Wearing the big girl panties

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

I imagine he does it on purpose. It is too precise to be an accident. He does it with the tone of his voice or a brush of his hand against my back. He breaks me down when I am my strongest. He keeps me vulnerable. Agrippa shows me how strong I am.. when I am at my weakest. How much sense does that make?!

He hugged me when he let me out the sewing room. I mumbled breathless apologies into the crook of his neck. This was new to us, this tension, jealousy.. and sharing. I'd never been jealous of other slaves with him before but it was easy to figure that one out. I am only jealous of what I find threatening. Bit threatens my place in the world, she is many things that I am not... and I worry that she is more useful then I am. Agrippa likes money, a lot. Almost as much as he likes my ass. But it is Bit that brings him that happiness.

Sitting in that room had given me so much time to think and I have come to a very simple conclusion.

There is no competition among those of us on his chain. It is not for me to compete. I've already won. I wear his collar and often, his hand prints, I catch his eye when we pass each other in the house, I still excite him, inspire him. I still love him and no one is trying to take that way or, if they did try, could! His finger is perpetually on my pulse. I belong to him, I dare anyone to try and break that bond.

I do not need new things, pretty arm bands or new silks. I actually.. prefer creating my own things. I enjoy thinking about the next way to tease him. I consider the way a fabric will drape over my hips, the way a scrap of silk will hug my breast. I pay attention to the colors and the textures and the cut of things, the way a piece of jewelry will lie against me, frame parts of me. I wear hair ribbons almost every day, perfectly matching me. I wear them for him to steal from me, to crumple in his strong fingers, to bind my wrists with. Who else but Lola will ever do those things just for him?

So I apologized, breathlessly into his neck and he ran his hand over my messy hair, smoothing it. He pulled back my head and kissed me, a sweet soft kiss that licked the flame inside me. His arms squeezed me a little and I think he was trying to force all bad thoughts out of me and make me be the sweet innocent girl I used to be.

Nothing gold can stay.

My jealousy will never go away; I am a jealous territorial girl. Ribbons, colors, certain chores, these things are mine; I exert some modicum of control over them at his will. I will learn to work though those feelings. I will reinforce the need to not compete. Were all different, were all cogs in the machine, people can be different and all still needed.

He took me then to meet the newest slave. I know! Such timing, how like him! In the markets I was chattering on about fruit salads and chutney and salsa. Agrippa tended to just eat what I made though, and not care much about the fancy names or methods used to create meals. Suddenly, in the midst of my rambling, he grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the woman I was most likely to avoid in a public place!

Glory was climbing to her feet after being shoved from the mouth of any alley. She had the most amazing tumble of thick black hair. It surrounded her and seemed as alive as her expressive face. She bites, I can tell. She was wearing some kind of leather.. thing that I swear had to hurt! I pressed my knees together and slipped a little behind my Masters side. Suddenly Bit seemed like pussy cat.

So naturally that was when it happened. The craziest thing like.. ever!

"glory. This is lola, the one I told you about. She is in charge of you now. She will see that you get a supply of silks and cosmetics and sometimes do your face and hair. Shes first girl to you lowly slut and if I have to give her a kalana switch I will and believe me. If you don't obey her I will come after you. And not gentle like the last time. Now kiss her cheek and greet her." Said my wicked funny Master!

But he wasn't laughing. I stepped from behind him and nervously leaned down to kiss the woman’s cheek. Glory is a woman too, not a girl. I am a girl.. bit is even a girl.. Glory is too.. Scandalous to be a girl. The next hour was so surreal for me.. Bit arrived too and he told her the same. I did not know what to say or how to act.. Should I act differently? Did this mean no more stomping my feet?! And too.. how proud I was! That he trusted me this much.. Trusted me enough to delegate tasks, keep them pretty for him. He gave bit some instructions on how to deal on how to handle her complaints of me while I was measuring Glory. I take measuring very seriously, you know.. It's more work to make things look like they fit accidentally then on purpose. There is a little manipulative magic in the way a woman in dressed.

What happened next should have made me angry, should have made my blood boil. He took us home, all three of us and let the other two tend to him, but not I. I did not touch him at all. I stood by the mantle instead.

I was center stage, but that’s a story for another time.