How do you explain, when you can't touch, can't see eyes and hands and breath, can't give the sound of your voice as well as just words?

How do you deal with the knowledge, the certainty, that what you are asking and demanding and expecting is something that will deeply wound one of the most important people in your life?

How do you react when you are faced with something that you know needs to be done, something that you can't find words to explain... but that every instinct you posess and every part of you that has ever had both your safety and benefit and that of those you love in mind insists This Must Be Done?

I hate what happens next. Hate it with a passion. Hate it because I will wonder now, and for the next few days, and for the rest of my life, if maybe there was something else I could have done. Maybe there would be an easier way. Maybe I made a mistake and the circumstances that ask for this are MY doing... maybe I should just forgive and forget. Maybe it's not as serious, as important, as I think.

Maybe it doesn't matter.

But that would mean that he doesn't matter... and I KNOW that to be false.

I think for a moment I can almost understand parents... they aren't just upset you fucked up. They're upset because THEY will have to do something to make sure you learn.

I want to wave a hand and make it all better.

If... if... but I know I have done my best to train, to teach. Waited, and waited, and waited, looking for SOME sign of improvement, anything to tell me that no, it's not a serious matter, it can be glossed over... it'll be ok.

But.

It would not be ok.

I do not collar anyone I am not willing to do everything in my power to protect and teach... there are four who wear that collar. Caleb, Kadin, Torian, and Daris - yes, Daris, he doesn't get mentioned here as often as the first three... he is not a mate. But he is treasured, and I would give the world for him in a heartbeat, as I would for any of my boys.

BECAUSE of that collar.

Because they have given ME something priceless: their submission, and loyalty, and trust. It's not about love, leave that out of the equation for the moment. It's not about friendship, I have quite a few friends who I DO care about, but whose needs are far less important to me than those of my boys. It's about ownership, and care, and even responsibility...

...and it's about a fair trade.

I have played with quite a few pets and slaves and toys over the years, male and female. I have enjoyed them quite a bit. And in all that time... there are exactly three others who have ever been in my collar. One - my first in many ways, not even close to first in others - I talk about often enough; one was with me through the birth of a child and I failed him, which I regret; and one, a fragment of one, I hope survives but I doubt will. Three others came close, but one is far too dominant, one is far too innocent, and one... *soft smile* ...doesn't like the Evil.

I collar rarely, and with serious intent. With the exception of that first, I do not doubt that I could call on any of those who wear, or wore, my collar.

I will NOT collar anyone I don't think I can train to be what I want and what I need without sacrificing who they are and what THEY need.

...I have been wrong exactly twice.

And I suspect, now, that I might have made a third mistake. I don't know yet - won't know for a few days, maybe more.

I do know that this hurts.

You see, the other side of that coin is that I expect them to LEARN, if I'm going to teach. I expect them to OBEY, if I'm going to command. If they want my protection and kindness, then they will also accept my cruelty.

I try my best to make this clear. I don't think anyone has gone into it NOT knowing, not hearing from me and often from others, how painful and hard it can be.

I... gods. I'm not even sure how to say this, a simple thing...

If I cannot train a slave and cannot protect a slave and cannot heal a slave... then in turn I cannot use a slave and cannot relax with a slave and cannot hurt a slave. It's a balance. You don't get just one side or the other. You don't get just the FUN bits. That's not how it works.

And although I will not let ANY of my boys simply run... I will not hold them if I think I can't take care of them... or if I think they can't do what I expect.

So that's the other side of the next 3-or-so days.

A counter offer, as it were.

If it's too hard... if it's too painful... if it's too uncomfortable, if you can't feel it, can't do it, can't handle it, or even if you just don't WANT to, badly enough...

...wash off the mark. Take off the collar. Throw away the bonds, forget them.

And, if you can, forget me as well.

My love won't change; as I said, that's not involved in the deal. But my trust and my faith and my pride will be wiped as clean as the skin beneath the ink on your thigh.

Leave, and you are free of pain, and free of me. Right now, if you choose that, I will NOT hunt you down.

Stay, and I expect obedience. I expect your cooperation and help, not just regarding what orders you have been given, but regarding YOU. I want this to work, and I want you to be ok at the end... and most of the time on the way to the end, for that matter.

I cannot 'fix' everything... not without your help.

And I WILL NOT 'fix' anything, if you turn away from the collar you wear and the mark you bear and the promises you made.

*shakes her head*

I don't like these overdramatic, melodramatic, all-kinds-of-dramatic speeches. This one particularly. I would rather be curled up, nuzzling you, planning for our time together, pleased and proud and glad you are mine... not wondering. Not worrying. Not... not this.

But it happens.

There's always a point where, in this life at least, it's not MY choice.

It's yours.

*slight smile* Choose freely. I love you.