Because these ideas have been covered at length earlier. by way of introduction, it must suffice here to say that submission in slavery is a life passion for me. and I concluded that Masters usually don't know much about how surrender really works. Further- more, that to find the joy in submission which I have long sought, it became necessary- to develop an understanding of some principles and their tools that could guide me in my submission to the Master where I am currently permitted to live and serve. It is my hope that sharing what I have learned about the principles and their tools will help others who seek the joy of slavery and that those they serve will be spared unwanted pain and wasted time. Slaving is the primary and favorite source of bliss in my life. I crave to be owned body, mind, heart and soul. I can not be owned if I can not be "seen," because the Master can not claim ownership of what He doesn't know about. And He can not Master me if I am hiding from Him in any way. In fact. to the extent that I hide myself from the Master. I am not surrendering to Him. By hiding something. anything. I undermine His power and my respect for Him-essentially. I castrate Him (figuratively. of course) without His even knowing it, and simultaneously sabotage my surrender. Ball-cutting slaves are the undoing of Masters; I believe this because I have asked them about it. and My secrets keep Him from knowing me from having me entirely. The capacity within me for secrecy has become my enemy. My slavery is compromised by any obscurity within myself. He can see my body and can take and use it as His toy. but He can not see into my mind unless it is transparent-open to Him. And it is my job to make and keep it transparent. So. transparency is one of the principles that guides submission to Him. The Principle or Transparency When I was a child and played with children. we believed that we could dissolve and fly like white clouds if we concentrated hard enough. My mind is like the sky, sometimes clear and sometimes cloudy, even darkly clouded with fears. secrets, desires. dreams. The dark clouds clear away only when all the of them are pointed out to the Master and given names, descriptions, meaning. Once they are pointed out to Him, they are no longer dark or threatening. They are just clouds, and no longer presenting any opportunity for me to hide within them from Him or from myself. By focusing on the principle-the ideal-of transparency, and the tools I use to get and become transparent to Him, communication between us becomes easier. The Master is unafraid of what He knows about in my mind, but He has to be concerned about those things in it that He can not see. When He turns His attention to the contents of my mind. He is like a blind man, and I must tell Him about the sights that only I can see inside myself. Some are funny; some are sexy, insecure. interesting, beautiful, fearful, stupid. vain, wistful, sad; and others are just plain boring to Him, but all of them add up to me. But that could change. I like to think that I have some influence over whether, when and. perhaps. even how it might change. I want to change for Him. I believe (foolish me) that if I can be the best slave possible for Him. the odds are better that He will continue to keep me in His life, which, at least for now, is where I want to be. Only time will tell. I try not to dwell in the future because it is, ultimately. unknowable and unpredictable. The present is more comforting to me because I am in it now and have a lot more information about it-I can experience it directly. The future must wait until it becomes the present for me to know it. Meanwhile. it is my job to keep myself transparent. One way to describe what that means tome is to liken myself to a computer screen. As thoughts or feelings flash, or sometimes crawl, through my mind, I report them to Him-I project them onto the screen, as it were, for Him to know about if He cares to. If He looks bored, I'll ask if He wants to hear this now In time, I have come to know in a general way what is important to Him, what is less so and what is unimportant. When I have thoughts or feelings that I believe He will want to hear about, I wait for an opportune moment and then interject with, "By the way, I had some thoughts about (whatever). Do you want to hear them now, later or not at all?" When He says, "Yes. now." I hit the "download" key in my mind, and the information comes out and goes "up on the screen" for Him to "read" (hear, actually). When He says, "Yes, but later," I hit the "save" key; a "No" activates the "delete" key. and the information either disappears or goes into deep storage somewhere in my mind from where it may or may not be retrievable later. Ideally, this is how transparency works. This process is easy when it comes to our shared interest in Christmas, old cars, national politics. nature programs and such. It is more difficult when the issues involve personal stuff: "I saw a man today whose ass I wanted to eat. and I felt disloyal," or perhaps, "I wonder if you will be able to take more time off work someday," or, "I saw a guy today at the gym that I'm sure is just your physical type, would you like me to check him out for you?" And it can be very difficult when it comes to reporting material like, "I get frightened when I think that someday you won't want me anymore, or, "When you do (whatever), I can feel my respect for you shifting. "or, ""I wonder if some day we won't be attractive to each other," or, "I don't know if I could stay with a Master who had lost interest in hurting me." Difficult as these things have been for me to say, I have said them all to Him at one time or another. and sometimes more than once. But there is no other way for Him to know the contents of my mind, and I believe my submission would be seriously compromised if I did not report such thoughts when they happen. In this way, He has come to know me very well and has done so in a very short time as relationships go. And we love each other very,,' much, although in very different ways-we are different species: He is a Master. I am a slave. Transparency is not a two-way street. Privacy is one of a Master's rights and privileges. He tells me what He chooses. I do not feel that same sense of choice. I can hide nothing unless He orders me to do so. But, every time I have attempted transparency in Master/slave contexts, the Masters revealed that they became more forthcoming about their inner lives than had ever happened before. Maybe transparency is contagious. Maybe they feel safer when in the presence of such extreme mental vulnerability as transparency generates. I don't know. I do know that the feeling of intimacy generated by such openness feels good. We talk a lot, although less now than earlier. Another benefit of such intimacy is that the sex, we have it always SM) just gets better and better for both of us. I have noted that if I've had some feelings or thoughts that I think He would find important to know about, I can't feel clean about doing an SM scene with Him until I have gotten those thoughts and feelings off my chest. He finds that I am easier and more fun to play with when I'm not hiding something in my mind. The transparency principle operates in the dungeon until He turns off those switches in my head. Or, it goes on and off when the scenes unfold. It is the mental version of my learning to be honest in SM scenes. To make transparency work, I have assigned part of my mind the role of watch dog. That part has the task of monitoring my mental life. When the watchdog notices that I am withholding something, he sounds an alarm. When the alarm sounds in my mind, I have tried to train myself to turn attention to the information or feelings that I am hiding. I do this until I am certain I know what l am hiding, and, if possible, why I feel the need to hide it. As soon as I have the answers to these questions. I seek the Master and announce that I have a report to make, If He decides to hear it right then, I will tell Him what I have discovered in myself: that I noticed myself hiding something, what was being hidden and why I felt I needed to hide it. I don't always get the complete answers from inside myself right away. Sometimes. I am only able to detect a piece of the hidden information, and may not yet have figured out why I felt the need to keep it secret. I don't allow myself to think about the hidden information for more than about 10 minutes when the Master and I are near each other before I begin the process. If we are apart for some reason, I will make myself get as clear as can about the hidden stuff before I see Him next. As soon as we are together again, and I decide He has nothing particular on His mind, I will bring it up with something like, "I noticed myself hiding something from (or about) you today. Would you like to hear about it now?" When I have only part of the information from inside myself, I will tell Him that I have only figured out part of it, and then tell Him about the part I have. Often, He will then ask me questions about the topic and, sometimes, His questions will help me fill in the missing details. He will often order me to report the missing information from inside myself as it becomes available, or sometimes, just to make guesses about it which, of course, I do. It has become clear to me that 90 percent of the time, the hiding and secrecy are about my fear, plain and simple: fear that He will think me disloyal. stupid. without ethics, shallow, vain, self-important, silly, feminine, arrogant, mean-spirited or what have you. Most of the rest of the time, it is about shame of some sort or other. By now, He has learned that I am all these things sometimes, and usually. He just chalks it up to the fact that I'm human and have all the usual human failings. And. since a human slave is what He wants, my fears and hiding usually mean much less to Him than they do to me. He loves me in spite of them, and some- times because of them. The more He accepts me for what I am. the more completely I become His.