(My unsolicited point of view from my reading of @Lady-Sarah-Ines ’s fantasy. Kneeling, Bound and exposed, I wrote my characters thoughts and memories which are gaining ever more influence over mine in my own art and in the small world I actually call home. I’ll link to the area of her page where my cage is kept so you can find your way there to the full story. This particular piece is meant to be read between Chspters 3 and 4 of the main story. 😊

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In the real world, I am kneeling. I have removed every stitch of clothing. When I began this ritual of preparation, I did so without permission and having no idea if it was pleasing to the LADY SARAH. I am a girl of faith and submission so kneeling and exposed was less a choice than an inevitability. And whether pleasing or an overstep, I was confident my presentation would result in either recognition or a penalty.

I crave both, so I rolled the dice asserted my submission.

That was when we were only chatting, trading comments, being…coy. Fuck. I thought I was coy. Now I know. I was a fly in a web. A bird in a cage. A very specific bird. And fortunately for my lustful heart, I carried value. This is where my fantasy character, Martina Josephine of the Family of Power, Joesphine, and my real farmer’s granddaughter-self begin to converge.

My elders in both realities taught me about value and power. Both can get you the things you need to be secure, comfortable and fulfilled. Both can be fleeting. Both are intoxicating to wield. And the two are easily confused for the other.

“Tina, you must never make the mistake of thinking you have one, when you have the other,” Grandmother Josephine told me during one of the final lessons. “That miscalculation can be disaster.”

Kneeling here, vulnerable, wearing heavy chains and goosebumps instead of clothes, I swear to God I don’t know if I received that guidance in the real world or in the story Lady Sarah is revealing.

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I wasn’t playing a game. At least not from my perspective. I was prey surviving among predators and doing so with stealth and misdirection. These efforts were never intended to be a final solution. They were to buy time. They were to keep me safe long enough to become attached to a predator who’s shadow would envelope me in a protective aura. Only then would I have a chance to avoid detection as the kind of weakness that was intolerable in this world.

The plan was just to become a poor victim of Slyvia and Sophie. I never imagined I’d garner the attention of Eva Verana. And yet, here I was, right on time, standing before her doorway. My disbelief is a thick haze that is difficult to see through. And make no mistake, I am afraid. But my God, that fear has power. And the power has a grip upon me that is like steel. And if Eva can assert this kind of dominance on me with nothing but an invitation to her home for a visit, I can only imagine what she can make me feel under her full attention. The door opens.

“Right on time.” Three words and I was bewitched. I could not tell if she was pleased at my timeliness, disappointed not to have a complaint against me, or completely ambivalent and merely making small talk with herself. I could not tell her subtext, but I was absolutely certain that I needed to know the answer. I needed all of her answers.

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Time passed in blurs of sound and colors and I was alone in an upper room holding my breath. I opened my eyes slowly and inhaled, yet the light-headedness persisted. I was a sight. A beautifully decorated paradox. I was out of place and yet exactly where I was desired. That thought was the one that started my breathing once again.

“You are desired…”

But am I desired for my value or my power? Oh, my bottomless well of optimism still hopes to know which trait I can ride to carry me into the place of protection Grandma Josephine hoped I could find. It still had never occurred to me that Eva did not care about value or power and that before her I had neither. She may have simply wanted to hear me struggle for nothing more than whatever satisfaction my pitiful sounds provided.

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Eva used dismissive declarations and one-word directions. Not a wasted breath. Her methods were as precise as her attire and as sharp as a lash. The waves are over my head, and I’m trying to ask them what I should do. Like a wave, Eva has no need to explain anything to me. Both are forces of nature that dominate with smooth and effortless power.

I am in bondage now. Hours ago, I imagined an outcome of this sort and I lied and told myself would resist it. I am afraid, but more of being revealed than of being gripped in Eva’s restraints. And then she traps me in a hopeless cause.

“Let me hear the refrain you sang in that wooden cabinet…”

What? No. How? My hands can’t reach. I try to pull them down to reach my wanting yearning flesh, but Eva’s ropework is more than I can overcome. I struggle. I feel like I should be able to find pressure. I should be able to shift of my side or my front or get my legs out from under me or rub them together or do ANYTHING to answer Eva’s demands for vocalizing my desires. But I can’t. As simply bound as I am, the costume she place me in, the scene of her reading my secrets beside me, the soft luxurious bedding and my undeniable exposure has combined to put me in the position Grandmother Josephine warned me to avoid no matter what.

I was vulnerable.

I could hear Eva’s pleasure with the earthy noises I forced out around the gag locked between my teether. Each yelp came with a tinge more urgency than the one before. Every garbled syllable stealing another scale from my suit of armor. I was being distilled. Dissected. Examined. But carefully. I was so unprepared, and I was so wrong in failing to understand that truth. I came here thinking I was following a plan but I am really here by a whim of Eva’s fancy.

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Now, left alone, writhing and moaning in earnest, my humiliation is out in open. The power I hoped I wielded is revealed to have been less than a mirage. The value I believed I could offer as a final bargaining piece was never desired. There is nothing that I have or that I am that she needs from me. I’m nothing but an object, and THAT is exactly why she can own me. And that is not the same as possessing me. Sophie and Slyvia were able to possess me after class simply by virtual of greater strength. Eva can own me by the power of her position above me on the food chain and the truth that I do not know what, if any, limits that power has.

But for tonight, I’ll just sing for her. And then tomorrow will come and bring what it brings.