Even the toughest heart still beats beneath the armour.

Sunday

Perhaps predictably, I did “go nuclear” on the housework, particularly the pile of OLIOable items that had been sat above the tumbledryer for too long. I knew that I couldn’t do everything in one day, but just something. Even something small, right?

Fortunately, the tense air between Master and I didn’t last long. Master senses that I’m “off”, and he asks what’s bothering me. Well, he asked the question. 

“I’m bothered that you didn’t say anything to me about your feelings again. How can I know what’s bothering you if you don’t say anything to me?” I ask. 

“I know, sorry” he says. 

“I try my best to be a good wife, to make you happy and proud, and I’d like to think that I am and you are. So it really bothers me when I find out there’s something that’s bothering you, that I don’t hear about. It hurts.”

“But we have a problem, if we’re going to talk about feelings” I say. “You feel underappreciated? I also feel underappreciated. When I’m dealing with the dog, my blog, maintaining the fish tanks, doing the DIY, the gardening, the general tidying, the bills, the shopping… You feel underappreciated because I’m always the first into bed, yet you’re still in bed at 11AM on the weekend because you stayed up til 4AM and that makes me feel underappreciated too. I work hard too, even on weekends.”

“Remember, you’re the one who said I could do this, should do this” I say of my blog. “Now you’re telling me that I don’t do enough and should work harder? I have one pair of hands!”

 “I’m sorry if you feel that way” Master says. I flinch. 

“Thank you, but I don’t accept that apology” I say. Master rolls his eyes. 

“Okay, I’m sorry that I make you feel that way” he corrects, “what can I do better?”

I smile. Much better 

“Just appreciate what I do do, and realise that, like you, I’m also not perfect. If Google throws a head fit and decides it doesn’t like my canonical tags? I have to address that ASAP. If that means my coffee mug is still on my desk at the end of the day? Just know that I didn’t leave it there on purpose.”

“Okay” he says, “I understand.”

“None of us are perfect, Mr S” I smile, “we’re all trying our best, and our best sometimes really is all any of us can give.”

Sunday evening into Monday morning and as I listed things off on OLIO, I chatted intermittently with Mister Valkyries. I offered to send Sir a “Date Night Cookbook”, owing to the fact that Sir is also in a relationship, and also enjoys cooking. Sir asked me if I was “propositioning” him. 

I mean yes, no, kinda. Maybe?

I argued that it’s hardly “propositioning” a man if I was confident that he’d accept what I had to offer him. And if he didn’t? Well, then he’d quickly come to realise his mistake.  

Sir and I had more of our typical flirtatious exchanges in which I said I felt “almost sorry” for him, having to deal with my wit, then, I said, I “pinch myself and remind myself I don’t have a heart.”

Sir said that I do have a heart, he also said he’d search for it. So I said he’d need a warrant, and Sir said that wasn’t necessary if I was inviting him in. Shit! What are the rules of engagement here? Do we shoot to kill or lay down our arms and surrender at his feet? He’s good! 

I did do something interesting Monday night: I found a military sleep technique meditation video, so I gathered I’d give it a try. If I was going to maintain a state of preparedness for whatever comes next, then I gathered I might as well sleep like I was serious about it. 

Monday

Monday morning I picked up an email from V — my “colleague in cuffs”/”silly brother in submission” — who amused me greatly with his idea of us being like giggling slaves at the watering well, giggling about our the nuances of our submission as our impatient Owners awaited our return. Our relationship is just as beautiful; it’s rich and friendly. It’s almost crazy how people can get along with people who aren’t hellbent on pillage and plunder 😉 

We do have plans for better photography for the blog, so I can’t wait to catch up with V and set the wheels in motion there. The Lovehoney Forum has been responsible for some very great people in my life!

Monday is my first day in “proper work”, the first time that I’ve sat down with proper hours and a proper schedule, rather than a hodge podge of hours and severe lack of organisation. I feel grown-up. Mature. I smile to myself when I remember how Valkyries hates that word. 

I call Sir by his surname now too, just as I do for Master Levi and Mr C — Sir says that it’s “very formal”. For me it’s a kind of playful love language — I do it with almost any man that I’m on close and playful terms with, and most of them seem to like it. 

Master Levi and Mister Valkyries both call me “Mrs S”, Mr C just calls me “love”. Master and Mister both have other names for me too, some of them perhaps not so polite or professional. 

Monday evening Mr Valkyries mentioned his playing Dungeons & Dragons for much of his life, to which I alluded to having preferred soldiers and spies, though which side I was on, I maintained, is my secret. Still is 😉 

Sir tried to guess me out, I maintained neutrality, opting to close Sir’s probing at one point with a simple “okay”. It alarms Master. 

“Are you two okay?” Master asks. 

“Fine!” I grin, “I’m just not engaging him where he wants me to engage, and that’s going to wind him up.” 

I will admit to another act of cruelty too: I tricked Huxley by throwing him several treats.

Well… sorta treats. 

Treat-treat-wormer tablet-treat-treat. 

The poor devil was none the wiser. 

Tuesday

Mum is ill, so it’s a day of housework for me. It’ll be good to catch up with it, though I still can’t do half of what I wanted to do with my arm. I’ve developed numbness in my fingertips now, predominantly my forefinger, but affecting all digits on my left hand. A quick call to NHS Direct and I’ve been told I’m doing “everything right” and it “sounds like it’s getting better” but “could take some time”. I have however been told that the numbness “warrants investigation”, particularly as it’s developed a few weeks after the initial injury. Daytrip to radiology, anyone? I know what’s coming next.

I’m still amused over this whole “soldier vs spy” scenario too.  

It’s funny, everyone seems to think I was a spy: Mr Valkyries guessed I was a spy. I asked Shadow, and Shadow guessed I was a spy. Even Master Levi guessed I was a spy. 

“You love that film” he says, “True Lies”. It’s true, I do. 

“Perhaps I was both, or neither?” I shrug. “Perhaps I was a poor, innocent civilian, caught up in the crossfire between back garden garrisons, captured and interrogated for what I knew.”

“Then there was Matt. Who can forget dear, sweet Matt? There I was, unarmed again, tasked with holding the hose to the tap to supply water to the paddling pool for their little aqua battle between boy scouts and girl scouts. And what did Matt do? He opened fire and completely drenched me where I stood!”

“Of course that led to me fancying him for at least a year after” I growl, “but after that? It was war. Boys don’t come in peace. They say they do, but they don’t. Conquer and capture, pillage and plunder. I know what you lot want.”

Master chuckles, but I’m not finished. 

“Then there was Paul and Kelly, and the Nerf guns. I like to think of that as my first battlefield experience, building defences and countering the opposition. It was them or it was us, their defences or ours, and Paul and my brother were prepared to cut our strings with scissors, and what were Kelly and I to do? So I learned to make battlefield repairs, and I learned battlefield physics too” I smile, “a defence that is only tied at the back, from the top? Hit it at the bottom and watch it face plant the floor. That’s why they hated ours — our defence was tied front and back. It’d wobble, but never topple.”

“Stephen, Claire and the BB battle” I shake my head, “that was more of a tactical engagement, it had to be. But again, Stephen and my brother were prepared to fight dirty, so we had to fight dirty back.”

“We won that war too” I say simply. 

“Claire and I were training on assault courses and open waters and abseil towers at the same time, by the way, and we did target practice and self defence too, so don’t think we were just kicking back and relaxing. We were women with a taste for adventure, and that made us more desirable for capture by the invading forces, apparently.” 

“Too bad for you, you captured the wrong one first” I say with a wink. Master winces, but he understands it — of the two of us, he’s often said I’m the more fun, more loving one.

“You wanted to be captured” he retorts.

“Don’t make this about me” I laugh. 

“But also no, not then. I was about ready to hand your ass to you, but you… “

“I?” he says softly. I roll my eyes as the tears threaten. 

“You didn’t give up” I whisper. 

“Nope” he smiles. “Not now, not then, not ever.”

Also Monday evening, Sir calls up my mentioning Ant Middleton on a thread. It feels threatening at first, but I decided to play down the threat. He can’t be much of a threat to me, can he? Can he? 

SAS Who Dare’s Wins’ Ant Middleton has always been of interest to me, psychologically. He puts on this tough guy front and yet, when he’s not commanding the recruits, he’s a complete softie. He understands things like controlled aggression, unlike his replacement DS (Directing Staff) Rudy Reyes, who — I often feel — plays up to the cameras. 

More than whooping my butt though, I’ve often felt Ant’s someone I could sit down and have a good brew with. Yet at the same time, he’s someone who I would trust to challenge me, and who I feel would put me through my paces. Hence, probably, the draw. 

He’s got what I call Real Dom Energy, or “RDE” for short. Unfortunately, Ant fell out of favour with myself (and a lot of other people) with some of his political views. 

Jason “Foxy” Fox is my other love — the guy’s an ass, in the best possible sense. I can neither confirm nor deny that I haven’t glanced DS Chris Oliver over once or twice, too 😉 

But SAS Who Dare’s Wins has always been a love of mine, and for my mother too. Obviously Ant was the main point of discussion, but for me, psychologically, it went beyond that. Something about the programme. 

It wasn’t a sex thing for me though, it was a submission thing — something about exploring the innermost depths and workings of myself. Exploring and finding not what I can’t do, but what I can do, and just how far I’m willing to go. I wanted to throw myself at it, the ultimate sense of achievement. For me, a physically disabled person, to be in a position whereby I had passed the selection process — whereby I could be considered to serve alongside our military’s elite — would be incredible.

To be seen not as the broken woman I am now, but as the formidable warrior I still am inside. 

Wednesday

Valkyries and I are back at it again; back to the banter that defines our relationship, mixed in with the realities of life. We got discussing health and fitness and Sir said that we need to motivate one another, to which I said Sir “doesn’t want me” doing that — I’m a notoriously bossy madam when I need to be, nobody wants me “motivating” them! 

But of course, I turned the dial up just a notch higher: I asked SIr if what was needed was his submission to me, Sir gave that a “hard pass” and I laughed out loud. Chicken 😉

So Sir said that he was destined to be a “lone workout warrior” and I told Sir that tugging at the heartstrings won’t work — I don’t have a heart. 

To that, Sir said that since I had a “major part” of my circulatory system missing it warranted further study in future, either to prove me wrong or to find it or a replacement for it. The man is giving me a choice with no good options here: either admit that I do have a heart, or… that.

So I called “pumpernickel”, and then I felt kind of crap. Did I “pumpernickel” too soon?

It was something I realised last night: I can take a lot, but, in a real combat situation, I think I’d see red if my captor tortured or killed someone I cared about in a bid to get me to confess, and that is a very real concept that the SAS recruits are exposed to. Not that I think Valkyries would go to those extremes (it’s a bit much for the sakes of a roleplay!), but it was what ultimately befell last season’s strong SAS contestant, Bimini. 

I do have a heart — of course I do — I just tried to keep it locked out of harm’s way. 

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Stay safe & have fun,

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