Knotty Thursday: Heart Update and (Sort of) Hishi Karada

When The Shy One came over for our second date on Monday night (He brought Hershey Kisses and two kinds of wine. We painted watercolors together! What a dear.) I didn’t want to spend too much time on the ropes, gorgeous as we both looked in them. (He did such a good job putting a harness on me for the first time!) With The Shy One, it’s much less about the kink than about the CUDDLING. He’ll hurt me when I ask him to, and he doesn’t mind getting spanked (Oh! Just the cutest butt in the universe! Have I said that before? Are all the butts the cutest butt in the universe? Probably.) but mostly, it’s the CARESSES. He’s a very snuggly sweetheart, and that’s his pet name, Sweetheart—he is decidedly NOT a Boy.

The Shy One kisses, fucks, and communicates with the extremely welcome attention to detail of a happily married man. I want to send his wife a thank-you note for every one of his expert kisses. OH, the KISSES.

Today, I’m a little jangled because it’s sinking in that I *like* him just as he needs to disappear for a month. (Just physically disappear, he’ll still be able to send texts and adorable Bitmojis of the two of us and maybe even call sometimes.) I won’t see him for most-if-not-all of April because of Ramadan. I admire the commitment and tradition so much, but also I cried a little bit about it this morning.

Which is silly. Because this is all good news! I like a good man with a kind heart and a solid foundation—yay!

Back to his visit Monday night. For a tiny little while, after paintings and ropes and sex and me making nervous jokes about our music choices having too many feelings, he pulled my hand up over his heart and fell asleep. I’m not allowed to joke about the feelings-y music anymore because “All I Need Is a Miracle” came on my spring playlist. Because of course it did.

Knotty Thursdays: Heart Link Harness! And Welcoming The Shy One!

 

Okay, I know he doesn't look shy in these pictures, but he SAYS he's shy, and he does have a sweet, giggly carefulness, which, combined with his ADORABLE Sierra Leone accent, charmed the literal pants off me, so The Shy One, it is.

There are some people the ropes just really like! I especially appreciated his patience when I had to refer back to You Tube to remember how to make the hearts! 

And as soon as I got one heart right, I literally jumped up and down with happiness. PLUS he's a good kisser, so I'd say this was a pretty successful first date! 

Knotty Thursday: Heart Knot!

 ...Did I sort of accidentally make this one last week?

Anyway, I hope to have something with a pretty human in it (Self and/or others! *ahem* to the universe!) next week, but I've been having fun with these flourishes while my heart gets its act together. Better a heart knot than a heart tangle! 

Ma’am Stuff Part Two

Quote from Rumi

Friends, last night I dipped my toe into some nice warm Ma’am waters again. No one I’m ready to talk about yet, but it both moved me on from AND stirred me up about The Good Boy. This new possible one has a very different vibe from TGB, and I was wholly present with him, but everywhere I went today, I saw guys who reminded me of The Good Boy. Like a bunch of sexy, bright-eyed ghosts. And of course I’m convinced I will never see the new one again, even though he has indicated otherwise. Grieflust. Melancholy joy. Ravenous wistfulness. Newness and time loop. The urge to cling and the urge to leave a me-shaped hole in the wall as I flee.

Anyway, back to those first Ma’am texts with The Good Boy. He typed something like:

“Ma’am, I’m getting hard thinking about being all wrapped up tightly in your ropes.”

He texted so generously and sweetly. Everything he said read like innocent, available happiness, and it opened me up like flowers.

So I told him every time he got off thinking about me, he should let me know so I could send some praise. I told him it was the best way to be a Very Good Boy for me until we had time to meet.

The combination of flirting and coaching was an absolute delight and revelation—not sure I’ve ever felt more like myself. His texts were nicely chaste somehow, despite often being jerkoff reports. He felt MINE so fast, bravely, nakedly, openly so. Just so sweet and mine.

AND. A thing that’s rare for me in dating and actually in ALL things—I knew exactly what to do! I didn’t feel the performative pressure that so often makes up early dating chats, I knew that whatever praise I gave him would be okay, would be gratefully accepted instead of seen as overwhelming or overbearing. There’s such a RELIEF in knowing that it’s okay to give. There was power, yes, but also a new kind of love. By lavishing him with praise, giving him my whole self in a new, unfiltered way, I was also better able to love myself.

And once we met, once I started to know him (And OH BOY fuck him) as both his own person and as my own work of art, I also got to love him in a very Marie Kondo kind of way—the joy and attachment I feel towards my most precious objects. My Valentine car, my vintage 1970s tulip glasses, my weighted blanket, my magenta ropes. Mine to maintain, to gentle-as-a-verb, to make sure he didn’t break. He was in my care, and he was mine.

Of course, while we were in this beautiful mist of submission and care, he was also his own person, of course he was. He seemed happy, cozy, and present, but I couldn’t see inside his head to know if there was fear or revulsion or impatience (there was definitely impatience) or (way less intense than mine) real affection. I want to be able to know. This is why the end of an attraction always feels like a trick—there’s no way to really know it was real, nothing I can hold in my hand as proof.

Happy Friday! Song of the Week: All I Need Is a Miracle

 

Okay so I'm a little drunk on well-being today. I went to see an amazing show (Not Mike and the Mechanics) with a friend last night and danced! With a whole bunch of superhappy people! Who didn't have masks on! Have faces always been this beautiful? Has joy?

Anyway, so this morning found me walking to the library belting out every song from my new pre-spring playlist. The best song to walk along singing was this one, which came back into my life via an absolutely transcendent needle drop in the movie Spencer.

Knotty Thursday! Double Coin Knot (And Not)

 

OMG can you believe there was so much knot tying in wholesome Bob's Burgers this week? I was inspired by their short little practice ropes! Poor Bob and his bowline!

Before I figured out that I wasn't supposed to pull the top strands down, the knot looked like this, which I also liked. 

A Nice Break from Being TOO MUCH: Thinking Through the Ma’am Stuff, Part One

 

I am Love-Kaiju, hear me roar.

Trying to access the emotions of my first real time as a rope top is like trying to make a map of Narnia once you’re already back in Britain: It was so magical and I think it was real but I have no other witnesses, I don’t know where or when it is there now, and I might have to accidentally fall into a painting to ever visit again. I really, really need an oversized anthropomorphized lion to show up and tell me what’s what. Maybe I should put that on my Feeld profile.

Being my own Aslan is especially hard at this moment because my ego is bruised and I want to detach from the whole experience and outrun the heartbreak. Through the annoying magic of the stupid internet, I know he has already moved on. (In Feeld, someone who has previously deactivated their account will show back up in your inbox, there’s no way to unmatch until that unfortunate moment. Yes, I too am reactivated, but it still irks my entire soul. I unmatched right away before I could be tempted to check what he’s looking for post-me.)

It's hard to reach the warm, generous, expansive Ma’am emotions thorough my brain’s David Lynch roomtone of bitterness and self-recrimination (Like, fucking LOVE, really?! Fucking AGAIN? What is WRONG WITH ME?) but I think it’s important to honor the big feelings, and maybe to learn to love them. So I need to retrace my steps.

So. Back to six weeks or so ago. It only took a few Feeld messages to settle into a new kind of flirting for me; A conversation between a Very Sweet Ma’am and a Very Good Boy. To me, it didn’t feel like taking on roles so much as stepping into a space. When he typed to me that he was fantasizing about my ropes wrapped around him, I wrapped around him in some spiritual or metaphysical sense.

I felt fully myself in a new way. Being able to lavish affection on somebody so beautiful and (thus far) worthy, being able to bestow praise and pleasure and have them (I thought) be unreservedly received was such a relief, such a feeling of stepping into myself.

As with anyone, there’s a LOT of me that has to be held back in order to be a somewhat functional and productive member of society. If I didn’t hold back some of my affection, awe, and wonder, I would be constantly exploding into a cloud of glitter, gratitude, and unhinged, terrifying-to-many joy. I would be a kaiju of affection, maybe that’s why I identify so much with Godzilla. There are plenty of non-dating ways to let out the giddy world-love that don’t feel like I’m being superscary: art, activism, teaching, friendship just to name a few. But paired with attraction, all the glittering gratitude makes me feel just like a crazy person. Like glitter, a mess that clings to everything and is impossible to clean up.

Even now, as I try to convince myself to write about the shiny joy of being free to praise a receptive partner, I don’t want to let it out. Because I always seem to land back in the same place: I’m too much. I’m too intense. I’m too open. My transparency asks for too much in return without meaning to. My affection for attached but presumably available poly partners gets me vetoed. My love makes me terrifying. I’m too much, I’m too much, I’m too much.

“Sometimes it’s all just…too much.” said The Southern Charmer on our second and last date. Granted, he’d taken too many weed gummies before coming over, and he might have meant *gestures widely* and not my whole thing specifically, but I heard it as feedback and it hurt my heart. What’s the former Good Boy out in the goddamn field looking for now? Probably someone who is NOT TOO FUCKING MUCH.

The thing of it is, though, EVERYTHING is too much sometimes, especially right now. The guys who panic and flee or who turn into human lo-fi or who sabotage the whole thing, and I, when I flee too soon or too late, we’re all relearning things as simple as how to touch other human beings. Thinking back to the first time I had a man in my bed post-pandemic (Nearby Guy last August) I remember how much awe I felt just at the gift of just being NEXT TO another human being, being able to smell and kiss and cuddle someone besides myself. When I arrived at The Lovely Guy and This Charming Man, that awe and overwhelm continued.

It doesn’t excuse my bad behavior or anyone else’s (SHALLOW, BRATTY, SELF-CENTERED, ENTITLED) defensiveness, but it does make it easier to be compassionate with all of us: the big emotions of attraction are roller-coastery in the best of times, but alongside the need to relearn and reinvent being around other people, it. IS. A. LOT.

Next time I hope to get to the Ma’am emotions, but I’ll also welcome whatever paragraphs stand in the way.

Knotty Thursday! Friendship Knot

 

Yay haven't learned a new knot in a while! This one is soooooo cute, it reminds me of two pairs of hands clasping.

This breakoff week, (Still missing The Good Boy and The Southern Charmer a lot!) I feel SO VERY grateful for my friends. They are so extra there for me every day, I couldn't be luckier. I feel a little antsy taking a (sort of) (very short) break from flirting, but it's been a gift to remember how rich and full my friend life is. 

And! Speaking of friendly awesomeness! Mr. Adorable started writing text-letters again! So lovely to hear from him.