Knotty Thursdays: Merry Christmas!!!

 No actual skills here, but I had fun! I was surprised that this purely decorative experiment gave my brain a little of the rope-quiet--after I took the picture, I lay on my side and spaced out for a few minutes before the lights started to feel a little hot. Having just sort-of-played for ten minutes or so,  I went back to my less-bonadgey Christmas chores refreshed.

I've been working on my goal-setting for next year and I think one of my great 2021 successes has been my more-consistent rope practice. I like the ways that the ropes have expanded my sense of possibility, my creativity, and my general amusement with my own body. Plus, I think this picture is pretty hot.

Next Thursday, if all goes as planned, I'll be on a long-awaited museum visit with The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow. So Happy New Year, dears! Thanks for helping me grow and giving me a place to show off! <3 <3 <3 

Knotty Thursday: Cute Harness with Bow

 

It is not the happiest Knotty Thursday ever--I'm recovering from a mild case of Covid (Sixth day of quarantine) and feeling blue about holiday plans getting cancelled. Plus I'm still sad I don't get to festively watch Gremlins 1 (or anything) with This Charming man! But! I watched this video last night:

I sure didn't have a long enough rope (on order!) to do the whole thing but it gave me a basis for making a cute harness on my own FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER! I'm so proud! Here's what it looks like without the bow:

I left it on all morning and into the afternoon--SUCH a comfort on a bluesy day.

This Meaningful Sex, Part Two

 

Before I wade back into the feelings, I’m writing myself a permission slip to put dating life aside until after New Year’s. (Aside from The Lovely Guy, who’s easy to trust and be myself around!) There are plenty of year-end crafts and projects to lean into, and I’m especially excited because I’ve decided that I don’t have to spend time with my unvaccinated brother! Having excused myself from traveling to family, I’m excited to spend the month in my own life, making room for whatever quietly arrives. I may even get to see a gemstone exhibit with The Boy Who Sewed Me a Pillow, if I’m superlucky!

Anyway, back to the processing at hand. A (mostly in my own head, but still) horny week has given me a little perspective, but I still find it hard to imagine  connecting with anyone as much as I did with This Charming Man. I understand, on some level, that This Charming Man was maybe just really good at sex. But so were Steampunk Guy, Mr. Shiny Eyes, so IS The Lovely Guy. I remember that glimmer-of-love moment when I came with Mr. Sweetheart as Mr. Shiny Eyes held and kissed me. I remember the Mayor of Kittentown’s endlessly welcoming dick.

But this was the first time, with a man, that I felt truly present, safe, and adored. Truly intertwined with him, body and spirit. That feeling could have been solely provided by my ridiculous love-drunk imagination, but I don’t think it was. Not solely.

When I set out on this quest ten years ago (!), this was the thing I was looking for. Not just to be able to step over my decades of barriers and fuck men, but to learn how to fully and unselfconsciously let them in. It was the missing piece I’ve deprived myself of for so long. The longing crashed and burned so many relationships, probably a little bit this one too.

I told him, the last naked night, that no one had ever fucked me so right before. I don’t think that’s grammatically correct, but he said “thank you.” and sighed the most satisfied sigh. I loved the way he held my head up by my hair because he liked to watch me cry out for a while before he let me bury my head in the pillows. (Let us now praise doggie style, now and forever my favorite possible thing.) He would hold me so sweetly and gently after we (“good girl”) came, but his dick stayed hard and I liked just laying there, petting it. Making friends.)

(The time he slept over, in the morning as he was getting dressed, he let his dick stick up through top of his boxers, pointing upwards out the top of his jeans. Such a fucking treasure of an image, that alone makes all these paragraphs worthwhile.)

I don’t really know how to put these pieces together to help me understand how I ended up feeling so deeply, but I guess love doesn’t need an explanation. A few months ago, before I met him, when dating life started to be so exciting and unbalancing again, I told my then-therapist that my goal was to “let the moment live.”

And I did! I put the paragraphs aside for a little while, didn’t ask what the meaning or status was, just let us be. I just let him please me. I let myself have him.  I let down my guard and let us love, and even if he wouldn’t have phrased it that way, I think it was something real and true.

In the context of the five-millionth breakoff of this blog’s life, it’s hard to frame my time with This Charming Man as progress, as a major heart-victory, but it was and is. I wholeheartedly let a man in. I let us adore each other so fully until our time was done. As the heartbreak lifts, little by little, I can feel the truth of him return to my body and soul as the gift that he was. As a strength. As another facet of the love that I am made of.

I don’t want to face the world of men with the hurt and defensiveness I’m feeling now. Yes, I probably should screen better, but I also want to leave room to be open, to push myself, to be surprised. I hope that openness will blossom out of me before too long, but for now there’s the grief that honors this big important thing. For now there are Christmas crafts, and friend-plans, and gentle hope. Putting the swiping aside for a bit, I feel sad and free.

 

 

Knotty Thursday: Lark's Head Double-Column Restraint

 Hooray hooray! I've never made knot-practice time a self-date before, but this morning I did. I even felt little wisps of the brain-quiet. I combined this new friend with some not-much-to-look-at (well.) chest harnessing and my supefave the thigh girth hitch. Nothing else is like all that tension/release/gentle struggle, even on my own.

And! I may have found a new casual guy (Way too soon to try for feelings, not while I'm still sometimes struggling to not call This Charming Man!) who is amenable to being decorated--we shall see! 

This Meaningful Sex: Part One

 

Thanksgiving was so much lovelier than I could’ve hoped for. Talking to my sister about the fancy garden break-off gave me some much needed perspective, as did just getting the heck out of town. Today, I made some gentle moves toward Whoever Is Next, but longing for This Charming Man is making me so blue. So I’m typing to lo-fi and disentangling the lost-love feelings.

Conventional thought says that hot sex can be distracting from seeing someone for who they really are, can keep us from powering along to better matches and more-fulfilled expectations. That’s certainly true in this case, but I think the opposite is also true.

Sometimes, I think, bodies know how to love in ways that hearts and minds can’t translate, aren’t ready to see, or just can’t fit into the rest of day-to-day life. Knowing who This Charming Man and I really are, the fact that we connected in ANY way, let alone a (to me at least) spiritually meaningful way, is a MIRACLE. It was a miracle created by the wisdom of bodies. (Okay, yes, also by the wisdom or post-quar horniness, and the not-wisdom-but-welcome break I took from screening for politics.)

The first time I felt him inside me, after ropes and so much other cuteness on our daytime second date, the FIT of him was uncanny. I do partly mean the physical fit—if I could write symphonies to his long, friendly, and eternally hard dick I would. But there was also, I felt, an emotional sliding-together. A rightness. A made-for-each-other. (Wait, is this how women who are used to PIV sex more than I am feel all the time? Is this swirl of attachments and emotions and chemicals something most people just know how to navigate?)

Even (especially) as he pulled my hair and I bit and twisted and sucked his nipples, I felt drawn into his heart, into tenderness and sweet team effort. Every kiss and touch and graze and handhold felt like a recognition, a welcoming home. You were made for me. We were assembled out of stardust and Hentai and playlists and national emergencies to care for each other in those hours, in those weeks.

Yes I know. Oxytocin is strong stuff. But so is love and fate and wet, slippery magnetism.

He was exceedingly PRESENT. He felt both entirely in service of my pleasure and SO turned on. Miracle, miracle, miracle. On our handful of nights together, whole albums went by, looped around once, twice. Long playlists weren’t long enough, the music only sometimes had to be tended to while we played, so easily.

Knotty Thursday: Simple Handles (There’s a Danger in Getting a Deep Need Met)

One of my favorite moments with This Charming Man was when, on our second-to-last date, I tenderly showed him how he could do a girth hitch around each of my upper thighs to use as handles.

Once the handles were on and cinched tight, he told me to get to the edge of the bed. I lay parallel to the headboard, knees in the air. He stayed standing, held onto my ass and thrust in, then regained the handles. I was always (and still am, writing this) soaking wet for him, the gushingest I’ve ever been for anyone, and that is REALLY saying something. Everything in me flowed out to him, to his smell, his charm, his humor, his beauty, and ohyeah the ropes. In all my years of adventures, I’ve never been as turned on as I was for This Charming Man.

I’m afraid I’ll never feel attraction that powerful again.

He tugged the ropes from side to side and then APART, pulling me open, wider and closer. Open, open, open, pussy, heart, and soul.

“You make me feel so good.” I heaved and sighed and huffed.

“I’m glad. You deserve it.” It’s kind of a miracle that I didn’t cry for him until our last day. His words threaded up inside me, stitched me up, gauzed up wounds with a peace I didn’t know was possible.

That’s a lot to put on one young man who has a lot of other stuff going on. I try now (though I certainly didn’t see it this way in the moment) to understand it was just dom stuff. I didn’t and don’t know where to go with all that fulfillment, all that healing, all that emotion. I don’t know how to take it to heart now that he’s gone, but I hope I can before too long. I don’t know what any of it felt like from his perspective, I wish I could. Either way, that bliss, that comfort, that rest, is mine and I hope it doesn’t always hurt so bad to think about it.

Anyway, we came together beautifully, and if I hadn’t already fallen for him like four dates ago, I was certainly a goner now.

Afterwards, when he was up taking off the condom and I was laying back tangled in the comforter, feeling ravished and adored, this thing happened. I think he said a thing. It was the second or third time I thought I heard him say it, probably a dick-drunk trick of the ears:

“I love you.”

It could have been “how are you?” or any other set of syllables. I left it there because I couldn’t have heard what I thought I’d heard. This is the part (one of the parts) where I feel truly crazy, this shimmering hallucination of my dearest wish. He can’t have said it, not on the third date or the sixth, not in the afterglow or the throes. If he did, maybe it was a trick, maybe a spellish part of the charming. Or maybe it was real.

 

Seventh Date Tears, Part Three

 

To get to the rest of this hard, hard day, I have to backtrack to the date before it. The Failed Fancy Garden Date was on a Friday, and the Monday before we’d had (my favorite) a make-out-in-front-of-Gilmore-Girls-then-have-all-the-beautiful-sex date. Our connection that night felt so thorough and deep (Ha, yep, that too, but for now I’m parsing out the emotions.) that I couldn’t think how I was going to shift into casual mode for The Lovely Guy’s already planned Friday night visit. Awash in satisfaction, peace, and a little bit of the Relationship Escalator, I decided it was time to let The Lovely Guy go.

The Lovely Guy and I had a sweet and kind text exchange, and he told me to reach out again if I ever felt the need.

This Charming Man hadn’t asked me to be monogamous, but I wanted to give him my whole self. I was ready to sink into lovely-dovey mode like a warm bath. I had well and truly fallen for him and I was doing the move-too-fast thing. It made me happy and also freaked me the fuck out.

Anyway, back to the Friday of the garden date. When This Charming Man left to go home and plan for his D&D game that night, I had time for a little nap before work. But instead of napping, I texted The Lovely Guy and asked if he happened to be free that night, and he was. He showed up fresh from work with a big bottle of my favorite pink wine.

The Lovely Guy really came through as a friend that night. He advocated hard for me to keep going with This Charming Man, explaining the cultural differences between me and both of them, shedding welcome light on some of my white lady blind spots. Plus, after the moderate tangles of the afternoon, it felt really nice to be talking to a cute liberal. Really, there’s enough to disagree about here on the left.

I sent The Lovely Guy off early even though he was so cute and smelled so good. Neither he nor I wanted to make things more complicated or confusing with This Charming Man.

When I woke up the next day, it’s possible that TCM was already all the way gone from me. His like-clockwork “good morning” (Which we’d sometimes followed by talking about what we’d dreamed. Ohhhhhhhhhh OMG I miss him.) was noticeably absent.

Either way, I knew I had to let This Charming Man go. I wrote a way-too-long breakup text. I used the word love, which I meant. It sucked. I cried all day. I watched The Starling, and then Birdbox, and then A Quiet Place, all scratching the itch of my lost and fighty mind.

I know dealbreakers are real. I know you should never start a relationship hoping that something deep about the other person will change. That Friday, in that great garden tangle, we’d both been trying to fix each other, and that is fundamentally unkind. Still, it feels like a great failure on my part, to have found such a beautiful connection and then let it fall so thoroughly apart.

I wish, wish, WISH there was something I could’ve done—not panicked, slowed down, asked the right questions, let him know I heard him. I wish it didn’t have to end the way it did. I wish it didn’t have to end at all.

Seventh Date Tears, Part Two

I miss him so badly all the time. I still, nine days later, can’t believe such a pretty date could go so, so wrong. By the time we were just starting our walk through the fancy gardens, he was correcting everything I said, taking up for anyone and anything I had a problem with—my disinformationy unvaccinated brother, Thanksgiving, Ronald Reagan, he took their side.

As we hugged and tried to reconnect in a quiet little vined alcove, he started in about how “Democrat” and “Republican” are just labels that divide us, how people like me on the left are just as responsible for the “discord.”

“You have to put “Moderate” on your dating profiles, I could have just swiped left!” I said in defeat and exasperation. I’m really, really glad, even in the midst of this annoying story, that I didn’t swipe left.

There was a moment, before I turned back up the path to go home. The alleé of pines and fall trees was decorated for Christmas, and even in the bright noon light, a cascade of blue lights lit up over the oranges, reds, and browns of the trees. He held my hand there, tried to keep me still. He tried to briefly to hold me by the wrists, but I was already fleeing.

(“Why don’t you just MARRY the moment?” I asked toward the end of the day. “I would love to, but it’s already past.” I guess that was the last time he made me laugh.)

I started missing him as soon as I turned away from those daytime Christmas lights. We talked/fought all the way back to the city. On our (dear, dear) third date, we’d watched Gremlins 2, and now we were breaking all of our own Gremlin rules. Instead of “don’t feed them after midnight” it was more like, don’t talk about Dave Chappelle, vaccine-deniers, Russian disinformation campaigns. I felt the kind of crazy I felt before I estranged from my mom, the kind of scary detachment that comes from living in separated realities. The gaslight feeling.

I took him home with me anyway, I wasn’t ready to let him go, I’m still not, even though I guess I have. We’d missed our garden lunch so we had peanut butter and honey sandwiches. We sat close on the couch and my queenly fat cat crawled into his lap. The three of us sat there, beautifully captured in time.

I was still kissing This Charming Man, but I wasn’t reaching him. I asked him to come up to bed and hold me, and he did, off-to-the-side and chaste. As soon as we were there, more tears came, so many tears came, brokenhearted tears, all-the-topics tears. Grief and loss and shame and fear and loneliness and love.

He did this thing that I can’t quite get my head around, that I love so much and maybe shouldn’t. I was apologizing for crying, trying to stuff my face into the pillows. I kept saying “This SO isn’t cute.” But he restrained my hands away from my face, stayed above me, and just kind of witnessed the tears. It was (maybe creepy, I don’t really care) an act of love.

“I’m still here,” he kept saying, but he wasn’t, not really, or I wasn’t. We were both trying hard for it not to be over, but the day was broken, it just was.

 

Knotty Thursday: Untangling Break

To post this picture from a couple of weeks ago, I cropped out the most beautiful, the silliest, the most unrestrainedly (ha) joyful smile. I'm deep in heartbreaktown for the foreseeable future, only seeing  (FWB) The Lovely Guy and giving the rest of dating a well-earned break. Not for long, I hope!

The lesson here, or one of them, is not to go another five years before I find someone to tie and be tied by. I guess I can't really control that, but I think it's really, really important to keep looking. The rope part of love isn't the only part, of course, but it's vital to me and I want to keep honoring it. Thanks for being there, dears, to keep me accountable!

It's gonna take me a while before I can write about the emotions and sensations of all the intimacies of my time with This Charming Man without just crying and wanting to call him, but I'll start here. The moment on our first date when I realized he was game to work on knots with me, such a breath of fulfillment filled me up, an anticipation and joy that I hadn't realized was missing. As we learned and practiced together, it was more than just the warm, deliberate touch that meant so much to me. I loved the pressure, the attention, the patient steps so much, but there was also a deep, deep sense of being cared for. It's hard to know for sure, but I think it was mutual and real, at least in those moments.

I don't think you're reading this, TCM, but if you are, thank you. I love you. Maybe everything means more to me than it should, but who needs should statements?

Seventh Date Tears, Part One

 

As I picked up coffee and scones for our mini-road-trip date, I yammered through the pickup window to the barista about how nervous I was. (I had also been panicky for a day or so about unrelated things, I maybe should have scaled back or postponed this big-step date!) This Charming Man is already gone and I’d only just learned how he takes his coffee. I am absolutely devastated and having the HARDEST time not just calling him up and saying “PLEASE.” Please what, I don’t know. Just please.

When I picked him up, we happily kissed hello but it was a little like having one feral cat in the passenger seat and another in the driver’s seat. He had the energy of one of those Garfield toys they used to suction-cup to car windows in the Eighties, just absolutely ready to escape. I wish I would have paused and asked him why he was so jangled. He second-guessed my driving (he doesn’t drive) and kept listing off accidents he had seen around home. I gave him the AMAZING lemon poppyseed scones I’d brought because! Special occasion! And he said “I thought we were going to eat.” Right or wrong, my jangled brain registered that as food-shaming. Whatever it was, I would have liked it to be a “thank you.”

We were going to eat. When he asked me out for Friday-day, I’d gotten up the courage to invite him to have lunch with me at my favorite fancy garden, about an hour away. I wanted to hold hands with him, kiss against trees, and try not to take too many pictures so I could pay good attention to him. This garden is my happy place, and I’ve only ever taken one other date there. (https://kittencalendar.blogspot.com/2015/09/in-which-i-realize-how-lucky-i-am-to.html?zx=fec1588cfc2887d4)

This Charming Man, with maybe the exception of this particular day, is PRESENT AS FUCK. It’s what made sex with him, most things with him, so dazzling, so seemingly almost loving, right from the start. Somewhere in ouroff-kilter start-of-the-trip conversation, he said a thing he’d said before, that hadn’t sounded so alarming before I’d fallen for him. In order to give his full attention to The Moment, he doesn’t think of people when they are not there. (“Have you heard of mindfulness?” was the start of this conversation.) I said it didn’t seem like he wasn’t thinking of me because of what an attentive texter her was, but he insisted. And I started to cry. And he second-guessed my driving some more.

I know my heart tends to go too fast, but I thought I was doing better this time!

I kind of wish I’d turned the car around at this point, just gotten us home from this already somehow painful day, but I didn’t want to let him go. I tried to tell him what was the matter, that I’d been going about my own life daydreaming about him. Part of me was with him when he was working or running his D&D games or just doing whatever, but he claimed not to think of me at all. Or, in fairness, anyone else when they weren’t around.

I don’t know why, after a brief break to cry in a Kohls’ parking lot, I still kept driving toward the flowers.

Knotty Thursday: Braided Cuff

 

This one felt a little uncomfortable, I might have to do it a little looser next time. Don't know when I'll get to try it on This Charming Man but soon I hope!!!

Here's the video I'll be using for the next couple of weeks:

Lo-Fi and Rope Highs (How It’s Going)

I can’t make myself write the play-by-play of sex with This Charming Man, as hot as those paragraphs would be. I’m still disentangling my feelings about him, mainly the feeling of being startled (and, because I’m me, a little alarmed) about how connected and grounded I feel when we’re together. Our bodies and our learning curves fit together like the pretty knots, unraveling and being re-tied. Just like it was on our first date, the other main feeling is laughing-while-kissing.

Last Thursday was our fifth date (though the fourth was more of a get-over-here) and I was ready to relax into almost-always coziness at home, so I invited him to come over and paint. But he had a real out-in-the-world date in mind, at a beer garden/barbeque that’s between our two neighbs. Just a simple little while of snacks, cocktails, and running into casual acquaintances of his, but it meant a lot. To get cute for him, to feel his proprietary arm casually draped around me, to make out in front of strangers and probably be a little nauseating. A perfectly ordinary dream come true—not sure if it’s a big deal because of post-quarantine or because my dates have been casual and couch/bed-specific for a while…probably both.

After I took him home for ropes and snuggles, (and before more snuggles) we stayed up all night talking. I kept checking to see if he wanted to go home, and he kept not wanting to go home. At one point, I turned my face away to spoon, and he said I “went away.” I was right there!

I asked him, at like three or four in the morning, what he wanted us to be. He volleyed the question back to me and I admitted that I saw him as boyfriend material, but I didn’t want him to feel constrained. Kind of a cop-out. Can I get Rory Gilmore in here to do this part for me? Anyway, I kept yammering: “Romantic, not casual. Not just friends, but also friends.”

“Friends with ropes?” he joked but then sort of sighed/settled in, saying “Romantic. Yes. Definitely.”

So Friday night while he was running one of his two D&D games, I was sitting here so tired writing a first draft of this post in my notebook, with candles lit and a very him lo-fi mix playing, (Extremely unsurprising take—it’s also so good for typing!) feeling dizzy and off-balance unsure of how to make whatever next plans. (We asked each other out/in for two separate dates the next day, is how.)

But. His eyes shining when he watched me “come like a Good Girl.” His arms submitting to my ropes. The way my throat often hurts from too much laughing/moaning/forgetting to drink water. His heart. Yikes.

There of course are still things that make me feel hesitant about him, about the combination of us, but I’m glad to spend occasional moments just going with it, just feeling quiet and still.

Knotty Thursday: Laddering

So easy and cozy! I left them on for the rest of my morning routine! :D

Although I wish he would use varied sizes of mannequin and give rope lengths for non-skinny bodies, Rory's Brainworks has been superhelpful for keeping me on track:

So There’s This Charming Man, Part Two

 

The day after our first date/first kisses/spontaneous rope-ordering, he texted to tell me he was out for coffee and looking for books on Shibari. (!!!) “My new hobby” is how he put it. I tried not to get toooooo excited—after all, The Lovely Guy had made noises about learning to make a mojito for me and a bottle of white rum is sitting lonely in my cabinet waiting for me to learn mojitos for myself. Guys get excited and they say stuff. It’s cute!

The night before my second date with This Charming Man, I was trying to learn a tie I could NOT FOR THE LIFE OF ME remember the name of, but which had been a fave during the adventure days. And then! BFF to the rescue! And/or she and I need maybe a little more with the boundaries! Either way, she taught me the tie (using the banister, not any of my own columns) and I felt like everyone involved, past and present, must be amazing at life. BFF even looked up the name: chainstitching.

This Charming Man arrived at may apartment for brunch looking out-of-my-league stylish and SO PRETTY that I wasn’t even sure if I could touch him. (Spoiler alert, I COULD.) It felt really right and natural to have him standing tall-ly next to me in my teensy kitchen, chopping up sausage for the omelets. I really messed up the first one and tried to keep it for myself, but he gallantly took the way-less-cute omelet.

After eggs and cinnamon rolls, I set about teaching him chainstitching on his gorgeous long arms. It’s so easy and cozy and I almost immediately (for the first time in YEARS) fell into a rope haze. Deliberate, patient, and still while both tying and being tied, he seemed right there in that pretty haze with me.

There’s this thing. It can happen even with the most tentative rope time. A cinch or a tighten just ***switch*** turns every anxiety off, every defense mechanism. As he worked and reworked the steps of the tie, as he unraveled his work and started again, his hands felt so kind. Being handled with such care and attention made my whole self sunny with happiness.

Work was in like three hours, plenty of time, but I couldn’t imagine in a million years that I might ever emerge from this glittery soft head-cloud. I couldn’t imagine how we might, as he put it two more dates later, unfurl from each other. I was the most still and present I’ve been in months, years, maybe ever.

So There’s This Charming Man, Part One

I’m really struggling to write this even though it’s past time to start processing the wonderfulness that is This Charming Man. OMG I feel superstitious that I will somehow write the connection out of existence. Regular anxious and oh-my-goodness-he-is-so-cute-anxious are conspiring to keep the paragraphs from coming out.

So of course, he is beautiful, a gorgeous black man with supersweet cartoon-deer eyes.  TCM is tall, like, my head fits right next to his neck when we stand next to each other. (Oh my, I really wish it weren’t ALL THE WAY TIL THURSDAY NIGHT until I could do that!) He has the kind of skinny-strong look that up until recently would have made me assume he wouldn’t be into me. (SO glad I changed that perspective!!!) He showed up to our first date looking dapper as heck in a houndstooth jacket and the slightest hint of an artsy fauxhawk. Very low-key goth night. AND YES, he DID used to frequent our local goth night. FUCKING DREAMBOAT.

His vibe reminded me of Poly Friends’ Partner, that not-date poet from summertime. Except that This Charming Man is sillier, more freewheeling, less self-conscious. He chose an Irish dive bar for our lunch date and it was absolutely perfect, even as the bartender gently mocked me (well-deserved) for having coffee instead of beer. We ate voraciously, laughed so much. We talked about Animal Crossing for SO long despite the fact that he isn’t even playing the current iteration. And best, swooniest, we rifled around in each other’s playlists!

When I mentioned that Frank Ocean’s Pink + White is the best makeout song in the universe, he insisted on playing it over the nondescript bar music. I tried to press pause but he (eee!) gently wrestled my hand away every time I tried. I had to let the makeout song play, and we kissed. The feeling of that day is laughing while kissing, bubbling over with silly joy.

I told him about Knotty Thursdays and he was interested. We segued so easily into being knot-tying pals that I don’t even remember how it happened.

As I was settling in for my post-date/pre-work nap, he sent me such a cute picture of him cuddling with a friend’s dog while I was in the middle of ordering (us) some new ropes. At lunch he had expressed some hesitation about being wrapped up in pink ropes (a hesitation that has since evaporated) so I asked him what color he would like, and he said orange, so I ordered orange.

Who orders someone his own ropes after a first date? This moi. It was one of my better choices of ever.

Knotty Thursday! Farrimond Friction Hitch

 

It's a little janky, I should practice a few more times before This Charming Man comes over for our Gremlins 2 date tonight. He might be practicing it a little today too! :D 

A Bad Date, Good Hookup, and a Helpful Google, Part Three

There was something about Hookup Guy having such a narrow window of time that made him seem a little sus. Sure, he could have just been horny and urgent (like, you know, ME) but it felt like he was on more of a cheating husband schedule than a divorced dad schedule. I knew I had to look him up before I let him come over anymore.

These moments never don’t remind me of Psyche bringing the lamp into Cupid’s room and wrecking everything. Darn lamp!

I couldn’t find anything under the name he’d given me, aside from a lower-rung Marvel actor. A facebook search turned up various not-hims. He’d told me that in addition to his teaching work, he had started doing real estate on the side, so I tried “fake name realtor” in the search bar and still found nothing. I know not everyone is an internet open book, but sheesh.

So I typed in his phone number and up came the same him with a different last name. He did seem divorced on his (mostly professional) facebook page. And there he was, a ways back, holding up his “I’m vaccinated” sticker, so at least he wasn’t lying about that? I suppose anyone could get a sticker though. Should I be asking to see vaccine cards? I mean, you can fake those too! Will this fall’s adventures land me in Deltaville?

It’s very Nineties to wonder if fucking is going to kill me. And also very now, very always, I guess.

I texted him to ask why he’d given me a wrong last name, but I knew there wasn’t any answer he could give that would change things. After a few skeptical-but-hopeful hours, I blocked and unmatched. People are just gone so fast sometimes.

I felt more off-balance from Hookup Guy’s lying than from the morning’s bad date, but the combination of the two left me feeling discouraged, self-slut-shamed, and generally turned upside down. The sense of unreality that permeates all of 2021 life and especially online dating descended like a not-cute cloud.

I talked it over with Pagan Boy’s Crush (I’ve come to think of PBC and Sweetie-Now-BFF, along with my new therapist, as my emotional board of directors. I stole that idea from someone, but I forget who.) and realized that I’d been handing out so much trust and generosity lately, and I needed to turn some of that towards myself.

Now, a week later, I’ve basically stopped swiping for the time being. New therapist referred to The Lovely Guy as my “regular (his name)” and I think I’ve got us into a nicely casual place. (knock wood) There’s This Charming Man who has nothing to do with The Smiths and everything to do with ropes and good texting! I should probably write about him soon.

And there’s friends. And work. And sleep. And time’s almost up on my 2021 goals. I’m happier and less scattered than I was a week ago, so that’s good. And it’s only mostly because of the ropes. 😊

A Momentous Knotty Thursday! And What Is This Called?!

 

The rope is orange because I had a really good first date last Friday! I asked the new possible guy what color he would like and ordered it before I even took my post-date afternoon nap. He's practicing tonight too, for brunch and unrestrainy beginner-ness tomorrow.

I could NOT remember what this one was called, so googling was pretty futile. Luckily, BFF-Formerly-Sweetie stopped by for unrelated reasons and was nice enough to teach it to me on the railing. I think it's possible that everyone in this post is pretty amazing at life. 

A Bad Date, A Good Hookup, and a Helpful Google, Part Two

 

I fucking LOVE THIS.

That night back in September when I texted The Coach right after Casual Guy left, The Coach was helpfully explaining hookups to me. “It’s only about what you want,” he said, meaning I guess that’s true for both parties. I can’t tell if that idea is heartless and lonely or if it’s just liberating. On this particular Sunday afternoon, it was the latter.

Hookup Guy and I had our first (couch, wine) date a week ago tonight, and it really did seem like a date-date. We talked for a good while about our lives and work. He (said he) is a special ed teacher in an alternative school, so of course that melted my teacher-heart. He (said he) was recently divorced, just back in March of this year.

As with the Sunday Morning guy, Hookup Guy’s recently divorcedness made me feel tenderness toward him, made me want to provide all the comfort and empathy and warmth. He was so gentle-voiced and deliberate that talking to him gave me kind of a contact high—I don’t smoke weed but he does, this guy’s vibe was like the best of it.

Because I am me, we fucked that first night—warmly and sweetly but also roughly, with some hints that he might be a little too much with the boundary-crossing, or at least that he’d gotten some minor-but-easily-breezed-past bad ideas from porn. He felt so vulnerable and fragile to me that I originally named him Mr. Kindheart in my head. I felt a little guilty for not being as loopy about him as I was/am for the seemingly-at-the-time-more-withholding Lovely Guy.

But it was clear pretty quick that this would be actual-casual if it was anything. His texts were short and infrequent, all logistics. He asked to come over a few nights after that, and I asked too, but there hadn’t been time. I was happy to see his “Hey” in my texts when I got home from my yucky date and nice hike.

Hookup Guy said he was getting ready to drop off his son at a birthday party, and he was thinking he might “come over and fill me up.” after that. (This script is so close to The Coach’s game that I’m again convinced there might be an at-least-semi-alarming how-to-seduce-middle-aged-ladies Reddit thread out there. I mean, there probably is.)

I was already in bed for a nap, so I said sure, why not? I was instantly soaking wet at the idea of Hookup Guy interrupting my nap. I snoozed a little and woke up when the text chimed that he was on his way.

Waiting for Hookup Guy in bed, naked, with the window closed in case I was (because I was definitely going to be) loud, with the door unlocked for him, was one of the sexiest feelings I’ve ever felt. I was wired and sleepy at the same time. At no point in his visit would I get out of bed even a little.

“Hope that’s you!” I said when I heard the door open. I was so, SO happy to see him come up the stairs.

Hookup Guy is BEAUTIFUL. He looks like a combination of John Boyega and Jordan Peele, and he’s even close to my age. He’s tough and kind of softly military-built, with a couple of fraternity brands that fucking make my head spin to think about.

I took his shirt off and he did the rest. I just lay there all cozy in my freshly-laundered sheets and girly comforter watching him strip down. His dick was hard as a monument under his black boxer briefs, and soon those were gone too.

It was good, good, GOOD sex, urgent and matter-of-fact and joyful in a way I’m only starting to get used to. He did, in fact, fill me up.

I wanted him to come back again at his/my convenience, so I asked for his last name so it didn’t have to be “Hinge” in my contacts.

And then, when he was gone, I googled him. Nothing drastic, I promise. But I’ll tell you what I figured out another day.

 

A Bad Date, A Good Hookup, and a Helpful Google, Part One

 

It’s been a long time since this many (mis)adventures happened in one day. I guess it was really only two, but yesterday felt 3-5 Sundays long.

I should probably be a better friend to myself. When recently-divorced Sunday Morning First Date started Bumble-texting me a couple of weeks ago, he mentioned being leery of my bi-ness because his wife had slept with his sister. (And like eight other people. Not, I don’t think, in an ENM kinda way.) (My only regret about this particular morning is that I didn’t get more details about that (sounds made-up) story.) If a friend had fielded such a conversation, I would have been livid, like WTF kind of bi-phobic bullshit is this?

Instead, I let tenderness and compassion take the wheel. I reassured him, giving a vague outline of my still-beginning dating life. Before a first date! This seems excessive in hindsight. I don’t even know anymore.

We met up at a local nature preserve on just the most beautifully paradigmatic fall morning you can imagine. I even packed us a picnic for after our mini-hike. I’d chosen him because he was sweet and artsy by text. I watched him take a beautiful photo of the trees’ reflection on the water. He had a lovely Georgia accent and a cute Ron-Funches-but-grumpy vibe. I liked the way he pronounced the Great Blue Heron’s name as we passed one from not too far away: herr-RON. I love it.

It was chilly so I was quick to slip my hand into his pocket with his. We didn’t get to hold hands for very long.

“There’s just too much feminism these days. Nobody can say ANYTHING.”

I pushed back in a measured way, but things only got worse. When I called BFF later (like five minutes later) she explained that a lot of what SMFD had to say came right out of Dave Chappelle’s latest standup special, which has apparently been making her Twitter feeds miserable lately. She recommended this article and I read it later in the car with lunch: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/13/opinion/dave-chappelle-netflix-trans.html

Anyway, back to the end of this short nightmare: SMFD and I were standing on a boardwalk platform in the middle of the wetland, next to a placard about an invasive species of turtles. He (the date, not the turtle) launched into an impassioned talk against “too much division,” saying the left and the right were equally to blame, equally hateful. (It’s this kind of false equivalency nonsense that makes me swipe left on every singly guy who identifies as “moderate,” in his profile even though many (WRONG) lefties would accuse me of the same.)

“Okay, we’re done.” I pointed to the other side of the bridge. “You go this way and I’ll go that way.”

As wrong as he was, I sort of understand the impulse he might’ve had. I know I’ve thrown my own conversational firebombs when I haven’t been ready or a match for someone. But it’s really not the same—never have I ever resorted to semi-quoting a famous transphobe/homophobe/misogynist as a Get Out of Date Free card. I guess Chappelle goes in the folder with the Bern and all of the other snuggle-wreckers.

It felt weirdly like a relief to be so clearly not a match, after a month or so of grey-areas, which aren’t my specialty. BFF was happy to join me on the rest of the hike by phone, debating with me about the categories of clouds in the pictures I sent. Lots and lots of pictures of water and leaves and clouds. I ate my half of the lovely picnic lunch in the car with the window open, catching up on Dear Prudence and How to Do It. I think this counts as reading outside, one of my most important (And most neglected!) fall goals checkmarks.

I was proud, slightly relieved, and ready for a nap. When I got home, there was an over-succinct “Hey” in my texts from Hookup Guy, who is so fucking beautiful I can’t even deal. I’ll tell you that part tomorrow.

Animal Crossing and Chill Part Three

All night we just played. On top of his perfect switchy playfulness, The Lovely Guy is also steadfastly thorough and determined to give me what I’ve asked for. He held me down in so many different ways! His dick was like a friend all in itself, friendly and open, letting me be gentle or curious or ravenous at my own pace. And! This should not be a rare and precious thing, but The Lovely Guy knows how to use lube! *angel choir sings* I wailed into the night, just rattling the windows with joy and relief.

The last time we fucked that night (I asked him what time it was but he wouldn’t tell me…) it was from behind. I looked over my shoulder and saw just the truest smile on his face. He pushed in hard and I absolutely fucking LOST MY MIND, stuffing my face in the pillows in a (maybe inadequate) effort not to alarm the neighbors.

OHmygoodness the way he held my waist like I absolutely belonged to him. So perfectly powerful and hard and just-rough-enough and

“If you can scream, you can talk.” He was so gruff and commanding that I not only melted into a puddle, I evaporated into a fine mist.

“Tell me why you want me to come inside you.”

I can’t really remember what I said but it must’ve been something like “Pleeeeeeeease. I need it. Come on, come for me.”

“Good girl,” he growled and pressed harder, as far in as he possibly could and then stayed, stayed, stayed there.

I lost my knees and fell flat, panting/sighing/apologizing for falling over/thanking him profusely.

“I lost you…” he said sleepily as we rearranged into a more cuddly shape.

“I’m sorry I lost my knees, I just haven’t been fucked properly in…possibly ever.”

The Lovely Guy is just THE BEST cuddler, he wraps up all around me. He apologized that he might snore and I said “It’s okay, I snore too. We can be just like Bob and Linda Belcher.”

(Way to compare us to a married couple on a first date, Ribbons! This is maybe why I scare ‘em away?)

It’s not always easy for me to fall asleep with a non-cat someone in my bed, but with The Lovely Guy, I did. He was warm all around me and I was so zonked out on all the snuggly brain chemicals that it seems like I could have been glowing.

When he left the next morning, I immediately started missing him, because I am ridiculous and he is lovely. That was a couple weeks ago, and we had another Switch date not too long after. He’s still in the mix but I’m trying to have just the teensiest bit of chill, trying to just keep it moving. My dance card is pretty full, but he’s the only one getting the power of the “good girl” phrase. I hope he’ll come over and use it before too long.

Oops I Forgot to Post My Lark's Head for Knotty Thursday!

 

I did learn it yesterday though!!!

Animal Crossing and Chill Part Two

The Lovely Guy joined me under the covers and our bodies just fit so nicely together. He was so warm and open, I just loved being all wrapped up in him. It’s hard to access what order things happened in, the whole night (And I do mean the WHOLE night) was such a lovely, moan-y haze.

I played at trying to hold him down, pressing his wrists into the pillows behind his head. He very temporarily submitted. The power/tension between our bodies felt easy and fluid, like watercolors. He looked so beautiful beneath me, glowing and sweet but also amused and just barely letting me have the top—like there was only so long he would let me be up there. I thought I’d better make the most of it. I had to spread my legs wide to straddle him. I loved feeling his dick get harder between my still-legginged legs.

Some of these clothes had to go. I wanted him to tear them off, but I got the feeling he wanted me to show the initiative, so I stood up and stripped before I kissed first his face, then his neck, then his chest, then his tummy, his smooth obliques, his thighs. I gave him a few unselfconfident caveats about how I still need lots of blow job practice, and he PERFECTLY understood.

He gathered my hair into his big hands and gently and sweetly guided my motions. His cock, friendly and cheerful, tasted salty and delicious on my tongue. He gave directions so kindly and patiently. He knew the phrase I wanted to hear, but he would hold it back nearly the whole night, until EXACTLY the right moment.

“Is this how you want me to come?” He growled, looking into my face with an expression that was somehow hungry and indifferent. (Fucking SWOON)

“Uh-uh. I want you to fuck me.”

And because he is a very good first-date guest, he’d brought condoms.

No more initiative for me now! I sprawled out lazy and submissive underneath him, hands back, legs open and ready. He bent my legs all the way up and went in and …oh. That relief. That letting go.

He fucked me so powerfully, so expertly, so easily, generously, looking me in the face so much that it was almost startling. But it wasn’t startling. It was natural. It was (part of) how this is supposed to be. I said THANK YOU lots of times. I could NOT believe I’d gotten SO VERY lucky.

When he came inside me, it felt so absolute. I know it wasn’t a promise, or a bond, or a declaration, but those were the feelings at the center of me and in my heart. A long-awaited completion.

I know! I totally want to be chill about this guy! All signs point to FWB at this week-later point. But I can let the feelings live in these moments, can keep and take care of them, right? Let’s try that.

I forget sometimes how deprived of closeness I’ve been, so many of us have been. I’ve spent so many years, even before quarantine, being as determinedly self-sufficient, and closed-for-business as I could manage. I’ve been boarded up against the fires and the storms. Letting The Lovely Guy in felt so ordinary and also like such a dazzling revelation.

There definitely would NOT be any sleep that night.

Knotty Thursday! Single Column Tie with Slipknot

 

Not much else to say except GO ME!

Animal Crossing and Chill Part One: He Actually Brought His Switch! Delight Reaction!

After I broke things off with The Coach, I felt a little leery toward the young millennials, so I didn’t message (30-year-old) The Lovely Guy right away when we matched on Bumble. I was still semi-convinced there was a Reddit somewhere where these young guys were mocking my middle-aged horniness. (Do young millennials even Reddit? I have no idea.) But then, he extended the match, and he was really adorable, and I had a few minutes before work, so I said hi.

He was a good texter and we clicked. I was glad I’d stuck with my new age range (27-57) and stopped automatically swiping left on anybody who looked like he went to the gym. We settled on Animal Crossing and wine, and I was so relieved that he was willing to be embodied with me, even as I didn’t dare hope that he would actually play Animal Crossing! I was ready for it to be a hookup, though I hoped for more.

Of course, I always think everyone is a catfish, these beautiful men willing to come to my house, until I see them. He was taller than I’d expected and yes, very fit except for the MOST adorable quarantine tummy that I REALLY hope he might keep. The Lovely Guy is a bald and bearded black man with just the fluffiest eyelashes in the world and very kind dark brown eyes. And he did bring his Switch, the bigger kind than mine, all cozy in a fancy leather case.

The Lovely Guy’s animal neighbors chided him for having been away so long, and in fact we was not even out of the tent part yet! While I tended to my own (ALWAYS five star) island, I alternately helped and mocked him. Good “flimsy fishing rod” banter was had. He was shocked that Tom Nook would want the moth he’d collected—so rude to the moth! But very sweet to me.

And we talked. And talked and talked and talked! He drank a lot of wine, I drank a little wine with fizzy water in it, and we talked on my couch until one AM, which is very late for me these days.

I honestly don’t remember the last time that happened on a first date with a man, if ever! When he (at last) turned his hand up so I could hold it, I fully lost my train of thought. Such a long, beautiful strong hand. Placing my smaller fingers against his was like opening a very welcoming and cozy portal, one stocked with infinite pillows.

Of COURSE he was coming upstairs.

More Nineties! Pagan Boy Part Four/Conclusion

Our bodies never quite fit together for PIV sex, though it wasn’t for lack of trying. But OH! The tongue on this man! He ate my pussy with such hunger and gusto, such speed and suction I could never quite even figure out what was happening! We had other ways of pleasing each other too, even one hurty afternoon with candle wax and clothespins, but the real treasure of him was kissing his wet, exhausted face after long spates of shivery, bewildered pleasure.

When he wasn’t blowing my mind or taking me dancing, we talked endlessly about books and music and movies. I read (and loved!) (Except maybe Watchmen!) every book he recommended. Thus began my love affair with Sandman and my on-brand tendency to style myself like Death, complete with the oversized ankh necklaces and the little eyeliner curlicue at the corner of my eye. We spoke mainly in quotes.

When I hear The Smiths singing about “spending warm summer days indoors,” I always think of Pagan Boy, of the absolutely GORGEOUS days we spent with the curtains drawn, sprawled on his living room floor watching MST3K or an occasional “should” movie. (I would gladly take the Godfather hours back, but Liquid Sky? I should watch that at lunch today!) 
 

Update: Liquid Sky is WAY too harsh for 2021 me!

Those warm summer days were where the mismatch came in, though. Where he was content to sprawl and lounge and kiss the days away with me, (Sounds pretty good now, actually!) I wanted us to sometimes go out into the sun.

For a while that summer, I tried to be what I thought of as a “real girlfriend” I tried to take care of him. He wasn’t a hoarder in the whole apartment, but his (BEAUTIFUL, treehouse-like) side porch was stacked with empty pizza boxes and soda cups. I did my best to clean it all up. I’m not sure what he was doing while I was washing and rinsing and stacking and bagging.

Once, we did plan a little hike. I wanted to go skinny-dipping at a local waterfall known for its nudism, it’s hard to believe we had a bad time there! But I was crabby, needy, and crampy, worrying about my tampon string, and he felt too self-conscious to take off his clothes. I sat in the shallow water at the creek’s side while lovely bodies frolicked nearby. Pagan Boy and I were an island of sadness.

I was painting him a small acrylic Moon Card when he called me (I was staying in my mom’s attic kitchen at the time) to break things off. I was sad and irritated and absolutely certain that the club should be mine.

Much later, as grownups, we were friends. I liked having coffee or pancakes with him whenever I was visiting my sister’s town. He was a little oasis of poly/kink/bi in the middle of family stress, though at times he could still be infuriating. I miss him every time I’m there now, or maybe I’m just a little haunted. It was love, or as much love as both of our depressed brains could share. I’m never going to let it go.