How in the world did I end up this lucky, to have a
pretty, shirtless man all well-behaved next to my bed, waiting patiently to be
made into (even more of) a work of art? The first time I got close, to wind the
rope around his lovely back, he felt radiant, vital, and entirely mine.
My brain didn’t float off into rope land right away but
instead got a sharper focus. Quietly, step by step, I wound the ribcage harness
around his beautiful chest, lark’s heading on to the middle when I needed to add
more length. Whenever I looked into his face or kissed him, my inner world flipped
upside down for a moment, but I came back into clarity as I reached and wound
and knotted and structured, checking in to see if anything felt pinched, if
everything was still circulating.
He was so good and so still, passive but not quite
submitting, I could feel him ready to pounce, too. (It’s gonna be a while!) It
wasn’t just power I was feeling (Oh boy I WAS feeling power though) but also a deep
tenderness. This was my first real time trying out rope topness, and I wanted The
Good Boy to feel as cozy and cared for as Fireguy and Steampunk Guy and all
those other rope darlings had made me feel.
(Flash to lying restrained and prone on Fireguy’s
basement floor, to feeling beautifully on display and chosen by Steampunk Guy
at the Regular Dungeon.)
Wrapping someone sweet in a complicated and unending
hug felt benevolent, queenly, and so, SO hot.
And! The Virgo version of hotness: it felt like a
culmination of a good, long, leisurely semester of learning. As I laddered the
thinner ropes onto his gorgeous long arms and figured out how to knot on new
structures and colors, I didn’t think about all those (sometimes lonely, mostly
blissful) Thursdays of learning, but now I want to stop in awe of all the times
I untangled, overcame hopelessness, fear, or apathy, and just learned one
little new thing. Here was a very sweet canvas letting me be new kind of
artist. A very sweet canvas I really needed to fuck quite soon!
I messed up the back after a while, sort of spacing
out winding and winding and winding. I like seeing now how simply it started
out, especially how the ropes draped around the small of his beautiful back—don’t
know if I’ve even been turned on by a waist before, besides my own!
Turned on as I was, I was determined to cover all of
him, so I instructed him to take off his pants, leave underwear on for now, and
lay down on the bed.
This poster was at the top of the stairs to his apartment and is probably why the whole ribbons thing.
At the Basement Rave Place, there was a long grimy
beige couch across from the unisex (that’s Nineties for all-gender) bathroom
where we’d go to recover after we danced too much. I remember it as sort of a
heap of dance-tired limbs, four to seven people on the couch at any given time.
He reminded me way later that once on said couch I handed him my underwear, no
doubt soaked with sweat and excitement. (Gotta hand it to nineteen-year old me
for the brazenness! Love it so much!) With a deliciously smug nod, he balled
them up and put them in his shirt pocket and patted his chest happily. Ohboy that
smile.
(Sidenote: Dear Pagan Boy, can you dirty-haunt me
ASAP? If anyone can, it’s you. I don’t really believe in an afterlife but you’d
be a makeout king there.)
I named him Pagan Boy, but really he was the first one
to properly touch me like a MAN. Plus, my love of fat fingers has been well
documented. (Are you there, Fireguy? It’s me, nostalgic!) Almost thirty years
later, I can feel the warm confidence of his hand as he not-subtle-at-all pushed
up my pink polyester dress. (Whenever I wasn’t wearing a black vintage slip, I
was wearing something a diner waitress might wear in an indie movie. This dress
had such a cute pointy white collar and little pearly buttons.)
I lay toward him across his lap as he slipped his fingers
lazily up and down, sometimes thumbing my clit but mostly just meandering,
leisurely. Absolutely no one around us cared, if they even noticed. Around us
was a blur of fake fur and glitter and hot androgynous hairstyles—sort of a
Bladerunner aesthetic except cuddly. The rhythm of his slippery fingers was tuned
to the constant pulse of techno, mostly house. I don’t think it ever really left
my ears from about ’93 to ’96.
He pushed his fingers inside me and I kissed him to
quiet myself, though any sound I would’ve made would have been swallowed up by,
I don’t know, the Mortal Kombat theme song.
The kissing was urgent, like we might accidentally
devour each other down to the bones, but his hands stayed slow.
The drive from the club to his house was at least an
hour long, but he was an expert at driving one-handed. In the 3am dark, I sat
in the passenger seat with my legs spread and my sweaty, be-glittered head on
his shoulder, breathing in his ears or just breathing in the smell of him—earth,
beer, testosterone, cigarettes—a smell you could lay down and cozily die in.
We stumbled up the steps of his apartment, tangled in
each other and losing clothes as we went. The sun was coming. As we cuddled
into his too-small bed, he held my face, stared into my eyes, and kissed me
some more. There wouldn’t be sleep.
I couldn’t sleep after I asked him if he meant the
songs, so I got up and went to my email, to the poem thread. I didn’t write a
poem there, just told him how I felt. It was a pretty unhinged thing to do in
the (here) middle of the night, but I’m glad I wrote it. I’m glad he knows.
His late-even-for-the-west-coast reply brought equal
parts relief and heartbreak. He hadn’t meant the songs the way I did. He has a
partner and they’re happy. That meant I didn’t have to worry so much (still
some though) about his safety. I was grateful to the person, so QC was being looked
after. (It’s tempting to say here of course he’s taken, he’s the Actual
Best Person, and that does have sort of a fatalistic ring of truth, but lots
and lots of perfectly lovely people aren’t taken, I know. Like me!)
What a letter this was. It was the kindest, calmest,
most accepting, most platonically loving letter in my collection of I-don’t-like-you-that-way
notes. Genuine, golden, shining care for my well-being and valuing of the
real-life writing relationship—what more could a person even ask for.
My heart physically warms up when I think about this
letter. The only rejection I’ll keep to calm me down in times of jangledness—a talisman,
a charm.
The wanted to keep writing poems back and forth and I
hope we will again someday, but not now. For me, writing with someone takes so
much trust, maybe the MOST trust, and I’m saying this as someone who has
submitted to being set on fire for fun. (Oh Fireguy! Here is a cuddle in case
you’re reading, and even if you’re not.)
After the (probably shouldn’t have been a) surprise
partner fact, the trust was a little harder to access, and what we were doing
felt (to me) too intimate to do with someone who belongs to somebody else. Even
if we’d done away with the songs and the daily chitchat and the encouragement,
I would still have ended up combing the poems for signs of love. I really,
really HATE combing through poems for signs of love. I’d rather let the poems
and the people and the real feelings just be what they are.
So I said a grateful bye-for-now to the Zoom reading,
citing (my new favorite euphemism of ever) “time zone issues.” They’ll be IRL and
back to being far away soon enough anyway. I got to hear Adorable Co-Host read
a poem and I got to send one last (for now) post-reading high-five to QC. I’m
so pleased and proud about his latest.
It felt good to put myself first, to give myself the
space (So weird to need space from someone who is 2,500 miles away, but, phones
are little Pavlov machines.) to paragraph everything through.
I miss his daily presence in my inboxes and I’m
certainly more bored and lonely than I was last week. Way less sobbing though.
I really, really wish we could have continued that series of poems, it was
really good. Maybe we can write again someday. (In the first draft I accidentally
wrote “today” instead of “someday.”)
In the end, I’m a little mad at myself for the crush
part, but I think all in all this was a very, very good adventure. It feels
productive and hopeful to have let out a love that has lived in my body all
this time, to be able to hold it up to the light. I’m glad he knows how I feel,
how important he is to me. I’m so, so grateful that I could be there a little
while for a dear friend in a harrowing time. I’m proud to have had and been a
bright spot.
Dear QC, dear everyone (well almost everyone) in every
Kitten Calendar story, thank you. I have the luckiest life.
As always, wish you could see the smile that goes with!
One of the joy-sparking things in my life are the pajamas (and other lacy things!) I have just for sexytimes with myself. Just thought you might enjoy a peek.
I haven't taken very many sexy pictures since I gained a bunch of weight, but I see no reason for that to be so! I'm even flirting with the idea of booking a photo session with Fireguy, or at least getting a tripod for my iPhone...
I have a lot more to say about my warm relationship to the camera, but for now, enjoy some nipples. Happy Friday!
After all the heartache
of the election and Mr. Makeout Music, I decided that my poly self needed to be
as spoiled as possible, so I decided to make the Big Poly Conference into a
mini-vacation. For the first time ever, I had my own room, and I planned to
alternate learning and socializing with swimming and lounging around by myself.
I stocked my mini-fridge with good sandwich stuff and strawberries and brought
a Valentine heart of chocolate and Amy Schumer’s memoir. I packed two bathing
suits, new pajamas, and cute underpants.
After the various fuckups
of my past poly adventures, I was a little nervous about all the reuniting, but
before the keynote address even started, The Recurring Character sat down next
to me and said “Welcome back!” so I thought it might be okay.
Per Fireguy’s
instructions, I was more there to make friends and reconnect with my poly self
than to flirt, but I glanced around the assembly to see if anyone caught my
fancy, and someone did. He wasn’t even in the room yet, he was still out in the
hall getting checked in, and I thought “Jeez I hope he likes girls.” He was tall,
broad and looked authoritative and also like he might know everyone there. As
tends to be my preference these days, he was African American. I basically had
to have him.
I found him after the
talk. (Which was about diversity and inclusiveness but was given by a skinny,
straight, able, cis white woman.) (Whom I adore, but come on…) He was standing
around with a mutual friend, everyone trading stories about their respective Woman’s
Marches. I found an excuse to high-five him (I love high-fiving so much.) and
we struck up a conversation. Like the third
thing he said to me was “Do you hug?” After months of feeling like I was
Entirely Too Much around Mr. Makeout Music, that question was a balm, and yes,
of course I hug, and this was one of my favorite hugs of all time.
It’s these moments when I
want to start talking about that Energy thing that I don’t quite believe in but
always that I seem to be able to feel. Wrapped up in his big strong arms, I
forgot all the sadness and heartbreak, all of the trying to be less than I am.
I felt accepted and I felt blessed. I was going to need to keep hugging him. I
learned that he’d just finished his doctorate so I’ve decided to call him The
Professor.
The next time I saw him, I
was headed out after a somewhat-harrowing workshop on intersectionality. The
Professor had his arms around a tall, cuddly, prettily-intimidating woman, but
he reached out and pulled me into their hug. It felt like what life is supposed
to be like, warm and beautiful and bi.
After Kind Ma’am went off
to talk with some other people, The Professor sat down and I snuggled into his
lap. I made apologetic noises to one of the women from the workshop (my whole
strategy as an activist and an ally is to always be ready to apologize) and he
said all kinds of encouraging, comforting things that my heart had been waiting
broken-white-lady decades to hear. In no universe was it his job to take care
of me in those feelings, but he did, and it was wildly generous.
We exchanged phone numbers, emails, mailing addresses. I
wrote mine on one of the many Pokémon Valentines I’d brought for just such a
purpose. We kissed lightly and sweetly and hugged goodbye and I walked into the
next workshop with a happy dance and an “I got a GOOD phone number!”
Instead of meeting anyone
for dinner, I had a little introvert party--went swimming on my own and then
ate dinner in bed, listening to the Bunhead
Bros podcast. (It’s by the same guys who did all those three-to-five-hour Gilmore Girls recaps, can’t get enough.
Okay I did get enough during the revival, but still.)
Joy of joys, The
Professor texted and asked what I was doing with my evening, and we agreed to
meet up at the Cuddle Party. I was very glad I’d brought cute soft new purple
flower pajamas. I COULD NOT WAIT to get cuddled.
It’s vexing that I
spent part of last week marching on Washington with 500,000 amazing people in
one of the most meaningful and fulfilling experiences of my life and then a
good chunk of my time crying about a boy. Love is resistance, I guess.
Mr. Makeout music and I
really, really tried to be friends. A few times it got too hard and I tried to
get away, but I kept getting pulled back in, once by an eight-page Post-it note
letter that he left on my desk inside my Bon Iver CD. (Maybe the most emo thing
that ever happened to me, and that’s really saying something.)
I wanted to be over it so
we could be friends, but I’m still in love with him, still heartbroken. When we
were trying to be friends, I performed a flirty, lightly-slutty, carefree
version of myself. He let me think we were somewhere between friendship and the
other thing. In fact, he explicitly said so, and that was enough to keep giving
me hope. It gave me enough of an excuse to keep on (and I say this only a
little bit sheepishly but mostly self-compassionate) making a fool of myself
over him.
I so wanted to skip ahead
to friendship that on Friday, I made him take out his phone so we could put a
friend-afternoon on the calendar, and in the course of that conversation I
found out that he had plans for Valentine’s Day.
I’d sort of seen this
coming since she’d been visiting the library almost daily, though I’d asked him
about it a few weeks before and he’d said it wasn’t a thing. (Why he has to
date her at work is beyond me and feels (probably unintentionally) cruel…) My
first reaction to finding out they were together was “Yesss!” because I was
genuinely happy for him.
So compersion may have lent
me some dignity in that moment, but it couldn’t save me from the fact that
right after he told me he couldn’t date me because of family obligations, he
almost immediately found a serious-enough-for-Valentine’s-Day relationship. I’d
sort of known for a while but love-goggles weren’t really letting me confront
it.
It doesn’t always occur
to me that people sometimes don’t tell the truth, and I guess I’m glad that I
took him at face value. Awesome Genderqueer Librarian says she thinks he was telling the truth, that he wasn’t
ready for his world to become bigger and he was ready for something that fit
his idea of the world. Maybe, but I knew I couldn’t keep pretending to just
want friendship I felt hurt and humiliated that he hadn’t told me the truth in
the first place.
So I sent him a last text
saying that friends don’t lie to each other and that I’d deserved so much more honesty
and respect than he’s given. I told him to leave me all the way alone. I gave
him back most of the artwork that he’d made with me and the library kids (I
kept the one he’d told me was called “Ms. ______ in Autumn” because the colors
reminded him of me.) and he gave me the Postal Service album (“Give Up,” it’s
called, I think it was really just a message to myself.) that I’d lent him in a
last ditch effort to be at least Cute Music Friends.
It’s sad not to talk to
him, not to get at least two hugs a day from him. Saturday afternoon when I
walked into the library I just mortifyingly burst into tears, thank god it wasn’t
in front of him. I just love and miss him so much and I’m so sad that he didn’t
choose me. It’s hard not to compare myself to her and not wish I were easier,
more monogamous, more whatever-she-is-that-I’m-not.
But also, I feel relief.
I don’t have to date like crazy to prove that I’m over him. I don’t have to
push myself into a friendship that doesn’t feel right. I don’t have to fight to
stay on his radar or compete with her for attention, because that’s really,
REALLY not my thing.
And Saturday, the
Universe was so kind as to send another handsome security guard to my
department. I hope to never crush on someone at work ever again, but it was
comforting to chat with a nice man about art, life, feelings, and politics
while I made self-Valentines with the kids. Mine said:
Dear
Me,
I
love you because you love with your whole heart.
Even
after all of this foolishness, it’s still true.
Way
back in November when Mr. Makeout Music and I had our “We’re not gonna be a
thing” conversation, I realized I’d better figure out where I stand with kink
and poly. I signed up for the Big Poly Conference and reserved a room for the
whole weekend. I also reached out to Fireguy and asked him to mentor me through
the process, and he said yes!
Talking
with him has been healing in many ways, making me feel stronger and more able
to take risks. He gave me a couple of directives that I’m really enjoying:
1.You
have to know someone to love him or her, so instead of dating, concentrate on
doing what I love and building my social circle.
2.People
will show their worthiness by making an effort.
The
second one seems like a nicer version of the “He’s just not that into you”
philosophy, which I already kind of believe. It’s hard to hold out for real
effort, though, because I want so much to serve the ones I love. But looking for
those worthy of me, expecting honesty and enthusiasm and communication, is
working out very well so far and gives me such a sparkly glimmer of hope and
faith.
I
may have to watch Mr. Makeout Music’s romance blossom at our workplace every
day, but a future of being my real, deep, loving, transparent, poly self will
hopefully give me the power to move past him.
Part of every day is okay. There’s an overarching loneliness
that’s hard to take, but mostly I get through it. Sometimes, though, I just run
out of trying. I get a bad headache and feel trapped, feel like I’m drowning,
and the only thing I can do is get a drink of water and go lay down. As long as
I just go ahead and let myself do that, the drowny feeling passes.
With exercise being my main antidepressant, I panicked a
little when the city pools closed, but I went back to the gym at the community
center by my house. For some reason I can’t stop myself from smiling when I get
on the elliptical. Sometimes I am a little bit of a chick lit novel, I think.
Zumba classes started up again and the instructor has the hottest ass I’ve ever
seen, so I have that to look forward to.
On Monday, the Lady of the House and I had a nude beach day
and it was fantastic. We talked our hearts out and I trusted her enough to tell
her things I hadn’t told anybody, not even Sweetie. With Sweetie having gotten
so sick of the sound of my voice, it’s wonderful that I have at least a couple
of people in my life who don’t think I talk too much. (LOTH does think I might
think too much, and I’m inclined to agree.) In between swimming and adding cute
couples to my mental vision board, we worked on lists of what we want in our
next partners. We’re awesome wingpeople for each other since almost everything
we like is opposite—besides “Must love the ocean,” of course. I’ll post my list
soon even though I’ve already written (and ignored!) many such lists.
One thing I’m proud of from this week is that the other
night when I was crying it out over Steampunk guy, I didn’t lean on Sweetie for
help. When I was lying in bed crying and trying to write, she came in and put
her hand on my back but I sent her back out. I texted Angel Face a few times
but mostly I handled it on my own. I cried and wrote and then cried and wrote
some more the next day, until eventually they started to feel like productive
tears, tears of acceptance, the kind that give my heart a little more breathing
room. It’s important that I know how to fall apart and put myself back together
without having to depend on Sweetie to tell me it’s okay, to tell me I’m okay.
It’s been a hard week, but I still feel like I’m doing what
I can to move myself forward. One of my main goals is to have more community
ties by the time my heart is healed, so I looked up a bunch of munches and
RSVPed. This week was the local Master/slave meeting and it was exactly the
right thing to go to. Everybody was so sweet and caring, and we/they talked
about deep, complicated feelings for two hours—that is like emo-girl Christmas!
There wasn’t any one person I felt an affinity towards, but the group felt like
such a good place to start—one of them, anyway.
I’d still been feeling very reticent about making friends
around the scene because of shame about the (way back when) Fireguy stuff and
the (still kind of hurty) Scary Party stuff, but the more I talk to people, the
more I understand that I’m not alone. The picture I had of myself as an outcast
or pariah was a. pretty self centered and b. incorrect. There are definitely
some mean girls who don’t like me, but for the most part no one ever says “Oh,
that was you?” and runs away or yells at me. It’s just a part of who I am, and
someday, I won’t be ashamed of it. While I do regret the fight with Fireguy, I
can’t say that I regret the Scary Party thing—I can’t see any other way that
could have gone. Plus, I kind of like tops to know that I have the potential to
fuck their whole shit up (at least for a night or two) if they ignore limits.
That being said, while I was talking to one of the Scary
Party regulars about The Man, a wave of compassion washed over me. He’s just
like me, just like everyone—kind of a brokeny person who needs love and fucks
it up sometimes. Not that I’d snuggle up to him anytime soon (I’m sure he’d be
TERRIFIED at the prospect) but I don’t really feel like I need to be mad at him
anymore, and I certainly don’t need to be afraid. With things in perspective,
he was a love like any of the others, and he always will be.
So even though the days are long and sluggish, I do feel
like I’m continuing to break down walls for myself.
Monday night when I came home all pink and happy from the
beach, I was joking around with Sweetie about my “must love the ocean”
requirement, and she said:
“You know, I grew up in West Texas. Most of the information
I had about the ocean came from Jaws.”
“Come to think of it, most of the information you had about
hetero sex came from working at the Rape Crisis Center.”
“Til I met you, yeah.”
Sweetie didn’t make up my fears and barriers, but she was
very good at enabling and encouraging them. My fears brought us closer
together, made me feel like I had to keep depending on her. I can see that her
influence, while ostensibly supportive, helped me to cultivate my
fight-or-flight habits instead of learning to react in more productive ways.
She loved me through so many panicky tantrums, and I’m grateful, but also that
wasn’t a healthy thing.
I want to be away from that influence, so living together is
an oppressive thing. Sometimes it’s tempting to just give in, give up on the
idea of my own place. This apartment is heartbreaking and suffocating, it sucks
out so much energy just to be here. When we first decided we were splitting, I
could see my new life so clearly, but now it feels much less clear. I don’t
know when’s the next time I’ll fall asleep with somebody, the next kiss, or
even the next spank. Sometimes that’s really hard to take.
Last week, my phone was finally repaired. (No miraculous
retrieval of cute texts, I’m afraid.) I’d been using an old kind-of-broken
phone and I figured out how to sync the phones so that I could transfer all the
contacts and pictures. I figured it out by just poking around, not by asking
Sweetie! These are the kinds of things that bring me joy lately, the little
victories that make me feel like I might just make it on my own.
Though he doesn’t do much in this story besides be
pleasantly in the room, I think now’s a good time to backtrack to when I
reconciled with Fireguy. The first time we spent together was when he took my
author photo, so when the book came out last summer I mailed him a copy, along
with a looooong love letter. In the letter, I apologized for my part in our
fight and let him know the feelings I’d gotten for him. (How many versions of
this letter will I write in my lifetime? At least maybe I’ve gotten past the
breakup fight aspect?) Even though I had him blocked in nearly every possible
way, he still found a way to get through to thank me for the letter and tell me
he was proud of me for the book. Of course I got a little thrill from him being
proud.
We didn’t run into each other in person for another six
months or so. When I saw we were both in the RSVPs for a Regular Dungeon night
back in January, I decided it was time to go ahead and unblock him. I emailed
him to touch base and ask if he might be able to bring the cupcake taker I’d
left at his house the previous April. (Man, that was an awesome cupcake taker.
I really miss it.) When we saw each other at that January party, Sweetie said
he and I both turned into Muppets upon seeing each other. While I stood around
post-scene with Sweetie’s ropes on, Fireguy and I got the chance to apologize
to each other in person. We both expressed regret that we couldn’t jump in the sexTARDIS
and do things differently.
Anyway, I say all that just to say he was one of the people
I was glad to see last Saturday night. Even though our playing-together time is
over, I still really like playing where he can see me and watching him set
other nice ladies on fire.
I also had the unexpected pleasure of running into V,a one-date guy from last year, and his superpretty (queer!) girlfriend. Even
though they aren’t a match for me playwise, I was so happy to add them both to
my collection of good bad influences. They egged me on and watched me play the
whole night and I loved showing off for them. Maybe I’m just collecting pals to
show off to right now, that’s a good project!
While I was mulling over what to do for Naughty Thing #2, I stood in my favorite spot, a raised area at
the back of the room, watched all the wonders going on around me and did a good
job of reaching my chatting goal. It was hot in there so I ditched the nightie
and stripped down to my bra and undies, white with pink polka dots and hot pink
lace, respectively.
Probably I should branch out from just playing with people I
already know, but when Old-Timey Guy brandished a giant roll of plastic wrap, I
shrugged and said “Why not?” Though I’m usually averse to plastic, the
restraint aspect seemed right. Plus, this is a time for trying new things.
“If you do a good jo—ob you’ll get a flog—ging!” He said in
his silly singsongy voice as he made me spin around and around to wind the
plastic. Eventually I got dizzy and made him do the winding. My arms were
behind my back, hands to elbows. His other playpal for the night (Besides Punk
Rock Girl, of course) was an adorably affable Asian girl (I’ll call her Other
Ribbons, since she loves them as much as I do.) and she very kindly held my
glasses for me.
I was bound from my shoulders to my ankles, so that I could
only move my feet a teensy bit. I was trapped and sweating, a little scared but
going with the fear. An onlooker helpfully suggested that Old-Timey guy move me
away from the stairs, lest I should fall. One new guy was for some reason
walking around with a spatula, and I let him give me a few whacks. He had to
hit me really hard in order for me to feel it through the plastic. The spatula
gave me a heart-pang since that was Sweetie’s implement of choice at home.
Friends, it will surprise exactly no one that it’s taking me
some time to get over Steampunk Guy. I didn’t really realize that until I was
on a hike last night with my BFF Angel Face having all kids of mentionitis about
it. All those transformative experiences in such a short time make it still
really difficult to have any perspective about him, even if it means I risk
losing my awesome breakup award.
With that in mind, I want to spend exactly no more time
trying to make myself be casual about someone I’m actually bonkers about. When
the time comes that I’m a little more past my divorce and safely settled into
my own place, I look forward to finding a guy I can just go ahead and fall for,
and he might even fall in return.
In the meantime, I’ve been mulling over how I can keep
playing without getting my heart tangled up in anybody until I’m ready. I know
there are no magic rules that can keep me from going to crushtown—after all, I
fell for Bill just by exchanging song links, and I got all those daddy feelings
for Fireguy just from one approving look
during a casual public scene.
I do have one non-lovey-dovey ongoing thing: Old-Timey Guy
and I have played off and on for more than a year now and I’ve never even had a
little twinge of wishing things were different. He is certainly affectionate,
but I’ve never kissed him, he’s never put anything inside me, we’ve never been
alone, and he’s never given me aftercare. I’ve never needed aftercare because
I’ve never been to subspace with him. (Haven’t been to subspace with anybody
since The Man. It might be a while on that one.) Maybe it comes down to those
things, or maybe it’s not what we do or don’t do, but just that the feelings
are genuinely just friendship feelings.
So I don’t know. The idea of going however long without
kissing or fucking is unappealing to me, but so is the idea of trying to rein
my feelings in while I do those things. I did just break up with everybody I
wanted to fuck or kiss, so I suppose I maybe do need space from it.
While divorce-grief has me fragile, I did make some rules
that I like:
1. No more than two drinks ever.
2. Leave when it feels even a little bit icky.
3. Aftercare, if needed, will be self-provided.
My sense of self-preservation is stronger than it’s ever
been, so I feel confident in my yesses and nos, but I also know that my heart
runs away with me sometimes. I’m not sure what the solution is.
I really wish I’d been telling this story while it was still
happy-it would’ve been so much more fun to write. I liked him so much that I
was even calling him Emotionally Available Guy in my fb updates. Our first
scene together was so close to being my dream come true that it was hard to be
myself afterwards—I felt like he could finally be the guy to give me what I
needed. Except.
Remember the episode of Doctor Who where the little boy
keeps everything he’s afraid of locked in a cabinet in his room? That’s what
one of the local play parties has felt like to me for a while—there are no
boundaries anywhere, anyone feels free to waltz into any scene they see fit, so
I’ve left there on more than one occasion feeling exploited and trampled. On
the other hand, it’s also the place where I had my amazing first public scene
with Fireguy, so it can’t be all bad.
The Man (as in the Man who brings one down) is the head of
security at this venue. I was thinking that being with him would make me safe,
rather than realizing that he is part of what makes it so chaotic. I was
excited when he invited me, thinking it could help me to heal my creepy
feelings about the place. Still, I hemmed and hawed about going, especially
when he sprung it on me that his wife (who I didn’t know very well yet) would
be going too. She didn’t end up going, and after much coaxing and reassurance,
I decided to go, even though I worried that it might be the end for us. I
really wanted to spend time with him and I wondered if the badness of the Bad
Party was all in my head.
When I first got there, there was already an emergency—a
woman had been getting her boobs whipped and she started to bleed, needing
stitches. She was all woozy and no one could find the first aid kit. We ran
into her in the aftercare room later, asked if she was okay, and for some
reason her “I’m happy!” rang hollow, like, really, do we have to put ourselves
through this?
As I was signing my waiver, The Man introduced me to Sadist
Girl, a member of his security staff, who referred to me annoyingly as
“Ribbons,” part of my Fet handle, instead of my real name, which I’d given her.
“She knows you from FetLife,” he explained, “and she knows why you’re here.”
Cue the foreboding I’m-in-trouble music.
At this point (actually at many points before this night) the
horror movie audience would be yelling at the screen: “Get out of the house!
Run DOWN the stairs, not up!” But I trusted him and you know what? He smelled
really, really good. It’s amazing the lengths I’ll go to for a good man smell,
let me tell you. I wanted to please him so that he’d notice me, so he’d really
make me someone important in his life, so I’d know that he would stick around.
He led me into a harshly lit red room where people were kind
of crowded in, but there was a free spanking bench. I didn’t really care for it
because it wasn’t very showoffy/safe and it was away from the really good DJ
that usually makes the place bearable. The beginning of the scene wasn’t like the
first one or the nice time that we’d had in my living room earlier in the week.
He didn’t stop and look into my eyes or ask me what I wanted. He didn’t brush
my hair with the brush he’d requested the previous time. He didn’t stop and
connect with me at all—it was like I was a chore he had to get through before
he could get back to the real fun of working security. I should have stopped
the scene or at least moved to another room.
He was complaining about the people talking around us, so I
asked if he wanted to move and he said no. He told me to keep my mouth shut
even though I’d told him several times that it was a hard limit. I don’t know
why, but I kept my mouth shut—I am ashamed of how desperate I was and how much
I compromised. I wish I could get in the Sex Tardis and save myself, but it is
always too late.
It was an okay scene, if uninspired. Flogging, handcuffs,
hairpulling. I had on my shorty pajamas that I always wear and my shirt was
pulled up, exposing my nipples. “You’re my sweet girl,” he kept saying, “My
good, sweet girl.” I melted. I was so happy in that moment—I’d dreamed of being
his and he was saying that I was.
Right about then I heard him talking to Sadist Girl and
handing her his soft leather paddle. I don’t know why I said it as okay. It certainly
hadn’t been negotiated beforehand or even mentioned as a possibility. I would
have said no if I’d been asked outside subspace. I don’t know why I did any of
this. He held me tight from the front as she hit me all stingy, not the thuddy the
way I like. She slapped around the edges of places so that it was hurtier, the
sides of my thighs, the back of my knees. I don’t remember her hitting me in
the crotch but it was bleeding after. I liked being tight in The Man’s arms,
sobbing and screaming, and I liked feeling like I was giving him what he
wanted. Sadist Girl tried hitting me on the bottom of my feet and at least I
remembered the word “red” for that. She kept calling me “Ribbons” and it was
making me mad. “Why do you say you’re not a masochist, RIBBONS?” “Huh, RIBBONS?
I started to really really not like it so I whispered to him
that I wanted to be with just him now. She stopped hitting me but wouldn’t
leave. They stood around talking as if I wasn’t there. She was listing off the
people she had grudges against, talking about how they’d have to ban them.
I started to feel exposed and violated. I tried to work my
shirt down over my breasts even though I was still cuffed. I told him again to
get rid of her. He looked annoyed and she looked pissed off but finally went
away. I told him to get me out of the handcuffs and I got dressed. I should
have left as soon as I could drive, but I didn’t. Even though he’d broken our
agreements and ignored my safety, I still wanted to be with him.
A few weeks ago, two events conspired to make it really hard
to have any faith in this process. I wrote a little bit about it here but I
find myself needing to return to the topic. Part of what inspired the sadness
of this post was HempRopes, the talented top who suspended me last month.
After we played together, he sent me the picture and let me
know that I’d been a vey good bottom and that he’d play again any time, so I
asked if we could make some plans. He responded enthusiastically, telling me it
was time to meet his wife so that I could be vetted to come over and play at
their house. I let him know that I was a ways away from private play but that
it was a possibility for the future. The exchange was punctuated with more than
a few smiley emoticons on my part.
He said that his November schedule was up in the air but
that he’d let me know. I saw his RSVP on a mid-month event but hadn’t heard
from him so I planned to go and play with Sweetie.
I should have had a blindfold on. We were at a very sociable
venue and I was distracted from our scene. People kept coming over to say hi
and for the most part I didn’t mind it until my friend Bubbly Sub came over and
gave me a happy naked rope hug, glowing and bragging about how much fun she’d
just had with HempRopes. She was all buzzy and glittery with happiness, and it
should have just made me happy, but it didn’t. I don’t know why their having
played bothered me so much, except that I couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d
chosen her first because she is 24, more pliable, more agreeable than I am.
There was no way I could ever get chosen if those were the desired traits.
The hurt brought me completely out of my scene with
Sweetie—I was struck by the sheer empty futility of standing there naked trying
to attract the attention of men, and most of the time failing, at least in the
long term. I know much more happy and healthy uses for my nakedness, but in
that moment of despair there were none to be had. I felt guilty for
interrupting our fun, but I had to get some care and go home.
There was no offer from HempRopes to really decline, since
he’d clearly forgotten that I’d asked for plans, but simply to hold myself to
my decision, I sent him a note with the heading “Not Cut Out for Bunnying.” He
responded that he certainly had had no intention to hurt me, but that he’d put
out a call (on FL) and she’d responded. He said “I tend to get myself a queue
when I put the call out, so I go in a “first come, first served” order.”
So BS was chosen not for her youth or cheer, but simply for
her ability to sit on FetLife and wait for someone to offer to play. So in a
way I guess it was her youth—no adult, professional woman would have time for
that nonsense. She was, in the truest sense of the word, easy—a thing I will
never be.
I didn’t say any of that, of course, I just sent a polite
note that a queue wouldn’t feel right to me. He wished me luck and I crossed off
another possibility, stunned by the callousness involved in thinking that he
saw both me and BS as nothing but a take-a-number bodies waiting to entertain
him.
The second blow to my sense of hope came a few days later,
after I’d already posted about my general worries and emptiness. I’d had a good
playnight with the Man About Town, and in my post-scene glow, I’d accidentally
sent a tweet about it to him instead of Twitter. It was a silly mistake and
since it had a hashtag in it, he took it as an invitation to look up this blog,
even though I’d made it clear that that was considered 29th base—I
wanted us to get to know each other better before I trusted him to read it
without trying to control it.
After ONE scene, either he thought we’d achieved that level
of intimacy or he didn’t care.
I felt trapped. I found myself workshopping emotions I
hadn’t had enough time to even think about yet, things it would seem INSANE to
share with someone new, especially someone I was casually playing with. He
apologized for “leaving marks that scared (Sweetie)” and it felt like this
awful, creepy, invasion into my married life. I would have expressed concerns
eventually, on my own terms, but having those insights taken from me felt
awful.
Still, it was a mistake from a silly mistweet and the whole
sex-blogger thing IS a tricky situation. If he would have apologized, I still
wouldn’t have played with him again, but I wouldn’t have been quite so bitter.
Instead, he was self-righteous, saying “I’m not going to apologize for reading
something that is basically public property, that anyone could just stumble
upon.”
Which would be a fair point if I hadn’t ASKED HIM NOT TO. I
keep coming back to that:
I asked him not to and he did it anyway.
After one scene, he felt entitled to renegotiate our terms
without me, to take what he thought he was entitled to, whether I agreed or
not.
It is supremely disheartening, that even the most new-agey,
married-to-a-high-priestess, referring-to-the-moon-as-She guy would still feel
entitled to my inner life after such a tiny amount of time.
It’s enough to make me rethink my attraction to D/s
situations. While I do of course physically enjoy being dominated, I think I’ve
emotionally used dominance as a place-holder for things I’m not sure I can find
or deserve, traits I believed in a year ago—ideals of masculinity that I see in
friends and the husbands of friends but not in the men who are interested in
me—courage, chivalry, integrity, emotional honesty and strength.
So far, my experience of dominant men has been one of cold
cowardice—from Bill wishing simply for a chokeable fuck doll, to Fireguy
thinking that my expressing a point of view about my own experience was going
to wreck his entire existence, to HempRopes and his “First come, first served.”
I started with a fear that that I could never be what men want, that a man
could never be interested in my whole self, and I have found character after
character to confirm those fears.
I worry a lot about being perceived as a man-hating harpy,
and I’m sure that M.A.T. can commiserate with Fireguy to that effect, but I am
really, really trying to be flexible and kind. I don’t want to have such a
stunted view of men. I want to let someone real into my life; I’m just totally
at a loss about how to get there.
The week before my birthday, I kissed four people, which is
maybe too many. The only one of those that you haven’t heard about yet is the
Man About Town.
I’m calling him that because he’s got a lot of community
stuff going on—his art is in local galleries, he’s in the pagan community, and
he’s a leader of the local poly meetup, which is how I got to know him. I’d
seen him around for about a year, but one night a few months ago during a poly
book club meeting I noticed that he’s my type--big and bearish, warm, fond of
easygoing public nudity. So I sent him a friend request on Fet Life and I guess
my pictures did the trick. We exchanged emails all summer. He’s looking for a
new play partner, so we made plans.
Our first date, during that week-of-kissing-four-people, was
a hiking date on my favorite leisurely trail. We talked and talked and talked. Then sometimes we talked ABOUT
the talking. I felt really comfortable with him and was as confessional as I
would’ve been if I’d had two glasses of wine. I told him SO MUCH STUFF and he
told me a lot too. It was like a miracle of yammering, I loved it.
I was trying to remember the name of a butterfly* that was
helpfully splaying out its wings for us to study when I felt him move in for
the kiss. He was gentle, a little tentative, technically proficient, but I’m
not sure what I felt, emotionally. Still, I was impressed, and I couldn’t
resist high-fiving him and saying “Good job!”
Then I was like “Wait, is that okay to say? good job?”
“Of course!” he said, “Feedback is always welcome.”
Man About Town is close with Fireguy’s crowd, so I talked to
him a lot about that situation, which is good because it means that some
disclosures are out of the way. It was a relief to talk about that stuff, I’d
been afraid to for a while.
The Man About Town is just that, a man. So far, he makes me feel valued, understood, and oriented. My
first date with him was a pretty island in the sea of insecurity that was the
end of Mister Hazel Eyes. I got home that day feeling comfy in my own skin,
pleased to have the rest of the day alone with a good book, not needy or clingy
but self-contained.
He asked me out right away, but I was feeling really
overwhelmed about everything else that was going on. I told him I needed a
month or so to get back on my feet before any more non-Sweetie dates. Then, a
few days later, I asked if I could put him on the calendar for the end of
September so I’d have him to look forward to. He had absolutely no problem with
planning things three weeks in advance, and that is so dreamy. I’m not sure how I feel about him, but I am so proud to
have made plans with a grown ass man. Go me.
I finally got in a whole bunch of quality time with Sweetie
last weekend, yay! Saturday night was a complicated adventure I ended up being
really proud of. It started with an awesome gig—I was reading poems and smut at
a benefit for my friend’s top surgery. In the dressing room, a six-and-a-half
foot radical faerie let me borrow from her amazing glitter palette to outline
my eyes and draw a cute pink heart on my check. The host surprised me with
birthday cake and everybody sang—I really think it’s been one of the best
birthdays ever.
Sweetie and I had a play party date afterwards. I was
apologetic about having to leave early to go get my ass beat, but they were
very understanding. I told my radical faerie friend I’d like to just follow her
around, and she thought that was just fine.
Sweetie and I ran into some trickiness on the way to the
party, though—she’d stayed in the room while I read about my scene with MisterHazel Eyes, and she was a little shell shocked. She’s not a voyeur, and hearing
it just made her feel competitive and grumpy. I was frustrated that I had to
stop and feel guilty after I’d just had such a good experience. Plus, we were
going to the venue where I first played publicly with Fireguy, so there was a
worry that I might run into him. And I was still missing MHE a whole bunch—it’s
only been a few weeks.
In the end, though, we were able to comfort each other and
our need to play together trumped our respective worries. I think there’s no
reason she should have to read the posts that aren’t about her, especially
since I’ve got so many nice voyeurs like yourselves to help fill my showoffy
needs. Thanks thanks thanks! XOXOXOXO.
This party was crowded—there wasn’t a lot of furniture to go
around, which means we got to see some amazing floor play. The scene next to
us, wherein the guy was holding his girl down and showing her crotch to the
room, alternately slapping her face and furiously rubbing her clit over her hot
pink underwear--I found them very inspiring. Same goes for the woman with the
amazing ponytail who was wrapped in a glittery pink blanket and getting flogged
with silver tinsel strands for a nice take on aftercare. You could see why I’d
need a blindfold to concentrate on what was happening to me…
Sweetie found a nice well-lit spot along the wall and spread
out a shiny scarf for me to stand on. I took off my heels and Sweetie pulled of
my low-cut pink nightie. I’d asked at the door “Could you elucidate the nipple
policy?” and they said they have to be covered so I had on my Hello Kitty tape.
(Most of the other girls were not following the nipple policy, by the way. So
much to see!) I was wearing my lacy pink lucky underwear and I worried for a
second about being too fat, but then ropes started happening and I felt better.
She started with these pretty pink handcuffs:
She tried to pull my arms behind my head and secure them
there with a rope around my waist, but that only lasted for a second—I couldn’t
figure out where to put my head. I was getting distracted so she put on my nice
soft blindfold. I am really starting to fall in love with being blindfolded,
even though it was a limit just a few months ago.
By the time she got me into a good harness, a St. Andrew’s
cross had opened up. She tied the handcuffs to the top and tied my ankles to
the bottom of the cross so that I had to stand with my legs apart—she was
excited that she’s finally mastered the Somerville bowline, but I couldn’t
quite high-five her. The green ropes she used on my ankles glowed in the
blacklight. Once I was settled in, she started on the spanks. I was kind of
exhausted already, so I didn’t think it would take long. She used her hands and
our little pink kooshlike flogger. When she pulled my hair, I realized why I’m
not loud with her during scenes the way I am in the bedroom: she makes my
insides go silent. As she pulled at the back of my hair, just a little more
painfully than I expected, there was no noise or words that could’ve expressed
the relief that I felt.
The best part of the play party came when this song came on:
I was standing around
in my harness, winding up the restraint ropes to put them away. I Fink U Freeky came on and I danced
around a little—I lost self-consciousness in a new way and just danced there in
my undies and ropes, filling up with giggly well-being.
I stuck my ass out and she thwacked it in time to the music.
She was sitting in a tall chair and I bent all the way into downward dog with
my (wet, obviously) crotch on her knee and she played my ass like a drum. I
laughed and laughed—I don’t think I’ve ever felt more myself.
I wore my ropes all through aftercare, and I didn’t want to
take them off after that either, so I wore them home under my dress.
As a poet, I should be better-prepared to be rejected. Over
the years, I have received hundreds of rejection slips for hundreds of poems,
manuscripts, etc, and only very rarely did I feel that they had any bearing on
the quality of my work. If only I could have that same confidence about myself!
Though it’s been mostly a very happy week over here, I’ve
been laying awake with very jealous, hurty feelings about the Mayor of
Kittentown. It’s isn’t so much that he belongs to her now; it’s that he
officially no longer belongs to me. I’m bothered by the difference between
being able to belong to multiple people and only belonging to one—instead of
just having a different heart, I worry that I might have a deficient one. I
think childlike thoughts like “How could he just throw me away?” in spite of
the fact that I broke up with him about two and a half times. I knew we weren’t
going to fall in love, I always encouraged him to keep looking (which looks, in
retrospect, like its own kind of cruelty…) but the loss of our physical
friendship is hitting me hard, it’s breaking my heart, making me feel a little
bit dismantled.
Rejection bogs me down. For whatever reason, his rejection
seems to negate everything good that he made me believe about myself: that I
could trust a man, that I could have a happy bisexual life, that I’m can be
beautiful and sexy to men. Somehow it feels like he took those things away just
by not wanting me anymore, that I need him (and Bill, and Fireguy) just to have
those hot feeling back, but I understand intellectually that that’s just not
true.
These men so far, things have gone so wrong with them that I
feel as if I have failed a series of entrance exams, that I failed to qualify
for their gender. Losing each of them has been so exquisitely painful that it’s
hard to feel connected to the good things that have happened, to all the real
progress that I’ve made.
I tend to mistake rejection for facts: Bill said he couldn’t
have a serious relationship with a poly woman, so I felt unlovable. Fireguy
didn’t like being written about, so I thought the project itself made me
unlovable. MKT’s simpler (?) idea of love makes me feel like I’m too
hopelessly, messily complicated for men.
And I AM complicated, but that doesn’t mean that there won’t
be a guy who’ll love me for it—I believe those are called, uh, polyamorous guys—who’ll be willing to share
his life with me. Two of the men in the previous paragraph identified as
monogamous, and the other was a heartbroken mess, so I don’t think I can make
any generalizations about them, other than 1. Duh, date poly guys and 2. Don’t
be a rebound redhead.
I would love to have back all of the good physical lessons I
got from them, to not have the hot self-discoveries cancelled out by the fact
that they’re gone. Not too long ago, in a Poly Weekly episode about minimizing
scene drama, either Minx or her guest said something like “Just because someone
disagrees with you doesn’t make you less awesome.” I would LIKE to think that
just because someone doesn’t want to fuck me and/or fall in love with me
doesn’t make me any less lovable and/or hot.” No one can turn back time and
take away those experiences—no one can take any of it away.
Of course this goes back to the heart of this
project—learning to approve of myself so that I don’t have to wear myself down
trying to gain approval from others, except in fun ways, of course. I started
this quest for my inner Bettie Page because I wanted her confidence, the way
the looks boldly into the camera, the way she returns the gaze. She is not
going to shrink timidly into nothingness when the lens turns away from her, and
neither am I.
Dear Divine Whatever,
Please help me to collect and feel whatever good they’ve all
given me so far, to take it in as fuel to bravely move forward, believing in
every glance and touch and step, having faith in whatever radiates out of me at
my proudest, most joyful moments.
(To which I can imagine the Divine Whatever saying: “Good
girl. So pretty.”)
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:
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.
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.
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.
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.”
I think I did a really good job during free cuddling, even
as I was reticent to join the general smush. After a too-hurty try at a massage
by a very friendly guy, I was sitting in my own little pleasant bubble of space
when the husband of the couple I already knew (I’ll call them SheandHim and
HimandHer because they are quite inseparable) offered me a foot rub and that
sounded joust right. He compared himself to the previous massage-giver: “He’s
all force and I’m all energy.”
I stretched my feet out in front of me and he took off my
fuzzy slippers (which I’d bought just for the occasion) and started to rub my
feet gently. Curious what he meant to be doing with the energy (I keep fighting
the urge to be ironic and put energy in quotation marks) I asked “Are you
taking something out or putting something in?”
And he said “Which does it feel like?”
“Both?”
What it felt like was good, like a regular foot rub except
that it gave my toes a floating sensation, kind of like during yoga when you
are supposed to breathe through the soles of your feet—an improbable sensation,
grounding and pleasant. He was explaining to me about the energy, buy I
couldn’t really keep track of what I was supposed to be learning, there was too
much going on around me.
Toward the end of the foot rub, The Lady of the House came
over and asked if she could lie near me, and I said of course. I forget if she
asked me or if I asked her if I could pet her hair, but it was a yes. I petted
her head and face until it started to feel too personal, then did a good job of
stopping. She thanked me and maybe we hugged some—I know that at some point we
hugged and at some point HimandHer asked if he could put his head in my lap and
I said no.
Whenever I said no to something, I remembered to feel proud
of doing a good job with my no, but I also rooted for the person to find
exactly what he or she wanted. Also, writing about all these nos and cautious touches makes me really ready for
a whole bunch of rough-and-tumble yesses—better get some public (and private)
kink soon!
One of my goals for this party had been to get closer to
men, but that didn’t turn out to be what happened. I think maybe the right guy
just wasn’t there, as is so often the case—I’m making friends with the fact
that I’m really picky about guys, even as I hope to someday become less so.
(Also I have this dream about being 40% more casual than I actually am, but
that’s a whole different blog post.)
I spent a lot of time watching, maybe too much—I wish that I
had asked what the watching protocol is. In BDSM, the closer you are, the less
you should watch, for fear of getting in somebody’s space too much, but here,
everyone was close. I worry that I may have made people feel awkward by watching,
but they were all just having such a pleasant time.
Host One had told us during the welcome circle that she is a
Reiki practitioner, and I was curious about that, so I asked her if she could
“put some Reiki on me” (I don’t know the terminology) when she got to a good
stopping point, and she said sure.
I found a spot to lie down (I chose face up) and handed her
my glasses to put in a safe place. (Ah, the handing over of glasses, dear
submissive trope, how I miss you!) She moved her hands up and down my body,
without touching. (I joked to Sweetie yesterday that some of this energy work
stuff feels like a kids’ game of “I’m not touching you!”) but the settled one
hand on my head and one on my heart, very similar to the way Fireguy had held
me down during fireplay. Here I’m quite sure that it wasn’t meant as a dominant
gesture (or maybe Fireguy meant it as a Reiki gesture), but I liked that it
reminded me of that feeling, but with mystic-hot hands instead of flame-hot
ones, and also with pajamas on. Her hands were indeed radiating into me, and I
thought jeez, how does she give out so much of her…life force? and still have
enough for herself. It was so nice of her, so generous, and I felt a little
guilty because I didn’t know how to reciprocate. (That’s a little echo of the
times I’ve been pleasantly dominated and then left with a worry of not having
behaved well enough, not having shown enough gratitude. Gratitude is such a
tricky thing, probably another whole-other-blog-post.)
A commotion started at the other end of the room, and I had
to keep lifting my pleasantly-held-down head to see what was going on. What I
saw was a tangled loop of muscle and giggle.
“What?! There’s wrestling going on and I’m not in it?”
I thanked my Reiki friend and sat up to watch and see if I
could join the wrestling. Host Two, The Lady of the House, and Massage
Therapist Guy were all gleefully in mid-grapple, and when they simmered down, I
asked Host Two if she would wrestle with me. She said yes and asked if she
could run energy at the same time, and I said “I don’t know what that means,
but sure!”
It was pretty much the most fun ever. I think people really
liked watching it, too. Pushing against her arms, locking against her
shoulders, hearing a couple of people hollering “Go (me)!” until I pressed hard
enough to pin her down, then getting up and wrestling her down again, laughing
hysterically the whole time. We ended the wrestle out of breath and giggling, I
was stunned with joy, it was fantastic. Rough cuddling indeed. There really
needs to be more wrestling in my life, hope Sweetie’s ready for it!
