A chronicle of face fragments, portrait pieces, info bits, passing thoughts, this space contains ideas and memory smoked over time and colored with play and poetry.
I offer this space to ponder the many mistresses we have and we are. The mistress is the screen upon which others project fantasy and desire, an alluring object of the gaze. However, we are all mistresses to someone, as we play many roles, and not just sexual roles. In the accounting office, the mistress of the lucrative account has mastery over the people and details in her pocket and so has sewn that account to her and reaped the rewards of her sway. In the bedroom, the mistress’ role is more familiar and obvious. But sexual role playing occurs in the bedroom and out, whether overtly or covertly; it occurs constantly. The older man with the young trophy wife plays the role of virile lover, of pirate with treasure possessed, a reflection of his own ego and power of purchase. Conforming to what she believes makes her worthy of possession, she (wife, lover, girlfriend, mistress) is saint on the streets and sinner in the sheets, fabrications of desire, fables long enduring.
According to old Oxford, a mistress is the one with control, self-possessed and competent. Figuratively, anything that exerts control and possesses may be the mistress of a life. Writing may be a cool mistress, possessing the desire and ambition of its captive penner. She may also be a skilled lover, head of household or wordsmith, a teacher. She owns lovers as she owns dogs or cats. She is both illicit lover of the married man and the object of courting, in the eye of the courter. She is the married woman too. She has existed throughout time and resides in everyone’s consciousness. She is desire and abnegation. The mistress is beloved, beguiled and bestridden, even as she desires, deceives and devours.
Look for yourself here in these writings, but do not find it. The life of a mistress is profoundly grey, scantily read.
~Peace
psg
Please visit my author’s page@onenakedpoet.com
In the gaze of the other 
We all have secret loves which pleasure only ourselves.
Secret loves that pleasure us may include ourselves as object of pleasure and desire as well as others, but can also include our passions to express, to create or hone a skill or learn. The clandestine nature of the passion is the story that bears telling.
I agree. But I believe there is another story in, ‘why clandestine’?
Another story? What do you mean?
The ‘other’ type of mistress. The, “passions to express, to create or hone a skill or learn”. Those mistresses are often kept secret for far different reasons. Many holders of such secrets would willingly reveal a secret bed partner before revealing their personal, hidden passions. The fear of rejection keeps passions mistresses.
Yes, agreed and well expressed.
Those can be more daunting reasons than those for cheating on a partner for sure. Fear of rejection of failure, of even success, hold people back and make them mistresses of their own desires, and, in many cases, needs.
Sorry, missing comma between “fear of rejection” and “of failure” makes that comment hard to understand.
Got it (the comma thing).
And when the fear, “make(s) them mistresses of their own desires”, the mistress becomes the Master.
And this is the reason for my fascination with this topic: the continual modulation between the submission and domination of the word built into its denotation, it’s etymology, so like the role itself, most aligned with the modulations of human nature in context of how we experience the world and act at the most primal level, from love, relationships with others and ourselves, our environment…
It is an ever elastic inversion, this role, this concept of the mistress.
Thanks for dropping by recently and reblogging my thoughts re “the gaze” and for subscribing. This is an interesting blog here and a fascinating topic.
I love the way this is worded. My love for reading is definitely one of my mistresses. I can spend hours and hours reading without breaks, wrapping myself up in the stories I crack open.
Thank you. My oldest, longest, deepest and most passionate relationship has been my life long love affair with books, which have inspired me to teach and write, have been my solace in the worst of times and my constant companions the rest of the time. I’m always delighted to encounter another bibliophile, especially on this relatively brumous morning in an unlikely place for it to be so, Southern California. 🙂
It’s quite brumous here as well in NY. I can’t say that I’m the biggest fan of winter, save the winter of House Stark 🙂
HI,
I’m Tokoni, a student and poet. Its nice to meet you. I’d like to invite you to my blog at http://www.insanitybeautiful.wordpress.com if you’re interested. Thanks.
Hello, and thank you for the invitation. I love the name of your blog and will check it out. Cheers!
So good to have you drop by again yesterday.
Always my pleasure.
“Brumous”? Gonna have to look that one up!
Don’t you just love new words?
Okay – remind me to read your blog more closely when I’m not at work. 🙂
Haha. Okay, will do.
🙂