head upstairs, bringing my refilled water pitcher and anything else that needs to go up. I use my Apple Watch to inform Mistress I’m ready for morning inspection, another replaced use for the pagers. For a while, we’d tried having morning inspection being at the same set time every morning, but this most often created a weird pocket of wasted time in between me being done with my chores and morning inspection, where there wasn’t really time to start doing anything too productive, so we switched to the notification system.

Mistress checks on the kitchen and a few other things, then comes to the bedroom. By then, I’m in our inspection position for easy access—standing, legs apart, hands clasped behind my head, head and eyes up, back straight. She checks the position, me, my uniform, the job I did on the bedroom suite, the hospital corners on the bed. She blows raspberries into my belly button to make sure it’s working. (I’m still not sure what it does, but she says it’s doing a very good job.) Then, more than ninety-nine percent of the time—there has only been one exception over the years—she sits on the bed, pulls me into her lap, and tells me I did a good job on my tasks. We might talk a little more about our plans for the day, my other homemaking tasks, chat, and then she goes.

From there—usually about 10:30—our day really begins, off to the start we need at that moment in time.