What Became of Me

While the inner conflict raged within me, still without a name, Petra continued talking as though nothing unusual were happening.

“If I ask nothing else of you, this attitude of readiness and being a pleasure to look at is your standing command. Always, everywhere. Here, when we are together. In public, when we are together. When you are alone in public. When you are with friends or relatives. Even when you are alone at home. Always! Do you understand that?”

I nodded, understanding the words and their meaning. What I didn’t understand is why I responded with increasing irritation, frustration, even anger. I tried to compose myself, but without much success.

“Assuming this posture communicates something to me, to yourself and to others. It shows others that you have your body under control. It constantly reminds me and yourself that I am in control of your body. For others, the posture embodies that you are paying attention to your surroundings and to them. It reminds me and you that you are not turned inward, but that you give my needs the highest priority. Others will admire that you do not allow yourself to be controlled by every fleeting impulse. I and you are constantly reminded by this posture that you are dominated by only one impulse: to be of service to me with body, mind and soul.”

Cognitive dissonance was certainly not a pleasant state. There I stood, my bare toes gripping the wooden floor as I tried to maintain the posture Petra had prescribed, agreeing with everything she said – enthusiastically, even. And yet something inside me resisted it fiercely. How could what Petra described be both a pipe dream and a nightmare? What the fuck was wrong with me? I was close to tears.

“So, get this into your head: You never wait! You are always ready. Or you are a pleasure to look at. Ideally, you are both at the same time.”

The obvious explanations for my resistance led nowhere. Petra’s ideas didn’t violate any of my limits. They didn’t even seem excessive. Quite the opposite. I welcomed what she was asking of me. I wanted to be ready for her. I wanted to be a pleasure for her to look at.

“This posture of readiness and being a pleasure to look at has no name because it should become your natural posture. I should never have to command “Take your position!” because you should be already in it unless I’ve requested something different from you. Assuming the posture is not an absence of action. It becomes a form of discipline itself. Whoever looks at you shouldn’t think: “She’s not doing anything.” They should think: “She is completely present and ready to obey her owner at any time.” This posture does not describe what a body looks like. It describes how I focus and order your mind.”

I wish I could say that everything suddenly clicked in my head at that moment, and that I understood what had caused my inner conflict. It didn’t. I had only a vague hunch, one that would take days and weeks to crystallise into an explanation. Perhaps it was the word discipline that first pointed me in the right direction.

When I described myself, I often said that I was submissive “by my very nature”. And I genuinely enjoyed being a “good girl”, obeying people I looked up to and following their guidance. This had been true of my parents, my teachers at school and university, and later my colleagues. Acting like a brat or being cheeky simply wasn’t part of my repertoire. Faced with conflict, I withdrew and avoided it rather than disobeying or openly rebelling.

With a partner, my submissiveness was sexually charged. Being obedient, serving them, pleasing them and generally making them happy made me happy too – and turned me on. When I was alone, I had a whole range of kinks. In a relationship, however, they tended to collapse into one: serving my partner, sexually and otherwise.

In a strange way, I was proud of my submissive nature. I was pleased that obedience came so easily to me. I had come to accept the idea that I was an ideal sub – or slave, depending on what was expected of me. As long as my limits were respected, all someone had to do was give me an order and I would happily obey. I was ready for anything. What more could anyone ask for? That, I began to realise, was precisely the problem. Petra wanted more.

More than I had previously understood myself to be. More than I had thought made a good sub. Taming and focusing my restless mind, as Petra put it, required more than following my nature and obeying orders. It required hard work, personal growth and self-discipline. And self-discipline was precisely what I lacked.

I also began to understand why Petra wanted to give me a custom-made jacket, expensive shoes, laser hair removal and, presumably, much more in the future. Things that had seemed unrelated – or at least only tangentially related – to my training as a submissive.

My submission, as an expression of my nature, had always come easily to me. And therefore, it was cheap. Obedience that costs nothing proves very little. For the timid little grey mouse I was, who had made herself comfortably at home in her timidity, submission had been the path of least resistance. Of course I would submit. What else was I going to do?

But if I could stand up to Petra – if I could catch even a glimpse of the possibility that I might become as self-assured, elegant, radiant and stunning as she was – then my decision to submit to her anyway would mean something different. It would be a choice. And perhaps that was what Petra was after. She was removing my habitual escape route of timidity and convenience.

A few weeks later, Petra said something in a conversation that made this clear to me. “Good people don’t particularly impress me”, she said. “Bad people who struggle every day to be good impress me much more, even if they sometimes fail.”

The struggle with one’s own nature made the result more valuable. I wondered whether Petra, too, was fighting some private battle with her own nature. But above all, I wondered whether I was ready to fight mine.