La Kajira

No, it was going really rather wonderfully. Our Master and slave dynamic was settled into a delightful rhythm and seeing Missy come alive with the approval of her loved ones and with those tattoos was something that made me feel a contentment and peace. Eventually, her mother had to go play hostess and Missy took her place at my side instead. Well, loosely by my side. She played the perfect little kajira yet again, keeping people company when I couldn't give it, in a kind of social dance that, well... If you know those stressful social situations where appearance is everything and keeping people happy is a need, then you know how much of a blessing it is to have a second party to help. And she did.

It was when we finally got a free moment that it happened. Missy and I found our way to her family's study, so she could show me the books there and one of her distant cousins followed us. "I know that symbol," she said suddenly, when we were alone.

Missy turned to her, smiling sheepishly, and what made it all the worse was the look of excitement in her eyes, that someone might get a reference she had taken to heart. "Oh, yeah?"

"Yeah, I couldn't remember what from, but then I did and didn't want to say anything with everyone else around. But remember that idiot college boyfriend that was super weird? He used to play this stupid thing called Second Life or something and isn't that a misogyny thing?"

The words were the judgment of someone who was hurt by that mentioned boyfriend, the kind of thing that you know is associated with some bleak memory and pain. It wasn't the type of thing that was meant in a directly cruel way towards Missy at all, but it still made me feel anger.

Because the look on Missy's face was something heartbreaking in how crestfallen it was. "No," was all she said, quietly.

And then she walked out. It was one thing, over in an instant, but it was a family member who said it and it was said in disdain instead of anger, which is all the worse. As if that wasn't enough, I had trained my little slave to give over to her emotions and her fire, to let them happen and it made me furious that a moment like that one would happen when she was mine to protect. "You'll have to excuse me," I said when I managed to recover from the sudden surge of anger that was understandable, but undeserved.

Her cousin's eyes were wide. "I'm sorry," she whispered behind me when I left, with whatever my face must have looked like. I didn't answer.

----

Missy was quiet on the way home and it had been something painful after that had happened, to see a little kajira trying so hard to keep up, when she was missing her spirit. I wanted to be angry that it had only taken that one incident to shake her so hard, that she would let something so small shatter what she had so beautifully loved and adored. But I couldn't. I didn't have a right to.

As if she could hear these thoughts, she looked at me in the darkness, "Master, may I ask why you took Christopher's collar?"

I smiled, wondering what logic had taken her to the thoughts, thinking that maybe my kajira had learned as much about her Master as I had learned about her during our sessions together. "I finished renovating my house," I answered honestly. "And I had been seeing a submissive around Sulfur's for a little while. We didn't play or anything. Christopher didn't know her well, but we talked about things around us and she was nice enough. Right after the renovations and decorating to what you know, I was showing Christopher the pictures while she was around and-" I cut off, then grinned shyly. "To summarize it, I think she thought I was crazy for how serious I was being. She lost interest pretty fast, at any rate." I shrugged. "It made me wonder if I wasn't crazy, when I felt this strange kind of pride wound because I thought the bath house and Tarn's room were the most beautiful things I'd ever seen and had dreamed of them for so long. Weirdly, the dungeon seemed to be acceptable."

She gained a little bit of life back, her smile warm. "The two dozen whips hanging on the wall are obviously okay, Master, but you go the path of insanity with the comfy furs being on the bedroom floor. Didn't you know?"

I laughed a little, reaching over to touch her arm when she smiled to comfort me. "Apparently so, dear heart. Arguably, a dungeon is probably more common than the decorations I had set up."

"What would I find if I searched for it online?"

I laughed harder at that. "Actually, mostly nothing. If you were just searching on something like google, not a whole lot. I don't even think there's a clear synopsis for the individual books or there wasn't last I checked. There were quotes and things, but it felt more like people had searched for keywords on an e-reader and found those at times. It's really when you go to kink websites and, like, erotica pages that I found it irritating."

"How so?"

Her eyes still had this clear innocence to them, something I found amazing. She looked downright gorgeous sitting in my passenger seat, having taken her jacket off. Her hands were folded in her lap and she looked the image of a soft little slave girl. "Same reason any social media gets irritating. People being morons and all that."

"That makes sense."

She was silent for a moment while I let her have that, even if it was upsetting to see her so sad at the end of a night that had started so happy and with such a proud moment for her. The idea of a kajira not being permitted a bad day and always being a ray of sunshine was wonderful... in theory. The reality was that no one, not even Masters or slaves, was immune from emotion. She leaned closer when I stroked her hair, in an unconscious effort to please me with something she knew I enjoyed. "Master," she finally whispered again. "Will you stop by my parents' summer house?"

"Of course, dear heart." It was a rare date night where I allowed her to spend the night with me, although with her current mood, I would have asked her to do so anyway, until I could lick her wounds and turn her into my sweet kajira again. It did make me curious for a moment, when she went inside, as it was an odd request from her. The yellow lily barrette shone in her hair and she was shivering when she got back in the car, having dispensed with her jacket to go inside. I turned all the more curious when she came back with her violin.

"I'd like to show you something when we get back," she said quietly.

I couldn't keep from a smile. "I'd love for you to." I didn't think I could ever discourage something like music in life, when there so often seemed too little of it, even while there was far too much noise in its stead.

"Okay. You might think I'm silly."

"I doubt that very much, dear heart."

She smiled and her eyes still had that sense of subdued sadness after the run in. It was something I knew all too well, that disheartened shock in the eyes, when I had thought my own renovations were, well, kind of cool and downright joyful. It was only when faced with someone else's reaction that I had wondered if I was taking my fantasy world too far, if I wasn't being obsessive or crazy. Sure, it was a book series, but that's not what it meant to me anymore, not after I had found the subcultures that had stemmed from it. Even so, it was hard to face it in someone else and wonder, seriously...

What the hell was wrong with me? Why did I want a slave and not a girlfriend? Why would my life not feel fulfilled without that? I couldn't have said, but I was coming more and more to realize that it was true, especially after dating her.

Missy undressed when we got home, sitting her violin's case to the side first, and she hung her dress up - as opposed to folding that - along with her jacket before she came back to where I watched and waited in the entryway, kneeling at my knees. "Good evening, Master."

I smiled and stroked her hair, thinking that her saying those words felt a lot like having a favorite song and hearing a favorite line from it, just a small part that was enough to make you feel soothed and to make you want more. "Good evening, sweetheart. You wanted to show something to Master."

She looked up and smiled shyly, some of the life coming back to her eyes. "Yes, Master. May we go to the bedroom with the furs for me to show you, please?"

"Of course we can." I tugged her to her feet and led her to the room, smiling again when I turned around.

"Er." She hesitated, casting me a flirty, furtive glance. "Master, a few more requests for... atmosphere." I laughed at that when I was all about atmosphere. "Will you chain one ankle to one of the slave rings, please?"

"Demanding little slave girl. Alright." I winked and she giggled, watching while I fit an iron cuff to her ankle and chained it.

"Thank you, Master." She hesitated one more time and asked. "Would you like to sit down for this?" To which I couldn't help but feel curious and I did sit down on the chaise couch, thinking that I would do anything at all to cheer my little kajira back to how she was, to the magical place she was in where she was brave and bold and radiated efficiency and joy. "Thank you. Okay. Okay, I have to explain something first. Do you know the part in the book where Tarl feels broken and hates himself because he feels as if he acted like a coward after he broke and begged to live? And he has that slave that he's picked up and spared and she adores him even if he hates himself, remember, and he ends up in Port Kar and he drinks himself into oblivion in self loathing and treats her as horribly as he can because she loves him and he thinks he doesn't deserve it?" I tilted my head, then nodded with a smile because I'd had to comfort her through some of those parts, like when Tarl had a run-in with a slave named Vella and... wasn't overly merciful. "Well, it made me think of how Gor is on the whole, when he drinks all the time like that. Because Gor is pretty self indulgent and it likes all those indulgences, like slaves and alcohol and pretty things. It dresses slaves in silk and earrings and jewelry and those indulgences can be overly taken, just like they can be overly taken here as well, right? But there was something about Gor that made it seem like overindulgence was a weakness, like it was something tied to self loathing, even while taking joy in pretty things was something delightful, when those pretty things make life better. And there's something almost innocent in that, even if the books are definitely flawed and I can get why people maybe don't like them and, of course, there's always someone who is going to give it a bad name because that's life.

"But, well, I'm rambling and, anyway, maybe this is silly, but this is what Gor made me think of. Besides Nietzsche, of course."

She took a breath and, for just a moment, I saw the old Missy, the one who was afraid, when she lifted her violin and placed the bow, as if suddenly aware of an audience of her Master, but then it passed and she just played instead.

I couldn't help but inhale, sitting forward while she watched her fingers as if it helped her and she didn't want to mess up her song. It was immediately clear as to why, as well, when the song was so very gorgeous. It was that pace called Allegro, that was bright and energetic. Missy had used her violin for years to calm herself from a world of fear and the efforts were obvious. What flowed from her bow was less music and more magic, the kind of music that brings images to your mind. The song of hers had a tribal rhythm to parts of it, something with the spirit of shamanism, maybe, but certainly something ritualistic, which made me smile with all the stories from Christopher. It was upbeat and lively, almost something that would make you think of a tribe in, I don't know, Lord of the Rings or something else fantastical. Except it was less the magic and more the human aspect in some ways as well. The chain rattled in a counterpoint at times, when she couldn't keep from a dancing motion, fueled with all the grace I had been training her to. With the nature of her training, there was something inherently sexual in every part of her as well and her song choice displayed that too. In parts of it, there was something fierce, something primal in nature.

I stared at her when she finally ended it, when the last parts still lingered in my mind and I was remembering those moments of choosing music to teach her to dance to and wishing I could choose something more fitting, but never finding that perfect song.

She had found it and she had mastered it. She was quiet for a moment, biting her lip, and she looked up at the ceiling, where the moons of Gor were painted, surrounded by starlights that suddenly didn't feel like too much at all. Her eyes went to the electrical love candles that were currently turned off and she smiled with a deep fondness. "I don't think you're crazy, Master. I think you're beautiful and I don't think you built your life around something that's a game or toys or whatever people try to make it out to be. I think you were attracted to something that held philosophies and ideals that sometimes spoke to your sense of honor and you wanted to keep that honor. So I think you found a way to do that and held on tight to fantasies that most people lose sight of and never chase. I think you wanted a princess to capture and cage, to collar and show off as the treasured and cherished prize for your efforts, rather than one to marry because of social gain or something." She looked down at the kef tattoo on her arm and took on an expression I would never forget. It was this almost insolent and stubborn gaze. "And I don't care what someone did on Second Life or why the books' printing was discontinued. My life with you might have started in fantasy but there's you in it and me too and it's everything I never dreamed of having. I love my tattoo, even more than I'd love a brand because it's darker than a brand and more obvious."

She took a deep breath and then grinned sheepishly. "I'm sorry, Master. That wasn't very graceful at the end." And she made it clear that she was done with one last thing, where she sat the violin and the bow on the furs at my feet and then knelt behind them. She crawled partially over them and, in the most perfect display after our training hours of my teaching her to crawl in a sexually inviting way, she kissed my ankles and sat back up. "And Missy would like to request to be your slave in full. Er. Whenever Master is comfortable with that, of course!"

"Be still," I answered quietly. "Nadu pose and be silent."

I needed her to stop talking so I could get my thoughts straight and take over both of us. My mouth was dry and my heart was racing. I finally stood and went to the whip where it hung on the hook, so that Missy's eyes went wide with the fearful adoration I had instilled in her for the whip. She shivered when I let it uncoil and let the blade stroke up her back, swinging it slightly so that it tapped against her back. "Little kajira, play it for me again won't you? While kneeling, this time."

"Yes, Master, anything you command."

She picked her violin back up and considered it... and then played, although now she had cause to arch under the whip when I taunted her with it and now I was waiting for the notes I knew were going to happen. It was barbaric... but elegant. Parts of it made a person crave to dance in a sexual tease and other parts made you want to ballroom dance. Some parts made you want to fight and others were purely romance. It comforted me, even while it seemed to comfort her, and the moment was like all those pieces of the puzzle falling into their correct place so that the image became complete.

I had been so frightened of needing to take things like comfort and security from my slave, when I was worried that I should have been centrally strong enough to be the one who always gave comfort. And it was wrong. It wasn't just wrong, it was dishonest and it went against everything I was teaching her. Because I spent nights training her in how to raise her head so the light better shined off her dark hair and how to make her expression so that her softness and submission was obvious to everyone who laid eyes on her. One night I had even stroked her hair, holding her from behind, and whispered that I would train her until every mannerism she had invited someone to give her command or guidance. She would be the perfect slave, I had promised her, and she would comfort everyone.

How was that fair to her when I would be the one person she would crave to comfort and cheer the most? How could I train her in these ways and somehow be too proud to take delight and pleasure in my own slave? Having moments of insecurity or hearing judgment on my lifestyle wasn't something wrong. It was how I handled those moments that could become wrong. Just as I had gotten angry at her cousin earlier that night. Feeling anger was not wrong, but casting it would have been. And how else would I deal with those moments now that I had my slave, except to go to her and to feel her under my command? How else would I cure our doubts except for together when we danced or when I used her?

But the realization was more than that. It was the way the parts of her song answered each other and how the melody and countermelody formed something like a musical action and reaction that was perfect. It made me think of those moments when I realized I was more fully myself with her. If I had always been a creature of mastery and control, of honesty and poeticism, on my own, then I was the Master of myself with my slave at my knees. I was that because I had to be. The lower she bowed, the more I held my head up in the need to be worthy of how totally she surrendered. The more trust she gave me, the more careful and nurturing I had to be of that trust. The more faith she gave me, the more I had to return that faith with unconditional love of how beautiful she was at heart.

The picture of a lifestyle, one with ideals that had started in a book, was suddenly made permanently clear to me from Missy's song. To the point that I knew I wouldn't waver again. I had never wavered in the first place, not when the mere thought of doing so had driven me to ask Christopher Love for his collar in a snarling effort to shock myself back into my love. I might become tired of hearing loud people be rude, but there were plenty of those in life. And I might get irritated when judgment invariably happened but, hell, everyone was judged.

I studied Missy when she finished again, looking up at me where I stood behind her, and she moaned happily when I gave her a loving caress of the whip. "Oh, Master. You look more beautiful than ever when you hold your whip."

"Not as beautiful as you, little dove. Do you know that I spent nights searching for the perfect song to listen to while reading the books? And I never could find one. Tell me the name."

She grinned. "Perfect, Master? That's a word a slave loves to hear. And well, the base inspirational song is from a modern artist actually, one named Lindsey Stirling. It's called 'Til The Light Goes Out and it's quite beautiful on its own but some parts of it didn't feel entirely correct, so I kept toying with them and then toyed more and, well, now I suppose it's not the original at all." She blushed. "I haven't tried to write the deviations I created. I've... never written anything before that one and, even so, it's not really writing. It was just changing something until it sounded like the atmospheric spin I wanted it to have."

Of course it was. And her little slave's heart had changed it in the same way I had changed the Gorean style, until it matched what I felt. "Missy, my love, you said you would like to live with Master and to be my full slave. Do you mean that? Think hard about it. If you say yes again, you'll come live with me next week, if you like. You give up anything you owned before me and you will not be allowed to ask to keep any of it, so there's no confusion. Everything I buy for you belongs to me and you will learn to thank me for such delightful choices. You will eat when and what I say. You will wear what I say. You will wake up when I wake you up. You'll sleep where and when I say. You'll learn to kneel if you are home before me and as soon as I enter a room. I'll drill it into you so hard that you'll have a difficult time not doing it in other places. Whenever you're forced to say my name in front of others, you'll cringe to it even more so than you already do because I'll teach you to hate saying it when you will learn to love the word 'Master' that much. No rights, Missy, no leeway. Anything I was lenient with before, I will no longer be so if you want this. Your body and your orgasms become mine if you say yes. Everything becomes mine if you say yes. I don't play games and I am not light. Are you sure?"