A/N: All characters belong to Stephenie Meyer. Since this is my first story-please feel free to comment and give suggestions.

Chapter 1

Most people look at my life with complete misunderstanding. Their ideas of what I am and who I am are utterly misconstrued. People hear the word sub or submissive and get this distorted view of me: getting on my hands and knees, bowing to any and every male that I come in contact with, licking my Master's boots, being dragged around by a leash, taking orders every second of my day without the ability of making up my own mind, waiting my turn to grovel at my Master's feet while he plays with others. They view me as weak and mindless, but that isn't my life. As I said, their views are distorted.

Do you love your partner? Are you committed to them? Would you do anything in your power to make them happy? And when they don't want to do something that you KNOW is in their best interest, don't you encourage them do it? This is the reality of my relationship.

I have been with Master James for six years now. He is my world, my everything. We dated for two years, then made the choice to live together. Many couples move in together after only a year. We chose to move slowly, to ensure this was the right decision for us. Four years into our relationship he offered me his collar. Yes, I do wear his collar, but people not involved in my lifestyle wear one too. They just wear them around their finger instead. My collar is no different than your wedding ring. I remember the night that he gave it to me so clearly, and tears fill my eyes whenever I think of it.

He had been so nervous all night. It was so unlike him. He was always so assured, so confident. All through the evening I felt panicked, trying to do everything that I could think of to help him relax, to calm down, but he remained tense. I sat on the porch steps in the cool night air, hugging my knees to my chest, wracking my brain to figure out what could be bothering him so much when his voice interrupted my thoughts.

"Bella?" His voice was tense, and it sounded like he was holding his breath as he spoke.

I quickly turned to look at him, concern in my eyes as they met his. (Yes, another misconception. I CAN and often DO look him the eyes.) "Master? Is everything okay?"

He came and sat down next to me, his eyes staring at his hands, his face unreadable. A long moment stretched, and I feared what he would say. I had never seen him like this. My entire body tensed.

"Bella, its time we talked about something." He took a deep breath, but it didn't seem to relieve his tension in the least. "I've been thinking about this for some time. I'm not quite sure how to say it."

I wrapped my arms around my chest, feeling my heart breaking inside of me. It was apparent what he was so nervous about. What had I done to cause this? Was it someone else? Had he found someone? I just sat listening, while the pain within me grew.

Suddenly I felt his hand stroke the back of my hair and a soft chuckle arose from deep in his chest. He pressed a soft kiss into my temple and I looked at him in astonishment. How could he find humor in what he was about to say? Anger took place of my fear and hurt. As I took a quick, deep breath in preparation to scream at him for his cruelty, he whispered to me.

"Calm down, little one. That's not even close to what I want to talk to you about." His lips pressed into my temple again and I let out my breath, my eyes closing as a deep blush encircled my face in embarrassment.

I hit his chest with the back of my hand. "Don't you ever scare me like that again, Master," I whispered through my giggles. He grabbed his chest in mock pain and gave me a sexy pout, then his laughter joined mine. We spent a few moments laughing, but then he grew quiet again.

Slowly he moved in front of me on the steps, squatting as he took both my hands and looked lovingly up into my eyes. I looked back into his eyes, wondering how I could have doubted his love for me only a second ago.

"Bella," he whispered. "I love you. I can't imagine my life without you, and it hurts to think of you not in it. I don't want to be without you, ever." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a black velvet sachet. "I would be honored if you would accept this." He placed the soft sachet in my hands and looked at me nervously.

As I slowly loosened the strings, he continued whispering to me. "Every day I wonder how I became so lucky to have you love me. And I know I don't deserve you. If you choose not to accept this, know that my love for you won't change."

I turned the velvet over, and welled up with tears as the silver choker fell into my hands. I looked up at him and tried to swallow the lump in my throat in order to speak. I smiled through my tears and held the collar up. "Will you put it on me, Master?"

A look of pure joy overcame his face as he took the collar. I lifted my hair, holding it as he fastened it securely around my neck. The coolness of the metal instantly warmed against my skin, and though I never felt incomplete, the feeling of it against my neck made me feel more complete than ever. I took his face in my hands and my lips crashed against his. Between kisses he smiled and asked excitedly, "Yes? You'll wear my collar?"

I nodded and smiled enthusiastically. "Yes! Yes, my sweet Master!" I grabbed him roughly and pulled him to me again. Slipping his hands under my ass, he lifted me off the steps and I wrapped my legs around his waist. Within seconds, we were in our bed, clothes disposed of. We made love until the sun rose in the morning.

See my lifestyle is not what others think it is. My collar from Master James is in many ways my wedding ring. We share a bed. We make love. We talk. We laugh. We say "I love you." Its not so strange.

But yes, there are differences. I try my best to do anything in my power to make him happier and his life easier. I know what he likes, what he doesn't like, how he likes the house to be kept, what foods he likes to eat, how he likes to be touched, how to dress to make him desire me. I spend every day making sure that all of these needs are taken care of. I do this because he has a more difficult task.

He makes decisions for us, for me. He has to decide what is best for me. He has to anticipate my needs and desires, even when I'm unsure of what they are yet. He has to figure out how to push me to be a better person each and every day. I allow him to do this because I fully trust him. I trust him with every part of myself: my body, my mind, my soul, my heart. That is why our relationship took much longer than a vanilla relationship to blossom. We had to nurture our trust, more than others have to. In our relationship, trust is the most important aspect. Without it, I would have never been able to give myself completely to him.

And yes, there are rules. Several revolve around how our home is kept, how to keep things to make him happy. Others are just fun for us in our everyday lives, because we both enjoy them, such as how we sleep. It came from a night of passion, when he had an insatiable hunger for me. We had finished playing in the dungeon, and when he carried me to our room, exhausted but still hungry, he gave me a simple command.

"Bella, clean me with your tongue." I happily obliged, hovering over him as I lapped away our orgasms on his cock. He became semi-erect as I did this, but through our fatigue, we knew we simply couldn't complete another sexual act at that moment. As I finished, his command reached my ears.

"Tonight, you will sleep with your lips wrapped around me. Whenever you feel me harden, you will wake and please me with your mouth. Do you understand, little one?"

I silently nodded, laying down next to him, my arm wrapped around his hips. I lay my head on his abdomen and slowly sucked his softening cock into my mouth as I drifted off to sleep. Three times that night, I felt him grow rigid in my mouth, and each time I woke and pleasured him. In the morning, as we ate breakfast, he grinned at me and told me how he couldn't imagine being able to have a bad day being woken up like that.

That was how one of our fun rules came to be. Every night while we slept, I would keep contact with him, either with my hand or my mouth. Every morning since that day, he woke to find me stroking him, sucking him, or riding him. We both gained pleasure from this rule.

Other rules were strictly for when we played. When it was time for this, I would wait where I was told., naked, sitting on my heels, palms resting upward on my spread knees, back straight, eyes down. I would only speak when given permission. I would only make eye contact when given permission. I would only make noise when given permission. I would only cum when given permission. And I would do anything I was asked. The only exception to this was if I chose to use my safe word, Omega, which I never felt the need to use.

So this is what my life really is. Its not what people think it is. I'm not a weak person. In reality, I'm strong, and I make my own choices every day. The greatest choice I make daily is whether to submit or not. I choose to submit, and I choose to submit to the man I love.

While our everyday lives were what I considered normal, our sexual lives were more on the adventurous side. We often enjoyed the sanctity of our dungeon. Our dungeon existed mainly for pleasure, as I rarely needed correction any more. Obviously in the beginning correction and punishment were needed, but that was only because I didn't know his needs well enough, or what pleased him. I could probably count on one hand the punishments I have endured since our first year together.

And when the dungeon grew mundane, we visited a club to explore our exhibitionist side. Visiting the club always brought new desire into our relationship. Seeing the reactions of others to our scenes was exhilarating. I loved to see the pride in Master James' face when I followed his every command. He loved to see the jealousy on other Dom's faces from my obedience. And being watched as we were intimate with each other, well some things just can't be described.

It was by chance that we met at Sanctum. Friends of mine at the club had dared me to enter the auction. I had never done that before, always too shy and self-conscious. I always watched the beautiful women that were brave enough to be auctioned, always so graceful and sexy. I never felt like I was either of those. I could trip on a level floor with no obstacles in the way, and did so often. I had suffered countless sprains from tripping over my feet. I was never in the same league as the women that allowed themselves to be auctioned off. But, when dared, I simply couldn't back down. A dare normally meant that someone didn't believe you were brave enough to do what was being asked. Even though I wasn't really brave enough, my pride made me have to accept and prove them wrong.

I never knew that the dare would lead me to this, to being with the man I loved. Master James was the winner of my auction, and we spent hours enjoying each other. Of course at that time, he was simply Sir James. But after a year of ravenous pleasure, I had finally earned the right to call him Master. I had never called anyone that before him. Everyone else had simply been Sir.

The night of our sixth anniversary, we decided to celebrate by returning once again to Sanctum. Whenever we went into the club, I always felt those same emotions of our first scene together. Since I was always wary of going into one of the private rooms with someone I had never met before, I religiously opted for scening in public. It was always safer, knowing that with other eyes watching I could not be injured. No one would ever harm a sub in public, but the sadistic pseudo Doms would at times do this in one of the private rooms, where a sub's cries for help were left unheard. I liked to play it safe, but even after Master James and I had been together for a long time, we never went into the private rooms. The rush from having others watch was too tempting to resist. I only wish that I had known how our anniversary at Sanctum was going to turn out. If I had, I may have tried to spend it in the vanilla fashion of cooking him a nice, romantic dinner at home with boring vanilla sex in the bed.

A/N: Okay-so feel free to make comments on whether to continue or keep it to myself. Thank you for taking the time to read this!