Running till I was caught

I first need to go back a bit into my past.  I have nerve damage from about my belly button down from falls and car accidents, and have fought to stay out of a wheelchair.  I also probably have some brain damage from other accidents, but that’s never been confirmed.  My latest bad one was on January 27th. I spent 3 weeks in my living room, living, breathing, and sleeping on my recliner because there was no other place in the house where I could sleep. It took two weeks for me to be able to sit at my computer, and another two weeks before I could really return to what is “normal” activity.  My real life husband, Pen, has taken over all the household chores and won’t let me take them back yet.  I also get chest pains and am now on aspirin therapy for them, just in case.  I have been using biofeedback since I was 9, and doing a simple “shrink and move” the pain trance since my first car accident at 14.  Another accident nearly cost me my dominant thumb, and even over two decades later, it still causes me pain at times.  I’m also recovering from getting my hand squished at my real life’s work.  Nothing broke, but it hurts.

I love being in small spaces, just big enough for me to move around and change position in.  It’s part of how I still cope as a survivor of childhood abuses that I need not go into here. I have spent my life staring into the void and have come a little too close to it.  This is a daily fight, compounded by physical and emotional pain, and when my emotions are in a turmoil, it can be harder to fight.  Those who understand, I need not say anymore.  Let’s just say I ran out of matches a lot this past week.

I also believe that the more emotional you are, or the more in pain you are, the more you have to use your body and be aware of it, the lower your functional IQ gets.

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Spitfire had logged for the morning, and I was in happy land.  I wanted to go and do a task that we spotted that Unity needed for the new galleria if I’m going to be a statue/greeter.  That requires gacha hunting.  So, I went to where the gacha should be after the arcade finished, in order to see if it had been moved to the merchants sim.

I bought one little gacha… a pair of wings… innocent enough, no?

Little did I know the turmoil those would bring me.  Or the trial that seemed to go on forever.

Spitfire came online for my DJ set and I told her what I had spent in total, including the gacha.  This is all foggy, probably more so because of my distraction with Djing than anything else.  She stayed awake for the set, then dragged me to YMO, sticking me in one of my two cages that were there at the time.

I didn’t realize how angry she was at me for spending lindens without permission, especially on gachas.  I was about to find out.

I was to stay naked in the cage until she came back.  The “aunties” at YMO could pull me from the cage itself and cuddle me, but were not allowed to “play” with me.  Okay… the cage I could do, but naked in the cage?  I begged for her to allow me my venus shield – something to cover my lower fem bits.  I was allowed that little bit of dignity, but nothing else.  Spitfire told the galleria I was not to be disturbed until she came back.  I was given a notecard to hand out, and the only person who could pull me from my cage was Unity, and only if she needed me for a specific task.  Once done, I was supposed to return immediately to my cage.

I was allowed to DJ if I was commanded.  There’s specific commands in order for me to DJ at the galleria, and only specific people are allowed to give them to me.

Then there were the lines.

Spitfire didn’t realize that I was in agony.  My thumb and forefinger of my dominant hand were not even wanting to mouse, and the DJ set I had done was a trial.  Writing out the lines task in my not-journal had rendered me to tears. I didn’t think I’d be able to get 50 of them done in the 6 hours it would be before she came back online, especially not if I had to mom at all.  She gave me extra time if I needed it, but I knew she expected them done that evening for me, and proof available as soon as she got up.  If I wasn’t done, she needed to see how far I had gotten.

It was three hours before I even started.

11543 had come over and when they found out what had happened, her and Philberta decided to move my cage from the corner of the room to front and centre, in full view of everyone.  The punishment went from simple punishment to full on humiliation, because the drones wanted to be ever so helpful.  11543 also has the right to turn on my DJ mode, and by then they had.  I was distracted with setting up music for the galleria when the cage was moved.

I freaked. I didn’t want the cage there. I didn’t want to be moved.  I wanted to be in my little cage in the corner and ignored, but the drones were having none of that.  Philberta and I discussed how deep our inventories were, and I pulled out a pillow fort for her while 11543 sat guard to make sure no one did anything inappropriate to me.  As the people who needed to know showed up, I handed them the notecard Spitfire had given me.  I was losing ground with my IQ.

Philberta left, and I pulled in the fort, then the first creep showed up.

I was immediately in guard treecat mode.  I felt powerless in the cage. I couldn’t defend 11543, even if the jibes were “friendly” towards them.  I was vibrating with humiliation already, and now this… this… this thing was attacking my friend and Spitfire’s sister sub, and saying things in my inbox as well?

He finally left.

And I had my third meltdown of the evening.  Tears rolled down my face.  I wiped them away and tried to recenter myself.
I still had lines to write and my thumb and forefinger were not helping.  I pictured a ball around the parts of my hand that hurt, and shrank it until it only covered the areas of pain.  Then I tried to move the pain from my thumb to any other part of my arm I could.  It was latched onto my hand, so I moved it away from my thumb and forefinger and into my palm.  It wouldn’t last.  I had to keep my hand soft as I wrote, and keep my pencil tips sharp, but they kept on breaking.  The drones kept on supporting me with every single line I did.  My functional IQ went down another 10 points the entire time I kept this up.

Finally, I had the first 10 done.  I pushed harder and shrank the pain area more, and got the next set of 10 done.  I couldn’t push further, but by then, it was nearly 10 pm, and I had them all done, even after Unity tried to distract me in between my ears at one point.

Then creep no 2 showed up at about the same time as Spitfire had.  I had stopped counting the amount of tears I had had by then, and was grateful that I was allowed to move my cage back to the corner, where I had retreated.  I think the only reason why the drones let me move the cage was because I had finished the bulk of the punishment – 50 lines of “Kittlen must ask their awien for permission before retail therapy.”

The creep got into my ims even as Spitfire had pulled me to her lap.  Unity had showed me the log from the creep to her, and had said the creep was blocked.  I couldn’t handle it anymore.  I wasn’t able to speak.  I safeworded.  I hit the emergency button and headed to my secret spot that unless I teleport the person in, or they know where the secret door is, they are not going to get to me.

And I shook. And shook. And shook. Finally, I got pulled back to the galleria and told by Spitfire to be a statue.  I tried to calm down while she worked at becoming fully awake.  I was in double digits IQ at that point.

Nothing I was trying worked.

So I hit my song.

The song

The one that I have been trained to trance to.  If not trance, at least relax.  Put on repeat, and I go away.

It played once, then a second time in a row.  Then a third.  Spitfire knew this song, but wasn’t hearing what I was saying through the music because words were failing me.  I couldn’t talk.

Halfway through the third song, Unity required both of us.  I stopped playing.  I was rattled.  I wanted Spitfire to scoop me up and soothe me, and tell me I could get dressed.  That I was done.  Or that I had screwed up somehow, and the punishment was going to go on.  And that the big bad creep that had come, the second one, wasn’t just gone, but that I could forget about him.

Instead, Unity dragged the two of us to a “family hideaway.”  I hopped onto the tai chi mat beside Spitfire and stayed there as long as I was able to.  Unity left.  And… I couldn’t stand it. I had to get away from Spitfire, so I went to explore the hideaway some.  I found a spot to sit, and eventually, Spitfire came close to me, but didn’t join me on the cuddler.  She was going through logs. And logs. And more logs.

So, I walked around and explored more, finally sitting again, but a single seat.  When she came up to me again, I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I left.  I went to my linden home, put on some clothes I had worn back in 2008, something old and familiar, something that I had saved into an omega.

Then, I exploded at Spitfire when she followed me to my linden home.  I logged for the night, right after giving her every single last linden I had in a tantrum.

After all, if I don’t have it, I screamed at her, I can’t spend it!

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I spent my morning, Spitfire’s afternoon, momming.  Mom’s taxi had delivered the children to where they belonged, and I was using my car to run, because my legs won’t let me anymore.  I used to go for long walks in my youth, but I can’t do it anymore.  In an emergency, of course I could, but this was no emergency – my children weren’t in danger.  My emotions were scattered and I had to run.  I was back in triple digits IQ, but it wasn’t going to last.

I knew one thing: I needed to run.  Except I can’t actually run anymore.

The plan had been that after I dropped the kids off, I was to take the car and poof for the morning anyway, because the workmen were coming into the home to do workmen stuff and Penalt wanted me gone from there.

So, my car became my legs, and I ran.

I needed forest around me.  I needed water.  I thought about going up to the ski hill, but I didn’t have money for the chairlift, nor was I certain of my skill in driving the sharp back and forths needed to climb the mountain.  I needed to run as far and as fast as I could.  And when I stopped running, I needed to get out and hug a tree.

Spitfire was “there” with me.  I had plugged in one of her performances, she knows which one, and listened to it while running.  I could hear the love in her voice for me from the recording, even through the tears.  I had to focus.  Driving impaired like that could get me killed.

I spotted my brother and sister in law, and their friend, so I stopped to speak with them.  It was good to spend a few moments with the eldest living member of my husband’s family.  He has been living on borrowed time since his 20s.  Both of my husband’s older brothers have.

That was what I needed to refocus and drive safely.

I got to the glacier fed lake where I live, and got out of my car, and wandered around.  Spitfire was talking to me in discord the entire time I was there.  Her voice didn’t soothe me. I sent her pictures of the lake.

It was the birds I saw… the animals I heard… the walk I went on…

I hopped onto one of the docks and walked down it, trying to get to the edge in the lake, but realized that I was stupid for doing so.  I would have to make a leap from one cold, damp, and sandy dock part to another, in order to get where I wanted to go.  I turned around and tried the other pier, and the leap I would have to make was worse.

So, I climbed over a log and started to walk along the beach.  That log would make itself known again in a day or so, when my leg woke me up screaming in a cramp.

I found a trail and hiked up it.  I sat and watched the lake and the birds, and listened with my senses – all of my senses – all while Spitfire was talking to me on discord, and trying to get me to open up.  If she had known where I was, what I was doing, and how deep the spiral was getting, she would have ordered me back home, I’m certain of it.

I stood, at one point, perched between life and death.  A misstep and I would fall and badly hurt myself, if I lived.  I had one hand on a tree, the other on my phone and I leaned myself against the tree to let it take my tears from me.

Spitfire never knew what I was actually doing.  I didn’t explain or tell her.  Maybe I should have.

I needed to make a choice.

The drop wasn’t far. A single misstep and I would be hurting, or worse.  I was alone. It could be hours before I was found.

I danced with the void for far too long in that moment. I’ve been doing it for as long as I can remember, ever since the scar splitting my eyebrow was created.  The view was beautiful. I would be alone if I fell.  Spitfire kept on bugging me on discord.

I had to breathe.  I begged the tree to take my tears from me.  It was an eternity in a moment before my pulse finally slowed and I took a step back, away from the cliff edge.  I started to walk along the path again, taking a different route, finding my way back to my car.  All the while, I was pushing the urge to dance with the void away.

“Are you proud of me for doing the punishments? For suffering through the drones’ idea of help, even though it felt more humiliating than help? For being willing to express all my feelings, even anger, and rage? Are your arms open to me?”  I sat in my car and waited for an answer.  I was crying again.  I expected her to shove me away.  To hate me for all this.

“Oh gods, yes!” Spitfire replied, “to all of it!”

But I was still in the cage in my mind.  I still wasn’t free of my punishment.
Spitfire did Xaara for me.  I distracted her so much with my french, if she had been recording it at the time, it would have made people laugh.  I was distracting her, because the workmen were causing me incredible amounts of auditory pain every time they used one of their drills.  Spitfire didn’t know that in between trying to get her to laugh, I was doubled over in pain, my hands on my ears, crying out in pain from the sonic assault of the electric drills, and worse, the nailgun.  Every BANG BANG BANG made me want to flee my home.

Xaara ended, and we had a few moments alone, before Spitfire went to bed.

And I was still in the cage…

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It took Spitfire a few days to realize that I needed to be actually released from the cage.  Sure, I was free of it, but not released.  She hadn’t done what is generally supposed to be done when a submissive succeeds in a punishment.

I was still in that cage. I still felt trapped.  She still had my lindens and I wanted them back, but she refused me, giving me a reason I could accept. By then, my leg was screaming at me because of the log that I clambered over.  The next few days were a blur,  She did eventually release me from the cage I was still in within my mind’s eye.

Are we closer?  I don’t know.  Can I trust her? Yes. She’s seen parts of me that no one else has asked to see, or wanted to see.  She’s seen almost all my wounds.  She’s seen right down to my core.  She’s gotten me to journal privately again.  Something I haven’t done in over 20 years.

What’s more, she still wants me.  All the broken pieces of me.

What did I do to deserve her?