I give myself to you completely as your wife. Ask me not to leave you, or return from following after you. For where you go, I will go; where you live, I will live. Your people shall be my people, and your history my history; and your future my future.

I accept you as my husband, to love and understand, to stay by your side in all that is to come for all the time of my life.

It was a little over nine years ago that kessia said these words to her Husband. Since that time, we have both seen monumental changes to our lives and ourselves: A graduation or two, a child, illness, joy, sorrow, discovery, two cats and a giant white dog. Once kessia was an equal to this same man, now she is his property.

Recently, kessia found out that she is the last of all her college and high school companions to still be married to the same man. The other ’holdout’ finally got divorced after twelve years of marriage. This, and the threads on marriage that have appeared lately, got kessia to puzzling about why it is we are still married. Back when kessia had a choice in such matters, there were times when she wanted to just *quit* and start over. Each time she did more than just think about it though, there was something that kept her from running away. Something made a girl put her things away, calm herself and go do some mundane household thing until she was calm enough to talk things out with her husband and remember why she loves him so much. Later, as our marriage began to shift away from the ever so politically correct partnership that it had been to the Master/slave relationship it has become there was more trouble, more times when kessia thinks either or both of us wanted to just give up. So why didn’t it happen? One’s friend had made the same promises, had gotten through so much worse than kessia and her husband. Why had they given up when we had not? One asked her Master, and he grinned and said he was too stubborn to let her go, or to walk away. A girl rolled her eyes and smiled, begged him to please think of more of a reason, then kissed him as he went off to work.

Upon futher reflection, one began to wonder if, for Master and kessia, it is just that simple. Heaven knows, kessia loves complicating things, and perhaps in this case a girl is looking for a more complex reason when there really does not need to be one. This girl has been told she is stubborn to the point of stupidity, and one knows Master is no slouch in the stubborn department either. Years ago, kessia promised and she has never been one to back down from a challenge or go back on her word. One has done some stupid things while she was fighting the knowledge that she was her husband’s slave. All he did was shake his head and sit back and wait for kessia to remember what it was she promised, and to figure out that nothing could change the fact that she is his. Always has been, always will be. All those times one wanted to quit, all those times one still wants to give up and move to Tahiti -- all of those times pale when kessia looks into her heart and knows that Master will not give up on her, nor will he let her give up on herself and she knows it is only a matter of time before she looks into chocolate brown eyes and knows exactly why she is here and what she wants to be.

So maybe the big secret to staying married is not "growing together" or "compromise" or any of the myriad reasons given in all those women’s magazines. Maybe it is just as simple as being too damned hardheaded to quit.

A girl hopes her words are not displeasing.

One wishes the Masters and Mistresses well,
one wishes the slaves well

kessia{Sage}