It began in baby steps. Our dynamic was very much an experiment, with each movement forward and each step of the way tested before the full weight of the relationship was brought to bear upon it.
It was a scary amount of power to give up. I came into the relationship a business owner, and began a second venture about a year in. Handing the metaphorical reins over to another when my hard work of years was on the line was a truly terrifying thing to even contemplate. It came part and parcel of our TPE, however, and I had to trust that he would allow me to continue to make decisions without his interference.
Part of owning a business is having to interact with others in various ways, be it as the customer service representative who is discussing a potential order, as the cashier handling payment, as the scheduler booking classes, as the manager attending to someone’s satisfaction, as the artisan building product and providing updates, or in educational capacities, both online and in-person. That’s a lot of hats, and they require a certain amount of freedom of action on my part. It has necessitated trust on his part that I would make decisions and behave in ways of which he would approve without having to have specific protocols in place to govern those actions.
As someone who has grown to become firmly embedded in my local community, I see an incredibly wide variety of levels of protocol. Some are required to ask prior to leaving the presence of their master, some are required to follow protocols which govern their interactions with others in various settings. Perhaps it is a set protocol involving carrying packages or interacting with waitstaff or asking permission prior to speaking and touching friends or strangers within kink settings. Interestingly enough (and this is a conversation I have had with friends on occasion, because many of us are fascinated by the differences in how relationships are built), many of the dynamics I have observed which involve a small business seem to run with a lower degree of formality and protocol, perhaps out of that same necessity.
If I must receive permission to speak to individuals prior to doing so, even ones of specified gender, and my partner is away from our vendor table, I would quickly become ineffective as a merchant. I would be unable to answer questions or complete a sale. The same holds true of online interactions. It would effectively make the business I run hobbled during his regular work hours until he could handle the aspects I was not permitted to attend to without him. That would lead to additional stress, and I ask a great deal of him as my business partner already. While he does make those decisions, he has chosen to leave many of the finer details up to me, limiting the majority of his participation to financial decisions such as inventory purchases, and to customer interactions in order to keep me from using my energy and focus up in those areas rather than in completing projects.
The leaves much of our dynamic very informal, from a protocol standpoint. Fortunately, that works well for our personalities and the way we fit together. While I sometimes feel that our low protocol interactions can be mistaken for a more casual relationship, which can bring with it a feeling of being less than, I remind myself that some of those stares may be from envy for what may appear to be a higher level of freedom.
Make no mistake, however. He holds full authority over me, regardless of the appearance of casualness our low protocol level may give outsiders. It is so important for us all to remember that each relationship, each dynamic forms as it works best for the individuals in question. For some, that may mean there are specific rituals and protocols dictating large portions of their actions. For others, such as us, that total power exchange may rely more on the granted authority of the top-of-slash rather than any formalized behaviors. We all have to determine what works best for us as individuals and as couples or relationship groups, and build from that foundation.
Christmas bunny has been exploring kink since she was legal to do so. Her serious writing started in college, where she accidently got some of her papers published in educational journals. She has recently expanded her writing to include her kink journey. She began writing in the physical realm, but shed some of her inhibitions and began sharing those entries with others. She now keeps an active blog of her personal growth and her relationship with her Master / Daddy Dominant and writes helpful educational posts on a variety of subjects.
