What being a Master means to me

So many people use the title, "Master", so lightly, I actively distanced myself from it until I met my current slave, and she called me, "Master.".  It felt so natural, coming from her lips, but before her, I associated it with posers who wanted to impose a dominant's title on people from whom they have not yet earned submission.

I think the major problem came from the online scene, where anyone can pretend.   Men who wanted to be dominants added "Master" to their names flippantly.  I used to make fun of them when they were clearly fake: "Yes, you're a 'Master', all right; you're the Master of your own hand."  They couldn't dominate Terri Schiavo (too soon?). 

Here's what being a Master means to me.  Take it for what it's worth:

• I am skilled, and my slave recognizes those skills.  I can dominate her with a look, with a whisper, by touching her the right way.  I can make her orgasm at will, and she obeys because she has given her mind and body to me in recognition of my skills.
• I listen and observe well.  I know what my slave's strengths and weaknesses are.  I know what she enjoys and what she doesn't.  I know her hard and soft limits, and if we haven't explored something, I know how to find her limits and not simply work within them, but to push them to the edge.
• I have confidence in my abilities.  I do not enter into play nervously or awkwardly.
• I have experience and knowledge.  I know what I know because I've had practice at it.  I have explored various kinks and know about them.  I know about equipment.  I know about safety.  I've made mistakes and I've learned from them.  I've watched, read about, and learned from others.  
• I have established the rules and I enforce them.  I have given my slave a framework from which she can find fulfillment in pleasing me.  Her following the rules works out best for both of us, and they are tailored to us, our needs, our desires.   
• I am everything I say I am.  I have not and will not misrepresent myself.  What you see is what you get.  When I say that I am a sadistic dominant who will go as far as any masochist's limits will allow, I mean this absolutely.  

Of course, the word, "master", itself has various meanings, and people can play with those meanings all they want.  I live as a Master, and this is what I mean when I say it.  I earned this title; she called be by it of her own free will, then gave that will over to me.