A Bottom's View

I'd like to approach the issue of trust and communication in this month's column. Speaking from bitter experience, even the most experienced among us often lose track of those two most important facets of our lifestyle.

I was collared to a wonderful Man, a Dominant in all respects, yet we grew complacent and stopped communicating the way we used to. I will try and describe what happened as best I can, but bear with me please... it's still very painful.

Over time, He began to stay out later and later, and I, even though I didn't like it, accepted it without a word. As the weeks and months went by I began to notice things. He was staying out all night and several times when He finally did come home, He smelled "wrong" to me.

I began speaking to friends about it, rather than confront my Master with my observations. At first I refused to believe that He could be "messing around" , especially with the vanilla women that hung out at His lodge. In time it became easier and easier to believe that especially when He didn't come home till the next morning. By this time I was fully convinced that He was spending the nights with someone else, and I began to come unglued. I hid my tears from Him, mistake number two, and only my "online" friends knew how deeply I was hurting.

He on the other hand was hurting as well, He was ill and not thinking or acting Himself. Worried and in denial of His illness, he began talking to old "friends" at His lodge, not wanting to worry me with His fears. To this day He still says He never had an affair with any of them, they just talked. Even this though, was a betrayal in kind; the things He was keeping from me would have helped to allay the unjustified fears I was carrying and I may not have been so easily convinced that He was indeed having an affair.

Eventually the rift between us grew so wide that we could no longer communicate in any way except anger. It was decided by Him and a friend of ours that what I needed was some time away from home... so, against my better judgment, I packed a suitcase and went to visit a friend.

While I was away, well-meaning friends telling me that I should stay away for a few weeks, and get my head together bombarded me. There was a lot of input from people with their own agendas (as I found out too late), and both Master and I were so confused and hurt, that things got out of hand very quickly.

I ended up staying with a lifestyle couple that promised to help find a "super" job and also tried to virtually isolate me from everyone. I was not allowed to make long distance calls, so calling Master was out of the question, and eventually they became reluctant to let me go out anywhere without them, even when one of my oldest friends wanted to take me out of town for the weekend. During this time I was unable to even contact the friend I'd originally stayed with and I grew more and more confused and afraid.

Finally, after a few weeks there, I managed to contact my other friend and he came and "rescued" me. By now Master and I had only managed to speak during a couple of very short phone calls and they did not do anything to allay any of our problems. When I finally got to where I could have talked to him we were still stymied by the simple fact of no working telephone. Whenever we did manage to talk, He would demand that I come home, and I would get angry and refuse. Again and again He asked, ordered, even begged me to come home, but I in my confusion, listened to other people and kept saying "No".

At this time a friend had found a little apartment for me to live in.. so we thought.. where I could have some privacy and really do some thinking. When I finally did get to talk to Master, He was not too happy about it, but He seemed strangely accepting. He told me He was going out with friends, and trying to get some kind of life back without me. That bothered me, but I was so sure of Him that I didn't really think much of it.

When the apartment deal fell through, I was left without a place to move to, so I continued staying with some friends. Finally the Man who had tried to get the apartment for me lost his job. The people I was staying with invited him to come up and stay there too. Our friendship began to change to something else and he wanted me to live with him, yet I was still not satisfied that my relationship with my Master was finished. I wanted to go back home and see if it was dead or alive.

Master and I stopped talking for a while and He virtually disappeared from online. I waited, checking the computer every day to see if He'd shown up yet, but no sign of Him. Finally one day we found each other online again. But this time, when we began talking, the tone was much different. He no longer wanted me to come home, He was planning on moving His vanilla girlfriend in with Him. When I read that my head began to spin. Again I said nothing, just said goodbye, turned off the computer and went and did my crying in private.

Now Master and I are hundreds of miles apart, still in love with each other, but now we are both involved with someone else. Even though neither of us is as happy as we were together, we cannot simply turn back the clock to where we were six months ago. We are talking again, at least. But.. we both know that the trust we lost in each other over those long, sad months, will be very hard to rebuild.