It was with my first kink relationship that I got a taste of extremes I’d only ever dreamed of. Even though we weren’t 24/7 he and I definitely could feel within me a slave’s heart, or what we thought was one. Anticipatory service made me happy in ways I had only had tastes of in the vanilla world. Being able to know his needs before even he did made me grin every time, and goodness how I loved to make him smile.

I’ve often thought back and wondered why I was so very good at that. And then it hit. Of course in the upbringing I’d experienced my needs and my personality were not safe to express. As a Jehovah’s Witness for my three decades from birth I was shaped and trained to be a perfect servant. We identified ourselves as servants, after all. Nothing mattered more than making sure we served our organization in going out in “service” (yes, that’s what the term is amongst JWs) door to door knocking and waking up strangers early Saturday mornings. And Sundays after our “meetings”. And Tuesdays and Thursdays before the meetings. And every other moment we could possibly make work. Our priority was going out in “service” to teach “the good news to all the nations and then the end would come” (Matthew 24:14). Careers and education beyond high school were frowned upon, because why build up a life for ourselves in a “system of things” that wasn’t meant to last? If Armageddon was inevitable, coming before I even could complete high school, why put effort into education? Trades were more important, being able to build and plumb and pour concrete would be skills that were needed in the “New System” that formed after Armageddon. In this “worldly” existence on a planet that wouldn’t last why pursue higher learning that would only distract?

Through the eighties and nineties the publications printed and studied by JWs there was an absolutely insidious negative light put on education, and that’s when I was in my most formative years. I read loads and loads of books, because my mind is and has been forever curious, but formal education was a no-no.

Then consider the volatile household I grew up in. Even now I look back on it and think I had a wonderful upbringing, full of time outdoors and road trips and curiosity. But my father especially was explosively angry at every turn, randomly, to a point where I never knew if I’d be getting a hug or be screamed at. I watched him like a scared little kitten, reading his emotions before he even knew them. I anticipated his moods and needs before he even realized they existed. I anticipated. Anticipatory service was a way to keep him mellow and calm. Bringing him a beverage or snack, or handing him a tool while helping in his shop, anything I could do to pacify him.

My mother, I don’t recall her being so volatile. But I do remember she didn’t protect us. I’m sure she did as well as she could, even if I didn’t see it. Many conversations behind closed doors. I know in the eighties they were close to being on the outs, as us kiddos were kicked outside for them to have conversations with visiting Elders from the congregation. My sister and I would discuss which parent we’d go with if they split. She wanted to go with my mother, as she is more stable. I always craved the adventure that came with spending time with my father, even when time with him was so randomly violent. When it was just he and I he never lost his temper as he did with my sister. She fought back and butted heads with him. I pacified and retreated to corners, begging everyone to just get along.

As can be imagined, this of course honed and trained me best for anticipatory service. And how my Sir loved it. And how I took so very much pride in making him smile.

And how different I am a decade later…in the subsequent relationships that have happened both in and outside of the lifestyle of course I grew. For the first time in my life I’d had a chance to grow without the bounds of religion, or the patriarchal systems that perpetuated within it. It took a decade, but I grew from an always insecure and afraid attachment style that manifested in overly codependent relationships. Now I seem to have gone in the opposite extreme and for the past three years have wanted nothing to do with that kind of attachment. It’s likely a “problem” to some who observe from the outside, being that our society is so very grounded in pairs and nuclear family arrangements. But I’m secure. I’m happy. I’m alone, and have no plans or inclinations to change that.

Not to say that I don’t still play and hurt people with consent. I most certainly do. Those relationships simply don’t have a romantic element to them, either physically or otherwise. Well that’s not absolutely true. Romantic attachment for me isn’t the same as for most. I love my friends dearly and passionately. I dote on them. I gift. I think about them quite a lot and talk to them (almost) every day. But I find that friendships with emotional intimacy is far more satisfactory than physical intimacy.

So yes. I do play. But my clothes stay on and my walls stay up. Suppose in a lot of ways I’m “Stone”, even if I’m not a practicing lesbian. There are just too many pitfalls that happen when getting that close to another human, especially if I love them. Humans = drama = pain, and I’m not on board for any of their games any longer.