The next question that usually follows is what do I get out of cleaning his floors and serving his meals and other tasks that do not on the surface appear to be D/s. All these things need to be done, regardless of the D/s in our life. That answer again to me is very simple, it pleases him, it makes him happy, and it makes his life easier, which in turns meets my need to serve.

I have held firm in my belief that submission for me is about meeting needs, and for me to meet my needs I must meet his. I cannot separate service from my submission. It is an inherent character trait, both the need to serve and to please. For me, I define submission as service to a dominant. Maybe part of the confusion/backlash that happens when I say that is the perception of what service is.

I would think each dominant has a version of what they consider service. Sir Edward, my dominant, as well as others I know, require service from their submissives. For them service is as much a requirement as protocols, obedience and respect is. To many, when you say service, all they can see is the domestic version of service. Service to me is so much more. It is meeting his needs, physically and emotionally. It is being masochist to his sadist, it is being his lover and sex partner as well as the keeper of his home. No type of service is beneath me if he requires it.

If I was not a masochist and did not enjoy pain, I could not serve him in this fashion, if I did not enjoy sex and more important, enjoy pleasing him physically, I could not meet that need either. He used to get very upset with the way I handled or should I say mishandled my finances, so he chose to take control of that area of my life. The bottom line is he chooses what forms of service he requires from me, I do not choose how I will serve. I just choose to do the job well and make him proud. By allowing me the environment to serve and submit he meets my needs. My love of service makes it easy for me, if he wants sex, it is given; if he wants to beat someone, my butt is his; if he wants his house cleaned, it is cleaned.

My love of service and pleasing will also lead me to look for opportunities to serve without being asked. That may be one of the key factors to service-oriented submission -- I will look for an opportunity to serve, whether it be taking a mundane everyday task such as housekeeping and finding a way to make it special, or by performing a specific duty he requires. It is seeing he is tired and sore, and without being asked, getting up and making him a tea, serving it to him and then offering him a massage.

Serving means I take the good with the bad, the things I enjoy doing as well as the ones I don't. It is not what I am doing, it is the why I am doing it. The attitude and thought process behind the act. To borrow from an old cliché, "it is better to give than to receive". This is the core of who and what I am.

My focus has always been on why and how I am doing something, not what I am doing. The why is easy, it pleases him, the how is just as easy, to the best of my abilities.

If you look at it from a non domestic slant an example of this would be: I don't like water sports, they were at one time a huge NO on my checklist. Sir Edward knew this but also knew of my need to go the extra steps with him. He did a water sport scene with me, the scene itself did not change my opinion of waters sports, but the way I felt inside when he was so pleased with me for going there with him was indescribable. I did not enjoy the act, but I very much enjoyed the end result. He was pleased.

The masochist in me loves to play, the slut loves the sex control, to serve in those areas are very easy, I do not have to dig deep; I do not have to push myself. It is the feeling I get when I perform a service that I am not comfortable with or that I don't enjoy that forces me to dig that little deeper and come out the other side with an amazing sense of pride.

It can be when I take something everyday and ordinary and try to make it special for him. By way of example, it is my task to make sure his gym bag is ready for him each morning, clean towels, clothes etc. The mundane way to look at it is, I throw everything in the bag and don't worry about it. My way to make it special was to go out and buy special scents to make sure the bag also stays fresh (I'm sure we all remember what stinky gym and hockey bags smell like), and periodically I will empty the entire bag and wash it as well. He has not told me to do this, it is not part of my task, but it is a way for me to make the experience that little bit better for both of us. I get to feel I have done something extra for him and it is nice for him to know that I have put some thought into serving and have been willing to take some initiative when meeting his needs.

Thinking of added ways to serve keeps my mind on him and his needs. He is pleased to see the little extras that he does not have to ask for. Something I have always kept in mind when I serve is conversations that I have had with him and with others. One such conversation dealt with this very subject of someone doing extra for the dominant without being told. The way it was explained to me was - I arrive at my hotel after a long flight, I am tired, and I would be satisfied to find a shower and a bed. Isn't it so much nicer that I find a turned down bed with a chocolate on the pillow, a bathroom equipped with a towel warmer and a thick soft bathrobe to curl up in? That translates to just doing the basics that are required is nice, but the extras are nicer. He knows I have taken an extra step. That he means enough to me that I will put that level of thought and care into what I do for him.

Service is looking for the opportunity to make him happy, to see him content and at ease.

At first it was not easy for him. Sir Edward had lived on his own for a few years, he was very used to doing his own laundry, his own housekeeping etc. I always joke that he can out clean me any day of the week. Once I came into his house, He realized through conversations we had had and through research and experience, that it was important for me to perform these duties for him. He had to consciously sit back and allow me to do my thing. It was also important for him to know that I wanted to perform these duties, that the service was given freely and that I would be content with the fact that service was required from his submissive.

Service is part of his requirements; he requires a submissive that enjoys the service. He does not want to have to "make" me perform. He can see the benefits and he does not have to manage each and every task I do. The service is given freely and is not something I feel I am being made to do. He now has more time to do other things that need doing, and he knows the house and laundry will get done to "his" level of satisfaction. I learned very quickly that this meant not to forget to dust the top of the pictures; He will do the white glove test.

On the serious side of that statement, I always feel like I have let him down when I do not complete a task to his satisfaction. Once he brings a mistake to my attention, I endeavor to make sure it does not happen again. His dissatisfaction is usually all that is required to make sure the problem does not occur again.

I personally feel like I have missed an opportunity to serve when he does what I can do for him. For example if I am working late or he gets home early and he starts the laundry or prepares his gym bag himself, a piece of me feels guilty, this is my job, my responsibility, he should not have had to do it. We used to joke about it, I would tell him I would call the subbie union if he kept doing my tasks.

I have never been comfortable with people performing service for me. It does not feel right or natural. I do not consider service and submission a tit for tat relationship, I do not serve so someone will serve me in return. I do not serve to get recognition of the task, I serve because I need to. I need to know I have done my best for him. The contradiction to those statements is that I cannot remember ever feeling better than when I heard him say "you made me proud girl", or "good girl". If I never heard those words I would still serve, I would still do my best, but those words are the icing on the cake. They let me know that I have done my job well and he is pleased.

Servitude is a need; I have always looked for ways to serve both inside the lifestyle and outside it. Many service-oriented people have looked for or chosen occupations that allow them to serve. It is easy to confuse service submission with being a doormat, but I believe this is an incorrect correlation. I do not see Sir Edward walking all over me, making me a maid. I see my life as a way for me to meet my need to serve. The down side to this, is that someone with a strong need to serve will sometimes take it to the extreme.

I have had it said to me that my need to serve was so strong that I would serve even to my own detriment. There was a time when I was not getting enough sleep or doing things I needed for myself. I work full-time and did not have enough time to do everything I felt needed to be done. When we were both home and awake, there was dinner, play, sex. That only left when he was asleep for me to do things like shave my legs, do my nails, computer duties, dust, laundry etc. I did not want to disappoint him by not getting everything done. This is something that has to be watched for, the submissive going too far and ignoring their own health and well being. It took Sir Edward telling me to come to bed when he went and to stay there, to make sure I would get enough sleep.

The inability to ask for what I need or want is a common trait for those who serve. I feel talking about what I need, would be like asking him to serve me. If it is not something he needs, then I should not need it. This is great in fantasy but reality will prove that I have needs, but communicating those needs is extremely difficult and in some cases impossible. So it falls to the dominant to try and make sure I have a channel available to discuss what I feel and need. In our case that means Sir Edward takes me out to dinner and buys a bottle of wine to loosen my tongue.

The dominant has the responsibility to know what they are getting into. Yes I need to serve, but I need to serve a partner who recognizes that need and does not abuse it. In many ways the need for servitude is not unlike any other kink, you must pick a partner who meets your need/kink. Sir Edward requires service from his submissive, if I did not need and believe in service he would not be getting his needs met. If he did not require service we probably would never have met. My need to serve is what attracted him to me and equally important was that his recognition of my need to serve is what attracted me to him.

It would not take long for me to figure out whether a dominant was lazy and just taking advantage of my nature versus one who truly values and respects the service. The dominant needs to recognize my need to serve, and better yet they need to understand it. They have to have an equal need for service. Their need to be served is extremely important to me. Service is no different than the other facets of the lifestyle and of play, I could find myself topping from the bottom. If the dominant does not want or need the service, and I still go out of my way to serve, whose needs am I meeting but my own? This leaves a very hollow feeling. The service has to mean something to the dominant, it has to add value to him. This is the only way it means something to me.

Submission, Slavery, Servitude, Bottoming, the lifestyle comes in many flavours. It is up to us individually to define what it is we need, and then to go about getting those needs met. I have. I am a servant, I need to serve, so I serve, it does not make me less or more than any other flavour of the lifestyle, it just makes me content.