Master/slave Relations: Handbook of Theory and Practice (7 page)

• Will the slave obey?

• Is the kind of service the slave offers the kind of service that I want?

• Will the slave accept a polyamorous/swinging lifestyle
on top of the M/s dynamic?

Once I had my answer, I made my own commitments:

• My slave moved in with me as soon as that was feasible;

• I supported a decision that my slave not work in order
that she spend workdays gaining skills I wanted from
my slave. (If you've read my Protocols book, you realize that my slave's role in my life is that of my Personal
Assistant. Her duties include serving as my Major
Domo, valet, butler, chef, chauffeur, secretary, nurse,
and research assistant, as well as my courtesan.)

So, one of the threshold questions is this: Is your interest in an
M/s structure a permanent lifestyle issue, or are you exploring
M/s structures as a form of scene-specific BDSM play? What's
your level of commitment?

Let me address this topic to two distinct audiences: those readers who are currently in an M/s relationship, and those who are
reading this book and considering whether or not to enter into an
M/s relationship.

If you are currently in an M/s relationship, the investment question probably centers on your mutual growth or on skills that your
slave could attain that would benefit your relationship or please
you as Master. This endless list could include topics such as:

• Learn something about investing. (real estate, stock
market, etc.)

• Run a small business.

• Entertain more formally.

• Play sports of some kind.

• Learn massage therapy.

• Participate in international travel.

• Learn to dance.

• Attend self-improvement courses or focused businessskills courses (speaking, running a meeting, time management, personnel management).

• Improve cooking skills.

• Get certified in advanced first aid and CPR.

• Become a master at giving sexual pleasure - strengthen your pelvic floor muscles (either gender, actually),
fellatio skills, etc.

• Prepare a "slave's Book" that records all Master's particular preferences - create checklists for all repeatable processes (packing before a trip, preparing for a
dinner party, etc.).

Now, let me approach an answer for this section of the book
for those of you who are exploring the idea of starting an M/s
relationship. I'll assume that you've obtained this book because
you think that a structured relationship makes sense for you. If
you're at the front-end of a relationship, you have some time to
consider some big picture issues. My strong recommendation is
to write out - as clearly as possible - what you absolutely must
have in a slave (or a Master). Write out those skills you want
this person to possess - then look for a person with most or all
of those skills already in hand. This is a far more rapid and less
costly process than taking a person and retraining them in your
image. Importantly, because of the authority exchange aspect
of an M/s relationship, the slave is not in a very good position to
retrain Master.

So, let's consider that you are exploring an M/s relationship.
You're toying with the idea. But, you've run into a problem.
You've been looking for a slave (or a Master) for some time
- perhaps years - and for some reason, you've not been able to make it work.

Hmmmmm.

This could be time for a little introspection. Perhaps you need to
consider seriously examining yourself. You need to do this for
yourself and not for some possible future partner. You'll have to
make a list that is personally relevant, but for starters...

• How's your English - both oral and written? Would
you be at home in a graduate-school discussion of
some topic, or would you draw attention to yourself?

• How are your table manners? Know how to pick up a
fork? Know how to pat (not wipe) your mouth with a
napkin? Know not to open that napkin more than half
way? Know where to place the napkin when you arise
from Table?

• When you enter a room, do you take a moment to
check it out? Do you immediately recognize whether
or not the room's owner is highly visual? Are you able
to make distinctions about the owner's social class and
personal tastes from the room decorations? Why do
this? So you can establish rapport during conversations.

• When you speak, is your voice gentle and pleasing?
Do you have a nasal tonality? Have a regional dialect?

• If you hear something spoken, can you identify/isolate
key issues and repeat them with accuracy?

• How's your wardrobe? Can you go shopping at
Neiman Marcus and feel right at home?

• How flexible are you, psychologically - can you adapt
quickly to changing circumstances, or do you freeze
in the headlights? (I don't mean crises, I mean longwave life changes. Job retraining, for example.)

• How are you at conversational magic? Do you know
enough about social intercourse not to speak only
about yourself? Can you enthrall a slave candidate
(or a Master candidate) for hours by asking leading
questions? How broadly can you speak about current
events?

• When you are out in public, how closely do you notice
people? Do you notice their gestures, their expressions, their mannerisms? To monitor the slave, the
Master must be an extremely keen observer.

• How much Leather history do you know? After all, this
is a Leather lifestyle.

• How good are you at problem solving? Ever read any
books about it? Same for branch thinking vs. linear
thinking. Can you "think outside of the box" when solving problems?

• Do you watch TV? Consider limiting your viewing
time and reading more books. Read widely and learn
to discuss what you read. Consider joining a book
club. Learn to prepare two and three course meals
for yourself. It's a skill you may need later. Never
dine informally when alone. Bad habit. No, I have not
changed viewpoints; I'm still addressing Masters. This
is all about building up the little personal habits - the
"muscle memory" - to Master someone else.

• Are you an expert in some form of BDSM play? Okay,
so master another form of BDSM play. And who, if
I may be so bold, agrees with you that you ARE a
Master at some form of BDSM? Does your local kink
group ask you to do presentations?

• Do you have a spiritual core? How does your spirituality influence/affect/alter your life?

• Do you have good anger management? Are you carrying difficult baggage from your childhood or prior marriage? Have you considered seeing a therapist?
Too expensive? Just how costly is it for you NOT to
deal with your baggage?

• Learn to interrupt what you are doing, start something
else, then come back to what you were doing. When
you own a slave, you will need to be sensitive to managing that person's time. You should learn how it feels
to be interrupted in the middle of a task that you are
completing from a list of perhaps a dozen other tasks
that all must be completed.

• Learn to do things completely and perfectly. After all,
you are likely to demand that level of activity from your
slave - so, be able to lead by example. If you are doing
dinner dishes, end by scouring the counters and sinks.
If you are making notes on how to do something, make
the notes neat and put them in your protocol book. In
this way, when you find your slave candidate, you can
show this person your protocol book, based upon your
own mastery of a skill set.

The greatest incentive for a Master to expand skills and experiences is that the new you will likely attract a more versatile slave.

Bob Rubel

I'll stop. I could go on, and so could you. This is really a small
part of what you are going to have to put yourself through to
reinvent yourself in the image you think your partner-to-be would
be seeking.

What if it Doesn't Work?

I've put this section in this part of the book because it's part of
knowing one's self.

You have to know when to hold `em, know when to fold `em,
know when to walk away, know when to run...

Kenny Rogers, The Gambler

To quote Master Skip Chasey: "A Master is willing to bear,
without complaint or self-pity, the awareness that doing his best
may at times not be good enough." (Master Skip Chasey: The
Qualities of a Master)

And, let me hasten to add: when a relationship doesn't work out
in an M/s structure, one option is to change the structure! After
all, you must have felt something substantial to have offered (or
accepted) the training contract in the first place. Build on the
common elements, rather than dismiss the entire relationship.
Don't throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Personally, I have had the experience of extending a three-month
training contract to a potential slave, only to discover, at about
the 60-day point, that the person did not have a slave heart. She
wanted the relationship to work so badly that she worked very
hard to conform to my version of an M/s relationship; we realized we were on the wrong path. However, rather than end our
relationship, we restructured it as a form of Daddy/girl relationship (ours was an Uncle/niece structure). This worked just fine
and lasted another nine months. This structure had the added
advantage of being much less threatening to my Alpha slave.

But, if the relationship does have to end, if you can't agree on a
different structure, all your friends need to know is that the contract ended. Nothing else. "Didn't you want to renew it?", asked
a well-meaning friend. "No, we were complete with our relationship, and the contract period ended." End of story.

Chapter Summary

In Part I, we started out by defining the common terms for players in this M/s sphere - Master, Dom, submissive and slave, to
name a few. Then we rolled through some common relationship
structures - Top/bottom, Dom/submissive, Master/slave, and
Owner/slave. In Part II, we proposed some self-examination
questions. We asked you to consider who YOU are and what
you SEEK. We asked how much you would PAY - in time and
money - to transform yourself and/or your slave to be your ideal
person, and ended that part of the book by suggesting ways of
changing a relationship that didn't quite work out.

"Master/slave relationships are about understanding who we
are on earth and what we are here to do."

Master Jim Glass,
Northeast Master/slave Conference, 2006

Okay, you've decided to prepare for an M/s relationship. Before
we get into selecting a partner, there are a few preparatory
thoughts.

Why Does This Person Want to be a slave?

You might want to explore a threshold question: does your slave
candidate want to be a 24/7 slave or something else? For the
sake of this section, I'll assume you want what is increasingly
called, Total Power Exchange - a 24/7 relationship that involves
power exchange, as opposed to scene-specific role-play. From
this point, the greatest hurdle is the candidate's personal honesty. You are going to have to discern what sings to this person
- what he/she really wants out of this relationship with you. Is
this slave really prepared for an authority exchange in which you,
as Master, now have nearly absolute control? You may want your
slave candidate to think this through for a minute. The slave may
love jazz, and Master only listens to rap. How will that work? In
fact, how will your candidate react when you elect not to allow
your slave to listen to the radio or to CDs at all? Be assured, I
decide on my slave's wardrobe, hair color and style, nail color,
car choice, and use of time.

And, this is NOT micromanagement. It's a case of the Master
wishing his/her life to be a certain way and using the slave to
support those intentions. Is your candidate clear that once
he/she enters into a Master/slave relationship 24/7, all rights to
make personal choices are forfeit? For example, if your slave
tells you that he/she is going out on errands to point A, B and C,
I expect that YOU expect that the slave will only to go to points
A, B and C. How are you going to react if your slave decides to
stop in at point D? Do you take that as a good sign of initiative,
or do you take it as an incredible exercise of free will? Do you
expect a phone call from the slave asking whether or not you will
allow him/her to add in the extra stop, or are you satisfied so long
as the slave explains why the extra stop was necessary? (My
answer, by the way, was that the extra stop was an incredible and
inexcusable exercise in the very kind of free will that the slave
no longer possesses. The slave made that stop by taking time
away from me.)

The slave's role is to be of service to Master.

That's it.

That's the slave's reason for being.

The trick, then, is to be a Master worthy of such service.

The trick is to be a Master who offers so much - in terms of
life experiences and personal support - that the slave's service is more than justified.