Concept: The slave as a fully customizable, fully adjustable creature, capable of being molded to the Master's specifications. For most Masters, control is important to one degree or another. Depending on Their personalities, some will assert more control of slaves, and others will assert less. Hopefully, Masters determine for Them selves how much and what kinds of control They want based on what is fun for Them or what might facilitate slave growth rather than any other criteria. To become a slave means to confront one's self to the likes and dislikes of the Master, to bend one's self to the Master's will as it were. For example, in spite of the stereotype that suggests that Masters are allowed to smoke cigars while slaves are not, there are some Masters out there who will find it sexy when a slave smokes a cigar. Such a Master might want His slave to smoke cigars, possibly even more so if the slave did not smoke before or even hated cigar smoke. If a Master has the power to forbid a slave to smoke, then surely He also has the power to compel a slave to start smoking. To mold one's self to the will of such a Master, the slave would have to be able to reach down inside himself, "turn down" or turn off' any objection to smoking or to cigars, and learn how to smoke them in a way that the Master finds sexy. If slaving is all about the Master's pleasure and a given slave wants to belong to this particular Master, then the slave would have to find the rheostats within himself that adjusted his opinions about cigar smoking. And, yes, from a certain point of view, this can be seen as an application of the obedience principle. Using another example, despite the stereotype that suggests the Master is always right, some Masters will want a slave to be a capable verbal sparring partner- someone to argue issues with. If a slave wanted to be with such a Master, that slave would have to reach down inside himself, disable any "Master is no one to argue with" programming and find it in himself to alter contrary discussion when his opinion differed from that of the Master. In a similar vein, some Masters enjoy playing cards or board games, but also want a worthy opponent. In the Master's home where I have been permitted to live and serve, the Master is an avid card player, so I have had to learn to play cards, and play to win. The Master has revealed what is fun for Hun, and this is one way I participate in His amusement. This is my job. By exerting His control over me, He gets His amusement. Sometimes, the Master wants me to drive; other times He takes the wheel Himself His call, of course. Likewise, there are times He wants to surprise Him by choosing what will be prepared and served for dinner. To do this, the programming in my head that suggests that all those decisions are His to make must be disabled. There are times when Masters will want us to be on "autopilot." This means we have to be able to have an autopilot in the first place and to know where the autopilot control switches are in our heads. There are two things that activate need for my internal rheostats and the need to readjust myself. The first is when I observe that He is not pleased with something I've done or not done. When His displeasure registers in my head, I know I must take action and react myself. The second thing is when I notice the occurrence of what I will call ''contrary feelings" coining up inside myself' Sometimes this happens when He does something that I am resistant to or that I disapprove of in some way. For example. when He moved me into His home, He assigned control of the kitchen to inc. "Be- cause I do not cook and know nothing about food beyond eating, this shall be your domain," He said. "Arrange it any way you want, and make it work." So put things in the kitchen where I thought; they would work best. One day, the Master came in and said, "I don't like this phone placed here," and with that, He moved it elsewhere on the counter. Inside. I bristled and thought, "But you said And that bristling activated my internal sentry, and I chilled out. In this instance, I was lucky because both mechanisms worked to alert the sentry. But knowing must change my head and its attitude not the same as changing it. To actually operate the rheostats in my head I use-you guessed it-a mental ritual. With perhaps rare exception, Masters take no joy in struggling with slaves mentally (I emotionally. Masters are people who like things to go Their way. It has become my belief that unless a slave learns to bend his will, personality, attitudes, and body to His Master, the relationship is at risk for becoming stormy and will likely collapse eventually. For this reason, slaves are advised to make contact with, develop and learn to operate their internal 'thermostats. as a refinement obedience. ATTENTION Concept: The primary focus of a slave is the Master, Whenever the Master where I am currently permitted to live and serve is in the room or even somewhere nearby, He is the center of my attention. He is even often he center of my attention when we are at distance from each other. He has become the axis around which my life revolves, and I am devoted to Him, His comfort, His pleasure and the satisfaction of His appetites. Part of my job is to be attentive to Him. To do this, it is important to look at Him and pay close attention whenever He speaks or moves. This can sometimes be a challenge because life is distracting: My job places .'time demands on me and on my attention Sometimes my family of origin can he distracting. At other times, my own body can be distracting (I have a cold as I write this). But even in distraction, the Master is my first and foremost priority. This is part of the first principle I discussed-the principle of identity. When I notice that I am distracted, is my job to "bring myself back" into focus on the Master. I do this with a simple mental ritual. I ask myself, "What is the most important fact of my life'?" And the answer, "the Master," drives all distractions 'from my mind. To reinforce this focus, when I have turned my mind away from whatever is distracting it, I engage some of the identity rituals-my personal favorite is to close my eyes, stick my mental "face" into one of his boots, and inhale deeply. When I do this, I sail right back to who I am, who He is and what we are about. You may discover that other recollections of the Master will "bring you back" and "center you." Do what works. SACRIFICE Concept: To give up one's own pleasure. comfort, satisfaction for another: to inconvenience one's self for another. To become a slave and remain blissfully happy in slavery, one must do away with-sacrifice-one's desire for pleasures that are independent of the Master's will. This means that when our desires come into conflict with whatever the Master wants, it is always the Master's will that prevails. This means giving up any emotional investment in what we might want for ourselves. If the Master and I are driving somewhere, for example, and I report to Him that I am curious to see the progress of a new building that is going up, He might respond with something like, "I want to pick up the dry cleaning, and that building is out of the way." Because I "wanted" to see the building. I might feel disappointment at His decision. If I don't do anything about my disappointment, it may build into resentment, or even anger. In the situation mentioned, it is my task to sacrifice my desire to see a building, replacing it with pleasure that the Master will soon have His dry cleaning. The same thing may be said of books I'd like tread. movies I'd like to see, writing I'd like to do, chores that must be done which I'd like to do now, telephone calls that I'd like to make or any other thing I might "like" to do, including sexual service. Unless slaves become adept at sacrificing any particular desire and replacing that desire with joyful obedience and compliance, relationships with Masters will be stormy and, most probably, doomed to failure. Unless the slave has truly made up his mind that slavery is the best possible destiny for him, such sacrifices will eventually become difficult or impossible. But once this central decision has been made, obedience and the sacrifices that go with it become easier and easier until at last, they become second nature-automatic. What's more, we slaves with this point of view get to a place in our heads where every time we "give something up" for the Master. we feel that our slavery, our surrender, is renewed and reinforced. So: I've lost the pleasure of seeing the building, but I've gained my slavery; I've lost the opportunity to make that phone call, but I've gained my slavery. And when slavery is the most important thing in the world, joy is the result in my life. The careful reader will at once recognize that the above remarks are barely more than elaboration’s of ideas contained in the cornerstone principles: identity, obedience, transparency and humility. Even so. until a would-be slave truly begins to appreciate and understand the wide range of territory that each of these ideas covers, the risk of stumbling remains an ever-present danger.