Not Sweetie’s Favorite Thing: Ropes and Tears

So many posts lately have tears in them. I’m hoping I get to the other end of the tears soon, to some more good things.

Last Sunday at home, we wanted to play with the ropes some more, so I could have a picture and Sweetie could practice her knots. I got home from church and was ready, if a little sleepy still from the night before. I stripped down and stood in the middle of our bedroom, hands-to-elbows behind my back, but a few minutes into her harness work, I said “I’m having some not-hot thoughts…”

In fact, they were fairly hot, just also sad. She stopped working for a second, gave me the rope to hold behind me and asked what was wrong.

“It’s just reminding me of Fireguy. The moment when he took off the ropes and I was free and playful. I loved that so much and I never got to write about it.”

In fact, I think I did write about it, but I never really got to honor him, that friendship, those genuine moments I liked so much, the way that I wanted to because I was so angry and scared. I had to cut off the connection to make his betrayal less painful, but just like with Bill, Fireguy’s jackassery didn’t make my affection for him (or maybe even his affection for me) any less real.

I started to cry and Sweetie said “What do I do? Do I take it off you?”

“No, leave it on.” She put her arms around me as tight as the ropes were and I cried, feeling pink and naked and beautiful and loved and sad and real, still holding the rope behind me. Her shirt grazed my nipples, still standing alert from my flushed skin. After a few minutes of me standing there pinkly sobbing, she got some tissues and dried my eyes, but I drew the line at letting her blow my nose.

The moment I was crying about was this: back in Fireguy’s basement, I’d been laying with him on a futon on the floor, laying back on my tied arms, blindfolded. He said, “Come on, I turn over, I need your arms.” I was about to be spanked for something, and I felt so adored—it was moment of pure play and friendship. My shoulders ached and he said he wouldn’t make me lay on my arms next time, but I said I didn’t mind the hurt. We were like puppies, we were like kids, we were like friends. It was a moment of my guy-dreams coming true and I was crying because I’d lost it. Crying for all of the fleeting moments of connection that get buried under avalanches of fear and anger and shame. For the ways I can’t connect and all the miracle ways that I do. For the times that I just. Stop. fighting. They’re beautiful, and those were beautiful tears.

Sweetie took off the ropes and I cried some more. She stakes such good care of me at times like this. Sure, I would rather have had sex that afternoon, but letting my heart bubble over was almost just as good.