How I Found Out I'm Kinky Part Two: A Mixtape

Writing about my ol' song sender has me going back to some of the songs he sent. I've been avoiding them for a while, feels good to be back.

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:

Bye and Thanks to The Socialist

My third date with The Socialist (a week ago yesterday) was just as warm and snuggly as the first two. I drove out to visit him in the suburbs, to his very guy apartment with a goth mix playing and Smiths posters all over the walls. He was wearing a Smiths t-shirt that matched the rest of the aesthetic, and all of it felt very homey and familiar. When I was nineteen, my boyfriend-type-person was a goth guy who took me to a rave club on Friday nights, and that seems to have influenced most subsequent decisions.

I felt so cozy sitting on his (velvety black) couch with my feet in his lap, talking about books and life and politics. I was SO RELIEVED when he made fun of the idea of a rigged 2016 primary! I told him he deserved ten blowjobs for that, and I meant it, but maybe I need to set my bar higher than “only buys into SOME misogynist news cycles.” Kinda where we are right now, though.

In bed, it was easy and warm. He knew just how to kiss me and just how to fuck me, didn’t mind when my exuberant moans rattled the walls of his crowded apartment building, though he did eventually get up and close the window. I couldn’t contain my joy, and he didn’t want me to.

After a couple of snuggly hours, I got tired of the goth music and (this is seriously one of the best date things that ever happened to me) put on one of his TWO Monkees playlists, singing along to cheery retro deeps cuts with his whole heart and his whole face. This, to me, is the miracle of dating, the way that, in spite of every wall and flaw and trope, a near-stranger’s perfect goofball humanity can shine out of him like the sun, and I am sometimes lucky enough to be there, naked and satisfied, to witness it. (And, in this case, laugh my head off.)

Definitely not hot songs, but I climbed all over him some more anyway—"Another Pleasant Valley Sunday” indeed.

The trouble started when I tried to tell him what I needed in terms of post-snuggle communication. He had disappeared for most of the week following our excellent second date, and as I tried to ask for something other than radio silence I felt stupid and needy and a little flower of hurt bloomed in my chest. I knew I wanted him to be more present by text, but everything I said felt like it had the potential to scare him away, everything kept coming out wrong.

We did spend a very pleasant half-hour joking our way through the emoji keyboard (Upside-down-smiley-face makes a much better ping than the businesslike thumbs-up, don’t you think?!) As I was putting on my pants, though, I knew I had to try and get serious, and he could not have looked more miserable about that.

I explained that praise is a really important part of sex for me. “Praise” makes it sound more BDSM than I meant it to. What I really meant was…softness. Kind words. He hadn’t given a single tiny sparkle of a compliment, and I explained that I couldn’t read his mind to tell if he liked me. He argued that he wouldn’t have had me over if he didn’t like me, but that is just nonsense when it comes to sex. (And I have, like, five years of blogging to prove it.)

“I’m just not good with praise” was the verdict and so was “I just don’t like all the talking.” I said that if we were fucking, he needed to communicate better, and he seemed to take it to heart.

On the long drive home, my phone chimed, and I got my hopes up that maybe he’d said something sweet. When I pulled up at home, I opened the phone and saw…more bantering about emojis, which is admittedly fun and cute but also nagged at that little void in me where kind words should’ve been. I have all the kind words to offer, and I wanted to believe that I deserved some in return.

He pinged the next day, but the connection felt broken. There would’ve been so many things to chitchat about all week—the Blue Wave! The new emojis! Orange heart! But my phone was silent except for reminders from ResistBot, so I had to admit that The Socialist didn’t like me the way I liked him.

After I let him go, I felt a return to myself, a relief from the emotional hangover that had made the sad election anniversary even harder to navigate.

What I want is simple, I want the cute person to tell me I’m cute. What isn’t so simple is remembering that I deserve it.

As the dust settled and I sent my OKC app to the cloud for a breather, I realized something I’ve never been able to non-judgmentally take in about myself before: sex is a scary thing to me. It’s all of the wonderful things, too, but sharing my space, my body with someone takes a deep investment of trust. I’ve always wanted it to be no big deal but with a sensitive body and soul and a heart that will leap into action at the least provocation, I have to take care of myself. I have to admit what I need.

So it’s a sad week, guywise, and I’m disappointed, but this is also a good, big step. I listened to him when he told me what he had (and didn’t have) to offer, and I believed him. Instead of treating the difference between us with self-sacrifice and eventual resentment, I treated us both kindly, setting us free to find a better fit. Sigh-go me.

Supersweet Election Love Story: Part Five

After Mr. Makeout Music realized he was unavailable, I told him a little bit about my poly background, about why it hadn’t felt weird to have to schedule time or to have another woman in the picture. I wasn’t telling him this as a way to argue his decision but just to share my perspective and think aloud about where the heck I am in relation to poly, anyway.

            “If it were just you and me, it might be different, but I get really jealous…” Etc, the standard straight monogamous guy speech, I know it well and respect it, but I didn’t have the heart to tell him it’ll never be just him and somebody, it so very rarely is.

And I’ll pause here to realize that whether it’s a poly situation or just a family already in progress, “just you and me” is not what I want. Good to acknowledge.

We sat on stone steps on a secluded corner of campus, talking through a brisk and bright afternoon. I had to interrupt the very important conversation to Instagram a tree with sunshine lighting up every leaf.

We sat there for three hours, getting progressively more chilly and talking about all the things you can’t really get into at work—our families, his military history, my teacher/divorce meltdown, our imperfect and sometimes-intersecting paths to relative social awakeness.

But the topic that made him lose almost all of his nervous and relax into a curious smile, was confessing to him my various forms of sluttiness. His eyes lit up in a decidedly not-vanilla way as he asked me about Nude Years Eve and what BDSM relationships are like. I got his porn search terms out of him and told him my own. (Still lots-of-guys-one-girl; my time on lesbian island still hangs heavy.) He really wants to read my book, and he’s really not going to until we work in separate places. (It should come as no surprise to longtime readers that he’s got his firefighter’s exam coming up this weekend. Then he’ll know how to restrain AND carry people.)

There’s something about him that makes me lose all my filters (he has suggested that it’s my open heart) so I even told him that I’d had fantasies of dominating him that I’d already been sort of dominating him without meaning to. He said “I guess I’m so good at following directions that I didn’t notice.”

“Yes. You. Are.” I said in my best bossy/slutty voice.

Though he was still very clear about not being ready for things, he was sweetly curious and didn’t seem at all horrified. When I told him that the man for me would have to learn all his knots, he said “Oh, so it’s like scouts?” and I giggled for a long silly time.

Friends, it WAS chilly. After a little while of freezing and wishing I had socks on, I asked if I could sit closer just for warmth, and he said “I know what you really want.” And pulled my into one of my top ten favorite snuggles of all time. He put his arms around me and I lay my head on his knee.

“What are we going to do to make the world better, Ms. _________?”

I sighed a deep dreamy sigh and said “This is a good start.”

I felt as sunny and golden as the pretty fall trees. The horror and fraughtness and drama of the election fell away and I felt as warm and cared for as I ever have by a man.

            I asked where his nervousness was on a scale of one to ten (I was at zero.) He said he was at a four, but that was the world, not me. Then I confessed something I’d been thinking about hard for weeks, especially as I’d fretted about voter suppression dangers on Election Day:

“You know you have a permanent human shield now, right?”

“Thanks,” he said, and I know it was a weird and maybe wrong thing to say, but I’m glad I told him. The world had just gotten so much scarier for both of us and I wanted to fight and scrape and elbow to keep him safe. I wanted to give him my whole body, my life. I wanted to be the sacrifice, to bleed in the dirt in hopes that things might be healed so that he and his family could walk around safe.

That’s love, I guess, and hopefully it isn’t too colonizing, but whatever it was it was way too much to be thinking about a thing that wasn’t even going to be a thing. Our not-date was almost over, the glow was about to leave us, and I never wanted to move from that spot. He traced his fingers over my shoulder, I felt his beard graze my hair, and I felt at once strong and all the way broken open.

“I’m just gonna be near you as much as I can.” I said, and I think maybe that’s what broke the spell.

“You know you’re chained to my house, right?” Part One

Sweetie and I were sleepy and at loss for something to do Saturday night, and I was feeling the way I usually do on the weekend, which is buried in homework. We’d just been to the library so the temptation to spend our extra Daylight-Savings hour in bed pretty compelling. But! Old-timey Guy and Punk Rock Girl turned out to be having a last-minute party because one of their events got cancelled—and they live right near our neighborhood!

So Sweetie and I did something that we hadn’t done in a shameful while—we bought a bottle of wine and headed over to our friends’ house to pal around. It felt great.

It ended up being a teensy party, which appealed to both my introverted half and my love for hogging attention. Punk Rock Girl answered the door in a gypsy skirt and corset, with nothing covering her pretty boobs. We’ve seen each other nearly naked lots of times, but this would be our first chance to play together sans nipple tape—hooray! Hooray for boobs! Is how I felt walking into their house.

As I hugged Old-Timey Guy hello, his other slave came bounding down the stairs. She’s a green-haired Muppet-adorable girl I’ll call Squeak. She had on a collar and a little black satin nightie. She had kind of an undergrad way about her, but not unpleasantly so. OTG is the same age as me but his slaves are in their early 20s, which feels a little annoying to me, but who am I to judge. (Answer: the inner judgey part of me that spent many parts of that evening with arms folded, pondering the ethics of nearly consenting to being called a little girl, but I’ll get to that in a bit.)

“Welcome to Wonderland,” he said, “If my shtick gets too much for you, let me know. I generally rein it in at (the public dungeon.)” It didn’t look too wonderland-ish, except maybe for the rather large number of hats. It was a stonerish house like I went to a million times in my college-townie twenties. They had beanbag couches, the TV tuned to Bugs Bunny, and shackles up in the wide doorway between the living room and the dining room. OTG’s spanking implements were neatly arranged on a rack next to the stairs. Cozy.

As often happens when you visit a BDSM person’s house, we were given a tour of the basement. No Scooby-Doo style trick bookcase, but these was a “Naughty Room”—a chilly stone room furnished only with a dropcloth, an ominously tiny chair, and of course loops in the ceiling. Perfect for some Buffy and Spike actions, but we went upstairs.

Next: “I’m nooooot touuuuuching you….”

Ohno, I Fainted in the Dungeon

It’s possible that I have been pushing myself too hard. Student teaching is taking up almost every second of my life and it is rewarding but stressful.

I really needed to think about other things, so I was really looking forward to last Saturday, which for the most part turned out to be one of my favorite kink-themed days yet. Our regular dungeon was hosting a poly-and-kink day of workshops, and I went without Sweetie so I’d be more likely to talk to people—it worked! I got to sit and talk with people I usually only get to watch and be watched by. It gave me a wonderful sense of community, and I even made the acquaintance of another fire dom—I would have gotten to be set on fire, too, if it hadn’t been for some bad judgment on Sweetie’s and my part.

The DM had just built the above piece of furniture. It was meant for tickle play, but I spent a fair amount of the day daydreaming about ways to be tied to it.

As has become usual, I was the first one to strip down when the play party was even close to starting. Suspension frames were still being assembled when Sweetie started roping me up, as I danced a little bit to some (oddly appropriate) Chumbawamba: I get knocked down and (spoiler alert) I do, in fact, get up again.

I was feeling extra lovey-dovey with Sweetie and she put my harness on—I hadn’t seen her much during the week and I was full of endorphins from all of the poly chattering I’d done throughout the day. We stopped to kiss more often than we usually do, and I encouraged her to be a little more handsy—as long as she was careful with my Hello Kitty tape. I think it’s the sexiest she and I have ever been out in public.

Then it was time to climb onto the contraption. She strapped my arms onto the Y-shaped cross thing first, and then wound ropes around my waist and thighs to tie me to the back. She kept having to push my glasses up to keep them from falling off. She pulled the thigh ropes rhythmically, the way I like, and I moaned and sighed and nuzzled her. I felt so turned on.

She put the blindfold on me and tied my feet together, making sort of a spreader bar with ropes. She started to spank me right after that, but I told her my foot felt funny. I told her it was time to get down, but I was realizing it too late—I was starting to really freak out because I realized how much time it would take to get me free. I felt trapped, terrified—it’s a feeling that occasionally has to come out, but I would prefer it in less woozy doses.

“Get the blindfold off. All the way off.” I was getting really upset and I felt myself slip out of consciousness as a wave of nausea came over me—I really didn’t want to be the girl who throws up on the dungeon floor, and I didn’t. I became dimly aware that people were helping Sweetie unwind the ropes—it was the guy who spanked me with a star-cane a few months ago and his punk rock girlfriend—gentle voices and people working purposefully at the knots, telling me it was okay,

“You can get out now,” said Sweetie, but I was still tied to the frame.

“Nonono I can’t, I can’t get out yet.”

Finally I was able to climb/fall out of the contraption and into/onto the punk rock girl. I wanted to lay right down on the floor but I was still heaving like I was going to throw up, so Sweetie rushed me to the loo. I am not a heavy drinker, so this is the first time I’ve ever found myself sobbing into a bar toilet. I couldn’t throw up, but I couldn’t stand up without feeling sick. So I just stayed there and cried. More nice, soothing voices, kind people bringing a wet towel for my burning forehead, the Punk Rock Girl making sure we knew there was a spot clear to lay down.

There was something oddly normal about laying on a bench in the dungeon, crying my eyes out. I was covered in a scarf and shivering until I could find the strength to put my clothes on. A kind soul brought over a clean tablecloth to wrap me up in. I was too freaked out for Sweetie to even touch me, but the tears? They seemed okay. I felt like myself. So much myself that I cried because I worried that I wouldn’t be well enough to make lesson plans for my guided reading groups on Monday.

I feel fine as I’m writing this, even if I still feel stupid for kneeling in a constricted position for as long as I did. I might have to be a little vanilla for a few weeks ‘til the scare wears off, but I’m okay. Part of the goal of my adventures is to build a community, to make myself safer by making connections, and my stupid faint let me know that I am reaching that goal. Sweetie and I are not alone. There are nice people in special outfits who will help us when we need it. That is a big comfort.

I am completely exhausted about student teaching and about the other changes I have been going through. I think that Saturday’s shutdown was my body’s way of asking me to please find it some rest. I’ll really try to—it’s the least I can do.

Your Friday Happy: More Buffy Shackles Plus Hot Tara

So I've decided to make collecting BDSM imagery from Buffy my new hobby. If you'd like to add to my collection, please feel free to send links or screen shots: thekittencalendar@gmail.com

Today, mostly on the theme of shackles:

Plus, Sweetie says she'd like me to do this to her sometimes:

Naughty Birthday Wishlist for the Coming Year

1. I wish for a lot more time with Sweetie, both vanilla and otherwise. We haven’t been connecting as much as we’d like lately, and I’d like to have my pretty pink ropes rubbing up against my stuff very soon. Holding her, petting her, and reading library books with her would be good too.
2. I wish (for like the millionth time) for my gentleman rope top. I want to spend a lot of time in a collar, being his. I want to be over his knee, in ropes, struggling or forgetting to struggle, feeling loved and breathless and anchored and warm, and then later, pretty sore. And then I want him to make me mixtapes and tell me I’m adorable and come hang out with Sweetie. Of course, this might be a job for more than one guy, oh darn.
3. I wish to continue the love affair I have been having with my ass. Earlier this year I discovered just how much I like to put things in there when I’m alone, and now I would like others to please put stuff in there as well. “Start with a finger and work your way up, Sir” would be a wonderful thing to say to somebody someday.
4. I wish for no more tanlines next summer, and I nice naked man to go to the beach with, who can throw me around and kiss me in the waves.
5. I wish to go to Floating World with my friend Angelface and see what kinds of hijinx we can get into.
6. I wish for lots and lots and lots of PIV sex. Somehow it tends to get neglected. I need to be held down and fucked silly, I need my head banged up against the headboard, car window, whatever. I want to be so loud that I wake up all of the neighbors and metamours. Also I would like to have a dick in my mouth a lot more often.
7. I wish for more teenage-style making out at concerts and more spankings in parking garages.
8. I wish for many different scenes with many different combinations of people. I’ve been remiss in my unicorn practice, but I’m sure there are a lot of lovely wives who could hold me down while their husbands do god-knows-what to me.
9. I wish to continue falling in love with my body, discovering all the miracles it has to surprise me with.
10. I wish to be set on fire some more, literally and figuratively.

Things Go Haywire But Still a Good Scene, Part Three

As I sit down to write this, I’m in a state of worry—will I ever know how to see a relationship with a man through any lens other than abandonment? Why does my brain equate “I like him.” with “He is going to go away and never come back.” and also “I am not good enough.” Mister Hazel Eyes might have been a doofus on our date, but that doesn’t change the fears that I have to learn my way out of. Are my abandonment issues and distrust things I can overcome, or will they keep me from ever realizing a true and lasting connection with a man? I guess all I can do to find out is go forward.

After rope class, we sat off to the side on the padded benches where people usually congregate and talk. Sweetie spanked me in the same place just a few months ago, in our first public scene. There were a few couples over there, but MHE and I were in our own little bubble of conversation. He felt so good there next to me but I still felt uneasy. I told him I was having trouble believing that he didn’t actually belong to someone else. I know that sounds weird coming from someone who is married and dating, but I just kept suspecting that he was being unscrupulous, especially after he said not to leave bite marks—he said he was worried his mom might see them, he said. I said that sounded like bullshit, and he pointed to Nice Girl as well—“Well she should know about me because I AM A PERSON.” I said and he said he’d told her about me. I didn’t believe that either. “You seem really…married. Are you worried that Betty Draper will see?”

We wrestled away the tension of it—I pushed and pulled against his arms, and he said “You can start trying any time.” He was delightfully strong. I shoved him against the wall and kissed him and he held me and I struggled—perfect. We got up to look at some of the other scenes going on—some neat suspension work—and he took that opportunity to wrestle me up against the bar and bite my ass. There’s a glee that comes up in me when a guy’s trying to hold me down, a thrill of recognition, a fruition. In those moments, I am so excited and grateful to be alive.

Then it was—hooray!—time to go over his knee. This was what I’d been waiting for, there’s nothing so comforting as being sprawled across his lap, elbows on the bench, cute shoes in the air like a pinup. His hands wove into my hair and pulled—that’s where the real magic started. He pulled up my pajama bottoms so that my butt cheeks were exposed. I was conscious of the couples nearby, and I liked knowing they could see my ass, see me being so vulnerable to him.

“You’re such a fucking good girl, do you know that? I fucking adore you.”

After a few more spankings and affirmations of my adorableness, he pulled me up to his face and kissed me. I asked if he wanted to take my top off and held up my arms. After he pulled my shirt off sweetly, I leaned back so that he could take a look at me, Hello Kitty nipple tape and all. He looked happy. He buried his head in my chest and I held him there, right where I’d been wanting him.

We took a break to go get drinks, and he went a little bit back to douchetown—he told me red wine’s for pussies, even said it in a lispy voice, which I promptly called out as homophobic, with a “HMPH! Straight guys, I swear.”

“Okay,” he said, “Okay.” Kinda like he was choking back an argument.

I liked the feeling of walking to the bar near-naked with him—I felt like a whore to him, like something he’d just purchased. It was a dark, sad feeling, connecting me to all of the ways that women have been owned in both good and terrible ways. I felt empowered, anonymous, and chosen. It was a strange kinship with the ladies of the world, a darkly feminine moment, and I feel a little ashamed of it.

Next: Tied to a kneeler with very helpful ropes.

Things Go Haywire But Still a Good Scene, Part Two

I really want to skip this section and get right to the hotness, but it refuses not to be written. Sigh.

So I really didn’t know where this date was going, but just in case, I’d told Sweetie I didn’t want to be home until morning, and she was all settled in about it. I wasn’t having a good feeling about my chances, though. Whether that was a self-fulfilling prophecy or not, on the way to get dinner he told me it couldn’t be a late night because he had to help his mom with some stuff at 11 am the next day. When I type that sentence, it really doesn’t make sense at all.

I was not-getting-the-hint girl, and I said, “That’s still plenty of time to take me home in the morning.”

He got quiet for a few blocks and then he started to talk about how embarrassed he was about his apartment being a mess.

Okay, tell me if I was being paranoid. Have I just watched too many episodes of Mad Men or what? I just got a really bad feeling there was a lady at home who didn’t know about me, and I couldn’t stop myself from asking. He insisted that his apartment was really a mess, but it just didn’t ring true. Granted, he could be just going at a different pace than I was and didn’t expect to bring me home yet, but I really don’t buy it.

I couldn’t shake the feeling that he didn’t want to be there with me, and I couldn’t stop myself from probably ensuring he’d want to be with me even less. I felt like a mean teacher trying to show someone how to be on a date. When he texted and checked his phone all through dinner, I actually told him to put it away, and the emotion I felt was exactly like a bad day in the classroom, but without the reassuring knowledge that I could re-assess and try again tomorrow.

We did get our scene negotiating done though. I really like (and will probably miss) our safeword: albatross. I love it for the Monty Python of it all, and for the fact that it’s the thing that keeps the boat afloat, isn’t it? But also a haunting burden. (I just spent a few minutes studying the “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” but it was inconclusive.)

When we got to the party though, more texting. Even after I’d lent him a collar to put on me and we had a nice moment about that. He explained “I’m texting (Nice Girl) to tell her I’ll be unavailable for a while.”

This was exactly what I had been missing from him—those little transitional texts that only take a second or two but make me feel oriented and cared for. I would very much like to say that I took a deep sensible breath and calmly talked about how that is something that would be helpful for me as well.

Instead: “You never do that for me. You just disappear in the middle of the conversation, forget to answer questions, I have to ask you two or three times where and when to meet you. What is it about her that gets her treated like a girlfriend? Maybe I should ask her. Maybe she should teach me.”

I had my own conclusions as to what the difference was—the fact that I’m not single. I was not being treated with as much respect as she was because it’s hard for single guys to see poly women as girlfriendy characters.

I explained a bit more about poly, about how I was looking for a real relationship and could belong to more than one person at once. He said that he hadn’t really understood that, and agreed that I didn’t deserve to be discounted that way. He said he was really going to try to be a better communicator, and we headed upstairs to rope class.

Even after all of the trouble and fuss, I was still really excited to be there with him. I changed into my outfit for the evening: short, soft, adorable light green pajamas with little flowers all over them, Hello Kitty nipple tape, lucky underwear and purple wedge heels. I had some hope in presenting myself to him that way, but I think he was distracted by the self-consciousness of rope class.

Sweetie says she really feels for him during this part—she says rope class can be a lot of pressure, getting the knots right and keeping your date happy is a lot to think about at once. It really makes me think about how much work I am to be with. I have a lot to offer, but still.

Unlike Sweetie, who is comfortable with the fumbling aspect of learning new rope stuff (“Practice makes pervert,” the class leader is fond of saying.) Mister Hazel Eyes clearly felt frustrated and embarrassed when it took him a few times to get a knot or when the ropes clung to a bit of velcro on his shorts. The lady who was acting as demo bunny came over to help, and I liked the times when they were both working on me.

He had to do some of the knots so many times that some of them started to become clear in my head and I started to learn them. Look! I made my own cat’s paw! I get a badge or something. He was having a really hard time and unfortunately this meant he kept apologizing for being “retarded.” I know! Am I a bad person for messing around with somebody who uses that word that way? A bad teacher? I sure didn’t have any desire to correct another thing, so I ignored it. But he said it a LOT. Ugh. As I write this, I’m feeling a little less like a harpy and a little more like it’s just a bad match.

Next: Somehow a bad match becomes a beautiful scene.

My Ass Is Smitten With Mister Hazel Eyes, Part Two: Car-Spanked

When we got to the venue, it was a standard parking-lot-in-a-field situation, with tailgaters here and there. As soon as we were situated, I turned over, my head between the back seat and the door, my ass faced towards my pal in the driver’s seat. There were people fairly nearby, but I didn’t think they’d notice, except for maybe the guy who chose MHE’s car to pee next to—hate it when I look at someone at just the wrong time.

Anyway, I settled in and Mister Hazel Eyes alternated between spanking me and grabbing/massaging the underside of my ass-cheeks, almost between my legs, his fingers roving close to all kinds of supersensitized nerve-endings. I really wished it wasn’t a pad-plus-tampon sort of day so that his fingers could’ve gotten all up in everywhere, but he didn’t even have to, because with every impact and every smush, moans came out of me, big, voluptuous moans of joy and relief.

“Am I being a good, sweet girl?” I asked.

“That depends, what does a good, sweet girl do? I want to hear you tell me.”

I wanted to do a good job for him and tell him all kinds of pretty, wordy, slutty things, but my mind was a feathery, pillowy fog.

“I can’t find words. I just feel like a sleepy angel. Do I look like a sleepy angel?”

I turned around to kiss him and he said, “Well, you look like something.”

I turned back over to present myself to him again. Neither the spanks nor the squeezes were rough or harsh, just decisive, insistent, true. He spooned up against me and breathed on my neck, biting gently.

“Are you okay?” He asked “You’re kind of out of breath.”

It’s true. I think I would’ve come if we’d have kept going. I was gasping and overwhelmed, ecstatic. It occurred to me that I’d need a little aftercare before I could even think about getting up the hill to the show, so I had him stop spanking and start cuddling. “Just a little hug,” I said, and he held me for a few minutes, still breathless and stunned. Sleepy angel indeed.

Next: Die Antwoord, then romance.

Maybe Not A Fetish Ball Kind of Girl, But There Were Highlights (Part Two)

I’ll do a list of highlights and a list of lowlights, fun stuff first:

1. Sweetie looked so cute all dressed up in a tie, suspenders, and a fedora—I definitely want to encourage her to be draggy more often.

2. I loved getting a chance to show off Sweetie’s rope art. It took a while to get me into the corset and harness, but I loved standing near the entranceway in my pretty tiara, sparkly black dress, leggings, and heels, with my arms up, her hands pulling and adjusting the rope this way and that, with my friend Switchpoet and lots of strangers watching nearby. She finished with a heart at the back of the harness, in pink and purple ropes as you’ve seen; I really am the Hello Kitty of rope bottoming.

3. Even though I was mostly a failure at it, it was fun to get to lead Switchpoet around on a leash. He was a really good sport about how ineffectual I was. When we first came up with the idea of me quasi-topping him, it kinda captured my imagination, but I just couldn’t make it convincing. Still, it was fun covering him in glitter and commanding him to go get drinks for me and Sweetie. It’s funny how I can be the bossiest person in everyday life, but I just drop the ball if I try to take a dominant role for fun…

4. Remember the couple I had a good date with, back when I was trying for unicorn practice? Painter and Ro-gan? They came to the ball and we got to catch up. They said they even would’ve set me on fire, had such a thing not been disallowed. They watched me play with Sweetie, which made an awesome thing more awesome. Painter was all dressed up as a doll, with big sproingy hair (She makes spring wigs herself!) and silver eyelashes. They took Ro-gan’s pants at the door because he wasn’t dressed kinky enough, so he had to walk around in just his Star Wars underwear, T-shirt, and Doctor Who scarf. I got to hear a little bit about their adventures at kink camp, but it was really too loud to talk.

4. Speaking of Dr. Who, while I didn’t get to realize my dream of getting tied up in a TARDIS, Sweetie and I did get to make out in one—what a nice place for aftercare! I didn’t mind the little dude in steampunk glasses who kept peering in the windows at us.

5. The kneeling bench we chose had shackles at the bottom of its front legs, so I couldn’t lift my head all the way up while Sweetie was spanking me. If I wanted to tell her something, I had to kind of just wait for her head to come down to me. (Did I mention it was really, really loud in there—couldn’t even hear myself getting spanked!) It made her feel unintentionally rougher than she really is, and that was exciting.

Plus, there was a beautiful suspension going on right next to me, the woman just looked so blissed out and happy as she got ropes tied to her middle, her ankles, her wrists-she looked so well cared for. She had these gorgeous long Amazon legs and pretty pinup heels. I always said I didn’t want to do suspension, but surprise, I do!

As an added bonus, tada!--Painter wants to learn suspension and says I can be her practice bunny. (Yes, I’m having a conversation with myself about calling myself a bunny. I think I’m okay with it…)

6. Added to my list of things to try: fire flogging. The guy doing it got shut down before I could try it, but not before it gave me an I-want-to-go-to-there.

But now for the bad stuff:

1. I hate the aspects of kink life that feel like high school. The girls at the door were mean to me. I was coming from another event so I just walked in in a regular pretty dress, and you should have seen the judgmental stares. They didn’t believe me that Switchpoet was right behind me getting my suitcase of goodies searched. I felt vindicated after I was dressed and roped up and the ticket-taker guy said “Okay, you win.” My rope-enhanced cleavage has that effect on people.

2. Maybe it was because the music made communication impossible, but there was something empty about the (crowded) ballroom. From the fashion show (With the cheesy announcer saying “If you think they’re hot, let them know...”) To the silvery alien girls in the same tutus and silver bustiers, to the fact that I couldn’t hear myself or my fellow players, I just felt disconnected from myself, from Sweetie, from the room. The spiritual aspect of things was missing. It really helps me to appreciate the intimacy and authenticity I’ve felt before at smaller parties.

But heck, I got to dress up, get spanked, and make out in a TARDIS, so I’d call it a win, even if it wasn’t the most edifying one.

Maybe Not A Fetish-Ball Kind of Girl, But There Were Highlights (Part One)

I haven't had time to write any thing coherent about Saturday night yet, but I just wanted to share some of the rope work that Sweetie came up with. Just picture these over a pretty sparkly back dress..or not!

Getting Ready for Our First Ball

Well, Sweetie just tried out this fantastic harness:

And now we are going to see if we can fine her some suspenders to go with her drag outfit. Also, just as a bonus, one of my friends offered to have me lead him around on a leash tonight. Why is my life so awesome?

Unsurprisingly, I Love the Clothing-Optional Beach, Part Three

We did get to bob around in the water with the poly meetup group, though they eventually got pulled away by the current. I don’t always know quite what to say, but I was glad to float and smile with them. I asked The Lady of the House if the beach is always this queer-friendly, and she explained that we were currently in the gay section, (the other side was the family section) so yeah. I oohed and aaaaaaaahed about getting to hug Sweetie in the water. did I really wait all this time to feel this way? What’s the MATTER with me?

The whole day was such a joy, and my worries about nipple-sunburn never materialized, staved off by lots of spray. (Big big thanks to the reader pal who suggested spray-on sunscreen how can I ever thank you?)

When we weren’t swimming, I lay on the blanket delighting in being exposed or sat up and people watched. It was similar to my first BDSM event because it gave me a chance to revel in the abundant variations of the human body. Sometimes we can get trapped in a simple schema of what a body should look like, a cookie-cutter frame built from TV and dumb fashion magazines, but the real diversity of bodies is so wonderful to behold. Every single person there, clothed or not, looked flushed, sun-kissed, relaxed. I am so grateful that people were generous enough to share their bodies with my happy eyeballs.

And then, of course, there’s being seen. After a while it dawned on me that I was surrounded by penises, that there were hundreds of men there, gay, straight, bi, poly, pan, omni, everything, and they could all look at me if they wanted to. YAY!  The point of this beach isn’t to get turned on, I don’t think (Guys, can you tell me how you avoid it? If I had a thingie it would have been sticking straight up for seven hours. I would have had to consult a physician.) but I got turned on. I struck a pose and when I noticed a guy looking, I’d meet his gaze and soak it up. I can’t believe I felt so free and safe. What a gift.

Of course I had to have some personal time in the car on the way home.

The next day, I cried a lot. I cried happy tears over how beautiful and generous everyone was, I cried sad tears for how long we’d waited to try it, for the sensations we’d missed until then. I cried lucky tears for feeling so accepted, and I cried wistful heartbroken tears for not getting to share the place with the Mayor of Kittentown. Sweetie held and patted me and told me I’m good. She assured me that we could go back soon and of course we’ve got it on the calendar.

As much of a revelation as it was to be there with Sweetie, I really want to find the right guy to go with, too. Well, I don’t want to find a new one, I want to go with MKT, but since that’s not possible, I put up a personal on the beach’s FetLife group under the heading of “Seeking a Nice Naked Guy.” Lo and behold, plenty of dudes would be glad to go with me. Their naked selves are more intimidating on the screen than they are in person (Maybe it’s the screen’s proximity to my face?) but once I take a few days to get over being overwhelmed by their responses, I look forward to making some new friends.

Sweetie and the Transcendent Thigh-Ropes!

Sweetie and I have embraced the pretty pink ropes and made them part of our regular sex routine. (No, the phrase “regular sex routine” doesn’t bother me; it just means we’ve so far avoided my biggest three-word fear: “lesbian bed death.”) I’m always delighted to stand in front of her, trying to distract her while she cooks up various arrangements of ropes. Lately, she’s taken to doing this naked, so all the better.

I had a dream Saturday night that she was concentrating the ropes on my thighs, so that’s what I asked her to do. Yesterday, after we went swimming and ate lunch in front of some Buffy episodes (I think Willow’s coming out episode makes her extra hot…) we got showered up and ready for ropes. She put the now-usual halter on me, with rope firmly on either side of my nipples for easy-fun pinching. Then she wove the ropes around each of my thighs, making a little decorative handle in front of each.

My thighs aren’t a part that I usually think about or concentrate on, except maybe during half-assed yoga, so they were soooo happy to have some attention. As I fell dreamily into bed and into Sweetie’s arms, I went a little more subby than I usually do with her. At home, usually the ropes make me fiery, switchy, animalistic, but this time, I was floating in a cloud. I became a cloud. 

As she played with me on top, rubbing and pinching my nipples between the ropes I while I pinched hers, (This is always the point at which I remember, jeez, we have to get this lady some nipple clamps. I’ll take recommendations!)  I pulled the thigh-handles back and forth, up and out. It made me wish that the phrase “opening up like a flower” weren’t corny and overused. The tug of the ropes on my inner thigh felt warm, vital, life-affirming. It gave me a deep sense of well-being, a pleasant yoga-like sensation. It also pulled me open wider. It’s hot as heck here so the fan was blowing on us, blowing onto my wetter and wetter and more and more yielding openings. It was a new kind of bliss.

And then she took hold of the handles, pulled me up towards her, up and down, up and down, a little bit like a swinging feeling, and then a total calm washed over and into me. It was like I was a parachute that had just opened and was floating down through the air gently, or I was a very happy jellyfish buoyed by a warm and loving sea. I was dissolved into happiness, closer to oneness with the universe than church or most other things have ever gotten me. (Note to self: keep not going to church. But that’s another post.)

Afterwards, when we were both relaxing with our books (beach book for me, Star Wars for her) and bowls of cereal, we talked about how cool it is that you can have this same body your whole life and still it keeps offering up surprises. I never would have guessed that my thighs could give me more than they already had. The best thing about this journey so far is the ways that my body has given me new gifts (If I’m ever brave enough, see the upcoming post entitled “Jeez, I Really Love My Butt.”) and has given Sweetie and me new ways to be close to each other. The word that keeps popping into my head is “miracle.”

Your Friday Happy: Buffy and Bondage

A few weeks ago, we decided to shut off the cable to save money. I'm happy to say that I haven't seen a commercial in weeks. We've been rewatching Buffy, and since I discovered BDSM, it's a new and even better watching experience. I might even be able to stand season six, except probably for that one episode.

If you have some spare time, I really recommend Googling "Buffy tied up." There's also a lot of good rope work on season four with Spike, I wish I could've found more pictures. Gotta start making my own screen shots, I guess.

37 Is A Fine Age at Which to Blossom (Against TNG Ageism)

“TNG is about having a comfortable place for younger folk in the lifestyle. There are a bunch of regional groups, but nothing for people from different places to get together to talk to each other and trade advice.

Please be aged 35 or younger. I won't stop you if you are not, but I will be peeved if anyone uses this as a place to troll for younger folk.”--From the TNG Global group on Fet Life

This week, I’ve been having somewhat of an age panic. Earlier this week, I was feeling like putting some mingling on the calendar, and the only thing I could make it to this weekend was the local TNG (the next generation) munch. Just like the global group above and most cities’ TNG groups, our local group has an age ceiling of 35. If you’re over 35, you have to get a younger friend to “chaperone” you to their munches.

I got interested in TNG events because I’d like a dom who doesn’t have, like, two decades of experience on me, but one the other hand, this “chaperone” business seems humiliating, and not in a good way. I also resent the implication that 35 is the age at which one automatically starts “trolling” for younger people to play with—predators and victims come in all ages and experience levels, and putting an arbitrary age limit on interaction just creates more possibility for alienation and miscommunication.

The age-35 cutoff for TNG groups stigmatizes age (even, I think, adulthood)  in a way that mirrors mainstream consumer culture. For a community of people who are so creative in their physical expression, I hate when kinky folks sure seem to exemplify and even exaggerate the limits which mainstream society places on us.

Its true that some cities’ communities may skew a bit old, so I can see the appeal of being able to get together with pals one’s own age. After all, I go bonkers over guys who are 37, they’re the dreamiest and hard to find in an available state. As I learned with Firguy, playing with someone who has so much more experience can create a scary power imbalance.

However, I would not want to restrict myself to only 37-year-old partners—I’d miss out on so much! A large part of what I’m learning here are the best practices for a sexed-up adulthood, so it’s very helpful for me to spend time with couples of all ages and categories.

Society so often sends us the message that sexuality is only to be explored by the young. I’m told in a million ways a day by pop culture that my age makes me less worthy of affection and love. (Think Barney’s constant ageist cracks of How I Met Your Mother.) Even though I’m a good sport with a lot to offer, I often worry that I took too long to blossom and now I’m just an undervalued resource. Everyone has stuff that might limit their dating capacity: size, disability, even just having really specific tastes. It seems really creepy to add arbitrary age limits on top of that!

Dear TNG, it isn’t my fault that this particular phase of my sexual awakening came at 37 instead of 20. I was doing worthy things with those years, making art, travelling, writing poetry, making friends. I’m so proud of everything those years meant to me, even if it meant that my kinky side didn’t emerge until later.

My perspective isn’t any les valuable because I’m 37, nor is my ass any less hot. I’m trying to keep reminding myself that age-fears are just that, fears, and I shouldn’t let them hold me back from my adventures. I don’t feel right about needing a chaperone to attend a public event, so for now, I won’t do it. I’ve learned by now not to dabble in things that offend my childlike sense of justice. If something’s not fair, it’s just not fair.

Various Happy Things: You Are What You Love

They don’t really fit the traditional mold of happy poly moments, but some things converged last week to make me feel like I am back on track:

1. Since I’ve known for a while that some (not all) of the troubles between us could be solved with, like, a half-hour conversation and I was having a hankering to watch Mystery Science Theater 3000 and be excellently fucked, I asked the Mayor of Kittentown for some snuggles. He was happy to be asked but says his new relationship doesn’t allow for extracurricular snuggles. It’s hard to let him go for real, but I’m glad to know that there’s at least one guy that I still trust enough to ask for what I want. And! I get a gold star for asking. I hope that MKT and I can keep a friendship going, even if being on his couch isn’t appropriate anymore. And! I’m really happy that his relationship is getting closer, even if it means no snuggles for me.
2. This one won’t seem happy at first, but bear with me: I’m still really sad that my therapist is on maternity leave, and the interim lady didn’t work out—I felt frustrated, confused, and panicky to the point where the interim lady asked her supervisor to intercede. The supervisor lady gave me two very nice gifts: First, she helped me understand that my bond with my regular therapist is really deep and it’s okay to not want to do therapy with anyone else. Supervisor lady asked me to imagine that my real therapist was sitting next to me and to find that sensation in my body—it was in my heart, and that made me cry my eyes out some more.

I think that experience was really important because what I’m really learning here is how to not be freaked out by attachment. Often when I try to fight attachment, it comes out as anger, resentment, fear, a real feeling of being trapped. Once I realized it was okay to have a bond, the pressure was released and I could happily take the summer off from therapy.

The other cool thing that that the supervisor lady told me was to get a pretty notebook and write letters to my therapist while she’s gone. While it makes me feel like a genuine crazy person, it really works—in fact, I decided to use it to write to other people I can’t currently talk to—it’s a relief to be able to parse out all of the emotions instead of being overwhelmed by them. Most of the letters, I won’t share or send, but it makes me feel better and like it is safer to be connected to people. It helps me to experience some of the attachments I have been fighting in a way that doesn’t force me to confront or disrupt anything—it’s another way to help myself learn love.

3. Over the weekend, I went to a couple of talks that were really helpful and inspiring. The first one was a talk on seeing kink through the lens of feminism. I looked forward to it so much that it kind of made my week. I don’t think that there’s anything inherently anti-feminist about kink, but I have wished for a while to have more friends who see BDSM from a feminist perspective. On the way there, I got caught in a romantic-comedy-level downpour—I was soaked down to my underwear and laughing my head off—I felt like I was on a very good date with myself. (Thank goodness Sweetie and I had a date for afterwards so she could bring me a change of clothes.)

While I sat there shivering, I was so happy to hear people’s questions and stories, and it was wonderful to feel safe to tell my story without fear of being seen as a bad girl. (At least, not a bad girl in a bad way!) I realized that the key to making more safety for myself in the local BDSM community is to spend more time forming friendships, so I won’t end up in the power-imbalance that automatically comes with being an outsider. So I offered to be folks’ munch-going pal, and I am so proud that the workshop’s facilitator took me up on it—she’s accomplished so many of the things that I dream about and she’s a fellow badass feminist bottom, so I think she’ll be a good influence. Wonder what her cute nickname will be!

The other talk that I liked so much was a talk on beginning polyamory. I love the way that my body relaxes itself when I am in poly company—my shoulders get warm and my heart floods with well-being—I really should do this more often.

My favorite thing that I heard in that talk was from a gentleman friend of mine, one of the most romantic souls I know. He said that one of the ways he knew that he was poly is that he just doesn’t get over people—they just stay in his heart. He knew he had room for more that one person in his heart because people just stay in there. I love that idea. It’s certainly a more positive way to look at my own never-getting–over-people, even if I do get frustrated from time to time with who takes up my heart real estate.

4. And speaking of heart real estate, in my letters-I-probably-won’t-send notebook, I sat down and wrote a letter to Fireguy. It made me realize something that will probably seem obvious to everyone else, (it sure wasn’t a surprise to Sweetie)—I loved Fireguy. I even loved Varga Girl in an aspiring-to-be-a-metamour kind of way. Though there isn’t much I can do with that love, acknowledging it is a relief and a release.

There was a moment during our public fire scene where he looked down at my face with such a look of approval that I felt like a perfect little angel. I had never felt that from a male authority figure before, and it struck me so deep. That’s why it’s so hard to stay away from him, even though we weren’t a good match. I forgive myself for the compromises I made, for all the hurt we all went through, I forgive myself for the fact that that feeling was so powerful that I couldn’t resist it. I hope to feel it again some day, in a healthier way.

We’re having a Charlie Kaufman movie marathon over here lately, and this scene from Adaptation has really been sticking with me. “I can love whoever I want.”

Cuddle Party Part Three: A Very Chaste Threesome

Writing about this particular adventure made me notice a contradiction I’ve got going—how does my desire for lots of respectful elbow-room jibe with my desire to be mauled and ravished? In the years where I thought about men but didn’t do anything about it, my fantasy was always to have a guy who’d push me, take me, ravish me, to not be able to put up all the barriers I am usually inclined to put up. (but all in the spirit of friendship and fun) I’ll probably always love Bill for fulfilling most of that fantasy, but I didn’t realize until later just how dangerous it had been.

But still, there was a daredevil purity to what he and I were doing—no negotiating, very few spoken limits, often getting pushed past no—it felt good, it was a relief at first, to be free of the way I’ve mostly held passion at arm’s length. Even after all these months I still can’t square the gleeful, nasty pleasure of that relationship with the way that it plunged me into blackness, made me totally hate myself. Part of it was that every time I truly go into sub-space, it dredges up issues from my subconscious, but I know that darkness came from actual real-time him as well.

I’ll never get to be devoured like that again, because I’ll always have to take care to have a voice, to communicate. There’s no such thing as just being able to abdicate all of my power to someone, and I am honestly a little disappointed about that. But to really love and be loved (and ravish and be ravished) I have to create some inner structural integrity, a fidelity to myself. So that’s what we’re working on here.

When it came to the part of the welcome circle where we were to join two other people and negotiate a cuddle, I was delighted with who I got triaded up with—just the two that I would have chosen: The Lady of the House and Massage Therapist Man. Two of the prettiest people in the room. We had eight minutes to both negotiate and cuddle. First, we had to take turns saying what we wanted. They looked at me to go first (I like to go first, it helps me listen better) but I was suddenly speechless. I didn’t have the words for what I wanted to ask for. The LOTH said that she wanted to be hugged and held, and MSM said that he wanted to make a “heart circle.” I had to ask what that means and he said that’s when you put your hands on each others’ hearts and run energy between them. That sounded nice. I still equivocated and couldn’t quite get to what I wanted—“smushed” was the closest I could get. I said that I usually want to be rougher than seems appropriate for a cuddle party, and thus the phrase “rough cuddling” was born.

LOTH said that the heart thing sounded best to her, and I agreed, so that’s what we started with. I welcomed the chance to physically experience loving male and female energy at the same time—that’s a goal I’ve been inching glacially towards for a long time.

It takes a lot of trust to put your hand on a near-stranger’s heart. For each stage of the hand-placing, we had to ask “”May I put my hand on your heart?” “May I put my hand on your hand?” and so on. We sat like that and breathed and sort of circle-swayed, MTM making breathy yummy noises. I didn’t feel any jolt of energy running through us, but sitting with them that way felt so soothing. I was I was able to lose myself a little in the circuit of us, until time was called. Then it was time for free cuddling.

Next Time: A Foot Rub, Some nice Reiki, and! Wrestling!