Learning to be vulnerable

I sometimes have problems with thinking of emotions as valid, with worrying about being perceived as weak, with letting people inside my mind and especially inside my heart. It doesn't fit in very well with a power exchange relationship so I’m working on it.

I lost a friend early this year. We were just casual bar friends but it hit me very hard as she lived in the same town as me, was the same age and was brutally murdered after being tortured over a couple days by one of her language students who had a thing for western woman. I wrote my master a message the night it happened as I was in shock and upset and that felt natural. The next morning I instantly regretted it. I hated that I had let my emotional guards down and acted in what I thought of as a needy way. I was supposed to go to his house for the weekend but texted him to tell him I was too tired to go that weekend. I was really avoiding going when I felt weak which he knew full well. However, I did want to be with him and the combination of feeling unsafe (they didn’t catch the guy and he’d lived insanely near to me), the lack of ability to walk anywhere without journalists asking questions (in Japan you really do stand out as a western woman), being surrounded by mutual friends of hers and mine who just wanted to talk and talk about it (not my style) and longing for a good night’s sleep without the light on had me decide at last minute to go to his place after all.

I always envied girls who could put their head on their boyfriends shoulder and cry it all out. Back then I didn’t cry (things have changed) and if I was ever going to cry it would be in privacy, complete privacy. I spent so much energy that weekend trying to act normal, to seem upbeat etc. He was so good at being extra cuddly, suggesting long baths and hot tea and dragging me out for a run to de-stress. However, every time I got close to losing it I would leave the room and shut a door until I calmed down. Simply shut him out. I knew it hurt him when I would tell him "don’t hug me!" out of fear of losing it but he was trying to be respectful; and let me process in my own way. The last day though he’d had enough and asked me if I was up for a light sm session and I very hesitantly agreed, I think I knew what would happen. He gave me a spanking and I could feel myself start to lose it. I fought it and held on to control. He then tied me to the table and started flogging me. Control slipped. I started crying, silent tears hidden by my hair but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop. Giving him control physically let me lower my emotional guards. I hid it to the best of my ability but he asked me to look at him at one point and was shocked to see that I had been sobbing. I begged him not to stop, I needed this, I needed the excuse to release everything and I needed to not have control for it to happen. When you are tied you cannot close doors between you. He kept going telling me to let it all out. Eventually he untied me and I curled up at his feet with my head on his lap. At his feet with him in control it was so much easier to let go and I sobbed and I sobbed and I sobbed. I kept apologizing, kept wanting to wash my face and pull myself together but he wouldn’t let me, every time I tried to shake it off he’d stop me, hug me and tell me to let it all out. I apologized that we didn’t get to complete the scene, that I didn’t even get him off and he told me forcibly to shut up. He explained that this meant more to him; it meant so much that I was finally letting him into my mind and my heart. This was true submission; this was letting him see me at my most vulnerable and trusting him with my tears.

I think this is when I first realized that I loved him. We had already been dating for 10months but that was an area I avoided. I cared for him a ton and I knew he was beginning to love me but I couldn’t let go of my complete emotion control enough to admit it to myself. This moment helped me realize what a treasure I had, I had and still have the most sadistic bastard and the most sensitive loving guy all in one. He knew exactly what I needed right then, there is such a thing as too much control over yourself. It was time to admit to myself that my feelings for him had gone way beyond yummy kinky sex.

I thrive and get turned on by physical vulnerability but being emotionally vulnerable is still the most difficult thing in our relationship for me. I am prone to keep feelings and thoughts to myself and only verbalize things that are 100% rational. A couple weeks ago he read to me at my insistence from a journal he’d kept many years ago. I loved hearing about the kinky sex scenes but I most loved the insights into his mind, his ramblings on love, his lonely days, his dreams for the future. I realized that when I write it is so much easier to talk about hot kinky sex but that when I read others writing it are their vulnerable moments, their openness that draws me in. I am going to try and integrate more of that rawness into my online writing. Don’t worry; it wouldn’t be me if there weren’t still lots of hot, kinky sex stories!! I have decided that I need to learn to be more vulnerable with him and what better way to practice then with an online blog read only by total strangers to me. Am I making you feel like lab mice yet?

Oh yes and I will admit something else, my master doesn’t know about this blog. He knows that I write he just doesn’t know the exact format. I know he wouldn’t mind and would encourage me if he did but I am so hesitant to tell him. I don’t want it to affect how I write and I know I’d end up second guessing myself and worrying how everything sounds, all things I’d do if I knew he was reading it. It is my goal to eventually tell him and then he will have lots of fun going back and reading everything but I want to get in the routine of it first, to get comfortable with being honest anonymously before I do. Just writing this has already helped - when you put something in writing once it becomes so much easier to say it out loud. He has mentioned that he’d enjoy witting a blog with me so who knows one day this may merge into a couples blog. We will see. Until then a big thanks to all you anonymous Internet users for being my test subjects in vulnerability:)