Cry Baby

There she go talkin' her mess
All around town makin' me stress
I need to get this off my chest
Know you really don't wanna step to dis
Really don't know why you talkin' shit
You 'bout to catch one right in the lip
It's about to be a what? Girlfight!
-Brooke Valentine


I slammed the hidden door behind me and then.. I slammed it again. It was such a loud sound, the slam, the shake of window panes. A bird fled from the wild flower garden and I was struck by the symbolism of the act. I scared away the very birds I worked so hard to attract to the garden. I spent hours in the walled garden. I pulled the weeds, I watered the blossoms. I watched the butterflies and wished I knew their names. And then, in my self righteous anger.. I frightened them away.

Nice going Lola. But see the connection?

The small room I locked myself into was not a bedroom, nor a slave kennel. It was actually a sweet little room. It had a large picture window that faced the wildflower garden and the wall behind it. I could not be seen by those outside of the house and only Agrippa knew where the door to this room was. There were white wood shelves and old scrubbed cabinets. A low table, surrounded by old cushions sat in the middle of the room.. waiting for me to work. The silks I had made for bit were spread out over the center. The chains I had carefully worked into the silk glinted in the dim lamplight.

I could not look at them.

My heart hurt so badly it seemed to fill up my chest and constrict my breathing, my throat was delicately bruised from my chain sisters violence. I sank to the floor, my back to the wall, my knees hugged into my chest, I took the cheap white beads I had collected from broken strands and threw them from me.. they were not worth the trouble, were they? The string broke and spilled the beads over the worn wood floor, little round beads scattered.. like my thoughts and the remants of my broken heart.

I've never been sent away from him before, I've never heard the pang of disappointment in his voice, directed at me. I tried, desperately to recall where I had gone so badly wrong.. I had not been welcoming to Bit, of course. I felt completely upstaged by her, by the way he lured her onto the ship, fucked here while I was forced to watch, the admiration in his voice for the bred den slave. Those first few days I had been cold to her but I had spoken to her, I tried to help her please him. Bit had made it clear that she didn't need my help.. she apparently knew him just as well as I did.

I had swallowed that hurt.

He was so pleased with Bit.. with how she brought him money, how sultry she was, how alluring. I.. am not those things. I will never be the kind of slave that brings home money. I cannot even count money. He has given bit shiny new things and a thick strong collar. He doesn't require her to work like I do.

I swallowed those hurts too.

He has dismissed me to be with her, he talks about her when she is not there, he never saw the silks I made her.. he bought her something new instead.

I gulped that one down with a pretty smile and my teeth pressed to my tongue.

I think I have so many reasons to be jealous of bit, more then I can count, more then I can handle all in one sitting. I had gotten past all of that. Agrippa had, without words, assured me that I was not to complete, it wasn't meant to be a competition. I was Lola, the only Lola, no matter what. I swallowed, and chewed and digested it all. I was getting better at it by the day. Little by little, unnoticed, my efforts grew. Even when he sent me to buy her yet more new silk! As if all my work was worthless. I swallowed it then too and tried to talk to her. She wanted my pinks and blues and yellows.. she pulled my hair and then.. she actually jumped me. She wrapped her arm around my slender throat and cut off my breath while threatening to kill me. Bit was shouting at me.. I was crying like a child.

Lola the little girl! How could I ever, ever compete with Bit the come hither whore? I can't, I do not want too. I want to just be Lola. I want that to be enough.

It was burning me up inside, this feeling of not being enough. I was angry about it because I had already conquered it. I had already learned that I did not need to compete. That this chain.. was not a competition at all. But every time I have to see Bit.. she turns it back into one. No matter what I do.. she can't see past her own defenses. Defenses she doesn't need and do not become her.

I told my Master something he did not like, the reason, I think, that I was punished and Bit was not. I told him I did not wish to share him. I love him. Not as a slave loves her master, not even as a woman loves a man. I love him so completely that I do not see myself as a separate entity from him. I am me, of course, I have my own heart and thoughts and quirks.. but I am also an extension of him. I have my finger on his heart, I know there is tenderness there. I covet that tenderness.. that, exactly that, is what I cannot share. The connection between us.. I will defend it any way I can.

"I do not want to share you Master, but I know I must.. I am glad it is Bit."

I was glad.. and now I never wanted to be near that woman again. I had thought Gorean slaves understood their slavery better then I did. I thought I would be learning from her. Yet here I am.. trying to make her understand how horribly wrong she has everything.

Or.. maybe I am wrong. Maybe I have no right to protect my connection with him. Maybe it is not even mine to protect. Maybe.. I am wrong.

I cried that night, for hours I cried, curled up under the window, the door locked but the window open. The cool nights breeze soothed the hot anger in my belly, the feeling of betrayal. I felt like bit had taken all my efforts and thrown them in my face, determined to see me as a mean, spiteful girl. She doesn't know me.. not at all. And all I could do.. was hope he would allow me to keep trying to reach her.

All I can do is hope he can.. still see me under all this.. strange not like me stuff.