The Dictionary, Page Fourteen

Claiming, for the fourteenth word in my dictionary of submission, is one of those words that necessarily involves two people.  Words like "discipline" or "chastity" or "service" do not necessarily require someone other than me to be in the room.  I may perform these words in solitude as part of my lifestyle.  But, the act of claiming -- this is an act that requires two people:  the one who declares and the one who is now possessed.

To celebrate, I sport Lola's Tangos in their two-fold enormity, nearly breaking my back from how pendulous and full they feel.  (They are as large as my head, and they could be larger still if I choose!  Unreal.)  The large-breasted phenomenon that sweeps through Second Life right now is hilarious to me.  But I digress.

I remember the anticlimactic declaration of an RP official who said that, after long and arduous negotiation so many years ago, Tasdron could indeed claim me and I could now officially consider myself his.  I remember the ceremony of the brand that almost could not be, all because of more RP shenanigans.  I remember the "going home" with him and the special rituals, the idea of ritual that would come to characterize the flavour of our interaction henceforth.  I remember, outside of RP, a companionship ceremony that we conducted for ourselves in the privacy of his own land, under a flowering tree at the mouth of a cave.  And another, in the dark, as we stood upon stones in a sparring arena, equals in each other's gaze.   I remember a long, long absence ended by a sudden return, and Tasdron reclaimed me in a house I kept just in case of such an incident.  And then a long, long absence after which the bell tower came into sight.

Once, I wrote that it mattered not whether "he knew" I submitted to him.  The very fact of my submission was in my mind, after all, and even if he had no idea, I could submit to my own heart's content and behave in such a way that demonstrated my submission -- whether or not he accepted it.  In this way, it is similar to O in the Chateau:  the men try and try to enslave her, but she repeatedly declares her submission to their will.  It doesn't matter what others think, in other words: my own demonstration and my own behaviour define me.  Just as O is submissive and not a slave by her very declaration of submission, so am I, even in my own mind, even during the vast emptiness between "claimings."

But, when the time comes for him to make his claim, then something even more meaningful happens.  I am not just me alone in my own imagination: I am now me, alive and real, in his also.  And his mastery is not my imagination: it becomes more and more real just as my submission becomes more and more dynamic.  That declaration -- like a wedding vow or a sworn vendetta -- is one of the few remaining utterances with the power to change a person's state.  So few words remain in language that will physically and permanently alter a person's state:  "I submit," and conversely, "I claim you" are words that hold such power -- almost as magic transformation.

I now return to my svelte and lean silhouette, putting the tangos away.  (The sexually-charged world astonishes me, honestly.  Sex sex sex.  Tango tango tango.)