by Poppy
Editorial assistance by Devlin O’Neill
It would help if I stated immediately what the S word is. That would be an excellent start to my meander. Believe me, I have tried to do just that.
Look, I could write it here …
However, I find that I am not ready to do so. I simply cannot let it slip out yet.
As I type away I have notes above and below these sentences, just a couple of ideas that I do not want to forget, and my document is already saved, but nowhere have I been able to spell this word out on my keyboard. I can’t even think it to myself.
Once this word is said it is heavy with content and meaning. To say it is to mean it. So I will not say it yet.
There are lots of words that I hear which make me quiet and still. These are words that mean nothing from the wrong man. At best these words may be patronising, at worst creepy, but from the right man they make me sit and stop. These words make me look down and blush and wait for the moment to pass. I am not going to write them here. The man who uses them knows what they are. I suspect he knows better than I do.
I am merely killing words until I have the courage to write what I set out to write.
This S word was expected from me as a child every day at school. Maybe that is part of its strength, that it transports me once more to the status of schoolgirl. The word never is expected from me as an adult.
The word indicates the authority of the one who is called it, and the acquiescence of the one who utters it. The word is different in different cultures. My American cousins speak the word with but a tiny fragment of the meaning that it carries for my people and for me. I think it amazes Americans that it can mean so much to an English girl.
When I stammer out the S word it means that I have accepted another role, which is not pretence but another aspect of myself. I have acknowledged another human being as having authority over me, in just one word.
It embarrasses me to hear it said by others, it is so intimate, more intimate than a kiss, or than naked skin. It is an intimacy of compliance, of obedience.
I am compelled to joke about it when I hear it, so overwhelmed am I by the strength of it, by its meaning.
There is a time when I have to bite it back, a time when it tries to force itself from my lips. That is when all my conscious thought leaves me for a few moments, a time of sublime pleasure, and free from inhibition that is the word I want to call out.
But I bite my lip to hold it in my mouth, a secret for another day, another time.
I like the thought that one day this word will drop freely from my lips, though still for one man alone. I hope in the future that the feeling of obedience the word indicates will be one I can accept. I aspire to live within this feeling of submission. Maybe, although it is the struggle to say it, that makes the word worthwhile.
I don’t know what will happen next. I am learning not to worry about such things. I know how to trust and whom to trust.
That is why I can call him Sir.
Sometimes.
