Master/slave Relations: Handbook of Theory and Practice (21 page)

4. Identify specific action plans to implement each
strategy. These are the specific job responsibilities
that each member must undertake to ensure effective
implementation of each strategy. Objectives should be clearly worded to the extent that people can assess if
the objectives have or have not been met. Ideally, each
type of job function within the Family would have a work
plan, or set of objectives. For example, if one objective
is to develop a House Protocols book, that project would
have its own action plan. If one objective is to improve
the Family's wardrobe, that objective would have its own
action plan. Ditto if the objective was to obtain new training
in order to obtain a better job in order to bring more money
into the Family.

5. Monitor and update the plan. Business planners regularly
reflect on the extent to which the goals are being met and
whether action plans are being implemented. Perhaps
the most important indicator of Family success comes
from comments by friends who notice positive changes in
your life.

Say Nothing - Then Think About It

Menander - one of the rulers of the Indo-Greek Kingdom in
northern India from 150 to 130 BCE - is quoted as having said:
"Nothing is more useful than silence." I'll second that. It's saved
me many times, and I recommend it as an active medication in
all M/s relationships. It's closely followed by the admonition that
when thinking about saying something, carefully plan your key
points in light of what you can discern about the way your slave
is looking at the situation from his/her viewpoint. That is; study to
understand how your slave feels about the situation before you
jump in with your interpretation or opinion.

Give Your slave Some Free Time

This relationship is not about getting your shirts cleaned and
organizing your shirts in color-order on hangers in your closet.
Well... it certainly can be about that, too, but it can be more
about connection and purpose. It can be much more about living a purposeful and thoughtful life in which order supports tranquility.

Because there is soooooooooo much to do in life, and in this
structured relationship, I find it very hard to release my slave for
free time. I am often described as driven. At age 61, I have an
acute sense of how little time there is in life. There are countless books to read, countless skills to hone or to acquire, and
countless places to travel. I have uses for a personal assistant
in many, many aspects of my life.

It's hard for me to release my slave to do something that doesn't
appear to directly support our M/s structure. I often must remind
myself that giving this free time supports my slave's emotional
and physical wellbeing, which in turn, DOES support our M/s
structure. Besides, slaves are subject to stress and burnout
- especially when juggling career, family responsibilities, social
activities, and regular daily activities, in addition to serving
Master. You can find information concerning signs and symptoms of burnout on the Internet, but basically, the symptoms may
manifest in various areas such as the cognitive, psychological,
physical, social, and behavioral. Symptoms can include:

• depression

• irritability

anxiety

• hyperexcitability

• negativism

• excessive anger

• inability to concentrate and make decisions

• loss of motivation

• physical exhaustion

• headaches

• gastrointestinal distress

• loss of energy

• appetite disturbances

0 sleep disorders

• increased interpersonal conflicts

• decrease in social activities

So: be sure to release your slave periodically.

Catch Your slave Doing Right - Demonstrate Your
Appreciation

Often, people only comment when their partner does something
wrong. I believe that there is serious risk in this. If you are
always catching the person making a mistake, then your slave
is likely to start to anticipate that whenever you offer a comment
- even a neutral or positive comment - you're hiding what you
are really thinking. Clearly, this reaction is the opposite of what
you want or need.

So, to break that possible cycle, I leave little congratulatory notes
around for my slave. Good Job: The bathroom is spotless.
Thank you. Sometimes, I will go up to my slave and remark on
what a competent job is being done on some chore or another.

And, I'm careful about taking her out to dinner occasionally
- considering the tremendous amount of work my slave puts into
our formal dinners.

Oh yes, and I make sure that there are flowers throughout the
house. Every week.

Learn to Focus/Refocus Your slave

Sometimes my slave drifts. My slave forgets and drifts back to
actions or speech from the Vanilla world. Serving dinner, the
slave jumps up from Table to bring something. First, how did
that something get forgotten? Second, since we are already at
Table, the slave must ask permission to get up. What to do, what
to do, what to do??? The slave is serving from the heart; this
is good. The slave is anticipating a need and moving to meet it; this is good. But this action, jumping up from table to bring
something without first asking permission, is devoid of protocol;
this is not good. It doesn't fit our structured relationship and
deserves Attention.

In my world, if my slave jumps up from Table to get something
during one of our formal fetish Dinners, she knows she's "in
trouble." One of our Dining Protocols is that she can only walk
around the table counter-clockwise. As she sits to my right, that
means that she has to walk past me to get back to her chair. This
affords the (lovely) opportunity to correct her for her impulsive
action. Our punishment calls for her to bend over, hands spread
on the seat of her chair, legs spread wide apart while I...

Ah, but if she really drifts - loses focus - but the drift is minor,
I signal my slave to assume a Full Present position (kneeling,
legs apart, hands behind back, head up) and recite this poem.
(Thanks to Master Michael Yongue, Head Master, The House of
Ptolemy, for sparking this idea.)

Master...
i am your slave; and i reaffirm
that i have given myself to You completely.
Master...
i seek the serenity to serve you effortlessly
with grace and elegance.
Master...
i seek to make your life a magical place, surrounded by beauty.

To deliver these gifts,
i seek understanding of my shortcomings,
i seek patience with my humanity,
i seek emotional love and support.

For i am Your property, Master, to do with as You choose.
For i am Yours,
Forever.

Occasionally, your slave may seem to take leave of his or her
senses and experience a more serious drift. In these cases, you
can achieve focus by taking away something that is important, or
by altering a routine.

By way of example: I recently had a problem with my slave, who
broke two rules at once - an extremely unusual situation. First,
my slave failed to follow a direct written instruction and second,
she failed to fully communicate with me about the status of that
assigned task. While the details of "the story" are unimportant,
the lesson is that something had to be done to get us back on
the same track. I settled on asking my slave to restate in writing
what had happened - from her perspective - and to explain to
me why the assignment had not been completed, and how she
would deal with it if the situation were reversed and she had a
slave who did this.

When I gave this assignment, I was particularly careful not to
make my slave feel "wrong." I explained that I was having trouble understanding her behaviors in light of our M/s relationship.

Her four-page, single-spaced reply was extremely helpful for
both of us. We were able to pinpoint the breakdown (it had to do
with some assumptions on both our parts, as is often the case)
and we agreed to be sensitive to these kinds of situations in
the future. We each had to let go of our positions about "being
right."

So, focus means letting go; focus means removing preconceived
notions about the way things should be and replacing them
with how Master wants the slave to act. Focus is never easy
to maintain in the beginning of a structured relationship, but it is
well worth it in the long run. (Focus is a major step toward selfmastery, which is very important in this dynamic.)

When Your Relationship Runs into Trouble, Revert
to Protocols

Protocols reinforce the power exchange dynamic of the relationship and represent a safe harbor during stressful times. There's
nothing like having the slave resting in a Full Present position
while you work through some issue. If the conversation starts
to sound too chatty, try asking: "And how would that sound in
protocol?"

Don't ask Questions to which You Don't Want
Answers

This is a kissing-cousin to the trial attorneys' motto: "Don't ask
questions for which you don't already know the answer."

In my experience raising children, there were certain things I simply didn't want to know. There were areas where they needed privacy. Similarly, in training my slave, there are certain things I
simply don't want to ask about. This is because I either already
know that a task/project wasn't done exactly as I would like, or
whether or not it was done my way is not important enough to
give it the significance of a question. When I observed that my
slave had done something in what 1 would consider to be an odd
way, I often had to fight the urge to stop and ask for an explanation, because if I did ask, I found that my slave would become
extremely anxious, as my questions carried a connotation of
criticism. In fact, I was merely trying to figure out how my slave
thought and worked.

Learn to Manage Discussions

While Master certainly has the role, responsibility, and authority
to decide, he/she also has the obligation to lead. That means
that Master must master the art of leading discussions with his/
her slave to produce the desired results - and to avoid allowing the conversation to drift into unproductive areas (areas not
supporting the purpose of the discussion). Master may ask the
slave many questions about the slave's preferences in a matter,
but Master will then fit decisions about those preferences into
HIS/HER assessment of overall Family needs.

To facilitate discussions, I like to round out each discussed idea
with a 15-20 second position summary. I make a point never to
leave a meeting or discussion unless everyone has agreed that
the key issues have been addressed to everyone's satisfaction.

Caution: That doesn't mean everyone got what they wanted, it
only means that if there is lingering disagreement, everyone has
agreed to disagree.

Know what slaves Fear Most

slaves most fear rejection and failure. In most cases that I
know of, slaves have made substantial life adjustments and personal sacrifices to be with their Master. They are invested in
the relationship. Certainly more than in a vanilla relationship, the
slave needs affirmation; the slave needs to know he/she is doing
right and makes a difference in your life. Consider leaving little
ataboy notes around. Consider being extra thoughtful.

Chapter Summary

Now we're in a Relationship and the question is: "How're you
doing?" I made a series of suggestions: know your priorities,
plan your future to avoid drifting in the relationship, don't be quick
to criticize your slave, give your slave free time to recover from
the rigors of the structured relationship, and find ways to catch
your slave doing things right, not wrong. I went on to suggest
some ways that you could refocus your slave and suggested
some approaches to take if you feel your relationship is running
into trouble. I also urged you not to ask questions of your slave
for which you didn't want answers - to learn to tolerate a certain
level of ambiguity in the relationship. I also suggested that you
learn to manage discussions, rather than to allow them to drift
freeform into topics that might be unproductive. At the very end,
I pointed out that slaves most fear rejection and failure, and
that it should take very little external control to obtain the goals
and objectives your slave has agreed to by virtue of being your
slave.

I hope you have enjoyed reading this book as much as I have
enjoyed writing it. While living it, I've also been studying this
form of structured relationship for a number of years, reading
widely in what literature I could find and attending M/s conferences that offered instructive seminars. I have learned a great
deal by watching others work through their own relationship
issues - and I am constantly striving to find ways to improve my
own working relations with my slave.

I am interested in your reactions to this book. Please feel free to
contact me. Contact information appears on the last page.