Mary and Daphne #100 (Patreon)

Mary stopped mid-step and looked up at me, obviously surprised. I could see the blush rising in her cheeks (so I know she has at least some sense of shame). It’d been a long while since I hit the red light button. We had a moment when we just looked at each other, that kind of awkwardness the well-read call chagrined.

“What do you need from me right now,” Mary asked after a beat. I started walking down the stairs.

“Just listen to me,” I said when I got to her. I kept going and she put her arm around my shoulder. I took us into the living room and flopped down on the couch. Mary put her arm back on my shoulder, and part of me wanted to shrug it off, which is like, woah, me not wanting Mary touching me. That’s a rarity.

“You’re not listening to me again,” I told her. “I don’t wanna nap.”

Mary looked embarrassed. “I just ... thought you’d feel better if you put your head down for twenty minutes.”

“I know when I need put my head down. I don’t wanna nap, and you ... you can’t just trot out the domme stuff for everything. I didn’t want a nap, and you made it a thing, and you’ve been doing that a lot lately.”

Mary took her arm off my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I ...”

I cut her off with, “And we talked about that just the other day, and you said you’d stop.”

Mary was looking at the little square of carpet between her feet. Know who else does that when she’s being lectured? This girl. I thought of a whole litany of things to say to her, starting with how much friggin’ credit I deserve for going along with the diaper thing, which is clearly so much more Mary’s thing than mine. Yes, I like the humiliation part, but she was the one pushing it from the get-go. More than half my panties are missing. I don’t even know where she put them. And did I mention I’ve been peeing on myself? It’s not like it’s a hard limit or even a soft limit, but it also wasn’t my idea, and it’s not something I’m exactly looking forward to when she decides to make me wear a diaper.

But I’m used to it, and I enjoy how submissive it makes me feel to do those things. It brought a new layer of kink into our lives that we didn’t even know we were missing out on. In truth, if I did like those things and wanted them all on my own, then it wouldn’t be me submitting and it wouldn’t be embarrassing. It needs to be something she makes me do, or it just isn’t all the exciting for me.

And I know everything Mary does for me. She is my rock. She is the water to my life. But I do a lot for her, too. Besides taking care of our home, it’s not easy being a lifestyle submissive. It’s obvious all the work that dommes do, but subs do a lot of work, too. It’s my butt that’s sporting a bruise multiple times a month. I like it; really, I do. When I said I wanted to be lifestyle, what that meant is giving up most, but not all, of the say in when and why. I am one well spanked submissive. And I didn’t even want to get into all the peanut butter I’ve missed out on (mostly) following her rules.

But I didn’t want to rant, and I didn’t want to get all angry. I was angry, but when I red lighted, that went away. So instead, I asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Wrong,” she asked like it just occurred to her something might be off with her lately.

“Yeah, like is there something up with you that you’ve just been … kinda pushing whatever you want kink wise … and not really reading my signals?”

“I think I ... I just got carried away.”

“Carried away again. You said that two weeks ago. What’s going on?” Everybody gets carried away sometimes in lifestyle relationships. Sometimes the horny takes hold for a while, and it’s easy to lose perspective. Heaven knows I’ve found myself randier than usual sometimes when spring arrives. But this just didn’t feel like that. When Mary is the victim of a tidal wave of thirst, it usually means I get spanked more, mostly for fun, and end up on the dinner menu more often (I’m a tasty little morsel, just FYI). Neveer has it meant getting put down for a nap.

Mary sighed and looked at the carpet some more before looking back up at me. “I’m sorry. Have I been that bad?”

Woah. Role reversal. “Not bad, just making some not great choices, and it seems like you don’t even notice it. Do you ... Am I not satisfying your needs? Are you bored with our lifestyle?”

“No! O, Daffy, no. You satisfy all my needs, and I’m not bored. Every day with you is a new adventure,” she said with a forced chuckle. “I guess I just ... I’ve been a little single minded is all. Like you’ve been sometimes with the pandemic and quarantine. Even though more things are open, we’re still not doing much until we’re fully vaccinated, and I’m feeling ... restless. And it just ... Every day is too much the same. Feels like all I do is work, have dinner, go to bed, and do it again.”

“We spend time together,” I interjected.

“I know we do.”

“So you are bored.”

“Not with you. Just with ... work, and having no balance between work and everything else. I’m sitting at my computer ten hours a day and thinking mostly about you and things we can do to just ... do something different ... I guess I’m spending too much time fantasizing and not doing such a good job of looping you into it. I’m not bored with you, Daffy. I’m just so excited to do stuff with you ... and take care of you ... I’m just forgetting to ... ask.”

“You don’t have to ask. I don’t want to do scenes. I like being lifestyle.”

“I know. Not ask, but ... reading your signals, like you said. I’m sorry.”

“I know. I forgive you ... I wish you’d tell me more about how you’re feeling. I tell you.” And I kinda tell her everything. Very few secrets do I possess that aren’t related to me breaking rules or hiding candy. I’m here for her, too. She takes care of me, but I take care of her. Set aside all the kink stuff. That’s what it means to be married. Everything that happens to me happens to her, too; and everything that happens to her happens to me, too. That’s what it means to love someone.

“I know,” she said. “It’s just not always easy. I don’t want you worrying about my work.”

“It’s not about your work. It’s about you. And I’m gonna worry more if I think you’re not telling me how you feel ...” And now to trigger my self-doubt, “... And maybe I haven’t been doing so good reading your signals, if you’re that stressed or ... whatever. Pandemic fatigued, and I’m not noticing it.”

“Maybe I haven’t been giving you enough time to notice it. My being so intense lately, being a little pushy with the playtime ... Doesn’t leave you much time to notice.”

“You’re not pushy. Just ... insistent.” That’s different, right? In a way that’s the same but without the negative connotations? “No, assertive.” Which is how dommes are supposed to be, but they have to be reading signals in a lifestyle relationship, because that’s how consent works in a lifestyle relationship. It’s implied. We’re not negotiating scenes; we’re just being us.

“It’s not your fault,” Mary told me. She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed at her eyes.

“You’re the one who needs a nap,” I said.

“I know. I’ll do better. I promise I will.” She didn’t say anything for some long seconds and then tentatively added, “We have had this discussion, or almost had it a few times, haven’t we? Over the last year, year and a half?”

“I guess.”

“It’s the ageplay, isn’t it? That’s what you said once, that this wasn’t so hard when it was just discipline. Maybe that’s the problem. And I guess I pushed that, too.” She sounded disappointed in herself. On the outside, most of the time, Mary is all confidence, like she’s in control and knows what she’s doing, and a lot of dommes are, but a lot of times that’s just a show. When the mask slips, Mary, like all dommes, is as vulnerable and prone to dejection as folks like little ol’ me.

“I don’t think either of us pushed it,” I said. “I was thinking about that, when it started. It was more than a year and a half ago. Remember the play party where you wouldn’t paddle me and I had a mini breakdown?” Yes, I’m choosing to characterize that as mini. “I think that’s when it started. It just grew.”

“But it grew faster since the pull-ups, which were also my idea. And you didn’t want to.”

“I don’t want to do lots of stuff, and that’s what makes doing it fun ... most of the time ... It’s not easy being like us. It’s hard being lifestyle.” Like, she’s supposed to manage, without my telling her directly, what are things I don’t like that are fun for me when she makes me do them and which ones are not. That’s why our relationship is … intense and especially intimate, like Nana once said. We had to be to get to where we are because most lifestyle relationships break down fast, and we have to keep being so in sync with each other to keep it going. It gets tiring, but we love it and we love each other, and we love ourselves when we’re living the lifestyle we always wanted.

“When we talked the other times, when we slowed down, did you want to red light anything but didn’t? Did I pressure you,” she asked.

“No. Well, maybe a little, sometimes. It’s just ... red lights throw everything off, so sometimes I give in. It takes a while to find our groove again. I don’t like red lighting.”

“So what do you want to change? We can undo anything. We can go back to the way things were before the pull-ups.”

“And diapers,” I added because it’s just a reflex for me to complain about that now.

“Yeah,” Mary said, sounding dejected again, I think more because she felt bad about pressuring me into them than that I might say no to them.

“I’m not a little girl,” I said for the bazillionth time. “But ... I like being your little girl ... But that doesn’t make me a little girl ... Just ... It makes me yours is all.” And that allis everything to me.

“And you can be that without the diaper stuff. I mean, you were before.”

“I don’t think of the diaper stuff as just little girl stuff. It’s ... Having a humiliation fetish sucks sometime,” I sighed and leaned against her.

“So you don’t want to get rid of that?”

“I hate-like it, okay? You finally dragged it out of me. Except I don’t like them, which is why I do.” I sighed again, and again said, “Having a humiliation fetish seriously sucks sometimes.”

“So,” Mary asked, dragging out the syllable, “does anything change then?”

“Just you trying to read my signals better. Just because I’m your little girl doesn’t mean I’m not my own adult,” I said, feeling suddenly and unpleasantly irritable again. “Sometimes ... It’d be nice to ... for you to show more often that you see me as the woman you married. I’m lots of things besides cute and subby.”

“I never forget, Daffy. Though maybe with you not working and being home with me all the time, it’s just been too easy to stay in domme mode for me. I guess that can mask all the ways I feel about you, and I do feel them all, just as much as ever.” She snuck a kiss in on my temple. I was still leaning on her.

This next part was harder, because Mary wouldn’t have done it if she didn’t want to. Maybe once, but she’d done it at least twice, and really in some ways more than twice. “There is something,” I nervously said.

“What?”

“I didn’t red light because of the nap ... though that did tick me off. It was because you called yourself momma.”

“O,” was all she said.

That’s when I had an epiphany. She didn’t even notice herself doing it. Just like she wasn’t reading my signals, she wasn’t paying full attention to her own. It just came out naturally for her, and it did the other times, too. “You didn’t realize you did that, did you?”

“I ... No. I’m sorry,” she said in a much quieter voice than she almost ever uses. “I got caught up.”

“Do you remember me telling you I don’t like that?”

“Yes,” she practically squeaked.

Is this what it’s like talking to me? ‘Cause it’s work. “That’s a limit.”

“I know ... I’m...”

She trailed off and didn’t say anything for long enough for me to prompt her, “You can say it.”

“I don’t want to pressure you on it, but can you tell me why it’s a limit? … I just want to understand,” she added quickly.

I never fully unpacked that myself. “Because ... if you’re my mommy, you’re not my wife.”

“I’m always your wife.”

“But if you’re a mommy, that makes me a little, and I’m not a little. I’m just ... yours.”

“Lisa is Jane’s wife and her mommy.”

“But Jane is a little. And not just with Lisa. She’s a little with lots of people, even me.”

“If you can be my little girl and not a little, I could be your mommy and not a mommy.  And you’ve already said I’m a big, which I think is fair.”

“You said no pressure,” I reminded her as I sat up.

“I’m ... I don’t mean to.”

“Can you tell me why it’s ... Why do you like calling yourself that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“Try.” Oops; that came out bitchy.

“I guess I just ... You don’t call me miss or ma’am or mistress, and I don’t want you to. I just ... it makes me feel special, if there’s something you call me that no one else does and that sort of … underlines who we are to each other. A pet name, but also something … that makes me feel more dominant … and protective when we’re doing stuff.”

“But if you’re my mommy ... People don’t call people mommy just sometimes. We’re lifestyle ... You’d be mommy all the time ... And I married Mary ... And Mary married me.” Don’t cry don’t cry don’t cry, I said in my head about both of us.

“Daffy,” she said all choked up (dammit), “I never ... never forget I married Daphne Ann.”

And that’s when the wheels fell off. Like I’ve been saying, these kinds of things happen in lifestyle relationships. It’s no one’s fault (most of the time). And this is why I don’t like red lights except when absolutely necessary. It’s why I didn’t red light the first time she crossed that limit or the other times. Because now Mary was crying. (And is this what it’s like trying to talk to me? Damn it’s hard.)

“I know you,” she said. “It’s ... I don’t ... This is my fault.”

“It’s not anyone’s fault.”

“If I did a better job showing you I see all the other parts of you...”

“It’s not about that.” Or it is about that. Or that’s part of it. Fuck our complicated lives. “I mean, I do ... I do need you to show it more, but even if you did, it’s still ... Wouldn’t you being my mommy change everything? Just ... wouldn’t it?”

She was trying to dry her eyes. I reached for the Kleenex on the table and handed her one. “How,” she asked.

“I don’t know. I just ... When you label something, it becomes that thing. I don’t know how it might be different, but I like this. I like the way things are. I just don’t want that to change.” Except in the ways we just talked about it changing. Fucking hell is this exhausting.

“I don’t see how, Daffy. Maybe you’re right, and not knowing how could ... yeah, I can get how that’s scary ... But it doesn’t matter. I’m not going to call myself that ever again. It’s your limit, and I’ll respect that.”

That felt like a hollow victory. Not even a victory. Just a fact, and an anticlimactic one.  “Okay,” I said, and we sat there for maybe half a minute, not sure what to say next. “I love you,” I said first. “You’re my Mary.”

She didn’t say anything, which made me have a mini panic attack in the split second before I turned and looked at her after avoiding eye contact for the last several minutes. She had on her a face of hers I hadn’t catalogued yet, like a half-of-me-wants-to-cry-and-half-of-me-wants-to-smile face. “That’s it,” she said. “That’s the thing you call me that no one else does.”

“What?”

“‘My mary.’ I’m your Mary. Not anyone else’s.”

“It’s not a title like mommy, though.”

“It sort of is, and I ... It’s not the title that’s important. Just something that ... reminds me what I mean to you … and what I owe to you.”

“And being my Mary is that?”

“Isn’t it? Being yours is my most important job, just like being my little Daffy is yours. And everything about you that makes you Daffy.”

“And the big in you and everything else ... Are you gonna start referring to yourself in the third person when I’m in trouble now?”

“Like how?”

“Like ‘Little girl, what did Mary just say?’”

“... Time will tell.”

“That’s a yes.”

“Daffy? I love you too. Do you forgive me?”

“Of course. Thanks for ... making it easy to talk about. Or easier.” Was not easy. Marginally easier.

“Thanks for being brave enough to tell me. I know it’s not easy.”

“Are we okay?”

“Yeah.”

“Then gimme a hug.” Oof, did I get squeezed, and so did she. “What do you want to do now?”

“Um, promise you won’t get frustrated? Now I wanna take a nap.”

She chuckled and ran her hand down my side. “Me too.”

“I call big spoon.”

“No way. You’re too little.”

“Marrry.”

“Fine, just this once. And when we get up, I’m ordering you every tulip we can afford.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to.”

I knew it would take some more time to get totally back to normal, or really that we wouldn’t get back to normal. We’d have a slightly different normal, a better one. Plus, I got to be the big spoon.

It’s a work in progress: ourselves, a marriage, a lifestyle relationship. She committed, or recommitted to a lot of things, and sticking to them is the hard part. But we got through the conversation, which is the maybe the hardest part, with no hurt feelings, and I said my piece and she said hers. I think she’s still disappointed about the mommy thing, but I know she’ll respect my boundary, just like I know she’s gonna start lecturing me in the third person sometimes, which is okay. I kinda like that, the way it could make me feel smoler. Hopefully I don’t have to red light again for a long time, and hopefully we get back into our usual groove quicker than we have in the past with red lights.

Anyhoo, new adventure tomorrow.