Note: What it says on the tin—fourth in a series, a non-fiction piece about one day in my M/s dynamic, hoping to answer some questions I frequently see about the day-to-day life of a slave.

… 

I wake a few minutes before my alarm, shut it before it goes off and message Mistress for permission to get up, sleepily find my way into my unleashing position.  She comes in and lets me up.

I dress in my uniform, wash up, prepare the coffee machine to make another pot for Mistress when this one is empty, nudge a disgruntled cat off the bed so I can make it.  Mistress comes in and makes conversation with me around the time I’m tucking the folded-over edge of the flat sheet under the folded-over edge of the comforter.  Both cats appear the moment the bed looks made enough for me to let them lie on it in peace.

My walk is shifted today to be practical transportation as per my new idea for this day of the week, but I go through my other light morning exercises; they seem to wake me up enough to shake the soreness I woke with.  The jumping rope on the front porch reveals a nice day for walking later.  I make our smoothies, stick a tri tip in the sous vide for later, and sit with Mistress while we drink the smoothies since I’ve moved fast enough to have extra minutes to just sit like that.

I pack up my bag.  Sometimes I bring snacks for the other volunteers at the library, or bookmarks I crocheted to leave out for people to take.  Sometimes I bring paper towels, since handling older books can get dusty enough to turn your hands black, and the only hand-drying option in the bathroom is one of those awful air-blowing machines that makes your ears ring for ten minutes.  Today I travel light.

Mistress sees me out the door.  I walk the mile I would’ve gone on my walk, but up a different street to the bus stop.  Don’t wait long for the bus, and it’s just the one I need to get to the library, just a few minutes early for my volunteer shift.

We don’t have many customers in the used bookstore today, or a flood of donations coming in, but there are plenty of donations left in the back to scan and sort and shelve.  As I put books out, books also find their way into a pile for me to buy when I leave.  They’re mostly not for me—though there’s two I can’t resist—they’re for a teacher family member’s classroom library.  And a book for her by one of her favorite authors, which she’s read but might not own, and if she does, she’s told me to grab this author’s works anyway because she’ll gift them.  And an issue of a magazine her mom likes.

It’s fun work.  Even just being around all the books is nice.  And when we get a chance, I like talking with the other volunteers.  I’m the youngest one by literally fifty years.  They have great and quirky stories.

At the end of my shift, I buy the books and head out to the bus stop, not far away.  Take the same route but backwards back—the one bus, the mile walk.  I may have overdone it on the books; the reusable grocery bag they’re stored in has a strap break while I’m crossing the street, and I scramble to grab everything and get out of the road, regroup and make it the rest of the way home without further incident.

Mistress has been moving things around in the house, sorting through things in her current office and old office.  The old one is in unrecognizably better shape, if there are still some things to be moved to make the hallway easy to navigate.

I settle in, do a few small things, and then start making dinner for it to be ready at the usual time of six, finishing the tri tip, making a side of corn, setting the table.  We eat, talk.  I refill her drinks.  After, I clean up—take out the trash, do the dishes, whatnot. 

I run through my other evening rituals, like prepping another pot of coffee, this one for the morning.  I get leashed to the bed and write my slave journal entry, tired, but it was a good day.

Note: What it says on the tin—third in a series, a non-fiction piece about one day in my M/s dynamic, hoping to answer some questions I frequently see about the day-to-day life of a slave.

…

I am barely awake, and Mistress’ morning alarm goes off, and I don’t have much time to ponder why she has an alarm set today at all when she gets up, shuts it off, and gets back into bed.  I happily take the opportunity to curl up against her until the snooze alarm goes off and she gets up to shut that, too, but stays up.

“May I get up, too?” I ask.

She tells me to get into my morning unleashing position while she goes off to the bathroom; I remember last night when she told me to get into my nighttime leashing position and wait while she finished getting a snack, and it was over twenty minutes before she came back.  I can’t help but hope it will be a shorter amount of time this round.  Patience, I tell myself, sitting up cross-legged, pulling my hair out of the way, getting the collar o-ring and attached leash clip to the front of my neck, the leash draped across my upturned palms. I try to keep my back straight. 

I’ve been mentally toying with the idea of mantras and “patience” is a keyword. But it’s only a few minutes this time. She lets me up.  I run through my morning routine—put on my uniform, wash up, do my stretching routine, check with Mistress before I go on my walk.  Half a mile into the neighborhood, half a mile back.

When I return, I finish my morning routine.  Make the bed, prep a pot of coffee for Mistress, start making the morning smoothies.  I sip mine while I get some other things done from my list, quick checks on things in the house; I stick a few more glasses in the freezer to chill, tidy up some things in the living room, rotate laundry through the cycle.

I’m collecting the trash from the smaller bins around the house to combine with the big kitchen trash and recycle bin to take out, replacing the bags, when Mistress comes to get me for our weekly maintenance session.  Well, she tells me to strip, get the maintenance wand—an unassuming short, thick, cane-like wooden implement that’s meaner than it looks—and kneel in the living room presenting it.  So, I do.  Like the leash, the maintenance wand lays on my upturned palms, and I’m practically still getting my back straight enough and my knees the right number of inches apart when she returns.

She sits on the ottoman, beckons me over her lap.  Gives me the familiar instructions.  I get ten strokes with the wand.  “One, thank you, Mistress.  Please may I have another?”  The counting gets breathy quickly.  Just the ten, full force, no warm up or cool down strikes with that wand is enough to bruise a little.  When I count the tenth, she answers my question verbally and tells me no.  Stays with me a bit, then places the wand back on the mantel.  Always in sight.  Gives me permission to dress and go back to what I was doing.

So I dress, and finish taking out the trash.  Throughout the day I play catchup after some sickness and travel, doing so many dishes my hands start to wrinkle, and eight loads of laundry.  Some clothes, bed linens, towels, napkins.  No robes, other table linens, or mop pads today.

Otherwise, I wrap holiday gifts—make a note to ask Mistress a question about the gifts that will be given at an event in a few days, and I might still need to make a toy bag packing list for that too…

I’m hungry and have just started the first steps of making dinner when she tells me to push dinner back a bit, and clean up her office since she’s going to get in the shower and won’t be in it anymore, and set up things to give her a pedicure when she gets out.  I have to think my way through some timing issues—tell her that dinner isn’t as much of a “put in the oven and wait” as she apparently thought, so I can’t do it at the same time, and dinner will be pushed back further than she thinks, but she’s fine with that.  She goes.  

I clean up her office.  Set up the pedicure things.  Still have a bit of time, so I preheat the ovens and handle some of that laundry, and finish that up while she starts soaking.

I give her the pedicure while we’re silent, but she’s watching something I can hear, though I have no context for it and don’t pay much attention to it.  After, I clean up those supplies and start dinner again.  Roasted potatoes, lemon pepper chicken.

After dinner, we do Meta Sunday—our weekly meeting where we run through a list of check-in questions and go over the calendar and anything else.  There’s not a ton going on this week—but there are errands, two kink-ish events, my library volunteer shift, a visit with my family.

After Meta Sunday, I go through my evening routines, clean up the kitchen one more time, finish that laundry.  Wind down.  Write this.  Soon I’ll write my journal, too, though this may be basically it. 

Note: What it says on the tin—second in a series, a non-fiction piece about one day in my M/s dynamic, hoping to answer some questions I frequently see about the day-to-day life of a slave.

…

Still becoming awake, I open my computer to message Mistress.  She beat me to it, telling me to add something to the grocery list.

Yes, Mistress, I respond, and add, Good morning.  May I get up and get in the shower, please?

She gives the getting up request her typical response, which is coming into the bedroom from her office and unleashing me from the bed herself, and she gives me permission to get in the shower.

Thank you, Mistress.

There’s a “catch”—a quick bit of watersports before I turn the shower water on.  I smile, get up from my kneeling position and turn the water on as she leaves, feeling cold as I stand out of its way to let it warm up, and glad Mistress didn’t turn the cold water on this time.

I shower.  After, I go to her so she can inspect my work of shaving.  She approves.  I dry off a little more, brush out my hair, dress in my uniform.

We’re having a bit of an odd day schedule-wise; normally I’d be at my library volunteer shift and we’d go out to the grocery store tomorrow, but today, with the library closed and recent travel throwing off which groceries are urgent, we opt to stay home, and I place a grocery order instead, making the meal plan and snack plan, checking that and the master shopping list to make a list for the order I place.

Mistress and I spend some time together; I kneel on the floor next to her and we talk a bit and watch a video.  She goes to take a nap.

While she does that, she’s out of her office, so I take advantage of the good opportunity and clean up that room, file the miscellaneous papers of hers I end up sorting through.  I do some miscellaneous small tasks, a few loads of laundry, prep a coffee pot for when she wakes, bring in the grocery order and get it handled when it arrives.

She doesn’t doze long; when she’s up, I brew the coffee, fetch her some of that and some water.

I tell her I was planning on baking some chocolate chip cookies.  Does she just want to have those, or should I make the break-and-bake white chocolate macadamia nut cookie dough she requested from the store?  Or, does she want the white chocolate macadamia nut cookies to be homemade, too?

She opts for the latter, and I make both kinds of cookies from scratch, save some dough in the fridge, think about my project for National Novel Writing Month while I bake, answer a message from my mom.

I do more cleaning before the cookies cool and we snack on them.  Clean both toilets, do some sweeping, wipe down some counters, take out the trash, tidy up, check on that laundry to find the cloth napkins and placemats I’ll need more urgently; I check the laundry reference sheet I made about sorting as I put in another load.  I even get permission to use the dishwasher and run it.

Mistress is apparently in the mood to play a little today; she spanks me a little with what’s handy and sanitary in the kitchen.

It’s fun.  She acknowledges we’re getting short on time before dinner company though, so she lets me go to set the table.  I set her place setting’s silverware technically backwards, as she likes.

I get on the cooking.  Garlic chicken, corn, a new recipe for roasted potatoes my grandma recommended that I’m excited about.

Our friend who’s coming for dinner arrives.  I serve dinner not long later, get permission to sit at the table, the three of us eat and talk, I refill drinks and serve the cookies for dessert, clean up a bit as I go.  The food comes out well and the conversation is good.

He departs.  I do a few nighttime routine items and find myself leashed to the bed again, tired, but happy.

Note: What it says on the tin—first in a series, a non-fiction piece about one day in my M/s dynamic, hoping to answer some questions I frequently see about the day-to-day life of a slave.

…

It’s Sunday morning.  Mistress stirs a little next to me.  The cats notice I’m now awake and pad along the bed towards my face curiously.  I try to not make the metal bits of my leash setup clink when I stretch.

I check on the status of Mistress’ stirring.  She’s very much asleep, so I’m allowed to let myself up for my needs; I unclip the leash from my collar and slip out of bed to the bathroom, and when I slip back in, she’s a bit more awake, so I hold the leash out to her questioningly.

She blinks at me, her eyes never fully opening, but soon clips the leash back on and dozes again.  I curl up close to her and doze too, but I’m up before her later.

.

After some morning tidying, I make lunch for both of us, and when I don’t have to be standing next to the stove, I make quick trips to other parts of the house, setting up the pedicure supplies for after lunch, cleaning a few things as I notice them, rotating the laundry between the hampers I already sorted, the washer, and the dryer.  Intercepted, one trip becomes getting Mistress coffee.

After lunch, she settles on the couch and watches a TV show, while I do the last-minute pedicure setup steps, mostly getting hot water in the foot bath, and then get to the pedicure itself.

She looks up from her show only once, asking about my odd additions to the water.  I tell her I did some research, and found out they were good for removing dead skin.  She smiles and praises my initiative.

.

After, with permission to roam, I handle more laundry when my timer goes off, do some cleaning, but my main focus is prepping for a routine trip of Mistress’ that I’ll be accompanying her and a friend on.

I plan what we’ll eat while we’re away, and pack for that what I won’t be buying there.  You can make anything in a crock pot, I reason, confirming the pork roast and chicken breast recipes.  I bake batches of various cookies and pancake bites for snacks, figure out what tupperware I can pack the two of them lunch in.

I get the cats set up for our absence.  I clean out the car we’ll be making the drive in.  I pack for her, I pack for myself.  A few days’ worth of uniforms into my bag is easy; choosing what books to bring is harder.  

.

When she calls, I fetch Mistress more coffee, more water; when I notice a low supply, I refill the water dispenser, make another pot of coffee.

It’s nighttime proper; I’m exhausted when I’m by her desk again, kneeling next to her.  My hands are behind my back, but my head is in her lap.  She tells me to go to bed, don’t worry about the few remaining things to do right now, secures the leash to my collar again once I’m under the blankets.

And so, I sleep.