The first time i read this article i cried shamelessly.  Losing one's Master has to be the greatest fear that any committed rl slave has in her life.  Worse than that, watching the Master you love succumb to a painful disease when there is little the slave can do to comfort Him must be one of the greatest pains a slave can live through.  Still, this article speaks strongly of the strength of love that can exist in a D/s relationship, and the way it can be strong to the end.  Copyright©1998 by SofttWhspr

In Memory of Joe
This is a true story of my Dom and how, even though he was dying,
D/s was still such a big part of us........softtwhipr

When Joe died my life was turned upside down and I was lost and I was struggling with such a range of emotions.  He was gone and it was like someone reached in and ripped my insides to shreds.

You see, not only was he the man that I loved and lived with for 10 years, he was also my Dom.

Joe introduced me to the lifestyle shortly after we started to live together. I had no idea that he was a Dom, I had no idea of what this lifestyle was, but he taught me and through him I learned and I discovered that this was something that I wanted, not only wanted, but felt that this was what I had been missing from the other relationships I had.

We were 24/7 yes, but it was not always D/s......D/s was a big part of our relationship, but we both had our jobs and we also had our own sets of friends, but through being with each other it was only natural for me to become friends with his friends as well as he with mine.

Joe knew that I had come from an alcoholic home.  He knew I was severely beaten and he didn't want to scare me or do anything to me that would bring me back to that time in my life.  So he brought me into this very slowly, gauging my reactions to certain things he did.  He would slap my ass, not to hard, then caress it..I loved it, he knew I loved it to.  Little things such as that is how he gradually drew me to the lifestyle.

This is not just a story of how I met Joe and how I was drawn to this lifestyle.  It is also one of learning to deal with the fact that the man you lived with for 10 years, the man who captured your heart and soul was dying.

On February 14th, 1996, we received news that we didn't expect.  We knew he was sick and had been for over a year before finding out what was actually wrong, but what we heard on that day was not one that we expected.  He always went to the doctors and was in excellent physical shape.   But since October of 1995 he kept getting cold after cold and such a hoarse cough that the doctors took X-rays and but all they told him was that it was bronchitis. Then he got pneumonia but still the X-ray didn't show what was really wrong until 2/14.  He no sooner got over the pneumonia when he started coughing even harder and was having trouble to breathing.  He went to the hospital and X- rays were taken again.  This time we were told that his lung had collapsed from the tumor that was behind it....

The doctors said he had carcinoma, and that the tumor was attached to the back of the lung....We were devastated, this was not what we had thought to hear.  We came home that day and we held each other and cried.   So many thoughts that each of us were having, so many concerns as to what was going to happen and where all this would take us.

Things happened to him so quickly.....complications that a patient going through chemo can get, he got.  Time was taken away week by week it seemed and on June 14th, 1996, I brought Joe home to die.   By this time the cancer had spread not only the bones, but to his brain as well and the following day he died as I held him in my arms..

D/s never left us during the almost 2 years he was sick, especially the last 4 months.  Sessions had stopped, but D/s was still there, so was my respect and feelings for him and to please him in any way possible.   He still expected the same things from me as he did before.  I never stopped shaving even though I knew we could not have sex, but that didn't mean I had to stop doing what I had been doing the last 10 years.  My collar was worn when I was instructed to wear it, he liked to be able to see me wearing it when we were alone. He was sick yes, but he was still my Dom and I never disrespected his position in my life or mine in his.   He was my Dom and I was his sub, D/s was more to us than just sex.  It was about mutual respect...respect not only for ourselves, but for one another, it was one of loving and caring.  Because he was sick only intensified my wish and desire to please him with anything that he asked of me.

The day I brought him home was a day we both waited for and fought with the doctors for during that whole week.  We had no peace those 4 months, he was constantly in and out of the hospital and that left so little time for us to talk and to think. So this was to be our night... When he had become sick we had started a ritual at night where he would sit up in bed and I would kneel facing him (this was done even when he was in the hospital) and we would talk about our day and look back and talk about my learning D/s and the changes I had made over the years.  So, this night was a very special one for us......when finally his sister and mother left I went back into the living room....

Hospice had set up everything that was needed earlier that day and he was laying there patting the bed beside him for me to go to him....I knelt beside him as usual and we talked, saying things that needed to be said and then letting ourselves say what were were afraid to say those past 4 months.....He told me again how much he loved me, laughed when he remembered things I did to gain his attention because I felt he wasn't showing me enough attention  ::G::  He told me it was hard at times to discipline me because I would make him laugh because I would do something or something would come out of my mouth before I could stop it and he said he had a difficult time trying to sound stern with me.  I told him again what a wonderful man he was not only as my Dom, but as my lover and my friend...I thanked him for teaching me how to let go and to grow and to be who I am today because of his love and his guidance..

This was our last night together, I knew it and so did he.....You only had to see his face..to see his eyes swimming in his face, to know that he would have no tomorrow.  But even though it was to be his last night, our last night, we did not falter from the usual ritual, except for one thing and it was something we had discussed on the day we had to talk about funeral arrangements, I was not to wear my collar this night.  We had talked of if he were able to be at home when he died, that it would be best for me not to wear it because when the time came, he knew I would forget that I was wearing it and he didn't want to have to leave me trying to have to explain that.

The morning of his funeral when I was given the time to be alone with him, I took from my purse the collar he had given me 10 years before.....I placed the collar to my lips and kissed it then slipped it into his pocket as I leaned down to kiss him goodbye.

In Memory of My Dom
~SofttWhspr~

Written September 24, 1998
Living & Dying in a D/s Lifestyle
In Memory of Joe

Copyright©1998 by SofttWhspr