Kept

 

“OH! How cute. A lock on your necklace. That’s an adorable idea. I like the look.”

I hadn’t even thought the lock was visible. I smiled and reached for it, a habit that I’ve started developing since I got back from North Carolina at the end of the month. It’s just a luggage lock for right now, nothing fancy. Durable. Enough to last me until April when Ace will be in town for job interviews. But it’s a little lock with a lot of meaning.

James is the only man to own me, really own me, and there’s a part of me still that is very much his. He knows this. I know this. And so do my partners and friends. It’s.. kinda obvious. As much as there are moments when I miss high protocol I don’t feel a need to be owned by another. Being called ‘mine’ is.. lovely and goes straight to my loins whenever it’s growled in my ear. But the thing is, it is growled in my ear again. Just in a different way. 

Ace and I have known each other for a LONG TIME, at least long for us being humans in our late twenties and early thirties. I was a damn virgin when he and I started speaking, so kink was far off on the horizon of innocent little high school me. Because of that, the kink between he and I is so different than other partners where the relationships were established around kink. I stopped searching for vanilla partners a long time ago. If you seek me out and you aren’t at least french vanilla or have a cinnamon twist hiding somewhere I’m fairly certain I’ll eat you for supper at this point… So, in establishing new dynamics kink is often at the forefront.

With a dynamic like Ace and I, the kink ends up secondary to the actual partnership. It’s partially because he and I have so much history, and partially because of the fluidity in which we switch. In the span of one scene we’ve played the ‘who’s on top’ game countless times, and it’s FANTASTIC, but makes it almost impossible to continually call him ‘Sir’ with a straight face. 

Our kink was also established long after other dynamics were in place. Chris, who I’ve called my Sir since the beginning, and I have been playing for three and a half years at this point. I am purely submissive to him. Aeonyse, Ace’s other partner that will be joining us in the Bay come June, is purely submissive to Ace and has always called him Sir (..this sometimes makes me giggle). All this has led to Ace and I having to look at our dynamic, or needs, and see what terms and connections actually work for he and I. 

What we came up with was that he is my Keeper. This has turned into a HUGE point of reassurance with the whole Ryan clusterfuck (still unresolved. We haven’t seen each other since 2018. It’s March. Sigh) and so many other changes coming up. The move. Job transition to school. New career path. Wedding. Babies. EEEEEEPPPPPPPP.

Ace as my Keeper and the phrasing he uses around that has also silenced many brain squirrels from eons past, during a time when there was no chance I would ever come first in Ace’s world. He and I have had many ‘near relationships’ over the years, where there were feels and passion and desire all there, aaaand also a wife. And distance. And, life. Many times over the years we got very close and then it would stop. We would have to go back to being platonic, or he would sneak text messages after being told for the twentieth time that he was not allowed to contact me. Sometimes he would listen to that order for a couple of months and there would be no contact at all. I never expected him to stay. I never expected that in the end he would actually choose me. 

I have an amazing meta and friend that is also a life and relationship coach. She taught me about her system of ‘things’, these key phrases that she sometimes needs to hear from her partners that are the perfect reassurances for her brain squirrels. She says the ones that they need in return. Both Ace and I lose words when we are in bad head spaces, and having our own ‘things’ has helped pull me back on more than one occasion when all we’ve had were words we could say over the phone. Mine are fairly simple. 

I choose you.
I’m going to K/keep you.
I love you.
I’m not going anywhere.
We’ve got this.

Being Kept is safety, not ownership. There is no high protocol, though there are times when I kneel at his feet and call him Sir. There are times when he kneels and calls me Ma’am. It is safety. It’s.. the odd magick that Ace and I possess, that’s been there from the beginning. 

The first time I met Ace face to face I remember the shock of the ‘zing’ of connection, and the feeling of home that I felt in being around him. I don’t co-sleep easily with folks and typically choose my bed as my sanctuary, and it was a shock to sleep comfortably and through the night not only with him, but with him wrapped around me and holding me. When I close my eyes and hold on to the lock, I get that feeling. That peace of the warmth of being beside him, the calm of hearing his heart beat and steady breathing as he sleeps. The melty feeling when your body just fits perfectly locked with someone else’s and you wonder how on earth that magick can happen. 

The last night of a six day long visit in February Ace and I went in search of my lock. I’ve had a ‘mark’ from him around my neck for many months now, and it doesn’t come off. But it’s had a clasp. It could come off. And I realized over time that I did not want it to. I wanted that reminder that someone’s got me. Someone is there to catch me when I fall. He’s human. There are times when he will be overwhelmed and when our brain squirrels won’t play well together, and I know that. But he’s also proved that he can communicate that when necessary and will still do what he can to take care of me when I am not okay. Ace has stepped up and proven time an time again that I am indeed his. That he is fully choosing me, not hiding me in the shadows anymore. That he wants an actual life with me. I wanted an anchor of that reminder, something physical, for when it’s hard to remember and we can’t be physically together. And so, we decided that my mark should lock. 

It’s a little luggage lock for now. Nothing fancy. Solid. Reassuring. I still got on my knees in front of him when he pulled it out. He slipped the clasp off my mark as I bent my head. “Are you sure about this?” My head went up at his voice. “Because I’m sure. I want you to be.” 

I am. The response was confident. The lock clicked. He grinned and put the key in the box he keeps his engagement ring in, the one I gave him. I melted.

I was going home with a lock around my neck. The key would be 3000 miles away. And I honestly felt perfectly safe. Held. Kept. I had a home. One that would build into a household, a polyfam. A life 

There are pieces missing in my overall life, but I am so blessed. I am Kept. I am cherished. I am loved. I am his.

And as always, dear reader. I am yours, with so much more to come.

-Rene