System Meeting [Me]

So, how are things going? This is something I ask myselves pretty frequently, and today I'm going to run the exercise and try to type it up as we go. Hopefully, this will give you an idea of what I'm experiencing.

I envision all of us sitting around together talking. A conference table would be great, but we won't all sit at a conference table and behave. So let's have a big comfy couch, the overstuffed kind that wraps around three sides of a square, and has a big ottoman in the middle to rest your feet on. We've been on a corduroy kick lately; let's make it a dark green corduroy.

I'll sit in the middle, with Gracelyn to my left. She has her clipboard out, and her reading glasses on (I didn't realize she wore reading glasses until just now). I know she'll take notes, which will come in handy when I forget what was said. We'll put the two slaves on the other side of her. They sit quietly, Cherish with her hands in her lab, sitting up straight and attentive, Stephanie leaning against her side, looking out at the rest of us with big eyes. Paul's slouched deep into the couch playing a video game, his bottom hanging off the couch, and his knees bent, feet on the ottoman. Kiara's in the corner of the couch. She's mostly standing, sitting on the arm of the couch, picking lint off the surface.

To my right, Sam is moving around restlessly. Sometimes she whispers into Rubi's ear, getting an answering smirk. Rubi's slouch isn't much more upright than Paul's, and she's got one foot cocked up on the ottoman, too, as she leans against the other corner of the couch. Silent One mills around at the end of the couch, curling up on the ottoman or sniffing around the floor as it wants to. This is a good day for a meeting; everyone has shown up. I don't really have an agenda of things I want to cover, just a check-in, so it may be a short meeting.

"Okay, I'll get started," I say. "Let's talk about the body. Anybody have anything going on we need to talk about?" Silence, of course; no one wants to start things off. "The shoulder's been hurting on and off lately. Right now it's feeling just fine. Thoughts on that?"

Sam flicks a torn piece of paper at Stephanie; she flinches like she's been hit with something more significant. Stephanie has a permanent injury to her left arm, as well as her jaw, and they ache when she's out more. "I think it's Steph, trying to come out at weird times. We've been extra-careful not to do anything to hurt it. We're about as un-injured as we get. Is there something coming up we're trying to be healthy for?"

Gracelyn answers her. "We still have two more doctor's visits to go this month, and it's polite to keep marks to a minimum until then. After that, our anniversary is coming up, and I understand there's a scene planned for that. Will we need to avoid injury between now and then?"

"Naw," spits out Rubi. "I mean, it'll be intense mentally, but we just need to not get cut up on our back, I think. Other stuff's fair game. It's been a long time since I've got to cut. Thighs are pretty clear - but I'll wait till after the doctor's visits."

Paul speaks up now, "When we were driving, on the trip? We used our left arm a lot for that; maybe we overworked it then? The truck's easier to drive left-handed than right." He's right; it pulls to the right, so driving with the left is easier. Kiara and Cherish are primarily left-handed, but he's ambidextrous.

Kiara pipes up, "I can color with my right hand now. My arm hurt too much for coloring, so I switched hands." Several people nod; her right-handed coloring was much more controlled than her left, since the body has better fine motor control on that side.

Sam flicks another piece of paper at Silent One; it snarls and snaps at it, then ignores it. It seems to me that topic is complete, so I move on. "Paul, you got locked in front the other day; everything okay now?"

"Yeah, access is back to normal, and I've been doing fine. I spent some time hanging out with Mister more the other night. It was good." I'm aware of what he's been going through, trying to re-define his relationship with Boss. It went through a rough period when his memories re-set, and he's still recovering. Gracelyn touches me on the knee; we'll leave the topic there, and she'll keep talking to him one-on-one about it.

"Okay," I say, "Back to our anniversary scene. Sam, Rubi, and I will be involved, and it will be at the club." I describe what we've got in mind. "Is anyone else interested in participating somehow?"

"Will it hurt too bad for cuddling after?" Kiara asks. I don't know, never having done such a scene before, but I think there'll be room for her to come out at some point.

Paul ventures, "I think we need to do something else for the rest of us, too. Because that's only for three or four of us, and it's anniversary for all of us." I agree, and suggest that Paul and the slaves work with Gracelyn to try to come up with something for that side of the couch to do with Boss that's significant. Maybe Boss will have some ideas.

Kiara has a new topic. "We have too many S names. Everyone's supposed to have a different letter, for signing and naming. And we have a Sam and a Stephanie and a Silent One."

"Boss renamed Silent One 'Os', but it didn't take."

"Boss named Stephanie, too."

"Maybe he'll change it. He'll read about it in the blog."

"We should rename Silent One; it's not even quiet, sometimes."

"What'll we call it? Pet?"

"Nope, it's too wild to be a pet. And that's a P; it can't start with K, P, C, S, G, M, or R."

"Animal? Critter - no, that's a C. Somebody open a thesaurus." I bring up thesaurus.com and look up a few things.

I read off what comes up. "Can't be Beast; Boss has one of those already. Letters we can't start with are C, G, K, M, P, R, S. Something from 'feral'? Bestial, Brute, Ferine. Instinct. Gut, Impulse. Wild - Primeval - I'm running out of stuff, guys."

"Should it have a feminine ending? It's kind of female - sort of... Ferine - ferinus - ferinia?"

"No, that's terrible. Let's look up gender-neutral names - in case it turns out to not be female." Baby names sound 'too human', so on to dog names.

"Silent One sometimes has a fuzzy outline and is hard to see, like sasquatch..." So we look up different names for Bigfoot. And come up with Bukwas, Na'in, (okay, have to use Splintercat in a story sometime), Tornit, Tuneq, Boqs, Yowie, or Yeren. The harder K and T sounds are doing a better job of catching Silent One's attention.

"I'm tabling this one until next time. We'll talk to Boss and thing about it," I announce. Anything else that anyone wants to bring up?"

"Not while you're recording it and sharing it," Rubi points out. Granted; some things we don't want to post publicly, I suppose. I feel like I'm a reporter, except I'm also the subject of the report. No one else seems to have anything else they're willing to share publicly, so I bring the meeting to a close.