"Just because you get a case of the horneys..."

"Don't bite the hand that feeds you."

"I do plenty for you, I shouldn't have to put up with this."

"Don't push it."

"Don't interfere with my personal space."

"I'm tired of being the only one who does anything."

"I'm just not interested in sex."

"I'm not in the mood."

"Do whatever you want, I'm leaving."

"I can't deal with this any more, I'm tired of you always demanding shit from me."

"Yes, WoW is more important to me than you are."

"I don't care what you want, I'm more stubborn than you are and I just want to be left alone."

"You never spend any time with me any more."

"Whenever you do spend time with me, you just want to do kinky shit, never just cuddle and talk."

"Shut up, I'm busy now."

"Can't this wait?"

"I can't handle this bullshit, I'm going back to Mass."

"I already have the plane ticket."

"I'm never coming back."

"Touch me again and I'll break your arm."

"The girls I've been hitting on, lying to, stringing along, and mindfucking just found out and somehow this is all your fault, I hate you, don't you ever talk to any of my friends again."

"Fuck off, I'm raiding/instancing/questing/dealing with guild drama/talking with guildmates/PvPing/leveling/getting potions/getting an enchant/putting stuff on the auction house/looking up something for WoW/helping a guildmate with something."

You came here, little one, for quite a few reasons; escaping a rather unpleasant home life, getting somewhere where your father can't screw up your credit further, spending time in a place where people aren't trying to make you stop gaming or stop being online completely, having someone to curl up with when you're lonely, having someone to talk to when you're depressed, being around people who respect you and care about you and don't talk shit about you or treat you like dirt. You could get that in a lot of places, though. Your smooth tongue and your charm could no doubt get you into the panties and the bed of just about any woman in WoW. You have quite a few friends who would, no doubt, be willing to have you over for a while. Sure, most of them would insist after the first month that you had to find a job or you'd be out on your ass. And hey, most of them would get offended by the constant swearing, or the way you take out anything that upsets you on the nearest person, or the fact that they would have to fight tooth and nail to get your attention when you didn't actively want something from them. But it'd at least have been a break from the shit you were dealing with at home, right?

But you came here. You came to me. Why? Because we have a relationship, a twisted, perverted, codependant, fucked-up relationship that started out as 100% kink, heavy kink, domination and abuse and constant mindfucks, then developed into something emotional as well, something deep, something that I at least thought was meaningful enough to be worth having even long-distance and certainly meaningful enough to try my best to make you welcome here, to give you the same happiness that you gave me.

You came to me, your Mistress, your Owner, your lover, your friend, your confidant, your companion, the woman to whom you belonged. You came here to a collar. You came here knowing that your place here was that of a slave; treasured and loved, respected for who you are and what you offer and the care you take of me, cared for as completely as I possibly can, but still a slave. Property. Owned. This wasn't hidden, wasn't some surprise sprung on you after you were already here. You came here willingly to this role, knowing what would be expected of you, and you gave me every assurance that you accepted that.

Perhaps the mistake was mine in allowing you to help me. Perhaps it would have been better to remain sick longer and try to deal with it on my own or with Caleb's help, keeping you out of the loop. Perhaps I should have tried to deal with the bills on my own, or taken them to someone other than you, begged help from Ryan perhaps, or offered them (and as a necessary price, myself) to Rhett. Perhaps, in leaning on you in my moments of weakness, of need, I gave you the impression that I was weak as a whole, or somehow convinced you that I no longer expected your obedience and your submission.

Perhaps I am at fault, for missing some clue in all our conversations online and over the phone, something that would have told me that you weren't really interested in serving me, belonging to me, that all you wanted was someone who would play the part of a Domme when you were in the mood for it and fade into the woodwork the rest of the time... but Radu, if that's what you wanted, you can damn well go find a Dominatrix for your kinky moments, a dog for cuddles, and a hotel with internet access - in short, you can go back to Boston.

Yes, I'm saying it now. I'm tired of you threatening it every time I give an order that inconveniences you. I'm tired of you holding the possibility over my head, shoving it in my face, dragging it out of your box of tricks every other arguement. I'm tired of you promising one minute that you'll stand by me, telling me that you love me, complaining that you don't get enough time with me or enough of my attention... and then an hour later pushing me away, yelling at me that I'm interrupting you, telling me I want too much, that you're not in the mood for 'kinky shit', that I'm too demanding, that you want to leave, that you're going to leave, that you're never coming back.

See, the way a D/s relationship works, generally speaking, is like this: the dominant partner makes demands and the submissive partner obeys them. Sometimes those orders aren't easy, or convenient. Sometimes what the dominant partner chooses to do to the submissive partner is painful, or frustrating, or humiliating. If the only orders ever given were for exactly what the sub already wanted to do right then, and they were only given exactly when the submissive wanted to obey them, when it was convenient for them, if the Domme wasn't allowed to make the sub uncomfortable or to even act dominant around them unless they specifically demanded it Right Then, the roles are reversed; the 'sub' is actually the dominant partner, the 'domme' the one who might as well have a collar around their throat, at the beck and call of their so-called slave.

That's not what I want, love; if you're unwilling to submit any time except when it's 100% convenient for you, if it takes three hours of arguing and coaxing and begging to get you to cooperate for five minutes, if something as simple and non-invasive as wanting to see my collar around your throat gets me accused of 'having a case of the horneys', takes over an hour to even get you in the room to have it put in place, and then a physical fight, if I have to put up with you hitting me just to attach a leash, then you know what? It's not worth it.

It. Really. Is. Not. Worth. It.

When I finally found the strength to tell Kadin that I wanted to stop completely, that I couldn't deal with what was - and wasn't - between us at that point, do you know what kept me going? The belief that I still had you, your submission, that I would still be able to find satisfaction with you. I thought you would be there to ease the pain of that particular loss. I thought you would be able to give me what I so badly needed, needed to the point of becoming physically ill when I went without it too long. I thought you understood that I needed to feed, that it wasn't just a game, just talk, that I NEED to be able to drink in someone's submission, their suffering.

I thought that you understood what it meant when I started setting aside my playtoys. I thought that you knew what you were asking when you said you wanted to be the one I took pleasure from, that you wanted to satisfy me. I thought... ehh. I thought, I thought, I thought, and I didn't ask the right questions or didn't ask often enough, I took too much on faith, apparently.

I've learned my lesson. Clearly the role I expect you in and need you in is not a role you are comfortable with or desire. I apologize for trying to force you to be something you are not. I'm sorry that I failed to understand how important your WoW time, your personal space, and your control over every situation are to you; I had believed you wanted to give some of that control to me, that you valued our time together enough to occasionally set WoW aside, and that you were willing to allow me into your personal space, but I understand now that my belief was incorrect.

I'm sure you will consider this entry to be just more drama, more emo shit, overreaction on my part, or whatever other demeaning phrase you decide to use this time. After all, every time I've tried to bring this subject up recently, within five minutes you're telling me to stop being emo or that you don't want to talk about it right then or that I'm overreacting and you won't discuss it until I calm down. Well, I'm calm now. I'm as calm as it is possible for me to be while discussing something important and painful.

And I'm done. No, hear me out.

In a moment I am going to walk into the bedroom and take off the collar that is around your throat. I'm going to put it away in the soulbox, along with the belled collar.

In the future, if there's a time when you are willing to obey my orders, even the inconvenient ones, even the ones that make you uncomfortable, even the ones that you don't understand the 'why' of or don't know in detail what's going to happen next, you know where the collar is. I won't put it around your throat again, Radu. If you want it on, you may fetch it, and buckle it in place, and since you will be the one putting it on, you will be the one taking it off as well. The moment you feel you can't actually obey me without a fight, or aren't willing to serve me without knowing exactly why I give every order, or don't want my needs and desires to interfere with yours, take it off and put it back in the box. I will make no demands of you, give you no orders, will treat you as an equal or even a superior, as long as the collar is not around your throat. When it IS around your throat, if it ever is again, I will expect obedience and cooperation.

If you put my collar around your throat and then threaten to leave because I am interfering with your games or expecting you to satisfy my needs, I will remove it, throw it out, and call your mother to get you on the earliest possible flight back to Boston. I mean that, little one. It would kill me to lose you... but it's killing me just as surely to think I have your submission, to try and act on that belief, and to have it ripped away, have my ownership of you spit on, trampled, thrown back in my face.

I... Radu, I honestly can't deal with another fight over the simplest of orders. To take this most recent case: all I wanted was to put my collar around your throat, to kiss you, to tell you that I was going to catnap and that I wanted to fall asleep with the image of you wearing my collar in my head, and then to send you back to your game. It would have taken less than five minutes of your time, and I didn't even tell you to come into the bedroom until after I had asked you if you were in the middle of anything important. You said you weren't, you said you'd be right there... and an hour later, I had to fight with you to get you in, fight with you to get the collar on, fight with you to leash you to the bed which is the only way I could be sure you wouldn't come wandering in while I was typing this up... my nose still hurts quite a bit and my arm is sore where you twisted it, my head is pounding, and for at least half of this entry I've been trying not to cry, I'm that frustrated.

You know I love you. You know I try NOT to interfere with your gametime. I encourage you, I rub your hands whenever you mention they've been sore, I give you scritches, I cuddle you at night, I cheer for you whenever something good happens ingame. Until now I haven't pestered you about getting a job despite your assurances before you came that yes, you would get one right away, because I could tell you needed a couple months to just unwind and relax. I haven't pointed out that while yes, I do ask you to run errands a lot, the reason I don't ask Caleb is because he IS WORKING, making the money that pays the bills here, that buys 90% of the food, that fills the gas tank, that paid for the plane ticket to bring you out here, because frankly, as long as you were helping out at least a little with food and were willing to do the errand-running during the day and were willing to come with me for medical appointments, that was enough, there wasn't any need to explain what I thought was pretty obvious, that your errand-running and helping me was basically your contribution to the household. When you start making every errand into a drama-fest, when you constantly complain that you're the only one who does anything, when you seem to feel that you should do nothing but play WoW and, only if it doesn't inconvenience you, maybe keep me company sometimes... no. Not cool, little one. Again, if you really feel you're doing all of the work and getting none of the rewards, if being here puts too many demands on your time, then it would be best if you went home. I wanted you out here because I thought it would make us BOTH happier, love. I thought you would like being somewhere different, with someone who loved you, with lots of potential new friends, where you would be able to be yourself, arrogant, rude, silly, kinky, emotional... somewhere where you were needed and where that need was open, admitted to, where you were thanked for what you did instead of being told that you were useless and did nothing, where you were respected for the help you give and the person you are rather than being treated like the black sheep when you're being given any attention at all... somewhere where the people around you would try to include you, offer to take you with when they went places, encourage you in your hobbies... I thought you would be happy here, Radu. If you're not, if it's too much pressure or too much stress or too many demands...

...then leave. Go back to where you WILL be happy. Even if it means losing you, I would rather know you were happy elsewhere than see you miserable here.

*sighs* I love you. I need you. I don't have the strength to fight you any more right now. I'm sorry.