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!